Yellow Cab: Based on the Novel by Benoit Cohen

A French filmmaker moves to New York City and has a notion to immerse himself by becoming a cab driver. Much of this graphic novel is him jumping through all the many, convoluted, and necessary bureaucratic hoops and then sitting in his cab brainstorming scenes for his movie as he scrutinizes his passengers, his fellow cab drivers, and the people on the streets of the city. Instead of a film, the real Benoit Cohen turned this endeavor into a 2017 French novel, Yellow Cab, that Christophe Chabouté has now adapted into a graphic novel.

It sort of reminds me of stories about method actors going extra lengths to develop their characters, but mostly it reminds me of promotions I've seen for a cheesy reality show called Undercover Boss, where show more an out-of-touch CEO pretends he's just one of the guys to get the inside scoop on how the other half lives. Cohen's motives, casual deception, discreet recording, and failure to really delve into the ramifications of slumming amongst the common man while enjoying a more privileged lifestyle once he steps out of the cab just left me a bit queasy and uncomfortable. It didn't help when he decided to make his movie's lead character female and started conjecturing how he might have to adapt his experiences to how he imagines a woman might experience them. I'm not sure he has a firm grip on that point of view.

In the end, I was bored as he settled on having the city itself be the main character, focusing on all the little moments with individual people, as if every strange person he sees is his resource to exploit, and as if we haven't seen the same sort of thing done again and again before. Based on this adaptation, I wouldn't want to see his film if it ever does get made. show less

graphic fiction based on same-titled novel by same author; tv/movie writer becomes a cab driver for potential plot inspiration in 2015, bearing witness to various sides and undersides of NYC in all its glory.

Comme d'habitude, magnifique album. Le dessin de Christophe Chabouté est extraordinaire. Il a l'art de rendre une atmosphère, des sentiments, en jouant sur les noirs et blancs, les plans, le découpage. Une succession de vue de New-York a hauteur d'un chauffeur de taxi, les yeux sur la foule, les gens, et vers le haut, les trouées au milieu des immeubles, et puis c'est une séries de visages de New-yorkais, en deux, trois plans, Chaboute nous racontent leur histoires... Finalement, ce n'est plus l'histoire d'un français devenant chauffeur de taxi mais une déambulation dans New-York.

Si Will Eisner a toujours été pour moi la référence absolue pour la représentation de New-York en bande dessinée (en comics, donc), il me faut reconnaitre que Chabouté s’en sort remarquablement bien et que son tableau new-yorkais est tout à fait sublime !

Sans avoir lu le roman de Benoit Cohen, il m’est difficile de juger de l’adaptation, mais là aussi, cet album réussit à créer une ambiance, un espace et une temporalité remarquables.

L’histoire d’un auteur à la recherche d’inspiration pour faire un film et qui décide de devenir taximan à New-York.

The american dream vu par un frenchie cab driver. Une grosse réussite !