The erudite Ciment is at ease discussing almost any topic with eloquence, and generously found time to converse with Ayelet Dekel of Midnight East.
Ayelet Dekel: How do you view your role as film critic and Editor in Chief of Positif?
Michel Ciment: I don’t make really a distinction between the various activities in my life. I have been thirty years a Professor at the University of Paris in American studies; I have done a lot of radio in the last 40 years. For the last 20 years I have had a radio program one hour every week on the French National Cultural Broadcast, I am an editor on Positif Magazine, and I’ve written also books and so on, but fundamentally, it’s the same thing.
It’s really – what is the title of the film? The art of sharing movies.
The idea of sharing things with people, giving them more reasons to enjoy a film, giving them, I hope a better choice of films, a better way to look at films, to make distinctions between what is supposed to be a good film or not such a good film. So it’s pedagogical.
I believe in pedagogy, sometimes it’s a word that people don’t like to use but I believe in that, and in a way also I think most great filmmakers do that also.
You know one of my favorite filmmakers is Stanley Kubrick (there is a huge exhibition now in Paris, a complete retrospective) and what I always say is that Kubrick is the son of a doctor, and in a way he was a doctor himself except he was not a doctor with the body but with the mind. He wanted to tell people about the human nature and to make them more conscious of their failings, of their weaknesses, what is threatening them – in order to better understand themselves and the world, and I think in a way…or Francesco Rosi who is also one of my favorite directors who made the best political films probably in the history of cinema. And who is also through his political films, like Hands over the City [1963], Salvatore Giuliano [1962], Christ Stopped at Eboli [1979] The Mattei Affair [1962]. He made films really to illuminate the world of politics and to make people more conscious about the manipulation, the lies, the rule of the mafia, the rule of the corruption and so on.
In many ways you know even if you speak about the human heart If you make like [Ernst] Lubitsch, [Max] 0phüls or [John] Cassavetes or all these people who deal with marriage and passionate relationships and so on, in a way, it’s a way also to illuminate I think. This in a way is what troubles me with abstraction with abstract art: is that it is cut from reality, it’s a pure aesthetic experience, and I don’t believe in pure aesthetic experience though I believe very much in aesthetics.
AD: When you talk about abstract art are you referring only to film, or also in painting …
MC: Well, let’s stick to films.
I believe the greatness of films is somehow to understand reality and to be able to show reality. It’s an instrument, the camera, that replaced painting replaced somehow the novel. For instance, in a novel Balzac would take twenty pages to describe the corridor and the different rooms and the different doors and the nature of the wood and the lighting – you do that in a traveling and you can describe things with a camera in a few minutes. Balzac has to take twenty pages. So somehow the novel had to change. The same with painting, you know, we are making painting of people, rich people as precise as possible so it would look almost like a photograph. Now photography and film even more have replaced this so it liberates painting to go into something else – impressionism, you know, surrealism etcetera, so I believe that’s the great function of cinema.
Now, you can also of course, like Andy Warhol, make a film of six hours with a man sleeping. In fact, it’s a twenty minute film which is done in a loop but it lasts six hours. For me it’s not very interesting, I mean people say he’s a genius, I don’t think it’s something of great genius to do that I don’t think it explores anything it’s just purely boring and it’s a kind of conceptual cinema which I find uninteresting even if there are books, hundreds of books written about Warhol’s extraordinary filmmaking – I think it’s not interesting, I’m not interested at all, I think Kubrick who had millions of audience, millions of spectators, whereas Warhol had almost no spectators, Kubrick is a much better artist, and it’s not because he’s popular that he’s a lesser artist.
AD: That leads me to something I was thinking of asking later on – what is your opinion on video art which has become a growing field?
MC: Well, I have nothing against video art but maybe I am old fashioned, I have never found the same fulfillment in looking at video art that I have at looking at Sunrise by F. W. Murnau [1927], or Citizen Kane by Orson Welles [1941], or Children of Paradise by [Marcel] Carné [1945]. You know I can enjoy a video installation, I go through it, I walk around, I go away, but never any video art had on me the power that [Kenzi] Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff [1954] or Ugetsu Monogatari [1953] or the great Japanese films, [Yasujirō] Ozu and so on, you know, have given me – I can’t compare it. I think it’s very nice, it allows a lot of people to do it because its inexpensive. Anybody can do it, it’s shown in museums, it has a lot of reviewing and people think a lot about that, but for me it is not at all again comparable to the great experience of seeing a Fellini or a Bergman.
