Section:GDN 1J PaGe:8 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 17:55 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
- The Guardian Friday 6 September 2019
8
Christopher
Brookmyre ,
novelist, 51;
Ronnie Cowan ,
SNP MP, 60; Idris
Elba , actor and
director, 47; Macy
Gray , singer and
songwriter, 52;
Naomie Harris ,
actor, 43; Tim
Henman , tennis
player and
commentator,
45; Mathew
Horne , actor, 41;
Richard Hutton ,
former editor,
the Cricketer, 77 ;
Roger Knight ,
former secretary
and chief
executive, MCC,
73 ; Roger Law ,
caricaturist, 78 ;
Emily Maitlis ,
broadcaster, 49 ;
Claire Martin , jazz
singer, 52; Dame
Monica Mason ,
former director,
the Royal Ballet,
78; Sir Colin
McColl , former
head of MI6,
87; Pat Nevin ,
footballer and
commentator, 56;
Helen Reeves,
Olympic canoeist,
39; Sir Richard
J Roberts ,
biochemist
and molecular
biologist, 76 ;
Greg Rusedski ,
tennis player and
commentator, 46;
Sir Iqbal Sacranie ,
former secretary
general, the
Muslim Council
of Britain, 68 ;
John Sauven ,
economist and
executive director,
Greenpeace
UK, 65; Emma
Soames , editor
and journalist,
70 ; Jo Stevens ,
Labour MP, 53;
Deyan Sudjic ,
director, Design
Museum, 67 ;
Roger Waters ,
songwriter and
musician, 76.J
ean-Pierre Mocky,
who has died aged 86,
was, according to Le
Monde, “ perhaps the
most inventive, the
most prolifi c, the most
anarchic of French fi lm
directors ”. Certainly,
there is agreement that he was
the most unclassifi able.
Mocky directed around 60 fi lms,
mostly satirical comedies, from 1960,
averaging around two a year, until
his yet to be released last movie, Tous
Flics! (Everyone Is a Cop). Working
cheaply, quickly and quirkily, he was
able to attract many of France’s most
popular actors, who were willing to
work for him for nothing.
Regulars included Michel
Serrault , with whom he made
12 pictures, Jean Poiret, Francis
Blanche, Bourvil and Jacqueline
Maillan. Mocky also directed
Catherine Deneuve in Agent
Trouble (1987), Jeanne Moreau in
The Miracle (1986) and Stéphane
Audran in The Seasons of Pleasure
(198 8), all of whom he attempted
to deglamorise. In a way, Mocky
wanted to make his rigorously
independent fi lms popular outside
the mainstream commercial cinema.Jean-Pierre Mocky
Anarchic French fi lm
director whose output
included a string of
satirical comedies
it was made in the spirit of the New
Wave , with a bizarre toy factory,
where the husband works, and the
grotesque supporting characters
hinting at what was likely to come.
The fi rst authentic Mockyesque
fi lm was Snobs! (196 2), in which the
president of a milk co-operative is
drowned in a vat while inspecting a
dairy plant. Four directors become
rivals for his post, each playing on the
snobbery and foibles of the electors.
Un Drôle de Paroissien (Heaven
Sent, 1963), Mocky’s fi rst tilt at
religious hypocrisy, tells of an
aristocratic family who have fallen
on hard times, but never waver in the
conviction that they were not born to
work. One of them, the ultra-religious
Georges (Bourvil), takes the sound
of coins dropping into the off ertory
as a sign from the Lord to him to
remove money from poor boxes to
save his family. It was the fi rst of four
iconoclastic comedies Mocky made
with the great screen comic.
From 1970 Mocky began to appear
in many of his own fi lms, starting
with Solo, in which he played a jewel
thief who gets involved with the 1968
anti-bourgeois student movement.
In L’Albatros (or Love Hate, 1971),
Mocky is a criminal escaping from
jail, who takes the daughter of a
corrupt politician hostage. Typically,
these political thrillers shift from
melodrama to satire to farce. The best
examples of his caustic comedies
were Kill the Referee (198 4), an
attack on football hooliganism, and
The Miracle (1987), an exposé of the
“miracle industry” at Lourdes.Mocky made his debut as a
feature fi lm director in 1959 with
Les Dragueurs (aka The Young
Have No Morals/The Cheaters/The
Chasers). It starred Jacques Charrier
and Charles Aznavour as two
young men, experienced and shy
respectively, who spend an evening
in Paris searching for their ideal girl,
and end up at a society orgy.
This was followed by Un Couple
(The Love Trap, 1960), which dealt
sympathetically with a husband
(Jean Kosta) and wife (Juliette
Mayniel) who decide to part after
three years of happy marriage before
it begins to pall. Like Les DragueursLes Dragueurs
(The Chasers,
1959), directed by
Mocky, below. It
marked his debut
as a feature fi lm
director and
starred, from
left: Jacques
Charrier, Dany
Carrel, Estella
Blain and Charles
Aznavour
ALLSTAR; REX/
SHUTTERSTOCKAt the same time, Mocky gained
a reputation on French television
talk shows for his angry outbursts,
railing against politicians, the
Catholic church, fi lm distribut ors,
producers and critics. Mocky’s credo
could have been Groucho Marx’s:
“Whatever it is, I’m against it.”
His fi lm career had begun through
acting, most notably in Michelangelo
Antonioni’s I Vinti (The Vanquished,
1953) and Georges Franju’s La Tête
Contre les Murs (The Keepers, 195 9).
In the latter, for which he wrote the
screenplay, the handsome Mocky
played a rebellious and wealthy
young man who is committed by his
father to a mental home.
Mocky was born in Nice as Jean-
Paul Mokiejewski, the son of Polish
immigrants, a Jewish father and
a Catholic mother. Although Nice
was in a free zone during the Nazi
occupation of France, Mocky’s
father took the precaution of getting
his young son out of the country by
sending him to a cousin in Algeria.
Because children under 10 were not
allowed to travel alone, Mocky’s
father managed to get his birth
certifi cate altered to three and a
half years older.
The deception enabled Mocky
to marry at the age of 13 – the
marriage lasted three months –
and drive a taxi aged 16.
His survivors include a son, the
actor and theatre director Stanislas
Nordey, from a relationship with the
actor Véronique Nordey; a daughter,
Olivia, from his second marriage, to
Marisa Muxen; and his partner, the
actor and ex-model Patricia Barzyk.
Ronald BerganJean-Pierre Mocky (Jean-Paul
Mokiejewski), fi lm director, born
6 July 1933; died 8 August 2019Birthdays
Announcements
Obituaries
He gained a
reputation on
talk shows for railing
against the Catholic
church, politicians,
producers and critics [email protected]
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