Daniel Auteuil: “Sautet taught me to listen and Pialat to look”

Acclaimed at Cannes, The Wire, which marks his return to directing, has been a triumph in theaters since Wednesday. He looks back on the making of this film and the continuation of his adventures behind the camera.

What made you want to dive back in and return to directing, eight years after your last film?

Daniel Auteuil: It's true that I was more into singing. But, every morning, when I took my son to school, I couldn't help but think about how I could film this or that place. In short, I had the sets for a future film! (laughs) And then one day my daughter Nelly asked me to read the blog of this lawyer, Jean-Yves Moyart. At first, I had a bit of trouble getting into it, all these stories that he had compiled in a kind of diary. Until I pulled out a first thread. This parallel between this lawyer who stopped pleading after having a guy acquitted who reoffended and this guy that I am who had stopped making films because they were no longer popular. The fact that he, like me, is diving back in. Because deep down, in our heads, we had never stopped. And that at some point, deep down, no one can stop us from doing what we love. But it was also the fact of being surrounded by young people that shook me up. Just like the fact of having written songs, little stories, which gave me confidence in my ability to launch into writing this screenplay. To leave for 3 years of work. I took enormous pleasure in it, as in the discussions with the director of photography Jean-François Hensgens, whom I had met on A silence by Joachim Lafosse and communicate to him my desires for grain, thickness on the image, to show this Camargue as I saw it, far from a postcard landscape. But all this is the fruit of a teaching. Sautet taught me to listen and Pialat to look. My eye has sharpened over time. It is undoubtedly when we start to see things that others do not see that we become artists. But it is a life all that…

And among the young people you mention, there is your daughter Nelly who is signing her first film as a producer…

Between her father and her mother (Emmanuelle Béart), she has always been immersed in cinema. Because she was pretty, everyone said to her: you don't want to do cinema? So, I put her in front of a camera when I was shooting The Well-Digger's Daughter and there, I saw something that closed up a little in her. I never spoke to her about it again but I knew that her destiny would never take her there. She did something completely different, studied law… And then she came to cinema but through production, knowing that she spent part of her life reading all of her father’s and mother’s scripts. So there is a continuity…

THE WIRE: THE WINNING RETURN OF DIRECTOR DANIEL AUTEUIL [CRITIQUE]

With The Threadyou are going into a somewhat minefield, justice, on which everyone or almost everyone has a strong opinion and by pointing out the difficulty of designating a single and unique truth. Was that the initial idea, to show one's humanity with the collateral damage that this can mean?

I think it's also the story of a life. This film reflects what I am, how I don't like to judge. My modesty in not explaining. I have long since made Queen Elizabeth's words my own: “Never explain, never complain”! (laughs)

Has singing on stage changed the way you are on set?

You know, every time I go on stage, I wonder what I'm doing there. As a young man, I remember, I would retake plays in three days, with a sense of urgency that I've always had and an intensity in practicing this profession. And I'm happy to have returned to directing, even if it took time and to have managed to impose something that resembles me. Singing on stage has freed me. It's still a funny thing. The people who come, don't come to see the singer, they don't know my songs but it touches me that they come. There's an exchange that takes place. I feel that they are happy to see me so happy. I am very lucid and at the same time very gullible. But before starting this tour as a singer, I thought back to a film that I loved, Guyeven if the situation is different. I anticipated those who might say to themselves “this old actor, he could still stay at home…” No doubt some thought so, but I didn't feel like I was touring nursing homes! (laughs) And since I still had a bit of success as an actor, people couldn't say that I was just looking for a way to bounce back at all costs…

How did you experience the presentation of the Thread in Cannes?

The very first time I went to Cannes, it was almost as a neighbor, as a spectator. I saw A special day. As an actor, it was for My favorite season in 93 then there was the interpretation prize for The Eighth Day of course, the year I was a member of the jury… Cannes is the most important festival in the world. The Holy Grail. So imagine what I experienced being invited there as a director. It will remain the greatest joy of my life as an artist. Because all of a sudden my work was recognized. And the standing ovation that followed the screening overwhelmed me. I have always said that for a film, the opinion of the press is as important as that of the public. You have to have both. Claude Berri was frustrated for life because he had everything but critical enthusiasm. Maurice Pialat was frustrated for life because he would have dreamed of having more success in theaters. I am not nostalgic for what was. I always say that the good times are really now. I have often heard actors like Alain Delon explain that they had stopped filming because there were no more filmmakers. I think exactly the opposite. You have to be curious enough to let yourself be carried away by young people who come to see you, even if it means making mistakes. I take it as an incredible stroke of luck that young people always come to see me. I have always given this advice to young actors: shoot, shoot… You will learn even in bad films and then, afterwards, once you have had these experiences, it is up to you to find a direction

What was yours?

Being in agreement with what I felt. Stopping the comedies of my youth when I started to repeat myself, when I no longer believed in myself. I didn't work for a year, when I was a young father, so it was financially tight but I couldn't do otherwise. And then there was the Ugolin miracle. It's funny, these stories of holes in careers. Because when you dig, you realize that everyone, even the greatest, without exception, have experienced them.

Did returning to directing make you want to make another film?

I was ready to move on, I started with two ideas for scenarios. But I realized that I was wrong to rush. I have time. In any case, I want to take it.

Will you return to Pagnol?

I have a very nice version of Caesar. What do we do with it? (laughs) I would like to explore precisely what Alex Lutz did so well in Guy : this search for paternity. This old father, Panisse, who doesn't want to say that Césariot is not his son because he wants him to remain his son until the end. And the young son who discovers and goes to discover his “real” father, Marius, and who is disappointed. It upsets me. This is the story that I would like to tell, in one way or another. And you know, I am someone who is tenacious. (laughs)

The Thread. By Daniel Auteuil. With Daniel Auteuil, Gregory Gadebois, Alice Belaïdi… Duration: 1h55. In theaters since September 11