This extract is the start of the film. The initial board puts us in appetite by announcing a “story” and telling us it is linked to earrings. Therefore we expect to see this Madame De… from the title and to know more about the earrings. The first scene will play on these expectations by delaying the two answers. First of all on the picture: the frame hides from us the image of this woman: we see her shadow, then her hand, then her lost profile, then her image in the mirror before finally seeing her “live” in the picture. Straight from the beginning of the scene we hear her in voice over but what she says (she is looking to sell a jewel) keeps the essential away: why, when she looks so wealthy, does she have to sell earrings? The décor itself is at the same time hidden and shown: we see bits of it in close-ups: what is inside the wardrobes, inside the jewellery boxes, but we’ll have to wait until the end of the scene to discover the bedroom space and the bed in full.
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This extract is the start of the film. The initial board puts us in appetite by announcing a “story” and telling us it is linked to earrings. Therefore we expect to see this Madame De… from the title and to know more about the earrings. The first scene will play on these expectations by delaying the two answers. First of all on the picture: the frame hides from us the image of this woman: we see her shadow, then her hand, then her lost profile, then her image in the mirror before finally seeing her “live” in the picture. Straight from the beginning of the scene we hear her in voice over but what she says (she is looking to sell a jewel) keeps the essential away: why, when she looks so wealthy, does she have to sell earrings? The décor itself is at the same time hidden and shown: we see bits of it in close-ups: what is inside the wardrobes, inside the jewellery boxes, but we’ll have to wait until the end of the scene to discover the bedroom space and the bed in full.