Charlotte Rampling - Hypnotic Charm documentary
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Transcript
00:00The power of her beauty, it doesn't interest her.
00:27Unrivaled English actress, Charlotte Rampling is an enigma
00:32who plays with her image and her multiple identities.
00:36She is under an apparent impassibility.
00:40In reality, her taste for mystery, provocation, danger, betrays an intimate drama.
00:52She will be saved by cinema and will rebuild herself through the roles that echo her life.
00:59By confronting her images, her memories and the fragments of her private diary,
01:05she traces her initiatory journey.
01:08An inner journey that only has one thread.
01:16Her story begins with insolence and beauty.
01:23Charlotte Rampling erupts in cinema with the English film The Knack,
01:28an eccentric and irreverent comedy.
01:34Nothing can resist her fervor or her timidity.
01:38In two times, three movements, I find myself on the set of this film,
01:42covered with a suit of divers, ready to throw me into the water, or clean as they appear.
01:53I was 19.
01:57I remember Richard very well.
01:59He was an American, very fanciful, very funny.
02:04He was my first director, so I didn't know what a director was at the time.
02:09I was free-floating, as they say.
02:11I was really a girl of my time.
02:14That's why I was chosen in the street.
02:17They stopped me, they wanted to make a film.
02:21I knew I had done it twice.
02:23Yes, I do skiing, very well.
02:30It had to be like a fairy tale, without trial or adversity.
02:35Charlotte Rampling leaves her family and her house in Westwood
02:39to plunge into the swinging London of the sixties.
02:43Happy, incandescent,
02:45how to imagine that these moments of grace and innocence would soon be annihilated?
02:51London was dancing.
02:53I was photographed.
02:55And it worked right away.
03:07Being watched, I liked it.
03:10I happened to be on the movie sets.
03:13It's a non-choice.
03:16A non-choice that led her to play Meredith in Georgie Girl.
03:22Faced with a heroine full of heart and morals,
03:25Charlotte Rampling plays a provocative and iconoclastic character,
03:29overwhelmed by her desires.
03:33She has the bad part.
03:36But the sparkle of her beauty takes it all.
03:43I'm bored.
03:45Bored living with Georgie.
03:47I think we ought to get married.
03:49We don't fight. We'll have it in bed.
03:51That's about it, really.
03:53Meredith had my spirit at the time.
03:56She wanted to be who she was,
03:58to be who she was, to do what she wanted,
04:01and to give a damn about the whole world.
04:08People identified me with this image.
04:11I scared them.
04:14It excluded the roles of nice girls.
04:19I have a strong rebellion in me that allowed me to survive.
04:22That's my drive.
04:24Since childhood, it burned in me.
04:29This is my mother, who was a painter.
04:31She had an artistic eye.
04:33She made sublime albums for my sister and me.
04:41Charlotte Rampling was born the day after the Second World War
04:45in a family of English bourgeoisie.
04:48As a child, she suffered from the absence of her mother,
04:51who sought to distract herself from the austerity of her husband,
04:54Colonel Godfrey Rampling.
05:11Charlotte's father dreamed of joining the Royal Air Force.
05:15His spirit was too weak to be judged,
05:17so he joined the Army and trained to run.
05:20At 27, he was selected for the Berlin Olympics
05:24and became one of the stadium gods
05:26in the documentary by Lenny Riefenstahl,
05:28celebrating Nazi propaganda.
05:30The first man to run in the team is Great Britain's Wolf.
05:34Completely exhausted, the American young man chases him.
05:38At the same moment, the Englishman, Rampling,
05:41takes the lead.
05:43He passes them both.
05:45Change!
05:46Roberts flies away with the start.
05:54First, England.
05:56Second, America.
05:58Third, Germany.
06:01My father never talked about it.
06:03He was a man who had a secret world to himself.
06:06He was quite a tortured man, I think.
06:11With a hard time living.
06:15It's military life, codified.
06:18Discipline reigns.
06:20I bend to orders that make no sense.
06:24When I arrive in France,
06:26I don't understand a word of French.
06:30I went to a religious school.
06:33I lived a year of complete silence.
06:36Talking is difficult.
06:39At Rampling's, the heart is a chest.
06:44We move a lot.
06:47In these conditions, Sarah is my only great friend.
06:53I was sent by my parents to be with her,
06:56to protect her.
06:58I was proud.
07:00As I watched, I watched the action.
07:02With a reserve, a distance from life.
07:06This is the Croix Balmaire.
