Back at New Directors/New Films in 2019, I was struck by Philippe Lesage’s deeply moving, boldly structured coming-of-age tale Genesis, ultimately naming it one of my top 10 films of its respective year. Half-a-decade later the Quebecois filmmaker has finally returned with a worthy follow-up, expanding on his knack for expertly conceived characters with a wider ensemble. Who by Fire is a lush, intimate, psychologically riveting drama following two families on a secluded getaway in a remote cabin as they contend with career and romantic jealousies.
I spoke with Lesage while he was in town for the film’s 62nd New York Film Festival premiere last fall, and now sharing the conversation ahead of Friday’s opening at NYC’s Film at Lincoln Center and next week’s opening at LA’s Laemmle Theatres. We spoke about expanding his scope, his approach to cinematography, what television will never have compared to cinema, his music-centered sequences, and his forthcoming spiritual sequel to Genesis.
The Film Stage: After Berlinale, did you make any changes to the film? I noticed the runtime was slightly shorter.
Philippe Lesage: There’s five minutes less than that version.
Ah, just decided to trim a little?
Yes, I did the exercise just for the sake of it. And then I was very resistant. It was just about the distribution in France. But I mean, come on: it doesn’t make a lot of difference, two hours and 25 minutes or 41 minutes. But while playing with it, I started to remove scenes after I saw it so many times and I saw it also with an audience in Berlin. And also moments where I felt, “Oh, it’s a little bit long here. It’s a little bit lingering too much.” I really love the new version actually; I think it’s better. I don’t know if you noticed the difference.
I actually only saw the new version.
Okay. Yeah, I simplified a bit the dreams, but I prefer it because, in the last dream, you don’t know if it’s Aliocha or Jeff that’s dreaming. I really like that. Noah [Parker, who plays Jeff] saw it last night, that new one, and he preferred this version, and then also my cinematographer who saw it in Paris. So I think I made a good choice. It’s interesting to play with the film, but I feel like a painter who goes into the gallery when the painting is already there. He’s changing a bit, the colors.
Just starting more at the beginning, your previous two films focus mostly on adolescence. Obviously here you have that too, but I would say two of the primary characters are adults. What made you want to explore adult characters a bit more?
It’s not like I’m trying to do films about teenagers or stuff. It’s more like the first two films were very autobiographical. That’s the reason why I did the films, and it was revisiting my youth––so there’s that––and then for this one, I thought it was interesting to switch the kind of point of view. Because in the first films, the adults were almost absent. In Genesis, they’re almost like in Charlie Brown. [Laughs] They are out-of-frame. Of course there are teachers at the school, but then I thought it was interesting to really put myself in the shoes of the young people around the table there and perceive the adults through their eyes, even though I’m also telling their stories. That’s the point of view of the film, I think.
Of course, I’m being a bit critical with adults and with masculinity, more questioning––maybe symbolically––patriarchy in general, but really the films never come with an idea. It’s not an idea. It’s characters. It’s a story I want to tell. You can find things in Genesis and this film, also, that are echoing. I also tend to treat subjects… I go where it hurts. I don’t spare myself. I don’t spare others. And I disagree that these are all despicable characters; I think they’re humans with their flaws. I’m interested in showing their flaws. It’s much more interesting for me in films, and even in comedy, to have characters with flaws. That’s what makes a character like Albert also very funny. So yes: it was just a kind of transition towards this perception of still-young people but on the adults.
I really love the cinematography in your films. There’s a controlled warmth to it that really invites one in, where it feels as a viewer you are also hanging out in the cabin with them. Because of that, you’re more taken into the characters, so when perhaps darker flaws are exposed, you’re invested. How do you come up with the color palette you are going to use and these beautiful crosssfades?
For me, film is really about atmosphere and mood. It’s what I recall when I think about the films that I loved when I was young. Even though the story can be violent or difficult, there’s some aspect to it that you want to live in the film. So I think there’s a little bit of that, that I tried to create: that atmosphere, that house, the woods around, the color, the choice of lenses. We worked with Panavision from the ’70s. There was probably big classics shot with exactly the same camera lens we used for the film. So there was a notion of getting a texture.
I cannot afford to shoot on film because we had a decent budget for this one, obviously my biggest budget so far, but the way I direct the films, I cannot afford film because I’m doing 20 takes on average for each shot––so it’s impossible. Then there’s work in trying to find a texture, anyway, so it doesn’t look like digital. So with Balthazar Lab, the cinematographer on this one––who is different from my previous films, Nicolas Canniccioni––the recipe came very early in the process. And of course the texture is not only about the lenses you’re using or the light you’re using; it’s really also about finding the right locations.
