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Links
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IMDB
Monsieur
Cinema |
| Budget |
-------- |
Filmming
Location |
1998.02-04
Paris, France |
Date
Released
|
1998.05.12
Cannes Film Festival
1998.11.18
France |
|
|
142,908 in France |
| DVD
& Video |
0000.00.00
in France |
|
L'École de
la Chair (1998)
aka: School of Flesh
DIRECTOR: Benoît Jacquot
CAST: Vincent Martinez; Vincent Lindon; Marthe Keller; François Berléand; Danièle Dubroux
SYNOPSIS
Dominique
is a successful business woman, who is attracted to a young hustler whom she meets
in a gay bar in Paris. She pays off his dabts and lets the young man move into
her apartment. But he keeps going out and refuses to tell her anything about it.
The ending is sad, she has to make a decision....
NOTE
The film is super sensual, in a way that Isabelle
hadn't played for quite a while. Isabelle reunited with Benoit jacquot after
their
first film "Les Ailes de la Colombe in 1981. The film started to shoot in
Feburary, and was selected by the Cannes Film Festival almost at the last minute
(three days before the competition films were announced), because Isabelle's
wonderful
performance moved the festival officals. - FORUM
QUOTE
Benoît
Jacquot
"A
Child of the New Wave", by
Peter Brunette & Gerald Peary
Cinéaste,
June 2000, at New York City
Of
ten shots of her, nine are close-ups, extreme close-ups. This movie is about sex
and sexuality. It's about flesh, but it's all on the face, a paradox for me. Godard
said, talking about Hitchcock, "He filmed women's faces like they were their
asses." There's something so specific in film. The closer you are to faces,
the closer you are to the sexual nerve. There are also one or two scenes of my
couple making love. I asked myself whether to do them. I finally decided it would
be very mechanical just to see their faces
She's
not acting for an audience. It's not for the scenario, the script, the part. She's
acting for the director she decides to work with. As an actress, she needs only
a few indications-something about costumes, one or two psychological cues, and
that's all. She wants to act as if she's going on the set to sleep and dream.
She has a day life and shooting a film is her night life. For
The School of Flesh, we read the script together. That's all. We talked about
how her character, Dominique, would be dressed, how short her hair would be. That's
it. And Isabelle likes very much "A Single Girl". She asked me to do
something like I'd done with Virginie
Ledoyen. So the first energy of this film is similar to what I'd done before:
a long shot on the face. Benoît
Jacquot
"My
Friends, My Loves, My Subjects are Actresses", by Catherine Schwah
Paris
Match, N°2787, Oct. 24, 2002
Huppert, one sees her like an actress
who only shows her face, and below, there's nothing! However, she is nude in a
great number of films! In "The School of Flesh", she made love with Vincent Martinez
passionately. The two had a lot of trouble doing the scene. She was in tears afterwards.
I consoled her for an hour. But she made it! Filming intimacy is hard, violent.
AWARD
Official Selection of Cannes International Film
Festival in May 1998
Best Actress Nomination for 1999 Cesar Award
TRIVIA
She
made this film only a few months after she gave birth of her third child Angelo.
Maybe the last time you would see her in nude. She was the matress of that year's
Cannes Film Festival while her film was in the official competition. She was also
the hostess of the following Cesar Night Ceremory while she herself was a nominee
for Cesar's Best Actress.
REVIEW
"J'apprends tout des femmes", Le Figaro, November 18, 1998
Les Larmes d'Isabelle Huppert, Le Figaro, November 18, 1998
The
School of Flesh: Sin Flick, CNN Entertainment, May 26, 1999
France's Isabelle Huppert Steers
Her Own Course, Toronto Star, March 26, 1999
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