Interview: Michel Gondry of “Mood Indigo”

Posted on August 2, 2014 at 3:50 pm

Michel Gondry is one of my favorite directors, with a distinctive style of romance and whimsy, best known for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Be Kind Rewind.” His films usually feature intricate contraptions with a very hand-made feeling. His latest film, starring “Amelie’s” Audrey Tautou, is based on a popular French novel first published in 1947 novel by Boris Vian with a title usually translated as “Froth on the Daydream”. Gondry is the perfect choice for a film that features a “pianoktail,” a piano that makes cocktails according to which tune is played on its keys, and a character who becomes ill because a water lily is growing in her lung. The book has been filmed twice before and turned into an opera, but in Gondry it has found the perfect person to translate its bittersweet allegory to cinema.

I spoke to Gondry about why handmade items still matter and which item from the film he would like to have in real life.

In a world of CGI effects that feel realer than reality, it is very endearing to see a film that is filled with charming items that all feel very handmade.

I am surrounded by function, and I am not very good at decorating or being organized. It is very messy most of the time. But I like to make things and to have people make things for my movies. It is very nice when you can see the construction and the results, when you can take it in your hand and it moves and functions, where you can see the mechanics and the guts inside. You want things to be made my people, not things made by things. You don’t want robots to be designing the items you are going to buy like it’s a sign of better quality. I don’t see it that way. A lot of the films I saw when I was growing up, you could tell how things were made and I found that exciting. It stimulates the creativity of the viewer. You would be inspired and want do make the things yourself. If you show how it is made, people will think about how to make it themselves. It’s a democratization of creativity.

The actors have to believe that they are in a real world. The fact that everything was made, there was no green screen, helped them. They have to jump into this world so they can feel the emotion they would feel in the real world.

If you could have one of the movie’s contraptions in real life, what would it be?

I have the airplane. I like some of the cars we did. One was made by two very famous French cars from the 60’s and 70’s. Storing items costs more money than building them. It’s too bad.

The book that inspired the movie is still very beloved in France, isn’t it?

Yes, I was about 15 when I first read it. Everyone has their own take on it. That puts some pressure on me to not fail them — some people say, “Don’t make this book into a film because we love it!” That scared me a little. But I have to forget about that and the best I could.

The movie’s US title comes from an American song and American jazz plays a role in the film.

Duke Ellington is very important to the story. The character Chloe has a name inspired by a Duke Ellington song. And I grew up listening to Duke Ellington. Two heroes in the house — Duke Ellington and Serge Gainsbourg, who was in a way sort of a student of Ellington. So I did put a lot of Ellington music in the movie and it was very important to honor that spirit.

What did you tell your actors about maintaining a reality in a partially fairy tale setting?

They asked me a lot of questions about who their characters were and where they came from. I don’t like to intellectualize the background of each character. It should come from themselves. They just have to be themselves and believe in the moment. I don’t think they need to create a heavy psychology. The psychology of the emotion comes from the situation and what is going on. They don’t have to imagine a full and complex story for each character.

Am I right in seeing some influence by George Méliès in your work?

Yes. He was a magician first and used the camera to complexify his tricks. And he discovered most of the effects that were used in cinema until CGI. He had the ingenuity and creativity and complete freedom in his work that I really got inspired by.

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Directors Interview

Interview: Anne Fontaine of ‘Coco Before Chanel’

Posted on September 24, 2009 at 2:48 pm

The foremost fashion designer of the last hundred years is Coco Chanel and her life story is almost as fascinating as her timeless designs. As its title indicates, this most recent film is a look at Chanel from her childhood until the moment when, with the help of some money from her lovers, opened her first business, designing hats. In this film, as Coco cuts up her lovers’ clothes to make creations for itself that were simple, elegant, wearable, and instantly classic. Amid all the flounces, corsets, and enormous hats, it was like watching the 20th century walk into the room. At the end of the film, when we get a glimpse of one of her fashion shows, every single item is as chic today as it was when she designed it.
Anne Fontaine, who co-wrote and directed, spoke to me about the endless interest in Chanel and how she selected an American actor to play a British character who spoke French.
NM: Why focus on Chanel’s youth and relationships instead of her work?
AF: She is the 20th century by herself, it is about fashion of course but deeply it is about a new way to be for a woman, very physical. She was not beautiful, she was very thin, very androgynous, she was not at all the criteria of beauty for this period, she was like a little boy. You can’t understand Chanel unless you know that she has a very different body. Because she was so different, because she was poor, it gave her freedom to move differently, physically and through society. She was creating clothes for herself that were less confining not just for the style but so she could do what she wanted to do.
NM: You cast one of my favorite actors, the American Alessandro Nivola, to play a British man who speaks fluent French. How did that happen?
AF: When I was looking for an actor to interpret Boy Capel, as you say he was a British businessman, who was the most important love of Chanel’s life. She always said he was the first and the most deep relationship she had, I tried to look in England, if there was a young man who could play the part in France. Many actors when they lose their language — it can be awful. If he does not think through the language and only thinks through the sounds he can lose all the qualities he had because it is very difficult to play a part in another language. In England, I didn’t find an actor who has the charm, the qualities that the part requires and they didn’t speak French at all. I was doing some casting in New York and someone mentioned Alessandro Nivola. I knew he had played an English part in a Kenneth Branaugh film, but that was not the reason. I made him a little exercise before the audition: “Can you read one scene of the script in French?” When I spoke with him on the phone I knew he could speak French, not fluently, but he was not afraid. I did a test with him to see how the face moved with the French and it was not only good but also very different from the other man who played the aristocrat. They were so different. The two men she was involved with showed different things and affected her differently.
Alessandro said it was very hard to be directed in French because I was always at his shoulder telling him to be careful with this word and that word. I wanted him to have an accent of course but not too much.

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