Quotes

[press conference for Sibyl (2019) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival] It's a film which talks about fiction and creation as a way of reinventing oneself. The character played by Virginie Efira is in a state of denial in terms of her past and all sorts of things she can't contend with - the ghosts of her past. Indeed, fiction is a way for her to escape daily life.

[press conference for Anatomy of a Fall (2023) at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, asked about having written the female lead specifically for Sandra Hüller] I've written for other actors as well. When you're inhabited by someone's presence in terms of writing.......she has something about her - she's opaque, she's complex and that nourished the actual writing of the script. I talked about it a lot with Arthur [Arthur Harari], we hoped she would accept the role, it wasn't already in place. She has something about her - she plays and acts with her body.....there's something about her body, I don't know how to put it, it's very special indeed, her body doesn't totally belong to her. There's something very strange; when we turned up on the set in the morning she just depicted the person she was - it was very mystical in a way.

[Cannes press conference for Anatomy of a Fall (2023)] The film moves towards this point, where it's the child who becomes the centrepiece of the trial. What does the film talk about? It talks about a child - he carries around a very heavy weight. He's very close to his mother, he trusts her and then there are cracks that appear and he effectively finds himself in the position of the jury; in other words having to decide whether his mother is guilty or not. We'll never know. We'll never know whether his testimony is true or not. I was deeply touched to see this kind of situation and it's particularly moving as a child. I think this is the first film where I've really given the floor to a child. The whole of the film moves towards this point.

[Cannes press conference for Anatomy of a Fall (2023)] When we started working on this film, it was like a genre film. We have so many thrillers on all the platforms and I wanted to do something different. The original idea was to have a film where there was a lack of visual elements and images, unlike films which depict a trial where there are all sorts of flashbacks and you see the life of the couple - that might have been easier - I could have shown their lives in that manner. But everything is based on absence. The child doesn't see very well and there aren't many images, yet you have this loud, loud music which is a focal point for the film. Whence the idea of placing the spectator in a position like the child or the jurors where there's a lack of facts and evidence - everything is interlinked. This delirium springs from the fact that there's so much that's missing.

[on working with Arthur Harari on Anatomie d'une chute (2023)] The question of being a couple does not arise when we work together, it is another part of our lives. He's a work partner. It's very stimulating. That is to say, he is someone who, even when we write together, I don't see him as a screenwriter. He's a director. He has a strong point of view. Sometimes we don't agree, and it's interesting, and I find it joyful to be able to work together, which doesn't happen often for us in reality.

[on Anatomy of a Fall (2023)] 'I think I would adore to do a version [that is] three hours and 10 minutes, maybe something like this. But Laurent [Laurent Sénéchal, the editor] has not the same feeling,' Triet says with a laugh, with Sénéchal playfully objecting beside her. 'He's totally traumatized by me in this room because [post-production] was very long.'

I'm totally crazy with the editing. If I could spend my life in the editing room, if I could build [an editing room] in my house...

[on The Mother and the Whore (1973) by director Jean Eustache'] I remember exactly where I was when I saw the movie, and I was not the same person after. I was totally awoken. Like, 'I want to do that.' Because for me, it was a new world, a new way of talking, a new way of doing things, a new way of spending time in life. And after that, I spoke like the whore. I was obsessed by her. I had the same expression. It was literally like it was printed on myself.

[on Scenes from a Marriage (1974) by director Ingmar Bergman] What I was most attracted to or impressed by is the constant reversal of roles that goes on, where in the beginning we might feel that things are one way - where maybe she is a duped woman, a woman that's been cheated on and completely under his spell - and then the dynamics of that are constantly being reorganized. The other thing from this film, which left an impact on me, is the language as these arguments evolve in intensity.

[on whether films like Sibyl (2019) are autobiographical] I take inspiration from certain things like people around me, from studies, from films and, undoubtedly, a bit from myself, but honestly, I'm not Sibyl. With my co-screenwriter, Arthur Harari, we took a lot of pleasure diving into a fictional world and deliberately damaging our characters. In the end, I have the impression that they no longer resemble me at all. Another Woman (1988) by Woody Allen haunted me from the moment I started to write it. Strangely, I don't love that film, but its main plot fascinates me: a woman in search of calm and inspiration finds herself next to another woman who plunges her into a dizzying abyss and turns her life upside down. This film was the starting point.

[on Confidentially Yours (1983)] The only film by Truffaut that I like. But this one I love!

[on Sibyl (2019)] Cinema is a micro-society where life speeds up, becomes more intense, where everything becomes exaggerated. The smallest problem becomes a tragedy, the hierarchy is brutal and completely grotesque. It's a crazy, comical environment but when you live through it experiences are heightened: it amused me to make fun of it as long as it served the narrative. It almost begs to be satirized. Altman's The Player (1992) was a reference for this. Even in a very serious film like Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) everything about the film industry has a comic, satirical side to it.