..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Plus Ca Change?

For as long as I can remember, Bertrand Tavernier has managed to project an avuncular quality with a soupcon of Gallic wit. On second thought I do have a fleeting memory of the filmmaker - whose credits over the past four decades include Coup de Torchon, Une Semaine de vacances, 'Round Midnight, The Judge and the Assassin and Captaine Conan - in a less benign mood. It dates back to the very end of his career as a film publicist and involved putting me through the third degree before I was allowed to interview one of his clients.

Tavernier and his partner Pierre Rissient were the boutique publicity firm in France and quite avidly pursued by American companies especially in regard to Cannes. I was more than a little skeptical when I went to a screening of his first film, The Clockmaker, despite the glowing reviews it had received in Europe. I may not have been completely won over by the tale of a man confronted by the fact that his son might well be a criminal but it was nonetheless a promising start.

Today he is unquestionably one of the most accomplished living filmmakers, with an eclectic array of films that include costume dramas, contemporary social issues, jazz, war films, a swashbuckler, a brooding science fiction yarn and film noir policiers.

"I've been lucky," he says. "Almost everything I've done I wanted to make passionately. It's not so much the case if you work in America."

Holy Lola, his most recent film, centers on a French couple that go to Cambodia to adopt a child. It's a sometimes harrowing odyssey as they and others attempt to navigate red tape and corrupt or ineffectual officials. It's also humorous at turns and very, very human.

The filmmaker admits to being a bit befuddled by the fact that U.S. distributors have passed on the film. He says a few have cited the failure of John Sayles's similarly themed Casa de los Babys (a film he hasn't seen) rather than embracing it as a compliment to Secrets & Lies. So, he's back in America to wage his case as well as participate in the program On Set with French Cinema that's sponsored by French and American film agencies and for the past three years has seen quite a number of auteurs lecture at universities in Los Angeles, New York, Boston and San Francisco.

There would appear to be an innate irony in bringing French filmmakers to America to teach its most promising students how to make movies.

"Yes, I can see that," observes Tavernier. "But I don't really teach; that's not what the program is. Rather I preach. I tell them what they should be watching from the past and what they should be looking at and for. By the way, I would love to teach but you can't really do that in one or two sessions."

Not having completely lost his past vocation, he refers to himself and others in the program as: Weapons of massive construction.

He's also retained several other tricks from his days as a publicist. Chiefly the ability to stay on track in terms of message and disregard or give short shrift to the interviewer's agenda when it doesn't suit his own.

He's not terribly interested in dissecting his filmography other to provide a brief anecdote. However, he cannot be reigned in when the conversation tilts towards such personal passions as favorite movies, filmmakers, music, food or, of course, his current film.

"I can't tell you how many films I've made; I don't count," he says. "As I've said they were mostly things I was passionate about. I try not to be too analytic about why I want to do something but one thing that seems consistent is that there's an intriguing element that starts it all and makes me want to learn something new."

For his film Life and Nothing But it was the issue of the status of French soldiers listed as missing in action following the First World War. More than 250,000 fell into that category and of those no more than 50,000 were ever identified. Some simply disappeared to start new lives but the majority were battlefield casualties that could not be placed based on forensic capabilities of the era.

The situation he chronicled led to changes in French law concerning such areas as inheritance and remarriage. Other films by Tavernier have resulted in the filmmaker becoming a spokesman on education, drug enforcement and with his new film, alien adoption. He reveals a slight smile when he talks of French ministers that are not as well versed on issues he's tackled on film.

Yes, beneath his cuddly exterior, resides someone with a combative nature. That aspect of his personality has made him a controversial figure not only on a political front but also within the filmmaking community. Tavernier is not a favorite among French film powerbrokers. His films have rarely represented France at Cannes or the Oscars though they are staples on the festival circuit and he has one of the most impressive and consistent records of international theatrical sales among his countrymen.

"It's not good to live on the past," he avers. "I've seen very good filmmakers become contaminated by their old films. They are part of how you evolve but that's for others to analyze. In general I've only had to go back for some DVD versions but many I've not bothered to look at again. Mostly the surprises aren't pleasant. I thought Une Semaine de vacances was not so good as I remembered and Spoiled Children better."

The film he's most unlikely to revisit is La Fille d'Artagnan that was renamed Daughter of the Musketeers in the U.S. Tavernier was a producer on the film but a week prior to start of filming its star, Sophie Marceau, and the original director had a falling out. Tavernier was legally committed to taking over and though the experience was not tumultuous, he still retains an unpleasant memory of its American sale to Miramax.

"I wasn't against recutting it for America but there was something vile about the way Harvey Weinstein approached me to do the new edit," he recalls. "It verged on blackmail and the note came at a time when I was not about to let it pass. By contract I had to be consulted and I wrote back that he was being too conservative. My recommendations called for radical editing and I concluded that most of the film could be thrown out and the American version should be no more than 42 minutes long. One of his assistants responded, I think, to see if I was serious and I wrote back that I'd rethought my initial suggestions and found three more minutes that could be cut."

Tavernier believes the film never opened theatrically and that its home video version is the same as the one released in France.

In contrast, he conveys enormous pride in Holy Lola. In addition to an unorthodox filming approach that he feels elevated the film, he seems most pleased by plaudits he's received in Cambodia and the fact the film served to pave the way for changes in laws regarding alien adoptions in France.

To the interviewer's surprise none of the film's chief artistic contributors had personal experience with adoption according to Tavernier. It is nonetheless a film that seems very much told by someone with first hand experience.

He had a vague memory about a crew member that was either an adoptee or adopter but newspaper reports that his daughter (who co-wrote the screenplay) had adopted a child were erroneous.

"It was correct to the extent that my daughter had a child," he says. "But it was by what you would call traditional means. I think what spurred this along was a newspaper article. The script was more a blueprint though it was completely written and structured. What was flexible was how things could play out. I really wanted to go in with an open mind and find out how I truly felt about these type of situations."

Tavernier decided that the only way for Holy Lola to evolve in an emotionally honest fashion was to shoot it in strict chronological order. His crew was nonetheless in shock when he filmed the couple's arrival at the airport in Phnom Penh and struck before their departure was shot.

"I wanted to put the actors through the process so that when they arrived at a certain moment or situation they could react with what they had learned to that point," says Tavernier. "There were wonderful, spontaneous things that occurred and it actual made the process go faster. The Cambodians would only allow us in for five weeks, so we had no options to go back. I think it was the most personally satisfying experience I've ever had making a film."

And, he adds, when the film was premiered in Phnom Penh he received what he considered the ultimate compliment from the country's best known filmmakers who told him: "You have made a Cambodian movie."

November 30 , 2005

- by Leonard Klady