Sunday, June 6, 2010

Best Actress 1976: Marie- Christine Barrault in Cousin, Cousine



Marie-Christine Barrault received her first Oscar nomination for playing Marthe, an unhappily married woman, in Cousin, Cousine. Martha meets a man (Victor Lannox) whom she starts to have a relationship with, but they decide to keep it as friends, but they eventually end up together. This isn't a showy, Oscar-like performance at all, but is instead a subtle, engaging one. Barrault uses her charm and personality a lot in this performance and she shows her characters sadness and her longing to have someone to talk to. Her scenes with Victor Lanoux are beautiful and the two really make their relationship completely natural and real. She is luminous and I enjoyed her when ever she was on screen. There were some scenes though(Especially towards the end) where I wasn't paying attention and I finished it a long time after I started watching it, so I might have missed something, but I wanted more out of her performance. I had no problem that her performance was quite and charming, but I wish more had happened with her character and that the story hadn't been so simple. But still, a radiant, beautiful performance that gets

5 comments:

Louis Morgan said...

Good write up. She'll probably be fourth.

Anonymous said...

Looks like we're agreeing on everything.... ;)

joe burns said...

Louis: Thanks! Perhaps

Sage: We'll see........

Alex Constantin said...

i don't understand this nomination :/

joe burns said...

To each his own!