Movie reviews, production notes, and more! - "How I Killed My Father"

Movie Production Notes: How I Killed My Father

Notes provided by New Yorker Films SYNOPSIS Forty year-old Jean-Luc is a successful gerontologist living in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Versailles with his beautiful wife Isa. On the surface, Jean-Luc appears to have everything one could want from life, however the unexpected arrival of his long estranged father (Maurice) promises to shatter Jean-Luc's facade. A quiet yet lively man, Maurice abandoned his wife and two young sons years ago, without any apparent misgivings, to practice medicine in Africa. Upon his sudden return, Maurice is quick to view his older son's life and world with a detachment that verges on cruelty, and it isn't long before he profoundly disrupts the fragile and truly imperfect bourgeois lives of Jean-Luc and those around him. In the face of a father who charms, disgusts and rejects him, Jean-Luc can no longer avoid confronting his own past. Secrets are revealed, and the crisis triggered by his mysterious father will alter things forever... INTERVIEW WITH ANNE FONTAINE How did you get the idea of this prodigal father's return? I wanted to explore the theme of the intruder again, the unexpected element that invades a stable world, shattering its codes. That was already the case with Nettoyage a sec (Dry Cleaning), where a young transvestite altered the lives of a couple of ordinary shopkeepers. Here, the unexpected return of a father, who displays no feelings of paternity, brings pressure to bear on his entourage and, in particular, on his older son whose life has all the exterior trappings of success. I felt that it was interesting to see how a father, who apparently feels no guilt, is forced to confront his two sons, who also believe that they have turned the page on the Oedipus chapter. The incessant struggle between the conscious and the unconscious, revived by this belated relationship, imperceptibly leads the characters to expose themselves, an experience from which no one emerges unscathed. Why do two such close characters as a father and his son always have so many scores to settle? Why must a son "kill " the father figure? Because this is the most ambiguous and most complex relationship possible. All romantic and passionate relationships lead to confusion and paroxysm. But this particular one is lodged in the very depths of our personality, and it can suddenly catch up with you just like that. It's as if, at times, you were a ventriloquist's dummy controlled by your father or your mother. You never know why but, all of a sudden, you feel your father or mother's expression on your face, overriding your own, as if there were someone else inside of you. There are also some fairly basic and naive feelings that we'd like to awaken in our parents. We can tell that Jean-Luc, the son played by Charles Berling, would like his father to be proud of his social success. But Maurice displays a certain critical irony in relation to his son's materialistic world, which is the very contrary of his values. Being suddenly exposed to the implacable eye of this particular father (and the eye of Michel Bouquet, above all) creates a heightened sense of tension in the hero. As the story progresses, Jean-Luc feels increasingly threatened, as if he were face to face with his closest enemy. I wanted to conjure up suspense through this father-son relationship, a relationship that goes beyond psychology since it belongs more to the realm of fatality. He's an absent father... They are both absent for each other. This man, the father, left for reasons that we never discover, while his son was still an adolescent. He has hardly ever been in touch since. We know that he has lived for a while in Africa. The son has had to build himself up, without "killing" the father figure or hating him. Indeed, this absence creates enormous unease, especially as the father shows none of the emotions normally experienced in this kind of reunion. The questions are all the more powerful for it: What is the filial bond? What does it mean to be someone's son? What does it mean to be someone's father? Can we communicate with the people who brought us into the world? We are all concerned by conflicting relationships. This gives the film's title, which translates literally as "How I Killed My Father"... The title plays on the Freudian nature of the subject. But we could have added: "And how I managed to revive him shortly after." Both ideas are inseparable. Even though they are strangers, father and son live out the deep-rooted relationship that binds them beyond death itself. We often imagine, after losing our parents, that one of them could return like a ghost and infiltrate our world, revealing all its aberrations. That's what happens here to Jean-Luc. The film's denouement marks the birth of a being who had been living alongside himself until that point. You say that Jean-Luc is, like many of us, "a petty criminal " on an everyday level. Yes, Jean-Luc has made objects of his wife, mistress and brother. He is no longer in contact with his emotions, he is frigid on an affective level, and blind to what people are experiencing around him. In the end, his father is unwittingly his savior, even if his presence leads to a spiral of destruction. I wanted the emotion to arise from the nonsentimentality of the characters, from dealing with relationships coldly, by letting them move around in a chemical manner, making the characters clash together without us ever knowing, as in a tragedy, who is responsible. Did this subject touch you personally? Obviously, in writing with Jacques Fieschi, both of us delved into our personal experiences. I have always been unsettled by the idea that anyone should be a father or a mother "naturally". For me, that has never been innate. There are people who probably have that within them, a sort of gift for handing on and educating. But, for many others, it's infinitely more complicated. Such relationships escape all moral judgment. This father is honest enough not to attempt to conform to the pretence of obligatory feelings. A false relationship is worse than anything. In the film 's first scene, a man bitterly confesses to his doctor: "I have a son. He's two now. When he turns 20, I'll be an old man. I'll have no hold over him, no prestige in his eyes... I look on him as a stranger. Almost as a threat." Yes, a child is a threat. Of course, the arrival of a baby is a "happy event"; we all know that cliché...which has some truth. Yet it's also the most terrifying thing that forces you to face up to your responsibilities. You're aware of that every day when you're someone's daughter or son, someone's mother or father. You can never get it out of your mind. But there's also the idea that you become a father to your own