U.S. Go Home and Keep It For Yourself introduction and conversation with Haden Guest, Claire Denis and Jean-Michel Frodon.

Transcript

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

U.S. Go Home and Keep It For Yourself introduction and post-screening discussion with Claire Denis, Jean-Michel Frodon and Haden Guest. Friday November 7, 2008.

HADEN GUEST  0:02 

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Harvard Film Archive. My name is Haden Guest. I’m the HFA director, and I'm really thrilled that you're all here to join us for quite a remarkable evening. We have with us one of the great French filmmakers of today. And one of the great filmmakers of today, I should say, period. And one of the great editors of one of the great film journals of all time, speaking of Claire Denis and Jean-Michel Frodon.

Claire Denis is known in this country, has been known, and widely appreciated and admired for quite a number of years, beginning probably with her third film, I Can't Sleep, her third feature—a critical acclaim which really reached a high point with Beau travail from 1999, a film that's been firmly canonized as one of the classics of contemporary French cinema. And this retrospective, which was quite a feat to assemble—we almost called it “trouble every day,” [LAUGHS] because of all the problems we had finding prints, but we're so pleased that we're able to do this. This is a retrospective that reveals the really remarkable range of Claire Denis’ films, and her willingness to take risks at many points throughout her career, working in radically different modes and moods, balancing a certain formal austerity, a rigorously controlled aesthetic, with a marvelous improvisational, gestural performance style that she's able to cultivate from her actors. Denis is one of the great directors of actors, and I think the first film we're going to see tonight, U.S. Go Home, is one of the finest examples of this.

Denis’ films move from the intimate and beautifully nuanced studies of sibling relationships that we find in Nenette and Boni and in U.S. Go Home, to quite a remarkably ambitious conceptual film such as the recent The Intruder. And also then I'd say probably the furthest edge of, of Denis’ oeuvre is one of her least understood films—or I should say, most frequently misunderstood films, Trouble Every Day, which does for vampires, I think, what Wim Wenders does for angels in Wings Of Desire—transforms them into really powerful allegorical figures for, for understanding, sort of just analyzing the human condition—two radically different effects, I should note. And tonight we’re really pleased to offer two very important films that have been very difficult to see: U.S. Go Home is a film that doesn't exist in, with English subtitles. We're actually soft-titling the film; we have an expert from Sub-ti here. So we're going to be electronically projecting the subtitles onto the—[BEEPING OF CELL PHONE IS HEARD]—that's a great reminder to please turn off your cell phones [LAUGHTER], thank you. We're actually gonna be projecting English subtitles onto the print.

But these are two films that, each in a different way, reveal the sort of complex—or they're informed by the complex relationship of French film to Anglo-American popular culture—music and cinema, to very different effects. Now they've been virtually impossible to see, a situation which has been especially frustrating for U.S. Go Home, which many, myself included, consider to be one of Denis' finest films. It's a really beautiful portrait—an intense portrait—of the sexual awakening of a young woman and her relationship with her older brother, and it's also a beautiful evocation of the Parisian suburbs, in which Denis herself spent a formative period of her life, after living for many years of her childhood in different regions, countries in French Africa.

The second film we're going to see, Keep It For Yourself, is a sort of comic valentine to New York City in the 1990s. We find Denis having a very New York moment. This features the music of John Lurie, some wonderful performances from very iconic performers from the New York scene. This is a film, I should point out—this is perhaps among the only prints known to exist of the film. The film has a slight scorch in it. This print has a slight burn in it, which you'll notice throughout the film, unfortunately. It looks like a little funny, special effect, sort of bubbly thing in the center, but that's a scorch mark. Unfortunately, that's the only way we can see this very rare film, so just as a technical note….

Now, we also are very pleased to have with us tonight, Jean-Michel Frodon, who is the editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma, which is one of the most renowned and continually renowned film journals in the world. Of course, the journal that helped launch the French New Wave, and continues to define cutting-edge film criticism. For many years, American film scholars, critics, cinephiles would learn French just to read Cahiers du cinéma, but you don't have to do that anymore, because it's now available in English on the internet. There's e-Cahiers, and we just saw a slide for that. So definitely go and see the website. It's available through subscription online. And it's a wonderful resource. So there's now no excuse not to be reading Cahiers du cinéma every day.

