Berlin, 1974. Walter Asmus, a young 32-year-old director, assists Samuel Beckett, 68, for his first personal production of Waiting for Godot . Very quickly, the professional understanding becomes a friendship that will last until the writer's death. It can be said of this film, without being mistaken, that it tells the story of this friendship. He does it in the manner of Declan Clarke, according to his routine: in fixed shots, in 16mm, in the present tense, by articulating visual and sound description of the places, presentation of archives, and objective narration of the facts. The archives are those of Asmus: postcards received from Beckett, annotated scripts of the plays they staged together, etc. The places are those of Beckett's routines during his stays in Berlin or Stuttgart: studios, restaurants, parks. Sobriety, factuality. But because Declan Clarke is one of those filmmakers who know how to create feelings while sticking to the facts, If I fall don't pick me up converts the chronicle into a poignant eulogy, not of a man, but of a relationship and the values ​​that found it: loyalty and fidelity, sobriety and rigor. And because these values ​​have always informed the artist's life and practice, a strange mutation occurs before our eyes - a revelation: the world seen by those of Declan Clarke is Beckettian. This world of modernity, or what remains of it, these empty, deserted places, these minimal architectures, form a frozen setting waiting for a play by Beckett. Directed by Asmus. And if the film begins in the Wicklow mountains and ends on the stage of the Gate Theater, in Dublin, it is because the exercise of admiration is also, despite its author, a very indirect self-portrait. All modesty and restraint. " Hold back! " » Declan Clarke, like Walter Asmus, has learned the lesson of the great Sam. Cyril Neyrat