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Stars and Stardom in French Cinema
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Stars and Stardom
in French Cinema
Ginette Vincendeau
CONTINUUM
London and New York
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© Ginette Vincendeau 2000
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First published 2000
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-8264-4730-9 (hardback)

0-8264-4731-7 (paperback)
Typeset by BookEns Ltd, Royston, Herts

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Preface vii
Conventions xii
Chapter 1 The French Star System 1

Chapter 2 Max Linden the world's first film star 42
Chapter 3 Jean Gabin: from working-class hero to godfather 59
Chapter 4 Brigitte Bardot: the old and the new:
what Bardot meant to 1950s France 82
Chapter 5 Jeanne Moreau and the Actresses of the
New Wave: New Wave, new stars 110
Chapter 6 Louis de Funes: le gendarme et les dnephiles 136
Chapter 7 Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon:
one smiles, the other doesn't 158
Chapter 8 Catherine Deneuve: from ice maiden to living
divinity 196
Chapter 9 Gerard Depardieu: the axiom of contemporary
French cinema 215
Chapter 10 Juliette Binoche: the face of neo-romanticism 241
Bibliography 253
Index 263
v
Acknowledgements
Many friends, family and colleagues have helped me by sharing

opinions, passing on tapes, press cuttings and other material related to
French stars and French cinema. My gratitude first of all goes to Jean-
Louis, Odette and Raymond Vincendeau, to Sophie and Guy Delanoue,
to Simon Caulkin and to Peter Graham, who all helped generously and
above all who love French stars as much as I do.
Thanks also to my colleagues at Warwick, and in particular Jose
Arroyo, Charlotte Brunsdon, Erica Carter, Richard Dyer, Ed Gallafent,
Elaine Lenton, Jim Penn, Richard Perkins, Victor Perkins, and Neill Potts.
I am also grateful to Isabelle de Courtivron, Christian Delanoue, Susan
Hayward, Laurent Marie, Michel Marie, Giorgio Marini, Alison
McMahan, Eliane Meyer, Alastair Phillips and Genevieve Sellier. I also
want to thank my students for their enthusiastic and astute response to
many of the stars and films discussed in this book.
Very special thanks to Valerie Orpen for her accurate and cheerful
research skills and to Simon Caulkin for everything.
VI
Preface
In most people's view, 'stars' means 'Hollywood stars'. Fan magazines

give them pride of place, as do posters, biographies and illustrated
books. A critics' poll published by The Guardian on 10 March 1995
reveals the same bias: only Jeanne Moreau and Anna Magnani out of the
top ten women, and Jean Gabin and Gerard Depardieu out of the top ten
men, owe their fame to non-English-language films. In academic film
studies, Richard Dyer's seminal book Stars (1979a) and his subsequent
Heavenly Bodies (1987), Christine Gledhill's collection Stardom: Industry of
Desire (1991) and Jackie Stacey's study of stars' reception, Star Gazing
(1994), along with many other star studies, are also devoted
overwhelmingly to Hollywood, as was earlier, and more surprisingly,
Edgar Morin's 1957 French book Les Stars.
The supremacy of Hollywood stars is evident, including in France,
where it is betrayed by the use of the English word 'star' (which came
into use in the 1920s), as in the title of Morin's book. Nevertheless, the
marginalization of French stars in popular and academic star studies is
odd, given that the French film industry has fostered the most
substantial and historically continuous line of stars to achieve world
fame in their national films. Max Linder, Jean Gabin, Gerard Philipe,
Simone Signoret, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon, Jean-
Paul Belmondo, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani,
Gerard Depardieu and Juliette Binoche, among others, are known
internationally for their French films, as opposed to other non-American
stars who became famous by emigrating to Hollywood - from Greta
VII
viii Preface
Garbo to Jean-Claude Van Damme - or to British and Australian stars

who transcend national boundaries through the English language, such as
Mel Gibson, Sean Connery and Daniel Day-Lewis. Although constrained
by the poor international distribution of French films and the
discrimination against 'foreign-language' films in international awards,
the prominence of French stars is commensurate with the strength of the
French film industry (by European standards) and the importance of the
cinema in French culture. Recognizing that British stars achieve
international success 'on the back of the Hollywood exposure and
Academy Award success', Angus Finney observes that 'France is the only
other European country that has a star system, and it is far less dependent
on Hollywood than the UK's' (Finney, 1996, pp. 62—3).
This book is about French film stars, as a general phenomenon (explored

in Chapter 1) and as individuals, examined in case studies of major stars.
Simply put, by stars I mean celebrated film performers who develop a
'persona' or 'myth', composed of an amalgam of their screen image and
private identities, which the audience recognizes and expects from film
to film, and which in turn determines the parts they play. The star's
persona is a commodity, positioning the performer and his/her work in
the market-place and attracting finance: the name in huge letters on the
posters and the marquee. The importance of stars is economic, cultural
and ideological: those treated in this book have profoundly shaped
French cinema, determining narratives and acting as valuable commod-
ities for the industry in the domestic market and abroad. They have also
had a great impact on French culture (and sometimes, as in the case of
Brigitte Bardot, other cultures), by embodying and 'authenticating' (Dyer
1979a) diverse human types at specific historical moments: Linder's pre-
World War I bourgeois dandy; Cabin's tragic working-class hero in the
1930s; Bardot's insolent 'sex kitten' in the 1950s; de Funes's
cantankerous gendarme in the 1960s. By major stars I mean those
singled out over the years by the magnitude of their box-office success
and cultural resonance. Based on the above criteria, I posit an 'A-list' of
French stars, many of whom are examined in this book: Max Linder, Jean
Gabin, Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Louis de
Preface ix
Funes, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Gerard Depardieu and Juliette

Binoche.
If my choice of Gabin, Bardot, Moreau, Deneuve, Delon, Belmondo,
Depardieu is unsurprising, the inclusion of Under and de Funes requires
a little explanation. Before World War I, Linder was the most famous
international screen actor. Indeed, I argue that he was the first real star of
world cinema. But, while early cinema historians acknowledge his
importance, he has dropped out of mainstream film history and certainly
out of star studies. Since the study of early French cinema remains a
'specialist' territory, even recent accounts of the origins of stardom
ascribe it to Hollywood, ignoring Linder's precedent. Louis de Funes
points to a more nationally bound oblivion. He is statistically the most
successful French star at the post-war French box-office, and yet is
systematically derided or ignored by critics and historians. In both cases,
a reassessment is needed.
Two other chapters in this book require a brief comment. Chapter 5
approaches the stars of the New Wave as a group. This is because,
contrary to the basis of film stardom in 'triumphant individualism' (Dyer,
1979a, p. 102), the New Wave developed a new kind of 'collective'
stardom, even if two of the people concerned — Belmondo and Moreau —
subsequently developed individual careers. Finally, although Juliette
Binoche lacks the longevity of the other names on my A-list, the
substantial first fifteen years of her career allow me to trace the legacy of
New Wave stardom on contemporary French cinema, and to chart the
increased internationalization of French stars in the 1990s.
In choosing a relatively small number of stars to study individually, my

aim was to go for depth and detail rather than coverage. I am aware that,
like all selections, mine is bound to surprise or even annoy some readers.
Simone Signoret, Martine Carol, Michele Morgan, Gerard Philipe,
Michel Simon, Jean Marais, Annie Girardot, Fernandel, Bourvil, Raimu,
Isabelle Huppert and Isabelle Adjani are contenders for the A-list, as are
Micheline Presle, Danielle Darrieux, Maurice Chevalier, Lino Ventura
and Yves Montand. Others will point to the wonderful Arletty and to
fascinating maverick figures such as Musidora and Josephine Baker, and
to art cinema stars like Anouk Aimee and Delphine Seyrig. There is
x Preface
indeed scope for further study of French stars - including in France,

where the lesser impact of cultural studies and the dominance of auteur
and aesthetic studies means that stars are not considered a worthy object
for serious analysis, so that critical writing on stars is relegated chiefly to
biographical, impressionistic and illustrated material. Hearteningly, more
analytical work on French stars is beginning to appear in English — in
particular, Alastair Phillips (1998) on Carol, Susan Hayward on Signoret
and Carrie Tarr on Presle (both in Sieglohr, 2000), and Vicky Callaghan
(1999) on Musidora.
Typical of French resistance to analytical star studies is Bernard
Chardere's preface to Raymond Chirat and Olivier Barrot's book on
French character actors Les Excentriques du cinema francais. Chardere
erects a false dichotomy between appreciating stars and popular cinema,
on the one hand, and academic film studies, on the other hand, to the
detriment of the latter. He would, he says, give up the whole of '[Ropars-]
Wuilleumier, Bellour and Metz' in exchange for popular films and stars
'close to the popular heart' (Chirat and Barrot, 1983, p. 8). Personally, I
can't see why we can't have both. My aim in this book is to provide a
'serious' look at a number of important French stars, but also, I hope, to
convey the pleasure I and millions of others have in watching and
listening to them. Without exception, the stars in this book make even
mediocre films worth watching. In their best films they are brilliant.
My work is informed by the methodologies developed in Anglo-
American film studies over the last twenty years, and it broadly falls
within a socio-cultural approach to film history. In this, Richard Dyer's
work has been seminal. Indeed, he single-handedly created 'star studies'
(although Morin's work, in a less theoretical way, was also insightful).
Since this field, though mostly restricted to Hollywood stars, is now
sufficiently developed, there is no need to rehearse its basic tenets,
although, where appropriate, I discuss and modify them. In my analyses
of individual stars, I call upon the three broad types of material that
make up film stardom: the stars' performance in the films themselves;
trade promotion and publicity; and commentaries/criticism (in French
and in English) - but the films themselves are always central. I aim to
describe and analyse the performance and type of characters played by
these key French stars, as well as their importance in the culture. Their
private lives are examined only in so far as they form part of their
Preface xi
'persona'. In other words, I am not trying to discover the 'true' person

behind the star, but am interested in how the perceived authentic
individual informs the star's image. While I use critical paradigms
developed in the UK and the USA, my concern is to show the French
specificity of the stars studied. There is a long way to go before the
American bias of star studies is redressed. Fortunately, this will give me
and others the excuse and the pleasure of studying and celebrating the
great stars of French cinema for some time to come.
Note
This book is the result of a long-standing interest in French stars. Earlier

parts of some chapters have been published previously: on Gabin in
Anatomie d'un my the: Jean Gabin (Gauteur and Vincendeau, 1993); on
Bardot in Paragraph, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1992; on Moreau in Sight and Sound,
December 1998; on Deneuve in Sight and Sound, April 1993; on
Depardieu in Screen, Autumn 1993; on Binoche in Sight and Sound,
December 1993. All these, however, were substantially updated,
expanded and rewritten for this book. Material on the star system,
Max Linder, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon and Louis de Funes
appears for the first time, as does the material on stars of the New Wave.
Conventions
Each chapter is followed by a filmography of the star studied and I have
tried not to burden the text by too many dates and translations. English-
language release titles are indicated in the filmography. Where
necessary, I have translated some film titles within the text.
Filmographies
The year of release is indicated whenever possible.
The name of the director is indicated after the title in parentheses.
Example: 1956 Les Comediennes (Andre Hunnebelle)
Where appropriate, an English-language release title or English
translation is indicated after the original title, separated with a slash.
Example: 1983 Le Marginal/The Outsider (Jacques Deray)
All films are fiction features unless otherwise indicated in brackets
[short; ep. — episode; doc — documentary; TV = television].
Example: 1961 Les Parisiennes [ep. 'Sophie'] (Marc Allegret)
The country of production is France unless otherwise indicated.
Example: 1964 Repulsion (Roman Polanski, UK)
If the film has an alternative title, this is also indicated in brackets after
the original title.
Example: 1959 A double tour/Web of Passion [A doppia mandata] (Claude
Chabrol, France/Italy)
Citations
The 'Harvard' system of citation has been used, whereby a brief reference
to the cited book's author, date and, where appropriate, page numbers is
given in parentheses, and the full references are listed alphabetically at the
end of the book. Most references to periodicals, on the other hand, are
listed in the notes, which are found at the end of each chapter.
Translations
Quotations from written material or film dialogues in French are all
mine, unless an English-language source is credited.
xii
CHAPTER 1
The French Star System
'I use stars to make my cinema more effective ... My films are better
with stars than without.'
Jean-Pierre Melville1
There are many French film stars, but is there a French 'star system'? No,
if by this is meant the highly organized management of stars developed
by the American studios in the classical period or the Rank stable of
British stars and starlets of the 1950s. But yes, in the sense that stars are
crucial to the economy of French cinema: most mainstream films feature
stars who in turn organize its narrative hierarchy and publicity. Rene
Chateau, once Belmondo's publicity manager, said, 'I am for the "star
system" and I believe in the impact of Jean-Paul Belmondo's head in
close-up (which was my choice for the posters of Flic ou voyou and Le
Professionnel).' 2France has a star system by virtue of the number of major
film stars in activity, the length of their filmographies and the discursive
production that exists around them: press, radio and television coverage,
award ceremonies (the Cesars) and festivals, especially Cannes. Yes, also,
in terms of the glamour internationally associated with French stars -
from Max Linder to Juliette Binoche — who frequently function as
ambassadors of French cinema and French culture abroad. French stars
are talented, driven, charismatic and mostly very handsome individuals,
but they need a support system in order to reach and stay at the top of
their profession, in the sense given by Francesco Alberoni when he says
that the star system 'never creates the star, but it proposes the candidate
1
2 Stars and Stardom in French Cinema
for "election", and helps to retain the favour of the "electors"' (cited in
Dyer, 1979a, p. 22). The aim of this chapter is to examine this support
system and identify the salient features of French film stardom,
especially in terms of how it differs from what remains the ultimate
reference, Hollywood.
Let us start with a snapshot of Paris during the 1998-9 festive season.
Theatre-goers can see Jean-Paul Belmondo on stage as the hero of
Frederick ou le boulevard du crime at the Theatre Marigny. He can be seen
on television in repeats of flic ou voyou (20 December), Les Maries de I'an
II (30 December) and Le Cerveau (3 January 1999). Though none of his
films are actually in Parisian cinemas that week, his new film Une chance
sur deux, co-starring Alain Delon, had been shown earlier in the year and
repertory cinemas screen his classics A bout de souffle, Pierrot le fou and Le
Doulos at regular intervals. Both Une chance sur deux and Belmondo's
stage appearances generated ample press and television coverage.
Meanwhile, bookshops display his face on the cover of two new books:
Antoine de Baecque's La Nouvelle Vague (1998), with a black-and-white
still from A bout de souffle, and Jean Douchet's Nouvelle vague (1998),
where he appears as the hero of Pierrot le fou, his face painted blue. Large
video chain stores such as FNAC and Virgin stock regular supplies of his
films, like those of other stars in the boxed sets of the 'gueules d'etoiles
series. Belmondo's ubiquity typifies the media spread across which
successful French stars range in the late 1990s and the beginning of the
twenty-first century, and illustrates two other important aspects of
French stardom: the co-existence of mainstream and auteur cinema in a
single star's image (Le Cerveau and Pierrot le fou), and the imbrication of
theatre and film with which I shall start, and where indeed it all started.
Stages and screens
The terminology used to designate French film stars, both before 1920
when the English word entered the French vocabulary and since, is
inherited from the stage: etoile ('star') and vedette ('prominent person')
indicated status in terms of leading part or the position of the name on
theatrical posters and later film posters and credits. While etoile is now
used more often for ballet and circus than for the cinema, vedette has
The French Star System 3
endured. In common usage, it is simply a synonym for star, though it can

sometimes distinguish between 'real stars' (les stars) and merely famous
players (les vedettes). Among the vedettes, the category of the 'eccentrics'
needs to be mentioned here. As defined by Raymond Chirat (Chirat and
Barrot, 1983), the so-called eccentrics are 'super character actors' who
formed, from the 1930s, a dense population of extremely well-known
actors delineating a social typology, and who almost invariably came
from the stage. Also inherited from the theatre, the monstre sacre (literally
'sacred monster') often, too, designates a star, in the sense of a
flamboyant, hyperbolic figure. For Colin Crisp, monstres sacres are exalted
types of character actors with well-defined physical types, as opposed to
romantic stars (Crisp, 1993, p. 360). But in truth, monstre sacre, like
vedette, is interchangeable with star. For instance, when Jean Marais died,
the daily Le Parisien gave over its front page on 10 November 1998 to a
huge portrait with the title The last monstre sacre. We may note that in
French all three words, star, etoile and vedette, are feminine which, since
they apply equally to male and female actors, may denote, as Odile
Quirot argues, 'their status as fragile objects' (in Namiand, 1985, p. 248).
Monstre sacre, on the other hand, is masculine and applies equally to men
and women.
French cinema, like other national cinemas, from the start drew its
actors — and indeed its notion of stardom — from the stage, casting its
net widely. It also developed the earliest sound systems to capture their
voices. As early as 1900, Clement Maurice was making films with stage
stars Sarah Bernhardt, Coquelin and Rejane, using his Phono-Cinema-
Theatre system. Between 1902 and 1906, Alice Guy filmed cafe-concert
star Mayol and opera tenors for short sound scenes, using the Gaumont
chronophone system (McMahan, 1997, p. 99). The two brightest music-
hall stars of all, Mistinguett and Maurice Chevalier, were in demand for
numerous 'silent' movies, from 1908 (Chevalier) and 1909 (Mistinguett).
Film comics, too, came from the cafe-concert, the cabaret, the theatre or
the circus: Andre Deed had worked at the Folies-Bergere; Prince (Rigadin
in the cinema) had been a star of the boulevard theatre; Max Linder had
appeared on stage in Bordeaux and Paris; and the acrobat Bourbon
became the film comic Onesime.
From 1907 onwards, the film d'art movement drew stars from the
legitimate theatre, such as Rejane, and especially from the Comedie-
Plate 1 Michele Morgan: the construction of a star's image.
Francaise: Sarah Bernhardt, Gabrielle Robinne, Louise Lagrange. One of

the first stage stars to become a 'film star' in this respect was Charles Le
Bargy, lead player in L'Assassinat du Due de Guise (1908). The film was
produced by the company Film d'Art, which, with others such as
SCAGL (Societe Cinematographique des Auteurs et Gens de Lettres, a
Pathe affiliate), aimed to 'redefine the cinema and attract a white-collar
and bourgeois audience' (Abel, 1994, p. 40). Writers, directors and actors
in these companies spanned the worlds of theatre, opera and film.
Threats of warfare between film and stage over copyright were squashed
early. In 1907 Edmond Benoit-Levy, a trade press writer, negotiated a
'reconciliation' through the Societe Francaise des Auteurs Dramatiques
(ibid.), laying down the legal basis of a fruitful cooperation between the
stage and the cinema in France. While this move facilitated the
embourgeoisement of the cinema, it also legitimized film acting. In France,
as in America, a shift in the film industry's promotional discourse took
place around the years 1908 to 1912, from the technicalities of the film
apparatus and the films' stories to the actors (Dyer, 1979a; Butler, 1991),
thus initiating the emergence of 'stars'. Richard Abel points out that at
'About the same time that American producers began to publicize "star"
actors, in 1910, Pathe also introduced publicity photos confirming its
"star system," beginning with an advertisement expressing best wishes
to Linder (after an appendectomy).' Abel also states that in 1909, 'Under
began appearing in a regular series of Pathe comedies, with his name
soon included in each film's advertisement' (Abel, 1998, pp. 53 and 237).
While this illustrates one of the key definitions of stardom, namely the
articulation of the professional with the private, the timing of Linder's
'starification' challenges the notion that film stardom originated with the
American Florence Lawrence in 1910 (see Chapter 2).
Broadly speaking, two strands of stage spectacle - comic, singing and
more proletarian on the one hand, and serious and culturally respectable
on the other - provided different types of training and repertoires. This
dichotomy continued throughout the history of French cinema and
shaped film genres as well as performance styles: comics such as
Fernandel in the 1930s and de Funes in the 1960s came from the cafe-
concert before the war and the cabaret after; from the 1970s they came
from the satirical cafe-theatre. French films drew heavily on the boulevard
theatre, which offered mostly light-hearted amalgams of vaudeville farce
and classical theatre. While boulevard plays and cafe-concert acts were
adapted in the silent period, the coming of sound ushered them
triumphantly on to the film scene with numerous direct adaptations, and,
through the importance of script and dialogue, also attracted writers
from the theatre. This led to a whole new cast for French cinema, with
actors such as Pierre Fresnay, Michel Simon, Jules Berry, Raimu and
Charles Boyer close to the boulevard, and Cabin, Arletty, Carette and
Fernandel to the cafe-concert, though an intense two-way traffic
developed between the two. In addition, two of the most important
film directors of the period, Sacha Guitry and Marcel Pagnol, were
playwrights who used the cinema to adapt their plays, often with the
same cast, while figures such as Louis Jouvet, Jean-Louis Barrault and
Charles Dullin subsidized their avant-garde theatre with their film fees.
Pagnol and Guitry transferred to the cinema the notion of a troupe of
actors (as later, in different genres, Robert Dhery and the 'Branquignols',
Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Robert Guediguian have done). In the
1940s and 1950s, the drive towards high production values and
respectability led the Tradition of Quality cinema to draw substantially
on the legitimate stage again, especially the Theatre National Populaire

and the Comedie-Francaise. Gerard Philipe was emblematic of this move.
Philipe, like Edwige Feuillere and others such as Pierre Blanchar and
Pierre Brasseur, brought to film the cultural legitimacy and refined tones
of classic plays. Philipe, for instance, played a much-acclaimed version of
Corneille's Le Cid. Another strand of crossover from stage to film
included actors such as Yves Montand and Serge Reggiani, whose stage
experience derived from the newly developed 'one-man show' genre,
and operetta singers, especially Georges Guetary, Luis Mariano and
Annie Cordy.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the New Wave's 'clean-slate' policy
aimed to challenge traditional practices in French cinema, including
performance. As discussed in Chapter 5, New Wave directors went for
the appearance of spontaneity, choosing stars who came from the
catwalk or the university rather than stage training, although the most
successful among them in the long run were Jean-Paul Belmondo and
Jeanne Moreau, both theatrically trained (and even those who had gone
straight into film, such as Anna Karina, eventually acquired stage
experience). Under the impact of dnema-verite, the New Wave signalled
a turn to a greater naturalism, reinforced by location shooting and by the
post-1968 liberalization of censorship, which brought slang and the
vernacular to dialogues. But similar changes affected the theatre, and the
1970s cinema drew performers from the libertarian cafe-theatre and the
new experimental theatre (for instance, Ariane Mnouchkine, who also
directed films). The return to 'quality', studio-shot films from the 1980s,
particularly evident in heritage cinema, correspondingly meant a return
to the more traditional theatre in terms of mise-en-scene and source
material — see, for instance, Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) — and of stars'
career paths (Belmondo here being a key example). The theatre section
in the weekly listing magazine Pariscope includes a 'Where are they
playing?' column which shows clearly the intermingling of stage and
cinema. For example, during the week of 25 November to 1 December
1998, it was possible to see on stage, among others: Pierre Arditi, Jean-
Paul Belmondo, Danielle Darrieux, Alain Delon, Sami Frey, Daniel Gelin,
Annie Girardot, Gerard Jugnot, Bulle Ogier and Genevieve Page, as well
as the younger Florence Darel and Christian Vadim — all of whom have
prominent film careers. A year later (22—28 December 1999), the list
included Daniel Auteuil, Claude Brasseur, Jean-Claude Brialy, Francois

Cluzet, Darry Cowl, Suzanne Flon, Catherine Frot, Michel Galabru,
Jacques Gamblin, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Philippe
Torreton (while Belmondo was touring his Frederick ou le boulevard du
crime in Brussels).
This brief survey shows, as far as actors are concerned, the
extraordinary closeness of cinema and stage in France. This is remarkable
given that the main critical debates within French film, dating back to the
1920s, have aimed to isolate the specificity of film as a medium and, after
the coming of sound, to distance it especially from the theatre. It is
noteworthy also in its difference from Hollywood. There are several
reasons for this closeness, starting with geography. Actors can move
easily between stage and cinema, because the power centres, venues and
audiences are concentrated in Paris (even if there are active theatrical
centres in Nancy and Strasbourg while, before the war especially,
Marseilles boasted its own theatrical and cinematic culture). This is
markedly different from the USA, where Broadway is separated from
Hollywood by a continent (the French situation is closer to the British,
though there are differences, too). Second, whether they are aiming at a
film or stage career, actors train in theatrical schools,3 which today
include state-sponsored schools such as the Conservatoire and ENSATT
(or 'rue Blanche' school), and a myriad of private courses (Bantcheva,
1999, p. 10). Accordingly, agents still go to the theatre to spot new
talent. The third reason is economic. Most actors only work
intermittently and need the theatre as well as television and dubbing
work to make ends meet. Major film stars such as the ones in this book
tend to move away from the stage in their period of peak stardom and
return to it when their film careers decline, clothed in their added film
star aura. Thus, Belmondo's film box-office waned while he triumphed in
Kean and Cyrano de Bergerac on stage. This phenomenon is more marked
for women, whose careers on film tend to be shorter: for example, both
Edwige Feuillere and Danielle Darrieux continued their stage career well
into their eighties. The crossover from film to theatre has markedly
increased in the 1980s and 1990s.
What effect has the closeness of theatre and film at institutional and
personnel levels had on performance? French theatrical acting was
historically based on a rigid hierarchy of emplois (types) linked to
codified performance styles and gestures - jeune premier (romantic male

lead), ingenue, comic second roles, etc. (de Jomaron, 1992, pp. 132-9) -
which transferred to the cinema, with stars normally occupying the
romantic lead or, more rarely, the comic lead. Challenges to this
typology were made throughout the twentieth century, with a parallel
attack on texts and mise-en-scene by several modernizers: Antoine and his
naturalist theatre, Jacques Copeau, the 'Cartel' (Louis Jouvet, Charles
Dullin, Georges Pitoeff, Gaston Baty) and Antonin Artaud (ibid., pp.
228—302), all figures who were involved in film as both directors and
actors. In the 1960s, under the impact of American and Scandinavian
theatre, and of the 'new theatre' in France (lonesco, Beckett), theatrical
training greatly changed, replacing emphasis on the teaching of masters
and great texts, and hence of the traditional emplois, with body and voice
training, and encouraging improvisation, paralleling what was happen-
ing in the cinema (Nores in Namiand, 1985, pp. 40-1). A general trend,
in the theatre, towards greater naturalism is therefore clear. However, as
de Jomaron (1992, passim) shows, this 'grand narrative' contains many
different parallel tracks, setbacks and opposing factions. For instance,
naturalistic performance has been defined at times as an absence of
technique and at other times as consummate technique, a point
illustrated by the stars in this book. While Bardot's naturalness came
from her lack of training, Depardieu and Moreau, both with extensive
(and very different) trainings on stage, are capable of similar effects.
Thus, the closeness of French film to the theatre does not mean a
uniform, 'theatrical' type of performance understood in the sense of an
emphatic or histrionic style. There are three main reasons for this. First,
because of the wide spectrum of theatrical traditions drawn upon, as
mentioned above, which was reflected in the co-existence of different
performance registers at any given time. For instance, Jean Renoir's La
Grande illusion (1938) contrasts Cabin's minimalism, Fresnay's mannered
precision and Carette's broad comedy to signify layers of class
differences. Some actors, like Cabin, evolved in the space of a few
years from the comedy and song routines of the music-hall to a
minimalist, interiorized performance style (see Chapter 3) eminently
suited to dramatic film roles. Some were capable of shifting back and
forth between registers: notably Raimu and Michel Simon, who
alternated between boulevard comedies and melodramatic roles
throughout the 1930s. Second, there were broad changes across time,
as in the theatre, especially from the 1960s onwards. As Jean-Pierre
Miquel, director of the Conservatoire put it, 'performance became
more interiorized, more truthful, more sincere, and the word
"theatrical" lost its pejorative connotation' (in Sallee, 1987, p. 8). This
interiority was different from the Actors' Studio (even though the
latter was much admired in France). Belmondo observed that The
performance of actors from the Actors' Studio is very studied, self-
conscious, worked over, while mine stems from my impulsions, my
character and my spontaneity.'4 The influence of the Actors' Studio,
especially the emphasis on an expressionist use of the body, is perhaps
more visible in the work of stars such as Depardieu and Binoche —
though, again, Depardieu can switch from this style, suited to auteur
cinema, to a comic performance which is both naturalistic and emphatic
(see Chapter 9).
Third, there are cinematic parameters governing film performance.
Historians of early cinema acting have identified a move from a
'melodramatic' and 'pictorial' style (emphatic, based on particular poses)
to a more 'realistic' or naturalistic style, aiming at verisimilitude (Pearson,
1992; Brewster and Jacobs, 1997). Brewster and Jacobs further argue for
a French and European specificity, relating editing styles to performance,
and comparing the slower European editing to American rapid cutting:
'Given their lengthy takes and tendency to employ deep staging in long
shot, European films [of the 1910s] necessarily relied more upon the
actor and the acting ensemble to provide dramatic emphasis' (Brewster
and Jacobs, 1997, p. Ill); and in Europe, 'filmmakers were more likely
to retain the long-shot framings in which actors were shown full figure'
(p. 120). The use of longer takes and staging in depth, compared with
American cutting (both temporal and within the frame), certainly
distinguishes French cinema until the 1960s at least (Salt, 1983; Crisp,
1993). During the classical period (1930—60), Crisp convincingly argues
that in French cinema more attention is given to decor and atmosphere
than to foregrounding stars. The latter was considered a typically
American practice designed for 'selling female flesh' (Crisp, 1993, p.
384). With the advent of sound, we can add the greater importance
placed on dialogue, entailing larger shots and longer takes to display
actors interacting with each other, and allowing the spectator to see the
entirety of their bodies and gestures. Thus, the 'slower' rhythm of French
cinema, at least during the classical period, stages an interplay between
actors which is both visual (gestures) and aural (dialogue), and tends to
place stars among an ensemble of actors rather than isolate them with
close-ups: see, for instance, Gabin and de Funes. The Tradition of Quality
costume dramas of the 1950s, which all feature major stars (for example, in
1955 Les Grandes manoeuvres, with Gerard Philipe and Michele Morgan,
and French Cancan with Jean Gabin and Maria Felix), make remarkably
little use of close-ups of the stars' faces. Compared to Monroe's, Bardot's
films also use fewer close-ups. Although, in the long run, French cinema
followed the trend towards shorter takes and more close-ups (the latter
especially under the influence of television), longer takes and the tendency
to incorporate the star in a group are still more marked in French films of
the 1970s and 1980s. This is evident when French films are compared
with their American remakes (Vincendeau, 1993). French stardom is thus
altogether less defined by close-ups, both of the stars and of reactions to
them, than in American cinema, and a more global' approach has been
taken to depicting the actors' bodies in the frame.
The above has indicated trends in the relationship between film and
the theatre throughout the history of French cinema. The stars studied in
this book cover the spectrum of these different links: some came from
the music-hall (Gabin, de Funes), others had solid training in the theatre
(Linder, Belmondo, Moreau, Depardieu, Binoche), some came from
related arts such as dance (Bardot), and others again, like Deneuve and
Delon, had little to do with the stage, at least initially. But whichever
tradition they came from, they became stars because of the way they
reacted to the camera; they were film stars whose careers were regulated
by the French film industry (and to some extent vice versa) and the place
of cinema in French culture.
Stars and the industry
Stars and film production
French stars, as in Hollywood, are valuable commodities for the film

industry, determining the projects that get made, dominating their
identity, and often their making, and playing a key role in promotion
and exhibition.
But there are also differences. The first significant French 'difference'
pertains to production, in particular the artisanal structure of the
industry. As Colin Crisp puts it, The relative absence of a star system
in France is due primarily to the distinctive nature of its production
system and to the less developed form of capitalism of which that in
turn was a symptom' (Crisp, 1993, p. 225). Large organized studios
have been rare in French cinema, and so too the notion of stars
contractually tied to such studios. Historically, there are exceptions to
this rule. Early cinema comics were affiliated to studios, in particular
Pathe and Gaumont, while the Film d'Art company signed Comedie-
Francaise stars. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Pathe-Natan tried to
build up a stable of stars - Mon film of 28 August 1931 announced 'the
exclusive signing of Marcelle Chantal by Pathe-Natan'. In the same
issue, the whole of page 8 was devoted to showcasing 'Pathe-Natan's
directors and artistes'. However, since the collapse of that studio and of
Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert in 1933-4, French cinema essentially has
functioned as a 'cottage industry'. Small production companies became,
and remained, the norm, many being set up for just one or two films. In
the post-war period, even large companies such as the re-formed
Gaumont did not include the property of stars. The pattern, which had
been set in the 1930s, was of deals involving a small number of films
between a star and a producer. The models for the relationship
between stars and the industry mimicked the small-scale and varied
nature of film production: theatrical troupes (Marcel Pagnol, Sacha
Guitry, Robert Guediguian); couples (Henri Decoin and Danielle
Darrieux in the 1950s, Yves Allegret and Simone Signoret in the
1940s, Gerard Oury and Michele Morgan in the 1950s), as well as
those of the New Wave (see Chapter 5); and friendships (Gabin and
Julien Duvivier in the 1930s, Delon and Jacques Deray in the 1970s,
Depardieu and Claude Berri in the 1980s and 1990s).
In the 1950s, there were attempts at Hollywood-style operations,
with a more systematic promotion of stars, the creation of fan clubs and
the linking of casting to beauty pageants. These, however, did not
become really significant. This was partly because, as Crisp points out:
The production companies had no vested interest in the merchandising of

actors and actresses as stars, as did their Hollywood counterparts; the star
was not their property, so his or her value would not reflect directly on the
company's profits; any increase in the exchange value of an actor would
benefit other companies. (Crisp, 1993, p. 225)
To this economic argument I would add a cultural one, namely the

greater value placed on independence and artistry by the stars
themselves, by their audience and by the profession as a whole,
precluding the most overt aspects of the treatment of stars as
'merchandise'.
Notwithstanding a less regimented relationship, the importance of
stars to the film industry is undeniable, if difficult to quantify. With very
few exceptions - for example, Man oncle (1958),5 Le Grand bleu (1988),
L'Ours (1988) and Les Randonneurs (1997) - all the top French box-office
successes have featured one or more major stars. In the 1930s, Renoir's
most popular films were the ones starring Gabin (Les Bas-fonds, La
Grande illusion and La Bete humaine); in the 1950s box-office hits were
comedies starring Fernandel (La Vache et le prisonnier], thrillers like Les
Diaboliques (with Simone Signoret) and La Verite (Bardot), and costume
dramas with stars like Philipe, Gabin, Morgan and Darrieux; in the early
1980s, Belmondo's box-office was considered 'the barometer of the
good health of cinema in France'.6 In the heyday of Belmondo's
mainstream career, each of his (and Delon's) films ensured the livelihood
of about five hundred people and guaranteed substantial tax revenue for
the state.7 It is extremely difficult to establish how much stars are 'worth'
financially, as the evidence is patchy and unreliable. For example, there
has been much talk of inflation in star salaries in the film trade press.8 Yet
the proportion of actors' salaries relative to film costs has not
significantly altered since the 1930s, and if anything seems to have
gone down, possibly because other costs such as sets and equipment
have gone up. Actors' salaries made up 20 per cent of film budgets in
19349 and again in the 1950s (Morin, 1972, p. 4), but by the early 1990s,
the figure was 12.5 per cent.10 Of course, these average figures hide
considerably higher salaries for major stars. By the mid-1980s, 'more
than 30 French actors were able to demand salaries of over FFlm per
film',11 including, for instance, Depardieu and Montand with salaries of
FF3 to 4m (Quirot in Namiand, 1985, p. 248).
The consensus in the French film industry is that the early 1980s, with
de Funes's death and the declining box-office pull of Belmondo and
Delon, signalled the end of the 'classical' star system, the end of a
reliable 'star-value' and the rise of a 'film-value'.12 Lower attendances, the
loss of the homogeneous family audience and the huge rise in television
and video ownership meant that even the biggest star was no longer
sufficient to guarantee success in the cinema. The value of the star was
now linked, on a one-to-one basis, to the film 'package', which included
other aspects of the film such as topic and scenery. Crucial examples are
Jean de Florette and Manon des sources (1986), which, apart from major
established stars (Depardieu and Montand) and new vedettes Emmanuelle
Beart and Daniel Auteuil, equally showcased the Pagnol text and the
Provencal landscape. As in Hollywood, most stars have become more
vulnerable, on a 'you're only as good as your last movie' basis. For
example, Montand's salary of FF4.5m (plus royalties) in Jean de Florette
went down to FFl.Sm in 1992 for IPS, because of box-office failures in
between, including Jacques Demy's Trois places pour le 26 (1988).13 In
fact, since the late 1960s and 1970s, the growing instability of the film
industry has prompted stars to adopt various strategies to secure their
financial footing: becoming a producer (and in some cases venturing into
other business - see Chapters 7 and 9); taking part of their salaries as a
percentage of profits; appearing in advertising. Many stars have become
co-producers. There were precedents during the crisis which affected
French cinema in the immediate post-World War I period, when
important stars like Rene Navarre, Rene Carl and Musidora 'all broke
away from Gaumont to head short-lived production units' (Abel, 1984,
p. 11). But, as Abel says, these attempts were transitory. More solid
were those of the post-World War II period. Pioneers in this respect
were Cabin and Fernandel, who founded a joint company, GAFER, in
1964, and Delon with his company Delbeau (later Adel). Now many
more, from Belmondo (his company, Cerito Films, was founded in 1971)
and Isabelle Adjani (Lilith Film), to Victoria Abril and Depardieu (DD
Productions), have founded their own production companies. Some stars
use their firms to push young directors (for instance, Belmondo
produced Claire Denis's first feature Chocolat in 1988), but, more
important, their function is to generate new scripts and projects. Stars
are also increasingly paid a percentage of profits rather than a fee to take
advantage of television and video sales.14 The importance of casting

directors (such as Dominique Besnehard and Margot Cappelier) and of
agents (especially the powerful Artmedia, created in 1970) has grown in
proportion to this insecurity, and the role of the latter is primarily to get
their stars 'a good financial deal'.15 Their commission, however, is fixed
by law at 10 per cent (Rousseau in Namiand, 1985, pp. 242-5).
Paradoxically, as a result of these shifting relationships, the
importance of stars has actually increased in the production system,
although they are no longer the main source of box-office revenue. But
they are more significant than ever in raising funds, guaranteeing
television and video sales and generating essential media coverage.
Shining through France: glamour and immediacy
David Shipman wrote in 1964 that Trench stars still have Hollywood
style star quality; the press surrounds them with an aura which recalls
those palmy days.'16 Although many things have changed since the
1960s, Shipman's view is still true: glamour is a key aspect of French film
stardom, compounded by the distance given by more stringent privacy
laws. Yet, at the same time, French stars have an immediacy in French
culture which is quite distinctive.
In France as in the USA or the UK, stars have been central to
discourses on film, except in cinephile journals such as L'Ecran francais in
the 1940s, and Positif and Cahiers du cinema from the 1950s (as
mentioned in the Preface, 'star studies' are virtually unknown in France).
From the 1920s and especially the 1930s, the press became increasingly
important. The first popular film magazine, Cinemagazine, was launched
in 1921, followed by rivals Mon-cine and Cine-miroir (Abel, 1984, pp.
245—51) and later Cinemonde (1927) and its rival Pour vous (1928). There
were also weeklies like Le Film complet (launched in 1925) and Mon film
(1923). The new popular film magazines, and in particular Pour vous,
which was lavishly illustrated with black-and-white photographs, were
part of an emergent image culture. The 1930s was the era of
photographically illustrated magazines, typified in France by the
prestigious L'Illustration and by Match, later Paris Match, as well as
glossy women's magazines such as Marie-Claire (launched in 1937) and
Elk (1945). This new type of publication was particularly well suited to
the cinema, offering, as press historians have noted, 'another vision of

the world, a much more romantic one; despite the apparent objectivity
of photography, they appealed to the imagination more than to
reflection' (Bellanger et al, 1972, p. 597). So, though they have been
dismissed as operating 'under the double sign of conformism and
optimism' (Jeanne and Ford, 1961, p. 60), they are an important source of
information on stars and how they were perceived.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, these magazines, to which were added
Cinemonde and Paris Match and early illustrated gossip magazines such
as Point de Vue Images and Jours de France, projected images of French
stars, like their Hollywood models, as simultaneously extraordinary and
ordinary, mixing the allure of a glamorous life with intimate details of
domesticity. Thus in Pour vous of 30 March 1933, a visit to Marie Bell is
written like a scene in a luxury boulevard theatre movie:
A liveried concierge takes me to the lift which delivers me to the top of the
building. ... As I admired the view of Paris framed by huge windows, I
heard a voice both grave and nuanced, and I saw appear, in a dark velvet
gown with a ravishing decollete, a young woman whose words and gestures
seemed to obey an inner rhythm.
But equally typical are spreads such as the one in Pour vous of 14 March
1935, in which we see the stars 'at home': Danielle Darrieux hoovering,
Paulette Dubost at the sewing machine, Raimu making a fish stew. Many
other examples could be cited (Michel Simon and his animals, Cabin's
memoirs — see Chapter 3), and such spreads are continued into the 1950s
and 1960s, when Cinemonde is the dominant popular film magazine.
Generally, information is evenly divided between French and Holly-
wood stars (much less frequently stars from other countries, except Italy
in the 1950s and early 1960s), as separate items and whenever possible
showing them together. A 1932 Pour vous series on hairstyles combines
Arletty and Gaby Basset with Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo, Gary
Cooper, Jaque Catelain, Fredric March, Ramon Novarro and Rene
Lefevre, showing not only the importance of Hollywood cinema in
France but also the promotion of French stars on an equal footing with
Hollywood. Spot checks at different times reveal the same balance:
Premiere of July 1991 devotes roughly the same overall textual and
visual space to Matt Dillon, Clint Eastwood, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn
and Jack Nicholson on the one hand, and Mireille Perrier, Irene Jacob,
Emmanuelle Beart and Gerard Jugnot on the other. Studio Magazine, in
July/August 1998, is balanced between Leonardo DiCaprio, Drew
Barrymore and Robert Carlyle (a rare non-French, non-Hollywood
example) on the one hand, and Emmanuelle Beart, Sandrine Bonnaire,
Olivier Martinez and Jean-Marc Barr on the other.
French popular film magazines do not significantly differ from
American or British versions, in that their main appeal until the 1960s
was to women, confirmed by editorial and advertising references to
fashion, shopping and grooming (including slimming pills), and sections
entitled Tour vous Mesdames'. One specific angle, stereotypically
enough, is an emphasis on food, with recurrent scenes of stars cooking
and accounts of their favourite dishes: Cinemonde of 25 December 1936
featured (French) 'gastronome stars', including recipes such as 'chicken a
la Bach'. This is echoed in actors' cookery books, such as Charles
Blavette's Ma Provence en cuisine (1961) and Macha Meril's Haricots ci,
haricots la (1999). Cook Henriette Marello's La Cantiniere du cinema
(1994) is devoted to culinary anecdotes relating to stars such as
Belmondo and Delon. As well as the ritual arrival at the station and later
airport, and climbing the steps to the Palais du Festival, photographs of
Cannes in the 1950s and 1960s depict stars (French and American) at
noted local restaurants. It is noticeable that several comedies starring
Louis de Funes contain references to food or eating in their titles: Le
Grand restaurant (1966), L'Aik ou la cuisse (1976), La Soupe aux choux
(1981). Paul Chutkow's biography of Depardieu (1994) opens with a
photograph of the star cooking with famous chef Jean Bardet and an
account of Depardieu's search for the right chicory and chicken for a
favourite dish while filming Germinal in northern France (Depardieu's
association with food is reinforced by his commercials for Barilla pasta;
he is also a wine grower: see Chapter 9).
The relentless upbeat tone of the public, largely promotional,
discourse on stars noted by Jeanne and Ford in 1961 reigned throughout
the classical period. The 'official' portraits of stars put out by the
powerful Studio Harcourt aimed, as Roland Barthes noted, to create an
off-screen space more unreal than the on-screen space the stars inhabited:
'their faces smoothed by virtue, aerated by the soft light of the Harcourt
studio' (Barthes, 1973, p. 27). The photographs are smooth, airbrushed
black-and-white glamour shots, usually close-ups of faces or busts.

Harcourt portraits from the 1950s of Simone Signoret or Martine Carol
seem today as dated as photographs of Sarah Bernhardt at the turn of
the century. But the post-war period saw some ripples on the previously
calm surface. Cine-revue (4 July 1952) warned, 'Success and money often
bring discord to star couples'. The 1970s and 1980s saw the end of an
era (Cinemonde stopped publishing in 1971), and the rise of a new breed
of popular film magazines with Premiere in 1976 and Studio Magazine in
1987 (and Le Nouveau Cinema in 1999). The new monthlies continue the
combination of industry news, interviews and gossip (and only mildly
critical reviews), and the promotion of French and American stars, but
adapted to a younger, predominantly male readership of film buffs,
reflecting the fragmentation of film spectatorship. Meanwhile, gossip has
shifted to the 'people' magazines such as OK' (like Hello!, very upbeat)
and the decidedly scandal-mongering Void, but both with a
predominantly feminine address, though the amount of publishable
information is limited by privacy laws (see below). But beyond the
changes in the specialized press, the measure of the continued
importance of cinema in French culture is the unusually extensive
coverage of film, and therefore of stars, in the national and local press,
whether popular (Le Parisien) or 'quality' (Le Monde, Liberation). The
deaths of major stars and directors often command the front page and
several inside pages in all newspapers: for instance, Yves Montand and
Jean Marais. As Angus Finney put it, 'While the majority of French
financing comes via television, cinema is absolutely central to the
nation's cultural life.'17
In addition to the press, two other important annual events contribute
to the prominent image construction of stars in French culture: the
Cesars awards ceremony and the Cannes festival. The Cesars, created in
1976 on the model of the Oscars (and building on older awards such as
the 'Victoires du cinema francais'), are the most important, commanding
huge media space, including live television. Other prizes for actors
include the Prix Romy-Schneider for a young female actress and the Prix
Jean-Cabin for a young actor, the Prix Beauregard and the various acting
awards at Cannes. The Cannes festival was launched in 1939 but only
began in 1946 after the war. Initially more of a tourist opportunity -
advertising Cannes as 'the radiant city, where stars shine their brightest'
Plate 2 Martine Carol: the Studio Harcourt look. (£) Harcourt.
(Billard, 1997, p. 18) - Cannes soon became a film market and a

launching pad for stars and starlets. Unlike the more cinephile Berlin and
Venice, and low-key London, Cannes has always been a glitzy event
with high-profile guests, ceremonies and prizes, fusing Hollywood-style
glamour with French cultural policy. As Pierre Billard says, 'Cannes is in
France. The festival showcases cinema in a country where the cinema has
become the object of national policy and debate' (ibid., p. 79). Cannes's
formidable press apparatus, comprising more than 3,000 accredited
journalists in the late 1990s, including 350 photographers and 1,300
television and radio journalists, twice-daily press conferences, a specially
installed photo-opportunity space where photographers may shoot stars
for ten minutes each, every morning (ibid., p. 71), as well as rituals such
as starlets on the beach and stars in evening dress climbing the stairs to
the Palais du Festival, all multiply stars' visual and oral exposure on the
French media scene - with, for instance, special bulletins on television
news and lengthy daily reports in newspapers.18
Television is one important way in which French film stars access
popular culture on an 'intimate' basis. This was not always so. Belmondo
is typical in having refused to appear on television for a long time. He
wrote in 1964 that television 'killed the mystery' of the film star and that
'a film actor must not make any television films' (in Strazzulla and Leduc,
1996, p. 100). By 1985 he agreed to appear on a television chat show
and has done so since. Now star guest appearances on the main
lunchtime and evening news are regular occurrences, partly because
films cannot be advertised on TV. A recent development has been for
film stars to make high-profile television series: for example, Sandrine
Bonnaire in line femme en blanc and Gerard Depardieu in Le Comte de
Monte-Cristo and Balzac (see Chapter 9). Like television soap stars or
sports stars in the UK, French film stars are thus embedded in the
quotidian routine of the national life of the daily press and television. But
other factors intervene to bond French film stars to their audience.
French film stars, who are often called by nicknames - 'B.B.' for
Bardot, Tufu' for de Funes, 'Bebel' for Belmondo, 'Gege' for Depardieu -
are perceived to be closer than American stars, in the sense of being less
obviously characterized by conspicuous consumption. Depardieu reports
that executives in Hollywood were surprised 'to see how I work,
without chauffeur or bodyguard'.19 They tend to live closer to their
audience, at least in Paris — rarely do they have remote Beverley Hills-
style suburban villas. When they do, these tend to be farmhouses, which
the media present as a 'return to nature': thus, Bardot in Saint-Tropez,
Gabin in Normandy, de Funes in Brittany and Depardieu in Anjou.
Foreign interviewers, such as the American journalist Martha Frankel, are
often surprised to find a star like Juliette Binoche living in an 'ordinary'
house and cooking her own food: This is a room people actually live in
— a concept so different from the done-to-the-max Hollywood homes I
usually see.'20 Only in France, perhaps, would an international film star
and the President of the Republic meet accidentally in a bookshop. As
Binoche recounts:
'I had gone in to look at books on painting.... I heard the door open and the
bookshop owner say "Good morning, Mr President!" I thought "Pfff!", who
would have themselves called Mr President! I imagined the president of a
bank, or of the Post Office or whatever. I looked up and saw Mitterrand
facing me ... Then another time he came to say hello in a restaurant.'21
Two final points need to be mentioned. One is the involvement of

film stars in public life. This often takes the form of film industry politics,
especially the defence of French cinema against the 'invasion' of
American films: for example, Signoret, Montand and Marais demon-
strating in the streets of Paris on 4 January 1948 against the Blum-
Byrnes agreements; Pierre Fresnay signing a petition during the
shooting of // est minuit Doctor Schweitzer in 1952 to protest against
the number of American films shown in France; Depardieu speaking in
favour of 1'exception francaise' during the GATT talks in 1993. French
stars have also intervened in politics in various ways: demonstrating in
favour of the Popular Front in 1936; Coluche running for president in
1981; Montand's pro-communist positions in the 1940s and 1950s, then
anti-communist positions in the 1980s; Delon buying the document of
de Gaulle's appeal to the French people in June 1940. In late 1961, at the
height of the Algerian war, Bardot received a letter from the OAS
threatening to target her with a bomb if she failed to pay out FF50,000.
She published a public response in L'Express on 30 November 1961
refusing to give in to terrorism, 'because she did not want to live in a
nazi country'. As a result, the premiere of Vie privee on 31 January 1962
had to be conducted in secret. There was no retaliation, but Bardot was
widely praised for her courage. On 5 April 1971, a manifesto in Le
Nouvel Observateur signed by 343 high-profile French women stating
that they had had an illegal abortion included Deneuve, Bardot and
Moreau. In 1997, filmmakers and actors took part in the sans papier affair,
defending the right of illegal immigrants to live in France. In this respect,
French stars are following the French habit of personalities taking public
positions. I am not arguing that these are necessarily courageous or
politically advanced, but they are another way of connecting them to
the nation, in the tradition of the role adopted by the intellectual in
French culture since Zola and the Dreyfus affair.
The second point is the close link between cinema and song. Several
well-known French film stars, such as Gabin, Bardot and Moreau, are
also singers with substantial recording careers. This is different from

singers who are also film stars (Prejean, Montand, Brel, Reggiani). It is
worth remarking on the fact that many stars who are not singers (i.e.
who do not sing particularly well) have also recorded songs: Deneuve,
Adjani, Birkin,22 Delon, Depardieu; Binoche also 'sings' in her television
commercial for the Lancome perfume Toeme'. This is a tribute to the
vitality of song, especially chanson (in which lyrics are more important
than music) in France, but it is also another way in which the stars reach
their audience.
Masters of their own image
Writing about Delon, Joel Magny argues that 'In a French film industry
where the rational organization of mass production ... is the exception,
[Delon] is, interestingly, a self-made my ill (Cinematheque Francaise, 1996,
p. 23) — a notion which we can extend to all French stars who are, to a
large extent, masters of their own image compared with their American
counterparts (even in post-classical Hollywood, the American film
industry still has a more heavy-duty, organized 'machinery'). In France
major stars, like directors, are invested with more power than in the USA.
Neither director nor producer nor agent can dictate their behaviour.
Casting agents confirm the French stars' power of decision: Serge
Rousseau, who works for the most important agent, Artmedia, says: The
final power of decision always belongs to the star, this is very clear'
(Namiand, 1985, p. 244), something confirmed by Dominique Besnehard,
also at Artmedia, in 1998.23 This decision-making power affects other
areas of the star image-making: self-presentation, the management of
private life and the promotion of films, with varied consequences.
From the early days of stardom, as Morin said, 'adorable faces' ruled
(Morin, 1972, p. 9). Most stars are stunningly beautiful (Bardot,
Deneuve, Beart, Adjani, Karina, Philipe, Delon, Perez). However, French
cinema has also produced major stars who are 'unconventional' looking,
yet are romantic leads. This is especially true for men: see, for example,
Gabin, Belmondo and Depardieu. But female stars such as Moreau and
Isabelle Huppert (whose face was infamously described as resembling a
'potato' by the American producers of Heavens Gate) also fit into this
category. Interviews in the American press often stress French stars'
reluctance to diet, work out and have their teeth done and, perhaps most
visibly, they are very often seen smoking, even in the 1990s, both on
and off screen. French stars are no strangers to plastic surgery, especially
as they get older, but on the whole teeth and noses are less regular
(Paradis, Auteuil, Depardieu) and hair is less impeccably groomed than in
Hollywood. This difference comes across vividly when comparing a
French star's work in French cinema with their Hollywood films: for
instance, Gabin in his Hollywood film Moontide (1942), in which he
plays a character called 'Frenchie' who wears 'casual' clothes (a check
shirt, a neck scarf) that are so neat that he appears to be in disguise, and
whose hair is both visibly blonder and rigidly curled.
Like those of all stars, the private lives of French stars become 'public'.
It is assumed that audiences are fascinated by every detail of their
marriages, affairs, children and homes. As mentioned earlier, a whole
discursive production exists to relay these details to the audience. The
French paradox is that stars' lives (like the lives of other public persons)
are less bound by political correctness and morality than they would be
in Anglo-American countries, yet at the same time are also stringently
protected by privacy laws. Thus, Belmondo, in Premiere magazine,
admits to frequent visits to a brothel white shooting Docteur Popaul.24
Depardieu mentions 'witnessing' a rape in Lui magazine without any
domestic consequences, while the same story creates a scandal in the
USA (see Chapter 9). While the Markovic affair in the late 1960s cast
Delon in a corrupt and dissolute light (see Chapter 7) and Cine-revue said,
The Delon affair reveals the hidden depths of the dolce vita',25 a survey
in February 1969 ranked him among 'the ten most admired living French
men'. The rise of the scandal/gossip press — Void, OK!, joining older
titles such as Fmnce-dimanche and Point de Vue Images — has been
countered by tight privacy laws. Some stars — Deneuve and Adjani, for
instance - refuse to allow the appearance of any material on their lives
and frequently, and successfully, sue magazines such as Void when they
transgress. In an extreme example, in October 1998 Delon successfully
banned the publication of an 'unauthorized' biography before it was
even written.26 In 1996 an English newspaper noted, 'Such is Binoche's
concern for privacy that she is prepared to go to court to protect it. The
French society magazine Void is now being pursued by her lawyers.'27
This in turn explains why French star biographies are basically
hagiographies. The only ones with any degree of frankness are

autobiographies, such as Bardot's open and entertaining revelations
(1996 and 1999). On the other hand, it also means that French
interviews with stars concentrate on their professional activities (even if
the tendency towards abstraction sometimes gets in the way of
information). A lengthy interview with Depardieu in Le Monde (24
March 1999) begins with the warning, 'We won't talk about his private
life ... we'll leave that to him'; Delon's interviewers in Cahiers du cinema
(April 1996) distance themselves from 'the corridor gossip, the false
mythologies, the mean cliches'.28
French stars' greater freedom to control their image affects the way
they participate - or not - in the promotion of their films. They are
notoriously reluctant to play the game of interviews and promotional
tours and sometimes even speak out against their own films. Delon
trashed Le Retour de Casanova in 1992 — director Bertrand Tavernier
asked plaintively, 'Would an American producer have let Delon ... thus
demolish the film?'29 In 1995 Juliette Binoche told Premiere, 'I did not
support [Wuthering Heights] because I was in total disagreement with the
film and I refused to do the post-synchronization and promotion of the
film in France.'30 Sophie Marceau gave interviews to the French press on
the release of Marquise in 1997, indicting director Vera Belmont as
'incompetent'31 (although she later turned out to support the film). She
also changed the speech written for her by ceremony organizer Canal +
at the May 1999 Cannes festival in order to speak about a charity she
supports, only to be booed off the stage.
French stars' freedom to control their image includes their ability to
range widely across different types of films. Up to the 1940s, actors
automatically straddled mainstream and auteur film, because the films
themselves did. For instance, directors such as Jean Renoir and Rene Clair,
the greatest names of the 1930s, made films that followed their own
agendas but also appealed to large audiences (for example, Clair's
Quatorze juillet and Renoir's La Grande illusion}. Not coincidentally, these
films featured major stars (respectively, Annabella and Gabin). In the late
1940s and in the 1950s, during the heyday of French mainstream cinema
(when audiences peaked at 400 million annual spectators in 1957),
stardom was more closely linked to genre and big-budget vehicles. So
Michele Morgan, Danielle Darrieux and Gerard Philipe were costume-
drama stars, Cabin and Ventura were thriller stars. This implicit 'system'
continued until the 1970s: Cabin and Lino Ventura were linked to the
thriller in the 1950s and 1960s; Fernandel, de Funes and Galabru to
comedies in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; Delon and Belmondo to the
action thriller in the 1960s and 1970s and up to the mid-1980s. The New
Wave for a time forced a polarization between 'mainstream stars' and
'auteur stars', but with few exceptions (notably Louis de Funes), major
French stars are distinguished by dual-track stardom in both mainstream
and auteur film. Why is that? First, because the generic structure is itself
fluid. Second, because of economic necessity: given the size of the French
market since the 1970s, it is not possible for a French star to sustain a
career in only one genre. Most 'auteur' stars (e.g. Binoche, Moreau)
appear in mainstream films and most mainstream stars wish to make
auteur films: 'Rightly or wrongly, actors think that for their career, for
their prestige, it is good to make a film with Godard ... while being
perfectly aware that films of this kind will not do well at the box-office'
(in Namiand, 1985, p. 244). Godard is indeed fascinated by mainstream
stars and has made films with Bardot (Le Mepris, 1963), Eddie Constantine
(Alphavilk, 1965), Delon (Nouvelk vague, 1990) and Depardieu (Helas pour
moi, 1993). On the stars' part, the search for prestige is also a wise career
move. Since the 1960s, auteur cinema has been the main way for stars to
win awards at Cannes and the Cesar ceremonies and attention from the
cinephile press (see Delon in Chapter 7). But vis-a-vis their audience, stars
play a crucial bridging function between the two kinds of cinema which
have otherwise grown apart since the New Wave.
Who is a star in France? Box-office vs cinephilia
I noted earlier the uncertain terminology used to designate 'stars', in

particular the differences between 'star', 'vedette' and 'monstre sacre. There
has also been, as Serge Daney pointed out, 'a ridiculous inflation of the
word "star" (or rather "staaar")' (Daney, 1988, p. 132). Daney is right,
and in some cases the distinction between stars and vedettes is subjective.
But another reason for this uncertainty is that different criteria are used
to determine who is a star, which follow a rough division between the
box-office on the one hand and cinephilia on the other. It seems that this
distinction is particularly important for French (and European) cinema.

