When Claire Denis compared filmmaking to murder: “It’s not because I want to be exotic”
Filmmaking has been compared to many things over the years, like painting, music, or cooking. However, people wouldn’t usually assume it’s anything like murder. Because, well, usually, no one is getting killed during the process. Undoubtedly, it’s a tough job to do, especially as a director, as so much of the film‘s success – or failure – hinges on and will be attributed to you, rightly or wrongly.
Some directors claim to loathe it, while others relish it. However, Claire Denis has gone so far as to compare it to, yep, murder. Given that her films often deal with controversial, visceral and harrowing subject matter, it isn’t entirely surprising. Some directors might revel in shooting cannibalistic sex scenes or murdering characters, but to Denis, it seems much more strained than that.
Speaking to The Film Stage, Denis explains that killing a character is complex, like murder in a way, “There is something to do with life and death in filmmaking. The first time I shot a death in a film… I remember it was a big shock for me.” In many ways, killing a character you’ve been attached to and having to watch that play out on set and then on screen can make a director and writer feel like a killer. They’re the ones who ultimately pulled the trigger, and, for the most part, once a character is dead, that’s it.
But for Denis, it’s also much more than that. Like in many of her films, the filmmaking process is also tied to how she lives life. “I also give the film my fear, my fright, what I avoid in life – everything for one time… and it is rare to experience something for once. Maybe in a murder case. You can kill a person only once, you know?”
Denis evidently is a director who throws everything she has into making a film, letting the experience be almost a catharsis, a letting go of the control of life. It’s a unique perspective, as so many directors see filmmaking as such a controlled experience, something to be laboured over minutely, instead of something to experience so fully.
For her, the experience, the feelings, and the person she brings to one production are not the same person she will bring to the next. So it’s also a murder in the way that she is continually creating herself just to let that version go. She is creating her vision and knows that when it has wrapped, that’s it. That Claire Denis is no more. “There is a relation: it’s the same person who does commit. But it’s always a different one, and it’s bringing so much of love.”
However, she assures that she doesn’t compare the process to murder as a way to provoke or, in her words, to “be exotic”. The comparison is made for a further reason: making a film feels like it is life or death for her. She explains, “I’m doing my best, but I know that it could end in a very bad way for me. It could be such a bad movie.”
And in many ways, it can be that serious. Filmmaking is an art form that is constantly picked over. Due to the huge financial stakes people have in it, the bodily work that goes into it and the ways in which it can reproduce and perpetuate harmful societal issues, it is one of the most scrutinised art forms. A bad film can mean the end of a career. And for many the end of a career is synonymous with the end of a life.
Therefore, when taking on a new film, it can feel like you’re preparing to murder yourself and possibly the entire cast and crew. What would a bad film mean to Denis? “I would prefer to die instantly.” For her, the art form is so tied to her life and therefore, to make a film has a huge implication on her life.
