D.ateci plus Sophie Marceau. To counterbalance the whimsical and the malmostose. Ask us to interview Sophie Marceau often, because her side of punk will always prevail. Even on the flowered dress she is wearing today. We love Sophie Marceau. The polls beyond the Alps make it clear: it does not cease to be “the actress préferée des français”but also in our latitudes we claim the choice.
Sophie Marceau, a woman of our times
Sophie puts us in a good mood when at the press conference for her presentation latest movie, Une femme de notre tempsat the Locarno Film Festival answers the essential question “What binds you to Switzerland?”, “Chocolate, cuckoos and banks”. Yes, yes, she really said it, to add after a pause of perfect duration, “Entre nous”, which remains between us.
We went to re-read the interview we had done for her in 2000 007: The world is not enough in which she played the villain and James Bond was still Pierce Brosnan. At that time, France loved her a little less – she worked too much abroad and her connection with Andrzej Żuławski (father of her eldest son, Vincent) had led her to a world apart – so we asked her: “In Have many France told you not to, Sophie? ‘
Sophie Marceau at the 15th Angouleme French-Speaking Film Festival on August 26, 2022 in Angouleme, France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale – Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images)
He replied with the tranquility of the Buddha: «The French will be happy with my choice. Bond goes everywhere and I’ll like him. I’m sure. And it wasn’t them who discouraged me, but the Americans. They hold European actors in high regard, they think we are another race. As if being French condemned me to work only in low-budget psychological dramas where everyone smokes Gitanes and talks nonsense. It’s since I started working that everyone has advised me and discouraged me, but in the end I always do my own thing ».
The homage of his France
Her country, where today fewer Gitanes are smoked, but low-budget psychological dramas are always shot, is about to dedicate a great honor to her (Marianne had already embodied her): the Cinémathèque française from 29 September will kick off a retrospective of the actress who, says Frédéric Bonnaud, its director, “was the teenager most loved by the French”. Closely tied to superlatives, cine-nationalism and the far from foolish idea of doing their own thing in a universe where everyone surrounds themselves with advisors, Sophie Marceau replies that she does not see a claim in homage. after the auteur cinema had neglected it for a long time, perhaps to punish it for Braveheart And Belfagor. On the contrary … «Actually I don’t care enough» explains a iO woman. “I am honored and happy and I love talking about cinema – even in interviews. I say that I never want to do them, but in reality I like to tell, especially to people who love cinema, because it is part of my life and my loves. However I am not very sensitive to honors and then I am shy. But basically I don’t have the problem of lack of recognition: right from the start, and I started very early, I felt that there was crazy love towards me ».
Sophie Marceau with the director of Une femme de notre temps, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, and Giona A. Nazzaro, director of the Locarno festival. (Photo by Rosdiana Ciaravolo / Getty Images)
Sophie Marceau’s code of honor
The search for confirmation is one of the springs that moves many of his colleagues. Isn’t that the case with him?
I never went looking for confirmation. Not even when I was very young, when I was inexperienced and I would have had every reason. My beginnings were not gradual. I started at great speed and immediately went high (she was 14 when she made her debut in Apple time, ed). But I’ve worked with amazing people and I’ve always done what I wanted. Two great fortunes.
Also in his latest film, which will be the first of the retrospective, after the presentation at the Locarno Film Festival, Une femme de our temps by Jean-Paul Civeyrac, she is a determined woman: police commissioner, upright and demanding even with herself. However, her life precipitates upon the discovery of her husband’s betrayal.
A title like this, “A woman of our time”, draws attention. In fact she is a woman who takes her destiny in hand, but fate eludes her because life is like this, we cannot decide everything. She has found a balance, she has an extraordinary husband, a daughter who adores her, a beautiful home. Cops have hard lives, they see terrible things, they need a counterpart to anchor themselves to reality and she built it for herself. But her life prepares other things for her and she, in spite of everything, honest, upright, demanding, even with herself, will follow her own code of honor.
