Charlotte Rampling et Ludivine Sagnier selon François Ozon

Réunis à l’écran dans Swimming-pool, Charlotte Rampling et Ludivine Sagnier ont toutes les deux un autre point commun : elle doivent leur consécration à François Ozon.

Chouchou des critiques, le réalisateur français a démarré sa carrière « grand public » avec Sitcom en 1998. Le public lui doit notamment 8 femmes et 5x2. Dimanche 19 juillet, Jimmy consacrera sa soirée au travail du cinéaste, à l’occasion de la diffusion de deux films. Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes ouvrira cette programmation spéciale, à partir de 20h45. Premier rôle majeur de Ludivine Sagnier (avant 8 femmes), il réunit Bernard Giraudeau et Malik Zidi sur les thèmes de l’homosexualité et des rapports amoureux.

En seconde partie de soirée, Bruno Crémer disparaitra sous les yeux de Charlotte Rampling. Réalisé en 2001, Sous le sable a notamment marqué le retour sur les écrans de l’actrice, en plus du succès public. L’histoire du film a été inspirée par un souvenir d’enfance du cinéaste.

Ludivine Sagnier - Fairy Tales

As she prepares to set the silver screen alight once more, French actor Ludivine Sagnier talks to Tom Dawson about Snow White, politics and being a star in the making

Ingenue, starlet and disgracefully young-looking, Ludivine Sagnier is about to turn 30. In a dazzlingly high-quality career, she has packed in collaborations with many of the heavyweights of French cinema including Francois Ozon, Claude Miller and Alain Resnais. Not bad for an actor still in her 20s. Yet, when I meet her in Paris, she is engagingly devoid of movie-star airs.

Pretty and petite, she talks quickly and fluently in English, passionate about cinema, yet quick to laugh at herself. ‘I have a feeling I still haven’t achieved a lot and that the best is yet to come,’ she says. ‘Of course if you’d said to me at 18 that I would be in all these films, I wouldn’t expect a tenth of what has happened, but I’ve become used to being surprised, because that’s what being an actor involves.’

Growing up in a middle-class household in a small town outside Paris, Sagnier began acting at the age of eight as a way of avoiding learning the piano. Within two years she had made her professional screen debut in the long forgotten Les Maris, Les Femmes, Les Amants. Going on to study at the Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Versailles, she secured parts in Francois Ozon’s earlier films Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 8 Women. But it was her performance as a Provençal wild child with a liberated attitude to nudity in Ozon’s 2002 Swimming Pool, for which she was heralded by Rolling Stone as ‘the new Brigitte Bardot’, giving her an international profile.

Now, two years after it was released in France, Sagnier’s second outing with new wave film veteran Claude Chabrol has finally made it across the Channel. In the sly melodrama The Girl Cut in Two, she plays Gabrielle, a TV weathergirl torn between a famous novelist and a suave libertine. Exuding the sprightly effervescence that makes the character so appealing to men, she also manages to bring out Gabrielle’s naivety.

Unsurprisingly, she wasted little time deliberating about whether to work with Chabrol. ‘He’s part of the history of cinema, like Hitchcock, Bergman, Truffaut and Godard, so working with him was like entering this great pantheon of directors,’ she says. ‘It’s the cinema I worship, so I said yes immediately.’

The 78-year-old Chabrol doesn’t bother with casting sessions. Instead, Sagnier met him in a café where she realised her list of questions was redundant. ‘Claude told me about the catering on-set,’ she says. ‘He talked about it for an hour, so I knew I would be well-fed.’

Chabrol himself has described The Girl Cut in Two as a ‘chaste film about perversity’. Inspired by a real-life crime of passion in early 20th century America, it takes a peek behind the closed doors of a swingers club. In the most explicit scene, a naked Sagnier crawls along on all fours with a feather between her buttocks, much to her partner’s delight. ‘That was very difficult to play,’ she says. ‘But it was very useful to really shock the audience. To me it shows the tiny boundary between devotion and submission.’

Highlighting the fairytale dimensions of the story, Sagnier regards Gabrielle as a modern-day Snow White who discoveres her Prince Charming is more like Captain Hook. Revealingly, Chabrol told her she’d be perfect for the part after he’d seen her performance as the mute fairy Tinker Bell in PJ Hogan’s Peter Pan. ‘You can see the similarities,’ she says. ‘Like Tinker Bell, Gabrielle is a character who’s completely radiant and also has a mischievous side. Her wings get clipped and she has to deal with her own drama and then she’s reborn.’

But it’s the path Sagnier took after Swimming Pool that reveals most about her aspirations. Following her Tinker Bell duties, she moved back to France, turning down a number of American scripts that hoped to cash in on her sex appeal. ‘Working abroad is not a priority for me,’ she says. ‘My priority is playing interesting characters in good movies. What I’m ambitious for is quality. In France I find I can bounce between old and young directors, and that way I find my balance.’

Since completing The Girl Cut in Two, she has impressed in the WW2 melodrama A Secret, playing a Jewish woman who gives up herself and her child to the German authorities. The process of altering her appearance from role to role is one she relishes. ‘Some actors can’t change their physique, and they are hired for what they look like and what they represent,’ says Sagnier who recently gave birth to a second child. ‘I’m not that kind.’

