Claes Bang returns to Cannes for the first time since his role as the compromised museum curator in Ruben Östlund’s 2017 Palme d’Or-winning art world satire The Square. The Danish actor, whose credits since have included Dracula, Bad Sisters and William Tell, is back with French director Stéphane Demoustier’s Un Certain Regard title The Great Arch about Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen. The architecture professor shot to fame in 1983 when he won French President François Mitterrand’s design competition for Paris’s La Grande Arche de la Défense, but then struggled to bring his vision of a simple but monumental white cube to fruition.
DEADLINE: This is your first time back in Cannes since The Square…
CLAES BANG: I’ve been to all the other festivals, three times to Toronto, a couple of times to Venice and Berlin but no, I haven’t been to Cannes since. The weird thing is, that the last time I was in Cannes, I was with a movie called The Square about a square. This time, I’m coming back with another movie about a square, albeit with a dimension added, so it’s a cube, but still. Also, there’s the text that comes with the art installation at the heart of The Square, about it being a sanctuary of trust and caring, a place where you can interact with people and ask for help… and then, when Johan Otto von Spreckelsen introduces his project at the press conference in The Great Arch, he practically says the same thing… about it being a place for people to meet, from different walks of life, from different countries, to communicate.
DEADLINE: You’ve said that working with Ruben Östlund on The Square changed the course of your career. Did he approach you for his new airplane movie The Entertainment System Is Down?
BANG: He’s quite reluctant to put actors back in his movies. I don’t think he’s ever used the same actor twice, but I would so love to work with him again. I thought about getting in touch to say, “Should you need a cabin assistant with a little trolley handing out the wine and crisps, I’m your guy.” I never got around to it, but I did send him a photo of the exact wording from the press conference in this film, just to say that this is like a crazy coincidence.
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DEADLINE: Can you tell us a bit more about The Great Arch?
BANG: I haven’t seen the finished film yet, so I can only speak to what I think we have made. I hope we’ve made a movie about this extremely idealistic guy who has these high hopes and ideas for what he wants to make, and then it gets all fucked up by politics and people making all kinds of decisions. When I read it, I thought it was such a sad story. What he starts out with and what he wants to do is so cool and so great, and then he ends up withdrawing from the project.
DEADLINE: Did you know about Johan Otto von Spreckelsen and the story behind the creation of The Great Arch before being approached for the role?
BANG: Yes. This was the biggest architecture competition in the world ever at the time. It had something like 400 submissions from all over the world, and then this guy in Denmark, who is not very well-known, even at home, outside of architect circles, wins. He hadn’t built a whole lot. Some people thought he was mad and were asking, “Why is he building this cube?” I remember all of that, as well as him leaving the project and thinking, even back then, ‘What a pity that he couldn’t see it through.’ But I also remember thinking that he probably had his reasons.
DEADLINE: What kind of research did you do for the project?
BANG: Strangely, I have a cabin in the countryside that was made by an architect whose daughter is also an architect who used to know him [Spreckelsen]. Through her, I got in touch with a lot of people that went to Paris with him and worked on the project. The thing that struck me every time I spoke with anybody was the warmth with which they spoke of this guy. He was really, really loved. He really took care of those that he worked with.
DEADLINE: Did you get to the bottom of why he left the project?
BANG: There was one couple who had worked on the project, who were still together. I ended up talking to them on the phone at the same time. When I asked them whether they understood why he left the project, simultaneously they said, “yes” and “no.” The guy said he should have stayed, because it was still an amazing project, while the woman was like, there were too many compromises. It was quite interesting, because these people, who have been together for a very long time had opposite reactions to that question.
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DEADLINE: Was it a culture clash?
BANG: Yes, that was totally a thing. For storytelling purposes, we’ve given this guy French, but he didn’t speak French. I think there was an enormous case of stuff being lost in translation. But this is not a documentary, that’s very important. It’s based on the book that Laurence Cossé wrote. There’s a lot of fiction here, but some of the plot points are very, very real. For instance, he wants this very, very flat surface on the building. He meets with I.M. Pei who has done this on a building that is much taller in the States, but that way of building is not allowed in France. He was also very close with his wife and had her on board almost as an advisor, but that was seen as odd in France. In that sense, I think Denmark was different. We had the beginnings of an equality here in the ’80s that they didn’t have in France. It’s a much more masculine culture. I thought all these things played so well into the story.
