One of France’s great directors, Claude Lelouch looks back on 50 years in cinema this year. After a long silence, he is back in the public eye with his latest film ‘Crossed Tracks’ which he is currently busy promoting abroad. Sandrine Lemasson catches up with him.
Claude Lelouch had already won the greatest film accolade back in 1966 when he was only 30, with his award of the Palme d’Or at Cannes for ‘Un homme et une femme’ – remember the catchy tune ‘Chabada bada…’? A year on, he was in the USA for the Oscars where he won the trophies for best foreign film and for best screenplay. Yet, strangely, Claude Lelouch has often had a very complicated relationship with the critics which is still “one of his greatest frustrations”, he admits. “It would give me so much pleasure to have one good review while I'm still alive to enjoy it. Failure is so painful, for both self-esteem and finances, even if learning to be a good loser is the first step towards success.” It was in 1999 and 2000 that he had his most resounding flops, particularly in the case of ‘Les parisiennes’. Seeing him so frail, yet lean and wiry from his daily jogging, so serious and tormented by questions of life and death, you might almost forget the wealth of wonderful films celebrating life which have become landmarks of French cinema. How can we fail to recall ‘L’aventure c’est l’aventure’ (1972), with Jacques Brel and Lino Ventura, still his best box-office success with more than three and a half million tickets sold, or ‘La bonne année’, a thriller that is also a paean to love and friendship, or ‘Les uns et les autres’ (1981), another box-office triumph. Not many people realise that Sharon Stone launched her career as an understudy for a walkon part in one of the final scenes of this last film.

Claude Lelouch with Audrey Dana (left) and Myriam Boyer, the two actresses in “Crossed tracks”, his latest film “I love the cinema so much. It would be the best job in the world if there were no releases and no critics.” He did , however, get a standing ovation at the Cognac police film festival. “I felt so happy.”

And what about ‘Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté’ (1988), another smash hit which gave Jean-Paul Belmondo his César for best actor? In 2007, his ‘Roman de gare’ starring Fanny Ardant was well received by both critics and the public. The English version, ‘Crossed tracks’ was a triumph abroad, particularly in Canada and at Washington DC’s French film festival ‘C’est chic’, where he was president; it has recently come out on DVD. Lelouch indulged himself in this production: “I really wanted to have fun making this film, getting to basics without any commercial pressure or being limited by marketing demands. I had to protect myself so I used a pseudonym during the entire production process, from the shooting to writing the screenplay… and they left me alone.” Behind the entertainment hides a real whodunnit. “It’s a medium I’m particularly fond of. It certainly gets close to real life – after all life is one huge suspense. We’re all condemned, at one time or another, to be murdered.” This winning combination of risk and suspense in Lelouch’s films this year should surely reassure him about the future.