Is Catherine Deneuve beautiful?
What, are you crazy? you ask. Of course she’s beautiful.
And indeed, so she was/is, then and even now that she’s in her early 70s:
Deneuve has long been acclaimed as one of the movies’ and even the world’s great beauties. And I don’t dispute that she’s unusually beautiful. But she’s always puzzled me because her beauty seems too regular, almost doll-like. I once read somewhere that beauty requires some irregularity, some asymmetry, and that’s exactly what I think Deneuve lacks, although she probably does have mild asymmetry if her face were to be analyzed in some scientific way. But I don’t detect it by looking at her—especially her photos when young—and the effect is a bit uncanny.
I once wrote a post about the daughter that Deneuve had with Marcello Matroianni, Chiara. She’s beautiful, too, and a real amalgam of both of her famous and photogenic parents. But to me, her (very slight) asymmetry—or something; perhaps the Mastroianni contribution—gives her a more interesting and alive “look”:
Your mileage may differ.
I have always thought Deneuve exceptionally beautiful. She surely is still beautiful, but the picture you posted points to something I think–the older a woman gets, less makeup looks better. I’m going through my lifetime of pictures and have noticed how much less makeup I use now. Yesterday I had an appointment with my dermatologist so I had absolutely nothing on my face (not even moisturizer), and kept it that way for all of my errands. When at the Post Office with my 6 year old granddaughter, the clerk commented that she couldn’t believe my granddaughter wasn’t my daughter.
I don’t think still pictures capture a person’s aura. There’s something to the charismatic aura of mobility and frames per second.
She was good looking, yes. She looks like Hillary in the second picture.
Re “Doll like”, yes again, but not in my judgment because of any needed asymmetry, but because of her unnatural and studied demeanor.
I’ve mentioned previously that I have been desperately buying DVD’s for my elderly folks. One I got for 3 bucks or something was “A Countess from Hong Kong” (I think), with Sophia Loren. Yeah she jumps in the water guys, but nothing to see there … I looked. Might as well move along.
Anyway it’s a crappy bedroom farce on a ocean liner populated with stock figures, featuring wooden performances by actors declaiming their lines and adding labored exposition intended to secure the status and specialness of the principals in the viewer’s mind.
Okay here’s the point: three or four of the females featured in the movie, other countesses or countessi or whatever, equally fallen to the condition of dance hall queens, have that same demeanor that Deneuve exudes. It is what passes for grace and serenity, and good breeding, in the minds of people like director Charlie Chaplin … a frozen expression gazing off into the distance.
It’s a mannerism adopted to produce an effect.
raquel welch aged the best out of a few
she still looks great!!!!!
and bridget bardot probably scares children walking down the street.. [especially if she smiles]
someone asked me why, and i said at 20 you have the face genetics gave you at 60 you have the face you deserve based on what you did or didnt do, and so on. (which is interesting that so many on the left end up looking like walking dead extras)
another that aged incredibly well was anne margeret.. to think of her age when she was doing the movie grumpy old men…
sally field didnt turn out to well either
i can tell you a lot more and most just drop out of the public eye…
it was fun talking to thelma louise a few years back (have no idea about her now).
Beautiful women are more numerous than one may think. Same goes for handsome men. For me, George Harrison captured the essence… “Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover… I don’t want to leave her now, you know I believe and how”
If you find that someone and it lasts a lifetime you are blessed. I am blessed for I found “something” and “something” found me.
Artfldgr,
Agree on RR. Looks beautiful in her 70s.
“I once read somewhere that beauty requires some irregularity, some asymmetry, and that’s exactly what I think Deneuve lacks, . . . .”
Whaddaya mean, lacks asymmetry? Can’tcha see she parts her hair on the right side of her head, but not on the left??
[ s m i l e ]
“… her beauty seems too regular, almost doll-like”
Yesterday I gave my granddaughter a stack of portrait photos of her mother from infancy to young girl. There was one in which my then 3 year old daughter appeared with her 2 year old friend. My granddaughter asked me if the friend was a “life-size” doll. She was perfectly serious. When I responded that she was her friend, Kristi, she was amazed. I showed her an 8 x 10 of a different pose and she pointed to the lips and said, “she looks like a doll.”
