Moreau, Jeanne

(1928- )

   Actress, director, and screenwriter. Jeanne Moreau was born in Paris, the daughter of a French father and British mother. She studied at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique in Paris with Denis d'Inès. She became a stage actress at the Festival d'Avignon, where she worked under theater director Jean Vilar and with actor Gérard Philipe. She also acted at the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre National Populaire. Moreau debuted in cinema in Jean Stelli's Dernier amour (1949). Some of her early leading roles were in Jacques Becker's acclaimed Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), Jean Dréville's La Reine Margot (1954), Gilles Grangier's Gas-oil (1955), and Edouard Molinaro's Le Dos au mur (1957). Her career as an art-house film star and her image as a femme fatale were launched with her performance in Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1957). She also starred in Malle's Les Amants (1958) and acted again with Gérard Philipe in Roger Vadim's Les liaisons dangereuses (1959).

   In 1960, she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance in Peter Brook's Moderato Cantabile. In that decade Moreau became famous for her seductive, intellectual persona in films by Nouvelle Vague or New Wave and auteur directors. Some of her most memorable starring roles were in François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962) and La mariée était en noir (1968), Joseph Losey's Eva (1962), Jacques Demy's La Baie des anges (1963), and Luis Bunuel's Le journal d'une femme de chambre (1964). She is also a singer and performed the theme song for Jules et Jim, titled "Le Tourbillon de la vie." She played a singer in Jean Renoir's television film, Le petit théâtre de Jean Renoir. Moreau furthered her international prestige in Michaelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1960), Orson Welles's The Trial (1962) and Chimes at Midnight (1965), and John Frankenheimer's The Train (1964), among others. She costarred with Welles in his Immortal Story (1967). She worked again with Malle in Le feu follet (1963) and Viva Maria (1965); the latter costarred Brigitte Bardot. Critics have contrasted Moreau's cerebral allure and professional expertise with Bardot's supermodel status. Indeed, although Bardot was a role model for women who wished to express their sexuality freely, her fame hinged largely on her beauty. Moreau was the ultimate model, being at once freely seductive, independent, adventurous, and smart.

   In the 1970s, Moreau played significant parts in Marguerite Duras's Nathalie Granger (1972), Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses (1973), André Téchiné's Souvenirs d'en France (1975), and Joseph Losey's Monsieur Klein (1975). She also acted with Robert De Niro and Tony Curtis in Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon (1975). Moreau headed the jury at Cannes in 1975. In 1976, she made her directorial debut with the feature Lumière, which she scripted. Later in the decade, she directed and coscripted L'Adolescent (1978). It was nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear. In the 1980s, Moreau directed one documentary—Lillian Gish — in 1984. She played leading roles in Losey's La Truite (1982) and Michel Drach's Sauve-toi, Lola (1986) and was nominated for a César for Best Actress in Jean-Pierre Mocky's Le Miraculé (1987). In 1992, she won the César for Best Actress in Laurent Heynemann's La Vieille qui marchait dans la mer.

   Moreau continued to enchant film audiences throughout the 1990s and beyond. Her role as Amande in Luc Besson's Nikita (1990) recalled the character of Catherine in Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962), the film for which she is best known. She provided the voiceover for Jean-Jacques Annaud's L'amant (1992), a film adapted from Duras's novel. She would later play Duras in Josée Dayan's Cet amour-là (2001). She had much in common with Duras, who was, herself, something of a sultry intellectual, a type that is a bit uncommon in the cinema. Moreau also played principal roles in Theo Angelopoulos's The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991), Guy Jacques's Je m'appelle Victor (1993), and Ismail Merchant's The Proprietor (1996). More recently, Moreau appeared in François Ozon's Le Temps qui reste (2005) and Serbian director Ahmed Imamovic's Go West (2005). She is expected to appear in Zoe R. Cassavetes's film Broken English, scheduled for release in 2007. Moreau was awarded a Career Golden Lion at Venice in 1992, an honorary César for her life's work in 1995, an honorary Golden Berlin Bear in 2000, and an honorary Golden Palm at Cannes in 2003. She has performed in over one hundred films.

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins