Ollivier Pourriol, Ecrivain / Philosophe [INTERVIEW]

It’s difficult taking the spectator into account when writing a script because we don’t know who we’re dealing with. There are two snags when considering this question. The first, we can be overwhelmed trying to understand who we’re addressing to make a film targetting for example the 15-25 year olds, for the 50 year old housewife, for the elderly. There’s a common feature among all spectators, in my opinion. We go to the movies for escape. That’s why we’re in a closed box in the dark, our lives are on hold. All spectators have this in common.

00:59 - When they go to the movies it’s to enter a time machine to travel through space Above all, a machine… to escape oneself. It’s what we have in common. It’s not so much who our spectator is as what he’d like to be, how he wants to reinvent himself his need to put life on hold, he needs to turn his back on himself. The second trap is is an excess of psychology. The need to explain the characters’ psychology thinking that way the spectators will identify with them. This myth of identification I think is a danger.

01:43 - Real identification stems more from a situation with a story. If the story is well told you will identify with it You don’t need to be a 9 year old girl to identify with her. With Little Red Riding Hood, we’ve all been afraid. If there’s some shared affect there’ll be common ground. A principle, as a writer or scriptwriter, I try to remain sincere, to bear in mind that when we enter the fiction world it’s to escape oneself, experience new worlds experience borderline moral situations we may never encounter in reality.

02:23 - It is not just to find indications for real life, it’s more to experience something real on the spiritual or psychic level for which we’ll never find the equivalent in reality. In our day to day life. A fiction proposes an enhanced state of being, proposes a new experience, within the bounds of an identifiable genre creating a balance between what we know and recognize… We know we’re being told a story We accept the principle that we’re escaping reality. A character, rather have him ressemble someone we know or someone we’d like to be he should be a means for the imagination to escape our human condition. There’s something verticle even if in the movies we’re watching a screen, or a series, we have an impression of horizontality.

03:14 - When it works there’s a shift in our bearings allowing us to take off. We talk about spectator immersion. As if being in a dream, we pull out, we’ll be glued to the screen we’ll be hypnotised. we experience enjoyment. Real pleasure is the idea that we detatch from natural perception our own point of view is no longer limited because in daily life we have our bodies and we’re limited to our bodies as we perceive it. Whereas in the movies the camera, if well used, allows escape from a particular point of view, your own perspective, and proposes the angle of some object, a point of view from the sky, from a dream point of view. The camera takes us out of our physical bodies also those of the actors.

04:10 - Everything on screen is there to release, to forget ourselves and for some, to attain ecstasy. Ecstasy not in the religious sense, but also an experience… a vacation. We’re going to take a break from ourselves. This is the promise that fiction makes. If talking about empathy, a preoccupation for producers and scriptwriters worried about creating empathy because they think it’s the only way for a spectator to connect with a story. To understand empathy from an ethymological point of view “em” meaning bring into, happening in oneself, and “pathy”, passions. It contains both passiveness and emotion.

04:54 - It’s the idea that we’ll experience the same thing as the character on screen. Firstly, the character on screen doesn’t feel as we feel. He’s an actor, he’s paid to pretend. Our emotions are real whereas the actor is pretending. Its not really empathy it’s simulated empathy. I find in Spinoza’s works, he’s not an easy philosopher, but he proposes a simple idea.

05:21 - for empathy to take place it takes a human being, a thinking mind, to imagine that something, he doesn’t say someone, something experiences an emotion to feel the same thing If you watch Ratatouille, you watch a drawing of a rat. If you watch a rat in reality you’re not going to feel much empathy if it’s a rat crossing the metro rails. You’d probably feel more repugnance. But a drawing of a rat wants to access a kitchen to cook you a meal. Oddly you feel empathy because the narrative is well crafted, so you just need to imagine, you the viewer, that this drawing of a rat, has the desire to become a cook to identify with it. That’s why a well crafted narrative can rely on this condition.

