A bearded realistic singer, a nude theater fighter wearing a python, an extraterrestrial man with twisted gestures, a false comic … The main actress of La Bataille de Solferino , who likes to put her audience to the test, has a reckless career as a performer. Expansive and passionate, she told us her crazy adventures
Before interviewing Laetitia Dosch, we hang out a bit on the Internet to gather some biographical elements. We could see her at the filmmaker Shanti Masud, or in the series So be they on ARTE, she played Shakespeare with Erik Ruf and danced with the Spanish performer La Ribot. On the sites of several dramatic centers, there is also talk of a show entitled Laetitia makes fart, led by a ” talent mimic “, a ” real woman orchestra with irresistible humor “, which ” could be as small as – daughter of Hara-Kiri as Jim Carrey’s niece . The presentation text is full of superlatives: ” nonsensical madness “, ” tonic “, ” ” droll “, ” smashing humor “, ” surrealist
” … It’s almost indigestible as the entire lexical field of humor passes. And it’s a bit suspicious, too [ . . . ]
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was one of France’s greatest novelists – but plans to republish his anti-Semitic writing has dramatically divided Paris.
n a cold but sunny afternoon in late January I paid a visit to the Passage de Choiseul in the commercial heart of Paris. The passage is a covered arcade, one of many such places that were built across the Right Bank of Paris in the early part of the 19th century, and which were effectively the world’s first shopping malls. The Passage de Choiseul is also one of the most important and totemic sites in French literary history. It was the childhood home of the novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline, arguably the greatest French writer of the 20th century, who still regularly outranks Marcel Proust in readers’ surveys and sales. Most significantly for his admirers, the passage was immortalised by Céline in his two magnificent novels, Journey to the End of the Night andDeath on the Instalment Plan, published in the 1930s. In Céline’s day the place was poor and decrepit and “stank of dogs’ piss”. Nowadays it is expensive and chic. But there is no trace of its most famous literary inhabitant – an extremely unusual fact in France, a country that prides itself on its literature, and where even the meanest provincial town has at least one Avenue Victor Hugo or Lycée Baudelaire.
I bought some pens and a notebook in the upmarket stationery shop just opposite the entrance to number 67, where I knew Céline had lived, and asked the lady behind the counter why there was no trace of the great man. She said that she was often asked this question by Céline’s admirers, who came from all over the world to this place, and that she did not know why there was no commemorative plaque or any other sign that Céline had lived here. She then hesitated, looked around to check that we were alone, and said quietly: “There are many Jews here who control business. They don’t want anyone to remember him.” [ . . . ] More at: The literature debate tearing apart Paris: should Céline’s racist pamphlets be published?
The man, the myth, the legend, and his persistent influence on screen.
Since The Silent World nabbed the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1956, the name Jacques Cousteau has been synonymous with marine exploration. And while it’s easy to get lost in his prolific resume (which includes a stint as a spy with the French Resistance and co-inventing the aqualung), Cousteau’s legacy is undeniably one of influence; of sharing something he loved with the public and subsequently helping them fall in love with it, too. His work, on-screen and off, inspired a generation to take up scuba diving, to marvel at the alien beauty of undersea landscapes, and to become alert to the man-made problems that threatened their existence.
Cousteau was, bluntly put, pretty much singlehandedly responsible for popularizing modern marine conservation as we know it today. Which, last time we checked, makes him a huge fucking badass.
Of all Cousteau’s documentaries, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteauwas perhaps his most influential. The docu-series premiered in 1968 and brought the exploits of the Calypsoand her heroic (and stylish) crew into the living rooms of thousands of eager viewers, a feat unmet by earlier nonfiction oceanographic efforts like Thirty Leagues Under the Sea (1914) andThe Sea Around Us (1953).
The series ran for seven years and featured pioneering underwater cinematography, a gripping sense of adventurism and (if you were watching stateside) the dulcet tones of Rod Serling. Given Serling’s then-fresh work on The Twilight Zone, I can’t imagine of a better narrator to shepherd starry-eyed viewers through this strange new world that had been lurking, just out of sight, right under their noses.
Cousteau’s influence is such that it is damn near impossible to depict oceanography in fiction without making a passing reference to the man. And of course, this is to say nothing of Cousteau’s role in countless technical innovations in underwater cinematography. All to say: cinema is greatly indebted to Cousteau, in large part because the aquatic activity he emboldened in his documentaries resonated (and continues to resonate) with untold numbers of filmmakers and audiences alike.
So, in honor of the 50th anniversary of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, let’s dive into the cinematic legacy (and influences) of cinema’s favorite aquanaut [ . . . ]
Speak Up is a stylish, moving, funny, and well-paced documentary, released in France as À voix haute, la force de la parole.
Speak Up is a stylish, moving, funny, and well-paced documentary. But most importantly, makes you smile. Released in France as À voix haute, la force de la parole, we caught its UK premiere this Wednesday.
I was sceptical that a film about university students learning to speak would be able to hold my attention for 90 minutes, let alone entertain me. I was wrong – it’s the best documentary I’ve seen so far at Raindance. Set in the University of Saint Denis, just outside Paris, it follows a class of young people as they embark on a thirty-day challenge to prepare for a public speaking competition.
A documentary like Speak Up lives or dies by its editing, and this one’s is superb. There is no narrator; the story is told through footage of lessons, interviews with students, and culminates in the competition itself. Because the class is small (around 20) and the editing is razor-sharp, we quickly get acquainted with its vibrant characters – students and teachers alike. They are almost all witty and likeable, all the more so as the film develops and their eloquence increases.
The individuals in the class have many different cultures, life experiences, pet subjects and senses of humour, and this shines through in their public speaking. Not only does the film exhibit the power well-thought-out speech can wield, it shows anybody can learn to do it, and do it well.
We meet Elhadj, a young man who as a teenager escaped a fire in his house by jumping from a sixth floor window, becoming homeless for a number of years. He speaks poignantly about how language is one of the most powerful weapons anyone can have. If he had the right words at the right time, he says, his life could have turned out very differently.
I was so surprised that a film like this could evoke so much joy in me. I was smiling almost constantly – from the hilarious footage of lessons that brought back memories of classroom banter, to the heartwarming stories of the students and their ineffable willingness to persevere with the mostly barmy lessons their eccentric teachers threw at them.
This review is going to be shorter than most of my other Raindance dispatches, purely because you should just go and watch this film. It’ll hook you in from the beginning, and spit you out the other end. My one qualm was that it’s in French, so reading subtitles and facial expressions simultaneously was sometimes difficult. But I guess there’s not much they could have done about that.
Speak Up is a stylish, moving, funny, and well-paced documentary, released in France as À voix haute, la force de la parole.
Pas De Merde 