"Around the film "Such a pretty little beach"" "with Yves Allégret who realized it," "Jacques Sigurd who wrote it and Jean Servais interpreting one of the principal parts." "This is a film that plays, I believe a certain importance in your career." "However, at the time where you started this movie your career was very young." "Relatively, yes." "Would you like to remember for us the circumstances that gave birth to this film?" "Listen, first of all, there was our common friendship with Jacques Sigurd, Gérard Philipe and myself." "I met Gérard in '43." "In Nice." "At the time I wanted to become an actor and I attended threatre classes and Gérard came to the classes too." "And then we became friends." "And then, after the demarcation line was lifted, when everybody went back to Paris" "I met Gérard again in Paris." "We were around the same age, I was two years older than him." "I didn't know him for very long, in '40 I was demobilized on the Côte d'Azur and he was living in Grace where his father ran a hotel." "I met him first there, in the drama classes that took place in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, and later, through Gérard, I met Sigurd." "It's the first scenario I wrote." "In '45." "I think, yes, in '45." "I was sharing a flat with Gérard Philipe at the time and I was a journalist, working at the Écran Français and then..." "I got ill... and bored and I started to write what I imagined would be a novella." "In the evening Gérard came home and he read the pages I left on the table." "He woke me up and told me that I'd written a formidable scenario." "I said "this isn't a scenario at all, this is a novella, let me sleep."" "And the next morning, after he left I reread the pages and I thought, maybe he's right, and I continued it like a scenario." "Gérard was starting his career, he was the great film star of the future, he could sense it already, and all that, he liked it." "And then Gérard, without telling me, let Yves Allégret and Simone Signoret read it, they were married at the time, and we were very good friends." "Especially with Simone." "And..." "A few days later, Simone called me and told me "Gérard has us read something of yours, we all adore it, we must do it one day, it's wonderful etc..."" "And then..." "I think, a month later, Sasha Gordine asked Yves to make a film." "Yes, I'd made "Les Démons de l'aube" before, but Dédée d'Anvers was my first big film." "With a great role for Simone." "And Yves said "ok, but I've just read a scenario written by a boy who's done nothing so far, who's a journalist and I'd like to work with that guy."" "And Gordine was a very nice gentleman who took lots of risks." "He said: "why not?"" "He gave me that chance and we did Dédée d'Anvers." "While we were writing the scenario of Dédée d'Anvers with Jacques Sigurd we were already talking about the next film because we were very ambitious, obviously, we already thought about our next project." "And... he had this idea, this story which I immediately liked and Gérard too was delighted." "The moment Gérard he told me "this is a scenario", I wrote it as a scenario for Gérard." "Dédée d'Anvers war more or less inspired by a book by Ashelbé and in a framework one had to respect, even if we didn't follow the story one had at least to respect the framework, the harbour, the prostitute, the pimp, etc." "whereas with "Such a pretty little beach" it was really an original script, we could do as we pleased." "It was the first piece I wrote" "I just threw myself into it without imagining that a film would be made one day." "It was as if I continued to write my novella." "I started from a first image, the coach and the rain." "A guy in a coach, it's raining and the guy is sad." "And after that it all got launched by itself." "The litte beach, the rain were memories of holidays I spent as a child, in Bretagne, with those immense beaches, and the rain." "On the other hand..." "I lost both my parents early, and I had a very unhappy childhood." "I wasn't under welfare care, nothing like that, but still," "I think that the character played by Gérard was inspired by my childhood." "It seems that when things go bad one always takes refuge in one's childhood." "Well, I personally could take refuge only in memories that weren't very happy, so I took refuge in them all the same!" "The escorted school outing in the movie is a memory of when I went to school in Caen." "We were taken outside on Sundays, that was sad too because it rained all the time and we were marching out supervised by priests." "Even today, when I see school children being walked out like that, supervised, it depresses me but I still watch them." "Yes, a mix of bitterness and sadness." "Everything one likes to put into a first work, arranged and adapted, evidently." "Influences, memories, everything's in it." "It's like a writer's first novel." "It's the same thing the guys of the Nouvelle Vague did later with their first films." "The point of departure of the scenario, Sigurd's and my intention, was to tell a story in a different way." "There wasn't any second draft." "We imagined and thought out the story at once, like you can see it on the screen." "Because, in fact, there's