Provocative French filmmaker Bertrand Blier, who scored hits with transgressive comedies featuring Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert such as “Going Places” and “Get Out Your Handkerchiefs,” has died. He was 85.
Blier died on Monday night at his home in Paris surrounded by his wife and children, his son Leonard Blier told French news agency AFP.
“It is with great sadness that I learn of the death of Bertrand Blier. He was a genius of dialogue, in the tradition of Prévert and Audiard,” French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said on X.
Born in 1939 in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, Blier was the son of actor Bernard Blier and grew up was steeped in film and theatre. He made his directing debut with cinema-verité documentary “Hitler—Never Heard of Him” in 1963 which earned critical kudos.
“Going Places,” which came out in 1974 and involved two brutal young men who drift about France in stolen cars and harass and assault women, steal, and commit murder, gave Depardieu his big break and established Blier as one of France’s most subversive comedic voices. Originally released as “The Waltzers” in the U.S., the film, also starring Isabelle Huppert in one of earliest roles, was a major hit on the arthouse circuit.
Popular on Variety
Blier’s 1978 film “Get Out Your Handkerchiefs,” a romantic comedy also starring Depardieu and involving a ménage à trois won the 1979 Acadmy Award for best foreign language film.
In 1980, Blier won a Cesar, France’s top film nod, for “Buffet Froid” (“Cold Cuts”), a dark absurdist satire in which he directed his father alongside Depardieu.
Blier’s other standout works comprise “Menage” (1986); “Too Beautiful For You” (1989), for which he won the Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Best Director; Mon Homme (1996) and “The Clink of Ice” in 2010.
Blier’s final film was “Convoi exceptionnel” in 2019, starring Depardieu and Christian Clavier.