Jeanne Moreau
14 Episodes
With her smoldering magnetism and fierce intelligence (likened by Patti Smith to “a barbed-wire fence on fire”), French screen siren Jeanne Moreau breathed unforgettable life into some of the most complex women in all of twentieth-century cinema. Already a successful stage actor when she came to international attention for her turn in Louis Malle’s moody thriller ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, Moreau soon went on to cement her status as an icon of the French New Wave with her role as the mercurial free spirit at the center of François Truffaut’s JULES AND JIM. Throughout her six-decade career, Moreau delivered fearless performances for some of the leading auteurs of her time, including Michelangelo Antonioni (LA NOTTE), Jacques Demy (BAY OF ANGELS), and Orson Welles (CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT), who proclaimed her “the greatest actress in the world.”
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45:38Episode 1
Jeanne Moreau, 1972
Episode 1
In this in-depth interview, first aired on January 30, 1972, Jeanne Moreau reflects on her long career in French cinema and her work with some of the country’s greatest directors, sharing her thoughts on aging, acting, and character development.
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1:31:33Episode 2
Elevator to the Gallows
Episode 2
Directed by Louis Malle • 1958 • France
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges PoujoulyFor his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Da...
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1:30:44Episode 3
The Lovers
Episode 3
Directed by Louis Malle • 1958 • France
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Marc BoryLouis Malle unveiled the natural beauty of Jeanne Moreau in his breakthrough, ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS. With his follow-up, the scandalous smash THE LOVERS (LES AMANTS), he made her a star once and for all. A deeply fe...
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La notte
Episode 4
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni • 1961 • Italy
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica VittiThis psychologically acute, visually striking modernist work was director Michelangelo Antonioni’s follow-up to the epochal L’AVVENTURA. Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau star as a n...
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1:46:26Episode 5
Jules and Jim
Episode 5
Directed by François Truffaut • 1962 • France
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri SerreHailed as one of the finest films ever made, JULES AND JIM charts, over twenty-five years, the relationship between two friends and the object of their mutual obsession. The legendary François Truffau...
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Eva
Episode 6
Directed by Joseph Losey • 1962 • France, Italy
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, Virna LisiBlacklisted ex-Hollywood director Joseph Losey’s reinvention as a voice of coolly stylized European art-house cinema in many ways began with this Venice-set tale of romantic obsession, gorgeously ph...
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1:48:15Episode 7
The Fire Within
Episode 7
Directed by Louis Malle • 1963 • France
Starring Maurice Ronet, Léna Skerla, Jeanne MoreauAfter garnering international acclaim for such seminal crowd-pleasers as THE LOVERS and ZAZIE DANS LE MÉTRO, Louis Malle gave his fans a shock with THE FIRE WITHIN (LE FEU FOLLET), a penetrating study of i...
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1:24:27Episode 8
Bay of Angels
Episode 8
Directed by Jacques Demy • 1963 • France
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Claude MannThis precisely wrought, emotionally penetrating romantic drama from Jacques Demy, set largely in the casinos of Nice, is a visually lovely but darkly realistic investigation into love and obsession. A bottle-blonde Jean...
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1:56:20Episode 9
Chimes at Midnight
Episode 9
Directed by Orson Welles • 1966 • Spain, Switzerland
Starring Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, Jeanne MoreauThe crowning achievement of Orson Welles’s extraordinary cinematic career, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT was the culmination of the filmmaker’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare’s ultimate rapscallion,...
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57:57Episode 10
The Immortal Story
Episode 10
Directed by Orson Welles • 1968 • France
Starring Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Roger CoggioOrson Welles' first color film and final completed fictional feature, THE IMMORTAL STORY is a moving and wistful adaptation of a tale by Isak Dinesen. Welles stars as a wealthy merchant in nineteenth-cent...
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Mr. Klein
Episode 11
Directed by Joseph Losey • 1976 • France
Starring Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Francine BergéNeglected for decades, this chilling existentialist mystery has reemerged as one of director Joseph Losey’s most virtuosic works. In perhaps the finest performance of his career, Alain Delon stars as the...
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Querelle
Episode 12
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
Starring Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne MoreauConjured from the unholy meeting of two iconoclastic queer artists, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film audaciously raises Jean Genet’s controversial novel to the level of myth. In an expressi...
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La truite
Episode 13
Directed by Joseph Losey • 1982 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jeanne Moreau“Nowadays, homosexuality and heterosexuality mean nothing. You’re sexual or you’re not.” The penultimate film by iconoclastic director Joseph Losey, LA TRUITE (“The Trout”) is a shrewd study of ...
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4:47:59Episode 14
Until the End of the World
Episode 14
Directed by Wim Wenders • 1991 • Germany, France, Australia
Starring William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Sam NeillConceived as the ultimate road movie, this decades-in-the-making science-fiction epic from Wim Wenders follows the restless Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) across continents as she...