Before World War II, only disparate and moderately reliable sources of
information exist about the relative popularity of stars. Nevertheless,
coverage in fan and trade magazines and the press, contemporary
reviews, newsreels, posters and the layout of film credits give valuable
clues. As already mentioned, early French cinema's stars were on the one
hand comics, pre-eminently Max Linder and Prince-Rigadin (see Chapter
2), and on the other hand stage stars such as Sarah Bernhardt and the
stars of the film d'art. Both had international resonance during the heyday
of French cinema before World War I. As Bernhardt put it, This is my
one chance of immortality' (in Knight, 1957, p. 31). During the war,
through Feuillade's Les Vampires, rose the figure of Musidora, the first
French femme fatale. Emerging at exactly the same time as Theda Bara in
American cinema, Musidora (who was also a writer and a film director)
was a more active and less morally bound representation (though she dies
at the end of the series). Interestingly, although Les Vampires was an
eminently popular serial, Musidora was a figure of fascination for the
Surrealists and as such has come to us through art cinema historiography.
By contrast, the other stars of the serials or of the popular post-World
War I French cinema (Gina Manes, Huguette Duflos, Simone Genevoix)
have not survived in French film historiography or most viewers'
memory, since the films are rarely shown on film or video. French cinema
had lost its pre-World War I world hegemony due to the competition
from American films. Large international productions used foreign stars
like Gloria Swanson, Brigitte Helm and Ivan Mosjoukine (the latter was
part of an important group of Russian emigres), and the French names
that have survived are those of the avant-garde cinema like Gaston
Modot and Eve Francis. The 1920s, however, saw the appearance of a
number of boulevard stage stars who would emerge with more
prominence in the 1930s (Michel Simon, Gaby Morlay, Albert Prejean).
In the early 1930s, the success of filmed operettas and of Rene Glair's
films made stars of Henri Garat, Albert Prejean and Annabella. They
were rivalled by comics Georges Milton, Bach and Fernandel, although
the mid-193Os saw a shift towards the greater impact of dramatic stars,
especially with the rise of Gabin, detailed in Chapter 3. In 1936 the trade
magazine La Cinematographie franpaise began to publish annual polls of
stars' appeal based on exhibitors' information, with the following results:
Top French actors 1936-1938

Men: Gabin, Fernandel, Raimu, Charles Boyer, Harry Baur, Victor
Francen, Tino Rossi
Women: Annabella, Danielle Darrieux, Elvire Popesco, Gaby Morlay,
Francoise Rosay (Michele Morgan and Viviane Romance appear for the
first time in 1938)
Source: La Cinematographie francaise, 19 March 1937, 25 March 1938, 31

March 1939
Plate 3 Annabella: a top box-office actress in the 1930s.
These results point to an interesting contradiction between mainstream

film history and box-office popularity. Gabin, Boyer, Darrieux, Morgan
and Rosay are internationally known; Raimu, Fernandel and Annabella
less so. Few readers of this book will be able to put a face to Francen,
Garat, Milton, Bach and Morlay, all huge stars in their time. Morlay,
Rossi and Popesco are household names in France, but are virtually
unknown outside. It may also be noted that Arletty, who for many
epitomizes the French female star of that era, does not appear in these
polls. The recently re-released 1938 Marcel Carne film Hotel du Nord,
starring Annabella and Arletty, illustrates this point. While attention
today is focused on Arletty, the project in 1938 was built around
Annabella, who, in contrast to Arletty, is treated by the camera as a
'star'. She features in more close-ups, her clothes change more frequently,
the lighting surrounds her face and hair with a luminous halo (this, of
course, does not prevent the brilliant Arletty from stealing the show,
especially as she is given the best lines).
Reliable film statistics began after the war with the creation of the
Centre National de la Cinematographe (CNC) in 1946, making possible
the calculation of films' and stars' box-office performance based on the
number of cinema tickets sold. Cumulative figures are available for the
period 1956-93.
Top box-office French stars 1956-90

1. Louis de Funes; 2. Bourvil; 3. Jean-Paul Belmondo; 4. Jean Gabin;
5. Fernandel; 6. Alain Delon; 7. Lino Ventura; 8. Gerard Depardieu;
9. Jean Marais; 10. Bernard Blier
Source: Le Film francais, No. 2418, 4 September 1992.
Top box-office French stars 1973-93

1. Gerard Depardieu; 2. Philippe Noiret; 3. Jean-Paul Belmondo; 4. Claude
Brasseur; 5. Michel Serrault; 6. Jean-Louis Trintignant; 7. Pierre Richard;
8. Michel Piccoli; 9. Alain Delon; 10. Yves Montand
Source: Le Film francais, No. 2478, 29 October 1993.
Among the top box-office French films of the post-1993 period are: I . Les
Visiteurs (1993); 2. Le Diner de cons (1998); 3. Asterix et Obelix contre Cesar
(1999); 4. Les Couloirs du temps (1998); 5. Un indien dans la ville (1994);
6. Les Trois freres (1995); 7. Taxi (1998); 8. Germinal (1993); 9. Gazon
maudit (1995)
As Gerard Depardieu stars in Asterix, Les Couloirs du temps and Germinal,

as well as other hits of the decade such as Les Anges gardiens (1995), he
consolidates his place at the top, together with Christian Clavier, Jean
Reno, Thierry Lhermitte and Jacques Villeret.
Source: Studio Magazine, Hors serie, 'Les Annees 90', December 1999.
These cumulative figures are excellent for highlighting general trends,

but when broken down further also reveal interesting local variations,
notably in relation to gender ('stars' refers to both male and female).
Apart from sexism (women also receive lower salaries),32 the absence of
women from the top ten needs further explanation. While women are
more prominent in low box-office auteur films (see Chapter 5), comedy
dominates the French box-office. Since women are rarely comedy stars
(one exception in the 1990s is Josiane Balasko, star and director of Gazon
maudit}, they therefore don't make it to the top ten. Second, their careers
as top box-office stars (e.g. Bardot) are generally shorter, and as such do
not impact on cumulative figures. Thus, some female stars have had
notable box-office successes in individual films - Jeanne Moreau in Les
Amants; Brigitte Bardot in La Verite; Sylvia Kristel in Emmanuelk; Sophie
Marceau in La Boom; Isabelle Adjani in L'Ete meurtrier and Camille
Claudel; Beatrice Dalle in 37-2 le matin; Catherine Deneuve in Les
Parapluies de Cherbourg and Indochine — but overall this performance,
again, does not register in cumulative figures. If, on the contrary, one
looks at the figures for shorter periods (for instance, 1956-8), there are
often startling variations.
Top box-office French stars 1956—8

1. Dairy Cowl; 2. Bernard Blier; 3. Jean Cabin; 4. Jeanne Moreau; 5. Henri
Vidal; 6. Dany Carrel; 7. Brigitte Bardot; 8. Annie Girardot; 9. Daniel
Gelin; 10. Danielle Darrieux
Source: Le Film fmnfais, No. 765—6, Special Issue, January 1959
If one turns to the cinephile-dominated historiography, one indeed

finds that women have a much greater presence. For instance, David
Shipman's33 The Great Movie Stars: The International Years (1972)
includes the same number of male and female French stars (eleven each).
In the volume of the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
(Thomas, 1992) devoted to actors, there are twenty-three French female
stars and thirty-three male stars. In both of these works, there are entries
on Stephane Audran, Anna Karina and Delphine Seyrig, actresses with
minimal box-office power but a strong auteur filmography, but neither
carries an entry on major box-office stars such as de Funes, Bourvil and
Pierre Richard, or indeed Sylvia Kristel, who, thanks to her success in the
erotic Emmanuelk series, turns out to be the highest ranking female star
at the French box-office.34 French sources are unsurprisingly more
comprehensive. For instance, Andre Bailee's Les Acteurs francais (1988)
covers forty women against eighty-four men, and de Funes, Bourvil and
Fernandel are all recognized. However, like the Dictionnaire du cinema
(Passek, 1991), Sallee gives Seyrig as much space as de Funes, and both
leave Kristel out completely. Similarly, a star's work in auteur cinema
receives far more treatment than his or her work with mainstream
directors (whereas it could be argued that in many cases auteur movies
are less representative of a star's work than mainstream films, where he
or she is given freer rein). This is the case for entries on Gabin,
Depardieu and Bardot; in the case of the latter, for instance, writers give
disproportionate amounts of space to Le Mepris (an extreme case being
David Thomson's entry on Bardot in A Biographical Dictionary of Film
(1994), which is almost entirely devoted to Godard's film).
In terms of books published, Bardot and Moreau are 'greater' stars
than de Funes or Belmondo. Judged by the availability of postcards and
film stills, and of the retail value of original film posters, Bardot is greater
than all other French stars. In number of magazine images in the 1990s,
Deneuve, Binoche, Beart and Carole Bouquet are the most prominent
because of their advertising work. A glance at the number of web-sites
devoted to the stars in this book also inflects the box-office order and
gender balance. In November 1998, Binoche scored 8,744 'hits', as
opposed to 6,864 for Depardieu; Deneuve 4,090 compared with 2,163
for Delon, 1,611 for Belmondo and 1,149 for Gabin; Moreau scored
2,583 entries compared with 347 for de Funes and 350 for Linder. One
simple explanation is topicality: during that time, Binoche and Deneuve's
film careers were active. Yet, Bardot, who stopped making films in 1973,
scored 4,994 hits. This speaks of her continuously high cultural currency,
bolstered by the widespread availability of her films on video, including
many with English subtitles, and her high-profile non-cinematic
activities.
Finally, there is a more intangible side to popularity in the
'measurements' of opinion polls of variable value and accuracy. Here
female stars tend to score as well, if not better, than male stars. Deneuve,
Huppert, Marceau and Bonnaire rank high in these polls, even though
their films do not make the top ten. For instance, a poll taken at Cannes
in 1997 placed Deneuve as most popular star (33 per cent) against
Depardieu at 31 per cent.35 In this respect, the impact of a star's private
life is also crucial. Thus, on 24 December 1999 the readers of Le Parisien
astonishingly (especially from outside France) voted Romy Schneider
'Actress of the century' ahead of Deneuve, Monroe, Morgan and
Bardot. Schneider's Austrian Sissi series has a cult French following,
and during her second career from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, she
starred in several highly popular films such as La Piscine, Cesar et
Rosalie, La Banquiere, Le Vieux fusil, La Passante du 'Sans-Souci'. But there
is no doubt that her beauty, combined with a tumultuous affair with
Delon, serious illness, the tragic death of her teenage son and her death
in 1982 from heart failure (or suicide) contributed in large part to her
high ranking.
In the last two decades of the twentieth century, other developments
have challenged the relevance of box-office figures. In that period film
exhibition (and finance) in France, as elsewhere, has diversified into
television and video. As a result, the box-office power of stars has
become a more complex — and even more difficult to quantify —
phenomenon. For example, while the attraction of Delon and Belmondo
at the French cinema box-office greatly declined from the mid-1980s,
both retained a large television audience.36 Stars of domestic comedy
such as Gerard Jugnot have a huge following not reflected in box-office
statistics. As Jugnot says, The advantage of the films I make is that even
if they bomb at the box-office, they have an excellent career on
television.'37 On the other hand, in the celebrity culture of the 1990s, the
pre-eminence of film stars is challenged by singers, sportsmen, top
models and politicians, all of whom compete with actors for media
attention. But the prestige of cinema endures. As Christine Gledhill puts
it, 'While other entertainment industries may manufacture stars, cinema
still provides the ultimate confirmation of stardom' (Gledhill, 1991,
p. xiii). Television stars are still drawn to the big screen, wishing to make
a 'proper' film. This is the case for Les Inconnus, who made the hit film
Les Trois freres (1995).38 Conversely, Depardieu's high-profile, mega-
budget television series, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (tx September 1998),
was only possible — as was its sale to American network television —
because of his film-star status. Film stars are still the paramount category,
and their film box-office a relevant measure.
French stars and national identity
All stars have national associations, but while American stars tend
towards the universal by virtue of the world exposure and designs of
Hollywood, French stars are de facto more 'national', because they
operate within a smaller domestic market. Correspondingly, outside
France they carry the 'burden' of national identity, being constantly
defined by their Frenchness: the 'Gallic exuberance' of Gerard
Depardieu'; the 'wonderfully French Julie Delpy'; the 'beautifully French'
Sophie Marceau; the 'enchantingly Gallic 33-year-old Binoche';
'Deneuve's Gallic charm', and so on.39 These are journalistic cliches,
but they are significant in so far as the same journalists rarely refer to the
'Americanness' of Hollywood stars. As we have seen, stars are part of
everyday life in France in a number of ways. They are also connected to
events and objects which support the 'imagined community' (Anderson,
1991) of the nation, appearing on stamps and telephone cards, as part of
national celebrations, in addition to the collectable paraphernalia of stills,
posters, fabrics and ornaments. French stars function as 'ambassadors' of
France in an exchange of commodities officially enshrined after World
War II with the Blum-Byrnes agreements, which accepted a large number
of American films on the French market in exchange for the export of
French goods in which tourism, fashion, food and drink, cosmetics and
perfumes figured largely — all commodities easily associated with films
and film stars. A Unifmnce film document of 24 April 1953 illustrates this
clustering of signs of Frenchness around stars. Entitled 'French stars
introduce you to Paris', it proposes a journey through Paris, 'the capital
of elegance and spirit', guided by the stars: 'So as to present to you here
some of its aspects, we thought it necessary to call upon both our stars
and our writers — eminent chroniclers, inventors of words and stories —
thus doubly outlining views of a city but two thousand years young ...'
Thus, Michele Morgan guides the reader through the Champs-Elysees,
Gerard Philipe takes a tour through the Latin Quarter, Jean Marais
explores the Palais-Royal, etc. French stars also function literally as
ambassadors, accompanying film industry and government officials at
French Embassies and cultural services official functions around the
world, and at French film festivals. In the late 1950s, Bardot allegedly
brought in more foreign revenue than the Renault car company. In the
Plate 4 From telephone cards to stamps: the celebration of stars in everyday

life.
Plate 5 The young Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon grace the 1998 official
French Post Office calendar.
1960s and 1970s, Delon very successfully exported his films to Japan
and China. Since the 1980s, the stars' ambassadorial role has become
more symbolic, but given the worsening rate of export of non-English-
speaking film, this role is crucial in disseminating French cinema, if only
as a media presence.
Embodying the nation: different for men and women40
The star's 'myth' helps reconcile contradictions that exist in the social
roles expected of men and women at key historical moments, and
'naturalizes', thereby validating, historical constructions (see Chapter 3).
My analyses of individual stars in this book in particular delve into their
mythic role in relation to national identity, but I will mention here
briefly two other examples. From the late 1940s through to the 1960s,
the much-loved comic star Bourvil popularized the character of an idiotic
country simpleton who, though always coupled with smarter and/or
more virile male stars, was never made ridiculous. Through his acting
talent and the pathos of his characters, Bourvil, using his Normandy
roots to the full, reconciled acceptance of modern social roles with loss
of rooted values (this was the era of intense exode rural, from farming to
urban communities). He also managed at once to dramatize and conceal
the threat to virility that this move entailed for his class of men. In the
late 1940s and early 1950s, the bold screen presence and sexual aura of
Simone Signoret expressed the contradictory pull on women, inexorably
moving towards greater emancipation, yet held back by a 'backlash'
misogynist culture after the greater freedom of the war and Liberation.
Stars who embodied such a complex image or 'myth' as Bourvil and
Signoret powerfully express the ironies and contradictions of social
change. A similar interpretation can be made of the link between
Depardieu and Binoche and the shifting definitions of gender in the
1980s and 1990s: the high premium placed on Vulnerability' in both
their star personas shows how this value functions in the late twentieth
century, at a time of theoretical (but not actual) equality between men
and women. For Binoche, it is a key aspect of her persona, channelled in
one respect through narratives of artistic sensitivity, while Depardieu
can also mobilize it in some contexts, such as in his 'wounded macho'
roles, and discard it in others, such as comedy.
As becomes clear when comparing, for instance, Gabin and Depardieu

on the one hand with Bardot and Deneuve on the other, the identification
of stars with national identity follows a familiar gendered pattern. Male
stars elicit an identification with public figures and actual historical
events. They occupy a very special place in the French national psyche
and in the construction of French national identity in and through the
cinema. In the 1930s, the President of the Republic, Albert Lebrun, was
compared to the star Raimu, while the head of the Communist Party,
Maurice Thorez, claimed he would have liked to be incarnated by Gabin.
An early 1960s poll claimed that 42 per cent of 15- to 25-year-olds
would have liked to have Gabin as one of their ancestors, against 29 per
cent for Albert Camus and IS per cent General de Gaulle (Gauteur and
Bernard, 1976, p. 49). Following the older Gabin and Belmondo, the
middle-aged Depardieu is plundering French history and French historical
literature (Danton, Cyrano de Bergemc, Germinal, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo,
Balzac, Vatel). By contrast, female stars, though they appear in historical
drama, symbolize the nation in ways which refer not to historical figures
but to allegory on the one hand and the body on the other. The latter
point can be illustrated in relation to World War II. The cover of a book
on the life of artists during the war (Ragache and Ragache, 1988)
contrasts, along with the fascist writer Celine, two stars: Gabin and
Arletty. In his uniform, Gabin stands for resistance; Arletty, detached
from specific associations, stands for sexual collaboration horizontak
because of her liaison with a German officer (see also Chapter 3).
As discussed in Chapters 4 and 8, both Bardot (1969) and Deneuve
(1985) posed for Marianne, combining the body and the allegorical
function. Bardot was the first known actress to do so since the inception
of Marianne as symbol of the Republic in 1782. For historian Maurice
Agulhon, this is a sign of Marianne's loss of symbolic power, compared
with her cult in the immediate post-war period after representations of
Marianne were banned during the Vichy regime (Agulhon and Bonte,
1992, pp. 92-5). Marianne thereby left the field of political history to
enter that of popular national mythology. What this shows us is the
place of film stars in this mythology. The Bardot bust, initially sculpted
by Alain Asian for the men's magazine Lui, shows her breasts in a clearly
sexual way, differing from traditional busts or paintings, which usually
cover one breast or both. The Bardot model's subsequent spread
through town halls indicates her acceptability as national symbol, both

because of and despite her sexual aura: initially controversial, the model
remained the most popular of the following thirty years. Deneuve's bust,
sculpted by a woman (Marielle Polska), unlike Bardot's does not retain
the traditional hat; instead, it features Deneuve's abundant but smooth
hair and stops just below the neck. It is a cool, elegant representation
which corresponds to the star's persona. Both Bardot in the late 1960s
and Deneuve in the mid-1980s were past their period of high stardom;
they were, in a sense, already 'institutions' with well-established images:
vitality and sexuality for Bardot, elegance for Deneuve. Following
Deneuve, the 1994 model for Marianne was fashion model Ines de la
Fressance. In 1999, the association of French mayors chose 'super-model'
Laetitia Casta as the new Marianne, signalling the further 'mediatization'
of Marianne criticized by Agulhon, but also, perhaps, the diminishing
importance of film stars.
French film stars' involvement in advertising cosmetics also signals a
change in their place in popular culture. In the 1970s Catherine
Deneuve's advertisements for Chanel No. 5 were exceptional; they were
analysed by Judith Williamson in terms of Deneuve's cinema glamour
reflecting on the product (Williamson, 1978, pp. 24-9). In the 1980s and
1990s increasing numbers of French stars have taken to modelling for
perfume and make-up: Emmanuelle Beart (Dior), Isabelle Adjani (Dior),
Carole Bouquet (Chanel No. 5), Vanessa Paradis (Chanel 'Coco'),
Catherine Deneuve (Yves Saint-Laurent), Juliette Binoche (Lancome
Toeme'), Sophie Marceau (Guerlain 'Champs-Elysees'). Actresses from
other nationalities have also done so, for instance Isabella Rossellini, but
the choice of French models is overdetermined by the Frenchness of the
industry. Williamson's analysis still applies, in the sense that stars are
used to distinguish between products: young and kinky for Chanel
'Coco' (Paradis), mature and classic for Chanel No. 5 (Bouquet), romantic
for Toeme' (Binoche). And in the case of Deneuve, Adjani and Binoche,
as Williamson says, 'If she were not a film star and famous for her chic
type of French beauty, if she did not mean something to us, the link
made between her face and the perfume world would be meaningless.'
True, but equally and especially in the case of Bouquet and Paradis, the
process of advertising cosmetics has become as important in the
formation of the image of the star as the films themselves. It might be
argued, in fact, that the process works more in reverse, the glamour from
Saint-Laurent and Dior reflecting back on the filmic image, because the
products are far more widely available throughout the world (as images
in magazines and as commodities) than the films.
French stars and Hollywood
Given the vitality of the French film industry, the export record of
French stars in Hollywood has been remarkably limited. Whether as
cause or effect, attitudes to the American industry are decidedly
ambivalent. While Hollywood is seen by some as the Holy Grail, others
are very critical of it both as a concept and a reality. Those who have
emigrated have been perceived both as traitors (there was talk of an
'exodus' as many French actors and actresses left for Hollywood from
the 1920s) and as glorious ambassadors. Cinemonde commented on
Charles Boyer's success as 'having conquered America'.41 On the news
of Annabella's wedding to Tyrone Power, Pour vous wrote: 'A little
French girl is about to marry America's Prince Charming.'42 In the 1940s
and 1950s stars like Michele Morgan, Simone Simon and Micheline
Presle made films in Hollywood. But only the men were really
successful: Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan and Charles Boyer became
Hollywood's image of French masculinity, both hyper-sexual and
romantic. Their success was partly due to the popularity of the genres in
which they specialized: the musical, in the case of Chevalier, and
melodrama for Jourdan and Boyer. The ascendancy of action genres has
not helped French stars in this respect. In the 1990s, Depardieu and
Binoche have broken into international film productions (as opposed to
Hollywood). In the 1990s too, a wave of young 'French babes' has
broken into Hollywood, but in stereotypical marginal parts: Emmanuelle
Beart in Mission Impossible; Sophie Marceau in The World Is not Enough
(following in the footsteps of other French 'Bond women', Claudine
Auger and Carole Bouquet). Why this chequered record?
There are objective difficulties, most obviously language. Tony
Crawley argues that 'few French stars make the effort to master English
well enough to transcend their nationality';43 this is confirmed by
Belmondo, who explains, 'I did not want to go because I couldn't be
bothered to learn English'.44 The linguistic difficulty is connected to a
wider ideological one. The 'resistance' to the English language can be

seen as related to the battle to maintain French cinema at the French
box-office and abroad. Like the French language, French cinema is not
yet a 'minority' like Dutch or Finnish: as many examples show, a French
actor can be an international star speaking French in French films. A
wider reason is that the French are self-confident enough not to want to
go to Hollywood where they would be confronted by a culture clash in
sensitivities and working practices. Hollywood studios are always
perceived as 'too organized'. In the 1930s, director and producer Henri
Diamant-Berger emphasized the lack of freedom in Hollywood from a
legal point of view, comparing a Hollywood contract to slavery: 'which
no French tribunal would accept as valid ... but that does not stop
thousands of people to desire the slavery it represents. The chains are
golden, one has to admit.'45 The problem is a combination of French
cinema's 'minority status', which automatically associates it with art
cinema, and paradoxically of its strong image. As Belmondo perceived:
'People wanted me to go to Hollywood. I had the cover of Life. I was
"the French Lover!" However, I bet my reputation went no further than
Greenwich Village ... I think I would have ended up as an Italian or a
Frenchman, but not in Steve McQueen parts. They did not need me!
Furthermore, I think I am typically French. If they had dressed me as a
cowboy, it would have been comic.'46
More pithily, Delon said, 'America means choosing a different life, not
just a career. I need my local cafe and baguette.'47
In France, as in Hollywood, and despite the changes that have taken

place historically, stars are absolutely central to the film industry in
determining and influencing projects and in attracting spectators to the
cinema (as well as the video shop). They are equally central to the
identity of the films for the audience. Like Hollywood too, the French
film industry has a 'star system', because, at a very fundamental level, its
volume of production is sufficient to create a large base of actors who
graduate from being 'young hopes' and 'starlets' to the rank of vedettes
and, in a few cases, stars. A look at the filmographies in this book will
show how this also works at the level of each individual star. All, except
Bardot and Binoche, have made an enormous number of films, a
necessary base for the gems to emerge. At the same time as stars
function in French cinema as stars do everywhere, we have seen how
they are different, in the way they are embedded both in the industry
and in the cultural history of the nation. They are also, fundamentally,
different from each other - they are special. As Istvan Szabo put it, 'real'
stars must have the ability to 'represent an idea and stay in the
memory'.48 This, I believe, is the case for all those discussed in this book,
to whom it is now time to turn.
Notes
1. Jean-Pierre Melville, interviewed in the documentary Portrait en muf poses,

directed by Andre S. Labarthe (1966).
2. Rene Chateau, quoted in Le Film franfais, No. 2026, 1 March 1985, p. 59.
3. The film schools, such as the FEMIS, on the other hand, do not prepare
students for acting.
4. Cinema fmnpais, No. 26, 1979, p. 16.
5. I consider that Tati was not a 'star' in the traditional sense.
6. Cine-revue, 20 October 1983, pp. 18-19.
7. Jean-Paul Belmondo, in Cine-revue, 23 July 1981, p. 5.
8. Le Film franfais, 4 September 1992.
9. La Cinematographic franpaise, 22-29 December 1934, p. 78.
10. Studio Magazine, November 1992.
11. Premiere, January 1986, p. 60.
12. Ibid.
13. Le Film franfais, 4 September 1992.
14. Isabel Desesquels, 'Production: le poids des acteurs', ibid., pp. 15—20.
15. Ibid.
16. David Shipman, Films and Filming, September 1964, p. 8.
17. Angus Finney, 'Falling stars', Sight and Sound, May 1994, p. 23.
18. Cannes's traditional role in promoting stars was highlighted, a contrario, in
May 1999, by the scandal provoked by the award of the top two acting
prizes to non-professional actors, the stars of Rosetta and L'Humanite, seen
as 'a slap in the face of stars' (Marianne, 31 May—6 June 1999, pp. 70—1).
19. Gerard Depardieu, Studio Magazine, No. 104, November 1995, p. 79.
20. Martha Frankel, interview with Juliette Binoche, Movieline, August 1997,
p. 42.
21. Juliette Binoche, interview, in Telerama, No. 2547, 4 November 1998, p. 33.
22. There is a CD called Advices which gathers songs sung by Adjani, Birkin,
Deneuve, Bardot and Charlotte Gainsbourg, most of them written by
Serge Gainsbourg.
23. Interview with Dominique Besnehard, 'Les secrets d'un agent', Studio
Magazine, No. 136, July/August 1998, p. 128.
24. Jean-Paul Belmondo, 'interview fleuve par les Freres Kruger', Premiere,
April 1995, pp. 65-75.
25. Cine-revue, 24 October 1968.
26. Marianne, 17-23 August 1998.
27. The European magazine, 18—24 January 1996, p. 5.
28. Thierry Jousse and Serge Toubiana, 'Mystere Delon' (interview with Alain
Delon), Cahiers du cinema, No. 501, April 1996, p. 19.
29. Le Film francais, No. 2453-4, 7-14 May 1993, p. 126.
30. Premiere, September 1995, p. 86.
31. See 'Sophie Marceau, le caprice d'une star', VSD, No. 1042, 14-20 August
1997, pp. 19-23.
32. 'Comediennes francaises', Premiere, January 1986, pp. 64-6.
33. Shipman, in another context, makes clear his nostalgia for the New Wave:
see Films and Filming, No. 10/12, September 1964, pp. 7—11.
34. Le Film francais, 22 August 1984.
35. Studio Magazine, Special Issue Cannes, May 1997, p. 135.
36. Le Film francais, No. 2418, 4 September 1992, p. 16.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. 'Gerard and the Almighty', Evening Standard, Friday 23 October 1992, p. 26;
'Julie Delpy: une babe francaise', Empire, No. 61, July 1994, p. 57; 'Sophie
Marceau, with chill', Empire, No. 74, August 1995, p. 51; on Binoche: The
sunshine girls', Empire, No. 94, April 1997, p. 61; The darkness beneath
Deneuve's Gallic charm', Independent, 27 March 1998, p. 12.
40. The nation' here means the white nation. French cinema has been slow to
acknowledge the ethnic diversity of the population. Josephine Baker in the
1930s and young actors such as Pascal Legitimus and Roschdy Zem in the
1990s have begun to challenge this uniformity but the fact remains that at
the level of major stardom whiteness prevails.
41. Cinemonde, 15 January 1937.
42. Pour vous, 12 April 1939.
43. Tony Crawley, 'Lost in translation', Paris Passion, May 1990, p. 40.
44. Belmondo, quoted in 'interview fleuve par les Freres Kruger', p. 72.
45. Henri Diamant-Berger, Pour vous, 6 September 1939.
46. Belmondo, quoted in 'interview fleuve par les Freres Kruger', p. 72.
47. Alain Delon, in Cahiers du cinema, April 1996, p. 31.
48. Istvan Szabo, paper given at conference on The actor's value: does Europe
need a star system?', London, 15 November 1996.
CHAPTER 2
Max Under
The world's first film star
To the one and only Max, The Professor.

From his disciple Charlie Chaplin
Max Linder was the first international film star. In his heyday between
1909 and 1914, he became the world's highest paid actor, thanks to the
success of his 'Max' series, which took him round the world, earning him
the nickname 'Roi du cinematographic' ('King of cinema'). As both comic
and director, he is cited as a key influence on Mack Sennett and Charlie
Chaplin, as well as the Marx Brothers, and in France, on Rene Clair,
Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix. Early cinema scholars (see Abel, 1984 and
1994; Ford, 1966; Mitry, 1964; Robinson, 1987 and 1996; and Sadoul,
1947, together with articles by Spears, 1965, and Krai, 1986) have
conclusively established Linder's pre-eminence in pre-World War I
cinema, and this chapter is indebted to their work, especially Abel, who
provides much needed precise references. Yet, outside studies of early
French cinema, Linder is either totally unknown or overshadowed by
Chaplin.2 Only a portion of his vast output remains, although some of it
is easily available on film and video thanks to Linder's daughter, Maud,
who compiled two programmes, L'Homme an chapeau de sole and En
compagnie de Max Linder. A few other films are scattered in compilations
of early cinema and in film archives.3 By including Linder in this book,
my aim was to encourage a wider awareness of him as a French film star,
42
Max Linder 43
Plate 6 Max Linder in his signature outfit.
on a par with the others in this collection. In the process, I came across
the difficulties inherent in early film studies (especially problems of
availability and identification - precise dates and titles are often elusive)
but also experienced the excitement of discovery. I was curious to
address the questions of why, firstly, Linder is not more widely
recognized as the world's first film star, and secondly, what image of
French masculinity he projected, why it had such resonance at the time
and so little later.
The Max Linder legend
Max Linder was born Gabriel Maximilien Leuvielle in 1883 at Saint-

Loubes near Bordeaux. He came from a well-to-do wine-growing family.
His professional debuts took place in the theatre in Bordeaux in 1904
(where he adopted the name Max Under),4 and then Paris. In 1905 he
was signed on by Pathe. For a couple of years he had parts in comic films
while appearing on stage in the evening; he even posed for sentimental
postcards. From 1909 and especially 1910, with his 'Max' series (many
of which he directed), he rose to huge fame. As the dapper Max, in his
signature dandy outfit of tailcoat, waistcoat, top hat, cane and spats,
Linder became a world-wide phenomenon, touring European capitals,
where he was received with the pomp normally reserved for royalty,
and where he continued to make films. He joined the war early, but was
wounded on two occasions. His physical and mental health never truly
recovered; he would always suffer from recurrent depression and chest
problems. Invited by Essanay to its Chicago studios, he made a first trip
to the USA in 1917, but without great success.5 Back in France, he
starred at the end of the war in Le Petit cafe (1919), an adaptation of a
play by Tristan Bernard, directed by his son Raymond Bernard. He also
opened a luxury cinema, the Cine Max-Linder.6 But France was by now
in the grip of a craze for American film comedy, and in particular for
Chaplin. Linder undertook a second, more successful, visit to the USA,
this time to California, where he made three longer (three-reel) films:
Seven Years' Bad Luck (1921), Be My Wife (1921) and The Three Must-
Get-Theres (1922), considered by some his masterpieces. Linder's
expensive house in Los Angeles was next to Chaplin's (they became
friends) and he behaved like a 'Hollywood star', entertaining lavishly and
being driven around in a limousine.
A combination of ill-health and the lukewarm reception of his films
sent him back to France. Although Linder was putting a brave face on
things (on 12 July 1918 he wrote to the producer Henri Diamant-Berger,
'I have just received a huge amount of letters from America. I am
sending you some of them so that you can see for yourself that,
whatever people say, a French artist can be successful in America'),7 the
tide had definitely turned. French cinema no longer ruled, and Linder had
been dethroned as the 'King of Cinema'. He made two more films, Au
secours! (1923, with Abel Gance, his one dramatic role), and Le Roi du
cirque (1924). In 1923, at the age of forty he married the eighteen-year-
old Helene Peters. Two years later in 1925 they both died in a
mysterious double-suicide pact in a Parisian hotel.
It is a cliche to say that the boisterous comic is a depressive at heart, but
Max Linder 45
Linder offers a particularly poignant contrast between the infectiously

jaunty and seductive screen image and the haunting sadness behind it, and
in the dramatic swings between the ups and downs: the world fame, the
war traumas, the disappointing Hollywood career, the lost struggle against
American supremacy, the double suicide.8 Yet, on screen Linder had it all:
he was a rare example of a comic who was also very good-looking. That
combination was both at the heart of his contemporary success and one of
the reasons for his dramatic fall from grace.
The world's first film star
The period of Linder's greatest success, between 1907 and 1914,

coincides with the final years of French dominance of world cinema.
Working for Pathe, which was, with Gaumont, the leading French film
company, Linder benefited from its equipment, its production facilities
and its vast distribution network, which took his films literally to the
corners of the globe.
Linder chose to work in the most popular genre of the time, comedy,
which represented about 40 per cent of Pathe's as well as Gaumont's
output. Comic series were all the rage, and Linder initially had several
rivals. Among others at Pathe, there were Boireau (Andre Deed) and
Prince-Rigadin (Charles Petit-Demange), while Gaumont's stable
included Romeo (Bosetti), Calino (Clement Mige) and Bebe (Rene
Dary). Indeed, the departure of two of them — Rene Grehan (a comic
with a similar dandy image who left for the rival company Eclair), and
Boireau, who began a second successful career in Italy in 1908 as
'Cretinetti' — gave Linder's career a helpful boost. Although there is a
strong comic tradition in French literature and performance dating back
to Rabelais, it is not entirely clear why comedy should have been so
much more dominant in French cinema than in other countries. Some
point to early cinema's emergence as a fairground attraction and the
origins of actors in the circus and music-hall. Laurent Le Forestier (1997)
interestingly sees a convergence between early screen comedy and the
work of the philosopher Henri Bergson, who published his essay on
laughter, Le Rire, essai sur la signification du comique, in 1900. Among
other features, Le Forestier focuses on the aesthetics of distance and the
mechanical trickery that characterize early French cinema and which also
happened to correspond to some of Bergson's categories of the comic.
Although this intriguing convergence may be a coincidence (according
to Le Forestier, there is no evidence that Bergson was interested in the
cinema) and Le Forestier does not discuss Linder, the notion of 'distance'
is one I will return to as relevant to his comic style.
Linder's early comic performance was in the burlesque mode. For
instance, in Les Debuts d'un patineur (1907), Linder experiments with ice-
skating with predictable results; L'Apprenti jongleur (1908) is likewise a
series of gags around Max's frustrated attempts at manual dexterity. His
work then evolved into more sophisticated narratives and film
techniques with extended jokes and moments of 'surreal' humour. In
Max prend son bain (1910), he struggles to carry an incongruous bathtub
in the street, and (anticipating Keaton) attempts to fill it with ridiculously
tiny containers, before moving it to the landing where there is a tap and
having a bath in full view of his neighbours. Forced out by the police, he
walks on all fours with the bathtub on his back, like some outlandish
insect. Max pedicure (1914) includes a brilliant scene in which he shaves
the foot of a 'client' (the husband of the woman he is trying to seduce),
the camera cutting to a medium close-up half-way through the scene the
better to show us Max's expressions and actions. In Max toreador,9 Max
brings a cow and its calf to his apartment; he then proceeds to taunt the
placid animal, using a tea towel as a cape and a baguette, carving knife
and fork as other bullfighting accessories. Les Debuts de Max Linder au
cinematographe (1910) is a cleverly self-reflexive story which, as Abel
says, affords fascinating views of filmmaking behind the scenes, such as
Charles Pathe in his office. Linder's American features obviously offer
longer stories and extended gags, including the celebrated mirror joke in
Seven Years' Bad Luck. In this stunning scene, to disguise the fact that he
has broken the mirror, his manservant mounts an elaborate deception
involving the cook pretending to be Linder's reflection while the latter is
shaving. This leads to several hilarious variations until the mirror is
hastily replaced, only for Linder to break it by hurling his shoe at it. The
Three Must-Get-Theres is a delightful parody of both Dumas's The Three
Musketeers and Douglas Fairbanks's film of 1921. Linder naturally plays
d'Artagnan, alternating swashbuckling and romantic moments, and
sometimes combining both at the same time: for instance, he fights an
Max Linder 47
opponent with his sword with one hand while courting a woman on the
balcony above. There are also clever anachronistic jokes involving
telephones and motorbikes.
Linder's work spans a key transitional period in early film history,
which saw the move from the 'cinema of attractions' to the 'cinema of
narrative integration' (Gunning, 1990). Linder's early films belong to the
cinema of attractions in their use of long-shot static tableaux, trickery and
simple slapstick. The 'attraction' is the spectacle of Linder grappling with
the physical and human obstacles around him, as, for example, in Les
Debuts d'un patineur, Max aviateur, L'Apprenti jongleur. But overall, as Krai
among others observes, 'His comic style, in fact, is more comedy than
burlesque' (Krai, 1986, p. 73). In contrast with those working-class comics
who originated in, and built on, the circus and the music-hall, such as
Boireau and Onesime, Linder's comedy was theatrical and middle class.
This pertained to his own origins and training and was visually signalled
by the milieu in which his stories take place, their locations and decors and
Linder's bourgeois attire. Linder can thus be located at the intersection of
two different histories: that of the (international) film industry's growing
embourgeoisement (its move out of the fairground and bid for middle-class
respectability and audiences) and a specific French theatrical tradition. The
boulevard and vaudeville10 comedy tradition Linder came from was
inherited from two convergent earlier genres: vaudeville farce and the
comedy of manners. Its heyday was in the second half of the nineteenth
century, with the extraordinary success of Labiche and Feydeau's plays.
The genre is fast-paced and light-hearted, focusing on the 'sex war'
(adultery being a key plot), mistaken identities and the logical pursuit of
initially nonsensical or fortuitous situations. A 'satire of the philistine
bourgeoisie for a bourgeois audience' (Lindenberg in de Jomaron, 1988,
p. 180), it was a cerebral, refined and distanced kind of comedy. Vaudeville
and boulevard comedy would continue on stage throughout the twentieth
century and lay the foundations of an important strand of French popular
cinema. Linder's characters are transpositions of vaudeville heroes: dashing
bourgeois figures devoted to the pursuit of women, money and pleasure,
who get into implausible yet unavoidable situations. Although vaudeville
flourished especially with sound cinema, some plays were adapted in the
1920s. In this respect, Linder is an important bridge between nineteenth-
century theatre and the cinema of the likes of Rene Clair and Sacha Guitry.
One of Clair's great silent films was an adaptation of Labiche's Un chapeau

de paille d'ltalie (1928). The mechanics of vaudeville plays — for instance, the
extensive use of exits and entrances, and the asides to the audience — are
at the basis of Linder's comic style.
At the time of Linder's rise to fame, the cinema also moved from a
collective, institutional phase (where it was associated with manufactur-
ing companies such as Pathe and Gaumont) towards a new stage in
which the focus was on the individual: the director, the actor. Stardom
arose during this phase. Comic series, organized around a male comic,
provided an intense focus on the individual. Yet, they have been
overlooked in accounts of early stardom in favour of female stars.
Linder's total centrality to his films — the signature clothes, the
ostentatious repetition of his name in the films' titles (a name signifying
character, actor and author,11) the correspondence between his 'real'
name and the name of the character - were all ways of highlighting his
individuality both in advertising and on screen. Abel notes that 'In late
summer, 1909, under Gasnier's direction, Linder began appearing in a
regular series of Pathe comedies, with his name soon included in each
film's advertisement' (Abel, 1994, p. 237). He also notes that 'Linder was
first referred to by name as one of the best film comedians for his role in
the 1909 The Servant's Good Joke (ibid., p. 513).12 A fundamental attribute
of stardom is the articulation of the private with the public. The
connection between Max the character on screen and Max Linder the
person was quickly established. Anecdotes about his private life were
used in advertising, such as news of his appendectomy in 1910 (ibid.,
p. 53). They also began, as in Les Debuts de Max Linder au cinematographe,
to be recycled into his films. Max en convalescence (1911) featured his
recovery at home in Saint-Loubes, with views of his arrival at the
railway station, and scenes with his parents and family pets. A similar
process informs Max entre deux feux (1915), in which Max convalesces
(again) by a Swiss lake and is spotted by two young women, who call
out, 'Ah! Ah! Ah! Max Linder!' and immediately start laughing. Max
Goes to America is based on his first trip in 1917. These self-reflective
features were signalled to spectators in the films' publicity.13
Linder's fame quickly spread beyond France. Yuri Tsivian notes of
Linder's visit to Moscow: 'As to Max Linder, his stardom in Russia dated
back to 1910. ... In 1913, stimulated by Linder's visit to Saint Petersburg
Max Under 49
(in late November) and Moscow (early December), the craze grew into
madness' (Tsivian, 1996, p. 199). In keeping with this status, Linder
became pre-war cinema's highest paid star. When he renewed his contract
with Pathe in 1912, a contemporary article commented: 'Max Linder has
remained faithful to the company whose formidable outlets made him a
celebrity ... It appears that the gold chain which binds Max Linder [to
Pathe] is worth FFlm after three years of triumphant servitude!'14
Appointed President of the Societe des Auteurs de Films, he also played
a prominent part in the battle for the defence of French cinema in the face
of Hollywood's domination (the first in a long series of such struggles).
Linder, then, possessed all the key attributes of stardom: immense
fame, clout in the industry, wealth and, crucially, a recognizable and
recognized identity, as well as the articulation of the public and private
persons in his screen persona. Yet, as Jeremy Butler notes, 'Conventional
wisdom maintains that the first promotional campaign mounted for a
star was in 1910, for Florence Lawrence, "the Biograph girl", by Carl
Laemmle' (in Hill and Church-Gibson, 1998, p. 344). Why does Linder
not figure in the myth of the origins of stardom?
One basic reason, noted in the introduction to this book, is the
American bias of film historiography. Another answer has to do with the
decline of French cinema after World War I and the rise of Hollywood,
mirrored by the eclipse of Linder and the triumph of Chaplin. In the
absence (then) of film archives, television and videos, there were no
means of prolonging the exposure of a star after his films were
withdrawn from exhibition. Max's oblivion was rapid. There is also the
question of identification. In a discussion of early French comedy,
Laurent Le Forestier argues that between 1907 and 1910
comic films took as 'heroes' characters from the same bourgeois class as the
spectators and moved towards a boulevard-style comedy inherited from the
vaudeville, while playing, thanks to a more elaborate decoupage and a more
varied tone, the identification card. It is therefore at that time, in the
alternation between identification and no identification, that is to say
between emotion and lack of emotion, that the dichotomy between
burlesque and comedy took place. (Le Forestier, 1997, p. 25—6)
As we have seen, Linder's comic style followed this trajectory. However,

his screen persona's ability to evoke emotions was still limited. Even in
the longer features, and despite the 'cut-in emblematic medium shot'
(Abel, 1994, p. 219) which allows us to see his facial expressions, Max
invites a distanced gaze at his performance rather than emotional
empathy. His sophistication is technical (e.g. changes in framing, changes
of pace) and intellectual, but not emotional. His performance is vivid but
his characters are 'flat'. By contrast, Chaplin's greater recourse to
emotion draws spectatorial identification, as did female stars, who
tended to feature more prominently in dramatic genres. Thus, if Linder
was a fully-fledged star from the point of view of the film industry, the
genre he worked in problematized spectatorial identification. Never-
theless, he represented a very distinct social and gender type.
The man in the silk top hat
In the vaudeville theatre tradition, Linder derides the bourgeoisie from

inside that class. His habitat is the plush salon with potted plants and
heavy drapes, the elegant cafe and restaurant, the park, the lakeside
resort, the grand hotel. His clothes, the nonchalance of his body
language exude class confidence. He rarely works and instead channels
his energy into being a bon vivant in pursuit of women (for sex and
money) and bodily gratification: food, drink, strength-giving potions,
grooming. It is noticeable that many of his jokes relate to the body:
having a bath in Max prend son bain; shaving in Max pedicure; the mirror
joke in Seven Years' Bad Luck; getting cured for feebleness in Vidime du
quinquina; eating, cooking and looking for his clothes in Max reprend sa
liberte (1908).15 One extraordinary scene16 shows him using crockery to
'have a shower': sitting under an upturned bottle, he dips his feet in two
plates, and his hands in two glasses, wriggling with delight.
Linder's bourgeois attire - the elegant coats and waistcoats, the top
hats, the spats, the gloves - is the most noticeable thing about his screen
image. According to Yuri Tsivian, 'Linder's fame in Russia was based on
the way he dressed. There Linder passed for a model dandy' (Tsivian,
1996, p. 200). It is, on the one hand, a mark of distinction from the
crumpled appearance of other comics, and on the other hand a sign of
bourgeois propriety, albeit exploited comically. Linder's dazzling white
teeth and the whites of his eyes contrast with his dark skin, black hair
and moustache. Similarly, his snow-white shirts set off his black coat,
Max Linder 51
trousers, shoes and hat. Linder presents to the world a sharp, contrasted
image, eminently suited for black-and-white film as well as drawings and
photographs. Lines are well defined, surfaces are hard and shiny. At the
beginning of Max et la doctoresse he checks his looks by using his hat as a
mirror — a fine representation of the narcissism implicit in his image.
Linder's elegant black-and-white ensemble speaks of the belle epoque,
recalling contemporaries such as the music-hall singer Mayol and the
novelist and socialite Marcel Proust. Their elegance is historically
determined. Fashion historians have noted an epochal shift in male
clothing in the nineteenth century, from extravagant aristocratic
costume to the drab but functional dark suit. This change, termed the
'great masculine renunciation' (Flugel, 1930), aligns male clothing with
the rise of bourgeois capitalism. Linder's ensemble, however, is a
flamboyant, eroticized version of bourgeois male clothing which draws
attention to the idleness of his class (like Proust's), to the narcissism of
his role as an entertainer (like Mayol's) and also to his eroticism.
Unlike most comics, Linder is very good-looking, not only elegant
but sexually attractive. His dark looks suggest the Latin lover, and under
the urbane charmer there is a sexual predator (in L'Homme au chapeau de
sole, Maud Linder makes a discreet reference to his amorous career before
his marriage). Accordingly, many of his films focus on love, and their
humour does not come from the ineptitude or ridiculous pretention of
his sexual pursuits but from the obstacles put in the way of his desire. He
frequently 'gets the girl'. Hence Max et la doctoresse depicts a classic
vaudeville situation in which sex is repeatedly frustrated (in this case by
his wife, the doctoresse, being called on duty), but others, such as Une nuit
agitee (1912) take sexual fulfilment for granted. This sexual focus, familiar
to the French from vaudeville, shocked Americans, for whom early French
films acquired a reputation of being salacious, with what was perceived
as their unseemly emphasis on adultery, sex and even scatological jokes.
French cinema exported 'high art' to the USA (films starring stage stars
such as Sarah Bernhardt) but also, as Richard Abel puts it, 'another
conception of French culture as risque or even deviant and decidedly
different from American culture — especially in its display of sexuality,
violence and distasteful comic business'.17 Linder was not above crude
jokes, as in The Servant's Good Joke, whose gags revolve around a
laxative, but also as in Max a Monaco (1915), where he points a cannon
towards a sailor's bottom on which he has painted a target and fires it,
or, as in Max devrait porter des bretelles ('Max should wear braces', 1915),
where his trousers drop down accidentally in front of a woman.18 But on
the whole, Linder's 'risque' humour is more subtle, as in the wonderful
film19 in which his shoes and those of a woman he meets in a seaside
hotel have 'a life of their own'. The shoes graphically express their
unconscious desire for each other, independently leaving the characters'
feet, touching, 'embracing', eventually dragging Max and the woman
together and making them kiss (as many writers have noted, shoe
fetishism figures largely in Linder's films).
All comics exploit their own physique, and Linder's small stature is
used as a source of gags: Max veut grandir (1912) shows him trying to
get taller. His playing with a pony in Max en convalescence is a pointed
joke. He is often infantilized. Abel notes how in several films Max cries
'like a baby': for instance, at the end of Les Debuts d'un patineur and in La
Petite rosse (1909). Max pouts, sulks, throws tantrums: his eyes bulge, his
hair flops across his forehead, emphasizing his boyish haircut. He is, as in
vaudeville comedy, endlessly the henpecked husband, grappling with
'strong women' and domineering mothers-in-law: for instance, in La
Timidite vaincue and in Max reprend sa liberte. In the latter, both wife and
mother-in-law are large women who wear bulky clothes and huge hats,
making him appear even smaller (in some films, comic female figures are
played by men in drag).
There is a melancholy side to Linder's 'small man'. There are recurrent
images of convalescence and weakness (Max en convalescence, Max entre
deux feux), calling to mind notions of castration anxiety. In her discussion
of the fetishism attached to hats in gangster films, Stella Bruzzi quotes
Freud's remark that 'A hat is a symbol of a man (or of male genitals)'
(Bruzzi, 1997, p. 76). This seems particularly apt for the importance
Linder attaches to his top hat. Brilliantly used as a comic accessory, the
hat is also a clear 'phallic' extension of his body. Several films make the
point that he must never be without it. In Les Debuts d'un patineur, he
takes his overcoat off to skate, but not his hat. In another film,20 he saves
a man from drowning and takes most of his clothes off, but again keeps
his top hat on. In Max toreador, he puts his hat on as he comes inside the
flat with the cow and calf. Le Chapeau de Max is built on the importance,
and repeated frustration, of being able to find the right kind of top hat in
Max Under 53
order to ask a woman's hand in marriage. In line nuit agitee he puts it on

to go and squash a fly in a paperbag (depositing it on the rail before an
approaching train!). One of the anachronistic jokes of The Three Must-
Get-Theres consists of trying on a top hat before finding the appropriate
d'Artagnan feathered hat. We should not, however, overestimate this as
a sign of 'castration anxiety'. The comic genre allows Under to play on
the fear of castration, but his good looks and urbane confidence reassert
his bourgeois male status with panache. His visual centrality and the
sharpness of his image impose him forcefully as a dominant figure.
Throughout his films, Under physically expresses sexual energy and
exhilaration. He saunters and, despite tripping over on occasions, is
extraordinarily graceful and agile, leaping over benches in a park,
dancing wildly and playing the piano to a fast beat (for instance, in Seven
Years' Bad Luck). Drawings and caricatures are revealing in this respect.
A typical example by Henri Debain21 emphasizes Linder's small size by
putting him on tiptoe, but equally shows him with his body taut, his
chest puffed (possibly an ironic reference to the Pathe cockerel), a bundle
of energy, legs apart, as if about to spring into action.
We have seen how Linder's focus on 'risque' subjects such as sexuality
and adultery were perceived as Trench' in the USA and how they were
predicated on an older theatrical tradition. Part of Linder's Trenchness'
also came from his inhabiting the realm of women and romance. As in
the sentimental postcards he used to pose for, he spends an inordinate
amount of time courting women. He is at ease in the domestic space: he
cooks (albeit disastrously), eats many meals, spends a lot of time
convalescing and being 'pampered'. Even if his presence in 'feminine'
spaces is used comically — for instance, in Max reprend sa liberte, buying
vegetables at the greengrocer in elegant coat and top hat and cooking
(inevitably again in top hat), or tipping out the entire contents of his
wardrobes in search of a tie — he belongs to that world rather than the
traditional male topography of outdoor spaces. His swashbuckling film
The Three-Must-Get-Theres typically belongs to nostalgic nineteenth-
century historical fiction and its pre-'great masculine renunciation'
costumes emphasize display and narcissism. Linder's films express fears
of 'new women' (Max el la dodoresse) and mock 'domineering' women,
but they equally mock male pretence and the 'cult of masculinity' (Jones,
1994, p. 239) which gripped the early Third Republic in the wake of the
1871 defeat, evidenced, for instance, in the vogue for duels (see Max a
un duel, 1911) and in the popularity of such swaggering yet romantic
heroes as d'Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac. In some instances, such as
in Max entre deux feux, a female gaze at Max is explicitly represented.
Obsessed with courting and seducing women, Linder is evidence of the
erotic 'feminization' of the Frenchman, as pointed out by Michele Sarde:
'It is as if the Frenchman, connoisseur of women, ended up by being
contaminated by femininity' (Sarde, 1983, p. 24), a 'feminization' which
in different registers resurfaces in stars like Jean Cabin and Gerard
Depardieu (see Chapters 3 and 9).
Max Linder's trajectory followed that of the history of French cinema,

from world domination to near-oblivion in the face of American
competition. He also suffered the classic problem of the pioneer - as Jean
Mitry pointed out, 'Chaplin develops what Linder only sketched out' (in
Beylie and Pinturault, 1990, p. 38). Linder exuded an ironic distance
inherited from the vaudeville theatre, confidence and sophistication. The
flip-side was a blatantly self-centred masculinity in pursuit of the good
life, a figure typical of the materialism of the belle epoque, a version of the
Baudelairian Parisian flaneur, the new figure of urban modernity. His
good looks and constant amorous pursuits gave him an erotic aura. This
persona, which also corresponded to international views of Frenchness,
clearly found an echo in the immediate pre-World War I period. To
Linder's hard contours Chaplin would substitute the softer lines of the
'tramp'; to his cynical light-heartedness, a more sentimental figure. His
pathos and compassion were more in tune with the post-war era and his
democratic little man a more appealing 'universal' figure. Where Linder
was charming, Chaplin was lovable. But shifts in moral and cultural
values should not obliterate the comic genius and extraordinary
achievements of the world's first film star.
Biofilmography
Born Gabriel Maximilien Leuvielle, Saint-Loubes, 16 December 1883.

Married Helene Peters (1925), with whom one daughter, Maud (born
1924). Died 31 October 1925.
Max Under 55
Select filmography
(N.B. The following is a selection, based on published sources, including

Abel [1984 and 1994], Ford [1966], printed programmes and the films I
have been able to see, as well as the BFI's Film Index International. Every
effort has been made to cross-check information, but as the same film
frequently appears under different titles and different dates in different
sources, accuracy seems impossible; I have, however, where possible
followed Abel's details, as he indicates precise provenance of his
sources.)
1905 Premiere sortie

1907 Les Debuts d'un patineur
Les Debuts d'un aeronaute/His First Air Trip
La Legende de Polichinelle/The Legend of Polichinelle
1908 L'Apprenti jongleur/The Would-be Juggler
Line veine de bossu
1909 La Petite rosse
The Servant's Good Joke
1910 Tout est bien qui finit bien
LTngenieux attentat/Poor Pa Pays Again
Max a peur des chiens/Affectionate Pets
Max hypnotise/Max Hypnotized
La Timidite vaincue/The Cure of Cowardice
Max prend son bain
Les Debuts de Max Linder au cinematographe/Max Linder's Debut as
a Cinematograph Artist
Qui est I'assassin?
1911 Max en convalescence
Victime du quinquina
Max et sa belle-mere/Max and His Mother-in-law
Max a un duel
1912 Max et son dne/Max and the Donkey
Max Linder contre Nick Winter/Max Linder v. Nick Winter
Max reprend sa liberte/ Troubles of a Grass Widower
Max veut grandir
Peintre par amour/A Painter in Love
line nuit agitee

Max fiance
Un pari original
1913 Les Debuts d'un yachtman
Max fait de la photographie/Max Goes in for Photography
Max toreador/Max as a Toreador
line ruse de Max/Max's Ruse
Le Chapeau de Max
Max part en vacances
1914 Max et la doctoresse/Max and the Lady Doctor
Mari jaloux/Jealous Husband
Max pedicure/Max Chiropodist
1915 Max entre deux feux
Max devrait porter des bretelles
Max a Monaco
1917 Max Goes to America (USA)
Max and His Taxi (USA)
Max Wants a Divorce (USA)
1919 Le Petit Cafe
1920 Be My Wife (USA)
1921 Seven Years' Bad Luck (USA)
1922 The Three Must-Get-Theres (USA)
1923 Au secours!/A Haunted House
1924 Le Roi du cirque (Austria)
Video compilations
1981L'Homme au chapeau de soie (Maud Linder)

1981En compagnie de Max Linder (Maud Linder)
Notes
1. Signed and dedicated photograph of Chaplin, dated 12 May 1917.

2. A browse through standard film history books and works on stars and
directors shows on average four to five times more space devoted to
Chaplin compared with Linder. For instance: John Wyver's The Moving
Image: An International History of Film Television and Video (Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1989) devotes one page to Linder against four to Chaplin;
Max Under 57
Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell's Film History: An Introduction (New

York, McGraw-Hill, 1994) sets aside four pages to Linder and twenty-one
to Chaplin, and so on. An exception is Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's A History
of World Cinema (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1996),
in which Richard Abel includes Linder in his text on early French cinema
and David Robinson writes a separate item on Linder.
3. My viewing has encompassed the Maud Linder video collection, L'Homme
au chapeau de sole and En compagnie de Max Linder (in the series 'Les Films
de ma vie', 1981, which is extremely useful, although many films are
truncated and not always clearly identified); films scattered through video
collections of early cinema; and film in the National Film Archive, London,
and at the Brussels Cinematheque. Maud Linder claims in L'Homme au
chapeau de sole that only 82 films out of 500 remain, but some (including
Claude Beylie) contest the figure of 500 as grossly inflated.
4. Several sources claim Linder took a stage name in deference to his parents'
disapproval of his career. The name itself is probably connected to the
Anglophilia current at the time in the entertainment milieu.
5. According to several historians, Essanay orchestrated a publicity
campaign which made Linder appear to denigrate Chaplin, and which
backfired badly.
6. Spears (1965, p. 284) claims this was situated near the Champs-Elysees and
that Linder had also opened another smaller cinema on boulevard
Poissonniere before the war. The latter has been closed for periods but in
the late 1990s is still in operation as the Max Linder Panorama.
7. Letter to Henri Diamant-Berger, 12 July 1918, BIFI archive.
8. Golden (1993) reports that American archives show evidence of earlier
suicide attempts.
9. This scene is included in Maud Linder's L'Homme au chapeau de soie but is
not identified; I am assuming it is from Max toreador from the evidence of
various printed sources.
10. This is vaudeville in the specific French sense of a theatrical genre, as
discussed, and not vaudeville in the sense of American or British music-
hall.
11. Maud Linder argues that the indication on the credits of films such as Max
et la doctoresse that this is a 'Scene de Max Linder jouee par 1'auteur' ('a
scene by Max Linder played by the author') is the first mention of an
auteur in the history of cinema.
12. The source is Abel (1994); I have not been able to find a French title for
this film.
13. A Pathe programme for Max entre deux feux begins with Tired of the
perpetual celebrations of which he is the object ...' (in BIFI archive).
14. From Le Cinema et I'echo du cinema reunis, No. 21, 19 July 1912, p. 4 (quoted
in 1895, September 1986).
15. The title Troubles of a Grass Widower and the date 1908 are indicated on
the compilation, The Movies Begin, Vol. V (Kino International, 1994), which
I have been able to view, but the film corresponds, though in an
incomplete version, to printed descriptions of Max reprend sa Hberte.
16. Unidentified film from L'Homme au chapeau de soie.
17. Richard Abel, The perils of ignoring Pathe', Society for Cinema Studies
conference paper, 1993, p. 9.
18. Description in Pathe Journal, No. 74, 1917, 9e annee.
19. Unidentified film from L'Homme au chapeau de soie.
20. Ibid.
21. No date, document in BIFI archive, Paris.
CHAPTER 3
Jean Gabin
From worlc/ng-c/ass hero fo godfaffier
Of all actors, he is the only one whose career is inseparable from a

glorious period of our cinema. Remove Cabin's career and a whole
chapter of French cinema disappears.
Georges Baume
When I first became interested in the cinema, in the 1970s, Jean Gabin
represented everything I hated — the antithesis of the modern,
'intellectual' cinema of the time. I was baffled by the popularity of this
ageing actor and of his films, which I despised. When I discovered the
French cinema of the 1930s, and then of the 1940s and 1950s, I began to
understand his extraordinary importance. I became a fan. If, like many
people, I prefer Le Jour se leve and Touchez pas au grisbi to Le Tatoue and
L'Annee sainte, I eventually came to appreciate all Cabin's performances.
Even though I have to concede that he starred in a few bad films - not a
bad record for someone who made ninety-five — I would maintain that
there are no bad Gabin performances.
Cabin's career was long and productive. Starting with the coming of
sound, his work spanned the era of 1930s classic auteurs (such as Julien
Duvivier, Marcel Carne and Jean Renoir), exile in Hollywood, the
Tradition of Quality of the 1940s and 1950s and popular comedies and
thrillers, until his death in 1976. As top male star at the box-office in the
late 1930s and again in the 1950s and 1960s, Cabin's towering position
59
Plate 7 Le Jour se leve (Marcel Carne, 1939): Jules Berry (left), Jean Gabin
(centre), Arletty (right).
in French cinema gave him an iconic, hallowed status in French culture.

Like all stars, he generated a massive amount of press linking his private
and public lives - his wives and three children, his earlier liaisons with
actresses, in particular Michele Morgan, his co-star in Le Quai des brumes,
and Marlene Dietrich in Hollywood during the war. His tastes in food
and wine, his behaviour and notably his outbursts of temper, his various
homes - all were the object of speculation and comment. He is explicitly
commemorated in an annual Jean Gabin prize for promising young male
actors. But his influence goes deeper. The most important male stars of
the post-war period, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon and Gerard
Depardieu, have all repeatedly claimed him as a model. Politicians,
including communist leaders Maurice Thorez and Georges Marchais,
have fantasized about being embodied by him (should they be the
subject of a film). Gabin has his own museum, and there are streets and
schools named after him. French television endlessly reruns his films. His
face adorns the covers of several books on French cinema (books, that is,
not devoted to him). He appears on postage stamps and on memorabilia,
Jean Gabin 61
including plaster busts, decorated plates and even shirts. On 24

December 1999, readers of the daily Le Parisien voted Gabin 'actor of the
century'. For critics and historians, he is a star who does not just have an
'image' or a 'persona', but a 'myth' (a term I explore below). Not just a
screen icon of French manhood, he took on and still retains remarkable
resonance: in the celebrations of the two-hundredth anniversary of the
French revolution on 14 July 1989, a Gabin look-alike drove a replica of
his locomotive in La Bete humaine (1938). In 1976, the impact of his
death was huge. As one commentator put it:
The front page of France-Soir featured a huge headline, even bigger than for
the first man on the moon: ADIEU GABIN! Pages and pages of homages
followed. The impact of Cabin's death in the press, radio and television had
only one precedent: that of de Gaulle. The reason is that he - too -
represented a certain idea of France.2
Jean Gabin (1904—76) was born in Paris into a family of cafe-concert

artists. He was brought up by his grandparents in a small village north of
Paris, Meriel, where there is now a Gabin museum. Reluctantly at first,
he followed his father's wishes and began a career on the music-hall
stage, as a comic singer. The cinema snapped him up in 1930, like many
other stage performers. Cabin's first feature, Chacun sa chance (1930), is
typical of the early 1930s French 'filmed theatre'; in it, as in several other
films of that decade, Gabin sings as well as speaks. Many other films
followed, including comedies, in which his bodily posture and
movements, his facial expressions, clothes and accents from the outset
signalled his proletarian character. But increasingly, he acted in what was
to become his typical 1930s habitat: pessimistic melodramas in working-
class and/or underworld settings: films like Paris-Beguin, Du haut en bas,
Coeur de lilas, Le Tunnel and Zouzou. Julien Duvivier's La Bander a turned
him into a star and between 1935 and 1940 he appeared in what has
become the classic Gabin canon: La Belle equipe, Les Bas-fonds, Pepe le
Moko, La Grande illusion, Gueule d'amour, Le Quai des brumes, La Bete
humaine, Le Jour se leve and Remorques. By then he was also the most
popular French male star and although 1930s French cinema is rich in
wonderful vedettes (see Chapter 1), Gabin is in my view the only 'real'
French star of the time. In a typically perceptive article entitled The
destiny of Jean Gabin', Andre Bazin compared Cabin's persona in these

films to that of 'Oedipus in a cloth cap', encapsulating, in this oxymoron,
one of the paradoxes of the Gabin 'myth' (Bazin, 1983, pp. 123—4). He
was at once an ordinary bloke-next-door and a tragic hero whose path
fatally crossed with crime and death. He was a romantic figure, an
homme fatal, though mostly fatal to himself. In practically all his classic
1930s films, he came to a bad end: his characters were destroyed by
death or exile, by patriarchal forces in various manifestations. He was the
'anti-hero' struggling against 'society'.
At the outbreak of World War II he escaped to Hollywood, where he
made two films — Moontide and The Impostor — and had a high-profile
affair with Marlene Dietrich, before joining the Free French army. The
immediate aftermath of the war was a fallow period for Gabin. He made
a number of films without much success, including Martin Roumagnac
(1946), his single film with Dietrich. Large-scale popularity returned in
1954 with Jacques Becker's great Touchez pas an grisbi, a film which
decisively influenced the development of the policier genre. From La
Bandera onwards, in fact, Gabin can be considered the 'auteur' of his
films, from an aesthetic and ideological point of view, as his directors
and scriptwriters worked to achieve a close fit between his star persona
and his characters. From the mid-1950s onwards, Gabin also achieved
authorship of his films in an industrial sense. As his biographer Andre
Brunelin (1987) details, he created tight and long-lasting partnerships,
cutting deals with producers such Jacques Bar (with links to MGM) and
founding his production company GAFER, with Fernandel, discussing
stories with scriptwriters Michel Audiard, Alphonse Boudard and Pascal
Jardin and directors such as Denys de la Patelliere and Henri Verneuil.
He also retained key technicians from film to film, including director of
photography Louis Page and a select group of make-up, wardrobe and
sound personnel.
Where many, after Bazin, have praised the 1930s Gabin, his prolific
post-war career is conventionally viewed as something of an
embarrassment. For although he played in a few respected auteur films
— Max Ophuls's Le Plaisir (1951), Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au grisbi
(1954), Jean Renoir's French Cancan (1955) — the bulk of Cabin's post-war
films were comedies such as La Traversee de Paris and, 'worse', Un singe en
hiver and Le Tatoue, and routine policiers like Le Cave se rebiffe and Le
jean Gabin 63
Tueur. In complete contrast to his pre-war films, the post-war examples

featured him as patriarch: the head of a bourgeois family or the police,
the godfather of underworld gangs. In other words, he incarnated
precisely the forces which he had opposed in his 1930s roles. Instead of
the 'good' Gabin, the glamorous, 'progressive' working-class hero, the
post-war period featured a 'bad' Gabin: ageing, stiff, embourgeoise,
reactionary. Pierre Marcabru's review of Rue des Prairies (1959) is typical:
This vaguely populist melodrama is only a pretext to allow Jean Gabin
to do his usual virtuoso number. ... It is shameless and bad: a caricature
of Gabin, the caricature of an actor who embodied, at the time of Le Jour
se leve, a character, but today is only a puppet' (in Gauteur and
Vincendeau, 1993, p. 82). But his popular audience continued to love
him, partly because of his masterful screen presence and partly because
they still saw in him the proletarian hero of the 1930s. My study of the
actor's output as a whole has led me to re-examine and challenge the
received critical dichotomy between the pre-war and the post-war
Gabin, and to argue that the 'myth' of the pre-war period continued to
work for his popular audience in the post-war period, although
obviously in a modified way.3 Indeed, it is this continuity, just as much
as the changes in his persona, which makes Gabin a unique figure in
French cinema.
The literature on Gabin is fond of describing his star persona in terms
of a myth, using it as a yardstick against which his various roles and
performances are measured (see in particular, Gauteur and Bernard, 1976;
Siclier and Missiaen, 1977). Even though they use it loosely, these
writers' recourse to the idea of myth alerts us to important aspects of
Cabin's stardom. The word myth conveys Cabin's elevated status and
extraordinary aura. That much is true of all stars. It is also an expression
of the sense of magic that Edgar Morin sees as pertaining to stars
(Morin, 1972, p. 39). In a more specific sense, we can take our cue from
Bazin and look at Cabin's myth in terms of the affinity between his
'ordinary' working-class characters and the heroes of tragedy — Oedipus
in a cloth cap. The trajectory of many Gabin characters positioned him
as victim: of the past, of events, of bad luck, occasionally of women -
hence the development of the idea of his characters as victims of 'fate'.
But Bazin's Oedipus also takes us to theoretical explorations of myth, in
particular by those of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and
semiologist Roland Barthes. In his analysis of the Oedipus myth, Levi-

