Jeremiah Johnson

I presented Jeremiah Johnson at the London cine-club in December 2008, at Severine and Chris' place in Chelsea.

Jeremiah Johnson is a 1972 film directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Robert Redford. It is not another agitated Western story but a slow, contemplative chronicle of a man trying to live in the Rocky Mountains.

Jeremiah Johnson, a fictional character, is inspired by novels about fur hunters, like 'Mountain Man' by Vardis Fisher, a novelist from Idaho. The script was written by the multi-talented John Milius who also wrote Apocalypse Now, Conan the Barbarian and, more recently Rome. The movie was filmed in Utah at various mountain locations in extreme winter conditions.

I was supposed to show a film on the theme ‘Nature’ and I hesitated with three other options:
· A Kurasawa film: the beautiful Derzou Ouzala (the story of a Russian explorer in Siberia and his old local guide) would have been an obvious choice. Earlier in his career, the wonderful BW photography of forests in Rashomon and Kumonosu jô (Macbeth, Spider Web Castle, 1957) oozes pantheist magic.
· A Terence Mallick film. In all his films - I think he made only four - the most important thing is the long shot on fields waving under the wind.
· I also contemplated showing one of the episodes of ‘Planet Earth’. BBC Natural history production has reached near perfection with Blue Planet and Planet Earth. Unlimited resources from BBC, NHK and Discovery, high definition photography, great music and the warm narration of David Attenborough. Best moments: the Snow Leopard, lions killing an elephant, starving polar bear swimming in open sea and attacking a herd or walruses out of desperation, killer whale catching a seal and playing with their food, great white shark catching a seal in ultra slow motion, the many aerial shot and satellite shots, the fixed automated cams catching seasonal change or the movement of flowers.

Why Jeremiah Johnson?

Difficult to say why this nice but relatively low-key film is one of my all-time favourites, although it’s arguably not a heavyweight classic and Pollack probably not a one of the greatest directors. I fell in love with that film when I was 12. It impressed me a lot in many ways. At the same age I was also very much impressed by Little big man (1970), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid (1969), two other sad, adult, compelling Westerns from the 60 and 70s. In Jeremiah I loved the naïve a capella songs, the simplicity of the tale (no plot, a chronicle). I love the music: a mixture of Western fiddle folk music and Indian flute. I love the voice over - I always love that in films.

Sydney Pollack died in May 2008. He was 73. Redford and Pollack were great friends and made seven films together, arguably some of their best including Three Days of the Condor (1975), The way we were (1973), Electric Horseman (1979), and Out of Africa (1985). Pollack won Best Movie and Best Director for Out of Africa. Redford and Pollack shared a great love for nature. Jeremiah was partly shot near Redford property in Sundance, a very remote ski resort in Utah, where Redford lives and where he created an Independent Film Festival in 1981. Redford’s own film A River Runs Through It (1992) was another beautiful film on nature. Redford has always been politically liberal and a militant environmentalist.

Jeremiah is one of the first and one of the best ecological films. When soldiers guided by Johnson cross an Indian cemetery and Johnson’s family is slaughtered in revenge by the Crow tribe, we don’t see the Indians at all. The whole episode works as a metaphor of Western white men disregarding nature’s rules and unleashing the wrath of natural gods. Before that Johnson had reached autarcic happiness with his squaw and son and was leaving in peace with all tribes; once that edenic harmony is broken starts the last part of the movie, a dark chronicle of vendetta between Johnson and the Crows.

On the other hand Jeremiah Johnson is not a preachy overstated ecological fable. Nature is not glorified. Johnson is not in search of a mystical experience. Nature is neither good or bad, indifferent to mankind. It is beautiful, brutal, awesome and bitterly cold. Indians, too, are neither better or worse than white men, but they tend to be wiser. They are part of nature, ordinary folks. They are more or less tolerant with white hunters who trespass their land. Jeremiah is one of the first Westerns where Indians are played by native Americans and speak Indian languages.

Is the film a Western or not? Those mountain men are not romanticized as the cow boys and heroes of the legendary Far West in classic Fordian Westerns; they struggle, they fail; they hardly survive. One of the first ‘realistic’ Western, but still a Western: the music, the beginning and the ending that tap into American legend. Contrast between the storytelling that is sober, simplistic, a chronicle or a survival, and the voice over, that tells us a legend and the beautiful, open end. ‘Et on raconte… qu’il y est encore’. I love the simplicity of beginning too, no lengthy introduction: Johnson arrives by the river and asks the first man he meets where to find game in the region. The man says go to the mountains on the left. Johnson says thank you, and he’s off.

