This article was first published on the Iris Public Account (IrisMagazine).
Text | magasa
There was a lot of controversy about the closing ceremony of this year's Cannes Film Festival, but there was one scene that was absolutely not controversial.
That was the moment arnold de Plesin presented Jean-Pierre Leo with the Palme d'Or.
My heart pounded when I saw Jean-Pierre Leo hanging hada out.
We often say "living film history", this person standing in front of him is a living film history.
Many people are familiar with His role as Antoine in Many of Truffaut's films from "Four Hundred Down", and there should be people who are familiar with his image in Godard's films - in fact, in terms of quantity, he plays More Godard films than Truffaut.
Four Hundred Down (1959)
In addition, Leo has worked with a large number of French, Italian, Finnish, Brazilian, Taiwanese, including Jacques Rivitt, Jean Erstash, Asayas, Pasolini, Kaurismäki, Glaubel Rocha, Cai Liangming...
Leo's face, from the age of 14 to 72 (his current age), is unreservedly displayed on the screen. The childishness and naughtiness of that year, the handsomeness and handsomeness of youth, and the inevitable relaxation and happiness of aging, all give us a clear view.
If you define him as a child star, I think it is too narrow. Even when he first appeared on the screen at the beginning of his 14th year, he was already a full actor. Later, time simply added a scale to his face.
I will select the most important of all the films played by Leo, and show his face in chronological order, that is, to show the process of an actor's immortality through the screen.
Leo's first film wasn't Four Hundred, strictly speaking, the following "Judicial Police," which should have been seen by very few people. In this film, Leo does not get a scene, he just appears in the picture frame on the table, this year at the age of 14.
Leo's second film was still not Four Hundred, and his father stuffed him into a film called Latour, Be Careful! In the historical adventure film, 14-year-old Leo played a supporting role.
Finally, 15-year-old Leo and Truffaut met. This is the face we are most familiar with, a scene frozen at the end of "Four Hundred Down" by the 15-year-old Leo. We still can't say clearly, what does the expression of this face mean, confused or brave? This will be an enduring mystery in the history of cinema.
"Four Hundred Down" made Leo famous, and another big director, Jean-Pierre Duville of the era of poetic realism, invited him to star in "Boulevard", and played a homeless, idle bad boy, continuing his image in "Four Hundred Under". Leo was 16 years old.
Look closely, there is a significant change between the 16-year-old and the 14- and 15-year-olds, and the teenager grows fast.
After two years of no acting, Leo returned to Truffaut's "Antoine and Collette", which is a continuation of the life story of The male protagonist of "Four Hundred Down", Antoine has a crush on Camelot, who is slightly older than himself, but Camelot only treats him as a younger brother, and Antoine's early love ends. Leo was 18 years old.
At the age of 21, he made a cameo appearance as a restaurant waiter in Godard's "Alpha City", which was his first collaboration with Godard, and in the next decade, Leo will be Godard's favorite actor, working more frequently than Jean-Paul Belmondo.
In the same year, Leo again made a cameo appearance in Godard's "Pierrot the Mad", playing a passerby in the cinema.
At the age of 22, he acted in Godard's "Male, Female".
That same year, starring Jean Eustash's "Santa Claus with Blue Eyes", Leo's role in the film, wanted to earn money to buy an expensive coat by playing "Santa Claus".
By the way, the film that Estash used to make this film is what Godard left.
It was also the year, in Godard's Made in America. In his early twenties, Leo was the most prolific and handsome.
23 years old, starring In "Departure" by Jez Skolimovsky.
In the same year, he starred in Godard's famous work "Chinese Girl".
Also in the same year, in Godard's famous "Weekend", he played two different roles.
At the age of 24, he finally returned to Truffaut's "Stealing a Kiss" and played Antoine again, at this time, he could already skillfully fall in love.
Still 24 years old, he starred in a collection of Jaz Skolimovsky's part of "Twenty Years Old". His face was well-defined.
In the same year, he starred in Philip Galleyer's La Concentration, a film that was very experimental and had only two actors in the film.
At the age of 25, he starred in Godard's experimental film "The Wisdom of Pleasure", which also has only two actors.
It was also in this year that Leo collaborated with Pasolini for the first time, starring in The Pigsty. I remember this as the first time he's left a little beard in a movie, and you can't treat him like a kid anymore.
