Arnaud Desplechin signs with Spectators! a film homage to cinema in the form of docu-fiction. The director of Three memories from my youth focuses his remarks on the spectator, on what he feels in the room, and he questions with the American philosopher Stanley Cavell what happens to reality when it is projected. Presented in the official selection in a special screening at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Spectators! releases in theaters Wednesday January 15.
It is in a dark room, the Saint-Germain-des-Près, a historic cinema in Paris, which reopens its doors to the public in January, that Arnaud Desplechin confides to franceinfo Culture the genesis of his cinematic declaration of love in the 7th art.
Franceinfo Culture: how was the idea for this film born?
Arnaud Desplechin: it was an order given to me by the producer Charles Gillibert. He asked me to make a documentary about movie theaters and an obscure American philosopher Stanley Cavell, so he knew I’d been the friend. At first, I refused because I don’t know how to make a documentary. And then, it ran through my head and finally, I offered him a film in a hybrid form. So, it’s a commissioned project, but seeing it today, I realize that it’s an outrageously personal film. It’s a paradox.
What place does cinema occupy in your life?
As I went to film school, but didn’t do any formal studies, I have the impression that everything I know in life, I learned in cinemas. . That’s what nourished me. And so I wanted to praise cinema.
Why did you focus on the viewer’s point of view?
There were already Scorsese’s wonderful films about Italian cinema, and also films that talk about great directors, great artists, and also History(s) of cinema by Jean-Luc Godard whom I have seen four times and who is unsurpassable. So, following Cavell’s point of view, I wanted to talk about what happens in theaters for us, spectators. I wanted to look at cinema and films from another angle, which was much more humble. Today we say, “Ah, you have to be an actor in your life”but I think it’s also important to be a spectator of your life.
Is this a movie for moviegoers?
There are filmmakers who are extremely important, and who are not film buffs. I am one of the filmmakers who make films because they see them. That’s why I make films, because I see other people’s films and that makes me happy. If no one made films anymore, I think I would make more. I need to be part of this flood of films that exist.
Were you more in the shoes of the spectator than the director to make this film?
At some point, you kind of have to be a director after all. (smile). I wanted the film not to be chronological. We follow the character of Paul Dedalus, but we do not follow him from childhood to maturity. There are jumps in time. The film is a bit like a maze, but I didn’t want the spectators to get too lost in the room. So we looked for a technique to transform this labyrinth into a slightly more habitable house. The heroine or hero of each room in this house presents itself to you in shots that we called “Wes Anderson-style” shots. This character introduces himself and invites you to enter a room in the house. It’s a bit of a director’s trick so you can inhabit every room of the house. Some rooms are familiar to you, others are less so, but you can go in and out and visit the next room.
It’s a very rich film, with longer sequences, like the one devoted to Claude Lanzmann’s film, and other shorter ones. How did you build all this?
All this is done during editing, and it’s quite a long process because we had to find the exact balance. I knew going into this that there would be this longer chapter on Shoah, which is the heart of the film. Maybe because even if I have great cinema experiences, I have a thousand of them, Shoah stay the most radical cinema experience I have ever had. And speaking of ShoahI also had the impression of talking about other radical experiences known by others than me. Other generations than mine could have had, with The Area of Interest by Jonathan Glazer for example, the same radical experience as me.
You explain it in the film, but why Shoah ?
This is the film that really put me in my spectator seat and taught me how valuable it is to be a spectator. So I knew that this heart of the film would be a little longer. This is why we tried to make this part of the film audible and not boring for the viewer, by traveling from Paris to Tel Aviv, varying the points of view.
It’s also a film full of film extracts…
A waterfall!
Yes, a very motley waterfall. How did you choose which films are in the film?
Very quickly, I told myself that there would be a cascade of extracts, so that it would be complicated to finance. But the producer reassured me by telling me, “that’s my job,” so I let him do his job. (laugh).
-“Very quickly, I also told myself that I shouldn’t put my favorite films there, not put my own films there.”
