Return to an unforgettable punchline composed by Michel Audiard in “She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t flirt, but… she talks”.
An unstoppable punchline from Matt Damon in Will Hunting, an inspiring sentence spoken by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump or even an essential line hammered out by Danny Glover throughout the Lethal Weapon saga…
Cinema has always been shaped by images, sounds and movements, but since it began to speak, it has also played with words. Meticulously chosen, skillfully combined with each other by talented screenwriters, and generously declaimed by great actors, the dialogues of the seventh art have sometimes left their mark on people’s minds and spanned the ages.
Michel Audiard, goldsmith of dialogue
In this area, the famous Michel Audiard is among the greatest linguistic masters of French cinema. A few weeks ago, we mentioned one of his most famous lines, uttered in George Lautner’s Les Tontons Flingueurs: “C***s, they dare to do anything, that’s even how we recognize them.”
But let’s focus today on another punchline, composed by the same screenwriter, in the comedy She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t flirt, but… she talks!
Gaumont
Written but also directed by Michel Audiard in 1970, the film follows the adventures of Germaine, a cleaning lady played by Annie Girardot, who manages to discover the deepest secrets of her three clients and to set up a triple game of blackmail between them.
Declaimed by Alexandre Liéthard (Bernard Blier) to the attention of Phalempin (Sim), the line that interests us here has remained in the annals of French cinema and has survived the test of time to appear in most of the videos that compile Audiard’s best punchlines. It is also quite possible that you have already heard it thrown around here and there, during a conversation between friends, or cited by a connoisseur who would have liked to suppress the cackle of a hypocritical interlocutor.
“I’ve seen fake-asses before, but you’re a synthesis.”
In Audiard’s film, we can hear it when Sim tries to justify himself to Bernard Blier, from whom he reluctantly extorts money (according to him).
“This money shames me. If it weren’t for my dear little ones…”he explains, looking crestfallen.
It is then that Blier responds with 10 little words, which will remain in the memories of the spectators:
“I’ve seen fake-asses before, but you’re a synthesis.”
Simple, punchy and perfectly composed, this now legendary little phrase is as funny as it is effective. By drawing it judiciously at the right time and in the right context, it will inevitably have its little effect, whether or not you are surrounded by Michel Audiard fans.
(Re)discover the trailer for “Tontons flingueurs”…