What is your earliest memory of film?
Disney movies, I guess. But not necessarily big classics. I remember an excellent one that wasn’t that famous called Once Upon A Forest. And then came Batman Returns, with my major crush on Michelle Pfeiffer, especially for that scene when she walks in a ball or something on Face to Face by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Edgy. I also remember writing fan letters to Mara Wilson for her performances in Matilda and Miracle on the 34th… I was already borderline. And Titanic, The Secret Garden - with Maggie Smith and this wild around-the-fire scene - and The Little Princess. You could already tell, huh? Amazing.
You were an actor as a child, did you always have ambition of making films?
No. I decided I wanted to direct when it became the last resort to act. I was unemployed and feared and loathed the child-actor-turned-anonymous-hobo pattern, and thought that being the director myself, no one would put me aside or cut me off a project because I wasn’t popular or six feet tall.
Having won awards with your directorial debut, J’ai Tue Ma Mere (I Killed My Mother), do you feel pressure to repeat such success?
No. Not really. It’s not pressure, it’s hope. I just hope I won’t disappoint my family, my friends and the public, and the journalists. I could see in people’s eyes that they were less touched by Heartbeats then they were by I Killed My Mother, because there was less emotion, and intensity, and that was sort of tough. But I think Laurence Anyways [his next film project] will be a good film, funny, touching, dramatic, epic. I have great expectations. It will hurt if I fail. So much. I’m getting prepared for that.
You have said that you’re new film, Heartbeats, contains autobiographical elements - do you find inspiration from your own life for all your films?
Yes. Some of them are more personal, some are more fictional. Well some… There are two, so… There is always a foundation, something close to the skin… But there must be drama and fantasy as cinema shouldn’t always be real life. It’s fun to shoot scenes that are hyper realistic, for some reasons it’s always a triumph when people have the illusion that things are so real they feel documentary-like. It’s a goal for me to make people feel it’s real. But in the same time, alongside with this true stuff and cathartic experiments and coming-of-age clichés, there must be some fantasy, some ideas that real life itself wouldn’t have enough imagination to concretize. Hence the style, the aesthetic, etc. That’s important for me. I know it busts some people’s balls, but what do you want. Not everyone is ready for an empathetic talking fox in [the Lars Von Trier film] Antichrist. And I know it feels wrong, but at the same time it’s so free and daring and creative and witty. I love these liberties. They are a sign that cinema still lives, no matter if it’s successful or not. We don’t do things like that anymore. I hate that fox, but I love that fox, symbolically.
Heartbeats is about love and lust - are you successful in relationships yourself?
Absolutely not.
What is the message you hope viewers receive from watching this film?
That love is a bath of blood and that’s exactly why I so rarely shower. Seriously, I dunno. They can receive whatever they want, as long as they’re touched and amused, and entertained. Otherwise I stole two hours of their lives and owe them 10 bucks. I really can’t afford it, though.
According to Wikipedia, you provide the voice of Stan in the French-Canadian version of South Park - is this true?
Yes. It’s a short-lived thing though, because we only dubbed the first season. And then it didn’t air anymore here.
South Park infamously offends… everyone at some point. What in the world are you offended by?
I’m offended by violence, hatred and fascism.
Would you ever aim to create a controversial film yourself?
I wouldn’t want to do a controversial film for the only purpose of controversy. If I ever feel like doing a film to talk about something that would risk creating some kind of polemic, I wouldn’t care about the consequences as the creative process would actually be meaningful, and justified by a need to express something in order to feel better, to change something, to make progress happen in a precise way. I feel free to do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want, as long as I feel I’m not wasting anyone’s time, and that my work can be profitable and enjoyable to at least someone. And someone, that already is something. When I do films, I usually don’t care about people’s reactions. I ask myself, “oh, are they gonna like this or that”, but again, the only answer I can provide myself with is the answer I get from me. I am the public, too, but in the end, when I worry about people’s reactions, I end up doing what I would like. It’s much later, when watching the final cut, that I start to be really fucking scared about what everyone is going to think.
[Originally published on wonderlandmagazine.com/blog]
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