What was the starting point for the 7 walks with Mark Brown and was it linked to your meeting with this botanist?
We met Mark some fifteen years ago at a seminar on “the journey of plants” at the Moutiers Woods in Varengeville-sur-Mer, where we were screening L’Arc d’Iris (souvenir d’un jardin). Mark said to us, “You have to do that here!” By which he meant film the plants of the Pays-de-Caux region as we had done in the Himalayas. Two years ago, we visited him with two requests: to give a lecture on the origin of flowers for our feature-length film Un prince and, finally (the idea had matured) to help us make a filmed herbarium on the Cauchois coastline as he had suggested.
Was the route from Aizier to Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer decided in advance?
The itinerary was, of course, well thought-out and based on a selection of botanically rich and contrasting sites. Aizier in the Eure region, a place where Vincent and I might have met thirty years ago, would be the starting point. Tracing a big loop from the Seine, we headed up the coast, passing through Le Havre, Vattetot-sur-Mer and the coastal valleys, ending up at Mark’s home in Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer. We see the film as a phytocentric road movie.
Why is the film divided into two parts, “The Filming” and “The Herbarium”?
This form became evident quite early on during filming because of the two forms of time, or rather two speeds: digital and film. These two coexist in the same movement, however, with Mark always as the only guide. But one part had to help reveal the other: the flowers, as much as the images. Mark’s voice (which we literally followed on set) links the two parts.
Did you establish a kind of cinematographic protocol for the filming of each part?
What’s special about the film is that you can see and hear the protocols adopted for each part, both in terms of filming and editing, image and sound: making the image, making the herbarium, naming the plants. “The Filming” has a freer form than “The Herbarium”, for which we imposed a few simple rules: fixed shot, wide shot, close-up.
The practice of free cinema, made among friends and where everyone contributes to the film, seems to be accomplished in the first part, in which virtually the entire team appears, even the producer.
Friendship is what we make films for and with. This is the sixth film we’ve made together, but the first really as a “team”. This little community developed around each person’s contribution. There was Mark of course, as a paleobotanist, and Antoine Pirotte, still a student at the Femis, trained in analogue filmmaking, with whom we could simultaneously go back to the origins of both cinema and flowers.
Sophie Roger, a childhood friend, assisted Antoine and then composed the music. Arnaud Dommerc, the producer with whom we have been working since Petit Traité de la marche en plaine (2014), was present for all seven days of filming. Without forgetting our friends and the people we met on the journey that we call “the inhabitants”, with whom we explore each site: Christelle Dutilleul (custodian and director of the Marais Vernier nature reserve), Catherine Sauvage (botanist) and finally Pierre Barray (farmer). The seven-day shoot was an experience as well as a way of life, which we were happily able to continue during the post-production with Joseph Squire, Matthieu Deniau (sound), and Pierre Sudre (image).
The second part revisits the locations of the walks, revealing the flowers filmed and generating a real sense of wonder. Is asking Mark Brown to name these plants part of a scientific approach, to complete this herbarium?
We aimed for a sense of wonder by retaining the somewhat raw aspect of the filming, without embellishing it too much, in order to accentuate the beauty of the images of the herbarium that come afterwards. There’s a sort of frustration in the first part at not really seeing these flowers, which only reveal themselves in the second part: “seeing the soul of plants” as Mark says. As for the sound, we wanted both to preserve the silence of “The Herbarium”, shot in 16mm silent film, and to hear Mark’s voice in the edited sound. We recorded Mark twice. Once commenting on the plants and images as he views the edited film, and once naming the plants. There’s a poetic voice and a scientific voice, and the two are linked.
The botanist’s words also express a relationship with plants, the ecosystem and life. How important were they to you?
Looking at plants is like looking at life. It’s staggering to think how much societies have distanced themselves from plants, and the extent to which it is leading us to disaster.
Mark Brown’s project to recreate a primary forest in his garden in Normandy has a utopic aspect to it which is salutary in today’s world.
Mark’s attention to life is indeed salutary. His project is scientific as well as artistic. But how can we remain in wonder today? Is it still possible to live poetically? Mark refuses everything that would prevent him from doing so, which is a lesson for us all.
Dedicating a film to this project is a cinematic gesture and an ecological and political act.
We were able to film the Ophioglossus (adder’s-tongue fern) which has survived four hundred million years, like a sister or a close and very distant friend. Cinema is the tool we use to try to rediscover a sensory world, to make images that are not hijacked by capitalism.
Interview by Olivier Pierre
