I didn’t see films when I was young. I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn’t have made films if I had seen lots of others; maybe it would have stopped me.
With Jane Birkin, we had a scene from a film called Jane B. by Agnès V. – a portrait I made in ’87. We had a casino scene, surrealistic, in which we had some naked people gambling. Jane Birkin was the card dealer and I was the player.
People like my films. They understand me through my films; it’s like a connection that has been established between all my work and myself and the audience and the viewer.
When I did the first edit of Les plages, it was very dry and very square in a way. I was just saying the minimum. I said, Well, if this is the minimum, I don’t make it. So I tried to make it more refined.
There is a song of Gainsbourg that Jane Birkin sang, and the words are beautiful in French. It says, “Le jeu et les moi.” It’s impossible to translate, because it has a very nice sound.
An old woman I loved very much when I was young – the wife of Jean Villard – she’s just reciting poetry all the time, which is beautiful because it means she went back to the world of poetry that she loved when she was young. That’s all she does.
When I started I did not know I wanted to be a filmmaker. I started – I made a film. Then when I finished I said, Oh my god it’s so beautiful – I should be a filmmaker!
