Bertrand Bonello is a director who is rather hard to put into any category, such is the eclectic nature of his work. His latest follows on that trend, with his first deviation into the science-fiction genre, based on Henry James’s novella The Beast in the Jungle. We had the pleasure in speaking to the talented auteur in Paris earlier this year, as part of a small roundtable.
Bonello spoke in great detail about the themes of the movie, and his fears – and hopes – for AI. He also talks about replacing Gaspard Ulliel in the leading role, and why he feels George MacKay was such a special talent to work with. He also discusses the wonderful Léa Seydoux and her approach to the project, while he speaks about his career and the industry as a whole, and why he has never quite been able to fit in.
To note, while including questions from fellow journalists in the interview, we have flagged all of the questions that we asked.
There are many ways to describe this, and one way is a science-fiction film, and that struck me because it’s the most mainstream genre nowadays, it’s the biggest Hollywood genre. Your film, though a sci-fi, is a long way from that. How do you look at science-fiction both as a viewer, and as somebody making a film in the genre?
It’s the first time I have tried it and I have to say, I don’t know science-fiction that well either in literature or movies. I know a little but not that much. But what interests me in science-fiction is that of course you invent the future, which is always fun, but it allows you to have concepts. In this film the concept is very simple; in the future you either have to choose between having interesting work, or having emotions. This dilemma is very interesting for characters. Also the relationship with AI was interesting. When I started to write the film four years ago, I could not have imagined that the year the film was shown in Venice that AI would be at the centre of so many discussions. Of course when the film was shown in Venice we were in the heart of the strike in LA and AI was at the heart of the negotiations, and there is reason for that. But not only that, AI was on the front cover of all the papers because everyone is now scared of it, and when I say everyone, I mean the states, and the guy who created AI left Google and said he created something more dangerous than the atomic bomb. Because as a tool it can be fantastic, but it’s a tool than can be stronger than the human, and if humans are not the master of the tool, it gets dangerous. Now if you use AI in a political way, it could be very dangerous and there are ethical and moral decisions people have to take, and they have to be worldwide, but it is difficult. It’s very dangerous and everybody fears AI. It’s going to be stronger than humans.
How did you choose the three periods, the three ages of the movie?
1910 I liked because it’s a moment in Europe when we think we’re going to enter a huge and beautiful century, and it’s full of light, and four years after it was full of darkness, so I liked this moment. It was also the year of the huge flood in Paris. 2014 is because the character who George MacKay plays is inspired by someone called Elliot Rodger and he was around in 2014, and it was important it was before 2018 and Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo started. 2044 because I wanted a future that was very close, it’s only in 20 years. A touch from your fingers.
HUG: As a filmmaker and storyteller you have a big imagination – it must’ve been fun to craft a vision for the future? And this vision is quite understated. Often we think about technology, flying cars, but yours is subtle. Can you tell us about your vision?
I don’t know much about science-fiction but the two directions are the one you mention, the hyper-technology, or the post-apocalyptic stuff, and I wanted to try and find a third way. 20 years is not that long, so I thought, this building will still be there, so it’s the world as we know it, but I took away many things instead of adding stuff. So you don’t have cars anymore, screens, social media, internet, relationships with people. You get to something that resembles the world we know, but it’s very empty. I like this emptiness.
HUG: I wanted to ask about George MacKay, because though he has played such a variety of roles, yet we’ve not seen him in a role quite like this before. He’s a wonderful actor, and I’ve met him a few times and he’s the sweetest person as well. What made him your leading man?
He is an amazing actor. But this actually comes from a sad story. The role was supposed to be played by Gaspard Ulliel, and we were about to shoot when he had his skiing accident. So the decision I took was not to cancel the film, but to postpone it, and replace Gaspard with a non-French actor. Just so there would be no comparisons and to go somewhere else. I did a very classical, basic casting process and I met American and English actors for a few months, and I have to say, nobody convinced me. George was the last one I met at the end of the casting process. I went to London with a camera and I met him in a studio and we did some tests and after three or four minutes it was obvious he was the guy. First of all was his level of acting. He is the best actor I have ever worked with, he is incredible. Also his character. As you say, he is so sweet and so elegant, elegant in the way he sees the world. So for me when I saw him, it was obvious.