She enthuses about her role in the forthcoming Public Enemy Number One, the two-part biopic of real-life French career criminal Jacques Mesrine, who was gunned down by the police in 1979. Sporting a red wig and enormous sunglasses, Sagnier stars as Mesrine’s last wife Sylvie Jeanjacquot, in what she calls ‘my first action movie’.

Mesrine, who claimed to have killed 43 people and staged countless jailbreaks, continues to polarise French society. To his detractors he was a brutal killer, and to his supporters he was a modern day Robin Hood, attacking big business via bank robberies. During filming, Sagnier met members of Mesrine’s family and his former associates and, although writer-director Jean-Francois Richet’s screenplay reduces Sylvie to a stereotypical gangster’s moll, she is proud to have worked on this controversial project.

‘We tried to sort out an enigma’, she says. ‘Was he really committed politically or was he just a serial killer with a lot of charm?’

Politics is on her mind today. Observing the great French tradition set by politically outspoken artists, she has campaigned for candidates on the left in the presidential elections, and happily tears into President Sarkozy. ‘He uses the same tools as Berlusconi,’ she says. ‘He manipulates and controls the media and, as a result, citizens are getting more and more cynical about democracy. He has this bling bling style and because of the CDs of his wife Carla Bruni, he seems to infiltrate our lives by getting into our living rooms.’

Now lined up to work in a thriller alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, she is preparing to take on another new shape. With her 30th birthday this July, is she ever surprised about how much she has achieved? ‘You are always going from one challenge to another.’ she smiles. ‘I’m not thinking about what I’ve achieved already, but on what there is left to do.’

The Girl Cut in Two, GFT, Glasgow and selected release from Fri 22 May. Public Enemy Number One (Part One) is on selected release from Fri 31 Jul.
5 French thrillers

Les Diaboliques (1954)
A fantastic noir-ish thriller by pessimistic genius auteur Henri-Georges Clouzot about the tangled and murderous assignations of a guy and two girls (Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret and Clouzot’s wife Véra Clouzot) at a second-rate boarding school. Les Diaboliques remains a high benchmark for French thrillers with its suspenseful plotting and surprising twists. It was also one of the first films to carry an anti-spoiler message in its closing credits requesting the audience not to disclose the plot to anyone who had not seen the film. Available on DVD (Arrow Films).

Lift to The Scaffold (1958)
Louis Malle’s ingenious thriller has everything. Murder, abseiling, expensive cars, glamorous criminal couples, stuck lifts and a specially commissioned score by Miles Davis, which was easily his best work for cinema. Available on DVD (Optimum Releasing)

The Butcher (1970)
The film that earned French new waver Claude Chabrol (who directs Girl Cut in Two) the moniker of ‘the French Hitchcock’ is a mysterious and murderous character study set in a small town. It is also one of the few films that Hitchcock went on record as saying he wished he’d directed. Available on DVD as part of the Claude Chabrol Collection Volume 1 (Arrow Films)

Diva (1981)
The 80s are back. Jean-Jacques Beineix’s glorious violent and surreal calling card of a debut feature was a garish full-on cult thriller involving corrupt policemen, prostitutes, opera recordings and a witless postman. Diva was an unexpected international hit that influenced European cinema indefinitely.
Available on DVD (Optimum Releasing)

Tell No One (2006)
Almost a decade after the event, Dr Alex Beck (François Cluzet) receives a call from his murdered wife. The call sets in motion a chase for information that Beck simply cannot lose. Guillame Canet’s enjoyably frenetic and engrossing adaptation of Harlan Corben’s 2001 potboiler. Available on DVD (Revolver Entertainment) (Paul Dale)

A Girl Cut in Two -- a Film Review

Should this film be indicative of reality, there would appear to be a shortage of virile youngsters of both sexes in Lyon. On the one hand, there are several middle-aged men with their tongues hanging out when it comes to the vapid Gabrielle Deneige (Ludivine Sagnier), as if she was Botticelli’s Venus come to life. Meanwhile, there seems to be no young man, brimming with wit, vim and vigour, on hand for long enough to dispatch all of these greasy-minded old codgers and wealthy screwballs for six.

While much respected filmmaker Claude Chabrol clearly has his tongue firmly in cheek with this story of intense and convoluted love affairs, there is still something rather tiresome and painfully predictable about yet another French movie that portrays high culture, upper class living, and casual chauvinism as if it the whole country spent their days indulging in all three at once. Accordingly, for this étranger at least, the film quickly becomes an uneasy hybrid between fairly entertaining parody and yet another shovel load or two of deluded French cinema.


Speaking of crossbreeds, both Nicole Kidman in To Die For and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary appear to be channelled in this performance by Sagnier. However, in attempting to be naïve and manipulated, on the one hand, and devious and manipulative, on the other, she ends up getting bogged down in a morass between the two poles in her character. At the same time, and at the risk of turning me into a hypocrite on the subject of casual chauvinism, she really does have a lovely smile that lights up the screen.

