Sophie, 30, just
found out she landed that job at a famous Parisian publisher. Her dream? Not
exactly: she would rather see her own graphic work printed… When she tells her
boyfriend Jean she is pregnant, everything explodes. They break up and she must
return to waiting tables like her friend Julia, an aspiring actress.
How can one
survive in Paris under such conditions?
Screenwriters
Nine Antico, with
Marc Syrigas, with Céline Sciamma
Selection,
Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (France, 2021)
Excerpts from reviews
“Comic book author Nine Antico does a brilliant job
with her first film: an inventive, realist and funny feminist work which
breathes new life into a conventional genre."
“So do not trust the reductive title
Playlist of this vibrant and inventive portrait of a today's girl
confronted with the harsh demands of a time when everyone is called upon to
rely on their own strengths, to become the heroine. or the hero of his own
life. The boys encountered by Sophie during her daily struggle are also
treated by the director with kindness. There is no question here of a war
of the sexes or of denouncing machismo: Jean, Benjamin and the others manifest,
each in their own way, not always elegant, a shared dismay.”
“… for her first
feature film. Nine Antico, who until now has mainly been known as a comic
book author. Playlist is a very pleasant comedy about a young
girl of almost 30 years old, Sophie, played by Sara Forestier who juggles odd
jobs and lovers not necessarily all up to the task and who dreams of making her
passion, drawing, her job. . Autobiographical film, both modern and
vintage, with a pop aesthetic, soundtrack to match and a black and white image
but also a feminist work. Around an impeccable Sara Forestier, the rest of
the cast is perfect, notably with Laetitia Dosch or Grégoire Colin.”
I have not been able to get clarity on
exactly what was Céline’s contribution to the writing of this film. There is
lots of contradictory information out there—even within the film’s Press Kit
there is contradictory information!!
In the film’s
Press Kit only director Nine Antico is credited as the screenwriter, while the
poster on the front page of the Press Kit seems to also list Marc Syrigas as a
writer. IMDB states that Nine Antico is the screenwriter and Marc Syrigas is a
collaborating writer. IonCinema has the confusing statement:
“Co-written with Marc Syrigas (who co-writes with Celine Sciamma)”
UniFrance (my ‘go to’ site for French cinema),
CinEuropa, and Allocine all list Nine Antico, Marc Syrigas and Céline Sciamma
as screenwriters.
My guess is that Céline Sciamma was a script consultant.
Brittany, 1770. Marianne, a painter, is
commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse,
a young woman who has just left the convent. Héloïse
is a reluctant bride to be and Marianne must paint her without her knowing. She
observes her by day, to paint her secretly.
Jean-Baptiste de Laubiere (Para One) & Arthur
Simonini
Cinematography
Claire
Mathon
Casting
Christel
Baras
Executive Producer
Bénédicte
Couvreur
Press Attaché
François
Hassan Guerrar
Honours/Awards
Festival De Cannes 2019
Sélection Officiellement
Best Screenplay Award, Céline Sciamma
Queer Palm
European Film Awards
European
University Film Award
Best Screenwriter, Céline Sciamma
Lumières
Award
Best Actress, Noémie Merlant
Best
Cinematography, Claire
Mathon
César Awards
Best
Cinematography, Claire
Mathon
New
York Film Critics Online
Best
Foreign Language film
Los
Angeles Film Critics Association
Best
Cinematography, Claire Mathon
Toronto
Film Critics Associate
Best Foreign Language film
Women
Film Critics Circle
Best
Movie About Women
Best
Foreign Film By or About Women
Best
Screen Couple, Noémie Merlant & Adèle Haenel
Boston
Society of Film Critics
Best
Cinematography, Claire
Mathon
Florida
Film Critics Circle
Best
Picture
Best Director, Céline Sciamma
Best Foreign
Language Film
National
Society of Film Critics
Best
Cinematography, Claire
Mathon
New
York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best
Cinematography, Claire
Mathon
National
Board of Review
Top
Five Foreign Language Films
AND LOTS LOTS MORE!
