The French connection
Lelouch premieres new film, explores past at SDIFF
For all its abstraction and artsy liberties, Claude Lelouch's new film, "The Courage to Love," aims to appeal to an American audience.
"The first version was very French," Lelouch said through an interpreter. "Even French people wouldn't have understood it."
After screening his film for an enthusiastic crowd at the King Center Saturday night, the legendary French director explained that the featured version was only one of several different edits.
Photo by Matthew Jonas jonasm@mscd.edu
Ron Henderson (left) walks the red carpet with Claude Lelouch (right), director of the post-war epic, "Les Mis‚rables," opening night. Lelouch directed three films shown during the festival: "Les Mis‚rables," "A Man and a Woman," and "The Courage to Love."
"Courage" was one of the three Lelouch films shown at this year's Starz International Denver Film Festival, as part of a tribute to the veteran film figure, who has played a multifaceted role as writer, director, cameraman, producer and actor during his storied and vaunted career.
Along with screenings of Lelouch's 1995 World War II drama, "Les Mis‚rables," and 1965's critically acclaimed "A Man and a Woman," "The Courage to Love" was a fitting and illustrative tribute to Lelouch's subtly subconscious cinematic vision.
"(I believe) there are two types of intelligence," Lelouch said. "There's rational intelligence and a second intelligence that is irrational ... Music speaks to this intelligence, to our subconscious intelligence."
All of Lelouch's featured films exhibit a profound fascination with this abstract side of the human experience as they test narrative boundaries and plumb contextual depths.
"Les Mis‚rables" is a stirring and vibrant tale of war and its casualties even as it is a retelling of Victor Hugo's literary masterpiece. Lelouch weaves the tale of Jean Valjean into a story borne of the privation and atrocity of the second world war. The director pulled from his personal history to add a fresh spin on the classic tale. It is an intensely intimate narration, as it relies on human drama to explore France's role in the conflict.
"I adopted this piece in honor of my mother, who was stopped by the Gestapo during the war," Lelouch said at the film's screening. "France is a marvelous country, but it is full of contradictions. There were as many traitors as there were heroes during the war, and life was so complicated that it was easy to pass from one to the other."
"A Man and a Woman," Lelouch's touching and earnest romance, was perhaps the best-known of his features among Starz audiences. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, this film established a host of cinematic conventions in terms of montage and cinematography. Lelouch mused on the importance of the film in establishing his reputation and defining his career.
"The last time I saw this film was 20 years ago and I am very moved," he said. "This film was a miracle. It was made for $3,000 and it allowed me 40 years of (artistic) liberty."
The apogee of the tribute to Lelouch was in the screening of "The Courage to Love." The taut and multi-layered drama displays all the characteristic themes that have marked Lelouch's work for the past 30 years. From the tightly controlled score to the narrative-within-a-narrative, "Courage" is Lelouch at his most honest and abstract. Lelouch explained that much of the film's natural and spontaneous feel came from the way it was filmed.
"The entire film was practically improvised," he said. "Film is like ice skating (in that) there are imposed figures and free figures. Life is much stronger than the script and I prefer to film my characters in a way that captures the interior of life's drama."