Otar Iosseliani: The man who loved birds

Here is a thoughtful piece on the Georgian director Otar Iosseliani, originally written for the Cinemascope web site.

A couple of years ago Edgardo Cozarinsky, an Argentine filmmaker who has lived in Paris for the last 40 years, said that nothing important was happening in France culturally but, at the same time, artists were still welcome to live and work there. Otar Iosseliani was born in 1934 in Tbilisi, and moved from Georgia to Paris in the early ‘80s, after censorship halted his career as a Soviet filmmaker in Georgia, where he made three features plus shorts and documentaries. In France he started anew, and so far he has made seven features, as well as a number of docs and shorts. Iosseliani is one of the adopted French filmmakers, a category that includes the likes of Raúl Ruiz and Eugène Green, and can be understood to encompass Manoel de Oliveira, Michael Haneke, and Ousmane Sembène. (It’s likewise tempting to describe the Swiss Jean-Luc Godard as a foreign filmmaker who sometimes works in France.)

Iosseliani once said, “Culture, in the sense of a well-constructed system of human relations, has collapsed [in Georgia]. Maybe it was one of the last countries. But everything collapsed, practically, with the departure of the previous generation.” He was talking about the devastation of war and communism, but the statement could well apply to the subjects of many of his films—such as And Then There Was Light (1989), a film about the destruction of an African village by the arrival of so-called progress. Iosseliani’s films are parables, and parables have many possible meanings. Also, in the director’s words, “the secret of your vision dies with you.” But his new feature, Jardins en automne, seems mainly to comment on the dissolution of the French film community, at least in the form he knew it when he became one of its members in 1984, the year of his first French-made film, Les Favoris de la Lune.

Sharing the designation which Ruiz frequently ascribes to himself, Iosseliani can be called “the best known of the unknown directors.” Ruiz is seven years younger than Iosseliani, but emigrated to Paris seven years earlier, fleeing from the Chilean dictatorship. Both are considered minor masters in the French nomenklatur, and they share a sense of subtlety, irony, a love of long shots and a hatred for explanation, psychology, and conventional storytelling. In a way, they are complementary: while Ruiz is definitively urban, nature is very important in Iosseliani’s work. And while both share an interest for the fine arts and the pleasures of alcohol, Ruiz opts for literature and philosophy while Iosseliani is deeply immersed in music. A pianist and composer in his own right, music plays an essential part not only in Iosseliani’s soundtracks, but also in his plots. Iosseliani’s films are musical in their form and structure, and music is the link between his usually disjointed scenes. But mostly, Iosseliani is a tonal filmmaker. His films can be thought of as the movements of a unique, consistent musical oeuvre.

This tone has to do with Iosseliani’s unique pace, which is rhapsodic and joyful, but with a paradoxical grace that follows from detachment and a lack of sentimentality. Iosseliani’s primary Western influence is Tati, with whom he shares a peculiar serendipity in the contact between people, objects, and animals. He prefers non-professional actors, and because of this, coupled with his lack of attention to dialogue, his fiction films aren’t far away stylistically from his documentaries. Some motifs are common to all of Iosseliani’s films: love for drinking, talking and singing amongst friends; hatred of work in any routine sense; the despising of bureaucrats; love for women as long as they are friends and lovers and never wives or mistresses; the presence of plants and animals among the human.

On this last count, Iosseliani can be acclaimed for bringing some of the best birds to the silver screen, with a high point being the gigantic, unbelievable, and hilarious stork from Adieu, plancher des vaches! (1999). But in Iosseliani’s films, birds are more than just birds—they illustrate an aesthetic principle. In Brigands, chapitre VII (1996), a medieval tyrant is poisoned by his mistress. The man falls down in agony, and she says, “Die you lousy swine!” But the man doesn’t die, and a parrot that hears the words and repeats them is used as a key witness in the mistress’ trial. So, without realizing it, the animal plays an important part in history. In Iosseliani’s films, you can see birds and quadrupeds like the boars that, alive or in photographs, punctuate Jardins en automne (together with a caged bird that’s called “the bird of truth”). These untamed animals are a presence that we humans cannot understand, and we look at their mysterious nature with the same perplexity as they might look at us. Maybe that’s the secret of Iosseliani’s view of human affairs: his camera shows people from the point of view of an animal, and, like men see animals, it finds humans weird, colourful, and potentially dangerous.

