Original subtitles

Gentle flute music

... Bellowing

... Bells

... ...

... Slight hubbub

... ...

Mysterious music

...

...

...

-Time,

movement.

...

Time and motion.

...

...

The turn of the century called for invention.

...

Photographing at last

movement and time.

...

Marey, Muybridge,

Janssen, Le Prince, Bouly, and many others.

...

To think we had to wait until 1891

for Edison and Dickson invent the kinetoscope.

...

A few seconds of time on small rollers.

The dark boxes where the 1st films were shown, in America.

...

Each spectator, alone,

standing in front of his dark box.

The first films.

Soft music

...

What did the Lumière brothers invented with Carpentier?

...

Well, photographed time.

...

... Vrombissement

...

... ...

Time...

...

They projected it onto a screen.

...

America had invented the first films.

France found cinema.

...

Cinema, at last.

...

Finally, cinema.

-We're looking at what cinema is going to have to deal with,

not because it anticipates it, but because it creates the need for it.

To give a sense of satisfaction

and above all, no promises

that something may occur in this image.

It's a picture very much in the image

a time when trade shows with nearly two million visitors.

The famous, the legendary,

presentation of Lumière films at the Grand Café de Paris

will attract just 3,000 visitors in a year.

Compared to Bouguereau's,

Ker Roussel, the Nabi painter,

this painting promises, in a way, in representation,

that something can happen.

Can arise.

As if the painter hadn't foreseen it.

We may already be in a movie

which does not include a passer-by.

It's the hazard, it's the accident.

It really is cinema in 1897.

We already have melodrama.

La mater dolorosa, with her strong gaze,

who is sad for this child holding hands with his father.

It's all in the detail. Naturalism is detail.

The closer the characters get, the sharper they become.

There's a deliberate to borrow from cinema.

Here, not much.

A large white beach, almost like a movie screen.

Fire from the sun, on this probably dusty ground.

With this beautiful image geometry, which makes it possible to...

show the shadow of the branch in the background.

But if you look closely, there's a lot going on.

This accident on the arrival of onlookers,

suddenly, the arrival of the spectators.

They may be the shadows of onlookers,

of walkers and strollers,

looking at the painter who depicts this scene.

This work shows, for the first time,

not just a painter's eye, but that of the viewers.

Whose shadow is projected in the painting.

Melancholy music

...

... She reads in English.

...

-Oh! Laugh

(In English)

...

...

...

... ...

...

... ...

*...

*...

-It's often said that painters invented invented photography.

I say, "No, it's the chemists."

One November evening,

shortly after my mother's death,

I was putting photos away.

I didn't expect to find her.

I knew that, by that fatality which is one of the atrocious traits of mourning,

I'd have to consult images,

I could never again remember his features.

Call them, all of them, to me.

In the course of these photos, sometimes,

I recognized an area of his face.

Such a nose ratio, such a forehead ratio.

The movement of his arms and hands.

I only ever recognized her in bits and pieces.

In other words, I was missing his being.

And that, therefore,

I missed it all.

To say in front of a photo: "It's almost her",

was more heartbreaking to me than saying: "That's not her at all."

The almost...

And yet..,

there was always in those photos of my mother

a reserved place.

Preserved.

The clarity of his eyes.

For the moment, it was a physical luminosity.

The photographic trace of a color.

The blue-green of his eyes.

But this light was already a kind of mediation,

that led me to an essential identity.

The genius of the beloved face.

*-When you photograph a face... Look at me!

*The soul is photographed in the background.

*Photography is truth. Cinema, 24 times the truth per second.

Soft music

...

-I remember the 1st Saturday afternoon my grandmother took me to the movies.

-So..,

I'll take you out like a young man.

-Yes. -Mm.

Well, with Delphine. -Yes.

-I was apprehensive the show to discover.

-Have you ever been to the movies? -Yes, with you, Grandma.

-Yes, I... and you, not yet? -No, I haven't.

-Have they forgotten you? -No, I've been watching movies on TV.

-Yeah. -Yeah, that's right.

Television's all very well, but cinema.., you'll see, it's different.

So, here, you go and stand there.

And you, you're going to stand there.

-Why? -The man has to be on the street side,

to protect the lady. And since you're young and brilliant,

I need you to protect me.

-Bonjour, mademoiselle, madame.

-Here, take a ticket.

Here's a second one. Thank you for your time. -Thank you for your time.

-Here.

Soft music Indistinct speech

-Paul! -Thank you, Paul.

Stammer -I'm so sorry.

-What are you up to?

-Can I go get some candy?

-No. Come on, let's sit in the sixth row.

... Hubbub

Sixth row. I'll stand between you two.

... ...

Make yourself comfortable.

...

(-When will it start?) -Right now.

-Iced chocolates.

-Once, I was at the movies,

suddenly, the image became completely distorted.

I thought it was beautiful.

What I didn't know was...

the film had jammed in the projector.

And the light, very strong, burned the film, you know?

So...

(Shh, it's about to start.)

*Spy music

*...

What are you looking at? It's the other way around.

(-Yes, I know.) -Shhh!

(-You have to look at the screen.)

*...

How are you?

(-Yes, yes.)

*...

(-Do you like it?)

-Yes. (-Ah.)

*...

-I have to pee. Where is it?

(-Already?) -Shhh!

-Yes.

(-Shall I come with you?) -Quiet!

(-No, it's okay.) -Shhh!

(-So, it's over there, all the way in the back, see?)

(There's a small door.) -Quiet! Quiet!

*...

*... Toilet flush

*...

*-That's me.

*Fantomas.

*...

*You'll never know my true face.

*Under this mask, no one will ever know him.

*...

*You took the liberty of writing an article about me

*in which you ridicule me.

