The Catherine Deneuve List

[senseabove]

Was Cary Grant really all that great of an actor, as opposed to being a likable guy who was also in a lot of great movies?

I won't really elaborate because I have before already and I honestly can't believe I have to say this but, yes, Cary Grant was abso-fuckin-lutely a great actor.

[domino harvey]

Weirdly I think Satan Conduit le Bal contains the best use of Deneuve the ingenue that I've seen yet (discounting Rochefort, which is obviously in a different mode altogether). As basically everyone who has seen the film here has noted, most of the characters are horrible humans in their cruel disregard for the lives/happiness of the others (a shared trait that generally manifests in a relentless desire to cheat on one's partner out of fuming boredom if nothing else), but Deneuve's role even among these specimens is special in that there seems to be no drive or motivation or even specific manifestation of her shittiness, and yet it is palpable nonetheless. Of the villa residents, she is (I think) the only one that doesn't attempt an affair, and as the flirtations grow in complexity and threat around her, one begins to realize that the thought never entered her mind. Deneuve's performance here is one of the best I've seen to capture the empty-headed capriciousness of immaturity, careening between tantrums and wide-eyed forgiveness in an agonizing representation of social and romantic naivete.

I really liked this one too. Here’s my write up from the 60s List

Satan conduit le bal (Grisha Dabat 1962) Five years before Catherine Deneuve and Jacques Perrin played fate-crossed lovers in Demy's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort they appeared together as one of several mismatched pairs in this clever, mean-spirited diatribe against idleness of both youth and economic class. Dabat's film, co-scripted by Roger Vadim, gives us a gaggle of flip loafers who congregate at the estate of the wealthiest's parents and waste no time in not only disrespecting existent boundaries of romantic commitment and societal decency, but flaunting said rifts. This is a cruel film-- when the most human character is the retired gangster who plots to wipe out his daughter's paramour, you know your main protagonists are fucked-- but it's a telling work of social commentary. When the richest amongst them gets rejected for the last time by Bernadette Lafont, she asks what comes next. He responds, "I'll make money."

Weirdly, the film was violently hated by both Cahiers and their colleagues— every single contributor to the journal’s monthly round-up bulleted the film, including Godard

[Never Cursed]

Weirdly, the film was violently hated by both Cahiers and their colleagues— every single contributor to the journal’s monthly round-up bulleted the film, including Godard

Haven't read anything they wrote on the subject, but my immediate guess is that they were not the most receptive audience to a film so concerned with mocking and belittling the arrogance of youth (given how concerned many of them were with more sympathetic depictions of young adults, and given how many of them had been arrogant youths just a few years prior). Could be very wrong here, though.

Also, is there any evidence to prove that "Grisha Dabat" is/was a real person?

[domino harvey]

Dabat was real. Here's their director entry from Cahiers' Nouvelle Vague guide:



Also, the same issue contains the very slim and unattributed review of the film, which claims it presents the most thorough collection yet of cliches and false view of modern youth and will be laughed at in 20 years (followed by a directive to report the film to Langlois)... so you're probably right, sounds like they don't like the negative view anymore than they liked it in Les tricheurs, though I'm not sure that explains why the non-Cahiers contributors hated it just as much!

[Never Cursed]

Yeah, that review sounds about right (for Cahiers). Glad to see some proof that Dabat did more than the four films they are credited with on IMDB; I was wondering if the name was being used as a pseudonym for someone else (presumably Vadim)

[domino harvey]

Also given that he wrote criticism for rival publications, it could also be purely politics that they all had knives out for Dabat

[therewillbeblus]

Généalogies d'un crime: This has never been a memorable Ruiz for me, but this time around I found it far more interesting, if not quite 'enjoyable'. It's particularly amusing as a self-reflexively satirical exercise, for Ruiz repurposes his labyrinthian narrative skills into the mold of a tired concept: the flashback-oriented mystery-thriller genre, which was reaching the heights of its trite popularity during the time this film came out. Deneuve gets a double role, but doesn't do much with either part, though there isn't exactly space for her to do so when one hardly acts outside of her other, more central role’s recitation of a journal entry. Still, Deneuve’s guarded exterior works for a character (or, I suppose, characters) that are mysteries- perhaps most significantly to themselves! The loudest emotional reaction we get from Deneuve in the film comes at the beginning, subverting the traditional emotional arc building in reverse. This expression of pain isn’t earned because that loss was never established for a payoff, so we’re left apathetic and puzzled, and Ruiz sets this is his standard, constantly leaving us to play catchup to who this person is and why we should care about her psychology at all.

