Thierry Frémaux

“Pierrot le fou. My favorite film ever. My favorite filmmaker ever. It’s not true that you become a movie buff at the age of 13 or 14. Little genius, I don’t believe in that. No, when you are 18, 20, and you put the cinema you used to see back in your past and you start a new life in cinema. I started my new life in cinema with Pierrot le fou, and it’s a film I could see every day.”

“My friend, Bertrand Tavernier, ’Round Midnight, with a wonderful scene between Marty Scorsese, and Dexter Gordon. Every music is registered live, and especially the concert homage at the end, with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams. And in this DVD box, we have a wonderful bonus material: the making-of, made by Jean Achache, which is… which is very good.”

“Il Posto. Ermanno Olmi. My second year in Cannes, we had About Schmidt by Alexander Payne. Jack Nicholson came and we had a restored print of Il Posto. And I remember Jack Nicholson… I was quite scary about him, welcoming that great artist. And I said, “Hello, Jack.” And Jack said, “Hello, hello. Is it true that you have Il Posto today screening in the festival?” I said, “Yes!” “I want to see it.” Because Jack Nicholson is a great, great, great movie buff. And it’s wonderful how at the time a big movie star like Nicholson was focused on the film of Alexander, but also in watching the new restored print of Olmi’s movie.”

“La vérité by Clouzot. Two things. First, Clouzot… François Truffaut didn’t like very much Clouzot. He was destroyed by the Cahiers du Cinéma. But Clouzot was a great filmmaker. Le Corbeau, about the French occupation, is a masterpiece, and this film is a masterpiece. Brigitte Bardot. Brigitte Bardot, especially in this movie, she’s extraordinary, and the movie is very good, not only for the movie itself, but for what the movie says about French society at that time.”

“I could take that because Budd Boetticher, because in France I’m always fighting against schools: “If you like that, you can’t like this.” Yes, I can like that and I do like this. And I like… Me, I’m the kind of spectator, I love Chantal Akerman and Jean-Marie Straub, and I love comedies, French popular comedy. I don’t take one from the other. But if you like cinema, you like everything. So all those westerns of Budd Boetticher with Randolph Scott. All masterpieces. Films of… Everyone can see that, because… even in… at lunch, because it’s one hour and ten minutes.”

“I wanted to find some… some maybe… Yes, some Kaurismäki films. He’s one of the greatest poets and greatest geniuses of the history of cinema. He used to say, “In my country in winter, days are short, it’s all night, so we are sad, so we drink. But in summer, days are long, we are happy, so we drink.””

“Godzilla. And of course, King Kong vs. Godzilla and so on. It’s a great.”