| New York Times, 3-11-2002 BOLDFACE NAMES
By Joyce Wadler
Perhaps It's the Voice
There was an impressive gang of French actors and directors who met members of the American press at a lunch at Gabriel's yesterday in honor of the Rendez-Vous With French Cinema festival: the actress ANOUK AIMEE, the actress and director NICOLE GARCIA, and the actor and director GUILLAUME CANET.
But it was JEANNE MOREAU, 75, who commanded the room. Arriving just as the entree was being served, she walked in wearing jeans and a leather jacket, plopped her red suede bag onto the floor and herself at the table. Red scarf, red suede boots on her little feet, she was seated barely a minute when DANIEL TALBOT, the founder of New Yorker Films who brought many foreign movies to the United States in the 1960's, reached over to introduce himself.
"We met 30 years ago," he said. "It was at the Colombe d'Or. You were sitting next to our table. A fond recollection."
Ms. Moreau's voice was all cigarettes and old movies.
"It was freezing cold in my hotel," she said. "The heat went out at 2 and I stayed until 7 a.m. in the cold." Aside to the waiter: "No, no, I don't drink. Diet Coke." Then: "I came in Friday, I presented the film I directed, 'The Adolescent'." Saturday? "A dinner party with GUY WILDENSTEIN." Then, "I have no voice at all."
What would you like to discuss with Ms. Moreau? Personal life? She never answers anything about that. The red suede boots? She sticks out a foot: Got them 10 years ago in New York at Bottega Veneta. She prefers politics. She was reading a magazine that said President Bush "does not give a damn about artists, intellectuals, actors." Is this so, she asks?
"I was in Toronto Sept. 11, I cried all the day," Ms. Moreau says. "I understand the situation."
"The French are not against intervening in Iraq," she says, adding that people think the French are "pro-Saddam." She shakes her head no. "That's not it. There's a concern about the consequences if it's just to go bomb and kill. There will be a reaction. It's so unpredictable."
JEAN-RENE GEHAN, the cultural counselor of the French Embassy, stands and jokingly thanks the guests who have "braved French bashing to come and support us."
Mr. Talbot privately recalls his meeting with Ms. Moreau.
"She was with a group of people," he said. "I didn't know her. I met her in the pink, as they say. She's forgotten. I didn't forget."
Perhaps It's the Socks
Meanwhile, at Michael Jordan's The Steakhouse at Grand Central Terminal, the news magazine The Week was having one of its occasional luncheon panels, with HAROLD EVANS moderating. The subject: "Media Bias: Left or Right?" The panelists, sitting at the front of the room in their stools: ERIC ALTERMAN, who writes for The Nation; the columnist ARIANNA HUFFINGTON and WILLIAM McGOWAN, a Manhattan Institute fellow, all of whom wore business attire and had books to plug, and the actress JANEANE GAROFALO, in a pink T-shirt, blue jeans, and burgundy blazer.
Ms. Huffington termed the media "shallow, obsessive and toxic."
Ms. Garofalo said: "Apparently if you go into the entertainment industry, you're not deemed intelligent and not allowed First Amendment rights."
Mr. McGowan said that antiwar activists were not being taken seriously because they were "prattling banalities."
Ms. Garofalo withdrew, saying she doubted anyone would leave the discussion changed.
Mr. Evans told Ms. Garofalo that she should not wear a "holier-than-thou cloak."
Ms. Garofalo, on her stool, waggled her feet, in blue sneakers with purple shoelaces and small bootie socks with pompoms. She was slumped in a corner, with Mr. Evans and Mr. McGowan moving into her easily forfeited personal space, and she gazed out at the Zodiac constellations on the ceiling of the terminal. Then Mr. Evans, wrapping it up, told the guests that the speakers would stick around to sign their books. Except for one.
"Thank you Janeane," Mr. Evans said. "You don't have a book."
Meanwhile, in Qatar
GEORGE ALLISON, a Hollywood set designer whose last major credit was art director for the Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas movie, "It Runs in the Family," has designed a $200,000 stage for military briefings, ArmyTimes.com reported. |
