The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (39 page)

His Warners films are a mixed bag of assignments, inconsistent but with the occasional sparkle.
The Lady With Red Hair
is a flamboyant theatrical biopic with Miriam Hopkins as Mrs. Leslie Carter and Claude Rains as David Belasco.
Conflict
is an implausible psychological thriller with a tame ending, but lustrous to look at and with an atmospheric studio ravine down which Bogart, in fedora and trench coat, hobbles to discover his nemesis.
Devotion
is a portrait of the Brontë family, absurdly romantic, but interesting for de Havilland as Charlotte, Ida Lupino as Emily, and Arthur Kennedy as Branwell.
Possessed
is a Joan Crawford picture with an unexpectedly smart idea of mental illness. Best of all is
A Stolen Life
, a Bette Davis melodrama with the gimmick that she plays twin sisters. The trick photography is delightfully cunning and the whole mood close to hysteria.
Payment on Demand
, again with Davis, was a thriller done with clever flashbacks and some ingenious lighting that relied on transparent sets—an innovation that Bernhardt claims as his own. In the 1950s he managed to make Rita Hayworth tedious as
Miss Sadie Thompson
, and moved from one colored costume romance to another.

Claude Berri
(Claude Langmann), (1934–2009), b. Paris
1963:
Les Baisers
. 1964:
Le Poulet
(s). 1968:
Mazel Tov ou le Mariage
. 1972:
Le Sex Shop
. 1975:
Le Male du Siècle
. 1976:
La Première Fois
. 1977:
Un Moment d’Egarement
. 1980:
Je Vous Aime
. 1983:
Tchao Pantin
. 1986:
Jean de Florette; Manon des Sources
. 1990:
Uranus
. 1993:
Germinal
. 1997:
Lucie Aubrac
. 1999:
La Débandade
. 2002:
Une Femme de Ménage
. 2007:
Ensemble, C’Est Tout
.

Berri has done nearly everything, from scratching around as an actor in small roles to being one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in European film today. There is something Selznick-like in this child of Jewish immigrants, who worked as a furrier before he was an actor. And there is something akin to
Gone With the Wind
in the astonishing success of
Jean de Florette
and
Manon des Sources
. These adaptations of Pagnol are richer than
GWTW
as human dramas, yet the sweep of the two pictures, the production values, the marvel that the whole thing has been done with such command of energy, detail, and taste has more to do with old-fashioned showmanship than with art. And Berri’s empire is securely based on the two hits, whereas Selznick let the bounty of
GWTW
fall into other hands.

Nothing else directed by Berri is anywhere near as compelling as the two films from Pagnol. Nowhere else is his eye so fixed on nature, the quality of Gérard Depardieu, Yves Montand, and Daniel Auteuil, or a beauty like Emmanuelle Béart.

As an actor, Berri had appeared in
Les Bonnes Femmes
(60, Claude Chabrol)—he is Bernadette Lafont’s fiancé;
Behold a Pale Horse
(64, Fred Zinnemann);
Stan the Slasher
(90, Serge Gainsbourg); and in many of his own films. But as a producer, he has been vital to the careers of several directors:
Taking Off
(71, Milos Forman);
Tess
(79, Roman Polanski);
L’Homme Blessé
(83, Patrice Chéreau);
The Bear
(89, Jean-Jacques Annaud);
Trois Places pour le 26
(88, Jacques Demy);
Valmont
(89, Forman); as well as many films by Bertrand Blier and Maurice Pialat.

Germinal
felt like a battleship of cultural prestige—which accounts for its dire pacing. He then produced
La Reine Margot
(94) for Patrice Chéreau and Isabelle Adjani;
Arlette
(97, Claude Zidi);
Astérix et Obélix Contre César
(99, Zidi);
Mauvaise Passe
(99, Michel Blanc). Most recently he was in
Va Savoir
(01, Jacques Rivette);
Ma Femme Est une Actrice
(01, Yvan Attal);
Les Rois Mages
(01, Didier Bourdon and Bernard Campan);
Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre
(02, Chabat);
Amen
(02, Costa-Gavras);
Le Bison
(02, Isabelle Nanty);
Les Sentiments
(03, Noémie Lvovsky).