father or your own mother's mother. A leading American psychoanalyst says that you can only reappropriate your father or your mother when you see a glimmer of childhood in him or her again: to achieve that, you have to undertake a long journey. That's what the film shows. I don't think I would have tackled the film if I hadn't suddenly had the responsibility of having a little boy of my own. God knows it took me long enough to make my mind up. How, as you were writing, did you set up the relationship between the father and his two sons, the bonds between the two brothers and their reactions to the father? I immediately had the idea that one of the two brothers was working for the other. I felt that it was cruel that in the same family one son has been a brilliant success while the other has been sacrificed in a way. Jean-Luc has given his younger brother Patrick a very ambiguous job: he has made him into a sort of factotum. The two brothers don't have the same level of knowledge, or the same level of implication in relation to the their father. Patrick never knew his father. Between Jean-Luc and his father, there's a sort of mirror effect. It was interesting to see how this brotherly relationship could evolve and how the father would end up more comfortable with the son he doesn't know, or in any case more touched by him. The father's return shatters the foundations of Jean-Luc's perfect world as the son who has "made it" and around whom all the characters gravitate. The father turns up like a billiard ball. Jacques Fieschi and I tried to set up a sort of choral construction so that we could get inside each character. It's not just the father-son duet. It was important to see how the arrival of the father in Jean-Luc's armor-plated life unsettles each of the characters. In a way, these different forms of unease interpenetrate. For example, this man of 70 who has sealed off all affection suddenly feels more touched by Isa, his daughter-in-law, than by Jean-Luc, his elder son. There is a non-sexual crystallization but he finds her attractive, something in her arouses him. Without the intervention of the father, the couple was probably heading for the rocks. All the same, Jean-Luc feels a sort of admiration for this father who decided to slip his moorings one day. Yes. It takes guts to leave everything behind. At the same time, this creates an impossible state of affairs for the children. I'm not speaking from a moral angle: the gregarious side of the family, or the couple, can seem unbearable to one of its members. When adults - parents - break this pact, it's terrible and, at the same time, totally human. We decided never to explain the father's departure. There is a scene where the father describes the bare facts: this meticulous and purely factual description, apparently exterior to the person who experienced it, harks back to the blind arc of certain characters in Simenon's novels. In any case, we thought of them while writing. For me, it's almost a metaphysical departure. He says so: "It wasn't because of you children, and your mother was beyond reproach, but I no longer recognized myself in that life." We can't explain his act. And an actor like Michel Bouquet allows you to play on all those shadowy areas. Jean-Luc leads a double emotional life. With his assistant and mistress, illicitly therefore, he is able to have a more sensitive relationship on a sexual and emotional level. Yes, he feels totally free and at ease in this relationship with his mistress, in its abandonment. With her, at first, we sense his more humane side. With his wife, there's the problem of paternity: Jean-Luc doesn't want a child... This man, that life seems to smile on, doesn't appear to be happy. Happy people have no past! Jean-Luc is a contradictory character. Charles Berling's controlled expression hints at the intense feverishness that he must be hiding. He isn't part of his life and flesh. He no longer has access to his feelings, as if they had been expelled from him. To bring Jean-Luc to life, I observed numerous men and women from the generation that has sacrificed a great deal to what is known as "success". They now realize, in some confused way, that they have missed out on something, but they carry on as before, with the social spiral as their driving force... The choice of job - gerontologist - isn't entirely innocent. Jean-Luc practices an ambiguous form of medicine that aims to slow down the stigmata of ageing. His job is the mirror image of the anxiety that is particularly intense in rich countries: "How can I stop ageing and die in good health?" I met a number of these doctors specialized in rejuvenation who have clientele of all ages, obsessed with forcing time to stand still. Today, society itself has become a sort of Dorian Gray. Jean-Luc knows that he isn't treating cancer or heart problems; he isn't fooled by his cynicism. Father and son exchange some very scathing lines. "It's hell being your son... You made me with your ice-cold cum, " says Jean-Luc to his father who replies, "I'm not obligated to love you. " Jacques Fieschi and I immediately felt that this line had its place in the final confrontation. It then allowed us to rewind the whole tale from that point. Indeed, a father or a son is not obligated to love his child or parent. Thanks to the father's words something is overthrown in their relationship, even if, at that point, the son receives them as an attack, like any sort of catharsis. The behavior of this father, about whom we know nothing, creates a sort of suspense throughout the film... We never know what he has come there for. He arrives, he watches, he wanders around a church... Michel Bouquet is a miracle of ambiguity; we never know what he's thinking. He was supposed to usher in a certain element of menace, never of a factual nature, simply a vague threat. This father scratches away at all the weak points of lies that appear before him but he doesn't quite do it knowingly. I wanted to create a character who is there, all the time, whom you can no longer get rid of and who is nonetheless ready to leave of his own free will! Time is dilated, unreal, we don't know over what time-span the story takes place. After their confrontation, Jean-Luc caresses his father's cheek as if to help him to close his eyes and move peacefully towards death. It's an intensely emotional scene. This caress says more than all the words of reconciliation, and moreover, nothing proves that there is reconciliation ...however we realize that Jean-Luc will never be the same man again. He can move towards his new life at last. For the first time probably, the father has fulfilled his task as a father. Can we say that the father figure's "murder" is finally carried out in this gesture of the reconciliation made by Jean-Luc's behalf? I'd rather call it a comforting gesture. I've tried