Controversy at the Cinémathèque over “Last Tango in Paris”: for Costa-Gavras, “we’re talking a bit nonsense”

La Dépêche du Midi: You say you shot “Le Dernier souffle” for you, is that a way of exorcising things?

Costa-Gavras: The film allows you to say that you have to prepare. I’m a bit like everyone else at my age, I’m starting to think about how this is going to happen. It is the book by my friend Régis Debray and Doctor Claude Grange which reminded me of many things, which also made me discover a world that we cannot imagine, and which also allowed me to evoke the omnipresent theme of death. And he gave me the antidote to fear and anxiety that is palliative care, palliative care centers where the nursing staff approach the patient in a completely different way. And that interested me a lot.

You say that we must prepare ourselves and talk about death, doesn’t the film celebrate the virtue of dialogue, of speech?

Absolutely. Talking, being present, close to the patient until the end, is essential because physical anxiety and fear dominate. So we have to make him feel that he is not alone in this story, despite the seriousness of the moment. This is what differentiates palliative medicine from other medicines which only aim to cure. Whereas here it is not a question of healing, it is a question of following someone until the last moment, of providing for their medical or psychological needs.

Have you always wondered about the passage of time? Or does advancing age make people more aware of the deadlines, just like the disappearance of your friend Jacques Perrin, in 2022?

The closer the end gets, the more we think about it. And that’s also what pushed me to make this film, because trying to invent a scenario with such stories seemed completely impossible. But in the book, Doctor Grange tells real stories. The veracity of the situations and the characters led me to write and direct the film. As for Jacques, he left much too young, he did enormous things. He is a friend, an actor and a producer with whom I made three films, notably “Z”. He was a very important character in my life and in my life as a filmmaker.

Kad Merad is impressive in the role of the doctor and the cast (Denis Podalydès, Marilyn Canto, Karin Viard, Charlotte Rampling…) is perfect, how did you put it together?

As the script is written. I started with Charlotte Rampling who I saw in an extraordinary photo in a magazine, standing barefoot, she was completely hieratic and I wanted her to play a role. But we had to dare to call him because it was for a very small role. She was great because she agreed and she is absolutely admirable. And the same with the others! I always try to convince actors to accept small or medium roles. The subject interested them and they had almost immediate reactions. And with Kad Merad, whom I really like as an actor, the thing was more difficult in that I was offering him something that he had never done. He quickly accepted, wondering how he was going to do it, and I tried to reassure him by saying: “Come if you’re interested in trying and we’ll find out!” And, ultimately, we gradually found that he understood the character very quickly.

Other great actors have crossed your path, are Yves Montand and Simone Signoret the most important?

Meeting Montand and Signoret was decisive because I was able to make my first film with them. Success then opened a wonderful path for me. We shot three other films with Montand and this collaboration continued with a very close family friendship until the end. I learned a lot of things with them because they were older than me and inserted into a world that I didn’t know and which they introduced me to.

How is the French Cinematheque of which you are president and which is today shaken by a controversy surrounding the broadcast of the film “The Last Tango in Paris”?

She is doing well even though at the moment we have small problems which have been amplified enormously compared to the real situation. We spoke about it this Thursday with the deputies before the parliamentary commission of inquiry. I hope that peace will return completely and that the value of the Cinémathèque will prevail because we talk a little nonsense.