Another Gondry

I’m at best a novice interviewer. I tackled Michel Gondry via telephone with a bad hangover and a primitive recording device taped to the phone. Gondry had been planning to attend the Edinburgh screening but cancelled because he was tired. An excellent reason — I’d like to be able to pull that one off. So I phoned him and then realized my recorder was full and I didn’t know how to empty it. I also realized it wasn’t going to be able to hear the telephone, but I quickly discovered the speakerphone function which had never been used in ten years… then things went quite well until the phone went dead because I hadn’t realized speakerphone eats up the power. Then I called back and we concluded our chat and it was all very pleasant — Gondry is a smart and affable fellow.

The piece is up at The Notebook and it’s all about COMMUNICATION.

Also, I told him about my Richard Lester project for Criterion because there are some remarkable parallels between Lester and his subject, Noam Chomsky — both are octogenarians from Philadelphia whose fathers were academics — Lester studied clinical psychology while Chomsky went into linguistics. And Lester shot his first short on a Bolex, the same camera Gondry used for his film. He seemed — I won’t say impressed, he’s too French for that — but he said “Really?” And the question mark was audible, which counts for plenty.