Monday 28 September 2009

On Brigitte Bardot & being French

Today, Brigitte Bardot turns 75, and I turn 56 - I doubt that she knows about this coincidence (if there are any, that is). The other day, there was an interesting article about her in The Guardian, accompanied by a few quotes of which I especially identified with this one: 'It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen'. Here's an excerpt:

Perhaps, Bardot's most formidable asset, in the typical French fashion, was that she didn't care. When Jane Birkin made Don Juan with her in 1973, she was stunned: "[Brigitte] never wanted to do a film that was outside France because she didn't want to leave her dear France. She seemed to have no ambition whatsoever, which made her a very curiously attractive creature because she was never seeking any sort of approval. To the contrary, it didn't seem to matter at all. She just didn't care. "

"She was indifferent to the power she had," says French writer and playwright Paul Fournel. "She didn't really want to be an actress, a singer or a sex symbol, but it just happened that way. She had such a physical presence. She had a way to manage her beauty, which was very forward-looking. The woman she was in 1956 was already the woman post-1968. She was so modern that way." Nicole Farhi agrees: "She loved living barefoot without a care in the world, and certainly without a care of what people might say about her. All this is very French."

For the full text go here

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