#nathalie leger

[verifiedaccount]

Once upon a time the man I loved reproached me for my apparent passivity with other men. We were in the kitchen having breakfast: he told me that he was afraid of that habit particular to women in general and me in particular, in his opinion, of being either unable or unwilling to resist uninvited male desire, of the madness of giving in to whatever they asked of us. He couldn't understand how hard it is to say no, to be confronted with the desire of another and to reject it–how hard it is and possibly how pointless. How could he not understand the sometimes overwhelming necessity of yielding to the other's desire to give yourself a better chance of escaping it? Sylvia Plath writes in her journal: "For instance, I could hold my nose, close my eyes, and jump blindly into the waters of some man's insides, submerging myself until his purpose becomes my purpose, his life, my life, and so on. One fine day I would float to the surface, quite drowned and supremely happy with my newfound selfless self."

Suite for Barbara Loden (tr. Natasha Lehrer & Cécile Menon)

Nathalie Léger

[alanreedwrite]

"hélas, s’exclame Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, que n’avons-nous pu phonographier les bruits du passé, combien de sons mystérieux ont été perçus par nos prédécesseurs qui, faute d’un appareil convenable pour les retenir, sont tombés à jamais dans le néant ?"

– Nathalie Léger, L'Exposition

[spaghetti-criminal]

"Even the most deserted wasteland, the most miserable place, can outwit fright in a last stand; it needs no more than a pebble to sustain dusk's insubstantial loveliness, and sadness; ignorance and deception are momentarily appeased in a last trick of the light."

– Nathalie Léger, Suite for Barbara Loden

[devine-fem]

can weapons fall in love? / Unknown / The White Dress, Nathalie Leger / Unknown / Letters to Milena - Franz Kafka / The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller / Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire / Carol Ann Duffy, "Medusa" / Yves Olade, Bloodsport / Unknown Tumblr Post / Unknown / Caitlin Siehl, "Cut" / Unknown / Unknown / Margarita Karapanou, Rien ne va Plus (trans. Karen Emmerich) / the unabridged journals of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath / Garden (say it like dat), SZA

[fearbehere]

learning to be my mother

What We Become, Hailey Noecker / Mirror Traps, Hera Lindsey Bird / unknown / On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong / legitimately fucking dean winchester from supernatural / Elektra, Sophokles / When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, Chen Chen / The White Dress, Nathalie Leger / Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn

[hauntedbythenarrative]

All my mother wanted at the end of her life was to understand. Had she been the victim of an injustice, or was it she who was responsible for her unhappiness? I am quite familiar with her unhappiness, I could even claim to be mine too.

The White Dress, Nathalie Leger//House of the Dragon (2022-)

[azulispector]

mom, would you wash my back?

carrie - 1976 // Gloria Anzaldua // Nathalie Leger // The Mother, Sir Frank Dicksee // ? // I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy // class of 2013, mitski // mary ruefle

[connorinabeanie]

Identifying Nathalie and Marla

So, a week or two ago I was out here, minding my own business, thinking about DBH concept art and the new info about Nathalie, and there was something bothering me: I knew this woman. I’d seen her face before, and not just the concept art, but her actual face.

It took me a day or two to finally place her, but:

Alona Tal. She’s Alona Tal, and I was sure of it; she’s so distinctive, and I was very familiar with her face from watching Supernatural (who knew being a Supernatural fan would actually be good for something…) She was in her mid twenties during the time DBH was in production, and popular enough then to be potentially known by concept artists.

I told @jamdbh​ my suspicions, and they quickly located what is likely the source reference:

Although she’s looking a different direction, the image is otherwise identical if overlaid onto Nathalie, down to the strands of hair.

So, realizing it was Alona, we started looking at other concept art pieces. Another one of Nathalie was recognizably Alona: 

And finding the matching reference was easy enough (again, the face lines up and is enough on its own, but her hair strand pattern is also exactly the same): 

So that’s cool. But then I was looking at concept art of Marla, and realized it wasn’t just Nathalie; Marla, at least in one piece of art, is also Alona. 