In fairness to Sagnier, she is being asked to maintain two quite questionable relationships. One of these is with bestselling author Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand). However, he is a sufficiently selfish and depraved brute that a flasher outside of a primary school seems sexually well adjusted in comparison. Her other lover (Benoît Magimel) then comes across as being such a pompous yet gormless fool that babies presumably steal candy from him.



Now, of course it panders to the male ego to see even a middle-aged bore getting to bed a besotted young filly whilst maintaining a meaningful and loving relationship with his chaste yet open-minded wife (Valeria Cavalli). However, as this is such an obvious nonsense in reality, one might generously assume that a good chunk of the joke may have gone A.W.O.L. in cultural translation.

That said, Chabrol spends precious little time providing any background to these characters. Instead, they are introduced in two-dimensional terms, with all of them apparently falling madly in love at first sight and with no real emotional depth ever deemed necessary. As a result, to give two figs about what happens to any of them is to give two figs too many. All the same, Magimel is pretty entertaining in the role of the foppish yet volatile playboy and the best moments in the film belong to him.

However, this is not enough to offset a film that feels a little old-fashioned in its comedy and which struggles to go beyond being well-crafted but ultimately modest entertainment. The melodramatic and blindingly obvious visual metaphor at the end feels as disappointing as it seems unnecessary. A good film in parts, but never a great one on the whole.

Kristin Scott Thomas et Ludivine Sagnier seront des femmes parfaites...

Kristin Scott Thomas que nous avons vue à Cannes pour la première de Vengeance et ensuite lors de la présentation de Nowhere Boy a un agenda toujours plus chargé ! La comédienne britannique qui manipule si bien la langue française renoue avec le thriller après Ne le dis à Personne de Guillaume Canet. Cette fois, c'est Alain Corneau (Série Noire), qui la dirigera pour Une Femme parfaite.

Dans ce long-métrage qui nous plonge dans le monde cruel de l'entreprise, l'actrice partagera la vedette avec Ludivine Sagnier. Cette dernière, maman de Bonnie et Ly Lan, est absente des écrans de cinéma depuis le dyptique Mesrine de Jean-François Richet. La petite Lulu sera également à l'affiche de Toothache de Ian Simpson avec Julie Depardieu, qui est, ce qui ne gâte rien, sa milleure amie.

Ludivine Sagnier n u e dans Playboy

Après Juliette Binoche et Julie Ordon, c’est au tour de l’actrice française, Ludivine Sagnier, de poser nue pour le magazine de charme le plus connu au monde : Playboy.

Ludivine Sagnier and Carsen Gray Discuss Peter Pan

Interviews from the Premiere of "Peter Pan"

Ludivine Sagnier has a fast-growing group of fans following her recent appearances in the sexy drama "Swimming Pool," and in "8 Women," starring Catherine Deneuve. In "Peter Pan," Sagnier gets to show off her comedy talents as she plays the part of Tinkerbell with a sassy attitude that definitely separates this Tink from the animated version.

LUDIVINE SAGNIER ('Tink'):

What was the best thing about being in "Peter Pan?"
Being a fairy (laughing). There’s something fun about being able to be a fairy and also being able to fly. And also there was PJ Hogan who was a director I really wanted to work with. I couldn’t imagine it without him. The story of Peter Pan... I read the book when I was a child, I’ve seen the cartoon many times. It’s such a great chance to be in this adventure – it’s an awfully big adventure.

How difficult was it to film your scenes?
It was not that easy to do. It’s not like a blink and then it’s done. It lasts very long. You don’t have the set, you don’t have the actors you are working with, you have to create everything by yourself. It was very big, but very enriching.

If you could have your own private Neverland, what would it be life?
I think I wouldn’t tell you. Dreams are the only things that people cannot steal. It has to be very personal.

When you look back on filming is there one day that stands out, and why?
Maybe the last day. It was very emotional for all of us, and kind of overwhelming because we had been working for so long together. Jeremy has done his last shot flying and then suddenly everybody couldn't believe that it was finally over. All of a sudden we realized how great and how fortunate we were to have been on this big adventure.

How does it feel to be here walking the red carpet for this premiere?
It’s completely surreal for me. If someone would have said it would be like this even 2 years ago, I would have said, “Are you crazy or what?” It’s a strange feeling. It’s amazing especially with this adventure that it is to me, because it was one of the best experiences I had in my career.

Is it exciting to have people recognize you as Tinkerbell?
Yes, I’d say people recognize me but having children recognize me is the best. It is a very special thing. Suddenly you feel like you have the power to make the children’s dreams come true and it’s better than anything else.

What's the best way to stay youthful?
(Laughing) Do movies! It helps, definitely.

CARSEN GRAY ('Tiger Lily'):

How much fun was the set? You seemed to have gotten along well with your director.
Yeah, I loved it. All the kids and everyone were really close. We had so much fun hanging out every day, and being kids. That’s what this film was all about – never growing up – so we had a lot of fun on the set.

When you look back on filming is there one day that stands out as the most fun on the set?
Probably the last day because it was something that was a sadness and also a happiness. I was really going to miss all my friends. We worked on this film so hard together. It was just the last day so I had to make it my best. I loved every moment of it.

Can you describe who Tiger Lily is for people who don’t remember that character?
Well, she’s an Indian. In this movie, she’s supposed to be Mohican. She speaks the language and she’s very mischievous. She giggles a lot. She helps the boys out a lot – John and Michael Darling – in all their troubles. I loved that character.

Are you planning on doing more acting after this or is it back to school for you?
I really want to do more acting after this. I love it!

La Petite Lili

Luscious Ludivine Pouts and Sizzles


Right away, in the opening scene of Claude Miller's "La Petite Lili," Ludivine Sagnier takes her clothes off.

Perhaps Ludi's besotted fans, hooked from her primarily topless performance in Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool," will not be disappointed. Beyond Sagnier's ample charm, however, the film has little going for it.


Miller's screenplay is a modern day re-telling of Anton Chekhov's classic play "The Seagull" – sans the sad ending. Sagnier stars in the title role.

A local girl in a beach town in the Southern Coast of France, she exudes freckled face innocence, ripening se xuality, and worldly cunning – all in one adorable package.


It comes as no surprise when young Lili dumps her young lover Julien (Robison Stevenin), for the older, more succesful Brice (Bernard Giraundeau), causing havoc in the lives of many refined French folk.

But five years later, the joke is on her. Julien is a rising young filmmaker; in his highly anticipated first film, he recreates his adolescent heartbreak which include a botched attempt at incestuous relations with his mother and a suicide attempt. He needs to cast an actress, and Lili, now a big star, wants the role.


What do you think will happen? Lili pouts, she begs, she flirts, and Julien caves in. Only now he has a good woman (Julie Deparedieu) at his side who loves him.

We watch again, only this time the glorious French countryside and the well-appointed home are reduced to a sound stage. The repetition is not revelatory. Sagnier's clothes stay firmly in place as the "La Petite Lili" grinds its way towards a terrifically anti-climatic end.

Swimming Pool

Big-bosomed, small-waisted French actress Ludivine Sagnier parades topless for more than half of her appearances in Francois Ozon's English language film "Swimming Pool." The surprise, therefore, is that the film, a thriller that aims for the suspense of classic Hitchcock, is not sexy or erotic or even particularly thrilling.

Charlotte Rampling plays Sarah Morton, an uptight English crime writer, who takes refuge in her publisher's isolated house in the French countryside to revive her creative juices. She is disturbed by the arrival of the publisher's daughter Julie, an emotionally unbalanced sexpot (Ludivine Sagnier). The film works best in its comedic second act. The discomfort of the prim and proper writer unnerved by the topless blond hellion who drinks and screws and eats with abandon is funny -- Rampling sneaking bites of sausage and swilling the younger woman's wine just to refill it with water is quite wonderful.

The promised thrills, however, do not satisfy. Francois Ozon is far too enamored of his script: a writer who writes about murders and cover-ups becomes enmeshed in her very own cover-up.
Rampling's Morton types feverishly at her laptop computer, blending the events by the pool into a new and daring book unlike any other she has written before. (All the while giving the impression, that novels can be pounded out with ease while on vacation.) "Swimming Pool" becomes a clever exercise leading up to a surprise ending that left me feeling tricked and betrayed.

Raising the bar on film aesthetics – and audacity

Toronto tobacconists can expect a spike in the sale of Gauloises as the city readies for a summer of French film. Olivier Assayas's elegant provocation Summer Hours just opened. Cinematheque Ontario is in the midst of a nine-film homage to Jean-Pierre Melville, and it is just beginning a 38-film series titled Nouvelle Vague: The French New Wave, Then and Now.

The latter, running today until Aug. 22, jump cuts from the prime years of the French film renaissance (1958-64) to the latest North American releases by Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Along the way, Cinematheque showcases familiar favourites – Jules et Jim (1962), Breathless (1960) and Ma nuit chez Maud (1969). But there are little-seen pleasures as well, including Chabrol's Le beau serge (1958), Jacques Rozier's Adieu Philippine (1962), and Rivette's Paris nous appartient (1960).

Like all movements, the New Wave is a product of a time and place. Under the Nazis, France went without American films. Filmmakers grew up in an occupied country, absorbing existentialism and rebellion in their mother's milk. So when they finally saw examples of Hollywood's amoral, war-era film noir a decade later, they were ready for revolution.

Even their names are tributes to gall and gumption. Born Jean-Pierre Grumbach, Melville took his pseudonym to honour Herman Melville, renegade genius and author of Moby-Dick . Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer grabbed his name from obstreperous Hollywood director Eric von Stroheim and mystery writer Sax Rohmer.

There was an inspired slapdash quality to the New Wave. Godard placed cameras in wheelchairs whirled through Paris. He also encouraged actors to improvise, and he employed jump cuts that turned scenes into flip cards. His contemporaries were prone to mischief: In Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960), a character says, “May my mother drop dead if I'm not telling the truth.” The film then cuts to an old lady keeling over.

Film critic Nigel Andrews asserted, “The New Wave was a crime: that was its beauty. It was an outrage against law, order and aesthetic decency.”

All true. Still, these outrages were quickly validated by Hollywood, which soon employed French morality and film grammar. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid reworked Jules et Jim 's love triangle, copping the French film's bike scene as well. Warren Beatty asked Truffaut and Godard to direct Bonnie and Clyde before settling for Arthur Penn, the most European of American directors.