Strauss argues that 'mythical thought always progresses from the
awareness of oppositions toward their resolution' (Levi-Strauss, 1972,
p. 224). As already hinted, and as will be explored below, the Cabin
persona in the mid- and late 1930s was made up, to an unusual degree,
of sets of opposed values resolved into a character who was, and is,
perceived as coherent, natural, authentic. This particular function is
typical of myth as analysed by Barthes, who showed in his book
Mythologies, and especially the essay 'Myth today', that the point of
myth is to make the historical appear natural. Myth, he says, is 'an
essentially cultural phenomenon ... it cannot possibly evolve from the
"nature" of things' (Barthes, 1973, p. 109).
The Cabin myth at a precise historical conjuncture (the mid- to late
1930s) - that is to say, the time of the Popular Front government, the
rise of fascism and the menace of World War II, along with deep shifts in
society - worked to make certain constructions of the working class and
of masculinity appear 'natural' despite their roots in cultural artefacts
such as literature, song and photography, and despite their deeply
divided nature. This is the structure of the Cabin myth. We can now
explore its origins, its contents and the uses to which it was put. I start
with a detailed exploration of La Bandera, the film which 'made' Cabin
into a star, before moving on to more general considerations.
La Bandera: a star is born
In the first four years of his career, Cabin made eighteen films, rising
quickly from secondary or ensemble parts, in such films as Chacun sa
chance, Paris-Beguin, Coeur de lilas and Les Gaietes de I'escadron, to co-
leading roles in Zouzou, Le Tunnel and a few others. These films are now
marketed as 'Cabin films' and it is difficult not to see them as such. This
is partly the retroactive effect of stardom, but also because of his truly
mesmerizing performance. His singing of 'La Chance me fuit' in his very
first film Chacun sa chance and of 'La mome caoutchouc' in Coeur de lilas
display extraordinary confidence as well as intensity in front of the
camera. This was noticed. Marcel Carne wrote in Cinemagazine that in
the now forgotten Gloria (1932), The great revelation of the film is
Jean Gabin 65
again Jean Gabin, who displays stupefying naturalness and authenti-

city.'4 The parts he played divided between cheerful workers (mechanic,
electrician, ordinary soldier, shop assistant) and, less frequently, louche
but sexy hoodlums, latter-day figurations of the lower-depths apache -
for example, in Coeur de lilas and Paris-Beguin. We see there the
emergence of different strands which would 'gel' in Cabin's myth: the
proletarian identity, lower-depth criminality tendencies and the notion
of authenticity backed by minimalist, pared-down performance. These
would come together in the mid-193 Os in the figure of the tragic
working-class hero, whose criminal nature was socially motivated, and
thus did not detract from an overwhelmingly positive image - so much
so that Gabin has ever since been regarded as the emblematic hero of the
Popular Front years and the expression of the 'nobility' of the French
working class. However, history tells us that it is in La Bandera, Julien
Duvivier's reactionary and racialist colonial tale, that this myth forcefully
emerged.
Between 1934 and 1935, Gabin made three films with Duvivier,
Maria Chapdelaine, Golgotha and La Bandera. Around that time, he
appears to have become aware of the potential of more dramatic parts
and consciously selected these: 'With Maria Chapdelaine [in which he is
Francois Paradis, a young Canadian trapper, who dies at the end of the
film] I started to be very careful about the parts that were offered to
me.'5 La Bandera was the most successful of the three. Gabin plays
Gilieth, a Parisian worker who commits a murder and joins the Foreign
Legion in Morocco to avoid arrest. In the Sahara, he submits to the harsh
routine of the Legion, but is harassed by the ambiguous Lucas (Robert Le
Vigan), a bounty hunter aware of his crime. Gilieth finds him out with
the help of Aicha the 'Arab' woman he loves (Annabella in dark make-
up). During a 'pacifying' mission in the desert, their fort is besieged by
Arab fighters. The two men are reconciled and redeemed through
heroism, and all except Lucas are killed. At the end of the film, Gilieth's
name is honoured, like that of his comrades. He has become a national
hero. La Bandera, dedicated to General Franco, who authorized the
shooting in the then Spanish part of Morocco, was a major production.
Duvivier had just been awarded the Grand Prix du Cinema Francais for
Maria Chapdelaine, and the cast was impressive: apart from Gabin, there
was the respected stage actor Pierre Renoir (Jean Renoir's brother),
familiar character actors like Aimos and Robert Le Vigan and Annabella,
the number one female French star. Pierre Mac Orlan, the author of the
novel, brought literary prestige, and the accent put on the location
shooting and the actors' strenuous training added a seal of
authenticity. On 11 July 1935, Mac Orlan wrote an article in Pour
vous about the shooting, and about the relationship between the film
and his novel. His piece uncannily emphasizes themes which later
would become crucial to the Gabin myth: male bonding, violent and
doomed passions and authenticity. In such a film,' he wrote, 'it was
necessary to apply a large dose of truth, in order to create an
atmosphere of desperate and sentimental violence'. Although Gabin
plays the main character, Mac Orlan's article does not single him out
but, on the contrary, praises the team effort and especially Duvivier,
who made the film 'just as I would have shot it myself. Two months
later (on 26 September 1935), Gabin 'claims the paternity of La
Bandera' in the same magazine, Pour vous.
Released to huge acclaim, La Bandera turned Gabin into a star.6
Shortly after, running from 9 September to 10 October 1935, Pour vous
published a series autobiographical articles entitled 'Quand je revois ma
vie' ('When I look back at my life'). These articles are exemplary of the
retrospective construction of a star's persona. From week to week we see
Cabin's life unfold as a story in which every event in his past acquires a
significance in relation to the 'present' (1935). The major themes
structuring the character of Gilieth and, subsequently, the image of
Gabin the star, are found retroactively in Gabin the child: a rebellious
personality (he played truant at school and ran away from home), a
strong nature ('I wasn't given bread and chocolate by my mother, like
other children, but meat and red wine' [12 September]), violence (he
fought with school friends, because 'I needed brutality. I liked it' [19
September]). Tough masculinity and virile friendship are projected on to
the character and the actor, connecting Gilieth the character and Gabin
the man. But these themes could only have such a resonance with the
audience because they corresponded to discourses on the social and
cultural terrain. In 1935, the frequent representation, in different media,
of events such as street riots and other violent conflicts, constructed a
constellation of values about the army, soldiers and virility, often
anchored in the exotic sites of the French colonies. The colonial
Jean Gabin 67
exhibition of 1931 further promoted this form of exoticism (Ageron,

1984), an exoticism already well established in other media. Even before
'Mon legionnaire' (a triumph in 1936, as sung by Edith Piaf and Marie
Dubas), singers like Georgius, Georges Milton, Frehel and others
included colonial songs in their repertoire. In the cinema, films such as Le
Grand jeu (1933), Sidonie Panache (1934), Itto (1934), Tartarin de Tarascon
(1934), La Route imperiak (1935), Bounasque (1935), Princesse Tam-Tam
(1936) and many others, beyond their aesthetic and ideological
differences, all created popular fantasies of Africa and (less frequently)
Asia. The colonial motif was also widespread in painting, literature,
interior decoration and fashion. La Bandera thus condenses three motifs
resonant in popular culture at the time: the military institution, the
Foreign Legion and the colonies.
If colonial exoticism was so widespread at the time, why did Gabin
have such impact in La Banderal The answer to this question must take
into consideration the masculine dimension of both character and star.
Duvivier's penchant for 'men's stories'7 suited Cabin's physique and
performance style. The Foreign Legion and the military institution in La
Bandera are much more than the simple decor they are, for example, in Le
Grand jeu, where the true subject is the romantic conflict between the
hero, embodied by Pierre Richard-Willm, and the (double) heroine
played by Marie Bell, or in Morocco (1930), where the narrative and
visual interests are focused on the Marlene Dietrich-Gary Cooper
couple. In La Bandera, on the other hand, the central conflict takes places
between soldiers and addresses, through the military institution, a
construction of masculinity defined by the relationships between men
and not by relationships between men and women. In La Bandera, the
woman (Annabella) is, as it were, part of the decor. The film clearly
addresses spectators constructed as masculine (whether they are men or
women), whereas Le Grand jeu, by its choice of actors and its romantic
story, is a 'woman's film'. The anchorage of La Bandera in a genre for and
about men is aptly illustrated by the fact that the Mac Orlan text
mentioned above is set, in the same issue of Pour vous, opposite an article
by right-wing journalist Jean Fayard entitled, 'We want a virile cinema';
this piece deplores the 'excessive delicacy and refinement' of the French
cultural climate of the time, and especially the '[film] melodramas based
on excessive sensibility'. La Bandera clearly answered Fayard's wish,
since shortly after, on 26 September 1935, he wrote in Candide, La

Bandera is a long shot from the ordinary tearful melodrama. Here are
men, Legionnaires, who lead a harsh life under a harsh climate.' Even
though women's genres do not come to an end at that point (as
indicated, for instance, by the continued popularity of the Russian
melodrama in the 1930s and the costume film of the 1940s and 1950s),
the birth of the Gabin myth marks the ascendancy of male-oriented
populist films and, especially after the war, of the policier. It is thus not
surprising that Gabin found his second wave of popularity with Touchez
pas au grisbi, a 'men's story' par excellence, in which the ordinary meaning
of the word homme is reinforced by its underworld slang signification as
'tough guy'. At the same time, the masculine dimension of the Gabin
persona from the very beginning is complicated by a vulnerability and
sensitivity which marks him out from the other tough guys (I will turn to
this in the last section of this chapter). Suffice it to say, the power of
Cabin's 'myth' was to make this male world acceptable and appear
simply 'human' and thus universal.
La Bandera is an imperialist film which reveals, in its overt prejudice
(the Moroccans are simply called 'bastards'), a structure found usually
less explicitly in many other Gabin films: his French identity is affirmed
against racial or ethnic 'others' — Josephine Baker in Zouzou, the
inhabitants of the Casbah in Pepe le Moko or of the city of Genoa in
Au-dela des grilles, and all the Angelos and Pepitos of the 1950s poliders.
La Bandera combines colonial adventure with the Foreign Legion, an
institution designed as a manufacturer of new identities. Through the
colonialist and racialist ideology of the film emerges a more abstract
fantasy, that of an ideal and consensual national identity. Gilieth is a
Parisian worker who commits a murder in emblematic Montmartre, a
figure of the apache, an amalgam of the 'labouring and dangerous classes'
(Chevalier, 1958) central to French bourgeois representations of the
people, a representation which is erotically charged. The point of La
Bandera is to restore the heroism, but also the virility, of the Gabin
character, who goes from skulking man-on-the-run to proud military
hero in the process of restoring his identity as a good Frenchman, ready
to give up his life for the patrie. These qualities emerge through the film
alongside, and in spite of, his character's criminal past, and are in fact
strengthened by it. The recognition of his worth comes with the
Jean Gabin 69
approval of the aristocratic and Catholic Captain Weiler (Renoir) and

death. With Gilieth, Gabin here embodies for the first time with such
clarity the honest/criminal duality of his myth. Duvivier and Gabin
reworked a very similar story in The Impostor (1943), made in
Hollywood during the German occupation of France. In the film, set
in Africa during the war, Gabin plays a murderer and deserter who
usurps the identity of a dead soldier to escape punishment, but
eventually becomes a hero who dies for France. From La Bandera to The
Impostor, the Gabin myth thus functioned as a heroic figure of
redemption, a blank page on which the fantasy of an idealized
Frenchman could be projected.
The Impostor was not successful (its distribution in France, as an
American film, was barred by the war). Nevertheless, Cabin's off-screen
conduct in the Free French army reinforced the notion of national
heroism in his image. The cover of a book on the life of artists under the
German occupation (Ragache and Ragache, 1988) puts Gabin at the
centre of a design shaped like the tricolore French flag, between Celine
and Arletty. In contrast to Celine and Arletty - who represent,
respectively, intellectual and sexual collaboration — and by his central
placement, Gabin, clad in his Free French uniform, stands out as
representing 'core' Frenchness (see also Chapter 1). But if Cabin's
personal conduct during the war was irreproachable, it is not just the
man who is celebrated on the cover of such a book; it is the star. The
myth of Gabin the star reconciles antagonistic values into a coherent,
ideal identity, whose impossibility, however, is signalled by the
repeatedly tragic or pessimistic ending of his films up to that point.
The post-war films, as we will see, use the same structure but propose a
more reassuring reading.
The Gabin image put in place in La Bandera was immediately taken up
in such films as La Belle equipe, Les Bas-fonds and Pepe le Moko, and
perpetuated in La Grande illusion, Gueule d'amour, Le Quai des brumes, La
Bete humaine, Le Jour se leve and Remorques. All these films offer variations
on the theme of the good, honest worker who is also a criminal, or of the
criminal who is deep down a good honest worker, a French version of
the 'good-bad boy' which Cabin's talent, looks and performance style
united into a powerful myth of 'charismatic ordinariness'.
Charismatic ordinariness
One aspect of the Gabin myth which makes him 'paradigmatic'8 and
influential on subsequent male actors is his performance of 'charismatic
ordinariness'. His parts and extra-cinematic image repeatedly empha-
sized 'ordinary' working-class values (often in defiance of biography),
especially through associations with popular leisure, work and the land.
On the other hand, his performance also exuded power and charisma.
Throughout his career, Gabin was associated both on and off screen
with popular sports. There was boxing (Martin Roumagnac, L'Air de
Paris), football (Du haut en has, La Marie du port), card games (especially
the popular game of belote) and cycling, a sport coded as particularly
French. In a history book on France in the 1930s (Rioux, 1983, pp. 42—
56), there is a photograph which shows Gabin and actress Madeleine
Renaud at a banquet held during the 'Six jours' cycling race of 1935. The
picture illustrates the value of Cabin's association with sport in the
construction of his image. The image alone (Gabin and Renaud are
surrounded by other Tout-Paris personalities at a banquet) signifies
luxury: glamorously dressed film stars, bottles of champagne, glittering
decorations. The caption, however, which specifies that the dinner took
place at the Vel' d'Hiv' adds a popular dimension. Gabin emerges as the
conflation of high life and proletarian leisure as he had done two years
earlier in Le Tunnel. References to cycling can be found in, among others,
Le Jour se leve, Rue des Prairies and Le Rouge est mis. In this last film, a
thriller, Gabin and his gang are preparing a coup in the country, when a
group of young cyclists stops by. The scene has no function but to
'quote' this element of the Gabin star image: This reminds you of your
youth', says one of his mates. Cycling authenticates Cabin's roots in 'the
people', even when as in this case his narrative role places him out of
that class. Here again it is the reconciliatory structure of the Gabin myth,
effortlessly straddling two worlds, which explains why he plays such a
metaphoric role in Popular Front representations. Thus, we find him on
the cover of Genevieve Guillaume-Grimaud's (1986) book on the cinema
of the Popular Front, in his cloth cap from La Belle equipe — even though
his image served equally in more reactionary films, as we saw with La
Bandera.
For Dyer (1979a, pp. 42-4),9 the accent placed on star leisure is a way
Jean Gabin 71
of denying that stars do a job, a way to exalt their 'magic' dimension and
hide, in the process, the fundamental unfairness of their luxurious
existence. But some stars with an 'ordinary' image, including in
Hollywood, drew on discourses which, on the contrary, put the accent
on work. James Cagney, a Hollywood contemporary of Cabin's,
presented his acting not as an art but as a 'job to do' (McGilligan, 1975,
p. 207). Gabin, too, put the accent on 'le turbin ('hard grind'): 'I am an
artisan. ... I work as a proletarian' (cited in Canaille, 1954, p. 259).
Cabin's image of an artisan who only 'does his job', explicit in
interviews, is also at the core of his screen parts: for instance, the
criminals he plays in Les Bas-fonds and Pepe le Moko are, respectively, a
locksmith and a cabinet-maker; in Gueule d'amour, he is a typesetter; La
Bete humaine exhalts his professionalism as a train driver; Le Jour se leve
shows him sand-blasting in a factory. In the post-war films, when he
incarnated industry barons and godfather-type heads of criminal families,
the dialogues always insisted on this workmanlike aspect (for example,
in Touchez pas au grisbi and many others). This foregrounding of the
work ethos is ideologically fuzzy (the films are not 'about' work), but it
also meant that Cabin's charisma and glamour could be preserved
without alienating his popular audience. Even though this audience knew
very well, in the 1930s, that 'Gueule d'amour lived in a bourgeois
mansion, two blocks away from the Bois de Boulogne' (in Gauteur and
Vincendeau, 1993, p. 27) or, in the 1950s, that the lorry driver of Gas-oil
had a large estate in Normandy, Cabin's image as a 'proletarian' could be
credibly retained, as illustrated by the 'cumulard' story (see below).
Cabin's childhood in the country, and later his emotional investment
in his Normandy farm, are always seen as the basis of his identity. And
yet, his screen persona, right from the start, was located in the Parisian
register. The strength of Cabin's 'rural' identity resides in the fact that it
is an abstract construction which does not have to be confirmed in
practice by his characters (Maria Chapdelaine, Le Plaisir, La Horse and
LAffaire Dominici are rare examples of films where Gabin plays a rural
character). This rural identity functions as a free-floating signified which,
as attached to the signifier of his urban heroes, endows them with a
'France profonde' dimension, while avoiding the old-fashioned or
ridiculous characterizations generally given to peasants in French
cinema. Like Gerard Depardieu today, who describes himself as a
'wine-grower' in his passport (see Chapter 9), Cabin's association with

the land is nostalgic and readable against the inexorable shift in post-war
France from a rural to an urban society. It is also a way of reconciling the
privileges of the star — the financial means of acquiring a chateau in
Anjou (Depardieu) or horse-breeding stables in Normandy (Cabin) —
with the myth of the 'ordinary' Frenchman whose roots are in his
ancestors' terroir.
Thus, through associations with popular sport, work and the land, a
set of meanings were put in place which suggested ordinariness,
rootedness. They acquired particular force because of Cabin's looks and
his 'authentic' performance style. From very early on, Cabin was
perceived as illustrating a perfect homology between actor, person and
character, the key to stardom. 'Cabin is not an actor, but a force of
nature' (Jean Piverd); 'Jean Cabin is transparency incarnate, the very
evidence of a human being' (Jacques Prevert); 'He can only do one thing:
exist on screen as he is in real life' (Benjamin Fainsilber, who also says
Cabin asked Charles Spaak to write 'scenes as in real life' for him) (in
Gauteur and Vincendeau, 1993, pp. 18-30).
Cabin's performance was characterized by poise and understatement.
This he achieved by 'unlearning' the exaggeration of the comic music-
hall he came from, allowing him to undercut the theatrical gestures of
many of his co-actors. For instance, watch him in Pepe le Moko,w where
he is surrounded by a group of theatrical actors — Charpin and Saturnin
Fabre in particular. In contrast with their mannered elocution, his speech
is naturalistic; against their histrionic gestures, his are restrained and
precise. Where the 'eccentrics' (see Chapter 1) act for the spectator in the
back row, Cabin acts for the camera. As Jean Renoir said:
This immense actor obtained the greatest effects with the smallest of means.
... Cabin, with a slight shiver on his impassive face could express the most
violent feelings. Another actor would have had to scream to obtain the same
result. [He] overwhelmed his audience with a mere wink. (Renoir, 1974,
p. 118)
The young Cabin's face embodies the duality of his characters. It is a

rugged face, with sharp lines, thin lips, a strong nose and thick and
relatively dark hair (Cabin, according to Brunelin [1987, pp. 210-11],
liked to play down his blondness for fear of appearing 'feminized'). His
Jean Gabin 73
smile is also connoted as 'proletarian', tinged with irony with a slightly

raised upper lip and often with a dangling cigarette. His voice and
inflections have definite working-class connotations. By contrast, his
clear blue eyes, particularly highlighted from Pepe le Moko onwards,
suggest romantic love and 'otherness'. Cabin's stocky body, which
became thick-set in middle-age, is solidly planted, his walk has a rolling
gait. This 'class body' (Bourdieu, 1979, p. 215) 'speaks' confident virility
through its everyday imperturbability. To Cagney's nervous energy
(they played the same part in the French and American versions of
Howard Hawks's La Foule hurle/The Crowd Roars in 1932), Gabin
contrasts a still presence. One cannot imagine him running or leaping. In
this sense, he prefigures the Clint Eastwood and Delon of the 1960s and
1970s. The naturalism of his acting is enhanced by an 'invisible'
performance of quotidian gestures. All this is, paradoxically, reinforced
by its opposite - Cabin's famous 'explosion of violence'. These
outbursts became a legendary part of his performance style; they were
moments of mini-spectacle in their own right, expected by the audience
(although not, as is often repeated, written into his contracts). They
indicate a loss of control which, in our culture, also signifies the
authentic: since he can't help it, it really is 'him'.11
Cabin's working-class persona was completed, in the 1930s, by his
appearance — the cloth cap and the soft jackets he wore — and the decors
in which he moved. French proletarian culture distinguishes itself from
bourgeois culture by its absence of 'manners', in the sense of 'putting on
airs', by its desire to get at the substance of things rather than
concentrate on appearances (Bourdieu, 1979); Gabin was its perfect star.
True, the post-war Gabin moved from modest backgrounds into
bourgeois milieux (criminal or not). But traces of his early persona
remained, in particular on the level of language and gestures,
legitimizing his later 'godfather' parts in his second career after the war.
The godfather of French cinema
World War II marked a huge break in Cabin's life and career. He came
back from Hollywood with grey hair and a thicker figure. Between
Martin Roumagnac (1946) and Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) he made
thirteen films with mixed success, although several of them (Au-dela des
grilles, La Marie du port, La Verite sur Bebe Donge, La Minute de verite) are
very good. It seemed that Cabin's 'myth' did not gel any more. But his
stardom and box-office potency returned with a vengeance with Touchez
pas au grisbi, Jacques Becker's thriller about an ageing gangster, Max-le-
menteur (Cabin), whose last heist is ruined by his bumbling friend Riton
(Rene Dary). Becker revived both Cabin's career and the thriller genre. In
the years that followed, Cabin played variations on Max in Razzia sur la
chnouf, Le Rouge est mis, Maigret tend un piege, Le Cave se rebiffe, Melodic en
sous-sol, Maigret voit rouge, Du Rififi a Paname and Le Clan des Siciliens
(whether he played a criminal or member of the police in these films did
not make much difference).
Cabin's posi-Grisbi persona is associated with materialism and gang-
type criminals, as opposed to the often redemptive and more socially
coded crime of his previous roles. In this, he echoed wider changes in
French culture and society. Where the pre-war Cabin was embedded in,
and the epitome of, the working-class community — for instance, in La
Belle equipe, La Bete humaine, Pepe le Moko and Le Jour se leve (Vincendeau,
1985) — now the heroes were individualistic career criminals who
inhabited luxury nightclubs and elegant flats, drank champagne and
drove American cars (see also Maillot, 1996). But the shadow of Cabin's
pre-war identity was never far away. If, in the late 1930s, Cabin played
extraordinary human beings who had the outward appearance of
ordinary workers, after the war, on the contrary, he embodied people
who deep down were 'ordinary' (that is to say, of popular descent)
despite their seeming extraordinariness: rich gangsters, heads of
bourgeois families, the President himself (Le President, 1963). The very
structure of his star myth made it possible for him to reconcile these
extremes. While the 'contents' of the Cabin myth undeniably changed
from pre- to post-war, its structure and function remained the same,
allowing multiple identifications through his star persona. Thus,
although Max lives in luxury and survives the death of Riton and the
loss of his grisbi (money), he contains the memory of the doomed Pepe le
Moko and of other 1930s heroes. Similarly, it is possible to see his
character of Noel Schoudler in Les Grandes families as a ruthless and
arrogant grand-bourgeois, but equally as the triumph of a man of popular
origins who has reached the top of the social ladder through hard work
Jean Gabin 75
Plate 8 La Traversee de Paris (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956): Bourvil (left), Louis de

Funes (centre), Jean Gabin (right).
and, crucially, who demonstrates his superiority over the 'real' aristocrats
around him. Cabin's ability to retain the kernel of his working-class
persona even off screen is well illustrated by the 'cumulard' story in the
early 1960s, which pitted him against local farmers who were protesting
against his 'accumulation' of land around his horse-breeding farm in
Normandy. Yet, as Serge Mallet noted, public opinion and even the left-
wing press sided with landowner Gabin against the demonstrating
farmers, choosing 'the landowner who looks like an anarchist against the
farmers' (in Gauteur and Vincendeau, 1993, p. 67).
Cabin's performance style had by then matured into a solid (and for
some critics excessive) mastery of filmic space. So familiar was his
presence that films would often show him from the back. They
contrasted his solid presence with actors who were of slighter build or
given to nervous gesticulation: for instance, Bourvil (and de Funes
briefly) in La Traversee de Paris. Roland Barthes, who does not name him,
surely had Gabin in mind when he described Touchez pas au grisbi as 'the
universe of understatement' (Barthes, 1973, p. 72). Indeed, Gabin goes
through his thrillers of the 1950s and 1960s hardly moving a finger,
except to deliver magisterial slaps across the face of his opponents, his
preferred form of Violence'.
These infantalizing slaps draw our attention to another key aspect of
Cabin's later star persona. From the 1950s to the 1970s, he occupied the
choice place for French middle-aged male stars: that of the father figure.
This follows on from a long French tradition (Vincendeau, 1989 and
1992; Burch and Sellier, 1996) in which the patriarchal figure dominates
narratives, usually in a dyad with a young woman (a symbolic or actual
daughter). Like Raimu and Harry Baur in the 1930s, Gabin from the late
1940s played nurturing and/or seducing father to young actresses. He is
a 'seducing father' in La Marie du port, La Vierge du Rhin, Des gens sans
importance, French Cancan, Void le temps des assassins, Razzia sur la chnouf
and En cas de malheur (with Bardot). He was a 'nurturing father' in,
among others, Rue des Prairies and Le Cas du docteur Laurent. In all these
films, he shelters 'stray' young women and, in some cases, young men:
Chiens perdus sans collier, Rue des Prairies, Deux hommes dans la ville (with
Delon). In L'Air de Paris, the relationship has, unusually for the time, a
clear homoerotic component (Dyer, 2000). The father figure incarnated
by Gabin eliminates mature women, and as a result his character
incorporates the 'feminine'. Gabin becomes, as it were, both father and
mother. He is the one seen suffering, for instance in La Verite sur Bebe
Donge and Rue des Prairies. This dimension tempers his autocratic
patriarchs who are sometimes shown as broken, humiliated figures,
especially in later films such La Horse and Le Chat. This configuration
allows Cabin's star persona to attain the ideal of a complete human
being: masculine and feminine, man and woman, father and mother.
Gabin thus offered his audience the fantasy of a sensitive yet virile male
figure — an ideal hero who valorizes both masculine and feminine values
(but not women!). In the pre-war period the Frenchness of this figure was
linked to the historical moment: he was the rebellious worker of the
Popular Front. After the war, when he also embodied historical heroes
(Les Miserables, Le President), he matured into a conservative national
figure, a reassuring point of identification in a time of great change and
modernization. His middle-class critics saw a proletarian hero who was a
Jean Gabin 77
class traitor. His popular audience, on the contrary, saw the vindication
of working-class heroes who had 'made it' but who at the same time
remained 'one of them'. Cabin's continued popularity with working-class
audiences also flew in the teeth of the New Wave who loathed him (see
the opening quote in Chapter 5) as the embodiment of the 'cinema de
papa (the contempt was reciprocal). Precisely. In the mature Gabin
French audiences applauded - and still applaud - the unifying figure of a
truly popular cinema.
Biofilmography
Born jean Alexis Moncorge, Paris, 11 May 1904. Married Gaby Basset
(1928-31), Doriane (Jeanne Suzanne Mauchin) (1932-42) and Dominique
Fournier (from 1949), with whom three children: Florence (born 1949), Valerie
(born 1952) and Mathias (born 1955). Died Paris, 15 November 1976.
The Gabin museum opened in Meriel, near Auvers-sur-Oise (north of Paris),
in 1992.
Main acting awards
Venice, Best Actor, La Nuit est man royaume, 1951

Venice, Best Actor, L'Air de Paris, 1954
Venice, Best Actor, Touchez pas au grisbi, 1954
Berlin, Silver Bear, Archimede le dochard, 1959
Berlin, Silver Bear, Le Chat, 1971
Films as actor
1930 Chacun sa chance (Hans Steinhoff and Rene Pujol)

Mephisto (Henri Debain, Nick Winter and Rene Navarre)
1931 Paris-Beguin (Augusto Genina)
Tout ca ne vaut pas I'amour (Jacques Tourneur)
Coeur de lilas (Anatole Litvak)
Pour un soir (Jean Godard)
Coeurs joyeux (Hans Schwartz)
1932 Gloria (Hans Behrendt and Yvan Noel)
Les Gaietes de I'escadron (Maurice Tourneur)

La Belle mariniere (Harry Lachmann)
La Fouk hurk/The Crowd Roars (Jean Daumery and Howard
Hawks)
1933 L'Etoile de Valencia (Serge de Poligny)
Adieu ks beaux jours (Johannes Meyer)
Le Tunnel (Kurt Bernhardt, France/Germany)
Du haut en bas (Georg-Wilhelm Pabst)
1934 Zouzou (Marc Allegret)
Maria Chapdelaine (Julien Duvivier, France/Canada)
1935 Golgotha (Julien Duvivier)
La Bandera (Julien Duvivier)
Varietes (Nicolas Farkas)
1936 La Belle equipe (Julien Duvivier)
Les Bas-fonds/Underworld (Jean Renoir)
1937 Pepe k Moko (Julien Duvivier)
La Grande illusion (Jean Renoir)
Le Messager (Raymond Rouleau)
Gueule d'amour (Jean Gremillon, France/Germany)
1938 Le Quai des brumes/Quay of Shadows (Marcel Carne)
La Bete humaine/Judas Was a Woman (Jean Renoir)
1939 Le Recif de corail (Maurice Gleize)
Le Jour se levelDaybreak (Marcel Carne)
1940 Remorques/Stormy Waters (Jean Gremillon)
1942 Moontide [La Peniche de I'amour] (Archie Mayo, USA)
1943 The Impostor/LTmposteur (Julien Duvivier, USA)
1946 Martin Roumagnac/Room Upstairs (Georges Lacombe)
1947 Miroir (Raymond Lamy)
1949 Au-dela des grilles [Le mura di malapaga] (Rene Clement, France/Italy)
La Marie du port (Marcel Carne)
1950 Pour I'amour du del/12 Hours to Live [E piu facile che un cammello]
(Luigi Zampa, France/Italy)
1951 Victor (Claude Heymann)
La Nuit est man royaume/Night Is My Kingdom (Georges Lacombe)
Le Plaisir [ep. 'La Maison Tellier'l (Max Ophuls)
1952 La Verite sur Bebe Donge/The Truth about Our Marriage (Henri
Decoin)
Jean Gabin 79
La Minute de verite/The Moment of Truth (Jean Delannoy, France/

Italy)
Fille dangereuse [Bufere] (Guide Brignone, Italy/France)
1953 Leur derniere nuit (Georges Lacombe)
La Vierge du Rhin/Rhine Virgin (Gilles Grangier)
1954 Touchez pas au grisbi/Honour Among Thieves (Jacques Becker,
France/Italy)
L'Air de Paris [Aria di Parigi] (Marcel Carne, France/Italy)
1955 Le Port du desir/Harbour of Desire (Edmond T. Greville)
French Cancan (Jean Renoir, France/Italy)
Napoleon (Sacha Guitry)
Razzia sur la chnouf/Chnouf — To Take It Is Deadly (Henri Decoin)
Chiens perdus sans collier (Jean Delannoy)
Gas-oil (Gilles Grangier)
1956 Void le temps des assassins/Murder a la Carte (Julien Duvivier)
Des gens sans importance (Henri Verneuil)
Le Sang a la tete (Gilles Grangier)
La Traversee de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, France/Italy)
Crime et chdtiment/Crime and Punishment (Georges Lampin)
1957 Le Cas du docteur Laurent/The Case of Dr Laurent (Jean-Paul Le
Chanois)
Le Rouge est mis/Speaking of Murder (Gilles Grangier)
1958 Les Miserables (Jean-Paul Le Chanois, France/Italy)
Maigret tend un piege [II commissario Maigret] (Jean Delannoy)
Le Desordre et la nuit/Night Affair (Gilles Grangier)
En cas de malheur/Love Is My Profession [La ragazza del peccato]
(Claude Autant-Lara, France/Italy)
Les Grandes families (Denys de la Patelliere)
1959 Archimede le clochard/The Tramp (Gilles Grangier, France/Italy)
Maigret et I'affaire Saint-Fiacre [Maigret e il caso Saint-Fiacre] (Jean
Delannoy, France/Italy)
Rue des Prairies/'Mio Figlio (Denys de la Patelliere, France/Italy)
1960 Le Baron de I'ecluse [II barone] (Jean Delannoy, France/Italy)
Les Vieux de la vieille/The Old Guard (Gilles Grangier)
1961 Le President (Henri Verneuil and Michel Audiard, France/Italy)
Le Cave se rebiffe/The Counterfeiters of Paris (Gilles Grangier,
France/Italy)
1962 Un singe en hiver/A Monkey in Winter (Henri Verneuil)

Le Gentleman d'Epsom [Les Grands seigneurs] (Gilles Grangier,
France/Italy)
1963 Melodie en sous-sol/Any Number Can Win (Henri Verneuil, France/
Italy)
Maigret voit rouge (Gilles Grangier, France/Italy)
1964 Monsieur (Jean-Paul Le Chanois, France/Italy)
L'Age ingrat (Gilles Grangier)
1965 Le Tonnerre de Dieu/God's Thunder (Denys de la Patelliere, France/
Italy)
1966 Du Rififi a Paname/Rififi in Paris (Denys de la Patelliere, France/
Italy)
Le Jardinier d'Argenteuil/The Gardener of Argenteuil (Jean-Paul Le
Chanois)
1967 Le Soleil des voyous/The Action Man (Jean Delannoy, France/Italy)
Le Pacha/Showdown (Georges Lautner, France/Italy)
1968 Le Tatoue (Denys de la Patelliere, France/Italy)
1969 Sous le signe du taureau (Gilles Grangier)
Le Clan des Siciliens/The Sicilian Clan (Henri Verneuil)
1970 La Horse/The Violent People (Pierre Granier-Deferre, France/Italy)
1971 Le Chat/The Cat (Pierre Granier-Deferre, France/Italy)
Le Drapeau noir flotte sur la marmite/The Black Flag Waves over the
Scow (Michel Audiard)
1972 Le Tueur (Denys de la Patelliere, France/Italy)
L'Affaire Dominici (Claude Bernard-Aubert)
1973 Deux hommes dans la ville/Two Men in Town (Jose Giovanni,
France/Italy)
1974 Verdict/The Big Four (Andre Cayatte, France/Italy)
1976 L'Annee sainte (Jean Girault, France/Italy)
Notes
1. Georges Baume, 'Jean Gabin, I'irremplacable', Cinemonde, No. 1031, 7 May

1995.
2. Francis Mayor, Telerama, 27 November 1976.
3. This chapter contains highlights of my longer study in Gauteur and
Vincendeau (1993).
4. Carne, quoted in Siclier and Missiaen (1977), p. 66.
Jean Gabin 81
5. Le Film vecu, No. 8, 9 March 1950.

6. See also Peter Mostyn, interview with Gabin, Daily Telegraph, 14
September 1973.
7. 'I can say that the subjects which interest me are men's stories', Julien
Duvivier, interviewed in Cinemonde, 15 September 1959.
8. I have developed this point in 'From proletarian hero to godfather: Jean
Gabin and "paradigmatic" French masculinity', in Kirkham and Thumim
(1995), pp. 249-62.
9. See also the introduction to Dyer's Heavenly Bodies (1987).
10. On Pepe le Moko, see my longer development in Vincendeau (1998).
11. Dyer discusses this aspect of Judy Garland's performance style in 'A star is
bom and the construction of authenticity', in Gledhill (1991), pp. 138-9.
CHAPTER 4
Brigitte Bordot
Tfie old and the new:
what Bordot meant to 1950s France
When the magazine Esquire was re-launched in the UK in March 1991, it

chose to put Brigitte Bardot on its cover, using the still which had
advertised Godard's Le Mepris in 1963. That is to say, Bardot in one of
her most stereotypical sex-goddess images: long bleached blonde hair,
heavy eye make-up, pink lipstick on parted luscious lips echoing the pink
towel in which she is wrapped, not hiding much of her breasts. But if in
the highly self-reflexive Le Mepris Bardot represented 'Bardot' and the
phenomenon of stardom, her place on the cover of Esquire was, at first,
more baffling, since there was nothing on her inside the issue. We are
then thrown back to the cover and its caption: 'From the Bomb to
Bardot, Greaves to Gazza, JFK to John Major - OUR TIMES, A Picture
History of Men: 1946—1991'. So, this magazine for men invoked Bardot
as historical symbol of the new in old terms indeed: Woman, as the sub-
heading of Esquire put it, is 'Man at his best'. What is, after all, only a
clever piece of magazine design attracted my attention because it is
indicative of the structure of the Bardot 'myth'.
From the release of Roger Vadim's Et Dieu ... crea la femme in 1956,
Bardot became a media sensation as an icon of rebellious youth, sexiness
and of French womanhood, both in and out of France. In that film, she
plays Juliette, an orphan who sets the small resort of Saint-Tropez
82
Brigitte Bardot 83
ablaze. All men desire her, including wealthy playboy Carradine (Curt
Jurgens). She herself is in love with Antoine (Christian Marquand),
though in the end she marries his brother Michel (Jean-Louis
Trintignant). Juliette — a name redolent with romantic love (Shakespeare)
and sex (de Sade) — and Bardot were immediately conflated: her beauty,
her carefree lifestyle on the beach, her insolence towards her elders and
betters. Subsequent films replayed and accommodated this persona.
Bardot was voted 'typical woman' of 1961 by the fan magazine
Cinemonde, an accurate enough assessment, since her dress, hairstyle and
demeanour were widely copied, both by other film stars — Mylene
Demongeot, Annette Stroyberg, Jane Fonda, Catherine Deneuve, to
name the most obvious clones — as well as by ordinary women, and she
inspired, among other cartoonists, Jean-Claude Forest, who modelled
Barbarella on her. Bardot was famous enough to be known by her
initials, B.B. In 1969, she modelled for the bust of Marianne, the
representation of the French Republic, the first known woman to fulfil
this role (Agulhon and Bonte, 1992). Countless books and magazines
have featured Bardot in their pages and on their covers, including coffee-
table celebrations and biographies — for instance, Tony Crawley's Bebe:
The Films of Brigitte Bardot (1975), Peter Haining's The Legend of Brigitte
Bardot (1982), Glenys Roberts' Bardot: A Personal Biography (1984), Sean
French's Bardot (1994) and Jeffrey Robinson's Bardot: Two Lives (1994) -
but more surprisingly perhaps, works by feminists. These include
Francoise Aude's Cine-modeles, cinema d'elles (1979), Michele Sarde's
sociological survey, Regard sur les franpaises (1983), Catherine Rihoit's
biography, Brigitte Bardot: un mi/the franpais (1986), Mandy Merck's
Perversions (1994) and Camille Paglia in a Channel 4 television
documentary series, Without Walls, broadcast in 1994. Most famous
of all, though, is Simone de Beauvoir's early essay 'Brigitte Bardot and
the Lolita syndrome' (1960), first written in English for the American
Esquire.
However different their intentions or backgrounds, all writers stress
the newness of Bardot, especially her revolutionary, 'free' sexuality. The
invention of the Bardot phenomenon was claimed, with characteristic
exaggeration, by Roger Vadim, who said, in an introduction to the video
of his 1960 film Les Liaisons dangereuses (starring Jeanne Moreau): 'We are
all beginning to encounter this new species of liberated young girl who
has abandoned the restraint usually imposed on her sex. ... This
particular phenomenon I've tried to bring to life through the personality
of Brigitte Bardot.' Vadim, a journalist for Paris Match and aspiring
filmmaker, indeed saw Bardot's potential when she was a teenage model,
married her in 1952 and engineered the beginning of her film career. By
the time of Et Dieu ... crea la femme, she had made sixteen films, was
splitting up with Vadim and beginning to attract serious media
attention.
Bardot undoubtedly ushered in a new femininity in 1950s France. Her
spectacular youthful looks, her insolent wit, her blatant promiscuous
lifestyle and her outspokenness were unlike any other star of the time, in
France or elsewhere. Yet, at the same time her appeal depended on 'old'
values: on traditional myths of femininity and on the display of her
body, though a body repackaged for the times: nude, more 'natural', on
location, in colour and Cinemascope. Bardot's stardom rested on the
combination and reconciliation of these opposed sets of values. My
analysis in this chapter concentrates on Bardot's period of high stardom,
which was surprisingly short - from the release of Et Dieu ... crea la
femme in 1956 to La Verite in 1960, her highest grossing film in France1 —
though I will refer to earlier and later films, in particular her two New
Wave films, Vie privee (1961) and Le Mepris (1963). As discussed in
Chapter 1, in box-office terms alone, Bardot's ranking is relatively low.
Yet, she outstrips all the stars in this book in fame. Both during her film
career and since it ended in 1973, Bardot has been extraordinarily visible
through press, television shows, documentaries, postcards, books,
internet sites, etc. Original posters of her films are among the most
expensive, and outside France they are among the few French posters
available. Bardot also had an important career as a singer in France,
where there is a collector's market for her records,2 and several CDs of
her songs are available. In the late 1950s and through most of the 1960s,
as she vividly recounts in her memoirs (Bardot, 1996), she was hounded
by paparazzi, on film shoots (the subject of Willy Rozier's 1963
documentary Paparazzi) and even as she was giving birth in her
apartment. She was mobbed by crowds on every outing, and the object
of ceaseless press speculation. Bardot was the first French mass-media
star. Since the end of her film career, her involvement in animal rights
and her controversial political stance have kept her in the public eye, as
Brigitte Bardot 85
has the publication of her memoirs, Initiates BB (1996) and Le Carre de

Pluton (1999). But even though many of her activities in the 1980s and
1990s, including her marriage to National Front supporter Bernard
d'Ormale, have aroused hostility in France and abroad, the cult for the
young Bardot shows no sign of halting. To understand the extraordinary
appeal of the Bardot 'myth', we must therefore return to the late 1950s
when she emerged with such impact on the world cultural scene.
Youth
Already a model and ballet dancer, Bardot started acting in film at the
age of 18, in Le Trou normand. In this comedy designed around the comic
star Bourvil, Bardot plays the small though not insignificant part of
Javotte, a silly but ambitious (and devastatingly pretty) teenager,
plotting with her mother to bring her cousin (Bourvil) down in order to
steal his legacy. Bardot's role in Le Trou normand is prototypical:
delightfully garbed in a tartan dress or gingham, she is out of place in
the small provincial town; she pouts and is always ready with insolent
repartee. If the main joke in the film is that the adult Bourvil has to go
back to school, Bardot incarnates real youth. Most of the films in the
early part of her career likewise cash in on her youth: she plays
daughters or is clearly cast as a younger version of the main heroine: for
example, in Les Grandes manoeuvres, where she is contrasted to Michele
Morgan. Et Dieu ... crea la femme not only represents her as 'young' but
also makes her the emblem of the young generation.
In its mode of production principally, Et Dieu ... crea la femme was
part and precursor of the New Wave. The location shooting, the use of a
relatively small crew, the eschewing of studio and established film stars
(except for Curt Jurgens, whose presence in the film was essential to the
project — see Vadim, 1976), all emphasized modernity and spontaneity.
Et Dieu .,. crea la femme became one of the emblems of modern French
cinema. A contemporary review by Francois Truffaut in Arts put it
explicitly: 'It is a film typical of our generation ... despite the vast
audience that Et Dieu ,.. crea la femme will certainly find, only young
spectators will be on Vadim's side, because he shares their vision.'3 In
another issue of Arts, Truffaut defended Bardot against a 'cabal' of
'misogynist critics' who said she couldn't act.4 This rhetoric of the new
would soon become a major feature of the cultural, social and political
new broom ushered in by General de Gaulle's Fifth Republic in 1958,
and of the New Wave. But Vadim's age (twenty-eight) at the time of
making Et Dieu ... crea la femme is, in retrospect, the strongest common
denominator between him and the New Wave directors. For, in aesthetic
terms, apart from the real location, Et Dieu ... crea la femme is a classic
narrative film that mixes comedy and melodrama and has more in
common with the mainstream French cinema of the time than with the
modernist experiments of Godard or Resnais. Indeed, the Christmas
1956 issue of Cinemonde described Et Dieu ... crea la femme as 'the
prototype of sexy comedy'. This point is borne out by Vadim's
subsequent career. What made Et Dieu ... crea la femme 'young' was
Bardot.
Bardot as leading actress made a dramatic contrast to the dominant
female stars of the time: Michele Morgan, Danielle Darrieux, Micheline
Presle, Edwige Feuillere and especially Martine Carol, the then French
sex goddess, seen in such films as Caroline cherie (Richard Pettier, 1950)
and Nana (Christian-Jaque, 1954).5 These women, on the whole, had
long film careers and/or stage experience. Bardot, by contrast, trained as
a dancer and came from modelling, perceived as modern at the time. She
had appeared several times on the cover of Elle, the magazine for the new
1950s woman. The 1950s did see the emergence of a younger
generation of popular actresses, such as Daniele Delorme, Nicole
Courcel, Dany Robin, Dany Carrel, Jeanne Moreau, Francoise Arnoul
and Pascale Petit, who typically appeared as the daughter figure to an
established male star such as Jean Gabin (see Chapter 3). By the time
Bardot played with Gabin in En cas de malheur, she was the only one to
rival him in stature, and conversely he was the only male star with a
presence to rival hers — her fame was such that major male stars were
unwilling to appear with her, a phenomenon paralleled in her private life
(Bardot, 1996). Athough the 1950s saw an increase in female film stars,
Bardot became a rare instance in French cinema of a young female star
who was bankable and on her name alone a series of films was made.
Apart from her looks, what distinguished Bardot from other actresses
was her performance. Her style was blatantly non-actressy, giving the
impression of spontaneity and 'naturalness'. Many of those performance
Brigitte Bardot 87
signs will be examined later: her walk, postures, her facial expressions.
Here, I shall mention one aspect which defined her most against
Feuillere, Carol, Arnoul, etc. - her voice and intonation. Whether trained
on stage or not, French actresses of the period relied on a careful and
modulated elocution designed to showcase dialogue. By contrast,
Bardot's monotone delivery and 'babyish' intonation enraged her
detractors and was the main reason for the accusations that she couldn't
act.
But association with a new cinematic trend and a different type of
performance are not enough to explain the extent of Bardot's success.
Her emerging persona coincided with the rise of youth consumer power
and the social and cultural changes this brought about. This is the case,
most visibly, in terms of fashion. The prevailing model of desirable
femininity purveyed by the fashion of the time was middle-aged and
bourgeois - discreet, untouchable, chic. French fashion of the 1950s was
constricting and conformist: tailored jackets pinched at the waist, bosom-
emphasizing but concealing tops (implying rigid bras and girdles), full
skirts, stiletto heels, epitomized by Christian Dior's New Look
ensembles of 1947. A strong theme was that of the coordinated
ensemble, the 'total look', in which underwear, clothes, perfume, and
accessories matched perfectly. Each occasion and time of the day had its
own outfit: afternoon ensembles, cocktail dresses, evening gowns. Such
styles can be seen in the mainstream French cinema of the 1950s. Quite a
number of films were explicitly about the fashion world: Mademoiselle de
Paris (Walter Kapps, 1955); Le Couturier de ces dames (Jean Boyer, 1956);
Mannequins de Paris (Andre Hunnebelle, 1956); Nathalie (Christian-Jaque,
1957) and Nathalie, agent secret (Henri Decoin, 1959), both starring
Martine Carol. Bardot herself starred as a model in Pierre Gaspard-Huit's
La Mariee est trap belle in 1956, in a narrative which combines her own
youth with youth fashion: like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face (1956),
Bardot is picked by a women's magazine editor (Micheline Presle) to
become the fashion face of youth. In other genres, too, actresses
displayed the work of famous couturiers, whose names were prominent
on the credits. In the thriller Bonnes a tuer (Henri Decoin, 1954), the
hero's (Michel Auclair) reunion of his ex-mistresses (including Danielle
Darrieux) is the narrative excuse for a fabulous display of Balmain
evening gowns, while Adorables creatures (Christian-Jaque, 1952, couture
by Jacques Heim and Balmain), a three-episode comedy starring,

respectively, Danielle Darrieux, Martine Carol and Edwige Feuillere,
begins with Darrieux returning (appropriately) from a shopping trip and
then carefully removing her coordinated accessories — gloves, hat, jacket
- before climbing into bed with her lover (Daniel Gelin).
A key feature of the Bardot persona in Et Dieu ... crea la femme was
her challenge to this tradition, turning her into a figurehead of youth
rebellion against prevailing middle-aged fashion.6 In Et Dieu ... crea la
femme, En cas de malheur and La Verite, Bardot plays a girl of modest
origins who wears cheap clothes. To one of Curt Jurgens's rich friends
who stares at her dress on his yacht in Et Dieu ... crea la femme, she
retorts, 'I bought it at the market'. In contrast to the elaborate outfits of
other leading female actresses, her clothes are few or skimpy, likewise
her underwear (no girdle, sometimes no bra). Though her clothes
emphasize her figure, they connote freedom, because they are made of
soft cotton rather than the rigid tweeds, satins and silks of couture.
Bardot adopted and helped popularize designers such as Real, who
specialized in soft fabrics in pastel colours, and neo-hippy designer Jean
Bouquin. In her films, her clothes are casual, often crumpled, the buttons
undone, and she eschews accessories: little jewellery, often no shoes,
usually no handbag, hat or gloves. Her hairstyle is also significant, its
length and look of wild abundance contrasting with the neat and shorter
coiffures, of other contemporary stars. Her image is of carefree
spontaneity. Catherine Rihoit (1986) shows how Bardot came from a
fashion-conscious household (her mother and her mother's friends wore
couture), and she herself was a model. Her style was just as planned as
others, but the modest cost and easy availability of its basic ingredients
meant that it could be widely copied. Her following by young women
was, in this respect, similar to that of Madonna in the 1980s.
Like Madonna, too, Bardot wore clothes from different contexts —
such as sailors' jerseys and overalls - and diverted their original
meaning. The grey dress she wears in Et Dieu ... crea la femme is a work
overall, but she makes it sexy by rolling up the sleeves and undoing
some of the buttons. Throughout her films she is seen dressed in sheets,
men's shirts, pyjama tops, etc. She put a mac over an evening dress at a
Cannes festival soiree (Rihoit, 1986, p. 123) and married her second
husband, Jacques Charrier, in 1959 in a pink-and-white gingham dress,
Brigitte Bardot 89
one of her most imitated outfits. Bardot, as well as ostentatiously

chewing gum (see the beginning of En cas de malheur), also wore jeans,
the emblem of modern American youth popularized by James Dean and
Marilyn Monroe, and other clothes connoting bohemian beat fashion
and designed to highlight the contrast with the older generation, which
is the main theme of two of her most important dramatic films: En cas de
malheur and La Verite. In En cas de malheur, Yvette (Bardot) is a young
criminal rescued by a rich older solicitor (Gabin), who falls in love with
her, leaves his wife and sets up home with her. At the end, she is killed
by her jealous young lover. In La Verite, Dominique (Bardot) is accused
of killing her lover Gilbert (Sami Frey), and the film takes place in court
where she is accused, defended and judged by middle-aged people, with
flashbacks showing us the circumstances of her life leading to the
murder. In both films she sports youth fashion which contrast with the
formal suits and elegant or dowdy dresses of the older generation. In La
Verite, she hangs out in the cafes and hotels of the Latin Quarter, clad in
tight black trousers and sweater, flat shoes and a duffle-coat, as well as
her signature scarf over her hair. In En cas de malheur she wears the
'waif's uniform' of shiny black mac, and Gabin buys her a ski outfit (a
sign of modernity in 1950s France), contrasting with the elegant town
dresses of Edwige Feuillere, who plays Cabin's wife. Bardot's slim
silhouette was lithe, tomboyish, compared to the ripeness of her erotic
rivals Carol and Monroe, and thus well suited to youth clothes like jeans,
tight sweaters and ski pants. Her second film, Manina, la fille sans voiles
(which means roughly the 'unveiled girl'), was marketed in English as
The Girl in the Bikini, which clearly displayed her body.
Bardot's championing of new fashion coincided with important
changes in the clothing industry. The 1950s saw the decline in the hold
of couture over the fashion business, and the beginning of a real
democratization, which the industry was quick to seize on for its own
purposes. Pierre Cardin, first expelled from the fashion chamber of
commerce for his introduction of pret-a-porter, soon became one of its
stars for precisely that reason. The fashion industry was also waking up
to the power of the young consumer. Women's magazines launched
special columns for young women (Delbourg-Delphis, 1981, pp. 205—6).
The emphasis on fashion in Bardot's films, new and iconoclastic as it
appeared, was also part of the export effort of the French fashion
business, just as the more traditional films were. Fashion was linked to
the cinema in the influence it exerted over the audience and fashion
historian Marylene Delbourg-Delphis has argued that since the 1930s
the cinema had become the main arbiter of public taste (1981, pp. 161-
70). Thus the cover of the April 1959 issue of Marie-France shows
Bardot and Jacques Charrier under the heading 'style jeune ('young
style'). Cinema was also linked to fashion in a more strictly commercial
sense, by the Franco-American Blum-Byrnes treaty of 1946—48 which
traded French luxury goods, such as wine, fashion and perfumes, against
entry to the French market for American films. This was necessary at a
time when French fashion was fast losing its world hegemony. Bardot
was thus bankable in France and eminently exportable, because she
combined both French and youth fashion, at a time when the latter was
becoming more international. I will come back to Bardot's clothes later,
in terms of their erotic function.
Bardot's films also associate her with another emblem of youth: jazz
and pop music. The appeal of Et Dieu ... crea la femme may be ascribed in
part to its careful mixing of foreign sounds with French ones: as Vadim
said, the film 'was somewhat traditional musically, but we did insert jazz
and African rhythms into it'.7 The rise of rock 'n' roll and pop music in
the 1950s and their association with youth have been well documented
(see, for instance, Dick Hebdige's Towards a cartography of taste 1935—
1962' in Hebdige, 1988). Bardot's rebellious stance against the older
generation is anchored in music: for example, listening to the juke-box or
teaching her girlfriend the mambo rather than staying at home, dancing
wildly to the music of a jazz band in defiance of her husband in Et Dieu
... crea la femme, annoying Gabin in En cas de malheur as a boyfriend
plays the jazz trumpet. La Verite contrasts Bardot with her sister Annie
(Marie-Jose Nat), a classical violin player, and Annie's and her boyfriend
Gilbert, a student conductor. At one point, Annie, outraged at Bardot's
lounging in bed while she, Annie, is doing the shopping, violently
wrenches a cha-cha record off the gramophone. Later on, Bardot looks
utterly bored and asks for the popular film fan magazine Cinemonde
while Gilbert is trying to get her interested in Bach.
Classical music in La Verite meets with the approval of the older
generation, against whose hostility Bardot is always pitted in the
narratives of her films: foster parents (Et Dieu ... crea la femme) and
Brigitte Bardot 91
Plate 9 La Mariee est trop belle (Pierre Gaspard-Huit, 1956): Brigitte Bardot and
Louis Jourdan.
authority figures of all kinds such as magistrates (La Verite, En cas de

malheur). This is not particularly remarkable, since French films often put
young actresses in actual or symbolic daughter positions. But Bardot's
films accentuate this feature. First of all, the staidness and hostility of the
older generation is exaggerated; second, the most overt confrontations
always take place between her and older women. Her films all contain
scenes where an older, straightlaced woman expresses shock, hostility or
disapproval: Cabin's secretary in En cas de malheur, her mother in La
Verite, etc. (see also Plate 9). Older men, on the other hand, like Gabin in
En cas de malheur, desire her as well as express paternal feelings (see
Chapter 3). The opening of Et Dieu ... crea la femme condenses this
configuration: the middle-aged playboy Carradine visits Juliette, and his
gift to her of a toy sports car merges the two sides of his feelings for her.
Soon Juliette's foster mother shouts at her for displaying herself in the
nude (to which Juliette replies with insolence), while her foster father — in
a wheelchair - is caught peeping at her through a small window. Thus,

her youth connotes, in the context of 1950s France, both the 'new' —
rebellion — and the 'old' — lustful spectacle.
Sexuality
It seems a truism to say that Bardot is a sex goddess, but the

contradictions contained in the expression are worth exploring, not least
those of a star who embodies sexuality in a superlative manner, but
depends on censorship and repression for her appeal. Giuseppe
Tornatore's Cinema Pamdiso (1988) graphically makes this point and
shows the implication of the sex goddess at its crudest: a row of young
men masturbate in the cinema as they watch the opening of Et Dieu ...
crea la femme. Yet, Bardot lost her appeal in the permissive age. This
shows how much of a transitional figure she was, the image of
permissiveness and a slap in the face of bourgeois morality, but also a
classic object of male desire. The concept of the sex goddess equates
women with sex, but, as a male concept, represses women's own
sexuality.8 Bardot, however, was new and different in this respect. In and
out of the films, she was not only an object of desire but also possessed
an active sexuality of her own. A contemporary review of Et Dieu ...
crea la femme put it thus: 'She doesn't follow the desire of her heart, but
the impulse of her body.' Et Dieu ... crea la femme was a succes de scandals,
and some scenes were cut for release in the French provinces, in America
and Great Britain. This meant, as Truffaut predicted, good box-office.
Here again, the Bardot persona — as embodied in Et Dieu ... crea la femme
- contains several contradictory aspects.
On the international film scene, the mid- to late 1950s saw both the
break-up of the Hollywood studio system and, concurrently, the rise of
European art cinema: the films of Fellini, Antonioni, Resnais, Bergman,
etc. As part of its drive to compete with Hollywood, European art
cinema proposed a new kind of social and psychological realism which
included a bid for explicit sexuality, made possible because of less
stringent censorship codes. The different censorship laws and the more
realistic genres of European films of the 1950s combined to produce a
more 'natural' type of sexuality than Hollywood, best epitomized by
Brigitte Bardot 93
Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren and Silvana Mangano in Italian cinema.

Women in peasant dresses, with bare feet paddling in rice fields,
contrasted with the high glamour of Monroe and Lana Turner. Bardot
was closer to the Italian model, and Et Dieu ... crea la femme frequently
features scenes of bathing, sea and beaches. European eroticism was
bankable. Vadim said:
Of course, some of [Et Dieu ... crea la femme s] success came from its sexual
frankness, and that's why so many of the first New Wave films, like Malle's
Les Amants and Godard's A Bout de souffle, are equally casual about nudity.
It's what distributors, especially American ones, were asking for.9
The strategy worked for Bardot and, according to Marjorie Rosen, '[Et
Dieu ... crea la femme] grossed $4m in its initial run [in the USA], and
many considered Bardot's "sex kitten" the best thing to come out of
France since foie gras' (Rosen, 1973, p. 297).
The 1950s offered contradictory ideas of feminine beauty. On the one
hand, the fashion for blondeness, started in the 1930s, continued in the
likes of stars such as Monroe — a fashion which, as Richard Dyer (1979b)
has shown, combines the values of childhood, sex and a celebration of the
white race. Stars like Monroe, Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield and Anita
Ekberg exhibited blonde hair and exaggerated female curves, especially
breasts, features distinctly modified by Bardot. In addition, the 'dumb
blonde', whose archetype was Monroe, combined sexual spectacle with
comedy, again a Bardot feature: for instance, in Une Parisienne and Babette
sen va-t-en guerre. Bardot, who started her career as a brunette, bleached
her hair for Et Dieu ... crea la femme and remained a blonde from then on.
At the same time, the 1950s and early 1960s saw the rising appeal of
young adolescent-type stars, through the success of the Lolita figure, as
seen in Baby Doll (1956) and Lolita (1962) on the one hand, and that of
the gamine, epitomized by Leslie Caron (Gigi, 1958) and Audrey
Hepburn (Funny Face) on the other. Bardot, dubbed the sex kitten, fitted in
with the gamines, and the fact that her initials were pronounced be-be,
'baby' in French, fed this feature of her persona: in En cas de malheur,
Gabin buys her clothes, blows her nose twice and spoonfeeds her.
In Bardot, the mature sexual woman and the gamine merged: a cross
between Monroe and Hepburn, as it were, between the sexual know-
how of the sex goddess and the charm of the adolescent. The potential
'threat' of her spirited sexuality is thus undercut by the innocence and

impertinence of her childishness. In the French context, it is as if Martine
Carol had been crossed with Zazie, the pert heroine of Raymond
Queneau's contemporary Zazie dans le metro (1959). The twin values of
the sex goddess and the gamine are also enshrined in Bardot's looks and
performance. As Edgar Morin noted, her hairstyle mixed the long,
tumbling locks, traditionally connoting sexuality, with the girlish fringe
(Morin, 1972, p. 29). Her films play with these contrasts: her hair is up
and then down, and while the fringe renders the mane innocent, her
girlish pony-tails and plaits are 'sexed-up' with a womanly beehive. The
same could be said of Bardot's facial features, in particular her mouth,
which combines a sensual fullness with the girlish sulking pout. This
again defuses the potential 'castrating threat' of a grown woman's
sensuality, with the suggestion of petulant dissatisfaction, an invitation
to the male viewer to satisfy or tame her. Finally, her body, which as de
Beauvoir observed combines tomboy slenderness around the hips with
full breasts, continues the same theme.
How does this split persona function in the films? The Bardot
characters are the ultimate objects of male desire: Vadim famously called
her 'the impossible dream of married men' (quoted in Rihoit, 1986,
p. 113), yet the stories appear to revolve around her own desire, though
this is invariably reduced to the sexual. She initiates sex, an aspect
praised by de Beauvoir, for whom Bardot's innovation resided in the fact
that she is 'as much a hunter as she is a prey' (de Beauvoir, 1960, p. 30).
In de Beauvoir's terms, Bardot's expression of female sexuality was
progressive, a welcome change from what she saw as the passivity of
the femme fatale. But within the context of 1950s France, matters are
more complex. There is, first of all, a tension between the Bardot
character as subject (agent) of the narrative, initiating action and
expressing her own desire without guilt, and as object, both of male
desire and of the camera. All her films involve moments of pure
spectacle that stop the flow of the narrative. She is typically frozen in
postures which allow the spectator to admire her body and face. In Mio
figlio Nerone (a 1956 peplum comedy about Nero), where she is marginal
to the main action, Bardot is often decoratively positioned on the side of
the frame, while the stars, Alberto Sordi and Gloria Swanson, occupy
centre stage. Simone de Beauvoir noticed the episodic nature of her
Brigitte Bardot 95
films, a remark we can recast in terms of the fact that in Bardot's films the
need to provide a series of spectacles takes precedence over the
narrative. Clothes play an important part in this process. Et Dieu ... crea
la femme, despite the differences of her clothes from traditional haute
couture discussed above, still functions as a fashion display. This is
emphasized by her walk (that of a model and a dancer) and,
paradoxically, the absence of accessories: the fact that she has no
handbag, and often walks barefoot and barehanded, highlights the fact
that her walking is primarily designed to display herself and her clothes.
Kaja Silverman has discussed how, since the late eighteenth century,
dress display has shifted from men and women to women only, and from
a class to an erotic role, fashion contributing to the construction of
woman as spectacle and 'the cinema [giving] complex expression to the
male fascination with female dress' (Silverman in Modleski, 1986,
p. 142). In Mio figlio Nerone, En effeuillant la marguerite, La Mariee est trap
belle, Et Dieu ... crea la femme, En cas de malheur and La Verite, Bardot is
constantly dressing, undressing, unbuttoning, emphasizing both her
clothes and her body, the camera shifting the eroticization of her body:
neck and bosom, waist, hips and legs (this point is reprised ironically by
Godard in Le Mepris, as the film's opening sees Bardot systematically
naming parts of her body to Michel Piccoli: 'Do you like my thighs? Do
you think my bottom is beautiful?' and so on).
Bardot's display does not, however, amount to making her into a
passive spectacle. Other spectacular moments emphasize a strong sense
of movement. This is typically expressed through dancing, which recurs
in many of her films, most famously in the final mambo sequence in Et
Dieu ... crea la femme. Bardot's dance in films links her film parts with her
own training as a ballet dancer and epitomizes her vitality; it is also an
expression of her charisma, which arguably 'resists' her objectification, to
use Richard Dyer's (1978) concept. In France, Bardot was well known for
singing and dancing appearances on television, including a famous New
Year's Eve programme in 1961, and song recordings of such hits as
'Harley Davidson'. Bardot's spectacular displays are also expressions of
her agency in another, more complicated, way, as exhibitionism and
narcissism are explicitly built into her characters. The Bardot
characteristic which shocked most at the time was her evident pleasure
in her own body, her desire to make love, frequently reiterated in her
films' dialogue: 'I like it', she says after her wedding-'night' in Et Dieu ...
crea la femme; 'I want it', she tells her boyfriend in En cas de malheur when
he seems reluctant. She frequently looks at herself in mirrors and caresses
her own body.10 Bardot here, too, is an ambivalent figure, for if there is
no doubt that her 'to-be-looked-at-ness' (Mulvey, 1975, p. 11) is
predominantly aimed at male spectatorial pleasure, relayed in the films
by male onlookers, her own desire and pleasure are not in doubt either.
The intense interest Bardot has provoked in women writers, including
feminists, confirms that women spectators also take active pleasure in
watching her 'spectacle'. Bardot's well-documented promiscuous life was
a strong intertext to the expression of her sexual desire on screen, and in
this respect Bardot the star is always superimposed on Bardot's
characters: Noel Burch and Genevieve Sellier (1996) are right to point
out the inconsistency in Et Dieu .,. crea la femme of the impudent Juliette
supposedly being a virgin and discovering sexual pleasure on her
wedding night from the shy and awkward Michel. But Bardot's
performance, exuding sexual confidence throughout the film is what the
spectator reads rather than Juliette's (at best superficial) characterization.
The Bardot paradox takes another form. In Et Dieu ... crea la femme, La
Verite and En cas de malheur, the narrative is sympathetic to her, while the
mise-en-scene distances and objectifies her, especially through repeated
focus on parts of her body; in La Verite, the flashbacks through which her
story unfolds to the courtroom are told from her standpoint; we thus
share her 'innocence' which the court does not believe. But the camera
repeatedly isolates parts of her body, particularly her legs and bottom.
At the beginning of En cas de malheur, while she and her girlfriend are
hurrying away from their robbery, the camera cuts to shots of her legs
and high-heeled ankle-strapped shoes, shifting from a level of
subjectivity (we share her panic) to one of objectification (we admire
her legs).
Given the complex spectatorial address of her films, it is hardly
surprising that Bardot's public reception was contradictory. Although
she became for a time the biggest female film star in France and a sure
box-office draw, and although her looks, clothes and hair were widely
admired and imitated, she was not a 'popular' star in the sense of being
liked. She was, supposedly, desired by millions (of men), but was also the
object of extraordinary hostility. As de Beauvoir put it, 'Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot 97
was disliked in her own country' (de Beauvoir, 1960, p. 5). She was, for
instance, attacked with a fork by a woman, and mobbed in a lift, an
episode reproduced in Louis Malle's Vie privee (1961). Traditional
explanations for such hostility have recourse to the 'newness' of Bardot's
sexuality: she was ahead of her times; any opposition to her was
reactionary, the sign of puritan attitudes on the part of men, and sexual
repression and jealousy on the part of women. Francoise Arnoul is
quoted as saying: 'women insulted her, because they were very worried
about their husbands' (Murat, 1988, p. 46). Simone de Beauvoir's
argument was a libertarian one: Bardot was too free, too disturbing for
her repressive times. Undoubtedly, there was some truth in this. Bardot's
combination of sexual casualness, insolence and guiltlessness showed up
the hypocrisy of social conventions. A good example of this is the
immediate consummation of her wedding in Et Dieu ... crea la femme,
which she initiates while the rest of the family sits down to the wedding
meal, and flaunts to them later on when she comes down from the
bedroom to get some food, clad in a sheet. But any notion that Bardot
proposed, or could be, a model of liberated' womanhood is contradicted
in two respects: first of all by the actual social context in which her
spectators were placed, and second by the narrative resolution of some
of her films.
Bardot crystallized values of sexual freedom at a transitional period in
France in terms of sexual mores and the legislation regulating sexuality,
particularly women's. Her slap in the face to bourgeois morality was
defined in male terms and propounded at a time when the very notion of
'liberated sex' could have no reality for French women, unless they were
(like Bardot in real life) from a privileged bourgeois background. In the
light of the fact that there was no freely available contraception until
1964 and that abortion was illegal until the late 1970s, feminist
historians have rightly pointed out French women's 'unhappy sexuality'
in the 1950s. Patriarchal power was inscribed in law and the double
standard which gave male sexuality a free reign, while containing female
sexuality (Laubier, 1990), a deeply oppressive situation analysed by de
Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1974). Seen against this social and cultural
background, women's hostility to Bardot can be recast, not in terms of
sexual repression, but of the gap between the proposed image and its
lived experience. If women were jealous, it was not of their men but of
an image of largely unattainable freedom. Bardot's free sexuality was