Over that basic layer of strangeness and involuntary cruelty, civilization tries to build a network between isolated individuals. But “civilization” doesn’t mean technology nor political order, but a series of rites and traditions that appeal to a much more primitive and, at the same time, sophisticated bond among equals—one that can be named kindness. Kindness is what leads to affection, to communication, to the pleasure of sharing. It has elementary manifestations in the ways to greet people, to ask for a match, to continuously offer cigarettes and drinks to others (Jarmusch!). Kindness is what contradicts brutality, the arrogance of dictators, the sadism of bureaucrats, the greed of capitalists, the pettiness of spouses, and all the other evils in Iosseliani’s films.

The balance of forces is uneven, however. As shown in Brigands, Iosseliani’s most political film, brute force prevails, and the autocrats, the party members, and the arms dealers impose their ignoble rule over tenderness and joy, dispossess the innocent, the rebels, and even the bad guys from their jobs, their homes, and their lives. Not much can be done against the determination of wrongdoers. In There Once Was a Singing Blackbird (1970), a masterpiece from the Georgian period, the main character is a musician who needs to be in perpetual motion and whose optimism and joy of life contradicts his boss’ desire to make him ordinary and disciplined. In the end, a car hits the young man, revealing that the director, in spite of the film’s light, bubbling atmosphere, doesn’t share his character’s naiveté.

As a result, Iosseliani’s films are far from being optimistic. On the contrary, they convey a deep sadness that has been especially apparent in his last few films. Although the filmmaker is very reluctant to show the actual death of his characters, there is a bleak cloud hanging over them, a sense of vague melancholy, of a loss with no precise object. In Jardins en automne, events go smoothly and nothing terrible happens; we seem to be watching a gentle comedy about an ex-politician who finds himself fully free to play the guitar, party with friends, and make love to women. The film’s protagonist, Vincent (a spectacular performance by Séverin Blanchet), is a minister in the French government, whose official duties seem to consist of keeping up with protocol. He’s bored with his job and his mistress. One day he’s fired and finds himself alone, with no job, no home, no girl, and no money. It’s the ideal Iosseliani situation, like in Adieu, plancher des vaches! or Lundi matin (2002). So, he behaves like he’s supposed to: he meets his old pals and girlfriends, and goes around drinking.

But there is a new element this time. Vincent has a rich mother, played by none other than Michel Piccoli, from whom he demands protection, shelter, and money. This is, to say the least, very unusual casting, and it’s almost impossible to avoid giving a meaning attached to this choice. This peculiar lady lives in a huge mansion with a big park, almost a palace, where she gives parties and conducts official ceremonies. In one of these ceremonies, she calls out the names of some soldiers, like Lt. Pierre Grandrieux and Sgt. Philippe Léon, who happen to be dead in the battlefields—Philippe Grandrieux and Pierre Léon are two French filmmakers, younger than Iosseliani, and in the hardcore cinephile camp. On the other hand, one of Vincent’s pals is legendary Cahiers du Cinéma critic Jean Douchet, and another is Iosseliani himself, who plays Arnaud, a character interested in painting, music, and gardening (and a transparent liquid that probably is vodka).

During the party the house is attacked, and Vincent and his friends are beaten. It’s very tempting to see Piccoli as a symbol for the French cinema (the actor, also a director himself, has worked with every major French director, and was even cast by Godard as the grey eminence of 1995’s Deux fois cinquante ans de cinéma français) and to see the attack on the house as a metaphor for the state of film in France, where people like Iosseliani seem not to matter any more. Vincent’s loss of privileges, yet with some remnants of his former official protection, speaks to the fragile situation and threatened careers of Iosseliani and his cineaste colleagues. A crowd sings Marxists hymns and throws tomatoes at Vincent, like they used to do in Stalinist Georgia. He is dispossessed of his official ministerial residence, as well as from his private apartment by squatters. The bistro where the group hangs around is shut down. The walls of the café, full of drawings made by Arnaud, are painted over. The new owner of the house tells the painter to “eliminate all that crap.” It’s an obvious reference to the oblivion to which Iosseliani’s images will be thrown in the future. This is not just a goodbye—it’s a dark one.

