Serge Merlin gives strange supporting figures a seriousness that stops them becoming mere decoration. His deep voice and theatrical intensity suit Jeunet’s busy films, though those appearances offer only a small part of what he could do.
Fi1m perspective
Serge Merlin’s deep voice gives the reclusive painter in Amélie (2001) a gravity that suits the character’s withdrawal. As Raymond Dufayel, he is an eccentric neighbour in a film already plentifully supplied with eccentricity, but we take him seriously. Jean-Pierre Jeunet sometimes works too hard to charm us; Merlin’s intensity is useful company in such surroundings. We were moved by the heroine’s loneliness because Audrey Tautou makes it matter beneath all the visual business.
His film work had been in supporting parts since the 1960s, including Pierre Philippeaux in Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (1983). Wider recognition came with The City of Lost Children (1995) and then Amélie, both made with Jeunet. In the earlier film, co-directed by Marc Caro, he plays Gabriel Marie, the Cyclops leader. Its black humour suits an actor capable of making strangeness feel imposing, although the crowded storytelling sometimes leaves the people struggling to compete with their surroundings.
The larger part of his career was on stage, with directors including Matthias Langhoff and Alain Françon and writing by Beckett, Bernhard and Shakespeare. The important quality was the clarity he brought to demanding language, particularly the long monologues of Thomas Bernhard’s Extinction (2010). The intensity could be feverish, but the words remained intelligible. That is worth remembering when watching the screen roles: the unusual voice belonged to an actor accustomed to carrying long stretches of difficult writing by himself.
We would still start with Amélie, the more rewarding of the two Jeunet films we have reviewed. Its warmth survives the excessive visual fuss, and Merlin’s grave presence helps keep the eccentricity from becoming merely cute. Neither film asks him to carry the story, so neither is enough to explain the reputation he built on stage. Watch the painter, even when Jeunet supplies several other things to look at.
Biography
Serge Merlin (born Serge Merle) was a French actor. He was born on 29 December 1932 in Sainte-Barbe-du-Tlélat, French Algeria (now Oued Tlelat, Algeria), and died on 16 February 2019 in Paris.
Merlin had a long career in theatre from 1952 to 2018, with occasional film roles. He became widely known for playing Raymond Dufayel, the reclusive painter known as the 'glass man', in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie (2001). Other film credits include The City of Lost Children (1995) and Danton (1983).
In 2014 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters.
