sign in sign up
<<
Home , 35 Shots of Rum, Claire Denis, Michel Subor, Tindersticks, White Material

Claire Denis Dialogue with Eric Hynes, 2012

Eric Hynes: We’re at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for a Regis Dialogue with . Tonight’s program is called “Claire Denis: Unpredictable Universe,” and we’ll talk with Claire about her remarkable career as a film director. From her first film, Chocolat, to her latest, , Denis has explored the human costs and political perversions of colonialism, inhabiting African landscapes with both a physical intimacy and psychic estrangement. Eric Hynes: And in films like Nénette et Boni, and , she approaches the domestic sphere with an equal degree of mystery and expansiveness, approaching the everyday with curiosity, sensuality, and rigorous humanity. And with her masterpieces and The Intruder, Denis pursued abstractive narratives of seductive tactility. They pulse, and breathe, and invite the viewer to inhabit them as much as see them. Eric Hynes: She shoots for that sweet spot with film form, contemplates consciousness where the advancing present instantly retreats to a remembered past, and where what’s literal overlaps with what’s imagined. I’m Eric Hynes, a New York– based writer and critic. Now, we’ll begin our Regis Dialogue with Claire Denis. Claire Denis: Good evening. Eric Hynes: Hello everybody. So, I think we’re actually going to start with a clip to begin things. Well, it’s actually the first sequence of Claire’s first film, Chocolat. Video: [foreign language] Eric Hynes: Well, before I even start then, do you feel a connection to the filmmaker still who made that? Claire Denis: Yes and no, because me, I’m not the same of course, and this country is not the same either. I would certainly not feel that easy nowadays. And the only thing that makes me feel it’s me, it’s to see Issach’s face because I’ve been working with him since, and to see that 24 years ago, I mean it’s really ... It’s good. Eric Hynes: Well, he’s gorgeous. So, I mean— Claire Denis: Yeah, he’s gorgeous, but he’s also got this ... I don’t know. In that film, some people are dead now. And Issach is ... I know him, I still work with him, so it’s sort of a continuation of something that reminds me that I was there too. Eric Hynes: Well, my first prepared question, and, because of that clip, was if you could talk to us a little bit about how much of your childhood and your life made its way into the character . I mean, I know that it’s somewhat based on your own life, but at the same time I know that it’s a fictional creation. And when you look back on it, do you think of your own life or do you think of the film?

Nov 17, 2012 1 Claire Denis: I think a character like that is not completely fiction, even the white parents because it’s the thing I remembered not only from my own childhood, but from the context of my childhood. It was not through melancholy that I wanted to go back to those years. It was as I thought if I make a film, the first film, I should do it to mark it at ... I am who I am because I grew there. So, that was important for me. Claire Denis: And the second thing maybe is that I didn’t want to make a film with a sort of message that colonization was terrible or whatever. I just wanted to speak about this character of Issach is interpreting of someone who has not a bad life, but is in a situation where he’s permanently humiliated by nice people. People who will never want to harm him. Claire Denis: Just the situation is like that. But the child herself, as I remember while writing the script, she was not existing really. She was like the thread for the flashback, and while we were writing the script, she was a bore. I thought, “Oh my god. I will have to direct her.” To find a kid. Claire Denis: And then it was easy in the end, but I thought it was going to be much more difficult. Eric Hynes: Was there an aspect of something about the character that Issach is playing? Is it something about that figure that was unresolved for you that you wanted to go back and actually look at the character of ... I mean, did you know people that way that you said that as an adult, you actually were ready to start interrogating what that life was like? Claire Denis: No. But if I was looking ... It was not like remembering or watching my family, still photographs of my childhood with my family. There was always the boy there or the gardener or the cook, and they had names that we remember because children were at ease with those ... They were young men normally. Claire Denis: And we were probably more at ease with them than our parents. And I think also there was a book, famous book written by a Cameroonese writer, who is dead now long ago. He started as a boy, and he wrote, his first book is called The Life of a Boy. And I remember reading that when I was a teenager, and suddenly reinterpreting a sort of guiltiness I had since I was very small. Claire Denis: Not a guiltiness. Guiltiness is maybe too strong a word, but a vague feeling of when a plate was presented to me. I knew that when I went back to see my grandparents, no one was washing the dishes but my grandmother. Things like that suddenly was so strange that when I was going back to where we’re supposed to live in Africa, whether it was in Cameroon or , we were living like in the 19th century. Claire Denis: That was very weird. Eric Hynes: Maybe when you said this sort of Life of a Boy is the memoir, that it’s referring to the fact that it’s actually called Boys. Claire Denis: In fact, in that book the boy has stolen something I guess. In the end, he’s dying. It’s a very tragic story, but it’s started on by being humiliated. It takes place in the ’40s I guess.

