The two worked together on “Alas,” but the relationship between them was bittersweet
Gérard Depardieu answers his cell phone. “I’m a bit tired, in Paris I break the boxes.” We must talk about Godard, the prophet of the Nouvelle Vague, who died at the age of 92. And Depardieu is always him, against the tide, with his ferocious sincerity. He immediately begins to throw off: “I’m happy for him”
«Because old age is a disaster, it is a tragedy. It is better to leave in time. He was bored of living ».
You made a movie with Godard.
«In Italian it is called Alas, it was 1993 ».
“Vaguely, he spoke of mythology. I’ve never seen it. Look, I’ve done 250 movies and I’ve seen forty. Certainly not that ».
What was Godard like on set?
“He left me a piece of paper enveloped under the hotel room with the lines I had to say the next day. No script ».
«Yes, you said well, a teacher. It was a little too didactic. Art is not like that. Godard was not Pasolini, who had a generous nature. Godard wasn’t. ‘
Godard and Truffaut, a partnership that fell apart.
“They were very good friends and they sent themselves to the devil in front of the whole world. It was Effetto Notte that sparked the quarrel, they exchanged incendiary letters. But Truffaut was the joy of living ».
“He came from a Protestant Swiss family full of money. Important and very interesting family. With old age her character became impossible. He emphasized a characteristic which was that of speaking ill of the actors ».
“Oui, he didn’t love them. The film had to be him, Jean-Luc Godard ».
He fought with Truffaut over a vision of films that had become antithetical: Night effect has its own romanticism, Godard wanted to experiment.
“And in a letter he asked Truffaut for money for his next alternative job, so that people wouldn’t believe that movies are only made like yours,” he wrote. ”
There was the metaphor of the train in the night, Truffaut saw the films in this way.
“And Godard said to him: who is taking the train, in what class, who is driving it?”
What remains of the Nouvelle Vague in 2022?
«Ah… Nothing. Not even the emotion. There are platforms that eat everything ».
Both, he and Truffaut, were born critics.
“They had this in common. I don’t read anything about me, I don’t read the articles. I don’t even consider myself an actor ».
But his film about Commissioner Maigret is coming out and everyone is talking well about it …
“It looks like one of those classics of yesteryear but shot with a modern sense. Maigret is someone who knows how to talk to people, appreciates good food, so I have things that bind me to him. He has an instinct that leads him to take an interest in others, I’m not just talking about investigative flair. I like the humanity of him, an old-fashioned policeman who takes breaks in a brasserie ».
«I like to visit countries, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Algeria…».
«Russia, of course. I can’t stand journalists and politicians who talk about Ukraine. I don’t like Zelensky that all Westerners fill with money. Ukraine had belonged to Russia for many years ”.
Let’s go back to Godard. Was he against the system?
‘He was a philosophy professor. He had an intellectual approach to things. And he had problems with other people’s beautiful women. One day I told him he didn’t have the balls. It was a bus that passed over his body, this is the image that comes to me ».
“Now it will be. I don’t think in life he loved peace enough to be human. ‘
Tell us one quality, only one, of Godard.
“He had a good sense of image, his films were paintings.”
September 14, 2022 (change September 14, 2022 | 07:22)
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