So now we have two different characters whose art is referenced from the same actress, but I’m not completely sure that all of Marla’s concept art is referenced from Alona. 

There are a few other concept pieces of Marla that I’m suspicious are of Alona, but they only look like her in some ways and not in others, and I haven’t found reference pics yet so the jury’s still out:

Another image doesn’t look like Alona to me at all, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t: 

So at least one and potentially more pieces of art for Marla are Alona. But, interestingly enough, Alona is certainly not the model for the blonde android from the Eden Club art: 

I’m not sure who this is, if anyone specific (I suspect Amanda Seyfried due to the eyes and face shape but I’m on the fence about if it is or isn’t, and I haven’t been able to find a matching reference despite searching), but it’s definitely not Alona.

So, to summarize:

Nathalie’s concept art is based on Alona Tal, at least for the two images shown here. I need to go back and look at other art for her and see if I can identify her as Alona in them as well.

At least one of Marla’s concept art pieces is also Alona. Potentially others are as well.

The Eden Club traci is not Alona. None of the pictures I’ve seen for Eden Club (the one of the entrance, the one of Traci sitting on the bed, and the one of the dead Traci on the floor) look like Alona and in fact I’m not convinced they’re all the same person in general.

So yeah! Make of that what you will. Although my original suspicion was that Mikael Leger had simply used an actress he thought was pretty for Nathalie’s art, the fact that Alona is also the reference for at least one art of Marla means it’s possible she was cast and then her role shuffled as the changes were made to the story. But whatever happened, clearly we ended up with Minka for North, who did an amazing job, though I can’t help but think of how great Alona might’ve been too.

[whyibite]

How long do we mourn our mothers? Unfinished business. Unspoken sentences that burn on in the night. Tangled thickets of stymied love. — Tay and her mother.

pinterest / susan sontag / supernatural, s12e22 / days where my whole world is my bed, fatima aamer bilal / the witch (2015), dir. robert eggers / mothers, daughters, and inheriting self-hatred, ella wilson / fast car, tracy chapman / @/boringangel / bite the hand, boygenius / la prieta, gloria e. anzaldua / columbus (2017), dir. kogonada / pinterest / with or without you, u2 / pinterest / kyoto, phoebe bridgers / the white dress, nathalie leger / on earth we're briefly gorgeous, ocean vuong / unknown / in the blood, john mayer.

[sevlawless]

arabella + rebecca being mirrors of each other

honeytuesday, tumblr / author unknown / erika l. sanchez, lessons on expulsion / agustin gómez-arcos, the carnivorous lamb /nathalie leger, the white dress / mishka jenkins, the wayhaven chronicles / joan tierney, the elektra complex / gillian flynn, sharp objects / sophokles, elektra / mishka jenkins, the wayhaven chronicles

[encoredireencore]

UNE SEMAINE POUR SAMUEL BECKETT

Création de l’atelier metope             8 au 12 novembre 2023

SALLE EIFFEL   RUE DE LA TOUR NEUVE  45000 ORLEANS

3 SPECTACLES

Ces 3 créations sont rassemblées sous le titre générique E N C O R E 

-  PAS MOI

avec MARTINE HEQUET

- BERCEUSE

avec CATHERINE GAUTIER

- LE DEPEUPLEUR

Avec DENIS MERCIER et CLOVIS ROTA

MERCREDI 8, VENDREDI 10, SAMEDI 11 novembre   20H30

JEUDI 9 novembre 20H30

(en réserve une possible représentation supplémentaire le dimanche 12 novembre à 17H00)

2 RENCONTRES

« Toute la vie on attend que çà vous fasse une vie »

