#Dix pour cent

[bellucci-daily]

It's funny, you look like Monica Bellucci. You do look like her. But… what an idiot! She seems so fake. I saw her in an interview, it was a disaster! She has nothing to say.

Monica Bellucci as herself in Dix Pour Cent, 2015

[a-different-stroke]

Open Pinch Hit -- French

If you can and want to take up any of these fandoms, please contact us:

Dix pour cent | Call My Agent! (TV): Andréa Martel/Camille Valentini (Dix pour cent)

Rien à Foutre | Zero Fucks Given (2021): any

Star Trek: The Next Generation & Star Trek: Picard: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, Beverly Crusher/Deanna Troi, William Riker/Deanna Troi, Jean-Luc Picard/Q Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine, Laris/Jean-Luc Picard, Beverly Crusher/Laris/Jean-Luc Picard, Raffi Musiker & Cristóbal Rios

For All Mankind (TV 2019): Margo Madison/Aleida Rosales (For All Mankind), Margo Madison/Sergei Nikulov (For All Mankind), Margo Madison & Aleida Rosales (For All Mankind)

[mywingsareonwheels]

OKAY grammatical feelings about Falstaff&Hal and Thursday&Morse

“I know thee not, old man.”

As any gnarled, middle-aged one-time English literature graduate knows, “thee/thou/thy/thine” is the now lost English equivalent of “tu/toi” etc. in French, and other informal+singular second person pronouns in any number of languages. In English we now use “you” for everyone, which was originally the formal and/or plural one.

It’s quite a recent loss, actually. As in, its continuing use in parts of rural Yorkshire etc. was still a thing in living memory. If you’ve ever watched The Last of the Summer Wine you may note that Compo uses “thee/thou” at times. But I digress.

[oh this got a bit long. ;-) Cut for length and spoilers for series 9 of Endeavour. Also content-warning for a bit of fatphobia in a quotation from Henry IV part 2.]

One of the things I find fascinating when reading Shakespeare and his contemporaries is when characters switch between “you” and “thou”. Sometimes it’s desperately moving - that moment when Benedick first uses “thou” for Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing is... fuck. Done right it’s an absolutely fizzing moment even now. That sudden intimacy.

I’m currently making a much more concerted effort to revive my French at the moment, and there was a moment in an episode of Dix Pour Cent I was watching earlier where a character suddenly switched from saying “vous” to “tu” to another character, and I went back to rewatch it with the French subtitles because I was sure I’d heard it, and I had. The English subtitles added a “darling” to give that moment its full impact. It was huge.

So to the Henry IV plays. Hal’s been using “thou” for Falstaff much of the two plays, and vice versa. Strictly speaking as Hal is the heir to the throne and Falstaff is just a knight (and a pretty rubbish one at that) Hal has the right to “thou” him in a higher-status-to-lower kind of a way anyway, but that’s not how he uses it, and Falstaff “thou”ing him, and Hal letting him? It shows the closeness of their friendship and quasi father-and-son relationship, however fraught it frequently is. It’s also worth noting that some of Falstaff’s friends also have been known to use “thou” for Hal (including Pistol).

But we’ve also known since early in Henry IV part 1 and *boy* do we continue to get hints, that once Hal is crowned, he’s going to chuck Falstaff and the others for good.

So here’s the newly-crowned King Henry V (formerly Hal, now King in this text which I just nabbed from the Folger library website) being greeted by Falstaff and Pistol. [NB: This is the bit with the fatphobia I warned for above]

* * * * * * * * *

[Enter the King and his train.] FALSTAFF: God save thy Grace, King Hal, my royal Hal. PISTOL: The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! FALSTAFF: God save thee, my sweet boy! KING: My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man. CHIEF JUSTICE, to Falstaff: Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak? FALSTAFF, to the King: My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart! KING: I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester. I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane; But being awaked, I do despise my dream.

* * * * * * * *

And he continues in that vein for about another twenty lines, during which Falstaff’s heart completely breaks.

It’s usual for Hal/the King to not exactly be on happy form himself. Alex Hassell, in the RSC version with Antony Sher as Falstaff, pretty much delivers those lines as one enormous panic attack. He’s even more immediately devastated than Sher’s Falstaff, who seems to be fending off his misery with denial. Jamie Parker’s Hal in the Globe production with Roger Allam as Falstaff is slightly less broken but not much less; Allam’s Falstaff just fricking falls apart before our eyes.

(Darn actor allusions in Endeavour. [sniffs])

Anyway. This brings me to Morse.

Thursday isn’t Falstaff. Yes, he’s arguably a father figure for Morse, and loves him. And in this moment Morse is at least considering rejecting him once and for all, with good reason. But Falstaff’s a consistently terrible person (not for any of the reasons Hal gives in that desperately painful speech, I more mean things like cheerfully accepting bribes leading to the deaths in battle of impoverished men he was meant to be leading and barely being sorry about it); Thursday is a mostly good but flawed and traumatised person who has made a series of massive fuck-ups under extreme pressure. Rather different.

