How I wrote My Life as a Courgette, by Céline… | Little White Lies

First Person

How I wrote My Life as a Cour­gette, by Céline Sciamma

02 Jun 2017

Words by David Jenkins

Colourful cartoon figures of people in winter outfits standing in a snowy landscape with a wooden cabin in the background.
Colourful cartoon figures of people in winter outfits standing in a snowy landscape with a wooden cabin in the background.
The screen­writer behind this Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed ani­ma­tion talks through the intri­ca­cies of her work­ing process.

Is there any­thing she can’t do? The French writer/​director first made waves in 2007 with her water aer­o­bics-based teen psy­chodra­ma, Waterlilies, and has since been con­sol­i­dat­ing her pow­ers as one of Europe’s most pro­gres­sive and impres­sive film­mak­ers. That’s with her own direc­to­r­i­al work, such as 2011’s Tomboy and 2014’s Girl­hood, and writ­ing for oth­er direc­tors, with the likes of 2015’s Being Sev­en­teen (direct­ed by André Téch­iné) and My Life as a Cour­gette (direct­ed by Claude Bar­ras). The lat­ter is a bril­liant new stop-motion ani­ma­tion about life in a rur­al orphan­age. Here, Sci­amma dis­cuss­es the process of sculpt­ing its incred­i­ble screenplay.

When I write, I am always think­ing about the audi­ence. I don’t see myself writ­ing for char­ac­ters. I mean, of course I am writ­ing char­ac­ters, but I am writ­ing for an audi­ence. For instance, for My Life as a Cour­gette it wasn’t about writ­ing a film for pup­pets or for an ani­ma­tion genre, it was about writ­ing a film for kids. I always try to pic­ture the audi­ence as the most intel­li­gent audi­ence pos­si­ble. For Cour­gette, I was obsessed with the fact that this was going to take kids very seri­ous­ly as char­ac­ters, and very seri­ous­ly as an audi­ence. I see the audi­ence as peo­ple search­ing for emo­tion, peo­ple look­ing for trou­ble, peo­ple look­ing for being con­sumed by an intense narrative.

When it came to writ­ing Cour­gette, I had a lot of mate­r­i­al. There was the book and there was Claude’s first draft of the screen­play. There were also all these sketch­es and even a lit­tle teas­er with an ani­mat­ed cour­gette, so I could see what the film would be like. But the first thing I did was con­front myself with the first five min­utes of the film, because it was a movie where, in that open­ing stretch, you have to set the social back­ground of this kid and estab­lish the fact that his moth­er is an alco­holic. And what’s more, that it’s gonna kill her. And, on top of that, that it’s a movie for kids.

I spent two days just think­ing about that first scene. Then I came up with this idea of play­ing with emp­ty beer cans, and that it would com­mu­ni­cate the fact that’s he’s a kid, that he’s inven­tive and that his moth­er is an alco­holic. And then, when I first craft­ed this scene that wasn’t in the book, I thought, Okay, now I can tell the sto­ry.’ It was a more visu­al screen­writ­ing process than with Girl­hood and Tomboy.

I don’t work in the morn­ings. I mean, I’m not wak­ing up at noon… I will get up, watch the news, watch a film, and then at mid­day I begin to write until at least four. I try to stay in that fuck­ing chair at least six hours, even if it’s some­times hard. But I stick to it. If a scene resists, I go to anoth­er scene. There’s always a way to do some­thing else and keep writ­ing, it’s pret­ty rare that I’ll go and just take a bath. Some­times I will go and take out my Robert Mck­ee book, or a sto­ry­book, just to look at what they say. But it’s always the same sto­ry with these books, the nar­ra­tive is pre­sent­ed as a liv­ing body or a room. Aris­to­tle is sim­i­lar. But I enjoy it, because it can refresh you. There is no bible, just books to help you think.”

My Life as a Cour­gette is released 2 June. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.

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