Isabelle Huppert Movies
One of the most enduring and respected actresses in French cinema, Isabelle Huppert is known for her versatile portrayals of characters ranging from the innocent to the sultry to the comic. Born March 16, 1955, in Paris, Huppert graduated from the Paris Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique and made her first film, Faustine et le Bel Été, when she was 16. Her career accelerated rapidly, and she soon found work with such acclaimed directors as Bertrand Blier, with whom she made Les Valseuses (1974), a film also notable for making a star out of Gérard Depardieu; Otto Preminger, for whom she appeared in Rosebud (1975); and Claude Chabrol, with whom she would make a series of films, starting with 1978's Violette Nozière, for which she won a Best Female Performance award at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. Also in 1978, she won a British Academy Award for Best Newcomer for her role in La Dentellière (The Lacemaker).Huppert's career in the 1980s commenced fairly inauspiciously, with a part in the legendary flop Heaven's Gate (1981), but it soon picked up with starring roles in Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon (1981), Jean-Luc Godard's Passion (1982), and Diane Kurys' celebrated Entre Nous (1983). Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Huppert made an impressive number of films in her native country, collaborating with Claude Chabrol on 1988's Une Affaire de Femmes (Story of Women), the widely acclaimed Madame Bovary (1991), and La Cérémonie (1995), for which she won a 1996 Best Actress César. Since the Heaven's Gate fiasco, Huppert's work in American film has been minimal, a worthwhile exception being her role as a nun-turned-nymphomaniac writer of pornographic fiction in Hal Hartley's Amateur (1994). In her native France, Huppert has become something of an institution, continuing to work prolifically on such films as Benoît Jacquot's L'École de la Chair (1998) and serving as the 24th president of the César Awards in March 1999.
Despite the fact that American audiences remained sadly unaware of Huppert's success overseas, her performances in Jacquot's False Servant and the historical drama Saint-Cyr (both 2000) found her meeting challenging roles head on to captivating effect. The sometimes disturbing films she appeared in may not have been the easiest for audiences to digest, but they certainly cemented her belief that the art of acting is a means of "living out one's insanity," and no matter what the subject matter or quality of the actual film, Huppert remained a consistently compelling screen presence. Huppert's success in Chabrol's Merci Pour le Chocolat (2000) came as no surprise to many given her successful track record with the enduring director, and the following year she would once again come under the international spotlight for her remarkable performance as a sexually repressed and self-destructive piano teacher in director Michael Haneke's confrontational drama The Piano Teacher (2001). Her fearless powerhouse performance shocked audiences worldwide and earned Huppert a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was soon counterbalanced by director François Ozon's popular international black comedy 8 Women the following year. A campy, freewheeling musical mystery starring some of the biggest female stars in French cinema, the film came as an unexpected but infectious jolt of originality to audiences whose skin had been worn thin by a recent spat of heavy dramas.
