Michel Piccoli Movies
French leading man Michel Piccoli spent most of his time from 1945 through 1955 on the French stage, primarily with Theatre Babylone and the Reynauld-Barrault Company. He enjoyed nominal film stardom from 1955 onward, though it was not until 1961's Le Doulos that he truly became "box office," specializing in worldly, cynical roles. Like Hollywood's Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Gary Cooper, Piccoli was possessed of that rare gift of being able to adapt himself to virtually any kind of material without altering his essential screen persona. And like those aforementioned actors, Piccoli's talents suited the prerequisites of a wide variety of directors: not many contemporary performers can claim to have worked with Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, Costa-Gavras, Luis Bunuel, and Louis Malle. Piccoli's acting awards include a Cannes Festival prize for 1979's Salto nel Vuoto and a 1982 Berlin Festival honor for Une Etrange Affaire. In 1991, Piccoli once again won international acclaim for his portrayal of an artist suffering from a creative block in La belle noiseuse. He subseqently continued to do steady work in pictures of varying quality, one highlight being Raul Ruiz's 1997 Généalogies d'une Crime, which cast Piccoli as a doctor caught up in a murder mystery. In 1976, Piccoli recorded his remarkable career on the page when he co-wrote a semi-autobiography, Dialogue Egoistes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1979
Three men with a penchant for gambling on the horses soon find themselves in trouble because of their addiction. Pierre (Michel Piccoli) is the math whiz who uses his talent for picking the winners. Charles (Michel Galabru) is the wealthy scrap-iron magnate who has embarrassing evidence on many prominent political figures. Loic (Jacques Dutronc) is the aspiring politico who seeks to further his career by any means possible. Charles approaches Loic and asks his political party for a loan in hopes of fixing an upcoming race. When all three men come up big winners, an official investigation is launched. Pierre and Charles find themselves in trouble, with Loic gaining access to Charles' coveted list of evidence on his political rivals. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Dutronc, Michel Piccoli, (more)
- 1979
In this rambling comic tale about a man and a wife, with four children, who calmly announce to the children that they want to divorce one another, it is impossible to tell who is dissatisfied with whom about what. They had seemed to be a perfect couple. Their flabbergasted children have mixed feelings, and the most difficult thing about the divorce, besides understanding why it is taking place at all, is deciding what will happen with the couple's numerous pets. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Lea Massari, (more)
- 1979
The old Guy De Maupassant story The Devil would seem to be the springboard for the Italian-made Leap Into the Void. Michel Piccoli plays an Italian jurist whose sister Anouk Aimee is a bit "light in the belfry". Piccoli entreats Michele Placido to convince the awkward Aimee to kill herself. The results are unexpected, and fascinating. As with most of his work, director Marco Bellocchio uses the seemingly petty problems of his bourgeois characters as a mirror of what is going on in society at large. Leap Into the Void was originally released as Salto nel Vuoto; both Michel Piccoli and Anouk Aimee won Best Acting awards at the 1980 Cannes Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Anouk Aimée, (more)
- 1978
Crime specialist Sergio Corbucci directed this madcap comic mystery that is just waiting to be discovered by cult audiences. It stars Marcello Mastroianni as a café mandolin player who performs on a streetcorner to help pay for his father's gambling debts. After a murder and a suicide occur, the innocent Mastroianni becomes the prime suspect, and he undertakes his own investigation to clear his name. In the process, he is force-fed cocaine in a disco, hung from the side of a high-rise, almost killed in a car accident, and trapped in a sinking boat. As if that wasn't enough, there's also a frozen midget and a New Year's Eve party in an insane asylum. Ornella Muti, Capucine, and Michel Piccoli co-star, and as silly as it is, the film manages to maintain a giallo look thanks to rich photography by Luigi Kuveiller (the man responsible for the lush earthtones in Profondo Rosso) and a brisk score by Riz Ortolani. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1978