To contradict that view, at the end of the film we see another party in a garden, where all Vincent’s lovers, friends, and relatives are talking, drinking, and having fun. They all seem very relaxed, very happy. Then the camera turns up, showing the blue of the sky and the green of the trees. It’s a beautiful shot, full of lyricism and tenderness, one that perfectly integrates with the bright spirit of the last meeting. Then the screen turns black for a moment, and the credits begin to roll. At that point, the viewer might very well remember that the first shot of the film, a prologue that precedes the title, is a long shot in the shop of a coffin-maker, where Douchet, among other people, is trying to buy a casket that will fit him. With this in mind, the last shot becomes one of overwhelming sadness, and the party a definitive farewell.

About 12 years ago, another adopted French filmmaker, Krzysztof Kieslowski, completed his famous Three Colours trilogy, which was supposed to comment on the keywords of the French revolution. Iosseliani once said “the problems of a foreign country can never become truly, intimately yours… For you they will never have the same concreteness as they do for a real human community of people that are born and raised within that community.” However, this foreigner who saw his country destroyed to the verge of the unrecognizable and has, since then, been a well-treated guest—but with very limited recognition—in his new home, has not only showed today’s crisis in French cinema in a way that his native colleagues don’t dare, but deals in a clever way (and in a much less pompous one than Kieslowski) with the principles of liberté, egalité, and fraternité. Something is happening in Paris, after all. The problem is that the French don’t see it.

Stimulating cinema: Otar Iosseliani FilmFest Day 3

Film: Pastoral
Year: 1976

Last, but certainly not least, in Iosseliani fest is "Pastoral." In the commentary that accompanies the two-disc set of the director's work that was the source of this fest, one of his mentors (I believe) says that this movie was Iosseliani's farewell to his Georgian homeland. A few years, the director emigrated to France, where I would guess he still lives. What a treat it would be to talk to this man now--to get his insights into these remarkable works and to hear his thoughts on what has transpired both in the world of cinema and in the world in general since this movie was made. Does anyone know of any recent English-translated interviews he has done in recent years that might be found online somewhere?

If this movie was Iosseliani's farewell, he went out with a blaze of glory. The ending of this movie, in particular, is one of the most poignant, human moments you'll ever see on the screen. When watching it I thought to myself "this is about as good as it gets." The quality of this movie (and the other three I've discussed) is uniformly high and filled with liberal doses of humanity, spirit and warmth.

The movie begins with a group of classical musicians being sent to a rural village for the summer. The reason for this, at least as far as I could tell, wasn't really clear. But, just accept it--they're there. The sophisticated artsy folks from the city (one of whom is played by Iosseliani favorite Marina Kartsivadze) are plopped into the middle of an alien world. And of course, the feeling is mutual--the unpretentious, hard-working country folk don't quite know what to make of their unexpected visitors, but extend them plenty of warmth and courtesy and try to help them feel right at home. The contrasts are striking--the only thing these people have in common is that they are all Georgian. They're way of lives, though, are complete polar opposites. I think it's fascinating to think that even today (I'm thinking of a place like Brazil but I am sure there are many, many others), there could be such disparity between the lives of all the citizens. Here in the United States, there are differences between north and south, city and country, etc. but the gaps aren't that huge and there is frequently a common ground. For the characters in this movie, though, it's really like two different worlds coming together.

The musicians go through their day, warily keeping an eye on their surroundings while rehearsing. The villagers go on about their business too, farming and raising their animals with the wafting music as a constant accompaniment to their chores. In one of the best scenes, the musicians start playing for the first time and everyone in the village, young and old, is captivated by the sounds. Slowly, the two groups begin to find common ground--and Iosseliani shows this brilliantly. It's the little things--helping take in laundry before a storm arrives for example or recording a brother and sister singing traditional songs--that help bring the groups closer together. Helping to bridge the two worlds is Edouki, a teenage girl played by Nana Iosseliani (who I would have to assume is the director's daughter). Edouki is a hard-working girl, devoted to her younger brother and sister. But the arrival of the musicians (and a crush on one of them) fires in her imagination the possibility of a better life. Eventually, the musicians have to leave--goodbyes are said and promises are made. And then the scene I described earlier which I won't reveal, but which is truly magical.

Iosseliani's works are often described as "lyrical" and this might be his most lyrical work. In the literal sense, there is always music in the background and it underscores the emotions and actions of the characters. But also lyrical in the poetic sense of expressing personal feelings--it's never hard to know where these characters stand or what they are feeling. Everything, warts and all, is right there on the surface.

