Delphine Seyrig makes impeccable manners funny without exaggerating them. We value her precise, restrained acting most; the elegant bearing and deep, musical voice are pleasures, but they can distract from how carefully she builds a character.
Fi1m perspective
In The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Delphine Seyrig makes Simone Thévenot's social niceties seem thoroughly practised. She need not exaggerate them for us to find them funny. With Stéphane Audran as Alice Sénéchal, she takes these people's expectations seriously, even when the circumstances cease to deserve it. We laughed at the practised courtesy because neither actor stopped to acknowledge how absurd it was. Seyrig lets us enjoy Simone's company while leaving us time to notice what is objectionable about her.
That composure had already taken different forms. Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad (1961) brought international recognition for an enigmatic central role, followed by Muriel, or the Time of Return (1963). Her deep, musical voice and elegant bearing help explain the early reputation for ethereal figures. That description misses the humour, and it hardly prepares us for her flamboyant, predatory Countess Elizabeth Báthory in Daughters of Darkness (1971).
Buñuel puts Seyrig's control to particularly good use because his comedy needs the guests to take their own expectations seriously. In his interrupted-dinner comedy, she belongs to an ensemble whose members refuse to beg for laughs; Fernando Rey's Don Rafael has a similarly durable composure. Some interruptions repeat a joke we have already understood, and the acting cannot entirely disguise that. Seyrig and Audran remain worth watching even when another obstruction to dinner has lost its surprise.
From 1975, her work increasingly involved women directors, including Chantal Akerman and Marguerite Duras. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) asks for sustained restraint and precise physical detail, while India Song (1975) places her at the centre of Duras's elliptical drama as Anne-Marie Stretter. Akerman gives her less room for flourish, and her precision becomes essential.
We would start with Buñuel, where the pleasure of the ensemble makes Seyrig's precision particularly easy to appreciate. Watch how closely she and Audran match one another's refusal to overplay. Then try Jeanne Dielman: the restraint is more demanding there, and it asks for patience from the viewer as well.
Biography
Delphine Seyrig (also credited as Beltiane) was a French actress. She was born Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig on 10 April 1932 in Beirut, Lebanon, and died on 15 October 1990 in Paris. She trained in drama in Paris and at the Actors Studio in New York, and began her career on stage before moving into film.
She appeared in Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad (1961) and Muriel (1963), François Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses (1968), Jacques Demy’s Donkey Skin (1970), Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness (1971) as Countess Elizabeth Báthory, Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) as Simone Thévenot, and Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976). She also acted in films by Marguerite Duras and Ulrike Ottinger.
From the mid-1970s Seyrig was active in the French feminist movement. In 1975 she co-founded the video collective Les Insoumuses with Carole Roussopoulos and Ioana Wieder. She directed the documentary Sois belle et tais-toi (1981) and other activist videos, and helped establish the Centre audiovisuel Simone-de-Beauvoir.