07:08Our first holidays.
07:10Beautiful memories.
07:12We're blossoming.
07:16This is Sarah again.
07:18One of her great jobs.
07:20She was Miss Harp Lager.
07:22A well-known beer brand.
07:24This photo is very cute.
07:26With all the men around.
07:28With her boyfriend, who was a photographer.
07:31I feel like he's become a princess at night.
07:38We're doing a smoking concert.
07:41In an old pub with my sister.
07:43We sing songs with Beret and Baresi.
07:47I'm mesmerized by my feelings.
07:50My father said,
07:52you won't sing.
07:55The enchantment ends on February 1, 1967.
08:00At the age of 21, Charlotte Rampling faces a major trauma,
08:04the deadly matrix of her entire existence.
08:08Her sister Sarah, three years older than her,
08:11marries a wealthy farmer in Argentina.
08:15She gives birth to a son and commits suicide a month later.
08:19The Ramplings are warned the night of her funeral.
08:23Charlotte will never go back to her grave.
08:27We all went with Sarah.
08:29My life was broken into a thousand pieces.
08:33My mother remains inconsolable.
08:36I had lost the two women of my life.
08:40I look for childhood, the poem of childhood.
08:46I fled and became a stranger among the unknown.
08:52I'm a stranger among the unknown.
08:55I'm a stranger among the unknown.
08:58I'm a stranger among the unknown.
09:02Cinema no longer offers a space for play, but for survival.
09:07Charlotte finds refuge on the set of the Danes by Luchino Visconti.
09:13Annihilated, she must mobilize all her strength
09:16to confront icons of the Seventh Art.
09:19The Swedish Ingrid Thulin,
09:22the English Dirk Bogarde,
09:26and the Austrian Helmut Berger.
09:32Consumed by the disappearance of her sister,
09:35she relies on the energy of her character, who fights to save her skin.
09:39The film traces the twilight story
09:42of a rich family of German industrialists,
09:45committed to Nazism.
09:48I didn't know who Visconti was.
09:51I was 22, I read the script, I didn't understand anything.
09:54Look at me, I'm not the character.
09:57Visconti swept away my objection
10:00by making a movement in front of my eyes
10:03in order to frame my gaze.
10:06He said to me,
10:09you have it here.
10:12You will always have this gaze.
10:15You have in you what I want.
10:18You have to give me everything.
10:21He saw what his story was going to be.
10:24An immediate fragility,
10:27but at the same time an extremely strong inner density.
10:30He immediately saw that he was dealing with someone
10:34and he let his eyes speak in a certain way.
10:39This man who passionately loved women
10:42saw, as he saw in Romy Schneider,
10:45this ability to see
10:48what the dramatic genius of an actress can be.
10:51And there he found something in her.
10:58I told myself that I had to use this drama.
11:01I had to survive.
11:04I had no one else to talk to in life.
11:07With cinema, I could immerse myself in something real.
11:10A visual response in this black matter.
11:32There is a shocking scene where she tries to explain to Ingrid Thulin
11:35the urgency of her situation,
11:38the obligation she has to flee.
11:41And Ingrid Thulin, who is a real monster, looks at her like a prey.
11:49I am very intimidated.
11:52I won't make it.
11:55Visconti tells me, give me this scene.
11:59Her smiling face masks the deflagration.
12:02She is this disarticulated puppet who tries to walk straight.
12:07In the character, in fact,
12:10compared to what happened to me after my sister's death,
12:13one becomes almost overpowering
12:16by saying, I have to continue, for all kinds of reasons.
12:19And within this role,
12:22I was able to free myself from this extreme vulnerability
12:25because you can't be more vulnerable than in front of the suicide of a sister.
12:28This film was able to be a priesthood in a way.
12:37Is Visconti sensitive to this silent tragedy she is carrying?
12:40He is looking for this combination of extreme beauty
12:43and painful depth in her.
12:46It is a kind of ghostly presence of grief.
12:49In this masterpiece,
12:52Luchino Visconti reveals the actress to herself.
12:55The mystery-filling is at work,
12:58combining shyness and audacity.
13:01The strength of her presence with the vertigo of her absence.
13:04Since The Swinging London,
13:07her transparent gaze has changed.
13:10There is no longer a desire to live.
13:13There is a world vacillating.
13:17It was Dirk Bogarde who contacted me for Nightporter.
13:20He loved the script, he missed the girl.
13:23I went to Rome to meet Liliana Cavani with him
13:26and we started without a penny.