There are so many things that made me smile when watching this movie. Small gestures really say a lot--like when the musicians first arrive, one of them carelessly tosses and empty pop bottle on the ground. Shortly thereafter, we see an old man--his back bent almost perpendicular to the ground under the weight of a heavy load--stop and pick up the bottle before continuing on his way. Another moment comes when a pick-up truck carrying a group of peasants on their way to pick a crop is forced to stop at a railroad crossing. The passengers on the train gaze at them as if they were aliens, and the peasants return their gaze in similar fashion. Two worlds in conflict--and I think this scenes best illustrates where Iosseliani stood. There is also a sly tribute to his earlier film "Lived Once a Song Thrush" and lots of moments of high comedy. I'll come back to Iosseliani's movies again and again and I'm sure I'll always feel slightly uplifted after watching them. They do make you feel better about yourself and the world in general somehow.

Stimulating cinema: Otar Iosseliani FilmFest Day 2

Film: Lived Once a Song Thrush (original title: "Iko shashvi mgalobeli," also known as "There Was Once a Singing Blackbird")
Year: 1972

I really hate guys--and more often than not it is guys--like Gia, the main character in the third film in the Iosseliani festival. In my personal and in my professional life, this kind of personality has always rubbed me wrong for some reason. The glad-hander. The guy with a smile or a flirtatious word for every lady. The guy who breezes through life oblivious to the constraints of time and oblivious to how his irresponsible ways impact others. Probably I'm jealous of guys like Gia to a point--I don't have the gift of gab among strangers and I have always been awkward around women (how I even got married is quite a miracle in itself!) So sure, I do wish I could be a little more like Gia. But ultimately though, people like this have no substance; they might no everybody in town but do they really have any deep friendships? Do they ever really fall in love? Or do they love themselves to much to ever give themselves up to another?

Gia (Gia Agladze) is the center of attention in this movie, both literally and figuratively. He moves to the march of his own clock--deadlines are flexible, meetings and appointments are often forgotten or ignored outright and the feelings of others don't matter. It's not that Gia is a bad person--early on, his mother urges him to attend an aunt's birthday party and he does manage to make the scene, clearly delighting the older woman--it's just that he's clueless to how his frivolity gets in the way of the serious side of life. It's not all play and Gia hasn't figured that out yet and it's doubtful he ever will as there are too many admirers (male and female both) who will let him keep on with his flighty ways.

As the film opens, Gia is running late once again. A harried stage manager is looking all over the place for him. There is a concert going on and Gia is nowhere to be found. Just in the nick of time though he arrives to play his part (he plays the kettle drums in a symphony orchestra). And so, smiles all around. That Gia--he almost blew it that time! This flying-by-the-of-you-pants style annoys the conductor and the orchestra head and even though both express indignation, they never punish him. As one character says "all we ask is that you be on time" and Gia can't even do that.

The following morning--the film unfolds in a 36-hour time period, give or take--a kind, vacationing couple arrives at Gia's home. They are friends of a friend and Gia has been asked to put them up for a bit, maybe show them around and be nice. Gia promises to show them the sights of Tblisi, then promptly ducks out for the rest of the day--leaving the couple in the hands of his befuddled mother. And he's off, chatting up almost every female he sees (I lost count of all the girls he flirted with), charming most and annoying a few. One of the annoyed ones is played by Marina Kartsivadze, who had a larger role in "Falling Leaves." And that's pretty much it--no lessons are learned and you get the feeling that nothing is ever going to change. At the end of the day, Gia lies in his bed, staring at the monotonous wallpaper. You get the sense that he wants to be different, but just can't. The movie ends on the following morning with a bit of a jolt and a lot of disarray.

This me sound like a negative review, and I surely don't want to give that impression. I liked this movie a lot, just not the main character's ways. There is a good message here and there are a lot of thought-provoking elements. And the director's work is excellent once again (I'm really delighted to have made your acquaintance Mr. Iosseliani.) He keeps his touch light and makes the city of Tblisi positively thrum with energy. Gia flits about from situation to situation like a busy bee and the camerawork and editing help enhance the chaos.

