S19th century superstar, talented, bisexual, feminist, pugnacious, rebellious icon, national monument. “It’s about time a film was made about her,” he says Sandrine Kiberlain who is Sarah Bernhardt, the woman who in Colette’s words «wanted to please and then please again, pleasure until the gates of death»the actress for whom Jean Cocteau invented the title, the honorific, “sacred monster”, in Guillaume Nicloux’s film, The divine of France (from 6 November at the cinema).
What did you know about her before accepting the role?
I saw her as a crucial actress for her time, and I thought she was wiser and boring than what I later discovered, I imagined her as more centered on the theatre, a declaiming woman. I didn’t know the extent of her commitment to injustice, I didn’t know that she knew how to produce change. Sarah Bernhardt was one of the first to speak about the condition of women in France, of anti-Semitism and also the first who – without the media and social media – became a big global star. And this is simply because she was bizarre and very intelligent. Her only fragility was men: she couldn’t bear to be abandoned. Otherwise he was strong, powerful, not afraid of anything. An energy that came to her from afar: she had had an atrocious mother, who had written a destiny for her as a prostitute, and a non-existent father. But she chose life two thousand percent, so she wanted to be loved two thousand percent, it was her response to the love absent in her childhood. In the film we see her shine, she has the world at her feet, but if there is a man who resists her, then she goes back to being her mother’s unloved daughter. A mother’s abandonment is something that affects one’s entire life.
The defense of Alfred Dreyfus
The film also shows her as a punk star, a queer figure.
He dared, he did what he felt. She couldn’t stand the injustice, it prevented her from sleeping, from living, she participated in Dreyfus’s defense. I’m sure she was in court with all her heart, that she put “le tripes sur la table”, “guts on the table”, during the trial. She also put vital energy into her acting: “I can’t play Phaedra without sweating,” she said.
Sandrine KIberlain and Laurent Lafitte.
She is usually measured, but for this role she abandoned herself to the hubris of an actress. He explored the nature of his craft, after his first film as director, A young girl goes well here, did you put an actress at the center?
I’m fascinated by actresses, I’ve never understood how it happens, how you enter this world, even though I’m an actress and there was a moment when I chose it. It is a work of imagination, embodiment. And this character, Sarah Bernhardt, comes to me after I have played many and also made a film as a director, so in theory I should know a little better how this mechanism works. But while Sarah explored every genre, every field, I specialized a bit in comedy, in burlesqueI learned to let go because it is mandatory. I played worthy, reserved, modest women. She is not the same person when she is alone or when she is exposed, if she has an audience she always acts.
The film cannot be a biopic, too little is known about Sarah Bernhardt. How much space have you given your imagination?
Sarah was not as famous as Charles Aznavour (about whom a film has just been released in France, Monsieur Aznavourwith Tahar Rahim, ed). We know about him how he moved, how he spoke. Her I’ve only seen photos and it’s never the same personthey wrote that she was small, but in the photos she seems tall, she was blonde, brunette, redhead. So we set out on the journey to discover it, saying to ourselves: if we manage to believe in what we imagine, the spectators will also believe it. You can’t approach a woman like her on tiptoe.
Will he continue his activity as a director?
I really like it, it’s a very different job and I certainly won’t stop doing it. Being an actress isn’t even a job, that’s me, it’s my life. On the first page of the screenplay there was a quote from Mark Twain: «There are 5 types of actresses, the bad ones, the passable ones, the good ones, the great ones and then there’s Sarah Bernhardt». If I’m between passable and good I consider myself happy.