{"id":9920,"date":"2018-04-21T11:38:43","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T11:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sbcine.be?p=9920"},"modified":"2018-04-21T11:40:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T11:40:27","slug":"yves-cape-wiping-the-slate-clean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sbcine.be\/?p=9920","title":{"rendered":"Yves Cape, wiping the slate clean\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Ariane Damain Vergallo – Leica M, 100 mm Summicron-C<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1960s, the combined peculiarities of the Belgian and American administrations deprived Yves Cape of any kind of citizenship until he was to turn 16.\u00a0Born in Belgium, the only son of an American father and a Belgian mother, young Yves had to carry a \u2018\u2018Stateless\u2019\u2018 safe-conduct \u2013 a traumatizingly pink document – until he was ordered to choose between being Belgian or American.\u00a0He went for Belgian. With no regret whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Way back when, from the early 1930s to the mid-1940s, World War 2 had brought all his grandparents to Belgium, both from Europe and the United States.\u00a0His grandfather, Paul Goldfinger, a renowned scientist, worked at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. When Hitler came to power, his boss generously exfiltrated all his Jewish assistants, and the entire Goldfinger family left Germany in 1933.\u00a0One of his brothers emigrated to England and ended up in London, right next door to Ian Flemming, the man who \u2018\u2018invented\u2019\u2018 James Bond. Ern\u00f6 Goldfinger wanted to expand his house and acquire Ian Flemming\u2019s property \u2013 but the writer resented the idea and immediately filed a lawsuit against his neighbor (he lost).\u00a0Revenge is a dish best served cold \u2013 or, in this case, dare we say \u2018\u2018golden\u2019\u2018\u00a0? The famous villain who gives his name and title to the James Bond novel (and film) Goldfinger is none other than Yves Cape’s great uncle!<\/p>\n

As a teenager, Yves Cape got used to a protean, father\u00a0: painter, sound engineer or skipper, a globe-trotter come what may, and ultimately (perhaps more importantly) the man who was never there. His mother, therefore, a scientist, became theindispensable compass.\u00a0Hence his deciding to take on photography \u2013 more specifically portraiture (one way of capturing faces for eternity) – and to enroll in a non-orthodox school, the Ecole 75, which prides itself in notteaching photo technique but nurturing and forming only artists.\u00a0The school\u2019s hero was \u2013 and is – Henri Cartier-Bresson, a photographer who advocated a naturalistic approach to a subject, with no staging and no intervention from the photographer.\u00a0\u2018\u2018Truth and simplicity.\u2019\u2018 A philosophy Yves Cape never forgot. To this day, it is still his motto.<\/p>\n

After graduating from the Ecole 75, he started building a reputation by publishing books of his photographs and ultimately acquired a certain renown, actually winning the Best Belgian Portraitist Award. But he also discovered the loneliness of the long-distance photographer. So he decided to switch to cinema – a collective sport – and enrolled in the INSAS, the prestigious Belgian film school.\u00a0His nascent fame as a photographer allowed him to pass the entrance exam with flying colors\u2026 despite a resounding \u2018\u2018zero\u2019\u2018 in technique!\u00a0After graduation, following the traditional path, Yves Cape became assistant camera operator \u2013 a job that required him to be rigorous, focused and disciplined. In short, a technician — \u2018\u2019exactly what I am not.\u2019\u2018<\/p>\n

A love affair that turned sour spurred him to \u2018\u2018cast off\u2019\u2018, as it were, leave Belgium and \u2018\u2018conquer Paris\u2019\u2018. Not knowing that fifteen years later, he would return to Brussels and, in one of fate\u2019s unexpected tricks, meet the woman who would reconfigure his life and put down his roots back in Belgium. A rebirth\/renaissance at the age of forty, an amour totallyfou\u2026and the hope of starting a family.\u00a0But in those early days, he was in Paris and truly enjoyed being in the very core of the reactor. Isn\u2019t France the country where cinema was born, where the director is an author in his\/her own right, where the film industry is notoriously coddled and pampered by public authorities and the powers that be?<\/p>\n

Between jobs as assistant camera operator, Yves Cape managed to design the light patterns on a number of short films \u2013 enough to spur the desire in him \u2018\u2018to be the caliph in lieu of the caliph\u2019\u2018, i.e. to become cinematographer.\u00a0His breakthrough came with Belgian director Alain Berliner\u2019s Ma Vie en rose, as Yves Cape\u2019s work on it was explicitly singled out. The film was quite a success and garnered many awards around the world. Consequently, Yves Cape was offered a whole slew of comedies, which he did not want to do. \u2018\u2018They were just pouring in, it was a horror.\u2019\u2018 All the more so as the man considers he has no sense of humor. \u2018\u2018Even a film like OSS 117won\u2019t elicit a hint of a chuckle from me.\u2019\u2018<\/p>\n