13:31Charlotte Rampling still does not know
13:34that her descent into hell is just beginning.
13:37She burns her wings in life, like in the cinema.
13:40Since every day, the weight of her pain grows,
13:43she chooses to exorcise her demons by scandal.
13:46Nightporter evokes the passionate and sadomasochistic relationship
13:49between a SS executioner,
13:52played by Dirk Bogarde,
13:55and his deported victim,
13:58who comes back years later.
14:01You have this on your face.
14:04The past that you will see in the film,
14:07when you are in a concentration camp,
14:10is what she sees again.
14:13So I saw it again.
14:19We really lived with the images,
14:22because the scenes were real.
14:25So we rebuilt the scenes of the concentration camps,
14:28on the beds, with all the characters who were naked in a room.
14:31So it was not difficult to get into the truth of the subject.
14:34We were there, in the scenes,
14:37even when I was naked,
14:40he made me look like a little bird
14:43that he tried to catch with his gun.
14:46It was in a room that was not even built.
14:49We found it in an old ruined place.
14:52So all this was real.
14:55So it was a very visual shooting.
14:59Staging the eroticism of a sadomasochistic relationship
15:02at the heart of the concentration system
15:05appears particularly subversive.
15:08Charlotte is without landmarks
15:11and sinks terrified into the darkness of the human soul.
15:16In this film, she plays
15:19on a variety of absolutely extraordinary characters.
15:22There is, on the one hand, the wife of the conductor,
15:25who is very mundane,
15:28at the same time sober, a little restrained.
15:31There is this teenager that Dirk Bogarde takes up
15:34to get along with her,
15:37in a very astonishing sadomasochistic sarabande
15:40in the concentration camp.
15:43She is bewildered, trembling,
15:46and Dirk Bogarde films her with this little camera,
15:49with a look of Boa who is about to devour her
15:53Here, in this film,
15:56we really have the deployment of all her avant-garde
15:59of dramatic genius.
16:02The fragility, a certain form of social conformism,
16:05intelligent, very, very, very thoughtful,
16:08very, very, very self-aware,
16:11and then moments of the black hole.
16:14I didn't know what I was doing.
16:17I knew I had to make this film.
16:20I exorcised my demons in this film.
16:23My son was two months old.
16:26I could take advantage of maternity.
16:29Instead, I made the film.
16:32Barnaby.
16:35Barnaby James, Southcombe.
16:44We launch the package.
16:47Married for a year to Brian Southcombe,
16:50a New Zealand actor,
16:53whom she will divorce three years later,
16:56how could young Charlotte take on the violence
16:59of such a film, A Child in the Arms?
17:02It is desire that explains everything.
17:05If you are there,
17:08and you have a three-month-old baby,
17:11and you are at home,
17:14and you read a screenplay,
17:17and its appeal is stronger than anything else,
17:20that is desire.
17:23It is perhaps also an attraction for the character
17:26that echoes her own nightmare.
17:29Dirk Bogarde, upset by her distress,
17:32accompanies her and supports her.
17:35Dirk Bogarde was my true friend.
17:38At that time, I had cut everything.
17:41He was my first friend in my adult life,
17:44my life as an adult girl.
17:47It was Dirk.
17:53Charlotte Rampling asks the filmmaker Liliana Cavani
17:56to interrupt the second take of this scene,
17:59where Dirk Bogarde really hits her.
18:02The pink marks left by the slap on the actress's cheek
18:05attest to this violence.
18:11You can't make a scene that is not authentic
18:14in a film that is based
18:17on violence,
18:20and on the understanding of violence.
18:23If you don't go into it,
18:26you're going to die with it,
18:29you're going to die with that feeling.
18:32You're going to die with violence, with tenderness.
18:37The character played by Dirk Bogarde
18:40opens the doors of the night.
18:43Immediately, she reaches the limits
18:46of a certain type of cinema.
18:49She shows that from the beginning of her career,
18:52she is able to venture into these regions.
19:03I don't know what I want,
19:06and where I want to go.
19:11Telling this story, so sulphurous,
19:14when you're a woman,
19:17playing with this extremely taboo subject,
19:20and with such prestigious actors,
19:23all of this has a very strong impact,
19:26which is comparable to Bertolucci's
19:29film, which is more or less contemporary.
19:37This is where this very fascinating characteristic
19:40appears in her,
19:43which is this look of challenge,
19:46and this refusal to try to please.
19:49I don't know how to get out of the role.
