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She says that the first time she was nominated for an Oscar she was not sure where exactly Vietnam was. On Friday, in Cannes, before a crowded and enthusiastic Buñuel room, he made it clear, and he did it loudly, that he already knows it. And she knows it with the conviction of an activist who woke up to the cause against war (that and many others) as the one that awakens to life itself. "Activism has given meaning to my existence," she said gravely, amused and enthusiastic.

Jane Fonda, 85 years perfect, alternated French ("I've been a day I haven't quite gotten used to it") with English, lamented the lack of hearing aid ("I forgot. Speak up") and did not hesitate to advise anyone who would listen that it is time to stop the world: "Revolution, like an actor's own work, is very vulnerable."

He first reviewed his career. He did it in great strides and interspersed with the phrase "that is too far away" every time he saw himself in front of a memorable oblivion. His earliest memories stopped at one of the first films that placed him in the sky. From Cat Ballou he recalled Lee Marvin's endless drunkenness and how much Lee Marvin drank. In that order. But not only. "That film also helped me to open my eyes to the world of work. It was a small production in which we spent 14 hours a day. Marvin and I decided we couldn't go on like this. But not for us, but for the whole team. That we agreed to work during that time, forced others to spend even more hours."

Of her successive works and all of them emblematic, if not mythical, with Robert Redford, Fonda stopped at the obvious: "I was in love with him. But it wasn't easy. He is one of those men who are always angry while working. In any case, he's a great guy who created Sundance." About the recent controversy with René Clement, with whom he filmed Los felines, and of which he declared nothing ago that he asked him to sleep with her to see how she had orgasms, no word. He preferred to pay his respects to Alain Delon, his partner in the film, and to whom he dedicated a phrase for applause: "The most beautiful human being I have ever known."

When Barbarella's time came, Fonda didn't even pay attention to the questions anymore. Or not at all. "That movie is more weird than sexy," she said. He added: "What I remember best is that for the nude scene, I had to drink a lot of vodka to calm me down and cheer me up. When the shots were seen, they were wrong and had to be repeated. That scene that I really like so much is a long shot of an actress with a huge hangover."

And so on to Alan J. Pakula's Klute, which changed everything. Klute was not only his first Oscar but the film that made him, first cut his hair, and then, surrender to the passion of his life, of his committed life. "To prepare for the role of prostitute, I spent a week living with them. I realized that all of them dragged a biography of child abuse. In the last scene I had to cry, I wasn't crying out of fear as the script is supposed to say, but of thinking about the lives of those women." And once here, there was no turning back: "At that moment, I became a feminist from head to toe."

Knowing the experience of Vietnamese soldiers returning home made her, again, different. Another woman in the consciousness of a woman who was already another. "Once you know certain things, you can't be the same person anymore." Much of all that change transformed into ideology is on the screen in The Return, the film by Hal Asby with photography by Haskell Wexler that earned him the second Oscar. "I wanted to stop being an actress to dedicate myself to organizing political movements. But I soon realized that I was different. At some demonstration I went to, I left my children in the care of a nanny, but the activists I met went with their children, because they had no one to leave them with. When a black woman activist found out she wanted to stop being an actress, she came to me and said, 'We are many organizers, but Hollywood stars only you. Your way of helping us is to make films that matter and can change things,'" she recalled with a pull and one would even say proud. By then I was very clear about where Vietnam was.

Jane Fonda encourages action. He says he has no plans next year, because his plan is the next U.S. presidential election. "The important thing is to be clear that all struggles are connected, that all struggles are the same. There is no feminism on the one hand and inequality on the other. To fight climate change is to fight racism and patriarchy. All struggles are the same struggle," he says. In Fonda's ideology is to break with what she calls confrontation: "The real change that activism has to make is to listen to those who do not think like him. You have to go out into the street, knock on the door and explain to people that public health and education benefits us all. And never just say no." And so on.

The actress (daughter of the acclaimed Henry Fonda and a journalist who committed suicide) maintains that women live five years longer than men because of their concept of friendship. "Men's friendship is competitive. Women, on the other hand, look into each other's eyes and are not afraid to ask each other for help. It's worse for a woman to have no friends than to smoke." He also says that he has seen in his travel life that people are happier if they have decent public health and education. He says that just before declaring that the best actor he has ever known is Gene Hackman and that Godard, with whom he shot Everything Goes Well, was a great director and a terrible person. And so on until declaring that she is not at all proud of the surgery that was done a long time ago. And one more. Her secret to staying fit: "Sleep 13 hours a day, walk, eat well and always stay curious about everything."

Jane Fonda is about to release two movies and a presidential election. And you know perfectly well that Vietnam is everywhere.

  • cinema
  • Films
  • Cannes Film Festival

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