Pisier, Marie-France

(1944-)

   Actress, director, and screen-writer. Marie-France Pisier was born in Dalat, Vietnam, which was then part of French Indochina, where her father was a colonial official. She moved to Paris with her family at the age of twelve and subsequently studied law and political science. She first ventured into cinema at the age of seventeen opposite Jean-Pierre Léaud in François Truffaut's sketch "Antoine et Colette" for the film L'Amour à vingt ans (1962). She later played leading roles alongside actor and director Robert Hossein in three of his films: La Mort d'un tuer (1963), Les Yeux cernés (1964), and Le Vampire de Dùsseldorf (1965).

   Pisier worked for some of France's most acclaimed auteurs, among them Alain Robbe-Grillet in Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Truffaut in Baisers volés (1968), Jacques Rivette in Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974), and André Téchiné in Souvenirs d'en France (1975), Pauline s'en va (1975), Barocco (1976), and Les Soeurs Brontë (1979). Pisier costarred in Truffaut's last Antoine Doinel film, L'Amour en fuite (1979). In the 1970s she expanded her filmmaking career to include screenwriting. She went on to work on the scripts of Jacques Rivette's Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974) and Truffaut's L 'Amour en fuite (1979).

   In the meantime, Pisier's acting career remained her mainstay. She won her first César for Best Supporting Actress in Jean-Charles Tachella's Cousin, Cousine (1976) and a second César for Best Supporting Actress in Barocco (1977). In the late 1970s, she entered English-language cinema with the leading role in Charles Jarrott's The Other Side of Midnight (1977). She also played in the French and English film, French Postcards (1979), directed by Willard Huyck. She costarred with Nouvelle Vague or New Wave icon Jean-Paul Belmondo in Henri Verneuil's Le Corps de mon ennemi (1976) and in Gérard Oury's very successful adventure film, L'As des as (1982).

   In the early 1980s, Pisier maintained a strong international presence. She landed a leading role in Francis Girod's La Banquière (1980), starred in Hungarian director George Kaczender's Anglophone Chanel solitaire (1981), acted in Moroccan director Moumen Smihi's 44 ou les Récits de la nuit (1981), played in American director Paul Williams's Miss Right (1982), costarred in German director Hans Geissendorfer's Der Zauberberg (1982), acted in Roger Vadim's The Hot Touch (1982), and played a key role in Yves Boisset's Le Prix du danger (1982).

   Pisier also wrote several novels, one of which, Le Bal du gouverneur, she adapted for the screen in 1990. Le Bal du gouverneur (1990) also marked Pisier's debut as a director. Like director Claire Denis, Pisier built on her experiences in France's former colonies. Her second film was Comme un avion (2002), in which she also stars. Pisier continues to act in films, among them Raoul Ruiz's Le Temps retrouvé (1999), Yamina Benguigui's Inch'Allah Dimanche (2001), Laurence Ferreira Barbosa's Ordo (2003), and Christophe Honoré's Dans Paris (2006).