Huppert's performance as an opinionated hooker who forms an unexpected bond with her illegitimate daughter in 2002's Ghost River benefited the touching drama well, and the following year, she was back with Haneke for the disturbing The Time of the Wolf. As with many of Haneke's films, The Time of the Wolf sharply divided audiences -- some of whom saw the film as celluloid perfection and others who viewed it as unrelentingly downbeat garbage. In 2003, Huppert would appear under the direction of an American director for the first time since 1994's Amateur with a role in Three Kings director David O. Russell's comedy I Heart Huckabees. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Claude Sautet's romantic drama César et Rosalie (Cesar and Rosalie) stars Romy Schneider as Rosalie, a beautiful young woman happily married to successful businessman Cesar (Yves Montand). One day, Rosalie's former flame David (Sami Frey) appears and attempts to win her back. Cesar reacts with a jealous intensity never before seen by Rosalie, and because of that, she returns to David. She remains conflicted as to with whom she should be, but eventually, one of the men does something which resolves the situation. César et Rosalie contains one of the first screen appearances of French actress Isabelle Huppert. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Romy Schneider, Yves Montand, (more)
- 1972
This French comic action/adventure film tells the rollicking story of Flemish Vincent Van Horst (Jacques Brel), a World War I veteran, who travels to the backwoods of Canada to search for a lost love. He teams up with a young man for an adventure which includes lovemaking and feuds, and a murder or two. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Brel, Rosy Varte, (more)
- 1973
To pass the time while she does chores, a little Jewish girl makes up the story of the Ampelopede as she remains hidden on a French farm during the Nazi occupation. The Ampelopede is a missing-link primate. He is being held captive by a farmer. Every so often, the farmer captures a young maiden and throws her in with the creature with the hope that it will produce offspring. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrizia Pierangeli, Isabelle Huppert, (more)
Director Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses features Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of sociopaths wending their way across France. Though Depardieu is the more dominant of the two, both men are equally culpable in their disregard for common decency. They are particularly rough on women, even the like-minded Miou-Miou, whom they both love in their own way. Jeanne Moreau has a brief bit as an ex-convict who sleeps with both Depardieu and Dewaere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gérard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, (more)
- 1974
The painful life of a mentally unstable but highly gifted woman is unveiled in this film, based on episodes from the life of an actual person. Aloise (Delphine Seyrig) creates a series of haunting drawings while she is incarcerated in an institution for the insane in turn-of-the-century Switzerland. She endures torments as a musically gifted girl and later as a young woman; her developing madness and the barbaric treatments of the time are shown. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Delphine Seyrig, (more)
- 1975
Trouble comes swiftly to an entrepreneurial lad when his city relatives take his suggestion that they transform their ordinary middle-class house into a bordello. At the same time, his beautiful aunt (Jean Seberg) has her hands full as she tries to deflect his romantic attentions away from herself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Seberg, Pierre Blaise, (more)
- 1975
- PG
Based on a novel by Joan Hemingway and Paul Bonnecarrere, Rosebud opens with five young women vacationing aboard a luxurious yacht called the Rosebud. All five of the women are the daughters of wealthy and powerful men; one of them is the daughter of an influential American senator. Their vacation is shortlived, however, as the Rosebud has been targeted by a group of Middle Eastern terrorists who kidnap the girls and hold them as hostages until their demands are met. Quickly alerted to the situation is reporter Larry Martin (Peter O'Toole), who it turns out is really an agent for the CIA. Martin enlists the aid of agents from Israel and West Germany, as well as a strange Islamic Englishman who, as he is working to destroy Israel, would seem to be on the side of the terrorists. Martin has his work cut out for him, as he must rescue the hostages quickly and with no injury coming to any of them. Adapted by Eric Lee Preminger for his father, director Otto Preminger, Rosebud was initially set to star Robert Mitchum, who left or was fired after experiencing one of the director's customary heated confrontations. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter O'Toole, Richard Attenborough, (more)
- 1975
Based on a groundbreaking 19th-century French trial, this movie recreates the courtroom controversy surrounding a young man who, after losing his religious faith, killed his mother and other siblings in order to assist his father. The trial was the first in French history to permit psychological factors to contribute to the testimony. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Spiesser, Michel Robin, (more)
