Jean Seberg

Jean Seberg (November 13, 1938 – August 30, 1979)

Along with Audrey Hepburn, Jean Seberg is my favorite actress. Most everyone who loves film has seen Breathless, as it's one of those film-class staples and studied quite often. Certainly it's not uncommon to find a picture of Jean Seberg along with Jean Paul Belmondo in Breathless between the pages of many film study texts.



I think she's a very good actress. My initial liking of her came from the knowledge that she was also from Marshalltown, Iowa. Luckily the library in town had quite a few of her films so it was during that period in my senior year of high school, when I was watching six or so films every few days that I found Lilith. Lilith is an amazing film, one of those little known gems that hits hard with the emotional impact it carries. Warren Beatty is amazing in one of his early roles, Gene Hackman plays in his first screen appearance, and Jean Seberg is creepy as the neurotic nymphomanic living in a mental hospital. I think Lilith features her best performance, and she even said it was her favorite among her roles and best acting work, according to David Richards' biography on her.

For those of you who haven't seen her work, or maybe have only seen Breathless but nothing else, Turner Classic Movies will be having a five-film retrospective this Saturday, July 11th. (http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article...ticleId=240891) I strongly urge that you tune in, if you're interested in seeing several of her films. Wisely TCM (could you expect anything else?) has opted not to show her two most widely known films Breathless, and Airport. Instead of Breathless they are showing Bonjour Tristesse and instead of Airport they opt for Paint Your Wagon. Good calls. The only film in the retrospective that I don't think they should show is The Mouse That Roared, simply because it's not really a Jean Seberg film, it's more of a Peter Sellers vehicle with Seberg getting a limited part for minimal screen time. I would have prefered TCM showing her debut film, Saint Joan.



The one I am looking forward to seeing is In the French Style, which I've never viewed before.

Anytime Seberg is mentioned her bizarre and tragic life seems to eclipse her filmography, so I won't spend too much time writing on that here (though you certainly may). In general I like to seperate the art of from the artist, but there are times where that is very difficult, as is the case with Seberg. Along with Monty Clift, I think she's one of the most tragic Hollywood figures that have blessed us with their art and craft. Now I'm not really one to make a big deal about celebrities leading "tragic" lives with their millions of dollars (I really couldn't care less about Michael Jackson), but if you're interested in that sort of thing, few can top Jean Seberg's story. There are two biographies out there on her, one of which I've read, Played Out by David Richards (quite good) the other I still need to track down.

Anyway here's the films they are showing on TCM this Saturday, as copied and pasted from http://www.examiner.com/x-4636-Pitts...e-small-screen

8 p.m. The Mouse That Roared (1959) An impoverished nation declares war on the U.S. hoping to lose and score foreign aid. Co-stars includes Peter Sellers and William Hartnell. Trivia tidbit: Why are the streets of New York City so empty? The “invasion sequence” was filmed early on a Sunday morning.

9:30 p.m. In the French Style (1963) A beautiful art student is torn between her French boyfriend and her wealthy American father. Co-stars include Stanley Baker and Claudine Auger. Trivia tidbit: When asked to star in this film, Seberg was in the midst of a passionate affair with Romain Gray, who was still married at the time.

11:30 p.m. Bonjour Tristesse (1957) A jealous teenage girl plots to end her father's engagement. Co-stars include David Niven and Deborah Kerr. Trivia tidbit: Arthur Laurents watched Saint Joan after he had turned in the script for Bonjour; he was so appalled by what he saw that he called director Otto Preminger and cried, “Jean will sink me, you, and the picture!” Preminger's response? Seberg will be a “triumph.”

1:15 a.m. Lilith (1964) A young psychiatrist finds himself drawn to a beautiful young mental patient. Co-stars include Warren Beatty and Peter Fonda. Trivia tidbit: The film received such a hostile reaction from American critics that director Robert Rossen yanked the film out of the Venice Film Festival and delayed its release in the UK by two years.

3:15 a.m. Paint Your Wagon (1970) Two California miners share a gold claim and a wife. Co-stars include Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Trivia tidbit: Seberg studied for months to perfect her one song, then was so nervous in the recording studio that she could barely squeak out the notes. Her singing voice was later dubbed.

So if you've seen Breathless and admired her charming screen charisma, or if you're planning on viewing a couple of her films... chat it up on this often times under recognized actress. And yes, she's the chick in my avatar.

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I can't believe no one has commented on this thread that's been up an entire year now! Jean Seberg was the type of actress who makes you love her character no matter who she's playing. Many actors garner praise for astonishing transformations into different characters, but what Seberg did was entirely different, and way more difficult.

Her many photogenic qualities-her slim, delicate frame, her clear, beautiful face, the short hair, the trendy fashion sense, and that smile, made her an iconic figure in whatever movie she appeared in. Instead of changing herself to become a character, she made the character become her. I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm trying to say that her unique ability to make her character and herself one in the same made for natural, relatable performances.

It's a shame she could not find happiness in this life. A poignant line from "Breathless:" Patricia: Are you afraid of getting old? I am.

She should still be with us...

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Bump... if anyone subscribes to The Criterion Channel, they currently are showing Breathless, Bonjour Tristesse, and Lilith as well as a few features about Seberg.

