Emmanuelle Béart can hold attention with a watchful look and scarcely a change of expression. We rate her most when a director gives that restraint something to do; glamour alone leaves too much unused.
Fi1m perspective
In Mission: Impossible (1996), Emmanuelle Béart’s Claire is one of several people we are asked to keep track of without being given enough reason to care about them. It is a frustrating use of an actor whose watchful gaze can suggest so much with little visible effort. We felt short-changed by the thin characterisation, even as Brian De Palma’s set-pieces kept us tense. The film is good; the part promises more than the writing delivers.
The breakthrough came with Claude Berri’s Manon des Sources (1986), but the work with Rivette and Sautet explains more about her methods. In Jacques Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse (1991), she plays Marianne, posing nude for much of a four-hour film. For Camille, the violinist in Claude Sautet’s Un Cœur en Hiver (1992), she practised daily for eighteen months. Those parts demand physical commitment as well as the ability to keep us interested in a face at rest. Sautet’s Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud (1995) gave her another intimate character study.
The international turn with Mission: Impossible made her more widely known without giving her an equally substantial character. De Palma’s film is busy with schemes, and Tom Cruise makes those schemes feel urgent. Béart, Jon Voight and Ving Rhames promise another source of interest, but the screenplay has less use for that part of its cast. We recommend the thriller for its tension and skilful set-pieces, with a warning about the needlessly tangled plotting. It is a poor introduction to what Béart can do when a film makes time for complicated feelings.
Long takes suit her because she can convey complicated feelings with minimal expression. That control can also look mannered, a risk apparent in La Belle Noiseuse. Still, the commitment of that performance deserves to be taken seriously. We prefer the intimate dramas, where a director has room to attend to what she leaves unspoken. Start with Un Cœur en Hiver; there is more to her stillness than Claire is allowed to show.
Biography
Emmanuelle Béart is a French actress. She has appeared in more than 60 film and television productions since 1972.
She achieved prominence with her role in Manon des Sources (1986), for which she won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress. Other notable film roles include La Belle Noiseuse (1991), A Heart in Winter (1992), Nelly and Mr. Arnaud (1995), Mission: Impossible (1996) as Claire, and 8 Women (2002). She has received eight César Award nominations in total.
