Emma Stone: "Evil brings character ... and is more photogenic"
Disney revises the most hidden and dark myth of '101 Dalmatians' and gives the perfidious Cruella the benefit of a woman with plenty of reasons to be bad among so many worse men
"Yes, definitely, it is a feminist film." Emma Stone (Arizona, 1988) takes exactly half a second, which takes the question to appear, to make clear the most evident intention of Cruella, the latest and most sophisticated endeavor of Disney of, in order: a) move to flesh and blood (again) a lifelong animated classic; b) turn the moth-eaten hierarchy of preMeToo princesses like a sock, and c) finally convince the champions of the war, the counter-reform, or the cultural counterrevolution (whatever you want to call it) that the house of the mouse is not going to give up until they deplete their reserves of saliva (or poison, no matter what). Those who got angry with the supposed lesbianism of Frozen Wait, they may go into fibrillation now.
To situate ourselves, the idea is to recover for the drama and the three emotional dimensions a completely flat character of pure evil. "At first you think that Cruella is the devil ...", sang the character Roger (the human father of dogs) in the original film 101 Dalmatians of 1961. Remember, all the efforts of the character who later, in 1996, gave life Glenn Close herself was turning adorable spotted puppies into exactly the same spotted fur coats. Well, she, like everyone else, has a past and, things from the stories, enough reasons to be not only bad but even worse. And that is what the film directed with more exuberance than grace by Craig Gillespie, the same delirious I, Tanya, tells us. "It's clear," says Emma via Zoom, "that not only is it more interesting and dramatically richer to play bad, but it is much more fun. In addition, it has a cathartic component for the viewer. Seeing someone so evil do such horrible things brings a certain comfort. Suddenly it makes you feel good to know that you will never get to something like this in your life. And he breaks out laughing.
Be that as it may, the La La Land actress that many, including the director of this film, have compared to Lucille Ball for her capacity for tragedy, comedy, musical, horror and the opposite of all the above; Be that as it may, we said, the actress makes what matters now is not just evil, but her motivations. Which places us in an interesting doubt and moral reflection in the throes of guilt and forgiveness. “It is clear that evil brings humanity and character to the characters. It is also much more photogenic. By this I do not mean that you have to excuse yourself to understand, but it puts you on a more unstable register. It is difficult to define someone as simply bad when you see him grow up from the beginning ... Enough that the female characters are the flawless and good princesses ", he comments on a run while placing the film where it wants to be: in its time and in her firm feminist conviction.
Emma Stone is not only the protagonist of the film. She is also her soul, her meaning and, more important than the lyric, her producer. Until reaching the screen as it will this Friday, the project has lived and undergone countless changes with countless scripts and as many directors. The current filmmaker jumped on the boat, or the kennel, in 2018 after the original director resigned. Stone had already been here for two years. It wasn't until screenwriter Tony McNamara turned the film into a punk fantasy set in the 70s and turned his heroine into a kind of Vivienne Westwood emula that it didn't start. “I am really surprised that everything turned out well. On paper there were too many ideas, "says the actress before returning to her subject.
The actress says that, as in her character in Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favorite, Cruella De Vil is the owner of her destiny. "Nothing and no one, least of all a man, she dictates the rules," she says. Quite the contrary, she is the head of a small gang and she only cares about her motivations, her desires, her simpler and heteropatriarchal ambition. “The interesting thing,” she points out, “is that she is a complicated and imperfect woman. And that makes it recognizable. She is a heroine, but tormented and with her traumas ... ». What is clear is that the film, with the character of Stone at the head, conveniently seconded by that of Emma Thompson, passes the famous Bechdel test with flying colors. There are at least two female characters and they talk to each other about something more interesting than a man (about anything, therefore). “Both Cruella and the baroness, her rival, are women whose priority and objective is to grow in their careers. No sign of who they have chosen to be romantically with. It is clear.
When the first images of the film were known, there were quickly those who ran to make more or less obvious comparisons. Cruella, indeed, was too much like the myth of our time, the Joker. "It would never occur to me to compare myself to Joaquin Phoenix, if perhaps I would not mind being like him," she replies. Either way, the chaos within the immaculate Disney order is here to stay.