It’s an inverted strategy compared to the films this is emulating, those that prime us to develop concern for characters that subsequently morph against our trusted involvement with a sneaky twist of information. Ruiz understands that this is all a manipulative ruse, so he casts a star who thrives on a facade of bland indifference to deliver the punchline of disconnect in the most banal way imaginable, and then continues to work on the twisty mystery from there sans surrogate investment. We can sense immediately that Deneuve has secrets, but so little is at stake, so our attention wanders into the clouds of Ruiz's peripheral sketching just as Deneuve's mind probably is doing the same to ignore her own introspection. My favorite aspect of the film is this tweaking of structuralist pacing and deliberately omitting information- for instance, how after the initial meeting with René, where Deneuve allows him to 'get in her head' within seconds, she’s inappropriately moved miles ahead of a normal narrative to declare that she was already attached to the case and thinking like him. Ruiz takes all of two minutes to accomplish (and thus, deflate the value of, rendering it nakedly silly) alignment between core principals and motive for the film’s themes to be actualized. It’s subtly hilarious- and that’s without the cheeky psychology jabs from competing practitioners! The ultimate reveals continue to up the ante on the psychoanalytic-lunacy, and profess Ruiz’s passion for mental disorders and fascination with subconscious drives, attaching meaning to eccentric interventions, because at the base of these bizarre tactics lie strong wills to discover, a universal impulse Ruiz shares with his subjects.

However, then the film takes a sharp turn in a jarring final act that feels like an intentionally-superfluous tacked on ending, bringing Deneuve from passivity into an active role- one that neither she nor her character can handle, and so it rapidly caves in on itself when Deneuve compulsively defaults to fight/flight instead of forming a relationship, detailing her personality, or uncovering diagnostic data. Of course the final verdict must be insanity- nobody has any semblance of a theory for the impetus of her psyche! Unfortunately since Deneuve isn’t very good, I’m not sure the film will be a list-contender, but Ruiz is having fun playing in a dirty pool off-season, and that’s what makes this (barely) worth checking out.

[knives]

Got a little bit of the English language going here.

First off was The April Fools which is unquestionably the worst movie Deneuve has ever been a part of and starts off this morning’s theme of, Repulsion aside, she can’t act in english.

Far better is this umpteenth retelling of the Mayerling story which knows fully well that sentiment and so goes in a completely new direction. What’s more is is so satisfying and great in that direction that when it is forced to go the route dictated by the expected historical narrative of the case it becomes deeply unsatisfying as I yearned for the return to political drama which is so relevant today.

Omar Sharif plays the prince as a man so frozen by his responsibilities and sense of duty that he’s wound up on a suicide mission in order to feel freedom. The script works well to give a tense sense of the political experience of Sharif by tying the prince through blood to Marie Antoinette, Franz Ferdinand in an apocalyptic joke, and most pointedly Ludwig of Barvaria plus a half dozen references I didn’t fully catch. The crown weighs terribly because it is wrong and yet unifies the people. The film contrasts this era’s Austria with its grand diversity to the homogeneous view GB has of itself. The film starts with students in protest and never forgets how wrong governments are which exist only to support themselves are and yet complicates that through the idea that governments can be a great unifier of distinct peoples as well.

This tension is best brought out by the emperor played by James Mason with a patronizing disappointment. It’s a sad performance of someone unfamiliar with human psychology and does a good job of showing what a truly great actor can do. Speaking of great actors James Robertson Justice, an actor I’ve never noticed before but will now keep an eye on, does amazing work in his imitation of Peter Ustinov as Prince Edward. It’s a hilarious performance that manages to also serve a nice dramatic purpose.

Less great are our two ostensible leads, though I think Mason has more screen time than Deneuve, who give stiff performances and stop the film dead in its tracks often when they are together. The pair has a negative chemistry that makes the idea of this being a great romance laughable. That the political content is so good and other versions telling the romance with aplomb makes their scenes all the more empty. If I didn’t know better based on this performance I would have assumed that Deneuve had no fluency in English. Sharif doesn’t even have that degree of excuse though.

