10 · 16 · 06

Film Fest Honors Jean Claude Carriere

Doris Morales

Tribute was paid to Jean Claude Carriere following the screening of Belle de Jour (1967) yesterday, where the French scriptwriter totally engaged an audience made up mostly of young people with a talk about his fascinating career. Co-written by Buñuel and Carriere, Belle de Jour stars Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli y Geneviéve Page.

What can you tell us about the film?
I’ll start off by saying, to place the question in a wider context, that this was the third script that I wrote with Buñuel and the second film we made together. The first was The Diary of a Chambermaid, in 1964. After that, I wrote a script based on a novel titled The Monk, but Luis was never able to make the film, so in 1965, 66, we wrote Belle de Jour. Part of it was written at a spa here in Michoacán, in Zitácuaro. I’ve been told the place doesn’t exist anymore and it’s a shame, it was paradise.

What’s it like to see a film you made over four decades ago?
It’s difficult to talk about a film 40 years after it was made, in front of an audience of people that hadn’t even been born yet. It was the first time, in the history of filmmaking, that two men tried to talk about what Freud called the “the dark continent”, or female sexuality. This subject presented a real challenge. Before writing the script I tried to find out what haunted women. We talked with prostitutes and asked them to tell us their stories; all this took place during the years of the Franco regime, it was a difficult time, so it had to be secretly. It was a huge research project. The film, as you all know, is based on Joseph Kessel’s novel, a Russian of French origin. It was a very simple story, it lacked all the ghosts, all the fantasies of this aristocratic woman, who worked in a brothel to satisfy her fantasies.

Catherine Deneuve has told me that, in interviews, she is always asked about her role in Belle de jour. She was deeply affected by it.

Quotes
¨I want my characters to surprise me.¨ Jean Claude Carriere