A Digital Fugitive: Interview with Pedro Costa

by Daniel Kasman

16 Jun. 09

Portuguese director Pedro Costa’s star has been on the ascent for some time now, generally kept as a secret until 2006’s Colossal Youth’s screening at Cannes aggravated a certain kind of audience enough for us to know a new master had suddenly jumped into the limelight. That impression, at least in the US, was confirmed in 2007 when Costa took six of his feature films—including the “Vanda” trilogy of Ossos (1997), In Vanda’s Room (2000), and Colossal Youth (2001)—and several shorts on a tour around the country. It was an eye opening and formative event to discover this director uniquely channeling Jacques Tournuer, Ford, Ozu, Ray, and Straub-Huillet through his own sensibility and setting. It was not just a discovery, but also an important moment for internet criticism; bloggers, particularly a younger generation, gathered around the Costa and Jacques Rivette retrospectives that toured that year, showcasing a new form of engagement and awareness of cinema in entirely new, quasi-collective, highly personal, and absolutely invigorating ways.

We all waited to see what these filmmakers would do next, after the discovery. Costa’s path, less established, is also less certain. Since his “purer” documentary works—many would argue his masterpieces—In Vanda’s Room and Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (2001), his video on Straub-Huillet doing post-production on Sicilia!, Costa has re-invested fictional elements into his recent films. Colossal Youth, and the two shorts that followed it, Tarrafal and The Rabbit Hunters (both 2007) take the same setting as the Vanda films—the Fontaínha slum of Lisbon—but move in more allusive directions, suggesting fantasy. So we were considerably caught off guard to discover that Costa’s next film was another documentary, his first in black and white since his debut O Sangue (1989), and on a French actress’ singing career to boot. Ne change rien played in the 2009 Director’s Fortnight in Cannes, where both David Phelps and I wrote about it. I had a chance to sit down with Costa the day after his film premiered, on the rooftop of the Palais Stéphanie. The filmmaker already seemed weary of the festival atmosphere and process, and finishing cigarettes and espressos while squinting at a beautiful day in the French seaside town, seemed to talk of the film, shot long ago and only recently finished, as one would about a poignant but receding dream.

***

DANIEL KASMAN: What was the difference between making Ne change rien—which is about working to make music—and Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? , which is about making a movie?

PEDRO COSTA: I could answer it another way. For the film about Danièle [Huillet] and Jean-Marie [Straub], that began as a request from Cinéma, de notre temps, and that began as a 60 minute film for the TV series in a certain format that I should more or less respect. When I prepared myself to shoot the thing, we really prepared. There was a film [Sicilia! ], there was a declaration of film production, and I was a bit afraid because I had this idea that I couldn’t to shoot Danièle and Jean-Marie shooting their film or being on a set because you can't see anything. We either had to see the work with the actors—you could probably see something there—or the editing. So I chose the editing, knowing it would be very difficult technically, just because it takes place in a dark room, and the concentration involved. And, above all, Jean-Marie and Danièle, who I knew a little bit before, but I had an image of what it could be. So I had sometimes two cameras, I had someone assisting me with the cameras; we were there always, always from 9-7, so we ended up with 100 hours or more of footage, just because I wanted to have it all. I was afraid of missing that moment.

For this project, it was a bit different, there was no film, and there is no film still.

KASMAN: There is an album.

COSTA: There's an album, but there's never a moment I said to Jeanne [Balibar] or the musicians "I'm doing this to make a feature, I'm doing a documentary." It began because I knew Jeanne, apart from the fact that she's certainly the actress today I most admire. She kept inviting me to things, to a theater play, or "come see this, even if you don't like theater," that she was going to be in the studio and come spend some days; simple things. There was a moment when I said "yeah okay I'll come;" probably I didn't even say I'll bring my camera, I just arrived with my friend who does the sound and the musicians weren't surprised. And we were there as the other musicians were, the technicians. So there's this formality with Danièle and Jean-Marie that was not here. I don't want to say the work with Jeanne was lighter or more superficial, but it's a bit different than the work done from the editing of the film and especially Jean-Marie and Danièle’s methods. First, in this film, there's much more people around, even if you don't see it on screen, there's a lot of intrusion. You can feel it a bit in some moments, there's guys testing, some rock sounds, even some dispersion.

KASMAN: The way the soundtrack works, you are never quite sure what the audio source is, whether it's coming from what's live on camera, or if it’s a playback loop, or if it’s off-camera.

COSTA: Exactly, there's friends visiting, there's people just sitting around. If the shots were wider or if my camera moved like in One Plus One, you could see the same thing, guys sitting around in funny hats. Of course, Jeanne and Rodolphe [Burger]—the corpus of the thing—were as concentrated and anxious as Jean-Marie and Danièle were, and for me that felt familiar. I saw the same protection. What I like about this film, and what related to Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?, is the generosity they share. "If you fail, I'll fail"—very simple. Even if I don't like the projection here [in Cannes], if you see the film with a good print and good sound in a smaller theater, you'll see the eyes, which are very important. Small things in Rodolphe's attention and protection, that's very obvious. There's a link, a bond between him and the other guy, the bass guy, that's very close, almost an out-of-time bond. There's something very touching about that.

KASMAN: The interaction between Jean-Marie and Danièle in Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? is conversation. It's about the making of Sicilia! , but it goes far beyond that, whereas in this film, all dialog is strictly about the sound and getting the right sound, finding that tenor in construction and repetition.

COSTA: I was present for all the moments when you see Jeanne practicing the Offenbach opera, and that is probably the part of the film where I have more rushes. There you can see the same thing as between Jean-Marie and Danièle, the same severity, strictness, some very funny light tones, some erudition, there's more moments like "think of this Mozart piece," but then building the film, putting the pieces together, one part I was afraid of was charging these scenes so much, too much. It's a film about a form, I think, and it's Jeanne's form—tempo—and if I would put more of the opera or the rehearsals, it would just become…I don't know if I had the material to be that kind of film. Jeanne says it's more like Party Girl, but the gang, you know in They Live By Night when they go to the cabin in the forest and stay for four days? It's Nick Ray, it's [Robert] Siodmark. They're runaways, one has a guitar...they are running from something. It could be called The Fugitives.

KASMAN: Can you talk about your visual approach to the project? You shot it yourself on digital in color, and then printed it on film. I've seen digitally shot videos projected here in Cannes digitally, but I've never seen one of your digital films projected that way.

COSTA: I've done four or five films like this, and now I'm doing video, color—not HD, just regular digital—and then I do the transfer to 35mm. The problem with this film was that I wanted real 35mm, not color stock, but the real black and white negative, the silver nitrate. It's pretty expensive; five years ago you had Agfa, Kodak, Fuji, now you only have Kodak. The lab in Paris told me that in two years you couldn't do this, it's over, it's too expensive, it's too dangerous.

KASMAN: It's a beautiful effect though, it reminds me of the black and white version of that high contrast digital in Godard's In Praise of Love, the vibrancy of the highs and lows. Did you light it yourself?

COSTA: I did some things, but I brought no equipment, really. I just improvised again, more like I did in In Vanda's Room, with some aluminum foil or light boards off-camera. That's one funny thing, sometimes the light is sun, you think it's a lamp but it's the sun, it's real, bright sun. That's Hollywood; I mean the good Hollywood. And sometimes it's night and you think it's the sun...so I just helped a little bit. The shine in the eyes, things like that, very, very small things. I was worried, actually, because I often have the tendency to pull back...

KASMAN: But some of the close-ups are incredible, the shot that's also in the shorter version of this film, that profile of Jeanne that looks like Dietrich-Sternberg lighting...I don't know if that was the lighting of the club she was singing at or if it was your lighting.

COSTA: That was the club lighting plus a little bit—maybe—of manipulation, but just little things, density, contrast. That's a funny shot.

KASMAN: Is it sync sound or was the soundtrack remixed?

COSTA: Everything's direct. There's only one shot—the one in Japan—where the sound is from elsewhere. The image is something I did in Japan, I went to a cafe in the morning where we shot the concert in Japan. I went with Nobuhiro Suwa to Naruse's grave, and this cafe faces the cemetery. The door in this shot, you can see it in the window...there's a moment where you can almost see the gate of the cemetery. I went there and saw the grave and then I went for coffee and these two women were there, and they looked at me and I looked at them. And I set the camera simply on the table, I had no tripod, they smiled, I smile—Japan! But I had to add sound in the end, so when I mixed the film, I added this very tiny, tender sound. Every time I see this shot it reminds me of Jacques Tati, I don't know why. But there's a lot to be said about this shot. I would like to do a whole film like that—not silent—but there's something there.

KASMAN: Naruse's favorite actress, Hideko Takamine, once said that Naruse told her that his ideal film would be one where she stars against blank white backdrops. In a way, Ne change rien reminds me of this project, bodies hanging against a minimalist abstraction.

COSTA: We tried to find something that's under the surface of this film, not even a story, there's more than that, something about fear, the light and blackness. I’m sure it's not a documentary in that sense, a documentary about work, it's just about trying to get somewhere. But that comes from Jeanne's fragility, she's a bit misplaced at the opera, she's a bit misplaced in tempo with the guys, the pros.

KASMAN: Did you complete this film a while ago? Because I first saw footage from it two years ago.

COSTA: We shot it a long, long time ago. The first time was a concert in 2005, I believe. And then every year I shot more, in the way I told you, I came and went. The last time I shot was late 2007. I stopped for a while, I had a short film to do, and then I came back to this, sat down with the editor. From November until March I was editing and handling the lab things.

KASMAN: Was Ne change rien the same as with In Vanda's Room and Colossal Youth where you had to sift through hundreds of hours of footage?

COSTA: No, we had much less. I had something like 80 hours for this film, because all the concerts are just an hour and I did not want to make a concert film where you go backstage or in the bus. I just shot the moments. Even the tiny small things that are in the film when the practice is over and the team goes to prepare food or whatever, really the rush just ends there. It's like Warhol, an experimental thing where you go to the end of the tape. I had much less material.

KASMAN: Was there much interaction between you and the musicians? If I remember correctly, you talk to Jean-Marie in Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?.

COSTA: Yes, with Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? the beginning was difficult, I was a bit lost in how to do it, and I found the door very, very late. But in this one, no, sometimes I told Jeanne something, but she's an actress so she knows what to do, she slightly turns a bit more to the light—but just for the light, not for the mise-en-scene like "let's do a scene like this"—I just served the thing, just being there, like a public service. [laughs]

KASMAN: Are you working on something now? The two shorts came after this was shot.

COSTA: The shorts came in between.

KASMAN: I love those shorts especially because of their length. When you were in New York for your retrospective, you talked about wanting to set up a television station in Fontaínha and these shorts felt like episodes in a potential television series.

COSTA: I would love to do that, but it's impossible. Every day it's more impossible. But to see this idea more and more contemplated from here in Cannes it makes so much sense. I'll do another short, more a museum thing, and then I'll go back to Japan to do another short film, I don't know the idea, but it will be a film with other directors, probably Godard and Sokurov.

KASMAN: From In Vanda's Room to Colossal Youth there’s a move towards more...I want to say fictional elements, but not really fictional, just a move away from specific documentary that allowed for room of mystery. The two shorts definitely continued in this vein.

COSTA: The films with my gang in Fontaínha—it's not only me—they need that "fiction," or what we call fiction, they need it badly. That's very obvious and natural, this necessity, and it explains everything. We know each other very well now, it's been a long time–Vanda, Ventura, all the boys...well they're not boys anymore. At the beginning it was like "let's do the cop," and "let's do the chase," and "okay another boring one," and finally they are proposing—as in Tarrafal. I said I have this money, what shall we do? The second day this guy came with this letter about being expelled from the country, so let's do something around that, he said let's do that story, his story. I said where should we do it and he said "not here," "let's find a place." That was the first time they said let's imagine something, let's imagine our territory. The problem is they don't have a territory; they are between the new neighborhood, a no-man's-land, and a freeway.

KASMAN: But there's that amazing sequence in the forest in those two shorts, where is that?

