You've Got Lovely Eyes, You Know! Episode 4: Nathalie Durand, AFC, and gaffer Sophie Lelou

Valérie Potonniée : Hello and welcome to Radio RapTz for the show You Have Beautiful Eyes, You Know. The podcast that asks female directors of photography about their practice. We are part of the Femmes à la caméra collective and we asked ourselves questions. Is the female gaze a myth or a reality? A trap or a lever? For a long time, cinema has told us about the world through the eyes of men. Today, we feel a revolution in the way we see things is underway. As women in the image industry, we are taking to the microphone to talk about this revolution on Radio RapTz.

Naomi Amarger: For this fourth episode of our podcast T'as de beaux yeux, tu sais (You have beautiful eyes, you know), we are joined today by several members of the Femmes à la caméra collective: Valérie Potonniée and Naomi Amarger to lead the interview, and Anita Makay and Oriane Mès on technical support. For the first time, we are lucky to have two guests on the podcast: Nathalie Durand, director of photography, and Sophie Lelou, gaffer, both members of Femmes à la caméra.

Nathalie Durand: Hello.

NA: Hello, how are you?

VP: Hello, both of you.

Sophie Lelou: Hello.

NA: Let's start with a brief introduction to each of you. Nathalie, you graduated from the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière and have been working in documentary and fiction film for many years. After fifteen years as first assistant and camera operator on more than thirty feature films, you now work with directors as director of photography. Alternating between fiction films, documentaries, and music videos, your work has been constantly enriched by these diverse collaborations. Xavier Legrand's film Custody, which we will discuss later, won the César Award for Best Film in 2019. You are a member of the Association of Cinematographers (AFC) and Femmes à la caméra, and you regularly speak at film schools such as CinéFabrique, La Fémis, and Louis-Lumière.

VP: Sophie, you studied for a a 2-year technical training in audiovisual, during which time your attraction to lighting work was confirmed. You worked as an electrician on Les Rivières pourpres, then Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amelie). At the same time, you worked as a camera assistant on smaller projects and pursued this dual career for twelve years, until director of photography Bertrand Mouly offered you the position of chief electrician on Benoît Cohen's feature film Tu seras un homme, which was released in 2011. You've been working in lighting for twenty-five years now. Hats off to you. And you're one of the few female chief electricians in France. Is that right?

SL: Correct.

VP: The first question will be rather general: how did you get into cinema?

Nathalie Durand: I can start. I discovered cinema as a teenager when I moved to Caen, where there was an arthouse cinema called the Lux, which I believe still exists today. I started going to this cinema and, little by little, I thought to myself, this looks pretty good, I'd like to make films. At the time, I was doing a lot of music, so I hesitated a bit between doing sound or images. I chose images. That's how I discovered cinema. It was through my love of films.

VP: What about you, Sophie?

SL: It was the same for me, as a teenager. I was involved in high-level sports: I was rock climbing and I was seriously injured, which meant I couldn't climb anymore. So I took refuge in cinema and went to see three movies a week, whereas before I used to see one every three months. I read a lot about how movies are made. I was in Lyon, and when there was a film shoot, I would go and try to hang out on set. When it came time to take my high school diploma, I couldn't take the entrance exams for sports schools, so I went to study for a BTS in audiovisual studies. (laughs) But I replaced one passion with another. And I went to the Le Zola cinema in Villeurbanne a lot.

VP: What made you both want to film and do lighting? Since you're both in the spotlight.

SL: Actually, I lived through movies. I needed movies to live at one point in my life. It was extremely important. I was very moved by all the stories I saw, and one day, I saw Laetitia Masson's En avoir ou pas (To Have or Not to Have), and a few weeks later, Xavier Beauvois' N'oublie pas que tu vas mourir (Don't Forget You're Going to Die), both lit by Caroline Champetier. It clicked for me. I knew I wanted to work in cinema, but working with lighting came to me at that moment. That's it. When I presented my BTS, it was in images.

