One of many issues that struck me whereas watching “Bonjour Tristesse,” written and directed by the celebrated writer Durga Chew-Bose, was a sense of being — and I don’t know the way else to place it — tenderly haunted. Possibly it’s as a result of Chew-Bose is an outdated buddy of mine (we lived in the identical dorm our first 12 months of school), and the tenderness that exists between outdated pals imbues their expertise of one another’s artwork. However others have additionally picked up on the ethereal, charming high quality of her adaptation of the 1954 French novel of the identical identify, written by Françoise Sagan. The movie’s world is luscious, tangible and hypnotic.
This hypnotism is very conveyed by the movie’s costumes. Chew-Bose — whose tenure within the trend business as managing editor of SSENSE gave her a nuanced perception into storytelling by garments — labored with the famend costume designer Miyako Bellizzi (“Uncut Gems,” “The History of Sound”) on the movie. The results of their collaboration is a sartorial aesthetic that feels in some way exterior of time. The costumes are, on the floor, modern: We see an Adidas sweatshirt right here, a clingy get together costume there. We all know we’re within the current second, however sure particulars pull us again in time. Kitten heels and full skirts, capri pants and tailor-made menswear, blouses with crisp collars and one-piece bathing fits really feel much less like “now” and extra like “back then.”
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
Chew-Bose and I talked over Zoom about how, and why, costumes achieve this a lot heavy lifting in relation to cinematic storytelling. The movie, which is now taking part in in theaters, has a stellar solid, together with Lily McInerny because the protagonist Cécile, her love curiosity Cyril performed by Aliocha Schneider, Chloë Sevingy as a designer named Anne, and Claes Bang as Raymond, Cécile’s father.
Eugenie Dalland: A dressing up designer lately advised me that costumes are sometimes the primary place the place storytelling begins in a movie. What do you consider this concept?
Durga Chew-Bose: Miyako [Bellizzi] was displaying me photographs lately of Paul Mescal on set for a movie she costumed — he’s standing in a forest carrying a interval costume. She was like, “the only way you know what century this takes place in is because of my work.” She’s dispatching info by each costume alternative she makes, each element. Principally, everybody’s job on set is to provide info to the picture, and the costume design, for lots of people, is the place it begins. I assumed that that was an attention-grabbing method to consider costume — as not simply decor, however as a missive that tells you who, what, when, the place, how.
ED: Let’s speak in regards to the opening photographs of “Bonjour Tristesse.” We see a close-up of the nape of a younger man’s neck as he’s pulling off his T-shirt; he’s carrying a silver chain. Subsequent, a close-up of a younger lady lounging on a seaside in a yellow one-piece bathing swimsuit. What info had been you dispatching with these photographs?
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
DCB: I at all times needed the opening shot to be of a younger man taking his T-shirt off. That actual body is so iconic for many individuals’s recollections of summer time. Instantly, we predict: youth, summer time, seaside. I’d written within the script that the digicam may be very near his physique, not essentially for the aim of the feminine gaze, although clearly the shot is from Cécile’s perspective. I needed to determine what was the element that felt just like the quintessential man’s element. I requested Aliocha, “How do you take off your T-shirt?” As a result of most girls I do know take off their T-shirts like this [Chew-Bose crosses her arms, miming taking off a shirt], and males go over their shoulder, like within the shot. I’ve at all times discovered that in some way engaging, the distinction between how some males and the ladies take their T-shirts off, these pure inclinations.
ED: That’s a really refined, poetic element about one thing that individuals would possibly dismiss as mundane.
DCB: We really shot that scene of him taking off his T-shirt greater than some other scene within the movie! Both the sky was too blue, or not blue sufficient. For no matter purpose, taking off a T-shirt grew to become a complete factor. [Laughter.]
ED: One other refined element about that shot of his neck is the silver chain he’s carrying — it gently helped place the scene in modern occasions, within the now. As a result of the T-shirt and one-piece are basic and will have been from virtually any decade — Seventies, the Nineteen Forties.
DCB: It undoubtedly does make it modern.
ED: That sense of being within the now but additionally a bit not got here by in some ways. The script options plenty of strains which have a sure dignity about them that really feel of an older time; one thing in regards to the rating additionally feels nearer to how music was once featured in motion pictures. And there’s that improbable nod to Hitchcock’s 1958 movie “Vertigo” in Chloë [Sevigny]’s coiffure! However for me, that timelessness was particularly conveyed with the costumes. A number of full skirts, one-pieces, blouses with crisp collars, Lily’s black Repetto flats, after which an Adidas sweatshirt! Which, just like the chain, redirects us again to the current. Was this sense of timelessness intentional?
Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Giacomo Bernasconi)
DCB: I believe it was the alchemy of a number of issues. It wasn’t essentially one thing that Miyako and I explicitly agreed on. It was her studying of the script, and, as you famous, the type of mannered method that the characters spoke. I really like that you simply known as it “dignity.” It’s additionally price noting that this movie is an adaptation of a ebook from the Nineteen Fifties, and layered over that’s the first adaptation of the movie by Otto Preminger, which got here out shortly after the ebook. All of that created an orbit of concepts of timelessness. I at all times mentioned to everybody concerned within the movie, “I don’t want this to just be the contemporary version of ‘Bonjour Tristesse.’” Once I take into consideration find out how to create that high quality you talked about, being out of step with time, the way you create a world that makes the viewers really feel like they’re escaping from or forgetting the now, costume is a good way to do this.
