All language subtitles for Journey.Through.French.Cinema.E02.Mes.cineastes.de.chevet.2_eng

Imagine you're at the movies.

MY JOURNEY THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA

MY BEDSIDE FILMMAKERS
PART TWO

Truffaut's remarks
praising the modernity

and freedom of Guitry and Pagnol

drew me to these two filmmakers

disparaged by the critics.

Cinema is an invention,
a medium like the printing press.

That's how Guitry saw it.

Like Pagnol,
he saw it as a recording tool.

Especially with the talkies.

Great directors
like René Clair and Chaplin

thought talkies could not be an art.

Guitry, like Pagnol,
knew it was just a different medium.

And this new medium
suited them both better.

Fine, thank you. Goodbye.

Marcel Lucien engraved the images
assisted by Raymond Cluny.

Paul Duvergé
printed the sound

isolated in his booth
like a deep-sea diver.

People kept saying
it was "canned theater."

A hasty and misguided judgment.

Tell me, Émile.

- Émile!
- Sir?

- What's your name?
- Théophile, sir.

I called you Émile.

It was my former butler's name.

Don't apologize.

First because his filmed plays
can be very entertaining

with dazzling dialogue

that works wonderfully well
on screen,

and in performances that are
paradoxically less theatrical

than in many contemporary films.

I have a real weakness
for Guitry's acting

and how he combines perfect diction,

even a certain pomposity,

with cheap, trite lines
that seem to come out of nowhere.

- What?
- Do you like Gaston?

- What Gaston?
- The name Gaston.

No, it was my father's.

Yes, there's that.
Parents, close friends.

So I went for Théophile.
That name is pretty safe.

Indeed.

Choose one you like, sir.
I'm eager to please.

You're so kind.

Is there an André
in monsieur's family?

Let's see. No, not yet.

- Then André.
- Go for André.

But monsieur must forgive me
if at first I don't answer.

I'll just ring for you.

May I ask monsieur...
If monsieur is pleased with me?

Very. Why?

I'm very pleased
with monsieur and madame.

Oddly enough,

the filmmaker he resembles today
is Tarantino.

Because Tarantino
also uses language.

You sense that the story is told,
or moves forward,

through dialogue.

As if the unconscious were speaking
and revealed things through dialogue.

Words make the story progress.

Give me my lunch here, right away.

Very good, sir.

Still that fruit I can't get right.

Learn it, my friend.

"Pamplemousse."

I'll write it down.

I don't know how,
but I'll write it down.

It's g, r, a, p, e, f, r, u, i, t.

There's also Désiré
and those scenes

where Guitry plays opposite
the marvelous Jacqueline Delubac.

Another unique actress.

- It's just that...
- Just what?

I just received a call
from a friend

whom I'd asked
to find me a valet.

She found one this evening.

I'm in quite a fix

as far as you're concerned.

Why so, madam? Why so?

If you don't wish to keep me,
tell me frankly.

There's no reason to hide the truth.

What? But...

You must've called my former employer
who advised you not to hire me.

Not at all, not at all.

If I may,
I'd say you are a poor liar.

Kindly speak frankly.

If that lady continues to wrong me,

I must stop using
her letter of referral.

The referral is excellent,
yet she speaks ill of me in person.

That's not right!

Speed is what makes Guitry brilliant.

Movies of the 1930s,
especially American ones,

were so plodding.

They sanctified dialogue.

It was written to be articulated,
enunciated, drawn out.

With Guitry,
it goes at lightning speed.

It's like a constant footrace,

and that's what makes it funny.

I thought, "Désiré,

"only attracted to your employers?
You're doomed."

Imagine that.

A servant, a man
who can consider himself still young,

attracted only to his employers,
whose lover he cannot be.

One must have this job in one's blood
to see the tragedy of it,

for I love my work!
I'm mad about it.

I heard monsieur
speak of the bliss of giving orders.

But if you only knew
what bliss it is to obey!

To serve, madam!
Now there's a marvelous thing.

Free to have no will of one's own.

"Light the fire. Open the window."

All other people's ideas.

And when it's a woman's voice
commanding,

especially in a stern tone,

now that is a delicious feeling.

How I envy slaves!

