All language subtitles for Interview with Assayas and critic Charles Tesson

In 1984, Olivier Assayas and
Charles Tesson went to Hong Kong.

As critics for Cahiers du Cinéma,
the film journal,

they were researching
a special issue on Asian cinema.

For our generation

of Cahiers du Cinema writers,
the big adventure back then

was discovering that unknown continent.

A major trigger

was Serge Daney's trip to Asia.

- For a Hong Kong paper.
- For a Hong Kong paper.

He went to Hong Kong, the Philippines
and Peking to see Mao's grave.

He also visited the Shaw studios,
I think.

Yes, he met lots of people.

He didn't establish a detailed
cartography of Asian cinema,

but he did map out a few main roads.

We used his experience
as a starting point and built on it

when we travelled out there.

It was all about discovering
popular Asian cinema.

There's one thing you need to know.

Although Asian cinema was recognised
in the West to a certain extent,

people were only interested
in the noble genres.

Although they knew a bit about
Japanese or Indian cinema

through Satyajit Ray and a few
Bengali directors like Mrinal Sen,

they were totally ignorant
of popular Asian cinema.

That was strikingly true
of popular Hong Kong cinema.

But the French like popular films, too.

Yes, Bruce Lee's films were shown
in mainstream cinemas.

That's right.

But historically, Bruce Lee

was Asian cinema's proponent.

To put things in context without going
over his life and work in detail,

Bruce Lee had a Western culture.

He lived in San Francisco
and Hong Kong.

He was the one who brought

Chinese Kung Fu films to the street.

But he didn't do Kung Fu.
He did a hybrid of Western combat

and Eastern combat techniques.

I don't know what it's called,
but it has a name.

Yes, it's mixed with Korean style.

It's a hybrid.

Bruce Lee also brought
a form of neo-realism

to Chinese action films.

His characters spoke Cantonese
and they were on the street.

Until then, Hong Kong cinema
had been inspired by China's history.

Most films were in Mandarin,
the language of mainland China.

And they were about Chinese history
and the fantasy world

of Hong Kong immigrants
who remembered China.

Bruce Lee was a guy from the streets
who had to fight to survive.

So he became a role model
for Chinese people all over the world.

And in a way, he also became the star
of the oppressed throughout the world.

Bruce Lee's global success
is the success of the loner

who's broken away from his community

and fights to exist
in the Western world.

So you went to Hong Kong
in the summer of 1984.

Just the two of you,

with very little money.

We shared a hotel room.

You only had a vague idea
of what you would find.

When we got there, we were

like French journalists
in 1950s Hollywood.

We'd seen films, but didn't know
how to classify them.

We knew roughly who had made what.

But who were they really?
What was their story?

What bits of their work had reached us?

Were they the right ones or not?

Who produced films and why?
What was successful and what wasn't?

What part did the industry play
in the economy?

So, we were faced with one of the last
virgin territories of cinema.

We can call it the last
virgin continent of cinema.

So we were very curious to map it out.

We were lucky.

We arrived at a time where we could see
the three forms of Hong Kong cinema.

The classic cinema of the Shaw brothers
and Chu Yuan was still around.

Chu Yuan was still making films.

- It was the end.
- But the Shaw studios were still there.

There was something left of that era,
but it was the end.

Golden Harvest was doing really well
producing Bruce Lee films.

And Jackie Chan was making
lots of films.

That was already a reinvention
of classic Kung Fu films.

Yes, Kung Fu comedy.

We were already seeing
the new generation,

which would later give us
John Woo and others.

- We saw all three genres at once.
- Absolutely,

because we arrived at the time
of the big studio crisis.

Just like in Hollywood in the 1950s,
the studio system was collapsing.

That's why people became interested in films.
It was time to take stock

and witness a modern revival of cinema.

In Hong Kong, the studio system
was collapsing.

The people involved in that form
of cinema had to face the fact

that it didn't work anymore.

There were younger directors

who usually came
from Western film schools.

These directors were
what was called at the time

the new wave of Hong Kong cinema.

They were people whose films
we'd seen at festivals,

like Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Allen Fong,
Patrick Tam and a few others.

You really talk about it
as critics and film lovers.

But I'd also like to know what kind
of professional commitment...

What do you think of the industry
as professionals rather than viewers?

I see things slightly differently.

But what you say is quite true.

What was fascinating for us at the time

was to see what the classic age
of cinema was.

The Shaw brothers and,
to a lesser extent, Golden Harvest

represent the classic age
of Chinese cinema.

Just as the Hollywood studio system
represents

the classic age of American cinema.

An age where the system itself

produced a certain level of quality
yet naivety about the whole thing.

And because of that,
almost unwittingly,

a lot of rather good films were produced.

In the West, that didn't exist anymore.

