It seems like every music video director turned flmmaker eventually makes a big studio action movie. Even Michel Gondry directed The Green Hornet. That big budget movie won't be out until December, thanks to the latest production delays, but we'll get to hear from Gondry before then.
His latest film takes you deeper into his personal world than you may want to go. The Thorn in the Heart is a documentary about Gondry's aunt Suzette and her son Jean-Yves. Filming discussions with them and other family members reveals the Gondry legacy in the film industry, but also some lifelong emotional conflicts. It's like when you're at someone's house for dinner and they start fighting, only you can't leave. Gondry's camera is still there.
The documentary played at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, where Gondry was surely the only person speaking broken English in a French accent. The echo in a large meeting room way too big for a single interview, and made him sound surreal. The subject of his film led to a discussion about his very artistic process, more about the meaning of film than its literal content.
That sort of discussion seems appropriate to Gondry's body of work. Films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep leave a lot open to interpretation. You could analyze the themes or just marvel at the handcrafted imagery. Even the high concept comedy Be Kind Rewind turned out to be a call to arms for people to pick up cameras and make their own films. The Thorn in the Heart may be a personal exercise or it may speak to everyone, but either way, here is some insight into all the films Gondry has and will make.
Question: Do you think film was in your blood?
Michel Gondry: Oh, in my genes? I think in a way yes. I mean, I never had the ambition to become a director because I didn't really think of it. I didn't think of the director when I was watching a movie, what it took to make the film, until I bought a camera. But, my father was doing a lot of Super8 and my cousin, as you've seen in the film. Being surrounded by this and photo, I was printing my own photo when I was really young, so the technical aspect of it really attracted me. The idea that you can imprint an image with a chemical element on a piece of paper was really magical to me.
Q: Do you think it's something you can be born with, even if you don't grow up around the technique?
MG: It's hard to answer that. I think it's always a combination because you can have it and then if you are exposed to it, then the fact that you have it in you, it captures it and then it reveals it. So you can have it in you and then you're not exposed and you never knew you had it in you. Or, you can not have it in you and then by a succession of coincidences, you end up doing it and being good at it so you do it. So it's very hard. I don't know how I could identify that. I tried to remember. I remember watching Chaplin movies and liking them but never in a sense of "That's what I want to do" until I was in my '20s.
Q: What makes people need to do what they need to do, like you make films and I need to write?
MG: Well, I think it's always a combination of things, coming from inside and coming from outside. As well, there is a great deal of privilege when you can be an artist and do your hobby for a living. You have to really appreciate that because I think if you're not born in the right place in the world, then you're fucked. It's going to be a million times harder. People always say, "Oh, it's amazing. You've worked with the guy I was at school with" and see the world as small. It sound corny, but I say it's small because I don't share it. In an artistic profession, there is a sense where people get really protective to maintain their privilege. They're not really trying to share it and share the creativity with other people. I think everybody should be entitled to express themselves or have creativity or do an activity that makes them happy when they wake up.
Q: So people who work mundane jobs, like offices or factory, is that because they didn't have an interest or didn't know about it?
MG: I think most of them didn't have the opportunity. It's a social class thing. We still work on the same principal where some people have the luck to be born in the right place and some people don't have this luck. The people who are born in a place that makes their life easy, most of them don't try really to help the others or to see the unfairness. On the contrary, they try to maintain their privilege or oppress people who are already oppressed. It's just a system that's always been there and it's sort of terrible. It's what we should think of now instead of thinking how to make more automobiles because for the capitalist world, it thinks the only way that society can function is if you make more things then people buy more stuff and there are more jobs and more money to spend. It doesn't work like that anymore. We're going to have more and more crap. I'm talking a little bit above my head because I'm not really a specialist but I really feel people should look at other activities. People need to have activities I think but the production and fabrication of objects, finding an excuse, creating the desire for the buyer to buy them, it's wrong. Now we're exhausted. We're exhausted this way and should think of that.
Q: Is documentary a truer form of filmmaking to you than fiction narrative?
MG: Yeah, if not more. Some of my favorite filmmakers are making documentaries. I don't see that any lesser than a feature film. It is just amazing. The creation lays in other places. It's in the moment, not as much in the preparation, but in the moment and also the editing of course is very important. I watch mostly documentaries on my TV. I don't like to watch fiction, to be honest.
