New York, New York TRES PERSONNEL

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Cinéma [8] A2-B1 New York, New York TRES PERSONNEL. A New York, aujourd’hui, Frances (Greta Gerwig) vient de se faire lâcher par sa meilleure amie. Cette assistante d’édition et danseuse un peu fofolle a du mal à grandir… Nous avons rencontré Noam Baumbach, le réalisateur de ce film intimiste et touchant, lors de son dernier passage à Paris. Posé, réfléchissant vraiment avant de se livrer, il a accepté de répondre à toutes nos questions. Un long entretien à retrouver sur le CD de conversation !

VOCABLE BY RONAN LANCELOT

VOCABLE: What was your childhood like? NOAH: Well, I grew up in Brooklyn, just in New York, and my parents were writers and teachers, intellectuals of the 60s and 70s who got very into film. I grew up in a home where there was a lot of talk and discussion of movies and we went to a lot of movies. I was always aware even of the movies they were seeing RENCONTRE AVEC NOAM BAUMBACH Metteur en scène (DR) that I was maybe not old enough to see...

2. VOCABLE: Such as? NOAH: Oh, I remember they New York, New York were seeing like Brian de Palma movies and Le New York de Noah European movies too that I, at the time, did- Baumbach n’t think I was interested in. I remember they saw Nicholas Roeg’s movie, Don’t Look Now, reaction’s not available to me. It’s a cliché and I remember my mother was very upset but movies become like children you don’t childhood enfance / to get, got, got into by it, and I was always sort of aware of their want anyone else talking about, you know. (sthing) s’intéresser de près à, être très impli- kind of emotional reactions and experiences You can criticise your kids but you don’t qué dans (quelque chose) / aware of informé, with movies which always made the movies want anyone else doing it. au courant de. kind of intriguing. Then, as I got older, I would go with them to lots of movies and we 4. VOCABLE: Your body of work seems very au- 2. upset bouleversé / to guess penser / to would go to new movies and they would tobiographical… NOAH: In a way, they became set, set, set out to entreprendre de, se lan- show me older movies and at some point in more autobiographical as I got going. It’s al- cer dans. there, I was a writer, which was sort of in the most like you see an adolescent who has a tradition of my family because they were writ- growth spurt but still moves like a child, like 3. to be opinionated avoir des avis, des opi- ers, but I also wanted to make movies but I a child in an adult’s body. I’m glad I made nions très arrêtées, être très tranché / smart had no idea how to go about that. It wasn’t my first couple of movies when I was 24 and intelligent / available accessible, possible. taught at college, I guess, and when I was 26, and I have affection for them, but it’s al- in my 20s, I set out to make my first movie. most like I was doing it before I quite had 4. body of work oeuvre(s), ici filmographie grown into that body. I think I kind of dis- / growth spurt poussée de croissance / glad 3. VOCABLE: Seeing and enjoying movies does- covered that I was more motivated and more heureux, content / close to the bone à l’os n’t mean you want to make them. It’s a com- nourished by writing closer to the bone. That (de manière directe, très personnelle et hon- pletely different process, isn’t it? NOAH: I still doesn’t mean that everything is so literally nête) / fearful craintif, timoré. like or don’t like movies as everybody does, autobiographical, but it kind of opened me and could be very opinionated about them, up even visually. I think everything changed but people can be incredibly interesting and when I started writing in a more honest, per- smart about them and it’s almost like that sonal, less fearful way.

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22-23-24-667 AN:CULTURE 13/06/13 14:31 Page 23 5. VOCABLE: And how does it work, I mean, you Greta Gerwig again. We had done Greenberg i Is Frances (Greta Gerwig) a great cook? wrote a lot for others and then for yourself too. before and wanted to do another one. I (© PINE DISTRICT) Do you think there’s a difference there between emailed her and said: “Do you have things how you’re going to write? NOAH: I wrote a cou- you’re thinking that might be interesting for ple of movies with Wes Anderson and those a movie?” I knew that she was a writer, but were very specifically for him to make, so I I hadn’t read anything of hers. I had a kind 5. definitely indubitablement / chunk part(ie). was really there to support his vision. There of general sense of maybe, a young woman are definitely aspects of me in those movies, in Manhattan, or in New York, on the cusp 6. cusp point culminant, sommet d’une but it’s a different experience than if it’s between young adulthood and adulthood, courbe, ici on the cusp between... and à la something that I know I’m going to then re- but it was very vague. I also thought I might frontière entre... et / response réaction / to alise as a director. I haven’t done it in a few want to do something in black and white, pass back and forth ici s’envoyer et se ren- years. A big chunk of when we worked to- and so she sent me a list of ideas and things, voyer / somehow d’une certaine façon, plus gether, I was trying to get The Squid and the observations, from like very little to very big ou moins. Whale made, and I couldn’t get it made, so and it was just very inspiring. I could see it was kind of a great distraction for me, but what the movie might be already, so I wrote I loved working with him, and we’re very back my thoughts and responses, and we just close friends so it almost didn’t feel like passed this document back and forth, and DES PLACES À GAGNER SUR work, it just felt like an extension of our that’s how it turned into the script. I think WWW.VOCABLE.FR friendship, in a way. we both found that we saw the movie very similarly. It was never like one of us wrote Découvrez le reportage vidéo 6. VOCABLE: Frances Ha is a collaborative work something that seemed out of a whole other sur www.vocable.fr et too… NOAH: My initial inspiration for making movie; I think we somehow saw the same testez votre compréhension the movie really was to do something with character and the same story. h

