The Look

Charlotte Rampling only goes to the mat with one person – her son, director Barnaby Southcombe, while they were shooting I, Anna (UK 2012). In Angelina Maccarone’s documentary, she meets the other people she talks to under less confrontational circumstances. Those friends and colleagues include American writer Paul Auster, photographers Peter Lindbergh and Juergen Teller, lyricist Frederick Seidel, and production designer Franckie Diago. Rampling talks to each of them about the key films in her career, the substance and technique of acting, about beauty and ageing, demons and taboos, desire, love, and death. The conversations, shot in New York, Paris, and London are complemented by key scenes from Rampling’s best-known films; the result is a portrait of an extraordinary woman and artist. Director Angelina Maccarone said, “so much has been said about her that it seems almost impossible not to resort to clichés when describing the ‘phenomenon of Charlotte Rampling’. I wanted to hear from her. She liked my invitation to be not the object, but rather – in every sense of the word – the subject of the film”. (Berlinale)