After the refusal of the Cannes Film Festival, Ma Mère was brought to this year's Taorimina Film Festival (June 13-20, 2004) in Cinema of World section. This controversial film was considered as a scandalous film from the very beginning, shocked the press and audience. Christopher Honoré and Isabelle presented at screening on June 19, 2004 while received equally applauds an boos.
"I haven’t had embarrassment to recite the part, for me it’s simply a job. If it is found us uneasiness and impossible to interpret a film, than, I do not doubt, it can be difficult to watch too." In Ma Mère, Isabelle has played an equally rough role as she has done in La Pianiste.
Despite the refusal of Cannes three weeks before, Ma Mere is set out to release on May 19 in France. This week, Elle has Isabelle on the cover, entitled "Au-delà des tabous".
Last night, the film was projected at l'Elysée Biarritz, with the presence of the renown French author/directors in support: O. Ossayas, C. Breillat, L. Ferreira Barbosa, and B. Jacquot. Isabelle was accompanied by her daughter Lolita, as well as other crew with their family members: Christopher with his mom and brother, Louis with his mother, and Emma with her family. The projection sounded more like a un-worded protest for Cannes' "bold move", made by the new artistic director - Thierry Fremaux, for expanding US profile and diminishing purely French selections at Cannes this year. ("Wide Angle", Variety, May 11, 2004).
However, Ma Mère will celebrate its own festival, going to see it with the same eagerness to the films by Almodovar, Godard or Hong Sang-soo - the three selected fringes, for somewhat My Mother forms fraternity. Forget about the controversy now. Because it would be a pity, concerning the film, of not talking about something more essential: cinema like desire, for example". (from "It's My Mother, Her Bataille", Liberation, May 12, 2004).
"Paulo Branco, the producer, not calmed down; someone assured him that the film would be projected in Honor Selection on Saturday midnight of May 15. He so fixed the release date (May 19) corresponding to this avant-premiere. The advanced argument for withdrawal does not hold according to Branco, who estimates to be cheated and pays the price of a conflict between the general delegate, Thierry Fremaux, and the president, Gilles Jacob, their opinions of whether to have the film or not are opposite."
The conflict was further unveiled unusually in Variety, "Cannes picks stir spat", because "however bitchy the selection process may get behind the scenes, in France, industries usually keep a respectful silence afterward if they didn't make the cut." However this year, veteran arthouse producer Paulo Branco broken the unwritten rule about Cannes complains in an interview with journalists, "The argument was there were too many French films. But that is absurd because there are eight American films." Branco also had a dig at supposed tension between Fremaux and his predecessor and current prexy, Gilles Jacob. "I don't want to be the victim of an internal conflict between the president of the festival and the artistic director in a power game." (read the Forum on Ma Mere at Christopher Honoré Official Site)
This year, only 3 French films are selected for the official competition, the least compared to 5 films each year from 2000 to 2003. The following chart shows French and American films selected in major categories of Cannes in the past 5 years. French films are defined as films directed by French directors or cast mainly French actors, not including films that France conducted as partnership in investment.
As said in the Studio, n°200 in April, "My Mother" (directed by Christopher Honoré) is scheduled to release in France on May 19, and is possibly selected to the official competition at the 57th Cannes Film Festival (The official selections will be announced on April 21). It's said Isabelle is "more than wonderful" in this beautifully-shot film, adapted from the same-titled novel by the controversial French author Geogres Bataille (1897-1962).
This year, Cannes' official competition films will be judged by a jury leaded by American film director Quentin Tarantino, whose films are famous for dark violence and action. It's likely to say that a performance as subtle as Isabelle's would not be appreciated at this year's film festival.
Isabelle is currently (from Feb. 23 to Apr. 16) filmming "Les Sœurs Fâchées" ("L'Esprit de Familie" before), directed by Alexandra Leclère. She plays Catherine Frot's elder sister, Martine, who lives an upper middle class life in Paris, beautiful, naturally elegant and distant. Catherine's Louise comes to Paris for an important rendez-vous, and spends three days at Martine's. She finds Martine seems to have everything, but the essential exactly waht Louise has. (more at StudioCanal)
"La Dentillière" (aka: The Lacemaker), the film that brought Isabelle international stardom, will be finally released in DVD on May 18, 2004 in France. This new edition will enclose a 40-min never-seen interview with the actors and director, and original theatrical trailer. In French with English, German and Spanish subtitles. Definitely a film every Isabelle's fan should possess.
