Guillaume Gallienne: «I always try harder to be at the service of a work of art».»

Cinema Wednesdays - Jonas Follonier

Guillaume Gallienne is an actor and filmmaker who has carved out an enviable place for himself on the French film scene. A member of the Comédie-Française, he was awarded two Molières in 2010 and 2011, as well as four Césars in 2014 for his first film, which is as touching as it is hilarious, Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table!. This year, Guillaume Gallienne delivers his second feature film in a dramatic vein, with the theme of acting as a backdrop. We met in Lausanne a few days before the release of Maryline.

Le Regard Libre: Maryline is a film about cinema, mutism and alcoholism in particular. Did you draw inspiration for this film from real events you've seen or experienced?

Guillaume Gallienne: This film was inspired by a woman I met fifteen years ago. She was a very humble person, who touched me deeply. She told me her life story. Her story moved me, and I've been carrying it with me for fifteen years. Above all, it's the story of a woman who doesn't have the words to defend herself and who, despite the humiliations and thanks to kindness, finds her way. I chose cinema and theater as a context, which allowed me to exacerbate my subject. Indeed, it's one of the few professions where you're told: «You have to shoot here and now, action!»

What made you choose Adeline d'Hermy, also a member of the Comédie-Française, for the lead role?

I met Adeline when she joined the Comédie-Française six years ago. What first impressed me about her was the humility of her character. I think that's something you can't compose. Secondly, the film is built like a chronicle, but I was aiming for drama. I knew that Adeline would carry this drama through and through, and that she would pull the dramatic thread through to the end. Also, Adeline comes from a dance background, so she can express without speaking, and she has the art of expressing herself in the minuscule: in a neck that tenses, in a shoulder movement, in a body position. Last but not least, you can tell she's a country girl.

At one point, Maryline says: «I've been waiting ten years for this moment. Ten years I've been locked up in my fucking silence. A silence that makes you want to puke.» Did you want to show the links between silence and alcoholism?

No, because I believe that words can save, but words can also kill. In the case of this character, it turns out that her addiction stems from a familial determinism, and also from the violence she suffers in the first third of the film with a dreadful director. The silence that makes you want to vomit is the self-hatred that people who feel out of place, out of touch, out of their depth, can feel. This feeling of powerlessness is often turned against them, by society, but also by themselves. Finally, the shame they may feel at not having the words, not having the codes, is very violent. Hence this sentence.

There's a magnificent character, the benevolent fairy one might say, who is Jeanne, played by Vanessa Paradis. In a car, she says to Maryline: «The only films worth making are the ones that have an element of darkness, an unconsciousness.» Are you speaking through her?

In fact, I wanted to pay homage to a sentence from a novel by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, entitled In Praise of the ShadowGold is never more beautiful than in the dark. This sentence was a founding phrase for my film. When Jeanne praises films with an element of darkness, it's a tribute to Tanizaki (cinema is a pretext for depicting life in general, in Maryline), but it's also a clever way for the character played by Vanessa Paradis to say that, in the end, what's left unsaid is beautiful. It's a way of reassuring Maryline, of saving her.

At the end of your first feature film, Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table!, you declare at the end of your play, indirectly addressing your mother in the audience: «It was her modesty that gave me the words.» Was the subject of Maryline already present in your first film?

In Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table!, is the birth of the actor; in Maryline, it's his journey that's told. It's true that my reflection on the actor follows a kind of continuity with my second film.

Finally, I'd like to ask you about orality. You have a beautiful voice, as this interview proves. You've recorded audio books by Flaubert, Proust and Balzac. How do you see your role as passeur?

I'm always more concerned with being at the service of a work, with really diving in, than with my voice as such. I've been working in public service for twenty years now, and I'm very attached to this mission of being a go-between. I find culture freer when it has the luxury of not being commercial. Its role is essential because it's the only place where the mix is unexpected, where the mix surprises. I'm grateful for the chance to be part of the public service, and I feel indebted to the taxpayer.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

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