Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
For those of you who follow French cinema closely, the name Laurent Cantet should be a familiar one. As the writer and director of such wonderful works in the last 10 years as HUMAN RESOURCES, TIME OUT, and HEADING SOUTH, Cantet has a terrific ear for dialogue as well as a great sense of family strife, friendship, and the perils of growing old. But his recently and rightfully Oscar nominated film, THE CLASS (ENTRE LES MURS) is something of a masterpiece.
Based on the book by Francois Begaudeau (who also adapted the screenplay with Cantet and stars in the film as a version of himself), THE CLASS is about a teacher--I'd guess the ages of the kids he's teaching would be equivalent to middle school/junior high school age...maybe early high school. At its core, the film is about that impossible and strenuous dance that teachers must do every day that incorporates elements of babysitter, educator, prison warden, and parent, but with far more rules than any of those jobs have to follow. THE CLASS doesn't have a forward-moving plot in the traditional sense.
With the feeling and look of a documentary, the film follows a year in the life of a teacher with his class of racially and socially diverse students inside the powder keg known as a classroom. It's gripping stuff, and Cantet knows when just sit back and observe (which is most of the time) and when to move forward and invade each character's space just enough to up the tension. I saw the film sometime in November (which is when this interview took place), when there was still no clear sign when it would open in the states. But excitement about the film has grown exponentially since its limited release in December, culminating in the recent Oscar nomination.
Cantet is a warm and attentive subject, despite having been on the road with this film since last May, when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where the film won the Golden Palm, the event's top prize. See this film if it comes to your neck of the woods, and in the meantime, enjoy my talk with Laurent Cantet…
Capone: Whenever a filmmaker approaches a subject that touches a lot of people personally--everyone goes to school at some point in their life--do you find that you become a touchstone for the subject, and, then, people come to you with questions about the subject, and not necessarily about the film?
Laurent Cantet: [laughs] That’s one of the problems I have now, for making this…especially in France, I think, because people feel more concerned by the image of school we were giving in the film. I’m seen by everybody…like a specialist of school, which I’m not. And, I always try to bring the film back into the discussion, more than school. But, it’s the way of the people…
Capone: Winning the Palme d’Or probably doesn’t make that any easier for you.
LC: Right. It creates a lot of expectation about the film, and everybody had his idea before watching the film, you know. And so, people talked a lot about the film before seeing it.
Capone: Have you found in going through the United States that there are many of the same issues, or certain issues that are very different?
LC: In fact, I’m just starting my U.S. tour, but I came one month ago for the New York Film Festival, and I already met some journalists and some people speaking after the screening. And, what I realized is that, in fact, the questions that are asked after the film are about the same all over the world. It means that, maybe, the film is more universal than just showing what’s happening in a class in the east of Paris, you know?
The questions, which are always coming back, are What does it mean to be part of a community? Is the multicultural society a problem? Things like that. So, I think you can share that with all the countries.
Capone: Sure. I have friends here in the city who are teachers, and, for them, from hearing them talk, it seems less about teaching and more about keeping a little war from breaking out every day.
LC: What I think that, even if it is sometimes not comfortable to be in a classroom like that, you can always teach something. It’s not obvious when you are doing it. You are not always teaching exactly what you are expecting to teach. But, when you discuss with children like what we are showing in the film, I think it really helps them to find their place in the society and to think of themselves as a member of that society. That is something important.
Capone: With regards to the multicultural aspect--which I think is fairly universal, in a lot of bigger cities, at least--the film shows that the classroom setting is one of the only places where a lot of kids are essentially forced to mix with people who aren’t like themselves, outside of their communities. That’s one of the things I hadn’t really thought about before I saw this film. After they leave school, these children may never have to deal with people unlike themselves again.
LC: Not even when they leave school…leave Junior High School. After Junior High School, you have the selection [of what school you can attend]. And, some are going on one side, the other on the other side. So, I think that’s the very last moment where all those children can mix, really, and think together. It’s not just being friends with someone in the street. It’s really work together, live together, [you] have to be obliged to take into account what the other thinks. I think it’s really a very powerful place to analyze.
Capone: It is, it is. It’s a little scary, too.
LC: Yeah, sometimes.
Capone: To think—at least in this film—that the teacher in that situation is such a small part of their lives, timewise. Those interactions could influence the rest of their life, from that point forward, how they deal with people that aren’t like themselves.
LC: Yeah, there is a responsibility when you are a teacher at that point, which is really, really important. And, I think that what interests me in the teacher character is that, I think, he really thinks of his work in that direction. He really integrates this question into his work.
Capone: Did you have to convince François Bégaudeau to act in the film, or was he ready to go during the conception of the project?
LC: It was quite easy to convince him, because, first, he’s someone who likes experience, experiments. At the same time he was a teacher, he was also a…he quit, but when he was a little bit younger, he was a singer in a punk group. He was writing about cinema, he was a film critic. He was a novelist. He was a football player, a soccer player. He’s someone who likes to touch everything and just enjoy doing things.