Why exactly Johnson has come to the mountains is never explained. In a classic Western plot, Johnson would have committed a crime or would falsely be accused of a crime. In any case, near the middle of the film rescuing the migrants would then be his redemption, and the hermit would re-integrate the human society and marry the girl. Here, on the contrary, this good deed eventually will destroy Johnson’s life. Classic Westerns, like Greek tragedy, is about wild men trying to become decent civilized people. In the desillusioned vietnam-war America of the early 70s ,Jeremiah Johnson is a man who rejects civilisation, decides to go West to get lost, to become wild.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_johnson
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068762

english football - the 2007-2008 season

ManU Champion

Despite the impression that ManU hugely deserved, that they were more solid than Arsenal and more brilliant than Chelsea, the final run was in fact extremely narrow. ManU and Chelsea had the same number of points after 37 games and in their last game, that ManU needed to win away at Wigan, ManU could have had Scholes expelled in the first half for a second, very obvious yellow card – critical referee decision.

MU was not quite as strong this season although they scored almost the same number of points (89 v. 87) and they dropped points in the final games. It is the smallest total since MU in 2002-2003. The gap between 1 and 2 (2 points) and between 1 and 3 (4 points) is by far the smallest in recent history. Last year the 1-to-3 gap was 21 points as number three (Liverpool) was never really in the race. Chelsea led by Avram Grant made second again and won more points than last year under Mourinho (85 v. 83).


The Arsenal Season

Arsenal scored 83 points, a huge improvement over the last two seasons (67 and 68 points), and more than France Champion Lyon (79 points, 7 defeats).

On February 11, I was at the Emirates, invited by Teun, to see Arsenal bear Blackburn 2-0 and take a five-point lead over ManU. It was my only visit at the Stadium this year. We knew that the Season was far from over and the fixtures tricky (away games at Chelsea and ManU), but a five-point lead should be a good-enough cushion.

On the next game on Feb 23, the turning point came at Birmingham City, one of the weakest team (they would eventually be relegated). Eduardo was horribly injured and the Birmingham player expelled, Walcott then scored twice for a 2-1 lead and it seemed that we would keep the 5-point lead over ManU; but in injury time, Clichy made this horrible mistake that led to a penalty, a 2-2 draw and the loss of two points. I saw that at the pub. I was furious and petrified. Everybody was. The end of the season was still far away and the game had no particular significance but everybody felt that that double blow was bad omen. We were losing another key striker for the rest of the season after can Van Percie injury, and moreover, confidence was broken. In this occasion the captain Gallas did little for the morale and solidarity of the team, making it even more melodramatic. He sit alone in disgust and disbelief on the pitch long after the final whistle, like he needed to calm down before going back to the dressing room, to avoid killing Clichy.

It was indeed the first of an awful series of four draws against secondary teams: Aston Villa (H), Wigan (A), Middlebrough (H), while ManU was winning all their games. So the 5-points lead became a 3-points tail by mid-March.

It is bitter to realise that DESPITE that bad run we had in March, we STILL could have clinch the title. We were one up at Chelsea 20 with 20 minutes to play. We were one up at Manchester with 30 minutes to play. Then Van der Saar made this fantastic save to deny Rio Ferdinand awkward back pass. With most goalkeepers this was a sure own-goal, Arsenal would have been 2-0 up with 25 minutes to play at Old Trafford; Arsenal would have probably won that game. 3 more points to us, 3 points less to ManU; the final ranking would have been Arsenal 86, Chelsea 85, MU 84. But then I guess we were lucky on other occasions, like the injury-time Gallas goal that avoided losing to ManU at home in November and the 2-3 10-men victory over Bolton.

Considering how narrow it has been in the end, one cannot avoid to think that, had Wenger bought one more striker during the winter window to compensate for Percie’s long term injury, the Eduardo injury would have had lesser consequences. Adebayor had a great season: he scored 24 league goals including in decisive games like at Liverpool in Champions and at Old Trafford. But after the Percie/Eduardo injuries he could not hold the attack alone and nobody was there to support him when, like everybody else, he had this period of tiredness in March (Bendtner was little help).

Champions League

We had to suffer another horrible moment this season during the second leg of the Champions League quarter final against Liverpool. After a 1-1 draw in London, we scored first in Liverpool, showing great football. Then two Senderos mistakes and a good Torres goal made 2-1 for the Reds. 10 minutes before time I was resignated to being out. But then Theo Walcott restored hope with this fantastic 80 metres run. It was worthy of the greatest runs in football history, those by Maradona, Tigana or Giresse. After eliminating six or seven Liverpool players he finally delivered to Adebayor who scored for 2-2.

