It’s not going well Leo. One could even say that this forties flirts with depression. A movie theater serves as his refuge in The Experience, the joyfully absurd and deliciously existential first novel by the ex-Robin Hood Maurice Barthélémy (ed. Plon). “Léo dialogues with a mysterious spectator but also with the screen”, explains the author to 20 minutes. Maurice Barthélémy admits to adoring behind closed doors and recognizing himself in Leo as in his two interlocutors.
Absurd and hard-hitting fable, dense and joyful, this short 124-page novel allows you to rediscover the style all in tender humor of the director of Casablanca Driver and of Dad. “I worked three hours a day every morning for six months,” he says. And I didn’t want to embark on a pharaonic project with tons of characters, perhaps because it intimidated me. »
A tribute to cinemas
Accustomed to working in a troupe both with Robins des Bois and as a director, Maurice Barthélemy did not suffer from loneliness when he started writing. “I’m a loner by nature and I’m used to writing for the cinema. I found it fascinating to create a story without being able to rely on a visual support, whereas I am a man of images. »
No visual support, but still a movie theater as a place where the hero will take stock of his rotten life. “The movie theater is a magical place that needs to be reinvented to make people want to come back,” insists Maurice Barthélémy. Leo does not suspect that he will find anything other than simple entertainment when he tries to escape his daily life by making a web. The experience that sounds its title to the novel will be as disturbing as it is beneficial.
In writing
Will writing a novel have been beneficial for Maurice Barthélémy? “It’s too early to tell. To be part of the literary season with my little book when I would be surrounded by people who send heavy stuff is already a success in itself, ”he confides. If he does not yet have an idea for a next novel, Maurice Barthélémy has already returned to his keyboard for a new scenario with a still secret theme. Whether his people are on screen or in front, this man has writing in his blood.