How NOT to treat your actors.

Adèle Exarchopoulos gave an Indiewire interview, I believe it was, after this, where she laments the Daily Beast thing getting blown a bit out of proportion.. Sounds like the director is probably a jerk but that they were also laying it on a bit thick. Let's face it, I'm definitely seeing the film now...I think there is a touch of marketing to all of it.
 
There's certainly the possibility of a marketing spin, or of the original article taking things out of context or blowing them out of proportion, but unless Exarchopoulos and Seydoux were straight-up lying, this seems more like an attempt on Adele's part to try to minimize the damage of them speaking maybe a little more openly than they'd intended.

I'll still see the film. Just like I still watch Polanski movies. While the director certainly has a very strong relationship with the art, and therefore an indirect (albeit very personal, intimate) relationship with the viewer, I don't recall a movie that's ever interested me, but which I've avoided out of disdain for the director. It has little bearing on the art as its own entity; it's a separate story, the "making of" if you will.

-EMB

I DO quite frequently avoid films because of actors I disdain, though, but that's because actors have a more direct relationship with the viewing experience: I don't often want to watch Sean Penn on screen for two hours, because I don't really like him as a person, but if Sean Penn writes/directs something with someone I like in it, of course I'll go see it.
 
It occurred to me that I probably should have read the interview before posting in response to it, so I went back and read the part in question. My feeling remains, particularly since Exarchopoulos stated clearly that what they'd said was absolutely true, just that there was a lot more to the experience of making the film than the negative parts that were discussed in the Daily Beast interview. That said, I can understand where she's coming from, and she seems to have a weird respect for Kechiche ("I think every genius is tortured."). I guess at the end of the day, I wasn't there, so I can't tell anyone what they should and shouldn't think about Kechiche or the whole ordeal. For myself, I still contend that from what I've read, he's a complete asshole and doesn't deserve to work with this caliber of actresses... or any, really.

-EMB
 
greymog said:
@Rolf: I was sitting earlier with a mathematician. We've been talking about this since you posted it :) Thanks for setting off one heck of a discussion here ...
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Help starting a discussion between a film maker and a mathematician in Beirut makes it worthwhile .... ;-)

I was getting sceptical when reading in the interview that they shot five and a half months for that movie. Sounds a bit like extra long group-therapy - but: Okay, if it's their method it's their method. I have shot with some strange beasts as directors when I started and - yes - at times such strange beasts may produce something good or even great. Very few times. Leads to the misunderstanding with some people that behaving like a strange beast will make their art, well.. .... more arty.

Some questions remain though even for the great ones: Could they have gotten the same result in a more "normal" way? And where starts the responsibility as a director towards your team and cast? I've seen people, especially actors, getting into an emotional tail-spin by making themselves too willingly the puppets of only a few times true, but much more often self-anointed "geniuses" with not much of a clue. So, while accepting "innocent until proven otherwise" I usually give friends the tip to stay away from such settings and sets. Makes no sense to sniff out a skunk. Unless you really have an urge for that "odeur".

Apart from that the danger can be that while staging a roller-coaster type of shoot this can also lead to a leaden movie. All energy squandered behind camera. One of the problems with art-house movies in my country at a certain time: Fireworks on the set - snorers in the cinema ... ;-)
 
i feel like this thread is therapy! get it all out guys. The projection of unchecked anger and perfectionism upon a report of anger and unchecked perfectionism

He was signed to CAA so every action he has directed is justified!

What if we all directed alike? with the same vision?

zzz
 
john threat said:
i
He was signed to CAA so every action he has directed is justified!
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Whot....?! How is signing to CAA automatically justifying every action? Or did you mean a different CAA like the Central African Airways.....?

As a director you have the same responsibility towards your team and cast as a captain towards his crew and passengers. And even if you are bad tempered and even if you may have a shouting match now and then - in the end it's your responsibility to at least bring them unhurt through a shoot.

This is film. Movies. It's entertainment and it is art. Nobody deserves to get hurt during its production. Neither the John Landis/Twilight Zone way nor through emotional cruelty which at times results in trauma .... or even suicides.
 
