A Man and a Movie Camera:
Raymond Depardon’s Recent Films

By Jay Kuehner

”My dream is to go roaming with a movie camera, let myself be carried away by the images, to stay curious, free myself from the television news, go and see what's happening in other places, and be alone.”
—Raymond Depardon

There’s a fitting irony—reflective of Raymond Depardon’s own methodology—in the discovery of this photojournalist-turned-filmmaker’s vast career: How does an oeuvre of such magnitude reveal itself so inconspicuously, as if its maker had quietly covered his footprints after treading fearlessly where few had before? Watching Depardon’s rare and rarefied 2002 feature Un homme sans l’Occident, and regarding the sun-scorched and sand-swept travels of a lone Saharan hunter, one can see something of its director in the part.

A critical hit at Cannes 2004, Depardon’s 10e chambre—Instants d’audiences (The 10th District Court—Moments of Trials, reviewed in Issue 19 of Cinema Scope) has picked up momentum on the festival circuit while securing North American distribution, a move that could potentially correct an under-recognized career, or at the very least offer American audiences a courtroom spectacle that’s amusingly Gallic but ultimately judicious in its intent. 10e chambre found Depardon with unprecedented access to a Parisian courtroom and the dozen trials brought before an unequivocal magistrate, judge Michele Bernard-Requin, whose terse approach indulges the defendants’ weaker instincts. Depardon maximizes the inherent drama with a minimum of means, using a fixed camera and few angles: an ostensibly impartial approach that turns even the pettiest of crimes into reckonings both existential and political.

Given Depardon’s resumé as a chronicler of (in)justice, one might anticipate his work-in-progress trilogy Profils paysans—a documentary series about small farmers in rural France, and the problems of transmission to the next generation—as a José Bové-incensed exposé of the perils of globalization on agriculture. In Depardon’s less-is-more approach, such a portrait may yet emerge. But for now, with the film’s second chapter, Profils paysans: le quotidian, complete (part one, Profils paysans: l’approch was made in 1991), Depardon seems intent on capturing the quotidian lives of farmers as they face the imminent sale of their land or obsolescence of their labour. More wistful than angry, Depardon nevertheless resists sentimentality as he returns to his place of origin.

Depardon’s contributions as a photojournalist are legion: first as a co-founder of the Gamma agency, and later as a Magnum associate, he has dispatched from such hotly contested areas as Algeria , Vietnam , and Chile . With over 25 books to his credit, as well as nearly 40 films—both nonfiction and narrative—Depardon certainly warrants further consideration. The ever-itinerant Depardon stopped at the 48th San Francisco International Film Festival to speak about his most recent films—visual missives from a witness who believes that you can still change the world with an image.

Cinema Scope: Your Magnum biography states that you wanted to escape your destiny as a farmer’s son, and yet, with your latest chapter of Profils paysans, you’re back on the farm.

Raymond Depardon: Yes. When I was very young, I was already interested in the cinema. Film required so much study, so I decided to go into photography. I started photographing the farm at an early age. It was ten years ago, on assignment for Libération, that I returned to rural France , and discovered that the small farms which had passed from generation to generation were close to disappearing. Even my brother was selling the family farm. That’s when I told myself I had to do a movie. It’s not nostalgic. I had been covering wars as a journalist, I travelled in Africa , but I eventually realized that I had to go back to my origins, to my childhood.

Scope: The tone of the film doesn’t seem urgent, or political even. It’s melancholy. You even ask these farmers if they’re sad.

Depardon: I didn’t want to take an exotic approach. I didn’t want characters. I tried to avoid that. Of course, I see in these farmers’ faces something of my own parents. So I have nothing but respect for them. I have years of experience as a photojournalist and, as a result, I can’t approach them with the intention of making beautiful photographs. It’s a paradox.

Scope: You’ve described what you do as “professional voyeurism.” But your position often seems to be one of respectful remove.

Depardon: My obsession is always the gaze. I think about the distance between me and my subjects. I try not to get too close to them. In Profils paysans, in making the first and second chapters, there were years and other films in between, and I didn’t shoot the two parts in the same way. I spoke with the farmers in the second chapter. So it’s evolving. I’m not certain how the third chapter will turn out.

Scope: Unlike many of the characters in 10e chambre, the farmers in Profils paysans don’t necessarily want to speak. Dramatically, was this a problem?

Depardon: No, not necessarily. 10e chambre, like Delits flagrants (1994), is part of a series of films I’ve made about the city. It’s basically a window. In making the film, I’m not talking about me, but I’m there. Of course, in 10e chambre, I feel close to these defendants, protective even. But I know not to get involved in the hearing. I was lucky to have access, and enough space. I was shooting with two cameras. And for the first time, I was working with a young editor. It was a different experience.

I want to continue to explore this kind of portrait. But I also want to do different things. I want to evolve. With the farmers, I feel I had fewer choices. We weren’t watching the rushes, so we weren’t sure how we’d proceed. It was the opposite of 10e chambre. In Profils paysans, we were less restricted, but that didn’t make it easier. It was necessary to shoot simply, and for this you must have a certain faith in the cinema.

Scope: As you’ve said, it’s not in the frame, it’s not in the filming, it’s a way of being attuned to the minute.

