scene in question is the emotional centrepiece of the film in which Clifford confronts Constance about her lover. It is a long, complicated sequence riddled with many shifts in tone and points of view requiring a great deal of coverage, and they only have two days to shoot it.
In this adaptation of the novel, Clifford’s confrontation with his wife takes an interesting, unexpected, but wholly believable turn at the end. What drew Sarah to the script, what made her decide to play the part, is this very scene she is getting made up for now. It is a scene of heartbreaking realization on Clifford’s part. After the anger and betrayal subside, without words, without a tedious monologue, he lets Connie, as he likes to call her, know that as much as it hurts him, he would rather see the woman he loves happy, even if it is with another man.
This bittersweet gift to his wife, her lover, and their future child — and the silent gratitude with which Constance accepts Clifford’s bestowal of understanding — is what made Sarah take the role. She read the script in the London subway on her way to a matinee performance of the play she was doing in the West End, and when she got to the final page, she burst into tears, prompting the woman next to her to get up and sit a couple of seats away from her.
Another thing Sarah loves about this version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover is that unlike the previous screen adaptations, which have been period pieces with a capital P, this one is positively modern. The corsets, for instance, are far less frilly, the hair less ornate, and to Sarah’s delight, there isn’t a goddamn bonnet in sight.
Everything about the production, from the art direction to the costume design to the cinematography, is lean, almost austere. Sarah has always hated those earnest period films in which the actors are mere models for the elaborate costumes and the women all sport precious little bonnets to match their frocks.
Sitting in the makeup trailer in front of a large vanity mirror and sipping green tea, Sarah reads the day’s newspaper. Sandy, a heavy-set woman in her late twenties with long, silky hair and soft, baby-like skin, is busy doing Sarah’s face, while Vita, a muscularly compact woman with a shaved head and drawn-on eyebrows, blow-dries Sarah’s hair, which she then lengthens by attaching extensions.
Sarah likes to read the newspaper while the hair and makeup department work their magic, which can take anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half, depending on the scene. During this process, some actors read the script as a last-minute preparation. Sarah, on the other hand, knows her lines beat by beat at this stage of the game, and instead likes to read the morning paper, which has the unique effect of taking her out of herself and immersing her in the lives of others.
When she is in a play, her prep routine is different. As she does her own makeup in the dressing room, she likes to listen to the chatter of the audience as the theatre fills up. Sarah uses the sounds of each night’s audience as a soundtrack, an audio portal into the emotional journey she is about to take. The one thing she asks the stage manager to do is to feed the noises in the theatre directly into her dressing room, which can usually be achieved by putting a discreet microphone in the auditorium and connecting it to a speaker in her dressing room. While preparing for the night’s approaching performance, she drinks in the voices of the crowd, absorbing the energy as if by osmosis and making a connection with the audience even before she utters her first line.
Working on a film set, however, presents a different set of challenges that requires another kind of ingenuity. In the absence of a live audience with whom to give and take from, she exploits the technological demands of the medium. Sarah loves to confine her energy and release it slowly like an IV drip, according to the size of a shot. For a close-up she releases emotional energy in microscopic bursts, intensifying the audience’s thrilling, beat-by-beat discovery of her character. In a master shot, though, she can afford to be more liberal, allowing herself freedom of movement, of gesture, of play, by using her entire body to tell the story, something she has tried to learn from her idol, Meryl Streep. Sarah is astounded by Streep’s ability to summon every limb to play a character while never compromising that character’s inner life. Many times she has watched the actress on film and whispered to herself: “How does she do it?”
By the time Vita finishes putting in the hair extensions, Sarah has reached the last pages of the newspaper, having taken her time with the articles and op-ed pieces in the politics section while merely skimming entertainment. She has little patience for the way entertainment is covered in most newspapers. The sort of who-is-screwing-who chatter that passes for entertainment journalism revolts her. As for the sports section, she couldn’t tell rugby from hockey to save her life, so she skips it altogether.
Sarah finally reaches the obituaries and takes her time there. She got in the habit of reading the obituaries several years ago when her father passed away suddenly from a severe brain aneurysm. Sarah took it upon herself to write his obituary. The following day she bought the newspaper, read her father’s obituary, and then scanned all the other ones published that day. Since then she has been inexplicably drawn to them. No matter which city she is in, what is happening in her life, whether she is happy or sad, she checks every obituary in the paper. She always feels better — no, not better, somehow less alone, more connected to others. It is as if through the act of reading about the departed she can silently pay tribute to them, be a witness to the fact they were once here.
Finally, Sarah comes to Ella Christiansen, the last obituary of the day. She continues to read, not recognizing the name. Only after she finishes does it hit her. She studies the obituary again as if to confirm what her eyes are telling her:
CHRISTIANSEN, Ella Kotsopoulos, of Toronto, Ontario, passed away on Monday, September 6, 2004, at St. Michael’s Hospital. Ella was the daughter of Frank and Edna Kotsopoulos. She was also the beloved wife of Gregory Christiansen and the loving mother of Andrew and Natalie Christiansen. A former stage actress and theatre teacher, Ella taught drama at Thistledown Collegiate Institute and later at York University. She also founded her own drama school, The Playroom. Ella loved the theatre and devoted most of her professional life to understanding and teaching acting to the hundreds of students who studied with her over the years. She will be greatly missed by the many people whose lives she touched with her love, humour, and devotion to excellence. The family will receive visitors on Thursday, September 9, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Botti Funeral Home, 570 Danforth Avenue, east of Pape Avenue. A private ceremony will be held on Saturday at 12.00 p.m. at the Christiansen residence.
After Sarah finishes the last sentence, her heart misses a beat when she realizes this woman was her former drama teacher. Her magnificent teacher, supporter, and encourager passed away. Sarah meant to call her, tell her she was in town, take her out to dinner or maybe invite her to the set. She has been in town for three weeks, and every day calling Ella was in the back of her mind. Now it is too late.
Ella was the woman who taught Sarah to respect her craft, who pushed her to dig deeper, who told her the one thing all serious, aspiring actors long to hear: that she was good enough to be great. However, the one compliment from her teacher that Sarah clung to throughout the lean years was: “Young lady, you have in your future great many things and many great things.” And now that woman is lying dead somewhere in the city, waiting to be buried, and it shatters Sarah in a way even the death of her own father didn’t. Tears come with surprising speed, and it isn’t long before she completely breaks down, ruining Sandy’s hour-long makeup job, which will mean reapplying foundation and eyeliner all over again, maybe start everything from scratch.
“Sweetie, what is it?” Sandy asks, putting a long emphasis on the weeee, stretching it to an almost comical length. “Now look what you’ve done to your pretty face,” she says lugubriously, as though Sarah has taken a sharp blade to her face and scarred it for good.
Sarah tries to give a genuine apology without getting into the reason for the tears. “I’m sorry, Sandy. I’m so sorry I ruined all your work.” Sarah should know better,
