The farce is with him
French director Francis Veber , hale and handsome at 69, has been turning out frothy farces for more than three decades, dividing his time between Paris and Los Angeles. Among his 30-plus screenplays, a great many have made an easy leap across the Atlantic -- from "The Man with One Red Shoe" (an early career-enhancer for Tom Hanks) to "The Toy," "The Birdcage," and "My Father the Hero."
In a suite overlooking the Public Garden, on a spring day as sunny as his disposition, Veber talked about his latest, "The Valet," which opens Friday. Released in France last March, it became a top-grossing movie there and has since been optioned by the Farrelly brothers . Currently they're set to produce the remake and he himself will direct.
In the film, the title character parks cars at a fancy restaurant in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. He's an ordinary Joe -- one François Pignon -- who through extraordinary circumstances is hired to help conceal an affair between a supermodel and a billionaire mogul (whose wife holds a majority stake in his business). "Adultery can be a tragedy -- that I understand very well," admits Veber. A glimmer in his eye suggests that it can also yield comic rewards.
Q You started out studying medicine. What made you switch careers?
A I did four years of med school, and I hated it! It's my parents who wanted me to do that. My parents were writers, and they didn't succeed at all. So the first advice they gave to me was "Don't write! Have a real job!"
Q But it didn't work out.
A The first encounter I had with a patient was very weird. We were at the bed of this lady, and the professor said to her, "I would like to introduce you to Francis Veber, our new intern." And I shook her hand and she died. I swear! No one at the hospital wanted to shake my hand after that.
Q And journalism was more to your liking?
A Yes, but I was a very bad journalist. To be good, you need to be fast -- and I'm very slow -- and to be lucky, because you arrive and things happen. When I arrived, things had already happened. They were very indulgent at the radio station, because I made them laugh, but I was fired after three years. I was just married and my wife was pregnant, and I said to myself, "What can I do?" And I wrote my first stage play.
Q What was the premise?
A It was about the kidnapping of a rich lady in France. I said to myself, "This is very dangerous, to kidnap a wife. A child, you want to get back, but a wife -- O-kaaay! Good-bye!"
Q So you already had a slightly jaundiced view of marriage at that young age.
A I am married 43 years, to the same wife. In my job, that doesn't happen!
Q She must be very special.
A First, she can read my handwriting -- I have very bad writing -- and she can typewrite what I write. I can't leave her, for that. And we have two boys, who are all grown up now. I prefer them to be dentists or attorneys, but one is a novelist and the other a screenwriter. They love it -- the problem is for them to be loved by the producers.
Q Your notion of a 92-minute script for a 90-minute movie -- no surplus, no runovers -- sounds like a producer's dream.
A What I would hate is to shoot three hours and throw away one. You should see at the screenwriting stage that it's too long. Movies in general now are too long, most of the time. I have the feeling that I need to bring a doggie bag, to bring 15 minutes of film back to my house. It's not lean, you know?
Q So you do a lot of revising before the shoot?
A Yes. I learned that lesson from American writers, who say, "Writing is rewriting." You can write a thousand pages to keep a hundred. You read your stuff for friends. And if you see them drifting off, you understand that you are boring, and you start reading faster, which means that the scene is bad.
Q Do you sometimes have actors do readings?
A No, no -- actors cheat. They can sell the thing. I don't want that. I want to be naked in front of these people.
Q What's the secret of writing scripts that translate so well across different cultures?
A It's what they call here "high concept," meaning that the idea is something a bit original. It' s not Lelouch's "A Man and a Woman," where you have [sings] "shabadabada" -- a beach and a windshield. I was amazed when Billy Wilder -- who was among the directors I most admired, like Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, Leo McCarey -- bought one of my movies to remake it. By the way, "Buddy, Buddy" was a bad film. It's sad, because it was his last film. I'm afraid I killed him, like the lady in the hospital.
Q "Don't kill your mentors" aside, what advice would you offer budding screenwriters?
A Before having the whole structure, don't rewrite one scene. Because you are never sure that it will fit. You have to have the whole structure to start writing.
Q So you always start out knowing the outcome. Does it ever change?
A Very few things change. It has to be precise. It can be wrong -- but it has to be precise. Even lines really don't change. I remember Wilder, my master, said to an actor who was rewriting on the set: "It took me eight hours to write this line, and it took you three seconds to change it. Maybe mine is better."
Sandy MacDonald can be reached at sandy@sandymacdonald.com. 