#seventh row

Céline Sciamma, Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel on their mutual gazes in POALOF

The tension of the film relies on the gaze and the looks. How do you embody that and build the dramaturgy around the desire to see? The first half of the film is centred around the desire to see somebody's face, which is what I think cinema and portraiture is about. I wanted to have this dramatic effect of discovering this face, the suspense about the face of somebody. That is also the pitch of the film: that she has to paint [Héloïse] without her knowing. So the urge, the will to capture the traits, the gesture, the attitude of somebody in a kind of a voyeuristic way, first as a spy, and then it is all eroded into consent.

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I think that what changed her with this story is something that is still living in her and still changing her. It’s something alive, her story with Héloïse, forever. It didn’t change her from one point to another point in her story. It’s always in movement. There is the first portrait that didn’t really work because [Marianne] is stuck in the rules of this period, the ideas of this period, which is a patriarchal vision. She is a painter; she feels lucky to paint, so she follows the rules. Héloïse [sees the painting and] tells her, “This is not right; this is not you. You have done a painting, but this is not me, and this is not you.” So that’s what’s changed her. She learned to have her own vision that is the female gaze. In this movie, the female gaze is Marianne’s intimacy, her own ideas, her own vision, what she really sees, and how she sees it. How she sees how Héloïse really is, not through this male gaze, but through the real gaze of a woman.

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I read the script and thought, “This is the story of someone seen through the eyes of someone else.” My character, Héloïse, is seen through the eyes of Marianne. If I have to portray this character who is perceived, I have to create not as if it was a person, but as if it was in itself a painting. The gaze is getting warmer and warmer [as the film progresses] because the intimacy is growing, so the character would change. It’s not only because of love that she is changing, but because the way she's looked at is changing. The person who is looking at her is actually falling in love.

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Extracts from Portraits of Resistance [Please go and buy a copy!]

“Grainy, tactile 35mm photography gives texture to the images, and creates a sense of nostalgia; it seems unfathomable that these frames have been newly created. They feel like they’ve existed as a memory for decades, and have gained a look of lived-in, dog-eared maturity after years of being turned over and over inside somebody’s head — just as Elio will spend the rest of his life replaying his relationship with Oliver in his head.”

Amira Casar, Call Me by Your Name

Seventh Row still producing high quality content on CMBYN, this time on Amira Casar:

Call Me by Your Name is moving not just because of its central summer romance, but because of the steady, loving support system around teen protagonist, Elio (Timothée Chalamet). Much has been made of Michael Stuhlbarg’s now iconic father-to-son monologue, but Amira Casar’s maternal presence as Elio’s mother, Annella, is just as vital. Casar holds herself with immense poise and self-assurance, striding around the Italian villa where she has command over the garden and the maids, remaining mostly in the background but performing even menial tasks with a flourish. But while she doesn’t interfere in  Elio’s romance with Oliver (Armie Hammer), watch her at any moment and you’ll notice glances at her son that are both sly and affectionate. We see her recognise a resilience in him that, in his fragile state, he’s not yet aware of.

When Annella is with Elio, we’re afforded moments that demonstrate her closeness with her son. While she reads to him, he lays across her lap and she runs her hand through his hair absentmindedly. There’s an easy intimacy between them, a purely loving familial bond free of antagonism, built on the bedrock of Elio’s charmed childhood. She knows her son better than anybody, and her knowing glances at Elio and Oliver are evidence that she’s an outside observer just like us, aware of everything that’s going on between the two of them and what it means for Elio.

“Role after role after role has taught us unequivocally who Armie Hammer is supposed to be: a matinée idol, impossibly polished, masculine to a fault. Luca Guadagnino is the first director to not only recognise that perception, but weaponize it. In Call Me by Your Name, 17-year-old Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) is taken aback to discover that, underneath a varnished surface, Hammer’s Oliver is a man with fear, pain, and desires of his own.  In casting Hammer, Guadagnino allows us to go on the same complex journey as Elio: we are entranced and infatuated by Hammer’s image, and therefore just as disarmed as Elio is to discover the complex man (and gifted actor) hiding underneath his intimidating, statuesque beauty. As unfathomable as it might seem given his leading-man looks, Hammer has the talent, the bravery, and the will to strip away every trace of that persona and expose his soul on screen.”

YES.

“Hammer’s body language and voice work grant us access to Oliver’s past: after Elio and Oliver have sex, Oliver cleans his own chest with his shirt, throws it carelessly to the floor, and casually reassures Elio over his concern that Mafalda will look for signs: “Don’t worry, she won’t find any”. His assurance hints at years of training to hide his same-sex relationships, and to appear more masculine than he might naturally want to be in order to appease his parents.”

omfg this article is eloquently putting into words so many thoughts I’ve had about Armie’s performance.

“In the final act of the film, at the highest point of Elio’s and Oliver’s intimacy, Hammer completely lets loose physically. As the pair drunkenly wander the streets of Rome, Oliver races towards the sound of The Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way” on a nearby car radio. Hammer bounds across the stone pavement, giddily screaming “You’re missing it!” His manner is silly, and filled with unchecked joy. Oliver is finally happy because he’s no longer performing; Hammer has finally given a performance that strips away all traces of performativity, because he found a director willing to do more than just desire him.” 

“[Oliver’s] whispered greeting of “I’m glad you came” comes out almost as a whimper. It’s a startling moment precisely because it comes from an actor who has built his image on macho sturdiness. Nobody ever imagined he could sound so fragile. Guadagnino lingers on this surprising development, and is far more interested in observing Oliver during the ‘morning after’ than he is the suddenly despondent Elio: why show a face that’s closed off when you have one that’s willing to bare its soul? Hammer’s gestures and expressions aren’t calculated anymore; his adoring, open-hearted gaze at Elio is striking and emotionally disarming because, for the first time in the actor’s career, he has a complete lack of affectation. There’s no amiable wit, self-deprecation, or bravado to shield him.”

Armie Hammer is more than an object of desire in CMBYN - Seventh-Row.com