A Reflection on Time                                            

Nadia Ben Rachid 

role in Michka’s films

Prisoners of Beckett —  Editor

MF: Michka has described the construction of the film as a jigsaw puzzle.

NBR: Between the two of us, at least, it wasn't a puzzle. In the beginning, it's true, we were too uncritical, especially with the sequences involving Jan.[1] We laughed at some of the things he did because we knew him. But it really wouldn’t make the audience laugh too much so we got rid of a lot of his anecdotes.

MF: Michka explained to me that sometimes, when someone says something has to be changed, you can change it somewhere else and that will solve the problem.

NBR: It doesn’t solve the problem, but people no longer see it. For example, when someone says to us, "This scene is boring", it is not the scene itself that’s bothering them but what came before. What comes before can often make what comes after seem boring.

MF: How long did it take to edit the film?

NBR: Maybe three or four months. Because of the ARTE funding, MIchka had to edit her film in Paris with a French editor. The producers gave her five names and so she did a “casting”. In my interview, she said, "I don't really know what to talk about". And then at some point, I mentioned Tunis and that was it. I had won the casting! But I didn't know that yet. A few days later, she called me back. We met again in a café and talked a lot about Tunis. She said, "I met the Beckett specialist, the specialist who was fluent in English, the specialist of whatever, but with you, I have a good feeling." She wanted us to work together. I think that Tunisia brought us both very close.

On the first day of editing, she was in a motorcycle accident. It was summer and she was wearing a light dress. She had a big burn on her thigh, and a plaster cast or a splint or something. She made it to the editing room, but it was a rough way to start work on the film. We were on the second floor so we used the elevator. We couldn't go out to eat too much because of her foot. It was horrible for her. It hurt a lot. In the evening, when she went home, she would make little things for us to eat the next day in the editing room — little Tunisian dishes that she arranged with stuff from Canada, Paris, and all over the place. It was so nice.

MF: In Quebec, Michka was known for shooting only what she needed so there were not many rushes for most of her films. But with Beckett, it was the opposite, I guess. You had all the archives plus what she had shot.

NBR: She had prepared her files and the script for Beckett very well. Afterwards, there were obviously things that she had imagined on paper that didn't work. She knew her film inside out, everything that was going to happen, all the little stories. There are several elements in Prisoners of Beckett: the interviews, the archival material, their filming, and Jan's performance. So all these layers had to be put together to tell the story. But it wasn't a mountain of stuff, and we didn't have much choice in how we put it together.

MF: So the puzzle was already assembled.

NBR: Exactly.

MF: But this surprises me. I thought the first cut of the editing told a linear story. At some point, she realized it wasn’t working. Then, it became the Beckett we know. Did it happen like that?

NBR: Our first edit did tell a linear story with Jan, but we realized it was boring. Then Michka said, "Let's tell the story like this, like this, and like this,” and we changed the order. So, yes, maybe there was a puzzle to put the reds with the reds and the greens with the greens, and to tell the same thing in a different way. But I didn't feel it that way because she had done so much preparation. Of course, I helped her put the pieces together because when you change a sequence, you don't edit it the same way. But she created the structure by herself. That's what was so great about Michka — she didn’t wait for the editing process to figure out what she wanted. She had the film in her head. I just helped her make the film she wanted.

MF: So this process of first linear editing, how long did it take?

NBR: It took three or four weeks.

MF: Still.

NBR: It's something that's needed to lay the foundation. Imagine you have 400 or 600 puzzle pieces in a box. For the first three weeks, you lay them flat, and then you put them in order. From there, you create the story and you mix them up. And you try to create a metaphor for that. It's not much, three or four weeks, especially for an 85-minute film. And after that, we started the real process, which took three months.

I think that our working relationship was based on strong friendship. I also saw her in Montreal because she invited me to the mix. It was in December, and we were very cold. But she was very well dressed for winter, and always super cute. I looked like I was going skiing. She lent me a hat. I still have it. Wait a second…

MF: Oh wow!

NBR: It suited me so well that she gave it to me at the end of my stay. It makes me feel like a panther. She loved giving little gifts.

