(with subtitles)
He was a filmmaker with a capital F.
Iconoclastic. He said ‘Non’ to Hollywood, 1
‘Pourquoi? Ici je suis Le Chef.’ 2
A director’s director. Difficult but good.
But when Mademoiselle La Grande C. 3
Crept into his bed in Montparnasse
And kissed him on the rectum, he
Had a rectumectomy. But in vain. Hélas. 4
And how they mourned, the aficionados.
(Even stars he’d not met were seen to grieve,
The Christies, Fondas, Streeps and Bardots.)
And for them all, he’d one last trick up his sleeve.
‘Cimetière Vérité’ he called it (a final pun). 5
In a fashionable graveyard in Paris 3ième.
He was buried, and at the going down of the sun
Premiered his masterpiece, La Mort, C’est Moi-même. 6
The coffin, an oblong, lead-lined studio with space
For the body, a camera and enough light
To film in close-up that once sanguine face
Which fills the monumental screen each night.
The show is ‘Un grand succès’. People never tire 7
Of filing past. And in reverential tone
They discuss the symbolism, and admire
Its honesty. La Vérité pared down to the bone. 8
FIN 9