Nov 17, 2012 2 Eric Hynes: When you go back to Africa now, do you feel that it’s home or do you feel like a tourist sort of, the way that France answers that question? Claire Denis: I don’t feel like a tourist, but I must say that I never felt like a tourist nowhere. I don’t know. I’m too curious. Even if I go to a place I’ve never been before, I don’t want to look like a tourist. I don’t want to feel like a tourist. Maybe I look like a tourist, but I don’t want to feel like a tourist. Claire Denis: And of course, I’m not like France, but I think it’s not home. It’s a place that I’ve known at different periods, and it has connection with me physically because of the smell or the food, all the things that come back from childhood. Even some schools I remember and still exist, some houses, and a feeling of that quality of heat that I always feel good with, but it’s not home. Claire Denis: It was never home. We were raised by reasonable people. We were never raised as if it was home. So, thank god. No, I mean, we were not raised with brutality. We were raised trying to be sane things. Eric Hynes: I’m going to read a bit of dialogue towards the end of Chocolat to talk about. It’s the father talking to France who’s a diplomat. Is that correct to say or— Claire Denis: No. In the film, he’s like an administrator, which is a civil officer. Eric Hynes: Civil officer. Okay. Claire Denis: There is a big difference with diplomat. Number one in the time of colonialism, there was no diplomat because there was no diplomacy to be made. Eric Hynes: Sure. I’m very sure. Claire Denis: And also, my father was a young man, as a civil officer it was not an important person. So, they would send him to the bush and small places, and it was not grand. It was like ... That’s what I wanted to say. Eric Hynes: So, he says, and this of course refers to the first thing we see in the film. “When you look at the hills beyond the houses and beyond the trees, where the earth touches the sky, that’s the horizon. Tomorrow in the daytime, I’ll show you something. The closer you get to that line, the farther it moves. If you walk towards it, it moves away. It flees from you. I must explain this to you. You see the line, you see it, but it doesn’t exist.” Eric Hynes: And it seems to me that horizons keep coming back in your films. Do you feel like you’re still actually chasing that horizon? Claire Denis: I am ashamed of those lines.

Nov 17, 2012 3 Eric Hynes: Oh really? Claire Denis: I wish they were not existing. I think one day I felt like writing a sort of interesting piece of dialogue, and I honestly think it’s really bullshit. No, I have to say— Eric Hynes: No, no. It’s good. But in a sense, you’re doing something in dialogue, but you’re not doing it anymore. Claire Denis: But I think it’s because I wanted so much to look like a sort of intellectual who could say ... A father speaker to ... My father never told me things like that. Eric Hynes: He wouldn’t tell you about the horizon? Claire Denis: Hopefully. Eric Hynes: I thought it was quite lovely. Claire Denis: I think I kept it because I think the day we were shooting, I wanted to cut it. I was so ashamed. Eric Hynes: Did you think at the time, you were ashamed of it? Claire Denis: When shooting, yes. I realized it was stupid, but the actor had learned the line and said, “No. Please don’t cut those lines. I loved them.” Eric Hynes: But you could have left it out when you edited. Claire Denis: But then it would have been sort of cheating him. So, I kept it, but it’s ... I could not. Eric Hynes: But nevertheless, I still think it’s interesting that in a sense, what he’s saying explicitly is something that is implicit, I feel, in a lot of the films after that. Or at least visually in the sense of— Claire Denis: Maybe, but I don’t understand very well. I think it’s sort of stupidly poetic and whatever. The horizon line never bothered me really much actually, except when— Eric Hynes: But it’s the first shot in your film. Claire Denis: ... I’m lost in the sea, and I’m afraid to drown. But no. Yeah. The first shot of the sea is with a sort of gray horizon. Yeah. And there is one that I remember, this is true, and it’s something if I had enough money, I would have started

Nov 17, 2012 4 the film like that. I remember when I was a kid, usually my father would go before us by plane, and the family will follow him on the boat because we had all this stuff. The dishes, the pillows, the clothes, everything. Towels, and all this stuff you couldn’t take into a plane. So, we were in that boat, and I always remembered when the boat gets to Guinea Gulf near Cameroon where it’s close to the equator, the coastline is dark green because it’s not sand or desert or mountain. It’s flat and forest. Claire Denis: And I remember that line because it’s so dark, and it’s like a wall. It’s nothing… and you feel you can’t penetrate. It’s really impressive the first time, even the second time. This I remember, but it’s not the horizon. It’s a vision of if I think today of the Portuguese were the first to get into Cameroon, because Cameroon means shrimp in Portuguese, big shrimp, and there were big shrimp there. Claire Denis: I think they were brave to approach this dark coast because it’s a little bit ... I don’t know. It’s not charming; it’s terrifying in a way. Eric Hynes: Well, with that, I think we’re going to move onto another clip. I think I could spend the entire time talking about Chocolat with you. But this is the one moment we’re going to sort of break out of chronology and actually go to the most recent film that was released, White Material, and sort of look at that in conjunction with Chocolat. Claire Denis: It’s good Maria is not speaking about the horizon line. Video: [foreign language] Eric Hynes: I’m briefly going to read from Chocolat again. Hopefully, it’s not as embarrassing to you. But there’s a short scene in Chocolat where the father, again, almost off-handedly says, “One day, we’ll get kicked out of here.” Claire Denis: Yeah. Eric Hynes: And it’s interesting to sort of think of White Material in that light because in a sense, we’re revisiting a white family in Africa, and now is the time that they actually are getting kicked out of here. Claire Denis: Yeah. Of course, he speaks like a civil officer; he speaks about a change in politics. The character of Maria in the film is completely different because she believes she owns this land where she grows coffee, and she believes she’s entitled to stay, and that she believes also she’s protected not because she’s rich, because she’s not, but because she sees being white made her sort of a ... It’s like a shield against. And when this moment of civil war starts, she knows it, she’s not completely blind, but she thinks that if she’s strong enough, she will stay, and nothing will happen to her. Claire Denis: Although, I probably think she’s afraid somehow. She knows everything is fake in our judgment, but she had no other place to go. Eric Hynes: Well, she says—

