sapphicdeneuve - Tumblr blog

sapphicdeneuve · 4 years ago

Text

Céline Sciamma tells interviewer that she had a crush on Catherine Deneuve as a teenager and counts the French cinema icon as one of her inspiration! The geeky fervor that she nurtured the crush (stealing the poster of Andre Techine's 1993 film Ma Saison Preferee, which Deneuve starred in, for example, and also transcribing the script of Indochine) is so cute. My life is complete knowing this #fact. I love Celine. I LOVE Deneuve.

Course en Tête

[Many thanks to @tonovember for the pics and for pointing me to the text of the article!, which had originally been sent to me as a .pdf by @morningmightcomebyaccident. The unedited article photo can be seen here. - C.]

In three films, Céline Sciamma has established herself as a discreet and generous band leader. Profile.

by Marion Guyonvarch - Stylist, October 23, 2014

A dirty hotel room, on the outskirts of the suburbs. Mariem, a shy young Black girl, terrorized by her older brother, who has just dropped out of high school, laughs with her three new girlfriends, half divas, half terrors of the neighborhood. Four lionesses who, that evening, just for the sake of self-celebration, put on the ultra-sexy dresses they didn’t dare to wear in their buildings below. They are beautiful, lively, happy. And sing Rihanna’s Diamonds at volume 18. They are the Bande de filles, the new film by Céline Sciamma. The third part of her triptych on adolescence, after Naissance des pieuvres, the chlorinated first film about three girls in full libidinal awakening, and Tomboy, a vivid plunge into the life of Laure, a 10-year-old girl who pretends to be a boy and is called Mickael among her new little friends. For Bande de filles, she focuses her camera on a quartet of young, rebellious, stylish Black girls who don’t want to be subjected to the domination of boys. «I met them at Les Halles, I really wanted to show them off. They have an incredible potential as characters,» says Céline Sciamma, who turns them into warriors against a rival gang, women who fulfill their desire at the risk of looking like whores. But they’re also kids who cry in secret. In three films, Céline Sciamma has exploded the traditional frameworks of femininity (we rise and offer up a magnificent ola to her for that). How you become a girl, what you gain from it, what it costs. An inspired and personal cinema, a sensitive vision embodying the issue of gender (far removed from today’s caricatures), which she has been developing since her beginnings with a handful of faithful followers. An unofficial gang that she takes on board from project to project and that has only one desire: to follow her for one more tour. «She doesn’t have to do anything for it, but she is intelligent, charismatic. She has this thing that places her at the intersections of projects and makes her presence self-evident», says Claire Burger, director of Party Girl and Céline’s friend. We too wanted to be part of the band.

TEENAGED FERVOR

We can thank Catherine Deneuve. Without her, Céline Sciamma would not have made movies. At the age of 13, the teenager from Cergy fell madly in love with the icon of French cinema. She stole the poster for André Téchiné’s Ma saison préférée from a bus shelter and stuck it in her room. And she embarked on a singular challenge, with a Will Hunting atmosphere: retyping word for word the script of Indochine - which she listened to on her Walkman with her headphones - «to see how it’s done». Then she goes over all the actress’s films with a fine-toothed comb, discovering Buñuel, Demy (whose musicals she knows by heart), Truffaut… Obsessive love at first sight turned into a passion for the seventh art. The good student took her dose three times a week, alone in front of the black screen of the Utopia cinema in Pontoise. All the money that she earned by babysitting, she spent there. «It was also a way of living by proxy», she confides. The day came when watching movies was no longer enough to satisfy her cinephilic cannibalism. She grew up miles away from the inner circle and did what some sensible enthusiasts do to feel legitimate: study. After two years of literary prep and the College of Literature in Nanterre, she successfully entered La Fémis, France’s top school for cinema, on Francœur Street in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Addicted to fiction, she opted for the screenplay section (like Rebecca Zlotowski, who also moved on to directing). «Originally, I didn’t fantasize about directing.» But in 2006, the juror for her defense, actor and director Xavier Beauvois (no less), encouraged her to shoot her graduation screenplay, Naissance des pieuvres. Céline directed her first feature, diploma in hand, without experience but with the support of producer Bénédicte Couvreur - who still follows her today. A critical success and 100,000 ticket sales later, she returned in 2011 with Tomboy, which capsized 300,000 spectators. She already had a clear vision of her work: a mini-budget to shoot without hindrance, non-professional actors, themes that touch her and open up little-explored areas, even if they are not obvious sellers. Talent, but also pragmatism: «She’s not in the romantic position of the director», explains her friend Rebecca Zlotowski (Grand Central), «she knows the economics of her films well and does her job accordingly. Above all, she wants the film to be made and seen.» A combination of personal vision and economic lucidity that quickly earned her the accolades of even the most intractable of her peers. In 2008, when Sciamma left empty handed after being nominated for Naissance des pieuvres for the César for Best First Feature Film (won by Persepolis), Jeanne Moreau offered her her honorary César, so that she could pass it on year after year to the new hopefuls of French cinema. Pascale Ferran took her on as a consultant for Bird People and André Téchiné - he of the stolen poster - offered her to be co-screenwriter on his next film, the story of two boys who fight all the time. «It was a hell of a thing when I announced it to the 14-year-old that I used to be», Céline laughs.

