French Fridays ~ Catherine Deneuve

I have been an avid reader this week of the reports and analysis of the life, loves and work of Elizabeth Taylor.  There are stars and then of course there are mega-stars.  Just a few years behind Elizabeth we have iconic women like Sophia Loren and Bridget Bardot.  Women whose work and presence rivets us, women with pure magnetism.
About ten years younger than Sophia and BB, we have yet another icon, that both men and women find fascinating, 67 year old Catherine Deneuve~

Today is the U.S. release of her latest film, Potiche, which has opened to very good reviews.  While “foreign films” seem to get little coverage when they are released in the U.S., I was happy to see Catherine’s photo and an interview with her featured prominently in our local paper.  What would you expect, I suppose, for a French icon?  I’m still trying to find a cinema where Potiche is playing, but I hope to see it this weekend.  I’m a little concerned that co-star Gerard Depardieu is going a little Brando on us, but the chemistry between these two stars is always, well, so French and so wonderful.
While Elizabeth Taylor lived and loved in the public eye, Catherine is extremely private about her personal life.  This has contributed in part to her duality of being the “Ice Queen” while also being one of the most beautiful and watched women in the world.  Her cool image was reinforced by her character in 1967’s Belle du Jour, a film which Alfred Hitchcock greatly admired.  

  

Great women always have great company, don’t they?  In her younger years Deneuve ran in circles that included the great director Francois Truffaut, her lover Marcello Mastroianni (father of her daughter Chiara), actor and larger-than-life personality Gerard Depardieu (her costar in The Last Metro) and iconic French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.  Catherine remained close friends with Yves Saint Laurent until his death.  Both intensely private people, with their own private suffering.  Catherine was utterly devastated by the loss of her sister Francoise in a car crash in 1967.

While we see little of Deneuve here in the States, the French hang on her every word and action.  She is revered like no other actress; it’s hard for me to name a French celebrity that is bigger than Deneuve.  Can you think of one?
She became well-known in the U.S. with her Chanel perfume campaign of the 1970’s.  Even speaking English, she remains somewhat aloof, somewhat detached, but at the same time fascinating, beautiful, elusive, refined…so French.  Her movements and speech are natural, gracious, yet still reserved.  Watching this old (1996) video clip of her, here, at the time her film My Favorite Season was released, you can see why she is so captivating.  She communicates so much with just a few flicks of her eyelids and other facial movements.

Are you a Deneuve fan or have you seen any of her films?
In April we will be running a small series on French Cinema for French Fridays, including a few giveaways of classic French film noir.  Check back next week for a mega post that will be very very fun~