Deadline | Tandem | Films

Samuel Lebon, writer-in-residence in the heart of a forest: where does creation lie?

About

Synopsis

Samuel Lebon, writer-in-residence in the heart of a forest: where does creation lie? Just what does he have in mind?"Deadline" depicts the ruminations of this wandering artist, illustrating vanity and the passage of time like a fantastical tale told in pictures.

The artist

Samuel Lebon is a writer and photographer. He is a long-standing writer for the rock press and the author of the photographic story "Satan mène le bal" (Satan leads the dance), 2020, Filigranes Editions. His novel is due out on August 23, 2023

Technical data

Director	Félix Lantieri
Cinematographer	Raul Fernandez et Thomas Cousin
Editor	Zohar Michel et Félix Lantieri
Duration	05:49

Chronicle

On the edge

“ My plan is to go mad. ”
Charles Bukowski

You’d have to be pretty damn cunning to figure out what Samuel Lebon's gig is by watching this film. But maybe it's better not to try to understand. Just to go with the flow or something. Or to let the sounds and the images grab you. Give in to the sound of a rhythm, a pulse, in the distance. Something like the ringing tone of a call that no one’s going to answer. Anyway, someone’s gone off into the woods. Wandered off, got lost, topped himself, you wouldn’t know. In any case, he just can’t seem to write. The guy in question, of course, is the artist: he's not in great shape. Something’s not quite right, because as soon as he opens his mouth, his teeth are full of ellipses. There he is, at the foot of a tree, stammering out unfinished sentences, all full of holes. The words leak out and fall into the leaves at his feet. No time to plug them up or put them back in his mouth before something starts buzzing all over the place. Maybe it's the dots flying? Who knows. The whole thing feels like a mobile phone vibrating very loudly somewhere inside your head. To the point where it's deafening. Worse than a stag bellowing its love on a spring night. But this isn’t in a field, it's in your ear. You've got to get the horned beast out, and fast. But you haven't got time; the ringing tone again, the empty back of a Merc, back to the wild. Samuel makes off, and in the end he’s wearing nothing but a pair of briefs and socks made from animal skin. All around, a crackle of threatening electric waves. Flies, a whole swarm of them, buzzing around Samuel's head. You’d think it was full of shit. You're freaking out, it’s starting to get weird. Samuel is Beelzebub in skin briefs. Stiff, arms open, he's jabbering from a podium. You can’t understand a single word. He picks up the pen again. Surely not a story with a happy ending. Samuel’s totally lost it, that’s for sure. But that was a long time ago, he's calm now, serene. As for his demons, he exorcises them in his own way. Either by hammering away at his keyboard until his fingers drop off, or by capturing scraps of stray life with his lens. Two pagan rituals and yet, although he unites them in his work, he’ll never celebrate their wedding. He cultivates the abyss. His temptation: the void. Between fiction and reality, text and photo, writing or making love, above all: not to choose. Ever. Otherwise you'll sink or you’ll flounder. Too slippery, too deep. The currents are violent. You’ve got to stay afloat, right? Anyway, when you can touch the bottom, you can’t. On one hand you're suffocating, on the other you're drowning. Or if it's the other way round, well, you're no further ahead. In any case, that's not the idea, no. And besides, it's not as if we needed one – an idea, that is. So, yes; the photo, the fiction... Well, you have to be unfaithful to one and disloyal to the other, that's all. It's more about attitude than anything else, isn't it? Don't get too attached. Become a real bastard, and make him bogus. Slip a stone in the place of your heart, even if it means sinking. Above all, don't go all emotionally soft. Stay hard. There, firmly planted on your own two feet. Stay out of the way, but not that much. Just on the edge. And then when you have to go...

Thomas Bernard

Thomas Bernard was born in Libourne in 1980. Art columnist for Fluide Glacial, he is also exhibition curator for La Véranda and artistic co-director for Ferraille Productions of the Formula Bula festival, comics and more.