Notes on moving image
Book to consult or download for free.
A selection, a collection of notes by Benoît Labourdette on the creation of moving images and on creation in general, gleaned over a period of 30 years, between 1992 and 2022. As many proposals to think the artistic work and the so singular work of the moving image, if we approach it in an artistic way and not in an industrial way.
The title of my book refers to the “Notes sur le cinématographe” of the filmmaker Robert Bresson (Gallimard, Paris, 1975), which is a sincere mine of sharing his singular reflections, supports to develop our own practical thinking of images. For my part, I chose the term “moving image”, because it seems to me adapted to the reality and contemporary stakes of the image and of my creative work. For a long time now, images as an art form have no longer had the cinema as their first screen. In fact, even the “Centre National de la Cinématographie” changed its name in 2009 to become the “Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée”.
Structure of a note:
- Unique note number, which will never be changed.
- Title of the note.
- Year this note was written. The notes are not ordered chronologically. They are numbered as I add them to the text.
- Text of the note (not always present, sometimes it is very short and has only a title).
- Remarks, if any, about the note, added at the time of inclusion in the book, to provide context.
The notes I choose to include in this book are copied as I wrote them at the time, without any modification or “improvement”. That is why I sometimes include contextual elements. This book is always being written, as I add new notes to it over time. Some of the notes may be redundant, which I accept, because they are dated: this allows us to see the paths of thought over the years, which is a subtext sometimes as interesting as the text itself. What one reads oneself, and of oneself, between the notes, on which one projects oneself, is the creative place of the reader, which I wish to fully take care of by the modality of writing this book.
You can download it (for free), it will be a unique edition, dated the day of your download. This book is available in French and English (you can choose the language by clicking on the flag on the top right).
174
To write is not to put one’s thoughts into words, to write is to construct one’s thoughts, it is the very process of thinking.
Orality is also a way to build one’s thought, of course.
The plastic, video, graphic, danced, musical creation, etc., by the symbolization that it allows, is also a process of construction of the thought.
2022
173
Creation is really at the forefront of my life, and I use it in everything I do, in fact.
2022
172
It is by doing that we discover what we are doing. So you have to go on an adventure without knowing. It is the only way to create.
See note 3.
2021
171
My creative work, my singular way of doing it, my regularity, this is my essential work.
Maybe there are not many visitors on my website. But how many visitors are there in a museum for an artist? And then I build in the long tail. Anyway, everything is fine.
2014
170
I have to trust my images, that’s what I do best.
They don’t necessarily need texts, etc., they are actually very strong in themselves. That’s really important, and that L. told me. Because it’s true, and you have to recognize the strength that you have, and not reduce it to something else.
2014
169
The music I made more than ten years ago, that I’m going to unveil today, it’s not “passé” at all.
It has its full and complete value. And then it is linked, it carries, my psychological state of the time, which made me want to hear that at that time. It still has value today, it will still have value tomorrow. So, I can, without any problem, work in a completely diachronic way. I know, moreover, that I will arrange, years from now, rushes that I shot a long time ago.
2013
168
Age doesn’t really matter, because when you’re creating, you’re driven by what you have to do.
And, frankly, the pictures I was doing at 20, the music I was doing at 30, and the movies I’m doing at 40, of course I’ve come a long way, but there’s not that much of a hierarchy. So I have all the respect to have for what people younger than me are doing, because I have to have respect for what I did when I was younger. It’s not a question. And, in the work I’m building, it’s not a question either. Everything has value.
2013
167
In creation, I dare everything.
I have to spend time on it, it’s what gives me energy, and it’s the meaning of my life.
I dance, I speak, I make music, I make pictures. I have the right to do everything, and I allow myself to do everything, because I can bring great things in all the fields, and I have a thought of all the fields. Why not? I have the right to do it !
And in what I do, I have a sure style, I know why I do it. I am not inferior to anyone. The only thing is that I don’t risk enough on the project. That’s what I’m going to unblock now.
See note 30.
2015
166
What I write, even if it seems like nonsense, is a material, and I can do many things with it.
2015
165
My creative work is my real, main work.
Whether I make a living out of it or not, it’s not the important thing. I’ve come to have this maturity. Because what is important is this work, in the world, for me.
2015
164
I know now that creation, like everything else, exists only in the present. The future does not exist. It is now, right now, that I act.
2019
163
Not to restrict myself anymore. To put myself in states of trance, and to let raw, powerful things come out, all that I have in me that is rich to transmit.
To put fewer barriers in my way. To create, more often, moments of trance.
2019
162
Creation is quite linked to diffusion.
The fact that I put things on my website, it invites me to create in such and such a way. But it is also because I wanted to create in such and such a way that I put films on my website. There is an exchange between the two.
2019
161
The fact of creating new things, all the time, as I do, has a very great value.
That was what Agnès Varda did, for example. She didn’t do it much, but she never stopped imagining, dreaming, desiring.
2019
160
When it comes to music, I feel like I suck, that I don’t know the rules, that I should know how to play, that I should know all the technique, etc.
When in fact, I just understood my way of making music: I record things, rushes, as I do with images, as I feel, and whose value is in what is happening in a unique way at the moment I record them. I feel that a magic is possible, and that’s what I work with. Like a photographer taking a snapshot. That’s how I make images, and successfully, because the resulting films convey real things to the audience. For music, it’s the same. I will never be a “musician” in the academic sense of the word, just as I will never be a “director” in the academic sense of the word, and I feel very comfortable with that. I can feel just as comfortable with music. My way is my way, and it’s very valuable, and it allows me to do things that would be impossible to do otherwise.
See note 79.
2014
159
I have an extremely singular way of making cinema, by shooting things only when I feel them, by preparing myself, etc. I feel legitimate, even if I remain in the margins. I feel legitimate, even if I remain in the margins. I know the value of preparing myself to improvise.
2014
158
Thanks to all these books to which I give myself access, I have access to an immense amount of information, which allows me to advance very very quickly in creation, in knowledge and in work.
2020
157
I realize, when I see things much later, how valuable even the films I made in a short time are, because they are marked by the context that gave them birth. And I can elicit that context more often.
2020
156
The fact that C. is a fan of my films can only confirm me in the idea that I must continue to invest in the field of creation.
There are moments of hollow in the creative energy, and it is quite normal, one needs fallow periods. But these moments can be questioning, indeed. I think that nothing should be forced, that’s what I try to apply to myself. Don’t force anything when there are lows, they are necessary, and don’t block anything either when there is too much, let it flow.
To say it like that, with a little distance, it seems obvious, to listen to what is going through us, but it is important to say it, because at the time, we can really feel sad.
2020
155
Produce, all the time, all the time, works of all types.
- Not looking at myself, because it blocks, and it puts me in a position of not being cen<tered on myself, so I feel bad, because I feel judged by others.
- Stop trying to legitimize myself, if only in my own eyes. Produce and make known, without value judgments about the status of what I produce.
- I will be completely overwhelmed by what I produce, and that’s fine.
- I don’t care about the image I give, I don’t care if the people I love are aware of what I create or not, the only important thing is that I am in the present of the creation.
