DVDLiterary interludesMovies

Perec on film

By November 4, 2008No Comments

Perec.cat

One of my all-time favor­ite writers, Georges Perec, co-created a stun­ning film ver­sion of his nov­el Un Homme Qui Dort back in 1974. It’s the sub­ject of today’s Tuesday Morning Foreign Region DVD Report, over at The Auteur’s Notebook. 

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No Comments

  • bill says:
    November 4, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    I have yet to read Perec, but I have “A Void” and “Life: A User’s Manual” on my shelf. Is one of those a bet­ter place to start than the other?

  • Glenn Kenny says:
    November 4, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    I’d start with “Life,” which was my first, and hooked me but good. Among a great many oth­er things, it’s just spec­tac­u­larly enter­tain­ing. The tough thing about “A Void” is that, giv­en its form­al restric­tion (no “e“s), Gilbert Adair had to pretty much rewrite it, as opposed to merely trans­late. It’s still awe­some. I also highly recom­mend “W, or The Memory of Childhood,” which is stag­ger­ingly ingeni­ous and utterly heartbreaking.

  • Ryland Walker Knight says:
    November 4, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    I think _Species of Spaces_ is the fuck­ing real­ness. “The Street”… YES! Gotta see this film at some point.

  • bill says:
    November 4, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    Glenn – Yeah, I’d wondered about “A Void”: it must be an ingeni­ous piece of trans­la­tion, but, truth­fully, what can be left of Perec’s writ­ing by the end?
    I’d been put off by “Life“ ‘s length, but I’m in a pretty good rhythm at the moment, as far as read­ing goes, so I may have to give it a try before I hit the inev­it­able wall.
    Oh, and I’m about halfway through “Revolutionary Road”. Really impressed so far.

  • jake says:
    March 10, 2010 at 7:23 pm

    It’s really funny how much Perec looks like Frodo Baggins.