Offscreen Notes
Françoise Blanchard: 1954-2013
Former adult actress who made the transition to feature film, largely through the tutelage of French horror master (who also made adult films during his lean days) Jean Rollin. Blanchard passed away at the young age of 58. Blanchard’s non sex films were almost exclusively made with Rollin, who gave her her debut in La Morte Vivante (1982), in which she played a young woman Catherine Valmont who comes back to life a blood craving zombie/vampire. Blanchard’s almost mute performance touches on many emotional nerves (childhood memory, friendship, class, etc.) and builds to a startlingly violent & sexual climax where her child-hood best friend Helene sacrifices herself to satiate Catherine’s ‘hunger.’ Blanchard’s last film was Rollin’s semi-autobiographical La nuit des horloges.
