« How to avoid the folkloric, picturesque aspect of madness ? »
Interview with Nicolas Philibert conducted by Patrick Leboutte, November 1996.
• How did the idea for the film come about?
Originally, several different people suggested that I should go to La Borde. I’d already heard about this institution, which is frequently - and wrongly - assimilated with the anti-psychiatric school and that nonetheless has a very special approach to madness. But up until then it had never occurred to me to make a film in the field of psychiatry and it took me some months to make my mind up. The prospect of dealing with the world of crazy people alarmed me and I couldn’t see how to make a film in a place like that without being intrusive. After all, people go there to find a little peace and quiet!
From my very first visit, however, I was struck by the atmosphere of this odd château lost in the woods: the way everybody there is welcomed and respected... It's quite impressive to find yourself in an asylum, if only as a visitor: the suffering and distress of some of the patients are blatantly obvious! Yet there was something soothing about it, there were no walls or white coats, a very strong sense of community, and a feeling of freedom... Jean Oury, who has been running La Borde from the word go, met me and questioned me at some length about my intentions. At the time, I didn't have any and, on the contrary, I told him about my reluctance to film mad people. How could I avoid the folkloric, picturesque aspect of madness? For what higher interest would I be peacefully and happily filming people in a situation of weakness, people who are disoriented and made vulnerable by their suffering? People who might not always be aware of the presence of the camera and even less of the impact of its images. Or others for whom the fact of being filmed might run the risk of fuelling a sense of persecution, or even bring on a state of delirium or lead to a "performance" for the camera?
And then, oddly enough, during my subsequent visits, as I continued to express my reluctance, residents and staff alike started to encourage me. If I had such scruples, they said, it was a good sign… In their eyes, the questions that I was asking myself called for much more subtle answers. I shouldn’t think, certain patients said, that just because they were afflicted with psychological disorders or mental illness, they were going to let the camera use them as tools! In short, my preconceptions faded and my fears, resulting from my questions, ended up by turning into a desire to tackle them… As if this place, through the vigilance that it exerts upon itself, suddenly made possible things that would have probably been immodest elsewhere.
• What were the basic choices that guided your work?
In each of my films, I look for a story or a metaphor that will enable me to “transcend” reality. What is invariably involved is creating narrative based on the place I am concerned with and sidestepping that pedagogic approach of the documentary which very often limits its cinematic range in advance. So I needed to go beyond a mere description of daily life, even if that dimension is very present here. And with the theatrical adventure that was taking shape, I really landed on my feet! It was probably just a pretext, a way of getting to something more essential; but at least I had a real thread. And then the theatre offered me a chance to get close to the people there, but without intruding into their privacy. Last of all, the theatre would allow me to give the film a light touch and even a certain gaiety, and I thought that was very important. Of course, the play has a lot to do with that!
• How was the play chosen?
That was Marie Leydier’s job; she’s an actress who has been on the nursing staff at La Borde for some years. In previous summers she had put on classics: Molière, Shakespeare... But that particular year she was keen to venture into contemporary theatre. The same was true of a number of patients. One morning she arrived with the script of "Opérette" and, despite the complexity of the play, its choice was soon a fait accompli. I admit that the choice of play was fairly secondary for me. What interested me was more the work that was going to be done than the play itself. Moreover, knowing that I would only show short extracts from it, I wasn't particularly concerned about getting the details of its plot across. However, from the very first rehearsals I found that "Opérette" had extraordinary reverberations in the La Borde setting, as if the backdrop of madness heightened the exuberance of the words. All of a sudden, in the film, everything happens as if the most extravagant and craziest aspect was taken up by the play rather than by the mad people themselves.
• Music plays a predominant part in the play and the film alike, how was it developed?
In the play, numerous sequences are supposed to be sung, but there is no musical score for them. At first, Marie planned to adapt the sung parts to well-known operetta arias. I instantly objected that I would have to deal with insurmountable copyright problems! I suggested bringing in a musician friend of mine, André Giroud, who often works for the theatre. By chance, André was free… He joined us a few days before filming began and started freely composing to the words of Gombrowicz. Some patients had played an instrument before. André suggested that they form a small orchestra to accompany the songs in the show. Every morning he set up shop somewhere in the grounds with guitars, drums, an electric piano at times, and, of course, his accordion. Anybody who happened to be passing could take one of the instruments if they felt like it... Among the most loyal, two or three of them had proper musical training under their belts, but the others were beginners. In other words, in the framework of the theatrical project, it was all rather delicate and extremely ambitious. But what the hell! The aim of the project was to be open to one and all...
André never diminished the level of his demands and displayed boundless patience. During those first weeks, there was no question of playing the show's tunes right away: the musicians first had to learn how to play together and listen to each other, so that each one of them, whatever his or her level, had a proper place in the group. So every morning, André ran his “music workshops”; and, in the afternoons, he attended the theatrical rehearsals to get the actors to sing. It was not until the last few days that both groups - musicians and actors - worked together.
