"noi alle sue spalle, senza rumore..." (G.B.)
ROLLE - Lago di Ginevra, 16 dicembre 2006
noi sulla soglia, sotto la pioggia battente
(non possiamo che stare sulla soglia, loro sono i nostri anges exterminateurs...)
morning. passing through geneva, the blood-bank city, we drive to rolle. bluish grey fog-wipe over the lake that spares a few retelling details, a clutch of trees, an abandoned jetty. rolle is petit, anonymous in its dormitorial urbanization yet with the stubborn residue of a villageoise conviviality. all we have is an address googled before leaving, but this is no labyrinth, we are sure sooner or later like dogs to stumble on the place.
the peripheria studio window is cataracted over in the desultory grey of bankruptcy - grandeur et decadence d'un petit commerce du cinéma - JLG's post-cinema squatting its own ruins, living on cutting-room scraps. There is no bell. Entry is by forced entry only.
we perambulate, circulate, hover around the empty centre of our quest, already knowing that an encounter is not in the offing. Sightings are exclusively past or future tense, JLG the fleeting cipher of obscure quotidian rhythms, known only to purveyors of beer, newspapers, cigars, mythic and mundane, the godardian knot we cannot get our spectacle-addled heads around. Some know him only as 'the guy who lives down the street...I didn't know he makes films.' Others, like the kid who serves us in the sherlock holmes pub tease us with the unlikely prospect of a JLG reality-tv show:
'Monsieur Godard... oui, j'ai vu quelq'un de ses films. C'est un homme comme un autre.'
The tobacconist is more forthcoming and draws a map for us: c'est la troisieme maison à droit, you can't miss it.
Une maison come une autre
The home of modern cinema. A modest suburban bungalow. The image of JLG in a witness protection programme of his own making. But who is it that doesn't want him to testify?
Like love-struck adolescents we pace back and forth in the rain, unable to decide whether or not to ring the bell, and not having thought what to say in the broken French at our command which the state of our nerves is shaking to nonsensical word-dust, but spurred on by the irresistible promise of encounters. It's obvious from the cosy amber of the living-room light that somebody's home. Eventually we decide.
'Nous ne voulions pas vous déranger, '
'Il n'est pas là...'
It's Miéville, wary yet somehow amused too, observing us from under gothically arched eyebrows. Obvious why Marker included her in his cat-alogue of feline women. She makes us feel as squeakily small and absurd as half-drowned mice presenting themselves for sacrifice on her doormat. Or like beggars of the spirit, caught in the historical embarrassment of a generation without vision, a situation eloquently summed up by Giulio Bursi a propos of Straub & Huillet. "La distanza c'é comunque. Loro erano dei rivoluzionari. Noi non lo siamo."
In the event there's nothing much to say, just a few stammered words of appreciation, guarded glances, awkward pauses. Obviously she doesn't let us in for tea and biscuits. Yet we remain on the doorstep, the threshold, la soglia, where it seems we will always be...
di soglia in soglia[...] nella notte della parola i mastini
adesso latrano
dentro di te:
a celebrare la più selvaggia sete,
la più selvaggia fame...
accorre in tuo aiuto un'ultima luna:
essa getta in mezzo alla muta
- nudo come il cammino da te percorso -
un lungo argenteo osso,
questo però non ti salva:
il raggio che tu hai destato
s'avvicina schiumando,
e su di esso galleggia un frutto in cui tu
affondasti i denti anni addietro.
[...] Die Doggen der Wortnach, die Doggenschlagen nun anmitten in dir:sie feiern den wilderen Durst,den wilderen Hunger...Ein letzer Mond springt dir bei:einen langen silbernen Knochen- nackt wie der Weg, den du kamst -wirft er unter die Meute,doch rettets dich nicht:der Strahl, den du wecktest,schaumt naher heran,und obenauf schwimmt eine Frucht,in die du vor Jahren gebissen.Paul Celan - "Abend der Worte"
C'était presque rien, but it's these almost nothings that plant their seeds and bloom in the mind, somewhat blurry, beyond detailed recollection or analysis of what they could have meant but there and necessarily so. On the drive back to Chautagne, we hardly say a word. Sauve quelle peu de vie.
PERDUTI
NELLA STRADA
e qualche giorno prima, a Torino...
Sauve qui peut (la vie)