- I make it known, that is to say that from time to time I communicate on it, that’s all.
- I simply don’t care about the look of others, including people I am very close to, people I love and who love me. My creation, which is a very intense and present experience of life, is the heart of my life. My creation is my life, it is not the one, even of the very close people, who have their own space of life. There can be crossings, of course, but it is my space and I don’t have to make them weigh it or ask for their validation. I can ask for looks, advice, though, of course.
2021
154
I feel I am still limiting myself too much.
2021
153
It’s like turning on a faucet, and letting it run, it’s going to run harder and harder, and better and better.
I could have taken the metaphor of “priming the pump”, but the tap we let run is softer, less voluntaristic, and more open and listening to the rightness, I find.
2021
152
The fact that I create a lot of things, it’s not a problem at all, it doesn’t take away the quality of each thing.
I realize this by listening to Max Richter: he does what he feels, he does it a lot, and it’s very good. It’s an abundant work, in which you can circulate, it’s great. He assumes his power of work.
2021
151
The fact that I am a poet and at the same time a theorist, a teacher, etc., is not a problem at all. I have several strings to my bow, that’s very good.
I write here that I “am” a poet, theorist, educator, etc. In reality, I should rather write “I practice poetry”, because my activities are not my being. And, precisely, one of the blocks to creativity lies in this confusion between its existence and its activity. That closes, if one defines oneself by one’s activity, because to open oneself to another activity is to destabilize the foundations of one’s existence, which is violent. So, inevitably, one will resist opening oneself to one’s own creativity. But I left the sentence as it is, because it is significant of my path.
For me, creativity, that is to say the openness to the unexpected, to surprise, is one of the tools to give life, to give it to oneself and to share it with others. This seems to me to be of the utmost importance. This is why what may seem to be the detail of a word (the word “be” misused) has for me a fundamental dimension.
2021
150
When I started to really get back into creating with intensity in 2013, it was the separation from C. that reopened the doors for me.
2021
149
The fact that I do things that can be a little complicated to decode, a little cryptic, is fine.
2021
148
When I feel like doing something, when I feel it, like starting to edit a film, even if I have no idea where it’s going, well, I do it!
And then I stop along the way, when I don’t know what to do. And then I let it rest. And we see what matures.
2021
147
No longer put any limits on my creation.
This recurrence of the question of the limit, to be surpassed in order to be able to create, of a greater and greater openness to be cultivated, in a personal and demanding path, as opposed to a process of social validation, it signals the importance of re-founding one’s own path, every day. It shows that this is not a given. It does not mean closing oneself off to the outside world, but rather functioning on one’s own, fully and completely, which can then be enriched by contact with the outside world. Whereas a path through the other would be impoverished by contact with the outside.
The theme of the limit to be exceeded is also present in note 7, note 80, note 119 and note 125.
2015
146
This “skin deep” that I have, which makes me suffer terribly, well it is also, deep down, an incredible resource that I have to create things, to write films.
2015
145
It’s funny, George Lucas saying that he would prefer to make experimental films freely seen by few people.
And the fact that he thought Star Wars would be the end of his career. In fact, he fully risked himself, in this project, in all sincerity.
2016
144
My life is the work of creation, it is my axis.
Around this axis, many things happen, there is work to earn a living, there are love relationships, there are friendships. But my axis is creation. It is what is stable, what I always continue to build.
2016
143
“In art, not taking the traditional route is dangerous but taking them is fatal.” (Alexandre Gurita)
2016
142
All my artistic work, my notes, my approach, my sensitivity, what comes out of me when I put myself in the right state for it, it has a full value.
I realized it while watching my film « Chaosmos », it is perfect, and I made it with the greatest simplicity, by letting things come. That’s the way it’s good to create, listening to yourself.
2018
141
It’s never too much. If I do a lot of things, it’s because I’m inspired, and that’s very respectable.
2021
139
Using inspiration engines is very important. Do not hesitate to do so.
This sentence may seem a bit mysterious. What is an “inspiration engine”? Have you ever noticed that your ideas come more naturally when you answer someone’s question? Your ideas then often seem to be very well structured, as if by magic. This is because your thinking is based on this question, which allows it to build. It’s like a foundation, stable (you can’t change the other person’s question), on which it’s easier to build than on soft and unstable ground. The “inspiration engine” is to offer oneself a “foundation”. But how, concretely?
It is often said that constraints spark creativity. For example, you can choose a song that you like, that won’t bore you, listen to it over and over again, and decide to use its title as the title of the chapter of the book you’re writing, or the scene of the movie you’re making. It’s quite a constraint, in the sense that it will force you to adapt to it, to shape your ideas around it. Just like when you carve a piece of wood, you have to deal with the knots and constraints of the material, which will lead you to invent much more than if you had full control. This will undoubtedly take your creation to a much richer wherever. And on the other hand, it invites you to throw yourself into the act of creation more quickly, because you are “in response”. And it is by doing that you clarify your ideas.
2021
138
It is not because people, even those close to me, do not understand the creation that I make, that it does not make sense to continue it in my direction.
If I am in contact with my inner movements, listening to what is going on deep inside me, that is what I hold on to. I realize this with I., who did not understand well the poems that I wrote and that I sometimes sent her, and who now receives the meaning of them as a whole.
I have regularly experienced this type of situation, and, always, I perceived with some distance that it had made sense for me to pursue my path in the midst of the misunderstanding of others.
2021
137
To create my films, I set up the conditions, and I let them come.
Sometimes it can take years, sometimes minutes.
2021
136
It is better to finish something that is not perfect than to want to do something perfect and never finish it.
It’s not perfect, well it’s an opportunity to discover things, to think.
2018
135
Creation is like life, it is now, right now. It is not something that we will do tomorrow, that we prepare, it is an action, concrete. There is a thought, but it is deep, rich and alive because it is inscribed in the action.
The beginning of the sentence is identical to the beginning of note 3, written four years later. I leave these recurrences or repetitions, because they tell, by their inscription in time, deeper movements of thought, below the words.
2017
134
Being an artist is not a state, it is a decision of each moment.
I choose to be an artist by the actions I take in the present. But I could have been an artist and not be one anymore, or not have been one and become one. It’s just a matter of the act.
And it is for this reason that each person can be an artist, and produce works of value, as long as he or she simply does it. It has always amazed me, in the workshops that I lead, the great artistic, aesthetic, human value of the works that people for whom creation is not common succeed in producing. This is because the framework I gave them allowed them to act as artists, that is to say, to create, to take risks, to invent. For this to work, this framework must be both demanding and benevolent, which is not so easy to maintain. Indeed, some frameworks do not invite participants to create, but to reproduce, which has nothing to do with it. These settings will not produce artistic gestures. Why not? Because the immense capacity that resides in each person will not have been fully trusted.
2017
133
I need a lot of emptiness to be able to create.
For example, this weekend I decided to stay home, not to go to P.’s birthday party, to empty my mind. People usually try to fill their lives to give them meaning. Well, I, on the contrary, try to empty it to give it meaning. That’s how things are born.
