Dinner with Œdipe [Oedipus]
An interview with Tito Gonzalez Garcia, director of Œdipe [Oedipus]
Why did you choose the story of Oedipus?
There are so many reasons. Perhaps the absence of rituals in contemporary Western society has distanced us from the central concerns that all men share and that are addressed in mythology. To choose a myth, it is first and foremost to choose a common ground. A ground where humans are never just good or evil, they are always both at the same time. Oedipus, it’s also a play, a story of Men telling stories to other Men. In making this film, I worked with actors with handicaps, all with a theatrical background and familiar with the different texts about Oedipus. And then, in Greek mythology, humans are constantly confronted with their life choices. What makes them heroes or not are their acts and not their conditions. We are defined by what we do, and this is a bridge between the handicapped and the rest of the world. From a certain point of view, we could say that being normal means being oneself, but that is rarely the case with “non-handicapped” people. Normality doesn’t really exist, especially in the myth of Oedipus, and that is precisely what makes it a contemporary text. Eternally contemporary.
Can you tell us more about the structure of the film and the order of events?
There is a moment where we understand that these are actors in a theater preparing to go on stage to perform Oedipus before a full house. We wanted to structure this like a memory, a collective memory that is within us but that we don’t seek to put in order. It is somewhere inside and we are reassured by its simple presence and not by the way this memory is structured. Myths exist in us like pieces of a puzzle that we have no need to assemble. During the shooting, I asked my 10-year-old nephew if he knew any characters from Greek mythology and he spoke clearly of the myth of the Minotaur and added that to escape from the labyrinth, Theseus made wings that took him too close to the sun. He knew the stories well without logic or structure having an effect on his imagination. Our memories jostle against each other and our film is structured as such: the sequences in the life of Oedipus aren’t organized in chronological order. As we watch certain episodes of this story, we are touched not by what makes us sad but by sadness itself. I would call it an epidermal film. It is an instinctive structure where the film and the viewers are wild animals who have to get used to living together in a certain time and space and that survival will pass through only what is felt. Shooting actors in the theater dressing rooms reflects on the performance and what happens for these men and women when they act out such a terrible story. It is a very free film, a tribute to our need to tell stories, however tragic they may be.
Certain scenes show a concern for authenticity and a reproduction of an ancient aesthetic, whereas others are more clearly rooted in a more modern age. Can you tell us a bit more about your aesthetic choices?
I believe that I am not part of the great family of directors who seek to recreate the world as it is, and who, with a focus on realism, wish to convince the viewers that they are watching a story that could have truly taken place. I lean more towards creating worlds that exist in my mind and that I share during the space of a film. Reality is simply a question of perception. I see Oedipus as bordering on science fiction, a film that takes place in a near future. Like in Greek mythology, like science fiction comics, men are constantly in contact with the Gods. That is what links the past with the future. So why not imagine a royal wedding (the only scene that possesses an ancient aesthetic is the wedding of Jocaste and Oedipus) composed of the elements of a bygone world. That is in fact still the case in England when the king gets married or during the coronation of the queen. Besides, like I said, this film is born of a collaboration between a director and a theater troupe based in Larzac which professionalizes actors with handicaps. For me, Larzac embodies the perfect marriage of timelessness. It has stayed the same for the last 50 years and there is no reason for it to change for the next 50 years to come. Especially as we begin to realize through all the discussions based on what we will eat and what we will plant for the years to come that agricultural production is at the center of our concerns for the future. We decided to situate our story among farmers, and that is what makes the story contemporary: for example, Oedipus is picked up by a shepherd in the middle of Larzac who produces milk for Roquefort cheese.
How did you work with the actors?
This is the central theme of our film. We wanted to show that it was possible to give roles of “normal” characters to actors with handicaps. Regretfully, we can see in today’s cinema that handicapped people only play the roles of handicapped characters, and we are working in the opposite direction. Almost 30 years ago, Philippe Flahaut founded a theater in Millau where he trained actors with handicaps. We worked together on a film set in this theater and made a creative laboratory (that is still not finished) where each actor learned what they were capable of giving and how. We focused on the parts of the Oedipus story that reflected the personal experiences of each actor. Then, we created simple settings and stopped looking at creating written scenes so that we could let ourselves be surprised by the decisions made by the actors who have a unique understanding of their own bodies. The emphasis was placed on artistic direction by providing the ideal settings for these actors to freely interpret their roles. We established a rule to work in as small a team as possible. It’s very intimate. Finally, we decided due to the politics of integration that we would not be working only with actors with handicaps, because this would have created another kind of exclusion. So, we invited other types of actors to ensure a mixed casting. Each actor found their role and the tracks were finally swept away. We began working from the moment that our “Oedipus world” became coherent. It is a world, a land, a country where people are simply like that and no longer does anyone ask who these actors are. It’s a work that I would like to have all other directors experience. We learn so much about ourselves and our connection to others. It’s almost philosophical.
Do you plan on renewing this experience? What kind of film project do you envisage next?
We are going to continue with this project. We aren’t finished yet and wouldn’t be able to stop. At this very moment, we are developing new episodes in the life of Oedipus, and we have invited Parisian actors to come to Larzac. Mélanie Thierry, who makes an appearance at the end of the film in competition in Clermont, will be the conductor of the ancient choir, the corypheus. I imagine her in the theater dressing rooms, an omniscient and tragic narrator wandering through the corridors backstage during a performance. She will be the voice of the story. David Kammenos will play Tiresias, the blind oracle who was once a woman. We have already begun work and we find it interesting to give a non-handicapped actor the role of a blind person. I also offered François Chaigneau, a performer, dancer, and lyrical singer (who I find magical) the role of the Sphinx. I can’t wait to see the encounter between him and Théo Kermel, the actor who plays Oedipus. The actors that I have just mentioned are curious actors who seek to constantly reflect on their perceptions of this peculiar line of work. Anyway, I dream far too often of these actors to be able to stop there. This is a project that is interesting due to its distinctiveness, and we all want to work together on this. In fact, if we refine our work techniques, we would be able to do everything in Larzac. At the moment, I am thinking a lot about the idea of a series with all of these actors that would take place in an agricultural setting against the backdrop of the corruption of the world’s governments through their connections with the food-processing industry, the anti-GMO struggles, and as always in my work, the mystical connection that unites nature and man.
Otherwise, in a totally different vein, I wrote a feature-length film in South America (I am Chilean) – Eloge à la folie – a violent film about the Spanish conquest and the waves of suicides it prompted amongst the Amazonian tribes; unfortunately, I know it will take a long time to put into place.
What sort of freedom would you say the short format allows?
Personally, I find the short format is a free format. I love to use it everywhere and with all its possibilities. We see it in the plastic arts, it works in loops, it works in clips, each image can be a film in itself. I use it as I would write a letter to someone. In fact, I have even made films that I have offered to my loved ones. It allows you to kill the alienating narration that imprisons the feature-length film with its little benevolent checkboxes. The short film is like poetry. We take a piece of paper and write words that can be read in 1000 different ways. For me, it is not the reduced format of a greater one that allows one to demonstrate one’s ability. Instead, it is the pages of my personal diary that I sometimes choose to read out loud to a group of people.
If you’ve already been to Clermont-Ferrand, could you share with us an anecdote or story from the festival? If not, what are your expectations for this year?
No, I have never been to the festival. I wasn’t even expecting to be here! In truth, I don’t know what to expect, perhaps too much or not enough. In any case, I want these actors to be proud of what they’ve done, and that they see their work placed side by side with the work of others.
Œdipe is being shown in National Competition F8.
