Cinematographer Josée Deshaies talks about his work on "Avant que j’oublie" ("Before I Forget") and "La Question humaine" ("The Human Question")

How does Avant que j’oublie fit in Jacques Nolot’s body of work ?

With this film, Jacques Nolot revisits the character he was already playing in his former two films (La Chatte à deux têtes (Glowing Eyes - Porn Theater) and L’Arrière-pays). Avant que j’oublie may thus be regarded as the final chapter of a trilogy. The first step in terms of picture was therefore to inscribe it into a continuum, with as a main goal the struggle to shoot on film. This was vital to us, given the seriousness of the subject. To me, 35mm as a medium participates for at least half of the pictural work in the final result. Had we shot on video or Super 16, we would have lost the elegance needed to translate onscreen such a powerful script.

Why was it a struggle ?

When you have a six hundred thousand euro budget, every expense matters. Only at the cost of a very quick, four-week Parisian shooting, with one or two takes per shot and with the help of many partners (rental companies, labs…) did we reach our goal.
On top of this very tight schedule, we also had to work with a small crew. In my case, the photographic team amounted to four people : an assistant camerawoman, a gaffer, a polyvalent grip and myself. At the end of the day, this film depended much more on the human factor than on technique.

What type of picture did you try to render ?

I chose two very sensitive films : Fuji’s 8563 (500T) et 8573 (250D), two emulsions I had never used before. Through this choice, I tried to step a bit away from my usual Kodak tradition. This way of shifting slightly a rendering that could be really natural, with brighter shades of blue and a grading that sometimes might slightly tilt towards either green or magenta…
Besides, I reckon the Fuji rendering is brighter and has sharper grain. This is a conclusion I drew from a print on an emulsion of the same brand after several comparison tests made with other positives at LTC (Kodak and Agfa).

The film is set in Paris during the midsummer heatwave. Were you confronted by a particular solar ambiance you had to recreate ?

Jacques wanted to capture the heatwave onscreen, but without going for a warm image. And when you actually shoot in August, the Parisian summer light is anyway very different from the more “traditional” summer light you would encounter in the South. Pollution and haze constantly filter the sun so that we are left with a white and bright, “metallic” light which we tried to capture by shooting at 95% in natural light. Among other references, I sometimes thought of films such as La Collectionneuse (The Collector) by Eric Rohmer (photographed by Nestor Almendros) where everything was indeed shot solely with reflectors and a few mirrors.

La Question humaine is set in a big corporation. How did you picture such a stern environment ?

Nicolas Klotz and I discussed this a lot, as he knows quite a bit about photography. Klotz, the set designer and I really designed the look of the film in very close cooperation.
The part of the film dedicated to the corporation was shot in a quasi studio situation where the sets were recreated in an old, abandoned factory. This way, I could keep most of the lighting devices into the set itself, for instance by using quite a lot of Kino Flo fluorescent tubes. This technique then allowed us to keep moving on swiftly during shooting and it also helped keeping everything that happens in the corporation in a stiff mood. This immutable, very stiff aspect clashed with the rest of the film, where outdoor light is much more lively and free.

How do you construct the picture, concretely ?

The title of the film clearly shows that it is primarily interested in humans. As I was lighting, the starting basis would always be the faces ; then only would I construct the rest of the picture… In the same way, we often shot with medium focal lenses and staying close to the actors – the exact opposite of Jacques Nolot’s film where there were for instance absolutely no close-ups.
Another good example would be the schizophrenic nature of Mathieu Amalric’s character. We used the light in a way that would help us develop two different appearances… There was his “professional” side, which he would display within the corporation, and then there was the one he shows in his private life. Seeing how young execs nowadays are huge cosmetics consumers, we tried to contrast his extremely smooth and flawless face with the weariness ravaging him in private through the lack of sleep.

How did post-production go ?

Even though I would have probably preferred to shoot in 35mm, Super 16 was the obvious solution (video shooting was also discussed), mainly because of the length of the film, dictated by Nicolas’ fondness for long shots and which was incompatible with the film’s tight budget.
Later on, postproduction was quite rough ; it took nearly eight months to get the final copy for Cannes. This was due to the fact that the usual chain is less and less controlled by labs – a time-honoured solution that is gradually supplanted by the digital chain, which is a pity. I think this optical chain brings back more life to the picture, as chemistry is a living process. Digital processing, with its mathematical aspect, seems completely locked, static. And let’s not even talk of the difficulty in going back and forth in 16mm between argentic shots, digital transfer, and back transfer onto film at the end of the process…

(Interview conducted by François Reumont for the AFC, and translated from French by Mathilde Bouhon)