put your Gondry right here.

Started by picolas, April 18, 2004, 01:23:38 AM

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MacGuffin




Michel Gondry
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director on working with Björk, playing cut-and-paste dialogue games with Charlie Kaufman and why he made the jump from music videos to feature films
Source: Guardian Unlimited

Sandra Hebron: A very warm welcome to Michel Gondry. Thank you so much for being here. I watched The Science of Sleep again this morning and I was struck by how everything is connected. And I felt, even in the first few minutes of the film, that there's an awful lot in there of what interests you and how you approach the whole idea of being creative. Do you think that's fair?

Michel Gondry: Yes, that's really accurate. In fact, you could see this film as the first album of a rock band. Let's say you sign the contract when you're 20 and you record the first album at 21 - you pour your whole existence between age 0 and 21, all jammed together, all the ideas that you accumulated, all come out in this first album. Then the second album is where you express all the thoughts between the first and second album, which may be about two years later. In my case, I kind of did it the other way around. Obviously, this is a movie, but it has the qualities and maybe flaws of what a first album is like. So it kind of reflects what you just said.

SH: Yes, and there were just lots of things that were very personal in there.

MG: It's true. It's the first screenplay I wrote and directed myself. I could only explore what is inside me. I couldn't really do something about a guy running a restaurant. I have to find what is inside myself to work on.

SH: So just to pick up on that, could you please tell us about your family background and what it was like growing up, because you didn't have the most conventional upbringing.

MG: We were not freaks or anything; we lived in a quiet suburb, in Versailles, but we were not typical of Versailles. Versailles is a very bourgeois place with a lot of retired military types, and we were the other side of that. I would say that my father was a rightwing hippy. He was a self-made man; he had long hair and was very interested in music and pop culture. My maternal grandfather was an inventor with many patents for electronic musical instruments. So it was a background that mixed science and art, which I think is a really nice mix to grow up with. My parents were really encouraging and not judgmental. So that describes a little about where I grew up. It's interesting because now my son is 15 and I wonder what's the best for him - I had a lot of encouragement and tolerance from my parents, but I also have many friends who didn't get that from their parents and in a way they have more strength from spending years where nobody believed in them. But I have made my choice and it would be really mean to not encourage my son. So I do encourage him.

SH: Let's pick up on two of the things that you've mentioned - music and invention.

MG: Well, I've always liked the idea of inventing stuff. My father told me, because I was naïve, I would think things could work and therefore do them, because I would have no doubt even though there was no solid foundation for this confidence. I don't think I would be a real inventor. But when I set out to do animation, which was my first step into film-making, I realised I could achieve this idea. I could take some elements, create a sort of clumsy invention, and make them work for the camera. But yes, invention is in my background, and I don't know if it's the genes or just being in contact. My grandfather lived across the garden from us, and in his attic he had a lot of radios, appliances and inventions that he had made over 50 years, such as a keyboard called a clavioline, which can be heard on some Beatles songs - it was popular in the 60s. So we had all that at home.

SH: So in that context, what was it that prompted you to pick up a camera for the first time?

MG: My father had a Super 8 camera when I was a kid and sometimes he would use it. I did some animation with it. I did a lot of flipbooks. But mostly, it was when I shared an apartment with a guy with a small 16mm camera and I asked him if I could use it. I was in this band, Oui Oui, in Paris in the early 80s and I did some animation for them. But the first time I thought that this could be something I could do for a living was when I came back from the art store and I had spent a good amount of money for this project I was working on, and I realised that if I were to do animation, I could have a good time at the art store, which I've always liked - I love to buy notebooks and pencils and paper. I remember clearly when I came home to my apartment in the 18th arrondissement in Paris, with all these art supplies, that that was something I would like to do for a long time.

SH: So you started to make videos for your band, and that meant that they got seen and you got recognised.

MG: That's the beautiful thing about being a person who makes things. I explain this to my son sometimes. He has great energy, he's a painter, he's 15 and he's amazing, but he says that sometimes, when he's depressed, he has no desire to make anything. And I always tell him that we are fortunate because we have ups and downs, but when we are in a good mood and we create something, we can look at that object when we are down in the dumps and get ourselves up again. There's also the other dimension of other people looking at it and giving you feedback. The beauty of doing film is that you construct whatever you do block by block and you can build something that will stay.

SH: In terms of your work then, how do you balance your own vision when you're collaborating with other people?

