With I Stand Alone, Gaspar Noé took the risk of causing offense and opening himself up to various ideological misunderstandings. The filmmaker explains his choices and recounts his difficulty in making a kind of cinema that is neither overly French nor rooted in the auteur tradition.

Beyond the hype surrounding his films, Gaspar Noé has emerged as one of the most surprising filmmakers to have appeared on the French cinematic scene in recent years. After studying film at the Louis Lumière school and making two short films, he directed a forty-minute film in 1991, Carne, the story of a taciturn butcher and his autistic daughter, whose first period triggers a tragic news story.    reveals a filmmaker who is as disturbing as he is talented, and makes a lot of people cringe.

In 1996, while preparing the sequel to Carne, which would become I Stand Alone, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, his partner, directed The Mouth of Jean-Pierre, using similar aesthetic principles (monochromaticism, CinemaScope, overframing) and under the same label, Les Cinémas de la Zone, their production company. Gaspar Noé's cinema has been attacked by conflating abjection and cruelty, because it does not conform to the prevailing aesthetic and moral criteria of French cinema, even though traces of a poetic naturalism, ranging from Zola to Franju, and a minimalist tradition, albeit a minority one, can be discerned.  

Gaspar Noé's cinema is a mutant cinema, a unique creation (even if Noé manages to reference even more filmmakers and films than Tarantino, his cinema is ultimately not very referential) born from an unrestricted cinephilia, with, however, a predilection for intense emotions and forbidden pleasures (Jacopetti and the cinema of extremes). Gaspar Noé's choices are eclectic but coherent, like his films. Carne could have been mistaken for a stylistic exercise driven by a blatant desire to shock. Fortunately, it's more complex than that. It's true that with its incredible technical virtuosity, I Stand Alone sometimes feels like a rollercoaster in a tiny apartment, but also like a storm in the mind, and not just the viewer's. His cinema, in fact, calls into question the role of the spectator and that of the director, questioning the cinematic tool itself by reigniting the debate on the limits of representing the unbearable.

Even more challenging, Noé's cinema dares to grapple with a reality that filmmakers usually prefer to leave to sociologists or television reports: incest, pedophilia, unemployment, and poverty. On these subjects, Gaspar Noé has a much clearer understanding than his character, an anonymous butcher, masterfully portrayed by the actor Philippe Nahon, whose body and voice are as ordinary as they are unforgettable, as an all-too-average Frenchman brooding over his disgust with the world.

With his first feature film, Gaspar Noé thus joins the few filmmakers of anti-France, those all-too-rare mavericks (Mocky, Cavalier, who else?) who do not belong to any school and prefer above all independence.

 At the risk of marginalization, since current cinema is not capable of supporting their perspective.

Where does the profound nihilism of Alone Against All come from?

­ "I don't have that much hatred. In my case, it's more paranoia. I'm not acutely paranoid, but I'm always on the defensive, calculating the worst-case scenario in human relationships; I prefer to have pleasant surprises later. In that respect, I can be compared to the butcher. On the other hand, I'm more idealistic and optimistic than him. As for my personal life… When you have a left-wing social worker mother, you learn life lessons about the power dynamics between different classes. It's ingrained in you." GN

Does your film seek to hold the viewer hostage?

"I borrowed the obsessive continuity of the voice-over from Schizophrenia, an Austrian film banned for extreme violence in the 80s. Thanks to this technique, the viewers' heads are submerged in the butcher's thoughts. During the film, you struggle to detach yourself from what he's thinking. It's only at the end that you can begin to take stock of the character, not before. Even if you recognize that he's too basic, too stupid at times in what he says, and that his impulses are hateful, you don't have time to oppose your own thoughts to his. You don't identify with him, but you're interested in him. You can be transported inside the butcher's head for an entire film without being contaminated by his thoughts." GN

You'll often be accused of ideological ambiguity or confusion. How do you define yourself politically?

"The political underpinning of my film is quite clear. I am not apolitical, I vote communist, even if I don't like the PC as a party. But it is a counterforce to the bourgeoisie and the prevailing liberalism." GN

You were born in Argentina. Where does the connection you cultivate in your film with contemporary French history come from?

