#nina companeez

[girlsandmachines]

Fanny Ardant et Evelyne Buyle sur le tournage de la série télévisée Les Dames de la côte, de Nina Companeez, 1979.

[nauseousthings]

Faustine et le Bel Été, Nina Companéez (1972)

[fattomatoz]

•Faustine et le bel été (1972) Dir. Nina Companeez

[rwpohl]

faustine et le bel été, nina companeez 1972

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slacker, richard linklater 1991

[imnotbitteranymore-imsyrupysweet]

I hope the summer breeze reaches you. And when you’re breath catches on that scent you used to nuzzle into, I hope you feel the death we used to hold so tightly onto.—A.K.Rx

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer, 1972, Nina Companeez

[sgiandubh]

If they followed the books they'd be more frisky 🤡

But obviously some of it can't be translated into tv......

Dear Frisky Anon,

You should have discussed it with a real Gabaldon Expert like @gotham-ruaidh, not with Phoney here, who still fumbles around The Fiery Cross. So, I think you will have to ask me once I am done with Bees, which I bet will be just in time for the second half of Season 7 to kick in. I am told J&C do not have any problems in that department until the very end of it, and well, what can I say, it's Herself's prerogative to portray as she sees fit a legendary, all-encompassing love story as the one she magically created out of thin air (all writing is magic, trust me).

Never mind. Your question made me think, just as I was preparing the lazy dinner for 1 (Baby the Retriever is gone until Tuesday evening), about a couple of things, dealing with adapting content to the screen and also about how our minds deal with the difference between a book and the movie/series based on that book.

Adapting Gabaldon is a very difficult task. Take for example The Fiery Cross' never-ending Gathering. My God, all those words to describe just 24 hours! I have just finished with that unfortunate thief and I am so dizzy with it, I can't even remember if they had breakfast yet. The only solution they had was to go off canon and invent something at The Ridge, because it would have taken forever and hey, it's all about a healthy costs/benefits ratio, too. And mark me: Herself is no Marcel Proust, able to make us dream for hours about his description of Vermeer's View of Delft, somewhere In Search of Lost Time. FYI, I had to wait, as millions before me, until I fucked my meniscus skiing (or attempting to snow plough, to be honest) to discover Proust, but never looked back. Also FYI, Luchino Visconti tried to make a film out of Proust's voluminous saga, but failed. Nina Companeez managed (2011) a very, very poor TV series: unwatchable, and I tried. It is unfeasible - so, overall, I think the series scriptwriters' team did a very good job slaloming between botanical babble, Appalachian folklore, the White Sow and yes, J&C getting frisky.

But the thing I wanted to tell you (so long for distributive attention, I've just burnt my baguette and chicken and will have to start it over again) is just how different the experience of reading something and watching the same thing being translated on screen is. I am obviously no neuroscientist, but I am an avid and normally a quick reader. When you read something, you are at once completely spellbound and totally free: you are taken with the characters' interaction, but you are the master of your course imagining them. You placate your own vision of the world on what you read and, at the same time, you are being overtly manipulated by the storyteller: how this can be is, for sure, a mystery. When you watch an adaptation of what you once read, half of the work is being already done for you: you don't have to imagine these people interacting, they are walking and talking in front of you and then, you focus on other things. It's all about the energy they manage (or not) to convey: acting is, in a fair measure, akin to channeling that energy.

As far as I can tell, the scriptwriters opted for a more subdued approach to Jamie, Claire, sex and old age. But can you say with absolute certainty we aren't collectively projecting our own fantasies on what is certainly Herself's very euphemistic, almost conservative way of writing sex scenes? Anais Nin, she ain't. Embraces and moments of - ahem - togetherness abound and we are left to our own devices to imagine things.

Thus, the horrendous and, to be honest, childish battle between the Book Purists' Crowd and the rest of this fandom. It apparently was dealt with pretty quickly, but it did manage to leave a nasty, long lasting legacy: the Book Boyfriend had to go on and remain a screen fantasy. That is wrong. That selfishness almost floundered the book adaptation project and I bet whatever you want me to bet it took deep feelings not to also compromise something else, money can't buy.

A long answer for a simple question. Make of it whatever you wish, Anon: I wrote it with pleasure, though. :)

[france-cinema]

Fanny Ardant sur le tournage de la série télévisée Les Dames de la côte, réalisée par Nina Companeez, 1979.

[detournementsmineurs]

Francis Huster et Fanny Ardant dans "Les Dames de la Côte" mini-série de Nina Companeez (1979), novembre 2024.

[ofallingstar]

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972)

[freeartzombie]

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972) dir. Nina Companeez

[letterboxd-loggd]

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (Faustine et le bel été) (1972) Nina Companéez

May 23rd 2022

[nauseousthings]

Faustine et le Bel Été, Nina Companéez (1972)

[filmswithoutfaces]

Faustine et la bel été (1972) dir. Nina Companeez

[estateofinsanity]

Faustine et le bel été (Nina Companeez, 1972)

[sacredwhores]

Nina Companéez - In Search of Lost Time (2011)

[vardaagnes]

Faustine et le bel été | dir.  Nina Companeez (1972)