IN 1969, SAMUEL BECKETT AND HIS WIFE learned that he had won the Nobel prize in literature in a telegram from his publisher. "Dear Sam and Suzanne," it read. "In spite of everything, they have given you the Nobel prize. I advise you to go into hiding." Both were notoriously celebrity averse. Suzanne described it as a "catastrophe". Beckett declined to give a Nobel lecture, and refused to talk when a Swedish film crew tracked him down to a hotel room in Tunisia.
Into this temporal void, a new psychological biopic has poured a monumental reckoning, in which the 63-year-old playwright scrambles out of the Nobel ceremony to find himself in a rough-hewn underworld. In Dance First, a small masterpiece that premieres this month at the San Sebastián film festival, Beckett confronts the events and people who shaped him, from his domineering mother to his experience with the French resistance, his dalliance with James Joyce's daughter, Lucia, to his later inability to choose between Suzanne and the radio producer and translator Barbara Bray.
"You know this is going to be a journey through your shame," he solemnly informs himself. "Isn't everything?" he replies. It's interior monologue played as dialogue, presenting an unusual challenge for the actor Gabriel Byrne, who found himself in an old quarry outside Budapest for three days, speaking to a broom.
Denne historien er fra September 29, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra September 29, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
If kids get protected from online harm, how about the rest of us?
The Australian government has proposed a ban on social media for all citizens under 16.
'It's not drought - it's looting'
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded - and one group is profiting from these extremes: the thirsty multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for water in bottles.
Life in the grey Zone
Neonatal care has advanced so far that babies born as early as 21 weeks have survived. But is this type of care always the right thing to do?
Out of tune? Band Aid under fire for Africa tropes as it turns 40
Forty years ago this month, a group of pop stars gathered at a west London studio to record a single that would raise millions, inspire further starry projects, and ultimately change charity fundraising in the UK.
Deaths shine spotlight on risks of drinking on party trail
Vang Vieng is an unlikely party hub. Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it morphed from a small farming town to a hedonistic tourist destination in the early 2000s.
Different strokes My strange and emotional week with an AI pet
Moflin can develop a personality and build a rapport with its owner - and doesn't need food or exercise. But is it comforting or alienating?
Strike zone Waking up to the rising threat of lightning
When the Barbados National Archives, home to one of the world's most significant collections of documents from the transatlantic slave trade, reported in June that it had been struck by lightning, it received sympathy and offers of support locally and internationally.
Cheap pints and sticky carpets: the old-school pub is back
In the Palm Tree pub, east London, barman Alf is taking only cash at the rattling 1960s till.
Brain gain Can a radical tax scheme convince the country's brightest to stay?
In the autumn of 2018, I moved to Lisbon for a month-long course at the Universidade .de Lisboa.
Fear and sympathy in small town divided over asylum camp
A year after anti-immigration riots, a site for asylum seekers faces hostility while some locals try to help new arrivals
