Monday Minute
No. 37 | February 22, 2010

Women Behind the Camera II

Our theme this week continues where we left off last week.  Please see the Monday post for introductory comments.

Our theme this week
Women directors of notable films from 2009

Featured last week
Monday         —   Lone Scherfig
Tuesday         —   Nora Ephron
Wednesday    —   Claire Denis
Thursday        —   Anne Fletcher
Friday            —   Kathryn Bigelow

Anne Fontaine

The essentials
Notable 2009 film:  Coco Before Chanel; nominated for 1 Oscar.

At first a dancer and actress, Anne Fontaine turned to writing and directing in the 1980s.  She has worked in French theater, television, and film.  For her 1993 film Love Affairs Usually End Badly, she was awarded the Prix Jean Vigo, an annual honor given to directors for their spirit and style.  Augustin (1995) was a selection for “Un Certain Regard” at Cannes.  She was honored for the best screenplay at Venice for Dry Cleaning (1997).  Several of her films have earned César nominations and awards.

Coco Before Chanel is Fontaine’s biggest success outside the French-speaking world.  Starring Audrey Tautou, the film follows the early life of a woman of humble beginnings, raised in an orphanage, who through a combination of ambition and charm—and talent for making hats—rises into high society, on her way to being one of the great names of 20th-century fashion.  Biopics sometimes move too swiftly as they try to squeeze into two hours the events of many decades.  Not this one.  Fontaine’s focus is a few years in the life of a complicated and fascinating character, and within that scope you get a sense of the woman that Chanel was, and was to become.

Beyond the final credits
Coco Chanel had affairs with a number of men, many of them important figures of the day.  But she never married.  Asked about that by the Duke of Westminster, she responded:   ”There have been several Duchesses of Westminster.  There is only one Chanel.”

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Coco Before Chanel (2009)
Anne Fontaine, director

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Interview with Anne Fontaine

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Quote of Note
“I’ve met another man.  He’s the best man I’ve ever met.  He’s bright, handsome, and he’s crazy about me.  And, he’s married.  There’s only one thing—he doesn’t like my hat.”
—Sabina (Lena Olin), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

…58…59…60.