Catherine Breillat

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Catherine Breillat
Breillat in 2023
Born (1948-07-13) 13 July 1948 (age 77)
Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, France
Occupation(s)Film director, screenwriter, novelist

Catherine Breillat (French: [katʁin bʁɛjá]; born 13 July 1948) is a French filmmaker, novelist, and professor of cinema at the European Graduate School.

Early life

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Breillat was born 13 July 1948 in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, France, to her father, Auzay-born Marcel Breillat, a doctor, and her mother Marie-Jeanne Meillan. Her older sister Marie-Hélène Breillat, born 2 June 1947, is an author, painter, and actress.[1] Catherine has stated that, in her adolescence, her family would "diminish" her, and that her mother hated female children.[2][n 1]

Raised in the intensely religious environment of Niort and her family, she found refuge in the town library. She decided to become a writer and film director at the age of twelve after watching Ingmar Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, believing she had found her "fictional body" in Harriet Andersson's character, Anna.[3]

Career

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Breillat studied acting at Yves Furet's Studio d'Entraînement de l'Acteur (Actor's Training Studio) in Paris, together with her sister Marie-Hélène. At 16 years of age, she wrote her first novel, L'homme facile (A Man for the Asking),[4] about a young woman subjugated by a man's fantasies. It was published in 1968 by Christian Bourgois and was immediately banned for readers under 18.[5] In 1972, she attained her first film acting role in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, as a young dressmaker.

Turning to screenwriting, in 1975 she co-wrote the screenplay for the sex comedy film Catherine & Co. with Léo L. Fuchs, based on the eponymous 1967 novel by Edouard de Segonzac.[5] The film follows a young British sex worker who moves to Paris and creates an escort agency. It features Jane Birkin, Patrick Dewaere, and Jean-Claude Brialy.

In 1975, Breillat wrote and directed her first film, Une vraie jeune fille (A Real Young Girl), using a porn crew.[6] The film starred then 21-year-old British actress Charlotte Alexandra and 31-year-old American actor Hiram Keller, the latter of whom had appeared in the original Broadway production of Hair and in Fellini's Satyrikon. The film is based on Breillat's 1974 novel Le Soupirail (The Air Vent), about the sexual stirrings of a 14-year-old girl that lead to a dramatic denouement. The production company Les Films de la Boétie, owned by director and producer André Genovès, went bankrupt before the film was released and its film stock was eventually sold to the French distributor Artédis. In 1999, after almost twenty years of Une vraie jeune fille never having been shown anywhere, Breillat took legal action to obtain the rights to the film, claiming that Pierre-Richard Muller, owner of Artédis, had made clumsy copies of it which had been surreptitiously sold as porn.[7]

In 1979, she wrote and directed the film Tapage nocturne (Nocturnal Uproar), featuring Dominique Laffin, about a film director who is a single mother with a daughter and engages in brief, erotic liaisons. In 1988, she wrote and directed 36 Fillette (Junior Size 36), with then 16-year-old Delphine Zentout as a sexually curious and rebellious 14-year-old engaged in a reciprocally manipulative relationship with an aging philanderer. Then, in 1991, she made Sale comme un ange (Dirty Like An Angel) with Claude Brasseur and Lio, which follows a crooked and alcoholic cop who has an affair with his best friend's wife. In 1996, she made the film Parfait Amour! (Perfect Love!) in 1996, with Francis Renaud and Isabelle Renauld, about the affair between a divorced mother of two and a free-spirited young man.

She also continued to work as a screenwriter during this time for films such as David Hamilton's Bilitis (1977), Maurice Pialat's Police starring Gérard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, and Sandrine Bonnaire (1985), and the thriller Milan Noir starring Isabelle Huppert (1993).

In 1999, she made the film Romance, with the camera helmed by Yorgos Arvanitis, Theo Angelopoulos' favorite director of photography, which became a succès de scandale as it depicts unsimulated sex between protagonists Rocco Siffredi, a porn actor, and actress Caroline Ducey. The plot revolves around a schoolteacher engaged in a long but sexually disappointing relationship who has a one night stand with a stranger and begins a sado-masochistic affair with her school's headmaster.