Using speed,
he tried to slip things in

that would've been unacceptable
if said unhurriedly.

So in a way, in his relationship
to bourgeois society,

to theatrical or dramatic
conventions,

it's as if he were cleverer, quicker,
he could leave everyone in the dust.

In a way, by the time
they realized what he said,

he was already way ahead.

You're meeting a dancer?

God forbid, no.

I said "at the opera"
meaning the district.

My meeting
is near the opera.

At the noodle shop opposite?

Not the noodle shop!

Then where?

A little farther up to the left.

Tell me where.

What does it matter?

What does it matter to tell me?

It's at the South American bank.

- With whom?
- A South American, by gad!

What's his name?

His name?

He must have a name.

Indeed he does. Three, even.

His name is...

What?

I haven't said it yet!

His name is simply
Lopez Quita de la Nanana.

- What?
- I can't help it!

Guitry was often an innovator,

a revolutionary.

You will see reliving
before your eyes

12 admirable Frenchmen

who were my close friends

and who are, alas, no longer with us.

Honor to whom honor is due.

Here is the Hotel Biron,
a magnificent abode, worthy of Rodin,

and now the Rodin Museum.

This man of the theater,

a greater visionary
than any filmmaker at the time,

was the only one who early on,

in 1914,

had the idea
of filming artists he admired,

leaving us unique,
unforgettable footage of Rodin,

Saint-Saëns...

Please note that you're looking
at something you never see:

an orchestra conductor
from the front.

Their backs are always turned.
Such a shame.

At 82, Monet still exuded strength
and good health.

He was like an oak,

seemingly invulnerable.

How would death take him?

By creeping up on him like a coward.

It attacked this great man's
most precious organ,

his reason for living: his eyes.

Fate committed the crime

of blurring his vision
before closing his eyes.

One afternoon around 5 o'clock,
he stopped seeing altogether.

Here is Auguste Renoir.

There, you see his poor hands
crippled by disease.

The boy next to him
is his youngest son.

Today he is Jean Renoir,
the well-known filmmaker.

Here is his portrait at age 6.

A fine painting by his famous father

that I still have in front of me.

He had astounding visual ideas,

such as this walk through
occupied Paris, deprived of light,

in which he films only
the actors' feet

lit by a flashlight.

Isn't it amusing, stepping into
this little circle of light?

It escorts us.

Guitry was never trapped by a plot.

Try to sum up his films,
come up with a pitch.

He seemed to construct them freely

apace with his characters' reactions.

You get the feeling he added scenes,

like this discussion in the kitchen,

just for the pleasure of filming

Arletty and Pauline Carton.

And they expect us to like them.

What were they talking about?

Us, of course!

What else do you think?

Whenever we go in,
our employers are talking about us.

If they stop talking,
they were saying bad things.

If they continue,
it's for us to hear.

They act like
they didn't hear us come in.

They drop little nuggets like,

"Madame So-and-So
found a wonderful maid

"for only 600 francs a month."

Or "Someone who steals
is out in less than 24 hours."

This is my ninth position,

and all my employers ever talked
about was money and servants.

Or else he'd launch into
incredible monologues,

personal professions of faith,

that were caustic
and anything but politically correct.

If I were the government,
as my concierge says,

I'd heavily tax people
who save their income.

I know people who have
millions in income

who don't spend a quarter of it.

I consider them first as fools
and as rather dishonest.

Writing a bad check is a transaction
punished by the penal code,

as well it should be.

But as for me,

I'd be equally severe toward those
who write no checks at all.

A man who doesn't spend his income

disrupts the pace of life
by not making money flow.

He has no right!

If you could start your life over,

would you accept?

- And you'd do it again?
- 20 times over.

You'd do the same thing?

- What would you do?
- Nothing.

I'd do nothing
to ensure I'd do nothing bad.

As fate didn't give me
a creative mind or an apostle's soul,

I'd do nothing at all.

I'd simply admire
other people's deeds

and live for myself
with no care for others.

What you're saying is awful!

Do the opposite if it's so awful.

The idea of doing good
doesn't occur to you?

Yes, maybe. I don't know.

I'd do what I like.

What I want to do.

When he adapted his plays,

he could suddenly
use exteriors,

not to open them up,

but instead to insert more gags.