to suggest a pacified relationship in the dual violence of death and birth. The relationship with the father continues to obsess us all the time after death occurs. Here, at least, they have seen things through: the one can live and the other can leave. With this caress, the father lets himself go. Was he already dead or not? That remains open to interpretation... Is it a possibility that Jean-Luc imagined the whole story? You're wondering about that? Good... I feel that it's a waste of time to limit any understanding of the film. I'd like the audience to sense that they have missed certain things. I have tried to direct the film from both possible angles. We can consider that Jean-Luc receives the letter at the beginning in a state of intense shock and that he imagines his father's arrival in the shape of a mental projection: if I had seen my father again before his death, how would he have altered my life? Or, it can simply be his memories of what truly happened. Or even a blend of dreams and memory... Finding the right balance was hard: if we had been too explicit, the idea would have seemed artificial. I wanted to leave things uncertain and view the complexity of what we see from that angle. Was the idea of the flashback to start the story clear from the outset? The first draft of the screenplay was in chronological order, without the letter announcing the father's death. Two months before shooting, I felt that we were missing an element that would situate the father's arrival. From a novelist or a screenwriter's point of view, I also had to deal with the arbitrary factor - "Why does the father step back into Jean-Luc's life on that particular day?" -that was going to influence my way of filming and viewing my characters. In talking with Jacques, I felt that we needed a decisive element to bring this father back. And what can be more decisive than telling a son that it's all over, that he'll never see his father again! In each of your films, the choice of setting has a precise meaning. The 13`x' arrondissement of Paris in AUGUSTIN ROI DU KUNG-FU, the city of Belfort in NETTOYAGE A SEC (DRY CLEANING) and, here, Versailles, with its bourgeois residences and empty streets. In the film, the landscape of Versailles is very abstract, as if it were part of Jean-Luc's mind, as if he were projecting his father onto it, too. I'm not interested in social satire. I opted for a "bourgeois" suburb, a more constricted setting than Paris. I like to move towards a slow concentration of the relationships between my characters. In Paris, people are more anonymous. Moreover, I wanted two worlds to clash, even if this is referred to in a subliminal way in the film: Africa, the dark continent (literally and not in the Freudian sense) and this asphyxiated town where the air no longer circulates. You approach the characters with a considerate camera, with long takes and circular tracking shots that allow you to slowly approach the mystery that surrounds their lives. I have tried to physically choreograph my direction as if Jean-Luc's gaze were diving into the relationships with the different characters. I wanted to follow him from the inside with the camera. I tried to keep this camera receptive, to reveal the characters while concealing them. I wanted viewers to think, "What am I missing?", leaving them free to use their own imagination and superimpose their own story... Michel Bouquet has an amazing presence after such a long absence! It's fascinating to work with an actor who is so rare in every meaning of the word. From the word go, he was intrinsically linked to my desire to make this film. In my eyes, Michel Bouquet is the actor who, without voluntarism or eccentricity, best embodies a unique form of originality. There is a sort of mysticism in his way of approaching his work. He always leads things to a higher plane. Michel Bouquet isn't an actor who is concerned only with his own role, and he is right because the way in which others see a character can change the way of performing it. He seeks solutions, investigates all the time, without any preconceived ideas about his performance. Every means of access to a character is possible with an actor of his caliber. He doesn't bother about the character's psychology, he attempts to corner it on its deepest, most paradoxical level. When you meet him for the first time, the man is intimidating with a gaze that pierces right through you. From the moment he accepted, we established a ritual for our meetings. I had to free myself of my timidity. We made a pact: I would direct him like a young actor. If I had allowed myself to be impressed by his aura, how could I have ever dared to say, "We'll redo that take."? My main concern with him was to work in a relaxed way. The more relaxed the character, the more disturbing he would seem and the reason for his presence would seem less scheming. I often told Michel, "Maurice is free, he has come for nothing." There are moments in the film when Michel's face appears completely at peace. I would tell him, "Relaxed, relaxed, Michel" and he would look at me and say "That's the toughest thing that a director has ever asked of me." In some of his films, especially those with Chabrol, his face was harder and blanker. Here it is open, more receptive, with a sort of abandon. You had previously directed Charles Berling in NETTOYAGE A SEC (DRY CLEANING). Charles is an actor who is part of my original family, he could have been my brother. To play Michel Bouquet's son, we needed a mentally focused actor with a great deal of interiority. We can sense the fragility and sensitivity beneath his skin. This was important for the scene where he speaks extremely harsh words to his father. In his performance, you can sense a pain that isn't expressed in his words. Charles was very excited by the idea of working with Michel Bouquet, who is a sort of father figure for many actors. Charles isn't scared of making mistakes when we work. He makes suggestions, he never wants immediate results, but lets the character emerge within him. He also had to accept the idea of being unsympathetic. Jean-Luc is very unsettling at first. Just as Charles wasn't afraid of playing someone who is sodomized on an ironing board in Nettoyage d sec (Dry Cleaning), he wasn't afraid of moving towards a certain harshness in this film. He realized that he needed to show the dryness of this increasingly dehumanized character before leading it imperceptibly towards a certain humanity. You pit the blonde Natacha Régnier against Amira Casar, a brunette. They compliment each other perfectly. I fell in love with Natacha on seeing her in La Vie revée des angles (The Dream Life of Angels). She has unbelievable spirit. I like her physique very much. She excites the imagination. We don't know what she is hiding either. I chose Natacha because there is