Mr. Loizillon held a question and answer session at the 2004 Bangkok International Film Festival after the first festival screening of his feature film, Ma Camera et Moi. I asked him whether he'd been influenced by Stan Brakhage; he replied that he had. After the Q&A we spoke a bit more about Brakhage, and he graciously agreed to allow me to interview him. We met the next morning after he introduced the second screening of Ma Camera et Moi, and spoke for an hour about his influences and the importance of personal filmmaking.

ADAM: Thank you for agreeing to meet.
CHRISTOPHE LOIZILLON: Thank you to you. To see my film.
AJ: Yeah. Well, I wanted to, I wanted to congratulate on your film, which is a good film, and also that it's playing here. One of the thing that impressed me in the film—I liked all of the performances—
CL: You liked—?
AJ: I liked all of the acting—
CL: Yeah.
AJ: —very much. I was very pleased to see Julie Gayet in the role. She was very convincing as a—as the blind woman. And I was wondering how you directed her.
CL: In fact I, uh, I didn't work a lot with her. I knew her before. And, uh, it's the wife of my script, co-scriptwriter. And I speak with her, and I give her a book that's called Des Aveugles, Blind People. It's a little—not a documentary but a love story between two students, blind students, in an institute in Paris. Wrote by Herve Guibert. Herve Guibert it's a—one very good writer who is dead now.
[CL writes the author's name and the name of the book.]
CL: And it's the only thing I give to her. But Julie is an actress who work a lots. And she went to this institute, blind institute, to take a lesson, to walk in the street without seeing. And she have also the lover in the film, that man character, what we call, there's a man, she uh—
AJ: She has her affair with.
CL: His father is blind. He know how to move like a blind people. And she—at the end, we want to put some glasses, sunglasses to Julie, and we decide no, and we try some lens, and we decide no—In fact, when I saw her in front of the camera, I believed she was blind.
AJ: Yes. I know she's not blind, and she's very convincing.
CL: You know this actress?
AJ: I saw her—I only saw her in one other film. She's of course somewhat famous in the US.
CL: She's not famous in Paris.
AJ: In France? Or—
CL: Really. Not famous. I mean, begin to be.
AJ: We—Maybe that's how it is in the US. She's someone—if you... She was in, she was in a film that I saw by Agnes Varda—
CL: Ah yes, yes, yes, yes.
AJ: 101 Nights of Cinema, which is where I know her from.
CL: Yes, yes, yes.
AJ: And it took me a few scenes in this one to recognize her.
CL: Yes. I really enjoyed, it was great to film with her, to make this film. And she support me a lot with the press, after, and I really want to make another film with her. And she's a very, very good actress. And she—it's funny. In the love scene, even in the love scene, she is blindness. You recognize she's blind. The way she acts. And it was great, it was something, it was very important to have Julie in my film.
AJ: Yeah. She—It's good that she doesn't have glasses. She accomplishes so much with her eyes.
CL: Yes. And she saw a lot of films with blind people, and she realize she—usually it's not well done. I don't know. I didn't work much more with her. I only add confidence. How do you say it? I trust Julie.
AJ: Sure.
CL: Because she's a professional. And she's great.
AJ: She seems throughout the movie as though she's listening.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: And she always seems very turned inwards, in a way, as though she's looking inside of herself.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: In a lot of movies that I've seen about blind people, where an actor plays a blind person, they always seem to be—like they're looking outwards.
CL: Yes, yes. And in fact, I also look a lot to blind people. Because I'm fascinated by blind people. And they look with their ear, ears. They always are acting completely different. They're like a dog: they put their ear to listen everything.
AJ: Yeah.
CL: And it's a very special way—and they are not, uh. Usually—especially for an actress. You can't be really beautiful when you are blind. Because you don't—you are not so well-dressed, or you, you are not—you don't take care to your face or to your hands. Like, if you were a blind, because you don't know your nails are black or something.
AJ: Yeah.
CL: And she wanted to play with that. It was really... And she understands very well. She's a very poetic girl. She always make, give more poetry than the character. I don't know why. She's, uh... And she plays a lot with this voice, her voice. The voice is very important to her.
AJ: Yes. I mentioned 101 Nights of Cinema...
CL: Yeah.
AJ: ...by Agnès Varda. And, uhm, in some ways your movie reminded me of that film. Because that film is an homage to cinema, but a certain kind of cinema, maybe the Hollywood and the, uh, French cinema. And your movie in a way, I think, is also—maybe is an homage to video, and to personal cinema, a kind of unseen or more quiet or a more personal cinema.
