Growing Up (Michel) Gondry
Source: AOL
Posted: 02/19/08 11:17AM
Filed Under: Film
By SORAYA ROBERTS
French director Michel Gondry embraces adulthood in ‘Be Kind Rewind’
“You have a serious problem of distorting reality,” the hero of ‘The Science of Sleep’ is told. The words are spoken to Stephane, widely known to be based on Michel Gondry, the film's director and writer, but they could easily be applied to the latter directly.
Distorting reality has been Gondry's stock in trade throughout his career, most notably in his feature films. In 2004's ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ the past can be erased and re-lived from within the present, while in ‘The Science of Sleep’ (2006) a couple of notes on the piano can suspend cotton clouds in mid-air. This sort of imagery has won the hearts of many cinemagoers who have a penchant for magic realism, but not everyone has fallen for Gondry's life-sized mechanical ponies.
“I am more inclined to talk about creativity and relationships and emotions,” Gondry says while sitting primly on a sofa in Toronto's Park Hyatt hotel to promote his new film, ''Be Kind Rewind.' His detractors have called Gondry “puerile” for focusing too much on discarded lovers and broken hearts. In Both ‘Science’ and ‘Eternal Sunshine’ (written by Charlie Kaufman), the central characters seem to exist in a vacuum. "The feeling of being in love gives you the sense that you're isolated from the rest of the world," explains Gondry, who based 'Science' on an old girlfriend. That may be true, but it is also a naive interpretation of a fulfilled life.
In Gondry's newest film, 'Be Kind Rewind,' Jack Black and Mos Def star as two men trying to save their local video store by making their own versions of blockbuster films. Gondry proves his artistic maturity by moving beyond insular relationships to write about community. “After working with Dave Chappelle, I found the courage to talk about community,” Gondry says, who directed the comedian in the 2004 documentary 'Block Party.' Gondry followed Chappelle as he organised a free concert for his friends and neighbours featuring the likes of Kanye West and the Fugees.
Before working with Chappelle, Gondry didn't have much experience with communal living. “Coming from a white suburb near Paris, I don’t have the sense of the community, not in the sense of belonging to a group of people,” he says. “To get that, you need to be from a community that is sometime under attack, you need to feel the limit to feel the community."
Gondry on Film |
Michel Gondry performs at Sundance 2008 with Mos Def as Fats Waller. Composer Jean-Michel Bernard was on the piano and they sang "Your Feet's Too Big." (WireImage) |
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In 'Be Kind,' the Pessaic community falls under attack when the local council threatens to close down its local video store. As a result, the video store clerk and his friend are forced to come up with a way to save their shop - by "sweding" (re-enacting) Hollywood films. “I had this utopian idea that everybody could create their own entertainment,” Gondry says. “This idea that if you give a chance to anyone, they will most likely be better than the person who has the privilege to be doing that all the time."
In 'Be Kind,' Gondry's maturity is two-fold. The couples in 'Eternal Sunshine' and 'Science' created their own entertainment, but only for themselves, while the duo in 'Be Kind' creates it almost as a public service. With sweded videos, Gondry replaces childlike fantasy with an achievable, adult, version of magic, supplanting the surreal images of 'Science' and 'Eternal Sunshine' with the equally whimsical, but this time perfectly attainable imagery.
There still remains a sliver of the enfant terrible in Gondry, however, particularly when he describes why he chose Fats Waller as a recurring character in 'Be Kind.' “I always loved Fats Waller because he represented a disrespect of tradition mixed with very strong discipline in his art,” Gondry says. “He was a good example for a role model because he’s not conservative, he’s more of an anarchist.”
Waller’s sense of humour has the type of longevity that struck the French filmmaker. “We did a cover of Fats Waller at Sundance with Mos, I was playing the drums, our composer, Jean Michel Bernard, was playing the piano and Mos sang "Your Feet's Too Big,"' he says. "It’s seventy years after it was written but still everybody was laughing.”
Gondry is currently working on a film with his son, an artist who recalls Jean-Michel Basquiat and designed the spray painted portrait of Fats Waller in 'Be Kind.' Paul Gondry has created a “very tortuous story about a dictator and a rebel” that Daniel Clowes is set to write and that his father will direct. When asked if he would work with Charlie Kaufman again, Gondry channels the irreverence of Waller. “I think when people stop telling me I should work with him again," he says, "maybe I’m going to try and work with him again just by contradiction.”
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