Charles Berling

Biography: Charles Berling

Noted for his charismatic presence and his ability to immerse himself in a diverse range of roles, Charles Berling is an actor whose name garners respect and recognition in his native France. Berling first earned acclaim in the theatre, where he was a fixture for many years, before making his film debut in 1993's Salt on Our Skin. Three years later, he earned widespread acclaim for his leading role in Patrice Leconte's Ridicule, in which he starred as an 18th century nobleman who learns to play a delicate and deadly game of wit at the court of Versailles. Born on Tahiti in 1958, Berling studied acting at a Parisian drama school located on la rue Blanche and made his stage debut in 1982. He spent the next decade performing in a large variety of productions and ventured into cinema in the early 1990s. Two of his more memorable early films were Pascale Ferran's Petits Arrangements avec les Morts (1994), which cast him as an entomologist trying to come to terms with memories of his childhood, and Claude Sautet's Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud (1995), in which he played Emmanuelle Béart's boring husband. With the success of Ridicule, for which he earned a Best Actor César nomination (the film won four Césars, including Best Film), Berling became better-known to film audiences and subsequently began working steadily before the camera, often appearing in romantic and/or psychological dramas. One of his rare excursions into all-out comedy was Love, Etc., a 1996 feature that cast him as a ladies' man who becomes infatuated with his best friend's wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Berling, however, has been most effectively cast as a dramatic leading man, as was most notably the case with Nettoyage à sec (1997), in which he and Miou-Miou played a husband and wife whose marriage undergoes an upheaval; Cedric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998), which featured the actor as a man who becomes obsessed with a teenage girl; and Patrice Chéreau's Ceux Qui M'Aiment Prendront le Train, in which he played a gay art historian on his way to an artist's funeral. Berling received César nominations for his work in the first two films, which made him -- thanks to his first César nomination for Ridicule -- one of the few actors to be nominated for the honor three years in a row. In 2000, Berling reteamed with Béart to star in Les Destinées Sentimentales, a period drama by Olivier Assayas; that same year, he headed the cast of Scènes de crimes, a crime thriller directed by Frédéric Schoendoerferr. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide less

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Summer Hours (2008)
Cast: Juliette Binoche Olivier Assayas Charles Berling Marin Karmitz Edith Scob
Tags: Drama Family Drama Ensemble Film
Length: 102min
Three siblings must come to terms with their mother's mortality as they decide what to do with her valuable belongings in this warm family drama from filmmaker Olivier Assayas. Hélène Berthier (Edith Scob) is about to turn 75, and her children are...
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Cycles (2008)
Cast: Miou-Miou Charles Berling Cyril Gelblat Dominique Reymond Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Tags: Drama Family Drama
Length: 89min
A brother and sister face the traumas of middle age while their mother loses her battle with Alzheimer's in this comedy-drama from France. Simon (Charles Berling) is a writer in his mid-forties who is getting his life back on track after a divorce;...
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The Man of My Life (2006)
Cast: Charles Berling Zabou Breitman Bernard Campan Léa Drucker Niels Lexcellent
Tags: Psychological Drama Marriage Drama Drama Gay & Lesbian Films
Length: 114min
A man vacationing in the country with his wife and children finds his sexuality unexpectedly challenged in director Zabou Breitman's intimate drama. Frédéric is a family man who needs a vacation. Upon arriving at his cottage in the country,...
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I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed (2005)
Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud Josiane Balasko Charles Berling Mathieu Amalric Serge Le Péron
Length: 101min
The kidnapping and assassination of Moroccan political activist Mehdi Ben Barka, fictionalized in Yves Boisset's L'Attentat in 1972, gets a more historically accurate treatment in Serge Le Péron's oirish docudrama, the tabloid-headline-titled I Saw...
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L'homme de sa vie (2006)
Cast: Charles Berling Zabou Breitman Bernard Campan
Tags: Drama
Length: 109min
An idyllic family vacation is unexpectedly thrown into jeopardy with the arrival of an amiable visitor whose casual disregard for the family mold causes a notable rift in the once-happy household in director Zabou Breitman's assured sophomore feature....
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Demonlover (2002)
Cast: Olivier Assayas Gina Gershon Connie Nielsen Charles Berling Chloë Sevigny
Tags: Thriller Paranoid Thriller
Length: 130min
French director Olivier Assayas departs from his usual dramas with Demonlover, a wild thriller about corporate intrigue, hardcore sex Internet sites, and Japanese animé. Wealthy French business man Henri-Pierre Volf (Jean-Baptise Malartre) assigns...
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Le Soleil Assassine (2003)
Cast: Charles Berling Jean-Pierre Dardenne Charlie van Damme Jacques Witta Abdelkrim Bahloul
Tags: Drama Political Drama Biopic
Length: 85min
Algerian filmmaker Abdelkrim Bahloul writes and directs the drama The Assassinated Sun, based on actual events in the newly independent Algeria of the 1970s. Following the country's liberation in 1962, the police didn't take kindly to gay poet Jean...
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La Maison de Nina (2005)
Cast: Charles Berling Richard Dembo Agnès Jaoui Sarah Adler Arie Elmaleh
Tags: War Drama Drama Religious Drama
Length: 109min
Richard Dembo's third directorial effort, La Maison De Nina, concerns a group of Jewish children living in an orphanage in Paris at the end of WWII. Soon there is an influx of children at the orphanage whose parents did not survive the concentration...
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Filles Perdues, Cheveux Gras (2002)
Cast: Charles Berling Sergi López Claude Duty Amira Casar Olivia Bonamy
Tags: Comedy
Length: 100min
Claude Duty's feature-length debut Filles Perdues, Cheveux Gras (Hypnotized and Hysterical, (Hairstylist Wanted)) is an offbeat comedy about three women. Elodi (Olivia Bonamy) is a struggling single mother. Natacha (Marina Fois) is an upbeat alcoholic...
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Pere et Fils (2003)
Cast: Philippe Noiret Charles Berling Michel Boujenah Patrick Blossier Marie Tifo
Tags: Reunion Films Drama Family Drama
Length: 97min
Directed by Michel Boujenah, Pere et Fils (Father and Son) centers around retired traveling salesman Leo Serano's (Philippe Noiret) decision to become closer to his three children, albeit late in life. Leo's first son, David (Charles Berling), is a...
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Charles Berling

Biography: Charles Berling

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