Every grain of sand                     

Catherine Van Der Donckt

rOLE IN MICHKA’s FILMS

Far from Where? — Narration recording

The Violin on the Canvas — Sound recording

Spoon — Sound recording, sound design

New Memories — Sound recording, sound design

Mavericks — Sound design

MF: Sometimes you’re involved in a film from the beginning as a sound recordist. Sometimes you come in at the end to do the sound design. Sometimes you do both. What does that change for you?

CVDD: Everything! Doing the sound for a film on a shoot is exciting because it's unpredictable. Things happen, and you either capture or lose them. There's a level of risk in the search for the film, but it's not the entire film yet. It's like the whole possibility of the film is on the table, and you’re trying to meet the expectations of a director. What does she want to do? When we were shooting, what did we get? How can I contribute to the film? In Spoon, I wanted to record trains. Because there were trains everywhere and it was such a powerful sound: a rhythm, a heaviness, a friction, a call from afar.

MF: Michka wasn’t interested in the trains at first. It was the sound that drove the film toward the trains and not the other way around.

CVDD: We were on the highway in the desert, outside of Barstow, and I heard a grinding sound that was beautiful. And I said, "We need to record that sound at some point.” And Michka said, “Do it now because you never know.” And she was totally right. So, to my great surprise, because on a shoot it's rare that sound determines the schedule, we went to the train yard. A really extraordinary moment. With the metal of the train, I thought of the prison. We were in Spoon’s hometown and the metal had an echo, as if from a long distance. We listened to it as if it were a concert. Then I made Michka put on the headphones so she could really hear it. After that, I was a bit obsessed about recording all the trains. The shoot in California was a rare opportunity to collect sounds from the desert.

If Michka hadn't encouraged me, I would never have gone after all the train sounds. I had a lot of respect for her as a director, and I knew she had a strong vision for the film she wanted to make.  She trusted those who were part of her “clan”. She had the self-confidence to say, “I'm taking you into the desert. We’re going to make a film about Spoon, a prisoner that we can never see. You have to translate that into cinema.” She wasn't looking over our shoulder, telling us what and how to do it. She was there, with us, taking us where we needed to go, inspiring freedom and cinema.

MF: And then you started filming trains, too.

CVDD. Yes, whenever we stopped for a train that I wanted to record, Sylvestre (Guidi) would film it as well. In the end, we had this grinding machine, with its American flag on the engine that represents the country and the “homeland” that at the same time evokes the crossing of the desert, with all its speed, strength and heaviness — all that worked for Spoon. It's rare that I've been able to “follow” a sound that becomes a key element of a film.

 I learned a lot from that shoot. Today, building on that experience, when I am shooting in locations with unique sounds, I put on my sound design “hat.” I stay apart from the rest of the team to better capture everything I can’t reproduce in the studio. Every location has a unique soundscape. I feel this is the best way I can contribute to a film. I’ve had the privilege of feeling that I’m the first one to record the sounds of a particular place. It becomes like a duty of memory. It’s very stimulating.

MF: I thought you were looking to find poetry in sound, but you were also looking for the silence of the desert.

CVDD: Yes, the desert is the most difficult thing to capture. It’s full of poetry! Michka already knew that. You want the desert to be so evocative. I notice that when I listen carefully, I often hear the imperfections, all the frictions, squeaks, and textures. It's not about recording things perfectly. It's more about what makes a place unique in terms of its sounds, the reverberations — that’s what I’m searching for. Michka was like this in how she looked at the world. She had a unique vision. In her films, and in life, her way of being was original, but it wasn't about trying to be different for its own sake at any price. She was simply Michka. She had a strength that, at the same time, revealed her fragility. Incredible. You had the impression that she could tear everything down, and at the same time, you needed to protect her. It was fascinating to see the world through her eyes. She was intense, committed, stubborn, tender, attentive and curious. You could feel her intransigence. It’s like this. It's not like that. She had extraordinary political opinions, extraordinary life stories. Everything became extraordinary, even a grain of sand.

MF: Yet she was completely open to being contradicted or challenged. And I think, even more than that, she expected it. She knew how to give and when she gave, she got a lot in return.

CDVV: Yes, exactly. Carlos, my partner, says being a director means knowing how to choose your team and giving them the possibility to give the best of themselves instead of putting them in a box. Michka felt the same way. We could talk and ask questions. Her conversations with Sylvestre, her director of photography, and with Michel Giroux, her editor, were rich and dense. They weren’t always relaxing… but what discussions! She knew how to talk to us. Defining sound is more difficult, vaguer. So we worked more on a “feeling.” With Benoît Dame working on the mix, we found a way to do it.

During the shoot, her great strength was her vision and rapport with Spoon, her relationship with the desert, with solitude, with confinement. She had such empathy toward Spoon that she passed it on to us. It was a really inspiring shoot.

