Delphine Seyrig

LucyInTheSky · 14-07-2009

Nationality: French.
Born: Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig in Beirut, Lebanon, of French parents, 10 April 1932.
Family: Married Jack Youn-German, 1950.
Career: 1952–55—actress on French stage; then studied at the Actors Studio, New York; 1961—French film debut in L'Année dernière à Marienbad brought international fame; stage work included roles in A Month in the Country, 1964, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1967, and The Beast in the Jungle, 1981; 1970s—directed video shorts.
Awards: Best Actress, Venice Festival, for Muriel, 1963.
Died: Of a lung disease, in Paris, 15 October 1990.

The haunting screen image of Delphine Seyrig stands at the center of French avant-garde filmmaking since the 1960s. Her elevation to this stature is based on two films, L'Année dernière à Marienbad and India Song. Not only significant as films, these works are important for their connections with the nouveau roman, a style that seeks to achieve an image of the eternal present through a dynamic of frozen gesture and glances. Only the face, body, and intellect of Seyrig could lend the subtleties demanded of this form which emphasizes image and psychology over plot and dialogue. David Bordwell admirably summed up Seyrig's novelistic qualities by calling her a Proustian actress. She endows her characters with a historical complexity brought to life in the present through the simplest of gestures.

Alain Robbe-Grillet, who wrote L'Année denière à Marienbad, had hoped Kim Novak would play the female lead. He wanted an actress who was less cerebral and more carnal than Seyrig. Fortunately for the dramatic and visual complexity of the film, Seyrig won the role. The film is about brainwashing; a man attempts to create in a woman's mind a past that never was in order to gain control over her present. The dramatic energy of the film is based on the woman's psychic resistance to the man. At times, the woman posed like a model, moments when the fashion-plate beauty of Seyrig works to perfection. Other times, the woman rebels or at least recoils from this positioning and rebuffs the man with wit and sophistication. Here the persona of Seyrig comes into full play. Even when capitulating to the man, there is enough lingering resistance to make the spectator question the validity of the image and wonder if it is not part of the man's fantasy. Novak, who plays to perfection a woman conforming to all aspects of imagistic male fantasy, as in Vertigo, would not have been able to generate this sense of resistant intellect.

In India Song Seyrig perfectly embodies the upper-class hauteur of the femme fatale. She portrays a woman who, in the grand French manner of de Pompadour, de Staël, and George Sand, has emotional and intellectual power to enslave certain males even into her middle age. India Song, even more than L'Année dernière à Marienbad, gives the false impression of stasis. Treating mental actions and developments rather than physical ones, the film requires a commanding yet illusive presence that only Seyrig could provide. Any other actress would have made the character appear like a dress-maker's dummy in a shop window.

Between L'Année dernière à Marienbad and India Song lie other fine, if less historically significant, films: Muriel, Accident, and Baisers volés. Throughout her career, Delphine Seyrig embodied the intelligent and beautiful woman who approximates human perfection. She remains one of film history's most important actresses.

—Rodney Farnsworth / filmreference.com / cinemaisdope.com

LucyInTheSky · 14-07-2009

Muriel (1963)
Directed by Alain Resnais

screencapped by me

LucyInTheSky · 14-07-2009

Baisers volés (1968)
Directed by François Truffaut

screencapped by me

Ice_lady · 14-07-2009

LucyInTheSky, thanks, for this new thread!

Delphine was a so beautiful woman!

LucyInTheSky · 14-07-2009

I cannot screencap my copy of Last Year at Marienbad because it is a blu-ray and my computer only has a DVD drive, so I found some online.

L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad) (1961)
Directed by Alain Resnais

CREDIT / dvdbeaver.com

somnambule · 19-07-2009

thanks for this thread and the wonderful pics,lucyinthesky

!!!the article you posted above is very interesting-"approximating human perfection",that´s almost painfully true for the image she conveyed in marienbad.what a disturbing labyrinth of dream and reality,past and presence,passion and numbness,where nothing ends and nothing ever begins.and she moves somewhere "between day and dream" with unconcious somnambulistic certainty.her perfect face still haunted me after watching the film-the smile ,the eyes.it takes a lot to carry such a film...besides that i only saw her in baisers volés...

l´année dernière à marienbad

with mathieu carrière in india song

le rouge aux lèvres

(die unsterblichen des kinos-adolf heinzlmeier/berndt schulz/karsten witte)

marienbad

(booklet of the german arthaus edition)

alicia753 · 19-07-2009

Love this grande actress

Jeanne · 07-08-2009

She would have been perfect on a Greek stage. She is one of the best actresses ever, and she wears black so well ! Last Year in Marienbad, the most stylish movie ever made, except perhaps for La Notte.

