French director François Ozon brings his adaptation of Albert Camus’s The Stranger to the Venice Film Festival, exploring themes of indifference and colonialism.
François Ozon Discusses His Passion for Filmmaking as ‘The Stranger’ Premieres in Venice
Prolific French director François Ozon arrived in Venice on Tuesday with his adaptation of Albert Camus’s absurdist classic The Stranger, which tells the story of a French expatriate living in colonial 1930s French Algeria who indifferently kills a local man.
A Notable Adaptation
This marks the third fictional adaptation of the novella, following the 1967 version by Luchino Visconti, featuring Marcello Mastroianni, and the 2001 Turkish film Fate, which was showcased in Cannes Un Certain Regard.
High Expectations
Anticipation is high on the Lido regarding whether Ozon has succeeded with his black-and-white adaptation, starring Benjamin Voisin as protagonist Meursault and Rebecca Varder as his lover.
Inspiration Behind the Adaptation
During the press conference for the Golden Lion contender, Ozon shared that he conceived the idea of adapting The Stranger after struggling to secure financing for a project centered on a young man following a failed suicide attempt.
The director mentioned that, like many in France, he read the novella in high school but found new meaning upon revisiting it later in life. “Maybe I understood it a little better than when I read it as a teenager, and at the same time, there were many aspects that fascinated me,” Ozon reflected.
Modern Perspective
Ozon quickly decided to approach the story from a modern perspective rather than through the lens of its original context in 1939 and its publication in 1942 during the French occupation of Algeria. “The most important thing right away is the first sentence of the book, which is extremely well-known: ‘Mother is dead, maybe it was yesterday’,” he stated.
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However, it was a sentence from the second part of the book that truly resonated with him: “I killed an Arab.” Ozon identified this as the key to his adaptation, aiming to contextualize the story within the framework of French colonization while remaining faithful to Camus’s narrative.
Artistic Choices
Ozon explained that his decision to film in black and white was both artistic and financial. “Since it’s a philosophical book, black and white seemed ideal for telling this story, free of color, representing a form of purity. It was also a financial choice, as I didn’t have the means to recreate the 1930s in Algiers,” he elaborated.
Although the film was shot in color and later converted to black and white, Ozon expressed satisfaction with the final result, noting it enhances the visual experience. “When I saw Rebecca in a white swimsuit on the beach, I was reminded of Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer,” he said.
The Drive Behind Filmmaking
Ozon, who has released a film every year for the past decade, was asked about his motivation in an era where financing feature films has become increasingly challenging. “There’s a quote from Camus: ‘To create is to live twice’. Well, to make a film is to live twice. Journalists often tell me, ‘You can’t have time to live because you’re always making films.’ On the contrary, I believe I live twice as much because I make films,” he concluded.
