Summertime is lovely for a reprieve from the hectic schedules of the rest of the year and part of the pleasure comes from “light” movies. You can easily take in one of the dozen quarter-billion dollar films the Hollywood studios release every year, one with copious special effects and sometimes even a coherent plot. Occasionally we at Laemmle Theatres get the chance to screen a light entertainment that doesn’t leave your ears ringing but rather charmed and laughing. The new French comedy LE CHEF, about two chefs, one aspiring (Michaël Ruan), one a celebrity (Jean Reno), is such a movie, one that pokes vigorously at the pretensions of those who would take French cuisine from bouef bourgenon to sea slug foam. In her San Francisco Chronicle review, writer Leba Hertz wrote “it’s definitely not love at first sight for this odd couple, which makes for good laughs, but their love of food and life enables them to find the right mix of ingredients for a very funny movie.” Check out LE CHEF et bon appetit!
INTERVIEW: Melvil Poupaud on the Singular Eric Rohmer
“The first time we met he didn’t talk very much, he was very shy, very intense, his blue eyes — he would look at you like a beast almost, he was very wild.”
– Melvil Poupaud (A SUMMER’S TALE) on Filmmaker Eric Rohmer
Tragically for U.S. cinephiles, Eric Rohmer’s 1996 richly satisfying A SUMMER’S TALE never enjoyed a theatrical release in the states. Now, nearly 20 years later, this situation is being rectified. Laemmle is proud to present a new restoration of this cinematic treasure to L.A. audiences. It opens next Friday at the Royal (July 18) and the following week at the Playhouse and Town Center.
Rohmer is no longer with us but his lead actor, MELVIL POUPAUD, recently spoke about his experience making A Summer’s Tale and, in the process, illuminated what made the seminal filmmaker so singular and influential. Below is the interview and accompanying article by Jose Solis of Pop Matters.
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June 30, 2014
By the time of his death in 2010, Éric Rohmer had cemented his status as one of the most important filmmakers in history. He was the last of the children of Cahiers du cinéma to establish a name for himself, but with films like My Night with Maud (Ma nuit chez Maud, 1969) and The Collector (La Collectionneuse, 1967), it was evident that his style was as important and groundbreaking as those of his most famous colleagues: Truffaut, Godard and Chabrol.
Obsessed with the complicated nature of what makes us human, Rohmer had first gained notoriety with his Six Moral Tales (1963), a series of films in which he explored philosophy filtered through the lens of sexual liberation and female empowerment.
Pursuing his interest of revealing film as an encompassing of truths, in the ‘90s he created a series he called Tales of the FOUR SEASONS, which he made throughout the decade, and all of which went on to gain critical acclaim. Despite the importance of his work, the enjoyment of Rohmer’s oeuvre has usually been relegated to connoisseurs, his films never won the popularity of Truffaut’s or Godard’s, which is why it might come as a surprise to realize that his 1996 A Summer’s Tale (Conte d’été) only recently made its American theatrical debut.
The third in his Tales of the FOUR SEASONS series, A Summer’s Tale features MELVIL POUPAUD as Gaspard, a young man who arrives at a small Breton resort, where he makes music and goes on walks while he waits for his girlfriend, who seems to be taking longer than expected. Perhaps inspired by the beauty of Brittany, Gaspard finds that romance thrives in the air, and soon he meets two other women with whom he develops platonic romances.
Sensual and hypnotic in equal doses, A Summer’s Tale is a rich snapshot of youth and the hopefulness contained in the realization that the world is nothing if not endless possibilities. On the eve of the film’s release, we talked to lead actor Poupaud, who shared anecdotes about the shoot, as well as insight into Rohmer’s enigmatic personality.
Have you gone back to revisit A Summer’s Tale recently? Do you ever go back and revisit your work in general?
No. Just sometimes, I catch bits of it on television or when I go to screenings. I haven’t watched the whole movie recently though. And no, I never go back and see my other films. (laughs)
The film’s use of conversation feels quite fresh, even modern, and reminds us that Rohmer was usually working ahead of his time when it came to cinematic styles. We have seen this “style” being copied time and time again in recent years. What do you think audiences will discover by going to see this instead of a big popcorn movie?
