Screenwriter, playwright, writer, Jean-Claude Carrière is the author of many bestsellers, such as Einstein, s’il vous plait; Fragilité; Tous en scène; and, most recently Croyance; La Paix; and La Vallée du Néant.
Every life is a studio, a workshop, where we learn our profession, our work.
I’ve been writing for films and the theater for more than 60 years. At every step, I’ve encountered difficulties of all sorts, and even obstacles that sometimes seemed insurmountable. I will attempt here, as simply as I can, to tell how I have, or have not, overcome them.
I talk about my personal problems with writing – of which there were many – and also about the studios I’ve directed – around a hundred – just about everywhere in the world, from Los Angeles to Beijing, from Teheran to Jerusalem.
This is not a book on theory, but on practice. Failures feature alongside successes. Luis Buñuel, Peter Brook, Pierre Étaix, Louis Malle, Milos Forman, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Deray, Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, and even the young Louis Garrell, all traveling companions on my life’s journey, will be met along the way. And I hope the reader will come to understand how difficult – yet enthralling – it is for an author today to blend together not only the real and the imaginary, but also the historical and the implausible, especially when it is true.