ARP Sélection presents

GOLDEN YEARS a film by André Téchiné

France / 2017 / 103’ / 1:85 / 5.1 / French

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International Sales Celluloid Dreams 2 rue Turgot - 75009 T +33 1 49 70 03 70 www.celluloid-dreams.com The true love story of Paul and Louise who get married on the eve of WWI. Injured, Paul deserts. Louise decides to hide him dressed as a woman. He soon becomes “Suzanne” a Parisian celebrity in the Roaring 20’s. When granted amnesty, he is challenged to live as a man again. A Dream Come True for Historians by Fabrice Virgili and Danièle Voldman

While doing some scholarly work at the Paris police archives, we stumbled across the extraor- dinary story of Paul and Louise, two young people who fell in love in early twentieth-century Paris. When war was declared in July 1914, Paul was mobilized and sent to the front. What then followed was, to say the least, a baroque adventure that could not help but interest André Téchiné, who in 1976 directed the intriguing . The couple found separation difficult, and Paul could not take the fighting, horror and carnage. Wounded, he deserted and escaped back to Louise. And thus began their ‘golden’ years, escaping the military authorities who were hunting down failed patriots. Paul the deserter disguised himself as a woman and, for ten years, until a general amnesty was declared, Paul became Suzanne and lived as a flapper with Louise. Our first thrill as historians was finding enough material to reconstruct their story.

Despite the photos and excerpts from Paul and Louise’s private diaries, the characters remained creatures of paper and print, and our information was spotty. Unlike novel or film writers, his- torians cannot invent things to compensate for the absence of proven facts. Their job is to ap- proach and understand what truly happened as closely as possible. But thanks to the magic of moving pictures, to a director, to actors, costume designers, and makeup artists, Paul, Suzanne and Louise have come back to life and are once again beings of flesh and blood. They live again, as we watch their golden years until their tragic end breaks our hearts, in a dream come true for historians and, we hope, for viewers as well. André Téchiné Director

Interview

When did you first discover the story of Paul Grappe?

When Michèle and Laurent Pétin gave me the book “La garçonne et l’assassin”. It was the offbeat nature of the story that bowled me over. When reading it, it was the baroque aspect of this amazing story that appealed to me. The story was so mad, that we needed to include the word “folle” in the title (French: Nos Années Folles). And it was based on a true story. Which is absolutely exciting for a film project. Afterwards, I worked with Cédric Anger to disengage the threads that I thought were the most interesting in what was otherwise documentary material: most importantly, the creation and birth of Suzanne, out of the deserter Paul, who is hiding out with his wife, Louise. Creating Suzanne would transform their lives and their conjugal relationship entirely. That is the beginning of a unique adventure the couple embarks on. They will continue on into the unknown. This is not a biopic about Paul Grappe, it is a biopic about a couple that gives birth to Suzanne, as if giving birth to a child. Because Suzanne is a true third character. At first she seems to be a trinket, a fairy tale creature, magical, iconic, enchanted. But little by little she turns into a monster. Cédric and I tried to set her up in opposition to a real baby at the very end.

The child’s arrival represents a return to reality. Suzanne’s mystification can work only so long as there are two of them…

Paul and Louise create Suzanne together. Her creation is at first a breath of fresh air, she brings them a burst of freedom. The character Louise then becomes upset with Suzanne’s behavior. She watches their dreams of emancipation degenerate into debauch and prostitution. She becomes deeply troubled, disturbed. That is something I really wanted to come across in the scenes: how Suzanne’s transformation transformed their love.

For financial reasons, your producers asked you to tweak the screenplay. Why did you fragment the timeline in this new version of the story?

From the first, I wanted to stay away from period drama, or a reenactment. Because it costs too much, for one thing, but in any event that is not what I was interested in. I was interested in what the characters were experiencing, what they were living through, and what was going on inside of them. That is what I wanted to show. Creating Suzanne, which at first was simply meant to hide the deserter Paul, had nothing at all to do with fantasies of femininity. This is not about a man who suddenly wants to become a woman, or to disguise himself as a woman. Not at all. He is actually reluctant about cross-dressing. It is Louise who takes the initiative, in order to conceal him, to help and rescue him, as she believes. Only then do questions about reality, deceit, illusion, and trickery arise, and develop into the trauma the characters are going through. We are in a world of concrete masquerade. It was that notion of masquerade that inspired the cabaret act: it majestically sublimates Paul Grappe’s life and fate – as Susanne, At the same time, it got me out of naturalistic reenactments. Because suddenly whatever was historically related to the era, and more crucially to the war – because this story took place because of the war - was smashed to bits. And so our fragmented, splintered and scattered structure has its origin in the war. It was because of the war that everything began to go haywire and fall apart. Before the war, the film proceeds chronologically, and then long after the war, with the birth of a child, everything again becomes chronological. But in between, time bursts its seams. Suzanne is an offspring of war. That is why the almost fantastical scene in which Suzanne meets the mutilated veteran in the Bois de Boulogne was so important to me. There is a mirror effect at play there, because both characters have been disfigured by the war, but differently. The character of the Count represents a third aspect of war.

