Bertrand Bonello

“I'm going to start with The Age of Innocence by Martin Scorsese. The Beast is a film that has three periods in it and one is 1910, and I've done a film called House of Tolerance that had took place in 1900, and every time I do a period film I rewatch this film, because for many reasons. One of them is that he made like the past so contemporary, since for The Beast I really wanted to find a film that in which the emotions are so strong and so hidden at the same time. And the portrait of this free woman played by Michelle Pfeiffer is so heartbreaking. So I rewatched this film just before the shoot.”

“Another film very important to me is David Cronenberg's Crash. The way he mixes like reality and dreams, the way the body affects the spirit, and it's all these themes are very important to me. The mise-en-scène is so minimalistic and precise, and the tone, the tone of the voice and the music of Howard Shore in this film is amazing. It's like a sex of electric guitars, I mean something I've never heard before and that I copied in a way for some music I do.”

“What else did I pick up? This one, Clean, Shaven by Lodge Kerrigan. Lodge is a director that's very, very strong, very precise, and I picked up this film, not it's not actually my favorite of him, but because I just miss Lodge's film, you know. I know it's hard for me, for him to make films, it's hard for everyone, but I think he's an amazing director and I'd like to see more of his work, you know. And come on, Lodge, if you if you see me, if you listen to me, go back to work.”

“Another director very important to me, and when I discovered him in the '90s that was a shock, it's Abbas Kiarostami, and my favorite of him is Close-Up. He was supposed to make another film and then he saw in the paper a story that someone pretended to be Mohsen Makhmalbaf, another Iranian director, just to be able to talk to people and say he was doing some casting, and people invited him home and he could, you know, have relationships with people. So he pretended he was someone else. One of the most beautiful sentences that the guy says when he asks him, "Why do you do that?" and he says, "Because I was alone." "And, but alone is not a pain." And the guy answers, "Do you want to talk about pain?" That made me cry. And this film is really, really fantastic, and the last scene Kiarostami goes and picks him up at the prison, they go on the scooter and they talk, and when he was in the editing room he just took a knife and all the soundtrack, he just ripped it up so we cannot listen to all the words. And this gesture is just like a huge movie maker gesture.”

“Okay, this is one of the most important directors for me, Pier Paolo Pasolini. My first short movie was an adaptation of his book called Who I Am. And, but it's not only the films, it's the whole man, the thought of a man, this mix of pure, pure, pure intelligence and poetry. I've never seen the mix so high in anyone else. And very often I ask myself, what would he say of the world of today? I would love to see like a film of Pasolini today, or just writings or thoughts, or he's missing, his intelligence is missing, his point of view on the world is missing because it would be surprising, you know, and everything today is so not surprising. But yes, I miss his thinking. This is like the '60s films. If I have to pick one up, it's difficult, but I would say it's The Gospel According to Matthew. And he says about the film, "Even if you don't like the film, you cannot say that I am wrong about the casting. Look at the faces I picked up, I never go wrong on a face." And this is so beautiful.”