Between Spielberg and Truffaut, here’s the audience! A great declaration of love for cinema

what are you talking about

What goes to the cinema? Why have we been going there for over 100 years? I wanted to celebrate cinemas, their magic. Also, I followed the path of a young Paul Daedalus as a coming-of-age novel for viewers. Mix memories, fiction, investigation… a torrent of images that tear us apart.

Here is a declaration of love for cinema! Director Arnaud Desplechin, who is responsible for many feature films featuring his beloved character Paul Daedalus, tries his hand at documentary for the first time.

But it is a documentary in its own right. Spectators! Rather, it is a hybrid film, at the intersection of documentary and fiction, the initiator takes the form of a story.

Arno Desplechin simply tells us about his relationship with cinema and theater. The tone adopted is intended to be universal, including other viewers’ points of view, thus combining the specific and the general.

If we make cinematic connections, we can say that the film is located between François Truffaut and Steven Spielberg, and more precisely between 400 Blows and Fabelman.

Because like these two films, the audience! Summons personal memories of the cinema. We also think of Cinema Paradiso, with this childlike wonder in the room.

“This film is not an apology to the directors, actors or actresses, but to the audience.clarifies Arnaud Desplechin in the press kit. What does watching movies do to us? How does it affect us without us knowing?

The sequence of anonymous spectators in this film speaks to this very “we”. Everyone has their own habits; Some prefer to sit in the front, some in the back; Some people cry in the cinema, others prefer to close their eyes, and yet we create society.”

Literary and highly recognizable film

As with all of Arnaud Desplechin’s works, viewers! It is quite a literary film, thanks to the voiceover, and is revealed in several chapters, with different actors (a process that may recall the movie “I’m not there”, because none of the actors look alike. Each other).

These include Milo Machado Graner (find our podcast interview on the film below), Fall Anatomy Revelations, Mathieu Amalric, and Salif Cisse.

The film abounds in references and quotations. An important place is occupied by Stanley Cavell, the author of books about cinema.

We remind you that this film was presented at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, it will be released in theaters on January 15, 2025.