By James Mottram
Emerging in France in the ’70s, following on the excitement around the world with the French New Wave, Isabelle Huppert has been a muse for dozens of filmmakers who emerged during the most exciting period in filmmaking around the world. Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, Diane Kurys, the Taviani Brothers, Andrzej Wajda, Michael Cimino, Hal Hartley, David O. Russell and most recently Paul Verhoeven, with the actress nominated for an Oscar in Elle. But it’s her films with Michael Heneke, especially The Music Teacher, that have cemented her place as one of the greatest actresses working today. And it’s regarding Haneke’s latest, Happy End, that we caught up with Huppert during the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
In Happy End, you are part of a big family…
I don’t think this family is so abnormal; they are just a family. All families by definition are abnormal I think, whether it’s a search of love and affection, families tend to cause that abnormality – not to this extent, of course.
Have you seen Haneke evolve over the years? Has he changed his approach?
Not really, no. For someone like him, with his writing and such a strong vision, he is still the same filmmaker for me.
And his approach to you has remained the same or has it changed as you have gotten to know him more?
No it hasn’t changed. Michael never gives explanations, and we don’t really like to get explanations anyway, because in a way it impacts your performance. If the director doesn’t give you an explanation it leaves the scene very much open to interpretation. What you see on screen is all me. It doesn’t need any explanation. It’s very clear that in this film that the generations carry a lot of burden, and Michael Haneke wanted to show that on purpose through this family. Obviously not all families are like this, but by doing this Michael manages to show how each generation is defined. You have the old man who dies, and then the middle generation, who seem the most ignorant, they want to keep the surface and pretend everything is fine. The final scene is a metaphor of this, and throughout the film it portrays the violence that we remain hidden.
Is Haneke one of the more deliberate directors that you have worked with in terms of the amount of time he takes?
Oh yes, he has as much time as he wishes and he takes that time valuably. He is good with making technical things look real on camera. For instance, in the final scene with the breaking of the finger it involves many many people in the same shot and everything has to look real. If you have to express any form of human emotion such as tears, there is a very fine line between fiction and reality with him. When it’s very physical that gap is much bigger. For example when we were shooting The Piano Teacher, the scene that took the most time where I’m pulling the hair, for that he can do it over and over. The final shot of the film we shot it about 45 times, it had to be real.
You said that you have a very close relationship with Haneke, I was wondering if you were able to see his opera? (Haneke directed Cosi Fan Tutti for Madrid’s Teatro Real)
Oh yes, of course. It was wonderful! I saw it in Paris.
Is that because you were interested in opera or because of Haneke?
Both. I’m very interested in opera and I’m also very interested in his vision. Michael knows so much about music. That’s why I love working with him, because he is so good with the music and the rhythm, and acting is essentially all about rhythm.
Haneke doesn’t really put much music into his films?
Well no, not in this film. But the silences are so eloquent; at the beginning of the film it goes on and on and on, but completely silent. He has a way of expanding time; he is a master of effect, with the way that he uses that time extension.
Do you think filmmakers are beginning to show the refugee crisis in their films?
Well it looks like it. Of course! The strength with Michael is that he creates a fiction, but there is something so strong and connected with our reality, which makes people think it’s so real. That’s what makes the film so disturbing. There is such a weight of reality in this film that it actually makes it quite disturbing. In the end it’s not a documentary, because if he wanted to do a documentary, then he would do a documentary.
You’ve worked a lot in Europe of late. Are you going to make more American films?
Yes, my next film will be with Neil Jordan [The Widow], which is being shot in America but also in Europe.
A lot of characters that you have played are self-destructive and hurt others around them. I wonder how you do it, how do you prepare?
I don’t prepare, most of the films that I do are about the present time, so no, I don’t really prepare. I just read the script. No matter how much you prepare, it is manifested through the vision of the director. In Happy End in particular there is not much to say, it’s very rough. My character tries to do her best, but Michael shows that in a way that doesn’t idolise her.
Happy End is screening at the Adelaide Film Festival, which is on between October 5 – 15, 2017
