Over the past five decades, their names have become inseparable from French cinema but also from major American productions such as Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola. The journalist and now filmmaker, Michel Denisot, co-directed with Florent Maillet, a documentary on the Rassam-Berri clan, The Rassam-Berri Saga, cinema in the veins. The film was presented at Cannes Classics and the screening was an opportunity to pay tribute to the “godfather” of this clan, as described by Michel Denisot, the French producer Paul Rassam. From the latter, the director got “carte blanche” for the documentary whose actors discovered it at the same time as those present in the Agnès Varda room at the Palais des Festivals. “Paul said to me: ‘You will have the final cut like Cimino (Michael) in I‘Year of the Dragon (…) It was a mark of confidence'”.
“Virgin in the media”
In front of Thierry Frémaux, the general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak, the president of France Télévisions Delphine Ernotte or even Princess Caroline of Monaco, Michel Denisot confessed his emotion to see this documentary selected in Cannes. “I was more proud to be there than to have won the European Cup with PSG, that’s something.” In 1995, he says, “I started to find out what the Rassam family was”. He proposes to Paul Rassam to write a book on the singular history of this family. What the producer will say no to until October 2022, where he launches to Michel Denisot: “I think it’s now.” The journalist and host asks Renaud Le Van Kim, the boss of online media Brut, to produce it. The project was then proposed to France Télévisions, which decided to support it. The documentary will be shot in “five months”.
“I started interviewing Paul who, at 85, was blank in the media”, confided Michel Denisot. He obviously hands his microphone to the members of the Rassam-Berri family. Among them, producer Dimitri Rassam, son of actress Carole Bouquet – who testifies in the documentary – and Paul Rassam’s brother, Jean-Pierre Rassam who died in 1985. Thomas Langmann, son of Claude Berri and Anne-Marie Rassam (the sister of Paul and Jean-Pierre) and also a producer, also answered questions from Michel Denisot. The cousins produced respectively The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan (2023) and The Artist (2011).
“We take blows, we give them back but we don’t give back”
The Rassam-Berri Saga, cinema in the veins opens with an interview with a key figure in American cinema, Francis Ford Coppola, who now has almost family ties with the Rassam-Berri. The documentary by Michel Denisot and Florent Maillet is an unprecedented immersion in the world of those who produced, and the conditions in which they did so, Feast, We won’t grow old together, Tchao Pantin, Apocalypse Now, Welcome to the Ch’tis or The Artist. Films rewarded by both César and Oscars. Paul Rassam thus evokes a life devoted to cinema – when he was not really thinking about it –, the artistic genius of his brother Jean-Pierre and his sister Anne-Marie – who died too soon –, like his brother-in-law Claude Berri.
“It’s not easy to watch your life go by, to see your brother, sister, Claude and the others disappear”said Paul Rassam at the end of the screening while declaring his love for the United States, a country that matters to him both professionally and personally. “I owe a lot to America”, he continued. “I won’t say goodbye to you, did he conclude. I will say goodbye to you. I will still make one or two (…) if the sky grants me life” while taking the opportunity to give advice to “younger”. “Don’t let go! Don’t be afraid! We take blows, we give them back but we don’t give back”.
