When Michel Ciment (1938-2023) spoke to us about Joseph Losey

This figure of French and international criticism died at the age of 85. We pay tribute to him by republishing our last interview with him.

Historian, radio man, critic, professor, Michel Ciment, totemic figure of French and international cinephilia (some had fun calling him Michael Concrete) died at the age of 85. For “the profession” it was an earthquake as his words and his pen continued to be compasses. We last interviewed him two years ago to discuss the cinema of the American Joseph Losey. The meeting took place between two press screenings, where like the child of the film clubs that he has never ceased to be, the indestructible director of publication of the magazine Positive, continued to be enthusiastic about this or that film. The man who once received the confidences of the greats of our world (Elia Kazan, Stanley Kubrick, Francesco Rosi, etc.), could have played the part of being jaded. No, the flame was still there, intact.

During this November afternoon, on the sidewalk of rue Marbeuf, he communicated his excitement for the new film by Laurent Cantet. We weren’t there for that but since with this generous spirit, the past knew how to meet the present, to better illuminate it, we listened to it. The messenger (The Go-Between), Palme d’Or 1971, then resurfaced after years of purgatory due to dark rights issues and a major retrospective by Joseph Losey took over the Cinémathèque française. Losey-Cement, comparable to the famous Hitchcock-Truffaut, are hours of fascinating interviews brought together in a book that has long been out of print but has since fortunately been republished. We therefore suggested to Michel Ciment that we return to the dawn of the seventies when he entered the beautiful Parisian home of Losey, located rue du Dragon… Through this last interview for Première which we are republishing here, we pay homage to this spirit free.

When did you meet Joseph Losey?

Michel Ciment: It was at the Mostra in 1964 where he presented For example (King & Country) which I really liked. We then met again in London, at greater length, for a major interview around Secret ceremony (Secret Ceremony1968) and Boom (1968), two films starring Elisabeth Taylor that were severely despised and attacked by critics. I was then accompanied by Bertrand Tavernier. It was some time later that a publisher asked me to do a book of interviews with him. I found the proposal rather surprising. I had in fact just released my book on Elia Kazan. On one side, Losey, forced into exile because of McCarthyism, on the other, Kazan, who had denounced his former comrades. I was wondering how Losey was going to take this. He just said ironically when he said to me during our first meeting: “ How is your friend Kazan? »

Under what conditions were these interviews carried out?

In the same way as with Elia Kazan, that is to say, in continuity over a defined period. Kazan received me at his country house near New York. We spent 10 days together for 40 hours of interviews. With Losey, the thing stretched over two months between Paris where he was living at the time and Italy for the preparation of a film which ultimately did not get made. Much later, I completed our interviews around the time of the release of his later films.

What status did the filmmaker have then?

Losey was never adopted by critics like Truffaut for example. His filmography appears too variegated, fragmented, with ups and downs. So there was no cult around him. I liked the fact that Losey was not really established. Generally speaking, I like to find the image in the carpet. Like Boorman, Kubrick, Campion, whom I also interviewed, Losey has obsessions which are found from film to film. The very different character of its production can give the impression of dispersion. It is not so. At Losey, there is very often a visitor who arrives in a home and becomes a sort of exterminating angel. This is the case of The Servant (1963), Accident (1967), The assassination of Trotsky (The Assassination of Trotsky1972), Mr Klein (1976) and of course Messenger (The Go-Between, 1971) Each time there is a question of confinement, of claustrophobia… The setting therefore has a crucial importance. For him, ethics and morality also have a central place. Losey was a great Puritan. And like all the Puritans, there was also this desire to break taboos.

Was Joseph Losey easy to interview?

Of all the interview books I’ve done, it’s the director who delivered the most. Kazan, although very verbose, was more in control, very rational. He knew very well what he wanted to say and not say. With Losey it was almost psychoanalytic. He told me very intimate things about his sexuality, his relationship with women but also about his father… We of course addressed questions of staging and technique but they always brought us back to very intimate interpretations.

Has he therefore become a close friend?