Quibbles on performance quality aside this was far better than I was expecting. What starts off as a David Lean knock-off does manage to successfully build itself to a tragedy of being trapped by a desire to do good with no creativity of how to.

Finally a return to France for easily the best discovery so far and a film now guaranteed to make my list.

Tired of bad movies? Tired of Deneuve wasting her time in walk on parts? Then Après Lui is the film for you. Born from a sensitive script by Christophe Honoré Deneuve takes center stage using enigma as a mode of processing grief. Her performance here reminded me of her amazing work in Genealogies of a Crime wherein thought and experience are one. This film is a lot more plain in its dramatic aims compared with the Ruiz with scenes of mourning and revisiting of sites, but the overwhelming feeling that exercises of memory, the reimagined and remake of the past, is the only way for time to progress is there. Deneuve is not quite processing a death wish, but giving that the future ultimately means death that seems to be where her character lies to herself.


Seemingly this film was dumped without even an English title, but it is nonetheless available from IFC and well worth everyone’s time as one of Deneuve’s best performances in one of her best films.

[knives]

Sorry for such a swift double post, but I just saw my new choice number one and hope I can promote it as soon as possible in the hopes of not leaving it completely orphaned. That film is Liza.

Discovering that Deneuve had another film with Ferreri meant I had to see it and it far exceeded my greatest possible expectations. Liza, also known by about a dozen other names as was the law for Italian films during this period, is a cruel and hilarious romance told with typical Ferreri passion. It starts off as a strange cousin to Lina Wertmuller as Deneuve’s figure of wealth discovers a less than good painter played by Mastroianni‘s beard. Questions of class as represented by gender are asked and the comparison becomes skewed as this doesn’t keep up the proletariat argument in a clean fashion. Mastroianni is a very passive man who the story happens to. That story is Deneuve who actively organizes her suicide out of some obscure romantic idea.

The film makes it clear that the violence of masculinity is so ingrained in society that even without doing anything man falls into such a disgusting role. Seemingly every idea of the film is developed and executed by Deneuve, in what is probably now my favorite performance by her, and yet Mastroianni seems he sole benefactor leaving an unease to the film’s otherwise light tone. This is all before a surprise that comes towards the end and makes him seem all the uglier.

In contrast to Mayerling this is a film which thrives by its leading performances as both do a very complicated balancing act. Mastroianni has the unenviable task of making a louse be the most lovely a romantic figure ever. Deneuve has an almost as difficult task of making a seeming victim be an active and equal partner. The film leans a bit on her enigmatic acting style, but she also gets to push herself a little by being so open and cleared minded as if she were acting emotionally nude. In the form of a contrast this reminded me most of Tristana if a comparison helps to clarify my words.

Probably about 80% of the film is the two discovering each other, but Ferreri provides a couple of great cameos including a strange interlude with stock player of Europe Michel Piccoli providing a great punchline to the film’s concept of proletariat revolution. The best cameo I’ll keep secret though as it caught me by surprise and has such a deep thematic impact it made me reconsider the themes of the whole film.

I will say the film ended with me shocked in myself as I was rooting for this couple who represent nothing less than the failing of hetero relationships. This becomes so sickly romantic that I had to laugh.

[therewillbeblus]

Liza sounds fascinating. I had to return all your other recs back to my lib because I just haven't been able to make time, but I might try to squeeze this one in... however, I have very little familiarity with Ferrari outside of La Grande Bouffe and Dillinger is Dead (the latter of which I remember nothing about) so I'm not sure if this will hurt its impact?

[knives]

It shouldn’t. The film is very thematically similar to Dillinger, but is its own beast.

[senseabove]

The Hunger is seductive in a perfectly 80s way—blown-out bouffants and blowsy curtains and Bowie—and even though I didn't find the intermittent profundity Never Cursed did, I did enjoy the hell out of it. It's a lot of flash, and does a marvelous job padding out a thin plot out with gothy, post-punk gauze, but it fizzles in the end, resorting to lots of eye-catching horror handwaving to distract from all the narrative horror handwaving I had hoped it was planning to build on, but didn't.

