Status Updates From The Complete Untitled Film ...

I'm not sure if I was yet aware of the fact that in most early films, women who don't follow the accepted order of marriage and family, who are strong, rebellious characters, are either killed off in the script or see the light and become tamed, joining a nunnery or something.
Usually they die. I think I must have been unconsciously drawn to those types of characters.

(She was a huge influence, as was Simone Signoret, who I think that character also reminds me of.) Others were Sophia Loren inspired, in her more earthy roles like Two Women (#35). And of course Anna Magnani was somewhere in there. I definitely wasn't into the rhine stones-and-furs kind of actress, Jayne Mansfield and people like that-I wanted the film to seem obscure and European.

I was mostly going for the look of European as opposed to Hollywood types. Some of the characters were consciously influenced, for example #13 by Brigitte Bardot. But she's more of a Bardot type than a Bardot copy. When I look at #,6, I think of Jeanne Moreau, though I'm not sure I had her specifically in mind while shooting.