Icon of French Cinema. It is with this mini-series produced by Arte that Judith Godrèche returned to the forefront in December, after years of reserve, far from the “big family” of French cinema. The 51-year-old actress recounted, in a satirical tone, her imaginary comeback in the French cinematic landscape.
In the street, we see her confused with Juliette Binoche, her auditions go crazy!, her younger daughter (played by her real daughter, Tess Barthélemy) wants to go on tour with her dance teacher. Which brings to the surface memories of his own beginnings at the hands of a predatory pygmalion director, Éric (Loïc Corbery), 25 years his senior. But Judith perseveres.
Autofiction brought to the screen, the production gave a glimpse of the very real continuation of the story. The actress announced this week that she had filed a complaint against Benoît Jacquot, 25 years older than her, who had directed her on screen and with whom she had maintained a relationship for several years from the age of 14 years. A preliminary investigation was opened “into the offenses of rape of a minor under 15 years of age by a person in authority, rape, violence by a partner, and sexual assault of a minor over 15 years of age by a person in authority”. Judith Godrèche on Thursday accused another director, Jacques Doillon, for his behavior when he directed her when she was fifteen years old. The preliminary investigation was extended to these alleged facts. These wounds, long deaf and silent, are today in the public square. However, they appeared on social networks where the actress posts archive videos of interviews with Benoît Jacquot or herself on sets, testimonies from a not so distant era.
At 12, Judith Godrèche debuted in front of Nadine Trintignant’s camera. She then quickly crossed paths with Benoît Jacquot, who put her on the bill in Les Mendiants in 1988, in Les Désenchantés in 1990. She also filmed La Fille de quatre ans with Jacques Doillon in 1989. Precocious talent, mute beauty, she was in competing for the César for Most Promising Actress in 1991. If she bowed to Judith Henry, her career was launched: she carried the great costume frescoes and the flagship comedies of the 1990s and 2000s. From Beaumarchais to Potiche via Ridicule, L’AubergeEspagne, Bimboland. She even played opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask.
Then she became rare, to the point of almost disappearing from the screens, moving to the United States. A sabbatical decade that was anything but sterile since it nourished his very personal project: Icon of French Cinema.
“At 40, I lost sight of the horizon of my desires. I struggled to piece together the puzzle of my life. I had been in cinema for so long, conditioned by the way directors looked at me. What did I really want to do? Despite my long filmography, I always had the impression of having arrived there by chance. Then HBO asked me to write a series about a French actress in Los Angeles experiencing the clash of American cultures and fantasies,” says Judith Godrèche. The project does not come to fruition. But in Californian anonymity, she feels free to start from scratch, to let go of repressed humor and self-deprecation. Influenced by Phoebe Waller Bridge and Larry David, she slips in the incongruous and the surreal into Icon of French Cinema, like this conversation with a giant cuddly toy.
The flashbacks, where she is played by the impressive Alma Struve, have a nightmarish quality, the look of a child lost in the rituals and worldliness of adults, too noisy, too much makeup. “ I start with pieces of reality and I push them to the end. It took me a while to come to terms with my inner violence. I was constantly tempted to soften the angles to stay within the archetype of this nice girl. The heroine of the series tries to rebuild herself, to re-establish herself in her industry. »
Through the character of Eric, Judith Godrèche slays her ghosts. Without yet settling accounts by name. Without showing any bitterness or a spirit of vengeance. With poignant lucidity. “There was no single person responsible. I grew up in a complicit society where art was an absolute privilege. No one around me was offended when, at 15, I had to do 45 takes of the same scene shirtless while kissing an actor twice my age. The challenge is to accept what built us in this previous world, fortunately past,” explained Judith Godrèche in December. His awareness is less linked to
A few weeks after the broadcast of the series, the weight of these past and lost years apparently became too heavy for Judith Godrèche. And the world of today looks without pretense at this “world before, fortunately gone”.
