French Actress
Essay
No, I don’t plan to discuss on the history of French cinéma with a focus on French actresses for this essay. Despite, yes, the fact that there are so many great French films as to be wonderful as French actresses are by having played in. Neglecting even a simple list to cite movies in France and sparing time to mention French actresses are equally a shame. Nevertheless, I dare to do so for the sake of subject matter on which I am contemplating in a hope for its decent development. Yes, I have vaguely an idea at this time, which is not usual in my case and can be even said that it may be contrarily to my principle as my publication to be in live. It should not be so dramatically stated, you may be otherwise thinking. All right, you are not thinking anything special because this is just the first paragraph. Or, if you happen to be thinking something, it could be “Oh again! She just abruptly starts her writing, hoping some momentums and inspiration can catch up with”. Some people are really keen, I know that.
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X:
The above X meant to be X (Twitter), on which I posted yesterday my article, which can be described as an essay in a very short form, into which I inserted two links: one is a post of Allain Weber; the other, Fascinating. I also made screenshots from their posts, thus many courtesies for their posts on X.
My article on X can be reached via the link below.
Il s’agissait de l’actrice, Monica Bellucci. It’s about Monica Bellucci, actress.
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(courtesy: Google images of The Passion of The Christ)
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When “The Passion of The Christ” was theatrical released in 2004, the most spoken of was the realism of Jesus’s crucifixion along with the long way to the Golgotha during which Jesus, in full of blood, carrying the cross was incessantly whipped and humiliated by soldiers and crowds laughed at. Mel Gibson was the director and there were many interviews and articles as well as film reviews about the depiction of Jesus’s suffering at that much of realistic images.
The year 2004 was two decades ago. Since then, I have not watched the film as far as I remember. If I did, that could have been once by its DVD version, not in the recent past. In either case, I did skip the sequence of Jesus’s passion, so that strictly speaking of it, that I watched the film is not accurate, because I did not go through to the end straight. The impression which I got in my recollection, the passion was materialized as violence intolerable to watch.
Monica Bellucci played Mary Magdalene. Maila Morgenstern for St. Mary, mother of God. I was almost awed by those two actresses. The laconic role of Belluci as Mary Magdalene in the film gave me a biblical imagery of Mary, reproduced to most faithfully meet modern movie viewers’ imagination of the saint. Beautiful, sensual, maltreated, unfortunate, yet serene and very female. St. Mary played by Maila Morgensern impressed me from an opposite angle. It was very fresh for me to see St. Mary as a middle aged woman, unlike Mary depicted as ageless in paintings, wherever she is, whether at the birth of Jesus or in Golgotha regardless. St. Mary to be a truly human pleased me a lot.
There should be no exact consensus regarding the age of St. Mary upon the birth of Jesus. The same is true, I believe, for the age of Jesus at the crucifixion. I understand St. Mary was between 14 - 16 years old upon the annonciation. Jesus was crucified around his age of 33. Maila Morgenstern properly played as a woman whose age was around 50.
The fact I had not know was that Monica Bellucci and Maila Morgenstern are almost the same age. Morgenstern was made to be such by the make ups of professional crew.
(courtesy: Google images of Maila Morgenstern)
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I debated hard to myself whether it is ethical for me to post a trailer which I cannot watch through it with my fully opened eyes. So, this is the warning. Jesus there is very realistically assaulted. His body is literally torn. While reviewing the content of the video clip only with my half-closed eys, I, however, noticed newly that violent shots seem to be very faithfully copied from the existing paintings of Jesus’s passion made after the medieval era. But, flesh’s torn, blood’s everywhere, that’s too painful to watch in a motion picture of Jesus. So please mind my alert and decide to watch or skip.
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Below are screenshots I made from the trailer.
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Vincent Cassel était l’époux de Monica Bellucci. They were together for more than 10 years before the breakup. I’ve never seen her movie in Italian. My strong association of the actress to France is in a way thus personal. She reminds me of Isabelle Adjani who used to be my favorite actress of all ages, all races, and all nationalities. Her French films, Vincent Cassel, and Isabelle Adjani are the causal effects on me to dogmatically name her French actress. I hope you were not too critical on it. Anyway, I’m not writing a thesis of film study. In addition, this essay is not about French cinéma nor French actresses, as I told you in the beginning.
Les femmes sans âge sont nos deux Maries bibliques, évidemment. Fortune is on the actress who looked up Jesus on the cross. She stepped back into time to be humanly aging. But for a viewer, that is me, the actress can bring me back to the moments of her being Mary Magdalene.
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A la fin de cette publication, mon petit essai, voyons la vidéo courte de L’histoire d’Adèle H par François Truffaut (1975). H stands for the first letter of Hugo (Victor) whose daughter was played by Isabelle Adjani.
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“French Actress” by Juliette Masch (9/14)