CÉLINE SCIAMMA: The film starts with a white screen.
And it starts in a totally literal way. It chooses to examine the first mark.
The first sketch, visibly feminine.
The cinema screen as a canvas.
This literality is like a pact made with the audience.
There is austerity and silence too.
First, my contours.
These eyes darting up and down...
The outline.
...are part of the journey that this situation takes,
the dynamic between the painter and the model.
The back and forth.
Not too fast.
I really wanted to film it.
The film is playful from the start.
Take time to look at me.
Because it places the painter in the position of the model.
And it creates the desire to see her.
See how my arms are placed.
And it instructs us to spend time looking at her.
My hands.
If we obey, we see her clenching her hand.
And our darting eyes engage us.
Who brought that painting out?
Opposite her there is a mysterious painting.
It creates a desire to see it.
I found it in storage. Shouldn't l have?
Did you paint it?
Yes.
The first tracking shot of the film.
A long time ago.
It looks simple, but we had to remove all the furniture and all the human beings
to show the desired image.
What's the title?
The title is spoken.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Whereas it was written to be seen.
We jump to an action scene.
A scene...
...on the open sea.
It's the sort of scene which demands all the crew's attention
while it is being prepared,
checking the tide tables, finding the right boat, the extras.
It's a scene with danger, it's a scene with a stunt
with a lot of elements to film.
On the whole, these are the scenes you get asked about the most.
My response to this sequence is quite simple.
I was thinking of Hergé, of Tintin.
for the shot of the crate.
And I wanted the heroine to jump into the water,
breaking with convention from the start.
She jumps in feet first and the film jumps in feet first.
We arrive on an island.
Some people have said to me, perhaps we've left an island.
It's a very wide shot, one of the widest in the film.
The start of a wonderful collaboration between Claire Mathon and nature.
It's clearly also a nod to Jane Campion.
The physicality of our heroine is the first thing we're aware of, her body.
Her costume is heavy.
NOÉMIE MERLANT: That dress, that outfit, that costume was the first thing I had
to help me get into character.
Where do I go?
Very heavy clothes.
Head straight up to the trees.
With lots of layers and underlayers
like the film itself.
The oppression, the burden placed on women.
So, it was quite a direct way of getting into character.
How, in spite of everything, Marianne inhabits this costume,
finding her freedom in it and making it her own.
SCIAMMA: A new dynamic begins.
A dynamic of sequence shots and movement.
And especially a sound dynamic.
There is a new face.
I'm Marianne.
Likeable from the start.
Luéna Bajrami.
Miraculously, we found the chateau in that state.
It brings the era to life if you can find places
which still contain elements and echoes of it.
Places you want to look at
and also adorn.
Here there is very little at play,
just the reverberating footsteps.
And the acoustics of a room which will become key.
80% of the film takes place in this studio.
It was a gamble to move into a space and to decide to create rituals there
and to film it differently every time.
It was a reception room. I've never seen it used.
Have you been here long?
Three years.
We decided from the start to have a minimal set.
Do you like it here?
With very few props.
Most of the furniture was purpose-built. That bed, for example.
And that crate.
I'll let you get dry.
There isn't much ornamentation, no worldly goods.
We didn't change the colour of the walls.
We built that fireplace.
Here the sound starts to build.
There is the sense that a storm is brewing.
Something stirring in the distance.
Recreating the sound was quite complex too.
We use a lot of contemporary notes.
I really like modern notes which are...
All the electric sounds, let's say.
Planes high up in the sky
as a soundtrack to the 18th century scene.
There's the wind and the sea.
And the fire.
I wanted the character to smoke.
We tried to instil faith in the sequence shot
and the tension of the sequence shot.
The challenge of the lighting was the candles.
We made a radical choice
to have very few light sources
and...
...to have very few candles.
There is the fire in the rooms.
But the actresses are always topped
by a network of lights which follows them all the time.
They are followed by the sound and the light.
Sorry, l helped myself.
I was hungry.
Is there any wine?
Yes.
May I be curious?
A horizontality is set up quite quickly between the characters.
The discussions are frank and to the point.
What is your young mistress like?
I don't know her well.
The film has chosen not to toy with class hierarchies.
You've been here three years.
She only arrived a few weeks ago.
This is a dynamic which will blossom.
Where from?
Into a sisterhood and a friendship.
The Benedictines.
Has she left holy orders?
They brought her home.
Sophie is a servant, but she doesn't act like one.
Her sister died.
She was the one due to many?
She only appears in a scene when she has something to add,
a plan, a role to play.
She's never incidental, an accessory.
Did disease take her?
We see her thinking.
Will you manage it?
Manage what?
To paint her.
Why do you ask?
Another painter was here.
He wasn't able to.
What happened?
I don't know.
Here we discover the surroundings.
And we are between two traditions:
Video games from the 1990s,
Alone in the Dark, the point-and-click,
or more recently Escape Room.
We discover all the objects which will be used by the character.
And another tradition,
that of fantasy films.
Playing with mirrors and perspective.
A desire, too, for inanimate objects.
A tracking shot.
Towards a canvas, turned to face the wall.
A choreography incorporating the wind, breath and footsteps.
Fear is often conveyed by sound.
The portrait with no face,
which acts as a link shot which was written into the screenplay,
considered.
This dress without a head which does now have feet
but still not the right head.
We start to create a desire for the revelation of the face
of this mysterious young woman.
We used long shots for that.
I'm afraid it's the only one.
We used long shots, but we know her in real life.
We know it's Adèle Haenel and we know her face well.
She has no dresses yet.
That green dress is the only conventional dress in the film.
It's in the style of Watteau,
the style people choose when they want to recreate that era,
because it's beautiful and very pictorial, identifiable.
We selected coarser fabrics for the rest of the costumes:
cottons and linens more everyday materials.
Do you recognise it?
But with strong colours.
My father painted it.
Here the countess arrives on the scene.
It was in Milan, before my marriage.
Played by Valeria Golino.
I had Valeria in mind when I wrote the screenplay.
My daughter's suitor is Milanese.
We'll go there if he likes the portrait.
You'll leave.
I wanted it to be Italy.
I have to tell you...
A 50-year-old woman.
She wore out one painter before you.
With all that that age promises.
In a very simple manner, she refused to pose.
That physique, that beauty.
He never saw her face.
I didn't want a cantankerous old woman.
She refuses this marriage.
That would have been too brutal.
Even though she embodies authority,
even though it's a relief when she disappears...
She thinks you're a companion for walks.
...there is a horizontal relationship.
She's delighted.
Since she arrived, I don't let her out.
They speak frankly.
