Laura Barton meets Deneuve

Awful interview with the great actress Catherine Deneuve by the workhorse Laura Barton in the Guardian (16 January). A biography of Deneuve has alleged that her father, the actor Maurice Dorléac, was a collaborator with the Germans between 1940 and 1944. Barton quotes Deneuve as saying: “I’m going to sue the editor of the book”. Now, why would you want to do that? Editors knock manuscripts into shape. What Deneuve meant was that she was going to sue the publisher of the book – but the French for publisher is éditeur. Barton failed to spot this mistake in Deneuve’s usually good English.

What did Barton think Deneuve meant as she typed up her interview? Didn’t any alarm bells ring? How can you be so dim, Laura?

Equally ignorant was the Showbiz page of the Daily Express, who picked up the Barton effort from the first edition, and ran a story headed “Deneuve to Sue Book Editor”. It was the same ignorance of French. (The quotes were the same – unacknowledged).

Laura Barton is a hopeless interviewer anyway. Deneuve’s new film A Christmas Tale has the death of a child. So Barton– brilliant move! – asks Deneuve (who plays the mother) if it might have something to do with the death of her own sister, Françoise Dorléac, in a car crash in 1967, when she was aged 25. Deneuve is reduced to patiently explaining that the death of a fictional child is not the same as the death of a real person of 25. “She says it quickly, but not crossly”, Barton writes. So she knew very well it was a silly question – in which case, why ask it?

Later in the interview Deneuve mentions her decision not to play in a sequel to her most famous film, Belle de Jour. Barton quotes the actress:
“But I haven’t seen the film yet. Did you see it?” She says it warmly, as if asking after an old friend. “How is it?”
There is no answer, and we can guess why. Barton’s research didn’t run to watching the sequel to a famous film.

Barton is a lazy interviewer who doesn’t do her research. She falls back on dud questions. She doesn’t seem to know much about the allegations against Maurice Dorléac – but what would have been the value of her discussion of the pressures on people to collaborate?

Laura – you have access. Use it properly, and try to think a bit before you get in there with a great actress.