“Jane. By Jeanne Moreau”, texts chosen and presented by Jean-Claude Bonnet, preface by Rebecca Marder, Gallimard, 304 p., €39.
A half-century. This is the time it took for this exceptional book to see the light of day. Started around 1973, abandoned, revived, announced, pre-sold throughout the world, released again, largely burned, it now arrives in bookstores under a sober title: Joan. The subtitle makes all the difference: By Jeanne Moreau. Many works have already been devoted to the icon of the New Wave (1928-2017), but “Jeanne” herself had never dared to publish anything. It took his death, then the stubbornness of a handful of faithful people, for this volume to finally be born. The first signed Jeanne Moreau.
It was not the desire to write that the actress lacked.Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958) and Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962). At the beginning of the 1970s, she was even seized by a deep desire to tell her story. “After more than twenty years of theater and cinema, she is suddenly less in demand, and wishes to no longer depend on the views of others, she wants to regain control of her story”reports Robert Guillaumond, who was her lawyer, her friend, and now chairs the Jeanne-Moreau Fund for theater, cinema and childhood.
After the record and the film
She first wrote songs, which she performed on a record with the explicit title: Jeanne sings Jeanne (1970). Then she begins to write down memories of childhood and adolescence. The autobiographical pace accelerated in 1975. When her father had just died, she increased discussions with the novelist Henriette Jelinek (1923-2007).
A scenario comes out, The Teenage Girlco-signed by the two women and produced by Jeanne Moreau in 1979, as well as hundreds of pages of interviews. “How is Jeanne Moreau made? How does a family where no one has ever set foot in the theater or cinema produce an actress like her? This is the question that interested Jeanne”, explains Robert Guillaumond. After the record and the film, a book is taking shape. A contract was signed with Grasset in 1976. It provided for an advance of 100,000 francs (70,000 euros today) for the artist, who was to receive help from the writer and journalist Catherine David (1949-2023). Confidences are recorded and transcribed. New texts enlarge two files entitled “My book” and “Autobiography”. But Jeanne Moreau asks for more time. Saying everything is not easy. “How do you manage to do what I’m trying to do in writing this book, which is to express your secrets, especially when you don’t know where they will lead you? »she asks herself in one of these texts.
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