FOLLOWING FLAUBERT

Flaubert Folgen (2008/2016), 75’ min

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Diary entries of Gustave Flaubert’s “Journey through Corsica” in convergence with impressions of the present.

Synopsis

The small truck takes the tight curve at a rapid pace. The landscape changes, from the barren, dry southern slopes to the green bushes of the shady side of the hill. In front of the first houses of the village the butcher Bertrand honks his melodic horn. One hears the voices of the villagers and sees blurred shadows of people in front of the counter of the car. A photograph of a pinhole camera is inserted into the film sequence. To take pictures with the camera obscura you need time – a different sense of time that you have to have for the landscape in the mountains of Corsica. There are still shepherds who drive their flocks of sheep across the Makkia to the summer pastures in the mountains every year. They still follow the old hiking routes as they did a hundred and fifty years ago when Gustave Flaubert, after graduating from school, crossed over from mainland France to the island in the Mediterranean. The diary entries of the young writer, published in 1840 as “Corsican Journey”, accompany the film. Old black-and-white photographs and the shots of the camera obscura point to the origins of photography in light and time. They join with the film scenes to create a description of everyday life in Corsica.

Background / Data

(2006-10), 75′ min

Documentary / essay film. Historical black and white photographs, camera obscura photographs and film footage accompanied by diary entries of Gustave Flaubert’s “Journey through Corsica”.

# Award at the 18th film festival “Blicke aus dem Ruhrgebiet”

# Presentation in Corsica on the occasion of the “Journée Européennes du Patrimoine 2010”