France hails Vincent Macaigne as the new Gérard Depardieu

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/21/vincent-macaigne-new-depardieu-french-cinema

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Lovers of French cinema who have been desperately seeking a new hero since Gérard Depardieu took Russian citizenship may finally have found one. "Gérard Depardieu can go ride his scooter chez Putin," wrote one critic. "An actor of 34 years has just succeeded him. His name is Vincent Macaigne."

Macaigne may be unknown across the cultural divide known as the English Channel, but even in France he is hardly a household figure. And that suits this hyperactive director, actor and writer, who has become one of the leaders of the new "young French cinema" wave. On the French big screen, a changing of the guard appears to be taking place, and Macaigne is in the vanguard.

"I've been busy since I was 20 years old. It's just that now the film critics have discovered me," Macaigne told the Observer last week in his first interview with a British newspaper. "But I don't have a career plan and I'm not looking to be rich or famous. I'm not particularly ambitious. I just work hard because there are lots of things I want to do."

No fewer than three "state of the nation"-style films featuring Macaigne were presented at this year's Cannes film festival, including La Bataille de Solférino, which was released in France on Wednesday. Since graduating from Paris's national conservatory for theatre and dramatic arts, he has acted in 13 stage plays, some of which he wrote; directed seven theatre productions; made 19 short and medium length films; and directed one movie.

Physically, there is something of the young Depardieu about Macaigne: his unconventional looks, his intense regard, his airy indifference to success, the studious sincerity. As part of a group of "young" directors, stars and scriptwriters, Macaigne's work reflects the bleak reality for France's thirtysomethings hit with the double whammy of an economic crisis and high unemployment, but still on the eternal quest for love.

Most of his cinema and theatre projects are collaborations with conservatory friends, often working on a shoestring or for free. Despite his recent successes, he insists that he is not rich. "People think I must be on millions, but I can tell you straight that I earn around €2,500 (£2,000) brut [before taxes and charges] a month.

"Everyone thinks we are the spoilt generation, but my generation has been given nothing. Everyone thinks the French state is generous to the arts and gives us lots of money, but not us.

"I enjoy working as a group, with friends. There is a solidarity, a common spirit. We make lots of films, but we make them for nothing."

The son of a French businessman and an Iranian-born painter, Vincent grew up in Paris with his elder brother, a forensic doctor, speaking French and Farsi. Macaigne says he got into acting because he was "not good at the serious stuff" at school. "But I was good at painting, so my parents enrolled me in an art school. I didn't like that either, so I changed course to do theatre. There wasn't really a flash, where I said this is what I want to do in life, but I liked doing it."

At the age of 30 he suffered a stroke, something he does not want to talk about except to say that it has had no lasting consequences to his health. It has certainly not slowed him down. He has numerous projects on the go and has been known to tap out scripts tortuously by SMS on his mobile phone.

La Bataille de Solférino (also known as Age of Panic), directed by Justine Triet, was named the public's choice at the Paris cinema festival in July. It features Macaigne as a choleric father battling with his TV journalist ex-wife for access to their daughters. Much of the low-budget movie was shot in the chaotic scenes outside the Socialist party headquarters, known as Solférino, on presidential election night last year, thus saving money on extras. Some critics have described it as Kramer vs Kramer with added politics thrown in.

Also shown at Cannes, La Fille du 14 Juillet, a feature debut from director Antonin Peretjatko, was described as a throwback to the new wave films of director Jean-Luc Godard. The third film, 2 automnes, 3 hivers, by Sébastien Betbeder, has been described as a "profound and inventive" look at life for today's thirtysomethings.

Macaigne's directorial debut, the short film, Ce qu'il restera de nous, a bleak tale of the enmity between two brothers over their late father's will, won accolades and was nominated for a César. His imaginative stage adaptations of Dostoevsky and Hamlet divided critics but got him noticed.

There is a current of melancholy and chaos, with hints of menace and occasional outbreaks of physical violence, in Macaigne's work that makes for uncomfortable viewing. The films follow a certain Gallic tradition: made on a shoestring; riddled with loose ends and unanswered questions; and offering little in the way of happy endings. Then again, there is a hint of melancholy and chaos about Macaigne himself as he talks of sincerity, intellectual honesty and the tragedy of the human condition. He says: "Everyone has a tragic existence. It's part of man and our origins. I'm not saying life is tragic, but that tragedy is a reality."

The comparison with the hard-living, hard-drinking Depardieu is mentioned with trepidation. There are those who regard "Gégé" as a hero, and those who think him an idiot (falling drunk off his scooter, picking fights and peeing in the aisle of a CityJet plane, not to mention his escape to Russia, have shifted many one-time Depardieu fans into the latter camp).

Will Macaigne be flattered or furious? "I adore Gérard Depardieu. His films, especially the early ones, are sublime, and I would say he was my best actor," he says. "If people want to compare me to him and put this on my shoulders, it is certainly not an insult, but it's nothing to do with me."

Macaigne gives the impression that whether he rises to stardom or sinks without trace, it is all the same to him. It is, perhaps, the tragic fatalism of his generation. "I do what I do, but I've never said to myself 'this is my life'. It's perfectly possible I could do something else tomorrow," he says.

Like what? Macaigne shrugs. "Je ne sais pas … I'd just get on with my life, doing my thing."

Les grands hommes

Gérard Depardieu

The national film hero, nicknamed Gégé, is a star of more than 170 films and productions. Now 64, he is probably the best known French actor outside his native country.

Daniel Auteuil

The 63-year-old actor and film and theatre director, is best known in Britain for his roles in Jean de Florette, in which he starred alongside Gérard Depardieu, and Manon des Sources.

Jean Réno

Born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez in Casablanca, Morocco, Reno, 65, has been nominated for numerous Césars. Best known outside France for the 1994 film Léon with Natalie Portman.

Jean-Paul Belmondo

The actor, film producer and theatre director, now 80, made his name as a key figure in the 1960s Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) of French cinema.

Vincent Cassel

Formerly Mr Monica Bellucci, Cassel, 46, starred in Black Swan and Ocean's Thirteen, in which he played a master criminal.

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