One of many issues that struck me whereas watching “Bonjour Tristesse,” written and directed by the celebrated creator Durga Chew-Bose, was a sense of being — and I don’t know the way else to place it — tenderly haunted. Possibly it’s as a result of Chew-Bose is an previous good friend of mine (we lived in the identical dorm our first yr of faculty), and the tenderness that exists between previous mates imbues their expertise of one another’s artwork. However others have additionally picked up on the ethereal, fascinating high quality of her adaptation of the 1954 French novel of the identical identify, written by Françoise Sagan. The movie’s world is luscious, tangible and hypnotic.

This hypnotism is very conveyed by the movie’s costumes. Chew-Bose — whose tenure within the style business as managing editor of SSENSE gave her a nuanced perception into storytelling by garments — labored with the famend costume designer Miyako Bellizzi (“Uncut Gems,” “The History of Sound”) on the movie. The results of their collaboration is a sartorial aesthetic that feels one way or the other outdoors of time. The costumes are, on the floor, up to date: We see an Adidas sweatshirt right here, a clingy get together gown there. We all know we’re within the current second, however sure particulars pull us again in time. Kitten heels and full skirts, capri pants and tailor-made menswear, blouses with crisp collars and one-piece bathing fits really feel much less like “now” and extra like “back then.”

Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Thaïs Despont)

Chew-Bose and I talked over Zoom about how, and why, costumes achieve this a lot heavy lifting in relation to cinematic storytelling. The movie, which is now taking part in in theaters, has a stellar solid, together with Lily McInerny because the protagonist Cécile, her love curiosity Cyril performed by Aliocha Schneider, Chloë Sevingy as a clothier named Anne, and Claes Bang as Raymond, Cécile’s father.

Eugenie Dalland: A fancy dress designer not too long ago informed me that costumes are sometimes the primary place the place storytelling begins in a movie. What do you concentrate on this concept?

Durga Chew-Bose: Miyako [Bellizzi] was exhibiting me pictures not too long ago of Paul Mescal on set for a movie she costumed — he’s standing in a forest carrying a interval costume. She was like, “the only way you know what century this takes place in is because of my work.” She’s dispatching data by each costume selection she makes, each element. Principally, everybody’s job on set is to provide data to the picture, and the costume design, for lots of people, is the place it begins. I assumed that that was an fascinating manner to consider costume — as not simply decor, however as a missive that tells you who, what, when, the place, how.

ED: Let’s discuss concerning the opening photographs of “Bonjour Tristesse.” We see a close-up of the nape of a younger man’s neck as he’s pulling off his T-shirt; he’s carrying a silver chain. Subsequent, a close-up of a younger lady lounging on a seaside in a yellow one-piece bathing swimsuit. What data have been you dispatching with these photographs?

Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Thaïs Despont)

DCB: I all the time needed the opening shot to be of a younger man taking his T-shirt off. That precise body is so iconic for many individuals’s reminiscences of summer season. Instantly, we expect: youth, summer season, seaside. I’d written within the script that the digital camera may be very near his physique, not essentially for the aim of the feminine gaze, although clearly the shot is from Cécile’s viewpoint. I needed to determine what was the element that felt just like the quintessential man’s element. I requested Aliocha, “How do you take off your T-shirt?” As a result of most ladies I do know take off their T-shirts like this [Chew-Bose crosses her arms, miming taking off a shirt], and males go over their shoulder, like within the shot. I’ve all the time discovered that one way or the other engaging, the distinction between how some males and the ladies take their T-shirts off, these pure inclinations.

ED: That’s a really refined, poetic element about one thing that individuals would possibly dismiss as mundane.

DCB: We really shot that scene of him taking off his T-shirt greater than some other scene within the movie! Both the sky was too blue, or not blue sufficient. For no matter purpose, taking off a T-shirt grew to become a complete factor. [Laughter.]

ED: One other refined element about that shot of his neck is the silver chain he’s carrying — it gently helped place the scene in up to date instances, within the now. As a result of the T-shirt and one-piece are traditional and will have been from virtually any decade — Seventies, the Forties.

DCB: It positively does make it up to date.

ED: That sense of being within the now but additionally a bit not got here by in some ways. The script options lots of strains which have a sure dignity about them that really feel of an older time; one thing concerning the rating additionally feels nearer to how music was featured in motion pictures. And there’s that unbelievable nod to Hitchcock’s 1958 movie “Vertigo” in Chloë [Sevigny]’s coiffure! However for me, that timelessness was particularly conveyed with the costumes. Numerous full skirts, one-pieces, blouses with crisp collars, Lily’s black Repetto flats, after which an Adidas sweatshirt! Which, just like the chain, redirects us again to the current. Was this sense of timelessness intentional?

Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Giacomo Bernasconi)

DCB: I believe it was the alchemy of a number of issues. It wasn’t essentially one thing that Miyako and I explicitly agreed on. It was her studying of the script, and, as you famous, the kind of mannered manner that the characters spoke. I really like that you just known as it “dignity.” It’s additionally price noting that this movie is an adaptation of a e-book from the Nineteen Fifties, and layered over that’s the first adaptation of the movie by Otto Preminger, which got here out shortly after the e-book. All of that created an orbit of concepts of timelessness. I all the time stated to everybody concerned within the movie, “I don’t want this to just be the contemporary version of ‘Bonjour Tristesse.’” After I take into consideration easy methods to create that high quality you talked about, being out of step with time, the way you create a world that makes the viewers really feel like they’re escaping from or forgetting the now, costume is a good way to try this.

