Synopsis
Delft,
Holland, 1665. After her father, a tile painter, is blinded in a kiln
explosion,
seventeen year old Griet must work to support her family. She becomes a
maid in the house of Johannes Vermeer and gradually attracts the master
painter’s attention. Though worlds apart in upbringing, education and
social
standing, Vermeer recognizes Griet’s intuitive understanding of color
and
light and slowly draws her into the mysterious world of his paintings.
Vermeer is a
perfectionist, often
taking months to finish a painting. His shrewd mother-in-law, Maria
Thins,
struggles to maintain the family’s lavish lifestyle on the income from
his painstaking meager output. Seeing that Griet inspires Vermeer, she
takes the dangerous decision to allow their clandestine relationship to
develop.
Plunged into a chaotic
Catholic household
run by Vermeer’s volatile wife Catharina, surrounded by an
ever-increasing
brood of children, Griet is increasingly at risk of exposure or worse.
Twelve-year-old Cornelia, a mischievous girl who sees more than she
should,
quickly grows jealous and suspicious of Griet and is determined to
cause
trouble.
Alone and unprotected,
Griet also
contends with the attention of Pieter, a local butcher boy, and
Vermeer’s
patron, the wealthy and lascivious Master van Ruijven, who is
frustrated
that his money does not buy him control over the artist. While Griet
falls
increasingly under Vermeer’s spell, she cannot be sure of his feelings
for her.
The Machiavellian van
Ruijven, sensing
the intimacy between master and maid, gleefully contrives a comission
for
Vermeer to paint Griet alone. The result will be one of the greatest
paintings
ever created, but at what cost?
Colin Firth on playing Vermeer...
Colin Firth had not read
the book
when Paterson and Webber approached him to play the artist Joannes
Vermeer,
but read the script and quickly accepted the role. He says, “It felt
refreshing.
It takes itself seriously, which is not a popular position in most
films—it
is safer to have your tongue in cheek these days.” He regarded the role
as an acting challenge. “Not a lot of big things happen on the surface;
the action is minimal, finely focussed drama, which must be made
interesting
by the characters.” He adds, “This has a parallel with the work of
Vermeer.”
Firth
was intrigued by the man himself. “Not a lot is known about him. He
painted
what modern critics could regard as cliches—images reflecting the
conventions
of the time. But there is an even-handed moral kindness in those
paintings,
showing humanity in equal terms to one another, whether milkmaid or
mistress.
Of the 35 paintings known today, about 20 were painted in the same
corner
of the same room. He lived in a lively household—eleven of his children
survived, but he painted serenity in his first floor studio. In 17th
Century
Delft artists were craftsmen who took their civic duties seriously—they
served apprenticeships, and had a union to protect their economic
rights.
Long before the cult of the tortured rebellious artist took over, it
was
perfectly possible to be a good citizen and husband and also be a great
artist.”
In the film, Vermeer’s
studio is
a quiet retreat from a noisy household. Says Firth, “He is resigned to
being surrounded by people who don’t understand what he does and keeps
his world separate. When he does understand what he does allow someone
in for the first time he is intrigued that Griet has an eye for color
and
composition and forms a mysterious bond across a vast barrier of class
and age. He is sometimes pleased with what she has done, and sometimes
rejects it. He attempts to distance himself from intimacy—it is too
complicated
for him. He doesn’t allow himself to focus on the foreground of
paintings
or feelings for long, and so he doesn’t find the same level of
engagement
each time they meet. So the relationship becomes tortuous for both of
them.”
Although Firth researched
the man
and his paintings thoroughly, he did not learn to paint. “At my level
of
talent it was almost pointless,” he explains, “but what I can do is
imagine
that I can paint, and convince other to imagine that I can. I hold a
brush
and mix paints to look as if I know what I am doing. Besides, probably
a great painter and a terrible painter look the same holding a brush.”
Firth found Peter Webber
keen to
explore the effect of different nuances on scenes. “Where a script is
so
affected by the tone, a change of emphasis can completely change the
direction
of a scene.” The actor points out parallels between filming, and the
work
of Vermeer. “If you look at x-rays of his paintings, you can see that
he
was prepared to begin with one idea and then throw that away. this can
happen on a film set. Working with a crew is a huge collaborative
effort.
Everyone arrives in the morning and the challenge of the day is to give
life to the written word, but you have to be prepared to change the
ideas
you brought with you that morning, in order to keep the energy and
carry
the room. If you are in tune, you can feel that moment. It’s palpable.”
