Upon the release of Ma
Mother on Feb. 26 in UK, Independent
on Sunday has
a portrait article on her, with
such compliments:
"Not
many film stars - let alone one in her early fifties
- would submit to a close-up so pitilessly revealing
of the bare contours of the face. But Huppert's
face is her incomparable working tool. While she teasingly
holds us back from getting under a character's skin,
we find ourselves contemplating the actress's own skin,
in all its figurative and literal opacity. This
famously freckled surface - sometimes so pale that
cinematographers like to light it an unearthly blue
- is European cinema's most precise membrane for measuring
and registering emotions." (more in "Mysterious?
Moi?",
Independent, Feb 27, 2005)
(Loraine)
Yesterday I was off. I decided to go to the Theater
Odéon aux Ateliers Berthiers to attend
an open meeting with Eric
Lacascade and
the crew of Hedda
Gabler. My hope was to meet Isabelle for
the second time and to be brave enough to ask the director
a question. I arrived 30 minutes earlier,
very
excited. I spoke to a girl who worked at the theatre
and asked her if Isabelle would
be present at tonight's meeting. She told me that she
would, as
she was
there
for
the first time.
So
after the show, I entered into
the theater, and sat near the stage where
the crew were seated. Eric
Lacascade was
there, very nice and answered the questions that
the audience
raised
to
him.
I tried to gather my courage and finally asked him
a question - why he decided to put water on the stage.
He answered, that
he
imagined a rich snob house with a patio in the middle!
Then Isabelle arrived,
looking great. She answered a few questions
about the silence that the characters
could use during the play. Then, a lady told us that
the meeting was over. I so went to reach Isabelle,
with some girls, but she told us it might be a good
idea to meet her at the bar (inside the theater). She
looked very friendly and sounded very
willing
to
talk with us.
We went to the bar, then
she came and answered our questions. I gave her a
letter that Gorgias and
I had written together to her. She told me
she would read it carefully. For the moment, I felt
like in the heaven! She signed a few
autographs for us, even taking
time to put our
names
on.
Then, I asked her
if I could take a picture with her, she said:" Yes,
absolutely!!” I was so glad to have
my picture (see above). Then, she had to leave, probably
because she was tired
and need a relax, and a chat with Eric
Lacascade.
She left us with “A
bientot les filles!! "("See you soon,
girls!!").
What really amazed
me most was the fact that she is so simple, receptive
and unaffected, and that she
stayed with us despite the fact that she was tired,
that she had been on stage for more than 3 hours that
night. She took some time to chat with us, taking pictures,
even asking
our names. She hasn’t let fame go to her
head. We had a conversation equally as person to
person, not as star to person. This meeting is
so much
better
than I've ever imagined. She is one of France's
biggest stars, and the most available one. I can’t
really describe this meeting because the words are
still pictures
for me. What I am sure, is that this evening will
stay in my mind forever as I finally
met a REAL Isabelle
Huppert. If some one come and ask me again,
whether she looks like her characters, I would probably
say
no,
of course
not!!! (for further discussion - FORUM
- In Theater)
This weekend, I went
to New York City and saw two Isabelle's
films - Ma Mere and Deux -
the films that I thought I might never get chance to
see in the States. I'm excited and happy to have seen
them,
though they aren't some of her best.
Probably I expected Ma
Mere too much that I
ended up only being disappointed. I feel
that the director Christopher
Honore is lack of experience
to control his materials (they're indeed very tough
and he
only
directed
film
for the second time). He might feel himself
strongly connected
to
the unfinished novel of Georges
Bataille,
but he failed, at least partially, to let the audience
understand it. When the film ended, almost everyone in
the theater (at the Walter Reade Theater of NYC) wondered
what was wrong with this mother and son. The film is very
disturbing from beginning to end. Looking forward to seeing
it so long, when I finally sat in the theater, I felt
myself so nervous to find out how much
"perversity" Isabelle can
fall in this film.
After all, I feel released: she let herself fall
in a rare way without losing too much her dignity. (for
further
discussion
-
Forum
- Ma Mere). (read Acquarello's
note of this film)
Having "Malina"
in my mind, I was worried that I could not understand
Werner Schroeter's
world very well. Then, I found this film - Deux -
is very entertaining for watching, even though the film
is very personal and some scenes are unbelievably "insane".
The passions of the film are expressed
rather clearly - they are the passion to the opera (Maria
Callas),
and the passion
to
Isabelle Huppert -
to whom the film is actually dedicated. The approach
of Werner Schroeter is
interesting. Quite unusual for a film, no melodramatic
narration, processing in a way close to poem and music;
no clue for transiting between Isabelle twins, and between
daughters and mother (played
by Bulle
Ogier - she
had a conversation with the audience after the screening),
but full of filmographic refers to the world of
Rainer
Werner Fassbinder - his German contemporary
- such as film Querelle (1982).
