Death in Paris of director Marcel Bluwal, father of the Vidocq series

The director and director Marcel bluwal died on Saturday 23 October 2021 in Paris at the age of 96. Among his countless successes, we will notably remember the TV adaptation of Miserable, that of Dom juan with Michel Piccoli, or the series Vidocq with Claude Brasseur, who will mark the spectators from the years 1960 to 1970.

Hidden with her mother during the Occupation

Marcel Bluwal was born in Paris on May 25, 1925, to Polish Jewish parents, Henri Bluwal, commercial director, and Eda Kamieniecki.

At the time of the great political upheavals, the young Marcel Bluwal discovered the hope of the Popular Front, then the brutal and sudden rise of anti-Semitism. His adolescence was shattered by the Second World War in 1939 and the German occupation. Following the Vel D’Hiv roundup in 1942, his piano teacher hid him with his mother for nearly twenty-seven months in a closed and cramped room.

After the liberation of Paris, Bluwal was admitted to the Technical School of Photo and Cinema on rue de Vaugirard. A few years later, he made his entry into television that he would not give up, except for a few cinematographic attempts (Le Monte-charge in 1962, Carambolages in 1963, The Most Beautiful Country in the world in 1999). For the small screen, he began with the production of children’s programs until 1953, when he staged his first live dramas (Le Pèlerin…).

Success with Vidocq

In 1960, he directed the television film La Surprise, which won the Palme d’Or for television films at the Cannes Film Festival. At that time, he signed with Marcel Moussy a new concept of a social program, which dealt with concrete concerns: Et si c’est vous… Bluwal also decided to assert his taste for the baroque in specially designed films. made for television.

In 1962, he launched the concept of the soap opera with the series Inspector Leclerc investigates, but achieved success in 1967 thanks to the famous series Vidocq.

It also operates in variety with several shows like The Salt Box (from 1956 to 1958), The School of Stars and Discorama. He also directs at the opera and the theater.

In 2008, after 13 years of absence from television, Marcel Bluwal, former traveling companion of the Communist Party, directs the miniseries To the right any devoted to the rise of the extreme right in France during the years 1935-1937 through the formation of the Cagoule, an underground organization which fomented the overthrow of the republic.

DISAPPEARANCE. “There is no reason that television should not cover contemporary events in the form of soap operas.”
Pioneer of television and theater, Marcel Bluwal, emblematic figure of the conservatory of dramatic art in Paris, died on Saturday at the age of 96. pic.twitter.com/gAu1IHHvi1

– Ina.fr (@Inafr_officiel) October 24, 2021

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