Something that is recurrent in your films is a form of defiance, of battle, of gambling. In this case, a theory is tested against an audience already against it: the idea that what defines Corsini is not tango nor the urban space but a certain rural and creole transition. What can you tell me about betting as a narrative motor in this film, and in your films in general, or as a narrative procedure?
Well, one could say that gambling is a variation of a duel (that is no doubt the most ancient form of narrative arts), but where it is no longer strength and dexterity that are put to the test: something else is, often related to audacity. It’s a charming idea. If I am not mistaken, Jules Verne was the greatest practitioner.
My admiration for Verne, and my debt towards him, are bigger than I dare to admit. He is a rustic writer, but extraordinarily audacious and devoid of prejudices in his way of using his abilities. I recently started reading Cinq semaines en ballon with my son. The beginning is astounding. In a knowledgeable Londonian society - the Royal Geographical Society, or something along those lines - a conference held by a big adventurer, Ferguson, is announced. While turning the pages, we speculate on Ferguson. Does he really exist? Is he as remarkable as what is claimed? Etc. Finally, Ferguson appears. A huge silence falls on the room. Solemn, he pronounces a single word: “Excelsior!” The audience bursts out in applause and praise. It’s a glorious and mysterious scene, worthy of Feuillade or of Hitchcock.
Verne was an author of extraordinary talent and, contrary to Stevenson (who is definitely superior on the literary side), profoundly visual. Maybe he preempted cinema with a stronger intensity than any of his contemporaries. This probably explains the natural way he uses his tricks: whether they are subtle or not. Only their ability to evoke memorable images counts. This is where the seeds of cinema can be found in my eyes: the intrigues and the narrative devices have for sole purpose to enable images to exist.
Another recurring form in your films is digression, detour: you open a bracket that seems to lead some place else but that, of course, is never truly a gap - or at least a gap that entertains no connection with the subject. A very good example is the sequence dedicated to Pehuajó. Nomenclatura de las calles, that you even present as a sketch, for a film to come, even though it has very close connections with this one.
As you may have noticed, I am very attached to classic procedures. The detour, here, is inherent to the type of journey the film belongs to. One can think of Les sept voyages de Sindbad le Marin: they are, indeed, a collection of detours. One can struggle to remember the reason why Sindbad begins his journeys, and from the third onwards, start to assume that it’s exactly because of the detours that he continues travelling. Whoever, after the challenges of the monstrous island or of the Roc bird, would choose to stay at home rather than avoid any new crossing. Yet, Sindbad continually leaves, exposing himself to new tragedies and new wonders that never cease to reveal his secret passion for chance and the unexpected. This appetite for wonders is inseparable from the idea itself of journey as a story.
Vinicius de Moraes’s famous song expresses this perfectly:
A felicidade é como a pluma
Que o vento vai levando pelo ar
Voa tão leve, mas tem a vida breve
Precisa que haja vento sem parar
[Happiness is like a feather; That the wind carries through the air; It flies so lightly, but has a brief life:; It news the wind to blow incessantly.]
The literary traveller is precisely this feather. The wind, on the other hand, is the impulsion of fiction that carries him from one place to another. I like to think that our detour by Pehuajó follows these steps.
One of the characteristics of your most recent films, that we could quality of “documentaries”, is that they don’t only present themselves as treaties, essays or biographies dedicated to subjects of particular figures, but also as artefacts that unveil their own making: documentaries about their own creation, or documentaries about documentaries, to put it otherwise.
To be truthfull, I am surprised that all films do not do this. I don’t think there is much more cinematographic than cinema itself. Isn’t it strange that Wells didn’t think to emphasise the creation of his films while he was making them? That he didn’t include, for example, instants of the editing process in his own films? He probably had the idea and it’s probably because of the industry’s habits that he didn’t do it (even if similar games exist in his Don Quichotte).
It is evident, for example, that Ford was aware of this aspect, and that the famous fragment of Bogdanovich’s documentary is present so that we could all see Ford pronounce the word “Cut !”. However, if, in front of one of Rodin’s sculptures, we appreciate unfinished parts as much as the others, why would cinema have to be any different?
Clorindo Testa, Mondongo, Corsini, and now the announcement of Borges’s biography: architecture, painting, music, literature. Is there a project in your filmography today that has to do with arts in their totality, or with arts that are not cinema?
It has to be said that all these films, except Popular tradición de esta tierra, were born from orders. They are films I was asked to make. That being said, the elements they reveal are different.
I think that I have sufficiently insisted, in over four films, on the idea that filming books, for example, so that the spectator finally accepts that it is something that I do and that I will continue to do for as long as possible, and not a simple eccentric element to a couple of my films.
A few years ago, a friend and critic said to me: “you need to change. Otherwise we will end up saying that you’re a guy that films books”. His tip worried me: I understood that, to him, books were a fad that was tolerable in a few films, but that I then needed to get rid of it. On the contrary, to me, it was something that I was not ready to let go of. Nearly as much as road or car scenes.
I therefore decided to insist on this in another few films, so that there was no doubt left. I think that at this point in time, someone who has seen my films has already resigned to finding books in them. And, instead of being aggravated by this repetition, now welcomes their presence with delight, in the same way we are delighted to see Dalio or Carette in whichever film by Renoir.
Interviewed by Manuel Asín