available to bohemian-bourgeois milieux in Paris, out of which most film
personnel came, but not to women in the provinces, or working-class
women anywhere (Laubier, 1990). As Michelle Perrot put it,11 Bardot
represented not so much a new woman as the male desire for that new
woman. By caricaturing the forces hostile to her, Bardot's films ensured
that her rebellion appeared greater than it was. In La Verite, Bardot's
lifestyle — idleness and sexual promiscuity — is linked to Simone de
Beauvoir's, as Dominique is accused of having been corrupted by de
Beauvoir's 1954 novel Les Mandarins. This very pairing of Bardot with
de Beauvoir points to the limits of the Bardot persona. If one of the
popular myths about de Beauvoir was her sexual promiscuity and her
rejection of marriage (and Anne, the heroine of Les Mandarins, included
autobiographical elements), her most radical aspect as role model was
her intellectual status and her advocacy of work as a key to women's
independence. In La Verite, as in all her other films, Bardot's rebellion
amounts to sexual promiscuity and never ventures into the sphere of the
social.
Revealing in this respect is the contradictory narrative fate of Bardot's
characters, consonant with the sex goddess generally: she is defined as
powerful and fascinating but is punished, like the femme fatale. In Et Dieu
... crea la femme, En cas de malheur and La Verite, accordingly, she
expresses her own desire (the hunter rather than the prey), but she rarely
gets the man she wants (for instance, she has to settle for his brother in
Et Dieu ... crea la femme) and she often dies: she is murdered by her
young lover in En cas de malheur and commits suicide in La Verite. Her
two New Wave films, Vie privee and Le Mepris, also kill her off at the
end. Of course, the contradictions in the Bardot persona, as in all sex
goddesses, are such that they are not always contained by the narrative
ending. For example, in view of her characterization throughout Et Dieu
... crea la femme, her going home hand in hand with her husband (who
has, just in time, asserted his manhood by slapping her) defies
verisimilitude. And exceptions to this rule are found in comedies such as
Line Parisienne and Babettesen va-t-enguerre. Nevertheless, it is significant
that a star who incarnated vibrant sexuality and energy should be so
violently punished in most of her key films, especially when this did not
correspond to her off-screen image. For although Bardot seriously
Brigitte Bardot 99
Plate 10 Et Dieu ... crea la femme (Roger Vadim, 1956): studio still.
Photograph by Willy Rizzo.
attempted suicide on two occasions, these were the result of the pressure
she was under — especially media harassment — rather than an indication
of a deeper vulnerability, like Marilyn Monroe and Martine Carol. Her
positive outlook and appetite for life triumphed, as her post-1973
biography shows.
The natural
What made the gap between the Bardot image and the lived experience
of her audience, particularly women, all the more powerful and
problematic, was that her image was presented as natural. For a start, her
films, with exceptions such as Helen of Troy, Mio figlio Nerone, Les
Grandes manoeuvres and Viva Maria!, were contemporary. This
contrasted with the costume films with which her rivals - Michele
Morgan, Danielle Darrieux, Micheline Presle and Martine Carol - were
associated and whose historical distanciation allowed a safer audacity.
The natural, the third ingredient of the Bardot myth, is inscribed in the
codes of the films, in her performance and endlessly reiterated in
interviews and profiles: 'She doesn't act, she exists' (Vadim); 'In front of
the camera, I am myself (Bardot) (both quoted in de Beauvoir, 1960,

p. 18); 'What did B.B. bring to the 1950s? The natural, very simply, the
natural they needed so much' (Murat, 1988, p. 50). Authenticity as
perceived correlation between the performer and the person, is inherent
in stardom, and, as Roland Barthes has shown, the work of myth is
always to turn culture into nature. But this process is especially
reinforced in the case of Bardot, whose naturalness was thematized in
her films. Here again, Et Dieu ... crea la femme is emblematic: Bardot is
portrayed as natural in three ways: through her sexuality, her clothes
and her association with images of nature and landscape, reinforced by
the knowledge of her off-screen association with the director of the film
and the location. Many are those who, like Antoine de Baecque, see the
film as 'a kind of document' on Bardot (de Baecque, 1998, p. 20). Yet, a
closer examination reveals how this naturalness is constructed through
cultural codes which corresponded with social and cultural change, but
also traditional cultural conventions regarding women.
Curt Jurgens's racist description of Bardot as 'a blonde negress' (Rihoit,
1986, p. 178) at the time of the making of Et Dieu ... crea la femme is
revealing in linking Bardot with the primitive, but also in its
acknowledgement of the constructed aspect of her image (the bleached
hair). This is encapsulated in the mambo scene at the end of the film,
when Bardot goes into a frenzy of dancing to the black band's music,
propelled by an insistent beat. Bardot is a whirl of bare feet, wild hair,
syncopated movements, as if possessed by the music. The mise-en-scene,
however, reveals this 'natural' body in very controlled ways: her skirt
splits open strategically, the camera isolates her crotch, legs and feet. The
primitiveness attributed to her is extended to notions of her as a child or
an animal (Lolita, the sex kitten), the creature with an irrepressible
sexuality, acceptable because it is 'natural', but which ultimately needs to
be tamed. This is her narrative fate, as we saw earlier. As de Beauvoir
points out in her essay, this is hardly a new notion of womanhood, since
it derives from reactionary myths of femininity, 'the eternal feminine'. In
order to justify this myth, then, the films go out of their way to show
Bardot as relating to animals and children better than to adults. The fact
that Bardot really likes animals is not the point, but rather the way this
love of animals metonymically signifies a reified femininity.
Bardot's clothes were carefully designed to connote naturalness.
Brigitte Bardot 101
Gingham fabric is no more natural than silk, but has acquired

connotations of simplicity through its use as kitchen curtains and table
cloths for country restaurants. Bardot's clothes in her films were often
rather impractical (e.g. the tight skirt she wears to ride a bicycle in Et
Dieu ... crea la femme), as too was her rejection of accessories such as
shoes and handbags — for instance, driving barefoot in Une Parisienne.
Similarly, the mise-en-scem of her body reveals a high level of
constructedness that contradicts the natural image in its use of two
central motifs — the striptease and the pin-up — which belong to well-
established traditions of visual representation. Bardot as a character does
striptease; concealing parts of her body while revealing others: her
sexual invitation to her husband Michel, clad in a sheet, in Et Dieu ...
crea la femme; the raising of her skirt in En cas de malheur (to pay for
Cabin's services as a solicitor); her dancing naked under the sheets in bed
in La Verite. In En effeuillant la marguerite, her stage striptease is part of
the story. The design of her clothes itself partakes in this aesthetics:
drop-shoulder T-shirts, slit skirts, bare midriffs. The camera also takes on
that function, concealing and revealing, as in the opening of Et Dieu ...
crea la femme: Bardot's feet stick out from behind a sheet hung up to dry,
her head bobs up above it. Though Bardot's performance is characterized
by mobility and energy — she walks, runs and dances — her films also
freeze her in positions which reproduce the conventions of pin-up
photography. Shots show her in three-quarter profile (face and body),
thus displaying the outline of her breasts and behind. An often
reproduced still from Et Dieu ... crea la femme (Bardot on her bike,
propped against a wall, talking to Jean-Louis Trintignant) encapsulates
this. The motif of lifted arms framing the face and lifting the breasts at
the same time is also familiar from pin-up photographs (as on the cover
of this book). When Bardot throws herself 'spontaneously' onto a couch
in Curt Jurgens's yacht in Et Dieu ... crea la femme, the next shot frames
her perfectly in a breast-and-buttocks revealing position in a mirror.
Later on, Christian Marquand pulls her roughly on to the sand, and the
reverse shot has her perfectly positioned, her parted legs opening up her
half-unbuttoned skirt. In all cases, not only is Bardot's body very
carefully displayed to the camera's and spectator's gaze, but it also
appears in poses which belong to established traditions of displaying
and fetishizing the female body.
The location shooting of Et Dieu ... crea la femme was a new departure
in French cinema and in this prefigured the New Wave. The location
itself was an emblem of the 'new natural'. The choice of Saint-Tropez
was overdetermined. The eastern part of the Cote d'Azur (Nice, Cannes)
had been a fashionable winter resort for the rich for decades, trading on
luxury hotels and exoticism with casinos and palm trees. But Saint-
Tropez and other resorts between Cannes and Marseilles, with their
pretty little fishing harbours and simple Provencal houses, were sought
for their folk value. In the context of the post-war rural exodus and the
rise in mass tourism, Provence was about to be turned into a heritage
playground for well-off Parisians and foreigners. Saint-Tropez itself was
already patronized by celebrities such as Francoise Sagan, who had
become an overnight celebrity with her novel Bonjour Tristesse, published
in 1954. Although Vadim describes his, and various friends', lifestyle in
Saint-Tropez in the late 1950s as just 'the carefree uproarious abandon of
children who refused to grow up despite being successful and almost
thirty' (Vadim, 1976, p. 117), such a bohemian lifestyle was available
only to an elite. The view of nature expressed by the filming of Saint-
Tropez village and beaches in Et Dieu ... crea la femme was a middle-
class, glamorous one, that of the rich shipowner (Jurgens) and his yacht.
Bardot's myth thus combined authentic Provence and playboy-land. She
embodied a carefree lifestyle of sunbathing, swimming, making love and
playing the guitar, celebrated in her song 'La Madrague' (the name of her
house in Saint-Tropez). A lifestyle which had as much to do with social
and economic changes in post-war France as with nature. The urban
middle classes were feeling the need for 'a return to nature' and Bardot
embodied both the desire for the commodified nature of holidays and
'nature' itself through her earthy sexuality and her casual performance.
Between generations, between mainstream

and the New Wave
I have emphasized the contrast between the old and the new in Bardot —
in terms of youth, sexuality and naturalness — not in order to fix her in
one camp or the other, but to show that she encompassed both. I want
to end by highlighting two other ways in which she was a pivotal figure:
Brigitte Bardot 103
Plate 11 Le Mepris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963): Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance.
Photograph by Ghislain Dussard and Associated Press.
in her representation of a generation and in her oscillation between

mainstream cinema and the New Wave.
There is a scene in La Verite where the judge presiding over the
tribunal indicts her for being 'tempted by the easy life, attracted by all
that is fake, ostentatious money, the glitter of boutiques'. Accompanied
by his voice-over, we see her window-shopping on the Champs-Elysees,
then going into a Latin Quarter cafe, where she picks 'the wrong crowd'
and gives in to 'moral abandon', smoking, drinking and playing the juke-
box instead of going to training school. This moment encapsulates the
film's, and more generally, France's ambivalence towards Bardot. She is
young and seductive. An object of desire for all around her, she
embodies both the rising young generation of avid consumers of record-
players, Vespas, popular music and movies, and a freer sexuality, and
those glittering commodities themselves - popular culture being
typically characterized as feminine (Huyssen, 1986). But the new culture
poses a threat: to the established order, to the older generation, to the
family. La Verite caricatures both sides: Bardot and her young friends as
well as the cynical magistrates and lawyers (who simply move on to the
next case when they hear she has committed suicide), the duplicitous
witnesses and the prurient audience. Such dark cynicism is typical of
Clouzot and of the Tradition of Quality, but it also shows starkly that
the ambivalence towards Bardot is a larger social ambivalence towards
the process of modernization sweeping France. The new lifestyle,
promoted by the economic boom, is equally desired and feared. The
clash is also one between two Frances: the conservative, Catholic
provinces and the modern, libertarian, urban (essentially Parisian) elites,
embodied by the likes of de Beauvoir, Sagan and Bardot. As this list of
names suggests, women were taking an active role in the new culture,
and this is part of Bardot's French specificity. Where the archetypes of
American teenage rebel were James Dean and Jack Kerouac, France
offered a more feminized version of youth rebellion.
Bardot's pivotal quality also characterizes her relation to French
cinema at the turn of the 1960s. She was a star of the mainstream French
cinema: her career was based on films by Autant-Lara, Christian-Jaque,
Clouzot, Allegret, pillars of the Tradition of Quality, and Vadim, who
quickly evolved towards mainstream cinema. That cinema was, in the
late 1950s, still addressing a wide, family audience. The titillating,
'scandalous' element in Bardot's performance was addressed to the older
generation, as the films make clear, while her new fashions, her humour
and insolence, her pleasure in her own body and eroticism addressed the
younger generation. Her newness was acceptable despite her scandalous
aspect, because of this dual appeal, ten years before feminism. Yet, in
other ways, Bardot was too big for her films in a national cinema which
had no tradition of accommodating such a powerful female star. The
magnitude of her fame was also, as it turned out, a problem for the
emergent New Wave.
Despite Truffaut's defence of Bardot in Et Dieu ... crea la femme,12 by
the time he, Godard and other New Wave directors made films in 1959,
she was, as the biggest mainstream female star, the epitome of the
system they opposed as well as out of reach economically (see Chapter
5). The apparently odd casting of Bardot in Malle's Vie privee in 1961
and Godard's Le Mepris in 1963 is, however, understandable. Both her
box-office draw and the novelty of the New Wave were beginning to
wane, while American production companies needed to utilize frozen
capital in Europe (Vie privee was financed by MGM, Le Mepris part-
Brigitte Bardot 105
funded by the American Joe Levine) and European art cinema needed
international exposure. Both films are more or less explicitly about
Bardot as a star. In Vie privee, Jill (Bardot) is a ballet dancer who becomes
a film star, and is in love with a theatre director (Marcello Mastroianni).
She dies, falling from a rooftop in Spoleto during an open-air theatrical
performance, blinded by paparazzi. The film was part-based by Malle on
events in Bardot's life. Le Mepris, based on Alberto Moravia's novel //
disprezzo, is about the relationship between a secretary, Camille (Bardot),
and a scriptwriter, Paul (Michel Piccoli), during the shooting of a version
of The Odyssey by Fritz Lang (playing himself) in Capri. Camille has an
affair with American producer Prokosh (Jack Palance) and dies in a car
crash with him.
Vie privee and Le Mepris are very different films and there is no space
here to analyse them in detail (for a fuller discussion of the two films, see
Sellier and Vincendeau, 1998, p. 115-30). Yet, there are interesting
parallels which are worth evoking here, as they cast light on Bardot's
position in French film culture. Both films are about artistic production
and both stage a conflict between elite culture, figured by the directors'
alter-egos — Mastroianni in Vie privee, Michel Piccoli and Fritz Lang in Le
Mepris — and popular culture represented by Bardot. In both films,
Bardot is the centre of attention, thematically and visually, while the
narratives about (male) artistic creation - staging Kleist in Vie privee,
filming The Odyssey in Le Mepris — exclude or marginalize her. Although
Le Mepris shows a higher awareness of the process of image
construction, in characteristic Godardian fashion, both films reduce her
character to female sexuality and, as such, to the opposite of creativity.
As Claude Gauteur put it, Vie privee 'is a film made less with, than against
Brigitte Bardot' (Gauteur, 1962, p. 23). Both films kill her at the end.
Both thus explicitly uphold high culture (which includes the cinema for
Godard, but the cinema of Fritz Lang, not that of Prokosh and Bardot)
against the popular in its most threatening incarnations: a French popular
star, hysterical crowds, paparazzi, an American producer. Bardot's
marginalization in the films was uncannily echoed in life: in her memoirs,
she tells of how isolated she was during the shooting of both films,
especially Vie privee (Bardot, 1996, pp. 300 and 328). Vie privee and Le
Mepris try to tame Bardot's power and charisma, while at the same time
exhibiting her, just like the New Wave tried to conquer French
mainstream cinema. In neither case did they succeed, although neither

Bardot nor French cinema would be the same afterwards.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bardot offered a contradictory yet real
image of female emancipation, at a transitional moment in the histories
of both French cinema and French women, between the post-war
backlash which produced the 'evil bitch' (Burch and Sellier, 1996) and the
sea-changes of the post-1968 period. Bardot's myth as a star both
negotiated and concealed the tensions engendered by her 'old and new'
femininity. Her unique combination of stunning looks, traditional
femininity and iconoclastic power is the subject of her films, and the
reason of her unending fascination. This explains why, since Simone de
Beauvoir in 1960, she has continued to fascinate and divide feminists,
whether they claim her as a role model and force of nature (Aude, 1979;
Paglia, Without Walls, 1994) or as a more conservative figure (Burch and
Sellier, 1996, pp. 274—7). Bardot as a person was (and is) no feminist. Yet
her memoirs show her capacity to break taboos still in 1996 (for
instance, admitting to having rejected her child) and her lucidity about
the difficulties posed by her explosive combination of gender and
power, not least in her chaotic love life. In a country where
'unauthorized' biographies are barred by stringent privacy laws (see
Chapter 1), Bardot single-handedly broke that taboo, too, in writing
about herself in terms which are at times unpalatable (some of her
political views) but which also reveal how she survived being a sex
goddess. Her memoirs are those of a survivor.
Biofilmography
Born Paris, 28 September 1934. Married Roger Vadim (1952), Jacques

Charrier (1959, with whom she had one son, Nicolas, born 1960), Gunther
Sachs (1966) and Bernard d'Omale (1992).
Main acting awards
Etoile de Cristal de 1'Academic du Cinema, Best Actress, Viva Maria!, 1966

Brigitte Bardot 107
Films as actor
1952 Le Trou normand (Jean Boyer)

Les Denis longues [cameo] (Daniel Gelin)
1953 Manina, la fills sans voiles/The Girl in the Bikini/Lighthouse Keeper's
Daughter (Willy Rozier)
1954 Si Versailles m'etait conte/Versailles (Sacha Guitry)
Le Portrait de son pere (Andre Berthomieu)
Un acte d'amour/Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, France/USA)
Tradita (Mario Bonnard, Italy/France)
Le Fils de Caroline Cherie (Jean Devaivre)
1955 Helen of Troy (Robert Wise, USA)
futures vedettes/Sweet Sixteen (Marc Allegret)
Doctor at Sea (Ralph Thomas, UK)
Les Grandes manoeuvres/Summer Manoeuvres (Rene Clair, France/
Italy)
1956 Mio figlio Nerone/Nero's Mistress (Steno, Italy/France)
La Lumiere d'en face/ The Light across the Street (Georges Lacombe)
Cette sacree gamine/Mademoiselle Pigalle (Michel Boisrond)
En effeuillant la marguerite/Mam'selle Striptease (Marc Allegret)
Et Dieu ... crea la femme/And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim)
La Mariee est trap belle/The Bride Is Too Beautiful (Pierre Gaspard-
Huit)
1957 Une Parisienne/Una Parigiana (Michel Boisrond, France/Italy)
Voulez-vous danser avec moil/Come Dance with Me (Michel
Boisrond, France/Italy)
1958 En cas de malheur/Love Is My Profession [La ragazza del peccato]
(Claude Autant-Lara, France/Italy)
Les Bijoutiers du clair de lune/Heaven Fell That Night (Roger Vadim,
France/Italy)
1959 La Femme et le pantin/A Woman Like Satan (Julien Duvivier,
France/Italy)
Babette sen va-t-en-guerre/Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque)
Tentazioni proibite [doc] (Oswaldo Civirani)
1960 L'Affaire d'une nuit (Henri Verneuil) [cameo]
La Verite/The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, France/Italy)
1961 La Bride sur le cou (Roger Vadim)
Les Amours celebres [ep. 'Agnes Bernauer'] (Michel Boisrond,

France/Italy)
Vie privee/A Very Private Affair (Louis Malle, France/Italy)
1962 Le Repos du guerrier/Love on a Pillow (Roger Vadim, France/Italy)
1963 Le Mepris/Il disprezzo (Jean-Luc Godard, France/Italy)
Paparazzi [doc] (Jacques Rozier)
1964 Une ravissante idiote/A Ravishing Idiot (Edouard Molinaro, France/
Italy)
Marie Soleil (Antoine Bourseiller) [cameo]
1965 Dear Brigitte (Henry Koster, USA)
Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, France/Italy)
1966 Masculin-Feminin (Jean-Luc Godard) [cameo]
1967 A coeur joie/Two Weeks in September (Serge Bourguignon, France/
UK)
Histoires extraordinaires [ep. 'William Wilson'] (Louis Malle,
France/Italy)
1968 Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, UK)
1969 Les Femmes (Jean Aurel)
L'Ours et la poupee (Michel Deville)
1970 Les Novices/The Novices (Guy Casaril, France/Italy)
1971 Boulevard du rhum/Winner Takes All (Robert Enrico)
Les Petroleuses/The Legend of Frenchie King (Christian-Jaque, France/
Italy/Spain/UK)
1973 Don Juan 73 ou si Don Juan e'tait une femme/Don Juan or If Don Juan
Were a Woman ... (Roger Vadim, France/Italy)
L'Histoire tres bonne et ires joyeuse de Colinot Trousse-Chemise/The
Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot, the Skirt Puller-upper (Nina
Companeez)
Notes
1. See 'Box office de Brigitte Bardot 1958-1961', Le Film francais, 10

November 1961, p. 5.
2. Record Collector, No. 188, April 1995, pp. 44-7.
3. Arts, 5 December 1956.
4. Ibid., 12 December 1956.
5. On Martine Carol, see Phillips (1998).
6. Rihoit (1986) provides interesting biographical information on Bardot's
Brigitte Bardot 109
relationship to her mother and her mother's friends, all wealthy and
elegant Parisiennes in couture clothes.
7. Quoted in Marc Mancini, 'So who created Vadim?', Film Comment, Vol. 24,
No. 2, March/April 1988.
8. See my entry, The sex goddess', in Annette Kuhn and Susannah Radstone
(eds), The Women's Companion to International Film (London, Virago, 1990).
9. Quoted in Mancini, 'So who created Vadim?'
10. On the narcissistic, childish woman, see Sarah Kofman, The narcissistic
woman: Freud and Girard', in Toril Moi (ed.), French Feminist Thought, a
Reader (Oxford, Blackwell, 1987).
11. Michelle Perrot, interviewed on Arte documentary on 'Bardot', tx June
1996.
12. Arts, 12 December 1956.
CHAPTER 5
Jeanne Moreau and the

Actresses of the New Wave
New Wave, new sfars
Personally, I will systematically refuse to make films with five stars:

Fernandel, Michele Morgan, Jean Gabin, Gerard Philipe and Pierre
Fresnay. These artists are too dangerous; they impose a script or change
it if they don't like it. They do not hesitate to dictate the cast or refuse to
work with certain actors. They influence mise-en-scene and demand close-
ups; they sacrifice the best interest of a film to their status and they are,
in my opinion, to blame for many failures.
Francois Truffaut 1
Truffaut kept his word and never used any of the stars named in this
typically bombastic statement. Aside from the fact that they were too
expensive, mainstream stars were inadequate to his needs and those of
other filmmakers of the New Wave (nouvelle vague). Many New Wave
films, which were made on small budgets, instead used unknown and
non-professional actors. Yet the New Wave produced its own stars. As
David Shipman said:
It did look at first as though the nouvelle vague might destroy the conception
of the star and his image, especially as a whole crop of new actors, some of
them of shining versatility, rode in on it to stardom, but as success came to
both them and the directors, the lines blurred and compromises were made.
... The new stars found their 'image'.2
110
Jeanne Moreau 111
Truffaut himself later used major stars such as Catherine Deneuve and
Gerard Depardieu. But at the turn of the 1960s, the New Wave
employed new actors with a fresh look and performance style who
crystallized its ideological and cinematic project. A new generation
emerged: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Jean-Louis Trintignant,
Jean-Claude Brialy, Gerard Blain, Sami Frey; Jeanne Moreau, Anna
Karina, Anouk Aimee, Bernadette Lafont, Stephane Audran, Marie-
France Pisier, Emmanuelle Riva, Jean Seberg. Since the New Wave, many
of these actors have had substantial careers in art and mainstream cinema
(Trintignant, Frey, Aimee). Others have remained associated purely with
the New Wave (Leaud, Karina). Only two became 'real stars', Belmondo
and Moreau. In this chapter I will concentrate on Moreau and the female
stars, because I think there is a special link between the New Wave and
female stardom, while Belmondo is discussed in Chapter 7.
The New Wave is the best-known French film movement of the post-
war period and a critical standard against which French cinema has been
judged ever since (among the abundant literature, see Graham, 1968;
Monaco, 1976; Daney, 1988; de Baecque, 1998; Marie, 1998; Douchet,
1998). The 'hard core' New Wave refers to 162 first or second films
made between 1958 and 1962,3 though a wider definition includes later
films. Its most successful directors divide into two groups: the 'right
bank', clustered around Cahiers du cinema and whose project was
predominantly aesthetic — Claude Chabrol (Le Beau Serge, Les Cousins, Les
Bonnes femmes), Francois Truffaut (Les Quatre cents coups, Tirez sur le
pianiste, Jules et Jim), Jean-Luc Godard (A bout de souffle, Le Petit soldat,
line femme est une femme, Vivre sa vie, Pierrot le fou), Eric Rohmer (Le Signe
du lion), Jacques Rivette (Paris nous appartient) — and the 'left bank', with
more socially aware films by directors with experience in documentary:
Agnes Varda (Cleo de 5 a 7), Alain Resnais (Hiroshima mon amour, L'Annee
derniere a Marienbad, Muriel, La Guerre est finie) and Chris Marker (La
Jetee, Le Joli mai). Other important figures include Louis Malle (Ascenseur
pour I'echafaud, Les Amants), Alexandre Astruc (Le Rideau cramoisi, Les
Mauvaises rencontres), Jacques Demy (Lola, La Bale des anges), Jacques
Doniol-Valcroze (L'Eau a la bouche), Pierre Kast (Le Bel age) and Jacques
Rozier (Adieu Philippine).
Plate 12 Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard, the emblematic couple of the
New Wave.
In her innovative study of characters and gender in the New Wave,

Genevieve Sellier argues that New Wave films with a female character
are a minority and that the typical New Wave hero is a Vulnerable
young man' who echoes the young male director, positioned as a
romantic/modernist artist. The central project of the New Wave, in this
light, is to 'construct the point of view of a wounded masculine
subjectivity' (Sellier, 1997). Sellier isolates two trends — one in which
women function as fascinating objects of desire or dangerous femmes
fatales who lead the hero to his downfall, even as they are in love with
him: Ascenseur pour I'echafaud, A bout de souffle, Les Cousins, Tirez sur le
pianiste, Lola, Jules et Jim. The other trend is one in which women are the
main characters but where the filmmaker-^wtf-'sociologist' scrutinizes
them with more or less contempt or pity: Les Mauvaises rencontres, line
vie, Les Amants, Vivre sa vie, Une femme mariee, Les Bonnes femmes. She
Jeanne Moreau 113
Plate 13 A bout de souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, I960): Jean-Paul Belmondo and

Jean Seberg.
concludes, 'Only Agnes Varda [with Cleo de 5 a 7] and Alain Resnais

[with Hiroshima mon amour], for different reasons, succeed in construct-
ing female protagonists who are endowed with agency'. Sellier's analysis
is insightful and especially welcome, as the literature on the New Wave
virtually ignores gender. Stardom, however, modifies her conclusions.
Whether they are phantasmic male projections or under the glare of the
camera-as-microscope, women come to the fore visually in New Wave
cinema, as they do in European art cinema of the 1950s and 1960s
(Bergman, Antonioni) in films with strong cinephile appeal. This is why,
as we saw in Chapter 1, actresses such as Moreau, Karina and Aimee
have a star status in excess of their box-office attraction. Even though
the characters they embody frequently are fundamentally misogynist
projections, the stars of the New Wave define a new femininity in tune
with the films: fresh, alluring, different. It is, in fact, this dichotomy
between retrograde concepts of femininity and seductively 'modern'
images which is at the heart of their appeal.
Stars and auteurs
The mainstream star was antithetical to the New Wave. She/he opposed
the New Wave rhetoric of cinema as personal expression and its aim to
move cinema out of the realm of popular entertainment into that of 'art'.
Echoing Astruc's arguments in his pioneering article The birth of a new
style: the camera-stylo' (in Graham, 1968), Truffaut expressed this
programme very clearly:
Tomorrow's film appears to me as even more personal than a novel, as
individual and autobiographical as a confession or a diary. Young filmmakers
will express themselves in the first person. ... Tomorrow's film will not be
made by bureaucrats of the camera but by artists for whom the shooting of a
film constitutes a wonderful and exalting adventure. Tomorrow's film will
look like the person who made it and the number of spectators will be
proportionate to the number of friends he has.4
With the New Wave, the director-auteur took centre stage. There was
no room for another star under the limelight, except for one willing to
be his alter-ego or mouthpiece.
Max Ophuls, an important model for the New Wave, had already
demonstrated the antinomy between auteur cinema and stars in one of
his most celebrated films, Lola Mantes (1955). This lavish portrayal of a
courtisane played by Martine Carol, the French sex goddess of the time,
was a resounding commercial flop but a critical hit. The film's reception
is classically interpreted as audiences' failure to understand Ophuls's
'extending and exploring the artistic resources of the cinema' (Williams,
1992, p. 1). But Lola Montes is also a brutal deconstruction of its star. As
Alastair Phillips puts it, lines by the master of ceremony (Peter Ustinov)
such as '"I am not interested in talent, only in vitality and effects" are
not pronounced at random' (Phillips, 1998, p. 111). Ophuls had
successfully integrated stars such as Gerard Philipe, Jean Gabin and
Danielle Darrieux into his aesthetic universe in La Ronde (1950) and Le
Plaisir (1952). Here, he bluntly marked his 'Brechtian' distance from a
popular star who is denigrated, as were, by extension, her fans. As
Truffaut interpreted, 'for Ophuls Carol was no more Lola Montes than
himself the Pope, and he decided to make her into a plaster statue who
had the ability to suffer' (in Douchet, 1998, p. 140). Carol's career never
recovered, though this was also because her dominance as sex goddess
Jeanne Moreau 115
was challenged by Bardot. With Et Dieu ... crea la femme in 1956, Bardot
brought in a revolutionary femininity and type of performance which
foregrounded sex but in a youthful, modern and 'natural' way (see
Chapter 4). After Ophuls, she too made Carol appear outdated and
'constructed', just like the Tradition of Quality hated by Truffaut - hence
his defence of Bardot for her ability to 'do in front of the camera
everyday gestures, anodyne ones such as playing with her sandal, and
less anodyne ones such as making love during the day'.5 Bardot,
however, became an expensive mainstream star with a persona too
strong and too 'popular' to fit with the New Wave project. New Wave
historians credit Bardot as an important precursor (see de Baecque, 1998;
Marie, 1998), but Truffaut and others ignored her when they became
filmmakers. Bardot's two New Wave films — Louis Malle's Vie privee
(1961) and Godard's Le Mepris (1963) - came later and like Lola Montes
they deconstruct and (especially in Vie privee) denigrate her stardom
(Sellier and Vincendeau, 1998). The New Wave auteurs, bent on
expressing themselves 'in the first person', needed new stars who would
be both valorizing and pliable — male doubles or female muses.
Contrary to the distance between auteur and star emblematized by
Ophuls and Carol in Lola Montes, Malle and Bardot in Vie privee, the
New Wave promoted closer and less hierarchical ties. Filmmakers and
actors even looked alike: the young Belmondo looked like the young
Godard, Leaud grew to resemble Truffaut. Photographs of the early
1960s (see the extensive iconography in Douchet, 1998) show us actors
who look remarkably like each other and the directors: good-looking
young men of slight built with short dark hair, wearing neat Italian-style
suits and ties, cigarettes in the corner of their mouths - Belmondo,
Brialy, Frey, Blain, Charrier and Leaud from L'Amour a vingt ans onwards.
With women, the connection was more distanced visually, but otherwise
closer. Several New Wave actresses had well-known relationships with
the filmmaker: Godard and Karina were the emblematic couple, but there
were also Chabrol and Audran, Malle and then Truffaut with Moreau.
This was not just a fact of biography but another way in which
filmmakers and actors proclaimed their difference from the 'bureaucrats'
of the film industry. They claimed a continuity with prestigious
cinematic partnerships: D.W. Griffith and Lillian Gish, Joseph von
Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, Ingmar Bergman and several of his
actresses. This enhanced, through the Pygmalion myth, the stature of the
director-auteur and recalled the male artists and female models of art
history. Godard, as usual, made this process explicit: in section XII of
Vivre sa vie, pages from Edgar Allan Poe's The Oval Portrait are read to
Nana (Karina) by the male character who is in love with her, dubbed
with Godard's voice. The Oval Portrait (the story of a painter so in love
with the portrait of his lover that he neglects the real woman, who dies)
provides the 'poetic' justification for Nana's death where the film's
motivation is weak and arbitrary, highlighting the fact that we are
watching a story between director and actress rather than between two
characters. Other New Wave films, especially Godard's with Karina, are
a more indirect elaboration of this theme (line femme est une femme,
Pierrot le fou).
New Wave actors and actresses also stand in for the director's
cinephilia. From the moment he stole film stills in Les Quatre cents coups,
Jean-Pierre Leaud fulfilled this function for Truffaut. Emmanuelle Riva in
Hiroshima mon amour is an actress making a film on Hiroshima. Women
in Godard's films often go to the cinema, such as Macha Meril in Une
femme mariee, who goes to see Resnais's Nuit et brouillard. In Vivre sa vie,
Nana, supposedly a prostitute, goes to see Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of
Arc. Huge close-ups of her face parallel those of Falconetti, Dreyer's
heroine (this is reprised by Leos Carax in Mauvais sang, as discussed in
Chapter 10). While this role embeds Karina further as Godard's relay, it
also detaches her from the character she is playing — it is nearly
impossible to believe in Karina as a prostitute. In A bout de souffle, Jean
Seberg goes to the cinema and is juxtaposed with a Renoir painting; the
New Wave star is associated with auteur cinema and high art, with
auteur cinema as high art. At the other extreme, Bardot is equated with
the 'wrong' kind of cinema: her own in Vie privee and that of the crass
American producer played by Jack Palance with whom she elopes in Le
Mepris. The 'silly' women of Les Bonnes femmes (a title which means 'the
broads' not 'the girls', as it is usually translated) come roaring with
laughter out of a big Champs-Elysees cinema bound to show a
mainstream film.
The close relationship between actresses and filmmakers in the New
Wave meant that while they played the traditional role of female object
of desire, they, and not just the male alter-egos, also functioned as
Jeanne Moreau 117
relayers of the filmmaker's worldview. Bernadette Lafont revealingly

talks of being a 'puppet' of the New Wave, adding, 'I had no training. I
was malleable terrain.'6
New Wave, new women
Like Lafont, who met Truffaut while she was Blain's wife, and Karina,
who was a model for Cardin, several New Wave actresses came directly
into film without training. Many, however, like Moreau, Audran, Riva
and Seyrig, had done some theatre and film work. But, as we will see
with Moreau, their earlier professional backgrounds were erased, their
looks were changed, they were 'reborn' with the New Wave. Two main
types of women emerged with the New Wave. On the one hand were
young (late teens) gamines: Karina, Seberg, Lafont, Pisier. Theirs was a
visual embodiment of the youthful values of the New Wave. On the
other hand were the slightly older Moreau, Riva, Aimee, Audran and
Seyrig, who were in their late twenties or early thirties when they
started in the New Wave and whose role was to reflect the
sophisticated, intellectual mood of the films. But all echoed the ideology
of the New Wave: authenticity, modernity and sensuality.
The New Wave concentrated on behaviour, looks and gestures rather
than psychology. Its authenticity was grounded in a discourse of anti-
professionalism. It was important that actors and actresses were seen not to
act, especially in contrast to the Tradition of Quality cinema, which
foregrounded polished performances, careful lighting and framing,
experienced mastery of space (see Jean Gabin in Chapter 3), well-modulated
delivery of dialogue. New Wave films foregrounded improvisation through
filming on location, using available light and vernacular language.
Performances matched this. Casual elocution and underplaying made
performances appear 'modern' and blurred the distinction between fiction
and document (references to New Wave films as 'documentaries' on the
actors are frequent). Lines are fluffed and movements are charmingly
gauche. Claudine Bouche, the editor of Jules et Jim, recounts that Truffaut
deliberately kept the take of Moreau singing 'Le Tourbillon de la vie' in
which she gestures to indicate she made a mistake, because it gave the scene
'more charm' (de Baecque and Toubiana, 1996, p. 262).
As in this example, the performance of authenticity contains its own

reverse, which is to draw attention to itself. The gaucheness of gestures
— especially visible in Karma and Leaud — and deliberate inclusion of
mistakes, the foreign accents of Karina and Seberg (and Lazlo Szabo), the
instances of actors (though rarely actresses) addressing the camera
directly, all introduce what several critics have isolated as typical of New
Wave acting, a kind of 'displacement' (Douchet, 1998, pp. 149-54) or
decalage (Marie, 1998, p. 99). This means an ironic slippage, a gap
between performance and character. What seems to me most
characteristic of New Wave acting is the combination of authenticity
and decalage, which parallels the filmmakers' paradoxical drive to realism
and personal expression. Many examples could be drawn (everyone of
Jean-Pierre Leaud's performances, for example), but two will suffice. In
Chabrol's A double tour (1959), idiosyncratic performances by Belmondo
and Lafont, especially their insolent speech and delivery, introduce an
almost surreal gap between themselves and the classical acting of
Madeleine Robinson7 and Jacques Dacqmine (who play the older
married couple) on the one hand, and the thriller plot of the film on the
other. The mise-en-scene heightens this decalage by shooting a noir murder
plot in blazing Provence sunshine. The second example is the scene in
Vivre sa vie where Karina dances around a billiard table, clumsily though
charmingly, like a little girl. Like her dancing, the camera movements
both appear spontaneous and draw attention to themselves, as if the
camera was moving of its own accord. The difference from Bardot's
mambo in Et Dieu ... crea la femme, despite Truffaut's praise of B.B.'s
naturalness, could not be greater. Bardot's dance is choreographed: she
stops strategically to show off her figure in front of mirrors and against
windows, the camera carefully isolates parts of her body. Bardot's
dancing is professional and sexy where Karina's is playfully maladroit. In
the Bardot film, the camera is fully at the service of the star; in Vivre sa
vie, the camera is as important as the star — at one point it even precedes
her.
The different relationship between camera and actress establishes a
different hierarchy, as the star is not dominant in the mise-en-scene but
just one element of it. It also establishes a different regime of the look, a
different eroticism — less directly sexual, yet in thrall to a romantic vision
of femininity.
Jeanne Moreau 119
New Wave actresses were young, good-looking and sexy, but not too
overtly glamorous. Bardot was so extraordinary that her beauty,
conceptualized as an effect of surface, became the theme of her films. In
the New Wave films, committed to authenticity and depth, beauty
appeared more 'realistic', coming 'from within'. Contrary to Carol and
Bardot's died blonde hair, New Wave actresses had darker hair, cut
shorter and straighter. When they did not wear couture clothes (Moreau,
Seyrig), actresses tended to downplay their figures with 'girlish' outfits
(often their own clothes): blouses with lace, twin-sets, full skirts and
petticoats, jeans and T-shirts, flat shoes, men's shirts or sailors' tops.
(Bernadette Lafont, with a fuller figure, plays more blatant sex objects.
Another interesting exception is Corinne Marchand, the heroine of
Varda's Cleo de 5 a 7, who has a more womanly figure.) New Wave
actresses such as Karina embodied the 'young fashion' that was
becoming a major commercial force, relayed by women's magazines (see
Chapter 4). But where Bardot 'sexed-up' youth fashion, Karina
prefigured the 1960s skinny adolescent look a la Twiggy (in his
episode for Paris vu par, 1965, Godard used another slim model, Johanna
Shimkus). This was a youthful, unthreatening femininity which fitted the
romantic ethos of the New Wave by lessening women's sexuality,
sublimating it as romance. This served the New Wave's aim to
distinguish itself from the mainstream. While French popular cinema,
from the late 1950s, increasingly exploited female nudity, the New
Wave evolved a different, more 'subtle', eroticism. Visually, this was
achieved by shifting the focus from the women's body to their faces (as
we shall see later).
New Wave women's looks also fitted the surface modernity of the
new Fifth Republic, in love with the consumer goods of American-
identified modernity such as cars (see Ross, 1995; Marie, 1998). New
Wave filmmakers attacked the cynical 'bourgeois' characters of the
Tradition of Quality, and replaced them with an affluent, cultivated, anti-
conformist urban bourgeoisie. A specific trope associates New Wave
actresses with this version of French modernity, that of the woman in
the streets and cafes of Paris. The women in Les Bonnes femmes are
accosted by men in the street; Patricia/Seberg in A bout de souffle is first
seen walking up and down the Champs-Elysees; Nana/Karina in Vivre sa
vie and Cleo in Cleo de 5 a 7 make encounters in streets and cafes. In this,
the New Wave films challenge and update the topography of

mainstream French cinema, where women were confined to the salon
or the kitchen. Even in a superficial way, they reflect women entering
public space, albeit that of a bohemian elite following in the footsteps
of Francoise Sagan, Simone de Beauvoir and Juliette Greco, women
who were both agents and beneficiaries of the liberating possibilities
offered by Paris (see Wilson, 1991). Karina, Aimee, Riva, Seyrig and
Moreau's femininity was visually and orally anti-conformist, romantic
and cerebral. It proved a hugely attractive and exportable image which
contributed to the popularity of the New Wave movement as a whole
(which was, from the start, endorsed by international success,
especially in the USA).
The new topography of modernity is, however, dangerously
gendered. The modernist fldneuse, unlike her male counterpart, is
quickly trapped by brutal sexual encounters (Les Bonnes femmes) or
prostitution (Vivre sa vie), and is relentlessly brought back to her
sexuality. This is the fundamental paradox of New Wave women.
Under the surface modernity and allure of women 'free' to roam Paris,
brought to life by the actresses' vivid performances and attractive
looks, the characters scripted and filmed by men are often the product
of misogyny. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze unwittingly signals this when
he says that 'Emmanuelle Riva [in Hiroshima mon amour] is a modern
adult woman because she is not an adult woman. Quite the contrary,
she is very childish, motivated solely by her impulses and not by her
ideas' (in Hillier, 1985, pp. 62—3). As it happens, Riva's character,
scripted by Marguerite Duras, is one of the few who is endowed with
agency, but Doniol-Valcroze tellingly praises her for being steeped in
emotions rather than ideas. Indeed, most New Wave women's identity
is coterminous with the realm of emotions. Their life 'projects', such as
they are, are bound by the horizon of love. There are many variations
on this rather 'old' stereotype: the playful little girl who is also a
dangerous femme fatale (Seberg in A bout de souffle, Karina in Le Petit
soldat and Pierrot le fou); the ethereal fantasy creature (Aimee in Lola,
Seyrig in Baisers voles); the tragic woman (Corinne Marchand in Cleo de
5 a 7); the attractive slut (Lafont in Le Beau Serge and Les Bonnes femmes).
But the New Wave actress who concentrates the most complex
portrayal of femininity is undoubtedly Jeanne Moreau.
Jeanne Moreau 121
The archetypal New Wave star: Jeanne Moreau
Celebrated in the 1990s as the grande dame of cinema in France, Moreau

also embodies a seductive idea of French femininity especially powerful
outside France, where it functions almost as a cliche - from the 1960s,
when Oriana Fallaci (1967) talked of her as a femme fatale, to the late
1990s, when Molly Haskell (1997) called her 'Belle Dame sans Merd'. The
1992 BBC television film The Clothes in the Wardrobe encapsulated her
'foreign' allure, casting her as the symbol of creative and sexual
liberation for the film's young heroine, against Joan Plowright and Julie
Walters's sensible Britishness. Among French stars who emerged in the
1950s, Moreau's distinct place was carved out of associations with
sexuality and cool, and intellect, depth, maturity. Unlike Carol and
Bardot, essentially mainstream stars, and unlike Deneuve and Simone
Signoret, who straddled art and popular cinema, Moreau has been
primarily the star of auteur films, claiming she 'never worried about box-
office'.8 In this, she is also different from Jean-Paul Belmondo, who
started in the New Wave but moved on to a firmly mainstream career.
Moreau has worked for French directors like Malle and Truffaut, and
international figures such as Luis Bunuel, Michelangelo Antonioni,
Joseph Losey, Orson Welles and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Moreau's cosmopolitan career was no doubt helped by her fluent
English, a legacy of her British-French parentage. It is also linked to her
prominent role in the French film industry. She has made over a
hundred movies between 1949 and 1999. She has been involved with
many festivals, including Cannes, whose jury she led in 1975, has
headed the influential Commission d'Avances sur Recettes in 1993, and
is, in the late 1990s, devoted to Equinoxe, an organization which helps
new scriptwriters. She has recorded many songs and directed two
features — Lumiere (1976) and L'Adolescente (1978) — a documentary,
Lillian Gish (1984), and a music video for singer Khadja Nin (1998). All
this demonstrates the energy and commitment of Jeanne Moreau the
woman and actress, whose talent and professionalism are widely
acclaimed. She has been the recipient of numerous prizes for best
actress, including at Cannes in 1960. In 1992, she received a Cesar in
France and a Golden Lion in Venice, in recognition of her whole career
in film. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of
Lancaster. In 1998 the American Academy of Motion Pictures awarded

her a life tribute.
Moreau, however, fascinates primarily as an image of femininity, still
casting a sexual aura at the age of seventy. This appeal is grounded in
her late 1950s and 1960s New Wave films, but it has endured, despite
the fact that — even then — she was considered 'unphotogenic',
competing with 'perfect' beauties like Bardot and Deneuve. It has also
endured in an industry renowned for its unforgiving attitudes towards
women as they grow older.
From consummate comedienne to New Wave star
Moreau was trained for the stage at the Paris Conservatoire, and
graduated to the Comedie-Francaise and the Theatre National Populaire,
where she starred notably opposite Gerard Philipe. This training gave
her considerable talent a professional framework, the ability to range
across the whole spectrum of parts and the seal of high art. At a time
when the new breed of actresses was coming from dance or modelling
(Bardot, Karina), Moreau was a 'real' actress, familiar with the classical
repertoire. In her pre-New Wave period, she was already set to become
a high-ranking theatre star.
Before her breakthrough in Malle's Ascenseur pour I'echafaud (1957)
and Les Amants (1958), Moreau had appeared in twenty-odd films. They
are usually dismissed, including by herself, as undistinguished hack work
(some are, and some are not, but she is consistently excellent). The shock
of seeing these films with hindsight comes from the mismatch between
the 'authenticity' of her subsequent star image and these early coded
visions of femininity. For example, in Jean Dreville's La Reine Margot (a
costume drama) and Jacques Becker's thriller, Touchez pas au grisbi (both
1954), Moreau's roles look cliched. As Margot, she is garishly colourful
like the rest of the film; her tight bodices and make-up delineate a
strained sexiness. The much-publicized use of a body double for a nude
scene could have been a way of distancing herself, literally, from this
kind of film, since later she claimed the right to nudity in such films as
Les Amants. Touchez pas au grisbi gives her a small but memorable part as
a coke-snorting, insolent gangster moll with high-gloss lipstick.
Jeanne Moreau 123
However, in Gilles Grangier's Gas-oil (1955), her scenes with Jean Gabin
sparkle, despite their improbable couple — he as lorry driver, she as
schoolteacher. Cabin's rant against women who 'in the past stayed at
home, ironing' but now 'have the vote and read the serie noire'
foreshadows Moreau's future appeal as Modern Woman. Another
continuity between her pre- and post-New Wave career is that in these
early films she frequently played scheming women, as in Les Intrigantes
(1954), prefiguring the Juliette Valmont of Les Liaisons dangereuses (1960).
But her populist films also allowed her to display her gift for naturalistic
performance, a style she retained throughout her career and which was
already in evidence in her performances on stage. In Marguerite Duras's
Nathalie Granger (1972), Moreau and Lucia Bose spend time in minimal
domestic activities, illustrating the director's notion of 'women's time'.
Bose looks stiff but Moreau is natural. Duras's quip that she wanted
Moreau 'because she knew how to clear a table'9 is acute. In that film, as
in others, Moreau's gestures are both accurate and graceful, her
performance consummate yet invisible. Back in the late 1950s, her gift
for apparent 'non-acting' was perfect for the emerging new cinema.
The New Wave cinema, of which Ascenseur pour I'echafaud and Les
Amants were forerunners, required a new type of stardom to differentiate
itself from the mainstream, as discussed above. Moreau epitomized this
'anti-stardom'. She and Malle downplayed her previous career and put
the emphasis on her 'rebirth'. She was keen to work on a more informal
basis than in the traditional industry and took a career risk in doing so,
by leaving her powerful agent in order to work with Malle (Gray, 1994,
p. 34). The film crew became a 'family', suited to the new, more artisanal
methods. As she told Cahiers du cinema in 1965, 'Making films is no
longer a way of acting, it is a way of life'.10 Her liaison with Malle, and
later Truffaut, epitomized the New Wave star-filmmaker working
relationships, in which the actress totally identified with the auteur's
project: 'After the fulfilment I had known with Louis Malle, I was a bit of
an orphan from a filmic point of view. Sharing such a wonderful new
experience [Jules et Jim] with Francois reconciled me with myself (in de
Baecque and Toubiana, 1996, pp. 256-7). Throughout her career,
Moreau would maintain close friendships with her favourite directors,
such as Truffaut, Duras and Welles.
Moreau brought to the screen a new, more 'authentic', physical type,
Plate 14 Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1961): Jeanne Moreau. Photograph by

Raymond Cauchetier.
less overtly sexy than Bardot, Carol or Monroe and yet glamorous. She
was darker than these blonde goddesses, and when she appeared with
platinum hair in Demy's La Baie des anges (1963), it was a deliberate
statement. In Ascenseur pour I'echafaud, her 'ur' star-text, she wanders the
streets of Paris, dimly lit with available light from pavement cafes and
street lighting, her face without make-up, her clothes understated, her
hair flattened by the rain. As Malle put it:
'Cameramen would have forced her to wear a lot of make-up and they
would put a lot of light on her because, supposedly, her face was not
photogenic. ... They were horrified. But when Ascenseur pour I'echafaud was
released, suddenly something of Jeanne Moreau's essential qualities came
out.' (in French, 1993, p. 12)
Les Amants duplicates the rebirth process by making her shed her
expensive bourgeois attire to follow her lover with no make-up on, her
hair in a scarf. In Jules et Jim (1962), nominally a costume film, her clothes
and hairstyle are plain. Yet at the same time, Moreau exuded bourgeois
chic. She sported classic fashion, a feature reinforced by her association
Jeanne Moreau 125
with Pierre Cardin. In her films, her clothes are unflashy but beautifully
cut, with tight skirts and tailored tops and coats. Her make-up is discreet
and her hair neat, sometimes in a Trench bun'. She wears formal
jewellery and high heels. But, if bourgeois chic distinguished her from
the sex bombs, she was also diametrically opposed to the conformist
middle-class women of mainstream cinema, embodied by Danielle
Darrieux and Michele Morgan.
Moreau's new look carried new values: hers was a mature, 'existential'
sexuality, different from the old-fashioned romance of her predecessors,
but also from Bardot's sex kittens and Karina's gamines. She was sensual,
yet serious and cerebral. She was, in short, the ideal woman of the modern
intellectual bourgeoisie, from whose ranks many New Wave spectators
were drawn, in the same way as in Jules et Jim, Les Amants and La notte
(1960), she appeared as the natural companion of artists, writers and
publishers. Moreau's women were alluring because they were cultured.
From Ascenseur pour I'echafaud onwards, Moreau was also at the centre
of the shift in the representation of female eroticism from the body to
the face. This feature resonates in the post-war art cinema of Ingmar
Bergman, Antonioni and Godard and more recent directors such as Leos
Carax (see Chapter 10). Moreau's films of the late 1950s and of the
1960s and their emphasis on her face were key to the representation of a
sublimated sexuality, in contradistinction to the rise of nudity in
mainstream cinema. On film, her sexuality is rarely evoked through her
body, even in the 'scandalous' (but actually discreet) sex scenes in Les
Amants. Even though she did unveil herself in a number of 1960s films,
causing Cinemonde to call her 'No. 1 international sex symbol' in 1969,11
she is not defined by her body. In Malle's Viva Maria! (1965), the rather
chaste Bardot/Moreau striptease is initiated by Bardot. In Luis Bunuel's
Le Journal d'une femme de chambre (1964), eroticism is not shown but
suggested: through her wicked gaze, a flash of suspender belts and the
celebrated shoe sequences. In Losey's Eva (1962), her half-naked body is
glimpsed, fleetingly, in long takes. From her huge close-up which opens
Ascenseur pour I'echafaud, Moreau's face connotes interiority and
soulfulness. The discreet make-up, the bags under the eyes, proclaim
authenticity, literally and metaphorically. The close-ups also highlight
Moreau's full sensual mouth, its down-turned corners 'speaking' a
bruised, tragic or sullen,12 sexuality, as opposed to the playful Bardot
pout. Her melancholy look is only occasionally relieved by a radiant

smile. Moreau's mouth, close to the telephone, also draws attention to
her voice, a mixture of weariness and sensuality, solemnity and fun,
marinaded in the smoke of endless Gitanes. The scene, featured on one
of France Telecom's telephone cards (see Plate 4, p. 32), has had a cult
impact. Former Culture Minister, Jack Lang, recently told Moreau
through Le Film francais: 'The short telephone scene has remained
imprinted on my memory: the images, of course, but especially your
voice, which resonates.'13
Moreau's femme fafa/e: modernity or eternal femininity?
From Ascenseur pour I'echafaud and Les Amants to Eva, via Les Liaisons
dangereuses, La notte and La Baie des anges, Moreau was perceived as
'Modern Woman'. Smoking and drinking, she strolled the fashionable
European locations of the time: Paris, the Cote d'Azur, Venice, Rome,
often to a soundtrack of cool jazz. Her characters' existential boredom,
sometimes to the point of anomie, echoed those of contemporary
literature. They evoked a latter-day Madame Bovary, especially in the
way motherhood (for instance, in Les Amants, Moderate* Cantabile and
Jules ^i Jim) problematized her sexuality. Her characters were modern
because they inhabited the public sphere, leaving behind the domestic
topography of earlier screen women. Yet, if these characters
appropriated the position of the Baudelairian flaneur, prowling the
streets, bars and casinos of the city, they were ultimately constrained by
their femininity. Moreau, like other New Wave fldneuses, often doubles
up as streetwalker or courtesan (or is mistaken for one), as happens in
Ascenseur pour I'echafaud, Les Liaisons dangereuses and Eva.
Jules et Jim's Catherine, a key Moreau role, shows how the character's
sexual freedom is also deadly. The best-known images from Jules ei Jim
show her as radiant. She runs along a bridge, dressed in boy's clothes,
with cloth cap and painted moustache, exhilarated, an image of
androgynous youth and fun. Another has her with head thrown back,
flashing her devastating smile, the picture of charm. Another shows her
with cigarette defiantly stuck in her mouth, provocative and sexy. In yet
another, she triumphantly opens shutters to a beautiful day. In most
Jeanne Moreau 127
commentaries on Jules et Jim, these sunny images of a modern menage a

trois dominate; Francoise Aude even says, 'Who remembers Catherine as
a femme fatale? ... Catherine is first and foremost a marvellously vital
and tonic woman' (Aude, 1995, p. 37). This is to ignore the whole
second half of the film, which details Catherine's neurosis (grounded in
biology, namely her failure to conceive Jim's child) and her lethal effect
on all around her. As she deliberately drives her car into the lake, she
kills herself and Jim (Henri Serre), making Jules (Oskar Werner) a
widower and her daughter an orphan.
Deadly female sexuality is an important streak of Moreau's work,
from Ascenseur pour I'echafaud (where Julien kills 'for her'), casting a
different light on the charming song in Jules et Jim, 'Le Tourbillon de la
vie'. Moreau's voice sings a man's words about a 'femme fatale who was
fatal to me'. As Molly Haskell said, The femme fatale is almost invariably
a male invention, the projection - and prisoner - of a director's or
writer's fears and fantasies, and probably a means of satisfying his own
self-destructive urges' (Haskell, 1997, p. 67). We then remember that
Jules and Jim fall in love literally with a projection (a slide of a statue)
before they even meet Catherine. Before Truffaut's La Mariee etait en noir
(1968), in which she kills a string of husbands, the fatal theme is brought
to an apogee in Eva. Moreau herself initiated the project, based on a
novel by James Hadley Chase, and brought personal features to the film,
such as the Billie Holiday records Eva obsessively plays. Malevolent and
inscrutable, Eva is the classic femme fatale of film noir, who lures men,
especially the Stanley Baker character, to ruin, and provokes the death of
the innocent Francesca (Virna Lisi). Moreau's seductive performance, the
gorgeous locations and Losey's beautifully mobile camerawork overlay a
bitter, misogynist tale, about a woman whose name evokes the whole of
femininity. Eva's power is purely negative. The camera repeatedly shows
her luxury apartment in Rome on the edge of shanty huts, pointing to
the decayed flip side of her glamour. The only scene which gives her
subjectivity, as she is alone in her flat towards the end of the film, shows
her drunk, lonely and tormented, undermining her triumph at the end of
the film when she moves on to another rich man. Press coverage of
Moreau's own liaisons at the time undoubtedly bolstered her screen
image as seductress. In a May 1995 interview in Positif, she claims Eva as
'the most amoral character imaginable', and defends her heroines as
unclassifiable: They are not feminists, they don't belong to a group,

they are not militant. They are loners.' True, but the issue remains of the
high cultural currency of seductive images of female power reduced to
sexual manipulation - illustrated by the fact that La Mariee etait en noir
was apparently conceived 'as a tribute to Jeanne Moreau, Truffaut's gift
to the woman he loved and who had become a close friend' (de Baecque
and Toubiana, 1996, p. 325).
The sexual dimension of Moreau's image thus entertains a paradoxical
relationship to its modernity. Her liberated' and anti-conformist
heroines are always brought down to an essential, and therefore
unchanging, femininity. In an introduction to the television broadcast of
Les Liaisons dangereuses, Vadim declares that her character is a truly
liberated woman, yet he horribly disfigures her at the end, hitting at the
source of the femme fatale's power, her beauty. The face and body of the
seductress thus contain her downfall, pointing to her ultimate fragility. It
is telling in this respect that Bunuel cited Moreau's wobbly walk as her
attraction in Le Journal d'une femme de chambre: 'When she walks, her foot
trembles just a bit on its high heel, suggesting a certain tension and
instability' (Bunuel, 1983, p. 241). As with Jules et Jim though, we retain
from Bunuel's film the power of her performance, her unflinching gaze
and dazzling smile. Her great heroines of the 1960s are testimony to our
patriarchal culture's love of beautiful but deadly or damaged women.
Then and now
If in the 1960s Moreau was the epitome of the elegant mature woman,
from the early 1970s, when she was in her forties, she claimed like
Signoret a screen presence as 'older woman' (at an age when male actors,
and nowadays many female actresses, would be considered 'young').
Unlike Signoret's though, her older characters retain a sexual dimension,
albeit a 'tragic' one.14
Les Valseuses (1973) epitomizes this trend. Moreau plays a criminal
coming out of jail who is picked up by petty crooks Gerard Depardieu
and Patrick Dewaere. After passionate sex with both of them, she kills
herself. Though widely celebrated, her part in this film leaves a sour
taste: in a gratuitously unpleasant twist typical of director Bertrand Blier,
Jeanne Moreau 129
she shoots herself in the vagina. Subsequently, among a varied

filmography, Querelle (1982) and La Vieilk qui marchait dans la mer
(1991) are the most interesting films, in which she pursues her
characterization as a woman growing old disgracefully. Querelle is
Fassbinder's version of Genet's classic gay novel, while La Vieille is
Laurent Heynemann's adaptation of a book by the popular comic pulp
writer Frederic Dard, whose language is brilliantly inventive and
totally obscene. In Querelle, Moreau plays the camp, overdressed,
madame of the brothel, part of the film's excessive colour and sexual
scheme, singing a haunting version of Oscar Wilde's 'Each man kills
the thing he loves'. La Vieille uses to perfection Moreau's gritty voice,
as she and Michel Serrault swap Dard's untranslatable dialogue (which
explains why the film was a flop everywhere except France, where
Moreau won a Cesar for it). Despite the very different pleasures these
two films offer, there is a continuity in the way that older sexual
women have to be caricatural, even if Moreau, again, carries them with
great aplomb.
The moment that best connects Moreau's later and earlier careers is
her cameo in Luc Besson's Nikita (1990). Moreau plays godmother to
young killer Nikita (Anne Parillaud) by giving her lessons in femininity,
translated as seduction. By contrast, Anne Bancroft in the remake, The
Assassin, teaches Bridget Fonda table manners and computer skills.
Faithful to her image in Les Amants, Jules et Jim, Eva and Le Journal d'une
femme de chambre, Moreau instructs young Nikita that there are only two
important things in life: 'femininity and the ways to abuse it'. Less
politically correct than the American version, but so much sexier.
Conclusion: what is a 'New Wave star'?
In the quote at the beginning of this chapter, David Shipman talked in

1964 of New Wave stars having found 'their image'. Many years later, I
argue that Jeanne Moreau is the New Wave star. What is, then, the
'image' of the New Wave star? Moreau's star persona, as we have seen,
encompasses highly contradictory values. Her femme fatale parts are
profoundly morbid, yet the performance transforms them into a
luminous' presence. Take also Les Amants. For Sellier:
The second part [of the film], from her meeting with Jean-Marc Bory, is
implicitly constructed with reference to the point of view of this marginal
intellectual who profusely humiliates Jeanne Moreau before taking her to
seventh heaven to the sound of a Brahms sextet.15
Meanwhile, Francoise Aude is not alone in seeing Moreau in the same film
as a woman 'who transforms herself by yielding to the truth of her own
desire' (Aude, 1995, p. 31). Sellier's analysis is absolutely right in terms of
narrative: Moreau plays a 'Bovaryesque' bourgeoise who needs a man to
'reveal' pleasure to her and provoke her instantly to abdicate her entire
world, including her child, to follow him. But who remembers Jean-Louis
Bory? It surely was not thanks to him that Les Amants was one of the
biggest commercial successes of the 1950s. In the sixty-five best-sellers at
the French box-office from 1950 to 1961, it ranked No. 21 preceded
mostly by French comedies and costume dramas and Hollywood super-
productions, except for Les Liaisons dangereuses (No. 4), La Verite (No. 11)
and Les Diaboliques (No. 19), all three films starring femmes fatales
embodied respectively by Moreau, Bardot and Signoret.16 When she came
to work with Truffaut on Jules et Jim, the film which best defines her
internationally, she was already an important box-office star. True, she
then opted for auteur cinema and its bond between filmmaker and actress:
'It is an extraordinarily intimate exchange, which can lead to love, and
sometimes to a more complex and subtle relationship, difficult to imagine
and which partakes of creativity' (in de Baecque and Toubiana, 1996,
p. 260). Being able to express the values of the New Wave through a
professionally understated performance style, Moreau became the New
Wave star (the other major New Wave star, Belmondo, also had solid
theatrical training, while those purely trained in the New Wave, such as
Karma and Leaud, could not transcend it in their subsequent careers).
Concentrating the values of romantic love, sensuality, sensitivity and
modernity, Moreau brought a feminized surface to the New Wave which
superimposed itself on its male and misogynist foundations.
Biofilmography
Born Paris, 23 January 1928. Married Jean-Louis Richard (1949; separated 1951,
with whom one son, born 1949) and William Friedkin (1977; divorced 1980).
Jeanne Moreau 131
Main acting awards
Cannes, Best Actress, Moderate Cantabile, 1960

Etoile de Cristal de I'Academie du Cinema, Best Actress, Jules et Jim, 1962
Cesar, Best Actress, La Vieille qui marchait dans la mer, 1992
Venice, Golden Lion for whole career, 1992
American Academy of Motion Pictures, life tribute 1998
Films as actor
1949 Dernier amour (Jean Stelli)

1950 Meurtres/The Three Sinners (Richard Pettier)
Pigalle-Saint-Germain-des-Pres (Andre Berthomieu)
1952 L'Homme de ma vie/The Man in My Life (Guy Lefranc, France/Italy)
// est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer/The Story of Doctor Schweitzer
(Andre Haguet)
1953 Dortoir des grandes/Girls' Dormitory (Henri Decoin)
Julietta (Marc Allegret)
1954 Touchez pas au grisbi/Honour among Thieves (Jacques Becker,
France/Italy)
Secrets d'alcove/The Bed [ep. 'Le Billet de logement'] (Henri Decoin,
France/Italy)
Les Intrigantes/The Plotters (Henri Decoin)
La Reine Margot/A Woman of Evil (Jean Dreville, France/Italy)
1955 Les Hommes en blanc/Men in White (Ralph Habib)
M'sieur la caille/The Parasites (Andre Pergament)
Gas-oil (Gilles Grangier)
1956 Le Salaire du peche (Denys de la Patelliere)
1957 Jusqu'au dernier (Pierre Billon)
Les Louves/The She-wolves (Luis Saslavsky)
L'Etrange Monsieur Steve [Plus mort que vif\ (Raymond Bailly)
Ascenseur pour I'echafaud/Lift to the Scaffold (Louis Malle)
1958 Trois jours a vivre (Gilles Grangier)
Echec au porteur (Gilles Grangier)
Le Dos au mur/Back to the Wall (Edouard Molinaro)
Les Amants/The Lovers (Louis Malle)
1959 Les Quatre cents coups/The Four Hundred Blows (Francois Truffaut)
Les Liaisons dangereuses (Roger Vadim)

1960 Jovanka e le altre/Five Branded Women (Martin Ritt, Italy/USA)
Le Dialogue des Carmelites/The Carmelites (R.P. Bruckberger and
Philippe Agostini, France/Italy)
Moderate Cantabile/Seven Days ... Seven Nights (Peter Brook)
1961 La notte/The Night (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy/France)
line femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc
Godard)
1962 Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut)
Eva [Eve] (Joseph Losey, France/Italy)
1963 Le Proces/The Trial (Orson Welles, France/Germany/Italy)
La Bale des anges/Bay of Angels (Jacques Demy)
Peau de banane (Marcel Ophuls, France/Italy)
Le Feu follet/WiU O' the Wisp (Louis Malle, France/Italy)
1964 The Victors (Carl Foreman, UK)
Le Journal d'une femme de chambre/Diary of a Chambermaid (Luis
Bufiuel, France/Italy)
The Train (John Frankenheimer, USA/France/Italy)
1965 Mata Hari, agent H-21 (Jean-Louis Richard, France/Italy)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (Anthony Asquith, UK)
Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, France/Italy)
1966 Chimes at Midnight [Falstaff] (Orson Welles, Spain)
Mademoiselle (Tony Richardson, UK/France)
1967 The Sailor from Gibraltar (Tony Richardson, UK)
The Deep [Direction towards Death, Dead Reckoning] (Orson Welles)
[unfinished]
Le Plus vieux metier du monde/The Oldest Profession [ep.
'Mademoiselle Mimi'] (Philippe de Broca, France/Italy)
1968 La Mariee etait en noir/The Bride Wore Black (Francois Truffaut,
France/Italy)
1969 The Great Catherine (Gordon Flemyng, UK)
Le Corps de Diane [Telo Diany] (Jean-Louis Richard, France/
Czechoslovakia)
1970 Le Petit Theatre de Jean Renoir/The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir (Jean
Renoir, France/Italy)
Monte Walsh (William Fraker, USA)
Alex in Wonderland (Paul Mazursky, USA)
Jeanne Moreau 133
1971 Comptes a rebours/Countdown (Roger Pigaut, France/Italy)

L'Humeur vagabonde (Edouard Luntz)
The Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles) [unfinished]
1972 Chere Louise/Louise (Philippe de Broca, France/Italy)
line histoire immortelle/The Immortal Story (Orson Welles)
Nathalie Granger (Marguerite Duras)
1973 Absences repetees (Guy Gilles)
Joanna Francesca/Joan the Frenchwoman [Jeanne la Franpaise] (Carlos
Diegues)
Les Valseuses/Going Places (Bertrand Blier)
1974 Je t'aime (Pierre Duceppe, Canada)
La Race des seigneurs/Jet Set (Pierre Granier-Deferre)
1975 Le Jardin qui bascule/The Tilting Garden (Guy Gilles)
Hu-man (Jerome Laperrousaz)
Souvenirs d'en France (Andre Techine)
1976 Lumiere (Jeanne Moreau)
Mr Klein (Joseph Losey, France/Italy)
1977 The Last Tycoon (Elia Kazan, USA)
1979 L'Adolescente/The Adolescent Girl (Jeanne Moreau)
1981 Plein Sud [Huida al sur] (Luc Beraud, France/Spain)
1982 "Your Ticket Is No Longer Valid (George Kaczender)
Mille miliards de dollars/A Thousand Billion Dollars (Henri
Verneuil)
La Truite/The Trout (Joseph Losey)
Querelle (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany/France)
1984 L'Arbre [TV] (Jacques Doillon)
1985 Vicious Circle [Huis clos] [TV] (Kenneth Ives, UK)
1986 The Last Seance [TV] (June Wyndham-Davies, UK)
Le Tiroir secret [TV] (Nadine Trintignant)
Sauve-toi, Lola/Run for Your Life, Lola (Michel Drach, France/
Canada)
Le Paltoquet/The Nonentity (Michel Deville)
1987 Le Miracule/The Miracle Healing (Jean-Pierre Mocky)
1988 Ennemonde (Claude Santelli)
Jour apres jour (Alain Attal)
1989 Hotel Terminus [voice-over] (Marcel Ophuls)
1990 Nikita/La Femme Nikita (Luc Besson)
Alberto Express (Arthur Joffe)

La Femme fardee (Jose Pinheiro)
1991 Anna Karamazov (Roustam Khamdamov, Sweden/France)
Until the End of the World [Bis Ans ende der Welt] (Wim Wenders,
Germany/France)
To meteoro vima ton pelargou/The Suspended Stride of the Stork [Le
Pas suspendu de la cigogne] (Theodores Angelopoulos, France/
Greece/Italy/Switzerland)
La Vieille qui marchait dans la mer/The Old Lady Who Wades in the
Sea (Laurent Heynemann)
L'Architecture du chaos [voice-over] (Peter Cohan)
1992 La Nuit de I'ocean (Antoine Perset)
Map of the Human Heart (Vincent Ward, UK/Australia)
L'Amant/The Lover [voice-over] (Jean-Jacques Annaud, France/
UK)
A demain/See You Tomorrow (Didier Martiny)
The Clothes in the Wardrobe [TV] (Waris Hussein)
Die Abwesenheit [UAbsence] (Peter Handke, Germany/France)
1993 A Foreign Field [TV] (Charles Sturridge, UK)
Je m'appelle Victor/My Name Is Victor (Guy Jacques, France/
Belgium)
1994 Le Temps et la chambre (Chereau)
1995 Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinema (Agnes Varda, France/UK)
Par-deld les nuages/'Beyond the Clouds (Michelangelo Antonioni,
France/Italy)
The Proprietor [La Proprietaire] (Ismail Merchant, France/UK/USA)
1997 Un amour de sorciere/Witch Way Love (Rene Manzor)
Amour et confusions (Patrick Braoude)
1999 Balzac [TV] (Josee Dayan)
Notes
1. Francois Truffaut, Arts, No. 720, quoted in Gauteur (1962), p. 20.