At the age of 26, he starred in the surrealist film "Seven Lions" by Brazilian director Glaubert Rocha.
In the same year, he returned to Truffaut's "Antoine Series" and acted in "The Bed". In this film, Antoine and Christine (Claudie Judd) are married.
At the age of 27, Leo starred in a strange movie. This is the Western film "The Adventures of Billy The Kid" directed by New Wave director Luc Muller, with Leo playing Billy The Kid. This kind of film can't be good... It's also one of the few bad films Leo starred in before he was thirty.
In the same year, he starred in Jacques Riverette's 12-hour-long masterpiece "Out". The film, which used to be hard to see, has recently been released.
At the age of 28, he appeared in Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris.
At the age of 29, Leo acted in a movie that was perfect for him and Truffaut, "Day and Night." It's a film about filmmaking, with Truffaut acting as the director and Leo starring, and it's their real life.
In the same year, he and Estash collaborated again on "Mama and the Prostitute".
If the sixties were Leo's prime years of acting, after entering the seventies, his film career entered a trough along with French cinema.
He barely acted in a few films in the mid-seventies, and a few two or three were big bad movies.
In 1979, he and Truffaut collaborated again on the "Antoine Series" of Love Run, this year he was thirty-five years old. This was Leo's last collaboration with Truffaut and the premiere of the Antoine series. In this film, Antoine and Christine are divorced, and they remain friends after the divorce.
After playing Antoine, Leo's film career still did not improve, and he has been mixed in various bad films. At the age of 40, he starred in the part of Philip Galleyer in the highlight film "Paris Seen in 20 Years".
At the age of 41, back in Godard's film The Detective, look at his face, there is a little sign of happiness and slackness.
In the same year, he starred in Chilean director Raoul Luz's "Treasure Island".
At the age of 43, he starred in Josian Balasco's self-directed "Policeman", and the film itself is not worth mentioning.
At the age of 44, Varda, an old partner of the New Wave, saved Leo, who was wandering in bad movies, and starred in "A Thousand Faces of Treasure Gold".
44 years old, starring Catelyn Brea's "Buds to Be Released".
At the age of 46, he starred in Finnish director Aki Kolysmaki's "I Hired a Professional Killer".
At the age of 47, Olivier Assayas's Awakening in Paris.
At the age of 48, he collaborated again with Aki Kaurismäki in Bohemian Life.
49 years old, starring Philip Galleyer's "Love Is Born".
At the age of 52, under the direction of Asayas, he co-starred with Maggie Cheung in a very interesting movie "Lost robbery".
This movie is very similar to "Day and Night", except that Leo played the director role of Truffaut this time, in the film he found Hong Kong actor Maggie Cheung (played by Maggie Cheung himself) to remake a silent film, the process is very unsuccessful, the film explores the relationship between people and art, reality and fantasy.
In the same year, Leo starred in the romantic comedy film "Love DeepLy Paid", which is not worth mentioning.
At the age of 57, he appeared in cai liangming's movie "What time is your side", Cai mingliang is a big fan of Truffaut, and pays tribute to the classic movies in his mind in this way. From this point on, Leo looked very old.
In the same year, he starred in Bertrand Bonilro's "Spring Palace Filmmaker", in which he played a yellow film director who washed his hands in a golden basin, and now he wants to re-emerge from the jianghu, but is the jianghu he is familiar with?
At the age of 61, he starred in "I Saw Ben Barca Killed", playing the role of the famous French director Georges Francis.
At the age of 65, he collaborated with Cai Liangming again on "Face".
At the age of 67, he collaborated with Finnish director Aki Kolismaki for the third time to star in Le Havre.
At the age of 72, he played Louis XIV in Albert Serra's Chronicle of the Death of Louis XIV, showing the Sun King's dying days. The film will be specially screened at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Leo must have been old.
Some stars we don't want to see him or her aging, but Leo is not in this category. His fate was already predestined from the day "Four Hundred Down" started, he was going to grow, fall in love, age, and die on the screen.
In this way, he instead makes his own flesh transcend time and attain eternity, which is the magic of cinema.
In Godard's Exhausted, Jean-Pierre Melville plays a writer who has a classic line: "Between death and immortality, I choose immortality and then die."
This face of Jean-Pierre Leo was immortal before his death.
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