All language subtitles for Interview between Serge Daney and Jean Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard interviewed
by Serge Daney

Tell us 10 seconds before.

When you're ready.

(Hi)stories of cinema and television.

So: "(hi)stories" in the plural,
and both cinema and television.

That's your project.

There are, of course, lots of reasons –
we'll come back to these –

why you were the best person
to write this (hi)story.

But before we get to that...

What strikes me is: it had to be done
by someone of your generation.

That is, the New Wave generation.

"(Hi)stories" with an "s"...
Because...

Right.

Because now there are lots of ways
of telling lots of (hi)stories, perhaps.

The New Wave is maybe the only generation

that began making films
in the 50s and 60s –

that is, both in the middle of the century
and, perhaps, in the 'middle' of cinema.

In other words, you had
a remarkable privilege.

I'm pleased that you say “50s and 60s,”
because...

Right. I'm thinking of short films,
preparations... and film criticism.

Well, yes... and even before...
It was more or less 1950.

So this was the middle of the century.

And if we go with the
convenient hypothesis that

the 20th century was
the century of cinema,

then it was also the "middle of cinema".

And, you had the tremendous privilege...

Actually, I'd say...
Though, we'll come back to it...

I'd say cinema's a 19th-century phenomenon,
that was "settled" in the 20th century –

with a gap of 50 years, because
the 20th-century part began in the 50s too.

Right. Hence “(hi)stories” in the plural.

Right.

You were lucky enough
to have got there in time

to pick up a (hi)story that was already
rich, complicated and turbulent.

You'd also seen enough films
– or had taken the time to see them,

as film lovers, first, then as critics –

to get together your own conception

of what was and wasn't
so important in this (hi)story;

and to have had a linear,
albeit imperfect, timeline

– you knew, for instance,
that Griffith came before Rossellini

and that Renoir came before Visconti.

So you had a linear timeline
and you could pinpoint your entry

into a (hi)story that could already

be told, that was still tell-able.

Plus you were lucky enough
to have immediately...

But a (hi)story that...

that had, so to speak, been “reeled off”
but not really told.

Right, but there was
already enough,

or still little enough,

enough gaps, but also enough
knowledge and enough passion,

to be able, roughly speaking,
to say what came before and after.

And to know that there was

a “before” and an “after” you arrived.

You'd come before something
and after something else.

The fact that you arrived mid-century,

that you knew what you were inheriting
more or less – both good and bad,

what you liked and didn't like...

I think it took us a while...

To get back to the idea
of coming in before or after.

I think I caught on to that
very late. Sorry to...

We might say that
Truffaut, say, had a greater sense of that.

I'm talking about a whole generation.
The Cahiers Du Cinéma group of the time.

I think you definitely caught on to that
later than the others.

You theorised about it more,
but you did so later.

So it maybe took longer to...

...to ripen,

but out of everyone you're perhaps,
deep down, the closest to a historian.

But that's another matter.

I think it didn't happen before

because of the war,

because people didn't have

the opportunity to see films,

or because
film criticism wasn't ready, say.

And then it didn't really happen afterwards
for a very simple reason:

all of a sudden
there were too many films

to see, or to catch up on,

that had formed an enormous heritage:
the (hi)story of cinema.

Because from the 60s onwards
we saw films

not only by four or five
big filmmaking countries

but from all over the world.

Nowadays it's impossible
for someone in their early 20s

– short of spending, say,
ten or fifteen years in the Cinémathèque –

to watch all the films
they haven't seen, first,

but also to have an axis

around which they can build
their own (hi)story:

to know, for instance,
that they come after you

and that they need...

to be aware of that.

And so, something that was taken
simply to be a sort

of brilliant anecdote

in the (hi)story of French cinema,

rich in controversy

and panache,

now seems,

with hindsight,
almost 30 years later,

to be the only opportunity
to do some history.

You got this opportunity,
as did, perhaps,

those of the generation,
or half-generation...

up to, I'd say, Wenders.

The only way of doing history.

I'd argue.

It's not because there were too many films.

There are fewer and fewer.
Plus, at some point,

the literary historian says,
"Well, there was Homer,

Cervantes,

Joyce,

even Flaubert...

and Faulkner."

Once they've said the first three
they add Faulkner...

and Flaubert. So let's go with that.

So...

I'd say there have been
very few films – ten, let's say,

since we have ten fingers:
ten films.

Cinema...

or rather my idea, or my desire

and unconscious feeling, which
can now be expressed consciously,

is that cinema is the only way...

to do, to tell, and to gain awareness...

Say, to know that as an individual
I have my own story,

but that I wouldn't be me
without cinema.

I have a (hi)story as “myself”.

It was, if you will, the only way,

and I owed it that.

Say there's a Calvinist
or a Lutheran –

they always have
a sense of being guilty

or “cursed”,
as Marguerite says.

She says I'm cursed.

I... Well, it's worrying.

But it was the only way –
if it is ever possible to tell a story

or to do history.

And actually it's never been done.
There's never been a history of letters.

Maybe a handful of Egyptologists...

a bit of history of art, but,
I hastily add,

only visual art –

cinema being partly visual.

We have some bits of history of painting –

done...

(I'll come back to this)

by the French.

Not by anyone else – by the French.

I'm not saying there were
no other art historians out there.

But only the French did it.
Basically: Diderot, Baudelaire, Malraux

and personally
I'd add Truffaut straight after.

They follow a direct line.

Baudelaire on...

on Edgar Poe.

And likewise Malraux on Faulkner.

And Truffaut on...

well, say, Edgar Ulmer or...

Hawks.

There's something there.
And it's typically French.

Almost no one has done history
apart from the French.

There's something in that.

The people you name
all have something in common:

they knew
they were positioned in a (hi)story...

- They suspected they were.
- Yes, straight off.

They wanted to know.

They wanted to know
which (hi)story:

their own in the big (hi)story,

but with the big (hi)story in their own.

They also decided not to inherit passively

what had been left
to them in their art,

but to find their own precursors.

Take, for example,
Baudelaire translating Edgar Poe.

I'd say the big (hi)story is
the (hi)story of cinema.

It's bigger than the others
because it's projected.

The others, on the contrary,
tend to be reduced.

In writing the (hi)story of madness,

Foucault reduced madness to that.

When Langlois

projects Nosferatu,

and you can see,
in the little town

where Nosferatu was,

the ruins of Berlin

in '44...

That's projection.

In simple terms, it's the big (hi)story

because it can be projected.

Other (hi)stories can only be reduced.

But the big (hi)story can be projected.

So my aim...

There's a little poem by Brecht that goes:

"I carefully consider...

I carefully consider my plan:

it can't be done."

Why can't it be done?

Because it can only be done on TV,
which reduces.

Or which projects...
but which projects you.

But we lose consciousness in that case,
because TV projects the viewer,

whereas those in cinemas
were attracted.

A person watching TV is cast off.

But we can make a memory
out of a (hi)story that can be projected.

That's all we can do.

But it's, let's say, the big (hi)story.

What's now happening
with this big (hi)story is this.

If we take the (hi)story of cinema,

which is much longer in the past –

naturally,
since lots of films have been made

since your generation
first started out,

including your own films...

then we realise that we will soon
have no choice but to speak of cinema...

Though I'd say that generally
there are fewer films.

We make fewer nowadays.
Let's be clear.

Because there were plenty
made in Mack Sennett's day.

- Right, but there are more to see and...
- Because they're similar...

... there are more that seem different.

Because they're like double entendres,
or clones, in the biological sense.

So like imitations.

I mean, if you take Mack Sennett and...

James Cruze,

there you have two films.

But if you take Lelouche and
Jean-Jacques Annaud – it's the same film.

Even if you take myself and Stroheim,
nowadays it's the same thing.

- Hence why we're a bit gloomy.
- Of course.