Like the Joan of Arc statue
in Le Nouveau testament.

It happens a lot.

What does?

It happens a lot with Joan of Arc.

You think there's only one.
You fix a meeting,

and once there,
you wonder, is it this one?

If you know both, you're fine.

Fine?

And the one on St. Marcel?

- There's a third?
- Yes, sir!

Good grief! Let's go!

Or a sarcastic prologue
as in Faisons un rêve.

Naturally, by golly!

A pretty woman is wonderful.

But doesn't one love her
less and less,

for as time goes by,
she becomes less and less pretty?

If you're lucky enough
to love an ugly woman,

I believe you love her more and more

as she becomes uglier with time.

What would bother me most

is to be cheated on by a woman
who's no longer attractive.

Yes, it'd bother me,

because her lover would know
what I once settled for.

Yes, well...

Ugly or pretty,
one thing I'm very clear about is,

the nastiest thing you can do
to a man who steals your wife

is to let him have her.

His credits were often hilarious.

Jean Debucourt
and Jacques Varennes...

Your acting is so good,
Jacques Varennes,

you might be
with the Comédie-Française.

And yours is so good, Debucourt,
one would think you weren't.

- Jeanne Fusier-Gir.
- Sacha?

Despite my best efforts,

I can't imagine
writing a play or a film

in which you didn't appear.

That's how it is.

I'm delighted to introduce your son,

François Gir, my assistant.

Pleased to meet you.

Ad vitam aeternam.

As for you, Madame Reuver,

you created Crainquebille
with my father.

Indeed.

That's also why
I gave you the female lead.

That's also why
you played it so well.

La Poison is one of Guitry's
most personal, trenchant films

as much for Michel Simon's
memorable performance

as for Germaine Reuver's
extraordinary character part.

I'm terribly fond of certain details

like this radio program
the characters don't listen to,

with cast names
worthy of W. C. Fields.

Ladies and gentlemen,

you will now hear
for the first time a one-act play

by Jean-Michel Vinclair
and Paul-Henri Marchepied,

starring Anne-Marie Bétavie

and Jean-Victor Cabanère.

Produced for radio
by Albert-Léon Fromageot.

Sound effects by
Louis-Alphonse Raphaël.

Script girl,

Jeanne-Patricia Nebracot,

Unit manager,
Patrick-Antoine Decourt.

This anarchistic, immoral satire

overturns the order of things
and rules of society.

Before committing his crime,

Michel Simon consults a lawyer.

Without claiming self-defense,
have you ever felt threatened by her?

Oh yes.

She often asked me,
"When will you ever drop dead?"

Now that...

- That's not a thing to say!
- No, indeed.

But it's more hope than threat.

A gesture would be more eloquent.

How about a soup tureen?

A soup tureen?

This big.
What if she threw it at my head?

- Did she?
- Yes!

- Long ago?
- Last night.

Good, very good.

Just a moment before she was stabbed.

A reflex, then. Or self-defense.

You grabbed the knife
as she made to throw the tureen.

The table was between us...

Leaning to throw the tureen,
she speared herself.

Yes, that's it!

It's quite amusing.

What is?

The way you reconstruct the scene.

That shows experience.

As my friend
the poet Yves Martin wrote,

"La Poison calls forth a hope:

"that Guitry's intellectual adventure
is recognized

"as one of the most authentic
of our time.

"After watching only
the wizard's hat,

"we'll be amazed to see his face,

"his somewhat sad gaze
already prepared to smile."

Narrative freedom
in Le Roman d'un tricheur,

in which we seem to hear
the characters talking,

when in fact
it's a monologue by Guitry.

Put the big suitcase on the bed.

- This one?
- Yes, that one.

She was more and more enigmatic
and clearly enjoyed startling me.

She took out a phonograph.

Hush.

Come on.

What was she going to do with it?

Now she's moving house?

Freedom throughout Bonne Chance.

The original script wanders
through a tangle of digressions.

I estimate it at 32,000.

I think it's inestimable.

It speaks to you?

Yes, don't interrupt.

What grace,
what power, and what finish.

The cost finishes
further discussions.

Well, sir, it's a masterpiece,

and I don't want you to sell it.

For I intend to come visit it
from time to time.

Goodbye.
Thank you for obliging me.

