Claire Denis Interview

Acclaimed French director Claire Denis has had a truly remarkable career. After serving as an assistant to the likes of Costa-Gavras, Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders she has gone on to make some immensely rich and challenging films that are at once intimate and formally rigorous. Her latest film, '35 Shots of Rum’ is an especially tender examination of the unbreakable yet fragile bond that exists between a Parisian train driver (Alex Descas) and his grown daughter (Mati Diop), and is loosely based on the relationship between Denis’ own mother and grandfather. She talks to LWL about the challenges of bringing so tender and graceful a film to the screen.

What was the inspiration for your new film, ’35 Shots mof Rum’?
Actually, it came from a few sources; the first is the personal story of mother and my grandfather, second was maybe my wish to work again with Alex Descas, and third was a film by Yasujiro Ozu called ‘Late Spring’ [1949].

Ozu’s influence on the film is palpable. When did your relationship with his work begin?
There was a film festival in the 70’s in Paris - where Ozu was completely unknown at the time - and a rumour went round that the work of one of best directors in the world was being shown. I went every night to the retrospective of his film - 30 new prints! – and I discovered ‘Late Spring’ then. I was, of course, very moved, and then I realised it was because this was a story I knew from before, of my mother and grandfather’s relationship.

His work seems to have left a very great impression on your work…
I think that nobody, no human being, can help but admit that there is something deeply human and universal in his films. I was struck by that. It’s as if the very simple life of normal people - not heroes - was creating for the audience a feeling of being human and all belonging to the same world.

The performance by Alex Descas as the father is one of extraordinarily subtlety and stillness. What direction did you give him?
I think Alex reads me - I don’t have to direct him. I don’t remember directing Alex at all. Maybe there is a sort of trust between us. I know he trusts me, so he perhaps is a little bit more relaxed than with other directors and that trust gives him a sort of glow. I also felt that Alex was like a young Chishu [the widower father of ‘Late Spring’] – very handsome, but very discreet, very not showing too much of his feelings, his emotions

A scene where the community gathers in a neighbourhood bar is central to the film and wonderfully choreographed. How did you bring that scene to life?
It was a small place that contained all the actors and the crew at close range. It’s a scene where an attempted kiss is the biggest event of the film, so, it’s not, of course, possible to improvise a scene like that, but on the other hand I knew it was not possible to imagine twenty takes. The entire preparation of the film was to lead to that scene, so when we shot it we shot it straight with no hesitation because we all knew our parts. So it was not choreographed by the location, but rather contained by the location.

Trains and tracks feature heavily in the film…
Yes, of course. Train and tracks are metaphor for time; for transport of the heart, but the real reason was a feeling that the people in the film. Those characters had to be working class people, not lawyers and doctors, but have real jobs and actual surroundings and friends.
I once heard a radio programme that interviewed the guys that drove the commuter trains and one of them spoke in a way that touched me immensely – this is like 20 years ago - and I was amazed by what they said about their jobs – that driving a train was very introspective one because of the loneliness. If you are not in good shape then the concentration of watching the tracks can bring up some black ideas.

You’re describing some very internalised feeling there. How do you go about transcribing such intimate thoughts into a script?
By not being too aware, by bringing to the script something I had in mind for a long time without knowing how it could be interpreted. I have a complete innocence when I am writing a script, because the film sort of exists before the script. There is a pre-existing script in me already – it’s conveying many things, memories, my own reactions to news, politics. Like many people, I am crossed by so many different streams, so I think I don’t try to bring up a philosophy of the world of my own. No, not at all.

Did you ever consider that such a close relationship between father and daughter might imply any form of incest?
Incest would never be possible in a story like this, and when I cast Mati Diop as the daughter I knew  - though Alex is very handsome and Mati is very beautiful – that even in every tender gesture, every hug there would be no incestuousness between them. For me the danger did not exist

So you let the casting do some of the work for you…?
No I let the story do the work! There was no danger of incest in that love. We all knew it. Not because I am against telling a story like that, but it’s not the case for this story, and I think the film does not contain a trace of it.

It’s yet another of your films to feature a soundtrack from heartrending jazz-country miserablists, Tindersticks. What is it about their music that suits your films so well?
I think Stuart [Staples, Tindersticks bandleader] understands filmmaking. I think that although we are from different backgrounds, different cultures – I think in the beginning he didn’t even understand me when I was speaking - he understands what is essential in music for me, which is a real movement of emotions and feeing and not an emotional reaction. It’s the difference between emotion and emotional.

That’s something that could be also be said about your own films…
Thank you.