B L A S T B O O K S 2016
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Over the course of three days, June 5, 6, and 7 in
1970, simply sitting on a white bench in Hamburg
park, Thomas Bernhard delivered a powerful
monologue for Three Days (Drei Tage), filmmaker
Ferry Radax's commanding film portrait of the great
Austrian writer. Radar interwove the monologue
with a variety of metaphorically resonant visual
techniques — blacking out the screen to total
darkness, suggesting the closing of the observing
eye; cuts to scenes of cameramen, lighting and
recording equipment; extreme camera distance and
extreme close-up. Bernhard had not yet written his
autobiographical work Gathering Evidence, published
originally in five separate volumes between 1975
and 1982, and his childhood remembrances were a
revelation. This publication of Bernhard's monologue
and stills from Radax's artful film allows this unique
portrait of Bernhard to be savored in book form.
