Mea culpa. The truly exceptional actress Hermine Karagheuz passed away a month ago without a mention on this website. We didn’t write a memorial for her as we did for Monte Hellman and Willy Kurant, who both left us around the same time. Regretting not having commemorated Hermine Karagheuz with words or images at that time, we’ve selected three films from 1976 to remember her by this week.
Karagheuz was born into an artistic family of Armenian exiles in a suburb of Paris. In Jacques Baratier’s portrait of the cultural scene of St-Germain-des-Prés, Le désordre à vingt ans (1967), she re-enacted her arrival in the capital, selling her poems at outdoor cafes. The same year, she starred next to Georges Rouquier (Farrebique, 1948), who played a shephard that tries to take her home to her mother in the exceptional television project Pitchi Poï ou la parole donnée.
Within the many mystery films she appeared in – not in the least the four she made with Jacques Rivette – Karagheuz always had a mystery all of her own. We chose Duelle (une quarantaine) where she plays an amateur detective wearing an iconic red baseball jacket paired with a red dress and has “a face, and some gestures, straight from the silent period,” as Andy Rector put it. In the film, she’s also the sister of dancer and choreographer Jean Babilée, one of her real-life lovers, with whom she once disappeared to India. Duelle is co-written by Eduardo de Gregorio, who would later cast Karagheuz and Rivette as husband and wife in his own La mémoire courte (1979). The year after that, Karagheuz even added filmmaker Robert Kramer to her list of on-screen lovers in his film Guns. This major work isn’t available through video-on-demand yet, but the film’s restoration and a DVD by Re:voir have been launched last week with a screening in Paris in memory of Karagheuz.
In Mr. Klein, another quest through parallel worlds with mistaken identities and Rivettian actors Juliet Berto and Michael Lonsdale. Contrary to Duelle, here Karagheuz is the one who’s sought, in this case by Alain Delon who’s looking for the mysterious factory girl in a photograph. Mr. Klein is Joseph Losey’s long-unseen and recently restored first film in France.
In Mon coeur est rouge by the under-recognized post-Nouvelle Vague filmmaker Michèle Rosier, Karagheuz plays the injured motorcyclist, Blanche, who’s introduced by a close-up through her opened visor. Françoise Lebrun takes her to a hospital where a nurse likens her to “a knight from a book”. Also part of that film is the composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Ghedalia Tazartès (1947-2021), a kindred spirit with who Karagheuz would go on to set up musical performances.
“Her big bright eyes are still watching us, with all their demand, their confidence but also their mischief and gravity.”
– Christien Friedel, theatre critic1
"Like so many, I was soon to discover and love her affectionate feline gaze, her movements as flight responses, her voice inked with shadow and gloom. […] But how could this partial inventory even attempt to restore her presence, her voice, her gaze?”
– Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, writer and long-time Libération journalist2
“She is the final shot of Out 1 and therefore will exist for eternity. All of cinema in a glance.”
– Craig Keller, filmmaker and critic3
Karagheuz’s book on her partner, the acclaimed theatre director Roger Blin, Un dette d’amour (2002), will be re-issued in a new edition by Ypsilon on June 4. Her friend Pancôme Thiellement notes that Karagheuz has left an almost finished novel, several theatre pieces, poems and a diary, all of which will one day be published.
Duelle (une quarantaine) (Jacques Rivette, 1976) is available on MUBI, Google Play, YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Mr. Klein (Joseph Losey, 1976) is available on The Criterion Channel, Netflix, LaCinetek and UniversCiné.
Mon coeur est rouge (Michèle Rosier, 1976) is available on the filmmaker’s Vimeo channel (Here you can download English subtitles made by Claudia Eve Beauchesne for the online screening by Spectacle Theater in 2020).
- 1Christien Friedel, “Adieu Hermine Karagheuz,” Théâtre du blog (May 7, 2021).
- 2Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, “Vies et mort d’Hermine Karagheuz,” Balagan (Mediapart) (May 6, 2021).
- 3Craig Keller, “In Memoriam: Monte Hellman, Hermine Karagheuz, Willy Kurant,” Cinemasparagus (May 4, 2021).
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