Sofia Coppola and renowned costume designer Milena Canonero – who won Oscars for her work on Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire, Marie Antoinette and T
Sofia Coppola and renowned costume designer Milena Canonero – who won Oscars for her work on Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire, Marie Antoinette and The Grand Budapest Hotel – kicked off Cartier’s annual program of conversations on the art and craft of cinema at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.
The pair went behind the scenes of their decades-long connection which began when Francis Ford Coppola took over direction of 1984 musical film The Cotton Club from Bob Evans, who in turn had replaced Robert Altman.
Canonero, who was attached to the film prior to Coppola’s arrival, said she had been elated when the director decided to keep most of the already hired craftspeople on the project.
“I met Milena when I was 11 or 12 years old on my father’s film The Cotton Club,” recalled Coppola. “I would always love to come to the studio after school and see what they were making. I spent a lot of time in the costume department because it was always magical. Milena had an atelier. She was making all these incredible costumes, and that’s such a beautiful film and a great memory.”
Canonero recalled that Coppola’s brothers would also pass by her workshop, but it was with Sofia that she developed a special bond.
“She wanted to see everything and was often there during the shooting… we clicked right away. I made more movies with Francis and then I had the pleasure of making the costumes for Sofia when she was in Godfather III… and then lastly, I was extremely touched and moved, when she asked me to do Marie Antoinette.”
Coppola said Canonero was an obvious choice as she tackled the challenge of her first period film, partly because of the costume designer’s Oscar-winning work on Stanley Kubrick’s 18th century drama Barry Lyndon, but not only.
“Her approach is always really unique, and she brought so much style to the film… I wanted to make this period film feel alive and fresh and not like an academic historical piece. I knew that Milena would help me make what I had in mind and bring a fresh eye to this time.”
Marie Antoinette
©Sony Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
They revealed that the color palette of Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe had taken its cue from a collection by U.S. designer Marc Jacobs inspired by the shades of macarons.
“We decided to make own costumes, and not rent them. We made them in a workshop that we set up in Rome… Sofia came to visit and arrived with an enormous box of macarons. Everybody knows them now, but in those days, they were quite new, especially in Italy,” recounted Canonero. “In a very gentle way, she did not say that it was going to be the palette, but rather, ‘I really like these colors’.”
The colors were not incongruous with the 18th century, but Canonero said Coppola’s suggestion helped focus her color choices.
“I principally focus on those colors throughout the whole range of the movie till the end, because in the macaron, you go from very pale pastel to dark chocolate to noir, black. So I had the whole palette in front of me and it was a good idea.”
Marie Antoinette received a mixed reception from critics when it world premiered in Cannes in 2006, and then failed to ignite the box office, with Coppola herself even referring to it as “a flop” later on.
However, it appears to have stood the test of time with an enthusiastic juvenile audience at the conversation applauding the clips and feverishly grabbing pictures of Coppola and Canonero sitting on stage as the images rolled behind them. Coppola also revealed a restoration of the film is also on the cards.
In an aside, which also showcased Canonero’s work, the conversation also played an extract from Barry Lyndon in which Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) blows smoke in the face of his up-to-date wife Lady Honoria Lyndon (Marisa Beronson), revealing how Coppola had later referenced the scene in Priscilla.
Asked to reveal her favorite works by Coppola, Canonero chose an extract from the director’s debut film The Virgin Suicides.
“It’s not only because it’s Sofia’s first movie but it’s also excellent, top class. I was telling Sofia over lunch how that movie impressed me… she not only beings to the audience the sickness of youth, the mystery of growing up… it was quite bewildering,” said Canonero.
“This movie is a fantastic movie forever, it’s a classic… in the same way as Lost in Translation… Sofia’s second movie, again it’s a very subtle subject which not many directors can capture. The structures of these movies are so tenuous in a way and she holds them so cleverly.”
The craft and cinema conversations continue across of the Venice Film Festival with dialogues between Sergio Castellitto and screenwriter Margaret Mazzantini; Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Michael Seresin and Jane Campion and producer Tanya Seghatchian.
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