The cinema accompanies Emmanuel Carrère from the beginning, long before his name was associated with bestsellers or screen adjustments. Before becoming a writer, Carrère is formed as a film critic at the end of the 1970s, writing between 1979 and 1985 for French reference magazines such as Positif and Télérama. An early and continuous relationship, which over time has declined in different forms, from writing to script, to direction. It is in this trajectory that also fits The Wizard of the Kremlin. The origins of Putin by Olivier Assayas, released on February 12 in Italian theatres. To adapt Giuliano’s novel from Empoli, Assayas involved Carrère in the screenplay – also offering him a cameo in the film – in a project that tells the political formation of Vladimir Putin, with Jude Law in the role of Russian president alongside Paul Dano and Alicia Vikander.
In the same years of film critics, Carrère also began his true career, that is to say, as a writer, beginning in the narrative in the eighties but the success and international attention arrive with L’Avversario in 2000, followed by books that consolidate its name as a Russian novel, Vite that are not mine, Limonov and, more recently, Yoga. A lucky literary journey that develops in parallel to its relationship with cinema, without ever separating it entirely. In an interview, he better explains his dual role: “First of all I am a writer, happy to have this third opportunity with cinema. They are different languages. For me writing is more natural. I do not consider myself a brilliant director, I recognize a quality: I do not like to direct too much, I prefer to let people bring their talent”.
As mentioned above, Carrère directs three different films. Retour à Kotelnitch is a documentary that originates from a trip to Russia and from a community marked by a fact of news, mixing observation and personal story. With Suspicious Love, she switches to fiction, adapting her novel into a drama portrayed by Vincent Lindon and Emmanuelle Devos. In Between two worlds he returns to a real movie, following a writer who infiltrates the world of precarious work in northern France, with Juliette Binoche protagonist.
Ultimately, this passage between literature and cinema is not for Carrère a question of ambition, but of methodological curiosity. For him, the camera and the pen are different tools to do the same, that is to observe the real and try to understand what moves people, whether it is politics or an unprotected job.
L’articolo Emmanuel Carrère: a writer who travels between words and images proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
