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Jodie at the US embassy in Paris; ask her a question
Topic Started: Mar 2 2011, 11:30 AM (1,240 Views)
leslieUK
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She looks adorable. I hope the video shows up soon. I checkd their youtube channel again, nothing so far!
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Deleted User
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My favorite librarian.
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Who were the people invited to this event, not the common fan huh?
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clarice
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Here are the videos! :clapping http://www.youtube.com/user/usembassyfrance









Paging frenchy33!
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Andreas
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Thank you! She's so cute!! ^_^
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TitaniumX

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Paging frenchy33

Seconded :P
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Andreas
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TitaniumX
Mar 28 2011, 09:11 PM
Quote:
 
Paging frenchy33

Seconded :P
I will send him/her a PM because I don't think he/she visits anymore!!
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Gogo
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Look at those heels! :love-luv41

Grrrrr :love-shlick
Edited by Gogo, Mar 29 2011, 01:03 AM.
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Artful_Dodger

Andreas
Mar 28 2011, 09:28 PM
TitaniumX
Mar 28 2011, 09:11 PM
Quote:
 
Paging frenchy33

Seconded :P
I will send him/her a PM because I don't think he/she visits anymore!!
Thank you. :hug
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jodiefan

Gogo
Mar 29 2011, 01:02 AM
Look at those heels! :love-luv41 <br /><br />Grrrrr :love-shlick
:biggrin
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Andreas
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We will get a translation soon, I gave the youtube links to frenchy who said she'll do it :biggring2
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Artful_Dodger

:clapping :happydance happybanana :happyhurray Thank you! :hug
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AuntAlice

The first woman who asked a question in the top video is hot!!!
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TitaniumX

AuntAlice
Mar 30 2011, 05:30 AM
The first woman who asked a question in the top video is hot!!!
Agreed!

Welcome :greet
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frenchy_33

Coucou :) I want to apologize for all the english mistakes you will find in the text, it was very long and I must have forgotten to correct certain things. :)

Part 1 - Her childhood

Jodie: Thank you Charlie, it’s a pleasure to be here and also it’s exceptional to get to see again classmates and people you knew while growing up, especially in these circumstances. It’s really a great thing.

I have both cultures. The thing is that my mother, when I was six/seven years old – it was the Nixon era. She hated them. She would say “we cannot stay in the United States”. She had never left the states before, she bought a passport and came to France, it was her dream. She came here and she didn’t speak a word of French. Then she went back to the states and she told me “you are going to do French movies, we’re going to move there”. She put me into a French school, so that I could translate everything (laughs), it lasted a couple of years, then we ran out of money so we had to go back to the states. But I got to live one the best period of my life here and most importantly, the thing she did –that’s I’m grateful for to this day- was to pick me up at school every day to take me to the cinema and watch french movies. She thought it was one of the best ways to learn the language and the culture. And it was a way for her to escape a bit, through the french and european movies.

And that’s what I was dreaming about, the exotism of this place –nowadays not so much exotic anymore- It gave me a passion about French cinema in particular and European cinema in general. I would say “That’s me. That is my style, my signature, my voice”. As a director I did personal movies, and, at the time, French movies were very personal –both because they didn’t have the same budget as the americans and also because it was in the culture- I discovered this kind of intimacy with France, French emotions through Louis Malle, Lelouche, Truffaut, all these people, De Broca, Chabrol… And, by the way, my first movie, ‘Little Man Tate’, is a total ripoff of Louis Malle’s ‘Le Souffle au Cœur’. I told him, actually, and he laughed (laughs).

Woman in the audience: You were saying that you had very little memories of the time where you weren’t an actress; if you had to objectively define the reason why you’ve succeeded and why you took the path you did, what would you say?

Jodie: There are two things that are the biggest influences. Maybe three. The first one was my mother. She was my manager and she wanted to protect me. Emotionally, psychologically. And it’s also possible that she had an agenda, that she wanted to live vicariously through me. That there was something she wanted for herself through my career. What she wanted was for me to be respected. She didn’t want me to be a model, a nice little girl with make up etc. She wanted for me to be as respected as the men who were her heroes. Because she never had that opportunity, she never had the right. It’s a feminist story of a mother who wanted her daughter to have what she couldn’t have, with a persona and an identity that she couldn’t have. That’s a very good thing.

