I’m very interested in your collaborations with DP Benoît Debie. Can you talk about constructing the look of “Love”? This is your first feature shot with digital cameras and in 3D.
Benoît is the sweetest cinematographer I ever met. And also the most playful and colorful that I could dream of. I was very happy that finally he was free when I started shooting the movie because I started pre-production without knowing if he would be available. He had done a 3D movie previously with Wim Wenders [“Every Thing Will Be Fine“], so he told me the cameras were heavy but not so bad and that I should try. I don’t regret at all shooting in 3D. It makes it look like a big budget movie when it’s not at all. There’s something playful in the sense that people put glasses on to watch a movie in order to see an image that’s a bit more realistic than a flat image.
“I just want to be able to pay my rent and buy movie posters. I’m not obsessed with money.”
Do you have any mainstream aspirations as a filmmaker?
I don’t know. To my eyes, my last two movies, “Enter The Void” and “Irréversible” were very commercial movies, but really to this day the latter is most successful and it’s extremely violent. I just want to be able to pay my rent and buy movie posters. I’m not obsessed with money. So I’m more obsessed with making movies that I will be proud of. I don’t know, if I find money and freedom for the next project, I don’t mind having big toys. Sometimes it’s easier to have big toys if you have big names on the screen. My favorite movie ever is “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which is a very expensive commercial movie. Kubrick managed to do a very personal, intelligent movie I would call a masterpiece, but he did it inside of the studio. Maybe he was lucky and it was the right era to do those movies. Maybe today people are less valiant than before.
“Love” opens October 30 in limited release, expanding slightly November 6.