Firth emphasises that the
film is
not an art lesson. “It’s an exploration of how powerful a relationship
can be—like the intimacy between artist and model. A painting is
unveilled
and disrupts a family.”
"It was very difficult to
nail anything—Vermeer's
character is utterly elusive....We don't even know what he looked like,
so it made the exercise a completely creative one for Tracy Chevalier
and
for the rest of us as well....It's hard to talk about any paintings
without
sounding airy fairy, but there's something else going on in those works
that's difficult to describe. You can call them jarring, restless, but
that doesn't do. I found myself constantly in motion trying to chase
after
what it is." (W, Nov 2003)
Scarlett Johansson on playing Griet
Casting the role of
Griet, a seventeen
year old girl from a sheltered home in 17th Century Holland was always
going to be a challenge. Says Paterson, "it was clear this was an
extraordinary role for a young girl and we had a huge amount of
interest.
The first time we met Scarlett she was a New York City teenager on her
way to a basketball game. Second time round, she had become
Griet."
"Scarlett has been
working in this
business longer than I have," says Webber, "and although she is young
in
years she has an old soul. She has a force of character and a face that
you don't often see on screen these days—she is hypnotic to watch, like
a silent movie star."
Scarlett Johansson found
the script
immediately absorbing and beautifully written. She explains, "it
is so rare that you read anything that is worth the time it takes to
get
through it. This stood out—it was glinting. Every actor
dreams
of the chance to play a role like Griet—a character with such
repression
that you are using your face and not your words to convey
emotions."
Johansson took the opportunity while filming in Delft to visit the
Mauritshuis
Museum to see the real painting, Girl With A Pearl Earring. "She
is strange and intriguing. I felt she was just about to do
something
which would tell us more about her and her life," she says.
Playing
Griet, Johansson was able to empathize with her hardships. "A
servant's
life was hard labor, and Griet was also trying to cope with new raw
emotions.
We first see her at home, which she doesn't want to leave, but she has
to and is immediately out of her element. She has no privacy—Vermeer's
wife Catharina is vicious and unrelenting; the other maid is resentful;
Maria Thins is always watching her; and Vermeer lurks in his studio,
refusing
to engage with the rest of the household. At the same time her
relationship
with her home is changing—she is torn between two lives." But
Vermeer
senses a connection with Griet. He realises she sees physical
things
the way he does, and gradually allows her to become involved in his
work.
"Their relationship becomes tender, through their mutual involvement in
his paintings," explains Johansson. "At the same time she is
becoming
involved with Pieter, the son of the market butcher. He is a tradesman,
goes to Church every Sunday and offers an enticingly simple way of life
that is familiar to her. He offers a mutual courtship that she
could
so easily slip into, if she had not met Vermeer. With the painter
she tastes a kind of passion that is beyond her comprehension, and
casts
a shadow on her previous life."
Johansson hopes that GIRL
WITH A
PEARL EARRING will send the cinema audience away with some kind of
bittersweet
feeling of hope, while recognizing that some of the most romantic
feelings
you have in your life come to nothing. She says, "The raw emotion
of a girl who is in love and not able to express it is universal,
because
very often you can't have what you love."
The Director
The producers asked Peter
Webber
to direct the film. Paterson explains that "although this is
Peter's
feature film debut, we had already worked with him for several years,
first
as an editor (he edited Anand Tucker's first drama Saint-Ex) and then
as
a documentary director—covering a diverse range of subjects from Crash
Test Dummies to Wagner." His first dramas included the
controversial
“Men Only” for Channel Four, charting a five-a-side football team's
decline
into debauchery and sexual violence. "Peter was always going to
make
movies"" says Paterson. "His knowledge of cinema is enviable, and
it took no time at all for actors of the caliber of Colin Firth,
Scarlett
Johansson and Tom Wilkinson to decide they wanted to work with
him.
Peter, Olivia and I all started out in the cutting room and we share a
fascination with the nature of story-telling on film. "
For Webber, who had
studied art history
and was already fascinated by Vermeer, the story has the essential
elements
for drama, money, sex and power. He says, 'Vermeer lived in a
household
full of noise and chaos. He was under huge financial pressure to
paint more and faster, to feed his family. Yet his paintings
achieve
such tranquility. I was thrilled by how Tracy's story reflected
his
work, how the intimate, the understated, somehow becomes epic.