The second thing is, when I was young –and my movie ‘Little Man Tate’ is a bit autobiographical about that- I was strange. Not so much strange but very solitary, very intellectual, and at the same time very precocious emotionally. And even if I wasn’t a maths or science prodigy, at five or six years old, having lived with a single mother who raised me alone, and having been surrounded by adults mostly, I would understand the emotional life of adults in a way that I shouldn’t have.

It’s a phenomenon that has helped me in my career as an actress. And the fact that I was very intellectual at the same time has always made my acting a bit different, a bit special. Most actors become actors to be able to externalize and dance on tables and make funny faces. But me I was a bit shy –no, not shy, reserved. And I would see cinema a bit like a philosophy essay. And I would analyse things intellectually and at the same time I had an emotional depth that was very bizarre for my age. For the rest, I suck (laughs) These are the only things I can do. And the thing I’m the most proud about in my career is that, like my mother would always tell me, the most important choice is the choice of authenticity and truth. So everytime you have to take a decision as an actress or a business woman or an individual, you need to pick the right path.

Host: some questions were asked on our facebook page. One says “What would you have done if you hadn’t been an actress?”

Jodie: Ahh. That’s something I ask myself almost every day. I’ve started acting at the age of three and I never had much of a choice about it. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t have fun, only that when you’re three you don’t really get to have an opinion. I really don’t have memories of when I wasn’t an actress. And sometimes I tell myself that it’s a pity because I wonder who I could have become, what I would have done. Would I have become a lawyer, a political figure? I think I would have done something related to cinema anyway. I think I would have become a writer. I have worked with so many writers and scenarists, unfortunately I’m a bit intimidated about that. I haven’t done as much writing as I would have wanted. So maybe a writer.

Part 2 – Her franco-american culture.

Jodie: I wanted to talk about what it’s like to be somebody with two educations and two cultures. I went to French schools in the USA, I’m a bit half-French half-American, but I think that there’s a difference between people who are integrated and people who are creolized. Personnally I think creolization is the best thing. It means you get to have the best of the two cultures. I have a love and a passion for litterature and art, ideas, languages and history like the French, but I also love music, I love my contemporary culture.

And you, the young French people, you are also creolized. And we have to accept it. America, it’s not just the Mac Donald’s (laughs), it’s Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, soul music, jazz, hiphop... It’s the landscape of the future. This landscape isn’t an old white male (laughs), it’s a creolization of all the cultures living together.

Man in the audience: Good evening, my name is Stanny Copet I’m an actor, I am really happy and at the same time surprised to hear you talk about creolity because I am French, creole, a mix of different cultures, and I have the feeling that in France we haven’t acknowledged this concept of creolity. I am happy to see that from the exterior, people know this creolity exists in France, so, thank you.

Jodie: The thing is that, in America, we had to face it in a totally different manner. It’s just going to take time. It has happened anyway, there’s nothing that can be done. It’s not going away, the old times are over. And I always say, having external succes is the worst reason for making artistic choices. And I think that it’s always true that when you’re doing things for reasons that are authentic, in the long run, you’re way more successful.

Man in the audience: My name is Alan and I have a dual franco-american culture. My friend Catherine and I want to open an acting school especially for actors of the diversity in the suburbs, so that these youths from the suburbs know that being an actor is a job that has to be taught. There are technical and indivudual rules and—in order to open the door and address the fact that, in France, when you need an actor from the diversity, people say “Well there are none”. “Yes, there are plenty”, “Yes, but there aren’t good.” “What do you mean they aren’t good? Wake up!”. So we are going to teach, and tell them that there is a place in the suburbs where you can see and choose actors.

Jodie: It’s a very good idea, and we have a lot of these schools in the United States. We have a lot of schools for cinema and theatrical acting for all kinds of people. Because the most important thing is experience. The experience of stepping on stage, the experience of doing scenes, acting in front of the camera, all of this... you need to have experience. It’s not just standing there and... And if you don’t have the opportunity to build experience it’s really a pity. But I think all of this will come with time anyway.