8 Women, unlike The Hunger, isn't trying to pull anything fast on anybody, and that's one reason I found it, years and years ago, so beguiling and was pleased to find I still do. Dom's right that Ozon is wildly hit or miss, so I was nervous about watching this for the first time since college, when I loved it and watched it repeatedly, but I'm pleased to say this is still an unqualified hit for me. It's a story of role play and the safe word is 'camp,' at which utterance each character briefly drops into that most authentic screen expression: song and dance. It's, not very subtly, about how these women navigate the stereotypical roles they're cast in, punished whether they live up to them or rebel against them: the good girl with a secret, the dollar-eyed diva, the conniving tomboy, the bisexual nympho, the slutty maid, the slutty virgin, the repressed grande dame, the deceitful lesbian. And taking a page from Cukor, it's not just men who cast the roles, even if they do mostly define them. Far from being over-acted or under-directed, the "straight" and musical parts are perfectly inverted: the "real world" is camp while the songs are earnestly dispassionate; the performances are seen as diegetic by the other characters, each song expressing some more personal aspect of each woman's relationship with men in the abstract—e.g. Catherine hasn't met any except Papa, Chanel doesn't need any of them—and the performances are several times acknowledged as performances with unsurprised comments before everyone goes back to performing their currently-assigned role. I find it to be a delightful, ever-shifting imbrication of our expectations of character, genre, and plot with the character's self-aware expectations of stereotype, generic motive, and performance.

As for Deneuve, The Hunger uses her Ice Queen form well, but it does so by invoking it unequivocally: she mostly stares, mysteriously, mischievously, silently. Her dialogue is reserved, factual. Ozon at least gives her something to do. None of the 8 Women is ever herself, always acting with or against what everyone else sees them as according to the most recent revelation, and thanks to that, Deneuve gets to play, over the course of the movie, femme fatale, loving wife, loyal sister, deceitful bitch, doting mother, duplicitous harlot—and yes, surprise lesbian. I do find it odd that Never Cursed faults 8 Women—a movie about the roles women are cast in, whether on a pedestal or in the gutter, how they chafe against or relish them and are faulted either way—for it's sequential surprise lesbian reveals while letting The Hunger's much more flippant, meaningless lesbianism go unmentioned. Lesbianism at least serves a disruptive function in 8 Women, and there's grit between the film's ever-growing torridity and the strange lack of a cant to its characters' professed morality, whereas The Hunger's lesbianism is purely sensational, serving no more interested purpose than music video eroticism. Swap out Sarandon with a man, and nothing much changes. In 8 Women, sure, sapphism is sensational, but at least it's an element of those characters' self-determination.

And lastly, The Last Metro, which I was initially bored by, then thought for a brief moment that its unusually restrained take on WWII civilian life might be interesting, then returned to being bored by. It's not understated—it's just nonsensical. While I don't think it's ever bad, quality-wise, nothing of anything seems to ever have to do with anything else, in the movie or in the world. Seems appropriate that nearly the entire thread for it is about a different movie.

[Never Cursed]

I do find it odd that Never Cursed faults 8 Women—a movie about the roles women are cast in, whether on a pedestal or in the gutter, how they chafe against or relish them and are faulted either way—for it's sequential surprise lesbian reveals while letting The Hunger's much more flippant, meaningless lesbianism go unmentioned. Lesbianism at least serves a disruptive function in 8 Women, and there's grit between the film's ever-growing torridity and the strange lack of a cant to its characters' professed morality, whereas The Hunger's lesbianism is purely sensational, serving no more interested purpose than music video eroticism. Swap out Sarandon with a man, and nothing much changes. In 8 Women, sure, sapphism is sensational, but at least it's an element of those characters' self-determination.

Obviously you're far kinder to 8 Women than I was, but my issue with the invocation of lesbianism in that film was that (for me) it only served a disruptive function. (Pedantically, I should note that I consider both of the central female characters in The Hunger bisexual rather than lesbian, but the same issue of using a queer identity for sensationalist purposes still remains on the table). The presentation of the Deneuve-Sarandon relationship in The Hunger (in particular the sex scene) is charged with some fairly voyeuristic eroticism, I'll admit, but each of those characters seemed infinitely more human and nuanced in terms of how they chose to express their attraction for each other than any of the figures in 8 Women. It isn't hard to understand why Sarandon or Deneuve want each other (the former is exhausted by her male partner and attracted to the predatory vampire, the latter is looking for a romantic successor who perhaps has the tools to beat the advanced aging issue) even if their desire is expressed in a Cinemax skin show, where the characters in the Ozon are a lot more satirical in function and thus emotionally distanced from the viewer, to my eyes locking out that sort of interpretation.