And Morse and Hal use that phrase “I know thee not old man” so differently. Hal can’t know Falstaff any more and be the king he wants to be. It’s an absolute rejection.

Morse quotes Hal but does so more literally: he doesn’t know Thursday any more. There’s the potential for rejection there, but mostly he’s feeling lost and wants Thursday to help him understand why he did what he did.

Both these pairs part permanently. But with Hal and Falstaff it’s entirely tragic; with Morse and Thursday more bittersweet, as in the end they do part as friends, still clearly loving each other.

But here also is the thing:-

Is Hal saying “I know thee not, old man” just because he has the right in the stupid classist society in which he lives to “thee” an elderly knight in some contempt because he’s the king? Or is he falling back on the habit of using “thee” for him? Or is he expressing an absolute contradiction in terms, deploying the informality of closeness? Of “I don’t know you, friend”.

Morse knows his Shakespeare, and I can’t believe that with his language skills he wouldn’t be aware of what “thee” means. And Morse isn’t Thursday’s boss let alone king, even if they’re no longer inspector and bagman.

So when Morse says “I know thee not, old man”... it’s absolutely that contradiction. Denying and acknowledging understanding and closeness in the same breath. It’s very Morse. It’s very them. Ow.

Oh. Here���s another thought:-

Within the timescale of Shakespeare’s history plays (which are rather more conflated than actual history), Falstaff’s dead within a year, specifically of the broken heart that Hal gives him in the scene I quote above. It’s reported early on in the play Henry V. You know, the one which Falstaff isn’t in, that follows Hal’s later career...

If Morse and Thursday hadn’t made up to the extent that they do... would the same thing have happened to Thursday? Would Morse have accidentally cursed him, really making him his Falstaff? :-/ I mean, if Thursday had been arrested then obviously he would have died soon after one way or another, I think that’s plain for various reasons. But I mean, if Morse had still protected Thursday but they had parted in the heat of the pain and bitterness Morse betrays in that line, without the softening and love that’s apparent in their final scene together? We’re talking about a show that does stray into fantasy at times, after all.

[realizerealeyes-real-lies]

Camille Cottin, the woman that you are

Camille Cottin 📸 by Luc Braquet for Madame Figaro

August 2023

[ezra-returns]

entering my call my agent era, here's a camille cottin appreciation post

let's see how long this lasts lmao

[chanelbagsandcigarettedrags]

Call My Agent, Season 1 Episode 6

[space-sheep08]

in a perfect world they would have had hateful gay sex absolutely ruining the life of everyone around them

[gabesloves93]

INDIE Magazine, 2024.

[johnlockdynamic]

[callmyagentfrench]

| Il aurait avalé une guêpe.

| He is said to have swallowed a wasp.

[benkenobee]

Currently watching the fourth adaptation of Dix pour cent and it's an absolute trip for me to see how each country spins the original. It's giving real life fanfic AU. I love it.

[wilda2015]

[lovelockscreen]

Wallpaper/Lockscreen Dix Pour Cent

Pedido para/request to: @lithiumilkshake

[mywingsareonwheels]

Why is my character smug? (a meme I wish to encourage others to share in...)

Endeavour edition:

E. Morse: I have solved a crime using classical music, historical, and/or literary references, and made an arrogant don look silly.

Fred Thursday: I have contributed to solving a crime using my knowledge of Italian, natural history, and/or poetry, thus subverting class-based expectations. And/or Morse has done something clever. And/or something bad has happened to a fascist.

 Dr Max DeBryn: I just made an even better one-liner than usual. I have also mildly grossed out Morse. And I am still the best-dressed person in Oxford.

Peter Jakes: Do I need a reason? Tsk.

Joan Thursday: I have made one of my father’s detective’s ears go red. And I stole the last truffle. And I’m able to do much more good as a social worker than the police detectives I am entirely surrounded by.

Reginald Bright: someone underestimated me and my team, and they now greatly regret this.

Shirley Trewlove: I am yet again the most competent person in Oxford. I would be more smug if anyone outside my immediate team actually recognised this...

Some other characters I love edition:

Mathias Barneville: I have fixed something for the company in a way that personally advantages me and makes my colleagues look foolish. I deny that I now feel physically unwell.

Douglas Richardson: I have fixed something for the company in a way that makes me look terrific and I am now eating the majority of the cheese tray. I deny that I am also now basking in a team-dad glow.

Carolyn Knapp-Shappey: Douglas saved the day but then had to admit that he was wrong about something. This is going to make me happy for weeks.

Aziraphale: *beams enigmatically*

Sam Gamgee: I made stew in the middle of the wilderness. It’s delicious.

Elena Alvarez: some excellent social and environmental justice success has occurred. *does victory dance*

Uncle Newt: well, since you asked me for a tale about why I am smug...

So, anyone who has read this: why is *your* comfort character smug? :D

[realizerealeyes-real-lies]

Good morning to Camille Cottin, and Camille Cottin only

[ezra-returns]

I FORGOT THERE WAS A UK ONE TOO please just let me enjoy my gay french alcoholics in peace