translation of the YT video “Adèle HAENEL, Noémie MERLANT, Céline SCIAMMA : « Un portrait de femmes flamboyant »”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jie2x8bA9-g&lc=z22ww1aadozeifo3eacdp43a2xkn0h2wg34uemcfnjtw03c010c.1579617877414170
journalist (j) : we are glad to meet you today.... "portrait of a lady in fire", Adèle Haenel, Noémie Merlant and Céline Sciamma for this movie which had the price of the script at the Cannes festival, so we meet today at the festival of Angoulême. Beautiful adventure for a film, when we do a movie we dream of all of this, don't we ?
Céline (C) : in any case, we mostly dream that it meets its public and all the things that bring it to the public is good to take so it gives us momentum and confidence.
j : we think about public when we do a movie like this, yes, we think "how can we surprise them, how can we question them ?"..
C : of course, me, I'm absolutely obsessed by this, thinking about the public like an actif subject of the movie, how he will dwell the movie itself, mostly when we do a love story : I want people to also think to their story...
j : to recognize themselves
j : even if the story happen in the 18th century
C : the story takes place absolutely in the 18th century.. It is a perspective effect that allows you to let go a little
j : ok.. we will now watch the trailer and then Adèle will make the pitch
A : so it is me who does the pitch
j : yes but *mimes this movement at 1:46 *
A : yes I'll do it shortly. It is the story of Marianne who is a painter, who comes on a island to do the portray of a young woman Héloïse who will be married. It is their story, the story of this meeting when the portray is done and the meeting between these two women that takes place over a very short time
Noémie (N) : she has to paint her in secret !
A : yes, thank you Noémie .... it's a lot of suspens, it is a thriller
j : yes it's a thriller ! So now everyone who is listening to us know it's a thriller, with suspens
C : All love stories are thrillers
j : And effectively btw, the sensation is present, this feeling of love and you have great pleasure in making us wait
C : a slow burning film, effectively, it is the slow chronic, step by step, of a rising desire. But I think that it's good frustrations and this is why we go to the cinema too, it's good to wait, to hope.
j : yes yes and we hope.. Noémie, and that's a love story anyway, a beautiful love story! Talk about your character, her relations she can nourish trough... at the bottom, there is a background : it's painting
N : Yes, this is a love story and this is also a story of contributors, of women, of artist, and how Marianne
will situate herself as a painter, how she will find her painting the truth the sincerity and it's thanks to this encounter with Héloïse that she can ask herself the right questions and break out of a framework of rules, conventions and let her go.
j : yes there is a form of a liberation trough art, through letting go
A : yep I'll continue what Noémie said, when she said : "asking the right questions", that is, all the questions that belongs to us and this is the beginning of an artist's work, it is understanding that we had made hers questions that were not ours, or the issues that were not ours or even issues that oppress us, and the romantic encounter allows to get out of these stereotypical questions which are in fact a very narrow path, and to approach the infinite field of art possibilities.
j : yes bc on the bottom there is creation, the mystery of creation and love is also a form of creation.
C : yes there is the creation in the love dialogue, there is a creative dialogue but that is also an intellectual dialogue and the movie takes part in telling that, telling how falling in love is not only a principe of very beautiful persons who meet in an elevator and immediately fall in love, it's admiration, it's debate, it's criticism, it's analysis, it's how we think together and how we are affected by thinking together and the movie tells about that.
j : though the painter and her model, there is this relation that is very rich and strong
A : It's effectively what we are talking about, when Céline talks about exchange, it can seem very light but it's very deep, that is, how in the story of art, very often there were one brain that tough for everybody and finally this way it's a seed of oppression. We can find it everywhere whereas collaboration, it's like this that we create masterpiece I think, and the movie is more than that, we can invente societies like this, that is, this seed is present in art but also present in politic and... that's it. sorry I got carried away
j : no no it's true , she is right
j : it's not the painter and her model, it's both of them are necessary to each other and it's this fusion that we were talking about
C : of course.. the term of muse is associated to a form of passivity, it's women who would be fetishized, passives and inspirational only by the pure grace of there presence and it masks the reality, the cooperators, the brains in the room, and often, women were erased of art history while they were painters, musicians, novelists etc. and even the statue of muse has been reduced to this idea of purely inspiring and quiet while they contributed to the oeuvre.
j : yes, and there is also this liberation because at the beginning, art is supposed to imprison because it's about making a portray of weeding that she didn't choose, she doesn't want, and it's art that will allow her to free herself
A : In fact, the movie is obviously political, because it is in a form of suspension, as it happens, the creation of the portrait is an opportunity for artistic collaboration, a relationship with oneself that would be very close to the surface, very excited, very forward-looking. However, it is not proposed as a long-term solution because the long-term solution is still political, there the film says "yes, indeed, we are leaving a system in which we put the young woman in the convent, we created her to be a beautiful object, we take her out while we paint her, this beautiful object, and then we remarry her and she is again an object, and not a person in itself." And this, this asks a political though on it, not just artistic.
j : so it's also a politic movie
C : Adèle says it very well but also in this dimension there, they collaborate on what will separate them : it is also a tension of romantic tragedy which collaborates from the fictional of the cinema in general and romanticism, that is, collaborate on what will separate you, this is a amorous tension which, I think, can be moving.
j : yeah, I would like you to say something about the picture, the cinematographic picture looks like a moving painting
C : yes the movie is kind of obsessed with the idea of beauty, btw when we say that the movie evokes the painting, the plans are like tables, it's because the cinema has a link with beauty as painting has : the cinema, like painting, it's a story of frame, a story of characters, of color, of light, and it's true that the movie wanted to talk about beauty, being beautiful, and also being new, and I think that the novelty has a link with beauty too.
j : yes.. Noémie you have been happy of course to be in this movie, to see all of that
A : the work with Noémie was very interesting because it's true that... I mean.. Noémie has this fire inside her, that is really particular, playing with her... turning to Noémie Idk how you have lived this... it was very exciting
j : yes Noémie you felt that too, is it true ?
A : we approached the scenes a bit like somewhat sporty fights almost
j : laugh it was a sporty fight
N : it was a sporty fight.. what was interesting was that we invented our relationship with Adèle as actresses and at the same time our relationship between Héloïse and Marianne we invented it as we filmed, and what is funny is that Adèle she dare to suggest, send a ball and you never know how she will send it, how to receive it, and all these look games... what will she do ? She is fascinating. when we play with Adèle, there is a fascination that takes place and I tried to use it the most for Marianne looking Héloïse, and what also fed me a lot in the film is that the play of gaze was not only between Adèle and me, it was also with Céline : there was really a real triangle .. me, I looked a lot at Céline like she look at us, and I tried to get inspired by her gaze particularly intense and also very kind.
j : thank you for sending balls, she is a ball sender
j : thank you Adèle, thank you Céline, thanks to all of you! Thank you Noémie ..and go watch "portrait of a lady in fire"
Voilà ! If you don't understand something or want a translation of another video (related to this movie or Adèle Haenel) tell me !
