The prolific François Ozon had never before directed Sophie Marceau. And it wasn’t for lack of good will. The star of d’Artagnan’s daughter had already refused him roles in 8 women, 5×2, Young and pretty and Vase. He hasn’t thrown in the towel though. “She and I are of the same generation, specifies the filmmaker, by Zoom from Paris. I had discovered it, like many French people, in The party, subsequently growing with his screen presence. But no one had yet offered her a role like that of Emmanuele in Everything went well. Almost without makeup, anti-glamor. The film opens on Friday with us.
“On other projects, we weren’t on the same wavelength,” adds the actress. This time, I found it enjoyable to play with reality, to be captured outside of desire, into sensitivity. She saw this film as a piece of bravery in juggling genres. “It’s not easy to deal with difficult questions in a pragmatic way with a thriller side while remaining in the reflection of intimacy. François loves cinema and actors. He makes very different films. His energy is infectious. It was won.
Everything went well could have passed them by. When the filmmaker was offered in 2015 to adapt Everything went well, of Emmanuele Bernheim, the subject made him uneasy. This autobiographical story told how, under pressure from her sick father, the writer had resorted to medical assistance in dying for him in Switzerland. “Then, Emmanuèle, who was a good friend, died of cancer,” says Ozon. When I re-read his book, I discovered another perspective. It was not an American melodrama, but a complex story with a monstrous and endearing father. We can admire this man, find him perverse to involve his daughter in his decision. Still, he has things to say. »
The film, in competition at Cannes in 2021, follows the hospitalization of André (André Dussollier) half paralyzed after a stroke, visited by his two daughters Emmanuèle and Pascale (Sophie Marceau and Géraldine Pailhas). But only his favorite, Emmanuèle (Marceau), will be responsible for finding the paternal path to death.
“The film having been shot in the summer in a hospital in the midst of COVID, we worked masked by doing it quickly”, adds the filmmaker. He himself often held the camera on his shoulder in this doomsday atmosphere. This does not prevent the tone from juggling with humor. “I found it important to make a film on the side of life, to show the paradox of a man who wants to die while loving existence. A bit like for Charlotte Rampling dans Under the sand, the film is also a look at Sophie Marceau. She looks like Emmanuèle, with this tomboyish and instinctive side. Like Géraldine Pailhas, I filmed it in a documentary way, while Dussollier remained in the composition. »
Sophie Marceau paid for the milking with this bedridden partner. “He made me laugh a lot. André is always messing around. He plays an awful manipulator, but an extraordinary original. Everything revolves around him. »
Ozon trained Sophie Marceau far from her comfort zone. “He was standing in the line of sight, and the actors like to be observed,” she says. He didn’t want us to repeat, he pushed us: “Go for real”. My character never really knows what he’s gotten into and moves on all the same. The story is a lived narrative, but in the end we no longer make the difference between reality and the cinema. »
This theme of death with dignity, the filmmaker of Time remaining and D’Summer 85 refused to make it an incriminating or exculpatory document on the thorny issue of the right to euthanasia. “I wanted to let the spectators ask themselves questions. The film is a way to capture the debate. I believe that society should take charge of these processes, not the patient’s children. In France, we are an old Catholic country, where death is scary. Statistics assure that in this process of choice through the medical system, people cling to life. Very few go all the way. »
As a compass, in addition to meetings with medical teams, the team had obtained a precious video in which Emmanuèle filmed her weakened father. “This document helped André Dussollier to act out the symptoms of stroke, by adopting the way of speaking, the gestures, specifies Ozon. He got older and wore prostheses in his face that took two and a half hours every morning. I found it easier to give the role to an actor younger than his character. This tyrant can throw horrors at everyone, say to Sophie Marceau: “How ugly you were when you were a child… when we see her again in The party…” »
The actress claims to have learned about the death during the filming of Everything went well. “Society emphasizes eternal youth, but François has this quality of being able to tackle a frightening subject. Personally, I would not like to die at night in my sleep, but during the day in full consciousness. Might as well leave, said the French star to himself, under the sun.
Everything went well will be released in theaters on 1er April.