Robert Bober: Listening to Writers

Reading for Everyone 2006, 58′, original French version with Italian subtitles

In 1953, the first television program dedicated to literary news made its mark: it was “Lectures pour tous.” For 15 years, Pierre Desgraupes and Pierre Dumayet pulled off a remarkable feat: discussing literature on the small screen, giving voice to writers, their words, their texts, and even their silences. Robert Bober looks back with Pierre Dumayet on this unprecedented experience, in which television shared the joy of reading. Featuring Raymond Queneau, Marguerite Duras, François Mauriac, Jules Supervielle, Roger Vailland, Max-Pol Fouchet, André Schwarz-Bart, and Nicole Védrès.

“With ‘Lectures pour tous,’ viewers would finally get to see—in close-up—the faces of the people who wrote the books. They saw them right in their own homes, in the flesh, and were completely amazed. It was a time of encounters, dialogue, and listening. That era of television is now part of history. I wanted to share a little of that history alongside Pierre Dumayet, who, fortunately, is still with us and remains dedicated to his primary goal: sharing the joy of reading. Pierre Dumayet has remained an unrivaled master in the art of asking questions. For him, a question could be simply a word, a cough, a hand resting on his chin, or a smile. He simply helped to prolong what deserved to be prolonged. And since he remembers and continues to explore the texts, let us quietly listen to what he is willing to share with us about this love story.”

Robert Bober “A mi-mots”: Erri De Luca 2002, 25′, commentary in French, interviews in Italian with French subtitles Each film in the “À mi-mots” series delves into the private world of a contemporary author: the places where they live and write, the tools of their craft, and their relationship to the text…. The writer and the director jointly determine the locations and timing of the shoot, in accordance with a chosen cinematic style, inviting the viewer to enter the writer’s personal world. Erri De Luca was born in Naples in 1950. The Italian writer has had a highly unconventional career: he worked as a farm laborer, a factory worker at Fiat, on construction sites, and finally as a mason—a profession he continued to practice when his first book, *Once, One Day*, was published in 1989. Deeply politically engaged, he was also a humanitarian activist, particularly during the war in the former Yugoslavia. His novels, *Acid*, *Rainbow*, and *Three Horses*, were widely acclaimed by both critics and the public.

In 2002, Erri De Luca received the Prix Femina for Foreign Literature for *Montedidio*. His books explore political activism, as well as nature, the elements, and women… Whether they are prostitutes or activists, sailors, gardeners, or fishermen, the characters in Erri De Luca’s novels are always searching for fulfillment. Robert Bober, a filmmaker and writer, traveled to meet Erri De Luca on the island of Ischia, in southern Italy—against the backdrop of some of his books—as well as at his home near Rome. The man who says he “will be a writer as long as it lasts”—who writes in Italian but speaks Neapolitan with his mother or the fishermen—tells us his most beautiful stories in French… ROBERT BOBER Robert Bober was born on November 17, 1931, in Berlin.

In August 1933, the Bober family fled Nazism and sought refuge in Paris, France. Robert Bober left school after earning his elementary school diploma. He worked successively as a tailor, potter, educator, puppeteer, and then as an assistant to François Truffaut. A television director since 1967, he has directed more than 120 documentary films: *Les clochardes* (1972), *Refugee from Germany, Stateless Person of Polish Origin* (1975), *The Stories of Ellis Island* (1978–1980, with Georges Pérec), *En remontant la rue Vilin*, winner of the Silver FIPA in 1993; some sixty films made with his longtime collaborator Pierre Dumayet (the series “Lire c’est vivre” and “Lire et écrire,” *In the Light of *J’accuse* on the Dreyfus Affair* in 1998), and a portrait of the writer Erri de Luca in 2002 for Arte. He received the Grand Prix from the Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia (SCAM) in 1991 for his entire body of work. He is also the author of three novels, published by P.O.L.: *Quoi de neuf sur la guerre?* in 1993, which won the Prix du livre Inter; *Berg et Beck* in 1999; and *Laissées-pour-compte* in 2005. “Clinging to details as if they were a lifeline, Robert Bober explores the memory of time. His stubborn struggle against the disappearance of things and people creates a strange melody.” Catherine Humblot, *Le Monde*, Nov. 1. 1993.