The Cannes Film Festival inaugurates this year its first evening by the feature film Cut! by Michael Hazanavicius. Initially titled “Z (like Z)”, the film brings together Romain Duris, Bérénice Béjo, Matilda Lutz and Jean-Pascal Zadi on screen. A comedy hilarious and wacky – a shoot on a zombie movie interrupted by the arrival…of zombies! – new dedication to the genre film of this cinema lover.
1988. At the age of 20, Michel Hazanavicius joined Canal+ where he worked alongside Alain Chabat on the show Idiots. Spotted for his talents as a screenwriter when writing parody sketches, he began to design short films of diversion: Derrick vs. Superman and It distracts. Already, its trademark is taking shape: tributes to the 7th art steeped in humor and irony.
Jack-of-all-trades, he tries directing in the theater, makes a discreet appearance as an actor in The City of Fear. He will also work in advertising for brands such as Reebok or Bouygues Télécom. Commissioned by the Altmayer brothers in 2005, he produced the diptych OSS 117: Cairo, nest of spies (2006), and Rio no longer responds (2009). A success, followed in a completely different register by The Artist. From the pastiche of silent films of the 1920s to those of 1950s spy feature films, Michel Hazanavicius in five films.
The great classics of American cinema passed through the grinder
Without ever be released in theaters or on any paid streaming platform, the feature film by Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mezerette, The American Class: The Great Diversion is a cult film. On December 31, 1993, this cinematic UFO was broadcast for the first and last time on Canal+. The long montage is made up of excerpts from great American classics on which the directors have placed their own script. Inspired by Citizen Kane by Orson Welles, the film begins with the death of George Abitbol, “the classiest man in the world” whose last words are: “shitty world”. Several journalists set out to discover the meaning of these final words.
At the request of the directors, the French voices of John Wayne, Robert Redford, or Henry Fonda playfully record their character’s new dialogues. Flowery language, schoolboy jokes, absurd canvas… The explosive parody does not please Warner. The production company refusing to grant the rights to the filmmakers, the film is threatened never to be broadcast again. Missed. The American Class, recorded by amateurs on VHS tapes, circulates for years under the coat. With the arrival of the Internet, the film was born a second time: it is now available on YouTube, still free of charge.
The hijacked 1950s spy movie
Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, known as OSS 117, was born in 1949 from the pen of the French writer Jean Bruce. The story of the secret agent quickly fascinated the greatest, from Jean Cocteau to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. From the 1950s, the book was adapted to the cinema many times: OSS 117 is even embodied by Michel Piccoli in 1950 in The Ball of Spies by Michel Clement. It is Michel Hazanavicius who pays him the most beautiful tribute with the creation of two opuses, influenced by the cinema of Hitchcock and the adventures of James Bond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSnoKZuKUgU
The director transforms OSS 117 into an arrogant and stupid talker, played by Jean Dujardin. The actor plays on his resemblance to Sean Connery, his facial expressions and his sense of retort. OSS 117 goes on blunder after blunder: came to investigate the death of a French agent in an Africa which is gradually decolonizing (Cairo: nest of spies, 2006), he offered natives portraits of the French president, René Coty. Ditto when he goes to Latin America (Rio no longer responds2009) in pursuit of former Nazis: “Ah, what a story that too!”, he says about the extermination of the Jews. The key word of this crazy diptych? The shift.
The twilight of silent cinema
The most crowned French film in the history of cinema, The Artist has won more than 100 awards, including six César and five Oscars. Michel Hazanavicius revisits the silent cinema of the 1920s with today’s tools. Shot in black and white, the film swaps the graininess of the early 20th century for razor-sharp photography. In the style of feature films of the time, the director deliberately records 22 frames per second to give the impression of accelerated filming.
Beyond the technique, the film shot in the Warner studios is full of references to the golden age of Hollywood, starting with its plot: at the crossroads between Let’s sing in the rain and Sunset Blvd.. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is an actor acclaimed by the public. On the set of one of his films, he falls in love with an extra, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo). The arrival of talkies makes him sink into oblivion, while the career of his sweetheart takes off. This time, neither parody, nor diversion or derision, but a vibrant and terribly moving tribute to the pioneers of the 7th art.
Godard, the father of the new wave teased
The Redoubtable, whose name is inspired by the first French nuclear submarine launched in 1967, recounts a moment of change in the life of the essential director Jean-Luc Godard (Louis Garrel). In the background, the riots of May 68 and his tumultuous romantic relationship with Anne Wiazemsky (Stacy Martin). Adapted from her novel, One year later, published by Gallimard in 2015, the film pinpoints a macho, disagreeable and extremely Maoist Godard. He wants to revolutionize everything, starting with himself and his cinema.
Michel Hazanavicius borrows from the father of the new wave some specificities of his cinema: the voice-over, the black and white, the subtitles… If the film was received in a mixed way by the critics, the performance of Louis Garrel has been hailed: he adopts Godard’s diction – nasal voice and hissing articulation – and his style – bald head and glasses with tinted lenses. He is above all very funny and makes the monster of French cinema fall back to the status of mere mortal. In summary, Michel Hazanavicius offers a popular film about one of the most elitist figures.
Behind the scenes of a Z series
The film Cut! opens the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2022, and hits theaters the same day. Michel Hazanavicius this time pastiche a Japanese horror comedy, Don’t cut!, made by students of a Japanese art school. Originally, the film was only to be released for one week at an arthouse cinema in Tokyo. Word of mouth and his success at the Udine Festival propelled him abroad, before being spotted by Michel Hazanavicius.
Blood, sounds of slit throats, rock and roll music… The trailer sets the scene: the shooting of a Z series horror film. Actors and technical team are completely disillusioned, only the director still seem to believe it. Cut! discusses the film itself – bad, with a preposterous scenario, speeches that ring false, unconvincing makeup … – then the making of and behind the scenes of filming. A tribute again, but this time specifically dedicated to film directors.