VISCONTI. Meursault sees from Argel on his mother’s back in the nursery. The next day he begins a sexual relationship with Maria. Then during the excursion he gave five blows to a lot of Arabs on the beach. He is juzgado and sentenced to the guillotine.
This is basically the argument El extranjero (1942), by Albert Camus, who announced a year earlier: “The three ‘absurdos’ are finished”. He was 28 years old. If you would refer El extranjero, The Myth of Sisyphus y Caligula. ?Life itself is absurd Or is it absurd to end in death? There is a movie version by François Ozon and I loved it. Luego recovered in Luchino Visconti’s 1967 film, which I didn’t much like back in the day, and reissued the novella.
ALEGRÍAS. I enjoyed Visconti’s film even more than Ozon’s. With a turn to post-neorealism, Visconti brought a more natural and realistic reading. The color helps to sensuously, sensually and directly revive reality, the Mediterranean – so dear to Camus -, the sun and heat – essential in the novel – and the desire for sex between Meursault and Marie, which is a decisive element to reveal the lightness and passivity that, in truth, is always attributed to the character.
You forget that in the novel Meursault remembers his “simplest and most tenacious joys: the colors of the porch, the surroundings he loved, a certain late sky, the laughter and clothes of Marie.” Todo esto –y su gusto por nadar– denotes a a certain vitalism of the placenta which is often denied to Meursault in his interpretations El extranjero and who is the best figure, with color and with Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Karina, by Visconti.
It feels that way now the black and white version of Ozone is formalistic and calligraphican esthetician, intense and with him in many moments hieratic like Benjamin Voisin, accepts the canonical philosophical interpretation of the novel, gets rid of some of its themes and, above all, does not modify the characters that Camus elaborates with interest in order to facilitate his conclusions.
Camus says that Meursault was sentenced to death not so much for his crime as for being a monster of an empty soul
VERISIMILITY. Camus says that Meursault – honest and caustic rather than callous – is condemned to death not so much for his crime – which he cannot complain – as he – according to the instructor, the tax collector and his abogado protector! – empty soul monster he joined his mother in the nursery, refused to look at the beak then, smoked and drank coffee in a veil, and the next day went to have a baby, go to the cinema and spend time with Maria.
Lacking an active moral position, the most heinous thing for which Meursault is always indifferent – punished for a crime – is to borrow to write an article to the Arab lover of his odious friend Raymond, for whom he is. he wanted to get close to her and then mistreat her.
El extranjero not if you describe it as a fairy tale, as long as you like it or not rather, he is looking for a dark storybut the proclamation of the absurdity that Camus pursues—apart from his repeated capital punishment—flows better to avoid the plausibility of the juicio.
In this case, I don’t see any of the characters from Kindergarten, if it prejudices the jury’s decision and the defender does not show the cuchillo with the grimace of the Arab, interrogating his friends – who walk pleasantly around Raymond and try to hear her – it is not argued that the weapon of the thoughtless crime was not Meursault’s, but Raymond’s. Meursault had asked for it minutes ago, precisely so he wouldn’t use it.
Novel continue to enjoy its atmosphereto a clear and short phrase and a fatalistic burden that carries you to the top, but do not forget to ask yourself: is the absurdity premature, or is it rooted in an unexpected fatality that can end life?
Leave a Reply