2. David Shipman, Filming and Filming, 10:12, September 1964, p. 8.
3. According to a survey published in Cahiers du cinema, No. 138, 1962.
4. Francois Truffaut, Arts, 15 May 1957, quoted in de Baecque and Toubiana
(1996), p. 163.
5. Francois Truffaut, Arts, 12 December 1956.
Jeanne Moreau 135
6. Bernadette Lafont, quoted in Monique Neubourg, 'Bernadette Lafont: la

fiancee du cinema', 14e Festival International de Films de Femmes, catalogue,
1992, p. 61.
7. Deservedly, Robinson won the Volpi acting prize for female performance
at the 1959 Venice festival; deservedly, in part, because she animates with
brilliance one of the most crudely misogynist parts.
8. Jeanne Moreau, quoted in an interview by Francoise Aude, Michel Ciment
and Michel Sineux, Positif, May 1995, p. 6.
9. Marguerite Duras, quoted in an interview by Dominique Noguez, 'La
Classe de la violence: Nathalie Granger', a documentary directed by Jerome
Beaujour and Jean Mascolo, Bureau d'Animation Culturelle du Ministere
des Relations Exterieures (1984).
10. Jeanne Moreau quoted in 'Jeanne la sage', an interview by Michel
Delahaye, Cahiers du cinema, No. 161—2, January 1965, p. 85.
11. In Le Nouveau Cinemonde, No. 1802, 23 September 1969.
12. Because of her mouth, Moreau was frequently compared to Bette Davis.
Truffaut claimed to have deliberately made her smile in Jules et Jim to
counter the 'Betty Davis look' she had in La notte (in de Baecque and
Toubiana, 1996, p. 256).
13. Jack Lang, quoted in 'Jeanne dans le tourbillon de la vie', Le Film francais,
No. 2740, September 1998, p. 29.
14. It may be noted that Moreau's screen image of anti-conformist but 'tragic'
or 'damaged' femininity contrasts with her more political stance in life —
for instance, like Deneuve, she signed the manifesto against French
abortion laws published by Le Nouvel Observateur on 5 April 1971.
15. Genevieve Sellier, in a forthcoming book on the New Wave.
16. Le Film francais, No. 921-2, Special Issue, January 1962, pp. 100-1.
CHAPTER 6
Louis de Funes
Le gendarme ef les c/ne'phi/es
The comic Louis de Funes (1914—83), the most popular star at the post-
war French box-office, should have a place in a book on the great French
film stars, though not everybody would agree with me. From the early
1960s, 'Fufu' not only smashed film-viewing records but was also much
loved by French audiences. His phenomenal success was not matched,
however, by critical approval. While Le Film franpais celebrated him as
'the comical, hilarious de Funes who, as a gendarme ... makes the
audience burst into laughter at every turn',1 Francoise Aude's opinion
that de Funes 'was only a grimacing, inarticulate and frustrated clown'
(Aude, 1989, p. 6) is a typical view from film critics and historians in
France. For instance, Rene Predal makes de Funes 'the measure of comic
vulgarity' and, noting the box-office success of his greatest hits — Le
Corniaud, La Grande vadrouille, the Gendarme series and Les Aventures de
Rabbi Jacob — adds, 'All this, of course, has little to do with cinema'
(Predal, 1991, p. 339). Although de Funes was popular in some European
countries, including Germany, where he was known as Baldwin, and
Spain, he exported badly to the UK and the USA, and as a result is little
known to the English-speaking public. Here, poor distribution is
compounded by critical contempt. Surveys of French cinema give the
briefest cursory mentions (Armes, 1985; Forbes, 1992; Williams, 1992;
Hayward, 1993). Major encyclopaedias of stars (Thomas, 1992; Shipman,
136
Louis de Funes 137
1972) leave him out altogether. Louis de Funes, it seems, is the abject of
French cinema. But we should not be surprised. His fate as a star echoes
that of the genre he worked in, mainstream French comedy. Both are
critically despised as Vulgar', 'unrealistic' and 'reactionary', and, in France
especially, viewed unfavourably against American and Italian comedy. In
this respect, de Funes combined several crimes: he was not an auteur-
actor like Max Linder, Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix; the theatrical
tradition he came out of was that of the despised comic boulevard, and he
never ventured out of the comedy genre, unlike Fernandel and Bourvil,
who at least made a few 'serious' films.2
There are signs that, in France at least, de Funes is being reappraised.
A play celebrating his talent and star persona, entitled Pour Louis de Funes
and written by Valere Novarina was staged in March 1999 in Paris. It
starred Dominique Pinon (lead actor in La Cite des enfants perdus), whose
mobile face was a good match for de Funes. But even that play, and its
press coverage, felt the need to apologize. One article led with 'Don't
feel ashamed to laugh any more'.3 It is true that de Funes's star persona
was, at first sight, off-putting, being that of an irascible, unheroic middle-
aged man who was neither attractive, sexy nor even sympathetic. In
addition, the directors of his films ranged from journeymen of low
critical status (Jean Girault) to competent mainstream cineastes (Gerard
Oury). And yet, de Funes mattered to French cinema and mattered to his
audience. Even Predal concedes that his death left an enormous gap' in
the French film industry (Predal, 1991, p. 408). This chapter will try to
unravel why de Funes was so popular and why he provoked such critical
hostility.
Louis de Funes was born in a suburb of Paris in 1914, the son of an

impoverished aristocratic Spanish immigrant family. After numerous
small jobs, including nightclub pianist, he spent two decades, the 1940s
and the 1950s, in endless small theatrical and filmic appearances,
predominantly in comic parts which exploited his slight frame, angular
face and big eyebrows. His first film appearance was in 1945, in La
Tentation de Barbizon, and over the next ten years he had fleeting parts in
dozens of films. In the second part of his film career, from the mid-1950s,
he became known for brief but striking comic appearances as an irascible,
Plate 15 Louis de Funes: a typical Tufu' face,
voluble and disagreeable character. These were usually self-contained

episodes which he enlivened as best he could: 'I tried to make the small
parts I was given more colourful, with details, facial expressions,
gestures. I thus acquired a certain comic baggage without which I would
not have made the career I did' (in Loubier, 1991, p. 75). In these
episodes, he was the cantankerous taxi driver (Innocents in Paris, 1953),
the destructive neighbour (Papa, maman, la bonne et moi, 1954), the
sinister undertaker (Le Mouton a cinq pattes, 1954) or the rapacious black-
market grocer (La Traversee de Paris, 1956). According to his biographies
(Chazal, 1972; Loubier, 1991; Jelot-Blanc, 1993), de Funes thought for a
long time that this would be the pattern for the rest of his life and he set
his ambitions on a career as a character actor, with people such as
Carette as a model. Eventually, though, following a major success on
stage in Oscar, he was offered lead parts in low-profile domestic
comedies, such as M vu ni connu (1958) and Pouic-pouic (1963).
Recognition finally came. Then, in September 1964, the enormous
Louis de Funes 139
success of Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, a relatively minor production,

took everyone by surprise, and was compounded by the release of
Fantomas in November, in which de Funes (as Inspector Juve) co-stars
with Jean Marais. There followed a string of box-office hits and the
third, triumphant part of his career began. Although de Funes went on to
make many successful films until his death in 1983, notably Les Aventures
de Rabbi Jacob in 1973, the height of his popularity was from 1964 to
1970, the period I am going to concentrate on here, and in particular his
three greatest hits, Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964), Le Corniaud
(1965) and La Grande vadrouille (1966).
The star persona de Funes developed grew out of his earlier character
incarnations. He perfected a vivid repertoire of manic facial and bodily
gestures and made inventive use of his face, especially his mouth (with a
moustache in early parts), eyes and balding scalp, and of his small size.
De Funes's characters in his high stardom period occupy the middle to
upper ground of the social scale, ranging from petit bourgeois (the
gendarme) to rich executives and opera conductors, as in, respectively, Le
Corniaud and La Grande vadrouille. The Gendarme series included six films
from 1964 to 1982. Allegedly based on a true anecdote about laid-back
Saint-Tropez gendarmes (Jelot-Blanc, 1993, p. 141), Le Gendarme de
Saint-Tropez introduced the viewers to Ludovic Cruchot (de Funes), a
member of the Gendarmerie at Saint-Tropez, his daughter Nicole
(Genevieve Grad), his superior Gerber (Michel Galabru) and his
subordinates. With this film, de Funes moved straight from character
actor to star comedian, and his subsequent films fell into the genre of the
'comedian comedy', namely episodic narratives subordinated to the
personality and performance of the comic star.4 Among these were the
other Gendarme movies. Le Gendarme a New York sends the squad to
Manhattan; Le Gendarme se marie follows his successful courtship of
Josefa (Claude Gensac); in Le Gendarme en ballade, the team is temporarily
'retired' to make way for a younger squad; Le Gendarme et les extra-
terrestres brings 'aliens' to Saint-Tropez and Le Gendarme et les
gendarmettes registers the arrival of women in the profession. In
addition, in 1966 de Funes recorded a Christmas tale for radio called Le
Gendarme a Bethleem (Jelot-Blanc, 1993, p. 179). Like British Carry On
films, the pleasure offered by the series is to place the familiar team,
Cruchot and the other characters, in various combinations and locations.
The films follow the brigade's endeavours to apprehend thieves, nudists

or impatient drivers during the holiday rush. Their attempts are
invariably botched, but in the end de Funes's cunning triumphs. The
series also charts Cruchot/de Funes's relationships to those around him:
his sycophantic attitude to Gerber, his brutal though ineffectual tyranny
over his men, his failed attempts at controlling his daughter and wife. In
Le Corniaud, de Funes plays a crooked businessman who engineers the
unsuspecting corniaud ('sucker') (Bourvil) to drive a car full of drugs. La
Grande vadrouille, set during World War II, reunites de Funes and
Bourvil, with the British actor Terry-Thomas in an epic escape through
occupied France. In all these films, de Funes's characters share a
psychology of discontent, from simple disgruntlement to barely
suppressed rage and hysteria, expressed verbally and in gestures. If
one word describes the de Funes persona, it is that of the rdleur (rdler
means to complain aggressively). Variety's review of La Grande vadrouille
described him as 'irascible, mugging, overbearing, pugnacious, though
harmless',5 and Jean Marais pointed out that 'his talent was based on bad
temper' (Jelot-Blanc, 1993, p. 146). Most of the films were large-scale
productions, aimed at a wide, family audience.
Although de Funes is often described as a clown, and his films
critically scorned as the lowest of the low, his comic style, like his films'
humour, is mostly within the bounds of good taste, with no scatological
or sexual play or innuendo, and no overt social or political satire. On the
whole, the star and films would seem to fit Francoise Aude's
characterization of French comedy as 'too nice' (Aude, 1989). As he
became increasingly rich and famous de Funes maintained his screen
persona, but developed a different public image, that of a distant,
aristocratic figure who gave few interviews. This was encouraged by the
fact that his 'return to nature', an important rite of passage for French
stars (see Chapter 1), took the form of buying the chateau of his wife's
ancestors (the family of the writer Guy de Maupassant) and growing
roses. Nevertheless, the screen image endured and de Funes's star
persona belongs totally to mainstream comedy.
Louis de Funes 141
Saving French cinema
The sales of Louis de Funes's films from 1964 to his death in 1983 made
him the 'unsurpassed champion' of the French box-office.6
La Grande vadrouille 1966 Gerard Oury 17.2m

Le Corniaud 1965 Gerard Oury 11.7m
Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez 1964 Jean Girault 7.7m
Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob 1973 Gerard Oury 7.2m
Les Grandes vacances 1967 Jean Girault 6.8m
Le Gendarme se marie 1968 Jean Girault 6.7m
Oscar 1967 Edouard Molinaro 6.0m
Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres 1978 Jean Girault 6.0m
L'Aile ou la cuisse 1976 Claude Zidi 5.8m
La Folie des grandeurs 1971 Gerard Oury 5.6m
Source: Le Film francais, No. 16, August 1993
(figures refer to number of cinema tickets sold)
De Funes's record was based on the unprecedented success of Le

Corniaud, which sold 11.7 million tickets and La Grande vadrouille, which
sold 17.2 million. These figures have since been paralleled only in 1993
by the comedy Les Visiteurs and surpassed by Titanic in 1998. De Funes,
whose salary in Le Corniaud was still inferior to Bourvil's, was by the
time of La Grande vadrouille very well paid, his contract on that film
giving him a percentage of profits (Jelot-Blanc, 1993, p. 171). Though Le
Corniaud, La Grande vadrouille and Fantomas co-starred other major
actors, as other de Funes films went on to head the box-office, in
particular Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (7.7 million), de Funes was the
individual who brought in the biggest audiences. The industry was quick
to exploit de Funes's appeal after the surprise hit of Le Gendarme de Saint-
Tropez, and the high numbers of prints struck for each of his major films,
and distribution policies, reinforced exposure and contributed to his
popularity. Le Film franpais reports that over the Christmas 1966 period,
during the triumph of La Grande vadrouille, no fewer than eight other de
Funes films could be seen in nineteen Parisian cinemas.7 Box-office
figures are not the only indicator of popularity. They are, nevertheless,
indicative of the attraction exercised by the star. As a point of
Plate 16 La Grande vadrouille (Gerard Oury, 1966): Louis de Funes (top) and
Bourvil (bottom).
comparison, at a time when the overall annual audience was almost

double, Brigitte Bardot's greatest box-office hit, La Verite (1960), sold
altogether 'only' 10 million tickets, while all others scored lower figures
(for instance, Et Dieu ... crea la femme totalled 4 million). Through his
high exposure in film, de Funes became a popular institution in France.
He was nicknamed 'Fufu', his films have been constantly rerun on French
television and video box-sets are available under his name.
At the time of de Funes's greatest popularity 1964-8, French cinema
was experiencing its first major crisis of the post-war period. After the
peak of the late 1950s, the post-New Wave era saw a sharp decline in
attendances (from 411 million spectators in 1957, to 328 million in 1961,
259 million in 1965 and 183 million in 1970); in other words the post-
New Wave decade saw more than half the French cinema audience
disappear, as well as a decline in production, which dipped below a
hundred films a year in the early 1960s, with a third of these Italian
co-productions. In 1965, only thirty-four wholly French films were
made, together with fifty-six co-productions (de Funes's three most
popular films and many others were co-productions, with Italy mostly).
Louis de Funes 143
This crisis was not a specifically French phenomenon, though it took

place later than in other European nations, due in part to the later arrival
of mass ownership of television. The same period, which coincided with
the economic boom of the Fifth Republic, concurrently saw a huge rise in
other leisure forms, especially betting on horse-racing, tourism and
second homes, all competing with film-going. Production picked up
again in the late 1960s: 91 films in 1969, of which 56 were wholly
French, and 102 films in 1970, of which 60 were French (Vincendeau,
1996, pp. 196-7).
The mass popularity of de Funes's films from 1964 to 1970, therefore,
helped the French film industry recover beyond the obvious revenue the
films brought in. As overall audiences continued to decrease, the
industry needed more than ever to maximize its assets: in other words, it
needed blockbusters. The question is, why was it de Funes's films which
fulfilled this function? I will offer three answers: the all-inclusive bricolage
nature of his films, his appeal to a family audience and the 'negative
masculinity' offered by his star persona.
Films 'with just about everything thrown in'
By 1965, nearly half of French films were in colour, and by 1967, 64 per
cent were shot on location. Competition came in the form of large-scale
Hollywood epics and James Bond action movies — genres not normally
suited to French cinema for both economic and historical reasons. The
French popular genre cinema of that period, therefore, needed to
incorporate aspects of 'high technology' into its own, small(er)-scale
films. Some of Jean-Paul Belmondo's adventure films were one kind of
response by the French industry (see Chapter 7). De Funes's comedies
were another. Jean-Louis Comolli, in his review of Le Corniaud for
Cahiers du cinema, complained that comedies of this type were trying to
'throw everything in' - comic gags, stars, beautiful landscapes,
American cars, cops and sentimental stories — 'they want the spectators
to be amused, diverted, moved, to feel pity, envy and even
compassion'.8 Apart from his praise of 'the great Louis de Funes',
Comolli's review is extremely disparaging of the film, but what he
'denounces' nevertheless pinpoints precisely its appeal: indeed, the 'all
inclusive' aspect of de Funes's films was a large part of their success.

Whereas earlier comedies such as Fernandel's could get away with
relying entirely on the comic star and modest production values — Le
Mouton a cinq pattes, where Fernandel plays six different parts, is a good
example - by the mid-1960s, more was needed. Le Gendarme de Saint-
Tropez, Le Corniaud and La Grande vadrouille all offer a plethora of
'spectacular' cinematic pleasures on a scale affordable by the French film
industry. All three are large-screen, colour productions, a novelty for
French comedy, shot by prestigious cinematographers: respectively,
Marc Fossard, Henri Decae and Claude Renoir. Apart from the comic
routines, there are musical scenes (Genevieve Grad sings), dancing in
nightclubs, parades in the streets of Saint-Tropez. Thus, unlike some of
the comedies de Funes appeared in early on in his career, such as
Monsieur Leguignon, lampiste, his hits are not part of the cheap,
'inexportable' categories of French cinema, defined by Jean-Pierre
Jeancolas as low-grade films that were destined to be seen only by
audiences in their countries of origin' (in Dyer and Vincendeau, 1992,
p. 141). Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, the most modest of de Funes's big
hits, nevertheless cashes in on the tourism and Bardot associations of
Saint-Tropez. Episodes are designed to show named shops (such as
clothes designer Vachon),9 cafe terraces, blonde starlets, beaches, yachts
in the harbour, luxury villas. Genevieve Grad is a B.B. look-alike. The
photography emphasizes the blue skies and pastel colours of Saint-
Tropez's houses and squares, and the primary colours of the holiday-
makers' clothes. As Le Film fmnpais put it, Those who love Saint-Tropez
will think they're still on holiday'.10 The narrative of Le Corniaud
weaves its way from Naples to Bordeaux, while La Grande vadrouille
takes its heroes through Paris and several beautiful regions before
culminating in the Hospices de Beaune. Even hostile reviewers noted
the 'dreamy' landscapes and the quality of the photography of these
films (Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob starts with spectacular shots of
Manhattan before moving to Normandy and then Paris).
De Funes blossomed against this opulent background, which functioned
as a foil to his aggressive behaviour: for instance, conducting a Berlioz
overture in the actual Paris Opera in La Grande vadrouille. The multi-star
casts were part of the 'everything thrown in' aesthetics of the French
blockbuster, but de Funes's excessive performance was also best suited to
Louis de Funes 145
work against other actors. Hence, he is predominantly seen as part of a

duo with Bourvil and Jean Marais, and later with Yves Montand, Coluche,
Jean Gabin and Annie Girardot. In the Gendarme series, his highly kinetic
performance bounces off Michel Galabru's lethargic blundering and the
ensemble of the other gendarmes. The films frequently line them up, so that
de Funes's manic gestures strike a vivid contrast.
A middle-aged star in sexless family comedy
The films of Louis de Funes derive from two major French comic
traditions: the French vaudeville (nineteenth-century theatrical farce,
sometimes with song) and the comique troupier, a form of military
comedy, which came from the turn-of-the-century cafe-concert and
theatre. Both formed the basis of 1930s French film comedy (see also
Chapters 1 and 2). Le Corniaud and La Grande vadrouille draw on
vaudeville farce, with chases, mistaken identity and slammed doors, as in
the hotel scene in La Grande vadrouille. The Gendarme series obviously
draws on the comique troupier and it includes all its key elements: a play
on hierarchy, bumbling officialdom, idiotic behaviour by the rank and
file, regressive humour and transvestism. But what is different in these
1960s incarnations of vaudeville and comique troupier is that both forms
are de-sexualized. In the 1930s, the genres were close to their bawdy
live theatrical and cabaret origins and provided their stars, notably
Georges Milton and Fernandel, with rich opportunities for sexual
innuendo and drag acts. De Funes cuts out this dimension altogether.
Unlike classic stage vaudeville, where heterosexual libertinage is de
rigueur, the women in de Funes's films are comic nuns, prim wives and de
Funes's daughter, Nicole, in the Gendarme series. Even in Le Gendarme se
marie, Cruchot's courtship of Josefa is chaste and their attraction is
comically figured by lightning when they kiss or touch demurely,
literalizing the expression coup de foudre (love at first sight'). Relation-
ships between de Funes and his men eschew the ambiguities and
innuendo of the 1930s comique troupier and transvestism is free of sexual
connotations - for instance, de Funes dresses up as an 'Arab' woman in
Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, a US policeman and a Chinese in Le
Gendarme a New York and as a German officer in La Grande vadrouille. In
the 1930s comique troupier, soldiers dressed as women to flirt with sexual
ambiguity.
De Funes's stardom arose between the New Wave and the post-1968
era, at a time which saw both the survival of censorship and an
inescapable move towards liberalization. A degree of sexual innuendo
had been historically acceptable to popular audiences in France by
comparison with American and British audiences. So why were de
Funes's films so chaste? His age and physique were one important factor.
But it also enabled him to distinguish his films from the rising tide of
eroticism which affected both mainstream and auteur cinema. In the
period of de Funes's high stardom, instances of nudity multiplied
exponentially in films such as L'Enfer dans la peau, Une femme mariee
(1964), La Curee, Galia (1965), Belle de jour (1966), Barbarella, Manon 70
(1967), Erotissimo, La Piscine (1968).
The very titles of de Funes's films signal their innocence. La Grande
vadrouille (literally 'the big walkabout') fits in with the infantilizing
tendency of many popular French titles (films, songs, books) to contain
the word la grande or le grand, la petite or le petit. De Funes's hits also
include Le Petit baigneur ('the little bather'), Le Grand restaurant ('the big
restaurant') and Les Grandes vacances ('the summer holidays'). Like the use
of the slang vadrouille (for 'promenade', a 'ramble'), the stress on petit or
grand reinforces playful connotations, as does Le Corniaud ('the sucker',
again a slang word). Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez fits in a long line of
gentle derision of the police in France. But it also draws on the more
innocent connotations of that profession. The gendarme signals the old
tradition of Guignol (Punch and Judy) and the rural Gendarmerie (who are
part of the army) have a better standing than the urban police, whose
reputation for violence and corruption is still linked to its relationship
with the Gestapo during the war. Allegedly, the gendarmes are the third
most popular profession in France after fire-fighters and doctors (Horton,
1995). Thirty years after Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, real gendarmes in
Saint-Tropez complain of interference in their daily work from tourists
seeking latter-day Louis de Funes. While the political thrillers of the
1960s and 1970s began to reveal financial or political corruption in the
police, the Gendarme series was on a different plane, amiably deriding a
profession seen as harmless. The titles of the Gendarme series reveal the
films' visual and narrative programme. Although Saint-Tropez stands for
Louis de Funes 147
the new permissiveness emblematized by Bardot, the function of the

gendarme is to stem its tide. Besides, Bardot has been replaced by the
pretty but anodyne Grad, and Bardot's frenzied mambo by a mild twist
('Do you, do you, do you Saint-Tropez?'). Nudity is infantilized in the
nudists on the beach scene, the new mores made innocent, which is why
Aude among others wrote accusingly that 'the comedies gave no hint
that French society was on the verge of experiencing the turbulent
events of May 68' (Aude, 1989, p. 8). De Funes's films provided, in their
innocence, a safe haven from societal changes. But the Gendarme series
also shows the futility of fighting them. In their ineptitude, the gendarmes
are hardly guardians of morality. De Funes's age when he reached
stardom (fifty) is also important. The innocence of his characters was
also impotence.
De Funes had made about seventy films before Le Gendarme de Saint-
Tropez. But even his early character parts were never 'young'. He was, as
it were, born middle-aged. Unlike other major French stars, he had no
youthful persona to build on. His persona crystallized middle-aged
values such as propriety, status and authority, and was the antithesis of
the triumphant youth culture of the 1960s. In the Gendarme series, de
Funes domesticates an already very tame youth through his daughter.
See, for instance, the scene in which he dances at the fashionable Byblos
club: he can invade a 'young' space without being a figure of ridicule. Of
all the stars to emerge in the 1960s, de Funes is the one who most
obviously turns his back on the New Wave. As the New Wave
appropriated the notion of authenticity along with that of youth, it is
not surprising that de Funes should have been disparaged as out of
touch with his times. Yet, while his films made no claim to 'realism', his
age echoed the age of a large part of his audience and his star persona
tells us as much about France in the 1960s as the New Wave or the new
erotic films did.
The performance of "negative masculinity'
In de Funes's films of the 1960s, the barely suppressed rage of his

secondary characters of the 1940s and 1950s took centre stage.
Aggression and frustration are the keys to his persona. When he is
psychoanalysed in Le Gendarme a New York, the diagnosis is as clear as it

is self-referential: 'frustration complex'.
De Funes presented his audience with a comically inverted image of
dominant masculinity. He was uncoordinated, unpleasant and lacking in
dignity. Other comic stars, especially Bourvil, function as a foil to, and a
victim of, his aggression. Non-comic stars, such as Jean Marais in the
Fantomas films and Yves Montand in La Folie des grandeurs, are tall, good-
looking and sexually attractive, and create a classic pair of opposites
with him. Belmondo and Delon, the two rising male stars of the time,
represent masculinity in control — a minimalist restraint of movements
and emotions (see, for example, Le Samourai', released the same year as
La Grande vadrouille), or spectacular agility (see Belmondo in L'Homme
de Rio). De Funes's talent was his ability to create such negative
portrayals without putting the audience off. In part, he achieved this
through generic features. The accusations by critics that he was a
'clown' are both accurate and nonsensical. De Funes was a 1960s
version of the 'ugly clown', linked to Bakhtin's (1968) 'grotesque body'.
But, as Henry Jenkins argues (1992, pp. 222-3), we must be careful not
to de-historicize Bakhtin. If de Funes is an exponent of the 'grotesque
body' and the 'ugly clown', he is so in a very specific context: he
portrays 1960s representatives of the law, company executives, etc.
However, like all comics, he makes fun of his own shortcomings: for
example, his small size. In Le Gendarme a New York, he is contrasted with
tall handsome Italians and taller American policemen. In La Grande
vadrouille, he wears pyjamas far too big for him. At the beginning of Le
Corniaud, his giant office and enormous Cadillac dwarf him. There are
purely visual gags, such as a scene in Le Corniaud in which he takes a
shower next to a huge muscle man. In Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob, he is
paired with another 'rabbi' who is tall and handsome. He uses many
disguises. Beyond these 'universal' visual routines, de Funes's facial and
body gestures have a particular Frenchness. As semioticians have shown,
many gestures are nationally specific and therefore more easily readable
by natives. For instance, in Genevieve Calbris's experiments, French
natives were able to interpret correctly 85 per cent of French gestures
out of context, as opposed to 46 per cent Hungarians and 29 per cent
Japanese (Calbris, 1990, p. 34).
Though undoubtedly caricatural, de Funes's movements and his voice
Louis de Funes 149
seem in tune with what Calbris (1990) and Laurence Wylie (1977) have
identified as 'French' gestures. Where Calbris argues that 'gestural
references to positive qualities are few, while indications of faults are
numerous' (Calbris, 1990, p. 84), the basis of de Funes's performance and
star persona is a delight in criticism, discontent, bad temper. Favourite
(and funniest) moments are those when he is telling other characters off.
Close-ups highlight his fixed, intense stare and his mouth smirking
sardonically, barking orders or mumbling threateningly. Calbris and
Wylie also single out muscular tension, rigidity of the torso, puffed-up
chest and an especially expressive use of the shoulders (the famous
'Gallic' shrug) and arms. This is complemented by high mobility of the
wrist and elbow ('gracious and complicated movements of the hands
take part in the conversation, efficiently completing what words are
expressing'). Such an aggressive stance can be seen in one of de Funes's
most common poses, standing rigid with hands jammed hard on his hips.
His performance of ordinary tasks, from moving pieces of furniture to
dancing, is suffused with repressed violence. His performance is also
particularly mobile, almost puppet-like: windmilling arms, brandished
fists and hands striking the air or another character, jabbing, two fingers
pointing threateningly at his own eyes, striking his chest, hitting and
kicking objects, slamming on hard surfaces. The films give him jobs
which require him to make such movements: the gendarme is called upon
to hail, whistle and gesture at people. In La Grande vadrouille, he is an
orchestra conductor, gesturing wildly. One of his 1970 films is called
L'Homme-orchestre. His first appearance in Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob
condenses these gestures of frustration in one of the most topical motifs
of the time: the traffic jam.
De Funes's comic essence is based on his exaggeration of 'French'
gestures as well as on his ritual undermining: he always gets his come-
uppance. More subtly, he adeptly alternates between a fluent, efficient
use of his body (for instance, the dance in Le Corniaud) and the gestures
of frustration. The frustration/aggression which characterizes his
gestures finds an equivalent in his use of language. His voice ranges
widely, imitating other characters or animals, taking on accents, singing,
whistling or mumbling, alternating with a fluent upper-middle-class
accent. According to Calbris (1990, p. 94), many aggressive gestures are
transferred expressions of sexual aggression. In this light, de Funes's
'sexlessness' can be seen as a highly kinetic performance of frustration,

and as part of his appeal. Like many male comics — the Italian Toto, and
in France Fernandel and de Funes's co-star Bourvil — he provided a
cathartic function in his portrayal of negative, dysfunctional masculinity.
Bourvil took on this role through his figure of the Village idiot', a
simpleton who appealed to a newly displaced audience in the age of the
rural exodus. De Funes's malfunctioning male heroes connected with
another aspect of the new France, that of its put-upon, conservative,
urban lower middle classes, typically shopkeepers and artisans,
descendants of the 1950s Poujadist movement.11
A hero of the France profoncfe
As well as being middle-class and middle-aged, de Funes's characters

always appear in a liminal position in the social hierarchy. His gendarme
status encapsulates this: neither the underdog nor the boss. When he is a
company executive or gangster, or both (as in Le Corniaud), there is a
higher authority he must defer to as well as subalterns he can boss
around. His films cast him endlessly asserting, negotiating and inverting
hierarchies. He is sycophantic and self-abasing to Gerber in the Gendarme
series (but usually gets his way). He is self-important and brutal towards
his men (but usually ineffectual). In La Grands vadrouille, he is sadistic
towards Bourvil, yet dependent on him. Le Gendarme se marie plays
explicitly on this duality: having obtained promotion in a competition
which Gerber also entered, he asserts his new status by being at his most
offensive to his former boss. When the promotion is revealed to be a
mistake after only one day, he in turn is humiliated by Gerber. De
Funes's audience fully expected this dual pleasure, savouring both his
ritual humiliations and his triumphs. These came about because of his
ability to get out of scrapes through 'sysieme U — which means cheating
your way out of a problem, bending the rules with gusto and wit, a habit
deeply ingrained in French popular culture. De Funes, indeed, was
characterized as 'the triumph of systeme D' (Chevalier and Billard, 1968).
After Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, de Funes was able to pick and
choose his projects, directors and co-actors. He went on working with
those who had served him well: Jean Girault and Gerard Oury, in
Louis de Funes 151
particular. He was well aware of this when he said: 'My lucky break was
never to meet a great director, a Rene Clair or a Rene Clement ... I only
made films with commercial directors so I had to get on with it' (in
Loubier, 1991, p. 129). But it was de Funes's representation of Frenchness
which was (is) the problem. He did not correspond to the acceptable comic
model of Jacques Tati, and he contravened, for foreigners, the mythical
image of the French as intellectual, elegant and/or sexy (just as Norman
Wisdom presents a less-flattering image of the British). While he was 'not
French enough' for outsiders, he was 'too French' for the French. He
presented an unglamorous, mediocre petit-bourgeois image of the France
profonde ('grass-roots France'). As Sylvie Lindeperg argued in the context
of war comedies (referring here to La Grande vadrouille), 'the comedies of
the sixties insisted upon the true mediocrity of their characters who,
against their will and purely through chance, find themselves forced to
fight the occupying forces', thereby reinforcing the myth of universal
heroism (Lindeperg, 1996, p. 7). But de Funes, in incarnating a vicious
version of these 'mediocre' comedy heroes, thereby also put his finger on
the concerns of France. His films multiply signs of Frenchness. The tricolore
flaps in brilliant colours against the Saint-Tropez blue sky; Cruchot comes
out of a baker's shop with beret and baguette. In Le Gendarme a New York,
the squad cook entrecote in their hotel bedroom and defeat better-looking
Italians and Americans. But they also botch safety exercises on the ship,
lose at table football and bowling, can't operate technology and mess up a
television show. As in La Belle Americaine, a comedy about an American
car in which de Funes plays a small part, Le Gendarme a New York plays
with anxieties about national identity and modernity. In turn dominant
and defeated, mincing and deprecating, de Funes enabled his audience to
laugh at their own shortcomings and to contemplate contemporary
changes in a kind of history from below. True, the films are consensual
(what mainstream comedy is not?) but de Funes has a grating, aggressive
and mean streak. From within the harmless environment of the family
comedy, he presented an inverted mirror to contemporary ideals of
masculinity, whether the glamorous macho ideals of Belmondo and Delon
or the narcissistically tormented heroes of auteur cinema. De Funes made
people laugh, but his latent rage and discontent, which clearly found a
huge echo in his audience, had a more menacing tone. De Funes's comedy
was not so 'nice' after all.
Biofilmography
Born Louis de Funes de Galarza, Courbevoie, 31 July 1914. Married Germaine

Carroyer (1936; divorced 1942),12 Jeanne Barthelemy de Maupassant (1943,
with whom two sons: Patrick, born 1944, and Olivier, born 1950). Died 27
January 1983.
Main acting awards
Victoire du Cinema Francais, 1965

Prix Georges-Courteline du Cinema, 1967
Nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in 1972
Honorary Cesar in 1980 (presented by Jerry Lewis)
Films as actor
1945 La Tentation de Barbizon (Jean Stelli)

1946 Six heures a perdre (Jean Levitte)
Dernier refuge (Marc Maurette)
Antoine et Antoinette (Jacques Becker)
1947 Croisiere pour I'inconnu (Pierre Montazel)
1949 Du Guesdin (Bernard de Latour and Pierre Billon)
Rendez-vous avec la chance (Emile Edwin Reinert)
Je n'aime que toi (Pierre Montazel)
Mission a longer (Andre Hunebelle)
Vient de paraitre (Jacques Houssin)
Au revoir Monsieur Crock (Pierre Billon)
Ademai au poteau frontiere (Paul Colline)
Millionnaire d'un jour (Andre Hunebelle)
Pas de week-end pour noire amour (Pierre Montazel)
Un certain monsieur (Yves Ciampi)
1950 Le Roi du bla-bla-bla (Maurice Labro)
L'Amant de paille (Gilles Grangier)
La Rue sans loi (Marcel Gibaud)
La Rose rouge (Marcello Pagliero)
Folie douce (Jean-Paul Paulin)
Bibi Fricotin (Marcel Blistene)
Louis de F 153
Knock (Guy Lefranc)

La Passante (Henri Calef)
. . . sans laisser d'adresse (Jean-Paul Le Chanois)
La Vie est un jeu (Raymond Leboursier)
1951 Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro)
Le Voyage en Amerique (Henri Lavorel)
Pas de vacances pour Monsieur le Maire (Maurice Labro)
Ma femme est formidable (Andre Hunebelle)
Us etaient cinq (Jack Pinoteau)
La Poison (Sacha Guitry)
Monsieur Leguignon, lampiste (Maurice Labro)
Le Dindon (Claude Barma)
Agence matrimoniale (Jean-Paul Le Chanois)
Boite a vendre [short] (Claude Lalande)
Champions juniors [short] (Jean Blondy)
Les Joueurs [short] (Claude Barma)
Un amour de parapluie [short] (Jean Laviron)
1952 Les Sept peches capitaux/Seven Deadly Sins (Jean Dreville, France/
Italy)
Les Dents longues (Daniel Gelin)
La P... respectueuse (Charles Brabant and Marcello Pagliero)
L'Amour nest pas un peche (Claude Cariven)
Monsieur Taxi (Andre Hunebelle)
Je I'ai ete trois fois (Sacha Guitry)
Moineaux de Paris (Maurice Cloche)
La fugue de Monsieur Perle (Roger Richebe)
Legere et court vetue (Jean Laviron)
Elle et moi (Guy Lefranc)
Au diable la vertu (Jean Laviron)
La Vie d'un honnete homme (Sacha Guitry)
Le Huitieme art et la maniere (Maurice Regamey)
1953 Innocents in Paris (Gordon Parry, UK)
Dortoir des grandest Girls' Dormitory (Henri Decoin)
Man frangin du Senegal (Guy Lacourt)
Capitaine Pantoufle (Guy Lefranc)
Le Chevalier de la nuit (Robert Darene)
Mam'zelle Nitouche (Yves Allegret)
Tourments (Jacques Daniel-Norman)

Le Secret d'Helene Marimon (Henri Calef)
Faites-moi confiance (Gilles Grangier)
Les Compagnes de la nuit (Ralph Habib)
Les Corsaires du Bois de Boulogne (Norbert Carbonnaux)
Les Hommes ne pensent qua ga (Yves Robert)
Le Rire (Maurice Regamey)
1954 L'Etmnge desir de Monsieur Bard/The Strange Desire of Monsieur
Bard (Geza Radvanyi)
Le Ble en herbe/Ripening Seed (Claude Autant-Lara)
Les Impures (Pierre Chevalier)
Huis clos (Jacqueline Audry)
Les Pepees font la loi (Raoul Andre)
Les Intrigantes/The Plotters (Henri Decoin)
Napoleon (Sacha Guitry)
Poisson d'avril (Gilles Grangier)
La Reine Margot/A Woman of Evil (Jean Dreville, France/Italy)
Scenes de menage (Andre Berthomieu)
Le Mouton a cinq pattes/The Sheep Has Five Legs (Henri Verneuil)
Ah! Les Belles bacchantes! [Femmes de Paris] (Jean Loubignac)
Escalier de service (Carlo Rim)
Papa, maman, la bonne et moi/Papa, Mama, the Maid and I (Jean-
Paul Le Chanois)
1955 Frou-Frou (Augusto Genina, France/Italy)
I 'Impossible Monsieur Pipelet (Andre Hunebelle)
La Bande a papa (Guy Lefranc)
Les Hussards (Alex Joffe)
Papa, maman, ma femme et moi (Jean-Paul Le Chanois)
Si Paris nous etait conte (Sacha Guitry)
1956 Bonjour, sourire [Sourire aux levres] (Claude Sautet)
Bebes a gogo (Paul Mesnier)
La Loi des rues/The Law of the Streets (Ralph Habib)
La Traversee de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, France/
Italy)
1957 Courte-tete/Short Head (Norbert Carbonnaux)
Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/A Hair in the Soup (Maurice
Regamey)
Louis de Funes 155
1958 Ni vu ni connu [L'Affaire Blaireau] (Yves Robert)

Taxi, roulotte et corrida/Taxi (Andre Hunebelle)
La Vie a deux/Life Together (Clement Duhour)
1959 Mon pote le gitan (Francois Gir)
1960 Certains I'aiment froide [Pour un milliard} (Jean Bastia)
Le Capitaine Fracasse (Pierre-Gaspard Huit)
1961 La Belle Americaine/What a Chassis (Robert Dhery)
Candide ou I'optimisme au XXe siecle/Candide (Norbert Carbonnaux)
1962 Le Crime ne paie pas/Crime Does Not Pay (Gerard Oury, France/
Italy)
Le Diable et les dix commandements/The Devil and the Ten
Commandments (Julien Duvivier, France/Italy)
Le Gentleman d'Epsom [Les Grands Seigneurs} (Gilles Grangier,
France/Italy)
1963 Les Veinards (Philippe de Broca)
Carambolages (Marcel Bluwal)
Faites sauter la banque (Jean Girault)
Pouic-pouic (Jean Girault)
1964 Des pissenlits par la racine/Have Another Bier (Georges Lautner,
France/Italy)
Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (Jean Girault, France/Italy)
Une souris chez les hommes (Jacques Poitrenaud)
Fantomas (Andre Hunebelle, France/Italy)
1965 Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gerard Oury, France/Italy)
Fantomas se dechaine (Andre Hunebelle, France/Italy)
Le Gendarme a New York (Jean Girault, France/Italy)
1966 Les Bans vivants/How to Keep the Red Lamp Burning (Gilles
Grangier and Georges Lautner)
La Grande vadrouille/Don't Look Now ... We're Being Shot At
(Gerard Oury, France/UK)
Fantomas contre Scotland Yard (Andre Hunebelle, France/Italy)
Le Grand restaurant (Jacques Besnard)
1967 Le Petit baigneur/'Bouncing Beaut]/ (Robert Dhery, France/Italy)
Les Grandes vacances (Jean Girault, France/Italy)
Oscar (Edouard Molinaro)
1968 Le Tatoue (Denys de la Patelliere, France/Italy)
Le Gendarme se marie/How to Get Married (Jean Girault)
1969 Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, France/Italy)

1970 L'Homme-orchestre (Serge Korber)
Le Gendarme en balade/How to Be an Honest Cop (Jean Girault,
France/Italy)
1971 Sur un arbre per chef Up a Tree (Serge Korber, France/Italy)
Jo/Joe — The Busy Body (Jean Girault)
La Folie des grandeurs [Delirios de grandeza] (Gerard Oury, France/
Spain/Germany/Italy)
1973 Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gerard
Oury, France/Italy)
1976 L'Aile ou la cuisse/The Wing or the Thigh (Claude Zidi)
1978 La Zizanie/The Spat (Claude Zidi)
1979 Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres/The Gendarme and the Creatures
from Outer Space (Jean Girault)
L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funes and Jean Girault)
1981 La Soupe aux choux (Jean Girault)
1982 Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes (Jean Girault and Tony
Aboyantz)
Notes
1. Le Film franpais No. 1060, 25 September 1964, review of Le Gendarme de

Saint-Tropez.
2. Fernandel made Angele in 1934, and Bourvil shot Le Cercle rouge in 1970.
De Funes's only claim to seriousness was his starring in an adaptation of
Moliere's L'Avare in 1978 and his sound recording of parts of the same
play as well as some of La Fontaine's fables.
3. Pierre Notte, 'Le public riait, les intellos grimacaient', L'Evenement du jeudi,
4-10 March 1999, pp. 61-2.
4. For a good discussion of the 'comedian comedy', see Seidman (1981) and
Jenkins (1992), pp. 221-3.
5. Variety, 21 December 1966.
6. Studio Magazine, November 1992, p. 96.
7. Le Film franpais, No. 1173, 16 December 1966.
8. Jean-Louis Comolli, Cahiers du cinema, May/June 1965.
9. Whose owner appears in the film, in the scene when Nicole goes shopping
with her father.
10. Le Film franpais No. 1060, review of Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez.
11. Followers of Pierre Poujade, leader of a shopkeepers' union in the 1950s,
Louis de Funes 157
who backed up (and encouraged the resentment of) those left behind by
the economic boom. Poujadism is a byword for populist conservatism with
a small 'c'.
12. Some sources indicate one child from this first marriage.
CHAPTER 7
Jean-Paul Belmondo
and Alain Delon
One smiles, the other doesn't
In Marc Allegret's comic thriller, Sois belle et tais-toi (1958), starring

Mylene Demongeot and Henri Vidal, two young men appear near the
beginning of the film. Their modernity is signalled by their placement
near a pin-ball machine in a cafe with neon lights and jazz music. They
wear blouson jackets and sweaters, and speak slang. They are graceful
and exuberant. We recognize the young Alain Delon and Jean-Paul
Belmondo. Though not exactly their first film (it was Delon's second and
Belmondo's third), Sois belle et tais-toi marked a symbolic joint debut for
these actors, who became two of the biggest French stars of the post-
war period. From the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, Delon and
Belmondo redefined French stardom and offered parallel yet divergent
visions of French masculinity.
Two years after Sois belle et tais-toi, both actors would become world
famous: Belmondo through Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle and
Delon in Rene Clement's Plein soleil and Luchino Visconti's Rocco e i suoi
fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers. As screen icons in the early 1960s, Delon
and Belmondo inhabited the world of the cosmopolitan playboy, whose
favourite playgrounds were Paris and Rome, trading on the display of
their youthful muscles and fashionable Italian clothes (Chenoune, 1993,
158
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon 159
p. 241). They appeared in swashbucklers, notably Cartouche (1962) in the

case of Belmondo and La Tulipe noire (1964) for Delon. More lastingly,
they both evolved a tough guy image grounded in polider and
adventure films. Delon and Belmondo became top French box-office
draws in the 1960—4 period and remained in the top ten until the mid-
1980s, with an advantage to Belmondo, who was No. 1 from 1975 to
1984, while Delon's top score was No. 3, from 1965 to 1969.1 The pair's
star vehicles were aesthetically and economically the antithesis of the
New Wave-inspired auteur cinema which was the French critics'
yardstick of quality. This is why they came to represent (along with
Louis de Funes) a new, powerful and, for some critics, 'damaging' style of
French film stardom. In the late 1980s and the 1990s Belmondo and
Delon's mainstream film careers waned, a trend confirmed by the relative
flop of Une chance sur deux (Patrice Leconte, 1998), in which they play
the two 'fathers' of a young woman played by Vanessa Paradis. Both,
however, had long since added other strings to their bows. At various
times in their careers, they branched out into theatre and television, thus
ensuring a constant presence in French media. Both of them also went
into more or less risky business ventures (Belmondo in wine, Delon as a
boxing manager and head of a cosmetics line); more successfully, both
became film producers, producing some of their own films as well as
others; Belmondo also built up a productive association with publicist
and distributor Rene Chateau from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s,
which also contributed to his success.2
Une chance sur deux also shows the self-consciousness with which
Delon and Belmondo have functioned as a pair since Sois belle et tais-toi,
acting as mirrors to each other's careers and dropping references to their
most famous on-screen partnership in Borsalino (1970), which Delon also
produced. Certainly, critics have bracketed Delon and Belmondo
together, especially for their work in thrillers (Guerif, 1981; Forbes,
1992; Maillot, 1996). Theirs is indeed an image based on criminality. In
Chapter 3, I discuss how Jean Cabin's image was also marked by crime,
and how the type of masculinity he embodies proved to be paradigmatic
for subsequent French male stardom. Delon and Belmondo both claimed
Cabin as a father figure, and they acted with him in parts which illustrate
this legacy: Un singe en hiver (1962) for Belmondo, Melodie en sous-sol
(1963), Le Clan des Siciliens (1969) and Deux hommes dans la ville (1973)
for Delon. The young Cabin's criminal experience, however, was

redemptive, making him the relay between fate and the pre-war
community. The honest/criminal dichotomy which was the bedrock of
his persona was reconciled in a fundamentally good and rooted
character.
Delon and Belmondo belong to a different era, and while the Gabin
paradigm is crucial to an understanding of their representation of
masculinity, they evolved as distinct figures of desire and identification,
in tune with 1960s and 1970s social and cultural trends. As Pierre
Maillot puts it, Delon and Belmondo were 'heroes of the trente glorieuses,
of a France in the process of becoming wealthy' (Maillot, 1996, p. 174).
Maillot's conceit is that French male stars are the 'fiances' of the French
nation figured as female (the title of his book is Les Fiances de Marianne).
For him, Delon and Belmondo represent a 'dissolution' of French
national identity, as the heroes they embody lust after American goods
in American-inspired thrillers. He wonders, in fact, whether they 'are
still French' (ibid., 1996, p. 149). Yet, Delon and Belmondo, who in any
case inhabited a wider range of genres than their pairing as thriller
heroes would suggest, represent images of undeniably French
masculinity. Furthermore, Maillot leaves performance and mise-en-scene
largely aside, thus missing crucial aspects of both stars' performance of
Frenchness.
Delon and Belmondo interacted with international male icons such as
Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery and Charles Bronson, but they must also
be understood in relation to other French male stars of the period and
French cultural trends. First of all, they formed a vivid contrast with
Louis de Funes (examined in Chapter 6). To de Funes's comic image of
irascible and blundering masculinity, Delon and Belmondo opposed a
flattering ideal: cool, sexy, physically coordinated, in control. Their
increasingly hard-edged virility also opposed the dandy-like minet of the
affluent bourgeoisie, of whom we find a cinematic expression in the
intellectual heroes of art cinema such as Jean-Pierre Leaud and Marcello
Mastroianni, and the libertarian hippies of the post-1968 era. To pursue
these themes further, I examine each star in turn before returning to a
comparison between the two.
Jean-Paul Belmondo: from Godard to Feydeau
Jean-Paul Belmondo was born in 1933 into an artistic milieu, in a family of

Italian origin (his father Paul Belmondo was a well-known sculptor). A
sports enthusiast, Belmondo was barred from a professional career in
boxing for health reasons. He opted for the theatre and was trained in the
classical repertory at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique in Paris, from
1952 to 1956. An often-told anecdote about his graduation recounts that
as he was awarded, against expectations, two humiliatingly minor prizes
in comedy, his fellow students carried him triumphantly on stage while he
gestured rudely to the jury. The anecdote's frequent reiteration is a typical
retrospective construction of the star's image, since it happens to fit the
'future' Belmondo star persona: a talented, anti-authoritarian prankster.
While he began to make headway in Parisian theatre, Belmondo appeared
in small parts in mainstream films such as Sois belle et tais-toi and Marcel
Game's highly successful portrait of late 1950s youth Les Tricheurs (1958).
Godard cast him as the male lead in his short Charlotte et son Jules (1958)
and then as small-time but charismatic hoodlum Michel Poiccard in A bout
de souffle (1960). Emerging from behind a newspaper in the first shot,
Belmondo, with his dangling cigarette and casually insolent delivery, was
to symbolize 1960s cool ever since.
Film history has recorded Belmondo's early career as steeped in auteur
cinema: Godard's Unefemme est unefemme (1961) and Pierrot le fou (1965)
as well as A bout de souffle, Peter Brook's Moderate Cantabile (1960) and
Jean-Pierre Melville's Leon Morin, pretre (1961) and Le Doulos (1963). But
almost immediately after A bout de souffle (1960), Belmondo began a
career in mainstream films, ranging widely from the swashbuckler
Cartouche to the comedy Un singe en hiver. He did many adventure
comedies — among them L'Homme de Rio (1964), Les Tribulations d'un
Chinois en Chine (1965), Cent milk dollars au soleil (1964) and Le Cerveau
(1969), where his performance was distinguished by athletic stunts, most
of which he carried out himself. Although Belmondo worked
sporadically with auteurs such as Francois Truffaut (La Sirene du
Mississipi [sic], 1969) and Alain Resnais (Stavisky, 1974), he became
increasingly associated with mainstream cinema. From cool New Wave
hero, his image evolved into that of a comic action man who was at once
physically tough, gracious, sexy and humorous. This persona was close
to the heroes of international action films such as James Bond and the
television series Mission Impossible. But it also contained a comic-book
dimension: revealingly, Philippe de Broca evoked Tintin as a source for
L'Homme de Rio (Strazzulla and Leduc, 1996, p. 95).
Concurrently, Belmondo's off-screen image both illustrated and
validated his on-screen performances. His love of sports, as spectator,
practitioner (boxing in the early days, daily workouts) and entrepreneur
(he was co-founder of the Paris Saint-Germain football team) echoed the
cinematic stunts. His penchant for fast driving, often referenced in the
films, bordered on the reckless.3 A taste for outrageous practical jokes,
usually while on foreign shoots (shifting hotel furniture, locking people
up, nailing their shoes to doors or dropping baby alligators in baths),
confirmed the jester persona. And several well-publicized relationships
with young women bolstered his heterosexual image. They included
actresses Ursula Andress (from 1965) and Laura Antonelli (from 1972).
Belmondo also drops casual references to prostitutes in interviews.4
Finally, he showed a combative attitude to authority and the media. His
career is rich in court cases against magazines that had published details
of his private life and public disputes, including the Borsalino affair —
Belmondo took Delon to court just before the release of the film in
March 1970, because Delon's name appeared twice on the poster (as
producer and star).
By 1964, Belmondo's meteoric rise to stardom was such that a
Parisian cinema showed a 'Belmondorama' festival. A year earlier, he had
published a book of memoirs, Trente ans et vingt-cinq films ('thirty years
old and twenty-five films') and the journal Cinema 63 published an article
entitled 'Jean-Paul Belmondo and his myth'.5 The late 1960s signalled
the beginning of the second, 'mature' phase of his career, built
exclusively on mainstream cinema. Adventure thrillers were explicitly
built around his persona, their titles drawing attention to his singularity:
L'Heritier, Le Magnificjue, L'Alpagueur, L'Incorrigible, L'Animal, Le Guignolo,
Le Professionnel, Le Marginal, Itineraire d'un enfant gate, Le Solitaire. In these
films, his singularity and ubiquity are sometimes reinforced by his
casting in double roles: for example, in Le Magnifique (dull writer/
glamorous spy) and L'Animal (gay man/macho womanizer); as the daily
L'Aurore put it, 'Flic ou voyou, in any case it's Belmondo!' (quoted in
Philippe, 1996, p. 36). Belmondo was harshly criticized by Rene Predal,
among others, for 'making the same type of adventures, endlessly

repeated, as if he was on a loop'.6 For his part, he increasingly reiterated
a populist dislike of 'intellectual cinema'. When he became a producer, he
also argued, like Delon, for a symbiosis between auteur and mainstream
cinema: 'If I had not made films with Verneuil, Pierrot le fou would not
have happened, and Stavisky or La Sirem du Mississipi would not exist.'7
In his 1970s and 1980s films, Belmondo plays individualistic heroes
who perform heroic physical feats or impose their own justice against
criminals or corrupt institutions. Martin O'Shaughnessy sees them as
exemplifying a 'hypermasculinity' which is increasingly 'rigid and
intolerant, especially as the values it incarnates are contested'
(O'Shaughnessy, 1999, p. 375). Indeed, Belmondo's image on and off
screen was certainly macho, and women in his films are marginalized and
trivialized. In some cases, they suffer gross violence, as in the 'comic'
rape fantasy of Le Magnifique. His masculine display is mostly for other
males, with women acting as heterosexual tokens. However, I want to
extend O'Shaughnessy's analysis. His view of the Belmondo image as a
'backlash' against feminism does not fully account for the star's
specificity. First, because it would equally apply to Delon, Eastwood and
others. As Yvonne Tasker argues of American screen muscle-men, a
purely ideological analysis:
often leads to a loss of specificity. We find an erasure of, on the one hand,
the differences that exist between different stars and their films, and, on the
other, the diversity of potential or actual readings available to audiences.
(Tasker, 1993, p. 93)
Furthermore, many of Belmondo's features are genre rather than star-

based. More importantly, a defining aspect of his star persona is left out
of O'Shaughnessy's analysis, namely his humorous dimension: Belmondo
constantly undermines or footnotes the activities of his characters with a
range of comic devices: goofing, stunts, puns, gaffes and his trademark
grin.
After extraordinary success for over two decades, Belmondo's box-
office magnetism finally waned in the mid-1980s, from roughly the time
of Les Morfalous in 1984. That period corresponded to his move into the
theatre, where he starred to high acclaim in popular plays such as Kean
(1987) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). With the FF255m proceeds of the
sale of his production company Cerito Films to Canal +, he acquired the

Theatre des Varietes in Paris in 1991. Meanwhile, his films consistently
generate high ratings on French television reruns. Belmondo's return to
the theatre, and in particular to comedy, was undoubtedly a wise move.
His triumphant version of Feydeau's La Puce a I'oreille (1996) is evidence
of this. But, as I watched him in this production in October 1996, I was
not the only person to applaud, via the accomplished stage actor, the
aura of the film star. Below is an examination of key elements of that
aura.
The face of the New Wave
In 1998, two new French books on the New Wave both exhibited
Belmondo's face on the cover. Antoine de Baecque's features him in A
bout de souffle, while Jean Douchet's shows him in Pierrot le fou —
confirming the cinephile status of both Belmondo as star and the New
Wave as film movement.
In a key scene in A bout de souffle, Belmondo stops in front of a cinema
on the Champs-Elysees that is playing The Harder They Fall. We see a
poster with the lower half of Humphrey Bogart's face, cigarette hanging
from his lips. Belmondo looks at the poster, and reverentially says
'Bogie'; then Godard cuts twice between a close-up of Bogart's face from
a still pinned up in a display cabinet, and a close-up of Belmondo, who is
now taking his dark glasses off. Belmondo models his expression on
Bogart's: slight frown, 'sad' eyes, introspective stance, a way of holding
his cigarette and of rubbing his upper lip. In contrast with much of the
film, which is characterized by movement and Martial Solal's jazz score,
this moment is marked by immobility and silence. The end of this scene,
with an iris-shot closing to black, reinforces the cinephilic force of the
Bogart reference, but also the equation between Belmondo and Godard
which had begun with Charlotte et son Jules, in which Belmondo's body is
dubbed with Godard's voice. Both men in the early 1960s shared short
dark hair, dark shades, a trim silhouette and fashionable single-breasted
jackets and tapered trousers. This physical mirroring, evident in the
scene where Godard in a cameo gives Poiccard/Belmondo away to the
police, recurs at the beginning of Pierrot le fou, when Belmondo stands in
Plate 17 A bout de souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, I960): Belmondo, the 'face of the
New Wave'.
for Godard, asking Sam Fuller 'What is cinema?' This phenomenon is of

course typical of auteur cinema, in which the male hero functions as an
alter-ego of the director (think of Godard and Michel Piccoli in Le
Mepris, Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud in the Antoine Doinel films). But
Belmondo in A bout de souffle is an archetypal New Wave hero in other
ways too, which will condition his future star persona. As discussed in
Chapter 5, the New Wave created a new stardom based, like the films,
on the rhetoric of youth, authenticity and modernity, for which
Belmondo turned out to be ideally suited.
Belmondo's youthful performance is all infectious energy. Poiccard
is a man on the move: the camera follows him from Marseilles to Paris,
walking or running up and down the Champs-Elysees, cruising along
the streets of Paris in an open-top car, roaming around bedrooms,
offices and cafes. Authenticity was granted by his near-anonymity to
the cinema audience of 1960, and by his performance style. Like Jeanne
Moreau a few years earlier (see Chapter 5), Belmondo un-learnt his
theatrical training and spoke his lines in a casual, naturalistic style. His
delivery mixed Bardot-style insolence and the popular gouaille of
Gabin, although here it is a sign of youthful Parisian-ness rather than
working-class identity. But the sense of authenticity evoked by

Belmondo's performance also had to do, importantly, with his face.
Compared to Delon's exquisitely smooth features, Belmondo's face is
what the French call a gueule (a word used for the face of an animal, a
'mug'). It is irregular, elongated, with thick lips and a nose flattened by
boxing, and, from early on, expression lines. He was dubbed 'il brutto'
(the ugly one) in Italy, and the director Rene Clair said, 'he is very good
... But he has such an ugly face!'8 The word gueule implies coarseness,
but also, in a man, character and authenticity, precisely because it is not
based on good looks. Belmondo's gueule suggests rugged virility, and
here similarities with Bogart but also Gabin and Michel Simon come into
view. Belmondo frequently performs cameo imitations of Michel Simon:
for example, in Pierrot k fou and Itineraire d'un enfant gate. At the same
time, the young Belmondo was undeniably sexy, featuring on the cover
of Life magazine as 'The French Lover'. Russian novelist Andrei Makine
gives a clue about this paradox by describing how the very coarseness
of Belmondo's face constituted its appeal for a Russian audience: 'With
his flattened nose, he looked like a lot of us ... a barbaric beauty pierced
through the rough tortured features' (Makine, 1994, p. 128). Belmondo's
sex appeal was also connected to his use of cigarettes. Stuck
aggressively in his mouth, cigarettes forced him to purse his mouth in
a masculine moue, and at the same time tilt his head back and squint
slightly to avoid the smoke (see Plate 17), thus making him look down
when he spoke, giving him an air of superior indifference (Calbris, 1990,
p. 201). In A bout de souffle, Poiccard is egocentric and cynical,
embodying the new positive value of cool, which his facial gestures
expressed to perfection, in line with the modernity of the film.
Parallel to New Wave cinema there emerged a new generation eager
for the goods of modernity and in particular the trilogy of money, cars
and sex (Orr, 1993; Ross, 1995). A bout de souffle put Belmondo's looks
and gestures to the service of this ethos: he became Godard's alter-ego as
well as the New Man of the New Wave. Five years later, in Pierrot k fou,
Belmondo's Pierrot/Ferdinand is again embroiled in a plot combining
cars, money and women. Like Jean Seberg's Patricia in A bout de souffle,
the female lead in Pierrot k fou, Anna Karina's Marianne, is audibly not
French. As a result, Belmondo's Frenchness comes into relief: much is
made of Patricia not understanding Michel's expressions, and Marianne
is ignorant of the cultural references thrown at her by Pierrot, be they

