LUC DARDENNE MASTERCLASS
The 49th TIFF’s masterclass series kicked off yesterday, Saturday 15th at the John Kassavetes theater with renowned auteur Luc Dardenne’s lecture. Elise Domenach from ‘Positif’ magazine was co-ordinating.
‘Despite the fact that Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne have won the Golden Phoenix twice at the Cannes Film Festival and have gained the respect of the European film community, they remain modest and practical, and they continue to look with compassion and without any arrogance into their characters’ world, creating a heartbreaking and humane cinema. They have invented simplicity as a new filmic language and they use film as a tool to change the world‘, pointed out TIFF director Despina Mouzaki.
Mr. Luc Dardenne talked about his and his brother’s past when they used to work in the theater as second assistants to Armand Gatti to whom they refer as their spiritual father. He also explained how they got into documentary filmmaking, by filming people who talked about their lives in the industrial suburbs of their city. ‘Jean Paul Sartre has said that in a capitalist society we are all divided, and so is urban planning. Those people we met were trapped in a tough everyday life. By filming them, we brought them closer to each other’.
However, their need to tell new stories led them to fiction films. Luc Dardenne stressed that their films do not carry any political message. ‘We are not interested in ideology. What we really care for is a person’s personal path and the way with which they deal with a moral dilemma’.
He also talked about the difficulties they sometimes face with professional actors. ‘In difficult situations some actors turn to an acting technique they might be familiar with and end up reproducing stereotypes’.
While talking about the development of European cinema, Luc Dardenne noted that one solution is to increase the number of theaters that screen independent films, European or not, and announced that he and his brother are going to have four new theaters built in Brussels.
He also noted the important role of education in the formation of the audience of the future. ‘Schools should organize visits to film theaters. A child will always remember a film that has moved it and this will mark its identity forever’.
