The read
It runs a compact 11m.
Synopsis
A tribute to Mallarmé that not only asserts the continuing relevance of his work but also confronts its literary ambiguities with political and cinematic ambiguities of its own. In outline, the film could not be more straightforward: it offers a recitation of one of Mallarmé’s most celebrated and complex poems (it was his last published work in his own lifetime, appearing in 1897, a year before his death) and proposes a cinematic equivalent for the author’s original experiment with typography and layout by assigning the words to nine different speakers, separating each speaker from the other as she or he speaks, and using slight pauses to correspond with white spaces on the original page.
Ratings
IMDb6.5/10
10 audience votes
Key crew
- Jean-Marie StraubDirector
- Danièle HuilletDirector
- Danièle HuilletScreenplay
- Jean-Marie StraubScreenplay
Cast
- Helmut Färber(Re)citer
- Michel Delahaye(Re)citer
- Georges Goldfayn(Re)citer
- Danièle Huillet(Re)citer
- Manfred Blank(Re)citer
- Marilù Parolini(Re)citer
- Aksar Khaled(Re)citer
- Andrea Spingler(Re)citer
- Dominique Villain(Re)citer
Stills
Themes
woman directorshort film