2017
132
Work in places that are important to you.
In the film “A wild honest man”, by Maria Pinto, Jean-Jacques Pauvert says at one point that Sade knew, at one point in his life, that what he was doing was very important. I know that what I do is important, well, I know that it is something, that I must hold on to, out of all power. It’s not about social sycophancy to exist as an artist, it’s just about working in the places that are important to you, and therefore ultimately important to others. It’s as simple as that, and the work too is, not to protect oneself, but to pursue the quest for freedom.
2014
131
Not to restrict myself anymore. Make films, show them. Never force myself, do what I feel.
2013
130
To make films without projecting stakes and expectations of “earning a living” or whatever. To give them a place.
To make DVDs of my films, and to put them on sale on the site. Not to “believe” that it will be a totality. It’s my deep desire to share something with others. And I have to give a place to this desire. So I must have no other expectation than to share.
I wrote these words in January 2010, and at a time when video streaming on the web did not yet have the legitimacy it has acquired a few years later. The DVD was still the center of “legitimate” distribution. And I had not yet built my personal website, which I launched three years later, in May 2013. I had already put some films on streaming on the website of the company I co-owned at the time, Quidam production. But my positioning of artistic freedom was not yet clear, because this website was above all a showcase. This image issue did not yet allow me the assumed freedom that I later claimed in my personal website.
However, my intentions of simple and free sharing, without any “institutional” stake, were clearly already there. And even much earlier, in 1984, before the Web existed, I had, as a teenager, already created a Minitel server, on which people could connect for free and find poems, games, drawings... Then, from 1987, I started to organize regular screenings of short films, in which I showed different types of films (fiction, experimental, documentary...) without any value judgment on their technique of realization (whereas at the time, if one did not shoot in 35mm for example, which was extremely expensive, one was judged as “non-professional”). Among the films that I projected, there were also my own, and I encouraged the creation of themes that I gave in advance.
In short, this question of demystified sharing has always been in my preoccupation, both for my own productions and for those of others.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
2010
129
I have to make a singular cinema, with my means.
It is my greatest amibition. Cf. Varda or Rohmer. It is not to want to make “commercial” cinema, which fits into a flow, it is not to be a businessman, it is to be an artist, to propose and dig a universe, in which I lead people to discover. This is precisely what I do. As a result, my wealth is the freedom that I conquer to be free to make the films that I want and to propose them. To work: to go outside!
2010
128
I absolutely have to create.
It is my life, and it is what gives me balance. This question of how to be in balance: for me, it is in creation, in the invention and discovery of forms.
2015
127
Creation is more and more at the center of my life, it’s great, it’s the life I’ve always wanted to have, to keep cultivating.
2021
126
It’s about inventing forms, being surprised yourself, so it’s an adventure, with lots of unexpected things!
2021
125
I “lost time”, it’s true, because I was under the influence for a long, long time. But what counts is what I do today. And if today I feel like creating all the time, well, let me not limit myself anymore, never again!
2020
124
At the beginning I don’t dare to draw, I don’t dare to make music, because I judge myself, I find that what I do is totally null compared to others who have more abilities.
Hergé drew badly, but he worked, he did things, and so there you have it, he has his style, because he had trouble. Stromae doesn’t know how to make music well, so he did his best, with his background. That’s it, don’t be a prisoner of codes. There are artists, musicians for example, who take courses for years to become virtuosos. Ok, fine, it’s their way and it’s respectable, it’s their way to make art, by passing through the mastery. But there are many other ways to make art.
2018
123
No matter how old you are, you can be very productive, or not.
I am quite productive. Richard Texier is much more productive. He produces a lot, that’s what he does. It’s a real “training”, it’s like doing sports, except that it’s doing creation.
2017
122
Making space, cleaning, tidying, emptying... these are the actions that produce the favorable context in which works of art can be born, in which creation can emerge in a fully natural way.
As a result, the moments when I create can seem very short, and it destabilizes me that it is so fast, I have the impression that I am doing anything. But in fact not at all, I do what the space that I have patiently built, the conditions that I have gathered, and which, as a result, allow something important to happen.
This is what Malcolm Gladwell calls the power of context (in his book The Tipping Point, Les Editions Transcontinental, Paris, 2003).
2017
121
“This activity of the artist, the model-of-time of man that ultimately, inexorably but gently, animates us all.”
Quote from Stan Brakhage (1933-2003).
1992
120
“I try to make art, but in film. It has to be pure.”
Quote from Stan Brakhage (1933-2003).
In my journal entries, there are quotes from other people who have meant something to me. Echoes between thoughts as well as filiations, which help to affirm one’s family of thought. So, it is important for me to integrate some of them in these lines. “From fathers to peers”, as Emmanuel Vergès would say.
1992
118
I often like the more spontaneous things much more than the prepared ones.
For example, the album “Sheller en solitaire”, where he is alone at the piano singing, is much better than the same songs recorded in studio, with all the orchestrations, which must have required infinitely more production time.
I also think of Keith Jarrett’s “The Köln Concert”, this piano improvisation which we are very lucky to have recorded.
2020
117
“An artist must be complete. A painter, if he is only a painter, is dead. I do scultpure, painting, music.”
Chomo (1907-1999) quotes.
- “We are not on the earth to make money, eat and have sex. We are on the earth to evolve.”
- “Before, we mimicked, in art, the truth (reality). Now, we have understood, I have understood that we can represent dreams. I represent dreams.”
- “One should not make intellectual, conceptual art. You have to be guided by the material.”
- “You have to be spontaneous.”
- “The important thing is evolution. The rest exists, but is secondary. In evolution, one is alone, always.”
- “In the morning, it’s like a battery that recharges in your head. And it gives you ideas for the whole day.”
You shouldn’t deny yourself other art forms just because there are specialists. You have to be an artist: you have to create, to evolve.
No prohibitions, no reluctance to do things that are not allowed.
You have to represent spontaneous desires.
The social aspect is not important. What counts above all is the evolution (artistic, intellectual, etc.).
One must not let oneself be influenced by the accepted norms. You have to go beyond them. You have to do what you want, without limits.
You have to create to the maximum, to evolve to the maximum. You only have one life.
You have to be an artist.
It is interesting for me to see that my dynamic at age 22 was exactly the same as my dynamic at age 53, 30 years later. I have moved on in my practice, in my inscription in my life, in which I have sometimes made great detours, but, I am still the same person, who has just grown, opened his eyes and more and more assumed his ideas in his practice. My revolt is intact and more powerful.
1992
116
I realize in my work that since 2013, namely since the separation from C., I am infinitely more creative than before.
It’s night and day, without measure. Because I am in my life, and I have full right to it.
2018
115
The meaning of my life is creation. It is not possessions to make me feel good, it is creation to make me feel good.
2018
114
To create I need to be alone and free, fully.
2018
113
J., this morning, tells me that it is new for her, that there is creation everywhere in my home.
It’s true, my life is that, it’s creation, and I will never deviate from that again. Always creating, producing, sharing, at all times. It encourages me to know myself better, to know that my life is this, creation, every day, like a breath.
