two in the wave pressbook

8/6/2019 Two in the Wave Pressbook

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CREW

Director Emmanuel LaurentScript Antoine de BaecquePhotography Nicholas de Pencier

Etienne Carton de GrammontEditor Marie-France CuenotAssistant Editors Jonas Frossard, Isabel Castro, Sandra VelichiWith the participation of Odile BonisSound Henri MakoffSound Edit Jean DubreuilSound Mix Philippe Grivel, Jean-Christophe BarrasProducer Emmanuel LaurentProduction Manager Martin de la FouchardireProduction Assistants Martin Suard, Lucie de Chevigny,

Anne-Sophie le Peron

Production Companies Les Films TroisWith the support of Procirep/AngoaWith the participation of Argos Film, CinTamaris, Gaumont, Les Films du

Jeudi, MK2, Studio Canal, Warner Bros., INA,Gaumont Path Archives, RTBF.

Thanks to Claude and Vronique Godard

With

Isild Le Besco

France / 2009 / 90 mins / French with English subtitles / HD


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The Film

Two in the Wave is the story of a friendship. Jean-Luc Godard was born in 1930; FranoisTruffaut two years later. Love of movies brings them together. They write in the same

magazines , Cahiers du Cinema and Arts. When the younger of the two becomes afilmmaker with "The 400 Blows", which triumphs in Cannes in 1959, he helps his older friendshift to directing, offering him a screenplay which already has a title,A bout de souffle, orBreathless.

Through the 1960s the two loyally support each other. History and politics separate them in1968 and afterwards - when Godard plunges into radical politics but Truffaut continues hiscareer as before. Working with both of them, the actor Jean-Pierre Laud is torn like a childcaught between two separated and warring parents. Their friendship and their break-upembody the story of French cinema.

Exploring the archives and the films of the two New Wave directors, and leafing through thepress of the period, Two in the Wave takes us back to a prodigious decade that transformedthe world of cinema.

On 21 October 1984, Franois Truffaut died of brain cancer. He was 52 years old. Jean-LucGodard does not attend the funeral, which, in the Montmartre Cemetery, brings togetherthe whole family of French Cinema. For ten years the two filmmakers have been enemies.Since 1973 the two former friends, leaders of the New Wave, have not seen each other.They are no longer on speaking terms.

But Godard is terribly upset by Truffauts death. Memories flood back: their shared love forthe cinema, the years spent together in the cine clubs and movie theatres, how these tworebellious kids learned about life, watching and adoring the same films. In the December1984 special issue ofCahiers du Cinma, dedicated to Truffaut, Godard writes: Franoisbegan making films with his hands, with daubs of ink, and throwing stones into a pond. Wehad Diderot, Baudelaire, lie Faure, Andr Malraux, and Franois. Afterwards there were noother real critics of art.A few weeks later, Godard feels forsaken and vulnerable. In January 1985 he writes: Its not

by chance that Franois died. A whole period has disappeared. He managed to do what therest ofus didnt attempt and failed to do he was respected. Through him, the New Wave

still had respect. Because of him we were respected. Now that hes gone, we are no longerrespected. In his own way, Franois protected me. Im very frightened now that thisprotection no longer exists.

Four years later, in 1988, Franois Truffauts letters are published; everything again floodsback. Godard writes a preface to the volume: the battles of film lovers at the beginning,when we were inseparable, then the excursion to Cannes in May 1959, with the triumph ofThe 400 Blows; and Cocteau, Truffaut, Laud, on the Croisette; and then the birth ofBreathless, Truffauts gift to his two-year-older friend, Godard. It was a time ofcamaraderie and complicity. Godard describes himself as playing Athos to TruffautsdArtagnan. And he recalls the films developed together from Jules and Jim to Two or ThreeThings I Know About Her, from Shoot the Pianist to Vivre sa Vie, the allusions and friendlynods they contain, the little telegraphed words of encouragement; money is passed backand forth; they stick together. Jean-Pierre Laud moves easily from one universe to the


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other: Antoine Doinel becoming the clumsy investigator ofMasculin, fminin or theapprentice revolutionary ofLa Chinoise.

Then there is the quarrel in the spring of 1973. They exchange insulting letters, incredibleinvective. Godard talks about it: Why did I quarrel with Franois? It had nothing to do withGenet or Fassbinder. It was something else. Luckily that something else has no name. It was

idiotic, dim-witted. Saturn swallowed us whole. We tore each other apart, little by little,neither wanting to be eaten first. Cinema taught us life. It took its revenge. Our pain talkedand talked and talked. But our suffering was pure cinema, that is to say, it was silent. MaybeFranois is dead. Maybe Im alive. Theres no difference, really, is there? Actor Jean-PierreLaud is trapped between his two fathers. They fight over him like separated parentsfighting over a child.