Nov 17, 2012 5 Claire Denis: I would understand her. Eric Hynes: She says something else at some point where she’s asked, “Why don’t you just go back to ?” And she goes, “I can’t be brave in Paris. I can’t be brave in France.” This is where this personality can show itself. Claire Denis: It’s true. I remember us or people I know, for instance let’s say why we were shooting. We were staying in a place, sort of hotel that a French guy built, and there was no other place to go anyway, and he made it in a sort of funky way like a safari style, a little bit ridiculous. And we were staying there, and we were more than happy to have that place, and he was not such a young man. Claire Denis: His wife wanted to go back to France, but they had nothing. With this hotel, they had a style, they had a car, they had a lot of things they know they won’t have going back to France. So, it’s the kind of thing she knows. Claire Denis: There was a moment where we were writing the script, I want the last part of the film to be her alone in France, and working in a let’s say a Walmart or something like that, and she knows that because there’s a potential of to be white makes you slightly above the everyday problem, and it’s not true. Eric Hynes: The other thing that I think is really interesting watching that clip after Chocolat is looking at this sort of, the way that you established point of view in Chocolat, sort of see the way that France is directly panned right to her and then we cut away back and forth. Her sort of looking at the young man and his son, and appreciating the beauty of their skin on the beach. And then to see White Material in this scene, in some ways things turned around, and see the white skin being fetishized, and white material being fondled. Eric Hynes: Is there power associated with that? Is there a power to be able to observe the opposite race in that way? Is there anything about that that’s being negotiated? Claire Denis: I wouldn’t say that unless it would be a sort of if I was believing in doing a voodoo scene or something. In that case, they just entered this house and stole a gun. I mean, they’re kids, they’re children, and suddenly this bigger child is following them, and I don’t know. I think they exaggerated a little bit what they’re doing, as if it was almost a disgusting thing. Claire Denis: The little boy smelled his hair, and they called him yellow dog, but I think it’s this sort of a game just to show him they’re stronger because they have a gun, you know what I mean? It’s not a very pretentious scene, too metaphoric I hope. Eric Hynes: There’s something related to that. You had told a colleague of mine, Adam Nayman, in an interview of your work. You said, “Every image is about subjectivity.” And I would love to sort of talk to you about that a little bit, especially in relation to what we’ve seen because you said it’s not so metaphoric, and I think that’s actually true because we’re always inside somebody’s point of view.

Nov 17, 2012 6 Eric Hynes: We’re always experiencing something. You’re not showing us a symbolic image. You’re showing us what somebody is actually experiencing. So, in relation to your film, how is every image about subjectivity? How does it work? Claire Denis: For me, there is no other way to plan a film if it’s not, so to speak, to, “I have point of view when I make a film.” No, but it’s oddly impossible to shoot a scene in an emotional way or for me to feel the scene, if I have not chosen before which point of view it is. Even if it’s mine, in the end, it has to go through one character. Otherwise, I feel nothing. “Then why not make a master shot, and close up of this and that?” If I feel like this is the point of view of someone, and I know I don’t need that shot, maybe I can see only a sequence shot for instance. It’s really necessary for me filming, not with a point of view of me about life, and the world, and the way it goes, and blah, blah, blah, but about a character of the film. Claire Denis: This scene starts with this white almost young man running after those two kids for fun, and suddenly the situation turned against him. Eric Hynes: Well, what’s ironic and dangerous about it too is there’s a sense of— Claire Denis: Yeah because it’s two different point of views. Eric Hynes: The other point of view is the degree of fun from the other side too. Having fun with him, which— Claire Denis: And the third point of view is probably if we go on with the scene would be Maria, the mother who discovers her son naked. She doesn’t know why, but she sort of guessed it’s time to go because of that. So, it’s another point of view of the nakedness from a distance. Eric Hynes: Right, right. The last shot is her observing him. There’s something just incredibly, at least to my eyes, effortless about that shifting of point of view. I think a lot of filmmakers spend their entire careers trying to somehow establish that many different points of view within the same sequence like that, and it just seems to be ... I don’t want to say it’s natural because it’s probably a lot of hard work, but it does seem to sort of come off as this is simply that you see the world. This is the way that you create scenes. Claire Denis: Some films I feel I can’t shift in a scene or even in a continuity. I have to keep solidly to only one character’s point of view. It has to be told like that. Some films like White Material, it’s mostly Maria’s. Claire Denis: But because she doesn’t want to see, somehow there are other points of view. Eric Hynes: Well, I think that dramatically in that film, it really does make sense that there’s a lot of different characters coming from a lot of different places. And nobody is settled, nobody has an idea where things are going, but they all have a different point of view, and you certainly honor that. I’m going to shift a little bit to another clip, and ... Oh sorry. Go ahead.

