The Phenomenal Emmanuelle Béart Entertainment Emmanuelle Béart rose to celebrity with Manon of the Spring (1986), a tale of villainy and poisoned emotions among the rustics of a French village. She received a César, France's Oscar, as best-supporting actress for the part. Later, she triumphed at the Cannes Festival, winning the grand prize for her role in La Belle Noiseuse (1991), a story of an aging painter and his nude model. Since then, she has consistently won leads in major French films. Béart, thirty four, has two children (a boy and girl), works as a cosmetics model for Christian Dior, plays the stage in Paris, and has been a jurist at Cannes and a representative for UNICEF. She graces the covers of fashion magazines, appears in two or three films a year on average, and accepts stage roles. In short, she is ubiquitous. Like many current American stars, Béart grew up surrounded by fame. Her dad, Guy Béart, a star songwriter in France, helped her through her difficult growing years. After her parents separated, she lived in Southern France, traveled briefly to Quebec, and earned her baccalaureate, the French equivalent of an associate's degree. She quickly developed a film reputation by starring in minor roles on television and in movies. Her latest film, Sentimental Destinies, teams her up with Isabelle Huppert, an actress of comparable talent and rank. Another movie, called Elephant Juice, filmed in England, awaits release. Béart, like Juliette Binoche, Anne Parillaud, Julie Delpy, and Isabelle Adjani, belongs to a pan-European set, as comfortable on an American film stage as that of another country. She speaks English with an American accent. Béart has only been lightly fazed by her star persona. Usually, she behaves quite properly -- but in 1996, she had herself arrested in solidarity with three hundred illegal African immigrants holed up in protest at a church in Paris. The newspapers noted that if she had been looking for free publicity, she might have picked a less inflammatory cause. Béart says she received phone threats and hate mail. She has also been prey to the tabloids, who despite her pleas for moderate privacy, hound her mercilessly, wanting to know what she's doing, how she makes love, and other gossipy tidbits. She doesn't balk at the attention, but sleazy reporters following her night and day aren't her cup of tea. The best way to really know her, she hints, is to critically view her movies, and -- she hopes -- appreciate them. Béart's fairy princess looks, pouty lips, and heart-shaped face conspire to cast her in the invisible roles of very beautiful women. But she manages to break through the gilded cage. She uses her perfect complexion, her cinnamon smile, and her sweet childlike looks to pierce social masks. She makes being average -- or bourgeois -- a thing of substance and sensibility. Two roles exemplify this Béart mystique. Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud (1995) depicts a near-miss love affair between an aging businessman and his will-of-the-wisp secretary. The secretary discovers too late that she has fallen in love with her employer; while he quietly suffers the pangs of swan-song love. Béart brings a depth to Nelly, uncommon for so simple a role. In A Heart in Winter (1992), she plays a naive concert violinist who falls in love with an empty husk of a man, a love object whose vibrant musical soul has no center. Her horror at discovering her lover's emptiness raises a subterranean cry akin to the pain and horror in Greek tragedy. The tragedy remains at all times ironically framed by the tepid mores of contemporary Parisian society. Béart's capacity to convey multiple levels of sensibility may not be something Americans fully appreciate. American films often portray life as larger than life. Only young or rebellious American film-makers find the unpredictability and depth of plain life a subject of film study. This might explain why American audiences don't flock to her films. In fairness to American biases, French films often tend to solipsism -- to lose themselves in navel-gazing. Sometimes they are overly-orchestrated, sometimes just pointless. For U.S. film-goers who don't have the patience to sit through hours of subtitles, Béart has successfully made the transition to American movies. Her role in Brian de Palma's Mission Impossible (1996) is disappointing, but doesn't blemish her career. (Someone forgot to hire a competent screenwriter.) The star-studded flop at least gave Béart an introduction to the English-speaking. Most likely, with Emmanuelle, the best is yet to come. Nothing seems to stop her, neither encroaching middle years, nor children, nor the tabloids' relentless pursuit. In the words of Shakespeare, "There's destiny in the flight of a sparrow," in someone who keeps her own counsel and paces her success. Surely, we can anticipate more Bé-artistry. June 8, 1999