Why not?
I wasn't wary enough with her sister.
She's like the big boss of a video game.
She thinks I'll watch over her.
She explains the rules.
And you observe her.
After this scene the audience knows what's at stake...
More than being a companion.
...and can give itself up to the experience.
The portrait arrived here before me.
When I first entered this room
I found myself facing my image...
We set up a very tight storyline with lots of rules.
Now we're going to experience it.
Here we see the character deliberating over her own set.
You see the decisions made about the positioning of the props.
Chests.
Made of wood.
Nothing ostentatious.
The painter's studio.
We did a lot of work on that, a lot of research,
both with the set decorator and with the painter, Hélène Delmaire,
who stood in for Marianne and created the works.
We stuck to what was customary, the size of the canvas for example.
The various stages needed for priming the canvas.
Here comes the rule: The curtain.
As a boundary and for secrecy.
All my films thus far have been based on secrecy.
Come in.
Only, this is the first film where the secret doesn't last.
Tell me...
It's almost a reservoir, a reserve for what's about to be said.
How did she die.
We were walking by the cliffs.
She was behind me and vanished.
I saw her broken body below.
- Did you see her fall? - No.
I think she jumped.
Why do you think that?
She didn't cry out.
This is a really big moment for the character.
A bit less so for the audience.
That's always annoying.
Because the audience knows what Adèle Haenel looks like.
And it's her we think of.
So I had to create the frustration again
and the desire to see this face which we are already familiar with.
I had to choreograph the desire to see.
How do you reintroduce a face to the screen?
First by hiding it.
Then by gradually revealing it.
The hair.
By approaching it from behind.
We might see the nape of the neck.
And then by changing the focus.
By adding danger.
A distraction from the face, a change of direction.
And so, the face appears.
As a surprise.
It offers itself up.
She turns round.
"I've dreamt of that for years."
Dying?
Running.
A Breton landscape, the Côte Sauvage.
It has the advantage of not being at all built-up.
Here we relied on nature to recreate the era.
Or rather to revive it.
This scene was written into the screenplay.
The idea was to look at Héloïse without seeing her.
And then she notices the dark look on her face.
But we only decided on the staging during the shoot.
The idea was for one face to eclipse the other.
The choreography was done with the two actresses there,
on the spur of the moment.
At the time I was thinking of Bergman. Park Chan-wook springs to mind too.
ADÈLE HAENEL: I constructed the character in three phases.
I called the first phase, which is the one we can see now,
the Japanese phase,
because I had a cape so I saw myself as an intergalactic Japanese emperor.
Its tone, even in the light, must yield to the cheek,
which is more prominent.
Did you bring a book?
This part of the film is about self-restraint,
which could be frustrating at the time.
But it allowed us to build up this sort of meta-emotion
in the audience.
So I was very careful.
First I had to speak in a higher voice,
with a clear diction,
to convey as little emotion as possible.
The attempt to create this impassive, cold character
was also a political attempt at resistance.
For me it was a way of saying
that since this former nun was going to be married against her will,
without her opinion being sought on her own life,
her only resistance was through her absence.
Only, the truth is, you can't really absent yourself,
you can stop yourself from living.
Thank you.
It's odd you sleep here.
She's in a hybrid state. She's still figuring it all out.
SCIAMMA: The dynamic of secrecy begins here.
These scenes appear simple,
but they required a huge amount of preparation.
These sketches of Adèle's face, for example.
And especially the light in all the night scenes
which were cleverly constructed and shot in the middle of the night,
and you can tell.
I love Noémie's face there, like a child waking up at Christmas.
The first stage is this silhouette, this bold outline.
Here we are focussing on the work,
on the construction of a work,
showing all the stages,
and showing them in real time.
We filmed 40 minutes of work at a time,
knowing we'd only keep the real-time sequence shots,
the actual gestures of the painter.
There were very few cuts, very few cheats.
Believing in this time of working,
believing in someone we see thinking and searching,
believing in this rhythm.
This is the wash-drawing stage.
We tried to be radical, to bring the face to life.
We wanted to be generous.
That was done in real time too.
The work of Noémie Merlant.
She always watched the painter paint first,
not so that she could copy her gestures
but so that she could make them her own.
The way of looking obviously plays a big part.
Miss...
Miss!
She's waiting.
That choreography again,
the curtain on both sides,
the ritual.
And the scarf, which is a device written into the script.
It's windy.
The scarf crops up here
so that it can feature again in an hour and ten minutes.
That's how writing works.
It has the advantage of masking the face
that she is meant to be observing.
Sometimes hiding certain things allows us to see others.
There was the challenge of this long tracking shot.
It's a collection of looks by Adèle Haenel.
And the beach...
...is portrayed as the end of the world.
We keep feeling as if she's come to the end of her world.
Tatooine comes to mind.
Intergalactic emperors too.
All these beach scenes were shot during the first week of filming.
That was when I discovered what the two actresses were capable of.
Especially...
Adèle Haenel's very precise work of transformation.
I'd like to bathe.
This was the first scene we shot where she speaks,
when I discovered her voice.
On a calmer day.
Yes.
That "yes" is a perfectly timed pause.
How long will you stay?
Six more days.
It shows how precise the work we did together was.
That "yes" always broke my heart.
Do you swim?
The face is revealed.
I don't know.
The conversation is about them looking at one another.
It's too dangerous if you don't.
I meant, I don't know if can swim.
Sound work for the waves.
The sea is the hardest sound to record because it is always a contradiction.
If the wave is big, the sound is ill defined and noisy.
If the wave is small, the sound is well defined.
So we used small waves to produce the sound of big waves.
The work we did editing the sound was very precise and very powerful.
The luminosity and the sunshine weren't written into the screenplay.
You don't choose Brittany in October for the sunshine.
But you have to learn to welcome the light as good news.
The director of photography and I were happy about the luminosity.
We decided it suited the film.
We brought it back from Brittany and...
How was your day?
And then we incorporated it into our choices about lighting
throughout the film.
She always stays ahead of me and walks alone on the beach.
Here, what's important is that the character is drinking beer.
Have you started painting?
Not yet.
I haven't even seen her smile.
Have you tried to be funny?
The palette was a prop that terrified me.
It was purpose-built, like so many of the props in the film.
Here she's working on the image, on the painting.
We decided to film it in very high definition
to get the effects of the materials
to provide a lot of information.
And then there's the sound editing, sound effects too.
We worked on...
...the wetness...
...and the touch.
It was very precise work.
Is it unfinished?
This was the first real exchange between the two characters.
Directing it was a challenge.
Do you think she wanted to die?
