I
was aware that Ophuls could appear to be a rather disgruntled man,
particularly when he damns certain writers and trends. And yet his tone
was good-natured, rather witty, and self-mocking, and he had been
encouraged to continue in this vein for I was laughing with him. We
began to talk about the ethics of interviewing.
“You
do not use individuals’ lives or individuals’ statements or the
reflection that they give of themselves as objects or tools. So you do
not script in advance. You don’t say, ‘We’re going to see so and so
because he’ll tell us about this or that.’ Right? And that’s where the
big difference is between making a feature film and a documentary. An
actor has been paid to be put into a fictional situation. And paying
actors is the least exploitive way of going about making a film. I don’t
like documentaries and I often don’t like documentary filmmakers. Nor
did my father. For actors are professionals who create an illusion which
then tells us something about the truth or reflections of a reality.
That’s wonderful.”
Ophuls
wanted our conversation to move along freely, without paying attention
to the prepared questions. At one point I asked Ophuls whether we should
continue talking about the collaboration or move on to another question
about documentaries… He went on to tell me about his many discussions
with Francois Truffaut on the ethics of filmmaking.
MelindaCamberPorter.com
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