In this story, the ambitions of the get-rich-quick crowd come crashing down around their ears as they hitch a ride on a speculation bubble involving sugar-commodities pricing. Raoul (Gerard Depardieu) is a hot-shot commodities broker who sweet-talks Adrien (Jean Carmet), a quiet and unassuming man, into taking his wife's inheritance and using it to speculate on the recent rise in sugar prices. Raoul is able to pry more money away from Adrien when he shows him how much his first, more conservative speculations have made. Commodities speculators know that when the market is going their way, their earnings multiply many-fold. However, in the heat of the moment, they sometimes forget that when prices go the wrong way, their losses can also multiply. In this story, the con-man is taken in by his own con, for Raoul has also entered the sugar market, using every bit of money he can scrape together. When the market turns around, they both land in the soup together. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Jean Carmet, (more)
- 1978
A group of carping critics and whiny would-be artists who have never been confronted with the reality of having their works accepted and promulgated are vacationing in the house of the publisher Strauberg on the Greek island of Mykonos. All of them have huge egos and even larger pretensions, and swiftly become irritated with one another's company. The publisher himself (Michel Piccoli) arrives into the midst of this seething mass of jealousies. Feeling that they have to be on their "best" behavior to impress this potential patron, the pretentious intellectuals' resentments escalate. Made in 1975, this feature was not released until 1978. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Theodor Kotulla, (more)
- 1978
The French Riviera felt the heavy hand of German occupation much later than the rest of the country, and was a haven for wealthy misfits who had no other place to go to escape that regime. Despite the certain knowledge that their doom is approaching, the characters in this film party and quarrel as if their world were not disintegrating rapidly. In the main story, Konrad (Michel Piccoli), an Austrian surgeon, has fled his newly Nazified country for the Riviera. There, he encounters Laura (Lara Wendel) the 13-year-old daughter of an anti-fascist Italian Contessa (Claudia Cardinale). When the girl perceives that he loves her, she offers herself to him. Horrified, he sends her away. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
- 1978
- R
L'Etat Sauvage is based on the novel by Georges Conchon which won the highly esteemed Prix de Goncourt. The story chronicles the mindless racism of both the departing French colonial overlords and the emergent black Africans in a newly emerging African state. Laurence (Marie-Christine Barrault) suffers the outrage of her white acquaintances, including her former lover Gravenoir (Claude Brasseur) and her ex-husband Avit (Jacques Dutronc), for her affair with Patrice Doumbe (Doura Mane), an official in the new government. He in turn is ridiculed by his fellow cabinet ministers for stepping out with a white woman. The vilification escalates to such a point that Patrice is brutally murdered, and Laurence barely escapes the country alive, with the help of her ex-husband Avit. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie-Christine Barrault, Jacques Dutronc, (more)
- 1977
Spoiled Children (Des enfants gates) finds director Bertrand Tavernier tempering his New Wave impulses with an overwhelming desire to entertain a mass audience. The "children" of the title are actually artistically inclined grown-ups. Filmmaker Bernard (Michel Piccoli), who is suffering a creative block, enters into an affair with the much-younger Anne (Christine Pascal). Meanwhile, Bernard's idealistic neighbors go head-to-head with their more pragmatic (and crueler) landlord. While a very personal film, Spoiled Children is broad enough in its appeal to reach even those who've never attempted anything of an artistic nature. Actress Christine Pascal co-wrote the script with director Tavernier, reportedly drawing on their own relationship. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Christine Pascal, (more)
- 1977
La Part du Feu is a French idiom, and has to do with making a sacrifice for some gain. Hansen (Michel Piccoli) is a wheeler-dealer and building developer, who apparently manipulates people and situations just for the joy of it. In this melodrama, it was his wife Catherine's (Claudia Cardinale) money which enabled him to get into the real-estate business, but these days she is somewhat neglected. Jacques (Jacques Perrin) is his assistant, an eager but none too confident young man who has been having an affair with Catherine. The two of them worry a great deal about Hanson discovering their relationship. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Claudia Cardinale, (more)
- 1977
