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: Your film, A man and a woman was a colossal success, a worldwide impact with an Oscar for best foreign film in 1966 and 1967. This film finally allowed you to finally exist, to be recognized.
Claude Lelouch: Yes, I felt like I was reborn. This film made me a free filmmaker. And this freedom, I have enjoyed it for almost 50 years. Suddenly, it’s as if I had been given a passport to do this job. Me, I come from amateur cinema and I still consider myself an amateur filmmaker since amateur filmmakers are do-it-yourselfers. And it’s true that this success could have made me an American filmmaker since the American success was colossal. America offered me everything at the time.
And you refused everything?
I refused everything because I knew that if I had been entitled to this miracle, it was to make the cinema that I practiced and not a producer’s cinema. I had, right away, Marlon Brando and Steve McQueen who wanted to make a film with me, so I couldn’t refuse. I went to the United States and I understood very quickly that it was a dream machine which was a little rigged and that it needed as many close-ups for Brando as for McQueen, as many replicas for both, that it had to end well, etc. I said: no, it’s not the cinema that I make.
“When I make a film, I don’t know its end. I make a cinema which is the cinema of the spontaneity of the moment.”
Claude Lelouchat franceinfo
It was proper toA man and a woman and I said if I had the right to this miracle, it was to continue this furrow, and not to make commissioned cinema. I said to myself: so they are hiring Claude Lelouch and not letting me do Lelouch, so I told them no. It allowed me to have great relationships with all these stars who made me dream and continue. I became very good friends with Steve McQueen, that didn’t stop me, but I no longer had the “final cut”, producers are the big bosses of American cinema.
We had the reconstruction with A man and a womanafterwards Live for living which once again tells the story of a couple, but this time fragile, not far from divorced, with Yves Montand and Annie Girardot. To be a screenwriter is to tell the life of others and isn’t that also, in a way, to tell one’s own life?
Constantly. We dig into our experience. It’s already so hard to talk about things you know that if you also have to talk about other people’s emotions… Me, I don’t feel capable of that.
Is it hard to let go or not? Because in the end, you tell yourself through your stories, but you have always protected yourself.
Yeah, but if I let go, I’ll get bored. You know, it’s better to have shit than to be bothered.
There will be A man I like with Jean-Paul Belmondo in 1969, The thug with Jean-Louis Trintignant in 1970, Adventure is adventure with Lino Ventura, Jacques Brel and Aldo Maccione in 1972. When the latter came out, ideological clashes were at their peak. May 68 had reduced the gap between the boss and the workers, but you have maintained this film!
Yes, because it was my response to the events of ’68 that I hadn’t taken very seriously. I thought it was a wonderful recreation and from this playground were born Smic, smac, smoc because I was reproached for only talking about rich men and women. So I was going to talk about smicards. It was a test film to try out a camera and in the end it’s a film that I really like. And then behind, I did Adventure is adventure.
“‘Adventure is adventure’ shows how my digestion of the events of May 68 had made me laugh more than cry.”
Claude Lelouchat franceinfo
It was also a way of showing that you were a committed filmmaker, at least in your way of being. You weren’t in the politically correct.
I have always been committed to the happy medium. I think we are walking on a tightrope and I believe a lot in those tightrope walkers who try to keep the balance. I have always been afraid of extremes. I think the answer to all our problems is the happy medium. When I make a film, I am in the middle of my team. I am not more with the one who has the lowest salary or the one who has the highest. I realize that everyone is useful.
The man in the middle, we think he is a man who does not want to take risks or who does not want to get wet, it is not true, he is someone who does not want to fall off the wire. This happy medium position has always allowed me to tell myself: I don’t worry about anything in the end, I accept everything.
Well, I’m a little scared of Putin right now because if he goes crazy, the next world war will be the end of the world and that can be very serious. That’s the only thing that worries me a little bit. But I have the feeling that the Russian people who are a wonderful people are going to screw up Putin.
The film Adventure is adventure has become cult. Isn’t this finally the most beautiful reward in the cinema?
Very soon, we will celebrate 50 years of Adventure is adventure. The passage of time is the only valid criticism. And this reviewer is pretty nice to me so far.