catherine deneuve Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Roman Polanski horror movie everyone knows and loves is, of course, Rosemary's Baby (and to some extent The Ninth Gate, except for the "loves" part, though I think that one gets a bad rap). But the seriously scary Polanski film that is criminally underseen -- though generally appreciated by those who see it -- is his 1996 effort Repulsion, the first movie in his "apartment trilogy" that would conclude with Baby and The Tenant. Certainly it's the scariest movie about sex that you'll ever see, putting Teeth to shame. (Any other contenders?) A character study that gradually reveals a very disturbed psyche, it's super-creepy in insinuating, unconventional ways. (Remember the constantly ticking clock in Rosemary's Baby? It's here too. And mysterious bells. And sometimes the sound just cuts out...)

If you've never seen Repulsion -- as I hadn't until very recently -- you might hold out for July 28th, when the wonderful folks at Criterion will release their typically awesome-sounding Special Edition on DVD and Blu-Ray. Among other things, it'll have a full-length commentary from Polanski and Catherine Deneuve, who was barely 20 when the film was shot and is a dead ringer for Gwyneth Paltrow. It'll also have a documentary shot on set in 1964, which should be fascinating.

But even if you don't shell out the $40 bucks for the Criterion set, see this movie. Netflix it or something. It's a master class for admirers of the horror genre. Here's something tantalizing: it has one of my favorite final shots of all time.

Cinematical has received this exclusive clip for the buzzed-about French flick A Christmas Tale, directed by Arnaud Desplechin. Back when Cinematical premiered the poster, we told you how the film centers on a family who, throughout the years, struggle to come to terms with a personal tragedy that changed their lives forever. In our review from Cannes, Kim called it a "tragically comic tale of love, death, and familial strife and forgiveness." And that pretty much describes the scene below -- obviously tensions are high for this family, and important decisions need to be made, but there's still light humor to be found in the darkest of places. Starring Mathieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Anne Consigny and Jean-Paul Rossillon, IFC will place A Christmas Tale in theaters and On Demand on November 14, before it expands to other cities.

• Lorenzo Odone (1978-2008) - ALD Patient - His story inspired the film Lorenzo's Oil, in which he was portrayed by child actor Zack O'Malley Greenburg and others. He died May 30 in Fairfax, Virginia. (Washington Post)

• Cornell Capa (1918-2008) - Photojournalist - Founder and first director of NYC's International Center of Photography. He was also a still photographer on the set of The Misfits. He died of Parkinson's disease May 23, in New York City. (AP)
• Alexander Courage (1919-2008) - Composer - Oscar-nominated for co-scoring Doctor Dolittle and The Pleasure Seekers (both with Lionel Newman) and best known for composing the original Star Trek theme. He also wrote original music for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Arthur Penn's The Left Handed Gun and André de Toth's Day of the Outlaws. As an orchestrator, he worked on Singin' in the Rain, Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Annie Get Your Gun, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Guys and Dolls, The Band Wagon, Funny Face, Porgy and Bess, Gigi, The Big Country, Hello, Dolly!, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Legend, Basic Instinct, Jurassic Park, Hook, L.A. Confidential, The Mummy, Mulan and many, many other films. He died May 15 in Pacific Palisades, California. (Variety)
• Bo Diddley (1928-2008) - Singer, Songwriter, Guitarist - Blues and Rock legend whose songs "Who Do You Love?" and "Mannish Boy" have appeared on multiple movie soundtracks. He also appears in Trading Places, Blues Brothers 2000, Rockula, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! and a number of documentaries, including D.A. Pennebaker's short Keep on Rockin' and Taylor Hackford's Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll. For info on his death, see Monika's full post.

Arnaud Desplechin's film Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale), playing in competition here at Cannes, is a tragically comic tale of love, death, and familial strife and forgiveness. The film centers around Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), whose oldest child, Joseph, is diagnosed at a young age with Burkitt's lymphoma.

The boy's disease is curable only with a bone marrow transplant, and neither the parents nor his younger sister, Elizabeth, are compatible. The couple conceives another child in the hopes of making a match to cure their son, but the third child, Henri, is also incompatible, and Joseph dies at the age of six. Eventually the grieving parents have a fourth child, Ivan, and in time the family's wounds over the death of the eldest son heal ... but not really.

The complete lineup for the latest edition of AFI Fest was announced last week -- indieWIRE was among the first to report on it -- and I've been mulling it over ever since. I've worked at the festival in the past and so it's difficult for me to be completely objective, but even though I won't be attending this year, I can't help but feel intense interest. When it comes to film festivals in general, I prefer to be unreasonably optimistic rather than smugly pessimistic.