In this sardonic comedy, after an executive is killed in a mysterious automobile accident, the French offices of his multinational company is inundated with mysteriously threatening be-ribboned anti-capitalist tracts, delivered overnight to everyone's desks. Later, the executive's body is brought to company offices for an official wake -- only no one at the company has ordered that such a thing be done. A mysterious prankster, who is able to imitate the voice of the company's president, has arranged these things. When Americans from the head office get wind of these developments, they institute a search for the perpetrator which leads to mysterious subterranean passages under the company's skyscraper ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Yanne, Michel Piccoli, (more)
- 1976
Set at an indeterminate time in the near future, this routine, well-acted drama by Elio Petri tackles favorite Italian topics: religion and politics. A bit of macabre fantasy is added to the mix, but the end product remains somewhat muddled. Don Gaetano (Marcello Mastroianni) is a priest who is supervising a group of Christian Democrats on a religious retreat. The objective is to help these politicians purify their past wrongdoings, no matter how large or small, and live closer to God. The retreat takes place in a concrete bunker with plenty of small rooms for contemplation and icons set here and there to offer inspiration. Once the retreat begins, the politicos alarmingly begin to die off one by one. Don Gaetano wants them to get closer to God but did he mean that close? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gian Maria Volontè, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
- 1976
Patrick Dewaere plays Andre, a hot-tempered young man who whiles away his spare time by fantasizing about the action films of Douglas Fairbanks. For years, a relative of his has promised him a job. For years, he has waited for the job, but to no avail. Finally too frustrated to stand it any more, Andre beats up the relative's boss. Then his girlfriend (Miou-Miou), tired of his tantrums, refuses to see him any more. This prompts even more extreme behavior on his part, though he harms no one but himself this time. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miou-Miou, Patrick Dewaere, (more)
- 1976
Michel Piccoli plays Simon, a French businessman reluctantly venturing into middle age. As he deals with his own midlife crisis, Simon becomes virtually oblivious to the social changes around him. The businessman tries to counter advancing age with an increased sex life, but finds that women aren't the same compliant creatures he remembers from his youth. Though the material is rife with opportunities for "radical" camerawork, director Claude Sautet chooses an austere, near-classic cinematic style, allowing us to concentrate more on the people in front of the camera rather than the person behind it. Featured in the cast of Mado is actress Romy Schneider, a Sautet favorite. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Ottavia Piccolo, (more)
- 1976
This otherwise straightforward movie that chronicles the conflict between a man's romantic urges and the feminist ideal and a custody battle over the man's young son has a cataclysmic ending which is not for the fainthearted. In the story, Gerard (Gerard Depardieu) is an engineer who has just been left by his wife (Zouzou) for feminist reasons and has custody of his nine-month old son, whom he cares for deeply. When his next romance with Valerie (Ornella Muti), his son's daycare worker, threatens that custody, he responds by mutilating himself drastically. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Ornella Muti, (more)
- 1975
This international collaboration has five unrelated titles in four languages, and includes filmmakers and stars from France, Germany, Italy and Greece. It is set in the modern period in Greece, during that time known as "the rule of the Colonels." The story concerns the cat-and-mouse police investigation of Georgis, a travel agent (Ugo Tognazzi), for his possible involvement in the death of a man under surveillance who was shot in the cafe at which Georgis was having lunch. For a while, it is impossible to tell who is the cat and who the mouse; ultimately, though, the heavy-handed tactics of the police win through. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Ugo Tognazzi, (more)
- 1975
Richard (Michel Piccolo) is a medieval nobleman. After his first wife dies in an accident and is buried in the family vault, he remarries and has children by his second wife. A mad longing for his first wife Leonor (Liv Ullmann) comes over him, and he sells his soul to the devil for a chance to get her back. When she returns, she is a murderous vampire, but his ardor for her continues unabated. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, Michel Piccoli, (more)
- 1975
