An American journalist without a contract and penniless, Trish is stuck in Nicaragua, her passport having been confiscated from her by the army. Added to the vagaries of an authoritarian regime are the uncertainties linked to the pandemic context. To survive, Trish is forced into prostitution. One evening, she meets Daniel, an English national working for an oil company. However, the one she immediately considered as her ticket outside the country is actually even more in the crosshairs of the authorities. As danger simmers, Trish and Daniel begin a passionate and desperate affair. Filmmaker, among other things, of desire, flesh and improbable encounters, Claire Denis signs with Stars at Noon (stars at noon), Grand Prix at the last Cannes Film Festival, a feverish adaptation of the short novel by Denis Johnson.
“Everything that Denis Johnson writes pleases me, and this story is quite autobiographical: he is a bit like two characters at the same time, I find”, explains the French director joined in New York by videoconference.
“I was struck by this tearing apart of attraction, in that these two people would like to use each other, and not love each other, but in the end it is not at all what’s going to happen. »
In this case, it had been around ten years since the director of Good work, 35 rums, White Material and A beautiful inner sun, wanted to adapt the work. Published in 1986, the novel was set in Nicaragua during the state of emergency enacted by the Sandinista revolutionary government. In the film, the action is instead set against the backdrop of COVID and the current Ortega regime. Although, in fact, Claire Denis had to resolve to shoot in Panama.
“Between the moment when I wanted to make the film and the moment when I was able to shoot it, Daniel Ortega was re-elected, there was the pandemic… No insurance company wanted to insure the film. So, even if I had obtained presidential authorization, I would have found myself there alone, without a team, without an actor. »
The nature of the movie
On the other hand, integrating the pandemic context into the plot quickly became obvious.
“One of the reasons why the production and I opted for Panama is that the sanitary conditions there were excellent, explains the director. Nevertheless, when I arrived, I saw how the pandemic was playing an extremely strong role. I didn’t see how anyone could pretend it didn’t exist. »
This decision to adjust fiction to reality, which involved not only modifications to the screenplay, but also to the logistics of production, is indicative of the “Claire Denis way”. Indeed, the filmmaker’s style is readily compared to jazz music. Moreover, it is probably no coincidence that she collaborates so much with the group Tindersticks.
“I realize that, even if we think we know everything about the film – we write a screenplay, we choose the actors, we find filming locations, we build a set like in High Life -, it’s wrong. We arrive on set convinced that we have all this baggage, but in fact, the reality is that the film has its own nature. »
Obviously, to clarify Claire Denis, she does not launch into a vacuum. She carefully determines where she’ll put her camera and what lenses she’ll use, but what’s at issue here is more of the elusive. “Like sand slipping through our fingers”, said the filmmaker.
“Quite quickly, we realize that everything we have prepared cannot happen exactly as we planned. It’s like the weather: you think it’s going to be fine, but in the end it rains. We are not immune to life on a set. In a film, what’s wonderful is that there’s always a moment like that, when you say to yourself that it’s not going as you would have liked. But this moment, we must not try to flee it: we must embrace it, because it is the film. You have to adapt to this kind of atmosphere that a film creates, that’s it. »
At this stage of the interview, Claire Denis is suddenly silent, pensive. Plunged into the past, she continues:
“I remember, when I was younger, during the filming of Detective, in Paris, I heard Godard say to his cinematographer: “You know, everyone says ‘Hello, how are you?’, but no one asks ‘Hello, how’s the film?’” And I understand absolutely that. After a few days, a film becomes an entity, and all of us — me, the team, everyone — have to accept it. So, I can delude myself into being convinced that I have planned everything, but I cannot predict what the film will release. It is by recognizing this that we can enter the film. Finally, I believe: it’s not a theory that I developed, but something that I felt from my first film [le partiellement autobiographique Chocolat]. »
Courage in adversity
As always with Claire Denis, the cast delivers a uniformly felt interpretation. However, in the role of Trish, Margaret Qualley, seen in My Salinger Year (My Salinger Year) and the series maid, is absolutely phenomenal. There is, in her nervous performance, almost possessed at times, a bit of the Isabelle Adjani of The story of Adele H..
“Margaret waited three years to make the film. I look at her, and she looks at me, and I have the impression that we guess. The connection with Margaret is so strong that even now I feel her close to me. Her faith in the project gave me courage when there was doubt about the future of the project,” reveals the 76-year-old director.
In fact, the film almost never saw the light of day.
“When the pandemic took hold, and then it became clear that I couldn’t shoot in Nicaragua, I was overcome by deep despair. »
Especially since her male star, Robert Pattinson, whom she had just directed in High Life and who had agreed to make the film, had to withdraw in extremisthe pandemic having extended the shooting of the film The Batman. Taron Egerton (Rocketman) was approached, but also had to withdraw.
“And then one day, I said to myself: ‘Well, if you really want to make this film, you’re going to have to have courage and change a lot of things.'” Except that in the end, you know what? It gave me the measure of my attachment to the project. »
The film Stars at Noon hits theaters October 14