Elizabeth Griffin talks to leading French film director Bertrand Tavernier about his films and filmmaking When French director, writer and producer Bertrand Tavernier was a guest at the Kent International Film Festival 2003, during which a season of his films was shown, he spoke to Close-Up reporter Elizabeth Griffin about his work and his influences, and even offered some advice for would-be directors. When did you first think of becoming a director? When I was twelve. I was trying to see as many films as I could. I remember seeing some films by John Ford. Which filmmakers have influenced you? Ford, Renoir.Powell.Raoul Walsh.Mankiewicz. I admired the Japanese director Mizoguchi, some Italian directors; I had a real curiosity and an open mind. What was your first experience of working in the film industry, and was it what you had expected? I was the fourth assistant director on a Jean-Pierre Melville film and it was a nightmare. I was very bad, a very bad assistant, I was shy. Melville frightened me a lot. I admired him but he was very frightening on the set. He said after the film that I had no future as an assistant director, and I believed him, I knew that. He told me to work as a press agent and that was a very good idea because I was doing the publicity for films, I could come on the set, watch people shoot, go in the editing room. I met people like Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, many directors. I became an independent press agent. I worked with my partner, we only worked on the films we liked. I was able to go on seeing films being made, released, and that gave me a lot of discipline and knowledge and meanwhile I was learning things about life, which is very useful to a filmmaker. In Death Watch, you are concerned with society's growing voyeurism. Twenty years on, The Truman Show explores similar fears. Are your concerns still as acute as when you made your film? I think things have become much worse. When I was making Death Watch I thought I was making a science fiction film, now it has become a realist film. Like the issue now where they (businesses) are trying to get their computers used in the schools, that was a kind of science fiction idea. I find some of the things on T.V. (Big Brother etc) unwatchable, horrendous. We had them in France. It is creating out of manipulation a kind of show business based only on profit, scandal, I think it's deadly. Its poisoning the mind and I find it uninteresting and disgusting. The film is more relevant in a bizarre way today than in the eighties. Has your work been influenced by the growth of new technologies? Do such technologies offer greater opportunities to young filmmakers? I have been very open to new technology. I was one of the first in France to use two mixing machines when filmmaking started to become more sophisticated, in fact it was for Death Watch. I was one of the first in France to use the Steadicam.and to shoot a film in cinemascope with the new Panavision camera, wide screen on location.also quick to use Dolby. I think it can be great but you have to remember they are only tools. For the young directors the technology has sometimes become more important than what is in the scriptwriting, what is in the film. People are becoming dependant on technology. All the sophistication, the new cameras, this is only something which is helpful, its not something that you have to sanctify and when you do you risk making some very infantile film where the mechanic is more important than the brain. How do you feel about new directors like those of the Dogme movement? What does this have to offer? The Dogme is just an advertisement. These things have been practised by Rossellini, Cassavetes. nothing is new. Its something designed for the journalist to publish. Journalists who have forgotten what people have done three moths ago. What astonished me was that Dogme was advertised by Lars Von Trier when all his previous films were totally against Dogme. He made Europa, all those films with a lot of special affects, its crazy. When I see Festen I think it's a wonderful film, it's a masterpiece but I'm not interested by anything that is so tyrannical and I have been doing a lot of Dogme things, scenes with no light, indirect sound, non-professional actors. Many directors during the neo-realist movement have been doing that and many people in poor countries have been doing that. There is a reaction to have against the cult of the special affect in the Hollywood film but I don't believe that a reaction like Dogme is anything but something to advertise themselves with. There is a great social awareness in your work; can you explain where this passion for change has come from? The influence of what I've read, Zola, Victor Hugo, Dickens. The influence of my father.he was the head of a magazine during the resistance and he taught me what it is to fight. It's out of my own feeling; I get emotional when I see something unfair being done. I feel I am doing films that are deeply rooted in the social context, and my life has to be like my film. But I will never say that the cinema should be always socially conscious. I adore films which have nothing special to say, at least superficially, but I think that any successful film will always have something to say and will always take a position. It will testify, it will reveal. What films have you enjoyed recently? I watched a documentary about Sam Peckinpah on cable, which was good. The Chinese film Platform was interesting. An Iranian film called The Circle. The Terrence Davis I think was not this year, I adore that film.The House of Mirth. The film by Nanni Moretti, which was a masterpiece. The Pledge was very interesting except for the last ten minutes; it's quite a good film. What projects are you working on? I am finishing a very political documentary about people who did a hunger strike to get their papers in Leon. I'm finishing a film, which will be released in January about the people who made films during the occupation of France. It tries to explore the choice they had to face between working and collaborating, between making films and helping in some way the German government. Its about resistance, how do you resist? What attitude do you have? How can you avoid to compromising yourself in such a time? (Note: Laissez-Passer is now available on DVD - see reviews section) If you could recommend one of your own films, which would it be? There are three that I like. Clean Slate, Life and Nothing But and either Capitaine Conan or It All Starts Today. I like my last films; my last five or six are better than the first. For example Bait, I'm totally proud of, there is nothing I would like to shoot again. I think I made some mistakes in earlier films but on the whole there is not a film that I'm ashamed of. There are flaws but nothing that I would look on with repulsion and say I hate what the film says. For example The Judge and the Assassin, I have not changed, I would still absolutely agree with what the film is trying to say. How difficult has it been to gain funding for films such as It All Starts Today and The Other Side Of The Tracks? Could you give any advice to young filmmakers who want to make films about the issues that affect the lives of ordinary people, but cannot see a space within the industry for this work because of commercial concerns? What I say first is to be persistent. There is always a way of making the film. If you do a film which is rooted in the social context, don't make it full of self pity, make a film that is warm and will not just witness, but be inside the events, that will take sides. Involve yourself. If you are fighting hard you can convince people. Don't quit; don't believe that a social film cannot be successful. It All Starts Today was one of my biggest successes in France and people always thought that it would not work. If you do a film that is labelled as difficult, do it for less money, do it as quickly as you can, be free of any kind of pressure. You are responsible for the film so you must know how to convince people, its part of the talent of the director. Somebody who is able to convince a producer will be able to convince an actor. It All Starts Today is a success because I was persistent. I would say that to young directors, fight and do not quit. Selected Filmography:
Laissez-Passer (Safe Conduct) (2002)
Ca Commence aujour'd hui (It All Starts Today) (1999)
De l'autre Cote du Periph (The Other Side of the Tracks) (1998)
Captaine Conan (1996)
L'Appat (The Bait) (1995)
La Fille de d'Artagnan (D'Artagnan's Daughter) (1994)
L.627 (1992)
La Vie et vien d'autre (Life and Nothing But) (1989)
'Round Midnight (1986)
Coup de torchon (Clean Slate) (1981)
Une Semaine de Vacances (A Week's Holiday) (1980)
La Mort en direct (Death Watch) (1980)
Le Juge et l'assassin (The Judge and the Assassin) (1976)
L'Horloger de Saint-Paul (The Watchmaker of St Paul) (1974) Elizabeth Griffin This interview was first published in 'Big Lens' film magazine at the University of Kent at Canterbury and reprinted here by kind permission of its editors. |
