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| Corsage director/screenwriter Marie Kreutzer on the interactions between Sisi (Vicky Krieps), Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), and King Ludwig II (Manuel Rubey): “Control is a big thing in the whole story for me.” Photo: Robert M Brandstaetter, courtesy IFC Films Release |
Marie Kreutzer’s laser focus in Corsage (Austria’s Oscar entry, winner of Best Film at the London Film Festival, and a Main Slate selection of the 60th New York Film Festival, produced by Toni Erdmann director Maren Ade) is on Sisi, Empress Elisabeth of Austria turning 40 years old. Vicky Krieps (Best Actress European Film Awards and Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Best Performance Award shared with Adam Bessa for Lotfy Nathan’s Harka) is in excellent form and up to the task of presenting to us the icon in all her idiosyncrasies.
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| Marie Kreutzer with Anne-Katrin Titze: “It was very important for me that the costumes as well as the production design would not just be romantic and luxurious …” |
In the first instalment with Marie Kreutzer, we discuss her use of Camille’s song, She Was, her work with costume designer Monika Buttinger, hair designer Helen Lang, makeup artist Maike Heinlein, production designer Martin Reiter, her screenplay, Jacques Lacan, control, numbers and measurements.
It is December 1877 in Vienna, Sisi’s husband, the Emperor Franz Joseph I (Florian Teichtmeister) leaves out no opportunity to comment on what he sees as female physical decay in middle age. It’s all numbers - how long she can hold her breath underwater in the ice baths, how tiny she can manage her waist to be. Without this sense of control her life would surely fall apart. Teaching cousin Ludwig II (Manuel Rubey) the art of fainting naturally, Krieps charmingly doubles up on the message of the performative. Here is an actress playing royalty playing at fainting in order to escape the pressures of the public eye.
Horseback riding, fencing lessons, and trips to get out of stuffy old Vienna promise a little bit of freedom from the excruciating scrutiny by the press who love her and comment ceaselessly on every aspect of her being. The costumes are exquisite, as they wrap her shape in skins, a collar of feathers, a shell for the body recalling fish scales. She is a wild creature, trapped in the body of an empress, and the clothing, despite the fact of the corset strangling her organs, still feels as though the animal kingdom is closer to her than the humans of the court.
“We love in the other what we’d like to be,” says Sisi, encroaching more and more on Lacan territory and the desire of the desire of the Other.
From New York City, Marie Kreutzer joined me on Zoom for an in-depth conversation on Corsage.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Hi, Marie!
Marie Kreutzer: Hi, Anne-Katrin, nice to meet you! I love your room, it looks so cozy and there’s so much to look at.
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| Marie Kreutzer on Sisi (Vicky Krieps): “For me she’s all the time in the film looking for someone who sees her and loves her for what she is.” Photo: Felix Vratny, courtesy IFC Films Release |
AKT: It’s very flowery. I’d like to start with the start of your film. Before we even see the opening credit almost all the themes are already in one way or another introduced to us. I loved the sound of the water and then it’s all about numbers and measurements. How many seconds under water? How much weight? How many days spent on Hungarian soil? Control and numbers and measurements are very much at the core of your film?
MK: Yes absolutely. Control is a big thing in the whole story for me. Also her trying to control herself because that’s all she can control really. That was a big theme for me.
AKT: Also in your introduction of the costumes I noticed how many animal skins and prints and feathers there are and how the animal kingdom is very much present in your choice of costume. I connected that of course also to the Camille song. Can you tell me a bit about the costume design and the animals?
MK: Yeah, I mean the Camille song came very late, so that was not part of the plan, but it was very important for me that the costumes as well as the production design would not just be romantic and luxurious and just looking like in every other period film, like the perfect castles and the perfect dresses.
I wanted everything to be more simple and more used, with more texture. That might have been why Monica, my costume designer, also came up with fur and with feathers. And also because we always said that the hair has its own character in the film, because she always had this very long, very heavy hair actually. I saw a lot of photos from that time, not from her but from women at that time having very very long hair and proudly presenting it to a photographer. And I always thought it looked more like an animal.
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| Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (Aaron Friesz) with his mother Empress Elisabeth (Vicky Krieps) and Marie Festetics (Katharina Lorenz) at dinner Photo: Film AG, courtesy IFC Films Release |
AKT: I agree.