It's something you notice
when you watch a film on TV

It's a good microscope
rather than a telescope.

If I'm interrupting too much
just tell me, OK?

It's... We can see that...

what we called “cinema”, or what we liked
and called “cinema” at the time

is beginning to look awfully similar
in the past and the present,

and to seem fairly distinct
from something...

something that doesn't
yet have a name;

for want of a better word
we'll say “audiovisual”.

It's more and more striking.

There are more and more
audiovisual products.

And among them the “cinema” part

is easier and easier to identify.

It's something that strikes me
in the films I see again on television.

It's no great mystery.

There's something you discuss

in your proposal

that touches on
two or three big hypotheses –

hypotheses focusing on, I'd say,
civilisation or culture in the broad sense.

That is on the very forms
of people's perception

of the world,

and that is based
on light and shadow,

time, editing and so on.

One sometimes sees types of image

that are cinema-like:

that are recorded,
that are still filmed with cameras,

and that are still watched by people.

And in these cases one wonders

– hence why I agree with
your “(hi)stories” in the plural –

if we hadn't better...

rather than always despising these films
in the name of the cinema we loved,

put them in a different category,
albeit one that interests us less.

In any case, it's a question
I often pose concerning

recent films we've seen
that have been very successful

and that we agree are either
not good or else frankly dreadful.

We spoke about The Bear.

I said, "What's it even got to do
with cinema?"

Even if it's being shown in cinemas,
even if it attracts an audience...

of more or less zombified viewers.

That's the same as asking
what the Nazis kept wanting from the Jews.

After a while, the more they destroyed them
the less they could shake them off.

Do you mean that the audiovisual
might have regrets over cinema?

Yes, that's true at the moment.

Cinema is the slave and remorse
of the audiovisual. But that's...

doubtless a twist in the road.

I don't know what it was

and what I did in that respect.

And so one gets thinking
at the end of one's...

that is, at the first light
of the eve

of one's life.

But it's a matter of first light
giving way to dawn.

So you get thinking about this dawn.

- 20 minutes already.
- Already?

You don't notice.

But were you going
somewhere with this?

Yes, I wanted to ask you

about this idea of linearity
that became impossible.

OK?

Sure, good idea.

So even if you had ten films
because you have ten fingers,

you knew who came before, who came after,
who drew on whom, who betrayed whom,

who kept the flame alive,
who scrambled things.

There's a (hi)story of cinema
specific to the Cahiers...

I'm not so sure that…
Even Rohmer, who was an academic...

Or Schérer.

I'm not sure
they had a conception...

of history in the sense...

I think that Schérer, say,
who was a university lecturer,

and who knew that,

chronologically, Flaubert came after

Homer and Thomas Aquinas.

I'm not sure he'd think, if he saw,

for example Nicholas Ray's
"Bigger than Life",

(since he wrote about it),

and, say, Murnau

who he helped introduce
in France after the war...

I'm not sure

there was anything
when he spoke about it

that implied that

...Ray came after Murnau.

That's not what I mean.

Maybe he thought he came after,
and so it wasn't something...

That's not what I mean.

...there was something else

because it's a place, a territory,
that we had...

The thing I remember from
the Avenue de Messine screenings?

It was a place that had no (hi)stories.

I think that's why...

we were so completely

...completely overwhelmed.

It wasn't even, as they say,
the discovery of a new continent.

Foucault and others have said that:

the discovery of a new continent.

Suddenly (hi)story is being told
differently –

not like Renan tells it, not like Tènes,

not like Spengler.

There was an unknown feeling –

in the literal sense

of the word.

We'd never seen a world

that had no (hi)story

but that was constantly...

telling stories.

Whereas the first time
I read Gide I knew

right away, the first time
I read him

and felt the effect,

that he came after, say, Mozart –

chronologically speaking.

I don't remember feeling...

It all happened automatically.

No, but that's your own experience of it.

In any case,

you could still have in mind,
say, Sadoul's history of cinema.

That's what I read as a kid.

I've never read it.

Well, a lot of people have.

- And Sadoul had a “before” and “after”.
- But he was read...

Ah, but he was read, not seen.

Something very important:
what we saw was not written.

And we never had the feeling –
which, by the way, spared us,

since we all wanted to write a novel;

it's what everyone was doing at the time.

Astruc did it.

I was in awe of Astruc,

who'd been published by Gallimard,

of Schérer,
when he published his first novel.

and of, Elisabeth, published by Gallimard,

and, of course, Gégauff,
who'd been published by Editions de Minuit.

At the same time,
it was a sort of delivery.

Because we felt,

when watching those screenings,

that we no longer had to write.

I think it was afterwards...
People left, came back...

Apart from, I'd say, for certain,

Rivette and myself.

And perhaps Straub.

And then a few people who we liked
much more in cinema than others –

their films were
perhaps less good,

but no matter.

We had the feeling that
we didn't need to write.

Writing was terrifying.

How could you expect to write
better than Joyce or...?

...or Rilke?

Whereas in cinema you were allowed...

if you will...

you were allowed to do

things without class,

and that made no sense.

The simple fact that they'd
been made like that...

gave them value.

Whereas in literature and elsewhere –
even in the paintings you saw –

it just wasn't possible.

There was a sort of justice –
judges who judged you.

Impossible.

I think there was a feeling of freedom.

A man and a woman in a car.

As I've often said,
once I'd seen "Journey to Italy"

– a man and a woman,
even if I'd never made a film then,

I knew I could do it.

And I didn't care if I didn't measure up
to the “greats”. It wasn't an issue.

And the fact that
you could do it gave you...

a certain dignity,
or something like that.

I think you'd better
ask me questions yourself.

No, but there's perhaps something
we disagree on in matters like this,

and that intrigues me:

how can you write for the cinema?

- You didn't let me ask my question.
- Right, go ahead.

No, no, it's just a matter of principle.

I'll pick up what you were saying –
the last part of your sentence...

- No, no, go back to where you left off.
- It's easier...

Since I'm no good at keeping the thread,
it's OK if you keep interrupting.

I like to grab the ball and run with it.

It's just on principle, because
we're already touching on things...

- No, no, we'd better get back on track.
- ... things I thought we'd discuss later.

If you remember?

Right. I'll ask you
the question straight off.

Even if you experienced things
as you just said,

that is, with a feeling
of possible freedom

and of possible liberation...

Plus it was after the Liberation –

an important time
for European cinema.

Even if it's understandable now,

the fact remains that...

the films available and on show

were rather similar.

That is, the (hi)story of cinema
did not stretch back...

50 or 100 years.

I think that nowadays
a person drawn to cinema,

interested in cinema

would be in a position
similar to where...

we are today
with literature and painting.

That is, we speak of, for example,
the Venetian school...

Not exactly...

...and so we forget that
Tintoretto was born

some 30 or 50 years, say, after Titian,

because both are Venetians.

And we can easily say:
"I'll take Tintoretto

and I'll put him alongside
a contemporary painter."

And I'm allowed to.
Because apart from intellectuals

and art history teachers,

chronological order

and distinguishing
between generations –

that is, knowing
who came before and after,

is no longer really a concern.

I think cinema got to that stage
some time ago –

perhaps after you,

which is why I say
you are the first,

and probably the only
and the last person

to be able to to tell the (hi)story –
even in the plural – of cinema.

It's because you lived it –
in the present

then digested, steeped and theorised it
in your work,

and now you think it's worth
adding some history.

That is, that it's worth adding
a chronology other than Sadoul's:

first lesson on Griffith, second...

I see.

But in the style: “we are allowed”.
That, too, could perhaps be liberating

for people who don't want to give up
the best aspects of cinema,

since they can say, for instance:
"I'll take silent films".

We're seeing a movement among the young,

for whom silent films
are suddenly in favour.

