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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Beckett Speaks
This is unexpected. A youtube clip of Beckett reviewing footage of the TV adaptation of What Where. Sound quality poor, but nevertheless: Beckett on tape.
Camcorder would have been pointing right at him, so I would have thought yes.
There used to be a short video (or audio?) clip of Beckett directing rehearsals on an interactive display in the British Library, which seemed to have been recorded without his knowledge.
And then there are those crackly recordings of Lawrence and Hardy I have in my attic, under my back issues of 2000AD. But who'd be interested in that...
Have just read Anne Atik's memoir of SB. His powers of retention were phenomenal, as no doubt you know. He also used to say that erudition was a danger for the writer, because it could obscure the path to his/her natural impulse, and he valued Yeats and Goethe as writers who had lived long enough to work through all that and accede to their own voice. His own life is an amazing process of how a writer clears out all the encumbrance to get to his proper themes and style. I find Watt almost unreadable, but the Trilogy then is a revelation, forged in that monastic period in the late 40s that gave us the three novels and Godot. My renewed awe at Beckett's legacy is conditioned by the fact that I am currently 'wintering south' in France; re-reading SB is the best way for me of connecting with this context and of feeling at home here.
5 comments:
Do you think he knew he was being recorded?
Camcorder would have been pointing right at him, so I would have thought yes.
There used to be a short video (or audio?) clip of Beckett directing rehearsals on an interactive display in the British Library, which seemed to have been recorded without his knowledge.
And then there are those crackly recordings of Lawrence and Hardy I have in my attic, under my back issues of 2000AD. But who'd be interested in that...
Here's another one: http://www.apieceofmonologue.com/2009/10/film-footage-of-samuel-beckett-1969.html
Amazing. Doesn't he look like Lacan?
Thanks for this. Shall incorporate it into my work on Aries and whiteface.
Have just read Anne Atik's memoir of SB. His powers of retention were phenomenal, as no doubt you know. He also used to say that erudition was a danger for the writer, because it could obscure the path to his/her natural impulse, and he valued Yeats and Goethe as writers who had lived long enough to work through all that and accede to their own voice.
His own life is an amazing process of how a writer clears out all the encumbrance to get to his proper themes and style. I find Watt almost unreadable, but the Trilogy then is a revelation, forged in that monastic period in the late 40s that gave us the three novels and Godot. My renewed awe at Beckett's legacy is conditioned by the fact that I am currently 'wintering south' in France; re-reading SB is the best way for me of connecting with this context and of feeling at home here.
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