I just want to read a few books per week, learn multiple languages, and a couple of instruments, become more proficient at advanced mathematics, write essays and books, exercise regularly, sleep eight hours per night, eat really healthily, have an active social life including enjoying all of my close relationships, and be really sexy. Is that really so unreasonable
Can you translate what’s on Page 28? Because if it’s anywhere close to what google translate is telling me, i’m already in shambles 🥺😫😭
do you mean what’s literally written on that page ? i don’t have the picture but if you can send it to me i can try, even though my translation might be worse than google translate hahaha
“…some luster, in less than an hour, it produced a red flower, which resembled that of pomegranate. This flower lasts a short time, since the same winds that make it bloom, make it fall.”
Q: “Everyone loves the film. The masses love the film, the critics love the film…how proud are you that the film has been so embraced?”
Noémie: “I don’t know if I will answer this, but I feel—we see a lot in culture, this patriarchal culture, male gaze, and I was not even noticing it before I read the script…”
(Noémie Merlant at ArcLight Collider FYC Q&A for Portrait of a Lady on Fire // Jan. 8, 2020)
The co-stars of Céline Sciamma’s sumptuous period romance discuss the intimate – and political – nature of the film.
Pulling out the second half, but I recommend clicking through to read it all:
There is also something very physical about the film. It’s a costume drama, but usually in this kind of film we don’t see bodies that move. How did you bring this dimension into the film?
NM: As soon as we wear those heavy costumes and the corset, we automatically have a different demeanour. The whole weight that was put on women at the time comes automatically with those costumes. The characters, generally, are rather reserved in the first part of the film, and little by little, we’re going to break that and enter their intimacy. We’re going to see them laugh, joke, have conversations, discuss womanhood and art. Little by little, there is a truth that comes out of all this accumulated restraint. I think that came rather naturally because Céline was really trying to lead us to a most sincere and truthful place. It was the same for the bodies. Little by little, the costumes are removed or forgotten, we show something else with our bodies because the characters finally let themselves go.
AH: We deconstructed the corseted image and the prettiness that we inherited from that period, that image where the costumes only signify prettiness, as you can see in most costume dramas. We transformed the costume into something a little different. It’s composed of many things. It is beautiful, indeed, but it is also heavy, and it hinders movement. We wanted to show that dynamic. The classical costume drama will just show this idealised image, removing the social violence behind the costumes, removing what it means on the body – it’s just pretty. But in reality, that’s not how it is. Walking in the sand wearing that, honestly, it was a nightmare! We were on the sand wearing those dresses and heels, it was insane. It was our job to show that, to show the different components of those costumes.
One of the themes of the film is the relationship between the artist and the model, rejecting the idea of the ‘muse’ and furthering that of collaboration and equality. How is this idea reflected in your work with Céline?
NM: When I met Adèle and Céline, at the casting, I was wondering what my place would be because they knew each other so well. But in reality, once with them, I never once again asked myself that, because they were in that sharing, a horizontal gaze. We’re all there to try to create something, to try to make a great film, to try to make art, to be ourselves – and that goes through listening, through trust, through caring, and most of all through gentleness. I vividly remember, the first time Céline gave me acting directions, it was the softness of her voice, and the softness she set up in the crew. It’s a bit like in the film, an equality. We’re all here to make something in joy and not in pain, and to listen to each other. That’s how we can make something good. We are collaborators.
AH: Noémie’s arrival in our duo was essential. It wasn’t on the side, it entered at the heart of it and it changed the alchemy of things. Then, Céline and I have a collaboration that started twelve years ago, and it runs through everything: we made Water Lilies together, and then all the films we each made in our respective careers, we accompanied them. Each one of Céline’s films, I’ve accompanied them in their path; and all the film’s I’ve made, all the choices I’ve made, they’re also linked to my collaboration with Céline. So of course there’s a parallel to be made between our collaboration, and the artist-model relationship in the film.
There is this idea in the film of reclaiming the female artists who have been forgotten by history. What’s your take on this?
AH: I think it’s difficult to constitute oneself as a female artist because our story has been taken away from us. So we don’t have a reference. So of course, it’s hard to project yourself in a world where you feel pushed aside. At the Cannes Film Festival, in reality, there are only men. There comes a point where it’s normal that it affects the brain, and that it affects ambitions, self-esteem. So, of course, it’s in the film. But it’s not in relation to men, that’s what I mean. The film is absolutely female. Just like most films are absolutely male.
But we’re not in that perspective. We have a history that’s been taken away from us, and then we’re told, ‘Well, why can’t you do it?’ We’re already being beaten up in the present, and on top of that, we’re told, ‘It’s not hard!’ Well, I don’t think so. So yes, it’s important, but the film shouldn’t be put in a militant thing, because that’s undermining it. It’s a sensual film, it’s a film of cinema, it’s a film of fantasy, etc, but of course it’s political. We can’t help being political.
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