Marion Cotillard and Mona Achache on Little Girl Blue | Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2024

it's such a joy to have the three of you with us uh to speak about this extraordinary film which uh I I I feel it's a it's an honor to be speaking with you uh immediately after this great room of people has encountered Kash perhaps for the first time perhaps encountered her in new way if they were already familiar with her work uh the film in the film you narrate uh somewhat explicitly the origins of the film but could you speak in a bit more detail just to kick things off about the decision to tell this story the story of your mother and of your grandmother and of of your family and family history uh specifically in this uh mode that is not quite documentary and not quite a fictional reenact M but that somehow transcends both I'm I'm sorry I'm going to to say it in in French um [Music] the [Music] [Music] Mar the starting point were the 26 boxes of archives that we see in the film which I had promised myself never to open and yet I did and in these I found these photographs of Carol Young Carol so free so solar and so far from this woman who was both inside and outside destroyed as we saw in the film and so I really needed to investigate to understand beyond the faltering mother who this character was the this this fascinating character I found the tape recorder with her voice and in which she asks why she was abandoned in her childhood we hear her voice say that and we hear the strength in this voice the life in this voice and this made me feel everything that was missing what I I lacked and it brought up this impossible fantasy of bringing my mother back and having her explain what she did which led to this other impossible fantasy which was having Marion do it because it really was Marion that I dreamed of for this part of having her resuscitate my mother and turn her into the heroine that she was so I'm curious about uh the process by which Mar became involved you knew you you envisioned Mario in this part uh and Mar I've I've I know from interviews you've spoken about uh reading the screenplay and being so captivated by the character and this means of exploring the character uh and I wonder if you could speak a bit about the screenplay that uh you shared with Mar and what uh at what stage of development was the film because it's such a hybrid film in terms of its use of images and and use of the archive uh and and use of scripted passages in particular and use of VoiceOver and text and I'm curious what the screenplay looked like that you gave to Marion and Marion what in the screenplay captivated you um [Music] res part transform it was a very written film it was understood that the truth of the shoot would bring out something that was unknown but the Quest for truth that I was on was very much based on what I had heard in the recordings of kahol and so that was very clearly articulated based on her voice that had really been put down and the film starts from my solitude from my loneliness and then Mar arrives and she really is this fantasy vision of an actress who arrives who puts on my mother's clothing and from there the film un unfolds and Marion will talk about this too I'm sure but the film's documentary part was really made possible by the fact that Maron accepted to work alone ahead of time I wanted there to be our two respective solitudes or loneliness in parallel mine investigating into my mother and then Maron working before we started shooting because in fact we only shot for 8 days and then the film is a witness to this transformation that she goes through and it was basically a very written film it was eight very long days just so you know um no what what was your question it was about the script right script and what about the character of carolle and the approach to the project was exciting to you and and um carried you through uh because it's such an extraordinary performance that is uh uh requires a degree of intensity that I think only comes from loving the character or loving the subject in some way yeah um well as MAA said uh it was really written everything was there um the only thing that was not in the script was how I failed the first days with the lip sync um I worked a lot I know a little bit about lip sying because I experienced it on other movies but the lip sying think I experienced I had experienced was uh with music so there's something that is really like the Rhythm it's like mathematics it's you have like um you can relay on the music but unlik a regular uh speaking uh Speech it's it's really hard and I have to say that I didn't expect that it would be that hard and I worked for like three months days and night listening to the recordings um you know like massaging messaging the Rhythm inside of me and uh all the the length of you know well when you speak like this well what what I just say like I dripped on Words and I dripped on my own Rhythm it was really like um really hard hard to get but I thought I I was ready and then and then the first day on set I was I lost it like I couldn't do an entire scene without cutting myself and I and the Rhythm was was uh the speed was it was I mean I couldn't yeah I was lost I was uh I was really it was the hardest thing I had ever done and and um and I said to Mona I think I'm I'm ruining your film which is more than a film and I remember the first day I was like crying and saying I'm so sorry I'm not like I'm failing you it's uh it's really it's really not what you deserve I thought I would be ready but I cannot do it but I have to do it and uh and Mona and L Tia they were really amazing because they never doubt that it would add something to this film and um but then the first time I saw the film I was like no I mean this is the story of your mother my struggle shouldn't be there but then I and then Mona told me but this is a movie about my mother but it's more than that to me because if it was just a movie about my mother I wouldn't write Maran arrives as herself and puts on the clothes of my mother and the objects and everything so there was a dimension that I had forgotten because I thought I was not good enough for what she was asking and what she deserved um I'm not really answering your question I'm going um elsewhere but it's um but I felt when I read the script right away that it was something that was so unique that was so peculiar that that was something that I had never