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14-07-2009	1
LucyInTheSky fashion icon Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Charleston, SC Gender: femme Posts: 3,135	Delphine Seyrig Nationality: French. Born: Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig in Beirut, Lebanon, of French parents, 10 April 1932. Family: Married Jack Youn-German, 1950. Career: 1952–55—actress on French stage; then studied at the Actors Studio, New York; 1961—French film debut in L'Année dernière à Marienbad brought international fame; stage work included roles in A Month in the Country, 1964, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1967, and The Beast in the Jungle, 1981; 1970s—directed video shorts. Awards: Best Actress, Venice Festival, for Muriel, 1963. Died: Of a lung disease, in Paris, 15 October 1990. The haunting screen image of Delphine Seyrig stands at the center of French avant-garde filmmaking since the 1960s. Her elevation to this stature is based on two films, L'Année dernière à Marienbad and India Song. Not only significant as films, these works are important for their connections with the nouveau roman, a style that seeks to achieve an image of the eternal present through a dynamic of frozen gesture and glances. Only the face, body, and intellect of Seyrig could lend the subtleties demanded of this form which emphasizes image and psychology over plot and dialogue. David Bordwell admirably summed up Seyrig's novelistic qualities by calling her a Proustian actress. She endows her characters with a historical complexity brought to life in the present through the simplest of gestures. Alain Robbe-Grillet, who wrote L'Année denière à Marienbad, had hoped Kim Novak would play the female lead. He wanted an actress who was less cerebral and more carnal than Seyrig. Fortunately for the dramatic and visual complexity of the film, Seyrig won the role. The film is about brainwashing; a man attempts to create in a woman's mind a past that never was in order to gain control over her present. The dramatic energy of the film is based on the woman's psychic resistance to the man. At times, the woman posed like a model, moments when the fashion-plate beauty of Seyrig works to perfection. Other times, the woman rebels or at least recoils from this positioning and rebuffs the man with wit and sophistication. Here the persona of Seyrig comes into full play. Even when capitulating to the man, there is enough lingering resistance to make the spectator question the validity of the image and wonder if it is not part of the man's fantasy. Novak, who plays to perfection a woman conforming to all aspects of imagistic male fantasy, as in Vertigo, would not have been able to generate this sense of resistant intellect. In India Song Seyrig perfectly embodies the upper-class hauteur of the femme fatale. She portrays a woman who, in the grand French manner of de Pompadour, de Staël, and George Sand, has emotional and intellectual power to enslave certain males even into her middle age. India Song, even more than L'Année dernière à Marienbad, gives the false impression of stasis. Treating mental actions and developments rather than physical ones, the film requires a commanding yet illusive presence that only Seyrig could provide. Any other actress would have made the character appear like a dress-maker's dummy in a shop window. Between L'Année dernière à Marienbad and India Song lie other fine, if less historically significant, films: Muriel, Accident, and Baisers volés. Throughout her career, Delphine Seyrig embodied the intelligent and beautiful woman who approximates human perfection. She remains one of film history's most important actresses. —Rodney Farnsworth / filmreference.com / cinemaisdope.com __________________ Last edited by classicalbang; 14-07-2009 at 01:45 PM. Reason: Please do not use clickable URLs as credits

14-07-2009	4
Ice_lady fashion elite Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: in Paradise Gender: femme Posts: 2,629	LucyInTheSky, thanks, for this new thread! Delphine was a so beautiful woman! __________________ Love is people's life.

19-07-2009	6
somnambule backstage pass Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Belle Reve Gender: femme Posts: 591	thanks for this thread and the wonderful pics,lucyinthesky!!!the article you posted above is very interesting-"approximating human perfection",that´s almost painfully true for the image she conveyed in marienbad.what a disturbing labyrinth of dream and reality,past and presence,passion and numbness,where nothing ends and nothing ever begins.and she moves somewhere "between day and dream" with unconcious somnambulistic certainty.her perfect face still haunted me after watching the film-the smile ,the eyes.it takes a lot to carry such a film...besides that i only saw her in baisers volés... l´année dernière à marienbad with mathieu carrière in india song le rouge aux lèvres (die unsterblichen des kinos-adolf heinzlmeier/berndt schulz/karsten witte) marienbad (booklet of the german arthaus edition) __________________ "sleep brings no rest to me i only sail a wilder sea a darker wave" -emily bronte- Last edited by somnambule; 19-07-2009 at 05:13 AM.

19-07-2009	7
alicia753 V.I.P. Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: in my monde Gender: femme Posts: 35,163	Love this grande actress

07-08-2009	8
Jeanne rising star Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Arlington,Texas Gender: femme Posts: 147	She would have been perfect on a Greek stage. She is one of the best actresses ever, and she wears black so well ! Last Year in Marienbad, the most stylish movie ever made, except perhaps for La Notte.