Ursula Kubler Movies
- 1970
An eccentric film director (Gabriel Cattand) conducts a search for a modern day Joan of Arc. His harridan wife (Ursula Kubler) hounds him constantly during the selection process. When he finally selects the perfect actress, she is driven to suicide before filming can begin in this pretentious picture. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabriel Cattand, Ursula Kubler, (more)
- 1969
French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda writes and directs the intellectual drama Les Creatures. Michel Piccoli plays a novelist who gets in a severe car accident. He is injured and his wife (Catherine Deneuve) is rendered mute. They move to a small village on an island in order to recuperate, and for the husband to write his novel. He uses characters based on the townsfolk on the island. He meets a young man (Jacques Charrier) who is building a machine. They play chess and engage in a violent fight. The wife gives birth and regains her speech, and it is apparent that the young man only existed in the husband's imagination. The conclusion involves a futher distortion of fantasy and reality as the writer finishes his novel. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve, (more)
Maurice Ronet plays an alcoholic writer, Alain Leroy, who is on the verge of suicide (his character is based on writer Jacques Rigaut, who killed himself in 1929). The psychiatrist assigned to Leroy is no help, advising his patient to seek a reconciliation with his wife, who is still smarting from Leroy's recent liaison with Lydia (Lena Skerla). Still obsessed with the notion of taking his own life, Leroy plans to stage his demise on July 23. A last-ditch effort to jolly himself out of his doldrums fails, and Leroy, with a picture of Marilyn Monroe at his side, snuffs himself out. Though a case study of a man victimized by his own isolationism, The Fire Within has some surprising random optimistic moments. The French title for The Fire Within is Le Feu Follet, which was also the title of the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (another suicide!) from which this film was adapted. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
- 1962
Roger Vadim directs his ex-wife Brigitte Bardot once again in this conventional film about an innocent young woman, Genevieve (Bardot), who ends up on the losing side of a relationship with an alcoholic -- at least for awhile. Genevieve is a typical, introverted, middle-class woman who would like to be a homemaker and live relatively well. Instead, she goes to a small town to receive an inheritance, and by accident she walks into the wrong room in her hotel. And just in time. The alcoholic Renaud (Robert Hossein) who occupies the room has tried to kill himself with an overdose of sleeping pills. Genevieve saves his life, and the two soon strike up a dysfunctional relationship. Renaud degrades her in every way he can, yet she remains true to her honest feelings for him. The question, in the end, is whether Renaud will ultimately change for the better or Genevieve for the worse. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Robert Hossein, (more)
- 1962
Louis Malle directed this drama about the toll fame takes upon a women pursuing a May-December romance. Jill (Brigitte Bardot) is a lovely 18-year-old girl who lives with her mother on a comfortable estate in Lake Geneva. Jill has dreams of some day becoming a ballet dancer, but her immediate concerns often focus upon Fabio (Marcello Mastroianna), a attractive older man who publishes a magazine and has married one of Jill's closest friends, Carla (Ursula Kubler). In time, Jill decides Fabio will never love her, and she runs away to Paris to study dance. While her career in ballet never pans out, she becomes an immediate success as a fashion model, and goes on to become a top film star. Five years after leaving home, Jill has become weary of fame, and comes home to her mother's home to rest. Jill discovers that Fabio and Carla have divorced, and he now takes a very keen interest in her. While stardom has now made Jill desirable to Fabio, it also attracts the attention of the world's press when word gets out that the screen goddess is dating a man almost fifteen years her senior. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