COSTA: [Laughs] That forest is...[indicates a small square]

KASMAN: Oh, so just outside the frame there's nothing?

COSTA: It's ridiculous! But they needed that, and they wanted that. So now I think I should work on that, hear them much more, and go that direction. I think it will get closer to something..."purer" is not the word, but something verbal I'm sure. They want to tell the story with four or five elements, I don't know what they are…I don't want to talk about abstraction or minimalism but we'll probably go that way. So you are right; when I started, even with Ossos, I really wanted to see something, find out, put things in relation to find out about them. But now it's free. We don't care any more about a statement.

There used to be even a critique in what we were doing, and they say we should show a bit more, about how the other half live, and I said "no, this is just me looking at you." Now I don't care and they don't care, and it's about something else. It's freer. I hope the form will be freer. The monster is that it relates much more to the past than the present. They don't care much about the present, that's just it. They don't think a second about the future, they are completely numb, and violent, and much more violent than before. They are turning their backs and it's all about the past. It's all about missing people and missing the land. That's why I want to go back now.

KASMAN: That sounds like a much more integrated approach to collaboration than what you are doing in Ne change rien or the Straub-Huillet film.

COSTA: Yes, and it's also much wider, more vast. In the beginning it was Vanda, it was a girl, then it was her sister and her friend. Now everybody is Vanda.

KASMAN: Does that make Ne change rien, this kind of film, more manageable than your work in Fontaínha?

COSTA: These are really prototypes, all of them, and this was unique in that it comes from no declaration of film, for the first time, not even a "let's see" attitude. It was strange, every time I went to see Jeanne, coming with a camera. I just read a Variety critique of my film, it says it all—"Arty fans will be enchanted" or something, "normal people, run away!" It's funny, because I know when "normal" people and Variety walk out of this film—it's when people start working. It's like Godard says, when people see a tiny bit of someone working in a film, it's dead.

http://www.theauteurs.com/

Ainda há milagres em cinema. Como? Através desse poder mágico de alguns filmes confirmarem a existência do mundo à nossa volta, fazendo-nos ver também que o nosso olhar é sempre escasso, está sempre em situação de perda. Ne Change Rien, de Pedro Costa, é um desses filmes.
Ne Change Rien pode definir-se como um exercício de aproximação documental da actriz Jeanne Balibar (vimo-la, por exemplo, em Sabe-se Lá!, de Jacques Rivette). Pedro Costa regista momentos do seu trabalho musical, cantando, ensaiando, procurando as formas precisas para as suas canções. Dir-se-ia que estamos perante uma cerimónia de que o cinema é, de uma só vez, a testemunha, o mecanismo indutor e o altar. Ne Change Rien é um filme de pura maravilha: assistimos à duração das coisas, à respiração (literal e metafórica) que faz nascer as formas artísticas.

Face ao fulgor de Ne Change Rien, tudo o resto parece desvanecer-se numa pequenez sem recurso.

João Lopes, Cannes 2009, 15 de Maio, Sound+Vision

Ne Change Rien, de Pedro Costa (Portugal/França, 2009) – Quinzena dos Realizadores

por Eduardo Valente, Maio de 2009

Existe uma pergunta que volta e meia aparece em textos críticos: o que é o essencial do cinema (ou por outra, o que é o cinema)? Claro que uma pergunta genérica e abrangente como esta permite inúmeras respostas “certas”, ao gosto do freguês, mas o fato é que (pelo menos após a inserção do cinema sonoro), ninguém poderá discordar que o essencial do cinema é: luz e som. Pois parece mesmo que, neste filme, Pedro Costa (alguém cujo cinema já não é nada estranho à associação com a palavra “essencial”) se dedica a exatamente esta missão: filmar a luz e o som, quase em estado bruto. E é para cumprir com essa missão tão simples quanto impossível, que ele se utilizará (por mais que ele prefira dizer, como hoje na entrevista depois da sessão, que o seu cinema é que está sempre a serviço de algo) da atriz Jeanne Balibar, no exercício de sua ocupação paralela como cantora.

Para ir mais adiante no filme, é interessante voltar à entrevista de Costa dois anos atrás, quando perguntando sobre outros filmes que o inspiravam ou obras que gostaria de realizar falou que gostaria de adaptar para o cinema o disco “Innervisions”, de Stevie Wonder. Bem entendido: mais do que um desejo real ou um projeto, Costa brincava para dizer que algumas das obras que mais o inspiram nada têm a ver com cinema nem com a literatura (fonte comum de adaptações para o cinema). Pois Ne Change Rien fecha com essa afirmação de Costa de maneira marcante, porque se há algo que fica claro no filme é o quanto de admiração pelo ato de produzir música existe por trás do realizador. Mais do que isso, poderíamos até dizer que há uma sensação sincera do filme ser feito por alguém que gostaria de ser, ele mesmo, músico, tal a devoção exibida frente ao ofício de alguém como Balibar ou como Rodolphe Burger, parceiro desta na carreira musical.

O que Costa faz aqui é acompanhar ao longo de alguns anos (embora essa informação entendida como tal não faça parte do filme – assim como nenhuma outra, aliás) a relação de Balibar com a música: ensaiando e gravando com Burger e os outros membros de sua banda; cantando e tocando num show; ensaiando e cantando numa encenação de ópera. Este mesmo material, que usualmente termina em inúmeros formatos repetitivos de DVD (seja o do show ou o dos “bastidores” de realização de algo), vira nas mãos de Costa a motivação para um trabalho que parece equidistante da abstração completa (algo de que, afinal, a música se aproxima com naturalidade) e da mais física e concreta matéria (pois a música precisa ser produzida por instrumentos, cordas vocais, do esforço de pessoas através de inúmeras repetições).

No campo da imagem, Costa aproveita-se dos meios absolutamente restritos de sua realização (como ele disse na entrevista, este é um filme feito por quatro pessoas: ele, Balibar, Burger e um técnico de som) para trabalhar com uma iluminação mínima que se torna, como de hábito nos filmes dele, sofisticadíssima pela maneira de enquadrar e posicioná-la. É através deste trabalho que o filme vira um dos mais incríveis exercícios de claro-escuro da história do cinema (vale a hipérbole), emprestando a cada imagem um elemento de mistério e de relação com algo desconhecido ou invisível que acaba sendo uma representação precisa do que realizam em cena os músicos. Dessa maneira, Costa acaba realizando aquele que é, sem dúvida e em todos os sentidos do termo, um dos mais belos filmes sobre música jamais realizados. Não é pouco.

Revista Cinética

A música de Jeanne é o cinema de Pedro ou no sótão com Jeanne

15.05.2009 - Vasco Câmara

Desde 2005 que Pedro Costa vem filmando a actriz Jeanne Balibar na sua faceta de cantora: ensaios, concertos, gravações de discos. Retrato de Jeanne? Retrato de um cinema, o dele, Pedro.

Ela é uma Nico da Rive Gauche, uma Marlene do rock da distorção, é cantora de opereta, tortura-se com as "torch songs" e com o "blues", a voz vai de Offenbach a "Johnny Guitar", eis Jeanne Balibar, também actriz. Desde 2005 que Pedro Costa a vem filmando, depois de se terem encontrado num júri de um festival de documentários em Marselha, onde ela lhe terá confidenciado que cada vez mais gostava dos filmes em que os actores que representavam não eram actores. Depois do encontro dele com a música do primeiro álbum dela, "Paramour", houve uma pequena ajuda de um amigo comum, Philippe Morel: engenheiro de som dos filmes dele e de filmes com ela, foi ele que lançou a ideia de um fazer algo com a música do outro.

Desde Novembro que Costa vem, então, montando essas imagens e sons que recolheu ao longo destes anos, em concertos (aproveitando, por exemplo, a estreia de um dos seus filmes em Tóquio para filmar o espectáculo que Balibar apresentou na cidade japonesa), ensaios, gravações (já para o segundo álbum de Balibar), uma opereta, tudo produto de paciente artesanato, feito entre amigos, com poucos meios -"é assim que me convém", dizia o cineasta ontem na apresentação do filme.

O resultado chama-se "Ne Change Rien" (Quinzena dos Realizadores), e aí Balibar metamorfoseia-se. (Ela diz que foi um encontro ideal: esteve ali, actriz sem o ser, como nos filmes de que cada vez mais gosta, aqueles que têm actores que não pertencem ao "métier"). Os rostos são esculpidos com a ajuda da luz e da sombra, em sotãos e espaços exíguos de ensaios que certamente escondem segredos, um cenário expressionista atravessado por um gato preto - saído, naturalmente, de um filme de Jacques Tourneur.

Não há forma, e julgamos que não há intenção, de o retrato se fixar. Retrato de Jeanne? No mesmo sentido em que "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968), em que Godard testemunhou o nascimento de uma canção, (não) era um retrato dos Rolling Stones... O que se mantém, isso não muda, é o trabalho, o esforço, a repetição, a obsessão. E a matéria daí resultante, som, a música. Costa diz que filma para "servir" quem tem à frente, ou quem tem ao lado a trabalhar com ele ("só assim é que o cinema é belo"). Mas sabemos também como, sobretudo, cria as condições para se encontrar com as suas sombras, fixar-se nelas e nelas esconder segredos - ou acenar-nos com eles. Em "Ne Change Rien", ou "No estúdio com Jeanne", a música dela é o cinema dele. Não por causa do negrume - ou não fundamentalmente por causa disso. Mas porque através dos ensaios, da repetição, desta obsessão em filigrana no estúdio, nos ensaios o tempo faz-se matéria densa, revela-se a tensão dramática de um planos fixo. Com "Ne Change Rien" a música encontrou um seu obsessivo Sternberg. É um retrato do cinema de Pedro.

Ípsilon, 15.05.2009

"Ne change rien", 2009

El arte en una prisión

ENTREVISTA PEDRO COSTA

CARLOS REVIRIEGO

De su experiencia como ayudante de dirección, suele decir que aprendió algo muy valioso, que "lo importante no es cómo haces las películas, sino cómo las vives". ¿Es ésta la causa profunda de que abandonara los sistemas de producción convencionales a partir de No quarto da Vanda?

Varias cosas decidieron mi salida del cine convencional. Una tal vez es que al principio, cuando tenía 25 años, estaba atrapado entre la música y el cine. Son dos experiencias completamente
diferentes de cómo se vive el trabajo en equipo. Nunca entendí por qué los técnicos de un grupo de rock sienten una mayor implicación y pasión por su trabajo que los técnicos de un equipo
de cine. Es algo extraño, pero totalmente cierto. Fui asistente de producción, de dirección... y fueron unas experiencias para mí...no digo traumáticas, pero sí muy penosas. Tenía muchos problemas con los tiempos, con los productores, con los actores, con los técnicos... en fin, una serie de cataclismos. Mi horizonte para hacer una película era entrar en un mundo que no me gusta nada, que además lo considero algo sucio, en el que tenía que encontrar financiación. Pero, en fin, conseguí hacer mi primer film con amigos, luego hice un segundo y un tercero..., todos con equipos grandes, coproductores, con Paulo Branco, etc. Pero siempre que acababa pensaba cómo podría cambiar las cosas. Sólo haciendo el tercero, Ossos, tuve una idea por lo menos de cómo hacerlo, de que el cine tenía que ver realmente con las personas y los lugares en que se filma. Había descubierto el barrio, y eran las personas las que me iban a permitir pensar los rodajes y su organización de otra manera. La aparición de las cámaras de vídeo DV también me abrió el camino. Por tanto, son varias cosas, es esta idea de intentar que el cine sea una experiencia más normal, de todos los días, más constante, más dedicada, teniendo una correspondencia con la realidad. Yo sentía siempre que había demasiada ficción en los rodajes, pero detrás de la cámara, entre los técnicos, los actores, los directores... la ficción era cómo intentaban que creyera en algunas cosas que son una pura invención.

¿Es realmente el descubrimiento del vídeo lo que le posibilita hacer realidad su convencimiento de que el cine no debe ser un lujo?

