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2011 Festival Feature Films (March 24-27)

Festival directors present Mon Pote

director Marc Esposito screenplay Marc Esposito, Jean-Luc Levesque starring Édouard Baer, Benoît Magimel, Diane Bonnot, Léonie Simaga, Atmen Kelif, Riton Liebman, Albane Duterc, Lucie Phan, Françoise Michaud, Solo, Jean-Michel Lahmi, Rémi Martin, Alexandre Le Provost, Julien Hérichon
running time 1 h 45 min general audience

Synopsis

Victor is the editor of an automobile magazine. One day, he is invited to talk about his work at a local prison. After the talk, one of the prisoners slides a letter in his pocket. His name is Bruno; he’s a former robber and a recidivist. He is a fan of Victor’s magazine and asks for a job as part of the work release program. He would spend the day at the office, the night in prison. Victor accepts. A friendship develops between the two men: The story line, taken from a true event, is about a second chance and a common passion.

director/screenwriter
Marc Esposito

screenwriter
Jean-Luc Levesque

actors
Édouard Baer

Benoît Magimel

Interview with director Marc Esposito

Mon Pote is inspired by “a real-life story.” Is it a story that happened to you?
The idea for Mon Pote, or at least its beginning, came from a story that happened to me. When I was the directing editor of Première, in the mid-’80s, I responded to an invitation to give a speech about my job as a film journalist at the Bois d’Arcy prison. There, exactly like in the movie, a prisoner placed a letter in my pocket. He wrote to me about how he would like to work with me, with us. If we hired him, he could be part of a work release program, meaning that he would be able to leave the prison every day in order to work, and if everything went well, his sentence would be reduced. We hired him … and we made a good decision! After Jean-Luc first worked at Première as a layout designer, he became, a few years later, a layout designer at Studio Magazine, where he eventually became the artistic director. The next part of the story, even though it is inspired by this experience, is only pure imagination and the invention of the scriptwriter. … I followed this formula at the beginning of the film, both because it was true and because I did not want to be told, “A gangster who becomes a layout designer, that does not happen! You always see the positive side of life. Life is not like that.” But yes, sometimes life can be that way.

In the credits, it says that you have written Mon Pote “with the collaboration of Jean-Luc Levesque.” When and how did he join in?
It was our meeting that gave me the idea for the film; therefore it appeared to me impossible not to cite him in one way or another. Even though he was not a car thief, and I had to make up a lot of things, his story inspired much of the script. His comments were used not for the script or the unfolding of the plot, but in dialogues and “lived experiences,” such as how prisoners lose the habit of closing doors. … Using the phrase, “With the collaboration of …” appeared to me to be the fair statement. In this whole story, it is he who has the most merit. He left prison every morning, came to work with us, and at night, he returned to prison.  Then, he affirmed himself as a layout designer, then as an artistic director. … It is an itinerary that he can be proud of. It appears normal to me that his merit should be recognized, and when I proposed to him the idea of revealing his identity at the end of the film, I believe he was happy.

On the visual composition, you want us to forget as much as possible that we are watching a film.
The most important thing to me is to give a feeling of life, not of a show. Each time that this is possible, the characters are in fact shot from the front and not somewhat offside like in most of today’s movies. I try to capture a moment of life in the most objective way possible, from the front, because I want us to not feel that there is a camera, a microphone and a whole team in the background. This frontal view is not very popular; it was used by former cinematographers and we find it a lot with Pagnol, of whom I am an absolute fan, and with Bergman, in his films from the ’70s and ’80s, Scenes from a Married Life, Autumn’s Sonata, Fanny and Alexander. To re-watch their movies, these past few years, really forced me to stay radical for Mon Pote, like for previous films, on its frontality, on its fixed shots and on sequence shots. It is this type of simple shooting, with the fewest number of different frames that best suits me as director, even if as a viewer I also like really different films, crazier in their forms and more spectacular. … Additionally, it is very exciting to film a comedy like a dramatic film, with few shots. There are less than 1,000 of them in the movie; it is very few for an hour- and 45-minute comedy with action scenes, a car chase and fights. Jean-Marie Poiré or Tony Scott would have done 5,000 with the same script!