We were qualified on away goal with 7 minutes to go. It was all the more painful when two minutes later an awkward situation made a penalty for Liverpool – a situation that looked a lot like the fault on Hleb that was NOT sanctioned by the referee in the first leg. Gerard scored. 3-2, it was over. Losing is OK, but losing on a penalty, five minutes from time, after having scored this extraordinary goal by Walcott/Adebayor, that was very very hard. But I want to remember this epic Walcott run, as well as the victory in San Siro over trophy holder Milan AC, with a glorious shot by Fabregas.

There was other fantastic games this season: the second leg of Chelsea-Arsenal was great and the Moscow Final Chelsea-MU was thrilling. Chelsea was horribly unlucky (three woodwork including Terry’s slipping on a decisive penalty) ; normally I hate Chelsea more than ManU but during that game I found myself supporting Chelsea especially after Ronaldo screwed his penalty shooter. And that’s too much glory for ManU…

The domination of the Big Four

The top four shows the usual big four. Over the last six seasons only Everton (fourth in 2004-2005) and Newcastle (third in 2002-2003) have put their names in the top four. This year, Newcastle’s returning coach Kevin Keegan said after losing to Chelsea that there is no way Magpies or any other club can make top four for all eternity. It shocked the locals and trigger and press argument: is it a good or a bad thing? A majority of pundits said it is true that there are two Premiere Leagues, top four and the rest, but it is OK because both are thrilling. It is true that the average points of top four has been steadily increasing over the last six years: 83 points this season, 74 points six years ago, and only 69 points this year in France.

The English big four are also dominating European football with, for the second year in a row, three English teams in the semi-finals, and a 100% English final.

Goal of the year
Ex aequo Adebayor’s volley against Spurs and Rooney’s exquisite lob against Portsmouth.

my world-famous clafoutis recipe

A recipe is probably the last thing people who know me would expect on my blog. But Clafoutis is the one and only recipe I know. I should know more: after all my grand-father Emile was a patissier. He retired at 67 when I was an 8-years-old boy and for a while I lived with my grand-pa and granny in this tiny town in Limousin in the centre of France. He gave up professional cooking and one of the only cake he was still doing occasionally was Clafoutis, a typical and easy pudding from Limousin. He called that 'family pastry' dismissively by contrast to serious patisserie. Emile was doing cherry clafoutis, during the cherry season, and also pear-apple ones in winter. But it actually work with other fruits - I have also tested peach/rasperries and it was a success in several London picnic occasions, if I may say so (unless my friends are good liars).

For 8-10 people
6 eggs
200 ml milk
100g sugar – 6 tpsp
80g flour – 10 tsp
(in fact it is simply, more or less, a pancake dough)

Butter
1 tea spoon of rhum or kirch
Vanilla
Cinnamon

Fruits
- 500g cherries (keeping the kernels in makes clafoutis more juicy and spitting the kernels is part of the fun of this traditional country cake)
OR
- 450g peach, 170g raspberries

Preparation: 25 minutes
Cooking: 45-50 minutes (don't forget it takes an awful lot of time to cool down when out of the oven - I always forget and I arrive late at picnics)

Conversion:
1 tablespoon = 8g flour
1 tablespoon = 15g sugar

the Little Angels Theatre

Better late than never, during Easter break, while walking aimlessly by a sunny Good Friday, I have come across a nice little spot in Islington, the Little Angels Theatre. It's a Puppet Theatre hidden in a cute muse at spitting distance from Angel (Dagmar Passage) in the posh neighbourhood East of the tube station.

Maki and I we saw 'Jack and the Beanstalk' a funny adaptation of the well-know story of the brave little boy who climbs a magic beanstalk and overcomes a fearful giant. ‘Combining table-top and shadow-puppetry, it is set in a wild desert world that wonderfully weaves a traditional tale with a modern setting’.
This nice little place has a long a prestigious history. In 1961 a troupe of enthusiastic puppeteers under the leadership of South African master, John Wright, found a derelict temperance hall in Islington and transformed it into a magical little theatre, specially designed for children and for the presentation of marionette shows. It opened on Saturday 24th November 1961. Over the next 30 years, The Little Angel company created and performed over 30 full-scale shows. They toured all over the UK and abroad, absorbed new styles by participating in International puppet festivals (including Europe, USA and the Far East), collaborated with musicians (including Daniel Barenboim and Robert Zeilger) on large-scale productions for the South Bank and Barbican Centres, and provided a constant source of inspiration and training for a new generation of puppeteers and performers. Those in the know still find their way to Dagmar Passage from all over the world. Our productions now use every type of puppet and draw their themes, styles and stories from a wide range of cultural traditions. We also programme a wide variety of visiting puppet companies, giving London audiences a marvellous opportunity to experience the diversity of this art form.