Whereas for people like me, say,
silent films are associated

only with films made by silent filmmakers

because we're just terrified
of the practice of authors.

I don't want to tell them –

I say this as a film critic –

"You can't take, on the one hand,

say, Wim Wenders,

who is a contemporary of yours,

and then, say,

Murnau, who's different,
although there's some common ground...

without knowing what came between."

At most I'd say: "Work with what you want,
but do so properly."

I think that's how it's going to be
from now on for the (hi)story of cinema.

It's going to be a bit like,
unfortunately...

You said you had to take
the history of literature

or painting – that is, of arts
with a very, very long history.

Absolutely.

So my question was:
when you make your (Hi)stoires du Cinema,

which you're doing with a transitive,
let's say, or educational, aim,

and if you think of someone who is, say,

forty years younger than you...

Do you want to give
that person the desire

to go after something (that is, cinema),

which is practically an essence

that was achieved straight off

and that has been celebrated,
with varying success, ever since?

Or do you want to say:

"Here's what I experienced
in all of this,

here's what was seen,

what was visible,

here's something of which

here's something of which
I am the last

the last remaining custodian."

I wouldn't say that.
Others can say it if they choose.

It would be more...

It would be more like
the second thing you said.

I have a strong feeling...

I mean, I believe...

I believe in humankind

In the sense...

that people produce "works".

People should be respected
because they produce works –

be it...

an ashtray, a zapper...,

a car, a film or ...

or a painting.

From that perspective,
I'm not at all

humanist

And then, as for this politics business...

When we... when François talked about
“authors politics”...

I mean, nowadays we only retain
the word “author”.

It was the word “politics”
that was interesting

The authors aren't very important.

If Hitchcock had made
"Rebel Without a Cause",

we'd all be praising Hitchcock.

It just doesn't matter.

Nowadays all that's...
well, I don't know.

Consequently there's no...

We have such – or so we say –
respect for the author

that we no longer respect the work

and our respect for the person

is restricted to words –

and we don't even respect

the words anymore.

Serious people excepted.

Dolto – to name someone well known.

Though there are doubtless
many who are unknown -

ordinary people.

The only person I know

who respects the work
as much as they respect author...

Actually, it's women rather than men.

Since women have children,

the work and its author... well...

There's a balance, justice, a democracy.

Men don't have that,

other than through
constant backs and forths.

In cinema there was such a...

We spoke freely of works,

but we never insulted the authors.

We always insulted the works.

It was the authors who took it upon
themselves to feel insulted.

Instead I'd say:

"OK, there's something
that existed, but that we don't see."

And this thing was nonetheless
relatively...

I unique.
It belongs, rather...

Something like that must
have happened during the...

recently...

give or take
two or three thousand years,

when Misenum was destroyed.

And before,

some 400 million years ago,

with the extinction of certain types
of plant and animal.

In this case there was something...

Simply because it was

what we call the “image”.

But an image in itself

is just an image,
if you will.

It's just a more or less large movement.

The image in question
was telling us something

but we didn't want to listen.

We preferred to speak rather than listen
and didn't...

In this sense, for me
a work is a child,

and the author is the adult – the parent.

The parents...
it was quite something.

The child showed the parent

who they were,

while also speaking

of itself.
But the parents wanted

...wanted none of it

and were even

a bit scared by it.

It's this notion, then:

it was the only possible
(hi)story of humankind -

if there is one.

Maybe this will change later,
but up till now,

chronologically, for some 400 million years

From 1700 and 1900...

and up until 1990-2000,

a certain way of telling stories

has been considered history.

The only history.
And we see it clearly.

Though of course it needs

to be proclaimed.

That is, you need to do like
Lévi-Strauss, Einstein or Copernicus

If you say,

Copernicus...

In around 1700,

or 1540 –
I'm not sure of the dates –

the earth...

the sun stopped
going round the earth...

Well, that's Copernicus.

And another book tells you

that around 1540

Vesalius published his first écorchés,

and we saw the insides
of the human body.

And then...
Has it run out?

Has the film run out?

We'll start over, then.

Sorry...
Do you want us to...?

No, no. You should say –
so we can take a break.

No, at one point...
But then you got going, you see.

Oh but... just stop me.

Yes, I think...

At some point,

around 1540: Copernicus.

Suddenly, around that date,
the sun stopped going round the earth.

It was Copernicus
who gave us the idea.

Or the fact, rather.

And then in more or less the same year –
give or take a few years,

we saw the insides
of a human body and

Vesalius published

De humani corporis fabrica –
or something like that,

which contains his écorchés –
the skeleton and écorchés,

which were a type of painting

that was not part of painting at the time.

So history tells you...

You've got Copernicus in one book,
then in another you've got...

What does cinema do?

Incidentally, François Jacob did it –
that's where I got the idea.

When he says: "In the same year
were published..."

What's he doing there?
Not biology but cinema.

History is elsewhere, too.

Take Cocteau, when he said:

"If Rimbaud had lived to see the day,

he'd have died the same year
as Marshal Pétain."

So you see the portrait
of the young Rimbaud

and you see the portrait of Pétain

in '48 or '49,

and you put the two together.

That gives you a story.

I'd even say, you have history.

A story plus history –
that's cinema.

That's cinema.

Only cinema –

all I'd like to tell people is:

only cinema can do that.

In fact, the beginning of my work is called
All the (Hi)stories,

Then – look at the titles:

the second part is called
A Single (Hi)story –

all the (hi)stories,
but a single (Hi)story.

And then you have: Only Cinema –

which means that only cinema did that
but that cinema was alone.

So alone that...
Well, there it is.

You can of course
add something here or there.

But that's the basis of it all.

Of course.
This is your characteristic mindset –

you always have one foot in science

and even a tendency to assimilate
art and science a bit too readily.

- Take Vesalius's pictures, for example...
- Ah... but how...?

No one but specialists
look at Vesalius's pictures nowadays.

Nobody's going to go and read
Copernicus in Latin...

François Jacob saw them,
and he was given the Nobel Prize.

If he didn't, he wouldn't
have had the Nobel Prize.

OK, but say you take
a big name in editing

Vertov, say...

Wait, let's discuss this, because...

Well, there's
the classic concept of history:

cinema as the only way
of telling a (hi)story.

It's even downright ambitious.

History is always alone –

that's an idea Michelet didn't have
when he wrote the history of France,

and that I picked up indirectly.

History is alone.

It's alone – outside,

far from people.

There's something in that...

And then there's something

that's more closely related
to the (hi)story of film editing.

Because nowadays when I go
to buy a newspaper

in this tiny little town,

the doctor, or the tobacconist asks me:

"Well? Is the editing coming along?"

I find it just...

They couldn't say that to Einstein.

They wouldn't dare ask,
"Is the equation coming along?"

Even the word “editing”...

My idea, as a cinema
practitioner or gardener,

is that one
of the aims of cinema

was to invent
the editing I've described.

That is, simply put:
Copernicus and Vesalius.

That's film editing.

It can't be done straight off.
It has to produce an idea.

Like Rimbaud...

Like Rimbaud and Marshal Pétain.

Or, another example:

let's say someone asked me
what the difference is between

the current president of France,
François Mitterrand,

and Charles De Gaulle.

Some people would say this,
others would say that...

I'd say that cinema...

if it wants, as a scientific tool,

to show the difference,

I'd say: these were two Frenchmen
who controlled some territory.

There was a war.

There was an invader.

At some point one of the Frenchmen
was captured.

And he began
his ascent to power

by coming back to France:

by escaping and
getting back to France.

The other one,

by contrast, escaped
from France and went abroad.

There you have it. In a word.
The real difference.

That's editing in
the most general sense of the term.

Yes, but also the most practical.

And cinema, or what we called cinema
when... –

technically, as part of its
work process –

has always been
after something of that sort.

