Leaving the Factory Hong Kong style
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2017
After Catherine Deneuve last year, Martin Scorsese in 2015, Pedro Almodóvar, Paolo Sorrentino and Xavier Dolan in 2014, Quentin Tarantino, Jerry Schatzberg, Michael Cimino and Fatih Akin (four in a row!) in 2013, it was Wong Kar-wai's turn to shoot "his" version of “Leaving the Lumière Factory,” a remake of the first film in cinema history, with a little touch of Hong Kong.
© Institut Lumière / Olivier Chassignole
Under a radiant sun, the cheerful public starts singing Charles Aznavour’s hit, "Take me to the ends of the earth... Take me to wonderland," to celebrate the singer’s presence. Wong Kar-wai, with his signature dark glasses and a baseball cap firmly on his head, gives his instructions in a pleasantly mellow voice, without using the megaphone like most of his predecessors. He places the camera at the exact spot where the Lumière brothers’ cinematograph captured the men and women workers leaving the factory, on photographic plates in 1895. The filmmaker sets up, surrounded not by one, but two cinematographers: his partner-in-crime Christopher Doyle and Pierre-William Glenn. "It's going to 'scoop,’’ the image will jump, because he wants to shoot it at 8 frames per second,” like the first motion pictures, explains Glenn.
A modern twist is added to the realism: Wong Kar-wai asks his actors to reproduce the original scene, without changing a thing, but he reserves the right to bring a variant to the last take, which will be revealed at last minute. Two test shots are needed to work out the details: "You have to walk faster. Keep in mind that it's the end of a working day and you want to leave this place as soon as possible," says the director to his actors-for-a-day. “And the film has to last 50 seconds: when we close the doors, everyone must have passed," he adds. "And don’t look at the camera, ok?" At his side, his wife, Esther - who the director honored in a moving tribute at the Lumière Award ceremony the evening before - seems to be having fun.
© Institut Lumière / Olivier Chassignole
It’s time to film. "Action!" Actor Sami Bouajila pulls open the two heavy gates of the Institut, and actress Emmanuelle Devos appears, immediately overwhelmed by the other guests of this 2017 edition, enthusiastic participants, thrilled to be in a film by Wong Kar-wai! The group includes screenwriter and lyricist Jean-Loup Dabadie, actors Vincent Pérez, Anna Karina, Clément Sibony, directors Jean Becker, Bertrand Tavernier, Anne Le Ny and the CEO of Gaumont, Nicolas Seydoux. For a fleeting moment, the hurried actors flowing through the gates of the Institut look like the bustling crowd that invades the sidewalks of Hong Kong, making way for cyclists, who whizz by diagonally.
In a rock 'n' roll jacket with embroidered eagles on his chest, 93 year-old Charles Aznavour charges forward at a juvenile pace, holding the hands of the two young children of actor Niels Arestrup. A little further, another child, the son of actors Clovis Cornillac and Lilou Fogli, also makes his début on camera, flanked by his parents. At the end of the take, we see the variant added by Wong Kar-wai: two young people exchange a kiss before parting. Satisfied, Wong Kar-wai starts to applaud- it’s a wrap. In the projection room, the shoot has turned out perfectly: "You all did great, you are wonderful!"
Rébecca Frasquet
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Thierry Frémaux et Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Niels Arestrup
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Georges Képénékian
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Vincent Perez
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai et Georges Képénékian
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Olivier Chassignole
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Sami Bouajila et Emmanuelle Devos
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Sami Bouajila et Emmanuelle Devos
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Sami Bouajila
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Olivier Chassignole
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Sami Bouajila
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Sami Bouajila
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Dennis Berry et Anna Karina
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Olivier Chassignole
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Esther Wong
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Jean-Loup Dabadie
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Olivier Chassignole
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Charles Aznavour
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Charles Aznavour
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Noorullah Azizi
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Clément Sibony
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Clément Sibony
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Anne-Laure du Chattel - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Karine Silla
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Karine Silla
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Bastien Sungauer
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Georges Képénékian
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sabine Perrin - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Christopher Doyle
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sabine Perrin - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Christopher Doyle
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Christopher Doyle
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sabine Perrin - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Christopher Doyle
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Christopher Doyle
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Christopher Doyle
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Olivier Chassignole
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Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Bastien Sungauer
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Wong Kar-wai et sa femme, Esther
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Olivier Chassignole
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Christopher Doyle et Wong Kar-wai
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Bastien Sungauer
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Wong Kar-wai et sa femme, Esther
Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Léa Rener
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Copyright Institut Lumière / Photo Sandrine Thesillat - Jean-Luc Mège photographies