El vídeo me da una serie de cosas que no tiene el 35mm, pero sobre todo me da la posibilidad del tiempo, de ser más paciente, de estar disponible para los otros en cualquier momento, lo que es imposible en un cine corriente. Jean Renoir decía siempre que sus filmes americanos son los peores que hizo, que son películas fallidas porque no tuvo tiempo para pensar. El film que dirigió
después fue El río, que hizo en la India con mucho más tiempo. Para él fue una especie de confirmación de que el lujo del cine es una mentira. Los cineastas, los técnicos y los productores perpetuaron esa mentira para que el cine no estuviera al alcance de la gente. Quizá es más difícil y arriesgado hacer cine con una pequeña cámara. Yo me siento con mi cámara de vídeo mucho más en peligro, mucho más expuesto y mucho más desprotegido que con una cámara de 35 mm. Con una cámara de vídeo es preciso resistir mucho la primera idea, la primera imagen,
hay que probar una segunda, una tercera... La práctica de las personas cuando hacen cine, incluso cuando dicen que son artesanales, está envuelta en una maquinaria tan sofisticada, hoy en día, que no es comparable a la disponibilidad y el riesgo de aceptar la luz tal cual es. Muy pocos cineastas están dispuestos a ello, aparte de Straub y algunos jóvenes. Debe haber mucha
paciencia, la disponibilidad y la organización, y el cine normal no da esa posibilidad. Los cineastas no aceptan esa situación porque probablemente es gratuita. Las personas que filmé revelaron su misterio, se abrieron muchísimo, y esto no tiene precio, no se puede pagar en dinero, no es posible.

Respecto a ese misterio, es manifiesto su gusto por filmar a los vivos-muertos. Ha comentado que durante el rodaje de No quarto da Vanda sintió que en muchas escenas la luz provenía directamente del rostro de los actores. Esto despierta una analogía muy directa con Las uvas de la ira...Me gustaría que hablara un poco de este tema, que decididamente está en todas sus películas...

Sí, la verdad es que sí. Está en todas. Quizá de una forma más profunda cuando estoy en contacto con las personas del barrio de Fontainhas, y creo que responde a que las personas que me
iba encontrando son personas muy desarmadas. En cierto modo sólo tienen su cuerpo y su alma, poco más. Llevan una extraña energía, una luz que no siempre es la misma, pero de la que ellos
mismos dependen mucho. Cualquier cosa se queda en ellos... y o hablo sólo de las películas, estoy hablando de la realidad. Son personas que me recuerdan mucho a ciertos personajes de las
películas de Dreyer, y por supuesto de Tourneur, de Ford, del elemento católico, religioso, irlandés, digamos místico, y sobre todo Las uvas de la ira, como ha dicho, a esa lindísima mezcla de mostrar el espacio social a través de los individuos. Prácticamente percibimos la historia de Estados Unidos en ellos. También tienen un lado muy misterioso. Sus películas tienen por lo tanto una dimensión muy material, pero también una dimensión muy inmaterial. Lo encuentro útil, me siento cercano a su mundo. Yo no puedo ignorar esos dos lados un poco contradictorios, pero coherentes en términos de espacio y tiempo... No se puede hacer un film materialista sin que sea también sensiblemente místico. Ellos me dieron la oportunidad de volver a creer, de tener alguna convicción en cosas invisibles, en la presencia y ausencia de las personas en el espacio, en la energía luminosa... es un encuentro entre mi sensibilidad, que tiene muchas influencias del cine, de la pintura y los libros, y la sensibilidad de ellos.

Es necesario partir de una fe para lanzarse a hacer películas como No quarto da Vanda o Juventude em marcha...

Fe, no sé, es una palabra que no me gusta mucho. Creo que es otra palabra para aquello de lo que hablaba Straub en el film que hice sobre él. Straub hablaba de la "idea" para hacer un film. El contacto con la materia se va a transformar en forma. No existiendo esa ¡dea, no puede haber film. Esa idea no son las ideas de cine de las que los malos cineastas hablan todo el rato, porque eso son ideas de raccord, son trucos, son casi gags, ocurrencias, son ideas dictadoras... Creo que las ideas de las que habla Straub son casi una convicción... Convicción en el sentido de convicciones políticas muy fuertes. Godard es el lado opuesto en este aspecto. Por lo menos el Godard más clásico. Incluso en el sentido político, Godard disparó en muchas direcciones, y creo que esas convicciones en el caso de Straub se acercaron más a un concepto de cine clásico, narrativo, rígido... Al contrario, como todos sabemos, Godard no comienza por la idea, sino por
la forma. Esa búsqueda de la idea mediante la forma es complicada, es muy difícil, no siempre da buenos resultados. Creo que eso puede verse claramente en determinados tipos de cine. Por ejemplo, algunas películas de los años setenta, francesas, húngaras, españolas... eran para mí espantosas, porque sólo tenían forma. Decían que eran formalistas, pero para mí eran débiles,
muy metafóricas... porque ninguna de ellas tenía el talento de Godard. Quizá Philippe Garrel era el único que lo tenía.

¿Cómo y dónde encontró la forma para su idea?

Creo que en la realidad del barrio de Fontainhas, de esas personas..., allí encontré un movimiento muy próximo a mi idea. Empecé a pensar que un barrio y sus vecinos puede convertirse
en un estudio de rodaje y sus actores. Intenté comprender la realidad compleja y múltiple, pero tenía una base muy sólida, y esa base no me dejaba idealizar lo que veía, no conseguía apagar
todas las ideas que tenía. Por eso me propongo volver y probar la idea que tengo. Pero para llevar esto a la práctica necesito tiempo, necesito una vida, no es propiamente hacer un film, es una vida que pasa por el compromiso de no abandonar... Es una especie de valorización del trabajo artístico. Es una labor invisible. A veces el trabajo no parece trabajo, es sólo estar en una mesa alrededor de las personas del barrio, pasar un día con ellos... Ahora hago las películas con mucha esperanza, siento que hay un horizonte de posibilidades mucho mayor de lo que
hay en mi cabeza... la realidad que yo vivo es tan rica que parece casi infinita, y es muy asustador.

¿Cuáles son los riesgos y temores a los que se enfrenta un cineasta con una concepción tan exigente sobre el cine?

Es una pregunta difícil. Tengo miedo de quedar demasiado prisionero de algunas cosas, prisionero en el sentido de cómo Straub es prisionero, por ejemplo. Es una persona que se limitó mucho, vive en una prisión, en una prisión impuesta, pero... Yo también siento que he escogido una prisión, un gueto real, el gueto del cine. Es difícil ver mis películas, hay que hacer un gran esfuerzo, se han visto en Madrid y Barcelona, pero es difícil, las personas que las quieren mostrar también tienen que hacer un esfuerzo... financiero o no financiero. En fin, el arte en una prisión... pero muchas obras de arte se han escrito en prisiones...

¿Qué responsabilidades conlleva filmar a personas tan aparentemente desprotegidas como Ventura o Vanda?

Son personas muy creyentes en Dios, creen en la Reencarnación, en el Paraíso... Tanto Vanda como Ventura, cada uno a su manera, son personas profundamente creyentes. Esa creencia debo decir que me ha ayudado. Creo que es una creencia en una especie de pobreza, realmente. Yo tengo la suerte de no robarles nada, pero también de no darles mucho. No puedo robar y no puedo dar. Creo que este es el contrato que establecemos. No prometo nada, ningún cambio. Un film como los que hago tiene lugar en un espacio de sufrimiento, de falta de todo, de medios y de dinero...Y he tenido la suerte de que me ofrezcan cosas que son muy útiles. Primero es útil para mí, que me ha permitido continuar. Yo no sé si hubiera continuado haciendo películas con actores
y con ficciones escritas, con argumentistas y todo eso. No creo que hubiera tenido la fuerza y la energía suficientes para hacerlo. Creo que tengo una especie de lucidez próxima a Rossellini, que
Truffaut analizaba diciendo que era un tipo que partía de algo muy particular. Sus filmes pasaron de tratar de una aldea, a tratar de una isla, luego de un país, después de un continente, y acabó
haciendo películas sobre ideas, sobre Sócrates. Y Truffaut, muy bien como siempre, decía que Rossellini no tenía una cosa que era esencial tener en el cine, una especie de ingenuidad, de naïvité, para creer aquello que ves... Evidentemente, Rossellini no tiene esa convicción... Truffaut dice que Rossellini no era idiota, que el idiota era él, "tengo que ser idiota para hacer las películas que hago", decía. Hay una especie de estupidez en la base del cine que, si no está ahí, vas a encaminarte hacia un cine bastante complicado, vas a terminar haciendo cosas relativamente abstractas. Creo que yo comparto la sensibilidad de Rossellini... Siempre que paso por el rodaje de un colega me entran ganas de reírme. Creo que es una cosa muy ridicula, muy patética, tan patética que llega a ser conmovedor: el esfuerzo de un grupo de personas por perpetuar esta ingenuidad. Pronto entendí que las películas que hago deben partir de una realidad y esa realidad va a instruir, va a incitar. No sólo soy yo el iniciador en el principio del film, son siempre ellos, la realidad y ese misterio que observo en Ventura, que me conmueve, lo que adivino en Ventura de su pasado, y por tanto su mundo, y todo el resto que no consigo y que jamás conseguiré comprender, que es la gran parte del misterio.

Usted ha dicho que filmando a las mujeres se siente más cerca de hacer teatro, y filmando a los hombres más cerca del cine...

Sí. Bueno, es una sensación que tengo no durante el rodaje de No quarto da Vanda, sino después, en el montaje. Tuve un pequeño descubrimiento. La casa de la familia de Vanda tiene un lado de
teatro amateur, popular; las mujeres hablan muy alto, proyectan mucho la voz, hay un drama, un estruendo, eso tiene también un marcado lado de vodevil... Nada comparado a los chicos. Yo sentía que con los hombres hacía más cine. En sus escenas siempre había más silencios, un cambio constante de miradas, de complicidades, son también más... Los chicos de No quarto da Vanda se parecen mucho a los chicos de las películas de Nicholas Ray. Hay un sufrimiento que los carcome, una piedad que los inspira...Vanda no inspira piedad. Es un lado más Renoir. Para las mujeres sería Renoir, para los hombres, Nicholas Ray. Yo filmé esas dos partes de una forma totalmente diferente. La parte de los hombres está más editada, es más cinematográfica... y la parte de Vanda es mucho más... es realmente como el teatro, con las tres paredes y el patio de butacas... Esto en el montaje me resultó muy útil para descubrir el camino de la película.

En su cine encontramos un gran rigor, pero también hay una enorme libertad. Tenemos por un lado el rigor del plano fijo, de las estructuras de repetición de escenarios y escenas, y por otro lado hay una libertad en marcha todo el rato. Es una combinación muy productiva...

Abandoné muchas fantasías de hacer cosas originales, de intentar algo un poco distinto. Hay una cierta libertad que corresponde al cine del pasado. Había una libertad en las películas de
Tati que yo hoy no siento que exista en el cine. Los filmes de Tati también están construidos en planos fijos, y aún así realizaba películas deslumbrantes y complejas, y con enorme libertad. Yo
intento ir a la caza de esa libertad que ocurre dentro del plano fijo. Todos los cineastas que me gustan trabajaron mucho sin mover la cámara, pero en el fondo son los que más movimiento
ofrecen. Las películas americanas contemporáneas, de gran acción, están llenas de puntos de vista y perspectivas cruzadas y contradictorias en el mismo plano, pero no hay más movimiento
en estos filmes que en los de Tati, compuestos de planos fijos. Ni hay más velocidad en ellas que en los filmes de Buster Keaton y de Chaplin. Y en el caso de Ozu, por ejemplo, es también muy
claro, porque son las películas más vacilantes que existen, en ellas la cámara se estremece. En No quarto de Vanda tuve varias veces la sensación de que aquellas paredes se transformaban en
materia viviente. Cuando comienzo a sentir cosas de este tipo, creo que soy cada vez más fiel a esos cineastas, a esa libertad que ostentaron. Tal vez sería más fácil dar una vuelta sobre las
personalidades de Ventura o Vanda, intentar hacer cosas más psicológicas, más pulidas, más variadas, pero siento que para encontrar la libertad a la que aspiro, la libertad que siento que el
cine puede ofrecer, tengo que ser fiel a algunos principios. No sé si son principios realmente, porque después no los tengo en el rodaje como dogma, sino que las cosas también se imponen de
una forma muy simple. En No quarto da Vanda yo no podía girar la cámara, no había espacio. Aunque hubiera querido, no habría podido. Tenía que encontrar dos o tres posiciones de cámara que fuesen más eficaces. Vanda dice claramente "aquí es donde vivo y mi mundo ahora es esto". Lo mismo para mí.

