Serge Merlin

Actor

December 29, 1932 (86 years)

† February 16, 2019

Sainte-Barbe-du-Tlélat, French Algeria [now Oued Tlelat, Algeria]

Biography

Serge Merlin (born Serge Merle; 29 December 1932 – 16 February 2019) was a French actor. He became internationally known for his role in the film Amélie (2001), which received widespread critical acclaim. On 9 July 2014, Merlin was made a Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters. Source: Article "Serge Merlin" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Filmography

7.9

Amélie

Raymond Dufayel

At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?

7.3

The Count of Monte Cristo

Noirtier de Villefort

A TV mini-series adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel. Edmond Dantes is unjustly sent to prison for 18 years. He escapes to reclaim his fiancée Mercedes and revenge against his nemesis, Mondego.

6.7

Witnesses

Atticus Lorcat

Witnesses (French: Les Témoins) is a French police procedural television series, created by Marc Herpoux and Hervé Hadmar. In the first season, police detectives Sandra Winckler and Justin investigate when bodies of murder victims are unearthed and left for discovery in the show homes of a housing developer. Former chief-of-police, Paul Maisonneuve, is implicated. In the second season, Sandra and Justin find themselves on the trail of a serial killer whose modus operandi is to murder all former lovers of his kidnap victims.

6.8

Danton

Pierre Philippeaux

Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.

7.2

The City of Lost Children

Gabriel Marie

A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.

5.5

A Love in Germany

Alker

In May of 1983, a man turns 49 and, with his 17-year old son, journeys to the village in Baden that he left 40 years before. He wants to discover what happened then, the truth about an affair his mother had with a young Polish prisoner of war, how the authorities came to learn of it, the lovers' arrest, and the aftermath. While his son takes Polaroid photographs, he retraces the steps of his childhood and interviews those who should remember. The story is disclosed in flashbacks that focus on the lovers (Paulina and Stanislaus), on a jealous and conniving neighbor, and on Mayer, the local SS commander who wants to find a way out of inevitable consequences.

6.1

The Man Who Laughs

Barkilphedro

During a winter storm, Ursus offers shelter to two orphans, Gwynplaine and Déa; some years later, they are still living together. Gwynplaine has become a famous star, but his success threatens his relationships with Déa and Ursus.

4.9

Cinématon

N°158

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

5.7

Under a False Name

Père de Daniel

A mysterious writer is involved in a love affair with his stepson's wife, leading to a web of intrigue and desire.

5.5

The Song of Roland

Pair Marsile / Ganelon / Thierry

Roland des Roncesvalles is a legendary knight from the age of chivalry in France. In the 11th-century epic La Chanson de Roland, he is depicted as a key figure in halting the advance of the Arabs into France. In this story, the 10th-century legend is staged by a group of 12th-century pilgrims using the 11th-century poem. Their acting is interrupted by a violent peasant uprising, which kills many of the pilgrims. However, one of the survivors, is converted to the peasant cause and later speaks out in favor of more just treatment for the downtrodden.

6.0

Me and Kaminski

Portier

Young journalist Sebastian Zöllner is writing an article on artist Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner hopes that Kaminski dies soon, so that he can cash in on his article.

5.1

Tusk

Greyson

An English girl and an Indian elephant, born on the same day, share a common destiny...

6.8

Blaze

Betaix

All of Europe was affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s, but some parts were hurt less badly than others. France, for instance, was relatively prosperous. In this grim drama, a sturdy Polish boxer and his family have settled into a mining town in northern France because that's where the work is. Like European "guest workers" in the 1990s, the Polish immigrants then were frequently treated badly by the locals. In this drama, the romantic aspirations of the boxer's son are thwarted by the concerted efforts of the local men and his own family's preference that he marry another Polish girl. After his romance fails, the son becomes a union activist and sacrifices a great deal to try to gain higher wages for the miners, but the contract he works out is reneged on by the duplicitous owners.

6.1

Two Snails Set Off

(voice)

A forest full of animated animals encourage a pair of snails, who are fully clad in black because they are in mourning for a dead leaf, to celebrate the new spring and reclaim the colors of life. Based on the children's poem by Jacques Prévert entitled "Chanson des escargots qui font à l'enterrement" ("Song of the snails who are on their way to a funeral").

4.0

The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl

Silvio

Françoise looks like a sexy kitten by day, but is a silent she-wolf by night, making very clever robberies of gold jewels. Despite the interest, and competition, from Bruno, she ends a lonely she-wolf.

8.0

Une preuve d'amour

Granchot

A beautiful, cultured Parisian nurse working in a backwards French region, ends up falling in love with a seemingly crass farmer. She finds out that he actually is very intelligent, and she tries to help him to study again.

6.2

The Golem

Loisa

Athanase Pernath is a gem cutter in the Prague ghetto. In spite of himself, he becomes embroiled in the lives of his neighbors. Family feuds, swindles, jealousies and revenge lead Pernath to prison, while the threat of the Golem, a monster created by a rabbi and awakening every thirty-three years, hangs over the city.

5.0

Pitchipoï

Albert

Julien Schulmann is a comedian. He has just lost his father, a Polish Jew and extermination camp survivor. Before he died, his father left a "will" in which he requested that his other son, Pierre, who hasn't been heard from for two years, spread his ashes in Poland. His father's preference comes as a rude shock for Julien, and it opens a chasm inside him, slowly bringing to light an unspeakable secret.

9.5

The Two of Us

Napoléon

Toussaint and Madeleine have loved each other from the cradle. They are now sixty. They have reached retirement age and have decided to return to Corsica. Toussaint has spent thirty years underground in the maintenance workshops of the Paris metro system. he is happy, but Madeleine misses Paris with its excitement and, above all, their son, who is a doctor in one of the French capital's major hospitals. Madeleine has such love for her son that Toussaint teases her by saying she should ask the Pope for dispensation in order to marry him. Toussaint and Madeleine return to Balba at the beginning of the winter when the days are short, the village bar is closed and the men too scarce for even a game of cards. The silence is occasionally broken by the village idiot, Napolean, as he ambles about shouting the coming death of Corsica while on patrol of the locked-up houses he's been set to guard...

8.0

Le Testament d'un poète juif assassiné

Grossman

This somber drama chronicles the writings of Paltiel Kossover (Michel Jonasz), a Rumanian Jew who was incarcerated in a Stalinist prison. Zupanev (Erland Josephson) is a sympathetic court registrar who smuggles the documents and later presents them to the poet's son Grisha (Vincent David).