Ed van der Elsken’s book of photographs, Love on the Left Bank, gives us a fascinating insight into the life actually lived in Paris by the future Situationists, then still rebel Lettrists or Imaginists. The central character, a Mexican—whose point of view the photographer seems to take—has arrived in Paris as a hitchhiker, sleeping out on benches. Soon he makes some new friends and wanders from café to café with an Australian girl, in search of the scene. The book consists mainly of photographs taken in Left Bank cafés, portraits of their denizens napping, embracing, drinking, putting money in the juke-box, playing chess, whispering, selling hashish, reading psychology textbooks, acting as nightclub guides for tourists, begging, playing the guitar, handing out publicity leaflets in the street, painting, grinning, eating cheese sandwiches, sleeping in a news cinema or the metro, arguing, singing, smoking hashish, flirting, getting drunk, picking a fight, dancing, making up, listening to music, just waiting, being sent to jail, dreaming, falling in love. Finally, he returns to Mexico. In fact, it is a very confined life, limited by lack of money and, I suppose, lack of focus, if that’s the word. It seems to be dark all the time. Who knows what happens in the daylight?
- Peter Wollen
'Situationists and Architecture' (NLR April/March 2001)
