Los Angeles, today. Henry (Adam Driver) is a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humor who falls in love with Ann (Marion Cotillard), a world-renowned opera singer. Under the spotlight, they form a passionate and glamorous couple. The birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious little girl with an exceptional destiny, will turn their lives upside down.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now ask for your complete attention. If you want to sing, laugh, clap, cry, yawn, boo or fart, please, do it in your head, only in your head. You are now kindly requested to keep silent and to hold your breath until the very end of the show. Breathing will not be tolerated during the show. So, please take a deep, last breath right now. Thank you.
Opening announcement
“So may we start?”
Leos Carax in the opening scene
“Everything that is magnificent in Annette is already there, in embryo, before the film’s title appears on screen at the six-minute mark. The beguiling continuum between homely detail (the Carax family) and grand theatrics. The perfect fusion of two quite different aesthetics – that of Carax and of Sparks (who wrote the initial story) – into a co-auteur vision. The constant oscillation between the most primal, even childlike forms of storytelling (like fairy tales) and the most experimental, advanced techniques of cinema. The regal confusion signposted by Sparks in their lines: ‘But where’s the stage, you wonder, is it outside or within?’ And, above all, the shotgun marriage of zany humour (fart jokes) with the intimation of sheer tragedy ahead.
Annette’s brilliant cinematographer Caroline Champetier has admitted that, when Carax first outlined the project to her in 2015, she was disconcerted by its resonance (suitably transformed for the purposes of drama) with aspects of Carax’s own life. There has always been an intimate vein in his films – sometimes cryptically so, as in the work of one of his avowed mentors, Philippe Garrel. This personal connection – and the need to somehow mirror it, however distorted, in the finished result – is clearly what drives him. In 2011, Carax’s partner, actor Katya Golubeva (from whom he was separated at the time) died – and the persistent rumour that she had died by suicide found its reflection in the wrenching musical sequence (‘Who Were We?’) featuring Kylie Minogue in Holy Motors (2012). Nastya Golubeva Carax, who appears in both that film and Annette, is their daughter. The guilt – rational or not – that must linger for the surviving partner of one who suicides is a major undertone in Annette.”
Adrian Martin1
Pour Nastya / For Nastya
End credits
Nicolas Rapold: What were the challenges of shooting a musical?
Caroline Champetier: Nothing is playback. Adam and Marion are singing. It’s always his voice. For Marion, sometimes when it’s an opera song, the voice is morphed with a lyrical singer. But everything [else] is direct sound. It was one of the difficulties of the movie. I think it is the reason there is so much liberation and reality in the manner of acting for the actors, and for us the great challenge was to make sure of the rhythm of the music.
Nicolas Rapold in conversation with DP Caroline Champetier2
« Annette est le fruit d’une fabrication où les gens ont bien sûr gagné leur vie, mais qui est de l’ordre de l’amateurisme dans le sens premier du terme, c’est-à-dire d’aimer ce qu’on fait. Je pense que les techniciens des effets spéciaux ont apprécié travailler sur Annette. Mais c’est un autre monde pour nous qui sommes d’une certaine manière des artisans de cinéma et pour qui le tournage garde sa majesté, sa magie et son autorité. »
“Annette is the product of a creation during which people of course made a living, but which has to do with amateurism in the original sense of the word – that is to say, loving what you do. I think the visual effects technicians enjoyed working on Annette. But it’s another world for us who are in a way artisans of cinema, and for whom the shoot retains its majesty, magic, and authority.”
Caroline Champetier3
« Chez Leos, l'artifice n'est pas un postulat de départ, c'est le chemin de la fabrication. Ce n'est pas un artifice préconçu, il se déploie dans un cheminement, et le résultat vibre, il est vivant. Avec Annette, j'ai souvent pensé qu'on faisait Pinocchio; et Pinocchio, c'est donner la vie à l'inanimé, à l'artefact. Si chaque séquence était un défi technique, c'est parce que Leos a besoin d'expérimenter constamment: c'est un mouvement qui lui est nécessaire, et ça se passe toujours pas à pas. Par example, il a besoin de ressentir ce que ça fait de monter sur un vrai bateau avant de décider d'en faire fabriquer un faux. Ce rapport à la fabrication n'est pas la tradition française. Ca l'a été, au moment du réalisme poétique, mais depuis la Nouvelle Vague on fabrique beaucoup moins. Il y a depuis longtemps un désamour de la frabrication en France, et de nombreux savoir-faire sont perdus, mais ça semble revenir avec de jeunes cinéastes qui s'attaquent au genre ou à la fantasmagorie. Et puis c'est ballot de devoir absolument choisir entre Lumière et Méliès. »
Caroline Champetier4
But where's the stage, you wonder
Is it
Outside
Or is it within?
Outside? Within?
Outside? Within?
Outside? Within?
Excerpt from the film's first song, ‘So may we start?’
« Le film est même une succession de morceaux de bravoure dans lesquels Carax a le courage de critiquer le spectacle par le spectacle, et de faire en sorte que l'emporte à chaque fois la force de son art qui, en l'occurence, relève du bricolage suprême, recourant parfois à des moyens anciens, nous renvoyant régulièrement aux origines du cinéma – la projection frontale préférée au fond vert dans une magnifique scène de tempête en mer, par exemple. Car la part critique de son film n'empêche pas à Carax de croire encore pleinement, et comme peu d'autres cinéastes vivants (Coppola, Lynch... qui d'autre ?), dans les sortilèges de la fiction et la toute-puissance de la forme. Le Monsieur Oscar de Holy Motors (2012), génie transformiste sauvant ce qu'il reste à sauver de croyance enfantine et de véritable spectacle (cinématographique, théâtral, circassien, non médiathique) dans un monde que l'évidence de ces choses a déserté, c'est Carax dans Annette, à travers les mille et une inventions de sa mise en scène. »
Marcos Uzal5
Leos Carax thanks
Edgard Allen Poe
Béla Balázs & Béla Bartók
King Vidor
End credits
- 1Adrian Martin, “‘Annette’ is an exhilarating masterpiece,” ScreenHub, 26 August, 2021.
- 2Nicolas Rapold, “Leos Carax’s Green Period: DP Caroline Champetier on Annette and Her Work with Jacques Rivette, Claude Lanzmann and Philippe Garrel,” Filmmaker Magazine, 9 August, 2021.
- 3Caroline Champetier and Yonca Talu, “Caroline Champetier, AFC, talks about her work on Leos Carax’s ‘Annette’ (EN/FR),” AFCinema, 12 July, 2021.
- 4Interview by Charlotte Garson and Marcos Uzal with Caroline Champetier, Pascaline Chavanne and Florian Sanson, “La fabrique d'Annette,” Cahiers du cinéma, July-August issue, 2021, p. 18-22.
- 5Marcos Uzal, “Abîmes flamboyants,” Cahiers du cinéma, July-August issue, 2021, p. 14.