10 fun facts about Japanese

I will be starting learning Japanese next month at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London but I have already casually studied ‘Japanese for busy people’ (yes I am a very busy man) and so far I tell you folks: Japanese is fun and (relatively) easy. Everybody gives it a try! (warning: some or all of the following may be entirely wrong and I will only realise my pain it when I start the lessons).

1. No genders in Japanese, everything’s neutral just like in English, no headache like in French or in German.

2. Pronunciation is super easy. It is actually one of the poorest phonetic systems: only five vowels, few consonants and no sound that doesn’t exist in English or French. Conversely, Japanese struggle with European languages. They cannot pronounce two consonants in a row or an isolated consonant at the end of a word: they can only hear and pronounce syllables composed of one consonant and one vowel. So they insert a vowel (generally a ‘u’) to have only full syllables. For instance France will become Fu-ran-su.

3. Grammar is easy, no conjugation, few tense forms, the present and future form is exactly the same (you only know it’s one or the other from the context or if there is a time adverb).

4. Writing, well, I am not sure. Here’s what I got so far. Old Japanese used to be written entirely in Chinese Kanji (ideograms). Then (and it’s a good story) some women introduced Hiragana and then Katakana ; both are phonetic alphabet of about 40 simple characters: ma, mu, mi, mo, me, ka, ku, ki, ko, etc… I understand they did it because they were not allowed to have formal education and learn kanjis so they educated themselves through an easier system. Katakana was also the way to integrate foreign words and concepts into Japanese. So you would think it’s relatively easy to learn how to read and write, but the problem is in fact, nowaday’s newspapers and books and billboards are written in a combination of kanjis, katakana and hiragana so knowing one of the alphabets or even the two will not be enough to understand a text if you don’t know the kanjis at all. So far I have studied phonetically with the romanized transcriptions (‘romaji’) that Japanese can read but would never use.

5. We think we have too many English words in French but it seems there are many more in Japanese. Supu (soup), jusu (juice), terebi (television), basu (bus), takushi (taxi), depato (department store), beddo (bed). But I suspect there is another, older Japanese word for each. On the other hand they have a Japanese name for baseball (yakyu) - this is because English was banned during WWII and they were already playing baseball.

6. Now difficult bits. First the verb comes at the end, like in German. But that should be OK.

7. Another difficult thing is the way of counting. They have abstract numbers (ichi, ni, san) but to mention three people, three books or three apples they will use three or four slightly different systems.

8. But the really difficult thing is politeness. Using the right degree of politeness. There are three ways of saying yes: 'Hai' is very polite, 'Ee' still polite, 'Un' very familiar. Generally speaking, you use the most polite form more often than you would in any other language, and you are better off being too polite than risking not being enough.

9. Surprising form of politeness for a European: there are several ways of saying ‘I’. My textbook always use 'watashi' but Maki tells me it is very very businessy and as a man I could use ‘boku’ instead in a casual conversation, while there are other ways of addressing. Between mates, a cooler way is 'ore'.

10. Japanese hates pronouns and hardly use them at all. The familiar ‘you’ (tu, thou) is seldom used and there is simply no polite you (vous, usted) as far as I am aware. The polite way of addressing someone is to speak at the third person using his/her very name. For instance, Mr A speaking of me to Mr B will say ‘Vincent-san wa furansu-jin desu’ (Mr Vincent is French), but if Mr A is speaking to me, it will ALSO be ‘Vincent-san wa furansu-jin desu’ (You are French), but then I am wondering, who is he talking to, is there another Vincent in the room?

Proust and the viewmaster

The world's first-ever live 3D transmission and screening of an international sporting event took place in London on Saturday 8 March 2008. The Six Nations rugby game between Scotland and England in Edinburgh was captured by three 3D rigs comprising dual Sony HDC950 cameras. The two resulting HD feeds (for left and right eyes) were then uplinked and transmitted by satellite to Riverside Studios in west London, and projected through two Christie projectors allowing 250 viewers to watch the game on a big screen with light stereoscopic glasses. The event was a joint venture between BBC Sport and the3DFirm, a consortium comprising 3D specialists Inition and rental and post-production company Axis Films.The closest precedent was February 2007, when the NBA captured a basketball game in 3D and transmitted it via fibre cabling to a nearby hotel. Riverside Studios were the location of the BBC's first colour transmissions in 1967.

Although the Riverside test screening went perfectly well, the viewing experience was limited in terms of production with only three cameras positions, no close-up zooming or slow-motion replay. The light stereoscopic glasses rendered the experience familiar and seamless, and delivered a true immersive like-being-there sensation.
Combining HD and 3D technology could well bring live broadcast events to big-screen venues to an entire new level. Many movie theatres are equipping themselves with 3D-ready digital projectors in order to offer stereoscopic 3D films like the currently hugely successful 'Hannah Montana 3D' from Disney. They may one day use the equipement for 3D events too.

3D technology is also coming to flat-panel displays too, with glass-less autostereoscopic products like Philips' WOW range. At the moment they cannot support real-time sources but the technology is moving rapidly. The 3D displays are still too expensive for the consumer market (around £6,000 for the 42-inch model from Philips) and 3D broadcasting is far from being standardised.
Given that 3D capture and transmission can be developed using elements of existing HD technologies, it is possible to expect 3D to become the next step of premium sports pay TV, with regular commercial broadcasts ten years from now. In the meantime the primary market for autostereoscopic displays will be corporate and 'digital signage' out-of-the-home advertising.

On a personal note, stereoscopic 3D always puts me in a feel-good Proustian mood because my favourite child toy was the ViewMaster this bulky red plastic slide viewer (photo) I had Robin Hood, Bambi, The Jungle Book and so on; I felt like a kid at the Saturday projection, I loved it. Besides it was like being in the stadium in the middle of the Scottish crowd and Scotland won that game in a miserable heavy rain. As for the flat 'autostereoscopic' panels, they remind me of these glittering birthday cards my granny would send me, showing Mickey and Donald engaged in some action and when you moved the card you could see 3D effects or even mouvement.

Monsters Inc.

Le ciné-club de Meudon a tourné entre 2004 et 2006. En deux ans, nous avons vu 8 films présentés par 8 copains:
• Solaris de Steven Soderbergh, présenté par Christophe
• Chat noir chat blanc d’Emir Kusturica, présenté par Philippe
• Honky Tonk Man, de Clint Eastwood, présenté par Marc
• Les choses de la vie, de Claude Sautet par Delphine
• Ghost in the Shell de Masamune Shirow présenté par Caroline
• Le Festin de Babette, de Gabriel Axel présenté par Elizabeth
• A bout de souffle de Jean-Luc Godard, présenté par Jean-Marc
• Fitzcarraldo de Werner Herzog, présenté par Séverine

J’ai clos la série avec ‘Monsters Inc’, des studios Pixar, réalisé par Pete Docter. Voici mon petit speech d’accompagnement. Voici pourquoi j’aime ce film.


D’abord je voulais montrer un film d’animation en volume, en 3D. Parce que certains parmi les amis n’étaient pas encore totalement convaincus, à l’époque, que l’animation c’est non seulement du cinéma digne des adultes, mais qu’on produit de nos jours d’authentiques chefs d’œuvre, qu’on a la chance de vivre, depuis 1995, un véritable âge d’or du cinéma d’animation. Je me souviens encore de la tonalité condescendante de la critique de 'Toy Story 2' dans ‘Les cahiers du cinéma’. Le pauvre type coincé qui avait écrit le papier ne pouvait pas imaginer qu’un film cher et populaire, et divertissant, et comique et qui a eu un succès colossal, puisse avoir le moindre intérêt artistique. Il cumulait visiblement trop de handicap. 'Monster Inc.' a eu un succès encore plus important que Toy Story, dépassant les 200 millions de dollars de recettes aux USA. A l’époque (et encore aujourd’hui) seuls les gros blockbusters pour ados cons atteignaient normalement des scores aussi astronomiques.

Pourquoi j’aime en particulier l’animation en volume? Il y une explication très simple et très ‘Rosebud’ : mon jouet préféré quand j’étais petit, c’était ces espèces de jumelles en plastique rouge : on insérait des disques en cartons avec 14 petites diapos sur tout le pourtour. En faisant tourner le disque via une petite gâchette, on pouvait voir successivement 7 scènes en relief grâce à procédé stéréoscopique vieux comme la lanterne magique. J’avais Peter Pan, Les Aristochats, Le Livre de la Jungle, Robin des Bois etc. Ce jouet s’appelait ViewMaster, je l’ai toujours (photo) et c’est mon plus gros trésor (après ma collection d’Astérix évidemment). On n’avait pas la vidéo dans les années 70 ; et c’était ce qui se rapprochait le plus du cinéma à la maison. Non seulement c’était en relief (en fait : des marionnettes photographiées sous deux angles différents dans un décor) mais ce que j’adorais c’était qu’on pouvait faire varier la lumière et l’ambiance de chaque vue en dirigeant l’appareil vers une lampe (couleurs chaudes) ou une fenêtre (couleurs brillantes).

