Who I Am Who I Am E-Book

Charlotte Rampling

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 49

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Oscar-nominated Charlotte Rampling most recently appeared in hit ITV drama Broadchurch, the BBC's London Spy and HBO's Dexter, and the feature film 45 Years. Her career has spanned popular entertainment and arthouse cinema, having starred in English, French and Italian films from 1966's Georgy Girl (opposite Lynn Redgrave), to films with French director François Ozon, including 2003's Swimming Pool. Having shied away from biographies and autobiographies ("too personal") Rampling has now written Who I Am (first published in French) a lyrical, and intimate self-portrait via reminiscences. Highly personal, packed with photographs from her personal archive, Rampling recounts her childhood and youth as the daughter of an army officer (who won a gold medal for the 4 x 400 relay in the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics), and the memories and passions that would inspire her life and later work as an actress. Written in a style that gives a unique insight into her screen persona, it is an idiosyncratic and beguiling insight of one of the most consistently adventurous and interesting actors.

Leseprobe

CHARLOTTE RAMPLING

with Christophe Bataille

translated by William Hobson with Charlotte Rampling

WHO I AM

Published in the UK in 2017

by Icon Books Ltd,

Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road,

London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK,

Europe and Asia

by Faber & Faber Ltd,

Bloomsbury House,

74–77 Great Russell Street,

London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK,

Europe and Asia

by Grantham Book Services,

Trent Road,

Grantham

NG31 7XQ

Distributed in Australia and

New Zealand

by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd,

PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street,

Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in South Africa

by Jonathan Ball, Office B4,

The District, 41 Sir Lowry Road,

Woodstock 7925

Distributed in India

by Penguin Books India,

7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C,

DLF Cyber City,

Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

Distributed in Canada

by Publishers Group Canada,

76 Stafford Street, Unit 300,

Toronto, Ontario M6J 2S1

Distributed in the USA

by Publishers Group West,

1700 Fourth Street,

Berkeley, CA 94710

ISBN: 978-1-78578-193-3

Text copyright © 2017 Charlotte Rampling with Christopher Bataille

Translation copyright © 2017 Will Hobson

All photographs in this book are from the private collection of Charlotte Rampling, with the exception of the portrait appearing on page 87, which was taken by Tim Walker and is used with his kind permission.

The authors have asserted their moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Granjon by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For Barnaby, Émilie, David.

Today, Charlotte, you seem worried and you say with a laugh, ‘I don’t know what this book is anymore … What did we say, that it would be my childhood or a sort of portrait, I’ve lost track. One thing it definitely can’t be is a biography. I’ve tried telling my life story, it doesn’t work.

And it would be good if I actually liked the book we make together. Is that possible? To genuinely accept it, like it? I recoil from definitions, narrations, you know that, Christophe. I don’t open up.’

Who I Am: not a biography, or a song, or a betrayal, barely a novel – let’s say a ballad, one of those ones you hum, like The Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past. You are one of those ladies whatever era you come from: I see you in photographs, haughty, often naked in your twenties, in a short skirt, black stockings, playful, in your own world. With that effortlessly elusive smile.

You make your gaze clear-eyed. Dive into me: you’ll never see what I see.

Everything is true in our book. Or rather: everything has happened. Dialogue, images, memories. Occasionally I’ve changed the clothes people were wearing. I’ve added some colour to the silence, and some words – just a few.

It all starts at an editorial meeting. A typical Wednesday: we are dreaming aloud in the office where Radiguet signed the contract for The Devil in the Flesh. Parquet floor, classical mouldings, wallpaper sky. Dreaming is the word for it. There is something unreal about great books.

On this particular Wednesday one of us brings up your name; he met you at a dinner. You are difficult. Dangerous. Bristling with lawyers. The word cruises between us like a shark. But who isn’t difficult? An editor announces that your official biography has been taken on by a talented, formidable female American journalist and already sold to a French publisher. For a fortune. We drop the subject.

I ask a friend for your address. He shrugs genially and I dash off a letter to you that same evening. The challenge, the game. Your defiant solitude. To be you. To understand. To find the right words.

You were sweet, really, the first time we met, Charlotte; years ago now. Of course this expression makes you bristle. ‘Sweetness, no … Christophe, don’t overdo it … It’s only the third page! Why not throw in my kindness, my even temper while we’re at it?’

I can feel your reticence. Your wary shyness. How familiar all this is to you. How tired you are of being stared at, desired. Imagined. And second-guessed. What better way could there be of not listening to you? It is as if there is someone imprisoned in your legendary name.

Men come and see me in the night. Men watch me and steal my secrets. I leave a fleeting image, fragments of feeling, sensations … I watch the men, I see them in the half-light, I listen to their breathing. The screen separates us. And who knows … who knows what is transformed by these images.

I am waiting for you, I feel a little afraid – of your intelligence, of your challenging gaze, of your fear. Here you are. Long beige coat. We order quickly and quietly.

You break into a smile. Your ‘celebrity memoirs’ will never be published. The moment you saw the first chapters, you put a stop to it. All those details, those anecdotes, those empty words. You give me the names of publishers and agents in Paris and New York, as if I needed proof. No book will be done without Charlotte Rampling and no book will be done with her. Wanting everything, forbidding everything.

So does that mean I have to obey? Keep my distance? Be a wallflower?

I look at your delicate, fine-skinned hands, which seem to be searching for something. Time has passed through those fingers, desire, playfulness, wisdom, I don’t know, children’s laughter.

When it’s my turn, I say my piece: ‘I haven’t come here with advances or contracts. I just want to give it a go. Head towards childhood. And if you call this off too, if you swallow the key to the safe, so be it. The pages will remain. That’s the way it is with books you dream of.’

Now you finish my glass of burgundy. ‘You don’t mind? It’s a good way to begin, don’t you think?’ Yes, Charlotte, it’s a good beginning. Then you laugh.