Jean-Luc Godard at Cannes: 'filming is boring, actors are too involved in politics' plus seven other things we learned

Following the world premiere of his new film The Image Book at Cannes, the French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard gave a press conference at the Palais des Festivals via FaceTime, from his home in Switzerland.

“It’s not complicated – it’s a bit like calling a friend you want to talk with,” moderator Gérard Lefort told the assembled journalists, before advising them to “remember to be polite, don’t hesitate to say hello or good morning, for example.” The start of the conference was delayed by 10 minutes, reportedly because Godard couldn’t find adequate reception, but soon enough the great 87-year-old cineaste was there on the screen of a black iPhone 7+, which a festival steward held up to a microphone.

Godard smoked a large cigar while answering journalists’ questions about his almost impenetrably abstract new work, which remixes images from classics of world cinema, Isis propaganda videos, excerpts from literature, and at one point a Michael Bay action movie.

Can you tell us about your portrayal of the Arab world in The Image Book?

“Well, I just make films. And I’m interested more in facts, given my age. But what interests me about facts is not just what is happening, but what is not happening. The two go together, and you have to link them together… you can’t just talk about what’s happening, and yet people don’t talk about what’s not happening. And what’s not happening can lead to a total disaster, a catastrophe.”

Is The Image Book a political film?

“No… I wanted to show how the Arabs don’t really need other people because they can fare well all by themselves. They invented writing, they invented many things. They have oil – more oil than is necessary, practically. So I think they should be left alone to deal with their own affairs… Most of the films in Cannes this year, and in preceding years, show what is happening. But very few films are designed to show what is not happening. I hope my film will show that dimension. I think one has to think with one’s hands and not only with one’s head.”

You once said that a film should have a beginning, a middle and an end, though not necessarily in that order.” Do you stand by that?

“I said that quite some time ago to go against Spielberg and others, who said there has to be a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Of course, I didn’t make this a real hobby horse, but once I drew a parallel: it was an equation, x + 1. A child in primary school can easily understand that equation: if x + 3 = 1, x = -2. And when you produce an image, be it of the past, the present or the future, you have to do away with two images each time to find one really good one. It’s like the equation. That’s the key to cinema, to a good film. But when you talk about the key, you can’t forget the lock as well.”

In this film you seem to have done away with the process of filming completely. [The Image Book is almost entirely made up of archive images.] Does it now bore you?

“Absolutely. I quickly understood that what was most important was not the shooting but the editing – the editing comes first. Filming is post-production, in fact. And one can thus be much freer, one can think much more. Because editing, even digital editing, is done by hand – and as we say in the film, man needs to think with his hands. Just imagine for a few minutes that you were forced to live for a whole day without using your hands. How would you manage? How would your head move? How would you eat? How would you love, without your hands? You can’t do anything without your hands. That’s why my film, right at the beginning, shows that everything is based on the five fingers. And when the five fingers come together you have a hand."

Do you agree the central question to your work is now “What is the cinema?”

“There is no central question. There are central questions, but peripheral questions too, and they all go together. As I said to one of your colleagues, cinema consists too much of showing what’s happening. You can see what’s happening around you every day. Films should show you what is not happening and you never see anywhere, not even on Facebook.”

Why don’t the sounds and images in the new film match up?

“The aim was to separate the sound from the image. We didn’t want the sound to just be an accompaniment to the images – we wanted there to be a true dialogue, a commentary, a running discussion…. A perfect screening would be in a cafe instead of on a TV screen: you’d see the film as a silent film, and then the sound would come from loudspeakers here and there, and suddenly, the person sitting in the café would realise the sound and the images go together… I think it would be worthwhile to have that kind of experience.”

What is your opinion of contemporary Russia?

“I cannot talk about Mr Putin because I don’t know him. I don’t know Mr Macron or Mrs Merkel either. I’m invested in other things. In my preceding film, Goodbye to Language, we said that when the Russians belong to Europe or Asia they will cease to be Russian. There’s something in Russia still today which touches me no end. We have to be kind to Russia. Dostoyevsky used to say one shouldn’t ask too much of the soul – one has to be charitable and kind. And I will always be that way towards Russia.”

Because you have not directed any actors in The Image Book, it seems that you no longer believe in acting – is that true?

“I don’t want to quarrel with anybody, actors and above all actresses have helped me no end. I think that at present, I don’t know. In the beginning we made films without actors. I think they’re perhaps too involved in politics… I think that a lot of actors today contribute to totalitarianism in terms of the images filmed, as opposed to the images that are actually in their minds.”

Your film contains a clip from the Michael Bay film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. What is your opinion of Mr Bay’s work?

[A pause] “Remind me of what you actually see in that part of my film.” [Someone describes the contents of the clip.] “I do not remember the title of that film or the name of that director. But if I inserted the footage, it must have contained something I couldn’t find anywhere else.”