a sort of opacity in the blue of her eyes and there is something Hitchcokian about her. At the start of the film, her character seems diaphanous, totally smooth, but little by little, it proves to be less well defined than we think. Despite her youth, Natacha is a very precise actress. I loved the idea of making her a real woman on screen for the first time - that's my Pygmalion side! Amira could provide something more maternal in relation to Natacha's character... She has the physique of a tragic actress, with her Greek profile. I thought it was interesting to give her a sober, muted part as if she were not expressing the suffering she feels at having to take a back seat to the wife. Stéphane Guillon is a revelation! I was looking for someone to write the sketches for Patrick among the young stand-up comics. I heard about caustic texts and cold humor. Moreover, he was totally credible on a physical level as Berling's brother. I like his face; you feel that he's taken a beating from life. His character, a loser, arouses a great deal of sympathy. Stéphane is a natural actor, both ironic and fragile. Blending actors from different backgrounds is always highly stimulating. INTERVIEW WITH MICHEL BOUQUET Did you know Anne Fontaine's work? When I saw Nettoyage a sec (Dry Cleaning), I thought to myself, "This is a real filmmaker!" Anne Fontaine tells an absolutely terrifying story in an exceptionally economical manner. The film has its own rhythm ...it charms you. You are in the characters' shoes; you enter the pathetic scheme of this Eros of provincial dry-cleaning shops and twilight zone nightclubs! I was struck by the way that she used amorality to deal with a subject that demanded a moral treatment. The film quite simply astounded me because of its contemporary and, at the same time, very classical aspects. As if the filmmaker has superimposed the contradictory levels within her own personality. She observes the classic rules while introducing personal forms. Just as Grémillon, Renoir and Vigo did... Having often performed the works of contemporary writers like Beckett or Pinter on stage, I find that she has the same manner of placing the audience in a state of shock in relation to a problem and of leaving it free to choose what to think. We're in shock, but this shock remains pure, it isn't interpreted, the audience is left free to deal with what it feels. Another important quality: Anne is able to find her subject and remain fully within it. She deals with it in every aspect. She pulls no punches! This is all the more interesting when dealing with such a universal subject as the one tackled in HOW I KILLED MY FATHER. We are all confronted with the relationship to a father... Yes, and if we aren't, that poses a problem, too! Did the subject particularly touch you? My father never spoke to me. He was a man who had been broken by the Great War, then later by the Second World War. He came back from these wars a wreck. He could no longer speak. He only came to life with his friends from the regiment when they came to see him. They would talk about what they had lived through, and at such moments, I would see my father come back to life. He existed again, and I found him incredibly charming. As soon as his pals left, he would withdraw into his shell again. Since his death, he lives twice as intensely within me, and strangely, I can feel myself becoming a little like him. Why must we "kill" our father figures? A father is killed by life. A father is killed but he lives on within us... I was in this state of craving that Anne Fontaine describes but I didn't kill the father figure. This business about killing the father figure seems a little childish to me. You don't kill him. I don't support this psychoanalytic explanation, even if I can understand what's behind it. The interesting thing, I feel, is the fatality of our condition. You see things much more clearly, I believe, when you accept, as the Greeks did, that fatality is stronger than we are. The fact of knowing that you are mortal is very constructive, but Pascal already said that. We must accept finality. Yes. I'm not tempted by utopias. One utopia always gives way to another, which is just as futile: they are hoaxes and mirages. We are living in a time when utopia rules. It has never been so present. I think it's better to say that we are mortal, limited, and that we build ourselves up through all that. It's like a relationship or like love: they're constructions, too. Tell us about your character. What do you think of this man who decided one day to abandon everything? If everyday life was such a burden that it made him feel like killing himself, then it was better for everyone that he followed his feelings. I think that he went to Africa as a sort of vocation. If there were no vocation, his departure would seem scandalous and absurd. He must have been driven by the desire to answer a call that was of the utmost importance for him. This man, who is in a situation of excessive cruelty in relation to his family, turns out to be a person of great humanity. He probably knew that he would be more useful as a doctor somewhere in Africa. In returning to his children, he manages just in time to unravel something serious that could occur and to play a fairly exemplary father's role. Do you think that he returns in a spirit of reconciliation, fired by feelings of remorse? With the idea of making peace with himself? No, I don't think that he has any regrets or remorse. That would be a sentimental point of view that, in my opinion, would ruin the film. I believe that the problem has already been solved as far as he is concerned. The suffering that made him leave is now no longer there. When a man no longer needs the bandages on his wounds, it's all over; the problem has been solved even if this is cruel, all the more so because of its very cruelty. We're dealing with a grown man who was suffering in his daily medical routine in a provincial town. His departure wasn't a childish whim. The poverty and need that he found in Africa was so manifest that he devoted his life to them. The compensation thus occurs naturally. Therefore he needs to answer a sort of call. Yes. People talk very little about vocation these days. It's considered as an old fashioned, outdated thing. That's false. I believe that every human being needs to follow a vocation. Today, we don't look at others so we don't look into our hearts either. This is serious because it's within ourselves that we find the need to act and do things. There's a sort of necessity about this man's decision. I do not think that he has found happiness but he has found a path and follows it. It's a way of being upstanding. A human being needs a form of heroism in order to live. "Genius cannot be commanded," Mozart used to say. That's what this is: being commanded. I suppose that he