Deneuve remembers Buñuel in Venice when collecting his Golden Lion, 55 years after Belle de Jour

Catherine Deneuve is a multi-awarded diva but for her the Venice Film Festival is special. In the city of canals, she received the Golden Lion this Wednesday for his career. At 78 years old, he says that he is not an icon nor has he been a sex symbol, that he never looks back and, above all, that he continues to love cinema.

Impeccable, as always, and with a cold tone that marks distances, Deneuve she arrived at the press conference room of the Venice Film Festival as what she is, one of the great divas of cinema. She complained about the noise of the translation system and was surprised that the person leading the meeting asked her any questions, as if she were a journalist.

Why is he wearing a pin with the Ukrainian flag?: “I don’t want to talk, just take it.” Later, a Ukrainian journalist managed to extract another phrase from him: “My mind and my spirit are with them.”

Against the MeToo

Catherine Deneuve has always been free to say what she wants. Not even five years ago she was thrashed in the media and disqualified when she led a manifesto against #MeToo, along with a hundred French artists and intellectuals, warning that the feminist movement should not be confused with unique thinking.

But it did not matter to the protagonist of beautiful day, the movie of Bunuel that she took the Golden Lion 55 years ago and that the French diva recalled this Wednesday when she received the honorary award. “It was a very beautiful and shocking moment,” she said at this Mostra, 55 years later. Down in Venice three years ago.

when deneuve gave his opinion on the movement, they disfigured him for having played the prostitute under the orders of the brilliant Aragonese director back in 1967, also awarded the Golden Lion in his day. Deneuve worked as an activist in the 70s, when he participated in the so-called “manifesto of the 343 foxes” for the abortion legislation.

the protagonist of Indochina She had two children with different husbands, and she never wanted to marry them. Since her debut in 1957 with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg To this day, we have seen it in films that are true cinema history such as Repulsion o Tristana. He has always been interested in stories and, therefore, in the director. The essential directors of it would be Jacques Demy, François Truffaut and André Techiné.

This Wednesday he talked about how there comes a time in life when you have to look at everything you’ve done, all the decisions you’ve made, and hope that the good side outweighs the bad, although he also acknowledged that many Sometimes the result of what you do does not depend on you.

That’s why he answered with a resounding “Never” when asked if he gave advice to young actresses starting their careers and even to his daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, in its beginnings.

“Each person is different, each one has their tastes, their personality, I have never liked giving advice to anyone,” said the protagonist of The Mississippi Siren.

For these and all the films he has made, Deneuve received this Wednesday at the opening ceremony of the 79th edition of Venice the Golden Lion for a race for “her indisputable talent at the service of an acting talent, in addition to her sophisticated and rare beauty, attributes that have helped her become the symbol of French cinema, an eternal diva and a true icon of the big screen”, in the words of the festival director, Alberto Barbera.

“When they pay tribute to you, you realize the passage of time because you don’t look back, not because of rejection, but because of lack of time, it’s something that is part of life,” said the actress. Because if Deneuve made something clear, it is that she has her sights set on the present and the future, on her next projects and on the cinema, always on the cinema.

“I love the cinema”, she said very sure. As an actress, she hopes to discover talents in her next projects and assures that at her age “it is much better to be in Europe than in America” ​​because there are better roles. And as a spectator, she goes to theaters “with enthusiasm” and wishes that she continue to maintain the magic of discovering a film in a dark atmosphere and accompanied by strangers. It was the most sincere moment of an appearance in which the “non-diva” Deneuve was as curt as she was professional, even when she said that she wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t many questions at the press conference because, after all, everyone The world knows your life. The actress has had numerous relationships, however three men marked her life: Roger Vadim, David Bailey and of course, Marcello Mastroianni.

Vadim, Truffaut and above all, Mastroianni

It seems that the Parisian actress has recovered since that November 15, 2019, she gave us a scare when she suffered an ischemic attack that did not have too many consequences but was a warning. Her neighbors in the Saint-Sulpice neighborhood were not surprised, they knew that the life that the diva led at some point would take its toll on her, basically because of her overwork, but also because of her affection for alcohol from she.

He has never boasted about his loves but he never hid and even shared with his sister, Françoise Dorléac, the passion for a man. She was always aware of her sexual prowess. When in 1956 she shot And God created woman, directed by Roger Vadim, she was only 17 years old and fell madly in love with him. With the man who also made Jane Fonda fall in love with Roger, Deneuve discovered the first secrets of cinema. Fruit of her love was born Christian Vadim, the only son of the actress. While Catherine was pregnant, Roger had a car accident and the actress was about to lose the child to her chagrin. In 1964 Vadim broke down and said that she had become a tough woman who had been changed by fame.

In 1965, she fell in love with renowned photographer David Bailey. The wedding was in London. She was 22 and he was a year younger. She didn’t speak much English and he never learned French. In 1972, the marriage came to an end.

Catherine Deneuve and his sister Francoise Dorleac they had inherited a passion for art from their artist parents. In 1963, Truffaut and Dorléac met on a promotional trip to Israel for French cinema. Then the director was Catherine’s lover. On June 26, 1967, Françoise crashed her car on the way to Nice airport. The accident cost him his life. She was only 25 years old. While her relationship with Catherine was good, it didn’t really take off until her sister passed away. She lamented her loss, although the accident also meant the end of the jealousy that the deceased’s talent aroused in her future diva. They always compared the sisters and when Truffaut rotated with Deneuve The Mermaid of the Mississippi, where the passion between the director and the protagonist ignited.

then came into his life Marcello Mastroianni, that he was married. That shattered Truffaut, who was devastated. However, the time that heals everything made them film together in 1980 The last meter. 1971, Catherine was still with David Bailey when she had to shoot with the Italian heartthrob at the direction of the director Nadine Trintignant. They soon became lovers. A year after they met, Chiara Mastroianni was born, following the vocation of her parents. They shot 5 movies together, where some of the kisses that the characters gave each other hinted that it was pure realism. “I don’t remember seeing my parents together or kissing, I only saw that in the movies,” Chiara confessed a few years ago. In 1975 the break came.

Catherine met Johnny Hallyday when she was a teenager and maintained from those times until 2017, when he passed away, an intimate bond protected by seven keys. But Johnny was not deprived of giving indications on the matter and in his memoirs he referred to this romance, of course that Lady Lucille the one referred to in the book, would be none other than the great Deneuve.