An uplifting biopic of a screen icon and true eccentric
MA 15+, 98 minutes
4 Stars
In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something.
The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not.
This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own?
There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart.
After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest.
No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit.
Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for.
It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric.
Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way.
The Divine Sarah Bernhardt
MA 15+, 98 minutes
4 Stars
In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something.
The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not.
This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own?
There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart.
After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest.
No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit.
Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for.
It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric.
Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way.
The Divine Sarah Bernhardt
MA 15+, 98 minutes
4 Stars
In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something.
The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not.
This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own?
There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart.
After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest.
No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit.
Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for.
It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric.
Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way.
The Divine Sarah Bernhardt
MA 15+, 98 minutes
4 Stars
In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something.
The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not.
This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own?
There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart.
After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest.
No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit.
Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for.
It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric.
Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way.
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The Divine Sarah Bernhardt MA 15+, 98 minutes 4 Stars In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something. The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not. This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own? There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart. After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest. No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit. Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for. It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric. Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way. The Divine Sarah Bernhardt MA 15+, 98 minutes 4 Stars In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something. The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not. This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own? There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart. After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest. No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit. Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for. It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric. Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way. The Divine Sarah Bernhardt MA 15+, 98 minutes 4 Stars In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something. The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not. This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own? There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart. After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest. No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit. Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for. It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric. Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way. The Divine Sarah Bernhardt MA 15+, 98 minutes 4 Stars In these days of everyday celebrity, a French stage actress who was a pioneer in theatre arts and became a major international celebrity a century ago is irresistible. Her gifts in performance were one thing, but the story of how Sarah Bernhardt became famous the world over, before Hollywood had begun to connect its A-list actors with fans everywhere, and long before the international news channels and social media got going, is quite something. The daughter of a courtesan, who became an unmarried mother herself, she earned a reputation as a great actress of fierce intelligence. She was also uncompromising, with a highly tuned sense of injustice that got her into trouble but also earned her admirers. Her contemporaries during the Belle Epoque of artistic and intellectual foment in which she lived, including Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud, all of whom were celebrities in their own right, sang her praises. Some notables did not. This lively French biopic directed by Guillaume Nicloux and starring Sandrine Kiberlain in the title role has arrived on screen around a century after her death in Paris in 1923. It will dovetail with the events and exhibitions to mark this centenary, offering an interpretation of a life and career that can't be underestimated. Who was this actress who has been caricatured as the original drama queen, but was seen in her day by contemporaries like Mark Twain as in a class of her own? There was so much to Bernhardt, a thespian who stirred grand passions and operated as a theatre entrepreneur, accomplishing much, never waiting for permission from the establishment to do more. She was the first Hamlet to be seen (briefly) on screen, and as she grew older, she developed a preference for portraying male characters who had a brain to work with, not just a heart. After an opening montage of clips and stills that set the scene of her era, it's a shock to find Bernhardt on her deathbed. No, she is actually in character in the closing scene of Alexandre Dumas' play La Dame aux Camellias, her most famous theatre role. After she expires in the arms of her lover, there is rapturous applause. Laurent Lafitte plays opposite Kiberlain as Lucien Guitry, who in this version of the Bernhardt story, was her lifelong and only true love interest. No sooner is she done playing the tragedienne than Bernhardt is on her way to surgery. It's finally time to do something about a gammy leg, an injury that has been troubling her for years. The swift transition from a stage death to a real amputation is an opportunity for Bernhardt to exercise her devastating flair for bleak humour. At other points in the film, this refusal to succumb to the gravity of any negative situation is something of a trademark skill. After the procedure is performed and she is receiving visitors, she is quickly in command again, a clue to her courage and indomitable spirit. Kiberlain gives a skilful, subtle rendering of the diva, her light touch avoiding any histrionic overplaying that Bernhardt attracted criticism for. It's clear that the lucidity, liveliness and fierce intelligence that informed her life also informed her craft. Nor was it simply her artistry that people were charmed by. It was an unconventional approach to life that included having countless affairs and keeping a menagerie of unusual pets, like a lynx and a boa constrictor. There was a comfortably fitted-out coffin in her rooms where she sometimes slept; she was quite the eccentric. Nathalie Leuthreau's screenplay focuses on the personal, doing its best to capture Bernhardt's remarkable life within the feature film format. Like Bernhardt's best remembered role in Camellias, a little poetic licence can have its way.