The modern crisis of Western cinema
happened much earlier -

in the 1960s.

Chinese cinema was so insular
in those days.

It communicated so little with the rest
of the world

that its crisis happened
twenty years later

than it did in the West.

As a film-maker, I don't feel close
to that form of cinema.

I feel close to the Taiwanese new wave,

what was called
the new Taiwanese cinema.

I was lucky to come across it then.

At the end of our Hong Kong journey,

Charles and I shared the territory,
so to speak.

After seeing the people we wanted
to meet in Hong Kong,

Charles went to the People's Republic
of China. He went to Canton.

He studied much more closely than me

the links between Chinese
and Hong Kong cinema.

This is a neglected, fascinating side
to the origins of Hong Kong cinema.

Meanwhile I met a young man
called Chen Kuo-fu

who was a critic of Taiwanese cinema
at the time.

He was very young like us and wrote
for one of the main Taiwanese papers.

He said, "You're from the Cahiers ?
What are you doing in Hong Kong,

"interviewing all these old farts
who make naff films?

"The only interesting thing
happening in Asia

"is what's happening in Taiwan."

In Taiwan, martial law was collapsing.

And you could see the first openings
which would allow a modern cinema

reflecting a society
which was in crisis at the time.

A cinema which went some way
towards freedom.

I believed him.

So I got all the paperwork I needed
to go to Taipei,

which was no mean feat in those days.

When you got there,
it was like an Eastern country.

- You mean it wasn't Western?
- That's right.

It was a kind of military dictatorship.

I stayed at Chen Kuo-fu's house
and slept on the floor.

He organised a screening day for me
and introduced me to directors.

I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien's
and Edward Yang's first films.

There were also the first films
by a couple of other directors.

And some directors made films together.

New Taiwanese cinema started
with films made up of sketches.

Because there were lots of directors,
but very little money.

So they made joint films.

I met Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Edward Yang
and Christopher Doyle

who was cinematographer
on Edward Yang's film

and later worked with Wong Kar-wai.

These people had reached a stage
in their career,

not quite like mine because
I hadn't made any films.

I hadn't made any feature films yet.

But like me, they wanted to make
contemporary films

that dealt with their changing world.

Their outlook was the same as mine.

In fact, the friends I've kept
from my time in China

are this community
of Taiwanese directors.

I've carried on talking to them

much more as a film-maker than a critic.

Irma Vep also shows your relationship
with French cinema

via Feuillade and that's completely
at odds with Taiwanese cinema.

Irma Vep is really

about one thing only -
being in the presence of brilliance.

It's a comedy about brilliance

and whether you see it or not.

What I like most about the film
is that it's a game

where the viewer is asked
to get involved.

There's another important issue
in that film.

I think Maggie represents something
which has to do with pure cinema.

That brilliance is often right under your nose
in films or real life,

and you're either capable of seeing it or not.
That's really what Irma Vep is about.

Brilliance has come and gone.
Who saw it and who didn't?

The viewer gets involved, too.

The film is more about that
than anything else.

The link with Asia
is embodied by Maggie.

I would say that the story
of brilliance,

the essence of cinema,

is spontaneously present

in the classic age,
in the origins of cinema.

The silent era was great.

Everything was being filmed
for the first time.

There was such a pure way of looking
at things which was wonderful.

It's just like the Italian Renaissance.

All of a sudden, people open their eyes
and see the world for the first time.

When you see a tree painted by Giotto,
you're bowled over

because it looks like the first tree
ever seen by man.

When the Lumiere brothers filmed a tree,
it was the same.

Their tree had the same beauty.

When it comes to fiction
and the fantasy worlds of men,

the films of Feuillade
and other directors of serials of that era

have the same spontaneous innocence
and beauty.

I don't think Feuillade realised
the beauty of what he was filming.

He was trying to invent.

Likewise, we can't be sure
that the Lumiere brothers

were fully aware
of what they were doing.

But can this most beautiful thing
that cinema can produce

carry on being achieved?

And how can someone who makes
films today achieve

this thing that they're striving for,
but which often eludes them?

I think it can only be passed on
through humans.

Through things
that shine through people.

Irma Vep wouldn't exist if two years
before making it

I hadn't been introduced to Maggie
at the Venice festival.

Looking back on it,
I can say it was love at first sight.

I fell in love with her at once,
but I didn't see it like that at the time.

I saw her as someone
who carries in her

a form of pure, naive beauty.

I felt I'd found the very key
to what I was looking for in cinema.

But you'd already seen films...

- Starring Maggie?
- Yes.

Yes, but here I'm talking
in non-cinematic terms.

I'd really liked Maggie in films,

but what mattered to me was
who she was in real life.

In real life, she was so much better.

Her presence was infinitely
more radiant in real life

than in any of the great films
I'd seen her in.

