The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve: Close Up and Personal [Hardcover]

Catherine Deneuve (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

The intimate memoirs of the coolest blonde in cinema history.

The startling portrayal of an icy, sexually adventurous housewife in Louis Buñuel's Belle du Jour established Catherine Deneuve as one of the most remarkable and compelling actresses of her generation. Forty years later, Deneuve is still widely regarded as one of the grande dames of French cinema. Despite her international appeal, however, Denueve has always chosen to avoid the ferocious glare of Hollywood and seldom allows the public into her private life. In these memoirs, Deneuve takes the reader behind the scenes of her life and career in this fascinating collection of seven previously unpublished diaries that she kept while filming abroad. In her own words, Deneuve charts the shooting of films such as The April Fools; Tristana, directed by Luis Buñuel; Indochine; and Dancer in the Dark. Including a never before published interview with famed director Pascal Bonitzer, this memoir is an intimate look into Deneuve's life both on and off screen, and is every bit as riveting as her movie persona.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Catherine Denueve's breakthrough role came with Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. She has worked with cinema's finest directors, starring in Buñuel's Belle de Jour and François Truffaut's iconic Le Dernier Métro. In 1992 she won a César Award and was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Indochine.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pegasus (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933648368
• ISBN-13: 978-1933648361
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,354,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 Stars... Interesting insights but we want more!, August 11, 2007

By 

Paul Allaer (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve: Close Up and Personal (Hardcover)

Catherine Deneuve is one of the all-time leading stars of the French (and even European) movie industry. This book was published in France in 2005 (under the title "A L'Ombre de Moi-Meme") and now finally gets a proper release in the US.

In "The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve: Close Up and Personal", Deneuve shares with us the diaries she kept while shooting 6 movies (Dancer in the Dark; East-West; Nightwind; Indochine; Tristana; and The April Fools). It is not clear on what basis these particular movies were chosen as presumably Deneuve kept a diary during many of her other movies. The observations from Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (in which Deneuve plays a supporting role and singer Bjork plays the main character) make for compelling reading. Towards the end of the troubled shoot, Deneuve writes "I'm pretty discouraged, I don't care anymore. Bjork turns up around 11, which isn't unusual, but without a word of explanation or apology to me or anyone, not a single word. There's no point in expecting logical behavior from her; you have to accept her for what she is, wild and unique". Wow! Many other diary entries are much more mundaine, take this one from the "Indochine" set: "Back to studio to try on the Indo-Chinese outfit I would like to wear in the pagoda scene where I go to make offerings after Camille disappears." But a bit later Deneuve writes "I packed my trunk with bread, biscuits, honey and special long-life yoghurts from the French Institute for Agronomy Research. Even the rats like them--one evening in my room, I heard and then saw them carefully cutting through the metal lids--but I like rodents". Say what?Deneuve served on the Cannes Jury in 1994 (with Clint Eastwood as President of the Jury), and shares her diary entries from that experience, but unfortunately nothing from the jury's deliberations.

In all, this is quite enjoyable if you're a movie buff and have seen most of these movies. Unfortunately, the diaries run only to page 120. What follows is a 50 page interview with Pascal Bonitzer, which is pretty insightful (Deneuve revealing she started writing movie set diaries to deal with the boredom on the set) but the interview is really not why I got this book for, give us more of Deneuve's diaries! Also included is a detailed filmography of Deneuve.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deneuve, November 17, 2010

By 

Sonja G. Foxe "straight shooter" (Chicago, IL, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve: My Life Behind the Camera With Luis Bunuel, Francois Truffaut, Roman Polanski, and Lars Von Trier (Paperback)

I've been dipping into this -- trying to understand CD development as an actress -- there being a Deneuve retrospective here in Chicago, which I've been attending with an eye to writing an article on her from an astrological point of view. #1 CD was born 99 years less a day after Sarah Bernhardt and has some interesting horoscopic similarities which I will develop in the article. I've found her diaries particularly valuable