The thesis you present about the Ozon is a good one, but even through that lens, it is for me quite frankly exasperating to see the very idea that these characters would have homosexual desires be used over and over again as a plot twist in and of itself. I don't see what, for instance, the twist that the socially conservative-presenting Deneuve character is attracted to women has to offer besides mockery of the postulation that someone who presents homophobic ideas might themselves be gay. Not only is that a pretty hokey idea, both now and in 2002, it uses the gay identity of the character as a self-contained punchline given that the mockery of her homophobia is pushed to the side, which is not only grosser in function than any gauzey sex scene, but also less interesting. I like the idea that 8 Women is about mocking the uncomfortable preordained societal roles of its characters, but to my eyes the script/Ozon repeatedly push the explorations of those roles to the side in favor of the lurid stuff that better filmmakers would (and have) used as a springboard to get into those more complicated concepts. When, for instance, it's revealed that the cook and the Fanny Ardant character are in a gay relationship, the film could take that information and use it as a critique of the world women live in through any number of avenues (the class differences between the two characters, the racial difference in a socially conservative and openly racist time period, even a more nuanced use of the queerness of the pairing), but the focus of the characters and the film lands not on any complex understanding of any of those issues, but rather through a simple expression of shock at their gayness. At least for me, it's too simplistic an attack on "a woman's place in the world" and too reliant on homosexuality as shocking.

And lastly, The Last Metro, which I was initially bored by, then thought for a brief moment that its unusually restrained take on WWII civilian life might be interesting, then returned to being bored by. It's not understated—it's just nonsensical. While I don't think it's ever bad, quality-wise, nothing of anything seems to ever have to do with anything else, in the movie or in the world. Seems appropriate that nearly the entire thread for it is about a different movie.

Agreed on all counts. The thing that made it make sense for me, at least from a production viewpoint, was the offhand comment from someone here (perhaps knives?) that the film was designed to be Cesar bait as Hollywood has Oscar bait. That made all the disparate elements of the film (its glossiness and high production values, its reduction of fairly charged history to coded and signaled story beats, the high level of effort and care extended on its thin story, its interminable running time) click, and I "got" it. If you file the film alongside The King's Speech in your head mentally, I think its existence makes perfect sense. And between your post and mine, that represents more than anyone on this forum has ever, will ever, or should ever write about this film.

[senseabove]

I don't really have a problem with the motivation of Sarandon or Deneuve in The Hunger, or even the film's sensationalist lesbianism. It was just, since I coincidentally also watched them back to back, surprising to see 8 Women called out for its use of homosexuality while its use in The Hunger went unmentioned—like dismissing Bamboozled for its use of blackface immediately after reviewing Trading Places without mention of it.

Obviously I can't argue that 8 Women has more well-rounded characters—they're paper dolls discovering they have hinged joints—but I don't really think they're satirical, per se. Or rather, they are not the object of satire: the characters' ceaseless, completely flippant shiftiness undermines the stereotypes, but rather than focusing on their heinously duplicitous morality, the movie's focus is on people slipping out from under the stereotypes like greased pigs at a county fair. And a greased pig isn't there for its meat. In other words, Sirk is the nose-punching reference with that opening pan to a deer in the snow outside a picture window—look at the hypocrisy!—but Waters is the closer mark—look at aaaaaaalllll this hypocrisy! It is nonsense

SpoilerShow

that uptight Deneuve would suddenly have the urge make out with her slutty bisexual stripper sister in law who is blackmailing her husband to pay off a lover who it turns out is her husband's business partner whom she is also having an affair with...

But surprise lesbianism in a camp film by a gay director in 2002 isn't really meant to shock any more than Edith Massey is by the time Waters makes Polyester. It's as tropological as the sexbomb who shows up in black, elbow-length gloves doing a Gilda impression or the repressed spinster having her Now, Voyager glow-up. Yes, it's in poor taste; it's also hilarious. Which is to say, I don't really want to argue that 8 Women is some profound meditation on class, race, or even gender roles. My write-up over-emphasized that in defending it as having more going on than "empty catty barbs and tragically quaint 'shocking' content" and "vestigial" "low-effort" musical numbers—because mostly, it's fun, and I don't think there's anything lazy about Ozon's formal or narrative choices. But in the end, it's a jape, and explaining the joke never makes it funny.