We – at least those of us
who believed – used the term:

not Griffith, but Eisenstein,
Orson Welles and others.

Nowadays we talk of the editing
of Orson Welles, Eisenstein, Bergman...

Or the absence of editing in Rossellini.

But cinema has never found...

Something disappeared when talkies arrived.

Language, or words,
or the mode of expression

(I'm not sure what the difference is)

have been somewhat circumscribed.

Cinema was seeking that:
it wanted things to be obvious.

So that...

when so-and-so presents
the news on TV,

this activity of thinking...
This was the aim, that is...

I believe in works,
in art and in nature,

and so I believe that a work of art
has an aim – independently so.

People help it along – they participate;
but it has an aim.

The aim of painting is one thing.

Picasso tried to find it.

These are all classics –
in a sense I'm very classical.

So, for example, when a news presenter

talks about this or that –

be it Afghanistan, or a strike

(since there's an RER strike today) –

well, quite naturally, since
she's there visually,

if cinema had been able to grow up

and become an adult

(whereas in fact it has remained
a child supervised by adults)

but if it had grown up,

then the presenter would speak about it
as of Copernicus and Vesalius.

And this would be clear.

The solution, perhaps,
would not be clear.

Because, sure, Copernicus and Vesalius...

but François Jacob got his Nobel Prize
400 years later.

That's not the issue.

We developed the polio vaccine

400 years later.

So what remains of cinema
is not really

big...cross-cutting, let's say, ideas,
like editing,

but, rather, movement
towards editing?

OK.

- Well it was after, since we're critics...
- A “searching” for something.

They were looking for editing.

Griffith, say – and I'll prove it,

because it can be shown
using his own material...

In inventing the close-up,

Griffith was not trying,
as legend has it,

to get closer to some actress.

Though legends, like myths,
do tell us something.

He was trying...

to get closer to something,
both from nearby and from afar.

Eisenstein discovered camera angles.

All his best-known films -

think of "Battleship Potemkin", "October",
and "The General Line" –

had these camera angles.

Think of the famous image
of the three lions.

The lions produce an effect
that looks like editing.

But that's because of the three angles.
It's not because of editing.

It's because there are three camera angles.

The Germans ignored editing.

They went further:

sets and the philosophy
of the world –

so basically sets and lighting.

When you read how Murnau and...

I don't remember the name
of his cinematographer...

or his art director... But the way
they put together "The Last Laugh",

meant that the story came afterwards.

Yes, there were a few components...
But that's the only way.

He was looking for something he could edit.

And today we can't say what that is.

But that was there, and so...
And it had never been before. Anywhere.

And that, so to speak,
went without saying.

This was the great power of cinema –

silent but so very powerful.

There's something that's always
intrigued me:

How come it's the only art...

aimed at a large audience

that was based on visuals?

Because the other art “of the people” –
painting –

has always been
“anti” the people, somehow.

I mean, painting was always
for royalty and rich people.

So my idea was to say:
"OK, this was it..."

It's a fact, since we can see it

and can project it – albeit
in imperfect or “flimsy” ways...

But it's a fact. Say what you will.

Like when Schliemann found something
and thought:

"Well, Troy must have been
around at this or that time."

- So you...
- That's how it goes.

So you started on the (hi)story of cinema
when it was clear for you that the “search”

had been unsuccessful,
or else was complete.

And so the concrete lessons
it might have provided on the lives

of individuals, peoples
and cultures

have not been learned.

Because at one time we thought –
back when you had a more didactic approach

and believed in passing on knowledge

in a more direct and active way...

Back then I said to myself:

"Godard always tries to force
a film's message onto people's lives –

he imposes it in a very tough way."

That is: "Deal with it.
Do something with it."

Now you'd say: "In any case,
nothing can be done.

We tried. Cinema tried."

So why produce a (hi)story of cinema
if it's the (hi)story of a failure?

Or is the failure so spectacular
that it's worth telling the story?

Well, happiness has no story.

And is no more cheerful for it.

It's just that evil...
But it's not unhappiness, no...

It's a (hi)story...

But you see nowadays...
Take a film by Vertov.

In Vertov you had some very original,
very unusual hypotheses.

That made him a rarity as a filmmaker.

Sure, all that was covered up –

by Stalin, by the script...

- Even by...
- But when you're watching a Vertov film...

Even an Eisenstein.

The others...
with their arguments –

but healthy arguments...

Those who weren't so healthy
are those who reported it all.

We can no longer understand how it was.
At the time it must have been...

It must have been...

Vertov...

Each tried in his own way.
But the language came,

as did a means of expression,
and the press, and so on.

And there was some set-up whereby

if you said something that expressed
your point of view –

unless you were very unwell
when you said it

and you needed to see an analyst,

and the analyst was a good one

(and there aren't hundreds of thousands
of good doctors,

just as there aren't hundreds of thousands
of good scholars and so on),

and you weren't “cured” of language...

And so language immediately says:

"It was a sinus infection."
Or: "It was editing."

Probably, given that
my father was a doctor,

I'm... (likely unconsciously)...
led to...

led to that... to not...

No, I think there was a sign.

It was... well, invented by humankind...

There was a sign showing
that something was possible

if we went to the trouble
of calling things by their names...

and if this was a new way
of calling things by their names –

a way that we'd never seen before
and that was vast and had popular appeal.

Because it needs an audience. Right away.

Let me go back
to the example of Vertov,

since he interested you
a great deal at one time.

So there was something in cinema
that tried to be seen,

that was visible,
and that was covered up.

That's where we're up to.

We can call it “editing”,
or something like that.

We really should call it “editing”.
if that's the term we're using.

But it turns out that films endure –

you can watch at least
a tape of a Vertov film.

Straight off.

Wait... What endures?

Because the lesson or thing that
we were supposed to see in Vertov

was supposedly not seen –
it was concealed.

But the object remains all the same.

It persists as an object.

That is, it will survive
various readings and non-readings,

including unexpected or strange readings,

that might arise later on –
you never can know.

Personally, when you're watching a Vertov,
what do you feel?

Admiration?

Sadness? Melancholy?

Do you think:
"It's all pointless. It existed

and, at the end of the day,
it's beautiful"?

Because you speak of Vesalius
and Copernicus, but no one said

Copernicus's book was beautiful.
Here we're talking about art,

and a characteristic of art is
that it leaves behind objects.

But it is art. Cinema is an art.

But as science is also an art,

And then, in the 19th century
something happened

with the rise of communications

and what I describe in
Histoire(s) du cinéma,

namely, filming technique –

“technique” in an operating
rather than an artistic sense;

not the movement of a watch

made by a watchmaker in the Jura

but rather 120 million Swatch watches.

Technology, telecommunications,

semaphore and so on appeared

at the same time
(as Flaubert observed)

at the same time as stupidity.

At the same time as "Madame Bovary".

It all came...

It all came in at the same time.

I've forgotten what I wanted to say...

Remind me of your question...
It will come back to me.

You said: "Personally,
do you think...?"

I'll summarise what I said.

When you're watching a Vertov film...

in light of what you've just said –

that cinema brought us something

that was not accessed,
because it was concealed...

So what's left for you

when you are
personally confronted with an object

such as Three Songs About Lenin, say,
which is nonetheless

a beautiful object?

What do you do with the beauty?

Right, yes.

But science is like art –

it's the same thing.
And science is an art.

And at a certain point,
in the 19th century,

science – not art, but science –

became

became what was called (since
the word did not exist before then)

“culture”.

At that point it became
something else.

Cinema, which was an art –

an art with broad appeal –

gave rise, little by little,
perhaps because of its popular appeal

and because of science,
which had also advanced,

to television,

which is not art, but culture –
that is to say...

Transmission.

...that is to say,
commerce and transmission.

