An Interview With 8 Women Director François Ozon

by Jeremiah Kipp

Catherine Deneuve (far left), Virginie Ledoyen (left), Ludivine Sagnier (bottom left), Danielle Darrieux (bottom center), Isabelle Huppert (center), Firmine Richard (top center), Emmanuelle Beart (right) and Fanny Ardant (Far right) in 8 Women, a Focus Features release.

François Ozon can't sit still. After making a dozen short films in the early '90s, this ostentatious French filmmaker made a lasting impression with critics who experienced his twisted See the Sea (1997). This featurette set the tone for Ozon's later explorations of deviance and strange love, detailing a young mother's relationship with a wayward traveler. Building resolutely toward an abrupt shock climax, it is a minor masterpiece of unspoken dread.

The prolific director cranked out another five features in rapid succession, cementing his position as a new enfant terrible for his generation. Ozon's pattern is eclectic and uneven, but he can repeatedly be trusted to push cinema to its extremes. His dysfunctional family satire Sitcom (1998) was followed up by the bizarre fairy tale thriller Criminal Lovers (1998) and an adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Water Drops on Burning Rocks (1999). Less raucous but more sublime was Ozon's portrait of an obsessive middle-aged woman played by Charlotte Rampling in Under the Sand (2000), which seemed like a detour into restrained, chilling minimalism. Dropping the bad-boy antics of his previous films, Ozon comfortably settled into a more mature, poetic narrative of love and loss.

But with his latest project 8 Women, Ozon remains difficult to pin down. This time indulging his taste for the voluptuous Hollywood movies of the 1950s, he presents a black comedy hybrid of Alfred Hitchcock and Vincente Minnelli. Bursting at the seams with vibrant colors, this adaptation of a traditional murder-mystery play is less interested in "whodunit" plotting than in exploring the power struggles, frailties, and desires of women thrown into a chaotic and darkly humorous situation.

Set in a snowbound countryside mansion, the family patriarch has been killed in his sleep and his relations, servants, and guests must sift through the clues. The suspects are played by a who's who of acclaimed French actresses, including Catherine Deneuve as a bourgeois socialite and wife of the deceased, Isabelle Huppert as her spinster sister, Danielle Darrieux as a secretive grand-mere, Emmanuelle Béart as a sexually rapacious maid, and Fanny Ardant as Deneuve's sleek, cosmopolitan sister-in-law. All of the titular women are impeccably dressed and coiffed, the epitome of high style. These bickering femmes fatales are often one step away from a catfight, or a furtive kiss. In Ozon's pastel tinted Technicolor world, anything goes.

One of the charms of 8 Women is Ozon's irreverent willingness to toss in musical numbers of French pop singles from a bygone era. The youngest member of the household, mischievous teenager Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier), launches into a fetching and hip-swinging rendition of "Papa t'es plus dans l'coup" ("You're Just Not With It, Daddy!"). This gives 8 Women a playful, kittenish streak that keeps the tone light, winsome, and unpredictable. Emmanuelle Béart's maid lets her hair down and claws with smiling, predatory grace with her number, "Pile ou face," and Fanny Ardant's sultry torch song rendition of "A quoi sert de vivre libre" brings down the house.

"The songs are very famous in France," says Ozon, speaking with bemused confidence during a New York press conference. "It was one thing the studios didn't seem to understand. They would say, "Why are these people singing and dancing? A man has been killed!" Even so, 8 Women was my easiest film to fund because of the cast. It was such a huge event bringing [these women] together, and for audiences in Europe it was almost like visiting with family. To my surprise, many different people saw this film. Kids, grandparents, and of course all the women! I suspect that the women decide which films they will bring their boyfriends and husbands to see, so their men have probably seen the film too."

François Ozon (behind camera) on the set of 8 Women.

Filmmaker: How did you decide upon adapting Robert Thomas's crime play into your movie, 8 Women?

François Ozon: My agent found it, because this play was very successful in France [in the 1960s]. I didn't really like it, though, because it was very old fashioned and tacky. To me, it felt politically correct and mainstream, like an Agatha Christie book. But I loved that it put eight women together in the same place, where one man has been killed. Within that structure, I knew I'd be able to put in my observations about women, family, and so on. I wound up changing many things, even including musical numbers!

Filmmaker: Do you feel that the singing and dancing reveals aspects of the women and their characters?

Ozon: Yes, and it also allowed each of them to become the only star of the movie during their individual songs. They all would be able to express a side of themselves in that way, taking off the mask and showing their true personality. They are great actresses, but they aren't great dancers and singers on film. That became very important to me. We could see their weakness, their fragility, and were able to find the real women underneath. These actresses are so in control of themselves, having done so many films before — but they would still like to be given some kind of challenge.

Filmmaker: What inspired the vibrancy, colors and textures of your visual approach?

