On war wounds real and made up, coincidence and sex for sex's sake--filmically speaking, of course

by Sean O'Neill

She first came to our attention in an erotic-photography pas de deux with Lena Olin in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. (Oh, yeah, Daniel Day-Lewis was in that one as well.) Then came a slew of small treasures that mostly withered away in the art houses: Jean Luc Godard's Hail Mary, Louis Malle's Damage and, especially, Krysztof Kieslowski's Blue. Now, Juliette Binoche steps to the fore in Anthony Minghella's epically romantic The English Patient--undoubtedly one of the most powerful and sweeping films to be released in the States this year. (And at nearly three hours, one of the longest.) It may be the role that finally propels her to stardom--on this side of the Atlantic. Though the core of the story concerns itself with the doomed romance between one Count Laszlo de Almásy (played by Schindler's List's Ralph Fiennes) and the married Katherine Clifton (Four Weddings and a Funeral's Kristin Scott Thomas), it is Binoche's work as Almásy's French Canadian nurse Hana that ultimately grounds the film and makes it play more like real event than overheated fever dream. Before turning to films at age 20, Binoche was a regular on the stage, performing with the Conservatoire de Paris. We caught up with her in her native city of Paris.

How is your Hana different from the one in Michael Ondaatje's book?

Well, you follow Hana much more in the book. In the film, the center is Katherine and Almásy's story, and Hana is kind of on the edge of the picture. But I think Anthony wanted to have her be the hope [of the story] in a way. She starts with a lot of sadness, losing the two people closest to her, and so she has to re-find the joy in herself.

What did you learn about the psychology of nurses by playing this role?

Well, Anthony sent me some interview tapes of Canadian nurses who served during the Second World War. And I was very moved, because you feel that it's as if they'd been so close to death that they know how life is both fragile and precious at the same time. They view life as each day being a real present, you know? I met an English nurse that worked during the war. She came over to Italy while we were preparing and showed me how to prepare a [hypodermic] shot, how to change the sheets, how to take care of somebody who has burns--how you wash them and so on. I asked if she had nightmares, because she was mostly taking care of burn victims, and sometimes she had to lie to the soldiers. They, would ask "Do I still have my nose?" And she would have to say, "Of course you have..." She said the only time she had nightmares was when she went to Poland, to the concentration camps, because the people inside felt like there was nothing left anymore, and they became animals. Of course, they were damaged on the outside--they were very thin--but it was more that their insides had been destroyed, and that was, for her, the real nightmare.

The scene where Hana's lover, Kip, the Sikh bomb detonator, takes her into a darkened church, puts her in a harness and pulley and lifts her into the air, with a flare so she can see the painting on the wall--that's one of the most beautiful bits of film I've ever seen.

Well, I had a very strong relationship with the painter, Piero della Francesca since I was 16. I discovered him in the [French] National Gallery, and when I read the book and then the script, it was like, "Oh my God, how could they know I love his work so much?"

That sounds too strong to be coincidence.

[Laughs.] I don't believe in coincidence.

Was it strange to be playing against Ralph Fiennes when he was wearing such extensive burn makeup?

The first time I saw him, I had a big laugh, because I didn't expect the makeup to be that much. But then I got used to it, because the scenes were not about the makeup, they were about their relationship. Also, the nurses who tended to these men during the war had to deal with who was inside of the burn victims--you know, the soul part, the hope, the despair, the pain. That's what Hana was thinking about, so the makeup didn't affect me all that much.

You have an interesting quote in the press kit: "When I film, I never plan anything because I never know how a scene will be." Could you expand on that?

Well, when you are preparing a scene, in the hotel or your home or whatever, you have to think of what you're going to do the next day, right? So you imagine it, but you work in a sense of being open. You could do the scene crying, you could do it laughing, you could do it many different ways, you know? So you have to be prepared for how the director sees the scene, and hope to be ready for it. And you won't play it the same way if you start at 8 in the morning as you will if you start at 10 at night. You never know what's going to happen until you do it. That's why Orson Welles was so correct when he said every film is a miracle, because there are so many things that have to happen together to make it work.

Is it difficult keeping yourself so open, yet also vibrant and vulnerable?

Well, actually, for me, it's almost like peeling onions. [Laughs.] You have to take off one skin, then another one, and then another one, to be as clear and transparent as possible.

What about working in a second language? How difficult is that?

It is not. It's hard to be as true as possible to the moment in a movie, no matter which language you're using. But when I come out of an English-language movie and go back to a French movie, I say "Oh my God it's so difficult, French." And when I leave a French movie and go back to English, I say "Oh my God, English is worse."

You've made movies with Americans, but you've never made a Hollywood movie. Why not?

Because I want to tell a story I believe in, and at the moment, the Hollywood scripts I've been reading didn't feel like that.

Hollywood keys in on not only domestic but worldwide grosses, so they're always shooting right at that lowest common denominator.

Well, and also there's too much violence, you know? Violence just to have violence. Or sex just to be sexy--just to sell the movie. And that just makes me sick, and I don't feel like doing it. I think a film shouldn't be made for commercial purposes. It has to come from inside the producer, director, actors, writer and crew. It shouldn't be about what's on the outside, only about the inside.