Stimulating cinema: Otar Iosseliani FilmFest Day 1

Film: April
Year released: 1962

and

Film: Falling Leaves
Year released: 1968

For my first FilmFest, I'm digging into some works by the great Georgian director Otar Iosseliani. And I'm really glad too, because Iosseliani's movies are opening up a whole new world for me. I have to say that before starting this blog and getting heavily involved in movie-watching, I'd never heard of him and I'd wager to say that even if you are student of film history, he might be way down on your radar. That's one of the neat things about this project--I'm always learning and there are wonderful new discoveries around every corner. The joy of finding someone new (to me) and immersing myself in their art and their vision is incredibly gratifying and rewarding.

Iosseliani was born in Tblisi, Georgia in the former Soviet Union on Feb. 2, 1934. The rest of his biography follows, courtesy of allmovies.com

He studied at the State Conservatory and graduated in 1952 with a diploma in composition, conducting and piano. In 1953 he went to Moscow to study at the faculty of mathematics, but in two years he quit and entered the State Film Institute (VGIK) where his teachers were Alexander Dovzhenk and Mikhail Chiaureli. While still a student, he began working at the Gruziafilm studios in Tbilisi, first as an assistant director and then as an editor of documentaries. In 1958 he directed his first short film "Akvarel." In 1961 he graduated from VGIK with a diploma in film direction. When his medium-length film "Aprili" (1962) was denied theatrical distribution, Iosseliani abandoned filmmaking and in 1963-1965 worked first as a sailor on a fishing boat and then at the Rustavi metallurgical factory. "Aprili" was finally released only in 1972. In 1966 he directed his first feature film "Giorgobistve" that was presented at the Critics' Week at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival and won a FIPRESCI award there. When his 1976 film "Pastorli" was shelved for a few years and then granted only a limited distribution, Iosseliani grew sceptical about getting any artistic freedom in his homeland. Following "Pastorali's" success at the 1982 Berlin Film Festival, the director moved to France where in 1984 he made "Les Favoris de la Lune." The film was distinguished with a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Since then Venice became a showcase for all his subsequent films. In 1989 he again received a Special Jury Prize for "Et la Lumiere Fut" and in 1992 the Pasinetti Award for Best Direction for "La Chasse aux Papillons." After the disruption of the Soviet Union he continued to work in France where he made the documentary "Seule Georgie" (1994) which was followed by the sardonic and allegorical "Brigands: Chapitre VII" (1996).

A key thing to remember when watching Iosseliani's films: They ran afoul of the Russian censors and were either banned outright or similarly restricted upon release. That, to me, is really mind-boggling in that there is nothing in these two films that would merit that. Granted, there is some symbolism that could be interpreted one way but of course it could be interpreted in others too. It just confirms (as if we needed any more at this point) the paranoia that was permeating the Soviet leadership at the time. If you are looking hard enough for subversion, you're sure to find it. And I am pretty certain that Iosseliani meant for his works to be taken at face value (although I'd be interested to know if this is not the case. Can anyone help out with a link or an article?)

Take the first movie in our Fest--"April." According to allmovies, the film was banned upon release due to it's "excessive formalism." I think this is party doublespeak for "we don't understand this so there must be something subversive here. Best to ban it." "April" though, is really a charming little film. It has a message that resonates across cultures and eras--don't get too caught up with material things. Remember what's important. Take joy from a lover's kiss, a tree or a sunny day. It's really a universal message but it's made more poignant perhaps by the setting (a depressed, run-down Tblisi).

As many other critics have noted, "April" is similar in style to the works of Jacques Tati (I've seen his "Playground" and will certainly do a future FilmFest on him one day.). There's little dialogue in the movie and what is spoken isn't subtitled (it's hardly necessary though; the characters are fighting with one another and what's being said isn't as important as what's going on between them. Instead, the movie focuses on astounding camerawork--figures moving about at all angles--and constant motion. It's like peering into a beehive; there's always something moving and objects or people that at first appear insignificant frequently become so in the course of a scene or two. It's really amazing, creative work and a style that's fresh and always full of enjoyment.

"April's" plot is simple--a young man (Tanya Chanturia) and a young woman (Gia Chiaqadze) meet and fall in love. Early on, their attempts at a simple kiss are constantly thwarted by passersby. When a brand new apartment complex goes up, the two move in. Alone in their bare space, they finally kiss and when they do it's magic! The lights come on, the water runs and the stove burners light--all from this one kiss. Life is good. But slowly the couple's idyllic existence changes as they are seduced by the creeping disease of materialism. It starts slowly--first a chair then a vase. Soon, their apartment is jammed with all types of furniture and gadgets (two vacuum cleaners!) Their quiet tender moments are replaced with quarrels and eventually they make the only choice they can.