Man in the audience: My name is Bernard Solitude, when you talk about creolity, a person like you who has the chance of having a dual culture, how do you explain that this creolization seems to have a hard time taking in here in France, by contrast to the United States?

Jodie: It’s because we have very different cultures and history. Us americans, we were all immigrants, coming from everywhere, and even if we had the little slavery issue (laughs), still, it took us only a century to accept that we’re all different. And it’s interesting because—when I was in school, my major and thesis were on African and African-American litterature, with a teacher that you may have heard about, Skip Gates, Henry Louis Gates Jr, who is the star teacher of all this, and it was something important you know, to be in Yale, for a little californian like me, while my siblings hadn’t graduated high school etc, it was a big thing. And when I told my mother what my major was, she was all shocked and disappointed, she took me by the shoulders and said “You get to go to this university and you want to study blacks?” and I said “yeah!” and she said “but it’s not your culture!” and I answered “but I’m an American, so this is my culture. It’s as much my culture as it is anyone else’s. It’s my country”.

And my teacher, Skip Gates, when people ask him about me, why I studied this, he answers “Because she was raised well !” (laughs) And it’s true, it’s all about communicating with others, learning to know others, learning about the other cultures.

Part 3 – Her career

Woman in the audience: When you work on a set, when you make movies, you see movies differently. It kind of breaks the magic –I know it’s the case for me...

Jodie: It’s true

Woman in the audience: ...who are the directors or actors you worked with who managed to re-create the magic, the creativity?

Jodie: I’ve been in the movie business for 45 years, it’s a long time for doing always the same thing, doing the same job for 45 years is very long. But I must say that it’s a bit like being a composer, with a symphony. You come up, you know the music, and you’re like: “The violins, I’d like you to do this. The drums, I’d like you to do this. This is not good, this is better etc.” You could think it takes the magic away, but in reality you always manage to get into the music, when everything comes together there is something really beautiful. You control all the details and yet the result is always unexpected and surprising. But you need to find a technique –especially as a director- to find this spontaneity and magic. Personnally, as a director, what I try to do is... I prepare everything, all the sequences, everything, I know exactly what I’m going to when the cameral rolls, I rehearse with the actors etc, I do the blocking with them, we talk about the script, answer the questions etc and when I come to the set, I let the moment happen. I do two takes and I’m done. The moment I know I have it, I’m done and I do it very quickly because I don’t want to tire the actors’ and technicians’ minds. But it’s very demanding for them. And sometimes you work with very young actors and it takes 25 takes for him to understand what he has to do (smiles) But when you’re into this sort of symphony, and you manage to do it fast, you really have captured a moment, a real moment. And this particular moment will never come back, it will never happen again. That’s what I find beautiful in cinema.

Among the directors -- I’ve worked with a lot of great ones, I have a lot of luck about that – the one I respect the most and learned the most from is David Fincher. He’s very technical, he does a hundred takes, he’s crazy, he can spend an hour trying to move an object on the table this way or that way to make everything perfect. And as an actor, I am here for him, to put his vision into action.

On the other side, there is Neil Jordan, with whom I did The Brave One, he works in a totally different way. He’s a poet, he works using his stream of consciousness, he writes down everything he can think of. Which doesn’t mean that he isn’t prepared. Emotionally, he’s obsessed with the project. He comes to the set, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He’s like a dancer. He comes up, moves some stuff, and he’s like: “How about you have a cat? What if you strangled it?” It wasn’t in the script or anything, he invents completely crazy stuff, he says “What if three taxis came on this street?” and then people run around trying to find taxis etc. And it gives a truth to his movies that comes from his subconscious. It’s not conscious at all. There’s something very primitive going on in his films. My movies aren’t like that at all. But I’ve learned a lot from these two opposite directors.

I think in my fifties, I want to work less as an actor and more as a director. It’s really my moment as a director. I’ve only done three movies in 15 years, more than that, even. It’s a pity. I had a big career that drove me in different places, but that’s what I want to do now.

Man in the audience: I wanted to talk about your next movie The Beaver. I love Mel Gibson and ever since I saw the trailer I’m really happy and am really looking forward to it, because I have the feeling it will be a movie that will suit him in this particular time in his career and personal life. I have the feeling it’s a perfect role for him, like Mikey Rourke in The Wrestler, a type of role that can allow an individual to rebound. I wanted to ask you about him.

