[Interview] THIS IS COMEDY, JUDD APATOW AND CO

In the margin of the cycle on the new american comedy at the Pompidou Centre from April 15 to 21 June 2015. Here is an interview with Jacky Goldberg, journalist for Inrockuptibles and author of the documentary THIS IS COMEDY, JUDD APATOW AND CO. The film will be released in special session and in its presence on Friday, may 29, 20h, cinema 2.

How is born the idea of making a film about Judd Apatow and his training, which revolves around him ?

I had to Inrockuptibles, the opportunity to write on several of his films from 2008, and I very quickly became passionate for his cinema. It was immediately obvious that his ambition was well above the average, both in his own films, in all those that he produced, as well as in the genre in general that he has helped change. I met with him for a master-class in 2010, and from there is born to make the portrait. I believe that it is necessary to make films on filmmakers at the beginning of their career, when they have behind them a work sufficient to be able to draw lines, and if possible before they are quite mature, when everything is still possible, when nothing is set in stone. It is precisely here that Apatow is located.

How came this passion for comedy US? And what film made you really fell into it?

This is one of my first passions for the cinema, which dates back to a time where I was not a cinephile, precisely, and where I used loop a few cult movies, among them Star Wars and the films of the Brothers Farrelly. The film that made me switch is Dumb and Dumber, where I understood, or rather, assumed the idea that you could make people laugh and keep a smart speech on the world from the love of the bullshit. If I love Apatow, the Farrelly remain my idols – I have unfortunately never met.

Judd Apatow is a genius (a god even) of American comedy and, above all, it has really contributed to this new wave of comedy. Can you give your point of view and develop your attachment to this man. Your meetings with him.



Genius, god, are terms that I don’t like too much. In addition it is a very simple type, I still find that there is a risk of crushing the filmmakers with this kind of qualifiers. Godard is a god, Coppola is a genius, Apatow, with all the love that I have for him, is not yet at this level. Don’t forget that he has completed only five feature-length films, even if it is his originality, his work surpasses this corpus, since it has a lot of product and writing.

He is a man of simple, I said, that really looks like its characters — it would have been very disappointing. What struck me the most about him is that it is very difficult to gain his trust, but once he has granted, he can be very generous. It was pretty hard to impose the idea of making a film on him, it is only once he has seen, and loved, that it is relaxed.

How do you explain that humor US is struggling to persist in France ? Why do so many Flops and DTV?

Historically, the genre doesn’t work in France, it is like that. We can blame the distributors who are (sometimes, not always) a poor job, we can blame the spectators, who are so-called restive at the american comedy… It is a debate without end, like the egg and the hen. On the other hand, one cannot deny, for about 4 years, a decline in overall quality, which does not touch all the world also (Apatow and his band are still those who do better), but that defines a true reflux. After the year 2000, and particularly in the years 2004-2009, where we saw out a super comedy every month or every fifteen days, the source has dried up, and today we are happy when we have one or two per year. Even on tv, where the talents are refugees in early 2010, it began to beat of the wing. But this is not dramatic, the whole story of the comedy is made of comes and goes, bumps and dimples…

Today, the people who make me laugh are Lord and Miller, the types 21, 22 Jump Street and Lego Movie ; Louis CK, the greatest ; and Tim & Eric, but that are in a niche and will never go out to conquer the general public. Otherwise I believe a lot in the next Apatow, Trainwreck, which seems to renew his band and his relationship to scripture (he did not write the scenario, it is a story of chicks, New York).