- 1975
A doctor gains a new perspective on her life and career when she faces a life-threatening illness in this drama. Francoise (Annie Girardot) is a French physician with a very busy schedule. While she's well respected by her patients and colleagues, she has precious little time to spend with her husband Gerard (Francois Perier), her pregnant teenage daughter Elisabeth (Isabelle Huppert), or her sullen son Julien (William Coryn). She somehow manages to find time for her lover Daniel (Jean-Pierre Cassel), but Francoise's life is already starting to fray at the edges when she receives the upsetting news that she has cancer. Francoise, however, learns to put on a brave face and faces her disease and its difficult treatment with optimism and a fierce resolve. Annie Giradot's performance in Docteur Francoise Gailland earned her a Cesar (the French Academy Award). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Annie Girardot, Jean-Pierre Cassel, (more)
- 1975
A boisterous, cheerful and lusty man, Lajoie (Jean Carmet) meets his friends every year at a family campsite. During the whole vacation, Lajoie has been eyeing his teenage son's nubile girlfriend. During an occasion which puts them alone together, he attempts to rape her. When she fights back, he attempts to subdue her with a punch, and accidentally kills her. Frightened, he dumps her body near an Arab neighborhood, and then incites a lynch mob after spreading rumors that the girl was murdered by Arabs. For a while, it looks like this all-too common man will get away with his crime. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Carmet, Pierre Tornade, (more)
- 1975
Le Juge et L'Assassin probes a curious relationship between condemner and condemnee. Philippe Noiret plays Rousseau, a French judge who holds the fate of convicted child killer Bouvier (Michel Galabru) in his hands. Should Rousseau decide that Bouvier is insane, the killer will not go prison. As they come to know each other better, both are given the rare opportunity of exploring the vagaries of the human mind. The previously unbendable judge alters several long-held opinions concerning criminals, while Bouvier is for the first time in his life able to articulate the thought processes which motivate his actions. It is clear at times that much of the dialogue in Judge and the Assassin stems from Bertrand Tavernier's own lifelong feelings of loneliness and isolation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Michel Galabru, (more)
- 1976
Jenny (Isabelle Huppert) is a disconnected 16-year old schoolgirl who is so taken with a story of Native Americans coming to take someone into their tribe that she wanders out into the snow in search of them and dies. Was it an accident, or suicide? This drama explores the last week of Jenny's life in order to find out the answer. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Mathieu Carrière, (more)
- 1976
A homeless young man, living in his delivery truck, is simultaneously adopted by a pranksome group of youngsters and made into a police informer. Believing that he is doing something good both for the other kids and for himself, he has no qualms. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Spiesser, Isabelle Huppert, (more)
- 1977
The internationally produced The Lacemaker (La Dentelliere) stars Isabelle Huppert as Pomme, a meek and mild French beautician whose life takes a fateful turn during a vacation to Normandy. Here Huppert becomes the lover of middle-class literature-student Francois (Yves Beneyton). The relationship sours when Francois takes her home to meet his parents, thanks in no small part to their differing social backgrounds. The Lacemaker was the film that solidified the stardom of Isabelle Huppert; she was showered with awards, most notably the British Film Academy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Yves Beneyton, (more)
Claude Chabrol's Violette was based on the true story of 19-year-old Violette Noziere, who in the 1930s was tried and convicted for the poisoning of her father and the attempted murder of her mother. As played by Isabelle Huppert (who won several awards for her performance), Violette is a thrill-seeking girl who falls for a no-good slug from the slums of Paris. Anxious to give money to her lover, Violette hatches the patricide scheme in order to inherit her father's fortune. But Violette's mother, played as an deglamorized drudge by the otherwise stunning Stephane Audran, is not so easily disposed of; it is her testimony that condemns Violette, first to the guillotine, then to a commuted life sentence. In emulation of his idol Alfred Hitchcock, director Chabrol manages to evoke a measure of sympathy and audience identification for his thoroughly dislikable leading character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Jean Carmet, (more)
- 1979
Julien (Jacques Dutronc) is a pianist who is determined to regain everything he lost when his wife Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert) divorced him, as much for revenge as for any other reason. He calmly stages a murder on the grounds of his ex-wife's home, carefully using her new husband Kern's (Bruno Ganz) pistol so as to frame him for the deed. Then he awaits developments. Jeanne calls to ask him to come and be with her and the children, to bolster their spirits while her husband is being investigated. One-pointedly, he arranges to seduce her, but she resists until just before the police come searching for the real murderer. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Bruno Ganz, (more)