the story, a gentleman arrives, then this happens, then that happens, and so on, up to the end." "But what's most important is what had happened before." "Later, when I became more professional," "I'd probably have introduced flash-backs and it wouldn't have been as good." "Because here, there wasn't any flash-back." "And all that had happened before, all that story that belonged to Gérard you discover it through a phrase said by the Missus, by the grampohone record, by Servais, by tiny little touches." "You may call it pointillisme or impressionism." "My intention was to avoid all explications." "I thought that one always explained far too much and by avoiding all explications things would be revealed visually, or by a phrase, or by a detail." "The fact that Gérard Philipe meets at the inn, where he had been very unhappy as a boy, a boy who acts as he did then, makes him want to change the boy's ways." "Because he also realizes that like himself, the boy sleeps with a lady who spends the weekend there with her husband who's much older." "So the boy is more or less his image." "It's because of this that one understands and gets to know, by and by, the story of the character played by Gérard Philipe." "It's a way to tell a story without going back to the past." "Gérard Philips relives his youth through the boy." "Sure, that's the counterpoint." "It's what had happened to Gérard's character when he was a kid." " The mirror." " Of course." "The mirror is the young boy who has the same age Gérard Philipe had when he first came to the hotel long ago." ""You too?"" ""Come back here."" "A sort of mirror, yes." "He has killed his old mistress because he wanted a change, he had enought of it, and before dying at the end of the movie, because he's killed of course, he comes back, trying to recapture the atmosphere he had known under public welfare." "And incidentally, in the same framework, in the same small inn and restaurant, there's again a 12 year old boy." ""You're looking for shells?"" ""You've already found plenty."" ""Shells are tasty, aren't they?" "Even raw, they're tasty."" ""You know, when I was your age I too gathered shells, on a beach just like this."" ""Such a pretty little beach."" "How was the title born?" "It was born like that, we were talking with Gérard Philipe and with Sigurd, and we said we had to find a deserted, enormous beach very sinister, always in the rain, and Sigurd said "in fact, a pretty little beach"." "We said bravo, and immediately we took to it for a title." "The title gained widespread acceptance then." "The title came about when Marken said at a point" ""it's such a pretty little beach"." "And in the end the couple says "it's really a very pretty little beach"" "and it came like that, we thought it was a pretty title." "And it's funny because the title made an impact, even today one always sees "a pretty little beach" in the magazines." "Yves Allégret insisted a lot on the poignant aspects represented by the set, the houses, the banging shutters." "This is also part of the atmosphere," "I mean, the squeaking of a door, banging shutters." "All this are things I have lived very often, all the time, and sound for me is a primordial thing to put people into the mood of the movie." "The marvellous cameraman Alekan, he was fantastic, he chose to give those images even more blackness than what was in the script." "That's Alekan's part, the marvellous Alekan, who was my cameraman and who helped me with a photography which was atmopsheric and also very dark." "The atmosphere I'm alluding to wasn't only in the sets but in the fact that the film takes place from the first to the last reel in the rain." "There was natural rain, because it rains a lot there, but there was also lots of showering with hoses." "It's a film noir, it's an atmospheric film, of a total desolation, shot in a place, really deserted, lugubrous even and with characters how shall I say, who carried inside themselves much personal desolation." "There wasn't any influence from the producers, they left us totally free." "In relation to the character, to the role, we could really do as we pleased." ""The little beach", that was really Gérard as he was then." "A bit sad, with brief moments of gaiety that are absent from the movie of course." "Moments of gaiety that were really crazy like a 13 year old boy." "I saw him act before." "By the way, it was a revelation for me because as everybody knows, it's a very great actor who has left us recently." "Of his generation, he was one of the rare actors who admirably knew how to wear a costume, who admirably knew how to move in the set, with a sort of grandeur." "He brought something which an actor rarely possesses, he's brought grace." "I thing it's an immense gift he had inside him a gift of presence, a gift of gaiety, a gift for poetry which emanated from all his characters." "A hero of great roles, yes." "And never was his poetry entirely sad, nor entirely gay, it floated around him like a kind of bizarre aura which was all his own." "I was fortunate to work again with him a second time in "Fever rises in El Pao", a film by Bunuel." "And it was again a meeting with this charming boy who was adorable in private, of