MF: Sometimes when I listen to recent Bob Dylan records like Rough and Rowdy Ways, what I hear is wisdom that comes with age. It wasn't possible for him to have made that record 30 years ago. When I

think of Michka's films, I wonder if Spoon would have been such a success if she had made it when she was younger.

CVDD: I don't think so. In the making of The Violin on the Canvas, for example, she was more directive. She worked a lot with the director of photo, Nathalie Moliavco-Visotzky, to find the right look for the film. One might say it was more controlled than Spoon. It was an NFB production – a good film but not as personal. It reflected her love of music and artists. She had great admiration for the Turovoskys, and developed a rapport that went beyond the film. Although the production was more “straight”, she never changed her mind about what she wanted.

MF: There was a review of Spoon that linked it to Far From Where? by calling it a return to poetry.

CVDD: Really? That’s great! I think one of the reasons why her first film Far From Where? is so strong is because she is in it. It’s her! In the film industry, they also tell us to prepare, to control everything, etc. But Far From Where? was so much her story. It was full of ideas, full of strength. I was not on the shoot, I just did the narration, but she rediscovered that intimate voice in Far from Where? with Spoon.

MF: They are the only films where we hear her voice. At the time, Michka wrote that you psychoanalyzed her voice in Far From Where? Did she come to you with a script?

CVDD: She came very well prepared. She was finishing her film at the NFB, but I told her that I didn’t want to record her voice in the studio because it was too official. Voice work, the narration, is something very intimate. The voice reveals a lot about us, our fragility, and our strength. So we set up in a dark room hidden behind the studio. I think we did it at lunchtime to avoid everyone.

She arrived with her script and then, like many directors, she was nervous, wanting to do the best narration possible. She read it well. But since it was so much her film, I said to her, "Do you really need to read your script to say what you think? You know your film, you've just been editing it for I don't know how long. You're in it. It’s well-thought out. You can't go wrong.” Dropping the script allowed her to say the words in a much more intimate way. We did it a few times until it felt right. Sharing this level of intimacy, in her first film, created a bond between us.

I think Michka made the film she wanted to make. Often the narration is done after the image editing. In Michka's films, the music is also very important. It's not just there to accentuate the images so no one gets bored. I’ve always admired her choice of music.

MF: There's a moment in the narration of Far From Here? where she sings a little.

CVDD: I think I asked her to do that. Because we had to find moments where we enter her world. We created an atmosphere so that she could feel as confident as possible and allow her strength, her fragility, her poetry, her hesitations, her fantasy, her anxieties to come out. That's why she liked shooting with Sylvestre and editing with Michel so much. They created an intimate environment with her.

MF: What was it like recording Spoon? There was a scene in the trailer where Michka is presented as responding to Spoon. She says, in English, "Spoon, you ask me what I'm thinking about at this moment. How do I answer? We are not in the same moment together. It is different for each of us…Perhaps your question is a way for us to share the same time."  I get chills just saying it. When you see the images and hear the narration, it's like it was all planned in advance. But I don't see how that was possible because the images were filmed separately from the narration.

CVDD: You just described a moment where the narration influenced how Michka and Michel edited the images. I remember because we were in your room, on your bed. The bedroom is intimate, it's already psychoanalysis. She was very afraid of not saying it well. So the main task was to create a tranquil peace within herself where she could say it, as if she was truly speaking to Spoon. To do that, we had to remove her fear of not being able to read well. Again, we dropped her script and took the time to really feel the words. Michel could then edit with the rhythm of her words.

MF: So she did come with the text.

CVDD: She repeated the same text that she had written without the paper. She already knew what she wanted to say. We had done it several times before. But she got upset because it wasn't the way she wanted it. So I said, "Leave it. If you need to go back to the written text, then you can. But we'll say two sentences. Say them to me as if I were Spoon. Think of him. Give Spoon the space. Think of your images. What do you want to convey to us?" That was to build up her confidence so she wouldn't stress about saying it. I didn’t want to tire her out or insist. It's always a kind of magic or a dance you have to accept to go through the process.

MF: It's a very interesting image — “to give space”. You could say that's what the film is all about. To situate Spoon in space and time.

CVDD: I once did an edit for another director who said, "No, that's not it at all. I want you to do something like Spoon.” She truly succeeded with this film. It left a mark on people.

MF: We haven't talked about New Memories yet. I know the shoot was hard for many reasons.

CVDD: From the beginning of this film, there was something that linked Anne and Michka, even if they were completely different in their cultures, in their ways of being feminine, in everything. Michka managed to touch something deep in Anne that probably troubled both of them more than if another filmmaker had been doing the film. It was very intense because it was very emotional. At the end of each day, Michka would say to us, "I don't know if I want to keep going. We're going back to Montreal."  It was very strong. After the shoot, it was all we talked about.

