It’s the first time you perform in New York. How does it feel ?
It’s funny for me to be going so far, even in the United States, with that Modiano text. I perform in New York, yes, but for a French-speaking audience. But it still is a very specific audience. Anyway, I want to reassure people in Paris : I’m not starting an American tour ! It’s like when hee Johnny Halliday goes to LA, or Enrico Macias, it’s for the local community. I’m not Edith Piaf at Carnegie Hall, I’m in a mood of total humility. We performed in Washington, the room was in the Embassy, we had the feeling of being the king’s buffoons.
New York is known as a cinematic city. You come recite a Modiano text here. Is New York also a literary city for you ?
I know New York less through books than movies. For French people, it’s a typically cinematic city. America is the country that invents itself through the cinema industry. By being filmed, people make New York their own : yellow taxis, firemen’s sirens, high buildings, hot dog salesman… It’s mythical, we are inevitably moved by that. But Paris has that as well.
What is your vision of the American cinema ?
American cinema is not only American cinema : it is all cinema. Today, most local movie industries are like a suburbs of American cinema. The mentality is different ; At the Oscars, we can easily see that the whole Hollywood world wants the ceremony to be great, and try to show a brilliant aspect of the American cinema. In France, there is too much internal fighting, people don’t like each other, they are in show business denial, they don’t want to belong to “this world”. Americans don’t have any problem to give the Best Actress award to a foreigner : French Cinema, very protective, would never do a thing like that.
Because they are too cautious ?
No. It’s just ruled by a very specific logic. Independent movies are in a good situation, the problem concerns high-budget movies : the more expensive a movie is, the more tickets you have to sell in order to make it profitable. The paradox is that the more expensive a movie, the worse the screenplay. The money is all invested in concept, in actors… What French cinema misses today, is the middle-budget movies, like Sautet, Yves Robert or de Broca used to do. Again, in that area, American independent cinema does fantastic things.
What did you think about the Oscars ceremony ?
I don’t think the jokes are funnier than French ones, but there is a real pleasure in the dancing and singing… we feel that Hugh Jackman spent hours working on his choreography, there is a real feel for precision. For me, who presented Cannes Ceremony last May, I was enchanted to see how things went here.
Would you like to collaborate with American directors or actors ?
I would like to write with Wes Anderson, I’m a real fan. That bastard of Nicolas Saada was supposed to introduce me (laugh), but each time a French director knows an American one, he keeps for himself ! I played in a movie, Troma, of Lloyd Kaufman, but it was a little bit particular. Of course, I would be interested in observing how an American movie is shot, but I think it would be difficult, and I would take less pleasure in playing in English : I’m very attached to the French language.
Would you be able to play in English ?
I wanted to translate Castang and Prizotti in English. And we would have play in English ! I know how to improvise in English.
Would the effects be the same for an anglo-saxon audience ?
Audiences are very different in France, too. Between Paris and the province, between different generations… but it works pretty well, it’s surprising. That’s the funny part: see how every audience experiences things.
Stage culture is really different, especially in the United States.
Precisely ! It’s interesting to create different things. I’m going to be a little pretentious, but what I’m doing in France, like Castang and Prizotti, it doesn’t exist. Private theatre is not funny, very conventional ; you have a Guitry, a Feydeau… For the moment, there is a Pagnol. Always the two or three same contemporary authors, like Schmidt, who are played every time… Only in dancing and the circus are we creating new things. By the way, they travel a lot around the world, because their art is speechless. I would be very pleased to do my work out of France…
What makes you feel near of Modiano ?
It’s a question of vision. Every one of Modiano’s books shows an amazing detachment towards life. There is always a blurred filter between reality and this author, for not suffering too much. When I was a child, sometimes, I used to put my hands in front of my eyes, to see without really seeing. Modiano calls it “in transparency”. It’s a cinema process where actors are motionless, but where decors are moving. That’s the way he considered his life, since he was 21.
Does New York City suit Modiano ?
The great thing is that Modiano can be read in different ways. Even a commercial center in Houston may be observed with Modiano’s point of view. If I were a newspaper, I would ask Modiano to describe a mall, because he could find poesy and grace in it. He can do this with the most primary things. He knows how to create melancholy in cheerfulness, cheerfulness in melancholy. Where everything seems to be smooth, he creates a manhole, and we fall in. On the contrary, when everything seems too hard, with distance he creates a poetic passageway, that’s what he does in “Un pedigree”
The abandonment is an important subject in Modiano’s work. Do you also feel abandoned ?
(Long silence) We all feel abandoned, I guess. Even Jesus on his cross ! If we love, we finish by being abandoned. If we don’t love, we are abandoned from the start… So, yes, I feel abandoned too !
Why do you love New York ?
I like to walk and I like to cross the incredible number of different personalities, countries, generations… It’s a huge European capital.
People say that Paris is asleep. Do you agree ?
No, not at all. I think Paris is all right. We are asleep in Paris. We are always in the same city, and our network is smaller : we are less curious in our own city than in others. We have always the same addresses. If they change, we feel like the World is not going round, but we just have to cross the street to take our coffee. In New York, I’m doing some things I would never do in Paris. I’m going to see concerts that I would never see in Paris. But it’s just the fact of changing places that excites my curiosity.
Do you feel a different energy here ?
In Paris, We complain a lot, and I like that. In New York, people do everything to show that (he speaks louder) “Everything is FINE !”. The sound level of the conversations is often very high. IF THAT’S WHAT YOU CALL ENERGY, SO YES…
BY JEAN VINCENT RUSSO
