As a young man, Jean-Louis Trintignant studied law until, at the age of nineteen, he saw a play that would change his life – L'Avare by Molière, directed by Charles Dullin, and so he decided to take drama classes with Dullin in Paris. In his long career in cinema and in theatre, Jean-Louis Trintignant has acted in more than 130 films, for example Z by Costa-Gavras for which he won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. The film directed by Claude Lelouch, Un Homme et Une Femme made Trintignant a star in 1966. He has worked with Eric Rohmer (Ma Nuit Chez Maud, 1969), Deville and Truffaut (Vivement Dimanche, 1983) and appeared in both ground-breaking art films as well as mainstream movies. Recently, he appeared in Trois Couleurs – Rouge by Kieslowski and Ceux qui M'aiment Prendront Le Train by Chéreau. On stage he has been in more than thirty plays, to name just one of them, La Guerre de Troie N'aura Pas Lieu by Jean Giradoux directed by Jean Vilar at the Avignon Festival in the Courtyard of Honour in the Pope's Palace in 1962, and another is Hamlet, directed by Maurice Jacquemont. In the Autumn of 2005, Jean-Louis Trintignant will play in Moins Deux by Samuel Beckett at the Hébertot Theatre in Paris.
Jean-Louis Trintignant's dream to voice Apollinaire's words in the Courtyard of Honour in the Pope's Palace converged with the Avignon Festival's wish to make poetry and poets a special feature this year. And what a poet ! Apollinaire who speaks in such gentle melancholy of desire, of war, of death and of life.Accompanied by two musicians, Daniel Mille on the accordeon and Grégoire Kornulik on the cello, Jean-Louis Trintignant's unforgettable voice incarnates that language. Under the stars, sitting at a small table, he reads extracts from Poèmes à Lou and Zone, the poem that sums up Apollinaire's work, that is a confession and that is the opening text in the Alcool collection. The music of Eric Satie and Daniel Mille bear them along. In 1914, Guillaume Apollinaire fell madly in love with Louise de Coligny, alias "Lou". Exasperated by her repeated rejections, he decided to join up for the Great War and was sent to the 38th Artillery Regiment stationed in Nîmes. From there, he wrote passionate poems to his beloved in correspondance where his hallucinations of Lou mixed with those of the trenches. These letters became, Poèmes à Lou
.
Distribution
Textes : Guillaume Apollinaire
Voix : Jean-Louis Trintignant
Musique : Érik Satie, Daniel Mille
Accordéon : Daniel Mille
Violoncelle : Grégoire Kornulik
Mise en scène : Marie-Hélène Sarrazin
Lumières : Alain Poisson
Production
Remerciements : à Frédéric Franck