Captain bligh made for a better story than Lord horatio nelson.

Come on dude, what's with the soi disant internet mall cop routine? You didn't exact answer my well posed question either. Count cadence delay cadence count cadence count.

Is polyglot thought not your thing? Subtley? Grey areas? Examination of the existential and the etheral devoid of the frying heat destruction from the lens of solipsism?

did someone get hurt or commit suicide? Or were some young actresses signed up for a film of gravitas and had less trailer and party time than they expected on set?
 
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Why would you make such preposterous assumptions about someone you've never met regarding a situation you were nowhere near?
 
john threat said:
did someone get hurt or commit suicide?
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But you don’t think that the proof is in the pudding at all? It is such a brilliant film.
Adèle: Yeah, because you can see that we were really suffering. With the fight scene, it was horrible. She was hitting me so many times, and [Kechiche] was screaming, “Hit her! Hit her again!”

Léa: In America, we’d all be in jail.

You were really hitting her?

Adèle: Of course! She was really hitting me. And once she was hitting me, there were people there screaming, “Hit her!” and she didn’t want to hit me, so she’d say sorry with her eyes and then hit me really hard.

Léa: [Kechiche] shot with three cameras, so the fight scene was a one-hour continuous take. And during the shooting, I had to push her out of a glass door and scream, “Now go away!” and [Adèle] slapped the door and cut herself and was bleeding everywhere and crying with her nose running, and then after, [Kechiche] said, “No, we’re not finished. We’re doing it again.”
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I'm honestly at a loss, trying to find any way to respond to your posts, John. Maybe this is "no biggie" to you, and maybe it's not even a big deal to most people on this forum. For myself, having had to, at great expense, walk away from situations like this where people were treated inhumanely and grown men had things thrown at them by people in a position of power over them, it pisses me off that people like you could try and justify abusive situations like this.

Congrats to Kechiche on getting signed by CAA. Maybe I'm just a dumb sap from Michigan, but I'd rather have a soul than a career.

-EMB
 
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David Jimerson said:
Why would you make such preposterous assumptions about someone you've never met regarding a situation you were nowhere near?
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Why would we make assumptions about anyone involved in any situation we're not involved in ourselves? Why should we care what Ariel Castro did, or James Holmes, or George Zimmerman? I'm aware that Kechiche is nowhere near that comparison level, but the idea of not giving a s--t what this guy did just because I wasn't there, when the people who were have stated quite plainly what occurred, is more preposterous than any assumptions I've been making about the guy.

-EMB

Also aware that bringing up figures of recent news stories borders on the political, even if used simply as comparison for why I should give a f--k, so if you want to lock the thread, it's your call.
 
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Actually, my comment was directed at the notion that the actresses were just miffed because their party time was cut into.
 
john threat said:
Captain bligh made for a better story than Lord horatio nelson.

Come on dude, what's with the soi disant internet mall cop routine? You didn't exact answer my well posed question either. Count cadence delay cadence count cadence count.

Is polyglot thought not your thing? Subtley? Grey areas? Examination of the existential and the etheral devoid of the frying heat destruction from the lens of solipsism?

did someone get hurt or commit suicide? Or were some young actresses signed up for a film of gravitas and had less trailer and party time than they expected on set?
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Are you just trolling? Because honestly I don't see how someone can think that actresses who were physically and emotionally abused were just upset because they didn't get to party as much as they hoped. What a ridiculous statement.
 
john threat said:
Captain bligh made for a better story than Lord horatio nelson.
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Exactly. Better story. But we do not talk about a story but an - assumed - reality (a shoot) where people were working to create or re- create a filmic reality. And while it's perfectly acceptabel that adult human beings agree on a maybe even strange or kinky or absurd set-up when they create art - there is no doubt at least in my mind that the instigator of such a situation (director / producer) bears a responsibility that people are not getting hurt.

Others may disagree. Boxing or gladiator games are / were entertainment one can argue. But then I'd say we are in a different league altogether. And I have the strange idea that you do not need to be Bligh to re-create Bligh (apart from the fact that the real Bligh seems to have been not only an excellent seafarer but also a much more agreeable human being than the story made him).

