London-based director Jessica Bishopp’s latest film drew inspiration from French avant-garde writer Georges Perec’s experimental novel, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (1975). Perec, who was a member of the notorious Oulipo writing group, noted down everything he saw within a single location in the French city, taking detailed observations to the extreme in a winding and absurdist stream of consciousness. Like Perec, Bishopp “wanted to explore the visceral relationship between people and space,” as the filmmaker explains, “where the place becomes a character of its own.”
These filmic observations, shot with the candid mobility of Super 8, also drew their inspiration from iconic British photographer Martin Parr, whose images—famously capturing the kiss-me-quick culture of English seaside resorts—are “both comical and intimate, making the ordinary feel familiar and strange at the same time.” Replacing Perec’s post-war Paris with a seaside cafe in England’s Sussex, Bishopp’s lens drinks in the private worlds of strangers who had gathered in this place, whether alone or in groups, to eat and reflect in sight of the rolling waves of the southern coast.
Jessica's film was made possible through a partnership between NOWNESS and the ICA—part of the Stop Play Record initiative which helps emerging filmmakers with a program of workshops, industry advice, screenings, and support.
We sat down with Jess (virtually) to pick her brains about her work and the art of making film as an emerging director
NOWNESS: What first drew you to Perec’s novel as the inspiration for the film?
I first read An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris four years ago. I was influenced by Perec’s writing style, which he termed “L’Infra-Ordinaire”, the infra-ordinary, relating to his focus on the everyday and the idea that everydayness required obsessive exploration. I then went to the cafe, featured in the film, and fell in love with the location; the 1930s Art Deco architecture and the people there. I have been wanting to make a film about this cafe's atmosphere for a while. I am a bit obsessed with the everyday, our daily routines, the reasoning behind our seemingly unconscious actions and the context behind them.
NOWNESS: How did you approach the subjects who appear in the film—the cafe’s customers? Were the conversations based on chance encounters?
It wasn’t a random approach, before asking people to take part I spent time watching the people in the cafe; watching their body language, looking at faces. I then chose who I might like to chat to and either me or the film’s producer Carla approached them and asked them if they were happy to be interviewed for the film. My initial questions were always a bit similar, “what brings you to the cafe?”, “what do you like about the cafe?”, and then after these I would try and react directly to what they were saying, allowing the interview to meander. It was basically a casual conversation, so there was a bit of chance in where the conversation might go, although I did have an aim to keep it more philosophical than direct or explanatory.
NOWNESS: What was your best experience of participating in the Stop Play Record initiative with the ICA?
The people I met along the way. Before Stop Play Record I was a design graduate who made some personal films with the tools I had available. Stop Play Record gave me the opportunity to approach new people who knew more about filmmaking than I did. I had never worked with more than two people on a film project before, so it was wonderful to see all the sespecialised and talented people working together to make Lifespan.
What advice would you give to young filmmakers who are starting out making their first films?
Keep making films and borrow kit off friends or your employer or use your phone. Before you get production companies, producers or large crews involved with your films you have a lot of freedom and a huge amount of flexibility, don't underestimate this. Just experiment.