In 2024, some twenty-five years after the production of Romance, Ducey recounted in her autobiographical book La Prédation (nom féminin) (The Predation [feminine noun]),[8] as well as in an interview with Nouvel Obs,[9] the "traumatizing" sexual assault she endured during the filming, most notably during scenes of unsimulated cunnilingus and anal sex for which she holds Breillat responsible, as she had not given consent.[10] According to Ducey, Breillat demanded that co-star François Berléand penetrate her digitally on camera but he refused, though actor Reza Habouhossein did perform oral sex on her at Breillat's command.[11]

Breillat, responding to the accusation, stated that, while the scenes of unsimulated sex were not in Ducey's contract, the actress had agreed to film them, since everyone who had read the script, including Ducey, should have known what the film's content would be.[12] She said Ducey was "delusional" and announced her intention to file a lawsuit against the actress for defamation,[13] though she did not follow through on this. Ducey "categorically" denied all of Breillat's claims and appealed to the "conscience of the world of cinema" to address the issue of sexual aggression in film sets, a phenomenon she believed had become "banalized."[14][n 2]

In 2004, Breillat directed Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell), featuring Amira Casar and Siffredi, which she said was a "sequel to Romance", and in which, once again, there are scenes of unsimulated sex. The story, based on her book Pornocratie (Pornocracy), revolves around an affair between a suicidal woman and a gay stranger. Breillat subsequently related the difficulties of shooting this film[15] and praised Siffredi for his screen presence and acting abilities.[15]

In 2004, Breillat suffered a intracerebral hemorrhage, causing a stroke that paralyzed her left side.[16]: 13  After a long hospitalization and a process of gradual rehabilitation, she returned to work in 2007, producing, writing, and directing Une vieille maîtresse (The Old Mistress), one of three French films officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival that year.[17]

The same year, Breillat offered Christophe Rocancourt, known as a con man, the leading role in the film she was planning to make based on her novel Bad Love, co-starring with Naomi Campbell.[18] She gave him €25,000 to write a screenplay titled La vie amoureuse de Christophe Rocancourt (The Life of Love of Christophe Rocancourt), and over the next year and a half, gave him "loans" totaling an additional €678,000.[19] In 2009, Breillat published a book, titled Abus de faiblesse, a French legal term usually translated as "abuse of weakness," in which she alleged that Rocancourt had taken advantage of her diminished mental capacity while she was recovering from her stroke.[20][21] In 2012, Rocancourt was convicted of abus de faiblesse for taking Breillat's money, and was sentenced to eight months imprisonment.[19]

Ιn 2007, Breillat completed the filming of the French-Italian production Une vieille maîtresse (distributed in English-speaking countries as The Last Mistress), which she wrote and directed, starring Asia Argento and Fu'ad Aït Aattou. The story is based on the eponymous 19th century novel by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly about a wayward dandy who falls in love with a young woman but is unable to fully leave his mistress.

In September 2010, Breillat's The Sleeping Beauty, featuring Argento and Aït Aattou, opened in the Orizzonti sidebar in the 67th Venice Film Festival.[22] The story begins on the premise of the well-known, eponymous fairy tale. Some years later, in a 2018 interview, Breillat stated that she did not accept Argento's accusations against Harvey Weinstein for sexual abuse, calling Argento a "servile" and "promiscuous" woman who engaged in "semi-prostitution". Argento responded by calling Breillat "the most sadistic and downright evil director [she had] ever worked with".[23] In the same interview, Breillat stated that she didn't approve of the #MeToo movement in which Argento participated, adding that the Miramax owner's downfall was a "loss" for the European film industry.[23]

In 2012, Breillat directed an adaptation of her book Abus de faiblesse, starring Isabelle Huppert, which was screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.[24] She then took a ten-year hiatus, during which she started teaching cinema at the Switzerland-based European Graduate School in 2014,[25] and was appointed that same year, to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[26] In 2023 Breillat returned to directing with L'Été Dernier (Last Summer), featuring Léa Drucker and then 18-year-old Samuel Kircher. The story was based on the 2019 Danish film Queen of Hearts and was co-written with Pascal Bonitzer. Kircher was nominated for Lumière's Most Promising Actor award, playing a young boy who begins an incestuous and eventually destructive erotic relationship with the wife of his father.[27]

Breillat's cinema

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Breillat is known for films focusing on sexuality,[28] intimacy, gender conflict, and sibling rivalry. Her work has been associated with the cinéma du corps (cinema of the body) genre,[29] a term she detests on the grounds that it oversimplifies her work, often mislabeled as merely pornographic or solely focused on the physical. She submits that, while her work is considered controversial for explicitly exploring the human body, these explorations offer a deeper and complex, underlying purpose.[6]

Breillat herself has said she attempts to redefine the female narrative in cinema by showing female characters undergoing experiences similar to their male counterparts. She tries to explore the transition between girlhood and adulthood, as the females of her films, she said, attempt to escape their adolescence by seeking individuality.[30] Liz Constable posits that there is a silence imposed by society on girls to hide their sexuality and desires, except when directly confronted about them, and Breillat offers a platform to expose and discuss female pleasure and sexual responsibility through presenting social and sexual conflicts.[31]

It has been noted that "Breillat remains committed to the long take, particularly during scenes of sexual negotiation, a technique that intends to employ her performers' acting technique to emphasize the political and philosophical elements of sex. In films such as Fat Girl and Romance, key sex scenes possess shots lasting over seven minutes."[32]: 461–480 

