Since her film debut in 1948, the face has changed, but the essence has not. One can watch any Jeanne Moreau film today and recall a moment of contrast combining allure and detachment, mystery and verisimilitude, crudeness and refinement.

In the past, she has shared adventures with Pierre Cardin, Louis Malle, William Friedkin, and has worked with the most influential directors of cinema’s last 50 years. Her credits include such foreign classics as: Antonioni’s “La Notte,” Truffaut’s “Jules et Jim,” Welles’ “Falstaff/Chimes at Midnight” and “The Trial,” Bunuel’s “Diary of a Chambermaid,” and Malle’s “Viva Maria,” and “Elevator to the Gallows.” She chooses a role for its director, not for its character, and is now an established director herself with “Lumiere” (1976), and “L’Adolescente” (1979), currently in release, starring Simone Signoret. As actress, Moreau can now be seen in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film, “Querelle.”

Jeanne Moreau: the ultimate French star

MARK GINSBURG: When you look back on your life and career, do you often flash back to one particular point?

JEANNE MOREAU: No. I flash back to lots of things, but I don’t linger.

MG: In Europe, doesn’t a recognized artist command more respect than in America? Isn’t the work that you’ve made more meaningful to the public in Europe?

JM: For myself, I find more respect in this country than in Europe. But in the day-to-day life, I don’t use it. I never say who I am and ask for the best seats, no. On the contrary, I love cooking, and I do my own food shopping. Because I’m Jeanne Moreau, the first time it doesn’t mean people are very nice. On the contrary! And it’s because they get to know me — for example, the butcher serves me well because he knows I know about meat, you know? I’m respected as a person who knows what she wants in preparing the food. And even in the south of France, where I have been living now for 20 years, and where I have owned a house, I have been accepted. But in the beginning I was just one of those —

MG: Those?

JM: A star, a whore.

MG: Is that a reflection of society’s conservatism about show people?

JM: Oh, yes. People on the street or in restaurants talk about me as if I wasn’t there. As if I were still an object on the screen. They talk openly, loudly, about me, my life: “Wow, surely she earned her life with her ass,” and things like that.

MG: And what do you say?

JM: Nothing — they’re not speaking to me, they are speaking about me. At first, when I was much younger, I was very hurt. Then I gave up being hurt, and began to find it very interesting and revealing about those people who were talking about me.

MG: Do you read what is written about you?

JM: No.

MG: Pehaps they’re talking about what’s been printed about you.

JM: Well, maybe. But, no, maybe it’s in their very narrow imagination. Of course, now that I am getting older, people have more respect. And maybe that’s a conventional, unconscious attitude towards women: “She’s older now, so she fucks less.” As you are no longer such a hot piece of cake, they can allow themselves to be more respectful. But sometimes people come up to me, and I speak very openly with them. I was making the film with Techiné, French Provincial (1975). We all lived in a small hotel in a tiny town in southwestern France. The production had very little money, so we were forced to have our lunch and dinner at the hotel. On Sundays it was very painful because everybody around knew that there was a film crew. Curiosity seekers and the bourgeois would gather to eat and drink a lot, and then come up to our table. There were two couples, about fortyish, and they were talking and talking. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t mind. At one point they came up and offered a bottle champagne to the crew who were with me. We accepted it and just sat there. Then the two women started speaking with me and of course their big preocuppation was aging. So, I said to them, “Come on, let’s not make a big fuss about it. Anyway, the main point is that we’re going to die, and I’m certain of one thing: I’m going to die young.” Baah! They took that badly, “Why should you die young?!” “Well,” I said, “because it’s going to be like that. I’ll die aging like everybody, but even if I’m 75 or 80, I’ll die young.” Then they hated me, both of them, so they got up and left.

MG: Recently you said in an interview, “A woman of my age, I see many things, I see the earth aging around me. The trees I knew as saplings have grown so tall and so old…. ” If I hadn’t read that you were 54, I would have guessed that you were 70, you were so ponderous.

