Catherine Breillat

Biography: life and films

Catherine Breillat is one of France's more controversial auteur filmmakers. Her fascination with human sexuality, in all its manifestations, has made her a provocative figure, admired by some, reviled by others. Her novels and films include some notable successes and frequently provoke debate over where the boundary lies between art and pornography. Born in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, France, on 13th July 1948, Breillat made up her mind to become a writer when she was barely into her teens. She asserted her independence at an early age by moving to Paris with her slightly older sister Marie-Hélène Breillat to pursue an artistic career. The sisters studied drama together under Yves Furet and Catherine began writing. Breillat was just 19 when her first novel, L'Homme facile, was published in 1968. Owing to its explicit content, this first work could not be sold to under 18 year olds. Already Breillat was pushing at the limits of mainsteam acceptability, and she would carry on in the same vein for the rest of her career.

As Breillat continued writing novels in the 1970s, she began appearing in small roles in films. She made her screen debut, along with her sister, in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972). In the mid-1970s, she was approached by the producer André Génovès to adapt her novel Le Soupirail as an erotic movie. Although the film - titled Une vraie jeune fille (1976) - was completed, its release was held up when the producer went bankrupt. The distributor then opposed the film's release for over twenty years. When it was finally released in 2000, the film risked being condemned as paedophilic porn on account of its candid portrayal of the sexual awakening of a young girl.

When her second film Tapage nocturne (1979) failed to have much of an impact, Breillat decided to give up film directing so she could concentrate on her writing. Over the next ten years, she was busy working on scripts for other filmmakers, most notably Maurice Pialat on Police (1985). She resumed her directing career with 36 fillette (1988), based on another of her novels. Despite its controversial subject matter (it portrays a 14 year old obsessed with losing her virginity to an older man) the film met with favourable reviews, as did Breillat's next film, Sale comme un ange (1991), which gave Claude Brasseur one of his more challenging screen roles as a disenchanted cop fatally attracted to a younger woman.

Breillat created even more controversy with Romance (1999). Featuring the Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi and containing many lengthy scenes depicting extreme sexual activity, the film was slated as flagrant porn by many critics. The director's next film À ma soeur! (2001) was almost as provocative, a return to adolescent sexual awakening, but with a much grimmer slant than before. Breillat then adopted a much lighter tone in Sex Is Comedy (2002), a faux documentary featuring Anne Parillaud and a frightening array of prosthetic phalluses. Anatomie de l'enfer (2004) was based on her novel Pornocratie.

In April 2005, Catherine Breillat's career came to a sudden halt when she suffered a brain haemorrhage that left her paralysed on one side. After spending five months in hospital, she directed Une vieille maîtresse, adapted from Barbey d'Aurevilly's novel. Her first period drama, this is her most ambitious film to date and features Asia Argento in the lead role. Breillat then planned to make a film entitled Bad Love with the model Naomi Campbell, but this was aborted when the producer Flach Film refused to endorse Breillat's choice for the male lead, Christophe Rocancourt. In July 2009, Breillat revealed to the world that Rocancourt had taken advantage of her poor state of health to rob her of most of her personal fortune. In 2012, the actor was put on trial and found guilty of abuse of weakness. Breillat made this painful episode in her life the subject of a book published in 2009, Abus de faiblesse. She then adapted this into a film in 2013, starring Isabelle Huppert and Kool Shen.

Filmography

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