[knives]

. The thing that made it make sense for me, at least from a production viewpoint, was the offhand comment from someone here (perhaps knives?) that the film was designed to be Cesar bait as Hollywood has Oscar bait. That made all the disparate elements of the film (its glossiness and high production values, its reduction of fairly charged history to coded and signaled story beats, the high level of effort and care extended on its thin story, its interminable running time) click, and I "got" it. If you file the film alongside The King's Speech in your head mentally, I think its existence makes perfect sense. And between your post and mine, that represents more than anyone on this forum has ever, will ever, or should ever write about this film.

Definitely not me. I can’t make good bon mots.

[domino harvey]

Lists are due on Thursday. Somehow guessing this list comes nowhere near getting enough ballots, but we'll see. Democracy fails again!

Here's two more duds down. Forget great, I haven't even seen a single okay movie yet from this project

Un monsieur de compagnie (Philippe de Broca 1964)
Yet another manic comedy from de Broca starring Jean-Pierre Cassel. I hated all the other comedies these two made earlier this decade, and I hated this too. I think at least the idea here could be really funny-- Cassel plays a rich fop who is taught by his grandfather to never work, and when he's suddenly out on his own, Cassel makes his way through the world purely transitionally, mostly by sleeping with women all too willing to bed him for no reason. The problem with this movie, other than the typically exhausting "zaniness", is that it has one joke, we get it early on, and then it keeps hammering away at it long past the point where we hold out hope for anything novel. Deneuve is on hand solely to be an object of "pure" prettiness, and the denouement is as predictable as possible. I like Cassel in other movies, but he'd be amongst my least favorite actors of all time if he was judged solely by these de Broca comedies.

Place Vendôme (Nicole Garcia 1998)
A needlessly confusing quasi-thriller about the alkie widow of a crooked jeweler who attempts to sober up and sell some stolen gems her husband squirreled away. The story of Deneuve's widow is also parelleld with Emmanuelle Seigner's young jewel shop employee who is absurdly caught in the same trap with the same man Deneuve was decades earlier. The film is both handsomely rendered and borderline inept in relaying narrative information. It takes a very, very long time to parse out even what I've outlined above, and I like confusion and working for a story as much as anyone, but there was no reason for this film to be so obtuse, and nothing was gained by giving it extra attention, as this is a thoroughly mediocre narrative even when you do connect all the dots.

[swo17]

Lists are due on Thursday. Somehow guessing this list comes nowhere near getting enough ballots, but we'll see. Democracy fails again!

Well, this should be a very straightforward list to come up with a top 10 for (though much more than that would probably be a stretch). Didn't realize the deadline was sneaking up so quickly (didn't the First Features list just end last week? ) but I can fit in viewings over the next few days for a handful of films I've been meaning to rewatch anyway. Hope everyone that hasn't already seen The Convent will make time for it--it's such a mesmerizing film, RIYL long walks on the beach with Satan

[domino harvey]

I mean, I’m only too happy to postpone the deadline but I am harboring serious doubts we get 10 lists either way. But I always say that!

[swo17]

I wasn't necessarily asking for an extension

[therewillbeblus]

O Convento is a masterpiece, but I hardly remember Deneuve's presence which means it didn't make my list, nor did any other of her qualifying excellent MO films

[swo17]

She has first billing in it!



Honestly, being able to vote for this is the main thing motivating me to participate in this list

[therewillbeblus]

I'll join you with a very high ranking in the 90s list! (or if we ever do an MO project..)

[knives]

I managed to scrounge up 12, but it also took getting up to 40 films seen, three short of my goal, to accomplish that feat. This really puts her career into some serious relief.

[domino harvey]

Lists are due today, which means tomorrow when I wake up. I kinda am not worried about tabulating, but perhaps some of our fellow members who voted for Deneuve will rally

[senseabove]

As always, I didn't get as much re/watching done as I intended, but unfortunately I have not even managed to find 10 movies I'd vote for...