Excerpts from Reviews (my bolding)
“What a thrillingly versatile film-maker Céline Sciamma has
proved to be. Having made an arthouse splash with the Euro-hits Water Lilies and Tomboy,
she wrote and directed Girlhood (Bande de filles),
a breathtaking portrait of modern “banlieue life” that completed her
“accidental trilogy of youth”. Her impressive screenplay credits include Claude
Barras’s My Life as a
Courgette, a tenderly empathetic, French-Swiss stop-motion
masterpiece that earned an Oscar nomination for its vividly resilient depiction
of children in care. In each of these very different projects, Sciamma has
struck an accessible chord by focusing tightly on specifics, finding the key to
universal appeal in the unique, tiny details of each story and character.”
“It is the fourth feature by French auteur
Céline Sciamma as director, coming after Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood,
although her writing credits are more numerous and include the animated
heartbreaker My Life As A
Courgette. Her recurring obsession is with marginalised people, who
are often queer, and their social microcosms at times of palpable discovery and
growth. Stories are driven by naturalistic events, but powered by emotions too
huge to ever be fully articulated. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is
both a natural progression in Sciamma’s work and a formal departure of
existential consequence, for the story it tells is framed as a memory,
bookended by two scenes from a future time. As such, the audience perceives the
story as both a real-time event, and a treasure from the past.
…
Of Sciamma’s many strengths, it is her screenwriting that lays the rhythm of
this tale. She is in no hurry to take the romance to a place of heated
declaration and sexual exploration. Her focus is on developing each character
in tandem, so their connection and mutual trust unfolds by careful increments
through spending time together walking by the sea and gravitating towards each
other inside the castle, like two magnets.
…
There are theme-park rides; there is cinema; there are sacred love poems to
take with you for the rest of your life. Thank you for giving us the last one,
Céline Sciamma.”
“Sciamma has a great feel for structure, for
emotional arcs, and for pinpoint-accurate catharses that nevertheless preserve
the tantalizing enigma of her characters. The film is filled with moments of
unforgettable intimacy and passion — there are at least three scenes where you
could legitimately lean over to your companion and whisper, “That’s a portrait
of a lady on fire” — but intimacy and passion don’t always result in
understanding or clarity; often, they deepen the beloved’s mystery. As such,
the tone is sober, delicate, deliberate. Portrait of a Lady on Fire builds
and builds and builds, as we keep waiting for an explosion, a big emotional
climax. And, not unlike with another great recent import, Pedro
Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, it arrives with the very last shot — which I
won’t reveal other than to say it’s one of the finest pieces of acting and one
of the most moving images I’ve seen in eons.”
“French writer/director Céline
Sciamma has hypnotizing powers—her spellbinding pull was unmissable in
both the sensual Water Lilies and the gleaming coming-of-age tale Girlhood. With Portrait of a Lady on Fire, she takes that cinematic magnetism to new
heights and periods, to a cliffside manor somewhere on the coast of Brittany in
the 1770s. Imbued with a buttery-matte palette and resolute, painterly strokes
of camera throughout—lensed by Claire Mathon with patient
tenacity—Sciamma’s latest tells the tale of a dreamy romance. It’s a delicate
drama that flourishes through the liberating power of art, where a hopeful yet
consuming love affair sparks between two young women amid patriarchal customs,
and stays concealed in their hearts both because of and in spite of it.
…
But above all that, Portrait of a Lady on
Fire is its own, wondrous, magnificent thing; a complete artistic vision where
every directorial step is refined and each thematic probe, seamlessly weaved
in. So when Sciamma generously brings in the storyline of Sophie (Luàna
Bajrami), a maid in need of abortion, the film doesn’t venture out of its
scope. Instead, this thread unites the patriarchy-defying themes of Portrait, while slowly building a sense of sisterhood within the confines of a remote
home that lives under the shadow of unseen men. With a heartbreaking, Call
Me by Your Name-esque finale that consumes Haenel’s emotive face (you will
never hear the Summer section of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, a
recurring motif, in the same way again), Sciamma’s gift to 2019 sets a highest
standard for any romance that will come after it.”