ND: As far as I'm concerned, I said earlier that I hesitated between sound and image. I was also doing a bit of photography, so I still had a tendency towards image. I tried Louis-Lumière where, at the time as today, you can study sound, either cinema or photography. I chose cinema because it was the closest to what I wanted to do. I knew absolutely nothing about image-related professions, whether it was cinematographer, assistant, or electrician. At the time, Louis-Lumière offered the only BTS (advanced vocational training certificate). I had just graduated from high school and learned everything at school. After that, it all happened quite naturally, in the end.

VP: How did you two meet?

ND: I called Sophie for a short film called Avant que de tout perdre (Before Losing Everything) by Xavier Legrand. I had already started making feature films. I couldn't work with the gaffer I usually work with, I don't remember why. One thing led to another, and I ended up with Sophie. We met and decided we were going to work together. I don't know what you think, but is that about right?

SL: Yes, absolutely.

VP: Did you choose Sophie because she was a woman for this film, Before Losing Everything? Did you specifically look for a female gaffer?

ND: I can't say that I was looking for a female electrician at all costs, but the fact that she was a woman and an electrician definitely appealed to me. I would put it that way.

NA: To talk a little about the film, let's first listen to an excerpt.

Sound clip from the short film

NA: Nathalie or Sophie, would you mind introducing the film and telling us a little about the story?

ND: It's the story of a break-up, a divorce. The film begins with a hearing before the family court judge who will decide on custody, because there are two children, one of whom is a minor, played by Thomas Giorra (NDR: it seems that it is actually Miljan Châtelain, with Thomas Giorra playing in the feature film), whose name is Julien in the film. At the beginning of the film, there is this hearing with the judge, where a ruling has been handed down, which we know a little about, but not really. In the scene we just heard, the father comes to claim the child because it's the weekend he's supposed to have him, and the child is sick. In short, this separation is going very badly. It's a case of domestic violence, as we gradually learn throughout the film, leading up to a somewhat disturbing climax.

NA: Since you both participated in this short film that Xavier Legrand made before directing Custody, can you talk about how you developed a common language? You, Nathalie, with Xavier, but also the two of you with the actors and members of the technical crew, who, I gather, were largely the same. How did you make the transition from short film to feature film?

ND: I think it was a decision made by Alexandre Gavras, the producer, and Xavier Legrand, because the shooting of the short film had gone rather well and the film had a big impact, winning four awards at Clermont-Ferrand and the César Award for Best Short Film...

SL: It was also nominated for an Academy Award.

ND: Yes, it was selected for the Oscars. It was a trial run: it was the first film directed by Xavier Legrand, who is primarily an actor. It was a trial run, but it was a masterstroke. Everything went well, that kind of dynamic. I think there were about four years between the shooting of the short film and the feature film, right?

SL: Yes, four years.

ND: They decided to start again with the same people. In any case, they called me, I called Sophie. I changed the technical crew because it wasn't great on the short film, but the camera assistants were the same, as were the sound and set designers.

NA: Since it always takes a little time at the start of a shoot for people to get to know each other and learn to work together, I imagine that coming from the short film together meant that you already had a common language and an ease of working together.

SL: And trust. A great deal of trust in each other. The trust between Xavier and Nathalie was there from the start, it developed very quickly, and the trust between Nathalie and me too. As we trusted Xavier, even though he surrounded himself with other people, such as Marie Doller, his first assistant director, who wasn't there on the short film, we were all in a circle of trust and kindness. And that was extremely important.

ND: Whether it was the short film, but especially the feature film, the atmosphere of kindness you mention was really there. Even though the subject matter was extremely difficult, the shoot was very happy. There's no other way to put it. It was really very happy.

NA: Earlier, we were talking about your decision, Nathalie, to work with Sophie. Do you know what motivated Xavier's decision to work with you?

ND: We were introduced by Alexandre Gavras, whom I knew from other projects. Alexandre knew Xavier. I think it was him who thought, "They could be a good match." Was Xavier reassured by the fact that I'm a woman? I don't know. You'd have to ask him, I never asked him that question. In any case, we quickly agreed on how to work together. For me, it was a very rich and fluid collaboration.

