|
 |
     |
  
|
|
- 'First of all, I wanted to make a film about the cinema, about this mysterious undertaking that people (wrongly) call directing a film, or directing actors. You don't direct a film: you make a film. I wanted to make this film because of the glut of 'Making Of' videos designed to convince people that they can reveal the mysteries of a film shoot. In fact, these backstage productions merely reveal the futility of films and give a superficial view of the shoot. The heart of it remains a secret. Like the heart of a volcano. It's the Time of the Ordeal, when fear takes hold of everyone - the actors and the director - and, at that point, the shoot becomes a clash behind closed doors. This clash behind closed doors is the subject of SEX IS COMEDY.
- But, beyond the hopeless infatuation between actors and directors, it's a story about human relationships, male and female, and the subtle ties between those who give orders and those who obey them. In a way, it’s the power of the weakest. And the confusion of feelings that fly around like free electrons on movie sets. Because, as Jeanne says: 'You always pick actors because you love them…' Because though I say that I hate them, deep down I love them… In fact, I hate them for not loving me. You think they're doing your film out of love, when in fact they're doing it… I don't know… out of vanity… Anyway I don't really know.
- The thing is, their deep-seated cowardice never leaves them, so when you start getting tough with them, you have no means of putting pressure on them and, in fact they're the ones who always start causing trouble (they always trigger the hostilities) and you see them cowering to you… It's unbelievably violent!… Because you scorn them and you hate them. But, at the same time, you wish you could love them… And I'm talking about actors, not actresses: you always get on with actresses, even when you don't like each other. This violence, this power trip that lies beneath it all, is a male thing... And it's always after you’ve put them down that they come up with something really dazzling, as if they needed to be dominated because it's a job for girls.
- You have to be a girl to be an actor. Trying to share the emotion that they give you with them, is a big mistake… As a director, you're a predator, you have to rip the emotion out of them, you take it and then your name’s on it. It's yours, in fact. That's what the cinema is. That's why there's such hatred and violence. Because it's a solitary creative act, not a group effort.
Actors are the raw material of films. That's how it is. On a human level, it's appalling.
And for the actors it's worse, because I'm a woman… it's harder to surrender your soul because surrendering the soul is a female act and taking it is a male one.'
|
|
|