“Other than flawless performances, the writing
needs to be acknowledged. Céline Sciamma’s poignant screenplay and words
reverberate in your mind, long after you’ve seen the movie. “Do all lovers feel
like they are inventing something?”, Héloïse asks Marianne. They talk in a
language that lovers do, interpret books, poetry and paintings like lovers do.
Art imitates life so at one point they are forced to make a crucial decision
about their life, just like the people in the poem they’d read and discussed.
To turn around or move on, regret or remember?
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is an exquisite piece
of artistic cinema, that will stay with you for years to come.”
Excerpt from Interview with Céline Sciamma (from
the Press Kit)
“This
is the first time that you have ever related the experience of love.
It was my initial desire to shoot a love story.
With two apparently contradictory wishes underlying the writing. Firstly, to
show, step by step, what it is like to fall in love, the pure present and
pleasure of it. There, the direction focuses on confusion, hesitation and the
romantic exchange. Secondly, to write the story of the echo of a love affair,
of how it lives on within us in all its scope. There, the direction focuses on
remembrance, with the film as a memory of that love. The film is designed as an
experience of both the pleasure of a passion in the present and the pleasure of
emancipatory fiction for the characters and the audience. This dual temporality
allows us to experience the emotion and to reflect on it.
There was also the desire for a love story
based on equality. From the casting stage, Christel Baras and I were concerned about
this balance. A love story that is not based on hierarchies and relationships
of power and seduction that exist before the encounter. The feeling of a
dialogue that is being invented and that surprises us. The whole film is
governed by this principle in the relationships between the characters. The
friendship with Sophie, the servant, which goes beyond the class relationship. The
frank discussions with the Countess who herself has desires and aspirations. I
wanted solidarity and honesty between the characters.”
Apart from two musical
moments that play a part in the plot, the film has no music.
I had
already planned to make the film without music when I was writing. I say this
because it was something that had to be thought out in advance. Especially in a
love story, where emotion is often musical. We had to think about it in the rhythm
of the scenes and their arrangement. You can’t count on music to bind them, for
example. There will be no emergency or backup melody. We’re dealing with total
scenic units. To make a film without music is to be obsessed with rhythm, to
make it arise elsewhere, in the movements of the bodies and the camera. Especially
since the film is mostly made up of sequence shots and therefore with a precise
choreography.
It was
a gamble but I did not view it as a challenge. Here too, basically, it is a
re-creation issue. I wanted to make music a part of the characters’ lives, as a
rare, desired, precious, unavailable thing. And so put the viewer in the same
condition. The relationship to art in the film is generally vital because the characters
are isolated. First of all, from the world, then from each other. The film also
tells us that art, literature, music and cinema sometimes allow us to give full
rein to our emotions.”
Press Kit
Notes
This
is my favourite film (ever)—the complexity of the film and the sublime performances by
Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant make re-watching it many, many times constantly
rewarding. This is because Céline has built so much complexity into every facet
of the film—the script, the performances, the cinematography, the set design,
the sound design—everything! For example, focus just on the sound design on one
re-watch—from the distant banging when Marianne is settling into her room to
remind us that the other characters are living their lives in other parts of
the chateau, the distant sounds in Marianne’s art studio telling us that her
studio is in an inhabited building, to the how the sounds of the fire crackling underscore dramatic moments of the film. Or on another re-watch just keep an
eye on fire in the shots—for example, Marianne has flames leaping behind her as
she plays the spinet for Héloïse (a woman on fire?), and also when they are in
the kitchen in the wonderfully domestic scene before they play cards. Or think
about which drinking glasses are used in each scene—Marianne is in the awkward
position of being middle class and an artist, but she is also an employee of the
family. This means that when she is with the Comtesse she drinks from a stemmed
glass, but when she dines (in the kitchen, not with the family, she is the hired help after all…)
she is given a tumbler to drink wine, water, or beer from. When the Comtesse is
away watch which glasses are used…
Céline Sciamma has crafted this film so that
each and every scene is vital. Her writing is magnificent. Read this lecture at
BAFTA (http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/transcripts/screenwriters-lecture-series-2019-celine-sciamma)
for an insight into her writing process—don’t just watch the video if you want
deeper understanding, as heaps was edited out of the video that is in the
transcript. She has directed her actresses so that each could be at her best.
