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: Since 1967 and the success of the film A man and a woman, your success has never slowed down despite some failures. Each failure even seems to have helped you move forward and come up with something else. You believe a lot in chance.
Claude Lelouch: Yes, I want to say that he is my main agent because he has all the nerves, he is a player, has a sense of humor, he takes risks. It’s the opposite of everyday life, which tends to give you habits and chance hates them. Chance is an adventurer and adventure is chance.
The film Adventure is adventure allowed many to realize that you were a very good director of actors. It’s true that directing Lino Ventura or even Jacques Brel was no mean feat, but they trusted you. Is trust the basis?
Yes, because it’s like in love. When you are in love and all of a sudden you are able to love someone else more than yourself, you switch to generosity. And from that moment, the actors make you gifts. And it is these gifts that make the most beautiful scenes in my films.
“My favorite scenes from all my films are the ones that weren’t in the script and that were born out of crazy moments on set. It’s when the shoot goes further than the script that I breaks me.”
Claude Lelouchat franceinfo
That’s life ! The main actor of our destiny is life. You have a schedule, you have things to do, and life is going to allow you or not. It will make things easier for you or complicate them for you. We have to play with her because she is stronger than us. I believe in this great scriptwriter that is life and I accept all his decisions. Life is a hassle race in Wonderland.
You have launched and supported many actors who have been Caesarized through your films. I am thinking of Jacques Villeret, Jean-Paul Belmondo or even Fabrice Luchini. Is that important to you?
Yes. They gave me extraordinary gifts and they were rewarded. I believe that seven of my actors won the César for best actor, it’s a very nice indirect reward. The Césars have rewarded most of my actors, but never me.
There have been nominations, but no Cesar. Is it a regret?
Not at all. You know, the Caesars are a wonderful and twisted thing because we vote for the people we are the least jealous of. So, if people are jealous of me, I’m very happy.
Each story heralds the next, that’s how you work, by the way. You say that you film the perfumes of truth.
Yes. The truth, no one has it, but the scents of truth exist. These are small moments of spontaneity that at some point make you in sync with what you are saying. You know, when we say “I like you” you have to look someone in the eye because the eyes are the only part of our body that can’t lie. That’s why cinema has so much strength, it’s because we film people’s eyes.
I am a hunter of truth scents since I know that the truth does not exist and that it changes all the time. I adapt very well. It’s my big fault, I like everything. I love intelligent people, I prefer idiots because they are more photogenic and with them, we make films that work better.
50 films in this entire career, well known, well loved, well received. There is a film that is very important to you because it is one of your most personal, it is One and the other. It occupies a very important place in your life.
Yes, because it’s a film about my memory, about this trauma that the war was for the child that I was. And that’s in wartime, anything is possible. It is in times of war that we see where the good and the bad are. This is where we see where the brave are, where the cowards are. So it’s a terrible passing exam for mankind.
Is that what shaped you?
Yes. I think that if I hadn’t known the war, I wouldn’t have done all that I did. There are indelible traces of this period which means that, each time I have a little problem, I say to myself: it’s less serious than the war.
Everyone’s story does not begin only at the moment of their birth, our end of story is the beginning of another, that’s what One and the other. In the end, more than three million admissions for these three generations gathered in four countries, at a time when the war is back, in Ukraine, it is also a very beautiful symbol.
We are still spoiled children and it’s true that I see it, my parents who lived through the war and the post-war period, everything that happened afterwards made them smile.
“‘The Ones and the Others’ is a film that shows that, alas, one needs extreme suffering to appreciate things.”
Claude Lelouchat franceinfo
Today, we have a generation of people who whine. We can’t appreciate how lucky we are to live in the times we live in.
Is this film also a way to thank your parents?
Yes, it’s a movie that I really like. It’s crazy because I met a lot of people who said to me: “This is my movie, this is my story“. Then it’s a film that I want to dedicate to my parents since it is thanks to them and thanks to this war that I was able to make this film. Once again, I recovered the worst.