French Director Benoit Jacquot (center) with his two producers
Last weekend I found myself back at Rendezvous with French Cinema, the annual festival of new French films at Lincoln Center, where I saw the delightfully historical Farewell, My Queen directed by Benoit Jacquot. I'll spare you a review, in exchange for a recommendation. Suffice to say it is about the last days of Marie Antoinette. But I must say I had a surprisingly fun time taking this picture of the director with his two producers. Unusually light hearted - both onstage after his Q&A, and in his direction of the film itself - Benoit Jacquot set up this decidedly fashionable photographic composition for me. Merci!
Benoit Jacquot
Mathieu Demy and Chiara Mastroianni
I get dizzy just thinking about all the levels of cinema legacy involved in this photograph I took on Saturday. Let me try to explain. Chiara Mastroianni is the daughter of legendary actors Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. She stars in Mathieu Demy's new film Americano. Mathieu Demy is the actor/director son of French New Wave directors Jacques Demy (Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and Agnes Varda (Cleo From 5 to 7). He stars in and directed the film Americano. The film also stars Geraldine Chaplin, daughter of Charlie Chaplin - got it all straight?
Ameriano, basically a film about a mother-son relationship, includes footage shot of Mathieu Demy as a kid in the 1970's, by his real mother Agnes Varda. And the girl he pursues throughout the film, played by Salma Hayek, is named Lola, (coincidentally?) the name of the 1961 film directed by his father Jacques Demy, which starred Anouk Aimee, who co-starred with Chiara's father Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita. And of course, Chiara Mastroianni's mother Catherine Deneuve starred in Jacques Demy's Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Is this getting you dizzy, too? Well that's the whole point of today's blog entry.
