Madame de Sévigné (2023)

Cue my excitement, because Amazon Prime has finally launched the “France Channel”! There’s SO MUCH historical stuff that gets released in France that we never even hear about on this side of the world. Netflix is decent for French movies and TV shows, but they’re often cop dramas, which, zzzz. So color me excited that Madame de Sévigné (2023) is available for streaming on Amazon’s France Channel, along with a lot of other content! Will it totally solve the problem? Probably not, but it’s a start! As previously reported, the film is about Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, a 17th-century French aristocrat who is now famous for her letter writing. Set in the very late 1660s and early 1670s, the film tells the story of her relationship with her adult daughter, particularly as her daughter married and pulled away from her.

Overall, I highly recommend the film. It’s a period we don’t see very often on screen, about real, interesting historical figures, and it totally passes the Bechdel test: the film focuses on Madame de Sévigné and her relationship with her daughter. I mean, on the one hand, Sévigné was REALLY ATTACHED to her daughter and could definitely use some therapy. On the other hand, while boys do show up in the film, they’re very much secondary in a way that’s unusual.

The costumes were designed by Anaïs Romand (Children of the Century, Les Destinées, The Last Mistress, House of Tolerance, The Nun, Diary of a Chambermaid, One Nation One King, Paris Police 1900), and they’re a really great look at 1660s-70s fashion (with some inevitable quibbles). I’m sure they were helped by having a very limited cast, and so could spend their money primarily on their two leads. There’s no big crowd scenes, everything is very intimate and domestic (although there are a few slightly more formal events).

Director Isabelle Brocard began working early with Romand on not just the costumes but also the art direction. In the press packet interview, she says,

“I watched a lot of period films for the treatment of sets and costumes—Anglo-Saxon films, especially. In France, I always find historical films a little cold in this respect… The Anglo-Saxons know how to make everything warmer, more beautiful, richer. They have what we don’t have in France because it’s too expensive—someone to oversee the artistic direction. Anaïs Romand, who arrived very early on in the production, is incredibly talented and knows the 17th century perfectly, played this role to some extent. With her and [cinematographer] Georges Lechaptois, we were inspired, among other things, by the paintings of Nicolas Poussin” (Press packet).

I’m a bit confused about the Poussin inspiration, since he mostly seems to have painted things with classical and religious themes (check out his work on Wikimedia Commons), but maybe they were looking at color and drapery and things like that?

The film emphasizes the new trend of “undress” or “négligée,” meaning dressing gowns and other comfy wear for home. This was an innovation in fashion; while previously, people had certainly had clothes to wear around the house, these now became Fashion, so much that they eventually were worn for outside-the-home informal and formal wear. They were influenced by Middle Eastern and Asian clothing (kaftans, Indian house dresses, kimonos, etc.) which were newly accessible because of trade picking up in those areas.

Because I discussed these a lot in my preview post, I’m going to turn my focus to the more formal wear seen on screen. One of these was the “robe” or gown, which featured a boned bodice that closed in back with hidden lacing, full (1660s) or short (1670s) sleeves, and full skirts (usually, but not always, one split, trained skirt over an underskirt):

Madame de Sévigné wears the more 1660s style, demonstrating her maturity and perhaps that her most fashionable days are behind her:

While daughter Françoise’s dresses often have that smaller sleeve, showing the long, puffed chemise:

Of course, we’ve got some corset whining. Director Brocard:

“From my teaching experience, I’ve retained this trick of adapting to the temperament of each actor, just as I used to adapt to that of each of my students… I knew that [lead actress] Karin [Viard, Marie de Sévigné] hates spending hours on dress and makeup: it oppresses her, it has to go quickly, so we work with it. On the other hand, she doesn’t worry much about how she’s going to be lit or the position of the camera; not that it doesn’t interest her, but she’s not in control of her image; she’s first and foremost in the game… Despite the efforts of Anaïs Romand, the costume designer, to adapt the costumes with soft latex stays and make them a little less uncomfortable, it was torture for her. Ana [Giradot, playing daughter Françoise], on the other hand, made great use of the support and even the pain they imposed” (Press packet).

