Claire Denis Calls ‘Protégé’ Label Sexist: ‘It’s Insulting’
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Claire Denis does not define herself as anyone’s protégé.
The “Both Sides of the Blade” director shut down a question posed by The Guardian asking what it was like to be a “protégé” of Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, and Jacques Rivette, among Denis’ previous collaborators.
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“Protégé! It’s insulting,” Denis replied. “What a vision of women you have. It’s so disgusting to say things like that. Would you use that word for a man?”
She continued, “I was working as an assistant director. I made my own way and was paying my own rent. They chose me because I was good at my job.”
Denis made her feature directorial debut with 1988’s “Chocolat.” Despite her decades in the film industry, the French auteur admitted she is still fearful of filmmaking “all the time.”
“Everything about filmmaking is frightening,” Denis said. “I’m scared before about making a bad movie, about not being true to the actors, to the story, to the image of the world. But on a set it’s too late. There is no time for fear.”
Denis added of the ramifications of #MeToo on sets, “In film, there might be more respect now for this and that, but it’s not a reality. I hope, maybe little by little, it will become one. But when you see that some state in the U.S. has stopped abortion, it’s weird. It’s frightening.”
The “Stars at Noon” director added that actress and frequent collaborator Juliette Binoche “explained” the movement to her. “I understood that for those young actresses it has been a problem in their life,” Denis said. “One person was brave enough to raise it, then a second one, and suddenly the door was open.”
Denis previously admitted in March 2022 that she believed “Both Sides of the Blade” would be her final film amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I thought maybe ‘The Stars at Noon’ would never exist, so maybe this is my last film,” Denis said in conversation with Jarmusch. “I don’t know, it was a weird thing.”
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