*You make me

*a fantasist!

*Fight Jump

*Fight

*... *...

*... Startled

*Meshing

*Groan of pain

*Never forget that forever, you belong to me.

(-Grandma, can we go?) -Shhh!

(-Hang on a second. Keep it down.) -I'm scared.

-Shhh! -Mask your eyes a little,

it will pass, it will be softer, then you'll see.

-Grandma, let's go, I'm scared. -Don't talk.

(-Listen, darling, we have to go.)

(-Why?) (-The film scares your sister.)

(-I'm staying.)

(-You're not staying here alone.) -Quiet!

(-You go, I'll stay.)

-Be a good boy and take your jacket.

-Don't. Don't. -Be quiet!

(-We can't see anything.)

*Agitation

*-No worries. But what happened?

-Uh... I can't remember the first movie.

-I'm going to say, already, in utero.

I use this expression because it was in my mother's womb

and she told me, among other things, Moby Dick.

It's the 1st film I've seen.

-It goes back a long way. The first movie I ever saw,

I was between 13 and 14.

I saw, for the first time, The Battle of Algiers, by Pontecorvo,

in the village.

My 1st time at the movies. And I saw the scene,

and how my family lived

a lot of torture during the Algerian war,

very, very scared.

-I think The Exorcist is the film that terrified me the most.

-I happened to go and see a Korean film, Retour sur Busang,

last year or two years ago.

I didn't realize it was horror, I didn't like it.

It's not my favorite.

-I love it, but with friends. Because alone...

you're scared alone, it's no use.

With friends, we can laugh about it, scare each other.

-I'm not a fan of the front row.

Uh, I like to have

the vision, too, of the spectators in the audience.

-The middle is important. I see the right and left sides.

I don't like being on one side, nor all in front, nor all behind.

In principle, maybe all the way back, but my usual place is in the middle.

It's my own little place.

-In the middle, on the side.

Maybe in the fifth row, from the bottom.

And... on the side.

I don't know, that's where I sit. Laughing

-To the rear.

I need to see well. No one in the way.

It's more that I'm going to choose over the seats...

To empty seats.

Because I need, on screen, to see everything.

-Right in the middle works for me.

-In action films that I really liked,

there's Largo Winch.

Which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Of course, Mission Impossible, the James Bond films.

In romantic films,

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

This film had a profound effect on me.

-I've seen Licorice Pizza twice by Paul Thomas Anderson

because my father hadn't seen it yet.

Otherwise, that's about it.

-I saw Choum once at the cinema and once at home.

-Which film was it?

-Choum.

-I saw it several times, to understand.

It's Infernal Affairs, starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung.

I watched the original version, at the beginning.

Then, in English. I discovered other things.

After that, action films, too.

I've seen Die Hard several times.

I've been looking for friends to go and watch it again.

-This year, I've listed all the films I've seen since January 1, 2023.

Now it's the end of July, I've got almost fifty of them.

-That's for sure, I've already cried at the movies.

I think, on several occasions, I don't remember exactly.

-As a child, I used to criticize my mother for crying.

The older I get,

the more I cry at the first sad thing.

And my mom laughs.

-I often cry cry at the movies.

I remember.., when I saw The Bicycle Thief.

That's it. Embarrassed laughter

-Mmh.

No, I've never cried in a movie theater.

-Cinema is stronger than my life.

I go there to live

what I don't have time to live.

I go there to experience intense emotions.

-My favorite film is Bergman's Fanny and Alexander.

A film I discovered when I was 20, I was a cinema usherette.

For me, this film is all emotions.

Everything is covered, it's sumptuous.

-There's always a little anecdote, in every superhero.

It's not about superpowers, but character and values,

want to protect people.

That's what attracts me. It's not the superpowers.

-I didn't know that's what it was.

I'd never seen... I'd seen movies, lots of them,

but that's the difference between La Boum, which is nice,

and, six months later, À nos amours, which shifted me. But offbeat.

-I went to see West Side Story, version 2, at the cinema.

And...

yes, I think it's really the only film where...

I already knew the story, but it really moved me.

And it really...

It made me want to write musicals.

Even though I knew the story by heart, it's my favorite film.

I knew Tony was going to die, but I still cried and everything.

I was... really passionate about the film.

This is really the session that made the biggest impression on me.

Here we are.

Slight hubbub

...

...

... Tap shoes

... Comments in English

... ...

Tap dance Lively music

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

... Laughs

... ...

... Tap shoes

... ...

... ...

Hubbub

...

... ...

Lively music Tap dance

... ...

... ...

... Happy laughter

...

-That's not the point.

-Yeah, no, but there, still, lately...

-Erwin Panofsky puts it this way as follows.

"The material of films is reality as such."

"Reality as such."

Mysterious music

Bazin again emphasizes the same idea.

"Cinema has an obligation to signify

"through the intermediary of reality alone."

...

A photograph is always a photograph of reality.

If we add to this

that cinema is a means of expression where the photographic image is projected

and collected on a screen,

our question becomes :

what happens to reality

when it is projected?

-Reality, is the slightly organized real.

-But... -You freeze the text.

-I'm not trying... -Freeze the meaning.

-I'm not freezing anything. -You're killing your work.

-I don't kill things. You talk like a machine gun.

-Are we disturbing you? They're very loud.

-Oh, no, it's all right. -I'm so sorry.

-I'm so sorry. -We're preventing you from working.

-Well, no, no, no problem.

-What are you reading?

-Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed.

-It's so funny. We're studying this text, right now, in class.

-Yes, that's the French translation.

-Do you read it in English? -Er, yes.

-Do you understand everything? -Er...

Not everything, but still, a little.

-You're pretty sharp, aren't you? -Yeah, I am.

-May we ask a question?

