PIECES OF A WOMAN
How new drama PIECES OF A WOMAN staged an exceptionally stressful 22-minute one-shot birth
The inside story of possibly the most harrowing scene you’ll see next year. Brace yourselves.
THE CONCEPTION
Pieces Of A Woman, a story of a home birth that undergoes complications, originated as a stage play in Poland. On stage, the birth sequence was “45 minutes long,” says Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó. “It was kind of like when you have a beautiful painting, but before that you do a lot of studies. The play was a little bit like a study [for the film].” But the prospect of adapting that sequence into a film, Mundruczó says, “really scared me. I mean, it’s so easy to make a bad birth scene. To be frank, there are so many.”
The filmmakers did their research — talking to midwives, mothers, and drawing from personal memories. “As a father of three I have the experience. A father’s perspective is not that far from a filmmaker perspective — you are an outsider, but you have every emotion.” It was ultimately decided to make the entire scene (which takes place before the opening title has even shown) into a single unbroken 22-minute shot; the unusual cinematic approach was designed to mimic the hazy hyperreality of childbirth itself. “That filmic time feels like the hours you spend on a birth,” Mundruczó says. “It’s like a mini-universe. Every minute has its own meaning.”
THE BIRTH PLAN
A long time was spent on the technical details, working with cinematographer Benjamin Loeb. “We felt a handheld camera, which is an obvious choice for this [shot], is too personal,” Mundruczó explains. “You always feel there is a person under the camera. A dolly shot would have been completely static and distant and, in a way, quite manipulative.” They settled for a gimbal — a lightweight alternative to a Steadicam.
Two days before shooting, the director went through the sequence meticulously with the crew, actors, screenwriter and a midwife expert. “We went through it layer by layer, chunk by chunk, going: what is this one page? What is the mini-story in here? It’s like three acts in miniature.” There were few rehearsals, though. “I’m not a huge fan of rehearsing scenes on a movie set, because many times this is against the live performance. If I may say, it’s a bit like stunt work. Lots of planning, but also uncertainty.”
THE DELIVERY
The sequence was filmed on the first day of the shoot, with six takes shot across two days, and Mundruczó confirms there are “no hidden cuts” in the shot. For the actors — Vanessa Kirby and Shia Labeouf as the parents, and Molly Parker as the midwife — it was a full-on start to the shoot, particularly for Kirby.
“First of all, she doesn’t have a baby [in real life]. So what she’s doing is pure performance. To start a scene like this is really difficult. What I asked from her is: ‘Be brave. Go to your borders, and try to cross your borders.’ She just jumped into it. Just wow — such power.”
The sequence slowly morphs from a joyful family moment into heart-stopping anxiety, as complications with the birth start to arise. But realism was always key.
“I never asked them to panic,” Mundruczó says. “I always asked them: let’s solve the problem as objectively as you can. Hide your panic as much as you can. How they play it is unbelievable for me.”
The sequence stunned critics when it played at the Venice and Toronto film festivals earlier this year. Mundruczó only hopes it will have the intended impact on audiences. “This was something which was very personal,” he says. “A birth has a magical, universal power.”
PIECES OF A WOMAN IS COMING SOON TO NETFLIX