has considered all the problems, of what remains in a child of its mother and father, as well as its own individuality, but he cannot do anything about all that. It's a question of fatality. These are the problems of our condition. That's how things are. At one point, he tells himself that, since he cannot do anything, it's best to follow his feelings. His departure left a void, but his return will be more constructive. What interested me about this project was less the character than the subject. The film shows that a father can be an exemplary father, even if he isn't present, even if he waits until the last minute to play his role as a father. Even if harsh words and violent gestures are exchanged... That doesn't mean that he doesn't love his son. It's like this spiritual understanding, a deep understanding, a loving feeling perhaps, very deep but impossible. Those things happen... But he has enough self-control to tell Isa "That's very cruel of you." It's comforting to know that contact between a father and a son is always possible. Yes. In a way, through leaving, this father has freed his children of genetic traces that weigh down on the younger generation and can hamper its freedom. That's a very interesting point of view. There is also the father's fondness for this young African whom he has helped and initiated into the medical world. It's scandalous for his children but, at the same time, heroic in a way. In the end, in following his inner path, he hands on an ethic of freedom to his two sons whom he hasn't known. Now, of course, there's this tragedy in the story, the void that can never be filled. Ever. But when a father who has always been close to his children dies, doesn't the void exist even so? In one emotionally charged scene, the father ends up confessing to his son, "My whole life has slipped away... Without me grasping anything... Like a smokescreen... I have touched things... I've learnt nothing... I don't want you to be like me. " Yes, especially as his son has tried to kill him, a few second earlier. We even believe that he has killed him! At the same time, this notion of the void is expressed by the father's spectral nature. We don't know if the father has really been there. It's very subtle. Three shots underline this spectral aspect: when he sits thinking on his bed in his son's house, the shot in the shower and, at the end, when he is like a dead man. We can't tell. Once the father passes away, fatality means that we become this father in turn. What is this man feeling at the end? The rift is stronger because of their violent clash. The fact of acting like a father, and the ensuing emptiness, leads to a terrifying conclusion ...death can then step in a few days later. In any case, only inexplicable things are genuinely beautiful. Are you pleased with your return to the big screen? Absolutely. I have never been as obedient as on this film and I was happy to obey. I felt the need to obey from the word go, in fact, because I sensed that the director was in full control of her subject and that whether I had balked or not, that wouldn't have changed a thing! She had authority. You seem impressed by Anne Fontaine's work. Yes. I talked with her a great deal, asking her a number of questions about the situations and the lines that she had given me. But the credibility attached to this character is entirely her doing. I obeyed to the letter. Indeed, she wouldn't have accepted things otherwise, and she would have been right. When I started out with Grémillon, I didn't want to talk things over either. On Anne's film, I was transported and charmed and kept telling myself, "This seduction must be based on something, I have to work even harder." She dominated this work. Anne asked me some very precise things, often without my realizing it. She would say, "No, no expression there, nothing..." She was probably aiming for that spectral aspect. She worked towards that, but she didn't tell me about it, worried that it would appear put-on. She manipulated me, but being manipulated by a brain like her is wonderful. She worked with me, and she worked on the film as she did that. The investment of this woman in her work is incredible. At one point, in the middle of shooting, I though, "It's going to kill her" - every shot is an incredible struggle with the elements, the actors, the lighting and the camera. I had never come across a director with such physical commitment. I have a lot of admiration and affection for Anne. I can't think of many great directors who could handle this subject so well. And the fact that she is a woman makes it all the more magnificent. INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES BERLING With each film, Anne Fontaine asserts her personality, style and world. And you have been lucky enough to accompany her along this path. Yes, with this film Anne has moved on to a new stage. It's very pleasant to work with a filmmaker who is at a very fertile stage in her career. Anne is intensifying her style, and at the same time, each of her films is different. She is seeking. I particularly appreciate the way in which she is aware of the social aspect of her subject, the power struggles between people. Like any good artist, she doesn't reject them, she uses them. But she also goes beyond that, creating an extremely powerful dream-like, fantastic world. Her cinema isn't theoretical. No. Anne tackles important themes without necessarily explaining them. She deals with them through a composition of images, rhythm, editing ...in short, a genuinely cinematic approach. As a result, we sense them and recreate them for ourselves. Her research into the emotions and sensations that she can feel in relation to the film is immediately apparent in the form. The questions that she asks herself are always linked to the very subject that she is dealing with. For me, this doesn't mean simply working on the aesthetic of film. The very notion of the aesthetic of film is justified by emotions, in other words in this film by the feeling experienced in approaching a subject as powerful as the relationship between a father and his son. Being from the same generation as Anne, this is a subject that I sense very strongly. What chord does it strike within you? A very powerful one. It's a "federating" theme; each one of us can add something of our own experience to it. The screenplay, by Anne and Jacques Fieschi, works so well because it is both precise and open. Casting aside the fictional aspect, the nature of the subject means that we adhere to it by adding very secret facets of ourselves. This story inspired a great many ideas and questions within me. We're all looking for a father, even if he is present. Why must we "kill" the father figure? Every son has to kill his father. With this title, How I Killed My Father, we are at the heart of the issue. That's