Original subtitles

I was living in a provincial town, Tours,

which hosted an important festival,

the international short film festival.

That's where I saw Walerian Borowczyk's first films.

They were very weird films, but terrific.

I was very interested in animation and when I saw these films

with their outstanding graphics and home-made, surreal oddness

I immediately loved them.

I was eagerly awaiting this man's next films.

When I saw his first feature,

Theatre 0f Mr and Mrs Kabal,

I was deliriously happy.

He had an incredible way

with colours and pen and ink.

It was really unusual, really individual.

I really admired that.

Borowczyk drew in such a way

as to make me feel I could do the same,

which was of course preposterous, as talent is inimitable,

but his way of drawing didn't seem to be out of reach.

You feel the same when you look at a Saul Steinberg cartoon.

There's a lot of talent in there.

You think you can do the same because you can see how it's done,

but of course you can't do the same!

I knewjournalists who wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma

and who had been my teachers

when I was at film school in Paris.

They knew Borowczyk was an important filmmaker,

butnobody at Cahiers du Cinéma

was interested enough in animation to be able to write about it.

And they knew that...

They were my teachers so they knew I could write

and they knewl liked Borowczyk and that I loved animation.

So they asked me one day

to write about Theatre 0f Mr and Mrs Kaba/

which had just come out and no one could write about.

And of course it was an offer I couldn't refuse,

to write for Cahiers du Cinéma

about a man I loved but didn't know.

I had never met Borowczyk at that stage.

We met much later.

But when I wrote about Kaba/ I hadn't met him.

Then came G010, Isle ofLove.

At Cahiers du Cinéma

they thought that as I had reviewed Kaba/

I should review G010, /s/e ofLove even though it was not an animation film.

That's what they asked me to do.

So at Cahiers du Cinéma, in the space of two articles,

I had become a sort of Borowczyk specialist.

I had a wonderful time trying to write

as cleverly and accurately as I could about these two films.

I tried to do justice to them with my writing.

And my reviews turned out to be very useful to me

as they made it possible for me to meet Borowczyk.

I don't remember exactly how we met

but he had read my reviews in Cah/ers

and expressed very warm thanks, saying,

"You wrote so perceptively about my work..."

So that brought us into contact with one another.

A few years later, or perhaps around the same time,

when Borowczyk was thinking of making Blanche,

I had just graduated from the IDHEC film school

and was looking for work experience as an assistant director.

That was the natural career path, and it was also what I wanted.

I don't remember how I knew this, perhaps he told me,

but I heard Borowczyk was working on Blanche

and I asked ifl could be a trainee assistant director,

and I was taken on.

In those days I hung about in Montparnasse

and I was friends with the son of Pauline Réage,

the author of The Sta/y 0f 0.

It had been made into a profitable film

but she had written another novel, Refouré Roissy,

for which she still owned the rights.

Her son thought that if he produced it, he would make a lot of money.

As it happened this fellow, Philippe d'Argila,

had been Jacques Perrin's associate in the production of Z

One day...

Philippe d'Argila told me Perrin wanted to see me.

So I met Jacques Perrin

who asked me ifl knew about the film Boro was preparing.

I said, "No, never heard of it." It didn't register.

At that stage there was no question of taking me on.

Perrin then said to me,

"Ask his associate, Dominique Duvergé, whom I knew,

"if she'll let you have the final script, the shooting script,

"and the estimate, if there is one.

"But Boro mustn't know."

Dominique was a friend.

She passed everything onto me.

Naturally Boro was aware of that.

Perrin had told me,

"Read it first before passing it onto me and then we'll talk about it."

When I read it, I realised there was an extraordinary part for Michel Simon.

Hurry, Blanche. The guests are here.

The Mistress awaits and the King is arriving.

Hurry UP!

/ will be down in a minute.

When I met Perrin again

he asked me what I thought and if I was sure,

because the budget was extremely tight.

Hesaw, "Are you sure he won't go over budget?"

I said, "Pretty sure.

"If he's agreed to do it for this budget and he's putting his own money into it,

"he'll stick t0 it."

He said, "OK, go and tell Perrin that I'll co-produce it

"and I'll give him an extra 50% to make his film."

So we increased the budget from 100 million to 150 million.

This gave him more leeway.

"No chance," I told him.

"This project is tailor-made for his wife.

"He won't take anybody else."

Anyway, we started the film and that's how I got involved.

And then, since I had become involved,

Boro asked me if I wanted to be his assistant.

Perrin said the same, which is how I came to work on the film.

Just to select a suit of armour or two

we spent three days going round costume hire shops

checking how the ones he liked best were made

even if the character was going to be out in the corridor!