By contrast, the feature-length ("April" runs for about 45 minutes) "Falling Leaves" is more conventional in terms of plotting and structure, but still maintains the characteristic Iosseliani touches. The movie begins with sort of a prologue as we see Georgian villagers harvesting grapes, making them into wine and enjoying the wine along with good food and fellowship. We switch then to the city, where two young men are on the verge of new jobs. Otar (Georgiy Kharabadze) is a by-the-book opportunist who is still living at home and is hilariously brow-beaten by his parents before going off on his job interview. Niko (Ramaz Giorgobiani) is a younger man with a lot of weight on his shoulders. He needs this job because he's now the man of the house and has a mother, grandmother and and four younger sisters to support. It's clear right away that Niko is a good boy, serious, kind-hearted yet very strong, earnest and principled.

The two land jobs at a wine collective. Otar quickly sets about on a course of trying to become a success by becoming Mr. Company Man. Niko, meanwhile, quickly endears himself to his co-workers by being their equal and by working side-by-side with them. Niko's status grows when he reveals his father's name (Alexander Nijoradze). His co-workers are sympathetic--Alexander who has apparently just recently passed was "a good man" and Niko is highly respected as his son. Otar and Niko vie for the affections of Marina (Marina Kartsivadze), who feels she is better than Otar but is too flighty for the serious-minded Niko. One of the more poignant parts of the movie comes when Niko realizes Marina isn't the person he thought she was (and takes a punch in the face to add insult to injury).

Niko takes a stand early on--it's time to bottle the wine from vat 49 (a strange number, would there be any connection with Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49?"). The wine is clearly subpar, yet for the sake of cost and efficiency, the powers that be want it bottled anyway. Niko refuses to sign off on bottling a bad product and is forced to stand firm. Eventually, with the help of the workers he has developed deep friendships with, Niko resolves his conflict.

Clearly there is symbolism here--the character Otar represents the staid, non-conforming bureaucrats, yes-men and lackeys without an ounce of creativity or passion in their souls. Niko represents the people and the inherent power we all have inside of us to do good for mankind. Along the way, there's comedy, sorrow and more of the Tati-esque moments and shots that Ioselliani excels at. Excellent film.

Interview with Laurent Cantet

And finally, to give "The Class" the full treatment it deserves, we have an interview with director Laurent Cantet conducted in August of 2009 by Terry O'Keefe of The Hollywood Interview.

Director Laurent Cantet's The Class is no Dead Poet's Society/Mr. Holland's Opus/Stand and Deliver, and that's a good thing. Francois, the youngish teacher in the French junior high school depicted in the film, has an often unruly classroom of adolescents to manage, but he certainly doesn't have all of life's answers for them, or even for himself. Shot in a quasi-documentary fashion, loose and handheld, the truths of The Class come from its determination to avoid any sentiment or artifice, and to show life in the classroom as realistically as possible. The cast features real junior high school students and it's an immediate reminder that real 13-year olds don't look like the model types seen in Hollywood high school films. These kids are also socially awkward, and often irritating, and teaching them requires the patience of Job. Francois is played by co-screenwriter Francois Begaudeau, who was himself a teacher and wrote a best-selling autobiography entitled Entre les Murs (Between the Walls) about his experiences. Cantet worked with Begaudeau on the script for The Class, using the material from the book as a jumping-off point for the development of the eventual storyline.

The Class has arrived on DVD and Blu-ray this week with special features which include a Making of Featurette and commentaries on select scenes. We sat down with Laurent Cantet for our interview several months ago, in February, when he was visiting for the Oscars, and for which The Class was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

Terry Keefe: Was your reading of the book Entre les Murs the initial inspiration for making The Class, or were you seeking out a school-based story to adapt regardless and reading lots of potential material?

