Melinda's interview with Yves Montand, included in Through Parisian Eyes

Montand leaned forward and stared at me rather menacingly. I was impressed by his ability to give a political speech in the privacy of his living room. But I was taken aback when he paused for breath and spoke to me directly. Until that moment I had the feeling that I was sitting in the front row of an auditorium, listening to a politician who was trying to get my vote. 

“Many people think that they will have no talent according to which government is in power. It’s not the government or the political philosophy that gives you talent. You have to have it first. Or you don’t have it. That’s why life is cruel. Life is not roses. Life is hard; you can lose it at any moment, at any age.”

Montand leapt from subject to subject, interspersing English noun and French verbs. I pointed out that he had been unnecessarily bad tempered during the interview, for I had understood what he was saying, but I would have preferred to talk about his acting career and leave politics in abeyance for a while.

“Oh, no. I hope I wasn't unpleasant. Was I? No, let me explain why… You see…there are people who just give any old interview. But I can’t. I give myself completely. I can’t help it, and I can’t do otherwise. It’s a terrible weakness of mine.”

Read the full interview here.

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Melinda in Conversation with Bernard-Henri Levy

Bernard-Henri Lévy (1948 - ) is a French intellectual, media personality, and author.

Bernard-Henri Levy described himself to me, as we sat in his office…with a rather ironical glint in his eyes. I had asked whether the exasperated, passionate tone in his books, like L’Ideologie Francaise and La Barbarie a visage humain, was a tone he adopted, or whether it sprang from his personality:

“I believe it stems from my personality…yes, I’m sure it does… I am a mixture of nonchalance, and I have a taste for the good life, and easeful living, and pleasure on the one hand. And then, on the other hand, I am febrile, furious, frenetic, sectarian, brutal, and violent.”

“And violent?” I asked.

“Yes. I am violent. When I was a young man I would often get into fights. I was quite content to settle an argument with my fists, rather than discussing the issue; I’m not tolerant, absolutely not. I think there’s a contradiction in me, between the self that has a taste for easeful living, and the self that enjoys a fight. I have causes that I fight for with every ounce of determination."

Read the full interview from Through Parisian Eyes [PDF]


 MelindaCamberPorter.com

Melinda in Conversation with Marcel Ophuls

Marcel Ophüls (1927 - ) is a documentary filmmaker and former actor.

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.

Read the full interview from Through Parisian Eyes [PDF]

MelindaCamberPorter.com