crazy gaiety and, how can I say, he had inside him the movement, the sense of life." "He lived everything he lived everything, even, how can I say, with a sort of greedy hunger." "He was really of his time, completely of his time." "He has evolved politically, he has evolved with his times" "I saw him again during the dubbing of the film a month later, full of projects." "It was really a stroke of fate, a total surprise for me." "If Gérard had lived, today he would have a very astonishing place, very special, he would bring his style to the classic roles." "I think his characters are carefully thought out but one didn't notice it." "That was his force, that everything looked spontaneous." "Madeleine Robinson is an actress I admire extremely." "It's too bad she couldn't be with us today." "I regret it because I haven't seen her for a long time and I'd very much like to see her again." "Last month she was with us, but not this month." "A comedienne full of guts, who nails it right every time, a genuine character too." "And by the way she was very well chosen because of the character of humanity which she brings out." "She had a great scene, the one of the hangar." "In my opinion, she's admirable." "It's a very difficult scene." "It's also a love scene, it's a scene of tenderness, of human solidarity, well I don't know how to call it," "Of human warmth." "A funny thing: the chanson in the film, it's her who's singing." "She sang for herself sometimes on the set, so I told her "you're going to sing that chanson, it's much easier than demanding it of Piaf."" "Remember the Rimbaud poem "oh, woman, you're never the sister of charity, never"." "Well, it's the opposite, she's really the sister of charity here." "And then there was Servais," "Jean Servais who has a rather ignoble role, even totally so." "Abject, yes, but he has a quality, I don't know if it comes out, but after all there's this famous woman who was killed, the chanteuse, and he loved her." "He wants the jewels, okay." "But he loved the woman." "He isn't entirely rotten." "He was in fact terribly jealous of Gérard's character, all the time, and he accepted him, because he was weak, because he couldn't do otherwise." "My character which you'll probably judge rather disturbed is pushed towards its blackest instincts." "I love very much the traits and ignomity of the world." "For example, Servais would have been very nice if you'd seen him in his job as an impresario and music publisher." "He would have been very nice, very pleasant." "But here you see him as a filthy man and finally it's him who'll denounce Gérard Philipe to the police." "He also takes drugs, he tries to corrupt the kid." ""Come in." ""I haven't seen you around before," ""you're a member of the family?" ""Not likely." ""Where are you from?" ""You work here?" ""I'm from charity." ""Don't rush off like that!" ""Do you smoke?" ""Sometimes." ""You're right." "It's never too early to start." ""How old are you?" ""15." ""15." ""So you're from charity." ""And what make they do you here?" ""Tell me." ""A bit of everything." ""Dirty jobs." ""Yes." ""Of course." ""Are they hard on you?" ""Very hard?" ""When she feels like it, she beats me." ""You must leave this place." ""Some kids from charity tried to, but they all get caught." ""Not all of them." ""I'm telling you this for your own good." ""But if you don't have the guts, you'll rot here for the rest of your life" ""and that would be a shame." ""No?" ""Of course it would." ""You're 15 and you're..." ""a pretty boy." ""Has nobody ever told you this?" ""Nobody." ""I'm telling you now," ""it could help you succeed." ""There are plenty of nice things one can do in life, you know." ""Agreeable, profitable things." ""You should use your pretty eyes."" "Yes, in order to corrupt him, maybe, but first to turn him into the man he himself has become." "In fact, he really loved the woman, he put up with everything because of her." "It's even an equivocal character." "Let's say that, up to then," "I'd only played romantic young leads who pick up handkerchiefs." "Romantic young leads." "I think it was the first time that he played this kind of part." "I shed my first skin of romantic young lead like a serpent, for a new skin, and it was the skin of a snake, I'm telling you." "More or less a druggie, ready for everything, weak, equivocal." "It was Gérard Philipe who insisted that I played the part." "If you want to tell such a story, you must insert characters who correspond to what Gérard Philipe had suffered in his childhood." "This is perfectly normal." "The character are pushed up a bit, without caricaturizing, but the tone was voluntarily hard the tone was voluntarily harsh." "You know, we needed a Missus, and we needed also a pitoresque character in that hotel." "That's why we had the character of the Missus, evidently." ""Especially with tuberculosis, this is a durable illness"." "Marken played the Missus." "I'd already used her in Dédée where she played a whore." "Jane Marken is a character I adored, an actress I liked enourmously, a marvellous and funny woman." "She used to be ravishing, one of the most beautiful women of Paris, and she still conserved a kind of blondeness, with her