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PostED ON 12.10.2024

The graceful star has led her career with strength, earning a special place on both screen and stage. Lumière will pay tribute to her this week.

L'Arnacoeur de Pascal Chaumeil, 2010 © Quad Films / DR

Shooting to fame as a singer at the age of 14, then starring as the lead in a first movie at 16, is as much a privilege as it is a burden. Yet Vanessa Paradis has managed to succeed in both worlds without ever losing her discreet smile. Both adulated and reviled at the start of her phenomenal career, she has survived against all odds, by “simply enjoying my life”, as she puts it.

She has not performed on stage since 2019 and her latest musical releases are limited to that of a featured artist on albums by friends like Etienne Daho. Although she is understated, her charisma remains intact. In the cinema, she has continued to make her mark, albeit sparingly, in a number of supporting roles, with her trademark discerning taste. It all culminates this fall, as Lyon pays tribute to her. It will feature a handful of films that audiences will remember, such as Girl on the Bridge (1999), Café de Flore (2011) and Heartbreaker (2010), which sold nearly 4 million tickets upon its release.

She swears that when she was a child, she didn’t ask herself the ‘singer or actress’ question. But her fondness for musicals combined both talents.  Still 16 in March of 1989, she skyrocketed to stardom with the song, Joe le Taxi, whose meter continued to tick upward at a frantic pace. The downside? Vanessa was the target of public and media hostility. The actress in her came to the singer's rescue. Agent Marceline Lenoir – counting Juliette Binoche as one of her clients, - took charge of Vanessa’s career and encouraged her to read the script for White Wedding. Paradis portrays a lost schoolgirl, who is madly in love with her philosophy teacher, played by Bruno Cremer. What does she remember about it? At the time, it was “the worst”: a “horrible” filming experience with an “authoritarian” and “loathsome” director, Jean-Claude Brisseau, she confessed to Première. “Never again”. And yet, thanks to White Wedding she earned a ‘free pass’ from audiences, who went to see it in droves. It sold 1,800,000 tickets and enjoyed a worldwide release. Winning a César for Most Promising Actress validated her audacity. Paradis was over the moon. 

Recently, the actress returned to the infamous first film, while referring to the horrid Brisseau as “a very good director”. “The film changed how people perceived me as a young singer. Things became more liveable.”  She turned her focus back to singing, and would not act again until five years later, for Jean Becker. The director’s first film since One Deadly Summer, Élisa tells the story of a teenager from the DDASS who tries to track down her father. Paradis said ‘yes’ even without reading the whole script, “although the idea of filming with Gérard Depardieu terrified [her]”. The box-office success sold two million tickets. As a singer, she continued to rise. “But I don't need to choose, it's so wonderful to be able to switch from music to film”.

L'Arnacoeur by Pascal Chaumeil, 2010 © Quad Films / DR

In 1998, she met Patrice Leconte, who cast her as the female lead alongside Belmondo and Delon in Half a Chance. It was another portrait of a woman as a child, chasing after a father figure. But Leconte became most renowned for Girl on the Bridge, shot the following year, staring Daniel Auteuil. In this black-and-white gem, Paradis’ talent smashes everything to pieces, right from the opening monologue: eight minutes of insane intensity, compensating for all the films she was probably unable to make owing to her double career. 

But she's not done with the cinema yet. Paradis stars in Vanessa Filho's Trespassers , which has entered pre-production. In February, the star will feature in Histoire d’un mariage directed by Ann Le Ny with whom she had shot House in Brittany over a decade ago. The film will be in a genre she has never ventured into before: a venomous thriller in which Paradis' character promises hell to the man played by Omar Sy.

Carlos Gomez

Master class
A conversation with Vanessa Paradis at the Pathé Bellecour 
Sunday, October at 11am at Pathé Bellecour

With the support of 

Films presented:

Girl on the Bridge by Patrice Leconte (1999, 1h30)
Lumière Terreaux Sun 13 9pm | UGC Confluence Mon 14 10:45am | Comœdia Tue 15 4:30pm

Heartbreaker by Pascal Chaumeil (2010, 1h45)
Pathé Bellecour Sun 13 5:30pm | UGC Confluence Fri 18 7pm | Institut Lumière (Villa) Sun 20 7:15pm | Institut Lumière (Villa) Sun 20 7:30pm

Café de Flore by Jean-Marc Vallée (2011, 2h)
Comœdia Sun 13 3:45pm | Institut Lumière (Hangar) Mon 14 2:30pm