Isabelle Huppert, French Legends, and Oscar Stats

by Nathaniel R

Are you biting your nails yet? No prediction for this year's Best Actress shortlist can come without some degree of "I could be getting this very wrong!" nerves. We've been Oscar watching for a long time and it's genuinely never looked this open this late in the game (with the possible exception of 2003 but for nearly the opposite reason). If Best Actress is not a five-way lock up by now (and it often is) it's usually at least settled but for a minor battle between two women for the "just happy to be nominated" fifth spot. This year is different. Seven women remain strong and precursor supported and virtually any combination of five names seems possible as long as you include both Emma Stone (with the reliable boost of leading a Best Picture frontrunner) and Natalie Portman (with the reliable boost of Oscar's deep-deep love for mimicry).

We always believed that Isabelle Huppert was a genuine threat for a Best Actress nomination this season for her phenomenal star turn in Elle. It wasn't so much that Elle, in which she plays a video game enterpeneur who becomes obsessed with her rapist, was a a fresh look at an old star (against type) or right in Oscar's wheel house (a dark comedy about rape. LOL, no). The appeal instead is that in Elle is a suffusion of everything that's special about Huppert: her superior intellect, fascinating opacity, tortured psychology, and her daring sexuality. Oscar would be wise to pounce in a year where the media has been this celebratory about her unique place in the cinematic landscape. 'It's time!' feelings don't generally come around all that often for true iconoclasts or women of a certain age. She's both so they must act now.

Binoche, Cotillard, Adjani, Deneuve

Here's another far more superficial but still excellent reason why Isabelle Huppert needs to be nominated...

All of her true peers have been! While France reliably turns out fine actors and charimastic stars, the bonafide international movie queens are a finite glorious batch and from the last 50 years of cinema (from the late 60s to the present so post-Caron/Moreau/Bardot), they number only five: CATHERINE DENEUVE who ascended in the late 60s, ISABELLE HUPPERT and ISABELLE ADJANI who both emerged in the 70s, JULIETTE BINOCHE who broke through in the 90s, and MARION COTILLARD in the Aughts.

You can make arguments for the importance of other Gallic actresses, too, (one of our favorite pasttimes) but the cultural fact is that they just never quite ascended globally or stayed internationally vivid in the way this quintet indisputably did. A sad but correctable truth: Huppert is the only one of these five women that has not been honored by Oscar.

I sense that you want yet more lists. We are always here for that...

Oscar's Most Celebrated French Actors of All Time (1927-2015)
English language performances unless otherwise noted

Signoret, Colbert, and Caron

1. Charles Boyer - 4 nominations
2. Claudette Colbert - 3 nominations | 1 win 
3. Marion Cotillard - 2 nominations | 1 win (French language performances)
4. [TIE] Simone Signoret  and Juliette Binoche - 2 nominations | 1 win 
5. Isabelle Adjani - 2 nominations (French language performances)
6. [TIE] Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier - 2 nominations 
7. [TIE] Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Anouk Aimee, Emmanuelle Riva, Marie-Christine-Barrault - 1 nomination each (French language performances)
8. [TIE] Lila Kedrova & Jean Dujardin - 1 nomination | 1 win each
9. [TIE] Collette Marchand, Jocelyne LaGarde, and Bérénice Bejo - 1 nomination each

In Comparison - César's Most Celebrated Actors (1976-2015)

1. Gérard Depardieu - 17 nominations | 2 wins
2. Isabelle Huppert - 15 nominations | 1 win
3. Catherine Deneuve - 14 nominations | 2 wins
4. Daniel Auteuil - 12 nominations | 2 wins
5. [TIE] Catherine Frot an Karin Viard -  10 nominations | 2 wins
6. [TIE] Fabrice Luchini and Miou-Miou - 10 nominations | 1 win
7. [TIE] Nathalie Baye and Dominique Blanc - 9 nominations | 4 wins
8. [TIE] Juliette Binoche and François Cluzet - 9 nominations | 1 win
9. Isabelle Adjani - 8 nominations | 5 Wins
10. Michel Serrault - 8 nominations | 3 wins
11. Sandrine Kiberlain - 8 nominations | 2 wins
12. Emmanuelle Béart  - 8 nominations | 1 win
13. André Dussollier - 7 nominations | 3 wins
14. Sandrine Bonnaire - 7 nominations | 2 wins | + 1 additional nomination in another category
15. Sabine Azema - 7 nominations | 2 wins
16. Jean-Hugues Anglade - 7 nominations | 1 win
17. Noémie Lvovsky - 7 nominations | plus 4 additional nominations in other categories
18. [TIE] Marion Cotillard, Cecile de France, and Charlotte Gainsbourg - 6 nominations | 2 wins
19. Vincent Lindon - 6 nominations | 1 win
20. Lambert Wilson - 6 nominations

A few more internationally reknowned French actors of note (though not ranked as others only famous in France may have had more attention)

Seydoux, Garrell, and Darrieux

• Emmanuelle Devos - 5 nominations | 2 wins
• [TIE] Fanny Ardant, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Vincent Cassel - 5 nominations | 1 win
• Mathieu Amarlic - 4 nominations | 3 wins | plus an additional 4 nominations in non-acting categories
• Annie Girardot - 4 nominations | 3 wins
• Audrey Tatou - 4 nominations | 1 win
• Jeanne Moureau - 3 nominations | 1 win | 2 Honoraries
• Louis Garrel - 3 nominations | 1 win | plus 1 extra nomination in a non-acting category
• Danielle Darrieux - 3 nominations | 1 Honorary
  * She turns 100 this May! Clearly had the César award been around before the mid 70s she would be one of the most celebrated given her filmography and legend (same is true of Moreau). Darrieux was one of the biggest French stars from the 1930s through the 1950s. She hasn't made a feature in six years. Her last celebrated role was as the matriarch in François Ozon's all-star female musical 8 Women (2002)
• Gaspard Ulliel - 4 nominations | 1 win
• Léa Seydoux - 4 nominations 
• [TIE] Ludivine Sagnier and Jean Reno - 3 nominations

P.S. Kristin Scott Thomas and Charlotte Rampling, two actors that are sometimes thought of as French given their multilingual filmographies and personal lives, are actually British. Charlotte has 4 César nominations, an Honorary César and 1 Oscar nomination. Kristin has 3 César nominations and 1 Oscar nomination.

P.P.S. For those curious about how French actors have such high nomination and win totals given only a 40 year history, there are two reasons. The first is a smaller pool of stars getting the roles. The second is that they two additional acting categories "Most Promising Actress" and "Most Promising Actor" which can greatly help your vote tally partially because you don't necessarily graduate out of those categories after one breakthrough. You can be nominated in multiple years as "promising". We're not sure how they define when you have officially delivered on that promise and then cut you off. 

Comments

[Josh R]

Incredible that Jeanne Moreau never got one. An honorary Oscar is in order.

In addition to Darrieux and other totally ignored, some other iconic performers who coulda, shoulda been nominated:

Arletty (Children of Paradise)
Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless)
Jean Gabin (Grand Illusion)
Anna Karina (My Life to Live)
Jean Marais (Beauty and the Beast)
Yves Montand (The Wages of Fear, Jean de Florette)
Delphine Seyrig (Muriel)
Michel Simon (Bondu Saved from Drowning)
Simone Simon (La Bete Humaine)
Jean-Louis Tritignant (Amour)

If I had to bet, I'd guess Matthieu Almaric will get one at some point.

It's a minor point, but LaGarde was Tahitian - still considered its own nationality, although they do hold French citizenship.