
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 21, 1990                   TAG: 9007210220
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`CAMILLE CLAUDEL' A HANDSOME SHOWCASE FOR ISABELLE ADJANI

The title role in "Camille Claudel" is the kind that good actresses dream about. Based on a real-life sculptor, Camille is a movie character of tragic proportions - a talented and passionate woman driven mad by her obsessions with art and the man she loves.

Understandably, Isabelle Adjani received a best-actress Oscar nomination for her impressive performance in this sometimes fascinating and sometimes directorially self-indulgent movie from Bruno Nuytten.

At two-and-a-half hours, it's a picture that still doesn't fully explore some of the more intriguing questions it raises about Claudel. But it's a handsome movie that fully captures the role of art in 19th Century French culture when sculptor Auguste Rodin and writer Victor Hugo were two of the country's more acclaimed heroes.

As the movie opens, Camille is a young woman compelled to sculpt. She sneaks out of her parents' house in the middle of the night to steal clay for her creations. Her father and brother are supportive of her efforts and her mother is relentlessly disapproving.

Miraculously, the great Rodin - played with riveting bearish presence by Gerard Depardieu - hires Camille and a friend to be apprentices on one of his major projects. Rodin has lost his creative fire and spends much of his time socializing and overseeing projects on which his students do the actual work. But in Camille and her work, he finds inspiration. Inevitably, the two become lovers. But Rodin will not give up his long-time mistress for Camille. This is one of the murky areas in the movie. Why does he cling to this ordinary woman? The only clue we are given is that she's a good cook. Apparently, Rodin found it easier to acquire young mistresses than a good cook.

At any rate, Rodin emerges as a compromising and indecisive man. Meanwhile, Camille's mental stability deteriorates as she tries to compete artistically with her former lover whom she wrongly believes is persecuting her.

It's the stuff of high melodrama and it's writ large here as Adjani turns up the burners on Camille's stubborn and ferocious descent into self destruction. VIEWER `Camille Claudel' An Orion classic at the Grandin Theatre (345-6377). 150 minutes. Rated R for nudity and sexual content.

by CNB