5/8/08

Critical turnaround

We scheduled an appointment with Natal at a table outside our café, surrounded by trees. The sun is shining. I have something really important to tell. I threw everything away. She raises her eyebrows, expects for explanation. I threw away the story, the lines... We didn't have much of it? We don't have it at all by now... I tighten the film. I get rid of everything fake and made up. I focus on what will really happen: the relationship between the director and actor.

She doesn't say anything. She thinks about it. She raises plenty of questions: "How are we going to organize it? With what are we going to make the film?" We keep the journey, the obstacle race with experiences, challenges. But we go much further. What will be shot is how we react to what happens, how we will respond and go through what happens.

She goes on: "It no longer speaks about love? It no longer refers to sex?" It speaks about a relationship between two people. They happen to be an actor and a director. I don't want to lie about that. This is a filmmaker who asks an actor to do something, not to play, or cheat, no... to do something for real: to make love with him. And then we'll see what happens. I do not know if the actor would desire me. I won't choose the actor according to my tastes, I do not know if I will desire him. I do not know if we'll can. I do not know whether or not it's easy to make love with someone you do not know, to establish complicity and confidence.

It speaks about my desire to make a movie, my desire to choose an actor, my desire or not to make love... it's all the same desire. It also speaks about how the actor reacts to my desire, wants to make love or not, etc...

Then it doesn't speak about something else than sex and love. We are not going to talk about it, but what we will do does. It can also be a failure. It may be a film about a meeting which is not happening, a relationship which doesn't match. It would raise the same issues.

We talk long. She raises many kinds of questions, considers every points, including details on some very concrete things: "But how it ends?" I do not know. We'll see if the meeting happens or not ... "How did you get the idea?" While talking to actors, thinking about it in a really concrete way, I realized that's what interests me. I want to throw all the theory away and head on in it...

She remains thoughtful. Her eyes are very focused, almost black, serious. And then she said: "Actually, this is what you want to do from the beginning... and now you frankly go straight to the point. This is great!"

Mood:

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