- 1979
Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie), a pessimistic but visually stunning film, marks Jean-Luc Godard's return to cinema after having spent the 70s working in video. The film presents a few days in the lives of three people: Paul Godard (Jacques Dutronc ), a television producer; Denise Rimbaud (Nathalie Baye), his co-worker and ex-girlfriend; and Isabelle Riviera (Isabelle Huppert), a prostitute whom Paul has used. Denise wants to break up with Paul and move to the country. Isabelle wants to work for herself instead of her pimp. Paul just wants to survive. Their stories intersect when Paul brings Denise to the country cottage he is trying to rent and Isabelle comes to see it without knowing that the landlord has been her client. The film is broken into segments entitled "The Imaginary," "Commerce," "Life," and "Music." Each of the first three sections focuses on one character and the last section brings all three characters together. This complex film is often closer to an essay than a story; it uses slow motion and experimental techniques to explore questions of love, work, and the nature of cinema. Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie) was Godard's first film with his frequent collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville, who edited and co-wrote the film. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, (more)
- 1979
- R
The Bronte sisters are profiled in this biography. The film dramatizes the repressed Victorian lives of the three famed authors who all died young. Their writing, so full of life, was a total contrast to the reality of their existence, focused mostly upon arguing with their father and taking care of their younger brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier, (more)
Maurice Pialat's character study eschews traditional plot development in its examination of the power of sex and passion to overturn class restrictions and social conventions. Isabelle Huppert is Nelly, a middle-class Parisian housewife, married to possessive husband Andre (Guy Marchand). When she meets street thug Loulou (Gerard Depardieu), her middle-class respectability is thrown out the window and she leaves Andre for Loulou. Loulou, who has no job and resorts to robbery to survive, is more than willing to live off Nelly's money. But Andre won't give her up and, in the mind-set of a middle-class bourgeois, tries to convince her to return. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, (more)
- 1980
In this standard Hungarian drama, the effects of sterility and jealousy on a marriage are played out against a backdrop of World War II and the rising Nazi persecution of Jews. Director Marta Meszaros usually focuses on issues like pregnancy, middle-age, and other topics without questioning the broader picture. In this drama, Sylvia (Lili Monori) cannot have children, and she convinces married Jewish woman Irene (Isabelle Huppert) to have a child and then give the child to her for adoption. The plan works but it also backfires. The way in which the child was adopted causes friction between Sylvia and her husband, and to make matters worse, Sylvia's husband falls in love with Irene. A crisis looms when he asks his jealous wife to give Irene her identity papers because Jews are being deported and Irene will die without their help. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Lili Monori, (more)
Based on pulp master Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier's Coup de Torchon is a sardonic thriller that remains true to its source's spirit, even as it transposes the action from the American South to colonial West Africa. Lucien (Philippe Noiret) is the bumbling police chief of Bourkasa, a dusty outpost in rural Senegal. Badgered by local thugs, Lucien initially comes across as a pathetic oaf unable to stand up for himself. Things at home are scarcely better, as Lucien finds himself harried by his nagging wife, Huguette (Stéphane Audran), who is carrying on an affair with a man she claims to be her brother (Eddy Mitchell). Without warning, Lucien embarks on a nonchalant killing spree, murdering everyone who has ever mistreated him. As he sets about "cleaning the slate," Lucien intensifies his affair with ditsy Rose (Isabelle Huppert), all the while pining for the newly arrived schoolteacher, Anne (Irene Skobline). Remaining above suspicion even as bodies pile up, the seemingly witless Lucien gradually develops a twisted logic for his actions, animating his crusade with an evangelical purpose. By movie's end, Tavernier leaves little room for redemption, leaving the joyless Lucien mired in a moral quagmire of his own making. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, (more)
- 1981
Very loosely based on the plot of Henry James' Wing of the Dove, this film resets the story about two lovers trying to steal everything from a dying millionairess, by putting it in the late-20th century instead of late-19th century; it has the lovers be a French prostitute and Italian low-life instead of an Englishwoman and a journalist; and the dying woman is now French instead of American. Once adjusted to those changes, viewers may no longer have any expectations of a homage to Henry James in this French-Italian adaptation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Dominique Sanda, (more)
