Happy Binoche Day
Sunday, March 9, 2014 at 3:20PM Our favorite French Oscar winner celebrated the big 5-0 today.
Better news: Several movies on the way!
In both the would be blockbuster Godzilla and Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria, both arriving this year, she has potential talent imbalance problems with co-stars (CGI Monster, Kristen & Chloe respectively) but both films might be great, fingers crossed.
She's also currently filming the true-story The 33 with Antonio Banderas and Rodrigo Santoro which is about that Chilean miners who were trapped for weeks. Three more movies have been announced but announcing and actually happening are two different things with movies. We'll see. Hollywood has lost interest (Hollywood only allows one French lady at a time so Marion Cotillard has to watch her back with Léa Seydoux rising) but we shouldn't!
Juliette Binoche's last team-up with Olivier Assayas was the terrific "Summer Hours"
What's your favorite Binoche? Mine is 100% Trois Coleurs: Bleu though she's perfection in quite a few others, like ahhhh Flight of the Red Balloon. Just gorgeous.
Reader Comments (27)
Personally, I found Three Colours Blue a bit visually obvious and loosely narratively structured. OF COURSE the "Blue" movie is going to be about the grieving process, y'know? Binoche herself was very good, BUT, I just couldn't fully connect with Blue like I could Red. Still haven't seen White.
If it's just Kristen Stewart I'm dealing with, then I am so in for Sils Maria. I've been making fun of Kristen for so long that she's become inexplicably dear to me. I call it the Emmy Rossum effect. It's Chloe Grace Moretz that's dangerous for me. Is she there because the movie needs someone awful to hate on for a scene or two? Then we cool. If she's there for anything more, then dear Olivier is just asking for trouble.
I'm not sure I could pick one role, there's just too many. She may be the best actor/actress working today.
Love her, but Godzilla and The 33 are the weirdest choices ever! Mon dieu!
Bleu is a classic. I really like her in Code inconnu. It's such an interesting movie and she's very good in it. The scene on the subway is so disturbing.
Cache. By far my favorite. Followed by The Horseman on the Roof.
LOVE Juliette Binoche. I thought she was so great in "Blue" "The English Patient," "Chocolat" and "Unbearable Lightness of Being," I remember being so happy when she won the Oscar for "Patient" because I thought she so deserved to win. But Lauren Bacall was considered such a lock that year, not so much for her performance in 'Mirror Has Two Faces," but for being Lauren Bacall. I was so glad the best performance won. The movie that first made me sit up and notice Binoche was, of all things, a made for HBO movie called "Women and Men 2" in which she was paired with Scott Glenn in an adaptation of a Henry Miller short story. She's really breath-taking in that - both in performance and beauty. Has she ever said why she turned down the Laura Dern role in "Jurassic Park"?
Copie Conforme ( Certified Copy). That movie assured me of her greatness ! I love her!!
I love Binoche. just looking at her is pleasure. and I agree that Summer Hours is terrific film.
Has she ever said why she turned down the Laura Dern role in "Jurassic Park"?
She turned it down to make Blue.
She has an incredible filmography, but one of my favorite movies ever is The Incredible Lightness of Being. It's one of the few films that actually does a complex, seemingly impossible-to-adapt novel proud.
Clouds of Sils Maria is my most anticipated film of 2014. I am really curious about her Godzilla role. The trailers don't bode well for her fate but she better get some nice screen-time with Bryan Cranston.
Best of Binoche:
The Lovers on the Bridge
Three Colours: Blue
Cache (Hidden)
Code Unknown
Certified Copy
Summer Hours
Mauvais Sang
What I really need to see: Camille Claudel: 1915, Flight of the Red Balloon, Paris, and Godard's Hail Mary
I even love her cameo in Cosmopolis. **fans self**
She's really good in The English Patient and dare I say I found her delightfully unpredictable in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I felt like I knew who Olin and DDL's characters were immediately but the way she moves from the spaces of naive and childlike to having a sexuality and a conscience is quite something.
Forever bowing @ this queen. Your faves could never. That filmography! Those directors! ****Flawless tbh.