"I like the idea of ​​placing a character within the society and history of their country. My character's biography is a way of saying, 'Let's stop panicking about what's happening today. Fascism wasn't born five years ago; it's always been there, and it will still be there in new forms a hundred years from now.' There's a tendency to present France as one of the victors of the Second World War. On Liberation Day, some French people felt they had lost the war. For me, it was a great victory that the British and Americans landed in France and, together with the Resistance, liberated the country. But in my opinion, it was a failure for many French people. They didn't dare bring it up for a long time, and they're bringing it up again today. I deliberately didn't talk about the Algerian War in my film. But the lead actor, Philippe Nahon, fought in the Algerian War." He was sent there against his will, to the front lines. Martine Audrain's husband, who plays the stepmother, was a communist resistance fighter who spent three years in the camps and thankfully returned. There were people on set who had lived through the Occupation and who told incredible stories. Today, we tend to gloss over the daily realities of the Occupation. There's also something I haven't much appreciated in recent years, and that's the resurgence of anti-Americanism. People blame the American cultural invasion, but they forget that it came with freedom." GN

Seul contre tous (I STAND ALONE) had a rather unusual mode of production and execution in French cinema.

"It was mainly a long process, due to a complete lack of money for filming. I had made a medium-length film, Carne, which had been shown at numerous festivals and released in theaters. When I tried to put together a feature-length version of Carne, the project was rejected almost everywhere. Canal+'s short film programs gave me some money, but to make another short film. It was the only solution for me. I started shooting some scenes, but Lucile's film (La Bouche de Jean-Pierre), which we were shooting at the same time, was costing more than expected, and the very small savings I could make for my film went towards hers. We had to finish her film and release it so that we could then finish shooting Seul contre tous and start editing. Fortunately, in the meantime, Agnès b. helped me financially." GN

How do you explain such isolation?

"I was marginalized because of my aesthetic choices. I don't belong to the dominant family of bourgeois art-house cinema, nor to the family of commercial cinema. At the same time, I want my film to have a commercial future. I have a lot of respect for films like Taxi Driver and Deliverance, but also those of Pasolini and Fassbinder, true auteurs who made their films with decent resources. That's the kind of thing I want to move towards. In France today, the system means that a handful of decision-makers have the power of life or death over a film. Many producers believe that if Canal+ rejects a feature film project, there's no point in going any further. The second point that marginalized me is that the film is violent. And even if   Eyes Without a Face It does exist, even though the 70s have come and gone with films like La Grande Bouffe or L'Empire des sens, I have the impression that every time a director wants to confront explicit violence or sexuality in French cinema, their attempts are stopped. I look forward to the day when we can make films with more freedom in France." GN

Alone Against All is unlike anything known, except perhaps "Carne"  and to "La Bouche de Jean-Pierre" . How did this aesthetic of framing, editing, and color come about? 

"Anyone can imitate Carne's style"  or Jean-Pierre's Mouth. All it takes is a few pixelated editing effects and shooting in 16mm Scope with a title card in the middle of the film. For Carne, I wanted the film to have fairly clear formal choices. Since I Stand Alone is the logical sequel to Carne, I tried to make it resemble it as closely as possible, with one exception: this time, the film was mixed in Dolby SR, which allowed for greater dynamic range in the sound. Even though I was tempted to do new things, I held back. I don't want to push this style any further. My next films won't resemble Carne  nor to  I Stand Alone" GN

The film's STAGING is a mix of pyrotechnics and minimalism. You seem to oscillate between a form of recording reality and the need to blow people away.

"It's a cheated documentary. If I had wanted to film Paris today (the film is set in the early 80s), I Stand Alone wouldn't look like this. There would be a lot more color in front of the camera. There are a lot of people and sets that I deliberately eliminated. Indeed, it looks very real, but within a totally fabricated context." GN

You acknowledge your affinity with filmmakers of your generation (Kassovitz, Kounen, Caro, and Jeunet…) who reject naturalism and French auteur cinema in favor of a cult of the imagination, or rather, of images. However, your film has one foot in fantasy and the other in naturalism. 

"Pasolini​ or Sirk as well. Sirk uses color in a very unrealistic way, and yet he talks about things very close to life. For years, I swore by 2001: A Space Odyssey and Pasolini It took me a long time to discover other filmmakers who influenced me, like Eustache, Fassbinder, or Kenneth Anger. I've seen all of Pasolini's work; he was someone who handled storytelling very well, in the Hollywood sense of the term, and yet he spoke of things close to humanity." GN     

We can sense very diverse influences in your film. You cultivate a voracious, curious cinephilia; you like films that are very different from each other.

"It's not contradictory. There are artists who culminate in a particular aesthetic and discourse, and then there are more formulaic products. When someone pushes their own approach to the limit, I respect them, and the further they go, the more fascinating I find them. Pierre Molinier's photos fascinate me; he was a lone wolf. When I saw  Vibroboy (Jan Kounen)  for the first time, I couldn't believe my eyes. I'm deeply moved by films like A Dirty Story or The Mother and the Whore, or by a good horror film that actually scares me, which is rare. What didn't exist before is that all deviant cinematic works are lumped into the same category of "cult films" or "trash films." All these films that we thought were very different (experimental, horror, or avant-garde) end up in the same festivals! But we realize it makes sense. Because cinema is an industry, it has never allowed for many deviant works or very assertive styles. Except for a few rare cases, like Godard, who was able to develop a very distinctive style over many years." GN

Does your film fit into a French tradition, more literary than cinematic, of the pamphlet?

