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mlleclaudine · 4 months ago

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En couverture de Vanity Fair: Noémie Merlant, portrait d'une actrice en feu

by Norine Raja - Vanity Fair France, July 24, 2024

Tragic, comic and now erotic: Noémie Merlant continues to prove that she can play anything, including a radically contemporary version of Emmanuelle. But how do you reconcile sensuality and feminism in an era that leaves so little room for nuance? Norine Raja asked her.

Suddenly, the interview’s soundtrack changes drastically. At the café terrace where we're chatting, the lyrics of Maître Gims give way to an electro remix of the familiar melody of Bella Ciao.

Is it a sign? The music seems to have anticipated Noémie Merlant's thoughts: «At one point, I felt trapped. Now, it's like this song: freedom, freedom, freedom!» she says to the beat of the chorus. Has she reached the point of total emancipation? «Not yet, but I’m getting there», she says with a smile.

On this June afternoon, the actress is back home in the Paris suburbs after having attended two festivals in a row – Biarritz and Nantes – to present her second feature film as director, Les Femmes au balcon. Espresso started, unfussy outfit, bag casually laid on the floor, hair in a ponytail. She weighs her words, relishes the silences. Then, the next minute, she rivets you with her electric gaze and makes her point with total conviction. Just try to pigeonhole her. She’s got a 14-year career under her belt and as many different roles: a rebellious teenager in Les Héritiers (2014), a naive aristocrat in Le Retour du héros (2018), a trans man in A Good Man (2020). «She's a perfect blend of precision and abandon», said Céline Sciamma, who directed her in Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019). «She can play a powerful woman, but also hint at vulnerability», adds Audrey Diwan, winner of the Lion d’or for L'Événement (2021), who has just directed her in Emmanuelle – more on that later.

Because she remains an enigmatic figure in the public eye, no persona seems too outsized for her. Think she’s limited to dramatic roles? She displays unexpected comedic flair in L'Innocent (2022), in which she plays Louis Garrel's brash best friend: twinkling eyes, a mischievous attitude, raucous laughter. Her feigned nervous breakdown in a highway restaurant is unforgettable. The role (finally) earned her the César for Best Supporting Actress in 2023. Audrey Diwan hasn't forgotten that performance: «Every time she smiles in this film, she turns the world upside down.»

That same year, the filmmaker was working on a remake of Just Jaeckin's Emmanuelle, the famous erotic feature film of the Giscardian era. At the time, Noémie Merlant had never seen this landmark of 1970s sexual revolution, the first installment in a 15-part saga. So she met the director without any preconceived ideas or images. She was inspired by the character. «She must be exhausted in her search for pleasure», she suggested to Audrey Diwan, who offered her the role before the meeting was over. She insisted on watching the original film after shooting was done. Her verdict? «It's a disaster. The first part is interesting, with this open relationship. But then there's a storyline with Emmanuelle and an older man. She gets raped in front of him...»

The film has aged badly, but the 2024 version is free of any misogyny. The look and feel have been modernized. Replacing the postcard Thai décor and its whiff of orientalism is a luxurious Hong Kong setting. Not a young woman pandering to the desires of others, but an ambitious thirtysomething in the throes of self-discovery. A complete reinterpretation, in other words. I hesitate to ask: was she afraid to embrace this character and her sultry aura? She dismisses the idea out of hand: «That never even occurred to me. What interests me these days is working with women directors who are seeking to redefine representations of women, their imagination, their sexuality.»

Céline Dion, her idol

Sorority was Noémie Merlant's guiding principle, long before she became aware of or defined the concept of female solidarity. The daughter of a pair of real estate agents, she grew up in Rezé, a town of 40,000 people near Nantes, in a happy household where television held center stage. Evenings were spent watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and crying over Titanic, she admits with a touch of embarrassment. Like thousands of French people, we'd like to tell her. She is very close to her mother and older sister, who suffers from a disability. To avoid adding to her parents' burdens, Noémie learned not to take up too much space. After years of therapy, she's come to realize: «It's nobody's fault, just the dynamics imposed by society. And then, at the same time, school teaches you not to make waves, society tells women to be well-behaved.»

