Profile: Eva Green

ESSENCE OF EVA by Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Who is Eva Green?  Until 2004 (when she starred in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers”), no moviegoer knew the answer to that question.  Now, ten years later, we know a bit more, especially since she’s gained fame as a Bond girl in “Casino Royale” and a Spartan slayer in the current hit “300: Rise of an Empire” (she’s also the dame of title in Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s forthcoming “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”).

            Yet Ms. Green still remains elusive.  I’ve never known the tabloids to track her movements; and she hasn’t been in enough movies for us to understand her abilities as well as we comprehend those of perennial pros like Sandra Bullock and Maggie Smith.  The only thing that we can be sure of, it seems, is that she loves being onscreen and that she believes that acting is something to be relished, even caressed.

            You can see that in an early moment of “The Dreamers.”  It’s Paris, 1968, and Ms. Green’s character, the voracious film buff Isabelle, has chained herself to the gates of a movie theater (to protest the sacking of its beloved manager).  And in this first moment, she’s already unforgettable, looking utterly at ease with a cigarette dangling lazily from her lips.

            It’s a very sexy image, and it catches the eye of the film’s young hero, Matthew (Michael Pitt).  He wanders over; they begin to chat and here, you get a sense of Ms. Green’s blithe love of exaggeration.  “You’re awfully clean!” she exclaims upon seeing Matthew, tilting her head weirdly as if to accentuate her surprise.  And though another performer might have made this movement feel overdone, Ms. Green’s gusto is so genuine that she sweeps you up in it quite easily.

            But it’s not just what she does with her body; it’s her voice as well.  Or, I should say, the voice—that serpentine, husky tone that cuts through silence like an eager dagger.  “If shit could shit, it would smell like Jacques,” she says to Mr. Pitt, referring to one of her fellow filmgoers.  It’s a simple line, and yet Ms. Green delivers it so lustily that it sounds more like, “Ifshitcouldshit, itwouldsmelllikeJacques.”  And, by blending each word into the next, she makes this crude dialogue sound like the most wondrous poetry ever written for the screen.

            There are many beautifully wrenching moments after that scene, as there have been throughout Ms. Green’s career (the moment when she tearfully says, “I’m sorry, James” to Daniel Craig’s 007 belongs in the Bond movie hall of fame).  But I think that first scene from “The Dreamers” is what really shows what makes her so special—that just as we love watching her, she loves performing, twisting her way over words and verbally licking each line as if it were nothing less than the finest chocolate cake.