Elie Faure's art criticism, the writings of Louis-Ferdinand Celine or the
film Pepe le Moko.
But by the time of Pierrot le fou, Belmondo had also acquired another
French cinematic identity. He had left the rarefied realm of the New
Wave to join mainstream cinema, in films which made a different use of
his face: the moue around a cool cigarette became a broad grin around a
huge cigar, the rare smile a flash of white teeth against bronzed skin.
Above all, French popular cinema exploited to the full his highly kinetic
performance.
The body of popular cinema
Belmondo's performance throughout his career is characterized by an

energetic display of his body across the frame. This phenomenon begins
with A bout de souffle, where his muscular torso is on display as object of
desire in the long hotel bedroom scene. By the time he made Pierrot le
fou, Belmondo had acquired a new outdoor look, similar to that of the
young Delon. The Cote d'Azur settings serve to exhibit his tall, slim and
toned body in the outfit of the new holiday-maker: light suits and slip-
on shoes, jeans and clinging white T-shirts, the classic sexy male outfit
of the post-war period (Bruzzi, 1997, pp. 80-2), showing off muscles and
tan. Belmondo's physical allure thus connoted the modern Frenchman,
now going on holidays in fashionable seaside towns and the successful
Club Mediterranee, created in 1950. In Cent mille dollars au soleil, his
jeans and Lacoste shirt mark him as modern by comparison to the older
actors (Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier), who wear ordinary trousers and
shirts. Later on in the 1970s and 1981s, his clothes evolve towards a
rugged look such as black leather blousons or suede aviators' jackets, still
contrasting with the suits and uniforms of other men. Throughout his
career, Belmondo's films, both thrillers and comedies, include moments
designed to show off his physique, such as getting out of bed in boxer
shorts. By the time of the parodic L'As des as (1981), an entire comic
scene features him running a race (in the 1936 Berlin Olympics!) and
appearing in a hotel lobby in white boxer shorts.
But Belmondo's body really came into its own through movement, in
the new genre of adventure comedies. French cinema in the 1960s

followed the international trend towards wide-screen cinematography
and colour, producing spectacular adventure movies shot in exotic (and
touristic) locations (the first James Bond film, Dr No, was made in 1962).
Belmondo's energy, which had complemented the modernity of
Godard's mise-en-scene, made him perfect for the new adventure movies,
which demanded stars who could move and fill the newly wide screen.
The paradigmatic L'Homme de Rio is based on the double spectacle of
such locations and of Belmondo's kinetic performance. As the film
progresses from a short prologue in Paris to stunning views of Rio de
Janeiro, the Amazon forest and modernist Brasilia, Belmondo moves
from banal stunts (a motorbike chase, tricking his way on board an
aeroplane without a ticket) to increasingly spectacular ones: leaping from
vertigo-inducing scaffolding, dangling from a parachute over an
alligator-infested river.
Stunts became key to Belmondo's star identity in two ways. First,
they provided the spectacular moments which structured the films'
narratives and were anticipated by the audience. John Caughie has
characterized the Bond films as series of moments, which are
remembered as such, rather than as part of narratives (Caughie, 1996,
p. 31). The same is true of Belmondo's films, which became defined by
the stunts. The stunts are ingenious and varied, from traditional chases
to confronting a lion 'with bare hands' or crossing the Atlantic solo, and
there is also a lot of running, leaping and getting into fights. But
whatever the form, the point is the movement, the exertion, the
spectacle but also the work involved in it. Second, Belmondo's stunts,
however unbelievable, increased his authenticity, as he notoriously
performed many of them himself.9 Here was a star who worked hard for
his spectators and took risks for them. Thus, while the stunts were the
most criticized aspect of his performance by cinephile critics, they
constituted his way of interpellating his popular audience directly.
Belmondo's stunts in his 1960s and early 1970s films were both daring
and graceful, almost balletic. As he aged and progressed through his
career, they became more routine, stiffer and more mechanized,
involving machine-guns and cars: for instance, in Borsalino, Peur sur la
ville, Le Professionnel and Le Solitaire. But one dimension remained. The
Belmondo hero seemingly could extricate himself from any situation
jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon 169
with a dazzling smile and a joke. His heroes came straight out of comic
books and fairy tales.
In the post-New Wave 1960s, when the art/popular cinema divide
was at its sharpest, Belmondo's shift to the popular meant a move to
comedy. He became affectionately known as 'Bebel' and his characters
began to smile a lot. Already the typically 'tragic' endings of New
Wave films (Sellier, 1997) were undermined by his nonchalance: 'C'est
vraiment degueulasse' ('it's really disgusting'), he says as he dies at the
end of A bout de souffle; 'Apres tout j'suis idiot' ('after all I'm stupid') at
the end of Pierrot le fou, whereupon he tries unsuccessfully to stop the
fuse which detonates the dynamite with which he is blowing himself up.
While this irony is Godard's, Belmondo's performance advertises the
fact that nothing is to be taken seriously. On the other hand, in the
Melville films Leon Morin, pretre, Le Doulos and L'Ame des Ferchaux
(1963), the fit between star and character is less good, especially in the
first, where he plays a Catholic priest (although his performance as an
actor is excellent). After 1963 Belmondo took the comic route and by
the time of Le Samourai' (1967), Delon had replaced him at the centre of
Melville's austere universe.
Belmondo first appears in L'Homme de Rio as a soldier, a stock
character from French military farce. Later, he makes a second entrance
into the fiction proper by bouncing into a room and saying 'Coucou!'
Itineraire d'un enfant gate, Lelouch's fictionalized commentary on his
career and star persona, insists on his affinity with clowns. If L'Homme de
Rio evokes the Bond films with its exotic beaches and international spy
ring, the comparison stops there. Unlike Bond, the Belmondo hero's
success is not due to technology and superior prowess, but to a
combination of muscle and 'systeme D'.w His characters are naive and are
thrown into adventures they do not understand, solving them with
comic cunning (fighting dangerous gangsters with a shovel) and the
ability to run faster. His energy, the externalizing of his emotions
through his body and his perennial good luck all add up to the sense of a
fairy tale or, in a modern context, of a comic-book hero.
Like Tintin and other comic-book characters (who enjoyed renewed
popularity in the 1960s and 1970s), the Belmondo hero traverses great
distances - Paris to Rio, Africa to Paris, America to the Far East - and
experiences fantastic happenings and abrupt changes of milieu. He
exudes confidence and invulnerability, and defuses situations with a joke

(Bond displays humour too, but in addition to, not instead of,
intelligence and technological superiority; Le Magnifique, an overt
parody of Bond, resorts to farce and shows the distance between the
two). Even in supposedly tense thrillers, he grins as he threatens
gangsters with a gun, or blows smoke into their faces. In Le Professionnel
he plays a member of the French secret service who has been betrayed
by his superiors while on a mission in Africa and who comes back to
Paris seeking revenge. The credits display a grim Belmondo in tough-
guy pose with a gun, yet as the story unfolds, the thriller action pieces
all end on a comic note, such as his propelling a policeman into a huge
dish of couscous, joking 'couscous poulet' (poulet is slang for cop). I have
already mentioned how Belmondo's early moue develops into a broad
grin around a huge cigar — more phallic and more grotesque. Various
comic techniques, such as letting his jaw drop and staring with glazed
eyes, smoking his large cigar in all circumstances, even when shaving,
emphasize his big mouth and thick lips in the 'low' comic tradition
defined by Bakhtin (1968).
Belmondo's comic hero also bonded him to a populist national
identity. He was the familiar hero who took his audience by the hand,
as it were, to exotic locations: see him, for instance, cycling in torn
trousers through the sensational decor of Brasilia in L'Homme de Rio,
dwarfed yet undefeated, and similarly in the Sahara of Cent milk dollars
au soleil and the African jungle of Itineraire d'un enfant gate, and so on.
In its populism, his star persona was undoubtedly conformist. His anti-
authoritarian, anti-bureaucracy stance affirmed a caricaturally 'Franco-
French' macho individualism, in the late Gabin mould. In Itineraire d'un
enfant gate, Lelouch matches Belmondo's story with Jacques Brel's song
'Une ile', showing the wider resonance of this figure in post-war French
culture (Brel's song, like most of his oeuvre, celebrates the anti-
conformist male's rejection of 'bourgeois values' but is blind to its own
sexist bias). Two factors nonetheless contradict this macho supremacist
image. First, several of his 1970s and 1980s films insist on the asocial,
out-of-step nature of his heroes, sometimes killing or marginalizing
him at the end (Le Solitaire, Le Professionnel, Itineraire d'un enfant gate),
similar in this to the heroes of Miami Vice or Sylvester Stallone in
Rambo, as discussed by Yvonne Tasker (1993, p. 113). Second, and
jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon 171
more important, while the adventure comedies and thrillers enable

Belmondo to externalize and test aspects of his masculinity (physical
strength, bravery, dominance), his humour undercuts them, showing his
performance of masculinity as 'just' a performance. Against the
background of the cerebral New Wave cinema of the 1960s and of
the naturalistic and politically explicit cinema of the 1970s, Belmondo's
films provided entertainment that was modern (in location and the
portrayal of new social types) and yet old-fashioned in their comic-book-
style depiction of masculine values.
Belmondo, like de Funes, reached a family audience while also
addressing a male audience in sexual terms (unlike de Funes). Describing
the reception of Le Magnifique and other Belmondo films of the 1970s in
Siberia, Makine ascribes the star's success to his fairy-tale ubiquity:
He came, multiple like some Hindu divinity in its infinite manifestations.
Now driving a huge white car into the sea, now thrashing in a swimming
pool under the lascivious gaze of bathing beauties. He knocked his
opponents out in a thousand ways, wrestled in the traps they laid for him,
saved his companions, (Makine, 1994, p. 107)
Alain Delon: f'homme fatal
Unlike Belmondo, who came from an artistic background and studied

stage acting, Delon's origins were modest and he had had no training as
an actor. He volunteered to fight in Indochina at the age of seventeen
and was in the army for four years. On his return in Paris, he did odd
jobs. His devastating good looks ensured that he was immediately
noticed. After a few small parts in comedies such as Sois belle et tais-toi,
he quickly became a star. In particular, Christine (1958) and Faibles femmes
(1959) brought him to national fame, along with his liaison with co-star
Romy Schneider: they became known as 'Europe's little fiances' in a
symbolically charged Franco-German pairing (Haymann, 1998, p. 43).
International exposure came in 1960 with Plein soldi and Rocco e i suoi
fratelli. Delon's encounter with Visconti also led to a brief career on stage
in Paris. Through the early 1960s, Delon moved between France and
Italy, where he starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Edisse/The Eclipse
(1962) and Visconti's sumptuous ll gattopardo/The Leopard (1963). These
prestigious auteur films produced the accolade of a retrospective at the

Cinematheque Francaise as early as March 1964.
Meanwhile, Delon was also developing a tough guy image, like
Belmondo, grounded in gangster films, but without the comic
dimension. The second, more popular image had its genesis in
traditional policiers such as Melodie en sous-sol (1963), in which Delon
starred with Gabin, and continued with, among others, Le Clan des
Sidliens (1969) and Borsalino (with Belmondo). Delon's cool gangster
image made him a hugely popular star at the French box-office and a
cult figure in Asian countries such as Japan and China, where he is
considered an ideal of Western male beauty, while his body type and
colouring are relatively close to the men of these countries. With the
Melville trilogy of Le Samourai' (1967), Le Cercle rouge (1970) and Un flic
(1972), Delon's image took on a more introspective, deeply enigmatic
and melancholy cast. In his box-office heyday until the mid-1980s,
Delon concentrated on mainstream policiers, whose titles reveal his
identification with the cop (flic) figure: apart from Un flic: flic story
(1975), Pour la peau d'un flic (1981), Parole de flic (1985), Ne reveillez pas
un flic qui dort (1988). These films were the object of the same critical
disapproval as those of Belmondo and were seen as a regression after
the glory of his earlier career. Delon's flic and gangster personas also
provoked a different kind of media speculation when he was embroiled
in the Markovic affair, a criminal, political and sexual scandal which
rocked late-1960s France.
Delon later continued to appear in less commercially successful auteur
films, such as Joseph Losey's Mr Klein, Bertrand Blier's Notre histoire and
Godard's Nouvelle vague, some of which he produced. Indeed, like
Belmondo he justified his dual-track career by saying, 'If I made "shoot-
em up" films, it was precisely to produce Le Professeur or Mr Klein.'11 He
had been a producer since the 1960s, when he founded his company
Delbeau, which subsequently became Adel Productions, and he also
produced popular films, such as Borsalino. But Delon's continued support
for auteur cinema, and especially his casting by Godard in Nouvelle
vague, worked as a passport to renewed artistic respectability. The late
1990s accordingly saw a renewed interest in him on the part of the
French critical establishment. In April 1996, the Cinematheque Francaise
mounted a major tribute, accompanied by a book (Cinematheque
Francaise, 1996), while Cahiers du cinema ran an extended interview. It is

not, however, only Delon's auteur cinema career which provoked this
critical interest. It is also his projection of a wounded, melancholy
masculinity, the antithesis of Belmondo's grinning heroes: for instance,
Jean-Francois Rauger talks of Delon's 'morbid attraction'.12
Delon's trajectory nevertheless shows many parallels with Belmondo's.
His box-office pull declined at the same time, around the mid-1980s. He
also spread his activities beyond film acting and producing, directing
some of his films in the 1980s (see filmography). He became involved in
television, as presenter and supporter of classic films on the fifth channel,
and as the star and producer of the high-budget, though unsuccessful,
television mini-series Cinema (1988). In 1998 he returned to the stage in
Paris, in a successful production of Variations enigmatiques (by Eric
Emmanuel Schmitt) at the Theatre de Paris. These activities partly offset
the box-office and critical failure of films like Le Retour de Casanova
(1992), Le Jour et la nuit (1997, directed by philosopher Bernard-Henri
Levy) and Une chance sur deux (1998). Still, like Belmondo, Delon's
activities in the 1990s, however successful in themselves, were
predicated on his younger star persona, kept alive by television reruns
and boxed sets of his classic films on video. It is to this earlier stardom
that I now turn.
Cruel beauty
As Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim put it, The combination of good
looks and being tall is repeatedly shown to have played an important
part in representations of acceptable or preferred masculinities. ...
Attractiveness suggests the potential for counter attraction and,
therefore for romance or sex' (Kirkham and Thumim, 1995, p. 23).
From the beginning, Delon's stunning looks, his classically beautiful face
and tall, slim yet muscular body were the defining aspect of his star
persona. Cinemonde, among others, praised him as 'the new Don Juan
discovered in France'13 and compared him to James Dean. Yet, as many
of the adjectives used to describe him — 'devilish beauty', 'androgynous
beauty', 'ambivalent beauty' — betray, this was a star who was in fact
'too beautiful'. Delon's beauty and objectification by the camera bring to
the fore the issue of accommodating an eroticized male figure in the

context of mainstream cinema, traditionally seen as a 'problem'. In his
examination of masculinity on screen, Steve Neale has argued that
Delon in Le Samourai illustrates how the male object of desire is
'disqualified' within the 'normal' economy of the look. Scenes of action
involving male heroes are 'the repression of any explicit avowal of
eroticism in the act of looking at the male' (Neale, 1983, p. 12). Although
much of Neale's argument is compelling, Delon's star persona before and
after Le Samourai, as we will see, very successfully accommodated
explicit erotic display. In his assessment of Delon, Joel Magny quickly
dismisses the star's function as object of the gaze 'on the cover of
magazines for groupies and sentimental girls' (Cinematheque Francaise,
1996, p. 20), whereas it is plain that Delon owed his stardom in large
part to that image.
The early Delon films are structured around the narcissistic display of
his face and body. As Donald Lyons says of Plein soleil, 'the film just
swoons into the star's chilly beauty'.14 Throughout the 1960s, this
display is channelled through two modes. On the one hand is the upbeat
register of the early comedies such as So/5 belle el tais-toi and costume
adventures like La Tulipe noire and Zorro. These show Delon as an
energetic youth in pursuit of women and a good time. In La Tulipe noire,
a Dumas adaptation, Delon plays twin brothers Julien and Guillaume,
one of whom is the 'black tulip', a self-appointed agent of justice at the
time of the French Revolution. One brother wears a powdered wig and
the satin costumes of the aristocracy, the other a black mask, tight black
trousers and an open white shirt. In both cases, the clothes reveal
smooth and bronzed skin, while Delon's kinetic performance puts the
accent on action. Elements of comedy (like Belmondo's Cartouche and
many French costume films of the period, La Tulipe noire is very tongue-
in-cheek) and swashbuckling scenes distract the spectator from a purely
contemplative look at the male star.
On the other hand are films which simply narrativize Delon's beauty.
In the two Visconti films, Rocco e i suoi fratelli and // gattopardo, Delon is
pure object of desire, for men and women alike. The camera sculpts his
face with lighting and camera angles in the black-and-white Rocco. One
of the last shots of the film is emblematic: Rocco's younger brother
caresses Delon's face on a poster for the boxing match he has just won.15
A typical Delon pose, echoed in many other films and in stills, is of his
face bent down but looking up, three-quarters to the camera, bringing
out both cheek-bones and pale blue eyes. Delon is often shot in profile,
his short straight nose and a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead
defining a boyish identity. Delon notes that his hairstyle was widely
imitated in Japan, as part of his cult following: 'I am a sort of masculine
ideal, that is why I have seen Japanese men dressed like me, with hair like
mine' (indeed Melville said that he thought of Delon when writing Le
Samourai, because he found 'there was something Japanese about him').16
In // gattopardo, colour and costume add to his visual splendour, and
fetishize him at least as much as the female lead played by Claudia
Cardinale — there are indeed few more ravishing screen couples. The
dialogue reinforces his desirability, as the Prince (Burt Lancaster) keeps
pointing it out. In some films, Delon's characters border on the gigolo:
Faibles femmes, Plein soleil, Les Felins (1964), La Piscine (1969). In all of
them, women's desire for him is expressed through point-of-view shots.
Intense use is made of frames within frames and reflections in mirrors to
enshrine his face and body in repeated mise-en-abymes. The self-
consciousness and narcissism inherent in Delon are mocked by Brigitte
Bardot, who claims in her autobiography that in their episodes together
in Les Amours celebres (1961) and Histoires extmordinaires (1968), 'Alain
never looked at me during love scenes, instead he looked at the spotlight
behind me intended to bring out his blue eyes' (Bardot, 1996, p. 297).
Petty rivalry among stars or a sign that such visual treatment of a man is
troublesome? In any case, the popular success of Delon's early films
shows that this erotic male display was widely pleasurable and
acceptable to a mainstream audience.
One indirect reason for this is historical, since the young Delon's face
and body are strongly linked to the glamorous new world of 1960s
consumerism. His characters desire commodities (money, cars, parties,
women), while he himself metonymically signifies them. While this is
also true of Belmondo, Delon's case is more akin to Bardot, because of
his more blatant visual and narrative objectification - literally in the
recurrent gigolo theme. His first appearance in Les Felins is in an open-
top sports car with two women: one of them asks, 'Do you love me?', to
which he replies, 'I love your car.' This brief exchange announces the
main narrative, in which Delon is both the object of desire of two rich
American women (Lola Albright and Jane Fonda) and desiring their
wealth. Significantly, several of Delon's key 1960s films - Pkin soleil, Les
Felins, Melodie en sous-sol, La Piscine - are set on the Mediterranean coast,
giving him the opportunity to show himself off in glamorous
surroundings. The opening of La Piscine is a long tracking shot of
Delon in a swimsuit, lying by the side of the pool, hedonistically
pouring a drink into his mouth. At the beginning of Melodie en sous-sol,
the older Gabin returns home after five years in jail and finds France
changed beyond recognition. Delon, his acolyte for a last heist, is the
embodiment of the new mores. Our first view of him is of his legs and
feet beating time to a jazz tune. He wears sporty clothes and has a
cigarette permanently dangling from his mouth. In Cannes, where the
two plan to rob the casino, Delon lounges by the poolside, the object of
admiring gazes. He cruises along the sea front in a sports car, in white
trousers and shirt and dark glasses, his signature lock of hair flopping on
his forehead. He is pure commodity, an advertisement for a lifestyle'.
But where Melodie en sous-sol is celebratory, Plein soleil, Les Felins,
L'Edisse and La Piscine add to Delon's image a layer of cruelty, even
sadism. As Magny says, 'By choosing to play Ripley [instead of the
other male character, as initially planned], Delon fixes his image for the
first time: a fundamental ambiguity between angelic beauty and
nonchalance and a layer of malevolent cynicism' (Cinematheque
Francaise, 1996, p. 20). In L'Edisse, Delon is an opportunistic stockbroker
who cares neither about his clients' ruin nor about the anxieties of the
heroine (Monica Vitti). In La Piscine, he murders a drunken and sleepy
Maurice Ronet by coldly pushing him down into the swimming pool,
almost as an afterthought. The William Wilson episode in Histoires
extraordinaires is based on the extreme cruelty of his character towards
women. The association of Delon's beauty with sadism is so recurrent
that the conclusion is inescapable: it is his beauty itself, in its excess,
which is cruel.
As with the femme fatale of film noir, Delon's cruel beauty is deadly to
those around him and often to himself. Claudia Cardinale offers a
perceptive reading of its power: 'His beauty resided in his clear and
malevolent look, in his nervous energy, but it also incorporated his
biting irony. He was sure of himself, of his beauty, of his charm, and
above all of his sexual power' (in Haymann, 1998, p. 130). The
misogyny implicit in this figure is evident from the beginning, not only in
his callous treatment of women in Plein soleil, Melodie en sous-sol and Les
Felins but also in the narrative centrality he is given compared to the
women. Unlike the femrne fatale, he is both object of the gaze and
narrative agent. One prominent visual trope, found in many films, shows
him turning suddenly to face the camera, usually framed in a doorway or
window: the high-voltage flash of blue eyes, the commanding presence
combine with the framing and the close-up to condense the subject/
object duality inherent in his star persona. This configuration is magnified
in two very interesting films Delon made with Simone Signoret. In La
Veuve Couderc (1971), Delon is a criminal on the run who brings love but
also death to the older woman (Signoret) who shelters him, before he is
himself killed by the police. As actors, Delon and Signoret form a
powerful team: Signoret is one of the few female stars to appear in a
strong role opposite Delon. However, as characters, his beauty and
power of seduction underline the loss of hers. The alterations made to the
Georges Simenon story on which the film is based also significantly
enhance his character: the film transforms a rich drop-out's petty crime
into a political one and erases his ignominious murder of her at the end,
to replace it with his tragic death. Les Granges brulees (1973), a less
successful repeat of the stars' pairing, reiterates a similar scenario. Delon
plays an investigating magistrate conducting an enquiry among a peasant
family of whom Signoret is the matriarch. Although this time there is no
sexual relation between them, the underlying dynamic is the same.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Delon's films showed his beauty to be
ambivalent but a source of power. Where the spectacle of the femme fatale
is usually opposed to the male hero's narrative drive, in Delon's case
spectacle and narrative overlapped. As he moved into his mature period,
Delon's image solidified into a new register: the hard cop or gangster
who is also a fragile male. From a sign of insolent power and triumphant
commodity, his beauty becomes both his armour and his tragedy.
Le Samourai' and after: melancholy masculinity
From Melodie en sous-sol and especially the extraordinary Le Samourai,

Delon developed an association with crime, as gangster or, with
Plate 18 Le Samourai' (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967): Alain Delon, 'melancholy

masculinity'.
virtually no change in appearance or performance, as flic (cop). From the

late 1960s, Delon's most popular films were thrillers (Le Clan des Siciliens,
Borsalino, Le Cercle rouge), and, indeed, the word flic in his film titles
seemed to guarantee box-office success - for the period 1980—93, his
top two box-office successes are Pour la peau d'un flic (1981) and Parole de
flic (1985).I7 The emergence of Delon's high visibility as a gangster or
flic also coincided with the Markovic scandal.
Between the release of Le Samourai and the making of Le Cercle rouge,
Delon was publicly embroiled in what became known as the Markovic
affair. Markovic, a Yugoslav with a criminal record who worked as
Delon's secretary and lighting stand-in, was found dead on 1 October
1968. Although the murder was never solved, Markovic's death brought
suspicion on Delon by highlighting his links with criminals such as
Markovic and retired Corsican mafioso Antoine Marcantoni. Markovic
was supposedly implicated in blackmail and in organizing sex orgies for
high-ranking personalities, among them allegedly Claude Pompidou,
wife of the future President of the Republic. The brilliant Melville

trilogy, set in affluent bourgeois nightclubs and with gangsters who look
like, and mix with, grands bourgeois and business executives, uncannily
echoed events in the star's life. On screen, as gangster or cop, he was
cold, restrained, sparing with facial and bodily movement. By contrast
with Belmondo, who externalized his masculinity through movement,
Delon internalized his. The contrast is clear in Borsalino, for instance, in
the scene which brings the two stars together: Belmondo is playing
billiards and fooling around when Delon appears as a silhouette through
the cafe window. It is as if his beauty and presence were enough to
signify his gangster identity as well as his virility. His appearance, his
beauty, act as an armour and a spectacle sufficient to inspire awe. Colin
McArthur, quoting Antonioni, talks of Delon's 'harsh, pitiless face' in Le
Samourai' (McArthur, 1972, p. 170). To take one more example, in Flic
story, the climactic scene in which Delon arrests the dangerous criminal
he has been hunting throughout the film (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is
played out entirely through gazes exchanged across a country
restaurant. At the end, Delon collars Trintignant with hardly any
movement. Delon's minimalist performance in the criminal register is
clearly indebted to Gabin, but his more blatant objectification by the
camera and the history of his 1960s films evoked earlier conspire to send
the spectator back to his beauty as spectacle in and for itself.
Among Delon's gangster films of the late 1960s, the tour de force of Le
Samourai was also pivotal in inflecting his minimalist performance and
cool persona towards fetishistic control on the one hand and melancholy
on the other. Jef Costello (Delon) is a hermetic contract killer who
conducts his business in single-minded silence. A job which goes wrong
leads to his death, but the spectator is invited by Melville's pared-down
mise-en-scene to view his doomed trajectory as existential rather than
generic. Jef is a loner who lives in a grey room where the only life is a
bird in a cage. Central to his character are narcissistic rituals, especially
those involving clothing. As Stella Bruzzi has pointed out, Jef's
crumbling identity is signalled by the disintegration of his clothes
(Bruzzi, 1997, p. 79). Before leaving home, Jef slowly assembles his
mythical gangster gear: gun, trenchcoat and hat, checking himself in the
mirror while running his fingers along the rim of his hat (a gesture
reprised in Borsalino). The obsessive, steely beauty of the film is
inseparable from Delon's smooth face and metallic blue eyes, the
dominant cool blue-and-green colour scheme of the film seemingly
meant to match Delon's eyes. Le Samourai built on Delon's 'cruel beauty'
discussed above, and enhanced it in the direction of a lonely, doomed
hero who reappears in Le Cercle rouge and Un flic and inflects his
subsequent persona.
Melville's mise-en-scene, which coolly observes gestures and objects,
has been characterized by Colin McArthur as 'cinema of process'
(McArthur, 2000, pp. 189-201). In Le Samourai, it acts as both support
to and expression of Delon's masculinity, which combines animal
strength and control. From its title and (invented) opening proverb, Le
Samourai spins the metaphor of Delon as lone wolf. The analogy with
beautiful but dangerous animals, compounded by Jef's silence, meshed
with Delon's established image: his beauty and ruthlessness, his physical
fitness. This 'lone wolf is both agent and victim. Le Cercle rouge shows
him bonding with other gangsters (Gian Maria Volonte and Yves
Montand), but the message is man's loneliness. Un flic ends on his face,
over which plays a song: 'Each of Us Is Alone'. Delon 'authenticates' this
aspect of his persona by stressing in interviews that he has been 'lonely
all [his] life',18 clearly a subjective rather than objective statement. His
character in Le Samourai makes sense ultimately because of the
singularity of the star. In the police identity parade, a man (played by
director Michel Boisrond, who gave Delon his first leading part in Faibles
femmes) recognizes Jef among a group of 'ordinary' men, despite his
clothes having been altered by the police.
Jef is an impassive, sad hero who never smiles. His 'liquid' blue eyes,
seemingly always on the verge of tears as if to spell out vulnerability,
are first seen through the wet windscreen of the Citroen DS he is
stealing. In Le Samourai' and other films (for instance, Deux hommes dans
la ville), Delon is frequently shot behind windows or bars, a prisoner
confined to an existential jail. In this way, Delon, through his looks and
performance, transforms ruthless contract killers and lonely cops into
tragic heroes. His melancholy and 'autistic' masculinity is clearly
misanthropist and misogynist. The only characters his heroes can bond
with are other men - Volonte in Le Cercle rouge, Trintignant in Flic
story, Gabin in Deux hommes dans la ville - a bond nevertheless destined
to self-destruct. Delon's masculinity, like Depardieu's, is thus in the
Gabin paradigm in appropriating 'feminine' vulnerability into his virile

persona. This elevates ruthless gangsters or cops to universal figures,
like Gabin in Pepe k Moko (Vincendeau, 1998). But where Gabin rose
above the hoodlum in the name of a mythical pre-war community,
Delon's melancholy man is the product of post-war individualism.
While Gabin exuded a class identity which bonded him to a working-
class audience, Delon's image was a middle-class one, albeit with mass
appeal.
Delon's late-1980s and 1990s films saw a loss of popularity at the
box-office as well as a transformation in his image. All ageing stars carry
the memory of their younger glory, but with very beautiful stars the
process is particularly poignant. This is true for Catherine Deneuve (see
Chapter 8) but also for Delon. Swann in Love, Notre histoire and Nouvelle
vague are revealing in their depiction of the demise of Delon's beauty. In
Swann in Love, Delon is miscast as the Baron de Charlus in the sense that
he is much better looking than Proust's character (he is made to look like
Robert de Montesquieu, one of the real-life models for Charlus). His
excessive make-up, visibly dyed hair and nasal voice, his camp gestures,
shock as a departure from his usual looks and minimalist performance.
Notre histoire shows him as 'still not bad', as Nathalie Baye's character
puts it, but emphasizes through harsh lighting the lines, the bags under
the eyes. The plot, which constructs him as unable to seduce, only makes
sense, at times comically, in relation to his star persona as seducer (Le
Retour de Casanova, for which Delon, Robert de Niro style, put on
weight,19 concerns the decline of his body as well as face).
Nouvelle vague filters this process through Godard's typical use of
mainstream stars. As with Eddie Constantine in Alphaville and Bardot in
Le Mepris (see Chapter 4), Godard takes up Delon at the point when his
mainstream career is in decline. This enables him to 'quote' the star
through his literal presence, as well as reflect on his image. Nouvelle
vague introduces Delon as a sad, unshaven figure, despite being the
owner of a large property on the banks of Lake Geneva. His character's
trajectory seems more motivated by references to Delon the star than by
events in the (obscure) plot. Scenes of Delon swimming and almost
drowning evoke Plein soleil and La Piscine, while his appearance towards
the end in a black suit and with slicked-back hair refers back to his
gangster//7/c image. It is fitting that Belmondo's 'career summary' film is
Itineraire d'un enfant gate, an extravagant epic in Lelouch's overblown

style, while Delon's is Godard's cerebral and minimalist reflection on the
star in Nouvelle vague, line chance sur deux brings the two stars together,
but Itineraire d'un enfant gate and Nouvelle vague are more revealing of
their contrasting representations of masculinity and of their respective
audience appeal.
The virile icons of the frenfe g/or/euses
From the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, Belmondo and Delon were two
of the most prominent manifestations of French screen virility. In many
ways, the two stars were unlike each other. They used their faces and
bodies in strikingly different ways: Belmondo smiled a lot, Delon didn't;
Belmondo moved a lot, Delon went for minimalist composure;
Belmondo evolved towards the rugged adventurer, Delon towards the
cool gangster. Borsalino, which brings the two stars together at the
height of their mid-careers, is structured around this opposition, notably
in their clothing: to Belmondo's line of soft caps and sporty clothes,
mostly in brown, are opposed Delon's sharp suits and fedora hats in
shades of black and grey (despite the film title, a borsalino being a kind of
hat, Belmondo wears one only once in the film). While Belmondo's
romantic relationships are presented comically, Delon is shown as
suffering from unrequited love. Thus, although it is Belmondo who is
shot at the end of the film, Borsalino is emblematic of how the two stars
embodied the opposite poles of screen masculinity — comic exaggeration
on the one hand, melancholy internalization on the other — analysed by
Richard Dyer and Yvonne Tasker in the Hollywood context (Tasker,
1993, p. 111). These parallel and yet differentiated representations of
masculinity were clearly internalized by the audience: Delon's 1976 film,
Le Gang, in which he plays with a conscious imitation of Belmondo
(smiles around cigars, physical stunts, humour) failed at the box-office.
Belmondo and Delon's critical trajectories also went in very different
directions: while Belmondo emerged with the New Wave and then
moved to popular cinema, Delon bypassed the New Wave (appearing
instead in Italian art films) and achieved success in French genre films,
but moved back towards French auteur film in the latter part of his
career. Yet both shared fundamental similarities which legitimate

bracketing them as the last truly popular stars of French mainstream
cinema. In the French public cinematic space, they acted as alter-ego to
each other, as flip sides of the same coin. Those who saw 'the latest
Belmondo' also saw 'the latest Delon'. Belmondo and Delon as stars
were the product of a specific historical conjuncture. Their joint novelty
was to put the eroticized male face and male body at the centre of the
frame. In this they were the screen manifestation of important
developments which took place during their period of high stardom,
the 1960s and 1970s. These changes were first of all technological: the
move to wide-screen, colour and location shooting demanded new types
of performances for which, as we have seen, both stars' youthful bodies
were perfectly suited. True, male stars such as Jean Marais, Gerard
Philipe and Henri Vidal had offered overt male erotic displays since the
late 1940s. However, they did so in distinctly non-realist genres: the
swashbuckler for Marais and Philipe, the Italian peplum for Vidal. Delon
and Belmondo's originality was to offer male erotic display in
recognizable, contemporary settings, clothes and situations. It is telling
that in Borsalino, set in Marseilles and with one key scene on the beach,
the only two characters shown in bathing suits are Belmondo and Delon.
This male display, in turn, was possible because of changing lifestyles.
The move to a consumer and leisure society and the rise of tourism
which accompanied the French 'economic miracle' of the post-war period
(the so-called trente glorieuses) provided motivations for the films to
display 'modern' locations, objects and behaviours. When they emerged
in the early 1960s, Delon and Belmondo epitomized a type of young
man popularly referred to as the minet. Inspired by British mods and
Italian fashion rather than American screen models, the minet was well
dressed and boyish: The minet is highly conformist and sensualist ... his
raison d'etre is the infantile pleasure provided by the consumption of the
light-hearted and pleasurable things in life: holidays in the sun, flirting,
colour films, new sun-glasses' (Obalk et al, 1984, pp. 152—3). In this
respect, the two key films of Belmondo and Delon's early careers as
mainstream French stars are, respectively, L'Homme de Rio and Plein soleil
(rather than the more critically acclaimed Pierrot le fou and Rocco), not
only because they were popular at the box-office but also because they
showed the two stars to be associated with the commodities they desire
Plate 19 Borsalino (Jacques Deray, 1970): Belmondo (left) and Delon (centre)
together.
as characters — foregrounding their status as objects of desire rather than

figures of identification: in these films, Belmondo clowns around while
Delon is a criminal. Both are somewhat cynical and promiscuous figures,
in line with what Antoine de Baecque has called the 'Sagan tendency' in
late 1950s/early 1960s youth culture — a generation bereft of political
commitment and enamoured with hedonistic consumption (de Baecque,
1998). In this respect, the success of Belmondo and Delon's star personas
corresponds to a shift from spectatorial identification with a 'subject' (on
the Gabin model) to spectatorial desire for a commodity: a face, a body,
locations, consumer goods.
From the late 1960s, Belmondo and Delon's characters 'hardened' into
gangsters, policemen and tough adventurers. European and American
cinema of the 1970s documented how crime infiltrated the upper
echelons of society, increasingly blurring the borders between law and
lawlessness. Delon in Flic story and Belmondo in Le Marginal, to take two
examples, are policemen with clear sympathies for criminals, who do not
hesitate to adopt criminal methods. This kind of moral ambivalence had
been a feature of French thrillers before, as shown in Cabin's later career.
What was new was the increased individualism of the characters on the
one hand and their more explicitly bourgeois identity on the other. This
was the way Delon and Belmondo distinguished themselves from the
'soft' ethos of the 1970s, which saw a decline in the traditional, tough,
manual jobs normally undertaken by men, and a softening of shapes,
clothes and objects. Just as 'the briefcase re-introduced rigidity in a soft
universe, the gun did so in the policier world' (Obalk et al, 1984, pp. 42-
3). Thus, whereas the young Depardieu emerged from within the 1970s
ethos and moulded his representation of masculinity to the new mores
(see Chapter 9), Delon and Belmondo pursued the logical trajectory of
their younger consumerist heroes into figures of opposition to the new
values. At the risk of anthropomorphism, where their young bodies had
been in tune with modernity in the 1960s, their more mature and solid
figures in the 1970s and 1980s aligned themselves with an embattled
conservatism, losing critical respect but keeping their mainstream
audience. The two stars' attitude to politics off screen, which was either
resolutely 'apolitical' (Belmondo) or clearly sympathetic to the right or
far right (Delon), reinforced their conservative screen image.20
As time went on, they also displayed continuity with a longer pattern
of dominant French screen masculinity, by fitting in the Gabin paradigm.
This worked by direct association with the older star in a few films, by
incorporating 'feminine' vulnerability in macho and essentially misogyn-
ist figures and, when they reached middle age, by fitting into the father-
daughter pattern, whereby they acted as sexual and paternal partners to
young women (see Chapter 3). Thus, we can understand their appeal to a
wide audience, even though they portrayed somewhat cynical and
asocial figures. But their popularity reached further. Belmondo and
Delon, along with de Funes, represent the end of an era of French
cinema. Both stars addressed the last of the consensual French family
audience in the final period of French cinema's systematic dominance of
the national box-office. The repetitiveness of their parts, which critics
deplored (Predal's accusation of 'the same type of adventures, endlessly
repeated, as if on a loop') precisely evoked a familiarity on a par with
earlier stars of classical cinema (Gabin, Fernandel, Bourvil). They
achieved this not through class identification as Gabin, Fernandel and
Bourvil had, but by difference.
First of all, difference from the male heroes of 'intellectual' cinema, to
which they provided young and sexy alternatives (Belmondo having
initially achieved the perfect amalgam between the two in A bout de

souffle and Pierrot le /DM). Against the cerebral heroes played by Leaud,
Jean-Claude Brialy, Sami Frey, their screen masculinity was physical,
whether externalized (Belmondo) or internalized (Delon). Their star
persona proposed heroes (albeit cynical ones) in the context of a post-war
modernist culture (the theatre of the absurd, the new novel, auteur
cinema) which deeply undermined the concept of heroism. As the fan
magazine Cine-revue put it, post-war cinema denied its audience an
oneiric dimension: The audience does not dream any more because the
stories they are presented with are ultra-realistic: social films, intellectual
films, modern studies of society, such are the usual components of most
films.'21 Hence the two stars' normal habitat was the thriller, the
adventure film, and especially for Belmondo, comedy (Belmondo's
presence in comedies as well as thrillers, as opposed to Delon's
overwhelmingly dramatic register, accounts for the former's higher
scores overall at the box-office).22
Second, they offered difference from sexually explicit cinema while
being erotic figures. The period in which they emerged saw the
loosening of taboos in society and on screen. In the 1960s the new
mores enabled Delon and Belmondo to portray individuals unfettered by
traditional morality, and in sexually explicit relationships: see Belmondo
in A bout de souffle, Delon in La Piscine. Interestingly though, despite the
abolition of censorship in the early 1970s and the rise of graphic sexual
representions, Belmondo and Delon stayed within relatively chaste
genres, thus still addressing a family audience. Comic actors like de
Funes and Bourvil were the opposite of sex, but Delon and Belmondo
provided 'sex' for a family audience.
Third, they offered a valorizing difference from American cinema.
Although clearly they and their films interacted with American cinema,
both Delon and Belmondo cut distinctly French figures, in their
language, gestures, names and in the preoccupations of their films. Their
prestige for both home and international audience (for instance,
Belmondo in Russia, Delon in the Far East) derived from that difference
(Belmondo eschewed a Hollywood career altogether, and Delon's brief
attempts were unsuccessful — see Chapter 1).
At the time of the release of Belmondo's L'Animal in 1977, a polemic

arose around the perceived worthlessness of French mainstream
cinema and the excessive power of stars. One critic asked, 'Have
Belmondo, Delon, de Funes killed French cinema?' (Strazzulla and
Leduc, 1996, p. 141). Since L'Animal sold over three million tickets in
France, the question was obviously rhetorical. With hindsight, it is
clear that Belmondo and Delon (as well as de Funes — see Chapter 6)
did not 'kill' French cinema but rather, for over two decades,
significantly contributed to the survival of its home market. Films like
Borsalino, Le Clan des Siciliens, Le Cercle rouge, Le Professionnel, L'As des
as achieved box-office audiences of over 800,000 spectators on their
first release in the Paris region alone. The film press treated the release
of a new Belmondo or a new Delon as an event; for instance, Premiere
described the release of Delon's Le Toubib (1979) as The filmic event
of the month', while Telerama saluted Belmondo's Le Marginal (1983)
thus: This week, Le Marginal comes out. If you don't know, your anti-
nuclear shelter must be well insulated.'23 This, as well as the fact that
both Belmondo and Delon have been very vocal in their defence of
French cinema,24 makes the fact that neither star was invited to the
Cannes festival fiftieth anniversary in 1997 seem all the more
ungrateful. Like the remark quoted above about French stars 'killing'
French cinema, the Cannes snub illustrates the endemic dislike of
French popular genre films among French critics. However self-
serving, the two stars' arguments about the symbiosis between
mainstream and auteur cinema are nevertheless true: without
Belmondo and Delon, we would not have had L'Animal and Le Gang,
which may not have been a huge loss, but nor would, among others,
Pierrot le fou and Mr Klein been made. To argue this, of course, is to
fall into the elitist trap of assuming the popular films have to be
endured only because they help produce auteur masterpieces. Many of
Belmondo's and Delon's popular movies are not dependent on such
faint praise - they are excellent genre films - while some, for instance
those of Melville, transcend the mainstream—auteur division anyway.
The point is that both stars offered to the audiences of all their films
the potent pleasures of glamour, desire, identity and talent. As
Melville put it, 'My films are better with stars than without.' 25
Biofilmographies
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Born Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1933. Married Renee (Elodie) Constant (from 1953 to

1966), with whom three children: Patricia (1954—93), Florence (bom 1959) and
Paul (born 1965).
Main acting awards
Etoile de Cristal de 1'Academie du Cinema, Best Actor, A bout de souffle,

1961
Cesar, Best Actor, Itineraire d'un enfant gate, 1989
Films as actor
1954 Moliere [short] (Norbert Tildian)

1957 Les Copains du dimanche [Demain nous volerons] (Henri Aisner)
A pied, a cheval et en voiture (Maurice Delbez)
1958 Charlotte et son Jules [short] (Jean-Luc Godard)
Sois belle et tais-toi/Blonde for Danger (Marc Allegret)
Les Tricheurs/The Cheaters (Marcel Carne, France/Italy)
Un drole de dimanche (Marc Allegret)
1959 Mademoiselle Ange [Ein Engel auf Erden] (Geza Radvanyi,
Germany/France)
A double tour/Web of Passion [A doppia mandata] (Claude Chabrol,
France/Italy)
1960 A bout de souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
Classe tous risques/The Big Risk (Claude Sautet, France/Italy)
Moderato Cantabile/Seven Days ... Seven Nights (Peter Brook)
La Francaise et I'amour/Love and the Frenchwoman [ep. 'L'Adultere']
(Henri Verneuil)
Les Distractions/Trapped by Fear (Jacques Dupont, France/Italy)
Lettere di una novizia [La novice] (Alberto Lattuada, Italy/France)
La ciociara/Two Women (Vittoria De Sica, Italy/France)
1961 La Chasse aux vedettes [short] (Camille Chatelot)
La viaccia/The Love Makers (Mauro Bolognini, Italy/France)
line femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc

Godard)
Leon Morin, pretre/Leon Morin, Priest (Jean-Pierre Melville, France/
Italy)
Les Amours celebres [ep. 'Lauzun'] (Michel Boisrond, France/Italy)
Un nomme La Rocca (Jean Becker, France/Italy)
1962 Cartouche/Swords of Blood (Philippe de Broca, France/Italy)
Un singe en hiver/A Monkey in Winter (Henri Verneuil)
1963 Le Doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville, France/Italy)
Mare matto [La Mer a boire] (Renato Castellani, Italy/France)
Dragees au poivre/Sweet and Sour (Jacques Baratier, France/Italy)
L'Aine des Ferchaux [Un jeune homme honorable] (Jean-Pierre
Melville, France/Italy)
Peau de banane (Marcel Ophiils, France/Italy)
1964 L'Homme de Rio [L'uomo di Rio] (Philippe de Broca, France/Italy)
Cent mille dollars au soldi (Henri Verneuil, France/Italy)
Echappement libre/Backfire (Jean Becker, France/Italy/Spain)
La Chasse a I'homme/The Gentle Art of Seduction (Edouard
Molinaro, France/Italy)
Week-end a Zuydcoote/Weekend at Dunkirk (Henri Verneuil,
France/Italy)
1965 Par un beau matin d'ete [Rapina al sole] (Jacques Deray, France/
Spain/Italy)
Jean-Paul Belmondo [short] (Claude Lelouch)
Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, France/Italy)
Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Up to His Ears (Philippe
de Broca, France/Italy)
1966 Tendre voyou (Jean Becker, France/Italy)
Paris brule-t-il?/Is Paris Burning? (Rene Clement)
La Bande a Bebel [short; unreleased] (Charles Gerard)
1967 Le Voleur/The Thief of Paris (Louis Malle, France/Italy)
Casino Royale (John Huston, UK)
1968 Ho!7Ho! Criminal Face (Robert Enrico, France/Italy)
1969 Le Cerveau/The Brain (Gerard Oury, France/Italy)
La Sirene du Mississipi/Mississippi Mermaid (Francois Truffaut,
France/Italy)
Un homme qui me plait/A Man I Love (Claude Lelouch, France/Italy)
1970 Borsalino (Jacques Deray, France/Italy)

1971 Les Maries de I'an II/The Scoundrel (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France/
Italy/Romania)
Le Casse/The Burglars (Henri Verneuil, France/Italy)
1972 Docteur Popaul [Trappoli per lupi] (Claude Chabrol, France/Italy)
La Scoumoune/Hit Man (Jose Giovanni, France/Italy)
1973 L'Heritier/The Inheritor (Philippe Labro, France/Italy)
Le Magnifique/How to Destroy the Reputation of the Greatest Secret
Agent (Philippe de Broca, France/Italy)
1974 Stavisky (Alain Resnais)
T'es fou Marcel (Hommage irrespectueux comme tous les hommages)
[short] (Jean Rochefort)
1975 Peur sur la ville/Fear on the City (Henri Verneuil, France/Italy)
L'Incorrigible (Philippe de Broca)
1976 L'Alpagueur/The Predator (Philippe Labro)
Le Corps de mon ennemi/ The Body of Mine Emmy (Henri Verneuil)
1977 L'Animal (Claude Zidi)
1979 Flic ou voyou?/Cop or Hood? (Georges Lautner)
1980 Le Guignolo [II piccione di piazza San Marco] (Georges Lautner,
France/Italy)
1981 Le Professionnel/The Professional (Georges Lautner)
L'As des as [Das As der Asse] (Georges Oury, France/Germany)
1983 Le Marginal/The Outsider (Jacques Deray)
1984 Les Morfalous/The Vultures (Henri Verneuil, France/Tunisia)
Joyeuses Pdques/Happy Easter (Georges Lautner)
1985 Hold-up/Quick Chance (Alexandre Arcady, Canada/France)
1986 Les Pros [short] (Florence Moncorge-Gabin)
1987 Le Solitaire/The Loner (Jacques Deray)
1988 Itineraire d'un enfant gate/Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (Claude Lelouch)
1993 L'Inconnu dans la maison [Les Inconnus dans la maison] (Georges
Lautner)
1995 Les Miserables [Les Miserables du XXe siecle] (Claude Lelouch)
Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinema (Agnes Varda, France/UK)
1996 Desire (Bernard Murat)
1998 Une chance sur deux (Patrice Leconte)
Peut-etre (Cedric Klapisch)
Alain Delon
Born Sceaux, near Paris, 8 November 1935. Married Francine Canovas

(Nathalie Delon) (1964; divorced 1969, with whom one son, Anthony, born
1964). One son with Nico, Christian Aaron Boulogne. With Rosalie van
Breemen, one daughter, Anouchka, born 1990, and one son, Alain-Fabien, born
1994.
Main acting awards
Etoile de Cristal de 1'Academic du Cinema, Quelle joie de vivre, 1962

Cesar, Best Actor, Notre histoire, 1984
Films as actor
1957 Quand la femme sen mele (Yves Allegret)

1958 Sois belle et tais-toi/Blonde for Danger (Marc Allegret)
Christine (Pierre Gaspard-Huit, France/Italy)
1959 Le Chemin des ecoliers (Michel Boisrond)
Faibles femmes (Michel Boisrond, France/Italy)
1960 Plein soleil/Purple Noon (Rene Clement, France/Italy)
Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti,
Italy/France)
1961 Les Amours celebres [ep. 'Agnes Bernauer'] (Michel Boisrond,
France/Italy)
Che gioia vivere [Quelle joie de vivre] (Rene Clement, Italy/France)
1962 Le Diable et les dix commandements/The Devil and the Ten
Commandments (Julien Duvivier, France/Italy)
L'Eclisse/The Eclipse (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy/France)
1963 // gattopardo/ The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, Italy/France)
Melodie en sous-sol/Any Number Can Win (Henri Verneuil, France/
Italy)
1964 La Tulipe noire/The Black Tulip (Christian-Jaque, France/Italy/
Spain)
Les Felins/Joy House (Rene Clement)
LTnsoumis (Alain Cavalier, France/Italy)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (Anthony Asquith, UK)
1965 Once a Thief [Les Tueurs de San Francisco] (Ralph Nelson, USA)
1966 Les Aventuriers/Last Adventure (Robert Enrico, France/Italy)
Lost Command [Les Centurions] (Mark Robson, USA)
Texas across the River (Michael Gordon, USA)
Paris brule-t-il?/Is Paris Burning? (Rene Clement)
1967 Le Samourai' (Jean-Pierre Melville, France/Italy)
Diaboliquement votre/Diabolically Yours (Julien Duvivier, France/
Italy)
1968 Histoires extraordinaires [ep. 'William Wilson'] (Louis Malle,
France/Italy)
Adieu I'ami (Jean Herman, France/Italy)
The Girl on a Motorcycle [La Motocyclette] (Jack Cardiff, UK/
France)
Jeff (Jean Herman, France/Italy)
1969 Le Clan des Siciliens/The Sicilian Clan (Henri Verneuil)
La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (Jacques Deray, France/Italy)
1970 Borsalino (Jacques Deray, France/Italy)
Le Cercle rouge/The Red Circle (Jean-Pierre Melville, France/Italy)
Madly (Roger Kahane)
1971 Doucement les basses!/Easy Down There! (Jacques Deray)
Red Sun [Soleil rouge] (Terence Young, France/Italy/Spain)
La Veuve Couderc/The Widow Couderc (Pierre Granier-Deferre,
France/Italy)
1972 L'Assassinat de Trotsky/The Assassination of Trotsky (Joseph Losey,
France/Italy)
iln flic/Dirty Money (Jean-Pierre Melville, France/Italy)
La prima notte di quiete/'Indian Summer [Le Professeur] (Valeric
Zurlini, Italy/France)
The Scorpio File/Scorpio (Michael Winner, USA)
1973 Deux hommes dans la ville/Two Men in Town (Jose Giovanni,
•France/Italy)
Les Granges brulees/The Investigator (Jean Chapot, France/Italy)
Big Guns/Les Grands Fusils (Duccio Tessari, France/Italy)
Traitement de choc/The Doctor in the Nude (Alain Jessua, France/
Italy)
1974 Borsalino & Co. (Jacques Deray, France/Italy/Germany)
La Race des seigneurs/Jet Set (Pierre Granier-Deferre)
Les Seins de glace/Someone Is Bleeding (Georges Lautner)

1975 Flic story/Cop Story (Jacques Deray, France/Italy)
Le Gitan/The Gipsy (Jose Giovanni, France/Italy)
Zorro (Duccio Tessari, France/Italy)
1976 Comme un boomerang/Like a Boomerang (Jose Giovanni, France/
Italy)
Le Gang (Jacques Deray, France/Italy)
Mr Klein (Joseph Losey, France/Italy)
1977 Armaguedon (Alain Jessua)
Attention, les enfants regardent/Attention, the Kids Are Watching
(Serge Leroy)
L'Homme presse/Man in a Hurry (Edouard Molinaro, France/Italy)
Mort d'un pourri/Death of a Corrupt Man (Georges Lautner)
1979 Airport '79 - Concorde (David Lowell Rich, USA)
Le Toubib (Pierre Granier-Deferre)
Trois hommes a abattre/Three Men to Destroy (Jacques Deray)
Teheran 4-3 (Alexandre Alov and Vladimir Naounov, USSR/
France)
1981 Pour la peau d'un flic/For a Cop's Hide (Alain Delon)
1982 Le Choc (Robin Davis)
Le Battant/The Fighter (Alain Delon)
1983 Un amour de Swann/Swann in Love (Volker Schlondorff, France/
Germany)
Notre histoire (Bertrand Blier)
1985 Parole de flic/Cop's Honour (Jose Pinheiro)
1986 Le Passage (Rene Manzor)
1987 Le Cinema dans les yeux [doc] (Gilles Jacob and Laurent Jacob)
1988 Ne reveillez pas un flic qui dort/Let Sleeping Cops Lie (Jose Pinheiro)
1990 Nouvelle vague (Jean-Luc Godard, France/Switzerland)
Dancing Machine (Gilles Behat, France/Spain)
1992 Le Retour de Casanova/Casanova's Return (Edouard Niermans)
1993 Un crime (Jacques Deray)
1994 L'Ours en peluche [Orso di peluche] (Jacques Deray, Italy/France/
Belgium)
1995 Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinema (Agnes Varda, France/UK)
1997 Le Jour et la nuit/Day and Night (Bernard-Henri Levy, France/
Canada)
1998 Une chance sur deux (Patrice Leconte)

1999 Luchino Visconti [doc] (Carlo Lizzani, Italy)
Notes
1. Le Film franpais, 4 September 1992, p. 19.

2. la PME Belmondo', Telemma, No. 1763, 26 October 1983.
3. Belmondo caused a serious accident while driving his car with Jeanne
Moreau's ten-year-old son, in 1960, during the shooting of Moderate
Cantabile.
4. For instance, in the 'interview fleuve', Premiere, No. 217, April 1995, p. 73.
5. Jean Wagner, 'Jean-Paul Belmondo et son my the', Cinema 63, No. 78, July/
August 1963, pp. 36-55.
6. Rene Predal, Trench star system', Cinema 74, December 1974, pp. 26—33.
7. Belmondo, 'interview fleuve', Premiere, No. 217.
8. Rene Clair, quoted in ibid., p. 68.
9. Although not all of them, as is sometimes alleged. Belmondo pays tribute
to Gil Delamare, a stuntman on his early films including L'Homme de Rio: 'I
have done some hard things, but compared to Delamare I was a novice.'
10. 'Systeme D' — in which 'D' stands for debrouillard, meaning cunning and
resourceful — refers to a penchant in French culture for cheating
institutions, moonlighting and generally erecting parallel systems to the
official channels.
11. Thierry Jousse and Serge Toubiana, 'Mystere Delon' (interview with Alain
Delon), Cahiers du cinema, No. 501, April 1996, p. 31.
12. Jean-Francois Rauger, 'Alain Delon, 1'unique et son double', Cahiers du
cinema, No. 501, April 1996, p. 33.
13. Cinemonde, \ August 1957 (quoted in Haymann, 1998, p. 34).
14. Donald Lyons, 'Purple noons and quiet evenings', Film Comment, Vol. 32,
No. 3, May/June 1996, pp. 80-3.
15. Interestingly, this picture figures on the cover of Sam Rohdie's (1992)
book on Rocco e i suoi fratelli, even though the book makes no mention of
Delon in the text.
16. Jousse and Toubiana, 'Mystere Delon', p. 31. Melville's reference to
Delon's 'Japanese' looks comes from an interview in a television
documentary, Profession: Star; Nationality: Francaise, directed by Jean
Quaratino, tx 1999.
17. Le Film francais, No. 2467, 13 August 1993, p. 2.
18. In Jousse and Toubiana, 'Mystere Delon', p. 24.
19. Ibid., p. 25.
20. Delon has explicitly stated right-wing allegiances and emigrated to
Switzerland with the advent of the Socialist government; he also showed
sympathy for Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the ultra-right Front National.

