00:05You did a lot of research on the making of breathless, fino all'ultimo respiro, in Italian.
00:11How had you imagined things? What did you discover that particularly hit you,
00:17that you didn't know, that was new for you, that you maybe learned from?
00:22Yeah, my respect for that movie goes up even more having made this movie.
00:27I know more about it than practically anyone could, because we had the camera reports,
00:34we had all the photos, it was a well-documented effort.
00:40But yeah, we got really deep into it, and so I would see how much they did in one day,
00:47I would see days they took off altogether, and then it's like, how did this work?
00:52It's pretty amazing. But yeah, they worked very quickly, mostly.
01:00And then they were in that hotel room for many days.
01:04You could feel them trying to find something there.
01:07So, I don't know. What an interesting journey they took.
01:14And it mattered so much to everybody working on the film to try to get it right,
01:20to replicate what they did at that time, get the look,
01:24because they could just show up on the street and film.
01:28We had to build everything, the look, the feel.
01:33So, they didn't have a costume department or a sound department or an art department.
01:36We sure did. We even had a visual effects department, which they had never heard of back then.
01:42So, if I read correctly, the shooting of this film was 30 days long.
01:48So, how did you make it look like it was 1959?
01:56Yeah, we had 10 more days to shoot it than they did, but we had to build.
01:59We couldn't just show up and shoot. We had to.
02:02And Paris has these little sticks along the road everywhere that they put in more modern times.
02:09So, everything's difficult about that, but it was fun.
02:12Everyone cared a lot and we tried to get that.
02:15So, and, you know, visual effects have gotten so sophisticated and, you know,
02:21we did hundreds of those just mainly for architecture and background.
02:25And it's amazing what you can kind of create now.
02:28So, kind of the magic of making, when you're making a period film,
02:31it feels like you're built, you know, you're creating a special magical world.
02:35When you film contemporary, I like that too, but something about a period film, you can feel the effort.
02:44We're in Italy, you know, in Rome, in the place that gave birth to neorealism.
02:49Yeah. Nouvelle Vogue wouldn't be there if it wasn't for neorealism.
02:53Yeah, and I mean, a lot of directors from the Nouvelle Vogue declared that Italians had influenced them.
03:00So, did you detect this influence and do you feel you've been influenced too?
03:06Well, cinema is a history of little revolutions going on.
03:10And post-war, the way Rossellini, De Sica and everybody kind of grabbed their moment
03:18and made films about the urgency, and they made them very urgently.
03:21They didn't use sound.
03:22A lot of the techniques of the Nouvelle Vogue grew out of the post-war neorealist of Italy.
03:29So, there was always a nice conversation going on between French and Italian cinema at that time.
03:35So, Nouvelle Vogue grows out of neorealism, because they were doing their own version of that.
03:41It just wasn't so post-war.
03:43It was, you know, more personal, you know, their own lives.
03:46But, you know, personal filmmaking, you know.
03:49Rossellini is their godfather, you know.
03:53How important was it for you to cast all, besides Zoe, of course, less known actors, let's say.
04:00I mean, at least from the international cinema industry's point of view.
04:05Well, the challenge was I had to find all these people who looked like the, I mean, it was a
04:12very French film.
04:13I knew there would be a lot of French young actors who would be perfect for the part.
04:19You just have to find them.
04:20So, we spent many months looking for people.
04:22But, you know, when you meet them, like Aubrey comes in, I was like, he looks a lot like Belmondo.
04:28But it was also, it's not just the resemblance, it's the attitude.
04:32It's the personality of the actor.
04:35So, I got very lucky.
04:36I found a great group.
04:39And I think the advantage of them not being well known, a lot of them, it's their first film, is
04:45you might just think you were there.
04:47You know, if it's a famous actor, not for one second do you think you're in that time.
04:53You might appreciate what they're doing, but you never get fully transported.
04:59You know, cinema could create that magical effect where you really do go there.
05:05And I always remember in my head as a kid going into movies and then when they turned the lights
05:13on after, like having to re-remember my own life or that I had a lot, you know, like I
05:19was so in the movie.
05:21You only do that as a kid.
05:22You get older, you get a little more critical.
05:24Your critical brain kicks in.
05:25But I'm still trying to create potentially that feeling of like, so my goal with someone watching this movie could
05:33actually say, oh, that's Seberg and Belmondo and Godard and I'm in 1959.
05:39You know, that's the goal.
05:41I went outside the screen today, Roman, many people, colleagues told me that they now would like to watch it
05:49again.
05:49So I was wondering, did you realize after Cannes that this film had become not only your love letter to
05:57that moment in cinema, but also in a way her love letter?
06:01Oh, I made this film for the way the world saw the Nouveau Vogue.
06:07I didn't really make it.
06:08Don't tell the French this, but I never, I didn't really make it for them.
06:11I made it for the rest of the world who, how we saw, what the films look like, even the
06:17subtitles.
06:17You know, you're, you're reading the subtitles, watching a film, a French film, and what I wanted to make it
06:25what the Nouveau Vogue felt like to the rest of the world.
06:28So, but if French people like it, great, but that wasn't my primary audience.
06:51Thank you.
06:52Grazie a tutti.
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