Geneviève Bujold | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Geneviève Bujold

Her first important Canadian role was in Michel BRAULT's Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1967), and she also starred in Kamouraska (1973) by Claude JUTRA.

Geneviève Bujold

 Geneviève Bujold, actress (b at Montréal, Qué 1 July 1942). Since 1965, when she appeared in Alain Resnais's La Guerre est finie, Bujold has had an international career, starring in Philippe de Broca's cult classic Le Roi de coeur(trKing of Hearts; 1966), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Earthquake (1974) and Murder by Decree (1978).

Her first important Canadian role was in Michel BRAULT's Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1967), and she also starred in Kamouraska (1973) by Claude JUTRA. However, it is on 4 of Paul ALMOND's films - Isabel (1968), Act of the Heart (1970), Journey (1972) and Final Assignment (1980) - that her personality and presence are imprinted. Her most remarkable successes have been in roles in which her vulnerable feminine appearance is contrasted with powerful passions and impulses. In 1991 she appeared in another of Almond's films, The Dance Goes On.

From the mid-1970s, Bujold has pursued her career in the US, often under the direction of Alan Rudolph (Choose Me, 1984; Trouble in Mind, 1985; and The Moderns, 1988). She has played leading roles in Monsignor (1981), Tightrope (1984), Red Earth, White Earth (1989, TV), False Identity (1990), Rue du Bac (1991), An Ambush of Ghosts (1993), The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996) and The House of Yes (1997), You Can Thank Me Later (1998) and Eye of the Beholder (1999). If these films demonstrate the regularity of her work, they are not the occasion for Bujold's exceptional performances within the context of her career. She still appears in Canadian films, such as Oh, What a Night (Eric Till, 1992) and David CRONENBERG's masterpiece Dead Ringers (1988), in which she plays a disturbed but compelling character, displaying her immense talent in one of her greatest roles. In 1998 she reconnected with Cronenberg when they both played roles in Don McKellar's Last Night, one of the best Canadian films of that year.

After an absence of 15 years, she returned to make French-language films in Québec, working for her old friend Michel Brault, who had initiated her career in 1964. She has appeared in 3 of his recent films: Les Noces de papier (1989), Mon amie Max (1994), and in the fictional part of the television production L'Emprise (1988). Her performances excel in embodying self-awareness, anxiety and passion. She is indisputably the greatest Québec actress of international standing.