These excerpts from Arnaud Desplechin's annotated screenplays demonstrate critical aspects of his working method, including the visualization of scenes (Jimmy P:Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, 2013), the ways in which poetic lines of dialogue are transformed into images (My Sex Life... Or How I Got Into an Argument, 1996), and the ways in which the interweaving of different levels of dense literary texts and performance are mapped out in terms of structure, rhythm, and mise-en-scene (Esther Kahn, 2000).

All images courtesy Arnaud Desplechin and Why Not Productions.