Watching the latest from Rivette, Rohmer, Godard and Chabrol, we are reminded that New Wave filmmakers began as Cahiers du Cinéma critics. Their recent works are film essays as well as films. Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais , Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two , and Rohmer's The Romance of Astrea and Celadon , all 2007 films, are meditations on love and honour.

Chabrol's is the darkest of the bunch – the story of a TV weather girl (Ludivine Sagnier) torn between an aging writer and a playboy dressed like a Batman villain. The film displays all of Chabrol's themes: bullying, seduction and murder. Rivette's story, a 19th-century tale of a professional soldier who is undone by his obsession with a courtesan, is typically well observed; the least appreciated of the great French directors combines a love of actors with the relentless gaze of a portrait artist. Only Rohmer's film, his last, represents an evident slackening of talent.

Still, it is Godard, with his 2001 In Praise of Love , who provides a contemporary film that recalls the audacity and panache of classic Nouvelle Vague. An engrossing lecture that skips from film history to contemporary politics and from shimmering black and silver to oversaturated colour, it tells the story of a Paris filmmaker looking to make a movie about the stages of love – meeting, physical passion, heartache and reconciliation.

But this is really another of Uncle Jean-Luc's Rubik's Cubes – a puzzle meant to provoke, but not to be solved. Every puzzle piece comes with a fortune-cookie message, such as:

“Most people have the guts to live life, but not the imagination.”

“Isn't it strange how history has been taken over by technology? But why politics by gospel?”

Godard's most stinging aside is meant for his parents' generation, or perhaps the young protesters who staged the Paris 1968 uprising: “Resistance had its youth, and had its old age, but never went through adulthood.”

New Wave is à la mode again

Effortless and improvised French flavour is among the most talked-about trends in fall women's wear

This summer the fashion flock will find no greener pastures to feed on than "Nouvelle Vague: The French New Wave, Then and Now."

Running until Aug. 22, it's a program of films being presented by Cinematheque Ontario by way of celebrating the 50th anniversary of a movement that set new standards not only in cinema but also in chic.

In the entire history of movies, there is no sequence more stylish than the finger-snapping dance performed by Anna Karina in Band of Outsiders, released in 1964, being screened on July 13, and still jaw-droppingly fresh.

Before becoming the wife of director Jean-Luc Godard and the star of several of his other movies, Karina was a model. Born in Denmark, she was named Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer. It was Coco Chanel herself who suggested the change in moniker, which like her own has become synonymous with nonchalance.

In Band of Outsiders, with her long hair restrained in an unstudied bow and topped by a fedora – a fedora moment right up there with Judy Garland's "Get Happy" number – Karina is a study in what a Parisienne can do with a skirt and sweater.

This effortless and improvised French flavour has been among the most talked-about trends in fall women's wear. Award-winning menswear designer Scott Sternberg, at the forefront of the equally talked-about new wave in American fashion, also acknowledges a French influence. He chose to call his label Band of Outsiders, and his collection for the coming season was inspired by La Chinoise, another Godard title.

Male icons of the French screen showing up in the Cinematheque series include Jean-Pierre Léaud, the New Wave's "it" boy who, after the heyday of Hollywood beefcake, pioneered a skinny ideal of male beauty recently revived by Hedi Slimane during his time at Dior Homme.

In the post-Slimane mould, there is Andy Gillet who is among a current crop of hot young French actors. A model who appeared in a commercial for Kenzo Power, advertised as a perfume for men, Gillet is refreshingly unembarrassed by his prettiness in Romance of Astrea and Celadon, a 2007 release demonstrating that director Eric Rohmer, a New Wave master, has kept his talent dazzlingly alive.

Based on a 17th-century novel and populated by nymphs, shepherds and druids, the movie is a bucolic trip-and-a-half, with a soundtrack featuring the cooing of horny pigeons and a wardrobe that might have sprung from Vivienne Westwood in her pagan phase but in fact represents the artistry of Pierre-Jean Larroque, a costume designer who has won the César once and been nominated five other times for France's equivalent of the Oscar.

Gillet makes his first appearance dressed in a straw hat and belted homespun chemise that is a lesson in all kinds of costume history.

Regrettably, the history of costume design in French film has not been given the kind of attention lavished on the big names of Hollywood. Even on some of the films themselves there is no credit given. And, of course, you have no right to expect one from a movie such as Godard's Masculine Feminine (1966), which features a conversation with a person described in large letters as a "dialogue with a consumer product."

Clearly, Godard is more interested in questioning the impact of American brands – it's impossible not to notice the Tide detergent at the kitchen sink – than he is in pointing out that the white go-go boots are by André Courrèges.

Never explicitly – that's simply not his style – but Claude Chabrol, another New Wave giant who continues to walk tall, puts designer duds to potent use in A Girl Cut in Two, with Ludivine Sagnier and Benoît Magimel, two of France's biggest young stars, and clothes from a list of fashion houses, including Paul Smith, Jean Paul Gaultier, Missoni, Vanessa Bruno, Céline and Chanel. But the threads are nothing compared to the way Chabrol uses them to sly, twisted, authentic effect.

