An Interview with Patrice Chereau,
director of Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train By Lawrence Chua
"There's a great deal of pride and also arrogance in this sentence." This
is Patrice Chereau, talking about the edict that is the title and the
heart
of his new film, Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train. We are sitting
at
the end of the day in the lobby of New York's Mercer Hotel and Chereau,
weary from a day of interviews and distracted by the sudden appearance of
fellow hotel guest Ralph Fiennes in the lobby, is trying to explain why
the
charismatic painter who wants to be buried in a distant provincial town
has
issued this deathbed demand to the coterie of Parisian bohemians who
loved
and hated him in life.
"It's like King Lear saying, 'I want proof of your
love, even after death.' And maybe like in King Lear, a few people who
love him very much won't take the train."
Among those who take the train: a manipulative editor of an art magazine,
the brilliant young writer he loves and the H.I.V. positive hustler whom
the
writer loves; a recovering junkie in the early stages of her pregnancy
and
her estranged husband, the nephew of the dead painter; an overpainted
insomniac who alternates between frenzied gossip about the late painter
and
dead sleep. And those who don't: his former student who just had a sex
change (played brilliantly by Vincent Perez); the painter's bourgeoise
uncle who lives in Limoges; the thuggish assistant who drives his coffin
down the highway parallel to the train.
"It becomes a series of competitions among the survivors," says Chereau.
For the 53-year-old director, the narrative seed of the film began with
the
screenwriter, Daniele Thompson, who told him the story of a man who
died.
"She remembered that day as a beautiful day," he says. "It was a terrible
day because it was a funeral, but it had an energy. She talked about
these
people as a family, in the best and worst sense. I thought immediately
that
could be a good subject for me. I was interested in the description of
this
strange family, the relation between the people. I thought it could tell
something about today and the people I know. I don't know if it's a movie
about love. I only know that love is something difficult to live. "
Chereau is probably best known in the U.S. for two films: his cultish
1983
L'Homme Blesse, a bleak piece about a young man coming to terms with
his
gay desires in a small town, and the bloody period piece about the 16th
century French royal family, Queen Margot (which was made in 1994 and
was
also co-written by Thompson). Chereau has made seven films but his first
directorial efforts were in the theatre. He has staged plays and operas
across Europe and the United States. His controversial interpretation of
Wagner's Ring cycle, cast against the dawn of the Industrial
Revolution,
is considered a landmark production. And his version of Bernard-Marie
Koltes' In the Loneliness of the Cotton Fields (in which he both
performed and directed) was highly acclaimed when it was staged in 1996
at
the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Although he is currently occupied with
another film, an adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's tempestuous novel
Intimacy, the differences between working in theater and cinema remain
vague for him.
"It's not separated in my mind," he says. "I am a product of both."
Chereau
describes both theater and film as a way of telling stories with actors
and
the process of working with actors in both media are the same. "After
all,
there are a lot of differences, but they are so obvious it's useless to
talk about them," he says. Although both theater and film may start with
the text, Chereau says that the product that evolves from the process of
writing has a different relationship to the written word. "The written
words in cinema have to dissolve completely in the film when it's done.
The
screenplay doesn't exist anymore. We use the images and the sound to tell
the story. In the end of a play, though, you still have the play."
Given the importance Chereau places on his actors, it is not surprising
that the most impressive thing about Those Who Love Me Can Take the
Train
is the way its characters are composed. There is a complexity that
belies
their pithy descriptions: transsexual, junkie, editor. Perhaps the most
remarkable character is that of tk, the seropositive hustler who is at
the
center of a male love triangle. His serostatus is treated as an integral
aspect of his personality but is not something exceptional to the
narrative.
"I thought that it would be obvious to have someone who was
HIV
positive among this group of people," says Chereau. "I tried to describe
that as a part of life without making it a tragedy or talking about
death.
I want to say that is normal today. I thought it could be good having
someone being HIV and having a relationship, a normal love with
somebody."
But at the core of Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train is a family
that
somehow manages to self-destruct and recreate itself at the same time.
"There are biological families and there are other families. You can have
children without having children. You can have a father without having a
father," says Chereau, his gaze now focusing as the day draws to a
close.
"Sometimes the chosen family can be stronger, or worse, than the real
family. "
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