The peak of everything

Jean-Claude Carriere is possibly the most famous scriptwriter you've never heard of.  Since the 1960's he's lived a sort of Zelig-like existence, collaborating with some of the best and more interesting film and theatre directors of the last fifty years; Milos Forman, Luis Bunuel, Philip Kaufmann, Peter Brook and Jean-Luc Goddard.

I recently came across in old NYT love-piece from 1988 that describes Carriere driving across the Seine with the photographer Robert Doisneau (y'know, this guy): -

Carrière gazes through the windshield at the soft outlines of the fog-shrouded buildings. “J’aime bien ça,” he says contentedly. 

“That’s because you’re starting to get old,” Doisneau replies. “When you’re young you see only the details. When you grow up, you see both the details and the whole. That’s the peak of everything, it’s what you’ve lived for. When you get old, you forget about the details and see only the whole.”

Nice to think I feel that I might be at an age when I can see the details and the whole at once.