Broadcast this Sunday January 12, 2025 at 9:05 p.m. on Arte, the fascinating documentary Sharon Stone, the survival instinct paints the portrait of a talented actress, but also of a very intelligent and courageous woman given the ordeals she experienced. She notably returned forcefully to the incest of which she had been a victim as a child and “her pedophile grandfather”.
What do we know about Sharon Stone, icon of the seventh art, beyond the image that the industry immediately stuck on her back? Not so much after all. That’s the whole point of the superb documentary The survival instinctdedicated to the artist (and broadcast on Arte this Sunday January 12, 2025 at 9:05 p.m. on Arte). Rich in archive interviews with the actress, the program first returns to her origins. A young girl arriving from the countryside to realize her lifelong dream: becoming an actress. A young introverted girl who very quickly came up against the excesses of a system that only saw her through the prism of her very attractive physique. Well before the #Metoo era, Sharon Stone, instantly became a star with the cult Basic Instincthas unfortunately seen all the colors on film sets. The documentary paints a touching, intimate portrait of the artist, and also returns to the traumas she spoke about in her autobiography.
“#Metoo had to exist to be able to consider telling our horrible truth”confided Sharon Stone
In April 2021, Sharon Stone published The beauty of living twice. She then makes terrible confessions about her childhood, during which she was not only beaten by her parents, but victim, with her younger sister Kelly, of incest by her grandfather. The documentary focuses in particular on this dark side of her youth to which she returned publicly at the same time in the Super Soul Sunday d’Oprah Winfrey. “My grandfather was a pedophile. And he beat my grandmother almost every day. She took so many hits from him that not only did she not protect us, but she let him do it when he abused me.”she confided in this archive interview relayed by the documentary. “Incest survivor”as the presenter then reminds us, she then explains “having participated in meetings of victims of incest”. In an excerpt from an exchange with Cuban-American singer-songwriter Gloria Estefan for the media Books & Books for the release of her memoirs, Sharon Stone goes even further by linking her awareness to a recent societal upheaval: “The world had to change, for #Metoo to exist to be able to consider telling our horrible truth”.
Window on Crime, Sliver, Dead or alive : the sad resonance of Sharon Stone’s childhood in her filmography
The documentary then illustrates how these very personal revelations sadly echo his filmography. First there is Window on Crimewhere her character remembers being abused by her stepfather when she was a child. Sliver next, where Sharon Stone, aka Carly Norris, “directly confronts an aggressor and his prey”. Finally, in Dead or aliveshe shoots a pedophile in the private parts and then kills him. Without certainty that this terrible childhood guided her choice of roles, the actress on the other hand understood after years of therapy to what extent this trauma had an impact on her life. “It took me even longer to be able to talk about other things that happened because I kept silent and allowed myself to be manipulated. Because when you are a victim of assault, other abusers feel it”she explained. In the endemic misogyny of Hollywood, it is fascinating to see how Sharon Stone never let herself be walked on, fighting throughout her career to combat clichés and assert herself as a talented actress and woman. free.
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