¿Tiene alguna intención de volver a rodar en 35mm?

Me gustaría experimentar, hacer cosas con las mismas personas en otros ambientes. Ellos mismos lo proponen. No sienten ganas de seguir en el barrio, no les gusta. Ellos dijeron: vamos a hacer un film fuera del barrio... Pero una cámara de vídeo no puede filmar un bosque, no puede filmar una montaña. Ciertas cosas tienen que hacerse en 35 mm, si no, no se le hace justicia a las
hojas de los árboles, al sol... No hay nada que esté fuera de mi horizonte. Tal vez pueda conseguir una cámara de 35 mm, pero los técnicos es más difícil. Necesitaría al menos cuatro personas,
y no creo que estuvieran dispuestas a rodar como yo hago...

¿Ha visto Honor de cavallería, de Albert Serra? Lo menciono por el modo en que captura la naturaleza en vídeo.

Esa es precisamene la dificultad que tengo con la película. Aparte de que es un film que aprecio bastante, y que Serra está en una categoría superior en el manejo del vídeo, tengo la sensación
de que el film hubiera sido más interesante rodado en 35 mm. Tendría otra fuerza. Creo que el celuloide se hubiera ocupado de las debilidades que tiene.

Viendo sus películas en orden cronológico tuve la sensación de que el humor va penetrando cada vez más en su cine. No sé si esto se traduce en una suerte de optimismo hacia lo que filma...

Puede que sea una forma de optimismo, en el sentido de que cada vez estoy más cerca de pensar que es posible hacer películas. Creo que desde No quarto da Vanda ese humor está ahí. Poca
gente me ha hablado de ello. Creo, de hecho, que la única persona que me habló de ello fue Didac Aparicio, de Intermedio. Si estas películas se hubiesen hecho con menos tiempo, con más medios
y con mayor sofisticación, yo no hubiera tenido la posibilidad de conseguir esos momentos de humor junto a otros momentos de gran lamento. Los sentimientos de los personajes pasan de un
extremo a otro. Todos ellos llevan una vida de extremos y lleva tiempo aceptar y comprender eso... Porque en el camino para hacer estas películas tuve que pasar varias etapas. Lo primero es
comprender que no comprendemos. En este mundo es muy fácil, no es tan extraño, que las personas se transformen en animales...Y llegar a percibir y aceptar eso exige mucho tiempo. Hay que atravesar todas las fases. •


Declaraciones recogidas en Madrid el 10 de mayo de 2008

Cahiers du Cinema, España, número 14 / Julio-Agosto 2008

Pedro Costa the trembling moment

Pedro Costa interviewed

by Kenichi Eguchi

April 2, 2008

Shibuya Image Forum


The internationally acclaimed, Portuguese film director, Pedro Costa was back in Japan with his new film Colossal Youth (Juventude em Marcha). He continues to make independent films with the people in the poor ghetto neighborhood of Fontainhas (mainly immigrants from Cabo Verde) outside Lisbon, which area he situated both his two previous films Bones (Ossos) and In Vanda's Room (No quarto da Vanda). In Colossal Youth, he follows Ventura who wanders the deserted and half demolished town like a half ghost after the residents have been moved to a spiffy project the city prepared for them. The director has a calm air and speaks quite casually about his work.


What are your plans for this trip?

I went to Osaka for a screening and to speak to an audience. And still have some interviews and another screening at a strange sound thing. I think it is In Vanda's Room with DJ's at some strange festival, with some strange sounds at a club somewhere.

How do you feel your film being shown in a club instead of a cinema?

Why not? (laughs) As long as people come.

After Colossal Youth, what are you working on now?

Well, now I am editing a film I made, actually, a little bit here. The last time I was here, I was with Jeanne Balibar, the French actress. She came to play and sing here, so I shot her at some concerts, and we are editing now.

Was there anything between Tarrafal (short film after Vanda's Room) and Colossal Youth?

Yes, I made two films. Tarrafal, and I made another one for a Korean production, for Cheongju Film Festival. Every year they make 3 short films so I made one last year.

Can we start from the question of why you decided to make Colossal Youth continuing with what you've done with your two films prior to that?

Well, after I made In Vanda's Room, there was a strange situation for the people there. They were suddenly being removed to this housing complex, these social houses, social projects and plus that, my desire to, it's started as an old idea to make a film about the foundation of the place, the Fontainhas neighborhood; about the first men there, the first shack, the first barrack, and making something around that. This all came about, because they were moving to a new place. They were a bit lost. They were feeling a bit lost. So we filmed the right, ideal moment to do this project.

Is this new area they moved to far from Fontainhas?

No, it's not very far. But the city council did everything possible to make the access difficult. It's not very far but they have to take two buses. It's really on top of a hill. No, it's not really a hill, but it used to be a dump before, so they built houses there. Of course, they had no buses. No transportation. So they made special buses but it's not really easy to get there. It's not far, but it's tricky (laugh).

That was done on purpose?

On purpose, yes, but that's the history of mankind. (laugh) People who've had these kinds of difficulties will always have these difficulties. If it's not money, it's transportation. If it's not transportation, it's something else. Nothing is easy for the people in Fontainhas.

Then, Fontainhas is completely gone, demolished now?

Yes, last time I was there, it was last week, actually. They are starting to build the foundations for a sort of speedway and an enormous shopping mall. So it took a long time for them to start building, or to start doing something on that place because it has been a jungle for 4, 5 years.

Does this film complete the string of common subjects you have been following on Fontainhas?

No, not really. Because, of course I have three films. Well, I made three, and three is a magic number. (laugh)

And people say it´s a trilogy.

What if I make a fourth film? What would you call that? A quatrology? (laugh) I don't even know the name. No, actually, I've already made two films. Tarrafal and the other one so, we'll continue and I want to actually. I already have a project with the same guy, Ventura. Probably, Ventura and some young guys from the neighborhood. Well, children almost. It's not yet totally solid in my head, but I will do it.

So, after Colossal Youth, were you asked to do these short films, because you had chosen the subjects, or did you have ideas to eventually make them into feature length films?

Well, I made Tarrafal, 3, 4 months after editing Colossal Youth was finished. I got a call first from this foundation in Lisbon, saying they were planning on producing and financing some short films for what they call an omnibus. 6 films, 6 directors, all gathered under the same title, the State of the World. So they asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I knew at least three of the directors. I'm close friends with them. One was Wang Bing, one was Apichatpong Weerasethaku from Thailand and the other was Chantal Ackerman. And I said yes, I like them and yes, the State of the World, we'll do the state of Fontainhas, so you already know what I will make, and they said sure, and then I got this call from Cheongju, Korea. And they thought of me for another short film. So we began with the short film on the state of the world, and went a little bit more with things we had started with the other short film.

Do they connect?

Sure, actually they do, we started with this small idea for one of them, and the other short we got some more ideas and we thought, oh, this could be a feature. And actually, now, I have this idea of bringing the short films, plus, making some more things, and doing it together as a feature film.

So it's a complete film, yet it's also a study?

Yes, it's a little bit like all the work we do. They are in some way finished but every film is a beginning of a new one, so yes, they are connected, it's the same people, it's the same place, it's the same memory, it's almost the same script. Because our script is that memory. A memory of the place, a memory of the people. So it's very easy that a film can show us the secret key to open the next one.

Before, I asked you why you started filming. But again, why do you continue to follow these people?

Well, I don't really ask that question myself. But a lot of people do ask me, and the only answer I have is, why not? (laugh) Of course, this is not enough. (sigh) Because I have no desire really to move anywhere else to make films. Unless somebody asked me to do something completely different. But now, I feel we've made this road together now. Three pictures and the shorts. It is beginning to have this, stupid perhaps, responsibility to be there with them. Especially now, because it is a moment where big changes are coming from all sides in their lives. They feel they are losing something. And I feel that I should try to help them see what it is that they are losing. Try to make that uncertain feeling into a film. And so, you could say they are essays. Essays on, a sort of research of what they are losing, what they expect from the future, the probable horizon for them, and for me also, because it's the work that I do.

And you must also share those memories by now.

I begin to share. Well, even if I can't be like them, from a completely different background. I'm not from their social class. I'm not “black”. But we have this common past now, yes. Well, ten years, something like that is already something, I'm also engaged in a lot of other things with them. I mean, I belong to the association there.

Anything political?

Well yes, everything is. But yes, there are 2 meeting points there. There are a lot of meeting points in the neighborhood. Every street corner, and there's the café, the bar and then there's the association place. So people talk a lot, about everything. Politics. Just about simple daily life problems. Housing problems, problems with schools, problems with drugs and all sorts of things. And sometimes I feel I have to do some things also. I try to organize this sort of cinematheque, videotheque for the young kids. Because I have communications I try to ask all the DVD editors to get me whatever, not only cartoons or films, like Chaplin films, Buster Keaton or whatever. It's quite important because it's a tough job. They start seeing films with guns and stuff very early so if you try to show them some Chaplin films, it probably changes something when they encounter something they are not used to. And all sorts of things. I'm of course, there, if there's a marriage and I will be there filming the marriage.

After Vanda's room, although you work in a similar vein or approach, the structure is different. What was your intention?

In Vanda's Room was a project that was almost done alone. The shooting, the production and sometimes I had a friend helping me with the sound. Sometimes I had a friend helping me with small things which we call production, which just involves a car. And with this one, we actually got a little more money, here and there, in Switzerland and Germany. So before we started Colossal Youth, we had this small budget and were allowed to have a small crew. We were four, so I managed to put one year, with almost 2 years of shooting with four guys and plus, we could pay the actors for all the shooting, and that changed a lot because it creates a normal film crew schedule and routine, so we tried to keep a very disciplined schedule, from Monday to Saturday. And Sunday we didn't shoot. This went on for a year and a half, so it's very different. But I wanted to try and see if we could do it. Because when you do a film, it's generally five, six or seven weeks at the most. We had the ambition to do it for a year and a half, and that changes a lot of things and we were not in the same state of mind. You don't see the end so near. What you talk about, what you live during this long period is not the same as when you're doing a shoot in five weeks. In five weeks, you talk about everything except the film. You talk about girls, cars and money (laugh) like in every shooting and you just hope it's over soon. When you spend a year and half with the film, you are just there and life is much more together. You have lots of other things. You have people who are born, people who die (laugh) and seasons change. So the film becomes, really, almost organic. You don't really think about the film. Or you think about the film and life at the same time. So it's good. It's because it brings down the importance of cinema (suspiciously). The balance is more correct, I think. In what you live, that a film should not be the main thing in your life. Perhaps it's one of the things. It's your work. It's like the guy in the office, or the guy who makes food, or the guy who makes shoes. They do it everyday, from 9-7. It should be the same thing. Photography too. This idea that you're making film, that you?fre making art, is a special moment or aspect, or a thing for the special kind of people, was never for me. It's like the idea of trying to make it all your life, because I like it, it's what I chose, and make it day to day, everyday. Just very simple, very simple, but very tough and very boring sometimes. (laugh) Sometimes it takes a lot of work. Taking a photograph can be very boring and making a film is not always wonderful. If you think there's always a wonderful moment and you meet beautiful people, no it's not. It's not! (laugh) It could be tough, a tough job. But, it's also a privilege to do it, because, it's something that I chose. I wanted to do it, and I can do it well. And with this small budget crew and in this place where people are very generous. We can do it on a very daily basis. We're not doing art. Even if the actor, the film you see is something mystic or beautiful or good.

