Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revoluti... Read allParis 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor's work parallel Coco's radical ideas. She wants to democratize w... Read allParis 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor's work parallel Coco's radical ideas. She wants to democratize women's fashion; he wants to redefine musical taste. Coco attends the scandalous first perf... Read all
- Awards
- 2 nominations
- Grand Duke Dimitri
- (as Rasha Bukvic)
- Le médecin
- (as Eric Desmarestz)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps" ("The Rite of Spring"), whose famous premiere of May 29, 1913, is portrayed in the film, is today rarely performed as a ballet, but rather as a concert piece strictly for orchestra. Nijinsky's original choreography was lost.
- GoofsWhen Chanel first brings Igor to see the piano in her home, he sits down to play a piece of music. The piece he plays is a duet written by Stravinsky, and though it seems like Stravinsky is sitting down to play the song it would be impossible for him to do so, since the range is both in the higher, lower and middle register of the keyboard.
- Quotes
Katarina Stravinskaya: You don't like colour, Mademoiselle Chanel?
Coco Chanel: As long as it's black.
- ConnectionsFeatured in De quoi j'me mêle!: Episode #1.3 (2019)
- SoundtracksThe Rite of Spring (rev 1947)
Music by Igor Stravinsky
Courtesy of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd, an Imagem Company
Performed by Berliner Philharmoniker
Conducted by Simon Rattle (as Sir Simon Rattle)
Sir Simon Rattle appears by courtesy of EMI Classics
Music Supervision: Jen Moss for Boosey & Hawkes
It begins with the shocking (at the time) premier of the 1913 Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's great ballet, "Rite of Spring," that resulted in a minor riot in the theater (police were called, people were out of their seats and shouting). In a way, this recreation justifies the film right there--it's a bold and believable staging of the original, which has huge importance in the history of music and dance.
Then there is a party after the war, with typical early 1920s abandonment. A new era has arrived, and Stravinsky and Chanel meet.
The rest might seem to be history, but it's not. The whole rest of the film is really fiction, overall, a supposed affair between the two, and the supposed results of it in their work (Chanel No. 5 and some of Stravinsky's middle period works).
It's a slow unfolding, in part because there is little to work with. The first half hour is made up of just two scenes (the ballet and the party). Then there are mostly quiet and upscale domestic situations, some intimacies, some quiet times between. The period details are pretty wonderful, and the filming is respectfully beautiful, much like a Merchant Ivory film (which might be set in the same general period).
Acting? This is a puzzle. Both Chanel (French actress Ann Mouglalis) and Stravinsky (Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) play everything with painful restraint. Who's to say exactly what these people were like, but surely the music is nothing if not crazy for the times (and beautifully crazy, for sure), and the fashions were nothing if not radical (and beautifully so)? But things develop as if everyone is psychotically shy and inhibited.
Most of you know there was another Coco Chanel movie released this same year, "Coco before Chanel," about the young woman's life before her fame, and in a way, the Coco there played by Audrey Tatou makes more sense. That movie was imperfect, too, and it might be said that between the two, a glimpse of the real woman might be possible, which is in a way remarkable enough. The addition of Stravinsky and his music is compelling on an artistic level, but not a dramatic one.
The movie, in its own way, tries to be romantically dramatic. The camera moves around people as they speak, and follows them into rooms and around corners. The music (mostly Stravinsky's) is vivid and rich (and Modern), and the sets are filled with plain old prettiness--wallpaper and light through doorways and a room full of flower petals (leading, we find out, to perfumes). It's all a great place to end up for an evening.
If only the company were more interested, and interesting.
- secondtake
- Dec 16, 2011
- Permalink
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,621,226
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $44,454
- Jun 13, 2010
- Gross worldwide
- $6,055,859
- Runtime1 hour 59 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1