Jeremy Fogelman
I recently had a chance to interview Jean-Jacques Annaud, director of the new movie Wolf Totem, based on the bestselling Chinese semi-autobiographical novel of the same name.
Filming in China, did you feel pressure to do more than normal because the government was helping there?
No, precisely what really was almost intriguing was that I was given freedom and I had a feeling that that was the deal. Almost maybe like an experiment to see if leaving a director absolutely alone…
Alone?
I had a visit of my producers for one afternoon, the people from Columbia showing up on my set. And that was it. I remember when we did the music with James Horner, who unfortunately we’ve lost, and James in London was saying, “I don’t understand, where are the studio people?” and I said, James they’re not going to show up. And he said, “You mean we can do anything we want?” Anything we want, they trust you, they trust me and our mission is to the do the best possible movie we can without beliefs and methods. I was told officially that I wasn’t under the impression that they wanted to see how we were doing film in the west, although we were very few. Only eight people on the set from France, and six hundred from China.
That is a wide disparity.
Yes, but it worked well, because couldn’t have been the French clan and the Chinese clan, it was the movie clan.
Right. So you felt that everyone worked together very well regardless?
Yes, for example, at the beginning, Jiang Rong who is a great friend of mine and wrote a magnificent review of the movie, but this was his first book. I said to him, it’s your book but it’s my film, it’s my interpretation of a book I loved written by you. And each time when we had dinner with the top executive of China Film Group they would say, in any case you have the decision. And I did, I always had the decision. At the beginning they would say, so are you going to shoot with this tech? No, bad news we can’t, oh really why? And I explained why. And they understood and they had to invest like two million dollars in wolf pens with wolf trainers coming from the other side of the world. Not many Hollywood producers would do that, you know, they would say well, if you are shooting four years, I’m not going to be with the company then. So you know I’m very grateful for that.
It’s good that you were able to have such a positive experience.
Yes, well, it has been better and better by the day I should say. At the beginning the equipment was not working, the crew knew that they wanted to learn at the same time they wanted to carry on with their traditional ways of making movies, you know? So the first days were a bit choppy, but at the end of the shoot frankly it was one of the best crews I ever had. The most friendly actors I ever worked with and it became very emotional. I was telling them I feel part of the family now, it’s very strange and bizarre to this sort of level of friendship that we managed to have. Each time I go back to China, I cannot have one dinner alone, you know?
Because you made so friends?
My crew, the grips invited me one evening, one VFX company for lunch, another for dinner, my actors would take me to some bar, it’s so friendly. It’s extraordinary. So it’s a rare and very unusual sort of rare experience. And I don’t speak a word of Chinese!
Have you picked up any Chinese?
Yes, I know how to “Drink it all.”
That’s an important one.
It’s the center of life.
Especially not knowing the language, there’s always going to be a bit of a barrier in communication, even if you have really excellent translators.
Yeah, but I think if you look how people behave, instead of listening to what they say, you know a much better truth.
I see what you’re saying. So one of the things that I noticed was an interesting motif in the movie was the faith of these peasants and tribesman. The “Tenger,” the Mongol sky god. I hadn’t really heard much about that deity before, just because we don’t really hear many myths from that society. I would imagine even in China, that they probably mostly…
They don’t know! They are very foreign to Mongol culture, you know. In China, when I promoted the movie in Guangdong, Hong Kong or Macau, in Asia Mongolia, they don’t know where it is! In California, few people know about Maine.
Very true.
And in Texas few people know about Alaska, so here in China it’s even worse, they don’t speak the same language. And it’s why, by the way, my actors and my crew from Beijing were so amazed to see the beauty of this part, not that far from Beijing. It was a 17 hour drive, the other side of the Great Wall. Precisely because it’s on the other side, it’s outside the border almost. And traditionally they built the Great Wall to protect them from Mongols, so you see the Mongols are different.
But they were extremely welcoming, they have a very strong culture and now there is a movement of going back to this culture. The traditional singing is back, in the street I would see people wearing the traditional costume. So it contributed the pleasure of shooting and what you’re saying about the spirituality. All those places that are very barren, where the sky is what they look at most of the day, all the religion is about the sky. They believe in what they call the eternal blue sky or eternal generous blue sky. It’s a religion of sky. Because of the wind, because of the smell of flowers, because of the solitude, it’s one of those places where it’s not like being in a city. You think about other things, you’re more yourself.
You were talking about finding yourself, it seems like there’s something like that in the story also, the people coming from the city with these theoretically “progressive” attitudes and finding a different kind of self-acceptance.
