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Garagisme

02.04.2013 — Photography

There are Elegant Deaths
ByFrançois Coquerel & Oscar Coop-Phane

There are Elegant Deaths by François Coquerel & Oscar Coop-Phane - © Garagisme
There are Elegant Deaths by François Coquerel & Oscar Coop-Phane - © Garagisme
There are Elegant Deaths by François Coquerel & Oscar Coop-Phane - © Garagisme
There are Elegant Deaths by François Coquerel & Oscar Coop-Phane - © Garagisme

This article was previously published in the third issue of GARAGISME in 2013

Photography:

François Coquerel

Text:

Oscar Coop-Phane

Models:

Pauline Jacquard & Oscar Coop-Phane

Hair & make-up:

Magalie Fockeu (Agence B4)

Light assistant:

Anthony Parisey

Second assistant:

Marie-Amélie Tondu

There are deaths and then there are elegant deaths. One can only hope for a death resembling Nimier’s. Yes, I can picture it: a precious car, a beautiful woman and a bloodstained suit. My hair in a slight disarray, there I lay gracefully against the floor, as if I could smoke a cigarette. That isn’t a glorious death, but an elegant one. What I’d like to say is that Nimier did not die as a hero but as an aesthete.

What I’d like to say is that Nimier did not die as a hero but as an aesthete. Only a few people are capable of dying with such savoir-faire. Besides Nimier, there is Rigaut’s suicide, who replaced the flower in his buttonhole with a bullet. The absolute artist, so idle that he believed in his gun more than anything else, all the while carrying it from one city to the next, hidden in a case or under a pillow.I do not have Rigaut’s malice; I know that I’m not going to point and shoot at my heart just as I reach my 30th. No, I would rather go with option number one, Nimier’s elegant death: a pretty young lady (blonde, as my taste dictates ), one who’s fantasy is to drive. Maybe I am drunk, maybe I just give in to her lusting presence or I simply can’t ignore her yearning any longer, it doesn’t matter.

Check the glove compartment, there’s whisky and some American cigarettes you can find there.”

The windows are open. She throws her high heels onto the back seat, so that from time to time I can catch a glimpse of her naked legs moving about under the steering wheel. Her hair is waving in the wind. I can feel the warmth of the asphalt, the smell of leather and cigarettes fills my nostrils. I look at her. She is beautiful. There’s blue tobacco smoke, just like in the old films, remnants of an old cliché. The trees flash into pace as we drive by.

There are turns but just a few; it’s quite the road the one we have taken! We grasp on to the rhythm of life and like a waltz we dance away the dawn as we make our way to the beginning of night. One more time we go back, taste of gin, a loose tie and heavy eyes. We speak a little, as two shadows that are about to disappear. Sometimes we laugh, it’s senseless. We are about to die just like Nimier but we are oblivious. Yes, at the next turn, we are going to slip, roll over a few time, a shattering blow twists and wrinkles the sheet metal, our bodies slightly rumpled, lifeless. The road is covered with pine needles.

www.francoiscoquerel.com