French people on DL, Tell me about the brilliant Robert Hossein

Let me guess, OP: English isn't your first language, is it?

R1 Yes

"Robert Hossein was an extraordinary French film director and actor who with two Westerns, Le Goût de la violence and Une corde, un Colt, showed a singular talent that revelled in silence, allowing the story to be carried by the camera in complete trust of the cinematic technique. At the same time, he infused these films in a unique stance for the genre, of rejecting the notion of closure through violence, a single-handed overthrowing of what, for many Spaghetti Westerns, had become an archetypical genre staple and trope that many an average film relied upon for dramatic effect.

His talents ignored and even derided by French critics of the sixties for not being part of the Nouvelle Vague and as merely an exponent of the so-called “Tradition of Quality” that had stifled French cinema from the years of World War Two onwards until the cinematic revolution of 1959 with François Truffaut's Les quatre cents coups. This critical savaging by critics, in particular at the influential Cahiers du Cinéma has led to a serious critical neglect in the years since the seventies both in France and in English-speaking worlds, where his work is virtually unknown. It is a shameful thing, made all the worst that his films are so good, so in tune to cinema that watching them is a revelation and a discovery of a genuine filmmaker who understands the medium brilliantly."

[quote] the brilliant Robert Hossein

Was he brilliant? He was always in the background, just like Maurice Ronet.

Not particularly pretty, unlike Trintignant and Delon.

I'd like to see 'Rififi' but if I've seen him in others, I have forgotten.

Is there a sauce named after him?

Hossein is from Arzaybeyjajrn.

R4 Yes, he was brilliant.

You're mistaken, he was not always in secondary roles/background (probably, these are the movies you saw of his). He was the star (and the director, screenwriter) of many films in the 1950s and 1960s. But as I said his movies are not known outside France. Read the whole article in R3 if you want, it's very informative.

Also, the link below (“THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 2021” Salutes Robert Hossein) talk about some of his films.

Speaking of Alain Delon, He's one of the most overrated French actors Ever.

Robert Hossein, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Jean-Paul Belmondo were million times better and more talented than Delon plus they were humble and kind in real life.

^ What was Robert Hossein's kindness in real life like?.

R9 In short, Robert Hossein was a humanist, he supported all good causes and helped people in need.

The main goal of his shows in the theatre was to change people's mindset to the better "If the public comes out of my shows with the desire in their hearts to love their neighbor a little more, with the desire to fight for more fraternity, with disgust at injustice and inequality, then I am happy, I think I have been useful"

His flaw was that he discovered the irritating Isabelle Adjani in 1972 LOL

Robert Hossein left a good impact on everyone he had met or known:

Isabelle Adjani was very moved by his death:

"On learning of the death of Robert Hossein , Isabelle Adjani spoke for the first time. Moved, she had shared: “ "We met in Paris. He had met me in front of the Conservatory, where I was going to attend the competition. I was 15 and a half. With his lynx eye, he spotted me and asked: 'Are you an actress?' He was putting on a play for the Reims theater and asked me how to get me to play in it. I told him that he had to ask my parents for permission... He took me to Reims. I lived at the school he had founded. I rehearsed in the evening and during the day, I went to the Reims high school.

You can imagine the emotion that a young girl can feel by the charisma of an older man who had something fantastically inhabited. I was very won over. He had an incredible voice and magnetic ancestry. " Finally, she added: "I would have loved to have a movie scene in front of him, to be able to watch something of the two of us, which remains, that I can find... "

On her Instagram she wrote:

"Robert Hossein, a man who counted in my life because he was the first to give me access to the stage with "La Maison de Bernarda" by Garcia Lorca, at the Reims theater which he directed. I was a young girl and the energy of his authority, his very Slavic intensity, had impressed me; he taught me the discipline of stage work.

There was in him this desire to admire an actor or an actress: the gratitude he showed to the one who moved him, was of a great generosity of heart.

Peace to his Slavic soul.

Director Claude Lelouch and Jean-Paul Belmondo talk about the kindness and brilliance of their friend Robert Hossein:

“I'm sad because he was an important man for the cinema, the theater, the show itself. He has done everything in this profession, and tremendously well, ”says director Claude Lelouch. The filmmaker emphasizes the human qualities of Robert Hossein. “This man had the most beautiful of qualities: he liked to please others, he recalls. He devoted his life to it. He pleased the public, his directors, his friends. He was a man who defended all good causes, who loved mankind. He did good to everyone he met and me first."

In a statement to AFP, Jean-Paul Belmondo expressed his " very great sadness " for the one who " was much more than a friend " . . " For many years, I appreciated his kindness and his tireless creative spirit always on the alert, He pushed all the limits all the time ,” writes the actor, who “ recalls heated discussions about his new projects ” with him. " Robert contributed a lot to my return to films and I am grateful to him ,"

Sorry but when Alain Delon dies, no one will talk about his great talent, creativity, kindness or the positive influence he left on other people's lives. They will only talk about his great looks and his connection to the french mob and the murder case.

Also Delon's friends were all rotten and shady. His only friend who is left now is Brigitte Bardot!