MG: That's a good question. Right at the beginning, when I was in the band, the leader of the band was very opinionated about visual and musical ideas and I was never in a position where I could just say, "Okay, it's going to be like this." I remember the first video we did was called Ma Maison, which means My House. I wanted to do a video with shadows to indicate the way we live our lives, but he just rejected the idea, even though we didn't really have a choice. He wanted a video about insects. But I had this flexibility, so it didn't bother me. I thought I could take on his idea and yet do something really personal. So I learned right there to collaborate but to make sure that I could use somebody else's idea and still feel that I'm not just the technician, and I'm not being used. I think the art of that is trying to figure out the positives of outside input and what's negative, and then filter out what you think is taking away from what you believe you want to do, and use what reinforces it. When I started to work together with Björk, it was the same thing. So when we did our first video, for Human Behaviour, I was thinking: "Great, we're going to Iceland and we're going to shoot a lot of great landscape." And she said no - she had a similar idea as my friend Etienne in Oui Oui, she wanted to use animals to reflect human nature. And it was great, because as soon as she started to throw some ideas, they started to bounce in my mind and imagination and I immediately came back with other ideas, and we did a video that was very collaborative. But I didn't feel that I was being used, because little by little I would gather elements by different collaborators that would always reflect me. This became clearer when I did a compilation of all my videos, which came out before Eternal Sunshine. And at this point, I had met a lot of very strong personalities. From my bandleader Etienne, a very creative and opinionated person, to Björk and Charlie Kaufman. I was starting to feel like maybe I was just the arm of those people, and they are my brain. I started to doubt a little bit. But when I put all the videos together, I realised that they were going in many directions but the core of them was me and it made me feel really strong about myself, and gave me the strength to start the communication on Eternal Sunshine. I had a difficult position on my first film [Human Nature] because Charlie Kaufman had a very big aura and I was a little swallowed up in that project and it was good for me to come out of that and express my point of view. I didn't know how much this film would reflect of me. So when I did Eternal Sunshine I was really scared, even though I brought the concept to Charlie Kaufman and I was more part of the creative process, I was still concerned that I would be asked: "Why did they get you to direct this movie?" or "Why didn't Spike Jonze direct this?", which I faced all the time with the first film. So my compilation clarified all that because people could look at them all together and decide that I had a brain of my own. And when I was asked to talk about this film, I got asked intelligent questions, which was very pleasant.

SH: Which is a good point at which to look at one of those videos. This is Hyperballad, with Björk. It was very difficult to choose just one, but in the end I chose this one, partly because I love it, but also because it has a dreamy quality, which fits in with tonight.

[runs clip]

SH: Everytime I see it, it makes me think that things get categorised in certain ways - people think of that as a music promo, but actually I would see that as a perfect piece of experimental film-making. Could you talk a little about the creative process to get you to that?

MG: Björk had a very beautiful idea in this song - she explained to me that the song is about a woman in a relationship, and there are all these inside tensions, but because she wants to preserve the relationship, she goes to the top of the mountain and she lets it go by imagining that she jumps from a cliff and breaks into pieces, thus letting all the negatives out. Then she comes back and she can go on with her life and relationship. That's what I like about Björk, she's really a hard worker and she's very sensitive to the human condition. It sounds so pompous but she takes a very simple, everyday element - like in this case a relationship between a boy and a girl - and find the magic in that, and find how to make it work and use all our creativity to solve problems. So, on my side, once she told me the reason why she wrote this song, I imagined her being dead and alive at the same time. So we had her lying down, with makeup to make her appear dead, and then we had a holographic image of her singing superimposed on her. And this was the first time that I had used motion control, which is this big machine that you can programme and do all this at the same time. So we shot all that on one piece of film by superimposing 14 exposures. I remember my DP was going crazy. He was telling me: "If you screw up one exposure, you'll ruin all the film." He was against it but I liked the idea that there was a good chance that it could all go wrong, kind of stimulating. And it worked out. We were all sweating when we were projecting this. In my calculations, I had calculated the motion of the camera, but I forgot to add the volume of the screen, and the camera would have crashed into the screen, so right in the middle of shooting, I had to recalculate. But I think it's really interesting to have a heavy, technical aspect to deal with while making sure that your message comes across. You have to go to the technique to make it happen, so you can't be too precious about detail, especially in this form of working, where you do everything in the camera. So you can't look back and say, "Oh maybe that should be a little more blue or green." Those are details, but in the end you just want the piece to make sense.

SH: I also like that there are times in your films where they're obviously very technologically complex and very carefully thought through, but then there'll be something very low-tech in there. Is that part of balancing things out, or do you just have a fondness for cardboard and low-tech?

MG: I think your first explanation is quite accurate. I like to use a bit of chaos when I shoot. I think it may be something from the way I shot my first film - I was very scared, of course, and I prepared everything, I wanted to make sure that the characters did the right thing at the right time on the storyboard. But then I realised that in life, there is so much more than what you can predict or write in advance, that when you shoot the story, it's good to leave some gaps where you lose control. So you can prepare so you know what's going on when you come to the shoot, but you also want some gaps where nobody knows what they're doing and are left to react in the moment. I think this combination of chaos and organisation gives a kind of quality.

