The extended exposure times of Eugène Atget

It was in the mid 1890s that Eugène Atget settled in Paris and bought himself a camera. He would get up in the first light of dawn, anticipating by a few hours the invasion of the madding crowds of the awakening metropolis and the hustle and bustle of everyday traffic. His idea was to capture Paris unaware, still asleep if possible, to be able to get a clean frame with only the subject and no interference. He had decided to document the Paris of his time, a city that was rapidly changing as the 19th century was coming to an end. He would photograph the buildings and the cobbled streets, the workers, the tradesmen and the professions  that slowly disappeared as the industrial revolution turned individual and manual labour into standardised and impersonal, mass produced commodity. The old shops were closing down one after the other replaced by “les grandes surfaces”. Atget decided that these “façades”, these shops, these tradesmen selling their wares and services in the street, were worth saving.

But at that hour of the day, the city of light, ironically, did not do justice to its name. To compensate for the absence of light, Atget used extended exposure times. A photograph became almost a short film. And there, when the photographs were developed, appeared the blurred ghost figures of the owners, the waiters, the customers or the odd passer-by who would move or pass through the frame as the photograph was being taken. They appear in the picture as if to reclaim their way of life, their way of making business, to defend their world as they knew it. Eugène Atget was more than pleased for that interference. Under the dark cloth, he absorbed the passing of time and his long exposure times extended the magical sepia world of this haunting, dream-like Paris into the present and beyond.

The Curriculum Vitae of Samuel Menashe

Curriculum Vitae by Samuel Menashe (1925-2011)

1

Scribe out of work

At a loss for words

Not his to begin with,

The man life passed by

Stands at the window

Biding his time

2

Time and again

And now once more

I climb these stairs

Unlock this door—

No name where I live

Alone in my lair

With one bone to pick

And no time to spare

An invitation for tea

Not Waving but Drowning (1957) by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

In November 1962, Sylvia Plath wrote a letter to Mrs Stevie Smith. "I better say straight out that I am an addict of your poetry, a desperate Smith addict.” The letter went on to say that she was planning to move to London and as soon as she would settle in, she wanted to invite Smith to come over for a cup of tea. Stevie Smith was not familiar with the work of Plath but accepted the invitation. The days passed, became months and still Mrs Smith was waiting for that invitation that never materialised. In fact this young new poet from the other side of the world had waved for the last time in February 1963. If only Stevie had known that she was not waving but drowning...
  

Cet espace gris de 2:06 dans “Le Samouraï" de Jean-Pierre Melville

« Il n’y a pas de plus profonde solitude que celle du Samouraï si ce n’est celle d’un tigre dans la jungle... peut-être… »

"Le Samouraï" de Jean-Pierre Melville est sorti dans les salles de Paris le 25 Octobre 1967. En pleine période psychédélique, voici un film sorti de la grisaille, de l’austérité et du minimalisme d’une autre époque. Les seules couleurs qu’on souvient du film ce n’est que le regard bleu glacial d’Alain Delon et le gris de la chambre qui loue. L’incarnation parfaite de Jef Costello. Un tueur professionnel, une gabardine au col relevé, un visage comme une masque sans aucune expression sous un beau chapeau. La solitude n’était jamais stylistiquement si parfaite.

Mais ce surtout la scène du début du film qui nous marquent pour toujours. La scène contient déjà les deux principaux protagonistes du film: Jef et le bouvreuil. Dans cette chambre figée dans le temps, pas un mot est prononcé. Les seules épreuves de vie sont le gazouillement de l’oiseau et la fumée d’une cigarette qui monte vers le plafond. “... Fumée... ne pas penser... Je ne veux pas penser... Je pense que je ne veux pas penser. Il ne faut pas que je pense que je ne veux pas penser. Parce que c’est encore une pensée. On n'en finira donc jamais?...” (extrait de la “Nausée” de Sartre) 

Delon va se lever et il était une fois un samedi 4 avril, 6 heures du soir... Le visage de Delon dans le miroir, sans expression, moitié caché dans l’ombre me rappelle un extrait du livre de Yukio Mishima "Les Bruits des vagues" de 1954: “ ... Chiyoko était certaine des avantages d’avoir un visage si laid comme elle pensé que c’était le sienne: si un tel visage pourrais s’endurcir d’avantage dans son moule, il cacherais des sentiments beaucoup plus efficacement qu’un beau visage...”. 


C’est ainsi que la beauté et la froideur de Jef ne suffisent pas à cacher la pesanteur de la nausée. Quand il ferme la porte derrière lui à la fin de cette magnifique séquence, la musique de François De Roubaix s’éteint et le film commence. Mais tout a déjà était dit dans cet espace gris de 2 minutes et 6 secondes.     

The Invocation of Satan (1909) by Josef Váchal

Josef Váchal (1884-1969) was a multi-talented Czech artist, writer, graphic designer and printer.  In this incredible painting which he finished in 1909, he assimilates the influence and takes the decadence of the Vienna Secession to another more sinister level. This is a symphony of evil, a celebration of everything pagan, dark and haunting. The gold sky contrasts sharply with the darkness of the earth from which figures emerge, lost in a sinister wilderness where trees bare heads and skulls instead of fruit. Strange fruit indeed (only to reappear in the words sung in 1939 by Billie Holiday in another, all too real, context). But these desperate figures here, are attracted by the striking blood red silhouette that stands on higher ground. As the essence of its red color permeates and spoils the purity of the gold sky, they are hypnotized and stare with empty, black eyes towards the viewer. The subject is too powerful and unsettling to be confined on canvas. It spills over and poisons also the frame which seems to have been made from the trunks of these ghastly trees that carry a remembrance of forbidden rituals and a symbolism dominated by sin and orchestrated by the demon himself. Josef Váchal's "Invocation of Satan" seems to be stuck in time and we suddenly become alert to the fact that our viewing may in fact be stirring up something that has been frozen for centuries. 


The last owner of this painting didn’t fail to notice the change when he hanged the painting on the wall for the first time. At first there was a strange shadow visible at all hours of the day. A kind of extension of the frame. With time, the frame no longer contained the picture. It was all one. And at certain hours of the day, the wall would reflect, as if in liquid, the painted scenes. In fact, the owner insisted that very soon after, he was under the impression that the whole wall was covered with a strange kind of moving tapestry. Watching the painting became as absorbing as watching a film. When the neighbours called the police because of the sounds coming from the house on that fateful night of December, the owner was nowhere to be found. The painting was hanging on the wall. It would take a really observant viewer, who knew the original painting well, to notice that the dark figures between the cursed trees had increased by one.