The guest diva in Rome of the Rendez-Vous, the French film festival. In “Mon crime” by Ozon she is a former silent star: “Comedy is a feminist manifesto”
«Oui, je suis Isabelle Huppert». An endless filmography, a continuously updated catalog of international auteur cinema, a parallel career in the theater with the greatest (on stage at the Espace Cardin in Paris until 14 May with Mary Said What She Said by Bob Wilson). She is the reigning empress of French cinema. About her We needed François Ozon to make her sensational even in the most improbable role of her: a poor actress, on the boulevard of sunset, vulgar and foul-mouthed. A paradox. It happens in My crime. I’m the culprit (in theaters with Bim on April 25) the comedy based on the 1934 play by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil. In Paris in the 1930s, the actress Madeleine Verdier (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) is accused of murdering a powerful producer. With the help of her lawyer and best friend Pauline (Rebecca Marder), she is acquitted in self-defense. Huppert is Odette Chaumette, star on sunset avenue, who claims to be the perpetrator of the crime. The character, in the original version, was a man. «I kept the male dialogues with a carter’s vocabulary. She who is the icon of the intellectual and chic actress, lent herself to the game. She is not afraid of anything, not even ridicule», maintains Ozon.
The interested party, guest of honor in Rome at the Rendez-Vous 2023, the French film festival, is not upset. «But no, what a paradox. Of Odette I loved the way she spoke, in bursts. All the characters in the film are flaws, apart from the two young girls: François’ idea was to update the text by making it a sort of feminist manifesto. I didn’t think about the psychology of my character who in reality is hardly a feminist». What matters to her, she insists, «are the encounters with directors and directors, actors and actresses that I admire, that I find interesting or innovative, the artistic alchemy that can arise from them. Whether it’s masters or lesser-known names or young newcomers». He is not the type to consider the profession in terms of challenges, aware of the greatness of him – when he says, «I prefer big roles and big directors», suggests that they become so also thanks to her, just as happened to Ozon who reached the consecration twenty years ago thanks to 8 women and a mystery, in which he directed it for the first time — but, he says, there is one that tempts him. “But yes, let’s say it: it would be quite a challenge to play a man». Not that the women he has embodied, he says, have ever been less than interesting. “I’ve always found my space. It seems positive to me that the Me too movement has led to a collective awareness and a reaction regarding what women have suffered or continue to suffer. I’ve never met an abusive producer like the one from my crime».
As for the evolution of female characters in cinema, it’s not certain, she warns, that the key to change is not writing strong or successful female roles for actresses. «We risk a new cliché. What matters is that they leave their mark, like what I recite de
The trade unionist by Jean-Paul Salomé». The film presented at Venice 79 in Orizzonti (in theaters in November with I Wonder Pictures), is a portrait of the real Maureen Kearney trade unionist at the nuclear power plant of a French multinational, who after months of fighting to defend her colleagues and report a scandal was assaulted, tied up and brutalized in her home. «She fascinated me because of her, she interested me because of her fragility and complexity. She is a woman who tries to use her power to save many jobs and does so by paying a very high price ». A very current role, with the streets of France in turmoil. «You have just been elected a woman (Sophie Binet, ndr) at the head of the CGT, one of the most important trade unions. We’ll hear about it.”
April 1, 2023 (change April 1, 2023 | 21:11)
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