06:14 - It’s been verified by neuroscientists. Even a square and a circle, when set in motion create an illusion of motivation. Hence creating empathy with a geometrical shape. When writing we have to be conscious of that. We don’t need to lay on the psychology to create empathy. The character doesn’t have to feel something for it to be felt by the viewer. But the situation just need to be well constructed and gripping, to mechanically trigger a possible empathy. Distinction must be made between empathy and sympathy. We don’t have to find a character appealing. An unlikeable character can be interesting.

07:08 - Certain superhero films are good examples of this. The villain is often much more interesting, we’re more intrigued by him. Because his moral or immoral adventure is more exciting than than the string of clichés alloted to the hero. So empathy doesn’t mean sympathy. We can feel great empathy for a horrid, violent, destructive character. We need to understand this when inventing situations and characters.

07:37 - Empathy doesn’t imply you write amiable characters. To expand on moral judgement, when watching a film we’re in a work of art so the question of moral judgement can be put aside. You can be moved by the Godfather’s character, whereas in real life you meet a Mafia member, you’d steer clear using your moral judgement for survival. Seeing a man who assassinates his brother, you will feel from his point of view in the fiction. It becomes okay because the fiction provides a moral or immoral experience allowing for transgression of your code of values.

08:17 - So writing a good story is not putting yourself in the good guy’s shoes. Your character doesn’t need to be perfect to capture the morality of the masses On the contrary, you need a person faced with moral choices. To create a story interesting , he’ll make all the wrong choices right to the end. He’ll either climb back up from the depths because of some sudden revelation. Or he’ll remain in his abyss as is the case in the first episode of The Godfather.

08:55 - In the end he’s worse than his father he doesn’t even realise. It’s his catastrophic succession of moral choices which captivate us which draw us in in total empathy. We empathize with an immoral character precisely because we understand his choices. What makes us watch isn’t the fact that a character is good or bad it’s someone experiencing a dilemma, a moral conflict. In the Godfather he loves the family but he doesn’t like what his family does.

09:25 - If someone tries to kill his father he’ll defend his father, and to defend his father he’ll become worse than him. We understand the moral dilemma, the moral contradiction. We watch this character entangled in his moral arbitration and we watch captivated because we wouldn’t want to be in his shoes therefore we feel hugely for him. In life we’re often in situations we’d rather not be in. A fiction echoes our vulnerability our weaknesses.

09:57 - In fiction we experience the worst and when the film’s over we find we’re doing ok. We know that a work of art is a gift. We’re gifted matter to reflect on, to figure out, to experience. It’s a blind gift. We can’t foresee what the receiver will do with it. It’s inherent to a work of art. It’s not mathematical with just one conclusion. It’s not a philosophical concept. It’s a space in which possibilities can eventuate, to be interpreted individually. There are two approaches. Either we accept the idea that each to think as he wishes, we’re free to think as we please, every form of opinion is acceptable. They’re emotions, we don’t judge them. Or we can refine this. As a viewer I enjoy ridding myself of who I am, my values, my expectations, my concepts, to be open to novelty. The best moment is just before it starts.

11:08 - Everyone is attentive, in expectation. It’s a moment of hope. We’re hoping for a revelation. We hope for surprise. We hope to go beyond what we already know. A good way of seeing it for a spectator, and the writer who has to put himself in the viewer’s shoes, with what he’s trying to create, is to be totally open and above all be absent. It’s a stange idea To withdraw oneself from what’s happening like a sculptor trusts his materials for his specific needs or an architect knows his bricks well enough to imagine how they can be used. A work of art is an object and we have to treat this object with care.

12:00 - The more an author withdraws the more we’re nourrished. A viewer doesn’t just turn up with his set of morals and his judgement. The spectator accepts the idea that something’s there, possibly beautiful a new experience. If we adhere to it we’ll come out enriched, to the extent of our ability to avoid projection. We won’t speak in her place. The more we withdraw… At the movies the lights go out we’re in a sort of blank, passive state We don’t have to do anything. It’s not a Punch and Judy show.