Claire Mathon has filmed it to perfection. The sound design is magnificent—I
bought a sound bar to view it at home once the cinemas shut down due to
COVID-19 (before that I saw it at the cinema at least once a week). The audio at home had been fine for other films, but I needed it to
be SO much better so that I could appreciate this film. I hope that I can again watch it in a cinema with the full visual and sound experience once the pandemic has faded...).
I
have watched this film many times and still small details appear that reveal
yet another layer that Céline has built into the film. Céline deliberately
plants little things in the film for those of us who choose to dive deep.
Céline is a genius and this film is the pinnacle of her cinema achievements so
far (I have not yet seen Pétite Maman).
Bettina Oberli
& Antoine Jaccoud, in collaboration with Céline Sciamma
Synopsis
An isolated farm in a remote part of the Jura
region: this is where Pauline and Alex are living in complete self-sufficient
harmony with nature. Their life project is sealed by their love, their ideals
and their work. The couple is now ready to take the step towards total
independence and start producing their own electricity. The arrival of Samuel,
who comes to install a wind turbine, deeply troubles Pauline, upsetting their
relationship and their values.
Awards/Honours
Variety Piazza
Grande Award, Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland, 2018)
Selected for
screening at
Zurich Film Festival
(Switzerland, 2019)
Taipei Film Festival,
Taiwan 2019
My French Film
Festival, 2020
Festival du Film. Francophone
de Grèce (Greece 2019)
Lisbon French Film
Festival (Portugal 2018)
Helvetica French
Film Festival (Switzerland 2018)
Excerpts from reviews
"With the Wind is the Swiss-German
director’s first feature in French, and she seems at ease with the language
switch, helped by an excellent cast. Thierry’s fresh-faced beauty lends itself
to an outdoorsy setting, and she sympathetically conveys Pauline’s inner
struggles when being a good caretaker for the earth just isn’t enough. The
script (Céline Sciamma is credited as collaborator) could have added more
subtlety to Alex’s character, but Deladonchamps is an ace at throwing himself
into extreme roles, and even Shevtsova leaves an unexpected mark despite an underwritten
role. Cinematographer Stéphane Kuthy’s light and flexible camera has a
satisfying, at times tremulous inquisitiveness, finding the balance between
people and nature."
“The story beats
are largely familiar, but a fearless performance from French actress Melanie Thierry (The Princess of Montpensier)
gives the material a raw power and urgency that will help lift With
the Wind above the fray. The handsomely produced feature, which also
showcases the beautiful Jura landscapes, premiered on Locarno’s Piazza Grande,
where 8,000 people collectively swooned. This suggests the film could work in
art houses not afraid of contemporary romantic material.”
Céline
Scimma was a collaborating writer with the screenwriters Antoine Jaccoud and Bettina Oberli (director) for this Swiss/French
co-production. I have not yet been able
to find an English subtitled DVD of this film, so if you find it please let me
know via the comments.
“Working with fellow script writers Antoine Jaccoud, Bettina
Oberli and Thomas Ritter, Sciamma’s trademark sensibility can be felt
throughout the film in the strong emotional silences between characters.”
Céline’s
Role: Screenwriter (adapted from the book Autobiographie
d'une Courgette by Gilles Paris)
English
Titles
My
Life as a Courgette and My Life as aZucchini (USA)
Year
2016
Director
Claude
Baras
Screenwriters
Céline
Sciamma (screenwriter) With contributing writers: Germano Zullo, Claude
Barras, & Morgan Navarro. Screenplay based on the book by Gilles Paris.
Form
Animated
feature film. 64mins (French & English)
Synopsis
Courgette is an intriguing nickname for a
9-year-old boy. Although his unique story is surprisingly universal. After his
mother’s sudden death, Courgette is befriended by a kind police officer,
Raymond, who accompanies Courgette to his new foster home filled with other
orphans his age. Courgette struggles at first to find his place in this
strange, at times hostile, environment. Yet with Raymond’s help and his
newfound friends, Courgette eventually learns to trust, find true love and at last
a new family of his own.
