Guest post by Galina Olmsted.
A story of sex, power, and deception set in the 1780s, Dangerous Liaisons is fixed in our collective memories as an escapist period film, brought to life through its lush production design and costuming. Adapted from the 1782 epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, the plot follows the salacious schemes of members of the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the Revolution. The Marquise de Merteuil, played by Glenn Close, and the Vicomte de Valmont, played by John Malkovich, conspire to have Valmont seduce the fiancée of a fellow aristocrat who has left Merteuil. Their mutual devotion to manipulation and seduction as a means of wielding power binds Valmont and Merteuil, even as their plot unravels and their betrayals multiply.
Filmed on location at the Château de Vincennes, Château de Champs-sur-Marne, and Château de Guermantes, Dangerous Liaisons was admired by critics for its screenplay, which was adapted by Christopher Hampton from his 1985 play, itself adapted from the Laclos novel. Its dialogue is rich and winding, with Close’s performance earning her her fifth Academy Award nomination. Her portrayal of Merteuil is made richer and more convincing by her costumes, brought to life by the acclaimed British costume designer James Acheson.
The film opens to a dressing scene, with Merteuil admiring herself in the mirror before being powdered by her attendants and tied into her corset and basket panniers. Although the film is set in the 1780s, the costumes represent the height of fashion at mid-century. The film’s production was rushed to make the deadline for Academy Award consideration and that left Acheson and his team just three and a half weeks to conduct research, consulting period costumes in paintings and books.
Acheson’s reliance on eighteenth-century French paintings is especially clear in his design for the blue robe à la française worn by Merteuil. Modeled after François Boucher’s 1756 Portrait of Madame de Pompadour, the blue silk gown is adorned with pink roses and an échelle, or ladder of pink silk bows from its bust to its waist. There are matching bows inside each elbow, resting above triple lace false sleeves called engageantes.
In its design, luxurious materials, and careful attention to detail, Acheson’s costume is a fitting homage to the green silk gown worn by Madame de Pompadour. Although she is best known as Louis XV’s chief mistress, Madame de Pompadour was a highly skilled political player, tastemaker, and patron of the arts. She served as an advisor to the king even after the end of their sexual relationship in 1751 and leveraged her position as an important cultural force at Versailles until her death in 1764. Boucher’s portrait — one of several he made of Madame de Pompadour — shows her at the height of her influence, holding an open book and surrounded by symbols of her power, intellect, and passion for the arts. However, it is her sumptuous gown that dominates the composition, sinking its wearer in a sea of ruffles, roses, and lace.
Like the fictional Merteuil, Madame de Pompadour understood the importance of managing her public persona and she sat for portraits made by many of the leading painters of her time, including Boucher, Jean-Marc Nattier, and François Hubert Drouais. In one poignant scene in the film, Valmont says to Merteuil, “I often wonder how you manage to invent yourself.” “Well, I had no choice, did I?” she replies. “I’m a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has ever thought of before.” These themes of artifice and self-invention are echoed in the film’s setting — the mirrored doors, for example, through which Merteuil escapes a fraught conversation with Valmont — and in the important role that the opera plays in the film’s plot, as a place to see and be seen.
On view at the Eskenazi Museum of Art through November 14, The Art of the Character: Highlights from the Glenn Close Costume Collection includes both the blue gown inspired by Boucher’s painting and a yellow traveling ensemble, as well as a corset, panniers, and accessories worn by Close in her critically acclaimed portrayal of the Marquise de Merteuil. Acheson went on to win his second of three Academy Awards for Best Costume Design for his work on Dangerous Liaisons.
Dangerous Liaisons will be screened at IU Cinema on November 2 as part of the Glenn Close and The Art of the Character series.
Galina Olmsted is the assistant curator of European and American art at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University. A specialist in European painting, Olmsted is the co-curator of The Art of the Character: Highlights from the Glenn Close Costume Collection.