12:37 - This passivity is essential for the superior activity generated by the mind and emotions. The more are bodies are inactive the more our imagination will be active. It’s the promise of a voyage. How to captivate the spectator ? The problem we face when wanting to captivate a viewer, is we risk over-seducing, of trying too hard to bring him on board. When someone tries too hard to seduce you it has the opposite effect. It’s even off-putting. It’s important to avoid using tricks at whatever cost to engage the viewer. That’s the first problem.

13:23 - You need to estimate the viewer, understand that he/she is at least as clever as the writer. and likely to be way more intelligent, more informed than we think he/she is. We need to be careful. It’s not because we create an object intended for the widest possible audience, that we should consider this mass incapable of thinking for him/herself, won’t want to come on board. Audiences today are very well informed they watch a huge variety, and can absorb the thriller genre with romantic comedy, switch shows quickly. He/she can take on board completely new ideas in terms of mixing genre.

14:10 - For an author today, a way of “captivating” our audience is not to try and seduce him but surprise him/her and even ourselves. We ourselves become the spectator. What we know already we can push further. It was an experiment…. I watched Fight Club in the cinema one morning at 11am. A long time ago. After I wondered “How Is it possible to write that?” It had incredibly positive message. How had a major Hollywood production using stars, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, made such an insane, unsuitable, contraversial film Bad taste, violent, unethical. So we can push things that far.

15:04 - To engage a spectator today he/she has seen so much to surprise him/her you have to be extreme. Being extreme doesn’t mean vulgar You have to be subtle in your extremeness. A good principle is, are we able to surprise ourselves. To write things we find disturbing. rather than confirm what we know already. If we reach the cut-off point of our experience and our taste we can offer interesting experiences. We’re saturated with fiction and we expect quality.

15:43 - Quality’s garantee is knowing the genre rules knowing that novelty today is proposing familiar content within a combination of genre. Complete newness doesn’t exist. Nothing is built from scratch. But picking up on the viewer’s expectations and our’s as viewers also, mixing these experiences to create something new… there’s no guarantee, we can’t foretell what people like. But we can provoke curiosity even if it’s just our own which is important when writing. To keep the viewer hooked we can’t propose anything radically alien If an alien turned up and told you a story that didn’t start with once upon a time but by zogleu mich tzeu… you won’t be able to follow.

16:32 - You need something recognizeable And that’s called a genre. We don’t talk about it but a genre is a set of rules, of formulas which lay down a structure : I’m going to tell you a horror story. It’s a horror genre. Or, it’s going to be a romantic comedy. Or I’m going to… Parasite for example, which won the Palm d’Or recently, starts as a social drama then it becomes a horror film then in the same film what seems to be a horror scene then becomes comedy… Using genre doesn’t mean conforming to a decree, It doesn’t mean forego creativity and do like everybody else. On the contrary. Using genre tries to either exchange the habitual order of events to create surprise on a familiar, recognizable backdrop. Or mix genres with a nod.

17:29 - Nods are delicate because they cause dettachement The Cohen brothers, geniuses in storytelling, spend their time, for the willing viewers, stuffing their films with references. A reference to Ulysses. The three girls are the mermaids. If you don’t have the references it doesn’t matter. Something grips your attention. The film is an odyssey Everyone gets the Illiad & Odyssey. The Illiad, a war film, in a single location. The Odyssey is the character’s long journey Everyone uses form and expectation so if one of these forms, combined with another allowing for familiarity, and on that reassuring familiarity add novelty. Someone using the detective movie genre.

18:20 - Or the horror film genre can be used to create a political film far more interesting than just your standard political film. All of a sudden the political film as in Parasite, the scenes of political critique or social critique, are woven into the horror genre becoming more acceptable. The choice of genre guarantees a means of introducing one’s intentions in an indirect, subtle, artisitic way. Your message isn’t quite so blatant. To Promise or Surprise ? Hitchcock differentiated between the art of surprise and the art of suspense. Surprise is the character is dining and suddenly a bomb explodes. Surprise. Surprise works once. When we watch the film again… A bomb’s going to explode. A surprise quickly looses purpose. It’s not captivating.

