Salut l’artiste (1973) - film review

Nicolas is a middle-aged second-rate actor who is no more successful in his private life than he is in his career.  Still awaiting his “big break”, he has to content himself with a seemingly endless succession of bit parts in films and plays, supplementing his income with cabaret acts and by providing voice-overs for cartoons.  Since leaving his wife he has lived with his mistress, but the latter admits she no longer loves him, so he considers returning to his wife, only to find she is pregnant by another man.  Nicolas gets no support from his close friend Clément, who has decided to give up his own failed acting career to work as a manager for a supermarket chain.

This bittersweet comedy-drama from Yves Robert offers a sobering portrait of the fragmented lifestyle of an unsuccessful actor, played with great sensitivity and conviction by leading Italian actor, Marcello Mastroianni .  It is difficult not to be moved by the sense of frustration, loneliness, insecurity and lack of fulfilment that Mastroianni’s character experiences whilst in pursuit of his art in this film.

Although the film is intended as a comedy, and there are some exceptionally funny moments in the film (such as the grand opening sequence at Versailles leading up to Louis XVI on the telephone), it is its prevailing sense of melancholy which is most memorable.  The film could have been about any character failing in any career.  The fact that it is about an actor, in what most people consider to be the most glamorous of professions, makes the film particularly poignant, and the quality of Mastroianni’s performance makes it doubly so.

© James Travers 2001

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