After nine years of absence, the French director Jean-Pierre jeunet is back. Not on the big screen but on Netflix, the American streaming giant, which is broadcasting its new feature film from Friday February 11, BigBug. This dystopian comedy against a backdrop of war between humans and robots, with Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty and Dominique Pinon (two of her favorite actors), “almost no one wanted it in France”he laments.
“I came close to depression, I was very depressed at the idea of not being able to shoot“, confides to AFP the director of the cult film the fabulous destiny of Amelie Poulain (2001), one of the world’s biggest commercial successes for a French film.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWcqH7orROc
For Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the release of Big Bug, which takes place in the year 2045 and features an uprising of robots in a world where artificial intelligence is ubiquitous, was an obstacle course.
“Concretely, nobody wanted it in France. I heard the same words, the same sentences as for Delicatessen (1991, his first feature film, editor’s note) and for Amelie: it’s too weird, too offbeat. So too risky“, he says. As the project is about to fall through, the 68-year-old director receives a phone call from the American streaming giant: “they said yes to the project in 24 hours. Thanks Netflix!“, he says.
With Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Netflix offers itself a new big name in world cinema whose filmography has accumulated nearly 21 million admissions at the French box office alone. D’Alfonso Cuaron in 2018 with Rometo Jane Campion’s western The Power of the Dog, currently leading the Oscar nominations, to The Lost Daughter by Maggie Gyllenhaal based on a novel by Elena Ferrante, Netflix is investing more than ever in the 7th art.
If the director’s latest films have not had the success of the previous ones (less than 700,000 admissions for TS Spivet (2013) against nearly 4.5 million for A long engagement Sunday (2004) or nearly 9 million for Amelie Poulain), the director’s name enjoys an aura within world cinema.
However, the platform continues to be frowned upon by many directors for whom the theatrical release of their films is an essential prerequisite before landing on the platforms. A false debate for Jean-Pierre Jeunet for whom “things don’t replace each other, they add up“: “platforms have not replaced cinema, which has not replaced theatre. There will always be movies in theaters for the big movies. The world is changing, you have to adapt“.
And to denounce the hypocrisy of an industry where “marketing has taken over and now the decision makers are people coming out of business school telling you how to make a movie“.
But above all for the director, the anguish of the theatrical release is over: “As soon as a film is released, we have our eyes fixed on the number of admissions. When you are told there are 200 spectators, it’s a disaster. There, there are half a billion potential viewers since they have (about 220) million subscribers. If 1% watches it, that’s a lot of people“, he underlines.
“When I started signing with Netflix, people laughed at me. I was told: you should not and today, everyone calls me to tell me that they want to go“, he says.
If he assumes with BigBug a break on the form, the bottom remains of Jeunet all spat: “Those who like my work will love it; those who don’t like it will love to hate it“, he quips. Supernatural, childhood, imaginary: Jean-Pierre Jeunet returns to his favorite subjects with an obsession, “to make films that are pleasant and entertaining“. And to drive the point home: “there are two kinds of directors: those who are constantly renewing themselves, but who have no style. And there are those who always make the same film, in a way: Tim Burton, Woody Allen… I rather subscribe to this tradition. At the risk of getting tired faster, it’s true”.