Critics take it for granted, for now, on the Parisian stages, with two shows that have experts in their field. A concordance that questions, worries and delights. If we talk about criticism (in the broad sense) it is because it is not completely dead. the test with Againstproposed at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, led by Sébastien Pouderoux and Constance Meyer as directors.
At the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Angelica Liddell poses as Ingmar Bergman to settle scores with journalists in a funeral ceremony of hieratic beauty (damon), in Vieux-Colombier, Pauline Kael, film specialist and eminent firm of New Yorkerhe suffered the wrath and irony of John Cassavetes.
“The day he likes my films I will stop making films”exclaims, in essence, the American director ofA woman under the influence (1974) to whom the actor Sébastien Pouderoux lends his charming look, his metallic voice and his relaxed demeanor. Could Pauline Kael (1919-2001), who dominated the cinema of her time, be the true heroine of the show? Doubts are allowed as his words shed a unique light on the director’s aesthetic.
Roughness of a genius
Inspired by “the lives and works of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands,” this performance focuses more on John than Gena. The setting of the stage says a lot about the nature of the filmmaker. Overloaded with a jumble of trinkets, tableware and books, the scene combines three spaces into one. A kitchen, a bedroom, a police station office where witnesses to a physical assault of which the filmmaker was guilty will be summoned (and filmed). The inextricable amalgamation between private and public places is the image of a creator who did not dissociate his work from his life, even going so far as, due to lack of money, to shoot his films in his own home.
Avoiding the trap of a reductive biopic, the show enters the mind of an artist as accomplished and talented as the man could be as manipulative and (self-)destructive. It is not about embalming it with a hagiographic perfume that would have dried up its complexity. The man and the artist were one. Even if it means upsetting fans of faces (1968) or currents of love (1984), Against explores the harshness of a genius loaded with a good dose of selfishness, a hint of contempt for anyone who was not him and a desire so incompatible with half measures that it led him to sacrifice his hands.
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