JM: In French I never use the word “aging.” I surely would not have used that verb. First of all, I’m very close to nature, instinctively. Plants, insects, the earth – okay? I’ve ‘been living in a house I bought 20 years ago. And there’s a very old oak tree, about 300 years old; I can see that tree age, because I have people come to cut off the dead or dying branches that could be dangerous to people. On a trip I made, I went back to a forest that I hadn’t seen since I was very tiny. I remembered a beautiful forest. Now it hasn’t been looked after, it’s been abandoned, it looks really old, dirty and unkempt. While travelling by car in this country of mine, France, I’ve noticed things that have been erased: huge holes that have been dug. So the landscapes are like faces – some things have been torn apart.

MG: You see things as aging, others might see them as progressing.

JM: I see it aging, but I didn’t mean it’s all decaying. It’s transforming. But progressing – did you never think where we’re going when we progress? The real harmony, the true one, is that things grow, they die, to allow something else to grow and die. It’s the same for civilization. So progression, as you put it, leads to an end before there is a beginning.

MG: For you it seems to be a beginning now. Why at 54 do you have more energy, more inertia, than previously?

JM: It has nothing to do with 54, it has to do with the things I had to go through.

MG: Couldn’t this have happened at 30 or 40?

JM: Being me, no. Maybe with someone else, perhaps. I am a little retarded, you know. I discovered, accepted, being a grownup only when I was 40 years old.

MG: Is that one of the privileges of being a successful actress, of a role-player?

JM: Maybe the privilege of an actess, the way I do it, is to deal with oneself and some very profound things, that would otherwise have been completely ignored. When you have to become a character — a foreigner, a stranger — of course the material you use is yourself; your emotions, your imagination. Digging inside and around yourself makes you discover things that are really amazing. Acting has nothing to do with narcissim or egocentrism, rather it relates you to the rest of the world.

MG: But with that comes a certain solitude, and, maybe selfishness.

JM: Solitude, yes, but solitude doesn’t mean selfishness. It’s very healthy to be selfish. In French the word is “egoiste”; it has to do with ego. The solitude you are talking about is not only my lot, it’s everybody’s. It has nothing to do with isolation, it is not a choice, that is the way we are born, that’s the way we live, and in creating, it’s a need. As time passes, I discover that I had that even as a child: I need to be alone a certain time during the day. I absolutely need it. As I know more about myself and my needs, I know more about others and their needs. And the energy you have referred to is the fun I have when I wake up in the morning and must face new things, or go on with what I’ve already begun. It is possible because I — and I hope it will not happen again — have not been depressed for a long, long time. I haven’t been invaded by this strong anxiety, unexplainable, that can make you faint.

MG: Doesn’t that mean that as an actress you are now so distant from a certain set of emotions that you might need to draw on for a performance? I would think that as he grows more tranquil, the actor’s range of emotions diminishes.

JM: No. I am a much better actress now, much better. On the contrary, this calm and this strength that is for the moment, doesn’t cut me off from the violent emotions, the violent pains or anxieties; that’s not it at all.

MG: Does this calm have anything to do with your decision to continue directing?

JM: No. My decision to do more directing is not a decision. I very rarely make decisions. When I divorced William Friedkin, I went back to Paris and had to fight to find money for L’Adolescente. I didn’t have an apartment in Paris anymore. I had this big house in the South. Some people live there, they’ve been working for me about 25 years now. So I couldn’t let them down, I had to support them. So I had to work a lot; I had to earn money. I went back onstage, made records, worked as an actress. When you do that, you’re fighting for your daily bread; you cannot then say, “Stop, I have to work on my script.” I’d been taking notes, studying, making inquiries for about three years. I knew when that was enough and that it was time to lead a different life, sell my house, and not to be forced to make a lot of money just to keep it going. Then I did my film.

MG: Is acting work? Do you think that if you didn’t have to do it, you wouldn’t?

JM: No, no. But I’ve never experienced that in my life. That’s the big difference, the privilege, when someone decides very young in life, “I’m going to do this, it’s my choice.” So even if it’s painful, hard work, it goes beyond the fact that you need to work to make money to live.

