In an interview last week with
Swiss paper L'illustré,
Vincent reminisced about his childhood. Here are some excerpts -
As a child: "I could be a
clown, a little rowdy, but respectful of the teachers. I liked
making my friends laugh. It masked my shyness."
His first photographic image:
"The first I made was at age 9 - the portrait of Pierre Gisling. He was a painter and a magnificent pedagogue. He has passed on to
many children his passion for art - painting, sculpture, photography
- particularly through his shows for French-speaking Swiss
television. He became my spiritual father, my friend and my brother
at heart. He left us a year ago. He is a man for whom I have immense
admiration. I miss him terribly. I consider him my second father."
Before photography and drama,
there was painting: "I do not know why. I spent a lot of time
painting. For a long time, I thought I was going to make it a
career. There was no other possibility in my life, apart from
football maybe. I played a lot. I met Pierre Gisling by winning a
drawing contest. And that saved my life in the sense that the
drawing opened an essential door in the making of the child that I
was, both psychological and artistic. I painted two guys in a car. A very cinematic plan. One was driving, the other
was talking, drinking and smoking. They did not look at the road.
Danger! The police in Lausanne organized this contest as part of a
prevention campaign (laughter)."
Early cinema experience:
"There was the western. Then my dad passed on Chaplin's passion to
me. I imitated Jerry Lewis. I watched Laurel and Hardy too. The
cinema made a very strong impression on me. It was at the cinema
that I became aware of the existence of another world. 'Here,' I
said to myself, 'we can have many lives!'
