Director Anne Fontaine

Glam: In America we have rags to riches stories that we say can only happen in here. Is this a story that people say can only happen in France?

Anne: No. She’s a self-made woman. It can happen everywhere of course because it’s a question of personality, originality…and she was very audacious. I don’t think it’s only a specific French way to be. But the elegance, what style was, I think is very French. She came from a very little town from the center of France, she doesn’t know anything about artistic or intellectual education. The way she invents this style-very simple, very austere for this period-I think it’s something very French in her character, you know? Audrey has that also I think.

Glam: With all the bios written on Coco Chanel, can you talk about the challenges you faced in writing a screenplay and condensing it into a specific story?

Anne: I think I read everything but I forget also. To be free, you have to imagine and to feel inside what happens, what it was, the vulnerability, the way she looks at the things, at the world at this moment, and it’s not in a book. All the books are 87 years old. The time is very long and they go very quick. There is a book very interesting, very not known. Lilou Marquand. She wrote a book about the lies of Chanel. It was very interesting what lies were the good ones and which ones are not the good ones. It makes you enter into her personality because she said, “I invent my life because I did not like my life.” She makes fiction about her life.

Glam: What’s the best lie you heard about Chanel?

Anne: She said that she came from a father that wanted to make a fortune in America, that was very very rich, but we know that he died completely drunk, homeless. She invents a complete background that’s incredible and precise. It was a completely different family. She doesn’t want to inspire compassion or pity; she doesn’t want to be a victim. She’s a survivor.

Glam: Can you talk a little about the casting of the film?

Anne: When you see the pictures of Chanel and you see Audrey, it’s incredible. The similarities in the way they look, the intensity of the eyes, the very thin body. You have to have another kind of body to play Chanel. Chanel was the first androgynous woman, you know? She was so different. When you see Audrey, she’s not very beautiful. She has a lot of charisma. She’s very singular, physically speaking, and she has determination also. For her, I think she felt liberated to play a very different part. And Benoit for me, he’s incredible, amazing. He’s very modern and very original also.

Glam: At times it seemed Chanel fought against her destiny. In the beginning, she didn’t want to sew, she wanted to be a singer. Is the film making a statement about finding your voice in other ways?

Anne: Sewing, it was for ordinary women back then. She found her vocation but she wasn’t interested in it. I like this because all the time you think that very famous people have always dreamed what they are going to be famous for. She couldn’t imagine. She felt frustrated in a way but she had so much talent to do that. It’s a way to think maybe you can find your vocation at a time you’re not aware that it will happen.

Glam: Chanel once said, “A woman in love is helpless like a begging dog.” Now, she said that before she fell in love. Do you think she would still say that after she fell in love with Boy?

Anne: That’s the irony. She says that seriously but with a kind of humor. She knows that her mother always suffered because her father was horrible. She saw an image of the woman completely alienated and of course, she was afraid at one time to be loved because she would lose control. To fall in love is to lose the control. She fell very deeply for Boy because he believed in her before herself believed in her. After Boy, of course she had many other lovers, but the first one is the stronger one in the construction of the life. She felt very lonely after he dies. All her life she could never marry or have children. It’s a very complex relationship with love.

Glam: Karl Lagerfeld met with your head costume designer. Did you also meet with him and how in depth was his involvement in the styling of the film?

Anne: Well he met me because for the last scene, I wanted to have Chanel’s clothes. I went to the museum conservatory of Chanel and all the Chanel clothes you see on the stairs are from Chanel herself. For me, it was wonderful to see myself in this conservatory that nobody can visit. It never moved me to see a dress. But there, yes it was interesting. When I spoke with Karl, he was very funny. I showed him the drawings we had drawn for the fashion before Chanel. We had to invent what was the beginning of the style. It was very exciting to do by ourselves. And he looks (mimicking Karl flipping through the pages) and says, ‘Bien. Bien. Bien. Bien. Trés Bien!’

Glam: If Chanel was still alive today, what question would you ask her?

Anne: If all this celebrity she has created about what she creates and her personal life…how this affects or how it protects also? Because it’s always a mystery to know if celebrity life has alienated you more and more, and you’re more lonely. She was very lonely towards the end of her days, and she wanted to control everything. She was a control freak. If she could be happy sometimes or not? I am not sure she was very happy you know. I would like very much to speak with her.

~Maria Denardo

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