Bertrand Tavernier is a great cineaste, best known for such films as Policier L.627, World War I drama Life and Nothing But and jazz movie ’Round Midnight with Dexter Gordon. The director’s first film – and the first of many he made with the late Philippe Noiret – was the tale of a man who discovers that his son is a murderer: The Watchmaker of St. Paul.
LWLies: Why did you choose to adapt a Georges Simenon novel for your first film?
Tavernier: I love Simenon, I think he’s one of the greatest writers. What I love in his books are things that go beyond the superficial: the mood, the fog, the wet cobblestones, dealing with what he calls the ‘naked man’, this feeling of a man under the clothes of civilisation and society. And I thought that in the book there were three or four little moments that struck me like that. A father lying on the bed of his son, things like that. I wanted to film that.
LWLies: That was your first film with Philippe Noiret; how would you characterise your relationship?
Tavernier: He was not only a stunning actor with a very, very wide range and a great freedom but he was a gentleman, a man of honour, he respected his work. That was one of the great meetings of anyone that I made during my life. During two years our screenplay was turned down by everybody but he stood by me, we were humiliated together. I always said that I owed him this; he always answered that I gave him his best parts. He was proud of all the films he made with me, especially of Life and Nothing But (1989) and Coup de Torchon (1981).
We were very close, we didn’t have to speak. We understood each other; we were both provincial, both raised the same way, we both respected the same values: friendship, certain ideals, getting involved in causes without promoting yourself, all of that. I loved the way he worked. For me, it was easy to write scenes and get very personal feelings, even inside a period film. We were close to each other. Philippe is one of those actors who, immediately, without the help of a screenplay, will give you the sense of time and places. You can put him in different [social] classes, different jobs and he’ll give you the feeling that he’s been doing this for 20 years – a little bit like Jean Gabin or Marcello Mastroianni. You feel that he’s a prince of the blood of the eighteenth century and then you cast him as a clockmaker and he’s immediately believable. He had a way of acting where he never explained the character to the audience; he got inside but never explained. There are many actors, especially American actors, where I see the explanation, I see what they underline in the screenplay.
LWLies: Another of your great relationships is with music…
Tavernier: I love music. For me, music dictates the rhythm and flow of the film. Films are closer to music than theatre.
LWLies: What drew you to your two films directly about music, Mississippi Blues and ’Round Midnight?
Tavernier: My love and my passionate respect in front of the jazz musicians, and the desire to learn what was behind them. I learned thousands of things on those films.
LWLies: L.627 and Life and Nothing But are epic films but you find small, poetic moments in them, is that something you look for?
Tavernier: Absolutely. I look for anything that gets me away from what I call the ‘tyranny of the plot’. I want to give little moments outside the plot, which will give an insight into unexpected things. I want to do large films, I don’t like people who have a narrow vision. I can respect that but it’s not me. I want to think large, to film large but with a great feeling of intimacy, something that I like in many directors that I love, let’s say John Ford, Kurosawa, Michael Powell, Jean Renoir.
LWLies: Before you became a director you were a film publicist. Would you recommend that people do anything on the periphery of the industry to get into it?
Tavernier: They should learn, they should do anything. You must discover yourself and you must know films. If you know films from the past it will nourish you for the present. A few young directors, sometimes, reinvent the wheel; they suddenly think they are inventing something that has been discovered by people 20 years before. To make films you must compromise between learning life and learning art, because film is an art.
The Watchmaker of St. Paul, The Judge and the Assassin, Coup de Torchon, L.627 and It All Starts Today are released individually on DVD from March 24.