- Need a tip?
- Already?

It did seem a bit premature.
Sorry.

- Champagne?
- Oh, yes.

Champagne,
champagne...

- Let's see. Dry?
- Very dry.

Extra dry champagne.

Give us that.

- Good.
- Very good?

Good.

There, and now...

Now, close your eyes.

Rest easy, we're used to it.

I don't mean you.

Sorry.

Or this point-of-view car scene.

When I don't drive any faster,

doesn't it feel like a movie?

- Yes, you're right.
- Aren't I?

Do you know how movie people do it?

They just put their camera
in the car.

- Is that so?
- Apparently.

What about the dialogue?

I'm told it's recorded later
in a studio.

- Hard to believe.
- I admit I didn't believe it.

A moment that foreshadows
New Wave cinema.

Darling!

- It's all set!
- All set?

We have a lifetime?

Better than a lifetime.

- Better than a lifetime?
- Yes. Two days.

Yves Martin again:

"Guitry always made room for dreams,

"not the opposite of reality,
but its realm.

"Many would be surprised
to hear Guitry was a poet,

"a most modern one at that."

Guitry naturally leads us to Pagnol.

Now there are two dramatists
who grasped right off

what cinema could do for them.

Guitry's freedom

naturally appears as well with Pagnol

in Regain, Angèle,
and Manon of the Spring.

Rivers that seem to swell and meander
as inspiration comes.

Consider the opening of Regain.

Vestiges of Upper Provence
before the ravages of money

and real estate speculation.

So, Gaubert, you're leaving?

Do I have a choice?

I'm not happy about it, you know.

Leaving all this

means losing...

Pagnol was already describing
rural exodus.

Watch this scene
of Delmont's departure,

the accuracy of his perspective,
all the precise details.

Pagnol knew how to talk about
manual work

and the pride that went with it.

Holy smokes!

Taking that?

That, yes. I sure am.

It's not so heavy.

Oh yeah?

I mean, for an anvil, it's not heavy.

When I was 60,
I could still carry it.

I can't leave it like that.

A cold forge...

- You understand?
- Yes.

I bought it at the Manosque fair

the last day of my military service.

Silly, isn't it?

Silly,

but what do you expect?
When you're old...

Well, let's give it a try.

Listen to Arthur Honegger's
magnificent score.

Pagnol had the very original idea
of using a Swiss symphonist

to evoke the landscapes of Provence.

Since Fanny,
Pagnol's films were distributed

by Léon Siritzky

with the help of his sons,
Jo and Sammy.

They were famous exhibitors

who in the 1960s
launched the Publicis group,

and distributors,

with the company Parafrance.

Jo Siritzky told us in Lyon

that in the mountains
Pagnol wasn't able to build

the village of Regain

as he couldn't find a spring.

Leon said, "Let me try."

He went up into the mountain
with a divining rod,

and came back two hours later saying,
"I found a spot."

And on that spot
they built the village.

The spring is here.

A movie distributor
finds a spring

enabling a director
to make a film!

I find that story
absolutely symbolic,

and totally moving.

Let's take a rest here.

The house looks the least abandoned.

They can't have left long ago.

Anybody home?

In Angèle,
another masterpiece,

I can't forget Fernandel's
extraordinary performance.

So tender, so touching.

Yes, it's my fault.
I said you needed a city fellow.

But you didn't tell me
to call to men in the street!

No, that I never did.

But look,

what's happened to you...

Here's how I see it.

If suddenly someone said,

"Angèle fell in the manure,"

I'd go, I'd pick you up,

I'd wash you, very carefully.

I'd put matchwood under your nails,

I'd soak your hair in lavender water,

so you'd have no straw,

not a stain,

not a shadow. Nothing.

I'd make you clean as water.

It contrasts
with her father's harsh tone.

I don't want an explanation.

That child...

I want nothing to do with it.

He's not one of ours.

If you had had it

the way you should have,

it would have been
God's greatest gift to this house.

The way you had it,

it's nothing to us.

It's our breathing misfortune.

Our moving and mewling disgrace.

Pagnol filmed on location
with live sound.

The crew lived and ate on site,

on farms and villages
specially built for the film.

And he'd spotted an actor, Blavette,

whom he noticed was
an excellent cook.

