Vincent Longhi
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When I try to write anything, I need to create the narrative I am thinking about in my daily routine before actually getting to it. As if I needed to surround myself with all the fantasies I associate to the act of writing a story.
For Clubhouse, the situation I was in was unusual enough to satisfy my need for a writer's fantasy, as it was happening during the first national quarantine in France.
I was at my brother's place, which I fled to in a hurry the day before everything had to be shut down in Paris.
My brother builds small wooden houses on wheels, called Tiny Houses. We were in a huge camping area and we had the whole place to ourselves.
My
girlfriend and I were set up in one of those houses and he
suggested I take over a second one as an office space.
There are two main fantasies I seem to carry with me every time I write. Both of them come from the same movie : Barton Fink, by the Cohen brothers.
The first one is the need to look at a photograph for inspiration: the main character of the film sits in front of a frame showing a woman looking at the sea, sitting in the sand, her left hand protecting her eyes from the sun.
Mine is a photograph that I found on the street: a woman diving in water with a handwritten note in the back soberly saying : Sabine, 1975.
This photograph evoques to me the sweetness of happy memories and the lurking shadow of an inevitable tragedy, as all our family pictures seem to tend to.
There are two main fantasies I seem to carry with me every time I write. Both of them come from the same movie : Barton Fink, by the Cohen brothers.
The first one is the need to look at a photograph for inspiration: the main character of the film sits in front of a frame showing a woman looking at the sea, sitting in the sand, her left hand protecting her eyes from the sun.
Mine is a photograph that I found on the street: a woman diving in water with a handwritten note in the back soberly saying : Sabine, 1975.
This photograph evoques to me the sweetness of happy memories and the lurking shadow of an inevitable tragedy, as all our family pictures seem to tend to.
The
second one is the script as an object. In the movie, Barton Fink ends
up writing the whole play in one night after struggling with it for
weeks. He finds himself the next morning, half insane, with a thick
pile of paper between his hands. This pile of original pages feels so
precious, so fragile and irreplaceable.
For clubhouse, I had the pleasure of diving into an old memory that I enjoyed navigating without taking care of the exactitude in the descriptions, the precision of the timeline or any kind of realism.
I naturally wrote it with a typewriter font, picturing myself as Barton Fink finally getting in touch with his feelings looking at this mysterious woman's back, in this stimulating place where ideas can take shape into words.
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For clubhouse, I had the pleasure of diving into an old memory that I enjoyed navigating without taking care of the exactitude in the descriptions, the precision of the timeline or any kind of realism.
I naturally wrote it with a typewriter font, picturing myself as Barton Fink finally getting in touch with his feelings looking at this mysterious woman's back, in this stimulating place where ideas can take shape into words.