19:19 - It’s just an initial shock Whereas with suspense… We’re seeing someone put a bomb under the table Then two characters come and sit down for a meal. There you have suspense. We can draw it out as long as we want. Something is happening because we’ve created expectation. So a story, never relies solely on the surprise mechanism. Even if it’s suited to movies cinema is the art of time, Surprise can happen at any time.

19:49 - For a film to last, we want to watch it again we want it to stay with us it needs to be some kind of promise the initial established proposal will continue throughout the film sometimes underground, and will carry through to the end. And even beyond. Certain films finish with unsatisfactory endings on an expectations level. We’re disappointed. For example, a separation. ends with the child entering the judge’s office. He must decide if he’ll live with his mother or his father. We’ve waited 1 hour and a half to find out. The film ends there. So we understand…

20:32 - Our expectations are frustrated Yet we’re satisfied from a narrative angle. It’s good to stop there. It’s the film’s theme. We can’t choose between parents. So it has to finish before this impossible choice. Because she can’t choose. Maybe when writing the film the scriptwriter wrote scenes which didn’t work. And someone suggested to get rid of the scenes that didn’t work. to end the film before the resolution. So when considering the viewer we have to consider his satisfaction Satisfying him doesn’t mean giving what is expected.

21:08 - It means promising him something, possibly disappointing him. Disappointing him not because the question isn’t answered. But in a way that allows you to change levels. I was expecting an answer on this level, a yes or a no. The answer isn’t given. In fact it’s because in fact the answer is above. The question wasn’t accurate. For a separation for example. We have to consider audience satisfaction. What a viewer enjoys isn’t necessarily that everyone survives in the end. Except if it’s a comedy, we’re not going to kill everybody. At the end of Romeo and Juliet every time we watch it we don’t want to believe they die. A character dying is part of audience satisfaction within the genre proposed.

21:50 - Techniques to create empathy ? There are techniques for building empathy and/or sympathy. It’s quite simple, if we use Spinoza’s idea. You just imagine that something experiences something for it to be moved in the same way. If we take X Men for example, with its sort of hybrid creatures… Then you take Wolverine The moment you see him he gets beaten up. And he lets it happen because he’s so strong he can knock out… Why does he let it happen ? It’s not a strategy. Because then people could bet on the other guy rather than him. He’d win more money. He initially lets himself be beaten so the viewer will take defense for the one being punched. The opposite of real life. No one helps when you’re being beaten up. But in the movies everyone sides with you.

22:45 - Then when he becomes ultra violent and we see there’s total asymmetry he can easily kill his adversary. We get the scriptwriting trick if we look at the mechanics. You start either by saving a cat or you get beaten up. we’re on your side. In House of Cards it’s the opposite… Now everyone knows the technique. You need novelty. A character addressing the camera having, in the first act of the episode, just killed a dog, or put it down. It’s not the same. He says I put it out of its misery. The character is a psychopath, an assassin, the future president of the States. He starts by killing a dog. It creates distance. But it proposes a different experience.

23:28 - Normally he saves a cat but here he kills a dog. Fine. It’s new. If you want to create interesting characters either you consider habitual audience expectations. He’s used to this, used to that. I’ll propose something a bit different, it’ll be the link between us, he might appreciate the novelty. Or you can, according to your genre, use this basic technique : my really strong character starts by getting beaten up, it’s injust and we can identify with him. We’ll want him to win. In what order do we introduce information ? I think, we’re experiencing character despotism.

24:15 - We see a lot of scripts with a character but there’s no story, there’s no environment, there’s no atmosphere. As if the character’s on a green screen expecting us to have empathy for him. If he cries, we’ll cry. I believe in the situation. The character is at an intersection with all the story elements, either symbolical, or with the scenery, the area. A character is just one element of a network of other characters. A character exists solely through his interaction with others different to him. It’s above all the situation.

24:52 - It’s what’s happening to the character that creates empathy. I would avoid overloading the character with psychology. Because it tends to isolate him from his environment, and to trust the environment and the situation you create which will produce empathy. It depends also the genre. In family drama we need psychology. For science fiction it’s more the environement which will generate empathy. There are two kinds of actors. According to your choice of human material, apologies to the actors watching this, but our job is to embody to make a soul visible.