"It's true that there's a cult of 'French-style' revolt that takes particular forms, with this revolutionary mythology where you can guillotine the king or beat up your boss. There are countries where the idea of ​​guillotining the king wouldn't even cross anyone's mind. Another film that indirectly and unconsciously inspired Carne And "Seul contre tous" (Alone Against All) is Yves Boisset's "Dupont Lajoie": a work of denunciation, the first French film that truly frightened me, more so than  Eyes Without a Face." GN

Your character is obsessed with morality. What does this word mean to you as a man and as a filmmaker?

"Morality is such a hackneyed term that we no longer know what it means. It's very Catholic to talk about morality, very Western too. Regarding Gillo Pontecorvo's Kapo (1960), who later directed the masterpiece The Battle of Algiers, Jacques Rivette wrote in Cahiers du cinéma that the film was abject, devoid of morality. I saw the film. Someone tries to escape from a concentration camp and dies in the barbed wire. There's a tracking shot of his hand, it's indeed beautiful, and music in the background accentuates the dramatic aspect, the kind of effect we see today in Titanic or Saving Private Ryan. I think that if he was indignant about the film, it was for other reasons: an Italian making a film about a young French Jewish girl who becomes a kapo to survive in the camps, with the idea of ​​redemption at the end… The film had a "A negative effect on quite a few people, but mainly in France, just like with The Battle of Algiers." GN

But for Rivette, the film was only a pretext to denounce a certain way of filming violence or war, which we find again later in Saving Private Ryan, for example.

"What you can criticize in Spielberg's film is its somewhat Manichean pro-American message. Even if the beginning is magnificent, it then falls into a very traditional narrative. As for Kapo, there was nothing to be outraged about. It's a straightforward film, whereas cinema is full of much more insidious ones. Because of the scandal caused by Pontecorvo's film, supposedly the most immoral of all time, I wanted to use the music from Kapo at the end of I Stand Alone, but I had to give it up due to rights issues! I don't see why one can be outraged by the tracking shot in Kapo and not by the piano music in Night and Fog." GN

But Alain Resnais' Night and Fog is not fiction.

"Yes, but there's a mannerist artifice to it. If you decide to tackle a serious subject, do you have to nail your camera to the ground and use no artifice whatsoever? I believe that from the moment you make a film, you express yourself through camera movements, lighting choices, and image exposure. It's not about morality but about point of view. A filmmaker conveys, more or less effectively, their emotional perception of the world in their film. Pontecorvo's perception of the camps wasn't the same as Rivette's, who, incidentally, never took the risk of addressing the subject. However, apart from this article, I greatly respect Rivette's work." GN

Very few French filmmakers, apart from Guédiguian and you today, regularly film proletarians.

"There are others. Especially Cavalier's portraits, which, in terms of human respect, are unassailable. And then there's The Life of Jesus, which films proletarians. To finance a film, you need well-known actors. And there are very few well-known actors who can be credible in the role of a proletarian or a tramp. Denis Lavant as a tramp in The Lovers on the Bridge was credible, but he's the exception. Philippe Nahon isn't a proletarian, but he's credible in the film." GN

In your work, it's more about the underclass. Even if your character doesn't have a heroic dimension, you film him like a desperado, a rebel.

"For a while, I wanted to call the film Lumpen, and my mother pointed out that 'lumpen,' even though it's a Marxist term, was now being used by the bourgeoisie or intellectuals in a rather pejorative way to describe the plebeians. It was a double-edged word. At one time, we talked about the working class and the lumpen, and we included the unemployed in the lumpen. Today, we talk about the unemployed as a social group! There are workers and there are the unemployed." GN

What can you film after a story like that?

"A project close to my heart, an extremely visual, somewhat schizoid film, a story about young people taking drugs, called Suddenly the Void. I also want to make an erotic film: either The Story of Bataille's Eye, or an original screenplay that I'm currently writing. I don't think there will be a third installment in the Butcher's Story... but you never know, an idea might come to me." GN

By Olivier Père

Published on February 17, 1998

https://www.lesinrocks.com/cinema/gaspar-noe-la-bouche-de-gaspar-100789-17-02-1998/

Photos by Eddy Brière TECHNIKART