-Yes, of course, that's my job.

-I often wonder, when I go to the movies...

Melancholy music

why I seem to remember to remember life.

-You're the one who goes to the movies, it's your life,

and the film you see

will be part of your experience.

And you also say that you remember,

which means that, in the end,

movies are part memories of your life,

just like...

real memories.

-But for example, when I go to the movies,

day, or any day, really,

uh...

everyday life comes to a halt.

And the world is suspended.

-It appears to you in its obviousness and obstinacy.

-So that's it, worldliness?

Is the world stubborn?

-I don't know if the world is.

The thing about cinema is that you have something, like a photograph. something, like a photograph.

This is what Cavell will say, cinema is a photographic art.

That is, there will be, in fact,

a direct image of the world. The world will be printed directly

by technical means,

on film, with a camera.

-But in the cinema,

I have a knowledge of the world?

Because, well...

I don't go to the movies to see real life.

Is it a means of knowledge or an illusion?

-Cavell, in the middle of the text, wrote

the material of films, is reality.

But what is reality, in a movie?

-Actually, Cavell didn't say that, it's Bazin. It's André Bazin.

Who's to say that, indeed, what characterizes cinema,

is that there is this reality as such.

He doesn't completely agree. Reality for him,

it's not just recorded, it will be projected.

On screen. You see it.

And so, this projection,

she will, in fact, give you something else,

what he calls photogenesis.

The world will also be recreated,

because it's on this screen.

You will see what's important and what's not.

-I have the intuition that going to the movies helps me to live better.

Am I right or wrong?

-Of course, fortunately.

Fortunately, cinema helps to live better, of course.

First of all, it's true that it allows...

We all have films that have helped us through difficult times.

Life-changing.

And it's films that help you to progress, to transform yourself,

and above all, to focus on what's important and what's not.

In life, it's not always possible.

And cinema puts you in the presence of what's important.

As characters, as moments.

And so it also allows you to to reclaim...

to reclaim the world.

When you leave the cinema,

well, we're back, actually, reconciled with the world.

Soft music

-How do I know whether I'm awake or asleep?

-There's nothing to tell you in the experience itself,

you don't know.

But if you ask me,

is that you're awake.

Soft music

...

-What happens to reality when it's projected?

...

To Cavell's question, we need to find an answer, or answers.

...

Well, reality,

it sparkles.

...

First comes the quiet image

of rail transport in France at the time.

...

The legend is well known. January 25, 1896, in Lyon,

in the Lumière cinema,

the terror of spectators as the train pulls into the station,

afraid the train would run them over.

...

Did the audience really from the auditorium?

... Muffled cries of panic

Behind this train, I can make out yet another image.

And this one is mythology.

The locomotive, like a minotaur, inexorably approaches us,

for our fear, our pleasure.

And the whole quay is transformed into a labyrinth.

...

The platform at La Ciotat, one dull summer in 1895, this train...

...

I'm also on the train to Balbec.

...

What more accurate image of Proust's La Recherche

if not the Champs-Élysées, filmed the same year,

when Marcel fell in love with Gilberte.

...

Documentary truth...

...

Mythology...

...

Fragments of a novel...

...

We are also faced with the metaphor of a dreaded sexual relationship,

expected.

Obscenity of a different color of fright.

...

...

One day, an operator was hanging his camera to the front of a locomotive,

to enter the tunnel and film what can't be seen.

The camera records reality,

it returns meaning to us.

...

Baudelaire had touched the heart of the modern world the heart of it, and it's boredom.

...

The Lumière brothers' machine projected this modern world onto a screen.

What happens to reality when it's projected?

Well, it it sparkles with meaning.

...

At last, the world means.

...

Finally, the world is overflowing with meaning.

...

At last, the world means.

...

Mysterious music Light hubbub

... ...

... Bell

... Slight hubbub

... ...

When I was fourteen, I went to Lille, alone, by tramway.

I was very proud of my audacity.

I decided to cheat on my age to buy my cinema ticket.

... ...

Uh, hi.

-Good afternoon.

-I've come to take a seat for Cries and Whispers.

-Are you alone?

-Yes. -How old are you?

-I'm 16.

-Come on, 11 francs.

-No change.

-That's all right.

-Thank you.

Coin tinkling

-The room on the right. -Mmh. To the right.

Thank you very much for your time. -You'll be bored.

*(In Swedish)

*...

-Cries and Whispers was my 1st Bergman on screen.

The women's faces were immense, like landscapes.

*...

I was finally smaller than the images I was looking at.

*...

I had found my home.

*Soft music

*...

With Cimino, American landscapes were immense, like faces.

*Mystical music

We, the cathedrals, them, the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley.

*...

My amazement at the restored copy of Deer Hunter,

in 2013, at Le Grand Action.

*...

The world seemed to overflow the screen.

*...

Dramatic music

...

Because, since Alice Guy,

for the first time, the movement of water could be shown.

For the first time, the crowd could be shown.

And overwhelms us.

...

Because the crowd we are moves like water.

Finally, we appeared on the screen.

...

... Slight hubbub

... ...

...

Because the camera knows how to record snow,

Abel Gance filmed Bonaparte's battle.

...

... Cris

Because cinema knew how to record snow,

Melville threw the Dargelos ball,

that hits Paul right in the heart.

...

Melancholy music

Because vertigo can be filmed.

...

... ...

...

Because water can be filmed.

...

Because fire can be filmed.

...

... Explosion

...

Because every gesture is an action.

... ...

... Shots fired

... Glass breakage

... ...

...

We could have been Shakespeare's soldiers.

They were no longer on a stage or enclosed in a frame.

It was we who were now those soldiers.

...

We were the ones brandishing the sword,

the horses.

...

...

