QUENEAU Raymond and the OU.CI.PO. DOSSIER,... - Lot 175 - Drouot Estimations

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  3. QUENEAU Raymond and the OU.CI.PO. DOSSIER,... - Lot 175 - Drouot Estimations
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Lot n° 175
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QUENEAU Raymond and the OU.CI.PO. DOSSIER,... - Lot 175 - Drouot Estimations
QUENEAU Raymond and the OU.CI.PO. DOSSIER, La Machine à tuer le temps, [1974]. Collective script of the Oucipo, cinematographic style exercises, accompanied by the original photos of the original story. The OU.CI.PO is a branch of the Oulipo (ouvroir de littérature potentielle), created in 1974. As its name indicates, the aim was to apply to the cinematographic field the formal research that the Oulipo used for literary creation. The file includes : * A spiral-bound notebook (32.5 x 23.5 cm) with 42 numbered pages, each with an original black and white photo (11 x 18 cm) corresponding to each shot of the film, accompanied by its typewritten caption. * Synopsis (13 p. typed with a handwritten annotation). * Plan of the film (7 p. typed). * Preamble and 3 variations (8 p. typed). The notebook has a handwritten title in black felt pen written on 2 labels: "La Machine à tuer le temps. Placed under the high patronage of the OU. CI. PO * (* OUvroir de CInématographie POtentielle). This scenario is one of his rare productions. The work is based on a principle similar to that of the Exercises in Style: to take a trivial subject and treat it in several ways, each time adopting a different cinematographic genre or trickery procedures (accelerated, slowed down, repetition of shots, deletion of images, etc.). The Synopsis is entitled Exerstyle de cices followed by the mention "(to be discussed?"). The 42 original photos in the spiral-bound notebook present the plot of the film: a Parisian crossroads, passers-by, a traffic policeman regulating traffic, a young man asks her for information and then calls a friend, the two of them fool around, she gives him a kiss on the cheek that leaves a trace of lipstick. They watch a beatnik singing, one of the spectators slips on a banana skin. At the end the two young people walk away embracing, and the last image shows the boy blowing a kiss to his companion. The file that accompanies these images explains the work proposed to the members of Oucipo: "Using only the images duly listed and inventoried in Appendix I, execute X... cinematographic variations that can only be obtained by modifying time: that is to say: chronology, duration - inversion - acceleration - deceleration - synchronism - etc... etc... (it being understood, however, that the soundtrack may undergo any modification that seems desirable: speech - noise - music). Several possible examples follow: the disruption of the story by reversing the shots, the modification of their duration by editing, etc. We also have three synopses of variations. One for an "Abel Gance" version, with the "sprawling city", the "cop put on a cross at the crossroads", "the crushed individual crushed under the machines, trampled by the crowd". The second is an "ancient" variation, with the crowd prostrate before the police officer-dictator and the beatnik turned lyric poet. The third is a "dreamlike" version, where thanks to sound effects the whole action resembles a dream. It seems that Raymond Queneau, who framed the passage and wrote the letter "A" next to it, was tempted by the "telegram" or "classified ad" version. Attached is the typescript of a draft screenplay, L'Histoire du cinéma à peu près comme elle a été (August 1951; 2 p. in-4, 2 copies).
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