Right, the typical story of the teacher that doesn’t teach anything but learns about himself. This is what happened to me, the same year I was sent to Africa. 1967 I was 31 I think, and I was sent to the Cameroons because I was a graduate of film school and my duty was to teach cinema to the Cameroonians. And they teach me life. I don’t know if I taught them cinema, but I’m very grateful of this experience. And therefore there was an instant communication with the writer Jiang Rong because we’re about the same age. He went through the cultural revolution and I was very interested in that when I was a young guy, reading the French press. The French were very interested, they were Maoist for a period of time; I was not. I was curious about this transformation, this chaos. I felt that in this book there were so many scenes that were close to some of my previous movies, working with animals, relationships with groups of people with different cultures. This is exactly what happened to me in Africa. I went and had no desire to go, no respect at all. For me it was just people banging on ton-tons and singing. And after one weekend I realized my mistake and it opened my heart to something else. I would not be the same filmmaker if I had not had this experience. So it was so fundamental for me that a lot of my movies are about a young guy discovering a new culture, I can’t help it!
That makes sense, when you’re involved with art, there’s always going to be a part of yourself entwined in everything. It’s interesting for to watch this because there’s both positive and negative feelings about everything. About the wildlife, there’s a lot of respect for it, but on the other hand you see people dying because of exposure to the snow or because of wolves.
Absolutely, I am not in the Manichean view of extreme good and bad, and it’s always the good that wins. I think it’s often been proven the opposite. I know there is a lot of good in the wolf and a lot of bad as well, or at least bad depending on the point of view. And am I a good guy when I’m a Frenchman fighting in Africa against the Muslims of Algeria? Are we good people or are we not? That notion is something I resent very much so I like to see the balance and this is why in my movies I like the defects and faults of the others. I like to try to understand why people behave badly. To have some kind of respect even when they do bad things because very few people just want to be bad. A lot of people believe they are okay or even good while doing horrible things.
Of course, I think you have some sort of psychopathic or sociopathic problem if you really don’t have empathy, otherwise there’s a reason, there’s a rationalization, there’s a contextual change that you’re saying. Even in the movie where you have the PRC representative who seems, why is he following orders, but he’s not a bad person.
This guy was inspired from my experience in Cambodia where I shot a movie, and half of my crew was former Khmer Rouge, and half slaughtered the other half of my crew. And of course, how do you survive this? And you realize a lot of those people, they had to kill in order not to be killed themselves. So if you say what would I have done?
It takes a very rare kind of bravery and self-sacrifice to be able to say…
No.
Exactly, especially if you know you’ll likely be killed.
It’s why I try to have empathy for people pushed to do things they resent. So that’s been something I’ve been doing for a long period of time, but it’s very inspired from a French filmmaker called Jean Renoir, who was sort of my god at film school. Happily at the end of this life I met him several times. He felt that my first film was inspired by his work, and he was right! He was saying something that I really love, that his problem was that he understood the mistakes of his enemies. He was saying, if I have a movie about a black horse, I’ll concentrate on the white spot.
So you’re trying to look at the what everyone else sees and doesn’t think about, and say wait, what are you missing or ignoring that’s not obvious but it’s there. It’s not just a black horse, not 100%.
Exactly! And I liked his metaphor because it’s something I like doing in life. I like to look like at people in a specific way, even if they do things against my interests. At least I like to understand and open up, when you shoot about wolves, they are perceived as the ultimate devil because they are competing with us. It’s the only species that lives organized with a king and an army and has strategy, and over the years has been competing on the same territory. So of course they are frightening, of course they are dangerous. But in this part of the world they respect the wolf because the fact that the wolves roaming in the grassland is protecting the grassland. Therefore ultimately protecting the herds because they’re protecting the grass. It’s this kind of thing that I discovered in the novel that enchanted me. I would never think that wolves had a civility with the herders and the herders for centuries accepted to pay a tax on their herds to say, okay, every year they’ll take ten percent of my flock. But the ninety percent will have nice grass.
It’s hard to think about things so practically, to think about the ecosystem like that, before people were using that word. Just to be able to say here is the whole system that we’re in and we’re all a part of it. And there’s a reason that it’s been working as it’s been working, and if you disrupt something, everything else is going to get disrupted too.
