Catherine Deneuve "detests" selfies

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easyrider

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easyrider said:
“It’s wonderful to be able to take photographs, but I detest selfies ... taking photographs of yourself all the time, showing off on FaceTime ... it makes everything banal. It’s terrible, this notion that we’re always in the process of looking at ourselves doing something and not living.” (Catherine Deneuve in an interview with the Guardian)

http://www.theguardian.com/film/201...cannes-film-festival-selfies?CMP=share_btn_fb
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I can't say that I disagree with her - self-absorption and narcissism have reached epidemic levels in what passes for western culture - and it has become beyond obnoxious.
 
noisycheese said:
I can't say that I disagree with her - self-absorption and narcissism have reached epidemic levels in what passes for western culture - and it has become beyond obnoxious.
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YES. It's sickening.
I went rollerskating a month ago. Saw a guy video-selfieing as he skated. Holding the cameraphone at arms length, at various angles, as he was going around and around the rink. He seriously kept this up for four or five consecutive laps, as he mugged for himself. I can't imagine the thought process. How could he have had zero shame or embarrassment? People who like themselves so much are detestable! The 'millennials' are a different breed. I don't like them, said the crotchety old man of 47....
 
Selfies don't bother me since I am not on Facebook or any other social media, except a few photograph sites. If people like it and it makes them happy, then go for it.

I did enjoy her quote in the article, “I find the mobile telephone very useful, but I turn if off when necessary. I don’t dine with my mobile with me,” and I also practice it to some degree when out dining, I turn mine off but it is still with me. A phone appears as a permanent appendage, never leaving their hand, on many individuals. Walking, sitting, standing, eating, attending meetings, glancing and reading while in conversation with others. Like multi-tasking is a desired trait 24 by 7.

Hope she has many more films in her career!
 
helenhill said:
She has not aged Gracefully as other People in her similar age / 70's...
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Are you serious, Helen ?

I met her by chance some years ago in the street. I can vouch that there are lots of women her age out there who would sign a blank check to age as "not gracefully" as she's doing...

😉

As for selfies... a teenagers' (or teenage minded adults') street attitude trend like many others we've got already. I guess something else will come soon, which will send selfies to the attic.
 
helenhill said:
well kind of... I am not so heavy serious in what i wrote more find it strange

I saw her at an event a number of years ago at the Metropolitan
Very Puffy swollen limbs and face ... not air brushed Magazine material we see on Covers and inside Stories

I just find it rather amusing, She can put down 'selfies'
but here is a woman who has her Portrait/ 'self' portrait on every major publication for the last 50 something years...
mega advertising campaigns of her face for Chanel #5
and finds 'selfies' and people that take them banal
A bit over critica of her ... I mean people have had to look at her for decades and she certainly prospered not only from movies but from photographs of 'her', a selfie on some level if you know what I mean
Let People have their Fun .... 😀


To me 'selfies' are no big deal... I rarely see them and if I do I may giggle or change the viewing, thats all
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She's been - and still is - a great actress.

Moreover, she's a clever and free woman, who never let it down when it came to women's causes, in general.

About her love for Botox : that's her own business with her own flesh... and has nothing to do with selfies. Let's not confuse everything. Aesthetics surgery is a deluxe stuff, selfies are pure junk. 😛

Now we could discuss the resp. merits of her vs. some American "stars" (earning fifty+ times what she does), talent and intelligence wise... that could be really fun... 😀
 
Steve Bellayr said:
I, too, detest selfies. Catherine Deneuve in that photo is 71. Not too shabby.
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How can we really detest selfies when in our culture the self-portrait in a mirror with a film camera is (or used to be) in vogue?

I hope I can look that good at 71. Not to admit my true age but I'm now less than 10 years behind her. 🙁
 
Had she been born about 50 years later, I don't have any doubt in my mind she would be taking selfies like the rest of society.

Live and let live people..
 
Huss said:
Catherine Deneuve must not like Vivian Maier then.
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A photographer/artist/writer shooting/painting/sculpting/writing a self portrait is not to be confused with the other.

Her other point was that too many people are famous for being famous without having accomplished anything. Many younger people of substance agree with her on both points.
 
NY_Dan said:
A photographer/artist/writer shooting/painting/sculpting/writing a self portrait is not to be confused with the other.
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Ms Maier took hundreds of selfies. The term just did not exist back then.

So.. because an 'artist' does it, it is ok? But if a civilian does it, it's abhorrent?

p.s. I think Vivian Maier's work rocks. And I liked Deneuve's performance in "The Hunger"...

😉
 
When I learned to draw, I was the cheapest model around, so I spent quite some time with a mirror next to the easel. I got used to looking at myself. An exercise.

Not quite narcissistic enough to envisage filming myself while being interesting.

