Luis Malle

Luis Malle (1974) showed this loose form as the first documentary was showing the old man walking in the street. As an audience I was searching the meaning of Malle’s work, but instead I ended up thinking about his life – why is he walking, why is he doing all these CUs and medium shots of himself in these streets? I then saw that the loose form here could have been domino effects of other elements in the shoot (the child, the bike, the street and the little street markets) signifying his life. As for documentary production, this aspect of going beneath the surface of someone’s life to discover and explore someone’s quirkyness, funkyness, façade or what it is, is what will be a selective choice for a particular piece to camera. An example of this is seen in Malle’s ‘Trop Humain’ where we see the life of a few people and their daily rhythm of bending metal. The CU of a woman bending metal in high heels, the CU of hands on metal, workers in the background and especially the CU of these workers facial gestures showing ‘not happy’ expressions clearly demonstrates the lives and the class system of these workers.

For me, this means that the documentary we will produce will require constant interrogation. I think this is important as we decide why we are telling this particular story when we make the film about Yanni.Fin. What conflict and consequences we will encounter in this documentary production will be seen in how the filmmaker inserts himself into the process and in front of the camera. This will reveal a personality in the film and the experience of the actual filmmaker.