I, OF WHOM I KNOW NOTHING

John Calder, Samuel Beckett’s British publisher, moved to Montreuil, a town to the east of Paris, when he withdrew from business. Settled in the offices and basement of a building built after the war, Calder seems to be living in a state of destitution, except for some shelters filled with books. This is where young Mexican director Pablo Sigg filmed him, as well as in London, where Calder met with Billie Whitelaw, the muse, so to speak, of Beckett’s stage work, who is now relegated to a nursing home for actors. But no big revelation is to be expected, Sigg isn’t carrying out an investigation. He merely observes places and bodies, in a present-day which seems to be drawing the blurred outlines of internal limbo. Clearly, Sigg gives a portrait of these protagonists as if they were stepping right off the pages of the Irish writer: a great strength hidden in a weariness bordering on drowsiness, a resolve never to assert anything, an involuntary humour, and plenty of room left for the passing of time. No secret is to be disclosed about literature here, except maybe an enigmatic kinship with the hazy image of a vinyl record playing Schubert’s Winterreise, one of Beckett’s favourites. (JPR)