Patrice Chereau (born in 1944.) is a theatre and film director. His film "Intimacy" won the Golden Bear on the Berlin Festival in 2001; Brothers (2003) was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Direction. Chereau's theatre play of Wagner's "Nibelung's Ring" in 1976 in Beiruth, with conductor Pierre Boulez, is considered a key moment in the history of that festival. Isabelle Huppert plays Gabrielle in Chereau's last film, while Pascal Gregory plays her high society cold blooded husband.
Mr. Chereau, you are often basing your films on unanticipated litterary works - from Alexandre Dumas, James Hadley Chase, to Hanif Kureishi. What has intrigued you in Jeff Conrad's novel "The Return?"
Patrice Chereau : Conrad's style is surprisingly cinematographic. His sensual descriptions are very convincing. By reading you can immediately picture every scene; you know exactly at what moment of the day and in what kind of weather the story evolves. His stories are incredible parabolas, filled with hidden meanings.

Can this cinematographic style also represent an obstacle?
At the beggining, naturally, it is an advantage. It isn't an accident that already about thirty adaptations of Conrad's novel have been filmed until now. His texts already look like scripts, they are structured in such a way that you can keep in the adaptations the central moments of the breakthrough point. However, there is a moment when one should get rid of the text. We had to make up a great deal and to add to our scenario. In Conrad's story, the woman hardly speaks, she doesn't even have a name.