19:52Lucia is always in me when I see these excerpts,
19:55and I'm completely overwhelmed.
19:58You can't necessarily avoid our characters.
20:20Rampling's photograph,
20:22the naked torso,
20:24with suspenders and Nazi caps,
20:26goes around the world.
20:28While the film becomes a cult in France,
20:31it arouses the rejection of a part of the critics
20:34and institutions.
20:36It causes a scandal in Germany,
20:38is ranked X in Italy,
20:40and arouses the most virulent reactions in the United States.
20:44Who is it?
20:46It's the daughter of the orchid.
20:48You recognize her?
20:50She's my cousin.
20:52I was looking for something else to calm my anxieties.
20:55I was a prisoner of life.
20:57Only flight could free her.
21:00What's the point of running away
21:02when misfortune is within you?
21:04Why do people say I'm sick?
21:06I don't know.
21:08Charlotte Rampling identifies herself
21:11as an out-of-frame character
21:13and replays her own confinement.
21:16In her first film,
21:18director Patrice Chéreau
21:20offers her the role of a young heiress
21:22kidnapped by her own family
21:24in an asylum where she escapes.
21:26We're looking for you too.
21:28Yes.
21:30Trapped,
21:32she defends herself from her attackers
21:34by tearing their eyes out.
21:36Like her character,
21:38Charlotte, always haunted
21:40by the incomprehension of her sister's gesture
21:42and the impossibility to fix it,
21:44embodies this disturbing power
21:46that flirts with madness.
21:49It's a very inner madness
21:51because the girl doesn't know
21:53if she's really crazy
21:55or if it's the situation that's driven her crazy.
21:58Why do they all hate me?
22:00Why am I always trapped?
22:02That's really me too.
22:04Because I was supposedly
22:06in the delirium
22:08of a form of mental illness,
22:10but it wasn't wise
22:12to become someone else.
22:20With this film,
22:22the character of the tragic Rampling
22:24is made up
22:26in a frontal,
22:28obvious and definitive way.
22:30Because this tear-in-the-eyes gesture
22:32is the tragic gesture.
22:34Is there a reason to lock me up?
22:36No.
22:38I'll explain it to you one day.
22:40There were always firefighters
22:42following us to put the rain on everything.
22:44We were cold, it was summer.
22:46The meeting with Chéreau
22:48was magical.
22:50There was no framing,
22:52we were thrown into the scene
22:54with the most vibrant energy.
22:56You had to dig inside yourself.
22:58He didn't explain much.
23:00He created the scene
23:02in no time at all.
23:10The energy of the leak
23:12allows her to leave the world of shadows
23:14to rebuild herself.
23:16Everything has become clear to me.
23:18I want to fight.
23:20Especially now.
23:22We can say,
23:24she'll never fix it.
23:26We don't fix it.
23:28It's not true.
23:30For some, we fix it.
23:34All her life,
23:36she's been fighting this temptation of madness.
23:38But the menace of madness.
23:40She's a great actress
23:42of menace.
23:54It was a vampire role.
23:56I played a sort of Lauren Bacall,
23:58a beautiful role.
24:00A great encounter
24:02with Mitchum too.
24:04He invited me to his caravan.
24:06We talked for hours.
24:08Most of the time,
24:10he couldn't talk because he was drinking.
24:12Hollywood.
24:14Charlotte Rampling decided
24:16to flee England and her pain
24:18for Los Angeles.
24:20Hello.
24:22Hello.
24:24She turns her back on her Protestant education,
24:26to the rigor of the military world,
24:28by now playing the role
24:30of a fatal woman.
24:32Would her power of seduction
24:34give her a new grip on the world?
24:38And what a world!
24:40She shares the poster with a living myth,
24:42Robert Mitchum.
24:56It's a museum film.
24:58Mitchum plays his role.
25:00He doesn't play a character,
25:02he plays Mitchum.
25:04And Rampling comes in
25:06in this problem of cinema.
25:08We think about cinema.
25:10I fantasized about American cinema,
25:12Bacall, Bogard, a little gangster,
25:14a little private detective,
25:16with a real atmosphere.
25:18I thought I was going to put myself
25:20like a fish in the water,
25:22but not really.
25:24I was in my place,
25:26but without being in my place.
25:32Oh, it's too late!
25:34It's finished!
25:36This fellow, no!
25:38There he is!
25:40Stay close to me,
25:42inside my aura.
