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Years active. 1982–present. Denis Lavant (born 17 June 1961) is a French actor. He is known for his distinctive face and the physically demanding aspects of the roles he plays, which often involve slapstick, acrobatics or dance, as well as for his long-standing association with director Leos Carax. Lavant has played the lead role in all but ...
- Who Is Denis Lavant?
- A Method to The Madness
- Holy Motors
- Today’S Silent Comedian
Long associated with French arthouse, Denis Lavant first came to notice with his bombastic leading roles in Leos Carax’s equally explosive early films. Having since been poached by filmmaking greats such as Claire Denis and Harmony Korine, his infrequent leading or main-cast roles have become major events in the film world in and of themselves. Wit...
Lavant is often referred to as a “character actor.” His physical abilities and contortion command of mannerism, posture, and inflection lend well to unusual roles: exuberant weirdos, tortured artists, sewer monsters, and staggering drunks. I think it would be a disservice to paint him as an actor of extremes and nothing else, however; Denis Lavanti...
And then, of course, there’s Holy Motors. Carax’s post-modern mega-farce stands as a signpost of the times, an examination of where cinema has been and all that it can be. The film is interspersed with flashes of the earliest moving images – hands opening and closing, a man smashing a boulder on the ground – as a testament to film’s beginnings as a...
Leos Carax is notoriously unenthusiastic about interviews, often dismissing questions or giving silly non-answers. When asked about Lavant’s leading role for Holy Motors, however, he was more direct: “If Denis had said no, I would have offered the part to Lon Chaney or to Chaplin. Or to Peter Lorre or Michel Simon. All of whom are dead.” Carax isn’...
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Oscar Levant (December 27, 1906 – August 14, 1972) was an American concert pianist, composer, conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian, and actor. He had roles in the films Rhapsody in Blue (1945), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), An American in Paris (1951), and The Band Wagon (1953).
Sep 19, 2022 · When another friend suggested Hayes think about Levant as a character, he got serious — watching archival footage, reading Levant’s books, and imagining some kind of performance.
Jan 5, 2022 · In March last year, The New Yorker film critic and expert on French cinema Richard Brody ranked Lavant’s performance in Holy Motors, in which he plays an actor travelling around Paris in a white limousine, morphing from character to character, sometimes monster, sometimes victim, as the fourth best movie performance of the 21st century so far ...
Aug 17, 2018 · Aug. 17, 2018 12:35 PM PT. He was one of the great wits of the last century — a bestselling author, radio and television host, quiz show panelist, actor and songwriter who became a household ...
The French actor reflects on his remarkable performance playing 11 characters in Leos Carax’s Holy Motors. Source: SBS Movies When I met up with eccentric French actor Denis Lavant in
