To me the recognition of the audience is part of the filmmaking process. When you make a movie, it’s for them.
When you’re with your wife, you don’t say I love you to your wife every day but the ways you look at her and your actions are another way to communicate. Don’t focus on dialogue, only focus on what you’re expressing.
When you do not have the dialogue to explain things, you will use everything to show and to tell the story. I think that this is what makes you believe that it is impeccable.
Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I’ve seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
There’s always been a struggle with filmmakers between art and industry, and you have to find a balance.
I think there’s something in common with the OSS 117 movies. The big difference is there’s no irony in this one. It’s not parody. I tried to make it very simple. It’s a simple story, but to be simple, it’s very complex in the way it’s done.
When you look at the early-’30s movies, like King Kong, the codes of acting are very similar to those of silent movies. In some of the silent movies – the good ones, the ones done by the best directors – the acting is very, very natural.
It’s just incredible. When you’re French, coming from a non-English language country, you don’t even dream about Oscar recognition or nominations. It’s just beyond the dream. It’s something very, very special and unique. It’s the highest recognition any filmmaker could dream of.
French cinema audiences usually don’t express anything. Certainly not satisfaction.
I want to thank three persons, I want to thank Billy Wilder, I want to thank Billy Wilder and I want to thank Billy Wilder.
This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There’s no question of interpretation of what we are saying it’s just about feeling. You create your own story.
I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they’ll be screened on phones, on computers – on everything.
I guess George Clooney would be a wonderful silent actor, and Leonardo DiCaprio is such a wonderful actor he certainly could do it.
If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don’t know.
I only have one obsession – not to be boring.
I am unusual for a Frenchman – I have absolutely nothing against the United States.
I love silent cinema but don’t hold it sacred. Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces.