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Violette
Nozière (1978)
DIRECTOR: Claude Chabrol
CAST: Stéphane Audran; Jean Carmet; Bernadette Lafont; Fabrice Luchini
SYNOPSIS
Violette,
18-year-old, live with her parents in a tiny apartment. They dream for her to
have better life. Violette chokes in this atmosphere of petit bourgeois. She flees
during the night and meets men. It becomes a scandal when she knows that she has
syphillis. Detested by the coward of her parents, she tries to poison them....
NOTE
Though
Chabrol prefers to see French films at foreign festivals rather
than at Cannes, he acknowledges to have accepted to project Violette
Nozière, in 1977, on competition, in order to
please Isabelle Huppert. "She
had scandalously missed the crown, the year before, with La
Dentellière". He looks at the festival with
a certain indulgence since Gilles Jacob takes the presidency
of it. The two men have know each other since they studied
in the same philo class at Louis-le-Grand high school. "We
often share the first place." The palms that they took
down then were symbolic. (in Chabrol's new book "Laissez-Moi
Rire" signed with André Asséo,
Editions du Rocher, 2004) - FORUM
QUOTE
Daniel
Toscan du Plantier
"
Bouleversifiant"
©Éditions
du Seuil, May 1992 ISBN 2-03-013690-2
After the Lacemaker, it was time
for Isabelle Huppert to affirm a more active personality to forget the inspired
small girl wounded by the men. Chabrol was the first one to feel the force, the
violence when she was ready to give: the story of this criminal example which
made surrealistic dream was the first stage of a successful collaboration between
a director and a foreground actress, since then continued by two films with success
produced by Marin Karmitz. In addition to his talent and his experiment, Chabrol
presents a lot of avantages for his fellows and his partners: he is happy of all,
his enthousiasme to his subject, his actors whith whom he draws the best by heat
and sympathy. "I do not say anything to Isabelle. I begin the shot, I count
just five: she enters the field, does exactly what I wish without same that one
speaks. " This is also a film that Isabelle obtained her Prix d' Interpretation
at Cannes Film Festival, one year after having presented the Lacemaker: the Priz
was worth, all the same, for both.
Claude Chabrol
"Innocents with dirty hands", Voice, October 23 1978
"I was dazzled by the way Isabelle spoke to me about her (Violette). We had a profoundly identical point of view and it was easy for me to construct my mise-en-scene around her. I don’t thing we discussed the character of Violette more than a few times during the shooting. Her concentration on the set was phenomenal – she literally took possession of the film after having absorbed the character. I confess I have never seen anything like it. This is how she could play Violette 12 with such conviction during the two days that it took to shoot this sequence, she really was 12!”
Isabelle Huppert
"Innocents with dirty hands", Voice, October 23 1978
“I’m fascinated by this kind of person. She’s at once a murderess and a saint. There is a search for purity in her, and this is the image that led three heads of state to reduce her sentence and finally pardon her. She touched something very fundamental in people’s souls. It’s as if, by her deed, she was raising a mirror to their faces, in which they could see their own aggressiveness. I myself never thought of shooting my parents, but playing Violette was a way of expressing my won revolt. It’s funny. But before I played Violette, I found it terribly difficult to lie. Afterwards, I discovered the appeal of lying, making believe, living the life of another… Violette couldn’t do otherwise – she was trapped, but at a certain moment, it was no longer acceptable. To accept life, reality, she had to act. When her cellmate asks her what she’s going to do, she answers: I’ll start from zero. Before I couldn’t, now I can.”
AWARD
- Best
Female Interpretaion at 1978 Cannes Film Festival, shared with Jill Clayborghfor "Unmarried Women"
- Best Actress
Nomination for Cesar
Award in 1979, lost to Romy Schneider for "Une Historie Simple"
TRIVIA
Before
"Violette", Chabrol met Isabelle only two or three times but he wanted
to work with her. It's almost the same time they both thought about "Violette
Noziere" for each other. It happend a few days before the release of "The
Lacemaker"- the film brought Isabelle an international star over one night.
(vue par....
Claude Chabrol)
REVIEW
Isabelle
Huppert: Working on "Violette Noziere", Premiere,
January, 1978
Claude
Chabrol, Violette Noziere, Premiere, May, 1978
Behind Wall, Time,
October 23, 1978
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