Thursday, November 16, 2006

Isabelle Huppert Interview

A delightful profile and interview of Isabelle Huppert, "the queen of arthouse psychosis," as the guardian calls her.

I hadn't read this guardian review of Piano Teacher before...

At the premiere of Michael Haneke's last film but one, Funny Games - that intensely bewildering orgy of off-camera violence - audiences started staggering out after about 20 minutes, offended, revolted or maybe just winded. At the Cannes unveiling of The Piano Teacher this year, I like to think the critical community crossed the finishing line in better shape. We were just numbly silent, twitchily uncertain of when to speak. Only one person was in tears. I was reasonably calm but I think I remember leaving the auditorium on my hands and knees.

I think he is exaggerating but I remember being shaken and drained too by both the movies, but I really loved them both... And I think Code Unknown, that Haneke made in between, is even better than these two.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alok
have not seen the movie but read the book The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the Nobel prize

Alok said...

Wow, I actually tried reading it a few months back but got distracted after reading the first fifty or so pages. It is on my list.

I really love this film, though it really horrified me when I saw it first. It is one of greatest acting performances I have ever seen in movies.

I found some clips from the movie on youtube. The video contrast is slightly messed up but it is still good.

Anonymous said...

thank you for sharing her interview with us.certainly stands out as one of the most immaculately orchestrated conversation with a brilliant woman
who integrates self with the situation/life and herself.
I especially liked these bits...
"She is also fiendishly clever...
her sparrow-like build, she has been known to devour lazy journalists whole..."
(An applause)
and how effortlessly she redefined acting to the world as non-figurative painting....even the most passive viewer would get up and sink along with her into the skin of character...
remember your query on the "existence of gender" and its insignificant contribution to life & existence...
I feel she reflects on this.."He takes her weakness and she takes his strength.."

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing the interview alok, was great. :)

random thought on the arrogance and transient nature of power...famous poem by shelley:

OZYMANDIAS of EGYPT

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Alok said...

jyothsna: glad you liked it, you should check out her movies too... she is really great.

neha: thanks a lot for those lines by Shelley... I loved these

"Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

* said...

oh I am so delayed...(slothlike...) I liked Huppert when she played in Bachmann's Malina, but this is very sad....
and anotehr delayed thing, found a Benjaminian saturnine quote but forgot where....so i tell you later :)

Alok said...

for some reason I can't find Malina on a DVD here... :(

put up that quote on your blog when you find it :)