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“The De Gaulle Battle”: the film will be released Wednesday June 3 in theaters, with Simon Abkarian in the title role. Many of them played De Gaulle in the cinema, and all say they were inhabited by the role. How to get into the general’s uniform without imitating him?
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An approach. A silhouette. A kepi. A voice. And a question: how to embody a national monument? There are only around ten actors to have donned the clothes of the general, including two on the big screen: Lambert Wilson in 2020 and the latest, Simon Abkarian. “It’s always a responsibility to play someone. Well, it turns out that this is a responsibility to the power of ten,” believes the actor.
Patrick Chesnais played him in 2010 in a docu-fiction. When he was offered the role, he was initially hesitant. “It’s not at all obvious. When Serge Moati offered me the role, I was quite surprised. And at the same time, I was flattered”he confides.
There is no shortage of archives on General de Gaulle. This is where the work of any actor begins to immerse themselves in the character, their gestures, their diction.. “His voice, his diction, it’s blessed bread because it’s offered to the actor. I didn’t turn away from it. On the contrary, I nourished myself from it”explains Simon Abkarian. Feeding on images, yes, but there is no question of reproducing everything identically. “For de Gaulle, there was the work of being a bit of an imitator that had to be measured,” specifies Patrick Chesnais.
The character of the general is of course his uniform, but also an exceptional physique: 1.96 m. So, embodying it necessarily means going through the transformation stage to get closer to it. “It’s a ritual. Every morning, I arrive, we style the retouched roots, then makeup, ear bonding which lasted 20 minutes. 1 hour 40 minutes in total”details Simon Abkarian.
Transmitting the story of a man who merges with that of a country, a challenge for connoisseurs of the general. “We will never have the clone of General de Gaulle, after all, that’s the magic of cinema. Each actor, each director brings a facet, and ultimately, that’s also what perhaps makes the richness of the productions: they complement each other”, analyzes General Jérôme Pellistrandi, military historian. The magic of cinema is bringing a monument back to life without taking it down from its pedestal.