Filming a sequence shot by the sea.
You're the first person unafraid to ask that.
It's a long scene. It was hard.
Apart from you?
We did lots of takes.
Not out loud. But yes.
We finally decided to do close-ups on each of the two actresses.
In her last letter, she apologised.
For no reason.
What could she be apologising for?
After their respective close-ups,
we decided to do a take that was a sequence shot.
You make it sound terrible.
Just one, and it was this one.
What do you know of my marriage?
You're to wed a Milanese gentleman, that's all.
That's all I know, too.
You see why it worries me.
Put that way, yes.
I put it the way it is.
You'd rather have stayed in the convent?
It's a life that has advantages.
There's a library.
You can sing or hear music.
And equality is a pleasant feeling.
"Equality is a pleasant feeling." One of the key lines in the film.
A line that is key to the dynamic between them, to their relationship.
And key to the screenplay, because this film was an attempt
to write a love story based on equality.
You draw?
Yes. A little.
A story about an artistic collaboration based on equality
and a screenplay which is not based on a dynamic of conflict.
What about you? When will you marry?
All the possible narratives in it, all the possible emotions too.
I don't know if I will.
- You don't have to? - No.
I'll take over my father's business.
What we were thinking in 2018 when we were making the film
is what this character was thinking in 1770.
She helps us to think it today.
You can choose. That's why you don't understand me.
I understand you.
How are your days?
We return late and l have little light to work.
I'll keep her here tomorrow afternoon.
The work we did with Valeria Golino was very specific
because she arrived at the end of the shoot.
Perhaps you could allow her to go out alone.
She was only there for three days and she had all these scenes...
She isn't sad, but angry.
...peppered throughout the film.
You think I don't know her anger?
I chose Valeria for her childlike qualities, her joy.
Yes, I know it, too.
Which are then taken away.
Where did you learn Italian?
She said she was scared of being directed by me.
You know Milan?
I can't wait to go back.
It's twenty years since I was there.
And I believe her.
Tell her Milan is beautiful.
And that life will be sweeter.
She doesn't talk much to me.
I'm not marrying her to the local gentry.
I'm trying to take her elsewhere.
Here comes the melancholy.
She'll be less bored there.
And you too.
Indeed. Why not?
I'll leave for the coast at the same time as you.
If you don't have to return to Paris,
l have a friend who'd like her portrait done.
This is the climax of the alliance between the two.
It's a classic storyline, woven at the start,
a story about complicity and secrecy.
She's very ugly.
The promise of a career, perhaps.
But the story soon departs from that.
You've made me laugh.
It's a red herring, even for the characters.
It's ages since that happened.
I didn't do anything.
You're here.
It takes two to be funny.
The face is finished.
It's time to move onto the dress.
And this is when the absence of the model is starting to be felt.
There is a theory among art historians
that women invented self-portraiture.
Perhaps because they didn't have models.
So they had to paint themselves.
This dress is worn by all three characters.
First... Marianne.
Playing with mirrors.
The head is cutoff.
Marianne?
All the elements in the shot contribute to the dramatic composition.
The mirror, the chair, the curtain.
Here comes Darth Vader.
And the image she's dreamt of, that of the model.
The desire for a reverse angle shot.
It doesn't last long enough.
Do you have tobacco?
Yes.
HAENEL: This scene was in the second phase,
the most hybrid phase: The thaw.
SCIAMMA: The first deliberately intimate scene between the two characters.
And a sequence shot.
HAENEL: The challenge here was to introduce some cracks in the mask.
The face starting to soften.
Your mother will let you go out alone tomorrow.
You'll be free.
Being free is being alone?
SCIAMMA: The first scene of intimacy.
You don't think so?
The first time they're confronted with how the other one thinks.
And here Héloïse thinks like Héloïse.
HAENEL: There's an element of self-control,
but it's more candid than at the start
with a sort of emotionalism starting to break through.
Organ music is pretty but bleak.
It's all I know.
You've never heard an orchestra?
Have you?
Tell me about it.
It's not easy to relate music.
SCIAMMA: Another sequence shot.
Noémie Merlant was enthusiastic about learning to play the spinette,
which is this little harpsichord,
and she spent weeks on it.
She does actually play it here but under a sheet.
A reinterpretation of Vivaldi.
We picked a well-known classical piece.
For its democratic virtues.
It's identifiable from the first notes.
What is it?
A piece that I love.
Is it merry?
Not merry, but it's lively.
Vivaldi's "Four Seasons".
It's about a coming storm.
Accompanied by poems he wrote.
The insects sense it.
Marianne's interpretation.
They become agitated.
Then the storm breaks.
Her interpretation of the poem.
With lightning and the wind.
The first time the fire appears between the characters.
I can't remember it...
This time it's Marianne who's burning with Héloïse watching her.
You'll hear the rest. Milan is a city of music.
Maybe the one looking makes the other one burn.
Then I can't wait for Milan.
I'm saying there will be good things.
You're saying that, now and then,
I'll be consoled.
The guilt associated with secrecy is at play here.
For the first time, the eyes darting back and forth
between the canvas and a model,
even though she's still painting in secret.
A desire to see a reverse angle shot.
But we take our time.
Working on the image, recreating the colour and the material.
And still choosing to show the work of the painter in real time.
The second character in the green dress: Sophie.
This scene is one that we had dreamt of,
one we felt strongly about,
without knowing what place it would occupy
simply knowing it would be there.
A sequence shot with a conjuring trick: The retraction of her hand.
Minutely choreographed.
How was mass?
Again resting on the actresses' ideas and physicality.
You look cheerful.
I sang a lot.
Are you leaving me already?
Yes.
Will you come out tomorrow?
Added to the secrecy, the admission of love.
In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of.
A meeting of minds.
But I also felt your absence.
The painting is finished.
It is not placed in the centre of the frame like a work of art.
It is kept in the background and it's blurred.
It's the work's vocation that counts.
The portrait is finished.
Are you happy with it?
I think so.
Let's go and see it.
When a story revolves around a secret,
the real challenge is the timing of the revelation.
May I ask a favour?
There are films which depend on the final revelation of the truth.
Go on.
But here the character chooses to reveal it, demanding to do so.
I'd like to show her first.
And tell her the truth myself.
This is where it diverts from most stories about a secret.
I understand.
She's very fond of you.
There's an attempt to resolve the conflict in a different way.
How do you know?
She talks about you.
We had to include a vague feeling of guilt.
It was a way of building the momentum.
Making room for the sound of the fire.
It plays a very precise role in the film.
When is the fire part of the picture? When is it part of the soundtrack?
