May 14, 2005
Michael Pitt and the capture of truth
By Isabelle Regnier (Original article found on www.lemonde.fr)

Quand one requires his age of him, it lowers the head, scrapes a little the hair, still hesitates and, finally, proposes 24. "Yes, that must be that, 24 years." A wool cardigan chestnut thrown on an old full of holes blue Tee-shirt, the blue eyes lost in vagueness, the soft voice, Michael Pitt does not seem completely not left its character of Blake. With less than this character above all it his is not.

It worked it during more than two years, reading many documents on Kurt Cobain and the music, exchanging ideas with Gus Van Sant. For better forgetting at the time of turning, even if the imitation with the singer of Nirvana is disconcerting. "There was no scenario, says it. The character constituted himself in an organic way, with what had formed a deposit."

Twenty-four years thus, and lost air, but already a rich person catalogue of films, in a vein oscillating auteurist between trash and glamour. He has 18 years when he makes the knowledge of Gus Van Sant, and, since, this one A "helped much, at the same time on the personal level and in - its - career" . In 2000, it makes it play in A the meeting of Forrester. Michael Pitt played at Larry Clark (Bully), Barbet Shroeder (fatal Calculations), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Mr. Night Shyamalan (the Village), Bernardo Bertolucci (The Dreamers).

And Asia Argento (the Book of Jérémie). Determined to spend one day behind the camera, Michael Pitt does not hide her admiration for the Italian actress and director: "One can find his way of making chaotic. But for me, which there is of more important in the cinema, it is to capture what is true. And generally, that arrives by accident. With Asia Argento, the accidents do not miss."

For the hour, it is devoted especially to the music. "I feel that it is a younger animal." He is the author of Death to Birth, the ballade which he magistralement sings in film, and of a piece that he improvises there. He is the singer and guitarist of Pagoda, a group of rock'n'roll punk tendency which the first album, house of Worship, are about to leave.