Jodie: He’s a man I know very well, that I’ve known for a long time, and I’m not the only one who says he’s the most beloved actor on the american sets. He’s adored in the industry because he’s funny, intelligent, kind, always professional, very talented... He’s really beloved. Now the timing of his personal problems isn’t good at all for my movie. We had to push it back several times in the United States, because it was supposed to be released for the Oscars this year. He would have certainly been nominated actually, he’s magnificient in the movie. Even if you don’t like the movie—he really is magnificient in it. And it’s a very unusual role for him, he’s very pathetic, very sad, and he has to fight. And he becomes insane. So, I don’t know how –we will see how people receive it. My impression –I did screenings here in France and in the United States, and what I noticed is that the French love the film, whereas the Americans are a bit reluctant, because the tone of the film is very different. The film starts with a kind of lightness, a bit of comedy, a concept that’s very absurd, but then descends into something very dark. And the Americans were asking why it wasn’t a romantic comedy, why it wasn’t Jim Carey etc, while it’s not that at all. It’s a very different movie, dealing with depression, suicide, sadness, and not just in the character of Mel Gibson but surrounding all the family. How it touches the entire family, a family where people are all solitary.

Part 4 – The cinema she loves

Jodie: At the moment, there are so many great things going on in France. You have a government that supports all the young voices –which I think is very good- that supports all the voices and it’s something we don’t have in the United States. It’s harder for us to make independent films, it’s harder for us to make first movies as directors, because we don’t have the culture of the cinéma d’auteur. And it’s the reason why you have so many young interesting directors here doing their films. In America, very few of them manage to do their film. But at the same time, there’s one thing that bothers me. This independence of the author. The director who writes all his scripts himself and who lets no one touch it... It’s not always all alone that you come up with the best results. Especially when you’re young. I think that the collaboration with the technicians and the actors can create something sublime. And it doesn’t mean that your subject will get lost. You can let other voices integrate your own and still be independent. I’m thinking about Scorsese who’s never written a scenario in his life, neither has Francis Ford Coppola.

There was a time where I would have loved to produce. I had helped the distribution of a French movie in the United States called ‘La Haine’. It’s one of the movies I’m the most proud of and I had nothing do to with it! (laughs) They did it without me. I saw it before its release and I said “I really need to be part of this movie”. Matthieu Kassovitz is a rare talent, and the film deals with contemporary life in a way that was at the time totally unexpected but so true, so much truer than the American movies of the same era that also wanted to depict the anguish and the fear of the urban youths towards the future. The mix of the races, the identity of the immigrants, etc. And I thought “Spike Lee has something to learn from this movie”. So I exported it to the United States, it wasn’t a mad success but still a few americans saw it, they especially loved the cd that came with it (laughs). And I could see that –not through this movie but through my experience - you, the French, are also creolized.

:greet
Edited by frenchy_33, Mar 30 2011, 07:05 PM.
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jodiefan

outstanding, thank you so much.
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clarice
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THANK YOU :clapping I really appreciate the efforts you put into this Frenchy, it was thrilling to read since she always gives great interviews in French.

I found this part really revealing:

Quote:
 
The second thing is, when I was young –and my movie ‘Little Man Tate’ is a bit autobiographical about that- I was strange. Not so much strange but very solitary, very intellectual, and at the same time very precocious emotionally. And even if I wasn’t a maths or science prodigy, at five or six years old, having lived with a single mother who raised me alone, and having been surrounded by adults mostly, I would understand the emotional life of adults in a way that I shouldn’t have.

Isn't it the first time she admits to this? That there was something wrong in the way she was raised / that her childhood wasn't perfect?

Also, I find it interesting that she says her mother was single and raised her alone, when her brother documented, with pictures, the strong support and presence of Jo Dominguez in their life. It simply baffles me. She was named after her for God's sake. It sounds incredibly ungrateful and plain sad.

