{"id":399111,"date":"2026-04-15T04:22:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T04:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399111\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T04:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T04:22:26","slug":"angelina-jolie-was-a-punk-when-she-was-younger-she-still-has-that-spirit-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399111\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Angelina Jolie was a punk when she was younger. She still has that spirit\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alice Winocour<\/a> has long been a fan of Angelina Jolie<\/a>, the star of Couture, the French director\u2019s upcoming fashion-themed movie. But working together inspired Winocour to double down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really connect with her rebellious side,\u201d she says. \u201cShe was a punk when she was younger, and I think she still has that spirit. It was very moving to work with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never mind the Dune or Avatar fims: if you want top-class world-building check out Winocour\u2019s work. In 2019 the film-maker collaborated with the European Space Agency to make Proxima<\/a>, starring Eva Green as an astronaut preparing for a year-long space mission while navigating life with her young daughter. The epic film was shot in painstaking detail at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Star City near Moscow, and Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n

Winocour\u2019s immersion in the fashion world was equally scholarly. For two years she interviewed everyone from beauty professionals to model bookers. Chanel<\/a> partnered with her during the scriptwriting phase of Couture, giving her access to its Paris<\/a> salons and workshops. She filmed key scenes on site and used the house\u2019s collections for a pivotal fashion-show sequence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite unconscious, but I think the more personal the story is, the more I need to set it in a world that is far from me,\u201d the film-maker says. \u201cIn Proxima I was talking about my daughter and separation, so it had to be set in space. For the new film, the themes \u2013 illness, the body \u2013 are very intimate, so I needed a world that felt distant. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to discover something new, to meet people, to understand that world, and give a different point of view. Fashion attracted me because it\u2019s both glamorous and tragic. It\u2019s about the ephemeral \u2013 always chasing the next collection, the next show. Months of work for something that lasts only minutes. For me it\u2019s a metaphor for life. It goes very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Couture stars Jolie as an American film-maker who learns during Paris Fashion Week that she has breast cancer. The intriguing collision of glamour and health issues was inspired by Winocour emerging from a Parisian hospital and finding herself in the chaos of haute couture\u2019s most dazzling event. <\/p>\n

The contrast between physical vulnerability and a highly controlled, appearance-driven environment left a deep impression.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote the film at a moment when I really wanted to celebrate life,\u201d Winocour says. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a joyful film, but I wanted to show these women\u2019s lives and bring some hope, to say to other women, \u2018You\u2019re not alone.\u2019 <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Alice Winocour on Proxima: \u2018Our film says you can be both: a good mother and a good astronaut\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the characters are fragments of the same person. Some people say they relate more to one character than another, but, for me, all of the characters in the film are all the same woman at different ages \u2013 20s, 30s, 40s \u2013 all dealing with the question of the female body. Behind the perfect images, what is the reality of the body? <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was very important to me. The fragility of existence but also its beauty, and how beauty and death can exist together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The writer-director\u2019s own experiences with illness were stitched, as Winocour puts it, to Jolie\u2019s own history. In 2013 the actor had a preventive double mastectomy after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, which put her at an estimated 87 per cent risk of developing the disease. <\/p>\n

Jolie, whose mother, grandmother and aunt died from breast cancer, shared her decision in a New York Times article headlined My Medical Choice<\/a>, encouraging others to take proactive steps in managing their health. <\/p>\n

In 2015 she had her ovaries and Fallopian tubes removed. <\/p>\n

Last year the open-access journal OncoDaily reported the ongoing bounce of the \u201cAngelina Jolie effect\u201d<\/a>, \u201ca measurable, sustained increase in genetic testing, cancer screening, and awareness worldwide\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Couture\u2019s European premiere, in San Sebasti\u00e1n, Jolie reiterated the importance of preventive actions. \u201cThose are my choices,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t say everybody should do it that way, but it\u2019s important to have the choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Breast cancer: \u2018We should have copped that the news was bad\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