That's why you wanted to work with her.

Exactly. And I thought

if I could put on film what I saw,
it would be worth it just for that.

You knew you wanted to cast
a Chinese actress.

Yes, because Maggie
was the inspiration...

Maggie was the inspiration
behind the character.

But she seemed inaccessible.

Everyone was telling me she'd retired,

she'd left Hong Kong
and didn't like cinema.

The message was, "Forget it."

So I accepted the idea that Maggie
would never be in this film.

But she'd inspired it
and that was already a lot.

So I went to Hong Kong to meet
potential actresses for the part.

I thought there might be other
interesting actresses after all.

I met all the Chinese film stars
of the time.

I was close to despair
because I thought no one

could even vaguely play
the character.

It wasn't about casting
just any Chinese film star.

I needed that unique person
who radiated what I was after.

So I was in a real pickle.

I spoke to Chris Doyle
with whom I'd kept in touch

and who later became
Wong Kar-wai's cinematographer.

He happened to be there at the time.

He kept travelling
between Paris and Taipei,

because he had a girlfriend in Paris.

When I made Disorder, my first film,

Chris was assistant cameraman or grip

and helped with the smoke machine.

Anyway, we remained very good friends.

So one day, we had a drink together

and he said,
"Why don't you call Maggie?"

I said, "I've no idea how.

"Everyone tells me she's uncontactable."

So he said, "I'm having a drink
with her later. I'll talk to her if you like.

"And maybe tomorrow or tonight,
we can all meet up."

He called me later and said
she was very happy to meet me.

So I met Maggie in a very noisy bar
in Hong Kong.

We could hardly hear each other.

She didn't seem at all hostile
to making a film in France.

I think we gave her the script
the next morning before our flight.

Two clays later, she called me
and said, "I've read the script.

"L'd like to do it."
It was as simple as that.

You came back from Hong Kong
and your special issue came out...

In September...

1984.

It was a monumental flop,

panned by the critics,
particularly in Le Monde.

Yes, that's right.

They did a four-line nasty review
which left its mark on me.

The reviews were very negative
and the editors at the Cahiers didn't care.

It was as if that episode
was nothing to do with them.

We were on our own.
With time, things improved.

But at the time people
couldn't understand

our interest in Bruce Lee
or Jackie Chan.

Things have changed,
but at the time it went against the tide.

Yes, I remember I wrote an article

about Chang Cheh's work
and I was happy with it.

But I might as well have pissed
in the wind.

It didn't leave a single trace
in the collective memory of the Cahiers.

Later, the young generations loved
the Shaw season, which was good.

But in the early days, it was tough.

Our special issue sold so badly
and there were so many copies left

that our bosses had them bound
to try to sell more.

- It must be out of print now.
- Yes, it carried on selling.

We check the sales every year.

It's interesting to track
year after year

the waves of interest
in Asian cinema.

That issue became
the reference book in French.

Even in English,
there was nothing at the time

which came close to what we'd done.

And I've always regretted,
you too, I'm sure,

that they didn't include
our dictionary.

The editor in chief wouldn't include
the dictionary of Hong Kong cinema

that we'd written.

That dictionary gave an overview
of Hong Kong cinema.

It complemented our issue
which was still very comprehensive.

Looking back,
it included all the facets...

Including Cantonese melodramas
of the 1950s and 1960s.

In the Mood for Love

was inspired by that genre
which is still unknown in France.

In France, there's this idea that Hong Kong
cinema was 'discovered much later,

but its golden age was never discovered.

The great directors are still unknown.

In your film, the journalist
praises John Woo.

It's like loving Peckinpah without
having seen John Ford's films.

We've always found that annoying.

At the time, we organised an event

which was a miracle then.

We organised a kind of season
of Hong Kong films.

We'd found incredible copies of films
which had never been seen

and have remained unseen.

We organised two weeks of screenings
at an independent cinema in Paris.

And there was only a miserable handful
of viewers.

We were showing these films
to empty theatres.

Today, people fight to see these films.

The restored copies are now shown
in Nantes or other places.

Then Canal Plus showed
some Jackie Chan films

and Ching Siu-tung's
Chinese Ghost Story.

Then little by little,
Chinese cinema gained recognition.

But the classics we screened then

never resurfaced anywhere else.

There was a strange film I liked,
Killer Constable.

It was magnificent,
but was never seen again.

It was already a rarity at the time.

So, as you can see, we have

some regret at not being recognised
at the time.

But posterity has avenged us.

Because those early films
are now considered

to have started the interest
in Hong Kong cinema.

I have a philosophical notion
of our relationship with Asia.

For me, Asia is the other
great civilisation.

When it comes to art and cinema,
I think there's an idea...

There's a conception of art
which is specifically Chinese.