ED: What’s an instance?

DCB: Chloë’s character Anne is a clothier, however I needed to determine her at a sure level in her profession. I felt like, what would Cécile keep in mind of her from that summer season? The reply was a girl whose collars are actually crisp.

Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Giacomo Bernasconi)

Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Giacomo Bernasconi)

ED: I really like the concept of the crispness of a girl’s shirt collar being a part of the storytelling. There’s a scene with a fragile lace coverlet on a mattress that I’m considering of, the place Cécile’s dad, performed by Claes Bang, and Chloë are making a mattress collectively. The coverlet felt prefer it was a part of the storytelling too: They’re creating one thing home collectively, one thing lovely, however that’s finally fragile as effectively. Was that the message in that scene?

DCB: I believe my manufacturing staff was deciphering what I wrote within the script and felt like that was the precise materials for that alternate between Anne and Raymond. It’s a scene the place a person and a girl who share a really intense previous are making a mattress collectively, so describing that textile as “domestic” is correct. It’s humorous you carry up that coverlet, as a result of the Balenciaga gown Chloë wore to our Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition premiere was really impressed by that scene.

ED: That’s superb.

DCB: Chloë is all the time fascinated by character, and she or he needs the alternatives that she makes in her personal life to be a part of a story. Narrative constructing is how she approaches appearing, which I realized a lot from. I really like artists who’re all the time fascinated by the extent of their artistry of their precise life.

Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Thaïs Despont)

ED: Artwork imitates life however life additionally imitates artwork! One thing about that coverlet should have felt essential to her about her character.

DCB: We did lots of what I’ll name cloth casting. The props staff would present me varied desk settings for sure scenes; I’d discuss with my cinematographer about it. A few of these choices have been really purely technical — sure yellows simply received’t look good on a terrace within the South of France at 3 p.m. Possibly these are boring particulars, however they have been an training for me. You may’t simply pursue aesthetic ideas.

ED: That’s a extremely essential level. A lot storytelling is conveyed in what is perhaps thought-about a secular, technical element, but that element finally ends up creating a huge impact.

DCB: Precisely. On the finish of the movie, Lily is carrying a purple wool gown. It was in a light-weight shade of purple, however on the eleventh hour after we have been capturing, Miyako was like, “No, it’s not the right shade of red!” So she went out and located a wool dye.

ED: I really like that! I learn not too long ago that the costume designer for the movie “Conclave” hated the shade of purple that cardinals put on at the moment, that on display screen it seemed actually cheesy. So she dyed the entire cardinals’ costumes for the movie a darker shade of purple impressed by Renaissance portraits of cardinals. Such as you stated, big-picture aesthetic ideas dictate the costume design, however on the finish of the day it additionally comes right down to technical particulars that require a extremely refined, skilled eye to understand.

DCB: Completely. Miyako actually has that eye. I believe she’s additionally a world-builder. The anecdote about “Conclave” is fascinating as a result of clearly the costume designer wasn’t simply wedded to reality and realism, however as a substitute to world-building. Like inside this story of what’s taking place on this film, the purple wasn’t essentially going to mirror actuality. The best way that characters discuss within the script I wrote, we weren’t actually searching for realism or attempting to imitate the now in a manner that individuals would reply to with relatability. That wasn’t going to be what drew them in. I needed what drew them in to be one thing else, one thing that was achieved by world-building. Creating one thing that would really feel like folks knew the place they have been, however have been additionally a bit uncertain.

ED: That sounds such as you’re describing what it’s prefer to be inside a dream.

Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Thais Despont)

DCB: I really like that. Early on, there was a dialog about easy methods to seize Cécile’s interiority with out utilizing [voice-over] narration within the movie, which is what the Preminger adaptation does. One of many marvels of the e-book is its first-person narration, and we puzzled, “How do you do that on screen?” My hope is that the expertise of watching it makes you ask, “Did this really happen, or is this how Cécile remembers it?” The best way I needed to mirror Cécile’s interiority was of these detailed moments that you just decide to reminiscence that change the way you understand womanhood, or love, or intimacy.

ED: Do you imply that the movie represents Cécile’s reminiscence?

DCB: It wasn’t some high-concept concept, I simply suppose that usually when you’re making a film that has to do with a younger lady, in the summertime, you’re instantly launched into reminiscence greater than you might be into actuality.

ED: I wish to return to Chloë’s Balenciaga gown that was impressed by the coverlet. Possibly that is foolish, however have you ever began dressing like all of the characters within the movie?

DCB: No, that’s so fascinating! I’ve positively amassed extra classic T-shirts since capturing “Bonjour,” however I additionally really feel like there’s a top quality to Cécile’s costume design that jogs my memory of myself at a youthful age, like a barely sporty edge to it.

ED: Sporty edge was completely your fashion in school.

Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose

(Thaïs Despont)

DCB: That point on set, everybody type of grew to become their characters. Lily actually nonetheless wears black Repetto flats, the identical that she wears in lots of scenes in “Bonjour.” It’s kind of like there’s a picture which you could’t unsee. There’s no query, you type of change with these types of huge initiatives, and no matter that change is, I believe for some folks, it is perhaps the best way that they gown.

Eugenie Dalland is a author and editor based mostly in upstate New York. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Overview of Books and the Brooklyn Rail. She co-founded and revealed the humanities and tradition journal Riot of Fragrance from 2011 to 2019.