“We knew each other, we recognized each other, we lost sight of each other, we lost sight of each other again…” He will forever remain Jim, the French lover of Jeanne Moreau, in Jules and Jim by François Truffaut. Henri Serre died on October 9 in Aveyron, where he had lived in his house in Saint-Jean-de-Bruel for years. He was 92 years old.
This multi-talented artist began his career in the Parisian cabarets of the Left Bank where he formed a singing duo with his stage accomplice Jean-Pierre Suc (1927 – 1960). A perfect interpreter of the New Wave in the eyes of François Truffaut, he worked three times under his direction, in Tire-au-flanc 62 (1961), of course in the famous “whirlwind of life” immortalized by Rezvani’s song, Jules and Jim (1962) and finally Antoine et Colette (1962), where his voice served the narration of the story.
Also read: Jules and Jim, the beautiful age of three
Jules and Jim by François Truffaut in 1962, with Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre…
Henri Serre was born on February 26, 1931 in Sète. Film anthologies will remember that he began his career in 1953 in Femmes de Paris, by Jean Boyer, where he played a small role. Destiny knocked on his door in 1961 when Truffaut entrusted him with the character of his life, the Frenchman Jim, in the cult Jules et Jim. He plays Jeanne Moreau’s lover, while Oskar Werner plays Jules, her husband. The heroine’s indecision in love will give all the flavor to this beautiful feature film. A few months earlier, in Le Combat dans l’île by Alain Cavalier, Henri Serre shared the bill with two other legends of the seventh art, Romy Schneider and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
An actor with a strong personality, Henri Serre worked, during a film career which only ended in 1990, with directors of all genres. We find him in the credits of the sublime Feu Follet (1963) by Louis Malle, Fantômas contre Scotland Yard (1967) by André Hunebelle, Atout coeur à Tokyo for OSS 117 (1966) by Michel Boisrond and Special Section ( 1975) by Costa-Gavras.