The audience who see your film, see them as art films. But how do you see your audience?

When we make this kind of film (pause/laugh) we have so much confidence in our audience, we trust the audience so much, that at the same time, we don't care about them at all. It's very ambiguous. We don't think about them. And at the same time, we do things for them, of course, because it's very human. They are very human films. We don't talk about possible strange worlds. They do not talk about things that do not exist. They do not tell stories. They don't tell fantasy stories. I think what we are talking about is something that can touch people here, in Africa, in Argentina. It's about human beings. So we just expect they are just as responsible. If they can't hear about the film, they should be responsible, or as responsible as when we did the film.Because I assure you, we did the best we could. Especially them, they did the best they could. And so I hope the audience will do the best they can. (laugh). The audience should be also very responsible. It's very difficult to see a film. It's so difficult to see a film as to make one. As to take a photograph or work in banking. It's difficult as making a film. It's very difficult to go see something. But if you're not capable of seeing something, you should go away. So I have the highest respect for the audience. At the same time, I don't know who they are. I don't really think about them.

The point of view of this film is Ventura? How did you find him?

He is the force behind the film. With no Ventura, there would have been no film.

Did you have the image of Ventura before you met him?

Well, he existed. He was there. That's the funny part. He was always around that place when I shot the other films. So I cast him in the morning, at night, and he was a strange mysterious guy that I saw sometimes that said, good morning, when I arrived to shoot. Sort of like, hello, and another day, difficult, and say, yes, good luck, see you tonight. This kind of thing. Very gentle, very mysterious. Very dangerous. Dangerous in a sort of?... He's a very tall guy. You know. Very big guy, yes. A man. Really a man. So yes, after two films, when I thought of doing something that could tell a bit of the story of the past about the neighborhood. Some kind of past. The first man, the first shack, the barrack, and how it all started. I thought immediately about him. And so I asked around a little bit and then approached him afterwards. I asked him. When did he come? What is his story? I wanted to know a little bit about the secrets before; the magic. People told me, yes, he was one of the first ones who came. He was 19 years old. He was a very beautiful teenager, this black colossal guy. Always with a knife in his pocket. A lady's man. (laugh) Very tough, very energetic, a sort of young immigrant that would come to work in Lisbon. And then, this was in '71 and then 3 years later, 73 or 74, I think he had this accident; this working accident. He fell from this building he was working. He fell and he was destroyed. His head was not the same after that. His hands lost a bit of movement. He's not totally handicapped, but he was not well, he couldn?ft work anymore, not in construction. It was a tough job. So he became a wanderer who just walked the neighborhood. But I thought this could be the ideal guy who could tell the story about this place. Because he has two sides. He has this pioneer side, this immigrant that comes with nothing, with just some coins, a knife and energy. The pioneering side and the tragic side. It's the tragedy that he is always a part of this immigrant history. I mean, the very dark story, the lonely story, the suffering and the delirious thing in his head.

Is he a victim?

Yes, of course, he is a victim of injustice in our world. They all are. It's totally there, here. Of course they are victims. But I thought I should give him a voice or image or a place in the film because we could show this double side. He could be this attractive, very fascinating man, but at the same time, the sad part of it, almost like, there?fs this side in Ventura, it's lost, things are lost before they become lost, for us, for them. We have no chance. It's been always like that. We had no chance. We thought we could make it. We had dreams of making it, but like I said, everything is very hard for them. Unemployment, police, housing problems or money problems. It's what comes after that, in the head, because it's so difficult.

Is the character Ventura we see in the film, fabricated between you and Ventura?

Yes. It's made by what I think about him and what he probably thinks about me also. So yes, it's probably something between me and them, me and him. I always say that the film is made around the difference that is in the middle of me and him. How should I explain it, it's very simple. Ventura says, when we are shooting everyday, when we were shooting for a year and a half, or two years, which is a long time, it is work. It's tough. It's sometimes difficult. We fight, or I try to do something and he can't, and he tries to do something, and I don't understand, like any working relationship. And he used to say something very simple, sometimes when he was a bit more angry. This is a film but do not for one second think that you can understand me, that you can know what I am, that you can even get inside of me. Just because you have a camera, doesn't mean you can! And this is very true. You can never understand, you can never be with the other. It could be a man and a man, or a man and a woman. You can never be that. You cannot have this fusion. So I think it's better to think that there is a space, that there is a difference, a distance between two human beings. And this is good. This is what creates possibilities. It's possible for us to live together because there is a space here. And this space thinks and works. It's the space that makes you think, that makes you work. So I think the film was made around that. He said, don't think your camera has a magical power, that you can capture all my sufferings, all my past years. Let?fs simply do the film. Let's keep on going. So that calmed me down a little bit. I like to work with people like this because they tell you things like this. An actor would never say this to you. An actor would never say, don't film me like that because you cannot understand me. The actor always says the opposite. I want to try more. I want to express more. I want to reveal more. I like to work with them because they don't reveal enough. They keep things inside. They keep secrets. They keep a mystery. I think that there is a mystery that will never be revealed and that's very good. That's the magic of it. To feel that something has escaped.

As a film director, do you try to go in further?

In this film, we got to places. There was a real collaboration between me and him, for instance, creating something. But creating in a very daily, simple thing. We start with an object. And I said, yes, you could be like that, and play with that, then it's this way of doing something, which is already strange. His movements are strange, his timing is strange. He's thinking about something when he does this and I say, then you should say something, and then he says it in a way I do not expect, so this is a good collaboration. Again, it escapes your direction. I like people that escape my direction. Because I don't think I have that much imagination. (laugh) I depend a lot on the imagination and the collaboration of the other person.

So when you give directions, or when you discuss things, do you ask them, as a director, if it is better to ask the actor/person to do something, than to think a certain way and move with the thought. Which brings out the better result for you?

There's a lot of them, or there's a lot of people in the film. It's very collective, although Ventura is the center of that universe. Well, the story of the film, one of the stories of the film is that he has a lot of children. (laugh) That was a way for us to create a never ending story if he has 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 children, then the film will never end, and there will always be another child coming. We could go on filming forever. (laugh) But it's really a collective thing. With every one of them. What I asked of them was to bring me.., it's almost like accepting cinema, like a letter, like writing a letter to someone. So I said, imagine that you are going to write a letter, read a letter, so you think about to whom you want to address the letter. And that's going to be your part in the film. You will write something for somebody. Take cinema as this message, this medium, and that's what they did. One of them wanted to talk about the mother that she had rejected him a little bit. He wanted to address his mother he hadn't seen for 15 years. So we did two things with him. Just around that. The other was about her child, the other was about the father and the other was about something else. And so we started with that. And they go very deep inside of them, of course, because they are very tough things that they want to say. Very problematic things. So then, we start working. We start at the table like that, and they want to say this, this, this and this, and then I say, okay, let's concentrate just on this. Don't go in other directions, on other roads. Let's keep on this road, so let's take a week rehearsing this scene, then let's start filming this scene for a week or more. We have no deadlines. The only luxury we have is time. We have time to do things.

But having more people on set for this film doesn't get in the way?

More people, but we were four, so it's not really much. We are four here now, so... It was me, a friend of mine with the camera, with mirrors, because we used natural light. So we built this very poor mirror thing. Another friend who did sound and another guy helped us with everything else. So it's not a lot of people. It can be done with four. It's also a film that needs this kind of intimacy. The films have a bit of secret and it's the secret between us, when they come to a talk show or somewhere where there are no secrets anymore. While we were doing it, it was very amongst us.

Would Vandas Room have worked with more people?

No, probably not, because the film is what it is. No, that film needed that kind of network. Vanda's Room was growing off an almost very unconscious or irresponsible desire I had of making something alone against... Because I had done films with 50, 60 people, with this whole street filled with trucks.

Cave of Lava was like that?

Yes, and all the others. Cables everywhere, and police would stop everyone. Assistants saying silence. I was so tired of that that I needed something where cinema could be invisible. The guy with the camera. Like photography. I feel very close to photography because it?'s something you can do, even the world in the streets. Cinema is beginning to be not possible, it's so many stuff, and preparation, and sometimes stupid preparation. Because you see shooting going on, and they would shooting in a corner and would occupy three blocks in American films. It's like a military operation. So cinema lost this very simple way of believing in the streets. That's terrible I think, because if you see it in the film after Colossal Youth. Nothing is like that. You see the films today. The majority of films done today, especially the American films, you see sounds, images, but they are not of this world. It's okay, but I prefer to be in this world. Because, my tradition is still in what I'm telling you about. A very simple image of what exists. That should be cinema. It is the only chance to survive. To keep cinema in the streets, in the small shops, and small houses, with small people.

How do you see the extras in the films, pretending to be bystanders in the background?

We don't have extras in our films because every one of them is already an extra. I mean, they stand in for a lot of people. Ventura is not standing alone by himself. He's standing in for a lot of people. He's there for his friends, for every Ventura who has been a Ventura. Actually, this kind of film is so rewarding for me, because when I show the film, finally when I put the sound and edit it and everything is complete, and the final print comes back from the lab, I do the screening. The first screening of the film is for them, and a lot of people come, of course, and it's amazing. Everything is the same, but first screenings are a bit like what you imagine what films were like in the beginning, and all the people are there, and they are shouting, saying, that's my friend, and my cousin, and they comment. They say, oh yes, you are right, what people used to do in film theaters. (laugh) Stop, stop, oh, no, no, no, yeh, yeh, yeh. They talk. It's very alive. And after the screening, I always like to have a sort of Q&A with them. Well it's not a Q&A because they are friends, but I want to have all the comments I can have from them, and for this film, what I felt, I think, I wasn't wrong. They were very proud of the film. Not artistically. That is something else. The artistic qualities of the film are for us. But just the fact that Ventura stands tall in the film. They were very proud of that. What they said was very funny. “But Ventura, I see you every day in the bar, in the street, and you are always this guy, you're nothing, you're just hanging out, we've known you for years, and you're just a guy like that, but then in the film, you're so tall, so bright. So when they say that, I have the feeling, like you're standing for us, representing us, standing in this beautiful way. And they say thank you. First to Ventura, and not to me, but this is very rewarding. So this is why it's so rewarding for me, more than before. More than the other films I made. I feel so complete. I feel useful. This is a bit stupid. We know that a film, photography or painting is not that useful. It's not going to change anything, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you always have a dream that somebody will see this thing and perhaps it will touch this person. So, I feel more with this film than the others I made.

When you have people talk in your film, this guy says you have different gods speaking. Like a vehicle for the gods.

I never thought that way. (laugh) That is very interesting. You talk about that. Yes, I think we are going back. The way we are doing films. And that's very good for me. We don't think, and we are not thinking like other people, going forward, like let's think of something different, let's think of something original, let's get some more effects. This idea of more and more, that is always in films. Again, the American films are full of that. You have to go beyond something. You make a dinosaur and then you have dinosaurs plus, prehistoric dinosaurs and then warriors. There has to be development. More and more. I think we are going back, back to the origin. Telling a story, or the origin of how it starts. And who do you tell the story. Actually, we go back because it's always about memory. That's our script. It's always about memory, their memory, so we have to go back back back. And somewhere perhaps, we are going somewhere, to very ancient places we are speaking, almost like you say, I'm not sure, but I think it's becoming more simple, we need almost nothing to make a film. It's a very comfortable feeling. Again, there's this kind of freedom to what you could do. I'm very jealous of photography. It's one of the great art forms. I really respect photography, because there's a freedom there. Nobody can steal photography from you. If you have film, it's very easy to be stolen of film. Film is, just like that (clapping his hand). You have the wrong idea, or somebody says, why don't you make something... And it's minutes away. So I'm beginning to have this very nice feeling. I need people to make films. I could not make a film just with images of landscapes. I don?'t think I could do that. But that's my problem. I need people to show us a space, or people to design the space of the film. I have to be inside. Just a girl, boy, a man or almost nothing. As this film, we have no props, I don't think. We bought a card deck for them to play cards with because they didn't have one at the moment. (laugh) And nothing else. It's almost like Ozu. If you are Ozu, a film is four guys drinking at a table. It's amazing.