Nov 17, 2012 7 Claire Denis: When we started writing the script, even before the first scene I had in mind because without one scene, I cannot go working on a script. It was a point of view of a French soldier in a helicopter watching a small white woman among trees. Coffee trees or whatever, and a farmer, and yelled at her and says, “That’s your last chance. Come with us. You might be killed.” Claire Denis: The French army is leaving the country, so it’s your last chance, and she’s doing this. It was, in fact, the point of view of the soldier, first vision of Maria, and it was very helping to write the script. To watch her small and fragile. Eric Hynes: Well, if you don’t mind, we’re going to double back now to a little bit earlier film, to talk about as well as you sort of visit this area of the world, you’re also very adept at domestic scenarios as well and urban life. So, we’re going to go watch a clip from Nénette et Boni. And for those who haven’t seen the film, it’s about two estranged siblings who were brought back into each other’s lives. Eric Hynes: And Nénette is pregnant, and Boni is a restless and sexually frustrated young man. He works in a pizza truck, and this is a scene where he is preparing the dough. Video: [foreign language] Eric Hynes: I don’t think nearly enough people talk about how funny your films can be, and not only funny, but speaking of point of view, I think it’s so wonderful how we’re not given the point of view to make fun of him or to look at him head on. We’re actually, we’re kneading the dough along with him. I mean, obviously that was— Claire Denis: Yeah. These two young actors, Gregoire and Alice, they, I had worked once with them before, and I really liked them so much as brother and sister. So, I wanted to do another film brother and sister, but in a sort of tragedy because she’s pregnant, and it’s too late. And she has to keep the baby, and he doesn’t want her to stay around. Claire Denis: But then he realizes he’s the only one that could take care of her. And for me, every single scene in the film, I was physically involved with both of them. So, I think it’s— Eric Hynes: What does that mean? Physically involved with both of them? Claire Denis: I felt they were not like my children, but they were like part of me, both of them. And now, of course they grow up, but they’re still part of me. I really like actors. I like Gregoire and Alice because they were young people with a lot of trust, and Gregoire was not afraid. It’s not an easy scene to do the dough in one take. Claire Denis: And he did it just like that, so it means trust. Maybe also it’s funny. It’s true that I think Gregoire is funny. Eric Hynes: The ooh sound is particularly good. The high-pitched ooh.

Nov 17, 2012 8 Claire Denis: Yeah. Oh yeah. Gregoire is great. But I think also he’s great because we trust each other, and actually really good working with those two kids. They were kids having dreams of their own, and being acting for the film. I mean, Alice was 15, yeah. Claire Denis: So, I think in that case, it’s a loving point of view. I don’t know. The film is in the middle of their relation, I think. Their relation is simply that they do realize that in fact they need each other, and love each other, although I don’t know because they were separated. Claire Denis: So, little by little, they admitted that they love each other. Eric Hynes: One of the things I love about the film is that so much of what we see is Boni’s desires being played out. Either him in this sense, you see physically what the manifestation of his desire, but you also see dream sequences and sort of having these romantic notions of people he desires, the lives that they could have. But at the same time, we’re allowed to desire him too. Eric Hynes: It’s not so much that we are subjected to his fantasies. We in a sense, he’s a part of ours. Claire Denis: Yes. I think he has this sort of grace as an actor to be intelligent enough to, in a way, offer himself. Gregoire never tried as an actor to show that he understands the scene, and what it means in the film, and blah, blah, blah. He’s like someone who dives in the scene and swim. I like that. Eric Hynes: Now, he’s in a number of your films during this time, and was in 35 Shots of Rum a few years ago. Claire Denis: Yeah, yeah. Eric Hynes: I mean, would it be fair to call Gregoire, and Issach and several other actors, are they muses at all? Are you responding to them and feeding off of them as much as you’re directing them? Claire Denis: Oh yeah. Oh, yes of course. Most of the actors I work with, I think ... I don’t know. It’s a link that is unbreakable because it’s such a secret way of trusting each other, of showing what we are made of. Making a film, you show a lot of yourself. Not only as an actor, also as a director. Claire Denis: So, that link and that trust is something that never stops. For me, that’s why I work again and again with the same actors and actresses because otherwise, I’m missing them. Eric Hynes: I’ve heard that from other filmmakers that how, such an intense experience to work on a film that to then all of a sudden walk away and barely see each other, it’s a very traumatic experience. So, I’d imagine the opportunity to keep going back to those people must be how—

