DVD/150: FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG (Mark Rappaport, 1995)

Before the mendacious biopic SEBERG and excellent documentary JEAN SEBERG: ACTRESS ACTIVIST ICON, independant film-maker Mark Rappaport made Jean his second meditation on cinema: FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG.

Casting Mary Beth Hurt is a master-stroke: facially similar, Hurt is also from Marshalltown, Iowa and actually had teenage Jean as a baby-sitter when small.

Through Rappaport's sly use of montage, Jean reflects on how she was exploited by Otto Preminger's humiliating treatment on the sets of SAINT JOAN and BONJOUR TRISTESSE and the bizarre way her second husband Romain Gary cast her in two films as a nymphomaniacal victim.

Through this, Rappaport addresses how male directors cast their actress partners as prostitutes or nymphos and how Hollywood morality influenced female characters' sexualty.

The most successful sequence connects the lives and careers of Jean with fellow actress activists Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda - and why they "survived".

Shelf or charity shop?  Def Shelf.  Rappaport's theories might be a bit of a stretch at times - get this: Jean was married to Romain Gary who asserted that he was the illegitimate son of Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine whose close-up from a silent film was used by film director/theorist Lev Kuleshov to prove how the viewer projects the emotion onto a scene - he intercut Mosjoukine's blank expression between shots of a dead woman, a child playing and food and his original viewers claimed the actor's expression changed every time - so by inter-cutting Jean's blank expression from A BOUT DE SOUFFLE's final scene, he links Jean to Russian revolutionary film-making... yeah right.  However at the film's climax thankfully he drops the tricks and allows us to focus on Mary Beth Hurt's emotional recounting of the FBI's 1970 campaign to discredit her and her subsequent miscarriage.  Although the film allows for humour and sarcastic takes on Hollywood, ultimately Rappaport's film leaves you sad for Jean, as it should do.

 

DVD/150: BONJOUR TRISTESSE (Otto Preminger, 1958)

After SAINT JOAN's failure, Otto Preminger chose the best-selling BONJOUR TRISTESSE, written by Francoise Sagan when she was 18, as a second vehicle for his discovery Jean Seberg, still only 20 years-old.

As with SAINT JOAN, Preminger bullied Seberg during filming and the film's American failure resulted in him ending their three-picture contract.

The film is told in flashback: Cecile is 18, indifferent to her glamourous Parisian life with Raymond, her rich playboy father with his parade of new girlfriends but inside she is tormented by events from the previous summer when they vacationed on the Riviera.

Joined by Raymond's latest mistress, the scatter-brained Elsa, they are suddenly visited by Anne, best friend of Cecile's late mother. Fashion designer Anne has a refined poise which attracts Raymond.

When they announce their engagement, Cecile slowly realises Anne will disrupt her relationship with Raymond and decides to act...

Shelf or charity shop?  Sunbathing on the shelf!  While not perfect - the clashing of English, American, French and Italian accents strains the ears - BONJOUR TRISTESSE rewards repeat viewings.  Jean Seberg has an excellent screen relationship with David Niven but she really impresses when Cecile is faced with Anne's kill-joy personality and becomes a wilful, vengeful teenager.  Deborah Kerr is effective as Anne and also enjoys a good partnership with Niven who gives a nicely nuanced performance. Preminger made a good choice to have the 'present-day' Paris scenes shot in cool black & white and the Riviera scenes in lush colour.  An odd supporting cast include two nice turns from British actresses Martita Hunt and Jean Kent as two Riviera denizens and a haunting appearance by Juliette Greco.  Although Jean's performance was dismissed in English-language reviews, both Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard both praised her; Godard saying that her performance as Cecile easily lead into her role as Patricia in his iconic A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (BREATHLESS).

 

DVD/150: MOVIE STAR: THE SECRET LIVES OF JEAN SEBERG (Garry McKee / Kelly Rundle, 2020)

Garry McKee and film-makers Kelly and Tammy Rundle started MOVIE STAR in 2007, based around McKee's 1991 interview with Seberg's sister Mary Ann. Their 2014 film has now been revised for a DVD release, a definite labour of love.

It easily eclipses the biopic SEBERG which made up it's own lies to show how Jean was ruined by lies.

 

It shows how Jean, aged 17, was chosen by Otto Preminger to star in ST JOAN, and how that instant celebrity backfired when her two Preminger-directed films failed.