Griet's
predicament is heartbreaking. The repressed romantic obsession that
builds
between Griet and Vermeer inspires him to paint her—but the perfection
of that painting will lead to her downfall. She knows he will be
ruthless, understands that their relationship must be sacrificed if the
choice is between her and a truly great work. That understanding
is, after all, what drew him to her in the first place. The
legacy
of her time with Vermeer is one of the greatest pictures ever painted."
Re-creating Vermeer's World: Design
and Cinematography
"The scene is a
familiar
room, nearly always the same, its unseen door is closed to the restless
movement of the household, the window open to the light. Here a
domestic
world is refined to purity." — Lawrence Gowing: "Vermeer. "
"The look of the period
is, of
course, very well documented in the extraordinary paintings of the
Golden
Age of 17th century Holland," says production designer Ben van
Os.
"We conceived Vermeer's house to give us that sense of frames within
frames
so familiar from the paintings; a passageway leading from the canalside
into the courtyard and the ground floor rooms connected by open
doorways,
leading the eye through the house to give a feeling of space—and lack
of
privacy. Griet should always feel watched."
"Peter (Webber) and I
also felt that
many of the paintings gave an idealized view. We took the
decision
to introduce a gritty reality, particularly to the exterior
scenes—filling
the streets with livestock and mud."
The interiors were
divided into three
distinct worlds. Griet's family home is a monochrome ordered
Calvinistic
abode in the poorer quarter; the Vermeer family lives in lurid Catholic
chaos with lots of paintings on the walls (Vermeer was also a dealer
who
sold the work of others) and the vivid colors of popery; his rich
patron
Van Ruijven's world is opulent, with curiosities from around the world.
This is where the real power lies.
"I wanted the Vermeer
house to be
chaotic—downstairs" says Webber. "The house was full of children
and noise. It looked out onto a canal which must have been very
smelly.
The main square with its taverns and markets was just half a block
away.
Yet Vermeer created; paintings which seem to define tranquility and
perfection.
So we were determined that the studio, the room that contained that
familiar,
almost holy corner represented in so many of the great paintings,
should
be the magical space. Up there is Vermeer's private world—a world
which he gradually allows Griet to share because she alone understands
why it is special. Ben built gorgeous sets, but he is also a
great
set dresser, making the world believable, lived in and totally
convincing."
Cinematographer Eduardo
Serra used
different film stocks for the different worlds, capturing the rich dark
colors of the downstairs of Vermeer's house and saving something for
the
painter's studio.
"The shooting schedule
worked in
such a way that we saved Vermeer's studio for last" remembers
Paterson.
"One day I was watching the stunning footage from elsewhere in the
Vermeer
house and reminded Eduardo of the earlier discussions about saving such
beauty for the studio. He nodded that he hadn't forgotten. And
when
I saw what he did in the studio, it was breathtaking. He took it
to another level altogether." "Eduardo's work was quite
extraordinary"
adds Webber. "He had decided how he wanted every frame to be lit and
seemed
able to achieve it almost instantly."
Dien van Straalen's
costumes were
the final element in creating an authentic world. "Most of the
time
you should hardly be noticing the costumes," says Webber. "Great
costume designers make clothes that actors feel comfortable in, and it
helps create the feeling that you are inhabiting a real world.
Catharina's
costumes are exquisite and showy because that's who she is, but even
she
has to wear the same dress on a number of occasions to reflect the
financial
burdens of the family. Dien's triumph was to create costumes that
subconsciously help in the telling of the story."
American
Cinematographer
(January 2004 by Ron Magid)
Based
on Tracy Chevalier’s historical novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring
pierces the mystery of Johannes Vermeer’s enigmatic painting by
presenting
an imaginary liaison between the artist (Colin Firth) and his subject,
a servant named Griet (Scarlett Johansson). The film’s director of
photography,
Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC, says that focusing on a story about a great
Dutch
painter presented him with the perfect opportunity to explore the
relationship
between painting and “painting with light,” as cinematography is often
described. In fact, Serra calls filming Girl With a Pearl Earring
“a dream.”
Serra, who earned an
Academy Award
nomination for The Wings of the Dove, notes that “classic
painters
respected the play of light, so there is a close relationship between
their
paintings and modern cinematography. But for me, respecting light isn’t
a goal. Rather, it’s a starting point for storytelling, just as for
painters
it once was a starting point for art. Some have been kind enough to say
that my cinematography on Girl With a Pearl Earring looks like
Vermeer’s
paintings, but in fact, I didn’t do anything that I wouldn’t have done
if I were telling that story on that set about someone other than
Vermeer.
