The director of “La Montagne” manufactures his special effects during filming, eager to make the feeling of prowess experience for real “, and wants to carry out his waterfalls himself, as an actor.
by clarisse fabre
We met a young man who nevertheless approaches fifties. No doubt is it still a magic tour of Thomas Salvador, which spends as much time writing a film as to thinking about the special effects it could make, with what a hook size, what type of pulley … born in 1973 , the filmmaker has always been fascinated by conjurers. “When I was a child, I spent hours watching sleight of hand, trying to understand the tips,” explains the director and main actor of the mountain, his second feature film, tinged with fantasy. In the Parisian office of its producer, Julie Salvador, who is none other than her “big sister”, this graying brown seems as concentrated as in her films.
This sportsman who climbed to trees puts his body into play and wants to make the waterfalls himself, even if he arrived, exceptionally, to accept a lining. To spectators who are no longer surprised by nothing, accustomed to digital and green funds, he wants to have the feeling of prowess “for real”. “I kept this very adolescent side of excitement in front of the risk,” he explains sitting on his chair, and we suddenly feel that the room is too small for him.
From its first short films, a street in its length (2000), outing (2005), Rome (2009), the performer plays serious boys’ roles that make somewhat crazy things. This creates a burlesque shift. In there this day (2001), filmed at the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, in Paris, a young man notes on the lawn a wild herb, higher than the others. He mixes it with his shoe lace and seems to take root … The discreet heroes of Thomas Salvador always seem to seek their place.
These intriguing films, not very talkative, began to circulate in festivals, notably in Belfort, where the filmmaker, then thirty, discovers the pleasure of exchanging on cinema. Previously, it was not easy. “I was not trained,” he said, at least officially. He grew up in Paris, between an actress mother, director and author, Joëlle Rouland, and a father actor of theater, Emile Salvador, who takes him to see the films of author.
After the bac, he does not want to enter a film school. “I was not made for studies. And then, stupidly, I had to earn my life.” He worked on construction sites, in a gas station, then gets hired on filming in the audiovisual. “I was the little hand, I was shopping, coffee, I never progressed in the hierarchy, it would have panicked me. I have never been hyperorganized, I have an acrobatic lifestyle.” The rest of the time, he turns his “short”, of which he is often the only protagonist. Because he does not imagine “directing” yet. This will come later, by dint of leading workshops in colleges, high schools, social centers, etc.
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