Arnaud Desplechinat franceinfo Culture
There are extremely important films for me, like Dawn by Murnau, or masterpieces of Japanese cinema, of which I am a fan, which are not there. I put very popular films there, and others which are very little known but with striking images, like the Belgian film Already the thin flower, an obscure film. But there is always a reason why I chose this or that film. For this one, there is the image of these children playing sledging on a slag heap. I wanted to talk about childhood and I know that this image provokes a very strong association of ideas. So there are quotes like that, which are very obscure and others like Die Hard, qwhat I love, where King Kong that I don’t adore, but which are films that we have in common, that we can share. And above all, what mattered to me in this process was the fact that there was no scale of value.
No judgment?
Yes, we can have a judgment on films, but there is not one noble cinema and another that is not, an auteur cinema and an industrial cinema… For me, these are separations which have no place in cinema. We must be able to show an Orson Wells film on an equal basis, and show in the scene based on a Chinese sword film. They are equal works of art.
It’s a film about cinema, but in which you talk a lot about yourself, an intimate film, right?
In reality, my life is much more boring than what you see on the screen! I dress up as me, you know (laugh). My job is to lie, after all! But no, yes, in fact, there is an autobiographical part in this film, for example the first time that the little boy goes to the cinema with his grandmother and that he does not see the film until the end, that , it happened to me, with this film (Fantomas). And other things, which are imaginations. And then I dress up as the actors. Mathieu Amalric says all the time “I disguise myself as you”and I answer him, “no, it’s me who disguises myself as you”. And finally, we no longer know which of the two we are. But that’s not important. What is important is to play, it is to offer masks. I really liked the idea that we see the hero at different ages, played by different actors, that I could be a girl, a boy… It’s always an average spectator. This average spectator is me, but played by different actors, at different ages
Even though there is a lot of joy in this film, it is also imbued with a certain nostalgia and melancholy, why?
I’m making this film at the age I am. Necessarily, a look back causes melancholy. The film talks about the films of yesterday, about what we experienced together in the theaters. But the future remains to be drawn, of course. This melancholy also undoubtedly comes from the fact that this film took root in the Covid crisis. A moment of confinement. This film comes from there, it comes from this moment when we said to ourselves: we had a treasure which will perhaps disappear. We must pay tribute to him. But ultimately, today, cinema is so vital.
“I see films that excite me, I see films that leave me speechless. I find that there is incredible energy today at the cinema, the public is there, the spectators are there! So much for great films public, only to see more cutting-edge films.”
Arnaud Desplechinat franceinfo Culture
I continue to see great American films, even if American cinema is less good. But ultimately, it’s not bad because I see more European films and so that makes the balance. This is a situation of incredible vitality!
What film struck you recently?
The Story of Souleymane by Boris Lojkin. It’s fascinating, because suddenly you’re experiencing a life that’s not yours. I didn’t live that life as a refugee, an undocumented person. And I go to a cinema, there is the very simple magic of a bicycle rolling through the streets of Paris. Cycling is very cinematic, there were already some in the films of the Lumière brothers. And through the power of cinema, you get into the head of this guy who leads a life that is a thousand miles from the life you know. Suddenly you can have an insane life experience. This is the power of cinema. It’s absolutely wonderful. A film to which I was also particularly sensitive is Titanium by Julia Ducournau. It transmits a lesson of freedom, an energy, a provocation, such a vitality of cinema.
What would you like people to feel when they go see your film?
If people could come away from the film feeling proud to be spectators, I would be very happy. The thesis of the film is that when you project an image on a screen, you realize that boredom is an illusion, that the spectacle is the truth, and that the world is fascinating. The world is absolutely fascinating and wonderful, but we have to go to the cinema to remember it. Thanks to cinema, we remember the world, and that’s what I’m trying to share with this film.
Is it only cinema that has this power?
No, there are other things of course… There is the novel, which allows you to lead other lives than your own, but with literature, there is not this link with the real world . In the cinema, it is the real world, it is reality which is projected on the screen. It’s still very disturbing. If we come back to Souleymane, we see him on this bike, his dexterity. In life, you don’t watch that, you have to go into a cinema to remember how what is outside, how real, is absolutely fascinating. That’s what I would like people to feel.
Related News :