ALL ABOUT YVES: THE MELLOWING OF MONTAND

For Yves Montand, life, art and politics are inextricably linked.

“You cannot separate your songs or your movies from real life,” said the 66-year-old performer, here for the benefit premiere of his latest movie, “Jean de Florette.”

The film by French director Claude Berri, was given its American premiere at Lincoln Center Monday night as a benefit for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). (“Jean de Florette” opens at the Royal in West Los Angeles on July 10.)

“We in show business are often linked to benefits like this, but we need a lot of money for (AIDS) research, and until we get enough money, this (kind of support by those in show business) is a good thing,” said Montand, following the premiere screening. Diverting from the cause only long enough “to think for one moment of Fred Astaire,” who died in Los Angeles earlier Monday, Montand told the capacity audience of more than 1,000 at Alice Tully Hall: “We must also ask our governments to give more and more money to fight this terrible disease.”

The benefit marked the first major AIDS fund-raiser for the film industry here and drew such New York-based film stars as Richard Gere, Glenn Close and Bill Murray, as well as directors, producers and others in the film community.

Expected to raise $75,000 and sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Orion Classics and AmFAR, the event included the American premiere of “Jean de Florette,” and its sequel, “Manon of the Spring,” a cocktail reception and a supper.

Earlier in the day, Montand sat in his Fifth Avenue hotel suite discussing his two latest films; global politics; aging, and life without Simone Signoret, his wife of 36 years who died in 1985 while Montand was in the midst of shooting the Berri films. The years showed in Montand’s thickening body and in the softness of his face, but the Italian-born actor who rose from obscure poverty to become something of a symbol of French character still looked years younger than his latest on-screen character. And he was not--as he put it--”nearly so nasty.”

In Berri’s films, Montand plays Cesar Soubeyran, an aging, imperious patriarch of a powerful Provencal family, who plots to buy land containing a natural source of water away from an idealistic innocent, played in “Jean de Florette” by Gerard Depardieu. Since Depardieu’s character also happens to be hunchbacked, he also becomes the victim of local prejudice. The film’s sequel, due to be released in this country next Christmas, focuses on Depardieu’s grown daughter and on the tragic consequences of the Soubeyrans’ scheming.

“I think it’s a wonderful story with a universal point of view, about people who are simple--not simplistic,” said Montand, speaking measured English through his thick French accent. “But it’s what’s behind the story that interests me. . . the silent conspiracy of the village that shows what people are capable of doing for something so important as water,” he said. Everyone, including himself, is capable of going to great lengths to reach dishonorable ends, he suggested. “Of course, the (films’) characters play a heavy price,” he added.

Montand acknowledged that he initially rejected Berri’s offer to play the role of Soubeyran because of the character’s age--despite what he described as his affinity for the character’s peasant roots and his familiarity with the story based on the 1960s novels by his old friend Marcel Pagnol--Pagnol was a witness to his 1951 marriage to Signoret.

“I was in contradiction with myself,” Montand said, noting that at the time he was in the midst of a successful solo concert tour of Europe and this country and filled with the vigor as well as the vanity of youth.

“I said to Simone, ‘I don’t want to play an old man . . . time is going to kill me anyway, and I don’t want to present an image of what I may be in 15 or 20 years,’ ” he recalled. “She said, ‘Don’t be afraid to play an old person. . . . it’s not you, it’s another person,’ and that made good sense, of course. But it’s like looking in the mirror in the morning . . . you’d like to look in (better) shape.”

Montand seemed ambivalent about aging. One’s “feelings”--not one’s age--measure “real youth,” he said, brushing aside a suggestion about returning to the concert stage or making more films (he already has made 55). Montand’s romantic life has stirred as much attention as his public and professional life. In addition to Signoret, the spotlight has been focused on his relationships with Edith Piaf, with whom he made his 1945 film debut in “Star Without Light,” and Marilyn Monroe, with whom he made one of his few Hollywood films, “Let’s Make Love” in 1960. However, he seemed reluctant to talk about his romantic attachments.

“Many men make the mistake of thinking that if a young girl comes to you it’s because you look young, but it’s because she’s interested in the person you are and in your feelings,” he said, impatiently.

Montand was less indirect about his feelings for Signoret and the couple’s much-publicized political views and activities during the post-World War II years in Paris when they were part of a group of left-leaning intellectuals and artists that included Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus; or the McCarthy period of the ‘50s when they were barred from entering the United States to work on stage or screen; or during the ‘60s when they joined protests against French involvement in the Vietnam and Algerian wars.

“I cannot really talk about that,” Montand said softly, referring to Signoret’s death. But he did say he could hear Signoret and his late father and mother saying, ‘Come on, Montand, swim . . . think of us from time to time, but go on swimming.’ It’s the law,” said Montand. “In the deepest sorrow, you either kill yourself, or you keep on swimming,”

Montand’s mood shifted from sad serenity to angry indignation when he talked about his lifelong involvement in politics. He has been accused of betraying his friends on the left by some publications for his staunch anti-Soviet views. Those views have captured so much attention in France that he has been mentioned as a possible candidate for president.

Montand said he harbors no ambition to be president of France, or to attain any other post that could be gained by remaining in the political limelight. “I don’t give a damn about glory. . . . I’ve got enough glory. I don’t do anything for my own interests. . . . I’ve got plenty of money,” he said.

“I’ve been involved in politics since I was 11 and needed to falsify working papers in order to get a job in a factory,” said Montand, pointing out that “politics came to me.”

“I had to take positions, not because I was an actor but because I am a human being,” he said, pointing out that his positions have not changed so much as the world has changed. He passionately described his witness to the growth of fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany and France and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, as well as his own involvement in the politics of the Cold War and Vietnam eras.

“It’s the difference between thinking your own particular political family is right and everybody else is bad. If you continue to think this way, as so many of us have, you are a blind, cheating, dangerous man.”

He said he has no regrets for the political activities of the past, nor for some of his best-known, more political films, including those held in great esteem by the left, such as Costa-Gavras’ “Z,” and “State of Siege.” But he expressed the view that “the left tries to protect its identity.” He cited a line from novelist Graham Greene: “I try to understand truth, even should it compromise my ideology.” As he paced his hotel, his expansive, expressive body flailing with passion, he said his strong anti-Soviet fervor stems from opposition to policies of the Soviet Union from the Stalinist era to the present, most notably the invasion of Afghanistan: “It’s not a matter of philosophy, it’s a matter of good common sense and the need to protect democracy and to survive.

“I defend democracy because it’s the least worst system in the world,” he said, noting that he is still at odds with conservative social policies. “The struggle for freedom and justice never ends, but this means something. . . . it means we need to fight for and defend democracy.”

“Right now, what I’d like to do is take a long rest,” he added, calmly. “But I turn on the TV news, and I have to become involved. I don’t have a solution, and I don’t any longer trust anyone who says he has the key to the future . . . but we have to try to find a way.”