In France, in some ways still a deeply Catholic, conservative country, abortion wasn’t legalised until 1975; a young woman who found herself in trouble and didn’t want to give birth had very few options. Anyone who helped her – a doctor, a friend, an abortionist (what they used to call a faiseuse-d’anges, or angel-maker) – could go to jail, and the doctor would lose his licence. And jail wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen to a young woman who obtained an illegal abortion. In a scene with the doctor who first informs Anne that she’s pregnant, she implores him to do something. Her first three novels, Cleaned Out, Do What They Say or Else and A Frozen Woman, form a trilogy of autobiographical novels. These works broadly detail the socialisation of a working-class girl who has a middle-class education and then marriage. Her protagonist is a woman who, like so many of Ernaux’s readers, identifies as a “ class defector”. Diwan herself describes feeling at first “joyful” about having the term applied to her work, but that more recently she’s had the impression that her gaze has been “circumscribed” by her gender, that as a director she was “reduced to and defined by” her gender. No sooner had she accepted the mantle of the female gaze than she was “limited” by it.

Annie Ernaux and writing from Nobel prize in literature: Annie Ernaux and writing from

I have rid myself of the only feeling of guilt in connection with this event: the fact that it had happened to me and I had done nothing about it. A sort of discarded present. Among all the social and psychological reasons that may account for my past, of one I am certain: these things happened to me so that I might recount them. Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people. Excerpted from Happening by Annie Ernaux, Art brings to light – makes exist – reality unhinged from its contingencies, its dispersal into particular existences. A painting, a book, or a film that depicts an abortion ‘puts something into the world’: it’s no longer something personal, hidden, or only a women’s problem, but that it concerns all of humanity.I did this film with anger, with desire, with my belly, my guts, my heart and my head,” Diwan said, accepting her award in Venice. “I have finished putting into words what I consider to be an extreme human experience, bearing on life and death, time, law, ethics and taboo – an experience that sweeps through the body,” wrote Ernaux at the end of her book.

Annie Ernaux ‘It plunged me back to waiting for a period’: Annie Ernaux

Diwan stays close to Anne’s perspective; we spend much of the film looking directly over Vartolomei’s shoulder. The feeling of closeness, almost of claustrophobia, is emphasised by Diwan’s decision to film in a nearly square format (using a 1.37:1 aspect ratio) rather than a more conventional widescreen format. “The idea was to focus on her body and not the setting. I asked myself: how can I film this so that we’re not watching Anne, but rather become her?” In terms of the film’s cinematography, Diwan wanted to give a sense of the era without recreating it mimetically. “I asked the art director to create [a version of] the 1960s that would go unnoticed. The costumer was tasked with representing a certain social class without pointing it out. For example all the working-class students were very restricted in terms of what they wore – Annie [Ernaux] told me that – they each have three outfits, all that would fit in the kind of small leather suitcase they would have brought from home to university. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. These things happened to me so that I might recount them,” Annie Ernaux writes in Happening, her slim retelling of the clandestine abortion she had in the 1960s, when the procedure was still illegal in France. “Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing. In other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.”E.L.: They watch it and then they reproduce in their real lives what they see. We need to educate children better. I'm not going to send my daughters to a bar without talking to them about alcohol and drugs and the risk of leaving your glass somewhere, but we tend to leave children with access to the Internet without talking to them about what that involves.

Anne: A Taboo Parody (2018) — The Movie Database (TMDB)

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.Growing up in a socially divided environment meant Ernaux felt ashamed of the supposedly distasteful aspects of her upbringing, such as the working-class environment of her father’s cafe or her mother’s shirking of the norms of middle-class housewifery and femininity, which she writes about in A Frozen Woman. The past few years, some (by no means all) in the French film world have taken to heart the lessons of #MeToo, and thought critically about what role women play in the cinema, onscreen and off. This led to the founding of Le Collectif 50/50, which militates for equality of representation and compensation within the industry. Diwan was one of the first signatories when the group was launched, and when she made Happening, she assembled a team of mainly female crew members around her.

Carol Cross — The Movie Database (TMDB) Carol Cross — The Movie Database (TMDB)

If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. The word abortion isn’t uttered once. The idea was to focus on her body, not the setting – so that we’re not watching Anne but become her Audrey Diwan But films have a visual power that books usually do not. There is one scene in particular that Ernaux and Diwan both refer to that I can’t describe here because it would ruin the taut suspense of the story and undermine Diwan’s carefully paced work. In describing what was at stake for Diwan filming that scene, Ernaux told me, “it was important to dare to confront the viewer with an unbearable image… I did it in my book, but I knew it would be a more difficult proposition to do it in the film. Audrey didn’t hesitate, and she pulled it off.” ALLURE: We’re living longer lives than ever before, so watching John and Annie gives me hope that my sex life will be long, too. Also, I love that they both got turned on to this particular form of lovemaking later in life. It’s cheering to see Ernaux’s genius and her fearlessness acclaimed by the Nobel committee. The daughter of parents who owned a cafe-cum-grocery shop, she has something in common with Elena Ferrante in her reflections on social class and education and the gulfs they can create. Her work echoes the experiences of many women of her generation who sought liberation through learning and creativity. We are made of words, she told one interviewer (in French); they travel through us. That is how it feels to read her, too.Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? These things happened to me so that I might recount them,” Ernaux continued. “Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.” And then, perhaps, to become celluloid images projected into a dark theatre, or pixels on a small rectangular screen that hasn’t yet been invented, adapted by a woman who hasn’t yet been born, merging into the lives and heads of those who live in a world where some can and have had legal abortions, and where millions of others still cannot. E.L.: I definitely made this film with the intention to arouse, because that's what I do. It's just another kind of arousal than what we are used to. Most of the XConfessions stories are fictional, but lately, I've been making films in which we get to know real couples and we get to see the kind of sex they have in their ordinary lives. The idea is that these documentaries will show you different ideas around sex, because I think that people — we have so many questions.