I think it would be better if they know about Rohmer’s work before the see the film, otherwise it could be a shock. Even in France his was a very special way of making films, a very special way of acting. The funny thing is that a lot of people now in France, and all around the world really,claim to be influenced by Éric Rohmer so it’s a pretext to make movies in which people talk a lot, about the weather, love, things like that.
But I believe it’s very difficult to try and imitate Eric’s style. A lot of people have tried to imitate him but they make very boring, caricature-like French films. In fact if you look at it, Éric’s filmography is very stylized, very precise and people don’t talk about bullshit.
What do you remember about meeting Éric Rohmer for the first time?
I remember I was impressed. It was one of his favorite actresses who first took me to his office in the first place, Arielle Dombasle, she was in many of his movies. She told me that Éric was looking for an actor to play in his next movie but he hadn’t found anyone yet. So she told me “you have to meet Éric because he’s looking for someone to play Gaspard.”
I was scared because I didn’t really like any of the Rohmer movies I’d seen before. I thought they were a bit boring, especially for a male character. I thought it would be bad to be an actor in his films because he’d make you look shy, awkward and stupid. I was lucky, because I think this is one of his only films where the main character is a guy—cause he mostly gave the big parts to girls—as soon as I met him I realized he’d put a lot of himself into this character.
Everything I say, everything he has to say, all the long monologues about the way he doesn’t feel like he’s part of a community, and all these ideas I really think they came from Rohmer himself. I don’t think it’s autobiographical, but it’s very close to what he was.
The first time we met he didn’t talk very much, he was very shy, very intense, his blue eyes—he would look at you like a beast almost, he was very wild. Going to his office after this first meeting, and getting to know the actresses, we would play music, because he wrote the songs I play in the movie. He was a good composer, he played the songs on piano and I had to transfer them to guitar and sometimes we would just do music and talk, and he got more relaxed with me.
We never did rehearsals before the shoot and he only wanted to do one take. His way of making movies was long shots and one take because he wanted actors to be very fresh and not to repeat themselves. He loved accidents and would keep them.
So he never gave you specific direction?
Not at all. He would spend lots of time with the actors before the shoot, to get to know them and be comfortable with them and he wanted them to know the text, because he wanted actors to say exactly what he wrote. After this period of adaptation and getting to know each other he would give you freedom.
One of the first times I came to his office he put on the radio very loud, went to the kitchen and yelled at me “Melvil, can you say the text?”, because he knew we’d shoot at the beach, with no clothes on, and it would be very loud and we would record the sound just with a boom mike, so he wanted us to be audible. That was one of his fears.
Was shooting on location like a vacation? Everyone in the film looks so relaxed.
Absolutely, because we shot in the summer time. It was funny, because even though there were a lot of people on the beach ,no one really looked at the camera. Éric was worried about this, but there were only like four people in the crew. He was funny because he was all white, so he would put on a lot of sunscreen…but anyway, people probably thought “what is this strange guy doing here?” but then they would just ignore us. Éric would then just make a little sign to let people know he was shooting and then no one would look at the camera.
After working with him did you go revisit his work to try and like it?
Yeah, I went back and looked at his films and I was always very impressed because he always stuck to reality. And then of course there was this incredible writing, incredible dialogues, every scene leads to another scene, he created suspense out of emotions and the way people behave, so beyond these natural aesthetics, there is something much more precise and stylish, the framing, the light. Every single shot for him is a piece of work. Everything was very well thought.
Rohmer was a film theorist, would he talk to you about films or mention references he’d use in this movie?
No, he was very shy. Sometimes he would mention a painting, or music. He really loved Middle Age music, a lot of his influences came from this era; the pictures, the paintings, the colors, it was all inspired by this time. Even these songs that once were performed by sailors.
For me he was like a child, I remember one time at the premiere of his friend Claude Chabrol’s La Ceremonie, there was a big event so he felt like he had to go, even though he hated the crowds, he was very antisocial. So he was nervous, biting his nails and he escaped back to his hotel after the premiere, so I come back and he was watching the dailies and I ask him “what are you doing?” and he said “I just wanted to check something.” He had become so excited by his friend’s film that he went back to try and see if his movie would be better, he was like a child that way.
Did you keep in touch with him after working with him?
Yes, because I married his niece. He was the godfather of my wife. He was very close to my ex-wife’s parents, so I saw him at my wedding. I wrote a book two years ago and I talk about him in there, but the book hasn’t been translated into English.