SH: So let's talk a bit about your first feature. You'd been making music videos and commercials, very successfully so. At what point did you decide that a feature film would be the next step? And why did you choose to do it in that particular way, in America instead of France?

MG: It's connected to Björk. We did this video called Isobel, where everything was shot on film. And then we screened it at the Electric Cinema in London, and it was the first time I'd seen a video I'd shot projected on a big screen with a roomful of people who were there just to see it. And I realised how different it was instead of it being one of the millions of things bombarding the audience on a small screen. And I thought maybe I could continue to do my work, but for a story that would be projected on a big screen. That was 10 years ago, and it was probably about five years after that that I did my first picture. So it wasn't like it happened the next day. But I remember, until then I was happy being a video director, and I thought directing a feature film was way out of my field. But when I saw that on the big screen, I thought why not and tried to find a way to get there. So I went to America because in France, if you don't come up with your story... I didn't have confidence in my own writing at this time and I thought I would find material in America. I worked on different projects. First one was a very big, franchise movie called The Green Hornet, and I worked with the screenwriter who wrote RoboCop and Starship Troopers. We worked together on a story that we thought was really interesting, but after one and a half years, it was shelved by the studio. It was really... at this time, my son was really into this type of story and I had to tell him that I was not going to do it. We already had the designs for the cars, the weapons... So it was a very long process, and through Spike Jonze I met Charlie Kaufman. He had this spec script that was not being shot and didn't have people willing to do. So I took this project on and this became Human Nature.

SH: Let's take a look at Human Nature.

[runs clip]

SH: How was it for you, working with someone else's script, something that was not your own original work?

MG: In a way, I was used to that, because as I was saying before, I had been working with a lot of artists and I would be able to integrate their vision and ideas and work with it. It was a little difficult because my understanding of the language was not so perfect, and sometimes I would be embarrassed to ask Charlie what exactly he meant. And I was really trying... And you know, when you're the director you have to constantly pretend that you know what you're doing. You have a team of 50, 60 people working for you, asking for your decisions, and you have to constantly pretend that you know where you're going when, like everybody else, you don't really know. So I had to do a lot of pretending. It was really scary. And some parts of the story, I would really identify with - I have to be honest, I really identified with the Rhys Ifans character, it really captivated me. The part of the scientist, who was very ambitious and kind of selfish, I had not had time to absorb it, so I think you can see in the movie... I don't know exactly what to think. The first thing I realised when I did this film is that you do all this work but can't enjoy it because you just see pieces that you stick together. And then when it's finished, you look at it and remember each pain and it's hard to watch it as an ensemble. While with the videos, I could watch it and say, "Yes, that works" or "No, that doesn't work." For a feature film, I will never really be able to achieve that. But with Science of Sleep, it's the first time I can watch it over and over again. I think Charlotte [Gainsbourg] and Gael [Garcia Bernal] did such a great job. Maybe it's because I wrote the screenplay, and I feel as if they took my torment away from me and so when I watch them on screen, I'm glad I'm not on my own. So I really like to watch Science of Sleep over and over, but maybe it's just because I'm a narcissist.

SH: Let's talk a little about working with actors. I don't think it's just a matter of being lucky that got you great performances.

MG: I'm not saying I got lucky. I think I just learned to deal with people being uncomfortable in front of the camera. I remember when I did my first video that was not animated, and not with my band, it was with this band that was not very good. But I had to do it because it was a job for me. And I was glad to do it because it meant that I could make a living while being creative at the same time. So good luck for me that this video was never finished. It was a lot of work but something was missing. But my producer Georges Bermann, who also produced Science of Sleep, he gave me my first piece of advice: "Whatever you do, after each shot, go to your actor or your singer and tell them: 'You were great.'" I had this idea of taking this woman and making a fairytale around her, and she was wearing this wedding dress. Something very important was missing - I never made her try the dress. She looked like a transvestite in that dress. It was horrifying. And I had to go to her after each take and say she was great. It was so embarrassing. So I had to learn to lie a little bit. Now I work a little differently. Actors are so used to being complimented, so sometimes I feel I need to put them a little off their balance, so they feel they don't know what they're doing and are refreshed. So when they ask: "Was I good?", I say: "Yes, but don't worry, if you were bad, I wouldn't tell you." I want them to feel comfortable but not too comfortable. A lot of times, I throw in counter-orders at the last minute. My flatmate, the one who lent me his camera, he did the lighting on the Science of Sleep. In the 90s, he did a re-edit of L'Atalante, which is one of the great movies of French cinema. I had a chance to look at some footage, and you would see Jean Vigo, the director, he would say, "Action!" and then "No, no, stop!" and then "Yes, go". This sort of uncertainty I guess would project on the actors, and creates an atmosphere where everybody might think, "I'm not sure if we're shooting or not, but I'm going to go anyway" and it puts them in the moment. That was one of the elements that I absorbed. When you reach a stage where there is no uncertainty, you enter the world of schtick, where everything is predictable. So I always try to preserve that, sometimes by overcomplicating a situation, or sometimes by letting my doubt come across. So I give people a lot of freedom. When I worked with Charlotte and Gael, I would not give them a lot of direction - it's stupid because they have their own ideas and if I give them my take before they try theirs, they will never get to know what they had in mind. In the scene where Stéphane presents his calendar, in my mind, he's very shy and awkward, but Gael had worked on this presentation during the night and was very confident and very funny. So he asked if he could do it his way and I said yes. When he asked me later what my idea was, I said my idea doesn't matter. I get the credit anyway as the director.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Pubrick