So Blavette was in charge
of cooking for the production.

One day Pagnol said to him,

"The smoke from your cooking
is wafting in front of the camera."

Blavette told him,

"I can't stop it now, or the lamb
I'm roasting, the méchoui,

"will be awful."

Pagnol replied,
"No problem, I'll move the camera."

That gives an idea of the atmosphere
of a Pagnol shoot.

Pagnol had met Blavette
on the set of Jofroi.

Jofroi

is one of my favorite Pagnols.

I think it's a masterpiece,
but not well known.

It was taken from
a lovely short story by Jean Giono,

in The Solitude of Compassion,

with a brilliant performance
by Vincent Scotto,

the composer, who wasn't an actor.

He plays a wily peasant,

a crafty, stubborn fellow

who is selling his field
to Henri Poupon.

I'll sell you my orchard at Maussan.

The orchard, not the house.

Quiet, Barbe.

- The orchard, not the house.
- Right.

I'll sell you the orchard,

but not the house.

It's nothing but woods.

He then forbids him
from touching his trees,

with a stubborn, illogical bad faith

as deep-rooted
as the trees he wants to protect.

His attitude is still touching,

as with so many
of Pagnol's characters.

Those trees are ancient!

Ancient?

It's because they're old
that they shouldn't be harmed.

I don't want to harm them.
No one does.

They don't,
but everybody wants to take them out.

Why? I'll tell you, Father.

Because they don't bear fruit.

Of course.

It's not to hurt you,
but they don't bear fruit.

If you like fruit so much,
then go to the grocer!

What you say makes no sense, Jofroi.

They haven't borne fruit in 20 years!

What's that mean?

Since I can no longer have children,

I get the guillotine?

And Father has no kids,
so you'd split him with an ax?

There's no good sense in it.

Why not cut down the tree?

And you, you evil man,
why cut them down?

One evening
I was eating with friends.

I told them, "We'll shoot Jofroi
and you'll play the leads."

There was no actor at the table.

There was Vincent Scotto,
the composer.

I said, "You'll play Jofroi.

"You have acting talent,
even in real life."

Poupon was a songwriter,
a lyricist.

He wrote
"Je sais que vous êtes jolie."

He'd written a lot of songs.

There was a tin can maker,
Charles Blavette.

He made empty tin cans, of course,
with this huge machine.

We told him, "If you can speak,
you'll play Tonin."

Then there was a great opera baritone

who in fact sang only
in minor operas.

Tyrand played the priest.

And so the film was put together
with amateurs.

It was shot in the hills,
in the village of La Treille

in November 1933.

In an incredibly free comic vein,
Pagnol treated

a number of serious subjects:

attachment to the land,

suicide threats,

the pressure of public opinion.

He been dead long?

He already stinks.

Who does? You stink, you pig!

Jesus Marie Joseph!

What's he doing there?

I don't know.
Jofroi, what're you doing?

I'm gonna get run over by a car.

No car will run over you.
They'll see you.

When I hear 'em coming,

I'll make myself so flat
they won't see me.

What you're doing is stupid.

Don't argue with me, Fonse.

You have less right than anyone.

I'm not arguing.

But I'll stand by the road
and stop the cars.

I'll say, "Drive slow.

"There's an old man in the road,
mean as a snake,"

"who's trying to make trouble
for me."

Lie there all night if you want.

Some 15 years later

location shooting and amateur actors
became popular.

People discovered Italian neorealism.

They'd say I founded it
if only I were Italian.

The nicest thing is,
22 years later,

in America, Jofroi

won the prize
for best foreign film of the year.

The critics thought I'd just made it.

They were pretty disappointed
to learn the film was 22 years old.

Another masterpiece: Merlusse,

one of Pagnol's best.

Without the folklore Angèle's author
is often reduced to.

Here, no Canebière,

beating sun, scrubland, crickets,

no sidewalk bistro.

The action takes place
in a school with peeling walls,

a dormitory and gloomy hallways.

It speaks of solitude,

of abandon, of frightening ugliness

and repulsion, too.

And as it's a Christmas tale,
of redemption.

Pagnol uses natural settings
in a revolutionary way.

He went into a school
with a very light crew.