CL: Yes. I haven't seen this film of Varda. I know quite well the film of Varda, Les Glaneurs et La Glaneuse [The Gleaners & I, 2000] is a very important film, a very good film. Yes. My film is an homage to, uh—
AJ: I was thinking of—
CL: First, uh, first, uh—I have to say—personal film.
AJ: Yes.
CL: Yeah. What did you want to say?
AJ: I was thinking of home movies, with eight milimeter, and, uh, I was also thinking of—it seems as though Uncle Max—I'm sorry, not Uncle Max, but Max's Uncle, the character you play—I got the impression that, you know, he had some small ambitions, perhaps, as a filmmaker also. Not just making the films, uh... A lot of people use an eight millimeter camera to go out and document family events. But he was also using the camera to create situations—
CL: Yeah.
AJ: —and to explore the self, more the way that somebody like Stan Brakhage would. The character of Max, of course, and his obsession with videotaping and filming everything. It—it seemed to me that your film, which uses all of those pieces and elements and brings them together, in some ways is an homage to a very—a very personal kind of filmmaking, and a celebration of very small kind of cinema.
CL: Yes, it's an homage to filmmaking, but it's also an homage to what I say, Henri Langlois, who build the French Cinematheque. And Henri Langlois is maybe the most important person who... Is a guy who decide in the 40s that we must keep film, because even the big studios in the States, they didn't keep the film. They destroyed them or they don't keep. And he came to States, and he take just silent film, and a lot of film, and he come back to France with it. And it was a genius idea, because we don't realize now—we realize now that—at this time we didn't keep the film. The film was made for once, and after, we—they don't, they don't care about the film, they forget it. And during the war, Langlois take all this film and put in, uh, outside Paris, because he doesn't want that the German, the Nazis, take the film. And it's why the French Cinematheque is very important, and we have a treasure, a treasure, how do you say treasure? We have a diamond—
AJ: Yeah.
CL: —of American film in the French Cinematheque. And this guy, Henri Langlois, he didn't—he said, we need to keep everything; we don't know what's important or not. And it's why when he gave me a lesson—I mean, I was in French university, Paris University—he have a session where he show us bad film. French and Italian, European film of the 50s. And Henri, because he said: You must find five minutes very good in this film. Buried or not. It's an homage to Langlois because cinema is a new art. We don't know if it will stay, I mean, we don't know if the cinema will survive. And we don't know what image we do... or important. Maybe the film that is important of, uh, I don't know, Coppola, or some other American guy, will be nothing in uh... Or some very unknown film will be very important in fifty years. And it's why the Uncle said film everything. But it's a parallel, it's a transposition, to the homage to Langlois to the homage also to personal film. Like Stan Brakhage. I saw lot of independent film when I—American and European—and I think the character—because they were built on the fight with Hollywood. Because guys like Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Michael Snow—they didn't—can't exist in the Hollywood system.
AJ: Yes.
CL: Because the Hollywood system is a world company. It's—you must make films for the world. And I am interested by filmmakers who make film for themselves, I mean, personal film. That means, they film maybe their life, maybe some other thing. You can... Some directors work with Hollywood or with the system, and make personal films, but it's an exception. Maybe less than one percent of director. The machine, the world—the Hollywood machine—destroys more than it creates. It's why I was fascinated by Stan Brakhage films. Because with only a camera and a family, they can express a lot. With this media, this new media of what the cinema is.
AJ: And—
CL: And also—sorry—I never know if my work or cinematographer work, professional cinematographer work, making film in 35 millimeter, is more important than my family film. Because when I film my children, maybe it will be more important than my film in 35 millimeter. Because the thing—it's the same. It's two way of making film. If you film people in front of the camera, they are going to be died, dead. And even actor, you film somebody who is not going to be there in one century. And you take his life. Even if he is a character, he is a personage in the film, you—you take his way of moving, and you take his way of speaking. Even if it's an actor, even if there is a character. And the actor of my first film, François Cluzet, he said to me, he said to me, when I make the film, I thought—no.
AJ: Is that in the film Le Panorama?
CL: No, Le Silence de Rak [1997]. Le Silence de Rak. It was my first fiction film. Maybe you have not on the—
AJ: Ah, Le Silence de Rak. I have not seen it.
CL: That's a good film. I don't know if it's a good film, but I like this film.
AJ: I would like to see more of your films. You mentioned, uh, that you had made some works—You mentioned a work about people's feet, and another film about people's faces. Could you talk a bit about those and your other earlier films?
