- [press conference for In the Beginning (2009) at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival] At the beginning I saw a little incident which was worth three or four lines in a newspaper and then we investigated this, I met the investigating magistrate for example, who enabled me to encounter the con man who was behind all this, and then we went on with our investigation and I put together a whole lot of material which was interesting both from the human point of view and from the technical point of view as well. I wanted to go beyond this simple anecdote, this simple piece of news - I wanted to create a genuine fiction, so I wrote first of all without thinking about the possible duration of the film; I was thinking simply about the human necessity, what had to be told so that this could come alive and be a strong story. And then after a while I realised that the film would indeed be long because the screenplay itself was long. So what happens then of course is you raise the economic question, the commercial question - a two-and-a-half hour film - even though there are quite a few long films here in Cannes this year - is it worth it? Do we take the risk? It is a risk - it's an enormous risk. Obviously it means that the film will have to be very good - a two-and-a-half hour film has to be a good film. The film must maintain the intensity which is necessary for that duration. If there are quite a few long films in Cannes this year, it's also perhaps a reaction today - people are talking about economic factors, the economic crisis, economic pressure, and making a long film today is an act of liberty, enabling people to forget this length of time but also striking a blow for freedom, and I said to myself, "Well, this is what I must do, I shall have to convince people."
- [Cannes press conference for In the Beginning (2009)] I don't believe in films that deal with current affairs or have a current relevance. When I'm dealing with a story concerning a person like this, that's not the question I ask. What I'm looking for is human truth - is there something original, is there something interesting in the life of this person? Is there something which hasn't been shown, which hasn't been seen before? And which for the spectator is going to represent an adventure. If we find this human truth, current relevance is no longer important - that doesn't matter any more - we go beyond that. That's what we hope at least when we deal with a subject like this; we hope that we shall start up a movement that will take us ahead and go beyond the current situation or a particular situation - we shall talk about life.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content