Actress Céline Sallette announced in the press that she was preparing a biopic on Niki de Saint Phalle. The future feature film, whose main role will be played by Charlotte Le Bon, will retrace the life and work of the feminist artist.
After Artemisia Gentileschi, Camille Claudel, Frida Kahlo or even Margaret Doris Hawkins, it is now the turn of the life of Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) to be adapted to the cinema. After the major retrospective of Big palace in Paris in 2014, a feature film on the famous artist and feminist activist is soon arriving in cinemas. Céline Sallette is currently working on the preparation of her first film as a director: a biopic devoted to Niki de Saint Phalle. In promotion for the sci-fi mini-series Infiniti (Canal+), the French actress revealed some information regarding this future project, notably during an interview with the weekly ” Paris Match » : « I wrote a feature film on Niki de Saint Phalle, which Jalil Lespert will produce and in which Charlotte Le Bon will have the title role. I finally allow myself to go towards this type of project, and it’s exciting. »
A striking resemblance
The choice of Charlotte Le Bon to interpret the emblematic artist is not the result of chance. Besides the striking resemblance between the two women, the Canadian actress is also an artist. A graduate in plastic arts, Charlotte Le Bon draws, paints, photographs and sculpts. His works have already exhibited in Parisian art galleries such as Item editions or the Atelier de Paname.
Charlotte Le Bon at the 2015 Cinema César nominees’ lunch. © Wikimedia Commons/Georges Biard
If, for the moment, we don’t know the rest of the cast (who will play Jean Tinguely?) and the events that will be recounted in the film by Céline Sallette co-written with Samuel Doux, we already know that it will focus on the when Niki de Saint-Phalle became an artist. Her life is not lacking in romantic moments. Descendant of a line of Crusaders by her father, a French banker living in New York, American by her mother, from a wealthy family of planters from the South, Niki de Saint Phalle subsequently built a whole character for herself: ” I decided very early on to be a heroine. Who will I be? George Sand ? Jeanne D’Arc ? A Napoleon in petticoats? “, she writes in Traces, an autobiographical account published in 1999.
Niki de Saint Phalle, The Bathers, Gianadda Foundation Park, Martigny. Photo ©Wikimedia Commons/Whgler
The same feminist fight
From the provocative paintings-shootings, performances which made her famous throughout the world from the 1960s to the dark Devouring Mothers, passing by the Nanas, fantastic creatures in balance, the visual artist, painter, engraver, sculptor and director of autodidact films has both marked the history of art with its protean creations and crossed the 20th century both as a precursor and marginal of the feminist movements. ” I’m an ardent feminist but in my own way “, she explained in 1965. Brushing the portrait of an icon of feminism for her first film is certainly not a trivial choice. Niki de Saint Phalle’s fight thus echoes that of Céline Sallette. She is indeed part of the 50/50 Collective and fights for the equality of men and women.
Niki de Saint Phalle, sculptures by Nanas on New York Ave., in Washington, DC
©Wikimedia Commons/Carol M. Highsmith