blue eyes, still very sexy." "Jane Marken respresents, how can I say, a pendant to the role of Carette." "Carette brings the humoristic side, bon enfant despite everything." "He was a man who brought under all cirmumstances a kind of particular humour, a very personal one." "He did a lot of work on the stage, he even made his debut with Copeau, he told us about it and it was a riot on the set." "Carette playing Chérubin, you get the picture." "In the communal hall of the hotel, when serious things are happening, we're hearing Carette who talks on the phone with his wife trying to get news about his child, if he's eaten well, totally idiotic things." ""Grandma came too, despite her sciatica." "A postman's outfit?" "No!" "Hello?" "Hello?" " Louise, I can't hear you." " Where are you going?" "It's Saturday, my evening off, right?" " Very well." " He's not too tired?" "Have you read the evening papers?" "Not yet." "Just imagine, it's getting more complicated now." "Louise!" "Can you hear me?" "Yes, yes." "I can hear you too." "It must be so exciting, being a detective." "And Edouard is there too?" "And what did Vovonne bring him?" "No!" "That scene was very difficult to shoot." "Very, very difficult to shoot." "But because that was a very difficult scene to shoot, it was a scene that was written very quickly." "I didn't erase anything," "I didn't retouch anything." "It was the counterpoint that seemed necessary because of all the drama going on in that scene." "There was almost no other dialog besides Carette's conversation." "Yes, it's a curious situation, with curious lines because, after all, I remember when the film was screened at the Madeleine Cinema, people were laughing out loud at Carette's lines, too relieved to have at least one moment when they were allowed to laugh." "Besides, I think this is a scene which carried a lot of weight because for the first time the atmosphere was not created by the dialog, not only by the set, not only by what's happening, but by someting new." "I was talking about tenderness, there's also the character of the mechanic." ""Give me the wrench."" "Valmy plays the mechanic, he had a part in "Les démons de l'aube", my first film." "This is surely a film that has become the witness of an era, certainly." "You can also feel it's a film of the post-war period because in Barneville, where we filmed, on the beach, there were ruined houses." "In fact, in '44 we had the Liberation, we were liberated from something, from the oppressors, from the Nazis and in '45 the war was over." "There were still restrictions, all those things, but it wasn't a war we'd lost." "The three years following '45, following the Liberation, everybody thought that everything would change by the next day and in fact, we had a year, a year and a half very euphoric we had peace at last." "Yes, it was a very good moment, but it didn't last very long." "And finally we saw that nothing had changed, that life became more and more difficult." "We were excited, we used to live with the Résistance, things were happening and then it was all over." "And we were 24 years old at the time." "People weren't particularly optimistic." "It didn't work out very well, after all." "And everybody was in the same situation." "The society which was reforming itself wasn't at all the one we had imagined, we had hoped for during the war." "It brought a great disillusionment." "You know, the people had suffered pretty much during the Occupation" "It's as stupid as that but people were first hoping to find work, and work that paid well." "We had the impression that after all we'd fought for something and then you saw it all drained away." "What did they see?" "They saw nothing." "The Germans were represented by the Americans, the difference being that the Americans had the food rations." "And then a great desperation hit us all, the people of my generation, at least." "I think this is true in all times because it takes all things to create a world, as the saying goes." "I wouldn't say it was specific for the times, that it was specific for the atmosphere of the times." "I cannot tell you why the film is particularly gloomy, probably because I was very gloomy myself at the time." "You know, after all, and I wont betray the film by saying that, this is just an embroidery around a welfare child surrounded by bizarroid characters, among them myself." "It was really a sort of climate." "Yes, it's a psychological film, I don't know, you may call it like that." "After all, it's just a story dear to me." "Let me tell you that I feel naturally attracted to that kind of stories." "I like dramatic stories." "So personally it didn't shock me, in view of the times." "I just entered into another world but after all, a world in a state of reaction, if you like." "I was 25, Gérard was 23." "We were remaking everything, the world, the cinema, with a few other people by our side." "I often see myself as a cineaste who sometimes did exactly what he wanted to, and at other times didn't, and as a witness, it's a great title, after all, who attempted to re-transpose on the screen what he could have seen or felt, rather feel." "Merci Allégret." "Engl. subtitles: aloysius70serdar202@KG 2017"