As in Breillat’s previous films, however, a sense of timelessness pervades the aesthetic; the exact year and place are left intentionally unclear. “I don’t want my films to ever be dated,” the director explains. “I choose costumes and haircuts for the actors that don’t go out of style because the emotions they’re expressing don’t go out of date.” She takes a similar approach to sound: For Last Summer, she had the ineffable Kim Gordon, a founding member of Sonic Youth, contribute an original bass-heavy track that plays over the end credits. (Gordon, for her part, was a fan: The name of her current group, Body/Head, is a nod to a line from Breillat’s 1988 film 36 Fillette.)
Throughout her body of work, Breillat has sought to undo the eroticism of the male gaze. In Last Summer’s first sex scene, the focus is trained squarely on the young man’s face, and—bucking convention—Anne’s body is never shown onscreen during the sequence. “The end result is something uncannily intimate, even more so than bodies,” Breillat says. The approach was conceived the night before filming, as Breillat lay in Theo’s cramped room on the set, where the confines of the space restricted where and how she could place a camera. (Ultimately, she would raise the bed to create a low angle.) “She’s like a painter,” says Drucker of the filmmaker’s meticulous framing methods. “She is one of the best cinematographers I know, with this language of cinema that is very rich, very powerful.”
Like many other French directors, Breillat has voiced skepticism about the value of intimacy coordinators on set, underscoring her belief in the director’s vision and the deep trust that can—and should—be fostered between actor and filmmaker. “Cinema is about the point of view of the artist, not some stranger,” Breillat says. “Once the actors entrust themselves to you, they allow you to work with them as you want. There’s symbiosis between the actor and the director. I devour the actors with my eyes. When the actors abandon themselves to the film, to their roles, that’s what gives the film transcendence and beauty. When I ask an actor to express ecstasy or enjoyment, I am asking for the most intimate thing possible, the thing that will make the viewer mute. That intimacy is on their faces.”
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