Can we go further into how you deal with space, about this small universe, this limited space you created?

Well, in this film, it was difficult, but at the same time, that was challenging was, they were moving from one place to another in the real universe. They left one universe, the old place, the old houses, the old streets, and it also means light, and so many things. Space, time. If you are in a certain space, you are in a certain time, they move to this completely different white space, where they are forced to live there forever. And this happens more or less in the beginning of the film. The film started. And they were moving. And I started to move with them. I think it was a very good thing for the film because my idea, my observation of that space was the same as theirs, their time. They looked at the space and I looked at the same space in time. They were the actor and I was the director and we both looked at our set (laugh) in the same way. And the same way was as problematic. For them, how are we going to live here? For me, how was I going to shoot this? It's all white. It's very difficult for me on video. It's everything you should not do. Complete white surfaces. They are black. So it's difficult to have light, to treat light. So we had this common ground, problem, and it was very useful for the film because it was a criticism about the space, as it was their criticism about the space at the same time. It is not cosy. It's not like it used to be, especially. I did not make this space. This was made for me. It's very important for these guys, all of them. 90% of them are cycle immigrants, all over the universe, they are builders, they build tables, houses. People have to build things because they have no money, almost from scraps. And for the first time, everything was brought to them. They had houses made by strangers. Who made this? The people who made this do not know me, so I do not want this kind of house. It's good. There's water, locks, toilets, it's functional, it's perfect, but something is not quite right. And what's not right is that they they realized the space they had built was gone forever, and they will not have the chance of building anything again. That's a very complex idea but I think they understood that. We are becoming a part of society. Really marginal part, we are still poor, we are still down and under, but we are inside society now. They have locks, and we have a shot of a guy opening a door. They never opened doors, at least before. And I do not remember a key. Never. An idea of a key was nonexistent. In Fontainhas, the public space and private space was undetermined. Like you see from this room, a room could be square, and a street could be very mysterious, as well as a house, a corridor, so the old space was very interesting, like a village. It's exactly like the old system of an old African village, maybe an old Japanese village, from the way the space was built. And now they have other problems, they have city problems where they still can't identifiy. They are lost. And I was lost too, during the shooting of the film. So I had to deal with a lot of problems, but at the same time, it was useful for the film.

So in your later short films, you deal with what they had gone through, like Tarrafal?

Yes. What was interesting in that film Tarrafal was, small things we had to do. And they were already moving here, and I arrived and got a phone call from this foundation that wanted to fund the film. For 15 minutes. So let's do something. Let's think of something. So it started, let's think of something, me, Ventura, and this other guy. And one or two days later, they said please, let's not make a film here again. So let's make it somewhere else. I said, but yes, this is where you live now. But yes, we made Colossal Youth about that, this small film we can do it somewhere else. And I understood that they were all a bit fed up already with that place. But where was my problem? Everything we imagine has to do with you, so it would have to do with your space also. So they said, okay, it's very simple, let's just cross the speedway. There's a speedway all around the place. Let's go down and let's go somewhere around there, and we went just across the speedway, and spent two or three weeks there, in this kind of small woods, with small trees, two rocks, and everything was done there, it was this no man's land, like a forest. And I understood that they even lost their space, so if we make films, that's going to be difficult because they have also to invent a new space they like. Within the film. Because in real life, they are forced to live there. In the film, they would probably like to invent a new space. And that new space would be a strange space. A very simple space or a very natural space, under a tree or something. So it's beginning to be like you say, to be like god speaking, like in heaven.

Where does myth enter?

It's already there. It has always been there. We don't think about it. I don't think about that, but it's there, of course, at least. I mean, we need to take myth back to human beings. Myth was taken from us. And we have to get it back to us. I mean, myth was stolen by money and bosses, and it was born, simple people thought of things, and thought of ways of telling things in some very wonderful ways, and that was myth, legend but there was a connection with people that told the story, simply because they told it to young guys, their children, from grandfather to son, and that was the origin of myth and origin of community. And one day, I think it was stolen when another class was born, a social class, because one day on this planet, there were only human beings working on the land and making things, and one day a guy thought, oh, I can make money from them. And mythology became something that we could say was the voice of the gods. But now the gods were commanding and ordering things. They were not generous. They were bosses. So I feel that there are not enough mythologies in the world. Common people lost mythology. Or mythology is made, probably, in the SONY building here, or their brothers in Los Angeles. Things like those places that fabricate mythology today. And video games.Absolutely. They are around us somewhere. (laugh) In high places. So we have to bring it down. It's like using Panasonic. I use Panasonic. It's okay, it's a good machine. It's a good tool. But I will not do what it tells me to do. What they are telling me to do is to move it very fast, to turn it around and use it quickly, and I'm trying to use it very slowly. Take time, so you have to be against everything you're told to do, but yes, we have to reinstall, bring back some mythology, or at least to the common people, and I still know some common people, they exist and they art not so hidden and not so weak. I have a lot of confidence in them. I'm trying to help them.

So you're also helping them to maintain history/myth through coming generations as well, for their story to remain.

It's not easy. It's work. It needs time. It needs patience. A lot of headaches. But you've seen Tarrafal. We didn't know what to do with this 15 minute film. And suddenly, there was this idea of doing something about very simple problems, a problem about this guy being expelled from Portugal, which is happening in Europe. I don't know if it's happening here. You want to get rid of, perhaps Koreans or Chinese. But in Europe, it is the Africans and Ukrainians. Like, enough of them and gangsters. So I have this young guy who came to the association who got this letter from the foreign office saying you have 20 days to pack. He was completely in panic, and I said, let's make something around this. He said, I don't know if I have the head to that, the mindset to make a film, when I'm so worried, and let's try to do it. And the first idea we had was, let's try to make it in 15 minutes, what can I do, could I go around? It's a beautiful idea. I could go around the neighborhood like it was my last day, saying goodbye to my friends and family. I think it was a marvelous idea. 15 minutes. It would be a very nice long film. Let's just make something shorter. Let's say goodbye to your mother, because his mother is a part of his life. So we sat his mother down, and himself, and they started talking and we sat there for a week, everyday, and on the third day, they got to something, the mother thought about the story, you see again folktales and mythology, the story she remembered from her childhood, the devil had his way of passing an evil message. The devil appeared in the village and passed this message. You had to pass the message to somebody else unless otherwise you die. It is common. It probably exists here in another form. So, but what was wonderful was that she connected this evil message to this letter, and that didn't come from me. It was a simple association. It was an evil letter from the foreign office. The evil message. So there it is, a folktale mixing with a very concrete political social problem, made in a very simple way, as this guy saying goodbye to her mother. And that's what we did and I thought it was wonderful. You're talking about today, what is something important and at the same time, you're going back to everything that composes her, their culture. So again, it is really rewarding and it's a collective work where the idea associated, sometimes very nicely associated, actually, can become very solid. Very solid. A small 15 minute film can be very solid for me. And it has everything a film should have. Very human, it's very important in some way, it's very serious, there's something very serious, and especially they say what must be said. I'm not putting words in their mouth and I'm imagining things. I'm just there to guide them. Don't go too far that way, or don't go there lest we lose ourselves. I'm just an outsider. I'm just a spectator. But more than a director. I'm the first audience they have. I'm just there to say, yes, I think it will be nicer that way. Of course, I can be wrong but I still have that power.And then the artistic point of view of your camera positions? What choices do you make with your camera positions?It's not very instinctive. Now it comes with time, comes with... It takes a long time to find a position. It takes time to find the right words. I'm always saying this because it depends, my films depend again on them, human beings, human beings in space, it's not like composing a beautiful frame. It's important to be balanced. If it's beautiful, great. It's important to have some balance, but a long time to achieve. When we start the scene, it is just two guys on the pavement, I move around a little bit. I have 1, 2, 3 weeks to find my place. It can be just moving 3 inches. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is a bit far from what it is supposed to be. Here to here, and I didn't see it before. But I have to see it. He's doing something and the other guy will be acting some other way, so probably I will go like this, but here to here, it takes me one month.

When you look back on it, what do you think you were looking for, although the positions may be vary. What, all in all, were you looking for?

Why do you ask me this questions? (laugh) I'm not Chaplin. (sigh) I don't know. The truth? It's very difficult. Ask him. There's no best way in the world to see something. The only place, the only point in space you can see something, no, when you feel that all your force is inside the frame, it really comes together, you have the microsecond, you think, you have the same place.I also tend to choose, to find, I would like to think that I am finding a place where fragility is something very important. Because I am working a lot in fixed shots. I'm not moving the camera a lot, because we don't have a lot of means. Sometimes I can do some small movements but otherwise I like to keep it simple. This idea that the shot is fixed and it doesn't move, I really don't think it exists. When you think of the films of Ozu, for me, is the biggest. Ozu for me is the guy who trembles a lot. Not only film people are trembling but Ryu Chishu or the girls are trembling. They just do this, and the whole film trembles. That's just my thing, so it moves, it's not fixed, it moves, so there's this really fragile place where your trembling eyes meet. And that frames your frame and it should be fragile, should be human. All the greatest filmmakers and photographers and painters tremble a little bit with this fragility. It's almost a nervous thing. It's not that steady. Actually, when it's steady, it's bad.

Did you feel that way with the Straub-Huillets?

In the Straub-Huillet films, I feel their life, the way they work. It's all about that. Not losing the idea that, with them, it's even more difficult with the rooms, with people like that, they even find the fragility in empty spaces, something I cannot do. In those rooms, you see something, there's no one, but you're moved to tears because someone was there. That's very difficult. It's like the end of Tokyo Story. You see the father and the mother in the beginning and they go visit their daughter in Tokyo. You see the house, and you see the father and mother, and you see their place in space, and at the end of the film, you see the same place but there's only the father. And there's no mother, but there's the space of the mother. And that's so difficult. Capturing the place of the human being in space, what he had left, an echo of his voice, his presence in the shot. That's amazing. That's a wonderful thing, a film. (laugh) It could be.

Well, I look forward to your next film.

If the gods and money help me. Because you need a little bit of money.

How about the difference between video and film?

I use video as I was making film. I don't think there is a difference. If, you are serious. With video, it's stupid to shoot the ocean, the mountains, or nature. It will not be good. There's no definition. All the leaves, are better still in 35, even in photography, in film film not digital. Not yet. Otherwise, I will face a wall, for me it's a good tool, the way we do it, we do it as we have a big 35 camera, the same approach, the same idea, the same attitude, and that's expensive so we have more time. I prefer to have more time, especially with them, because they cannot be rushed. It would be stupid to work with these people and say, come on, come on. Because they don't know how to do certain things, and they have to find a way.

But to work for a period of a year and a half, you need a budget.

I do need a budget. Basically, to pay people. Everybody gets the same. Me, the sound, my friend, Ventura, everybody. Every month. Like in a factory. So basically, that's the money. The rest is tape. The sound is recorded digital. We have no tapes anymore for sound. Even with cameras, I will start with HD, cards, memories, so basically the budget is for people eating and this kind of thing, and post-production, which is an expensive thing, of course, but normally I make some phone calls. I made this so do you want to help me see this? A little bit from here and there, and I can do the sound mix. That's what is still expensive.

What the budget for your short film Tarrafal, for example?