It is with this same concern of capturing life that I use three cameras, including for the dialogue scenes with two seated characters. One camera is used for each character and another used for framing both characters. I want the actors to act at the same time and not one after the other, and the whole scene to be all in one breath. I do not want to lose an actor’s emotion that only exists in a long shot. It is up to us, the visual team and me, to manage the placement of the cameras and to capture everything at once. This includes shots with movements. We are looking for a system that allows the actor to move without difficulty within the frame. Pascal Caubère, the operating chief, is pulling his hair out since these are enormous constraints but it is wonderful when we succeed. This way of working adds an extra pressure to the actors — and it is not bad! — because it’s not the same at all to know the lines of an entire scene versus saying them sentence after sentence, and it is not the same to do 12 takes of a three-minute scene and 12 takes of the same four-second line! The goal is always the same: to create a moment of life and to capture it in the least visible way possible and in a way that most closely resembles life itself, so that we are left with a feeling of reality.

Did the racetrack pose any particular scene setup problems?
What slowed me down from making the film 10 years ago was a source of excitement this time, just because I wanted to shoot this race in a style completely different from what we are used to seeing. Let’s just say that I drew my inspiration more from Pialat than from John Woo! How to shoot a race with the fewest number of shots possible and in the most realistic way? It was an exciting question. I wanted it to be modest, compact and short, without giving the impression of being in a different movie as if it was felt from the inside of the car as if the spectator was really with Victor.

In Mon Pote, we find not only your style of visual setting, but also this way of having the spectator empathize with your characters, and highlighting the best of them.
It is not premeditated! I already have the feeling that I can only be interested in people who I love and who I want to like. All the ideas that come to me are ideas for stories where I like the characters. But the fact of highlighting the best of them, it is done unconsciously. I never think of it. I have an idea, I start to work, I do not have a plan and I rarely have more than two or three scenes planned when I write the first draft and things flow somewhat naturally.

Interview with Benoît Magimel

What attracted you when Marc Esposito proposed Mon Pote to you?
The story of this man who reaches out his hand to help another pull through touched me; I like stories of friendship in films. The fact that it is inspired by a real event gives the film another dimension. I liked this character in search of redemption, searching to become integrated in the world again. I read Bruno as a bright character that carries with him the joy of life, despite the complexity of his past. … I like the contradictions that he has inside, but at the same time, he knows exactly who he is. He is a good guy who wants to get out of a rut in his life. I also like the shamelessness of these characters who open up to each other — that is what I liked in reading the script. The story of this man, in part fantasy, shows that we can travel a hard course, serve time in prison and still be someone whom others can believe in and trust.

The fact that Bruno is inspired by a real person, whom you were able to meet, did that change the way you understood him?
I met Jean-Luc Levesque rather late. Our meeting confirmed what I thought about the character, the way that I imagined Bruno. I wanted him to find me credible, regarding his past. Well, I hope he did. We did not speak much, he is a modest man, discreet, but very nice, a smile always on his face.

If you were only able to keep one moment or one image from this entire adventure …
I very much liked the scenes on the rooftops with Édouard, all the exchanges, confessions, moments between us two, with the pleasure of working together, it was the best. But filming at Magny-Cours racetrack was also a great moment for me. … I really loved it. I had already driven in a Ford formula but this was no comparison. The F3 that I also drove next to the F1, it was a night and day difference. I found it more impressive than flying in a “mirage 2000” in Les Chevaliers du ciel!!

Interview with Édouard Baer

How would you define your character Victor?
Actually, a bit like Sautet’s characters. People who are self-made men, good bosses, good fathers, good husbands, but who are also a bit closed off because they know that otherwise there is a chance they could slide in the wrong direction. People who prevent themselves from falling into their faults, their vices and their little bit of insanity. You can feel some flaws in them, some cracks into which weaknesses could rush. The arrival of Bruno is going to unlock all of this. Victor is someone who guards himself from being too moved or affected by anything in life and then this guy arrives in his life, this tough  jailbird, but who will also lower his guards with Victor. Bruno is a man of trust, of fidelity.  He does not complain and even if he has done wrong, he has decided to take control of his life; Victor cannot help being moved by him. He recognizes certain aspects of himself in Bruno and he feels as a big brother toward him. … At the same time, they are not falling into sentimentality. It’s important to me that Victor never accepts to be thanked by Bruno, for example, and succeeds in avoiding gushy situations skillfully.  They are characters who are emotionless, who avoid anything that may become too emotional or too effusive.