BOP Interview: Michel Hazanavicius
By Ryan Mazie
November 25, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Hazanavicius has every right to be optimistic. Winning the Best Actor Award at Cannes, Jean Dujardin stars as a silent film actor George Valentin, who falls out of fashion to make way for the talkies, starring rising actress Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo – Hazanavicius’ wife, who he mentions he is proud to share the journey with).
In the interview, Michel Hazanvicius talks about writing a silent film, shooting in Charlie Chaplin’s studios, special effects, and how to earn (and lose) money by producing movies.
What I loved about the movie is how it is not a gimmick. While the aesthetics are the obvious attention-grabber, the story and characters really shine through. So as a director, how did you manage that?
MH: The first thing I was attracted by was the format. Then I worked on the story, because I wanted a story that fits the format and makes things easier for the audience. I noticed that when I started talking about making the movie, people needed justification, always asking, “Why make a silent movie?” So I decided to tell the story of a silent actor, because that makes sense. When I decided that, I watched a lot of silent movies to understand how it works and then I gave them to the actors, crew, cinematographer, and composer a lot of references to watch and I said to everyone, “Once you did your homework and you watch all of those movies, you forget everything.” Because after that we have to focus on the story I want to tell. So you have to work a lot to be comfortable with the format.
Was it difficult to write a silent script or was it fun to play with those limitations?
MH: It’s both actually. There are a lot of limitations, but its also freeing. So if you have a desire to do it, and that was my case, you focus on the freeing part. But there are a lot of limitations. Two hours ago a journalist asked me about the sequence where Peppy puts her hand in the coat of George and if it was written or an improvisation and everything was written, but he didn’t understand how you can write something like this. He had the feeling that there was nothing to write and so that’s the difficulty; to find a way to create images with no dialogue. You work with images to tell the story. In a way that seems to be simple for the audience so when people see the movie, it is very accessible and easy to follow. It looks very simple, but you have to work with the images, you don’t have the tools of dialogue.
So was it storyboarded?
MH: It was a script, but the fact is that I draw so when I was writing, I made drawings and storyboarded the movie myself. But it helped to be able to think with images as a drawer. But there was a script written more like a short novel. Usually when people read a script, they don’t read the action, they just read the dialogue. So here I had to find a way to write it and it had to be easy to read. It was more like a short novel.
I think the soundtrack is amazing – one of the best of the year. Being such an important part of a silent film, when was the music brought in, because the actors just hit all of the right beats?
MH: The music was composed both after and during the editing process. But I played some music on set, because we didn’t record sound so I could do it. I could play music and the actors loved it. Actually, in this movie, the music is very important, but in the silent movies, you can see usually that the music is seldom treated with that precision; usually it is just a piano and that is kind of boring. That is the kind of thing that makes this movie more modern in a way. I worked very closely with the composer, because it follows all of the tones and variations of the script. The music is restricted by the story. We had this advantage compared to the ‘20s movies. We had the benefit of all of these years of sophistication in music and moviemaking.
How did you go about playing the music while filming? Did you play certain songs that would evoke an emotion?
MH: Yeah, sure. I used a lot of classical Hollywood composers like Leonard Bernstein, Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, and there is actually a track of his in the movie – the Vertigo at the end. I played it for the emotional mood and for some sequences, something with a good rhythm. For example, the scene where George Valentin pulls down all of the white sheets off the furniture, I used the music of Sunset Boulevard with a lot of variation and strong acceleration that helped Jean to do it with a good tempo. And sometimes it was just decorative music like the Charleston and some jazz from that era just to trap the mood of the period.
The Artist has been brought up in a lot of conversations about how movies are now CGI-heavy and all 3D. Was this movie made as a message in a way to combat this technological sophistication?
MH: I didn’t make the movie against a kind of fear. I did it because I had a desire to make it and I had the hunch that it was a good movie to make. There are a lot of movies with special effects that are very good at it. I was just talking about Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There are a lot of strong visual effects, but the movie is really, really good because the story is good and it's amazing. When the ape says “No!” it is really strong. Once I heard someone say, “When the new technology arrives, at first the directors use it as toys. Then they use it as tools. And that’s a big difference.”
Was there ever a worry though if audiences would see a movie in a style they are unaccustomed to nowadays?
MH: I don’t know how things will go, but when we decided to make the movie, so many people said, “You can’t do it. No one will come.” So when I found this producer who was very courageous who found money and financing, we decided we might lose money. But we wanted to do a prestige movie. … Let’s say you make three movies. If you lose money on this one, we are going to make another one and another one. And finally after three movies, you are going to win some money (pauses) I hope (laughs). But let’s try with this one. A prestige movie that can go on festival and we can sell all over the world, because it is silent. But we need to make a good movie for that if we want to sell it. If it’s not good, it’s worth zero.
In France, we finance movies with TV channels, and they don’t want black and white, they don’t even think of silent movies. For this one, they accepted to do it, but I think it is a cinema proposition. It isn’t a TV movie, it’s cinema. People can come to theaters to see it, but when we say audience, there are two expectations of the word. There is the audience of who are in the theater and then there’s the audience as in everyone who can potentially go to the theater. I take care of the people who are in the theater. The others I can do nothing about.
I love how the movie is a silent film but also tributes the genre. So I was curious about the genesis of the project – when you first started to develop it, was it always about being a tribute or did you consider making a dramatic film as opposed to a comedy or romance at some point? Was it more important to make a silent film or a tribute to a silent film?
MH: What was very important was to make a silent film, for me. I thought of doing a silent movie for ten years. I had a lot of stories that could fit in a way. But when I started to work on the story that became the most important thing because people don’t care about the genesis. They just want a simple story and have a good time – which is what this movie is about. So when I started to work on the story, I thought it was making sense, because it was easier for people to accept seeing a silent film about a silent actor. It’s more obvious.
Did those other ideas you had for the film become the silent films within the movie?
MH: Yeah, the opening [spy] sequence was one option for the script. … So it was one way to do a hero story like Mandrake the Magician was another. It was also an idea to make a spy movie or adventure movie, because action sequences don’t need dialogue so it was easy for people to accept it.
What was it like to shoot on location?
MH: It was a wonderful experience. … We were doing an American movie with a French production, so for me that is a big difference, because the French way to make a movie, it is the director who makes all the decisions. I’m not sure if it is always the same thing here. I think that in a lot of movies the boss is the producer in America. So we had all of the benefits of the French production and all of the benefits of an American production.
When we were scouting locations, it was very touching for me. We were in a lot of accurate locations of that period. [We shot in the] offices and studios of Charlie Chaplin, the studio of Douglas Fairbanks. The house of Peppy Miller in the movie is Mary Pickford’s house. … So it was very touching to go to all of these locations, but when we shot the movie I didn’t have time to think of that. [We shot] the movie in 35 days, so very short.