 

But after starring in Godard's A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, Jean became sought after in European and American films.

 

 

But in 1970, the FBI started a covert smear operation against her after she financially supported the Black Panthers.  A planted Newsweek story questioning the parentage of her expected baby led to Jean miscarrying.  In 1979, Jean was found dead aged only 40.

Shelf or charity shop? A definite keeper - well I am in the end credits for helping support it.  McKee and the Rundles' tenacity in getting MOVIE STAR made and distributed is to be applauded as the result is visually appealing and stimulating in it's recounting the rollercoaster short life of one of my favourite actresses.  Owing to Jean's instant fame in 1957, the film-makers can tell Jean's story through a wide range of film clips, tv interviews, photographs, and newspaper & magazine cuttings.  They also have the good fortune to have McKee's interviews with Mary Ann Seberg (interviewed only 12 years after Jean's death, Mary Ann's emotions are all too understandable), Marshaltown contemporaries and others including BONJOUR TRISTESSE co-star Mylene Demongeot, Jean's first husband Francois Moreuil and a remarkably frank contribution from former Black Panther leader Elaine Brown.  The constant presence of Jean's Iowa background seems odd at first but it slowly evolves into another fascinating story of how small-town Marshaltown became ambivalent towards her, her European lifestyle and her lifelong activism for disadvantaged people while Jean, in local press interviews when returning to see her family, always talked up her career prospects, even in the late 1970s when her films became more obscure.  If you wish to support the last fundraising appeal to complete the DVD release, please click here - MOVIE STAR deserves to be seen.

 

DVD/150: LA LIGNE DE DÉMARCATION (Line of Demarcation) (Claude Chabrol, 1966)

Chabrol's resistance drama has possibly been overshadowed by Jean-Pierre Melville's later L'ARMÉE DES OMBRES (Army of Shadows) which is similar in tone - Melville delves deeper into the resistance's layered operations - but Chabrol's under-rated film is both an involving WWII thriller and a portrait of a society's failings and humanity.

1941: a village in the Jura mountains is dissected by a river and the war: Nazi-occupied France on one side of the bridge, the Free Zone on the other.

Count Pierre returns, demobilised after being wounded, and discovers the Nazis have commandeered his chateau.  His English wife Mary lives in the hunting lodge and Pierre discovers she helps the Resistance move escapees over the river to the free zone.

He refuses to help, disenchanted with the resistance's piecemeal achievements, but when a wounded spy is hidden by the townsfolk and the Gestapo close in, Pierre has to act.

Shelf or charity shop?  This is a shelf candidate for several reasons: I will definitely watch this again for Chabrol's firm grasp of the story-telling and his sharp character delineation, a fine performance from Jean Seberg as the conscientious Mary, and quietly impressive performances from Maurice Ronet as Pierre, Daniel Gélin as the town's doctor, Stéphane Audran as the doctor's wife, Roger Dumas as the double-dealing poacher Chétl, Mario David as a vengeful game-warden and Noel Roquevert as the town's plain-speaking café owner.  Several times the influence of Roberto Rossellini's PAISÁ is felt in the film's unflinching depiction of the casual indifference to life during wartime.

Dvd/150: SAINT JOAN (Otto Preminger, 1957)

As it's 40 years since Jean Seberg's tragic death, I watched SAINT JOAN, the film that started - and nearly ended - her career.

Otto Preminger launched a worldwide search for an unknown to play Joan in his film of George Bernard Shaw's play and 18 year-old Jean from Marshalltown,  Iowa was chosen.  Preminger bullied her relentlessly during filming earning her the sympathy of co-stars like John Gielgud.

She suffered physically too while filming the execution scene when she received minor burns when the under-set gas jets flared up out of control.

Her fragile confidence was again knocked when the film opened to bad reviews with critics highlighting her obvious inexperience.

Yes she is inconsistent but that is unsurprising with her lack of experience and Preminger's undermining bullying but she has an unsettling directness and is wonderful in key scenes like the recantation at the end of her trial.

Shelf or charity shop?  An obvious keeper for Jean but also for Gielgud's supercilious Warwick, Felix Aylmer and Anton Walbrook's thorough trial judges and Victor Maddern's cockney soldier who is allowed out of Hell for one day a year for giving Joan a makeshift cross at the stake.