Film: Jessica kellgren-hayes
Stars in the clouds
In Kristen Stewart’s new film, Clouds of Sils Maria, a veteran actress comes face-to-face with a painful reflection of herself after agreeing to perform in a revived play that launched her career 20 years earlier. Coming from French filmmaker Oliver Assayas, the film is perhaps the most meta of films released recently. Not only is it a play within a film but the casting itself plays a large part in our perception of the characters. The actress, who is best known for playing damp squib Bella in the Twilight franchise and disliking her own celebrity, is cast as the actress’ devoted personal assistant, Valentine.
Juliette Binoche, whose first film with the director launched her own career, plays Maria Enders; the actress who once played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now, however she has been cast as the older character Helena, leaving the younger role to Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz) a wildly popular and scandal-magnet starlet. Maria travels to Sils Maria, a remote region of the Alps, with Valentine, in order to prepare for the film.
The casting choices mean that Kristen Stewart near embodies the mesmerising real-life connections: here is an actress known for hating fame, for the lack of privacy, for having affairs with married men, for helming a huge film franchise whilst being widely disliked even by its fans. Valentine is cast with keeping Maria’s scandals out of the public eye, for encouraging her fame whilst managing her secrets… At one point Valentine asks Maria whether the actress had a romantic affair with the play’s director when she was younger. Meaningful, since Stewart had a highly publicised affair with a married director not too long ago.
“The casting choices mean that Kristen Stewart near embodies the mesmerising real-life connections”
Stewart was originally cast as Jo-Ann, which would have created some far-too-obvious allusions. Instead she shines in a role built around anti-celebrity. Stewart’s acting and her looks are often questioned: she has never been the perfect teen starlet who wore pretty pink dresses and dated the latest hunk. In fact, it is often the performance of femininity that trips her up
She shines in roles that allow her to overcome the stereotypical girly look because her style of acting will never fit that mould. Male actors, such as Heath Ledger, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, are praised for their painfully visual physical repression – for a reluctance to express emotions that aren’t just punching or shutting down. Kristen Stewart has the same compressed emotional range: turning her character’s sadness inwards, a face darkly hooded and a voice reduced to a rasp. Her face is handsome with a winsome smile and a reluctance to make direct eye contact.
Rather than being a limited actress, she is the classic ‘cowboy’ from a Western, forced to play pretty girls. Breaking away from her unsuccessful femininity allows her performance in Clouds of Sils Maria to be one of surety.
