The director, producer, screenwriter, cameraman and film enthusiast, Claude Lelouch is the exceptional guest of Le Monde d’Elodie all this week.
The one that the cinema has never left since he was seven years old, a period during which his mother plunged him into dark rooms to escape the Gestapo, evokes his happy and less happy memories.
Among his 50 films, we go back to his life with: A man and a woman (1966), Adventure is adventure (1972), One and the other (nineteen eighty one), Itinerary of a spoiled child (1988) and Station romance (2007).
Claude Lelouch, after having been the main actor of his father, an amateur filmmaker, became that of the documentary by Philippe Azoulay released in May 2022: turn to live.
franceinfo: turn to live is a title that says a lot about the place occupied by the seventh art in your life, is it your mistress, your oxygen, a waking kid’s dream?
Claude Lelouch: Yes yes. When I discovered cinema at a very young age, my mother hid me in cinemas because we were wanted by the Gestapo. I immediately discovered that the people who were on the screen were the same as those who were in the street, but more beautiful, more successful, more courageous. I said to myself: hey, I’d rather hang out with these people than the others. So I managed to make my favorite distraction my job.
As a child, you did indeed experience this trauma. I feel like that’s what became the driving force in your life.
Yes. I saw my mother cry every night during the Occupation. Me, I knew a time when people cried, now they whine. I knew a time when people laughed, now they giggle. It’s the advantage of old idiots like me, it’s that at some point everything makes us laugh.
Your father offers you your first camera because you fail your baccalaureate and he absolutely wants you to have a first job. His goal, moreover, was for you to become a news cameraman.
Yes, finally, my parents quickly realized that the cinema was the only thing that calmed me down because I am quite excited in general. My father was an amateur filmmaker and bought a small camera to film my birth and so the first actor I saw was me. So when he saw that I was going to miss my baccalaureate because I skipped every afternoon to go to the cinema, I couldn’t help it, he offered me a camera and told me : “Now get over it“
“My father understood very quickly that the cinema would be what would give meaning to my life.”
Claude Lelouchat franceinfo
It was while filming in Russia, in 1957, the film: When the curtain risesthe camera under the raincoat because we weren’t allowed to shoot, that I had the chance during this stay to go to the Mosfilm studios where Mikhail Kalatozov was shooting: When the storks pass. I was fascinated by camera movements, by this world of dreams. And since you never die of a dream overdose, I said: this is the job I’m going to do.
There have been disappointments. I am thinking, for example, of your first feature film, The nature of man. You have made many mistakes. The Cahiers du cinema had written about you: “Remember this name ‘Lelouch’, you will never hear from him again“. You doubted at that time when it was so important for you to succeed?
Either you commit suicide, or you say to yourself: “II will take my revenge“I wanted at that moment to show them that suffering was very creative. Each second invented the one after, so I did not make a program. If I had been told that I would do 50 films, I would never have believed it. If someone had told me that I would have seven children and eight grandchildren with five different mothers, I would have said to myself: but this is a scenario that does not hold water. So I had fun with life, and it sows me, constantly throws challenges at me that I like to take up.
And above all, life has some nice surprises in store. You have decided to fight despite the reluctance of many to help you finance the next film called A man and a woman and which will be incorporated at the last second, when everything is closed, at the Cannes Film Festival. What makes it flip?
Chance, who is my main agent, the person who gave me the best advice. François Reichenbach, who was a friend, a great director, sees the film and leaves moved, upset. He tells me : “This film absolutely has to go to Cannes.“, then we call the selection committee because there was a selection committee at the time and we say to them: “Listen, there’s one more movie to see“. They had more or less made their choice and François Reichenbach said to them: “I assure you, you absolutely have to see this film“. So, we convene the selection committee which comes out of the screening enthusiastic, packed.
“I think it was the happiest day of my life when I was told that I was going to represent France at Cannes with ‘A man and a woman’.”
Claude Lelouchat franceinfo
What does this film represent for you?
It’s a bit like a second dad, a second mom. It is a second birth. It allowed me at 26, 27 to be reborn. Success is always a miracle that cannot be explained like all miracles. It’s like magic tricks, don’t try to figure out why it works, it almost drives you crazy.
Has success made you dumb?
Yes. We will try to replicate the success, but we cannot replicate it. By trying to reproduce it, we flop. And by doing a flop, we recreate, we become creative again and we go back to the fight.
There was a disappointment in the end, despite the Oscar, despite the Palme d’Or, it was that your father was no longer there to see your success. Is this a big regret for you?
Oh yes. It is the great regret of my life because he believed so much in my cinematographic possibilities, he was really my first spectator, my first fan. He was a man who told me the few essential things you should tell someone. He is a man who had a vision of the world. He saved part of his family under the Occupation by telling them: “When you’re Jewish, you have to choose between life and money“. He was a man of incredible lucidity, he had the certificate of studies and a look that fascinated me and it’s true that I would have liked him to take me in his arms, to applaud me.