I had the chance to meet Françoise Lebrun thanks to our friends from Institut Francais in Bucharest, who year after year, at the beginning of spring, organise the French Film Festival. It was a sunny Saturday morning when I drove off to my parents house outside of Bucharest, with Sabina and Ruxandra, where we were about to meet a few hours later the French actress Françoise Lebrun, known mainly for her breakthrough role in the cult film La Maman et la Putain (directed by Jean Eustache, 1974) and more recently, for her main character in Gaspar Noé‘s Vortex (2022). Even though she is recognised as an icon of French cinema, she is in fact a very simple and modest woman, with so many stories to tell and a subtle sense of humor. Dressed in a comfy deux-pièces, the first thing she told me after getting out of the car was how much she loves my parent’s garden and how glad she is to be here. Then all the introductions were made, followed by a brief tour of the house, some questions about Bucharest and finally, the interview.

What I have deeply appreciated about her was her calmness and patience that she seems to have in any human interaction. We chatted for over an hour and she has answered to all of my questions in depth, sometimes in French, sometimes in English, but each time with a lot of appreciation for everything she has lived. As our interview was moving forward, new worlds, long gone, were opening in front of me. Worlds much less complicated, or tehnologized, in which not every aesthetic detail matters. Worlds that I wished I have lived, but that I was happy to transport into through her stories even for just an hour. Without any forther ado, I invite you to discover these worlds and everything Françoise Lebrun was and is.

On beginnings. Jean Eustache. La Maman et la Putain

I’m humbled and honored to meet you. There aren’t many things you can find about the woman and actress Françoise Lebrun when you search online, so I would like to start by asking who are you?

I am a woman interested in a lot of things and an actress by chance. I have studied political science and then literature, in college. But I was always in love with cinema, I used to see 3-4 films every day – 4 on Sundays! And I had the chance to meet the people around Cahiers du Cinema and the Cinematheque – such as Jean-Claude Biette, Jean-André Fieschi, and we became friends. One day, Jean-Claude Biette invited me to play in his short film – Ce que cherche Jacques. I was playing a musicology student and was wearing my own clothes, so this was my first role ever in cinema. And then, after that, Adolfo Arrieta, who was a Spanish filmmaker living in Paris at the time, asked me „Can you come and do a dead girl on a bed? You just put on the dress that you had in Jean-Claude’s film”. And I said yes. We shot in his hotel room, it was a messy place. So I was lying on a bed playing dead and someone asked if I’m really dead (laughs). Then we shot in the house of Marguerite Duras, who was a friend of Arrieta’s – my character’s father was played by her ex-husband, Dionys Mascolo. The film was called Le château de Pointilly and there were only three people on the set – the camera, the sound and Adolfo.

It was always like that, cinema was fun, it was like a game for children, we weren’t asking ourselves so many questions. Or at least I didn’t, and I think the others either. We all just wanted to make films, we weren’t worried about profitability, nor searching for the perfect image. 

And then came La Maman et la Putain, Jean Eustache’s debut film.

Yes. Eustache saw Adolfo’s film and was intrigued that I could play. Two years later, I received the script. 

This year we mark 50 years since its launch. Do you look different at the film now?

I don’t analyze it and I have no reason to judge the film, that’s the critics job. I think it is still a beautiful film – I like to think of it as a black diamond. It is a film about human nature. There is jealousy, there is hunger. And I am the result of all of this, it turned me into a French icon. I feel very honoured to have played in this film. 

There is a very good book about the film, by Matt Longabucco – M/W. Much better than Luc Béraud’s book which is also interesting, because it’s the point of view of an assistant and not of an actor or a journalist. But for me, it kind of missed the essential. He stayed on the surface, while Longabucco goes in depth.

I enjoyed a lot watching a story in which the women aren’t portrayed as “damsels in distress” – Alexandre’s two lovers are both independent financially – they both work, while he is financially, and also emotionally attached to them. I was impressed by it, it is, afterall, a movie made in the 70’s. 

Last year in Cannes there was the screening of the new restored version and the room was full. When I got up on stage, everyone was applauding, it was an incredible tribute. 

Afterwards I attended a TV debate where someone was saying that this is a feminist film. And I thought to myself „okay, why not?”

After all, in the last 50 years the society has changed and people see things differently, women now can decide for themselves. And it’s interesting to witness how society shifts. 

I know it was boycotted at Cannes, when it won, in 1973. What do you remember from your time there?

I wasn’t there when the film won, I was back in Paris but I remember when the screening ended, there were people screaming „Bravo!” and others screaming „This is horrible!” and I thought to myself it’s like Hernani [n. Victor Hugo’s drama], it’s the history of literature that has the power to move things. 

Jeanne Moreau came to support us. Ingmar Bergmann was there, too – he came at the festival to promote his film Cries & Whisperers. He was wearing such a beautiful white suit and had his then-wife by his side. But I was very disappointed by Ingrid Bergman, to know that she couldn’t understand the film. I was very moved by her in Rosselinni’s films. She was the one who announced the Jury Prize and stated it wasn’t unanimously selected by the jury. That made me sad.

You had a strong and caring relationship with Jean Eustache that took many forms along the years. I know you have collaborated with him as an actress, but also as a screenwriter. 

And also a production assistant, for La rosière de Pessac [n. the documentary they wrote together]. It was right after graduating from Political Science and Jean asked me to write to the mayor of Pessac for a shooting permit, since I had a sort of political background. So I wrote to him to ask if we could go and film. I did the prepping work for the film and stayed in contact with the municipality but I was also in charge of the clapperboard on the set and because I have never done it, I couldn’t get it right. The shooting was very stressful and anxious for me, but the development was very exciting.

Was it difficult to work with a man like Jean Eustache? 

