Thursday morning’s discussion spotlit Leos Carax, whose filmography includes short films and music videos in addition to feature films. Born in 1960 to an American mother and French father in suburban Paris, Carax (born as Alex Christophe Dupond) is best known for his stories about chaotic love.
Carax shared with the full venue at the School that he started to get more into films as a teenager. The director could not remember his first cinematic experience, but described how impactful the championship game of American boxer Muhammad Ali was to him even if he does not consider himself as a sports fan. Later Carax worked as a film critic and travellet to many film festivals where he had a chance to discuss films with other movie-lovers.
The opening film of the Midnight Sun Film Festival The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) stars the director’s frequent collaborators Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche. Carax emphasises that he would have never made his films without meeting the right people. The director says that he could not imagine the scenes of his films without his trusted actors.
Carax directed his first feature film Boy Meets Girl (1984) when he was just 24 years old. He describes the story of the film as his own. Lavant’s characters are often called Alex, which is Carax’s official first name too. His alias on the other hand is an anagram of the names Alex and Oscar.
Alongside the recurring theme of love, Carax’s filmography is infused with playfulness and movement. Carax explains that he sees the world of cinema as an island without borders. “The world of cinema has changed a lot, but it’s always been an island. It is a beautiful island but with a cemetery also, with dead people”, he remarks referring to the bygone pioneers and masters of film history.
Carax says that in the beginning of his career as a director, he was insecure and afraid of using colour. He shot his first films in black and white and mostly by night so that the audience would only concentrate on controlled details. In his later work he has used colour in an innovative, playful manner.
Another topic that was often brought up was the emphasis on movement as Carax’s films notably have a lot of running in them. Carax says that in school he was always the smallest, and he felt like he was not able to run. He ended up approaching these memories through film and making the character of Alex run in his place.
When asked the festival’s classic question of which film he would take with him to a desert island, he said he is already stuck on the island.
Picture: Juho Liukkonen