Annette, Leos Carax’s first musical and sixth feature film, will open, Tuesday July 6, the 74e Cannes Film Festival – which runs until July 17.
In the Ferber studios, in Paris (20e arrondissement), where the music was mixed, the 60-year-old director recounts the long production of this sung film which features a couple of celebrities: a stand-up actor (Adam Driver) and a lyric singer (Marion Cotillard ). Always feverish at the idea of expressing himself, the filmmaker snaps his fingers before beginning the interview.
Nine years have passed since “Holy Motors”, competing in Cannes in 2012. It was another time: the left was coming back to power, François Hollande had just been elected. It was before the 2015 attacks, before the #metoo movement in 2017, before the 2020 health crisis. How did you experience this period?
I may regret it sometimes, but I’m not organized or very social. I find it hard to mingle, and I haven’t been involved in anything that has happened in recent years. I don’t like crowds and therefore never attend demonstrations. At the same time, I’m enjoying the moves, and I know my 16 year old daughter is going to enjoy the #metoo revolution, that others are going to enjoy Black Lives Matter.
I don’t make overtly political films, but I still believe that the cinema exists to change us, and to change our angles of vision. Even if it remains abstract and almost invisible to the naked eye. If I had been more organized and sociable, I would have liked to do things in real life, start a school, for example.
A film school?
No, an elementary school, in the open air. There would be so many simple things to do that are not done: to provide all children with cameras, editing consoles, and all the musical instruments in the world.
Also teach them how to save lives. I don’t know how to save someone. These are things that we should all learn and relearn in our lifetimes. And children should have a courage class every week – personal, physical, civic, political, poetic courage. What is collaboration, cowardice? What is resisting, in life, in your mind, in art, in time of war?
Is the time that elapses between two films difficult to live with?
In general, the time spent between two films is bad for me, but it went well this time. And very soon, maybe a year later Holy Motors, the Sparks brothers offered me this thing that I had always wanted to do, without ever thinking of doing it: a sung film. So I quickly switched to music.
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