Claude Lelouch may not have been up for any Academy Awards this past Sunday, but then again, he already has one, so he probably has his focus elsewhere. The French director was indeed elsewhere, both physically and mentally, over the weekend at the International Monte Carlo Film Festival, where he was in charge of the jury. He also spoke at length about some of his upcoming projects.
According to reports from Variety, the A Man and A Woman director announced that he will be shooting his next film this summer, titled La vertu de l’imponderable, which loosely translates to The Virtue of the Imponderable. This new project should be interesting because he also shared that it will be shot completely with his cellphone.
This isn’t a completely polarizing idea, as people have done it before (including The Florida Project director Sean Baker with his 2015 film Tangerine), but it’s still not that extensive as a category. More films done in this style can only further creativity and push boundaries.
Lelouch continued, saying he became inspired to tell this story after he was robbed in early January. A bag of his was stolen from him in front of the Paris office of his production company. In that incident, he lost not only a screenplay (which he is now trying to reproduce) but also more than fifty years of his notes. He says the film will “show that all the bad things that come your way are actually formidable.”
Along with taking a less traditional route with cinematography, he also noted that he wants to go against norms by using the project to hire non-professional actors, “a bit like [Vittorio De Sica’s] Bicycle Thieves.” Sica’s Thieves is a classic from post-WWII Italy that still holds up today, so Lelouch is drawing from a major influence. Just as well, Baker’s Tangerine, using the cellphone method, was able to create a gritty realistic feel about the underbelly of society. If Lelouch’s project is a possible combination of both Thieves and Tangerine, we should be in for a pleasant surprise.
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