BB

While rewatching Misericordia and some of your earlier films, I noticed your characters rarely talk for the sake of filling silence. They’re usually arguing—negotiating. There’s always desire at play.

AG

Overall, I agree with you. In everyday life, talking is an essential part of play. I don’t make my characters speak out of or in play with desire. I make them speak to move things forward. The lust is taking place elsewhere.

BB

Misericordia is unusual because there aren’t any sex scenes, which have been a mainstay of your films for years. Where the sex scenes would usually be, there are now fight scenes. There’s a sense of care and attention to the choreography of these scenes and how you filmed and cut them. How does that relate to what you’re saying about longing?  What are you saying about the movement of the film?

AG

You’re right. I think it comes from an urge, on my part, to film fight scenes. It’s personal because preparing and filming a fight scene is very similar to a sex scene. It's choreographed very specifically; the difference being, for fight scenes, I worked with a stuntman, whereas with sex scenes, I generally figure it out myself with the actors.

What specifically interested me in the fight scenes was the crescendo: fighting as a game when we’re kids, then maybe hitting your buddies when you’re a teenager, and then with time, the fighting hardens to the point that it transforms into murder. In this film, that’s what interested me: that movement and that progression which create a tension and the violent surprise of the murder, because I’m not at all sure that one can see it coming.

BB

Also, it depends on a complicity between the actors. The scene is compelling because there’s complicity between Jean-Baptiste and Félix and throughout the whole film. I think it’s effectively one of your best ensembles. All the actors seem to share a secret. Did you feel anything special happened there—in the chemistry amongst the cast?

AG

That’s a very interesting question, and you’re the first to ask it, which is why I’m a little taken aback. We always hope to produce work that reads on that level. Whether I’m working with non-professionals and professionals, as is the case here—people who are not particularly well known and famous people. I always try to ensure that all the actors read on the same level. I don’t want there to be a hierarchy or, at the very least, one that is not reflected in the characters. I always try to make choral films.

I can’t say I felt a particular chemistry on set. I perceive the complicities between actors, which often have to do with age, with affinities. I see the solitude of actors. For instance, Catherine Frot, who is a very famous actress, was more alone on this set than anyone else. My work as a director, and in directing actors, is to make sure that the actor disappears into  the character. On set, there’s only room for the characters to exist. Yet, I like to integrate the persona of the actor and the character. All this remains very intuitive and I have to start the process over with each film. The recipe has to be reinvented for the dish to work. You don't see the scenes that didn't work, and that's a very good thing.

BB

Both Misericordia and Stranger by the Lake have received comparisons to Hitchcock’s films, but how do you feel about your work in relation to that of Claude Chabrol?

AG

I have a problem with Chabrol. There are films of his that I like, such as Le Boucher (1970), Que la bête meure (1969), and La Cérémonie (1995). I appreciate these films, but I don't like Chabrol’s condescending gaze toward his characters, particularly his criticism of the provincial petty bourgeoisie.

The filmmakers that I refer to in interviews are not so much “film noir” filmmakers. I often talk about Almodóvar. I also talk about Bergman in regards to Persona (1966) or Wild Strawberries (1957). Another reference is Nanni Morretti's La messa è finita (1985) and the character of the priest. These are not direct influences, but they hovered over the film. Ultimately, Hitchcock and Chabrol are not filmmakers that I thought about. Of course, they remain influential. I’ve seen so much of Hitchcock on television that I can’t escape his influence, but it remains distant.

BB

Your priest character is quite amazing. I was very impacted by his line, “We're all responsible for the carnage.” The usual agents of order in your films or novels are agents of chaos. Another example is the police captain in And Now the Night Begins (2014). I adore that novel; I think it is the best novel of the past ten years. Are there any plans to translate your next two novels into English?

AG

No, but I'd like to. Sometimes I talk about it with Hedi El Kholti, the publisher at Semiotext(e) who oversaw the translation of And Now the Night Begins. My second novel is a thousand pages long, so it would cost a lot of money to have it translated. The novels that follow are sequels, so the translation process will be complicated.

BB

The first novel is very well loved, so there is an eager audience for the translation of the second novel and its sequels.