L’autre raison c’est que j’aime les marionnettes et que la 3D ce ne sont jamais que des spectacles de marionnettes. Monsters Inc comme tous les films du studio Pixar ce sont des images ‘de synthèse’ par ordinateur (Computer Generated Imaging CGI). En termes visuels et graphiques, je préfère les véritables marionnettes comme dans The Corpse Bride de Tim Burton ou dans les films du studio Aardman (Wallace et Gromit, Chicken Run) qui utilisent la technique de prise de vue image-par-image (stop motion) elle aussi vieille comme Méliès. Cependant les artistes de ‘rendering’ de chez Pixar arrivent à faire des choses merveilleuses sur la lumière, les reflets et les textures, et l’animation 3D par ordinateur n’a plus du tout le coté un peu lisse et sec des débuts. Dans Monsters Inc par exemple, le travail sur la fourrure soyeuse de Sully était prodigieux pour l’époque. Et comme, l’animation en prise de vue réelle est de plus en plus retouchée par ordinateur, on ne verra bientôt plus la différence entre les deux techniques qui vont s’interpénétrer au gré des choix artistiques.

Si j’aime en particulier les films Pixar, c’est pour la qualité de la narration, l’intelligence des scénarios, le brio des dialogues. D’autres studios d’animation comme Dreamworks rivalisent (presque) sur la qualité visuelle, mais restent loin derrière (à mon avis) sur la narration, la caractérisation, la tonalité, l’élégance de l’humour qui me rappelle la grande tradition des comédies américaines des années 50. Pour avoir rendu à l’animation ses lettres de noblesse après des décennies de domination infantile et de plus en plus médiocre de la part des studios Disney. Monster Inc est comme tous les grands films, une œuvre à multiples niveaux. C’est un merveilleux film pour les enfants mais il y a des tas de niveaux pour le seul plaisir les adultes : l’utilisation des plans et du découpage du cinéma ‘adulte’ américain, des thèmes du cinéma policier, du buddy movie, du thriller politique, du cinéma fantastique (la poursuite borgésienne dans la bibliothèque des portes). Les studios Disney en décadence s’étaient spécialisés dans l’adaptation de conte de fées du XIXème ou livres pour enfants à succès mais Pixar a depuis le début développé des histoires originales. Comme ‘Toy Story’ partait de l’idée traditionnelle des jouets vivants en la modernisant, ‘Monsters Inc’ part de l’idée merveilleusement simple qu’il y a EFFECTIVEMENT des monstres cachés sous les lits et dans les placards des chambres d’enfants et nous raconte l’histoire du point de vue des monstres (qui, merveilleuse inversion, considèrent que ce sont les enfants les monstres). Les monstres sont des gens comme vous et moi : le gros monstre à fourrure verte s’appelle James P. Sullivan (j’adore le P.), et son copain le cyclope sur patte se nomme Mike Wazowski. Comme tous les américains moyens, nos héros portent des noms polonais et irlandais.

Mais ce qui est le plus touchant pour un adulte (pour moi en tout cas) c’est le véritable sujet du film qui est l’apprivoisement d’un adulte par une enfant de deux ans. J’avais autour de 32 ans quand j’ai vu le film et comme Sully et Mike, les héros du film, trentenaires célibataires, je considérais les enfants de moins de six ans comme des monstres effrayants et incompréhensibles, des grenades dégoupillées. J’étais pile poil à l’âge où j’ai commencé moi aussi à trouver mignons les enfants des autres et à me dire ‘merde j’aimerais bien en avoir un comme ca à moi un jour’.