Belmondo has declared, 'I do not make and will never make films that are
politically committed to the right, the left or the centre', quoted in Philippe
(1996), p. 181.
21. Cine-revue, Vol. 61, No. 30, 23 July 1981, pp. 4-5.
22. Box-office figures for Belmondo for 1966—72 indicate an average number
of 472,774 tickets per film (Le Film franpais, No. 1429, 10 March 1972,
p. 10), compared to Delon's 399,138 for a similar period (Le Film franpais,
No. 1440, 12 May 1972, p. 4).
23. Premiere, No. 32, October 1979, p. 17; Telerama, No. 1763, p. 4.
24. Alain Delon, 'La France est colonisee par le cinema americain!', Cine-revue,
Vol. 59, No. 42, 18 October 1979, pp. 34-7.
25. From a television documentary on Melville, Portrait en neuf poses, directed
by Andre S. Labarthe (1966).
CHAPTER 8
Catherine Deneuve
From ice maiden to living divinity
In French town halls, two icons, one male and one female, symbolize the
nation-state: one is a photograph of the President, looking down in a
benignly patriarchal way; the other is a plaster bust of Marianne, the
effigy of the French Republic. Whereas the president's identity is self-
evident at any given moment, French mayors have a choice when it
comes to Marianne. They can order the 'traditional' model, a version
modelled on Brigitte Bardot, or, since October 1985, the Catherine
Deneuve model.1 Since her elevation to the status of 'face of a nation',2
Deneuve's reputation has continued to grow, and in the late 1990s, in
her fifties, she is more active than ever, challenging the rule that
beautiful female stars' careers decline in middle age.
Born in 1943, Deneuve has made over eighty feature films since she
began her career in the late 1950s, still in her teens. She established
herself as a major international star in the 1960s with three classics: Les
Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Repulsion (1965) and Belle de jour (1967).
These films popularized her stunning looks and set her star image as a
'cool' blonde. She then went on to star in many French films, and a few
other, notably Italian, international movies, but quite a lot of her parts —
as, for instance, in Un flic (1972) — became acts of symbolic presence
rather than leads, a little like Marianne in the town halls. It seemed that
by the mid-1970s, the prime of her stardom was over, and although she
T96
Catherine Deneuve 197
Plate 20 Belle de jour (Luis Bufiuel, 1967): Catherine Deneuve and Francis
Blanche. © Ministere de la Culture, France — Raymond Voinquel.
kept working, her filmography was somewhat duller. But then Le Dernier
metro in 1980 and The Hunger in 1983 again propelled her to the
forefront as a 'mature' female beauty. The crowning achievement of that
second period was Indochine in 1992. Deneuve has subsequently cast her
net increasingly wide, ranging in rapid succession from the tortured
heroines of Andre Techine in, for instance, Ma saison preferee (1993) and
Les Voleurs (1996), to the work of idiosyncratic auteurs such as Raul Ruiz,
Leos Carax and Philippe Garrel, to mainstream projects like Place
Vendome (1998) and Belle Maman (1999).
Through her abundant film work, but also through a range of other
activities such as official appearances at festivals, premieres and the like,
and the endorsement of French fashion and cosmetics (Chanel, Yves
Saint-Laurent), Deneuve has maintained a high-profile media presence
and added an aura of 'quality' to her early 'ice maiden' image. Her
popularity in late-1990s France cannot be overstated. She is admired,
loved and respected and celebrated as much by the popular as by the
specialist film press.3 When Jean-Pierre Bacri, one of her co-stars in Place
Vendome, expressed irritation at the deluge of reverential press coverage
of Deneuve in the film, his outburst that 'Deneuve is no living divinity'4
only pointed out, on the contrary, that if any contemporary French star
has attained the status of a 'divinity', it is Deneuve.
From sweet jeune fille to 'ice maiden'
For an international art cinema audience, Catherine Deneuve is likely to

evoke two things: French chic and 'perverse' sexuality. The first derives
from her association with Chanel and Saint-Laurent, the second from her
performances as the angel-faced schizophrenic murderess of Polanski's
Repulsion, and, especially, Severine, the shy bourgeois wife of Bunuel's
Belle de jour who spends her afternoons as a prostitute in a discreet but
luxurious Parisian brothel.
For the French, though, Deneuve started in a different mode. After a
few small parts with her sister Francoise Dorleac in light comedies like
Les Collegiennes (1957, when she was only fourteen) and Les Fortes
claquent (1960), she began her career proper as Virtue' in Vadim's Le Vice
et la vertu (1962, based on a novel by the Marquis de Sade), in which her
bouffant hairstyle reflected Vadim's attempt to clone her, after Annette
Stroyberg and before Jane Fonda, on Brigitte Bardot. But Deneuve did
not pursue the libertine line long, and her real breakthrough came with a
better hairstyle in a better film, Les Pampluies de Cherbourg, the first of
Jacques Demy's gloriously colourful musicals. Although internationally
Deneuve is associated with Polanski and Bunuel, at home she has paid
tribute to Demy's pivotal role in her career. Within the still repressive
sexual mores of early-1960s France, Deneuve triumphed as a sweet,
sexy-but-innocent and yet glamorous blonde, a persona solidified in two
other Demy films, the musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967) and the
costume fairy tale Peau d'ane (1970), as well as several light comedies
such as La Vie de chateau (1965).
Deneuve's glamour was a throwback to great Hollywood icons like
Greta Garbo and Grace Kelly, to both of whom she was often compared.
But that association, especially with Garbo, is also traceable to the aura
of aloofness and mystery maintained by Deneuve, from very early on,
through her firm protection of her private life. Deneuve has been helped
in this respect by French privacy laws (see Chapter 1), and she has
defended her right to privacy with compelling arguments (Manceaux,
1999, pp. 69—85). Nevertheless, her famous reluctance to give interviews
and, when she does, to stray beyond the strictly professional, became in
itself part of her star image. The perceived gap between the innocent
screen image of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg and Deneuve's 'scandalous'
private life — for instance, she had given birth to her illegimate son with
Roger Vadim three months before shooting Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
- reflected that between the two aspects of the Severine character in
Belle de jour - proper bourgeoise and prostitute - and reinforced her aura
of 'mystery'. In the 1990s, Deneuve's greater inclination to talk about
her children in interviews reflects the fact that, as adult actors, they have
both entered the public arena. Christian Vadim (born 1963) and Chiara
Mastroianni (born 1972) both appear with Deneuve in, among other
films, Le Temps retrouve (1999). She has also been highly visible
throughout the 1990s in women's magazines as the official face of Saint-
Laurent cosmetics, backed by features such as 'Beauty according to
Catherine Deneuve' and 'My Christmas in Saint Laurent'.5 But other
aspects of her private life, especially relationships, remain taboo, a fact
especially highlighted in Anglo-American interviews, in which the star's
reluctance to talk about them always becomes an issue.
Back in the early 1960s, Deneuve's aura of mystery also emerged
from her looks. It is worth pausing for a moment on the early Deneuve
image, first established in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. Her face is
characterized by translucent skin and smooth, yet well-defined, lines: a
short and straight nose, perfectly arched eyebrows, a full yet delicate
mouth and high cheek-bones attract lighting and sculpt a Garbo-like
face. Her make-up is discreet. The use of Deneuve's exquisite features to
portray sweet, submissive young femininity is manifest from her first
appearance in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. There, neatly framed by the
window of her mother's umbrella shop, she waves discreetly to her lover
waiting outside in the dark rainy street. This image describes the
trajectory of her character in the rest of the film and encapsulates one
key aspect of her star persona through most of the 1960s. She has
enough sexual drive to defy her mother and sleep with Guy (Nino
Castelnuovo), yet she lets herself be imprisoned in a loveless marriage
with the wealthy Roland Cassard (Marc Michel) when Guy seemingly
deserts her. Her ravishing beauty is the narrative motivation of the film,
yet she obediently (if tearfully) allows herself to be corralled back into
the fold. The defining hairstyle of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg draws her
hair back in a neat half pony-tail, or ties it with little coloured ribbons
that match her outfits; the overall effect is girlish (until the final scene
where, as a married woman, she sports a highly constructed hairdo).
Subsequently, her hairstyle went through a number of transformations:
through the thick but controlled locks of Belle dejour and the 1970s films,
to the structured short cut of the 1980s and early 1990s, and a return to
a longer style in the late 1990s. All, however, sweep the hair back from
her face, revealing and encasing her face, and her hair is, whatever the
style, carefully coiffed and lacquered, proclaiming the well-groomed
woman (the Marianne bust modelled on Deneuve equally sports
luxuriant but neat shoulder-length hair); filmmakers who have wished to
change her image have talked of 'messing up her hair'. The tinted
blondness of Deneuve's hair (early photographs show she is a brunette)
emphasizes connotations of sophisticated affluence, as opposed to
Bardot's sunbleached and untamed mane. Like her hair, Deneuve's
movements are graceful but controlled - compare her very sedate
mambo in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg and the charming ballet scenes of
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort with Bardot's frenzied sexual mambo in Li
Dieu ... crea la femme (1956).
The Deneuve visual image of the early 1960s was thus one of
smoothness and restraint, building up the persona of a well-behaved,
essentially bourgeois girl. In this respect, she contrasted strongly with
the two dominant models of femininity in late 1950s and early 1960s
cinema. On the one hand were the stars of the 1950s who projected
unfettered, 'natural' sexuality — Silvana Mangano, Sophia Loren, Gina
Lollobrigida, Brigitte Bardot - through their voluptuous curves and a
close association with nature. Against them, Deneuve appeared as a
woman whose sexuality was under wraps and under control, not a hair
out of place, and her body concealed under fashionable clothes, a
creature whose habitat was the salon rather than the hayfield or the
beach. For example, in La Vie de chateau, a comedy set during the
German occupation and in which she is the object of desire of most of
the male characters, the apex of her sexual display is to frolic around the
chateau in a pristine white nightdress. Her ordeal at the end of the film,
while the men are busy with D-day, is to wade through a lake, ruining
her tailored suit. On the other hand, Deneuve is also different from the
predominantly dark-haired New Wave actresses like Anouk Aimee,
Anna Karina and Jeanne Moreau, who embodied 'intellectual' versions of
French femininity (see Chapter 5). Her position half-way between these
two poles in terms of star persona is reflected in the type of films she
made: appearing neither in 'core' New Wave films nor in the popular
genre movies in which Bardot featured, Deneuve in the 1960s was the
star of the polished, 'crossover' auteur cinema of Demy and Bunuel,
addressing a relatively widespread art cinema audience.
Deneuve thus evolved a perfectly groomed and well-behaved image,
where impeccable clothes evoked an 'impeccable' personality (and where
her voice spoke of bourgeois propriety and control in her precise, almost
clipped, tones). In this respect, Deneuve continued the tradition of
elegant French actresses such as Michele Morgan, Edwige Feuillere,
Martine Carol and Danielle Darrieux (she was called 'the new Danielle
Darrieux' at the beginning of her career). But whereas in the 1950s these
actresses and their films (such as Adorables creatures [1952] and
Mannequins de Paris [1956]) celebrated women's fashions, in the 1960s,
Deneuve's clothes took on a more ambiguous role, particularly in auteur
cinema. Bunuel, especially, used her clothes as an index of bourgeois
repression, as part of his own ideological and aesthetic project. Belle de
jour, which marked the beginning of a long-standing partnership
between Deneuve and Saint-Laurent, fixed her image for many years to
come as the epitome of the chic bourgeoise. The Saint-Laurent clothes —
figure-hugging, tailored and cut just above the knee - included an
element of sexual display, but a controlled and, importantly, class-coded
one, which acted as a foil and screen to Severine's supposedly 'true'
sexuality. That was expressed in the film through both her seemingly
masochistic fantasies and her rough sexual encounters at the brothel. A
great deal of writing on Belle de jour has pondered where the division
between 'reality' and 'fantasy' in the film lay, but with feminist hindsight
both sides of the Severine figure appear equally fantastic. As Deneuve
said, clothes in Belle de jour, in their ultra-sophistication, 'brought an
almost surrealist aspect to the film'.6
Belle de jour truly turned Deneuve into an international star. Creating a
moment of perfect fit between performer, character and image, Bunuel's

film successfully combined two hitherto antagonistic personae in
Deneuve. On the one hand was the proper jeune fille of Les Parapluies
de Cherbourg, as discussed above, and on the other hand the
schizophrenic killer of Repulsion. Whereas both films exploited
Deneuve's angelic blonde looks to very different ends, Bunuel produced
a successful (that is to say, culturally believable) amalgam: that of the
ambiguous 'ice maiden' whose intimidating, cool beauty both covers and
suggests intense sexuality. The success of this 'cover up' aspect of
Deneuve's persona was reinforced by her naturalistically 'innocent'
performance style. One of the frequently recounted anecdotes of
Deneuve's professional life, and one she tells herself, is the fact that she
'fell into' acting 'by accident' without training, bringing her own voice
and set of gestures to her performance, thus establishing the all-
important value of authenticity. In this respect, Deneuve is similar to
Bardot, who also performed in film without training as an actor (and
both were criticized because 'they could not act'). For an art film, Belle de
jour was a box-office success, and the persona it established for Deneuve
endured, notably through Truffaut's La Sirene du Mississipi (1969),
Bunuel's Tristana (1970) and Marco Ferreri's Liza (1971), and, in a
subdued form, Le Dernier metro and Indochine.
Given her popularity at home and abroad, it is worth pondering the
appeal of the young Deneuve's star persona, beyond the obvious fact of
her extreme beauty. Key to her early image is the concept of coolness
(terms such as 'ice', 'iceberg' and 'cool' recur in all the literature on her),
which refers to her personality and especially her sexuality. As opposed
to Bardot's 'hot' availability, the young Deneuve's dominant trope was
that of 'cold' unavailability (but with the 'fire' underneath): in other
words, virginity. One clue is that, as Simone de Beauvoir has pointed
out, female virginity and so-called frigidity invite male conquest and
suggest the need for a man to reveal to the woman her own sexuality
(de Beauvoir, 1974, pp. 209-13). In Belle de jour, the Michel Piccoli
character fulfils this revelatory function. The young virgin (the older one
can only ever be an object of ridicule) is thus attractive because of her
presumed incompleteness. It is not surprising to find her celebrated in
Bunuel's work, since this figure is a version of the child-woman much
loved by Surrealists (to whom Bunuel belonged in the 1920s), who
wrote about her abundantly (see Sarde, 1983, p. 127, for a compilation of
their views). There is a sadistic twist to this figure of male fantasy. The
more immaculate and inaccessible the woman, the more she is deemed to
invite profanation, which is then ascribed to her 'masochism'. The
youthful Deneuve got a lot of that: she is flagellated and pelted with
mud in Belle de jour, amputated in Tristana and treated literally like a dog
on a leash in Liza. Later, as a vampire in The Hunger, she is covered with
blood. Many actresses have been through such ordeals on screen, but
the specificity of Deneuve is her simultaneous representation of extreme
beauty and its defilement, from reverence to rape7 rolled into one image.
In the 1980s and the 1990s, as Deneuve's image matured into different
characters, this duality still formed the bedrock of her persona. Thus,
watching her doing something as mundane as peel potatoes in Le Dernier
metro causes a special frisson, and her films of the 1990s to some extent
trade on the degradation of her once-perfect image.
Viewed historically, Deneuve's early 'core' persona is essentially pre-
feminist. It emerged in the early 1960s, after the explosion of physical
sexuality epitomized by the voluptuous bodies of Bardot, Loren,
Lollobrigida and Monroe, but before the post-1968 era of the
naturalistic, 'liberated' heroines embodied by stars such as Annie
Girardot, Isabelle Huppert and Miou-Miou. Indeed, it is Deneuve's
transitional status which I would argue explains her durability. Whereas
both the 1950s and the 1970s stars are grounded by their physique and
performance in their historical moment, Deneuve's success pertains to
her ambivalence (the 'ice and fire' image) and mystery, but also to her
evocation of 'eternal' femininity through the timelessness of her classic
facial features and clothes (Saint-Laurent's designs have always been
noted for their classic modernity, in other words timelessness — the dress
and black shiny coat worn by Severine in Belle de jour were reissued in
1996, to great success).8 Her enigmatic private life at the time was also
instrumental in creating that image of excitement and unattainability.
Deneuve's early image was basically conservative, which explains why
her 1970s films were not so successful, as she was out of step with the
more political and predominantly naturalistic French cinema. But with Le
Dernier metro, a polished 'heritage' film set during the German
occupation of France, Deneuve could re-enter the more glamour-
conscious 1980s. Her career in the 1980s and 1990s also shows that her
timelessness enabled her to shift to a more mature image, while retaining

her core duality of 'ice and fire'.
Bourgeois glamour, feminism and 'the ultimate lesbian icon'
Deneuve's international career took her mainly to Italy, and she made
only four films in Hollywood, including Hustle and The Hunger, but her
fame (like that of Bardot) is international, projecting an image of French
femininity qualified by superlatives such as 'the most beautiful woman in
the world'. The exportability of her image, rare for a French star, gives
us another clue to the appeal of her star persona. The duality she
embodies, of classic elegance and sexuality, also fits the two dominant
national cliches attached to French women internationally: they dress
well and they are highly sexed. As Michele Sarde put it, the
Frenchwoman 'appears as a kind of ultra-woman in whom femininity
is exacerbated to the point of caricature', a woman who must also
participate in the national reputation for good taste and elegance:
'knowing how to dress is a key element of the French way of life' (Sarde,
1983, pp. 26 and 28). Deneuve's success is linked to the way she has,
more or less consciously and more or less willingly, embraced these
nationally marked values at home and abroad.
Acting as semi-official ambassador for French fashion on and off
screen. Deneuve has been conscious of the high-class model image
which emerged from Belle de jour. 'I always dress well in public, it is true,
wearing Saint-Laurent clothes. Belle de jour produced an image which is
irredeemably ... that of the ambiguous bourgeoise' (Manceaux, 1999,
p. 82). She is conscious of how constraining this image-making process
is: The image I project is more sophisticated than my true self. It
necessitates an important preparation which can be both a pleasure and a
chore' (Sarde, 1983, p. 26). This emphasis on elegance and grooming
informs the image she projects in extra-cinematic appearances, on
television and so on. Both on and off screen, Deneuve's clothes, whether
by Saint-Laurent or Saint-Laurent-inspired, have foregrounded the
feminine bourgeois image of a woman in a tailored suit, with short
skirt and high heels (she is rarely seen in trousers). Her clothes also act as
a determining aspect of her films' mise-en-scene, where her appearance is
frequently commented upon, as, for instance, in Le Dernier metro, or in

films such as Indochine, where her elegant clothes are a constant focus.
These two films are also good examples of how Deneuve's clothes
participate in the construction of both her class and her national identity.
Le Dernier metro explicitly opposes her fur coats, structured clothes and
high heels to Depardieu's working-class caps and jackets; as he put it:
'People have fantasies about us two since Le Dernier metro. There is a
taboo between us. You are a classy bourgeois idol; I am a peasant's son'
(Depardieu, 1988, p. 122). In Indochine (set mostly in the 1930s),
Deneuve's fabulous dresses 'from Paris' construct her as symbol of
France, both by contrast with Vietnamese clothing and, in some cases,
by a tasteful 'orientalization' of her dress, which symbolizes the
symbiotic relation the film wishes to portray between France and
Indochina. Conversely, films such as Les Voleurs, where Deneuve is made
to look 'dowdy' in brown cardigan and glasses, or Place Vendome, where
she is frequently covered in loose trench-coats, trade indirectly on her
elegance - her 'dowdiness' or the deliberately drab colour scheme of
Place Vendome (with the exception of a red suit) are significant because
the spectators' mental picture of the 'real' Deneuve image will be
projected on these films' images of her.
As Deneuve aged, extremely gracefully, the 'ice maiden' image has
given way to a tragic grande bourgeoise, often a heroic mother, whose
sedate — if glamorous — life is disturbed by sexual passion, usually
initiated by a younger man. Le Lieu du crime (1986, with Waldeck
Stanczak as a young criminal) and Paroles et musique (1984, with
Christophe Lambert as a rock star) show the perenniality of the sexual
(re)awakening theme. Both deal in the familiar screen conflict between a
woman's sexuality and motherhood. Le Lieu du crime, typical of Techine's
anguished narratives, resolves it in apocalyptic fashion: the young man is
killed, her son is estranged, she gives herself up to the police; while in
Paroles et musique, she goes back to her husband and children. Similarly,
Indochine allows her a sexual relationship with a younger man (Vincent
Perez), only to take it away from her, in this case by pairing the young
lover with her adopted daughter. Such narratives which ultimately
punish or deny the older woman's liaison with a younger man (contrary
to the older man-young woman axis which tends to be the norm in
French cinema), and the way they use Deneuve, are indicative of our
culture's uneasiness in dealing with sexually active mature female

characters and actresses. They are, however, also attempts at integrating
societal changes in France that are indebted to feminism, and have made
her characters much more pleasurable - certainly for female spectators -
than the violated male fantasies of the 1960s and early 1970s. Off
screen, Deneuve was increasingly perceived as liberated and indepen-
dent, for the same reasons that she was scandalous in the 1960s. Gerard
Depardieu's tongue-in-cheek remark that 'Catherine Deneuve is the man
I would have liked to be' (Depardieu, 1988, p. 123), typical of his
attitude to gender (see Chapter 9), translates well the stronger screen
image of the mature Deneuve as well as her overtly feminist positions
off screen. She is one of the actresses who makes sound recordings of
women's novels for the feminist Editions des femmes, and in 1971 she was
among the celebrities who signed the anti-abortion manifesto (admitting
that they had had an abortion, in defiance of the law).9 In 1982, when it
was less fashionable, she told Le Nouvel Observateur, 'Yes, I am a
feminist'. In her combination of feminist positions and glamour, Deneuve
is a Very French' feminist. As feminism disappeared as an explicit
discourse from the French political and cultural scene in the 1980s, one
of the ways it endured was through the presence in public life of
professionally and intellectually powerful women who are also
glamorous — examples would include feminist writers Julia Kristeva
and Helene Cixous, broadcaster Christine Ockrent (who looks not unlike
the short-haired Deneuve) and politician Elisabeth Guigou. Arguably,
these women achieved their prominent positions partly because they
endorsed the accepted signs of 'French femininity'. In this respect, the
mature professional French woman's elegance, coupled with real clout, is
a sign of her being in control, rather than, as in the 1960s, of being
controlled.
Deneuve's sexual image also took an unexpected turn when The
Hunger (an otherwise marginal movie in her career, if only because of its
genre, that of the vampire movie) made her an explicitly acknowledged
lesbian icon. It did so despite her public heterosexual image, reiterated
by Deneuve in interviews and reinforced by her suing of the American
lesbian magazine Deneuve for taking her name without permission.
Obviously, the fact that The Hunger (co-starring David Bowie and Susan
Sarandon) contains an explicit sex scene between Deneuve and Sarandon
is key to this. However, as the American magazine The Advocate, which

ran an interview with Deneuve as 'the ultimate lesbian icon',10 put it,
lesbians watching The Hunger did not — at least at the time — grab on to
Sarandon the way they did to [Deneuve]'.11 So why Deneuve? Because
her 'core' characteristic of cool unattainability, according to The
Advocate, echoed longings in the audience, especially a lesbian
audience.12 But it is clear also that Deneuve's mature star persona -
she was exactly forty when she appeared in the film — enabled her to
portray a seducer in charge of her desires who nevertheless remained a
traditionally glamorous feminine figure in appearance. In other words,
Deneuve epitomized lesbian chic' at a time when the notion was
emerging as an important trend. The fact that the camp stylization of
The Hunger and Deneuve's glamour were key to her identity as a
lesbian icon' is also illustrated by the fact that her portrayal of a
lesbian university lecturer in Techine's Les Voleurs, a film shot with a
low-key realistic mise-en-scene, failed to provoke the same reaction.
Apart from its importance for a lesbian audience, Deneuve's lesbian
icon image arguably also served to reinforce the sexual aspect of her
mature star persona, and in particular that of a strong, dominating
sexual figure, which found its strongest expression in the hugely
successful Indochine.
Indochine and after
Indochine did not exactly 'revive' Deneuve's career (since it cannot be

said that it was dead), but it marked an important threshold to a third
phase, confirming her as the most important (and highest paid) female
star in the French film industry. The television cultural chat show
Bouillon de Culture, which devoted a whole issue to Deneuve to coincide
with the release of Indochine in France, underlined the fact that the
relatively unknown director Regis Wargnier would not have got the film
off the ground without her, at least not on such a scale. In return,
Deneuve was given a real leading part in a major mainstream
production, something that had become increasingly rare for her since
Le Dernier metro. In many of her 1980s films, it was as if her presence and
looks were enough to signify a constellation of traits (career woman
Plate 21 Indochim (Regis Wargnier, 1992): Catherine Deneuve.
who remains 'feminine', determined but tragic mother, strong-willed but

vulnerable lover) that allude to French women's changing parts, while
her roles confined her to precisely this symbolic function. Indochim gave
Deneuve a role which was both highly symbolic — her character, Eliane,
adopts a young Vietnamese woman, in a clear metaphor of benign
colonialism — as well as a real star leading role, around whom the whole
film revolves. Indochim paved the way for Deneuve to a status so
inalienable that it enabled her in the rest of the decade to play anything
she wanted, including, paradoxically, the demolition of her own image
and beauty.
In the late 1990s, the dominant motif in French commentaries on
Deneuve is that of an actress 'who takes risks', meaning both that she
appears in films that are not likely to be box-office successes - for
instance, Ruiz's Genealogies d'un crime (1997), Carax's Pola X and Garrel's
Le Vent de la nuit (both 1999), and even Techine's Les Voleurs - and films,
such as these and others like Place Vendome, which downplay or destroy
her glamorous image. In terms of the first aspect, Deneuve plays a
typical role for post-war French stars, that of a bridge between auteur
and mainstream cinema, as discussed in Chapter I. The importance of
this role for the survival of auteur cinema, but also for the acceptability
of the star in cinephile circles, can be measured by the excessive praise

Deneuve has received in the late 1990s for acting in such a way. The
director and critic Olivier Assayas is typical when he says to Deneuve in
Cahiers du cinema, There are small [films], medium ones, larger ones,
more or less radical ones, etc., but you circulate between all of these with
a fluidity I find admirable.'13 The popular film magazine Studio praised
her in similar terms: 'Never has she been so present, inspiring directors
as diverse as Carax, Aghion, Wargnier, Ruiz, Beauvois and Garrel.'14
Bringing the legitimacy of cinephilia to a popular comedy like Belle
Maman, and the potential audience (or at least media awareness) of
popular cinema to auteur films, Deneuve is the perfect lynch-pin of the
French film industry. As Studio also put it, 'Rarely has an actress
embodied to this extent French cinema.'15 It is this feature which enables
her to play a high-profile ambassador role - accompanying Jack Lang,
then Minister for Culture, to open a festival of French film in New York
in 1983, being consulted by Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in 1993 on
how to fight American imperialism during the GATT negotiations,
collecting the Trophy for the Arts in New York in November 1998, and
numerous other awards such as her Silver Bear for life achievement at
Berlin in 1999.
The way Deneuve's 1990s films play with her image is indicative of
both the continuation of her earlier star persona and, at the same time, of
the inevitable change that her ageing brings. Les Vokurs attempts to de-
glamorize Deneuve, who is seen in shapeless brown or beige clothes and
glasses. Place Vendome goes further than most in this respect. Its
deliberately obscure semi-thriller plot set in the world of diamond
jewellers remains little more than a McGuffin (the film retains a number
of Hitchcockian echoes, including the music and the story of a man
attempting to remake the young woman played by Emmanuelle Seigner
into a version of the older Deneuve - typically, difference and similarity
between the two are signalled through a play on their hairstyle, a classic
Trench bun', which is also a reference to Hitchcock's Vertigo). Indeed,
Place Vendome unfolds as a story of the unmaking and the remaking of
Deneuve's image. The film opens with Deneuve in a rehab clinic, where
she is trying, not for the first time, to conquer alcoholism. Her hair is
relatively unkempt and she is wearing a shapeless khaki sweater. Later,
when back home, she goes to a dinner with her husband, dressed in the
signature Deneuve ensemble: high heels, black evening dress, red

lipstick, blonde hair done up. In the next scene, she is unkempt again,
with a hangover. And so on throughout the film. Both aspects of her
character allude to the core duality in Deneuve's star persona, the 'ice
and fire' binary opposition being played as control and letting go. But it
also acknowledges the ageing of the star in a way which, similar to that
of Delon (see Chapter 7), is not without cruelty and yet which also
celebrates her beauty by default. On several occasions she looks at
herself in a mirror and expresses disgust. The spectator is thus constantly
reminded of her 'normal' image, and of its unmaking. Similarly, the role
of the younger woman (Seigner) is to remind us of what she was, yet by
the very difference (Emmanuelle Seigner is not the young Deneuve), also
of the uniqueness of Catherine Deneuve, the star, both past and present.
Biofilmography
Born Catherine Dorleac, Paris, 22 October 1943. Married David Bailey

(1965—72). Two children: Christian Vadim (born 1963, son of Roger Vadim)
and Chiara Mastroianni (born 1972, daughter of Marcello Mastroianni).
Main acting awards
Etoile de Cristal de 1'Academic du Cinema, Best Actress, Les Parapluies de

Cherbourg, 1964
Cesar, Best Actress, Le Dernier metro, 1980
Cesar, Best Actress, Indochine, 1992
Venice, Best Actress, Place Vendome, 1998
Berlin, Silver Bear for life achievement, 1999
Films as actor
1956 Les Comediennes (Andre Hunnebelle)

1959 Les Petits chats (Jacques R. Villa)
1960 Les Portes claquent (Jacques Poitrenaud/Michel Fermaud)
L'Homme a femmes (Jacques-Gerard Cornu)
1961 Les Parisiennes [ep. 'Sophie'] (Marc Allegret)
1962 . . . Et Satan conduit le bal/Satan Leads the Dance (Grisha M. Dabat)

Le Vice et la vertu/Vice and Virtue (Roger Vadim, France/Italy)
Vacances portugaises (Pierre Kast)
1963 Les Plus belles escroqueries du monde [ep. 'L'homme qui vendit la tour
Eiffel'] (Claude Chabrol)
1964 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy)
La Chasse a I'homme/The Gentle Art of Seduction (Edouard
Molinaro, France/Italy)
Un monsieur de compagnie/I Was a Male Sex Bomb (Philippe
de Broca)
La costanza della ragione/Heart in Mouth (Pasquale Festa
Campanile, Italy/France)
1965 Repulsion (Roman Polanski, UK)
Le Chant du monde (Marcel Camus)
La Vie de chateau/A Matter of Resistance (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
Das Liebeskarussell [ep. 'Der Somnambule'] (Rolf Thiele, Austria)
1966 Les Creatures (Agnes Varda)
1967 Belle de jour (Luis Bunuel, France/Italy)
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (Jacques Demy)
1968 Benjamin ou les memoires d'un puceau/Benjamin (Michel Deville)
Manon 70 (Jean Aurel, France/Italy)
La Chamade/Heartbeat (Alain Cavalier, France/Italy)
Mayerling (Terence Young, France/UK)
1969 The April Fools (Stuart Rosenberg, USA)
La Sirene du Mississipi/The Mississippi Mermaid (Francois Truffaut)
Tout peut arriver/Don't Be Blue [doc] (Philippe Labro)
1970 Tristana (Luis Bunuel, Spain/Italy/France)
Peau d'dne/The Magic Donkey (Jacques Demy)
Henri Langlois [doc] (Roberto Guerra)
1971 Qz n'arrive qu'aux autres/It Only Happens to Others (Nadine
Trintignant, France/Italy)
Liza/La Cagna (Marco Ferreri, France/Italy)
1972 Un flic/Dirty Money (Jean-Pierre Melville)
1973 L Evenement le plus important depuis que I'homme a marche sur la
lune/The Most Important Event since Man First Set Foot on the Moon
(Jacques Demy, France/Italy)
Touche pas a la femme blanche (Marco Ferreri, Spain/Italy/France)
1974 Fatti di gente perbene/Drama of the Rich (Mauro Bolognini, Italy/

France)
La Femme awe bottes rouges/The Woman with Red Boots (Juan Bunuel)
1975 Zig-zig (Laszlo Szabo)
L'Agression [Sombres vacances] (Gerard Pires)
Hustle (Robert Aldrich, USA)
Le Sauvage/Lovers Like Us (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France/Italy)
1976 Si c'etait a refaire/Second Chance (Claude Lelouch)
1977 Anima persa/Lost Soul (Dino Risi, Italy/France)
// casotto/The Beach Hut (Sergio Citti, Italy)
L'Etat sauvage (Francis Girod)
March or Die (Dick Richards, UK)
1978 L'Argent des autres/Other People's Money (Christian de Chalonge)
Ecoute voir .. ./Look See ... (Hugo Santiago)
1979 A nous deux/Us Two (Claude Lelouch)
Us sont grands ces petits/These Kids Are Grown Ups (Joel Santoni)
La vita interiore/An Interior Life (Gianni Barcelloni, Italy)
Courage, fui/ons/Courage — Let's Run (Yves Robert)
1980 Je vous aime (Claude Berri)
Le Dernier metro/The Last Metro (Francois Truffaut)
1981 Le Choix des armes/Choice of Weapons (Alain Corneau)
Hotel des Ameriques/Hotel of the Americas (Andre Techine)
Reporters (Raymond Depardon)
1982 Le Choc (Robin Davis)
1983 L'Africain/The African (Philippe de Broca)
The Hunger (Tony Scott, USA)
1984 Le Bon plaisir (Francis Girod)
Fort Saganne (Alain Corneau)
Paroles et musique/Love Songs (Elie Chouraqui, France/Canada)
1985 Speriamo che sia femmina/Let's Hope It's a Girl (Mario Monicelli,
Italy/France)
1986 Le Lieu du crime/The Scene of the Crime (Andre Techine)
1987 Agent trouble/Trouble Agent (Jean-Pierre Mocky)
1988 Drole d'endroit pour une rencontre/A Strange Place to Meet (Francois
Dupeyron)
Frequence meurtre/FM — Frequency Murder (Elisabeth Rappeneau)
1989 Helmut Newton: Frames from the Edge (Adrian Maben, Denmark)
1990 Fleur de rubis (Jean-Pierre Mocky)

1991 La Reine blanche/The White Queen (Jean-Loup Hubert)
1992 Indochine (Regis Wargnier)
Contre I'oubli/Against Oblivion [series of shorts] (various directors)
1993 Ma saison preferee/My Favourite Season (Andre Techine)
Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans [doc] (Agnes Varda)
1994 La Partie d'echecs/The Chess Game (Yves Hanchar, France/Belgium)
1995 O convento/The Convent (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France)
L'Univers de Jacques Demy/The World of Jacques Demy [doc] (Agnes
Varda)
1996 Les Voleurs (Andre Techine)
1997 Genealogies d'un crime (Raul Ruiz)
1998 Place Vendome (Nicole Garcia)
1999 Pola X (Leos Carax)
Belle Maman (Gabriel Aghion)
Le Temps retrouve/Time Regained (Raul Ruiz)
Le Vent de la nuit (Philippe Garrel)
A carta/The Letter [La Lettre] (Manoel de Oliveira, France/
Portugal/Spain)
2000 Est-Ouest/'East-West (Regis Wargnier)
Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden)
Notes
1. Catalogue, Accessoires municipalises, 1999. The Deneuve model costs the

same price as the Bardot model (FF 3,750). From 2000, a new model, based
on model Laetitia Casta, is available too.
2. Vanity Fair, April 1999, p. 164, includes Deneuve as 'the lioness', along
with Jean-Paul Belmondo, 'the idol' (p. 165) and Jean Reno, 'the rascal'
(p. 184), as the only French actors in the Hollywood 'Hall of Fame'.
3. In 1998-9, among others, both Studio Magazine (October 1998) and
Cahiers du cinema (May 1999) ran extended interviews and celebratory
pieces coinciding with the release of Pola X, Le Temps retrouve and Belle
Maman.
4. Jean-Pierre Bacri, 'Deneuve n'est pas une divinite vivante', L'Evenement du
jeudi, 8-14 October 1998 p. 92.
5. Elk, 16 December 1996.
6. Catherine Deneuve, L'elegance francaise au cinema, exhibition catalogue,
Musee de la Mode et du Costume, Palais Galliera, 1988.

7. This is the title of Molly Haskell's early classic feminist study of the
representation of women in the cinema: From Reverence to Rape (Haskell,
1974).
8. Catherine Deneuve, 'Yves, 1'elegance et moi', Elle, 16 December 1996,
p. 108.
9. Le Nouvel Observateur, 5 April 1971.
10. The Advocate, July 1995, cover.
11. Ibid., p. 53.
12. Ibid., p. 51.
13. Olivier Assayas, interview with Catherine Deneuve, Cahiers du cinema,
May 1999, p. 57.
14. Studio Magazine, October 1998, p. 76.
15. Ibid.
CHAPTER 9
Gerard Depardieu
The axiom of confemporary French cinema
Apart from Brigitte Bardot and Max Linder, Gerard Depardieu is the
only French star to achieve true global stardom. He is as well known to
cinephiles as the Jean Gabin of the 1930s, and as much of a popular
international icon of Frenchness as Maurice Chevalier used to be,
especially since Jean de Florette (1986), Cyrano de Bergemc and Green
Card (both 1990). As Angus Finney says, 'he is unquestionably the
biggest non-English-speaking film star that the European industry has
to offer' (Finney, 1994, p. 23). The Guardian of 10 March 1995
published a poll in which Depardieu was the only non English-
speaking star among the top ten of both critics and readers. Depardieu
has been at the top of the French box-office since 1985 as well as the
highest paid French star for some time, with an average of FFlOm per
film in the late 1990s.1 As the newspaper Le Monde put it in March
1999, The French film industry revolves around Depardieu' . . . He is
the only quality French star who lasts.'2 Depardieu, who has made 100
films in under thirty years, has stupefying energy and is an
outstandingly talented and versatile performer. But these assets are
only preconditions for his immense stardom. The purpose of this
chapter is to try to account for Depardieu's exceptional status and key
role in contemporary French cinema.
215
Gerard Depardieu's life is by now the stuff of legend, retold in massive

press coverage and numerous biographies (among others: Chazal, 1982;
Chutkow, 1994; Dazat, 1988; Gonzalez, 1985; Gray, 1991). He was born
into a working-class family in Chateauroux, in central France, in 1948.
An attraction to the theatre rescued him from a delinquent adolescence,
providing the education that school had failed to give him. The theatre
led to Paris, where from 1967 he studied acting with the reputed Jean-
Laurent Cochet, and later worked with avant-garde stage director
Claude Regy. This experience introduced him to a whole set of literary
texts and taught him to master both his voice (he had had speech
problems) and his body. Depardieu's theatrical training is the foundation
of his performance style, especially his ability to modulate his voice
across a huge range of texts and registers, and a surprisingly graceful use
of his bulky physique. At that time, he also came into contact with the
satirical cafe-theatre. Depardieu's immediately obvious talent meant that
despite his 'unconventional' looks, he started acting in popular comedies
and thrillers in 1971 and was noticed by the likes of Marguerite Duras
(Nathalie Granger, 1973). Les Valseuses (1973) turned him into the star of
the post-1968 generation: young, virile and anti-conformist. His
rebellious macho persona, honed in this film, worked equally well in
auteur films such as Loulou (1980), Man oncle d'Amerique (1980) and Police
(1985) and popular comedies (Les Fugitifs, 1986; Tenue de soiree, 1986; Les
Anges gardiens, 1995), and he would continue to straddle both ends of
the film spectrum throughout his career: thus, in 1999 he starred in both
Asterix et Obelix contre Cesar (the most expensive French film ever made,
with a budget of FF240m) and his own modest feature, Un pont entre
deux rives. Like Delon and Belmondo, Depardieu also spread his
activities: he became involved in theatre and film production, wine-
making, business and political ventures. Spreading physically, too, with
middle age, he gravitated via the success of Jean de Florette in 1986 and
especially of Cyrano de Bergerac in 1990 to a series of heritage movies in
which he played historical figures, adding a new layer to his screen
image. Depardieu's historical parts, from Danton to Balzac, literalize his
star status as a national symbol, exported through films such as Green
Card, 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and The Man in the Iron Mask
(1998). The late 1990s also saw him move into television, with the
spectacularly successful adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's Le Comte de
Gerard Depardieu 217
Monte-Cristo (1998), which attracted a record 12 million spectators in

France and was — exceptionally for non-English-speaking television —
sold to the American network HBO.
Depardieu's brilliant career runs parallel to a more rocky lifestyle, in
line with his star persona. Boys will be boys: the boisterous, larger than
life, amiable macho periodically gets into trouble. His adolescent
escapades came back to haunt him when the American media attacked
him in 1991 for his alleged involvement in a rape in Chateauroux.
Although the allegation was partly based on a linguistic mis-
understanding,3 the media scandal which ensued probably cost him
the best actor Oscar for Cyrano de Bergerac for which he had been
nominated. Depardieu's trajectory features fallings-out and reconcilia-
tions with directors such as Maurice Pialat, a complicated love life,
gargantuan eating and drinking, two drink-driving convictions (in 1990
and 1998) and controversial involvements in politics and business.4 This
came to a head in 1998 when Depardieu was threatened with the
removal of his Legion d'honneur as a result of his second drink-driving
offence and of his support of Slovakian presidential candidate Vladimir
Meciar. Nevertheless, as the weekly Marianne put it, Depardieu's Legion
d'honneur had been conferred not for a blameless lifestyle but for 'the
impact that his acting talent has on foreign trade'.5 It is to Depardieu's
talent and his impact on French cinema that I now turn.
Male stardom in post-war French cinema: the comic imperative
Gerard Depardieu's consistent top box-office performance since 1985 is

testimony to his overall prominence, in part due to heritage films such as
Cyrano de Bergerac. It is, however, grounded in his comic films. Already
in the 1930s, while Poetic Realist films privileged alienated male workers
(archetypally played by Jean Gabin), the bulk of popular cinema relied
on comic male stars like Georges Milton, Bach, Fernandel and Raimu.
While the French critical pantheon consists of avant-garde and dramatic
auteur films, box-office charts show that to be popular a French male star
has to work in comedy. Even though the end of family comedy is
regularly predicted, record-breaking French hits such as Les Visiteurs
(1993) and Asterix et Obelix contre Cesar continue to be comedies.
Plate 22 Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980): Isabelle Huppert and Gerard

Depardieu.
Comedy has consistently functioned as a training ground and rite of

passage for most French male stars, even those who are best known for
their (melo)dramatic repertoire, such as Cabin and Montand, and indeed
Depardieu, among whose biggest box-office hits, alongside Jean de
Florette and Cyrano de Bergerac, are his three comedies directed by Francis
Veber and co-starring Pierre Richard: La Chevre (1981), Les Comperes
(1983) and Les Fugitifs (1986).6 The importance of comedy in relation to
male stars goes beyond casting. In French comedy, stars establish and
perpetuate a closeness to their audience, and signs of social identity,
despite the common critical charge that mainstream French comedy is

escapist. For whereas French female stars have only been able to develop
sexual types (Musidora, 'the vamp', Viviane Romance, 'the bitch',
Brigitte Bardot, 'the sex kitten', Catherine Deneuve, 'the ice maiden',
Juliette Binoche, 'the emotional gamine'), male stars have had the latitude
to create socially coded types and stereotypes. The derision aimed at
social figures or institutions is, to be sure, politically limited, which is
why French comedy is often criticized for being 'too nice' (Aude, 1989).
However, major French comic types, as embodied by stars, evolved at
focal points of social change or unease. For instance, Fernandel in the
1930s epitomized incompetent soldiery in the comique troupier films
when the competence of the French army was severely in question but
when to challenge it in serious film was rendered impossible because of
censorship. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bourvil popularized the country
bumpkin in Paris, against the backdrop of massive population shifts from
the country to large cities. Comic stars like de Funes (see Chapter 6),
Bourvil and Fernandel, through comic performance of social types,
offered the audience a fantasized negative caricature of national identity
in a carnivalesque world of social and sexual regression and excess
permitted by the genre. This excess is channelled through grotesque
physical expression - de Funes's gesticulations and grimaces, Fernandel's
horse-like laugh, Bourvil's Village idiot' expression - but set within the
recognizable everyday world, and ultimately redeemed and valorized by
the charisma of the stars.
Depardieu's comic persona is his least known outside France. Right
from the start, he combined a burlesque physical demeanour with a
specific social identity, which I will call the 'comic loubard' (a loubard is a
proletarian petty hoodlum). Predicated on his early life in working-class
Chateauroux, Depardieu's comic loubard is defined in performance terms
by an aggressive, and yet agile, display of his massive, thick-set body.
Shots emphasize his heavy, flat-footed walk and swaggering shoulders.
Frequent flipping of the head highlights lanky, longish (sometimes greasy)
hair; insolent turn of voice and laugh are punctuated by a belligerent
jutting chin which, with a boxer's irregular nose, serves to compose a
recognizably 'tough' face. Depardieu's persona is also one which, in comic
as in dramatic mode, links a class identity shaped by body, gestures and
voice (Bourdieu, 1979) to sexual display. Epitomized in Les Valseuses -
where, for instance, a scene in which he is confronted by a supermarket

manager capitalizes on the nimble choreography of his gestures - this
persona is found right from the beginning of his career in small parts, in
films like Le Tueur (1972) and L'Affaire Dominici (1972), and later others
such as Inspecteur La Bavure (1980) and Les Fugitifs. Depardieu's comic
loubard evolved along two parallel axes: a social and a sexual one.
The social axis fused a socio-cultural climate, the post-1968 libertarian
ethos, with new trends in comic performance, crystallized in the
emergence of cafe-theatre. Working from small Parisian theatres doubling
up as cafes, of which the most famous were the Cafe de la Gare and the
Splendid, the writers and performers of cafe-theatre deployed a humorous,
'alternative' attack on the French establishment based on 1968-inspired
new sexual mores and the new cultural identity of the youth generation.
They were against 'the system', represented by the right-wing regimes of
Georges Pompidou and Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and, more pervasively,
the older generation. Cafe-theatre performers went on to sustain modern
French film comedy, as performers (Coluche, Miou-Miou, Patrick
Dewaere, Josiane Balasko, Michel Blanc, Gerard Jugnot, Thierry
Lhermitte, Dominique Lavanant, Christian Clavier) and writers/directors
like Patrice Leconte, Balasko and Jugnot. Even though he was not initially
directly involved in cafe-theatre, Depardieu's comic loubard owes a lot to
it. In Les Valseuses,7 Depardieu and Dewaere follow a picaresque trail
through France, encountering women in a series of scenes which
exemplify both Blier's misogyny and the limitations of libertarianism as
far as women are concerned. The Depardieu character's main function is
to lead the male pair into comic confrontations with middle-aged
representatives of the social order: a hairdresser, a supermarket manager,
a doctor, a farmer, middle-class parents. These confrontations make sense
visually and linguistically. As his opponents wear suits and ties or the
uniform of their status, Depardieu exhibits both his young, tough
loubard''s 'class body' and the 1970s signs of male youth dissent: long
hair, flares and a leather jacket. Les Valseuses, in line with the new
naturalism of 1970s French cinema and the semi-improvisational
performance style of cafe-theatre, also makes widespread use of slang.
The perceived closeness, at that point, of Depardieu the star to Depardieu
the man in terms of class origins added authenticity to what had become
the new orthodoxy in French cinematic performance styles.
Les Valseuses built on elements of the comic loubard persona already

present in previous films. It made them cohere in a particularly successful
way, fixing this persona in such a way that from then on, despite
Depardieu's versatility, and his avowed desire to 'escape [his] Les
Valseuses image',8 subsequent films for a long time worked as declensions
on it, whether they be reinforcement, allusion or denial. This continuity
has to do with his physique and performance as well as with the nature
of the loubard image. In the fitness-obsessed late twentieth century,
Depardieu's departure from the slim and fit ideal 'speaks' a proletarian
identity: hearty food and red wine rather than bourgeois nouvelk cuisine.
The marginality of the loubard also allows for social mobility, while
hanging on to the ordinariness of the popular, a familiar trajectory with
stars. Thus, in later comedies such as the Veber-Richard trilogy, while
the Depardieu characters are varied in terms of occupation, the star's
performance as loubard is still at their core. In Les Fugitifs, Depardieu
plays an ex-convict determined to go straight, who accidentally gets
embroiled in a bank robbery botched by Pierre Richard. When he comes
out of the bank as Richard's hostage, he is assumed to be the criminal by
the police who know him, but he also slips with ease into the hoodlum's
gestures. Humour partly derives from the contrast between character
definition and star performance signs, in which the latter always win. In
Les Comperes, Depardieu is a journalist who accidentally gets involved in
finding Richard's - or possibly his - son. Again, it is his behaviour as a
heavy, similar to that of his detective character in La Chevre, which gets
results, over and above his characterization. In Le Sucre (1978), a political
satire on the stock market, Depardieu surprisingly plays a young
aristocrat who works for a crooked stockbroker. But his movements (he
gets into fights), his clothes (for instance, a black leather blouson), his
hair, which is longer than that of the other men, and his speech all
connote the comic loubard. As the film progresses, he teams up with a
small stock-holder (Jean Carmet) against his employers, a move which
makes sense in relation to Depardieu's star persona but contradicts his
narrative role.
The sexual axis of Depardieu's comic loubard image, as with earlier
comic stars, involves a play on regression and emasculation, in which his
body and performance provide the 'evidence' of heterosexual virility
(implied in the social image of the loubard), against narrative attempts at
undermining it. Thus, many Depardieu comedies hinge on his physical

maiming and/or symbolic emasculation. In one of the funniest scenes in
Inspecteur La Bavure (in which Colikhe plays the eponymous
incompetent policeman), Depardieu is in hospital bandaged from head
to foot, groaning in frustration as a woman (Dominique Lavanant) calls
him 'impotent' on television, whereas he is in fact a notorious
womanizer. In Les Fugitifs, he is shot in the thigh by Pierre Richard,
and terrified to find that he is being operated on by a vet (Jean Carmet).
Les Valseuses and Tenue de soiree (1986, directed by Blier) most explicitly
exploit this feature of the Depardieu comic persona. In each film,
Depardieu forces sex on to another man. Humour derives from the
contrast between the narrative event of a homosexual encounter — based
on the homophobic assumption that to be gay is funny in itself — and the
star persona affirming heterosexual masculinity. Homosexuality is
equated with sodomy and conceived as a humiliation of the passive
partner (Marshall, 1987, p. 241). This point is understated in Les Valseuses
but systematically exploited in Tenue de soiree: for example, in the
seduction of Michel Blanc, in which Depardieu parades his 'beefcake'
body in leopard-skin pants, and the ending with Depardieu and Blanc in
drag. Depardieu's representation of heterosexual masculinity is shored
up in these comedies by his consistent teaming with a man who is coded
as less socially skilled, less physically competent and less attractive to
women: Dewaere in Les Valseuses, Coluche in Inspecteur La Bavure,
Richard in the Veber trilogy and Blanc in Tenue de soiree.
The popularity of Depardieu's comic masculinity, especially in its
combination of sexual explicitness and misogyny, can be partly
explained by its intertexts in other forms of French popular culture.
There are literary antecedents, going back to Rabelais, in which male-
oriented sexuality is at the core of the carnivalesque world. In the
cinema, the post-1968 era made sexual visual display and verbal
explicitness possible, leading to the explosion of porn film. Such display
also became a core element of strip-cartoons, some of them, like those of
Reiser and Wolinski, explicitly left-wing. Another reference point for the
Depardieu comic-sexual persona, especially in the Blier films, but also in
the strange wartime comedy Rene la Canne (1976), is the immensely
successful comic thriller oeuvre of Frederic Dard, published since the
1950s under the name of his hero San Antonio. Couched in obscene
slang, the San Antonio novels relentlessly foreground male sexuality

through a central comic pair: a handsome stud (San Antonio) and his
grotesque sidekick (Berurier), of whom, in a way, Depardieu's comic
loubard is a fusion. The success of these texts in French popular culture
underscores the acceptability of male sexual behaviour considered
abusive in other cultures, at least in representations. This gap is at the
heart of the rape affair. Depardieu's references to the rape, reported by
Time magazine on 4 February 1991, sparked off a huge polemic in
America; they had been mentioned in Lui in November 1980 with no
repercussions in France.9
As Depardieu reached middle age, the comic loubard persona,
predominantly a young image, inevitably faded, turning into the figure
of the beauf, both its opposite and logical conclusion. The beauf (short for
beau-frere, 'brother-in-law') is an expression that has entered the French
language, based on a 1960s strip-cartoon character by Cabu. The beauf is
a caricatural image of working-class, middle-aged male vulgarity. In the
late 1980s and 1990s, the slide from comic loubard to beauf appeared in
some Depardieu comedies, now often put to the service of anarchic
right-wing narratives: for example, in Uranus (1990), Merci la vie (1991),
Les Anges gardiens (1995) and XXL (1997). What saves Depardieu's later
comic persona from the vulgar but also fascist excesses of the beauf is his
comic talent, his physical grace and the memory of the proletarian comic
loubard.
As the flip side of this comic strand, from the start of his career
Depardieu developed the figure of the 'tragic' loubard, crystallized in
Maurice Pialat's Loulou (1980) and pastiched in Jean-Jacques Beineix's La
Lune dans le caniveau (1983). This figure of suffering marginality was also
coded with strong erotic appeal and became key to French auteur cinema
from the 1970s.
Auteur cinema's suffering macho
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Fernandel, de Funes and Bourvil

offered French audiences variations on masculinity as incompetence and
lack of control (though ultimately saved by cunning), while Belmondo
and Delon incarnated a valorizing portrayal of virile control and
strength. These contrasting versions of masculinity echoed the polarized

genre structure of the French popular cinema of that period, in which
both comedy and the thriller flourished. From the 1970s, French cinema
witnessed a significant narrowing of its popular base which affected both
genre and stardom. While de Funes, Fernandel and Bourvil sustained
their stardom within popular genres to the end of their lives, this became
increasingly difficult in the 1980s and 1990s, as Delon and Belmondo's
waning careers show (see Chapters 6 and 7). The need to feature in
domestic comedies has been a precondition of major stardom in France
for men, but so has the ability to cross over to auteur cinema. The latter
provides cultural legitimacy, but also media exposure via festivals, award
ceremonies, television and press coverage. This is the path chosen by the
prize-festooned Depardieu, who has on several occasions emphasized his
desire for a 'wider audience base'.10 In terms of his star image, this means
his investment in the reverse mirror image of his comic macho men, that
of 'tragic' masculinity in crisis.
From the beginning of his career, when he appeared in Marguerite
Duras's Nathalie Granger as a funny and touching washing-machine
salesman, Depardieu has pursued an active career in auteur cinema. As
with his work in comedy, there has, inevitably, been an evolution in his
parts and in his status vis-a-vis the directors. While Duras cast an
unknown in Nathalie Granger, by the time of Le Camion (1977), she was
using a 'recognizable icon' (Hill, 1993, p. 16). By the 1980s, and
especially after 1986, the 'miracle Depardieu year',11 with the triple
triumph of Les Fugitifs, Jean de Florette and Tenue de soiree, Depardieu, by
his presence (as well as his co-producing), could single-handedly ensure
the making of a first film by an unknown director, such as Francois
Dupeyron for Drole d'endroit pour une rencontre (1988, co-starring
Catherine Deneuve). And whereas New Wave directors in the 1950s and
early 1960s rejected mainstream stars, preferring to create their own
alternative star system (see Chapter 5), the auteurs of the 1970s and
beyond have been queuing up for Depardieu. Truffaut, for instance, who
had declared in 1959 that he would never use stars like Cabin, Fernandel
or Michele Morgan, because 'they are dangerous artists who make
decisions on the script or change it if they don't like it',12 featured
Depardieu — who certainly would have been in a position to do so — in
Le Dernier metro (1980) and La Femme d'a cote (1981). This shows us that
just as mainstream French stars now need auteur cinema, auteur cinema
needs them in a way it did not in the 1950s and 1960s. But also,
Depardieu's presence in the work of very distinct filmmakers - from
Duras to Blier, Resnais to Sautet, Pialat to Godard - is traditionally
ascribed to his versatility. But Depardieu's continued presence in auteur
films also points to the suitability of his star image for post-1970 French
auteur cinema, in particular his romanticization of narcissistic suffering
and his play on sexual ambiguity.
Depardieu's dramatic star persona is that of the 'suffering macho', a
figure of misogynistic virility who is simultaneously in crisis. The
intense, suffering male hero has a long history in French culture and
cinema, and Depardieu has predecessors here too, from Gabin to
Montand and Delon, especially in his juxtaposition of proletarian-ness
and criminality (it also has American equivalents, notably Robert de Niro
in Scorsese's work). The figure of the suffering male is also embedded
within French culture. The New Wave turned the melodramatic patriarch
of the classical cinema into the romantically anxious young man and
introduced a narcissistic dimension into male suffering. Depardieu
merged these diverse histories while providing the added value of class
authenticity necessary to the context of the more naturalistic 1970s. Key
films here include Claude Sautet's Vincent, Franpois, Paul et les autres
(1974), in which Depardieu figures in a minor role as a young boxer as
the symbolic heir to the group of troubled patriarchs played by
Montand, Serge Reggiani and Michel Piccoli, and especially Loulou
(1980). The latter film crystallized the early Depardieu type of suffering
macho in such an acute form (in the same way as Les Valseuses
epitomized the comic loubard) that it is worth examining in detail. For a
start, Loulou is not an innocent title. As well as being a working-class
male nickname (short for Louis or Jean-Louis), it echoes the word loubard.
Pialat's film depicts the meeting of Depardieu's working-class tearaway
with a middle-class young woman played by Isabelle Huppert; this
gender/class encounter is pursued in various forms throughout
Depardieu's career: for instance, with Catherine Deneuve in Le Dernier
metro, described by Depardieu as the meeting of 'a peasant with strong
hands' with a 'classy and bourgeois idol' (Depardieu, 1988, p. 122), and
again with Deneuve in Fort Saganne (1984). Though the narrative line of
Loulou inadequately describes the film, which is more concerned with the
raw, semi-verite, depiction of his milieu through a series of disjointed

scenes, it roughly follows the course of the two protagonists' strong
sexual attraction, leading Huppert to leave her middle-class husband. She
becomes pregnant and has an abortion; the film ends on the uncertain
future of their relationship.
Loulou's depiction of a tormented masculinity through the Depardieu
character is romantically 'existential' (he is devastated at the loss of his
prospective fatherhood) and class-bound: the film clearly embeds his
violence in his milieu. His discontent is not shown to result from political
class awareness, but his milieu injects authenticity into his alienation. In
the same way, it is no accident that in the preface to Depardieu's
autobiographical Lettres volees (1988, a poorly written but interesting
reconstruction of his life), the editor of the letters' characterizes
Depardieu, alongside his identity as primeval 'cave man', as in a direct
line from some of the hallowed heroes of French literature. In particular,
he singles out Jean Valjean, from Victor Hugo's Les Misembles, whose
suffering is individual and social.
Loulou/Depardieu is also an object of beauty, not in a traditional,
romance-inspired, woman-oriented way (Gerard Philipe, the young
Alain Delon), but in the sense of a fetishized, fantasized, class identity.
His is the rougher beauty of the lower depths, personified by his intense
physical presence (as with the young Gabin), his lack of conventional
physical beauty adding another layer of authenticity. In this film, as in
other roles, his performance makes use of the bulk of his body as
'metaphysical' weight, with the added intensity of a minimalist acting
style, as opposed to the animation of the comedies. Wearing a leather
blouson like Cabin's suicidal hero in Le Jour se leve, he is another doomed
'Oedipus in a cloth cap' (Bazin, 1983, pp. 123-4), even if, by 1980, the
referential proletariat of this fantasy figure has become increasingly
marginalized, and Loulou's rapport with his family and community is
more oblique. But the mythic strength of this doomed populist hero,
partly because of its accumulated layers in French film history, is such
that it informs a great deal of subsequent Depardieu parts, and endures
through performance continuities. Fort Saganne, for instance, casts this
figure in a nostalgic light. In a direct reference to the Gabin character of
Gueule d'amour (Jean Gremillon, 1937), Depardieu plays a Spahi officer of
popular origins in the pre-World War I Sahara, who is, again, of
particular erotic attraction to bourgeois women. By virtue of his uniform,

as in Gueule d'amour, the display of the male hero as object of desire is
emphasized, but the desire is also for the fantasy of the popular origins
which he represents, as it is in La Lune dans k caniveau. In Pialat's Police
(1985), Depardieu is a policeman, theoretically on the other side of the
tracks from the immigrant working-class milieu he is investigating. It is
clear, however, that despite his law-enforcing status vis-a-vis clearly
oppressed 'deviants', he is the focus of angst and suffering, theirs only a
background. At the end of the film, after the female protagonist Noria
(Sophie Marceau) leaves him to go back to her milieu (and possible
death), the camera lingers on him, not her. In a cinematically
overdetermined night scene, the camera follows his silhouette through
a Parisian cityscape (a street, a railway bridge), expressing his sadness
and solitude. Throughout the film, he has been shot behind windows,
bars and railings. Later, in his home, the camera remains on his vacant
face, in a very long take which closes the film, ending on a freeze-frame
over which classical music is heard. At this point, the star image of the
suffering macho clearly replaces the character.
The French auteur cinema, devoted to forms of psychological realism
as well as abstract explorations of the human condition, can thus make
good use of Depardieu's social-existential tragic persona. In Mon oncle
d'Amerique (1980), he attempts suicide because of work-related stress,
but his anxieties have a wider resonance than that of his white-collar job,
as shown by Resnais's careful inscription of his character's childhood as a
farmer's son, and visual identification with the 1930s Gabin through
mini flashbacks from Cabin's films. In Le Choix des arm.es (1981),
Depardieu's criminality is connected to his loubard origins. His ability to
embody such figures of crisis-ridden masculinity, at least up to Pialat's
Sous le soleil de Satan (in which he plays a tortured priest), is apt for an
auteur cinema which has a stake in exploring 'difficult' characters and
unhappiness, if only to distinguish itself from popular genres such as
comedy. Further than that, Depardieu's persona of tormented malehood
has been used as a mirror image of some auteurs, including Blier and
Pialat. As the older Depardieu plays the hero of Pialat's autobiographical
Le Garpu (1995), Pialat remarked, 'He's ended up looking like me.'13
Adding to this complex image is Depardieu's ambivalent depiction of
sexuality, another reason for his popularity in an auteur cinema which
exalts ambiguity. While in many ways Depardieu represents a traditional

vision of aggressive French machismo (from Les Valseuses to Uranus, and
Cyrano de Bergemc's 1990 swaggering Gascon), one of the most common
descriptions of his screen image as well as his behaviour as a performer,
to the extent that it has become a cliche, is that of his 'femininity' - as
Cahiers du cinema put it, 'a fragile man, with a flaw in his personality, a
very feminine character in the end'.14 As director and star of Tartuffe,
Depardieu made the eponymous character into a camp, sexually
ambiguous figure, soft spoken and sporting eye make-up and lipstick. In
Lettres volees, he extravagantly praises men (including Francois
Mitterrand) for their 'feminine side', while his highest compliment for
the women he admires, such as Catherine Deneuve, is their Virile'
qualities. Beyond the fact that sexual ambivalence and gender-bending
are fashionable (and Depardieu has been analysed by three analysts,
including Jacques Lacan), what are we to make of such discourses? Is
Depardieu's star persona truly evidence of the breaking down of
gender boundaries? If so, how does this relate to the misogynistic
aspects of his image?
In French cinema, masculinity is not traditionally defined as violently
opposed to femininity (as in, say, the American Western) but as
incorporating values normally ascribed to femininity, such as gentleness,
caring and nurturing. This takes us back to the loving fathers of the
French classical cinema and the gentleness expressed by male characters
towards each other in male-bonding narratives. If we also take into
account the high value placed on amorous relations in French culture, we
can understand why, as Michele Sarde argues, French men are perceived
(at least in the USA) as 'feminized', if not effeminate (Sarde, 1983, p. 11).
The propensity of male characters in French cinema to evoke suffering
may be recast in the light of this alignment with femininity. In
Depardieu's case, this takes two forms: victim roles and the performance
of weakness. The maiming and symbolic emasculation noted in
Depardieu's comedies is equally found in his dramatic roles, most
obviously in The Last Woman (1976), in which he castrates himself with
an electric carving knife as an expression of his impotence in the face of
feminism. Other films more subtly position him as a victim, allegorizing
fears of sexual/social impotence: for instance, in Mon oncle d'Amerique,
Danton (1982), Le Retour de Martin Guerre (1982), Jean de Florette, Cyrano
de Bergemc. In performance terms, this is expressed by the frequent

impairment of his body (hunchback in Jean de Florette, decapitated in
Danton, sexually impotent at the beginning of Le Retour de Martin
Guerre) and the effective use of his voice, its softness and subtle
modulations providing a contrast to the size of his body. The 'feminized'
aspect of Depardieu's image extends to his invasion of the traditional
topographies of femininity such as domestic spaces, as in Tenue de soiree.
Many couples at the centre of Depardieu's narratives are formed with
another man, from Les Valseuses to Cyrano de Bergerac, reconstituting a
symbolic male family unit, as in many of the comedies.
Ultimately though, this gender displacement does not entail changes
in either casting patterns, or the values associated with femininity and
masculinity, which are left at their most traditional (male = active,
female = passive). The occupying of feminine-identified spaces not only
leads to the narrative marginalization of women but also to a widening
of the psychological base of Depardieu's characters, and, not negligibly,
the number and importance of the parts he can play. In Mon pere, ce
hews, for instance, he is, like many French male stars before him, both
father and mother to his daughter in the same way as, in Les Comperes
and Les Fugitifs, he and Richard form an all-male parental couple to a
child. Such a fantasy of androgynous completeness has a long history in
French literature, going back to Rousseau and the Romantics (Coquillat,
1982, pp. 153-60). It is taken up by both popular and auteur cinema,
which not only marginalize women but also condone their oppression
(see the Blier films, Tous les matins du monde, Mon pere, ce hews, Elisa).
Here, an old pattern is brought up to date by Depardieu, taking on
arguably an added resonance in the context of a backlash against
feminism. Like Gabin in the 1940s and 1950s, Depardieu since the mid-
1980s has occupied the place of the simultaneously nurturing and erotic
father figure: Elisa, co-starring 'sex kitten' Vanessa Paradis, foregrounds
this theme with a clear incestuous slant.
Depardieu's repeated stress on his 'femininity' also adds a modish
sexual aura. His sexual identity appears to go beyond that of a mere
heterosexual man, although he is, also, unambiguously that. The
successful Trap belle pour toi (1989) is another good illustration of
Depardieu's adoption of femininity, but also of how this serves to erase
other differences. He plays a garage owner in Marseilles, married to the
ravishingly beautiful Florence (Carole Bouquet), who falls in love with

his 'homely' secretary Colette (Josiane Balasko - 'homely' is how the
subtitles coyly translate the funnier but more vicious French slang
expressions designating supposedly ugly women, such as tarte [lit: tart as
in pastry] and boudin [lit: black pudding, or turd]). Though the film is
funny, it is meant to be understood as a serious statement on male
suffering, underlined by the use of Schubert on the soundtrack.
Depardieu, physically fulfils his function as macho stud ('I have never
been so well fucked', says Colette) and is the locus of suffering, as he is
finally abandoned by both women. We hardly need Colette to say, 'He
is fragile, underneath his robust appearance'. The discourse of male
fragility conveniently erases that of gender and class power. Through
the choice of actresses, beauty and attractiveness are shown as class-
bound. Carole Bouquet (who, like Deneuve, advertises high-class
cosmetics) is the image of grand-bourgeois beauty, while Josiane
Balasko (a comic actress and filmmaker from the cafe-theatre tradition)
represents proletarian-ness. But if Colette is shown to be attractive to
Depardieu because of her proletarian-ness, the film at the same time (for
instance, through the language used to describe her) puts her down for
being so. Depardieu, on the other hand, through his accumulated image
from the past, can encompass proletarian-ness and transcend it, through
his tragic suffering. Ms proleterian-ness is attractive to the bourgeois
woman, without being condemned or belittled.
Finally, as the international success of Trap belle pour toi shows,
Depardieu's added sexual aura, which comes from his representation of
sexual ambivalence, updates the cliche of the Frenchman as bearer of
'earthy' virility and of romance, something which has not harmed his
export value.
Heritage and export: our 'Gege' vs 'Mister Dipardiou'15
Depardieu's middle age corresponded to the success of what are known

in France as 'cultural super-productions' and in English-speaking
countries as heritage cinema. After early examples such as 1900, Le
Retour de Martin Guerre, Danton and Fort Saganne, the genre really took
off, as far as Depardieu is concerned, with Jean de Florette, which was then
followed by Camille Claudel, Cyrano de Bergerac, Tons les matins du monde,

Germinal, Le Colonel Chabert and, for television, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
and Balzac - some of Depardieu's and France's biggest international hits.
In the face of global image culture (television, advertisements, music
videos), heritage films strategically place cinematic and national
specificity on the agenda. The accent is on high production values, a
mise-en-scene which stresses beautiful landscape (Jean de Florette), decor
and costumes (Cyrano de Bergerac), music (Tons les matins du monde) and
the French language. Heritage films foreground French culture and
history for a mainstream audience. They fulfil the 'middle-brow' function
of the popular literary classics on which they are often based, as in
Cyrano de Bergerac and Germinal (1993). Le Colonel Chabert, for instance,
perfectly merges culture and history, with Balzac's tale set at the time of
the Napoleonic wars. Internationally, the successful French heritage films
must offer a Janus-faced vision of Frenchness, attractive to the home
audience and consumable abroad, especially in the USA. Noel Burch has
argued that the world-wide success of Cyrano de Bergerac was based on a
misunderstanding:
In France the success of the film was the result of erasing the theatricality of
the text, whereas abroad Cyrano was sold on the image of the historic values
of France. ... Rappeneau became the itinerant ambassador of French culture
in the world.16
Although I disagree with Burch's notion of 'erasing the theatricality of

the text', I would extend his insight about the duality of these films to
say that with heritage films Depardieu became the 'itinerant ambassador
of French culture'.
Depardieu reached the heritage cycle with a strong star persona
which at first sight seemed ill-adapted to it. The spectacular nature of
heritage pictures contrasts with the naturalism of most of his films, and
the artificiality of incarnating well-known historical figures, with their
durable 'traces' (Comolli, 1978, p. 44), clashed with the 'authenticity' of
Depardieu's loubard image. Depardieu, however, turned out to be perfect
for the heritage genre, which, indeed, propelled his stardom into a new
global phase. The 'larger-than-life' aspect of his persona, first of all, fits
roles which are implicitly or explicitly about fame, display and acting —
in short, about stardom. Among others, Le Retour de Martin Guerre rests
on the performance of identity (true or false), Cyrano de Bergerac on

pretence, acting and the beauty of literature. Depardieu's physical and
moral expansiveness, his various excesses, are frequently compared to
those of the famous French figures he has incarnated, whether real or
fictional: Rodin, Balzac, Cyrano de Bergerac, Porthos, Danton and
Obelix. There are plans for starring roles in Victor Hugo's Les Miserabks
and Notre-Dame de Paris, and a film in which he would play General de
Gaulle.17
Jean-Paul Rappeneau, the director of Cyrano de Bergerac, said that he
picked Depardieu because 'he can express perfectly both sides of the
character: the proud and brilliant personality, alongside the suffering
soul'.18 This remark is very apt for Cyrano, a combination of comic
braggadocio and romantic suffering, but it would equally apply to
Danton, Jean de Florette and most of Depardieu's heritage films. These
tend to be about the split between the public and the private, about
outside strength and inner weakness, often figured as the 'masculine-
feminine' dichotomy evoked above. In Le Comte de Monte-Cristo,
Depardieu incarnates the hero Edmond Dantes, a victim of injustice who
takes spectacular revenge, but he said that 'what interests me in the
character is the hidden pain'.19 Depardieu's star persona also matches the
genre's merging of roots with internationalism. Language, which is at
the core of the French heritage film, is a channel for his expression of
Frenchness. Depardieu's elocution is a joy for his French audience, who
can pick up his subtle vocal modulations, but not an impediment for
foreign audiences, who can appreciate his energetic physical perfor-
mance as well as other visual pleasures. Other heritage films offer
Depardieu fine moments of verbal display — for instance, the tour-de-force
monologue in Le Colonel Chabert when Depardieu as Chabert explains
his circumstances to the young lawyer (Fabrice Luchini) — without jarring
with the spectacular mise-en-scene.
Depardieu's screen persona, as I have noted earlier, is rooted in a
symbolic social national identity (as opposed to female stars like
Deneuve and Bardot who are emblems of an abstract national identity).
While it is predicated on his earlier suffering or comic loubard, this image
can move out of its class context and be exported as simply Trench'
across his body and persona. For instance, the Gascons' bragging in
Cyrano de Bergerac, which in the French context is understood as a
cliched vision of the men of one area (geographically and historically

placed), becomes, outside France, a sign of, simply, Frenchness. A star
who has achieved global stardom, Depardieu off screen also skilfully
displays and markets signs of Frenchness. For example, his wine
business, the only aspect of his business ventures of the 1990s that has
not come under fire in France, is a means of exporting himself as well as
his product. Depardieu the wine-grower is constantly associated with his
terroir (which means both the soil and the area of origin) in Anjou,
where, as is often pointed out, Rabelais is one of his 'neighbours'. Like
his heritage films, Depardieu's Chateau de Tigne wines are sold both in
France through mass-market channels (the Carrefour hypermarket chain
sells them)20 and globally through Planet Hollywood.
As a comparative reading of the French- and English-speaking press
on Depardieu reveals, there is a price to be paid for this successful
export, and that is caricature. Carolyn Durham rightly points out that
in / Want to Go Home (1989), Depardieu functions as 'a self-reflexive
visual joke' (Durham, 1998, p. 30), playing the triple cliche of the
Frenchman as intellectual, bon vivant and sexual predator. But the very
subject of Resnais's film is an elaborate reflection on Franco-American
cliches, and the film addressed a very small audience. Green Card takes
the cliche to mass audiences, whereby Depardieu's personal behaviour,
particularly relating to food and sex, is turned into signs of
Frenchness.21 In a Barthesian sense of myth, Depardieu's quaffing red
wine, for instance, becomes the signifier of truth about a nation.
Perhaps this is the fate of all French and European male stars outside
their country: to export, they must either erase all signs of cultural
difference under a universal robotic identity (Schwarzenegger, Van
Damme) or travesty this identity for outside consumption, like
Chevalier in the 1930s. The international blockbuster The Man in the
Iron Mask, built around the young star Leonardo DiCaprio, delivers a
cruel parody of Depardieu as Porthos: eating like a pig, falling into the
mud, speaking atrocious English. Or perhaps it is that Depardieu
understands only too well the power of cliches. For one grotesque
Porthos he can sell the rights of his television series, Le Comte de
Monte-Cristo, to American network television.
Plate 23 Tenue de soiree (Bertrand Blier, 1986): Gerard Depardieu (left), Michel
Blanc (centre), Miou-Miou (right).
In the late 1990s, Depardieu moved to yet another phase of stardom,

that of multimedia celebrity. He is everywhere: in television series, in
commercials (Barilla pasta), directing films (Un pont entre deux rives), on
stage (in Jacques Attali's Les Fortes du del),22 cutting deals with President
Jacques Chirac in Romania, prospecting for oil in Cuba, making all
creative decisions on the FFlOOm French television programme Le Comte
de Monte-Cristo (choosing director, producer, sales agent, co-stars), and
co-starring in the blockbuster comedy Asterix et Obelix contre Cesar
(FF240m).23 As the daily Le Parisien put it on 13 September 1999, on the
release of Balzac, 'Does he [like Balzac] have a bailiff pursuing him?' His
ubiquity has attracted criticism, even in popular magazines hitherto
sympathetic to him. Premiere, for instance, remarked that 'All those parts
he played, others did not get them. He gobbled everything up.'24
Depardieu understands that stardom can no longer be confined to film
and he plays the celebrity game to the full, reaching into everyday
popular culture — thus, he is interviewed by Le Parisien by a panel of
'ordinary readers',25 he appears in supermarket wine catalogues and on
television chat shows, at the risk of over-exposure. He has nevertheless
kept the respect of the profession. Le Film francais noted that although
his 1990s box-office was uneven, 'His films show the diversity of his
parts. The "Great Gerard" does not hesitate to take risks.'26
Depardieu's 'risk-taking' is ultimately what defines his star persona.
Where Gabin, Delon and Belmondo embodied rebellious characters in
their youth, they did so within an established system. Depardieu 'broke
the codes', as Claude Regy, his influential theatrical mentor in the 1970s,
put it.27 The 1960s first displayed the male body with Delon and
Belmondo, as noted in Chapter 7, but their bodies were traditionally
beautiful objects of desire. Depardieu's was rugged, tougher and less
shapely, he let it all hang out': the bulging stomach, the hairy chest, the
pallid skin. He put on weight, lost it, put it on again, and, like Robert de
Niro, he made an expressionist use of his body. The French public
followed his hangovers, his visits to health farms, his promises to stop
drinking, his diets. Depardieu managed the transition from the anti-
conformist post-1968 era to 1990s confessional celebrity culture without
- it appears — alienating his popular audience. His star's luxury trappings
lack ostentation. He reputedly has no yacht, no bodyguard, no chauffeur.
His Chateau de Tigne is an expensive folly but it produces a little local
wine. Moreover, wine-growing is a noble masculine activity which has
the approval of popular culture (by contrast, Bardot's anti-hunting
positions fly in the face of populist opinion in France). Gabin retained the
traces of his pre-war working-class heroes even as a rich farm-owner in
the 1960s, through the power of his 'myth' (see Chapter 3). Despite
some questionable performances as 'Dipardiou' and dubious extra-
cinematic ventures, Depardieu's own myth has kept alive the raw energy
of the post-1968 days. As he churns out canonical versions of French
culture for home consumption and export, he is still the lad who
'brought with him the no-man's-lands of Chateauroux, another idea of
virility, of morals, of beauty'.28
Biofilmography
Bom Chateauroux, 27 December 1948. Married Elisabeth Guignot (1970),

with whom two children: Guillaume, born 1971, and Julie, born 1973.
Main acting awards
Cesar, Best Actor, Le Dernier metro, 1980