We saw each other regularly but he maintained a certain distance, protected himself a lot, unlike Kazan, who was overflowing with sympathy, warmth, was interested in my life… Losey liked to create unease. For example, when he came to our house for dinner, my wife and I offered him several aperitifs. He systematically chose the one we didn’t have, just another way of creating a nuisance. I also remember that in Italy during our interviews, he wanted to stay in Fregene, a town by the sea near Rome where all the great filmmakers had a house. He insisted on renting that of Francesco Rosi. He found it magnificent, except that Rosi was occupying it and didn’t want to rent it. Losey kept calling him. It had become an obsession. He finally resigned himself to going to the hotel. In his films, we find many characters who like to build tension.

You talk a lot about Elia Kazan, who would be the perfect counterpart to Losey. Why then did you choose to put their two names together on the same book?

?

The “Kazan” was published in 1973, the “Losey” in 1979. They were both out of print. It was my publisher who had the idea of ​​combining the two books into one. I was seduced by the proposal, less so Losey’s widow who was reluctant or even hostile. However, if we look closer, many things bring the two men together. They were born the same year, were both members of the PC, directed theater productions while being filmmakers, collaborated with Harold Pinter, directed Jeanne Moreau… They have parallel lives. So yes, one denounced when the other was a victim of McCarthyism. One is a Greek emigrant who is not so attractive but who has had a lot of conquests, the other is a great puritan bourgeois from the middle-west, raised in a very cultured environment… Kazan’s denunciation comes from a desire to integration, that of the poor emigrant who was finally accepted. What Kazan did is obviously terrible, but let’s not forget that Losey’s blind loyalty to Stalinism is just as reprehensible. Why should we condemn the denunciation in America and accept that which took place in the USSR? So this idea of ​​seeing the ignoble in Kazan and the saint in Losey, very little for me. Let’s come to the Messenger

which is released in theaters, a great film about a child’s discovery of the passion and cruelty of the adult world. What memory do you keep of it? I was invited two weeks before Cannes to see the film in a private screening. I come away upset. I immediately call Losey: “ Your film is magnificent, I think it will be the best film at Cannes. It couldn’t be better! » In the meantime, MGM, which was to distributeThe messenger , understands nothing of the subtlety of the film and ends up selling it. The Cannes Film Festival is coming. The big favorite is Death in Venice by Luchino Visconti to whom the Palm seems promised. That’s true, until the presentation of Losey’s film in the final days of the competition. To everyone’s surprise, The messenger wins the Palme d’Or. Visconti is upset. Robert Favre le Bret, the general delegate at the time, promised him the 25th anniversary prize, just to make everything right. For Losey, who had just suffered several critical failures, this reunion with Harold Pinter only four years laterThe Accident

were therefore a return to grace. Death in Venice And The messenger

are similar in many ways. These are two costume films with baroque staging, directed by two great masters…Death in Venice

, which I rewatched recently, still doesn’t please me. I find that Dirk Bogarde makes boxes, the zooms are insistent, mechanical… The zooms at Losey are much more complex. Jerry Fisher’s lighting is very expressive. Michel Legrand’s very sober score too, even if Losey didn’t like it at all at first. He ended up getting used to it given the success of the film. In your conversations with Losey, about theMessenger

you mention this way he has of being part of a tradition while seeking to innovate… … In this he is very close to Alain Resnais who broke the forms but managed to rebuild them wonderfully. Unlike Jean-Luc Godard who trashes everything and leaves everything in disarray. Accident was a very innovative film. Losey explicitly cites Resnais through the character played by Delphine Seyrig. He also asked her to replay a scene fromMuriel

. What did the MGM pundits not understand about Messenger

in your opinion? Of Losey’s three films written by Harold Pinter, The messenger is however the most classic in its construction and shape. I think what bothered us were the sequences which showed the characters older, many years after the story we were told. Losey doesn’t explain anything, plays with the off-camera, the mystery, it’s very beautiful. So when Julie Christie said to Michael Redgrave: “ You don’t realize what happened to us… “, when the child who became an adult was in reality deeply shaken by this passion, it is cruel and selfish. Childhood is essential for Losey. Let’s not forget that his first feature film is still The boy with green hair(The Boy with Green Hair , 1948). He often quoted these words from Brecht: “ We can’t erase what we’ve seen…

», a way of saying that childhood wounds outline the cruelty of the world.

Joseph Losey has still not become a classic, can this retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française change things? Maybe. Understand that in 1952 when Losey became an outcast in America because of McCarthyism, he had already directed five feature films, the first three of which were very great films:The boy with green hair , Haines(The Lawless 1950) and The Prowler(The Prowler