As a member of cast or crew I would prefer it to work with a director who is more the Captain Sullenberger type and less of a Capitano Schettino character. For me this is not about political correctness but about responsibilty.
 
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Eric Boellner said:
Why would we make assumptions about anyone involved in any situation we're not involved in ourselves? Why should we care what Ariel Castro did, or James Holmes, or George Zimmerman? I'm aware that Kechiche is nowhere near that comparison level, but the idea of not giving a s--t what this guy did just because I wasn't there, when the people who were have stated quite plainly what occurred, is more preposterous than any assumptions I've been making about the guy.
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Why does one choose to take the word of a reporter one doesn't know, that is presenting the word of two actresses one doesn't know, who are portrayed as presenting their view of events at which one wasn't present, while on a promotional campaign as gospel? Why so anxious to rush to judgement? Why assume the truth through the filter of this one report? I just don't get it.

What I do get is using it as a springboard to discuss the kind of behavior reported, without assuming the veracity of this specific report, as so ably demonstrated by Rolf Silber.

Personally, I think the saying 'Don't believe everything you read', should be 'Don't believe anything you read'. Personal opinion and personal agenda have a way of coloring everything. Especially reports from individuals/organizations that are profit motivated.
 
rsbush said:
Why does one choose to take the word of a reporter one doesn't know, that is presenting the word of two actresses one doesn't know, who are portrayed as presenting their view of events at which one wasn't present, while on a promotional campaign as gospel? Why so anxious to rush to judgement? Why assume the truth through the filter of this one report? I just don't get it.
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While I understand your point that the report could maybe be better used as a springboard for discussion (which it has), I'm not one for relativism. As a general rule, "one source is rumor, two is fact." So you have TWO actresses reporting FIRST-HAND their own stories, not as generalized hyperbole (such as in the case of Megan Fox claiming Michael Bay "tries to be like Hitler."), but as a factual recounting of their own experiences with the director, and then one of them later confirms again that while she didn't intend for the interview to get the circulation it did, the stories were, in fact, accurate. Call a spade a spade, man. If someone creates a physically and emotionally abusive set environment, I don't see any reason to water s--t down and act like it didn't happen just because I wasn't personally affected.

Granted, me bitching about it on the internet does a helluva lot of nothing, but of all the things to ***** about on the internet, I just think this is a little more important than Miley Cyrus twerking or the price point of a Canon point-and-shoot.
 
Eric,
Two sources make a fact? That bar seems really low to me. I'm just gonna guess that you don't have a lot of experience with reports of events you've experienced firsthand or been quoted very often. If you had you may be a little less likely to believe what you read or see reported on TV. I have a bit and as a result, I don't take any of it as the "whole truth" and don't feel any need to pass judgement on someone from what someone else says or is reported to have said. It has nothing to do with "relativism" or that I personally wasn't affected by it and everything to do with skepticism.

I think it's great that you posted the article. It has created some interesting thoughtful discussion. As have other things you've posted. Keep it up, man.
 
rsbush said:
Eric,
Two sources make a fact? That bar seems really low to me. I'm just gonna guess that you don't have a lot of experience with reports of events you've experienced firsthand or been quoted very often. If you had you may be a little less likely to believe what you read or see reported on TV. I have a bit and as a result, I don't take any of it as the "whole truth" and don't feel any need to pass judgement on someone from what someone else says or is reported to have said. It has nothing to do with "relativism" or that I personally wasn't affected by it and everything to do with skepticism.

I think it's great that you posted the article. It has created some interesting thoughtful discussion. As have other things you've posted. Keep it up, man.
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Haha, I don't know the intricacies of modern journalism, but I'm pretty sure double-confirmation is all that's needed for even the ballsiest of reports. Maybe "fact" is a rough word, given that I'm not closed to the idea of Kechiche disputing the report and providing witnesses or evidence to contradict it. But as far as a discussion goes, I think I've got plenty of ground to stand on in my disdain for the guy.

That said, I see where you're coming from, and I understand it's rough territory to publicly attack, or question, someone's character based on someone else's account of events.
 
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