Claire’s Camera

Claire’s Camera

« Le 23 novembre à Paris, 15 heures. Je veux parler de quelqu’un. D’un homme de vingt-cinq ans tout au plus. C’est un homme très beau qui veut mourir avant d’être repéré par la mort. Vous l’aimiez. Plus que ça. »

Marguerite Duras1

 

“I’m very fond of a Korean filmmaker called Hong Sang-soo. I think he’s doing a magnificent job. He’s a guy who’s working in a field that is much needed: small sentimental comedies. Films that, I think, are much better than Woody Allen’s. Woody Allen used to be good, he’s weaker now… Hong Sang-soo is the guy who took over and I think cinema needed that, needs that. He does it in a, for me, very wonderful way. He’s reminding people: do you remember these kind of situations between people, how we used to feel watching this kind of things.”

Pedro Costa2  

 

« Tourné l’année dernière à l’occasion de la précédente édition de Cannes, le film est avant tout un hommage au festival, une installation artistique méta; filmer un film à Cannes, qui parle de cinéma – hommage autant au Le Genou de Claire, qu’à Claire Denis dont Hong est très proche, (qu’à La Chambre Claire de Roland Barthes; rd) et une lettre d’excuse de Hong à sa femme après l’avoir trompée avec la jeune actrice Kim Min-hee. »

Gaël Martin dans Cinématraque3

 

Film Comment: The rumor was that you seemed to shoot Claire’s Camera on a whim while in Cannes last year. In reality, it must have been more planned out than that… Tell me about the act of creation and inspiration itself.

Hong Sang-soo: For Claire’s Camera, there were almost no notes before, but I decided to let the actors know their characters’ professions before shooting, for their own sake. When I arrived at Cannes two days before the shooting, I found the tunnels on the beach and other locations which I used in the film. It took nine days of shooting, and I finished the initial editing within a day after the final shooting.

Jordan Cronk in conversation with Hong Sang-soo4  

screening
CINEMATEK, Brussels