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173 A p p e n d i x 2 INTERVIEWS WITH ANNE-MARIE MIÉVILLE Janine EUVRARD, “Entretien avec Anne-Marie Miéville,” 24 Images: La revue québécoise du cinéma 76 (1995): 12–16. (Translated by Jerry White) The almost tactile sensual richness of Lou n’a pas dit non offers itself to the eye and ear as a rare and moving poetic experience entirely directed at the trembling intimacy of things, held out to life itself. It recalls the experience of being dazzled by the short film Le livre de Marie (which preceded Godard’s film Je vous salue, Marie in theatres). Thus, today, this second feature film by AnneMarie Miéville, after the superb Mon cher sujet (1989), confirms the maturity of this distinctive filmmaker. EUVRARD: The beginning of Lou n’a pas dit non is a bit upsetting. Is it meant as an homage to Rilke, especially to Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge? MIÉVILLE: There is a sort of homage to Rilke and to Lou Andreas-Salomé, because the sequence with the little boy and his mother is a dream of Rilke’s (published in Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge) that I wanted to film. There is also the sequence with the little girl and her father that is a memory pulled from a biography of Lou where she recounts a scene between her and her father. Also by way of homage, I find it interesting to try to show— and this is something that I will maybe one day develop into another film—a scene from the childhood of the protagonists of a film that (without wanting to fall into intense psychoanalysis) leads them to see a certain number of elements : a climate in which a child bathes and which would be a preamble to the story. EUVRARD: Gallotta’s ballet—very strong, even obscene at certain moments— comes before another, opposing scene, that of the perfectly pure dance in the apartment. Why this opposition? 174 Appendix 2 MIÉVILLE: When Lou dances alone, it is her body’s expression after this night that she has spent with Pierre where there were stormy discussions, very tender scenes and a move toward reconciliation at the end where they both decided to go on a pilgrimage to Rilke’s tomb. It is true that her body expression to the little tune by Rossini, when she gestures alone, is a bit florid, like the dance of the Gollotta couple, which is not only a duet but a real coupling scene. If I let the dance go for ten minutes, it was not only to illustrate a moment of getting together. It was really because it is a certain moment where these two dancers become important characters, characters who, for 10 minutes, express a whole palette of situations, emotions, and tensions between men and women, and who do that through choreography, with movements and with gestures. Each of their movements, often inconsistently, tries to exercise some power over the other. Among men, there is perhaps an involuntary brutality, while among women, there is calculation because she takes back control of things. When I saw the production of Docteur Labus, I was very touched by this duo, who I found to be very strong. EUVRARD: You could say that this ballet was made to order, made for the film. MIÉVILLE: There are a certain number of elements that come into the construction of a film that I harvested before and that will be present at the film’s birth, things like dance, sculpture, Rilke. It is true that this dance is one of the first elements I harvested in preparing the film. I saw Docteur Labus in 1989, and I told myself that I had to do something with this. A bit later, I had a commission from the Louvre for something on the statue of Mars and Venus, and this was also an idea of the couple. Bit by bit, the idea of the couple came together, and the dance inserted itself into the film. So, I found it an environment that responded to it and valued it. EUVRARD: Being sensitive to music, I generally find it very badly treated in cinema. In Mon cher sujet, it finds an important place through song. How have you worked with music? MIÉVILLE: It is true that, generally speaking, music is treated weakly in films. You add it a bit like you add...

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