Q: Have you seen the documentary competition at SXSW?
MG: No, but you know when you go to festivals as a filmmaker, you never watch anything because I'm here doing these interviews. Lately I've seen this documentary that was amazing. It was called 51 Birch Street about this guy that puts a camera on his family and reveals all the story of his mom after she passed away and her father. It was just amazing. I watched it twice and I couldn't believe how enriching it was.
Q: Do you think it's the place of drama, whether fiction or documentary, to ask questions rather than provide answers?
MG: Well, it's not ask questions like you would ask a question to get an answer. You find more of the answer in the question in the sense that I think first of all, you don't want to ask a question if you know the answer. I think it's very important. It's like in science, if you hope too much for a result, then you're going to be biased. Your observation won't be really objective. The real discovery, and there is some intuition or truth that can be found and then proven, but a lot of discoveries are made as side effects. Somebody is looking for some experiment and then discover another property. Like they invented the transistor by complete randomness. I think that's interesting to be in a state of being observant to a point that you're going to capture something you were not looking for.
Q: In journalism they say you should know the answers to the questions you're asking.
MG: I think it's totally wrong. I cannot disagree more with that. I think if you're pressing for an answer, sometimes some journalists are trying to get me to say something and I can tell it right away. Either I'm going to tell it just to make them at peace or I'm not going to do it at all because it pisses me off. I think you go on an interview or an investigation like a conversation. You have to be curious of the person you're talking to. If you're not ready to be surprised then what's the point? You could write your article and not ask the person. Maybe you're hoping to go into some territory and discover something but you have to be ready to be completely surprised or taken by surprise. That's the beauty of it.
Q: Is that the difference between journalism and drama, that you can be more inquisitive in drama?
MG: Yeah, but you work with a screenplay. Or it depends, because some people like Mike Leigh who is one of my favorite directors, doesn't write a screenplay. He has a structure and he builds a character with his actor. A lot happening in front of the camera is not planned. There are some other directors who do a movie that's great and everything is carefully planned, but you have to have a lot of time to be able to write all the details of something that must look like life because it's very complex.
Q: I'm including documentary as drama, as a dramatic way to portray real life.
MG: Yeah, well, but when you say dramatic, it's some way to provoke emotion when you watch it for instance? I think if you connect with it, if people reveal things that they were not necessarily willing to say, not by manipulation but just by asking questions and asking what you would be shy to ask, I think that may be embarrassing a little bit but things you really wonder. I think if you do that then people reveal themselves in a way that's dramatic, meaning that's going to interest people.
Q: Has your family always known that they could be the inspiration for your personal films?
MG: Maybe not. It's hard to tell how they think. They encountered so much. Of course by doing that, I show it to them so it's sort of comforting probably. If I have any success, they are sort of part of it because they've been supportive all the time, so they're a part of it anyway but to show it, to officialize it probably gives them some pride.
Q: You weathered a lot of problems on The Green Hornet. Why was was it so hard to make?
MG: It's a little bit cursed. Even the one with Bruce Lee had just one season and was cancelled, so it doesn't have a history of success, which could be scary to say but it's challenging. It's interesting. That was what was proposed to me and I was interested in doing it, so I had a choice. I could have done it or done something else. It has not been a straight road. It's been very windy.
Q: Is it a relief to be done principal photography?
MG: Yeah, of course. Now I see all the problem. I see, "Oh, I should have shot it this way." I wish I had known, but it's always like that.
Q: Do you look at the comic book movies like The Dark Knight and Watchmen to see where the style is going?
MG: It doesn't fit very much in that style. I respect it but it's sort of a caricature of filmmaking. I always thought comic book being a much lighter art form should not be depending on film but should be leading film and be more creative. I see more of those comic books as overly filmic. Dark Knights and these serious knights are not my cup of tea. I like comic books but more like Crumb or the independent ones. I don't like genres that have so many codes. I don't like zomie movies, I don't like vampire movies. I know a lot of people like that because they're sort of in control of society with rules. Really it's not for me. I don't like for instance games that you play like Monopoly and such, because it's not creative to me to have so many rules.
