MovieChat Forums > Journal d'un curé de campagne (1954) Discussion > Nicole Ladmiral's (Chantal) tragic end

Nicole Ladmiral's (Chantal) tragic end


I was just listening to the commentary track on the Criterion DVD and during Chantal's "confession" scene (maybe my favorite scene of the film) the commentator mentioned in passing the irony of some of the dialogue, as Nicole Ladmiral would later go on to kill herself by jumping under a train. He suggested that she did it in part because her acting career was on the wane. I'm not sure if he had some inside knowledge or if this was sheer speculation, but I checked her IMDB page (which does confirm her suicide - "Ladmiral died at 28 by throwing herself deliberately beneath a subway train in the Paris Metro") and noticed only one other acting credit to her name. Not necessarily surprising as Bresson is known for his use of non-actors, but I thought her performance was noteworthy. Anyway, I searched google, but didn't find much additional information about her. I don't mean to be distasteful in bringing up her suicide, I was just very taken with her performance in this film and it saddened me.


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I agree with you...she was definitely striking in her role, not easily forgotten. I assumed she would have gone pretty far but was suprised to discover only one other role to her credit and then to read of her suicide. I don't think it was distasteful at all bringing up her suicide - you can't help but wonder what drives a person to that extreme & what might have been had they lived.




You've done some bad things, sweetie.

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