Author of around thirty feature films, he received 2 Césars for "Le Dossier 51" (1979, best screenplay) and for "Peril in the home" (1986, best director).

He also twice won the Louis-Delluc prize (considered the Goncourt of cinema) for "Benjamin or the memoirs of a virgin" (1967) and "La Lectrice" (1988).

"All my films, comedies like other more serious, even serious, have been games for me, with rules", said this man with a bony face and steely blue eyes who loved above all to deal with human beings. against their instincts.

If he played, among others, actors of the caliber of Michel Piccoli, Jacques Dutronc or Jean-Louis Trintignant, he claimed not to like "the company of men".

On the other hand, he directed actresses like Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, Romy Schneider, Jeanne Moreau, Françoise Fabian, Fanny Ardant, Mathilda May, Marina Vlady, Marlène Jobert or Miou-Miou.

Michel Deville, who claimed to be solitary and asocial, was a meticulous filmmaker, gifted to put in image "a moment, a sentence, a beautiful landscape, a beautiful face".

"It's not enough for me to see them, I need to remember them. I record them in my notebooks", he explained.

- Also a poet -

For him, writing, in all its forms, was essential.

Most of his films were taken from literary works that he adapted.

Thus, he will film "La lectrice", adapted from the novel by Raymond Jean or "Le Dossier 51" from the book by Gilles Perrault.

Director Michel Deville on September 7, 2002 in Venice, Italy.

© Gabriel BOUYS / AFP/Archives

He also practiced poetry, his "relaxation", publishing several collections, whimsical and irreverent, close to the spirit of a Prévert or a Queneau: "Dans l'aube hallucinée/ D'un jardin vague et mal fané/ Lamented a gardener (...) / Feet buried in the compost in place and instead of two leeks (...) / Heartbreaking failure, atrocity / The gardener had planted himself ".

Michel Deville was born on April 13, 1931 in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine).

His parents have neighbor friends whose apartment overlooks the roof of a cinema.

Thanks to a catwalk, the boy often goes to the projection booth.

Thus begins a vocation...

He spent ten years learning the trade, notably from his mentor, Henri Decoin.

Then, he made his first film "Tonight or never", a dramatic comedy.

It will be followed by comedies, like "Adorable menteuse" (1962) or "A cause, because of a woman".

He enjoyed success with "Benjamin..., performed by Michèle Morgan, Michel Piccoli and Pierre Clémenti. In 1970, he directed Brigitte Bardot in the comedy "L'ours et la doll".

After "Raphaël ou le Débauché" (1971), Michel Deville opens up to more serious subjects, between police intrigues and intimate, sensual behind closed doors, sometimes against a backdrop of manipulation and troubled relationships between men and women.

It was this same year 1971 that his collaboration with Nina Companeez, at the same time scriptwriter, dialogue writer and editor of most of his films, ended, who decided to become a director herself.

"We were growing old together, it was good, but we were always in the same groove, our number was too well established", he then said.

From the 80s, it was his wife Rosalinde who wrote and produced his films: "she writes what I dream of seeing in the cinema", said this unclassifiable artist who had no children.

He then made films like "Peril in the home" (1985), "Le Paltoquet" (1986) or "Sachs disease", adapted from Martin Winckler.

He had adapted Feydeau for his last film "Un fil à la patte" in 2005, with Emmanuelle Béart and Charles Berling.

© 2023 AFP