(France 1999 155m) DVD1/2
Aka. Le Temps Retrouvé
Magic Lantern of Memory
p Paulo Branco d Raoul Ruiz w Raoul Ruiz, Gilles Tourand novel “Remembrances of Things Past” by Marcel Proust ph Ricardo Aronovich ed Denise de Casabianca m Jorge Arriagada art Bruno Beauge cos Gabriella Pescucci, Caroline de Vivaise
Catherine Deneuve (Odette), Emmanuelle Béart (Gilberte de Saint-Loup), John Malkovich (Baron de Charlus), Marcello Mazzarella (Marcel Proust), Vincent Perez (Morel), Pascal Greggory (Saint-Loup), Chiara Mastroianni (Albertine), Marie-France Pisier (Mme.Verderin), Edith Scob (Oriane, Duchess de Guermantes), Georges du Fresne (young Marcel), Bernard Patraut (Charles Swann), Arielle Dombasle, Elsa Zylberstein, Christian Vadim, Patrice Chereau (voice of Proust),
When I first came to watch Raoul Ruiz’s spectacular version of Proust, one couldn’t help recall two things to mind – most importantly whether it would be more successful in adapting the last portion of Proust’s legendary magnum opus to the screen than Volker Schlöndorff had been with the first part in Swann in Love in 1983. Not that Swann was without its compensations, with its gorgeous photography, period trappings and fine performances from Jeremy Irons, Ornella Muti and, particularly, Alain Delon. Even so, it was a shadow of the original, superbly recreating the time and place but capturing little of the work’s subtlety or rhythm. One cannot help also recalling, however, on a more facetious note, that wonderful Python sketch, the All England Summarising Proust Competition, in which various Proust devotees try to encapsulate in one minute the intricacies of Proust’s masterpiece. To many Python fans it will have been a baffling skit, but to those who knew Proust one could sympathise.
Lying on his deathbed, author Marcel Proust tries to gather his recollections together to form his masterpiece, and thinks back over his childhood and the loves of his life; the vacuous aristocrat Oriane, the social climbing courtesan Odette de Crécy, her delicate and unhappily married daughter Gilberte and, last but not least, the eternally elusive Albertine, who haunts him in death as she did in life. As he looks back he tries to give his life meaning, while all the time trying to justify the actions of those he knew and loved, comparing their fortunes with his own.
Throughout the film, the dying Proust uses various random stimuli – the taste of a biscuit, photographs, even portions of music – to recollect events in his past. Visions thus come and go as if on a conveyor belt, his life flashing by him not in a mad pre-fatal rush but as a leisurely composed series of vignettes plucked from the subconscious ether of memory. And to facilitate this, Ruiz allows Aronovich’s striking, gorgeous visuals to allow the film to be bathed in a golden, nostalgic glow that cannot be described, only experienced. The sumptuous décor and accoutrements if anything outdo those on Schlöndorff’s film, but in no way swamp the film in too much beauty. Rather that beauty summons up cinematic remembrances of our own, its peerless cast (amongst whom Béart, Deneuve and a surprisingly warm Malkovich stand out) recalling their own youthful glories. And as we thus recall films as diverse as Eyes Without a Face, Belle de Jour, Pauline à la Plage, Manon des Sources and Dangerous Liaisons (not to mention Mastroianni recalling her father’s glories by proxy), we find the same warm smile cross our lips as crosses those of Mazzarella’s bystander.
Ruiz’s film manages to do what those contestants in the Python sketch could not, namely distilling the spirit and essence of the book into his work, rather than merely and uninterestingly trying to follow the often incomprehensible plot. The camera thus becomes a magic lantern, its gaze travelling through time in the same slow pan in a way that Max Ophuls would have adored. No-one could call it a perfect film, as indeed Proust’s masterpiece wasn’t a perfect book, but it is the perfect summarisation of his spirit and, as such, exactly what critic Alexander Walker said it was, a “cine-literary miracle.”
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This is not a poor work by any means and your essay is a certainly a good one but if I might be allowed some pomposity here (or at least what might across as such to some) no one who has truly read Proust would ever be able to like this film. It is a universe away from the book. Nor do I consider it a great film in its own right. I will agree that it’s better than the rather awful schlondorff effort. If Proust had to be attempted Visconti was the man for the job.
I knew Kaleem would be the one leaving a comment if anyone. I agree with him that it can’t compare to the complexity of Proust, but taken on its own terms it’s a stunning achievement, and far more accessible than the book.
As for snobbery, we’ve had this argument before, and slagging off this Ruiz isn’t really a problem, it’s when you slagged off Lean’s Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, that I started to laugh. But let’s not have the same old argument over and over. Let’s just sum it up that Kaleem doesn’t like adaptations of classic novels unless they be Visconti’s The Leopard (which I agree is a magnificent adaptation, but that’s beside the point, especially when the novel that was based on, for all its merits, cannot really be compred with Dickens or Proust).
I’ll make the same points again, hopefully briefly, since you’re re-introduced these:
1)Yes most adaptations of literary works do not impress me. But there are important exceptions.
2)It is no more snobbish to assert the superiority of a literary work over its adaptation than it is to place a Rivette over a Lucas!
3)An adaptation being good enough on its own but not comparable to the original is a bit of an absurdity. Because the movie exists in this case to ‘adapt’. So if it fails on these grounds I’m not sure what the rest really means.
4)The Leopard is not Dickens or Proust, true, but it is still a very important work that enjoys extraordinary critical esteem. And it’s not as if lesser authors are adapted successfully all that much more often!
5)Greater ‘accessibility’ is something that frankly means nothing to me. Much as Lucas being more accessible than Rivette is equally true but also a meaningless statement. Art isn’t about ‘accessibility’!
6)With all due respect someone truly immersed in these literary works would never consider most of these films worthy adaptations. As a general matter though, and even as each art form has its own unique strengths, cinema does not match the other art forms for pure aesthetic brilliance. Which is to say that cinema doesn’t have a Shakespeare, a Bach, a Proust, a Raphael. Now cinema does make for this gap in certain other ‘non-aesthetic’ ways and one can debate this matter. But this is not a superiority/inferiority deal, it is one of what medium is better placed to ‘express’ more than another.
Kaleem never fails to add a personal put-down to his ‘argument’. Cutting the patently insincere “with all due respect” we have this gem: “someone truly immersed in these literary works would never consider most of these films worthy adaptations”.
Leaving aside literary ‘immersion’, I reject the view that “cinema does not match the other art forms for pure aesthetic brilliance”. It is not a matter of ‘unique strengths’ but of unique media. There are things the cinema can express that the written word can’t, and the moving image can be as aesthetically powerful as words on a page.
For example (my apologies for referring again to this film), how would a novelist ‘better’ express the deep emotions and symbolism of the mother as she plays with her child in The Goddess?
Ask anyone who has tried to write honestly about a rich cinematic experience how well nigh impossible it is to express in words. Conversely, as I have tried to express in my modest efforts at poetic responses to films, cinema can also inspire a literary response.
““someone truly immersed in these literary works would never consider most of these films worthy adaptations””
I stand by this statement. Sometimes the obvious has to be pointed. To say that each medium has its own strengths is to engage in a merely descriptive statement that I actually stated myself. But no I do not believe that cinematic medium can actually match ‘words’ because the cinematic image is too fixed and cannot allow for as much ambiguity as language. And this is what really sets apart literature or any thought in ‘words’ over anything else. Because in these instances we are at the ‘essence’ of language. and which in turns enframes everything else since as humans we don’t have access to anything but through language. of course it’s a different matter cinema is itself for the most part ‘filmed scripts’. The written word is implicated even here.
On your specific example what does this mean? Isn’t it hopelessly subjective in terms of its framing with no ‘larger’ explanation behind it? One could say this for anything one liked! The larger question might be whether a mother-child relationship has been represented better anywhere in literature. It would shocking if one couldn’t come up with examples!
Kaleem, I agree with the crux of your comment(s) here, but I’ve always found the ‘truest’ (whatever that means) artistic forms are the ones not dependent on language. These off the top of my head would be abstract painting, and silent (or at least more visually driven) film. I think this because forms and image can change culture to culture based on there language, ideas, and history. Certainly DeKooning’s ‘Women’ mean different things to me, then they wold to a culture in Asia, or Africa, ect. The singular image of the woman, and it’s expressive handling can mean anything. Where I agree with you that a novelist can maybe express ideas more clearly to another, but a more abstract form can express more (and more can be lost), it just needs a more in tune, astute viewer to grasp it (or find a different personal avenue to latch on to that wasn’t even intended).
You may agree with this (as it’s sort of a new avenue for this discussion) but I just wanted to add to the discussion. Something more in line with what you are perhaps thinking that has had me contemplative of late is the idea of translation. This sort of marries my above ideas with yours… language changing and meaning (perhaps) something different across cultures. I think of a form as potentially abstract or minimal (yet emotionally infinite) as poetry. Here one word changed in translation can be subtle, but can also mean everything (and can be better off for it).
Jamie, yes a translation can only ever be an adaptation, but I fail to see how anyone other than the author could ever assert a ‘change’ in a translation can be for the better.
This is an excellent comment Jamie and I can see where you’re coming from. But note the admixture of language even here. A painting has a title. When it’s called ‘Women’ you are already accessing it by way of language. Music is another good example. A symphony without a title for example is least dependent on being accessibly by way of the written word. I tend to see this sort of music as being at the opposite pole from the written word. Literature (which is to say anything that’s written or oral.. in the classic deconstructionist trope Socrates insists on the ‘oral’ and sees writing as secondary whereas the ‘oral’ is itself a kind of writing) uses most directly what is always implied in other art forms (exceptions duly noted). But cinema isn’t an exception. Even silent films had intertitles and told a story. Nonetheless cinema’s truest potential as an individual art form lay in silent films and this of course was lost very soon. Note the counter-example of opera. Here the conceit always was to marry theater (itself seen as including the literary) with music. All of it also pointing to an ancient Greek heritage. And one sees the point to a great degree. But certainly I see the merit of your abstract painting idea with the qualification I have suggested. However cinema isn’t really the equivalent of abstract painting barring rare examples. Getting back to the original point I do not mean that literature expresses things ‘better’ necessarily but that language allows infinitely greater possibilities for expression than does an image. Which is why abstract art tries to deny any ‘singular’ image or even the very unity implied in the word ‘image’. But any other normal image is always open to far fewer possibilities of ‘meaning’ compared to the written work. Language is inherently ‘unstable’ the way images can never be. Of course images can make what is lost in terms of ambiguity by a certain immediacy and hence ‘force’. I would never underestimate the effects of the ‘image’. But this moves the discussion in a different direction. Perhaps traditional aesthetic categories are not useful beyond a point in studying cinema as an art form. However these might still be used on individual films to the extent that the latter keep relying on written texts and spoken words. Cinema ‘imposes’ itself profoundly but it does not follow that because of this it ‘means’ more. For example in the Soviet Union once upon a time there would be a Stalinist image everywhere. Collectively a whole arsenal of images was thus deployed to really colonize the mind of the people. And we know this happens in many totalitarian states. So the image has that ‘power’. But this does not mean that it means more than Lenin’s writings! I am not really arguing with you here, just clarifying my earlier points somewhat and recognizing the valuable example you’ve provided. And again I privileged the written medium over the cinematic one before anything else. Finally I do agree that the purest art form would be one not dependent on language at all. But this is a bit of an idealization. I’m not sure whether this is ever possible. Yes abstract art is a good example, certainly one might think of paintings without titles. But this too offers a bit of an impasse. So on the one hand it is the ultimate ‘un-literary’. On the other hand it perhaps seals off its own possibility as art. In other words to be completely coherent can one continue to call something art which cannot be explained in any language? This gets to other more fundamental questions. Is the beautiful scene of a setting sun on a beach art or does it only become so when it is ‘represented’ in a painting? Clearly a setting sun seems beautiful but we have always been trained to believe it is such. There were other cultures at the dawn of recorded time (sorry, that’s a frightful pun!) and since that really saw the ‘divine’ in a somewhat ‘terrible’ sense in these natural signs. There was wonderment even but not the sense of art. The very notion of the latter already owes something to ‘culture’ which in the final instance cannot be divorced from language. Again I can’t pretend to have definitive answers any which way. I am just raising questions and the ones you’ve raised have been most valuable as well. Thanks..
I think Kaleem is confusing the written word with language. Language came before writing. If we follow his argument the Lascaux cave paintings are not art!
Again with the put-down: “Sometimes the obvious has to be pointed out.” And you are not “hopelessly subjective”? I didn’t refer to ‘strengths’ but to the uniqueness of each medium.
How have you in any way argued these assertions: “I do not believe that cinematic medium can actually match ‘words’ because the cinematic image is too fixed and cannot allow for as much ambiguity as language” and “as humans we don’t have access to anything but through language.”? A film does not need a script. Where is your ‘larger explanation’?
How have you addressed the crux of my my example, which I stand by? Are you claiming there can be an objective response to art? The larger question is irrelevant and a phurphy – who knows and who cares?
What is shocking is that you provide zero ‘examples’.
Tony, here’s the distinction:
1)The Searchers is a great film because Ford’s framings are masterful (one perhaps elaborates on this), he explores certain taboo issues (again one might elaborate), he reconfigures the tradition of the Western or takes it to its limits (again one could expand on this), so on and so forth.
2)the Searchers is a great film because I was so moved by the scene of the reunion at the end that I don’t believe there’s anything like this in literature.
In either instance there is a subjective view. But the first one aims at some objectivity which here only means that a case is made to explain one’s position. But the latter one depends only on an emotional response which others might or might not share. There is a common language in the first case that people could accept or not but they could debate it on those terms. In the second instance this isn’t possible so the opinion remains in the realm of complete and total subjectivity.
as for the ‘explanation’ I think I am not the most guilty when it comes to not providing such or not providing examples! LOL! In my initial comment I did not write a treatise, I concede, but I don’t believe I have been unclear. In any case I have added to it with the second statement here.
On your initial objection (you usually have lots of objections to many things that I say that I don’t believe are only connected to the argument(s) at hand.. let’s call a spade a spade!) I must offer an apology to you and others here as sounding pompous wasn’t my aim. At the same time this sort of ‘ethical’ gesture ought to be replicated on the other side. One ought not to speak what one really doesn’t know much about. and to be even more candid when we write or offer opinions we often reveal our ‘understanding’ in more ways than we think! I have never offered an opinion on opera in any definitive sense. For good reason! I do not often see this in my interlocutors even if I’m nonetheless polite enough not to point this out more often than not. I am not putting myself up on a pedestal. I am only talking about what I know. I do not for example refer to filters and digital technology and what not because I have no real understanding of this beyond my impressionistic response when I see certain ‘effects’ in a film. Everyone has a right to an opinion but nothing obliges us to consider all opinions as equally serious or equally ‘fair’. And yes the yardsticks might be different for different people. But while you might think I am ‘putting people down’ I am as annoyed when I see statements that reveal to me the ‘author’ in question doesn’t really know what he or she claims to know and there is therefore a bit of a pose. Nonetheless to the extent that my statements might still offend people I apologize in advance. But the ‘ethical’ imperative does not rest only on my side. Good faith must operate at both ends of the equation.
Kaleem – “one perhaps could elaborate and again one could expand on this” – you make a false distinction. The emotional response can only be explained by how the film-maker has elicited the response, and this clearly requires more than a clinical analysis.
I made no ‘objections’ in my initial response. I expressed a contrary opinion and argued it. You are the one who wants to be cute.
By all means, let us call a spade an f-ing shovel.
Do you ever read over what you have written you pompous ass, viz:
“One ought not to speak what one really doesn’t know much about. and to be even more candid when we write or offer opinions we often reveal our ‘understanding’ in more ways than we think! I have never offered an opinion on opera in any definitive sense. For good reason! I do not often see this in my interlocutors even if I’m nonetheless polite enough not to point this out more often than not. I am not putting myself up on a pedestal… Everyone has a right to an opinion but nothing obliges us to consider all opinions as equally serious or equally ‘fair’… I am as annoyed when I see statements that reveal to me the ‘author’ in question doesn’t really know what he or she claims to know and there is therefore a bit of a pose.”
Let me just leave you with this thought. I can play you like an air guitar…
Cheers 🙂
and while you’ve asked Jamie this question I shall answer it nonetheless as it makes part of my point. Every reading is an act of translation. As such in a different language one is translating in a way comparable to that which occurs for every reader in the ‘native’ language. This doesn’t mean that the reconfiguration of an entire text doesn’t make it deviate from the original. Just that the possibilities of ambiguity still remain even though the matrix might itself have been altered. Sometimes authors that are not thought of as highly in their own languages are far more esteemed in translations in another language for precisely this reason. Some would suggest Poe is one of these cases. He’s loved in the US and has the status of a classic but he does not attract anything close to the critical admiration in the US (or the UK) that he does in France.
“Every reading is an act of translation. As such in a different language one is translating in a way comparable to that which occurs for every reader in the ‘native’ language.”
This is nonsense – you cannot equate the reading of a work in the original language by a native-speaker of that language with the reading of a translation. As to not knowing what I am talking about: I also speak French, Greek, and Italian.
This is pulled out of your capacious hat and is merely an assertion: “Sometimes authors that are not thought of as highly in their own languages are far more esteemed in translations in another language for precisely this reason”.
Thanks for making my point Tony. By simply dismissing those points you have revealed your total lack of awareness of entire schools of thought and theory ranging from the ancient to the contemporary! This is exactly what I was talking about. I certainly know what I’ve been referring to. You evidently don’t.
On knowing languages Heidegger once lamented about his own compatriots by suggesting that though they spoke German not many actually ‘knew’ the language!
Pray tell? Again assertions with no argument. You make the assertion, you defend it.
How do you know anything about my knowledge of languages? My mother was Greek and spoke fluent French, and my father is Italian. I live and breath all three languages. This is not a Kaleem response – YOU questioned my competency and I simply sought to defend my capacity to express an opinion, which you have denied every inch of the way.
As Sam Spade said; “The cheaper the crook the gaudier the patter”.
Tony, I would urge you to reflect on that heidegger bit.. presumably his compatriots all knew German fluently..! Clearly Heidegger was aiming for something more with ‘knowledge’ in this context than fluency.