Sometimes it's visual and not audible. Other times it's audible and not visual.
Sometimes it doesn't figure at all.
There was a catalogue of fires in the film.
It was a challenge as well as a pleasure for the director of photography.
At this turning point in the film,
the conventional storyline has a new angle.
There is...
...this image,
this literal image...
...of a heart set alight.
There is a certain naivety.
These are camera effects.
There is a return to a primitive language.
But the primitive language is inevitably a new language.
I must tell you something.
I'm a painter.
I came here to paint you.
I finished your portrait last night.
The dynamic of the truth.
Curiously, in the truth, in the absence of lies...
I see now why you praised the charms of exile.
...lies the possibility of invention.
You felt guilty.
Or at least of surprise, for the story and for the audience.
Are you leaving?
Later today. With your mother.
If we can say anything at all...
...what do we say?
Then I shall bathe today.
Héloïse decides to expand her world
because her world has come to an end.
It's October.
It's Brittany.
So it's one take, just one.
The next sequence was filmed straight after the swim,
so the cold is real.
Their separation is imminent,
but Héloïse hasn't reacted.
Well, can you swim?
We are waiting...
I still don't know if can.
...for her to show her feelings.
Did you see me?
You can float.
The film makes us wait
for the conflict,
by not revealing everything...
Let's go back.
...too rapidly.
The characters take their time to reflect.
It explains all your looks.
Here the love is apparent and yet denied.
It wasn't love.
I remember this sequence. It was number 30.
If you remember the number it's because it was a pivotal sequence.
This is the moment the language of the film changes.
You're saying nothing?
Is that me?
Of all the possible reactions from the character...
Yes.
...I think her being critical of the work...
Is that how you see me?
...is the least expected.
It's the start of...
It's not only me.
...a new dynamic between the characters.
What do you mean, not only you?
Now that things are out in the open...
There are rules, conventions, ideas.
...everyone has an opinion.
You mean there is no life?
The dialogue is...
Your presence is made up of fleeting moments
that may lack truth.
...intellectual...
Not everything is fleeting.
...critical...
Some feelings are deep.
...full of feeling.
The fact it isn't close to me,
that I can understand.
Straightaway the notion of the eye of the beholder.
But I find it sad it isn't close to you.
How do you know it isn't close to me?
I didn't know you were an art critic.
I didn't know you were a painter.
A new chapter.
I'll fetch my mother.
Adèle Haenel walked so stridently that the camera shook.
This was at the end of the shoot on a film about two self-sufficient women
and suddenly, because of the order we did it in,
authority returns to the frame and we had to film three characters.
It wasn't good enough. I'll start again.
I think all of us on set were terror-stricken
when the time came to do that
because suddenly it was the end of our idyll,
the idyll between these two characters and what it meant...
She's staying.
...to only have two characters in the frame.
I'll pose for her.
Suddenly we had to incorporate three.
Yes.
This is really the only decision Héloïse takes in the film,
the only decision about her fate, and it's to pose.
Why?
The mother and daughter are...
What does it change for you?
...genetically quite far-removed from one another,
but there is the authority of the frame and the profile.
Nothing.
I'll be away for five days.
How to show in a gesture in the present
a past intimacy,
an intimacy between a mother and child.
Understood?
There is the idea of the invention of this kiss...
Say goodbye like when you were little.
...which is already unusual,
but then it was played by Adèle Haenel
as if it was something she'd made up on the spur of the moment.
Perhaps for something to belong to two people
it must be... new.
NOÉMIE MERLANT: I spent a lot of time observing Hélène Delmaire
who painted the various paintings you see in the film
and I spent time observing her to try to find Marianne
and her relationship with her work, with painting.
Sit down.
In the first instance I tried to capture her gaze, the painter's gaze,
which is very specific,
a mixture of concentration...
Turn your chest towards me.
...and magic, a gaze...
A little more.
...which is piercing but also distant.
Turn your head slightly.
Then I tried to find my own dance.
When I say dance, I mean the dance of the painter.
I worked on the gestures, the fluidity of the gestures.
Rest your arm here.
The relationship and the rhythm of the model and the painting.
Take your hand.
The other way.
SCIAMMA: The film finally reveals its centrepiece,
the thing it set out to do, the thing that inspired it,
the shot reverse shot of the model and painter.
- Are you comfortable? - Yes.
Can you hold this position?
Yes.
The film plays on the paradox that it's the painter who says...
Look at me.
And here it decides to film the desire.
The desire.
The materiality of desire.
The turmoil.
That gut-wrenching feeling.
Using the cinema to film desire.
Before the lovemaking.
Seemingly a continuation of the turmoil but actually something far more physical.
Even though, for now, it remains a mystery.
The character is suffering.
Because she has her period.
That's something we rarely see in the cinema.
The heat will do you good.
The cherrystones hold it in.
The return of Sophie who hasn't been seen for a while.
She has returned because she has a reason to return.
Now it's her turn to become a main character.
Thank you.
I usually have one ready,
but I haven't had my monthlies.
More than once?
Three times.
Is this the first time?
Yes.
Do you want a child?
I was waiting for Madam to leave to see to it.
A new territory, a world without Madam.
A world with three of them in it.
- I can't. - A little more.
I can't go on.
We named this shot after Miyazaki.
A playful shot with appearances and disappearances.
I don't know why we thought of Totoro.
They're looking for a plant that will abort, namely rue.
Hence the expression, "Un enfant de la rue",
which doesn't mean a child brought up in the street
but a child who survived the plant, the rue,
which is abortive.
We're back in the kitchen here for this difficult sequence
which combines two challenges:
The dialogue between lovers
and a medical, almost acrobatic, challenge.
We made a decision...
It's ready.
...on set to film a sequence shot.
I always envisaged this kitchen as a domestic space,
like other domestic spaces in the cinema,
in Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, for example, which I like a lot.
It was a space which gave us the courage to film a sequence shot.
Will it be enough?
We'll see.
Has it happened to you?
Yes.
You've known love.
Yes.
What is it like?
It's hard to say.
I mean, how does it feel?
This, for example, was an extremely complicated shot.
It took four or five hours to shoot.
A sequence shot lasting two minutes 45 seconds,
with multiple light sources,
movement,
and a tension that comes from discretion.
Another example of the decision made...
...to film at night.
With a combination of candlelight and natural light.
You see all the precision in the colours.
The work of Claire Mathon.
Candles are the biggest challenge of the reconstruction.
Are they in the frame? Are they on candelabras?
Are they big or small? Are they ostentatious?
We went for an Arte Povera style.
Candle ends on planks of wood.
