The quintessential icon of Éric Rohmer’s cinema, Pascale Ogier passed away thirty years ago at the early age of twenty-eight. With her pale skin, dark hair and massive blue eyes, she knew exactly how to work a biker jacket, in her romantic rock ‘n’ roll style that was perfect for the ‘80s. She started her acting career with a small part in Éric Rohmer’s Perceval le Gallois, later portraying Catherine de Heilbronn at the Théâtre des Amandiers under the same director. Next, the eternally misunderstood giant of the French New Wave,
Jacques Rivette, offered her a part in Le Pont du Nord, released in 1981. But it was Éric Rohmer’s Full Moon in Paris that revealed her to a wider audience in 1984. Éric Rohmer gave her the lead role alongside Fabrice Lucchini and a full cast of the era’s icons, from Virginie Thévenet to Elie Medeiros. For this generational film par excellence, Pascale also produced the sets, while the script was based on details from her actual life as the daughter of actress Bulle Ogi r. Her half-sister, Emeraude Nicolas, has now dedicated a wonderful book to her memory, Pascale Ogier, ma sœur (“Pascale Ogier, My Sister”), which collects more than three hundred photographs and accounts from people who knew her, such as Olivier Assayas, who writes : “ Pascale Ogier was full of the magic of the moment in the punk and post-punk era. She was and will always be the icon of the so-called ‘Young Modern People’. I was among them and only a few of us made it into film. Most never found their voice and some will never find it.”

Emeraude Nicolas, Pascale Ogier, Ma soeur, Filigranes Editions

Pascale Ogier and Fabrice Luchini during the flming of the party in Les Nuits de la pleine lune, 1984. Ilse Ruppert

Pascale Ogier in her appartment after a shuriken training (traditionnal japanese weapon) Photo: Albane Navizet.

Éric Rohmer with his head operator Renato Berta and Pascale Ogier during the peparation of Les Nuits de la pleine lune. Collection Renato Berta, February 1984. Les films du losange

Bulle and Pascale, 1971. Private collection.

Pascale in Trouville. Photo : Sylvie Mandel and Stéphane Malingue

Pascale Ogier and Jim Jarmusch in Italy, September 1984. Photo : Cristina Bertelli, digital treatment by Marc’O.