\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.tcocdn.com\/tco\/images\/WESInterview.jpg\")
<\/p>\n [ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n
Like many of your films, The Phoenician Scheme<\/em> features a lot of fine art, and I liked that you show all the paintings in the end credits. How do you decide on the art you use in your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, usually we\u2019re making things for a movie and there may be some inspirations. We had these Russian forger brothers who worked on The Grand Budapest Hotel<\/em>, and they did wonderful work, and they made a Klimt for us. They\u2019ve also made other pictures for us: some cubist paintings that we had in the Henry Sugar<\/em> movies we did, and they made me a Kandinsky that I have at home, all these fakes. And they\u2019re wonderful fakes; they age them and they\u2019re great.<\/p>\n In the case of this film, I had the notion that I would like to use the real thing which you never do on a movie because, if you say, \u2018We\u2019re going to use a Renoir,\u2019 well, it means that there\u2019s a group of people who come with that painting, and there are rules, and you can\u2019t get a light too close to a Renoir, and the temperature of the room and the dust level in the room has to be maintained, so it becomes an obstacle. And of course people don\u2019t really want to give you their Renoir. But our friend Jasper Sharp, who\u2019s a curator, we went about the process and we found pieces that were not too far away, that we weren\u2019t transporting across the globe, so we borrowed things, and we did have a team of different security and different gloved people looking after them, and it was fine. It takes a bit of effort, it has a bit of cost, but it was a great thing because you could feel it on the set. These pieces never just appeared, they arrived with some fanfare and with a bit of warning. \u2018Everybody, here\u2019s the real thing.\u2019<\/p>\n The actors felt it. They were in the presence of these real pieces, and Zsa-zsa is a collector. He likes to own things. He\u2019s a possessor. For instance, he gives his daughter this rosary, and we decided, \u2019Well, let\u2019s use real diamonds, real emeralds, real rubies.\u2019 We went to Cartier, and they made this piece for us, and they own it, but they loaned it to us. Every time Liesel is holding this in her hand, she\u2019s holding however many thousands of euros of diamonds and rubies. It took Mia some time to feel comfortable, because it would break sometimes and it had to be repaired, but it was interesting and fun to do it that way, and I think they look better.<\/p>\n As someone who is so particular about aspect ratios and film formats in your films, I\u2019m curious to know if there\u2019s any film formats you\u2019d be interested in working with. VistaVision is having a renaissance at the moment\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I wanted to shoot on VistaVision.<\/p>\n Oh, no way!<\/strong><\/p>\n We didn\u2019t do it in the end because the logistics of it seemed to defeat us. At a certain point, we were just trying to make a certain budget work, but VistaVision was my first choice. What I actually am planning to do and just am doing some tests right now to determine is\u2026 so, I shoot on film. This movie is shot on 35 millimetre film, but as you know, 99% of the theatrical screenings in a cinema are a DCP, and the DCP is almost like you\u2019re screening the negative. When you make a print, there\u2019s grain in the print. So you have the grain from the negative and you have the grain from the print, and it\u2019s not as sharp as the DCP. The DCP is as sharp as the original negative. I\u2019ve watched my films as a DCP against the 35 millimetre film print, and the print is\u2026 it has the quality of film, and the film print is different. It has the magical thing of being a film print, but it doesn\u2019t have the detail of the DCP. So what I\u2019m going to try to do here is to make 70 millimetre prints from our 35 millimetre negative, which has been made into a 4K DCP, and see what that\u2019s like because I think that that might be a kind of combination which hasn\u2019t quite been done, and which might produce a very good film print.That\u2019s a response to what you just said, which is not really an answer to your question.<\/p>\n No, no, you did answer the question! That\u2019s fascinating to hear \u2013 and it\u2019s interesting given how many films shot on digital are transferred to prints nowadays.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well the idea is you just shoot on 65 the old way, 65 millimetre and you print on 70, but maybe using the digital intermediate at 4K might match something like that\u2026 but anyway, I guess we\u2019ll see. I probably will not accomplish the same effect, but it\u2019ll be some other thing in between.<\/p>\n And you always discover something from doing these experiments. Sometimes the things that you end up creating are not what you wanted to create, but they\u2019re great anyway.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes. You\u2019re hoping for the right accident.<\/p>\n What a lovely way of putting it! Speaking of fathers and daughters, your daughter has a small part in this film, and I was curious to know if this was her idea or your idea?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think virtually every filmmaker\u2019s daughter who\u2019s ever been in one of their films, it was the daughter\u2019s idea. [laughs] I was reluctant to put my daughter in a movie. But I\u2019m glad I put her in because I love what she did.<\/p>\n Oh, I<\/em>\u00a0loved what she did! She understood completely her role.<\/strong><\/p>\n She was very thoughtful about it and very focused, and it was a great experience for her, but you know, I don\u2019t particularly think everybody needs to know that that\u2019s who that is, but I guess anybody who\u2019s interested will quickly figure that out. She loved doing it, though. I will say she wants to do it again.<\/p>\n The Phoenician Scheme<\/em> is rooted in the idea of legacy, whether that\u2019s familial legacy or artistic legacy, and what we leave behind, and what is left to the wider world when we die. Not to sound horribly morbid, but I\u2019m curious, is that something that you end up thinking about a lot?<\/strong><\/p>\n Let me think\u2026 I\u2019ll say this: I have never made a movie where I would feel comfortable saying, \u2018oh, that one was a mistake\u2019. I\u2019ve only made the movies I really wanted to make: my own movies. If somebody likes one and hates another, they\u2019re still part of my family, and I just have to live with whatever they all are, how they are. I\u2019ve always tried to treat them as a body of work to some degree, and even now we\u2019re doing a thing with the Criterion Collection, they\u2019re releasing my first 10 movies as a boxset. We\u2019re doing a similar thing with the soundtracks, and we have the books about the films, and so on. So it\u2019s something that I am conscious of and have been<\/em> conscious of. I want these movies to all sit together as a set.<\/p>\n After the event of my death, I don\u2019t really know if there\u2019s really much point, but I do think about it in relation to my daughter. She\u2019s going to be the one who is responsible for this stuff and I want it to all be in order for her. And I feel like so many people\u2019s work, my own and all my collaborators \u2013 and there\u2019s a lot of collaborators and a lot of artisans of so many kinds, all these actors, my co-writers and directors of photography, and production designers and painters and sculptors and puppet makers \u2013 all this work is contained in these movies. I feel it\u2019s partly my job to look after them.<\/p>\n This ties into the exhibition that is happening at the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que Fran\u00e7ais at the moment and that will be in London later in the year at the Design Museum, and making sure that this work isn\u2019t lost to time like so much amazing art and so much amazing film history is.<\/strong><\/p>\n You know, the exhibition wasn\u2019t something I particularly wanted to do because I knew it was gonna take some time. It\u2019s too much trouble! But I\u2019ve been saving all this stuff all these years. I\u2019ve been storing all these props and pictures and all these puppets, and so every now and then someone would want to show them. I kept saying, \u2018I need to be older for this,\u2019 but then when the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que wanted to do it we decided it was time. The Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que to me is something that\u2019s important to support, and the fact they wanted to do this, turned out to be a way for us to get everything organised for it to be an ongoing thing, so it\u2019ll go to London, and then it has other destinations after that. I was dreading the process because I just want to work on my movies! But then in the course of it, working with a lot of people who I know well, and then Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que and the Design Museum, it turned out to be a good experience. I was there yesterday, in fact, because I had an official task to do, and there were all these kids and students in there, looking at our puppets\u2026 there was something rewarding about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n