Jeanne Moreau as inscrutable chameleon

 

Jeanne Moreau is one of those defining actresses of the French post-war cinema and a seminal figure in the French New Wave having worked with its iconic directors like Malle, Demy, Godard and Truffaut. But what’s fascinating about her is her chameleon like roles. In many cases it’s hard to tell this is the same actress from film to film. However, while the looks and appearances change from movie to movie there are commonalities - every character evokes sophistication, sexuality and independence. Recently (on the Criterion Channel) I caught five of her films. They’re only a tiny subset of her vast oeuvre including with many other legendary directors, mostly in Europe. (She died in 2017.) In The Lovers (Louis Malle 1958) Moreau plays a kept wife by her austere wealthy newspaper publisher husband, escaping to Paris on the weekend to a flamboyant female friend. Proper and poised is her demeanor here. But her inscrutability belies an awareness and ultimately a yearning for freedom. In Diary of a Chambermaid (Luis Buñuel 1964) Moreau is the poker-faced newly hired maid to a wealthy country family (the female equivalent to Dirk Bogarde in Joseph Losey’s 1963 The Servant). The belittling commands of “Madame” are water off her back as she privately mocks the family and surroundings, and eventually has them around her finger. There’s an hilarious scene in this absurdist drama when the house’s aged paternal figure asks her to model fetishist boots and she rolls her eyes in insouciance.  In Joseph Losey’s Eve (1962) Moreau is a high-class call girl in Rome whose sole interest in life is, well, really herself. Bored, almost amoral, she loves nothing better than retreating at the end of the night to her apartment, alone, and playing a Billie Holiday record. Ruthless and remote she plays a would be suitor for a fool and as a kind of other woman provokes a searing personal tragedy. In Bay of Angels (Jacques Demy 1963) Moreau looks entirely different as a platinum blonde. But her character is similar. Though frivolous and contradictory she is no-nonsense, a woman of her own in a story that takes us among the great gambling casinos of the French Riviera. Finally, in The Fire Within (Louis Malle 1963), a lesser role, she is the cool knowing intellectual and sounding board to an emotionally distressed recovering alcoholic. In all these roles, however, Moreau is alluring, physically as well as intellectually.