Something I learned recently, the Mongol shoes, the sole curves, the reason is so it doesn’t destroy the grassland. When you walk, you don’t make holes. Grasslands are very fragile, it’s only a little thick of arable land. And then under that it’s sand. If you destroy this little crust, there’s no more food for the land. And then you die, because you have no more food. So this is very traditional, the respect of the grassland. It’s being lost now, of course, and a number of young Mongols came to me after the screening saying, oh, we love the movie, but you know we hate wolves, right? I said, you? Yes, the younger generation hate wolves, but your grandfather …, and they say, yes, that’s true. So of course it’s a traditional approach of nature versus our approach which is destroy first and believe we’re going to make it better.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of lessons learned during the Industrial Age that were learned by the whole world as this is the shortcut to civilization, and even now as in many countries around the world, here and in Europe. Well, now, now we know better. But you can’t tell another country that’s now trying to get to that point, no, see now we know that’s wrong.
You don’t need a car, and you don’t need a television. This is what we’re saying now. You don’t need electricity, we have it now but it’s a mistake.
And there are still many billions of people around the world, they don’t know this history so they just want what everyone wants, to live their life in some sort of peace.
And enjoy it!
Right, and to have their family, it’s not crazy, but it’s hard to think about how things are going to impact the future.
This is why, for instance, I’ve seen China changing within the eight years I spend over there. People are gaining weight because people were starving, their parents were starving, and then they want to show that they can eat too much. They can order too much, to the point that in restaurants now there’s an official campaign saying “here we eat it all.” It means, finish your dish, because most people they order to show they can afford.
Ah, that’s like…
The nouveau riche.
Like in the renaissance.
Absolutely! Same thing. You roast an entire swan and an entire deer for two people. Just to show you can afford it. So it’s the heart of the problem of traditional civilization which, on the contrary, knew that you can take but not too much. You have to keep the balance, it’s all about the balance. And now we’re in a too unbalanced world. And this is because of the scenes I got so passionate about, like I said, I got so familiar with the story because of the same year. Same story, same love affair with him Mongolia, me Africa. The relationship with animals, I had that as well.
I was a lonely child. My “sister” was a dog. So I know this relationship, I’ve done movies twice, animal heroes, but it’s far beyond that. I was very touched to be part of something that is needed in China where the awareness of the natural disaster of over-industrialization is leading the country to. But we’ve seen a few weeks ago, the explosion of a whole harbor. It’s the same sort of problem and strangely enough, which I didn’t know, everybody in China is aware of that. Because every peasant is aware that he cannot the drink the water in the river, his sheep are in trouble if they drink it, it’s polluted. People are afraid to drink milk or fried things because it’s oil that comes from the gutter. So people are very aware of this, from top to bottom. As a foreign director, I was very touched that I was asked to tell my truth and given freedom to do so. I found it very interesting because one day an official said, you can say it because it’s you, people will believe because it’s you, you’re neutral. We know your work. My movies are much more famous in China than in America, for unknown reasons, I don’t know (laughs).
I think if anyone was able to accurately know why things are more successfully in certain countries, they would keep making the same thing. It’s like being able to predict the stock market.
Right, right, so I never pick my movies for that reason. It happens that for many decades people have seen, basically they say go ahead, we won’t interfere. I’ve been asking my producer from Hong Kong, one is Bill Kong, very famous, he produced Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and so on, I said, Bill, why is that I’ve been left free to a level I never had in my life? I’ve been a final cut director and all that, but usually you get some pressure. It’s part of the job, but here freedom. Freedom to have decisions. He said don’t be mistaken, Chinese people they understand your real reasons and they trusted you. They just trusted you, they felt that you were on something that would be genuine and therefore that what you’ll say will be accepted.
So they know you weren’t there to fetishize the culture or to take advantage, trying to not only portray something honestly but be able to show them something about themselves too?
Well, no, I just made the movie I wanted to make. It’s true I am amazed by Mongol culture and I have immense respect for Chinese culture and sometimes they’ve been clashing over the centuries as we all have. I did it according to my feelings, really. And I felt also that wolves were a nice metaphor for independence or freedom and the difficulty of the almost impossibility of being free. In a globalized world, we’re all interconnected, so total freedom …
Yes, we all have someone to answer to in some way, even the people heading the studio have to worry.
It’s such a worry! The next board meeting, so many times I’ve been under contract, I’ve worked with most of the major companies. Twice I had chairmen say okay you have a green light, unfortunately I won’t be the person to produce your movie. They said don’t worry, do your movie. Because as soon as you make the movie over a few years, you’re bound to have different management. And of course it’s also natural that the person gets a new job, will hate the success that comes from the previous management. It’s understandable, but it’s not comfortable. It’s very dangerous, the rule of our business.
