Two Pages from ‘Les draps pliés du grand lit’

Jean-Claude Rousseau

Translated by Ethan Spigland

“If these notes are about reels that find harmony, about sound that meets image, it is because they were first written in the secrecy of the first films shot in Super-8mm. Many of them during the years spent in The Enclosed Valley. They must be read like a love song, intimately.”

- Jean-Claude Rousseau

Below is a translation of the first two pages of Les draps pliés du grand lit (“The Folded Sheets of the Large Bed”), a collection of poetic aphorisms written by Rousseau during the production of his films. These statements—compiled and published by Les éditions de l'œil in 2021—amount to a practical and philosophical guide for his filmmaking, his very own “notes on the cinematograph.”

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Nothing can be understood except through silence.

Depth is the space where elements move. It cannot be represented. No perspective can show it, but the liberation of the elements reveals it.

It is from a free, unforced relationship between the elements (images, sounds) that emotion is born.

The story blocks the image. It prevents it from projecting itself into the free play of correspondences that truly bring the film to life. As if the story were sucking the life out of the image.

A just frame doesn't convey a story. It doesn't serve the representation.

In its rightness, it is the very presence of the film.

No work that doesn’t go beyond. No seeking the author there.

Brilliance, every time the sound touches the image.

Forgetful beauty.

Until the end, only being able to say "that's not it."

Knowing what you don't want rather than what you do want.

Creation, in art, is simply a series of recoveries.

There is no need to create without imbalance.

In art, what is seen is not shown.

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Appearance of elements, depth, beauty.

Don't anticipate the story before it presents itself, the film being made.

The idea doesn't create a motif.

The painting of ideas is always bad.

Unexpected shifts within the frame, even surprising ones, must have the precision of choreography.

It is balance that allows for moderation.

Moderation always starts from a point of balance. Balance…

No place without elsewhere.

A just image represents nothing.

In a just image, everything can be said and heard.

Those who have already heard can hear.

Depth of colors.

The line on the surface... but not superficial.

It is the relationship between the lines that forgets the motif and opens the passage.

The emotion of recovery.

Let go of the film until the final straightening up.

Wherever it takes place, mise-en-scène turns reality into a setting.

Don’t turn reality into a setting.

If "all is grace," there is beauty in every place.

xx