Jeanne Moreau: French New Wave Icon & Legendary Actress |

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When she was born on January 23, 1928 in Paris, she didn’t know it, but she would become one of the most acclaimed actresses in France. Her mother may have already predicted it, as she was one of her greatest supporters and also loved the arts, as she was a dancer and even danced at the Folies-Bergère.

During the war, the girl took refuge in books, which she read with absurd consistency. These were difficult times. She was a diligent student until she was fifteen, but from then on she lost her fascination. Her father forbade her from going to the cinema and theater, and we all know that prohibition only fuels curiosity, and it was no different for Jeanne. From then on, her interest in the arts grew and she would even skip classes to go to the theater. During one of these escapes, she saw Jean Anouilh perform Antigone, and this ended up having a lasting effect on her.

From that day on, she decided to become a . Her father, a notorious drinker, was completely against his daughter’s decision, even beating her several times. Her mother, however, decided to give her daughter strength by taking her to an audition at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts.

The Beginning of Everything

Jeanne Moreau em ‘Les Espagnols au Danemark’.

After a year of studies, she was ready to make her debut at the Comédie Française. Her parents separated, her mother left for England with her sister, and she chose to stay in France with her father. In four years at the Comédie Française, she had already appeared in twenty-two plays. Jeanne met and married Jean-Louis Richard, her fellow conservatory student. Shortly after the birth of her son Jérome, the actress was back in the limelight. The marriage ended shortly thereafter, but Jeanne and Jean remained close friends throughout their lives.

Her passion for theater was not enough to keep her in the company, and in 1952 she packed her bags, saying goodbye to the Comédie Française and joining the Théâtre National Populaire. There she met Gerard Philipe, who was already becoming a celebrated actor. The tragic actor would die young, at the age of 36, but at that time he was at his peak. Jeanne’s most successful role in the company was in the play L’Heure Eblouissante, performing 500 times. Acting in increasingly recognized plays, she performed powerful texts by George Bernard Shaw and Tennessee Williams.

Gérard Philipe e Jeanne Moreau em “Le Prince de Hombourg”

The Arrival at the Cinema

Jeanne did not feel comfortable on screen and preferred theater from the beginning. According to Louis Malle, who directed her in Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud, there was a big problem: many did not know how to use her in films. The actress also points out that this feeling was amplified by the feeling of not being beautiful. In the film directed by Malle, she plays Florence, a woman married to a millionaire and in love with Julien, an ex-military man with whom she plans to assassinate her husband. In it, she acts alongside Maurice Ronet.

Here Jeanne proves herself to be a talented actress, so much so that Malle did not think of anyone else for the film he was preparing for the following year: Les Amants. Here she plays a woman who abandons her family to pursue a love affair. The film had problems with censorship, something she would suffer with in most of her films. But the results ended up being promising, and the film won the Venice Film Festival. Her name began to be imprinted in the history of cinema. Jeanne was not happy with the censorship, and even thought about abandoning her film career and returning to the theater. During this period, she met François Truffaut.

The two became romantically involved and a lasting friendship began to emerge. The director introduced her to other filmmakers and intellectuals. It was from that moment on that Jeanne began to see the audiovisual industry in a different light, returning to work with great enthusiasm. In 1959, she reunited with Gerard Philipe in Les liaisons dangereuses. This is one of the best versions of the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

Roger Vadim dirige Gerard Philippe e Jeanne Moreau em Les liaisons dangereuses

That same year, she made a special appearance in Truffaut’s Les Quatre cents coups . During the filming of Moderato Cantibile, where she starred alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, she suffered one of the biggest shocks of her life when her son was involved in an accident alongside the actor. The boy spent two weeks in a coma, but eventually recovered. The accident awakened her to life, making her enjoy every second with her loved ones and friends.

La Notte (1961), um filme que não gostou de fazer

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, she starred alongside Marcello Mastroianni in La Notte (1961). Antonioni was an admirable director, but according to the actress’s memories, it was not easy to work alongside him and she had to work many night shifts. This was one of her most hated roles, and she also hated the director’s pessimistic point of view. And filming must have been difficult, because Marcello Mastroianni also remembered the period he worked with the director as one of the most difficult of his career.

Her mood improved when she was invited by Truffaut to work on Jules et Jim. The adaptation of Henri-Pierre Roché’s novel tells the story of two friends who fall in love with the same woman, played by Jeanne Moreau. This period also marked the peak of the romance between the director and the actress, and the two even shared the same roof for a few months. The result of so much love involved was an absolute success with critics and audiences around the world, with the film receiving several awards.

