Danièle Thompson says The Code has changed
As France 2 broadcasts her film this afternoon, its director shared with us the secrets of its production.
Released in theaters in 2009, The Code has changed had attracted more than 1.6 million spectators in theaters, one of Danièle Thompson’s greatest public successes as a director. This comedy bringing together Karin Viard, Daby Boon, Marina Foïs and Patrick Bruel tells the story of a dinner between friends that goes wrong. Decryption with the screenwriter of The Great Stroll on the occasion of its rebroadcast, this Sunday evening at 9:10 p.m. on W9.
Do you remember how the idea of the Code has changed ?
Danielle Thompson : It was born during a dinner at home with a group of friends. There were eight of us at the table. We spent a joyful evening where each couple had recounted the circumstances of their meeting. And then, the next morning, one of my friends called me and explained that she had not wanted to spoil the evening before but that just before coming, her partner and she had decided to separate! I was shocked because throughout this dinner, I had not detected the slightest clue that would have allowed me to guess. But, when I hung up, I told myself that it would be a good subject for a film. Not the eternal dinner settling style where people lose their cool. But, on the contrary, the evening where everyone manages to hide their inner wounds to put on a good face. By social convention or just to not spoil the good mood of others. So I wanted to write with Christopher (Thompson) a film about appearances, our ability to have a good evening by getting into the game, by being in denial of what we are experiencing intimately at that moment and by trying to show our most sunny and therefore most flattering side. It’s a great comedy theme around what we show and what we hide. And from there, we’re off for a year of work!
There is a taste in you for the choral film. Was there also with The Code has changed the desire to continue to register in this genre after The Log And Orchestra seats ?
No, not especially because in the meantime I had also realized Time difference centered on a duo Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno. There is obviously something fun about developing so many characters but nothing is more difficult. Because you have to both keep up the pace of the plot and make each character exist – otherwise it is difficult to find actors – but without making it too long. The exercise was fascinating and, moreover, on The Code has changedthe real difficulty was elsewhere. In the management of the work on the sound, once on the set, over the course of this month of filming with all these characters around a table. And I will never be able to thank Jean-Pierre Duret enough for his demands (Rosetta, The Log, The Apollonide…) who made sure that everything remained audible while I wanted to overlap the conversations as in any dinner. He achieved this with a set of microphones. After each take, we removed the lapel microphones from the actors whose conversations had been in the foreground to give them to the others so that they would in turn be audible in the next one. All this allowed me to multiply the possible options for editing. A job all the more substantial since, every day, I wrote new dialogues.
For what reason?
To get that constant background noise I was talking about. I started by writing dialogues that we weren’t supposed to hear on screen. But, very quickly, I told myself that it was stupid to waste the ones I liked the most and not put them in “in”. This game continued throughout filming.
Is respect for the text essential for you, once on set?
I try to imagine dialogues that are both very written and very verbal. I am obviously ready to correct things if the actors stumble over a particular word. But that happens quite rarely because one of the bases of my work as a screenwriter is to achieve that clarity. In an ensemble film, everything must be even more very written, otherwise everyone will try to do a number and undermine the harmony of the whole.
Do you write for certain actors?
Not on The Code has changed. I had simply offered a role to Valérie Lemercier whom I had directed in Orchestra seats but she didn’t feel like it at that moment. The puzzle actually came together gradually, quite naturally. I was determined to mix different film families, from Patrick Bruel to Marina Foïs, via Dany Boon, Emmanuelle Béart, Laurent Stocker, Karin Viard, Bianca Li, Pierre Arditi, Marina Hands, Christopher (Thompson), Emmanuelle Seigner and Patrick Chesnais… I actually owe the last one, quite unintentionally, my only major stress of this adventure. During the scene where Pierre Arditi and him are rock dancing, I was behind the combo when I suddenly saw him disappear from the frame. He had just blown his knee up! With three weeks in plaster to go, the film being put into disaster relief and the month-long stoppage of filming that this implies – as a choral film requires – while he recovers. But the scene was worth it, right?
How do you view the film in hindsight?
I like it a lot precisely because I love my actors. I think for example of what Laurent Stocker does with his role as a kitchen designer, which wasn’t the most interesting on paper. Something incredibly lively without breaking the collective harmony. He doesn’t encroach on the others, he takes the story further. The Log had started very strongly on the day of its release with a Wednesday at 25,000 spectators in Paris. And if it did well (1.6 million admissions, the second biggest success of his career to date – Editor’s note), I admit that I expected to exceed 2 million. However, today, it is one of my films that people talk to me about the most because people have learned to appreciate it over time. Many explain to me that when it came out they were a little destabilized because they did not expect this relatively dark tone of the subject, which I insisted on. Behind the comedy, not everything is rosy, between illness, betrayals of a couple, midlife crisis… And in hindsight, on this film, I do not really have any regrets.