VP: It's a film with a lot of trying scenes, especially between Antoine, the father played by Denis Ménochet, and Julien, the son played by Thomas Giorra. In these sequences, you are very close physically to the actors. You, Nathalie, are very close with your camera, and you, Sophie, I understand that with the lighting, you sometimes intervene with a small reflector very, very close by. What is your place on set at that moment? How does it work with the actors?

ND: When Xavier came to the cinema, we were already shooting digitally. I come from a film background. I do the framing and the lighting, but what I love about my job is being close to the actors, which Xavier doesn't have, strangely enough—I mean, he'll talk to the actors without any problem, but he has a slightly detached view, he has headphones on, he's watching the monitor, and he's not... There are directors who are really present on set. He often keeps a bit of a distance. For me, being at the heart of what's happening with the actors is very important. You can talk about it, Sophie, but what I like about Sophie is also that, her involvement at the heart of the action. She's always there, present with a small reflector, as you say, or telling me a little something.

SL: I don't think I'm involved with the actors, but in fact I am. There's a scene between Denis and Léa in the kitchen where there was a lot of tension between them, in the acting, and I really had to be quite close. It was really very intimate and I was the closest of the whole technical team. I was there, below them. I had tears running down my face because what was happening was so powerful. I tried to do my job properly anyway. I think it worked, but it was really... I was watching the show, but even more than that. I was really caught up in the tension of what could have happened in real life. It was quite impressive. On this shoot, we all had some pretty intense experiences in terms of acting and the crew's reactions. Really, there were often scenes where we left the set because it was too intense. Too intense, the scene with Denis and Thomas in the car, where he hits the headrest very violently. We did it once, twice, no more. At one point, I said to my assistant: I'm going to the truck, I'm going to take care of the batteries. I don't know what I was supposed to do, but I broke down, and anyway, we all went off to our corners. Then Xavier looked at the take and said, "OK, that's good, I've got what I need, let's stop there." And yet Thomas was super comfortable, he was super close with Denis.

ND: That's what was so incredible, that the moment it cut, he was laughing. Denis was very good, I think, he immediately created an atmosphere of playfulness and complicity with him. During the takes, Thomas was crying, he was really in character. He was impressive. And that scene in the car, actually, I remember, we were all...

SL: Upset. He had a great coach named Amour Rawyler who really held up well, helped him a lot, guided him, and protected him too, I think. And that's important. As I was saying earlier, we were in a bubble of kindness, and even then, it remained kind, even though we were filming difficult, even very hard scenes. We didn't feel in danger, we didn't feel that anyone was in danger, especially given the subject matter, which was very heavy.

ND: Nathalie, you talk about the closeness you have with the actors and actresses. Did a kind of sisterhood develop between you and Léa Drucker during this film?

ND: Yes, I don't know what Léa would say, but it's true that for me, the bathtub scene, for example, was a moment when I was with Léa and Thomas in that bathroom. And yes, I experienced the same thing as them. I also have a great friendship with Denis, whom I knew before, since I had already made a film in which he was an actor. He's an actor I really like, he has this slightly wild, rough-and-ready look about him. He's a very gentle person. But yes, of course, with Léa, it's a very strong memory.

VP: Do you edit the film together with Xavier Legrand?

ND: No, Xavier is one of those directors who writes with images in his head, I think. So he arrives with a script and, a little later, the shot list. By the time we shoot, the entire shot list is done. I sometimes make small adjustments, but it's really not much, just choices about focal length or framing. He's really the one who determines the direction.

VP: Do you and Xavier claim to have a female perspective on this film? It's a feminist film about a powerful woman.

ND: I'm a woman, so I bring my own experiences and who I am to the set. That's my perspective. What Xavier is working on is male violence within the family. Whether it's this film, the short film Custody, or even The Successor, which is the film we made together after that, I would say that it's the father's domestic violence that is the subject of his cinema. So I don't know if you can call it a female perspective. His perspective on Léa, in any case, was very protective. I don't know how you can say that.