Nominated, Annie Award Outstanding
Achievement, Writing in an Animated Feature Production, Céline Sciamma
Nominated, Annie Award Outstanding
Achievement, Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Claude Barras
Nominated, Annie Award Best Animated Feature
— Independent
It was also screened at MANY film
festivals.
Excerpts
from Reviews
99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes
“Director Céline Sciamma has already
demonstrated keen insights into what it means to be young and French
in Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014),
as well as in her screenplay for André Téchiné's Being 17 (2016).
But as screenwriter she proves even sharper in this animated adaptation of
Gilles Paris’ 2002 novel, Autobiographie d'une Courgette,
which marks Swiss director Claude Barras’ transition from acclaimed shorts like The
Genie In A Ravioli Can (2006). … Refusing to sentimentalise the plight of the
seven youngsters residing at Les Fontaines, Barras and Sciamma ensure that each
has an unflinchingly authentic backstory that makes their bond all the more
plausible and poignant.
The only downside to this charming and
disarmingly thought-provoking gem is that it lasts a mere 66 minutes. Few would
complain if a sequel came along.”
“Leave
it to a French-language stop-motion film to cut closer to the reality of the
orphan experience than Annie, Matilda or any number of like-minded
live-action melodramas have over the years — assuming, of course, you can
get past the whimsical fact that its parentless wretch sports blue hair and a
potato-shaped noggin. Adapted from the Gilles Paris YA novel by France’s most
youth-savvy screenwriter, Celine Sciamma (Tomboy, Girlhood),
Swiss director Claude Barras’ My Life as a Zucchini tells a simple story
simply, drawing its power from point of view, as a troubled 9-year-old recounts
his stint in a group home following the death of his alcoholic mother.
…
True to the children’s novel that inspired it, Sciamma’s screenplay
takes its naive young protagonist’s view of the world, repeatedly
introducing tough concepts in understated ways, as when father-figure cop
Raymond delicately probes for details on Courgette’s family situation without
exposing his deepest fear — namely that the boy inadvertently killed his
mom trying to protect himself during one of her drunken rages. Now, remanded to
the Fontaines group home, his only souvenir of her is an empty beer can."
“My Life As a Courgette (or My
Life As a Zucchini in the US), a wonderfully
affecting French-Swiss stop-motion masterpiece based on Gilles Paris’s book Autobiographie
d’une Courgette. Directed by feature first-timer Claude Barras from a
screenplay by Girlhood writer-director Céline Sciamma,
this tale of resilient children surviving abuse and abandonment may sound tough
and unpalatable. Yet despite the spectre of parental alcoholism, drug addiction
and worse, this beautifully tender and empathetic film addresses kids and
adults alike in clear and compassionate tones that span – and perhaps heal –
generations.
…
Sciamma’s screenplay combines revealingly frank and poignant observations about
disrupted lives with laugh-out-loud discussions of sex (“my parents had films…
the man’s willy explodes”) and moments of tenderness made all the more powerful
by their understatement. A scene in which the kids dance beneath a glitterball
to Eisbär by Swiss band Grauzone is as vibrant and invigorating as the Diamonds
sequence from Girlhood, a moment of pure
character-building musical delight. Subtly subversive, too, that the narrative
should celebrate social workers and lend sympathetic voice to a policeman, all
of whom are portrayed in an unfashionably nurturing light.
Sciamma cites the Dardenne brothers as influential, while Barras
acknowledges sources ranging from Bambi to The 400 Blows. I thought I spotted a sly nod to Miyazaki in the graffiti on the wall of the children’s
home, and even a hallucinogenic flash of Dougal and the Blue Cat in a ghost train ride during a
fairground outing. Whatever the sources, the end result is wholly remarkable,
whether in subtitled French or the English-dubbed version. I watched both, and
while the former seemed marginally more melancholic, the latter still moved me
to tears, buoyed up by Sophie Hunger’s plaintive music that perfectly
accompanies the lyrical humanism of this lovely movie.”