MG: In the first film you directed, Lumière (1976); I cannot forget you lying in bed and chatting directly under a wall laden with knives. Were these knives something from your own experience, or merely set decoration?

JM: The knives were a present from a friend of mine with a collection. I love knives, so maybe some people will find a profound, psychoanalytic meaning! I travel with knives, too. When I do something, like taking care of the flowers, I use a knife. At my friend’s place in L.A. I did the cooking and used my own knife. When I go to Japan, I buy knives.

MG: You never see them as a weapon that could possibly be used against you?

JM: No. I see the knife as an instrument.

MG: You say you have more energy now – but, in fact, you’ve made 72 films.

JM: No, I haven’t made so many. When you think that I started making films in 1948, that’s not much. Some actors have been working for only 15 years and have made as much. I have more energy now, yes. The fact that you are pleased to wake up at seven in the morning makes a big difference, rather than waking up at seven full of anxiety and going back to sleep until eleven. Then you drag yourself out of bed, and though you’ve written notes about the things you ought to do, and the phone calls you ought to make, you make your tea, open the curtains and feel so — phhhsss! You know you have to do it, but you don’t do it.

MG: In your two films as director you portray women. Why haven’t you portrayed men?

JM: I concentrate more on women, that’s the point of view of the director. The same plot can be told ten different ways. As an honest person I go with what is more familiar to me. But the women are always portrayed in relation to men. And now I speak more in terms of needs than desires, because I follow my instinct — my need is to make a film dealing with three men. It’s they who are going to be the leaders of the film in relation to the rest of the world, and other people. Amongst the other people there is a woman. That’s why I was so eager to work with an American novelist, Jim Harrison.

MG: Why did you start writing your autobiography during your marriage to Friedkin?

JM: Oh, I was asked to write it many, many years ago, and my contract to the publisher in Paris was signed in 1976, before I got married. I got married in 1977 and I came to this country. What can a woman do, looking after a house in L.A., and a flat here in N.Y., other than write?

MG: Did you decide to marry Friedkin in order to force certain changes, like moving to another country, and re-organizing your life?

JM: That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but surely there is some truth to that.

MG: How did the changes brought about through this marriage affect you?

JM: In a very violent way, but, in fact, in a good way.

MG: Do you mean psychological violence or physical violence?

JM: Oh, the pain! The grief!

MG: Was that pain shared?

JM: I have the impression it was very, very painful for Bill, but I can’t speak on his account. Though it must have been.

MG: When you directed for the first time, was there anything in particular you had to draw on in order to get through the anxiety of the evening before the first day’s shoot? Did you think oj your past directors, and how they coped with the enormous responsibility?

JM: Yes, but that I experienced before the first night. In fact, the first night before shooting Lumière, for example, I was less anxious than the night before I married Friedkin. I’m speaking of anxiety. The night before Lumière I slept very little, but very soundly. In the moments I was awake I tried to gather as much as I could of all the clear visions I had about the film. Because with all the memos and notepads – you’re so close to it in that short period before you go to sleep or just after you awaken – there is a word for that which Swedenborg used. I knew that, once into the work, in dealing with all the details, I might lose the clear vision.

MG: Didn’t you think about how your directors like Truffaut, Bunuel, or Losey might have done it?

JM: No, you don’t give a damn about other directors.

MG: When a film is being cast, an actress isn’t chosen only for her talent, but also for her public image – her scandals, or whatever. Was Fassbinder using your public life, your history, as well as your talent?

JM: I tell you that Fassbinder knew very well what he was doing when he cast me in Querelle. He knew I could give him something that he wanted, but he didn’t know exactly what. I didn’t know exactly what he wanted.

MG: You spoke a line in Losey’s newest film, The Trout, that has been quoted a lot recently: “Homosexuality and heterosexuality mean nothing, either you’re sexual or you’re not.” This makes perfect sense to me, but I saw that it offended some women in the film festival audience. Is it a statement you believe in?

