So Long, Stooge

So Long, Stooge
So Long, Stooge film poster
Directed by	Claude Berri
Written by	Alain Page (novel) Claude Berri
Produced by	Pierre Grunstein
Starring	Coluche Philippe Léotard Agnès Soral
Cinematography	Bruno Nuytten
Edited by	Hervé de Luze
Distributed by	AMLF
Release date	21 December 1983 (1983-12-21)
Running time	100 minutes
Language	French
Box office	€32.5 million

So Long, Stooge (French title: Tchao Pantin) is a 1983 film directed by Claude Berri. It is based on a novel by Alain Page.

Coluche, the lead, won the César Award for Best Actor. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 57th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot

Lambert, a withdrawn middle-aged man, works the night shift at a Parisian petrol station. He has no friends, no family; his only companion is his bottle of rum. One night, a young Arab man, Bensoussan, enters his shop — and his life. This stranger has also no family, lives alone in a dingy room, and scrapes together a living as a drug dealer. The two solitary men develop a friendship — but this is brutally brought to an end when Bensoussan is killed in front of Lambert. Lambert soon realises that his new friend was murdered by his drug dealing associates and sets out to avenge his death — assisted by Lola, a punk girl who knew Bensoussan briefly. By doing this, Lambert manages to come to terms with his own tragic past.

Cast

• Coluche as Lambert
• Richard Anconina as Bensoussan
• Agnès Soral as Lola
• Philippe Léotard as Bauer
• Ahmed Ben Ismaël as Mahmoud

Production

Development

In 1982, during a train trip, producer Christian Spillmaecker read several novels, including Tchao Pantin by Alain Page, recently published. Spillmaecker is thrilled by the story of Lambert, a depressed former cop turned pump attendant, determined to find the murderers of a small dealer whom he identifies with his son. The producer passes the book to Claude Berri at the last minute. Although not very enthusiastic, Berri sees in Lambert a role for Coluche, with which he had filmed Le Pistonné and The Schoolmaster (Berri also produced a few films with Coluche) and bought the rights to the novel. He passes the subject to the actor who at first refuses such a black role.

According to Fred Romano, Coluche's partner at the time, the latter "was full of complexes" and did "not want to be caught in a game where he was not in control". However, Coluche in front of a large sum of money in taxes, he signs to play Lambert, but the heart is not there. Indeed, the actor is going through a bad patch: his wife Véronique left him with her two children and his friend Patrick Dewaere committed suicide with the rifle he offered him. Gnawed by remorse and heartache, undermined by debt, Coluche plunges into drugs. This bad patch will strengthen the character of the character.

The role of young Bensoussan, a small dealer who will befriend Lambert, is entrusted to Richard Anconina, then little known to the general public. For the role of Lola, a young punk who fell in love with Bensoussan then Lambert, the role is entrusted to Agnès Soral, who had filmed under the direction of Berri in A moment of distraction. The police officer in charge of the investigation is embodied by Philippe Léotard.

Filming

Shooting began on 9 May 1983 at Paris with the sets provided by Alexandre Trauner. The gas station, which has now disappeared (illuminated with neon, on the idea of the chief operator Bruno Nuytten), is located rue Pajol, a stone's throw from the La Chapelle metro station The film is also shot in Belleville.

Shot at night in a deliberately gloomy atmosphere, the film is complicated by Coluche whose condition sometimes forces it to be filmed from behind. In addition, the actor did not take off his gas station attendant jacket outside of the shoot. Soral, to blend in with his role, lives for his part in punk and allows herself to lose weight. The actress, in an interview with Figaro more than thirty years after the film's release, will say that she experienced a "friendship story" with Coluche. According to Soral, for whom his discomfort was still unconscious but existed during the filming, the actors were in pain: besides Couche, Anconina was coming out of a love affair, just like Léotard, who had just separated with Nathalie Baye, but also Berri who was going through a complicated sentimental episode.

The slap that Coluche gives to Richard Anconina was very real, the latter said in an interview to Europe1. At first, however, Coluche had not dared to hit him hard enough and the latter then asked him to give him a real slap  · .

The punk concert sequence takes place at the " Gibus" (then called "Le Petit Gibus", described in the film as "a bar of punks at République”), a tiny Parisian concert hall known at the time to be the CBGB's Parisian. The group that stars in the movie are a famous punk band from the 1980s, "The Horde", and their singer Gogol Premier  · .

The shots in the infamous districts of the north of Paris are not without a hitch, due to the embarrassment that the film crew represents for petty trafficking, but arrangements are finally found.

Release and reception

Claude Berri himself insisted that the film, shot in June 1983, be released in December of the same year in order to be able to compete in the Césars of March 1984: he had a presentiment that Coluche would be rewarded.

Released in theaters on 21 in France, Tchao Pantin started in third place at the box office the week of its release with more than 433,000 admissions, behind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Les Compères. The following week, the film still remains in third place, while being seen by 851,188 admissions since its release, including 417,690 admissions during this period. The week of January 4, 1984, Tchao Pantin climbs to second place behind Rue Barbare, which has just been released, with 383,850 entries, allowing the film to record a total of 1,235,038 entries. The feature film reached 2 million admissions at the start of February 1984. While he modestly pursues his theatrical career throughout the month of February, Tchao Pantin climbs back to 9th place following his triumph at the Césars in March 1984, which allows it to get closer to the 2,400,000 entries. The following week it moved up to third place at the box office with 224,565 entries, bringing the total to 2,600,970 entries. The film passed the 3 million admissions mark the week of 2 April 1984, before leaving the top 30 at the end of April 1984. The film benefited from a theatrical revival in the summer of 1986, following the death of Coluche, which allowed it to return to the weekly top 30 to pass the 3.5 million admissions mark per week. of 25 June 1986, only a few days after the death of the actor. Beginning August 1986, the film is still in the top 30 and has reached 3.7 million admissions.

In the end, it met with commercial success with 3,829,139 admissions, including 856,133 admissions in Paris, ranking 8th for films with the most admissions in the year of its release.

See also

• List of submissions to the 57th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of French submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

External links

• So Long, Stooge at IMDb