25:44The burning will take place
25:46on the big screen with another seducer,
25:48the irresistible Sean Connery.
25:50After the American polar,
25:52Charlotte is in a new genre,
25:54science fiction.
25:56Zardoz tells
25:58the improbable story
26:00of a hippie community
26:02trying to save humanity.
26:04The actress
26:06plunges into the joys of utopia
26:08in her own way,
26:10sowing trouble.
26:12While Sean Connery's character
26:14undergoes a virility test
26:16by being subjected to pornographic images,
26:18nothing happens.
26:20And in front of Consuela?
26:24During the shooting,
26:26during the scene,
26:28there was something
26:30delightful about playing this.
26:32A kind of magnetism.
26:34I said,
26:36there's something going on here.
26:38If I was beautiful,
26:40fine.
26:42I didn't think about it,
26:44I didn't listen,
26:46and when you're called to play
26:48a role like Consuela,
26:50where it really has to play,
26:52well, it comes out.
27:02Consuela was not very far from me
27:04because I discovered
27:06what was always there
27:08in the construction of my personality,
27:10a certain inner authority
27:12that I could be
27:14a warrior chief.
27:20In spite of the success
27:22she achieved,
27:24Charlotte Rampling couldn't stand
27:26the violence of American society.
27:28The promise of a new start
27:30was fading away.
27:32Hollywood was drugged to death.
27:34I found violence,
27:36a terrible life.
27:38I was looking for a certain quality of role
27:40and I didn't find it.
27:42It wasn't my country.
27:44I had nothing to do with this country.
27:46I had friends,
27:48but no one to protect me.
27:50I really needed protection
27:52at that time.
28:00Charlotte revealed herself
28:02in one of the fashion magazines
28:04in glamorous, provocative,
28:06sometimes naked attitudes
28:08transgressing the paternal taboo.
28:12She entered Europe
28:14where she was received
28:16as an international star
28:18and posed
28:20for the greatest photographers.
28:32The world of photographers
28:34like Sieff or Newton
28:36is a fantasy world
28:38in which I entered
28:40as long as they see a part of my soul.
28:46A fixed image
28:48is more impudent
28:50because you can take all the time
28:52to look at it.
28:54The look and the distress
28:56are there forever.
29:04I'm trying to catch my father.
29:10She has this incredible freedom
29:12in her journey
29:14that makes her belong
29:16to no system,
29:18to no one.
29:20This freedom
29:22is what characterizes her the most.
29:32Photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue
29:34offers her a camera.
29:36She grabs it
29:38to inaugurate
29:40a personal work.
29:42She finally finds a space
29:44where to put her gaze.
29:48This is China
29:50as it was,
29:52ancient China.
29:54This is the Tai Chi
29:56they did every morning
29:58on the river
30:00when you saw the hotel.
30:02Throughout, there were hundreds
30:04of people doing it in unison.
30:06Austin, Texas.
30:08I was shooting a film there.
30:10I was walking around
30:12Austin
30:14and I took what I saw
30:16that interested me.
30:18This is for the shooting
30:20of Taxi Move in Ireland.
30:22Paul really was a child of the ball.
30:24He came with me all the time
30:26at the beginning.
30:28Now, I don't miss anything.
30:30How long?
30:32One day, one hour...
30:34After a decade
30:36during which Charlotte
30:38struggled against her despair,
30:40her wandering ends.
30:42She settles permanently in France
30:44where the film A Taxi Move
30:46by Yves Boisset
30:48marks her first great success.
30:50I think I will always keep
30:52the memory of what we left
30:54behind these curtains.
30:56She loves this magnetic English
30:58with stunning beauty.
31:00Charlotte is full of life
31:02and plays the role of a woman
31:04who is no longer tormented.
31:06She is finally happy.
31:08By the way, I am pregnant with David
31:10during the film.
31:12She met the man of her life,
31:14the composer Jean-Michel Jarre
31:16whose album Oxygen
31:18has just been released.
31:22And little Amélie behind.
31:24A mother of two with her three terrors.
31:28The Recomposed family
31:30buys a house in the suburbs of Paris.
31:32Charlotte Rampling
31:34finds a balance between her private life
31:36and the cinema.
31:38You shoot less than other actors.
31:40What are the criteria
31:42before accepting a role?
31:44It depends on how I feel at some point.
31:46We can change a lot in life
31:48and an actor
31:50only has his own interior,
31:52his own soul, his own physique.
31:54It depends on what I feel at some point.
31:56What would you like to shoot right now?