I'd like to thank both Claire and Jean-Michel for joining us here, but I’d also like to thank a number of individuals and institutions without whom this series would not have been possible. I'd like to begin with the French Consulate in Boston. Brigitte Bouvier is the cultural attache to France in Boston, and she's been one of the great collaborators and supporters of the Harvard Film Archive. And it's been a real privilege to work with Brigitte. Brigitte, are you here tonight? Ask Brigitte to stand, so we can give her a round of applause. [APPLAUSE] Thank you very much. Also like to thank Eric Jausseran, as well as the French Consul himself, François Gautier, who unfortunately can't be with us tonight. In the French Embassy in New York, I need to thank Delphine Selles, and Sandrine Butteau. I'd also like to thank Tricia Craig, Director of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] I’d also like to thank the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies—too many individuals there to list, but let's just thank the Department itself. I'd also like to thank you all for coming here. And I'm going to now invite Claire Denis to the podium to say a few words.

After U.S. Go Home, Claire Denis and Jean-Michel Frodon will engage in a conversation about the film, which you've seen, and about Claire’s career, and then we'll open that up for questions to the audience. Then you’ll stick around and see the wonderful Keep It For Yourself. And now, without further ado, please join me in welcoming Claire Denis.

CLAIRE DENIS  7:57 

I was asking why Jean-Michel was not joining me. [LAUGHS] It’s very… I thank you very much for the nice way you greet me here tonight. Not nice it's...it seems for me already difficult to watch the film I have made, so to listen to what you said made me wonder… I'm not humble, but it made me wonder if you are speaking of the same person.

[LAUGHTER]

So this film you're going to see—with electronic subtitles, I'm sorry, seems the Archive film is the only print available, and the other one is without English subtitles, so it makes it almost precious. Both were made in a very….could I say?… invitation. I was invited to make those films. That's why they're so precious and light, because I was not expecting those invitations. One, U.S. Go Home, was a proposal by ARTE. You mentioned about it. We were nine or ten directors to do one of the films about our own coming of age, and we were sort of obliged to have, each of us, one scene of a party, having a party—dancing.

And Keep It For Yourself was made, strangely enough, as a commercial [for] a Japanese car that in fact does not exist, was never released. And it was not a commercial in the end, and we were three directors proposed to: one in Tokyo, one in Paris, and me in New York. So it's maybe why the prints are a little bit unkept, because they were not supposed—I don’t know—to be seen so long after. So I hope you will enjoy those ruined prints.

[LAUGHTER]

And I thank you….[INAUDIBLE]

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  11:05 

No more speech--we're here to see films, not to talk too much, but I wanted also to thank Haden Guest for having us here. And this is a repeated encounter we have with Cahiers du cinema at Harvard Film Archive, and we are very happy and proud to be here, and I would thank you, and all those you already mentioned who’ve helped this happen. I hope you enjoy the film.

[APPLAUSE]

----------------------------------------------------------

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  11:46 

So we're gonna share a few words with Claire Denis about this film, and about her work with you, meaning that you will be also positioned to ask questions, but please if you wish to, wait for the microphone, because I think it's recorded. So it needs that you speak in the mic.

Claire, you explained just before that this film was part of a serie for a TV program. And if I'm correct, it's the first time you've been working for television?

CLAIRE DENIS

Yes.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON 

Yeah? Did it mean something special to you? Because I would say that it's very close to the way you were making cinema at the time, and you kept making cinema to a large extent since, but did you [think] that you should do something special, or not do something special, because it was in the frame of a TV program?

CLAIRE DENIS  12:50 

Actually, I was obsessed by the proposal to say something about the time I've been through, without making it a period film so much. So I was trying to do my best, but I was completely not considering it was for TV. But I knew it was for Pierre Chevalier and ARTE, so in a way it gave me a sort of maximum freedom. But honestly, I thought it was sort of an album of memories, you know, so I was not trying to pretend, or to avoid…

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  13:47

Maybe I should say for those who might not know, that Pierre Chevalier, who was a producer inside the TV channel ARTE, was a kind of a “Troy horse” for cinema inside the TV, and actually making things possible for film directors he liked in the context of television but with the ambition of large-screen cinema. I was wondering… This question came to me while seeing quite early in the film, when you decide to keep with Grégoire Colin’s full dancing, while there is a song on, “I’ll Buy You a Chevrolet,” which is very coherent with the kind of decision as a director you would make, but which is quite unlikely to do for a TV program, where normally it's chopped after twenty seconds at the most—we have seen…bit of the music, bit of the guy, it’s enough—and how you know this is necessary, or this makes sense to keep.

