48 | Sight&Sound | November 2019JB Central to the films made by the new French
filmmakers in the 90s was the television series
Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge [1994],
which commissioned nine hour-long films from
different directors on the theme of coming of
age, and of which your own Cold Water was one.
OA The thing to remember is that the series was
trans-generational; so you had André Téchiné,
who was born in 1943; and also Olivier Dahan,
who was only in his early twenties. But yes, at
the core of it there was a shared sensibility. For
me, Cold Water had the simultaneous influence
of Robert Bresson – I had Mouchette [1967] in
mind – and Ingmar Bergman, because I also
had Summer with Monika [1953] in mind, but
yes, also Pialat, who made a profound mark
on my filmmaking. Of all the films in the
series: mine, Cédric Kahn’s Trop de bonheur and
Patricia Mazuy’s Travolta et moi were the most
influenced by Pialat. Cédric Kahn has always
considered Pialat his mentor, and Patricia
Mazuy is at the very core of that generation of
filmmakers who worshipped Pialat above all.JB You mentioned Cassavetes. Pialat is also
often compared with him because of the
impact he had on a whole school of acting –
encouraging a more improvisatory approach
from Gérard Depardieu, Sandrine Bonnaire,
Isabelle Huppert and others, who in turn
influenced the 90s generation of French actors.
OA John Cassavetes only really became more
widely known in France in the 1990s. All of
a sudden the films were rereleased, and there
were retrospectives. For a few years in France,
Cassavetes was everywhere – and it was in the
same years that the influence of Pialat really
began to be felt. It was a moment when younger
filmmakers wanted to have a more spontaneous
relationship to acting and the reality their actors
were expressing. When you watched a Pialat film
you had a sense that things were happening in
front of you that were not scripted, that things
could just burst out of the scene in unexpected
ways. It gave a sensation of danger, of risk,
of daring that most other filmmaking didn’t
convey. That quality, I think, was something that
united a generation of filmmakers and actors.
JB One of those young filmmakers who revered
Pialat was Cyril Collard, who made just one
feature, Savage Nights (1992), before he died of
Aids. It’s a film that has been largely forgotten
in the UK, yet had a huge impact at the time.
OA Cyril Collard is completely at the centre of
this. I knew Cyril, who had been an assistant to
Pialat on A nos amours. I forget which movie I
was casting, but someone mentioned Romane
Bohringer [Collard’s co-star in Savage Nights] to
me. So I called Cyril, and asked if I could see some
of the stuff he was editing for the film. He very
generously showed me a couple of reels of Savage
Nights, and I was extremely impressed. It’s an
essential film for French cinema of the period.
JB Do you have a favourite Pialat film?
OA I love absolutely everything he did, but my
favourite would be La Maison des bois. It’s an
extraordinary masterpiece. That, and Van Gogh. I
remember writing a letter to Pialat after watching
Van Gogh [1991]. I wrote, “I’ve just walked out
of your film, and I know I’ve seen one of the
best French films ever made. Thank you.”In Pialat’s films you had a sensethings were happening in front ofyou that were not scripted. It gavea sensation of danger, of daringDEEP FOCUS OLIVIER ASSAYAS ON PIALAT
Olivier AssayasWar requiem: Maurice Pialat in La Maison des bois (1971)James Bell What was Maurice Pialat’s
importance for French cinema?
Olivier Assayas I met Pialat for the first time
when he released A nos amours [1983], which
was a major moment in terms of his recognition
in French cinema. He was suddenly adopted
by the French cinephile community in a way
he had not been before, and it went further and
broader with every film he made after that. Pialat
considered himself as a marginal figure. He felt
he had been snubbed by the nouvelle vague. He
was more or less the same age as the nouvelle
vague filmmakers, except he was recognised later.
I mean, the fact that a work as important as La
Maison des bois [1971] had not been recognised
at the time, not at all, and neither had La Gueule
ouverte [The Mouth Agape, 1974], which is an
incredible film, now seems astonishing. Even
Nous ne vieillerons pas ensemble [We Won’t Grow Old
Together, 1972] – which I remember watching as a
teenager – as much as I loved it, it was considered
like mainstream cinema, closer to Claude Sautet
than to Jean-Luc Godard. So there had been a
misunderstanding about the status and the talent
of Pialat. But he was vindicated with the success
of his later works, starting with A nos amours.
Pialat, for my generation, and possibly even
more so for the generation after mine in French
cinema, became a much stronger reference
than a lot of the nouvelle vague filmmakers
because he had to do with a very raw approach
to realism, to psychology. His characters
felt more real, more intense. There was an
authenticity in the world he was depicting
that felt beyond anything one had seen in
French cinema. Maybe one could compare
it to the importance John Cassavetes had to
the same generation. For a lot of the younger
filmmakers in the 90s, Pialat was the reference.
JB What were the particular characteristics
of Pialat’s films that struck such a chord?
OA It had to do with a renewal of the
relationship between characters and actors.
Pialat emblematised an approach to dealing
with real-life characters that didn’t conform
to dramaturgical narrative norms. He did not
respect the rules of classic narrative – you
felt that he didn’t care if there was a technical
problem; the important thing was to capture
the rawness of the performance. He also always
embodied something that was antagonistic – he
antagonised the values of the industry. It also had
something to do with the social environment
Pialat was describing, more ‘low-brow’ than the
things the nouvelle vague were depicting. But
above all he had a genius as a filmmaker; the
reason we’re discussing him is not in the end
because of any kind of social issues, it’s because
he was an extraordinary, unique filmmaker.A FILMMAKER UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Cold Water director Olivier
Assayas reflects on the impact
Maurice Pialat had over him and a
generation of French filmmakersA RT
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