I need to thank my friend Andrew Parker for sending me this old Jean-Marc Vallée interview. - D.D.
Jean
Marc Valee: I wouldn’t say this was harder to do. Victoria was harder to do than Café because of its complexity, and the
world, and the homework that I had to do in order to be familiar with this
world of a royal family. It’s so anal. We had to be so meticulous about the way
they stand, they way they talk, the way they eat, their rooms, everything. It’s
much more of a challenge and more difficult than Café where part of the film is taking place in Paris in the 1960s.
The only hard thing to do there was… It’s
not a filmmaking friendly city, Paris, when you want to make a period film
because it changed so much. It should be friendly and it should be easy, but
they have a hard time, the Parisians, whenever they want to make a period film
because they put posts everywhere on the streets in order to not be able to
park on the sidewalks. They put fences in front of the schools because they had
terrorist attacks at one point.
But it would be perfect to do a period
piece in Paris because you look around and you look up at the buildings and the
churches and it’s period everywhere. But the cars and this and that and how it
changed makes it so when you ask to get rid of these fences and posts the city
asks for… it costs an arm and a leg. It’s kind of ridiculous, so it’s tough to
find the right streets to shoot in.
AP:
One of the things that’s very important in the film is the theme of parenting
and what it takes to be a parent. It’s hard for an actor to act like someone is
their child when they aren’t, especially for Vanessa Pardis who has to play the
mother of a child with Down Syndrome, so was there any special direction you
gave to the actors as to how you wanted the relationships to feel or was there
anything the actors themselves did to prepare for the roles?
JMV: Of course. Vanessa had to read a lot and do a lot of research to
become acquainted with the Down Syndrome aspect of the film. She did her
homework and she became very close to the kid’s family and his parents, and she
asked a lot of questions and spent a lot of time with all of them before hand
so she could get familiar with how to act and react.
AP:
You mentioned before that the casting for the part of Laurnet, the young boy
with Down Syndrome, was the hardest aspect of the production. What was that
process like?
JMV: Yeah, that was something. In the casting we had to find the perfect
kids and it took, I don’t know, about four or five months. We searched in
France and Belgium and Quebec because they had to speak French. When I started
to do the auditions with these kids, I started to realize “Oh God, what did I
write there?”
A lot of them had such a hard time talking
and such a hard time trying to understand and get what they had to do in an
auditioning room. It could be something simple, like I was asking them to
pretend to laugh or smile like I was doing. I was asking them to imitate me,
and it was hard for them to do. Then I was asking them to smile and they were
trying to do it. Then I would say I was going to pretend to be sad, and I asked
them to do the same, but instead of pretending to do the same, they were coming
to me and hugging me. So at that moment in the auditioning room I felt a little
over my head and wondering “What am I trying to do here? Am I going to find
these two?”
At one point I thought we were going to
meet regular kids and put some make-up on them it was so hard. Then I met
Elise, the little girl, and she could talk and comprehend. And she told me she
had a lover at school, that she was in love with a down syndrome kid at school.
I said “Really? I need to meet this kid!” (laughs) Then she came back with him
(Marin Gerrier). They weren’t even really actors. They were kissing on the
mouth between takes and I had to keep telling them to stop that! But they were
so into expressing love and down syndrome is pure love. It was so beautiful.
They had a real understanding of the pretending necessary to take on the roles
of being Vanessa Paradis’ son and the other parents daughter, but as soon as I
said action, they weren’t playing the truth, they were the truth. They were it.
AP:
Your movie follows in a recent line of movies that tackle really abstract
concepts, and there are few things more abstract than love. There are no clear
cut answers, but it resonates with audiences. Did you have any reservations
about tackling something like this and how the film would be received?
JMV: No, I didn’t think it was going to be hard because it’s very
universal, the concept of soul mates. Of course, we’re dealing with past life
with a twisted plot, but bottom line is that it’s life and love and a true love
that we want and we dream of. The one that when we lose it, we want to find it
back. That’s really why Helene’s character is trying so hard to figure out just
what the fuck’s going on and why she has no control over anything she feels.
Then she goes past the direct explanations and tries to go to the paranormal
side and maybe find it back or try to move on and believe that it’s over and
hope that it could happen again. That’s what the film’s about. It’s about
letting go and leaving love, the beautiful and true love, and it could happen
more than once.
AP:
The music of the film is so integral to the lives of the characters in the film
and it serves as their lifeblood. How much music when you originally sat down
to write the film did you go through and how long was the list of choices you
were working from before you were ready to film?
JMV: Oh man… the list is long. I had it in my iPod and as I was working
and working I put more songs in my Café
de flore writing playlist. There’s about close to 300 songs and works on
there.
AP:
How did you settle on Café de flore
as the piece the film revolves around?
JMV: I didn’t choose. The song chose me. That’s the weird paranormal
thing in my life. (laughs)
AP:
When was the moment when you knew this was the song that was going to formulate
the story for the film?
JMV: It happened between 2004 and 2007. So for three years I was
listening to this track just like the characters of the DJ and the down
syndrome kid, they both have this obsession with the track and so did I. I
discovered the electronic version first and then the other versions after, and
for three years I listened to them repeatedly and I kept telling myself that I
was going to make a film one day with this theme. It’s too beautiful.
When I was thinking of a love story, I
realized I began humming it and I had some emotional moments. It reminded me of
Ennio Morriconne’s music. Particularly when you ask a group of children to
perform it. It’s just like… wow. Just thinking of it now and the children just
humming it is just epic. It’s so cinematographic and so film like, I just
thought it was great for the story. That’s when I thought of it as having two
stories.
The Montreal story came up first, and the
first thing I saw when I got to Paris was this mother dancing in the morning
with her kid, who had down syndrome, outside before going to work and I knew
that the Montreal character would be thinking of herself as this mother. So
when I was listening to this track and thinking of that premise and concept it
was clear to me that this could be very emotional and very beautiful. That’s
why I’m saying the track found me. It’s why the film exists. I’m talking to you
right now because of this musical theme that created the theme of the film.
AP:
In addition to the song that the film is directly framed around, you also have
a lot of big name songs used within the film – everything from Sigur Ros to The
Cure to Pink Floyd – and none of that had to be cheap or easy to get the rights
and permissions to use. How hard was it to get what you wanted and was there
anything that you couldn’t get permission to use that you really wanted to?
JMV: Yes. Fuck. (long pause) There was something that could have been
used in this film that I wanted to be used in this film because it didn’t work
out, and I’m still mad at them! (laughs)
It always takes time to negotiate rights, but
it’s easier now that C.R.A.Z.Y. is
out there and the labels and record and publishing companies knew about that
going in and they knew about Café de
flore and I guess the next one will be easy because they know I’m at the
service of music and he serves the musicians well because he likes music and
his films are music oriented and blah blah blah. I think I have the reputation
now that can get the rights.
But I wanted a Led Zeppelin song in the
film and it didn’t work out. That’s why Vanessa Paradis is living in a city
with all these staircases everywhere. In the subway, on the streets, in her
apartment building. She’s always taking and walking up stairs. That’s her
burden she has to go down in the most beautiful neighbourhood in Paris going up
and down all these stairs in St. Germaine where she has her son’s school. Every
day, every night she has to go back to her poorer neighbourhood and it’s her
own way of buying her own Stairway to Heaven. I wanted that track.