Or rather, ****Parfait
The upcoming Godzilla cast is pretty amazing actually so I'm glad she's gonna be featured. I trust she trusts the story and the director but this such is such a funny karmic counterpoint to her absence from Jurassic Park 20 years ago. Funny how things work out when choosing iconic CGI monster pictures.
One of my very favorite actresses <3
Her best performances are Three Colors: Blue, The English Patient, Certified Copy and Camille Claudel 1915, but I also love her in practically everything else I've seen; Chocolat, Cache, Summer Hours, Cosmopolis,...
1 - The English Patient
2 - Blue
3 - Certified Copy
4 - Caché
5 - Camille Claudel, 1915
6 - Damage
7 - The Loves on The Bridge
8 - Mauvais Sang
9 - Flight of the Red Balloon
10 - Rendez-Vous
Like I said earlier, what I like best is that, even if the movies don't always pay off, who can say that worked with:
Michael Haneke
Anthony Minghella
André Techiné
Olivier Assayas
Abbas Kiarostami
Abel Ferrara
Leos Carax
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Amos Gitai
Jean-Luc Godard
Philip Kaufman
David Cronenberg
Bruno Dumont
Louis Malle
Chantal Akerman
Krzystof Kieslowski
Only Huppert can beat that, and, of course, Catherine Deneuve.
No lazy projects (Chocolat should be nice on paper), no Nora Ephrons or Nacy Meyers in her filmography, no bad performances, never.
I love her, love love love her!
In 1985 I was studying for a year in Bordeaux and struggling with coming out when I saw Juliette Binoche in her debut film, Rendez-vous, with the adorable Wadeck Stanczak. I had such a crush on him, but fell in love with her. I concur with the other favorites posted, but Rendez-vous will always be my first.
Summer Hours
The Flight of the Red Balloon
Probably less for La Binoche than for the fact that both of these movies were initially commissions by the Musee D'Orsay for their 20th anniversary and this is borne out by these movie being obsessed with questions of art, identity, and legacy.
But she's perfect, as usual.
My favorite Binoche is Three Colors: Blue, her performance in that is incredible. I also really like Summer Hours, and I cannot wait for Clouds of Sils Maria,I'm so happy she's teaming up with Assayas again.
Certified Copy. She is utter perfection in it.
I just watched Chocolat the other day -- what a delightful film! I loved it.
Certified Copy is my favorite, followed by The English Patient (and I'm thrilled that she won, though my vote would have gone to Marianne Jean-Baptiste). Chocolat and The Unbearable Lightness of Being didn't work for me, but the fault wasn't hers. She also did a wonderful job with her short in Paris, Je T'Aime. Looking at her filmography, I'm realizing I have some major catching up to do.
I was so thrilled when she caused the upset of all upsets over Bacall in 96 though i woulda gone with Hershey.
Greatest. Living. Actress.
(give or take Liv Ullmann)
Just last year she was monumental in Camille Claudel, 1915 and landed in my Best Actress slate.
My 5 favourite Binoche performances:
Certified Copy
Flight of the Red Balloon
Three Colours: Blue
Camille Claudel, 1915
Hidden/The English Patient/Lovers on the Bridge
Honestly. The woman can do no wrong.
Certified Copy and Chocolat are my favorite Juliet Binoche performances.
Sadly I've seen so little of her filmography but I saw Certified Copy a few years ago based on Nat's own recommendation of her performance in his year-end Top 5 and sure enough, she was just fantastic.
My favorite is probably Bleu. LOVED her recently in Camille Claudel 1915. The movie not so much, but her performance is fantastic.
Did Juliette Bionoche replace Jennifer Lopez in the Chilean miner movie? That'd be too funny if so.
Funnily enough, without knowing it was her birthday, I saw CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915 yesterday. What an amazing film with an amazing performance.
So my favourite Binoche performance, or the one I believe she has done the best acting in, would be THE ENGLISH PATIENT (se agreeing with both Oscar and Berlin). But I'm not that big a fan of the film itself, so my favourite Binoche films are recent ones: CERTIFIED COPY and CC1915.