You also had a two-decade long collaborative relationship with Raul Ruiz. Can you talk about that?
Yes, but that was very different. I was raised by Raúl Ruiz, I started working with him when I was ten and I did over 12 movies with him, so our relationship was more like being family. I felt closer to him than I ever did to Rohmer, because I knew he was much more fascinated by young girls, anyway. I’m not sure he enjoyed hanging out with guys. I always felt he was more in his world when he was surrounded by women.
I’m happy that I was part of his work, but I was not a typical Rohmer hero.
Having worked with some of the world’s best directors, have you had the urge to direct your own films?
Yes but mostly experimental movies. Ruiz took me to his movies and he impressed me so much with his work, that even now after his death, I watch a lot of his films. I’m always digging into his work. We do an event in London, at the Serpentine Gallery where the curator is a big fan of Ruiz, so we do a special event there where we show his work.
There was something in Raúl’s work that hasn’t been seen yet, I feel people will rediscover his work. He wrote books about cinema that are absolutely incredible. For me Raúl was a thinker, while Rohmer was traditional French, kind of old fashioned in a way. Raúl was much more surrealistic and adventurous.
What are you currently working on?
I did a movie in China that I’m supposed to finish in October, with the great Fan Bingbing, it’s a period movie where I play a Jesuit and she plays the Empress of China. I did a movie in Bulgaria, where I was the only actor and the rest of the cast were gangsters and hookers, so it’s an interesting combination of fiction and reality. The next movie I’m doing in June is directed by Philippe Ramos and is called Capitaine Achab, and I play a schizophrenic priest.
Are you planning on doing any more English features?
I’d love to. I did two movies in England, one called 44 Inch Chest with Ray Winstone, John Hurt and Ian McShane, but it was very, very English so I’m not sure if it was shown in America. I also did The Broken with Sean Ellis and I had a little part in Speed Racer I loved the Wachowski brothers and this is a very special little film.
INTERVIEW: From “Hoop Dreams” to “Life Itself” with Filmmaker Steve James
Acclaimed director of the Roger Ebert doc “Life Itself” STEVE JAMES (Hoop Dreams) sits down for a conversation with Odie Henderson of RogerEbert.com. Excerpted in full:
In 1994, Roger Ebert wrote about Steve James’ “Hoop Dreams”-“A film like “Hoop Dreams” is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.” He had no idea that, 20 years later, the director of that film would be the filmmaker behind the movie based on Roger’s memoir, titled with the same phrase that Roger used to describe “Hoop Dreams”-“Life Itself.” The director sat down for an interview in New York City last month.
“Life itself” opens on July 4th in several markets, including here in NYC, and on iTunes and Video on Demand. Is this the version that played at Cannes or the one that played at Sundance?
This is the Cannes version. It basically has a 4-minute section devoted to Roger’s 40-year history of going to Cannes. I think it’s a really great addition to it, because it’s not just fun, although it has a lot of laughs in it. It’s also insightful, because it helps you understand even more why Gene was afraid Roger would leave him behind. Roger did all these Cannes things by himself-he wrote all these pieces from Cannes-and he loved doing it.
I wonder why Gene didn’t go with Roger.
Gene didn’t like going to festivals. I don’t know about his actual Cannes history, but I don’t believe he went there many times. Roger, of course, religiously went to Sundance, Telluride, Toronto and Cannes. Gene’s rationale, as I understand it, was that he wanted to maintain this distance from the filmmakers. Roger didn’t have that same concern. I also think they had a different way in which they engaged with film. Roger lived and breathed it in a way that Gene was proud to say he didn’t.
Speaking of Cannes, let’s talk about “Life Itself”‘s memorable glitch at the Cannes screening. [Note: The Cannes screening was delayed for over 20 minutes when the film suddenly stopped.] Roger was fascinated by technology, especially when it went catastrophically awry. I’m a computer programmer, so Roger and I rarely corresponded about movies. Instead, he always wanted to know when my software demos blew up. I had a lot of stories to tell him, because demos always explode. I was wondering if you knew Roger dug when technology went on the fritz, and if so, did that cross your mind when the Cannes screening went “pffft!”
[Laughs] I didn’t know that! I did think about his reaction after the fact-I’m sure Chaz thought about it during the glitch-and I think, because he loved Cannes so much, that he would have initially been amused by it. Because it went out a minute after the Cannes footage…
…as if it were planned.