In this era, the bodice itself was heavily stiffened/boned, so it didn’t need to be worn over separate stays. I’m not sure if they was whining about an actual separate corset, given that bodices really do look stiffened and boned, or about those bodices themselves.

What made me happiest about these dresses, however, was that they were not just back-laced as they should be, but HOW they should be! Seventeenth-century gowns closed in back with a hidden lacing placket:

Here we can see Françoise being laced up into her wedding dress (by a crew member):

And what things looked like when dressed, on screen:

Side note, Madame did have one dress with exposed lacing holes, which I didn’t bother to screencap as it was pretty minor; I did have a good laugh at this extra with her ill-fitted contrast lacing and I do believe misaligned spiral lacing:

Madame’s dresses were generally fuller at the hip than Françoise’s, following the 1660s for mom, 1670s for daughter approach:

The other dress style coming into fashion was the mantua, which was initially a dressing gown worn for fashionable wear over a corset and petticoat and cinched at the waist with a sash:

Over time, it became a more formalized, Westernized dress with the pleats (caused by the sash) stitched down. Both versions were worn with the gown pulled back high on the hip, a reference to Ottoman kaftans that were often wore looped up in the sash:

Françoise wears several gowns influenced by this, but mostly in terms of the skirts. This has the pulled-back overskirt and turned-up loose sleeve of the mantua…

But is a fitted bodice like the older “robe,” although it appears to close in front sort of like the mantua:

Same with this one, it turns out, except it appears to close in back. She first wears it to a party at her home like this:

But then dresses up EXTRA formal to meet the king, adding a faux-stomacher to make it look like it opens in front (which the mantua did).

Françoise wears that to court to try to attract the king, in order to solve her husband’s financial problems. Madame warns her that she’s overdressed, and indeed, when she meets the king and courtier’s, they ignore and side-eye her (while talking to madame):

One interesting character (and her costumes) is a young relative who comes to nurse Madame when she’s unwell. She’s poor, and dressed very “I’ve just come from the charity convent”:

Over time, Madame tries to make her a replacement for Françoise (who has married and moved away and things are complicated), even going so far as to make the new girl (who never gets a name, she’s just “the little person” in the credits) a gown from the same fabric as one owned by Françoise:

Until Françoise legit shows up wearing her version of the gown, and Madame literally sends “the little person” packing:

And finally, just wanted to include this great striped fabric dress on an extra. As with Madame’s purple striped gown (above), I’m so-so on the angled striped placement, but I love the stripes and florals:

There’s also a lot of good outerwear, from cloaks and hoods (see The Little Person above):

You KNOW I have thoughts about the hair! In general, props for hair up and doing a reasonable to sometimes-quite-great take on period hairstyles!

Madame gets smaller hair with some side curls:

I originally was thinking it’s trying to be more 1660s, but actually it’s not; maybe a limp attempt at 1660s?:

Supporting character Madame de La Fayette (Noémie Lvovsky, who is suddenly in all the French period films and so will get a WCW shortly) does — full tight curls on the side of the face, hair up in back in a bun arrangement.

Françoise definitely gets 1670s hair, which as you’ll see above, has a shorter, higher curl pouf around the face. Sometimes it’s fancier:

And sometimes it’s fabulous, like when she adds all the ribbons for her Super Formal Meeting the King ensemble:

Which is straight out of portraiture, as I mentioned in the preview post. I am disappointed they don’t do the One Hanging Curl of Derp, which I am determined to do someday:

What did (only minorly) annoy me is that Madame always looked like she’d done her own hair. The curls are kind of limp (bordering on beachy) and there’s just not much oomph there. I wonder if it relates to the actress not liking to spend a lot of time being dressed/styled (see the director’s quote above)?

Even the QUEEN (only on screen for a hot second) has “did she do that herself?” hair:

And oh my god, I’ve just realized the queen is wearing the weird hair flowers from Carême:

Even Françoise sometimes look like she did her own hair, but at least it’s when she’s sick or not trying too hard:

And the guys too. Lots of long, limp curls, which sure, these are mostly casual situations but can’t we slip a full-bottom wig in there somewhere?

 

Have you seen Madame de Sévigné? What’s your take?

 

 

 

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