CLAIRE DENIS  14:58 

Actually, it happened that I had just met Grégoire Colin. I mean, he was not even supposed to be in the film. I had cast another boy, who fell from his bike and broke his leg in three parts, and couldn’t be in the film, and Grégoire was already an actor. So I was introduced to him one week before we started shooting—as opposed to the girl that I found in school. And to test him, because I knew he was an actor—and he was sort of—I don't want him to be too pedantic against the girl, because he was already an actor… I decided that the first day of shooting with him was going to be—[TO FRODON] You think it’s me?

[LAUGHTER]

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

No….[INAUDIBLE]

CLAIRE DENIS  16:04 

...was the dance, and I thought if he is too bad, and if he's too much of this, or too much of that, then I will stop immediately, but then I will know him better. And I did not. I let it go. I couldn’t say “Cut!” because I enjoyed it completely. [LAUGHTER] And it's one take! So… And in the editing room, many times I wanted to cut it, but I liked so much the fact that he let the lamp [fall], and sat in...I never cut it.

Also in the editing room... It's maybe a weakness, you know? But it's because I really met Grégoire Colin during that scene, I think—and he was so shy on the other hand. He was a little bit pedantic, but he was very shy with his body, and suddenly, he stopped the dance, and he went back, you know, because he was hoping I would say “Cut!” at a certain point.

[LAUGHTER]

So I said well, it’s too brave to cut.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  17:32 

It's interesting, I think, to have the opportunity to talk about your work from this film, because to a certain extent, the television is supposed to impose more frame, more restraints, or more… demanding rules, than the freedom you can enjoy in cinema, and which you use, so freely actually, and so extensively, and I think you kind of prove how much you can keep your whole freedom, even in this more controlled frame, which is TV… The length is decided before, and there are some budget limits, and all this.

CLAIRE DENIS  18:22 

But budget limit….I [?killed?]

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  18:26 

Yes? [LAUGHS]  And the length, as well? Because some of the other directors didn't respect the limit of the…

CLAIRE DENIS  18:33 

Yeah, but we knew they were going to do it, so I mean, they were honest with that. But I was the last one of the group of directors, and so Pierre Chevalier and everyone was checking on me to make sure I was not going to make a longer film, and that I was keeping the film [within] the 60-minute proposal. But actually, I felt free, and yet I think it was in the proposal of ARTE channel that there was a lot of freedom. And it's not as if I was a daring person, and I was taking for granted that because I said yes, I was going to do exactly what I wanted. The proposal contained a certain amount of freedom, and I took it for granted, you know? But the dance scene really…I enjoy it so much that I thought it was not boring, even for a TV audience. [LAUGHS]

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

No, it’s not! [LAUGHS]

Are there questions from the audience? Yes…

AUDIENCE  20:12 

Thank you. You spoke a little bit about the accident, or the moment at the end of the dance scene, where the lamp gets knocked over and you kept that in. I think there was another moment where the cigarette didn't light, and the actress mentioned that. I was wondering if you might speak a little bit about those kinds of fortuitous moments, things that aren't planned, that are spontaneous, and how you use those in your work.

CLAIRE DENIS  20:42 

But this is the first take, and there was no second take. So you know, it did happen. If you want things to happen, you can make eighteen takes and it will never happen. But by taking the risk to go with a full magazine, 16-millimeter, so it's ten minutes... you could go endlessly. The song is probably almost four minutes…. If things happen, I guess it's a sort of treasure. You don't have to cut. I take it for granted that sequence shots offer a lot of hazardous moments, because there is a tension on the set, and a sort of freedom that makes things happen. When everybody knows on the set that the breakdown is six shots, or three angles, or whatever, the stress is not the same. The tension is not the same, it’s—as yesterday, when I was asked about the last scene, the Denis Lavant dancing scene in Beau travail—it's the same. All the energy was in a sequence shot, you know? You put everything in it, and you know that when it's finished, it's finished. You don't have to keep energy for a close-up, or whatever, you know? So it gives… accident sometime, but a lot of incident, and I think they're… very much welcome... But not organized, because I realized that sometimes, when I was trying to have a fake sequence shot, it doesn't work. You know? It's empty.