that's a good interview.

way better than Brick.
under the paving stones.

modage

Quote from: Pubrick on February 12, 2007, 09:26:52 AM
that's a good interview.

way better than [future Xixax Award Nominee] Brick.

:yabbse-grin:
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

MacGuffin

In brief: Gondry, Carax and Joon-ho take on Tokyo
Source: Guardian Unlimited

Directors Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho are to collaborate on a portmanteau film set in Tokyo. The film-makers will each write and direct one segment of the picture, which will tackle various aspects of the city. "It will be just like New York Stories, but set in Tokyo," said Joon-ho. Gondry won an Oscar for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and his latest film The Science of Sleep is still on general release. South Korea's Joon-ho attracted rave reviews for last year's monster movie The Host, while Carax remains best known for the stylish melodrama Les Amants du Pont Neuf. Production on the film, tentatively titled Tokyo, is set to begin in the summer.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

pete

haha I like how them backwards brits claim science of sleep as a current film but the host was "last year's monster film".  oh man, someone got dizzy in a time machine.  FUCKING ASSHOLES.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

matt35mm

My guess is that The Science of Sleep is still playing in the UK, and that The Host played there last year sometime.

I Don't Believe in Beatles

Quote from: matt35mm on March 01, 2007, 01:59:26 PM
My guess is that The Science of Sleep is still playing in the UK, and that The Host played there last year sometime.

Yeah, you're right.  The Host played in the UK last November while The Science of Sleep just opened two weeks ago.
"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." --Stanley Kubrick

pete

yeah I was joking.  nevermind.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

MacGuffin

A 50 minute video of Michel Gondry and Robert Stickgold discussing film making, dreams and the scientific method is online.


"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

modage

Gondry the spokesman
Source: JoBlo

Just about anything involving Michel Gondry immediately grabs my attention, folds it into an origami crane, paints it, and then unleashes it into a shattered television, no CG, all in-camera effects. That's why I'm going to blast all of you with this little Hewlett-Packard ad spot about the director's creative mojo and the computer he uses to bring it to life. To be honest, I'm just shocked that dude doesn't use a Mac. Or maybe he does, and was paid a handsome sum to tell us otherwise. Most directors aren't worthy of a one minute advertising spot because they'd be unable to floor you in 60 seconds flat. Not Gondry, who is bursting at the seams with some of the moist outrageous ideas in film these days, be it commercial, music video or feature. Funny, thing is, his brother directed this one. Check it out BELOW, and his Jack Black Comedy BE KIND, REWIND bows April 4th next year.


Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

mogwai

new music video

paul mccartney "dance tonight"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTNXrkBSp_o&feature=dir

directed by you know who.

polkablues

My house, my rules, my coffee

JG

Gondry does it again.

HOW THE HECK DOES HE THAT?

edit:  i guess thats kinda old

davidchili

Quote from: mogwai on May 23, 2007, 11:14:22 AM
new music video

paul mccartney "dance tonight"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTNXrkBSp_o&feature=dir

directed by you know who.

when i saw it i thought this was just post fx stuff but later did i discover that the "ghost thing" was done in camera, using an old magic trick technique. he is a cazy man
good dreamer, bad sleeper.

Pubrick

Quote from: davidchili on August 24, 2007, 02:47:08 AM
when i saw it i thought this was just post fx stuff but later did i discover that the "ghost thing" was done in camera, using an old magic trick technique. he is a cazy man

yeah, at first i thought he was ripping himself off again like the kanye video, this time dead leaves and the dirty ground.. but then i read up on how it was done and while interesting and "novel", it's just not that impressive. doesn't help that the song is forgettable and portman keeps her clothes on.

welcome to the board, introduce yourself here.
under the paving stones.