So she found other means of expression. She was a soloist with the Nantes Conservatoire choir, and dreamed of following in the footsteps of her idol Céline Dion. She also practiced ballet and modern jazz for ten years. Her father was convinced that Noémie was destined for a career in the arts. One day in the mid-2000s, he saw an advertisement for the Cours Florent and encouraged her to try her luck. The 17-year-old was scared, but eventually let herself be convinced. She headed for the capital, where the transition was rather brutal. «When I arrived, I was thinking: “I don't know anyone, I have no culture... What am I going to do?”» She compensated for her imposter syndrome with a thirst for knowledge. Here she lists the directors she needed to catch up with: Bergman, Cassavetes, the great Italian filmmakers like Visconti. And reading? «There's nothing to be done about it, I just can’t», she says frankly.

At the same time, she pursued modeling to «earn money, even if you only got paid in clothes», she says pragmatically. She did photo shoots, fashion shows, and trips without really thinking about it. She didn't want to «bite the hand that fed her», and would realize only much later the full extent of the toll this experience took on her. The «Shut up and look pretty», the memory of being sexually assaulted by a photographer, the feeling that her body was no longer her own. To the point where she weighed only 45 kilos. «That gave me a massive eating disorder, which I'm still trying to overcome. I was anorexic-bulimic for almost ten years. I'm not any more, but I'm still hypervigilant about what I eat, and I'm always careful not to let myself go.»

There was only one thing to do: get out of the fashion world as quickly as possible. Sometimes, it's all about meeting someone. In 2013, the actress auditioned for Les Héritiers, a film by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar inspired by a true story. It tells the story of how a teacher enrolls her most unruly pupils in a history competition, an experience that will change their worldview. Noémie Merlant was 24, but looked young enough to play the class rebel, wearing a leather jacket and with headphones on. On set, the filmmaker was impressed by her talent and intense presence.

Filming with Desplechin

A year later, another text message: «Would you be available to meet? I'd like to talk to you.» [Mention-Schaar] offered her the role of an average young girl, radicalized by jihadists, in Le Ciel attendra. To prepare for the role, Noémie Merlant met with teenage girls in the process of deradicalization, and tried to understand their mindset. «We found girls from all social backgrounds, cultures and religions. For many of these teenagers, there was the feeling of being misunderstood by society, but also frequently the beginnings of anxiety about death and shame. The desire for an ideal, for something unconditional, even in love stories.» The film was released in a volatile context, less than a year after the attacks on November 13. But the actress took a cleareyed view of this phenomenon, which she believed revealed youth in search of meaning.

This total commitment paid off: in 2017, she was nominated for a César in the Most Promising Actress category. In an interview filmed around this time, she appears smiling and fulfilled. Well aware, too, that the road ahead is fraught with pitfalls: «The hardest thing is to maintain self-confidence, even when you don't believe in yourself, or when you have periods of emptiness.»

What was Noémie Merlant dreaming of at this very moment? When asked about whom she’d like to collaborate with, she almost mechanically cited Arnaud Desplechin or Abdellatif Kechiche. She didn't know it yet, but the revolution would be born in a female microcosm. In 2019, the young woman played a painter hired to create the likeness of an aristocrat (Adèle Haenel) in Portrait de la jeune fille en feu. Céline Sciamma's fourth feature is an incredibly intimate costume drama: a manor house, a cliff overlooking the sea and just four characters. At first, the actress was confused by the script: «Conflicts are nonexistent or immediately defused.» The absence of dominance hierarchies unsettled her: there were no saviors or anyone being saved; there were creators but no muses. «Just a gentleness and a wonderful equality. And in spite of everything, there’s an exciting story full of surprises. That's what makes it so powerful.» A head-on collision between two great actresses, where their eyes meet, sizing each other up, caressing each other. Like when Noémie Merlant’s character places a mirror between her lover's thighs, then sketches her self-portrait.