25:37 - Some actors physically unique will be remarkably embodied. Either through ugliness, monstrosity etc. Something surprising. Others are like reflective surfaces. The Cary Grants, Hitchcock characters. They’re almost like empty shapes. The situation has the advantage over characterization. Even if the Gregory Pecks are charming they’re there because they’re absorbant, a receptive surface. Some actors are vessels. In a detective movie genre for example, allowing people to project solely onto the situation. Others offer a sculpted surface. In a genre where you need strong incarnation, a social portrayal. A social portrayal can have both. A family drama… Each will decide according to his actors.

26:32 - Concerning a character or a hero, their significance is tied to the overall situation The role of each character is to incarnate an aspect of the theme, the theme being treated. Each character should be a case potentially pathological, an incarnation of the theme, so there’s no doubling up. It’s a function system. It’s like a game of chess. The king doesn’t move like the horse, which doesn’t move like the pawn. There are several pawns. Is it necessary to have that many ? Maybe not for a film. Maybe one will do. Each character has a function in the story so precise that there’s not a doubt.

27:15 - When asking who does what : this one does this that one does that. When creating three dimensional characters so viewers will grasp their complexity, if we look at this closely, it’s never just one character assigned with three dimensions. The characters gain in depth through contrast, a system of diffences. The viewer identifies not just with one character but the film as a whole. The character network. And his identification can change. If the camera moves…

27:52 - In Stone’s Natural Born Killers it’s from a knife’s point of view, or a bullet’s. Is there empathy with the knife ? No. We empathize with the guy about to be stabbed. What the camera is telling us is that because we follow the knife’s trajectory the knife becomes a character. Everything you film is essentially a character. Anything appearing on screen can be a character and can generate psychological movement. We call that identification but it lacks subtlety. At the end of a film we talk about the characters. In terms of perception, if we show fish in an aquarium to westerners then to orientals then we ask them what they’ve seen, the westerners will talk about fish the orientals will talk about algae. For some the decisif element is the setting or the contrary. It’s unpredictable.

28:46 - When writing, we need to provide an integral experience. The setting should be treated as a character. Bachelard wrote The Poetics of Space, the American John Truby talks about it. When you create a house it’s a character. The way the space is organised, with the layout of the rooms… There’s a psychology in the setting. The true respect for the viewer is to propose an experience where everything he sees is a character. The whole thing is a network of characters. One of the characters is the forest. A forest isn’t somebody but in a horror film it has an intention. It’s treated as a person. So you treat the forest as a person. Those who get lost in the forest, there are lots of ways to get lost. Some are afraid, some are searching, some want to save.

29:36 - Together they form a system which helps the viewer to circulate. Sometimes we’re being chased or suddenly we’re saving The experience is different. Characters should be conceived like electricity. We create poles electricity runs between them and depending on the viewer, the electricity will circulate more or less quickly, freely between all the characters who are like these electric poles. We often refer to three dimensional characters when they portray a complex form of reality.

30:15 - We shouldn’t assimilate reality with truth. A character doesn’t have to ressemble someone. That won’t create identification, or movement or interest. Careful of this illusion. It’s not because you add a seemingly contradictory detail to a character’s psyche that he’ll become three dimensional. Just because there’s contradiction. He’s just contradictory. Not because he’s better constructed. If he behaves unexpectedly according to character.

30:45 - Rather than conceive a character as three dimensional, and I insiste on this, to render this complexity, an impression of truth, is the relationship between the characters. Rather than delve into the psychology of a single character, we have to bear in mind we write for several characters together, simultaneoulsy, in a situation, all in interaction with each other. All these combined shapes the main character, the hero. It’s not just the one character. In The Godfather, for example, the character played by Al Pacino would be bland if it wasn’t for the two brothers, one’s the coward, worthless, the other an ultra violent poser. It allows us to see his position he’s neither one nor the other.