Another major encounter, and film, will then truly shape his career. The man is helmer Bruno Dumont and the film L’Humanit\u00e9, which relocated Yves Cape for fifteen long weeks in the director\u2019s native village, Bailleul, in the north of France.\u00a0For Yves Cape, collaborating with Bruno Dumont, \u2018\u2018a huge and hugely intense worker\/creator\u2019\u2018, was an instant throwback to the fundamentals taught him by his masters at the Ecole 75 in Brussels: \u2018\u2018Respect what you film, don\u2019t try to \u2018prettify\u2019 what\u2019s not pretty, and don\u2019t divert the viewer\u2019s gaze.\u2019\u2019\u00a0There is little, at the outset of the filmmaking process, that Yves Cape appreciates more than such dogmas and doctrines, precise and specific rules that (may) allow for great works to be born.\u00a0\u2018\u2018The films I’m proud of are works with a firm commitment and stance. I hate soft-bellied movies that are all over the place and I think the camera and the light should be, well, invisible.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Each year, the films he made with Bruno Dumont \u2013 all four of them so far \u2013 were invariably rewarded at the Cannes Film Festival.\u00a0Going from the initial paring-down and the rigor of low-budget filming to the honors (and red carpet) in Cannes can be quite a delightful trip. A delight Yves Cape would almost regret if he didn\u2019t know that, as in life, cinematographer-director couples are inevitably destined to unravel.\u00a0L\u2019Humanit\u00e9 definitely launched Yves Cape as a major, essential cinematographer \u2013 soon to be called on by such directors as different as Claire Denis (for White Material) and Patrice Ch\u00e9reau (for Persecution). Both filmmakers who seem to prepare their film pretty \u2018\u2018casually,\u2019\u2018 spending hours in caf\u00e9s discussing with him — yet, are smart enough to stealthily mention a potential difficulty, just for him to be ready when (and if) the time comes.
\nFor Yves Cape feels equally comfortable with total improvisation.\u00a0\u2019\u2018I\u2019m incredibly happy to do things quickly, on the spur of the moment, impromptu. That\u2019s why I like having an equipment that is both light and versatile enough for me to decide on the spot. And that’s why I now only use Leica.\u2019\u2018<\/p>\n

To put it succinctly, Yves Cape hates what he calls \u2018\u2018transforming reality.\u2019\u2018\u00a0\u2018\u2018That may sound pejorative but it\u2019s not\u00a0: I want the image to be as neutral as possible in order to best reflect what I see.\u2019\u2018<\/p>\n

In 2012, when actor Tim Roth handed the Camera d’Or to young Mexican director Michel Franco, he made him promise to give him a part in one of his next films. Promise kept with Chronic, shot by Yves Cape , which also got an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015.\u00a0The following year, Yves Cape and Michel Franco found themselves in Mexico location-scouting in preparation for Girls of April. As usual, Yves Cape wanted to shoot with Summilux-Cs, which, in Mexico, were difficult and expensive to find. He managed to convince the production company to find those lenses at any price.\u00a0\u2018\u2018I didn\u2019t want to do it any other way and I wanted to keep my freedom. One day, there was a scene set in a house on a beach. The aperture stop inside was T: 2 and the stop outside, T: 22. The Summilux-Cs allowed me to shoot without raising the light indoors and, with a mere change of focus, to still have the right amount of detail when, after a long camera movement, the actors ended up backlit.\u2019\u2018<\/p>\n

This obsession with filming reality \u2018\u2018instinctively\u2019\u2018 has become Yves Cape\u2019s hallmark. Directors like C\u00e9dric Kahn (for La pri\u00e8re \u2013 \u2018\u2018The Prayer\u2019\u2018, 2018) or Guillaume Nicloux (for La Religieuse \u2013 \u2018\u2018The Nun\u2019\u2018, 2013) or even Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Beigbeider (for L’Amour dure toujours 3 ans – \u2018\u2018Love Lasts Three Years\u2019\u2018 – 2011) appreciate the way that cinematographer puts himself at the exclusive service of their vision and direction.\u00a0Now more than ever, Yves Cape\u2019s references are worlds away from the polished imagery of advertising and he finds the invasion of beauty on social networks \u2018\u2018depressing\u2019\u2018.\u00a0\u2018\u2018\u2019Beautiful\u2019 light bores me. \u2018Well-lit pretty girls\u2019 leave me totally unimpressed. I prefer the raw reality of a face.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Which brings us straight back to Henri Cartier-Bresson, doesn\u2019t it\u00a0?<\/p>\n

Interview conducted by Ariane Damain Vergallo on behalf of CW\u00a0Sonderoptic – L<\/span>eica<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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