Juliette’s Freedom

Juliette’s Freedom

A few years ago, Juliette said in an interview that she was building her filmography in disorder. This stayed with me for several reasons, firstly because it demonstrates a deep and intimate understanding of the way in which life and art are inseparably joined according to a more complex, richer, and probably truer history than that of the conventional points of reference found in the history of art and, even more so, of film. There was also her way of finding simple, clear words to express an idea that has existed as one of the driving forces of my own practice from the beginning: I am not a film director, but a person who makes films, like Juliette is not an actress, but an artist who acts in films.

Lastly, this intuition on her part evoked the very essence of our relationship. I’ve often told the story of how we met—it was only later that we became true collaborators—when André Téchiné chose her to play Nina in Rendez-vous, which I wrote with him. A few months later, the film was finished and we were both at Cannes. Rendez-vous was in competition and I was there doing a precarious balancing act for the last time, as both a screenwriter and a contributor to the film magazine I would soon leave. Under my arm, the screenplay of what would become my first feature, Désordre.

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