The film is not your standard costume picture, or even a straightforward biopic for both practical and thematic reasons.
Things had gotten a little real on the set of “ Corsage,” but nobody expected the star, Vicky Krieps, to jump out the window that day.
The scene involved a fencing match between Krieps, playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and Florian Teichtmeister as Emperor Franz Joseph. It’s a straightforward match and Elisabeth is supposed to be winning, in the midst of a tense argument. But Teichtmeister decided to change the choreography in the moment so he would win instead.
The movie, which opens in Chicago on Friday in limited release and recently made the shortlist for an Oscar nomination, was intended to be an empathetic examination of a misunderstood woman, trapped in the prison of her gender, her time, her position, her celebrity and her beauty. This was a moment where she got to be a little stronger than the man and a man had just taken it away.
It hit Krieps hard.
When Teichtmeister exited, the scene was technically over, but Krieps was still in it. The director, Marie Kreutzer, kept the cameras rolling as she sometimes does and suddenly Krieps was crying. Then she walked over to the window and jumped. Everyone gasped.
“Why is she going out the window?” the director of photography exclaimed.
She was fine, mind you. The room was on the first floor. But it wasn’t in the script.
The film was actually, technically, Krieps’ idea. She had been fascinated by the 19th century empress since she was a young girl, when — unbeknownst to her feminist mother who repelled “princess things” — she watched Ernst Marischka’s “Sisi” trilogy at a friend’s house. The 1950s films starring Romy Schneider, referred to by Elisabeth’s nickname, are a holiday broadcast staple in Europe.