Venice, Best Actor, Police, 1985
Cesar, Best Actor, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1990
Cannes, Best Actor, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1990
Golden Globe, Best Actor, Green Card, 1991
Films as actor
1971 Le Cri du cormoran le soir au-dessus des jonques (Michel Audiard)

Un peu de soldi dans I'eau froide (Jacques Deray)
1972 Le Viager (Pierre Tchernia)
Le Tueur (Denys de la Patelliere, France/Italy)
La Scoumoune (Jose Giovanni)
1973 Au rendez-vous de la mart joyeuse (Juan Bunuel)
Nathalie Granger (Marguerite Duras)
L'Affaire Dominici (Claude Bernard-Aubert)
Deux hommes dans la ville/Two Men in Town (Jose Giovanni,
France/Italy)
Rude journee pour la reine (Rene Allio)
Les Valseuses/Going Places (Bertrand Blier)
1974 Les Caspards (Pierre Tchernia)
La Femme du Gange/Woman of the Ganges (Marguerite Duras)
Stavisky (Alain Resnais)
Vincent, Francois, Paul et les autres/Vincent, Francois, Paul and the
Others (Claude Sautet, France/Italy)
1975 Pas si mechant que c.a (Claude Goretta, France/Switzerland)
Sept marts sur ordonnance (Jacques Rouffio, France/Spain)
1976 Maitresse (Barbet Schroeder)
Je t'aime, moi non plus (Serge Gainsbourg)
La Derniere femme/The Last Woman [L'ultima donna] (Marco
Ferreri, France/Italy)
1900 [Novecento] (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/France/Germany)
Barocco (Andre Techine)
1977 Rene la Canne (Francis Girod, France/Italy)
Le Camion/The Truck (Marguerite Duras)
Baxter - Vera Baxter (Marguerite Duras)

Dites-lui que je I'aime/This Sweet Sickness (Claude Miller)
La Nuit tous les chats sont gris (Gerard Zingg)
1978 Violanta (Daniel Schmid, Switzerland)
Preparez vos mouchoirs/Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Bertrand Blier)
Ciao Maschio/Bye Bye Monkey [Reve de singe] (Marco Ferreri,
Italy/France)
Die linkshandige Frau/The Left-handed Woman [La Femme gauchere]
(Peter Handke, Germany)
Le Sucre (Jacques Rouffio)
1979 Les Chiens (Alain Jessua)
L'incorgo/Traffic Jam [Le Grand embouteillage] (Luigi Comencini,
Italy/France/Spain/Germany)
Buffet froid (Bertrand Blier)
1980 Mon oncle d'Amerique/My American Uncle (Alain Resnais)
Temporale Rosy/Rosy Storm [Rosy la Bourrasque] (Mario Monicelli,
Italy/France/Germany)
Le Dernier metro/The Last Metro (Francois Truffaut)
Loulou (Maurice Pialat)
Inspecteur La Bavure/Inspector Blunder (Claude Zidi)
]e vous aime (Claude Berri)
1981 Le Choix des armes/Choice of Weapons (Alain Corneau)
La Femme d'a cote/The Woman Next Door (Francois Truffaut)
La Chevre (Francis Veber)
1982 Le Retour de Martin Guerre/The Return of Martin Guerre (Daniel
Vigne)
Le Grand frere (Francis Girod)
Danton (Andrzej Wajda)
1983 La Lune dans le caniveau/The Moon in the Gutter (Jean-Jacques
Beineix, France/Italy)
Les Comperes (Francis Veber)
1984 Fort Saganne (Alain Corneau)
Tartuffe (Gerard Depardieu)
Rive droite, rive gauche (Philippe Labro)
1985 Police (Maurice Pialat)
Une femme sur deux/One Woman or Two (Daniel Vigne)
1986 Tenue de soiree/Menage (Bertrand Blier)
Jean de Florette (Claude Berri, France/Italy)

Je hais les acteurs (Gerard Krawczyk)
Rue du depart (Tony Gatlif)
Les Fugitifs (Francis Veber)
Sous le soleil de Satan/Under Satan's Sun (Maurice Pialat)
1988 Drole d'endroit pour une rencontre/A Strange Place to Meet (Francois
Dupeyron)
Camille Claudel (Bruno Nuytten)
1989 Deux (Claude Zidi)
Trap belle pour toi/ Too Beautiful for You (Bertrand Blier)
/ Want to Go Home (Alain Resnais)
1990 Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
Green Card (Peter Weir)
Uranus (Claude Berri)
1991 Merci, la vie (Bertrand Blier)
Mon pere, ce hews (Gerard Lauzier)
Tous les matins du monde (Alain Corneau)
1992 Le Visionarium/From Time to Time [short] (Jeff Blyth, France/USA)
1492; Conquest of Paradise (Ridley Scott, UK/France/Spain)
1993 Francois Truffaut: portraits voles/Francois Truffaut: Stolen Portraits
[doc] (Michel Pascal, Serge Toubiana)
Helas pour moi (Jean-Luc Godard, France/Switzerland)
Germinal (Claude Berri)
1994 My Father the Hero (Steve Miner, USA) [remake of Mon pere, ce
heros]
Le Colonel Chabert (Yves Angelo)
Una pura formalita [Une simple formalite] (Giuseppe Tornatore,
Italy/France)
La Machine (Francois Dupeyron, France/Germany)
1995 Les Anges gardiens (Jean-Marie Poire)
Elisa (Jean Becker)
Le Garcu (Maurice Pialat)
Le Hussard sur le toit/The Horseman on the Roof (Jean-Paul
Rappeneau)
1996 The Secret Agent (Christopher Hampton, USA/UK)
Unhook the Stars [Decroche les etoiles] (Nick Cassavetes, USA)
Bogus (Norman Jewison, USA)

Le Plus beau metier du monde/The Greatest Job in the World (Gerard
Lauzier)
Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh, USA/UK)
Le Gaulois (Gerard Lauzier)
1997 XXL (Ariel Zeitoun)
She's So Lovely (Nick Cassavetes, France/USA)
1998 The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, USA)
Bimboland (Ariel Zei'toun)
La parola amore esiste/Mots d'amour (Mimmo Calopresti, Italy/
France)
Town and Country (Peter Chelsom, USA)
Mammy (Angelica Huston, Ireland)
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo [TV] (Josee Day an)
Raspoutine (Constantin Costa-Gavras)
1999 Balzac [TV] (Josee Dayan)
Un pont entre deux rives (Gerard Depardieu)
Asterix et Obelix contre Cesar (Claude Zidi)
2000 Les Acteurs (Bertrand Blier)
Vatel (Roland Joffe, France/UK)
Notes
1. According to his agent, Bertrand de Labbey, Depardieu was paid FF8m for
Monte-Cristo, 17m for Bogus, 15m for 1492, 10m for Asterix. Quoted in
Guerrin and Salino, Le Monde, 24 March 1999, p. 14.
2. Ibid., p 15.
3. Depardieu declared he had 'assiste a un viol', which means 'witnessed' a
rape, but was translated as 'assisted'.
4. Among other business ventures in the 1990s, Depardieu controversially
invested in a Cuban oil company.
5. Marianne, 2-8 November 1998, p. 12.
6. Two of which were among the numerous Franco-US remakes of the 1980s:
La Chevre as Pure Luck (1991) and Les Fugitifs as Three Fugitives (1988).
Richard and Depardieu have equal billing on the films, though the trilogy
marked the end of Richard's mainstream career.
7. For a view of Les Valseuses as part of the Blier canon, see Forbes, in
Hay ward and Vincendeau (2000), pp. 213—23.
8. Gerard Depardieu, interview in Cahiers du cinema, May 1981, p. 114, and
interview with Serge Toubiana, Cahiers du cinema, December 1986, p. 35.

9. Le Monde, 24 March 1999; Guerrin and Salino, p. 14.
10. Depardieu, interview in Cahiers du cinema, May 1981, p. 112.
11. Toubiana, Cahiers du cinema, p. 35.
12. Francois Truffaut, Arts, 29 April 1959.
13. Maurice Pialat, quoted in Studio Magazine, No. 104, November 1995,
p. 80.
14. Depardieu, interview in Cahiers du cinema, May 1981, p. Ill (Depardieu
has repeatedly made variations on this statement in many contexts).
15. Le Film francais, No. 2690, 24 October 1997, p. 18. 'Dipardiou' is the
French transcription of the American pronunciation of Depardieu's name.
16. Noel Burch and Genevieve Sellier, Taire le point', Les Lettres franpaises,
May 1991.
17. Quoted in Telerama, No. 2537, 26 August 1998, p. 41.
18. Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 'Cyrano — the movie', Cyrano de Bergerac, press book,
Artificial Eye, 1991.
19. Telerama, No. 2537, p. 40.
20. Carrefour 'foire aux vins' catalogue, 21 September 1999, p. 16: 'GD et son
vignoble'.
21. Particularly interesting in this respect is an interview in Interview,
December 1990, pp. 120-4.
22. Jacques Attali, the author of the play, is also a politician and friend of the
late President Francois Mitterand. The play, performed in 1999, is about
Charles Quint.
23. Le Film francais, No. 2661, 18 April 1997, p. 6.
24. Premiere, Hors serie, special 20 ans, December 1996, p. 52.
25. Le Parisien, 2 February 1999, pp. 2—4.
26. Le Film francais, No. 2536, 9 December 1994, p. 4.
27. Claude Regy, interviewed in Le Monde, 24 March 1999; Guerrin and
Salino, p. 14.
28. Ibid., p. 14.
CHAPTER 10
Juliette Binoche
The face of neo-romanf/c/sm
In the mid-1980s, three young actresses exploded on to the French film

scene: Beatrice Dalle in 37-2 le matin/Betty Blue, Sandrine Bonnaire in
A nos amours and Vagabonde and Juliette Binoche in Rendez-vous and
Mauvais sang. Their youth bracketed them into a new generation: Dalle
and Binoche were both born in 1964 and Bonnaire in 1967. This was the
moment when Emmanuelle Beart (born 1964), Sophie Marceau (born
1966) and Julie Delpy (born 1969) also appeared. Remarkably, fifteen
years later, these actresses, except for the unpredictable (and sadly
typecast) Dalle, are all active and successful. Their careers, however,
have taken different paths. While Dalle's 'in-your-face' sexuality seems
to confine her to repeats of her Betty Blue persona, Bonnaire has
successfully channelled her naturalistic style into the work of respected
auteurs such as Maurice Pialat (with whom she started), Agnes Varda,
and Jacques Rivette, and she also maintains a presence in the mainstream
with films such as Monsieur Hire and the 1997 television series, Une
femme en blanc. Marceau and Beart also managed the transition to
international blockbusters: Beart in Mission Impossible in 1996, Marceau
in Braveheart (1995) and the Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough
(1999). Binoche succeeded in going international while remaining
identified as an auteur cinema star, moving from Jean-Luc Godard,
Andre Techine and the young Leos Carax to prestigious international art
241
films. She starred in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Damage, Three

Colours: Blue, Le Hussard sur k toit (the most expensive French film of its
time) and The English Patient, gaining an Oscar for the latter. Thanks to
the success of these films, to her universally praised performances and to
her advertisements for the Lancome perfume 'Poeme', Binoche is a
potent ambassador of French femininity the world over. As opposed to
Dalle's pop sexual persona (a throwback to Bardot) and Bonnaire's
earthy naturalism, Binoche's image is altogether more cerebral, more
anguished and more fragile, making her a direct inheritor of New Wave
actresses such as Jeanne Moreau, Emmanuelle Riva and Delphine Seyrig
(see Chapter 5). At the same time, her distinguishing characteristic is her
ability to evoke, alongside the cool exterior, the intensity of passion.
One key to her success is this play on surface and depth, which has
turned her into an icon of Neo-Romanticism. Another is her ability to
shift between two feminine archetypes which somehow seem to require
French names: the gamine and the femme fatale.
Binoche obviously does not have the longevity of the other stars in
this book. But the fact that she projects a complex French-identified
image (as opposed to Beart and Marceau's blockbuster 'babes') on a
global scale places her in the same league as Brigitte Bardot, Catherine
Deneuve and Jeanne Moreau, as well as Isabelle Adjani and Isabelle
Huppert (following the latter into London theatres, she gained added
publicity when she appeared in a low-budget avant-garde stage
production of Pirandello's Naked at the Almeida Theatre). In the late
1990s, along with Deneuve and Depardieu, she is the best-known
French star internationally.
The early gamine
The very young Binoche was a picture of adolescent spontaneity. Yet,

she trained in the theatre and retained the discipline and professionalism
associated with the stage. Unlike Dalle and Bonnaire, who were cast,
respectively, from a magazine cover and a newspaper advert, Binoche
did not emerge overnight. She comes from a family of actors and started
acting at school in the late 1970s, moving on to classes at the Paris
Conservatoire. This was followed by professional stage productions in
Juliette Binoche 243
the early 1980s and a couple of television films. Her first film part was in
Pascal Kane's Liberty Belle in 1982, followed in 1984 by a small part in
Godard's ]e vous salue, Marie and a more substantial one in Annick
Lanoe's Les Nanas. In Les Nanas, a 'post-feminist' comedy remake of
George Cukor's The Women (featuring a 100 per cent female cast
endlessly discussing men), Binoche weaves her way through the film on
roller skates and in hot pants, a representation of youth, compared with
her mature co-stars Macha Meril and Marie-France Pisier. Interestingly,
given her future development and in view of the wacky tone of the film,
her character is the only one with a 'tragic' dimension, being blighted by
unrequited love. ]e vous salue Marie reinforces her dramatic register. She
appears in two short scenes in which 'Joseph' rejects her for 'Marie'.
Godard's intense camera focuses on her anguished face, and here are the
round, pink cheeks in the milky complexion, the retrousse nose, liquid
brown eyes and short dark hair, as well as the pink lips and pearl-white
regular teeth which would become familiar. Already, Binoche strikes an
original figure in the gamine spectrum: she possesses the petite but
bouncy physique, glowing health and tomboyish energy of Colette's
Gigi, as well as the romantic despair associated with the Victorian waif
and her modern counterparts: for instance, the young Isabelle Adjani and
Mireille Perrier in Carax's first film Boy Meets Girl. Another element of
her persona is put in place: unlike Lolita, whose point is sexual attraction,
the young Binoche is defined by a sublimated form of romantic passion,
like the actresses of the New Wave (see Chapter 5). This is the persona
which emerges fully in Techine's Rendez-vous (1985), of which Binoche
said, Tor me this film was a detonator, like a birth'.1 In her first starring
role, Binoche plays Nina, an aspiring young actress, whose triumph is to
play Shakespeare's Juliet. Besides the theatrical narrative, the film chiefly
depicts her amorous relationships with several male characters. While
her youthful physique and vitality connote modernity, her cultural
points of reference are romanticism and courtly love. Apart from an
uncharacteristic comic role in Jacques Rouffio's altogether unsuccessful
Mon beau-frere a tue ma soeur (1985), in which her kookiness is mainly a
foil to the performances of veterans Michel Piccoli and Michel Serrault,
her Rendez-vous persona sets the tone for her subsequent career. It is this
persona which Leos Carax takes up and transforms into an icon.
The Garax muse: cinephilia and amour fou
It is hard not to use the Pygmalion metaphor in the case of Carax and
Binoche, whose partnership on two films - Mauvais sang (1986) and Les
Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) - went publicly beyond the professional.
Carax single-handedly remodelled Binoche for the part of Anna in
Mauvais sang. She was made to lose weight, take dancing and singing
lessons — even change her laugh — as well as to read novels by Balzac
and Radiguet, listen to Jean Cocteau and the songs of Barbara. Carax
demanded from her an ever-increasing commitment, which, although she
perceived it to be impossible to satisfy, she proceeded to give. She did
so in career terms, turning down many projects during the three long
years it took to film Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.2 Another image of her
commitment to Carax's projects is the unusual degree of her physical
investment in their two films: very long and demanding shooting
schedules, parachute-jumping in Mauvais sang and water-skiing down
the Seine in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. Most importantly, Carax instilled
in her his passion for the cinema, introducing her to 'the history of
cinema: Griffith, Dreyer, Vidor',3 including Lillian Gish. Thus, he
fashioned her in the mould of the New Wave dnephile star.
There is in the Carax—Binoche partnership the deliberate making of a
mythic identity: a male auteur constructs his personal filmic universe
with the help of a female star. She functions both as beautiful female
'object' within a long iconic tradition, and as a 'subject' who focalizes the
auteur's philosophical and aesthetic preoccupations. Her character in
Mauvais sang tellingly says of her older lover (Michel Piccoli), 'He
demands very beautiful and very demanding things of me. He
immediately looked at me with the eyes of an inventor, a scientist.'
This is not a one-sided process, though, and Binoche knowingly
undertook this project: 'My character was the image of a woman seen
through the eyes of a man. I wanted to be filmed by somebody who
loved me and whom I loved.' She admitted: 'I entered this film [Mauvais
sang] like one enters religion'.4 There have been precedents for this kind
of creative partnership, some of which were explicit models for Carax,
especially Griffith and Lillian Gish and Jean-Luc Godard and Anna
Karina. The Godard-Karina reference was particularly important,
because their relationship was both sexual and professional. This legacy
of Godard on Carax is also evident in textual terms: for instance, in

Carax's use of primary colours, but especially in his way of filming
Binoche's face.
Mauvais sang is a series of cartoon-like, magnified and detached
images, in which Binoche's face occupies a central place, shot from all
possible angles, including laterally and upside down, as Jacques Aumont
points out (Aumont, 1992, p. 151). Rarely has an actress's face been so
overtly reified. The central paradox of Mauvais sang is that its highly
mannered style is put to the service of a study of love, of desperate
amour fou, in its most sincere and passionate dimensions, a project in
which Binoche's image was central. Carax took her gamine/passionate
lover duality, and rewrote it through Chaplin, Lillian Gish and other
figures in film history. Binoche's appearance in Mauvais sang, especially
her hairstyle, was an allusion to the Anna Karina of Godard's Vivre sa vie
(1962), herself an allusion to Louise Brooks in Pabst's Pandora's Box
(1929). Together with these echoes of modernist heroines, the framing
of Binoche's face is also a reference to the female face as an icon of
suffering. Karina's face in Vivre sa vie is visually equated with Falconetti's
in Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Binoche's face
in Mauvais sang reprises this trope, in a very long take of her face
looking up, tears silently rolling down her cheeks. Binoche's detached,
fetishized vision of loveliness and melodramatic suffering is also a
reference to Lillian Gish. At the same time, though, Mauvais sang
capitalized on her capacity to evoke a robust vision of childlike
innocence and wonderment. To Louise Brooks and Lillian Gish are added
the Pierrot figure from the commedia dell'arte, and its paradigmatic screen
incarnation, Chaplin. Here, Binoche's short hair, triangular face and large
dark eyes evoke an androgynous urchin, reinforced by the similarities
with her co-star Denis Lavant. The two of them are cast as a pair of milk-
drinking children, contrasted with Michel Piccoli's father figure who, for
instance, finds them fooling around with shaving cream on their faces.
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, with the same central pair of actors (and
another father figure played by Kauld-Michael Griiber), is a long
elaboration on this configuration. Similarly, it is another - albeit perverse
- tribute to Binoche's face, its exquisite features spectacularly degraded.
She spends most of the film unwashed, and with an eye patch; those
luscious lips ('wet like those of old film stars', says Alex in Mauvais sang)
are dry and chapped, her delicate complexion coarse and reddened.
Carax teases us with the memory of her beauty, on the posters pasted up
all over Paris and with her return at the end of the film, finally as
'herself.
Rather than the cinema du look of Beineix and Besson, with which they
are often compared, the Binoche—Carax films are exemplars of a new
Romantic streak in 1980s and 1990s French cinema. Its exponents are
directors such as Olivier Assayas (Paris s'eveille), Jacques Doillon (Le Jeum
Werther), Eric Rochant (Un monde sans pitie) and Chantal Akerman (Nuit
et jour, Un divan a New York). These films focus on heterosexual couples
and their amorous liaisons and endorse the values of Romanticism,
updated to contemporary Paris and filtered through the New Wave:
imagination, tenderness, lyricism, freedom, the love of art. Carax's
international success, compared to the filmmakers mentioned above, is
connected to his more overt post-modern mise-en-scene. But it is also
because in Binoche he found, and helped construct, a star who summed
up the seductive paradox of his mise-en-scene: a smooth, youthful surface
hiding romantic passion. The centrality of Binoche to this 'Neo-
Romantic' streak is evident in this comment on Les Amants du Pont-Neuf:
'Carax's vision of the Parisian dochard is undoubtedly a Romantic, and
Romanticized, one; indeed, given the casting of Binoche in particular, it
could perhaps hardly fail to be otherwise' (Hayes, 1999, p. 209). The
Carax—Binoche partnership ended with Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. But
unlike Karina, who never really made her mark outside Godard's films,
Binoche moved on. Her image clearly had a wider resonance, making it
possible for her to adapt to other films, while retaining a continuity with
her earlier work necessary for stardom.
Sex, art and anguish
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988, an adaptation of Milan Kundera's

novel) was Binoche's first international production, a high-profile
American film with European subject, location and cast. Her part as
Teresa, the simple young provincial wife of a womanizing Prague
surgeon (Daniel Day-Lewis) recycles many elements of her Mauvais sang
persona in a more classic narrative form; indeed, Binoche said, 'Anna
Plate 24 Un divan a New York (Chantal Akerman, 1995): Juliette Binoche.
helped me play Teresa'.5 Her gamine dimension feeds the innocence

and supposed lack of sophistication of the character, contrasted to the
wordly Sabina (Lena Olin), in the same way as her romantic
melancholy is opposed to Sabina's high spirits. But what also connects
her to her previous parts is that her character is defined by being in love.
Her passionate nature induces switches between paroxysms of joy and
sorrow. However, a shift has occurred in her passage from national to
international star, along the lines of the sexualized image of French
women. The tortured nudity of Rendez-vous and the sublimated
amorous discourse of the Carax films are replaced by more
traditionally packaged sex. Traces of the innocent gamine are retained,
however: the hairstyle (including the childlike blowing on her fringe
from Mauvais sang) and the startling, magic, transformation of her face
from melancholy to joy with a sudden flash of her luminous smile,
revealing her small white teeth.
Louis Malle's Damage (1992, titled Fatale in French) shifts the persona
further, transforming the mercurial gamine into a more mature femme
fatale. Like a sphinx, she mesmerizes all men around her. Although
Damage features notorious sex scenes and nudity, it is still Binoche's face
which is the centre of interest and the basis of her star identity, evoking
no longer Lillian Gish but the great femmes fatales of the 1930s, in
particular Garbo (as well as the actresses of the New Wave, as discussed
in Chapter 5). Discussing its detached, insubstantial nature, Roland
Barthes said of Garbo's face that it was a mask, and 'an idea' (Barthes,
1973, p. 56). Binoche shares this cerebral, abstract quality. Garbo's face,
however, belonged to the era of the classical Hollywood cinema. How
does the idea of the femme fatale, as embodied by Binoche, function in
the more explicit, more realistic contemporary cinema? First, her looks in
Damage are redefined ('Louis Malle wanted someone who would be very
sophisticated. He called a stylist to make me over, give me a "look" ').6
The glossy black hair is smoothed down, the round cheeks give way to a
more prominent bone structure, the voice is deepened. The stillness of
her performance increases, reaching its most minimalist. Like Garbo's,
Binoche's face is made to look like a mask and, recalling Manuals sang,
'comes to resemble the flour-white complexion of Charlie Chaplin' (ibid.).
Second, like the films of Garbo or Dietrich, Damage capitalizes on the
idea of the foreignness of the femme fatale, as if the power of sexual
desire could be best understood when turned into an alien. Third, in
Damage, as well as in Kieslowski's Three Colours: Blue, her social identity
is constituted by an association with art, thus detaching her from any
precise milieu while keeping a contemporary setting, and stressing the
romantic construction. She is an actress in Rendez-vous, a photographer in
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a painter in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. In
Damage, she works in art, in Three Colours: Blue, in music, in Alice et
Martin, she plays the violin. In The English Patient she is an art-loving
nurse. An important scene shows her admiring frescoes by Piero della
Francesca in a church. The importance of art in her characters echoes her
extra-cinematic identity as an amateur painter. Binoche, who contributed
paintings to Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (and designed the poster), had her
work exhibited in Tours in 1994. And she said of The English Patient,
'When I read the scene with the paintings of Piero della Francesca ... I
knew I just had to be inside this film, because I'd been in love with Piero
della Francesca for a long, long time'7 (see Chapter 1 for her encounter
with Francois Mitterrand in a bookshop, while she was reading books on
painting). In terms of her screen image, the art connection connotes
sensitivity and reinforces her identification as an art cinema actress by
stressing her empathy with the world of the films and their directors.
Finally, Binoche partakes of the mystery characteristic of the classic
femme fatale. Reviews of her films frequently use words such as
'enigmatic' and 'mysterious' (her dark looks are often contrasted to a
blonde, vivacious and more 'transparent' actress - Miranda Richardson
in Damage, Charlotte Very in Three Colours: Blue, Kristin Scott-Thomas in
The English Patient). These qualities, together with her beauty, lead men
to their downfall (Damage) or simply echo their morbidity - for instance,
in Three Colours: Blue and in Alice et Martin. Yet hers is not the
unknowability of the scheming femme fatale, but of femininity itself,
which her films convey in lingering close-ups. I have already noted the
use of her face in Mauvais sang and Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.
Kieslowski's Three Colours: Blue begins and ends on her face in extreme
close-up. In all three cases, the manipulation of proximity and distance
characteristic of close-ups (Aumont, 1990, pp. 105-7) relies on the
quality of Binoche's face: its beauty and luminosity attract the camera
like a magnet, but its smoothness refracts the gaze of the spectator. Julia
Dobson's argument that Three Colours: Blue's 'persistent emphasis on
reflection and light ... presents Julie as icon and ultimately represses her
subjectivity' (Dobson, 1999, p. 238) is dependent on the mask-like
quality of Binoche's face, eliciting a sense of opacity which serves
directors as diverse as Carax, Kieslowski and Malle.
Binoche's face, capable of extreme mobility as well as extreme
stillness, has thus moved from being the archetype of the romantic
gamine to that of Neo-Romantic woman in Damage, Three Colours: Blue,
Alice et Martin, archetypal European art films which value ambivalence,
mystery and anguish, especially when embodied by a beautiful, 'tragic',
woman. One recurring image sums this up, from Mauvais sang to Alice et
Martin: a close-up of Binoche's face with a cigarette - not the showy
cigarette on the long cigarette-holder of 1930s Hollywood femmes
fatales, but the more 'existential' cigarette of Gabin in Le Jour se leve and
of New Wave heroes, a signifier of anguish and aesthetic cool (despite,
or perhaps because of, its 'political incorrectness'). It is an image which
combines the sexual appeal of French female icons (Bardot, Deneuve)

with the anguish of male stars (e.g. the young Depardieu): in other
words, which sexualizes anguish. One could hope for a change in the
Binoche persona towards more positive, less melancholy figures. More
than ten years on, her character in Alice et Martin is given more
autonomy and strength than in Techine's earlier Rendez-vous. And in Les
Enfants du siecle (1999, based on George Sand's affair with Alfred de
Musset), she is given a truly independent historical figure to play and
reports having been attracted to Sand's 'strength'.8 Yet her roles in both
Les Enfants du siecle and La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (2000) still privilege a
melancholy and at times even morbid persona.9
Binoche's embodiment of sexy melancholy, epitomized by Three
Colours: Blue, is so central to her image that it is difficult to imagine her
otherwise. Her smiling or laughing come as a shock, almost as if from
another actress. If her face evokes Garbo's, as indicated above, then
equally, like Garbo, she 'must not laugh'.10 Binoche reports that on the
shooting of Le Hussard sur le hit, 'As soon as there was a smile, [Jean-Pau
Rappeneau] wanted to remove it,'11 adding later on, 'When people say,
"you do films about death and loss, why don't you do comedies?" Well,
I'd love to, I've done one or two, but it might not be the purpose I'm here
for.'12 She has also figured out that French comedy is not as exportable as
romantic melancholy; as she told the British magazine Premiere, 'English
people are not interested in my comedies.'13 There is indeed a scene in
Alice et Martin, set in a provincial bar with a rowdy audience, in which
Binoche unexpectedly laughs. The laugh tears right through the fabric of
the film and of her image. Her laugh, mouth wide open, is 'shocking',
because it evokes the Rabelaisian body, but also because, as feminists
have pointed out, there is something subversive in women's laughter.14
Similarly, while most of her films since La Vie de famille feature what she
calls 'the obligatory little nude scene',15 she reports that Techine refused
to show her pregnant in Alice et Martin although her character in the film
is. The face of the Neo-Romantic woman must remain mask-like and
distant, her body ethereal. Like the perfume Binoche advertises, she must
be a 'poem'.
Biofilmography
Born Paris, 9 April 1964. One son (Raphael), born 1994, and one daughter,
born 1999.
Main acting awards
Prix Romy Schneider for Rendez-vous, 1985

Venice, Best Actress, Three Colours: Blue, 1993
Cesar, Best Actress, Three Colours: Blue, 1994
Berlin, Silver Bear, The English Patient, 1997
Academy Award, Best Supporting Actress, The English Patient, 1997
Films as actor
1982 Liberty Belle (Pascal Kane)

Dorothee ou la danseuse de fil [TV] (Jacques Fansten)
Fort blocjue [TV] (Pierrick Guinard)
1983 Le Meilleur de la vie (Renaud Victor)
1984 ]e vous salue, Marie/Hail Mary (Jean-Luc Godard, France/
Switzerland)
Les Nanas (Annick Lanoe)
Adieu Blaireau (Bob Decout)
La Vie de famille (Jacques Doillon)
1985 Rendez-vous (Andre Techine)
Mon beau-frere a tue ma soeur (Jacques Rouffio)
1986 Mauvais sang/Bad Blood (Leos Carax)
1988 The Unbearable Lightness of Being [LTnsoutenable legerete de I'etre]
(Philip Kaufman, USA)
Un tour de manege (Pierre Pradinas)
1991 Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (Leos Carax)
Mara [Women and Men — In Love There Are No Rules] [short]
(Mike Figgis, USA)
Wuthering Heights (Peter Kosminski, USA/UK)
1992 Damage [Fatale] (Louis Malle, UK/France)
1993 Trois couleurs: bleu/Three Colours: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski,
France/Switzerland/Poland)
1994 Trois couleurs: blanc/Three Colours: White (Krzysztof Kieslowski,
France/Switzerland/Poland) [brief appearance]
Trois coukurs: rouge/Three Colours: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski,

France/Switzerland/Poland) [very brief appearance]
1995 Le Hussard sur le toit/The Horseman on the Roof (Jean-Paul
Rappeneau)
Un divan a New York (Chantal Akerman, France/Belgium/
Germany)
1997 The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, USA)
1999 Alice et Martin (Andre Techine)
Les Enfants du siede (Diane Kurys)
2000 La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (Patrice Leconte)
Notes
1. Juliette Binoche, quoted in Sophie Cherer, 'L'annee Juliette', Premiere

(France), September 1995, p. 84.
2. Les Amants du Pont-Neuf began shooting in 1989, but because of
production and financial difficulties, was not completed until 1991, with
two long interruptions in the shooting schedule and a relocation from
Paris to Southern France. For details, see David Thompson, 'Once upon a
time in Paris', Sight and Sound, September 1992, pp. 6—11. Binoche later
turned down a part in Jurassic Park in favour of Three Colours: Blue.
3. Juliette Binoche, quoted in 'A comme Anna', Cahiers du cinema, November
1986, pp. 20—1, and in Cherer, 'L'annee Juliette', p. 86.
4. Ibid.
5. Binoche, in A comme Anna', p. 24.
6. Binoche, in Cherer, 'L'annee Juliette', p. 87.
7. Juliette Binoche, quoted in Darren Bignell, The sunshine girls', Empire, No.
94, April 1997, p. 60.
8. Juliette Binoche, interviewed by Lanie Goldman, Guardian, 12 March 1999,
p. 2.
9. For a development of Binoche's later star persona, especially in Les Enfants
du siecle and La Veuve de Saint-Pierre, see my article The erotic face', Sight
and Sound, June 2000, pp. 15—16.
10. The publicity for Ernst Lubitsch's film Ninotchka (1939) was famously
based on the slogan 'Garbo laughs!', referring to the central scene in the
film when Garbo finally 'thaws out' and laughs heartily.
12. Binoche in Bignell, The sunshine girls', p. 61.
13. Juliette Binoche, quoted in Premiere (UK), Vol. 5, No. 2, March 1997, p. 62.
14. As illustrated, for instance, in Marleen Gorris's A Question of Silence (1981).
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Periodicals
By their nature, stars generate massive media coverage. In addition to the

French and British daily and weekly press, the publications I consulted most
frequently were:
French-language
Cahiers du cinema
CinemAction
Cinemonde
La Cinematographic francaise
Cine-miroir
Cine-revue
Le Film francais
Positif
Pour vous
Premiere (France)
La Revue du cinema
Studio Magazine
Telerama
English-language
Film Comment
Film Dope
Films and Filming
Films in Review
Monthly Film Bulletin
Screen International
Sight and Sound
Stars
Variety
ndex
Page numbers in bold type indicate a substantial entry; page numbers in

italics indicate photographs.
A bout de souffle 113, 164, 165, 166 autobiographies 22-3, 85, 106, 226
accessibility 14, 15, 19 see also biographies
from autobiographies 22—3 awards 17-18, 121-2, 129, 209,
from biographies 22 217
from interviews 23
from political stands 20 Bandera, La 65—9
from singing careers 20—1 Bardot, Brigitte (1934- )
see also press animal lover 100
action films 143, 162, 168-70 audiences 104
see also genre films box-office vs cinephilia 84, 86
Actors' Studio, vs national theatre career history, continued
style 9 popularity 29
adventure films 143, 162, 168-70 dancing roles 95, 100
see also genre films emancipated image 106
advertising 37-8, 242 En cas de malheur 89
agents 13-14, 21 Et Dieu ... crea la femme 82—3,
Alberoni, Francesco, on star 85, 86, 88, 90, 91-2, 93, 96, 99,
system 1—2 100, 101, 102
Amants, Les 130 and fashion 87
Amants du Pont Neuf, Les 244, 245-6 clothes worn for unintended
American cinema, see Hollywood uses 88-9
Annabella 26, 27 as impracticalities 101
Arletty 27, 60 as spectacle 95
art films, European young 88, 89, 90
erotic image, face vs body 125—6 feminine image 84, 93
explicit sexuality 92—3 feminist discourse on 83, 94—5,
Ascenseur pour I'echafaud 125—6 96-7, 100, 106
auteurism 29, 62, 121 hairstyles 88, 94
as art 116 hostility from women 97-8
director—actor partnerships as influence 83
115-17, 123, 164-5, 244-5, influences 86
246 intonation 87
distance aesthetic 114 life 84, 85, 86, 105
vs mainstream actors 23, 24, autobiography 106
114, 187 La Mariee est trop belle 91
authenticity, see natural style Le Mepris 103, 104-6
264 Index
Bardot, Brigitte, continued Borsalino 179, 182, 184

and national identity 104 box-office us cinephilia 159, 187
as Marianne (Republic career diversity 159
symbol) 36-7, 83 career history 161
natural style 86, 99-101, 102 mature roles 182-3
New Wave roles 104-6, 115 conservatism 185
political stands 20, 84 cool image 160, 161, 166
press coverage 82, 83 defence of national cinema 187
and paparazzi 84 erotic image 183
'primitive' image 100 in family films 186
public us personal identities and fashion 167
98-9, 100, 105 as minet (fashion-conscious
rebel image 84, 88-9, 90-1 mod) 183-4
sexual image 83-4 father figure image 185
confidence 95-6 Jean Gabin as influence 185
explicitness 92 gangster roles 159-60, 182,
us gamine image 93—4 184-5
objectification 94—5, 96 gueuk ('ugly mug') appeal 166,
pin-up 101 170
punishment for 98, 105 on Hollywood 39
striptease 101 L'Homme de Rio 168, 169
as threat 97 image vs Delon image 182-3
transitional nature 92 life 22
singing career 84, 95 anti-authoritarian image 161,
Le Trou normand 85 162
la Verite 89, 90-1, 103-4 court case vs Alain Delon
Vie privee 104—6 162
youthful image 82, 85, 86, 87, mainstream roles 159, 167
88-9 masculine image 160
vs elders 91—2 as comic action man 161—2, 163,
and music 90 168-70
Barthes, Roland, on mythology 64 as individual 170
Baume, Georges, on Jean Gabin 59 marginalization of women 163
de Beauvoir, Simone stunts in action films 168
on Bardot 94-5, 96-7 modern image 167
on sexual revelation 202 and national identity 160, 166—7,
Belle de jour 197, 201-2 170, 186
Belmondo, Jean-Paul (1933- ) natural style 165-6
A bout de souffle 113, 164, 165, as New Wave hero 164-5, 165
166 nonchalant image 169
on Actors' Studio 9 non-political views 185
alter-ego to Delon 183 physique 167-8
auteur vs mainstream roles 161, Pierrot le fou 164-5, 166-7
162-3, 187 prankster behaviour 162
Index 265
Belmondo, Jean-Paul, continued reconstruction of image 245—6

press coverage 162, 164 Rendez-vous 243
Le Professionnel 170 sexual image 247
public us personal identities 161, as femme fatale 248, 249
162 suffering image 245
role with Jean Gabin 159—60 theatre career 242-3
Sois belle et tais-toi 158 The Unbearable Lightness of
systeme D (beating the system) Being 246-7
image 169 youthful image 243
on television 19 biographies 22-3, 62
theatre career 163—4 see also autobiographies
theatre, as influence 161 blockbusters 23—4, 143—5
ubiquity 2, 171 Blum—Byrnes agreements (1946—48)
youthful image 165 20, 31, 90
Binoche, Juliette (1964- ) Bonnaire, Sandrine 241
on accessibility 19 Borsalino 179, 182, 184
advertising for Lancome boulevard theatre 3, 5, 8, 25, 47,
perfume 242 137
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf 244, Bourvil 219
245-6 La Grande vadrouille 142
art lover 248-9 rural nostalgia (France
auteur vs international roles profonde) 35, 150
241-2 La Traversee de Paris 75
career history 242—3 box-office
cerebral image 242 us cinephilia 26-7, 84, 86, 136,
comedy roles 250 141-2, 159, 187
Damage 248 from 'film package' 13
Un divan a New York 247 us genre films 224
The English Patient 248-9 major names 12
face 243, 245-6 polls 25-8
as mask 248 vs television 30
close-ups 249 Brel, Jacques, and national
gamine image 243, 247 identity 170
innocence image 245 Bunuel, Luis 202
Leos Carax partnership 244—5,
246 cafe-concert 3, 5
Mauvais sang 244, 245 cafe-theatre 5, 6, 216, 220
Les Nanas 243 Cannes festival 17—19
and national identity 242 Carax, Leos, and cinephilia 244—5
as Neo-Romantic icon 242, 243, Carol, Martine 18
246, 247, 249-50 distance aesthetic 114
on publicity 23 casting directors 14
public vs personal identities Cesars (awards) 17
248-9 character actors, terminology 3
266 Index
Chateau, Rene, on star system 1 social identity in 218-22, 223

dnema-verite 6 theatre as influence 47—8, 51
class see also genre films
affluent leisure pursuits 102 Comperes, Les 221
bourgeois 50-1, 149-50, 200 copyright, agreement with theatre 4
chic 124-5, 201, 204-5 cottage industry, French cinema as 11
theatre as influence 47-8 Crisp, Colin, on star system 11-12
portrayed by physical culture 17
appearance 230 artistry vs commercialism 12
portrayed by theatre bohemian lifestyle 102
traditions 8-9 colonialism 65, 66-7, 68
proletarian 61, 65, 70, 71, 73, consumerism 74, 87, 88,
75, 219-22, 223, 225, 226-7, 119-20, 166, 175-6
230 vs American 160
close-ups minets (fashion-conscious
face 249 mods) 183-4
vs Hollywood styles 10 playboys 158
Comedie-Francaise 3—4, 6, 11 in heritage films 231
comedies 224, 250 vs Hollywood culture 38—9
action man in 161—2, 163, popular 103, 105
168-70 bias to women 104
actors, influences 3 Cyrano de Bergerac 231, 232
bourgeois 47—8
burlesque 46 Damage 248
comique troupier (military dandyism 43, 44, 50-1
comedy) 145 decalage (ironic disparity), in New
commedia dell'arte 245 Wave 118
distance aesthetic 45—6, 47, Delon, Alain (1935- )
49-50, 54 alter-ego to Belmondo 183
family appeal 140, 217, 219 auteur roles 171-2, 173
infantile views 146—7 vs mainstream roles 187
Gendarme films 139-40, 144, Borsalino 179, 182, 184
145, 146-7 box-office vs cinephilia 159,
gestures 138, 139, 148-9 187
influence 45 career diversity 159, 173
mainstream, hostility to 137 career history 171—2
multi-faceted blockbusters 143—5 mature roles 181, 182-3
narrative 46—7 conservatism 185
and national identity 219 and consumerism 175—6
producer vs individual in 48 cool image 160
risque 51—2 court case vs Jean-Paul
sexless 145—6 Belmondo 162
sexually explicit 51; see also cruel image 176-7, 179-80
Bardot: Et Dieu ... crea la femme defence of national cinema 187
Index 267
Delon, Alain, continued Sois belle et tais-toi 158

erotic image 183 Swann in Love 181
beauty paradoxes 173—4, La Tulipe noire 174
176, 177, 179-80 La Veuve Couderc 177
in family films 186 Demy, Jacques 198
as gigolo 175-6 Deneuve, Catherine (1943— )
narcissistic appeal 174, 175, advertising for Chanel
179 perfume 3 7
face, poses 174-5, 177, 179 auteur roles 201
and fashion, as minet (fashion- us mainstream roles 208—9
conscious mod) 183—4 awards 209
father figure image 185 Belle de jour 197, 201-2
Jean Gabin as influence 159—60, bourgeois image 200, 201,
180-1, 185 204-5
gangster roles 159-60, 172, 176, career diversity 197
177-81, 182, 184-5 career history 196, 198, 202
// gattopardo 175 mature roles 197, 205-6
Les Granges brulees 177 controlled image 200—1
image us Belmondo image 182—3 face 199
Japanese fan base 175 and fashion chic, Saint-Laurent
life 171 partnership 201, 203, 204-5
banned biography on 22 feminine image, from timeless
mainstream roles 159 appeal 203—4
masculine image 160 feminism 206
as loner 180 glamorous image 198, 207
vulnerability in 180 hairstyles, coiffed
melancholy image 173, 179-81 appearance 200
Melodie en sous-sol 176 The Hunger 206-7
minimalism 179 image reconstruction 209—10
misogynistic image 177 Machine 205, 207-8, 208
and national identity 160, 186 in magazines 199
Notre histoire 181 mystery appeal 198—9
Nouvelle vague 181 and national identity 205, 206,
policiers 172, 184-5 209
political stands 185 as Marianne 37, 196
public us personal identities, natural style 202
Markovic affair 22, 172, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg 199
178-9 Place Vendome 205, 209-10
recognition of status 172—3 privacy 198—9
Rocco e i suoi fratelli 174 public us personal identities 199,
roles with Jean Gabin 159-60, 202, 204, 206
172, 176 on publicity 23
roles with Simone Signoret 177 risk-taking 208
Le Samourai' 178, 179-80 sexual image
268 Index
Deneuve, Catherine, continued natural style 226

as ice maiden 202—3 Police 227
as lesbian icon 206-7 press coverage 234
obedience in 199-200 proletarian image 225, 226—7,
punishment for 203, 205 230
Depardieu, Gerard (1948- ) public vs personal identities
auteur roles 227—8 220
vs mainstream roles 216, rebel image 216
224-5 risk-taking 235
awards 217 sexual image, emasculation 228—9
as beauf (proletarian vulgarity) Le Sucre 221
223 television career 216-17, 233
career diversity 216 Tenue de soiree 222, 234
career history 216 theatre
global audience 215, 231 career 216
Hollywood career 217 as influence 220
comedy roles 217, 218 Trap belle pour toi 229-30
as comic loubard (proletarian ubiquity 234-5
hoodlum) Les Valseuses 220-1
anti-authoritarian image 220 wine-growing career 233
emasculation 221—2 distance aesthetic
influences 221, 222 in auteur films 114
physical aggression 219 in comedies 45-6, 47, 49-50, 54
Les Comperes 221 from long shots 9-10
Cyrano de Bergerac 231, 232 divan a New York, Lin 247
father and mother figure documentary style, New Wave 117
image 229
feminine image 228, 229-30, editing, vs Hollywood styles 9—10
232 En cas de malheur 89
Les Fugitifs 221 English language, resistance to 38—9
Jean Gabin as influence 226—7, English Patient, The 248-9
229 Et Dieu... crea la femme 82—3, 85,
Green Card 233 86, 88, 90, 91-2, 93, 96, 99,
heritage roles 216-17, 230-2 100, 101, 102
life 22, 216, 217, 223, 235 etoiles (stars) 2
autobiography 226 Eva 127
Loulou 218, 225-6
masculinity, suffering fashion
image 225, 226, 227 for men
Man oncle d'Amerique 227 flattering 167
and national identity 215, 216, as minets (fashion-conscious
231 mods) 183-4
from intonation 232 for women
stereotyped 230, 232—3 chic 87, 124-5, 201, 204-5
Index 269
fashion, continued middle-class image 149-50

clothes worn for unintended multi-faceted blockbusters 143-5
uses 88-9 and national identity 151
impracticalities 87, 101 negative masculinity 148,
modernization 89-90 149-50
as spectacle 95 public vs personal identities 140
symbol of repression 201 salary 141
young 88, 89, 90 sexless comedies 145-6
femininity 84, 100, 121, 122, 126, sysleme D image 150
128, 129, 130 La Traversee de Paris 75
'dumb blonde' image 93 'ugly clown' image 148
implied by acting terminology 3
obedience in 199-200 Cabin, Jean (1904-76)
timeless image 203-4 auteurism 62
youthful image 93 Bandera, La 65-9
feminism 206 body 73
on Bardot 83, 94-5, 96-7, 106 boss image 62—3, 74—5
Fernandel 219 career history 59-60, 61, 62-3,
film d'art movement 3—4 64-5
Film d'Art studio 4, 11 mature roles 73—5
Foreign Legion 67, 68 face 72-3
framing, vs Hollywood styles 9—10 father and mother figure
France profonde (rural nostalgia) 19, image 76
35, 71-2, 150 genre films 59
Fugitifs, Les 221 Hollywood career 62
Funes, Louis de (1914-83) as influence 60, 226-7, 229
aggressive image 140, 147, 151 on Belmondo and Delon
frustration in 149 159-60, 185
and partnerships 144—5 Le Jour se leve 60
box-office vs cinephilia 136, life 61, 62
141-2 cycling as pastime 70
career history 136—9 masculinity 68
character parts 138 male-bonding image 66, 67
diminutive image 148 minimalism 8, 72, 75-6
family comedies 140 mythological image 61—2, 63—4,
infantile views 146—7 65, 69, 70, 74-5
Gendarme films 139-40, 144, and national identity 61, 65,
145, 146-7 66-7, 68, 69, 76-7
gestures 138, 139, 148-9 natural style 64—5, 66
Grande vadrouille, La 142 on New Wave 77
influences 145 outbursts in roles 73
life, play about 137 as Popular Front hero 65, 70
mediocrity image 151 press coverage 60—1
middle-aged image 147 proletarian image 61, 65, 70, 71, 73
270 Index
Gabin, Jean, continued 20, 31, 90

cumulard incident 75 earliest publicity us national
public us personal identities 60, studios 5, 49
66, 69, 70, 73 editing styles us national
rural nostalgia (France cinema 9—10
profonde) 71-2 global dominance us national
role with Jean-Paul cinema 49, 54
Belmondo 159-60 lack of stage influences us national
roles with Alain Delon 159-60, cinema 7
172, 176 muscle-men 163
singing career 64 us national culture 38—9
Touchez pas au grisbi 74 photographs us national
La Traversee de Paris 75 cinema 5, 49
work ethic 71 on physical appearance 21-2
gattopardo, II 175 Homme de Rio, L' 168, 169
Gaumont studio 11, 45 Hunger, The 206-7
Gendarme films 139-40, 144, 145,
146-7 identities, public us personal, see
gendarmes 146 individual names: public us
genre films 23-4, 38, 59, 143, 187 personal identities
us box-office 224 identity, national, see individual names:
women in 28 and national identity
see also action films; comedies; Indochine 205, 207-8, 208
heritage films; musicals; policiers-
Tradition of Quality films Jour se leve, Le 60
glamour 14, 198, 207 Jules et Jim 124, 126-7
from advertising 37—8, 242
us domesticity 15 Karina, Anna 112
photographs 4, 16-17, 18, 34 Kristel, Sylvia 28-9
see also location shooting; Saint-
Tropez large-scale productions 23—4,
Godard, Jean-Luc 112 143-5
cinephilia 116, 164-5, 181, Le Forestier, Laurent, on distance
244-5 aesthetic 45-6, 49
mainstream actors 24 Levi-Strauss, Claude, on mythology
Grande vadrouilk, La 142 63-4
Granges brulees, Les 177 Linder, Max (1883-1924)
Green Card 233 ban vivant image 50
bourgeois image 50—1
hairstyles 15, 88, 94, 200 career history 42, 45, 49
heritage films 6, 216, 230-2 and Charlie Chaplin 50, 54
see also genre films Hollywood career 44
Hollywood 22 comedy styles 46, 47-8, 49-50,
distribution agreements (1946—48) 51-2
Index 271
Under, Max, continued male bonding 66, 67, 228, 229

dandy image 43, 44, 50-1 misogyny 177
diminutive image 52 negative 148, 149-50
feminization 54 sexual boundaries vs American
infantile image 52 norms 217, 223
as influence 42 suffering image 68, 225, 226,
life 43-5, 48-9 227
and national identity 53 Mauvais sang 244, 245
photographs as early publicity 5, Melodie en sous-sol 176
49 Melville, Jean-Pierre 180, 187
public vs personal identities 48—9 men
Seven Years' Bad Luck 46 father figure image 76, 185, 229
sexual image 51 feminization 54, 76, 185, 228,
symbolism 52—3 229-30, 232
Three Must-Get-Theres, The 46-7 films for 67-8
literary classics 231 magazines for 17
location shooting 85, 144, 168, masculinity, see masculinity
169, 176 mod image 183—4
see also glamour; Saint-Tropez and national identity 36
long shots New Wave, vulnerable
distance aesthetics 45—6, 47, image 112
49-50, 54, 114 playboy image 158
vs Hollywood styles 9—10 sexual images
Loulou 218, 225-6 supremacy 97
threats 35
magazines 14—17 stereotyped 53—4
on Bardot 82 us younger woman 91—2
on Deneuve 199 Mepris, Le 103, 104-6
glamour vs domesticity 15 minimalism 8, 72, 75-6, 179
Hollywood vs national Mon oncle d'Amerique 227
actors 15—16 Moreau, Jeanne (1928— )
importance 14 Amants, Les 130
for men 17 anti-stardom stand 123—4
photographs in 14—15 Ascenseur pour I'echafaud 125—6
for women 16, 17, 89 auteur roles 121
Makine, Andrei, on Jean-Paul awards 121-2, 129
Belmondo 171 career diversity 121
Malle, Louis, on Jeanne Moreau 124 career history 122-3
Marceau, Sophie, on publicity 23 mature roles 128-9
Mariee est trap belle, La 91 director partnerships 123
masculinity 160, 223—4 erotic image, face vs body 125—6
as comic action man 161-2, 163, Eva 127
168-70 and fashion chic, Pierre Cardin
implied by acting terminology 3 partnership 124—5
272 Index
Moreau, Jeanne, continued stereotyped 204

feminine image 121, 122, 128, from rural nostalgia (France
129, 130 profonde) 19, 35, 71-2, 150
as flaneur (nightlife stereotyped, by Hollywood 22,
frequenter) 126 38, 39
intellectual image 125 see also individual names: and
intonation 126 national identity
Jules et Jim 124, 126-7 natural style 64-5, 66, 86,
mainstream career 122—3 99-101, 102, 123-4, 202,
modern image 123, 125, 126 226
natural style 123—4 us Actors' Studio style 9
Nikita 129 New Wave 6, 165-6
public vs personal identities 127—8 decalage (displacement) 118
Querelle 129 from documentary style
sexual image, as femme 117-18
fatale 127, 128 from theatre 8
theatre as influence 122 New Wave 111
Valseuses, Les 128—9 auteurism, see auteurism
Vieille, La 129 camera us actor 118
vulnerable image 128 cinephilia 116-17, 164-5
Morgan, Michele 4 decalage (ironic disparity) in 118
musicals 198, 199 director—actor partnerships
see also genre films 115-17, 123, 164-5
Musidora 25 and Et Dieu ... crea la femme 85,
mythology 63—4 86
on Jean Gabin 77
Nanas, Les 243 mainstream actors 114
national cinema us new actors 110
defence of 187 natural style 6, 165—6
vs foreign genre films 143 from documentary style
global dominance us 117-18
Hollywood 49, 54 Paris in 120, 165
vs leisure pursuits 143 women 112-13, 117
mid-1960s decline 142-3 and consumerism 119—20
1980s actresses 241 emotions us rationalism
national identity 231 theory 120
us American consumerism 160 erotic image, face us
through comedies 219 body 119, 125-6
from everyday objects 31, 32—4 as fldneuses 126
from food 16 inner beauty 119
from national language 39 intellectual image 117
represented by men 36 lack of training 117
represented by women 36—7, youthful image 117
83, 196 nicknames 19
Index 273
nicknames, continued for men 17

Nikita 129 photographs in 14—15
Notre histoire 181 for women 16, 17, 89
Nouvelle vague (film) 181 photographs
nouvelle vague (movement), see New earliest publicity vs Hollywood
Wave 5, 49
glamour 4, 14-15, 17, 18, 34
Ophuls, Max, distance aesthetic 114 in magazines 14-15
O'Shaughnessy, Martin, on publicity
masculinity 163 actors' reluctance towards 23
from advertising careers
Parapluies de Cherbourg, Les 199 37-8, 242
Paris at Cannes 18-19
centre of theatre industry 7 diverse coverage 2, 29, 60,
and national identity 31 83, 84, 162, 164
in New Wave 120, 165 earliest publicity vs
Pathe studio 11, 45 Hollywood 5, 49
earliest publicity us from everyday objects 31,
Hollywood 5, 49 32-4, 60-1
Philipe, Gerard 6 intensive coverage, by
photographs paparazzi 84
earliest publicity vs see also accessibility
Hollywood 5, 49 privacy laws 14, 22
glamour 4, 14-15, 16-17, 18, 34 Professionnel, Le 17 Q
in magazines 14-15
Pierrot le fou 164-5, 166-7 Querelle 129
Place Vendome 205, 209-10
policiers 62, 68, 172, 184-5, 227 Rendez-vous 243
see also genre films Renoir, Jean, on Jean Gabin 72
political correctness, vs American Rocco e i suoi fratelli 174
morality 22 rural nostalgia (France profonde) 19,
political stands 20, 84, 185 35, 71-2, 150
polls
box-office 25—8 Saint-Tropez 82-3, 102
cinephile 28-30 in Gendarme films 139, 140, 144,
Popular Front 20, 64, 65, 70 146-7
press 22 see also glamour; location shooting
magazines salaries, 12, 14, 141
on Bardot 82 Samourai, Le 178, 179-80
on Deneuve 199 San Antonio novels (comic
glamour vs domesticity 15 thrillers) 222-3
Hollywood vs national Schneider, Romy 30
actors 15-16 Sellier, Genevieve, on gender in New
importance 14 Wave 112-13, 129-30
274 Index
Seven Years' Bad Luck 46 us Actors' Studio style 9

Shipman, David, on new actors 110 sound systems 3
Signoret, Simone 35 stilted style 72
roles with Alain Delon 177 style diversity 8—9
singing careers 20-1, 64, 84, 95 terminology 2-3, 24
Sois belle et tais-toi 158 Theatre National Populaire 6
star system 1-2, 39-40 vaudeville 5, 47-8, 51, 145
us studio system 11 Three Must-Get-Theres, The 46-7
us Hollywood system 11—12 Touchez pas au grishi 74
Studio Harcourt, glamour Tradition of Quality films 5—6, 10,
photographs 4, 16-17, 18, 104, 117
34 see also genre films
studio system Traversee de Paris, La 75
actors as producers 13 trente glorieuses (post-war
us Hollywood system 21, 39 boom) 160, 183
us star system 11 Trap belle pour toi 229—30
stunts 168 Trou normand, Le 85
Sucre, Le 221 Truffaut, Francois
Swann in Love 181 on auteurism 114
systeme D (beating the system) 150, on Bardot 85, 115
169 on mainstream actors 110
Tulipe noire, La 174
Tasker, Yvonne, on American muscle-
men 163 Unbearable Lightness of Being,
television 19, 216-17, 233 The 246-7
and box-office 30
Tenue de soiree 222, 234 Vadim, Roger 86
theatre on Brigitte Bardot 83-4
boulevard 3, 5, 8, 25, 47, 137 on sexual explicitness 93
cafe-concert 3, 5 Valseuses, Les 128-9, 220-1
cafe-theatre 5, 6, 216, 220 vaudeville 5, 47-8, 51, 145
Comedie-Francaise 3—4, 6, 11 vedettes (prominent people)
comique troupier (military character actors
comedy) 145 'eccentrics' 3
commedia dell'arte 245 monstres sacres 3
copyright agreement 4 definition 2—3, 24
as influence 3-4, 5-6, 47-8, 51, Verite, La 89, 90-1, 103-4
122, 161, 220 Veuve Couderc, La 177
from power basis in Paris 7 Vie privee 104—6
from schooling structure 7 Vieille, La 129
from work dependence 7,
163-4 women
modernization 8 in box-office polls 28
natural style 8 careers, lengths 7, 28
Index 275
in cinephile polls 28—30, 113 inner beauty 119

domineering presence 52 intellectual image 117
femininity, see femininity lack of training 117
films for 68 youthful image 117
in genre films 28 in popular culture 104
hostility to Bardot 97-8 sexual repression 97, 98
magazines for 16, 17, 89 stereotyped 53, 204
marginalization 163, 229 struggles for emancipation 35, 106,
and national identity 36—7 120
New Wave 112-13, 117 vs younger woman 91
and consumerism 119—20
emotions vs rationalism youth 87
theory 120 fashion 88, 89
erotic image, face us image 93, 117
body 119, 125-6 see also individual names: youthful
as fldneuses 126 image

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Stars and Stardom in French Cinema

Also available from Continuum

Alison Darren, Lesbian Film Guide

© Ginette Vincendeau 2000

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

First published 2000

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN 0-8264-4730-9 (hardback)

Typeset by BookEns Ltd, Royston, Herts

Chapter 1 The French Star System 1

Many friends, family and colleagues have helped me by sharing

In most people's view, 'stars' means 'Hollywood stars'. Fan magazines

Garbo to Jean-Claude Van Damme - or to British and Australian stars

This book is about French film stars, as a general phenomenon (explored

Funes, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Gerard Depardieu and Juliette

In choosing a relatively small number of stars to study individually, my

indeed scope for further study of French stars - including in France,

'persona'. In other words, I am not trying to discover the 'true' person

This book is the result of a long-standing interest in French stars. Earlier

The French Star System

Stages and screens

endured. In common usage, it is simply a synonym for star, though it can

Plate 1 Michele Morgan: the construction of a star's image.

Francaise: Sarah Bernhardt, Gabrielle Robinne, Louise Lagrange. One of

on the legitimate stage again, especially the Theatre National Populaire

included Daniel Auteuil, Claude Brasseur, Jean-Claude Brialy, Francois

codified performance styles and gestures - jeune premier (romantic male

Stars and the industry

Stars and film production

French stars, as in Hollywood, are valuable commodities for the film

The production companies had no vested interest in the merchandising of

To this economic argument I would add a cultural one, namely the

advantage of television and video sales.14 The importance of casting

Shining through France: glamour and immediacy

the cinema, offering, as press historians have noted, 'another vision of

black-and-white glamour shots, usually close-ups of faces or busts.

Plate 2 Martine Carol: the Studio Harcourt look. (£) Harcourt.

(Billard, 1997, p. 18) - Cannes soon became a film market and a

Two final points need to be mentioned. One is the involvement of

also singers with substantial recording careers. This is different from

Masters of their own image

hagiographies. The only ones with any degree of frankness are

Who is a star in France? Box-office vs cinephilia

I noted earlier the uncertain terminology used to designate 'stars', in

distinction is particularly important for French (and European) cinema.

Top French actors 1936-1938

Source: La Cinematographie francaise, 19 March 1937, 25 March 1938, 31

Plate 3 Annabella: a top box-office actress in the 1930s.

These results point to an interesting contradiction between mainstream

Top box-office French stars 1956-90

Top box-office French stars 1973-93

As Gerard Depardieu stars in Asterix, Les Couloirs du temps and Germinal,

These cumulative figures are excellent for highlighting general trends,

Top box-office French stars 1956—8

If one turns to the cinephile-dominated historiography, one indeed

French stars and national identity

Plate 4 From telephone cards to stamps: the celebration of stars in everyday

Embodying the nation: different for men and women40

As becomes clear when comparing, for instance, Gabin and Depardieu

through town halls indicates her acceptability as national symbol, both

French stars and Hollywood

wider ideological one. The 'resistance' to the English language can be

In France, as in Hollywood, and despite the changes that have taken