• Can being involved in theatre and acting be therapeutic?
That’s a tough question: the way the “care” concept is viewed at La Borde is certainly not restricted to medication. Caring for patients is first and foremost trying to live together by preserving everybody’s uniqueness and identity. From this angle, even the most everyday activities play an essential role: house work, getting meals ready, washing up, ironing, manning the switchboard, dancing, music, discussions, the accounts... or the theatre, are all opportunities given to the patients to retain a connection to reality when in fact they often try to flee it. It means inventing objects which make it possible to “create bonds”. This said, the theatre nevertheless represents a slightly unusual adventure: the fact of having to rehearse every day for two months, of getting into the skin of a character, learning your lines, acting with other people and appearing before an audience, all represent a challenge, because everyone has to get away from their solitary little island and give the best of themselves...
At times, learning the lines takes on the appearance of a fight against tiredness or neuroleptics. Some give up from the first rehearsals: the staff try to convince them to come back. Others, on the contrary, stay away for a long time but then, all of a sudden, just before the performance, they absolutely have to be a part of it and so a role has to be invented for them, unless they invent it themselves… In other words, each summer, the performance is nothing short of a miracle. That said, it would be a mistake to think that the theatre, the way it is part of the La Borde programme, has to do with any kind of “art-therapy” theory: if people get involved in the theatre, it’s above all because they want to! It’s one of many ways of sharing something.
• In following this theatrical project - crazy or not - you show above all people at work. The presence of "work" is a common feature of all your films. I'm thinking more specifically of "In the Land of the Deaf" with its long sequences showing people learning speech and, of course, "Louvre City"…
The work dimension acts mainly as a narrative process: it's above all a question of showing something progressing and transforming in the course of the film. Work always appears in the shape of a trial that the "characters" have to overcome, a series of stakes and problems that they have to solve. That’s what brings us closer to them. Here, the closer we get to the date of the performance, the more we feel for them: how are they going to manage it? From that moment on, the issue of madness moves to the background, because we know that each one of us, if we had to perform a text like this, would have our heart in our boots!
• In tandem with preparing the show, the film dwells on very humdrum, everyday situations...
First of all, we had to show that the theatre is not an end per se, that it’s part of a broader context; and we had to show that La Borde is not a Club Med village, but a place of suffering and care! Whether there is theatre or not, the same thing is basically involved: the attention given to apparently ordinary and unimportant gestures; a way for making room for others that passes through the petty details of daily life. Whence the title: "Every Little Thing"... The scene in which Claude's beard is trimmed, the scene of Sophie's drawing or the one with the stilts all convey the same feeling, namely that what really matters is hidden behind the obvious and most commonplace things. This attention to tiny details conveys the spirit of this place perfectly and it’s also a constant feature in my films.
• You never show crises or conflicts. It is obvious that your film isn't aiming to be socially critical yet I imagine such things occur at La Borde as everywhere else… Aren’t you afraid that people will reproach you for making the place seem a little too idyllic?
La Borde as such is not the subject of the film, but the setting that made it possible. The place can no doubt be criticized on many levels but I didn't seek to go into the details of its workings which are infinitely complex… In focusing on a true story, I tried in a way, if I may say, to make it into a real story. Since the main thing was to make the characters it into endearing figures, I relied on La Borde to attempt to do this, making dents in a few clichés as I did so.
There will always be people for whom the film offers a vision of madness and the mental asylum that is too slick; people for whom “mad people” should suffer 24 hours a day; people who won’t allow themselves to laugh when things are funny or who will feel guilty if they do... I can understand all this, because before I got to La Borde, I probably had the same prejudices and the same barriers. As for showing crisis situations, I admit that I didn’t try to tap into this spectacular vein where patients are even more vulnerable than usual.
• At the beginning of the film, with the figures wandering through the grounds, we’re not far from stereotypes...
It’s true that you might feel like a “voyeur”: the characters are filmed “at a distance”, in their loneliness; they are strangers to us, just as we are to them. From that moment on, all the clichés to do with madness spring to mind. But the film outlines a trajectory. Little by little, we get closer to them, an encounter occurs and the clichés become blurred and give way to actual people. I'm aware that these opening shots may seem aggressive or violent but the only way to go beyond stereotypes was to confront them from the outset.
• These same shots return at the very end…
They're similar shots, true, but I think we see them with a totally different emotion because, in between time, the characters have become closer to us. The fact of returning to what we saw at the beginning allows us to show the distance covered.
• How easily did people accept being filmed?
Apart from medical consultations, we were allowed to film freely around the institution. Beyond that, it depended on each person. It was up to us to ask them. We had a very small crew, just four people in all. During the first week, we decided not to film. We wanted to take time to meet the people involved and explain what we wanted to do, along with our working methods, without forgetting to specify that the film was intended for release in movie houses; if there were some people who did not want to be filmed, that was their choice and we would not ask them to explain themselves...
