When actress Julie Delpy first discussed promoting her directorial debut, 2 Days in Paris, with publicists, she advised them to compare her native city to the monster in Ridley Scott's Alien.
"The movie poster would say, 'In Paris, no one can hear you scream,' " Delpy giggles over the phone from Los Angeles. "It was a joke of mine, but I was serious in a way. In the film, I wanted Paris to be a living organism that lashes out at this French and American couple, Marion and Jack. I thought that would make a great comedy."
Who knew that the great French screen actress was so funny? After all, rib ticklers are few and far between in Delpy's most memorable films, Europa, Europa, Jean-Luc Godard's The Detective, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy and the American indie hits Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
Delpy would have you believe that the dark humour evident in her latest film, which opens today in Toronto, has kept her sane. For it turns out the 37-year-old actress has been pitching feature screenplays without success for 19 exasperating years.
"I have written nine scripts and pitched many more ideas," Delpy groans. "No one took me seriously; I was just an actress - puh!" Even after garnering a best screenwriting Academy Award nomination for the 2004 film Before Sunset, Delpy couldn't get fast and cheap digital film producers in Hollywood interested in making her Paris comedy.
Finally, with German-French financing, she managed a 20-day shoot. To cut costs, Delpy wrote, starred in, edited and composed the soundtrack for the film. She also got her parents, veteran Paris theatre actors Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet, to play her character's mother and father in the film. The only splurge was hiring character actor Adam Goldberg ( Saving Private Ryan) to play perplexed New York boyfriend Jack.
That last part almost didn't work out. "Adam's agent thought the film was a waste of time, that he was doing me a favour," Delpy sighs. "Adam showed up 12 hours before filming. We had no time to rehearse."
The actress goes on to say Goldberg made a classic American tourist's blunder. "He didn't have a passport three days before the shoot," she sighs. "Can you imagine?"
The story of an odd-socks couple who spend a weekend in France before returning home to New York, 2 Days in Paris is ostensibly the story of incompatible lovers. However, Delpy, who is a citizen of both France and the United States, acknowledges that it's also the story of how two countries get on each other's nerves.
"It's so funny what France and the United States think about each other," Delpy says. "I don't know how many times I've heard an American say [adopting a gravelly voice] 'Hey, if it weren't for us Am'ricans, you'd be speaking German now.' At the same time, the French don't get Americans at all. They're still laughing about how Clinton almost lost his presidency over a blowjob. In France, presidents and kings have had mistresses for centuries. The kings gave their lovers official titles."
What makes 2 Days in Paris so intriguing is that the film challenges cultural stereotypes. It's Jack, the American, who chain-smokes, while Marion is prone to violence. In fact, when we first see Marion with Jack snoozing in a train sleeper, a pistol on her T-shirt is aimed at her lover.
"It would be fun if audiences notice the gun," Delpy says. "It took me a lot of shopping to find the perfect T-shirt. I like those little hidden jokes in movies. And in a film about Americans and French you have to hide a few jokes, otherwise it would be too much."
Some of the digs at the French are made with sharp elbows. One memorable scene has Marion and Jack in a taxi with a crypto-fascist driver. Delpy's character gives him a Sieg Heil salute, shouting, "Welcome to France!" before suggesting that his wife is sleeping with an Arab. Marion uses a more forthright verb, however.
"Oh boy, when the French distributor saw that he said, 'You must cut that scene.' I said, 'That isn't a possibility.' 'Very well,' he said, 'your film will open in two theatres in Paris.' "
As it happens, the uncut film opened in Paris in 90 theatres, after creating a favourable critical stir at the Berlin Film Festival. "The distributor wasn't a bad man, he was just frightened about losing his money," Delpy allows. Men, she says, are more conservative about money and, in some ways, about sex.
"Many men who interview me say, 'Julie, I'm really surprised, there are so many sex jokes in your movie,' " Delpy says, her voice rising in surprise. "Actually, the sex jokes were the first things I put in. That's how I talk to my girlfriends in Paris and in America."
In 2 Days in Paris, Jack is intimidated by Marion's sexual past. Delpy says she has witnessed the same phenomenon in her own life. "I'm not a slut, I don't fool around when I'm in a relationship,' " she says. "Women, they expect their partner to have had experience. Men, you know, they always like to think they were the first one in there."
Critics who suggest that Goldberg's character has a castration complex amuse Delpy. (At one point in the film, Jack complains about an Italian condom being too tight. Elsewhere, he gets upset because Marion is flashing around nude photos of him to her parents.) "That's ridiculous. Are people saying I have penis envy?" Delpy laughs. "It was just fun. The film is a comedy, right?" Later in the conversation, however, she allows that everyone is entitled to an opinion, and that she herself is maybe too close to the movie.
"Oh, it is hard to get a movie made," she says. "The money, the agents, distributors and everything. The horrible surprises: Someone in the film had a heart attack - I can't say who it is - right before we began shooting. I almost went crazy. And now people ask me about castration. What can I say? I wrote the film quickly. The shoot was over so fast. It's strange that I don't have the answers to questions about my own movie."
Delpy is asked whether she took on too much responsibility in making her new film. Writing, directing, starring in, scoring and editing a movie co-starring your parents would seem a sure way to ruin 20 days in Paris.
"Oh no," Delpy is quick to answer. "I loved having my parents in the film. They are actors. They made me who I am. Don't get me wrong. The business is hard. But the acting, filming, music, editing, singing. You see kids playing in a park. That's me when I'm making a movie. I just hope, maybe if this film or the next film is successful, the business will become easier."
Selected filmography
The Hoax (2006)
Broken Flowers (2005)
Before Sunset (2004)
Investigating Sex (2001)
Waking Life (2001)
The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999)
An American Werewolf
in Paris (1997)
Before Sunrise (1995)
Three Colors: Red (1994)
Three Colors: White (1994)
Killing Zoe (1994)
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
Europa Europa (1990)
The Other Night (1988)
King Lear (1987)
Bad Blood (1986)
The Detective (1985)