We shot the house in this very old cabin from the 1800s, or the beginning of the century, where it was a fishing club for very rich people that were coming to Quebec in airplanes and then fishing around the region or hunting bears and stuff like that. So that house was completely intact. It was preserved––owners now are actually fantastic––and I had the luxury to go back there and to spend a couple holidays, because they’re very nice and we became friends. [Laughs]
It’s true, though: it’s not about being realistic in it. I’m being very naturalistic in terms of the acting. I really want people to speak in the films like they speak in real life; it’s really the tone that I’m looking for. I want to remove the theater out of [it]. It has to be, for me, very cinematic and like if you’re witnessing these real people having an argument or living something. That’s really the tone that I’m looking for and I’m obsessed with the tone of the film. There’s something a bit impressionistic, I think, in all my films, that I’m trying to create this kind of universe where it’s actually warm in a way and, maybe, yes, it does compensate with the fact that I’m sometimes dealing with very harsh subjects––like, of course, in Genesis and also a bit in this one, even though nobody gets killed. It’s kind of letting the light also be in there. I also believe there’s light in all the characters. Even though sometimes it’s a bit difficult to see in some of the characters, I admit.
Another way your characters exude joy is in the music sequences you have in almost all of your films. I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but how do those come about with the songs you are selecting and how much direction do you give for dance sequences? I’m thinking of the B-52s scene.
It’s a mix of freedom and creating this… that scene is very important because it’s after the wine-gate scene, so there’s a lot of tension around the table, but it’s also very comical; it’s the comedy of life. When you take a step back, there’s many things that are horribly comical. The dancing scene is a moment of relief, and of course all my films are built around music. It’s the starting point of it for me because I start choosing music very early in the process––not “Rock Lobster,” though––and then the music is like guiding me to do my own direction in the writing.
Then one of my greatest joys in life is when you are sitting in the editing suite three years after you wrote the script and then you are putting the music on and you see that it’s working. And sometimes you need to mourn because the song is too expensive and you need to find another solution. But sometimes the plan B is more interesting. I’m very resilient about the little deceptions you can encounter, because every time I had to change an actor at the last minute, I lost somebody, we lost a location––it was always for the best. I pray to the gods of cinema.
It worked out.
Yeah, exactly. I want that to continue.
Noah Parker, Philippe Lesage, Aurélia Arandi-Longpré at Berlinale 2024.
There’s so much about the long conversations that I loved, but there’s one quote, where a character says, “TV is the reason for the moral and intellectual decline of of our age.” I don’t think your movies would play as well on TV since they are so cinematic. I’m curious if you share the belief of your character.
I was a film teacher once, so I put that element that Albert used to be a teacher. Maybe Albert is just slightly a bit older than Blake, but more or less they’re the same age. My other colleagues, they were talking more about the industry, which I found too disgusting to think about, talking about the industry when you are in film school, because if you’re not experimenting there without compromise at film school, then you will never be… I mean, what’s going to happen to you? It’s not a place to make compromises. I was telling my students the importance of getting very personal stories and digging in their own [life], finding that interesting topic that moves them. Scratching where it hurts, in some ways.
It was 2008, 2009 when I was a teacher and TV was a bit shit. And I’m not a huge fan of TV, but I can see that it’s stealing so much now from cinema. But there’s one thing that TV doesn’t steal from cinema and that’s what makes cinema still a relevant art form: it’s not stealing the flaws of films, the “unnecessary” scenes. For instance, you wouldn’t have a five-minute scene of dancing to “Rock Lobster.” Because they would say, “Okay, we got it.” So I like to take risks, and I don’t really care if my films are not perfect because I’m not looking for [it], even though if I think that I did the best that I could do. I like my films, but I don’t have the pretension that they are perfect. And I don’t think I’ve done my masterpiece yet, to be honest. [Laughs]
But that imperfection is also exploring, and it’s taking a risk. Like the end of Genesis, for instance: half of the comments on Letterboxd say they don’t fucking understand anything about the ending, but I think this is the best thing in the film.
Yeah, I love it.
So I don’t really care. Filmmakers who are taking the risk, playing with the structure, they’re the ones who are making cinema still relevant. Because otherwise we are being screwed up by TV. TV is a compressor. You can have amazing acting in TV now. You can have good directing when you have money. But it doesn’t really… it’s still a kind of consumption thing. And it’s made to get you hooked on things. While cinema has the possibility to bore you, but then you get a little fantastic reward after the wait. [Laughs] Then you go home and you feel like you’re richer. I’m not a big consumer of TV shows––life is too short––but I don’t really get anything that stays with me for a long time.
Yes, everything is so resolved.