Laurent Cantet: In fact, I started to write a script, when I was not sure that I would be able to make my previous film [Heading South], and the story I wrote was – is still in the film, in fact, in the plotline of the film, which is the story of (the student character of) Souleymane. And it was like the book, just set between the walls of a sort of junior high school. But I stopped writing, because I finally managed to make my previous film, and the day of the release, I was invited to a talk show, in a radio talk show, and Francois, the writer of the book Entre les Murs, was here too, and he was here to speak of his book, and he read some excerpts of the book. He has been a teacher for ten years, and I realized that could bring me all this documentary material I really needed to make the film. And he also – it was obvious when you read the pages of his book – it was obvious that the dialogues and all that was happening in the book, had this energy I was trying to find for the film. So I proposed to him that we work together, not to make a real adaptation of the book, but just a sort of extension of it. To just take the different scenes that interested me in the book, and make them be a sort of departure point for the scenes of the film. Propose a scene to the class that we would form, and then see the way the children could react from that. And he was really interested in that. I don’t think he would have been interested in just another classical adaptation of his book. He would have had the feeling to do the same thing again, but here it was not doing the same thing. We were going to see the way these scenes…could resonate for other children. And so we worked together for quite a long time before shooting. We made a sort of workshop in the school, and Francois was here every Wednesday afternoon with me, and with the children. And he was just acting in front of them, and working with them. And we could write the film from three different things: From my first idea of the Souleymane story; from the book and the scene he proposed me; and from the way the children react to these scenes. And we put all that together – I don’t know exactly, even today I don’t remember what comes from the book, what comes from my previous idea, what comes from the children. Everything is mixed….

(Star and co-writer Francois Begaudeau, above)

Did you tape the rehearsals in the workshop as you were going along, so you could look at the material that you had?

Yes. We had a camera during all of the workshop – and in the French DVD, we have a sort of making-of which shows big parts of this workshop, and it’s quite interesting to see what they brought to the film, as in moments that they proposed in the improvisation that are in the film now.

Let’s talk about the editing process, which must have been daunting. You shot quite a bit of material that had to be pared down to feature length.

At the end, we had one hundred and fifty hours, and it was quite, how do you say, you could get lost in it [laughs] ?

How many editors did you have?

One.

One!

Yeah [laughs], and he (Robin Campillo) is also the co-writer of the film, so maybe he had a good idea what we were doing, you know.

Did you devise any type of charting system to keep track of all this diverse footage?

No, in fact we edited the film scene by scene. And we tried to get, to see everything before starting to edit each of the scenes, and we had in mind all the possibilities before editing. I’m sure that if we would have watched the rushes after editing, we would have changed a lot of things again. But, you know, at one moment, we said, “So, okay, it works this way,” but I think we could have made another editing which would have been very different.

You shot on HD. I assume you had a few cameras going at once?

Three cameras.

And did you have certain things planned out that each camera would cover, or did they just sort of float around?

One of them was always on the teacher. Because, you know, he’s the one who sort of organizes the scene and says to each student, “It’s up to you.” And the second camera was on the student who was speaking to the teacher. And the third one was preparing itself for the next one to speak, or trying to catch these little moments of the class life, you know? And all that makes, I think, the class feel real.

Production-wise, was there a challenge in making sure the multiple roaming cameras were never in the frame together?

No, in fact, that part was quite easy, because the room was square. And we changed it into a rectangle, and we kept two meters (free) for the cameras and for the technical stuff. And the three cameras are in the same side of the class, just like when you film a match, and you have always the teacher on the left, and the children on the right. It’s quite easy to understand who is watching whom.

How long was the casting process in terms of deciding which kids you were going to focus on?

Well, it was not real casting. In fact, we made this workshop in the school, it was open to all the volunteers of the school, who were aged between thirteen to fifteen. And, at the beginning, I think there were fifty of them who came, just to see what was happening in that workshop. And after a few weeks, twenty-five stayed, and they are the twenty-five who are in the film. I didn’t choose them – they decided to be part of the story, that’s all.

You’ve stayed in touch with the kids. Do you feel responsible for them to some degree now?

Yeah, but I’m very happy, because I was a little bit afraid of what would happen after Cannes, you know.

It’s potentially such an overwhelming new experience for them.

And also because the journalists tried to get them, tried to go with them on holiday, see them going back to their country, and we tried to protect them. But in fact, they stayed very calm about all that. None of them lost their mind. And what’s important for me was they always felt that the group was more important than themselves. And none of them tried to come to the front, you know, and I think it’s – the film has been done in a very democratic way, and I think they understood that very well, and went on in that way of behaving afterwards.

Do any of them plan to pursue acting further?

Some of them would like to play again, to act again. One of them already made another film last summer, but they are still in school, and they still study, and, you know, they don’t lose their mind at all.

