Plans of the Norman bocage
Tribute to John Alcott, chief operator of the film “Barry Lyndon” (Stanley Kubrick, 1975).
We know the figure of the “still life” in painting. I propose the figure of the “silent nature” in digital cinema. These are contemplative paintings of nature, for exactly five minutes, like the inaugural “Lumière minutes” of the cinematograph in 1895. They are perspectives, like so many windows open on Life. They are created in an organic way: the camera, always present on me, only comes out and is placed if it is as if “called” by the landscape. I put myself in a state of perception of this intuition so that the shared look is right, never forced, always listening to this form of original mystery with which nature can put us in connection.
What is the purpose of contemplating nature through the eyes of the person who shares his or her vision, or rather his or her aim? It serves to perceive nature, through the eyes of the other, another richness, what we would not have seen alone, since each glance is singular. And for all that, the framing is perfectly fixed, letting natural life unfold without artifice. It is the dialectic of contemplation: singular framing and natural freedom.