There I imagined a vision and approach that are the polar opposites of Paul Grappe’s. Paul represents the fear of war. The Count had the opposite experience at the front. I had read a text by Teilhard de Chardin entitled “La nostalgie du front”. I used it as is in the film. Teilhard de Chardin illustrates the patriotic extremism of the era, a kind of exacerbated nationalism: a mystique in which you abandon your own self to melt into the nation. The Count is obsessed with death, glory, heroism. He embodies them in his dandy attire and aimless idleness, and transfers his thirst for grandeur onto Louise. But the militarist is not a conservative. He is not at all a Germanophobe. He loves German Romantic music. He plays the clarinet. He is a jazz connoisseur. He is open–minded and morally emancipated. He is a sensualist and party beast. He likes to mix social classes. But that would all have come to naught without Grégoire. He did a tremendous job on the character’s elocution, pronunciation, and speech patterns. He doesn’t speak, he sings. He moves stiffly with a slight limp. With his affected voice and officer’s bearing, his dark and smoldering looks, he used every element of the character’s physical appearance to construct a strange Prince Charming…

Quite early on, you did wig and makeup tests with Pierre Deladonchamps…

I needed to try out the masquerade effects that were an integral part of the subject. We did several sittings with wigs and make up. As we went along, I realized that we would have to see the character Paul go through the same hit and miss attempts. We show the entire process in the film. We sit in on his successive transformations, corrections, errors, and mistakes. Once I showed the entire transformation process, it became credible, interesting, and real. I also insisted on scenes without a wig, in which Paul’s femininity has nothing to do with a ’prosthesis’. And I think that the passages in which he is Suzanne without the wig are particularly troubling, when he is in a kind of limbo, at a kind of indiscernible frontier between Paul and Suzanne. There, in that sort of hesitancy, is where you find the greatest space for freedom. And that is what is most interesting in cinematographic terms. Pierre understood that very well. I obviously never explained anything in those terms. I am not at all one to delve into the psychology of my characters, or to lecture actors. But Pierre understood that and, more importantly, he put up no resistance. He was inventive at the right moment, and was able to appropriate it all. The transformation per se told him that Paul Grappe finds a space of freedom when he evolves into Suzanne, but that society mirrors back the reflection of a marionette. Pierre was very good at putting that across, but it was never the whole picture. It always happened in the heat of the moment, as if no one knew what had gone before, or what was coming next. As if the character had become depersonalized. He loses his way in the labyrinth, and no longer recognizes himself. He no longer knows who he is, or what he is like. The result is a kind of anguish that erupts into violence in the last part of the film. At first, there is a kind of enchanted naivety. And then in the end, he becomes a real Gorgon. He has fallen into a trap and there is no way out. They have actually both fallen into the trap of something that on her initiative was meant to save his life.

Part of that trap is a kind of social decline…

Of course he is rejected socially. But it wasn’t the decline or abasement of Suzanne that interested me. It was her solitude. I didn’t at all want to attenuate the fact that she’s become detestable. That aspect of a “curse”. I insisted on that, but I think that exclusion is the key. Paul refuses to submit to the constraints of identity. That becomes flagrant in the mirror scene with . His singularity is unfathomable, and that is what makes him so angry. He turns truly violent. For me, solitude becomes radical when you are unable to recognize yourself in anyone or anything whatsoever. That provokes his violence. At that moment, we are entirely on Louise’s side. But if we try to imagine his solitude, it becomes staggering. Talk to us about Louise.

She is a woman head over heels in love, who tries to help the man she loves, to save him, protect him, and shelter him. She dresses him as a woman to no longer look like the wanted deserter. That is all crystal clear from the start. But she is gradually overwhelmed by the path he chooses. She works all day, he spends his nights in the Bois de Boulogne. They suddenly have an entirely new life. She tries to keep up with him, but their fantasies are incompatible. They grow apart. He finds happiness reconciling his sexual appetites with his love for her, but she gets nothing out of that back and forth. She struggles to follow him on his adventures, and especially his prostitution. He alienates her love, and her submission becomes oppression when she agrees to do things for his sake that are totally unrelated to her own desires. That is the oppressed woman I wanted to show, until finally she acts. Showing how she expresses her own desires, the desire for motherhood that she conceals throughout the film. All of that of course inexorably leads to the accident, her crime. She gives, she gives, and gives, until she has nothing left to give, and goes in for the kill.

