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Catherine Breillat
French filmmaker (born 1948) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Catherine Breillat (French: [katʁin bʁɛja]; born 13 July 1948) is a French filmmaker, novelist and professor of auteur cinema at the European Graduate School.
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Life and career
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Breillat was born in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, and grew up in Niort. She decided to become a writer and director at the age of twelve after watching Ingmar Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, believing she had found her "fictional body" in Harriet Andersson's character, Anna.[1]
She started her career after studying acting at Yves Furet's "Studio d'Entraînement de l'Acteur" in Paris together with her sister, actress Marie-Hélène Breillat (born 2 June 1947) in 1967. Her novel, l'Homme facile (A Man for the Asking), was published when she was 17. The French government banned it for readers under 18. A film based on the novel was made shortly after the publication of the book, and received an R rating. The producer went bankrupt and the distributor Artedis blocked commercial release of the film for twenty years.[2]
Breillat is known for films focusing on sexuality,[3] intimacy, gender conflict, and sibling rivalry. Breillat has been the subject of controversy for her explicit depictions of sexuality and violence. She cast the porn actor Rocco Siffredi in her films Romance (Romance X, 1999) and Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell, 2004). Her novels have been best-sellers.
Her work has been associated with the cinéma du corps/cinema of the body genre.[4] In an interview with Senses of Cinema, she described David Cronenberg as another filmmaker she considers to have a similar approach to sexuality in film.[5]
Though Breillat spends most of her time behind the camera, she has acted in a handful of movies. She made her film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972) as Mouchette, a dressmaker, alongside her sister Marie-Hélène Breillat.
In 2004, Breillat suffered a intracerebral hemorrhage, causing a stroke that paralyzed her left side.[6] After five months of hospitalization and a slow rehabilitation, she gradually returned to work, producing Une vieille maîtresse (The Last Mistress) in 2007. This film was one of three French films officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival of that year.
In 2007, Breillat met notorious con man Christophe Rocancourt, and offered him a leading role in a movie that she was planning to make, based on her own novel Bad Love, where he would have co-starred with Naomi Campbell.[7] Soon afterwards, she gave him €25,000 to write a screenplay titled La vie amoureuse de Christophe Rocancourt (The Love Life of Christophe Rocancourt), and over the next year and a half, gave him loans totalling an additional €678,000.[8] In 2009, Breillat published a book, in which she alleged that Rocancourt had taken advantage of her diminished mental capacity, as she was still recovering from her stroke.[9] The book is titled Abus de faiblesse, a French legal term usually translated as "abuse of weakness".[10] In 2012, Rocancourt was convicted of abus de faiblesse for taking Breillat's money, and sentenced to prison.[8]
In September 2010, Breillat's second fairy-tale based film, The Sleeping Beauty, opened in the Orizzonti sidebar in the 67th Venice Film Festival.[11]
As of 2011[update], although Breillat had moved on to other projects, she still hoped to film Bad Love, but had not yet been able to find financing to do so.[12] However, a film adaptation of her book Abus de faiblesse, directed by Breillat and starring Isabelle Huppert, began production in 2012, and was screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.[13][14]
It has been noted that "Breillat remains committed to the long take, particularly during scenes of sexual negotiation, a technique that showcases her performers' virtuosity as well as emphasizes the political and philosophical elements of sex. In both Fat Girl and Romance, for example, key sex scenes possess shots lasting over seven minutes."[15]
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Common themes in Breillat's films
Through film, Breillat attempts to redefine the female narrative in cinema by showing female characters who undergo similar experiences as their male counterparts. Many of Breillat's films explore the transition between girlhood and adulthood. The females of her films attempt to escape their adolescence by seeking individuality.[16] There is an unsaid silence in society for girls to hide their sexuality and desires unless directly confronted about them. Breillat offers a platform to discuss female pleasure and sexual responsibility by exposing social and sexual conflicts in her films' themes.[17]
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Controversies
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In a 2018 podcast interview, Breillat made controversial remarks on Asia Argento, who had starred in her 2007 film The Last Mistress, saying that she didn't believe her accusations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein and calling Argento a "servile" and promiscuous woman who engaged in "semi-prostitution". Breillat also said that she didn't approve of the #MeToo movement Argento had participated in, and that Weinstein's downfall was a "loss" for the European film industry. Argento responded by calling Breillat "the most sadistic and downright evil director [she had] ever worked with".[18]
In August 2024, actress Caroline Ducey, in an interview with the magazine Le Nouvel Obs, accused Breillat of directing male actors to perform unsimulated sex acts upon her against her will during the filming of Romance.[19] Ducey published a memoir, La Prédation (nom féminin) ["Predation: Feminine Noun"] in which she detailed her allegations.[20] According to Ducey, Breillat demanded that her co-star François Berléand penetrate her digitally on camera, which Berléand refused to do. Ducey stated that actor Reza Habouhossein performed oral sex on her at Breillat's command.[21] In an earlier investigation by IndieWire, Ducey had told the journalist that she was able to prevent the actor from penetrating her.[22]
Breillat, on the other hand, told Indiewire that she had planned the film to include unsimmulated sex-scenes from the beginning and that everyone who had read the extremely explicit script, including Ducey, knew what the film's content would be.[22] She said Ducey was "delusional" and announced her intention to file suit against the actress for defamation.[23]
Works
Filmography
Stage plays
- Les Vêtements de mer
Bibliography
 | This article lacks ISBNs for books it lists. (April 2015) |
- Abus de faiblesse
- Pornocratie
- Le Soupirail
- L'homme facile
- Tapage Nocturne
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References
Further reading
External links
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