Charlotte Rampling: Still Captivating Audiences

Charlotte Rampling didn’t want a film made about her.

“It was difficult to imagine doing a film without it being ego-based,” she said at the screening of Charlotte Rampling: The Look. “It’s sort of a miracle that we’re all here today.”

But slowly, over three and a half years with director Angelina Maccarone, the film was made. Told in chapters–Exposure, Love, Resonance, Death–through Rampling in conversation with friends and artistic partners, the film does not just chronicle Rampling’s career or her life, but as she said, “the way I think, the way I think about things.”

“I didn’t want to show myself, an actor doesn’t show himself, [but] I am what I am in this film, there is no other character but me. And that is quite a difficult enterprise. It’s one of the most difficult things to do as a human.”

In the end, she required the producer to give her the final say prior to the movie’s release.

“I had to have the power to burn it or get rid of it if I don’t like who I am when I see the film,” she said.

Fortunately for audiences, Rampling approved.

“It was me,” she said.