Passion and loneliness of one of the best French actresses, in which there is not a drop of French blood: Isabelle Adjani

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Isabelle Adjani would not have been so popular and loved by viewers all over the world if her life and career did not consist of contradictions - this is exactly what, and even talent and hard work often open the way to success and recognition. It is for the understatement, mystery, ambiguity that French actresses, including Ajani, are so valued, and is it really important that she, strictly speaking, is not a Frenchwoman?

Girl, do you want to act in films?

Because both mother and father Isabelle Adjani were representatives of other states and other nationalities. Emma Augusta Schweinberger is a German from Bavaria, Mohammed Sheriff Adjani is an emigrant from Algeria who served in the French armed forces, and then stayed in Paris, where he worked as a mechanic in a car repair shop. For a long time, his family was shy about his origin, Augusta told friends that her husband was a Turk, and he himself avoided using the Arabic language even in conversations with relatives. Then, as a child, Isabelle first faced oppression based on different nationalities.

Isabelle Yasmina Adjani was born on June 27, 1955, she had a younger brother, Eric, who later became a photographer; Eric Adjani passed away in 2010. As a child, Isabelle was very fond of books, imagined herself a heroine of different stories, loved to mentally transform into other people. She started acting in amateur theater. Once a girl sitting on a bench in a schoolyard and clearly immersed in a fantasy world was noticed by director Bernard Toublanc-Michel. He was struck by the facial expressions of Isabelle - she frowned, then smiled, her expression every now and then changed, following some script hidden from prying eyes. It was in this girl that the director saw the future heroine of his film "The Little Coal Miner".

So fourteen-year-old Ajani got her first role. Despite the fact that the film was for children, Isabelle's play attracted attention, and the young actress received new offers, she starred with Nina Kompaneets in the film Faustin and a Beautiful Summer and was invited to the most prestigious theater in the country - Comedie Francaise, staged who already at the age of sixteen played the main roles. It was Isabelle Adjani who invited Claude Pinoto to the film "Slap", and she found herself on the set in the company of the already recognized masters of French cinema - Annie Girardot and Lino Ventura.

It seems that Isabelle never had to fight and compete for her roles - they found her themselves. In the same 1974, Ajani was "found" by director François Truffaut. He was preparing for the filming of a film about Victor Hugo's daughter Adele, who lost her mind from unhappy love, and was shocked to see films with Isabelle Adjani, and most importantly, to attend a performance with her participation. Truffaut made the 19-year-old actress an offer that will determine her fate and career and make, by her own admission, make the most important decision in her life.

Awards, recognition, glory

Shooting in the film "The Story of Adele G." could not be combined with work in the theater. Comedie Francaise offered Isabelle a multi-year contract - but the actress chose cinema. The shooting took place on the island of Guernsey, where the events that formed the basis of the film were once unfolded. Truffaut played the role of Pygmalion in relation to the young actress, and, of course, according to the laws of the genre, fell in love with her. For this role, Adjani was nominated for the French César, and in addition - for the Oscar, becoming the youngest contender for an award in the history of this award.

After that, Isabelle Adjani already received international recognition, she began to receive offers from Hollywood directors. François Truffaut commented on her success: "France is too small for her - Isabelle is made for American cinema." Ajani has starred with the most famous directors, including Roman Polanski, Luc Besson, James Ivory, Werner Herzog. Knowledge of languages also helped her - the actress from childhood spoke not only French, but also German, English, Italian.

With all the variety of roles that Isabelle Adjani played in the cinema, the common features of her heroines are striking - these are women, as a rule, prone to neuroses, fragile, anxious, depressed or generally insane, often victims. The characters played by the actress became part of her own nature during her work, she literally lived through their feelings and emotions, completely immersing herself in the image. On the eve of filming difficult scenes, she could not sleep at night - in order to achieve on the screen that effect of exhaustion, exhaustion, anguish, which the role demanded. In the seventies and after it was in demand - among viewers and film critics, Ajani was a huge success.

She received a record five Cesars for Best Actress - in the film Obsessed by Andrzej uławski, in the erotic drama Murderous Summer, in Camille Claudel, where she starred with Gerard Depardieu, in the historical drama Queen Margot, in 2008 film "The Last Lesson." It would seem that a woman of such stunning beauty and great talent, who knows how to be a person and not lose herself in the complex world of cinema, is doomed to become happy in family life. But that never happened.

Passion and loneliness

For reporters and for all those interested in the world of the beau monde, Isabelle Adjani has always been a dark horse - laying out on the set, she was extremely closed in everyday life, her interviews were often stingy with words and emotions, and the answers were formal and laconic. Therefore, the pregnancy of the actress became a bit of a surprise, as a result of which in 1979 the son of Barnabe was born. His father was the director Bruno Nuitten, with whom Isabelle tried to build both family and working relationships, but the couple still broke up. He himself spoke of Ajani as “a person out of this world”, special, and therefore often incomprehensible.

"Great passion never turns into good friendships," Ajani said in one of the few candid interviews about the father of her second son, Daniel Day Lewis, a British actor whom she met at the Oscars. This long-term, difficult relationship, with Day Lewis's betrayal and Ajani's seclusion, her neglect of maternal responsibilities in relation to Barnabe, ended in 1994, and in 1995, when Daniel had already married another, Isabelle gave birth to his son Gabriel.

Several stories that became known to the general public - including the connection with the composer Jean-Michel Jarre, ended in the same way - Isabelle was left alone, alone with the work, to which she, as always, devoted all her strength, without a trace. takes a pronounced position on some acute social issues, for many years she has been opposing xenophobia in France, protecting the rights of people from North Africa, for equal rights for women and men. Loud premieres and film festivals for her are not so much a way to remind herself as an actress - there is no need for that - but an opportunity to voice important views and values to a wide audience.

And she is still one of the most beautiful French women. Isabelle Adjani is the muse of perfume and cosmetics companies, the face of many luxury brands, and despite the fact that she is soon sixty-five, she continues to occupy her place in the fashion industry, personifying her own words that “femininity has no expiration date.

About how the fate of Adele G. actually developed and who she was: here.