Monday, May 31, 2010

Den gule trøje i de høje bjerge by Jørgen Leth

Tour de France affectionardo par exellence

Rating 4 out of 10

In this book Jørgen Leth recounts all the great moment of Tour de France which he have been following all his life. A problem with the book is that Leth wants to recount all the great moments, and thereby he drowns the great moments in other great moments. It becomes tirering to again and again be told that what this and that rider did was so brave and so brilliant! The effect is of course that you stop paying attention to him. One memorable scene in the book is from Jørgens childhood in Århus, Denmark. After Jørgen has watched bike races he becomes quite obsessed. He stands in the garden at his home and reenacts the bike race inside his head. He comes in a trancelike state and afterwards he has a headache. Later he projects his enactment of the bike race outside of himself. He arranges bike races with the local kids. Jørgen lives around Vestre Ringgade in Århus. The infant Jørgen is an almost comical character, he appear as an extraordinary clumsy and awkvard character, kind of like a fool. The local bike mecanic calls him "Jørgen Tung" (Jørgen Heavy). He never wins any of the bike races he arrange himself, his mother make flower bouquets for the 1., 2. and 3. place winners in Jørgens bike races. All in all Jørgen himself seems really miserable at sports, his friend Henning Andersen from Fjordsgade school (living on Søndre Ringgade) easily beats him in table tennis 21-2. Later Henning and Jørgen starts to arrange jazz events, Henning is quite succesfull arranging main stream jazz events and becomes rich. Jørgen on the other hand is drawn to arranging events for a more select crowd. He arranges bebob events, and when he arranges avantgarde jazz events, maybe only 1 person turns up. Also when he starts producing films actually no people really goes to see them in the cinema.

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