Actor, Director, Realist: Mathieu Kassovitz's contradictory works

In his conflicting rolls: on the set of La Haine (left), a still from Amélie (right)

In April, The Guardian's Steve Rose called Kassovitz "versatile to the point of contradictory", but is the famous Frenchman really that back-and-forth?

From The Little Boy to the Distinguished Director
Welcome to History 101. Well, it's actually just a basic timeline of Kassovitz's life, but we'll need the grounding before we go any further.

In 1967 (making him 46) Kassovitz was born to French film editor Chantal Rémy and Hungarian writer and director Peter Kassovitz.

At the age of 12, Kassovitz appeared in his first movie - Au bout du bout du banc (deliberate tongue twister, I believe). He had a few other acting roles as a child, including a credit for Le Petit Garçon in the 1981 film L'année prochaine... si tout va bien.

In 1993 he tried his hand at writing and directing his first film, and so came Métisse. Just two years later he released what would become his best-loved film, La Haine. Starring the fabulous Vincent Cassel and filmed entirely in black and white, La Haine is a strikingly real portrayal of the suburbs of Paris which Kassovitz himself said tells a story of "police brutality".

After collaborating again with Vincent Cassel in thriller Crimson Rivers (2000), Kassovitz apparently wondered onto the set of Amélie (2001) as an extra merely hoping to meet Jeunet, when he was cast as the romantic Nino Quincampoix and gained world-wide recognition for the role.
A few years later, after starring in a film here and directing one there, Kassovitz once again poked his head into the political scene. In 2005 riots broke out in Parisian suburb, over the death of two North African youths during a police prosecution. Shortly thereafter, Sarkozy was quoted calling the rioters "scum" and claiming that they should be "cleansed" from the banlieues of Paris with a "fire hose". Kassovitz reacted to Sarkozy's statement publicly via his blog, writing that Sarkozy had "ideas that not only reveal his inexperience of politics and human relations, but which also illuminate the purely demagogical and egocentric aspects of a puny, would-be Napoleon." In 2012 he reinforced his statement in an interview by deeming the outgoing Sarkozy administration as "horrible".
So there it is, you're pretty much up-to-date with Kassovitz. But that's not all.

Captain Contradiction?
In his article, Steve Rose points out the huge contrast between Kassovitz's efforts as a director and as an actor, and the contrast really is colossal. La Haine was critically acclaimed for being controversially honest and realistic about the situation in Paris, while Amélie is well known for painting over every droplet of context surrounding the film. It's not just that the films held different points of view; the confusing thing is that Kassovitz appears so passionate for people to see the true portrait of Paris at the time, and yet nothing about Amélie even touches on the subject. So what's the deal? Why would Kassovitz take part in a project which went so strongly against the grain of what he had in his head? Rose's interview holds some hidden insight.
When asked about his career as an actor, Kassovitz said:

"As an actor I'm very easily bored, so I just work with directors that I'm interested in. I don't really care about the script or the part."

So maybe it's just that he didn't care about what message the film was putting across, so long as he was within a ten meter radius of his childhood hero, Jeunet. Alongside this, when asked about his contradictory projects - hip hop videos, Amélie, La Haine, and the Lancôme campaign - here's what he had to say:

"Sometimes it's nice to do the opposite of what you just said."

So why does Kassovitz get involved on both sides of the fence? Because it's nice, and that's all he wrote. 

Evidently, Kassovitz is a contradictory character, and you have to respect that he admits it. But maybe he's right to switch it around. After all, it's his career, and actors in Hollywood are celebrated because of their versatility. So, why shouldn't he chop and change?  Kassovitz might have many faces, but so long as the movies he gets involved in don't all end up like Babylon A.D, then there's no significant problem.