And that's what is most enriching for me.

I think that conception is the same as
the one which inspired impressionism.

These painters saw Japanese prints,

they saw all the things that came
to Europe in the late 19th century

when Japan was fashionable because
it was much more open than China.

In fact, what came from China via Japan

left its mark on artists.

Through Chinese art, they were able
to form a totally pure relationship

with nature, landscape, colour and light.

I've always been interested in China
from that point of view.

It's almost the opposite for me.

For me the starting point was the film.

Chinese books,
Chinese thinking came later.

Before that came my love
for very basic Hong Kong films.

I love sport and cinema.

That's why I loved Hong Kong films.

Like the Armanet brothers.

Yes, except I don't do martial arts.

I like combat and action films.

I discovered later that martial arts
were about much more than just sport.

But back then I thought,
"There's a sport which creates a genre

"that tells China's story."

Football or tennis never did that.

That's what got me hooked
and then I discovered China.

I had a more complex relationship
with India than China.

Having said that,
when we wrote our special issue,

what made our work on Hong Kong cinema
unusual and good, I hope,

was placing it in the historical context.

We talked about Hong Kong's
political history.

And we put cinema
within the context of Chinese art.

In the article I wrote on King Hu,

I tried to place King Hu
within Chinese art.

I thought it was right.
You only have to listen to him talk.

That's all he talks about.

So it was the obvious thing to do.
In the same way

I had fun building up
a rather revealing genealogy.

It linked the history
of the temple of Shaolin

and that of the introduction
of Buddhism in China

to the first stars of Hong Kong cinema

and even to the directors
of its classic age.

I showed this constant relationship
from teacher to student.

I set out a kind of genealogy.

Maybe it was playful, but it was revealing.

It linked Liu Chia-liang who was
the John Ford of Kung Fu films

to the monks of Shaolin

and the founder of the Shaolin monastery.

If you're interested

in Chinese martial arts films,

there are a few essential facts
which most people aren't aware of.

These facts are the real key.

The rivalry between Buddhism and Taoism,

between Shaolin and Wu Tang thinking,

and the notions of Jiang Hu and Wulin,

which are the imaginary worlds
of martial arts and fantasy tales.

Those are the parallel worlds
in which the stories unfold

in this cinema genre.

And these worlds are coded.

So if you don't understand
what they and their codes are,

you miss a lot of the meaning
and depth of the films.

In Made in Hang Kong,
Olivier did the brilliant genealogy

of Shaolin and the whole dynasty.

In his study, he has huge charts
of all Chinese civilisations.

From your dad?

Yes, my dad brought them back.

Family history played a part, too.

I probably see meaning in things
that don't have any meaning.

When I was little, my father used
to travel to China when few people did.

He wrote films and was planning
a monumental project,

a film based on Marco Polo's
life and journey.

It was meant to be shot
in spectacular conditions

and produced by his friend
Raoul Lévy

who had produced
And God Created Woman.

Alain Delon was meant to star in it
and Christian-Jacque was going to direct.

You take what you can get.

The whole thing collapsed
before it happened.

But my father was always travelling
to Asia and bringing back artefacts.

Sol imagine

that my familiarity with
or curiosity for China

must have stemmed from that.

How do you see China in the film?

Through Maggie and through the clips
from Johnnie To's Heroic Trio...

with Michelle Yeoh and Maggie
that crop up in Irma Vep.

We talk about 1984 to 1996 in relation
to Olivier's Made in Hang Kong.

But it's interesting to see Irma Vep today,

now that Hong Kong cinema
has spread throughout the world,

including the United States.

Irma Vep is so different from other films.

Olivier takes a group of actresses
and an action film.

He makes references
to popular French cinema.

He casts Bulle Ogier,

so we think of Rivette's Celine and Julie
and then she criticises the film.

- Is that right?
- Yes.

When I first saw the film, I knew
where the journalist came from.

Olivier had him praise John Woo
and trash boring art-house French films.

I could see Olivier's annoyance
in that scene with the journalist.

He sees John Woo's films without having
seen the directors that came before him.

And then he compares Hong Kong cinema
to another genre.

Where the film excels is that Hong Kong
cinema has spread worldwide

through a certain type of action
film and video game.

And Olivier does exactly
what the journalist says.

He shows you can combine French cinema
inspired by the New Wave...

The couple made up of Nathalie Richard
who's an emblem of French cinema

and Maggie who symbolises
Hong Kong cinema

is a beautiful osmosis to watch.

Olivier pulls off this combination of
Hong Kong and traditional French cinema.

This was original then
and hasn't been done since.

The film is prophetic. It says,
"China and Hong Kong are coming."

But no one has done the same since.

So the film is unconventional in that
it was inspired by Hong Kong cinema

and Hong Kong cinema then spread
throughout the world.