Noël Godin, 1945 – 2026

Pie-throwing provocateur Noël Godin, 80, died on Aug. 23. The Belgian comedian, writer, critic, and actor started life being thrown out of church for inventing horrific confessions, then being thrown out of the University of Liège for dumping a glue pot over the head of a professor. He published the magazine Friends of Film, in which he invented both films and film makers (according to Wikipedia, these included “The Vegetables of Good Will, in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive”). Godin acted in films and TV, but his main contribution to society was hurling pies at people he thought took themselves too seriously (gosh, could we use him in the US! I have a little list, they’d none of them be missed . . .). His targets were generally politicians, directors, journalists and writers, most unknown in the US—though some of his more famous targets were Jean-Luc Godard, Marguerite Duras, Jean Delannoy, Bill Gates, and Nicolas Sarkozy; his favorite target was philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, whose furious reactions only spurred future pie-throwings. Godin noted that “The first five seconds after the delivery of a pie offer a stark revelation of a victim's real character.” His autobiography, Cream and Punishment, was published in 1995.