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| Author | Jean-Paul Sartre |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Short story |
| Published | 1939 |
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 | This article possibly contains original research .(January 2024) |
The Wall (French : Le Mur) by Jean-Paul Sartre, a collection of 5 short stories published in 1939 containing the eponymous story "The Wall", is considered one of the author's greatest existentialist works of fiction. Sartre dedicated the book to his companion Olga Kosakiewicz, a former student of Simone de Beauvoir.
The eponymous story coldly depicts a situation in which prisoners are condemned to death. Written in 1939, the story is set in the Spanish Civil War, which began July 18, 1936, and ended April 1, 1939, when the Nationalists (known in Spanish as the Nacionalistas), led by General Francisco Franco, overcame the forces of the Spanish Republic and entered Madrid.
The title refers to the wall used by firing squads to execute prisoners. The Wall itself symbolises the inevitability and unknowing of one's death. The protagonist, Pablo Ibbieta, along with two others in his cell, is sentenced to death. He is offered a way out if he reveals the location of his comrade, Ramón Gris. Pablo begins thinking to himself and finds that he no longer cares about his cause or his life. Pablo continues to refuse to cooperate until just before his scheduled execution, when, seeing no harm in it, he gives the authorities what he believes to be false information on Ramón Gris' whereabouts. Ramón Gris moved from his previous hiding place to the very spot where Pablo tells the authorities he may be found. Thus Ramón Gris is shot and Pablo's life is, at least temporarily, spared from death.
In La Chambre ("The Room"), Mme Darbédat is confined to her room by an unknown illness, where she spends her bedridden days reminiscing about the past and eating rahat-loukoums. She receives weekly visits from her husband, M. Darbédat; that day, during their conversation, it is revealed that the Darbédats' daughter, Ève, refuses to allow her husband Pierre – who suffers from apparent insanity – to be put away into an asylum. Mme Darbédat hints at Ève and Pierre's continued romantic intimacy, further angering her husband. M. Darbédat decides to pay Ève a visit, and the narrative shifts from the “sane” world of the Darbédats into the “sick,” perverse world of Pierre. After witnessing some of Pierre’s eccentric, abnormal behavior, M. Darbédat, unable to convince Ève to send the "madman" to Dr Franchot's clinic, finally leaves the apartment in helpless frustration. In the second part of the story, the nature of Pierre’s bizarre psychosis is explored more fully: he remains locked in a room that he has painted in black, calls his wife “Agatha” and recounts delusions about a time spent with her in Hamburg, and keeps a talisman (which he calls a “ziuthre”) to deal with his hallucinations. Nevertheless, Ève wishes to understand and engage in Pierre's psychotic world, which she finds authentic (in so doing, Ève has cut herself off from "normal" society). Ève watches as Pierre hallucinates a group of flying, buzzing statues, after which he goes to sleep. As she watches him sleep, Ève wonders how soon it will be before he shows signs of degeneration, bestialization, and utter dementia; the story ends with her chilling resolution to the sleeping Pierre: “Je te tuerai avant” (I’ll kill you before that.)
A story about a misanthropic man who resolves to follow the path of Herostratus and make history by means of an evil deed—in this case, by killing six random people (one for each bullet in his revolver). The man is exhilarated by the sense of power he receives when carrying his revolver on the streets within his pocket. "But I no longer drew assurance from that [the revolver], it was from myself: I was a being like a revolver, a torpedo or a bomb." Sartre gives the reader an insightful account about how a man's nature changes with the objects of his possession, but the object itself is unable to change the internal man, as seen in the conclusion.
Young Lulu struggles with authenticity as she seeks to liberate herself from social stereotypes. She decides to leave her husband Henri and run off with her lover Pierre at the insistence of her friend Rirette. She goes through several stages of realisation as she sees that the roles of wife, friend, and even lover are meaningless. However, she does not have enough strength to use the resulting angst to become an authentic being, so she finally decides to remain with her husband.
The Childhood of a Leader is the tale of the mental progress of a boy named Lucien Fleurier from around age 4 to his early adulthood. Lucien, the son of a rich industrialist, searches for identity and meaning in order to find out "what's wrong" with him. He journeys from Freudian psychoanalysis and being a one-time sexual partner of a paederast poet, to finally becoming part of a Fascist youth organisation and attacking/punching a Jewish man who is reading l'Humanité , with his friends.