In the top photo, Deneuve embodies angelic perfection. Utterly perfect, proportional symmetry of bone structure and facial features. Unattainable beauty, an ideal not of the real world.
The young Sophia Loren was far sexier. As is Monica Bellucci.
Too much pale with Deneuve. Blonde should have a tint of yellow or red–not too much but some.
The kid looks more alive because of more color in the picture.
I suppose she’s pretty, but can she butcher a hog?
But, the movie, “The Countess from Hong Kong” had a beautiful song. My favorite version is by Pet Clark and the song is called, “This is My Song”; she sings a very nice French version as well.
That mask-like passivity was the style then – think of the models of that era – Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy. The idea was a completely non-emotional affect.
I agree, the women that age the best are those that are happy with their lives. The ones that life disappointed have the most aged faces.
Okay, you pulled me back in.
Monica. Her eyes are not symmetrical. Her left eye seems to be looking with interest or concern at something while her right eye is merely watching. Is it the eyebrow?
A slight, subliminal question in the viewer’s perception might generate more interest.
The human eye looks at faces in a unique way, subconsciously searching for any information about emotions. An asymmetry gives the eye something to settle on. A flawless, expressionless face can be unnerving. Hence the popularity of beauty marks in an earlier era. On rare occasions, I find I have the opposite reaction, finding a technically perfect face to be utterly boring (Natalie Portman is an example).
Linda’s comment interests me. There was a zero-affect look in that era, and that probably only enhanced that unsettled feeling that the eye can have in seeing perfect symmetry. I wonder if that’s why models now always seem to look angry. I guess symmetry and hostility sells.
Belle du Jour. Whenever my very stylish wife got too far out in her clothing choices, I would tell her that she should dress like Deneuve.
This is actually a matter I’ve given a fair amount of recent thought. In fact, I made a number of posts about beauty on Facebook, so I don’t really have the energy to go into great depth here.
I’ve had several good friends who were (or are) models, at a high level, so I’ve ben contact with male and female beauty and had thoughts on each for twenty years or so.
In regards to Deneuve, I think your perception is correct. It might be noted that she never became much of a movie star. Because what could se express? Her princess-like looks made the roles she could play quite limited. One might contrast her with Grace Kelly, considered to be a perfect exemplar of elegant beauty — but who also had that voice, and the wit and intelligence she could convey. Likewise, on the male side, think of Cary Grant. “Too beautiful to live,” as James Ellroy once said to me of some Hollywood star, but Grant’s voice was so expressive that the personality and intelligence he could express instantly rendered him interesting. Sure, a member of a kind of natural aristocracy, but anything but a doll with a wooden head.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Gabriella Wilde, chosen as the new face for L’Oréal, another perfect blonde — who in the L’Oréal ads is so perfect she seems blank, unmemorable, anonymous.
In other ads, such as for Burberry, they try to make her a little slutty, sulky, maybe a girl with “problems.” She looks much sexier as a result.
So far she’s only appeared in “safe” movie roles, in remakes of Endless Love and Carrie (and some other title which slips my mind). I haven’t seen any of these films, so I don’t have an opinion on what be possible for her in films.
Too bad I cannot illustrate things here with images.
It’s interesting, however, just as an aside, that David Gandy is the second highest earning supermodel the last two years, and he’s anything but a pretty boy. Dolce & Gabbana use him frequently. He’s in his 30s and looks like a badass. I actually thought about buying his cologne, as an homage.
Daid Gandy = 2nd-higest earning MALE supermodel. The males make much less than the females.
*I apologize for my typos. MS means I can only type with one hand, and imperfectly.
miklos:
Don’t worry about the typos.
I looked up Gabriella Wilde, who I’d never heard of before, and she does have a blank and even face. But her face (unlike Deneuve’s) is also a baby-face. She has that wide, very childlike look, which also represents a sort of trend. If you look at photos of models from the 30s, 40s, 50s, they looked like grown women and had mature (not wrinkled, just mature!) women’s faces. In more recent years (starting with Twiggy, I believe, but much more common in the last 2 decades or so) the models look (and often are) very very young and immature, almost pre-pubescent.