Under new Artistic Director Rose Kuo, the programming team has made some adjustments. The Asian New Classics section is gone -- the Asian films have been integrated into other sections -- but other regional sidebars remain (American Showcase, Latin Cinema Series, African Showcase) and a new documentary showcase has been introduced, as well as Milestones, devoted to retrospective films. Beyond the already-announced titles, including Robert Redford's political drama Lions for Lambs as the opener and Jason Reitman's much-loved comedy Juno as the centerpiece gala, Mike Newell's romantic drama Love in the Time of Cholera, starring Javier Bardem (pictured), has been named as the closing night presentation. Tributes have also been announced for Laura Linney and Catherine Deneuve.

North American Premieres include Noise, directed by Henry Bean (The Believer), in which Tim Robbins stars as a New York attorney who takes the law into his own hands when life in the city gets too noisy for him, and The Searchers 2.0, the latest by Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy), featuring two aging actors in search of revenge on an even more aging screenwriter. Doghead stars Juan Jose Ballesta (the excellent Seven Virgins) as a young man suffering from an odd disease who starts a romance that encompasses "the endearing and the bleak," according to the program notes. Please Vote for Me is a documentary from China about eight year olds (!) running for class monitor. AFI Fest runs from November 1-11.

Will the star power of Sean Penn lure you to see Persepolis on the big screen? How about Iggy Pop? Marjane Satrapi grew up in Iran in the 1970's and her autobiographical graphic novels provided the basis for the animated film that premiered at Cannes. Cinematical's James Rocchi described it as "a fresh, moving, out-of-the-gate masterpiece -- a work of animation that manages to be artistically brilliant, politically rich, morally engaging and emotionally overwhelming." As we all know, though, great reviews aren't enough to prompt North American moviegoers to see a (mostly) black and white cartoon about Iran voiced entirely in French. No, we don't want to read subtitles! And we want Hollywood stars!

I can concede the point about subtitles when it comes to animation, especially since Persepolis is set (mostly) in Iran. According to Variety, Satrapi works in French; since she co-scripted and co-directed (with Vincent Paronnaud), the original version is French. So an English-dubbed version is no more of a compromise than the original, linguistically speaking. Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve will reprise their voice roles as Marjane and her mother, respectively, while Penn will step in as her father and Pop -- who's done The Rugrats Movie and other voice work -- will play her uncle. I'm trying -- and failing -- to imagine the voices of Deneuve and Penn as a married Iranian couple. Will Penn adapt a French accent to match Deneuve? Sacré bleu! I know Penn is a "name," but I wonder how much his vocal abilities will actually help the film. Sony Pictures Classics acquired North American distribution rights more than a year ago. Work on the dub will finally start this summer, with the hope that it will be completed in time to be shown at the Toronto film festival. Matt Bradshaw found the unsubtitled French preview, which looks really good.

For the weekend:

• There's a really interesting animated film premiering in France next month, that will hopefully make its way across the ocean and give us some animation that's not about bugs, penguins or any of the other hot, animated creatures of the moment. The film is Persepolis, and you can find a trailer and clips over at Cartoon Brew (It's cute, but unfortunately not in English. However, it's fairly easy to get the gist). The film is adapted from Marjane Satrapi's comic memoir of her experiences growing up in Tehran, and the clips have recognizable pop references from Julio Iglesias to Michael Jackson. To sweeten the deal further, both Catherine Deneuve and Gena Rowlands have lent their voices to the movie. If only we could get more cool rocker chick movies, and less kooky animal ones...
• Sophie Marceau has a bunch on the up and up, so I thought I'd fill you in. While her projects aren't as mainstream as some of her previous work, like Braveheart and The World is Not Enough, she's been clocking time both behind and in front of the camera. She's currently in Cannes for her second directorial feature, Trivial -- a thriller that takes place in and around Deauville's Hotel Normandie, which will hit French screens next week. In front of the camera, she's playing a resistance fighter in the WWII thriller, Female Agents. And once all that is done, she's going to work on her third feature directorial stint. Variety quotes her as saying, or rather purring as they put it: "I don't want only to satisfy other people's desires. I have desires of my own, and making my own films satisfies them." Here, here!
• This September, the U.K.-South Africa co-production treaty will finally be taken advantage of with Anthony Fabian's Skin. It sounds like a pretty interesting story -- it's based on a black girl who was born to white parents in South Africa, who obviously had a heck of a hard time dealing with discrimination under previous apartheid laws. The movie will star Sophie Okonedo, who starred with Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda. I wonder if we'll ever get the story of the black and white twins and some point, too?
  

Trying to figure out how many prostitutes have turned up in the movies is a mug's game, but let's play it a little, shall we? James Robert Parish's 1991 Prostitution in Hollywood Films (McFarland) lists 389 films in which prostitution is a subject or subplot. Parrish includes everything from Porky's to all six versions of the penthouse-to-pavement melodrama Madame X. The IMDB tops this number by claiming about 800 movies with prostitution as a subject. Ever since the first important film on the flesh trade -- the 1913 Traffic in Souls, just inducted into the Library of Congress -- the subject of the Fate Worse Than Death has fueled comedy, drama, and film noir. Oh, and science fiction -- remember the "Furniture Girls" in Soylent Green? Playing a hooker is also good Oscar fodder. So far it's gained six Best Actress awards and 15 nominations, as well as seven Best Supporting Actress wins and five nominations.

