Woman for ambivalences

By ANNABELLE HIRSCH (interview), DRIU & TIAGO (photos), NATALIE MANCOT (styling)

Coat by Saint Laurent Homme, T-shirt by Petit Bateau, earrings by Thomas Jirgens Juwelenschmiede

March 15, 2023 · The actress Isabelle Huppert does not make herself comfortable in her roles. In these photos, she is wearing men's fashion.

Mid-December in unusually cold Paris. On the streets around the brightly lit Place Saint-Sulpice in the 6th arrondissement, people scurry across the pavement, shoulders pulled up, coats held in front of their necks. The French actress Isabelle Huppert has invited to an interview at the Hôtel de L'Abbaye, which is popular among Parisian artists. But for the time being, she is not to be seen in this plush interior. She is late, she says, she apologizes. When Isabelle Huppert finally appears in a wide fur coat with cap and sunglasses, packed beyond recognition, and peels herself out of her many layers to her narrow self, she looks exactly as you always imagine her: on the go, in a hurry. She has just returned from a fitting for an upcoming film with French director André Téchiné. She sips her black tea with milk, leans back and, believe it or not, seems to be ready to chat.

Coat by Balenciaga, cashmere sweater by Jil Sander (via the online shop Yoox), trousers by Giorgio Armani Homme, gloves by Gucci, earrings by Cada

Ms Huppert, let's start by talking a little bit about fashion. You once said that fashion only interests you when it comes to a role. Lately, it seems that your relationship with the fashion world has intensified. Are you more interested in it than before?

I don't know if I'm more interested in it, I think the fashion world is more interested in me. But I'm not the only one. Many actresses are temporarily associated with fashion houses.

Correct. Only these connections go back further for most of them. Catherine Deneuve, for example, has been associated with the House of Yves Saint Laurent for decades. It is only in recent years that you have collaborated with Balenciaga.

That's right, there is also the very nice relationship between Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy. For me, it came later. I think the relationship between cinema and fashion has become closer lately.

What do you think is the reason for this?

I think it has to do with the fact that film is celebrated differently today, more elaborately. For example, at film festivals. These are ritual moments in which the industry meets and presents itself. The fashion houses put themselves at our service for these moments and help us to feel more beautiful.

How would you describe your relationship to fashion?

I think fashion is a luxury. It is with it as with all the little pleasures of life: it does not necessarily serve a purpose, you do not need it, less than cake, which at least nourishes you, but it gives pleasure. Therefore, from time to time one becomes weak and surrenders to this joy.

So it's a weakness for you?

No, that's the wrong word. It is not a weakness, it is, shall we say, a fleeting joy.

You have just returned from a fitting for a film, later you will be on stage in the theatre. How does the meaning of fashion or costume differ in these places?

You can't say that across the board, it is certainly different, but in both cases just as essential. Let's take the film for which I tried the costumes earlier: I play a commissioner who is at a turning point in her life. It's very contemporary, very realistic, you might think it's particularly simple, but it takes as much research and thought as, say, a dress for a costume movie. The moment of the rehearsal is also particularly important and interesting: it is the first moment in which the figure slowly emerges. Just as the viewer will later receive the first clues through the clothes. She defines the figure, she conveys information right away. Sometimes too many.

Cape and trousers by Saint Laurent Homme, T-shirt by Petit Bateau, ring by Cada, earrings by Thomas Jirgens Jewelry Pants by Alexander McQueen, Loafer by Unützer

What do you mean?

Recently I watched a movie where I thought: Clothes say too much too soon. That bothered me.

Which movie was that?

Of course, I cannot tell you.

You recently said that you can find your role in your shoes. Can you explain?

I copied this sentence from the director Chantal Akerman. Funny that you ask about it, I heard a program about her on the radio this morning. Your film "Jeanne Dielman" has just been voted the best film of all time . . .

The magazine "Sight and Sound", published by the British Film Institute, selects the best film of all time every ten years. In 2022, the choice fell on "Jeanne Dielman".