French hottie Ludivine Sagnier

French hottie Ludivine Sagnier

Neè le 03 juillet 1979 à celle-saint-cloud (78)

Actrice

Film :

*
* 2001 : La Cour de récré : Vive les vacances! de Chuck Sheetz - Spinelli (voix française)
* 2001 : Ma femme est une actrice d’Yvan Attal - Géraldine
* 2002 : 8 Femmes de François Ozon - Catherine
* 2002 : Les Frères Hélias de Freddy Busso (court-métrage)
* 2003 : Petites coupures de Pascal Bonitzer - Nathalie
* 2003 : Swimming Pool de François Ozon - Julie
* 2003 : La Petite Lili de Claude Miller - Lili
* 2003 : Peter Pan de P.J. Hogan - la fée Clochette
* 2004 : Gang de requins d’Eric Bergeron - Angie ( voix française)
* 2005 : Une aventure de Xavier Giannoli - Gabrielle
* 2005 : Foon de Benoît Pétré, Deborah Saïag, Mika Tard et Isabelle Vitari
* 2006 : Paris, je t’aime d’Olivier Assayas - Claire (segment Parc Monceau)
* 2006 : La Californie de Jacques Fieschi - Hélène
* 2007 : Un secret de Claude Miller - Hannah
* 2007 : Molière de Laurent Tirard - Célimène
* 2007 : Les Chansons d’amour de Christophe Honoré - Julie
* 2007 : La fille coupée en deux de Claude Chabrol - Gabrielle Deneige
* 2008 : L’Instinct de mort de Jean-François Richet - Sylvia Jeanjacquot
* 2008 : L’Ennemi public n°1 de Jean-François Richet - Sylvia Jeanjacquot

Ludivine Sagnier - T'es plus dans le coup papa (8 Femmes)

Papa, papa, papa, t'es plus dans le coup, papa. {x2} 1-Tu m'avais dit, dès ma plus tendre enfance "Bien mal acquis ne profite jamais." En grandissant, au fil de l'existence, j'ai vu que...
{Refrain}: Papa, papa, papa, t'es plus dans le coup, papa. {x2}

1-Tu m'avais dit, dès ma plus tendre enfance "Bien mal acquis ne profite jamais."
En grandissant, au fil de l'existence, j'ai vu que ce n'était pas toujours vrai.

{au Refrain}

2-Tu m'avais dit "Mon enfant, sur la terre, aide tes frères, tu seras récompensée."
Moi, j'ai prêté ta voiture à Jean-Pierre, il me l'a ramené en pièces détachées.

{au Refrain}

3-Tu devrais, ma parole, retourner bien vite à l'école, réviser ton jugement.
Crois-moi, ce serait plus prudent.

Tu m'avais dit, pour me mettre en confiance, que le travail conserve la santé.
J'ai travaillé, chaque jour, sans défaillance, depuis, je suis fatiguée, alignée.

{au Refrain}

4-Tu m'avais dit "Ce garçon est volage. Fais attention, il va te faire souffrir."
Pourtant, près de lui, je vis dans un nuage, et le bonheur danse sur mon sourire.

{au Refrain}

T'es plus dans le coup, papa. T'es plus dans le coup, papa.
T'es plus du tout dans le coup, papa.

Les ruses de Christophe Honoré pour trouver son casting de rêve

C'est assurément l'un des spectacles les plus attendus de cette édition 2009: Angelo, tyran de Padoue, de Victor Hugo, mis en scène par Christophe Honoré. Il y a l'auteur, vénéré mais peu joué. Le metteur en scène, réalisateur et écrivain reconnu, dont le retour au théâtre intrigue. Mais surtout ce qu'au cinéma on appelle un casting de rêve. Trois comédiens exceptionnels, chacun dans leurs registres : la lumineuse Emmanuelle Devos, l'explosif Martial Di Fonzo Bo et l'insolente Clotilde Hesme. L'occasion d'observer la mise en place d'une distribution.


Au commencement, il y a Clotilde Hesme. Sur le tournage des Chansons d'amour, en 2007, le réalisateur et la comédienne parlent théâtre. Une troisième voix participe à la discussion, l'actrice Ludivine Sagnier. "Nous avions envie de continuer à travailler ensemble mais pas au cinéma, se souvient Christophe Honoré. Clotilde avait une grande expérience de la scène, Ludivine aucune. Moi, je souhaitais y revenir. Notre désir commun et nos différences nous semblaient un beau point de départ. Mais pour aller où ?"

Le réalisateur se sait attendu à Avignon. De passage en 2005 au Festival, il a été invité par la direction à proposer un projet. L'idée fait son chemin. A l'été 2008, Christophe Honoré et Clotilde Hesme reviennent dans la cité des papes. Ils rêvent d'une pièce romantique, se concentrent sur Hugo. Christophe Honoré songe à Marion Delorme. Clotilde Hesme rêve d'Angelo, tyran de Padoue, dont elle a présenté une scène à l'entrée du Conservatoire. "Un lyrisme et une force de sentiments qui devaient lui aller très bien au teint", sourit la comédienne. Un drame de la jalousie et du secret, porté par deux rôles principaux féminins : le metteur en scène se laisse convaincre. Vincent Baudriller, codirecteur du festival, donne son feu vert.

