#la honte

La honte est une émotion complexe et universelle qui peut être déclenchée par des situations où nous nous sentons jugés, rejetés ou ridiculisés. Pour surmonter la honte, voici quelques stratégies couramment utilisées :1. Reconnaître et accepter la honte : Le premier pas consiste à reconnaître et à accepter que l’on ressent de la honte. Cela permet de prendre conscience de ses émotions et de ne…

by Hélène Marzolf, Caroline Besse, Romain Jeanticou - Télérama, May 9, 2023

In 2020, her dramatic departure from Polanski’s triumph at the Césars divided the film industry.  The actress now comes to terms with her break with the seventh art.  Narrative of a committed and radical journey.

If you had last seen her slamming the door of the 2020 César Awards in her midnight blue sequined dress after Roman Polanski's acclamation, you might not recognize her.  Three years after the ceremony that tore French cinema apart, Adèle Haenel, with short hair, duck green raincoat, and backpack, stands in the middle of strikers wearing CGT vests from the Gonfreville-l'Orcher refinery in Normandy.  «Hello, I came here as a feminist, and as a lesbian», she declares at the microphone.  «To say that if we are united like this, now, on the firing lines, we can win.»  These days, if you aim to cross paths with the 34-year-old actress, who has been absent from film sets since 2019, you’ll have better luck joining a strike against pension reform rather than hanging around the Cannes Festival stairs.

Since the beginning of the social movement, she has been active in the Network for the General Strike, participating in meetings, discussing the choice of actions, speaking at meetings alongside students, janitors and railway workers to advocate for a «post-capitalist, that is to say, communist» world.  «On the ground, nobody considers her to be a star», says Camille Lupo, a freelance artist and member of the newly formed far-left organization Révolution permanente, around which the actress gravitates.  «The older people don't necessarily know who she is and the young people come to listen to her, not to take selfies.»

Adèle Haenel had hinted at it in the Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto. Today, she strongly affirms it and claims it politically in the letter she sent us in response to our request for an interview: she has decided to turn her back on French cinema.  A radical and unusual trajectory, but one that hardly surprises those who have worked alongside her.  «From the moment I met her as a child, she was discussing the state of the world», says casting director Christel Baras, who discovered her at the age of 11, led her to the cinema and introduced her to the director who would for a time become her partner in life and work, Céline Sciamma.

Born into a middle-class, intellectual and political family, the actress took her first steps toward activism while still in school.  On film shoots, she read a lot, asked a lot of questions, and challenged the directors.  «She confronts them because she wants to understand what she’s doing, why they’re asking her to do this, why she’s dressed like that», recalls the filmmaker Robin Campillo, who directed her in 120 Battements par minute.  «There are certainly people who might get irritated by that, but I find it justifiable.»  When she won the 2014 César for best supporting actress in Katell Quillévéré’s Suzanne, she shattered a primary taboo by coming out as a lesbian on stage.  The best actress award came the following year for Thomas Cailley’s Les Combattants.

The actress has never hidden her convictions, but seems to be still developing her political identity.  «If being angry is not wanting to be resigned and refusing to acquiesce to the world that is crushing us, then yes I am», she said to Madame Figaro in 2019. [...]  «But I find it difficult to commit myself other than through films.»  She found the gateway in her own history, when she denounced the sexual harassment and molestation she says she suffered from director Christophe Ruggia when she was a minor, as well as «the system of silence and complicity» that made them possible.

Her outspokenness seems to have shaken the French film industry, which is going through #MeToo.  Her former agent, Elizabeth Simpson, refers to the hundreds of testimonials that flooded her inbox as a «tsunami».  «She kindled a spark in me, proving that it was possible to speak out without getting trapped into victim status, but rather by opening up other possibilities», says theater critic Marie Coquille-Chambel, herself a victim of sexual violence and founder of the #MeTooThéâtre movement.  That same year, Céline Sciamma had offered her a deeply moving role in Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, which became a benchmark for a whole generation of lesbians and cinephiles alike.

But something broke in French cinema.  «After [the Mediapart investigation], the only roles she was offered were those of abused women, stories about incest or films in which she served as a feminist endorsement», laments Elizabeth Simpson.  Then came the momentous night of the 2020 César Awards, when Adèle Haenel left the auditorium with the [Portrait] film’s crew, shouting «shame!» when Roman Polanski was presented with the Best Director prize, despite being accused of rape by six women.  «It was like an arrow through the heart», says author and feminist activist Anna Toumazoff.  «It galvanized us all.  That night, she set the world on fire and raised our spirits.»

