I shall sing these songs beautifully

The list of filmmakers who have ventured punctually, but in an applied, in the fixed image is not so long. David Lynch was of the jack-of-all-trades, photos of disused factories, voluptuous female naked, snowman in series or images manipulation. Wim Wenders treated the landscapes, Australians and Americans, told visual stories during his many trips and not badly practiced the Polaroid. Abbas Kiarostami, who started as a painter and graphic designer, exhibited his contemplative and poetic images in London, New York and at the Center Pompidou in Paris. Stanley Kubrick, meanwhile, exercised the profession of photographer from 17 years before embarking on cinema.

Specializing in the absurd treatment of human relations, and of a vision of the unwilling world, Yorgos Lanthimos quickly distinguished himself from his colleagues by his oddity and his freedom of tone. Director of Greek origin, he had already published some filming photographs in the work containing the script of The Lobster, His 2015 film (A24 collection at Mack). In Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken (Void editions) He turned away from the shooting of Poor creatures (2023) to show off the fields, behind the scenes, and tried to give a life specific to his photographs. Investing in medium and large-format photo equipment, and developing the dandruff, it will even involve in the Emma Stone process, its favorite and now co-producer of her films.

Here, for I shall sing these songs beautifully – The book draws its title from Sappho’s poetry, Greek poet of antiquity – its photographic language can evoke certain big names like Henry Wessel, for exteriors and the environment of residential districts; Eggleston also, for precise and tight framing, and the moments arrested. But the whole retains a strangeness made of interrupted tensions and movements. Made at the very place of its last shooting King of kindness (2024) In New Orleans, his obsessions always seem present but try to tell us a different story. Mostly in black and white, the work is interspersed with color images. Some short sentences are strewn along the pages, evoking a script being written, as whispered by an imaginary voice. Here and there we find her actresses and actors, some recognizable, Emma Stone therefore, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe from Back. The characters – this is the case to say it – all look like, as frozen, with their lost looks in the void, solitary inhabitants of disturbing places and climates. The cover of the book, which frames a black and white photo, is adorned with two different shades depending on how you orient it before your eyes, purple or gray-green; A first invitation for the reader to look twice.

Jean-Jacques Ader

« I shall sing these songs beautifully » de Yorgos Lanthimos aux éditions Mack (G.B.)
https://mackbooks.eu/
https://www.lanthimos.com/photography/