done before and that I would never do again uh well not that it was that hard but this is you know it's not every day that a director comes and say can you bring my mother back to life um so I as I said before you watched the movie I it was more than a movie it was really like taking on this journey with an artist who wanted to tell her story which is universal because uh there are so many women that had been um that were um sexually assaulted and uh and this and as I said before again that as you as you saw she talked she said everything she went to see people and she said that that what happened to me and I'm suffering and I'm and it's destroying me and nobody listened to her so to bring this voice back to you today to the people in friends who saw the movie it's something that is like when you when you take your suffering when you take your life and your inner disaster and you make it a piece of art I think that worth everything that we're what we do sometimes I'm like I'm an actress what do I do I tell stories and sometimes I have this like is it useless is it and this movie really um brought me back to yeah art is very important because when you're when you meet such an incredible artist who can take all her life and her suffering life and make an object of Art this is something that can really resonate in people and um and yeah that's why I really wanted to be part of this project it was really [Music] long that's a beautiful response and it it uh it leads nicely into my next question which is again for both of you because I think uh the film in so many ways is is a testament to or a document of your collaboration and uh Mona you spoke about the the degree to which the film is very carefully scripted and it's clearly also very carefully constructed on a formal level in terms of the construction of the set and the way that it's shot and edited very meticulous in its construction and yet uh there is sort of an electricity to it that suggests to me that it is the product of a process of experiment ation or or of a therapeutic process of of experimenting with these immense emotions and and and internal forces of grief and anger and and connection or or unknowability what the desire to know and I just I want to ask you both if you could speak a bit about how you balanced those forces in the process of making the film the the the very deliberate constructed planned framework work within which you could experiment and go through this therapeutic process for for [Music] TR the starting point um was really this idea of staging of creating a misen for a a concrete physical psycho therapy you know opening these boxes putting everything inside them on the floor really following a therapeutic trajectory putting the photos up on the wall in the screenplay I had written it should look like a Serial Killer's hiding place and it's not you know trying to figure out who killed who but why kah killed herself and to really go into this to be able to share this story with my own children you know to make something beautiful about out of what is ugly and then you know there's mythology and the aspect that goes beyond reality but there was a a quest in what I was doing for reality and to move toward Truth by creating a form that would take us away from realism that was very written it was very carefully thought through but then on top of that there was this other thing which is far from insignificant which is my own relationship with Mah which incident which initially was the relationship between a director and her actress but very quickly began to blend with the relationship of the daughter with her mother and so we made this film in this blurred Troublesome Zone but that was really the desire for the film and it was a very powerful shooting experience a very powerful experience of life that was made possible by [Music] Mar for forab just to go back to what Mar said earlier about the the fact that she she failed or she struggled and that the first days of the film were so challenging I hadn't imagined that for a second because I had fantasized her entirely that's what I show at the beginning of the film with her Oscar I was completely in the myth of the actress and to suddenly see her struggle I found so magnificent she said this beautiful thing about the difficulty of the path that you have to follow and whether it's a therapeutic path or an artistic one there was nothing more beautiful than her struggle and I knew that we would get past that and I I Knew Too that at the moment we forgot Maron behind the character behind the character of kahal even though it's said that we're always supposed to forget the actor or the actress behind his or her character I knew that Carol would be charged with maron's struggle and that that would represent maron's vulnerabilities my vulnerabilities all our vulnerabilities and that was such a beautiful thing yeah again that was a special project because I I had experienced um I experienced before uh taking on like uh real life people but never in front of a member of of the family especially the one who's created all this and I remember um we had met with um with Mona briefly like two times before the movie but we had had a um very deep and interesting conversation about about women about men about the relationship between women between men between men and women it was so deep and so interesting and um but and then yeah we we met when I decided to do the movie so we met one time and then we met the second time when she gave me the the um the recording and the pictures and we had this beautiful conversation and then and then we met again when we started preparing the movie and I remember um the first um camera the first camera try outs or camera tests yeah the tests sorry um the camera test and the makeup test and every like I was in this dressing room and they had put the makeup on and the wig and I was wearing the clothes and then suddenly I was about to um go on set the the test set and I and suddenly I thought wow that I had mixed feelings because I wanted Mona to believe that I was her mother and at the same time was like what am I doing like it might move her too much and then the other voice was like you want to move her but then it's like it's serious it's not like you know it's so it was like I was totally confused and I didn't know where my place was and then suddenly I was like she asked you to do this and if she doesn't believe that you're can actually