Michel Hazanavicius
Michel Hazanavicius
Michel Hazanavicius; born 29 March 1967) is a French film director, producer, screenwriter and film editor best known for his 2011 film, The Artist, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards. It also won him the Academy Award for Best Director. He also directed spy film parodies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spiesand OSS 117: Lost in Rio...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth29 March 1967
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies.
When you speak of silent movies, everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin first.
When we were making the movie, winning awards for it wasn't the point at all. We didn't even have an American distributor.
To me the recognition of the audience is part of the filmmaking process. When you make a movie, it's for them.
Sometimes when an actor says something almost perfect, but you know you have to edit it, if you tell them to change something immediately, it will come out great
I guess George Clooney would be a wonderful silent actor, and Leonardo DiCaprio is such a wonderful actor he certainly could do it.
It's just incredible. When you're French, coming from a non-English language country, you don't even dream about Oscar recognition or nominations. It's just beyond the dream. It's something very, very special and unique. It's the highest recognition any filmmaker could dream of
French cinema audiences usually don't express anything. Certainly not satisfaction.
I want to thank three persons, I want to thank Billy Wilder, I want to thank Billy Wilder and I want to thank Billy Wilder.
I thought 'The Artist' was a perfect way to find a good balance. The artistic challenge is obvious because the film is black-and-white and its silent, but I did my best to make the movie accessible and easy to watch. I really don't want to make elitist movies. I really try hard to work for the audience. Audiences are smart. They get everything.
Actually, I met a lot of directors and most of them have that fantasy to make a silent movie because for directors it's the purest way to tell a story. It's about creating images that tell a story and you don't need dialogue for that.
I looked at a lot of photos from Hollywood in the '20s, photographs of silent movies being filmed all over the world which are very specific and very evocative. Berenice, the lead actress, is my wife. She really followed the same path with me.
When you're with your wife, you don't say I love you to your wife every day but the ways you look at her and your actions are another way to communicate. Don't focus on dialogue, only focus on what you're expressing.
An idea is something you work on to make it work and a desire is much deeper in a way.