Gallimard
2024
272 pages, 220 × 290 mm
Christophe Honoré. Of Ghosts and Arts
A book by Xavier Lardoux
Éditions Gallimard
Editorial director of illustrated books: Nathalie Bailleux
Editor: Astrid Bargeton
Graphic design and layout: Léo Grunstein
Photoengraving: Hyphen (Italy)
Printing: Lego (Italy)
This work has benefited from the support of the National Book Center (CNL) and the National Center for Cinema and the Animated Image (CNC).
In cinema, theatre, opera and literature, Christophe Honoré has quietly become one of the most prolific artists of his generation, and has built a body of work of rare eclecticism. Initially considered a writer making films, he has transformed himself over the years into a filmmaker directing plays and operas, to be today at once a filmmaker, director and writer. Whatever the form he favours, he succeeds in questioning, with gentleness, humour and grace, our childhoods, our families, our loves and our deceased loved ones.
This book, richly illustrated with his works, archives and working documents, brings together a long interview with Christophe Honoré, and unpublished texts by around twenty personalities who inspire him or work alongside him, in the different artistic fields (cinema, literature, opera and theater), including Christine Angot, Alex Beaupain, Catherine Deneuve, Marina Foïs, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lacoste, Laurent Lafitte, Chiara Mastroianni and Serge Toubiana.
The layout, both playful and serious, places the different works of Christophe Honoré in perspective, as well as his literary and cinematographic references, to reveal the links that are woven between them.
Excerpts from texts by authors, such as Jean-Luc Lagarce, Hervé Guibert, Natalie Sarraute or Alain Robbe-Grillet, resonate with Honoré’s work.
The five chapters open with a quote from one of Honoré’s works, that resonate with a film. These double-sided pages evokes the shot-reverse shot of cinema and bring movement to the book.