HUG: With the character going from being French to being foreign, what do you think that changed about the story?
I didn’t rewrite it. We had the same thing when Gaspard was about to do the film, but the only thing is that in 1910 they played with both languages, and that was not in the original script, but I liked that, it was a way of seduction.
What is, or who is ‘the Beast’, exactly?
The Beast is different to each person watching the film, but if you’re asking me, I think the Beast is a film of love. That really comes from Henry James.
HUG: On the subject of the short story – how did it come to you? Did you know of it already or did somebody bring it to you with the idea of it becoming a movie?
It is something I read a long time ago, and it almost broke my heart. I have read it a few times in my life. I wanted to do a kind of melodrama and that drew back to the novel very quickly. It is unbeatable.
HUG: When you read books, or even newspapers, do you read them as a filmmaker? Do you find you visual them as ways you could tell it?
I cannot help it. It’s not always a good thing because sometimes you want to read a book just for pleasure, but there is always a voice in my head saying, ‘could you do something with that?’ I always have a notebook with me. A director is like a vampire, you take and take. In 2014 when I saw this Elliot Rodgers stuff, I wrote ‘Elliot Rodgers’ in my notebook. I was not so interested by the killing, but I was fascinated by the videos.
On Léa Seydoux – she is playing several characters but also the same character, how do you advise an actor on how to do that?
Well, it depends on the actor. For example you cannot have more difference than George and Léa. George is someone who really wants to prepare a lot and so three months before the shoot we exchanged huge emails and he wanted to know everything and to prepare in his house, so a lot of questions and a lot of answers. Then when he arrives on the set he is over-ready, so I didn’t talk to him much on the set. He is so precise. Sometimes I do a second take with George just for the sake of it, the first one is always good. Léa is the contrary. She doesn’t want to prepare herself, she needs to arrive not knowing exactly what is happening and to discover the scene while we are doing it, and to live it like that. So you talk in very different ways, according to who you’re talking to.
HUG: Is adaptability a key component for directing, then? Because you must have so many personalities to work with?
Yes, I think it is my job to adapt myself to my actors and not the contrary. Some directors would say the opposite. If I had many keys, there is only that works – and you have to find the right key.
How is it being in a room with one actor who hasn’t prepared, and one who has?
Well with Léa I still don’t do many takes, because she has a huge intuition so she understands it very quickly.
HUG: Léa Seydoux is a real movie star. She has that ineffable quality. Every time you look at the monitor, it must look like a movie, if that makes sense?
Yes, exactly. It comes from mystery. She has a huge mystery. I have known her a long time and even sometimes I talk to her and I don’t know what is in her mind, and the camera loves that. You can be very close to her and she is stronger than the camera, and that is why she is am movie star, I think.
You have made many different films, but when you look back, do you think you have been looking for the same thing? Have you been on the same journey? Or do you start again each time?
I think I started again each time. I always feel like a beginner.
HUG: But all of your films, despite being very different to one another, they have something about them that means we can tell they are one of your movies. Do you think there is a connecting tissue, something that binds them together?
It’s my tenth movie, and I started this year having a lot of retrospective. I don’t think this way, but I started to read from journalists talking about all of my films and the relationships between them, and yes when I read the papers I realised okay, maybe yes. But I don’t have the answer, but journalists have.
HUG: Can you often learn something about your own movie, from reading a review or article?
Yes. You have to think about all of the unconsciousness. We are not aware of everything, sometimes it is just feelings, and you have journalists say what it is, and you think, okay.
I read an article of that sort, which was long and detailed, but the argument really was that your films were born out of a sense of political defeat.
