Actor Jean-Luc Bideau celebrated at Locarno Film Festival

Jean-Luc Bideau, the instinctive actor celebrated at Locarno Keystone-SDA

Celebrated Swiss actor Jean-Luc Bideau will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Locarno Film Festival.

Also at the weekend, Bideau will be seen starring in François-Christophe Marzal’s film Ah que le bonheur est proche !

At the age of 86, the Geneva-born actor reflects on his career with clarity.

Faced with this double honour, “of course I’m flattered,” he told Keystone-ATS a few days before the festival began, at his apartment near Geneva.

A leading figure in the new Swiss cinema movement, Bideau credits an improvised scene in a film by Michel Soutter for playing a decisive role in his career. A Geneva-based director, Soutter (1932–1991) was one of the founding members of Groupe 5, alongside Alain Tanner, Claude Goretta, Jean-Louis Roy and Jean-Jacques Lagrange.

This collective embodied the revival of French-speaking Swiss cinema from the late 1960s onwards, with the support of Swiss public braodcaster RTS.

Bideau brought era to life

“We made this film, James ou pas [1970], which was, like all of Soutter’s films, very poetic and difficult to follow. He said to me: ‘Do an improv.’ So I launched into one about football, then another about the Palais de Chaillot, improvising on how you get in there,” Bideau said.

“I think those scenes made an impression on Tanner and Goretta, who then cast me in La Salamandre with Bulle Ogier [1971], and later in L’Invitation [1973].”

The actor has worked internationally under the direction of prestigious directors, including Claude Chabrol and Costa-Gavras, and appeared in popular hits such as Et la tendresse ?… Bordel ! (1979). But he admits that he sometimes hindered his own career by taking on too many projects just to make ends meet.

“I wasn’t careful”

“I did some daft things, pointless TV bits. My personality got a bit overshadowed by all that stuff I did to earn a living,” he said. Looking back, Bideau feels that American actors are better at protecting their image. “Me, I wasn’t careful.”

Of all his roles, he has a particular fondness for André Delvaux’s Belle (1973). “I really liked this character who was completely overwhelmed by events, who falls in love with a woman whom we don’t know whether she actually exists or is just a fantasy.”

The Geneva-born actor also recalls Claude Goretta’s L’Invitation, a social satire on office life which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1973, as a rare moment of freedom. “There, I was doing whatever I wanted. I gave myself over to it completely.”

While cinema remains his medium of choice, Bideau advocates an instinctive approach to the craft. “I’m not the sort of actor who studies his part. I’m very bad at learning my lines, and, bit by bit, I slip into the character.” He adds that everything then depends on the director. “You have to come across someone who knows how to demand something of you.”

He finds this exacting nature in his wife Marcela, who notably directed a highly acclaimed production at the Comédie-Française, which enabled Bideau to join the company as a member. The actor credits her with having a decisive influence. “Above all, she knows my flaws,” he jokes.

“I always want to act”

Screened at Locarno, Ah que le bonheur est proche ! could be one of Bideau’s last major film roles, although the actor isn’t ruling out new offers. “I still want to act, but I’m a bit worn out,” he said.

The project, the original “pitch” for which is credited to Marcela, went through several versions before culminating in the film directed by François-Christophe Marzal. In it, Bideau plays an ageing actor portraying Don Quixote, whose memory lapses are beginning to worry those around him.

Even today, Bideau continues to watch films through the eyes of an actor. “I’m not particularly interested in the story. I watch the acting.” And if he were to receive one final gift following this tribute at Locarno, it would be a simple one: “All I need is for new directors to contact me about another film.”

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Translated from French, reviewed by an English Department journalist.