The World | • Updated | Interview by
Read Review “Near Death Experience” when burlesque and metaphysics collide
We could start with your meeting. Date Does the movie
Benoît Delepine: In fact, we had already thought of Michel to play a role in Le Grand Soir . We managed to have his e-mail, we had begun to match a little, and I remember you were rather leave. And then we had no more news. You had trouble in Ireland …
Michel Houellebecq: A small health actually …
Gustave Kervern: Your dog. The death of your dog
M. H.: Oh yeah, it’s worse than all that …
B. D: It had stopped there and Depardieu had taken over the role at short notice. And then resumed on this project, when it was learned that Michael had returned. It was actually just met beside here.
G. K.: We had to find a place where Michael could smoke. The owner has privatized our bar, and we ended up there at three. He liked it, I think, and we met again two months later.
B. D: Yes, well we had to write everything …
M. H.: I will intervene if I may. In reality, they convinced me immediately. I did not tell them, because you have to be careful, though. So I watched all their films with redoubled attention. And I had only one concern: the risk with them gore. As much as I can read Bret Easton Ellis without problems, so I can not stand the gore cinema. But I was sympathetic to their arguments, their references. First, this Spanish film about Don Quixote that I still have not seen elsewhere …
B. D: Honour of the Knights , Albert Serra
M.. H.: Because I know the center of Spain, and there is something to do with the center of Spain, now more than ever
. B. D: Oh
M?. H.: Yes. And the other is Gerry , Gus Van Sant, Jeanne Lapoirie, the chief operator, recommended to me and I did not see because it was the looks very boring. This is actually very boring, but I must admit that there is something. The third point is that they told me they wanted to regain the freedom of black and white but in color, and that, I thought it was rather a good idea. Finally, there was this idea of homecoming of their work in films like Aaltra , with a slowness that they allow themselves perhaps more.
B. D: We wanted to go back to our basics. Making a film like a poem and not a novel. In a limited, with an ultra-small team, without coercion of any kind time. That’s why they did not submit the script nor the TV channels nor the TNC, going there with our money.
A program that also includes Michel Houellebecq, which is not quite there …
B. D.. Yes Michel Houellebecq actor or, in some way, unknown to the general public
Michel Houellebecq, you made a film school you scripted “Extending the area of the fight” by Philippe Harel, you made yourself “The Possibility of an Island,” and today finds actor. Do you recognize yourself, along with your job as a novelist, a desire movie
M. H.: It is rather isolated cases. The Louis Lumiere School, I was there after I realized that I never execute agronomist, and while the writing was for me to still something unattainable. The idea, modest, was to become a writer, not film, but for TV, I thought I could get there. And then after a year, I had no money, I had a child, I was forced to work. Ultimately, it is the public who saved me. After, screenwriter, I did that once, and yet he could have written it myself, I was especially great in the trails. The Possibility of an Island , it remains the most scathing failure of my life. There was a guy smart Arte told me the movie: “This is not a movie, it’s an installation. “ I felt it was right, and I thought: ” Yeah, now I’m screwed. “
At least that is what your second role as an actor, because you just discovered on Arte precisely, in the TV movie William Nicloux” L removal of Michel Houellebecq. “
M. H.: I think it’s a matter of curiosity at first. I wanted to know what it was, especially after the experience of realization, where I was not really able to understand the actors. Then of course there was the desire of others. I guess they see something in me that I can not see myself. From there, you have to trust people
The two films are very different, but have one thing in common. That playing with the idea of your demise. If you consider that you kill your own character in your latest novel, “The Map and the Territory”, it becomes a problem …
M. H.: No, this is partly a false reputation …
It is rather a fact
M. . H.: Okay, but when I give an appointment and I’m there, people are always surprised. I assure you. There is something in me that it gives off.
Do you think there is something of yourself in this character?
M. H.: Here the philosophical background of the film is approached. You know, people who commit suicide, they are old, to escape suffering. There are also teenagers to escape another type of suffering. But suicide in a man of that age, it is more sociological and political, I would say. He committed suicide because life is not enough. Well, I accepted this project because I liked it, but because I was crossing at the time by the desire to commit suicide, for no reason. It surprised me a lot because I could not see why. But to live, even when everything is running, there is a minimum to be done if it keeps running effortlessly. Well, it has happened to me since.
And when you are through with these cravings disappear as you do these appearances as an actor. It’s weird.
M. H.: Yes, it’s weird
How did you feel this experience
M.?. H.: I liked. It is only when we will turn, it makes a great calm. You are suddenly at the center of an area of great calm.
G. K.: This is perhaps the act of placing a lonely experience, writing, something like a collective shooting
M.. H.: Yeah, it’s still lonely as life is a bit inhumane to write a novel. I remember one of the first types who photographed me, Louis Meunier, who photographed many writers told me: “Basically, writers, they drink a lot for the same reasons as the diggers, because it is exhausting to dig “. And basically, that’s it. This is why alcoholism is as common among writers.
The other major disorder of the film is that it brews patterns and figures that are common to your respective universe. The character played by Michael, for example, could have been written by him. How did you work, exactly?
B. D: Very classically. Everything has been written by the authors, and starring the actor. But yes, we got a little worried that people attribute text to Michel. Moreover, it was at one time tried to integrate his poems, but he refused, preferring to be an actor and say our poetry, our truth, as he says, with our words. We put everything we had on the heart. Imagine the scene in which he returned with our script under his arm. We were in our little shoes at the thought of his remarks on our text.
G. K.: He joined the paper, all annotated added files and photographs
M.. H.: It was very administrative. But it turns out that I have a binding machine at home, it is not very expensive.
G. K.: And more classy
B.. D: In the end, his remarks were quite minimal. Like “I’d rather eat Cheez-Its as peanuts” .
M. H.: Yes, I have a problem with dentures. He does not hold.
And the actor Michel Houellebecq, how would you define it?
B. D: Michel is like Depardieu. It can shoot in silence for ten minutes, something happens. The mystery is still there, it soars, with no need to do too much. These actors are extremely rare.
G. K.: This is an amazing presence. Her voice is captivating, moving. We needed that right for a character who holds virtually the only part of the film. It really was not won. When Michael arrived on set, we had no shot after test, made no repetition, we do not even know if he had learned his text. In fact, the filming taking place in September, we spent our holidays in some anxiety. And Michel proved exceptional. We do not need to mother, to reassure him, talk to him constantly. He said his text to perfection, and if he sat on a stone quietly smoking his cigarette. Bliss.
B. D: Now that the film is shot, you can admit something to Michael. Bic farting jersey he wears in the movie, we had already in Paris, but did not dare to propose because we were afraid that nobody wants to have the film. So we expected it to be at the foot of the mountain to offer him. We were fortunate that fits properly. Moreover, even this jersey has a special history.
M. H.: Yes, it turns out that the Baroness Bic is one of my readers, she bought deluxe editions that had bound and all that. Or Bic would not give us permission to use the jersey. So I sent her a letter written and although it is probably more influential in the business, I think we owe it to his speech on receiving this authorization.
Why did you choose this jersey
B?. D: But because it is really beautiful because it pleases us. When you look at the existing jerseys, because suddenly, it was all bland cycling history, it was really the one who carried our votes.
M. H.: I like the Bic products. I like simple products with few features but who perform well. Their lighters, their razors. I’m not high tech, I’m all for low tech robust.
B. D: If they went out a computer, we would buy it right away. It would only word processing …
G. K.. With big buttons
Since technical talks, there is the aesthetic of the film, and in particular image, a rather gross dimension .
B. D: Yes, this is the incredible story of our camera, I do not know if I’ve told Michel …
M. H.: Full time [guffaw General]
B. D: I was at the Festival de La Roche-sur-Yon and I discovered that famous film Albert Serra, Honour of the Knights . I find the beautiful picture, I discussed with a chef friend operator told me it’s probably the 35 mm. We’ll see Serra, who laughs and tells us he shot it with an old analog video camera, a Panasonic I do not know what. I note carefully, and for the purposes of this film, I began to look for the camera. Six months later I was still looking. And here I have a friend who told me, “ Your daughter, her little movie about bees, she has not turned an old camcorder? “. I call my daughter Zoe, who told me to look in his room. And then I came across the Panasonic. And we do the film. You believe in that?
G. K.: After we calibrated the film, and then we all undone. The film is raw, without calibration, and many more like it.
B. D: There is also another image in the film is that of the iPhone. It is an old dream we but the problem is that the speed varies all the time, so it is supposedly impossible. And then like, I live in the sticks, there is a great storm, and I let my iPhone run ten minutes. We found the pictures they are so beautiful in the film credits.
By the way, how did you get the idea for this film?
G. K.: This is from an article we read in Le Parisien , there are about four years. The story of a man who goes into the mountains to commit suicide, that does not make it, who wanders five months and eventually go home. That we had oddly marked
This is another thing that brings. Alienation and exhaustion brought about by the system in which we live
G.. K.: I think we have reached the end of the critique of the system. Nobody has a solution, neither politicians nor their critics. It’s not useless. One circles. We have to reinvent something.
B. D: Mammuth , Depardieu plays a guy who’s sick, who decides one day to a jilbab and go moped on the roads. If everyone did this, maybe the whole world would be changed, who knows. But not to do jihad, of course.
M. H.: It would be hard anyway, moped
.
No comments:
Post a Comment