In the United States, the story of a teacher and his students is almost a genre in itself. There have been a lot of films based around this dynamic, and they’re often very sentimental. Did you make a conscious decision to veer away from sentiment?

That was one point. The other point was that I didn’t want to create this “perfect teacher,” that would take the children from a very bad position, to – how do you say it - inspirational? I tried to show a teacher that just tries to do his best, and sometimes makes mistakes, sometimes misses his purpose, you know? And I think it’s much closer to the school reality than an inspirational teacher that would be sort, of a maitre a penser, a thinking master, or something like that. And I think that’s the main difference between American school/class films and all that, and this one. I think this film is asking a lot of questions about school, about what it means to learn something, what it means to teach something. But it doesn’t give a lot of answers, because I think that the situation is too complex to have any specific answers – especially in two hours, when you’re making a film, you don’t have time to analyze everything, so you just – I just try to show the complexity of the system.

How influenced have you been by the neorealists?

Well, I think my favorite director would be Roberto Rossellini. I like the way he looks at the reality without being afraid of emotions in the same time. He’s even sometimes melodramatic. And I think that’s what I always try to make in my films: show the reality through the experience of people, and if you really look at people living the situation, you often go to the emotion that they feel about the reality.

The film has a strong fly-on-the wall feel, much like a real slice-of-life documentary, but there is a subtle guiding hand of narrative underneath. It's a tough balance to pull off, I imagine.

I, in fact, have a fictional line, and I like to develop it in a context that really looks like reality. And even if this reality is always rebuilt, it’s not a documentary in the sense that you just put your camera and wait until the things happen in front of the camera. Here, especially for this film, we created the class by putting together children who are in the same school but didn’t know each other very well, and we created characters with each of them. They were allowed to improvise on the scene, but also I gave them very precise lines that I really needed to hear in the film, and that they were able to introduce in the improvisation, just like it was coming from them. And most of them are very different in the film than what they are in real life. The main character, Souleymane, was a tough guy, you know, who has problem with the system, but he’s one of the most quiet boys I ever met, and he’s very discreet, and he’s even a little bit shy. But he likes acting, and I saw that on the first day we met, and I was so happy to try to find a character to try to act a different way he would act, he would be himself. It was very interesting for me to work with him.

Were you shooting hand-held most of the time?

It was all on the shoulder – and, you know, the first shot of each scene was very long, it was twenty-five minutes long. And then, after the first take, I would speak with each of the children, telling them, “That was interesting, you will keep that, you can avoid that, you can forget that, you could say that later – when you will say that…” and we were rebuilding the scene through what they proposed, but quite close to what I was expecting, in fact.

How long did it take for the kids to stop noticing the camera?

That was not a problem at any moment. Maybe because they are part of the generation that is very used to this, or just because, you know, after a while, when you let them think about what they are doing, they forgot they are not in a real lesson, and they are just acting, without thinking. And the other thing is, with three cameras, they never know when they are filmed, but they can be filmed at any moment – so they are acting from the action to the cut.

Did you learn anything about being a kid that’s different now, from when you were one?

What I learned is that, you know, we have a very bad image of kids now – they are supposed to be idiots, just able to play video games, and what they proved to me is if you give a certain meaning to what they are doing, a sense, I don’t know how you say that, they can give you much more than what you can expect at the beginning. And they were able to stay concentrated on the work, for a six-hour day. And the teachers who are in the film are also the real teachers of these kids in the same school, and they were so jealous to see that we were able to keep them like that – in a room and just working for six hours!

Do you know what you’re working on next?

No. For the moment I am just traveling with this film, which will soon finish, so I will have to think to the next film. And I need to go back to work now, but it’s too early, and I really need to finish this story before starting another one. The only think I’m sure of is that the working method I found for this film will be the one I will use again on my next one.

It’s hard to imagine the production process of this pre-digital. I’m envisioning several Moviola editing decks covered with hundreds of trims.

Yeah, and HD really…it gives the film freedom that I never had before, and I think you can see it when you watch the film. And, you know, since we had three cameras, we didn’t have to cut and make the reverse shot, and so it respects all the energy of the scene, and I think it’s the only way now for me to work. I think the freedom I’ve found with this film is what I will want on the next one. Because it allows you to really listen to what people have to say, and just let the camera roll, and then see sometimes you have ten minutes where nothing is happening – and then after ten minutes you have one scene that is so perfect.