In Toulouse, the young years of Eric Neuhoff as a cinephile
At the invitation of Christian Authier, Eric Neuhoff gives us an unmistakably nostalgic “Little loving praise of cinemas”, from Paris to Cahors via Toulouse.
He grew up in the 12th arrondissement of Paris before tasting the joys of the provinces, from Toulouse to Cahors and back, dropped off on the Le Capitole train by a father working in the bank. Eric Neuhoff has often recounted his young years as a dilettante student obsessed with cinema – and with girls too – notably in his novel “Les hips de Laeticia”, published in 1989 and reissued last year.
He reweaves the web of his memories with a “Little loving praise of cinemas” which obviously filled those who, like him, assiduously imagined the Saint-Agne, the Rex, the Trianon, the French – all its halls that no longer exist today – in the 70s and 80s. And, why not also, the Reuilly Palace in Paris… and in Cahors le Quercy.
Eric Neuhoff remembers being marked by “The Vikings”, seen in a cinema on Place Wilson, in Toulouse. He then presented Janet Leigh “gourdasse” but was later to “fall in love” with Claudia Cardinale, resplendent in another adventure film, “The Professionals”. Equal fascination for Johanna Shimkus in “The Adventurers” – nothing of a pass but a very strong bond “for life”.
At Saint-Agne, the best of America
Student at Fermat, the future critic at “Figaro” will be a mediocre khâgneux but a eater of competitive film. At Saint-Agne, in the district of the same name, he discovered the best of American cinema of the time, from “Cabaret” to “Délivrance”, from “L’épouvantail” to “Macadam cowboy”.
“The direction was not female dog, he writes. It was allowed to light a cigarette during the film. Result: during 2001, a space odysseyimpossible to disentangle whether the psychedelic patterns were due to Kubrick or the smoke writhing in the spotlight beam.”
Eric Neuhoff is an all-terrain film buff, shocked by “The land of the great promise”, by Wajda, discovered at the ABC, as well as by “A nous les petits Anglaises”, by Lang (Michel – it is necessary here to specify the first name) projected in Paris, near the New Galleries. You have to understand: he is the age of the heroes of this not very fine comedy!
This “Little loving praise of cinemas” has the only drawback of being too short as long as it brings to the surface countless memories, specific to each reader. Who, if he is old enough, will never forget the weavers, their “little fitted jacket”, their “flashlight zigzagging in the dark”, their “squeaking wicker basket”; the “rubbing of their nylon stockings”.
Today, cinema tickets are downloaded from the Internet; walls of sodas “welcome” the spectators in the multiplexes. Could it be that young people will one day have nostalgia for it?