The actress Christine Boisson is dead: memory of an appearance

Known for having played in the sulphurous “Emmanuelle”, but also at Antonioni and then in the theater with the greatest, Christine Boisson will remain for us Cora, the magnetic taxi driver of “Extérieur Nuit”. She died on October 21, at the age of 68.

On remembers. It was one evening, on television, at Claude-Jean Philippe’s Ciné-Club. We were a handful of high school friends. He was passing Exterior Night, by Jacques Bral (1980). The atmosphere was rather relaxed. We started to look, not without sarcasm at first, then silence fell, we turned off the last lights, complete darkness suited better. We dove in, totally captivated by the sticky atmosphere of the film, its bluesy-jazzy music mixed with tango. The film told the story of the drift in a nocturnal Paris of two slackers (Gérard Lanvin and André Dussollier) and especially of Cora, a young taxi driver, an elusive amazon, a robber in her spare time, who dreamed of Argentina. This girl was Christine Boisson, a sexy tomboy with a bit of rock, an insolent walk and a mysterious spot very close to her right pupil. An apparition.

We weren’t the only ones who had a crush on her. Two years later, the great Michelangelo Antonioni himself called on her to play a young theater actress in Identification of a woman (1982). She was the loving, gentle and earthy lover of the main character.. The Italian master was able to highlight sher domed forehead, her short hair and her open neck, making her a very pictorial model.

Animal beauty

The third significant milestone is Freedom at night (1983), one of Philippe Garrel’s most beautiful films, with Maurice Garrel, where she plays a young woman from Algeria. In a bed scene, after lovemaking, half-dressed in a white sheet, she offers a long, very high-intensity look at the camera.

Her animal and statuesque beauty, with a hint of the oriental, had led her to begin a career as a model. She was still a minor, at 17, when Just Jaeckin recruited her to play in the famous Emmanuelle (1974). Which made him famous and was his poison. Confined her for a moment to bare roles. After a stint at the Conservatory, she escaped the trap, establishing herself as a talented actress, as sensual as she is solid, with a strong character. In the theater, she worked with the greatest, Claude Régy, Roger Planchon, Luc Bondy, Jacques Lassalle. Among his fifty or so other films are: Not very Catholic (1993) de Tonie Marshall, Women’s Mechanics (2000) by Jérôme de Missolz, The Actresses’ Ball (2009) by Maïwen. She has just died, too early, at 68 years old.