the true subject of the film. "How is Jean-Luc going to manage to kill off the father figure? Will he manage it or not? In what dimension? A real dimension or an imaginary one?" The cinema is already an unreal dimension, so this forces each one of us to deal with the question. Yes, how must he kill him? By every means possible, of course ...and, as you're killing the father figure, you grow terribly fond of him; you're in a typical life situation, in other words a contradictory one! Has this film helped you "kill" the father figure, if you hadn't already done so? I don't know. I'll have to think about that. I think that when you ask yourself that question, you've already done it! It's a question that we never really express in words. No, people don't say, "I wonder how I'm going to kill my father?" We do it without being aware of it. And, at a given moment you realize that you have done something pretty terrible, so you think, "Gosh, that must be it!" Moreover, soon after, your own children turn up to kill you! That's where the film is so successful since it creates a dimension that is neither symbolic nor real but both at once. Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick's last film, also had that blend of dreaminess and reality. The 80's and 90's rationalized a huge number of things whereas now, we are discovering the shortcomings of this rationality. For Anne Fontaine, Jean-Luc, your character, is representative of certain men of his generation, totally obsessed by success. Our generation entered working life in the 80's, in such a rationalistic time that now, as we reach our forties, we ask ourselves questions in relation to paternity or the world, and we realize that we cannot use reason to sum up everything. All of a sudden, irrational forces, powerful ones in any case, call out to us. I find many facets of my own personality in this film. Not simply because the film deals with the filial relationship but because it's a generational film. Jean-Luc is a gerontologist, an "anti-ageing" specialist. Holding onto eternal youth seems to be a major modern concern. The film tackles a number of ideas in passing, the transformation of the moral viewpoint in the world of science, for instance. In talking with plastic surgeons, or Dr. Maurice Dray, to prepare the part, I was able to observe that very recently, in less than ten years, the feeling of guilt has diminished concerning treating human matter, rejuvenating cures, various gerontology therapies, etc. All of a sudden, there has been an explosion, something has altered, the guilt has vanished, and people can tackle these fields and talk about them. Ours is the first generation on the cusp of this freedom from guilt. Future generations will deal with these subjects without the Judeo-Christian notions that held us back until now. But the idea of living until 300 is a nightmare! The father's arrival shakes the foundations of Jean-Luc's world. In this film, the relationship with the dreamlike unreality of certain situations is interesting because my generation has sought refuge to a great extent in a certain rationality, in a very strong pragmatism, partly as a reaction to the previous generation that was influenced by utopian ideas and that has a more dreamy, less directly useful approach. It's interesting to take a character like Jean-Luc who has succeeded, precisely thanks to a certain devotion to pragmatism, because he has fought this hard battle, and to confront him all of a sudden with a ghostly apparition that goes beyond his understanding and that he cannot control. Jean-Luc has this contradiction and dialectic power within him, both of which interested me. Especially as we are between reality and dreams. Jean-Luc's relationship with his father is very strong but also very unreal because of the fact that his father left home. He has known his father without really knowing him. The father's image had a very strong existence, but he has rid himself of it; he has had to manage alone since childhood. How can a father's absence be filled? It's not so much a matter of knowing how to compensate for the father's absence but of knowing if, in the end, we miss a father who leaves. Does an absent father give you less strength to deal with life? Not necessarily. On the contrary, an abandoned child is forced to confront problems that force him to pull through. He has to call on his life force and, very quickly, gets used to using that force. Jean-Luc has built his life on this absent father; he is literally a self-made man. What harms a child is the lack of clarity, or confused situations, and the father, who leaves, like his father in the film, doesn't create a hazy situation, so he manages to get by. At what cost! His whose life is conditioned by this absence... Of course. The idea of paternity doesn't represent such a big problem for him by chance. There's a mirror effect with his father. He appears insensitive, without emotions. Precisely. When I see the start of the film, I find the son to be deader than the father, which says it all. There's a sort of morbidity about the character of Jean-Luc. He has relinquished a share of his emotions in order to confront the realities of life. The film marks the opening of all these drawers that he wanted to close. That's where psychology becomes anecdotal; we're at the heart of a tragedy. Two and a half years ago, I played Oedipus and so I necessarily see enormous coincidences with this film ...and not only due to the subject matter, paternity and all that, but because of the quest. What is the tragedy today? How can one relate or evoke it? We're dealing with tragic problems. Specifically tragic. Were you particularly apprehensive about the final scenes? Yes, of course, assaulting a much older man, who embodies the father figure to boot, is extremely violent, as horribly violent as assaulting a child. Moreover, Michel Bouquet is an actor whom you don't feel like hurting! The major difficulty in the film was figuring out how to control the performance, the emotions and the situations, to leave room for the imagination. That is precisely what is beautiful in the film. At first, we are side-tracked, with the camera leading us through fairly empty preparatory spaces, then comes the party with the father's arrival, and we enter this world without knowing if it's reality or a dream. As for the notion of murder, it remains highly and purely symbolic at first. Even if we don't necessarily have to follow these symbols within the fiction. It must be fascinating for an actor to sway between reality and unreality. Yes. It's interesting on an acting level to have to get across doubt and duality. Is the character dreaming? Is he in the real world? What is the relationship to be maintained, in the film and in your acting, between form and content? I was very happy on this shoot