Pierre RICHARD was received at ESRA as he should have been, with fervor.
The amphitheatre was as full as it had rarely been. It's likely that our guest was sensitive to this welcome, showing himself to be perfectly available and willing to listen. Questions focused first on the director, since it was his first film as director that had been screened earlier, Le Distrait. Pierre RICHARD revealed that he was not a technician, but that he had a sense of play and rhythm. Other questions focused of course on his acting career and his relationship with his former partners, Mireille DARC, Gérard DEPARDIEU and Jean CARMET. But more than a director, more than an actor, Pierre RICHARD was first and foremost a character, one of those who carry on from one film to the next, in the tradition of TATI or, further afield, the great burlesques, KEATON or CHAPLIN. But Pierre RICHARD is a man of his time, and he knew how to give his films an anti-establishment content in tune with the times, in those 70s when anything was possible. In fact, he regrets that of the seven films he made, only the first three bear the mark of his humanist, pacifist commitment. The question that got the most attention came from a student who asked him if he'd be willing to act in a student film. The answer was not negative...
