To meet Emmanuelle Béart is to find yourself in the presence of a warm, communicative artist, who does not seem at all aware of her star status. She is no less an icon of French cinema. However, what drives him has nothing to do with glitter or fame. Developing a special relationship with filmmakers who inspire her and traveling through each film: this is what has always made her vibrate, as she told us during her visit to the Cinemania festival, where she co-chairs the Visages de the French-speaking world with Philippe Falardeau. Portrait interview.
“Being on a jury is always an opportunity for me to go on a kind of cinematic world tour,” explains Emmanuelle Béart.
“The films bear witness to the realities of the places where they were filmed. And that moves me; It upsets me. It is an exercise that is interesting artistically, intellectually, and emotionally. »
Art, intellect and emotion are called upon in several of the actress’s flagship films: Children of disorderby Yannick Bellon, I don’t kissby André Téchiné, The Beautiful Noiseuseby Jacques Rivette, hellby Claude Chabrol, A heart in Winter And Nelly and Mr. Arnaudby Claude Sautet (“He left too soon”, she still gets emotional), Sentimental destiniesby Olivier Assayas, Nathalie…by Anne Fontaine…
“I am an eternal lover of auteur films,” readily admits Emmanuelle Béart, who adds that she has a passion for documentaries.
“When I see a film, I need to feel that my heart is beating. I need to be carried away. I come back to travel… That’s it: for me, cinema is the call of travel. I love traveling and meeting cultures different from mine, and I love it when it happens through a film. »
In the same breath, the actress admits to not having been an early movie buff, far from it.
“I wasn’t raised in cinema. I grew up in the South of France, in a small town where there was no cinema or theater. »
For the record, her father, the singer Guy Béart, left home when she was very young. Subsequently, she lived with her mother, the ex-model and actress Geneviève Galéa, in the vicinity of Saint-Tropez, with her four half-brothers and half-sisters.
“I fell in love with the circus, because that was all there was. I have memories of huge shows, when in reality they must have been very small and not great… With my child’s eyes, it was magical. »
First emotions
Emmanuelle Béart experienced her first cinematic emotions in… Montreal. In fact, having come to spend a few weeks in the Quebec metropolis in 1980, she decided to stay there longer.
“I was 17 years old, I arrived in Montreal, and I will remember it all my life: I went to see Kramer vs. Kramer [Kramer contre Kramer, de Robert Benton]. I left the cinema feeling immensely sad, but filled with the certainty of having experienced something very important on a human level. Still in Montreal, Elephant Man [L’homme éléphant, de David Lynch] had a similar effect on me. My first cinematographic emotions are rooted here. »
Returning to France in 1983, she began filming, initially being sought after for her beauty. Then came the critical and popular phenomenon Manon des Sources, by Claude Berri, in 1986, where she played the “wilderness” imagined by Marcel Pagnol. Immediate consecration. However, the main person concerned did not experience it that way.
“I started to love cinema by working with exciting people. But it only became wonderful gradually, through work. I was such a neophyte! When I landed on Manon des Sources, I hadn’t seen anything. On this film, I didn’t understand what was happening and what was happening to me. It is only on Children of disorderby Yannick Bellon [sorti en 1989], that I had the impression of understanding cinema, of understanding what I was doing there. »
This film, which tells the story of the attempt at social reintegration of a young ex-inmate, marked the actress.
“Suddenly I was playing someone I knew, because it was based on the life of a real woman. And then, suddenly, I realized that all this time, I needed to understand how I could be useful. I was both very shy and very violent at the time: I was not at all “civilized”. Before this film, I knew that I was doing cinema by choice, but I didn’t know why I made this choice. I started cinema by chance, and I continued for love. »
Personal and intuitive
Never a careerist, Emmanuelle Béart nevertheless took the profession very seriously from the outset. May be too much. As an example, she mentions the historic blockbuster A French womanpublished in 1995.
“There was no pleasure in the game. I played the mother of the director, Régis Wargnier. I had a responsibility. Yes, that’s it: for a long time, I felt the need to be useful and responsible. The pleasure of the game came much later. »
Managing to abandon oneself to the “pleasure of the game” required another pivotal film: Eight women, by François Ozon. In this comico-musical murder and mystery, Emmanuelle Béart plays the maid of the household, lover of the murdered master of the house.
“It’s late in my filmography. There is the whole fun dimension of the film, obviously, but basically, it was a type of job that I wasn’t offered. I was mostly confined to drama. And in Eight womenI suddenly had this pleasure in acting, in dancing, in singing, in replying to all these fabulous actresses…”
To clarify the actress: she knows immediately that she is experiencing “something special, or decisive”.
“And I know it just as much when the magic is not there, which can be painful. I can imagine the importance that a film will have, that a meeting with a director will have. I have always made my choices based on what this meeting with a filmmaker promises. That was always more crucial to me than the storyline. Do I want him or her in my life? Do I want to spend time with this person? There are great filmmakers for whom my internal answer was “no”, and I did not make their films. I didn’t want to go on this trip with them. It’s very personal and intuitive. »
No time to waste
It is this same approach to her art – personal, intuitive – which pushed Emmanuelle Béart to abandon cinema, without abandoning it completely, in order to devote herself to theater for the first time: a real challenge, and a real change of scenery for this “actress-traveler”.
“In the theater, you are big or you are not, depending on the evening. Something extraordinary will happen, or not… It’s immediate, ephemeral, but of such intensity… I experienced moments of transcendence on stage that were hitherto unknown to me. »
In recent years, boards continue to fill it. In the cinema, it is too rare.
“There must be this promise of meeting with the filmmakers. I don’t have any more time to waste. I turned 60. When I look at the distance traveled, I tell myself that it only lasted two seconds. It’s crazy. And so, when I put in the work, I want it to count. »
It must be said that after filming a documentary, A silence so loud, where she gives voice to victims of incest, Emmanuelle Béart wants to achieve more. Perhaps this path holds his next moments of transcendence in store for him. This is the grace we wish for him.
A major interview with Emmanuelle Béart will take place at Cinemania this Saturday, November 11.