Tomas (Franz Rogowski) seems to have it all: a career as a director, marriage to Martin (Ben Whishaw), and the freedom to pursue his desires as he wishes. In Passages’ first scene, he works on his latest film. But he’s alienated Martin, and their marriage is on its last legs. He pursues his desires in a willful, selfish manner; although he’s queer and rather androgynous, his behavior reflects the worst aspects of masculine pretense. His philandering has led to a new relationship with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a teacher, but the fact that he barges in on her while she’s working epitomizes his flaws.
Director Ira Sachs’ second film for the French SBS Productions company is set in a Paris familiar from Maurice Pialat and Philippe Garrel films, but the director brings an outsider’s perspective. (Although they live in France, Tomas is German and Martin English.) Sachs’ style brings an uncomfortable intimacy to Tomas’ relationships, breaking conventional rules of continuity editing and using jarring camera angles. Ahead of the film’s release this Friday, I spoke with him over Zoom in late July.
The Film Stage: I was curious about the costume design for Tomas, who wears mesh shirts and sweaters. Was that your idea when you thought up the character, or was it something the costume designer introduced?
Ira Sachs: It came about during pre-production. I was open to the unreal. It’s a very realistic film, but I also wanted it to be heightened, colorful, cinematic, and sexy. Sexiness was very important to me, so I wanted his clothes to show a lot of skin. I went through a lot of Éric Rohmer films––particularly those shot by Nestor Almendros––and I was always aware how horny those two men seemed in their making. I wanted to make a horny film.
On the subject of sex: the news of the MPA’s NC-17 rating came out a few days ago. [Note: Sachs and MUBI, the distributor of Passages, rejected the rating and will be releasing the film unrated in the U.S.] Has the film industry grown more homophobic since you started working, or have things turned worse just in the last few years, like they have in general?
The globalization of the film industry has really destroyed the possibility of sustaining a career making specific, personal work in America. There’s a resistance to queer and gay stories. Stories of difference aren’t commodities which can be easily sold around the world. The industry is part of a world which is anti-gay but also anti-individuality, liberty, and independence. To have a sustained career as an American filmmaker without the interference of corporations is almost impossible.
At this point there’s a democratization of technology. Someone could make a film on their phone for $20,000 and even make a splash and get national distribution. Then, to make a career there are about six companies they have to work with.
For me, Passages was a film of liberty; that was the most important thing. It was a daily challenge to be as free as possible in the images I created. To do that, I had to go back in time and watch Pasolini, Chantal Akerman, Taxi Zum Klo, and Fassbinder.
Around the time Little Men came out, you said the real-estate issues in the film were a metaphor for the difficulty of working under capitalism. Have you found a path through that by working in Europe?
I’d call what I’m trying to make “personal cinema.” There’s more support for it outside the U.S. system. I also have a relationship to Paris in my life that’s consistent and real. I’ve had relationships, breakups, and sex there; I’ve cried there. It’s a very organic place for me to set a story. I allowed myself to be free in my inspiration that I’ve received from French cinema. Shooting there, I felt that I could relish it; I could indulge it without underlining it. It’s a very contemporary film, made in the present, but if there’s any task for me as a filmmaker, it’s recording the present moment. But French cinema is a part of my family. My memories are tied up with it.
Although Tomas is a filmmaker, visual art has a much greater presence in the film. We see more of the other two characters at work. It’s a film about a director, but not really about filmmaking. I thought that was a very interesting choice. It’s treated like just another job.
It’s a job I know how to do and have experience with, so I can easily draw upon that for the character. To me it’s about intimacy, not labor, but you know these people have jobs. Their jobs define their relationships to culture and power.
How did Whishaw and Rogowski approach playing a couple who’ve been intimate but whose relationship is ending?
I think of it as an action film. We didn’t talk about subtext, motivation, or the past; we talked about what’s happening in the present. In a way, it puts a focus on the immediate. I think of it as a film of middles. Every scene takes place in the middle––so does the whole film. There was a past, there will be a future, but we’re watching an excerpt of the present moment.
Did you talk with the actors about their characters’ potential futures?
It didn’t occur to me. Their feelings are all contained within the scenes themselves. I think of Bresson a little bit. What’s important is how they cross a room, not where they’re going in two years’ time.
Has the Montgomery Clift biopic you were writing years ago definitively fallen through?
It’s funny you ask that, because I’m staying in the Roosevelt Hotel, where Clift lived during the making of From Here to Eternity. I’ve been thinking of him in these rooms. And Clift is dead.
As is the film?
As is any film someone has attempted to make about him, like Sidney Lumet’s. Many people have tried to make a film about him; many have failed. I’m one of them. My script for the Clift biopic was not totally different from my script for Passages. I think he veered towards sociopathy. It was a film about a man who believed the rules of the world were not for him. It defines Passages a lot. It also defines Donald Trump.
From having seen your sister Lynne’s documentary about your father….
It defines my father too.
How much of Tomas was based on your father?
Only in the rearview mirror does he remind me of my father. When I was writing the script, I thought more about other filmmakers that I know. His charisma and attractiveness do make me think of my father.
How do you think working on QUEER|ART|FILM for so long affected your practice as a filmmaker? [Presented by Sachs together with filmmaker Adam Baran, it was a monthly series of screenings at the IFC Center curated by queer artists, who spoke in person about the films they chose.] Over the years, it formed an alternative canon.
That series probably was my film school––it was like a graduate course on what is possible. For me, that canon is the one I hang on to for dear life. Even having this conversation reminds me that they are the ones which hold meaning for me, not the ones that are being sold to me now by the film industry. The films that matter to me are the ones in which individuals express their deepest selves.
Your first feature, The Delta, will be on the Criterion Channel just before Passages opens. How do you feel about the way you’ve moved forward? What would you say to someone seeing The Delta for the first time knowing your other films?
In making Passages, I went back to other directors’ films but also my early work. I had certain instincts that I didn’t have to consider. Part of that was a relation to observational cinema and documentaries: the blur between documentary and fiction. I used a lot of the tricks I developed when I was in my 20s. But my craft has matured, so I can do so with a new level of precision and confidence. I think Passages is a confident film, although I’m not always confident in-person. Knowing life doesn’t last forever means there’s less to lose.
Passages opens in theaters on August 4.