Movies - Michel Gondry Masterclass at the Cinémathèque Française: a journey through chaos, rigor, and artisanal cinema

By Mulder, Paris, Cinémathèque, 22 june 2025

This Sunday, our media outlet was at the Cinémathèque in Paris to cover Michel Gondry's masterclass. After the screening of Be Kind Rewind (2008), director and screenwriter Michel Gondry took to the stage for a lengthy masterclass hosted by Gabrielle Sébire, head of cultural outreach at the Cinémathèque and curator of the Mômes & Cie exhibition. With disarming sincerity, Michel Gondry retraced his entire career, offering both a retrospective and a philosophical reflection on creativity, storytelling, and what he calls chaos bubbles in structure.

The event began with a presentation of the film Be Kind Rewind (2008) by its director and screenwriter Michel Gondry. Be Kind Rewind is a comedy released in 2008 that celebrates the spirit of improvisation in amateur cinema. The film stars Jack Black, Mos Def, and Danny Glover and tells the story of two friends who, after accidentally erasing all the VHS tapes in a neighborhood video store, decide to recreate the films themselves using homemade props, one take per scene, and boundless imagination. These remakes, dubbed “Sweded” by the characters, are whimsical re-enactments of classics such as Ghostbusters, Robocop, and Driving Miss Daisy, rendered with endearing clumsiness and total creative freedom. Michel Gondry explained that the term “sweded” was a playful invention used by the characters to justify delays and rental fees, and that the concept became a metaphor for the film's overall ethos: art born out of necessity, community, and joy. When the film was released, a now-defunct website encouraged fans to create their own sweded films, reinforcing the collaborative and democratic spirit of the project. The masterclass that followed was not simply a question-and-answer session, but a window into Michel Gondry's creative process and personal philosophy of filmmaking.

As the drummer for the French rock band Oui Oui, Michel Gondry began directing the band's music videos, developing a handcrafted aesthetic that caught the attention of Björk, who invited him to direct Human Behaviour in 1993. Their collaboration continued for years and resulted in eight music videos, including Bachelorette (1997), both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards. Michel Gondry also directed iconic videos for The White Stripes, Daft Punk, Radiohead, and Beck, among others, cultivating a unique visual style marked by analog techniques, playful illusions, and a keen sense of tactile creativity. He has recounted how some of these early videos laid the groundwork for later film techniques, including the bullet time effect, which he first explored in a Smirnoff commercial in 1996 before it became widely known thanks to The Matrix. Michel Gondry's love of experimentation also led him into the world of advertising, with memorable campaigns for brands such as Gap and Levi's, the latter winning numerous awards and entering the Guinness World Records for the most awarded television commercial. Michel Gondry did not shy away from discussing the mixed reactions to some of his films.

However, he has emphasized that each film represents an opportunity to learn and test his limits as an artist. Films such as The Science of Sleep (2006), starring Gael García Bernal, allowed him to return to a more surreal and intimate form of storytelling, echoing the dreamlike qualities of Eternal Sunshine. Other notable works include The We and the I (2012), selected for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes, and Mood Indigo (2013), an adaptation of Boris Vian's novel L'Écume des jours, which combined poetic imagery with a melancholic romance.

The masterclass was not only a retrospective of his career, but also an act of cinematic generosity. Michel Gondry reminded all participants that cinema is not limited to big budgets or digital precision. At its core, cinema is about inventiveness, emotion, and collaboration. Whether through sweded VHS tapes, cardboard props, or dreamlike logic, Michel Gondry's films invite us to rethink our relationship with images and stories. His message was clear and powerful: in an age of artificial intelligence and increasingly sophisticated images, imperfection, tactility, and humanity still have immense value.

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Synopsis : 
A man whose brain becomes magnetic accidentally erases all the tapes at the video store where one of his friends works. To satisfy the request of the video store's most loyal customer, a senile woman, the two men decide to remake the erased films, including Ghostbusters,The Lion King and Robocop.

Be Kind Rewind
Written and directed by Michel Gondry
Produced by Michel Gondry, Julie Fong, Georges Bermann
Starring  Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover,; Mia Farrow, Melonie Diaz
Cinematography : Ellen Kuras
Edited by Jeff Buchanan
Music by Jean-Michel Bernard, Melissa Manchester
Production company : Partizan Films
Distributed by     New Line Cinema (United States), EuropaCorp Distribution (France)
Release dates : January 20, 2008 (Sundance), February 22, 2008 (United States), March 5, 2008 (France)
Running time : 98 minutes

Photos and video : Boris Colletier / Mulderville