Michel Piccoli – Vision Of An Actor | The Great Acting Blog
“I lived in my dreams” – Michel Piccoli [27th December 1925 – 12th May 2020].
Michel Piccoli, one of the greatest of all screen actors, has passed .
The sheer magnitude of Piccoli’s accomplishment is unfathomable; over 200 films stretching back to the 1940s [plus 50 stage plays]. If the quantity is overwhelming, the quality is exquisite. Piccoli worked with a catalogue of the finest auteurs in the European art-house, spanning generations. These would include Leos Carax, Theo Angelopolous, Manoel de Oliveira, Jacques Rivette, Jacques Doillon, Claude Sautet, Luis Bunuel, Marco Ferreri, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda and Jean-Pierre Melville.
His work is a tower of truth and integrity, precision and strength, elegance and generosity, intensity and commitment. In short, it is beautiful.
To study the work of Michel Piccoli is to trace the outline of a vision of what an actor can be.
Piccoli put the quality of the work down to the fact that, for many years, he operated without an agent. This meant he was free from the pressure of “prudent commercial career choices”, and instead could select for projects he believed in. As he said in an interview; “I don’t like motorways. I prefer side roads. I learned quickly that the only thing that is important is to work with directors of talent.” Piccoli operated as an individual creative artist, not as an employee.
Further, he was a philsopher. He thought deeply about cinema and the work of the actor, and spoke about it with intelligence and imagination. Just read his extraordinary words in Cahiers Du Cinema. This great insight into his art meant that he had clarity about the kind of work he wanted to do. Without this clarity, this definition, he may not have been able to make the decisions he did and achieve all that he did. He was a visionary actor.
Thank-you Michel Piccoli, for showing us the way.
FURTHER READING
The Piccoli Strategy
Michel Piccoli In Cahiers Du Cinema
The Discreet Madness Of Michel Piccoli
Michel Piccoli On His Work, Directors And How He Chooses Projects
Piccoli Interviewed in The Guardian [2002]
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