Le film de Bazin

When on 11 November 1958 French film critic André Bazin died of leukaemia at the age of 40, he left behind a screenplay for an uncompleted project. Canadian filmmaker Pierre Hébert decided to make the film, using Bazin’s notes and the script, which was published in the one-hundredth issue of the renowned film journal Cahiers du Cinéma.

Bazin’s aim was to make a documentary about the Roman churches built between 1000 and 1200 in the former French province of Saintonge. Hébert filmed these churches – or the remnants of them – interspersing this footage with old photos or black-and-white animations created by Héberts himself. In voice-over, Actor Michael Lonsdale reads from the screenplay left by Bazin. The result – thanks in part to the atmospheric music – is a contemplative film about time passing, ruins, restoration and remembering versus forgetting: like the churches, memories are also subject to erosion. All that remains is fade to black.