For the French, Age Is Just a Number

When French screen legends Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant engage in a wild wrestling match that evolves into a naughty romantic tussle in their latest film, “8 Women,” it is hard to imagine a similar scene occurring in a Hollywood movie. As Anthony Lane wrote in the New Yorker, it would be like watching Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway make out--not bloody likely.

The French are not only less squeamish about sex, but they also actually enjoy seeing mature women as sexually alluring creatures. Fifty-eight-year-old Deneuve, 53-year-old Ardant and others over a certain age (74-year-old Jeanne Moreau, for one) continue to be sexy and bankable celebrities, at least according to a recently published book on French movie stars. “James Ulmer’s French Hot List” examines the “bankability”--the degree to which an actor’s name alone can raise financing upfront for a film--of France’s actors and comes up with some surprising results.

In France, seven of the top 15 bankable stars are women, by Ulmer’s calculations. All except 24-year-old Audrey Tautou are older than 35.

Contrast that with the American list of top 15 stars, which includes only two women--Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman. Kidman is 35, and Roberts turns 35 next month. “In America, you get older faster. It’s like Dorian Gray--you are old at 40,” said Ulmer, who published the “Hollywood Hot List” in 1997. “The French give women the opportunity to age gracefully and to be feminine. French film allows them to be sexual and sensual in a way we don’t. We don’t allow women to be sexual after 40, and you see that in the way movies are cast. Movies are a reflection of the culture.”

Isabelle Adjani, 47, is ranked 15th on the list and continues to be thought of as one of France’s most beautiful women. Same for 38-year-old Juliette Binoche (No. 3). She will be seen in “The Children of the Century,” opening Friday, as novelist George Sand (nee Baroness Dudevant), who engages in a torrid love affair with a man six years her junior. Some stars, like Moreau, have consistently refused to play parts that depict aging women “getting drunk and suicidal.” To Moreau, age is a meaningless figure.

“Life doesn’t end at 30,” she has been quoted as saying. “To me, age is a number, just a number. Who cares?”

In a country that fiercely promotes and protects film as part of its culture, French actors have never been gauged by something as coarse as their box-office clout.

Indeed, many of the producers, sales agents, film buyers and sellers and heads of entertainment companies in France refused to participate in the survey, said Francois Taborelli, who conducted the interviews in France. Those who declined said either that they were too busy or that they opposed such a ranking system.

“They were reluctant in giving grades to actors,” Taborelli said. “In Europe, the movies are considered more an art form than an industry.”

But France’s film industry is changing. The nation has one of the most prolific movie-making industries in the world, with more than 400 films produced in the country last year. In 2001, French films grabbed a 46% market share at home, compared with 49% for Hollywood movies (the other 5% was brought in by non-Hollywood and non-French product). In past years, it was more common for Hollywood films to corner more than 80% of the box office, dominating nearly every theater and leaving little room for French films. In 2001, French films took in more than $38 million at the box office, an increase of nearly 500% from 2000, according to Unifrance USA, the French film office liaison based in New York.

But along with increases in production and box-office success come other pressures. French producers, who can be just as reliant on foreign partners as U.S. producers, now must consider how their films will sell outside their home market. So, they must cast stars who have audience appeal not only in France but also abroad. In addition, the French film industry is heavily subsidized by its government, something that appears likely to change. Less government money means producers will have to rely more on private financing.

This added economic pressure could begin to transform the French film industry into something more closely resembling the Hollywood model, where private financing and return on investment are key elements in determining which films will be made and who will be cast.

Many French directors and producers already have abandoned the notion of looking at film purely as art and are considering it more as a commercial venture, Taborelli said.

“Producers [in France] have the same problem as American producers--they have to sell a movie,” Taborelli said. “Even if they don’t want to say it openly, that is what they face.... But talking about who is who in the industry and the salary of the stars is not as taboo as it used to be. We are slowly coming to more of an American system.”

Interestingly, many Americans appear to be fed up with Hollywood’s obsession with youth and grosses. This summer, audiences seemed to tire of blockbusters, with such highly hyped movies as “XXX” and “Men in Black II” opening big and dropping significantly in subsequent weeks. Many small- and medium-budget adult-oriented films performed well, such as the Inuit-language film “The Fast Runner,” which took in more than $3 million, and “One Hour Photo,” which has grossed $14.5 million in almost a month. With $124 million since May, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is still going strong. Over the last month, there have been congressional hearings, protests and state legislation to combat Hollywood’s perceived ageism. Earlier this month, Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill written by state Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) to help “educate the entertainment industry about the lucrative and untapped market of consumers over 40.”

Although Hollywood’s target audience continues to be teenage boys, recent demographic statistics suggest that the fastest-growing sector of the moviegoing audience is people older than 50. In 1990, young adults ages 16 to 20 made up 20% of the audience. In 2000, that number shrank to 17%, while the percentage of moviegoers ages 50 to 59 doubled to 10%.

This year, audiences will see more older women at the movies, with Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn in “The Banger Sisters,” Michelle Pfeiffer in “White Oleander” and Patricia Clarkson in “Welcome to Collinwood” and “Far From Heaven.” But none of those roles shows the women as sexually desirable--with the possible exception of Hawn’s somewhat pathetic aging groupie character.

Raising money and then actually getting a studio interested in “The Banger Sisters” was excruciating, producer Mark Johnson said. “It was very difficult to find a home for a movie about two middle-aged women,” he said. “It’s not the stuff of what the studios want.” The movie was finally made for $10 million, and Sarandon and Hawn were paid $500,000 each.

Plum roles for women older than 40 are so rare that when a meaty one does come along, there is a crush of talent knocking down the door. Director Nancy Meyers, who revived Diane Keaton’s career with her and her former partner Charles Shyer’s “Baby Boom” and hit it big two years ago with “What Women Want,” is working on a movie with an unlikely premise--a 50-year-old man (played by Jack Nicholson) dumps his twentysomething girlfriend for her mother (Keaton). Meyers said she was inundated with calls from agents pitching their clients for the role that eventually went to Keaton.

“The baby boom generation is getting older and is going to embrace seeing characters who are like them and are sexual and vibrant,” she said. Hollywood’s current notion of an older woman-younger man love affair is casting “Jennifer Aniston as the older woman,” said Meyers, referring to Aniston’s current film, “The Good Girl,” in which she has an affair with a young store clerk.

“Women my age want to see themselves reflected on the screen,” she said. “I know that life for us remains interesting.”

Lorenza Munoz is a Times staff writer.