We’ve been splashing about in the ‘icy water of egotistical calculation’ since our earliest childhood. We can live with this situation, we can try to survive it; we can also just let ourselves sink. But what it’s impossible to imagine is that freeing the powers of desire alone is likely to melt the ice. The story goes that it was Robespierre who insisted on adding the word ‘fraternity’ to the motto of the French Republic; we’re now in a position to gauge the full irony of this anecdote. Prévert certainly saw himself as a supporter of fraternity; but Robespierre was not an opponent of virtue – far from it.
Notes
1 1. Houellebecq’s summary of the reasons for Prévert’s notoriety includes references to the films directed by Marcel Carné for which Prévert wrote the screenplays, including Quai des brumes (1938), starring Jean Gabin, Les Enfants du paradis (1945), and Portes de la nuit (1946). Antonin Artaud seems to have written fifteen screenplays for films, of which only one was made (La Coquille et le clergyman, Germaine Dulac, 1928). As a director, Leos Carax – whose films include Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) and Holy Motors (2012) – is noted for his ‘poetic’ style, if not exactly for his realism. Éric Rohmer (1920–2010) was noted for his talkative films, part of the French New Wave; and Sacha Guitry (1885–1957) was active in theatre and then cinema: he decided that the advent of the talkies was a boon for film and became a prolific cinema director.
2 2. Emil Cioran (1911–1995), born in Romania, settled in Paris in the Second World War and became known as a French writer of pessimistic essays and aphorisms.
3 3. Boris Vian (1920–1959) was talented in many artistic fields, well known as a singer and songwriter; Georges Brassens (1921–1981) was also a famed singer and songwriter.
4 4. Robert (known as Boby) Lapointe (1922–1972) was a humorous chansonnier and actor known for his word play.
5 5. The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade is a collection of (mainly French) writers deemed to be classics; to ‘enter the Pléiade’ is a mark of literary consecration.
6 6. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, available online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007.
2 The Mirage by Jean-Claude Guiguet
Acultivated middle-class family on the shores of Lake Geneva. Classical music, short sequences with a great deal of dialogue, cutaways to the lake; all of this might give one the impression of déjà vu. The fact that the girl is painting intensifies our worries. But no, this isn’t the twentyfifth Eric Rohmer clone. It’s, oddly, much more than that.
When a film constantly juxtaposes the maddening and the magical, the magical rarely wins out; yet that’s what happens here. The actors, somewhat hit-and-miss in their approach, have a hard time interpreting a script that seems overwritten and sometimes borders on the ridiculous. People will say they haven’t found the right tone; this may not be entirely their fault. What’s the right tone for a sentence such as ‘The fine weather has come to join us’? Only the mother, Louise Marleau, is perfect from start to finish, and it’s undoubtedly her magnificent love monologue (it’s an amazing thing in films, the love monologue) that elicits our unreserved approval. We can soon forgive some of the dubious dialogues, some of the rather heavy-handed musical punctuations; in any case, none of this would get noticed in an ordinary film.
Starting with a theme of tragic simplicity (it’s spring and the weather is fine; a woman of about fifty aspires to experience one last carnal passion; but if nature is beautiful, it’s also cruel), Jean-Claude Guiguet has taken the maximum risk: that of formal perfection. The film is as far removed from the TV advert effect as it is from sputtering realism and arbitrary experimentalism; here, the sole pursuit is that of pure beauty. The way it’s cut into sequences, classic, refined, tenderly daring, corresponds exactly to the impeccable geometry of the framing. It’s all precise, sober, and structured like the facets of a diamond: a rare work. It’s also rare to see a film where the light so intelligently suits the emotional tone of the scenes. The lighting and decoration of the interior scenes are profoundly right, infinitely tactful; they remain in the background, like a discreet and dense orchestral accompaniment. It’s only in the outdoor scenes, in the sunny meadows bordering the lake, that the light bursts out, playing a central role; and this too is perfectly in line with the film’s purpose. There is a terrible carnal luminosity to the faces. Nature wears a shimmering mask, which, as we know, conceals a sordid swarming, but this mask can’t be torn away (never, by the way, has the spirit of Thomas Mann been so profoundly captured). We can’t expect anything good to come from the sun; but human beings can perhaps, to some extent, manage to love each other. I don’t remember hearing a mother say ‘I love you’ to her daughter so convincingly; not in any film, ever.
With violence, with nostalgia, almost with pain, Le Mirage sets out to be a cultivated film, a European film; and oddly enough it succeeds, combining an authentically Germanic depth and sense of fracture with a profoundly French luminosity and classic clarity of exposition. Truly a rare film.
3 Approaches to distress
‘I’m fighting ideas that I’m not even sure exist.’
Antoine Waechter
Contemporary architecture as a vector for speeding up movements
The general public, as everyone knows, doesn’t like contemporary art. This trivial observation in fact covers two opposing attitudes. Ordinary passers-by who happen to walk through a place where contemporary pieces of painting or sculpture are being exhibited will stop in front of the works on display, if only to make fun of them. Their attitude will swing between ironic amusement and outright sneer; in any case, they will be sensitive to a certain dimension of derision; the very meaninglessness of what is presented to them will be a reassuring guarantee of harmlessness; they will certainly have wasted their time, but in a way that is basically not all that unpleasant.
Placed, this time, amid contemporary architecture, the same passers-by will feel much less like laughing. Under favourable conditions (late at night, or against a background of police sirens), a phenomenon clearly marked by anxiety will be observed, and all their organic secretions will go into overdrive. In each case, the functional unit comprising the organs of vision and the locomotor limbs will experience a significant intensification.
This is what happens when a coach full of tourists, thrown off course by the web of exotic traffic signs, drops off its passengers in the banking district of Segovia, or the business centre of Barcelona. Immersed in their usual world of steel, glass and signposts, visitors immediately rediscover the rapid stride, the functional and oriented gaze that correspond to the environment offered to them. Progressing between pictograms and written signs, they soon reach the cathedral district, the historic heart of the city. Immediately their pace slows; the movement of their eyes becomes somewhat random, almost erratic. A certain dazed amazement can be read on their faces (their jaws drop, a phenomenon typical of Americans). Obviously, they feel they are in the presence of unusual, complex objects that are difficult to decipher. Soon, however, messages appear on the walls; thanks to the tourist office, historical and cultural landmarks are set in context; our travellers can take out their camcorders to record the memory of their travels in a guided cultural tour.
Contemporary