We flew from tree to tree,

the saber was an extension of our arm.

... Groan

...

...

... Shot

...

...

We were able to attack banks.

...

... Cris

... ...

Derail a train.

...

... Explosion

... ...

...

... Whistle

... Fracas

...

Flying airplanes.

...

...

...

Brandishing defensive weapons, clever shields.

...

Because cinema substitutes for our gaze

a world that matches our desires.

We greeted idols with trunks,

thrones studded with with luminous jewels,

ornate palaces whose enchanting pomp

would be a ruinous dream a ruinous dream.

Costumes that are a feast for the eyes,

women whose teeth and nails are dyed.

And clever jugglers whom the snake caresses.

And then, and then again,

oh, childish brains.

... Trembling

The screen has given us the world as a spectacle.

Humming

Groan

Fracas

... Explosion

... ...

... ...

...

Whispers

...

Shy laughter A student laughs.

Knock. Door

-Ah.

-It's for Paul Daedalus.

-Uh, please, sir.

I'm so sorry.

Can I go? It's for the film club.

-Go ahead, Daedalus. -Thank you very much for your time.

Whispers

(OK.)

(Good luck.)

-Mmh.

Chorale au loin

...

-OK. Hop. Thanks for your time. Embarrassed laughter

Ah, yes.

-How are you?

-Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

-Come on.

-Mmh.

He blows.

...

School bell -Not a success.

There's hardly anyone around.

-But the film isn't bad.

-But from where

you found a movie like this? What's the name?

Les Petits Bouquets ? -Little Daisies.

It's written on the poster. -It's horrible!

-You love Bulgarian movies. -It's about to start.

-Thank you. -HELLO.

-It's a Czech film. -It's all the same.

-And where did you find the film?

-In Sadoul.

-What's the Sadoul?

-It's a...

a book.

A book by my father. It's a kind of

film history, with photos and explanations and explanations of important films.

-Poor thing, I'll help you.

The film starts in 10 min. Please hurry!

A Russian or Bulgarian film. -Czech!

-Here we are. Les Petits Bouquets. -Daisies!

Laugh -You'll love it.

You won't see it on TV, so enjoy it.

And above all, when you love life, you go to the movies.

-That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. -Don't you love life?

-I don't know, I'm a little wary.

He grumbles. I prefer movies.

-You're a pain in the ass, my friend. -But I know that.

My fellow man, my brother.

Slight hubbub

Er... -Shhh!

-Yeah, thanks.

I'm so sorry. Let me introduce you to the film.

I haven't seen it, but I'll tell you what I know. tell you what I know.

So, it's called... Thank you for your time.

The Little Daisies, directed in 1966 by Věra Chytilová.

So she's a Czech director.

She attended film school in Prague.

While there, she saw Cassavetes' Shadows.

An important film in the United States, which I haven't seen.

Hubbub

But here goes. -Stop this!

-With this film, she discovers an appetite for freedom.

She invents shapes and colors. She rejects realism.

I hope we'll see.

The film was banned by the censors.

And then, well, two years later, the Prague Spring.

The Russians invade.

Many artists fled, others were thrown into prison and tortured.

And then, well, it's...

The revolt is crushed.

There you are. Enjoy the projection.

-Want some help?

-No, thanks, I'm done.

Bearing

... *Dramatic music

...

*Squeak

*...

Bearing *(In Czech)

... *...

Don't you want to go and see the film there?

-I'd rather stay with you.

... *...

-Come here, you'll see better.

... *...

How's that?

... *...

*... *Squeaks

Cymbals

-Humiliated and offended.

This is the fate of the unloved we've shared.

I hold it as a promise that cinema was first invented

for the underprivileged and children.

For those who can't read.

Sobbing and coughing

...

I remember the the prostitute from Europe 51,

coughing up blood.

She coughs.

Ominous music

Children singing.

...

I remember Mouchette who refused to sing.

...

Piano

Sad music Someone's coughing.

How to find a bed to avoid the streets?

...

... (In English)

Films have never stopped to welcome the vanquished.

...

Ever since Griffith, there's been one fault that never ceases to haunt me.

The ignored Indian face.

Rhythmic tribal music

...

You can only really film you recognize.

...

Recognize.

...

... Indians shout.

... ...

In The Cheyenne, it was Ford's task

to recognize the faces of the vanquished standing in front of the camera.

... ...

Ford at last filmed in full daylight

a people

parked in the shadows.

*Slow music Light hubbub

*... ...

(In English) -I don't remember well

of my childhood.

After my mother died, or even before...

That's why I'm glad I came to Los Angeles.

All my life, I've dreamed of getting married in a church

in a beautiful dress.

With not too many people...

but I want to get married in a church and be blessed.

-How's the baby?

-Do you want to feel it?

Put your hand there.

-It's moving.

Laugh -He kicked me.

-He jumps. Laughter

-I knew Misty Upham.

His death was a bottomless sorrow.

Misty was born in Kalispell, Montana.

She was blackfeet.

Soft music (In English)

The night I learned of her death, I thought of Marilyn Monroe.

Because in these two actresses, the sense of tragedy and the living wounds

had turned into gifts.

Joy, suffering, innocence, savagery, mingled...

Their every tremor.

(In English)

In Frozen River, there was one line that dazzled me.

Blind, Lila was solid as a rock.

...

Her blindness protected her,

because sometimes you have to close your eyes to the destruction of the world.

...

With glasses, suddenly cured, Lila trembled with helplessness.

It's hard work to turn our fears into art.

And Misty's vulnerability, born on an Indian reservation,

was an Indian triumph.

When you have nothing left but pride

and the certainty of being a great actress.

...

Misty offered us the childhood she never had.

I was saying, Marilyn.

...

It would take a quatrain by Emily Dickinson

to sing the death of Misty Upham.

