No police officers in front of the Bristol Hotel, a stone’s throw from the Elysée, they are all with Pope Francis and King Charles III on this weekend of all dangers. No banner either as there was at the beginning of September at the Venice Film Festival, which welcomed Roman Polanski, Luc Besson and Woody Allen, three “outlaws” awaited by a group of demonstrators with the angry slogan “Mostra, awful , dirty and nasty”. For the legendary director ofAnnie Hallthis is an accusation by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow of sexual assault, the facts dating back to 1992 and from which he was exonerated by the courts. That said, there is no question of bringing up the subject, the agent’s instructions are clear: “The questions must relate only to his book and/or his film.” Including, the menu is already full, with a film, its 50th, Stroke of lucka sort of vaudeville thriller set in Paris, in theaters on September 27, and a collection of very Woodyallenian short stories, Zero gravityall in thirty-five minutes, watch in hand, not one more.
Second floor, suite 205: the four-Oscar-winning filmmaker, 87 years old (one year older than the Pope), seems in good shape. Moreover, the evening before, he was still playing his clarinet with the New Orleans Jazz Band, at the Grand Rex – “We had a good time, the spectators were warm and very receptive.” On the reasons for shooting his film, in the capital therefore, as Midnight in Paris twelve years ago, and in French, that’s a first, we’ll move on quickly, as the New Yorker, fan of Truffaut, Godard and Renoir, has already spoken on the subject – “while finishing the script, I said to myself that it would be a wonderful experience to shoot in French […] my producers reacted with enthusiasm.” And the filmmaker says he is now won over by the French actors, Lou de Laagence, Melvil Poupaud, Valérie Lemercier, proposed by his staff and whom he did not know before casting them in this very classic feature film – a woman married to a rich businessman comes across a former university friend in the street, still in love with her, and ends up in his arms. Soon, the husband, possessive jealousy, follows his actions closely, calls on a private detective then a few thugs… all with a lot of subliminal images of a “romantic Paris”. “That’s the Paris that every American discovers, confides Woody Allen, this city which resembles New York in many ways, but which is much more beautiful, especially in the fall, my favorite season.
While Stroke of luck remains a very wise film, this is not the case with Zero gravitywith a well-thought-out title, a collection of 19 short stories (eight of which appeared in the New Yorker about ten years ago), a delicious festival of fantasy and extravagance, witness to a facetious Woody Allen with a fertile imagination. And if he no longer appears in his films, he appears in several of his short stories, not really to his advantage. Here, he is a “kind of little guy, built like a maggot, and dressed like a hillbilly”, there, “a chronic depressive, misanthropic, taciturn, obsessed with sex”. Comic effect assured, and assumed, as the author tells us: “It is essentially to amuse the reader, I exaggerate the line, because I lead a totally uninteresting life, I get up, I work, I dine with my woman in the restaurant…” Likewise, he attributes to the animals, heroes of several of his texts, abilities that are baroque to say the least: cow and lobsters with murderous instincts, chickens to entertain, horse painter, gang of mice… as many of fantasies of a pure city dweller.
He also has a field day with the small world of cinema, as curated as possible: “Hollywood is a very funny place because everyone there is so ambitious, so idiotic… The actors are very vain and serious about their art, producers only think about money and profit, filmmakers try to be great.” We would like to know more, but now, the half hour has passed, back to reality, and to gravity…
Zero gravity, by Woody Allen, trans. from English by Nicolas Richard. Stock, 256 p., €22.