For the 40th anniversary of her disappearance on May 29, 1982, the Cinémathèque française is devoting an exhibition to Romy Schneider until July 31. A child of the ball, the actress rose to fame very early on, first as Sissi, Empress of Austria, then as a model of the modern woman of the 1970s. Hounded by the press but discreet, her art was an obsession that pushed her towards the directors with whom she wanted to shoot: Visconti, Welles, Sautet… The woman and the actress merge in a gesture of love, at the heart of a magnificent exhibition.
The first room recalls the line of artists from which Romy Schneider comes, since her paternal great-grandfather in the 19th century. Film photos, magazines evoke the career of Romy’s mother in the cinema, Magda Schneider, who will then follow her daughter on many of her shoots.
At 16, it’s glory. She plays Sissi Empress of Austria, in Sisi (Ernst Marischka, 1955), the first film in a series of three which enjoyed a meteoric career around the world.
Posters, costumes, photos, film extracts, evoke these romantic films that the young actress quickly flees when choosing her projects, such as Girls in uniform (Geza von Radvanyi, 1958) where she falls in love with her teacher. Until she forced Pierre Gaspard-Huit to select a young unknown actor from a photo for his film Christina : Alain Delon. The break with the ingenuous Sissi is consummated. Both will form one of the most glamorous couples of the cinema, on the screen, as in the city.
The Empress of Austria will nevertheless catch up with her unexpectedly. Luchino Visconti spins Ludwig where the Twilight of the Gods and asks the actress to play the role of Sissi, with whom the King of Bavaria was madly in love, played by Helmut Berger. She accepts because the role is faithful to the independent woman that was the Empress, presented in the famous series as an operetta princess. In the exhibition room devoted to the film, one of the magnificent costumes she wears in the film.
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Turned towards the international, the rupture of Romy Schneider with her homeland of origin is badly accepted in Austria, of which she was the national icon. It is this independence that she will cultivate, and in particular in France whose nationality she will take. She owes her first French film to Alain Cavalier, The Battle on the Island (1962), where she faces Jean-Louis Trintignant. Two years after her arrival in Paris, Romy plays in French, then dubs herself, in German, then in English.
Her acting intuition pushes Romy Schneider to shoot with the greatest, like Orson Welles in The trial (1962) after Kafka, with Anthony Perkins and Jeanne Moreau. In 1964, when she separated from Alain Delon, she was called by Henri-Georges Clouzot to Hell, the crazy film by the director who experiments with a thousand and one shots between kinetics and psychedelia to evoke the jealousy of Serge Reggiani. It’s the shooting that becomes hell, the work will never be finished. A magnificent kinetic cabinet reconstituting Clouzot’s vision is not the least curiosity of the exhibition.
Romy continues to tour, notably in Hollywood with Otto Preminger, Jack Lemon and Woody Allen. Then Alain Delon imposes it in The swimming pool by Jacques Deray, a major film from 1969. The room dedicated to the film is white and azure blue from floor to ceiling. Deray’s sensual thriller is a turning point in the career of the actress, by its success and the feminine image it imposes.
One year after the release of The swimming poolClaude Sautet releases the first of five films that will punctuate his collaboration with Romy. Things of life (1970) is undoubtedly the most emblematic, for her as for the director. Max and the scrap dealers, César and Rosalie, Mado and A simple story follow one another until 1978. Roles which will impose this Austrian woman who has kept her Germanic accent and who nevertheless becomes the incarnation of the French woman, modern, independent, attractive for men and in whom women recognize themselves. The most touching items in the exhibition are undoubtedly the memos and telegrams it sent to its directors, preceded by “My Clo” for Claude Sautet. Her love of the profession and her admiration for the filmmaker show through. Messages that she signed with the name of her role, Hélène, Rosalie, Marie and the others…
His taste for freedom attracts him to atypical roles and films, such as The Infernal Trio (1974) by Francis Girod, where she plays a monstrous murderess alongside her partner in the things of life, Michel Piccoli. She will return with Girod in The Banker (1980) where she plays a powerful and wealthy lesbian, a rare subject at the time.
Continuing her taste for the extreme, Romy Schneider finds one of her greatest roles in The important thing is to love (1975) by Andrzej Zulawski. She plays a drifting actress, forced to shoot porn, alongside a suicidal Jacques Dutronc and Fabio Testi as a photographer in love. Against the grain, the actress won her first César for best actress in 1976. She won a second with woman’s clear (1979) by Costa Gavras who will present the film at the Cinémathèque on Saturday May 14.
Like a premonition, Romy’s latest films waltz with death, like death live (1980) by Bertrand Tavernier and ghost of love (1981) by Dino Risi. His brief appearance in Jail (Claude Miller, 1981) begins with the rape and murder of a young woman. His last movie, La Passante du sans-soucis by Jacques Rouffio was released the year of his death. She plays the wife of the murderer of a former Nazi, responsible for the death of her father.
Romy Schneider left us at the age of 43 in troubled circumstances, on a film evoking Germany’s guilt-ridden past (she was Austrian). suicide? Barbiturate overdose? Guillaume Évin, journalist, will argue that “she did not commit suicide, but died of her excesses”. The magistrate Laurent Davenas had preferred to close the case without an autopsy, “not to break the myth”.
“Romy”
Romy Schneider exhibition and retrospective
French Cinematheque
Until July 31, 2022
51 rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris
Tel: 01 71 19 33 33