AD: I think so too, that’s why I was curious to ask you.
MC: But most people think like me, except that it’s fashionable because art critic is a particular species – the commentary is more important than the work of art. I think the great works of art speak directly to people. People do not need to read about Shakespeare to enjoy Macbeth; they’re going to see Macbeth. In a way I’m now destroying my function…
AD: Yes, we’re getting there…
MC: No, but not really – what I mean is that I feel very humble, I think the critic is secondary what is important is the work of art. It is better if there are critics who speak about the works of art than if there is no critic, I think critics can illuminate, critics can explain. But what I find about most modern art is that people need the critic in order to enjoy it. I think you don’t need a critic to enjoy Molière or to enjoy Shakespeare, but it is better of course to have reviews and to have books about Molière or books about Shakespeare which is very different from the process of modern art where people go into a gallery… I saw recently an exhibition of modern art in Paris, there were people from the gallery who were there to explain to people what they were seeing. They were looking at a piece of newspaper which had been crumpled and it was on the floor. And there was somebody there who would explain for 20 minutes how great this thing was and like the incident at the Tate Modern recently where there was a package of garbage which the man who was cleaning at six in the evening, he threw it away. And it was a very expensive work of art which had been bought for a hundred thousand pounds by the Tate Modern and the man had thrown it away and he was fired and the artist said ‘No, no, don’t fire him, I will make another one.’ And so the garbage was put again in the gallery.
Now, this does not interest me in the least. Which does not mean that there are not great painters today there are great works of art, but there is a tendency to think that the critic are more important than the work, it is the critic who gives substance to the work.
AD: How do you decide what to see? Do you see everything?
MC: I try to see as many films as I can as you know I am one of the editors of Positif, there is no Editor in Chief, it’s really a collective, but I’ve been 45 years in this magazine so obviously I play a role in that magazine that some people don’t play but over all it’s a democratic process. But I try… fortunately I am retired from the university, I have more time to myself, I have a pension, and I can spend time, because we are not paid at Positif, so I have time to look at films, to try to see what is important, what is interesting you know. Therefore I’m looking at a lot of films to see what film is going to be the subject of an interview, or a long review, or short review or no review at all. So I really try to see as many films as possible particularly first features, because you know it’s always interesting to discover new talents. I try to make a rule to see the first feature, sometimes I don’t see the second feature, but at least I want to see the first feature.
AD: Do you feel that there are certain things in terms of your expectations, certain things that you detest…
MC: Of course, but sometimes there are a lot of surprises. You know recently I went to see a film by Danis Tanović who is a Bosnian director who had a Camera D’Or in Cannes, or maybe not but at least he had been main prize for first feature No Man’s Land [2001] which was a film about the war in Bosnia, it was really quite a remarkable first feature, and then I saw two other films he made afterwards, one among them was called Hell [2005], it was the first part of a trilogy written by Krzysztof Kieślowski the great Polish director who died and he had left this script and Danis Tanović made a terrible film, really terrible, and then he made another film In the Eyes of War [English title – Triage, 2009] which I found also rather bad and then I saw his fourth film and I was really expecting to… I said ‘My God, this guy made, it was pure chance he made a good first feature’ and then I saw his fourth film, which was called Circus Columbia [2010] which had been in Venice, I missed it in Venice, I saw it in Paris for the radio program I’m in, and I was surprised that the film was really good. It’s about the return of a man who was an anti-communist, he left the country to live in Germany, he comes back with his pockets full of deutsch marks and he comes into this Bosnian situation just before the civil war in Bosnia – it’s a good film.
Sometimes, on the contrary, you go to see a director that you love, like Ken Loach, I saw his new film. I didn’t like it at all, I thought it was very root Irish, I thought the film was disappointing, a kind of thriller, political thriller, I thought that he is not in his capacity. It was not very interesting. It happens all the time. What you have to strive… you have to try to see without prejudice which is difficult – everyone has prejudices.