Nov 17, 2012 9 Claire Denis: It’s sad with the crew, but the crew is, we know they go to work on other films. But with actors and actresses, it’s always different because not like the dough, but I touch them, I choose their clothes, I choose the way they speak. They’re like mine, and I hate when they work on other films. Even after all those years. Eric Hynes: Yeah. Claire Denis: When Gregoire is in a film, I think he’s badly lit. He’s not like that. He’s much better than that. It’s not only Gregoire, Béatrice Dalle, . All of them, they are mine. Eric Hynes: Well, those of us who love your films I think feel pretty much the same way. It’s very strange to see them in different films. Claire Denis: But it’s crazy. I know it’s crazy. They are not mine. But how could I say that? Of course, I know they are not mine, but I cannot believe in them if they don’t belong a little bit. I need to possess them a little bit. Eric Hynes: Well, in a sense, I think you allow us to possess them too. It’s an amazing thing. Claire Denis: Yeah. And even Isabelle Huppert, I knew her for years but never worked with her, and everyone said, “Oh, you’re working with Isabelle.” But Isabelle was like a toy. I was always touching her hair. I told her, “Maybe I will take you home.” But it’s true. She was mine. She was not Isabelle Huppert. Eric Hynes: Well, it says a lot about her then, somebody that established and well respected. Claire Denis: She’s not afraid to be old. Eric Hynes: That’s the thing. Claire Denis: No, no, no, no. She likes. Eric Hynes: Well, anybody who’s allowed themselves to work with Michael Haneke the way that she had, obviously she’s okay being owned a little bit. Claire Denis: She’s brave. Eric Hynes: She’s very brave. Very, very brave. Well, let’s move on to another film that stars Gregoire. We’ve gone to Cameroon and to Paris, and let’s move on to and the French Foreign Legion for Beau Travail. Video: [foreign language]

Nov 17, 2012 10 Eric Hynes: I find it almost impossible to watch just a part of that film. I kind of want to sit here and watch it. Claire Denis: I like to watch the image normally, but Djibouti is such a strange, very ... Not magic, but it creates something so weird. It’s like a total desert of salt and lava, and this red sea is very blue, but also full of sharks. So, the wind is blowing, and this wind is full of sand and very hot. Claire Denis: So, nothing is nice, and yet I don’t know why, it’s a place where actually the real Foreign Legion do train because the physical condition is extremely difficult. And yet, as we were shooting, maybe we were suffering from this heat, and this dryness, and this wind, and it was blowing us away. And when we were rehearsing, I never told the actors that I had in mind to use Benjamin Britten music, , that we had been listening while writing the script. Claire Denis: So, I played back the music while shooting. But the wind was blowing so strong, they couldn’t hear very well. So, they heard a sort of music in the wind. This is a mixed film. And suddenly, everything became like all their gestures became so solemn, and I don’t know. Like the beginning of the world or something like that. Claire Denis: But that part of the world is really strikingly strong. Eric Hynes: Well, it seemed that whatever shot you choose, whatever sort of part of the landscape you choose seems wildly different than the last one in a sense. If you’re looking just at the soil or if you’re looking at the ocean, whatever, it just seems very diverse actually. Claire Denis: Yeah. Eric Hynes: No? Claire Denis: Diverse in what sense? Eric Hynes: Well, the sense that there’s the salt beach, there’s the mountains. Claire Denis: I can say something I felt. As a child, I was there. So, I came back for the film, but there is something I remember is we were not allowed to leave the city without giving our name because many people died in the desert. So, even going to school was with protection because of the sun, et cetera, et cetera. Claire Denis: But while we were shooting, I remember it’s a place where maybe you feel strong. We all felt strong because it looks in a dream like maybe the earth could be at the very beginning or could be at the very end. No more meant for life. There is no grass, no trees. Claire Denis: So, it gives a feeling of maybe it’s not morbid. You don’t film, but you feel a sort of, you’re on earth by chance. Maybe it won’t last. It’s very strange.

Nov 17, 2012 11 Eric Hynes: You had mentioned the opera by Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd. But in a sense, the story is also inspired by Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. Claire Denis: Yeah. Eric Hynes: This is the first of several films of yours that are at least somewhat loosely based on texts that existed. If you could talk a little bit about that sort of decision, was that somehow freeing to you in terms of style and narrative, to be able to sort of jump off from a preexisting work? Claire Denis: This film, I was offered to do a film, and the French TV people that produced those films told me, “Can you make a story that, we want to make films about what it is to be a foreigner, what it is to feel foreign with the quote of Deleuze, to make it very serious. And please, not use as the main character a doctor or a journalist because we have too much of those films already.” Claire Denis: So, I actually felt foreign, foreign, and then I found Foreign Legion, and then I realized I knew Djibouti. But then I had nothing to say about the Foreign Legion. I knew nothing. And then I was reading poetry, not Bill Budd. Billy Budd I had read before. Poetry by Herman Melville. And one poem is called I think “The Night March,” and it’s a lost battalion of soldiers lost in the night without their commandant or captain or whatever, without a commanding. Claire Denis: And they are lost in the night, and they don’t know where they’re going. The only thing they can see is the moon reflecting on the metallic piece of their guns. And this poem was so strong and frightening because those guys were men in arms, lost in the night looking for their captain. And they were like children lost in a forest, and that this poem started all like ... And then Billy Budd came after. Claire Denis: It’s not to support a story; it’s just to create this sort of emotional state. Sometimes it could be music where I feel something strong enough, and I can invent a sort of narration. Otherwise, I won’t believe if I don’t have that emotional state. Claire Denis: I mean, it’s not an emotional state, it’s something that it’s not film, it’s not from me, it’s like an echo of something that wakes me up to sensation. I was never a soldier, I was never a sailor, but suddenly being lost I understood. Eric Hynes: How much comes together editing versus when you’re filming something like this? Does it echo back to you once you actually look at the footage, and does a different film come to you? Claire Denis: This film, Beau Travail, we shot only four weeks, and we didn’t have so many footage. So, I think everything is in the film. It was maybe editing with Benjamin Britten, Neil Young, and the nightclub songs. Yeah. It gives a sort of echo to the sun and the wind. This wind is so noisy that even at night, I could hear it. Claire Denis: And no, I think editing was also emotional. Yeah. It was still full feel with the emotion of the film coming through those actors and this country, and still remembering “Night March.” I still can feel it when I read that poem. Some text, it’s