DEADLINE: Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Spreckelsen’s wife Karen Gerda Gustavsen. Have you two worked together before?
BANG: I had done a tiny little something in Borgen with her ages ago. It was very, very brief. I thought this was actually a quite interesting and very fun relationship that this man and wife have. I loved going on that journey with her. She was most supportive and lovely.
DEADLINE: The other cast members are also impressive. You’re supported by Anatomy of a Fall co-star Swann Arlaud, Xavier Dolan and veteran actor Michel Fau to name but a few…
BANG: Man, this was so incredible. They are the best people. This was just a dream to work with these people, but the really weird thing is I don’t speak a word of French.
DEADLINE: You really don’t? Half the film is in French?
BANG: This is probably one of the most dialogue-heavy movies I have ever made and 65% of it is in French… I rehearsed the shit out of it. I obviously speak a little bit more French now. I went through the script on a daily basis. I knew it inside out. I also had to come to Xavier, Michel Fau and Swann and say to them: “Listen, people, I love and adore you, but you cannot fucking improvise, OK? I cannot follow. I can’t go where you want to go. You have to bloody say what’s in the bloody script because I’ve learned your lines. I know everything you’re saying, and I know what to react to, but if you stray from it, I’m going to be lost.” They were very, very sweet. Sometimes they did their own thing, but that often also worked really well, because then it just got really odd.
DEADLINE: Going back to The Square, beyond the similar phrases, it does feel like there are echoes of that film in The Grand Arch, for the way they both explore the world of art and creativity.
BANG: Totally, but the guy in The Square, he was sort of living on his own little planet. For me, this movie is almost an allegory for what it’s like to make a movie, in the sense that when so many people come together, everything needs to fit. Then you’ve got the money people coming in, and they’re like, “So, we promised you three days on that location but that’s not going to happen, you can have one.” Then they need to rewrite the script, and the director, or the writer goes, “Fuck, that’s the main scene, and that’s my flat glass of the movie.” All these compromises when you take on these artistic enterprises that are really, really expensive and involve so many people, it’s very much a story of what it’s like to make a movie as well.
DEADLINE: The Great Arch is due to be released in France later this year. What else do have coming up?
BANG: Bonjour Tristesse, which was in Toronto, comes out at the beginning of May in the U.S. and Canada, and then in Europe, around June. I also did a movie with Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista for Amazon in New Zealand [The Wrecking Crew]. It’s an action comedy. The brief of it is that they’re brothers and I have played a very big part in offing their father.
DEADLINE: So, you’re a baddie again?
BANG: Yeah, but they’re also not the loveliest people. They’re after me and that doesn’t end well for me.
DEADLINE: You’ve also been in William Tell this year. Your filmography is so broad.
BANG: I really like that it’s so diverse and goes in so many different directions. With William Tell, this guy’s got his crossbow and when you start doing crossbow practice, there’s so much to get from that. Then you’ve got this story, which is crazy in another way. The big deal here was all the French.
DEADLINE: Do you think you’ll ever make another movie back home in Denmark?
BANG: I might be doing one. It seems to be falling into place, for the end of May, a movie in Denmark, in Danish. I’m also doing a very cool project in Germany this summer about Heinrich Himmler’s masseur. It’s about this guy who gets summoned to go to the SS headquarters because Himmler wants to see him about cramps in his stomach. He doesn’t want to go. I mean, who wants to go to the SS headquarters? It’s such a cool story. He is able to help Himmler but because the cramps are so severe, he needs to be with him almost every morning. He gets very close to power and uses that to help people get out of Germany. After the war, he tried to make more of it, saying he saved more people than he actually did. It is directed by Felix Randau, who made Iceman, about that Ötzi person who was found in the ice in Austria.
The post Claes Bang On Stéphane Demoustier’s French-Language Cannes Film ‘The Great Arch’: “The Really Weird Thing Is I Don’t Speak A Word Of French.” appeared first on Deadline.
