Welcome fellow moviegoers!
I am Philippe Vigneres, born in Toulouse, in the south of France, and still living there.
When it comes to culture, my first love was books – the influence of the relatives helped. But they had no real taste for the seventh art – the same could not be said about painting or classical music – and thus I had little incentive to find out more about it.
This meant I took movies seriously quite late, at around 20, unexpectedly mesmerized by a night television broadcast of Ingmar Bergman’s “Det sjunde inseglet – The Seventh Seal”. Gosh, that was impressive and compelling; maybe movies were far more interesting, opening wider horizons, than I used to think. Art, indeed, and not just mere television entertainement.
This new love affair had ups and downs, including a long spell away from the movie theaters – it was a time when I thought I had seen enough about cinema and vowed to move on to other things. But it has haunted me back with a vengeance and I got more thrilled than ever to spend time watching the moving images. So thrilled, actually, that I have started to write about it.
At the beginning, it was just about jotting down descriptions and thoughts to remember better the films I had just watched. Then the writing became more serious. And finally came the idea of publishing it. A rather immodest move, it still dovetails with the passions of a moviegoer – thinking about the films but also sharing the opinions and tastes she or he has, and getting interested in those of other movie buffs.
I hope you would find it interesting and useful – maybe some of the texts, with their plot summaries and analytical remarks, can help someone out there to discover much more about cinema, if they have not been as lucky as I was in accessing such and such film, or to understand them better in the case of widely known and discussed flicks, adding a few elements (perhaps) to the conversation. Beware, however, that I’m not going to promise a stunningly extended vision. They are some corners of cinema that I know little about: I’m not fond of science fiction and I struggle to appreciate some cultural areas (Africa, for instance).
Apart from cinema I’m still devoted to literature, reading as much novels as possible. I’m also fond of jazz and classical music, and I like paintings, from Renaissance to Street art. And when the eyes get too strained and the brain too overwhelmed, I just go out and enjoy a good walk – or go biking, or simply enjoys fine restaurants and coffee shops. Enough about me: start reading about the art we admire both on this side of the screen and on yours.