Nov 17, 2012 12 not that they are emotional especially or maybe they give me the correspondence with me in a way that I recognized something that I can describe in the film. Claire Denis: I don’t know. We had no generator, so we had almost no night scenes. I don’t have a night march in the film, but “The Night March” was there all the time. We were lost. Eric Hynes: As hard as it is to move on from Beau Travail, let’s watch a clip that— Claire Denis: It’s not sad. I’m lost in a good way. Eric Hynes: You’re right in that sense. Right. No, there’s nothing sad about being lost in that sense. A clip from The Intruder, and I think you mentioned the importance of music for constructing Beau Travail in this particular clip. Music and sound is vital to what you’re doing, so be ready to talk about that. Video: [foreign language] Claire Denis: It’s funny because as you know, I don’t know which clip. I didn’t choose the clip. Eric Hynes: Did I do okay? Claire Denis: No, I thought it’s a surprise for me each time. Eric Hynes: In a film where dreams and reality are so thoroughly blurred, I think magnificently intertwined. In a sense, music and sound are the only clues you have in a sense to sort of be able to distinguish one’s sense of reality or ... Instead of calling it dreams versus reality, one possible reality from another. Claire Denis: Yes. Stuart Staples from was really very close in the editing room when we did the intro there. So, the first time we made this music on his own without the band, and he had a , and he was looping the music on his own. So, we were working together, not him working with the band in the editing room, he was with me in the editing room, and the trumpet is something that came from the editing room in a way, like a sort of echo of an instrument he had never used before, neither me. Claire Denis: But this film, again is blurred also for me, as you said blurred because it was completely naively innocent. I never thought that was blurring, dream, and memories, and fear. It came just like that because of that book written by the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy about his heart transplant. And for instance, in that book, it’s a very short text, he described when you wake up after the heart transplant, the surgeon tells him, “It’s so easy to change a heart.” Claire Denis: It’s going to be difficult for you, but for us surgeons it’s like plumbing. It’s nothing. It’s not as refined as [foreign language], as a watch, which is. And it’s written like that. And somehow, everything came in the script in a way, and

Nov 17, 2012 13 not only that because if I mess a little bit more about this scene, it’s shot in Geneva in Hotel Beau-Rivage where Jean-Luc Godard worked with the first time, and Michel Subor is— Eric Hynes: Who’s the actor we see? Claire Denis: Is the actor with the old guy. He was a very young actor, it was his first film. Running away from the French Army to escape the Algerian War, hiding in Geneva, and being then contacted by the extreme right wing of the French Army who wanted to stay in Algeria. So, it was also a little bit of ... The film by Jean-Luc Godard is called . Claire Denis: So, there is just also a little bit of that also in the film, like not a memory of the film, but a sort of connection with Le Petit Soldat. It’s all mixed together. So, it’s true, it’s a blur, and for me I thought I was like a dog sniffing where to go. It’s a film I made with no doubt. Usually, I’m terrified. Claire Denis: This film I made with no doubt, script, everything was simple. It’s only when I was in with the film ready, and I saw the film, and I said, “Oh my god. What have I done? It’s going to be a disaster. I’m going to be ...” Claire Denis: So, I left. Eric Hynes: You left the festival? Claire Denis: Yeah. I was working by this here. So, I go, “Oh my god. I’m going to drown. I have to kill myself. I’ve done something I should never have done.” It’s terrible. Eric Hynes: Well, it’s not. It’s interesting that— Claire Denis: No. When I mean it was terrible, it’s as if I don’t feel like I’m a poet, I don’t feel like I’m a musician. Somehow, this film came out like that with that shape. Absolutely completely, not politically, and blurring film came after. I wanted to say that Katerina Golubeva, this beautiful woman riding a horse, died last year. Claire Denis: So, I was happy to see her beauty again. Eric Hynes: That she was in at least one of your films, correct? I Can’t Sleep. Claire Denis: I Can’t Sleep? Eric Hynes: Right. Claire Denis: Yeah. And she is also in Leos Carax film Pola X.

