Lot n° 38
Estimation :
12000 - 15000
EUR
GANCE Abel (1889-1981).
About 300 L.A.S., 1954-1979, to Nelly KAPLAN; about 400 pages in various formats, mostly in-4, in red or blue ballpoint pen, more rarely in pencil.
Important love and artistic correspondence from the filmmaker to Nelly Kaplan, who was his mistress and collaborator.
Passionate and loving correspondence, even erotic, often devoured by jealousy, it is also evocative of the filmmaker's work with the one who was his Muse in his last years. It was in 1954, during a reception in homage to Georges Méliès that Henri Langlois, director of the Cinémathèque, introduced Nelly Kaplan to Abel Gance; the beauty of the young woman dazzled the old filmmaker, whose assistant she would become; at his side, she became passionate about Polyvision. She assisted him in the shooting of The Tower of Nesle (1954, where she played a small role under the pseudonym of Nelly Dominique). She also assists him in the project of Magirama (1956) and in the script and shooting of Austerlitz (1960).
On December 19, 1956, at Studio 28, Magirama concretizes the research of the brilliant filmmaker on Polyvision (of which Nelly Kaplan will write the Manifesto). Composed with Nelly Kaplan, the device includes four short films: Auprès de ma blonde, Châteaux de nuages, Fête foraine, and the cartoon Begone Dull Care by Norman MacLaren, as well as a one-hour version of the 1937 film J'accuse! in polyvision. Conceived to "save the dying cinema", Magirama left the screen after eight weeks. In 1959-1960, Nelly Kaplan publishes under the pseudonym of Belen erotic short stories in the form of booklets in limited edition: The Geometry in the spasms, Deliver us from the male, The Reservoir of the senses ... Her first short film was dedicated to the painter Gustave Moreau (1961); later, in 1969, she directed La Fiancée du pirate. We can only give here a brief overview of this abundant correspondence (accompanied by small papers from NK dating or summarizing the letters), addressed to "My flaming Phoenix", "My southern star", "My Swan", "My Arethusa Fountain", "Black Diamond", "Black Swan", "My dear Source", "Amanelly", "My starry magician", "My dear little mermaid", "My dear little feminine Hamlet", etc. Pages covered with "I love you", including a repartee in "Polyvision" where all the elements of the female coat of arms are mixed (August 15, 1955).
There is also an old note on the "Essays-inventions Ab. Gance to be made in 1928": "Project with triptych: a band with blue screen", one with red screen, one with yellow screen" superimposed. One must have thus the COLOR and the RELIEF "... As well as a list of patents (from 1926 to 1954): Pictographe, Protérama, sound perspective, etc.; excerpts copied by Gance from his book Prisme; poems: "Princess with bee-colored eyes"... (March 23, 1957); some drawings on restaurant tablecloths....
1954. August. Jealousy after a dinner of NK with Michel Boisrond (assistant in La Tour de Nesle): "Work. Take care of your health. Go to bed early. Breathe. [...] Don't let your senses get the better of you"... September 9 (after a terrible scene with Mme Gance who wants NK expelled from France), he reassures her: "Courage. Perseverance. Elevation. Optimism. I am sick with a nervous breakdown and yet I react. September: judgment of NK's character: "passivity and indolence, due to her Argentinian origins"; recriminations; he quotes Nietzsche; he will not make any connections with NK on La Tour de Nesle... In October, NK, considering herself betrayed, flees alone to Juan-les-Pins, Gance worries (October 9): "Do you work at the Cinema de l'Avenir? You seem very silent about the new direction of your ideas. Does the arrow of enthusiasm boomerang? In truth, I don't recognize you very well since the salt washes you from our nights. Did you get off the train? Are you leaving me alone to lay the tracks because there was a collision? Where is your face? Where is your real strength? My naivety questions you my lovely Swan. Each silence of roof is an admission of distance ". He comments on the Lyrosophie of Jean EPSTEIN, then returns to his jealousies... October 18: "The fire was going out when the Swan for the second time entered my life. Your breath of big solitary bird took pleasure to blow on the hot ash that the wind was about to disperse, and the flame reignited more brilliant than it was ever. The embraces of a better world in the embraces of tomorrow: it is to you that I will owe it". Elsewhere, in the midst of erotic obsessions, he cries out: "Help me to find myself". He is dazzled by the physical beauty of NK, but her psyche escapes him; and that destabilizes him... November 15: " Why are you not freer and more indecent with me? [...] I feel that you do not trust what I told you once and for all, that far from
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue