René Char 1907-1988
René Char (documentary, 1967)
Runtime: 23 min.
Language: French (sorry, no subs)
Country: Switzerland
Color: black & white
Director: Michel Soutter Cast:
René Char and uncredited persons

Description: Documentary TV film about René Char, one of the great 20th century French poets, in his house of Le Thor and in the city of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, South France.

René Char is known for his hermetic poetry works and his engagement in the the French Resistance in 1940 where he commanded the Durance parachute drop zone. Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Victor Brauner among painters. The composer Pierre Boulez wrote three settings of Char's poetry, "Le Soleil des eaux", "Le visage nuptial", and "Le Marteau sans maître". A late friendship developed also between Char and Martin Heidegger, who described Char's poetry as "a tour de force into the ineffable" and was repeatedly his guest.