Anouk Aimée, the unforgettable heroine of “A Man and a Woman”, has died at the age of 92
Actress Anouk Aimée died this Tuesday, June 18, her daughter announced on the social network Instagram. She was famous for her roles in “A Man and a Woman”, “Lola” and “La Dolce Vita”.
Anouk Aimée is no more. Revealed in 1947, mainly known for her role alongside Jean-Louis Trintignant in A man and a woman by Claude Lelouch, Palme d’Or in 1966, the actress has made around sixty films, many of which have marked the history of cinema. Real name Nicole Dreyfus, the one who was the unforgettable Lola by Jacques Demy, filmed under the direction of the greatest: André Cayatte (in The Lovers of Verona, 1949), Julien Duvivier (in Pot-Bouille, 1957), Jacques Becker (in Montparnasse 19, 1958) or even Federico Fellini (in Eight and a half, 1963). Among the distinctions she received in more than seven decades of career, the discreet and elegant star was awarded a Golden Globe in 1967, the 1980 Best Actress Award for The leap into the void by the Italian Marco Bellocchio, at the Cannes Film Festival, and an honorary César in 2002.
“Lola”, directed by Jacques Demy, 1961
For her first title role, Anouk Aimée lends Lola, a singer and dancer working in a cabaret on the port of Nantes, her slender silhouette and her natural class. This film is the first part of a trilogy, continued with the Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and which ends with The Young Ladies of Rochefort (1967).
“A Man and a Woman” directed by Claude Lelouch, Palme d’Or at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival
In this drama, Anouk Aimée plays Anne Gauthier, a widow who falls in love with Jean-Louis Trintignant aka Jean-Louis Duroc. When the film was released, here is what was written Pilgrim: “It has been a long time since French cinema has offered us such a good mix of truth, life, tenderness and optimism. (…) Unusual in current production, this film is, above all, moving. It is to our hearts that Claude Lelouch speaks, without ever falling into melodrama. For this man and this woman, whose meeting he describes, the spectator feels, in fact, that everything is still possible. (…) Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, whom the filmmaker allowed to improvise, are simply wonderful. »
“La Petite Prairie aux birches” directed by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, 2003
Anouk Aimée lends her voice and her body to the director Marceline Loridan-Ivens, survivor of Auschwitz, who returned to film a fiction inspired by her story in Birkenau (the name of the Auschwitz II extermination camp, the French translation of which gives its title to the film).