On screen, Isabelle remains
a fresh look since La
Vie promise (Deux was
filmed right after) - rather transparent and blank, ready
for putting on different wardrobes and voices, make-up
or no
make-up, like
a chameleon
changing faces between women and whores, sometimes sad,
sometimes
ridiculous,
and sometimes humorous. It almost convinced me that the
film is rather suited in this experimental form than a
conventional one - a film definitely her fans should
not miss. (for further discussion - Forum
- Deux). (read Acquarello's
note of this film)
My
first, and I hope, not my last, meeting with Isabelle
2005.02.13
(Loraine) I finally managed
to meet Isabelle yesterday.
I went with my mother,
Isabelle (from
the “FORUM”)
and her cousin to see Hedda
Gabler, in which Isabelle plays
the heroine of Henrik
Ibsen until
March 5th.
Before the start
of the play, we got the chance to meet Gorgias (who's
also from the FORUM)
and had a really good time together,
talking about Isabelle,
her films, the way she acts and more. Then, we went
to sit in the theater.
The scene was decorated
in a very Japanese style. The problem was that, during
the first act, we couldn't hear actors' speaking (very
well)! The room is too big. And we sit too far
away from Isabelle and Jean-Marie
Winling, who played the part of the “Conseiller
Brack”. Then, on the second act, we decided
to move to the front row, sitting on the stairs, so
that we can see the performer's faces more clearly.
I spent
the best night of my life. Really.
After the show, advised
by Gorgias,
we lingered at the bar in the theater, waiting
for Isabelle coming out of the backstage. She came
out after a while, I saw
her,
I went
to
talk to her. It was like a dream except that my body
was shaking thoroughly, from fingers to toes. My star,
the star I was
waiting
for all my life is indeed in front of me!! The following
conversation went on as:
Me:
Excuse me, Madame, but I wanted to give you this.
This is the
address of a website we made with
some friends. (ref: http://www.isabellehuppert.com) Isabelle: Thank you, but
what is the subject of your site?
Me: Well, it's about you. Have you heard of it?!! Isabelle: No, but I can
tell you, I’ve
never been good at computers.
Embarrassed
laughs are coming out of my mouth. I was so impressed.
Being in
front of such an impressive person,
my dream was coming true:
Me: Can you sign
the postcard for me? Isabelle: Well, of course,
of course!!
She took my pen,
signed on my postcard, and gave me a smile, despite
of the fact that she had given the play two times today
(Daytime show is only added on weekend). She
was
available, nice and took some time to speak with
me. Then, she went back to her friends and
I realized that among them, Catherine
Frot was
waiting there too. Les
Soeurs Fachées reunited
in front of me !!!!!!!!!!
This
day will be stuck in my memory forever. I want
to add: Isabelle is
the greatest actress that the world has
ever carried. She is a Star! , our Star! No
words are able to describe my feeling right now.
Thank You, Madame Huppert.
(written by
Loraine.
For discussion, go to FORUM
- In Theater)
New York Film
Society of Lincoln Center is holding a Foreign
Film Series - Film
Comment Selects, which is open
today till Feb. 24 at The
Walter Reade Theater in New York City.
Among the selects are Isabelle's "Ma
Mère" (on Feb
14 and 18)
and "Deux"
(on Feb. 19 and 20)
- two films that are unlikely to be distributed in
the US. For those who are keen on her from the States,
definitely don't miss it!. In today's New
York Times' Movie Review, Stephen
Holden wrote particularly about Isabelle's
two films:
"The series includes
two films starring the great French Actress Isabelle
Huppert, who is famed for her fearless choices of roles.
In Christopher
Honore's 'Ma
Mère,' she is Helene, the newly widowed
mother of a handsome, brooding son, Pierre (Louis
Garrel, from
'The Dreamers'), fresh
out of Catholic school, whom she pushes into wholesale
depravity (including incestuous
play) at her summer house in the Canary Islands. Underneath
its graphic transgressions, 'Ma
Mère,' adapted from
a novel by Georges Bataille,
is really a philosophical dialogue about hedonism versus
austerity, built around
the mother-whore dichotomy.
In Werner
Schroeter's symbol-clotted
''Deux,'' Ms. Huppert plays promiscuous twin sisters,
one lesbian, the other
heterosexual, who are unaware of each other. The veteran
French actress Bulle
Ogier, who plays their mother,
is also the object of a special five-film retrospective
of her work in the Film Comment series. Warning: ''Deux,''
aside from its sharp performances, is impenetrable." (see
more at Film
Society of Lincoln Center)
With
Yoko Ono
at
Christine Dior's
Autumn Winter 2005/6
Paris, 31 Jan 2005
News in Brief 2005.02.04
Isabelle as
a guest attended Christine Dior's Autumn Winter 2005/2006
Fashion Show
in Paris,
on Monday night, Jan 31, 2005.
Les
Soeurs Fachées continued staying on the
top 10 box-office for the 5th week(Jan 26- Feb.
1), ranked as number 10 with 78
980 entrees. The film,
by far, has grossed over 1.3 millions admissions, and
becomes the 16th most grossed French film in France in
the year of 2004.
Because the tickets
of Hedda
Gabler are highly demanded (sold out
a month before the show started), Odéon-Théâtre
de l'Europe recently announced to add four more daytime
shows on the following Saturdays at 14:00 p.m. The play
will be on through March 5 in Paris. (Interviews available
at Radio
France Public)
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.
