Vincent Delerme. “As a teenager, I used to draw hearts in my journals”

In the film, he confesses this to a teenager who tells him about his first feelings. very early Vincent Delerme saw his life, and his mind was chiefly occupied with the question of romantic feelings. from songs (Life Vardanthe album Parallel lovers) in movies (I don’t know if that’s all2019), the musician, photographer and director talks about only that: love, its birth and wanderings, its great transports and small details. He’s dedicating a new documentary to it, accompanied by a new original soundtrack. beating heart (1). a series of interviews with artists (Susan Lindo, dancer Leo Walk, artist and author Serge Rezvani, Dominique A) or strangers, fiery young people or modest old people, monologues interspersed with images, childhood photos, memories revealed between tears and smiles. To try to get closer to what we know deep down, to be evasive: the origins of love, its infinite questions. Or when the journey is truly richer than its destination.

Madame Figaro: Love has always been your theme… Why this documentary today?
Vincent Delerme. Often the thoughts we give to the feeling of love involve another person, even though it is something we feel very alone. Even as a couple, not everyone experiences things the same way. So I wanted to get people to talk alone, face to face. My first guinea pig was my childhood favorite. my tour was passing through Nantes and I asked him if we could chat. Little by little, I also wanted to increase what was given to me, to fill it with more personal things, to have a kind of “thread” in the film. I take photos, I always have a camera with me. I also added music to achieve a kind of object that starts with real testimonies but which slowly becomes a kind of construction with bridges between people and very different words.

Among the witnesses there are many teenagers and old people who talk about their first love. What do you remember from yours?
I remember the feeling of being alone in a corner, loving someone from afar without talking to them about it. I liked not even letting the person know I was in love.

For what?
Because once you tell him, there are two possibilities. Either it doesn’t work, or it’s mutual. you are at the beginning of realization, you start dating… But for me, it is the time when I loved. think about someone, tell him. to himself that maybe it would be possible, and that the possibility was long overdue.

Do you think we are born romantic or do we become romantic?
That’s a good question, a tough question. We are still under influence in this area. In my case, there was the fact that I loved songs about the feeling of love very early. I also had in mind the Epinal images that really shaped me and that I then wanted to rediscover in life; I think it also has to do with the movies I’ve seen in the 90s, so I will say that to be romantic, you still have to have some romantic leanings.

Which has long been attributed to girls. How does it play out when you’re a guy?
I realized very early who are the guys with whom I can share a little of all this. It doesn’t have to be discussed because it’s always a bit complicated. at that age you don’t dare reveal too much about your game, but I could see that there were some who were very concerned about having a new hard drive, a new Atari console; While I was drawing hearts in my journals. Anyway, I was very happy.

Did it alienate you?
No. The important thing was to accept it, just as in the school playground we knew we were in the minority if we liked William Sheller while everyone else was listening to Noir Desire’s “Tostak”. I knew I had an interest that took up a lot of space. For the film, I found texts written in my first grade diaries, and they were already very romantic; love stories, all the time.

Over the years, has your romanticism ever collided with reality?
Not really, because I have the luxury or opportunity to do a job where you explore emotions a lot, that’s pretty much the first thing you have to do. Obviously, I don’t spend my days walking in the woods thinking about the feeling of love. But following these feelings is part of my DNA.

In the film, many young people question the sense of love perceived by their generation. How do you feel about these developments?
The young woman, Zoe, talks a lot about it. she meets her friends at a coffee shop and everyone is shocked when she announces that she is in an exclusive relationship. What is interesting in her testimony is that she is very feminist and listens to a lot of podcasts. He is aware of all these notions of anxious attachment, of not “having” love, of not being imprisoned by the other. But all this clashes with the ideals he had very early on. he loved West Side Story, The Young Ladies of Rochefortall this very romantic and very old school. Something shocks me. I have two children, a middle school student and a high school student, for whom all current issues are very important. This offers hope in the same way that Carol, the little boy seen in the film, explains that if a girl is asked out and she says no, “it doesn’t matter, it happens.” This is all we expect from future generations. they are both very strong in their somewhat radical vision of things, know what to avoid reproducing, but that doesn’t stop them from staying very positive. So good, because if all these new movements created a kind of paralysis of the feeling of love, it would be a little sad.

At the end of the movie, you choose to talk about your relationship and reveal some images of your birthday. marriage. Why did you choose to get married after 20 years of dating?
Because it was funny, getting married with grown children. And then it was an excuse to have a little romantic party. For the film, I was looking for a balance between talking to other people and also being present. It would have been easier to never give my opinion. So, towards the end, I give more and more things that relate to me to create a form of balance.

A question we often ask ourselves Madame Figaro : What are couples’ long-lasting secrets? ?
I think it’s a little wrong to want to answer that. I don’t like it when Instagram offers you, for example, 10-point tips on a topic, like a cake recipe. I don’t want to give advice. All I could say is that we need to get at least two people together who just want it to last. It might sound silly, but it’s not. In any case, that’s what I wanted.

(1) beating heartBy Vincent Delerme. Screenings every Sunday from 11:15 until October 20 at the Cinéma des Cinéastes in Paris, with artist-in-residence and meeting screenings throughout France.