Humanist Philosophy: Interview(s) with Bruno Dumont

While the recent passing of Robert Bresson may be the final death knell for first hundred years of film, it does not usher in the end of a poetics of cinema. Bruno Dumont has created--in just two works, La vie de Jesus (1997) and L'humanite (1999)--a non-cerebral, anti-bourgeoise cinema which aspires to a purity of expression through an intellectually rigorous aesthetic, rooted in the physicality of the actors and the Flemish landscape. The following interviews were done before and during the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival; Andrea Picard spoke to Dumont over the phone from his home in Balleuil, while Mark Peranson followed up with a face-to-face meeting. The interviews are mutually supportive, at times covering different ground, other times overlapping. Some replies have been consolidated from both interviews. In this way, we present a far-ranging look at a confident filmmaker who should prove to be one of the more important film artists in the decade to come. Film and Art MARK PERANSON: Simply, L'humanite is a film that deals with basic ideas. So my first question is simple: Why do you make films? BRUNO DUMONT: That's a very simple and a very difficult question. There is a desire expressed through cinema and its methods to search and to find what's inside of others. I would like to express my own views on the mysteries of life. MP: Degas has said that art is false, and one can only approach the truth through falsity. Do you think that the cinema, because it is a false medium, is best able in art to capture something like the truth? BD: Yes, I think that all art is false. And that with art in general--talking about life in false ways--can you attain truth. Because the truth can only be expressed through lies and falseness. And those who film truth directly, in your face like seen on television, tell us nothing. Thus the work of the artist is to reveal the truth through his work. When Picasso and Braque invented Cubism, the representation was false in comparison to reality; but it was the reality of truth that they were expressing. An artist must modify reality. It is only through modification that the truth can be expressed. That's what Degas meant when he said that art was false. MP: But why do you choose cinema in particular? BD: I could have easily used painting or literature to express myself, but I think that cinema itself has the capacity to express what is invisible--and this interests me. And, also, cinema is an art of time, of the temporal. Within the perception of existence, time is the most important material of life. Therefore, cinema has a natural capacity to talk about life. MP: How much does it also have to do with movement as opposed to time? BD: The movement inside of the frame, the length of the take is the art of organization, everything is time. When I shoot a take from beginning to end, this is time. The actor who moves; this is time. Therefore, all of cinema is time. The art of mise-en-scene is organizing time. The time of the actor, the time of the action, the time of waiting. MP: You've said that very few filmmakers make real cinema. What's your definition of real cinema? BD: It's understanding that what cinema is--is its methods, its artistry, its possibilities. It's not like all art. It's understanding what art can be and do. It's fundamentally a way of expressing oneself. It's expressing what lies deep within our heart. At the same time, there is a lot of mystery--even in the films that I make. I think the cinema is about mystery. Most of all a spiritual mystery. That's the most secretive, enigmatic, and foreign. Art is made up of the spiritual. Filmmaking Philosophy ANDREA PICARD: The title also implies themes which are universal, and yet your film deals with themes which are profoundly fundamental in a specific, regional way. BD: I believe that the universal is reached and understood by what is the particular. …

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