CraveOnline: I read that you, Jean-Pierre, studied drama, and you, Luc, studied philosophy. How do you bring your respective disciplines into your films?
Jean-Pierre Dardenne: It’s difficult to answer. I think we both came under the tutelage of a director and playwright, Armand Gatti, and he really brought us together. That’s when we became a unit. He was our spiritual father if you want. We both have our own histories, obviously, but being put together by this man really brought us to a place where we could do something I think we both always wanted to do in the first place which was work together.
Luc Dardenne: I don’t think one takes one philosopher’s philosophy and applies it directly to a film, but I do think there is a philosopher that influences me a lot, and carries over into the film, and that’s the Lithuanian-born French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. The big break that he brought into philosophy was one’s thoughts and feelings toward others, and one’s ethical feelings towards others. He’s the first philosopher who used Auschwitz as a starting point for his philosophy. In terms of being commanded, being ordered, by others to make choices and do something – i.e. “Save me, do not kill me” – to those people in that situation. It’s that core relationship that is spins on.
Ethical compassion.
Luc Dardenne: Yes!
“I don’t think one takes one philosopher’s philosophy and applies it directly to a film…”
How do you work with actors in such a natural milieu? How do you get your performers to give such non-stagey, non-actorly performances?
Jean-Pierre Dardenne: We rehearsed with all the actors for five weeks before the shoot. And, of course, particularly with Marion because she’s in all the scenes. We rehearse with the actors on location. When we shoot, it is only Luc and I with the actors. And we have a small camera that we shoot all the rehearsals with. And, at the end of the day, we go through the costumes and accessories and we work with that. We think, “maybe an actor can wear this tomorrow,” and then we give them things to wear the next day during the rehearsal process.
Of course, the aim of the rehearsals is to set up certain things that have to do with the blocking and the camera angles, but one of the core aims of the rehearsal process is to work so the actors lose all their defenses, and are able, then, to act. To be present, and to be in a non-performance mode.
Luc Dardenne: Not stagey. And I think it’s that work process, day after day that allows that to happen.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
