Star quality
If anyone has star quality, it is Isabelle Huppert. The 54-year-old French actress is certainly one of the finest thespians working anywhere in the world.This month the St James Centre for Creativity, in collaboration with Alliance Francaise, are...
If anyone has star quality, it is Isabelle Huppert. The 54-year-old French actress is certainly one of the finest thespians working anywhere in the world.
This month the St James Centre for Creativity, in collaboration with Alliance Francaise, are staging a festival of her films in the St James cinema, between May 4 and 11.
Mlle Huppert is one of those people for whom acting is the one and only motivation in their lives. She has appeared on both stage and screen from a very early age. After training as an actress she enjoyed a distinguished stage career before appearing in her first movie (Faustine Et Le Bel Eté) at the age of 18 in 1972.
Since then it's been roses - and awards - all the way as she has starred in nearly 40 features in both Hollywood and her preferred native France. Mlle Huppert has also made regular returns to the stage. Her recent portrayal of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, in Paris was greeted with standing ovations at every performance.
The St James' Isabelle Huppert Festival will include seven of her very best films plus a documentary about the lady herself entitled Isabelle Huppert- Une Vie Pour Jouer (A Year In The Life Of Isabelle Huppert). Also being shown will be the 1991 feature Madame Bovary, in which Mlle Huppert gives one of her most compelling performances in the title role. Directed by the iconic French director Claude Chabrol, Mlle Huppert is quite brilliant as the bored adulterous wife of a provincial doctor vegetating her life away in a small town in Normandy.
One of the actress's earlier films La Dentellière (The Lacemaker) will also get an airing in the festival. This was an unexpected hit when first released in 1977 for its director Claude Goretta. The UK's Time Out magazine had this to say about it: "Its heroine (beautifully played by Huppert as a passive object) seems less a candidate for women's lib than a helpless prisoner of incommunicability."
The 1983 feature Coup De Foudre (A Rush Of Blood) was directed by Diane Kurys and in addition to Mlle Huppert it also starred Guy Marchand and Miou Miou. This is another of the French actresses films to be shown during the week. The other four films to be exhibited are: Sauve Qui Peut La Vie (Slow Motion) 1979, directed by possibly the greatest of all French directors Jean Luc Godard. In which Mlle Huppert gives a stunning performance as a tart with a heart. Then there will be La Cérémonie, 1994.
Saint-Cyr released in 2001, was directed by Patricia Mazuy and in addition to Mlle Huppert it also starred Jeremie Rénier and Jean-Pierre Kalfon.
And finally there was another prostitute role for Mlle Huppert in Oliver Dahan's 2004 release La Vie Promise (The Promised Life), also on offer at the week-long festival of her films.
It would be fair to say that when first released this one had a decidedly mixed set of reviews and was described by one critic as mawkish. However Mlle Huppert's performance goes some way to rescuing the movie. This is an important film festival and should attract a large number of aficionados to the St James cinema.
This month the St James Centre for Creativity, in collaboration with Alliance Francaise, are staging a festival of her films in the St James cinema, between May 4 and 11.
Mlle Huppert is one of those people for whom acting is the one and only motivation in their lives. She has appeared on both stage and screen from a very early age. After training as an actress she enjoyed a distinguished stage career before appearing in her first movie (Faustine Et Le Bel Eté) at the age of 18 in 1972.
Since then it's been roses - and awards - all the way as she has starred in nearly 40 features in both Hollywood and her preferred native France. Mlle Huppert has also made regular returns to the stage. Her recent portrayal of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, in Paris was greeted with standing ovations at every performance.
The St James' Isabelle Huppert Festival will include seven of her very best films plus a documentary about the lady herself entitled Isabelle Huppert- Une Vie Pour Jouer (A Year In The Life Of Isabelle Huppert). Also being shown will be the 1991 feature Madame Bovary, in which Mlle Huppert gives one of her most compelling performances in the title role. Directed by the iconic French director Claude Chabrol, Mlle Huppert is quite brilliant as the bored adulterous wife of a provincial doctor vegetating her life away in a small town in Normandy.
One of the actress's earlier films La Dentellière (The Lacemaker) will also get an airing in the festival. This was an unexpected hit when first released in 1977 for its director Claude Goretta. The UK's Time Out magazine had this to say about it: "Its heroine (beautifully played by Huppert as a passive object) seems less a candidate for women's lib than a helpless prisoner of incommunicability."
The 1983 feature Coup De Foudre (A Rush Of Blood) was directed by Diane Kurys and in addition to Mlle Huppert it also starred Guy Marchand and Miou Miou. This is another of the French actresses films to be shown during the week. The other four films to be exhibited are: Sauve Qui Peut La Vie (Slow Motion) 1979, directed by possibly the greatest of all French directors Jean Luc Godard. In which Mlle Huppert gives a stunning performance as a tart with a heart. Then there will be La Cérémonie, 1994.
Saint-Cyr released in 2001, was directed by Patricia Mazuy and in addition to Mlle Huppert it also starred Jeremie Rénier and Jean-Pierre Kalfon.
And finally there was another prostitute role for Mlle Huppert in Oliver Dahan's 2004 release La Vie Promise (The Promised Life), also on offer at the week-long festival of her films.
It would be fair to say that when first released this one had a decidedly mixed set of reviews and was described by one critic as mawkish. However Mlle Huppert's performance goes some way to rescuing the movie. This is an important film festival and should attract a large number of aficionados to the St James cinema.