So they need what's left of art,

but art is a bit lost.

For those who called it “art” –
only people in the West called it art.

By the way, my, let's say,
“working” hypothesis

is that the (hi)story of cinema,
in my opinion, is interesting to tell,

as it's, in a way, the (hi)story,

or the last chapter

of the history of art
which is itself

the last chapter of the history

of an Indo-European
or European civilisation.

Other civilisations did not have art.

It's not that

there's no pottery in China

or no novels...

It's not that there are none
in Japan or in Mexico –

after the Maya.

Only Europe had, at a certain point,
a conception of art

that is connected
– a little before and a little after –

to the idea of gods

and, later, to that
of a single god in Christianity.

The others don't –
they don't have art.

The idea of art is European.

But well, it's coming to an end,
and it's rather strange to hear...

It's no coincidence that
we're all talking about Europe.

It's because Europe's on its way out.

And since it's gone,

let's make an...

an ersatz, as the Germans
said during the war.

Because in 2000 years...

We had a lot of trouble dismantling
the empire of Charlemagne.

Well, we're at it again.

Also, it's Central Europe, if you will.

The rest doesn't exist.

If you ask someone
if Greece is in Europe,

they won't answer.

They'll think: France, Germany,
to some extent Italy.

Certainly not Spain.

So cinema, if you will, was...

it's art.

We distinguish it from trade,
when we trade in it.

Our quarrel with Hollywood has
always been along the lines of:

"Gentlemen, you must behave a little

like Durand-Ruel

or Ambroise Vollard behaved
towards Cézanne,

or like Van Gogh's brother behaved with..."

The details are somewhat vague.

But one shouldn't behave
only in a commercially minded way.

Because as soon as you're doing commerce
it's something else: culture.

It's only us, the New Wavers,

who said that
American cinema is art.

Everyone else hated it at times.

Bazin

recognised that "Shadow of a Doubt"
was a good Hitchcock film.1

He didn't say the same for...

"Notorious".

I remember when "Notorious" came out,
he found it...

"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".

No, but I remember with "Notorious"...

He considered it frankly despicable –

true Social Democrat as he was –

that such a “useless” subject

could be used to produce
such a marvelous mise-en-scène.

Given his secularism, there was something
that deeply shocked him about it.

If you will.

But only the New Wave
was able to say

that there was art
to be found in certain objects

that had been detached from

their object, or their subject, by

by the big companies.

Because they quickly became big.

And then, historically, it's well known.

At some point, the big companies –

like the feudal lords –

gained power over...

...the great poets.

Just like if Francis I of France had told
Leonardo da Vinci,

or if Julius number x
had said to Michelangelo –

actually he did a little, but it was
a more democratic debate...

the sort of debate that Stroheim
and Thalberg must sometimes have had.

Imagine if they'd said:

No! You must paint that angel's
wing like this! Not like that!"

It's culture...
It's art.

Hence what you call
my appetite for science.

I consider that science is art.

Or art is science – either way round.

And I don't consider that Picasso
is superior, or inferior, to Vesalius.

They're equal in their desires or...

I don't think that a doctor

who cures a ...

a sinus infection

is either superior
or inferior to myself

if I pull off a good shot
of Maruschka Detmers.

It's more or less equal.

Though if you do science

but overdo the publications
and so on.... That's no good.

I think that...

Einstein, for instance, is a myth.

He became such a big concept,

and yet he wrote three lines.

Much has been written about him,
but he himself wrote about three lines,

if you compare him to others.

Which means: we shouldn't write too much.

We shouldn't create these immortals.

Because when others
start making theories,

language tends
to get in the way.

It's striking.

For example,
there's a book I like a lot.

By Heisenberg. "Relations"...
or "Uncertainty", something like that...

Or "Nature".

"Modern Physics".

"Nature in Modern Physics".

I understand the idea very well, but

it’s a little difficult to explain.

I understand very well that what he says
is not what he saw,

and that if it’s taken so long

to admit it,

it’s simply because language...

There’s a great struggle
between the eyes and...

this thing “language”.

I think...

I think there’s only Freud
and others like that,

and whom we still tend
to make fun of today

oddly enough.

who have tried to see it another way.

Well, we tell them
that sexuality is not everything...

Quite right. So to sum up –
if I’ve understood correctly:

first...

cinema is an art
and the last chapter

in the history
of the idea of art in the West.

Consequently, cinema is a special case.

And only the West had the idea.

And so the West is the first,
of course, to have given it up.

Mmm, yes, I don't know why
it happened that way.

Because yes – the West gave it up itself
through masochism or something like that.

Secondly, what's important
about cinema is...

it provided information
on what people could see...

But could see in a way...

Rather than reading a...
You saw in a way...

I find it’s more pleasant
because it tells you a story.

It was even a link.
Cinema was a link to other civilisations.

All these stories: when you watch
a Lubitsch film, what are you being told?

It’s telling you something
you can find in the "Arabian Nights".

The other forms of art did not have that;

they were exclusively European.

And at given time,
through the influence of cinema –

at about the same time...

Because Picasso’s African Period
didn’t come just any time –

– it came at a particular time.

It came when there was cinema.

It was not because of colonialism
but because of cinema.

Colonialism already existed

in Delacroix’s time,
but he didn’t paint pictures

influenced by African art

or Arab art,

as Picasso and others did.

This was something else.

So there was a very strong feeling,
which is due to the visual.

Cinema belongs to the visual.

The visual has not

in my view, been allowed

to find its own form of expression –

other than through an RCA or Tobis-Klang

or what-have-you procedure.

It hasn't been able to find its own
language that isn’t based on, say,

"L'évènement du jeudi".

- I’ve lost the thread.
- And how about getting the poets back...?

Because the one who talked
about the blank page – Mallarmé,

probably hit on his idea on leaving
the canopy of trees.

Doubtless. If we looked into it.

If we researched the day when Mallarmé

wrote his piece on the blank page –

if we had a court judge
who went through all the documents,

and say we found the answer...

I’d say he found inspiration
on leaving the canopy of trees [feuillade].

I even know which one.

The Feuillade called "Erreur tragique".

There’s something else that cinema did:

it created a sense
of belonging to the world.

This strikes me because I think
it's now disappearing.

Yes, that's...

Perhaps we do have a feeling
of belonging to the planet.

Because the planet is now so circumscribed:
the earth with all its problems.

But it’s not the same thing.

There’s a difference between
the universal and the international.

We hear of international problems
through communication.

In cinema,
one belonged to the world.

Also, what has changed
in what we now call the media –

in television, but it’s going
to extend far beyond that,

is that when I went to the cinema,

I was taken in a bit like an orphan
deprived of social contact.

I was given some contact but
some contact was taken from me first –

it was the film that took it,
using techniques specific to cinema:

editing, storyline – things like that.

Whereas now,
when I’m in front of my TV set

late in the evening,
watching, say, news

about some very engaging
very real events,

I don’t have the same feeling.

I’m not engaged
as an orphan, as a subject.

I am engaged as a powerless adult,

with a vague feeling of compassion
produced by modern communication.

You can feel sad to be powerless,
but you can also, perversely, revel in it.

In that sense, we can see to what extent
(I speak for myself)

cinema adopted us
and gave us an additional world –

one that, perhaps like you said,

could connect up...

culture, which had
the monopoly on perception, and

the world “to be perceived” –
that is, the rest of the world.

We'll start from there with the next reel.

You were saying

that I wanted to describe cinema

and say it had failed and is finished.

No, that’s not really my impression.

The failure is not
the failure of cinema but...

the failure of its parents.

If you will, let’s say it’s childhood
and there’s a feeling of…

That’s why it was so popular.

Certainly, everyone can love
a Van Gogh painting.