SAMEDI 11 novembre 11H30 -13H30

S. Beckett, l’écrivain :             D’un ouvrage abandonné        récit lu par JEAN CHRISTOPHE COCHARD

S. Beckett, le résistant :         Saint Lô, capitale des ruines    texte lu par ERIC CENAT

S. Beckett, le traducteur :      4 poèmes de Paul Eluard    lecture JONATHAN WAITE en langue anglaise sous-titrée titrée                                         

S. Beckett, le critique d’art :  Bram Van Velde, peintre de l’empêchement (extraits)  Une critique en forme de dialogue entre l’écrivain et un critique d’art

 avec HUGO ZERMATI et PHILIPPE POLET        mise en voix MANOUCHKA RECOCHE 

Une œuvre qui passionne :

 NATHALIE LEGER, PASCALE CASANOVA, ANNE ATIK, CHARLES JULIET JEAN REMON, MARTIN ESSLIN, DIDIER ANZIEU,LUDOVIC JANVIER saluent l’homme et l’œuvre  

Sélection des extraits et lecture MARTINE HEQUET, JACQUES LE NY

mirlitonnades

Micro trottoir et enfance de l’art avec les enfants du quartier des Blossières  Orléans

DIMANCHE 12 NOVEMBRE  11H30 – 13H30

Des récits, des voix

-  L’IMAGE

avec GERARD AUDAX

- SOUBRESAUT

avec CATHERINE GAUTIER

- AU LOIN UN OISEAU

avec JACQUES LE NY

- TEXTE POUR RIEN (n°XIII)

avec CATHERINE GAUTIER

POUR LE FINAL DE CETTE SEMAINE SAMUEL BECKETT, l’ATELIER METOPE prépare une micro ballade en compagnie de monsieur et madame ROONEY, les principaux personnages de TOUS CEUX QUI TOMBENT (pièce radiophonique écrite par SAMUEL BECKETT, à la demande de la BBC). Diffusion des enregistrements salle EIFFEL, le dimanche 12 novembre à partir de 13H00)

LES ŒUVRES DE SAMUEL BECKETT sont publiées aux EDITIONS DE MINUIT 

POUR LA REALISATION DE CETTE SEMAINE AVEC SAMUEL BECKETT L’ATELIER METOPE REMERCIE CELLES ET CEUX QUI, ACTRICES, ACTEURS,  VIDEASTE, INGENIEUR DU SON , MUSICIENS, SCULPTEURS ,PEINTRES, CERAMISTES, Y CONTRIBUENT ARTISTIQUEMENT 

Dont

Guilaine Agnez, Gérard Audax, Daniel Beghdad,  Eric Cénat, Jean Christophe Cochard, Catherine Gautier, Béatrice Grebot, Franck Jublot, Denis Mercier, Evelyne Poinloup ,Manouchka Récoché, Alexis Renou, Adèle et Albane Rousset, Jonathan Waite, Hugo Zermati

CONCEPTION ET COORDINATION GENERALE  JACQUES LE NY

[verifiedaccount]

Barbara said that she had no grand story to tell. No wind of History, none of the political turmoil of the times, nothing illustrative of any social drama. Violence, yes, but the acceptable face of violence, the kind of banal cruelty enacted within the family. That was all she said. Her own story, enmeshed in this one, is probably no more than the ordinary story of a lonely, unloved child, a child who has been silenced, forced to submit to someone stronger than they are; the kind of sadness that it is not easy to get over–a commonplace story. That is the only reason Barbara made films. To soothe. To heal the pain, assuage the humiliation, process the fear. “Wanda’s character is based on my own life and on my character, and also on the way I understand other people’s lives. Everything comes from my own experience. Everything I do is me." Once, during an interview, Marguerite Duras lost her temper: “Self-portrait, I don’t understand what that means. Really, I don’t. How do you want me to describe myself? You know, knowledge is a difficult thing, something that would need to be reassessed, the knowledge of a person. Who are you? Go on, answer me… see?” Wanda never cries. Actually she does once, much later on, standing at the sink in a motel bathroom. She’s crying and keeps saying I can’t do this, I can’t do this. And perhaps one other time, too, but it’s difficult to tell; after that time in the darkened cinema when someone stole what little money she had: night has fallen, she walks into a bar and goes straight to the bathroom, she’s splashing her face with water for a long time, we don’t know if she is crying then. When I cry I overdo it, I am overwhelmed, incapable of holding back the tears, incapable even of dissembling. Tears are perhaps the only articulation, however monstrous, of the part of me that is completely shameless. Sometimes when I am alone I find myself howling silently in front of the mirror as if I wanted to verify a hypothesis. All I can see is a frozen mask of tears, the twisted mouth, its perfect symmetry contorted, its fine lines glistening, my breath in apnea, its silence brutally imprinted on damp skin, a voice asking who is there, beneath the deformed skin. I look. I search for my face in vain, for the one so familiar it looks like a stone.

