00:00It is so that we might uncover the secrets of ourselves and that with any luck, 100 years
00:22from now, someone will know that we were here.
00:29Because we had talked about perspective and perception with your previous character, but
00:33with this character, it's multi-tiered in so many ways.
00:37Can you talk about approaching her psyche both with Francois and then as she creates
00:43this whole dynasty?
00:45I mean, one of the things I love about the film isn't the fact that it is a story.
00:55It's a feminist story.
00:57It's one of the themes, and female empowerment is one of the themes of the film, and it is
01:02about the rise of an icon and an entrepreneur and the grand dame of champagne.
01:12I feel that what I loved about, and I developed the film, so what I really wanted to hone
01:20in on was this kind of intimate story about a young woman, Barb Nicole, and her heartbreak
01:29and her abandonment and her grief and her failures and her need to bottle time in order
01:36to examine it and to tend to her vines.
01:42Welcome to the vineyards of Versailles, the most beautiful in all of Champagne.
01:50My darling, I think we might have found the secret to perfect happiness.
01:55I am hopelessly, unequivocally yours.
02:02Francois willed the vines to me because he knew I would never sell.
02:06I will be continuing to care for them myself.
02:09Wine is a very difficult vocation, my dear.
02:11You underestimate what it will require of you.
02:13I know what it requires.
02:14I've been in the fields for years.
02:16You have one chance.
02:17One.
02:18And the story is really about love and how when we shine a light and when we shine love
02:24onto something, it grows, and the film is really about, for me at least, is about nurturing
02:36and how the creative process has the ability to heal us and to transform us.
02:43And so, I mean, those are a lot deeper concepts than a glass of champagne.
02:51However, I love to drink champagne, but I guess what you would expect from a historical
03:00biopic like this, and those are parts of this, you know, that's very much a part of
03:04her journey is her inventions, her interest in viticulture, her obsession.
03:14I think I really like stories about people that are obsessed with things.
03:18I'm quite an obsessive person myself, so I was able to infuse that into this character.
03:25But yeah, there was a lot to explore, and she is a very multifaceted character.
03:33There's something I want to show you.
03:38Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Moscow.
03:41If Napoleon's embargoes are still a problem, I want to stay ahead of him.
03:46Of Napoleon?
03:47Mm-hmm.
03:50So you're a criminal at heart?
03:52These borders are arbitrary, and they could keep changing.
03:55Why not begin a trade that ignores unrest, wars, that exists on its own, stateless, around the globe?
04:08If you choose not to distribute for me...
04:10My dear, if I choose not to distribute for you, you won't find anyone who will.
04:15And if I decline your offer, you must never tell anyone of this plan, not a soul.
04:23Thomas, what Hayley was saying about bottling time, making films, and Hayley knows this,
04:30and Joe obviously knows this too, is it's about bottling time.
04:33How do you capture lightning in a bottle?
04:35How do you know the performance is exactly what you want versus the visual behind it?
04:40Could you talk about that and finding that balance?
04:43You've obviously done it both in your feature films, but also in your second unit work.
04:47Could you talk about that and that approach?
04:50Yeah, I mean, following on, I thought Hayley's answer there was fantastic,
04:54the, you know, how she moved through that answer.
05:01Widowclicko is fundamentally about time.
05:05It's a kind of, almost a study of how a person changes through time,
05:11how their life changes as they move from being a young person to being,
05:17in her case, a middle-aged person.
05:19And the film itself is really about, for me, when I was making it,
05:25I kept feeling like it was a ghost story.
05:30It isn't necessarily a ghost story, but it was the idea that
05:34someone's experience could be encapsulated in a place.
05:40And when you were talking right at the beginning,
05:41you said about locations and being in fabulous locations.
05:45We were given this absolute gift of a place to make the film,
05:49which is Chateau Beyrou in Chablis.
05:52And the house was incredibly atmospheric.
05:54It had these incredible kind of spaces that led onto other spaces
05:59and long corridors and wooden rooms.
06:01And it had a real atmosphere.
06:04And whenever you moved around the house,
06:05it creaked and kind of groaned and had all these noises.
06:08When anyone was moving in the house,
06:10it sort of was a bit like a movie, a place you would shoot a ghost story.
06:16These fields do not need replanting or starting over again.
06:20I disagree. They need to struggle to survive.
06:25I want our champagne to have structure, depth.
06:31I do admire you trying to run things as you want, as a woman would.
06:35If we lose these first shoots to frost, we lose the harvest.
06:40No one can force me.
06:43A woman is not capable of running this vineyard.
06:47When I have proceeds, I will send them to you.
06:50A woman is forbidden to run a business under the law.
06:52Her vineyard should be placed in the hands of an experienced executor.
06:56Is this the plan all along?
06:58No, madame. It never occurred to them you would succeed.
07:02And it felt to me as we were making it,
07:04that it was a journey into someone's remembrance of things past.
07:12So like a Proustian, almost like a Proustian story,
07:15where the past is being re-examined and looked at through the film.
07:21And we're able to understand and build the character
07:24from their memories of their own life.
07:26And so that was really what we were constantly battling and engaging with
07:32when we were making the films.
07:33How do we link these elements together?
07:35How do we link these things together to edit the film in the scenes?
07:41So the film moves between the past and the present.
07:44And there's one moment where Hayley is playing Barb as a woman,
07:50and she's walking next to a sheet.
07:52And then she hears her husband praying and then passes through the sheet
07:59and then moves into the past.
08:02And I think that's a very good illustration of what the film is trying to do.
08:07It's trying to understand a person through this kind of dialogue
08:10between the past and the present.
08:12And they're feeding each other and making the story move forward and evolve.
08:17So you're getting this kind of picture, a multifaceted, as Hayley said,
08:20a multifaceted picture of lightning in a bottle.
08:24So many obstacles ahead, so much at stake.
08:27But there is hope, however unpredictable.
08:31Your instincts have always been so good.
08:33Why won't you listen to yourself now?
08:36I don't want to.
08:39No one can sell abroad due to Napoleon's embargoes against his enemies.
08:43I want to stay ahead of him.
08:44Of Napoleon?
08:46So you're a criminal at heart?
08:47Human beings are compelled to create, to lay down our lives however best we can.
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