Michel Gondry
April 2002
Los Angeles

Anyone who has ever watched MTV knows Michel Gondry, whose work spearheaded a new movement of creative and cinematic music videomaking in the early 90’s. Gondry is most known for his collaborations with Bjork – having produced the visual accompaniment to six of her most memorable tunes – but the French visual artist has infused his own unique style with many other musicians of disparate style since his career began in 1986. He began by coming up with videos for his own group, Oui Oui, for which he played drums, and cultivated his résumé with video projects for other French musicians including Jean-Luc Lahaye, Les Objects, Affaire Louis Trio, and Robert.

In 1992, Gondry moved outside the borders of his country to work with Inspiral Carpets, Thomas Dolby and Mark Curry; the next year found him hired by the likes of Belinda Carlisle, Terence Trent D’Arby, Donald Fagen, Lenny Kravitz, and Hothouse Flowers. From then on it was non-stop attention for Gondry, especially once his tour de force with Bjork began with her “Human Behavior” video. And now Gondry can count Massive Attack, the Rolling Stones, Cibo Matto, Daft Punk, Foo Fighters, Beck, Wyclef Jean, Chemical Brothers, Radiohead and The White Stripes among his collaborators, producing with the inspiration of their music some of the most influential and unforgettable short film works to date and elevating the genre of music video to a veritable art form.

Gondry is now taking his inimitable vision to the big screen with his feature film directorial debut, bringing the equally fearless work of writer Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich) to life in Human Nature. The film stars Patricia Arquette, Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans and some very talented mice in a story that will no doubt leave just as much of an impression as Gondry’s earlier work.

Just prior to Human Nature’s release in the U.S., Gondry sat down to talk about this big move.

I’m very honored to be talking to an artist whose work combines the power of music and visuals so uniquely. You are a pioneer of the genre to anyone of my generation; we think of music videos and automatically your work is what pops into our heads.

Cool!

I have to tell you something funny: When I first saw your video for Bjork’s “Human Behavior”, it did something very strange to my head. I ended up having nightmares about the bear –

Oh, I’m sorry!

(Laughs) The first night after I saw it, I was like, “Oh no, the bear, the bear!” But the ridiculous thing is that it’s not particularly frightening or anything –

(Laughs) It’s difficult to describe. I know that when I just finished it, people went nuts, which is another reason why I love this video. And when I finished it, I remember my editor was like, “I’m not sure if I like it…” because it was not clear-cut, neither a naïve nor serious way of how to believe in this world. But that was a very big question between Bjork and I. It was from our universe – not from just my universe or hers – and it was really a good fusion.

For me, it was a good fusion between childhood and adulthood and the things that drive you when you’re small…like the littlest things can make you freak out or make you so happy. And to bring such simplicity back to things when you’re an adult and supposed to be mature, when you’ve supposedly forgotten about things like that, is powerful. Suddenly a bear can come back and just remind you of everything that’s scary and wrong and bad. I’ll probably have a nightmare tonight about it, having talked to you today.

Oh, I’m sorry! (Laughs) With the trailer for Spiderman I dreamt that I was flying, so, see? Sometimes it’s good. Have you done that? I fly in my dreams. I hadn’t flown in my dreams for a long while and I flew again after I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was that good, to make me fly in my dreams.

It set you free from the boundaries of gravity.

Yeah!

I’m coming into this discussion with the point of that music and film are inextricably linked, which is why someone like you who has worked in both arts is so interesting to me. Music and film are so important to each other – you can’t have a film without music and music conjures up so much emotion that it makes a film that much more powerful. It’s interesting to have someone like you, who has come from a musical background, performing at first and then moving into music video direction and now end up directing feature films. Tell me how you moved from playing the drums with Oui Oui to making videos.

Well, I was in art school and got into being a drummer there. I remember when I passed the test to go to the school, I had a subject like advertising or something, and I was not into advertising. I didn’t care to be on some roof of a city at night and see all the same sort of advertising on the other roofs. Anyway, we had to do this project on advertising and instead of making something flat and uninteresting, I used food and cardboard and paint – it sounds bad but I had a very good notation of what I wanted. So thinking back to that, I think that was exactly what I was good at, these kind of mixed techniques. Later on I bought a little 16mm camera for 1,000 francs or so and used that to do other stuff - making little cities and cars and shooting them. And that’s how…I’m sorry, I’m rambling – I don’t even remember the question! (Laughs) But that’s how I came to be into directing. I realized that directing was a crossover of all of those skills I could have with the music and construction and inventing and painting or drawing. It was a perfect medium to unify all those things. And it was so good to do something that’s going to last forever on film, even though film can be destroyed or recycled.

