All language subtitles for Raoul Coutard

Shortly after finishing Piano Player,

he fold us,
“You should read Roché's book.”

So everyone did,

and they said,
“You can't make a film out of this.”

Finally, he gave us the script.

Everyone who knew him said,

“Don't make this film.
It'll cause problems.”

In the end,
Frangois was right fo make the film.

It goes against what I always say:

Making a film
is like a love affair.

Everyone has to want to make
that story, with that director,

that crew and those actors.

But in this case,
no one wanted to film the script.

Contrary fo the crew, who at first
fold him not fo make the film,

Frangois seemed fairly calm about it.

What's more,
the crew quickly made a U-turn

when they saw the dailies.

It was something that worked well
right from the start.

We could see it went much further
than what was in the script.

That was reassuring.

It was around 1912.

Jules, a foreigner in Paris,
asked Jim, whom he hardly knew,

fo get him info the Quatres Arts Ball.

Jim got him an invitation
and took him fo the costumer's.

It was while Jules rummaged gently
through the clothes for a slave costume

that Jim's friendship
for Jules was born.

In terms of preparation,

even though the film
seems quite improvised,

it was prepared
like any conventional film.

We went scouting for locations
and chose them together

with an eye to whether
they were practical.

Sometimes we prepared two sets
for the same scene.

We'd discuss them:
“This one's easier to light.

Frangois preferred that one.”

Then we would decide.

Actually, while Jules and Jim
was still a conventional film,

it had a certain lightness,

and that's why he wanted
fo shoot with the Caméfiex,

fo avoid the need for a huge crew.

In the beginning
it would paralyze him

fo see the boom operafor,
the sound engineer,

the recorder, four grips
and five electricians.

It drove him crazy.

He preferred the system
of working with a small crew,

as if it were

a nude scene.

There were scenes

that required quite
an intimate atmosphere.

Also, in the chalet,

the rooms were tiny.

There's a scene where Jeanne
has secrets fo fell.

Only Frangois and I were there,

as well as the focus puller
in case the focus needed correcting.

In any case, there was no room
for anyone else.

But jt added a lof.

For the actors,

it's good not fo have 25 people
right in their faces.

“You see before you
the unhappiest of men,

because I have two wives:

wife number one
and wife number two.”

For Jules and Jim, we used

natural lighting whenever possible.

Otherwise, we used artificial lighting.

We lit...

with small lights

like RFLs.

These are 500-walft lights
with curved reflectors.

Since we were shooting on location,
they had fo fit.

Most of the action fakes place
in this house in the mountains.

We lit everything with RFLs,

set up fo bounce light off the ceiling.

Jim there, Jules here,

and Sabine next to me.

On this film, Frangois tried
fo keep things as free as possible.

Many scenes were shot
without inferruption

to retain their spontaneity.

Even though they were completely staged,
they didn't seem fo be.

We had lots of scenes
with pans and such.

The steam engine.

Thérese, how are you?
How'd it go with —

Long fakes. Well, they couldn't
last more than four minutes,

because we were shooting
with a Caméflex, 120 meters of film,

or 400 feet.
That equals four minutes.

For this shoot,

Frangois, after our experiences...

with sound recording,
both live and postsynchronized —

This time he decided
to shoot everything...

with a Caméflex...

recording only background sound,
the wild track...

but everything with the Caméflex.

There were still some small problems.

We had two scenes
with live sound recording:

the scene where Jeanne sings her song,

because it would've been
foo complicated fo do in posit,

and the discussion
between Jules, Jim, and Rezvani

about a poet who's killed

just when the armistice
is declared.

Since this section
wasn't fully scripted —

The acfors had some guidelines,
but at the same time,

they were free fo improvise
apart from the writfen text.

In his last letter to the fiancée
he hardly knew, he wrote,

“Your breasts are
the only bombs I love.”

I'll show you some pictures of him.

Flip through them quickly
and he seems to be moving.

Beautiful story, Jim.

Jules wrote me beautiful letters
from the war too.

It was truly a period film,

because if fakes place during WW].

We kept the look

of the films of that time:

slightly old-fashioned,

and a bit simplistic descriptively.

At the same time,
this confirms my belief

that it's always important
for a cinematographer

to fully understand
what a director wants,

because the way
he handles these things

tells you a lot
about how to create the image.

I'm there fo serve the director.

I don't do “my” cinematography.
I do the film's cinematography.

The cinematography is there

fo advance the story,

fo add emotion.

We're not there fo steal the show.
Not at all.

If something seems strange fo me,
I'll talk to him about it.

But he's the only one to say,
“No, I want it like this.”

Of course, he'd say it in a nicer way.
He'd say, “I'd prefer.”

“I would greatly prefer

that it be like this.”

Frangois is a really nice person.

He never gefs angry.

He's always courteous.
He speaks well.

But at the same time,
his vocabulary is very precise.

There's no use of incoherent jargon.

He's a director
who gives lofs of direction.

I was always surprised,
because when he'd say, “Let's redo it” —

For example, Jean-Luc would say,
“Let's redo it. because...”

and he'd explain with gestures.

Frangois would say,

“Let's redo it because
this emotion didn't come through.”

Or because a phrase wasn't correctly
finished, the meaning wasn't clear,

things like that.

Other directors would say,
“It wasn't good. Let's redo it,”

without giving any direction,
thinking we'd figure it out ourselves.

I know it's not good, but I don't know why.
Frangois wasn't like that.

He always either accepted
what he'd been given —

Sometimes he'd only do one take.

Usually he'd do several,

but he'd work on each one,

not just in terms of movement,

but on a deeper level...

the graduated intensities of emotion.

On this film,
even though Frangois himself

was worried it wouldn't work,

it still didn't stop him.

In his conception of the film,
it didn't stop him

from trying new things.