Oh, not much. In Euro, it was 15,000 Euro. It was small. It was just for us. Of course, there's post-production afterwards. And it was supposed to be done in 3, 4 days. I just took the money and we managed to be there for one month. But nowadays, all of them are so used to it that one guy can hold the mirror or hold the mike. And in the short film they act and once they are out of the frame they are holding the microphone.

http://www.outsideintokyo.jp/e/interview/pedrocosta/index.html

Pedro Costa Entretien effectué le 13/03/2001, ARTE

1. Immersion

C'est une question difficile, telle que tu la poses comme ça. C'est difficile. Je ne voulais pas être poétique. Au début, je pensais que c'était un choix, de choisir un monde et pas un autre, certaines couleurs et pas d'autres, même des choses esthétiques avec tous ces dangers, aussi une espèce d'absence de parole chez des gens qui peuvent pas parler, qui sont exploités. Il y avait un danger, une fascination du moins et du vide mais toujours avec une espèce de justice, de choses justes qu'il y a à filmer d'un point de vue juste, qui serait plus juste et en même temps ce serait plus facile de filmer d'un côté que d'un autre. Ca a donné des films que j'ai faits qui peut-être sont trop perdus ou trop…, où je voulais essayer de comprendre ces gens-là, ce monde-là, qui n'est pas le mien, qui est même une autre classe. Avec ce film, moi, je crois que j'ai compris que c'est une classe qui a une langue qui accuse, qui se défend et qui donc a un mouvement complexe et pas seulement les pauses qu'on a vues au cinéma ou à la télé, et qu'en même temps, dans ce monde que je filme [dans ce film] il y a des riches et des pauvres, il n'est pas seulement fait d'une chose mais de plusieurs. Alors, un moment il y a… le social .

2. Comment filmer une petite partie du monde ?

C'est une question complexe, la société ou le monde, comment filmer une petite partie du monde et qu'on voit quand même tous les côtés de la chose dans cette petite partie du monde. C'est pour ça qu'il faut trouver des mondes limités parce que vraiment le monde est limité, il y a comme des frontières entre les classes mais aussi entre les idées des hommes, un moment où on communique plus, du moins un temps où la direction change, de plus en plus petit. Par exemple, au niveau des guerres, on voit ça en Europe, des énormes empires, genre Est-Ouest, ça devient de plus en plus petit, jusqu'à l'état tout petit.

3. Le passage d'"Ossos" à "Dans la chambre de Wanda"

La différence, c'est grandir, je crois. Mais grandir, je pense à ce livre qui est pas mal, "Age d'homme", c'est qu'"Ossos", il y avait un monde choisi, parce qu'il s'accordait bien à mes désirs, à mes choses lointaines d'enfance, qui venaient plus des peurs, plus sombres, d'angoisses de petit garçon. Là, je voyais bien que ça venait de là. Ou bien de films qui m'ont marqué pour ça. Certains films d'horreur ou tous les films allemands, quand je dis horreur, je pense à Tourneur, qui étaient des invitations à entrer dans ce monde. Je prends l'exemple de Tourneur, des mondes où les gens ne savaient pas être au monde, donc il y avait quelque chose dans ce quartier qui était aussi ça, des gens qui savent pas, qui n'ont pas la place, qui n'ont pas les mots, qui sont tellement trompés et exploités et opprimés qu'ils ont dû parler d'une autre façon, parler avec une espèce de langage tellement métissé pour se protéger, parce qu'ils étaient tellement trompés et exploités… Le passage des deux films c'est ça, au début il y avait un regard de détresse cinéphile, quelque chose d'enfantin, qui aime ce qu'il voit mais qui a peur, qui veut se réveiller tout le temps. Il y avait plus de cinéma dans "Ossos" dans ce sens-là et aussi moins de cinéma dans le sens où je commence -j'ai toujours compris le cinéma comme ça mais - où il faut faire des pas, peut-être qu'un film explique l'autre.

4. La vie qui circule dans les sons

Moi, j'aime beaucoup beaucoup travailler le son, mais le travailler vraiment, passer des mois et des mois, et dépenser beaucoup d'argent évidemment parce que c'est cher, à refaire le son à envoyer des gens faire des ambiances. Moi, je crois que c'est une bonne chose quand tu as un copain qui fait le son, qui est déjà engagé dans cette espèce de film avec des gens, tu n'es même pas une petite équipe. Et tu dis : "Va écouter un peu ce monde. Prends un week-end, complètement tout seul, tu verras c'est bien." Et puis, tu vois ce qu'ils disent, dans les films : "Après, on fait une ambiance raccord ou je vais faire un petit son là-haut dans la montagne", c'est pas absolument vrai. C'est toujours entre le moment où la voiture de production va partir, il fait le son avec déjà le coin de l'œil sur la dernière voiture sur le point de partir et il dit "Hé, là, je fais encore un son". Mais ce n'est pas exactement vrai, faire un son, c'est pas ça. C'est parler avec des gens, rentrer dans les maisons, c'est dîner, c'est tout ça. Et ça, j'aime beaucoup, faire beaucoup d'ambiance, ou essayer moi-même, c'est une autre façon de filmer, j'en ai fait moi-même beaucoup pour Wanda. Mais c'est être là avec un micro et une caméra. Essayer de faire parler les gens parfois, dans Wanda, il y a plein de choses comme ça. Dans l'autre aussi. J'étais avec mon DAT, et j'ai fait parler des gens, ils parlaient de tout et de rien, dans Ossos il y a ça, des moments de conversations, de dîner d'une famille, derrière. Après tout ce travail de son, de montage, c'est quelque chose que je trouve nourrit les films d'une façon pas pour faire comme si c'était du direct, parce qu'on voit bien dans ces deux films qu'il y a un travail sonore qui dépasse le son direct, qui serait là, présent, brutal, mais aussi un côté recomposé. Le son installe une espèce de confiance dans la vie, il donne un peu de vie, simplement. Dans le quartier, c'est absolument nécessaire parce que le son du monde, il ne s'arrête jamais. Moi, j'imagine, je sais qu'il y a peut-être seulement une minute ou même moins, de silence dans ce quartier, qui est entre 3 heures du matin et 3h35. parce que les gens vont travailler, ils vont sur les chantiers ou faire le ménage, et ça roule tout le temps. Il y a toujours quelqu'un qui se réveille, qui fait ses petits bruits, donc ça s'arrête jamais jamais.

5. Les pieds sur terre dans le monde

Le son précise l'image. Et si c'est pas fait comme ça, dans l'effet total, dans la musique, dans l'insistance, écouter écouter, passer quelque chose, mais si c'est fait discrètement, tout ce qui vient de la vie, ça précise ton objectif, ça donne la vie, ça peut créer le silence, ce qui n'est pas simple avec le son direct dans le cas des films, des lieux où je tourne. Et oui, ça je me souviens au montage, comment dire qu'il y a aussi le silence, on voit Wanda à l'image et il faudrait un silence bruyant, et ça il faut le recomposer, le refaire mais c'est surtout ne pas tromper mais si le travail est bien fait sérieux, à l'image ou au son, ça va. Ce qu'il ne faut pas faire c'est faire comme si on était là. C'est ça que j'aime aussi avec le son, c'est qu'il te place. A un moment, si le son est bien, tu es là ou ailleurs, ça peut venir simplement du fait que tu as mis un son de nuit sur une scène de jour, toi tu le sais, mais le spectateur il sera peut-être parti, il sera perdu. Moi, j'aime beaucoup les films qui gardent les pieds sur terre mais qui ont la tête complètement dans les nuages. Les pieds, c'est un peu le son, la tête, l'imaginaire ou les yeux… Mais avec le son, tu peux voyager beaucoup mais tu peux pas délirer. Mais ça vient aussi de mon goût pour les sons du début du parlant, du sonore, je ne sais pas comment on dirait cette matière, aujourd'hui, ton ingénieur du son va te dire "J'ai un bruit infernal", mais ce bruit, c'est le monde, parce qu'il ne veut pas entendre, moi et pas le reste. Mais moi, j'ai du mal avec ça et donc j'essaie de faire venir les autres choses, et c'est ça qu'il y avait au début, une âpreté qui venait aussi des acteurs qui étaient beaucoup plus aussi dans le monde et pas dans la société du cinéma. J'ai l'impression qu'un Michel Simon pour les Français ou un Portugais que tu connais pas ou un Allemand comme dans les films de Murnau, ils étaient beaucoup plus dans le cinéma que les acteurs d'aujourd'hui. Même s'ils avaient une vie au bar après, avec leur fiancée, tout ça, ils avaient pas d'autres voix, bien sûr qu'il y a des exceptions, mais là aujourd'hui, il n'a pas un acteur professionnel qui n'a pas une voix pour ton film et une voix pour sa vie. C'est comme je parlais d'une façon au quartier et à Paris d'une autre façon, je trouve ça un peu dommage, ce sont des choses que l'on perd, des choses même techniques et artistiques du cinéma qu'on perd et qui sont belles. Comme la photo qu'on a perdu, le grain, le beau noir et blanc qu'on a perdu, la belle image sans artifices, faite avec soin, vraiment penser la couleur, sans faire des expériences lamentables. Donc, voilà, cet accord qu'il y avait au début, qu'il y a toujours au début des choses, qu'on peut voir peut-être plus clairement dans ce genre de mondes où moi je tourne ou que l'on peut voir dans la rue. Le cinéma, c'était un peu fait pour ça, filmer la rue, le café, filmer chez les gens tout en étant dans la rue, cette idée de ne pas avoir d'intérieur/extérieur, pour moi, ça compte beaucoup. Le cinéma, c'est déjà tellement secret, il y a un secret tellement fort, tellement évident, cette chose que les autres arts n'ont pas, enfin, je crois, ce quelque chose que tu sens mais que ta compagne au cinéma sent d'une autre façon, mais ce n'est pas tout à fait la même chose.

6. Le travail

Ce que j'ai beaucoup aimé dans ce film, c'est que je partais tout seul, - je dis tout seul, enfin, parfois je partais avec cet ami qui faisait le son - on partait au travail tous les jours, le matin, si on avait du retard, on avait du retard, c'est tout. On avait pris trois cafés, c'est tout, il n'y avait pas la pression de faire trois plans aujourd'hui ou des séquences, mais vraiment le goût du travail, pas trouver des solutions - parfois il faut les trouver, comment placer le micro, etc., ça vient après - c'est vraiment aimer cet art modeste, comment dire, vraiment à égalité avec les autres choses, un art terrien, c'était assez beau, on dépendait de chaises, de petites choses. On avait pas de chaise pour placer quelque chose, c'était compliqué. Une chaise, c'est pas grand-chose. C'est pas demander au troisième assistant d'aller chercher n'importe quel truc. Il n'y avait rien non plus à couper, pas de branche d'arbres, tu vois ce que je veux dire. Je parle d'arbre, mais ça aurait pu être un mur à masquer, il n'y avait pas ce genre de problèmes, pour la première fois. Bien sûr, c'est très très difficile de travailler comme ça, mais tu penses plus, tu penses bien, c'est tout, tu es moins dans la théorie, tu es plus précis. Il y a une précision vraiment matérielle des cadres, des plans, comment filmer ce type-là, comment le prendre au son, c'est plus précis, si tu es nu, si tu as moins d'effets. C'est une question de préciser les choses, qui se font au tournage, que l'on va retrouver au montage évidemment. C'est un moment très enthousiasmant, exaltant et en même temps douloureux. C'est un peu avec des hauts et des bas. Chercher cette forme, tu es un peu seul dans ça. si tu as un complice tant mieux. Mais en même temps, cette précision du tournage précisent les choses au montage. Tu vois que c'est là et pas comme avant. Wanda disait une chose merveilleuse à la fin d'"Ossos", et moi je voulais, enfin, je savais pas, c'est l'arbitraire de tout ça… Je savais qu'elle devait se tourner et se placer de telle façon, bouger, etc., il y avait un cadre précis - à un moment elle devait avoir cette expression triste, au bord des larmes. Et donc, j'ai essayé de lui expliquer ça, c'était le malheureux réalisateur, je me voyais, je faisais tous les gestes que je déteste en expliquant : "Tu vois, là, tu dois…", j'avais un peu honte de ça. A la fin, elle m'a dit "Et si je riais à ce moment ?" Et là tout d'un coup, c'était atroce parce que j'étais totalement dans le cliché et elle me disait simplement, "Ca peut être ça ou ça", voilà.

