Taverniers story,told by his characters

During a conversation with The Indian Express on the sidelines of the International Film Festival of India IFFI shortly after he was conferred its lifetime achievement award,Tavernier,70,speaks of how characters drive his films and those of the filmmakers he admires.

He discusses the driving force behind such varied films as L.627 1999 and Death Watch 1980,muses whether he is an entertainer,and recalls his association with French greats such as Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. He speaks of Jean Renoir and John Ford,of Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche,and of Catherine Deneuve,whom he avoided casting because he knew she was a habitual latecomer.

At the opening ceremony of IFFI 2011,an event that is trying to bring together the best of many worlds,Shah Rukh Khan spoke about entertainment cinema and storytelling and said,Dont be afraid to break convention, a description that easily fits many of Taverniers films. The auteur was impressed: That was good8230; Everything he said I liked.

Yet placing his own films in either of those categories calls for some introspection. Is he an entertainer? I dont know. I try to make the films interesting,funny,moving; I dont know if they belong to entertainment8230; Ive seen some films where many people are laughing,were being moved,but sometimes even on difficult subjects, he says.

I must not belong to the entertainment world because of these films,nobody wanted to do them. And a lot of them became successful in spite of that. With people telling me nobody would come and see them,that it was not commercial8230; and they turn out to be commercial and have a big success, he says.

I want the audience to laugh,I want the audience to be moved,I want the audience to be interested, he adds. On the other hand,I will never make a film just to make money,just to provide an easy laugh.

So,then,is telling a story what his movies are about? Yes, he says,then qualifies the reply. Telling characters. Exploring characters. Telling a flowing character,not just storytelling. Making believe that the story has been written by the character.

His Films

Few films are as strongly character-driven as The Judge and the Assassin 1976. The assassin is a man who turns into a serial killer after being released from a mental institution,where he had been admitted in the first place after a failed attempt at murder and suicide,while the judge tries to figure out whether he is a maniac or killing for pleasure. I wanted to show,how are you dealing with insanity in justice? And how justice is related to class relationships. That was a very complex story, Tavernier says.

So was Death Watch,where Harvey Keitel plays a character who has a camera implanted in his brain while the late Romy Schneider plays a woman dying of a terminal illness. Unknown to her,Keitels character is hired by a TV producer to film a documentary leading to her death. The point was to show that society was becoming voyeuristic,says Tavernier,who believes he was ahead of the times,because TV producers today are behaving similarly. He remains fond as ever of a line he wrote in the films script. Everything is of interest and nothing matters, Schneider tells the TV producer.

In L.627,a tough cop who doesnt play by the rules fights the drug trade with sheer guts,defying the constraints the police face. Tavernier decided to make the film when he discovered the terrible conditions in which the police were working,contrary to what a French minister had said.

He had said that the priority was fighting against drugs,and you are giving no money,nothing to the people who were doing that. So you announce on television that this is the priority of your government,and then you dont do it. And the film shows that they were not doing it8230; that they were not taking care of the drug addicts. I think it was a very angry film, says Tavernier. The film was widely appreciated but not,he says,by the minister,who was furious.

The Other Masters

Among the filmmakers he admires,he finds Renoir particularly gifted in letting the character tell the story. It was typical of Renoir. With Renoir,you have an impression that the story really had the same raiment as the character. When the character is fast,then the film is fast, he says.

The same with John Ford, he adds. You have the impression that the film The Grapes of Wrath goes with Henry Fonda,goes with his soul.

One of Fords eternal classics,How Green Was My Valley,based on Richard Lewellyns book and released in 1941,has as many critics as admirers because it bagged that years Best Picture Oscar at the cost of Orson Welless Citizen Kane,which is invariably placed at number one whenever a list is compiled of the best American films ever made.

Tavernier is firmly on the side of Valleys admirers. A masterpiece, he says. But didnt many feel Kane was the masterpiece? Well,How Green Was My Valley was a masterpiece too8230; Even Orson Welles thought that John Ford was the best director.

The great American directors of the 1940s are said to have greatly influenced later French filmmakers whose output,mostly in the 1960s,are still described with the expression nouvelle vague. Tavernier is dismissive of the clubbing. Its just an expression uniting people who were supposed to be friendly,putting them in the same bag, he says. Jean-Luc Godard is different from Truffaut and Chabrol is different from Eric Rohmer.

Tavernier had cut his teeth collaborating with several nouvelle vague filmmakers. He gave the voiceover for Rohmers The Bakery Girl of Monceau 1963 and once interviewed Truffaut,he says. He remembers Chabrol as a very good friend whom he lost last year.

The Actors

A common favourite of Chabrol and Tavernier is Isabelle Huppert,who worked in the formers Violette Noziere 1978 and Madame Bovary 1991,to name a couple,and in the latters Coup de Torchon 1981 besides The Judge and the Assassin.

Tavernier calls Huppert a genius,explains why he never cast her contemporary Deneuve,and believes that the current generations Binoche,while good,is not in the same league as the other two. About Deneuve,he says,Shed come late on the sets so I decided never to work with her. I knew she was arriving late. And about their skills: I think Huppert is a stunning actress. She has a wider range than Binoche. She can do everything. Huppert is a genius and Deneuve is a wonderful actress. Binoche is good but not in the same category.

Gerard Depardieu had famously attacked Binoche,award winner at the Oscars as well as Cannes,as nothing. Tavernier has never worked with Depardieu but knows him well and will not comment on the attack or the controversy it triggered: I think I am not there to say bad things about people I know8230; My job is to make films.

Much as he admires the work of others,he is still his own man. When I make a film,I am not a film buff any more, he says. I just think about the character. I stop thinking about other films. I think about the life of the character,his reactions,his emotions,only that.