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A Conversation with Claire Denis


Bastards
14 February 2014

“I would prefer to have comfort but I’m not designed like that. I’m designed for anxiety” – Claire Denis

From French shores Claire Denis’ Bastard’s arrives on British shores to engulf us in mood, a film for the senses, but what also sees the French filmmaker create masterful dance of tragedy between the characters.

Not the prototypical film one would expect to be released on the 14th February, Bastard’s upsets the norm offering a tale of sex, revenge, betrayal and death, bypassing the journey of soul mates and the happily ever after conclusion. 

Sitting down to speak with Denis, rather than focus the conversation explicitly on her latest film Bastards, we decided to delve behind Denis the filmmaker, and discuss creativity with the writer-director who is responsible for a distinct piece of modern cinema and one of the highlights of the early parts of 2014 that has seen her rival the great American directors following their pomp, circumstance and march.

 

 

Preparing for this interview I recalled a quote of yours in which you said, “I’m always insecure when I’m making a film. I have doubts about myself but rarely about the actors.” Is filmmaking then a journey in which you work your way through these doubts? I have read that you like to shoot quickly with a preference for moving on into the editing room quickly. I wonder if your style of filmmaking could be likened to shooting a jigsaw puzzle, and once in the editing suite you start manoeuvring the pieces around to form that final picture.

Normally, and especially in this film it follows the script exactly, except for maybe one or two scenes that were not shot for incidental reasons. The editing room is not a place for me to find the shape; it’s a place to first of all accept the mistake, and secondly it’s a place to find the reason. But when I say anxious I’m also anxious in the editing room because for the actors – maybe they are motherfuckers sometimes – but there is a moment where they have to trust you because you are filming them. I would be terribly sad to betray someone, and I always work with actors I like. I cannot recall working with an actor I disliked… maybe once a long time ago. 

 

The image of the woman walking naked through the streets is an image you would expect to see on the cover of an American pulp crime novel. But it is Japanese noir which you drew inspiration from for Bastards, specifically Akira Kurosawa’s two noir masterpieces of The Bad Sleep Well and High and Low. 

The streets and the naked girl is really from High and Low. 

 

With inspiration do you ever worry about imitating rather than creating? There is a school of thought within storytelling that you should stay away from creative influences, the reason being that they can intrude on the creativity or work of the individual. Inevitably everyone belongs to cinema and you can’t exist outside of it. How do you use inspiration and mould it into your own vision?

Inspiration is a weird thing because it comes from film, theatre, books and music. So of course I don’t need to live in a box, although sometimes I like to stay in bed… No I’m joking. The best moment for when you are working on a script is to stay in bed a long time. But I think to be influenced by other filmmakers is great. To be influenced by a guy like Stuart Staples is great. To realise after all these years that William Faulkner is still alive in me, I’m still discovering him, and he’s never in my past.

 

How did your journey into filmmaking begin?

I was in a way afraid to speak up, to say, “I want to work in films.” One day a friend told me, “If you want, you can pass your exam to enter the cinema school” and I thought no I won’t do it. I don’t why. I was attracted to try, but I was sure I would not be chosen, and so I then left. I was working in Hamburg, Germany as photographer’s assistant when suddenly someone called me from France and said, “What are you doing? You are admitted into the school and if you don’t come…” I was very surprised, and suddenly I was in a school where people wanted to make films. They could say “Yes I’m going to be a filmmaker” or “I am going to be a director of photography or an editor.” For me it was magical and unreal, because in the seventies everything was so magically unreal. It was part of this very strange period of the seventies that you never experienced because you are too young.

 

I adore seventies cinema. It was when cinema and film mattered; it was a time when people actually cared about film.

It was great, and there was less money needed for the people to live.

 

Good times where there was an opportunity for young people to make something of themselves.

In a way yes! There were some draw backs but they were good times for young people. I’m sure there are plenty of good times for young people now, but I’m just speaking about entering this school. There was absolutely no law there, but if you go to the same cinema school now it’s very strict. At that time a filmmaker was at the head of the school, and half of my class was Situationist. They were experimenting on how to put a bomb in the subway and film it. I’m not joking. How to live dangerously and it was…

 

 

For me the great filmmakers, including yourself have an interest in human nature, society and people. You are just interested in the world in general, and your films always come back to that. Hitchcock was interested in the human condition, but he was interested in not just the action but the exposition, and Bastards is very similar – how every action leads into a reaction and how one person’s choice dictates what someone else is going to do. It is all about how people interact. You are not so focused on narrative but you are willing to distance yourself from narrative and create a mood that becomes almost like a dance where the music and image is just as important as the narrative. 

You speak beautiful words, and it’s good that I am a little bit unconscious when I am working on a script. I am conscious of what I am doing and I know what it means to create a mood. I am now working on a project and it’s very hard to capture the mood. A part of it I know but there are parts I’m not sure of. I would prefer to have less money like when I was doing Beau Travail, but have the mood. The mood is an essential thing, otherwise when something happens such as you lose the location or you are behind schedule, then you can find solutions if you still have the mood. If you don’t have the mood – big trouble!

 

Films should be created for which we can feel something for. Filmmakers need to live on the edge and explore the boundaries. If we let art become stagnant then it’s not going to have a healthy future, and so it’s up to all filmmakers to try to take that next step.

Even if we are not brave; I’m not brave. But when you say stagnant it’s like morbidity. In stagnant water you will find a corpse. 

 

Filmmakers must be willing to take chances. In reviews I will sometimes pose the question: this is a well-made film and it’s entertaining, but there are interesting ideas that are just never explored. Would you rather have a competently entertaining film, or would you rather have a film that takes chances but which takes a chance of meeting with failure? 

I don’t have a choice. Maybe if I had a choice I would choose the opposite… maybe. But the problem is that I’m not sure that I have the choice. Not because I am an artist, no, no, no. I don’t mean that. Sometimes I do my best and doing my best is a little weird. That’s all I can say.


Would that be because you have your own creative voice which is difficult to break away from?

No. I am even afraid of that because it’s like suddenly carrying a very heavy weight. Even the word “artist” or “artistic” is a sort of jail. It’s so much better to be unaware or anxious, to be as you say on the edge. For me it’s better, but I would prefer to have comfort, but I’m not designed like that. I’m designed for anxiety.

 

I think most of us are glad you are designed that way because to live in a world without your cinema is not a comforting thought. I still remember watching 35 Shots of Rum and how it had some special sense of feeling to it, though I can’t describe the feeling. 

I feel the same and not because it’s my film. I understand what you mean. It comes from Alex, the girl, the acting, the train and the music…. This magic!

 

You’ve remarked that film is a relationship. The auteur theory has been bandied about for decades now, and speaking with an American filmmaker recently he expressed an opinion that it is not a redundant theory, but one that just needs to be reassessed. Film is one of the great collaborative art forms where you get all these different perspectives and influences. Both you and the actors will bring your own personal experiences to a film. Then in the editing room the editor will lend their eye to what’s been caught on camera. It’s a great collaborative medium, but would you say it is the auteur’s medium or a collaborative medium?

It’s like a piece of wood floating in the river. The river is slow and shallow. Then suddenly it’s deeper and the waves are rolling, and you can maybe bump against the rock. But if you don’t accept and allow the river to carry you to the end, it’s better not to go into the water at all. I think this floating thing is probably the mood. There is so little water, and it is so shallow, but there is something that takes you away and I believe in that so much. 

 

 

Bastards Film Page

Bastards is released in UK theatres from today