Film still of Jean Douchet, L’enfant agité (Restless Child) © RR
Jean Douchet, a fresh look at a restless child in Cannes Classics
They are some of the youngest directors at the 70th Festival de Cannes. Fabien Hagège, Guillaume Namur and Vincent Haasser present Jean Douchet: l’enfant agité (Restless Child) in Cannes Classics. The tale of an encounter with three young cinema-going friends, their film has been nominated for Caméra d’or and Œil d’or awards. Interview.
What were the circumstances surrounding your encounter with Jean Douchet?
Fabien: We were secondary school pupils at Enghien-les-Bains in the suburbs of Paris. Jean Douchet came to present a cinema club on Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River and we were struck by his talk, because there were no cinema events in our part of Paris.
Guillaume: We had no idea who he was, except that he was somehow connected to the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. He was very open, he paid a great deal of attention to us. It reaffirmed our passion for film.
What approach did you use to portray Jean Douchet in this film?
Vincent: We tried to make a film that would echo the real Jean Douchet: always on the move, always in the present. And to meet the people that he helped to launch through his articles, through his cinema clubs.
Fabien: The people he included in Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1960s presented in the film by Barbet Schroeder, his students at IDHEC (Institute of High Cinematographic Studies) or Fémis such as Arnaud Desplechin and Noémie Lvovsky, and also someone such as Xavier Beauvois, his spiritual son.
You are some of the youngest voices here at the 70th Festival de Cannes. What fresh approaches did you bring to your film?
Vincent: We named it “restless child” for a reason. He has a youthful side, perhaps pro-youth even. The film is not just for cinemagoers. It is also a tale of love, of friendship.
Fabien: In terms of production, we wanted to avoid producing a classic documentary with sit-down interviews. The aim was to develop new devices for each situation, so that the film would echo who Jean is and contain several extras, extras that are usually deleted from a film because they are seen as mistakes. We kept them in to add life to the film in a whole manner of ways.
What do we learn about Jean Douchet?
Guillaume: His philosophy, his way of appreciating cinema in line with his style of life.
Fabien: He is someone whose career is difficult to define. We produced a fairly comprehensive overview of his various activities, from film critic to director, from teacher to Pygmalion.
