Interview: Justine Triet and Sandra Hüller on the Dissections of Anatomy of a Fall

Before we see any images in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall, we hear a question: “What do you want to know?” It’s a question uttered by Sandra (Sandra Hüller) as she sits down for an interview opposite an interested pupil. The successful writer’s ask has a practical purpose, but she might also be talking to the audience too, priming them for a courtroom drama that moves beyond interrogating innocence and guilt.

Anatomy of a Fall, written by Triet and Arthur Harari, concerns itself with much more expansive notions of language and narrative in a trial setting. Sandra’s criminal indictment stems from her suspected involvement in the death of her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), who suffered a fatal fall from the top floor of their home in the French Alps. But in the absence of conclusive evidence or an eyewitness, the question of whether she pushed him becomes a proxy judgment on Sandra herself. The prosecution and defense alike wield everything from her auto-fictional artistry, bisexuality, and German nationality to build their case.

The film’s complex script provides a fittingly rigorous examination of how people transmute reality into fiction. She has an equally intricate interpreter in Hüller, who commands the screen in Anatomy of a Fall after stealing scenes as a high-strung film director in Triet’s previous film, Sibyl. We always want to know more about Sandra, a character who’s equal parts inviting and inscrutable. As the trial progresses, it becomes clear that the film’s conclusion will provide the information for each viewer to arrive at their own story, not an absolute truth.

I spoke with Triet and Hüller ahead of Anatomy of a Fall’s premiere at the New York Film Festival. Our conversation covered why language assumes such a prominent role in the film, how they each pull from reality in their work, and what conversations they’ve had with audiences about the verdict that’s delivered in Sandra’s case.

There were some practical considerations for language shifts in the film, but it also feels thematically appropriate that Sandra gives up on speaking French in the courtroom when she has to unpack the concept of shame. What does “shame” mean from each of your perspectives, personal or national?

Justine Triet: I don’t think it’s so much shame proper, even though you’re right that the first switch happens for the English phrase “he was ashamed.” It’s more that French is a constrictive space for her and that English arises when she goes into a larger, more sentimental territory.

Sandra Hüller: I think that the problem that people have with Sandra is that she doesn’t feel any shame. She refuses to feel ashamed for so many things that she would be accused of by the public, by men, or by people in power. She just stands up for the things that she believes in, and that’s what makes her a bit dangerous for some people or makes them feel intimidated. I understand what you mean when you say when she talks about shame because that’s the first switch when she talks about her husband and what’s his motivation to act the way he acted. But for her, it’s something that she just refuses to feel or to act on.

Does the theme of language extend beyond just French, German, or English? Is it about an emotional language of expressing something internal?

JT: Language is very much at the heart of what drives the film. In nearly an obsessional manner throughout the entire film, people are striving to understand each other and make themselves understood. The language moves between a language of passion and impulse in the more familiar household setting to the language of explanation, which is much more articulate, in the attempt to analyze and understand what happened. There’s this ongoing attempt to knit reality through and against language in such a way as to find an exit out of a predicament.

Is there a connection between the courtroom and the cinema? Especially in Sandra’s trial, I feel there’s something similar in that it involves artistic choices that people then try to interpret as revealing of personal biography.

JT: I mean, there’s definitely the bridging fact of the audience and a public reception. Of course, the judgment’s stakes aren’t the same in one, even though both are a place where our narrations and stories are appropriated through interpretation. In the courthouse, that recuperation is a lot more violent because it’s the place where fiction actually begins and overtakes truth. The narrative event is one of two different fictions being juxtaposed and laid out. Something that I’m very fascinated by in a courtroom situation is closer to the writing room, really, for me than in the screening room. It’s that place where fiction begins.

Sandra the character gives voice to some of this frustration in the opening scene when she asks her interviewer, “Do you think one can only write from experience?” How, then, do you stimulate your imagination to provide something that approximates reality without drawing from it directly?

JT: I’m a vampire. I collect from what’s around me from my friends, etcetera, but it’s not a relationship of direct theft. It’s rather a wringing or a deformation of the things that we find so as to allow them to be revealed in a hidden manner. The most important thing, and something that I think I’ve gained with maturity, is for the gesture of vampirism to remain natural. Collect only things that very profoundly concern us, which isn’t to say that they have an element of a biographical narrative. But [we collect] things that speak to or at us in a very personal way so as to not be the director that one is expected to be or admired to be, but really the director that we are. I think that that’s something that’s very much changed for me from my early 20s to now.