CL: Yes. First of all, I made a film, a lot of documentary about contemporary painter. Contemporary painter, artist. You can find, you can see this film maybe at the French Institute [in New York], because they have a copy of this film. It was very important to be a sort of, uh, testimonial of—for—of my time.
AJ: Which film is that?
CL: Roman Opalca [Détail–Roman Opalca, 1987].
[Adam points to a title in Loizillon's filmography.]
CL: No, it's different film. You, you have, maybe—I don't know if there is on this or not...
AJ: This is from the Internet Movie Database.
CL: Yes. No, no, no, it's no good.
AJ: They don't have everything.
CL: Yes. The best is Roman Opalca.
[CL writes the name.]
CL: Francois Morellet [1990]—the name of the artist. Francois Morellet.
[CL writes the name.]
CL: Georges Rousse [1985]. And all this film was in thirty-five millimeter and very well done. I mean when I say well-done it was—everything was written, it was like a fiction film.
AJ: Sure.
CL: And you also have—
[AJ points to the title Roman Opalca.]
AJ: This film is about this artist?
CL: Yes, it's all the name of the artist. This guy, it's a Polish artist, very important. He wrote...
[CL writes down the years of each film.]
CL: And Les Mains [1996]. Les Mains.
[CL writes down the names of other films.]
You were making a series of films about artists?
CL: Yes. And those films are as important as my fiction films. It's very important.
[CL writes down more years.]
CL: And, for example—I will speak about this film.
AJ: Roman Opalca?
CL: This film is about—Roman Opalca. It's a guy who paints on a canvas, two meters and a half high, one meter and a half large. They begin forty years ago, on a black canvas with white painter, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. He arrive at the end of the canvas at thirty-five thousand something, and he continue. And he continue from 65 to now, and I think that day he pass the number four million. It was a bit, uh... It was a very important day for him, but a bit stupid day for us. And I think this, uh, this day we filmed him night and day. And it was a very, how you say, this painter, this artist work on a—on time pass. And film, cinema, is only a question of time. You film time. You always film time, the way of the time pass. That minute was important. It was a very good character for a documentary film.
AJ: Sure.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: Did you get to film him as he wrote in the number?
CL: Yes, yes, yes, yes. There were traveling during four minutes, when he write from 3,999,993, to 4,000,003. And it was some three or four minutes traveling. I make, I made, built, the traveling special for this film.
AJ: A dolly?
CL: Yes, a dolly, and it was very special. And it's something when you see this traveling, because we are with the artist. And because this artist doesn't count—usually you count second, you count kilometer, you count potato, you count dollar. But this artist count nothing. His unity is a special unity. It's him, his unity. And I was very interesting by contemporary art because it's a guy who live with me. And I was impressed by, uh, the fact of creation. Like I was impressed by Stan Brakhage. Why a guy think he will change the world to, in making film? Or with painter or to realize creation? I am fascinated by that. Because it's true: artists change the world.
AJ: It sounds to me as though—It sounds to me like a very—a very good subject for a film, and I hope that I get to see it.
CL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You can see this film in the—You can see in the French Institute. They have maybe cassette or a film roll. Maybe here in Bangkok, I don't know. But they have a program. And, uh, yes, it was very interesting. And after I decide I make intimate—In fact, my first film was about Rembrandt of the portrait. I couldn't make this film. I was—I work four years about this film, my first fiction film. I didn't find the money or the producer stopped the film, three weeks before the shooting. There were a lot of money spent, this film without image. And I realized I need to make a film quite quickly, without money. And I decide to film the hand of my friend, and ask them to tell me the story of their hands.
AJ: Of their...?
CL: Hands, hands.
AJ: Oh, hands.
CL: It was only... I just only film the hands of my friends on the table. And we prepared the film and I did it, one year after. And the film was a success. Because it was very emotional. Because people told story, love story, drama of their life. And we only see the hands. And, uh, the spectator was a bit frustrated but also, uh, he was—his mind couldn't work. It was the same in the Opalca film. Because I put this travelling after ten minutes of film, or twelve, or... And during this traveling of this guy, Roman Opalca, painting number, you just think: Why's this guy doing that? Why he do that all his life? And you think to your, to all life, to your proper life, to your own life, and you say: What I am doing every day? I don't think I do more than to put number on the canvas. I get up, I have breakfast, but what, what's my real work? What I am doing to leave on this earth? Maybe I leave, the best thing I can leave is my children. Maybe I will leave some film. I hope it's—they will stay, because it will be interesting for people who will come after. But you never know. And, uh, yes. And about the hands: I continue, I say, well, it's a good subject, the body. Because we live now in the visual world. And, uh, I must work, continue this, to explore this subject. And I decided to film feet. And I went to Africa, Mali, Japan, and to Israel—Palestinian side, because Palestinian doesn't exist, uh, it's not a country—to film feet I didn't know. And I went to this with a video, and film only feet of these people. Of some people I meet, and they tell me the story, five minutes story of their feet. Because the subject in the end, I film in 35 millimeter, I put in the camera the little roll, which is 120 meters, four minutes film. Only that. One by person. And uh, after the hands, the feet, I do the faces. And I film my daughter, my father, and some friends. Only silent film. Just their face in front of the camera, just thinking. Just portraits. Thinking of what they are doing in front of my camera, or why I film them.
