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Sometimes, the imperceptible hand of fate has a way of pushing great collaborators together.
This is how Arnaud Desplechin and Mathieu Amalric found one another.
Suddenly, he became blank.
I told him, Dont be afraid, I wont shoot you in close-up.
I wont record you anywhere but from the back.
I already knew hed be perfect.
For a film about a man plagued by his own history, they jointly excavated the past they share.
He created puppets that each awaken a different piece of his personality.
They each contain different pieces of myself.
So, which piece of himself does Ismael contain, then?
He is exceeding in everything.
He drinks too much, he smokes too much, he has too many wives.
He is overdoing it all over.
Shes not the same woman she was when I first met her, he reflects.
It is her greatness as an actor to constantly reinvent herself with each new role.
InLa Vie En Rose,for me, she was unrecognizable.
Shes a completely different actress now.
Desplechin wishes the studio types werent so skittish.
His primary squabble with the suits, however, concerned the films length.
But hes reluctant to call the 135-minute version soon to open stateside a directors cut.
I dont believe in directors cuts, Desplechin flatly declares.
There is the film, period, the one thatyousaw.
I know film is an industry, and I have to play the game, he concedes.
If I didnt, Id go be a writer.
Whats the line from the Clash?
I fought the law, and the law won.
Sometimes you are winning, and sometimes the law is winning.
Either way, I accept it peacefully.
Easy for him to say hes the real winner here.
And theyre out there.
To hear Amalric describe it, their relationship sounds a little more French than that.
Were not close friends, Amalric admits.