They tie in with the sociology that we're seeing,
even if it's an anachronism to talk about sociology
in relation to this Breton aristocracy.
Every candle end is worth something.
There are flames running through every scene in the film.
The challenge was to never be reliant on being able to control them.
The clandestine behaviour continues even though the secret is out.
An opportune moment.
This scene really hinges,
after all that tension of the sequence shot,
on the change of pace.
And on Adèle Haenel's languor.
Her opening up.
This type of sequence relies heavily on precision on all levels,
the precision of the drawing and the subtlety of the actresses
and this sound, reinforced by sound effects.
I can't make you smile.
This scene...
I feel I do it and then it vanishes.
It's as if it had already taken place before we shot it.
Anger always comes to the fore.
Definitely with you.
First, because it's a pivotal scene,
it's the scene that epitomises...
I didn't mean to hurt you.
...the shot reverse shot dynamic.
You haven't hurt me.
I have, I can tell.
When you're moved, you do this with your hand.
What power does the beholder have? Who is looking at whom?
And it's also the scene we used for the auditions.
And when you're embarrassed...
For the role of Marianne,
because Adèle Haenel
was already on board.
When we did the auditions, I played the model
and the actresses played the painter,
which was somewhat carnivalesque.
Forgive me, I'd hate to be in your place.
It's very hard to shoot scenes you've used in casting sessions.
We're in the same place.
Exactly the same place.
This scene is all about the editing.
Come here.
It's about how you leave your shot to enter the reverse shot,
the other person's shot, which is defined by our viewpoint.
Step closer.
Look.
To start with, this scene...
If you look at me, who do I look at?
...showing a shift of power, or an understanding that it's shared,
was the scene of the first kiss.
It seemed obvious.
When you lose control, you raise your eyebrows.
And when you're troubled,
you breathe through your mouth.
Before I had her saying, "You knew I was in turmoil."
And she replied, "Yes."
And they kissed.
But we decided to take it further.
This is the only time we have Marianne framed like this,
observed, in her fragile state, by the model.
The only improvised scene in the film.
A card game, an 18th-century form of Spit.
It's an extremely authoritative set-up.
There is this panoramic shot linking the three characters
which sets the atmosphere
and then one shot per character, with them playing the game for real.
- I didn't touch! - I win.
I win.
These are tricky scenes,
especially for the director, because they are joyful to shoot.
You feel as if you've got lots of material
and, as I found when filming with kids, a lot of charm,
but actually you need to be clear-headed
to make sure you get the material you need.
- You're cheating. - I'm not cheating, I play fast.
The first shot is of Adèle Haenel
and it reveals something of her,
something about her childhood.
- Two. Two sixes. - Oh, no!
We see her spontaneity which flirts with the severing of ties
but retains a rare form of innocence.
Your turn.
The key shot in this sort of scene is usually the last take,
which is of Noémie Merlant.
And I gave her a lot of directions
because I saw what the other actresses had given.
CLAIRE MATHON: Céline wanted it to be a film of faces.
She wanted to film her actresses and their faces.
With the picture I tried not to show the direction or colour of the light.
Uncover your throat.
I worked on getting a satin-smooth texture,
on incorporating a softness.
Technically, that was created through a mixture of filters
and the choice of the quality and direction of the light,
plus a collaboration with make-up.
You have my future husband in mind.
What was beautiful was being able to sense the slightest trembling,
the slightest emotion, without the light upstaging the actresses.
Keeping the flesh tones,
as if the light emanated from their faces.
Why not men?
I'm not allowed to.
Why not?
The film was shot in a natural setting,
but the light was mostly artificial.
It was important to control the light and choose how much to reveal.
I also take inspiration from accidental natural light effects,
from the richness of its reflections and flashes.
That's why I use a mixture of light sources
and work with successive layers
which the light shines through, creating reflections and diffusions.
It's tolerated.
Finding a balance between real life and the timelessness of the portrait,
being in the era whilst retaining the precision of a contemporary portrait.
...to amuse them?
- Are you bored? - No.
I'm interested in you.
We were looking for clean lines, especially in the sets, the backgrounds.
Your complexion is remarkable today.
Céline's direction is very precise, very choreographed,
which allowed for a picture
that was precise, subtle and carefully chosen.
You pose beautifully.
You're pretty.
That's what I tell them.
SCIAMMA: This autumn bouquet.
A still life that is very much alive here
but will be a bit less alive later on in the film.
And embroidery.
It was very important for me that embroidery should figure in the film,
a typically feminine art which was then relegated to a craft
to play down the importance of the talent and contribution of women
in the arts that they were allowed to partake of.
And this shot which is an attempt to embody the experience of sisterhood,
in other words,
a reversal of social roles
and the sense of well-being that flows from that.
"Then, striking the lyre to accompany his words, he sang... "
This sequence was a very late addition to the screenplay
It was almost...
The dynamic of Orpheus and Eurydice in the film was the last thing I wrote.
poisoned her and robbed her of her youth... "
I wanted a scene based on a story to show the complicity between them,
a real Netflix-and-chill scene
with a story with a very strong climax, generating something to discuss,
because I wanted to see them exchanging and putting forward theories
about fiction and the issues it raises.
"'If the fates refuse my wife this favour,
'I am determined not to return."
This also introduces a feminist reinterpretation of the myths.
The myth about Orpheus and Eurydice has been reinterpreted
by numerous feminists, notably Monique Wittig,
because it is the myth which grants the male gaze the power to kill,
or to limit and condition.
"They sent for Eurydice.
She was there, among the recent spirits,
and approached, limping... "
This brings the myth up to date, first in the act of reading and listening,
and then in the analysis.
"...or the favour would be void. "
But there was an innocence about my including this myth.
I had no idea how far-reaching it would be in the story.
In the end it provided a link between the two main threads
which are the current experience of love and the memory of that love.
The apparitions of Héloïse as a ghost
are the future imprint
or the imprint already made
by this myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
"She reached out for his embrace and wished to hold him.
Her poor hands clutched only the empty air.
Dying a second time,
she did not complain. "
Dying twice is a woman's destiny.
That's horrible.
Poor woman. Why did he turn?
He was told not to but did, for no reason.
There are reasons.
You think so? Read it again.
The joy of filming women who think and debate.
But also the joy of validity, of the importance of all the theories.
No one is right and no one is wrong.
No, he can't look at her for fear of losing her.
That's no reason. He was told not to do that.
He's madly in love. He can't resist.
I think Sophie has a point.
He could resist. His reasons aren't serious.
Perhaps he makes a choice.
Marianne's theory is like her.
He chooses the memory of her. That's why he turns.