I agree that Deneuve is un-nerving in just the ways neo, linda, and nick have said. I never liked her looks but I thought it was just because she doesn’t seem intelligent; the symmetry point makes a lot of sense too.
I’m quite willing to reserve the word beautiful for the truly beautiful — those who have it all: animated, interesting faces, great bones, lovely features, and just the right amount of symmetry.
Deneuve I would call pretty. Doesn’t the word ‘pretty’ have, at least sometimes, a connotation of not-all-the-way-to-beautiful? (I’m sure we could come up with a whole spectrum of adjectives about this (perhaps they are found at nick’s aforementioned facebook post!). Some people are very attractive even though they aren’t really pretty or handsome. Etc. )
And just as a side-note, but if anyone is interested, there are female Chinese supermodels who are really amazing. Yet Vogue USA has never featured an Asian model on their cover, whereas they’re not uncommonly seen on covers of Vogue Italia or Vogue Australia (and Vogue China will sometimes feature Caucasian blondes).
Chinese models I particularly like include Tian Yi, Fei Fei Sun, and Xiao Wen Ju. (The top moneymaker is Liu Wen, who may be more classic but strikes me as bland.) Xiao may get more US attention as she is now the face of Babyghost, the new clothing line that somewhat caters to gothy teenage girls and young women and is quite hot right now. Xiao is lively and looks intelligent and fun. (Babyghost’s white models mostly look anorexic and 15. Xiao is a much better choice.)
One thing about these Chinese models is: they’re all at least 5’10.” Which must make them stand out in a crowd. The female models that I knew well, from Montreal, the UK and France, all felt unlovely and gawky as adolescents because of their height. (In the US there’s so much more emphasis on sport that I imagine tall girls can now more easily fit in.)
Another fun fact: 55% of all female runway models are from Russia or Ukraine. This parallels the export of “Natashas” who end up as strippers and prostitutes and in porn, “owned” by organized crime. Tall blondes with cheekbones. Eastern Europe as the white third world.
Hmm. I haven’t touched on transgender models, though some are rather awe-inspiring in their way.
Neo, you mention the difference in the maturity of the top models, how this has regressed. Simply put, the ideal beauty was once a woman. Now she is a girl.
I saw something recently about 13 year old who was being gushed over as “already a star.” The name didn’t stick.
I once looked up the top fashion models of each decade, 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s up to Kate Moss. Educational. Almost all the names were unknown to me. None of them — until the 60s — looked to be younger than 25 or maybe 27.
But of the 60s brought the miniskirt and the bikini, both of which best suit many females from maybe 16 or 17 to maybe 24. These two fashions also served as a tremendous disincentive to “ruin” your figure by having a child.
Reading the comments I’m reminded of something I learned when I was stationed in Japan. In Japanese aesthetics there is a concept called wabi, or more properly wabe-sabi. Wabi is derived from Buddhist ideas of transience and impermanence. In practice the aesthetic holds that a small flaw enhances the beauty of an object. For example a porcelain cup with a hairline crack is preferable to a perfect cup. With this in mind I noticed that many Japanese models had a notcible flaw that would be unacceptable in the west. Things like a crooked tooth or having one eye slightly larger than the other were common. Believe me these were very attractive women and their flaws, to my eye, made them seem more real.
To me, Catherine Deneuve seemed to be a pale imitation of Grace Kelly – just like Kevin Costner is a pale imitation of my husband!
Yes, she does look like a statue, but Deneuve is actually beautiful. Try not to gasp watching her in ‘les parapluies de Cherbourg”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ObVG9o2xWI
Plus she’s actually a very talented actress (unlike Grace Kelly who did not really care fore her art) and has done numerous movies both popular and artistically challenging.
Her beauty is almost too regular, but she was so luminous you couldn’t look away. She actually looks like elsa lanchester in nose, eyes, mouth and eyes in lanchester’s thinner times, young and now that deneuve is old also. I couldn’t believe the resemblance when I saw it, especially the turn of the nose and eye shape. deneuve is rather an average pleasant looking woman now, even with surgery, not very gorgeous like raquel welch with her surgery. I think its due to catherines heavy smoking.