That made me happy. But back to the shoes: Chantal once answered the question of where she actually found the ideas for her figures: "In my shoes." I thought that was good, that's why I also say: I find my roles in my shoes. Especially since it's also a little true: shoes are very important. You move very differently, depending on what kind of copy you wear. Heels give you a completely different posture than flat soles. Think, for example, of "The Pianist": she had to wear flat shoes. It would have been impossible to play them on heels. Do you understand what I mean?

"I FIND MY ROLES IN MY SHOES."

I think so. They kept a lot of costumes. Are there any that are particularly close to your heart?

I really liked the robes in "The Lady of the Camellias" by Mauro Bolognini, but I didn't keep them. They would have blown up my closet, and besides, they belong to House Tirelli. Do you know that?

No, unfortunately not.

This is a very important couture house in Italy that makes almost all the costumes for Italian film. In general, the approach to costume in Italian productions is special. That's one of the great joys of shooting in Italy: the relationship with fashion.

What is it like in Germany?

I didn't shoot that much in Germany. Actually, only ever with Werner Schroeter, and he always worked with a French costume, Alberte Barsacq, a great talent. But if you mean the German style, if that's your question, then I have to think for a moment ... Perhaps one could say that there is a certain rigour in this.

Top and belt by Louis Vuitton, cashmere sweater by Jil Sander (via Yoox), trousers by Nensi Dojaka (via Yoox) leather coat by Prada, cashmere sweater by Jil Sander (via Yoox), bracelet by Thomas Jirgens Juwelenschmiede

Probably, yes.

I think you can tell even during our shoot that it's for Germany. I don't know how to say that, but I think it has something to do with a love for clean lines, with, shall we say, something puristic.

Speaking of shootings: It is said that you have great fun shooting photo series. Is there a parallel between such an intermezzo as a model and your profession? Can you take anything away from the exercise?

No, not at all. The photo is rigid, the cinema moves, there are no connection points in my opinion. Of course, it always depends on whether it is fashion photography or art photography, whether it takes place in the studio or outside this framework.

Have you done a lot of fine art photography?

Yes, I used to work a lot with the photographers of so-called humanist photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Willy Ronis, Édouard Boubat. There was a little closer to my profession, in that these photographers drew me in the world as they wanted to portray it. There's this anecdote when Roberto Rossellini first filmed with Ingrid Bergman and confused her a bit with his approach: Coming from Hollywood, Bergman was used to being given instructions and was a bit lost. So Rossellini said to her: Move so I can film what's happening around you. It was similar with these photographers. Robert Doisneau went with me to the café, for example, to photograph what was happening around me. We also walked a lot. Just like with Édouard Boubat and Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Cartier-Bresson just came to my house.

That sounds a bit like what you once said about your work with Claude Chabrol: we spent time together, the films were made almost incidentally.

That's right, it was a bit like that. Although I think it often works that way with great directors. Making a film is a bit like planting a tree. You let it grow and thrive, and at the end you pick the fruit and eat it. Or no: the viewer eats them. If it tastes good, he likes it, if not, he doesn't. You know, before the shoot you discussed so much, thought so much, got this whole machine going, so that in the end, when the camera rolls, the film is almost created by itself. That certainly sounds strange, but it's true. Sometimes I even marvel when I see the end result. I often ask myself: How could I do all this? The answer is: Because I didn't think about it, because it happened like without my help.

The actor Lars Eidinger recently said about you that you reveal a lot about yourself in your roles. You also often say that you write a kind of autobiography about your films. Isn't that contrary to the profession of actress, who is supposed to disappear behind her character?

I think there are two approaches: there are the actors who confront the character and the actors who confront themselves through roles. I belong more to the second category. In theatre, it might be a bit harder to do that, especially when it comes to classical roles, but overall I think this profession is also a way of revealing yourself. I don't identify with my roles for a second, I have absolutely nothing in common with them.

"I CONFRONT MYSELF THROUGH ROLES."