He doesn't make the lover's choice, but the poet's.
The poet's choice, and the debate is taken further.
"She spoke a last farewell
that scarcely reached his ears
and fell back into the abyss. "
Perhaps she was the one who said,
"Turn around. "
The myth from Eurydice's point of view.
Love as admiration,
being impressed by someone.
MATHON: It was important to get a sense of the environment,
to link the scene by the fireside with the moors.
It's a more nocturnal sensation, the notion of silhouettes.
This was obviously a key scene in the film,
one of the formative scenes.
I didn't want to be too realistic,
too constrained by the flames.
This whole sequence takes place around the fire,
but you see very little of it.
We set it up at the start.
Then we retain this image for the shot of the portrait of the lady on fire.
I wanted the backgrounds to convey a sense of the vegetation
by giving depth to the image with its hazy light.
That allowed me to be less monochrome and to keep the colours subtle.
It was very important to me to keep the warmth
without losing the tones of the skin and the costumes.
The light came from a combination of artificial sources and the fire.
The fire was often replaced by gas lights to temper the flames.
She says I'm still pregnant and to come back in two days.
I'll come with you.
The artificial lights allowed me to choose the direction of the light on the faces
and to retain a softness, because a flame is a harsh light.
Also to limit the variation in the light, the flickering of the flames,
which was too much,
vying for attention with the facial expressions.
SCIAMMA: The first musical scene in the film,
a piece composed for the film,
its anthem or perhaps an anthem for something else.
I asked for something polyphonic, polyrhythmic,
with a high number of beats per minute to evoke a trance.
The scene starts with a sort of normality,
the idea of women meeting round a fire
to drink and chat.
This was about friendship. Maybe friends is what so-called witches were.
And then their song, which fires up the imagination.
We had the tools of filmmaking.
We started with a really realistic sound.
These women were singing on set.
But we soon mixed in bigger sounds than the sounds on set.
And we weren't afraid to go for it.
This group scene is also a love scene.
These women singing
accompanies the first exchange of smiles
between the two main characters one hour and ten minutes into the film.
The words are in Latin.
It's a rough translation of a line by Nietzsche which says:
"The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly."
The desired image, the eponymous image.
Literally setting the character on fire.
MATHON: I remember the moment I realised
the extent to which a painting is not a photograph of an instant
but a much freer interpretation
despite its realism.
SCIAMMA: The link shot of the extended hand
towards another space-time
was written into the screenplay.
It's a leap.
Overall in the film we did a lot of work on scenes
which started as one thing and became something else.
And for this scene of the first kiss the opposite was true.
We go from one scene to the next with a radical ellipsis.
This scene of the first kiss,
a lot of thought went into it.
How do you film a first kiss?
What is a first kiss?
What will we remember
about what leads to the kiss?
And it's that choreography we are thinking of.
The long tracking shot of the rocks and then this link shot of her walking.
And these scarves which were intended for this scene.
Because we wanted to show their faces afresh
and to work on the eroticism of consent
with the idea that they would uncover their mouths
and the fabric dancing on their lips would show their heavy breathing.
The cave, the sound work.
Their hearts beating, the tide coming in.
Their hearts in their stomachs.
From that moment on, the pace of the film changes.
Another new chapter: The inevitable happens.
From now on time passes differently.
With the help of sequence shots we create new pulsations.
The same grammar, different rules.
It's coq au vin.
What about Héloïse?
She isn't well. She doesn't want dinner.
Here the fantasy dimension reasserts itself,
and you sense that from the sound.
The sound is spatialised.
It also conveys reverberations, the breath.
This apparition of Héloïse was a camera effect.
The beauty of camera effects in filmmaking
is that they are tried and tested,
but you always feel as if you are inventing something new,
because you have to invent something, to construct something,
to create this image of the past.
It requires a lot of faith.
It's very religious.
And here...
...the only shot to quote another film.
This shot, which is a nod to Persona by Bergman,
especially through the next link shot.
It's a quotation and yet you always think...
...when you love someone that you're inventing something new.
I thought you had been scared off.
You were right.
I'm scared.
Do all lovers feel they're inventing something?
I know the gestures.
I imagined it all, waiting for you.
You dreamt of me?
I thought of you.
Sophie.
A bit more of an expectation that she will behave as a servant.
She knocks on the door. What goes on behind closed doors?
But that's not the issue for her.
I'm coming.
The issue is whether or not they're going to accompany her.
Get up.
The intimacy of the morning after rather than the night before.
Marianne has her hands in her pockets.
It's an important detail.
I was obsessed, when we were creating the costumes,
with the character having pockets.
Noémie Merlant had a whole file on pockets.
She knew when she was meant to put her hands in her pockets.
The shape seems modern, but it's not anachronistic.
Women had pockets in those days.
They removed them in the 19th century, like so many other things.
The scene of the abortion was very tricky to film.
We shot it at the end of the first week.
We only visited the location once. It was a sort of museum.
Those sorts of sets aren't ideal.
There are extras, characters who only appear once.
That's Christel Baras, the casting director.
She's a great actress.
And the biggest challenge in this scene
was the child.
A young child.
And the scene revolves around the child.
Lie down.
When you get ready to shoot a scene like this,
you feel very alone, because there are no pointers,
there are very few instances of it.
There are no precedents in the history of filmmaking.
And I took little pleasure in being a pioneer.
Calling people pioneers is just a way of rewarding those
who feel as if they're doing something for the first time.
Deep breaths.
But it's not enough.
It's not enough to be landed with the scene.
You need to love it, there needs to be a desire for it,
something unique to the film, and what's unique here is the child.
Filming with a child requires
maximum comfort for the child
which means minimum comfort for you.
And you have to...
...have faith in a very long take.
You link the shots. I was sitting just beside them.
I was right beside Luàna Bajrami, the actress.
I talked her through it.
And it was a question of when to start and when to finish,
making sure the child was OK and trusting her.
The child was meant to put his hand on her chest.
That was in the screenplay.
Instead he wiped away her tears.
Those weren't miracles, they were decisions.
Go to bed.
I'll watch over her.
I don't want to go to bed.
This was a link shot that I knew to be disturbing.
Sophie?
Are you asleep?
Because, straight after that scene depicting the abortion,
we enter a new dynamic and the abortion is re-enacted.
It was very important to me,
even if it has a double-trigger effect, or rather a double-tension one.
It was important to show both the abortion
and the importance of showing it.
Because that's what happened.
That's what happened
when women were denied the opportunity to be artists.
Get your things. We're going to paint.
They didn't paint their private lives.
They didn't paint their desires, they didn't paint their bodies.
