“There’s nothing I can say to prepare you.”said American actress Demi Moore mischievously to those who had not yet seen her latest film, The Substance by Coralie Fargeat. A few hours before the preview at the Cinémathèque française, Tuesday 5 November 2024, she delivered a masterclass in front of a full room. As she has already done in the past in Striptease (1996), On equal terms (1997) or even Harassment (1995), the sixty-year-old actress once again challenges her body, this time as a mature woman. A performance that resonates with The Substancea masterful chronicle of an explosive quest for youth. The Substance walked away with the Screenplay Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival and could earn Demi Moore a nomination at the Oscars.
The actress plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a fitness star whose disgusting employer, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), wants to get rid of under the pretext that at 50 years, it would have reached a sort of expiration date. In her dismay, she comes across the promise of rediscovered youth thanks to a mysterious product called The Substance. It allows her to produce a rejuvenated version of herself with whom she must alternately share her body every seven days. But with the appearance of Sue (Margaret Qualley), her younger version, Elisabeth’s life turns into a nightmare. In terms and form, Coralie Fargeat offers a powerful reflection on women’s bodies, the violence they are capable of inflicting on themselves to respond to the injunctions to which they are subject, particularly from men.
During her masterclass, Demi Moore spoke about her relationship with the body and the way in which Coralie Fargeat’s film resonated with her by taking her back to her experiences as a young actress. Namely, among other things, “the violence I inflicted on myself by trying to be what I thought others expected of me”, facing “the demand for a certain body type in Hollywood, to perfection” .
The actress also spoke about nudity. Like many actresses, Demi Moore reminded that it is justified when it serves the plot. In The Substance, “many of these nudity scenes occur when the characters are alone and reflect this intimacy that we have with ourselves. Being naked when you are alone, in front of a mirror, is not an abnormal situation. It is a important element which shows the fragility of the character who is thus exposed.”
“In my opinion, she summarizes, It’s less the nudity than what serves the story.” “As an actress, I can only dedicate what I do to the sincerity and truth of the moment. Although I can step back to consider that there is a spectator who will look and see a woman who no longer 20 or 30 years old, totally abandoning herself in her nudity even though she has imperfections linked to her age.”
The imperfections of her body, Demi Moore seems to have never paid attention to them in the cinema. In her personal life, it’s another story that has been marked by a cliché, she revealed while being interviewed on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991. The photo, where she appeared naked and pregnant, caused a lot of talk at the time.
“It’s a photo that, she explains, was taken just for me and my family at the end of the photo shoot. When it was published, I didn’t expect it to create such an uproar. It’s interesting to think about the fact that at that time, a woman was celebrated at the moment she announced her pregnancy and at the moment of birth. But the in-between apparently posed a problem because it meant too clearly ‘I made love’ and it would seem that we need not recall it too much.”
The actress confided that the photo of Annie Leibovitz had been important to her. “I find that, on the contrary, in my personal experience with my body, which was sometimes difficult, it was the moment when I felt the most beautiful, the most sexy. It was a sincere feeling of this moment. That’s why I was delighted when I was asked to publish it.”
She also stressed that her compatriots were “much more stuck” on issues relating to sexuality. “America was built on puritanism (…) Sexuality is often taboo. There is a lot of fear in America around the body.” She notes that she had to “shake the coconut tree” in his most daring films. “I never understood why we could celebrate the body in other forms of art, but not in cinema,” she regrets. “What I would like to see change, assure Demi Mooreit’s about women being objectified.”
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