The second point is that we agreed on the way to make the film. I wanted to base the film on improvisation. And, of course, improvisation means that you should know what you are speaking of. So, when I read the book, what interested me the most was this character, the way this teacher is acting in front of the class. So, of course, he was the best actor to play, to act this character, I think. And, he understood that, he understood that if I wanted to make the film the way I wanted, I needed him to be the teacher. And, he accepted that.
Capone: I thought I had read somewhere that the students aren’t necessarily students who all know each other, but they are all non-actors?
LC: They were all in the same school, not all in the same class, but in the same school, yes.
Capone: Okay, all the same school, so non-actors there…and the other teachers, as well? Is that right?
LC: They are teachers of the same school, too.
Capone: That is quite a leap of faith…to have that many non-actors.
LC: Yeah, but when you listen to…I mean, we could have interviewed thousands of students, only to come to the conclusion that you finally found one rare pearl among them. And, in that film, we didn’t have this problem. We just set up a workshop at the beginning of the school year, where all the volunteers between 13 and 15 years old could come. At the beginning, we had 50 of them who came, and, after a few weeks, 25 left. And, the 25 who stayed until the end of the year are the 25 you see on the screen. And, so I didn’t choose them. They decided to be in the film. That’s all.
And, the teachers the same. About 15 teachers were interested, just by the experience. They came, and we discussed a lot. We improvised on some scenes. And, in fact, they stayed until the end. And even, they cancelled their holidays to stay in Paris and act in the film. I think it’s easy to find great actors, if you really listen to what they have to say about their own life, about their own experience. And, if you create sort of trust between them and you, between them and the film.
Capone: Yeah. And, the young actors, in particular, are remarkable. They really are. The one girl, the one who’s the troublemaker [Esmeralda]…I wanted to slap her sometimes. But, she was great.
LC: At the first workshop, we saw her and we knew she would be one of the main actresses in the film, because she’s really like that in life. For other characters, we really built characters. For example, Souleymane is not this kind of tough guy he is in the film. His name is Franck, in fact, and Frank is a very nice boy, very quiet, very discrete, but he likes acting. And, I was sure he could become this tough guy, with this façade of tough guy. And, sometimes, you can feel behind his façade all the fragility of that boy, which really looks like Franck in real life. So, I think we sometimes build character on what they are and sometimes, really, work on building it from nothing.
Capone: The scene where the teacher has them write their self-portraits, did they write their own?
LC: Yes.
Capone: …or was that written for them?
LC: Sometimes. Not all of them…for example, Souleymane didn’t write it. He says just a short sentence: ‘Nobody knows me.’
Capone: If the students all went to school together, and I’m assuming some of the teachers knew each other before this experience, how were you accepted into that group as a filmmaker, as an outsider coming in to watch them?
LC: Well, we were just working together. And, it was not a problem of being accepted. Like, with the children, I had le bon rôle, the good role--I had nothing to teach them. I just had to play, and we really spent great moments laughing a lot and joking all day long. And, it was one of the most décontracté, most relaxed shootings I ever had, because everybody was happy to be here. Everybody was happy acting. And, even for the tense scenes, there were never tensions on the set. After the scene, they could laugh and joke again. And then, we would put the camera on, and they were able to go back to their roles.
Capone: You mentioned tension. It took me a while to realize as the actual story is emerging, but, there is a tension through the whole film, you know, threat of outbursts or violence or the teacher saying the wrong thing, like he does.
LC: Uh-huh, the image I had of the class is kind of a boiling pan that can explode, or the explosion never really happens, but it’s more sort of energy that is always boiling, and, you are always…I think I realized when I was editing the film, I think you are always running behind the film. Things happen faster than what you are expecting, able to think of them. The answers arrive faster than what you could produce. And, I think that helps, because when you tell the story of the film, it’s maybe not very glamorous, you say it’s the story of a class during one year. And, in fact, when you are in the film, you never realize that it’s un enclos, an enclave. You never go out in the world. It’s like an enclosure.
Capone: Right, like, there’s other classrooms, and there’s other people there.
LC: Right. You are not waiting for action. You are not expecting to go out, because you are focused on what is really happening in front of you. I think the power of the film is to go a little faster than what you can imagine.
Capone: Right. Well, that’s real life.
LC: Yes, exactly, yes. And, the teacher is always in a position of improvising. He has to answer. He has to give the answer faster than someone else who will take the word before him, you know, interrupt.
Capone: If there’s even a pause, a second, someone will jump in. One of the themes that really struck me in the film is the difference between earning respect and demanding respect. And, a lot of the other teachers seem more interested in setting down rules that are about demanding respect, whereas François’ character tries to be more about earning respect. Is that a fair statement?
