Kōji Yamamura is in Annecy with his
latest animated short “Parade” de Satie
(サティの「パラード」/ Satie’s
“Parade”), which was made in honour of the centenary of Erik Satie’s ballet Parade (1916-17) and the 150th
anniversary of Satie’s birth (1866-1925).
The film soundtrack uses a recording of “Parade” by the Dutch indie jazz
band, Willem Breuker Kollektief.
All of the
filmmakers in the Annecy shorts competition are invited to a breakfast chat
with the festival’s artistic director Marcel
Jean called P'tits Déj du court (Shorts + Breakfast)
to “talk about the genesis of their films” as well as “the development and the
artistic and technical choices.” Yamamura’s
breakfast occurred Tuesday, June 14th. Ilan
Nguyen was on hand to interpret between French and Japanese for
Yamamura. The following is an approximate
English translation of the proceedings.
Jean: I now invite the director of
“Parade”, Kōji Yamamura, to join me. [applause]
So, Erik Satie. . . what is your relationship with this great
composer?
Yamamura: I had a CD of Satie’s music. I have known his music since I was about 20
years old. There was an exhibition about
Satie about 30 years ago and I got a copy of the catalogue. In it I learned a great deal about Satie as a
person. For example, that he had lived
alone in Arcueil in a small apartment that no one ever visited. After his death they discovered many things
in his apartment, including thousands of cards that he had written and drawn
on. These cards had texts that were
ironical. This later, lonely period of
Satie’s life interested me a lot.
Jean:
“Parade” is of course by Erik Satie, but Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau
where also involved in the work. Did you
consider at all including them or did you want to concentrate on Satie?
Yamamura: I very much concentrated on the character of
Erik Satie. I wanted the work to express
the life of Erik Satie, and for “Parade” to be one element of the larger
picture.
Finally, I wanted to concentrate on the music of this ballet
itself. As the music plays, I integrate
certain elements of the life of Satie.
There was a certain distance between Satie and Cocteau. From the start, Satie did not fully
appreciate Cocteau’s script. Picasso and
Satie started getting along well and Cocteau became a bit of a third
wheel. In the end, Satie did not remain
faithful to the original text of Cocteau.
Jean: You rightly say that you are
aligning yourself with the music of Erik Satie, so is the length of your film
predetermined by the length of the music?
Also is the music not also a train of thought?
Yamamura: Initially, my hope was to reproduce in
animation the first public performance of “Parade” in 1917. As it is a ballet,
the length of the music would be already set.
The information about the original performance was pretty sketchy, so I
used some of these fragments, these choreographed elements and used my own
ideas. . . . . . [I didn’t catch all of this part]
Jean: “Parade” is a ballet and a ballet
is a dance, “the art of movement”. When
I watch the films of Kōji Yamamura, there is an approach to movement that is
very stylised and very free, and I ask myself, at what point, in ‘Parade’ but
also in general, does dance or other
arts of movement act as a reference?
Yamamura: Obviously, the elements of
movement, dance in particular, are the important elements for me. As we know, in animation the animator creates
a choreography of movement in a certain sense.
Of course, there exists, in this case in particular, different ways of
expressing the internal. But when one
compares the relationship between the ballet and the music on the one hand and
the animation and the music on the other, there are notable differences. It’s a question of corporeality. The ballet is restricted by the corporeality
of the human body, but animation is free of this. It is not constrained by the limitations of
the body.
Jean: [to the audience] Do you have any
questions for Kōji Yamamura?
Audience member: Thank you so much for bringing us films that
tell us a lot about culture. First you
brought us a film that told us the story of Muybridge, and now a story about
Cocteau and Satie. My question actually
does not pertain to your film but to the film that we saw last night, The Red Turtle [the French-Japanese-Belgian
feature film co-produced by Wild Bunch and Studio Ghibli]. Everyone was agreeing that Michaël Dudok de
Wit was influenced by Japanese art. What
did you think about this film?
Yamamura: Well, it’s a bit difficult to publicly state my opinion on this subject.
I will answer quite frankly, I think this material would have been more appropriate
as a short film. It’s not quite obvious
why it would have been done as a feature.