Another rare-to-find Isabelle film, the 1983's "La Truite" (aka: The Trout), directed by Joseph Losey, is also to be released in DVD on March 30, 2003 in USA, in associated with a retrospect of Jeseph Losey, which was newly held in New York city.
Also two Diana Kurys' films, in which Isabelle starred, "Enter Nous" and "Apres L'Amour", will be re-released by Studio Canal on April 14, 2004, among the "Contemporain Studio" series. The DVDs will include the interview with the director, and the making of documentary. In French with no subtitles.
Isabelle's latest film "Le Temps du Loup" (aka: The Time of Wolf) will be officially released on DVD in France, on May 18, 2004. This D9 version DVD will include a 28-minute "Making of" documentary, directed by famous French journalist Yves Montmayeur, with Ronald Chammah as one of the three photographers. The documentary gives an inside look of Michael Haneke and Isabelle's working. A lot of intimate shots on Isabelle.
In this year's series "Rendez-vous with French Cinema", which the Film Society of Lincoln Center presents with Unifrance and the French Film Office, 15 french films can be seen in New York City since this Friday, March 12 till March 21, before their commercial release, although a number of them will probably never have an American distributor. This year's "Rendez-vous with French Cinema" is its 4th anniversary.
Among the 15 French films is Michael Haneke's "Time of the Wolf", starred Isabelle as well as Beatrice Dalle, Patrice Chereau. "Time of the Wolf does more than ask 'what if?' it has no outside perspective. Plunked down in the midst of chaos, the viewer is forced to experience vicariously what the characters are going through." (- from "An Epicure's 15-Course French Film Feast", New York Times, March 12, 2003). The film will be released in USA on May 28th, 2004, distributed by Palm Pictures.
After one and a half year released in France, La Vie Promise, directed by Olivier Dahan, is finally going to open in USA on March 5, at Angelika, New York City. As The Village Voice's J. Hoberman criticized:
"The only conceivable reason to immerse oneself in this inexplicable release is, of course, Huppert. Gravely, she accepts the challenge of delivering a coherent performance in a wildly incoherent role. This superb actress can register more fugitive shifts in expression in a single take than most actresses manage in an entire movie. (And she can always be relied upon to drop a single, slow-rolling tear.) If it was Marlon Brando's genius to render the inarticulate eloquent, it is this most introspective of performers' genius to distinguish 47 varieties of blankness." (from "Pill-popping prostitute driven mad by crashing piano chords", by J. Hoberman, The Village Voice, March 3-9, 2004).
Isabelle played another polish grand dame Maria Sklodowska-Curie with Charles Berline in
"Les Palmes de M. Schultz"
by Claude Pinoteau
1997
"In America" set out production
2004.01.07
With an approximately 10-million Euro budget, "In America", adapted from Susan Sontag's award winning novel in the same title, will be started shooting in September 2004 in Poland then in America. Unlike initially planed to be directed by an American director, the film will be directed by a polish - Jerzy Skolimowski, who is a painter as well as a renown film director.
Isabelle Huppert will play Maryna Zatezowska, Poland’s greatest actress who, in 1876, emigrated to California with a theater troupe to set up an "utopian" commune outside the village of Anaheim. She was accompanied by her young son, aristocratic husband, and a rising young writer who was in love with her. Yet, as her venture eventually failed, most of the emigrants returned to Poland. Maryna stayed, learned English, launched herself onto the American stage as Maryna Zalewska. She founded her own company and traveled widely in the US in her private railroad car, eventually playing opposite Edwin Booth, the great American actor of his time.
Besides starring, Isabelle will also co-produce the film through her own company - Les Films du Camellias, with Paulo Branco from Gemini Films, who recently produced Isabelle's two films "Deux" and "My Mother".
This site does not have any affinities to Isabelle Huppert
officials
Every word written and
complied here is simply from the souls of her honest fans, and their fantasies
on this respectful and great actress in the world.
