William Shimell, Juliette Binoche in Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy
"Please can you explain to me what the secret of this actress is meant to be? I would really like to know why she has been so esteemed for so many years. She has nothing. Absolutely nothing!"
"She is nothing. Compared with her, Isabelle Adjani is great even if she's totally nuts. Or Fanny Ardant – she is magnificent, extremely impressive. But Binoche? What has she ever had going for her?"
The "nothing" actress in question is Academy Award and Cannes Film Festival winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Certified Copy), who is also well known for her liberal views and outspoken criticism of opportunistic politicians such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The one unable to grasp Binoche's appeal is Academy Award nominee Gerard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac), as quoted in the Austrian magazine Profil (by way of the English-language translation found in Lizzy Davies' article in The Guardian).
And poor Isabelle Adjani, this year's Cesar winner for Skirt Day. Talk about a backhanded compliment…
Back to Binoche: When Empire magazine asked the Three Colors: Blue actress about the possible reasons for Depardieu's remarks, she explained that "I didn't feel hurt because I didn't feel it was related to me, that it was something going on for him."
Binoche then wondered, "Is it jealousy, because it is too much success, or is it Certified Copy because the film is provocative in a weird way?"
She added that Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy focuses on the female character, and she knows "some men have a hard time with this film because [Kiarostami] chose to give the woman more space."
The Depardieu-Binoche rift has provided a good deal of publicity for Certified Copy, which opens in the UK on Sept. 3.
Photo: Certified Copy (MK2 Productions)
