Bernard Fresson brings a welcome solidity to supporting parts, though films too often settle for his gruff authority. We value the actor, and his work with Alain Resnais gives us reasons to look beyond the familiar policeman.
Fi1m perspective
Bernard Fresson is silent as the German lover in Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). It is an unexpected introduction to an actor so often cast for gruffness and authority. Alain Resnais's romance lets the past interrupt the present through the editing, with Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada doing the emotional work. We were moved when the editing brought the earlier affair into the present-day romance. The dialogue can be overworked, but Fresson's part has no such burden.
Resnais also gave him an intellectual's monologue in Loin de Vietnam (1967), a useful corrective to the idea that his chief asset was bulk. Their four films together suggest a director interested in more than the gruff working men Fresson so often played. More substantial parts came from the late 1960s onwards, including Matt in Costa-Gavras's Z (1969).
That thriller moves with the urgency of a chase. Raoul Coutard's camera and Françoise Bonnot's cutting keep it moving with a speed that still feels modern. Its villains are drawn a shade too broadly, but this is still a film we would recommend readily.
The familiar casting becomes clearest in French Connection II (1975), where he plays Inspector Barthélémy opposite Gene Hackman. That gruff, grounded presence is useful, but the danger is that a casting director sees a ready-made policeman and asks for nothing else. Fresson himself felt cinema had given him too many stereotyped supporting parts. His work with Roman Polanski in The Tenant (1976), and the morally complicated jeweller husband of Place Vendôme (1998), are reasons to look further.
Leading parts in feature films were scarce, and the temptation is to imagine the career he might have had. We would rather watch the work that is there. Start with the silence in Hiroshima Mon Amour, then seek out the talker Resnais found in Loin de Vietnam.
Biography
Bernard Fresson was a French actor. Born in Reims, he graduated from HEC Paris in 1953 before training at Tania Balachova's drama school in Paris and working with Jean Vilar's Théâtre National Populaire.
He made his film debut in Hiroshima mon amour (1959). His credits include Z (1969) as Matt, Max and the Junkmen (1971), French Connection II (1975) as Henri Barthélémy, The Tenant (1976) as Scope, Garçon! (1983) as Francis, and Place Vendôme (1998). He received César nominations for Best Supporting Actor for Garçon! and Place Vendôme.
Fresson died in Orsay in 2002.