I'm absolutely certain
you're the father.

I beg you to believe me.
Your love is now alive within me.

You must believe me.

We shot some scenes
from a helicopter.

At the time, there were no specially
equipped helicopters for shooting films,

so we had a helicopter
from the French Profection civile

Some shots were simply flyovers
of the counlryside,

and then we had
the shots with the train.

We had a small problem:

We had no way to communicate
with the ground crew.

The first day, we used hand signals
to figure out what was going on.

Finally, the second day
we decided to use a radio.

We managed to get
a French military radio, a CR 300,

and we had one in the helicopter.

At one point...

since we were shooting quite near
the Franco-German border,

we were picked up by military
surveillance, who chewed us out

because we hadn't informed them
we'd be fiddling with the radio.

There were even
some zoom shofs.

But since we were shooling in Scope,

and af the time,
there was no zoom in Scope,

all the zoom shots

were anamorphosed later
fo match in editing.

This gave Frangois
the freedom he needed for his story.

In particular,

he wanted to copy something
that'd been done in a Hifchcock film —

I don't remember which —
which was a reverse zoom.

Meaning we film an object
that is a certain size,

and the camera tracks backward

while the zoom enlarges the object,

so the object remains
the same size.

But at the same time,
the background changes

as the perspective changes.

This is one of those operations

that seem very easy on paper

but that are extremely
complicated to do.

At the time,
when you focused the zoom lens,

it also augmented the zoom.

This meant that each time,
we had to make tons of marks on the track

so the person doing the zoom
would be perfectly synchronized

with the person doing the focusing.

It has to be smooth.

In this case,
there weren't problems with an actress

because it was a statue,
so we could do it.

But I remember it took us
three quarters of a day

fo do a shot that
wasn't all that good in the end.

They spent an hour by the sfalue.
It exceeded their expectations.

They walked rapidly around it in silence.
They didn't speak of it fill the next day.

For Frangois, it was an experiment.

It made Jeanne's entrance

very dramatlic.

Catherine, the French girl, had the smile
of the statue on the island.

Her nose, mouth, chin and forehead

bore the nobility of a province
she personified as a child

in a religious celebration.

It was a real love affair.

For the whole section
shot in eastern France,

the crew was really tightly knit.

I'm sure this came through
in the film.

We were one big family.

For example, Jeanne,
who was a superstar at the time,

was accessible fo everyone.

She didn't have her own chair.
She'd just pull up a box and sit down.

She fended for herself.

The other actors —

Werner, also a star,

went along with that same system.

Somefimes, if she wasn't shooting,
she'd make lunch for everyone

or make things more pleasant
by bringing us snacks.

It's frue that the film was risky,

but I think big stars

have the privilege of taking such risks.

In any case, the real stars.

Others wouldn't have dared do it.

But it's Jeanne's style
fo do such things.

Later, she did lots of risky projects.

She worked with famous directors,
but also little-known ones.

She didn't hesitate fo fake risks.

It's also true —

perhaps she didn't realize it
at the time —

but there were lots of films —

and this is also true
for other actresses —

that only worked because of her.

If it was someone else,
even someone just as falenfed,

the whole thing would fall apart.

She had considerable
cinematic presence.

We filmed a scene that ended
on the banks of the Seine,

where Jeanne provokes them
and then jumps in the water.

She had a stunt double for that,

It wasn't because
she didn't want fo do it,

because she got in the wafer later
fo do the close-ups,

but because it would've caused
insurance problems.

The company that insured Jeanne Moreau
didn't want her to jump in the water

because she'd risk catching cold
or something even nastier.

For the scene where
the car goes info the wafer,

we used three cameras.

Two cameras filmed, at normal speed,

the car approaching from the distance
and flying info the water.

One of these filmed head-on.

And one camera was shooting,
in slow motion,

the car's descent into the water.

It happens really fast.
The fall has to be shot in slow motion.

Actually, that camera was supposed
to switch back to normal speed

when the car hit the water.

But in the end,
that part was messed up

because we had fo change the aperture
at the same time as the speed.

It wasn't well synchronized,
and it showed.

But it's frue, it was a big scene

that we couldn't afford fo mess up,
so we needed full coverage.

Jules would no Jonger dread,
as he had from the beginning,

that Catherine would cheat on him
or, quite simply, die,

since it had happened now.

Their bodies were found
entangled among the reeds.

A lot of things were done
during editing.

For example, certain things
like freeze-frames

were not particularly planned
by Frangois while filming.

They were added later.

Some choices he made —
for example, a certain number of shofs,

the explosions taken from war footage —

some of them were shot
with an anamorphic lens

fo refain their actual proportions.

The others he left just as they were.

Those are things he would decide
when he saw them.

I've shot a lof of films,

and I've realized

that a film, at its best.
reaches the level of the script.

Usually, it's a bit below the script,

since there are always
lots of mishaps.

The actors don't always portray
exactly what they're expected to,

though that doesn't stop them
from being good anyway.

The sets aren't always right,
and lots of other details

that cause the film to be different

from what the director wanted.

Jules and Jim /s an amazing film

because, in my opinion,
it's belter than the script.

It's a synthesis of a bunch of things

that make it. as I said earlier,

a film that leaves us speechless.

That's due fo a lot of things.

Delerue's music is magnificent.

The acting is extraordinary.

But at the same time,
it's one of those films

that, when you leave the theater,

you can't analyze.

Usually we'll say,

“The music was pretty good.
I liked the dialogue.”

But here we don't know what to say.

We can't remember where we parked.
We don't want to go eat.

And most of all,
we don't want to talk about it.

It's extraordinary.

As music lovers say,

“Affer a Mozart concert.
the silence is still Mozart.”

And the silence that follows “The End”
Is stiff Jules and Jim.