And with no pretension whatsoever,
he reinvented filmmaking.

You're laughing.

So you're laughing.

You shouldn't be.

Those who jeer at me don't know me.

They are far away.

You're here. You're hostages.

No famous stars either.

You shouldn't laugh. I should.

Merlusse is played by the excellent,
remarkable Henri Poupon,

usually relegated
to supporting roles,

and who like Delmont and Blavette,

or here Rellys, as janitor,

never seem to be acting.

Sir,

the headmaster wants you.

As natural as can be.

Why are they afraid of you?

Because I'm afraid of them.

So I raise my voice.
Maybe too much.

I fear they'll get the better of me.

So when one makes a move or speaks,
I roar like a beast.

If I let them go on,
I'll never stop them.

I'd have to take my hat
and be on my way.

They think I'm fierce,
but if they knew me,

they'd piss in my pockets.

For me, Pagnol's seminal film,
that I keep going back to,

is still Manon of the Spring.

His greatest postwar success.

It seems to have been made
with no thought for the box office,

but for sheer pleasure.

The author's and our own.

Want to kill your lawyer?

On the contrary!

The beauty and emotion
that arise from the story's twists,

with digressions
that are intoxicatingly funny,

like this good-natured officer
who wanted to be a judge,

asked to preside over the court
that will try Manon.

A sort of trial, then.

Yes, the officer said
you had the vocation.

Naturally

we'll say it's an inquiry
to verify certain rumors.

We won't call it a trial.

But actually, it is.

Mayor, you be the public prosecutor.

Teacher, you be the lawyer.

Prepare the courtroom.

For instance, the cameramen
weren't allowed to intervene.

He wanted his actors to be free.

But that didn't matter,

because if someone was out of frame,
he didn't care.

He'd do it from another angle.

We'd load a 300-meter reel.

We'd shoot
until we were out of film stock.

300 meters.

I'm against rapid editing.

If actors don't have time

to get into a scene,
they can't be good.

I've always shot
up to 3 minutes in one take.

often 4 minutes,
sometimes a whole reel.

This method,

this freedom of tone
transfigures an actor like Rellys.

Watch the cunning and craftiness

he uses to exonerate Manon
for stealing melons.

Did she steal from you or not?

Planting melons
so far up in the hills

is asking for trouble.

Of course.

What do you mean by that?

I mean that

they aren't farmer's melons.
Not for cash.

Too much work and time.

So why'd you do it?

Maybe to set a trap for me.

I don't understand.

You planted them to tempt me.

So I'd steal them!

I planted them so you'd take them.

You see?
I knew her father well.

So when I saw that, owing to fate,
she and her mother lived in a cave

and they were in need,

while owing to fate,

I was nicely settled on the farm,

it gave me the idea to grow melons.
I figured:

If they take them, fine.

What a fine fellow!

So he gave her permission
to pick melons.

That's not true!
Not a word in 2 years.

I gave her permission in my mind.

You fool! Do you realize
how you're making us look?

Shut up, or I'll kick your ass
so hard it'll break your jaw!

And you, mind your own business!

As usual with Pagnol,

the joviality and the southern accent
mask a darker reality.

Manon of the Spring is about a crime,

about a family that was murdered,

and a woman who seeks justice.

Manon, the main character
in the story, embodies the moral,

which makes this film,
under Jacqueline Pagnol's influence,

the most feminist of his works.

I saw my father
in the corn stalks.

He'd touch them and then

look up at the sky,

then he'd lower his head

and in the end,

he lay down on the ground,

put his face on his arm,

trembling like a bird in a trap.

He wept because his corn died.

On the ridge of Saint-Esprit

there was a peasant
leaning on his shovel, watching us.

Maybe he knew
we had water beneath our feet.

Yes, he knew.

- It was me.
- What?

I'll never forget
Blavette's heartrending reaction.

Just four shovelfuls down,
and the spring would've gushed.

What a day it would've been.

Why didn't you shout?

I was with him.

He was cutting fennel farther up.

I was ashamed.

I didn't stop you.

Why didn't you go yourself?

I don't meddle in others' business.

It takes a rotten heart

not to work a miracle
when given the chance.

What a day I'd have had.

So Ugolin is a real bastard?

Not entirely.