SL: Benevolent.

ND: We come back to kindness. The film also starts out with this kind of ambiguity about who is responsible for the fact that it's not working. Is it her who is lying, who has a slightly strange history? Is it him who is violent? It's the thriller aspect, I would say, that drives the film. But it's clear that Xavier is on Léa's side, he's on the woman's side.

VP: And he quickly lifts the veil on the source of the violence in the film. Let's listen to an excerpt from an interview with Adèle Haenel on France Inter, which was conducted after the release of the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Excerpt of a radio interview with Adèle Haenel:

"The female gaze and the male gaze are concepts that are really gaining momentum in discussions, and that's a good thing.

- In discussions among film people?

- Yes, and more broadly, I think, even in feminist circles. And then, in general, it's just that it contextualizes the male gaze. That is to say, the male gaze has been associated with a neutral gaze for a very long time because the majority of films, the vast majority of films, are produced by men who look at women. And it's just to say that this gaze has an origin and is also related to male domination. And we propose a female gaze that is not ontologically different, but hybrid. Because in experience...

- I was just going to ask you that question.

- In fact, as women, we experience every day, not feeling like women, but being women because we are reduced to that. You see? It's just our daily experience that...

- Do you feel like you're constantly being reduced to that?

- Yes, in fact, if you like, it's just a fact of life when you go out. I mean, in the violence that affects women in particular.

NA: I found this excerpt very telling in relation to Custody. This is the first time in the podcast that we've decided to talk about a film directed by a man in order to discuss the female gaze. When Adèle Haenel talks about the male gaze and the female gaze, she doesn't gender the gaze, meaning she talks about gazes as if they were independent of whether the director is a man or a woman. And I find that to be a really fascinating topic. In the case of Custody, we were talking earlier about the editing, which was more Xavier's choice, but I have a very strong memory of that shot under the bathroom door, when Joséphine takes her pregnancy test, and the incredible emotional power of the choice not to show her face, and the great modesty that comes across. We realized when we talked about it among ourselves that we all had quite different interpretations of this scene, all of which were linked to our experiences as women. Have we ever taken a pregnancy test? What was the result? We project our own experiences onto the scene. I think it's really powerful that Xavier was able to capture that, but also that all of you who participated in the image were able to capture it.

ND: I don't think Xavier has ever taken a pregnancy test, but the way he tells the story is, as you say, very discreet and at the same time very powerful. It's powerful because, unlike many films where the focus is always on the faces, here the focus is on the feet. It's crazy, really. It's the sound, it's the feet, it's the bag... I filmed it, but it was his idea. I think it was the last day of shooting, in a middle school or high school in the suburbs of Dijon.

VP: Isn't it characteristic of the female gaze to leave room for interpretation or imagination for viewers? When we talked about it together, everyone had a different interpretation. Isn't that a more open way of looking at the world?

ND: That's where I agree with Adèle Haenel. It's the step aside. It's always a bit problematic to talk about the female gaze when we're talking about Xavier (laughs), but yes, we could call it the step aside, the fact of filming things in a different way, which means that it also has a different impact.

VP: But there may be male directors who have a female gaze and female directors who adopt a truly male gaze.

ND: Absolutely.

NA: That scene where the pregnancy test is revealed under the door is something we see so often in movies. Not showing her reaction perhaps appeals to all our memories as viewers.

ND: We don't see her reaction, we don't see the test. We only understand from her gestures, from what's happening, that the test is positive. That's what's crazy, I think. The director has to believe in the viewer too.

VP: It appeals to a common female experience.

ND: In a conventional film, you would expect to see the test, to film the test.

NA: There's also work on temporality, not being afraid to let the shot last, to delay the revelation. I was struck by the fact that there is absolutely no music in the film except during Josephine's birthday party when she sings: we really have time to experience this silence with them, and the time that is given to each character. I'm thinking of that sequence shot of the birthday party where there's a lot of eye contact, where we understand all the anxiety of this family who has just learned that the father is there, outside the birthday room, and how they're going to deal with it without saying a word. It all happens during Josephine's song, as she's on stage watching it all.

