¡°Americans can be strange about aging,¡± said French actress Jeanne Moreau, in a brief interview she gave me back in 2005. She was then at the tail end of her 70s and had just co-starred with French heartthrob Melvil Poupaud in ¡°Le Temps Qui Reste,¡± as his sympathetic but alluring grandmother. As the interview went on, the whole room went quiet and the other women stopped what they were doing to listen to Moreau.
¡°Americans think aging is something to be pitied, or ignored,¡± she continued. ¡°The French know that the good things in life get better with age!¡±
Moreau, now 86 ¡ª still playing the femme fatale ¡ª must be feeling some competition from the very country she once accused of strangeness. Surely she got a kick out of Cate Blanchett¡¯s recent Oscar-acceptance speech (for best actress in Woody Allen¡¯s ¡°Blue Jasmine¡°), in which Blanchett challenged ¡°those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the center, are niche experiences.¡± She continued: ¡°They are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money.¡±
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