"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
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AN INTERVIEW WITH:
Jean-Paul Rappeneau
by Peter Sobczynski

April 19, 2004

Best known for such serious epic films as "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990) and "The Horseman on the Roof" (1995), acclaimed French director Jean-Paul Rappeneau has shifted gears considerably for his latest work, "Bon Voyage". The subject matter-the chaotic days in France before the German Occupation in World War II-would indicate a deeply serious film-as does the presence of such icons of the French cinema as Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu. Surprisingly, the film is actually more of a knockabout farce than anything else-closer in spirit to "To Be or Not To Be" than "Schindler’s List". In it, a group of wildly different people find themselves in Bordeaux struggling to flee the country-among them are a glamorous movie star who can wrap any man around her finger (Adjani, in an inspired spoof of her diva-like image), the befuddled and ineffectual Interior Secretary (Depardieu, stumbling through every scene) and a gorgeous young scientist (Virginie Ledoyen) trying to arrange for her boss to flee to England with nuclear secrets that would be devastating the hands of the Nazis.

Recently, and with the help of a translator, Rappeneau sat down to discuss the surprisingly light tone of the film, working with a legend like Adjani and the different reactions "Bon Voyage" has inspired among French and American audiences.

How did you first become interested in making films?

My interest in history-in French history. Most of my films cut a moment in history but when I was younger and thought about making films, that history wasn’t there. To base my sense of reality on things which happened in history is what carries me.

What was the inspiration for doing "Bon Voyage". Was the story the driving idea behind it or was it the specific period in which it is set-the days just before the German Occupation?

It was the days in June in Bordeaux when the French government came and found refuge among high society and French establishment. I was always interested in these few days when everything was hanging in suspense because nobody really knew where the country was headed. There had never been a film on these few days. There have been many French films on the Occupation and the period that followed, but never one on the days just before. Strangely, there were no novels either. I thought that there was a frame in that for a film-many different people coming together in a small city for a few days.

One of the things that is most interesting about "Bon Voyage" is the tone that you have taken with the storytelling. Considering the basic subject matter, the presence of stars like Isabelle Adjani and even your previous films, I walked in expecting a relatively serious drama. However, "Bon Voyage" is much lighter and comedic in tone-at times, it almost approaches farce. How did you come to choose this particular approach to telling the story?

I think that is the only way to talk about a period that isn’t very happy-to make a serious, political movie would not have been interesting for me. That is why I was so interested by these few days in Bordeaux-you could have burlesque and comic aspects mixed around these tragic events that were going on. The high society created these incredible scenes-these people had a collective unconscious about what was about to go down.

Did the less-serious approach make it more difficult to get it produced-especially since "Bon Voyage" was clearly an expensive film to make in the first place?

Financing was difficult. There were many different producers. The first producer was the one that had also done "Cyrano" and "The Horseman on the Roof" but he left. The people financing the film were worried that it was going to be a serious film and too hard for the French public. They didn’t believe me at first when I tried to convince them that it would have a comedic tone.

One of the best things about the film is the casting of Isabelle Adjani as the glamorous movie star. It struck me that in order for that part to really come off, you would have to cast someone who was already such a star herself. Someone like Juliette Binoche, whom you have worked with and who is a great actress, might not have been very convincing because she doesn’t have that overwhelming star aura about her. Adjani, on the other hand, is an extraordinary actress but she also has that overwhelming star charisma as well-you don’t have to explain to the audience that her character is a movie star because it is obvious that she is just from looking at her. Since she doesn’t work all that often these days, was it hard to get her involved in the film-especially for a role that could have been taken as a sort of self-parody of her icon image?

I like Juliette a lot but she has such a gravity about her that I don’t think that she would have agreed to do this film. The role was a parody of a diva and Isabelle was able to play a parody of herself. I was worried in the beginning that she wouldn’t’t accept the role because it was such a caricature of herself. She did it with panache.

Were her character or the "films" that we see clips of her in based on any particular actors or films of the time?

No, they were just filmed in the style of the time. Her character is just a mix of many actresses of the period.

In this film, you are working not only with established icons of French cinema like Adjani and Depardieu but also with some of the newer actors as well like Virginie Ledoyen. As a director, do you see any difference between the two groups in how they approach the work?

Well, because of the age difference, they didn’t speak to each other very much but the young actors were very impressed. The true main roles of the film were the one for the younger actors-two young people in a world that is undoing itself.

I was also curious about the appearance of American actor Peter Coyote as the seemingly helpful man who turns out to be a treacherous Nazi spy. Was there some kind of hidden commentary behind that particular bit of casting?

Well, in the movie, he is not American. I was looking for an actor with a sort of indeterminate nationality so that we were able, as spectators, to think that he really was just a journalist and then be surprised later on-he couldn’t have been Italian or Spanish. I know Peter Coyote, he speaks French and he thought it was fun to be the bad guy.

As you said, your films have all been period pieces but "Bon Voyage" is the one that takes place most recently in history. Does that make your job easier or more difficult? On the one hand, you have plenty of records to know how people looked, spoke and behaved-on the other, it is a period of time that people still have memories of even today.

It was the period of my young childhood and I felt like I was filming memories of my own family. There were so many pieces of clothing and cars around because there are people who collect these artifacts. The architecture hasn’t changed in a city like Bordeaux, so it was simpler than to have to reinvent a time. The house with the old woman and the refugees-that house is really composed of memories from my own childhood and that old woman was a lot like my mother.

Since the particular slice of French history that you are dealing with in "Bon Voyage" is not that well-known in America, what has the experience of showing the film to American audiences been like for you? Do you find that they react to certain aspects differently than French audiences?

In the audiences that I have shown it to-in New York and Miami and Toronto and Chicago and Los Angeles-I have found that people here respond on the spot to the film more so than French people-especially the comedic aspects. Americans go right into it while the French ask more questions and are more complicated in how they appreciate the film. The subject, in this period of time in particular, the French memory may be harder to deal with such a subject. The other day, in New York, the laughter came very quickly and the audience understood right away that we were there to distract.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
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