Michel Subor (French pronunciation:[miʃɛlsybɔʁ], born Mischa Subotzki; 2 February 1935 – 17 January 2022) was a French actor who gained initial fame with the starring role in Jean-Luc Godard's second feature, Le petit soldat (1960), but the French government banned it until 1963 because of its political content, touching on terrorism during the undeclared Algerian War. He acted in a couple of American films in the late 1960s including the role of Claude Jade's husband in Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz. In 1999, he once again played Forestier in Beau Travail, a highly praised variation of Billy Budd, directed by Claire Denis. He continued to work with her.
Early life and education
He was born as Mischa Subotzki in France in 1935, to anti-Bolshevik parents from the Soviet Union who had immigrated a few years earlier. His father was an engineer in Moscow, and his mother was born in Azerbaijan. Michel Subor has a sister who moved to the United States as an adult.[1]
Career
His career started with small roles in Frou-Frou (1955) and Un drôle de dimanche (1958), followed by playing Roger Hanin's son in Mon pote le gitan (1959).[2] His first leading role came by playing the lover of Brigitte Bardot's character in La Bride sur le Cou (1961). The year before he had completed Subor's most important early role as Bruno Forestier, a French deserter in Geneva in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Petit Soldat (1960), set against terrorist acts in France and Switzerland during the guerre sans nom of the Algerian War. The film starred Anna Karina in her debut. Due to its politically sensitive content, the French government banned its release until 1963, after the end of the war. A new print was released in 2012.[3] The critic Roger Ebert wrote that "Godard, in 1960, making a film about the Algerian War, was portraying the sort of intellectual and moral confusion that good men have when they confront senseless events."[4]
In 2005 Jacques Mandelbaum described Subor in Le Monde as one of the greatest actors in French cinema, but said that his roles in the 1960s and 1970s were not "as favorable, ambiguous, fascinating as the Little Soldier."[1]
Subor worked with the director Paul Gégauff, in The Reflux (1965), adapted from a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. But the producer had not acquired the rights and the film was left unfinished in 1965.[1] Subor was also cast in American films, appearing in Clive Donner's comedy What's New Pussycat? (1965) as the lover Philippe. In 1968/69 he starred in Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz (1969), featured as the journalist François Picard, the husband of the character played by Claude Jade. Hitchcock changed Subor's role and let François Picard survive the assassination attempt from the novel, so he returns wounded ("I've been shot, just a little") into Claude Jade's arms.
That year's renewal of Subor's career included a role in Claire Denis's Beau Travail, as a Foreign Legion captain named Bruno Forestier. (Denis named his character after the role he played in the Godard film.) Denis' variation of Billy Budd, set in Djibouti on the Red Sea, received high praise.[5] The next year he was in Wild Innocence (2000) directed by Philippe Garrel.[1]
Subor has since worked with Denis on other films, including The Intruder (2005).[6] She said of him: "Michel Subor is not a celebrity in L'Intrus; he is the intruder." ("Sur le plateau de L'Intrus, il a captivé tout le monde, mais personne n'a voulu percer son mystère. Michel Sobor n'est pas le personnage de L'Intrus, il est L'Intrus.")[1] He also had a major role in her White Material in 2009, which was set in an unnamed country in Africa.
Personal life and death
Subor died in a traffic collision in Toulouse on 17 January 2022, at the age of 86.[7]
^Roger Ebert, "'Le Petit Soldat'", Chicago Sun-Times, 1 March 1960 (1969, according to references in the article), hosted at Roger Ebert.com, accessed 22 June 2013
