31/05/2022 - CANNES 2022: The Austrian director talks about blending drama and humour, Empress Elisabeth’s journey to freedom – and dogs

(© Pamela Rußmann)

Austrian director Marie Kreutzer has been garnering rave reviews for Corsage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marie Kreutzer
interview: Marie Kreutzer
film profile], her film about the late years of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Vicky Krieps won a Best Actress Award for her portrayal of the frustrated 40-year-old monarch, after the movie bowed in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Cineuropa: Corsage is a fabulous mix of the serious with laughter; why did you see this as the right tone for a film about the empress?
Marie Kreutzer: I think that most of my films are a mixture of heavy scenes and lighter scenes. I did a comedy once. But even in my very serious films, I like to create some laughter, too.

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The film is called Corsage; do you think this applies as much to Emperor Franz Joseph as it does to the empress?
No, I don't think so. Because, of course, as a man, as an emperor, he has a lot of freedom, too. But he's also an enforcer. Whenever I talk about inequality, I always say that men are socialised in a patriarchy and have a role to fulfil all the time. So that's a common problem. I think a lot of the restraints that he had were self-inflicted because he tried to be the perfect emperor and perfect for everyone else, which I also liked about the character. He tried to be very modest and be there for the people. With the emperor, I wanted to create a character that is not simply the antagonist, a bad husband, but someone who is also struggling and has problems dealing with his wife.

The empress is on this journey to freedom and is often knocked off course – for example, when she thinks her son disapproves of her. Can you talk about the crossroads she is at?
She is at a point of change in her life, and that is what I wanted to portray. She is already very fed up with that burdensome image of hers that she has to keep up all the time, and at the same time, she is not sure if she's still interested in fulfilling the role of a monarch, so she starts to wonder what else she can do. For me, the film-within-film images represent the fact that maybe there is another version of herself that is possible. I thought it was very interesting that her children would represent the monarchy much more than she does.

When did you come up with the idea of having her meet Louis Le Prince when she was in England?
I don't remember when I came across Louis Le Prince. At film school, everyone was taught that the Lumière brothers were the first [to make films]. It was embarrassing that I didn't know about Le Prince because I studied film. Then I read whatever there was to find, because there was not much. I just loved the idea that they could meet, and I created the connection when I realised that she used to come to England to go riding.

Finally, can you tell us something about the fabulous dogs that appear in the movie?
You’re the first person to ask about the dogs, and I have a million stories to tell about them. I will never do that again; it was exhausting. Maybe also because I wanted very big dogs, as she always had big dogs. A lot of the breeds that they suggested were too small for me and were not interesting enough. I thought they should be dogs that you don't see every day. Their characteristics are very different, and some are good for film work and others not. The dog wranglers said they didn’t know about these specific ones – they were honest, and it was hard to work with them. The horses were easy compared to the dogs!