“A Bear in the Jura” at the cinema: Dubosc: “Poelvoorde told me: ‘Franck, I understand why you pissed me off’”

The film “A Bear in the Jura” will be released in theaters on January 1st. This is the third feature film directed by Franck Dubosc, who also plays the main role. Between thriller and comedy, we discover the story of an ordinary couple who become entangled in a dark criminal affair. Encounter.

Meeting Franck Dubosc is like meeting a bear in the Jura, it doesn’t happen every day. Calm, composed, friendly, he took advantage of a visit to Switzerland in November, where he was invited to present his new feature film at the Vevey International Funny Film Festival, to answer questions from blue News.

For “A Bear in the Jura”, Franc Dubosc wears two hats: that of director and main actor.

Benoît Poelvoorde (here alongside Joséphine de Meaux) plays a taciturn gendarme, much less stupid than he seems.

In the film, Michel (Franck Dubosc) and Cathy (Laure Calamy) find themselves involved in a criminal affair that goes far beyond them.

Franck Dubosc took part in the interview game for Blue News last November.

For “A Bear in the Jura”, Franc Dubosc wears two hats: that of director and main actor.

Benoît Poelvoorde (here alongside Joséphine de Meaux) plays a taciturn gendarme, much less stupid than he seems.

In the film, Michel (Franck Dubosc) and Cathy (Laure Calamy) find themselves involved in a criminal affair that goes far beyond them.

Franck Dubosc took part in the interview game for Blue News last November.

Franck Dubosc, what an idea, there are no bears in the Jura!

Quite precisely, I liked to assume that this story, in any case, was false. At the beginning, we wrote: “It’s based on a true story, since we invented it.” And to start from a false story, it’s good to start from information that is completely false. But there, for once, there is one at the beginning. A bear.

blue News saw the film for you

Gaumont Productions/ For you public

Michel and Cathy live modestly in a remote corner of the Jura, where they grow fir trees. Their relationship was weakened by going through the trials of life. But one day, a bear crosses the path of Michel’s pick-up. He avoids it and causes a car accident. The occupants die. In the trunk of the hit car, Michel finds 2 million euros! What will he do with it? Will he be unmasked by the village policeman, a divorced dad who is already struggling to take care of his teenager? With “A Bear in the Jura”, Franck Dubosc creates a very successful black comedy, where none of the protagonists is completely innocent. Beyond the basic plot, other stories develop, all moving and filled with deep humanity. Let us also highlight the performance of the actors, such as Benoît Poelvoorde, Laure Calamy and Joséphine de Meaux, who, like Franck Dubosc, play their part wonderfully, with subtlety. Notre note: 9/10

“A bear in the Jura” is an extraordinary story that happens to completely ordinary people and it leads us, ordinary people, to say to ourselves: “well, what would I do”?

But yes, what do we do? Moreover, it arises in the film, the gendarme asks a waitress: “If I give you 2 million euros, what do you do?” And she said to him: “Me, I’m abandoning my boyfriend, my job and everything”… And it’s true that we can ask ourselves the question: are we capable of being dishonest for 2 million euros? That’s the thing. They are all dishonest in the film. But then, I asked myself the question, would I be dishonest for 2 million?

You talk about the gendarme, let’s take the opportunity to talk about Benoît Poelvoorde, who plays this role in the film. How do we manage it?

We direct him… firstly because we force him to learn the text, but also to be disciplined. He can quickly become undisciplined, but he has so much talent in his indiscipline that we have to manage what we are going to take from him. We must steal his magical moments. And there are a lot of them, you have to choose them. But he listens. He saw the film, he loved it and the first thing he said to me was: “Listen Franck, I understand why you pissed me off”.

But he’s like a child, he’s a child. So there’s a trick, practically speaking, to directing it. He has a little notebook and then in the evening when he has finished his day, he puts on a color. “Red” is very good. Afterwards it goes down like this: “less good”, “not to be repeated”, and it goes up to “yellow”. In the evening, what you have to tell him is that we’re putting a red on him. And there, he leaves happy and he comes back happy the next day. If he has a “yellow” – I have never worn one, but sometimes he puts one on himself – then he is unhappy and has difficulty getting back on track.

And he listens, he is very confident, he lets himself be done. He had to see the film to be sure I was right. But that means that while filming, he let me do what I wanted, he had the respect of the director and perhaps without being sure that I was right.

Have you now acquired respect as a director?

But no, we never have it completely because it’s hard to get the actors to trust us. Here, I put myself in the actor’s place: there is always a moment when we have a perception of this or that scene that is different from the one who wrote it. So confidence is not always 100%. But it’s up to us directors to… either deal with doubt and say to ourselves “he’ll see later that I was right”, or to explain things. Sometimes it takes a long time to explain. So indeed, I think that the length of career and then the different films mean that an actor will trust the director more and more. So obviously this is the third, they have more confidence in me than at the start.

In the film you play the role of Michel, a simple guy who sells Christmas trees, a little quiet like that, married to Cathy, played by Laure Calamy. A couple worn out by life. Then there we have a story within the story…

Yes and there is also the other story on the side, that of the father who lives alone and who raises his daughter alone. I wanted to make a story where ultimately this bag with this dirty money, passing from hand to hand, re-makes things, recreates the love of the couple. It’s not just the money, it’s the fact that when something extraordinary happens in our lives, it binds, it connects people. There is this sentence where Emmanuelle Devos says: “the best way to find yourself is to know where you are going to get lost”. Which sums up this human side of the story for me.

It’s a black comedy: we don’t expect you in this register, a priori. Do you like to surprise or try to reinvent yourself?

So, actually, I’m not trying to reinvent myself. It’s that I reveal myself more and more in what I love. I started my career as an actor or comedian on stage, trying to be loved by as many people as possible. So when we try to be loved by as many people as possible, we forget ourselves. And over time, I said to myself, I’m going to start loving myself a little bit, I’m going to start moving towards things that I love.

And I started making films as a director, with “Everybody Stand Up”. A romantic comedy, but not an absolute joke, with a love story, with substance. Then there was “Rumba la vie”, the story of a father and his daughter. And there I said to myself, I who love the cinema of the Cohen brothers, said to myself: make a film in this mood that you like, a film that you would like to see.

And there you have it, and so “A Bear in the Jura” is a film that I, as a spectator, would like to see. It may be a bit of a selfish approach, but I tell myself that if I like it, there will always be people who like it.

You are one of those artists who started from nothing – you yourself come from an ordinary background which had no connection with cinema – and you built everything through work. Do we never forget where we come from?

It’s a difficult question because I want to say yes, we never forget where we come from but there is one thing that matters to me, and that is where I am going. Because where we come from, we haven’t decided. We are actors of where we go. There are times we would like to forget where we come from. I love where I come from, so I don’t want to forget. But it turns out that I have lived more where I am than where I come from.

But where are you going then?

I go towards myself, in fact, without having calculated it. No, maybe it’s selfishness or laziness. I’m going for the simplest thing and the simplest thing, that’s me, is to be more and more honest, ultimately. Not with people, but with me.

Are you also becoming more and more free? Does realizing this offer freedom?

Indeed, I am lucky enough to be able to write and then I have producers quite easily. So being a director isn’t so much a freedom, because it’s a heavy freedom. It takes a long time to make a film, the mind is very busy. When you are an actor, you are freer. We play, we arrive in the morning, we shoot, and then after the film is finished, we leave. When you make a film, you are imprisoned by the producers’ need for success.

We had Patrice Lecomte on this show and he told us that every time a film comes out, he can’t sleep, he’s very scared. Do you have this anxiety for this film which comes out on January 1st?

I don’t have it yet, I sure will. It’s happening so quickly, it’s like an operation. Except we’re not asleep. We know that in the evening, before going to have an operation, we are a little anxious, and then the operation takes place, and that’s it, we fall asleep. There we are awake. When the operation arrives, we have the figures, and on the first day, in general, we know roughly where it will take us. I don’t know how to say it… as I am quite pessimistic by nature, I can only have nice surprises.