9/29/08

Break


I'm working on the shooting script.

In the middle, I take a... no I give myself a break to distract me a little.

9/28/08

Appetite

I have a huge appetite now. I'm very impatient to film, extract all kinds of feelings, try many things, enjoy it. yum ...

Mood:

9/27/08

The clothes


I got the clothes today. Should I cancel everything and run away with them? I'm hesitating...

9/26/08

One two sound check


I tested all the material. I came to the micro-lapels provided by Catherine. I connected it. I got an headphone: no sound. I pressed every single button. Still nothing. I got another headphone. I checked the connections. Silence. I reset. I turned off the case. I took away the battery. I started from the beginning. Still nothing. All kinds of thoughts came to my mind. One relentlessly: I have a few days to find a fallback option. I looked at the cases. The frequency was different. I adjusted them: it worked.


9/25/08

The skull















I received the skull today. The delivery man gently held it out to me.

It's beautiful, wrapped up in its box.

Evetything is getting put together. The shooting is coming. I'm excited.

Mood:

9/24/08

Asshole














I met Eric Pougeau today to get his funeral marble slab "Enculé" which means asshole in french.

He's very gentle, very sweet and his piece is so powerful.

Mood:

9/21/08

Any questions?

Want to go further? Do you have any questions? Something to say? We'll try to answer... It's up to you!

9/17/08

the experience of the body by the body

I met someone from the cinema ... how may I say? Classical? Conservative? today.

He has just completed his studies. He is full of hope and quite impressed by himself, more impressed by what he could do than by what he has already done.

I glanced at him. My eyes lingered on his hair that you wouldn't want to touch and his gaze which didn't look straight. He looks very sweet.

He read some notes of the film. He didn't like it. I smiled. I offered him to go further, to explain ... no, no he didn't like.

I thought: I have two weeks before shooting the film. So far no one raised any objection. I am curious to hear what he will say. It is not too late. I can stop everything. Or modify some things. I'm listening.

He was embarrassed to say what he was thinking or the few notes he has read may have not been enough to make an opinion. Too bad.

He was seeking...

"The situation is fake." He said "fake". I looked into... He explained: "What are they doing there? Why don't they leave?" I said: they can leave, they may go, I do not know... why not.

He opened his eyes wide. "Yes, but ..." He was thinking... "What the director wants to do?" I smiled: Well... I say that the director wants to have... no, the director is asking the actor to have sex with him.

"So this is a porn movie? I'm not into porn..." I laughed and I answered, no, certainly not. Porn is not my problem at all. It has nothing to do with...

I stopped. I looked at him. I was more up to listen to him than to talk but I said: usually the desire of the director is hidden behind the story, the technique, the work of actors... Here it is apparent. Yes it is bizarre that a director asks an actress to simulate a rape for example, and during the shooting, this feels bizarre for the whole team. Moreover, we do not even know if actor's bodies are making any difference between reality and imagination because of their work on the emotional memory... Here I make this desire apparent. I do not hide the fact that the desire of the director is debatable. I face it, I don't avoid it.

There, the synaptic connections of his brain were shaken. I saw it in the bustle of his eyes. It was cute. "But why sex?" I understood that he raised this question. I could have shot a meal or a conversation, it's the same for me. The point is I want them to face this question, I don't want them to be able to bypass it, and if they do so, I want it to be clear. This may be what will interest me the most, the bypasses.

I added that whether we are sexually liberated and then this will be an easy-going thing to go through, or it is still very touchy, it still means a lot. Well, I'm curious to face it.

He seemed to assume that there is something very exciting in there, but he could not concretely figure it out. I can see in his eyes, he was overwhelmed. He tried to connect it with stuff he knows. "Okay, but what do you film? Even for a documentary, you need to know prior to shoot what you will say..."
I laughed at loud and said no, not at all. I don't know one thing of what will happen. I have no a priori. This is a challenge... Yes, here you point a sensitive issue of the project... how to film? yes... and so...

I stopped. I reminded that he's from a cinema trend where the image serves the film, where the work on the image is completely submitted to a big fantasy. I smiled and said that first, the image is independent. Every single element works in an autonomous way in the film: sound, image, work of actors... They sometimes connect to each other, sometimes conflict with each other, sometimes follow their own ways.