32:00Humor.
32:10Charlotte Rampling
32:12explores in Stardust Memories
32:14a new type of role.
32:16She now risks herself in comedy,
32:18humor and self-derision.
32:22Whoever you are.
32:24It's Troy, I guess I'm a little on the beautiful side.
32:26Did she manage to get out
32:28of her inner night?
32:30Keep going, you're getting through.
32:32In her film, Woody Allen
32:34plays a character of a filmmaker
32:36going through an existential crisis.
32:38Are you married? Are you living with somebody?
32:40I'm fascinating but I'm troubled.
32:42Troubled?
32:44You said the right thing.
32:46I met Woody Allen in Paris
32:48and he said,
32:50would you be my perfect woman?
32:56I said,
32:58yes,
33:00that sounds intriguing.
33:04He gave me the script
33:06and I became his perfect woman.
33:10His ideal woman.
33:14You were researching the perfect woman.
33:16You wound up falling in love with me.
33:18It was going to be
33:20a very flirtatious relationship.
33:22Platonic, of course.
33:24Woody Allen
33:26films her as a fantasy object
33:28or as an absolute
33:30embodiment of beauty.
33:32It's this face.
33:34There's a scene that echoes
33:36where he says,
33:38and for one brief moment,
33:40everything just seemed to come together perfectly
33:42and I felt happy.
33:44Almost indestructible in a way.
33:46That simple little moment of contact
33:48moved me
33:50in a very, very profound way.
33:54Does Charlotte now trust
33:56herself and her destiny?
34:00Her metamorphosis is visible on screen.
34:02She masters her image
34:04by imposing a part of mystery.
34:08It's the first time,
34:10and perhaps one of the only times,
34:12that she plays such a classic role
34:14as a feminine woman
34:16without this double level.
34:18Even if there's still the other side of the character
34:20which is that she's an unsatisfied woman,
34:22a self-destructive woman,
34:24a complicated woman.
34:26I think that the imaginary and the fantasy
34:28are things that an actor cultivates
34:30because he is called to interpret them.
34:32It's our secret garden.
34:36It's what I've been doing all my life.
34:38I imagine.
34:40The relationship with Woody
34:42was immediate and instantaneous.
34:44He had the same sense of humour.
34:46He was terrified of the dark.
34:48So in the morning in New York
34:50when we took the tunnel,
34:52he asked me to hold him tight in his arms.
34:54A once successful Boston lawyer,
34:56he's drunk, disillusioned
34:58and down to his last client.
35:00Paul Newman heads an all-star ensemble cast
35:02in The Verdict.
35:20Unlike Woody Allen,
35:22Charlotte is no longer terrified
35:24of the dark.
35:26She's no longer afraid of anything.
35:28Neither of Sidney Lumet,
35:30the legendary Hollywood director
35:32of the legal world,
35:34nor of Paul Newman.
35:36To be on screen in front of Paul Newman,
35:38who carries with him
35:40all the mythology of the studio actor,
35:42it brings Charlotte Rampling
35:44into another dimension of cinema,
35:46especially since he didn't have a theatrical education
35:48and learned on the set.
35:50Especially the meeting with Newman,
35:52who was very handsome.
35:54He's really a handsome man.
35:56Sensitive, touching, very shy.
35:58The opposite of Mitchum.
36:02The character played by the actress
36:04rarely appears on screen.
36:06Charlotte has accepted a role
36:08where she listens and is silent.
36:10As if her pain had ceased to scream.
36:14I said to Lumet,
36:16where is the role?
36:18I said,
36:20where is the actress?
36:22Sidney Lumet replied,
36:24someone like you needs
36:26to create a real atmosphere.
36:36She arrives.
36:38Immediately.
36:40You have a character
36:42who is like a carnivorous plant
36:44who plants itself in the heart of the set
36:46and the character she creates
36:48is immediately present.
36:50Here we have the great black film actress.
36:52We have the fatal woman
36:54instantly.
36:56Because she didn't get
36:58the answer to the question
37:00that has been asked to her since the beginning.
37:02It's a question about the blackness of man,
37:04about inner suffering.
37:06And each film is an attempt
37:08to bring, I don't say the answer,
37:10but a little more precision,
37:12a little more deepening
37:14I know.
37:16Don't tell me you dreamed of her.
37:18No.
37:20So how do you know?
37:22Because I killed her.
37:24And there, indeed,
37:26it is by dark characters
37:28that we get to know
37:30this inner night better
37:32and to know hers.
