Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Earlier, when I arrive at Moreau's apartment building in Paris, I'm shown in by Madame Oberlin, her gracious personal assistant. She takes the flowers I've brought and urges me to sit down, but I can't. I'm in Jeanne Moreau's living room. All the chairs look important. Duras, Truffuat, Malraux -- who knows what illustrious backsides once warmed these cushions? Instead of sitting, I look around the room.
Labeled in English with blue Dymo tape, the shelves are devoted to literature, psychology and mythology. There is also a shelf holding two Caesar awards, a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival and a best actress prize from Cannes (in its box, modestly closed). Over the sofa there is a pencil drawing of Moreau lying on what appears to be a chaise, but drawn from an angle and elevation that show off her splendid face, neck and hair; the curves of her body suggested in a few sweeping lines, softened by a blanket or a bedsheet. If I had a drawing like that of me, I'd hang it over my sofa too.
Moreau walks into the room. No trumpets. No nymphs throwing flower petals. I nearly do a double take. Those splendid eyes are not the result of some cinematographer's elaborate setup. They're huge, bronze-colored and bulge just the tiniest bit. Hyperthyroid cute, I guess you'd say.
We shake hands.
She thanks me for the flowers. I apologize for the fact that they had been wrapped in hideous cellophane.
She nods to indicate the cellophane was of questionable taste, but smells one of the roses and says again they are lovely. I ask if she minds if I record our conversation. "Of course not!" she says, "I'd be offended if you didn't." She smiles.
Before we get started, I make the mistake of trying to light one of Moreau's cigarettes. She had been smoking one when she walked in, but it was almost gone. There are four lighters, an ashtray and packs of cigarettes on the table between us. One of her trademarks is the lazy, smoldering cigarette. On screen she may light up with a tropical languor, but in real life Moreau is one of the world's fastest smokers. At least in the top 10. All I see of her hands is a whirl, and a singed filter is out of her mouth and in the ashtray, replaced by a glowing new one before I can fumble for my Zippo. "You know," I say, "I'll be a complete failure as a man and all my testosterone will sludge out onto the floor if I don't light at least one of your cigarettes."
Her pouty lips form a grin and she quickly looks me over. "Don't even try, son," she says, "you'll just get your fingers burned."
We begin by talking about her role in Joseph Losey's film. "When you play a character like Eva, does the anger stay with you? Was it ...?"
"There's no anger."
"No anger?"
"No," Moreau says. "We prepare the suitcase. Orson Welles taught me that. You prepare your suitcase -- meaning the costumes of biography. So the anger comes when it's needed. And even if on the day of the shoot, Orson would say, 'We're not shooting that scene, I don't like it anymore, I wrote another one,' I didn't mind, because being the character is like being in your own life. You know, before you go to bed, you know exactly what are your appointments for the day after ... And suddenly, someone says to you, Jeanne Moreau can't see you at 6, and you have to change gears, and come a little earlier ... Once you are in the character, whatever happens, the scene is now. New scene, new lines, it doesn't matter. If you are the character just bit by bit, then of course, you panic! 'Oh, how am I going to breathe!' and it becomes complicated. But if you have your suitcase, with all your things, bits and pieces, shoes, skirts, coat, cold, rain, heat, happiness, pain, whatever, you're ready.
"When we started shooting 'Jules and Jim,'" Moreau continues, "after three weeks, we stopped; there was no money left. But I had made another film, and had enough money, so I gave it to Francois [Truffaut]. And why did we do 'Jules and Jim' without sound? So we were free to be out, moving. The film is totally post-synched. Entirely post-synched. We only had a sound engineer the day we did the song."
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