"If I souldn't be alive When the Robins come

"Give the one in Red Cravat A memorial crumb"

...

I'm struggling to find this "memorial" crumb.

...

I wish Misty was asleep, to wake up

and play together.

...

Soft music -Well, yes.

...

I'd fix it. -I don't know what I'd do.

Laugh I can't let it go.

-Ah, it's complicated.

Laugh -Yes, it's complicated.

-What if I rip it off? -Don't rip it off!

...

Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue We're never going home

-Oh no, that's it

-Shall we come back tomorrow?

-Just a moment.

Sorry, excuse me.

That's Paul. He's the guy for the party.

It's him, isn't it?

-Yes. Come on, we won't disturb him.

-He'll make us go home. -We're going to your place.

-We'll see him. -Well, no.

-Well, yes, wait. -I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

-Excuse us, we actually know someone.

But we know someone.

Ooh, there! Pardon, madame. Excuse me, ma'am. Laughing

I'm so sorry.

-Is the cinema a secret a secret or public place?

-I'm so sorry. -An erotic place.

-Paul. Do you recognize me?

Valérie, a friend of Sylvia's.

-Valérie, of course. -We met in the evening.

-I remember a screening of a Coppola where I passed, embarrassed,

two young women in line.

I knew both of them. I had an impossible affair with one of them.

-It's rude to overstep.

-It's all right, we know him. -Hi, there.

-Hi, there. -Do you mind?

-No, not at all.

-How are you?

-Yes.

-Is Nathan coming? -No, he's working.

-Ah, yes, his midterms.

-Well, yes.

-It's good to see you.

-Mine too. -We had a girls' night out.

We're here to flirt. -Don't talk.

Laugh

-Are you going to see the Coppola? -See it again.

-Because you've already seen the film? -Yes, yesterday.

-Do you go back? -I like to see them several times.

-How many times? -Three times.

-THREE TIMES! -But why?

-The first time, to find out.

The second, to admire.

And then, to learn.

-So, are you coming?

-Are you coming? Middle, 3rd row.

-No, not in the middle of the room. On the side, 7th row, 2nd seat.

-Well, see you later.

-See you later.

(-Pardon.)

(He looks at you.) (-Stops.)

(-He's very cute.)

Clicking tongue (-You're boring.)

(-Cuckoo.)

How are you?

Does he know? -Know what?

Sigh

-Does he really study?

-But yes.

-OK. Did you know Paul was coming? -Well, no.

Whispers

...

Sigh

Hubbub

...

He blows.

-So, did you enjoy it?

-I love it.

-Did you like it?

-It makes me cry.

-I never cry at the movies. I think it's stupid.

-I cry sometimes. I loved the film.

Hey, cover up. Take a look at him.

Laughter

You're soaked! Take a look.

He'll freeze to death.

Let's have a coffee, the three of us?

No ?

-I've got to go.

Hi, there.

-Hi, there.

-Will I see you tomorrow?

-Well...

-Well...

-Care for a drink? -If you know a place, yes.

-I know one.

*Pop music

-After the screening,

I had an equally impossible affair with the 2nd young woman.

*...

-So then, you love Francis Ford Coppola?

-Yes, I admire him.

He means a lot to me.

-Oh...

Are you an enthusiast?

-Yes. -Yes.

A little. -Yeah, I guess so.

*Muffled pop music

-Just a moment.

Could you take a look? -Yeah, don't move.

I'm wetting this.

-Do you have any tissues? Laughs

-Sounds old? Province?

-No, it's adorable.

*...

Yes, here we go.

*Pop music

*...

What do we do?

-How?

-I never embraced the 1st.

-I don't either. I would never.

-Ever? -Mm.

Girls make the first move. It's a principle, I'm too shy.

-So, we're stuck. -Yes, but...

we can make a shifumi.

-What's this? -Rock-leaf-scissors.

-Yeah.

-He who loses embraces.

Rake or no rake, we respect the rule.

-OK, but you're going to lose.

-What you say, what you say...

Driving rain

...

Pierre...

-SHEET. -Scissors.

-STONE. -Scissors leaf.

-I think you're going to be bold.

*...

-She likes you, Sylvia. -I can't tell.

I don't know.

*...

She's not very free.

Laugh Neither are you,

you're not very free. -That's for sure.

But I've got a temper.

*...

*... Driving rain

*... Storm

*...

*... Laughs

-It'll make for a quiet night, I suppose.

-This?

I like peace when I rest.

I'm very particular about it. Crying annoys me.

Behind the walls of Jericho!

Not as thick as those Joshua destroyed with his trumpet.

But much safer.

You see...

I don't have a trumpet.

To show you my best intentions,

I give you my best pajamas.

Would you like join the Israelites?

Don't you want to?

-Clark Gable stretches the blanket like a wall between them.

Claudette Colbert joins the Israelite camp.

Immediately, the cover becomes

a wall onto which we project a desired union.

(In English)

-When will Joshua play the trumpet

that the walls of Jericho collapse?

...

-Who are you?

...

-Who am I?

I am the nightingale that cries in the night.

...

And Jericho surrendered.

Soft music (In English)

... ...

-In the morning, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant wake up in white sheets.

...

"Why are men so obsessed with nudity and breasts?

...

"Why are you so interested?

...

"They're just breasts.

"Half of humanity has them."

...

Soon, William Thacker will slip in

to look under the sheet hiding Anna Scott's nakedness.

Who's ever seen Julia Roberts naked?

With a small gesture, Hugh Grant lifts the sheet.

Enough.

Pass the head.

And he sees.

...

Hugh Grant suddenly becomes the man

who has seen Julia Roberts' breasts.

We saw nothing.