2018
112
Not to put myself under any obligation to finish things: simply to create. And then, as time goes by, it builds up, without voluntarism, with a simple opening.
2018
111
I have my poetry to build, it has value as such, fully.
2018
110
To create is to do what others dare not do.
2019
109
Cinema is not the art of the image.
It is the art of time, of movement, of emotion, of rhythm, of life, of everything we want, of the image among others. It is to reduce it terribly to say that it is the art of the image.
1992
108
It is a film that denies the cinema by not disturbing anyone.
1994
107
“A work of art is the proposal of a world.”
Quote from Jean-Claude Collot (1947).
1994
106
I let myself be penetrated by the period.
The formulation is not very happy, but the artist in deep echo to his time, it is his social role, I believe, which is played in his interior listening, in his capacity to let himself cross, to listen to the human stakes which operate in the world. An artist is engaged.
2019
105
“I hate institutionalized boredom.”
Quote from Diden Oumer (1941-2017).
1994
104
Voiceover.
No longer say the interiority of the characters, but say images. In this way, the voice-over will show other images and will really enlarge the space (like superimpositions). When you tell the psychology of the characters, you don’t enlarge the space, you only deepen it.
In 2009, fifteen years later, I started making films with the instruction “Film what you see through a window in your home, and tell a significant memory” to thousands of people over the years. The principle has been confirmed. In 2020, the feature film « Remember here by the window » and the platform “By my window” resulted.
1994
103
To become aware of the priceless value of the moment.
1994
102
The mechanical reproduction processes (of image and sound) make us deceive ourselves. As they exist and are part of life, it makes us believe that in life too it is possible to repeat, to repeat past intense moments, and this without damaging them.
1993
101
We are not on the stage to be natural. The stage is a moment of ceremony.
1994
100
Go, to risk myself, try what I feel even if I don’t know where I am going, to go on an adventure.
2019
99
My films are not tied to any framework, they are completely free. It is thus quite normal, because of their freedom, that they do not circulate more than that in the established frames.
2019
98
I’m starting to feel legitimate as an artist myself.
It is interesting to see that at the age of 46, when I had already been making films for more than 25 years, which no one had ever questioned, I was still questioning, in depth, my personal legitimacy. The representation of oneself is very fragile, and probably never fully “stable”. It seems useful to me to be aware that one is not alone with this type of questioning, which can come back at regular intervals, whatever one’s age and the external image one sends back. We always need to find new bits of self-confidence outside ourselves. By remaining attentive not to “fall in dependence” of the looks of the others.
2016
97
It was good, yesterday, to feel that the students preferred that I play my films rather than another programming. The pleasure of discovering a universe.
Our own productions are much more enriching for others than we think.
2016
96
My continuum.
I realize, reading the article about me in « Droguists », that there is a continuity of meaning between « Fatigue » and the films that I do today, that I am always leaning on my sensations.
2016
95
My work is not at all social, it is a work of writing, and therefore in essence anti-social.
It is, on the other hand, a very concrete, very real and generous work (as M. confirmed to me, really) that only I do. It is exceptional (as everyone is exceptional, but I am not less than the others).
L. recognized, immediately, the value of this work. I do a lot of things, a great quantity of works. Yes, it’s because I work a lot, and that’s very good. I am not at all ashamed of my autonomy, of my choice, absolutely free, of creation. That’s what L. envies me, while I don’t feel recognized as an artist by her. And yet I am. But I am in humility, and it is important. She also works with people of great value, and very known, that is to say in inscription in an environment. Whereas I remain completely “maverick”. She envies me, because she finds that my approach has a real political sense, and I envy her because I find that her work has a real sense of encounter with the public. We are both right, in both directions.
Meetings are always an opportunity to confront one’s universe, one’s way of doing things, with someone else’s way of doing things. It is always enriching. Who is going to be more spontaneous than oneself, who is going to be freer than oneself, who is going to be more socially registered, or more marginal... we feed each other, as long as we manage not to establish a hierarchy.
2013
94
The people who want to help you, they don’t help you, because they have their own representations.
2013
93
I don’t make films to please anyone, I make the films I have to make, I make the films I have to give to the world.
Because I have things, very important things, to say, to put into shape, that nobody else but me can put into shape.
Strong affirmation, to strengthen oneself in one’s choices and risk-taking, can from time to time help to move forward, even if it is a bit fixed.
2013
92
I don’t have to defend myself from what I create, I just have to give it to the world.
Sometimes we need to devalue what we have created, to apologize for having done it, it’s the only way we find to dare to disclose it. So just think about cutting out that excuse, it will be easier and healthier. Cf. note 20.
2013
91
There are people who think what I do is great. I have to rely on those people.
At times, we may need to lean on a crutch, to reassure ourselves, to give us confidence. This can help in moments of discouragement. What becomes problematic is if the crutch becomes permanently necessary, because it then becomes a dependency, which then totally blocks creation, i.e. risk taking.
It is a bit like during a fast, if you have a moment of weakness, half a spoonful of honey allows you to overcome the difficult moment. On the other hand, if we take honey every fifteen minutes, then we are not fasting anymore!
2013
90
Being an artist means accepting not to be understood, accepting to be rejected, maybe even hated, accepting to be afraid, very afraid even, to some.
Accepting that maybe some people will never want to talk to us again. Accepting to be afraid and to be rejected, because we are accomplishing a “mission”, of which nobody, not even ourselves, know the goal. This is not seeking to be loved at all! Seeking to be loved totally blocks creativity.
At that time I was on the path of unveiling, so that creation would be an opening towards a truth. At the time, I was also very close to L., who, through creation, was exhausted in her search for recognition from others, and succeeded quite well, because she had an important social legitimacy as an artist. I was learning to position myself in relation to her way of doing things, which impressed me a little.
This note is in dialogue with Note 80 on the vital risk that the act of creation represents.
2013
89
I don’t make films to prove something to someone. I make films, the films that feel right, the films that come to me.
And I send links to certain movies to certain people, if I think it makes sense. I don’t know exactly why. In any case, what I have to overcome is the need for recognition. Here, S. is watching the film. Okay, I made this film, it’s not for her that I made it, it’s because I had to make this film. And then I thought it made sense to send it to her, and I did. She thinks what she wants about it. That’s not what’s important. What’s important is that I did it, and that I circulated it, and then what anyone thinks of it is up to them, because no one has power over anyone. I didn’t send it to S. to seek his approval, I sent it to him because that’s what I had to do. I don’t expect anything, either, from her.
These words thrown on the digital paper were like a mantra, to brave my fear of having sent the link to the film "Here lived the filmmaker Boris Lehman to S., a well-known personality. This is one of the things writing can be useful for: to help us dare, or to assume to have dared.
2013
88
I just watched my movie “The Break”, and I think it’s really good. At the time, I didn’t realize it, I just did it.
In fact, this film is going somewhere.
2013
87
My pleasure in building tools is not just an escape.
2011
86
You have to go far.
You have to put yourself in danger in the creation of art. This does not mean being obscene or making a fool of yourself. But to go deeper, to dig. It is essential. We don’t do this to be nice, but to make things happen.
