“L’Utopie serait-elle institutionnalisée?”: Georges Perec at the Moulin d’Andé

Abstract

This essay offers a much-needed history of the Moulin d’Andé, a utopian community in Normandy that welcomed an array of political, intellectual, and artistic figures. In particular, it focuses on a few collaborative projects that came out of the Moulin d’Andé, which were helmed by Georges Perec: Christine Lipinska’s photographs for Perec’s long-form poem La Clôture (1976), Bernard Queysanne and Perec’s filmic adaptation of Perec’s novel Un homme qui dort (1973), and Perec’s novel La Disparition (1969). By analyzing how these various projects understood and enacted the process of collaboration, this essay considers what kinds of community practice were fostered by the Moulin d’Andé.

Keywords:

• Georges Perec
• Moulin d’Andé
• May ’68
• French literature

Notes

1 Known guests include: actors (Simon Signoret, Romy Schneider, Alain Delon, Jean-Louis Tritignant, Jeanne Moreau, Oscar Werner); writers, intellectuals, and stage directors (Maurice Pons, Georges Perec, Clara Malraux, Richard Wright, René Depestre, Eugène Ionesco, Jacques Roubaud, Harry Mathews, Emmanuelle K., Nancy Huston, René de Obladia, Patrick Rambaud, Hubert Juin, Jacques Alexis, Ernst Jünger, Marcel Cuvelier, Roland Dubillard, Roger Kléman, Alain Guérin, Kosta Axelos); artists (Pierre Klossowski, Georges Wolinksi, Vladimir Bougrine, Alberto Carlinsky, Walter Spitzer) and filmmakers (François Truffaut, Louis Malle, Alain Cavalier, Robert Enrico, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Marin Karmitz, Florence Malraux); journalists (François Nourrissier, Michelle Georges, Jean Lacouture); and politicians (François Mitterand, François-Regis Bastide, Pierre Mendès France). These figures are gathered from Bellos’ biography of Perec, the Moulin website, and interviews with Lipinska. See Bellos; Lipinska, Suzanne. “Moulin d’Andé.” Preface. Moulin d’Andé, by Georges Perec, Paris, Quai Voltaire, 1992; Lipinska, “Georges Perec au Moulin d’Andé”; and Lipinska’s interview with France Culture.

2 Truffaut shot scenes of Jules et Jim and Les 400 coups in and around the Mill.

3 Centre des écritures cinématographiques (CECI) is the Moulin organization that offers fellowships to screenwriters. The Moulin has also become, to a limited extent, a tourist destination. In addition to being a lieu de culte for Perec scholars, the Moulin hosts weddings, receptions, and retreats. See the Moulin's website: Moulin d’Andé: Centre artistique et culturel. Moulin d’Andé, 2018, http://www.moulinande.com. Accessed 16 Nov. 2018.

4 Lipinska borrowed this line from a friend’s Master’s thesis.

5 For instance, Pons invited both Truffaut and Perec—and the latter only after he had won the Prix Renaudot. Among the CECI fellows, one sees some likely inheritors of the French artistic and intellectual tradition (like Emmanuel Bourdieu, the youngest son of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and Eva Ionesco, daughter of the controversial photographer, Irina Ionesco). See the Moulin's website: http://www.moulinande.com.

6 This essay does not treat Marcel Cuvelier’s theatrical adaptation of Perec’s radioplay “L’Augmentation” in 1970, as Perec had limited involvement in the staging of the play.

7 Shared meals were also a central feature of Oulipian practice. Oulipo’s meetings often took place over meals, in restaurants, or in members’ homes, and it was in this communal setting that they discussed constraints, as well as individual and collective publication projects. See, for instance, meeting notes of the group, collected by Jacques Bens, which regularly mention restaurants where meetings were held, or even the meals served. See Bens, Jacques. Oulipo. 1960–1963. Paris, Christian Bourgois, 1980.

8 While the poem has since been reprinted in mass-market collections of Perec’s poetry (without the photographs), the original volume had a limited print run of one hundred copies.

9 More immediately, Perec and Queysanne said they were inspired by Sacha Guitry’s 1936 film Roman d’un tricheur (an adaptation of Guitry’s novel Mémoires d’un tricheur), Marguerite Duras’ 1959 film Hiroshima Mon Amour, and Ermanno Olmi’s 1961 film Il Posto (The Postman). See Uzal 79.

10 The constraint, while clearly essential to the film’s production, was later abandoned in postproduction.

11 Some of these contributors were also identified through the version of La Disparition still held at the Moulin d’Andé, sometimes called the Moulin manuscript. For more on various manuscript versions of La Disparition, see Maeyama, Yû. “Les Notes préparatoires à la Disparition de Georges Perec.” Le Cabinet d’amateur. Revue d’études perecquiennes, June 2013, pp. 1–58.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aubrey Gabel

Aubrey Gabel is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University, and she specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century French and Francophone literature, culture, and film. She is currently working on a book manuscript that offers an ethnography of the secret practices of twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary groups and avant-gardes.