Delphine Seyrig

[greennui]

Thought I'd try and kick start this subforum!

A dynamic, graceful actress with great range and a signature melodious, soothing voice.

What are your fav Seyrig performances/films starring Seyrig?

[Monsieur Arkadin]

My favorite performance of hers is probably Daughters of Darkness, because it's just so fun. She gets to let loose and go full camp in a way she rarely did in other films (except for Mr. Freedom, which she is excellent in, but the film is such utter garbage other than her few scenes).

But holy shit... can you imagine trying to pick a favorite out of that filmography? Jeanne Dielman, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, India Song, Stolen Kisses, fucking Marienbad?

For someone who didn't even make it to 60 years old, she has one of the greatest filmographies of any actor I can think of.

[rischka]

GREENNUI DID YOU STEAL THAT GIF FROM MY TUMBLR

i love that delphine after a certain point decided she just wasn't going to work with male directors anymore

favorites

india song
daughters of darkness
golden eighties
joan of arc of mongolia

still need to see dorian gray and freak orlando!

[MrCarmady]

Only seen Seyrig in 5 films: Marienbad, Accident, Stolen Kisses, Discreet Charm, and Day of the Jackal. All five are great to varying extents, as is she in them, so I clearly should see more. Daughters of Darkness next although I have to say Mr Freedom sounds hilarious.

[brian d]

i really liked her in duras's baxter, vera baxter, or maybe i just liked baxter, vera baxter. daughters of darkness is also one that i think of when i think of her.

[nrh]

love her in everything i've seen with special affection for golden eighties.

have had her first movie with duras, la musica, lined up to watch for a few weeks now...

[greennui]

I keep forgetting she's in Marienbad, she looks so different in it. Her hair style and hair colour was constantly changing but I think she only ever had dark hair in that one?



Really like her cameo in Joseph Losey's Accident. Halfway through the film Losey suddenly decided he wanted to fit in a mini Resnais film as a vignette.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdL-RNCD6jU

[greennui]

GREENNUI DID YOU STEAL THAT GIF FROM MY TUMBLR

I got it from some tumblr via google images so it's possible!

[Umbugbene]

Both Marienbad and India Song are in my top 10, so yes, I think you could call me a fan. India Song's one of my few favorites I don't have on dvd, so when it came to Mubi this March I watched it 7x and wrote an essay on it. I also found Baxter, Vera Baxter on YouTube around the same time, and it's my favorite discovery of 2020 so far. Plus I had a rare chance to stream Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse last month... so clearly Seyrig's been on my mind a lot lately.

[...]

Heh. Seyrig is about as far removed from Wayne as one could possibly get in what they "say" onscreen, so a nice pairing there. But at the same time, talking about Seyrig as an actor, judging from the 11 films I've seen, is almost as misleading as talking about Wayne as one, but for entirely opposite reasons. If you think of acting in something like the Streep sense of the idea, then I really don't have much of a feel for Seyrig at all since the movies I've seen her in mostly short-circuit that kind of approach to the work. Roles like those in Marienbad, Dielman, Muriel, Discreet Charm, Donkey Skin and so on aren't really asking the actor to inhabit the same kind of persona as more conventional movies, so judging a performance based on those ideals doesn't get you very far. Seyrig is engaging in those films more as a collaborating artist in helping create a complete tonal whole, not just perform a role in the usual sense, so there's a different set of more complicated considerations involved.

Seyrig is excellent in adapting herself to the films she works on in wildly different ways, so as an actor as artist she is excellent, there's just no easy way to talk about acting choices in terms of the more usual emotional arcs and methods one might use in speaking about more commercial films as the works I've seen her in mostly choose to work against that system.

[nrh]

watched duras first film la musica last night (paul seban is credited as co-director), and it's an odd film, reminds me more of her early novels, especially the dialogue centered ones, more than any of the later films i've seen. basically a three-hander, with hossein spending the first half of the film driving through his old town with young american drifter julie dassin before it ends in a long second half where hossein and seyrig talk about their failed marriage and the divorce they just finalized in the lounge of a empty hotel at night.

lots of echoes of hiroshima, of course, and the camera (by resnais favorite photographer sacha vierny) is absolutely precise, but whether it's all totally airless of hypnotizing is i think something you probably decide minutes into the film. but all of that kind of changes when seyrig comes in - where the other two performers, though fine, seem totally subsumed into duras rhythm seyrig both moves in it and cuts through it, if that makes any sense.

[wba]

I've only seen her in one film so far, MURIEL (1963) by Resnais, which was fantastic and is one of my favorite films. Her performance was great, but it's been a while and I can't say much about it specifically. It was understated, graceful, and I especially liked her way of moving, the movement or stillness of her body.