I was still in an imperative attitude (“we must”), that is to say an intellectual understanding of the issues, but not yet fully embodied and lived. It is by doing that, little by little, our intentions become part of our practices. It is a slow work on ourselves.
2010
85
When I edit my films, I am unable to watch them in their entirety, it blocks.
Like an impossibility to put the final touch. So I show the film without having seen it myself. I remain in confusion with the object. For « Unaware actors » yesterday, I was more serene, because, for the first time I think, I watched the whole film, I put myself in the position of spectator. And I still want to watch it, to improve it.
Cf. Pippo Delbono, who watched his film “La Paura” in its entirety, without fast-forwarding, dozens of times. This is the work.
I have long since overcome this blockage. I learned a lot by accompanying Pippo Delbono in the editing of his film “La Paura”, in 2009-2010. Now I watch my films in their entirety many times. Sometimes I let the film rest for a long time before watching it again, in its entirety. At the end of these many viewings, I sometimes change only a detail, which may seem tiny. After that, I feel the accuracy, I know that the film is finished. The film is like a body, that I must perceive in my body, via my sensations, in a holistic way (i.e. in its totality).
2010
84
The fact that one goes quickly to create something, and that afterwards it remains... the fact that all the elaboration around, before and after, was much longer than the moment of creation itself... it is completely normal.
2013
83
Madness.
I think I will go more and more towards a work on madness, it is a place where I can act. And I realize, with the film « Around », that proposing madness, that is to say “holes” in the meaning, allows to give to the spectator a much more important place, where he can find himself, and elaborate strong things for him (cf. the student of Montpellier, who had supported me knowing this imaginary person).
2013
82
It’s not necessarily what took the longest to make that has the most artistic value.
Often I realize, with what I have people do, that they don’t realize themselves the value of what they have done. And yet it has great value, but it’s beyond them. Well for me it’s the same, there are things that I do, that require little effort, that have great value. Like « Animated CInema » movies.
What will make the difference is the value you give to the object produced, more than the object itself.
2017
81
I know that in everyone there is a creative spark, and I work to awaken that in people.
Does this mean that, since everyone has this spark, what I create has no value, since everyone else can do the same? Well no, I do it, and other people do it, and it has an immense value. It is because I create that I am able to transmit it to others. So that’s the basis of my work, for me and for others.
2017
80
Making gestures, as C. said. This is what is strong and powerful: the trace of the gesture. Deeply human.
To give myself no limits to creation. To let myself be carried by what inspires me, by my intuition, to take the risk. To move forward in a courageous way, to take risks. This is the heart of what creation is all about. To risk the gesture.
The repetition of words such as “risk” or “courage”, can almost make one smile about the creation of filmic or artistic objects. They can even seem to be deviated from their meaning, as if in a clumsy emphasis. But no. When one expresses oneself through the making of an object outside oneself, what one experiences, if one dares to do so, is a feeling of almost vital risk. From the outside it seems easy, but from the inside it is almost a question of life and death. It seems important to me to take the measure of it.
The openness to self-expression, so difficult, almost impossible often, is nevertheless a source of life and fulfillment. To recognize this immense difficulty, to accompany it, to take care of it with delicacy, for oneself and for the others, it is a citizen responsibility, in my opinion.
The theme of the limit to be exceeded is also present in note 7, note 119, note 125 and note 147.
2020
79
I’m the one who authorizes myself to create and distribute, I don’t ask anyone, I take the risk.
This issue of “authorization to oneself” recurs in my notes. It is a sign that the impediment linked to the question of legitimacy is an evil that always returns. I see it in myself as much as in others. So working on “re-authorizing” yourself regularly is like a regular hygiene to have. It’s never a given.
If you think twice about it, it’s actually quite normal, because if you are in a creative gesture, it produces something new, something unknown. Something for which there is no criterion to judge. Thus, it is necessarily at first sight not legitimate in our own eyes.
Once you free your mind about a concept of Harmony and of music being correct, you can do whatever you want.
So nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do.Interview with Giorgio Moroder in the song “Giorgio by Moroder” (Daft Punk, Random Access Memories, 2013).
2020
78
Do not hesitate to build narratives, based on images already shot.
I have the right to systematize the principle a bit. Of course, there have been the few explicit shorts, where you do it as a game, which is anecdotal, like the one where the director tells people what to do.
But what is recurrent, in almost all the films, is to write the script before making the images. It’s an almost systematic principle. We accept that the majority of films are made on this principle, without questioning. As if this method really allowed to treat all possible subjects.
What I do is to take the opposite principle: I start from images made beforehand, which exist through a deep encounter with the world, then I build a narrative from that, without pretending, moreover, that it is a plated narrative (just as we know that the actors in a fiction are only actors, that it is not reality, and moreover, on the contrary, this distancing allows us to project ourselves more easily). I can make many films on this principle. It’s a way of making cinema as one makes sculpture from a block of wood in which we will find things that will catch us, and around which we will build.
It’s a real work to proceed like that. It’s very intrinsic. It’s like painting with what you have, it can give the strongest and truest things.
2017
77
X. said the other day that he thought I was doing a lot with very little.
It’s true, it’s my way, it’s my vision, it’s my uniqueness, and it’s what I can.
2017
76
I know the mystery of creation and the listening that is needed to make sense of the unspeakable.
This is what will be very, very strong in terms of creation, not explanatory things. That’s what I do by creating material, and then arranging it according to the inspiration, which is fed by a lot of unconsciousness.
2019
75
You can be “successful” or not, that’s not what’s important.
Because you can have it and lose it, which is very destabilizing. If you know where you are, and you work, consistently, regardless of social recognition, then you really create something.
2015
74
Risk everything.
Create, do it concretely, without waiting for I don’t know what. Life is too fragile, too precious.
2015
73
The secret of creation is to let it come, without trying to control it.
And that’s when things come out of the unconscious and are exciting. It is amazing. You have to let go, let it go, that is to say, do nothing more. And that’s where it happens. It is very paradoxical. It is this letting go that we must succeed in doing.
This is how we invent. By discovering, by taking risks, by going beyond the framework, by daring to do new things.
2017
72
The fact that I work quickly, that things are placed very quickly in space and time, is not a sign that something is wrong in terms of the “quality” of my work. It’s that I’m bringing together a lot of things, deep things, that have been there for a long time.
2015
71
What makes a creative project good is the listening that takes place between people, the special relationship that is established in the group, the trust, the benevolence, the belief in the other. I know how to do that.
L., on the other hand, is in much more trouble, using the legitimacy of her manager to squeeze people like lemons, using everyone’s ego.
2016
70
My workshop, it is in movement, it is my working space, it should not be frozen.
It is extremely important. I photograph all the works there, I keep track of what happened there, but I don’t leave things there, I leave that space empty, fallow, free. I don’t have anything to prove, nor to show to someone who would pass by. I have my living work going on there. The transformation is permanent.
When I moved to M., I was in the same type of work/life arrangement. And then I let myself be pushed aside, for more than twenty years. But this is what I am all about.
2017
69
Putting things in order and making them public takes time, but it’s important, because it’s what gives existence.
If it stays in the bottom of my computer, I might as well say that it doesn’t exist, at all. And it will never exist, that’s one of the natures of digital.
2017
68
When you don’t know where you’re going, when you’re searching, when you’re questioning yourself, when you’re having doubts, when you’re having a lot of problems, well, that’s when you’re working well.
Doubt is not a bad thing. It is a sign that you are not in your “comfort zone”, which is a very good sign.
2018
67
The fact that I work on the encounter, fortuitous, if you will, it really, really makes sense.
I take the freedom and the risk. And when encounters take place, it is a real of real existence that emerges, just as gametes that meet to give life to a being, it is chance that makes them meet and combine, and it is this chance, linked to all the meaning that precedes it, that makes something unique, life itself.
2019
66
I have a lot of doubts about what I do. That’s one of the reasons why it can be interesting.
2017
65
Creating art is not a profession, it is a passion.
You can do X or Y job and create on top of that, it’s 100% legitimate. Kafka was an insurance agent, etc. I realize this with the films I make for people: some of these films are great, of immense richness for me as a spectator, and yet it is not their profession.
We are polluted by the question of the professionalization of the act of creation so that it can have a value in our eyes. It is all the more ridiculous today (since more than fifteen years) where thanks to the Internet everyone has the power to make public what he does, and where the “success” (what is success anyway? Is it only quantitative?), the number of views, is no longer reserved to the only professionals but potentially to everyone.
The fact of being professional or not (i.e. to earn a living with one’s creative acts) is basically an individual choice, which is not related to the value of the produced works. Writers, for example, are not a profession. The vast majority of writers have other jobs that allow them to earn a living (often, writers are teachers), which gives them the freedom to write what they want. There is no negative judgment of those who do not seek a living from their writing. In fact, most of them don’t want to, because their professional life can feed their writing. To make writing their sole occupation would bring constraints that could affect the desire to write itself. Indeed, it is a space of freedom, for them, and therefore for the reader afterwards; professionalization would take away this freedom for both.
In the field of cinema, there is not as much freedom in the commonly accepted representations: if one does not become a professional, it is because one is not “good”, in short. This is clearly seen in the criteria for financial aid organized by the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée or other bodies: in order to be eligible, one’s previous productions must have been legitimized by certain specific festivals, for example (“rank A”, “rank B” festivals, etc.). The stake of these devices is thus not the construction of an opening to the creation, but of the constitution and the solidification of a corporation, which undoubtedly needs these devices of reassurance because it feels fragile. Why not, it has its utility.
What I just think is a pity is that this idea of “professionalization”, which is too central to the personal stakes of people who make animated images, is going to block them themselves: they don’t allow themselves to make films that are not “financed” for example. This system of representations does not allow them to give a symbolic value to other ways of doing things than the space within which they can consider themselves as “professionals”. These other productions are less “serious”.
Of course, one could object that if they only made films without a budget and without being paid, they would block themselves in another way in their development. On the contrary, I think that they would maintain a dynamic that, by “indirect economic model”, would open more doors in the professional field. Many people do it, moreover, who finance on their own funds productions diffused on Internet, to constitute a “social capital” on which they lean in order to build projects with third party financing.
Yes, the reality is complex, I think it is useful to embrace this complexity. Because I see around me too many people blocked in their creative process by this imaginary about the “professional”.
2021
64
What matters is not the extraordinary image, what counts is what I tell with the image, even if it is a simple image.
And yet, the image can be what inspires the subject of the film. But this image is not there for itself, it is the trace of an encounter. There are all kinds of traces, of course: traces of an aesthetic encounter, of a sensitive encounter, or intellectual, political, amorous... Of course, the image trace of an aesthetic encounter will perhaps be more aesthetic than the image trace of a political encounter, but not necessarily.
Beware of wanting to “invest” too much in the image as such (if we separate it from its entanglement with the encounter that gave it existence). We risk, in wanting to make it too “extra-ordinary” to add value to it in the eyes of those who will look at it (which is an entirely praiseworthy intention, by the way), to empty it, without realizing it, of its essential value: the value of the image as a trace of a real encounter (its ontology, in philosophical terms). Its unspeakable power is there, linked to its specific nature as an image.
This has a lot of impact on the methods of shooting images, in teams for example: what do we privilege in the work? The aestheticism of a production, or the investment in the deepening of the experience of the moment of production, of which the image will be the trace? This happens in the present, in the tiny choices of each moment.
2019
63
I don’t restrict my creation because things seem easy to me.
If they look easy to me, it’s because I’m good at making them. So I’m going for it, not hesitating, at all!
The representation that work must be a suffering in order to have value is inscribed in Western education and deeply influences our relationship to ourselves. Creation, which is freedom, can therefore only exist by emancipating itself from this coercive culture.
2017
62
My creation is modest, for a small public, but it exists, I take care of it, I emphasize it, in the course of time, in its simplicity, in its freedom.
I don’t expect anything from anyone, I act, in all simplicity. For a confidential audience, yes, but a real, existing audience, people, my “friends”, if you will.
One could find that there is a “lack of ambition” to be satisfied with a modest creation (i.e. with small financial investments for production and diffusion). The real deep question, it seems to me, is why do we create? To make money? To share? To build a place in a social environment? Out of simple generosity? Out of ego? Obviously, there are a thousand reasons! And the reasons can be combined and vary over time for the same person. In my opinion, there is no value judgement to be made on the reason or reasons of each person to create. Big budget" films are not necessarily more interesting to me than experimental films made by one person in his kitchen.
It’s a bit like postulating a “qualitative” hierarchy between a huge oil painting that was made by a team during several months, and a charcoal drawing made in ten seconds by a single person. The two have completely different interests. Maybe the charcoal drawing will touch me and enrich me much more than the big painting, for example. Basically, everyone has their own type of language. What seems to me to be most important is to feel comfortable in one’s own reality, and to discover that everything is possible in it.
2019
61
I am legitimate in everything I do.
Some things please, some things don’t, some things are interesting, some things are not... but I am in creative gestures, in my life, and that is essential. I don’t have to apologize for it.
We are our first and probably most severe judge. If someone does not appreciate what we do, it is not so much their negative judgment that will affect us and possibly block us for the future, but the way we will use it to support our “inner judge”.
The same goes for praise: the way in which we instrumentalize positive judgments within our system of “personal injustice” is not so much more profitable, because positive judgments tend to lead us towards new creations that will try to reproduce the same types of positive judgments in the audience. And in doing so we risk impoverishing our approach to exploration, being tempted to repeat the “recipes” that have “worked”. Thus, we no longer take the risk of looking for new things (at least for us), for which it is by definition impossible to know what the reception will be.
So, to get attached to judgments, positive or negative, whether they are ours or those of others, is always a bad way for creation. Besides, the judgment of creations in the social space is extremely fluctuating.
One might then say, “With this kind of principle, we do anything anyhow!” No, because if you listen to yourself and the object, if you work, if you go deeper, then you refine, you feel what is right, even if it is unexpected and destabilizing, you adapt to the changing reality, like a craftsman on his craft. This requires, above all, no judgment, but rather a great openness, on all levels, a real intimate attention. It is difficult!
