"It’s a two-step scene. Because there’s an abortion scene, and the three women then represent the abortion by painting it. And, I always thought about that in this two-step thing, which some people find disturbing.
There’s this French author named Annie Ernaux, and she wrote a book about her own abortion, and in this book, she says there is no museum in the world where there is a frame called “The Abortion.” It’s an everyday thing, but it’s never represented. And why?
When you’re looking at something that hasn’t been represented much, you’re filling a void. But it has to belong to this film. It’s not about making an abortion scene. It’s about making the abortion scene of that film and the fact that there’s a child on the bed consoling [Sophie as she goes through the abortion]. It’s the grammar of the film, which is a lot about people consoling each other. Those three things were really important to me in the process of making this scene. And also telling the audience that abortion is not about not liking kids. It’s about having the kids you want, when you want".
Céline Sciamma
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“The abortion scene is the kind of scenes that are extremely difficult to film. We are at the end of the first week, we are on a set that we will only visit once, we are in a kind of museum. It’s not a dreamy decor. There are extras, there are characters who will only play once. Here is Christel Barras, the casting director and also excellent actress.
And above all there is a very big stake in this scene: there is a young child and the scene is built around him.
When we are about to shoot a scene like this we have a feeling of loneliness because we have no point of reference, we have very little representation, we are not dialoguing with the history of cinema. So there is little pleasure in being a pioneer. Pioneering is a way of giving medals to people who feel they are doing something for the first time.
But it’s not enough, it’s not enough to go through the scene, you have to dream it. There has to be an extra desire in it, you need something that belongs to the film. And what belongs to the film is this child.
Shooting with a child requires maximum comfort for the child and therefore minimum comfort for you. And it’s also trusting in a very long take. We do a series of takes, I sit right next to them, close to Luàna Bajrami. I talk to her all along. And it’s about telling her when does it start and when does it end, paying very close attention to the child and trusting her very much.
It was originally planned that the child put his hand on her chest, but obviously that’s a screenplay indication. He dried her tears.
It’s not miracles, it’s decisions”.
Céline Sciamma
