A new stain for the downtrodden Gérard Depardieu. The well-known french actor74 years old, has been affected by the recent opening of a judicial investigation into the death of the actress Emmanuelle Debever, who lost his life after jumping from a bridge into the Seine in the Paris region at the end of November. Debever, 60, was the first interpreter who denounced the “Monster” —Depardieu’s artistic nickname—. His death on December 6 in a hospital bed took place the day before an investigative report was broadcast on French public television, which resurfaced the actor’s accusations of sexual assault and misogyny.
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation this week into “the causes of death” of the actress and “the circumstances that could have caused it.” On November 29, Debever’s romantic partner told the authorities that she “had left her home leaving a worrying note.” Although this investigation, in principle, does not directly affect Depardieu, it adds to other recent events that have lengthened the history of machismo of the best known living french actor in the worldalong with Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon.
At the beginning of December, the news broke that the actress Hélène Darras had denounced him in September for an assault during a filming in 2007. The Complément d’Enquête report showed the interpreter making misogynistic comments about four women, one of them a minor. old. “They are great whores”he said during a trip to North Korea with the writer Yann Moix, also known for his sexist statements.
The first one who dared to report him
More than a dozen actresses, makeup artists or other workers in the film industry have accused Depardieu of sexual assault, most of them in the field of the seventh art. Many of these reported events expired and remained in testimonies in the press. But French justice He was charged three years ago. for allegedly raping the actress in 2018 Charlotte Arnold, 28 years old and 46 years younger than the star defenestrated for his machismo. Debever was the first of the women who dared to raise their voices against Depardieu, who denies all these facts.
That interpreter filed a complaint against him for having sexually assaulted her during the filming of the film in 1983. Danton, directed by the well-known Polish director Andrzej Wajda. “The sacred monster He allowed himself many things during that filming. Taking advantage of the privacy inside a float, she put her fat leg under her skirt supposedly to make me feel better & mldr; & rdquor ;, Debever wrote in 2019 on his Facebook account after they filed his complaint.
After becoming known to the public in 1980 with the series Joelle Mazart, she appeared in four notable films during that decade—for example, Douce enquête sur la violence, selected in 1982 in the main category of the Cannes Festival. Her role as Louison, the young wife of the revolutionary Danton (played by Depardieu), was one of the highlights of a career as promising as it is short. In the nineties she left the cinema and since then worked as a civil servant.
The “monstrosity” of indulgence
“It’s not just about him being a scoundrel and behaving like a scoundrel with women, but about everyone else who lets him do it,” actress Anouk Grinberg lamented this week. In an interview on the radio station France Interhe denounced “the other monstrosity, that of indifferent film professionals “to the harm done to women, to the humiliations they suffer.” Even though the complaints against Depardieu surfaced more than five years ago, the star was able to continue recording films as if nothing had happened.
Pour Anouk Grinberg, les amis de Gérard Depardieu “choisissent la cecité, l’indifférence, le déni.”
“Peut-être que la justice peut aider à mettre un arrêt à this course folle que le cinéma permet”, dit-elle.#le710inter pic.twitter.com/CZPh7IP1pi
— France Inter (@franceinter) December 11, 2023
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The wind, however, begins to change direction. Depardieu’s career suffered this year first consequences for his machismo. In April, he was removed from the film’s promotional campaign The taste of simple things. He also resigned, “by mutual agreement with director Michel Haznavicius (of the Oscar-winning The Artist)”, from the role he was to animate in the animated film The Plus Précieuse of Marchandises. And his agent Bertrand de Labbey announced in October that “I no longer accepted any project”.
This week, the Premier of Quebec removed the medal of honor from the famous actor. The French Government has also announced a “disciplinary process” regarding the Legion of Honor. “It represents a shame for France”, declared the French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak.