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N.Y.F.F 47th

Wild Grass

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

 

From the Left, Director Alain Resnais, Actor André Dussollier, Actor Mathieu Amalric

Q&A at the press conference

Q: Since it’s your first time adapting a novel into a screenplay, what was that process like?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): Fifty years ago when I started making movies, I made a resolution we work only with original screenplays that were written for me or others. But all original screenplays. I vowed at that time to never adapt a novel to film. I held that promise until last year, when I discovered Christian Gailly’s novels – such a wonderful, theatrical sense of dialogue – that I couldn’t resist the temptation to adapt one of these novels with an extreme, clear line of faithfulness to the novel. It might be for that reason, I later learned that Christian Gailly had been a jazz musician for 20 years before becoming a novelist. After putting his saxophone away for good, not having gone past a certain point in his career, he wrote his first novel at age 40, followed by 12 others. I read through them all and I adored every one of them. I felt that the cadence of his words and the syntax that he used really came out of his knowledge of jazz music, and the jazz sensibility informed my shooting and editing, and the photography of Eric Gautier on this film. That’s why I asked Mark Snow to compose the music for this film – because he had a good foundation in jazz training, and also went to Juilliard.  

Q: A word that has been applied to your work is the word “theatre.” Could you talk about what that concept means to you?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): I don’t want to be long-winded about this, but we were in the habit of thinking about the theatre and cinema as opposing forces fighting each other – or on the opposite poles of performance art, but the one thing that brings film and theatre together is that once the performance is underway, you can’t ask the actors to redo a scene or restart a scene, nor can you ask the projectionist to restart or replay any things that are going on during the viewing of a film. This is the major difference. When you have a book or a novel in front of you, you can always catch up with what you’ve read before; Another reason for which I’m very easy about mixing my modes between theatre and cinema – theatricality and film work. One of the things that really amuses me most, as a spectator, is I love experiencing the imaginative space when actors are performing. The imaginative space is, in itself, something that’s been created from their imagination. I’m very clear that when we invite people into the theatre to watch a film or a play, we’re watching something that will not be a part of daily life, and will not be a part of where they live or work—that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy realistic or documentary film, I just don’t think I could make films like that.  

Q: What’s your favorite TV program?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): The Sopranos, The X-Files, The Shield… But, I am not an expert. I mean, there are 10,000 other things like that I don’t know yet, and it’s difficult to find enough time to see them. And Law and Order – I was very impressed. 

Q: Andre, you’ve worked with Alain Resnais on many films over the years. What’s changed about working with Alain Resnais?

(ANDRE DUSSOLIER): It’s always a new adventure every time out because the subjects and the characters he proposes I play, and because we know each other so well, it’s very necessary that we surprise each other. It’s a novel pleasure every time out, and also, an invitation to go somewhere new every time out. It’s also based on trust. Because we know each other so well, we trust each other perfectly, and we have confidence that the new spaces we’ll be exploring will be good ones.

Q: And Mathieu, this is your first experience working with Resnais. What were you expecting, and what surprised you?

(MATHIEU AMALRIC): I was very, very moved when Alain asked me to come in his world. And the surprise was to enter his world as a cop – with my friend Michel Vuillermoz – like Laurel and Hardy. And yes, it’s amazing that when you get out of this film, you never know what is in the head of somebody else. 

Q: For many people, their film education began with Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad. Msr. Resnais, what do you see as the future of film? 

(ALAIN RESNAIS): That’s an enormous question! We should talk about this over dinner. And I think it would last a week! A custom of week-long dinners. I don’t believe what I read every 10 years about the “death of cinema” coming up. The way we express ourselves on film is changing. In the hundred years since it’s been invented, the grammar and syntax – the mode of grammar and syntax interacting – hasn’t really changed much, and as long as the human race is still kicking, there will be good cinema. If you think Marienbad started something, I can’t imagine what you’re talking about. In recent years, if anyone invented a new way of expressing himself on film, it’s Arnaud Desplechin. 

Q: Was this film shot in sequence, or out of sequence? And has your position vis-à-vis shooting order changed much over the years?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): I would love work through the script sequentially, but the financial and logistical considerations oblige us to shoot wherever we are on the day. So, if there’s a scene that takes place in one location, I will always shoot in chronologically. I never use safety shots. It’s much more comfortable for the actors if I shoot one shot after the next.

Q: You always rehearse before shooting.

(ALAIN RESNAIS): Yes. One month or two months before the shooting. It’s just a way to talk about the characters, the picture. And when a line does not fit, I can ask the screenwriter to change scenes because actors have told me that they did not like them, or did not feel at ease. It’s very helpful. What is important is not to rehearse one hour before the shooting. I am against it, because freshness and spontaneity depend as much as possible on the first shot. 

Q: Now that many people will be discovering your oeuvre on DVD, and will have the option of stopping and going over your films as they’re watching, what do you think about this new development?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): Two things: I will disapprove of stopping a film during the first viewing. But after its been shown once, I think it can be very instructive, and it will give a lot of pleasure to look back on a film a second time and choose a sequence. But I think the first viewing should be complete, beginning-to-end. 

Q: Msr. Amalric, could you talk about the comedic aspects of your performance and how they were created by both actor and director?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): I am reticent when using the word “directing actors.” I just don’t do it. The most important thing is to choose actors carefully, knowing that the best choices will become, themselves, very creative energies on the film. I don’t enjoy formula, or that the “great director who knows what he wants.” What I try to do is to discover what the film wants, and, I could add that with Mathieu Amalric, he responded to that beyond the call of duty. It was a real enjoyment, from the first take to the last, to work with him, because he was so full of ideas.

(MATHIEU AMALRIC): I was shooting the 007 [Quantum of Solace] at the same time – exactly the same time – so it was strange to go from that to this. Alain always wanted news on the Bond film. [Laughs] There are two of us, Michel Vuillermoz and me – there are two cops – and because of the musicality, the rhythm of this language. And, we rehearsed two months before the shooting with Eric Gautier [cinematographer], because at the same time, Alain is very fine in the way he’ll shoot the film. The script breakdown is precise, and shot-by-shot, and it was an enormous pleasure to be in this incredible mind. He said that cinema will continue if the human race is still there, but Alain Resnais has something to do with extraterrestre. [Laughs]

Q: There seem to be a number of possible false-endings in the film.

(ALAIN RESNAIS): Even in that ending, I wanted to pay absolute respect to the way the novel ended. I enjoy giving the choice to the audience to end the film as they wish. I think there are some days when the plane is crashing and everybody is dead, there are other ones when I think nothing special happened, and everybody was leaving so I could make another film with the same characters. But that’s the way I feel – that in daily life, you are never sure what will occur, and you never know exactly what people are in their own mind. There’s a lot of misinterpreting of things going on. If it works, from a gravity point of view, that’s important, but for me, I do it. 

Q: Could you talk about how the idea of sexual desire has changed in the five decades you’ve been making feature films?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): I’ve never thought of things that way! But, I’ve never really changed my thinking of sexuality in the 50 years I’ve been working. Maybe that’s bad, but my feelings haven’t evolved. In the writing of the screenplay or the directing of the actors, I just try to be sincere in what I’m shooting.

Q: At one time, you rejected the label of “auteur.” Have you reconsidered?

(ALAIN RESNAIS): No, I’ve never considered that I was an “auteur.” I think that the screenwriter is the principal author of the film. But it’s true, a film is like a workshop with 10 or 20 workers at hand, and unless you’ve written the screenplay yourself, you can’t consider yourself the author of the film. And, I’m far too lazy to write anything. When I was a kid, every filmmaker except Chaplin had their own screenwriters working with them. I really don’t feel frustrated at all, because if I had written the screenplay, I would be suffering the blows that come from film criticism, and it might have put down the work of making films at all if I’d had to suffer the blows myself. But, what I really most appreciate, is when there’s something being written specifically for me in mind, I have the luxury of speaking to the writer every week as the script is being developed. It’s a sane methodology, because the screenwriter will convince me of something he wants to do, or vice versa, so it works well for everyone involved. I don’t have any pretensions to methods of my own.  

End.