Halle Berry
, b. Cleveland, Ohio, 1968
Halle Berry’s Leticia in
Monster’s Ball
(01, Marc Forster) was so good a performance that, for many people, it masked the gaping implausibilities in that picture. No matter, there is an honorable tradition of great acting in rubbish, and it was surely time for a black to win the best actress Oscar. (Actually Halle Berry had a black father and a white mother.) I suspect, too, that the Oscar was deeply assisted by the way that poor, helpless Leticia, adrift in rural Georgia, was also, mysteriously, one of the most beautiful women in the world. But I mentioned the implausibilities already. The award was deserved, and Ms. Berry knew that she spoke for a legion of sisters—for all of us, even. It was about time.

And so a former Miss Teen All-American, named after a Cleveland department store, had made it all the way. It will be fascinating to see what happens now. Halle Berry is an easy knockout (and she was already lined up to play Jinx in the Bond film
Die Another Day
, directed by Lee Tamahori, a man of color), and she could turn awfully cute. But she really can act, and there’s not much doubt about the rough and difficult life that has made her.

She was in
Knots Landing
and
Living Dolls
on TV, but her movie chance came as a crack addict in
Jungle Fever
(91, Spike Lee). After that, she did
Strictly Business
(91, Kevin Hooks);
The Last Boy Scout
(91, Tony Scott); with Eddie Murphy in
Boomerang
(92, Reginald Hudlin);
Father Hood
(93, James Roodt);
The Program
(93, David S. Ward): as “Sharon Stone” in
The Flintstones
(94, Brian Levant); good in
Losing Isaiah
(95, Stephen Gyllenhaal); as Sheba, with Jimmy Smits on TV in
Solomon and Sheba
(95, Robert M. Young);
Executive Decision
(96, Stuart Baird); Hawaiian in
Race the Sun
(96, Charles T. Kanganis);
The Rich Man’s Wife
(96, Amy Holden Jones);
B*A*P*S
(97, Robert Townsend).

In truth, she hadn’t offered much yet, but she was very sharp in
Bulworth
(98, Warren Beatty), and then after
Why Do Fools Fall in Love
(98, Gregory Nava), she had a big personal success in
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
(99, Martha Coolidge), a superior biopic that had the effect of putting Ms. Berry forward as a test case. She was Storm in
X-Men
(00, Bryan Singer) and then did
Swordfish
(01, Dominic Sena) before
Monster’s Ball
.

It remains to be seen how she and the business will determine her career:
X2
(03, Singer); the awful
Gothika
(03, Mathieu Kassovitz);
Catwoman
(04, Pitof); on TV in
Their Eyes Were Watching God
(05, Darnell Martin); a voice in
Robots
(05, Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha);
X-Men: The Last Stand
(06, Brett Ratner);
Perfect Stranger
(07, James Foley);
Things We Lost in the Fire
(07, Susanne Bier);
Frankie and Alice
(09, Geoffrey Sax).

John Berry
(Jak Szold) (1917–99), b. New York
1946:
Miss Susie Slagle’s; From This Day Forward
. 1947:
Cross My Heart
. 1948:
Casbah
. 1949:
Tension
. 1951:
He Ran All the Way; Dix de Hollywood
(d). 1952:
C’est Arrivé à Paris
. 1954:
Ça Va Barder
. 1955:
Je Suis un Sentimental; Don Juan
. 1957:
Tamango
. 1959:
Oh! Que Mambo!
. 1964:
Maya
. 1967:
A Tout Casser
. 1974:
Claudine
. 1976:
Thieves
. 1978:
The Bad News Bears Go To Japan
. 1980:
Angel on My Shoulder
(TV). 1982:
Honeyboy
(TV);
Sister, Sister
(TV);
Le Voyage à Paimpol
. 1987:
Bad Deal
. 1990:
A Captive in the Land
. 2000:
Boesman and Lena
.

Berry was a victim and antagonist of the blacklist who never managed to find stability or to vindicate his early promise outside America. He was an actor and assistant with the Mercury Theater in the late 1930s and was assistant director on Welles’s lost movie,
Too Much Johnson
(38). It was his Broadway production of
Cry Havoc
that won him a contract with Paramount. His first film there was a Veronica Lake movie. But by far his most interesting work was
From This Day Forward
, an RKO comedy with Joan Fontaine and Mark Stevens as a couple attempting to settle after the war. Thereafter, Berry was replaced on
Caught
by Max Ophuls, made
Tension
at MGM, and directed John Garfield’s excellent last picture,
He Ran All the Way
. He settled in Paris but proved unable to string satisfactory pictures together.