Anytime you try to reconcile art and commerce, it’s difficult, since we’ve had civilization, those two things have been connected. So there’s always, I want this to be my vision, but if you do that no one will care or they’ll hate it.
It’s a delicate balance. But what I have been feeling and fighting for, is I believe that a film that has no originality can do very well, if it’s fresh eyes. It’s original because it hasn’t been seen before! But the only other way is to make something that has something different, some different element and reflects the position of the individual. Because this individual is not so special, there is no one, even very extreme artists, they always have expressed feelings that are shared by many others.
That’s the curiosity of it. Each artist feels they are very special, yes they’re special, as a matter of fact with humans. A big basket of common things, hatred, love, desire, territory, supremacy, fear, all those things. For basically the same reasons, so we’re all common. If you express this with all the strength of your beliefs you’ve got a good reason to be followed by people that recognize themselves in your work because you think you’re special or that you’re not. By thinking that you’re no one, and that you know nothing, that’s a bad job. Because that’s a good contradiction between being a romantic artist and a guy that makes whatever the market desires. I think the market is made of people like you and me, and that even with different lives, we have so much in common. Therefore if I am sincere with you, there’s a good chance that we can connect.
I think if you find something honest, people will drawn to that.
Sure.
Maybe not every culture in the same way or degree, but …
Almost.
There’ll be always some connection, I think. I remember when I was thinking what was real or not real over of the course of this movie, when you get through it, you have these almost supernatural feelings at times. And I don’t want to get into too many specifics with that, but I feel like it’s always tricky to present that sort of thing, like did it happen? In your head or heart? So did you feel like this feeling of wanting to be mostly realistic or do you feel like you wanted to enhance something in a more fantastical way?
In the grasslands in this part of the Buddhist area, the perception of life is not as materialistic as it in the rest of the world, especially in cities. The grassland is very mystical because of the sum of the wind, because of the smell of the flowers, because of the chant of the birds, all the time, in a sort of very strange, almost dreamy part of the world. There is not much to see besides eternal beauty of the grassland, you tend to look at the sky. And the sky and this the religion of Mongolia, the eternal blue sky, their god Tengri has a longer name, the religion of the benevolent eternal blue sky. Why is that? In any desert, and I’m not going to go into the origin of Islam, but it’s also very black and white, a desert religion, where you have day and night, and sky and ground. And not a lot of vegetation and things to contradict. In Mongolia, it’s a green desert, and the sky talks to you. What was very strange is to see the Han people, my crew was Han, Mandarin speaking, and my few French friends, they were taking pictures of the sky all the time. Because the sky is like a big IMAX theatre.
This is where the show is, everybody was seeing things, oh, look it’s a camel, or a horse, how many times did we see wolves in the sky? Because we were into wolves, and I have hundreds of pictures of wolves. You’re slightly above the ground when you are in those places for more than a few days. More than a week, you know. The silence. If I closed my eyes, I would hear insects, constant birds flying over my head, and that’s the sky casting shadows on this immensity. And you breathe hyper-oxygenated air. I remember when I was going to bed, people would say, we would never have this religion without the lack of oxygen and the dark skies. It may sound bizarre to explain spirituality with such simple things, but we all experienced that. Therefore the reason when you are in those places on horseback and you cross a land for the whole day, twenty five miles, you meet no one, you see eagles, you’re not the same place as when you rush through the tube to the Underground. It’s different. So you believe in other things, you don’t have television. You listen to stories at night, you sing with a strange instrument, it’s like a cello made of horsehair.
Is that what it was made of?
It’s called Morin khuur, a horse-head viola. And it duplicates the sound of the wind (he makes the sound). So the whole frame of life, the interpretation of life, is different. And of course Mongol has been influenced by different religions, but Buddhism is part, and they don’t do reincarnation, but it’s true they believe they go somewhere in the eternal blue sky, generous and nice. And they come back somehow. So of course this is what love in this kind of experience, you get that after days and days of shooting outside and perceiving in your heart things that you would never imagine if you stayed in Hollywood.
Do you plan to film in China again?
It would be with great pleasure, I’ve made no decision. Right now I’m overwhelmed with screenplays, I receive like three a day over the last year. But I need to recover. After each movie, most of the time I do these challenging movies, I love being immersed in a project, because it’s a slice of life for me, it’s not only making movies, it’s my life that’s changing, it’s me that’s changing, learning. So here it was such a strong, long commitment that of course it takes a little time, it’s a long affair, you know? Some people may be able to drop the girl and go for another one, but usually it’s not what happens, it takes a little more time. The answer to your question is I’d be delighted, I’m getting many offers, but it’s just a matter of connection with the subject in the screenplay.