Using documents, archives, Two in the Wave tells this story. Letters exchanged, texts fromCahiers du Cinma, and fromArts, photographs of a continually changing family, interviewsabout the films, about conceptions of cinema, about their vision of the world, reportages onthe shooting of the films and their atmosphere, which are so different between Truffaut andGodard.This is the living material of which this film is made. It believes in the magic of life that ishidden in the archives. By telling the story of the friendship of Franois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, their team work, their diverging idea of cinema, then their violent and radicalquarrel, Two in the Wave explores one of the great adventures and breakups of Frenchcinema.


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EMMANUEL LAURENTDirectorWriter and filmmaker, Emmanuel Laurent taught himself filmmaking by sitting in the frontrow of the Cinmathque and by editing. In 1984, he founded the independent productioncompany Films Trois which he runs with Martin de la Fouchardire.Just before Two in the Wave, he made The Quest for the Unicorn and subsequentlyLeonardos Last Journey (out in 2011) with Sally Blake. He is now working on MademoiselleV.,Journal sune Insouciante which is based on his first novel, published in 2003.Previously he has written and directed The Tramp (from Guy de Maupassant), a three-partmusical comedy, Le Cantique des Cantines, and more than twenty feature-length and shortdocumentaries, including North Chad (with Lionel Cousin), One Million Birds at the Sahara'sGate, the three part series At Our backdoor 1- The Brenne Country, 2- Saintonge betweenthe Vineyards, 3- Under a Paris Roof; Buffon; By Chance? ; Portrait of Gustave Caillebotte ;The Evolution of Ernst Mayr ; and The Kennewick Man.

ANTOINE DE BAECQUEWriterFilm historian and critic, Antoine de Baecque has written on love of film (La Cinphilie.Invention d'un regard, histoire d'une culture, 2005), on criticism (Histoire des Cahiers ducinma, 1991), and on the New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague, portrait d'une jeunesse, 1998).He has also written essays on Tim Burton, (2005), Manoel de Oliveira (1997), and AndreiTarkovsky (1989).Former editor in chief ofCahiers du Cinma and of the cultural pages ofLibration, hecurrently teaches the history of cinema at Nanterre University (Paris).With Serge Toubiana, he wrote a biography of Franois Truffaut (1996), and he has recently

written a new biography of Jean-Luc Godard, published by in 2010. It awaits an Englishtranslation.Two in the Wave is his first documentary.

DISCUSSION BETWEEN EMMANUEL LAURENT AND ANTOINE DE BAECQUE

FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH TRUFFAUT AND GODARD

Emmanuel Laurent

I saw my first Truffaut films as a teenager, in the mid-1960s: they were the first films that

spoke my own language. Antoine Doinel was like my older brother. I liked his syncopated,

literary way of expressing himself. I would visit him in Godards films where he intrigued me,

but I preferred him in Truffauts. Godard was the tutelaryshadow, the admired director, but

one didnt always want to listen to him. I always preferred listening to Truffaut.

Antoine de Baecque

I never met Truffaut, but it is under his patronage that I became a film critic. When he

passed away, on 21 October 1984, I, like every cinephile, like every 20-year-old, was in astate of shock. Thus I wrote a text on film as a way to express my sorrow as well as his

influence on me. I sent the text to what naturally seemed to be his personal mailbox,


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Cahiers du Cinma. The text was published two months later, launching my career at the

Cahiers. I then started writing for them on a regular basis.

I met Godard there, in the autumn of 1990, a first time to prepare a special issue of the

magazine, Godard, 30 ans depuis (Godard, 30 years since). We went to visit him in his

Paris office and, I dont know why, I was struck by the wads of banknotes sticking out of his

pockets. He smoked cigars and his hands were very beautiful.

I then immersed myself into their archives, and I liked this purely bookish proximity, a paper

friendship for a few years, enough time in which to write two biographies. The first one was

dedicated to Truffaut, in the mid-1990s. It allowed me to gain access to *Truffauts

company] LesFilms du Carrosse and to visit the numerous archive boxes left by the

filmmaker. It was like diving into his life, his obsessions, his diaries, his lists, his letters, his

pictures, his texts, his scripts.

