Claude Lelouch, a taste for others

POSTED OCTOBER 14, 2018

Loudly applauded by the huge crowd, Claude Lelouch gave the audience of the Comédie Odéon a master class for the ages. Guest of honor of this edition, the filmmaker talked straight into the microphone of Jean Ollé-Laprune, a living encyclopedia of French cinema. A funny, sincere and touching exchange, an invitation to savor the moment.

I want to make you love the present through my films: "What has fascinated me since my childhood is the human race. That's what interests me, above all else! All my films are based on a scene that I witnessed. I am nothing but a reporter, I am not a director of films, but a reporter of life. Cinema is really the art of the present. And in life, it's the same, you have to enjoy the present!"

 © Institut Lumière / Olivier Chassignole

I like actors, they’re children: "We are all actors, but it is one of the most difficult professions. I like actors, they’re like big kids who like to play, to pretend. In real life, these are the ones who are not always so comfortable in their own skin. I have always considered that the great actors give us a gift of their lives. Making a film is a bit like a game of tennis, we cannot play it alone; without the actors, I am nothing."

At the moment, I have an insatiable need to film: "I just made a movie shot entirely with a cell phone as part of an experimental workshop with students from the ‘Les Ateliers de Cinéma’ school in Beaune. I also shot the epilogue of ‘A Man and a Woman’; I absolutely wanted to finish this story: I wanted to show that love has no age. I would also like to make a sequel to ‘Itinerary of a Spoiled Child."

Laura Lépine