You want to fighz' him. He is a nobody.

L2' is a nobleman 's right to get rid 0f such individuals

by beating them with a stick.

Right at the start Perrin put the film on hold

because he didn't want Ligia,

he wanted Catherine Deneuve.

So filming came to a standstill.

Boro had seals affixed to his sets.

This lasted for a fortnight

until a guy whom Argila knew,

who was very rich,

came along and injected some money into the film

so we could start filming again.

But Perrin was still co-producing, without Boro knowing it.

On completing the film, Boro asked me,

"Did you know Perrin had put money into it?"

I said, "Of course I knew." I was the only one who knew.

"But without that money you would never have been able to make your film

"so you shouldn't complain."

It was a tricky film to shoot.

And...

Borowczyk was trying out angles he had not used before,

angles from more classic films,

for instance the shots in the moats of the Chéteau de Vincennes

and the special effect with the axe when Jacques Perrin is about to fight.

He has a shield and when the other guy strikes it

he moves his shield aside and his skull is split in two by the axe.

This was actually a reverse action shot.

We started with the axe to the head.

Then the axe was raised and the shield drawn back.

It works beautifully.

Borowczyk was second to none for Méliés-style tricks,

for... animation tricks.

He always remained the animation man,

the short-film man, a renaissance man, the builder of new sets...

He used the same methods with his films featuring actors.

You lie like a dog!

Ah, you love her.

Touche'!

The atmosphere on Blanche was very strange.

Ligia Branice, who was Borowczyk's wife,

had a strange diction,

and I believe she got on the other actors' nerves,

Jacques Perrin,

Michel Simon,

Georges Wilson.

They said she was in the film just because she was the director's wife.

I heard them gossiping. They were very annoyed.

Obviously, Walerian Borowczyk was right.

She is unique, outstanding. She is one of a kind.

She may have been annoying,

but they should have trusted him.

They really should have trusted him. Instead, they...

Apart from Jacques Perrin, who was on board by then.

Michel Simon couldn't care less.

Georges Wilson was furious.

He didn't have the slightest idea what Borowczyk was doing.

As for directing actors,

he chose actors because he knew them.

He knew he didn't need to direct Michel Simon.

He knew what he was getting with Brasseur, Michel Simon

and Georges Wilson.

So he didn't guide his actors much.

Some people, especially the supporting actors,

felt a little upset about his lack of precise instructions.

Boro just let them act and he kept anything that was good.

If he wasn't happy, he would give them a few instructions.

I remember...

one early morning...

when I came to the set,

I noticed a guy on a ladder

inking some dark green

onto the frieze on the wall.

It was Borowczyk himself.

Not the set designer, not the painter...

No, Borowczyk insisted on doing it himself.

For example, there was a missal, or book of psalms, with a false bottom

in which you could conceal a vial of poison

and a crucifix which turned into something else.

All this was his work.

He would show you how to use it, how he had devised it.

He never let me visit his atelier, but I can tell you he was a DIY genius.

For him, objects were vital elements, not just ornaments.

They play a role in the film, like human characters.

Each object has its own function.

Objects play a role.

The little hand rattle...

The King has arr/ved/

The Mistress's fan...

You see them in close-up,

as if they were characters.

Every object is important for him.

Hé/p/

Your son is lying unconscious in my room.

D0 n02' go in!

On the first day of shooting, Durban said,

"Great, I can use my lighting." So he sets up some back-lighting.

Our set was a medieval castle.

So Durban set up some back-lighting and a bit of this and that,

like in Angé/ique Marquise des Anges.

On viewing the dailies the next evening Boro said, "This has got to stop.

"You're showing off. This is no longer my film."

It was no longer his film

as soon as anyone interfered with his m/se en scéne.

And the lighting interfered, so we had to start all over again.

We went back to a G010 style of lighting.

We soon got used to him.

Both of them, Borowczyk and his cinematographer,

who I believe had already worked on G010, Isle 0f Love

got along extremely well.

The cinematographer did not try to take control.

He was entirely devoted to Borowczyk, who had very precise demands.

He knew about light and the direction it came from.

He could answer the magic question: where is the light coming from?

He had very definite ideas.

Very pictorial, very graphic.

But Borowczyk decided on the framing,

and on any shift in the lighting and so on.

We were filming a duel to the death when, all of a sudden,

Borowczyk put some small mushrooms on the ground

and started filming feet smashing up these mushrooms

in his very methodical way.

I think it was Guy Durban who said,

"Who cares about the actors' feet

"when they are piercing each other with their swords?"

Borowczyk replied, "You're wrong, you don't understand.

