Snowed: <i>Neige</i> (1981) and the Myth of Juliet Berto

Actor-director Juliet Berto (1947–1990) has the status of legend or icon in global (and particularly French) cinema, but she has not been particularly well served, to date, by film criticism and scholarship. Many accounts (including the most effusive) praise only her striking looks and her “eccentricity” as a performer in films by Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette. The 2023 DVD/ Blu-ray release of Neige (1981) has finally refocussed attention on Berto’s work as a director. Yet the accompanying DVD materials (essays and an audio commentary) serve, in the main, to bolster an easy myth of Berto as a star, a myth full of glaring absences, inaccuracies and misconceptions. This essay attempts to begin the process of dismantling the Berto myth by closely critiquing the DVD supplements and by placing Neige into several neglected cultural and historical contexts.