because today you all too often come across "calculated" films; in other words, the screenplay is built up, everything is planned, and the whole thing is shot by sticking to what is written, to the letter. A film like this one is a fantastic experience since, from start to finish in its production, during preparation, shooting, and even editing and mixing, Anne considered the issue of the film's very form. The guideline leaves a great deal of freedom for a more pure and more essential form of emotion. What memory do you retain of your encounter with Michel Bouquet? Professionally, Michel Bouquet represents the image of the father. The man and his career prove that you can accumulate a series of unique, diverse and powerful experiences while retaining a certain authenticity in relation to your own life and main motivations for doing this job. His charisma touches and strengthens me. There are enormous riches and major lessons to be found in such an encounter. After shooting wrapped, I wanted to travel a little further along the path with him by doing a book of interviews on both the actor's profession and, at the same time, on the differences, resemblances, attractions or rejections that can exist between his generation and mine, while examining this notion of the father on a deeper level. We can learn a lot from the great actors of his generation. Michel Bouquet is a little like he is in the film, very present, like a father, but he also has a sufficiently adventurous mind to avoid imposing himself. Michel has a quality of being totally present when in fact, his very presences evokes a totally different world. As when he performs. For me, he embodies the humor that we must have in relation to life, being there without being there. A little out of synch. FILMOGRAPHIES ANNE FONTAINE 1978-88 Dancer and actress (Joseph Russilo, Robert Hossein) 1986 Assistant director on LE VOYAGE AU BOUT DE LA NUIT, a stage adaptation of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel with Fabrice Luchini. 1991-92 Writes and directs LES HISTORIES D'AMOUR FINISSENT MAL EN GENERAL (LOVE AFFAIRS USUALLY END BADLY) with Alain Fromager, Sami Bouajila, Nora Djeziri, Jean-Claude Dreyfus and Eric Métayer. Critics' Week at Cannes 1993, Prix Jean Vigo 1993. 1994 Writes and directs AUGUSTIN with Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc. Selected for "Un Certain Regard" - Cannes 1995, and for the Montreal, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals among others. 1996-97 Writes and directs NETTOYAGE A SEC (DRY CLEANING) with Miou-Miou, Charles Berling, Stanislas Merhar and Mathilde Seigner. Selected for the Venice Film Festival (Best Screenplay Award) 5 César nominations and Most Promising Male Newcomer César. 1999 Writes and directs AUGUSTIN ROI DU KUNG-FU (AUGUSTIN KING OF KUNG-FU) with Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc, Maggie Cheung, Darry Cowl and Bernard Campan. Selected for the Toronto Film Festival (September 1999). 2001 Writes and directs COMMENT J'AI TUE MON PERE (HOW I KILLED MY FATHER) with Michel Bouquet, Charles Berling, Natacha Régnier, Stéphane Guillot and Amira Casar. MICHEL BOUQUET 1946 (Theater) CALIGULA by Albert Camus LE RENDEZ-VOUS DE SENLIS by Jean Anouilh 1946-47 (Theater) ROMEO ET JEANNETTE by Jean Anouilh 1947-48 (Theater) L'INVITATION AU CHATEAU by Jean Anouilh 1948 (Theater) LES JUSTES by Albert Camus 1949 (Cinema) PATTES BLANCHES (WHITE PAWS) Jean Grémillon 1953 (Theater) L'ALOUETTE by Jean Anouilh 1954 (Theater) LES POSSEDES by Albert Camus 1955 (Cinema) NUIT ET BROUILLARD (NIGHT AND FOG) Alain Resnais 1956 (Theater) PAUVRE BITOS by Jean Anouilh 1960 (Theater) LE RHINOCEROS by Eugène Ionesco 1964 (Theater) LES JOUETS by Georges Michel 1965 (Theater) LA COLLECTION by Harold Pinter 1966 (Theater) TEMOIGNAGES IRRECEVABLES by John Osborn 1966 (Cinema) LE TIGRE SE PARFUME A LA DYNAMITE (AN ORCHID FOR THE TIGER) Claude Chabrol 1967 (Theater) L'ANNIVERSAIRE by Harold Pinter LE BOULANGER, LA BOULANGERE, ET LE PETIT MITRON by Jean Anouilh 1967 (Cinema) LA MARIEE ETAIT EN NOIR (THE BRIDE WORE BLACK) François Truffaut 1968 (Cinema) LA ROUTE DE CORINTHE (THE ROAD TO CORINTH) Claude Chabrol 1969 (Cinema) LA SIRENE DU MISSISSIPPI (MISSISSIPPI MERMAID) François Truffaut LA FEMME INFIDELE (THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE) Claude Chabrol 1970 (Cinema) LA RUPTURE (THE BREAK UP) Claude Chabrol UN CONDE (BLOOD ON MY HANDS) Yves Boisset BORSALINO Jacques Deray 1971 (Cinema) JUSTE AVANT LA NUIT (JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL) Claude Chabrol 1972 (Cinema) L'ATTENTAT (THE FRENCH CONSPIRACY) Yves Boisset LE SERPENT (NIGHT RIGHT FROM MOSCOW) Henri Verneuil 1973 (Cinema) DEFENSE DE SAVOIR (FORBIDDEN TO KNOW) Nadine Trintignant FRANCE SOCIETE ANONYME (FRENCH ANONYMITY SOCIETY) Alain Corneau 1974 (Cinema) BONS BAISERS...A LUNDI (KISSES TILL MONDAY) Michel Audiard 1975 (Theater) MONSIEUR KLEBS ET ROSALY by René de Obaldia 1976 (Cinema) LE JOUET (THE TOY) Francis Veber VINCENT MIT L'ANE DANS LE PRE Pierre Zucca 1977 (Cinema) LA RAISON D'ETAT (STATE REASONS) André Cayatte 1978 (Theater) EN ATTENDANT GODOT (WAITING FOR GODOT) by Samuel Becket 1979 (Theater) NO MAN'S LAND by Harold Pinter 1982 (Cinema) LA DANSE DE MORT Claude Chabrol LES MISERABLES Robert Hossein 1985 (Cinema) POULET AU VINAIGRE Claude Chabrol 1991 (Cinema) TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE (EVERY MORNING OF THE WORLD) Alain Corneau TOTO LE HEROS (TOTO THE HERO) Jaco Van Dormael 1993 (Cinema) L'IL DE VICHY (THE EYE OF VICHY) Claude Chabrol LA JOIE DE VIVRE Roger Guillot 2000 (Cinema) MANOSCRITTO DEL PRINCIPE (THE PRINCE'S MANUSCRIPT) Roberto Ando 2001 (Cinema) COMMENT J'AI TUE MON PERE (HOW I KILLED MY FATHER) Anne Fontaine Also, from 1980 to 1995 at the Théâtre de l'Atelier: LA DANSE DE MORT by Auguste Strindberg LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE by Molière L'AVARE by Molière LE MAITRE OU LE TOURNOI DE GO by Yasunari Kawabata FIN DE PARTIE by Samuel Becket AVANT LA RETRAITE by Thomas Bernardt LE ROI SE MEURT by Eugène Ionesco LES COTELETTES by Bertrand Blier Since 1999: A TORT ET A RAISONS by Ronald Harwood CHARLES BERLING 1981 (Cinema) MEURTRE A DOMICILE Marc Lobet 1985 (Cinema) VACHERIE François Christophe 1992 (Cinema) LES VAISSEAUX DU CUR Andrew Birkin 1993 (Cinema) JUST FRIENDS M.H. Wajnberg 1994 (Cinema) COUPLES ET AMANTS John Lvoff PETITS ARRANGEMENTS AVEC LES MORTS (COMING TO TERMS) Pascale Ferran CONSENTEMENT MUTUEL (MUTUAL CONSENT) Bernard Stora DERNIER STADE Christian Zerbib PULLMAN PARADIS Michelle Rosier UN DIMANCHE A PARIS Hervé Duhamel 1995 (Cinema) NELLY ET MR. ARNAUD (NELLY AND MR. ARNAUD) Claude Sautet 1996 (Cinema) RIDICULE Patrice Leconte LOVE ETC. Marion Vernoux 1997 (Cinema) OBSESSION Peter Sehr LES PALMES DE M. SCHULTZ Claude Pinoteau NETTOYAGE A SEC (DRY CLEANING) Anne