But imagine a person who...

has invented a way of displaying
Van Gogh’s crows everywhere,

and in a form that is, let’s say...

less terrifying,

such that everybody liked the work
and felt close to it.

Cinema was the planet earth, in a sense.

Then, when television arrived…

Television is like
the invention of the plough.

A plough is no good
if you don’t know how to use it,

or how to turn over the soil,

or how to grow
such and such type of wheat.

So the sadness or, for me, the failure,

and the sadness it causes,

is what many filmmakers experienced
– big names or not:

“Oh, if they’d only let us do it...”

Less, I think...
It’s only afterwards...

And it's television that doesn’t...

that has become
something else entirely

It’s as if,

It’s as if, I’d say, all the compass
points had been lost.

In cinema we had the East and the West –

it was always that way:
from Moscow to Hollywood, more or less,

covering all of Central Europe.

That’s where all cinema comes from.

There is no cinema in Egypt,
even if there are Egyptian films.

There is no Swedish cinema;
they've been long lost in abandon...

Though there are some magnificent
Swedish films – but that's not the point.

There’s a great freeway, like this...

And television...

That's the function of cinema:
to lay things out and examine them.

I've always compared it
to a court case:

you take a file and open it.

And then you weigh it. It's similar
to a novel as it has an order.

But since it's visual,
there's something else, too.

You have the weight of one page
and the weight of another page –

that's cinema.

And then you have
something else: direction.

It wasn't clear...

Perhaps we might say that you need
the compass points – all four.

It’s as if there was cinema's
east and west,

and television leapt on that,

but overlooked north and south –

which, however, are right for television
and not possible for cinema.

Cinema couldn't do it
and did not need to:

it had something else to do.

Though television,

even in a silly way,
does need to manage time.

The other day I was watching
a documentary –

one made by a good documentary maker:
Marin Karmitz.

It was about Françoise Dolto.

They were interviewing children...

but you didn’t even get...

you didn’t even hear
the whole question.

Above all, you didn't even fully see
the children's expressions.

Or what they said.

You only get that in novels –

or books.

Terry Brazelton’s or...

or Dolto’s, for instance.

The government did not
even give Dolto a "Maison verte".

– did not even finance
50 "Maison vertes".

Though they're happy

to give her 50 légions d’honneur.

At that point Dolto’s message,
which was communicated in writing

and that probably...well...

Her message could not be heard

because the language became

something else.

It’s what we were saying yesterday
about the media.

If you publish Dolto in "L’Express" ,
her message won't come through.

- Of course.
- Something else will come through.

Meanwhile the child is still sick.

Now, do we want the child to remain unwell?
I think so.

I'm an example. I say we want...
I remain unwell, damn it.

I myself perhaps have a tendency to...

Automatically, being part of that world...

The New Wave was indeed

exceptional in that sense,
since it believed.

But that’s the doing of Langlois,

who himself followed in the footsteps
of a number of people.

The New Wave believed what it saw.
Simple as that.

I was thinking of the New Wave…
That is...

With the first question I asked.

I was thinking that it was the only...

When we say “New Wave”,
we mean three people...

Right, right,

Right, right, but nonetheless.

I was thinking that it was also
the only generation that began in cinema

just when television was appearing.
- True.

And so, in the work of the New Wave
there is a sort of encroachment...

It belonged to both worlds.

And then Rossellini – an important figure
in the youth of the New Wavers,

took the plunge himself a little later...

And so, all the filmmakers...

- But he got...
- Yes, he got...

- Rossellini’s story is the same as...
- He got a thrashing.

... the sames as Christ's because he...

Renoir and Rossellini were
the two great admirers of the New Wave...

Renoir filmed "Experiment in Evil"

at the time as Claude Barma
was making his TV dramas.

Exactly.

- We were all captivated by it.
- Sure.

and yet we gave
Claude Barma a hard time.

But this dual TV heritage is interesting.

Because French TV
(Barma is a good example)

has built itself up, to a great extent,
as a continuation of French-quality cinema:

dramas, the Studios des Buttes-Chaumont...
Even today, really, it’s the same.

At the same time,
certain major filmmakers –

important figures because they did
things differently to others,

such as Rossellini, but even Bresson,
who never touched TV, and Tati,

all anticipated
the TV setup in the 50s.

That is, the need for other,
far-reaching effects,

but without forgetting cinema.
So films.

You came in, as critics then filmmakers,
just at that point, I think,

and you hesitated between the two.

There was never any anti-TV talk
from the people I've mentioned.

- No.
- Welles, Hitchcock, Tati...

- They all did at least some television...
- Never...

But you know, one ought not to confuse...

At first there was a sort of happy incest.

Later it became very unhappy.

Yes, but: the plough and the earth.
One shouldn’t...

The earth isn’t...

They themselves were the oxen.

The earth is not... man and ox.

Donkey and ox.
They were both donkey and ox.

- Rossellini was a disciple of...
- One should not confuse...

He considered himself stupid...

One should not confuse
the land and the tool.

Television is not land; it's a tool.

When the tool becomes the land,

we finish up with... AIDS.

Which comes at the right time.

I don’t think we will cure cancer
very quickly.

We will get better at it;
we'll have things...

But we don’t want to.

If we wanted to...

In any case....

In any case, we haven't proved

that we want to
and that we are able to see.

Once,

Once, if you will,
you've got François Jacob

is studying...

lymphocytes,
antigens, antibodies...

I’m not well versed in the terminology...

Once he's no longer doing
what he did in bringing together...

But that’s because it took
400 years of hindsight

for him to be able to say that
Vesalius drew the insides of the human body

when Copernicus...

But that's 400 years ago.

So he needed 400 years
to be able to see that.

Or else the person –
François Jacob, in this case –

saw all this at the end of a string
of people and things.

But when he sees
the lymphocyte and so on...

Well, if he opened Chandler

or even John Le Carré.

If he saw...

Actually I’d recommend he read
the early novels of Peter Cheyney.

That'd be better.

You see the work

of the cell, the spy,
the code and so on.

Because these are all the same words.

Well, let’s hope he doesn’t see.
I can’t do much...

I can only tell him:
"You should be looking here.

And with your individual genius,

... you ought to say
different things to...

This is where
you'll find the vaccine.

Or the beginning

If you don’t do this,
then you won’t find the vaccine.

Do some cinema."

But when he goes to the cinema,
he likes "One Deadly Summer".

What can you do?

It’s a... Television is

...staggering.

When you have something staggering
and with tremendous popular appeal...

It’s because it's staggering that...

...it has tremendous popular appeal.

- Yes.
- Of course.

Cotton or silk, but...

it’s absolutely...

Cinema, novels and paintings –

European or of European influence,

from America

to Greece,
have generally done

at least some
of what they could do.

The child has got older.

Television,

on the whole, has not.

Given television's popularity
and universality,

this is a catastrophe on a global scale.

It’s the switch from something
that could have been universal

to something that has become village-sized,

to use McLuan's terminology.

In any country –
for example, in Switzerland:

you watch television to see
what's happening in the “Swiss village”.

But you know that, roughly speaking,

the same thing's happening
in the “Italian village” next door.

Simply, the people and accent
are a little different.

Each has its rituals, Cockaigne poles,
ridiculous paraphernalia,

and more or less the same news.

We have the feeling that
our land is expanding,

and that a tiny plough is moving
constantly in the same direction.

Cinema had land
that was not yet “complete”.

An explorer’s terrain,
where some things were still unknown,

or little known.

But at least the discoveries
were made personally

and were followed directly
for a certain period of time –

less and less time,
but nonetheless for a fairly long time.

That became clear – for me at least...

I understood it had become clear for me

when I realised,

after a few years,

that cinema...

...had not shown
the concentration camps.

We'd spoken about them

but not shown them.

That...

It’s the...

- For me it's...
- Do you mean...?

