Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, and Mathieu Amalric

Hollywood can learn a thing or two from the French, its film industry and joie de vivre. Mathieu Amalric, attending this year’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual popular series in collaboration with Unifrance, presented his film Barbara, homage to a chanteuse, not so famous anywhere but France. Best known to American film lovers for his acting in such films as Julian Schnabel’s Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich, and most recently Arnaud Desplechin’s Ismael’s Ghosts, featured in this year’s New York Film Festival, here Amalric directs. On hand with the film’s star, Jeanne Balibar, incidentally the mother of his two sons, Amalric apologized for Barbara’s lack of plot to an opening night audience that included John Waters and James Ivory, just back from L.A. after winning his Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Call Me by Your Name.

At the French Embassy Payne Whitney mansion after party, guests listened to jazz, sipped champagne, and munched on elegant treats from Pisctache NYC. The chat was on some of the festival’s highlights including Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians and Emmanuel Finkiel’s A Memoir of War based on Marguerite Duras’ memoir. Expanded from director Xavier Legrand Oscar nominated short film, Custody is now a huge hit in Europe. Impressed with the proceedings, John Waters in a spectacular painted jacket joined the festivities; the formerly subversive Pink Flamingos/ Desperate Living director is newly awarded a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, a rite of passage for world class artists. When the French honored William Burroughs, the American iconic author wore his pin with pride.

The French admire American culture, but their film industry is less postured, more fluid. Mathieu Amalric filled me in on his current work, telling me that after completes publicity for Barbara and Ismael’s Ghosts, he will retreat for ten days to write, and is producing a film to be directed by his “Barbara” Jeanne Balibar. He also has a part in Julian Schnabel’s upcoming passion project on Vincent Van Gogh starring Willem Dafoe. Schnabel’s in Paris now, editing. And so it continues.

Regina Weinreich

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