Book meme via Pamela:
Find the nearest book.
Turn to page 123.
Go to the fifth sentence on the page.
Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
Name the book and the author.
"And the gardner would assent, with 'Ay, they're the cunning ones,' for he would not allow that war was anything but a kind of trick which the State attempted to play on the people, or that there was a man in the world who would not run away from it if he had the chance to do so.
But Francoise would hasten back to my aunt, and I would return to my book, and the servants would take their places again outside the gate to watch the dust settle on the pavement and the excitement caused by the passage of soldiers subside. Long after calm had been restored, an abnormal tide of humanity would continue to darken the streets of Combray."
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1, Swann's Way.
* * * * * * * *
La fille sur le pont (1999)
Another amazing French film. The cinematography, the music, the acting--all gorgeous. If you think knife-throwing is just illusionist kitsch, think again. While the premise of this film and its plot are entirely implausible, the whole is so seductive it makes the willing suspension of disbelief easy.
More than that, it left me feeling as though realism in art is probably unnecessary, and perhaps even undesirable. Following on my previous post regarding the authentic sublime, I'm convinced that realism and authenticity have nothing to do with one another. Rather, the two may be opposed in many cases. (See, for example, much of the poetry in The New Yorker.)
I came home from class and immediately scoured the Internet for a soundtrack. Unfortunately, it was never released as such, though one of the most stirring tracks--Marianne Faithfull's "Who Will Take My Dreams Away?"--appears on a limited-edition CD released in France called Le cinema de Patrice Leconte. Since ITunes didn't have it, and I couldn't live without it, I resorted to peer-to-peer.
Maybe those of you who know more about the subject can tell me: Are there English speakers out there making films this good? I'm deeply skeptical about my own francophilia, yet I can't recall seeing anything that comes close to what the French have done/are doing.
