The SNCF has produced a short documentary on Marcel Proust's passionate relationship with the railways and will organize dictations at Saint-Lazare station in Paris, on the occasion of the centenary of the writer's death, which will be commemorated on Friday.
"
The theme was too beautiful: the writer's special relationship with the trains that took him from Paris to Normandy or Beauce, at a time when the railway evoked freedom, industrial power, romanticism and adventure
", explained to AFP Matthieu Béjot, director of media and influence of the public group, himself unconditional of Proust.
Mainly using archive images from the SNCF, this 15-minute documentary directed by Juliette Blot plunges into the atmosphere of "
those magical railway journeys
” dear to the author of “
La Recherche du temps perdu
”.
Read alsoThe editorial of Le Figaro Hors-série: Proust, "the mirror of our days"
Excerpts from "
La Recherche
", read by the writer Nicolas Mathieu (Goncourt Prize 2018), also make you travel, like Proust at the time, in "
those wonderful places that are the stations
" and as far as Cabourg (Calvados) , which the author called Balbec.
“
But when she had left for Dreux or for Pierrefonds (...) he immersed himself in the most intoxicating of romance novels, the railway guide, who taught him the means of rejoining her, after noon, evening, this very morning!
exclaimed Proust.
And he continued thus: "
As soon as the day came when it was possible for her to return, he opened the indicator again, calculated which train she must have taken and, if she was late, which ones she still had left."
Read alsoMarcel Proust, the mirror nowadays on Le Figaro Store
“
This documentary has no other vocation than to be broadcast and shared with lovers of Marcel Proust, his work, and the train and more broadly with a wide audience of readers.
Its use is completely free
,” said Mr. Béjot.
This short 15-minute film can be seen on the heritage pages of the SNCF website.
Marcel Proust, the train and the imagination
will also be broadcast on Friday November 18, the anniversary of the death of Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris.
SNCF Gares & Connexions and France Culture will also offer, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., five dictations, read by the novelist and organizer of very popular giant dictation exercises, Rachid Santaki.
Read alsoThe work of Marcel Proust, a real cathedral of paper