But the sheets are the screen on which we project

the chest that has been stolen from us.

...

Because the screen reveals

and the white sheets are the metaphor.

On screen, a pure miracle of cinema.

The glory of the smile by Julia Roberts

or a tear in the corner of Claudette Colbert's eye.

...

At Censier, Pascal Kané drew in front of us, his students,

the diagram of the three democratic of the show.

The teacher writes on the blackboard.

-First, the theater.

Greek theater.

The city regime, 300 or 400 BC.

In Athenian democracy, each vote was unique.

Well, at the theater, every seat will be unique.

Here,

each viewer's point of view is singular.

Irreplaceable.

Take a look.

Another viewer sees the man's back and tears

on the woman's face.

Another sees them both in profile.

Such and such...

a wide shot.

If one viewer, just one,

is absent from such and such a performance,

his point of view, his angle on the show

will be lost forever.

For humanity.

Much later

comes the Industrial Revolution.

So, representative democracy, so, cinema.

The show is no longer that of a city but that of a nation.

A nation inventing itself. Think of America.

Ford, the USSR, Eisenstein.

Italy, Rossellini.

Taiwan. Hong Kong, the size of a city, dreams of being a nation.

Kung fu films.

Have you ever seen one? Laughs

At the cinema,

each spectator buys a ticket,

like a ballot paper.

In this way, each viewer delegates his or her point of view

to the filmmaker.

In a movie theater,

we all share a point of view.

The one recorded by the camera.

-At the theater, you're alone. At the movies, several.

Well, together.

Is that it? -No, you misunderstand.

-No, it's not. -Wrong way round.

-Bah... Embarrassed laughter

If we go into a room, it's to be with others.

Theater, too. Otherwise, there's TV.

Stammering -Have you ever seen a deserted room?

Whispers

I do.

Morning sessions.

The projectionist doesn't stop his projector.

If you're bringing a partner or a companion,

in an empty theater, to see, say...

The Winter's Tale, by Shakespeare. Laughter

Twenty actors on stage. The curtain opens, and there are only two of you.

They'll tell you it's not worth it.

... The performance is suspended.

At the cinema,

no obstacle.

Whether there are 3 or 300 of you in the room, the show will go on.

In the cinema, at last,

we can be alone.

Because the system itself makes it possible.

In a room,

everyone has the right to their own solitude

and anonymity.

That's modern democracy.

What happens after this democracy,

is television.

Now we're each on our own alone or as a family,

in front of a terminal.

Several channels provide access to what's happening elsewhere.

Nothing happens at home.

But you keep an eye what's happening elsewhere.

On such and such a channel, there's a classic movie, a soap opera,

uh, games,

songs, sports, news, whatever.

It's a flow.

-Am I right to think of Guy Debord?

-Yes.

Formidable, Guy Debord, yes.

In front of the post, everyone,

we watch over the world. But it's an illusion of power.

We belong to a surveillance democracy.

The video camera keeps watch.

-You, sir? -Yes, sir.

-Is it still a show?

-Ah.

Well, not really.

It's a medium.

Or a tool.

Nowadays, we live on the entire planet.

And yet..,

we live it so badly.

The power won over images had its price.

The images no longer belong to anyone.

Sad music

...

-Ah, that's good. -I'll take your pawn.

-You can build there. - I'll build.

*...

-Well, I...

-How are you?

-Sit down, I'll take care of it. -No, don't move.

-Thank you.

Er... -you know,

you can do it like this.

-That's a good idea.

*...

All right, then. Well, I...

-Here, let me help you.

-No thanks, Stephanie.

-Oh, what a beautiful pie!

-Don't exaggerate.

*...

How's it going?

-Are you coming to see us later?

-Yes, all right.

*Ominous music

What are you looking at?

-When he sees white,

he goes crazy.

-And do you like it?

-Yes.

*...

-Just a moment,

he has a razor in his hand. -Yes, he does.

-But it's scary!

*...

But tell me, he...

He's about to slit her throat.

-We don't know.

*...

-Did you see that?

Don't you want to go and do your homework?

-I'll do it later.

-You can tell me how it ends. And if it scares you too much,

I'm here with your sister

and your father. *Film

*...

-Come on, Paul, play with me!

-Leave me alone!

The brother sulks.

*...

-You're dead! He imitates a bang.

-Leave me alone! He growls.

... -Paul.

Be nice to your brother.

*...

-She's a champion. -I have to protect him.

-Fidèle, are you coming? -No, I don't feel like it!

*...

-This way and that way.

-Darling, your brother's watching his movie.

He'll play with you later. Wanna come?

We look at your sister, she beats your father.

*-In my childhood...

*... Mixed voices

*I killed my brother!

Fearful start

*... -Paul.

-No!

-No, no, no. -Oh, there, there!

Tinkling glass

-Paul!

*-No, I didn't kill him. It was an accident!

*Religious songs

*... *Barkings

*...

*... *...

*Television

*...

-Come on, Paul!

-I woke up.

-Oh, no,

you're barefoot. It's unreasonable.

-Go back to sleep.

-He'll catch a cold. A moment on daddy's lap,

and then to bed. -Come on.

-What is it?

-The world's greatest filmmaker.

-Why?

-Well, I don't know.

Take a look.

*(In Scandinavian language)

*...

*...

Slight hubbub

...

-At the end of spring 1985,

I saw Shoah for the first time.

It was at Les 3 Luxembourg.

There weren't many of us in the room.

We discovered the film for its 1st French release.

The screening was spread over two days,

with an intermission between the two parts of each era.

I was 24.

...

A friend accompanied me.

Let me put his name here: Pierre Hanau.

...

In the afternoon, the hall was not full.

Lots of older people.

"Jews?" I asked myself, I who was born a Christian.