AD: Do you have certain genres that you prefer?
MC: No, I am quite eclectic. I think if I am a good critic should be able to enjoy all kinds of film. I have no particular genre…it depends also on the mood in which you are. If you feel happy you want to see a musical comedy, if you are in a bad mood maybe you accept more drama – but it is not really important. What is important is to look at the film.
AD: What, for you, makes it a good film, can you define it?
MC: No…I think if you are a good critic what you have to do first is judge what the author wants to do, what the director wants to do. You should not judge a director from the film you would make yourself, or what you expect from the subject. You should try to see what he wants to achieve and if he achieved it. Sometimes, people try to achieve little, and they succeed but it’s a small film. Sometimes, they try to achieve a lot – but they miss. And sometimes, people like Kubrick, like Fellini, Bergman, Buñuel, like a lot of others, Resnais, they try to be very ambitious and they succeed. Then it’s a great film. But some people are more modest, they think they can only do limited things and they manage to survive and make nice little films. I prefer things on a big scale. Not automatically big in terms of people on the screen, but big in terms of the ambition.
AD: You mention Kubrick and Fellini… is there anyone who stands out for you, from the younger generation of filmmakers?
MC: Oh yes, definitely.
AD: That you could imagine say in 20 year someone speaking of in the same way that one speaks of Kubrick or Fellini?
MC: It depends what span of time you consider – the last twenty years?
AD: Something like that…
MC: Definitely. Definitely a man like Almodovar, it’s already established, the Coen Brothers in America… Paul Thomas Anderson. You know, a film like There Will Be Blood [2007] for me was an extraordinary film, I think on the level of the best films I have seen. It’s a very contemporary film, with Daniel Day Lewis, I think it was a great film, for me a great experience. No Country for Old Men [2007] by the Coen Brothers was for me also a fascinating film. In the French cinema there are also some new directors like Jacques Audiard who did The Prophet [2009], Bruno Dumont who did L’Humanite [1999], and Flandres [2006] also a remarkable director. The Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan – Uzak [2003] and The Seasons [English title – Climates 2006], the Three Monkeys [2008] – this seems to me a fascinating personality, the Korean director Hong Sang-soo, no, not Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong, who made a terrific movie which is playing now in Tel Aviv called Poetry [2010], who made Secret Sunshine [2007], and who made Oasis [2002], he’s made five films. I think he’s one of the top directors in the world today. I would put him really on the level of some of the best. And these people have come recently in the last 15 years. Among the new filmmakers, so definitely for me there are as many great directors today as there were 40 years ago. I think we are not in the best period of world cinema but still these directors I just mentioned can be compared… I think Nuri Bilge Ceylan, for instance Uzak or The Seasons or as I said the Three Monkeys – it’s as good as some films of Antonioni, in that level of aesthetic maturity, psychology and so on.
AD: Do you feel that it’s relevant to speak of films in terms of nationality, can you recognize a cultural identity in film?
MC: I do, I do. I think maybe American cinema, maybe because America is a multi-cultural country therefore it’s more cosmopolitan maybe that’s why they fascinated the world. They were made by Jewish producers, already immigrants who came from Russia, Austria and from France and so on…they were able to transmit a kind of view, their view of the world through the films they loved, the scripts they loved, and they gave them to the directors and they conquered the world. But American cinema is a particular species – which I love, I love the best of Hollywood. On the other hand I think that in most countries, I think that the directors express the sensibility of their own culture, you know, Fellini is Italian and Bergman is Swedish and Buñuel is Mexican, Renoir is French and I think you can see it through their work.
I think that the attempt at making European films, what we call Euro-puddings – that is, you get some money from Italy money from France you put a French actor with an Italian actress, with a Swedish actor, with a Spanish woman – most of the time it fails. Because the United States is a country made of all these things, whereas Europe is so far, and I hope we’ll never become, one unity where we try to mix everybody together. I think Europe should be… I am a great European, I believe in Europe, but as an association of different cultures, we respect the authenticity of each culture.
In America you become an American, but you are an Italian-American, you are a Spanish-American, you are a Chinese-American, but there is also this hyphen all the time, this little hyphen that you are. It’s a mixture, American and Hispanic, American and Black, American and Jew and so on …and you have all these things together so, it makes the greatness of American cinema but it remains American whereas in Europe you can’t do that. It’s impossible – you can’t make an Italian-German film, it makes no sense.