Yeah, even the best; even if the acting is good. I recently discovered Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer, which I never saw and it was a shock. Then I think about that film all the time, and there’s a spirit there of that film that stays in me and it’s beautiful and it’s beauty. Where are the contemplative moments in TV? So yes: I’m more like Blake in that sense. I believe we need to be fighting the good fight and no compromise. I hope I will not do “Rock Lobster,” the comic series.
[Laughs] Well, I agree with all of that. You were last here for New Directors/New Films with Genesis, so what was the process and your reaction like when you knew it would be at the New York Film Festival? I know it’s been a long journey since Berlinale.
Well, it’s great. I’ve been wanting to come here for a long time. The thing is––I don’t know if I’m allowed to say––but they wanted [Who by Fire] for a long, long, long time here. They were the first to discover the film. I got an invitation from New York Festival before the film was in Berlin. So they wanted the film for almost two years. They saw many, many films and they still wanted it, which is fantastic. I really like Dennis [Lim] and Florence [Almozini]. I know the film is there because obviously I have no power in the industry and I’m more or less unknown, so it’s not because they need to put my film there because they want to please some entity. [Laughs] So it’s very nice and the film is having a great life. I’m traveling the world right now; I’m going to go on a tour of the world and it’s great.
What I find also funny is: I’m also going to new festivals. But there’s also festivals that usually love my films and they didn’t invite me this time. But then I’m invited to somewhere else and ––
You make new friends.
Yes, a new place. It’s also funny because there’s people who are like, “I really love Genesis,” and then they don’t really like this one. Or the opposite. Or they said, “I really loved The Demons and then everything you’ve been doing after that, it’s, you know…”
It’s a lot of opinions.
Some people are talking about my old documentaries. “Oh. Is this your best film? The one you did in 2009?”
I was going to ask for your other documentaries. How can you access them? Because I watched The Demons this weekend.
You can find The Demons, no?
Yes, I watched it this weekend. It was streaming on Prime Video.
Had you seen it before?
No, I hadn’t.
Did you like it?
Yes, I liked it. It’s interesting to see it as a stepping stone to Genesis, because they are twins a little bit.
It’s a bold film, especially nowadays, dealing with the sexuality of children. It’s a bold subject.
And the documentaries are not as available, right?
Depends. You would need to ask the director for a link. They are difficult to find.
What did you learn the most from the documentaries that you carried through to narrative filmmaking?
It changed my whole perception of what it is to make cinema. I think I had a concept that it was very fiction––very, in a way, American kind of storytelling––and then I tried changing my approach in terms of acting and looking for surprises and accidents on a film set, and not being attached to a preconceived idea of how you are going to make a scene, how you are going to shoot. But in the moment, you’re there and you think, “Oh my God, this is great.” And because the more you prepare, the more you can leave a space for what is unexpected. And I’m looking for the unexpected. So the documentaries, you need patience.
My breakthrough documentary in Quebec––the film didn’t really travel outside of Quebec, sadly enough––was shot in the hospital and it was a spectacle of life and a comedy of life as well, both tragic and funny and human. So there was not a moment where I was not doing something truthful. Because when you go to see the doctor, you don’t care about the guy who is filming. They agreed or not, then once I’m there they were completely like the best actors on earth because they were forgetting I was there. I’m looking for that moment where the actors are forgetting that they are even playing in the film. There’s a very beautiful quote from a Taoist code that says, “The best swimmer is the one that forgets that he’s in the water.” This is great because this is how I see work. Because when you can forget that you’re even doing a film, it’s like, wow.
It’s like magic.
Those moments happen. That’s all coming from my documentary background.
To wrap up, you mentioned, for your next project, hoping to have a follow-up to Genesis with some of the same characters. Is that still happening?
Yes, I’m applying for financing now. It’s going to be with Théodore Pellerin and a French-Quebec actor Niels Schneider. He’s a famous actor in France, but he’s from Montreal originally. Of course you don’t need to have seen Genesis to see this. It’s really like…
A spiritual sequel.
Yes, it’s just a name. But basically it’s Guillaume [Pellerin’s character] ten years after. He’s a grown-up and he’s full of passion for a lot of things, but the world doesn’t send him back the echo of his passions so he is struggling, and it’s tough. Like it could be when you’re back in your 20s. I hated my 20s. They informed me, but it was difficult––especially when you carry a flame and you really know what you want to do––and I was really struggling. I wanted to make films and I was uncompromising. I really want to write in a free way as well. It will be the first time I will put my parents in a film. I think they are a little too old because they will be playing 20 years younger, but they’ll have a part. [Laughs]
Who by Fire opens on March 14 at NYC’s Film at Lincoln Center, on March 21 at LA’s Laemmle Theaters, and will expand.