In Front Behind The Scenes: Conversations about Pierre Rissient in Singapore (Part Four)

(For Part One go here, Part Two go here, and Part Three go here)


Part Four: Warren Sin

“Pedro Costa doesn’t love cinema!”

Last but not least, one of Singapore’s most dedicated and knowledgeable cinephiles, Warren Sin was a natural ally for Rissient in Singapore. During a much-missed period where Warren and Zhang Wenjie were the powerhouse programming team for the National Museum of Singapore’s now-defunct Cinémathèque (created by then-Museum Director Lee Chor Lin), they invited Pierre to Singapore in 2011 for an incredibly rare screening of one of two films he directed, Cinq et la Peau/Five and the Skin (1982) but not before a fateful meeting with him in Paris, facilitated by Pierre Cottrell.

Warren Sin: So we got to meet the man. Of course I got the feeling that he’s a guy who either likes you, or not – that’s it. We went to a nice restaurant. For some reason he ordered oysters, so it was an expensive lunch. After that he liked us enough that we continued to hang out. We went to watch a movie, Montparnesse 19 (1958) at one of those small theatres, where he was obviously a regular. And that’s where we experienced the majesty of Rissient. It was a small room, we were seated close to the back. Behind us there was a mother and a teenage daughter. Before the film started Pierre sat down and got comfortable and loosened his belt, and then he decides to ask them to give up their seat because he wanted to sit where they were. And the woman says ‘No’, and then he went into this tirade in French, and he keeps shouting at them. And because he loosened his trousers and he’s trying to get up (to address the woman), his pants are dropping off, and Cottrell was nudging us (to look at this spectacle). Rissient wanted the perfect view for this movie, and he didn’t get his way, but once the film started – then he stopped. It was a good intro. 

BS: … to his character

WS: To a facet of it. But then we got to know him more.

BS: You invited him to Singapore to present Five and the Skin.

WS: Now it’s restored but at that time there was only one print with English subtitles left at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), and they didn’t want to lend it out. Rissient was very helpful, he wrote to them (and they did lend it). During the time at the Cinémathèque (at the National Museum) I had to handle the ‘difficult people’, and I wrote his synopsis, and it was a very hectic time, doing the ‘Asia Through French Eyes’ programme, and he said it was one of the best and I totally got his film, and that film is very hard to get. (He said) “That’s it, that’s what I was trying to do, you’re one of the few people.”

BS: What did you write?

WS: It was less about plot.

BS: There is no plot! They had the tribute to Pierre in Cannes last year and afterwards showed the restored film, and I couldn’t find a single comment about it on social media. I’m not sure it holds up well in the #metoo era.

WS: But that film encapsulated what we wanted to do. For all its flaws – it’s out of narrative bounds, it’s half an essay-film, half a journal - this dream-life of a guy meeting all these people and then the references, Lino Brocka, clips from old Hollywood films.

BS: I did get to see One Night Stand (AKA Alibis, Pierre’s earlier feature from 1977); and it’s a more conventional version of Five and the Skin - there’s a Western protagonist having a series of relationships with women in Hong Kong, but it’s much less memorable. I wonder if he’d have liked to make more films.

WS: He was so into film and cinema, and he started off writing and being Assistant Director on Breathless (1960) and while doing all this if there was a chance to make a film he would take it, but I think he found his true Rissient-ness in doing what he did.

BS: Being the behind-the-scenes guy?

WS: But he’s so in front as a behind-the-scenes guy. He’s the only guy who can wear a T-shirt to a Cannes evening screening, and the connections he had to his ‘chosen’ ones, whether it’s Clint Eastwood, Eric, the Filipinos… and the ‘unchosen’ are also interesting.

(When he was in Singapore) We went to a restaurant with some Singaporean filmmakers and we started to talk about film. Rissient asked them what they were watching, and someone said Pedro Costa. Wrong choice! “Pedro Costa doesn’t love cinema!” Yes he does!

BS: You became good friends.

WS: He was encouraging in a certain way, if you’re within that wavelength and on top of that, my dedication and love of old Hollywood helped, and every meeting with him led to stories about Raoul Walsh, Allan Dwan, Ford, Hawks, you name it. And these are people who really matter. And there were a few movies that he kept impressing on me. Gentleman Jim (1942) is the one to watch. Whenever I would go (to Paris) he would hold court. His legs didn’t get any better so we had to go to him. In 2014, SGIFF invited him in as a guest.

BS: Do you remember that we went to see him off at the airport? He was so appreciative that we'd taken the time to do that, saying, “You are good boys, no one else would do this.”

WS: Yes! I did spend a lot of time with him because he was always at the Museum (during the festival). He was less lively then, more mellow and quiet. The last time I saw him was 2017 in Busan. I was there for the film market, and it was ‘Singapore Night’, and it was held at a restaurant that was up some stairs, so he couldn’t go up and he was sitting in a car that was parked in front, talking to people. I’m glad I managed to see him. Pierre was still holding court, in a car.  

Pierre and Warren, Busan 2017, photo courtesy of Warren Sin

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