No, it wasn’t. He had a strong desire to do things and I tried to help – and that has always been my relationship with cinema, I have always wanted to try to understand what the director is looking for and get as close as possible to that. There have been times when he was just looking for a reaction to one of his scripts. And I always gave feedback without intervening, without forcing my way into someone else’s films. 

I read a lot about Jean Eustache and it seemed he felt rather left out by the French film industry because he wasn’t following the popular conventions of filmmaking back then. Has he ever talked to you about it?

There was this man, called Gérard Sire, who offered him to make a TV series in Canada with a Canadian star. I don’t recall hearing him say he didn’t want to do it, but he couldn’t. For Jean, it was always more important to tell his story, but that doesn’t mean he was rejecting the profession [n. of being a French film director], he was just one of those who couldn’t conform to the popular traditional storytelling. So he made La Maman et la Putain, and Mes Petites Amoureuses, and then the short film Un sale histoire. 

I think he did suffer, but at the same time, he was recognized by all the young filmmakers of the time, people like Philippe Garrel. And after all, La Maman had a big effect; he was helped for a while by institutions such as the French CNC, so he had the possibility to make his movies, tell his stories. Jean was the only one from Cahiers du Cinema who wasn’t the son of a bourgeois. He came from a working-class family. Even though others like Truffaut or Chabrol had complicated histories, they were supported by André Bazin. Jean was like the ugly duckling of the group. 

Jean was the only one from Cahiers du Cinema who wasn’t the son of a bourgeois. He came from a working-class family. Even though others like Truffaut or Chabrol had complicated histories, they were supported by André Bazin. Jean was like the ugly duckling of the group. 

Has the film industry changed a lot in the 50 years since the launch of La Maman et la Putain? 

I think things have started to change from the moment when films could be produced only with the contribution of the televisions. That is to say that even if CNC was supporting the movie production, there still needed to be a pre-buy agreement with a TV station. And this led to changes in storytelling, writing a different script sometimes, something that could be broadcasted also on TV, on a Sunday evening. Which led to limitations in imagination. 

I think that really shook up film production in France. But there will always be strong personalities in filmmaking, like Maurice Pialat, who, at Cannes in 1987, after he won the Palme d’Or declared „you don’t love me and I don’t love you either”. Or Paul Vecchiali, who co-produced or self-produced all of his films, until the day he died. There have always been and always will be outsiders but the majority has become very consensual to what’s happening. 

TV formats require more master shots than close-ups, so it has a big impact on how we shoot films, what people like and understand. But in the end, it is what it is. 

You’ve worked on many movies, both in France and Hollywood, with incredible directors and actors. What have you learned from your career?

Nothing, really. You discover something else each time, but there’s no accumulation of knowledge from one film to another. I have shot a lot, for example with Guillaume Nicloux, and then with Michel Houellebecq and each time it was a very different thing. We know where the camera is, all the practical things, but in the end it’s all about the capacity to improvise and adapt to each story and each situation, rather than to accumulate a certain experience.

On endings. Gaspar Noé. Vortex

I think it’s just wonderful how, almost half a century after your breakthrough role in La Maman et la Putain, you come back with a main role so poetic and tragic as the one in Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. You’re an actress known for her ability to work with words and monologues, but here it was quite the opposite. What helped you understand your character and make it feel so real?

I have no one in my family with this disease so I read a lot about it. I also watched fiction films and documentaries. And a TV show with six or seven people with dementia that came with someone because they couldn’t come on their own.  There was a woman with her daughter, one with her husband and each of them behaved radically differently. One ran all the time, one laughed, two of them were completely silent. And I thought to myself that each one develops their own kind of dementia. Further on, Gaspar showed me some clips of his mother (who suffered and died of dementia) during the shooting, not before. And he gave me a few tips: the lost gaze, the way I use my fingers and the way I walk. 

I was delighted to have a role without words, I thought that was a real challenge. To just feel the pain of this disease, not being able to speak.

There’s a scene where all four characters sit at a table and the grandson plays with some cars and makes a hell of a noise, and Gaspar comes to him to tell him that if he could play even louder, he would get a present, so the kid started to be even noisier. And I couldn’t tell him to stop, my character couldn’t say what she wanted, so my only reaction was to cry, to just let go. And I wasn’t planning on that reaction, but my God, this disease makes you feel under confinement, as if you are locked up. And this feeling left me in tears.

And every evening I went home, back to normal and then back at it in the morning. We had a break of 15 days at some point, in which I had become normal again, as one says. And I had forgotten everything and I found it difficult to plunge back into this particular state. 

The last actions of your character stayed with me. That’s a scene that profoundly moved me and I will always remember it. It feels like she knows exactly what she’s doing, when she’s committing suicide. 

For me, the most painful shot of the film is the very end, when we see the apartment empty. There are three shots, first you see the boxes, then half of it is gone, then there’s nothing and everything disappears. The apartment is the fourth character. I think it’s amazing what Gaspar has done.

What would you say is the worst part and the best part of growing old?

I don’t know. I think there’s a big difference between your real age and your inner age. You can be 40 and have the soul of an 18 year old. But while you navigate through life and grow old, you start to know a lot of things, experience a lot of things, so there’s a kind of distance between you and the others. A distance of knowledge, we can recognize behaviours, situations. 

Looking back at your life, are you satisfied with what you have accomplished or is there anything else you dream of?

Ice skating, maybe? I’m kidding (laughs). 

I have never asked myself this question. The way things happen, they have a logic. You have to know to accept them as they come, play with what life brings you. You always have a choice, either to say yes, or no. I call them chances.  

Laura Mușat

Film producer and founder of ADFR, she dreamed since she was little of having a magazine one day. Alongside her job as editor-in-chief, she writes the interview of the month. She loves animals, jazz music and films festivals.