Special focus on the versatile Isabelle Huppert
A dominating presence in contemporary French cinema, Isabelle Huppert was born in Paris in 1955 and spent her childhood years in suburban Ville d’Avray. Following her mother’s advice, she enrolled at the Versailles Conservatory, winning a prize for her appearance in Alfred de Musset’s «Un Caprice.» She then went on to study at the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique and embarked on a prominent theater career, before making her movie debut in 1971. Soon, she was one of the most prolific actresses of her generation, collaborating with great French masters, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Maurice Pialat. A mother of three, Huppert is regarded by the French as the typical French woman, a versatile one, nevertheless, whose rich repertoire has taken her from portraying a low-class civil servant (in Chabrol’s 1996 «La Ceremonie») to the epitome of aristocracy, in roles such as that of Madame de Maintenon in «Saint-Cyr» in 2000, or that of the middle-aged Dominique, who in 1998’s «L’Ecole de la Chair» fights for the love of a man in his early 20s. The actress, who has won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival twice, in 1978, for «Violette Noziere» and last year for «La Pianiste,» has also been nominated 10 times for the much-coveted Cesars, the French film awards – winning once, in 1996 for her role in «La Ceremonie.» Beginning on April 5 and running to April 11, a tribute to this French first lady of cinema is to be held at the French Institute in Athens, and will include the following films: Bertrand Blier’s «La Femme de mon Pote» (1983), Christian Vincent’s «La Separation» (1994), Patricia Mazuy’s «Saint-Cyr» (2000), Joseph Losey’s «La Truite» (1982), Maurice Pialat’s «Loulou» (1980), Hal Hartley’s «Amateur» (1994), Jean-Luc Godard’s «Sauve qui Peut (la Vie)» (1979), Jacques Doillon’s «La Vengeance d’une Femme» (1989), Laurence Ferreira Barbosa’s «La Vie Moderne» (1999), Claude Goretta’s «La Dentelliere» (1977), Claude Chabrol’s «La Ceremonie» (1995) and Michael Haneke’s «La Pianiste» (2001).
