Mathieu Amalric

Actor and former Bond villain Mathieu Amalric returns to the director’s chair with the award-winning On Tour, detailing an American burlesque group’s journey through provincial France with a shady manager (played by Amalric). LWLies recently met up with the actor-director to discuss his discovery of burlesque performers, the film’s roots in the writings of Colette and faking a documentary style.

LWLies: Has directing always been something you wanted to do?

Amalric: At 17, my first time on set, I found that world incredible. It was a mixture of manual work and using your head and your heart. I started working as an assistant director and production assistant and that’s how I fell into movies.

How did the acting career start then if your first passion was behind the camera?

That was Arnaud Despleschin. He saw something that I wasn’t aware of. He’s the guy that made me act for the first time. I’d never acted before, other than a short film I directed, but that was a movie with my father and grandmother in it made at home.

Was it an urge to direct again that led you to On Tour?

I’d done three films before this one but it’s never really an urge to direct. You have to be inhabited and obsessed by something. I’d read a text by Colette about the music halls and doing naked pantomimes on tour at the beginning of the 20th Century. I was attracted by this life that is marvellous at night and disgusting in the morning because of the fatigue, the hotels and the trains, you know. So that’s how it started.

What led to the inclusion of the burlesque show?

I was trying to find something that would resonate with Colette and that kind of show. Music hall was a bit old today – it wouldn’t say anything about modernity and the world we live in. I came across an article about New Burlesque – which I’d never heard about, and immediately felt it. It’s about freedom and having an ordinary body – nothing to do with striptease and lap-dancing. They’re not prisoners it’s about freedom and against this sickness of perfection. There was something political in their show and not in a boring way. It was about the courage of the night and the solitude of the day.

Did you develop a back-story for your character Joachim? His past is referred to and hinted at but never elaborated into a clear picture.

We wrote a lot and you have to. The energy of the movie wasn’t about a mystery but about a man who is asking ‘where do I belong?’ Being on tour is an escape for him, but I thought it better not to explain things. The work ended up being to hide the work and to take stolen moments. Nothing was improvised.

That’s very interesting given the loose feel and documentary-like approach.

I tried to give this feeling that we are just with people and reacting. The style of the film is natural. As the girls weren’t actresses we replicated the feeling of being on tour. We shot for seven weeks. Economy and directing are very close sometimes. The spirit was more about forgetting about the director. The film I did before, Le Stade de Wimbledon, each set up was signed like a painting almost. But that film needed it. I didn’t want On Tour to be a documentary with the camera going all over and in and out of focus.

That’s very telling given the opening scene that looks exactly like a documentary set up.

We had a tracking shot and it was choreographed. It was also because the girls were smart and so showbiz. They knew how to be precise. It was to give the impression that nothing was written, but it was written.

Did you stage live shows?

We needed to have a full, packed audience but didn’t have the money so we did a tour and offered a free show for people. They just signed a consent form to say it was okay to be filmed. The performers therefore were able to react off the audience. We shot all those scenes on a stage and to give the impression it’s real, but it wasn’t.

Joachim’s relationship with the girls feels like a power struggle. At one stage he says he is ‘surrounded by witches’.

‘It is our show’ they say. It is their fantasy and their complexities on stage. Originally it was the story of a choreographer and I thought it would be interesting to see how a man would start to change their numbers and how they would resist and fight. I didn’t write the part for myself but when it was decided I would act we changed it.

So you never thought ‘maybe I want to play this part’ during the writing process?

The producers from the very beginning knew I was going to act [in it]. I really searched for actors. I don’t do casting… I don’t like to meet actors I don’t pick. I hate that situation. I don’t believe you see the person if you have audition. We were doing a technical screen-test one morning and I said I’ll stand in just for the framing and when we saw it – I was there. Everybody said ‘come on now, you’ve got to do it’, but I didn’t want to.

Do you like acting and directing in the same movie?

Let’s say that each film is different and this one – this story – it was a good thing. Maybe it brought out a warm quality it wouldn’t have had if I was behind the camera observing them like they are strange animals.

Where did you find the burlesque performers?

I fell on the article about New Burlesque and we wrote a lot before because we didn’t want to make a documentary. I was then told they [the burlesque group] were doing something in Nantes so we went to see them. Four of them are in the film.

The film explores seaside towns and provincial France. Was that always the plan? It reminded me a little bit of Jacques Demy’s films.

Yeah. It was a little bit of an unconscious decision, but Joachim goes only to the edge of his country so there’s the sea and he can go back [to the US].

On Tour is released in cinemas and curzonondemand.com Friday December 10.