Isabelle Huppert: Stardom, Performance, Authorship

Featuring a lineup of distinguished academics, this collection remedies the absence of scholarly attention to French cinematic legend Isabelle Huppert. This volume deconstructs Huppert’s star persona and public profile through critical and theoretical analysis of her various screen roles—from her very early appearances alongside Romy Schneider in César et Rosalie (Sautet, 1972) and Gérard Depardieu in Les Valseuses (1974) to a number of celebrated collaborations with high-profile European auteurs such as Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke and Joseph Losey, and with more popular auteurs such as Claude Chabrol and François Ozon. Known for a cerebral internalization of characterization, a technical mastery of extreme emotions, and a singular brand of icy intellectualism, Huppert’s performances continue to impress, stun and surprise audiences. By focusing on several theoretical questions that relate to image, identity, sexuality and place, this volume situates Huppert’s star persona in the more practical creative contexts of performance, authorship, genre and collaboration. This volume contrasts complementary critical accounts of her stardom by working across the different periods and territories of her career.

Table of Contents:
Introduction — Against Type: Isabelle Huppert’s Unorthodox Stardom Nick Rees-Roberts (Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris, France) and Darren Waldron (University of Manchester, UK) 1. Intimate Distance: The Face of Isabelle Huppert Darren Waldron (University of Manchester, UK) 2. The Calculated Maladresse: Isabelle Huppert’s Dual Performance Style Pedro Guimarães (University of Campinas, Brazil) 3. Women in Extremis: Isabelle Huppert in the Director’s Theatre George Sampatakakis (University of Patras, Greece) 4. Enduring Extremity: on Isabelle Huppert’s Intertextual Body Jules O’Dwyer (University of Cambridge, UK) 5. Maternal Eroticism: Queering Isabelle Huppert Emma Wilson (University of Cambridge, UK) 6. Huppert’s Public: Audience Reception and the Cinema of Michael Haneke Joseph McGonagle (University of Manchester, UK) 7. Huppert and Chabrol: Opacity, Dissonance and the Crystal-Character Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze (University of Durham, UK) 8. Embodying the White (Colonial) Woman: Isabelle Huppert’s Roles in Postcolonial Film Kaya Davies Hayon (University of Lincoln, UK) 9. Acting Funny: A Counter-Reading of Huppert’s Star Persona Raphaëlle Moine (Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris, France) 10. “Who the Hell is Isabelle Huppert?”: A French Star in America Alison Taylor (Bond University, Australia) 11. After Elle: Isabelle Huppert’s Performance of Fame, Fashion, and Feminism Nick Rees-Roberts (Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris, France) Index

About the Author :
Nick Rees-Roberts is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III, France. His research spans fashion, film and media-culture and he is the author of French Queer Cinema (first ed. 2008, second ed. 2014), and Fashion Film: Art and Advertising in the Digital Age (2018), co-author of Homo exoticus: race, classe et critique queer (2010), and co-editor of Alain Delon: Style, Stardom and Masculinity (2015). Darren Waldron is Senior Lecturer in French and European Cinema at the University of Manchester, UK. He is the author of Jacques Demy (2014), Queering Contemporary French Popular Cinema (2009), co-author of French and Spanish Queer Cinema: Audiences, Communities and Cultural Exchange (2016) and co-editor of Alain Delon: Style, Stardom and Masculinity (2015) and France at the Flicks: Trends in Contemporary French Popular Cinema (2007).

Review :
A useful addition to an understanding of the role [Isabelle Huppert] has played in French cinema and the way it continues to develop. This book assembles a brilliant cast of scholars to reflect on the complex meanings and effects of Isabelle Huppert’s prolific career and compelling star persona. The diversity of critical approach illuminates Huppert’s potent, often paradoxical place in French cinema and beyond, situating her in relation to contemporary ethics, feminist, queer and postcolonial politics, auteurism, genre, popular reception and the nature of stardom itself. This is the essential – and very readable – work on a culturally significant figure, and also an important intervention in film and star studies.