http://film.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/0,,2140865,00.html
I was watching yet another comedy last night; it was La Cage Aux Folles yet again, when I belatedly learned of the recent death of the actor Michel Serrault. The film must have been made nearly 30 years ago.
Renato, the butch Italian manager of La Cage Aux Folles, a gay cabaret in St. Tropez, and his French partner of twenty years, Albin who is the club’s starring drag/drama queen, endeavour to pass themselves off for one evening as an Italian cultural attaché and his wife. This is because Renato has a son who wants to marry the daughter of a well-known right wing politician, a Deputy.
As in many partnerships, when there is a disagreement, there follows a competition to be "right". Renato, it seems, likes to give good advice, but doesn't know when to stop. In this scene, they go into a working-class bar along the street to compose themselves after a tiff. They pass straight through the bar to sit alone in an empty back room and I have always loved the ensuing low-budget scene in which the butch Renato tells the effeminate Albin how to butter his toast like a real man. This quickly becomes a duet of stereotypical camp gestures and posturing.
As in many partnerships, when there is a disagreement, there follows a competition to be "right". Renato, it seems, likes to give good advice, but doesn't know when to stop. In this scene, they go into a working-class bar along the street to compose themselves after a tiff. They pass straight through the bar to sit alone in an empty back room and I have always loved the ensuing low-budget scene in which the butch Renato tells the effeminate Albin how to butter his toast like a real man. This quickly becomes a duet of stereotypical camp gestures and posturing.