AUDIENCE 2  23:09 

Something I noticed in all of your films, in your direction, there's an extremely sort of formally rigorous style, but the actors’ performances are very natural. I was wondering if you could speak a bit about your approach to working with actors.

CLAIRE DENIS  23:27 

Um…. It's difficult, because, for me, there is no procedure. I believe that the people I’m interested in—and when I'm doing casting, it's an encounter, and something will match between me and them. And that there would be a sort of trust. That even if it's sometimes hazardous, or awkward, there will be a connection. I trust that very much. And I think I'm shy, and many actors are shy. And we begin to share the shyness, and it makes a sort of bridge, that I think helps what is called “direction,” because it's direction for me… Direction means to direct, which is like a movement that goes from me to the other. And for me, direction is also the reverse. I must feel also something coming back to me like a boomerang.

If nothing is coming back to me, I feel direction is going nowhere. So there must be this sort of boomerang effect. And sometimes it happens with real trained actors or actresses. But sometimes, it's interesting to see at—a young girl like Alice Houri… She's fourteen. And she frightened Vincent Gallo in a way because Vincent was petrified by her, um… Not that she was sure of herself. She was there, you know? She completely believed in everything. So she was sending us a lot of her energy. But I think otherwise I have absolutely no process and no—I’m just believing in the choice of the people I want to work with. I think it's enough for me.

AUDIENCE 3  26:40 

Yes. I like the film very much. But I just had a technical question. I thought the way that the lighting was done during the dance sequences in the second party, the dangerous party, was very daring on your part, because it's murky, things are not highlighted. And on the big screen, it's quite enthralling to see that. Did it translate to television since it was committed to ARTE? And did people try to get you to light it more strongly, because I thought it was wonderful the way it was, and I hope that they accepted it.

CLAIRE DENIS  27:18 

I must say this print maybe is a little grainy and dark. Because I saw it on TV and it was—Agnes made a beautiful work for that scene. So it was the darkness that could allow privacies and intimacy. And the darkness, of course, is frightening for the girl. But on the other hand, it was really beautifully balanced and colorful. So I think maybe this print is sort of old and badly kept, probably, that turned to green. But it was a very velvety darkness. And it was okay on the screen, I guess.

AUDIENCE 4  28:24 

I have two questions, if it's all right. The first question I have is: is this part of the same series for ARTE that produced the Olivier Assayas film L’eau froide

[RESPONSE INAUDIBLE]

Second question: you had an amazing freedom with the music that you were allowed to use in the movie. And I imagine that many of these tracks were important to you at that age, but—this is a very, very silly question. I'm a Jamaican music DJ. I just thought it was odd to hear “Al Capone” by Prince Buster in the driving scene. [LAUGHS]  It's a very rare track here, it was popular In England at the time. Was that actually commonly available in France when you were a teenager?

CLAIRE DENIS  29:06 

I took for granted that—actually, me, I discovered the song a little later in England. But actually, Radio Caroline... It was every teenager in France at that time were listening to Radio Caroline at night. It was a free radio, at that time from the sea, they were, um, it's a boat. So they pay no right, you know?

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

Pirate radio.

CLAIRE DENIS 

It was pirate radio [LAUGHTER], and we received it in Belgium, in France. And they had the most beautiful choice of music you know. So…that's where it came from. And the opening of the film with the guy… Radio Caroline. This is the original. I find it in the archive. Thanks to Radio Caroline, I learned a little bit of English.

[LAUGHTER]

Because I was not working at school [LAUGHS]. I learn English with—my bad English through Radio Caroline.

AUDIENCE  5 30:39 

It was really thrilling to be able to see this movie….[INAUDIBLE] favorite filmmaker. I heard that you're making a movie with Isabel Huppert, called maybe White Material. And I was wondering if you could tell us anything about that?

CLAIRE DENIS  30:52 

It's not finished yet. Soon, I guess. It's hard to speak about a project that is not finished, you know?I have a sort of fear of telling you the story, but I've been expecting… It was a great meeting with Isabel, really. We enjoyed it very much. Of course, everyone knows she's a great actress, but she's also fun to work with. I can say that. I enjoyed it very much.

JEAN MICHEL FRODON  31:38 

Where is it shot?