be her mother it won't work so and I was really scared that she would be too moved that it would be too too much but at the same time I wanted it to be that much and um and so I went out and uh and I saw that it would [Laughter] work and then our relationship from that day became um it was a partnership based on love understand standing and just like taking hands and telling the story of a woman who is unfortunately the story of many women um and on set there was one day that was very very special because of course she knows her mother she knows what she knows of her mother and she had already discovered something different that's why she wanted to do this movie and to create this movie to have this conversation with this woman she didn't know she knew the suffering woman and she didn't know this woman when she was young and Soler as she said and and um and that very and and so she has her journey with her mother and I had my journey with this woman I never met I didn't know anything about before meeting Mona and as an actor you um you meet the character whether it's someone who has existed or someone who is totally fictional and the kind of aim for an actor is to understand this person so you have a vision that is different like you're going to meet someone and and your friend is going to meet the same person and might not have the same feeling about this person and what I saw um in carolle was something that I shared like it was very like innocent one day I was on set and I had seen all those pictures and this footage that I I I mean all the material that I had and um and I saw something that I shared with Muna one day on set I was like this is beautiful what I see because your mother really loved you and your brother and MAA looked at me and she said ah she was a very like a hard woman to live with and and and it's as if she was telling me no this love that you feel I didn't feel and then suddenly I was like well I feel it I feel the love I feel the love in the pictures and the footage it was such a beautiful day because then she took it and it was really like through me was and I'm I'm I was not responsible for anything but I felt that I was kind of a tunnel of this message that yeah you mom your mom loved you maybe she showed it in like a very weird way but and this connection connected us forever and um and I think through ART again you can really like experience things that you thought never exist did but then even when you thought it never existed when you you you felt it never existed then suddenly you can feel that it's actually it was actually something that was real and that was yeah that was the one of the most beautiful experience uh experiences that I had on set was just through me this character was saying yeah like give her my love because it was real you [Music] know that's so beautifully said and uh I just building on this incredible exchange that the two of you have just communicated um I want to zoom out a bit and ask la since we have her here uh about the role of a producer in sort of facilitating this Alchemy and because the role of the producer I think is often invisible even more invisible than that of the director sometimes and so what did you uh uh what was your experience of witnessing and also making possible the conditions in which this kind of extraordinary Alchemy could take place for me it was Al also the same it's was the first experience like this in my life I mean I produced not a lot but some kind you know some films and for it was the first time it was not a shooting it was not a film it was a very I don't know how to say that but it was incredible human being experience for me she was you know like she said before it was connection it was chemical it was and and really all the all the team so Carol so it was not a shooting it was not a film it was like okay what what are we doing it was three weeks just eight days with Mah but long long days but during these eight days it was okay we are doing a film yes we are doing a film and and and I I can't I can't say really um even today even when I'm coming in this in this uh for example today we come back from the just just before we we are going here and was say people are watching this film and it's it's so amazing to to that art that film could do this kind of thing you know so for me it's really you have to say that it was very difficult to do it I mean about in term of of production in term of money when you see that you say how it could be possible why people didn't see that it was so amazing film but it was very difficult and I don't understand why even today I say why because you need to have this kind of cinema this kind of art she's an artist you're right she's really a amazing act I mean you you know I you are crazy but you and Mona she's crazy and it was so difficult to do this film no crazy I mean crazy incredible I mean and no it was so hard because people with the script the script was so well written really with my experience also my little experience this kind of script you never have this kind of s or very rare you know and and then it was so hard because people told us I don't exactly what you want to do with this film are you sure about the actress are you sure it's a good idea it was really this when we were with Mona in front of the people and so what can I say it's really unlucky to to have this woman and and and yes we have to fight to continue to do this kind of films but it's not so I don't know why I don't really I don't understand why today again no that's true I'm naive you know I don't understand why and now we have the film to to speak for itself and and prove that all along it was a incredibly worthy project but we were looking to to have I'm trying in English to have letia to she she gave us all a freedom and it was like the key of the possibility to to live that experience is to wear completely free um in in the film we have that uh as um margaritar talk about Jean CTO tells if your house is burning why what are you keeping we we are keeping the fire and for me it was the line of of the writing and the line of of the shooting and that fire was the freedom and it's very rare R rare rare we didn't have money but we have freedom and [Music] love well I I could keep asking questions uh for another hour but we are unfortunately out of time we have another screening beginning at 9: uh so please join me in thanking our guests and thank you all as [Applause] well and