The Writing Process of Holy Motors

This interview, linked here is a discussion with Leos Carax about his own process developing the twisted ideas behind Holy Motors. Leos Carax described his emotional state when entering the writing process of Holy Motors as “rage”. Having been unable to develop, fund, or shoot a film in years, Carax found himself questioning filming location, language, and methods of funding for future films. That is why, when beginning to write Holy Motors, he found himself writing unconsciously, which I think is very clear in the viewing of the film. As the movie progresses, the viewer gets the feeling that there is an accumulation of something, although its hard to figure out what. Each different “appointment” is separated, yet we feel like each is somehow building on eachother to reach some sort of accumulation. He described writing it as “you don’t react to what you’re doing, you just do it”. For example, he talks about how he initially wanted to play the part of the man with the birthmark in the car, as he was the “director”. However, as the film came together, Carax realized that that character was in fact not the director, but some looming professional, dictating the flow of art, therefore being closer to a producer. Therefore, he replaced himself as the actor with Michel Piccoli. This is a good example of Carax reacting to the film as he creates it, just as he does with most of his films, starting them with combinations of images and seeing what feelings those images invoke.

Carax goes on to say that Holy Motors stands alone in his filmography, meaning it was not inspired by any of his other films. He views the film as a representation of reality and what it means to be alive, and therefore didn’t want it to have any aspects of a replication of something else. This is a concept I think is extremely interesting, since most directors at least develop some strand of style that stays consistent throughout their films. He goes on to further examine the films themes of performance for performance’s sake and the disappearance of physical film in cinema history, but I interpreted the interview as Carax saying that Holy Motors is about life and how we choose to live it and how difficult it is to be authentic in a digital age.