Sandra, are you also a vampire in your own way as an actress?

SH: No, but I think what connects us is that Justine is someone who can watch people for hours and listen to them. She’s really interested in what makes people do what they do and how they become what they are. And I do that too. Sometimes the questions that we have are the same. I could never write a script like that because I could never put my thoughts in order in the way that she does. But, of course, everything that’s around me is an influence on the work. As soon as I commit to a character, I start to watch people in a different way. I find little pieces of the story everywhere. It becomes kind of an obsession, that’s for sure.

Justine, you’ve talked a lot about how Sandra commits to her characters so physically. Is that something you can start to anticipate in the writing, or is that something that can only come alive on set?

JT: In the writing, I had Sandra’s body and voice very present in my mind. But I was still very surprised when it came to shooting. As a writer, there are some scenes that one is always more afraid of than others, whether because they feel less solid or whatnot. And Sandra was really exceptional for me because we didn’t have to talk all that much. Often, she understands things very fast. That’s something that really baffled me and the whole crew: to have somebody like this who could come up and work in a way that wasn’t so cerebral but very instinctive. More generally, one thing I’m always thankful for is the way that in this position and job, the set is always a place of surprise. It’s always a place where the script is overcome in some way. Some directors pay a lot of attention to staying close to the script in a way that for them feels functional. But I like it when reality does some damage to the writing that’s been done.

Sandra, I know Justine wouldn’t tell you if your character did it—only to play her as if she’s innocent—but how else were you clued into how the film might be leading the viewer to interpret your character’s presence? Some of the aesthetic shifts really change the way you occupy space in the frame, for instance.

SH: I wasn’t aware of that when we were shooting because the decisions of the camera aren’t really of interest to me. I don’t know what the camera does, and I’m so busy with finding out what I want to do and what my partner is doing. I mostly forget about the frame, which is such a problem because I don’t know if it’s far away. [laughs] But when you talk about it, I realize that’s true. In the beginning [of the film], we have much more space around everybody. And in the end, it becomes more and more narrow. There’s not so much space to move in the court. There was just a bench, and I was allowed to stand up sometimes.

Also, something that I didn’t realize until I saw a documentary about the male gaze and its difference from the female gaze, [my character is] mostly filmed from underneath, which is really strange. Normally, women in such a position are filmed from above because they’re a victim or they’re supposed to suffer. Somebody is bigger than them. But I realized that Sandra was a bit bigger than the others, which is crazy. I wasn’t aware of that fact. It could also be a technical decision because she was sitting much higher, but also, [Justine] could have moved the camera. I thought there was an interesting thing that happened and also makes people sometimes feel kind of intimidated by her presence because she feels secure in what she’s doing.

Some of the pundits who debate the verdict seem to anticipate the conversation the audience outside the film might have, especially noting that people are more comfortable with the clean divisions of true crime than the murkiness of a domestic drama. Have you felt viewers proving those voices wrong?

JT: It’s true that some of the reactions that we’ve gotten are from people choosing their side [on the verdict]. I’m not sure how interesting that is, but what I find really fascinating is that when we make a film, we never really know how it’s going to hit or what it’s going to provoke. In this case, what might have been anticipated to be a film that was received as being kind of sophisticated or perhaps sort of cold clearly does the opposite of making people talk about themselves a lot. People discussing the film start to speak about their lives and relationships. For something so intricate to generate simple and intimate reactions is always a wonderful thing. Just one thing: I remember somebody told me, “I love your film so much. I sent my ex-boyfriend to see it. I need him to understand why I split up with him.” It was very funny.

SH: I share this experience, [as] people are opening up [to me]. Of course, they’re talking about if she’s done it or not, and they’re giving me insights on their theories about it. Sometimes they argue in front of me, which is always really fun. It’s not the normal chat that you have about a film. I really like to have these conversations because so many things aren’t solved. The work continues in a very beautiful way with a discussion about it.

Translation assistance for Justine Triet provided by Assia Turquier-Zauberman