Ahead of its wide release this month, Flickering Myth’s Chris Connor had the privilege of speaking with Corsage director Marie Kreutzer about her influences, working with Vicky Krieps, and what she hopes audiences take out of her film as opposed to previous takes on the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.
When did you first hear about Elisabeth?
As a kid maybe. Yeah. We grew up with her in a way here.
Did you always think you’d make a film about her life?
Not so much. I mean, she’s really just part of history here and a very strong magnet for tourists. But nothing I really cared about. It just really came to me through Vicky Krieps, who had the idea of making the film. Then when I started reading about her and finding out more details, then she became a very interesting character to me, but not before that. Before that, she was just, you know, the woman on the souvenirs.
There’s lots of adaptations of her life. Why do you think she’s warranted so many film and TV takes?
Well, I think it’s a little bit like, in your country with Lady Diana, it’s a tragic, beautiful woman with a with a tragic death. Never really happy with her role and always hunted by by everyone observing her and with a lot of expectations on her. I think it’s quite comparable. It’s still something that’s always interesting, because you can fill it with your own interpretation and your own story.
It’s interesting that you made the Diana connection because obviously it comes quite close to Spencer. And I think there’s definitely some parallels between the two fukns. Did you use anything from there as kind of an influence?
No, it was made at the same time. It’s very funny because we’re a German co-production, and it’s with the production company who did Spencer, they were on both films. I only saw it I saw it when I was already done editing Corsage, so it had no influence, no direct influence. But of course, I saw the parallels.
Were there any types of films that were particular influences for Corsage?
No, not really, because films are never that big of an influence for me. It’s more music. It’s photography, it’s painting. So it’s not ever really films. But I remember when I saw The Favourite, which I would have seen anyway, because I loved the director. I was like, ‘ah, that’s how you also can make a period film’. That was inspiring to, let go of all the expectations, one might have or just the normal elements that you think you would need for for a period film. So that did inspire me, but not in a way that I wanted to make a film like that, it just inspired me to free myself from from the idea of a period film.
When you were making Corsage was it always going to be an unorthodox sort of film?
I knew I couldn’t do it another way. Because the big period films we all refer to when we’re talking about your period films are mostly big American productions, with budgets that we don’t have in Europe. So it was clear that you cannot do the same thing here. So you have to find your own way. That was the one thing but the other was that I just, I easily get bored by the very elegant, correctly made period films. I think from from a very, very early moment on I knew that it would be different in a way.
You draw upon elements of history that occurred later on, what was your thinking with those moments?
Sometimes, if we’re talking about production design very often the the originals stuff from from that time the original furniture, lightning, etc. I wouldn’t like that so much because there was too much decoration. So many of the things I liked were from later. At some point we decided that we didn’t care and we would just build our own look for the film. But then also for for example, maybe you are referring to Louis Le Prince, the filmmaker. I don’t really remember how he got into the script. I just remember reading about him and thinking, why have I never heard about the guy? I mean, I studied films, and nobody told me about him. I always thought it was the Lumiere brothers and no one before them. So and then, at some point, he sneaked into the script, I don’t remember exactly how but then I thought it’s great that we can give her the opportunity for another image of herself. She can also collaborate creating, you know, by being in front of the camera via a very different category of image. I like that.
There is a sequence when Elisabeth is travelling where the film goes quickly from German to French to English how did you find filming that?
I think it’s just because in royal surroundings, people always speak multiple languages. That’s something that I thought what was typically aristocratic. I’m able to, I can just switch languages all the time. Louis Le Prince was French, living in England. It was clear to me that she was able to speak all the languages because she really was she was obsessed with learning languages. There was also a big scene in Hungarian which we shot but it’s not in the film any more. So she also had to learn Hungarian, which was very difficult. I mean, just learning the dialogue in Hungarian was very difficult. So it really has to do with that, with being very well educated and just able to switch languages easily.
Were you always planning on focusing on this specific point in Elisabeth’s life?
When I was researching, I focused on her in her 30s and 40s, because I knew I would do the film with Vicky Krieps. It shouldn’t be about a 20 year old or sixty year old Empress. I find it very interesting the things that happened around her 40th birthday, and the lines, which are also in the film, where she says, with 40 years you disappear. That’s an original quote when I read that I knew okay, this is a very good start for the film, you know – a woman who’s duty in life is to be representative and beautiful getting old, because at that time, forty years was really old.
Is there anything you’d like audiences to take away from the film that hasn’t been captured in previous takes on her life?
For me, the complexity of the character is very important. Elisabeth was not just a nice romantic Empress that you might have seen in other films about her. She’s also a complex being, as we all are, and that’s something I would like people to take away. But on the other hand, I never really plan on a certain message, I think it’s very important to tell the story, it opens people’s minds in a way and lets them read something into it and take what resonates with them. And that can be something different for everyone. When I see a movie, that’s what I love – if there’s not a certain message given to me,but something that leaves some space for my for my interpretation for my ideas. And it’s also what I want to do for an audience.
You’ve mentioned music as an influence, can you talk us through some of the orchestral versions of more contemporary pieces?
When I write I’ve always listened to a lot of music. I have my playlists and, and then sometimes songs really like slip into the scenes and they become part of the scenes. And I always have them in the script. But they don’t always become part of the soundtrack, because you don’t get the rights or you choose to take something else, or there’s no music at all, you’d never know that when writing. But in this case, most of the songs were already in the script. And of course, I was asked at a very early point, ‘will you really use modern music? And how will you do that?’ And that’s how I came up with the idea of trying new interpretations, which would sound as if they could have already existed, you know, like other instruments and versions because I think that very good songs, if you focus on their melody and vocals, and not all the other stuff, then most of them are timeless, you know. That’s comparable to all the different versions of Elisabeth story in different films. Very good songs tend to come back to the different versions. So that’s why I thought it could be interesting to try that to make it a part of the story, and we really did the scenes with the live music live. So it was really recorded there in front of the camera, which is very rare thing to do.
Can you tell us about the animals in the film?
Elisabeth loved animals and especially dogs and horses. At that time in her life, she was really riding horses a lot, but she stopped later because she had some problems with her back and couldn’t do it as fast as she liked to. She was really close to her horses, and she had horses wherever she went, and dogs wherever she went. So that was clear, she would have those. But it’s always of course very difficult to shoot with animals. And it was quite easy with the horses, I must say because they were very, very well trained by really good trainers who also worked as doubles in the film. They were traveling with us. The horses were amazing. The dogs were much more complicated because she loved big dogs. So I wanted to pick big dogs, and two similar dogs. Then we found these two, which are the main dogs of the film. And the dog trainer had already told me they weren’t typical film dogs so it’s not so easy to shoot with them. We said we’re going to try and the dog scenes had the most takes I can tell you.
How did you find balancing the the tone and making sure humour came through?
A lot of that was in the editing. When I’m shooting, it’s just like collecting moments, and then you might use some of them afterwards. You never really know if something’s going to work. So I tried to do very different versions on set. Not only for the editing, but also because it keeps everyone really in the moment and awake. Especially actors when you never really know what the next take is going to be like. So it’s not like we’re repeating and trying to make perfection as a take. But very different versions for every take. So usually, that’s something the actors like a lot because it’s really playing, it’s really trying out things. Then when they’re very good actors, which they all are, you have a lot of very different material and you can really shape the scenes in the editing and see how much humour they can take or when it’s important to let go of a very good joke because the scene is just too serious for that. I love that very much in the editing, finding out what what works.
Did you always know how the film would end?
I mean, I knew very early that she was going to die because I thought it was her only way to free herself. So I thought it was important that it would feel freeing and not so sad or dramatic which it also is but it’s also part of freeing herself and the idea came to me because Elisabeth really didn’t show her face anymore after a certain age. She was always wearing a veil or and she didn’t they weren’t there. No. No paintings are made of her after lets say her 38th birthday. So she really disappeared. Nobody saw her face anymore. As someone who loves crime stories I was thinking was it even her? It allows speculation. And then she also had one of her ladies in waiting really double for her once or twice. That’s also in the biography. So that’s also true. What I liked about and it was important for me that she became the director of her own life. At some point, she really takes it in her hands again, and she says, this is how I’m going to do it. She really puts the lady waiting at her position. And that’s how she can free herself and I liked it. I wanted to see her taking it back and creating and setting up her end like a sequence in a film.
Thank you very much for your time Marie and a huge congratulations on the film.
Chris Connor
