ScreenWize

French film director Claude LeLouch definitely has a thing about cars. In his most celebrated feature film A Man And A Woman - released in 1966 - much of the story takes place in moving vehicles, and the ‘man’ of the story (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a racing car driver. After the film won LeLouche the Palme D’Or at Cannes, two Golden Globe awards, and two Oscars – as well as a healthy box-office return – the 29 year old LeLouche bought himself a Ferrari. Ten years later he caused a stir with a ten-minute, single shot film that he made by strapping a camera low to the ground on the front of a Mercedes, which he then drove at high speed across Paris.

Things haven’t changed much. LeLouche – speaking from Paris on his 71st birthday – has just finished a new film called Roman De Gare (English title: Crossed Tracks), and many of the story’s key events take place in cars. In fact the central character – a writer named Pierre (Dominique Pinon) - develops his story ideas whilst on the road. It’s a deliberate case of art imitating life in the fast lane, as this is exactly how LeLouche writes his screenplays. When in need of inspiration, he takes to his car with tape recorder in hand. “I have written just about all my films in my car, and some while running or on a bicycle”, he says. “I must be in motion when I’m developing my ideas, and the car makes the best office in the world. You are isolated but you can observe things around you. For some of my films I travelled more than 2000 kilometres.” LeLouche left Paris for Rome in order to write Roman de Gare, and the script was complete by the time he got back home.

If it’s an unusual process, it’s not the only one that LeLouche uses to keep his films fresh and alive. He often doesn’t tell his cast the full story, and they may end up discovering key moments as the camera is rolling. “ I don’t like the word improvisation,” says LeLouche, “as it can mean everything and nothing. What I want is to breathe life into a film - the script isn’t enough - and the key to this is getting the right reaction at a particular moment. This means that the actor may not know exactly how things are going to turn out. As well as this, unexpected events might turn up in filming and I will let them find their place in the story– this is a way of letting life come into the film.”

It’s a documentary approach to storytelling that LeLouche brought with him from his earliest days as a cameraman working on newsreels. “Performance in documentary is what inspires me,” he says. “Without a director, everyone is an actor with a perfect performance –that’s what I’d like to get from my cast.”

As a director LeLouche also draws heavily on his background in music. In the 1960’s he established a film production company that made “Scopitones” – short music films shot on 16mm film stock that could be viewed in a juke-box like device. Scopitones were a French creation that spread to the USA well before the advent of music-videos, and LeLouche worked with many of France’s best known singers and bands. “I made more than 100 Scopitones,” he says, “and in all my films there are two main actors – the camera and the music. Music speaks best to the unconscious, and goes straight to the heart of an audience. I discovered the significance of music in the Scopitone and, in every one of my films, music is fundamentally important.” In fact many critics believe that LeLouche’s best work is the musical epic Les Une et Les Autres (also released under the name of Bolero), a multi-narrative film that brings together four musical families from around the word.

Roman de Gare also adopts multiple storylines, but with a playful hand. The audience are never sure whether they are being deceived by LeLouche as writer and director, in the same way that the characters in the film are trying to deceive each other. LeLouche is philosophical about stringing the audience along, and about the nature of deceit. “In life lies play an essential role and are very common. We all lie - a woman with make up on is not being truthful – and lies are a good thing because the truth is a luxury no one can afford. All artists tell lies in order to reach some truth.”

LeLouche also continues this playfulness into self-reference. The opening of Roman de Gare echoes one of his earliest films – the 1962 L’Amour avec des si (released internationally as In the Affirmative). “It’s the same situation, and the first five minutes are virtually identical” he says. And of course it all takes place in a car. LeLouche’s office, it seems, regularly finds its way into his films.

Filed Under: Interviews by Simon