Charlotte Rampling: «I’m weird and I love it»

Turning on one day at her home in Paris, her favorite TV channel showing old films, Charlotte got to the film in which she plays: «Max, my love»¹. This is the story of Margaret, a diplomat’s wife who cheats on her husband with a chimpanzee named Max. The film is frankly provocative, if only for the scenes when the husband breaks into the bedroom in search of his wife’s lover and discovers a chimpanzee hiding under the sheet, or when Max appears at a formal dinner, from where he is ignominiously expelled after he starts kissing Margaret. Rampling in the frame maintains perfect equanimity, even when the monkey hugs her with hairy paws. At that time, she broke her own rule — not to watch her films: “You can’t merge with your image! I understood this from the very beginning: you cannot allow the image to subdue you.

She was the first to pose nude for photographer Helmut Newton in 1973, and 30 years later appeared naked in the arms of Juergen Teller.² in a candid photo shoot for an advertising campaign for the brand Marc Jacobs. But at the same time, she always adhered to the principle: “Do not think about how you look.” Take a look at the photos — did it work out well? — it’s okay, but nothing more. “A glimpse is all right,” she says. “But you can’t dive into it.”

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France and England

Such is old-fashioned, sensible Rampling, daughter of Isabelle and Godfrey Rampling, artist and lieutenant colonel in the Royal Artillery of the British Army, Olympic medalist. This Charlotte is a typical post-war British woman (she was born in 1946). But most of her life she lives in Paris, and in recent years she is gradually trying to return to work. In 2012, she played a former spy in the TV series Restless based on the novel by William Boyd, and then in the TV series Murder on the Beach. “It’s a very lively, honest story, very cinematic — and deliciously short. She’s very captivating.» The series is set in a small coastal town. How does she like the idea of ​​settling in a place where you know everyone and everyone knows you, where you can’t walk down the street without being greeted? .. “I prefer to live it in the cinema. Although the idea itself appeals to me. We all have a huge need for belonging, but at the same time we feel insecure, in one way or another we feel abandoned. It is very difficult to be alone, and at the same time we have to be alone.”

This is one of the reasons why she lives in Paris. For someone who is an outsider by nature, living in a foreign country is a great relief. “I am a foreigner by life,” she says. I am an Englishwoman who speaks French. The people around me have nothing to do with me, with my life, my childhood and youth. I am exotic to them. They love it and I love it.» In 2002, Rampling was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, an honor rarely given to foreigners. The French call her La Legende — Legend.

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How then does she feel at home in England? In her past life, there was a lot of hard here: after the glory that fell upon her, an emotional crisis came. Rampling’s breakthrough came in Georgie’s Girl (1966), where she played Meredith, the scatterbrained slacker roommate of the modest Georgie. In the same year, her older sister Sarah committed suicide. It was hidden from her mother for many years that it was a suicide. Having lived until 2001, she never found out how her daughter passed away.

Find agreement with yourself

After Sarah’s death, says Charlotte, her life path changed dramatically. “Having fun, making love, that was the lifestyle of the 60s. Suddenly it turned out that I was no longer allowed to have fun. When a loved one dies like this, how can you go to a party and enjoy life? Everything turned upside down for me. I had one task — to somehow find agreement with myself. Ultimately, Sarah changed me with her death, and that was a good thing. If I hadn’t ended the life I was leading then, I might have followed my sister.”

• Death medicine

She completely changed her lifestyle, married, first to actor Brian Southcombe, and the second, six years later, to composer Jean-Michel Jarre. She has two sons from these marriages — Barnaby (1972) and David (1977). When she became a mother, work faded into the background. “I had to make a choice. And it was influenced by the fact that I could not part with the children for a long time. If I had to be away from home for two months to shoot, I would say no. There was no self-sacrifice in this, I did exactly what I wanted. She was told that as an actress she would simply disappear, that she would be forgotten. “And I answered that, of course, I would work, just not now, maybe in a year or two. It’s probably the only thing in my life that I’m completely sure of.»

Cinema as therapy

She never cared about success in the conventional sense: money, fame, Hollywood, awards. She says she’s never fought for a role — she’s just never been so sure of herself. “I can’t force myself on anyone. Not at work, not in everyday life. It’s not about me. I am open to suggestions, if someone needs me, here I am. It’s very, very difficult for me to ask someone.»

Fortunately, the roles themselves came to her. Since it was a kind of therapy, she chose roles that seemed difficult to her. “I was interested in heroines in which there was something consonant with me. Cinema was not entertainment for me, it was a way to learn something, and I hope that with my roles I helped others to learn something new. I can’t just entertain.» This is by no means arrogance. She really did try to play something simpler, like a psychiatrist in Basic Instinct 2. «I tried once or twice — it doesn’t work!»

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Her heroines are neurotics, victims, monsters, lovers of chimpanzees … Two films on the theme of Nazism — «The Death of the Gods» by Visconti and «The Night Porter» by Cavani — set the bar high. Her partner Dirk Bogart once asked Luchino Visconti why he chose Charlotte. “For the look,” the great director replied, and since then this definition has become a commonplace.

However, the actress herself explains this secret much more prosaically — the whole point, she says, is in her heavy eyelids, which make her face expressive, even if she just sucks caramel. “They hang so that soon the eyes will not be visible!” She laughs out loud — and this is another facet of her character. When Rampling was supposed to appear on the set of Murder on the Beach for the first time, the actors were a little intimidated by the thought of her greatness. And she turned out to be completely different — cheerful, mischievous, real laughter …

In the photos from the set, we can see her surrounded by actors, like a hen by chickens. This does not mean at all that she is a kind of omniscient mother for them, who shares the secrets of mastery from the height of her experience. “I never give advice unless asked to. Then I can tell something, exactly as much as a person needs. I do not impose my opinion on anyone, including my own children. It’s not what they want at all.» And he continues to develop his thought: “The fact is that in fact no one is interested in you, with rare exceptions. Therefore, when a journalist sits in front of you, you think: “Oh, finally!” she laughs. “Well, it’s true: when you start sharing something, even with a friend, you risk annoying him.”

There is nothing more important than freedom

Her profession makes her self-sufficient and happy. “If only because she pulls me out of the house — on the train, on the plane, to the hotel.” Once at home between filming, she may well enjoy peace … but only for a few days. Her grandchildren call her «Let’s go, let’s go» because she can’t sit still. She has a boyfriend, French businessman Jean-Noël Tassez, but she is often alone. It’s better this way: «no codependency,» she says candidly. Long pause. She chooses her words. “There is nothing more important for a person than his own freedom.” Even relationships? «Certainly. Although it is difficult for a woman to come to this. He revealed it to me, I wouldn’t have thought of it myself. But next to him, I learned an amazing thing: he respects my freedom, and in exactly the same way he needs freedom himself.

• «Keep making love!»

Now freedom for her means work. “Actors don’t retire. If the public still wants to see you, you keep playing.» Lucia from The Night Porter, Margaret from Max, My Love — these and some other characters stay with her for life. “I keep them here,” she puts her hand on her chest. Are they friends or ghosts? «They’re like…» She trails off, searching for words. “I would be different without them. They are born by me. They are like daughters to me. Truth. I created them and would never want to be separated from them.

For details, see Online The Guardian newspapers.

¹ Max, My Love is a 1986 satirical comedy film directed by Nagisa Oshima.

² Juergen Teller is a German New Realist photographer. In a photo shoot with Charlotte, Rampling acted as her partner.

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