They didn't paint their lives
And all these images are missing from art history but also from our lives.
It was Annie Ernaux who said that in no museum in the world
is there a painting called "The Backstreet Abortionist".
So this scene comes a bit too quickly, perhaps, but...
...it's so we don't forget.
Look at her.
It's so we don't forget that art creates memory.
Arch your back a little.
And I also wanted to show the pleasure...
Straighten your head.
...of showing,
which we see on Marianne's face.
And also to show the model's impulse,
her intelligence.
She tells us what to look at.
She had the idea of painting it.
Women's only chance to be in artists' studios
was as models, and they seized that opportunity.
That's how they created works of art.
This is my favourite painting.
It was never finished.
Another painting about desire.
Sending out signals.
Conveying desire in the film rested on their shoulders.
Sending signals and receiving them.
What you're doing.
MERLANT: Adèle and I didn't work on our relationship before filming.
Be serious.
We didn't prepare the scenes.
On the contrary, it was created
in an environment of collaboration and benevolence.
From the start, a horizontal look,
and it's that horizontal look that the film is about,
the way collaborators look at one another.
That vision that Céline shares in her way of working
helped us to form this relationship.
Adèle and I formed a relationship,
getting to know one another as the shoot went on.
We observed one another.
We used that to create the relationship between Héloïse and Marianne.
SCIAMMA: A show of intimacy, of nudity.
And sexuality.
I bought it from a woman at the feast.
It's a plant. She said it makes you fly.
HAENEL: Generally in films, shooting sex scenes is stressful
because there's no idea.
So, as an actor, you find yourself having to simulate coitus in a wide shot
and you feel extremely vulnerable because your body is on display,
which is very intimate,
and you're not given any direction.
What's great about this film is that there is eroticism,
but it is sheltered by an idea.
For me the idea of penetrating the armpits added a sort of humour
which is often lacking in sex scenes.
Generally sex scenes reflect the way they are done,
they reflect a moment on set.
This moment on set was joyful.
And I was very happy to be able to take part
in a sort of demonstration
that eroticism is linked to the intellect.
Your eyes.
SCIAMMA: The second scene with the ghostly apparition.
A good rule for a screenplay is a rule of three.
And it plants the idea that Marianne is tempted by an image
which seems to be in the future.
To my mind love affairs are always haunted by their ending.
You have to drink.
This was an attempt to democratise this motif.
This was one of the scenes we did the most takes for.
It's the film's main scene for dialogue and possibly for conflict too.
But it's not orchestrated as a scene of conflict.
It's not orchestrated as arguments and negotiations.
The power struggle between the two is a discourse.
And that's the real pleasure, the challenge of the film,
to show characters who are in a dialogue with one another.
They listen to one another and bounce ideas off one another.
You didn't destroy the last one for me.
There was a basic desire to create a sense of the present tense...
You did it for you.
...through something written,
and people know it's written
because the dialogue is literary.
But there's a pleasure in creating a present
because the characters' thinking is in the present
and enacted by the actresses in the present.
Through it, I give you to another.
It was one of the pleasures...
...of these scenes with dialogue
which have the vocation of conveying the spoken word.
HAENEL: This scene didn't necessarily go to where we imagined it would.
Now you possess me a little, you bear me a grudge.
MERLANT: Yes, I expressed a lot of anger in the first takes.
Then it was your turn.
HAENEL: I was more expressive to start with, then the idea was to rein in the emotion
and to make it less explosive and more horizontal.
I did my takes
and we ended up with what's in the film,
something much more controlled,
and as a result you asked to do another take.
MERLANT: I asked to redo a take...
...where everything was more reined in and contained.
- HAENEL: And still. - MERLANT: Yes, still,
compared to the first take which was much more...
- HAENEL: ...agitated. - MERLANT: Agitated, yes.
That's it then.
You find me docile.
Worse...
You imagine I'm collusive.
You imagine my pleasure.
It's a way of avoiding hope.
HAENEL: There was the sense that if we overdid it, the information got lost.
...happy or unhappy...
The idea for us as actors is to unfold the emotions,
to give them a rhythm.
You'd prefer me to resist.
SCIAMMA: Here you've got ambiguity.
Yes, she'd prefer her to resist.
Are you asking me to?
Answer me.
"No, I'm not asking you to" or, "No, I'm not answering"?
The still life with a bit less life in it now.
A vanitas.
The rapid footsteps
which, as so often in the film,
herald an announcement.
Have you seen Héloïse?
No. She isn't in her room.
We've had news.
Madam returns tomorrow.
Very well.
Will you be ready?
Yes.
It's been a while since we were outside.
This scene was filmed on the third day of shooting.
It was the first big scene of intimacy that we shot.
We spent a lot of time getting the level of emotion right.
This was one of the last takes.
For ages when we were editing the film I found the first take to be
good, satisfactory, moving.
It was a take where the emotion was less buried.
And in the end we chose this one
which was more bathed in tears
Your mother returns tomorrow.
More devastating, for Marianne in particular.
She's the character who lays bare her emotions
in the film.
This was the eighth take.
There is exhaustion, tension, abandon.
And Noémie Merlant's tears.
We kept it long.
Now, after that last outpouring
with the waves, the ocean,
the sound is really spare.
There's no such thing as silence in the cinema. Something always fills it.
Obviously, the sound here is spatialised so there is more than one thing filling it,
maybe five things at any one time.
It takes a lot of reflection to create silence.
What is the silence made of? What note? What wind?
Do you want it to be felt? Do you want it to be ignored?
Here we are just left with the voices
and the bodies.
Silence is also about making room for the bodies,
for the sound of the bodies of the characters and the actors,
the direct sound of their breath.
And this silence relies on being able to listen.
We always think of the sensations, of the sensory experience
the film gives the audience.
This silence makes them listen to their own breath.
They are sharing the space with their neighbours' bodies
and the emotions can be heard.
And the listening experience you create with a void
makes the audience focus and pay attention
to their own emotion.
Finished.
The portrait is done, but the story carries on.
With another portrait.
Who is that for?
Here the idea was to show the miniatures.
Miniatures were often painted by women
and that's partly why so many of them are lost.
Miniatures are lost in private collections.
These great little works are not in our archives.
After a while,
you'll see her when you think of me.
There is something very contemporary about this scene.
They have their hair down.
I'll have no image of you.
There are no costumes, just the shoulders of naked bodies.
Do you want an image of me?
And we no longer know which era this is.
HAENEL: The point where I say 28...
That one.
There was going to be a justification for it.
Why 28? Because it's my age.