It lasts forever because it leaves a lasting impression on whoever sees it.

Yeah, exactly! And I like that video is a frame or a field that you indicate with scotch tape and rope or whatever you want. Inside that frame just represents what you have in your mind.

Do you think that having been a musician made you in a better music video director?

I think in a way, yes. It helped me to approach the artist from an inside point of view. I knew early on I would fail to be a proper drummer and just be always in the background or never taken care of. All these things I knew about being in a band, how you have to manage and everybody’s equal, but you also get restricted by all those opinions as you’re trying to express yourself and expand your visual background through your music. I knew how to deal with the musician, with the artist – I was part of them. So when I met artists…I mean, Bjork was an easy one to work with. If you know how to approach them, it’s also really helpful for them.

That’s true. And maybe none of this would’ve happened if you had been the singer or the lead guitarist. Maybe your ego would have been too big to let you be that diplomatic. It seems the drummer’s always the calm one –

(Laughs) In a way, yeah.

Can you compare or talk about the differences between musicians as performers and musicians as actors, especially how it relates to doing a music video? For instance, directing someone like Bjork.

I think many videos reduce the artist to just playing the instrument, and I don’t like that. It’s always the same cliché and I can’t stand to see somebody just caressing the guitar and singing into the microphone. And I think music is not if you show…if you see the strings when there are strings in the background in the music. It’s more a feeling that you want to show, maybe somebody praying. What you see is only what you are hearing because you don’t bring anything new.

What you should want to see is what this music brings to your imagination. I always try to avoid the cliché. But sometimes it means I have to talk to [musicians] and convince them to do stuff that they’re not really good at and not comfortable with. I don’t know if you’ve seen this video with this guy called Lucas – it’s a one-shot video going through a lot of different frames. The camera is going this way and that way, all in continuity; you go from here and then you go to something else in a different situation, but it’s all in one shot. You would think it’s hard for the guy to do because he has to be really precise with his timing and his body, but it actually it is easier because he’s so busy technically, going from one situation to another with everything that’s moving around him, that he doesn’t have time to think of himself or the camera. So, it’s much more natural.

I think my videos allow people to be more natural. I learned how to manage people and make them forget about embarrassment of being in front of the camera. And I think that helped me a lot when I started to direct Human Nature because I had a lot of tricks and techniques to let them forget about the camera, even if there is a lot of light moving around. I try to keep things fluid and then they don’t feel the pressure of the technique.

How did the techniques you usually employed on musicians work on directing actual actors in this movie?

Well, as I said, what I do helps people to be less anxious and more natural. I learned how to tell when somebody looked fake and how to change that, because if you point that out to somebody and offend them, he will get stiff because he’s feeling hurt. So, you have to say something different. It could be, “Okay, so, maybe you open the door and then you do something – change the timing or change the line.” Not many directors would help people to be better without being harsh. Some actors, you can really say, “Listen, this was a little bit trite,” and they can take it very well. For others, you just have to give them an option. Like for instance, Patricia Arquette. She said to me, “Some directors, to get emotion from me, they shake me and they scream at me and they don’t get anything from me. You will get anger from me if you do that.” So I tried to be different. I wanted [her performance] to be really hard sometimes and sometimes a lot softer. So screaming at her to get her in the mood I wanted didn’t work at all. I noticed to get her really emotional, I have to be really soft and very quiet and give her time. So it was really interesting that I had to learn a lot of this process to be able to get them in the right frame of mind.

And everybody was respectful of the time it took for you to kind of get used to the process?

Yeah, and I think the technicians were happy because it there were a lot of technical elements happening and I tried to hold them back from the actors. I never stopped, never called cut to the camera – I always try to let the camera roll. Or I’ll re-do another take with no film in the camera. The actors are really appreciative of that, having respect for what they’re trying to perform, because sometimes you say cut and everything changes. The crew wants to fix the hair and the clothes and the light is changing when the actor is really trying to be in his own world but there’s a million things moving around him.

Also, actors like it that I’m coming from a more visual background and really care for what they do. Sometimes video directors are a little bit shy so they tend to hide behind the camera and not communicate with the actor. But I try to be courteous to them and just express what I feel.

Which seems to me to come from a much more sensitive point of view than other directors. As you brought up, it’s not from a very visual point of view but something more internal.

Yes – obviously, there is a look, I guess, an aesthetic element, but I try to forget about the surface a little bit and I think in my videos I try to go inside people’s minds.

You definitely do that. Do you think that your claim as a video director made it more difficult or easier for you to crossover into feature films?