He was easily the hottest french actor of that generation , there is a wondeful movie in which he's inexplicably attracted to a young man (female in disguise) and deliciously confused. he was a huge star in the 50s -70s, then ben was ridiculed for converting to cathlicism, and became a stage actor/director superstar

No mention of the ANGELIQUE film series in the 1960s? Robert Hossein was in four of the five immensely popular (but disliked by critics) films,1964-68. The ANGELIQUE films were French-German-Italian co-productions. Aside from Michèle Mercier in the title role and Hossein as the love of her life Joffrey (absent in the second film), the cast included Claude Giraud, Jean Rochefort, Giuliano Gemma, Charles Regnier, Robert Hoffmann, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Sami Frey among many others. I recall them as very kitschy but I saw them as a teen on TV in the early 80s and never again. What I remember is that Hossein, Gemma, Hoffmann and Frey looked hot. My mother was a fan of Robert Hossein thanks to those films. I'm German and can assure OP Hossein was known outside France in the 60s as much as Delon - at least in many European countries.

R14 R15 Thanks for your replies

R14 I thought he converted to catholicism at the age of 50, after he helplessely witnessed his fiance burning alive in a horrible car accident (infront of him), Hossein was in the car but miraculously survived, he didn't wear a seat belt and was ejected from the car.

Why was he ridiculed for converting though?!

R15 Strangely , ANGELIQUE movies are my least favorite films of Robert Hossein, but I know they were highly popular and successful at the time. It's good to know that he was known outside France.

Robert Hossein et Dalida

R17 Dalida!

I love this tragic talented woman.

R18 Me too!

[quote] Why was he ridiculed for converting though?!

because the french are so tolerant...cunts, all of them

R16

I only know that Robert Hossein was converted to Roman Catholicism by Father Israel (Le Père Israël) because one of my brothers converted to RC with the same priest.

So kitsch and forever Geoffroy de Peyrac...

He was just super handsome in a very sensual, masc way. Can't understand why he didn't have a global career. Maybe he just couldn't speak english.

Or maybe the fact that he was 4 ft tall hampered his career

[quote] the brilliant Robert Hossein

He never played in Peoria.

It's not fair that Persian midgets appear in a movie starring a Cuban god!

The Angelique movies were amazing he was such a sexy Geoffrey de Peyrac. Every datalounger should watch these movies

R20 Agree, French people are the least tolerant people on earth.

Robert Hossein's family is very intersting, it includes all sort of religions.

Robert's father had muslim origins, Robert's mother was jewish.

Robert himself converted to catholicism.

Robert Hossein had 4 sons, one of them is attracted to Islam, another became a buddhist, and the other became a jewish rabbi.

Robert Hossein made eight or nine movies with his then wife Marina Vlady (she was his muse), They were all wonderful films.

'Marina Vlady's' real name was something Marina Volobolonsky or somthing.

"No question about it, the French New Wave changed the course of cinema. Busting out of the studio and onto the streets, the group of former film critics turned young auteurs broke conventions through adventurous subversions of normal narrative structure and jarring editing techniques.

Unfortunately, by blowing up French cinema, Godard, Truffaut and the gang left quite a bit of wreckage behind. For the third straight year, programmer and film historian Don Malcolm is picking through the collateral damage to find truly great and forgotten movies and artists in his 15-film series at the Roxie Theater

But if you go to one day of the festival, make it Saturday, Nov. 5, when Malcolm unveils five more films from the awesome Robert Hossein.

Hossein, hated by the New Wave critics, is essentially the poster child of these “French Had a Name for It” festivals. A triple threat — he often writes, directs and stars — Hossein touched a chord with audiences at the Roxie previously with films such as “The Wicked Go to Hell” and “Blonde in a White Car.”

A fascinating fellow, Hossein often worked with crime novelist Frédéric Dard — the Raymond Chandler of France — and his father, Andre Hossein, who wrote some pretty cool jazzy scores that drip with the proper irony.

Start at 1:30 p.m. with 1964’s “Le mort d’un tueur” (“Death of a Killer”), in which a heist goes wrong when a woman both of the main thieves love comes between them. The twist: she’s the sister of one of them (so French!). Eight hours later, the mini-Hossein tribute ends with the bizarre 1965 locked room mystery “Le jeu de la verite” (“The Game of Truth”) in which one of a dozen or so know-it-all guests from high society — including a young Jean-Louis Trintignant — has committed a murder. The success of “Le jeu de la verite” rests on your ability to spend 80 minutes locked in a room, as it were, with these insufferable people. It works as a critique on cafe society, and I’d like to think it’s a poke in the eye at the New Wave and what some perceive as its intellectual arrogance.

Hossein is good as a brooding serial killer in “Le Vampire de Dusseldorf” (“The Secret Killer”) and a crusader against a white slavery racket in “Des femmes disparaissent” (“The Road to Shame”), but I was most struck by the twisted, complex marriage depicted in “Les scelerats” (“The Wretches”).

The more Hossein movies I see, the more apparent it becomes that guilt is a main theme. His films explore how guilt holds us back, keeps us too fixated on the past and unable to forge a healthy future. “Les scelerats” exemplifies what this series is all about: An emotionally mature exploration of our deepest, darkest desires and fears."