CLAIRE DENIS  31:40 

It was shot in Cameroon, in Africa.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  31:49 

There was one question. Yes.

AUDIENCE 6  31:56 

So much of this film was structured around music, as has already been mentioned. And it becomes a very propulsive element to the soundtrack. And many of the bands are very identifiable, and they’re white male bands, assuming rhythm and blues standards, and trying to reinvent a kind of American rhythm and blues for themselves.

CLAIRE DENIS  32:19 

I don't hear so well—I'm sorry if… I understand the question. But I have lost some words, because the sound level is not…

AUDIENCE  32:33 

Oh, okay. These bands are very recognizable, and they have recognizable white male singers. And they're trying to reinvent a kind of rhythm and blue…

CLAIRE DENIS  32:41 

What is rhythm and what is not white?

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE  32:43 

Pardon me? Pardon me?

CLAIRE DENIS

What is not white???

AUDIENCE 6

You have the Troggs, you know, and you have The Animals, and Eric Burdon, but the–

CLAIRE DENIS  32:50 

But Eric Burdon was my idol.

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE 6

Yeah….yeah, well my…

CLAIRE DENIS  32:54 

And he still is!

AUDIENCE 6

Mine, too…

CLAIRE DENIS

And I keep in touch with him as much as I can.

AUDIENCE 6

But, but, but…

[LAUGHTER]

CLAIRE DENIS

And I try to use in my—the last film, 35 Shots of Rum, a song he made with War, the group War. And I could not get the [rights to] the song.

AUDIENCE 6

Oh, I see.

CLAIRE DENIS

“Spill the Wine.”

AUDIENCE  33:14 

But then as soon as the credits come on, it's Nico. And...

CLAIRE DENIS

It's?

AUDIENCE 6

It's Nico, singing.

CLAIRE DENIS

Ah—at the end?

AUDIENCE 6

Yes. And so I thought that that was a very significant spin on the kind of structure that you had set up with the music up to that point, and I was wondering if you could talk about that shift in emphasis.

CLAIRE DENIS  33:35 

Well I wanted for the end credit, a song that meant “This time is over.” And that's also what the words of the song say. And also it was the turn of the end of the 60s, you know? And also it's a song I like very much. Of course, I thought the opportunity of the film was to use all those songs also, because they are like a small museum, together. They create something together.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

Question… here?

AUDIENCE 7 34:33 

This is a question for both of you. Do you think about film every day?

[LAUGHTER]

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

About…?

CLAIRE DENIS  34:41 

About….about??

AUDIENCE 7 

Do you think about film every day?

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

About film? Every day?

CLAIRE DENIS  34:45 

Film?

CLAIRE DENIS  34:49 

[DRAWS IN BREATH] Or……like trouble? Same!

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE 7  34:52 

All day every day, or some of the day?

[LAUGHTER]

CLAIRE DENIS  34:57 

I think I'm in trouble too, because I think about film every day, every minute—yeah, yeah. No, but it's not a burden. You know? It's, uh…. it's uh… Songbird joy.

[LAUGHTER]

No, it's true. It's something that makes me alive. But it's trouble.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  35:27 

And I do think about film every day, but it's very different, because I'm not a filmmaker. I never intended to be one. But cinema is also, of course, it's a relation between the screen and me, but it's also an opening for so many rich and intense relations with people. So to keep thinking about film is also to keep meeting, discussing, arguing about so many things. Not only about cinema--about politics, about love, about whatever. So, you can keep... With film, actually, yes. More than every day.

CLAIRE DENIS  36:11 

Yesterday, we were speaking with Jean-Michel about what is it… Is a filmmaker happy?, let's say. To be a filmmaker. As Jean-Michel was asking me the question I told him, “No, probably not!” There is no happy moment in… There is more drawback than everything, you know? And fear of missing the film, and fear of not finding the film. But it's massive pain all the time. And yet! It's this... and it's not… This pain is something—it's a sort of energy that I would not stand if I was like a painter or writer on my own. But with film, there are moments of solitude, and moments with the crew, with the actors, where I feel forced to pretend I'm on top of things, you know? [LAUGHTER] And this moment gives me the energy to cross the other moment of solitude, the energy to swim from border to border. So it's not sad. But it's true that it's not happy moments every day. It's not a happy life, it's a troubled life, really. But once it’s started, of course, it's so precious, it gives so much vividity to… just to the fact to be alive, because there is in filmmaking, like in [photography], the instantaneity of dying—that everything you’re doing is finished. So even if you're not a philosophe, even if you don't think about it, it's there all the time. And it gives a price to life.