I think it gives people a high expectation and it’s made a little difficult at times. I mean people judge me on reputation rather than if I was just coming from out of the blue. I know that. But on the other hand, I won’t complain because it gives me skill and opportunity to direct this movie. It’s like sometimes if you’re the son of somebody famous, it’s hard, you have to make your own name, but at the same time, you get more opportunity. So for me, I was a little famous in my own world and it helped me on one hand. On the other hand, people point at me. But they also open the door to more opportunities.

Since the movie project got underway, have you met a lot of people who don’t really know who you are yet have just kind of jumped on the band wagon? They give off that air of pseudo-recognition, like they know you’re somebody great but haven’t seen your past work?

Well, I think so, but you know it’s because…. I mean, everybody knows Bjork now, and most of them know at least one video I’ve done and they know that I’m kind of respected in the video music world.

Right, so they’ve got a clue at least.

Yeah. I wish sometimes they would not know anything, just see the movie. But they know Charlie [Kaufman] a lot more than me. Or, obviously, they know Spike [Jonze]. So sometimes it makes it harder.

Making this movie was not a big-budget affair – you had no responsibilities to a major studio and it wasn’t necessarily as controlled as a big-budget picture would be. Was that very similar to video music directing?

I had certainly less control and I had to explain more to people. Generally, doing a video, I just explain my idea and people a lot of times don’t understand them, but they feel, “Okay, it would be good, we trust him.” In this case, I really have to talk people into it. I had to talk to Charlie and to Spike and to the producer to explain why I wanted to do this one scene on stage and not on the real location. I don’t like to explain, because I like to trust my instincts. And I had to trust my instincts.

Do you feel that maybe on your next feature they’ll be a little more lenient?

I hope so. On the other hand, maybe I will be a more important person – I would have more money and less freedom. But I’d rather have 100% freedom and people who think it’s crazy. This time I think I did the movie I wanted to do, but I had to explain and talk people into it.

When did you decide that you wanted to direct films? Is that something you’ve always wanted to do?

No, it wasn’t something I could dream of – it was too far removed from me. I don’t know, to me, directors always seemed in their world, really protected. But I don’t know, sometimes I would be watching a video I did for Bjork projected on the big screen, and I just said to myself, “Okay, I have to try to do movie!” It’s so much stronger on the big screen with an audience, peacefully sitting and watching, and raising their eyes to the screen. And it’s not at all like being bombarded by the constant flow of information from the TV. So, I said okay. I like to tell stories, and sometimes in my own way I will try to find a story that reflects my personality and then make a movie.

Reflect your personality. So Human Nature has certain elements of who you are in it?

Oh yeah, sure. I mean, obviously it’s written by Charlie Kaufman and it’s reflecting a lot of his personality. But as well, if I chose to do this movie it’s because there were a lot of elements that were connecting with myself. There are some elements of sexuality and some parts are really graphic and gross and that’s not me. (Laughs)

Of course not! (Laughs) What other types of film projects have you been approached to do?

I’d been looking for two years before this movie and there was one called Green Hornet, done by a great screenwriter, Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote Usual Suspects. We had a great script that was really original but the studio got scared. It was like on one hand, a lot of effects and big budget, but on the other hand, maybe it was not exactly a Hollywood type of movie.

Were there other scripts that people had been pushing you to do that you just said no, I just can’t?

Yeah, many. I had read all the scripts and most of them were really weak.

You were giving up hope, I bet, of ever finding anything.

Yeah, it was tough.

Was pre-production at least already underway for Human Nature before Being John Malkovich came out?

Actually, yes. I think Being John Malkovich was shot already, but it was not like anyone knew about it. And we got financed before but it was still hard.

A big struggle to put it together since you didn’t have positive feedback from Charlie’s previous project yet?

Yeah! It was real slow. We had the script, then I was attached and then we attached Patricia. Then we found a good producer, then we started to do the casting. So, it all was done at a slow pace, but kind of safely in a way.

How much time did it take from the beginning of things, when you first said, “I want to do this,” to its release now? How many music videos could you have done in that time?

Honestly, it’s like nearly four years now. Let’s say I can do five to eight videos per year…I would have done like fifteen videos. Actually, since this started I’ve done four videos.

And a lot of commercials too, right?

Some commercials, yes.

Obviously when you do videos, you do them for artists who are personally pleasing to you – you have an investment in their music. How does that sentiment translate into filmmaking for you? What are your favorite films and what did you have in mind when you were shooting Human Nature?

Well, let’s see…. When I shoot something, I try to not have anything in mind. Or if I have something in mind, it would be maybe a feeling, of me watching this animated film from when I was young or some removed thing. I never open a book and I never show a picture. I don’t work by reference.

