Michel Hazanavicius
I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.Collection: Movies
Silence is a universal language. It's like music or painting.Collection: Music
I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they'll be screened on phones, on computers - on everything.Collection: Computers
The silent movie is an emotional cinema: it's sensory; the fact that you don't go through a text brings you back to a basic way of telling a story predicated on the feelings you have created.
I strongly believe cinema is popular culture. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That's life.
It's just incredible. When you're French, coming from a non-English language country, you don't even dream about Oscar recognition or nominations. It's just beyond the dream. It's something very, very special and unique. It's the highest recognition any filmmaker could dream of.
When we were making the movie, winning awards for it wasn't the point at all. We didn't even have an American distributor.
To me the recognition of the audience is part of the filmmaking process. When you make a movie, it's for them.
There's always been a struggle with filmmakers between art and industry, and you have to find a balance.
I thought 'The Artist' was a perfect way to find a good balance. The artistic challenge is obvious because the film is black-and-white and its silent, but I did my best to make the movie accessible and easy to watch. I really don't want to make elitist movies. I really try hard to work for the audience. Audiences are smart. They get everything.
The fact that I made a special movie with an old-fashioned style - even if it's a mix between with modern and old-fashioned things - must mean I feel both ways about change. In a way I'm resisting, but in a way adapting myself to the times.
It's about storytelling. The story is told through images. So with the cast, I had to make sure that the emotions were readable without sound... I know some great actors, if you turn off the sound, you don't really know what they're saying.
When you look at the early-'30s movies, like King Kong, the codes of acting are very similar to those of silent movies. In some of the silent movies - the good ones, the ones done by the best directors - the acting is very, very natural.
I think being a foreigner and talking about Hollywood allowed me to use some cliches and some references that an American would maybe not use.
But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.
Hollywood is much more than America. Hollywood belongs to all of the planet.
Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You create your own story.
Sometimes when an actor says something almost perfect, but you know you have to edit it, if you tell them to change something immediately, it will come out great.
When you're with your wife, you don't say I love you to your wife every day but the ways you look at her and your actions are another way to communicate. Don't focus on dialogue, only focus on what you're expressing.
I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre.
When you do not have the dialogue to explain things, you will use everything to show and to tell the story. I think that this is what makes you believe that it is impeccable.
I try to respect the rules of the silent movies and I tried to make signification to make sense, and also the crew were very good and the fact that we shot in LA in the real Hollywood, studios and houses. We shot in the bed of Mary Pickford, and you cannot be any more accurate than that, so that helped a lot.
I love silent cinema but don't hold it sacred. Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces.
But sometimes I think you have to try to do things that people don't think are doable.
Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that.
Robert DeNiro, who may be the greatest living actor, usually acts in a way which is very stone-faced, like Steve McQueen.
An idea is something you work on to make it work and a desire is much deeper in a way.
I'm very happy in France making movies.
I make almost all the decisions on set and have to deal with all the financial aspects.
I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie.
Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director.
Bernard Herrmann was a genius, a great, great composer.
French cinema audiences usually don't express anything. Certainly not satisfaction.
I am unusual for a Frenchman - I have absolutely nothing against the United States.
French people are strange about America, I think.
I only have one obsession - not to be boring.
When you speak of silent movies, everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin first.
If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don't know.
I've always been against the idea of dividing films between festival titles and popular movies. I think you can make films that are both.
I always try to make popular films. Even in black-and-white and silent.
My ambition with 'Redoubtable' was to make a film that would be aesthetically pleasing, charming, and touching.
Some people probably think me telling Godard's story is blasphemy. My friends were worried. But he's not my hero or my god. Godard is like the leader of a sect, and I'm an agnostic.
Even if I make fun of him, I try to portray him as a human being. Sometimes because he's the great Jean-Luc Godard, we see him as a concept.
My life is OK. I live in France. It's a very cool country to make films.
Anne Wiazemsky wrote two books about her life with Jean-Luc Godard between 1966 and 1969. And I first read the second one, which is about the fall of their love story and their marriage. I immediately thought there was a movie to make with this book because it was so funny, and I thought the love story was very, very touching.
With silent films, you're better off avoiding irony, because the spectator is your accomplice. It's this pact that leads to emotion being created.
What I love is to create a show and for people to enjoy it and be aware that's what it is: a show.
I don't make films to reproduce reality.