37:34Charlotte Rampling continues
37:36her existential quest
37:38by penetrating the universe
37:40of an icy and depressive polar
37:42and accepting such a venomous role,
37:44she takes the risk of altering her image.
37:46Faced with Inspector Robert Staniland,
37:48alias Michel Serrault,
37:50Charlotte plays the role
37:52of the perverse Barbara Spack.
37:54It seemed natural to me
37:56to play this role.
37:58This character seemed extraordinary to me.
38:02So there is this mixture
38:04of nymphomaniacism,
38:06of half-mundane who may live
38:08from blackmail practices,
38:10all that makes
38:12a big erotic character,
38:14but an erotic,
38:16I would say, like Rampling,
38:18a black erotic,
38:20Shakespearean erotic.
38:22I had a very interesting relationship
38:24with Serrault,
38:26because he is supposed
38:28not to like women too much
38:30or to despise them a little.
38:32And so, as I knew that before,
38:34I said,
38:36this is a nice job.
38:38I took it as a toy,
38:40but in the good sense of the term.
38:42How to play with Michel Serrault?
38:46This film could also be
38:48a documentary on Charlotte Rampling.
38:50Her character is inspired
38:52by her own life
38:54and her intimate relationship to photography.
38:56When she enters Jean-Louis Serène's studio
38:58and says hello,
39:00it is obvious that she has lived
39:02these scenes with Jean-Louis Schiaff.
39:04Charlotte continues to pose
39:06for the greatest photographers.
39:08What look does she have
39:10on her multiple identities?
39:12Like in a mirror game,
39:14does she feel the need
39:16to freeze the facets of her face
39:18while her sister's
39:20fades away with time?
39:22For me, it was vital.
39:24I wanted that.
39:26I wanted photography
39:28to accompany my work in cinema.
39:31At first,
39:33Audiard was a bit...
39:35not worried or intimidated,
39:37but a bit intrigued
39:39and curious to know
39:41how he was going to get out of the situation
39:43and make Charlotte Rampling speak.
39:45What kind of exchanges
39:47can a sophisticated actress
39:49have with a gruff,
39:51irreverent dialogist?
39:53Through her hypnotic beauty,
39:55she destabilizes Michel Audiard,
39:57yet at the top of his game.
39:59And so I was sent
40:01to knock on his door.
40:03This is Barbara.
40:05Can I help you?
40:07What would she dare to say
40:09by throwing words at me like that?
40:11Because she throws and throws all the time.
40:13He was very focused.
40:15And a bit embarrassed,
40:17I think,
40:19to see me like that.
40:21It was a bit...
40:23not weird,
40:25but a bit strange.
40:27I'm going to tell you something important.
40:29I hate to be asked questions.
40:31I hate the seaside.
40:33And I hate even more
40:35to hang out with a cop
40:37who asks me questions
40:39at the seaside.
40:43And you're old.
40:45And you're ugly.
40:49And you're stupid.
40:581986.
41:00Max, my love.
41:02It's the most beautiful screenplay
41:04I've ever read in my life.
41:06It had a real poetry.
41:08It was the last of the taboos,
41:10I thought.
41:12Well, I'm going to go all the way.
41:14Where are your clothes?
41:16Dress up, please.
41:18And talk a little.
41:20Where's he from?
41:22Charlotte Rampling plays
41:24in this tragicomic fable
41:26a British diplomat
41:28who is over-the-top and extravagant.
41:30She dares the ultimate transgression.
41:35Which actress would accept
41:37a monkey as a partner?
41:39Is it dangerous for my image?
41:42Having a monkey
41:44didn't change anything in work relations.
41:46We were very close.
41:48It's funny how I said that.
41:54Working with Nagisa Oshima,
41:56the director of The Empire of Essence,
41:58involves a permanent risk.
42:00Charlotte never ceases
42:02to push her limits.
42:04Oshima guesses it and writes to her,
42:06there is no man on earth
42:08who has the strength
42:10to console the sadness of an angel.
42:12There is a will
42:14and a desire
42:16for social transgression
42:18that is extraordinary.
42:20We are in the middle
42:22of high diplomatic bourgeoisie
42:24where Kant reigns.
42:26It's a kind of art of living,
42:28a way of holding on,
42:30something very polished.
42:32And suddenly, in the heart of it,
42:34we have a kind of aberration
42:36that is thought to be
42:38zoophile love.
42:40Yes, indeed.
42:46No, Max.
