“Every time I said ‘Cut’, I had the feeling of having filmed eternity,” says Claude Lelouch

Anouk Aimée died on Tuesday at the age of 92.

“Every time I said ‘Cut,’ I felt like I had filmed eternity.”, said director Claude Lelouch on Tuesday June 18 on franceinfo after the death of actress Anouk Aimée at the age of 92. The actress had illuminated the director’s masterpiece, A man and a womanin 1966, with Jean-Louis Trintignant. “She had a smile, an incredible voice, a harmony that made us approach perfection”remembers Claude Lelouch, who said to himself “very happy that she is gone because the last days were difficult”.

franceinfo: Was it a meeting that changed your life?

Claude Lelouch : Yes, absolutely. We all need to love and be loved, we all need love, and she, a little more than the others. She was in total love and she could only be interested in someone if there was precisely this part of love which reassured her and which allowed her to access scents of truth. I had the chance to make several films with her, I was lucky enough to be able to film her when she was young, when she was a little younger and when she was in the last years of her life. I accompanied this woman and she accompanied me in an incredible way. With Jean-Louis Trintignant, both of them changed my life and I will never thank them enough for doing everything they did for me, for saying yes to me, for being the first stars to tell me yes. When she told me yes, she was in Rome, she was filming in Fellini’s film. I pitched the film to him in three minutes over the phone. She told me she agreed.

Did she exude something out of the ordinary?

Of course. She had a smile, an incredible voice, a harmony that made us approach perfection. She was one of those stars who made us dream and since we never die from an overdose of dreams, we must take advantage of it. All these stars, all these people who have left their mark on the history of cinema and life, we owe them a lot. If it weren’t for the dream today, life would be very difficult to bear. With her physique and her gaze, she illuminated our films, from Fellini to Demy via me, every time we said ‘Cut’, we had the feeling of having filmed eternity.

What bonded you two?

We were both very superstitious. During filming, she told me that lots of incredible things were going to happen with this film. She was the first to tell me that this film was going to go around the world and touch everyone. I thought she was telling me that to please me but it came true. Subsequently, we don’t change a winning team, we wanted to meet again twenty years later, fifty years later, we called each other practically every day. She was both my cinema mom and the woman of my cinema life. I am very happy that she is gone because the last days were difficult, she was suffering, and today I now know that she is fine. I want death to be the greatest reward.

Jean-Louis Trintignant died almost two years ago to the day. Is there something unforgettable and inseparable about this duo that you formed?

There is magic. They’re gone every two years at 92, it’s absolutely incredible. I am delighted that they found each other today, I am firmly convinced of that. It’s no coincidence that they both left at the same age.

What can young actresses find in Anouk Aimée’s repertoire?

Perfection is something that doesn’t exist but from time to time, there are scents of perfection that appear. This is what happens with Marlyn Monroe, with Audrey Hepburn, with Anouk Aimée. At some point, we don’t know why, you have faces, smiles, which tell you the essential things. Undoubtedly, Anouk Aimée knew how to tell us things we needed to hear.