Eléonore Weber: "I think it is urgent to examine the singular violence in which our democracies are engaged"
Mathias RaaflaubCLAPPER: First of all, could you tell us how did you come up with the idea of this documentary?
ELÉONORE WEBER: I was working on our current wars, particularly those that France is waging in the Middle East, without the slightest debate in our country. I did not yet know what form this work would take. One day I came across a video recorded by a helicopter, I was stunned and I started looking for others... I quickly came up with the idea of a film that would be entirely based on these images. The scopic drive at work in this very sophisticated way of waging war became the main issue.
Je travaillais sur nos guerres actuelles, notamment celles que la France mène au Proche Orient, sans que cela fasse le moindre débat dans notre pays. Je ne savais pas encore quelle forme donner à ce travail. Un jour je suis tombée sur une vidéo enregistrée par un hélicoptère, j’ai été sidérée… j’ai eu très vite l’idée d’un film qui serait entièrement conçu à partir de ces images. La pulsion scopique à l'œuvre dans cette façon très sophistiquée de faire la guerre en est devenu le principal enjeu.
Did you come up with the title “There Will be No More Night?” before shooting the film or after? If possible, could you explain the meaning behind it?
The title didn't come right away. There were several before I found this one. What is most disturbing in these images is that technology ends up eliminating the night itself, that is, an anthropological dimension of existence. “There will be no more night” is the beginning of a verse from the Apocalypse. Instead of a divine light illuminating the world, as in the Christian prophecy, there is now the omnipotence of the eye. This title also brings into play the ambivalence of the night, metaphorically perceived as a threat, whereas it is often a help, protecting and hiding.
Le titre n'est pas venu tout de suite. Il y en a eu plusieurs avant que je ne trouve celui-ci. Ce qui est le plus troublant dans ces images est que la technologie finit par éliminer la nuit elle-même, c'est-à-dire une dimension anthropologique de l'existence. «Il n’y aura plus de nuit» est le début d’un verset de l’Apocalypse. À la place d’une lumière divine éclairant le monde, comme dans la prophétie chrétienne, il y a désormais l’omnipotence de l’œil. Ce titre met également en jeu l'ambivalence de la nuit, métaphoriquement perçue comme une menace, alors qu’elle est bien souvent un secours, ce qui protège et permet de se cacher.
You go to great lengths to present a realistic depiction of war and brutality entirely through the lens of a military viewfinder, where many innocent civilians were caught in crossfire and killed, how important was this for you to show this to the world?
I think it is urgent to examine the singular violence in which our democracies are engaged. All the more so as the theatre of the operations seems to be ever more remote and there is too little information about what is happening there. It seems to me that we must not be satisfied with knowing that our armies are eliminating their enemies, or their supposed enemies, we must also know how they are doing it. Otherwise, we run the risk of continuing to be outraged at the way in which certain armed groups stage and broadcast their own spectacle of death, while deliberately ignoring the one we produce ourselves.
Je pense qu’il est urgent d’ausculter la singulière violence à laquelle nos démocraties se livrent. D’autant que le théâtre des opérations semble toujours plus lointain et que l’on est trop peu informé de ce qui s’y passe. Il ne faut pas se contenter de savoir que nos armées tuent leurs ennemis, ou leurs supposés ennemis, il faut aussi savoir comment elles le font. Le risque, sinon, serait de continuer à s’indigner de la manière dont certains groupes armés mettent en scène et diffusent leur propre spectacle de la mort, tout en ignorant délibérément celui que nous produisons nous-mêmes.
During the making of this film, you must have consulted with many pilots who were involved in these operations? What were your impression of them?
I only met one pilot, the one I called Pierre V. But I listened and read many testimonies. My impression is that they are caught in a trap, one of remoteness and their own immunity. Because of the asymmetry of forces, their interventions have no heroic value in their eyes. They do not see themselves acting and lose the ability to judge their actions morally. They are sometimes very anxious, but they do not know where this anxiety comes from.
Je n’ai rencontré qu’un seul pilote, celui que j’ai appelé Pierre V. Mais j’ai écouté et lu de nombreux témoignages. Mon impression est qu’ils sont pris dans un piège, celui de l’éloignement et de leur propre immunité. Du fait de l’asymétrie des forces, leurs interventions n'ont aucune valeur héroïque à leurs yeux. Ils ne se voient pas agir et perdent la capacité de juger moralement leurs actes. Ils sont parfois très angoissés mais ils ignorent d’où vient cette angoisse.
Since the images/footages used in the film were captured by helicopters on operations, did you find any difficulties getting access to these seemingly confidential images that were never meant to be watched?
I found the videos easily on the internet. Most of them are posted by the pilots themselves, who record their mission on a USB drive. They then post it because they're proud of the work they've done. I also think that for some, these scenes are personal memories. It's illegal, but apparently it's tolerated, otherwise, the military would censor it. In my opinion, letting these sequences circulate on the net is a form of indirect propaganda.
J'ai trouvé facilement les vidéos sur internet. La plupart sont postées par les pilotes eux-mêmes, qui enregistrent leur mission sur une clé usb. Ils la publient ensuite parce qu'ils sont fiers du travail accompli. Je pense aussi que pour certains, ces scènes sont des souvenirs personnels. C’est illégal, mais apparemment toléré sinon les armées en censureraient la diffusion. Selon moi, laisser ces séquences circuler sur le net est une forme de propagande indirecte.