This count requires some give and take: Madeleine Kahn's Lili von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles (an Oscar nominee) was officially a dance hall girl (wink, nod). Sally Bowles in Cabaret didn't make the count, though it's fairly clear how she paid the rent. Ditto the no-visible-means-of-support Holly Golightly. Hey, we're all prostitutes! So the top seven below need kibitzing and counter suggestions, and perhaps some flame-broiling. The idea here is for time-tested films, meaning that more recent working girls aren't aboard, despite impressive acting by Sophie Okonedo in Dirty Pretty Things, Taraji P. Henson in Hustle and Flow or Morena Baccarin in Serenity. (And Brittany Murphy was no slouch as The Dead Girl.) Let's overlook Reagan-age free-market propaganda disguised as sex comedies, and pass on that famous trio of savvy businesswomen Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places and Rebecca de Mornay in Risky Business. (How about Kathy Baker in Street Smart, Marilia Pera in Pixote and Louise Smith in Lizzie Borden's neo-doc Working Girls instead?)


Janet Gaynor, Seventh Heaven (1927) The ultimate Victorian-era victim of circumstances, gold heart beating under a manhandled breast, pursued by the same hypocrite society that drove her to a life of crime. And now I'm making this really beautiful film sound terrible. Gaynor, a small and frail-looking actress--a shadow of the streets, as Edith Piaf put it--is teamed with ultimate woman's-film director Frank Borzage. And Borzage was one of the few men who could make a movie that you'd weep at without hating yourself for it in the morning. Matching her here is frequent co-star Charles Farrell, who plays a Parisian sewer worker who wants to rise out of the depths to the open air. Some (Catholics, probably) would make the mental connection between Seventh Heaven's pairing of the two trades and St. Thomas Aquinas's cold-blooded comment that prostitutes were like sewers: despicable but necessary to society.

Two aging lions of French cinema, Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve, are ex-lovers standing on a Moroccan beach, staring out across the Strait of Gibraltar towards Spain. For them, it's a moment to give over completely to the past, and imagine how things might have been if they had stayed the people they were thirty years ago. But despite being wrapped up in themselves, they are not alone. Behind them, beyond the forest clearing, there are hundreds of eyes peering out from behind the trees. Those eyes are also looking in the direction of Spain, but for very different reasons. We are in Tangier, a busy port with a hustle-bustle vibe more easily attributed to its sister city, Casablanca. Having acquired a reputation for being a path of least resistance to continental Europe, Tangier is now, among other things, a trampled corridor for illegal migrants arriving from all points of lower Africa.

With such tremendous background action going on in this film, there's a brazen competition for our attention, between the characters and the city itself. At one point, a casual conversation between Deneuve's character, a radio DJ named Cecile, and a friend on a city street is bluntly interrupted by an unexpected moment: A fleeing migrant sprints directly past the characters and the camera, before being halted and seized by the police. Cecile and the friend have to stop their conversation and just watch the event unfold, along with the audience. Changing Times, indeed.

• Of the five features that Jean-Pierre Jeunet has directed, three place high on my list of favorite films. Therefore I am very happy to hear that he has just been knighted by France's Legion of Honor. The ceremony took place on Wednesday, where Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres called Jeunet, "an atypical, unusual filmmaker, who created more than just a style -- an entire universe."

• Two-time Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland is being honored this evening with a tribute by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The actress, who will be 90 on July 1, is the last surviving star of Gone with the Wind and was named Best Actress by the Academy for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She will be only the fourth person to be given such a tribute.

• Neil Simon will be awarded the Mark Twain Award for humor by the Kennedy Center in a ceremony on October 15. The Center's officials cited Simon as America's foremost playwright, but the honor will also be in recognition of his contributions to film and television. Proving himself still funny at age 78, Simon joked about the award by saying, "It makes up for my losing the Samuel Clemens Prize." Simon was one of my idols in high school, when I was writing my own semi-autobiographical plays and performing in scenes from his works, such as The Prisoner of Second Avenue. We could use more writers like him on Broadway and in Hollywood.

• It may not be an award, but I would call it an honor to be named head of the jury for The Venice Film Festival (Aug. 30 - Sept. 9), and Catherine Deneuve is the person given that honor this year. The actress is familiar to the fest, as she starred in the 1967 Golden Lion winner Belle de Jour and won the Volpi Cup Award for Best Actress in 1998 for Place Vendrôme. American filmmakers in competition might hope for the best from Deneuve, as she was on the Cannes jury in 1994 that awarded Pulp Fiction the Palme d'Or.