“Who hasn’t dreamed of coming into contact with her hard, extreme, delicate sensuality, those piercing eyes, like two blades of ice?” writes his film critic Valerio Capelli Corriere della Sera about Charlotte Rampling, the lady of European cinema.
For the past few days, the iconic English actress has been in Ischia, a guest of the film festival held every summer on the famous Italian island at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples.
Last Sunday, New Zealander Matthew Saville’s Juniper , in which he plays Ruth, an elderly wheelchair-bound woman whose son and grandson refer to each other as “old lady,” was screened in Rambling’s honor.
When asked which elements of the film she liked the most, the 78-year-old actress answered: “The possibility of redemption, the fragility, the sense of loss and the need to come to terms with life. In this case, I am an independent, tough woman who left her family in poor health. It’s beyond any family contract.”
To the Corriere critic’s remark that Ruth is also an alcoholic, Charlotte Rambling replied: “Creative people always depend on something. it’s a means of self-help.”
Valerio Cappelli also reminded him that Ischia is one of the favorite places of his favorite director Luchino Visconti. “That’s one of the reasons I accepted. Lucino has invited me several times to his villa in Ischia, but I have never been able to go. Yes, it might be something I regret. I was a young Englishman at the time of La Caduta degli Dei (1969). I didn’t know anything about him. It made me discover another cinema, beyond Hollywood and commercial films.
“In ’60s England, nothing was happening in the suburbs where I lived. I was born in 1946, the year after the war. When I was little, there were still ruins. And my family was not rich. We didn’t even have a TV at home. I left school early, at 16. I got basic knowledge. My father, a strict military man, enrolled me in secretarial school. But he trusted me, let me go as long as I respected the rules.”
‘Charlotte Rambling’s secretary?’ commented the Italian journalist. “I remember it as a pleasant moment. It’s useful to learn to type quickly with ten fingers.” answered the English actress.
As for its special beauty and passing time; “I don’t know how my face will change. Getting old isn’t fun, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” She said, and about the possibilities offered by plastic surgery, she explained how “I could not act with an expression that is not mine. I’ve earned the privilege of being myself, I’ve accepted how I look as a grown woman.”.
Valerio Cappelli also remembered that at the age of 65, Charlotte Rampling was photographed naked in the halls of the Louvre. “There are many other naked women in that museum, I was in good company, I felt privileged. I’ve never had a problem with looking naked, I work with the body, different forms of life come from that.” the actress said.
She also revealed that her favorite part of her body is her legs. “As beautiful as my father’s feet. Everyone thinks about my eyes. But this is your image, I only see my eyes in the mirror. But I can see my legs.”
As for the actress’ infamous lifestyle with publicist (and her husband from 1972-1976) Brian Southcombe and model Randall Lawrence, Charlotte Rambling was pleased to note that: “There was a misunderstanding, it was not a menage-a-trois, as it is widely understood. It was about the free love of three people in the free years of the 1970s.
After finishing the conversation with the Italian journalist, the actress revealed who, in her opinion, could be her successor on the big screen. “Maybe Marion Cotillard”.