Sometimes, during the screening,

we heard a man in the 3rd row shouting from the room:

"That's how it was! Scumbags! Bastards!"

My life was radically changed, in 9 hours of projection.

For six months,

I was unable to speak without crying of what I had seen.

From what I had seen, at last.

I am indebted to an article by Shoshana Felman

to have understood what had happened to me,

that day, in that room.

Shoshana Felman had soothed my sobs.

She was saving my life, without knowing it.

I made the trip to Tel Aviv to thank her,

37 years later.

-I wanted to be able to explain what had touched me so deeply.

-Mmh. -The whole world was speechless.

She hesitates.

It's amazing, surprising.

I think you're at a loss for words,

one of the things that happens

is that you can't believe it.

You lose your words because it's traumatic.

One person told Lanzmann

that there are no films about the Holocaust from the victims' point of view.

That's what he tried to do,

paint an overall picture

from the point of view of the victims, the Jews.

When the idea was put to him

by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs...

We told him that...

It's not a film about the Holocaust.

It's a film about the Holocaust.

He really created an event.

Because he did it in the present.

He didn't want it to be... -Yeah.

-A thing of the past for them,

but a thing of the present for us.

-They destroyed the premises, the furnaces... -Right.

-They destroyed everything.

There's no paper left, nothing...

They destroyed the victims. -Yes.

Bodies. -Bodies.

You know.

What can we shoot? -Mmh.

-Lanzmann found a way through the tools of cinema...

-The landscapes of extermination.

He gathered witnesses at the scene of the extermination.

Srebnik says:

"No one can understand it, not even me, here.

"It's incredible that I'm here.

"But no one can understand it."

I think Lanzmann agreed,

it's impossible to really understand.

Nazi atrocities are incomprehensible.

After seeing the film,

I've made it a teaching subject,

"literature as testimony".

Or, you know...

To bear witness as one of the functions of art.

With the power of art.

He succeeded thanks to the power of art.

With an almost philosophical of the film.

-It's terribly difficult to bear witness

of something beyond our imagination.

-Yes, yes.

-And that was the Nazi trap.

-Yes. -That was...

-That's why they they couldn't believe it.

In Lanzmann's film about Karski,

the Jewish judge of the U.S. Supreme Court

said:

"I'm not saying you're lying, but I don't believe you."

Even though he was Jewish.

Even the Jews didn't believe it.

-I remember he wrote a mysterious phrase in an interview,

- when I read it, I was stunned -

he said

he couldn't save the victims, he arrived afterwards.

-Yeah.

-But he could accompany them in death

so as not to leave them to die alone.

-Right. Very nice.

-It's incredible. -Yeah.

I believe that the work of art bears witness.

Lanzmann's work is a testimony.

-Yeah.

-It acts as a testimony,

but he said: "There is no theory,

"no conclusion

"and it's not over yet."

-I have a photo of this scene which is...

Even the photo is frightening.

-Yeah. -You know...

He's surrounded, in front of the church,

by all the men in the village,

the women and men of the village,

and crossed the village.

All Poles knew about the killings.

-And they had heard him sing. He doesn't talk, they talk.

-They speak.

-He just smiles.

He has a fantastic smile. -Yeah.

-He has a tragic face.

He's a magnificent man.

Srebnik smiles. All this time, he's been silent.

My interpretation was...

Srebnik becomes a witness for the first time.

He says: "When I was a kid, it didn't affect me.

"Because all I ever saw was dead bodies.

"Nothing affected me."

He becomes a conscious witness, now,

what happened to him as a child.

Because now it's affecting him.

As a child, he was unconscious.

-30 years after I first read for the first time,

I realized

that maybe I was beginning to find a few words thanks to you.

-Thank you for this. -That's why I made this trip.

There's a useful word in French, which is "gratitude".

Thank you, you're very...

kind and generous to me.

-October, Shoah was distributed again.

I was in the endless line

in front of the Saint-Germain.

The film was an earthquake.

A man enters the field, Simon Srebnik.

The director walks beside him. He protects him.

Simon stops and looks at the pasture.

"Ja, das ist das Platz."

"Yes, this is the place."

The sentence is in the present tense, which is essential.

Every Shoah is conjugated in the present tense.

Yet, on the screen, with the force of a hallucination,

we see a terrible past. Something is returned to us.

Slight hubbub

...

Following Pierre Vidal-Naquet, we repeat:

Claude has made history Proust's teaching into history.

The search for lost time as time lost and found

all at once.

...

There's Proust. There's Picasso,

which I've often thought about, about Claude.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, founding modern art,

and Guernica, of course.

There's Lanzmann.

Very few names in these designers

who knew how to draw the map.

The man?

One day I wrote to him and he welcomed me.

He was as big as the filmmaker.

I loved him, I love him, I mourn him.

He was crazy, he was reasonable.

He was a brutal bear, but he was also infinitely tender.

Claude loved to cry.

*Soft music Snatches of voice

I remember the beautiful image, told one evening and then read

in The Patagonian Hare,

Sartre and Lanzmann both crying in a movie theater,

in front Only angels have wings.

Claude has made each of us a witness.

It's unique in the history of art.

Today, in front of his grave, I know this.

French, European, born 1960,

the destruction of the jews has always been central to my life.

I read too much, and badly, trying to learn.

From the cinema alone, I awaited an answer.

That answer came, I welcomed it, that's all.

It took Shoah and its formidable power of incarnation

to take the measure of the world I was inheriting,

of the art I aspire to. -A short while ago, I realized,

the making of this film,

and it's been a very, long war,

lasted almost as long as the Nazi era.

Hubbub

-So long ago!

Laughter

Good to see you. How many years? Three?

-No, no. -No?

-Two.

OK, fine. -Two.

