Guillaume Depardieu, 1971 - 2008.

Guillaume Depardieu, the son of Gérard Depardieu, died earlier today at the age of 37. The cause of death was named as pneumonia, which he'd contracted three days earlier in Paris' Raymond Poincare hospital.

The Guardian.

The star of Bertrand Bonello's De la guerre (Of War) and Versailles currently showing in cinemas was known for his rebellious streak.... Guillaume had starred alongside his father for the first time in director Alain Corneau's Tous les matins du monde (All the World's Mornings) in 1991. Father and son would later be seen together in two television movies, even though they were locked in a difficult relationship.

The AFP.

Updated through 10/17.

Every gesture counts, every last glance has weight, the trembling of [Jeanne] Balibar's upper lip is an expression of inner turmoil and Depardieu's brooding heralds untold disasters.

Ekkehard Knörer, reviewing Jacques Rivette's Ne touchez pas la hache in February 2007.

The news breaks in French: Isabelle Regnier in Le Monde; a timeline in L'Express; and the AFP.

Updates, 10/14: "Depardieu contributed an English-language commentary to the 1999 Fox-Lorber DVD of Pola X," writes Glenn Kenny. "If it was saddening to listen to when Depardieu lived, it's doubly so now. He is halting, shy, self-deprecating (always), full of nervous laughter, unfailingly honest, spectacularly intelligent. And, it is quite clear, deeply unhappy.... Rest in peace."

"Sadly, his death came at a time when he had emerged from the shadow cast by his father as a compelling actor in his own right," writes Ronald Bergan in the Guardian. "'Thanks to Rivette,' he said, 'I have begun to believe in cinema again.' He also began to believe more in himself, working on several interesting films such as La France (2007) and De la Guerre (2008), and was shooting a film in Romania with the resonant title of L'Enfance d'Icare (The Childhood of Icarus), when he fell fatally ill. He is survived by his six-year-old daughter by his ex-wife and, of course, by his imposing father, with whom he was reconciled at last."

Update, 10/15: " When you're the son of Gérard, it is certainly easier to get calls from producers, but you're forever compared to papa," writes Gwladys Fouché for the Guardian. "It's hard to overstate how huge Gérard Depardieu is in France.... [H]e's Brando, Pacino and De Niro rolled into one, the actor who has dominated French movies since the mid-70s. However bad the movie he is in - and by God he has been in numerous stinkers - French film fans still adore him. He is a national treasure, or as we say in French, un monstre sacré - a sacred monster. How do you compete with that? You don't."

Update, 10/17: The BBC reports on the funeral.

Posted by dwhudson at October 13, 2008 12:02 PM