The interest of Desplechin’s hybrid project lies more in its aspect of cinephile autofiction than in its aspect of documentary on cinema. In twelve chapters, Spectators! alternates interviews with film buffs and filmmakers, theoretical popularization and memories of youth (again!) through the recurring character of Paul Dédalus, here played by four different actors. If these two facets sometimes mix, as when Paul and his university friends discuss Cavell and Bazin with the philosopher Sandra Laugier in a café, they are most of the time impervious. Desplechin is obviously not a documentarian, as evidenced by the accumulation of more or less happy forms within the film, as if he was looking for a way to carry out his “investigation” (from animated infographics to interviews on white background, up to the presence of the filmmaker in the frame during a discussion in New York with Kent Jones). If these different tracks reflect a sort of indecision, the film nevertheless benefits from not only being a fiction: its two-headed character induces a tightening which pushes Desplechin to concentrate on the essence of his subject, getting rid of any other trajectory narrative. For example, he enjoys depicting a frustrating first session, unlike that of Sammy at the start of The Fabelmansin which young Paul will see Ghosts with her grandmother and her sister. It’s a real missed opportunity: from the start the child wants to go pee, then when he comes back from the toilet and finally begins to take an interest in the misfortunes of Jean Marais on the screen, he finds himself having to leave the room because his sister is too scared. The film may fetishize the theater on several occasions (in particular by filming the Max Linder, the Grand Action, the Christine Cinéma Club, or even the Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes), Desplechin assumes the impure part of his passion.
One of the most beautiful scenes shows Paul in front of Doctor Edwardes House on television, while the rest of his family bustles around him. These very poor viewing conditions (we constantly call him names and disturb him), do not hinder the fascination that is visible on his face, until the flashback of Hitchcock’s film on the impaled child, which shocks all the people present in the room. The plural of the title is misleading, because it is ultimately less of a film about cinema spectators (in this regard, we prefer the trilogy of Moviegoers by Louis Skorecki), than that of a particular spectator. In the last chapter, when the version of Paul Dédalus played by Salif Cissé speaks to a friend about his rediscovery of Four Hundred Blows by precisely describing the opening credits, we clearly feel, in the folds of the editing, the intact emotion of the most Truffaldian of contemporary filmmakers.
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