AUTUMN CLOTHES
Interview with Yohei Yamakado
After Amor Omnia (FIDMarseille 2020), based on Virgil’s Bucolics, and O Marinheiro (FIDMarseille 2023), based on the work of the same title by Fernando Pessoa, in your new film you tackle Autumn Clothes by Japanese writer Ichiyo Higuchi.
Yes. No, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if tackle is… is the word. Did you feel that the film tackles the text? That these films tackle the texts?
Bouvard and Pécuchet don’t tackle texts, but they copy them, and that’s all.
That they are considered harmless fools, that is another story (laughs).
(laughs) Alright. Why did you choose this text and this author in particular?
It was the producer who suggested it to me. He was going to get financial support for this work, I think, in any case for the author’s work. I accepted.
Alright. It was the producer who suggested it. And what was the purpose?
Some of the short stories written by her have already been adapted, I believe, by Tadashi Imai. It’s not bad. It’s quite a particular kind of Japanese, a sort of ancient Japanese — that of The Tale of Genji, 11th century — but revisited or even reinvented by the author at the end of the 19th century. An average Japanese like me hears it well, should hear it, but in terms of meaning, or sense, if you will, with a certain “veil” effect. It’s a bit like, if you will, a contemporary French person appreciating, for example, the Memoirs of Saint-Simon, or even The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette, but probably with a certain sense that the meaning is somewhat veiled. Where does this sensation come from? Aesthetic, psychological, or other, it’s perhaps already a veil. And it’s ultimately above all grammatical or lexical. It’s no coincidence that the sailor is associated with the image of the sailing ship, and that forms a drama — static, if you will. Which is a sort of tragedy, a tragedy of words.
And all this — I’m still talking about this effect that I would call at my own risk veil, veiled, but not so much « sailing ship » [in French it’s a play on the words voile (veil), and voilier (sailing ship), ndt] —, because of movements of thoughts of course, but above all because of vocabulary and syntax.
And the passions that lead us to the syntax of ancient Japanese are incorruptible. Nothing / Nothing but to go today / Into the Spring. It’s solitary and upright. Don’t ask me who said it.
And I wanted to listen to them.
You wanted to listen to them.
Yes. Absolutely. Whereas at first, I wanted to listen to it, the syntax. But that’s silly.
Listening to passions is much more exciting than listening to syntax (laughs).
And listening to passions, therefore seeing them, isn’t it, is still cinema.
The film reflects the deep melancholy and nostalgia that permeate the text, feelings that are also present in your other works.
Probably.
Yes. Can you talk about that more?
Yes, of course. (long silence)
I don’t know. I don’t really know. However, Satie, whose pieces we hear in the film, wrote, at Debussy’s death, approximately quoting Lamartine: “A single being has left you, the world is depopulated.”
The ephemeral figure of two friends is made of pleasure and disappointment. And I believe it’s one of the figures that cinema has shown very well from the beginning. A Girl in Every Port, etc. And it turns out there’s melancholy in this figure, and today there’s perhaps a melancholy due to experiencing it.
In this film too, the sound of the text and its oral restitution in its entirety are central. And precisely, without grasping the nuances and meaning of the language, Rita asks Mana to continue reading by only enjoying the purely musical dimension. Can you tell us about the sound aspect of the text?
Or maybe Rita hears more than that. Or something entirely different. In any case, Rita doesn’t read the subtitles. Don’t read them either. We modern people almost never forget shoes [chaussures, in French, ndt], but maybe a bit too often Saussure.
We see Mana reading a book, and that occurs in the middle of the film. The text is central in this sense, geometric, if you will, but no more than that. However, it was recorded a year before filming; the voice recording in 2021, in February or March perhaps, and the filming in Porto in autumn 2022, a few months after that of O Marinheiro. So it is still essential, or better, elementary, if you will.
And if there’s a certain peculiarity in this film, it’s that the image is somewhat delayed, so to speak, compared to the voice: therefore to the sound. It’s a sort of “after shooting”, if you will (laughs). Or “before recording”.