A box-office success across the Atlantic and a critical triumph, the film was in the running for ten awards at the 2020 Césars. But on the evening of the ceremony, one name brought all the tensions into focus: Roman Polanski. The director, who is currently facing several rape allegations, had been nominated in several categories for his film J'accuse. French cinema had never been so fractured. Adèle Haenel, who revealed that she had been molested as a child by director Christophe Ruggia, was in shock. For her, honoring Polanski was tantamount to «spitting in the face of all victims». No one heeded her: the filmmaker won the prize for best director, to the applause of part of the audience. «Someone shouted: “Well done!” recalls Noémie Merlant. It was clearly a response to Adèle's speaking out.» In protest, the cast of Portrait de la jeune fille en feu left the auditorium, after shouting a resounding «Shame!» In the wake of her commitment, Adèle Haenel announced her retirement from cinema in 2023. Has Noémie Merlant thought about following her example? «It wasn't easy to keep going, she acknowledges. I admire Adèle's courage. But staying is also a way of continuing the fight.» The actress has no illusions about the seventh art. No promotional newspeak, no generalities or shortcuts in her remarks. Even when she salutes the «extraordinary people» she has worked with, she qualifies that with «but that's not always the case». You get the sense that she is torn between the desire to talk about her difficult experiences and the fear of endless controversy. She mentions «casting directors, actors, who promise you things». How do you recognize them?  «Thanks to my experience as a model, I'm like a fish that spots the hook before the worm.»

Portrait de la jeune fille en feu «changed everything» for her. She set off in search of more meaningful roles. She reassessed her place not only in cinema, but also in the world. She reflected on «patriarchal oppression», confronted the traumas that resurfaced. «Even my relationship dynamic no longer suited me.» She left her partner at the time and moved in with Sanda Codreanu, a friend from the Cours Florent. She hesitates over the precise terms, but speaks of «escape» and «sanctuary». In this haven, words flow freely and bodies are liberated. They laugh as much as they talk about the violence they've suffered. She, who used to move from one relationship to another, embraced a new perspective on relationships. Why should romantic love count for more than friendships? Why force yourself to have sex to please the other person? Noémie Merlant now knows what she wants... or rather what she doesn't want. These days, she's in a «healthy, unstructured» relationship. She adds: «We're not afraid to experience things separately. The important thing is that each of us is fulfilled.»

The Cate Blanchett method

Recovery also involves the body. Onscreen nudity doesn't bother her. «There are fewer and fewer actresses who agree to undress, which I understand. But I don't have any issue with it, so I'm happy to go for it. I think there are things to explore and advocate for in this freedom.» She asserts her willingness to explore eroticism and sexuality through the eyes of other directors. Female desire in all its forms is a common thread running through her filmography: she develops an attraction to an amusement park ride in Jumbo, plays a writer infatuated with a libertine photographer in Curiosa.

For a long time, sex scenes had been reduced to a few lines in a script and improvised on set. In Jacques Audiard's Les Olympiades, the ballet of bodies is carefully designed. Playing a thirtysomething woman who becomes fascinated by a camgirl, Noémie Merlant was coached by choreographer Stéphanie Chêne. She learned to abandon dialogue in favor of her gaze and body language. For the first time, she thought about her character's movements. «It allows you to feel safe and to work with respect above all else. And so you can go further, seeking precision through imagination.» Farewell to the good little girl. She avoids tyrannical filmmakers, those who push the actors' limits. At one point, when a director tried to manipulate her to extract emotions, she almost walked off the set. «I made him understand that I was making this film above all for pleasure and for creativity, and that I couldn't accomplish anything with that kind of method. In the end, it turned out well, but I wish I hadn’t had to go through that.» It was like revenge for all those outbursts she’d had to swallow.

Behind the camera, Noémie Merlant has also chosen irreverence. In her second feature, Les Femmes au balcon, she imagines a Marseilles-style Rear Window, somewhere between comedy and outright gore. The pitch: three girlfriends have fun spying on their mysterious neighbor across the street, with whom they develop a relationship that goes beyond exhibitionism. It was difficult for her to find an actress who would agree to film naked, until she came across the luminous Souheila Yacoub. One question nagged at her: how to film a body without sexualizing it? First, by disarming the issue with humor. «Right from the start, I give the viewer a heads-up: “Here you go, boobs. Now that you've had a good look at them, let's move on.”» She also uses the expression «shirtless» for women, a way of denouncing double standards. There's no idealizing of her heroines' bodies. She films them in their everyday lives, in positions that are not always flattering, and welcomes a touch of vulgarity. «It's a form of sincerity as well.»

Taking risks is finally paying off. In the last couple of years, Noémie Merlant has turned a corner in her career. Like Marion Cotillard, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Juliette Binoche, she is now sought out by foreign filmmakers. In 2021, Todd Field sent her the script for Tár. And for a significant role. She plays the assistant to a famous orchestra conductor, starring opposite Cate Blanchett – and speaking perfect English. An intimidating experience? Idolization is not her style: «It's important to demystify people who are in the limelight.» Still, she took the time to observe Cate Blanchett in action. The way she handled a complicated sequence shot or filmed the same scene twenty times without complaining. Her ability to juggle lessons: piano, German, baton handling. «There's no mystery. It's all about the love of the craft, precision and the quest to relinquish yourself to the role.» She adds, a bit idealistically: «Often the ones who succeed are also good people... Not always, but I prefer to tell myself that.»

Yet Noémie Merlant has no desire to sacrifice her whole life for her profession. For a long time, she took one role after another, as if for fear of missing out or being forgotten. These days, her priorities have changed. «I want to do Qua-li-ty», she says with a smile and a funny inflection. Wouldn't this be a good time to enjoy it, too? Her financial situation now allows her to help her family. She has adapted her house to accommodate her father, who has been in a wheelchair since having a stroke in 2009. She has helped her parents find a new home, and paid for outside help to relieve her «very exhausted» mother. How does her father view her success today? «He's very, very, very proud. He tells himself that he was lucky, because it might not have worked out.» He follows every step of her career, keeping track of every press article. «He's definitely going to be handing out Vanity Fair to all his friends.» You can sense her admiration for this close-knit clan, for their ability to face adversity. A few years ago, she took out her camera to film them in their daily lives, around Christmas time. She has started editing, but still has some work to do. Recently, she went back to the rushes, but hasn't managed to finalize the project. Perhaps it's too intimate. I propose a hypothesis: what if she had primarily sought to freeze time? She continues: «There's something interesting about the way they talk, the way they live, with a lot of humor and joy in spite of everything. I want to share this story, because it can do a lot of people good.» Could this be the next step toward freedom?

[Please don’t repost this anywhere, in part or in whole. Feel free to reblog, or at least cite your source and provide a link back here. Asking permission would be nice in an ideal world, but I’m a realist – I know far too well how easy it is to appropriate stuff on Tumblr. I would be the first to admit that my translations are not perfect – there are some words and phrases that simply do not drop neatly into an equivalent in English, and I constantly fix typos and make changes or corrections in older posts – but they do take a lot of work and time. Thanks for understanding. - C.]

h/t @morningmightcomebyaccident - thank you, Grey!

#Noémie Merlant #Les Femmes au balcon #Emmanuelle #L'Innocent #Portrait of a Lady on Fire #Céline Sciamma #Les Olympiades #TÁR #Vanity Fair France #July 2024 #thank you‚ Grey!#long post #my translation

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