CATHERINE BREILLAT: ONE SHOULD BE SINCERE, OPEN, BOLD, AND INTERESTING IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOYAN TAPAN

JU LY 17

To be engaged in cinematographic work it is not compulsory to go to a
cinematographic school, but it is compulsory to go to montage work,
as it is when confronting pictures that one is able to feel and see
correctness and beauty of feelings and pictures. Catherine Breillat,
famous French screenwriter, actress and film maker, Golden Apricot’s
honorary guest, advised Armenian artists and students engaged in
cinematographic work.

When shooting a film C. Breillat is not guided by cinematographic
rules: "I shoot as a like, choose my colors and forms. I like it when
perpendicular, horizontal, and crooked lines intersect, and light
and dark, feeling and outburst join them," she said.

Catherine Breillat does not agree with those naming her a film
maker, a film maker shoots a film according to a screen written in
advance, while she does what subconsciously results on the shooting
ground. According to her, having a screen has only one positive side:
you are able to get money.

Catherine Breillat took interest in cinema as early as at the age of 12
and at the age of 17 she wrote her first novel, L’homme Facile. Then
she played in Bernardo Bertoluci’s film Last Tango in Paris. In 1975
she screened one of her novels as a film maker. And in 1999 the film
Romance already brought success to Breillat as a film maker.

Catherine Breillat told that as she was a woman she was not
permitted to go to the French National Cinematographic School. She
was constantly criticized for bold and open films considered to be
pornographic. "Making love is not pornography. Pornography has an aim,
while my films raise some problems," the director said. She shoots
films of sexual nature as they are prohibited.

"I will not stand if someone tells me that it is prohibited. I do not
understand why when a director shoots a couple drinking coffee in
a cafe he is a director, but when he shoots an open love scene, he
stops to be a director…" "My films are rather intended for seeing
them alone, as they are very intimate and when seeing them one need
to hide his feelings," the director said. According to Breillat,
many people after seeing her films either hate or adore her.

Nevertheless, Catherine Breillat again advised those present to be
extremely sincere, open, bold and interesting in cinematography.