Return to Cannes for Vincent Lindon – amazing actor, smooth talker, surreal performer on occasion – after an interpretation award for The law of the market (2015), by Stéphane Brizé, and the triumph of the Palme d’or awarded to the beautiful and sulfurous Titanium (2021), by Julia Ducournau, he embarks this time as president of the jury for the 2022 edition, a task that arouses him with enthusiasm.
This presidency of the jury, how do you approach it?
It excites me. Watch movies from around the world. Share this time and debate with people like Asghar Farhadi, Jeff Nichols or Noomi Rapace [membres du jury 2022], this is not trivial. See how they apprehend the cinema. Explain our emotions and our analyses. At the same time, it’s not serious, it’s not the most important thing in the world right now. And yet, how can you do it well if you don’t take it tragically? It’s like the cinema: each shot is the most important thing in the world at the time it is shot, otherwise it’s not even worth doing this job. President of the jury is the same. I’m going to take it very seriously and stay away from it all.
Aren’t you afraid of being far too busy for that?
Since Titanium, I made myself particularly discreet. I’m sick of myself, if you will. There was a time when I was happy to say things and hear myself, that was fine with me, but today it is less important. Talking to a journalist or a critic whom I read and whom I respect, even if he doesn’t like the films in which I act, yes, but the rest is over. In general, I find that everyone talks too much. People on the networks no longer think, they react. I think that we gain today by being economical with our words.
Let’s go back to Cannes 2021, the unexpected triumph of “Titanium”, the magnificent madness of this project. What did you learn from this experience?
It was unique from the start. In the very way of reading the script. It was not at all “this story fascinates me, I want to be this character, I find the story so well constructed, I dreamed of this role”… Titanium, it’s not that at all. It’s the first time it’s happened to me, it’s very animalistic, my first feeling is, inexplicably, “I don’t want it to go to anyone else, it’s for me”. Like a romantic encounter. Either a bad reason that can turn out to be a good reason. And then I loved Severe, Julia Ducournau’s previous film, and I was interested that such a beautiful woman made such violent films. I was very proud that she came to see me.
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