If you took The Godfather and changed the costumes to the 17th
century,
everyone would say, ‘Gordon Willis has recreated Rembrandt.’ I didn’t
want
to make Girl With a Pearl Earring a visual statement, because
photography
shouldn’t take precedence over the story. The first thing I said to
[director]
Peter Webber was ‘People shouldn’t leave the theater saying ‘Every
frame
is a painting,’ because the most important things are the emotion and
the
story.’”
With this goal in mind,
Serra strove
for simplicity, relying on naturalistic lighting and a careful blend of
film stocks to create the picture’s rich palette...
“I believe the best use
of widescreen
is not necessarily landscrape,” the cinematographer continues. “I think
it’s often better for intimate stories because it allows two or more
elements
to relate in the frame. It was one of our most important tools on this
film because it strongly relates to the way Dutch painters used frames
within frames in their work. It also enabled us to show light coming
through
a window and falling off, rather than reaching the opposite wall.”
Serra
used Fuji’s high-speed daylight-balanced stock, Reala 500D, for day
exteriors.
which were filmed on the backlot at Delux Studios in Esch, Luxembourg.
Production designer Ben van Os redressed the exterior set so that it
would
pass for Delft, Vermeer’s home town, circa 1665. “I used daylight stock
for the first time because we were shooting in the winter and the days
were very short, and I wanted to push through to 1,000 ISO almost every
day and still have a color-balanced negative,” says Serra. “I think it
worked very well.”
The film’s narrative
unfolds over
nine months, but the production shot for just over three, so Serra used
filtration to suggest the changing seasons. “I didn’t use any filters
for
spring and summer scenes, but I made corrections to winter scenes with
80 and 82-blue filters to give them a colder feel.”
Vermeer’s house, which
includes the
basement servant quarters, a ground floor and an upstairs studio, was a
practical set built onstage at Delux Studios. To film most interior
scenes,
Serra used Kodak’s new Vision2 500T 5218, and he often pushed it to
make
the most of low light levels. “The 5218 had just been released when we
started shooting,” he recalls. “It responded [to pushing] well. I could
go in the direction of rich color without violence.”
One
of the film’s most remarkable sequences is a lavish candlelit dinner
party
that Vermeer arranges for his patron, Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), who
is withholding a commission the artist needs to pay his bills. Sensing
Vermeer’s desperation, the sadistic Van Ruijven also notices a growing
intimacy between master and maid. This leads him to contrive a new
commission
for Vermeer to paint Griet as the Girl With a Pearl Earring. “The
dinner
party is a long, important scene with plenty of people and lots of
dialogue,”
says Serra. “It establishes characters and sets the stage for the
central
drama. We shot it with two cameras, and I didn’t try to light it in a
realistic
way. When lit realistically, candlelit scenes are very strong and
dramatic
visually, and I thought that wouldn’t be appropriate in this film. Our
story deals with Vermeer and daylight, not La Tour and candlelight. and
I didn’t want to do a history of painting. The important things in the
scene are the relationships among the characters, so I was rather
traditional
in my approach. I wanted to make it believable, not distracting.” Serra
lit the scene with a combination of Kino Flos through heavy diffusion
and
Chinese lanterns gelled with full CTO.
For a scene that shows
Griet making
an eerie, candlelit trek through the house in the middle of the night,
Serra again avoided realistic lighting. “Generally, I tried to light
the
house more richly than it would have been with real candles,” he notes.
“In reality, the candle wouldn’t illuminate the walls or the corners of
a room.”
Little
is known about Vermeer, who left 35 paintings behind when he died at
age
43. But thanks to clues in many of his canvases, a great deal more is
known
about his studio. “More than any other painter of that period, Vermeer
consistently tried to analyze what effect natural light had on a room
and
on a face,” Serra remarks. “At that time, it was very important to be
accurate
in reproducing light because painting was theway to capture the world.”
The cinematographer saw Vermeer’s studio as a place magically apart
from
the rest of the artist’s day-to-day existence, and he employed Kodak
Vision
500T 5263 to give the setting a distinctly different feel....“I often
like
to change stocks when I have different situations, and I think using a
different stock helped give Vermeer’s studio a softer look to separate
it from the rest of the house. It was kinder to the actors’ faces, and
the colors were a little subtler and more subdued than what we have in
the rest of the film. Many areas of the house are quite dark, but the
studio
is light. It’s all about light. We wanted to keep the emphasis on the
characters,
but in Vermeer’s studio, light is also one of the characters.
