TG: Marcel Ophuls 1971 documentary "The Sorrow and the Pity" was the first French film to examine the Nazi occupation of France and Louis Malle collaborated with your Bon Voyage screenwriter Patrick Modiano on "Lacombe, Lucien" (1974) brilliantly capturing the banality of evil. Tavernier’s "Laissez Passer" and now your "Bon Voyage" suggest that it might be time for your generation to come to grips with period?

JPR: Yes. When I was filming "Bon Voyage" André Téchiné was shooting Les Égarés with Emanuelle Béart as a widowed French schoolteacher fleeing the Nazis. But speaking for myself, my generation was too young to have participated in the war and I asked what I would have done during the war? What choices would I have made?

It’s funny that you speak of Ophuls and "The Sorrow and the Pity" as launching the French examination of the period because I think the best book about the Vichy period was written by an American, Robert Paxton.

TG: Why did you choose to make Feydeau-like farce out of such a serious subject whose examination has been so troubling for France?

JPR: Precisely because the period of the film cast such a dark shadow on the history of my country. I wanted to capture that weekend in Bordeaux. The government collapsed, Marechal Pètain assumed power and led the country in a bad direction. And it’s a subject that the French don’t like to talk about. And I felt that a serious, grave film would not grab the public’s attention. Plus, all of the books and testimony that I read about the period suggested that this weekend at the Hotel Splendide in Bordeaux was like a farce. With the tragedy all around them people were concerned about being served first, getting the best room, the best table in the restaurant. The highest-ranking officers were preoccupied with putting on their very best uniform for dinner. And in the restaurant Charles de Gaulle was seated on one side of the room and Marèchal Pètain on the other-and of course they wouldn’t speak to each other. By Monday night Pètain asked the Germans for an armistice and the following morning DeGaulle flew to England.

TG: What is your most vivid childhood memory of the Germans and the occupation?

JPR: My father was in the Army and we were living in Auxerre (Burgundy.) When the Germans arrived in Paris my mother woke us up in the middle of the night, made us pack our things and we drove to the South where like many refugees we stayed with farmers. Then in September the Germans occupied the Northern Zone and we went back Burgundy. After leaving the village of Moulin we entered the occupied zone and as we attempted to cross a bridge there was a barrier and I saw the first German soldier in my life wearing his helmet and carrying his rifle.

TG: There are long intervals between your films–Five years between "Cyrano" and "Horseman on the Roof" and eight years until "Bon Voyage."

JPR: I get so involved in making my films that they become my life. The research into the subject, the writing, filming and editing become like an obsession.

TG: Is it ultimately a question of finding financing or inspiration?

JPR: It is like falling in love with my next obsession. For example Daniel Auteuil wanted to do a film about Napoleon and the period that most interested me was the exile to St. Helena. It took me a year to work on a scenario but at the end of the year I didn’t have the passion.

TG: Who were your cinematic influences?

JPR: Like many of the "nouvelle vague" I too loved the Americans and Hollywood films-the films of the thirties and forties that we didn’t see until the post-war. I especially remember seeing "Citizen Kane" at the Cine Club in Auxerre in 1949. And that day I decided to become a filmmaker. Many filmmakers of my generation like Milos Forman had that reaction. Since I like to make comedies my other favorites were Howard Hawks, Sturges (Preston) and Capra.

TG: And finally, what would you like American audiences to learn from "Bon Voyage?"

JPR: Perhaps because of my family situation and my sensibilities I’d hope that they’d learn that not all the French during this period of occupation conducted themselves dishonorably, even though the Vichy government was shameful and represented the worst period in our history. There were many courageous persons, many "grand reisistants." It wasn’t completely black and white.

"Bon Voyage" can be seen at Landmark Theatres nationwide. Check www.landmarktheatres.com or your local newspaper.