In February the National Cinema Museum of Turin wanted to honor Olivier Assayas with a selection of his films projected in retrospective and a meeting open to the public to present in the room The Wizard of the Kremlin. The origins of Putin. The last film, in continuity with the operation first developed in the Carlos miniseries (2010) and then in Wasp Network (2019), apparently abandons the sure lids of total fiction to reconstruct historical events, albeit always filtered by literature and however borrowed in expression of individual paths of women and men who lived them. The last film, taken from the homonymous novel by Giuliano Da Empoli and written with Emmanuel Carrère, tells the rise of Russian President Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) from the point of view of his shadow adviser Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), inspired by the real figure of Vladislav Surkov. We met the French director.
Do you think the character’s portrait in this film can match the idea that Vladimir Putin has of himself?
I don’t think so, because reality and the way we see reality are many distant from cinema. And the stories that tell real facts never respond to expectation: the real protagonist never recognizes places, feelings, ideas, even if everything is true. I don’t know if Putin saw or will see this film, but if he sees it he will find it false, wrong, and certainly not in sync with his policy. This film, like all the films, is a version of history, a version of reality, which tries to be historically correct but does not aspire to be a documentary.
Recently he has sometimes dealt with History, subjects taken from texts in which historical truth is essential. Which need does this choice start?
My first experience in this sense dates back to Carlos, who I did in 2009, and it was a way to make cinema different from what I had lived before, so I had to define my method and understand where the limits are and where the potential. What I have understood to work, perhaps only for me, is to give me a lot of freedom in terms of psychology, in terms of humanity, anecdotes also, but to be absolutely truthful in political terms. Obviously because I knew it would be analyzed from that point of view, and the interesting thing is that at 15 years away there is no new version of Carlos’ story in book, documentary or series. If someone wants to know his story doesn’t find it updated, so I can say that no one has done better than I [laughs]. Only in my series are all known elements combined consistently. But Carlos’ story was primarily about me from a human point of view: the adventure of someone who begins with youth illusion and then becomes a mercenary and end up in jail. And when I did The Kremlin Wizard I adopted a very similar method. For Carlos I worked with a journalist who helped me a lot and it was my point of reference. Here I have to thank Emmanuel Carrère but above all Giuliano Da Empoli because he has documented that reality and if I needed specific information or gave it to me because he already possessed it or indicated a way to get it. However, the material I worked on when I did Carlos and Wasp Network was a record, while in this case I started from a novel. Like Giuliano before me, I used romance freedom to give emotion and truth to a non-political speech but politics.
It must have been difficult to find the right actor for Putin. How come you chose Jude Law and how did you come to give Paul Dano such a central role?
Paul Dano was my first idea while we were working on the screenplay, because it has a complexity that I was interested in and that it is much bigger in him than in other equivalent actors of American cinema. He has something strange: a moment before you see a boy and a moment later it becomes so serious that he can also scare. It has a very powerful physical presence and at the same time is very delicate. He is always attentive to all shades. Production at first did not want it because for such an expensive film he was not quite known. Then I waited, I discussed, I also tried other options, but we returned to Paul because there is no valid alternative. For Jude it was different because instead there were several possibilities to make Putin’s casting. We could have chosen someone physically closer to the original or, as we did, work with a great actor who understood the complexity of the character. Jude I met him in Cannes, we were in the same jury, and we found ourselves having such a way to see the cinema so much that I knew how it worked and how he thought. As soon as I defined what kind of actor I wanted for Putin, my first idea was Jude. In addition, I appreciated that he took charge of all the research work to prepare the part. Apart from the books and documentaries I recommended to him, the rest found it independently or meeting from Empoli on Zoom, and absorbing what Carrère and I had absorbed before writing. When he arrived on the set he knew everything we knew (maybe even more!) and did not need any indication whatsoever. He was more than an actor, a very useful collaborator.
What about the female role entrusted to Alicia Vikander?
The character of Ksenija is very different in the film because in the novel was secondary, a rough, undeveloped presence. When I asked myself about doing this film or not and what I would change if I accepted it, I immediately became spontaneous to work on this aspect of history. It was vital, because it brings a human dimension. There was a need for this figure to question Baranov’s morality, which thus has the opportunity to explain itself outside of cynicism and strategy. In Ksenija he must tell the truth because she saw him move the first steps in the world of show and knows everything about him. In addition, he is a character who bears the story of this generation of post-falling Russians of the Berlin Wall. At the beginning of the 1990s I spent a few days in Russia, I met young artists and students, and there was an energy, a very powerful hope. Behold, she embodies this energy and never loses it, in a way. I always wanted to have a counterpoint of someone who presents what could have been this generation and has never been because it was destroyed by this totalitarian government.
In the book of Da Empoli is quoted a very well-known phrase that “Power is like the sun and death: you cannot look at it directly in the face”. Does this film think you could have done it? What kind of power does Putin represent today?
For me Vladimir Putin represents evil for our times. And he does it consciously. That’s my opinion. But I’m not sure that cinema can look directly in the face of power. I have always been convinced, wrongly or rightly, that art in general serves to ask questions and what interests me is to propose the right ones. To each then find their own answers. When I represent reality I don’t know if I really do it and I don’t know if I am interested in doing so precisely, but I care that the echo of the questions I ask about it remains after the exit from the room.
Speaking of truth and fiction: Now that Darren Aronofsky has produced a series on the American War of Independence realized with Artificial Intelligence it seems that every dam has collapsed. Is that news you think is alarming? What do you think of this subject in general?
The film about the American revolution I want to watch is that of Ken Burns, of which I am a great admirer, but I don’t know where to find him. While Artificial Intelligence does not scare me. It is not that you leave me indifferent, it is a very interesting thing that is happening before us. It is the technological event of the moment, but we have lived many during the 20th and early 21st century, including the internet that changed the world and also influenced the way we function. I am not an expert but I understand more or less what it is about and certainly in the process of development of every new technology there is something good and something less good. I think nothing prevents making an interesting film like that, then if I’m interested in it is another speech, because when I look at a movie or read a book I don’t care about the thing in itself but the person who did it, his motivation, the evolution of his work. I am interested in understanding the subjectivity of another person, while the perception of a machine doesn’t affect me so much… Perhaps one day, even next, I will look at a documentary made by Artificial Intelligence but for me art is an expression of the human point of view. Surely in the future will be done fascinating things and even very useful with these tools, but in the context of art I don’t think that you can produce something that will interest me authentically if a human perspective is missing.
What is your relationship with Turin?
I have come several times in this city, which was in the context of the Museum or Film Festival since it was called Cinema Giovani. I have always loved Turin as a city of cinema, of the free and inventive one, the best possible. And I have the impression that in Italy this is the capital of independent cinema. All free filmmakers in the world recognize themselves in the values that have been defined by your festival. I recognize that it was important for the film culture.
L’articolo “AI does not scare me” – Meeting with Olivier Assayas in Turin proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
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