31:35 - The characters are defined in relation to each other. They gain in complexity that way. What drives the unity of a narrative ? If referring to the notion of unity suggesting a narrative should bear unity to bring a spectator on board we don’t need to limit this to Aristotle’s categories : a unity of time, of place, of action. A unity of action doesn’t mean much. In an action movie there’s a string of actions. Unity is more organic. When we propose a narrative everything should be organic. Unity is when all the elements tie in together. There are lots of different elements.

32:26 - A story doesn’t require a single setting unless it’s a confined space. For economical reasons or genre needs. A family drama doesn’t need many locations. If it’s an epic adventure there’ll be a lot of locations. It can be problematic. The action will be disjointed, scattered. How do we fix this ? By following the same characters we create unity and cohesion. When building a narrative you need a mixture of unity and variety. In line with your narration you need to provide novelty and variety otherwise no one will watch, and a shell to hold all that together. I mentionned genre. A genre creates that unity. It even creates colour. It’s an indication of tone, of mood. If you watch a Cohen brothers’ film like Inside Llewyn Davis from start to finish it’s melancholic. Within this melancholy there are recognizable forms. But that’s the overall tone. It’s tied to the music. He’s a blues musician. The film has the blues. So there’s unity.

33:41 - That unity subdivides into the place, it’s snowing, he never stays in one place long. Unity is tied to the theme, the story being told, which spreads across all aspects of the film to give a feeling of satisfaction. Japanese chefs specialising in ramen noodles, there are restaurants serving only that, have a concept called the “umami”. The aim is to satisfy the client. For this they have a method which consists of gratifying each level of client expectations to achieve a state of repletion. Without knowing precisely why. The unity of the bowl of ramen noodles is in the variety, the unity.

34:30 - We recognize the noodles, the egg, protein… The umami means all our expectations are met. We can’t say precisely how. The writer has to bear that in mind. For it to be “umami”, satisfying we need recognizable characters presented in a new way. We need to feel affinity for characters others not. A slight bitter taste. Like the dose of bitterness in good coffee. A touch of nastiness.

35:08 - Victor Hugo said if there was only Esmerelda in Notre Dame de Paris we’d be bored stiff. We need Quasimodo. In order to bring out sublime we need ludicrous. You need a complex world. It can’t be too obvious. Unity needs to be full. It needs to satisfy all audience expectations. Is a good film or series replete because the theme is exhausted. Exhausted is an interesting word If everything is exhausted there’s nothing else to explore.

35:46 - Yet if all’s been exhausted we can follow all the possibilities. It’s difficult to exhaust a theme in a film. But for a series, we expect you to exhaust every possbility. In Mad Men each character portrays a different aspect of desire : desiring something, fulfilling that desire. Internal conflict when following that desire. Some live in contradiction, and suffer then those who don’t suffer. And those who choose to follow their desire whatever the consequences. Each character embodies, within this theme of desire, one aspect. When watching you feel satisfied because all your temptations and impulses and inhibitions also will be embodied. In Fight Club Brad Pitt embodies the role of the freud’s “Id” Impulse. It’s tempting.

36:43 - We’d do the same if socialization didn’t exist. Edward Norton portrays inhibition. It’s the “me” As a viewer we’re in between. Edward Norton is the “me” watching impulse, who’ll do anything which has no limit. We know we’d never go that far. But the film helps us make sense of it, It exhausts the theme. One is pure impulse, excessive inhibition is the other. In between there are other characters, the woman incarnates something else. She pursues her desire but her desire is sincere. Whereas the other guy is perpetually seeking change. Each character embodies one aspect of the theme. You can aim to, not exhaust but open up as many tracks as possible.

37:33 - Whoever the viewer, if you’re dealing with a control freak and the character is pure impulse it might satisfy him. If it’s someone more balanced in his impluses and inhibitions he’ll see in Brad Pitt the danger and the impluse but he would’ve resolved this already. You’re offering a set of possibilities as inclusive as possible, to reach the maximum viewers. Each one should feel concerned at least by one aspect of the problem. Some are going to prefer the villain in Batman. He’s probably more interesting. Batman evolves according to the episode. To the point where he becomes bad.

38:16 - You can make a character evolve in order to incorporate this complexity allowing a maximum viewers to embark on the vessel you’ve built. .