Then came the time of Godard, ten years later. Here, nothing was together, nothing was

readily available. The man was still lurking and most likely hostile to my biographical

undertaking. I had to rely on his friends, his loved ones, his acquaintances, sometimes even

his enemies, who all generously opened themselves to me. I was therefore able to

reconstruct Godards life like a puzzle, to invent a corpus, and to meet a very secretive and

modest person with a will of iron underneath his public persona.

WORKING TOGETHER

Antoine de Baecque

I remember the day Emmanuel Laurent came to see me for the first time. We talked at

length of the history ofCahiers du Cinma and of the New Wave. Emmanuel showed me his

science films, his documentaries on the unicorn and on Darwin. I also read his novel on

Victorine Meurent, Manets favourite model. I immediately appreciated his curious and

open mind, far from the usual boundaries of Parisian cinephilia. One day, probably during

one of these point-blank conversations on an explorer of the Southern seas, we decided to

take the bull by the horns and to make a film about the New Wave. Nothing more precise

was decided at this point.

Emmanuel Laurent

When I asked Antoine to make this film with me, he was immediately enthusiastic about it.

It then became impossible for me not to make the film.

Antoine de Baecque

We already knew that we would only be using archival images and that I would write a text,

a commentary which, as much as possible, would stem from these images. There would be

few images from nowadays, no old mens testimonies talking about their long lost youth.

We would hold the bet to be almost constantly in the present of a given time, from the end

of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s.


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THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN GODARD AND TRUFFAUT

Emmanuel Laurent

For Two in the Wave, it appeared to us, after a few hesitant moments, that we had to tell

the highly novelistic story of the Truffaut/Godard couple and leave the other members of

the New Wave behind. Doinel/Laud also became a key character. The rule we set ourselvesfrom then on consisted essentially in editing out any scene that would not concern the

couple or their son in cinema, Laud. Their interviews since 1959, unearthed by Christine

Loiseau from across the globe had to converse with, reverberate or stand in contradiction to

one another. The same applied to the excerpts from their films. Keeping with this method, it

would have made no sense to film an interview with Godard today, because Truffaut is not

around to respond.

Antoine de Baecque

This story of a friendship, as strong in its complicity as in the arguments and hatred thatfollowed, is important because of its universality. On seeing Truffaut and Godard getting

closer and then violently turning away from each other, each spectator can understand,

through his or her own experience, the characters and destinies of the two filmmakers and

their mutual child, Jean-Pierre Laud. Everybody is familiar with love stories and

heartbreaks. This friendship also says a lot about French cinema, because it is, at its heart,

one of its major adventures and breakups. Since 1973 when Truffaut and Godard fell out,

almost all French filmmakers have had to take sides in this duel at one point or another:

Truffaut or Godard? In other words classic or modern, Matisse or Picasso, craftsman or

artist, story or collage, wise or provocative?

Emmanuel Laurent

As much as a film on cinema, Two in the Wave is a film on friendship, friendship through

time, friendship in a certain era. It all stems from the desire to tell this story. Showing how

an encounter takes place, how two young men on the face of it dissimilar find each other,

how they stick together in the face of adversity, how they support one anothers work, like

in their time the Impressionists, distant soul brothers to the New Wave, and then how

everything blows up: politics divides them, highlights their differences, increases thediscrepancy between their ways of life. We could have told this story through other

characters, but Truffaut and Godard, on the one hand, give access to many documents and,

on the other hand, they allow one to ask the question of the transmission of their story of

friendship to new generations. It is a beautiful story which gloriously embodies an era, a

way of being in cinema. It also symbolises the meaning of certain values: neither Truffaut

nor Godard would ever have compromised their independence as filmmakers for example.

They were as demanding with their friendship as they were with cinema. It is thus the

reason why they broke up: there was not enough shared cinema left between them.

Antoine de Baecque


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Making this film represented a challenge. We were able to show to those who think

Truffaut and Godard, I know all about it, that there are still things to be discovered, that

they can be surprised by what they think they know on the tip of their fingers. It is always

exciting to tell a well-known story with famous characters differently, either by bringing new

material or by offering a singular narrative or a particular angle.

THE PRESENCE OF ARCHIVE MATERIAL

Emmanuel Laurent

As a reader of Antoine de Baecque before meeting him, I wanted to translate in images the

love he manifests for real archive material, the kind of material one cannot find on Google.

The film is a declaration of love to paper and to the sound of the turning pages, making it in

line with its time by showing the pages that figure before and after the information sought,

between an advertisement for a one-piece bathing suit and a now forgotten character, back

then important enough to take up a full newspaper page.

