Original subtitles

"A few notes about the film HAIL MARY"

Where were you?

OK, here you can - You can go ahead.

We have the image. "Where were you?"

Where were you?

So, Joseph...

Subtitles downloaded from

As you wish.

Ah, yes. As you wish.

As you wish.

OK, where were you?

Where was I?

So I'm typing the dialogue from my last film,

and I'm thinking about the next one.

I guess -

There is an image, and people believe me when I say I make films,

because, well, in the end -

because we used a camera, and there is an image.

If there were no camera -

People think everything comes from the camera.

But one needs other things to make a movie.

And maybe it is -

We're going to talk briefly about a few of those things.

Mary has desires.

Like any other woman.

Through the angel, she knows she will become pregnant.

But how? She doesn't know.

The doctor's examination shows her

that the flesh is the echo of the real Word.

Just like any other woman, she has hopes.

She wants to be pregnant with an exceptional being.

Here. I think we must have some of that.

Lower your head to the side, like Michelangelo's pietas, a little bit -

Try to imitate that.

Like this?

What do we know,

with our scientific and biological knowledge,

about love and its mystery?

What do we know about joy?

Stop.

Other side.

- Try to be austere when you do that - - Yes, yes.

Stop.

Well, I think that maybe you should see

the movie LA STRAD A with Giulietta Masina, who kind of looks like a clown.

I think there is a clownish side to Mary.

When you walk like a duck, sometimes,

naturally there is something... similar.

A little town, or maybe a village.

Between the lake and the mountains,

there is one large street with a traffic light.

No restrictions.

However, in everybody's heart, everything is forbidden.

Mary works in a cafe, or a shop.

One day, a client tells her something is going to happen to her.

She is going to have a child,

even though she isn't really in a relationship with a man.

Most of the film is the analysis of what is happening to Mary,

conducted by the doctor.

His name could be Dr. Freud.

The words that are used are everyday words.

The main ones. There aren't that many -

Joy, love, liberty, work, desire.

I don't know. My belly hurts.

My belly hurts.

"Joseph trusts in life"

- He doesn't understand. - But he accepts it.

Yes, he does, because he faces a woman

who stays with him no matter what, she doesn't leave.

She is still there, by his side. She didn't run away.

But she wouldn't have made it on her own.

No. No, but she is there. She could have left.

If I imagine that she got pregnant by somebody else,

she could have left with that other man, but she stays.

Ah, yes.

So that is some kind of proof, I don't know... even though I dreamt that -

that there was a middleman.

Even a divine middleman.

I don't think I would be able to understand,

it would be too heavy for me.

I would continue my life like that, because there is no other way.

"Screenplay and Music"

"We can only see things this way if we are somewhat insensitive.

"One can only have this kind of acumen if it has no consequences.

Otherwise, we'd die. Bach would have died if he'd known what he was doing."

But I think that Mary...

What Dolto says about Mary, is that - She is actually naive.

Yes.

- And if she knew what she was doing - - What is happening to her -

In the sense of, "I want to know what I am doing" -

She is trusting, and I think that Bach has a certain -

He may not need to be in the film, but Bach has something -

He is incredibly trusting.

It's like that silly expression "to move forward."

But she says something else -

Yes, that's further ahead.

"In a sense, the path that goes from a child's scales,

"the scales of his childhood, or mars childhood,

"or humankind's childhood,

"to this language that we are unable to decipher,

"the language of music - that path moves me very deeply.

"In SUNNY D AY, I compare Bach with a proletarian.

"I said, 'Here, there is a mountain of concrete, and there, a mountain of music.'

"Nobody understood that. I will explain it now.

"Between the mountain of concrete,

"that the proletariat has carried and worked on,

"and the mountain of music, I see an equivalent labor.

"The same darkness surrounds these two mountains of concrete and music.

I was almost going to say the same deafness."

"Screenplay and Music"

Do you see a difference between these two pieces of music?

- Yes. I think the first one is heavier. - What?

Heavier.

Heavy...

It has more weight, and it is softer at the same time.

Actually, the first one -

The first one makes me think of love,

of these loving gestures that are soft and gentle.

Let's talk about these two -

We were talking about everyday things.

I was saying that Bach was expressing -

The color and the tempo of his music express everyday life.

It is true of these two pieces of music. But maybe the first one -

The first one is heavy, indeed, but it is the weight of everyday life.

It's like "Give us this day our daily bread,"

and then, the second -

You start your day, you're happy.