I posted this in the "What have you seen lately?" thread, but it seems fitting that it should go here too:

Seberg (2019, Benedict Andrews)



So it took me a bit to get around to watching this. As is no secret, I'm a huge unabashed Jean Seberg fan and also from her hometown (Marshalltown, Iowa) where, of course, she's something of a legend. Despite my politics and the real life Seberg's being very opposite, I find her story fascinating and deeply sympathetic and read her biography years ago which, like the film, details her life and involved in the Black National movement and Black Panthers in the late 1960's and the subsequent FBI wiring tapping, harassment, and smear campaign. Well, seeing how this film got negative reviews, I was a bit reluctant to watch it, but gave it a try on the strength of Kristen Stewart's ability as an actress.

And for the record, Stewart does a great job. Just a wonderful performance... subdued when called for, but really captures many of the mannerisms and some of Seberg's ticks and charms. She's done her homework definitely. The physicality of her performance is great and the only minor nitpick would be with some of the vocal delivery which comes off as a bit modern and 2000s. If you've ever seen a Seberg film or listened to any of her interviews... she has a very unique and distinctive voice... it has the flatness of being raised in the Midwest, but there's a certain eloquence and precision to it (as though each spoken word was deliberate chosen and each syllable carefully articulated), with a hint of charm, no doubt from the French she picked up. Again, that's nitpicking.



The critics are wrong in their claim of how awful this movie is; they completely trashed it. While, yes, there is room for criticism, which I'll get into in a minute, Seberg does one thing exactly right in being tightly focused and avoiding so many of the biopic traps wherein a writer and filmmaker believes that a person's entire life can be condensed into a two or three hour film. Even the biopic obsession of last summer, Oppenheimer, suffered largely from trying to cover too many time periods and too many episodes of the subject's life. Great biopics like Lawrence of Arabia focus on singular episodes or maybe a handful of episodes, but string them together into a coherent narrative. Unfortunately most biopics feel like a game of "whack a mole" in trying to include a person's "greatest hits" of life. Where Seberg really shines is that it specifically covers the time period in her life from 1967-1970 and not only that but it largely focuses and maintains the "thesis statement" if you will of the chapter in Seberg's life where she was the target of FBI surveillance.

Where the film does falter, is really three fold. To begin, it fails to really capture the essence of why Jean Seberg would have been sympathetic to the Black National movement and doesn't really show how she either aligned politically with them or how Seberg had a deep sense of trying to find meaning in life beyond her film career combined with her deep sense of wanting to help the underdog and do something that would outlive her and exist beyond her own self. The film only briefly explores her overwhelming sense of compassion. In her biography it is described how she would be one of those children who would bring injured animals into the house with a compulsion to always help. How Seberg's political activism in her life played at odds with her attempt at a film career, beyond just being big in France, wasn't really explored well in the film. Remember, this was a time when actors and actresses were not the political creatures or talking heads they often are today, where it's almost in their contract that they have to have a political cause. What Seberg did was very risky, and yes it was before even Hanoi Jane and Brando sending Little Feather to the Academy Awards to reject his Godfather Oscar. Seberg does have a few scenes that allude to Paint Your Wagon and Airport, but nothing much in showing any dynamic character building into how her political and acting career collided. I will say, the actor who plays her often bewildered movie agent, does a great job, but is underused.

Another big weakness in the film, and it's a HUGE weakness... to the point of being cringe are the FBI agent portrayals by Vince Vaughn and Colm Meaney who are written and played almost as caricatures and are just plain one dimensional. It's too bad too because normally they are great, but here they just don't have good material. There is a forced and rather embarrassing dinner table freak out scene with Vince Vaugh, but it feels hackneyed and out of place. Jack O'Connell (an actor I'm unfamiliar with), however does a spectacular job of showing the subtle nuisances of a person torn between doing their job (in this case spying on Seberg) and the moral conflict that arises when they know what they are doing is unethical. There's also some interesting subtext too here of some Laura vibes going on simultaneous to him growing a conscience. Anthony Mackie is also solid as Hakim Jamal, a Black Nationalist, for whom she gets involved and has an affair.



The music choices were solid too and very much of the period and the smooth jazz based soundtrack was the right choice. Good cinematography as the film looks good and there are several shots in this film that are just down right great and framed beautifully.

This film isn't nearly as bad as what the critics claim, BUT the script is weak, despite being sprinkled with moments of greatness, but at times it feels rushed because the story doesn't really explore who Seberg was nor does it seem to take the FBI spying in a serious fashion, but more like a made-for-TV movie and half the time I was thinking the Peter Gunn theme would play whenever Vince Vaughn's character shows up. Stewart does a great job of playing the moments in the film where she's looking for audio wire tapping, but the tone of the film is uncertain if it wants to play as a art house character study or a strange mash-up of a biopic thriller. Therein lies my third criticism... the tone shifts are too sudden and there's an inconsistency of overall mood of the film. Yes, there's a good film in here buried someplace... perhaps even a great one, and Seberg feels like it enjoyed a foundation... again covering her life from 1967-1970 is a good way to go, BUT within those confines it's a bit of a mess and could have been more. It is definitely worth seeing for fans of Seberg or Kristen Stewart... an actress who is quickly becoming one of my favorite young-ish actresses of the last decade or so. It's an Amazon film, so it's currently streaming there for Prime members of course.

GRADE: B-

⬆️ I love this movie. Stewart sure can morph into different characters alive or dead.

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These were my notes from when I caught this at the cinema, back in January 2020...



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