In an interview to Senses of Cinema, she described David Cronenberg as a filmmaker who she considers to have a similar approach to sexuality in his film work.[33]

Personal life

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In a 2007 interview to Elle, Breillat revealed she has three children, a daughter, Salomé, then aged 35, and two sons, Hadrien and Paul, aged 25 and 15 respectively, adding that she has shown them all her films.[n 3] She confided her fascination with Christophe Rocancourt, whose "thunderous presence" inspires the "male presence" in her work.[34]

Works

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Filmography

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Year English title Original title Notes
1975 Catherine & Co. Catherine et Compagnie Writer only
1976 A Real Young Girl Une vraie jeune fille Based on Breillat's novel Le Soupirail. Withdrawn after initial showing; re-released in 2000
1977 Bilitis Writer only
1979 Nocturnal Uproar Tapage nocturne
1985 Police Writer only
1987 Milan noir Writer only
1988 Virgin / Junior Size 36 36 fillette Based on her novel
1991 Dirty Like an Angel Sale comme un ange
1993 Couples et amants Couples et amants Co-writer
1996 Perfect Love Parfait amour!
1999 Romance Romance X
2001 Fat Girl À ma sœur!
2001 Brief Crossing Brève traversée
2002 Sex Is Comedy Sex Is Comedy
2004 Anatomy of Hell Anatomie de l'enfer Based on her novel Pornocratie
2007 The Last Mistress Une vieille maîtresse Based on the novel by Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (1851). Entered into the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.[17]
2009 Bluebeard Barbe bleue Based on the tale by Charles Perrault
2010 The Sleeping Beauty La belle endormie Based on Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault
2013 Abuse of Weakness Abus de faiblesse Based on her book of the same title
2023 Last Summer L'Été dernier Based on the 2019 Danish film Queen of Hearts

Bibliography

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  • L'homme facile [A Man for the Asking] (in French). Christian Bourgois. 1968.
  • Les Vêtements de mer [The Clothes for the Sea] (in French). François Wimille Éditeur. 1971.
  • Le Soupirail [The Air Vent] (in French). Guy Autier Éditeur. 1974.
  • Tapage Nocturne [Nocturnal Uproar] (in French). Mercure de France. 1979. ISBN 9782715211841.
  • Abus de faiblesse et autres manipulations [Abuse of Weakness and other manipulations] (in French). JC Lattès. 2012. ISBN 9782709636711.
  • Pornocratie [Pornocracy] (in French). Éditions Denoël. 2004. ISBN 9782207252017.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Breillat has stated that her mother has been as "atrocious" to her first-born daughter as she has been with her, saying "I don’t remember having loved my mother." See Joudet (2025).
  2. ^ In 2022, Breillat declared that "actors are prostitutes," and qualified the claim by adding that this is because actors are paid to play other people's feelings. Breillat characterized the actors' prostitution as an act "not profane" but "a sacred act that we [filmmakers] give them [the opportunity to engage in]." See Kohn (2022).
  3. ^ Breillat has said, "I never wanted to be a mother, but to invent the world that belonged to me: to create cinema, to write. Under no circumstances did I want to be a mother. ... I love my children, but that’s not my identity at all." See Joudet (2025)