Depardon: Some people believe that in documentaries you must speak to your subjects, engage them, to show a kind of warm humanity. But I have a diferent responsibility. In the courtroom, for instance, I became like a lawyer. I bear a certain responsibility in the editing room. My experience becomes manifest in the film: perhaps contrary to the judge, I have been to Africa . There is no single point of view. What are our borders? Is the defendant lying, is he telling the truth? Is immigration good or bad for France ? I’m not sure my role is in answering these questions, but in listening.

In Profils paysans, the farmers asked me questions. I didn’t necessarily like this. But they know me, they know some of my history. Why, they wondered, did I change my car? This personal stake is what made Profils paysans so transforming. What could I reasonably ask of my subjects?

Scope: It’s a reciprocal relationship. 10e chambre appears objective but, in spite of certain comparisons to a kind of American television, it doesn’t seem designed to appeal to lurid curiosity. It seems more…empathetic?

Depardon: It’s not sympathy for sympathy’s sake. But I hope, even though I’m looking in a different way, that I am still a citizen. I’ve been criticized for my approach, and I’m often asked: What is my true opinion? In 10e chambre, good and bad appear easily defined, but it’s not so simple. I think I may have more issues with the judge than with the defendants. She is in command, but she too is exposed. How is she different from her defendants?

I think, unlike American filmmakers, that my approach is impressionistic. I make a film in strokes. It’s not a case of taking on a single issue. For me, there is no message. It’s assumed that a rational approach leads to more clarity. 10e chambre has many characters, and we get to know them all, so it can suggest so much.

Scope: In a broader sense, I’m struck by your description—related to your forays in Africa —of simply recording the “sights and sounds of ordinary pains” of a particular place. Could this be a summation of your overall aesthetic?

Depardon: Maybe I am an exhibitionist of pain! I have this tendency for…dolour. Farmers never speak of what goes right for fear of bringing bad luck. It’s a caricature, I know. But in the cities, among the bourgeoisie, it’s the opposite. In spite of daily hardships, everything is okay.

Scope: You’ve expressed as well a desire to work alone. To bring dispatches from the world, but gathered in solitude.

Depardon: Of course. Solitude is necessary. I think I need to be more vigilant. You’re always working in your mind, even without the camera. My attitude changes, though, according to the subject. For instance, making 10e chambre, I was composed and assured. But for Profils paysans, I was anguished. The courtroom would open and close, but farmers, they never close.

Scope: How would you distinguish your approach to photojournalism from that of filmmaking? How do they inform each other?

Depardon: My professional career is very atypical. With photojournalism, I learned to work quickly, to find the right places. Almost like a doctor. There’s always a question of proximity. To move from photography to filmmaking isn’t necessarily a continuation. With filmmaking I discovered sound, how to listen. Part of me is always searching for the aesthetic image, but beyond this there remains something indefinite, something difficult to describe, more personal. There is a phrase: The photographer is always inhabited by doubt, and nothing comes to assure him. In the cinema, there is at least some assurance in editing.

I have to remain restless. Like the farmers, I’m always unhappy with the weather. You can’t capture the ephemeral—this is what we have in common. One must be at once self-assured, and yet always have doubt. I feel fortunate to continue making photographs, to be concerned with the aesthetics of the image. But I’m not simply a photographer who makes films. With film, you begin to hear the image, to feel the lapse of time. I don’t need to move the camera, because I’m listening, trying to capture the sound.

When you look at my photographs, they’re quite simple. Colleagues of my generation often complicate the image. For me though, the easier the image is to read, the happier I am.

Scope: There is a refined quality to your still photography, but with 10e chambre and Profils paysans, the image seems less virtuous, more modest. The Haute Loire location of Profils paysans isn’t rendered entirely picturesque. But going back to Un homme sans l’Occident, the black-and-white photography is overwhelming in its beauty. Can you explain these differences?

Depardon: Un homme sans l’Occident is certainly more picturesque. I was born near Lyon , so the influence of the Lumières is felt. Shooting in the desert, I thought in terms of silent film. With the farmers, though, it’s different. This was an homage to my parents, and it wasn’t appropriate to shoot it in any classic way.

Scope: So you would say that there’s an ideology to the image?

Depardon: You can make aesthetic associations, but in my work, there are always exceptions, there is no general pattern. The apparatus changes. With Profils paysans, I want to avoid nostalgia. When the trilogy is finished, there will also be a book of photographs. I am more confident with these images, simply from experience. But there is a danger in making the image too beautiful. I felt a certain harshness to the farmers’ lives, and I felt this might be too easy to convey by filming in black and white. In photography and film, there is always an attraction to misery. What I find most crucial, however, is vigilance.

Scope: Given the vast scope of your work, how do you situate yourself? Primarily as a press photographer, a documentary or narrative filmmaker, or simply as one who wants to wander the desert alone, with a camera?

Depardon: Good question! I don’t know cinema all that well...of course there’s Jean Rouch, with whom I’ve been compared. And I’ve been influenced by direct cinema. I feel deeply engaged with cinema though; from an early age, I knew that I wanted to make films. I think of myself less as a photographer. Although—and with all due modesty—after Henri Cartier-Bresson’s death, people commented that perhaps I was the most French of photographers. I have 20 more years to continue working. I would love to continue creating: fiction, nonfiction, photography books, documentary, narrative…but I want to free myself. I’m better than I was 20 years ago. I was very wild and lonely. Now, I want to bring all my stories into a current light. I don’t want to restrict myself to any one category, but to move between them. To move between France and Africa , between personal and political stories. This movement is what has saved me. I left my parents’ farm, and curiosity saved me. It’s what will save me in the future.

Profils paysans

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