The musical dimension of the film is enriched by compositions from Debussy, Satie, and some vernacular songs from the northeast of Portugal, Trás-os-Montes. How did you make these choices?
They are contemporaries: Debussy, Satie, Higuchi, these Portuguese songs. Just as Inês, Rita, and Mana are contemporaries. Bottles, tables, flowers, and things like glasses, clothes, and lemon. And in the end, all of this is contemporary. But from these pieces emanates a certain memory of the turn of the century, impressionism, landscapes, and perhaps friendships. I wanted to put them side by side. Then, listen (see) their relationships again, the relationships that exist, that could exist between them. Then between them and us. There. What does it do? — A friend told me he thought he heard a certain image of Sakamoto. I believe his ears were well conditioned by this Debussy side of Sakamoto, but it’s still an image, and therefore a link. It’s rather amusing. I think. And there would be others. Well, I hope so.
Besides, these are things that today belong to the world or universal cultural heritage, therefore by definition to a certain popular imagination. Not too precious, not too unusual, still with a certain freshness of their own. It’s everything we love. It’s everything I love. And that — especially Satie’s music, I would say — reminds us of a historic moment in silent cinema. Entr’acte, etc. These people who, following a cart in the street, jump naively, innocently, then suddenly we see Satie and Duchamp on the roofs of Paris, etc. And taking advantage of this so-called “semi-speaking” or “partially speaking” nature of the film, I wanted the soundtrack to be the place — certainly temporary and transitory, fortunately — of meetings and reunions. The music accompanies the film. Accompaniment music. We could have done without it, of course. Because, of course, image and sound are always two separate tracks. Even with DaVinci Resolve Studio, even with Pro Tools Ultimate, even with Max/Msp/Jitter, and even with Ableton Live, accompanied by Max4Live or not, and even with our ultra-sophisticated phones today, they are still two separate tracks. Besides, that’s what my students quite easily forget, or it’s something — probably because of these apparently very fluid and smooth interfaces — they don’t really realize.
In Breathless, all the voices are dubbed.
After all, we know that with music, anyway, it’s often more fun. And I prefer to offer you fun things. So, time is now furnished. Not too much. But a bit. As it should be. Background music. And like that, we might hear better, see better. That’s all the better.
You use the codes of silent cinema. Why this choice?
Or rather, I wanted to try something other than this very widespread modern and contemporary choice: talking without seeing.
Silent cinema was seeing without talking.
Besides, I thought a lot about a film; it’s The Marriage Circle, by Lubitsch. Surely because of the type of components of the film. And suddenly, I remembered that a certain Ozu liked to say that he learned editing with this Lubitsch comedy.
I, in turn, wanted to try to place the production and realization movements in this continuity. At shutter speed 1/96. In Porto and today. Certainly illusory continuity, but encouraging and friendly.
The narrative structure of the film is sober and pared down, with barely sketched characters. How did you design it?
It’s a nice way to caress the film. And it’s kind of you. But maybe we should rather say a poor and slender narrative structure!?
Nevertheless, there is a rather clear plot in Autumn Clothes, isn’t there? And it’s this: “Will Rita come back!? Won’t she come back!?”
Come and find out.
From the Pacific, which surrounds the writer’s homeland, we move to the Atlantic, on which the city of Porto, where the film was shot, opens.
Yes.
Why this choice?
To then return to the Pacific!
The construction of the set, the choice of colors, and the composition of the shots are meticulously crafted. What ideas guided you in the development of the images?
Inês, Rita, and Mana, who are not ideas, but subjects, our three dear subjects. And Mónica’s makeup. Rita’s workshop too, and the objects. Then, the landscapes of the city of Porto, in autumn: Roupagens de outono.
Finally, this red. Red in motion.
Particular attention is paid to the gaze of the characters.
Yes.
How does this interest you?
Game. It’s not very far from the eyes.
And the history of cinema, which is one of a permanent defeat of not being able to film gazes. Eyes, Eyes, Eyes, Eyes.
You know that we are showing his last film?
Yes. I will certainly go see it.