In the months preceding her death, Barbara Loden consulted numerous doctors. One of them explained to her that her cancer came from the fact that she did not cry enough. He knew how to apply pressure on certain parts of her body to make her cry. She was devastated by the torrent of emotions that erupted like a sudden revelation, even if its meaning was enigmatic. Precious weeks were lost in useless weeping while the illness spread throughout her body. There are noble words, painstaking words that take time, sublime, fateful pronouncements proffered for eternity; there are simple and profound words; there are sluggish, erratic, deformed, incoherent words–but Barbara’s words, her last, are the only words that manage simultaneously to express both rejection and powerlessness in the face of death: no cliché, rude outburst, or tautology. As she lay dying all she said was, Shit, Shit, Shit, then she spat out some tiny stones–it’s the liver, the nurse said–and died. And no doubt one bright morning, a still and radiant day, she too had once stood like Clarissa Dalloway at eighteen, “musing among the vegetables,” full of hope on a glorious spring morning as she looked toward the sky, watching the birds swoop through the air, mistaking a brief moment of abundance for the promise of long-lasting happiness. We will never know the source of the wound that condemns Wanda to this loneliness. We will never know what ancient betrayal or long distant neglect plunged her into this state of constant and absolute distress. We will never know what loss, what absence she cannot get over. We accept her the way we accept ourselves, in blind ignorance, unable to put a name to the grief of existing. Her face, Wanda’s face, inscrutable, sad, obstinate. To the journalist who asked him one day, “What is the best early training for a writer?” Ernest Hemingway answered, “An unhappy childhood.” How he must have sniggered as he helped himself to another scotch.

Suite for Barbara Loden (tr. Natasha Lehrer & Cécile Menon)

Nathalie Léger

[kayal-vizhi]

Everything we invent is the truth, do not doubt it. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Flaubert to Louise Colet in 1853| From  Nathalie Léger’s A Suite for Barbara Loden

[mechaprimaverablog]

"¿Cómo se puede ignorar que a veces la única manera de escapar al deseo del otro es complaciéndolo?"

N. Léger, sobre Barbara Loden.

[retentionalfinitude2]

“To protect herself from unhappiness, my mother never knew what to do except cry, as if she were turning her own face against herself, attempting to drown in entire nights of tears. On the other side of the door, my mother’s voice intoned the dismal song of incomprehension and bitterness. No one could understand the words, only the melodic form of her sadness.” --Nathalie Leger, Exposition

[communicants]

Marguerite Duras spoke of glory. Talking about Barbara and the last scene of the film, she said, “It’s as if at this point in the film she’s found a way of making holy the very thing that she has tried to show us as a kind of degradation. I see a kind of glory there, a very powerful glory, very violent, very profound.” An urge for victory, the desire to achieve something spectacular in defeat. I prefer what Louis-Ferdinand Céline says: when you’ve reached the very end of all things, and sorrow itself no longer offers an answer, then you must return to the company of others, no matter who they are. Wanda, at the end of her journey, is sitting with other people, a little squashed, on a bench. The image freezes, grainy and flawed. Wanda. Just one among others. Just as she is, in the world as it is. Fade to black.

Nathalie Léger, Suite For Barbara Loden