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With (very modest) French at my disposal, and the inestimable assistance from the cheerful translator Alexandra Mendel, I was able to have an illuminating chat with director Stéphan Castang, whose feature debut Vincent Must Die enjoyed a well-received North American première on Friday night at the Fantasia Film Festival.
366: Hello, et comment-allez vous?
Stéphan Castang: Très bien, merci-vous.
366: Je suis avec “366 Weird Movies”, and I am with the director of Vincent Must Die, Stéphan Castang, and your film opened in North American yesterday evening to much enthusiasm, I know I enjoyed it, so thank you—merci beaucoup pour parler avec moi ce matin—and I will go right into this.
This is your first feature film, and I would like to start by asking about transitioning as a director from “shorts” to “full length.”
SC: The transition was almost evident for a long time. I worked as a theater actor for a long time, and always wanted to write and direct movies. Over ten years, I have directed five short films, while I was still working as an actor. Then, ultimately, I was offered the Vincent Must Die project.
366: That leads nicely to my next question, the writer, Mathieu Naert… how was it that you ended up with that script and, bearing in mind that this would be, as your first feature, your first major impression in the world of cinema, what was it that drew you to want to bring this particular script to life, as first time as a director of a major film that would be a major decision to make, introducing yourself to the world?
SC: The producers Claire and Thierry made me read the script. Initially, I thought I’d read it, then refuse it. However, when I read the script, I liked a lot of things, and found a lot that was inspiring. First, there was the idea in, a kind of promise, of multiple genres within that film. I also liked the concept of speaking about violence, without much explanation or context, outside of any sort of debate. I also liked that I had the freedom to enrich the movie with my own neuroses and humor. Finally, I also liked that I could keep working on it during the final phase. For me the final phase of a movie is the editing.
366: Another director I spoke with talked about the editing as the “completion” of the film. You mentioned “enriching it with your neuroses”: what, if you could, did you add to the base script in pursuit of this enrichment you mention?
SC: How did I enrich the movie with my own neuroses? You’d first need to speak with my psychiatrist. With the basic scenario, initially Vincent was the only one affected by this violence. However, I thought it would be interesting if he met others who also lived with this. In the original script, there were no explanations where this violence came from, but I liked the idea of “contamination,” so within this frame I thought it interesting that, by the end, Vincent is also contaminated. In the final scenes, we can see that sometimes love can be an escape from this, so long as we’re not blind to the violence within ourselves.
366: Wonderful explanation, thank you. To address a specific in the film, there was a somewhat long shot on a piece of artwork in the psychiatrist’s office. This was very obviously a choice that was made, and I wondered if you might elaborate on what that painting is and why you wanted it to feature so prominently, because it’s a good three to four seconds, which is, these days, is sort of a long time for holding shot of a stationary object.
SC: The piece is a [J.M.W.] Turner called “The Last Voyage”, and I thought it important to show this painting because it has two important elements. First, it is a ship, the second is the fire, so an escape, but also a premonition of catastrophe. It was also important to show this scene [particularly] after the internet research montage; I thought that after all these images, it was interesting to show a more archaic [image]. It is a scene I really loved. During the editing phase, I was told I might need to remove it. But, I wanted to keep it.
And if I were Vincent, this would have been a short film, because I would have gone to the therapist, and he would have just killed me.
366: It looks like we are almost out of time, so I have two questions to wrap up with here. Now that you’ve made a big splash at Cannes, and I saw the big splash you made here, I’m hoping you have some future projects lined up. And the question I like to close all my interviews with filmmakers with, what’s your hometown, and can you recommend a restaurant there?
SC: My hometown is in Bourgogne-Dijon, and I recommend “chez moi”.
366: You’re the second director in a row who’s said that.
SC: I suppose I could recommend “Schwarze” [laughter; it is featured in the movie]. In terms of future projects, I don’t speak much about that. One element I like [to pursue] is mixing genres. I feel humor is really important, especially when laughing at something that is not supposed to be funny.
366: C’est vingt-deux minuts après onze, et il faut que je vous quitte. Merci beaucoup, and thank you both very much, et bonne chance!
For this willing to risk middling-audio quality and some poor French on the reviewer’s part, here is the link for you!