The Invisible Man (1933) by James Whale
The important film in my life is the first one I saw, The Invisible Man, that I saw when I was 7 or 8. It made a big impression on me because it connected to a recurring dream I was having regularly in which I was invisible. I saw without being seen, and took great delight in it. And suddenly, I watched, and I thought it could really happen! And decades later, I made an autobiographical film called Ce répondeur ne prend pas de message (This Answering Service Takes No Messages) and I was in the shot. I said to myself, it’s impossible for me to be seen, and without thinking of The Invisible Man, I went to the drugstore and bought a bandage and wrapped up my head. I didn’t become invisible – you could see my arms, my body, hear my voice –, it was already very compromising, but you couldn’t make out the features of my face. I was pleased. Afterwards, I developed a strong feeling: I think that if I were invisible, I could make absolutely sumptuous films, slip inside, and I think that what you see in theaters, compared to what I could have filmed if I were invisible, is extremely poor. I mean, it’s one billionth of human activity. Slipping into environments, among people, I did that afterwards, but I knew the limits. I talk to someone who’s talking to me; I don’t catch things off-guard. Also, I’ve always wanted to be invisible. I would’ve loved not to sign my films, to live very anonymously, in a corner. Not that I’m famous, but I’m marked by my profession; I’m marked by the films I’ve made. This film encompasses a great deal of things in my life and in my filmmaking. It’s a sort of matrix for me, a melting pot of inspiration. And I’ve never seen it again. I didn’t want to see it again. Because one day I went to see my grandfather’s house, which was a wonderful part of my childhood, and it was inhabited by someone else, it had been transformed, and that obscured my previous memory. I want to dream The Invisible Man until the end of my life.

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