An Interview with French filmmaker Bruno Dumont
By Martyn Conterio | Published on July 4th, 2008
Transcript Translation by Christine Voissière and Martyn Conterio

Writer/director Bruno Dumont of Wellspring's “Twentynine Palms” (2003).

Martyn Conteiro, Scene 360: How did you become a filmmaker?

Bruno Dumont: Well, I was doing philosophy and I wanted to film life, people’s lives and their stories. I wanted to ask questions but not in an intellectual way. I don’t like intellectuals you see.

Does your philosophy background inform your work in any way?

Well of course! (Laughs) But I did not want to do philosophy that was tedious. Philosophy does not have to be boring you know.

How did you develop your cinematic aesthetic—was it an organic process or an intellectual approach?

It was totally an organic process!

Do you improvise on your film sets, or do you carefully execute based on detailed plans?

Well, it’s very paradoxical because even though it’s always thoroughly and meticulously prepared... being a filmmaker is a heavy craft with big equipment that needs careful planning, there always comes a time when it’s improvised because at some point I try to find real life again—and life is unpredictable. So, I can’t tell if it is one or the other… it’s a conjunction of the two.

In spite of your reputation as one of Europe's leading auteurs, do you struggle to distribute and finance your films?

Yes and no. I intend to resist the market. I don’t do what pleases the industry, I do what I want to do. I’m what you call one of “Europe’s leading auteurs” maybe because of my integrity. I don’t have many financial partners, so I don’t have boundaries. I don’t have to answer to anybody, I’m a free agent, nobody tells me what I have to do. But my liberty has a price, and yes it can be difficult to find financing. But, I didn’t choose this path to make money. I just wanted to invent stories and make them stand on their feet, make them believable.

Do you think the Hollywood model of filmmaking has destroyed the chances of other types of cinema succeeding with popular audiences?

Yes of course, because Hollywood produces a certain sensibility, a certain audience, those films toss people off quite a bit! It’s a bit like cuisine, if you make people eat bland stuff all the time, then they lose their ability to taste and they don’t feel anymore… but you need diversity everywhere and in cinema too. I don’t look for a wide audience. I tell a story and I’m very happy when people watch my films, but if it doesn’t happen then it doesn’t.

You often cast non-professional actors in your films. Why do you preference this?

It is a choice indeed. I can only form or shape what already exists. I need someone’s truth to push him/her to be the character. I can’t teach somebody how to be my character because I don’t choose someone to be a character. I choose my character to fit the person acting, it’s like a sculpture, the character springs from the person I’ve chosen to act, the actor makes his/her own character. It’s very philosophical you see.

“L'Humanité” is your most well-known film on an international scale. What inspired you to make it?

I wanted to do a detective film, but anybody can do this. I wanted it to be totally improbable, uncommon. I wanted to put stunning and surprising facts into appointed ones, so I needed to integrate a truly humanist character to bring a form of integrity to the film. I wanted the film to be an occasion to meditate around evilness, awfulness—the evil's origin.

“Twentynine Palms” was not well received among the media. Do critical reactions bother you?

You see this was to me a real horror movie, that’s what I wanted to do and one can’t do a real violent film and then complain! (Laughs) I had to go all the way, right to the end. I couldn’t stop half way. I don’t look to be easy on people to spare them. So I didn’t mind the critics reactions.

This film attempts to create suspense, although very little occurs until the rather violent ending. Do you feel your intentions for the film were a success?

Yes! That’s what I intended anyway. You see it’s the spectator who is scared first and then invents suspense. It’s like Hitchcock’s theory, which is really Dreyer’s theory: you need to know what the threat is, the menace, which is what creates suspense. I try to do exactly the opposite because when there isn’t any suspense, people end up inventing it!

Landscape in your films is more than just “setting”. It is a character with its own identity.

You’re right but it’s more than that, it’s the inside of the character. My dream is to film inside of people. As you know this is impossible, even when people make love, they cannot go inside each other—this is the tragedy of humanity. So I try to represent what’s inside with the outside. Landscape is not just a character, it’s THE character. In “Twentynine Palms,” the desert is in the characters, and the landscape partakes in saying what’s inside of them, what they feel. I do on-screen what every single person can feel when they go walking into the woods: a mythical sensation, something we keep alive in ourselves.

Did you intend “Flandres” to be a comment on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or is that too easy an assessment?

I tried to illustrate war with war because we are all, by nature, warriors, at least I think so. The only way to talk about war is with war, everyone of us has a propensity to kill, that’s what we are because we are beings made of lust. I wanted to evoke something that’s inside everyone of us, and yes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are current. I could have, if it were a different period and time, talked about the first world war or another war, that’s not what was essential about the film. The point was to talk about war by illustrating it with war.

The war scenes in “Flandres” have an almost Brechtian feel of heightened artificiality. Is this due to budget constraints or is it intentional?

Hmmm… I think one feels the film the way one is. You feel it was Brechtian probably because something reminded you about Brecht that you remember quite particularly. Somebody else might feel another way, so no it wasn’t intentional. We fabricate a cinema that is a spectator itself, people watch it with their own memory, souvenirs, cinema fills in your memory gaps. When I see a movie, I want it to allow me to interpret, decide, feel. If it’s sad, I don’t need the music to tell it is... I’m a big boy, I can feel for myself. I like to have a little room in the film that I’m watching, to feel it my way. I like to exit the cinema thinking there’s still a little mystery. Cinema builds memory, we are able to invent memories with cinema. And to me this is what is most important, a spectator must absorb the movie for him/herself.

There is a “spiritual” feel prevalent in your films, the characters often look up to the sky or feel as if they are being overwhelmed by their environment and this affects their emotional state. Can you elaborate on this idea?

Yes, you get it, exactly. They are inspired by the sky but there is nothing in the sky, they’re looking for God but God does not exist. They are connected with the landscape but something is missing, you can feel something is missing. I make films to film what I don’t understand. The mystery of love, evilness for example, but films don’t bring answers, they’re not meant to, they’re mysteries too and that’s what I film. I think as filmmakers we continue to make films to repair the ones before, to get it more right. I try to make it better every time, I don’t know if I do but I try, that’s what it’s all about.

Will there be a new Bruno Dumont film in the near future?

Yes, I’m working on one now. It should be filmed next month, I hope it will be, I’m not sure yet. It’s about a girl who’s looking for God, she’s deeply in love, but with Jesus Christ. It ends well though, like all my films, there may be some horror, it may be very dark but there’s always optimism.