nine films that marked BB’s career and life

From the Norman hole in 1952, at The very good and very joyful story of Colinot shirt-case In 1973, the iconic actress Brigitte Bardot starred in around fifty films, before deciding to retire from cinema to devote herself to defending the animal cause.

On September 28, the woman who ignited the whole world before becoming a passion for the animal cause will celebrate her 90th birthday. “I don’t know who created the BB myth, in any case I’m delighted to be a myth, if I am one, but I don’t particularly believe in it no”declared Bardot in 1960 on the set of The Truthby Clouzot. A long life partly recounted recently in bardota six-episode series from Danièle and Christopher Thompson.

“I’m fed up with this birthday! (…) Fortunately it’s not every day that I turn 90!” declared the former actress in an interview with AFP. “It’s adorable, but after a while, it doesn’t stop! There’s a point where I think I’d rather be 20!” she adds, specifying however that she is “very happy to have arrived at such a canonical age!”

To celebrate this anniversary, franceinfo Culture returns in video to nine notable films from the cinematographic career of the actress, short, intense, and revealing of the personality full of ambivalences of Brigitte Bardot, who also sparked controversy with her support for the extreme right.

1 His first steps in front of the camera: “Le Trou normand” (1952)

Brigitte Bardot was barely 18 years old when she played her first role in the cinema, in this comedy by Jean Boyer. She plays Javotte Lemoine, a young girl used by her mother to prevent the naive and somewhat simpleton Hippolyte (Bourvil), who must receive an inheritance on condition of obtaining her school certificate. In his autobiography Initials BB published in 1996 Brigitte Bardot confided that she had a very bad experience with this first shoot, on which she said she was mistreated by members of the team, from the producers to the actors, to the point that she considered stopping her budding career.

2 “And God created woman” (1956): Brigitte Bardot becomes BB

In this film shot in Saint-Tropez directed by her future husband Roger Vadim, Brigitte Bardot plays Juliette, coveted by three men, “a girl of her time”free in his life and in his sexuality. Poorly received and controversial in France, the film was a triumph in the United States and a huge success throughout Europe. It was with this role that Brigitte Bardot became a star and an international sex symbol. And God created woman finally returned to France where this time it experienced extraordinary enthusiasm. Bardot embodies the changes in society to come and a model of femininity to be reinvented. In 1973, the actress declared in a television interview: “I think I was the first in the cinematic world like that, stripped of all artifice, natural.” This film forged her image as a free woman. “I think that to be a liberated woman is to be beyond everything that anyone can say or do to you.” Bardot said in 2003 in the show You can’t please everyoneon France 3.

3 “In case of misfortune”, by Claude Autant-Lara (1958): a scent of scandal

In this adaptation of Simenon’s novel, Brigitte Bardot shares the spotlight with Jean Gabin. She embodies Yvette Maudet, 22, occasional prostitute, who knocks out the wife of a watchmaker during a hold-up. Very impressed by this sacred monster of French cinema, Brigitte Bardot forgot her text. But Gabin, initially reluctant to play the role of Bardot, lets himself be charmed by the actress and puts her at ease: “Miss, I like tall women. You are tall, so I love you.“But uA scene in which his character lifts her skirt to convince the lawyer to defend his case causes a scandal. The scene is cut by the censor and the film is prohibited for children under 16. She will be reintroduced much later in a restored version of the film. In case of misfortune was a triumph in theaters. At the Venice Film Festival, Brigitte Bardot is assailed by fans and journalists, who stand around twenty-four hours a day in the lobby of her hotel.

4 “Would you like to dance with me” (1959): the meeting with Serge Gainsbourg

It was on the set of this film, which tells the story of murder against a backdrop of adultery, that Bardot met Gainsbourg. She is the star, he is still unknown, young and shy. He doesn’t dare talk to her. He waited almost ten years, for fame, and for the chance of a new meeting to offer him his song in 1967, Harley-Davidson, written for her. This song marks the beginning of a love story that will last three months. A second song, I love you… me neither, written for her at her request, will arrive too late to be interpreted by her inspiration. It will be sung later, but by Birkin. After three months of mad love, Bardot decides to leave Serge Gainsbourg under the threat of divorce from her husband, the German billionaire Gunter Sachs. Gainsbourg leaves this idyll heartbroken. After the breakup, he writes the song Initials BB which he recorded in May 1968.

5 “The Truth” by Henri-Georges Clouzot (1960): his “best film”

Master of film noir, Henri-George Clouzot was inspired by a news item that occurred in the 1950s: the Pauline Dubuisson affair. He gave Brigitte Bardot the role of the murderess, which he named Dominique Marceau, and to Sami Frey that of her murdered lover. Regarding the scene in court in which the accused defends herself by screaming her love for her lover, Bardot explains:“It was a scene that I had to know with a razor, there were 150 extras, there were extraordinary actors (…) If I was good because I cried while I was acting, because I I was in this girl’s place. This trial film starring Charles Vanel and Paul Meurisse was a triumph in theaters. It is considered by Brigitte Bardot as the best of her career. “Monsieur Clouzot is not the tyrant we think he is”affirmed Brigitte Bardot at the time of the filming of The Truth. Out of spite, the actress would have suffered under the direction of a demanding and not always very tender director. She allegedly slapped him for crushing her bare feet. Following the filming, Brigitte Bardot lived with Samy Frey, an affair which lasted several years.

6 “Private Life”, by Louis Malle (1962): “a film about Bardot”

“I was asked to make a film with Bardot. Given that Bardot is still a very intrusive star, I said to myself that as long as I was making a film with Bardot, it was perhaps more interesting to make a film about Bardot” declared Louis Malle a year after the release of the film on the show Cinépanorama. Privacy tells the story of a star harassed by journalists and the public, who falls into depression. Certain scenes in the film, like the one where she is insulted in the elevator, are adventures that really happened to the actress. Brigitte Bardot said she didn’t like this film, not for reasons of quality, but because“he told too many things that were personal and unbearable to him” reports Henry-Jean Servat in Bardot the legend, a new edition of her book dedicated to the actress published in September 2024 on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Not to mention that Bardot did not hold his partner in his heart: “She didn’t get along at all with Marcello Mastroianni.”

7 “Le Mépris”, by Jean-Luc Godard (1963): the New Wave

Adapted from the novel by Albert Moravia, Contempt is the sixth film by Jean-Luc Godard. It tells the story ofwriter and screenwriter Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) happily married with his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot). The famous American producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) offers him the opportunity to work on an adaptation of The Odyssey, directed by Fritz Lang (who plays himself in the film) at Cinecittà. Prokosch soon makes advances towards Camille in front of Paul. “It’s great! I have now joined the New Wave” says Bardot. But when editing was completed, the producers found the film too timid and asked the director to add nude scenes with Bardot. Godard adds one in which Camille lists all the parts of her body and asks her husband if he likes them. Although this scene was not initially planned, it subsequently became a cult scene. The film is shot partly on the island of Capri in Italy, in the incredible villa overlooking the sea of ​​the Italian writer Curzio Malaparte who had it built in the 1930s by the architect Adalberto Libera.

8 “Viva Maria”, by Louis Malle (1965)

Three years after recounting the horrors of life as a BB star in PrivacyLouis Malle gives Bardot a role alongside Jeanne Moreau in a western. Viva Maria tells the adventures of two music hall dancers involved in a revolution at the beginning of the 20th century in a Central American republic. “When I think about it, he was a little oblivious. Get Jeanne and I involved, together! Each risked being eaten by the other. It was crazy and magical. I liked the idea. But the poor guy, what he didn’t put on his back.”