I was an assistant and an actor in Raúl Ruiz’s Professor Taranne, made in 1986 under the auspices of the Centre d’Aide Technique et de Formations Théâtrales (CATFT) and the Centre de l’Audiovisuel à Bruxelles (CBA). This experience has stayed with me as a totally exceptional time. When I became Director of CIFAS (Centre International de Formation en Arts du Spectacle), I wanted to further develop the courses involving the direction of actors – so I immediately thought of Ruiz. I wrote to him but had my doubts, assuming he wouldn’t answer. He telephoned the next day! So that was how Vertigo of the Blank Page was born: the memory of Professor Taranne; the need to set up these kinds of projects; and the man who never changes, who’s always ready for this type of adventure.

Arriving in Brussels, Ruiz had a very precise idea that he wanted to realise in practise. He wanted to shoot a film in DV-Cam with a tiny crew, without a pre-established script, and devoted essentially to the work of the actors. From just over a hundred candidates he kept twenty – after having read and reread their CV’s with the greatest attention. Then he proposed that they would all write and shoot a script, starting from a vague, three line synopsis. This is basically what he said: a film festival jury is in the process of deliberating on a film that shows a court jury deliberating upon the case of criminal militants who have murdered a judge after having convicted him with their own jury.

From the first day, he split the schedule in two. The morning was devoted to wide-ranging discussions with the actors and technicians. This was theoretical work, in which Ruiz exhibited his impressive encyclopaedic knowledge touching on every possible domain – except maybe cinema, strictly speaking. In the afternoon, he shot the scenes that he had written that morning. Every day he rose at 4am to write the day’s scenes. At the end of each day, he gathered everyone to look at the scenes they had shot.

During the day, in a parallel activity, the scenes were edited. At the start he gave the editor no guidance. The editor received the scenes, cleaned them up, and put them in an order he deemed to be appropriate. But working with Ruiz means accepting the challenge of proposing things to him. It was only after four days that the editor got a phone call from Ruiz, who told him how he saw the piece, instructing him over the phone as to where to cut, because the film was in his head.

By the end of the first week, he had shot a long version of the entire film. On the basis of this, he began filming supplementary scenes, or altering scenes he wasn’t happy with. The story started to change. At the outset he wanted to make a film exploring a certain notion of justice. But he realised that the actors weren’t responding directly to this aim. They suggested other stories; Ruiz listened to them, and hurled himself into improvisatory writing from day to day. With Ruiz, the tiniest incident feeds the film. Conversations and small occurrences become the very material of the script. A suggestion from an actor or crew member would present a situation. He would work it through, amplify it – but always leaving room for everyone to give of themselves completely.

It was undoubtedly this freedom which created an astonishing unity in the acting. I believe he is someone who censors nothing. He allows everything – and that’s precisely the gift he hands to his actors.