In the industry, the dramatic gesture was deeply divisive.  Many found Adèle Haenel's response either discomfiting or annoying.  «If you feel there's something wrong with Polanski's nominations, you don't come and go in the middle of the ceremony», criticized Lambert Wilson.  On social networks, a casting director predicted «a well-deserved dead career» for the actress.  According to Christel Baras, some directors are now worried, and one of them asked her: «Is she a feminist all the time?  I'm still in charge, aren't I?»

Accounts of her collaboration with Quentin Dupieux, for the film Le Daim, did not go unnoticed: convinced that her character suffered from misogynistic stereotypes, Adèle Haenel pushed the director to rewrite the role.  Since then, she left one of the last projects she had accepted, Bruno Dumont’s L'Empire, because she considered its content «sexist and racist».  «I had a script for her and Pio Marmaï», says Pierre Salvadori, who had already paired them together in En liberté!.  «If she said yes to me tomorrow, I’d do it: for me, she was the future Jeanne Moreau.  But I think she’s in a different place now.»

In close company with actresses Nadège Beausson-Diagne and Aïssa Maïga — whose statement during the César 2020 ceremony on white predominance in French cinema was equally criticized — , Adèle Haenel delved into anti-racist issues.  Denouncing the abuses done to her body without also fighting against those suffered by others through racism or police violence would, in her opinion, be «perpetuating a double standard».  «The fact that Adèle Haenel’s voice carries those of other people who don’t get heard is an opportunity for us all», says Assa Traoré, one of France’s leading activists in these struggles.

«What sets her apart from the French actresses who cut off a lock of hair in support of Iranian women is that they didn’t go beyond the symbolic gesture.  Adèle Haenel is about political action», asserts Iranian actress and researcher Rezvan Zandieh, whose Roja collective works with the French actress.  «Compared with other outspoken actresses such as Delphine Seyrig or Simone Signoret, she doesn't position herself as a supportive artist or intellectual, but as a grassroots activist», notes film historian Hélène Fleckinger.

Having previously shown enthusiasm only for the socialist Christiane Taubira, in 2022 Adèle Haenel supported the presidential candidacy of Trotskyite railway worker Anasse Kazib, backed by Révolution permanente.  The workers' candidate would not obtain the necessary sponsorships, but the actress established ties within the revolutionary organization, which had emerged from a split within the NPA (New Anti-Capitalist Party).  This relationship would lead to her substantial involvement in the social movement against pension reform.

An intellectual journey, which inevitably distanced her from movie sets.  «Adèle wasn't blacklisted, but the offers were no longer interesting.  She couldn't see herself continuing in this profession under these conditions, it required too much sacrifice», says her former agent Elizabeth Simpson.  «She's constantly trying to reconcile her words, her actions and her way of life», says Arthur Nauzyciel, director of the Théâtre national de Bretagne, who cast her in Chekhov's The Seagull.  «In this, she is uncompromising.»

Analyzing the actress's decision, Mediapart journalist Marine Turchi, who initiated the investigation into Christophe Ruggia, calls attention to the harrowing nature of legal proceedings in cases of sexual violence (the filmmaker, who denies the allegations, is still under investigation).  «95% of women who report violence in the workplace end up losing their job, leaving it or changing position, and in a way she is one of them.  Speaking out is never without consequences, even when you're Adèle Haenel.»

While her stances have attracted waves of online hatred, Corinne Masiero says her determination has given her courage: «When I stripped naked at the César awards to defend culture, thinking about Adèle helped get me through it.»  A sentiment shared by Noémie Merlant, her partner in Portrait de la jeune fille en feu: «Everything she’s done, she hasn’t done for herself, but in thinking of others, of the young actresses after her.  I greatly admire her journey, which I personally can't follow.»

Her artistic work, turned upside down by a new encounter with the Franco-Austrian director and choreographer Gisèle Vienne, now focuses on the theater and dance scenes.  «Having an artistic practice enables you to create new languages to think differently», [Vienne] says.  «This is what Adèle is finding in the choreographic and theatrical sphere.»  Adèle Haenel's priorities are now expressed in the ferment of political rallies and alternative culture.  French cinema has lost one of its most invaluable actresses.

