The First Global Celebrity: Sarah Bernhardt Returns to the Screen

More than a century after her death, Sarah Bernhardt still fascinates audiences around the world. The French film "Sarah Bernhardt, the Divine," directed by Guillaume Nicloux, is now coming to cinemas in Israel, offering a portrait of what many consider the first star in history.

Rather than telling her life from beginning to end, the film focuses on decisive moments from the last three decades of Bernhardt’s personal and professional life, when she was at once at the height of fame and facing major hardships. Sandrine Kiberlain plays Bernhardt at the stage of life when she had already become an international cultural icon, and Laurent Lafitte appears as actor Lucien Guitry, with whom Bernhardt had a turbulent relationship.

Born in Paris in 1844 as Henriette Rosine Bernard, Bernhardt was the daughter of a Jewish mother of Dutch origin. From a difficult childhood she rose to the top of French and international theater, repeatedly breaking social and cultural conventions. She played male roles on stage, including Hamlet, toured five continents, founded her own troupe, managed theaters in Paris, and became one of the world’s best-known figures long before film and television. She was nicknamed “the golden voice,” “the divine,” and “the scandalous woman.”

The film also recalls her public activism. During the Siege of Paris in 1870, she turned the theater where she worked into a hospital for wounded soldiers. Later she backed Émile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair and publicly opposed the death penalty. The story also highlights her free-spirited life, marked by many relationships and defiance of social norms. Kiberlain said she prepared for months, reading biographies, memoirs, and studies and working with a coach to find Bernhardt’s voice. Nicloux, she said, wanted her not to imitate Bernhardt but to understand what made her so extraordinary. The film opens in Israel on July 2, distributed by Eden Cinema.