1989 Selection

Michael Synek's film Les Poissons morts is drawn from a short story Boris Vian wrote when he was in his youth, in 1943. This short story was published for the first time in June 1947, in number 12 of Arbalète (among texts by Antonin Artaud, Jean Genêt, Marcel Jouhandeau and Jean Tardieu). In 1947, Vian also collaborated on L'Ecran Français and wrote Le Festival de Cannes, four film scripts on the International Film Festival. According to Boris Vian (source : Noël Arnaud in Les Vies parallèles de Boris Vian), the films made from these scripts : a) were not to be unimaginative documentary films, b) the framework was to be sufficient, c) were not supposed to be boring, d) were to give an impression of wealth and affluence. These four features sum up Les Poissons morts. Les Poissons morts is now in the collection Les Fourmis published in 1949 in Les Editions du Scorpion and was republished by Eric Losfeld in Terrain Vague in 1960 and 1966.