CHANSON D'amour DP ANG.Indd
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(LOVE SONGS) Paulo Branco presents LOUIS GARREL LUDIVINE SAGNIER CHIARA MASTROIANNI CLOTILDE HESME GRÉGOIRE LEPRINCE-RINGUET (LOVE SONGS) A film by CHRISTOPHE HONORÉ Image: 35mm color 1:85 / Sound: Dolby SRD / Running time: 95 minutes French release MAY 23, 2007 International Sales International press ALMA FILMS LE PUBLIC SYSTEME CINEMA In Paris: Alexis Delage-Toriel 176, rue du Temple - 75003 Paris In Paris: Tel: 01 42 01 07 05 40, rue Anatole France 92594 Levallois-Perret cedex almafi[email protected] Tel: 01 41 34 20 32 - Fax: 01 41 34 20 77 In Cannes: In Cannes: Stand: J1/K2 - J3/K4 13, rue dʼAntibes 06400 Cannes Tel: 04 92 99 33 12/13 Tel: 04 93 39 08 35 / 04 93 39 04 22 Fax: 04 92 99 33 14 Fax: 04 93 39 14 62 Contact: Paulo Branco E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 06 72 97 31 90 www.lepublicsystemecinema.com www.myspace.com/leschansonsdamour The filmʼs photos and press-kit can be downloaded from bacfilms.com/presse SYNOPSIS Every love song tells the same story: "There are too many people who love you"... "I could never live without you"... "Sorry Angel"... LES CHANSONS DʼAMOUR tells that story too. INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTOPHE HONORÉ The origins of LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR lie in pre-existent musical material: Did the fact of using pre-existent material alter the way in which you approached the songs written by Alex Beaupain... the screenplay? Iʼve known Alex ever since we were both twenty. He has composed the music for all of my LES CHANSONS DʼAMOUR tells such a personal story that I knew it by heart. The issue of films, I myself have written a few lyrics for him. After the warm reception given to DANS the story was never raised in fact, only the idea of how to deal with it without becoming PARIS allowed me to get to work quickly on another project, I asked him if I could use his petrified, how to tell it and make it work in a musical structure that reflects on the whole songs - some from his latest album, others that were much older - and I placed them within film. The settings, such as the parentsʼ apartment, return like a chorus, with a different a screenplay that told a fairly painful story that we both shared. I subsequently adapted tone according to what happened in the previous verse. And, as in a song where certain some of his lyrics and asked him to write a few new songs. instruments return or vanish while others are added on, the secondary characters give fresh impetus to the story while others are ejected from it. This is the first time that you have dealt so directly with the emotions of love... In DANS PARIS, I dared to present people who felt love for each other but it was above all How did the musical work on the film unfold? brotherly love, I still felt embarrassed about the emotions of love. For me, it was a big step We re-arranged Alexʼs songs with Frédéric Lo, who has worked notably with Daniel Darc to place emotion at the heart of a story, Iʼve never been able to do it before. This led to the - never losing sight of the fact that we didnʼt have a whole year ahead of us, nor the budget idea of a film in which the characters start singing as soon as they are in a state of love to bring in an orchestra. We tried to match our desire to our means and I think that this has because they are incapable of expressing it otherwise. I have always loved songs, the way ended up creating an aesthetic approach and a form of precision. People often talk about they allow you to express a strong emotion in a fleeting manner, with a permanent need the precision of an actor, about the right distance adopted by a director but the general for lightness. I have always been a huge fan of love songs, I can be moved by a French aesthetic approach of a film has to be just as precise. Alex and I did not want the songs popular song that, in theory, holds no interest for me musically, simply because I am to sound "cheap". The actors rehearsed a great deal with Alex. We did the first readings touched by a chorus, a voice or an emotion that I find expressed in a pertinent manner. all together in early November, then recorded the songs just before Christmas so that the actors could lip-synch to them during shooting that began in early January. Had you wanted to make a musical for a long time? Yes, but I wanted the choice of the genre to be justified rather than make a lampoon of its Did filming characters who sing change your approach to directing? codes. Irony is often very flattering because you feel youʼre being smart but it is totally devoid Filming characters who sing is very complicated in physical terms. You have to make sure of interest. There was no question of me making a parody of the genre. I simply approached that the changeover from speech to song, then the return to speech again, looks completely it by saying, "This film is a musical because the characters can only express their feelings by natural... but, at the same time, something that is "not natural" takes place. Direction has singing." I like the spirit of musicals, which resembles that of pop music: never complain, to take a step back from realism, but without becoming a music video. The fear of turning never dwell on things, offering the possibility of lyricism with its roots in everyday tragedy. my film into 13 music videos made me come out in a cold sweat. To the extent that the first song I filmed was shot as a single take and I refused to break it down into different shots. Does our period have a right to its own tragedies? However, I saw right away that this was a very bad idea because I was going to end up Tragedy arrives unannounced, we donʼt need the Trojan War for it to burst into our lives. in the cutting room with a series of single takes that I wouldnʼt be able to cut. I therefore The idea was to physically locate the story in the city... Without necessarily making a opted for increasingly complex direction and shots depending on the songs or according to documentary or militant film, I wanted a topical dimension, resulting in the idea of Ismaël the emotion that they express. being a newspaper editor, in order world someone in charge of the foldʼs news. The end of his idyll and his carefree days does not take place outside that world. "The departure", "The absence", "The return"... A three-part structure... It was during editing that I realized there were three parts to the film. This is the classical You are gaining a reputation as a filmmaker of the early 21st century who films structure of any romantic comedy or drama. In LES CHANSONS DʼAMOUR, the return of the today’s world and is fully implicated in it... emotion of love comes about through a third party exterior to the tragedy and through the Yes, I feel this need to deal with the modern world very strongly. I believe that this need appearance of a ghost. In fact, perhaps the basic idea of the film was to allow that ghost to is also linked to the production conditions of this film and my previous one. Very little return to earth just long enough for a song. time went by between the moment when I expressed the desire to make these films and the moment when we shot them. Paulo Branco can make very quick decisions, deciding in October to make a film in January. As a result, you donʼt have time to build up another Each character reacts differently to the sudden arrival of tragedy... world in your mind, you can only deal with what you are experiencing personally in the I have the impression that they react above all at different speeds. Ismaël (Louis Garrel) present, the present lives of the actors, the city, society... walks along blindly but he keeps walking in spite of everything. From the very beginning of the story, I have filmed him in motion and I refused to halt that motion in spite of the sudden tragedy. And then Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) quickens his pace a little. Jeanne This grounding in reality is all the more striking since the film has elements of (Chiara Mastroianni), on the other hand, is condemned to be immobile: she remains a fixed the musical... point. The tragedy freezes her. As for Alice (Clotilde Hesme), she walks alongside Ismaël, In musicals, you often have the impression of being in a fairly kitsch bubble, with slightly then she turns away from his path to follow another story with this Breton guy that she acid references and songs that create a distance with reality. When the exterior world meets. In my previous films, tragedy arose from the expectation of disaster. LES CHANSONS is present, it is there as a guest. In LES CHANSONS DʼAMOUR, I treat the real world as a DʼAMOUR is more about the consequences of it and how to resist. Itʼs a film more rooted in partner more than as a guest. I think that the fact of filming the city where I live has its the present in fact.