Academy Award-winning French actor Juliette Binoche took a playful jab at Timothée Chalamet on Wednesday when asked to weigh in on the “Marty Supreme” Oscar nominee’s recent comments about ballet and opera.
During “A CNN & Variety Town Hall Event” last month, Chalamet said that he didn’t want movie theaters to go the way of “ballet or opera,” where artists want to “keep this thing alive” even though “no one cares” about it anymore. Questioned about the remarks during a lively Q&A session at Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival, Binoche quipped: “I thought cinema was a dying art.”
Binoche, who is attending the Greek fest with her dance-themed directorial debut “In-I In Motion,” was speaking to a packed auditorium during a masterclass on her journey from acting to directing.
Towards the tail end of the Q&A, an audience member asked the Oscar-winning star of “The English Patient” what she thought about Chalamet’s viral comments, which drew the ire of pundits ranging from London’s Royal Ballet and Opera to “The View” hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin to ballet dancer Misty Copeland, who helped to promote “Marty Supreme.”
Binoche, who was briefly flummoxed by the question, needed to be brought up to speed on the controversy before brushing it aside.
“It doesn’t matter what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter. Don’t make it big,” she said. “What nourishes your heart and soul is what is important. You can watch a lot of films that are empty and make you dry at the end. What counts is what is nourishing your soul and life.”
The hour-long session on Wednesday morning found Binoche delving deep into the creative process behind “In-I In Motion,” a candid documentary account of her 2008 stage collaboration with British dancer and choreographer Akram Khan.
The film, which premiered in San Sebastian last year and next heads to CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, was assembled wholly from rehearsal footage and live recording of the finished stage production.
In his review of the film, Variety’s Guy Lodge said it “affords viewers raw access to the creation process, and the rare fascination of watching two leading artists at times out of their depth, figuring out new dimensions to their craft on the hoof, so to speak.”
Speaking in Thessaloniki, Binoche opened up about the nearly two decade-long process of getting her directorial debut off the ground, revealing how dance and acting taught her how to “embrace” her fears and sharing what she learned working alongside acclaimed directors such as Leos Carax, Abbas Kiarostami and Olivier Assayas.
“Be yourself. Trust your intuition. Don’t try to be somebody else,” she said. “Everybody’s different. Just trust your difference. And go for it.”
Binoche also had praise for Robert Redford, who died last September, for encouraging her to make a movie based on the acclaimed 2008 stage performance with Khan, which the late actor saw live in New York.
“I could hear what Robert Redford said to me, ‘You’ve got to make a film out of this show.’ I just heard him. And I knew he was right, but I didn’t know how to do it,” Binoche said. “I didn’t have a production [company]. I didn’t have the money. I didn’t know what editor [I would work with].”
It was only when producers Ola Strøm and Solène Léger got involved, the French star added, that she understood that “the world want[ed] me to do this.”
Asked about the art of documentary filmmaking, Binoche downplayed her contribution to the form, noting that “In-I In Motion” found her — as has been the case throughout her acclaimed career — in front of the camera. (The film uses footage shot by Binoche’s sister, Marion Stalens.)
Yet Binoche paid tribute to “the master of documentaries,” Frederick Wiseman, who died last month, while celebrating the broader community of documentary filmmakers as unheralded “warriors” of the craft.
“They try to survive. They don’t earn a lot of money with their films. It’s a struggle, but I think a struggle that’s worth it because we need those documents in order to be closer to the truth of what’s going on,” she said. “People being on the spot and risking their lives, sometimes, in order to have the actual reality of what is going on is very laudable.”
The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival runs March 5-15.
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