Q: We're wondering what the Michel Gondry take on an action movie would be.
MG: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good I think.
The Thorn in the Heart is now playing in select theaters.
His latest film takes you deeper into his personal world than you may want to go. The Thorn in the Heart is a documentary about Gondry's aunt Suzette and her son Jean-Yves. Filming discussions with them and other family members reveals the Gondry legacy in the film industry, but also some lifelong emotional conflicts. It's like when you're at someone's house for dinner and they start fighting, only you can't leave. Gondry's camera is still there.
The documentary played at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, where Gondry was surely the only person speaking broken English in a French accent. The echo in a large meeting room way too big for a single interview, and made him sound surreal. The subject of his film led to a discussion about his very artistic process, more about the meaning of film than its literal content.
That sort of discussion seems appropriate to Gondry's body of work. Films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep leave a lot open to interpretation. You could analyze the themes or just marvel at the handcrafted imagery. Even the high concept comedy Be Kind Rewind turned out to be a call to arms for people to pick up cameras and make their own films. The Thorn in the Heart may be a personal exercise or it may speak to everyone, but either way, here is some insight into all the films Gondry has and will make.
Question: Do you think film was in your blood?
Michel Gondry: Oh, in my genes? I think in a way yes. I mean, I never had the ambition to become a director because I didn't really think of it. I didn't think of the director when I was watching a movie, what it took to make the film, until I bought a camera. But, my father was doing a lot of Super8 and my cousin, as you've seen in the film. Being surrounded by this and photo, I was printing my own photo when I was really young, so the technical aspect of it really attracted me. The idea that you can imprint an image with a chemical element on a piece of paper was really magical to me.
Q: Do you think it's something you can be born with, even if you don't grow up around the technique?
MG: It's hard to answer that. I think it's always a combination because you can have it and then if you are exposed to it, then the fact that you have it in you, it captures it and then it reveals it. So you can have it in you and then you're not exposed and you never knew you had it in you. Or, you can not have it in you and then by a succession of coincidences, you end up doing it and being good at it so you do it. So it's very hard. I don't know how I could identify that. I tried to remember. I remember watching Chaplin movies and liking them but never in a sense of "That's what I want to do" until I was in my '20s.
Q: What makes people need to do what they need to do, like you make films and I need to write?
MG: Well, I think it's always a combination of things, coming from inside and coming from outside. As well, there is a great deal of privilege when you can be an artist and do your hobby for a living. You have to really appreciate that because I think if you're not born in the right place in the world, then you're fucked. It's going to be a million times harder. People always say, "Oh, it's amazing. You've worked with the guy I was at school with" and see the world as small. It sound corny, but I say it's small because I don't share it. In an artistic profession, there is a sense where people get really protective to maintain their privilege. They're not really trying to share it and share the creativity with other people. I think everybody should be entitled to express themselves or have creativity or do an activity that makes them happy when they wake up.
Q: So people who work mundane jobs, like offices or factory, is that because they didn't have an interest or didn't know about it?
MG: I think most of them didn't have the opportunity. It's a social class thing. We still work on the same principal where some people have the luck to be born in the right place and some people don't have this luck. The people who are born in a place that makes their life easy, most of them don't try really to help the others or to see the unfairness. On the contrary, they try to maintain their privilege or oppress people who are already oppressed. It's just a system that's always been there and it's sort of terrible. It's what we should think of now instead of thinking how to make more automobiles because for the capitalist world, it thinks the only way that society can function is if you make more things then people buy more stuff and there are more jobs and more money to spend. It doesn't work like that anymore. We're going to have more and more crap. I'm talking a little bit above my head because I'm not really a specialist but I really feel people should look at other activities. People need to have activities I think but the production and fabrication of objects, finding an excuse, creating the desire for the buyer to buy them, it's wrong. Now we're exhausted. We're exhausted this way and should think of that.
Q: Is documentary a truer form of filmmaking to you than fiction narrative?
MG: Yeah, if not more. Some of my favorite filmmakers are making documentaries. I don't see that any lesser than a feature film. It is just amazing. The creation lays in other places. It's in the moment, not as much in the preparation, but in the moment and also the editing of course is very important. I watch mostly documentaries on my TV. I don't like to watch fiction, to be honest.