Antoine de Baecque

I think that an archival source, whether visual or written, printed or as sound, is a source of

emotion. Working on Two in the Wave stems from this idea: in every archive, there is

potential for meaning and emotion. Then the editing and interpretation enable us to reveal

it, to present it to the public who endow it with its true power: first and foremost to touch,

to suddenly embody a period, an idea, a struggle, a personality. Thats why a page from a

newspaper, from the magazineArts, from Cahiers du Cinma, is here as important as a

photograph of the young Godard, an unknown interview with the Truffaut of 1959, a hand-written letter or a film clip. All these documents are free and equal, it is for us to paste them

together, to edit them, to reveal them by giving them meaning, by putting them together in

a narrative.

ISILD LE BESCO, New Wave 2010

Antoine de Baecque

Many people, coming out of the film, wonder about the presence of today in the film,

through Isild le Besco. It appeared as a piece of evidence to us: Isild is the 2010 New Wavewhile being perfectly of her time. Thats why she circulates the documents, like one would

circulate a dish, from yesterday to today. She is a page turner, someone involved, lively,

curious, as attentive to the past as to the present.

Emmanuel Laurent

We wanted to create a connection between the youth of a certain era and the youth of

today. Not for the sake of comparison but to see what they have to tell each other. Isild le

Besco quickly stood out, she who embodies so precisely the young women of the 2000s,

those who want their singular voice heard. She was the best bridge between the two

periods, intervening in the film with discretion, generosity and humility. She showed the


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qualities of a beautiful spirit. In the meanwhile, I was keeping to one of Truffauts principles:

to make a successful film, one need only film the face of a pretty woman.

GODARD AND TRUFFAUT - correspondence

Letter from Jean-Luc Godard to Franois Truffaut: mid-July, 1959, one month before

shooting Breathless.

Ive finally found the coherent story line that will give Breathless its emotion. Old daddy

[George de] Beauregard is working out pretty well. If Carolus [Bitsch] is not busy, I take himas first assistant. Hell always be one shot behind me, but so much the better. Ill let youread the shooting script in a couple of days. After all, its your screenplay. I think that, onceagain, youll be surprised. Yesterday, I talked about it with Melville. Thanks to him, and toscreening some rushes of the Big Momo [Eric Rohmer who was shooting The Sign of Leo],Im in top gear. Therell be a scene where Jean Seberg will interview Rossellini for the NewYork Herald. I think you wont like this film even if it is dedicated to Baby Doll, but via RioBravo. Id like to write you alonger letter but Im so lazy that this effort will prevent mefrom working until tomorrow. We start shooting 17 August, rain or shine. In brief, the storywill be about a guy who thinks about death and a girl who doesnt. The events concern a carthief (Melville is going to introduce me to some specialists) whos in love with a girl whosells the New York Herald and who is taking a course in French Civilization. Itsuncomfortable introducing something of me into a scenario that is yours. But we arebecoming complicated. The thing to do is to shoot film and not try to be too clever.With friendship: one of your sons.

Text on Jean-Luc Godard: Two or Three Things I know about Him by Franois

Truffaut; 1966.

Why did I get involved? Is it because Jean-Luc has been my friend for 20 years? Or is itbecause Jean-Luc is the worlds greatest filmmaker? Jean-Luc Godard is not the only directorfor whom filming is like breathing, but hes the one who breathes best. He is rapid likeRossellini, sly like Sacha Guitry, musical like Orson Welles, simple like Pagnol, wounded likeNicholas Ray, effective like Hitchcock, profound like Bergman, and insolent like nobody else.Professor Chiarini, Director of the Venice Film Festival, says: Theres cinema before Godard,

and cinema after Godard. Its true, and as the years pass its increasingly clear that

Breathless has marked the cinema, that its a decisive turning point, like Citizen Kane in1940. Godard blew the system up, he messed it up, just like Picasso did with painting; andlike Picasso, Godard has made everything possible. More prosaically, I can say that I havebecome a producer of the thirteenth film of Jean-Luc Godard because I noticed that thepeople who invested money in the preceding twelve masterpieces got rich.

Two letters from Jean-Luc Godard to Franois Truffaut (not dated, mid-1960s)

Me too, dear Francesco, Im totally lost. Im wandering in a strange place. I think there is

something very beautiful is prowling around close to me. But when I tell Coutard to catch itwith a quick pan, its gone.


