Bipolarity and the Lost Scenario: The True Story Behind The Book of Solutions by Michel Gondry

The filmmaker tells us how his painful experience on L’Écume des jours gave rise to this film with Pierre Niney, now available on VOD, DVD and blu-ray.

In The Book of Solutions, Pierre Niney plays Marc, Michel Gondry’s alter ego and whimsical director, who flees with his entire team to a small village in the Cévennes, in order to finish his film with his aunt Denise (Françoise Lebrun). Far from the gaze of his Parisian producers who understand nothing about his project, Marc stops his medical treatment and plunges into the chaos of his incessant ideas…

This comedy, which arrives in our living rooms today (either on VOD, DVD or blu-ray), is almost autobiographical for Gondry.

Pierre Niney: “To play Michel Gondry, I did not imitate him, I observed him” (video)

Its origin dates back to 2012-2013, at the time of the filming and editing of The Foam of Days. The necessarily jaw-dropping adaptation of Boris Vian’s beloved novel exhausts the filmmaker, who explodes in mid-air: “ I was on mood medications and intense obsessions that were literally stopping me from living. During filming, things got worse », Confided the director in the issue of First of September (with Jonathan Cohen on the cover).

“ In the end, I stayed in the studio for a month and a half. I felt like I was letting down Boris Vian, of not being at his level… For the team, too, it was very hard: I had new ideas every day. Sometimes completely absurd, sometimes – I think – quite brilliant. We started editing and I stopped my treatment. There my mind exploded. A mixture of megalomania and fear, with super intense moments where I felt like I was part of History, creating totally innovative things. I say it without shame, because I wasn’t really myself. But at the same time, sometimes I miss this intoxicating feeling… A psychiatrist diagnosed me as bipolar shortly after. Being able to achieve The Foam of Days was a poisoned chalice: each reader had in mind what the film should look like. I’d like to do a four-hour version, even if it’s hellish to watch. There are a third of the shots I’ve never seen. »

A few years later, Michel Gondry is doing better. His drug treatment kept away the paranoia, the feeling of omnipotence and the devastating descents. He begins writing a script based on his experience on The Foam of Daysbut also on this famous “book of solutions” that he actually wrote at another time.

“ Just before doing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindI filled a notebook writing down all the problems encountered on Human Nature (his first film, released in 2001) Then I turned it over and wrote down all the solutions to these problems. The character Pierre Niney plays in The Book of Solutions is about 70% me. I wrote The Book of Solutions in 2018 or 2019, in English, because the language created distance. I didn’t want to directly confront The Foam of Days and what I had experienced. But the script was lost on my computer for years! My former assistant, an excellent computer hacker, managed to dig it out and literally saved the film. I had thought of Adam Driver for the role, and then I transposed the project to France, because we were better able to produce it here. It was obvious who Pierre Niney would be, a brilliant actor who didn’t hesitate for a moment to be annoying. I didn’t want him to try to be likeable, but people had to like him. It takes a hell of a level of play to maintain that. »

The Book of Solutions: Michel Gondry’s comeback with Pierre Niney (review)