AJ: What—what was the names of those films?
CL: Faces? Les visages [2003]. Les visages. Yes. Face.
AJ: And what was the name of the hands and the feet?
CL: Les Mains, Les Pieds [1999]. That's uh—yeah. And, uh... Les Mains, Les Pieds. And they went to festival. If you can see on the internet, maybe you will find a—the detail about that.
AJ: I will look.
CL: Yeah, yeah.
AJ: It's interesting that you should talk about these movies, because another filmmaker I thought about while watching your film was Peter Greenaway.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: Uh, in particular I thought of his very, very early films.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: You have the tree in the film, and, uh, his—Peter Greenaway's first film was Tree, and it was a short film where he filmed a tree for maybe five minutes, ten minutes. Explored the tree. And a lot of his early movies are: he chooses an object and explore it. Usually, like, top to bottom—
CL: Yes.
AJ: —left to right.
CL: Yes.
AJ: And it's something that he would use in his later movies; even his later fictional films have in them, uh, structures and sections that are very much like those shorter films. And it sounds to me that in your film, your fictional film, My Camera and Me, I can see where the inspiration for Max's company came from, and how they talk to the company.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: I like that you found such a strong narrative, such a strong voice, to put all of these smaller films in.
CL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Peter Greenaway make another film, Window.
AJ: Yes.
CL: And it's also a short film about, uh, people suicide by window.
AJ: Or where they pushed?
CL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No. And maybe small, uh—
AJ: He was very inspired by Michael Snow, also.
CL: Yeah. But, uh... I like a lot actor. It's why, uhm... I think I, uhm... I like to direct even my friend. But it was, you know, this job, is the same job and, uh... Painter or, or a century ago. Rembrandt used to make portrait, and he dressed the people.
AJ: Yeah.
CL: He say to them, you must shave or not.
AJ: Right.
CL: The guy who inspire me the most—Maybe Godard inspire me a lot, or I was very impressed of Stan Brakhage, but I said another movie maker inspire me is Roger van der Weyden. It's a painter of the fifteenth century. But he worked like me. He have actors. He dress them, he direct them, he have assistant, maybe sleep with the actress, with the Madonna. And it was the same job. I mean, he have a—he have a subject, the Christ. But he made maybe forty canvas in his whole life. And, uh, one very famous is, uh, how you say, it's uh, Descente de Croix. That means it's when the Christ—they take off the Christ off the cross.
AJ: Yeah.
CL: I will tell you the name. Roger van der Weyden. And there is a very famous tableau at the Prado.
[CL writes the name.]
CL: And I couldn't pass one month in my life to see in a book this canvas, this painting. Because I think he made the same film as me. He inspired me. Because the way the actor play in this painting, when they suffer, when they have compassion, when they sense to be very, very sad of the death of the Christ, it's a drama. You have a subject who is... He must have do this subjects, it's the Christ, take off the cross. But for me, it's the same. I need to have sex involved, to have a love story in my film. Because now you can't make a film with not love story or a gun or, uh, sex. And I play with that. In my film there is a gun, there is a love story, there is, uh, sex, there is action, a bit of action, and there is humor...
AJ: Yeah. You have, you certainly have a girl, and, as Godard would say, you know, you have a girl and a gun...
CL: Yeah! [laughs]
AJ: And one of the things I like about your film is that, even though you have those things, you don't treat them in the way they normally are treated in the movies. It's, uh... The love scene and also the scene involving the gun are not filmed, and they don't, uh, work in the story the way they usually do. It's very refreshing to see how you've treated them. Because the love scene in particular—that was one of the moments that most reminded me of Stan Brakhage. His films like, he made a lot of films about intimacy and about sex...
CL: I was really, really happy you tell the name of Stan Brakhage, because usually I tell this name. And I haven't seen Stan Brakhage film since long time. But when I was twenty, I saw his films, and I thought, wow, it's incredible, you can make a movie like that, with filming your wife or your girlfriend. It's possible to make film like that. It was really something for me.
AJ: Yeah. They have the—his films—there's now a collection on DVD. It's not the same as watching them on film.
CL: No, very different.
AJ: But it's of course a big concern with so many artists, as you've mentioned is, will they be preserved? And will we have a chance to see them?
CL: Yes. It's Pip Chodorov who had...
AJ: Yeah, at Light Cone. I'm on the Frameworks mailing list—
CL: Ah yes.
AJ: —that he runs...
CL: Yeah. Could you... Cause I don't know. Is it possible you give me the list of emails?
AJ: Uhm...
CL: Or—
AJ: The name is "Frameworks."
CL: Yes.
AJ: I will gladly—I will very gladly email it to you, yes.
CL: Yes, I will give you my email.
AJ: But I can send you a copy of this interview, also.
CL: Ah yeah, yeah.
AJ: And also when it is printed I can send you a copy.
CL: Ah yes. Yeah. You want I give you also the email of my seller? Or no?
AJ: Yes, please.
CL: Because I take this...
AJ: When the film gets US distribution I would like to, uh—
CL: I don't think it will have the US distribution, because it's very difficult. But anyway with the French embassy or with the French Cultural Center, we can, uh, manage...
AJ: A screening.
CL: Yes.
AJ: There's a theater in Bloomington-Normal Illinois [the Normal Theater], which is where the paper is, that I think would, uh, like this film very much. And I can try to—I don't know what will happen, but I can contact them about screening rights.
[CL writes the necessary names and addresses.]
CL: But you must write to me, I will send to them...
[CL writes some more.]
CL: French, uh, Cultural centers, they will be happy to do... I know the lady at the French cultural center in New York, Marie Bonnel, who were, who have all my films, documentaries.
AJ: Oh, good.
CL: And I can give you—but I don't know her email, but it's Marie Bonnel.
AJ: I will be able to see, to see them, then. I will go there.
[CL writes contact info for Marie Bonnel.]
AJ: One time I went to the—there was a time when the Swiss Institute had, uh, a retrospective of Godard's films.
CL: Yeah.
AJ: A couple years ago.
CL: Where, in New York?
AJ: In New York City.
AJ: And they showed a lot of his films that had not been distributed in the US.
CL: A yes, yes.
AJ: I got to see a lot of his films from the 70s and 80s that never got shown in the US.
CL: And I was—It's funny, I was selected by the Vary International, selection of Vary International, in European, older European film [the 38th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 4–12 July 2003]. They show my film in Karlovy Vary near Prague, in Czecki. My film. It's funny. Some Americans like my film. Because maybe it's very different from what Hollywood...
AJ: Sure. My Camera and Me is a very enjoyable film. And it's very well made and... and not only is it funny, uh... It is a very funny movie, and very fun to watch, but, you know, as we've just talked about, I think there's a lot of significance to the film, and it provides a lot of material for thinking about filmmaking, and other movies. So it... I think it... I do hope that it finds distribution. It could be successful.
CL: Yes, it's very difficult. Oh, I didn't told you: I made a long time ago a—not a documentary—yes, a documentary, about people who's making photos in front of Notre Dame. In Paris. And I just—the film was just why people making photo of themselves in this building. And it's—maybe My Camera and Me is a continuation of this reflection. About why we—we need—why we need photo, why we need to say we are passing in this world. Why we need to have a testimony, proof, to say I am, I am birth in this world. And you know, I saw some photo of a Polish photographer, beginning of this century, of the last century—no, photo of the—yes, something like 1910 in France, and he make photo only of Polish, uh, population. Baker, butcher, on their work. Only he photograph a family. When there were a baby died, he photograph that the baby died. In the middle of the family. In his bed. Baby bed. Because they must have the proof that he came in this world. That means, it's a question of why we make a film, of why we make photo, is of course something with death, life and death. But it's interesting. It's, uh—yeah, yeah.
AJ: Well thank you. Maybe we should—maybe we should stop here.
CL: Yes.
AJ: Thank you—
CL: Thank you very much, Adam.
AJ: —very much for talking with me
CL: No no no no. It's a pleasure. And I like to, to always to speak about why we do the thing.
AJ: Yes. So. Well, I hope that, uh—I wish you the best of luck with the film.
CL: Yes, yes. Thanks. And tell me when you write the thing, if you need anything for the film, My Camera and Moi.

END

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