[Critique livre] Superfacial – Audrey Tautou

[Critique livre] Superfacial – Audrey Tautou
[Critique livre] Superfacial – Audrey Tautou

Features

  • Titre : Superfacial
  • Auteur : Audrey Tautou
  • Editor : Fisheye
  • Release date in bookstores : November 27, 2024
  • Digital format available : Non
  • Name of pages : 232
  • Prix : 39 euros
  • Acheter : Click here
  • Note : 8/10 par 1 critique

Absent from the screens for 5 years, Audrey Tautou is back with a first photography book, Superfacial published by Fisheye Editions, which is also a logbook in which she chronicles her complicated relationship with fame over the years and filming. An original and offbeat monograph, like its author, which takes us into her world.

Take the lens to hide from view…

Noticed in 1999 in Venus Beauty Institutewhich earned her the César for Most Promising Actress, Audrey Tautou suddenly achieved international glory in 2001 thanks to the phenomenal success of Fabulous destiny of Amélie Poulain by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. His career changes, but so does his daily life off set. Uncomfortable with these eyes constantly focused on her, she decides to take the lens and photograph passers-by from behind, without their knowledge, during her travels, in or in the four corners of the globe.

After an introduction full of humor where she tells us that she will unfortunately not have any juicy anecdotes to reveal to us about her playing partners or the environment nor any shocking revelations, Superfacial begins with this period with, as a preamble, several pages of the logbook kept by the French actress during the period Amélie : first days away from home before filming where she shares her excitement and her doubts, first days of filming, then the film's promotional tour alongside Jeunet while the public success and almost unanimous reviews surprised the team. Everyone tells her that her life is going to change, she prefers not to think about it too much… But, two years after the film's release, even passers-by recognize her in New York where she stays incognito.

An important part of the book will alternate between texts by Audrey Tautou written especially for the book, where she discusses her complicated relationship with celebrity with sincerity but without ever taking herself seriously, documents from her archives (diaries/diaries or again fan mail) and the different series of photos she took over the years, initially just for her to help her put more distance between herself and the eyes staring at her, but also, no doubt, between her and this “star” status which has fallen upon him and changes the reactions of ordinary mortals towards him.
The humor of the texts like the photos of passers-by taken from behind are strangely reminiscent, whether we like it or not, of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film, suggesting that, if the actress is not the character who made famous, the French director (and others who subsequently directed it such as Pierre Salvadori) were undoubtedly partly inspired by his personality for some of the dialogue.

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When the look sculpts the perception of others

Beyond that, these first photos of passers-by taken incognito allow us to question the notion of gaze (who is seen? who is looked at? who is looking?) and the effect produced by the camera on the subjects photographed. They reveal a true sense of the image. If certain photos “taken on the fly” have a less elaborate framing, this asserts itself over time and we feel that the actress is gaining in control. The locations of the shots are very varied and the desired effect works: instead of asking ourselves what the actress was doing in these places, we try more to imagine a life for these anonymous people photographed without their knowledge, like these two people leaning over a bridge and apparently in deep discussion.

This will then be followed by a collection of Polaroids from film journalists who came to interview her from film to film (visibly delighted by this attention), and of which she wanted to keep a trace. Here again, the desired effect works: we look at the marker mentions specifying the name of each media and (as a film journalist), we try to see if we recognize any colleagues among the trombines that pass before our eyes.

All these photos can be found in this first monograph, as well as numerous other series where she puts herself on stage, behind the scenes or at home, sometimes within a fairly conceptual device. In particular, there are numerous selfies taken behind the scenes and, at the end of the book, superb black and white photos in which she plays (among other things) with her image.
What links all of these clichés is obviously the notion of the gaze: the media gaze, which sculpts the subject and “divinises” him in some way, transforming him into a legendary creature in the eyes of the public, and the gaze of thousands of anonymous people who project their own relationship to the fame or the characters of the actress (but also a part of themselves) in the sometimes comical or strange letters that they send to her and part of which she reproduces here.

Ultimately, it is the process by which the image and the media sculpt the subject in the eyes of others that Audrey Tautou questions with Superfacial through his own experience, alternating photos, archives and funny and lucid reflections. The result is a beautiful hybrid book that is quite unique in its kind, which really makes you want to continue to follow the work of the French artist behind the lens, even if we hope to find her again in front of the camera.

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