[Please don’t repost this anywhere, in part or in whole.  Feel free to reblog, or at least cite your source and provide a link back here.  Asking permission would be nice in an ideal world, but I’m a realist - I know far too well how easy it is to appropriate stuff on Tumblr.  I would be the first to admit that my translations are not perfect - there are some words and phrases that simply do not drop neatly into an equivalent in English, and I constantly fix typos and make changes or corrections in older posts - but they do take a lot of work and time.  Thanks for understanding. - C.]

h/t @thexfridax​

Published in Télérama - May 9, 2023

In the course of Télérama’s investigation into the actress’ journey, Adèle Haenel has, for the first time since the 2020 Césars, agreed to talk about her place in cinema.  She responded to our request by mail.  We publish this letter in its entirety.

Paris, May 30, 2022.  Adèle Haenel participates in a feminist rally galvanized by the #MeTooTheatre collective, on the sidelines of Les Molières.  Photo Anna Margueritat/Hans Lucas

At first it was a question: where had the actress Adèle Haenel gone, missing from screens?  Followed by another question: was this disappearance her choice or had it been inflicted upon her, after her dramatic gesture at the 2020 César Awards which divided the film world and beyond?  To find out, we investigated, sought statements, and received numerous refusals regarding a well-known figure considered by many to be divisive.  We wanted to ask her these questions.  Ultimately it was via a letter that she decided to speak out and for the first time to explain her political choices.  Her blunt phrasing verges on a roar, her rejection of a world to which she no longer wants to belong is irrevocable, at the risk of provoking rejection in its turn.  Was it necessary to accommodate this in a magazine which, true to its values, devotes itself to the reform of society, not to its dissolution?  We believe that the radical nature of her views sheds light on her trajectory and may resonate with others of her generation.  We have taken the liberty of investigating Adèle Haenel and examining her journey, and we give her free rein to respond. - Valérie Hurier, editorial director

«I have decided to politicize my leaving the cinema in order to denounce the widespread complacency of the profession regarding sex offenders and, more broadly, the way in which this industry collaborates with the deadly, ecocidal, racist structure of the world as it is.  Let’s be clear: as biodiversity is collapsing, as the militarization of Europe spirals out of control, as hunger and misery continue to spread, what is this obsession of the cinematic world — cordially gathering at the Césars to promote its films — of wanting to keep things “light”?  Above all, to say nothing about anything.

Against the background of a historic social movement, we are waiting to see if the film industry bigwigs - like the sponsors of the luxury industry - count on the police to ensure that everything goes on as usual on the red carpets of the Cannes Festival.

Filling the media space with hot air has a purpose, to make the bourgeois order as natural as the blue of the sky and to render inaudible and marginal the voices of those who organize resistance so that all humans can live with dignity and who try to wrest a future for this planet.  Continuing to make this system desirable is criminal.  This is an emergency: within the framework of capitalism, there is no longer a viable future for anyone in the very short term.  It is critical to sound this alarm as loudly as possible.

But they all join hands to save face for Depardieu, Polanski, Boutonnat(1).  It makes them uncomfortable, it upsets them that the victims make too much noise, they prefer that we continue to disappear and die in silence.  They are ready to do anything to defend their rapist leaders, those who are so rich that they believe themselves to be of a superior species, those who spectacularize this superiority by wallowing with pig-like noises, by objectifying women and subordinates.

The leaders stand up and fart, the lapdogs of the capital giggle and applaud.  They clutch at their glasses of pink champagne, ready to sing to these ultra-rich people lobotomized by power all their most beautiful songs telling them that they will always be totally innocent.  That it's true that the poor are poor and that is unfortunate, that women are raped and that is also unfortunate, but that it's not the fault of the rich or the system that exploits them.  And moreover, the big industry produces homeopathic doses of films about heroic poor people and exceptional women, to capitalize more and more on us without giving any strength to our movement.  Let's keep everyone in their place.  I say again: SHAME.

Faced with the bourgeoisie's stranglehold on speech and capital, I have no weapons other than my body and my integrity.  Cancel culture in the original sense: you have the money, the power and all the glory, you can congratulate yourselves about it, but you won't have me around to witness it.  I’m canceling you from my world.  I’m leaving, I’m going on strike, I’m joining my comrades for whom the quest for meaning and dignity takes precedence over that of money and power.

Since 2019 I have continued my artistic work in theatrical and choreographic collaboration with Gisèle Vienne.  She is an artist who has created one of the most powerful works I have ever encountered.  In the face of the detachment, emptiness, and cruelty that the film industry establishes as an operating principle, the meaning, work, and beauty that she constantly brings into play are a beacon that allows me to keep faith in what the power of art can mean.»

Adèle Haenel

(1) Editor’s note: in these cases, the three men dispute the facts alleged against them.

h/t @thexfridax​