Few French films make it big in the States (perhaps because those rascally French directors have the gall to shoot their films in, you know, French) but with his first film, The Chorus, director Christophe Barratier created one of them. He is back this year with a new cinematic offering, Paris 36, a heartfelt, sentimental, purposefully artificial look at three men who, with the aid of an aspiring singer named Douce (Nora Arnezeder), set out to rehabilitate an old cabaret. I got to speak with Mr. Barratier and with Miz Arnezeder about the film, and it was certainly a pleasure. Enjoy.Sorry I’m out of breath. I only found out at the last moment that I was able to do this in person so I had to sprint.
NORA ARNEZEDER: Oh! No problem. [laughs]
So how are you?
NA: I’m good! Thank you.
CHRISTOPHE BARRATIER: Great. Excellent.
That’s great to hear. When I was reading about the background for the film, it mentioned musical comedy; is this a musical?
CB: No, it’s not. It’s a mixture of different styles, but it’s not a musical; it’s between drama, melodrama, and there are some musical parts. But we sing in the movie just because it’s integrated in the action [when a character is performing a song onstage], and it’s not a musical if you think like Moulin Rouge! or that sort of thing. Totally not.
But it is about a venue, and about reviving…
CB: Yes, but it’s a kind of pretext. It’s not really about musicals or about songs, it’s just workers who are working on a musical and want to be artists.
Right. And it’s very grounded in history, am I right?
CB: It’s—no, there is a social background and a historical background, but it’s just a background. It’s not a political movie, and neither is it a social movie. It’s just because in ’36, in France, there was a big crisis, and for the first time left-wing government was elected and France was in a big wave of hope for wonderful tomorrows, and these wonderful tomorrows never happened because of World War II. And so that’s a background, an important background, but it’s just a background. It’s a story of brotherhood, love, and focused on the characters and nothing else.
Nora, tell me about your character, Douce.
NA: She’s from the north of France, and she comes to Paris to become a singer, and so she meets three unemployed men who want to rehabilitate a cabaret, and she will fall in love with one of these unemployed men, and… and you have to see the movie! [laughs]
This is your acting debut, am I right?
NA: Yeah. It’s my first important part in a movie, and it’s a real chance for me to sing and to act as well, and they’re my two loves.
How did you end up in this movie?
NA: It was two years ago… I did an audition, so I did a singing test first, and after that an acting audition, and at the end a singing test. So that’s how I got it.
CB: It was important for me, because the three male stars are very well-known in France and there was just one female character, to discover a new face, a new talent, and that’s why I focused—really, it was important for me to do a huge casting to discover a great addition, and that’s what happened.
What were some of the influences in terms of the style of this movie? Cinematic influences or…?
CB: Well, when you are a director you have always several influences, but you cannot say, “Oh, for this movie, I will search my influence from this or from this or from this.” There are some shots that are more American than French, there are some scenes that are really French, there are some images that are just not French, and my ambition was more to say, “Let me tell you a story: once upon a time in Paris…” And so I can’t be so focused on my references, because my references are French cinema, Japanese cinema, some American… I can’t give you specific references.
I like how you say “Once upon a time in Paris”. You make it sound like a French fairy tale.
CB: That’s exactly what I wanted. This Paris has been shot on sets, built by set designers, and this artificiality was part of the plot. It was not my purpose to do a realistic movie or a documentary about this period, just to take an opportunity to share emotion with the audience.
From the stills that I’ve seen it seems like there is a very lush sort of look to the film, saturated with color and visually arresting.
NA: Mm. A real aesthetic movie!
CB: Yes, that’s why I worked with Tom Stern, who is American, who is the director of cinematography for Clint Eastwood, for Sam Mendes very often, and he was a good person to give this film life on set with a lot of light, shadows, contrast, and real saturated colors. It’s bigger than life, I should say.
Nora, how did your singing help you approach this acting role?
NA: Well, thanks to my singing classes that I have been taking for years, I’ve… Douce is a singer, so maybe if I hadn’t taken those singing lessons I wouldn’t maybe have the role, you know? So that’s good. [laughs]
How was it like working together?
CA: Working with her? I know when you…
NA: It was horrible?
[laughs]
CA: No, but in terms of direction, ninety percent of the direction of an actor is done when you have made a good choice, and I was sure that Nora was perfect to fit the character of Douce. And the first experiment was to make sure she felt very confident and relaxed and free to reach what she could be, and of course we expect the actor to give us what we expect, but very often they give us more than we expected. And with Nora, I was sure that she was a real artist, and even though she was full of doubt when she was on the set with all the lights and the cameras, she was at the maximum, at 100% of her possibility.
Were there any literary influences that either influenced the film or, Nora, that influenced your portrayal?
NA: Yeah! Before the shoot, I’d seen a lot of movies with… yep. [laughs]
CB: But I don’t think actors should require so many influences, you know? I think it’s more my job to maybe give them some perfume from the period. I don’t care if they know anything about history.
Paris 36 is playing in theatres now.
No comments:
Post a Comment