"It's very important,

"these innocent creatures being crushed."

And therein lies Borowczyk's political awareness.

There is a major conflict

and within that major conflict innocent mushrooms get crushed.

Ligia Branice, a strange actress but the director's wife,

a director who paints the ceiling instead of talking to his actors...

All of this created a weird atmosphere.

And Borowczyk didn't speak French very well

and didn't closely relate to actors.

He would stay in his corner, very stubborn, but rightfully stubborn.

He would set up very unconventional shots,

and he was right to do so,

but the actors were quite at a loss.

I found all this amusing,

since my hero was Borowczyk, not Michel Simon.

Well, Michel Simon too, but...

when I watched Borowczyk coping with an actor's bad mood

while concentrating on his stuff, I was always on his side...

Give me my son back!

Michel Simon,

when he was contacted, said,

maybe because he had some tax arrears to pay,

"l won't work for the French anymore."

We told him that Borowczyk was a Pole and that it would be different.

We had dinner with him quite often before shooting started.

And a close friendship was born

with Michel Simon

who told us some wonderful stories

and formed a close bond with Borowczyk.

He realised...

he was dealing with... How can I put that?

...with a sensible and intelligent man.

I remember he was furious

because Michel Simon's hair had been bleached for another film.

He had suffered a lot

and as far as he was concerned, the French...

could go to hell.

He didn't want anything more to do with them.

So that's how it all started

and they got along really well together.

Michel Simon was a pain in the neck.

He loved shocking Ligia Branice

as he knew Borowczyk was hurt when he was rude to Ligia.

That was tough, really.

Ligia was Borowczyk's muse, his angel. She was out of bounds.

Fortunately, Dominique Duvergé was there to protect Ligia,

making sure everything went smoothly.

Boro behaved in the exact same way with his wife

as with the other actors.

She demanded certain things regarding light and he agreed.

The cinematographer knew about this.

Ligia was adamant about it.

She was made up so as to have

a very clear complexion, with two dark sides,

and Guy Durban would film her with a G010 light

from behind the camera, head-on

with two small strips of cloth producing two shadows here

to make the face thinner,

to make it enigmatic, to sculpt it and give it depth.

The trouble was, whenever there was a close-up,

we had to change all the lighting and do a close-up of Ligia.

Never mind the continuity.

All that mattered was that she had her Ligia light.

People said that silence reigned when she came on set,

but that's an exaggeration.

Silence fell when Michel Simon arrived!

I think by then relationships were extremely...

Throughout the shooting it was awful.

Boro wasn't speaking to Jacques Perrin.

He'd just say, "You stand there" or "Today we're shooting this."

As they had rehearsed first around a table

he knew his part, but that was all.

By noon Perrin was made up in his dressing room,

and he was last to be called to the set.

He'd have to wait for four or five hours.

Michel Simon wouldn't talk to him either.

He called him "a little arsehole"...

I was acting as the go-between for these gentlemen.

Perrin had made the mistake of not wanting Boro's wife

but, if you ask me, Boro was the unpleasant one.

Perrin said nothing.

He had his secretary, as he had other films to take care of.

He was a major producer by then.

He did his own work

and only came on set when he was needed.

He wouldn't even come to watch the dailies.

Blanche, in fact, was the work of a threesome,

Boro, Dominique Duvergé and myself.

We made that film.

What I learnt

while watching Borowczyk at work

was that you should delegate as little as possible.

In other words, to quote the saying,

"lf you want a job done well, do it yourself."

Borowczyk was living proof of that. His films were in his own image.

They were what he wanted them to be since he poked his nose into everything.

That's what he taught me. He taught me to be a pain in the arse.

And he also taught me something

which, unfortunately, I am not always able to apply,

namely to be stubborn and pig-headed

in dealing with other people.

I'm not stubborn. I always manage to get what I want,

but for that I have to be cunning and find a way round things.

He was much more direct.

I remember Georges Wilson

trying to argue with him, to no avail.

Borowczyk was like that, like a brick wall.

I admired him for that, but I can't do the same.

Blanche turned out to be a magnificent film.

A very personal, very beautiful, very bizarre, very successful film.

I have very fond memories of it

because I loved the man and his style of working

and when you love an artist and you see them at work day after day

it's a dream come true.

Some mysterious aspects became crystal-clear.

For two months I really enjoyed watching Walerian Borowczyk at work.

And what's strange is...

that was the only time in my life I worked as an assistant director.

After that, I made short films and features...

I only worked as an assistant once,

and that was for Blanche.

I think his major films should be rereleased

as he is an outstanding filmmaker.

That's how I would define him.

There are others, of course, but he really stands out.