In this sardonic crime comedy, Rene (Gerard Depardieu) and Marchand (Michel Piccoli) are best friends. What makes their friendship special is that Rene is a professional thief, and Marchand is a policeman, albeit somewhat corrupt. They have even shared the same girlfriend, for Krista (Sylvia Kristel) began as Rene's girl and then became Marchand's. During the German occupation, they were both sent to a German labor camp, and they teamed up to outwit the Germans and have as good a time as they could, under the circumstances. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Michel Piccoli, (more)
- 1975
Losseray (Michel Piccoli) is a surgeon who has recently suffered a heart attack but has returned to work. He is being hassled by the owner of a nearby medical clinic and becomes obsessed with the story of Berg (Gerard Depardieu), another surgeon who was similarly hassled by the same man some years before. Berg killed himself, his wife and children, apparently in response to the pressure. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1975
The final work of notorious Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, this film updates the Marquis de Sade's most extreme novel to fascist Italy in the final days of WW II. Dispensing with the novel's meditations on sexual liberation and the search for truth, Pasolini presents four decadents who kidnap dozens of young men and women and subject them to the most hideous forms of torture and perversion in an isolated villa. Rape, murder, and a coprophagic banquet are only the beginning of the atrocities on display. Photographed by Tonino Delli Colli, the film also features a lavish score by Ennio Morricone. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, (more)
- 1974
When Michel (Michel Piccoli) gets the life-sized sex doll he ordered, shipped directly from Japan, he is only intrigued by it at first. Then the silent unresponsiveness of the thing begins to haunt him, and he finds himself reacting to it as if it were an equally unresponsive living woman. As time passes, more and more of his life is spent trying to satisfy or placate its relentless silence, and he goes somewhat mad. He dresses the doll and takes it with him wherever he goes. When his usually very tolerant wife discovers what is going on, her jealousy knows no bounds and she attempts to imitate this threatening love-object. The light-hearted quality of this addle-pated fantasy darkens quickly when various neighborhood men attempt to put the doll to its originally intended use. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Valentine Tessier, (more)
- 1974
Michel Piccoli is irresistibly slimy in the role of a conniving attorney. Making the acquaintance of two lovely sisters (Romy Schneider and Andrea Ferreol), Piccoli seduces them both. He then invites the sisters into his latest scam: marrying and murdering gullible men and women, then cheating their insurance companies. The noirish intrigues of Infernal Trio are all the more remarkable in that they are based on a true story. It shouldn't be too surprising to first-year French students that the original title of this French/Italian melodrama was Le Trio Infernal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Romy Schneider, Michel Piccoli, (more)
One of Luis Buñuel's most episodic films, The Phantom of Liberty focuses on no one particular narrative. In the beginning, a man sells postcards of French tourist attractions, calling them "pornographic." A sniper in Montparnasse is hailed as a hero for killing passersby. A "missing" child helps the police fill out the report on her. A group of monks play poker, using religious medallions as chips, and in the most infamous sequence, a formally dressed social group gathers at toilets around a table, occasionally excusing themselves to go into little stalls in a private room to eat. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Claude Brialy, Monica Vitti, (more)
Marcello Mastroianni stars in this French farce, an absurd "western" set in Paris, with Mastroianni as the incurably vain General George Armstrong Custer. Richard Nixon is the American president, but everyone is costumed appropriately for the previous century. Buffalo Bill (Michel Piccoli), the famous scout, is here portrayed as a limp-wristed bungler. Ugo Tognazzi plays one of Custer's Native American opponents; he runs a curio shop selling Native artifacts made in sweatshops by white women. The climactic battle is held in a large construction excavation where Les Halles market used to be. The language the two sides use to justify their conflict is lifted from that used in the then-current Vietnam War. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, (more)
- 1974
Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others is a gentle character study of a group of friends who meet each weekend in the country for food, drink and conversation. Over the course of the film, the three main characters undergo a variety of personal and professional struggles, which are all vividly evoked by Claude Sautet's direction and the cast's stellar acting. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yves Montand, Michel Piccoli, (more)