- 1981
Jean-Louis Trintignant's sinister yet subtle performance as a man who gives the most insane proof of love to his wife enlivens this adaptation of the novel Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith. In public, Vic Allen (Trintignant) puts up with his wife Mélanie's (Isabelle Huppert) amorous games, showing an outward attitude of acceptance. However, he scares away one of her prospective lovers by telling the poor guy that he killed one of his predecessors. In fact, he did not, and soon the actual perpetrator is found. Later, when Vic feels that Mélanie is becoming too seriously involved, he actually resorts to murders. Despite her ever-increasing suspicion, Mélanie finds it impossible to prove his guilt. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert, (more)
A notorious artistic and financial failure, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was blamed for critically wounding the movie Western and definitively ushering out the 1970s Hollywood New Wave of young, brash, independent filmmakers. Taking a revisionist, post-Vietnam view of American imperialism, Cimino used the historical Johnson County War incident in Wyoming to create an impressionistic tapestry of Western conflict between poor immigrant settlers and rich cattle barons led by Canton (Sam Waterston) and his hired gun Nate Champion (Christopher Walken). Attempting to mediate is idealistic Harvard graduate and county marshal Averill (Kris Kristofferson), who is both Nate's friend and his romantic rival for the affections of Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert). However, war erupts, at great cost to all involved. Flush from his success with the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), Cimino demanded creative control, and his insistence on shooting on location and building historically accurate sets and props multiplied the film's original budget to a then-astronomical $36 million. When United Artists premiered the original 219-minute version (sight unseen), they discovered that Cimino had produced an elliptical epic, compounding the box-office difficulties of making a Western without any major stars. Critics howled about Cimino's incomprehensible self-indulgence, and United Artists pulled the film after several days. Re-released five months later, 70 minutes shorter, Heaven's Gate bombed again, and MGM bought out the financially crippled United Artists. The ailing Western genre virtually vanished during the 1980s, Cimino's career never recovered, and Hollywood studios had had enough of bankrolling financially risky ventures by "auteur" directors. Heaven's Gate's reputation recovered somewhat after its video release, as it garnered praise from some viewers for such visually remarkable sequences as the Harvard dance and the final battle, as well as for David Mansfield's haunting score. Steven Bach's book Final Cut provides a full production history. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, (more)
- 1981
In the original story of Camille by Alexandre Dumas, Jr. La Dame aux Camelias, a beautiful Parisian courtesan, Marguerite Gautier, (called "Camille" because of her love for camelias) is supported by a series of aristocratic lovers, but does not fall in love until she meets Armand Duval. Armand's father lets it be known that Camille would ruin Armand because of her "low" past, and she leaves to save his reputation, saying she does not love him anymore. She soon contracts tuberculosis, and Armand hears that she is dying. He rushes to her side, finds out she has loved him all along, and she dies knowing he has always loved her. The True Story of Camille uses the ploy of Alexandre Dumas, Jr. doing his version of "Camille" at the turn of the 20th century, as a means of introducing a flashback to the "real" story behind the "real" Camille, Alphonsine Plessis. In the film, Alphonsine (Isabelle Huppert) - a country girl - was sold by her father to a wealthy neighbor, which starts her off on a round of living in expansive palaces and keeping company with wealthy aristocrats and eventually, Alexandre Dumas, Jr. himself. But that trajectory did not happen all at once. Alphonsine first survives, barely, as a seamstress in Paris. Then she becomes a prostitute, after which a Count Peregaunts (Bruno Ganz) marries her, then more or less disappears, leaving her to become a high-class courtesan. As she makes her way from one handsome, aristocratic client to the next, a noble protector, Count Stechelberg (Fernando Rey) keeps her out of harm's way. By the time she and Dumas meet, she has become infected with tuberculosis - and she has created the inspiration for Dumas' story of Camille. Her father comes along at this point, however, ready to trounce Dumas for romanticizing his daughter's wretched life - the same father that sold her off in the first place. If the viewer can remember that the characters of Marguerite Gautier (Carla Fracci) and Armand Duval from Dumas' story of Camille have been given their "real" personas as Alphonsine Plessis and Dumas in this film, then the story within a story make more sense. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Gian Maria Volontè, (more)
