Updated yesterday at 6:00 am.
During her remarkable career spanning more than 60 years, Catherine Deneuve, who celebrated her 80th birthday in October, played very few characters that existed. Certainly the imperial actress has played some crowning heads on the big and small screen, such as Anna of Austria in D’Artagnan (2001) by Peter Hyams, Marie Bonaparte in Princess Marie (2004) by Benoît Jacquot and Catherine II of Russia in God Loves Caviar (2012) by Yannis Smaragdis. However, there are very few biographical films for her, thank you!
“No, pfff!” the person wearing Bernadette Chirac’s Chanel suits in Léa Domenach’s first feature film shouts on the phone. “I agreed to do it because it was a comedy and not a biopic in the true sense of the word. It’s still something completely different and I liked that. What I particularly liked about it is, of course, that it is a revenge story. If it had just been done seriously, to really tell the story of his life, I wouldn’t have cared. »
In this playful and unusual satire of Bernadette, Catherine Deneuve demonstrates great comic ease. Seeing how she delights in every comment she throws at her on-screen partners makes us regret that she hasn’t starred in comedies more often. “Because there aren’t enough,” she says.
It’s very difficult to write a comedy script. In fact, unfortunately it’s very rare because I would have really liked it [d’en jouer davantage].
Catherine Deneuve
Bernadette Chirac, née Chodron de Courcel, entered the Élysée in 1995 when her husband Jacques Chirac (Michel Vuillermoz) succeeded François Mitterrand. The First Lady of France barely has time to enjoy the victory of the Republic’s new President before her daughter Claude (Sara Giraudeau) makes it clear to her that she must be discreet. But with the support of her chief of staff Bernard Niquet (Denis Podalydès), she becomes the darling of the French people.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY CINEMANIA
Michel Vuillermoz and Catherine Deneuve in Bernadette
Pay attention to your rights
A woman of the left who campaigned for abortion rights and even signed the “Manifesto of the 343 Sluts” in 1971, and in the 1980s for the abolition of the death penalty, Catherine Deneuve, awarded in 1985 Her facial features opposite Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic, did not know the wife of the leader of the Rally for the Republic (RPR), a right-wing party that claims General de Gaulle’s political ideas.
“I met her two or three times, but I never had lunch or dinner with her,” she explains.
I knew what I always think, which is that she’s a really intelligent, sophisticated woman who has a pretty dry mind, who can be pretty cold, but also has a sense of humor. Many people who didn’t know her always spoke of a cold and dry woman, which unfortunately was said about everything else.
Catherine Deneuve, about Bernadette Chirac
Since she didn’t want to do archival research and interviews before filming, Catherine Deneuve reveals that she learned the most about her character from reading “Conversation” (Plon, 2001), in which Bernadette Chirac confides in journalist Patrick de Carolis Having learned, he said in 2015 that her union with Jacques Chirac was “not just a marriage of love, but a marriage of ambition”.
PHOTO BRYNN ANDERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Catherine Deneuve at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021
“No, it was nothing more than a love marriage!” believes the actress. Why are you saying that? Oh no no! She was very much in love with her husband and honestly it shouldn’t have been this easy for her. I think she had ambition for him, but not for herself. She also went through things with her daughter and her husband that I think were hard and difficult, so I think her character became much more withdrawn at times. »
At the request of her daughter Claude, who was her father’s advisor from 1989 to 2007, Bernadette Chirac, who was considered outdated with her pastel-colored outfits and embarrassed with her outspokenness, had to change her image and pay attention to her language. “According to her daughter, she did things that were too direct, so she made him change because in politics you always have to be diplomatic. »
Catherine Deneuve bore no resemblance to Bernadette Chirac or attempted to imitate the former first lady. Initially grumpy and argumentative, her Bernadette later turns out to be almost endearing, even touching.
“It was the director’s decision,” says the actress modestly. Before I played her, I had no real idea of her. What I’m left with is what was developed as part of the project, the things she did and the things I read in the book, so I didn’t go into them much further. »
At the Imperial Cinema on November 12th, 11 a.m., as part of Cinemania
In cinemas from November 17th