The 1967 film The Wall is based on the story of the same name.
The 2016 film The Childhood of a Leader is based on the story of the same name.
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The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles.
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Love on the Run is a 1979 French comedy-drama film directed by François Truffaut, his fifth and final film about the character Antoine Doinel. Told in non-linear fashion, with frequent flashbacks to the four previous films, it stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Marie-France Pisier, Dorothée, and Dani. It was entered into the 29th Berlin International Film Festival.
The Man Who Could Cheat Death is a 1959 British horror film, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, and Christopher Lee. Jimmy Sangster adapted the screenplay from the play The Man in Half Moon Street by Barré Lyndon, which had been previously filmed in 1945. The Man Who Could Cheat Death was produced by Michael Carreras and Anthony Nelson Keys for Hammer Film Productions. It was released in the US on 19 August 1959 and in the UK on 30 November 1959.
The Sleeping Car Murders is a 1965 French mystery film directed by Costa-Gavras from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot. It stars Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Michel Piccoli, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Allégret, Jacques Perrin, Charles Denner and Pascale Roberts. The film was the directorial debut of Costa-Gavras, to be followed later by other, more politically-oriented work.
Naked Girl Killed in the Park is a 1972 Italian-language giallo film directed by Alfonso Brescia, co-written by Gianni Martucci and starring Robert Hoffmann and Adolfo Celli.
Les jeux sont faits, known in English as The Chips are Down, is a 1947 French fantasy film directed by Jean Delannoy, based on the screenplay of the same name by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. It was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.
Le Crime ne paie pas is a 1962 French drama portmanteau film directed and partly written by Gérard Oury. It consists of four separate episodes, each with its own cast and writers but sharing common themes of beautiful women, jealousy, revenge and death.
Woman Times Seven is a 1967 sex comedy anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It consists of seven segments, all starring Shirley MacLaine, most of which deal with aspects of adultery.
Shake, Rattle & Roll XI is a 2009 Filipino supernatural horror anthology film produced by Regal Entertainment, and the eleventh installment of the Shake, Rattle & Roll film series. It is directed by Rico Gutierrez, Don Michael Perez and Jessel Monteverde.
The Wall is a 1967 French drama film directed by Serge Roullet and based on the short story of the same name by Jean-Paul Sartre, who also wrote the dialogue for the film. It was entered into the 17th Berlin International Film Festival.
The Condemned of Altona is a play written by Jean-Paul Sartre, known in Great Britain as Loser Wins. It was first produced in 1959 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. It was one of the last plays Sartre wrote, followed only by his adaptation of Euripides' The Trojan Women. The English-language title recalls his formulation "Man is condemned to be free." It is the only one of Sartre's fictional works which deals directly with Nazism, and also serves as a critique of the then-ongoing Algerian War. The action takes place in Altona, a borough of the German city-state of Hamburg.
Sleeping Beauties is a novel by Stephen King and his son Owen King, released on September 26, 2017. The book was first mentioned during a promotional appearance on the CBC radio program q. Of the novel, Stephen King stated, "Owen brought me this dynamite idea and I've collaborated a couple of times with Joe. I'm not going to say what the idea is because it's too good."
Mara is a 2018 American supernatural horror film directed by Clive Tonge in his feature-length debut and written by Jonathan Frank. The film stars Olga Kurylenko as criminal psychologist Kate Fuller, who investigates the murder of a man and is haunted by the eponymous demon who kills people in their sleep. The film also stars Craig Conway. Tonge and Frank based the film's story on conditions and mythology surrounding both sleep paralysis and Brugada syndrome. The film was released by Saban Films on September 7, 2018. It received negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb.
The Childhood of a Leader is a short story or novella of a little over a hundred pages by Jean-Paul Sartre. It is the final story in Sartre's collection that reflects a significant change from non-existence to existence through chronicling the life of Lucien Fleurier since he was a child until he became an anti-Semitic Camelot who believes that he can become a real leader. The work was published in 1939 with four other short stories in a collection entitled The Wall.