Fontaine 1998 (Cinema) CEUX QUI M'AIMENT PRENDRONT LE TRAIN (THOSE WHO LOVE ME CAN TAKE THE TRAIN) Patrice Chereau LA CLOCHE (short film) L'INCONNU DE STRASBOURG Valéria Sarmiento 1999 (Cinema) FAIT D'HIVER Robert Enrico L'ENNUI Cédric Kahn UN PONT ENTRE DEUX RIVES (THE BRIDGE) Géard Depardieu and Frédéric Auburtin UNE AFFAIRE DE GOUT (A MATTER OF TASTE) Bernard Rapp 2000 (Cinema) SCENES DE CRIMES (CRIME SCENES) Frédéric Schoendoerffer STARDOM Denys Arcand COMEDIE DE L'INNOCENCE (COMEDY OF INNOCENCE) Raoul Ruiz LES DESTINEES SENTIMENTALES Olivier Assayas 2001 (Cinema) COMMENT J'AI TUE MON PERE (HOW I KILLED MY FATHER) Anne Fontaine JEU D'ENFANTS Laurent Tuel LES AMES FORTES (SAVAGE SOULS) Raoul Ruiz Television CONDORCET, M. Soutter MONSTRE AIME, F. Compain LA FEMME A L'OMBRE, T. Chabert JULES ET JIM, J. Lebrune UNE FEMME A SUIVRE, P. Dewolf Theatre LE DIBBOUK by S. Anskym.Leiser / M. Leiser ÇA (comedy show) / Charles Berling PASSAGE HAGARD a show by the Mirabelles LES DERNIERES NOUVELLES DE LA PESTE B. Chartreux Théâtre National de Strasbourg and J.P. Vincent LE RETOUR by Harold Pinter / Stuart Seide ENTRE CHIEN ET LOUP by Christophe Hein / Bernard Sobel L'ECOLE DES FEMMES by Molière / Bernard Sobel LES ORPHELINS by Jean-Luc Lagarde / Christiane Cohendy LE PARC by Botho Strauss / Claude Regy LES VOISINS by Michel Vinaver / Alain Francon CE QUI RESTE D'UN REMBRANDT by Jean Genet / Jean-Michel Rabeux LE PUBLIC by Federico Garcia Lorca / Jorge Lavelli CONVERSATIONS D'ARTISTES les A.P.A. Théâtre de l'Athénée LE PERROQUET VERT by Arthur Schnitzler / Michel Didym MONSTRE AIME by Javier Toméo / Jacques Nichet CONVERSATIONS D'IDIOTS les A.P.A Walter LE MOLI (Festival d'Avignon) LA MAMAN ET LA PUTAIN by Jean Eustache / J.L. Martinelli UNE SALE HISTOIRE by Jean Eustache / J.L. Martinelli L'EGLISE by Louis- Ferdinand Céline / J.L. Martinelli LES MARCHANDS DE GLOIRE by Marcel Pagnol / J.L. Martinelli LE BAVARD by Louis-René des Forêts / Michel Dumoulin DE MES MAINS PROPRES by Pascal Rambert / P. Rambert LE CHASSEUR DE LIONS by Javier Toméo / J.J. Préau L'HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT by Igor Stravinsky / Orchestre National de Toulouse ROBERTO ZUCCO by Koltès/ J.L. Martinelli L'ANNEE DES TREIZE LUNES by Rainer Werner Fassbinder / J.L. Martinelli, Paris revival, November 1996 DIPE LE TYRAN by Sophocle par Hölderlin / J.L. Martinelli CRAVATE CLUB by F. Roger-Lacan / I. Nanty Théâtre de la Gaité-Montparnasse-Paris Productions SUCCUBATIONS D'INCUBES Les Surréalistes, Théâtre de l'Athénée Le SPECTACLE COMIQUE Théâtre Essaïon Show for the 20th anniversary of the Syndicat de la Magistrature Institut du Monde Arabe ORDURE by Robert Schneider, translation by Claude Porcell with Alain Fromager at the TN.S. Writer & Adapter ÇA (comedy show) PASSAGE HAGARD MONSTRE AIME LE CHASSEUR DE LIONS (short films) NATACHA REGNIER 1989 (Theatre) LE TROISIEME JOUR by Mackenzie A. Pauwels (Brussells) 1993 (Cinema) THE MOTORCYCLE GIRL (short film) Stéphane Carpiaux 1994 (Television) CECILE MA FILLE Marion Sarraut ANGE ESPERANDIEU Alain Schwarstein 1995 (Cinema) DIS MOI OUI Alexandre Arcady UNE CHANSON POUR JEANNE (short film) Anne Crété 1995 (Television) UN MONDE MEILLEUR Laurent Dussaux PETITE SUR Marion Sarraut LE NID TOMBE DE L'OISEAU Alain Schwarstein 1996 (Cinema) ENCORE (MORE) Pascal Bonitzer Prix Jean Vigo Prix Jean Carmet Nomination Prix Gérard Philippe 1997 1997 (Cinema) LA MOUETTE (short film) Nils Tavernier LA VIE REVEE DES ANGES (THE DREAM LIFE OF ANGELS) Erik Zonca Best Actress-Cannes 1998 European Film Award 1998: Best Actress Cesar 1999: Most Promising Female Newcomer 1998 (Cinema) LES AMANTS CRIMINELS (CRIMINAL LOVERS) François Ozon 1998/99 (Cinema) LE TEMPS DE L'AMOUR (A TIME TO LOVE) Giacomo Campiotti 2000 (Cinema) TOUT VA BIEN, ON S'EN VA (EVERYTHING'S FINE, WE'RE LEAVING) Claude Mourieras 2001 (Cinema) COMMENT JA'I TUE MON PERE (HOW I KILLED MY FATHER) Anne Fontaine LA FILLE DE SON PERE Jacques Deschamps AMIRA CASAR 1989 (Cinema) ERREUR DE JEUNESSE Radovan Tadic 1991 (Cinema) LE SILENCE DE L'ETE (short film) Véronique Aubouy 1994 (Cinema) AINSI SOIENT-ELLES Patrick Alessandrin SORTIE DE LYCEE (short film) Caroline Champetier DEPART IMMEDIAT (short film) Thomas Briat 1995 (Cinema) TIRE A PART (LIMITED EDITION) Bernard Rapp SHARPE'S SIEGE Tony Clegg 1996 (Cinema) MIRADA LIQUIDA Rafael Moleon MARIE BAIE DES ANGES (ANGELS SHARKS) Manuel Pradal LA VERITE SI JE MENS (WOULD I LIE TO YOU?) Thomas Gilou, César nomination for Most Promising Female Newcomer, Trophée du Film Français 1998 1996 (Television) BEETHOVEN, UN AMOUR INACHEVE Fabrice Cazeneuve 1998 (Cinema) LE CUR A L'OUVRAGE Laurent Dussaux LE DERRIERE (FROM BEHIND) Valérie Lemercier TOT OU TARD (SOONER OR LATER) Anne-Marie Etienne POURQUOI PAS MOI Stéphane Giusti 1999 (Theatre) HEDDA GABLER by Henrik Ibsen / Mes Raymond Aquaviva with Jean-Claude Dauphin, Petit Théâtre de Paris AUNT DAN AND LEMON by Wallace Shawn / Mes Tom Kairn with Miranda Richardson, Glen Hedly, Almeida Theatre, London 2000 (Cinema) LA VERITE SI JE MENS 2 (WOULD I LIE TO YOU? 2) Thomas Gilou QUAND ON SERA GRAND (ONCE WE GROW UP) Renaud Cohen 2001 (Cinema) NOURRIR LA LUNE Jacques Baratier BUNUEL ET LA TABLE DU ROI SALOMON Carlos Saura COMMENT J'AI TUÉ MON PÈRE (HOW I KILLED MY FATHER) Anne Fontaine 2001 (Television) MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS USA / Great Britain, with Alfred Molina JACQUES FIESCHI Editor-in-chief of CINÉMATOGRAPHE Magazine for 10 years Cinema POLICE Maurice Pialat QUELQUES JOURS AVEC MOI (A FEW DAYS WITH ME) Claude Sautet UN WEEK-END SUR DEUX (EVERY OTHER WEEKEND) Nicole Garcia ARCHIPEL Pierre Granier-Deferre SUSHI SUSHI Laurent Perrin UN CUR EN HIVER (A HEART IN WINTER) Claude Sautet LES NUITS FAUVES (SAVAGE NIGHTS) Cyril Collard LE ROI DE PARIS (THE KING OF PARIS) Dominique Maillet LE FILS PREFERE (THE FAVORITE SON) Nicole Garcia NELLY ET. MR. ARNAUD (NELLY AND MR. ARNAUD) Claude Sautet PLACE VENDOME Nicole Garcia L'ECOLE DE LA CHAIR (THE SCHOOL OF FLESH) Benoît Jacquot based on Yukio Mishima AUGUSTIN ROI DU KUNG-FU (AUGUSTIN, KING OF KUNG-FU) Anne Fontaine LES DESTINEES SENTIMENTALES Olivier Assayas SADE Benoît Jacquot COMMENT J'AI TUÉ MON PÈRE (HOW I KILLED MY FATHER) Anne Fontaine L'ADVERSAIRE Nicole Garcia - based on Emmanuel Carrère Writing LA SOMNAMBULE Xavier Giannoli Theatre SCENES DE LA VIE CONJUGALE directed by Rita Russek by Ingmar Bergman - Stephan Meldegg Adaptation Théâtre de la Madeleine SOUVENIRS AVEC PISCINE directed by Bernard Murat by Terrence McNally, Théâtre de l'Atelier Adaptation with Anne Wiazemsky He has published two novels, L'HOMME A LA MER - Editions Lattès (Prix du Levant 1990) and L'ETERNEL GARÇON - Editions Grasset (1995) Official Web Site: http://www.newyorkerfilms.com/newyorkerfilms/html/ Back to main movie page Showing Today at: Click here for other showings