Featuring a lineup of distinguished academics, this collection remedies the absence of scholarly attention to French cinematic legend Isabelle Huppert. This volume deconstructs Huppert's star persona and public profile through critical and theoretical analysis of her various screen roles-from her very early appearances alongside Romy Schneider in César et Rosalie (Sautet, 1972) and Gérard Depardieu in Les Valseuses (1974) to a number of celebrated collaborations with high-profile European auteurs such as Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke and Joseph Losey, and with more popular auteurs such as Claude Chabrol and François Ozon. Known for a cerebral internalization of characterization, a technical mastery of extreme emotions, and a singular brand of icy intellectualism, Huppert's performances continue to impress, stun and surprise audiences. By focusing on several theoretical questions that relate to image, identity, sexuality and place, this volume situates Huppert's star persona in the more practical creative contexts of performance, authorship, genre and collaboration. This volume contrasts complementary critical accounts of her stardom by working across the different periods and territories of her career.

Isabelle Huppert stands out among actresses due to her audacious choices of roles, both for films as well as for the theater. Her intelligence and intuition are evident in the parts she plays. Her renown as an actress is not limited to the French cinema but embraces Europe and the rest of the world. This most mysterious of actresses likes to be photographed but she is not an easy subject. She offers herself to the eye of the camera yet remains secretive, almost absent. The great photographers of our time -- Richard Avedon, Edouard Boubat, Guy Bourdin, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliot Erwitt, Lartigues, Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Sylvia Plachy, Marc Riboud, and Scavullo -- took up the challenge. Huppert's energy and strength are often shrouded behind a kind of melancholy, and these photographers have captured beautifully that contradictory quality. Not only a collection of gorgeous images, this haunting book also unveils the bond between the public image and the secret soul of this unique woman.

Featuring a lineup of distinguished academics, this collection remedies the absence of scholarly attention to French cinematic legend Isabelle Huppert. This volume deconstructs Huppert's star persona and public profile through critical and theoretical analysis of her various screen roles-from her very early appearances alongside Romy Schneider in César et Rosalie (Sautet, 1972) and Gérard Depardieu in Les Valseuses (1974) to a number of celebrated collaborations with high-profile European auteurs such as Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke and Joseph Losey, and with more popular auteurs such as Claude Chabrol and François Ozon. Known for a cerebral internalization of characterization, a technical mastery of extreme emotions, and a singular brand of icy intellectualism, Huppert's performances continue to impress, stun and surprise audiences. By focusing on several theoretical questions that relate to image, identity, sexuality and place, this volume situates Huppert's star persona in the more practical creative contexts of performance, authorship, genre and collaboration. This volume contrasts complementary critical accounts of her stardom by working across the different periods and territories of her career.

Alain Elkann has mastered the art of the interview. With a background in novels and journalism, and having published over twenty books translated across ten languages, he infuses his interviews with innovation, allowing them to flow freely and organically. Alain Elkann Interviews will provide an unprecedented window into the minds of some of the most well-known and -respected figures of the last twenty-five years.

Claude Chabrol (1930–2010) was a founding member of the French New Wave, the group of filmmakers that revolutionized French filmmaking in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One of the most prolific directors of his generation, Chabrol averaged more than one film per year from 1958 until his death in 2010. Among his most influential films, Le Beau Serge, Les Cousins, and Les Bonnes Femmes established his central place within the New Wave canon. In contrast to other filmmakers of the New Wave such as Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer, Chabrol exhibited simultaneously a desire to create films as works of art and an impulse to produce work that would be commercially successful and accessible to a popular audience. The seventeen interviews in this volume, most of which have been translated into English for the first time, offer new insights into Chabrol’s remarkably wide-ranging filmography, providing a sense of his attitudes and ideas about a number of subjects. Chabrol shares anecdotes about his work with such actors as Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, and Jean Yanne, and offers fresh perspectives on other directors including Jean-Luc Godard, Fritz Lang, and Alfred Hitchcock. His mistrust of conventional wisdom often leads him to make pronouncements intended as much to shock as to elucidate, and he frequently questions established ideas and normative attitudes toward moral, ethical, and social behaviors. Chabrol’s intelligence is far-reaching, moving freely between philosophy, politics, psychology, literature, and history, and his iconoclastic spirit, combined with his blend of sarcasm and self-deprecating humor, gives his interviews a tone that hovers between a high moral seriousness and a cynical sense of hilarity in the face of the world’s complexities.