Le Divin Scénario. Script by Jacky Beneteaud Drawings by Fabrizio Dori

19.5 × 28 cm 192 pages in color hardback june 2021 retail price: 21.50 €

Jacky Beneteaud has worked as an advisor on adult and youth education and has been writing for many years. Now retired, he lives in La Rochelle. He wrote the script for the critically acclaimed Pages intérieures album illustrated by Stéphane Courvoisier (Actes Sud-L’An 2, 2011). Fabrizio Dori studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where he is based. An illustrator as well as a visual artist who work is regularly exhibited in Italian galleries, he is the author of two well-received albums published by Sarbacane: Gauguin, l’autre monde (2016) and Le Dieu vagabond (2019).

THE DIVINE SCREENPLAY

Script by Jacky Beneteaud Illustrations by Fabrizio Dori

A wave of panic in Heaven! God has just realised that he has completely forgotten to make good on a prophecy to have a son who embodies his divine power on Earth. And so the Archangel Gabriel is entrusted with the task of finding the woman who will become the mother of the son of God. But he has only a rather vague description to guide him (she is “the woman who reads”) and perhaps he is also a little bit too wet behind the ears to see through such a delicate mission.

The theme of the Annunciation, which has inspired so much art over the centuries, is press ganged here into the service of a witty tale during which we encounter the likes of Scheherazade, Dante, Fragonard’s reading woman, Emma Bovary and Marilyn Monroe. The story is full of cultural references to both high-brow art and pop culture, and celebrates poetry and love without ever falling into earnestness. In three parts (“The Divine Screenplay”, “A Cast to Die for” and “In nomine oscaribus”), the authors take us from Olympus to Hollywood, springing one surprise after another and never passing up a chance for an anachronism. For this grand script, a grand illustrator was needed. Fabrizio Dori has not only struck the right balance between celebration and parody but dazzles with the quality of his staging, the sensuality of his images and the power of his palette.