Isabelle Huppert: Acting President

Isabelle Huppert will be the first star to walk down the red carpet in Cannes this month—the 56-year-old actress’s latest role is president of the jury of the 62nd Festival de Cannes, which takes place from May 13-24 this year. Neurotic in La Pianiste, silent and secretive in La Dentellière and enigmatic in Merci pour le Chocolat, Huppert has portrayed women of every description, working with some of the world’s most important directors. She’s interviewed for France Today and France-Amérique by Oumelkheir Djenaïdi.

You’ve won the Best Actress award at Cannes twice—for Chabrol’s Violette Nozière in 1978 and Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste in 2001—which is rather unusual. This year you are president of the jury. How are you preparing for that role?

I don’t think it is possible to prepare for this kind of role, or any other, for that matter. I don’t even prepare for my fictional roles, even less so for this one. I know that Cannes is a veritable resonance chamber, reflecting everything happening around us, and I’m looking forward to seeing a wide array of films, and learning about what’s going on in the world through them.

What does Cannes represent for you?

It’s an opportunity to attract as much attention as possible for a film. I’ve been lucky enough to be at the Festival many times, with films in competition, out of competition and in other categories. It’s a powerful, incomparable event. But it’s important to remember that, just like any other exhibition of this nature and level of intensity, there is always room for surprises and disappointments. You hope for good reactions and sometimes you’re faced with a lukewarm reception.

What is your favorite memory from the Festival?

Of course I have many! Winning the Best Actress award twice, and all the times I’ve come to present a film. It’s anticipation mixed with excitement.

This year you have no films in competition. Does that ease the pressure?

It eases the pressure. But being the president increases the pressure. It evens out!

In March, American audiences saw you in Ursula Meier’s movie Home at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Festival at Lincoln Center in New York. In the film, you play an eccentric mother who lives with her husband and three children in a country house next to a major highway. Why did the role appeal to you?

It was the film itself that appealed to me. I liked the almost theatrical setup of a house next to the highway, with people passing by all the time—it’s very interesting. The people in the passing cars observe the house as if the residents were actors on a stage. Every time a car passes, there are the observers and the observed. It’s a very powerful idea. It’s like a modern-day fable, because the action in the film is both realistic and abstract. The film starts like “Once upon a time next to the highway….” It’s a metaphor for the contemporary world, highlighting the nuclear family, relationships with the modern world, noise and pollution.

Villa Amalia, your fifth collaboration with director Benoît Jacquot, has just been released. You’ve also worked quite often with director Claude Chabrol. What makes you stay so faithful to particular directors?

We are faithful to each other. We see each other regularly. It’s a way of continuing a dialogue, being on a long walk together that started long ago…We get together for a project knowing we will be able to say something to audiences with it. I expect a lot from a director. I expect a director to make a film as personal as possible, but at the same time to involve me in as personal a manner as possible. The film must belong to us both.

You’re also faithful to the theater. You’ve worked with Bob Wilson twice (Orlando and Quartett) and with Claude Régy twice (Jeanne au Bucher and Sarah Kane). In 2008 you were in the Yasmina Reza play God of Carnage. What do you get from the theatre that you don’t get from film?

I’m not looking for the same things from theater and film. They are two different things, and I don’t value one more than the other. But the essence of what animates me on stage or on a film set is strictly the same. To the point that in the theater I try to get as close as possible to what I do on film. I try to eliminate that sacrosanct boundary between film acting and theatrical acting. I try to act as if the boundary doesn’t exist.

In 2005, you appeared in 4.48 Psychose at the BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music performance and cinema arts center. What did you take away from that experience?

It’s a wonderful adventure to play at the BAM, a place I particularly love. It’s one of those places in New York where you have the opportunity to see very ambitious plays, and which shows a lot of foreign films. It’s the only place in New York where you can see the work of certain directors. I’ll be back there in early November to do Heiner Mueller’s Quartett, which I’ve already done at the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris.

You’ve been called “the intellectual actress” because of your diplomas and your demanding roles. Why do you think you’ve been given that label?

It’s tied to the kind of films I do, which are often very ambitious. I get the shorthand, without really understanding it. It also has to do with the directors I work with, who present a distinct vision of the world through their work.

In 1979, you were in Michael Cimino’s Hollywood movie Heaven’s Gate. How do you explain the film’s cult status in France and its terrible reputation in the United States?

When the movie was released, Americans hated it. Today, nonetheless, it’s recognized as a great film. At first it was also rejected in Europe, although certainly less vehemently. It’s a very anti-American film, and that was very badly received. And then it’s also very much a film by an auteur in the European sense, that is, very personal and with classic, even poetic, narration.

You were very young at the time, only 26. How did you deal with the controversy surrounding the film?

I followed it very serenely. I was obviously very disappointed, but it was much harder for Michael Cimino than for me. I went back to France to do other films, whereas he must have been very stunned and hurt by the rejection. I think his whole life will remain marked by the controversy, which continues even now, 20 years later.

Have you ever regretted being in a particular film?

No! And definitely not in that film.

Recently, you were rumored to be involved in the next Quentin Tarantino film. Why didn’t that happen?

The collaboration didn’t happen because of scheduling difficulties.

Some press reports said you turned down the role because you didn’t like it.

It’s not necessary to take every role! It would seem probable that I didn’t like it, since I turned it down.

What interests you about American cinema?

A kind of energy. Cinema that is dynamic is very sensitive to the essence of a country, to a country’s landscape and light. That’s what you find in American cinema, which is many-faceted and diverse. But I also admire the capacity of American film to reflect on fundamental issues.

What’s your relationship with the United States?

I love the United States and I like to travel there. It’s a powerful, attractive country. There is often a strength, a generosity and an enthusiasm in the US. But there are also things about it I don’t like—its rigidity, its cumbersome organization.

Do you think American cinema is more difficult for aging actresses, who often find themselves unable to find leading roles?

It’s a problem I don’t have. What is certain, and it has nothing to do with age, is that European and French cinema often offer a larger array of roles. For American actresses, role of a certain depth and subtlety are rarer. There are more comedies, more light upbeat films. One could say that American cinema adventures less often into the meanders of the feminine psyche.

After making 70 films during a 30-year career, what would you like now?

I would like to think that th

ere are some surprises in store for me, but I have no specific wishes. My wishes will have to be satisfied as new encounters come along.

 

Originally published in the May 2009 issue of France Today.