My belief is that the two are linked, but she will never elaborate. She's incredibly protective of her mother, still...
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jodiefan

iirc the answer she supposedly gave buddy regarding his shock at jo d's disappearance/death was mad cold, too. it's a mystery.
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michelle

I think "single mother" just means without a father.
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Artful_Dodger

*bows down to frenchy_33* Thank you!! :cute That was so very nice of you to translate for all of us. Very much appreciated. :hug
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Andreas
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Thank you again Frenchy!! :congrats

I added this one just for you: :bow


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daryl

..And it’s also possible that she had an agenda, that she wanted to live vicariously through me. That there was something she wanted for herself through my career. What she wanted was for me to be respected. She didn’t want me to be a model, a nice little girl with make up etc. She wanted for me to be as respected as the men who were her heroes. Because she never had that opportunity, she never had the right. It’s a feminist story of a mother who wanted her daughter to have what she couldn’t have, with a persona and an identity that she couldn’t have. That’s a very good thing.

...having lived with a single mother who raised me alone, and having been surrounded by adults mostly, I would understand the emotional life of adults in a way that I shouldn’t have.

[/quote]Firstly thank you Frenchy for the translation and the time it must have taken you to do it, greatly apprectiated.

Seeing her upbringing as a Feminist story is certainly one way of looking at it, the other way is to see her as the "product" of a Narcassitic mother who as she says lived "vicarioulsy through me". Not so sure that's a very good thing. Who's persona and identity are we talking about?

There's an interview on youtube where the interviewer takes her back to her old house. He talkes about Andy Warhol and his autobiography where AW apparently makes refernce to JF and her mum, saying something along the lines that Jf was the father in this relationship. It was implied that JF was the caretaker in the relationship to which she said sometihing about that being her "MO". Could this be something about being a child and understanding the emotional world of adults? Undrstanding and making sense are two very different things. Could also imply that there wasn't much room for her (JFs) emotional life (detactchment at JD's death?), is that why her intellect is so enhanced and important to her? Maybe that's the bit her mother couldnt' take from her?!?!?

Then there's a reference she recently made about fighting with her mum about how JF was parenting her eldest son, JF not doing it the same way as her mum. JF seems to have had to fight with her mum about lots. Is it any wonder that now her mum has dementia that JF wants to move to NY, give up acting as much and concentrate on directing...conincidental???
Edited by daryl, Mar 31 2011, 12:22 PM.
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ohman
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@frenchy:

Thank you so much for your effort!!! Despite I understand a lot of French I couldn't follow everything, especially what the people said with their dialects however JF's French is very clear... but she does really love to hear herself talking, isn't she - without any point and comma :freak2 :D
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ohman
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ohman
Mar 31 2011, 12:47 PM
@frenchy:

Thank you so much for your effort!!! Despite I understand a lot of French I couldn't follow everything, especially what the people said with their dialects however JF's French is very clear... but she does really love to hear herself talking, isn't she - without any point and comma :freak2 :D
äh, doesn't she :ashamed1
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TitaniumX

That was a fascinating read. Thanks a million for this thread and all of your translations and contributions.

Clarice and Daryl, I enjoy your posts and I agree with the points you made.

She said before that Souffle Au Coeur was one of her favorites movies ever. Now it suprises me to hear her say that Little Man Tate is a rip-off (??) I can't see why :blink: but it's an interesting comment. I don't know if you guys saw that movie? You can read its synopsis on wikipedia:

The film starts by showing the adventures of the boy in school and his first sexual experience at a brothel. When the boy is found to have a heart murmur after a bout of scarlet fever, he goes with his mother to a sanatorium, where a series of circumstances lead to a sexual encounter with his mother.

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TitaniumX

Quote:
 
but she does really love to hear herself talking, isn't she - without any point and comma

I believe this to be a French situation in general :lol

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Artful_Dodger

Thanks, Andreas. Much better. :bow
Edited by Artful_Dodger, Mar 31 2011, 03:01 PM.
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ohman
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TitaniumX
Mar 31 2011, 01:23 PM
Quote:
 
but she does really love to hear herself talking, isn't she - without any point and comma

I believe this to be a French situation in general :lol

...and because she is of both cultures obviously an american too :D
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leslieUK
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:cheers
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ohman
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leslieUK
Mar 31 2011, 05:55 PM
:cheers
:popcorn
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