Her character’s image represented the free and liberated women of her time, a portrait of the sixties and the nouvelle vague. The beginning of the decade brought her involvement with designer Jeanne Pierre Cardin, with whom she would have a relationship for five years and with whom she would travel extensively. Jeanne would become Cardin’s muse, posing for him in several cities throughout Europe. Among Jeanne’s greatest admirers was the American Orson Welles, who considered her the greatest actress in the world. Finally, in 1963, the two managed to work together on The Trial, the first of four collaborations between the duo.

Her fame went beyond France and she received invitations to star in other countries. In England, she starred in Carl Foreman’s The Victors (1963) and Anthony Asquith’s The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964). Another big fan of hers was Luis Buñuel , who invited her to star in Journal d’une femme de chambre. “When she walks her foot trembles a little in the high heel, and this suggests a certain tension and instability,” Buñuel commented in his autobiography. The feeling was mutual, and the actress considered him a father figure. “When we worked together we didn’t need to talk. One look was enough and we knew what we wanted.”

Com Buñuel. Ela o considerava um pai e sentiu muito sua morte

Jeanne starred alongside another great French star, Brigitte Bardot, in Louis Malle’s Viva Maria!. The film received huge publicity and filming was interrupted several times due to the press and fans trying to get close to the actresses. The supposed rivalry between the two also fueled tabloids eager for some trouble. In any case, her character helped to consolidate her international career. Another scandal was guaranteed when she starred in Tony Richardson’s Mademoiselle. Playing a neurotic and sadistic teacher, she caused surprise and mixed reactions at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival due to its highly sexual content.

She was one of the actresses who were invited to play Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, but she ended up turning it down because of other projects. That same year, she would work with Truffaut again in La Mariée était en Noir (1968). Her character played a vengeful woman who searches for the men who killed her husband one by one. One of Truffaut’s best films, it was a box office success, receiving several nominations.

Later

After working with Orson Welles, the actress needed some time to recover. She was exhausted and decided to retreat to her farm. For almost a year on her farm, she lived simply, enjoying her family and friends. In 1970, she returned to work thanks to the offers that came in.

After working with so many successful filmmakers, she was ready to put everything she had learned from them into practice, and in 1975 she directed her first film: Lumière. The film chronicles a week in the lives of four actresses of different ages, giving a glimpse into their relationships and careers.

Satisfied with the result, she would also direct L’adolescente (1979), a film that tells the story of Marie, a teenager who travels with her parents to a small town near Avgnon. There she falls in love with a young doctor who treats her like a child. After the film’s release, she took a long time off work, taking care of her health and only returning in 1982 to Querelle, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The director died and the actress was responsible for all the promotion work for the film.

After another four years of vacation – a period she took advantage of to travel the world – she worked on personal projects and two television films, L’Arbre (1984) and The Last Séance (1986). Her friends were starting to leave, and she felt the absence of Orson Welles, François Truffaut and Luis Buñuel, who had all died in the 1980s. An established actress, she was reaching that age when many women are beginning to be sidelined, and she was still receiving offers for important roles in a series of films such as Le Paltoquet (1986) and Sauve Toi, Lola (1986). In the latter, she played a woman suffering from cancer. The actress also returned to her great passion, the theater, touring around the world with her play Le Récit de la Servante Zéline.

With a distinguished career spanning over sixty years, Jeanne has over 146 productions under her belt and is still active. She was the first non-American actress to appear on the front page of TIME and has collected awards and honors from around the world. She outlived several of her friends, whom she considered her great loves.

The actress passed away on July 31, 2017, at the age of 89, at her residence in Paris. The specific cause of her death has not been publicly disclosed.

http://www.cinetom.fr/archives/2008/04/18/8868580.html
http://www.newwavefilm.com/french-new-wave-encyclopedia/jeanne-moreau.shtml
http://www.lifetimetv.co.uk/biography/biography-jeanne-moreau
http://www.parfumflowercompany.com/2015/12/14/jeanne-moreau-roses-story-behind-rose/
http://theredlist.com/wiki-2-24-525-527-663-view-1950s-3-profile-gerard-philipe.html
http://en.mediamass.net/people/jeanne-moreau/james-bond.html
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-flashback-1976-jeanne-moreau-821848

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Carla Marinho Leal

Writer, traveler and above all, curious about many subjects. She has studied cinema since 2002 and is a Specialist in Cinematographic Studies from UNICAP. Founder of the blog Purviance and the website Cinemaclássico. She loves Charles Chaplin, Raj Kapoor and constantly browses films from all over the world.

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