"Catherine Breillat has a great anecdote about Roberto Rossellini from the evening before she began filming A Real Young Girl (1976). Over dinner, the director-elder asked her a question. "What do you think you're going to add to the portrayal of young girls that hasn't already been done by men?" Even at 22, Breillat answered with the signature precision that would define her filmmaking. "The gaze of shame. You're the ones who gave us our shame, and we're the ones who carry it.""
"A new book by Breillat released this month via Semiotext(e) - in-conversation with Murielle Joudet, translated by Christine Pichini - consists of a long-form discussion with the director of that debut feature, as well as 36 Fillette (1988), Romance (1999), Fat Girl (2001), Last Summer (2023), and many others. In dialogue with Joudet over a series of meet-ups, the filmmaker discusses her career, her inspirations, her traumas and her recoveries of various kinds. Reading it, I found myself underlining nearly the entire book: "Adolescence is a muddle, and you sort it out afterward"; "Unpacking ugliness, I find that very, very beautiful"; "Everything has to be sublime in a movie dress, especially a red one." Like the harsh conclusions she draws in most of her films, even the book's title hits you with a short, sharp, shock: I Only Believe in Myself."
Catherine Breillat's career spans films such as A Real Young Girl, 36 Fillette, Romance, Fat Girl, and Last Summer, focusing on adolescent girls and sexual transgression. She recalls Roberto Rossellini asking what women would add to portrayals of girls made by men, answering that women bring "the gaze of shame" created by men. Her work draws on personal traumas and recoveries and treats adolescence as a muddle resolved later. Breillat values unpacking ugliness and finding beauty in it, and emphasizes sublime costume choices, especially red dresses. Her title I Only Believe in Myself reflects a stark, self-reliant stance.
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