Brigitte Fossey is at her most persuasive when she gives a vulnerable character something to concentrate on rather than asking for our sympathy. We value her restraint, though it can leave her too subdued beside more forceful performers.
Fi1m perspective
In Forbidden Games (1952), Brigitte Fossey’s Paulette takes the burial of dead animals seriously. So does Georges Poujouly’s Michel Dolle, and their practical concentration makes an unsettling activity entirely convincing. Neither child seems to be asking us to find them touching. We were moved by their care for the animals, and disturbed by how readily burial becomes a game. René Clément gives them something precise to do, and Fossey lets us feel the tenderness without making the behaviour any less troubling.
The adult feuding in Clément’s film is more crudely drawn, which makes the children’s seriousness especially valuable. Fossey does not make Paulette unusually knowing to hold our attention. She stays with the task, leaving us to worry about what it means. It is worth remembering how unsettling she is here, given the image of innocence that her early success established.
Her adult return in Jean-Gabriel Albicocco’s Le Grand Meaulnes (1967) continued the romantic image after a long break from acting. Playing the woman on the train in Bertrand Blier’s Les Valseuses (1974) was a deliberate choice of more provocative material. These were different demands on an actor already strongly associated with innocence, and the change was one she wanted.
Claude Sautet’s Un mauvais fils (1980), opposite Patrick Dewaere, makes good use of her sensitivity, though it also suggests the limit of her restraint. She can seem too subdued beside a more forceful performer, and holding back is not always the right decision. In La Boum (1980), as the mother of Sophie Marceau’s character, her naturalness serves the tensions between generations.
Fossey’s supporting appearance in Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988) belongs to the extended Italian cut. Our affection for that film rests chiefly on the friendship played by Salvatore Cascio and Philippe Noiret, despite Tornatore’s occasional excess of sweetness. For a proper introduction to Fossey, start with Forbidden Games; do not expect to find its children reassuring.
Biography
Brigitte Florence Fossey is a French actress born on 15 June 1946 in Tourcoing. She made her screen debut at the age of five as Paulette in René Clément's Forbidden Games (1952). After a period away from acting for schooling, during which she worked as an interpreter in Geneva, she returned to film in 1967 with the lead role in Jean-Gabriel Albicocco's Le Grand Meaulnes.
As an adult, Fossey appeared in numerous French films, including Going Places (1974), The Man Who Loved Women (1977), The Party (1980) and its sequel (1982), and Cinema Paradiso (1988) as the adult Elena Mendola. She has also worked in theatre and television. In 1982 she served on the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival. She was married to director Jean-François Adam until his death in 1980; their daughter Marie Adam is also an actress.
