Cléo from 5 to 7

Lore & Background

The film opens with Cléo at a tarot card reading, where the fortune teller hints at illness and change but insists the Death card indicates transformation. Distraught, Cléo interprets the reading as confirmation of stomach cancer. She visits a café, shops for a hat, and interacts with her assistant Angèle, her lover José, and musicians Bob and Maurice. A silent short film, Les fiancés du pont MacDonald, directed by Varda, is shown within the film, featuring New Wave figures including Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, and Eddie Constantine. Cléo later meets Antoine, a soldier on his last day of leave from the Algerian War, in Parc Montsouris. They bond over their fear of dying, and he accompanies her to the hospital. Her doctor casually informs her she will need two months of chemotherapy but will be alright. Cléo says her fear is gone and she is happy. The film ends with the two walking in silence, occasionally glancing at each other.

Reader's Guide

Cléo from 5 to 7 is a landmark of the French New Wave, notable for its real-time narrative and focus on a woman's subjective experience. The film's structure—following Cléo over 90 minutes—creates a sense of urgency and intimacy. It features a cameo by composer Michel Legrand as Bob, and includes a silent short film directed by Varda. The film's legacy lies in its departure from conventional narrative and its empathetic portrayal of a woman confronting mortality.

Did You Know?

• The film's score was written by composer Michel Legrand, who also appears as the character Bob.
• The silent short film Les fiancés du pont MacDonald features Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, and Eddie Constantine.
• Producer Georges de Beauregard appears as the driver of both the hearse and the ambulance in the full version of the silent short, but those shots were removed for the film.

Early Life and the Road to the Stage

Her father, the Austrian judge, lawyer, and tourism pioneer Theodor Christomannos, was estranged from her mother, and Cléo did not meet him until she was a young adult, when they crossed paths at a train station in Merano. The encounter was marked by her characteristic wit: she reportedly told him she hoped he was wealthy, as she was accustomed to luxury. Affectionately known as "Lulu" within the family, she was sent at the age of eight to study dance under the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. By eleven, she had already made her professional debut at the Paris Opéra.

The Chignon and a Fashion Revolution

At sixteen, de Mérode debuted a hairstyle that would become one of the most imitated looks in European fashion history. What she later described as a purely accidental development—pushing back a square fringe that kept falling into her eyes while dancing as a coryphée at the Opéra—gradually evolved into a knotted bun, or chignon, which she further refined with a hidden crown to accommodate the large hats of the era. The style swept through Parisian society almost overnight and spread across the continent. In Sweden, it reportedly nearly triggered a labor strike when female workers were ordered to abandon the look on the job. The very coverage of her ears by the style also spawned persistent rumors that she was missing one or both ears, which she dispelled by simply appearing in public with them exposed. She later reflected that the whole thing was unplanned, a child's practical solution that the world mistook for deliberate artistry.

The "Cléopold" Scandal

Her mother attempted to quell the story by publishing a letter in Le Figaro, but the attempt backfired when the poor spelling became a joke. Two years later, the Baroness gave an interview insisting the affair was "absolutely false," recounting that the King had merely sent a flattering note after seeing her dance at the Grand Opéra and that any meeting had occurred only in her mother's presence. De Mérode herself called the rumors "monstrous lies," emphasizing she had never been alone with the King. When they finally met, he apologized, calling himself "only a little king."

The First Modern Celebrity

De Mérode is widely regarded as the first true celebrity icon and the first modern celebrity, a distinction that rests as much on her image as on her artistry. She became famous for her glamour even more than for her dancing, and her likeness appeared on postcards, playing cards, and other commercial products. She was the first woman whose photographic portrait was distributed on a worldwide scale, thanks in large part to the work of photographers Nadar, his son Paul Nadar, Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, and his son Jean Reutlinger, as well as Charles Ogerau, Henri Manuel, and Otto Sarony. The Belle Époque's greatest artists flocked to paint her: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Giovanni Boldini, Alphonse Mucha, and many others captured her in oils, while sculptors Alexandre Falguière, Mariano Benlliure, and Ernst Seger rendered her in three dimensions. A wax mask by Georges Despret survives in Brussels, and an anonymous sculpture stands in the Galerie Tourbillon. Georges Goursat added caricatures in the 1900s.

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