I think a lot of video directors work with reference and I can’t. For instance, the thing I did with the forest, with Patricia singing, obviously, I was first influenced by myself with Bjork and the video I done for “Human Behavior”. But in this video, if I remember, I was influenced half by an animated piece that’s called The Hedgehog in the Fog by Yuri Norushtein, a Russian director. And the other half was maybe The Night of the Hunter. When I did Human Nature, I didn’t think of those references. But they weren’t here to totally digest it. And sometimes, I would have a dream that is influenced of a movie and then I think of my dream. I was trying to make some distance with the references.

Sure, to keep it original. That’s the big problem in Hollywood, is people being too derivative. They say, “I want it to look like that!”

Yeah. Then nobody knows. Everybody is impressed, but they don’t know its really taken from something. I know a British guy who was living in France; he has worked since just after the second war and did the Eisenstein movie, Ivan the Terrible, a very important movie. He was a costume designer and they had no money. To make the earrings, he had the idea to take some chesnut shells and cover them with foil. And it looks amazing!

Just to give you an idea of how it works in advertising, the guy, he would look at the movie and say, “Okay, you have to go to this country and find me exactly this piece of jewelry.” I mean, it would cost a fortune! And then they reproduced something that looks authentic and very rich but it’s a reproduction, a very expensive reproduction of something that has been done in urgency and with no money! (Laughs)

This director, Sergei Paradzhanov, whom I really like, did a movie with little bit of rope and metal, and I know a big-time video and commercial director that will rip off frame by frame his work. But they have tons of money – they have more money than you’d have in your entire life! But this guy went to jail, went to the gulag – he was jailed for being homosexual – and those guys, they just take everything and they have tons of money.... (Pauses) I try to avoid that. Maybe one time or two, I would try to copy but I was really embarrassed of myself. (Grins)

So, if somebody were to come to you and give you a bunch of money, you would say no?

Yes, sometimes, but it depends. Some people say, “Okay, we like your concept, but we want to see your visual reference.” I say, “There is no visual reference.” And sometimes they say, “Well, sorry, but we need to see how it will look on a tape.” It’s too bad then because it would look like nothing original and what I want to do, only I can see it. Because of that I’ve lost jobs many times.

Do you think that if you had been an American director of videos or commercials you would have been given more opportunities to work? It just seems like that kind of attitude of “I need to do this myself” is rarely given a chance in this country.

I would have done bigger movies, I think. More commercial and maybe I might not have been as good. I don’t know. Maybe it was my English that was scaring people and prevented me from doing the big blockbuster. (Laughs)

That, or because they can’t understand your accent they think that you’re some brilliant genius.

(Laughs) Either that or they think we French are all problematic.

Aside from Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, who are some of the other more independent-minded filmmakers out there right now, either from America or from around the world, that you admire?

I remember even before I did Human Nature, I liked the Coen brothers, and I really liked Flirting With Disaster. That was that kind of very different theme that had a certain level of aesthetic that I could appreciate that was really about filmmaking.

Sometimes I’ve been a little bit repelled by cynicism in independent American film. You know, I really love Welcome to the Dollhouse, but I walked away from Happiness because it was too cruel. Watching it again lately on video I was more ready and I accepted it better. [Todd Solondz’s] latest movie, Storytelling, is funny because it’s even more cruel but I kind of like it and I think the direction is really great. He’s an amazing director. But sometimes I feel it’s too hard on people; it’s too pessimistic about human beings.

But that’s such a good point you brought up. I mean in your stuff, even going back to what I first said about how the “Human Behavior” video made me scared, it didn’t do it in a very evil or menacing way. You have such sensitivity and hope invested in everything you do.

A lot of directors in video try to be darker than they really are. And it feels a little bit like they’re trying to break down their problems. I mean, not that I’m saying I don’t have a lot of problems, but sometimes I used my chemically unbalanced brain and look at those problems with humor to come up with an idea. I try to be more forgiving as well.

Which is the essence of creativity – positivity.

Yeah. You start to be fucked up by yourself and your problems and then you try to put yourself in balance and you lose your skills or your art and craft to compensate.

Right. Is there any musician out there now you haven’t worked with yet but want to do videos with?

Serge Gainsbourg, but he’s dead.

Yes, he is.

Michael Jackson, maybe - I think sometimes he comes up with a great song. But I’m not sure – I don’t know what I would do with him.

Between his scary persona and your scary accent, anybody working on that just might go crazy.

Yeah, maybe!

www.humannaturemovie.com. More on Gondry can be found at www.director-file.com/gondry.