Provokr Pick of the Week

BY: Zak Wojnar

She’s relatively unknown in the mainstream culture of the United States, but Gabrielle Colette is considered one of the most important writers who ever lived. Her novels were initially published under the name of her domineering husband, and it wasn’t until very late in her life that she began to achieve a modicum of the fame she deserved, and not until after she died that she was finally recognized as the literary legend she was. As is so often the case, great artists aren’t recognized until long after they’re in a position to benefit from their own effort. C’est la vie.

A new biopic, Colette, seeks to tell the story of the legendary author’s life and hardships. Keira Knightley stars as the title character, and Dominic West plays her husband, who famously owned the copyright to all of Colette’s early work and subsequently reaped all the profit from her semi-autobiographical stories, leaving her near-broke following their bitter divorce in 1910. The film also covers her scandalous affair with Mathilde “Missy” de Morny (Denise Gough), a gender-fluid trailblazer ahead of her time and, let’s face it, probably ours… Presumably, the film won’t cover the dissolution of Colette’s second marriage, which ended thanks to her illicit (even by French standards) affair with her 16-year-old stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel. It was a different time, indeed.

Colette was a deeply complex woman who was arguably born in the wrong era. Then again, perhaps the ‘right’ era has yet to present itself. There’s no doubt that the arc of history is long and bends towards justice, but progressives in all eras have sorely underestimated just how long the arc really is. It’s not right that artists and visionaries like Colette and Missy suffered due to the social mores of their time. Hopefully the film Colette will help towards making things right, correcting the way society treated Colette and the way it continues to treat women who dare to stand against the rising tide.

Colette is in theaters now.