She went looking for something in Anne that made her — Michka — suffer. It wasn't her suffering, but she felt it intensely. Again, her vision of Anne was extraordinary. Someone else would have just showed Anne in her neighbourhood that was so cool, hip and weird. Michka went deeper to explore who Anne was. I don't think many people would have dared to make such a film in the conditions that we had to work with.

MF: It all started with a street photo taken by Anne that Michka saw on Facebook. They talked, and Michka told her that she had the right distance between the camera and the subject. Too far away and the photo becomes paternalistic, too close it becomes voyeuristic. Anne replied, “That's because I'm like them.”

CVDD: Absolutely. Michka was right, she has the right distance. When you see the bubble Anne created for taking pictures, she is often very close to her subjects. She darts in and out of their personal space really quickly. It’s almost invisible. Her art is to capture the ephemeral. The relationship she creates with her subjects! It’s another quality that links Anne and Michka. To make a film, you have to stay close to your subject for long periods. That becomes almost unbearable when you feel things you don't want to feel.

MF: There was a moment when you and Sylvestre went to see Anne in her place. Because of her allergy to cats, Michka didn't go. It wasn’t planned, but Anne started talking about her childhood trauma and you decided to film.

CVDD: In the beginning, I didn’t agree. I felt a bit like we were betraying Michka. She felt increasingly attacked by Anne and their relationship was tense. But I think even Anne expected to go to that heaviness in her past. I think she was ready to unburden herself. Above all, it was Michka who had opened the door even if she wasn’t there for the interview. That night, we had gone to shoot background material in her apartment, but the door kept opening until Anne shared the wounds of her past with us. Michka could have decided not to put the interview in the film. She and Michel decided to include it. It’s in the film. There was a chain of trust between Michka and us. Sometimes it’s a fine line…

MF: Is there anything else you would like to share?

CVDD: Yes, in the beginning, Michka had worked with Pierre Bertrand for the sound on Spoon. Pierre was another long-time collaborator who put her at ease. When he couldn’t do the shoot for Spoon in California, he suggested my name. I will always be grateful to him for that. It allowed me to reconnect with Michka, whom I hadn't seen in ages! What a gift! I had only recent gone back to work as a sound recorder after the death of our first daughter. It was 24 years last October 14 (2023).

MF: Béatrice.

CVDD: Yes, Béatrice. During the first two years of her life, I had all my equipment stolen from my house. I was still working on shoots, but I was renting equipment that I didn't like. In 2010, I was able to buy some equipment. With respect to sound, I think Spoon was one the most creative films I worked on after returning to work. It gave me back my confidence, but more importantly it gave me back the desire to make these kinds of films. When you make a film from the start of the shoot to the end of the mix, you have time to develop your ideas, to reflect, to know the film. I don’t think I'm good on the “first take”.

I need more time. The kind of films Michka made me think I could continue. It did me so much good! I loved that film from beginning to end. Michka’s rapport with Spoon! Wow! Her relationship with him for years before making the film, their conversations over the years, their friendship, it was so beautiful, so strong, so vital. It was like Michka. She didn't do things by halves. When she loved someone, she didn't do it by halves. When she hated someone, it wasn’t by halves either. When she held a grudge, it was for life. I was lucky to know her, and to have a good relationship with Sylvestre and Michel, her other collaborators. Thank you Spoon, thank you freedom, thank you to the desire to go further than just doing what we know how to do! She always made us believe. Her stories were incredible, but she always made us believe.

MF: During the shoot in the desert, when you did a ritual for Béatrice, Michka understood.

CVDD: We were friends before we worked together. She told me about her aunts playing poker, about couscous, and all her crazy stories. Life separates people, but when you meet up again, I think the most important things remain. We all experience hardships in life. She experienced hers early in childhood, and then went through it again with her illness. Carlos and I experienced it with our daughter. But for us, Michka was like a family that we had found again. And recognizing our wounds, our weaknesses, made us more accepting of who we are and made us more serene., with all the good, and all the bad too. You strip off all the superfluous layers. “You want to make movies despite everything, still, with all your passion? Wow! I'm coming out of years and years of taking care of my daughter, of mourning. I want to make films, too! Wow! We can still do it! We’re still alive! We can even escape from the system of making films in little boxes for television! Oh my God! Freedom! We trust each other. Nobody's waiting for us, we're going to do this.” We're lucky to do what we love with the people we love. That’s already a lot.

P.S. I often think of her in my everyday life. In the political events of our time that would revolt her, I constantly hear her burning indignation in my head. On a street corner near a gelateria, I taste her sweet tooth and her attraction to sweets. Before the elegance of a woman in colourful, exotic clothes, I hear her admiration. Eating a fragrant dish, I remember the way she used to tell stories about her life, her travels and Tunisia. I always came away exhilarated by her sense of storytelling. In front of some of the films I've worked on, I would have loved her criticism, her vision... so Michka... so unique...

[1] Carlos Ferrand

[2] National Film Board of Canada.