Kristen Stewart is back in Cannes, a familiar place for her. As an actor. She’s at the festival this year, however, as a first time feature film director. The Chronology of Water, based on the book by Lidia Yuknvavitch, will have its world premiere tonight at the Palais. Kristen and cast members Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, and Kim Gordon were at the photo call today.
Kristen and Imogen are both in Chanel – Imogen’s look is more classic to the brand, and Kristen’s too, up top, but the sheer skirt over the shorts on the bottom make it punk Barbie. She’s a long-time ambassador and I’ve always said, she (and her stylist Tara Swennen) makes Chanel work for her in a way that so many others can’t.
In support of her film, Kristen talked to The Hollywood Reporter before tonight’s gala, one of my favourite interviews she’s ever done. As always, Kristen speaks in stream of consciousness blur, but you can feel her passion and her nervous excitement through her words. She has never been more in love with being an actor and even though she’s promoting her work as a director, and has wanted to direct since forever, it’s not a comparison, it’s not one over the other. If anything, it sounds like directing has further amplified her desire to act. And also her appreciation for actors period as she speaks glowingly of the actors she directed in her film.
As for the film and its prospects at the festival, Kristen insists she’s not being falsely humble when she explains that it is barely ready, like what will be screened in Cannes is the “first draft”:
“We barely finished this movie. It’s not even done. This is my fucking first draft… We’re running in here half-dressed. But I’m into it.”
A first time filmmaker presenting the first draft of her film at Cannes and she’s stoked about it, which is the way it should be, especially since The Chronology of Water is screening under the Un Certain Regard umbrella of the festival which is meant for experimentation and learning. No filmmaker is born a maestro – filmmaking is a craft that is honed over time. And there should be space at film festivals like Cannes, Venice, Toronto, and Telluride and more where filmmakers can “crash and burn” and keep figuring it out.
Which is what Kristen is anticipating: to crash and burn. When The Hollywood Reporter tells her at the end of the interview that they hope everything goes smoothly, Kristen replies:
“Hopefully not smooth! Hopefully, we crash and burn, but in a way that feels correct.”
This comes after she talks about rushing to get the first draft done in time and not being afraid of failure:
“I was like an absolute basket case. I’m kind of happy to take on something vulnerable. I’m happy to take something with mistakes. Mistakes are f-cking hot. I love stories about movies and filmmakers that have taken their films to Cannes and had to come back and fix a few things and release a different movie. It’s all about revealing yourself. So it’s very meta that we’re running in here half-dressed. But I’m into it.”
“Mistakes are f-cking hot.” And she’s ready to make them on a huge stage.
“I’ve always looked up to [Cannes] with such reverence. Even if it’s messy, and honestly, my movie should be messy. This f-cking thing should sprawl. It sounds so dramatic, I mean this in a way that is incredibly celebratory — it should be a woman limping and bleeding.”
This is how stories are told, right? I’ll go back to a lesson Duana passed on to me after she learned it from one of her mentors, and it’s oft-repeated here at LaineyGossip: “You can’t fix nothing.”
For anyone out there making anything, you can’t fix nothing, meaning that if there isn’t a first draft, as ugly and imperfect as it is, you don’t have anything to work on to get it in better shape, to mold or rewrite or edit it into something closer to your vision. So just get something on the page, even if it sucks. From there you can unsuck it but at least you’re working off something rather than nothing.
No first draft has ever been perfect. And we have to stop expecting that it will be. Kristen Stewart is smart enough to know that her first draft won’t be perfect. But she is excited about it not being perfect because she then gets to keep trying.