Les moments préférés :
• Le regard de Sully quand apres avoir couché Boo, il est surpris de s’attendrir sur le petit monstre qui vient de s’endormir dans son lit.
• Le désespoir et les évanouissements a’ la Tex Avery de Sully quand il croit voir Boo découpée en morceau dans un broyeur
• La scène du restaurant japonais ‘Harryhausen’s’ ou l’apparition de Boo sème la terreur. Clin d’œil de Pete Docter au maitre de l’animation Ray Harryhausen, pionnier de l’image par image dans les années 50 (Jason et les argonautes) qui a engendré plein de vocation dans la génération des Burton et Lasseter. Autre clin d’œil dans the Corpse Bride, le jeune héros joue sur un piano de la marque Harryhausen.
• Le bonus post-générique. Pixar a inventé et filé la tradition du bêtisier pastiche pendant les crédits ; cette fois c’est encore plus drôle avec les clins d’œil aux autres personnages Pixar et surtout la comédie musicale d’entreprise, mise en scene par Mike, qui nous reraconte toute l’histoire en trente secondes, merveilleuse mise en abyme par le crooner de Mike.
• J’allais oublier le générique du début : merveilleuse idée de faire précéder un film en 3D par une séquence purement 2D, dans un style graphique en à-plat de couleurs simples rappelant un peu Les 101 Dalmatiens, sur le thème des portes. Avec une super musique de jazz. Un régal.

La musique justement. Comme tous les premiers films de Pixar, elle est signée Randy Newman, et elle est super. Pour le thème principal ‘I wouldn’t have nothing if I didn’t have you’, Newman a obtenu son premier Oscar de la meilleur chanson apres moultes nominations (le film était nominé aux Oscars 2002 mais c’est Shrek qui a gagné…).

Les courts métrages, autre magnifique tradition Pixar. ‘Monsters Inc’ est accompagné, comme tous les autres longs de Pixar par un petit bijou. Cette fois c’est ‘About the Birds’ avec une musique de jazz à la Reinhardt.

Le casting enfin, la cerise sur le gâteau : John Goodman, un régulier des frère Coen (Sully), Billy Crystal (Mike) et Steve Buscemi dans le rôle du méchant.

earthquake in London

My friend Elizabeth Le Gall was in London for work and was sleeping at my flat yesterday evening so she can testify that I told her at breakfast this morning:

'I think I felt like a small earthquake during the night but I am not sure I wasn't dreaming because it is impossible in London, isn't it? On the other hand dream was so realistic.... I remember distinctly having felt two quakes lasting a few seconds each and the noise of the window glass shaking. I remember thinking half asleep 'OK it's weird, it feels like a small earthquake (like the one I felt in Guadeloupe once) but anything bigger must be very scary ; how do they take it in Japan where bigger ones happen all the ...' then I went back to sleep right away. And when I woke up I thought 'nah it must have been a dream, or a big truck passing in the street, or Satan taking control of my bed'.

Elizabeth agreed, it must have been a dream; she had not felt anything in the other room.

Well it turns out it was not a dream after all. There WAS an earthquake in England at 1am last night. 5.2 on Richter scale. The biggest in 25 years. Nobody else in my office seemed to have felt it at first (to be entirely honest I finally found two other colleagues after asking everybody – 40 people! – which helped me believe it more than BBC News). So here we are: I guess I have ultra sensitive senses (ha! at last I know what my superpower is) OR my house's foundations are bad or the underground of Barnsbury is of a certain soft rock.

An earthquake in London! That sounds ridiculous! I thought I knew enough of geology: UK is far from the borders of the Eurasian plate, far from the touching points with the African plate that mark the only seismic areas of Europe (Turkey, Greece, Algeria, …). Well I was wrong. Everything can happen in the UK. Nobody was killed and the worst damage were a few chimneys and roofs that collapsed near the epicentre in Lincolnshire. An expert on TV said that one level on the Richter scale means 30 times more power, which means scale 8 quakes are about 2700 times more powerful than what we felt last night.

Living in London of course you are used to expect many kinds of disasters as highly likely one day or another:
- terrorist attacks from any kind of popular extremist groups
- financial crises
- wrongdoing from real estate agents
- signal failure on the circle line
- the City and Canary Wharf being flooded following global warning (central London is at sea level)
- and of course, worst of all, the idea of Arsene Wenger resigning as Arsenal manager one day.

…but the last thing we would expect is an earthquake in London.

Earthquake felt across much of UK

ballade à Hampstead

Ballade guidée avec Eric le surveillant général du Lycée français de South-Kensington, londonien ‘depuis 34 ans’ passionné d’anecdotes gothiques sur Londres, de cimetières, de fantômes, de Jack l’éventreur, de Dickens etc.

(29 mars 2007 – beau temps, terrain sec, vent frais)

Small hill between Hampstead tube station and Hampstead Heath park. Quartier historique et pittoresque. La liste des célébrités ayant vécu à Hampstead fait deux pages sur Wikipedia et la liste de people vivants est tout aussi longue. Je ne mentionne ci dessous que les gens qu’Eric nous a mentionné pendant la ballade sur la colline du vieux Hampstead. C’est un peu le Montmartre de Londres par le coté village bucolique et tranquille mais sans le Disneyland attrape-couillon de la place du Tertre et du Sacré Cœur qui polluent le haut de la butte.

