In 2010, actor and director Alain Chabat described to us the sequence which, in his eyes, was among the best in the history of cinema.
Let us mention Serge Karamazov, the hilarious bodyguard of The City of Fear, the dog Didier, suddenly transformed into a human being, the Duke of Aquitaine victimized by his wife in Kaamelott, Father Christmas from Santa & Cie, or the unforgettable César from Mission Cléopâtre, we can no longer count the moments of comedy and cinema that Alain Chabat has offered us throughout his career.
But before becoming an actor and director, the filmmaker – who recently released his legendary Asterix at the cinema – was also a spectator. In August 2010, while he was at our microphone, Alain Chabat agreed to come back with us to his first memories spent in front of a screen, and in particular to cite a sequence which, in his eyes, was more striking than all the others .
The actor then told us about a great comic and musical classic, atypical in every way and difficult to place in a single category.
“It’s a scene from the Blues Brothers”Alain Chabat told us, before specifying: “There are two actually, two still shots that I love.”
“One where [les personnages] get arrested by the cops. They are on their way, they are in a car. Dan Aykroyd says: ‘Damn!’ ‘What?’ ‘The cops.’ ‘No.’ ‘If.’ ‘Sea**.’ There you go, that’s the rhythm. I love this dialogue, which is the best dialogue in the world.”
(Find out what Jean-Pierre Bacri’s favorite scene is…)
Universal Pictures
Alain Chabat then mentioned another sequence from the same film, where the two protagonists are still chased by the police:
“They say, ‘Okay, we’ve got half a tank of gas, cops in the ass, it’s dark and we’re wearing dark glasses.’ And the other says: ‘Go for it!'”
It’s a safe bet that these two little nuggets and this efficiency in the development of dialogue subsequently inspired Chabat in the writing of his own sketches for Dummies, or even his feature films.
Directed by John Landis in 1980, The Blues Brothers follows the misadventures of Jake (John Belushi), who has just been released from prison, and his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd). Dressed in black suits and hats, wearing dark glasses, they decide to reform their old music group in order to raise the $5,000 needed to preserve the Catholic orphanage where they were raised.
(Re)discover the film’s blunders…