ND: We could talk about that theater. We shot it in two days, I think. Two days.

SL: One day of pre-light rehearsals, and we shot the next day.

ND: It was a bit complex because we had to see without seeing. It's always the same.

(laughs...) And we were filming in all directions. We had put 800 watt open ended quarzt light up high.

SL: We had changed the fluorescent lights, and we also had a boom mic moving around.

ND: And the garlands. I remember the forward tracking shot on Léa, with that green garland that caused me problems.

NA: And why did you choose not to have any dialogue and to do a sequence shot?

ND: That was Xavier again. The camera had to move forward, but not too much, so that we could understand that they were talking to each other, but we couldn't really hear what was going on. Everything was done live, in this long shot where we leave the kitchen and go around the room, there was live music. For Julien Sicard, who was in charge of sound, it was also a big job. Xavier wanted it to be a provincial village hall, so there couldn't be any lighting. And there's a real desire to try to capture things, but not to...

SL: To have the right distance, basically.

VP: And above all, we can read everything that is happening on Joséphine/Mathilde Auneveux's face: we see her looking for her mother with her eyes, we see that she cannot find her without showing that she is not there, we see in her eyes that she is not there. She searches, then she tries to put on a brave face, so she smiles at her friend with whom she is singing. This moment is incredibly powerful and psychologically tense. I was extremely tense because you think, "Shit, the mother has left, he's violent, and no one inside will hear her." We tell ourselves all sorts of things during this sequence.

ND: For Mathilde, it was also a big challenge. It was a complicated scene for her because she had to sing, she had to convey emotion, all that. She's incredible. What she gives is incredible.

Excerpt from the scene with the song: the two characters sing Proud Mary and we hear the audience murmuring.

VP: Nathalie, is your vision expressed more through the lighting, since Xavier is responsible for the editing?

ND: Yes, that's probably where I have a little leeway in my perception of the film. It's the lighting that I can influence more, with Sophie.

VP: Can we talk about the final sequence, at night? At the beginning, for me, it's really dark, I can't see anything. How do you work with the lighting, up to that terrible moment when they both lock themselves in the bathroom? Something really dramatic happens in terms of the lighting, which you both created, you and Sophie.

ND: At first, it's dark. If you go to the cinema, you can see a little something. On a computer, it's completely dark, but in the cinema, there's a tiny little thing. I approached the scene thinking: it's nighttime, it's completely dark, there's no light coming from outside. It's nighttime. There are things you need to see and others you can leave in the shadows, and above all, a lot is happening with the sound at that moment. Little by little, you start to get a better sense of what's going on, of the people who are there, Léa in bed, Thomas coming to join her. In fact, I played with the aperture: at first, the aperture was quite closed, and little by little, Aurélien Py, the assistant, opened the aperture very gently, a bit like the eye getting used to the darkness and gradually perceiving things. Then we turned up the light a little. But to tell you how much Xavier is still... (laughs) the ayatollah: this scene was complicated because the only justification for light was the window behind us, and everyone knows that light behind the camera at night is a little weird. So I said to myself: I'm going to shift the light a little. I had put the light at the end of the bed, like a kind of moon. Xavier came in and said to me: "But that's not possible, you can't put the moon in the closet. " He kept saying, "I can see too much, I can see too much." The problem with Xavier is that everything has to match. No matter how many times you tell him we'll calibrate it later... So we changed the direction of the light and made a moon that came from the ceiling. That made a little more sense (laughs).

SL: With tons of tarlate, because we were below the thresholds allowed by the projector.

ND: It's also important to mention that with Xavier, we have ceilings in the shot, because he wants us to be in as realistic a situation as possible.

VP: Even though you shot in a studio, I believe.

ND: Even in the studio, we had ceilings.

SL: It was better to shoot in a studio, given what happens next.

VP: Yes, there's also the light from the elevator.

ND: Talk about the elevator light, then.

SL: There's no elevator since we were in a studio: we made a system of shutters that makes it look like the elevator is coming. We put a light source behind it.

ND: There was also the light that came on when the door opened, like a timer switch.

SL: We coordinated with Denis on that.

VP: Yes, it ties in with the characters' emotional experience. It's very powerful. Do you think there is a feminine way of lighting, of capturing light? It's something Karine Aulnette mentioned in the second podcast.

ND: A feminine way of lighting? (sigh)

SL: We light with who we are.

ND: Yes, that's exactly it. It's a matter of sensitivity.

SL: With what we understand of the scene, with what we feel, what we also feel in the scene. It also depends on the cinematographers and directors we work with. We have more or less leeway, an interpretation, and then we go for it, people like it, they don't like it. Here, for example, Xavier says: No, I can see too much. We corrected it, but then we're clear about who we are, about what we feel when we read it. With what we've done before, maybe too. The first few days, when we don't know each other, we test the waters a bit, we see where it's going to go.

ND: What are the characteristics of feminine lighting? Would it be softer? It's a bit silly. As Sophie says, I think we create lighting based on who we are, on what we want to convey through the image. For example, when Antoine forces Julien to tell him where they live and he comes to visit the apartment, Léa comes out of the bathroom and ends up in the kitchen, I created a kind of sunbeam, and that's something I decide, based on who I am and what I want to convey.

SL: It's the proposals we make, which people like or don't like. We know how to do it, we know how to undo it, we know how to do something else. As long as we're all on the same page... I don't really understand the concept of "feminine" lighting.

VP: It's more about feminine lighting, perhaps the question is poorly phrased.

ND: I think we're taking an approach where we're not going to put spotlights everywhere to say, "Look, we're lighting the stage." On the contrary, I try to make the image as discreet as possible so that the actors are comfortable and the staging has the scope it needs.

SL: It depends on the project too. There are films where we use it everywhere, because the setting requires it, because it's what the director wants, because the director of photography wants it, because he or she has discussed it with the director. I kind of substitute myself for all that and then, based on what I understand, what everyone wants, I make suggestions. I make suggestions based on who I am. When someone explains a scene with a certain effect to me, I use who I am and my experience to decide how I would do it. We talk about it, we make changes, and we say, "Yes, that's great."

NA: Obviously, it's our individual sensibilities that are expressed in our work, whether it's framing or lighting. When we talk about the female gaze, we tend to focus on framing, because we can think of compositions that are more characteristic of the female gaze or the male gaze, whereas when it comes to lighting, it remains a question mark and is more mysterious. I wanted to open another door, which is, Nathalie, your collaboration with Fabienne Berthaud, and in particular the very special way you both constantly frame your shots from the shoulder. How do you work with light on these films? I'm thinking of Un monde plus grand or Sky, in majestic landscapes where I imagine you didn't always have control over the elements. How did you both develop your vision?

ND: While Xavier Legrand is very precise about his shot breakdown and what he wants to see on screen, Fabienne doesn't do any shot breakdown at all before starting to shoot. Everything is done as we shoot. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of preparatory work on the atmosphere: we work a lot with what you might call a mood board, where we have reference images for each sequence, which are photos, paintings, films, drawings. This gives me an idea of what Fabienne wants to achieve in the image, and it can be references for lighting, but also for framing. With Fabienne, we shoot with two cameras, as you said. She's an actress with her camera, I would say. It's her past as an actress that comes back to her here, no doubt. She's with the actors, with her camera, and we don't do many rehearsals. She rehearses, but she already starts shooting during rehearsals and then she talks to the actor: "Do that again, stand there" or "start again." She interacts with the actors while she's filming. When we met and she told me she wanted to frame the shots, I said to her: I'm happy to work with you, but I want to frame the shots too. So we decided to do everything with two cameras. And so I make suggestions about the framing. It's mainly her who decides how she wants to shoot, and I try to find something complementary or a different perspective. That makes two female perspectives. Since she tends to take up all the space and shoot from all angles—often, we change places between takes, so we change angles—when it comes to lighting, it's a matter of finding a compromise between the lighting atmosphere we want and a setup that works with the actors and the cameras. On Un monde plus grand, I had no lighting at all. We shot mainly in a teepee (sic), I brought two small battery-powered Aladdin 30-30s from France because we had no electricity there at all, and we played around a lot with reflectors. We also rigged up a light bulb. It's really just small sources and trying to make it work. It's about showing the world as it is in the depths of Mongolia.