7. Des films vengeurs

Je crois qu'il y a une idée de vengeance au début du cinéma. Venger quelque chose qui ne va pas très bien, il a le pouvoir de ça, il est tellement fort. J'ai vu des choses, toi aussi, Chaplin, c'est quelqu'un qui a vengé beaucoup beaucoup de choses. Dans chaque film, il venge, même sa fin, son passé, l'humanité, il venge des massacres, sans tuer personne, sans faire violence, sans violer. En essayant de ne pas faire la même chose, il y a une possibilité de vengeance, dans la fiction, surtout.

8. Des films pour la vie, contre les massacres

J'avais l'impression que j'avais la matrice des choses. Qu'en filmant une mère, je filmais vraiment une mère, c'était pas quelqu'un qui mimait une mère. Tout était très proche, non seulement de moi, comme d'un début de… Il y avait jamais de… C'est très difficile. Je garde ce regard, plus qu'un regard, un œil sur ce monde et sur le monde et que j'aimerais être extrêmement vaste et en même temps, il faut que je… Je crois que Fritz Lang faisait des films comme ça, il avait ça en tête et ce type était tellement précis. Tous ses films étaient des vrais films humains, pour la vie, contre le massacre, de la sensibilité, des hommes, de la chair, contre la guerre. Voilà quelqu'un qui le faisait avec un œil supérieur, avec cette construction abstraite énorme qui composait et qui donnait une force incroyable au malheur ; Quand quelqu'un tombe dans ses films, il essaie de se venger de ce malheur qui était là avant lui, avant sa naissance, ou un crime mais avec un tel pouvoir que cela devient tout le monde, cela devient une classe, ça devient un pays… Lui, il a ça. Et j'ai ressenti ça. Si je devais organiser après, au montage, tout ce que j'avais filmé, en gardant cette idée de venger ce crime qui se passe et le faire à la manière de Fritz Lang par exemple, c'est à dire avec précision, avec amour du cinéma, avec amour de la coupe, des matières, des sons, recomposer, abandonner, ressayer, ne pas céder à la première chose qui vient, jamais céder aux effets, passer encore un peu plus de temps, patience, patience, travail, travail. Moi, je ne sais pas pourquoi les gens n'aiment pas ce travail, s'épuisent ou abandonnent facilement. Tous les films ont ce côté aujourd'hui de ne pas aller au bout de ce qu'ils veulent dire. Je dis ça de films bien également, ou de films qui ont peut-être quelque chose, mais ils ne vont vraiment pas au fond, parce qu'ils n'ont pas eu la force ou l'argent, le combat a été trop dur contre le producteur ou je ne sais pas qui… Et ça, c'est également une idée de vengeance, si on travaille avec patience, on va venger quelque chose, venger aussi tout le cinéma qui a été fait avant et qu'on essaie de faire oublier.

9. La vengeance de la fiction

Mais dans ce cas-là, je parlais de vengeance dans la fiction parce que c'était le seul pouvoir que j'avais dans ce film, c'était d'organiser tous les blocs que j'avais après, toute cette matière que j'avais filmée, de l'organiser, pour vraiment faire passer l'idée que ces gens-là, sont même plus forts que les gens qui ordonnent le massacre, en sachant que je travaillais d'une façon un peu… comme ça avec une petite caméra vidéo, j'étais proche de ce que les gens disent "documentaire", ou des choses improvisées, que cela se touche. Je vois bien les moments où Fritz Lang touche les lumières, le train ou le bébé, l'arroseur, je vois pas pourquoi M serait pas plus documentaire que… Lumière a parfois beaucoup plus de fiction en une minute. Equilibrer ces deux choses-là peut donner quelque chose d'inespéré, de… Je ne sais pas trop expliquer cette idée de vengeance ou de regard vengeur mais c'est peut-être… mais c'est peut-être trop romantique, mais le côté que le cinéma aujourd'hui doit être vengeur. Un type comme ça, masqué, qui doit venger des crimes, des massacres contre les gens… Et encore, en plus, fait de cette façon-là, je dirais pas en marge, que les gens disent extrêmement pauvre. Et après, confronter les gens avec…

10. La machine à tuer les méchants

Quand on fait un film, c'est par amour évidemment, il n'y a rien d'autre. C'est l'amour fou pour quelque chose, pas une idée, je sens pas le cinéma comme ça, tout d'un coup, je vais dans la rue, j'ai une idée, non. Je crois que c'est quelque chose de l'ordre totalement amoureux qui renvoie à une mémoire, à quelque chose où tu te dis "Tiens, j'ai vu ça à un moment dans ma vie, dans un livre, c'était quoi ?" Là, tu commences une énorme chaîne, qui est encore de l'ordre amoureux, tu essaies de protéger quelque chose avec ce que tu sais faire, avec ce que tu imagines que tu sais faire, tu auras plus de désir et tu seras donc meilleur. On capitalise tellement dans ce moment-là, dans cette espèce d'amour original, sans idée, qu'à la fin, je dirais que je commence le tournage avec ça, et au montage, je serais beaucoup plus vengeur. Là, il y a quelque chose de plus maléfique, même si ce maléfique est positif puisqu'il s'agit de détruire les fascistes, les nazis, la drogue, l'argent, les choses qui ne sont pas bien. Là, au montage, on peut organiser les choses. C'est comme ça que je vois Lang ou Chaplin. Chaplin, c'est très évident, son côté vengeur, - peut-être qu'il voulait se venger de sa vie. La question que ça ne peut pas être comme ça, qu'il faut les tuer, c'est la machine à tuer les méchants, de Rossellini. Voilà, le cinéma, c'est une machine à tuer les méchants. C'est d'ailleurs un très beau titre. J'aime tout ce qui a à voir avec ça, c'est à dire le côté dynamique, dynamo, du cinéma qu'il avait avant, quand il avait encore ce côté collectif, même si les gens étaient… Lang, Brecht, les Russes, les Français et les Italiens, c'était un corps, ils fondaient la théorie sans être lourds, ils voyageaient dans les trains, en filmant, ils développaient la pellicule, ils savaient tout faire, écrire, produire, filmer, boire, vivre avec les gens. J'imagine pas Brecht qui est pas là dans la soupe, mais avec les pauvres. Même à Hollywood, Lang, il était dans la machine, en sachant très bien où il était, minant complètement tout le terrain. Je trouve dommage que des gens qui avaient tellement de talent, de génie, cet héritage absolument incroyables, que nous, on soit pas capable de faire quelque chose du même genre, enfin plus ou moins.

11. Le problème des films d'aujourd'hui

Le problème des films aujourd'hui, c'est qu'ils viennent du cinéma. Le désir c'est faire comme quelqu'un ou faire un film, c'est pas filmer quelqu'un, c'est très rare. Quand tu vois ça, tu le sais tout de suite, au premier plan, tu te dis : "Tiens, voilà quelqu'un qui veut filmer cette jeune fille ou ce garçon, cette rencontre. Ils sont tous dans le même genre. On sait qu'on est au cinéma, on est dans un cinéma cinéphile, comme la cinéphilie aujourd'hui, ça veut dire des choses tellement disparates, parce que… parce que les modèles sont des rien du tout, des exercices d'école de cinéma, c'est ouvrir la porte, fermer la porte, sortir… Et donner un certain charme à ça, c'est pas plus que ça. Moi, je crois que pour faire un film aujourd'hui, il faut passer beaucoup plus de temps qu'avant. Pas beaucoup plus, dans le sens où je n'ai pas une idée christique de ça, genre il faut que cela soit un sacrifice, loin de là, mais il faut vraiment bien voir avant de tourner, un deux trois mois, si on peut, mais pas avec une équipe, qui est en discussion dans une salle avec des plannings, ça c'est rien, c'est pas choisir les couleurs du canapé, c'est voir si le film est possible. Et après, le tournage il ne faudrait le faire qu'avec cet amour… qui commence à disparaître parce que les gens sont jeunes maintenant au cinéma, les techniciens, tout le monde, même des gens qui ont des responsabilités disent "Un film des années 30, c'est un vieux film", cette idée de progrès, que le cinéma avance, moi je pense que le cinéma n'avance rien, moi j'ai l'impression de travailler dans la merde par rapport à ce que faisaient les gens dans les années 30, ce qu'on a perdu d'optique de son, d'humanité dans l'optique, dans le son, avec les acteurs, peut-être même dans la profession. J'ai connu de vieux techniciens - peut-être que ça sonne un peu réactionnaire - mais ces gens-là, vraiment, ils avaient un amour des choses… Comme on avait un amour des choses avant, suffit de penser au grand-père qui aime parler des heures et des heures sur un bout de bois, je ne sais pas, c'est la même chose. Mais, voilà, tu retrouves des équipes qui passent d'une chose à l'autre, qui ont quarante films à faire… Donc passer du temps, patience, patience et amour du travail… C'est la même chose pour le montage, c'est un art très complexe. Il y a des gens qui ont… quand tu vois les grands monteurs de l'histoire du cinéma, Eisenstein, Chaplin ou Stroheim, tu vois ce qu'on a perdu… Que le montage, c'était vraiment quelque chose de dialectique - un mot que l'on a perdu -. Un beau mot. Ca veut dire que tu as là une matière qui est forte, qu'il faut savoir où ça se passe, je suis dans une espèce de réalisme bizarre. Cette époque est très réaliste. Tout le monde est dans une espèce de réalisme glacé, fabriqué, mais vraiment informe, il n'y a pas de formes, les films n'ont pas de forme. Mais si le film n'a pas de forme, il n'est pas bon. Ca peut être de beaux paysages mais il sera pas juste, il fera pas justice aux gens qui sont dedans ou aux spectateurs, et on va au bureau.

12. Action, moteur, coupez

Le poids de l'action, moteur, coupez, c'est infernal, j'imagine que c'était pas comme ça avant. Ca faisait pas peur, aujourd'hui ça fait peur. Ca fait peur aux enfants, le clap aujourd'hui.. Moi, quand je passe sur des tournages d'amis, les claps, ce sont des coups de feu, or un clap c'est quelque chose pour certains films utiles, c'était du travail, on commence quelque chose avec des gens, à ce moment-là, précis, mais aujourd'hui, non. On fait des claps, on reproduit, on réinstalle, c'est un peu exagéré mais bon… Non, il y a aussi autre chose mais cela m'est très personnel. C'est mon côté… je commence à penser que je n'arrive pas à imaginer les choses. Enfin, ce n'est pas imaginer, imaginer, oui, respecter mon imagination, c'est difficile je pense. Il faudrait que je respecte mon imagination. Je n'ai pas la capacité ni le goût des conventions, je peux tout imaginer, il n'y a pas de limites, je suis assez généreux, je veux que tout le monde l'imagine mais l'appliquer comme ça au cinéma n'importe comment, là on va faire une petite touche comme ci, on pourrait inventer un geste ou deux trois mots pour sauver la scène, là je vois pas, j'ai perdu ça. Je l'ai vu avec film, je pense que c'est la même chose pour Straub ou Godard, des gens comme ça, qui prennent les choses… Straub, eux, prennent, avec un travail énorme, des textes, qui sont tellement forts et tellement vastes, où il y a une ambition, là ils les prennent, les travaillent, leur donnent une autre forme, ça devient autre chose. Godard, il prend aussi des bouts de choses, des restes. Bon, ça vient aussi des livres, des films, moi je prendrais comme ça parce que je ne vois pas bien comment écrire mieux que Wanda, enfin écrire… Je pourrais passer des heures et des heures et des mois, je n'aurais pas la finesse de certains dialogues, les gestes… Wanda, il y a des gestes qui me rappelle Lubitsch, un petit quelque chose avec une cigarette qui était comme John Wayne, c'est un peu cinéphile mais c'est comme ça. Donc, je me dis pourquoi se tuer la tête contre les murs, dans la chambre, avec le scénariste…

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