It interested me, perhaps
for the reasons you mentioed

my guilt, my social class...

And I still don’t understand why.

I don’t understand why
it bothered me so much,

since it did not
concern me directly, if you will.

It’s strange because you say...

Cinema had not shown the camps,

but the camps were really
the first thing to show.

I mean...

we had shown...

how a man walks using
Marey’s chronophotographic gun.

But we didn’t show the camps.

We didn't want to see them.

So there’s something...

It stopped there.

I thought that
the New Wave was not a beginning

but rather an ending...

That's more or less
what I wanted to ask you.

If cinema explored

and showed certain things
the way it did,

is it not

– it’s sad but that’s how it is –

because of

because of unprecedented events

in the history of humankind –
namely the two world wars

and the concentration camps.

These events did,
for a certain time, compel

people to look.
Cinematic language wouldn't have changed

without the First World War.

It’s clear that,
from Gance to Griffith,

and from Vidor
to Raymond Bernard...

or Renoir, who was
in the First World War...

Perception...

He was in the war as a...

Right, he was in the cavalry.

Perception was completely transformed –
like the world’s fields and trenches.

And the change was
immediate in cinema.

The second time round,
it wasn't quite the same.

Apart from
the Italian “back shot”, let's say...

There were some jolts.

There was a jolt
that proved to be the last –

known as, I think, Italian neorealism.
- Right, as I said.

Two films in total, but a jolt.

And then a jolt from a jolt –
the New Wave,

which was born of Italian neorealism.

Fassbinder perhaps finished that “jolt”.

He was perhaps the last to…
following on from the others...

He was the last to try to reconstitute –

though very indirectly and interminably –
something that lacked an image:

namely, post-war Germany.

But Fassbinder died over 10 years ago –
no, not yet 10 years...

Now one has the feeling
that these jolts are over.

That has been your experience...

Let’s have a break
then get back to Fassbinder.

Tapes 6 and 7 are missing.

You were saying…
What does it mean nowadays to...?

What does it mean nowadays
to need images?

That is,
in the current audiovisual landscape,

given that people have changed,
society has changed and so on.

It’s a question I ask myself
pretty often...

but starting from the answers,

really...

when I try to show
what we usually call...

“images”...

or “pictures”, as the Americans say.

I tend to consider them to be answers
rather than questions.

And I try to understand

what the question
was behind them...

because answers they are,
no matter what form they take:

a book, novel or potato –

it’s always an answer to something.

You ask why they're needed...
Indeed.

But, I don't know...
Maybe one shouldn’t confuse...

need and desire...

No, no I’m talking about need.

At the same time, I think there’s
a desire for images,

because they're the only thing that...

When exactly did we develop
a sense of identity?

It must have become, around, say,
the end of the 19th century...

...a fundamental concept.
Individual people...

have a greater feeling of identity,
than, say,

in the Middle Ages.

Nowadays even believers,

when they pray, don't...

That is,

they feel like individuals.

They no longer feel
(though what do we know?)

like the people Malraux talks about,

who followed
the teachings of Saint Bernard.

People need identity, I think.

Put simply, we recognise one another.

If I see a picture of you, I don’t claim
that it’s an image of Toubiana,

and vice versa.

And in recognising one another...

we might say

that “recognition” [reconnaissance]
has two meanings:

reconnaissance in the sense
of “reconnaissance”

during a war, by a scout –

like Davy Crockett, the scout
in the films of John Ford –

and reconnaissance in the sense
of “recognition” or “gratitude” –

we are grateful to others

for recognising us and allowing us
to recognise one another.

I think that,
before the Holocaust,

cinema rhymed with

the identities of nations –

or peoples:

peoples who were more or less
grouped together in a nation.

Later this tended to disappear.

It’s something I looked at in...

...in a 3B programme

called "La réponse des ténèbres".

It's about, let's say, war films.

It basically says

that cinema is actually
an art form produced by boys:

a Western art form made by boys –
by white men.

And it...

... well, for example,
when I speak to Anne-Marie...

She got into cinema before I did,
that is, at a younger age.

Her family would not let her see films

because cinema was considered poor quality.

When she did go to the pictures,
she was only allowed to watch westerns.

Jeff Chandler made her laugh;
she quite liked him.

But apart from that she could not stand...

To this day she has trouble
even with a John Ford film:

"All these blokes on horses,
men everywhere…

I’ve sick and tired of them!"

So I was talking about war films –

films made “just because”.

The Americans quickly became
specialised in such films.

After 1914 –
after they'd got a taste for...

But I think it's cinema
that initially got them into that:

first they were invaded by cinema,
then they themselves took to invading –

in a friendly or less friendly fashion...

Then they even...

Well, now it’s the Americans
who tell the story of the Vietnam war:

not the Chinese, not the Vietnamese,
not the Egyptians...

not the Swedish. No, the Americans.

The story of World War II
was also told by the Americans.

Sure, a little bit by the Russians,
who told the story for themselves,

but chiefly by the Americans.

There's much
that can be said about

this desire that
the old Europeans have

with respect
to the new Europeans –

that is, the Americans:

a desire to maintain ties,
to prostrate themselves,

to support the dollar
when it's weak,

to weaken it
when it's too strong...

What other explanation is there?

We're the only ones

who’ve ever really liked
American cinema.

Take the "Cahiers".

Which brings me to the following question:

Why...

I mean in World War I
and World War II...

was there no “resistance cinema”?

Sure, there were a few films
about resistance here and there.

But the only resistance cinema –

or the only resistance film,
in the sense of “cinema of resistance” –

that is, a cinema that resisted...

the “occupation” of cinema by...

America,
or resisted a certain

standardised way of doing cinema –

is Italian cinema.

Italy –
the country that fought the least –

though it suffered undeniably.

Italy, quite simply, lost its identity.

And cinema... up until then –

well, the last time
was "Rome, Open City".

Italy got back on its feet
after "Rome, Open City".

Benedetti should really

buy a ton of pet food
for the descendants of Rossellini’s dogs.

That... was the only resistance cinema.

As for the others, the Russians made...

propaganda and martyrdom films.

The Americans made films
that were advertisements.

The English did more of the same.

Germany couldn't make
resistance films for itself.

As for the French, they only made
films about prisoners.

I mean, "The Battle of the Rails"
is not a film.

The Polish made a couple of films –

they were the only ones
who tried, twice in a row,

to make a film about the camps.

- "Passenger".
- Yes, "Passenger", and...

- "The Last Stage" by Wanda...
- Jakubowska.

Right. And "Passenger", by the way ends…
Well, it's not finished.

But, you know, it was, if you like,
an “individual nation”.

Poland didn’t want that;
an individual did.

When Rossellini made "Paisan"...
Actually, even when De Sica…

"Rome, Open City" is not the film
that is best known and worked best.

but "Shoeshine", afterwards.

See, cinema represented,
for a long time,

but only up until around then,

the possibility of belonging to a nation

while also being oneself
within that nation.

Then all that changed: cinema became
the image of oneself through a nation.

- Exactly.
- Also, there was a set of cinemas

that were more or less national and
that were...

Well, there was the Marshall Plan
and so on.

Then all of that disappeared.

If people still like cinema today,

it’s a bit like the Greeks
who liked stories about Zeus.

That's how it is.
If they like films, say Belmondo –

not mine, they wouldn’t work,
neither would Straub’s...

But if they still like this idea
of cinema on television –

scaled-down cinema, so to speak –

it’s because there's a vague memory,
or something like that...

We no longer have our identity,

but if we turn on the TV

there's a vague little signal saying
we do perhaps have one.

So there you have it. Otherwise...

Then films will disappear from TV.

There’s no knowing
why films on TV are still so popular.

It’s interesting to talk about America
because it’s a country

that's very different from other countries
and that continues to make films...

And without false consciousness –
that’s always been America’s thing.

