“Miss Marx” Through the Lens of Director Susanna Nicchiarelli

Historical yet contemporary, Eleanor Marx was a cultured, bright and passionate woman who stood up for her ideals. She was Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, and among the first women to bring together feminism and socialism. Throughout her life, Eleanor fought zealously for women's and worker’s rights and the abolition of child labor. In 1883 she met Edward Aveling, the lover that changed her life forever. 

Susanna Nicchiarelli describes her experience directing “Miss Marx” in a very personal way, revealing intriguing anecdotes, her thought process behind certain elements of the film, and how some of her own memories are tied to Eleanor. 

Hi Susanna! Could you please introduce us to the movie and describe how your career led you to get close to Eleanor Marx’s character?

Photo courtesy of Miss Marx

I started creating movies set in the past with my first film based in the 60’s, “Cosmonauta”. From there on, there has been a recurring interest and desire to tell stories from the past; sometimes stories that intertwine History with the capital “h” or personal stories that make us feel the strength and contemporaneity of the historic characters. 

I saw this particular strength in “Miss Marx”, as she is a very current character from the past that has something to communicate to today’s spectators – and I thought the same thing about Nico’s character and about all the characters in my other films. These are all stories about today, and not about the past, even though at the beginning they present themselves as movies based far back in time. 

Are there any values or teachings that you think Eleanor Marx transmits to the modern viewer?

I do not like to think that Eleanor transmits values or teachings, nor that the movie conveys a particular moral. Instead, I believe that she represents a generation that had the courage to re-think the world, aiming to create a society without the evident injustices present. 

I think that it is beautiful how still today, people remember that other worlds are possible, that it is important to think together and act rebelliously towards things that are presented to us as unavoidable, but that in reality are very much avoidable. Therefore, from this point of view Eleanor’s revolutionary strength is timeless. 

On the other hand, the happenings of her private life are quite the opposite, but that’s because it is always very difficult to put ideas in practice in your private life, and this possibly underlines the strength of Eleanor’s ideas themselves, I think.

What was the process to understand and get to know the character, emotions and thoughts of Eleanor Marx, and her relationship to the people that surrounded her?

The letters, her works, particular objects, and the notebooks with drawings from when she was a child were fundamental to understand Eleanor Marx’s character. I must say that her childhood notebook is one of the things that moved me the most when I saw it in a historic archive. It was the notebook she used to draw and to take notes of history at school.

Another beautiful part of the process was beginning to work with the actor, having her wear the clothes that Eleanor Marx would have probably worn, based on the character we wanted to convey and the historic pictures available. Slowly, the character comes to life and at some point, you develop an emotional feeling towards him or her. What moved me the most and attached me emotionally to Eleanor’s personality was imagining her when she was a child and had a father, Karl Marx, who raised her and taught her everything.

“Miss Marx” won best soundtrack at the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival. In what way do the film’s songs reflect Eleanor’s personality?

I believe that the film’s songs are very close to Eleanor’s character. Punk is a very particular type of music that has both a destructive, rebellious instinct almost of death, and at the same time carries with it a desire for revolution and change. I believe that Eleanor’s story conveys both these sides, love and death, the uncontrolled emotion and destructive instinct. Her’s was a generation that changed and re-thought the world with a strong and destructive energy compared to the reality they lived in.

 
What is a detail of the film that you would like viewers to notice? Something that one does not immediately pay attention to, but that in its small way makes a difference?

Well, maybe the detail is precisely what I talked about earlier – the childhood drawings I found in her notebook, which she recreates in the film. At first, it may seem like I made her draw to pass the time, but in reality, that moment was based on something real that I had researched and found. 

In this notebook, little Eleanor wrote notes of history and political ideals, but she also drew a beautiful girl wearing a dress. I find this very interesting, because her soul was also very romantic. Think about the fact that she decided to wear her best dress to kill herself. She believed in representation, in romanticism and in emotion; for this reason, thinking back to the previous question, other than Punk there is also Classical music by Chopin among others, that represents the other part of Eleanor’s soul.

And finally, a more personal question. Are there any memories that accompany you throughout your career choices and that more specifically tie you to Eleanor Marx?

When you make a movie, you always tackle with your personal emotions, memories and childhood experiences – this is fundamental. Naturally, when directing this film, I had to deal with the memories of my own father while growing up.

I was the youngest of the family with two much older siblings, and I was my dad’s favourite daughter. This is a very similar dynamic to Eleanor’s, as she had a very beautiful childhood with her older sisters, which finished very soon because they got married when she was only 12 years old. So, in some way, there are a series of emotions and personal elements that you recognize in a character. In the same way, I also had my own Edwards - or wrong men - in life, so I can recognize those kinds of relationships too. You always find aspects that resonate within you compared to the character you are dealing with.

The same goes for “Niko” and the fear of being an inadequate mother. Even though I was certainly a better mother than Niko, the fear of doing something wrong, the feeling of guilt, and the refusal of nostalgia, were all very important themes for me, both in “Niko” and in “Miss Marx”. Eleanor was a woman who was very projected into the future, always looking forward. For me this is very important, and this motto is what defines her the most.

Susanna Nicchiarelli shed light on her experience conceiving and directing “Miss Marx”. She touched upon the way the film’s songs resonate with Eleanor Marx’s destructive yet romantic character, her discovery of primary sources such as Eleanor’s childhood drawings, and the way she relates to the protagonist in a personal way, highlighting her contemporaneity. 

If you haven’t already done so, head over to the cinema and watch “Miss Marx” … of course, as soon as Covid-19 restrictions will permit!