“Eternal Sunshine”, cult; “The Book of Solutions”, denies… Michel Gondry’s films reflect his inner world, crazy and poetic. Arte.tv devotes two documentaries to him, and we, an alphabet book.
Director Michel Gondry, all-round inventor. Sebastien Vincent / Contour by Getty Images
By Marion Michel
Published on September 28, 2024 at 5:37 p.m.
HAS the occasion of the broadcast on Arte.tv of two new documentaries on the director Michel Gondry, a desire took hold of us. That of jumping on a cloud, falling in love in a stop motion film, listening to Björk again, going to drag your sneakers in the Cévennes and tinkering with “stuff” while the world sleeps. In fact, we would like to live with him, in his filmography! Failing that, we tinkered with an alphabet book to try to capture the spirit of Michel Gondry.
The documentary “In Bed With Michel Gondry”, by François Nemeta. © O2B Films & The Red Ceiling
Animation
It’s his whole life. A fan of the Czech animation school of the 1970s, he dissects its works and guesses the seams. Not a single one of his films without an animated discovery rearing its head. It is also his refuge: sitting at his desk, equipped with colored paper, pencils, markers, scissors and glue, Michel Gondry, in his bubble, reinvents the world in stop motion. Until he worked at it twelve hours a day for months, with the sole aim of creating stories for his daughter Maya (short films collected in his next film Maya, give me a titlein theaters October 2) – holy dad!
Battery
Michel Gondry began his artistic career… as a drummer (“the other guys, they had motorbikes, but I found it too dangerous”) in the rock group Oui Oui, formed with his high school friends. Their adventure over, he does not put away the sticks: the instrument finds a place in his filmography (Gael García Bernal lets off steam there in The Science of Dreams), in her clips (Meg White’s drums multiplied in The Hardest Button to Button) and sets the pace for the editing of his films.
Clips
Michel Gondry really began his career as a filmmaker as a director of music videos. His first, for a title from his group Oui Oui, attracted attention; he found himself collaborating with renowned artists. Björk, obviously, but also the Chemical Brothers, Beck, Daft Punk, the White Stripes and even the Rolling Stones. Gondry revolutionizes the genre, combining his DIY imagination and brilliant concepts with musical universes. And breathes into it, you guessed it, cinema.
« Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind », de Michel Gondry, avec Kate Winslet et Jim Carrey. Prod DB / Focus Features
Worship
The legendary clip Around the World Daft Punk in 1997? It’s him. The one all in clashing zooms, I dance the mia ? Him again. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ? Bingo. Gondry, “he is truly cult”, and it’s Jim Carrey who says it!
“Do it yourself”
“I want to make films, I just need something that films. » That’s if Gondry was paraphrasing Orelsan. An esthete of DIY and homemade, the director needs nothing other than his hands – and a Bolex 16mm camera – to bring his stories to life. His films are unlike any other, and that’s fine.
“Didier”, by Alain Chabat.
Didierit’s his favorite film, which he watches once a year (with Liar liar).
UNITED STATES
In 1997, Michel Gondry went into exile in the USA, “country without prejudice”, to make cinema. He rented a house in Hollywood and equipped himself with an electronic translator to decipher the scripts. He shot big-budget commercials there until his decisive meeting with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, which initially gave Human Nature Then Eternel Sunshine… Today, Gondry still jabbers in very English frenchy, but that didn’t stop him from filming with some great American stars – Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Mia Farrow, Jack Black, among others – or from directing his own blockbuster in original version, The Green Hornet.
“L’Écume des jours”, by Michel Gondry, with Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris. Brio Films – StudioCanal – France 2 Cinema
Geo Trouvetou
The comparison is not new, but the “i” as “inventor” was already taken. Michel Gondry is teeming with ideas and inventions, real or fictitious. You only have to see the number of machines that inhabit his films: the one to erase the disappointed loves in Eternal Sunshine…the time machine to go back one second in The Science of Dreams, the galloping beetle bell of The Foam of Days…
Insomnia
“My sleep mechanism has been broken for over fifty years,” he confesses. The nights are long, therefore, but also fruitful: “Creativity, unfortunately, is quite stimulated by imbalance. »
Jonze (Spike)
Alter ego across the Atlantic. First rival – they make videos for the same musicians, and Jonze knows Kaufman before him (As John Malkovich) –then friend.
Méliès (Georges)
The pranking spirit of the great magician of the image infuses the way in which Gondry, today’s illusionist, thinks about his tricks and special effects (changes of scale, trompe l’oeil, etc.)
“The Book of Solutions”, by Michel Gondry, with Pierre Niney. Photo Xavier Lambours – Partizan
Niney (Pierre)
His cinema “godson”, another alter ego who embodies a freewheeling Gondry in The Book of Solutions, and Gondry’s voice in Maya… Before Pierre Niney, there was Gael García Bernal, in the very intimate The Science of Dreams. You don’t have to dig very far to find bits of him in his characters, all a bit of inventor, awkward lovers, social misfits and anxious dreamers.
Also read:
Pierre Niney, the funniest man in French cinema?
Obsessions
Diagnosed as bipolar during the production of The foam of the days, Michel Gondry revealed that he suffered from obsessive and manic episodes. You have to see The Book of Solutions, autobiographical film “at 75%”, in which he depicts this particularly shady event but without explicitly naming it.
Dream
“Sometimes I dream like movies. » Michel Gondry draws from his dreams, often on the edge of nightmare, recurring motifs, like the disproportionate hands from his childhood nights with which he often equips his characters.
Suzette
Beloved aunt, subject of her documentary The thorn in the heart, and played by Françoise Lebrun in The Book of Solutions. In his work, the rest of the family is never far away: Michel Gondry collaborates closely with his “almost twin” brother Olivier Gondry, also a director, and draws for his daughter Maya.
“Twelve forever”
He will forever be 12 years old, he says it (I’ve Been Twelve Forever is the title of the autobiographical documentary he made in 2004). Peter Pan syndrome perhaps, Michel Gondry looks at childhood with great tenderness (Microbe and Diesel), writes stories as we do when we are little, with a boundless imagination, and touches our child’s heart right in the middle.
The Amateur Film Factory
Jack Black and Mos Def did it at the end of Be nice, rewind, Michel Gondry does it for a living: with the Amateur Film Factory, a sort of mobile production studio, he invites anyone to create a film from A to Z.
Vian (Boris)
Who else than the fanciful artisan Gondry, heir to the poetic nonsense of the musician writer, to bring to the screen his reputedly unadaptable novel, The Foam of Days ? He will have almost lost his skin, and we will say what we want, but Colin and Chloé will never have found a better substitute father, as visionary as the first.
On Arte.tv
r Michel Gondry : Do It Yourself, by Frances Nemeta.
q In Bed with Michel Gondry, by Frances Nemeta.