Le metteur en scène tient sa pièce, il a son duo d'actrices. Rêve de leur associer Martial Di Fonzo Bo, avec qui il tourne, à l'automne 2008, son nouveau film, Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser. Mais le comédien doit jouer Hamlet en juillet à Barcelone. En attendant d'avoir complété la distribution, Honoré fixe le cadre de travail : deux mois de répétition en mai et juin 2009, les représentations en juillet, puis une tournée de deux mois et demi entre janvier et mars 2010. Et là, coup dur ! Ludivine Sagnier refuse de s'engager pour la tournée. "Pour moi, il était inconcevable d'avoir une distribution luxe pour Avignon, et une autre après."

VETO DE CLOTILDE HESME Il faut tout reconstruire. Heureusement, une lumière clignote, côté masculin. Le projet catalan de Di Fonzo Bo est annulé. Honoré l'appelle le jour-même. Le comédien s'étonne. "Je n'aurais jamais pensé dire un jour la prose d'Hugo. En tant qu'acteur, je suis plutôt sensible à une langue et un théâtre plus contemporains. Mais un projet, c'est la rencontre entre un texte et un metteur en scène. Le regard de Christophe changeait tout. Ca me donnait l'occasion, moi le citoyen français d'adoption, de me confronter à ce culte des anciens, si présent ici. " Le temps de modifier les dates d'une tournée prévue avec une autre de ses pièces, il donne son accord.

Dans la foulée, Honoré choisit son deuxième rôle masculin, l'amoureux. Louis Garrel, son acteur fétiche ? Veto de Clotilde Hesme. "C'est mon ami mais il est trop stressé", éclate-t-elle de rire. De toute façon, Garrel est alors pressenti pour jouer au même moment à Avignon, avec Amos Gitai. Honoré opte pour Hervé Lassïnce, pur homme de théâtre, venu de l'univers déjanté des Deschamps-Makeïeff.

Reste Catarina, la femme bafouée. Hugo la voulait juvénile. Honoré et son directeur de casting, Richard Rousseau, peinent. "Je me suis alors dit qu'on ne remplaçait pas une actrice par un clone, qu'il fallait relancer les dés. J'ai demandé à Chiara Mastroianni de faire une lecture. Je sais qu'elle rejette le théâtre, mais je voulais voir. C'est là que j'ai compris que le rôle pouvait être tenu par une femme plus mûre." Le nom d'Emmanuelle Devos s'impose très vite. "Nous avons le même agent, je lui tourne autour depuis des années sans qu'elle le sache, alors je l'ai appelée."

La comédienne rêve de jouer Hugo. "Par rapport au cinéma, le théâtre c'est puissance 100. Et Hugo, puissance 1 000. Sa langue impose un rythme, une force à laquelle on n'échappe pas." Sauf qu'elle se voit plutôt en Lucrèce Borgia qu'en Catarina. "J'avais vu Angelo en 1985, monté par Jean-Louis Barrault. Je savais que c'était un rôle de jeune première. Je n'en ai jamais fait de ma vie. Alors maintenant..." Elle accepte toutefois de relire la pièce. Et donne son accord le lendemain matin.

Nous sommes le 15 avril. Honoré tient son quatuor. Le reste suit tout seul. Il y aura son frère Julien, acteur de théâtre, et Anaïs Demoustier, l'héroïne de son film La Belle Personne, novice sur les planches. Deux comédiens du Jeune théâtre national viennent jouer les sbires, soutenus par deux figurants de cinéma. Cette fois, la distribution est bouclée. Les producteurs respirent. Le travail peut commencer.

Ludivine Sagnier Success

Ludivine Sagnier is remarkably accomplished for a young actress. She's been in feature films since she was 10, and has a number of awards to her credit: Ludivine won a European Film Award in 2002 (along with the cast of 8 Women), a Romy Schneider Award in 2003, and two Csar nominations in 2003 and 2004 (as Most Promising Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively).

So it's no surprise that Ludivine is well-known in France, especially since many of her films have been screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Her exposure to non-francophone audiences has been limited, since her first English-language role was in 2002's Toothache. But Swimming Pool was a great international success, and Ludivine followed it up with Peter Pan -- her second English movie -- so her fame can only fly higher from now on.

ludivine sagnier nude

Ludivine Sagnier Biography

Ludivine Sagnier was born on July 3, 1979, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France. An actress from an early age, Ludivine took eight years of theater courses in Sevres. Her first screen credits came when she was only 10, taking roles in Je veux rentrer la maison (1989, I Want to Go Home) and Les maris, les femmes, les amants (1989, Husbands, Women, Lovers). The next year, she appeared in the big-budget screen version of Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Gerard Depardieu in the title role.

ludivine sagnier on french tv

In 1994, Sagnier took first prize at the Versailles Academy of Dramatic Arts in both the traditional and modern categories. But Ludivine had yet to really break out, despite this success, and during her teenage years she went on to appear in a series of movies for French television. 1999 saw the talented actress in numerous productions, including Rembrandt, Les enfants du sicle (The Children of the Century) and Acide anim (Anna's Trip).