He's in love, and not very bright.

He wants to make money
to win his sweetheart.

That's not so mean.

I could never figure out
why Rellys and Vincent Scotto

were rarely if ever mentioned

among French cinema's
great performances.

They deserve honorary awards
as an apology.

I was looking for thrushes.
I didn't mean to.

You're a dirty old man.

Not so! I'm not old. I'm 39.

We're a good match!

As for family, I have none.
No one to feed.

Grandpa's dead. Grandma's dead.

Ma hanged herself when I was a kid.
Pa hanged himself before the war.

Nobody!

And Le Papet's my uncle.

Le Papet's rich.

He'll leave it all to me
'cos he loves me.

He'll die soon.

We'll have his house in the village.

And millions. For you.

It's for you, dammit,
'cos I love you!

Mr. Hulot's Holiday

I discovered Robert Bresson
and Jacques Tati the same year.

Diary of a Country Priest,

shown at school one Sunday
when I'd got detention.

And Mr. Hulot's Holiday
during its very long first run.

Diary of a Country Priest

I liked to juxtapose the dark
perambulations of the priest,

who always felt inadequate

and beneath his calling,

and the hilarious,
futile peregrinations

of Hulot and his holiday-makers.

I was always intimidated
by Robert Bresson,

crushed by the studies
and the number of his exegetes.

I admired him from afar,

despite the incredible emotions
he produced in me.

I'm not about to forget
the sublime endings,

among the finest of French cinema.

In A Man Escaped...

If my mother could see me...

And Pickpocket...

Oh, Jeanne,

to reach you,
what a strange path was mine.

Oh, that last line!

The colder Bresson's tone seems,

the more his tenderness shines.

It shines all through A Man Escaped,
a masterpiece.

A Man Escaped,
straightforward and mysterious,

affected me in its obstinacy...

I made a chisel out of it.

Its way of taking an idea
all the way,

of balancing experimental
and traditional cinema.

The boards weren't joined

by mortise and tenon carved
in the oak,

but by a strip of soft wood
my tool could easily tackle.

I figured it would take 4-5 days
to get through a strip

by chipping or splitting the wood.

As Yves Martin wrote,

"The general public looked
for a story.

"As it hardly existed, or not at all,
they made it up.

"What Bresson wanted
in pursuing his constant dream

"was to make the audience an artist,
to give them talents

"unlikely to mature
in usual circumstances."

Hook.

Jost trembled.
I may have, too.

I felt closer to Tati,
whom I met through Jean Aurenche.

He defended tooth and nail
my editing of Let Joy Reign Supreme,

against a producer
who wanted to cut it.

Aurenche told me
that Tati loved practical jokes.

For instance,
he got himself hired to help

at a friend's home serving dinner.

When taking around the fish,

to each guest as they were
about to help themselves,

he'd do this.

So they didn't help themselves.

The hostess couldn't understand
why her fish was untouched.

That was one of his pranks.
Right out of a scene from Playtime.

Hello, Paris? New York!

New York?

I loved his characters,
right out of a Sempé cartoon.

In 1995,

I rediscovered the true version
of The Big Day in color.

What a thrill that was.

The Americans.

There.
What do you mean, forgotten?

Who? Georges?

For you.

No one's there.

Line's dead. Never mind.

Go on. The Americans, out.

So long.

Here were two filmmakers

who were isolated,

solitary, obsessive,

who respected one another,

who shared a distrust of the world,

modern technology,

professional actors
and screenwriters.

They attached the same importance
to gestures,

bodies in space and the soundtrack.

The same blend of realism and fable.

The precision of details

emphasizes contrasts and oddities.

That little café
is where I learned most of my tricks.

He taught me them to readily,
graciously.

I had to exercise my fingers

to limber them up.

Watching Balthazar again,

it's striking to note
how densely plotted the script is.

It's practically
like a Tarantino film.

There's smuggling.

Murderer!

A crime.

Rape.

An inheritance swindled.

Animals are mistreated.

The young heroine is beaten.

The contrast
between the number of events

and Bresson's manner of filming them

makes the mood extraordinary,

often devastating.

I've always wanted
to run away.

Run away?

Run away.

A friend to share
my pleasure and pain.

I'll share them.