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7. to shoot, shot, shot tourner / to fantasise fantasmer / shell coquille, ici a shell of its old self une coquille vide, l’ombre d’elle-même, un endroit vidé de sa substance / unsustainable ruineux à long terme, financièrement impos- sible (ici d’y habiter) / on the other hand par contre, d’un autre côté.

8. cast acteurs.

9. for my taste à mon goût, pour moi / take prise (de vues) / I’d much rather je préférerais / to shape façonner, construire. 7. VOCABLE: Why choose black and white? NOAH: find it’s hard to get them off it, and some- I feel like most filmmakers who at some times people spend too much time prepar- 10. set plateau. point probably want to shoot black and ing, or they bring it to their acting coach, 11. obviously manifestement, de toute évi- white, but I didn’t think of this consciously. they do... I’d much rather get them as they’re dence / whatever n’importe quel / subject I had shot a movie in Los Angeles; I’d been just first reading it. For me, it’s always more matter sujet, thème / New Wave Nouvelle spending more time in Los Angeles, and I interesting. The whole point is they’re going Vague (mouvement cinématographique au think it was a way for me to look at New York to take a role that I’m going to help them début des années 1960, se définissant, notam- in a new way, you know, a new, old way, be- shape, so I don’t want them over-thinking it. ment, par ses techniques cinématographiques cause of course it feels nostalgic too. I grew révolutionnaires pour l’époque, dont Truffaut, up in Brooklyn and I’d kind of always fan- 10. VOCABLE: Is that kind of spontaneity one of Godard, Rohmer furent de célèbres repré- tasised about, if I could, moving to Manhat- Greta Gerwig’s strong points? NOAH: What Greta sentants). tan as a adult. Once I did of course everybody can do is produce that kind of spontaneity moved back to Brooklyn because Manhattan even in something that she’s written; she can, became a shell of its old self. The movie, in as an actor, kind of unlearn it and relearn some ways, is an unromantic view of the city. it somehow. I don’t know how she does that, Selected It’s about a city that’s unsustainable for peo- or what the process is, but we could have Filmography ple if they don’t have money, and, on the spent, you know, a year working on a scene other hand, it’s in black and white and it and making sure it works for us in a partic- Director looks beautiful and it makes it feel like a joy ular way, and then she can approach it on The Squid and the Whale (2005) to be in your twenties and be in New York. the set, as if she was discovering it. Margot at the Wedding (2007) Both of those things are true for me. Greenberg (2010) 11. VOCABLE: There’s obviously a strong hom- Frances Ha (2012) 8. VOCABLE: How did you choose the cast ? NOAH: age to the European movie scene in Frances I have a casting director there who I’ve Ha… NOAH: I’ve always been interested in Writer worked with on my last few movies, and he and preoccupied with and have always felt The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou just brought people in. I didn’t show anybody like French films were, to whatever degree, (2004) the script though, they’d get the pages when part of the tradition I was working in. With Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) they arrived, so they could learn it in the Frances, maybe because of the subject mat- Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted waiting room, and then they’d come in... ter and the black and white and the kind (2012) l of method of how we made it, it kind of 9. VOCABLE: Why that way? NOAH: I didn’t want feels like how I imagine they made some people to be over-prepared; in auditions, I of their early New Wave movies, but it’s just much prefer to have people’s first instincts, all very much clearer here than it was in Ecoutez l’interview de Noah first reactions, or at least as close to their first the past. I wasn’t thinking of it so much as Baumbach sur l’Advanced, puis écoutez le Basic sur lequel Shelly reactions of things as possible. For my taste, homage as much as I was thinking of it as vous donne un coup de main pour actors come in too prepared, and if it’s the a conversation with or a call and response mieux la comprendre ! right take, fine, but if it’s the wrong take, I or something. ●

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