Your actors speak of your work together as of forming a Trinity, and living in a bubble.

Absolutely! No one had a hold over us. I had never experienced that kind of environment of trust before. It gave us wings, it let us overcome our respective inhibitions and weaknesses. We never sized each other up. There were no judgments, and no resistance, which set up the conditions for constant inventiveness. We could take any risks, as if we had no one to justify ourselves to. It was a kind of space in which anything goes. You could fix whatever went wrong. You could go in one direction, see that it was not the right one, and change it. It was a kind of permanent revolution. We could easily disagree, without hurting each other’s feelings. That made us invincible. I never experienced that before with a couple of actors. You can have perfectly strong and privileged relations with an actor or actress on a shoot. But this is the biopic of a couple. The couple was sufficiently united and free of prejudice, and capable of accepting the presence of a director - because they themselves were totally open to my methods. And so all doors were open to us. We were ready to take any leap. Actors generally want their director to exercise control, to have complete mastery over everything. They want to know how a sequence is going to end before it begins. But both Céline and Pierre like taking a chance. That was an incredible stroke of luck, because it gave us powers we would not have had in other conditions.

Was that something created on set?

Yes, as the shoot went on. At first, it stands to reason, we were all a little bit on the defensive. But we soon understood that the three of us had to stick together, body and soul, on the same quest. The two actors were never showing off or competing with one another. I never met actors with so much talent for playing together. They were so capable of generosity that it almost became obscene.

What was behind your aesthetic choices, for the image, costumes and sets?

What was decisive, was a refusal of nostalgic black and white. In period films, people tend to eliminate colors, whereas on the contrary this was an era of dazzling color. I kept in mind Vuillard, Bonnard, or the Nabis. I was obsessed with the colors of both costumes and sets. I wanted them to look as stunning as possible, even if they were black, as in the trench warfare scene. I particularly did not want any gray, or any light that would equalize colors. On the contrary, I wanted to emphasize their brilliance and shadows. I did not want any white light that would devitalize everything it illumined. In the film, the music comes from either the cabaret act, or the setting. There is never any ‘film music’ as such.

I hate film music that comes out of the blue to underscore intent. I like to use music in counterpoint, in parallel, so that it never becomes redundant with the image. Before the shoot, Alexis and I had already decided on a lot of the music: the party at the Count’s, the music-box waltz linked to the creation of Suzanne and, toward the end, with her falling to pieces. All that is source music, and music used out of sync. I was also very insistent about the presence of songs in the film: a popular song, Auprès de ma blonde, the national anthem, The Marseillaise, but also a Schubert lied and a jazzy melody by Bessie Smith too. And then there was also music composed for the cabaret dance scenes: a military march, a tango and a waltz.

Throughout the film, the body is omnipresent.

It seems to me that the way to avoid the conundrum of reenactment is to keep coming back to the body, because otherwise imagery becomes too strong, and all the bodies suddenly look disguised. Of course, we had to incorporate disguise into the story, because this is after all the story of a man who disguises himself, who becomes confused by his disguise, and who loses everything. But I always tried to revert to something physical. There are the bodies of soldiers at war, wounded, mutilated or trembling. And all those bodies in motion that created the myth of the Roaring Twenties, inspiring unbridled dancing and cubist painting. And also the bodies of women at work, with their precise, methodical gestures in the sewing workshop. All those women wear a uniform: their smocks. They are the bodies of widows, ready to burst into a song about absence.

Filmography

1969 Paulina is Leaving 1975 1976 Barocco 1979 The Brontë Sisters 1981 1983 La Matiouette 1985 Rendez-vous 1986 The Scene of the Crime 1987 The Innocents 1991 I Don’t Kiss 1993 1994 1996 Thieves 1998 2001 Far 2003 Strayed 2004 Changing Times 2007 2009 The Girl on the Train 2011 Unforgivable 2014 In the Name of My Daughter 2016 Pierre Deladonchamps Paul Grappe / Suzanne

Interview

Did you know about Paul Grappe before you read the screenplay?

I didn’t know anything about it, other than it was inspired by a true story, which is always more touching when you read a screenplay, because you get the impression of bringing people who once existed back to life. After- wards, I read the book and the comic book, but I soon focused on the screenplay alone, because what I was interested in was Paul as imagined by André Téchiné in “Golden Years”, and nothing else. I read the screenplay in one sitting and said to myself: “If I’m in this movie, this will be one of the greatest roles of my life”.