I hope to have
more pleasure than pain.

To this accumulation of events

Tati responds with an accumulation
of characters in Playtime.

An amusing detail:

during the disastrous
restaurant opening,

among the dancers
we can spot Patrick Balkany.

This scandal-ridden politician
had begun his career as an actor.

Do you know
the language of flowers?

I'll teach you.

You needn't bother.

Sister Anne-Marie!

Where are you going?

To the garden.

Were you excused from your duties?

- It seemed urgent...
- To obey the rules.

We are in that place
where only the heart rules.

I'll report this
to the chapter of faults.

My heart won't report me.

Seeing Bresson's first
two masterpieces,

perhaps they should be approached

not only as meditations
on grace and redemption,

but also as reflections on creation.

The Sisters of Bethanie laws
would set the rules.

Free?

And the heroine
of Ladies of Bois de Boulogne,

this controlling female character,

could be seen as a metaphor
of the director as demigod.

I set you both free.

But you're hardly free,
you're almost married.

Married?

Aren't you something, Agnès.

You drive a man mad. What can I do?

Make up your mind:

Marry him or tell all.

Would you rather I did?

Head, heart,

liver, kidney,
hand and foot of his film.

He wants
to be everything.

Play every part.

Lighting,

camera,

costumes, even invent fashion.

Even create the props.

I suspect him of even wanting to be
the camera and spotlights.

On the set, he's a real tyrant,

claiming everyone's place.

Once, he even

paced in front of me for 20 minutes,

repeating the same line over and over

that I was supposed to say afterward,
spontaneously.

That little line was...

You frightened me.

I'll never forget it.

He was looking for
the right intonation

to drill it into me before shooting.

Forgive me for forgetting
so foolishly.

Between us, it matters none.

I'm very weary.

The film had a long run.

It even became a movie classic.

So I'm free to say

that never have I hated someone

like I hated Robert Bresson
on the set.

In life I'm fond of him.

Yes, I hated him.

But I also understood him.
He even intrigued me.

I thought he took his role
of director to the absurd.

Others apparently do that
by beating their actresses

to make them cry
and then film their tears.

He killed us gently, softly,
to preserve the outer shell.

See you tomorrow?

See you tomorrow.

Do you feel alone?

Very alone.

But I take no pleasure
in being alone.

Bresson naturally brings us
to Jean-Jacques Grunewald

who wrote the marvelous scores
for Les Anges du péché

and Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne.

Before Jean Wiener
and Philippe Sarde,

he was one of the 3 composers
who managed

to appeal to
or tame Bresson.

He's an underrated composer.

He's been forgotten,
even if he worked with filmmakers

who were major names.

He's not usually mentioned
in articles,

essays or even books
about these directors.

Dutilleux said he was
an incredible organist.

He was one of those French composers

who started as a performer

and who often wrote
for the instrument he played.

A beautiful improvisation

can spontaneously generate
a whole musical cosmos

through which to express
the greatest exuberance

or the greatest intimacy.

The organist,

the improviser should remain
above all a spontaneous musician.

The improvisation
vanishes as soon as it bursts forth,

leaving only a fleeting impression.

And I believe therein lies its charm.

He would write scores

that were the opposite
of what was expected in the film.

For instance, Antoine and Antoinette,
a working-class world,

is a film that would seem
to require an accordion or a lament.

But what Grunenwald would write,

and I believe it was
at Becker's request...

What he wrote

was on the contrary
very French music,

somewhat in the style of Poulenc.

Contrapuntal music.

A very sophisticated score,

as if Becker,
with Grunenwald's approval, thought:

filming the working class
doesn't mean we need an accordion.

It's a perfect example

of extremely close
and very creative collaboration,

between composer and director.

One of Grunenwald's
claims to fame

is of course
La Vérité sur Bébé Donge.

For the credit sequence
he wrote an ostinato

combining organ and piano.

Few other instruments.

This magnificent theme
runs through the whole last sequence,

obstinately supported
by the same rhythmic figures.

Bébé!

Elisabeth.
Open up. Please! It's me.

I'm ready. I'm coming right down.

Here Grunenwald anticipates
the music of Philip Glass.

Subtitles:
Cynthia Schoch & Lenny Borger

Subtitling: ECLAIR