Paul Meyer, entretiens
Jean-Claude Riga
2008 - 46 min - Belgique

"Cinquante minutes très sobres" (Fifty, very sober minutes). Meyer (1920-2007) talks about his films, a certain directing ethic, censorship, the influence of Eisenstein and Brecht, and the role of theatre in settings. He evokes his relation to the characters, the viewers and also places the premises of the project “La mémoire aux alouettes” (“The Lark’s Memory”). For successive generations, the loss of social memory is equal to a new descent to hell.
In Paul Meyer’s films, this erasing of workers’ history is done poetically, in a kind of ascension comparable to that of the soul. Filmmaker Paul Meyer (1920-2007) defines himself as "a guy who says what he thinks more than a filmmaker."
In the 1950s, however, Meyer invented Belgian cinema, while censorship attacked his films dedicated to the workers’ condition "Klinkaart" (1956) and "Déjà s’envole la fleur maigre" ("Already the Thin Flower Flies Away") (1959), "Le pain quotidian" ("Daily bread")(1964) ND "La mémoire aux alouettes" that Meyer started at 80 years of age and still remains unfinished today. (J.C. Riga)