Jean Becker's lineage makes him French cinematic royalty, writes Donald Clarke
YOU COULD VIEW Jean Becker as French cinematic royalty. A burly fellow with a mischievous sense of humour, he is the brother of Étienne Becker, the late cinematographer, and is the father of Louis Becker, a distinguished producer. More significantly, his own father was the mighty Jacques Becker. One of the most admired filmmakers of the 1950s, Jacques helped invent Simone Signoret in Casque d'or and did great work with Jean Gabin in Touchez pas au grisbi.
A glance at Jean's upcoming Dialogue avec mon jardinier(Conversations with my Gardener) confirms that he is more than worthy to carry the Becker name. So is there some unique cinematic gene floating about the family pool? "I don't think so," he laughs. "I think it's exactly the same for, for example, doctors or dentists or lawyers. But it is not a question of genes. If you grow up in that atmosphere you want to remain part of it."
Jacques Becker, one of a band of directors who bravely supported the French resistance during the second World War, died in 1960. A protege of Jean Renoir, Jacques must have offered his son some sage advice before he passed away. "He was 53 when he died," Jean says sadly. "My son is now 53. It is like I am the father of my father. He did not speak much or, at least, not to me. But, towards the end, when I became his assistant, he did speak more. He fell ill on the last film and I had to shoot alone. I was summoned to his room and he said: 'Do this. Do that.' I knew then that he trusted me. I knew that he believed I could make films and that mattered to me."
Indeed, Jean Becker thrived. In the early 1960s, he made three successful films with Jean-Paul Belmondo, before dabbling in television and advertising. In 1983, he returned to features with L'Été meurtrier, a steamy thriller featuring Isabelle Adjani, and he has worked consistently ever since. Conversations with my Gardeneris the sort of charming, chatty crowd-pleaser that travels well from French multiplexes to British and Irish art houses. Daniel Auteuil plays a painter who, depressed by his decaying marriage, decides to move to the country. He is surprised that his gardener is an old school friend. Initially embarrassed by their contrasting social positions, the artist becomes close to his employee and learns to appreciate his uncomplicated take on life. It's sentimental, but Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin make something memorably charming. "Henri Cueco, who wrote the book, is a painter in real life," Becker explains. "And he wrote that book as a tribute to a real man - a real gardener. When I read the book I felt I had to make my own tribute to that fine man on screen. It is beautiful that his philosophy of life is so simple. That's why I liked this guy."
Auteuil and Darroussin might have been born to play these roles: the former compact and cerebral, the latter large and untidy. I would guess that Becker had both in mind when he read the script. "Not really. I actually intended the part of the gardener for a friend of mine who died: Jacques Villeret. When he died I just put the script in a drawer. Then I thought about Jean-Pierre Darroussin and decided to pull out the script. The funny thing is Villeret was small in size and I wanted this contrast, so I was thinking of, maybe, [Gérard] Depardieu in the other role. Jean-Pierre is larger, so I then had to think of a less big actor. And Daniel said yes."
Conversations with My Gardener, though lovely in its way, could have been made at any time in the last 50 years. Becker began making films at precisely the time - the early 1960s - that the New Wave of French cinema was getting into gear. Yet his accomplished, mainstream films have little in common with the more radical work of François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer or Jacques Rivette. Would I be correct in saying that he never felt part of that movement? "That is right. I was not part of that. Not at all. Not at all," he says. "I think the New Wave did good things and horrible things for the movies. One or two had new things to say. The rest just wanted to shoot the old men of French cinema."
He is, perhaps, thinking here of Truffaut's dismissive description of the previous generation's films as "cinéma de papa". That phrase must have had particular significance for the son of Jacques Becker. "Yes. They wrote terrible things about the old cinema. And then when they were older they made exactly the same sort of films as those older guys. Truffaut, in particular, made exactly that type of film when older. Only one made a difference - Godard." The director of À bout de souffleand Pierrot le fouis something of an eccentric fellow. "Oh yes. I know him. He is crazy, weird and sometimes incomprehensible. But he really was different and he is definitely somebody. He is very difficult to talk to. Oh dear! But when my father died he was the one who wrote the nicest things about him. I was surprised because their films were so different."
For all the internal squabbles in French cinema, the industry has somehow survived. Godard potters about the world making his increasingly bizarre diatribes. Rohmer and Rivette still pop up from time to time, and Jean Becker, now 70, continues to make his own charming, diverse films. "Even foreign directors shoot in France because they sometimes find it's the only place they can make a film," Becker agrees. "There are good things and bad things. But, though the Americans try to beat down the French system, it still continues to exist. That is the important thing." Becker leans forward and prods the table with a podgy finger.
"That is, for me, the most important thing. The French cinema exists. There may be problems. But it exists. It still exists."
• Conversations with my Gardeneris out on Friday