ONLY 10s ON HER TEAM

To this withdrawn teenager without masses of friends, Céline could also recount the pleasure of having become, in the end, a girl with a gang. At La Fémis, she met some movie freaks that she would never leave behind. Like the DJ and producer Para One, a promo buddy. «We didn’t dare tell each other that we wanted to work together», he says. Until, «like an eighth-grade teenager», he finally asked her the question. Since then, she has written the screenplays for his short films, and he has composed the powerful music for all of her films. Céline is also very close to Marie Amachoukeli and Claire Burger (Party Girl), Julien Lacheray (her editor), Rebecca Zlotowski, and Adèle Haenel, whom she directed in Naissance des pieuvres. A discreet and joyful band that mixes friendship and work, without ever turning into a bad soap opera. Of these strong bonds, she «doesn’t like to talk about them», she dismisses. Her friends only allude to them, but the relationships exude laughter and love. Memories of evenings where Celine «makes everyone laugh when she imitates us» (Claire Burger), of «retreats in the country to write» (Para One), of endless discussions and invaluable support. On a set, «she is very demanding, observes everything, everything. She directs, but without ever being bossy», says Assa Sylla, who plays the character of Lady in Bande de filles. «It’s more like working with a girlfriend!». «By inclination», Sciamma messes around between takes. While filming, and more specifically with the young actors, she mixes «the greatest demands and the greatest tenderness. This translates into being at the heart of the scenes physically, with them, on the edge of the frame. Talking to them, never leaving them alone». And getting involved even in the choice of their costumes: «She has too much taste», summarizes Assa Sylla. Like the four heroines of Bande de filles, whose strength increases tenfold when they are together, Sciamma likes to work with her tribe: «The collective is joyful. It gives you a place, it allows you to forget yourself a little by blending in with the group, to surpass yourself as well.» A feeling that overwhelms her as much on a soccer field when she plays on her women’s team - whose funny name we’ve unfortunately been sworn to keep secret (surprising as it may seem, we have a face) - as on a film set. She loves filming group scenes. The one that opens Bande de filles is an homage to Friday Night Lights, a cult TV series about American football. She champions scenes of dancing in groups and those where «an individual observes the group and wants to be a part of it to emancipate herself».

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

An approach - to observe first, then to emancipate oneself - comparable to her own. As soon as she entered the world of cinema, she became a self-reliant figure, a singular voice. «She is one of those who proved to us that you can be young, a woman, originate from the screenplay, and still direct», says Rebecca Zlotowski, for whom Celine is «a model». On seeing Bande de filles, Assa Sylla «was blown away by the power of the film. For once, my friends will identify with themselves, feel represented. It’s very important!». «It’s a film about France, with its paradoxes. Female violence too. I guess I like to deal with society’s taboos!», Sciamma laughs. The one she raised in Tomboy, by showing that gender is a construction of identity, made the Civitas reactionaries neurasthenic. In the midst of the hysteria surrounding marriage for all and the so-called gender theory, these fundamentalist Catholics wanted to ban the film from schools and then from Arte, because it represented, according to them, «propaganda for the ideology of gender». «I didn’t say anything during the controversy», Sciamma explains. «I didn’t want to be instrumentalized, the film already was». That evening, 1.2 million viewers tuned in to Arte (a nice score for the channel) and the Twittersphere was excited: it was the most commented-upon program on the social network that day. She even rejects the caricatures for Bande de filles, which she refuses to see categorized as a suburban movie. She does not want her works to be seen as militant acts. This does not prevent her from taking a stand in other places besides film sets. She runs an LGBT association at the university in Nanterre. Today, she co-chairs the Society of French Directors to defend the rights of the profession. On a daily basis, she’s always available to solve editing problems and give her opinion, «but never lectures», says Rebecca. «It’s a generational thing», says Céline. «We’ve always been told that we can’t do anything, that it’s blocked. So we help each other to invent new ways to get there, we support each other.» A nice move, and as a unified band.

[Please don’t repost this anywhere, in part or in whole. Feel free to reblog, or at least cite your source and provide a link back here. Asking permission would be nice in an ideal world, but I’m a realist - I know far too well how easy it is to appropriate stuff on Tumblr. I would be the first to admit that my translations are not perfect - there are some words and phrases that simply do not drop neatly into an equivalent in English, and I constantly fix typos and make changes or corrections in older posts - but they do take a lot of work and time. Thanks for understanding. - C.]

#Céline Sciamma #catherine deneuve #masaisonpreferee #indochine #lesbian #lgbtq #lgbt movies #lgbtcinema

74 notes · View notes