Catherine Deneuve: Cinema legend unafraid of controversy

This file photo taken on Feb. 14, 2017 shows French actress Catherine Deneuve posing for photographers during a photocall for the film "Sage Femme" (The Midwife) in competition at the 67th Berlinale film festival in Berlin. (AFP)

LONDON: Catherine Deneuve is an undisputed legend of French cinema, having starred in a string of successful and critically acclaimed films, winning 14 of her own country’s Cesar awards and receiving best actress nominations in the Oscars and and Britain’s Baftas.
She is also a woman unafraid of controversy, as demonstrated by her willing endorsement of the open letter calling sharply into question the #MeToo campaign that aims to expose historic sexual abuse by powerful men in entertainment, politics and other walks of life.
The Parisian-born, Catholic-educated daughter of actors, Deneuve, now 74, sprang to the defens of the French-Polish film director Roman Polanksi last March in a television discussion that drew a rebuke from a regulatory body.
Polanski fled US justice in 1977, fearing a judge was about to go back on a plea bargaining agreement, under which he had already served time in jail for statutory rape (sexual intercourse with a minor aged 13), and impose a 50-year sentence.
Deneuve, who has worked with Polanski, suggested during the contentious chat show that the girl may have seemed older and said she had always considered rape an “excessive” description of what happened. France audio-visual regulator, the Conseil Superieure de l‘Audiovisuel, said her comments were inappropriate and “conveyed retrograde prejudices concerning the perpetrators of rape and their victims".
What is clear from this and other episodes of her life is that when Deneuve speaks out, she is heard.
Often, her public declarations and commitments raise few disapproving eyebrows. She served for nine years as a Unesco goodwill ambassador for the protection of film heritage, diverted royalties from her appearance as the official face of France’s national symbol, Marianne, to Amnesty International and has supported projects to help deprived children in Africa and Romania and victims of landmines.
But she has also involved herself in pro-abortion activities, once signing a manifesto in which women openly declared they had practiced unlawful pregnancy terminations. She has campaigned against the death penalty and against the “misogynous” treatment of the socialist contender Segolene Royal during the 2007 French presidential elections won by Nicolas Sarkozy.
From a lengthy discography, Deneuve’s highlights include the 1965 film Repulsion, a psychological horror thriller shot by Polanski in Britain; Belle de Jour (1967) about a high-class prostitute; Francois Truffaut’s Le Dernier Metro (1980); Indochine, depicting French colonial rule in Vietnam (1992) and, in 2017, Standing Tall, in which she plays a judge dealing with a troubled young delinquent.
Actress has backed controversial director Roman Polanski and campaigned for various charities.