May 2020 | Sight&Sound | 33A STAR WAS BORN:
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?MATHIEU KASSOVITZ
After La Haine, Kassovitz began
making big-budget spectacle cinema,
such as Gothika (2000), with Halle
Berry and Penelope Cruz; and Babylon
A.D. (2008), with Vin Diesel and
Michelle Yeoh. He grew disillusioned
with directing after making 2011’s
Rebellion, however, falling back on his
successful acting career, highlights of
which include roles in Amélie (2001),
Munich (2005) and Happy End (2017).SAÏD TAGHMAOUI
Taghmaoui has had a very successful
acting career, appearing in Three Kings
(1999), Wonder Woman (2017) and John
Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019), as
well as the television series Lost. He is
also part of the cast of John Michael
McDonagh’s forthcoming Morocco-
set thriller The Forgiven – based on
Lawrence Osborne’s novel – which
recently saw filming stop because
of the coronavirus pandemic.VINCENT CASSEL
Cassel became an international star
following La Haine. The face of French
film for many years, he was spectacular
in Irréversible (2002) and Black Swan
(2010). Most recently he’s been seen
in The Specials (2019) and the third
season of HBO’s Westworld (2019).HUBERT KOUNDÉ
Koundé never quite managed to match
his initial success with La Haine. In a
varied career, he has tried directing and
playwriting, and as an actor has largely
appeared on French television, since a
role in 2005’s The Constant Gardener.
Kaleem Aftabfrom the banlieue, so we needed to introduce them to
Paris. I didn’t want to make a movie against the police.
I think it’s a universal movie that talks about respect.
Back in the day, when there was a bunch of kids like
that in the streets, people wondered who they were: “Are
they dangerous or not?” And the kids, when they came
to Paris, they were like, “Why the fuck are they looking
at us like that?”
KA: When you look at the film today, yes, it feels like a Ma-
thieu Kassovitz film, which is great. But you were also heav-
ily influenced by several great American auteurs – Martin
Scorsese and Spike Lee in particular. What was their impact
on you?
MK: The influence of the great Americans on me was the
same that Jean-Luc Godard had on them. Art is a recycled
industry. It’s very difficult to create art from nothing, es-
pecially today. You recycle the ideas that inspired you to
become an artist. When I was 12 years old, I saw Steven
Spielberg movies. At 17, I saw Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have
It [1986]. These amazing movies made me want to be a
director. Of course, I’m going to take from them – and
I see in their movies where they took their inspiration.
And then I go to the guy who inspired them, and I see
where he got his inspiration. And then you go to the first
guy and the first guy is a fucking Russian that made his
movie in 1925 [Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin].
And everybody took something from him. Scorsese in-
vented something because he took it from somebody
else and he digested it and then made his own sauce.
Spike Lee took from Scorsese, and made his own sauce.
And then I took from Spike Lee and Scorsese and made
my own sauce.
KA: The story is pushed forward by episodic scenes that are
like songs on an album. The rhythm is like an album...
MK: As a director, I have a very strange relationship
with music. If you talk about the movie as being like
an album... the movie, the rhythm, is like music, yes.
But there is no score. I was at the Oscar ceremony two
months ago and the only person I took a selfie with was
John Williams, because by himself, he owns 50 per cent
of all the emotions that we have in so many amazing
movies. Through his talent, he made the director suc-
ceed in making you cry, making you scream, making you
scared. Even Spielberg, who I think is the most genius
director of them all, shares his emotions with John Wil-
liams. When you say to Spielberg, “I’ve never been so
scared as I was in Jaws,” take the music out and you’ll see
that you have a problem. I am a very pretentious director,
so I want my emotions to be mine!
KA: But you sprinkle songs through the film.
MK: I don’t really like guys like Tarantino because he
clears the rights for his music before he starts to shoot. He
edits all of his movies on the fucking music. And he even
has the music there when he shoots – so the rhythm is
not his; it’s somebody else’s. It’s easy to make anybody
cry with a fucking violin or to make everybody yell or
scream with a fucking boom, but if you can you do that
with silence, like in real life, that’s the challenge. I love
Spielberg, but I just want to tell him, like, “Steven, please
be confident in your own fucking shit and take that
music out of those fucking movies; it’s everywhere, give
me a break.” It’s a balance. There’s music in La Haine, but
it’s music you hear from the radio, that you hear
from the car. It is the music from the environment.