Last September, The event, by Audrey Diwan, received the Golden Lion in Venice. A well-deserved coronation for this hard film, but not devoid of light, recounting the tribulations of Anne, a student struggling with an unwanted pregnancy in 1963, when abortion was illegal in France. It was the turn of the Cinemania festival to present this adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical novel published in 2000. “I was marked by this reading: I thought about it for years,” says Audrey Diwan during a videoconference interview.
In a previous interview about his first feature film but you are crazy, the filmmaker, who was previously an author, editor and screenwriter, explained that for a long time she wanted to direct, but wanted to wait for the right story: a story that would touch her head and her heart. The same desire animated him for a second film. However, not only did Annie Ernaux’s story touch Audrey Diwan’s head and heart, but it appealed to her viscerally.
“It was my head, my heart, my stomach, my guts… The book was very carnal while summoning the intellectual dimension of the subject. There was a reflection on the place of women in society, on abortion of course, but also on female desire and pleasure. “
The discourse on classes is another aspect that struck Audrey Diwan. “I was very marked by this sentence: ‘I got pregnant like a poor girl.’ In fact, Anne’s body brings her back to her social class, since it is true that at the time, women who had more money found a way to go and have an abortion in other countries where it was was legal. Those who put themselves at risk and could die or were more likely to end up in prison were the less fortunate women. So there was also this deep social injustice in history. “
Urgent topic
The story may well be set in 1963, its scope remains sadly current. One thinks of the new restrictive measures promulgated in Texas, but also of the fact that even here in Canada, there remains a fringe of the political class asking for nothing better than to revive the debate on abortion.
“At the funding stage, I was told: ‘Why make this film now? What is the topicality of the subject? ” And I would say, “Very good, but the next director who comes to offer you a film about World War II, you tell him the war is over!” And then in the process of writing, there was Poland, and while I was on my way to Venice, Texas… It was initially a subject which was no longer at the center of the conversations, and which suddenly became became urgent again. “
Faced with the attitude of potential funders, Audrey Diwan came to the conclusion that the subject occupied a special place linked to the taboo it had represented.
“Hence this reaction of the type ‘the law is now passed, we will no longer have to talk about it'”, she sums up, specifying in the same breath that The event is the work of Annie Ernaux having aroused the least media interest, dixit the author.
In this regard, did adapting an autobiographical narrative, which is more so intimate in nature, come with increased pressure? Already, but you are crazy was inspired by a real business …
” In the case of The event, I had fears before meeting Annie Ernaux. From the moment we discussed and I presented my project to him, we understood that we agreed on the horizon line… We went through the whole book again, and I asked him to write to me different blind spots of the story, of the off-screen, such as the socio-political context, the relationship with his family, his friends. The book is very to the bone, very essential, so there were questions to ask about everything around. As we quickly got to work, I had the impression of a partnership rather than taking ownership of its history. “
For the rest of the writing, Audrey Diwan teamed up again with Marcia Romano, co-writer of her previous film and frequent collaborator of Xavier Giannoli (The appearance, Daisy). Annie Ernaux reread their final version, making final and judicious comments. “She wasn’t trying to bring the script back to the book, but was pointing out what didn’t seem right to her: a line she wouldn’t have said in 1963, for example. She was like a compass. “
As for the staging, we find there, as in Audrey Diwan’s first film, but with an added maturity, this mixture of daring and rigor.
Never sensationalist.
“I learned from my first film that I didn’t want everything to be programmatic. At the time, I was afraid of someone starting out, so I had everything planned. But by doing so, we lose a certain joy in doing, a freedom to create in the moment; we cut ourselves off from an artistic intuition. On this film, I thought of processes, like the image format 1.37 [plus étroit que le classique 1.85 : 1], which serves the suspense and which constitutes an appropriate framework of constraint. These main principles were clear to the whole team. Then, we gave ourselves a lot of latitude. “
Audrey Diwan in this case goes to the end in what she shows. However, the film never becomes sensationalist.
“What I liked about the book is that Annie Ernaux never looks away. I would have lacked loyalty to the book if I had turned the camera away as things are happening. My film is not shocking, but the reality is shocking. Getting out of the theoretical and making people feel, that implies long-term work. For example, if I show the face of Anamaria [Vartolomei, l’actrice principale] distorted by the pain, everyone will understand that she is in pain, but if I let the plan go on, it becomes a shared experience. On the other hand, if I insist too much, it becomes provocation. As I do little editing, it was a reflection that was going on during the shooting, where I filmed takes of different lengths, in order to determine how far I could push while remaining fair. “
Interior and exterior
The director also skillfully evokes Anne’s growing isolation, for example filming her alone in the foreground, with a small group in the background, which exacerbates the distance. More than anything, Audrey Diwan sought to establish a dialogue between the inner life of the heroine and the outside world.
“Everything Anne saw, she saw it in confrontation with the world, and then it came into her head – often within the same shot. I think of this scene where she is in the shower: we are very close to her, and there are touches of blur in the image, because she is in her bubble… She comes out of her thoughts, turns around , we turn around with it, and tac, the others arrive, and there, we go back to our relationship with the world. “
Her collaboration with Anamaria Vartolomei, whom she describes as an “intellectual partner”, depended on this approach.
“The choice of the actress was crucial […]. She had to embody an Annie Ernaux in the making: she had to relate to the meaning of words, to semantics, to have this vertical side at the level of thought. I worked a lot with Anamaria on the silences, so that these silences are populated. During these passages, I didn’t want her to be like a body lost in the frame; that on the contrary, she is busy, in her head. So we wrote her inner monologues – I wrote them, she improved them. So that when she is silent in the image, she is thinking of something. “
When asked what is her most vivid memory of the production, Audrey Diwan smiles.
“When we shot the movie, I wondered if I was crazy, because we all got along so well. It was difficult, but it was enjoyable and it was strong. I said to myself, and I haven’t confessed this to anyone yet, that we were in a state of grace. Something has happened between all of us on this set which is rare, fragile and fleeting, and we must cherish that. Part of the film’s success, I owe it to this osmosis. “