EFP 70: Professor Sue Harris on Bertrand Blier

On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by Professor Sue Harris. Sue is Professor Emerita of Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London and an internationally-renowned specialist in French cinema. She has also published noted volumes on the Hollywood film musical, film stardom and production design.Sue is a trustee and collaborator of the long-running, UK-wide French Film Festival. During this year’s Festival, Sue sat down with Pasquale to discuss the controversial Oscar-winning French filmmaker Bertrand Blier who sadly passed away in January at the age of 85 and who was the subject of a special tribute.Sue is a foundational Blier scholar, one of the first writers anywhere to take the director’s work seriously. Her first solo authored monograph was a ground-breaking study of his films which was based on her PhD thesis.Blier is perhaps best known for his scandalous 1974 satire Les Valseuses, the story of two young drifters (Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere) who offend and terrorise those they encounter on their wanderings across France.Sue tells Pasquale about the background to Les Valseuses, its reception and its unprecedented box office success in France. They then turn their attention to Blier’s breakthrough film, the offbeat crime picture Buffet Froid (1979) which reunited the director with Depardieu and also featured Blier’s actor father Bernard.