TRANSCRIPT A PINEWOOD DIALOGUE WITH FRANÇOIS OZON Throughout his career, the versatile French director François Ozon has made a wide range of films that display varying doses of outlandish comedy, transgressive sexual politics, and Hitchcockian suspense. While his movies are stylish and liberating, they also contain a poignant awareness of loss and unfulfilled desire. Ozon spoke at the Museum after a preview screening of his deceptively simple, profoundly haunting drama 5x2 , the story of a failed marriage told in reverse chronological order. Also screened at the Museum on the same day, at the conclusion of a retrospective of Ozon’s films, were four of his early short works: Bed Scenes, X2000, Truth or Dare, and Little Death . In the discussion, Ozon is alternately playful and serious. One can see how his relaxed, open approach elicits such truthful, revelatory performances. A Pinewood Dialogue following a screening OZON : I wanted very simple things, you know. I of the short films Bed Scenes , X2000 , Truth did not want to explain anything about...because I or Dare , and Little Death , and the feature film don’t have the answer. It could be about how to 5x2 , moderated by Chief Curator David succeed in my [inaudible]; I would be very happy. Schwartz (June 5, 2005): But it’s not reality. So I just tried to put some scenes and to tell questions, because I don’t SCHWARTZ : Please welcome back François have all the answers. Ozon. (Applause) Let’s just start by talking about the final—the final image is just so strong, SCHWARTZ : The idea, for example, of a couple because it’s such a blend of optimism and the having a divorce and then sleeping together, or opposite, because of what we’ve seen. So could what happens at the hospital. These are shocking you talk about that, and also [about] the process things that happen—and on the wedding night, of putting this story together, the process of what happens. But it feels naturalistic, it works, in writing this… I understand that you wrote the first a way. I’m wondering how you came to some of scenes first, and then took a break. those [events]. OZON : Yes. For me, it was easier to begin with the OZON : I think for the beginning—I think it’s very divorce. Because—maybe because of what I was difficult when you finish a story, and sometimes living at this time. So the first scene I wrote was you want to try something again. That’s what I the divorce and then I decided to go backward wanted in the scene at the hotel after the divorce. until the beginning. And the shooting was strange, Try to see how people who are divorcing might try because we began to shoot the divorce, the to touch each other. Can it work? And actually, it dinner with friends, and the birth of the baby. doesn’t work. And I think what interested me in Then we stopped for five months, the actress lost this scene was to show that the woman is able to weight, (Laughter) and we [continued to] shoot turn the page [more] easily than the man. And the for five more months. And during this time, I wrote man, it’s very difficult for him, and his only way to the second part of the film. support the situation is to commit a rape, because he’s not able to say what he’s feeling. I SCHWARTZ : Tell us a bit about the writing wanted to show their different behavior in such a process. What’s amazing to me about this movie situation. is that there are shocking things that happen in it, in terms of what happens in the story. SCHWARTZ : I want to go into your work with the actors here, because these are amazing performances. And [I] want to ask how they interpreted the material. What I’m driving at is that and Sophie Marceau didn’t want to have sex [with the actor in the scene said that he felt that the another man] the night of her wedding, because character was dealing with his homosexuality. she’s very moral. (Laughter) So it didn’t work. And That was an interpretation. actually, I thought it could be better for the film to have actors we don’t know too much; people we OZON : Yes, it was his interpretation, not mine. can identify with. So I decided to choose Valeria (Laughter) No… The thing which was difficult [Bruni Tedeschi] and Stéphane [Freiss]. I made a [was when] the actors began to shoot the divorce lot of tests for the casting with a scene of [Ingmar] scene and they hadn’t known each other before. Bergman’s. I don’t know the title… So it was very difficult for them. And we didn’t know how they met. So they had only to be in the SCHWARTZ : Oh, Scenes from a Marriage ? present, in the situation. It was good, I think, because very often, the actors ask so many OZON : Yes. questions—psychological questions—and this time, I could answer, “I don’t know. You just have SCHWARTZ : Okay. They were reading Scenes to play the situation.” I think that’s why they are so from a Marriage ? present. They had a very good relationship together. OZON : They play—they played the text. And I made many tests with different couples, with SCHWARTZ : There’s a kind of chemistry that they different options, with French actors. When I saw have that’s really interesting. Because I think as them [Valeria and Stéphane] together, it worked. I you’re watching the film... needed to find the right couple, one you can believe in at first sight. Because when they are in OZON : But the first day of shooting, they were in the scene of the divorce, they are together and the bed naked. (Laughter) So they have to be... you have to imagine they could have been (Laughter) It was easy for them to know each together before. So it was important to find the other after. (Laughter) right person. SCHWARTZ : I see. (Laughter) Okay, that’s a good SCHWARTZ : How much did they need to directing tip. understand about the past? There’s a sort of cliché with American actors, that you need to OZON : Yes. (Laughter) explain everything, or explain the motivation. SCHWARTZ : You feel so much history between OZON : But the actor, Stéphane Freiss, is like an them, as the film develops. I’m wondering if you American actor. He wants to know everything, but could talk about casting these actors, how you I couldn’t answer. Valeria is a director, too, she arrived at that; you had made a film before that had made a film. And now she... She’s an actress with very famous actors, internationally famous first, but she has made a film. So she knows how actors [ Eight Women , with Danielle Darrieux, to direct, and she knows my position. She Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, understood what I wanted to do. And I think Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie actresses are more sensitive and more—how do I Ledoyen, and Ludivine Sagnier], and here is a explain that in English? They feel better things and decision—you made a different decision. they believe more in the situation than in the direction. For Stéphane, it was very—he was very OZON : For this film, the first idea for the cast was afraid of his character. And because he’s a father to choose big stars from France. And it was—I in life, he couldn’t understand not to be there at can say this now, because it was a long time the birth. It was a big difficulty for him. It was ago—it was Sophie Marceau and Vincent Cassel. easier for him to rape Valeria than to be absent [at I don’t know if you know them here in America. the birth]. And actually, they didn’t want to shoot together; and I had no script, I had only the idea of the film; TRANSCRIPT: A PINEWOOD DIALOGUE WITH FRANÇOIS OZON PAGE 2 SCHWARTZ : You’ve talked about trying to have SCHWARTZ : Truth or Dare , we saw earlier today. different cinematic styles in the movie. One We saw some short films today. And it reminded interesting thing about the movie is that, in a way, me of the scene—I love the dinner party scene. If you’re starting with the heaviest scenes and, in a you could just talk about writing that scene and way, you get lighter in tone towards the end; but constructing that scene, it’s so interesting. because we know what’s happening, there’s a sadness, also. Could you talk about your OZON : I didn’t think about it, but it’s like a game approach to the styles of each section? between the couples. Do they tell the truth or not? I don’t know. When Stéphane Freiss is telling this OZON : I decided to choose five moments in the story, is it the truth or not? In the script… life of this couple. And I think in life, very often you have the feeling of spending a day [in] a [Steven] SCHWARTZ : About the orgy, about the... Spielberg movie or a[n Eric] Rohmer movie, you know? And I wanted for each scene to have this— OZON : Yes. What did you think? (Laughter) a different tone. Not style, because I think it’s the same style, but a different tone, a different mood.