Yes! And, it actually happened-pure coincidence-when a guy got up and left. I don’t think he left due to indignity or whatever. He probably had something else to do. He walked out at the front of the theater, and as soon as he walked in front of the screen, the movie went off.
Like he’d kicked out the plug.
That was my first reaction! “Is the plug down there? What the hell?” I think Roger would have been amused by the timing. I was kind of amused at first. And the lights came up immediately, so I thought “oh, they’re dealing with it.” I didn’t know that [the theater] was on a system, so when the screen went off, the lights were set to automatically come up. There was nobody up there in the booth. That part would have made Roger quite angry. He would have cut somebody a new one for that.
Chaz was quick-thinking. She dragged me down to the stage and we did this impromptu Q&A. And all the time during the Q&A, I’m looking up in the booth and I see nothing going on. And we have people out looking for someone. So, I think at that point, Roger would have been infuriated.
It would have made for a great Cannes dispatch from him.
It would have made for an amazing article! At Cannes, of all festivals! But the way it ended-about half of the audience remained with us until the end–the crowd gave us one of the sweetest, most heartfelt ovations I’ve ever experienced at a movie I’ve made. It was really touching, as if we’d all been through something together.
“Life Itself” has been screened all over the world. I’ve been to three screenings in the U.S. so far. It just played AFI Docs on Saturday night, alongside a documentary about General Tso’s Chicken.
I saw that in the listings.
I was curious about that documentary, but it was sold out so I didn’t make the trek down to D.C. I shouldn’t be talking about somebody else’s movie at your interview, though!
[Laughs]
You mentioned Cannes, but is there a particular screening that resonated with you, that really stuck with you as the quintessential screening of Life Itself?
I think the quintessential screening, without doubt, would be the Ebertfest screening. I mean, 1,200 people were there celebrating Roger.
You know, in the process of making this film, we’d do these little impromptu test screenings where we’d gather 20 or 30 people over at Kartemquin to help us make the film clearer, or to see what’s working/not working. We discovered early on in those screenings how much laughter there was going to be in this movie. There were a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. So we began to tweak the timings around the moments we knew would generate real laughs, so that there was enough space [for them]. Someone might say something in the film that was of no great consequence, so if you missed it, it was no big deal. But we noticed that some important things were being missed because of laughter. So we calibrated this for the audience, which you need to do when you have the luxury of this kind of response.
At Ebertfest, people were missing stuff because there were waves of laughter that kept on going. But here it really didn’t matter. It went from this raucous laughter to dead silence, and sniffling, and emotion.
And then, for it to be in hometown, and at his festival. All of that made it the most special screening.
But I’d have to give a second-place shout-out to the Sundance premiere screening. Because I’ve had films at Sundance before, but that was the best screening I ever had. The audience response was like a mini-version of Ebertfest’s response. The audience was with it from the first frame to the last, and it felt like people were there to celebrate Roger and to mourn him.
All your films are superbly edited. What I find fascinating about them is that they have the arc of the best fiction, which is impressive as you have no control over reality; you have to play the hand that you’re dealt. How do you approach that? With Roger’s book, you had kind of a blueprint for “Life Itself.” Did that make your approach any different than, say “Hoop Dreams” or “The Interrupters?”
It did. It definitely made a difference. I really love the way Roger structured the book. It is a man looking back on his life from this vantage point of “here I am now. I can no longer speak or eat, and my life is very different.” And there is this flood of memories. Yet it is informed by life in the present, which he comes back to from time to time. The book is largely linear but not exclusively. I love that about the book.
And so I thought that was a great template, structurally, for approaching the movie. It meant following Roger in the present, to see what his daily life is now. And I’m always fascinated with that anyway, because even if it’s not some big momentous thing going on, just witnessing people in their daily lives can be quite revealing.
So in that sense, the present-day part is more like what I’m used to in my films, which is to follow people. And, as in true in my other films, what happened was unexpected. When we started filming, we did not expect Roger to pass away in four months. And so, that part of the film took on a life of its own, and it made the film about more than what I’d set out to make it. It also made it a film about “how do you die, and how do you do it with courage, with dignity and with humor?”
Roger had a morbid sense of humor, as Chaz points out in the movie. He seems to be enjoying this, giving it the thumbs-up at one point.
Yeah. He says “what kind of third act would it be if I just died suddenly?” I thought, “what an amazing thing for him to say.” One moment I really like is when I say “it makes for a better story” and he gives me this approving look. And it’s not facile. It’s not shallow to me at all. It’s kind of the way he lived his life. He embraced it all, and this part is just another act.
OK, it’s time for the grad school question. I wrote this one down.
[Laughs]
To me, your films focus on how people impact a particular system and vice versa. For example, The Interrupters step in to challenge and diffuse situations that cyclically would lead to violence. In “Hoop Dreams,” the system of basketball, as a means to a better life outside a neighborhood not unlike my own growing up, affects Arthur and William profoundly. In “Life Itself,” Roger the critic throws a monkey wrench into the critical thought process that says an emotional response to a movie is invalid. There’s kind of a cybernetic approach to your subjects. Is that a conscious decision on your part, or is this merely something I read into your films because this is the “grad school question”?
This is my favorite question of the day so far.
So I guess I actually got something out of going to grad school.
[Laughs] You know, what I’ve found out over the years is that I don’t generally set out to do that. With “Hoop Dreams,” I set out to do a film about what basketball means to young people like Arthur and William. That was the original impetus. And not necessarily young kids, but African-American ball players whom I’d had as teammates, played pick-up ball with. As much as I’d loved the dream [of basketball success], and I felt in my own whitebread way that I’d had the dream as strong as one could have it. But I also knew that it wasn’t the same for me as it was for some of the African-American teammates I’d had, or players who came from where you came from, for example. And so I wanted to understand that better.
I didn’t know Arthur and William at this point. But I didn’t set out to do an expose on the business of basketball and how the system reaches down. I really wanted it to be more of a “why does this game mean so much?” And I knew it would take us into places like poverty and lack of opportunity and social issues. But that wasn’t what hooked me initially. It was on a more personal level of why the game meant so much, why it is so important, and to go on that journey.
With “The Interrupters,” I read Alex Kotlowitz’s article, and what we both were taken with is how these individuals who once were part of the problem were now trying to fix something that, in their own way, they had created. And they’re trying to save themselves, not just save other people. And so it was very personal, and that was the hook.
And so over the years, I’ve found that I am drawn to personal stories that resonate for me in various ways. And what I’ve found is the reason why they resonate with me. They have something larger to say to us about the world we live in. They have something larger to say about those systems, or about race, or about class, or about criminal justice. In the case of a film like “Stevie,” when a person commits the crime that he did, do we as a society just throw them away, or do we try to save them? What is our obligation to them? But I don’t interview a bunch of experts to weigh in or to pontificate. I try to get at these things through the individual’s stories.
With Roger’s story, I didn’t know what I originally set out to do. I was just taken by his extraordinary life, and that he had had this incredible life journey that informed the way in which he wrote film criticism and that shaped the type of critic he was. If he hadn’t had this fascinating, incredible life journey, I probably wouldn’t have made the film despite admiring him as a film critic.
The personal stories angle kind of leads to my next question. You have a scene with Ava DuVernay, with whom I was on a panel last year at the Off Plus Camera Film Festival in Poland-of all places! She talks about how she entrusted her African-American themed film, “I Will Follow,” to Roger to spread the word about it, much like “Hoop Dreams” was in a way entrusted to Roger as well. I was glad you kept that scene in “Life Itself,” because it raises an interesting notion about whose stories get told in the cinema, and whether those stories get recognized or seen by audiences. Siskel and Ebert were always pointing out these little films on their show, and Roger carried the torch of the under-seen little film until he passed, both in his reviews and on social media. Do you think that social media has picked up Roger’s mission of pointing out these films?
Well, I’m no expert on social media because I’m not even on Twitter, fortunately, or unfortunately. I do understand a little bit about Instagram because a friend of mine told me that Roger Wolfson, another Roger in the business, markets his content through the site and suggested maybe I do the same but with more “oomph”. My friend’s always talking about different ways to grow his audience. Recently, he settled on using social media growth tools such as nitreo to extend his online presence.
Fortunately.
I went on Twitter literally for two minutes. I signed up after being browbeaten by the Twitter king at Kartemquin. I signed up, got one follower and said “I can’t do this” and cancelled the account. But I do think there’s an important role for social media. I don’t think it rises to the level of Roger Ebert when it comes to promoting films, and Roger as you know became a master at using social media. He even knows how to get free instagram followers with socialfollow, but that just sounds like a different language to me!
Yeah. He twisted my arm and made me use it. Said I should use it for “shameless self-promotion.”
Did he really? Well, I think he understood something about the contemporary world and contemporary technology, and the disconnect that can happen between us, and social media can be a bastardized version of that in some ways. But it can also be a very powerful and positive influence as well. It removes the gatekeepers. When Hoop Dreams came out 20 years ago, we were beholden to a distributor that was willing to spend a significant amount of money to get it out there. We were beholden to the traditional press outlets to embrace the film and write about it, otherwise no one would go see it or even hear about it. And that’s not true anymore.
Three years ago, “The Interrupters” made a perfect example. Here was a film where no money was spent putting the word out there. Yet thanks to social media, to Facebook and Twitter, to people writing about it on their blogs and saying “you should see this.” Because of all that, it played in 75 markets with no money spent. So I think there’s much to be said about social media…even if I’m not on Twitter!
Stay off it! One last question: Roger always beat up the MPAA for inexplicably and hypocritically applying their ratings. I try to carry the torch for this on RogerEbert.com. “Life Itself” is rated R, and I had to rack my brain to figure out why. Did you expect it? And what do you think Roger would have thought of this?
Roger wouldn’t have liked it. It’s because of a shot of bare breasts and a few uses of the word “fuck.” It’s the way the MPAA is. I thought, for a minute, “should we put up a big fight over this?” I realized I just don’t have the energy and time to do it. But if you wanted to write about it, that would be a beautiful thing. Because it is ridiculous.
It is ridiculous. So, kids, sneak into “Life Itself!”
That’ll give us some cachet!
Interview with VIOLETTE Writer-Director Martin Provost
We’ve been crazy for actress Emmanuelle Devos since 2001’s READ MY LIPS so we always look forward to her films. We open her latest, VIOLETTE, this weekend at the Royal, Playhouse and Town Center. Here follows an interview with the writer-director of that film, Martin Provost:
What was your first encounter with Violette Leduc?
René de Ceccatty, whom I met in 2007, introduced me to her while I was writing Séraphine. René said, “You’re making a movie about Séraphine, but have you heard of Violette Leduc?” I only knew her by name; I’d never read any of her work. He gave me an unpublished text that Violette had written about Séraphine, and which Les Temps Modernes had rejected. It was astonishingly perspicacious and beautiful. René also gave me the biography he’d written about Violette. After reading it, I devoured La Bâtarde, Trésors à prendre and so on. I told René, “We have to make a film about Violette.” The idea of the diptych was born. To my mind, Séraphine and Violette are sisters. Their stories are so similar, it’s unnerving.
In your film, you lay Violette bare in an intimately truthful portrait that liberates her of all the scandalous clichés associated with her reputation as a writer.
The more I discovered about her, the more I was deeply moved by what was hidden deep within her, the fragility and hurt, whereas the scandalous, flamboyant public figure—after she achieved celebrity in the 1960s—interested me much less; it was merely a façade. I wanted to get close to the real Violette, who is in pursuit of love and withdraws into great solitude to write. Life wasn’t kind to her. People said she was difficult. That wasn’t enough for me. I saw her as very insecure, fighting a lonely battle with herself, but still seeking. For me, that insecurity and solitude are what drove her. People rarely consider the risk every artist takes, whether they be a painter, writer or director. More often, they only see the achievement, and success if it comes. It takes a good deal of recklessness, as well as courage and perseverance, to set out on that road, and to keep going. Over time, you realize that solitude is extremely fertile, a crucial ally, just like silence, reflecting the inner being, which constantly grows and develops, but it can take a lifetime to comprehend that.
How did you get the idea to divide the film into chapters, as if reading a book?
Gradually. I realized that the succession of people Violette met in the course of her life corresponded either to particular books she wrote or to fundamental phases in her development. In editing, it really stood out, until there were only the people who really mattered, along with the penultimate chapter, dedicated to Faucon, the village in Provence where she lived in later life and died.
Personalities, the place where she bought her house, the book that brought her success… The film follows the trajectory of an authentic heroine toward her emancipation.
Yes, I wanted to make Violette a heroine, and I wanted all the protagonists of her story, of whom she would also have to free herself, to appear in the film. In order to grow, it is vital to be able to free yourself of everything that helped make you what you are. Reliant first of all on her mother, then on Simone de Beauvoir, Violette eventually secured her independence by writing La Bâtarde. By freeing herself of them subconsciously, she found her place. That’s why the chapter on Berthe, Violette’s mother, comes so late in the movie: when the conflict reaches its peak and can find a resolution.
You point out Berthe’s inadequacies, but also her desire to take care of her daughter.
Berthe is as central to the movie as she was to the life of Violette, who loved her as deeply as she resented her for bringing her into the world. Berthe wasn’t a bad woman. She was certainly not a good mother (Violette’s birth was not registered until she was two years old), although I am very dubious about the concept of good and bad mothers. It doesn’t really mean anything. Berthe did the best she could, and I didn’t want to condemn her, as Violette does. On the contrary, I wanted to show that Violette only sees part of her mother—the part with which she has scores to settle. The same goes for Maurice Sachs, an obscure personage who deserts Violette even though it was he who urged her to write. He plays his part in the inner construction of the writer she is to become. Nothing is ever black or white; there are shades of grey and nuances. I always come back to that—giving each character his or her chance, a fair crack. That’s how you find your place.
After the war, Violette Leduc meets a symbolic mother, Simone de Beauvoir, who takes on a role of mentor and patron.
That was the strongest bond in Violette’s whole life, above all the tumultuous and complex love affairs she had. The film’s second chapter recounts their meeting in Paris. At a friend of Maurice’s, to whom she is delivering black market meat, Violette picks up Simone de Beauvoir’s novel, She Came To Stay. She is immediately struck by the size of the book. “A woman writing such a big book,” she says. She reads it. She is gripped. She becomes obsessed with meeting and giving to Simone de Beauvoir her first manuscript, In the Prison of her Skin. Violette finds and observes Simone at the Café de Flore, where she writes every morning. She follows her. She corners her eventually and gives Simone her book. It’s the start of a lifelong relationship.
How do you interpret her relationship with Simone de Beauvoir in the film? Beauvoir seems to admire Violette’s impassioned behavior, and be irritated by it in equal measure. Simone is the only friend she keeps her whole life long; she corrects Violette’s texts, guides her and advises her. Violette even bequeaths her literary rights to Simone.
Simone de Beauvoir was fascinated by Violette, who rejected being an intellectual. She said, “I write with my senses.” For Simone, it was an ambiguous relationship that blurred the lines. Violette was in love with Simone, who did not reciprocate but saw in Violette the inspired writer that she never was. She kept her at a distance without ever letting her go. Violette was a terror. You slammed the door in her face and she slipped back in the window. Emmanuelle Devos, who plays her in the movie, came up with a very amusing and fitting term to describe her: “a pain in the heart.” Violette was a calamity for herself as much as for others: she suffered terribly and she provoked a lot of grief, too. She was convinced she was ugly and, confronted with Simone de Beauvoir, her ugliness became an obsession. Simone, however, managed to dodge every trap Violette set for her, in order to give her support and help her forge her oeuvre. Without Simone, I think Violette would have self-destructed.
Your Simone de Beauvoir is unexpectedly fragile and solitary, too.
It’s the less well-known side of Simone, alone, at a time when Sartre was dallying elsewhere. She wasn’t fulfilled until much later, after she met Nelson Algren. This fragile Simone also came to me thanks to one of her books that I rate above the others, A Very Easy Death, which is remorseless, tender and lucid all at the same time. It exudes all her emotion, of which she was so eminently capable, and humanity. I wanted to bring to life this intimate, little-known Simone, the woman who suddenly confides in Violette and breaks down in tears in front of the person who has sobbed on her shoulder all her life.
How did you cast the actresses who play these two roles?
I met with Emmanuelle Devos before I wrote the script, as I did with Yolande Moreau before Séraphine. I knew it was her and nobody else. I wanted to be sure she’d accept the physical transformation, becoming blonde with an ugly false nose. For Simone de Beauvoir, it was more complicated. Playing somebody who is so well known is scary. Emmanuelle encouraged me to meet Sandrine Kiberlain. I couldn’t picture her in the role but, when we met, I was struck by her grace, intelligence and, above all, determination. She was sure she could do it.
What other relationships fundamental to Violette’s life and work did you choose to show?
There’s Jean Genet, played by Jacques Bonnaffé. Genet loves Violette, who is illegitimate like him. They feel like brother and sister—shunned, two extraordinary writers, poets of their time and wrongdoers. Genet dedicated The Maids to Violette. Then, there was Jacques Guérin (Olivier Gourmet), a collector of manuscripts and owner of the perfume company, Les Parfums d’Orsay. He was rich but illegitimate also, homosexual, and Violette fell in love with him, of course, and doggedly pursued him to no avail. To my mind, Jacques is the ghost of the father who refused to recognize her as his daughter. Jacques was an aesthete, who had saved Proust’s manuscripts and went on to buy Violette’s and Genet’s.
Violette’s writing is striking for its physicality and sexualized language, which was revolutionary for a female author in the 1950s. People said she wrote like a man.
Yes. Writing was organic for Violette. That is very rare. She caught a lot of flak because she had the courage to say things nobody dared to mention. In her own words. She was the first woman to recount her abortion, and Ravages was censored. The unabridged version has never been republished, which is aberrant. The censorship resulted in Violette being interned. She nearly lost her mind.
Passion and love are like a cry that drives her writing but, at the same time, she said, “I am a desert speaking in monologues.”
Passion, yes. Frustration, definitely. There were different ways of tackling Violette Leduc. You could choose the scandalous woman angle, because she truly provoked scandals, was very outspoken, had a wonderful sense of humor and strong personality, and loved provocation and unseemly romances, but when you read her whole oeuvre, you realize that was all a pretext. She was looking for something else. She transformed her doomed or impossible romantic adventures into novels. And she was always alone.
How did you choose the music?
Violette needed a score as powerful and possessed as Michael Galasso’s compositions for Séraphine, but Michael had passed away between the two films. I was lost. So I looked and I found. Arvo Pärt was the obvious choice. I had Fratres playing in my mind, and as soon as we tried it with the film, it fell into place.
Is your film, like Violette’s novels, the “appropriation of a destiny,” to borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s expression?
How can you change a bad hand? How can you make something of misfortune? The film opens in 1942 in the first flickering of dawn amid the darkness of a harsh, brutal winter. It concludes in the south of France as the sun sets, with Violette at the height of her fame after the publication of La Bâtarde in 1964, prefaced by Simone de Beauvoir. It’s a road toward the light.
Interview by Laureline Amanieux
After Great Reviews and Big Crowds in New York, ELENA Opens at the Royal on June 13.
The autobiographical documentary ELENA opened to terrific reviews and big crowds of cinefiles last week in New York. In the Village Voice, Alan Scherstuhl described the film this way: “a pained and gorgeous summoning, Petra Costa’s haunted doc ELENA dances with death, memory, and family, seducing viewers and then breaking their hearts.” In the New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote the film “unfolds like a cinematic dream.” We are excited to open ELENA at the Royal next Friday, June 13.
ANITA Q&A’s at the Royal this Weekend
ANITA director Freida Lee Mock will participate in Q&A’s at the Royal after the 5:20 and 7:30 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, March 28 and 29 and after the 7:30 screening on Sunday, March 30.
PARTICLE FEVER: Q&A with a Cal Tech Physics Professor
California Institute of Technology Professor of Physics Mark Wise will participate in a Q&A after the 7:10 PM screening of PARTICLE FEVER at the Playhouse on Friday, March 14.
Movie and a Meal: Follow THE LUNCHBOX with a Visit to an Indian Restaurant
This scene from THE GODFATHER always makes me want Italian food. And that’s just one scene. Films in which food is a major part of the plot are a beloved genre all their own. Time will tell, but the new Indian movie THE LUNCHBOX may join the ranks of other great foodie movies like BABETTE’S FEAST, BIG NIGHT and LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE. We at Laemmle Theatres humbly recommend you try preceding lunch or dinner at one of the many Indian restaurants near our theaters by taking in THE LUNCHBOX to whet your appetite. Here are some close by:
Fourteen minute walk west down Santa Monica Blvd. from the Royal: All India Cafe
Across the street from the Playhouse (where we open THE LUNCHBOX this Friday): Sitar Indian Cuisine
Two minute walk west down Ventura Blvd. from the Town Center (where we open THE LUNCHBOX this Friday): Anarbagh
Or choose one of your personal favorites. Bon appetit!
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