“Such
is the deft brilliance of director Claude Barras’ understated
heartbreaker. The restraint and care with which Barras and screenwriter
Céline Sciamma tell their drama denotes great respect for their young
characters and their young audience. In their snowy chat, Zucchini reveals
to Camille with self-reflection beyond his years that had his mother lived, he
likely would have spent his adult days drinking beer with her. “I’m quite happy
to know it will never happen,” says the nine-year-old, and the insight does not
seem out of place since the film has taken its characters on their
own terms from the beginning.
An accomplished director herself, Sciamma
(adapting a novel by Gilles Paris) demonstrates a rare talent for treating
young characters as fully formed humans with hopes and desires. This was
particularly true of her second feature, Tomboy, a story about a
girl who convinces her classmates she is a boy, which Sciamma told with
equal parts humor and nuance."
This
touching film is a French/Swiss co-production feature stop motion film. It has
been universally acclaimed. In it Céline continues her exploration of growing
up and, again, demonstrates her genius in representing the world from the point
of a young person.
The
“making of” featurette (which is also on the DVD) is worth viewing. Stop motion
is amazingly time consuming and fiddly, and in this film the weird looking characters
show such a range of emotions that defy the medium—they quickly engage you in
their complicated lives.
“The producers suggested to Claude
Barras the name of Céline Sciamma to collaborate in the writing
of the scenario. This idea was greeted with enthusiasm by the director. "Céline
knew how to give the screenplay a real structure, very classic and rigorously
articulated. She also knew how to balance the subtle balance between humour and
emotion, adventure and social realism," he says. "The
success of this screenplay also depends a lot on the very delicate treatment of
its characters, subtly evoking the darkness of the past to better chase them
away in the light of the budding friendships in the present".
“It didn’t take much for me to commit to the adventure of My Life as
a Courgette: just the outline of a character, sketched by Claude Barras.
The sensitivity of his features, this unique visual signature, which not only
reflected a love for a character, but made me fall in love with the character
as well. After jumping into the project, I was completely caught up and moved
by the problems and sincerity of these little characters. An animated film
steadfastly committed to the realism and accuracy of the story it is telling,
all the while striving for visual poetry, is singular enough to be
irresistible. Writing the screenplay was a moment of freedom and trust. It is
very rare to encounter a project which has the strength of the obvious. There’s
a form of boldness and simplicity in Courgette that won me over. For
simplicity is essential not to succumb to the sirens’ call of excess, or the
temptation of playing god and creating one’s own little world. And it takes
guts and daring to convince yourself that the story of a little boy who kills
his alcoholic mother and so ends up in an orphanage is the perfect pitch for a
children’s film. And yet, when you think of the children’s tales that have been
handed down to us through the ages, they often have very dark premises, such as
Little Thumbling, or Hansel & Gretel… Fairy tales are cruel, My Life as
a Courgette isn’t. The project has the strength and tenderness of a coming of
age story, committed to reflecting a world that already exists, our world,
which is that of the children whom this film aims to speak to.”
THE SCREENPLAY (Claude Barras)
“Due to its at times explicit descriptions of
the violence that the children are subjected to, the book, Autobiography of
a Courgette, is for the most part targeted for young adults and parents. In
adapting the story for an animated film, I wanted to expand the audience to
include younger children.
After an initial, rather long stage of
writing and paring down the story, my producers proposed that I work with
Céline Sciamma. I was, naturally, very enthusiastic straight away. I had seen Tomboy
a few months before and loved the film. So we met on a regular basis to
exchange our ideas and very quickly, avoiding the pitfall of relating the story
in diary form that seemed at first obvious for an adaptation, Céline knew how to
give the screenplay a truly classic and strictly set structure, as well as how
to strike the right balance between humor and emotion, adventure and social
realism. The screenplay’s success is also due to the very delicate handling of
its characters, which subtly evokes dark, tragic past incidents to better
exorcise them in light of budding friendships in the present.”
Claude Barras
Articles worth reading
How I wrote My Life as a Courgette, by Céline
Sciamma