But we cut it, and taking that decision on set meant
a new mystery was created because, without the explanation, when I said...
Twenty-eight.
When I said 28, I thought, I'm going to create a treasure.
No one else will know what it means, but it's meaningful to her at that moment.
SCIAMMA: The story really lends itself to these scenes.
They are so charged that they become almost dreamlike.
One or two takes.
There's the idea of the mirror in which the painter's face is reflected.
That was also a nod to...
...Francesca Woodman,
the photographer from New York.
This scene wasn't in the screenplay.
I wrote it specifically for the last round of auditions
when we chose Noémie Merlant.
I had decided to write a scene specifically for the auditions,
a scene that would allow me to evaluate the degree of intimacy,
the melodrama, the emotion, a scene with everything in it.
A farewell scene before the farewells.
This scene was a determining factor, practically a revelation,
in the choice of Noémie Merlant.
I filmed this scene I had written an hour previously.
Remember.
It was moving and the scene worked.
In particular it worked between them, there was a real chemistry,
a real closeness, a real friendship...
I'll remember when you fell asleep in the kitchen.
It was very seductive without any seducing.
I'll remember...
your dark stare when I beat you at cards.
The electricity between them was so strong
that, as I filmed the scene, my heart was pounding
and I thought, "That's it."
I saw a real equality.
You took your time being funny.
That's true.
I wasted time.
Between the two lovers.
I wasted time, too.
It was something new
and it was something we had created together.
l'll remember the first time I wanted to kiss you.
When was that?
It's a top shot so we had all the machinery in place
in the background.
At the gathering around the bonfire.
To show the point of view of God, almost...
I wanted to, yes.
...of this intimate exchange.
But that wasn't the first time.
My heart was beating so fast during these takes.
Tell me.
No, you tell me.
We only shot four takes for this scene.
We worked on the lighting...
When you asked if had known love.
...on the way their hair is lit.
I could tell the answer was yes.
And that it was now.
It looks timeless.
I remember.
I gave a lot of thought to this shot. It may not look like much.
With scenes like that, you arrive on set and no one knows how it will turn out.
You just know you have to shoot it.
And you spend time together, arranging the hair.
This sequence shot has a very particular rhythm.
A man enters the frame.
Good morning.
A good morning is enough to remind us
of all the people whose story we haven't told.
It just takes a man's body...
...to tell the story we haven't told.
They're here.
The film chose to tell the story of a possible love affair.
In other words, what it put in the centre of the frame
was what was possible, what was bearable.
Maybe that's what it means to create female characters,
to focus on their desires.
If you focus on their opportunities there isn't much to say.
And as soon as a film focuses on the desires of the characters...
Perhaps what makes it revolutionary is giving them all the space.
Suddenly, all it takes is a body in a frame to say...
danger.
Perhaps like a femme fatale in a film noir with a cigarette holder signalling danger.
Very good.
For you.
There is an inevitability about what happens next.
The sound has been stripped right back.
We return to the impediments.
In a minute.
No, now.
But since we avoided the dynamic of conflict and obstacles for so long,
it doesn't feel fictitious.
It is at once tragic,
political and intimate.
From this point on, the film was edited to be increasingly implacable,
to instil a silence, even in the dialogue.
I'll say goodbye here.
This is one of the rare moments in the film
when the ends of the sequences were cut.
Goodbye.
Some words spoken and filmed were removed.
This farewell sequence was particularly hard to shoot.
It just so happened that we'd drawn up a rather romantic schedule
so this was Adèle Haenel's last shot.
And the blood has completely drained from Noémie Merlant's face.
She is as white as a sheet.
Because she's emotional.
Have a safe journey.
The choreography was skilful and complicated.
There's a tracking shot.
It stops and then starts again.
It was very hard to shoot because we were working with the real constraint
of the actresses having to part too.
The challenge with farewells is getting the pace right.
The footsteps on the stairs.
The flight and the last image.
Turn around.
In the present.
We hear the sound effects from the previous ghostly apparitions
made real.
And the door closing.
Back in the studio.
For the first of the film's three endings.
You've made me look so sad.
You were.
I'm not anymore.
This landing strip is actually a launching pad...
I saw her again a first time.
...for a first flashback.
There is lots of humour in this scene full of extras,
shot in the studio, a reconstitution of the Paris salon.
With all these extras it's like the film we could have made.
The painting behind Marianne evokes the arch and the beach.
She herself is dressed in the same colours as Orpheus
and Eurydice is wearing the white dress.
Your father is in shape.
It's my painting. I submitted it in his name.
A bit of mansplaining.
Usually, he's portrayed before he turns
or after, as Eurydice dies.
Here, they seem to be saying goodbye.
I still wonder whether the audience really believes
we're about to see Héloïse, but I don't think so.
I think they know it's a painting.
This is the last shot we filmed,
with Noémie looking at the painting.
The first blow to the heart.
Page 28.
The language of the lovers which is also the language of the film,
shared by the lovers in the film
and the audience in this sequence.
I saw her one last time.
The reason we work.
This last scene...
...was the first one to be written.
It's the one I made the film for.
Theatre, indoors, night.
Marianne edges her way past members of the audience
on a balcony of an Italian-style theatre.
She sits down and watches the room fill up
amidst the hubbub of voices, amplified by the acoustics
in the auditorium.
A familiar silhouette is making her way along the opposite balcony.
Her face is revealed and Marianne is transfixed.
It's Héloïse.
She edges her way past occupied and empty seats
until she reaches the end of the row, like the edge of a precipice.
She sits down. She is right next to the stage.
She stares straight ahead.
She doesn't look at the audience, where the conversations fade,
one after the other, as if by common consent.
She didn't see me.
The theatre is gripped by a silence
just as violins strike up their first thundery notes.
Like a held breath, pierced by a famous staccato.
The inaugural notes of the Presto from Vivaldi's "Summer".
Héloïse looks troubled on hearing the opening bars of this longed-for piece.
We home in imperceptibly on her face
during the three minutes that the movement lasts.
Her face reflects the dramatic composition of the music
as she listens to it.
With its massive build-up of intensity,
it has everything: Surprise, exaltation,
a beating heart, expectation,
melancholy, concentration,
flushed cheeks,
memories, sadness,
and the breath deepening.
All the expressions of a woman
that we know well and have enjoyed looking at,
that we have loved.
We also discover things we didn't know about her,
perhaps because they are new, like the lines in the corner of her eye,
perhaps also because they are things we haven't spotted
which remain to be understood.
When the piece reaches its thrilling finale,
Héloïse reveals the last and most alive of all her faces.
I gave Adèle just one direction: End with a gasp.