And I am still in love with Madame Deneuve.

And my mom looks better yet.
 
To me selfies and self portraits are completely different while the former generally consist of bombarding social media with daily barrage of crappy poorly lit and composed crap-shots, the later can be works of art that equal any photographs for which the photographer and subject are separate individuals.

Personally I really like the work of Austrian photographer Flora P as I find both the reportage and self-nudes she shots to be both creative and of high quality think she has a good eye for composition color and lighting.
http://www.florap.com/ Some section NSFW(nudity)
 
dmr said:
How can we really detest selfies when in our culture the self-portrait in a mirror with a film camera is (or used to be) in vogue?

I hope I can look that good at 71. Not to admit my true age but I'm now less than 10 years behind her. 🙁
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Pretty much end of thread right here!
 
Huss said:
Ms Maier took hundreds of selfies. The term just did not exist back then.

😉
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No, she didn't, and it's not just that the term did not exist back then, it's that the narcissistic self absorption which defines what we now know as the "selfie" did not exist back then, at least for most people.
The thing that Deneuve is lamenting is the ATTITUDE which drives what we know as "selfies". It is not the pictures themselves. A self portrait is quite distinct from a magazine portrait, which, in turn, is quite distinct from a "selfie".
The fact that Vivian Maier took photographs of herself in no way means those were what we now know as "selfies". It is the attitude which Deneuve is talking about, not the image itself, and the attitude of the selfie addict is 180 degrees opposed to the attitude Vivian Maier had when she worked out her self portraits. The thing we know as a selfie is something which generally goes immediately on Facebook, spammed to a hundred 'friends' , or sent from a phone to everyone on its contact list, and cries "look at me eating lunch", or "look at me standing next to this alcoholic bit player from some stupid movie" "just please, please look at me just once more today, validate me. I will send you a photo of me and my lunch tomorrow, too".
Vivian Maier took photographs, apparently, because she enjoyed the process, the mental challenge. She did not even show them to anyone, most of them she did not even develop. Not "selfies", then.
The personality differences between the kind of person who continually sprays "selfies" at every helpless acquaintance, and the kind of person, like Vivian Maier who takes a lot of self portraits for completely different reasons, that is what Deneuve is talking about.
And if someone is lucky enough to be as beautiful as Catherine Deneuve once was, people will be begging to photograph them for magazine covers, so that is a completely different situation as well.
Yes, whether it is the obnoxious, ubiquitous "selfie", or a magazine cover, or a carefully considered photographic self portrait, all three of those consist of an image of a person, but they are very different things.
And, yes, we all can "enjoy" doing stupid things, but that doesn't make them any less stupid. Deneuve was just pointing that out.
I recently re-watched the remastered "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", so that might account for my willingness to cut her a lot of slack.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
No, she didn't, and it's not just that the term did not exist back then, it's that the narcissistic self absorption which defines what we now know as the "selfie" did not exist back then, at least for most people.
The thing that Deneuve is lamenting is the ATTITUDE which drives what we know as "selfies". It is not the pictures themselves. A self portrait is quite distinct from a magazine portrait, which, in turn, is quite distinct from a "selfie".
The fact that Vivian Maier took photographs of herself in no way means those were what we now know as "selfies". It is the attitude which Deneuve is talking about, not the image itself, and the attitude of the selfie addict is 180 degrees opposed to the attitude Vivian Maier had when she worked out her self portraits. The thing we know as a selfie is something which generally goes immediately on Facebook, spammed to a hundred 'friends' , or sent from a phone to everyone on its contact list, and cries "look at me eating lunch", or "look at me standing next to this alcoholic bit player from some stupid movie" "just please, please look at me just once more today, validate me. I will send you a photo of me and my lunch tomorrow, too".
Vivian Maier took photographs, apparently, because she enjoyed the process, the mental challenge. She did not even show them to anyone, most of them she did not even develop. Not "selfies", then.
The personality differences between the kind of person who continually sprays "selfies" at every helpless acquaintance, and the kind of person, like Vivian Maier who takes a lot of self portraits for completely different reasons, that is what Deneuve is talking about.
And if someone is lucky enough to be as beautiful as Catherine Deneuve once was, people will be begging to photograph them for magazine covers, so that is a completely different situation as well.
Yes, whether it is the obnoxious, ubiquitous "selfie", or a magazine cover, or a carefully considered photographic self portrait, all three of those consist of an image of a person, but they are very different things.
And, yes, we all can "enjoy" doing stupid things, but that doesn't make them any less stupid. Deneuve was just pointing that out.
I recently re-watched the remastered "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", so that might account for my willingness to cut her a lot of slack.
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our generation needs to 'chill out' a little and accept that we have had our time. Let the younger generation have theirs. Is it such a big deal?
Yep, times and attitudes change.
 
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