De Gaullelike we’ve never seen before
In 2020, just two weeks before the first confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Lambert Wilson plays General De Gaulle in the biopic directed by Gabriel Le Bomin. Interrupted by the closure of cinemas, De Gaulle will still end its exploitation in cinemas with almost 860,000 revenue in France and 7 million dollars in revenue worldwide. A great success given the circumstances that distinguish the 2021 Césars three nominations : Best Actor for Lambert Wilson, Best Costume Design for Anaïs Romand and Best Art Direction for Nicolas de Boiscuillé. Lambert Wilson also receives the Swann d’or for best actor at the 2020 Cabourg Film Festival.
Opposite Isabelle Carré, perfect in the role of Yvonne de Gaulle, Lambert Wilson embodies the great French soldier and statesman in an era in which he was not yet one. In fact, the history of De Gaulle covers only the year 1940, when General Charles de Gaulle decided to leave for London, from where he launched the famous “appeal of 18 June 1940It is therefore not the leader of the Resistance, nor the statesman who will become the first president of the Fifth Republic that we discover, but the lonely man, the high official without office, the military leader without an army, and above all the family man who he was when left France for London.
De Gaulle allows us to discover the personal and little-known side of a famous episode in the public life of Charles de Gaulle, and in particular of the touching relationship with his daughter Anne, suffering from Down syndrome.
De Gaulle: when the cinema tells the most beautiful love story of General de Gaulle
“In these moments there is nothing heroic”
We met Lambert Wilson and Isabelle Carré on the occasion of De Gaulle’s release and they told us about their approach to embodying these characters. An actor with a very wide range and an extensive filmography, Lambert Wilson became convinced of the intentions of Gabriel Le Bomin, who did not want to glorify or statuesize the character. He explained to us:
IIt is not presented as a statue. Of course he has reflexes, a point of view, he makes himself heard, but he is alone, anxious, very worried. We see him inhabited by the treasure which is the love that he receives from his wife and children. (…) We humanized this character, because it was easy to do so, with his doubts, his loneliness, we see him repeating his speech, a bit like an actor, it’s almost pathetic. He is hungry, he is weak at times, he is nervous, there is nothing heroic in those moments.
By exploring this most intimate and sensitive chord of Charles de Gaulle, the film opens a field of less dialectical and binary appreciation of this story. Heroic indeed, but human above all, with a demanding search for truthfulness in his relationship with the other historical characters in the film. A new and very nuanced incarnation that the actor developed with the director.
“Even for situations of military opposition I tried, with Gabriel, to insert notions of respect towards Pétain, which are more subtle than simple frontal opposition. He lets his superior speak about him, he is capable of bowing before someone to whom he owes respect. It’s these little things that make him, above all, a human being, and I think the film shows that well.”
Source: Cine Serie
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