What was the most challenging aspect for you while working on this project? Also, could you please walk us through your process of viewing and choosing the footages for the film?
The most difficult thing was to face these images for months on end, to see and see them again sometimes for purely technical reasons, to get used to them myself, to become insensitive to them. Sometimes they became frightening again, without me expecting it. The film is built around a succession of sequences that look alike, so I had to find a way to avoid saturation. How much violence would be bearable without provoking a simple rejection reaction? It wasn't a question of magnifying the spectacle of war, but of putting oneself to the test of the fascination that it exerts. Moreover, I didn't want the spectator to simply be assigned to the place of the killer, I wanted him to have the space to think from these images.
La chose la plus difficile a été de faire face à ces images durant des mois, de les voir et de les revoir parfois pour des raisons purement techniques, de finir par m’y habituer moi-même, par y devenir insensible. Par moment elles redevenaient effrayantes, sans que je m’y attende. Le film s’est construit autour d’une succession de séquences qui se ressemblent, il fallait donc trouver le moyen d'éviter la saturation. Quel degré de violence serait supportable sans provoquer une simple réaction de rejet ? Il ne s'agissait pas de magnifier le spectacle de la guerre mais de nous mettre à l'épreuve de la fascination qu'il exerce.Par ailleurs je ne voulais pas que le spectateur soit simplement assigné à la place du tueur, je voulais qu’il ait l’espace de penser à partir de ces images.
Watching the film, the audience would notice that a big portion of the story is narrated through the words/testimony of a pilot named Pierre V. For you, what was the experience like working with him?
This meeting allowed me to escape from a point of view that was simply frontal and that would be my only subjectivity. The moment I agreed to dialogue with the logic of a pilot, I was able to illuminate these images other than through the prism of a fascination mixed with fear. I showed him the sequences I was planning to integrate into the film. When it was impossible to distinguish certain details or to grasp the context, he proposed his own interpretations. His point of view was mainly related to operational requirements, but he admitted at times to being himself disturbed by the scenes. I would not have decided to work on these documents if the pilots themselves did not regularly mention their aesthetic confusion... Through his testimony, I was able to measure the gap between the military status of these documents and their aesthetic status, at least the one I had chosen to give them. I looked at them as images that I was going to show to the spectators, he argued that they were not meant for that.
Cette rencontre m’a permis d’échapper à un point de vue simplement frontal et qui relèverait de ma seule subjectivité. À l’instant où j’ai accepté de dialoguer avec la logique d’un pilote, j’ai pu éclairer ces images autrement qu’à travers le prisme d’une fascination mêlée d’effroi. Je lui ai montré les séquences que j’envisageais d’intégrer au film. Lorsqu’il était impossible de distinguer certains détails ou de saisir le contexte, il a proposé ses propres interprétations. Son point de vue était principalement lié à des exigences opérationnelles, mais il avouait par moment être lui-même troublé par ces scènes. Je n'aurais pas décidé de travailler sur ces documents si les pilotes eux-mêmes ne faisaient régulièrement allusion à leur trouble esthétique. Grâce à son témoignage, j’ai pu mesurer l’écart entre le statut militaire de ces documents et leur statut esthétique, en tout cas celui que j’avais choisi de leur donner. Je les regardais comme des images que j’allais montrer à des spectateurs, lui soutenait qu’elles n’étaient pas faites pour ça.
There are so many great lines in your film, for instance, “there will be no more night, nor a need for a lamp or sunlight” or “Where there is war, peace’s no longer possible”, that poignantly captures the harsh reality of the wars that are happening around our world. How do you know when your story’s finished, and when to walk away?
I considered that the editing was finished when the balance between what is experienced in silence and what the film makes explicit was found. But it wasn't that simple!
J’ai considéré que le montage était fini lorsque que l’équilibre entre ce qui s’éprouve en silence et ce que le film explicite a été trouvé. Mais ça n’a pas été si simple !
Why do you think there are so few women in filmmaking today compared to men?
There are many structural reasons, as in other areas, related to gender power relations. Where art is also an industry, there are fewer women because there are more power issues. It's a struggle that we must continue to wage, not only in the film industry.
Il y a beaucoup de raisons structurelles, comme dans d’autres domaines, liées aux relations de pouvoir entre les sexes. Là où l’art est aussi une industrie, il y a moins de femmes car davantage d’enjeux de pouvoir. C’est une lutte que nous devons continuer à mener, pas seulement dans le monde du cinéma.
How are you holding up in quarantine? And what’s your plan for the future?
I don't know how I'm living this period, I feel at times dispossessed of my own capacity to think about it. I wait, I observe, I work on other projects, including a fiction script. I'm hoping for a paradigm shift that I don't really see coming. Now we have to get out of this torpor. The political time has accelerated in a frightening way during the pandemic.
Je ne sais pas comment je vis cette période, je me sens par moment dépossédée de ma propre capacité à la penser. J’attends, j’observe, je travaille à d’autres projets, notamment un scénario de fiction. J’espère un changement de paradigme que je ne vois pas vraiment venir. Il faut maintenant sortir de cette torpeur. Le temps politique s’est accéléré d’une manière effarante pendant la pandémie.
THERE WILL BE NO MORE NIGHT premiered at CINÉMA DU RÉEL 2020 and is currently awaiting distribution. Read CLAPPER’s review here.