Melinda in Conversation with Marcel Carne

Marcel Carné (1906 - 1996) was a French film director.

Carné criticizes French directors for dealing with the sordid aspects of everyday life: "I think French directors ought to be more ambitious in their choice of subject. They should treat more elevated, general subjects, instead or resorting to the usual themes of adultery, human relationships, the trials of everyday life."

Carné's absolute distinction between good and evil,his rejection of any form of compromise, and his escape into fantasy give [La Merveilleuse Visite] a naive, almost adolescent quality. His absolute uncompromising attitudes pervade his behavior. He seems to evoke similar attitudes on others: "People either love or hate my films; there seems to be no middle reaction. The Parisian critics dislike whatever I do."

Read the full excerpt here

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Melinda in Conversation with Louis Malle

Louis Malle (1932 – 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer.

“The more one goes on in life, the more the past becomes a burden. In my life and films I have always tried to cut off from the past and start again. But each time, it requires greater effort. It is only by breaking with habit that one can get rid of all that is anecdotal. If not, you let a mask come between you and the reality of your situation. It is a protection, like clothes. But it is wonderful to be naked from time to time, and it's also a good idea to change one's clothes of context.”

Three times in his career, Louis Malle has worked from an impossible proposition: The first was Zazie dans le Metro (1960) when he attempted to translate the exclusively verbal games of Queneau into cinematic images; the second was Black Moon, where he strove to retain the authentic, primary vision of dreams and the contradictory logic of his unconscious without submitting it to interpretation or adopting a visual language shared by the public. Malle's third impossible proposition was to attempt to make an American comedy, Crakers, when he moved to the United States. I met him as he was preparing to leave Paris to live in America.

"I work in the opposite way to most film directors. Often, they elaborate on a variation of a classical theme. I take my starting point as an unacceptable, impossible, and shocking idea and try to render it acceptable."

"In life, people behave incredibly irrationally. But in so-called realism, people eliminate the irrational. Myself, each time I come to a turning point in my life, either in work of personally, I make irrational decisions. People want fiction to be more 'real' than life which means they want to eliminate the illogical. But it is precisely this which interests me."

"Making films can be a job. For some directors, being on a set is the most satisfying moment of their life. For me, making a film is not enough. I need difficulties, a challenge, a constraint to overcome. A film is a way of getting rid of an interrogation."

Read the interviews from The Paris Post and Through Parisian Eyes here.

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Melinda in Conversation with François Truffaut

François Truffaut (6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic, as well as one of the founders of the French New Wave.

“One makes films because one desires to fit things together, to make people meet each other, and to create situations. It’s like a child with a Meccano set, or a child telling himself a story that might perhaps interest others later on. But it’s a game. If someone believes that they have got a lot of important things to tell the public, they shouldn't make films. They should say them directly.”

I asked Truffaut whether he felt that the indirect communication which he prescribes is akin to lying. “Direct truth is not interesting. If one is alone and is talking to many people, as in a film, lying is necessary. In a conversation between two people you can tell the truth. You can also manipulate the person you are talking to; but conversation should democratic. In a speech or a film you cannot be democratic because you are outnumbered. Manipulation is necessary. In any case, the cinema is a game for the person making it and the people watching it. Implicit in the rules of this game are the notions of lying and manipulation.”

Read this interview from The Times of London and another from Through Parisian Eyes here.

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Melinda in Conversation with Delphine Seyrig

Delphine Seyrig (1932 - 1990) was a French stage and film actress and film director 

Delphine Seyrig made her name by incarnating, as she puts it, “a sophisticated, inaccessible woman, a dream who is not the true ideal because she doesn’t do the washing up.”

Outside her spacious living room one can the laughter and chatter of the women who participate in her feminist activities. She launches into an explanation of feminism which, when she discovered it, was a catalyst that gave her the confidence to express all the she had intuited and bottled up.

“It starts off when you’re a little girl. You are almost born angry. You notice the difference between little boys and girls. At school, you learn that everything has been created and invented by men. I knew I had to smile, be mischievous and pretty. People had a low opinion of my intelligence. When I tried to speak about things that were important to me I was told it was nonsense. So I became superficial in order to please. I saw a choice before me, although I couldn’t formulate it: to rebel right from the start, or to say to myself, ‘In order to survive, I must become what others want me to be. Otherwise I will be crushed. It’s evident that people aren’t interested in me, so to be recognized I will exist for others. In myself I am nothing.’ I chose the latter course and succeeded in giving the image that men wanted, always with a nagging feeling of disquiet.” 

Read the full interview here

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