So if it happens.
I’d be very happy, yes, extremely happy. It has been an incredibly warm, human, experience.
It’s something I don’t know that many filmmakers have an opportunity to achieve that level of freedom, even in smaller movies. So the fact you were able to connect with this material and also have the freedom to adapt it in a way that you wanted to adapt it, I don’t know if that will ever happen again.
I don’t know! That would be my fear, that when you have such a good experience in a place, a vacation. Good weather, food was nice, people were adorable, then you say, am I going to have as good a time next time? Yeah, in any case I think it’s a great privilege and I realize that now, that for the last forty years I’m a director, I always made my movie with great freedom. And I think the reason is, if I’m not given that freedom, I just quit! It’s simple.
That’s great that you can do that as well. I think a lot of people have a fear that if you don’t stick with something even if you hate it, you’re not going to be able to get another opportunity or you’re not going to be able to move on.
This is wrong, because as a matter of fact, if you’re safe … I started as a commercial director, after doing the two film schools in France. I graduated very, very young, nineteen and half when I got all my diplomas, and by coincidence I was asked to do commercials. I hated the idea. So people would call me because I was this young guy and so it was hip. And they would show their storyboard I would say, this is shit! And they would say, what do you mean it’s shit, big agencies. And they would say, what would you do? Instead of being insulted, they asked, maybe the problem was with me. And so many times I would be with major, major clients, and they would say we don’t like your location, and we don’t like your cast. I would say very good, I take my bag and I say thank you very much and goodbye. And I’d leave, and I’ve done that so many times. People thought it was just an acting piece, but no, I’d never come back. Because I didn’t care, I was too young to care!
I think it’s interesting you can have the naive bravery of youth but also sort of the experienced bravery when you’re older also. It’s almost like when you’re in the middle of life is when you’re most worried about making mistakes.
Hmm, but you know last week, I refused two studio movies. I’ve been doing that for … I mean I was lucky enough to get an Academy Award for my first movie, Black and White in Color, and then of course I got a lot of offers from Los Angeles. Like one a week. And I turned them down. And people said, what do you want to do? I said I want to do a movie called Quest for Fire, it’s a story of cavemen, they asked which languages and who’s playing them, and I said they speak caveman language and played by nobodies. And I stick to it! Some of my friends said, you have to accept, it’s Universal! And I said what if I do a bad movie for Universal, it’s still a bad movie.
That’s true. People are always trying to copy what is the alchemy, the magic elixir for success, anytime you have something that no one expected to be successful. And then they wonder how did it happen? Okay, we need to do it a hundred more times.
If you yourself are convinced, you can convince others. If you yourself are not convinced, don’t do it! You know you have to listen to the little bell, no it’s not good, that’s not the right cast, not the right place, not the right story. Listen to this little bell, if you wake up saying great, it’s gonna be great, okay fine. If you wake up saying there’s something wrong here, don’t go! Because you know the people will offer the story, they aren’t sure, they aren’t sure at all. And they need your validation. But then if you validate something you don’t believe, then they hate you, because they paid you to validate something you believe can be a great movie. So of course, you’ve got a mortgage, a family and all that. The truth is you have to go with your real guts, not the one you’re trying to convince yourself. Real thing, what is it I want, and am I sincere? And then you have a little opportunity to convince others. First I have to convince actors, financiers, if I am not convinced, how can I do that?
So first you must convince yourself.
Yes, I have to be excited. Most of my projects, even the people around me are saying, why are you doing this? Who is going to be interested? I say, I am interested. It sounds very pretentious, but…
But especially if you’re directing a movie, it’s important to be interested yourself, otherwise …
People feel it! Crews, they are the best. They understand, the first steady second, the first day, what kind of guy you are. Are you fake or are you a depository of a need of telling that story? And your actors as well, so when you have passion, you can have stars, that are absolutely delightful, they’ll never complain. Never tell you anything about the size of the motorhome or the quality of the food. If on the contrary, they find that they’re making a movie for the wrong reasons with a person who’s making also the movie for the wrong reasons, it’s chaos! So it’s very important that you have a few people on the set that are absolutely convinced of what they are doing. Even if they know it’s difficult, it’s different, it’s unmarketable. A good product always finds its way to being marketable.
