Marika Green's precise, restrained Jeanne in Pickpocket rewards close attention, though its reserve can keep us at a distance. We value that performance without mistaking Bresson's strict demands for the limits of her acting.
Fi1m perspective
In Pickpocket (1959), Marika Green's Jeanne moves and speaks with little outward display of feeling. Robert Bresson directed her movements and delivery with exacting precision, leaving little room for conventional acting. We value the discipline with which she meets those demands, although the restraint can keep Jeanne at a distance. This is the work to begin with, but treating it as a complete account of Green's acting would mean asking one performance to explain several decades.
Bresson cast Green as a non-professional, and Jeanne was her screen debut. It is worth remembering how deliberately that performance was shaped before mistaking its quietness for a lack of ability. We were absorbed by Pickpocket because its precise treatment of stealing makes each movement worth watching, even when the thief remains hard to reach. Green's controlled delivery belongs to the same approach. The pleasure lies in attending closely, with the caveat that Bresson does not make it easy to feel close to anyone.
The later work complicates any attempt to make that debut stand for a whole career. In French films and television through the 1960s and 1970s, Green took supporting and ensemble parts, including the hostess at Tania's in René Clément's Rider on the Rain (1970) and Bee in Just Jaeckin's Emmanuelle (1974). Those credits took her beyond Bresson, but later directors also sought the same Jeanne quality. We would be wary of calling that an actor's limitation when the people casting her were asking for repetition.
Christian Berger offered a different possibility with Hanna Monster, Darling (1989), writing the lead role of Hanna for her. Her later contribution to Angelina Jolie's By the Sea (2015) was smaller on screen, as a dress shop saleswoman, but also included movement coaching; Berger was the cinematographer. That additional credit is worth noticing in an actor whose debut depended so heavily on exact physical instruction. Start with Pickpocket, and allow for its reserve: Green is not going to do all the emotional work for us.
Biography
Marika Green is a Swedish-French actress. Born Marika Nicolette Green on 21 June 1943 in Södermalm, Stockholm, she moved to France in 1953.
She made her film debut as Jeanne in Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959) at the age of 16. She is also known for her role as Bee in Emmanuelle (1974) and later appeared as the Dress Shop Saleswoman in By the Sea (2015).
Green is the aunt of actress Eva Green and the older sister of Walter Green, who is married to actress Marlène Jobert. She is married to Austrian cinematographer Christian Berger.
