Joseph Morder has been maintaining an autobiographical diary for nearly forty years, utilizing various video formats. When contacted by Benoît Labourdette, who is in charge of the Pocket Film Festival, to direct a feature-length film with a cell-phone camera as his only window on the world, Morder entered movie history with J’Aimerais partager le printemps avec quelqu’un (literally, “I’d like to share Spring with someone”), the first feature-length movie with a theatrical release shot in this format.
The film would be a mere gimmick were it not for Morder’s talent for capturing unusually poetic and real moments thanks to the small lens: a cat at play, a romantic encounter, a trip to the country… The director also plays (unintentionally, if we are to take him at his word) with the election of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to create a character that is more fantasy than fact, a sort of media and visual monster. With the pocket camera, Morder adds a new chapter to his long diary, which draws on different cinematic formats, from Super8 to digital. Admired by Alain Cavalier, this “filmer” offers us a body of work that is not only a technical success, but also, and above all, a filmic success.
Before you started making a feature-length film on a cell phone, had you seen any other movies shot in this format? Did any of them inspire you?
I knew a certain number of films had already been shot on cell phones, and I asked to see the first one, by Jean-Charles Fitoussi: Nocturnes pour le roi de Rome [Nocturnes for the King of Rome].
Had you already considered making a film in this format?
Benoît Labourdette, who is in charge of the festival, proposed that I make a film for the Pocket Film Festival [festival of short films shot on cell phones]. He also made the same offer to other professionals. I’d already directed a short film called L’Insupportable for the festival, since I didn’t have a cell phone. I wanted to take a stab at making a feature with my filmed diary, a genre I’ve been making for 40 years. That’s how the film came about.
Do you think the cell phone was a determining factor in the way the film was directed?
Yes, I do. A standard camera wouldn’t have given the same results. When I shoot in a certain format, I try to think about how it’s specifically distinct, whether it be Super8 or digital. What the cell phone could produce in terms of image and sound is not at all the same thing as another format. That’s what interested me in the adventure: it was like plunging into totally uncharted waters. I mastered it little by little, and at the same time, that bothered me and I tried not to get to know it too well in order to maintain a state of surprise.
As you were exploring use of the cell phone, did you make a lot of rushes?
There were rushes, about ten hours, which isn’t enormous for something akin to a documentary. But the film was edited as a normal production, with a professional editor: Isabelle Rathery.
Are the events displayed fact or fiction?
They’re a mix. Fiction is a part of the film. For example, the scene where I lose my datebook is based on a real event that was transposed.
One senses that you like to tease reality. In Alain Cavalier’s films, his choice is what’s extraordinary within the ordinary. Your approach is more spontaneous, almost improvisational, in that you infuse fiction and something extraordinary into the ordinary.
Although there’s improvisation, there’s also work – especially with the actors – and certain situations are thought up beforehand. Within this framework, I let myself go along with whatever happens. That’s what interests me. In the scene with Sacha at the café, I didn’t know what I was filming until that shot where he’s smoking a cigarette. That’s how I work with a purely fictional screenplay: I try to extract what seems essential to me in any one scene. At the beginning, I don’t know what I’ll end up with. I improvise within defined territory. I direct the scene.
You direct it without a set.
Yes, and I’m open to the unexpected. With my previous film, El Cantor, which was written, had a storyboard and where everything prepared and rehearsed, I was still open to surprises when we were shooting. When I saw a bird on a lamppost, I’d ask my director of photography to focus the camera on it. It was all prepared well enough so that we were open to surprises. Even with 35mm films, you can get the same light feeling as with a cell-phone camera. Improvisation is something that truly needs preparation; you have to prepare tremendously in order to be amenable and open.
You try not to master the format you use. Is originality crucial for you?
For me, being original means, above all, being yourself. If that’s not what it means, I don’t know what is. But I also strive for a certain traditionalism, by incorporating the idea of avant-garde into this definition. I strive for something that can become traditional.
Twice at the beginning of the film, you point to the same street and say “Sasha.” Was that spontaneous, or was it part of the fictional storyline? That section reminds me of André Breton’s Nadja, where he shows Paris by introducing the streets, then ends up showing Paris by introducing Nadja.
This change emerged from the length of the shoot. Three months had gone by and I wasn’t thinking about Paris anymore, but about Sacha. At that moment, I was no longer trying to say “Paris”; Sasha was at the center of my thoughts. It was my own evolution and that of my character.
The cell phone, with the surprising way it handles contrast, truly “enchants” the world. When you film a camera, you say, “There’s your big sister.” You turn objects and animals…
… into characters. I have twenty-five plants at home and I say good morning to them every day. I think I have a deep sense of reality, but I like to interject a bit of fantasy or little amusing things into life.
The peculiar, “aquatic” image from the cell phone creates a sort of barrier between you and the world. When you film the elections, you have a specific relationship with your camera, but not with the politicians, who are filmed by a hundred anonymous cameras. You film the people who elected Sarkozy and say “madness” in Yiddish. Do you have a pessimistic vision of the world?
No, I don’t think so. I thought the Left would win up to the very end. I think I have an optimistic nature. I’m actually glad to see people laugh at the beginning of the film.
When you tackle different types of formats and images, are you trying to see the world in a new way?
I do it because I enjoy it. And I’m especially trying not to master the format I use. As soon as I become familiar with a format, I like to call it into question by moving on to something else, so as not to treat the image in the same way. I try to avoid any complacency. I don’t try to explain the world. Cinema is just a show. My only goal is to entertain the audience for an hour and a half, but still leave them with an “aftertaste,” with something that lingers. If I wanted to change the world, I’d go into politics, and even then…
Are you a compulsive filmmaker?
In part, but my background’s in narration. Into the storyline, I introduce sections that I wanted to film at a particular moment.
By Alexandre Péron, in Paris, France