ED: What’s an instance?
DCB: Chloë’s character Anne is a designer, however I needed to ascertain her at a sure level in her profession. I felt like, what would Cécile bear in mind of her from that summer time? The reply was a lady whose collars are actually crisp.
Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Giacomo Bernasconi)
Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Giacomo Bernasconi)
ED: I really like the thought of the crispness of a lady’s shirt collar being a part of the storytelling. There’s a scene with a fragile lace coverlet on a mattress that I’m pondering of, the place Cécile’s dad, performed by Claes Bang, and Chloë are making a mattress collectively. The coverlet felt prefer it was a part of the storytelling too: They’re creating one thing home collectively, one thing stunning, however that’s finally fragile as nicely. Was that the message in that scene?
DCB: I believe my manufacturing group was decoding what I wrote within the script and felt like that was the suitable materials for that change between Anne and Raymond. It’s a scene the place a person and a lady who share a really intense previous are making a mattress collectively, so describing that textile as “domestic” is correct. It’s humorous you deliver up that coverlet, as a result of the Balenciaga costume Chloë wore to our Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant premiere was really impressed by that scene.
ED: That’s superb.
DCB: Chloë is at all times interested by character, and he or she desires the alternatives that she makes in her personal life to be a part of a story. Narrative constructing is how she approaches appearing, which I realized a lot from. I really like artists who’re at all times interested by the extent of their artistry of their precise life.
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
ED: Artwork imitates life however life additionally imitates artwork! One thing about that coverlet will need to have felt necessary to her about her character.
DCB: We did plenty of what I’ll name cloth casting. The props group would present me numerous desk settings for sure scenes; I’d speak with my cinematographer about it. A few of these selections had been really purely technical — sure yellows simply received’t look good on a terrace within the South of France at 3 p.m. Possibly these are boring particulars, however they had been an schooling for me. You’ll be able to’t simply pursue aesthetic ideas.
ED: That’s a very necessary level. A lot storytelling is conveyed in what could be thought-about an earthly, technical element, but that element finally ends up creating a huge impact.
DCB: Precisely. On the finish of the movie, Lily is carrying a crimson wool costume. It was in a lightweight shade of crimson, however on the eleventh hour after we had been capturing, Miyako was like, “No, it’s not the right shade of red!” So she went out and located a wool dye.
ED: I really like that! I learn lately that the costume designer for the movie “Conclave” hated the shade of crimson that cardinals put on in the present day, that on display it appeared actually cheesy. So she dyed the entire cardinals’ costumes for the movie a darker shade of crimson impressed by Renaissance portraits of cardinals. Such as you mentioned, big-picture aesthetic ideas dictate the costume design, however on the finish of the day it additionally comes right down to technical particulars that require a very subtle, skilled eye to understand.
DCB: Completely. Miyako actually has that eye. I believe she’s additionally a world-builder. The anecdote about “Conclave” is attention-grabbing as a result of clearly the costume designer wasn’t simply wedded to reality and realism, however as an alternative to world-building. Like inside this story of what’s taking place on this film, the crimson wasn’t essentially going to mirror actuality. The best way that characters speak within the script I wrote, we weren’t actually in search of realism or making an attempt to imitate the now in a method that individuals would reply to with relatability. That wasn’t going to be what drew them in. I needed what drew them in to be one thing else, one thing that was achieved by world-building. Creating one thing that would really feel like individuals knew the place they had been, however had been additionally a bit not sure.
ED: That sounds such as you’re describing what it’s prefer to be within a dream.
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thais Despont)
DCB: I really like that. Early on, there was a dialog about find out how to seize Cécile’s interiority with out utilizing [voice-over] narration within the movie, which is what the Preminger adaptation does. One of many marvels of the ebook is its first-person narration, and we puzzled, “How do you do that on screen?” My hope is that the expertise of watching it makes you ask, “Did this really happen, or is this how Cécile remembers it?” The best way I needed to mirror Cécile’s interiority was of these detailed moments that you simply decide to reminiscence that change the way you understand womanhood, or love, or intimacy.
ED: Do you imply that the movie represents Cécile’s reminiscence?
DCB: It wasn’t some high-concept thought, I simply suppose that typically if you happen to’re making a film that has to do with a younger lady, in the summertime, you’re instantly launched into reminiscence greater than you might be into actuality.
ED: I wish to return to Chloë’s Balenciaga costume that was impressed by the coverlet. Possibly that is foolish, however have you ever began dressing like every of the characters within the movie?
DCB: No, that’s so attention-grabbing! I’ve undoubtedly accrued extra classic T-shirts since capturing “Bonjour,” however I additionally really feel like there’s a top quality to Cécile’s costume design that jogs my memory of myself at a youthful age, like a barely sporty edge to it.
ED: Sporty edge was completely your fashion in faculty.
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
DCB: That point on set, everybody form of grew to become their characters. Lily actually nonetheless wears black Repetto flats, the identical that she wears in lots of scenes in “Bonjour.” It’s type of like there’s a picture which you can’t unsee. There’s no query, you form of change with these types of huge tasks, and no matter that change is, I believe for some individuals, it could be the way in which that they costume.
Eugenie Dalland is a author and editor based mostly in upstate New York. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Overview of Books and the Brooklyn Rail. She co-founded and printed the humanities and tradition journal Riot of Fragrance from 2011 to 2019.