Nov 17, 2012 14 Eric Hynes: Right, right. Well, I mean I think we have one more— Claire Denis: And in Twentynine Palms. Eric Hynes: Of course, of course. Yeah. Very bold actress. Very bold. Claire Denis: Bold human being also. Yeah. Eric Hynes: Well, I thought about that when I selected the clip. I’m glad that you were happy to see her because it’s also tough in many ways I’m sure. But the notion of the degree to which Staples was involved in making this film, the music is such an important part of this, and such an important ... In some ways, the emotional rhythms that you’re going on throughout the film are punctuated by this sort of theme throughout the film. And I’m curious about, because this is the sort of like the last place that I want to take this to, and take it into the last clip, is that degree of collaboration, that I think that a lot of filmmakers have a real anxiety when it comes to working with composers, and working with musicians. Eric Hynes: It’s an aspect of this process where you could potentially give up control because you’re basically allowing another artist to create an important part of your film. But it seems like your collaboration with Tindersticks and through Staples, you’re inviting that strong artistic presence. Claire Denis: Yeah. I think I’ve been lucky because the music in Chocolat is made by Abdullah Ibrahim, and he was very impressive. He is a very impressive man. But for me, the music I’m not afraid that someone might enter the film, and I don’t know. For me, the music is loud, and the musician allowed to search with me. I don’t know. Claire Denis: And Stuart Staples from Tindersticks, it was completely ... It’s a great love that I have met that band and star, because we had absolutely nothing in common. Not the language, he can’t speak French, my English is what it is. He has this northern accent. So, when we met, I understood none of his words, and he understood none of my English. Claire Denis: So, we were like not into each other in the editing room. So, we had to do it by hands, not by long talks. So, when he did The Intruder, he was tired by touring with his band, and he told me, “I’m sort of depressed. I can try, but on my own.” Claire Denis: And I said, “Okay. Let’s try it like that.” And he’s really himself in the film I think. Yeah. Eric Hynes: Let’s just show this last clip and I’ll set it up briefly. It’s from 35 Shots of Rum, which this clip also involves music to a large degree, and also a sense of community, and to my eyes a sense of collaboration between a filmmaker and actors. Briefly, to talk about it in general, it’s sort of an extended modern family living in an apartment building in Paris. And you have a father, and a daughter and their friends that also live in that community, that clearly there’s some unresolved romantic notions or feelings there.

Nov 17, 2012 15 Eric Hynes: They all pile into a car and go to a concert, but the car breaks down along the way, and they’re waylaid at a café after hours, and that’s where we’re at. Video: [foreign language; singing] Claire Denis: It’s a great song. Eric Hynes: Such a good song. I mean, just because we’re in front of a lot of people right now, the mysteries of cinema, that scene never fails to make me cry and I don’t know why. Something just so perfect and gorgeous about that. Claire Denis: Yeah because it’s also the moment where the film shifts, and it’s during the night. No, it’s true. Eric Hynes: Of course, of course. Claire Denis: No. I love the song for sure, but there was a purpose for that. Eric Hynes: Of course, of course. And you said that the film shifts at that point. I mean, so much happens. I mean, I can’t imagine more happening in this experience. Claire Denis: The father sees his daughter differently. The father also wants to get rid of the neighbor who’s in love with him, and he wants also to show his daughter that he is free also, and the daughter doesn’t know if she can ... I mean, everyone is showing something. It’s the moment where they really feel all those links are too heavy, and maybe it’s time to move, to shift. Eric Hynes: I mean, you described, that’s very complex and tangled, and yet what you show us is something that could not move any smoother. It couldn’t possibly. Claire Denis: No. It sucks, again to those actors and actresses. It’s not possible if we’re not able to understand the meaning of that. They could say, “Oh, what is this scene? You said it’s the center of the film and there is not one line. What is this?” But I did believe in it, so it became really like a sort of night shift. Eric Hynes: On that note, I think we’re ready for some questions. Speaker: Hi. Thank you very much for being here. You have worked very often with Jean-Pol Fargeau on the script. Can you say a little bit how that collaboration started, and how the work in process is going on kind of? Claire Denis: Yeah. I met him before while I was writing Chocolat. He’s from Marseilles, South of France, and he was a young play writer. And we enjoy working together the first time, and it’s going on and on. Two exceptions, I think. He’s a friend, and I think it’s a collaboration that he’s not a writer, a mere filmmaker.