The role didn’t frighten you?

My only fear was that André wouldn’t choose me... We had done some tests to see how my transformation into a woman would work, but I didn’t know if I had been convincing enough. And when I was sure I was chosen, I was simply thrilled. I was in a hurry to begin the shoot. I did feel a certain fear, yes… but in the positive sense: butterflies...

There have been some other recent films in which we see men dressed as women. What makes Paul Grappe different?

Well, the fact he once existed, and that the entire story is true… And then that Paul originally had to cross-dress to survive, not for any personal pleasure. It becomes a pleasure later. We tend to forget that the Roaring Twen- ties deserved their name. People let themselves go completely, because they had gone through such atrocities during the war. Afterwards they wanted to live life to the full, in absolute freedom, outrageously. Paul dresses as a woman because he has deserted. He refused to return to the front and make war. He is suspected of having purposely cut off his trigger finger, and then to have made the wound last. He goes far! Finally, he transforms himself totally, just to stay alive. And that becomes a second birth, because he is going to live under another identity, in someone else’s skin. But he will love it, and have a hard time becoming a man again. He no longer wants to have to choose between two genders.

Were there moments when you found him hard to understand?

I try not to judge the thoughts and actions of the people I play. I feel that you should never stand over your character. Paul existed. This is the life he led. I did not lead it for him. I am there to interpret what we know about him with what I can bring as raw material. I have to try and understand him, of course, but not judge him. I understood that he lived through the unbearable horror of the front, that he was madly in love with his wife, and that together they tried to find a way to survive and remain together. I understood the love story. And I tried to understand Louise…why she did all that, how she did it, and what she imagined when she said yes, when she accepted it all. I understood Paul too, when he went berserk, I imagine that no one comes home from war unscathed. Paul adopted a false identity, then realized that he liked it. He played along, and I suppose that he may have already had some of that inside, and that it now emerged. I don’t know the reasons for his attraction to women’s clothes: to be in the skin of a woman, to be looked at by a man, to make love with a man, as a woman, and make love with a woman, as a woman too? In any case, at first he violently refuses the idea of cross-dressing. I understood him. I never judged him though. And in the end, I understood that he never had the time to construct himself as a human being, and that the arrival of a child was much too premature for him, as had evolved until then. Paul did not want anything to change. Having a child disrupted his life. Suddenly he had to share his wife’s time, his own time, and put up with the noise. As he says in the film “It was a dream”. When the baby arrived, it more likely became a nightmare.

What did you think when you read the second screenplay, the one you actually shot?

I was stunned. It was so much more compelling... For reasons of economy, André had the ingenious idea of having Paul narrate his past from the stage of a cabaret. That makes for an amazing play of mirrors. It fits com- pletely with the personality of this guy who has spent so much time living his life like a play. In the film, we move from the present to the past via flashbacks, and in the middle of all that, we tell this guy’s past in a cabaret act he performs himself… it’s staggering.

What were your meetings like with André during the long months that preceded your first day of principal photography?

I remember our first meeting. André is very shy, so his timidity may at times make him seem frosty or remote. In fact, he’s not that way at all. He’s someone you have to win over, and who wins over other people in a very gradual way. On the other hand, once you have his trust, it’s forever. We met and talked about the role. What worried him at first was the credibility of the transformation, and the credibility of the age gap between Paul at the beginning and end of the film. I must say that in André’s hands, it was a unique experience. André is some- one who says the most with the fewest words. He is very focused. He sees everything. He never wants to get the impression that his actors are performing. So the minute he thinks you’re overplaying, you begin again. He says ‘You’re not feeling it. I never want to get the feeling that you know what you’re going to say immediately af- terwards’. That may sound simple, but it requires a lot of work. This is a period film, a costume film, but André’s direction was incredibly modern. He said: “Above all, forget about talking like they did back then. The story takes place at the beginning of the twentieth century, but we’re playing it in 2017. When you watch a movie, you accept the idea that’s it’s unreal, but you don’t want to think about that, you say, okay, it’s real, and you suspend your disbelief.” André, Céline and I formed an unshakeable, indestructible trio. And we felt incredible, rash love for each another, to the extent that the three of us felt immensely free. Of course there was a crew, on set, with technicians, and all the pressure, but once we were working, in the heat of the moment, nothing else ex- isted. Nothing but the three of us… But still, it was intense, because André sometimes does twenty, twenty-five takes, and he never says much from one take to the next. He’s like a sculptor working his material, which is to say his actors. His direction is really haute couture. He has an ear and an eye that make him an immense direc- tor. I never felt tired, because we always wanted to be on the set together, searching and finding.

