Jeanne Moreau, Femme Fatale of French New Wave, Is Dead at 89
Source: NYT
Jeanne Moreau, the sensual, gravel-voiced actress who became the face of the New Wave, Frances iconoclastic mid-20th-century film movement, most notably in François Truffauts 1962 film Jules and Jim, died on Monday at home in Paris. She was 89.
Her death was confirmed by the office of President Emmanuel Macron.
Ms. Moreau, whom journalists liked to call the thinking moviegoers femme fatale, first came to American audiences attention in Louis Malles 1958 drama The Lovers. The film included a lengthy love scene in which Ms. Moreau, playing a bored housewife having an affair, enacted a clearly orgasmic moment, considered scandalous at the time. It was four years later, in Jules and Jim, that she became a full-fledged international star, playing Catherine, the capricious, destructive object of Oskar Werner and Henri Serres desire in a doomed ménage à trois.
A successful stage actress in Paris, Ms. Moreau had a pouty, downturned mouth and circles under her eyes, and she was not generally considered photogenic. Making a score of mostly forgettable films from 1949 to 1957, she received the standard starlet treatment by makeup artists. It was Malle who, casting her in his first feature film, Elevator to the Gallows, shot her in natural light without heavy makeup, letting her hauntingly expressive face work its magic.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/movies/jeanne-moreau-dead.html
Photographers surrounding Ms. Moreau in 1962, during her highly publicized romance with the designer Pierre Cardin.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)was one of my favorite movies.
BeyondGeography
(39,226 posts)Complete with a Miles Davis soundtrack. The iconic scene:
RIP, Jeanne.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Classic!
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Last weekend, I watched Wim Wender's 'Until the End of the World' (almost 5-hour Director's Cut from TCM) and there she was in the pivotal role, "hanging out" in the Australian Outback. (Remember 'The Leftovers'?)
Everything comes together in the end.
Ms. Moreau impacted a couple generations of movie-goers. And will be with us forever.
Une vie bien vécue.
Tanuki
(14,887 posts)Bay of Angels and Dangerous Liaisons were stellar and disturbing. Her artistry will live on for as long as people watch movies.
Javaman
(62,394 posts)made my heart skip beats.
still_one
(91,807 posts)spiderpig
(10,419 posts)I've seen all her classic French films, yet the one that stands out in my mind today is La Femme Nikita.
niyad
(112,058 posts)Paladin
(28,173 posts)"Jules and Jim" is one of my favorite foreign movies.
Chrysanthemum
(187 posts)And in addition to Moreau's radiance and the total believability of her erratic character, there were other treats in the film as well.
I've always been in love with the deeply-talented Oskar Werner, so that film always engrosses me for his sake, too.
Then there is the score! I can't think of Jules et Jim without hearing the haunting melodies in my mind's "ear".
Paladin
(28,173 posts)I've seen it a number of times, but I'll gladly watch it again.
Chrysanthemum
(187 posts)I wouldn't be surprised at all if Turner Classic Movies does an all-day salute to her films soon. That's what they do when someone important in film has died. And they've carried Jules et Jim before.
Beacool
(30,243 posts)May she rest in peace.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Kept right on working too. What a trooper! Another one is Danielle Darrieux, still going strong at year 100:
p.s. good to see you Beacool!
Beacool
(30,243 posts)Hieronymus
(6,039 posts)oasis
(49,102 posts)one I remember most. Their chemistry worked well on a great film.
May she rest in peace.