AD: It is becoming more common?
MC: I don’t think it is so common, but they have attempted to make big budget films and most of the time it doesn’t work. You have these people living a love story in Copenhagen and talking English – why are they talking English?
AD: If we’re talking about cultural identity and film, I would like to ask you about Israeli film – with which you are quite familiar…
MC: Because I travel and I see film and because Paris is an exceptional place to look at films – we have more foreign films than any country. I think in the last 10 -15 years Israeli cinema has become a major force in international cinema. In the sense that there are a few countries – probably Germany, Korea, Iran, Argentina, and a few others that can compete with Israeli cinema. It’s certainly one of the ten cinemas in the world that have shown the greatest artistic activity and variety that you could expect from a national cinema in the last ten years. And it confirms what I was just saying about the national identity because Israeli films deal with a country that has a lot of problems – religious integration, religious – how do you call it – fanatics, there is the Palestinian problem, the problem of the new Russian immigrants, etcetera, a lot of stuff.
And to have a lot of problems is fantastic for an artist because conflict is the basis of art. I believe like Aristotle, it’s not new, that conflict is the basis for drama and I think Israeli history, Israeli situation, is fantastic material for a filmmakers and all these films reflect the reality of the country like Iranian cinema does, and like Korean cinema does so too. I think definitely people like Samuel Maoz who did Lebanon [2009] of course before that Amos Gitai, Rafael Nadjari, the author of The Lemon Tree [Eran Riklis 2008], Ronit Elkabetz movies, two movies, the films she directed [To Take A Wife 2004, Shiva 2008], but also Le jour de la fanfare [Eran Kolirin The Band’s Visit 2007] so many films…Avanim [2004] by Raphael Nadjari, about religious groups. So it’s very interesting cinema, very personal, very original.
AD: What do you think are some of the crucial issues facing the film world today?
MC: Digital, more than video, is opening a new era, probably because we are abandoning the film… the film itself, but the results are quite satisfying. Today a film shot digitally by Hollywood professionals like Michael Mann or David Fincher they make The Social Network …these action directors who are at the same time artistic and popular films. They work in digital and when they are screened in a digital print it’s very difficult to see the difference really, honestly. So it’s a big revolution because its going to be less expensive to make a movie and a lot of people are able now to make movies, not in the sense of video or an 8 mm film, but really high quality film which is what I think people want to see.
AD: With so many films being made do you feel the role of the critic is becoming more important because it’s hard to sort them out?
MC: I think the role of the critic is becoming less important because they have no room in the newspapers, no space to write, and of course they write on the websites – which is wonderful, but there are so many websites that you don’t know what to look for. I have no time at home, to look at the websites for three or four hours to see who is saying what. There’s no time. It’s impossible.
AD: So aren’t we at risk then of having wonderful directors making exceptional films that don’t get noticed because of this digital revolution?
MC: Maybe…maybe it will be like literature or painting that some people will remain unknown for most of their life, it’s possible. I don’t think so, but its possible. I do believe that films finally get an audience even if a limited one, because there are so many festivals, so many watching films. What I mean is the art of criticism, the lengthy review with analysis of a film over two or three pages, is something that is going to be less and less present in the printed press. Now on the websites it’s possible, but again, one would need a guide, not to the films, but a guide to the critics which would tell you who are we supposed to read – who is such a good writer that we shouldn’t miss his website.
AD: Well, perhaps that evolves in the same way – someone who is a good writer will find his audience.
MC: Yes.
The documentary Michel Ciment:The Art of Sharing Movies (2010), directed by Simone Lainé (52 min. French with English subtitles) will be shown tonight, April 5, 2011 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque at 19:00, followed by a discussion with Michel Ciment and the director Ron Havilio.
Supplementary information, such as dates of films, has been added in brackets […], to indicate that the text is not part of the original interview.
Two good critics for the price of one 😉
Ayelet, thank you very much again for this very interesting interview.
Do you know where Poetry is screened in TA?
I dont know why i always fail to find screenings’ schedule…
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