INCARNER
The point of departure for this edition of the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard’s “Poésie Plate-forme” is the cinema of Jean Eustache, and more specifically how words and light construct his very intense cinematic world, one that produces and amplifies reality—as exemplified by the masterpieces The Mother and the Whore and My Little Loves.
But this unprecedented dialogue between Caroline Champetier and Jean-Noël Picq will mainly revolve around the structures and freedom of the new cinema that Jean Eustache invented in his last films: A Dirty Story (1977), Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Delights (1980), which Jean-Noël Picq starred in and helped conceive, and Les photos d’Alix (1980), the shooting of which began Caroline Champetier’s exceptional career as a cinematographer working for the greatest contemporary filmmakers.
Caroline Champetier
Caroline Champetier is one of the most renowned cinematographers. After graduating from the IDHEC, she collaborated with cinematographer William Lubtchansky, then contributed to the filming of Jean Eustache’s Les Photos d’Alix.
She then embarked on a prestigious career, working with such directors as Chantal Akerman, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Doillon, François Margolin, Jacques Rivette, Benoît Jacquot, Philippe Garrel, Arnaud Desplechin, Xavier Beauvois, Laetitia Masson, Anne Fontaine, Jacques Lanzmann, Josée Dayan, Nobuhiro Suwa, Amos Gitaï, Yolande Zubermann, Barbet Schroeder, Leos Carax, Patricia Mazuy and Margarethe von Trotta. She has directed her own short films, as well as a movie about Berthe Morisot.
Retrospectives of her work are regularly screened, most recently at the Cinémathèque française in 2014 and the FIAF in New York. She won the César award for Best Cinematography in 2011 for the film Of Gods and Men by Xavier Beauvois.
Jean-Noël Picq
Jean-Noël Picq met Jean Eustache in his youth, becoming one of his closest friends and collaborating with him throughout his life. He appeared in a classic scene in The Mother and the Whore. He wrote A Dirty Story a diptych in which the voyeuristic anecdote told by Jean-Noël Picq in the second part of the film is performed to the letter by Michael Lonsdale in the first part. In Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Delights he provides an improvised commentary on this painting.
Jean-Noël Picq has also worked with other directors, including Danièle Dubroux in The Terrible Lovers and Border Line, and Pascal Aubier in The Son of Gascogne.
Jean-Noël Picq is also a psychoanalyst.
