“The idea of” Ghost films “is to play with the public to imagine films that I have invented”

The singer and composer Albin de la Simone presents, as part of the Paris summer festival, Ghost Movies, a concert and an exhibition where he puts to music with actors and actresses films that do not exist. A concept that intrigued 20 minutes and a good opportunity to discuss with the artist what art offers to the public: to weave the imagination, to bounce back by association of ideas… And of cinema of course.

What are these “Ghost Movies”?

It is an exhibition and a concert, which go together but which can live separately. The idea is to play with the audience imagining films that I have invented. I’m not going to show anything from these films so as not to constrain the imagination, but I will give things around to allow the imagination to flourish. We tell the movies with actors and actresses, the musicians play the music. And for the exhibition it goes through the eyes: we see Karine Viard trying to have a role for example. Or the Japanese movie poster, costume prototypes, sidewalks of people telling what they liked. It’s a pretty hairy project that doesn’t take itself seriously. The films are caricatures, they are based on clichés, which makes it possible to draw on a collective culture of cinema from our childhood. There are turnips, as well the nanar 1970s as the political film or the blockbuster of the 2000s… And the music too.

Does that mean that we can’t find your music?

I composed all the music, so there is a touch, but it is very “film music” and quite typical! I pushed the buttons a little hard to make sure we connected, I put a lot of fertilizer …

How did you get this crazy idea?

It is a project that has matured for more than 10 years. I come from jazz, I wanted to compose instrumental music and I didn’t know which way to catch the thing. I told myself that I was going to write films and compose music from that… And one thing leading to another I got caught up in the game. As I am a draftsman, and that I am very attracted by the visual arts, I started to layout a newspaper article… And then I was an associate artist at A hundred and four [centre culturel de Paris] in 2013, that gave me a lot of time to work on this. The exhibition at the start was on small papers, with clothespins. Until I played TNB in ​​Rennes which gave me the means to set up a real exhibition, which is no longer tinkered with. And you will see the place of the exhibition is really fantastic.

Is it in a high school?

Yes, a very old high school [Jacques-Decour dans le 9e arrondissement] in which François Truffaut filmed The four hundred Blows. It is almost a caricature of a Parisian high school, with a courtyard, arcades, a statue, magnificent trees and a chapel-theater in which there is the exhibition. It’s all wooded and we play in the adjoining courtyard… And at 10 pm every evening there is a show, with bleachers of a thousand seats… It is the HQ of the festival.

In an interview, you say you are inspired by your movie songs…. that you haven’t seen!

I have no recollection of having said that! (Laughs)

You said you were inspired by The son’s room by Nanni Moretti for the track Dogs without tongues…

This song speaks very covertly about a couple who have lost their child. I haven’t seen this movie, I don’t even want to see it: I have a child, and I don’t really want to think about it… But I still wrote a song about it. Because I wondered what dogs were without languages, it was a friend who said “Reims, without you, it’s like a dog without language”. I had found that crazy expression. I wanted to find out what people could be like tongueless dogs. But the idea of Ghost movies, it is precisely to imagine films by promising that these films will never exist.

Are you an avid movie buff?

In “cinephile”, there is the idea of ​​in-depth knowledge, so no, but I love cinema, like everyone I think. For example there is an incredible film, by Miloš Forman, his first film when he arrived in the United States, Taking off. It’s very beautiful, very accessible, and it’s a crazy movie that doesn’t run the streets. He made some hyperconverted films like Amadeus, Flight over a cuckoo’s nest, Hate…. But there it is almost ghost since it is little known! After I love David Cronenberg, less his last films, but until films with Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence and Shadow Promises.

Will you ever make a movie?

No ! Surely not ! I have great respect for cinema. But my project only exists because the films exist! And what I’m doing is a huge hoax, it’s an overview, a tribute to cinema.

Your songs tell stories, sometimes very colorful stories. Are your songs a bit of “ghost movies” as well?

All I do is ghost movies a little bit! A song is so few words. It’s the reverse of a novel, it’s essential oils, we can’t develop it, it’s balsamic vinegar! As I have little space, I cannot be very explicit. So I work by associations of ideas, by images. And I recently discovered that what interests me in art is what is not shown, what is not said, not successful, not perfect. This is where I like it. Ghost Movies, it’s a canvas that people can weave around. I like imperfection in the drawings, the moment when one color slips over another. I like doubt. It is in the doubt that the spectator can put it of himself. If I explain the song Dogs without tongue, people won’t knit around that anymore. I’ll show you something. [Il se lève, va chercher un tableau]. She’s an artist, Cecile Davidovici. She made an embroidery a photo of Charlotte Abramow. I find that fantastic, this rereading, it touches me incredibly. I am also crazy about art brut. Because there are flaws and weaknesses.