For Winocour, Jolie \u2013 who learned French to play the role \u2013 was the only casting choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to write female portraits and to look behind the perfect image of women,\u201d the director says. \u201cIn Proxima the astronaut was also a mother \u2013 a kind of superhero. Here, with Angelina Jolie, there\u2019s also that superhero side: she\u2019s almost like a Tomb Raider figure in real life. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to explore who the real Angelina is behind that image. Her learning French showed a kind of vulnerability. Trust was essential. We had a mutual understanding from the beginning, but also a deeper connection. We share certain experiences and a similar way of seeing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolie\u2019s heroine arrives in Paris to shoot a short film that will accompany a big fashion show (Chanel, but unnamed here). Jostling work, phone calls and medical appointments, she receives the devastating news of a breast-cancer diagnosis requiring urgent intervention. <\/p>\n

\"Couture:Couture: Angelina Jolie and Louis Garrel in Alice Winocour’s film. Photograph: Carole Bethuel <\/p>\n

Life goes on. She makes a pass at her (very interested) cinematographer, played by Louis Garrel<\/a>; she tries to call her teenage daughter and ducks out of the shoot for surgery. Around her is a swirl of feminine energies: Ada, a young model from Sudan starting her first season; a seamstress deftly finishing intricate details on the garments; a make-up artist balancing work with personal writing projects. <\/p>\n

The ensemble allows the film to track the rhythms of the fashion world, from fittings, rehearsals and backstage preparations to the final runway extravaganza.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to show the hard side of fashion,\u201d Winocour says. \u201cWe see the physical toll: the sore feet, the exhaustion. This world is shown from the point of view of outsiders. The main character is not really from that world. She\u2019s a director entering it for financial reasons. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not a glamorous portrait. But the film isn\u2019t just about fashion. It\u2019s about the world we live in, a world of appearances where you have to hide your wounds and present a perfect image. I was interested in what\u2019s behind that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film is notably generous to its subjects. It allows empathy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese models are not superficial,\u201d Winocour says. \u201cThey are very strong women. Many have difficult backgrounds. They are far from the stereotype. I spent a year and a half meeting them. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was to show fragments of different women\u2019s lives: relationships with daughters, the struggle of life and this feeling of always being in survival mode. At one point I thought the film could even be called Ride or Die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winocour was already recognised as one of France\u2019s most intriguing talents before moving behind the camera. A graduate in screenwriting from La F\u00e9mis, France\u2019s top film and TV school, the co-writer of acclaimed films such as Mustang<\/a> and Ordinary People has swerved between war zones, history and sisterhood.<\/p>\n

\"EllaElla Rumpf and Anyier Anei in Couture. Photograph: Carole Bethuel <\/p>\n

Her directorial debut, Augustine, depicts an inappropriate relationship between the neurologist Jean\u2011Martin Charcot and his patient in a 19th-century Parisian hospital. Trauma underpins both the thriller Disorder<\/a> and Paris Memories<\/a>, in which victims of the Bataclan attacks attempt to rebuild their lives. <\/p>\n

The idea of connection through shared experience, a recurring theme of all these works, is made explicit in Couture.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharing trauma creates a very deep connection,\u201d Winocour says. \u201cThat\u2019s a form of love, to share something painful and be on the same wavelength. We include an intimate scene where scars are touched, and that was very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says that audiences often respond to the film by sharing their own experiences, particularly in relation to illness and the body.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I didn\u2019t want to talk about the personal origins of the film, but audiences bring their own experiences to it,\u201d she says. \u201cWomen share their stories. It\u2019s very moving. There was something bigger than us in this film: it\u2019s more than a film; it\u2019s part of our lives. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the women in the film brought their own stories. There was this idea of leaving a trace, of saying, \u2018This was my body, my life at that moment.\u2019 Representation is important, especially with subjects that can carry stigma.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Angelina Jolie: \u2018It\u2019s usually just me alone with my kids. I actually have quite a private life\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Winocour is particularly delighted by responses across age groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s touching to see how different generations respond: teenagers, older women. I wrote the film partly for my daughter, and I think young people connect to this fear of losing a mother. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me this is what cinema is for. A collective experience. A way of sharing wounds and healing together. In a world where people can feel very alone, it creates something warm and communal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Couture is available on digital platforms from Monday, April 20th <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alice Winocour has long been a fan of Angelina Jolie, the star of Couture, the French director\u2019s upcoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12892,370,14245,93,61,60,9321,1838],"class_list":{"0":"post-399111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alice-winocour","9":"tag-angelina-jolie","10":"tag-chanel","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-louis-garrel","15":"tag-paris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}