LC: Yes. I think it’s what I wanted to do. That’s also why I like this teacher in the book, you know. François, when he was a teacher in life, really liked discussion. When you meet him, you can spend hours discussing, and when he’s working, he doesn’t want to just take the uniform of a teacher. He wants to stay himself, to be himself in his work. I think…of course, it’s dangerous sometimes. He takes risks by being like that, but he accepts the risks.
And, I think, it’s important to see him, for example, trying to oblige the students to think a little bit further than what they would do without his help. For example, you were speaking of the scene when Souleymane asked him if he is gay or not. Of course, a lot of teachers would stop the discussion at that point and say, “Well, just give me your…paper, your…le cahier de la correspondance…You don’t have it here--there is a little book where the teacher write in for the parents to see and sign as punishment.
Capone: Yeah, I remember seeing it in the film, yes.
LC: François decided to go on in that discussion, just to show this guy that his way of thinking is homophobic. And, I think it’s important, because at that moment of life, those kids, they want to look tough. And, they are the worst homophobic, and, just by asking him the question, just by making him formulate that, I think it can help him to go a little bit further. And, that’s why I decided to make this scene. It’s not just to show how insolent Souleymane can be, but more to show that for François, each situation can bring an opportunity to teach something.
Capone: Right. You said that before that sometimes you’re not teaching what you’re teaching. You’re teaching life.
LC: Yes, and there is something that… in France, especially, maybe, but there is a mistake in watching the film. People consider the film like a documentary film, and they say, “Okay, this teacher is always speaking, but never working.” And, what I want to make clear is that we decided to show those moments when the teacher agrees to discuss things, because he is not doing that all year long. He is also teaching drama or literature and all the matters you have to learn in school. But, he is also thinking that if you don’t give sense to what you are teaching and learning, it will never be efficient. You can learn a lot of things without knowing why you are learning it, and you will forget them just after leaving the controlled environment, you know?
And, that’s also what Henriette, the girl at the end who says, “I didn’t learn anything.” I think this girl doesn’t understand what she is doing here. And, there are a lot of children that are in that case. They are just sitting here and writing and, maybe, learning it for a few days, and then…because it doesn’t mean anything to them. And, this kind of discussion François is accepting with the children, I think, helps them to understand what they are doing here. And so, maybe, it helps them to learn. But, it’s special moments of the year, and that’s what the script decided, you know, it was a script decision.
Capone: Right, right. I’m not sure how patient an audience would be watching him actually teach his lessons. It’s the in-between moments that are the ones you’re obviously most interested in.
LC: We even filmed a few lessons, you know, dictation, I think. But, it was so boring, that we cut them. [laughs]
Capone: I do want to ask one thing about the student evaluation process where there are two students representing the student body in the meeting. I’ve never seen anything like that here, where…
LC: It seems to be very French, because in all the countries, people are so surprised by that.
Capone: I was going to ask you, What’s the rationale?
LC: For us, it’s seems so natural that children, that students can know what teachers think of them. And, those representatives are working in the two directions. It means that if the child has a problem, for example, if he has trouble with his parents, something like that, he can tell to his representative to explain the situation to the teachers. And, when the teacher has something to say about the children, they can say it in this meeting, and the representative will tell it to the teachers. But, it’s more like a democratic process.
Capone: Right. There’s representation. I just found that fascinating.
LC: It was always like that in France. Maybe it was after May ’68. I don’t know if it happened at that moment, but since I was in school, we always have this kind of representative.
Capone: Okay. I’m curious. Why in your mind were the students so quick to turn on their teacher, who they seemed to more or less like?
LC: I think it’s a question of age, too. When you are 13, you have to define yourself in opposition to the model the adults give to you. And, also, sometimes it’s a way to hide your weakness. If you don’t want to discuss, you fight. You oppose yourself to what they say. And, also, maybe, it becomes a game. They know that François is expecting that, so, right, they participate to what the school asks them.
Capone: Right. There seemed to be a power play, too. There’s a very brief moment when the students have the power over his career. It’s interesting--and, again, very lifelike--that so few of the conflicts that come up are ever truly resolved. The moment of Souleymane getting expelled is one of the few that we see something through to the end. But, a lot of the conflicts just hang there, and, I guess, that’s part of the tension.
LC: Yes. And, I think, it’s the only way to make the system go on. You can’t solve the problems, but you can live with them, and you can just make the things going on. And, that’s also the meaning of this match at the end, you know, the football match, they have children and teachers together. It’s not ‘Right, we are friends again’. It’s just ‘Right, we are obliged to be together, so let’s make it possible.'
Capone: After years of my life watching some very clichéd films about junior highs and high schools, it was really wonderful to see both teachers and students not reduced to stereotypes. So, thank you very much for this. I truly enjoyed the film, and it was wonderful meeting you.
LC: Thank you very much.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