I think sometimes, even if things aren’t successful immediately, a lot of times there will be word of mouth, later people will find something. Of course in this case the movie is already successful in China anyway, but there are so many movies where people will say, well it didn’t do well in the theater. But like for example, that Austin Powers movie did poorly in theaters but was timed very well with DVD releases, and was so successful they could have two sequels. Suddenly it’s like a change in the way you’re thinking about, but that’s not just one exception, it happens all the time. It’s very easy to find an audience if there is an audience to be found.
Well, you know, what’s becoming difficult, the Internet has changed the rules. I do understand that today it is more difficult because it’s immediate, you have to fill up the seats of the cinema immediately. If the first screening of the movie has no one, the whole industry in the world is going to know only two people are sitting in front of the screen. And they just remove the movie from the catalog almost. So it’s another aspect, which is affecting our industry and pushes it another direction which is more marketing oriented.
It’s true that it’s far more difficult to market a move than to do a movie. It’s clear. But there is also something that’s been guiding me, I have seen a lot of my friends going for a movie they don’t like, having a success they don’t like, and being trapped in being movies they don’t like all their life. And they’re very, very unhappy people. Because after all, they look back and they see successful shit that doesn’t make them very happy, while on the contrary, when the people that had the privilege to do things close to their heart. When you do a movie that you’ve liked very much to do, you get bad reviews, it’s not pleasant, but at least it’s something that’s genuine to you. On the contrary, if you get great box office on something that inside yourself, you believe this is not why you wanted to become a director, what sort of person are you going to be later on?
I don’t want to bring up any examples of people, but I can certainly think of artists who I know are talented but have gotten into this trap of having to make movies, thinking this is what people want to see, so it’s what I’ll keep making. And you can see that every time they are a little less connected, they care a little bit less, and eventually they reach a point of diminishing where nobody, even the audience, cares any more. But by that point …
They put their pride on the size of the house, or the cost of the car that they own. Because they cannot be satisfied with what they’ve done. So I’m always frightened when I see people, ah, no don’t look at my movie, I’ll show you my house. And I’ll show you my wife, or boyfriend, it breaks my heart. And it’s very frequent. So it’s why I think I’m still a believer in struggling for what you believe for real and also don’t pretend you believe in something in which you don’t. Because this is horrible.
Yeah, it’s hard. I think even outside of movie-making, everyone struggles with trying to find, am I okay with doing this job, or is it slowly eating away at me? Of course you can be successful in anything and hate what you’re doing. So you try to find many other avenues to fill that void, but I think that it’s nice for me at least to be able to see that whatever anybody might think, you have this connection to this material to be able to say, I care about this, maybe I didn’t intend everything that you see in it, but if you see this connection, this epiphany for yourself …
Well, you know, one thing that I realized after the years, is what people remember of any piece of work is not necessarily what is on the pages of the screenplay or the device of the camera or the melody. It’s something else, something deeper, and that is very impressive. For instance, let’s say you make a movie about a beautiful, handsome choreographer, but as a matter of fact, you hate dancing. You know what? The movie’s going to be about the hatred of dancing. Because it’s the multiplication of little details that show where the movie stands and it’s the unsaid that is the essential. And that is something I didn’t realize until recently. So whatever your heart — I mean, as a director, what I really think is going to be what people are going to see, even if I don’t say it, don’t shoot it on purpose, this is it. This is much deeper, almost frightening. To see that a word is said after another that you will instantly write, without even paying attention, that’s going to be the essential part of your article.
Yeah, sometimes when I write something, I don’t realize a point until the last sentence, and it’s like, oh wait a minute, this is what I’ve been saying the whole time. You don’t realize that, because you’re just trying to wonder what you’re trying to say, and suddenly everything coalesces together.
You know, sometimes you read an excellent review and basically it says, I hated the movie, and some of the time, you say this guy loved the movie, I want to see it, but instead it shocked him, so in directing it’s exactly the same. If you don’t like your characters, for instance, you can be sure that people are going to hate them or not be interested in them. If you love your characters, if you are connected to them, if you love your actors, something is going to go through. Because it’s not only when you shoot, it’s when you cut and when you put the music or the sound. All those details, if you put the wrong foleys on a woman that is walking that you’re following, it feels different. And because the director saying, that’s too light, the steps are too loud, give her a little limp. The character’s, bang!, broken. It’s a character with an inelegant way of walking. It could be a very interesting, very beautiful woman with a terrible defect, and you never thought on that, and you never wrote that in that shot that you follow this figure, you will have an element of sound that is going to destroy the character.
I think we have to wrap it up, but it was very nice to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
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