“Sometimes we had to be
very specific
about lighting this set because we had to respect certain Vermeer
paintings,”
he continues. “About the only thing we really know about Vermeer is how
that side of his studio looked. Like all painters, he had windows to
the
north so that the light wouldn’t change much throughout the day. Ben
van
Os built quite an accurate reproduction of it.”
Some
cinematographers might have felt constricted by having to light the
space
almost exclusively from the windows, but Serra says he wouldn’t have
done
it any other way. “I knew that I would have to be respectful of the
light
coming through the windows and be as honest as possible, but that is
what
I like to do anyway,” he says. “It’s very disruptive to have light
coming
from somewhere else when you know where it’s supposed to come from. I
respect
logical, natural sources, not because classic painters did, but because
I like it. It’s not a rule or moral obligation, it’s my taste. My ideal
is one soft source. I don’t like spotlights putting shadows everywhere,
and I never use backlight or rimlights around the head and hair for
separation.
I think it’s quite distracting. I like what soft light does on faces,
and
I also like the contrast soft light gives to the image. So I just
organized
the light coming through the windows, allowed it to fall naturally, and
then took advantage of it.” To create the daylight, Serra’s crew placed
four 24-light Dinos going through two frames of full gridcloth outside
the windows....
As Griet transitions from
being Vermeer’s
assistant to being his model, the painter’s studio undergoes a
fascinating
metamorphosis, evolving from a very dark, mysterious place into a
bright,
welcoming one. “We were trying to achieve that,” Serra says with pride.
“We simply moved our small lights to change the mood—subtle touches
that
made it feel either empty and cold or warm and sensual. But the basis
lighting
setup outside the windows remained the same.”
Serra’s approach to
lighting Vermeer
undergoes a similar evolution. The artist is first shown in shadow, but
then Griet spots him watching her from the darkness of his studio and
gradually
brings him into the light. “Originally, we were supposed to see Vermeer
fully earlier in the film,” reveals Serra. “But the decision to keep
him
in shadow and reveal him so slowly—we only see him clearly at that
dinner
party—was not only a photographic decision, but also a directorial and
editorial decision. I didn’t use a very complicated lighting scheme for
Vermeer; it flowed from the story and the situation. He’s always
sidelit
in the studio, with his profile to the light, so he’s much more
contrasty
than Griet. Letting the light drop off from the windows in that big
room
made the rest of the house feel heavy with deep shadows.
Given Serra’s rigorous
quest for
purity in his images, it is perhaps not surprising that he decided to
forgo
a digital intermediate (DI) on Girl With a Pearl Earring. “When we
started
shooting, we hadn’t made a decision about that yet,” he recalls. “After
I saw the first printed rushes, there was something about the faces,
the
skin tones, the color, the richness and brightness, that I was afraid
we
would lose if we went digital. When you’re happy with what you get on
film,
why go digital?”
American Cinematographer
article
thanks to Murph
Production Design in Detail
Director Peter Webber and
his production
team created a living, breathing, fully dimensionalized portrait of the
17th-century Dutch town of Delft on a budget of just $10 million. The
secret
to their success lay in the angle of attack. Webber is a passionate
admirer
of Stanley Kubrick's 18th-century epic, "Barry Lyndon." But upon
reading
Olivia Hetreed's screenplay for "Pearl Earring," Webber saw a key
difference
between Kubrick's film and the one he was about to make. "Kubrick was
obsessed
with the spectacle and manners of the period," says Webber. "So he
staged
these elaborate and expensive set pieces. My film was about the
intimate
relationships within a single household."
"The characters who pass
through
Vermeer's house come from a broad spectrum of society, from the very
wealthy
to the very poor," says Webber. "You get a microcosm of 17th-century
Holland
under one roof. So the film is, in a sense, an intimate epic."
Production Design
Finding a production
designer who
could bring this distilled drama to the screen proved difficult. "The
various
British production designers whom I spoke to approached the film a bit
like it was a museum piece," says Webber. "They wanted to get all of
the
period details exactly right, and were slightly scared of not getting
it
right."
When Webber met Ben van
Os he knew
he had found the right person. "Ben is Dutch; this story is in his
blood,"
says the helmer. "So he wasn't intimidated by the period obligations.
