The Big Picture
From winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay to the Palm d'Or at Cannes, Anatomy of a Fall has continuously impressed during awards season. The acclaimed French film directed and co-written by Justine Triet is centered on Sandra (played by Sandra Hller), an author who is suddenly accused of pushing her husband from a window, leading to his death. As the plot unfolds, Sandra must go to court and prove herself innocent in light of the allegations, which becomes a challenge considering that the prosecutors try to use whatever they can (including her own book) to show that she is guilty.
With so much happening in the trial, the climax of the film kicks in when an audio recording of a fight between Sandra and her late husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) is played for everyone to hear. This key moment is the only inside look at the couple's marriage dynamic, making it hard to determine if the fight reflects their everyday life or if it just represents a fragment of their long-term relationship. A similar scene also takes place in the latter half of Noah Baumbauch's divorce drama, Marriage Story, in which Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) have a heated argument at Charlie's bachelor apartment. Despite these two films having different storylines, the similarities between both fight scenes aren't mere coincidences.
A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.
Before diving into the parallels between the couples' fights in both films, it is important to revisit the Anatomy of a Fall scene and why it is so vital to the film's procedural story arch. The audio recording is only presented in court toward the end of Sandra's trial as an ultimate attempt to link her to Samuel's fatal fall. It all starts with a conversation between the protagonist and her husband in the kitchen, as he blames her for using his idea to write her own novel.
In his eyes, Sandra is the ultimate factor preventing him from being a successful writer, since she imposes herself too much. They even speak English at home per her request (even though her native language is actually German). As the tension rises, Sandra begins to speak her mind about how displaced she feels living in a cabin in France, and having to comply with the decisions that Samuel has made for their family. As these two individuals start to argue about infidelity, their son's disability, and their sense of pride when it comes to their jobs, it is clear to the viewer that she gets the upper hand, a stark contrast when comparing this fight to the one depicted in Marriage Story.
In an interview with Picturehouses, Triet shared several titles that helped her craft the story of her award-winning film alongside her husband, Arthur Harari. Some of her honorable mentions included Kramer vs. Kramer and Opening Night. Yet, when asked about more recent films that might've become a source of inspiration for Anatomy of a Fall, the director shared that Marriage Story played a role in helping her come up with the fight scene, saying. "I love the film, I find her role a lot more fragile than his. The scene of the argument in 'Anatomy of a Fall' is almost in dialogue with that scene. I thought, "I will give this woman some things to answer with."
There is truth to Triet's take on the argument in Baumbach's film. When Charlie and Nicole have a conversation by themselves in his apartment, they try to find some common ground amid a complicated divorce trial. Their civil exchange goes south very quickly, when Nicole says that Charlie is becoming a lot like his father, a comparison that makes him furious. The former couple goes down a spiral, making hateful comparisons, attributing blame to one another for how their marriage turned out, with Charlie even going to the lengths of wishing that his ex-wife were dead. Although at the end, he falls on his knees and asks for forgiveness for what he said, Nicole is somewhat silenced and gives him consolation instead of responding. Their fight feels real, but it does portray Johansson's character as more fragile, and doesn't say enough to make Charlie accountable for his actions.
Different from Nicole, Sandra does not hold back when it comes to telling Samuel that the only person in the way of his success is himself. From making the family move to France for his job to him not writing a book because of his own lack of competence, the protagonist in Triet's film has a more empowered and outspoken presence in the fight scene in comparison to that of Nicole in the argument shown in Marriage Story. Instead of letting herself look small in light of the issues her husband was pointing out about his professional dissatisfaction, Sandra understands that despite her own wrongdoings (especially when it comes to the infidelity in their marriage), she is not the one to blame for Samuel's personal struggles. In a sense, Triet allows her main character to say what Noah Baumbach's leading lady doesn't.
Although the context of these marital disagreements isn't the same, one being about a divorce and the other presented as evidence in a murder trial, they play pivotal roles in both films. In Marriage Story, the fight shows how two people who used to live together as a family can suddenly become strangers in a matter of minutes (using words as weapons to hurt each other). The argument in Anatomy of a Fall is initially used as evidence to prove that Sandra is guilty of her husband's death, but it ends up being irrelevant when considering that a marriage is defined by more than a single moment. Despite the viewer getting to see the scene unfold (unlike the people listening to the recording at the trial), Triet pulls back the curtain when the violence begins, making it impossible to determine who was aggressive first. At the end of the day, both arguments represent the cracks in relationships that only the people on the inside can truly understand.
Anatomy of Fall is available to watch on Hulu in the U.S.
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'Anatomy of a Fall's Fight Scene Wouldn't Be the Same Without 'Marriage Story' - Collider
Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith
