He saw her just once,
and then he was off to war.
Truffaut is full of
stories. You can cut a two-minute episode out of his film and get yourself a
perfect short story. Or even a novel. Jules
et Jim is one such film. It contains a short story that is a beautiful
tragedy worth telling.
You could call it
'Letters'.
It involves a man
writing letters to a girl he only saw once. It's the First World War and these
letters are the only way he can communicate with her. Very tentative at first;
all he can say is that he enjoyed her company. She replies. He says he likes
her. She replies. Gradually he becomes more forward. Suddenly his letters are a
lot more intimate. At some point he writes about her breasts and how it feels
touching them. He then kisses her whole body. He then proposes to her. In his
letters he now treats her as his bride. He sometimes gets cross because he
feels she did something wrong or else her reply was vague and cold. Then one
day there's a vicious attack from Germans, and he dies.
This is classic
Truffaut. It's over in a flash, but it's that perfect combination of
provocative and sweet, sentimental and perverted that makes him so good. For
me, it's one of the greatest stories never written, and it's the sign of a true
master when all you can get is the slightest glimpse.
'A cosmic rhythm with
each stroke'.
Vijay Iyer's new record is
indeed called A Cosmic Rhythm With Each
Stroke. Which would be a title unbearably pretentious were it a rock singer or a pop
band. As it is, you give in to the subtle interplay between the piano and the trumpet filling your head with otherworldly stories you've never heard
before.
