Cinema, we know it, can also be written down. Not that dialogues and film scripts are always necessary to make a movie: pictures will always have… the last word; or the next to last, maybe, if we want to extend the dream of theatres by experiencing it on paper. This is what J. M. G. Le Clézio offers in his book Ballaciner, a recollection of his filmgoer souvenirs. “Ballaciner”, French neologism, would be to adopt the attitude of a strolling moviegoer, who, through his scattered impressions gives his likes and dislikes, a bit like a lecture or the tale of a man through the century. From the first Pathé silent films to today´s Korean filmmakers, Le Clézio improvises a personal and historical path, where we discover intimate relationships (such as “Gaby la monteuse”), and dense analysis (nice pages on Accattone by Pasolini, for example) while we oversee other past times: the Algerian War, neighbourhood film-clubs, new wave, Italian Revolution... More than nostalgia, this is passion: Le Clézio adores Mizoguchi, admires modern artists (Bergman, Antonioni, Satyajit Ray) and shares his absolute love for musicals, this “perfect genre” yet born in the Hollywood “machine à fric” (money factory) he despised. One does not have to agree with the last point, but will certainly appreciate this nice promenade.
|
|