NA: As with Fabienne, you two have been collaborating for a long time. Do you feel that your perspective has evolved? And beyond your collaboration with Fabienne, in your career as a director of photography, have you felt that your perspective has evolved?

ND: With Fabienne, yes, undoubtedly. Our way of working has undoubtedly evolved a little. We're starting to get to know each other well. We've made four films together. We know what each of us can bring to the shoot, so the way we work has evolved. Has our perspective evolved? I'm not sure. Yes, undoubtedly, because as you make more films, your perspective undoubtedly sharpens. And in the way I work... Since I've done documentaries and fiction films, the two feed into each other, and my perspective has undoubtedly evolved from what I've experienced, whether in documentaries or fiction. I couldn't quantify it and tell you where, how, or what, but yes, undoubtedly, there has been an evolution. And then also with the world changing, inevitably. The situation today is not the same as it was ten years ago. When I started out as a cinematographer fifteen years ago, I probably wasn't aware that I was a woman. I mean, it's a bit silly to say that, but it was somewhere else in my mind.

VP: Yes, in the wake of MeToo, haven't we become aware of a lot of things that have allowed us to see what we were doing...

ND: Yes, and I would even say our relationship to what we film. I don't know what you think, Sophie.

SL: Absolutely. But then again, I was always made to feel that I was a woman when I was a spark. (laughs)

VP: That's a good segue into the questions I wanted to ask you, Sophie, about your career as a gaffer. We worked together, you were a camera assistant, and you chose to be a gaffer rather than a cinematographer. Can you explain why?

SL: It's all about opportunities, whether they come your way or not. I have a dual background, having worked as an electrician and camera assistant for 12 years. I always enjoyed being an electrician a little more than being a camera assistant. Maybe it had something to do with the projects I was working on, or maybe I wasn't in the right networks as a camera assistant, I don't know. One day, Bertrand Mouly offered me the position of chief electrician, it was a good fit, and he called me back. Then word got around that I was chief electrician and I never touched a camera again. It happened quite easily. I can't thank Bertrand enough for giving me this opportunity. I thought to myself: this is a great new position because I'm involved in projects from the outset, I discuss things with the set designers, I get to see the director's vision in what I manage to follow during location scouting or readings, I don't have to attend all the meetings like a director of photography. And we think about the lighting together with the cinematographers. And I like that. I really like being involved in the early stages of a film's development. So, for now, I'm happy in my position. Maybe one day I'll get bored and want to move into cinematography, but for now, I'm still happy where I am.

ND: No, no, stay. Stay. (laughs)

VP: You said that people often made you feel that you were a woman?

SL: Yes. I wasn't very tall or very big, so of course they would say to me, "Here, you can put away the gels." On Amélie Poulain, for example, the gaffer I had at the beginning—he was fired and replaced by another director who was much better and with whom I worked for a long time afterward—had me tidying up the gels, sweeping the truck, and I didn't set foot on set. It was hard. After a week, I almost quit the film, but I pulled myself together and in the end, he was the one who left (laughs). I stayed and really hit it off with Michel Sabourdy, who is a great chef and a great guy. I built my career with him and then met other people, and that's how it went for 12 years.

VP: How many female gaffers are there in your generation?

SL: From my generation, I feel like there are only two of us. There's Marianne Lamour and me, with Marianne being a little bit older than me. There was Muriel Olivier, but she stopped a few years ago. Then there's Manon Corone, who was my assistant for a long time and has been doing quite a lot as a gaffer for three or four years now. And there are many others, especially at Femmes à la caméra. There's Diarra Sourang, there's Marie Gramond. It's great to see that, but I think Marianne and I had to do a lot of the groundwork. It was difficult.

VP: You are among the pioneers. You paved the way.

SL: A little bit, yes. It's nice to think that sometimes there are people who say to themselves...

ND: It's another way of climbing.

SL: (laughs) Exactly. Some people have told me they wanted to do this job because they saw me doing it, because I was able to talk about it and show that it was possible. What's more, I've done two courses in camera and lighting, and that hasn't stopped me from making films I love with people I love and continuing my life like this.

NA: That's inspiring.

VP: Yes, I think you're an inspiration to many women. So how do you see the future for young female gaffer?

SL: I think it's going to get better and better. This morning, I was at the box office and I saw some women loading equipment. When we go to rental companies, we see more and more of them, and more and more people are contacting me. When I have backup now, it's very mixed. And it's not that I'm specifically looking for diversity. It's just that there are people I like working with. It turns out that there are men I like working with and women I like working with. So in my team the other day, there were five of us: two guys and two girls. But that's just chance. It's because those people were available at the time and wanted to work on that project. It just so happens that Manon, someone I really enjoy working with and have been working with for ten years now, and I know each other very well, which is great. Now she's become a manager, so it's going to be increasingly rare, but in any case, it's great.

VP: I don't know which one of you will want to answer first, but is there a work that embodies the female gaze for you?

ND: What comes to mind for me is Kelly Reichardt's 2016 film Certain Women. It's a film made by a woman, about the lives of three women, so there's a lot of femininity in it. There are a few men too, but there's a lot of femininity. Is it emblematic of a female perspective for me? I don't know, but in any case, yes, I would say Certain Women.

SL: The first thing that comes to mind, I don't know why, is Killing Eve. The series. Over the four seasons, there have been lots of men and women who have directed episodes. And one that comes to mind, which is not at all a female perspective, contrary to what one might think, is Jane Campion's The Piano, the only woman to have won the Palme d'Or before Justine Triet (and Julia Ducournau!). When I saw it at the time, I was completely blown away by this film and very excited. I saw it again two or three years ago and I thought to myself: Wow, it's no longer watchable now with the world we live in, the life I've led since then, because it was 30 years ago after all. Seeing how completely submissive this woman was to this man and the terrible hold he had over her , I can't imagine that this is a female perspective on it, really not. It's Jane Campion, I couldn't imagine that about her, even now. Watching it now, I was really shocked.

VP: It's true that we revisit all post-MeToo works in a completely different way.

SL: Yes, post-MeToo and in relation to our own experiences too. When I saw it, I was very young, 30 years ago. It's surprising to revisit certain works. Sometimes they haven't aged well because of the images, but also because of the subject matter. And in this case, I find the subject matter very shocking.

VP: I had the same thought as you.

NA: Our perspective as viewers has changed a lot.

SL: It leads us to make different choices in films. There are scripts that I refuse because I don't like the subject matter at all, if I have the choice. I don't even want to. I don't want to get involved in something that's going to make me miserable. I don't want to anymore, I've had enough. It's okay. (laughs)

NA: Thank you very much, Nathalie and Sophie, for joining us for this fascinating and very inspiring interview. Thank you to Radio RapTz and Pierre Petiotte for allowing us to record this program once again. Thank you to Anita and Oriane for handling the technical aspects. You can find all the episodes of T'as de beaux yeux, tu sais on the Radio RapTz website and on Deezer, Spotify, and Apple Podcast. Don't forget to follow Femmes à la caméra on social media, and see you soon for the next episode.

VP: We'll finish with a song by Lamomali, Mathieu Chédid's band, which comes from the documentary Ni d'Ève ni d'Adam - Une histoire intersexe by Floriane Devigne, which you shed light on, Nathalie.

ND: Which I filmed, yes.

VP: Which you filmed. I saw Lamomali two days ago at the Musilac concert and it was great! Have a wonderful summer, everyone, and we'll finish with Une âme.

Lyrics: "I'd like a sound, a fusion. Neither to be a man nor to be a woman. Is there a name, a solution? In my language, it's called a soul. ..."