This was too much. He didn't get anything any more. I hesitated. I went a little further to see... yes, I will try to work on the image the same way as we usually work on the script. This is a full-fledged work. You could watch the image without the sound, without the work of actor, and it would mean something, raise questions, etc ...

I felt I needed to change the subject. It was way too theoretical for him. I could see that he wished to understand, but...

"But this is only about sex?" Here he went again. I did not know why this was so hard to get for him. I was surprised.
I tried something like: no, first, I will try to get what is before sex, around sex, besides... I think it's going to make sex more readable. Sometimes movies dare not invest the relationship, they stop just before, let it happen and watch and see. As a result, it is vague and unreadable. Here we will try to go through it. We should feel the importance of each gesture, each look, each word... And anyway, sex is used as an excuse, a pretext. I'm interested by the relationship between two persons.

At the end, I stopped trying to convince him, I said: yes, to make it simple, the public will want to know whether the actors are going to fuck or not. I use this question to ask many others, but well...

I tried to see if he had anything to add. He finally said: "This is an intellectual film though?"

I laughed. I laughed a lot, but I think I succeeded not to show it. I wondered what he was told about intellectual films in his school... I assumed this is an insult.

I thought about it. Can we say that this is an intellectual film? It seems very concrete to me, the experience of the body by the body.

I said something like: I try to question the relationship between two persons. It could have been a love affair, but in this case, in front of a camera, it would be really fake. This will happen between a director and an actor, as a concrete example. Then I use the pretext of sex to cause this relationship, it's also concrete, since it's a kind of case study. I think this is the most relevant case study. Then, I try to go into this relationship, to study various aspects of it, even to go further and see the reverse. After I organize the study, I give rhythm to it, I contrast it. It is supposed to get rid of theory. We are supposed to go through it defenseless, on open ground.

I didn't say that I try to simplify the conception and the filming of a movie as much as possible, keeping only the bones. Simplifying, getting rid of everything people think you ought to do is a huge work.

I didn't say how thrilling this is to try to lose power and control by organizing opportunities for something which will happen without knowing what at all.

I didn't say how politically important this is for me.

I didn't say how excited I am to take the risk of going into this in a such different way than a director who makes up a world and asks a whole team to be submitted to it would, to make him believe it does exist.

I didn't say that in french they say realizing for directing, and in realizing you hear reality.

I didn't say...

I didn't say anything anymore. I felt like I spoke Chinese to him. I smiled.

I didn't know if he was too young, if he has not yet stumbled against the limits of his technique to need to question it, if he was still struggling to master it, to do it well or if he had any genuine objections to raise, which would help me to avoid making a huge mistake...

I understood that I won't be able to find it out. I kept smiling.

Too bad.

Mood:



9/10/08

Secret trivia


  • The nude scene on the bed is a reference to "Flesh" by Paul Morrissey and "Sleep" by Andy Warhol.

  • The "asshole" ("enculé") funeral slab is a piece by Eric Pougeau.

  • The clothes worn or not by Marcel Schlutt and Claude Pérès outline the balance in their relationship: Marcel is naked while Claude is dressed, then Marcel wears a tee-shirt while Claude wears jeans, etc...

  • The vanitas scattered throughout the apartment is a piece by Claude Pérès called "tools".

  • In the script, the characters are named A and B.

  • The "doggy-style" scene is a reference to the first scene of "Law of Desire" by Pedro Almodovar.

  • More than 17 versions of the script were written. Then they ended up working with no script at all.

  • During the couch scene, the battery of the on-camera light ran down by accident. Claude decided to go on, recalling his first idea to shoot this scene in the dark.

  • The bottle of water throughout the film represents the appetite or the thirst as a reference to the vase of Lacan's desire.

  • Claude couldn't break the bottle ; the pieces on the floor came from several glasses, broken with a hammer.

  • The plan of the film is put up on the wall of the bedroom.

  • The three books on the chimney : "No More" by Marguerite Duras, "Oedipus at Colonus" by Sophocle and "Hamlet" by Shakespeare.

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