Une femme de notre temps.
A very physical role, he had to learn to shoot with a bow. Did you have a stunt double for the most athletic scenes?
Ah no! I never have a stunt double! I am Jean Paul Belmondo, the Tom Cruise of French cinema! In fact, when I was younger I would have loved doing more action scenes in my films. And I really loved the work with the bow, it is physical and mental at the same time, I put a lot of effort into it, I wanted the result to be beautiful. To pull you do movements that are truly cinematic, the body is entirely focused on the gesture, the control over oneself must be total. When the arrow is released, the body starts with it and must be in perfect balance, a little tension in a shoulder muscle is enough to miss the target. There is a great harmony around this gesture and I find that the arch is the real protagonist of the film. My character resembles him: when for her the process of becoming aware of the imperfection begins, of the lie of her life, it becomes unstoppable. And she goes straight to the target.
He thought of Jeanne Moreau’s The bride in black of Truffaut when he carried out his revenge?
No, but I thought about Simenon’s novel The truth about Bébé Donge and all the stories of women who murdered their husbands and then confessed quietly. Women in film noir almost always take on a symbolic status, a transcendental dimension.
The gaze of others
It is a bit the same fate as actors, and especially actresses, when, as you said, they become recipients of “crazy love”.
But you have to protect yourself from too intense loves. I could have done 150 “apple times” if I wanted to. They had put a highway in front of me, I could take it and get to thirty years old like this, overwhelmed by general adoration. But I had the curiosity to go elsewhere, without knowing much about the profession of an actress. But we cannot prevent those who look at us, and perhaps she loves us, from setting a look full of expectations on us. I understood this soon. To contradict expectations it takes courage and recklessness: that’s what Orson Welles did with Rita Hayworth, he cut her hair and dyed her blond (for The lady from Shanghai, ed). A scandal! It was no longer her … But that film became part of the history of cinema and she with him. After all, I always want them to ask me to do unexpected things.
Claude Pinoteau in Merci la vie! Aventures cinématographiques told the audition he did for her The time of apples: «When she arrived with her father at the office at 15, rue Madeleine-Michelis in Neuilly, it was love at first sight. Unlike other teenagers, she was more serious, with the faint smile of a Mona Lisa. She kept herself straight, charming, available… ». Do you recognize yourself?
That moment changed everything. And if no one teaches you how to be an actress, even less are you taught how to be famous. I have tried all my life, while things were changing, to continue to be in harmony with myself, even when it happened that I was lynched in the square and immediately afterwards adored me. The journey was long, suddenly, at 13 you are someone else, they even change your name.
With Pierce Brosnan in 007: the world is not enough. (Photo by Keith Hamshere / Getty Images)
Does Sophie Maupu (her real name) still exist inside Sophie Marceau?
Today I would have a hard time distinguishing them. Sophie Marceau certainly taught me a lot and she opened doors for me. With that name a transformation certainly came, if I think that as a child I cried every time they took a picture of me …
And she ended up playing strong women, an avenging archer, or as the protagonist of her penultimate film, It’s All Right, by François Ozon.
I love strong bodies, and I love the places where they are, at the cinema and in life: the police stations, the hospitals … I would like them to ask me again to play a policewoman, I never did, I don’t know why nobody thought about it! I had been in the company of soldiers in Fort Saganne, but I had crinolines. And then I love train stations! I went to pick up my son from the train the other day and as soon as I entered the station my mind went back to Anna Karenina (which he played in 1997, ed), I reviewed the steam of the locomotive before the gesture. We are all imbued with images like that.
In your album what spaces do you leave for future images?
I love getting old. I won’t be the first actress to say it, but I really think so. I always imagined myself old, without anxiety. I know this will limit my possibilities in the cinema. But I don’t want to lose touch with reality, and I don’t want to hide. Going against time would be a losing war from the start, he wins, so I prefer to be friends with him. And the screen has never betrayed me so far.
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