QUENEAU Raymond et l'OU.CI.PO. - Lot 205

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QUENEAU Raymond et l'OU.CI.PO. - Lot 205
QUENEAU Raymond et l'OU.CI.PO. DOSSIER, La Machine à tuer le temps, [1974]. Oucipo's collective screenplay, cinematographic style exercises, accompanied by the original photos of the original story. OU.CI.PO is a branch of the Oulipo (ouvroir de littérature potentielle), created in 1974. As its name indicates, its aim was to apply to the cinematographic field the formal research that the Oulipo used for literary creation. The file includes: * Spiral bound notebook (32.5 x 23.5 cm) of 42 numbered pages each with an original black and white photograph (11 x 18 cm) corresponding to each shot of the film, accompanied by its typewritten caption. * Synopsis (13 typewritten p. with a handwritten annotation). * Map of the film (7 p. typed). * Preamble and 3 variations (8 p. typed). The notebook bears a handwritten title in black felt-tip pen inscribed on 2 labels: "La Machine à tuer le temps. Placed under the high patronage of the OU. CI. PO * (* OUvroir de CInématographie POtentielle). This script is one of his rare productions. The work is based on a principle similar to that of the Exercises in Style: to take an innocuous 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 bears the title of Exerstyle de cices followed by the mention " (to be discussed?). The 42 original photos in the spiral-bound booklet present the plot of the film: a Parisian crossroads, passers-by, an agent regulating traffic, a young man asks her for information and then hails a friend, the two of them frolic, she kisses him on the cheek which leaves a trace of lipstick. They watch a beatnik sing, one of the spectators slips on a banana peel. At the end, the two young people walk away embracing, and the last image shows the boy kissing 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: i.e.: 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 script, L'Histoire du cinéma... à peu près comme elle a été (August 1951; 2 p. in-4, 2 copies).
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