Eddy Merckx in the Vicinity of a Cup of Coffee
Director Jorgen Leth
Countries Denmark
Duration 29 min
Synopsis
With a slow introductory zoom onto Leth in a TV studio and a corre- sponding zoom out at the end Eddy Merckx in the Vicinity of a Cup of Coffee may be structured in the classical style but an extremely unusual TV production is involved: in the studio Leth reads from his poetry while a subtitle – like in Life in Denmark – pedantically but ambiguously presents observations and describes what is going on. The subtitles seem to serve as a medium for the director’s deliberations as the TV film progresses, starting with the following manifesto: “I have no desire to save you or admonish you or get to know you. But I would like to try to entertain you for a while with words, sounds, and images”. Alternating with poetry readings from the studio the second half of the film consists of moments from the 1970 Tour de France, including the cobbled roads of Northern France, from Mont Ventoux, and from the cathedral dash in Rouen, which is seen no fewer than three times. The subtitles in these sequen- ces clearly point towards Leth’s cycling films proper and the state- ment is made that “This is not a poem but a bit of down-to-earth truth about things I know about”. A shot of lengthy duration of a spread-out field and a pavé also points towards A Sunday in Hell – a piece of real time is shown passing, for example. In the studio a peculiar device is created by which we cut from the horizontal movements of one camera to the identical movements of the other, or similarly between two zooms onto Leth or two almost identical medium shots of him. These edits convey nothing – apart from an awareness of the possibili- ties of the medium. Danish Film Institute
With a slow introductory zoom onto Leth in a TV studio and a corre- sponding zoom out at the end Eddy Merckx in the Vicinity of a Cup of Coffee may be structured in the classical style but an extremely unusual TV production is involved: in the studio Leth reads from his poetry while a subtitle – like in Life in Denmark – pedantically but ambiguously presents observations and describes what is going on. The subtitles seem to serve as a medium for the director’s deliberations as the TV film progresses, starting with the following manifesto: “I have no desire to save you or admonish you or get to know you. But I would like to try to entertain you for a while with words, sounds, and images”. Alternating with poetry readings from the studio the second half of the film consists of moments from the 1970 Tour de France, including the cobbled roads of Northern France, from Mont Ventoux, and from the cathedral dash in Rouen, which is seen no fewer than three times. The subtitles in these sequen- ces clearly point towards Leth’s cycling films proper and the state- ment is made that “This is not a poem but a bit of down-to-earth truth about things I know about”. A shot of lengthy duration of a spread-out field and a pavé also points towards A Sunday in Hell – a piece of real time is shown passing, for example. In the studio a peculiar device is created by which we cut from the horizontal movements of one camera to the identical movements of the other, or similarly between two zooms onto Leth or two almost identical medium shots of him. These edits convey nothing – apart from an awareness of the possibili- ties of the medium. Danish Film Institute