2024-04-23 20:20:04
An emblematic figure of French cinema, Claude Lelouch was the guest on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. At 86, the multi-awarded director looks back on his love for the 7th art. A story that began in the dark rooms of Nice, while the Gestapo was looking for him.
Born in 1937, Claude Lelouch experienced the full brunt of the German occupation. Threatened with deportation by the Gestapo because he was Jewish, he had to remain very discreet. It is there that his mother finds the ideal refuge.
“My mother hid me in the cinemas of Nice. It was the only place where I might stay for hours without moving. I spent the entire occupation there (…) My mother entrusted me to an usherette at two in the followingnoon, gave him a little tip and then I stayed for three sessions in a row,” he recalls.
The people on the screen are the same as those in the street, but more beautiful, more courageous, more intelligent
Claude Lelouch, French director
A unique experience which formed the imagination of the man who would later become a director. “Very quickly, I said to myself that the people who are on the screen are the same as those who are in the street, but more beautiful, more courageous, more intelligent. I said to myself that These were the people I wanted to meet and very quickly I understood that cinema was better than life, so I tried to make it my job,” he describes.
The actors, “high-level athletes”
Claude Lelouch will indeed succeed in making it his profession. After being a reporter, he began making the first music videos of the time, without success. He then turned to his childhood love, cinema. In 1966, he exploded cinematic codes with “A Man and a Woman”. Along the way, he won a Palme d’Or, a Golden Globe and two Oscars.
Since then, in nearly 60 years of career and more than fifty films, the director has tried his hand at all genres: comedy, with “L’aventure, c’est l’aventure”, esoteric madness with “La Belle History” and, of course, love stories with “La Bonne Année” or more recently “Un plus une”.
>> See the portrait of Claude Lelouch once more in the 7:30 p.m.
Portrait of French director and producer Claude Lelouch / 7:30 p.m. / 2 min. / today at 7:30 p.m.
Behind his camera, Claude Lelouch then films certain duos of actors who will become legendary: Anouck Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Luc Belmondo and Richard Anconina for example.
Asked what his secret was for magnifying these actors, the director believes that we “don’t direct the great actors” but that we can dose them, in order to avoid going off track. “A director without an actor is not much. I am there so that there are no accidents,” he explains.
And added: “It’s true that with my love of actors, I considered them all to be high-level athletes and I wanted them to break a certain number of records in my films (.. .) So I asked them to be a little more real than usual, to play a little less, to be spontaneous.”
“I love life with its contradictions”
Claude Lelouch constantly seeks this spontaneity because he is in search of reality. “I am a reporter of my time. I have encountered all my characters. I have heard the dialogues of my films. I have been an attentive observer. I love life, with its contradictions, its beauties, its horrors too, I very quickly understood that all of this was useful, that everything had meaning,” he says.
I knew a time when people cried, now they are whining. I knew a time when they laughed, now they sneer
Claude Lelouch, French director
The music of his films is another very characteristic element of the French director’s filmography. For Claude Lelouch, she is a character in her own right.
“It’s the music that speaks best to our irrational side. The scenario speaks to the rational side and tells us that we are mortal. The music tells us that we are here forever, “It’s a bit like the language of God,” he believes.
“We have the tools to create a new world”
Finally, when asked regarding current events and in particular the return of violence and the resurgence of anti-Semitism, the filmmaker refuses to see it as a desperate situation.
“I experienced a time when people cried, now they whine. I experienced a time when they laughed, now they sneer (…) I experienced deportations, I saw people leave and no longer not come back. I really saw the misfortune up close (…) Everything that is not war is sweet”, he judges.
Claude Lelouch therefore sees the current era as “wonderful” in comparison. “We have all the tools to create a new world and all the tools also to bring regarding the end of the world, it’s true. But we are spoiled children,” he concludes.
Comments collected by Philippe Revaz
Adaptation web: Tristan Hertig
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