Nov 17, 2012 16 Claire Denis: We have the same interest in a lot of things, so it’s fine. We can collaborate without the heavy ... I don’t know. Burden of being working. Speaker: Hello. Hi. I had the privilege of watching your Beau Travail last night. It was a stunning film. I just wasn’t expecting anything like that. The way I was trying to describe to people afterwards, and I said it was the most purely cinematic film I might have ever seen in my life. And it’s hard to describe. Speaker: It was without dialogue, just watching the scenes unfold. There was something magical about it. And the use of music was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in film as well. So, my question for you as a filmmaker, and everything was so naturalistic at the same time, what is your background that you came to make a film like that? Claire Denis: I think maybe watching films, listening to music, reading poetry. I mean, the simple things in a way, not learning. I don’t know. I let things come to me, not that it’s not easy to write a script, it’s not easy to shoot a film, but it’s important to let a belief grow. Therefore, there is less fear of abandon oneself more. Not to be too much afraid I think. Claire Denis: I never think when I’m filming. I’m making other films. I always believe I’m just making a film, and then when it’s finished, people say, “There is absolutely no dialogue, no psychology explanation.” You said a film unfolds, but it’s the way I watch my own life. I have no explanation really. Claire Denis: I feel like that, so my background is I’m not typically an intellectual, I’m not a poet, I’m not a musician. Maybe I’m a little bit of all this all together, and cinema was the only thing that I really cared for actually. I don’t mean it’s so simple. I don’t want to answer your question of, “It’s so simple. I just do it like that.” Claire Denis: No. But I have a belief, I think. I believe that it will work. I don’t know where it came from. Eric Hynes: It’s interesting to hear you describe Beau Travail this way, and also when you describe The Intruder as having no anxiety. In some ways, those two films in particular, you almost have to approach them that way to pull off what you pulled off, that if you actually were wracked with anxiety and self-doubt or thought about it too much in that sort of self-reflective way, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to be as cinematically bold as people are responding to those scenes. Claire Denis: I would say for both those films, for many people the narration is so elliptical. But for me, it gave this way of telling a story makes me stronger, makes me involved deeply in the film because I know there are gaps and leaps, and I have to jump those because they are often already in the script. But it gives me a sort of enthusiastic feeling about not explaining. Yeah. Claire Denis: But I always try when I work on a script. This time it finished, going to go to a very traditional narration like everybody else, and I believe also in that. And somehow, there’s a night shift. No, it’s true. I wake up in the morning, I say ... But I think a lot of people making films, not only me, could feel that a film is you have a written script, there is a sort of structure or form.

Nov 17, 2012 17 Claire Denis: But the film by itself is unfolding. So, there is also that reason inside making a film. Speaker: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your relationship with doubt. Claire Denis: With doubt? Speaker: Yes. Claire Denis: I’ve read and heard that doubt is creative. Doubt is really not helping me. What is helping me is a sort of anxiety that ... Concrete details that are not on schedule, anxiety that Katerina might fall from the horse. Little details like that. It creates a sort of general state of anxiety in me. That is everything, the real doubt of, is it going to be a film or nothing? Claire Denis: Because of course, this doubt is always there. Is there going to be a film in the end? Who knows? I’m not sure. But if this doubt is ever there on the set, then the crew could feel it, the actor could feel that doubt. So, I think I have found this way of losing myself in a lot of stress and anxiety that keeps me away from the killing doubt. Claire Denis: It comes back in the editing room often, and I wish I could die, but no. It’s funny. Of course, it’s a joke when I say that, but it’s true also. There’s a dying moment in the editing room where everything falls apart. It’s there, but I don’t see. And suddenly, all the doubt I have pushed away from the beginning is coming back, like a big tsunami, and that’s all I can say about doubt. Claire Denis: And then it’s painful, but it’s the editing room and I have to finish. It’s too late, but it’s painful really, and it’s good that it does not happen before. Speaker: So, beyond being painful, do you think that at times it’s helpful because it actually means that you’re seeing multiple perspectives and possibilities as opposed to maybe when you have no doubt, which might be kind of a blindness? Claire Denis: No, I don’t think so. I think the doubt is always there. The doubt is am I a filmmaker? Is this film going to be a film or not? At what moment will it start to be a film and not images and sound? And while writing the script, while shooting, the film exists in a sort of abstract way, but with a shape. And suddenly, the doubt in the editing room is enormous because the film doesn’t show its face immediately in the editing room, even though you edited the way you wanted. Claire Denis: There is something that is hidden, like in archaeology to dig more, to find it. But this moment in between, it’s a killing moment really. I don’t know if I answered your question. I think no, but I think you’re asking something that I don’t understand. Eric Hynes: Well, in my mind, I think you approached the question pretty well.

Nov 17, 2012 18 Claire Denis: Yeah. Do you agree? Speaker: I do. Eric Hynes: Okay. Speaker: I’m just curious about how your collaboration with actors and how you direct them on the set, specifically just in all of your films, the way that they’re shot, they’re so physical and so sensuous, and there’s no sort of acting going on. And I’m wondering what the process is for you to get to that I guess? Eric Hynes: You described a lot of hands on with Gregoire before. Claire Denis: Yeah. I think it’s an easy process because number one, I like them and I like to look at them. So, I would not consider that working with them is just to film them in a scene, but it’s to reveal more of them. And after a while, actor/actress they feel that. They feel that we are seeking with the way we film them for an inner beauty, which is in them, but is striking for me. Claire Denis: But I want this beauty, not physical beauty, more than that to be in the film, and it’s easy for an actor, an actress to feel that look. Looking not for a scene, not for them acting, but for them to reveal something of what we are made of. And I think I trust that so much that in a way, they do. And yes, Godard was almost always doing camera with me, I think he feels the same. Yes. Eric Hynes: Thank you Claire Denis. Claire Denis: Thank you very much.

Nov 17, 2012 19