FugaFilm
(UK 2024, 4k digital,
5 minutes)
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"I had experienced
a moment of genuine rapture,
not from some idea of importance,
but from a musty smell."
- Marcel Proust
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"wisdom rises from a bad smell"
- Satori Ubu
A preliminary sketch prior LEADING to NOW Again
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NOW Again
(UK 2025-27, 4k digital,
540 minutes - in 5 parts)
Music:
Bach
Beethoven
Chopin
Debusy
Franck
Hahn
Janacek
Kancheli
Liszt
Mompu
Pachelbel
Saint-Saens
Schubert
Scriabin
Shostakovich
Vierne
Wagner
with deep gratitude to inspirational pianists
Fanny Azzuro
Boris Giltburg
Clelia Iruzun
Marion Lees
for their musical support and permissions.
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Feature / Series
for RELEASE 2027
un tour autour de la tête de Proust
reminiscences from
"Remembrance of Things Past"
PART ONE (UK 2026, 4k digital, 55 minutes)
SWANN'S WAY
WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE
PART TWO (UK 2026, 4k digital,(87 minutes)
THE GUERMANTES WAY
PART THREE (UK 2027, 4k digital, 102 minutes)
SODOM & GOMORRAH
PART FOUR (c 120 minutes; 2026)
THE CAPTIVE
THE FUGITIVE
PART FIVE (c 100 minute; 2027)
TIME REGAINED
We feel in one world, we think, we give names to things in another; between the two we can establish a certain correspondence, but not bridge the interval. It was quite narrow, this interval, this fault that I had had to cross.
- Marcel Proust |
"The first filmic interpretation of Proust's entire novel, Philpott stretches narrative form into rich and varied experimental territories, providing a visual feast and sonic immersion, using AI and unique digital production techniques, to reveal the vast panoramic structure of Proust's masterwork and provide a 21st century foundation for this timeless 20th century epic."
A new form of story-telling for a modern age.
Closer to documentary invention, rejecting costume drama.
Closer to art than stage.
Writing in pictures and music.
"Through new forms, I hope to provide direct access to Proust's intimate investigation of his mind, an understanding our internal world and a human's relationship to the external world."
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TRAILER
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An investigation into
The Life of the Mind
Awareness
Psychology
Transference
Transmigration
Personality
Identity
Sexuality
Religion
Antisemitism
Snobbery
Delusion
Hypocrisy
Class
Warfare
Militarism
Automobiles
Aircraft
Telephones
Time
Memory
Eternity
Architecture
Music
Theatre
Painting
The Senses
The Will
Dreams
Sleep
Love
Friendship
Fantasy
Death
Immortality
Resurrection |
PART ONE - synopsis
The Narrator’s childhood in Combray - his experience of unconscious memory caused by the taste of a Madeleine soaked in lime tea - the two Ways that are walked from the house - his awareness of Swann and his daughter Gilberte among hawthrons - the moving steeples of Martinville trigger ecstatic joy - the Ways evoke profound awareness - Swann’s love for Odette as an aesthetic object - the Narrator’s first visit to Balbec - his awareness of different selves in himself and Gilberte at different times - a sense of profound reality discovered in a musty smell - the awareness that memories contain secrets of nature - Balbec society and the Narrator’s Grandmother - trees moving in a landscape during a carriage drive revive a sense of profound ecstasy - friendships with Robert de Saint-Loup and a band of girls on the beach - the awareness of a multiplicity of selves - understanding awakening only in solitude - the importance of dreaming - a first intimacy with Albertine
BRITISH COUNCIL link |
PART TWO - synopsis
The Narrator's family move home in Paris to the Hotel Guerrmantes - exploration of the relationship between great acting and great writing - the mental separation of the worlds of things and their names - the separation of the paths of waking and sleep, of reality and what is wished for - a visit to Saint-Loup and a telephone call to his Grandmother makes clear the gulf between self and other, representation and reality, and an intimation of death - Saint-Loup’s obsessive unrealistic love for an actress - the unreality of the ego and the mystery of death - the society of the Guermantes and the Faubourg Saint Germaine - the strange behaviour of Baron de Charlus - the Grandmother’s stroke - the visits of the author Bergotte and intimations of death - the consciousness and unconsciousness of sleep - the death of the Narrator’s grandmother - reminiscences of Balbec and Albertine and the artificiality of memory as fantasy - the tolerance of Charlus’ insulting behaviour - Charlus’s extreme treatment of the Narrator - a failed assignation in the Bois - the relationship between the profound experiences of the church steeples and the moving trees - a reception at the Guermantres - the paintings of Elsier reveal new realities - the falseness of Faubourg society - the self-delusions of the Guermantes - the mistaken relationship between nature and representation in art - an hysterical interview with M de Charlus - a reception at the Princess de Guermantes - the anti-semitic divisions of society - the Dreyfus Affair - the Guermantes refusal to recognise death in favour of a costume ball.
BRITISH COUNCIL link |
PART THREE - synopsis
Charlus encounters Jupien and engage in homosexual intercourse - the Narrator reflects on the nature of "inverts", and the beauty of other examples in nature -
at the Princesse Guermantes' party, he observes Charlus paying close attention to a young man -
the Princesse ignores the Narrators; request to be introduced to the Prince - Swann speculates on aristocratic antisemitism and the Dreyfus case, which has caused the Prince and Pricesse to hide their support for Dreyfus from one another - after at a late-night meeting with Albertine, Francoise declares her distrust of the young woman, warning the Narrator of her 'type' - the Narrator writes an indifferent letter to Gilberte, and considers Mme. Swann's salon centred on Bergotte.
At Balbec, grief at his grandmother's suffering leads him to consider the intermittencies of the heart - his mother arrives, now resembling his grandmother - spending more time with Albertine, he begins to suspect Albertine of lesbianism and fakes a preference for her friend Andrée - ne becomes aware of other scandalous women at the resort - Charlus pretends to know Morel, the son of a valet, not realising that there Narrator already knows him - now an acclaimed violinist, Morel and Charlus are invited to the Verdurins' Balbec villa which they are renting a house from the Cambremers.
On the local train with him is the little clan: Brichot, who explains the etymology of local place-names; Cottard, now a
celebrated doctor; Saniette, still the butt of ridicule and humiliation by the Verdurins - when Charlus arrives together with Morel, his true nature is barely concealed.
The Narrator ruminates on sleep and time - he takes Albertine around the the coast, leading to observations about new forms of travel - he grows increasingly jealous and suspicious of Albertine - taking the train with the other guests - Charlus is now a regular at the Verdurins, despite his obliviousness to the clan's vindictiveness - Charlus and Morel try to maintain the secret of their relationship, and the Narrator recounts Charlus's attempt to control Morel using a fake duel - the station names remind the Narrator of various people and incidents, and the Prince de Guermantes attempts the arrange liaisons with Morel foiled unknowingly by Charlus and Jupien - despite Narrator's weariness of Albertine and a determination to break with her, when she reveals to him her friendships Mlle. Vinteuil and her lesbian companion at Combray), he immediately convinces her to go to Paris with him, and tells his mother that he must marry Albertine at all costs.l |