He returned to America in the early 1970s for a very mixed bag:
Claudine
and
Sister, Sister
were groundbreaking treatments of black life;
Angel on My Shoulder
was a remake of the old Paul Muni movie; and
Honeyboy
was a cliché boxing picture with Erik Estrada.
A Captive in the Land
is a heartfelt but rather hokey story about political enemies who need each other’s help, set in Siberia.

Jules Berry
(Paufichet) (1889–1951), b. Paris
In a 1951 letter (the year Berry died), written while trying to cast the role of the Viceroy in
The Golden Coach
, Jean Renoir said, “We’ve begun, naturally, to envisage Pierre Brasseur in the role, for he is the only French actor who isn’t too old, is capable of playing with words, ideas and who can wear a costume with truculence. I saw him in a play by Sartre. He parodied Jules Berry, but it was probably a natural parody due to the fact that his professional development has brought him to the same point that Jules Berry had reached.”

Renoir doesn’t explain the point, but I think it implies a kind of bored mastery that had begun to turn into decoration or posing. But the very idea of wearing a costume with truculence unfailingly brings back memories of Berry’s magnificent scoundrel Batala, in
Le Crime de Monsieur Lange
(36, Renoir), masquerading as a priest, yet struck down—and calling, with his dying breath, for professional religious comfort. It is one of the great moments in film’s dandy tradition of the self-regarding showoff—the very full-time actor. And, of course, in a few years’ time, Berry would enlarge the role a good deal in his films for Marcel Carné. He was a worthy brother for George Sanders.

He was a stage actor who did a few silent films, but real fame waited for his voice—he had a throat that had all the tiny creaks and innuendos of fraud:
Cromwell
(11, Henri Desfautaines);
L’Argent
(29, Marcel L’Herbier);
Quick
(32, Robert Siodmak);
Arsène Lupin, Détective
(37, Henri Diamant-Berger);
Le Voleur de Femmes
(37, Abel Gance);
Carrefour
(39, Curtis Bernhardt);
Accord Final
(39, Ignacy Rosenkranz);
Le Jour Se Lève
(39, Carné);
La Symphonie Fantastique
(42, Christian-Jaque); the devil in
Les Visiteurs du Soir
(42, Carné);
Le Voyageur de la Toussaint
(42, Louis Daquin);
Etoile sans Lumière
(46, Marcel Blistène);
Rêves d’Amour
(47, Christian Stengel);
Portrait d’un Assassin
(49, Bernard Roland);
Les Maîtres-Nageurs
(51, Henri Lepage).

Bernardo Bertolucci
, b. Parma, Italy, 1940
1962:
La Commare Secca
. 1964:
Prima Della Rivoluzione/Before the Revolution
. 1966:
La Via del Petrolio
(d). 1967: “ ’Agonia,” episode from
Amore e Rabbia
. 1968:
Partner
. 1970:
Il Conformista/The Conformist; Strategia del Ragno/The Spider’s
Strategy
. 1972:
Last Tango in Paris
. 1975:
1900
. 1979:
La Luna
. 1981:
La Tragedia di un Uomo Ridicolo/Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man
. 1987:
The Last Emperor
. 1990:
The Sheltering Sky
. 1994:
Little Buddha
. 1996:
Stealing Beauty
. 1998:
Besieged
. 1989: “Bologna,” episode from
12 Registi per 12 Città
(d). 2002: “Histoire d’Eaux,” episode from
Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
. 2003:
The Dreamers
.

Bertolucci has made a substantial journey, from the romantic disenchantment of
Before the Revolution
, through the canceling of feelings in
The Conformist
, to the misanthropic howl of
Last Tango in Paris
, to the internationalism of
The Last Emperor. Last Tango
was an international cause célèbre, reflecting on different countries according to how many seconds they cut from it, and enticing into cinemas people who hover round notoriety and who must have been baffled by most of
Last Tango
. What could he do next?