To meet Jerry Schatzberg is to have the impression of being faced with a piece of film history. The director of Portrait of a Fallen Child received a tribute at the Deauville Festival from Guillaume Canet, president of the Jury, which he had directed in 2000 in The Day The Ponies Come Back. The beautiful documentary Jerry Schatzberg, landscape portrait by Pierre Filmon, presented at Deauville, returned to the work of this great artist.
“When I see that spectators still moved today by my films, I tell myself that I must have achieved something in my career”, jokes this young man of 96 years for 20 minutes.
A talent scout
We agree with him: among other things, he gave Al Pacino his screen debut in Panic in Needle Park then found it in The Scarecrow, Palme d’or in 1973. “I had unearthed him at the theatre, he recalls, and I had been struck by the fact that his softness behind the scenes contrasted with his power on stage. However, I couldn’t imagine that he was going to have such a career: I was too busy trying to finish my film. »
Jerry Schatzberg hasn’t made a feature film since 2000. “Hollywood has changed a lot since the 1970s. We were much freer then. I no longer know anyone in the studios and I no longer really feel at home in today’s overly formatted cinema. I was part of what was called the New Hollywood, but the “New New Hollywood is not for me. »
A new film in perspective?
However, the filmmaker refuses to be outdated: he watches many recent films and prepares to see The Little Handkerchiefs of his friend Guillaume Canet. “I may direct a new film if I find a script that interests me enough. I don’t want to shoot just to tell myself that I shot,” he says. In the meantime, the director receives the tributes he deserves. Jerry Schatzberg will be in Paris this Tuesday, at the French Cinemathequeto present his works and converse with the public.