Pantomime continues the approach established in*Le Géographe manuel*: that of films composed from a series of separate shoots, taken over the course of months, each time at a specific location or site. Could you elaborate on this unique creative method? Has it evolved since the first film? Has it shifted or changed for this film?
Thirty years after*Le Géographe manuel* (1994), I wanted to return to 35mm, following the approach of my first feature film with a meticulous “shoot-and-edit-in-camera” method that tracked the changing seasons. Seven shoots in black and white and seven in color. I showed the first preparatory synoptic reels to Claire Mathon, who has been accompanying me over time since the trilogy Socrate pour prendre congé (2017), Carte de visite (2019), and Oeil Oignon (2021). It would have been fatal to retrace that path, however. The world had turned, and we with it. Each of these films establishes organic connections with the others by playing with the ontology of beginnings—that is, by setting new horizons and new unknowns to move forward in the dark.
What perhaps sets this film apart is that a central figure runs through it, in keeping with its title: that of Pierrot. That is, the guardian figure of an art form where gesture replaces speech. Why this figure? Is he the inspiration for the film? How did he enable you to compose it?
Ah, Pierrot—or Pierrot.e, to be more precise. The conductor’s jumpsuit passes from woman to woman, except once with flutist Matteo Cesari, who performs live the flute part of certain songs from Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Colombin.e is embodied by François Morel in a sewer worker’s jumpsuit. Fin-de-siècle Pierrot is everywhere. I drew primarily from Jules Laforgue’s “Complainte de Lord Pierrot.” Visionary poetry of eternal relevance. After that, it took shape as it went along. Pierrot.e is not the film’s sole theme. Let’s say it serves as a bridge.
If it isn’t Pierrot, what is the origin?
The film’s origin, however, remains the black-and-white recording of Pasternak’s Prelude (1906), performed for the film by Stephanos Thomopoulos.
The geography is also more limited—compared to the profusion of locations in*Carte de visite* (FID 2019), for example. The film is set between Paris and London, with a significant stop in Le Havre, that is, on the way from one capital to the other. Can you comment on this geography? Why this Franco-English focus?
London. It seemed only natural to go film the ruins of the Crystal Palace while miming to the first piano movement composed by Angèle David Guillou.
Leaving, boarding the ship in Dunkirk, disembarking. Once again, making the geographical journey to explore the myth of London. It’s a good thing that this single shoot in London left such an impression on you. I actually wanted to go back there with color. Don’t forget, the film is luxuriously poor and draws just as much from its impossibilities. One might say it was necessary to experience London through the framework of G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Called Thursday,” particularly the moving opening clerihew. There again, pastiche…
Your film reflects a collector’s insatiable curiosity, once again with a predilection for a specific period in history: the turn-of-the-century era straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, between the Eiffel Tower and the Crystal Palace, Laforgue and Chesterton. Why this era? What draws you to it?
Very accurate, the horseshoe century. I can be even more precise. This transhistorical journey begins in 1906 with Pasternak’s Prelude, followed by Maurice Ravel’s “Grands vents venus d’outremer” (1906), read and then sung by Laura Müller. There again, eternal relevance. In fact, everything takes place between 1906, 1912 (the Titanic and L’Après-midi d’un faune), and ends in 1936 with the Crystal Palace fire, all viewed through the lens of today. A long, premeditated synoptic tableau.
Beyond the Paris-London axis, the film allows itself a few detours and digressions—notably to Brittany to film the impressive ruins of the manor house of Saint-Pol-Roux—an iconic Symbolist poet of the century? What drew you to him, to those ruins?
Brittany—or more precisely, Finistère—is not, in my view, a digression.
It is the place, the places from*The Geographer’s Handbook*. However ghostly and lost they may be.
Saint-Pol-Roux!!! He is as indispensable to me as Satie is to Cage. He was from Marseille, by the way. There, too, one must go to pay him homage, carrying voices with one. Life is nothing but the Legend of Death. There is so much to say and learn from him. We are far beyond poetry. There, too, he was an absolute visionary, like Max Jacob and Victor Segalen. Do not let the pedants tarnish these three friends. They are from another century… perhaps… perhaps… but so far ahead of their time.
Here, you take your art of editing—the composition of images and sounds—to a new level of sophistication and musicality. Can you tell us about the editing, about your approach to working with such disparate material?
That’s a big question. Editing happens all the time, day and night. During each shoot, right afterward, I work with Justine Arsène to rough-cut the initial framework and structure, so we can send the footage to the musician we’ve selected. That musician might be in Japan, New York, or Auvergne. Since*Oeil Oignon*, I’ve been creating the musical score for each musician who has seen at least the first*Géographe manuel*. Each piece of music is as instrumental as the images and organic sounds. I never use pre-recorded music. It has to be performed live or in real-time. Real-time being a form of live performance in a sense.
Then there is the final editing, which allows for the delivery of the voices—their placement here, those of Audrey Bonnet, Ella Orleans, etc. Then all the music becomes one.
Like your previous films, PAN TO MIME impresses with the generosity with which it seems capable of embracing everything within its poetic flow. Is that your ambition as a filmmaker? To turn everything into poetry—in keeping with the Greek etymology of “pantomime”?
The Manual Geographer is ethical and uncorrupted. The forging of friendships among one another thus takes place within this contiguous discontinuity. It gives new meaning to Max Jacob’s aphorism: “Blessed is he who marks the film.”
Interview by Cyril Neyrat