2019
60
The very violent return of P.
About the film « Sands Hotel »?lang=en.I could take it the wrong way, because he is extremely vindictive towards me, and I can see that it is his fantasies that are talking. But, but, he is sincere, honest with himself, with who he is, and I find that very beautiful.
2016
59
I am reconnecting to the dynamics of creation.
Creation is not in continuous flow, it is natural that there are moments of “fallow”. It is really constructive to take the time to let your land be fertilized. Then the plants will magically flourish. Rather than never giving your land a break, because you want it to produce continuously. However, after a “fast” of creation, there is a rhythm to resume. Just as after one has left one’s field fallow, one must make the effort to plow it so that the seeds can be planted, then sow and water.
2016
58
Do not make a big deal out of the act of creation.
This act, it is essential to my life, and it is my job. So, living it, in the everyday, in the work of production, and in the work of making it public. I am not too young for this as I have long believed. I can be sure of myself, of my gesture, of my choice to create, I don’t have to look for legitimacy in it, but I have to look for a meaning, a real meaning. This is the work. So, not to stop, at all, at the judgment of others, real or supposed. That is to say, to go beyond the expectation of the father’s adoration.
2013
57
Writing time.
I have to set aside some real time to write, or at least give myself the possibility to take it, because it takes time, anyway, and it’s very important.
“Time” is one of the questions that often comes back to me, as it does to many other people: “to take the time”, “I don’t have the time”, “if I had the time”, etc.
To “succeed” in finding the time to write, to create, to meet oneself, whatever the modality, is in fact an injunction that one gives to oneself. We try to impose it on ourselves from the outside. This is noticeable in the very form of the sentence: “I must reserve some real time for myself...”. I have to admit that this feeling of not enough time, of not being able to find the time, I did not solve it at all after having formulated this injunction to myself.
Because the real energy comes from within, from the source deep inside. The external acts must rather aim at maintaining the life of this source, by the care of oneself. If we take care of it, then the source will spring up by itself, will even splash us. We will no longer be there trying in vain to pump it, it will be overabundant and we will only have to work at accepting its surprising spurts, and to collect them as best we can.
2013
56
The risk.
For me, the film « Here lived the filmmaker Boris Lehman » was a big risk (as well as the two small films with L.). And I do, really. But, as time goes on for me, I realize that these are just good films. The artist has to take a chance so that there’s something that’s just a little bit interesting. But they’re not particularly intrusive films either, really.
2013
55
As time passes, I see more and more the value of the things I have done in the past.
It is almost impossible to perceive, in the moment, the value of what you are doing. One can only feel that one should do it this way, and do one’s best. Is it a finished job or a work in progress? Is it to be kept to oneself or to be disclosed? Impossible to say at the time. Time, or someone else, will tell.
I have always been amazed that people, when they are supervised to create a work (audiovisual, pictorial, musical, literary...) can be very talented, and yet not perpetuate the application of their talents. The few creations they have made, in educational settings for example, remain their only artistic productions, sometimes with great value, in their eyes and in the eyes of others. These works sometimes took them only a few minutes to realize, in a punctual framework, and yet are full of a real importance, for all their life.
If you feel, deep down, the desire to “do more”, perhaps you can give yourself, as in a game, a framework to do: a drawing in 1 minute, a photo in 3 minutes, a poem in 5 minutes, for example. Then, once it’s done, don’t throw the object you’ve created in the garbage, put it away somewhere. And let time do its work.
2019
54
When I feel within myself that the “creative push” is there, I have to take it as a blessing and listen to it, fully.
2019
53
Creation is part of my daily life, as well as reading and publishing on my website.
It’s part of my breathing, which gives life to all things, including administrative things. In fact, more than giving life, creation gives meaning, so if there is meaning, that is to say code, the code generates life.
2020
52
Creation is free.
She does it when she decides, at night, during the day, anywhere! And she does as she wants, she does not respect any rule, that is her main quality, openness.
2020
51
Creation comes from emptiness.
I need to make emptiness in my life, to have real empty moments, in hollow, so that creation can be born. It comes from emptiness, always.
2020
50
My way of creating, spontaneous, intuitive, produces in people’s minds many things, which belong to them.
My job is to make these openings to the creativity of each spectator.
2018
49
It is very important, and very legitimate, on my part, to create. And to devote time to it.
2014
48
The fact of being limited by time and then to make a lot of different encounters, to go to a lot of places, that’s what arouses my creation, a lot.
2020
47
I have always followed my path, next to the social space of “official” artists.
This is my path, I have never stopped creating, even if I have been invested as an artist in the social space more rarely than others. That is not what is important. What is important is that I create, that I “accomplish my mission”, that what I do exists in the eyes of others. I have my own way. That’s fine. Van Gogh never sold a painting, he lived in pain. I can live with less suffering, I think. And do what I have to do, as he did what he had to do. I am not less legitimate to create than those who were successful one day, and who continue. Each one has his own rhythm, each one has his own path. Mine is rather solitary and discreet. And why not?
2014
46
Not everyone can like what I do, and that’s okay.
2019
45
Everyone is talented, I realize that all the time when I get people to do things.
What makes the difference between being talented and doing creative work is the fact of going to the end of things, producing, sharing.
2019
44
Creation is the essence of my life, it is what infuses every moment of my life.
2017
43
In fact, I’m an inventor. I don’t spend hours applying a recipe, I invent a recipe, a way of doing things. And then I invent another one.
In my work, it’s the same, I invent methods and tools. And this produces things, by themselves, almost. So I invent, and the works are the traces of these inventions.
2017
42
The “success”, the “place in an business”: it doesn’t matter.
What is important is that what I do comes to the eyes of others. Then, what they do with it is up to them.
2017
41
“Capture the echo”.
2017
40
I do it my way, that’s what’s good. I’ve always done it my way, and there’s no better way than mine, for me.
2016
39
And, really, no longer forbid me any medium, any form of art.
2016
38
Give value back to my personal creation time.
2016
37
To debate, it is a beautiful word, a worthy fight.
2015
36
Just because I do something quickly doesn’t mean it’s worthless.
On the contrary. Cf. Picasso. Cf. calligraphy. So don’t be ashamed at all to have made an album in half an hour on the train.
This does not mean that everything has a similar value. I am the judge of that. And to judge that, often, you have to let it rest. In the moment it is extremely difficult to judge whether what one has just done is destined to be shared or to remain hidden. Sometimes you can do it, sometimes it can take years for the authorization to come. For example, for the film « Remember here by the window », it took 7 years of rest. And when it became public, following a suggestion of a friend who had seen it 7 years earlier, it had a huge effect, because, seen by people, it provoked the creation of the platform "By my window, which was a precious creation space for many people.
2021
35
There is always room for new creations, for innovation.
2021
34
My personal artistic creations are very intimate objects, which I share, but which I do not wish to make too much publicity.
Why not, but it’s still very intimate, so I think it’s good if it exists in an intimate way too.
