The other day in class we were talking about Inès de la
Fressange and the fact that people have preconceived notions about
her and her “perfect” life without even really knowing all she has gone through
in her life. I found myself feeling similarly about Coco Chanel.
It was truly eye opening to see what Coco Chanel’s life was
like before she built one of the biggest fashion empires in the world. I was aware of Chanel as a brand, but I had never sat back and thought about the
woman behind it all. Chanel was an amazing woman for facing adversity and doing
what she wanted even when everyone told her that she wasn’t supposed to because
she was a woman or because it wasn’t the acceptable thing to do at the time. In Coco Before Chanel,
Balsan says that Coco wears “dresses with no corsets, shoes with no heels, hats
with no feathers” while constantly telling her things such as “wear a corset" and "be more feminine.” As an avid fan of comfort and practicality, I am very glad
that it is no longer commonplace to always wear corsets, heels, and huge hats that
probably inhibit your vision and I am thankful to Coco for this.
Aside from all this, I found it very interesting that while
watching the movie after I had read Corrigan’s chapter, I could not help myself
from analyzing the way the camera was being used as if to show us what Coco’s
eyes were seeing on the way to the orphanage or how they were looking at the
earrings while at the horse race, or even the way each frame faded after the
car crash while Coco is spending time making her clothes. I now have a new
perspective into film watching.
Excellent comment on the camera angle, focus, and how they force the spectator's gaze to understand specific thought process imagined to be that of the heroine in this film. How are the shots of Coco alone made? Is she the object of a voyeuristic gaze, or is her private interiority respected (to the detriment of the observer's satisfaction)? In other words, do you think Coco Chanel's mind is an open book, accessible to the spectator's gaze? Or do you think the film makes her psychology impenetrable?
ReplyDeleteI also want to applaud your choice of citation, on how Coco Chanel was defined by Etienne Balsan as being a creature of lack: no corset, no heels, no feathers. This rhetorical strategy is typical of primitivism, in that the superior (Western, civilized, literate) observer projects onto the inferior (non-Western, tribal or nomadic, preliterate) Other all those things that define civilization for him, and which keep the Other firmly separate from the Known. The question is: does the male gaze eventually accept that the Other's mores and preferences are acceptable? Or does she remain forever a pariah? How does the evolution in style shown in this movie make a commentary on the male gaze articulated by the hero? i.e. perhaps he is the last of a dying breed, a vestige of bygone days, and she is the Modern, the person from nowhere, who arrives out of the blue and ushers in a new aesthetic that was previously unthinkable...
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