NEWS:  JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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On Sunday Vincent spent the day at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris. He is currently working on the preparation of a photo book on models and muses. For almost five hours, he photographed with talent and professionalism. Other sessions are planned, as well as an exhibition of his photos at the Academy.

Back in Vevey, Switzerland, this week, Vincent met with Karine Vasarino and did some podcasts with rts.ch. One of his quotes is "Today I'm exactly where I wanted to be". The statue you see in some of these photos is Charlie Chaplin, one of Vincent's heroes from his childhood.

Actor Pierce Brosnan (one handsome dude!) has joined the list of guests at this year's Rencontres du 7e Art Lausanne. He will meet the public and present his 1999 thriller, "The Thomas Crown Affair" on March 8 at the Capitole Cinema. You may remember that the 66-year-old Irish-American actor took on the role of James Bond between 1995 and 2002. However, I particularly loved his comical performance (not his singing!) in both "Mamma Mia!" films.

On the last Wednesday of each month "T" magazine and the Beau-Rivage Palace have organized "Le Temps de l'inspiration". In the form of an intimate interview with a special theme, the event features a personality from the creative field. Guest of the day this week was Vincent.

Last Friday Swiss paper Le Matin ran a February 11th interview in Lausanne with Vincent regarding the bad press director Roman Polanski is presently receiving. The interview took place before the announcement of the collective resignation of the management of the César Awards. Vincent, who has done two films with Polanski and has known him for thirty years, agreed to give journalist Laurent Flückiger  his opinion on the matter. Here are his comments:

"All these resurgent cases date more or less from the same period after the assassination of Sharon Tate. They re-appear in the press when films are released. I spoke with Roman and he barely remembered the person we were talking about." [Valentine Monnier has accused Polanski of having sexually assaulted her in 1975 in his chalet in Gstaad.]

"He didn't kill anyone," Vincent continues. "He did bullshit, yes, but he asked for forgiveness. He went to jail. He was persecuted all his life because he fled from American justice. He is a man who is 86 years old today. After forty years, I tell myself that it is time to forgive him. His victim, Samantha Geimer, raped at 13 years old in 1977, has been telling everyone to leave Roman Polanski alone for twenty years. " [Samantha Geimer indeed reaffirmed in her memoir that she had forgiven the director.]

Vincent concludes with, "It is a situation that saddens me. It's hard for his children. When you really know the facts, you tell yourself that maybe it's time to leave it alone. He has paid enough."

More news on next month's Rencontres du 7e art in Switzerland. Other films to be screened include Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" (la-di-da...), Blake Edwards' "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Jane Campion's "The Piano" (lovely Michael Nyman soundtrack), and Elia  Kazan's "On the Waterfront", which is featured on this year's poster. A homage to Marlon Brando is also planned. I am an ardent fan of Brando and have watched almost all of his films. I actually saw "Last Tango in Paris" when I was in Paris in 1972 and I keep the tango music on my i-phone.

I came across a few more photos taken at the "Rouje" boutique opening in Paris last September. It appears that an artist was hired to draw some of their guests.

When Vincent travels to Switzerland, one of his favorite men's clothing stores is Scabal. In the first three photos, he poses with Eric Becker, head of Scabal Geneva. Great motto - "A passion for cloth". These photos were taken over the past two years.

The 3rd edition of the Rencontres du 7e art will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, from March 4-8. The theme this year will be love on the big screen featuring 49 films such as "Casablanca", my husband's favorite! This cinema event was created by Vincent in 2018 in collaboration with the Swiss Cinémathèque. Many guests will be present to talk about the creative process and the production process of the making of films. Isabella Rosselini will present in particular "Blue Velvet" by David Lynch. Love that film! An evening tribute will also be devoted to film director and writer Bertrand Blier. Vincent reports, "We are so happy to have him. He's a huge poet." Among the many guests are Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Patrice Leconte,  Irène Jacob, Valeria Golino, Rossy de Palma, Danièle Thompson, Pascal Greggory, Elsa Zylberstein, and Marie Gillain. You may notice that many of these guests have co-starred with Vincent.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC is getting a 30th Anniversary Blu-ray special edition courtesy of BFI. The DVD, which includes special features, will be released on February 24, 2020. Humorous and touching in equal measure, the film is a spectacular and vibrant adaptation of Edmond Rostand's classic novel. Depardieu has never been better than as the swaggering scribe, his performance enriched by the vigorous direction of Jean-Paul Rappeneau and lavish period design. The film's cast also includes Vincent and Anne Brochet. The synopsis reads: Cyrano, a swashbuckling hero with a gift for verse - and a prominent proboscis - is madly in love with the most beautiful woman in Paris. Deterred though by his feelings of physical inadequacy, he instead uses his poetic skills to support another hapless suitor. But will the object of their affection realize who she’s really falling for?

Yesterday Vincent was a guest on Radio Vostok based in Geneva, Switzerland. Among the topics discussed was the link between contemporary art and cinema. You can listen to the French interview at this link.

Also from Switzerland is a 23-minute video interview with Vincent from the rts.ch archives. It is dated April 13, 1992, almost 28 years ago. So young and innocent!

Film director Roman Polanski has swept the nomination list for the 45th César awards for French cinema, sparking outrage. Polanski's film "An Officer and a Spy", or "J'accuse" in French, received 12 nominations at the awards, which are the French equivalent of the Oscars. This is the second Polanski film that Vincent has starred in. Alain Terzian, the head of the Césars, defended Polanski's nominations, arguing that the body "should not take moral positions" in giving awards. The film is about the Dreyfus affair, a political scandal in France in the late 1800s which saw a French Jewish army officer wrongly convicted of spying. In September, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. This is not the first time the Césars have faced controversy because of Polanski. In 2017, he was picked to head the award's jury, but stepped down after the move sparked outrage.

According to the BBC, for now it seems quite unlikely that the movie will be shown in the UK, either in movie theatres or on television. Nor will it illuminate screens in the United States. So dangerous is the potential backlash of collaborating with Polanski that no British or American distributor will risk showing the movie, which opened to great acclaim and box-office success in France, though some protests have occurred there too.