iCulture

Aux naufragés du Web qui viennent s'échouer sur ma page, voici quelques vivres qui vous aideront à reprendre des forces et continuer votre trajet, le coeur leste, sur l'océan de la vie. Sustentez-vous de culture, moussaillons, abreuvez-vous l'âme, mes gaillards !

Même si l'air du temps présage quelques houles dans sa qualité future, nous sommes néanmoins chanceux de vivre dans cette ère de la technologie où la culture est une pomme à porter de main pour l'Homme bien avisé. L'ère de l'iCulture est arrivée à bon port. Mais pour le marin novice, le danger est grand de se perdre dans les flots non canalisés d'informations. Attention à la marée noire d'une ignorance trop bien nourrie par une mer de déchets. Il faut nager à contre-courant vers ces petits ilots bien gardés. Loin dans la brume, se cachent des Edens de connaissance. Alors, camarades, venez, le vieux loup de mer vous montre sa carte au trésor.



ARTE Radio propose une myriade de podcasts qui feront votre bonheur. À l'image des extraits bilingues de poèmes de Hölderlin, ARTE joue la carte européenne avec un accent particulier sur le duo franco-allemand. Mais ARTE c'est surtout le pouls de La Francophonie en action - la créativité en effervescence, libre de censure, la culture qui vibre au présent. Les rubriques vont du documentaire à la fiction, en passant par reportages, chroniques, lectures, etc.

Permettez-moi de prendre congé en vous laissant avec ce podcast d'humour, une vraie petite perle qui illustre sans prétentions et avec une clarté déconcertante le monde du travail d'aujourd'hui. Je vous conseille particulièrement l'épisode 3.

The soul of India - L'âme de l'Inde

Voici une lueur qui vacille au gré d'une flamme mélancolique. Je vous propose de vous laisser aller à cette chanson poignante qui capture l'essence même de l'âme romantique de l'Inde. La chanson s'intitule "Woh Lamhe", soit "Ces instants". Le clip est extrait du film Zeher et contient une traduction amateur qui ne rend pas très bien la poésie des paroles, mais au pis aller cela vous donne une idée de la chose. Afin de vous donner un minimum de contexte, l'histoire qui sous-tend la chanson est celle d'un couple en route pour conclure leur divorce et durant le trajet fatidique l'homme se remémore le début de leurs amours.


Here's a poignant song that captures and vibrates with the very essence of the Indian soul. "Woh Lamhe" meaning "those moments" echoes the romantic flame of India and its perpetual shadow of melancholy. The clip comes from the Bollywood movie Zeher and contains an amateur translation which doesn't really get the gist of the poetry conveyed by the hindi lyrics, but well it'll give you a general idea. The song is about a couple that has drifted apart and their whispered recollections of the love gone by.

Basterds deserving a tad more glory, I'd say

It's all in the name sometimes. Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece deserved way better than to be boiled down to "a classic Tarantino genre-blending thrill ride, Inglourious Basterds is violent, unrestrained, and thoroughly entertaining," as the critics would have it. The flick did of course make it as a huge box-office hit and got a decent amount of Academy Award nominations. But in the face of Tarantino's trademark for gore unleashed, critics failed to perceive the subtleness and finesse in the background. Be it the plot, the unrelenting movie rhythm, the top-notch acting, Inglourious Basterds is two and a half hours of pure delight and a treasure trove of details for cinema lovers. Also, you need to be able to manage in more than one language to truly relish this tremendous work of art. The movie juggles with English, French, German and a tad of Italian. Being fluent in the first three languages, you can take my word for it that Tarantino did a hell of a good job to make this movie a world-class one in the finest of details, despite an orgy of violence, all in good taste mind you. Allow me to help you revisit or discover this movie with a handful of well-chosen excerpts.

My first excerpt, which I dubbed "The Jew Hunter", is the movie's opening scene. It begins with a slow pace but builds up tension gradually. Christoph Waltz plays Colonel Hans Landa and Denis Menochet plays LaPadite. For this role, Waltz won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and reaped an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. It seems only Cannes thought outside of Manichean B&W lines and understood that Landa was the pivotal, if not the lead character of the movie. Anyway, back to the excerpt. Here you'll see a true picture of France under the Occupation. The manner with which Colonel Landa mentally breaks down the farmer is an intricate piece of genius. An iron fist in a velvet glove. Hats off for the acting, script and the nerve-racking build-up.

Hungry for more? Here's the second excerpt that I've dubbed "Gestapo Games". Here, a group of Basterds undercover meet up with a German spy in a tavern when their plans get foiled by a most undesirable fly in the spy soup, a Machiavellian and cunning Gestapo officer. That's for the context, now I need to give you a few pointers. The German actress, Bridget von Hammersmark (beautifully played by Jennifer van der Schaaf), is an icon of the pre-war German actress, a blue copy of say Marlene Dietrich in Sternberg's "Der Blaue Engel". And did I say spy? The role of Lt. Archie Hicox, the British undercover spy, is an intrinsic pun at the expense of James Bond movies. The part is played by Michael Fassbender, an actor of immense talent who gave the full measure of his worth in his role as Magneto in X-Men First Class. It is worth mentioning, before viewing the excerpt and once you view it you'll understand why, that Fassbender is of German and Irish parentage. Tarantino went to great lengths for his casting! Last but certainly not least, a word on our Gestapo man, Major Hellstrom. He deals the cards  in this excerpt, and makes the Basterds play a little guessing game. The game is far from being devoid of significance. It shows us two things. First how cunning and perfectly methodical the Gestapo Major is in his logical thinking process. So deutsch, ja. And second, w.r.t to his answer and King Kong, we catch a glimpse of the lines along which he thinks. Seriously, just the script for this game bit bedazzles me. 

N.B.: There's a slight quirk in the translation that does not fully render the sharpness of Major Hellstrom's remark when he confronts Lt. Hicox as being "Captain I-don't-know-what" after he cleverly identified  the other two Basterds as Öbersturmführer Munich and Öbersturmführer Frankfort. In German, he says Hauptsturmführer Heimatlos, which means Captain without a country and as such the remark is much more of a jab to our British spy.

I mentioned the meticulous casting earlier on. Quentin Tarantino's trump card in that perspective would definitely be Sylvester Groth for, erm, bringing Goebbels back to life.

光

Au menu aujourd'hui, un mini cours de japonais !

Lumière en japonais se traduit par le mot Hikari. Dans le système d'écriture japonais, ce mot est joliment et succinctement représenté par le Kanji - 光.

Pourquoi je vous parle de ça ? Parce que j'aimerais vous faire découvrir une chanteuse nippone qui sait transformer la lumière en paroles.

Utada Hikaru is a singer from Japan who can bottle up light (Hikari) in her songs. Enjoy!

Hikari, 光 - Utada Hikaru

Like it? The lyrics are worth your time, check it out!

Vous aimez ? Alors, en cadeau, les paroles !