Bernadette Lafont

Biography: life and films

The most emblematic actress of the French New Wave, Bernadette Lafont infused French cinema with her lively personality and sensual charm for over half a century, appearing in more than 130 films whilst pursuing an active career on stage and television. The epitome of the modern, free spirited woman of the 1960s, Lafont was the ideal muse for successive generations of iconoclastic filmmakers, from the Nouvelle Vague onwards, and it was by being true to herself and projecting such a radically unorthodox but genuine female persona that she gained the love and admiration of cinema audiences across the world. Bernadette Lafont was a true one-off, a force of nature who played a significant part in altering how women were portrayed in cinema and perceived by society over the past fifty years.

It is hard to imagine that such a rebellious, uninhibited personality could instil itself in a child brought up in a strict Protestant household. Bernadette Lafont was born on 28th October 1938 in Nîmes, Gard, in southern France. Her father was a pharmacist, her mother a staunch housewife who so resented the fact that she could not have a son that she referred to her as Bernard. A studious girl, Lafont was a model pupil at school and took dancing lessons at the Opéra de Nîmes. Then, at the age of 16, she met the man who was to change her life: Gérard Blain.

Blain was participating in a drama festival at Nîmes in the summer of 1955 when he met the vivacious Bernadette. It was love at first sight and the two were soon man and wife, although their marriage would only last two years. (In 1959, Lafont divorced Blain and married the sculptor Diourka Medveczky.) In the spring of 1957, François Truffaut invited Gérard Blain to take the lead in his first commercial film, a short entitled Les Mistons. So taken was he by Blain's charming wife that Truffaut persuaded her to take the lead female role in the film, even though she had no previous acting experience. Despite Blain's vigorous protestations, Lafont took Truffaut up on his offer and soon found that acting was to be her métier.

It was Truffaut's former colleague on the editorial staff of the review magazine Les Cahiers du cinéma who gave Bernadette Lafont her first feature role, in the film that was to mark the beginning of the French New Wave: Le Beau Serge (1958). The part of the village vamp was one that suited Lafont perfectly and established her in the role to which she would be wedded for most of her career, that of the incorrigible female rebel. Chabrol's next major project with Lafont, Les Bonnes femmes (1960), was to prove very nearly disastrous for both the director and his actress, as it was a provocative proto-feminist piece that shattered societal norms in its portrayal of women.

Throughout much of the 1960s, Lafont struggled to gain popular acceptance and ended up lending her talents to such lowbrow fare as Les Bons vivants (1965) and Un idiot à Paris (1967), although she did occasionally surface in some important auteur pieces, most notably Philippe Garrel's Le Révélateur (1968). Her leading role as the fully liberated Marie in Nelly Kaplan's La Fiancée du pirate (1969) marked a turning point, allowing her to steal the admiration of the cinema-going public and thereby begin to establish herself as one of France's most respected actresses. After appearing in Jacques Rivette's boldly experimental Out 1 (1971), Lafont bolstered her popularity in one of her best-known enfant sauvage roles, that of the seductive murderess in Une belle fille comme moi (1972), her second collaboration with François Truffaut. This was followed by Jean Eustache's La Maman et la putain (1973), in which she starred alongside another leading light of the French New Wave, Jean-Pierre Léaud, giving what is widely regarded as one of her finest dramatic performances.

Too unconventional ever to be considered a star, with the passing of the French New Wave Lafont was relegated to supporting roles for much of the remainder of her career. Willing to work for inexperienced filmmakers as well as old hands, she appeared in an eclectic mix of films, ranging from mainstream comedies such as La Gueule de l'autre (1979) to thoughtful dramas like La Tortue sur le dos (1978). The habitually subversive filmmaker Jean-Pierre Mocky saw in her a kindred spirit and cast her in three of his films: Le Pactole (1985), Les Saisons du plaisir (1988) and Ville à vendre (1992). In 1985, she took the role that won her the Best Supporting Actress César of 1986, as housemaid and confidante to 13-year-old Charlotte Gainsbourg in Claude Miller's L'Effrontée (1985).

Just as her career was on the up, Lafont suffered a terrible personal loss: her daughter Pauline died in a climbing accident in 1988. By keeping busy with her stage and film work, Lafont overcame this tragedy and flourished as an actress, taking on an increasing variety of roles. Some of her best work on screen was with emerging new directors, including Marion Vernoux (Personne ne m'aime, 1994), Raoul Ruiz (Généalogies d'un crime, 1997) and Pascal Bonitzer (Rien sur Robert, 1999). In 1996, she co-directed a short film entitled Pourquoi partir? (1996) with Bastien Duval.

Throughout the first decade of the third millennium, now into her sixties, Bernadette Lafont was highly sought after and continued to give of her best, be it in modest auteur films such as Patricia Plattner's Les Petites couleurs (2002) or mainstream comedies like Eric Lartigau's Prête-moi ta main (2006). In 2003, she was awarded an Honorary César for her life's work and in 2010 she was made an officer of the Legion of Honour. 56 years after she made her film debut, Lafont went out on a high, attracting an audience of over one million in France with her portrayal of a septuagenarian drugs dealer in the quirky social comedy Paulette (2013). Her last film - Sylvain Chomet's Attila Marcel - is due to be released in November 2013. Having a suffered a series of heart attacks, Bernadette Lafont died on 25th July 2013, aged 74, and was interred in the family vault at Saint-André-de-Valborgne. Not just a great actress, but also an engaging, generous and authentic performer, Bernadette Lafont imparted a large part of herself in the art that was so much a part of her life, and French cinema is all the richer for that.

Filmography

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