How did you switch, sometimes on the same day, from Paul to Suzanne ?

When I had to switch between Paul and Suzanne on the same day, indeed several times on the same day, and from one time period to another, I used the time to change costumes and makeup like a decompression cham- ber where I could empty my head. That was my way of getting completely out of the scene we had just shot. And then, once I was dressed differently, I was in another time, another moment. I could move on to something else. And André was there to keep an eye on me. He’d often say, “Kill the darling”… You dreamed of having Céline Sallette as your partner in the film?

Yes, I thought of her when reading the script. I had never met her. Céline was my dream partner. When you meet her, you can sense the incredible richness in her. Her eyes express so much. They have so much to say. All the time we played together for André, it was as a proof of our love. “Look how we love you, how much we love you”. Because André is someone you want to love. He’s modern, witty, stubborn, and secretive. For some scenes, he’d say “What do you feel like doing?” We proposed. He accepted or he didn’t. At times, we added some words to make things seem more alive. It was a pleasure to search. It was a pleasure when things became difficult. It never ceased to be thrilling. André worked enormously. He is obsessed with never seeing any seams, whether in terms of acting or costumes.

What did you learn during this shoot?

This is probably the role in which I leaped most often into the unknown. And I liked that. It was an intense experience that you don’t get with every role. I also remember Céline saying: “You have to allow yourself to be bad. You have a road to follow. Don’t try to cut corners”. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same actor again. André raised us to such a demanding level. I again learned that acting isn’t supposed to come from your head, but from your heart, your body, your gut,. Don’t ever think about what you’re going to say or do next. That much is obvious. But you don’t always get it right. You always need to reconquer your spontaneity. I loved making this movie. I’m proud of it. And I will love it for the rest of my life.

Filmography Cinema

2017 Golden Years by André Téchiné 2016 Nos patriotes by Gabriel Le Bomin A Kid by Philippe Lioret 2015 Eternity by Tran Anh Hung 2014 À vif by Guillaume Foresti House of Time de Jonathan Helpert A Childhood by Philippe Claudel 2013 Stranger by the Lake by Alain Guiraudie 2013, Best Director César 2014 Most Promising Actor Bannou Kanteishi Q by Shinsuke Sato 2008 Skate or Die by Miguel Courtois 2007 A l’ouest by Catherine Esway 2006 Snuff by Gaspard Walter 2003 Sur la route by Philippe Coroyer 15 Mars by Antoine Geny Switch by Aurore Pfeiffer Idole by Benoît Masocco

Theater

2009 Inspecteur Whaff (Tom Stoppard) directed by Jean-Luc Revol 2007 Elvis n’est pas mort (Benoît Masocco) directed by Benoît Masocco 2006 Ne te promène donc pas toute nue () directed by Alberte Aveline 2003 La Ronde (Arthur Schnitzler) directed by Lesley Chatterley 2001 Croisades (Michel Azama) directed by Hervé Breuil 1998 Le Dindon (Georges Feydeau) directed by Sandrine Gironde 1997 Amours fous (Michel Azama) directed by Sandrine Gironde Céline Sallette Louise Grappe

Interview

Had you heard about this film before reading the screenplay?

I remembered much later that François Dupeyron had brought it up. But it was Pierre Deladonchamps who really spoke to me about it first, at Cannes, just one year ago. We had never met before. We ran into each other on the way to a party, and he said to me: “There’s this André Téchiné film that I’m going to be in, and there’s a role in it that was made for you, and what drives me crazy is that another actress has been chosen, but I had to tell you”. I felt flattered, but at the same time it’s frustrating to think that you missed out on such an incredi- ble-sounding film by André Téchiné, that he’s seen other, younger actresses and that it won’t be me. It’s amazing when you think of how Pierre called on providence. Then there was the other actress’ decision not to do the movie. And the desire of the producers, who had been thinking of me for a long time, which could suddenly come true. For me, being in this film became self-evident the evening I met André and read the screenplay.

How did that meeting go with André?

He was obviously traumatized by the loss of his lead actress. I made myself up for the meeting under pressure from my agent, who told me “You have to look fresh!” because it’s true, I’m ten years older than the actress An- dré had chosen. When André arrived, I could see that he was shy, but when he looks at you, he has that eye, he really looks at you. It’s grueling. Right off the bat, he told me the truth. “Frankly, I see you there, I don’t know, I don’t really believe it that much…” I had to burst out laughing. He saw me as a rather sad intellectual. I’m not afraid to be who I am, so I didn’t act like I was someone else. That night, I read the script. The role immediately looked written for me, I wanted it immediately. I’ve spent a lot of time madly in love. I know what that means. After reading the screenplay, I figured it would really be a miracle landing a role like that, in a film like that, one and a half months before shooting began…. The next morning, I went to see André at the production office. We talked for more than an hour, about the movie, about Louise. I think it’s my energy that finally persuaded him. He saw my drive, my desire. Acting is my way of expressing myself. My craft is my primary joy. André felt that. The next day I plunged into the role. I tried to stop smoking. I took posture lessons. I took up embroidery.