Last year, you were awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Berlinale. Do you have the impression that you have created a work?

It depends on what you mean by the term. Again, you could safely say that it's more directors who create a work because they have more responsibility for what you see. Then again, I carefully select the films I make and the directors I work with. This is also a form of responsibility. For me, every new film is a piece of the puzzle in the overall picture, they are all connected by me.

They shoot a lot. How many scripts do you reject per year?

Very few. At least a few that are worth turning. All the actors will tell them the same thing: we don't wake up every morning on a pile of good scripts.

How do you decide if a script is worth it?

I like to go with rollers in corners that are uncomfortable. If there is something that connects my films, it is the thought that you can laugh at almost anything or at least build up a certain distance to almost everything. I think that's very important, it takes heaviness out. In my opinion, many films today lack that. There is a tendency to linger more in the shallow, friendly, I'm less interested in that.

Leather dress by Hermès, shirt by Ferragamo, earrings by Boucheron, necklace by Pomellato

Because the roles are losing complexity?

Yes, among other things. I am very interested in ambivalences. Whereby the radiance, the beauty of a feeling, can also be something wonderful, it is just much more difficult not to slip into something shallow-lovely. In terms of the complexity you mention, I like to think, for example, of Claude Chabrol's "A Women's Thing". My character, the last executed angel maker in France, was on the one hand the tragic victim of her time, but is also portrayed as a very calculating and venal woman. Chabrol doesn't make her a hero simply because it would be wrong. The time in which she lived did not give her the opportunity to be a heroine.

It is often said that it is difficult for actresses in their mid-40s to get interesting roles. That does not seem to be the case with you. How do you explain that?

I must confess that I have a bit of a hard time with this question.

Why?

Because I think that the way women are questioned about this, almost punched them out, is often very problematic and often somewhat obscene and in a way almost as misogynistic as what you supposedly want to denounce with these questions.

But isn't it the case that it's harder to get interesting roles from a certain age?

Certain. In my case, as you said, probably not. Whereby I also ask myself: What do you mean by interesting roles? Today, for example, people like to say that you create more complex roles for women than in the past. But if you look around in film history, you will notice that, for example, the roles for women in early Hollywood films, in the time before the "Hays Code", were incredibly exciting and complex and free.

The "Hays Code" was a collection of moral principles to which American production companies had to adhere from 1930 onwards, initially on a voluntary basis and from 1934 onwards.

To believe in the future of cinema, you have to know its history.

Your son and husband run three cinemas in Paris, which mainly show restored films. In France, people are currently very worried about the future of cinema, audience numbers are dwindling dramatically, and we regularly hear that it will soon be over. What do you think?

In our cinemas it is actually doing very well, but it is a special program, a repertoire cinema, in which mainly film classics or at least no completely new films are shown. Overall, however, I do not necessarily want to follow these pessimistic voices. Cinema still has a lot to say.


Isabelle Huppert

Isabelle Huppert is one of the most successful French film and theatre actresses. Her beginnings lie in the seventies, among others with Claude Chabrol, who counted her among his favorite actresses. Later she worked with Werner Schroeter, Michael Haneke, François Ozon and Paul Verhoeven. Huppert has been nominated 16 times for the French film award César, won the award for best actress at the film festivals of Cannes, Venice and Berlin and several times the European Film Award. For her role in "Elle" she was awarded the Golden Globe and nominated for an Oscar. Last year, the Berlinale honoured her with the Golden Bear for her life's work. On March 16, she will be 70 years old.



Styling: Natalie Manchot
Styling assistance: Eva Müller-May, Naomi Safraoui Photo assistance: Paolo Caporetto
Hair: Rudy Martins (Wall Group) Make-up: Morgane Martini
(Wall Group) Manicure: Huberte Cesarion (MFT)


Production: H&K Monique Kouznetzoff
Photographed on October 11, 2022 in Paris Model Toni Garrn Berlin, Baby! Behind the scenes Berlinale Originals!