“I’ve been here before, but I’m really happy to be back,” said French actress Isabelle Huppert as she basked in the glow of all the neatly stacked cinema surrounding her.
A frequent visitor to the Criterion Closet, Huppert wasted no time in making her selections, starting with Barbara Loden’s “Wanda,” which tells the story of a female Rust Belt wanderer turned bank robber trying to survive the aimlessness put upon her by the world she inhabits.
“Here is ‘Wanda.’ A good friend of mine,” Huppert said, kissing the character on the cover. “I like this woman. She’s great. Barbara Loden.I like the way she comes to the court with bigoudis.”
For those non-Francophiles, translation: curlers. Huppert followed this choice with a set of films from Italian neo-realist Roberto Rossellini that includes “Stromboli,” “Europe ’51,” and “Journey to Italy.” In reflecting on Rossellini’s relationship to wife and collaborator Ingrid Bergman, Huppert shared a story she’d heard in passing about the moment they met and how their dynamic with one another began.
“I remember this line from Rossellini to Ingrid — Ingrid Bergman,” Huppert said. “She came to Italy, and she was coming from Hollywood, and she was expecting directions. ‘What should I do?’ And he looked at her and he said, ‘Move, so I can film what’s around you.’ Which is the perfect definition of moviemaking.”
Huppert also recently spoke to IndieWire regarding working with South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo on their latest collaboration, “A Traveller’s Needs.” Describing the process on that film, she said, “It’s only him and his little camera … He doesn’t need more. Most of the time, you spend so much time and money, if you wanted to really prove or demonstrate that moviemaking — I’m not saying always — is so [expansive], it can go from the infinitely big to the infinitely small, that’s what fascinates me.”
In addition to “Wanda” and the work of Rossellini, Huppert also took home “I Knew Her Well,” “Juliet of the Spirits,” “La cérémonie,” “2 or 3 Things I Know About Her,” “Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu,” “Saint Omer,” and “Nothing but a Man.”
Watch Huppert full Criterion Closet video below.