-I have some questions. -OK.

-Truffaut once said...

Truffaut spoke of the lost secret

filmmakers who experienced silent films in their youth.

Surely, he was thinking of Hitchcock and Lubitsch.

They knew something about cinema that may have disappeared with them.

I was thinking of Lanzmann, who had filmed Why Israel and Shoah in 16 mm.

Did the secret disappear with the great masters?

I was visiting Kent Jones in New York

so that he could tell me again a story about the Baal Shem Tov.

-And so the story goes,

and that's how Godard began Hélas pour moi.

The Baal Shem Tov was called

because the Jewish people were in danger.

So he went into the forest,

a sacred place in the forest.

He lit the sacred fire,

he said the prayer

and the miracle happened.

People were saved.

A generation later,

his disciple,

and I can't remember the names of the disciples,

was called again to save the Jewish people,

who was still in danger,

which is obviously constant for the Jews.

So he went into the forest.

He lit the flame. He couldn't remember the prayer.

But because he had found the place

and lit the sacred fire,

the miracle was performed and the Jews were saved.

When his disciple arrived, faced with the same situation...

-The disciple's disciple? -Exactly.

He went into the forest.

He couldn't remember how to light the fire,

nor how to say the prayer

but because he knew the place in the forest,

the miracle was accomplished.

When this disciple's disciple

was once again confronted the same situation,

he didn't know the place in the forest,

nor prayer,

nor how to light the sacred fire,

but he knew how to tell the story.

As he knew how to tell the story, the miracle happened.

So we might ask ourselves, will there ever come a time

when someone can't remember how to tell the story?

I don't think so.

-We know the story. -Yes, we do.

Sometimes, it can seem that the story has been lost,

but it can always be found and retold.

We can think many examples to illustrate this,

so I think it's a hope.

I've always loved this tale.

-Is there a film you've seen

that led you to the possibility to make a film?

You, Kent Jones.

-I don't have an answer,

but the only way for me answer,

was when I saw The Wild Horde...

-The Wild Horde? -by Sam Peckinpah.

Just as...

William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates and the whole gang

say they want their man back,

the one the bandits had caught.

And...

His name is Angel, played by Jaime Sánchez.

The bandit says, "You want Angel? OK, you can have Angel."

So he grabs it,

the guy had been beaten to death,

he raises his head,

takes a knife and...

This leads to

a series of cuts

where you see Ernest Borgnine gawking,

William Holden...

They look around and then it's over.

The battle begins, they know they're all going to die.

When I saw this scene, I thought:

I would have loved to have directed this!

Soft music They laugh.

...

-I was already 28. And I thought I'd failed in the film business.

-Finally! -Well, yes.

I hadn't entered into what I call question of cinema.

It's not an answer, but a question.

A way of questioning art, the world. -Mmh.

-I'd seen so many films that I was lost.

I decided to revisit the classics.

-Ah.

...

-Truffaut was dead when I went to the Max Linder

see Les 400 coups again, which I thought I knew.

I hadn't seen his films very well.

-Mmh. -I couldn't hit their angles.

-What? -We have to bump

on a film.

I didn't see the flame in every shot.

At twenty, we loved

American cinema.

It blinded us to French praise of America.

I went to see Truffaut.

Soft music Hubbub

... ...

-Good morning to you. -Good morning to you.

-A serré and a croissant.

-Come on!

... ...

And there you have it.

-Thank you.

... ...

How much do I owe you?

-2.90, please.

... ...

-Thank you. -Have a nice day.

-Goodbye.

... ...

-Good afternoon. The 400 Blows.

-8 euros, please.

-Thank you for your time. -Have a good session.

-Good afternoon. Two tickets. -16 euros, please.

-I have a friend who's joining me. But wait a second.

Ah.

It hasn't arrived yet.

-No problem. -Shall I leave you his ticket?

-Yes, don't worry.

He blows.

-Mathieu.

Mathieu! -Oh!

-I'm so sorry. -No, you're not.

-I'm so sorry. -How's it going?

-I'm fine. Are you okay? -I'm fine.

Thank you.

-Tell me, there was a boy at the café.

He came to see this film. An apprentice director.

-I sink into my armchair.

4th row, left.

I see the first shot of the film, the tracking shot on the Eiffel Tower.

The film feels like a 1st time.

Trees open the frame on the left, a building closes it on the right.

In-car camera.

The image trembles with urgency.

Léaud's name before Truffaut's. Politeness, pride?

Modesty? I don't know, I don't care.

-Who cares?

The antenna will soon

disappear behind the buildings in the foreground.

He is succeeded by another dolly.

The Eiffel Tower flashes between two facades.

A crane mimics the tower's momentum. Everything beckons.

Another tracking shot between two sheds.

I counted the shots. One, two, three, four.

*Soft music

Trocadero, the tower between the bare branches of the trees.

Low angle, we arrive at the foot of the tower.

Nearby, we turn around. "Directed by Truffaut.

-Oh, it's beautiful.

-We got close, then the tower moves away.

-Bam! -Simple storytelling.

As beautiful as a Lumière film.

That morning, I knew I'd be making a film myself.

-Paul, you're ready.

-I don't know, I don't know, but I... -Yes, I do.

-In any case, I put my technician's eye.

I gave up becoming a film critic.

I was finally measuring my years of apprenticeship.

I was ready to see, to film.

-Mmh. What's up with that?

What did you see?

-I don't know.

In any case, the flashing Eiffel Tower,

she was waving at me.

...

... He mumbles.

... ...

-What happens to reality

when it's projected and screened.

Our enigma.

Soft music

...

"Ruby's Arms" (Tom Waits)

...

...

...

...

...

Subtitles: Sandrine Niggeler

Subtitling: TransPerfect Media France