References

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  1. ^ "Marie-Hélène Breillat". GeneaNet. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  2. ^ Joudet, Murielle (September 2025). "Cinéaste and Answered". Harper's. Retrieved 12 October 2025. citing Breillat, Catherine (October 2025). I Only Believe in Myself: Conversation with Murielle Joudet. Semiotext(e). ISBN 9781635902617.
  3. ^ "Catherine Breillat on Intimacy". YouTube. 1 February 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2025. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Breillat, Catherine (1968). L'homme facile [A Man for the Asking] (in French). Christian Bourgois Éditeur.
  5. ^ a b Naderzad, Ali (28 April 2013). "Catherine Breillat". Screen Comment. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  6. ^ a b D'Aoust, Amanda (December 2008). The Romance of Catherine Breillat (PDF) (M.A. thesis). Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  7. ^ Potel, Isabelle (28 April 1999). "Breillat veut racheter son film" [Breillat wants to buy back her film]. Libération (in French). Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  8. ^ Ducey, Caroline (August 2024). La Prédation (nom féminin) (in French). Albin Michel. ISBN 9782226493071.
  9. ^ Grassin, Sophie; Topaloff, Anna (27 August 2024). "Caroline Ducey: «J'ai été violée sur le plateau de Romance de Catherine Breillat»" [Caroline Ducey: «I was raped on the set of Catherine Breillat's Romance»]. Nouvel Obs (in French). Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  10. ^ Ducreux, Lou (28 August 2024). ""Reza m'a fait un cunnilingus": Caroline Ducey victime d'un viol en plein tournage ? François Berléand la soutient" ["Reza performed cunnilingus on me": Caroline Ducey victim of rape during in the middle of filming? François Berléand supports her]. Closer (in French). Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  11. ^ Kohn, Eric (14 February 2022). "Catherine Breillat Says 'Actors Are Prostitutes' as Her Romance Star Confronts the Scene That Went Too Far". Indie Wire. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  12. ^ "La comédienne Caroline Ducey affirme avoir été victime d'un viol pendant le tournage du film Romance de Catherine Breillat" [Actress Caroline Ducey affirms having been the victim of rape during the production of Catherine Breillat's film Romance]. France Info (in French). 28 August 2024. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  13. ^ Ducey, Caroline (4 October 2024). Caroline Ducey raconte son viol sur le tournage du film Romance [Caroline Ducey Recounts Her Rape on the Set of the Film Romance] (Video). Konbini (in French). Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  14. ^ a b Richter, Nicole (19 May 2015). "Catherine Breillat". Reverse Shot. Retrieved 15 October 2025. When [Arvanitis] heard I was casting Rocco he wanted to back out of the project and afterward he agreed that Rocco was extraordinary. [Siffredi] is an extraordinary actor and people don't understand that even after this film. He acts with precision. There is an elegance in the way he moves that is just extraordinary. He is able to say lines I thought were impossible. When I looked at Rocco in the eye, then I felt that I was looking into my sister's eye.
  15. ^ "Quand Christophe Rocancourt et Catherine Breillat se dechirent" [When Christophe Rocancourt and Catherine Breillat rip each other apart]. Le Parisien (in French). 9 July 2009. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  16. ^ a b "Une vieille maîtresse". Cannes Film Festival. 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  17. ^ Secher, Benjamin (5 April 2008). "Catherine Breillat: 'All true artists are hated'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  18. ^ a b de Mallevoüe, Delphine (18 February 2012). "Christophe Raconcourt sort de prison et prépare un livre" [Christophe Raconcourt is released from prison and prepares a book]. Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  19. ^ Groves, Don (9 August 2010). "Breillat's new twist on Sleeping Beauty". SBS. Archived from the original on 19 April 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  20. ^ Roxo, Alexandra (7 July 2011). "A Conversation with Catherine Breillat". Hammer to Nail. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  21. ^ Lyman, Eric Jr. (5 April 2008). "Catherine Breillat: 'All true artists are hated'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  22. ^ a b Wiseman, Andreas (30 March 2018). "Actress Asia Argento, Director Catherine Breillat Trade Barbs In Heated Exchange". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  23. ^ "Abus de faiblesse: lorsque Christophe Rocancourt escroqua Catherine Breillat" [Abuse of Weakness: when Christophe Rocancourt swindled Catherine Breillat]. Allo Ciné (in French). 11 September 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  24. ^ "Catherine Breillat, Professor of Film". European Graduate School. Retrieved 13 October 2025.
  25. ^ "Nomination dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres, janvier 2014" [Nomination to the Order of Arts and Letters, January 2014] (in French). Ministry of Culture. Retrieved 13 October 2025.
  26. ^ Roxborough, Scott (14 December 2023). "Anatomy of a Fall Leads France's Lumiere Award Nominations". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  27. ^ Wilson, Emma (2001). "Deforming femininity: Catherine Breillat's Romance". In Mazdon, Lucy (ed.). France on Film- Reflections on Popular French Culture. Wallflower Press. pp. 100–110. ISBN 9781903364116. Romance is part of a larger and sustained project in Breillat's art to consider, challenge and reinvent female sexuality
  28. ^ Palmer, Tim (2011). Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819568274.
  29. ^ Garcia, Maria; Breillat, Catherine (Summer 2011). "Rewriting Fairy Tales, Revisiting Female Identity: An Interview with Catherine Breillat". Cinéaste. 36 (3): 33–35.
  30. ^ Constable, Liz (September 2004). "Unbecoming Sexual Desires for Women Becoming Sexual Subjects: Simone de Beauvoir (1949) and Catherine Breillat (1999)". Modern Language Notes. 119 (4). Johns Hopkins University Press: 672–695. doi:10.1353/mln.2004.0124.
  31. ^ Conway, Kelley (2014). "Sexually Explicit French Cinema: Genre, Gender, and Sex". In Fox, Alistair; Marie, Michel; Moine, Raphaëlle; Radner, Hilary (eds.). A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781444338997.
  32. ^ Murphy, Kevin (February 2005). "Hell's Angels: An Interview with Catherine Breillat on Anatomy of Hell". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 12 October 2025.
  33. ^ Silber, Antoine (1 October 2007). "Une journée avec Catherine Breillat" [A day with Catherine Breillat]. Elle (in French). Retrieved 12 October 2025.

Further reading

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