These precautions were all taken, but the issue still hung in the air. It kept on cropping up with the same acuteness and the same degree of uncertainty right until the last day of shooting! Not because of any sort of specific mistrust with regard to us, far from it… But because most people were pretty forthright right away, based on the situation and how they felt at that moment. It was very variable and often unpredictable: patients could quite legitimately agree to be filmed one minute and then change their minds or vanish a second later.
With others, it was even more complicated because it was impossible to have a coherent conversation. The example of Claude is particularly significant. Claude is the man I filmed having his beard trimmed and who gives the impression that he is in another world entirely… Until then, I would often seek him out and spend time with him. I found him very moving… I wanted to film him but I had to wait five or six weeks before he let me know, in his own way, that he wasn't against the idea.
For each sequence, I had to find the right set up. When I filmed a meeting, I would fix a blind spot, a corner outside the frame, so that all those who didn't want to be filmed could take part all the same. The musical rehearsals weren't simple either: one of the musicians in the group didn't want anyone to be able to recognize him. I therefore made sure that he was out of shot or seen from behind; and, for the day of the performance, we decided that all the musicians would wear masks.
• In the film you make no distinction between patients and nursing staff...
This is one of the distinguishing features of La Borde. There are no distinctive signs, at least no formalized ones as such. Most of the time, needless to say, madness shows through on faces, in the way people look, and in their gestures. But La Borde also takes in people like you and me who are just going through a difficult moment in their lives. Furthermore, because patients and residents have responsibilities within the institution, you don’t always know whom you're dealing with. In addition, down the years, some patients who have been cured have become members of the nursing staff.
For my part, I never tried to find out who is who and I never asked anybody about their past. The people are never filmed on the basis of their past history or their disorder. I will admit that several sequences, and in particular the play rehearsals, leave a certain doubt as to the identity of some characters... but so what? Should I have added a subtitle - schizophrenic, paranoiac, psychiatrist, nurse - every time a new face appears on screen?
I’m not going to pretend to think that there are no boundaries between some people and others, but the film isn’t dealing with this particular area. The fact that you can’t stick a label on certain “characters” actually makes it impossible to judge them in advance. Too bad if some viewers find this disconcerting! I know that it's comfortable and reassuring for us to inhabit the suffering of the other person. But, after all, the border is a slender one because that other person dwells within us.
• Have the people involved seen the film? If so, how did they react?
Last September, we organized a gala screening in a cinema in Blois, the nearest town, for all the "Labordians", their families and friends and, of course, the crew. There was a very festive atmosphere and it was very moving to be together again. The film was greeted very warmly and I felt happy that I hadn't betrayed their trust. Of course, throughout the screening, I was impatient to discover people's reactions. I expected the characters in the film, focused on their own appearance on the screen or by their personal memories of this adventure, to react as if they were discovering a home movie, without necessarily perceiving the film as a whole. But, after the first few minutes, the comments and laughter died down… And when the lights came back up, I was struck to see, notably among the patients, that their attention had been focused way beyond themselves.
• Do you think you’ll make a fiction film one day?
I wouldn’t rule it out but I don’t feel that I am making second-rate films, simply because my films are documentaries. The idea of filming based on a screenplay written entirely in advance doesn’t interest me, I like the vulnerability, the element of risk connected with what is invented from one day to the next without you ever knowing how it is going to turn out. In film, you can’t summon beauty by appointment. When it works its way into a film, it often does so in a violent and unexpected manner.
Documentary? Fiction? The question isn’t really that interesting. I have thought for a long time now that if there are two ways of making films, the borderline isn’t drawn at this level, but depends instead on two attitudes in relation to the trust given to the story. There are filmmakers who believe in the meeting with the other, and those who don’t. Whether a film is fiction or otherwise, it is always an interpretation, a re-writing of the world. Unfortunately, documentaries are dogged by the idea of “raw reality”, with the result that a lot of people write them off as film, in other words as metaphors capable of describing the world just like any fiction film. This is an enduring view. That's why I never say that my film is "a documentary on mad people". I'm not trying to avoid calling a spade a spade but such a blunt summing up of the film is likely to make the audience flee. People might think that we are trying to arouse their pity and so say, "They're going to lecture us or try to wring tears from us."
• To sum up, how would you define the subject of your film?
Ever since this interview started, I have been talking about the relationship with the people I filmed, and that is no coincidence - I believe that is the actual subject of the film. A film about madness? Definitely not. About psychiatry? Even less. About theatre? A pretext... Rather than making a film about, I’ve made a film with and thanks to: with “crazy people” and thanks to La Borde. So if I really had to put my finger on the subject, I would say that it’s a film that talks to us about what connects us to the other; a film about our ability - or inability - to make a place for the other. And, last of all, it is a film about what the other, in all his or her strangeness, can reveal to us about ourselves.