Ici ce n’est pas les gigantesques baraques géorgiennes de Chelsea, trustées par les milliardaires russes – c’est plus modestement des petites maisons bicentenaires, hupchissimes, habitées par des artistes, des écrivains, des hommes politiques - et qui valent sans doute presque autant que les demeures de Chelsea. Souvent des maisons semi-détachées de style géorgien ou victorien. Parfois de petite maisons isolées de style cottage rural. Eric nous montre la plus vieille de toute, une ancienne fermette de 1734.

On part du métro Hampstead. Je ne note pas les noms de rues mais je saurais retrouver l’itinéraire si il y a des amateurs de refaire la ballade (une heure suffit). Maison de Bram Stoker. Maison de Lord Alfred Douglas, le jeune amant d’Oscar Wilde qui le trahit de façon ignoble après le procès de Wilde (voir le tragique De Profundis).

Saint John's Church Yard sur Church Row. Ancien cimetière, petit jardin romantique. Tombe de John Constable, qui peignit le ciel vu des collines d’Hampstead. Petit tombeau romantique qui inspira à Bram Stoker, un soir de brume, toute l’histoire de Dracula (scène de la dévampirisation de Lucy par Van Hessling). On aperçoit une petite maison au toit vert, ou naquit Elizabeth Taylor, avant que son père modeste acteur anglais, parte à Hollywood pour jouer dans Lassie.

De l’autre coté de la rue, nouveau cimetière, un peu plus récent. Tombeau de la famille Busson du Maurier. George du Maurier (1834-1896), d’origine normande et cornouaillaise, fut un très populaire dessinateur dans les journaux illustrés de la fin du XIXème (magazine ‘Punch’). A plus de cinquante ans, il écrivit son premier roman Trilby qui contre toute attente fut un phénoménal succès de librairie, au grand plaisir (quoique mitigé de jalousie) de son meilleur ami Henry James. Leur magnifique amitié est racontée de façon très émouvante dans Author, Author de David Lodge. Son fils Gerald du Maurier fut un grand acteur et le père de Daphné du Maurier. La fille de George, Sylvia, épousa Sir Llewllyn Davis qui mourut en laissant cinq garçons. Le dramaturge John Barry prit la mère et les enfants en affection et adopta les cinq garçons à la mort de leur mère ; c’est durant leurs jeux à Hyde Park qu’il eut l’idée de Peter Pan (raconté dans le mélo Neverland avec Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp). Quatre des cinq garçons sont aussi enterrés là. Famille tragique : un tué à la guerre, deux suicidés. Le cinquième vient de mourir dans l’anonymat, à 99 ans.

D’autres tombes d’acteurs et d’écrivains. Par exemple Kate Kendall, jeune première des années 50 disparue prématurément.

On remonte une rue longeant le cimetière où l’on croise une minuscule église catholique de style espagnol, avec sainte vierge en albâtre, fondée par des aristocrates français fuyant la révolution. De Gaulle qui habita en bas de la rue de 1940 à 1942 et venait prier ici.

Puis on arrive tout en haut de la colline sur une espece de place on longe l’énorme bâtisse qui fut un asile d’aliéné, puis un hospice, pour finir aujourd’hui en appartements de grand luxe. Grande maison-musée d’un dénommé Fenton, marchand importateur de produits russes. Maisons ou vécurent Laurence Olivier, George Orwell, Robert Louis Stevenson. Le minuscule théâtre de Hampstead ou se trouvait autrefois la morgue locale dont la visite (et la pratique des drogues dures) inspira à Stevenson Dr Jeckyll and Mister Hyde.

Deux chouettes faits divers sanglants : devant le pub Magdala, qui a tout d’un pub rural, Ruth Ellis propriétaire de night-club et mère célibataire de deux enfants tua son amant, playboy et pilote automobile 'people', en lui vidant un chargeur dans le corps avant de se laisser arrêter sur place. Elle fut condamnée à mort et la dernière femme pendue au UK, en 1955.

De l’autre coté de la rue, un français, évadé de Cayenne, tenait un pub maison de passe dans les années 20, avec son associée maquerelle, française elle aussi. Un jour il la tua, la découpa et la mis dans une malle a destination de Marseille. La malle fut interceptée et on trouva la carte de visite du français. Condamné à mort, on lui laissa le choix entre la pendaison et le retour à Cayenne ; il choisit la pendaison. La presse anglaise salua le panache gallique de ce choix.