We had arranged a meeting at his place (at that time, he lived in a duplex in rue Saint-Jacques). In his room, we sat together on the side of the bed, and we stayed that way in silence for hours – not a single word. He did nothing, said nothing. He just sat there. After several long hours, he asked me: ‘How do you do it?’ I figured he was asking about my flag paintings, so I started explaining the process to him. He went looking for pen and paper, and took notes about everything I mentioned: paints, brushes, bowls. He left me alone in the apartment for five minutes, and then came back with all these materials! He asked: ‘So, how do I do it?’ I told him that, to paint a flag, he had to have three rectangles: in the first he should put blue, in the second white (which was already there) and in the third red. And he did it himself, all the while giggling like a kid and telling stories; he was so excited by what he was doing. Then he asked: ‘OK, what now?’ That’s when the real work began. I suggested that he use the red very thickly, so as to run over the white and blue and cover everything – or perhaps something lighter. Should the paint rise or fall? Should its path be short or long? And so on. He asked me to do it as I normally do: upwards, a violent but not massive effect, on the contrary brilliant, lively, mobile. After quickly preparing, I suggested that he should turn the painting. ‘I wouldn’t dare try it!’ he replied. But I protested: ‘You must, and I will help by guiding you.’ So he turned the red rectangle of the painting, and when I began to make the image appear, he thought it was so wonderful that he kept wanting to stop me to contemplate it. He said: ‘It’s great, great – but I want to know, haven’t you ever wanted to make films?’ I wasn’t opposed to the idea, but I didn’t even know how to work a movie camera. Jean-Luc said he would take care of it and help me. He wanted to start the very next day, making a film with my posters. And there began a friendship which lasted two years.

Eventually, Jean-Luc wanted me to teach him to draw. For six months, I helped him with sketches for his scripts – a fantastic experience. He immediately grasped that a drawing doesn’t exist in nature; it’s a total abstraction. To create something with a pen on paper in relation to reality is to have a viewpoint about that reality. Observing isn’t reproducing what you can see, but reflecting upon reality. At the end of the six months, he said to me: ‘OK, I’m finished, that’s enough’. I recall something particular from these drawing sessions with Jean-Luc. From the moment that he grasped that any simple thing, because we look at it, can be a drawing, he also understood that everything – a telephone, a crack, happiness – was, in a sense, ‘drawn’. It was really fascinating – childlike, marvellous. He bowled me over with his intelligence and sensibility – and his tenderness.

From Jeune, dure et pure! Une histoire du cinéma d’avant-garde et experimental en France (Cinématheque Française/Mazzotta, 2001)