MK: It’s like it has a life of its own in a way. And that analogy to the animal side of it, or the nature maybe also, were things we discussed. And then, you know, I mean inspiration is everywhere. It was quite cold already when we prepared the film, it was in winter and Vicky and I coincidentally had quite the same rabbit-fur vest. I bought it at a flea market and she had got it as a present from a Native American.
And it was so funny because we were both showing up with the outfit, going: oh, where did you get yours? Because we both would never buy fur but we both have these small vests from rabbit fur. And I think that her wearing that vest all the time also inspired the costume designer in a way. Then also the thing with the feathers was remodeled a little bit for the film but was something she found in an archive. It was just one step after the other, but we came up with this altogether.
AKT: The song as you say came late, but it fits so perfectly with the lyrics stating “she was a swan”, “she was a tiger,” “she was a toad.”
MK: I mean when I heard the song - and it’s an old song from Camille. It actually was planned that she’d write a new song for the film and it was not yet clear if she’d have the time. And then I listened to her old songs again which I had already known for years but had not listened to for a long time. And I re-listened to this song and was like, this is already the song, it is there, we don’t need a new song. It is so perfect, but it was just lucky.
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| Marie Kreutzer on costumes: “The animal side of it, or the nature maybe also, were things we discussed.” Photo: courtesy IFC Films Release |
AKT: Happy coincidences help too to put things together.
MK: Yes, they are very important for my job.
AKT: You’re so right about the hair being a character of its own. Also facial hair. It’s so funny, Franz Joseph’s removable hair pieces! Something I noticed that I hadn’t seen before - the women have these little almost sideburns. Is that historical or part of the theme going on, as in the transformation at the very end? Are the women starting to grow sideburns?
MK: You can see the sideburns in photos of Sisi actually. Maybe it was stylish at the time, I don’t even know. But my hair and makeup designers went on from there. They really created these hairstyles, which were different from the original styles because they were more punk and we tried to find something a little different and more modern, more special than just the romantic curly updos that they would maybe have had. But that was really inspired by photos of Sisi. She also had very short bangs, which looks really weird in some photos. We didn’t do that.
AKT: There are some lines in the film that she says which made me think of Lacan. “We love anybody who loves in us that which we would like to be.” Also she says “I love to look at you looking at me.” These lines were perfectly expressing her.
MK: Thank you.
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| Marie Kreutzer: “We always said that the hair has its own character in the film …” Photo: Film AG, courtesy IFC Films Release |
AKT: Were they inspired by certain ideas?
MK: I mean, these two are really mine as a scriptwriter. There’s another line in the film which is from Elisabeth herself when she is talking about “When you’re 40 you are disappearing like a dark cloud.” That’s an original quote. There were bigger parts that didn’t fit into the film. You know, I think I just tried to name feelings. I can’t really say something smart about it. It’s just what comes to my mind when I’m writing and I felt for example when she is telling him “I love to look at you looking at me” that’s …
For me she’s all the time in the film looking for someone who sees her and loves her for what she is. And she hopes to find that again and again. And in this moment it’s what she says to him. At that moment she believes he could be a person who really loves her for what she is.
AKT: A good mirror. Because there is a lot of brutality in casual lines by men especially, targeting her. A constant measurement of her. About her complexion, about her looks, about her age. Thank you so much! Please say hi to Vicky from me. I spoke with her during the summer before I had seen your film. And congratulations on the European Film Award!
MK: Thank you! Thank you very much, I will tell her!
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| Florian Teichtmeister as Emperor Franz Joseph I Photo: courtesy IFC Films Release |
Coming up - Marie Kreutzer on the scenes of Sisi with King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Visconti and riding in the dark, how biographies speak of their own time, undefinable friendships with men, the chocolate scene, Louis Le Prince played by Finnegan Oldfield, the representational, the functional and the omnipresence of golden chairs.
Corsage advance preview screenings with Q&A events in New York - Marie Kreutzer and Vicky Krieps moderated by Tomris Laffly following the 6:30pm screening at IFC Center on December 14 and the 9:10pm preceded by an extended introduction from Vicky and Marie; Marie and Vicky following the 6:30pm screening at the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center and an introduction before the 9:30pm screening on December 15.
Corsage opens in cinemas in the US on December 23 and in the UK on December 30.
