LUCIAN PINTILIÉ: AN UNFORGETTABLE SUMMER
“These bureaucrats live in a completely false world. They think that any fragment of text refers to them. So in The Inspector General, for instance, if the actor playing the role of mayor limps, they think of Brezhnev's limp, and that for sure we must be making fun of Brezhnev and the former Soviet Union. Ridiculous ...”
Lucian Pintilié, 1994
An Unforgettable Summer, starring Kristin Scott-Thomas, is the second film by noted theatre and film director Lucien Pintilié, former enfant terrible of Romanian culture, since his return to Bucharest as head of a film production studio in 1990. A vivid, stylized adaptation of the short story La Salade by Petru Dimitriu, the film is a suspenseful moral drama set in a remote military garrison in the '20s that parallels the mood of the new Romania. It features superb performances, stunning mise-en-scene and savage satirical bite. I spoke to the impassioned director prior to the film's release by MK2 Productions USA in November.
— This isn't your first trip to New York.
— No. I've made several because I've staged at least seven or eight plays here in the U.S., in Washington and Minneapolis while I was in exile.
— In 1972 the Ceaucescu government forbade you to work in Romania, your native country. Under what circumstances?
— I was supposed to direct Gogol's The Inspector General. All the eyes of the regime were fixed on me because this was the third or fourth time that my work had drawn a big wave of protest...
— Why was that?
— Because, both in the theatre and the cinema, I had practiced my art freely. I had refused to submit myself to the small, necessary, capricious demands of the system. Political dictates are always capricious. One day they want one thing, the next day something else. Two or three times in the past, I had agreed to make modifications. To my great regret.
— Textual modifications.
— Textual or even directorial.
— For instance?
— These bureaucrats live in a completely false world. They think that any fragment of text refers to them. So in The Inspector General, for instance, if the actor playing the role of mayor limps, they think of Brezhnev's limp, and that for sure we must be making fun of Brezhnev and the former Soviet Union. Ridiculous—the merit of my plays is not derived from political allusions. However, the real trouble was that The Inspector General is a play about bureaucratic folly. I figured it would be easier to stand firm and to defend my work than to agree to any textual changes. If you give these people an inch, they want a mile. So I went on a hunger strike. It was the shortest hunger strike in the world history of hunger strikes, it only lasted four hours. The authorities immediately gave in and they didn't touch the play. They allowed one more performance. There was an enormous crowd, it was a big hit—the theatre was surrounded by a militia on horseback —but they banned any further performances. And then I understood the difference between someone who has no political power because he's free, and the authorities that have political power but are enslaved by petty concerns. I felt empowered for the first time in my life. They called me to the Central Party Headquarters and said, "Comrade Pintilié, unless you change your world view you can no longer work in Romania."
— You went to live in France.
— Yes. I survived because I was able to direct theatre and opera all over the world.
— You couldn't make films in France?
— It's not that simple. Jack Lang, the then minister of culture, had invited me. At the time, I'd only made one television film, Sunday at Six, and two other films, The Reconstitution and a Chekhov adaptation which showed in Cannes. When I got to France at the age of 39, I felt I had to do something that would create an immediate buzz. So I did a production of Turandot with 18 dwarves at the Théatre National Populaire. It was a huge success. After that, everything went on automatic pilot. I received offers to direct plays in England, the U.S. and Canada. Growing up in a socialist country, I'd had no financial problems. I was used to not lifting a little finger. At the same time, I suffered enormously because I didn't know how to struggle to make films.
— What were your directorial aims in An Unforgettable Summer? The mise-en-scene is very different from The Oak, which must have been a seminal film for you since it marked your return to Romania after the fall of Ceaucescu.
— The Oak was made in a fit of rage, with great energy and violence and gaiety. I wanted to portray people who gradually get used to monstrosity, for whom evil becomes banal. So I saw the film as a burlesque, and I used this crazy comedic rhythm from the '30s as a way to show the daily apocalypse. In An Unforgettable Summer, I had a completely different take on evil, I was less involved. So I changed the point of view. I wanted to show a world which gets used to crime much more coldly, to have a much more contemplative approach to the subject matter and a classical dramatic structure. — Also the story is set in the '20s.
— Exactly. In cinematic terms, this translated into more formal cinematography and storyboarded camera moves with fixed start and end points. To sustain this kind of geometric composition, you need physical situations you can control. The whole film was shot on sets by the Danube delta. That mountain in the opening shot is a little hill of 200 metres. We did have to wait for the sheep, the crows and the seagulls. — You found Kristin Scott-Thomas in Polanski's Bitter Moon? — Yes. I cast her within five minutes. I changed the role of the heroine in my film to take advantage of the fact that she's English and speaks French very well. I wanted to recreate a character that's completely disappeared—the mittel European. — With a touch of Garbo. — Yes, in the sense of mysterious beauty. But beyond that, on a cultural level. For instance, in my wife the actress Claudie Bertolli's family (she's half-Italian), everyone speaks three or four languages fluently. So I made Marie-Therese, the Kristin Scott-Thomas character, half-Hungarian and half-Romanian, and she speaks English because her father is a diplomat. At the age of 22, her future husband, a Romanian, saves her from rape in the Budapest subway. She is so grateful that she becomes a fierce patriot. She embellishes everything that's Romanian. To her, the little hill is more beautiful than Fujiyama. She has a Mozartian nature.
— The Magic Flute is on the soundtrack.
— Yes. In my opinion, there's something very dangerous in a character who ascribes all the qualities of the world to one country. Her husband is mediocre, no one special. So if the husband and the country don't correspond to her Utopian ideals, she feels betrayed and withdraws her love. This is exactly what happened to Romania after the fall of Ceaucescu. For five, six days, all the TVs of the world talked about this fantastic revolution that was taking place and when they discovered things weren't so fabulous after all, they abruptly and definitively withdrew their interest. Bye bye forever. Just like the character of Marie-Therese.
— You were invited by the new regime to be head of a Romanian production studio. How does that work?
— Of the five studios that they set up, the only one that’s viable is mine because I understood right away that the only chance of survival is to do co-productions with other European countries. If you make films just for the Romanian public, you get nowhere. The other four studios are always changing their structure, whereas I don’t change mine. I have very little money, enough to make about one-third of a very modestly budgeted film. But that’s not what counts. What’s more important is to be able to contct Western Europeans who are potential partners in some official capacity. That gives the studio some clout as do my name and the script quality of young Romanians who want to make films. So far I’ve done five films with France and Germany and I have two more in development. Next door to me is a really unusual phenomenon, an independent producer who was my line producer when I made Scenes of Carnival, which was originally banned in Romania. He has fallen artistically in love with me, and only makes his films at my side.
— So are things a little better than before?
— They’re very different. There’s no longer a problem about artistic freedom in the sense of freedom of speech. You’re free to do what you want if you have the means. On that level, it’s an enormous difference. A thousand times better. The new government is neo-communist, with a tendency towards a kind of wanton, unfettered capitalism. Which is very convenient for me.
Copyright Liza Béar 1994