JM: Well, it’s not by accident that this line was given to me, because it was hanging around and Joe didn’t know what to do with it. It was floating over the film. One day Joe asked what I thought of it, and if I could read it. So I said yes. A few days later he asked me to say it in the film. It is true that it’s something that I deeply feel. I think there is a profound difference between men and women, it’s not a difference in terms of society, or power. I’m not interested in politics. Someone who says men are different from women is usually speaking on behalf of their group in terms of power, possessing, and in terms of society. When I say I’m different from a man it is because through my body I physically experience different things than a man. If I try to imagine myself with a cock and balls, I can’t. Or if I can, it seems so strange and unknown to me. I presume if I was that way I would act with more fear and more confidence, both.

MG: Why fear and confidence?

JM: Well, fear because a man’s sex is exposed. Confidence because when it gets a hard-on it shows a sort of power. As a person I feel I’m very ambiguous, that I’m a mixture of everything. When you love someone passionately, you wish you could be everything – a man and a woman – fuck and be fucked, whatever. Sometimes your partner, not only in terms of sex, can feel difficulties, or need to rest. It’s a combination of things. Really, that phrase you mentioned is so true, and so lucid that I’m surprised people might be offended by it.

MG: Are you really surprised?

JM: Well, no, now that I think about it because certain people have a conventional point of view that instinctively takes them to the lowest point. In terms of sex, for them, it’s dirty. Heterosexuality now is more accepted; it has gained a titre de noblesse because of psychoanalysis and things. So already we’ve accepted sex that way, but if on top of all, these people should accept lovemaking between two human beings who are of the same sex, and respect that mystery — well, it’s too much. So they go to the lowest point of view and call it dirty, vicious, perverse. But there are perverts among heterosexuals. Some women have to admit after ten years of marriage that they’ve been raped constantly by their husbands. God!

MG: How did you feel about your having been a mother and a professional at the same time? Should you have done it differently?

JM: There are many ways to be a mother. I couldn’t do it differently.

MG: But did you want the baby?

JM: No. It came quite by accident. At that time there were no pills or things like that. If I could have made the decision, as one can now, I wouldn’t have had the baby. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love my son.

MG: Do you relate to any other actresses?

JM: No.

MG: You seem very much outside any category or style of acting.

JM: Well, think about all the great actresses. I am not humble. I mean, I think it’s God’s gift. I work and have worked a lot. I dedicated my life to acting, to films and theatre. I know I’m a good actress, and that we are all different. I. love to watch a good actress. Recently, François Truffaut appeared on television surrounded by three of his actresses: Nathalie Baye, Marie Dubois, and Fanny Ardant. They spoke some text by heart, including a poem by Cocteau. I thought, Well, if I were a man, I could only fall in love with an actress. Nothing is more fascinating than a beautiful actress!

MG: But surely, as an actress, you are aware of all the times you are not acting, and are quite dull or ordinary.

JM: I never act. Acting is not acting, for it to be good, it’s not pretending to be somebody else, it’s trying to be somebody else. It is getting deep, deep, deep to a sort of source of life that can amaze you sometimes. It’s not saying things and doing gestures you don’t feel. Some actors may do that, but to me that’s not acting.

MG: Do you have any political relationship with, or feelings about, Socialist France?

JM: I despise politics. Whatever politics – Left, Right, middle, back, and forth. I don’t want to be related to any movement of any groups. I’m an individual.

MG: Is there any director that you haven’t worked with but would like to?

JM: Yes, a young French director called Jacques Doillon. I like him very much. We will be working on a very low budget film together. He is very unpredictable, and I like that. But, yes, I think that Kubrick’s work is fascinating.

MG: Why do you always do your own make-up?

JM: Because I do it in ten minutes and I don’t like people I don’t know to touch my face.

MG: When will you shoot your next film?

JM: I hope to start it in Morocco in April, 1983. For now, it’s true that you’re my last interview, and I’m glad it’s all over. It’s a very demanding relationship – an interview.

MG: It’s demanding because you respect it.

JM: Yes. I respect it because it is an exchange, a conversation. It forces me to try to be clear about certain things, to clarify my feelings.  MG

published December 1982