How did the shoot go?

What can I say? All three of us lived in a state of grace, we were euphoric, in total jubilation. We were like three tightrope walkers walking over an abyss. We were crazy. We laughed like mad, we were madly in love with each another. Pierre and I had absolute trust in each other. There was a fraternal love between us, unconditional and unfailing. We talked a lot about the intimacy of this couple and their sexuality. A guy who can’t bear the idea of having a child. The story reverberated in us very intimately. We talked about it, which brought down the bar- riers of modesty between us. At the beginning of the shoot, there was some tension, because of the similarity between Pierre and André. They both have the same reserve. They are subtle, witty, and filled with angst. They were like two magnets that at first repel each other. Little by little, the three of us entered into real communion. You might say that Pierre and I surrendered to André. His demands are unbelievable, His demands were always right and beautiful. We searched together. We loved insulting each other. We were afraid of nothing, we could say anything we wanted to. We created a bubble. It was a physical pleasure to make this film together. We were galvanized, inspired. But it was actually dangerous. As if in a freestyle skating competition, you chose to do a series of quadruples jumps. But we were never afraid. How did you work with Pierre?

Some of the madness that infected us probably had to do with the idea of mystification, with Suzanne…I watched her being born, and it was amazing. Suzanne became unequivocal, with the complicity of Laurence, our makeup artist, and despite all the technical and physical difficulties. I admired the dexterity, joy and talent with which Pierre became her, and - thanks to the shock of her metamorphosis, her transfiguration – how far she led us in our redefinition of life, in the redistribution of the cards. Even though we never stopped giggling.

I was on set to support Pierre, just like Louise. As André said : “Louise loves, she loves, and she loves, and when it’s over, she kills.” Louise amazes me. She is madly in love. It is a pure, archaic, and modern love. She is like Paul. She participates in the mystification that she initiated, she leads a parallel life. She supports him. She helps him clandestinely. Then suddenly, a child brings them back to the real world. Their child kills the dream. Louise and the Count remind me of Alice in Wonderland. She has stepped through the looking glass.

What was André Téchiné like on set?

First of all, there is nothing perverse about André. He never tried to obtain something from us in spite of us. To put it more simply, André never lets anything go. Whether diction, intention, acting, André never gives up, he never gives in. He sees everything, he hears everything, and he raises you up to a whole new level. He possesses superior dramatic sense. André has a passion for truth, he can become harsh, and many people are unable to take it. He is not nice. And he couldn’t care less. And that is what makes him a genius. André fascinated me. His youth, his physical prowess. It’s the power of his intent. To move you to one corner of the set, he‘ll rip out your shoulder. Not to hurt you. It’s the force of his desire. His demands are overpowering. He looks for absolute accuracy. In your acting, your hair, your costume. He looks for the truth of the moment. And I mustn’t forget his humor, and his modesty. His total lack of an ego. He is always very attentive to others, without ever being indulgent. He hates self-centered people. He practices breakneck self-deprecation. It was our duty to laugh at ourselves. There was no false modesty, vanity, or brutal- ity. There was a great deal of benevolence. He is very honest. Unbelievably cultivated. An esthete. Pierre and I do not share that culture at all. Which did not change a thing about his love for us.

Concretely, how does he direct actors?

During the first days of the shoot, he’d often say to me “We can’t hear you”. That meant that I wasn’t playing it large enough, clear enough. Acting is like tightrope walking. You often make it over the void trembling a little. But not with André. He sees what you’re doing. It may look pretty, graceful, charming, but he’s not interested. He wants you to make it across hands down, with no trembling. He wants you to give it to him larger, purer. We all three worked on the assumption that if we loved each other, we could say anything to each other. We formed a trinity. Coming back to real life was very difficult.

Did this film change you?

