celluloid crime
CRIME TIME FILM
MICHAEL CARLSON
Bertrand Tavernier was in London to accept the first Master award as guest of honour at
TCM Crime Scene, which also mounted a retrospective of (mostly) his crime films at the ICA.
After we met at the ICA, we were led through a kitchen, up a tiny works elevator, and through
a maze of narrow corridors that made me feel like Eddie Constantine navigating Alphaville,
before we finally arrived in a very traditional looking English office - no wonder the ICA keep
it so hidden - overlooking St James Park and Big Ben. But once we sat down to talk, the
setting disappeared and the time flew past: much as I wanted to inquire about the specifics
of his career, Tavenier’s is a life spent within film: as critic, publicist, director, producer, and
his enthusiasm for his calling remains undiminished by the vagaries of the business. Thus
one idea flows into another, and you can’t discuss his films without discussing dozens of
others. Because we digressed so much, we didn’t cover all the bases, so to fill some gaps
I’ve interspersed a few quotes taken from Adrian Wooten’s public Crime Scene interview.
We also talked more about In The Electric Mist, but that will be the subject of a separate
interview later, after I’ve been to New Orleans. So I began by asking about Tavernier’s early
embrace of American crime movies...
BT: Well, I was interested in all kinds of film in much, a sense of doubt or skepticism...well, this
those days, but perhaps because everyone is too simple but American cinema tends to be
wanted to write about Visconti and no one was about affirmation, and the European was more
writing about westerns, or musicals, or film noir, about doubt. Directors like Siodmak, Preminger,
I was drawn to that. I was attracted by style; Lubitsch, Wilder, bring this with them.
these crime films were saying much more than
You could argue film noir was European
what they were supposed to say; they were full
sensibility meeting the American gangster
of information about the American way of life,
film
there was lots of social context, and they were
Oh yes, but even in France at the end of the
written or directed largely by progressive people,
1930s, you had Carne, and films written by
or people forced to leave their own country...
Prevert
MC: So many of the great noir directors are
Quai Des Brumes?
immigrants
Of course.
Yes, they brought things that were not existing, so
Crime time 54 www.crimetime.co.uk 29
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