He
was much more interested in story and character. How are we going to
create
this mood? Ben said, 'We'll take this from this period and this from
that
period.' It was music to my ears.
"The most important
things are the
story and the characters. I really don't care if I'm going to get a
letter
from some expert in Dutch architecture saying, 'That roof design wasn't
used until 17 years after your movie takes place.'"
Van Os created a
cross-section of
Dutch society by building three interior sets: the drab monochromatic,
Calvinistic home of Griet; the lurid, painting-filled Catholic chaos of
the Vermeer house; and the mansion of Vermeer's wealthy patron, van
Ruijven
(Tom Wilkinson , filled with curios gathered on his world travels and
eerie
stuffed animals, which convey van Ruijven's predatory nature.
The Vermeer house
presented the biggest
challenge. Van Os constructed the three-story set on one of the largest
soundstages in Luxembourg. "We wanted the house to give us that sense
of
frames within frames so familiar from Vermeer's paintings," says van
Os.
"We built rooms with connecting doorways that led the eye through the
house
to give a feeling of space—and lack of privacy. We wanted Griet to
always
feel watched because the film is about being observed, either by
Vermeer
as he paints her, or by the other family members with their various
agendas."
Van Os knows that the
little details
give this cloistered world authenticity. "For instance, the windows are
all exact reproductions of the those that were used at the time," he
says.
"That was a big undertaking, quite expensive. We went to a company that
restores all kinds of windows in old churches and historic buildings
and
had them build them for us."
For the exteriors, Webber
and van
Os spread dirt and trash to give the streets the feel of a crowded
city.
"I was obsessed with getting animals—dogs, livestock—into as many shots
as I could," says Webber, "because it brings a breath of life to the
piece.
Costume Design
The distillation process
extended
to the wardrobe as well. "I wanted a stripped-down look," says Webber.
"If I dressed all the actors in the real costumes of that era, they
would
be wearing ruffles and baggy outfits. I didn't want to put Colin Firth
in that. For a modern audience he's going to look too costumey. So we
came
up with a look we jokingly called period Prada, to give the clothes
sleek
lines. I called it my Vermeer filter: take the real clothes from the
period
and reduce them to their essence."
Costume designer Dien van
Straalen
combed through second-hand clothing and furniture stores, Indian silk
shops
and garment marts throughout London and Holland in search of period
fabrics.
Old curtains and slipcovers were converted to jackets and dresses, and
aged with sandpaper. The wardrobes for each character varied from
prosaic
to grand. Again, the clothes made up a cross-section of the
17th-century
Dutch society. "We used pale colors for Scarlett Johansson to give her
the drab look of a poor servant girl," van Straalen explains.
As for Vermeer,
"obviously he was
not a wealthy man, though he was considerably better off than Griet. So
I wanted to keep him as plain as I could. He sometimes had to go out to
social events, so we gave him one aged black dress suit with a simple
white
collar and a bit of braid.
"Vermeer's patron, van
Ruijven, wants
to control Vermeer and enjoys his power over other people. For me he
was
a peacock strutting around with his money. I used more braids and more
gold, big hats with feathers, and cloaks. We have costume makers in
Holland
who used to work for the opera so they know exactly how to make fancy
clothing
from that period."
Makeup and Hair
"The makeup for Scarlett
Johansson
was very simple," says makeup and hair designer Jenny Shircore. "We
just
had to keep her skin looking milky, thick and creamy. This required
some
makeup because Scarlett has spots and things that happen to a
17-year-old.
We wanted to present her as if she had no makeup on. We gave her a
little
bit of help by bleaching her eyebrows, because in the Vermeer paintings
it's all about skin and face, nothing else gets in the way, so you
eliminate
those other features."
Almost all of the actors
wore wigs,
which presented problems. When Johansson's wig arrived a couple of days
before shooting, it had the wrong color and texture. "It was a
nightmare,"
Shircore laughs. "I didn't dare say a word to Peter, because I thought:
'We must sort this out without giving him a headache.' We were up all
night
dyeing, straightening, curling and redyeing the wig."
"For Vermeer's wife,
Catharina (Essie
Davis), I used a very simple Dutch hairstyle. The women wound their
hair
round the back of their heads. There comes a point when you've finished
the hair, it can't be wound anymore because the length is used up.
Instead
of neatly pinning it away, we let the ends splay out, because in
looking
at references, little drawings and prints, we found that that's what
they
did. Once you're actually working within a period, the hairstyles
evolve
very naturally."
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