43:02No, Max.
43:16Max.
43:24Max.
43:36No.
43:46No.
44:16No.
44:47By playing with her image
44:49and multiplying her roles
44:51as a fatal, tragic,
44:53ideal, iconoclastic woman,
44:55does Charlotte endanger
44:57her own identity?
45:03I look in the mirror.
45:05I look at a woman
45:07that I don't recognize.
45:09A mosaic face,
45:11detached pieces,
45:13chosen by chance.
45:17Reorganized
45:19to form a face.
45:21Dive into me
45:23and you won't see
45:25what I see.
45:28In the 1990s,
45:30the actress was absent
45:32from the cinema screens for 10 years.
45:34She refused to speak to the press
45:36since her separation
45:38with Jean-Michel Jarre
45:40was over-mediaized.
45:42The building she had built
45:45must now continue
45:47its existential quest alone.
45:49I come from nothing.
45:51I am haunted by the irreparable.
45:54The images fade
45:56as time goes by.
45:58An indefinite impression
46:00of living in my absence.
46:02I stop.
46:04I stop everything.
46:06Let the world stop.
46:08I want to go down.
46:10Days,
46:12closed doors.
46:14Stopped dialogue.
46:16Exterior excluded.
46:18Behind the light,
46:20there is a shadow.
46:22Charlotte explores elsewhere,
46:24in painting.
46:26She draws a unique model,
46:28that of a woman
46:30whose silhouette can only be seen
46:32covered in black fuzz.
46:35Still looking for her sister,
46:37she prepares, without knowing it,
46:39to face the apex of her career.
46:43Eat her.
46:59I understood that during the shoot
47:01that there was a harmony
47:03between what I was doing and what I was.
47:05I had the impression
47:07of having already lived it.
47:09Her decisive encounter with the filmmaker François Ozon
47:14allows Charlotte to face the subject that has haunted her for more than 30 years.
47:19The disappearance.
47:21Sous le sable tells the story of a woman
47:24whose husband mysteriously evaporates into the ocean.
47:27In an impossible mourning, she continues to live with her ghost.
47:32When I play, the moment is absolutely experienced with everything I have.
47:37It's like a fusion that we have with a character.
47:41You literally enter it, like a ghost.
47:45You inhabit it and you interpret it.
47:59I know that inside this film there are things that upset me.
48:03The story of a mourning that doesn't happen.
48:06But as life goes on, I manage to do Sous le sable.
48:19Sous le sable is the last step of her inner journey.
48:24She no longer plays to be someone else.
48:30For this role, François Ozon told me,
48:33I want you to be a very real woman, very open, very fulfilled.
48:38And at the same time, to have this mysterious approach, which is yours.
48:45Which means that you will take the spectator with you
48:48in your absolutely personal investigation.
48:53The inner language of someone can therefore be very filmic.
48:58She is a woman of silence, because even when she is silent,
49:02it is a silence that screams.
49:04In her case, silence is a cry.
49:07Henri Michaud has this phrase, he says,
49:09we cry to silence the cry.
49:11His silence is a kind of eloquent moan.
49:28An actor exists very strongly, then disappears.
49:31And you need the gaze of a young filmmaker,
49:34aware of everything the actor has done before,
49:37to bring this actor back to light.
49:39And what Ozon does for Charlotte Rampling in Sous le sable,
49:42is what Tarantino did for Travolta in Pulp Fiction.
49:45That's what happens sometimes in the history of cinema,
49:48is that she really is reborn in the cinema with this film.
49:51We truly feel, through the evolution of the film,
49:54someone who has arrived at the port,
49:57who has come to this kind of inner reconciliation
50:00between night and not being devoured by his own night.
50:15I discovered that there was a world that I did not know.
50:18The great world of true feelings,
50:21where we could move certain things,
50:24very deeply, inside people.
50:27People can join.
50:30It is not in the real world,
50:33but it is a part of the real world,
50:36because we adopt it and we leave with it.
50:43Charlotte Rampling continues her race in the starry night.
50:46She arouses the desires of the greatest directors,
50:50while assuming the traces of time on her body as an actress.
50:53After six decades of cinema and 140 films,
51:01she wins the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival
51:04for her role in Anna, by Andrea Palauro,
51:08and receives at the Berlinale the Golden Bear of Honor
51:11for the whole of her career.
51:14By her clean play, she imposes her presence.
51:19World-renowned actress,
51:22her face can disappear under a veil.
51:25She no longer needs her image.