Cinema: When directors have a stunt double “just in case…”
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In 2002, Alain Resnais (right) asked Bruno Podalydès if he would be willing to finish making "Pas sur la bouche" if he were to experience health problems. SERGE PICARD/AGENCE VU - ED ALCOCK
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Investigation : At the request of insurance companies, French producers are increasingly demanding a "substitute director" when the director is elderly or ill. A strange understudy role.
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One day in 2002, Alain Resnais called Bruno Podalydès. The multi-César-winning director was mysterious: "Can you come to my house? I have to entrust you with a very important mission..." Once his guest was in front of him, he lifted the veil. At 80, he gave the insurers the shivers, who had asked him to appoint a "substitute director." In case he was "unable to perform," as they say, he thought of the filmmaker forty years his junior, who had just hired his favorite actress and wife, Sabine Azéma, for "The Mystery of the Yellow Room."
The two men shared a love of Gaston Leroux and popular novels. "He handed me the script and explained that I would receive the call sheet every evening of filming," says Bruno Podalydès. "He joked that a helicopter might come and pick me up in my garden." Fortunately for Alain Resnais, this didn't happen. He was able to finish "Pas sur la bouche" without incident. And a deep friendship was born between the...
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