MF: That's for sure. Sometimes, even for the first meeting with someone, she came with gifts.

NBR: That doesn't surprise me at all. Giving gifts was part of who she was, I think. She couldn't do otherwise.

It was nice because we laughed a lot. Our Arabic was awful, but we used little words here and there and it actually created a bond. Like family. I was very impressed with Michka. I thought she was brilliant, which made me super happy she chose me to do the film together.

MF: But during the four months, weren't there moments of tension? Even in a family, it happens.

NBR: There were these tensions with ARTE, and tensions from time to time with the producer, but not really so much. Between her and me, yes, I remember I sent her an SMS that she didn't take very well. She would bring it up a lot after, jokingly, but reminding me she didn't appreciate it. She had said, "Let's try this." And I had said, something like, "We can try that if you want, but it's a crappy idea." She didn't take that well. And I think I might have laughed. So, yes, we did have at least one moment of tension between us.

MF: She told me that at some point either you or her left the editing room in a huff.

NBR: That's possible.

MF: What was the moment you started working with Bob Dylan's songs?

NBR: Right at the beginning.

MF: You started with one song, and then added a few more. And eventually you got to five. I know that during the experience of mounting Waiting for Godot in the prison in Sweden, Jan and the inmates listened to a lot of Dylan. And Michka loved Dylan too.

NBR: She told me he was very involved in prisoners’ rights. All these songs fit perfectly with the images in the film. It was a no-brainer to put Bob Dylan there and I think it was accepted very easily. I think he even gave the rights.

MF: They charged next to nothing.

NBR: Yes, I think there are rights you have to pay that would have been out of Dylan's hands. He was very happy with the film. The big issue was getting the rights to "My Way". This was a headache until the last minute. Even at the mix, they didn’t have the rights. So Michka had a Plan B, and we did one version with "My Way" and another without it. Fortunately, it all worked out.

MF: Michka sees the film as a reflection on time, and so do many critics. Did you talk together about the film in this sense during the editing?

NBR: Not at all. That came later, after we had finished. Of course, we had a lot of material — the archives, the shoot and all that, and even Waiting for Godot itself is a reflection on time. But the connection with Beckett was really the story she wanted to tell. I think she decided to make the film right after Jan told her his story.

MF: Well, she met Jan at a party in Sweden and he told her the story — how he put on Beckett's play in prison, his meeting with Beckett himself, and the events that transpired when the inmates performed the play outside the prison. And then suddenly she got a call for a meeting with ARTE so she left Stockholm, thinking that ARTE wanted to finance her jazz film (which became A Great Day in Paris several years later). But no, they just wanted to meet her. The producer said they couldn’t fund a film about jazz. Then he asked if she had any other projects in the pipeline. On the spot, she recounted the story of Jan and Beckett, inventing how she would make a film. And ARTE liked it. That's how it happened. Did you end up seeing the fictional version that was made of Prisoners of Beckett?

NBR: Yes, it was pathetic. I didn't like it at all. Of course, I knew the story, but it was badly told. It's not interesting at all, whereas Michka’s film is beautiful and should really be shown in schools as an example of documentary. Michka worked hard on this film. Alongside her, we were all just worker bees.

MF: I didn't even watch the fiction film. I saw the trailer and thought it was a cheap and forgettable feel-good story. When I spoke to the journalist for Society magazine in Paris who was writing about the film, I insisted that Michka had taken a story ripped from the headlines and turned it into a reflection on time. The new film turned a masterpiece of documentary back into a tawdry news story.

NBR: Yes, that's exactly it. I vote for the Césars and so they send me the films to watch. I looked at the title, but I didn't know what it was because it has nothing to do with Prisoners of Beckett. I can't even remember what it's called. And then I remembered that you had told me about it. So I watched it to see what he had done with the story. And... pathetic.

What else can I tell you? Nothing, except that I miss her terribly. And finally, I would have liked so much to share another experience with her. She left too soon. She still had so much more to do.

[1]Jan Jonson, a Swedish theatre director, worked on Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett with inmates in many prisons.