For me, this role was like a seesaw. André’s eyes on me corseted me, sculpted me, designed me with an exigency that no director had ever had with me before. I know that he took us up to a level of acting that I had never reached before. When I see the film, behind the acting, I see a documentary. The seams and the intent have all been erased. The actors’ work has disappeared in favor of the truth. Filmography

Cinema

2017 Golden Years by André Téchiné HHhH by Cédric Jimenez Ceasefire by Emmanuel Courcol Corporate by Nicolas Silhol 2016 Saint-Amour by Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delepine 2015 Looking for Her by Ounie Lecomte Les rois du monde by Laurent Laffargue 2014 Tsunami by Jacques Deschamps Geronimo by Tony Gatlif The Connection by Cédric Jimenez Wild Life by Cédric Kahn 2013 One of a Kind by François Dupeyron A Castle in Italy by Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi 2012 Capital by Costa Gavras Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard Here Below by Jean-Pierre Denis 2011 House of Tolerance by Bertrand Bonello Prix Lumière for Most Promising Actress Nominated at the Césars for Most Promising Actress Before Dawn by Raphaël Jacoulot A Burning Hot Summer by Philippe Garrel 2009 Hereafter by Clint Eastwood 2008 La grande vie by Emmanuel Salinger 2007 The Great Alibi by Room of Death by Alfred Lot 2006 Murderers by Patrick Grandperret

Theater

2013 Molly Bloom ou la chair qui dit oui (based on James Joyce) by Laurent Laffargue 2008 After the Rehearsal (Ingmar Bergman) directed by Laurent Laffargue 2002 Terminus (Daniel Keene) directed by Laurent Laffargue 2001 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, nos nuits auront raison de nos jours (Shakespeare) directed by Laurent Laffargue 2000 , nos nuits auront raison de nos jours (Shakespeare) directed by Laurent Laffargue

Television

2012 Les revenants by Fabrice Gobert (Seasons 1 & 2) 2008 L’école du pouvoir by Raoul Peck 2007 Figaro by 2006 Chez Maupassant by Olivier Schatzky Grégoire Le Prince-Ringuet Charles de Lauzin

Filmography

Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet began his career at the age of 9 as a member of the children’s chorus at the Paris Opera. In 2002, he made his acting debut with the “Enfants de la Comédie” and the next year landed his first movie role in “Strayed” by André Téchiné. For that role, he was nominated for the Cesar for the Most Prom- ising Actor in 2004. While pursuing studies in literature, he played in Christophe Honoré’s “Love Songs” and “The Beautiful Person” (for which he was again nominated for Most Promising Actor at the Cesars in both 2008 and 2009). During his studies, he performed for Robert Guédiguian in “The Army of Crime” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “Don’t Tell Me the Boy Was Mad”. In 2010, he was in official competition at Cannes in “The Princess of Montpensier” by Bertrand Tavernier and out of competition with “Black Heaven” by Gilles Marchand. His role in the Tavernier film earned him his fourth nomination for a Cesar in 2011. Juggling the- ater, television and cinema, he took another step forward in 2015 directing his first feature film, “Fool Moon”, in which he also played and which was presented in official selection at Cannes the following year. Michel Fau Samuel

Biography

After studying with Yves Pignot and Julie Ravix, he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Drama- tique in Paris where he worked with Pierre Vial, and Gérard Desarthe. His meeting with Olivier Py was decisive (“La Servante”, “Le Visage d’Orphée”, “L’Apocalypse Joyeuse”, “The Satin Slipper” by Paul Claudel, “The Oresteia” by Aeschylus, “Les Enfants de Saturne”…).

He was also directed by Eric Vigner (“Othello” by Shakespeare), Emmanuel Daumas (“The Ignoramus and the Madman” by Thomas Bernhard), Juliette Deschamps (“The Robbers” by Schiller), Olivier Desbordes (“Silber- see” by and “Dédé” by Christiné), Philippe Calvario (“The Love of Three Oranges” by Prokofiev), Jean-Michel Rabeux (“L’Homosexuel” by Copi and “Feu L’amour” by Georges Feydeau), (“Athalie” by Racine), Stéphane Braunschweig (“” by Shakespeare), Jean Macqueron (“Hyènes” by Christian Siméon), Pierre Guillois (“Pelleas and Melisande” by Maeterlinck), Jean-Claude Penchenat (“Love’s Labour’s Lost” by Shakespeare), Jean-Luc Lagarce (“La Cagnotte” by Eugène Labiche), Laurent Gutmann (“The New Menoza” by Lenz), Gilberte Tsaï (“Tableaux impossible”), Gabriel Garran (“Fragments d’une lettre d’Adieu” by Normand Chaurette), Jacques Weber (“The Misanthrope” by Molière)…

Michel Fau has directed in “The Misanthrope” by Molière (nominated in 2014 for the Molière Award for Best Director) and in “Nono” by , and in “Enter- taining Mr Sloane” by Joe Orton, Léa Drucker in “Demain il fera jour” by Henry de Montherlant, in “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen… He has also directed opera (“Bastien und Bastienne” by Mozart, “Madame Butterfly” by Puccini, “Eugene Onegin” by Tchaikovsky, “Rigoletto” by Verdi…)

He has also appeared in movies directed by , , François Ozon, Benoit Jacquot, les Quiches, Noémie Lvovsky, Jean-Michel Ribes, Xavier Giannoli, Christophe Honoré, Edouard Baer and André Téchiné. He has appeared on television directed by Oliver Py, Benoît Jacquot, Josée Dayan, Nina Companeez, Arnaud Sélignac and Josée Dayan.

