Europe of Cultures - Romy Schneider

Context

If Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski was only starting out with 1974's The Important Thing Is To Love, his leading actress, however, is at the summit of her career: Jacques Deray's La Piscine and Claude Sautet's The Things of Life and César et Rosalie thrust onto the French screens the one who previously was dragging around the clichés of the 1950's Austrian trilogy Sissi, directed by Ernst Marischka.

The "best paid star" of French cinema, as stated by presenter France Roche, plays, in this role which earned her a César, an unemployed actress who's torn between making porn films and the empty promises of a young photographer (Jacques Dutronc), the silent partner of a play that gets her to return to the stage. The Austrian actress, who immigrated to Paris in 1958, would oftentimes repeat "I never play myself. Anyone who sees otherwise doesn't see things right", too often a victim of confusion between her roles and her private life.

Charlotte Garson

Transcription

France Roche

In "The Important Thing Is To Love", Romy Schneider, the most in-demand and highest paid French actress, plays the role of a failed actress.

Romy Schneider

Three fourths of this character's role are completely separate from myself. One fourth is close to me.

France Roche

Do you recall the time when you left Germany, you weren't yet known in France?

Romy Schneider

Yes. There were indeed two solid years where there was absolutely nothing. But afterwards, it was a bit difficult. And of course, one begins to ask himself questions, one starts having a lot less confidence in one's self, we're scared, we're very distressed and we think: "Nobody wants you any more. What should I do?" "I feel old, you know, I feel old, and I'm tired and nobody else wanted to do more than I did. Nobody, nobody! Nobody wanted..."

France Roche

We fall into this hell every time, right?

Romy Schneider

Ah, I think so.

(Music)

France Roche

The profession of acting, especially for actresses, always seemed to me to be like a vice, because actors, even if they're at the peak of their failure, never completely consider changing professions.

Romy Schneider

It's hard. It's difficult. Almost a vice? You might be right. It's a love affair, such a passion that, in any case, for me, I could never do anything else. I only prefer that... I only hope that I'll know when the time is right to stop, and not continue when nothing right is happening, I don't know, when I have nothing left to give.