Mid Century Cinema favorite Olivier Assayas is at the New York Film Festival with his latest, Wasp Network, which arrives on heels of last year’s Non Fiction. Despite the efforts of our talented internet liaison, Wasp Network sold out before we could order tickets. But all was not lost, as an additional event was subsequently added to the schedule, something called a “master class” with the director—which is to say, an interview (followed by audience Q and A), hosted by festival director Kent Jones. We arrived early, and, throwing shyness to the wind, set ourselves down in the front row.
What followed could hardly have been more exhilarating. The wide-ranging, free-wheeling conversation was characterized by questions that could barely finish before an enthusiastic Assayas jumped in with an avalanche of exposition that somehow came out in well-crafted paragraphs, each offering assorted pearls of wisdom and invariably entertaining anecdotes.
A full summary of the experience is not possible – Assayas covered more topics per minute over the course of an hour than Billy Joel did in the four frenetic minutes of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” In addition, he’s a fast-talker and our notes are less than fragmentary, so take care to understand any quote below as a “best as I can remember paraphrase.” (The entire session was recorded, with luck it will eventually find its way onto a special edition Blu-Ray.)
A principal focus of the conversation was screenwriting—very broadly defined. Assayas (who started out as a writer and still works from his own original material) emphasized the extent to which the “finished” screenplay is essentially a point-of-departure, necessary to establish the framework of the film (and essential in securing its financing). But from there, things change. It is often said that every movie is actually four movies (as written, as cast, as shot, and as edited); here Assayas emphasized role of casting—which he said film shared with theater. Different actors bring distinct characteristics to readings of the same dialogue, and the relationship between actor and director is a highly collaborative one as well. (A story involving the unpredictability of Jean Pierre Leaud during the filming of Irma Vep – prefaced by a full-throated “I love Jean Pierre” and followed with “it is impossible to anticipate what he’s going to do” – was particularly well received by the crowd.) Later, reviving the theatrical motif, Assayas described John Cassavetes as “the greatest playwright in the history of cinema.”
A real eye-opener for us was the comment “the schedule is the screenplay”—the point being that movies, even French indie films, are expensive to make, and so the shooting schedule determines what must be accomplished at what setting on any given day. You can show up on location with your shot list – and even get your shots – but inevitably some things won’t go as planned, requiring creative solutions to unanticipated developments.
As for the writing process itself, Assayas observed that working with non-fictional material (as he did with Carlos and The Wasp Network) forces a writer out of the confront zone of instinctively familiar themes, locations, and characters; similarly, some reasonable fidelity to “what actually happened,” presents distinct narrative challenges as well. (The same was true, he added with high praise, for Arnaud Desplechin’s Oh Mercy, also screening at the festival.) And returning to the theme of the script as a point of departure, Assayas recalled how when writing for others, whether his first original screenplay, Rendez-vous (André Téchiné, 1985) or his recent work as an experienced veteran, Based on a True Story (Roman Polanski, 2017), his screenplays were transformed by their respective directors into films that fit their artistic style and vision. That was not a complaint.
Also under the large umbrella of “writing” – and essential to most Assayas films – is music. Not surprisingly, it was a highlight of the session when the director explained the motivations behind his specific selection and sequencing of the songs in Cold Water – detailing the relationship to the story behind each choice during one central scene: Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Nico, Roxy Music, and, perhaps somewhat less narratively essential, Credence Clearwater Revival (“because they are the fucking greatest”).
Sitting in the front row had its advantages, and I was able to ask two questions. The first was whether, when writing, he envisioned train sequences (as they are common – and spectacular – in his films); the second, provocative but respectful, queried whether he thought he’d “gone too far” in Demonlover, a film about which I have mixed feelings. Assayas jumped on the second question—with a quick and resounding (and surprising) “yes,” followed by several enchanting paragraphs about the film and its production and his reflections about its too-far-ness. Then nudged by Jones to return to the question of trains, Assayas again was electrifying, noting both their importance to his films and also shared stories about how difficult they are to shoot. And, in the icing on the cake department, he mentioned that two train sequences from the 1970s had a formative influence on his filmmaking, those from Jean Pierre Melville’s Un Flic and Wim Wender’s The American Friend. Well, really, who could ask for anything more?
After the session concluded, an entourage-free Assayas lingered patiently to talk with and answer the questions of audience members who made their way towards the stage, conversations which continued as he walked slowly up the theater aisle, into the lobby, until he was (finally) guided by a festival official to his next destination.