2021
33
Do whatever I want, in total freedom! Let go of my fears.
2021
32
You have to do to think.
Cf. the architects who need to draw by hand to exercise their thinking.
2018
31
We create in our own way.
We do what is easy for us to do.
2018
30
Dare, dare, dare...
Why repeat what may seem to be common sense and almost an evidence? Because the risk that we take (that I personally take, perhaps it does not apply to everyone) by creating something, this adventure in which we launch ourselves, of which we do not know the outcome, goes against the normative education that most of us have received, and this risk is major. For me, to dare is to take a risk that is almost a risk of life and death: I am afraid that my life will be at stake if I dare and if I disturb the established order. And yet it is essential so that the creation can eventually present an interest for a spectator. If one has not dared, it is certain that it will not present any.
In cinema in particular, the pre-eminence of the script that precedes the films is not only a tool for the construction of the films. It is in a factual way, of course. But in a symbolic way, the script is most often used as a way to reassure the psycho-social space; it is a screen behind which everyone hides, which turns against the risk inherent in creation, which thus cancels the meaning of the creation in progress, which imprisons, which prevents from daring. We notice it in so many films! (not all, fortunately)
To dare, I repeat, is to take all the risks. Anything that aims to reduce the risks is contrary to the creative process. So, yes: dare, dare, dare!
See note 167.
2019
29
Every little thing, no matter how lame and pointless it may seem to me, actually changes everything, absolutely everything.
2019
28
Not to restrict myself anymore. To put myself in states of trance, and to let raw, powerful things come out, all that I have in me that is ultra rich to transmit.
Putting up fewer barriers. Create, more often, moments of trance.
2019
27
26
If things come, in a natural way, if creation “flows” from me, with speed, I must not hold it back, I must let it flow, I must trust, I must not judge anything, I must simply feel the rightness of it all, and I must welcome, with joy, this gift that is given to me.
And if it doesn’t come anymore, I don’t force anything. I let it rest. But when it comes, I must not block anything.
It’s almost common sense, so why say it again? Because at the time, many obstacles, the most legitimate ones, always present themselves to us. As creation is an experience of freedom, it may not seem legitimate to us. Often, we can even say to ourselves that another creation would be more “useful” to do than the one we are currently doing. Take the measure of the fragility, the extreme delicacy of the moment of creation. Even just after having created something, we often feel that it was not worth the time we spent on it. It is much later that it becomes valuable. Cf. note 55.
2018
25
Everyone is an artist, really.
Only, some assume it more than others and choose to use their creation in the exchange with others. This is the only difference, there is no hierarchy, there is a social choice, to assume or not.
2018
24
Bach composed an incredible number of pieces, Mozart too, so why, if it comes to me, I won’t make an incredible number of films?
There’s no reason not to, if I know that’s what I have to do.
2014
23
This question of truth. Very important.
And, from what A. tells me, I believe that, in the films that I make, that I “leave”, there is this requirement of a truth.
2014
22
My voice is fully part of my creative process.
It is not a question of rejecting it, because it is a strong point, but of really working on it, as a subject.
2014
21
I have to find the finesse, and the freedom of the spectator.
I believe that inconsistent texts are stronger than explanatory texts. I’m going to dig into that. Because I like it when there is a text, a thread, that helps people. If there is a thread, even if it is absurd, there is still a thread!
2014
20
L. tells me that in fact, I don’t really assume what I do, I want to explain, when it is not necessary, everything is in the image.
This note may seem quite contradictory with note 19! Here, the word image is not understood in the same sense, here it is the image as a body of the work itself, matter of the work.
Must one, as an artist, provide an “instruction manual” to explain the work that one has produced? What is good? I think that there is no rule. It depends on each work, each approach, each context.
The real question raised here is an explanation that the artist adds that would be a justification, almost an excuse for this production, to limit his risk taking. We often see this, when someone presents something to others, and apologizes for it as a preamble. Or jazz musicians, for example, who say that they have “committed” a piece of music. Cf. note 92.
2014
19
Fight against the image, with all force, with all force!
The image is a judgment on oneself, the image is something external to us, the image is an expectation of return from others, the image is compromise. I am talking about this aspect of the word “image”.
To fight with all force against the image, to enter in the truth and not to remain in the appearances.
2014
18
I have no sponsor, no order for my creations.
As a result, I don’t feel legitimate, for example in relation to L., who has “official” commissions from theaters. In fact, what I put into practice is a total freedom of creation, I am the one who seeks the meaning of my creation. And it is fully legitimate, respectable, of great value.
2013
17
I always, always asked myself: I have so many ideas, I can do everything, so what should I choose?
And so I was blocking myself. Today, I don’t choose anymore, I do everything. Whether it is in creation or in love. And I don’t expect anything. This is the way for me.
2017
16
I have no way of knowing what will work publicly and what will not.
So, I have to produce, in full honesty with myself, and then things have their life. On the other hand, I have to write them down, I have to broadcast them.
2013
15
When you have stage fright, it’s a good sign!
This means that what we are going to do is important.
2013
14
It’s creation that helps to support the sufferings of love, it’s creation that allows to sublimate things, it’s creation that gives sense to his life, in fact.
Love is a lure. The meeting is real. The sharing of the present is real. But love does not exist.
This thought has to be put in its precise context of life history, of course, because I believe in love. It was a period when I was building my awareness of the difference between control and love. I had to distance myself from love (because it was still confused with control). But it is true that in moments of intense suffering, which we all go through, creation is a tool of sublimation, and even a tool of health, which really helped me to walk.
But then, how do we make the difference between a creative process that would be entirely personal and therapeutic, without any meaning to its public sharing, and a creation, also made in a context of suffering, that would “deserve” its disclosure? How to judge? On what criteria?
Intuition. Only intuition. This is very easy and quick to write, but connecting with one’s intuition is a never-ending journey, I believe.
2013
13
Do not impose a point of view, propose it, through a situation.
2013
12
I like something, I try to do the same, as well, to take a model. But I can’t, and in doing so, I find something else.
I also read about this personal journey in an interview with Daft Punk and in Moby’s autobiography.
2013
11
The renewed pleasure of discovery.
2013
10
Have respect for my work.
2013
9
Freedom is gained through good management of one’s business.
2010
8
Don’t try to control anything, to let myself be influenced by the things that happen around me, not to resist against them, even if I have no idea why I do them.
2021
6
Leave the space to the things to mature, and me to nourish me, that will make like sun which will make mature.
2021
5
Love this time that creation takes. It is an essential time, for life.
2021
4
My artistic creation, I am fully responsible for it, I don’t ask anyone’s permission.
2021
3
Creation is like life, it’s going on an adventure without knowing where you’re going to end up. It is above all the movement of going, of doing while doing.
The beginning of the sentence is identical to the beginning of note 135, written four years earlier. I leave these recurrences or repetitions, because they tell, by their inscription in time, deeper movements of thought, below the words.
2021
2
One discovers one’s subject by treating it.
2021
1
There is no need to film a subject, filming is the subject.
Because to film is to produce an encounter, and it is the encounter that gives life.
2021