When I was watching the beginning, and I saw the face of Grégoire, this Grégoire no more exists, you know? This little Alice Houri no longer exists and—But then of course that me no more exists, you know? But we feel that also, while making a film, in a very simple way. In a very concrete way, you know? So I think of course, then it makes every moment precious.

Like I had to take a bus from New York to be here tonight… It's because of cinema. It’s hard! I hope you're not too disappointed.

AUDIENCE 8  40:21 

Not sure which question to ask…[INAUDIBLE] What you just said was

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

We cannot hear you, please… Can you speak in the mic?

AUDIENCE 8

Sure. I was wondering... In the scene where Vincent Gallo, he walks into the woods with Martine, it never seems quite entirely clear to me if they made love or not, because it's… you know. And I was just wondering if you meant that scene to be unclear, or…?

CLAIRE DENIS  40:56 

No, for me, it was clear!

[LAUGHTER]

AUDIENCE 8  40:59 

For you it was clear? [LAUGHS]

CLAIRE DENIS  41:00 

For me it was clear that she wants… She had decided. And also it was clear that it was not the film in the—in that kind of film, it was good not to see them laying down, you know?

AUDIENCE 8

Okay.

CLAIRE DENIS

Because I was wondering if I was right not to film that.

AUDIENCE 8

I think—I mean….

CLAIRE DENIS  41:28 

Her first time making love, you know? But I thought it was not a film for that. It was a film for this ellipse. It was more honest this way to this film, to describe the first time. Because the first time, in this film, it's her decision, it's abstract. It's not even sex. She decides, you know? So then I realized that to film this abstraction of “I don't want to be a virgin anymore,” whatever I will do, even in the dark, would become a little bit of a cheating the scene, you know? I want—and this is very clear for me when, when he's driving the car, and she's—you see her face laying on his lap, that it could not… It's only after love—for me, ah?

It's not because I didn't want to make a scene, a lovemaking scene with a girl of fourteen. It's really because I think the film doesn't want it. For the story I think it's not good. That's why I love the way they sort of disappear in the darkness of the forest. I did it with such a natural delicacy that everything I would have done after would have been gross in my opinion… in that film! Let's say a different film, I would have considered it differently.

AUDIENCE 9  43:34 

Now I had the chance to watch two other movies of yours, and since your work is essentially a reflection of your views—In a lot of cases, you cannot separate the person's view from the way you work anyway. What I have observed is that you bring your characters out very early in the phase, so that we don’t get surprised towards, as the story develops, [?is one?]. So what I view that as being somehow you put heavy emphasis on coincidence, more than anything else. And then have the ability to appreciate the momentary aspects of life and be able to live in a present moment as it unfolds. I like to understand: when did you come to the realization that one's life is that ways to be lived, and to recognize that all you have is that moment alone?

CLAIRE DENIS  44:25 

I don't think I have to answer.  [LAUGHS] Thank you.

[LAUGHTER]

Or…is it--it was not a question, no? No.

[LAUGHTER]

Because I must say, there is a sort of echo in the mic.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  44:42 

[?Quand ques-ce que tu a compris….? FRENCH PHRASE]

CLAIRE DENIS  44:48 

Ai!—phhh….in making films?

[?Mon j’ai pas bien entendu…..le begin…? FRENCH PHRASE?]

When do I understand this moment of when filming that is also the end? I think it's the process of, of film. That it's a time process that makes—when it's done, it's finished, you know? And in the image is also the end of something. It contains the end. Which, if I walk, if I speak with you, the present time is outside of me. And I don't see the end of my conversation with you as I speak with you. But in the process of filming, there is a sort of closure, ending. It’s already past. It's past on the set. It's past in the editing. To direct a scene is to direct the end of a scene. The finishing of a time. And this, you feel it—not only me, because I'm not the only one to speak about that, but it's something you feel immediately when you make photograph, and you look at your print, or in making films.

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON  46:47 

Okay. Are there any more questions? Or maybe we should

CLAIRE DENIS  46:50 

Stop

JEAN-MICHEL FRODON

Watch the second….

[APPLAUSE]

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