Probably because I was born in 1968, and it was very difficult when I was 15-20 to find my place in a political movement, you know? Because my parent’s movement were so strong, so how can you exist after that? We are paying for that very much now, but I am much more confident in the young generation than I am in my generation, which I always call the ‘grey generation’, so you try and find that inside your head and your films, but in an individual way.
Talking of a through-line, this film has so many different genres, what connects it?
It’s a mix of genres. You have melodrama, you have slasher, you have science-fiction. But basically all the genres are ruled by one thing; the relationship between love and fear, which are two feelings that really go well together.
HUG: Did this scratch an itch? Because I guess as a filmmaker you might want to try and these styles of movies, and in this film by doing bits of everything did it satisfy your desires in some ways?
I think so, in some ways. I really wanted to allow myself everything.
I read you are a great admirer of David Lynch and Twin Peaks, I feel like I could see an echo of that in the end of your film – was that conscious at all?
Conscious? Not really. But ‘The Return’ is a major piece of art from the 21st century, and I think one thing that inspires me in David Lynch is that he allows himself everything. He inspires me in his freedom.
HUG: Have you ever met him?
No, no.
How do you see your place in today’s French cinema? Your films do stand out, they don’t tend to seem like any of the others.
I dunno, everybody says French cinema is like a family, but not for me. I am the bad boy. They don’t accept me [laughs]. But no I don’t see that many French films. I mean there are some directors I really enjoy and I like, Annette, stuff like that. But they are rare. Otherwise, they are a little too realistic and social and they not from my dreams of cinema.
HUG: Has this inclination to be different, to tell a different kind of story – has that been there from the very start, even when a teenager, were you always interested in something a bit different, when it comes to storytelling?
Yes, you always try. If you see a very good film you don’t want to re-do it, it has been done, so you’re trying to find a different path. But I am inspired by so much stuff. I like the mix of inspiration. I come from a generation where you are allowed to like Dreyer and Dario Argento. For people older it was not possible, you had to choose your chapel. Now, you can mix everything, it is a great sensation.
On balance, the film feels quite pessimistic about technology. Do you personally feel that technology, and the internet and AI, can offer some hope, some positive things?
Yes of course. But the human must be stronger than tools. If you have a hammer you can put a painting on a wall, but you can also kill someone. It’s what you do with the tools. But the tools cannot be stronger than you. The internet becomes stronger than us because it is addictive, like a drug. So in this sense it is dangerous. But if you control it, it is amazing, like AI. It’s great for medical research and stuff like that, but it can become stronger than humans and then it becomes dangerous, especially if the use of AI and technology goes in a political direction. That’s why there is a huge fear of this technology now.
There is also the fear of love in the film, and the fear of emotion in general especially in 2044. Of emotion getting in the way of efficiency. Is that something that you have noticed in the world around you?
Of course, but it is very human. For example, if you are a judge and you have a trial and you had a break-up the day before, the way you judge the case would be affected. If it’s a machine that is judging the case, it is without empathy. But empathy is also needed. It’s not black and white., it’s much more complex, humans are much more complex.
If you look at Elliot Rodgers, what do you think produces young men and anger like that – and is that particularly a phenomenon of our time?
Elliot Rodgers for me is a product of America in these years. He is ultra-connected and yet he is very alone. For me he has a fear of love, but he cannot express it, so he thinks that nobody wants him, so he hates people and he wants to kill them. But the no-one wants me is just a fear of love, because he doesn’t abandon himself to love, which Léa sees in him. We attack this part of the film with horrible videos and horrible dialogue, she sees in him a young, lost boy that has a fear of love, and I think in most incels there is something of that. It’s not just a hate of women, it is a loneliness.
It’s extraordinary that you connect that to Henry James…
I really like the idea of taking stuff that has nothing to do with each other but putting them together and see how it repairs. It’s like a little laboratory.
The Beast is out in cinemas now.