Ozon: We wanted to revive the idea of Technicolor. With the costumes, we found inspiration from the films made in Hollywood in the 1950s. The French films were black-and-white and pessimistic, but I loved the stylishness and the glamour of the Hollywood pictures. In 8 Women, the dress of Fanny Ardant was a reference to Ava Gardner and Cyd Cherisse. Catherine Deneuve was more Lana Turner or Marilyn Monroe. It was a kind of game, making those connections, but it also allowed us to identify each character in a separate way. Each actress has her own strong color that symbolizes her personality. Using colors in this very simple way allows the mise-en-scéne to become like a Greek tragedy. It becomes a universal vision of life.

Filmmaker: There is a lot of dialogue in 8 Women. Were you concerned about it becoming theatrical or stagy instead of cinematic?

Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darieux and Virginie Ledoyen.

Ozon: It's not a problem for me. The story had a theatrical style, and that was something I wanted to keep. I wanted to create a distance between the audience and the film, allowing them to be self-aware that they are "watching a film". Remember that it is an artificial world when you're a kid, playing with dolls. If you accept that, you're opening yourself to so many feelings, sensations, and emotions. My movie is like that, too.

Filmmaker: As you say, 8 Women is very stylized. How did you guard against it becoming a caricature or a cartoon?

Ozon: I don't think about those things while I'm making a movie; I don't want to understand the process. I made the film instinctively, following my own pleasure. If you analyze every aspect before making the film, you wind up making a movie for everybody like mainstream American films do. The process is very selfish for me. It is about me, and what I'm feeling. You hope the audience will like it, but it's always a risk.

Filmmaker: Most of the protagonists of your films have been women. 8 Women only multiplies them. How do you see your relationship with those characters?

Ozon: I think that the fact that I'm a man makes it easier for me to direct a woman. There is a big distance between us. I have more an ability to see them as they are because I am so different, and can identify better with them because of that difference. I love to identify myself as a woman, even though I'm not. I didn't want to escape from their desires, and it was exciting for me to capture that on film.

Filmmaker: Was it challenging to work with eight famous French actresses?

Firmine Richard, Emmanuelle Beart, and Isabelle Huppert.

Ozon: No, because I had sex with all of them! (laughs) As in life, of course, you need to seduce people all the time. Not to have sex, but to seduce. In order to explain what you want, you have to seduce people. In front of such egos, I am the only one who knew the film we were going to do. There can only be one director. I had to find in myself the strength, and became like a general on this set. I think it was difficult in certain ways for Catherine Deneuve, because in some ways she is used to being very close to the director.

Filmmaker: On this project, that must have been impossible.

Ozon: I couldn't give privileges to one actress over another one. This was the exact opposite of my relationship with Charlotte Rampling in [my previous film] Under the Sand. With 8 Women , I had to control myself and didn't allow myself to become too friendly with the actresses. It was difficult, because I'm human. I would love to have dinner with some of them, but that would be like favoritism.

Filmmaker: Your script was co-written by a woman, Marina del Van. What was your writing process like with her?

François Ozon. Photo by Miguel Villalobos

Ozon: I began by writing alone, and the only parts of the script I wrote with Marina were about the maid (played by Emmanuelle Béart). When I asked Emmanuelle if she wanted to be part of the film, she said yes. And then she read the script and changed her mind, because she didn't want to have to play the maid to all of the other actresses. (laughs) Marina and I worked on this character some more. I must tell you that Marina is a very good writer about masochistic relationships! We took inspiration from the mistress-servant relationship in Jean Genet's The Maids. When she read the script again with all of our changes, Emmanuelle said yes.

Filmmaker: You put different actresses from different generations together in a room, and it's almost like a love letter to French cinema.

Ozon: It was important for me to see and show the tradition of one actress to another, and the connections between Catherine Deneuve and Emmanuele Béart, or the way of working of Isabelle Huppert against Catherine Deneuve. While we were making the film, I enjoyed the process of adapting to each actress and her approach to the role. You cannot have only one way to direct actresses or actors.

You have to deal with each one, and they all require special treatment. Catherine Deneuve needs to be very close to the mise-en-scéne, to know exactly what I mean by my directions. Isabelle Huppert only wants information about the character and doesn't care how you make the film. She's in herself. And Emmanuele Béart is very introspective. Sometimes if you do a take and ask her to change something she might say, "I'm not sure I will be able to do that, but I'll try."

They all had to be good for the film to work. Perhaps because they came from so many different generations, it was a pleasure for them to work together. But it was only for two months. If it had been three or four, perhaps it would have been very different!

Jeremiah Kipp is a freelance journalist based in NYC.

Official Francois Ozon Web site: www.francois-ozon.com

Also see: Peter Bowen interviews François Ozon about Criminal Lovers and Water Drops on Burning Rocks.