He has taught at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris and at the Ecole Florent. In 1998, Michel Fau received the Gérard Philipe Award of the City of Paris for his interpretation of the mono- logue “Hyènes” by Christian Siméon. In 2006 he played in “Illusions comiques” by Olivier Py at the Théâtre du Rond-Point and received the Best Actor Award of the professional syndicate of critics. In 2015, he directed and played in “Cactus Flower “, which garnered him six nominations at the Molières, in- cluding Best Actor and Best Director. ARP A REAL PASSION Production

Since1991, the independent distributor ARP has purchased and distributed the rights to more than two hundred films.

In 1997, ARP launched out into production in partnership with the Dardenne brothers, producing “The Promise” and “Rosetta” (Palme d’Or in 1999), and then with Luc Besson, with whom ARP produced “Taxi” and coproduced “Taxi 2, 3 and 4”.

In 2000, ARP produced “Murderous Maids” by Jean-Pierre Denis.

In 2001, ARP produced “The Officers’ Ward” by François Dupeyron, which received 9 nominations at the Césars, including Best Film, Best Director and Best A ctor, as well as “The Repentant” by Laetitia Masson with and Sami Frey.

In 2002, ARP produced “Adolphe” by Benoît Jacquot with Isabelle Adjani, Stanislas Merhar and Jean Yanne.

In 2003, ARP produced “Monsieur Ibrahim” by François Dupeyron, with Omar Sharif, “Bon Voyage” by Jean- Paul Rappeneau, and coproduced with Claude Berri, and “Feelings” by Noémie Lvovsky.

In 2004, ARP produced “Words in Blue” by Alain Corneau, which was shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

In 2005, ARP produced “Olé!” by Florence Quentin with Gérard Depardieu, Gad Elmaleh.

In 2006, ARP produced Pierre François Martin-Laval’s first film “Try Me”.

In 2007, ARP produced “The Second Wind” based on works by José Giovanni and directed by Alain Corneau.

In 2008, ARP produced “With a Little Help from Myself” directed by François Dupeyron, and coproduced with Atom Egoyan his film “Adoration”.

In 2009, ARP produced “Vengeance” by Johnnie To with Johnny Hallyday.

In 2010, ARP coproduced “Le Mac” by Pascal Bourdiaux; “It Begins with the End” by Michael Cohen with Em- manuelle Béart and Michael Cohen, and “My Father Is a Cleaning Lady” by Saphia Azzeddine, with François Cluzet.

In 2011, ARP coproduced “This Must Be the Place” by Paolo Sorentino with Sean Penn, and ’s first film “Another Woman’s Life” with Juliette Binoche and Matthieu Kassovitz.

In 2012, ARP coproduced Patrice Leconte’s first animated film “The Suicide Shop”, Patrick Mille’s first film “Bad Girl” with Izia Higelin, and Alice Winocour’s first film “Augustine”.

In 2014, 11 years after “Bon Voyage”, ARP produced Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s new film “Families” with Mathieu Amalric, Marine Vacth, Gilles Lellouche, , Karine Viard, Guillaume de Tonquédec, André Dussol- lier and Gemma Chan. Cast

Paul Grappe / Suzanne Pierre Deladonchamps Louise Grappe Céline Sallette Charles de Lauzin Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet Samuel Michel Fau Grand-mère Virginie Pradal Valentine Mama Prassinos Rachel Axelle Equinet Ludwik Peter Bonke

Crew

Directed by André Téchiné Screenplay Adaptation Dialogue Cédric Anger, André Téchiné Based on La garçonne et l’assassin by Danièle Voldman and Fabrice Virgili Published by Editions Payot Cinematography Julien Hirsch – AFC Set Design Katia Wyszkop Costumes Pascaline Chavanne Sound Vincent Goujon, Francis Wargnier, Boris Chapelle, Cyril Holtz, Damien Lazzerini Editor Albertine Lastera Original Music Alexis Rault Production Manager Bruno Bernard Hair Jane Milon Make up Laurence Azouvy Producers Michèle and Laurent Pétin