Q: Have you seen the documentary competition at SXSW?
MG: No, but you know when you go to festivals as a filmmaker, you never watch anything because I'm here doing these interviews. Lately I've seen this documentary that was amazing. It was called 51 Birch Street about this guy that puts a camera on his family and reveals all the story of his mom after she passed away and her father. It was just amazing. I watched it twice and I couldn't believe how enriching it was.
Q: Do you think it's the place of drama, whether fiction or documentary, to ask questions rather than provide answers?
MG: Well, it's not ask questions like you would ask a question to get an answer. You find more of the answer in the question in the sense that I think first of all, you don't want to ask a question if you know the answer. I think it's very important. It's like in science, if you hope too much for a result, then you're going to be biased. Your observation won't be really objective. The real discovery, and there is some intuition or truth that can be found and then proven, but a lot of discoveries are made as side effects. Somebody is looking for some experiment and then discover another property. Like they invented the transistor by complete randomness. I think that's interesting to be in a state of being observant to a point that you're going to capture something you were not looking for.
Q: In journalism they say you should know the answers to the questions you're asking.
MG: I think it's totally wrong. I cannot disagree more with that. I think if you're pressing for an answer, sometimes some journalists are trying to get me to say something and I can tell it right away. Either I'm going to tell it just to make them at peace or I'm not going to do it at all because it pisses me off. I think you go on an interview or an investigation like a conversation. You have to be curious of the person you're talking to. If you're not ready to be surprised then what's the point? You could write your article and not ask the person. Maybe you're hoping to go into some territory and discover something but you have to be ready to be completely surprised or taken by surprise. That's the beauty of it.
Q: Is that the difference between journalism and drama, that you can be more inquisitive in drama?
MG: Yeah, but you work with a screenplay. Or it depends, because some people like Mike Leigh who is one of my favorite directors, doesn't write a screenplay. He has a structure and he builds a character with his actor. A lot happening in front of the camera is not planned. There are some other directors who do a movie that's great and everything is carefully planned, but you have to have a lot of time to be able to write all the details of something that must look like life because it's very complex.
Q: I'm including documentary as drama, as a dramatic way to portray real life.
MG: Yeah, well, but when you say dramatic, it's some way to provoke emotion when you watch it for instance? I think if you connect with it, if people reveal things that they were not necessarily willing to say, not by manipulation but just by asking questions and asking what you would be shy to ask, I think that may be embarrassing a little bit but things you really wonder. I think if you do that then people reveal themselves in a way that's dramatic, meaning that's going to interest people.
Q: Has your family always known that they could be the inspiration for your personal films?
MG: Maybe not. It's hard to tell how they think. They encountered so much. Of course by doing that, I show it to them so it's sort of comforting probably. If I have any success, they are sort of part of it because they've been supportive all the time, so they're a part of it anyway but to show it, to officialize it probably gives them some pride.
Q: You weathered a lot of problems on The Green Hornet. Why was was it so hard to make?
MG: It's a little bit cursed. Even the one with Bruce Lee had just one season and was cancelled, so it doesn't have a history of success, which could be scary to say but it's challenging. It's interesting. That was what was proposed to me and I was interested in doing it, so I had a choice. I could have done it or done something else. It has not been a straight road. It's been very windy.
Q: Is it a relief to be done principal photography?
MG: Yeah, of course. Now I see all the problem. I see, "Oh, I should have shot it this way." I wish I had known, but it's always like that.
Q: Do you look at the comic book movies like The Dark Knight and Watchmen to see where the style is going?
MG: It doesn't fit very much in that style. I respect it but it's sort of a caricature of filmmaking. I always thought comic book being a much lighter art form should not be depending on film but should be leading film and be more creative. I see more of those comic books as overly filmic. Dark Knights and these serious knights are not my cup of tea. I like comic books but more like Crumb or the independent ones. I don't like genres that have so many codes. I don't like zomie movies, I don't like vampire movies. I know a lot of people like that because they're sort of in control of society with rules. Really it's not for me. I don't like for instance games that you play like Monopoly and such, because it's not creative to me to have so many rules.
Q: We're wondering what the Michel Gondry take on an action movie would be.
MG: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good I think.
The Thorn in the Heart is now playing in select theaters.