In 2000, Ludivine Sagnier starred in Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brlantes (Water Drops on Burning Rocks), directed by Franois Ozon. Next came the films Bon plan (2000, Great Idea), Un jeu d'enfants (2001, Children's Play) and Ma femme est une actrice (2001, My Wife Is an Actress).

ludivine and the 8 women

Ludivine's career reached new heights when she re-teamed with Franois Ozon for his 2002 film, 8 femmes (8 Women). Her performance earned her the Romy Schneider Award (annually given to a promising young French actress) plus a nomination for a Csar Award (the French Academy Award equivalent).

Ludivine shared the European Film Award for Best Actress and the Silver Bear Award at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival along with 8 femmes' distinguished cast, which included Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Bart, Fanny Ardant, and relative newcomer Virginie Ledoyen (of The Beach fame).

Also in 2002, Ludivine starred in the miniseries Napoleon and made her English-language debut in Ian Simpson's Toothache.

ludivine sagnier dives into swimming pool

But it was the following year that would prove to be Ludivine's biggest yet. She starred in another Ozon film, Swimming Pool, which garnered her a second Csar nomination for her portrayal as the seductive Provenal nymphet Julie. She also starred in Claude Miller's La Petite Lili, based on Anton Chekhov's The Seagull.

Both Swimming Pool and La Petite Lili were official 2003 Cannes Festival selections, giving Ludivine double exposure -- and acclaim -- at the world's premier film festival.

ludivine sagnier as tinkerbell

Swimming Pool went on to become one of the highest-grossing foreign films in the United States, in 2003. It was perfect timing, since that Christmas, Ludivine Sagnier was introduced to American audiences on a grand scale in the live-action version of Peter Pan. Ludivine had spent the film's 10-month shoot commuting from France to Australia in order to play Tinkerbell ("Tink"), which was understandably exhausting for the actress.

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier profile

Birth Date:
July 3, 1979.
Place of Birth:
La Celle-Saint-Cloud, Yvelines, France.
Double Exposure:
2003 was a break-out year for Ludivine Sagnier, who performed in two films that appeared at the Cannes festival: Swimming Pool and La Petite Lili.

About Appearing :
Sagnier told Playboy Magazine: "I'm much more confident in front of a camera, hidden by a character, enhanced by makeup, so I can go much further than I can in real life. Se xual acting is painful, because even though you're pretending, you have the skin of the person in front of you, and it's not the skin you wish you had. After that you run into the shower to get rid of everything."


Motherhood:
Sagnier gave birth to her daughter Bonnie on March, 25 2005. The father was French actor Nicolas Duvauchelle. The actress has said there very well might be less nudity in future roles.


Biography :
Thanks to Swimming Pool, Americans have just met France’s fastest rising star, Ludivine Sagnier (Tinker Bell in Peter Pan). They loved the scintillating young blonde so much that director François Ozon’s film has become one of the year’s biggest-grossing foreign movies in the U.S.

The welcome followed a staggering success at the 2003 year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Sagnier earned the rare privilege of a double exposure. She plays the title role in Claude Miller’s new release, La Petite Lili (based on Chekhov’s Seagull), which was in the Festival alongside Swimming Pool.

Peter Pan reveals yet another facet of this multi-talented actress as she plays the mischievous fairy, Tink. The film, which marks her first starring role in a major studio co-production, showcases her inspired originality and impish sense of humor.

The talented Parisian has worked with French filmmaker François Ozon more often than any other actress and starred in his features Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 8 Women. Her performance in the star-studded 8 Women earned her the Romy Schneider Award (given annually to a promising young French actress) plus a Cesar Award nomination (France’s equivalent of the Oscar®). Sagnier shared the European Film Academy Award for Best Actress and the Silver Bear Award at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival along with the film’s cast (which includes Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart and Virginie Ledoyen).

Sagnier’s feature film career also includes Diane Kurys’ The Children of the Century, Charles Matton’s Rembrandt, Laurent Tuel’s Jeu d’enfants, Yvan Attal’s My Wife is an Actress, and Pascal Bonitzer’s Petites Coupures. She played her first role in English in Ian Simpson’s Toothache.

Sagnier had an English language role in Paris , je t'aime in the segment The 17th arrondissement, in which she stars alongside Nick Nolte under Alfonso Cuaron's direction.

Ludivine Sagnier shines as Gabrielle Deneige in Claude Chabrol's Girl Cut in Two, luminous while wearing a motorcycle helmet, a red evening gown, or nothing but a plume of peacock feathers.

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier Bikini

Ludivine Sagnier Bikini

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier Photos

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Ludivine Sagnier Photos

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Ludivine Sagnier Photos

Ludivine Sagnier Sexy Scene

Ludivine Sagnier Sexy Scene

Ludivine Sagnier Sexy

Ludivine Sagnier Sexy

Ludivine Sagnier-Water Drops

Ludivine Sagnier-Water Drops

Ludivine Sagnier - Swiming Pool

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Ludivigne Sagnier nude

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Ludivine Sagnier Videos

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