Greetings gentle readers and welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s the tale of an alchemist and doctor who heals the sick but runs afoul of the Church, L’oeuvre Au Noir:
and next week’s film, Into Great Silence:
Reviews of L’oeuvre Au Noir:
Letterboxd says:
It’s always so cool to see these little forgotten films that contain such fully realized worlds. There’s something that feels so effortless and natural about everything despite being set in the 16th century. Spellbinding experience that I just wish gave a little more, leaned into its weirdness or the paranoia or the despair a little further. Reminded me a lot of something like Żuławski’s Diabeł
and
At first sight André Delvaux’s adaptation of Marguerite Yourcenar’s novel L’Œuvre au noir lacks his expected ellipses and elisions: all is straightforward plot. Except the seemingly important themes of freemasonry, banking and Catholicism elide the biggest theme of all: individuation*. For Delvaux, heretical physician Zénon Ligre stands foremost for personal freedom against religious dogma and political expediency. Alchemy, as the route to self-actualisation, not so much sidelined as seemingly flattened by dull filming.
Fire, that transmuting element, is seen and talked about but no more represented than one of Zénon’s abundant tinctures. What could be Delvaux’s most cosmic exercise in subjectivity/objectivity ends up his most pragmatic. It means Zénon’s taking of his own life (next-stage alchemy in these terms) to avoid being burnt at the stake is as perfunctory as his arrival in Flanders: purification of the soul as expedient as avoiding stepping in shit in Bruges’s grimy streets. Maybe that is the measure of all things.
* From what I understand, Yourcenar takes the distanced stance in her novel.
My take:
The film was first for me a trip back in time, I thought it did a great job of evoking everyday life in a Renaissance town. Volonte, who incidentally was the bandit leader both in A Fist Full of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, is compelling as the alchemist and doctor Zénon Ligre whose unconventional methods, lifestyle, and writings have earned him the ire of the Church. It’s not a great movie, worth a watch at ⭐ but only once.
Director: André Delvaux
Writers: André Delvaux, Marguerite Yourcenar (novel)
Notable Actor: Gian Maria Volonté
Plot (Spoilers!)
Zenon Ligre (Volonte) has returned to his native city of Bruges after traveling across sixteenth century Europe. He has become a doctor who treats the sick for free as well as an alchemist who ponders the deeper mysteries of the world in his writings. This doesn’t sit well with the Church, and he is a wanted man.
Ligre settles down in Bruge under an assumed name. He has a friend from his old days, a fellow doctor, as well as a Church official he met on his journeys. He gets to work developing a medical practice where his unorthodox techniques and treatments attract many patients but also foes.
His time comes. He is found out by the Church and arrested. Faced with the stake, he opts to take his own life.
***
Bonuses:
Why Anthony Burgess Regrets Writing a Clockwork Orange! | Celebs Up Close
Russell Harty interviews a variety of guests, captivating audiences with engaging conversations and performances.
and
Andy Graham – Nebula (Electric Stringed Didgeridoo) 2016
2 comments
Comments are closed.
Anthony Burgess long ago came as a guest speaker to my college and talked about Clockwork. The movie was a bit of a sensation at the time but may have contributed to Pauline Kael–who didn’t like Kubrick much–saying
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1972/01/01/a-clockwork-orange-pauline-kael-movie-review-stanley-kubrick
I think I agree–about Clockwork.
I cannot say that I enjoyed the Burgess interview but I did find it interesting. I read Clockwork many years ago, after seeing the movie. I don’t remember whether it was in an author introduction or an afterword that Burgess spoke about writing four novels (five, according to the interview) in a year after he was diagnosed to be dead within a year. What bothered him then (writing in the intro) was that he had sold all the rights and did not receive anything from the movie or anywhere else.
What had struck me most about the difference between the movie and the novel is that in the latter, Burgess had imaginary composers and composition titles, whereas in the former, Kubrick relied on familiar classical music.