INT: Science of Sleep

As
Freud and many other distinguished scholars have noted, dreams offer
us keen insight into the workings of the subconscious mind. Since I
happen to primarily dream about pizza and beer, I would have to say
that my conscious and subconscious minds are pretty congruent. Now
if I could just figure out what those little green elves are all
about…

This
week acclaimed French director Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF
THE SPOTLESS MIND) explores the world of dreams with his latest
project, THE
SCIENCE OF SLEEP. He recently stopped by the Four Seasons in


Beverly Hills

to talk about the quirky new film. Check it out.

Michel
Gondry

I
take it you have very vivid dreams.

Yes.
Last night I dreamed that 60 homeless prostitutes were invading my
apartment. It was a representation of the spam and junk mail I
receive. So that was kind of a nightmare.

A
lot of this movie seems autobiographical. When did you start writing
this?

About
eight years before I started shooting. I just wanted to see how I
could make a movie about my dreams. There lot of movies about
dreams; those are some of the best movies. Sometimes you’re sleeping
in the middle because you need to merge back, to come back to
reality before you dive again. you just come into a dream and come
out. It was my goal to do a movie about how dreams interact with
real life.

How
difficult was it to create the animation and special effects?

We
shot most of the animation actually eight months before we started
principal photography. We went into my countryside house that my
aunt sold me a few years ago and we set up two cameras, and two
little sets. Then we built these…my cousin is an architect and we
used to make our own cities when we were kids. He built the toilet
paper roll city for three weeks. And then for one week, we set it up
in front of the camera and we animated it all. So we already had a
month to go before we started to shoot so I could project them and
the actors could actually participate by watching them and they
would understand what kind of world they would be in.

What
made Gael Garcia Bernal right for the lead role of Stephane?

He
is very handsome, so it would make it hard for me to imagine that he
would fit this production. So I had to push him into the most
awkward places where he wasn’t initially. But he has this range
that goes from being really comical and sometimes spastic to very
dramatic and even aggressive. There are some times where he almost
reminds me of Chaplin, who I always loved. Because he is a little
smaller, like Chaplin was, it gives him the energy to fight back.
Sometimes smaller people get this kick they need to compete with
others, an extra energy.

How challenging was it
for Gael to speak the different languages (French and English) in
the film?

He promised me that he would learn French and he didn’t,
really. I had to adapt to him. On the other hand the actress who
played Miou-Miou, who is one of the most famous French actresses,
she refused to speak English. So I had to adapt, but I think that
was for the best of the film, because if you look at the film it
makes perfect sense…so I managed to deal with the handicap to make
it better. For me it was important to have him in the film because
we are both foreigners in the countries in which we live. But I
guess now I am living more in

New York

, where really everyone is a foreigner.

The
character Stephane dreams up several inventions. Did you invent
anything in particular for this film?

Animation
is a constant invention but I can’t remember a system that was
really working.

The idea was to use the cuts as a time machine so I was kinda trying
to innovate with that…The way we made the volcano explode in the
film involved a pretty innovate method involving mirrors. 
Initially, I wanted to do the dream sequence in 3D with a
real effect…if you put one eye darker than the other and you see
something that is moving even if it’s flat, you see it in 3D because
it delays your perception. So by delaying one eye, you see one eye
from a different perspective because the image is moving. I have had
to practically film all the scene of the dream with always a camera
moving so if you put those glasses you would see all the dream in 3D
in the theater. But I had so many things to do in this movie that I
couldn’t; we had to give up on this idea.

This
film, like many of your videos, features a sequence with a giant
hand. What does that represent?

It
represents my penis. [laughs] No, I think I really experienced it
when I was young; I had this recurring nightmare and I would wake up
with the feeling of having huge hands. After I did the film, I went
to and exhibition about the body and there actually was a picture of
a guy with a huge hand. It’s actually called homunculus, and it’s
a representation of our body and our mind; it’s how if you want to
move your right arm, you’re going to send an order from this part
(points to the left side of his brain) and that corresponds to your
right hand and that corresponds to all your nerve endings because on
our hands we have much more nerve endings that on your arm.

You
have a small arm and huge hand and actually the homunculus has a
small penis. That’s not a topic in the film, so this comes from
experience really. It’s interesting that going through the process
of making the film, I could find out finally because I’ve been to
see a psychologist and people like that to ask “What does it
mean?” It doesn’t help me for any scene, but it’s good to feel
that it’s not a random feeling. It corresponds to really the
configuration, the connection of my brain to my body.

You continue to direct music videos despite the fact that you’ve moved
up to feature films. Do you feel that you’ve lost anything by
continuing to do both art forms at the same time?

No. It’s the opposite. I think I take the best of both and
I get enriched by both worlds. Just yesterday on the plane I was
supposed to write my screenplay, but I couldn’t think about
anything except writing a video for Charlotte Gainsbourg. I had a
great idea that I was really impressed with and I’m going to send
it to her. It was something that I could not think of for a movie
but could eventually help me with one. I really think that this
connection that I have with pop music and pop culture really helps
me in my movies to connect with the audience.

Questions?
Comments? Manifestos? Send them to me at [email protected].