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We no longer get together, you and I, its really idiotic. Yesterday I went to see ClaudeChabrol, who was shooting, and it was awful, we have nothing to say to each other. Its likein the song, in the pale dawn, not even friendship survives. Weve each gone off onto ourown planet; we dont see each other in close-up, like before, just long shots. The girls wesleep with separate us more and more instead of bring us together. Thats not the way itssupposed to be.

The Quarrel:

Letter from Jean-Luc Godard to Truffaut, end of May 1973

Probably nobody will call you a liar. Well, I will. Its not more of an insult than fascist. Its acritique. And its the absence of critique in such films, your film, and in the films of Chabrol,Ferreri, Verneuil, Delannoy, Renoir, etc., which I complain about. You say, films are bigtrains passing in the night. But who takes the train? Those are trains too. What class of seatdo they get? And who drives the train with the bosses spy standing beside him? They makefilm-trains too. And if youre not talking about the Trans-Europ, then, maybe its thesuburban train, or maybe the train for Dachau-Munich, and of course we will never see thatstation in Lelouchs film-train. Youre a liar because the image of you and Jacqueline Bissetthe other evening Chez Francis [restaurant in Paris] is not in your film. And Id like to knowwhy the director is the only one who doesnt fuck in Day for Night. Ill come to a morematerial point. To shoot Un simple film I need five or six million francs. Given Day for Nightyou should help me, so the audience will know that yours is not the only kind of film thatgets made. If you want to talk about it, okay.

Truffauts answer to Jean-Luc Godard, June 1973

Im sending back your letter to Jean-Pierre. I read it and I find it disgusting. Its because ofthat letter that I think the moment has come to tell you, in detail, how, according to me, youact like a shit. I dont give a damn what you think of Day for Night. But what I do findpathetic on your part is that, even now, you go to films like that when you know very well inadvance they dont matchyour idea of cinema or your idea of life. Its my turn to call you aliar.At the beginning ofTout va bien, theres this line: To make a film, you need stars. Thats alie. Everybody knows about how you insisted on having Jane Fonda who refused while

your financers told you to pick anybody.Your couple of stars, you got them Clouzot style. Since they work with me, they can work forone tenth of their salary for you, etc. Karmitz, Bernard Paul need stars. You dont. So thatwas a lie. Youve always had it, this way of posing as a victim, like Cayatte, like Boisset, likeMichel Drach, a victim of Pompidou, of Marcellin, of censorship, of distributors who cutfilms, while in fact you get by very well doing exactly what you want, when you want, theway you want, and above all, keeping this your image as a pure tough guy, that you want tokeep , even if at the expense of people who cant defend themselves.When I saw Vent dEstand the sequence how to make a Molotov cocktail, the only feelingI had for you was contempt. And a year later you shied away when we asked you to

distribute La Cause du peuple in the street with Jean-Paul Sartre. The idea that men areequal is just theory for you. You dont feel it. You just want to play a role and it has to be abig role. I think the real militants are like cleaning ladies: its not pleasant work, its daily, its


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necessary. But you, youre like Ursula Andress, a four minute cameo, time for the flashbulbs,a few striking quips, and, poof, you disappear, back to the lucrative mystery. Shittybehaviour! Really shitty behaviour! For a while after May 68, nobody knew what you weredoing. Rumours spread: hes working in afactory; hes formed a group, etc., then oneSaturday we hear, its announced, that you are going to speak on RTL. I stayed in the officeso I could hear you.

It was one way of finding out, getting news about you. Your voice was trembling; it seemedfull of emotion. You announced that you were going to shoot a film, The Death of myBrother, about a black worker who was sick and whom they let die in the basement of atelevision factory, and listening, and despite the quiver in your voice, I knew first, that thestory was probably not precisely true, or that you had tarted it up, and, two, that you wouldnever make the film. And I said to myself: if this dead guy had a family, then they are goingto live with the hope that the film is going to be made?Theres no role in the film for Yves Montand or Jane Fonda. But for fifteen minutes you gavethe impression that you were doing good, like [Prime Minister] Messmer when heannounces that the voting age is being lowered to 19. Fake! Dandy! Show off! Youve alwaysbeen a show off and a fake, like when you sent a telegram to de Gaulle for his prostate.Fake, when you accused Chauvet of being corrupt because he was the last, the only one toresist you! Fake when you practice the amalgam, when you treat Renoir and Verneuil as thesame, as equivalent; fake when you say you are going to show the truth about the movies,who works for no pay, etc. If you want to talk about it, okay

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