But there is an aspect -

I wouldn't say it is inevitable, but -

Yeah, we move along.

Every day is like every other day.

And then - you're happy with your day if that's what you wanted, and at night -

Every day ends the same way. Every day -

There is an aspect - You don't think it sounds like everyday life?

But then again, for Mary, everyday life is love - it is love -

Ramuz writes a beautiful sentence in AD AM AND EVE.

He says, "She rested her head on his shoulder,

because love was too heavy to carry."

However, it is a very simple gesture, something one does every day. It's both.

What I wanted was to give people an idea - This could be a shot in the film.

Mary is... that's her everyday life.

That's what she does, every day.

She irons Joseph's pants.

She does it every day.

Then, there will be - I want to show people the ordinary.

I want to show that the ordinary is extraordinary.

And this music expresses that.

I also wanted to play it for the actors -

I wanted to play it for you, the actress who is going to be Mary.

And I wanted to say that... I don't know.

It will be a cue to change the way you act.

By the way, one says that a performer acts.

It reminds us of this everyday life. We must see it -

There. What you just did with your arm, that's an everyday move.

All the moves must be the same.

Every day.

"The theme of the film"

Isn't...

every man...

the shadow of God...

Isn't every man the shadow of God... for a woman who loves her man?

Isn't he...

So tell me how you got the idea for HAIL MARY.

Tell us about the story of the lmmaculate Conception

and the idea of establishing a link between a topic in the Gospels and psychoanalysis.

Well, there are two aspects. I had this idea of making a film on Freud,

with Miriam as well, a film about Dora, one of Freud's first psychoanalyses,

one of his first explanations of dreams, and then -

It was a little too technical.

I'm not an expert in psychoanalysis, so I always start with... I don't know...

And then, there was this - I happened to read this book by Dolto,

THE GOSPELS CONFRONTED TO PS YCHO ANALYSIS,

where she says - where she shows, thanks to her therapy work,

how the texts in the Bible relate to us very deeply

and how the Church has damaged them.

Those texts were written about everyday life.

So I read some of those texts, and they're rather intense.

At the same time, when I read her introduction,

where she talks about the Holy Family, it gave me the idea.

I thought Joseph and Mary was a good topic for a film.

We don't know much about Joseph and Mary.

We know there was Jesus, and yet, as Dolto explains, we don't really know.

We know very little about Mary.

How did that woman conceive, believe in the Word -

How could she - I don't know -

I want to make films that show what people are not used to seeing, and here -

To see Joseph and Mary -

Besides, I have always made films about couples,

and filming Joseph and Mary was a change.

Each of them is very -

Mary receives the Word of God, and Joseph has to accept it, in a way.

Dolto says that, in that sense, they are the ideal couple.

So that's how it came about.

There's also...

"An ideal couple"

Joseph.

Joseph, don't force me to speak.

You love me so much.

I can only hurt you. Leave me alone.

There cannot be justice between us.

There is only faith.

Only that.

Only faith and charity.

Run from me while you still have time.

Run from me while you still have time.

I don't understand, Mary.

My beloved...

don't force me to reveal my great secret.

A great secret, Mary?

So great that everything is consumed.

So great that you will not ask to marry me anymore.

I don't understand.

Am I not beautiful enough, right now?

What more do you ask?

What do we ask of a flower, if it isn't to be beautiful and fragrant for a moment?

Poor flower.

"The last shot"

The last shot will be the day of the Lord. The Sunday walk.

Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus when he is 4 or 5 years old.

Jesus comes from "je suis" (I am).

Or maybe "je suis" (I am) comes from Jesus.

And in the sky, there would be a helicopter, hovering like this.

That would be the clerk who sold them a television.

He is filming a little commercial in his helicopter,

he's hovering, and when he sees Mary, the movements of the helicopter

would represent the great moves of the Passion according to Matthew.

And the clerk would say, "Hail, Mary," as he flies above her.

Well, this little film is over. It is not a presentation, just a few notes.

A few scales, and then a film.

Baby Jesus will have to perform a miracle.

Performing miracles will be the most difficult thing.

A film is like a small miracle, and we ask you to participate,

to co-produce it with us.

We need your help.

We're asking no more and no less than what we need: 300,000 Swiss francs.

60% of this film is produced in Switzerland.

If I said "neutral" Switzerland, people might think I am making fun.

But neutrality is the hot spot.

One needs the negative, the positive, and the screen is neutral.

Light comes afterwards.

That's it. Fade out.