With very little innovation –

far less than the Europeans
at one time.

The modes of narration,
the forms used and so on –

it’s a cinema that's been formatted
definitively, at least since talkies began.

- But what moves people is that…
- But America doesn't have...

It's...
Well, I think everyone knows:

America doesn't have a history
in the same way

as Persia, China or...,

... say, Egypt.

On the other hand, the US is
teeming with lots of little stories.

Then all at once,

initially through
the unconscious means of a war...

In World War II,
they knew what they were doing.

They'd thought it through.
They waited to enter the war

at the right time.

In World War I they were much vaguer.
Things happened...

It was then that they got hold of
the most powerful cinema in the world –

the only cinema then: French cinema.

They got hold of it like someone

who buys and takes over a house

when the previous owner
or tenants have gone to war

and been killed.

American cinema got hold of French cinema,

which was the most powerful
cinema in the world back then.

All the same, there’s
something different about America:

their cinema has always
helped them answer the question

"Who are we?"

- It’s the question of identification...
- They must have been very pleased.

... though it’s not enough.
Everyone asks themselves who they are.

At the moment, the Japanese are
obsessed with that,

though they've dropped their cinema
all the same. So it’s not enough.

In the case of America, there was more:
"We're from a history, from a story..."

"We're come from Europe,
from some other place...

from a passage in the Bible,
from a Puritan script."

They need cinema to check that
the same story still holds,

and it's this that's been
so impressive and so admired

and that still works,
as you say, in the form of

little glimpses
of light on television.

It's all about origins.

As for Europe...
Europe was too old.

They were the only ones
who knew how to do it, one must admit.

Europe was too old to say
where it had come from

and not strong enough to say
what it could come up with using cinema.

But the question I’ll ask you again –
the same as before,

only we’ve done away
with the preliminaries –

concerns individualism, which has
really gained ground over the past century:

“social conquests”, as you wrote…

What does that mean
in terms of the need for images?

What do people reasonably have
in terms of desire, as we were saying,

and in terms of fear – the “must-dos”,

“can-dos”, “allowed-to-dos”?

What can people get from an image
that they will not get from

the other images they see, say,
in advertising and so on –

images whose purpose is to conceal others,
or to make others impossible.

Because increasingly
that's what images do:

they open onto something –

that we ask ourselves as an individual.
So I’m talking about someone who ...is no longer

no longer the slave of cinemas, say.

Someone who, like yourself,
can get themselves some tapes,

edit photos,

use modern machines, work
with videos and basically make

their own cinema.

Because you're not just surrounded
by people who consume images, nowadays –

people who remember very clearly...

what cinema used to be
but are not really with the times.

Rather, we are all, in a way,
in a situation like your own:

what should we do with images?
Given that we tend to consume them alone

and to use them to personal ends?

But now we're talking about editing.
They say “image”, but these aren't images.

Yes, you might say that.

They are no longer images.
They're just...

You have relations and
stuff like that but not...

You can't call that...

The Americans are more pragmatic.

That's their strong point...
We might...

I often feel riled about that because

they shouldn't use
their strong point in such a way.

That is, a right always
comes with a duty.

An image always conjures another;

images are never alone,

unlike what we call “images” today.

Such “images” are
sets of solitudes connected by...

discourse that is,

at worst, that of Hitler,

but that can never be...

say, that of Dolto, Freud, Wittgenstein
or someone else of that kind.

And so...

Everyone needs...

Sometimes Van Gogh sells well,
though nobody has seen his work.

But if his work is known...

along with that of some others, too,
of people who had vision –

in particular, Impressionist works,

which are the least loved in the world.

Few people have reproductions

of Monet on their walls.

They have reproductions of Picasso up,
or one of Renoir’s young women.

They don't have one of
Renoir’s pots of flowers on the wall.

They instead have another...

They use the character element
of the painting.

Because in fact the Impressionists
had real vision

that turned things upside down.

Technically, cinema was born
at around the same time.

Up till then there was no such vision.

Not at the beginning
of the 19th century,

not in the 15th century... not before.
There was...

I think that before,

the difference between a blind person
and somebody who could see

was not so big as it is today.

Between a blind person...

I’ve always said that between
losing my hands and being blind,

in terms of making films
I would rather be blind.

Cut!

End of reel.

Well, we'll do a couple more.

We were saying that...

What we call “images”
are not images.

Though I don’t know what they are.

They are parts.
The Americans are more accurate:

They say “pictures”

and they use
the same word for “photo”.

And for films they say “movies”

which preserves the idea of movement.

Whereas if you say “cinema”...
Well.

Pretentious Americans – intellectuals,
say “image”.

The intellectuals, sure, but...

- They say “cinema”...
- But in real life they say “pictures”.

They've always said “pictures”.

And by the way, they don't say
“television” but “network”:

a “spider's web”.
You have to admit, it's a bit...

There's something else, too.

All the major American films

we've seen...

up until now and over
the past 100 years,

have always focused on...

... work.

That is, salaried work
and its difficulties

have, generally, been
what drove the scripts.

More or less all films
are about that now,

which is why they are still successful.

The same goes even for American series:
Starsky and Hutch and so on...

Because you see a detective at work.

People like to see the workplace,
which is the only place that...

People have always wanted to show it,
and they suffer because of it.

But at the same time,
as they don’t like their own work...

Before they did like work.

Perhaps they didn’t like being
so poorly paid.

But otherwise they liked work.

You still see that among

the working classes,
and in poor areas.

If you speak to a bus driver,
he might well like his bus.

What he doesn’t like are
the conditions in which he works.

But otherwise, essentially, he doesn't
think himself any less worthy than Picasso.

So, the fact that we no longer
show the work,

There's no longer... Even the type of work
I was telling you about –

a certain art of doing nothing,

but that produced work anyway,

because the way it was done was

what cinema was all about.

Well, there's no longer...

There no longer is any work,

and we call on (if I may say so)
the image –

that is, on what we call
the image today,

to, as you were saying, work

“with the eye” [à l'oeil].

That is, not with words, but à l'oeil.

Though really, what an expression...!

French is a very interesting language.

It's one of the languages
that contains the most...

sleights of hand, connections
and things like that:

“Xork with the eye”
[also meaning “work for free”].

We might have said
“work with the hand”...

Or, au doigt et à l'œil
[“at someone's beck and call”].

No, but...

..travailler à l'oeil
can also mean “not work”.

- Yes, sure.
- Or else “work…” I'm not sure...

Vision and the eye...

We have our identity...

straight after birth, more or less.

Probably, even...

as ...

people know,
if they've studied embryos,

we have it even sooner.

As soon as there is anything.

Perhaps even before.

And so what we expect,
more and more,

from what we continue
to call “images”...

We no longer expect a representation of...

...of the real,
with its signs of hope...

-... hope and proof and so on.
- No, that's finished.

Which means we no longer expect
these things from ourselves either.

And we want...

That's how I understood
what you were saying about...

about “figures”:
that we want figures...

in the sense that ice skaters
trace figures.

Exactly, yes.

I think... We said that many times
in a very...

in a joyful way in the 1970s:

down with representation –

whether political, artistic or whatever.
Including in cinema.

But it’s true that in cinema,
of which you are now telling the (hi)story,

we were represented.

We were represented
by something on a screen

and we could be taken hostage by a film

but returned to the world afterwards,
the better for it.

But we felt something very close
to a fear of being taken

and of being let go of.

This was linked to the image
each individual created of himself –

a sort of amateurish psychoanalysis
through watching films.

But it wasn’t a representation
that was made in our absence,

contrary to what we often said.

We stepped aside

and had a look at ourselves.

And here we can think of
the splitting of modern cinema,

which led both to dead ends
and some terrific results:

"Am I taken hostage “properly”?"

"Are things going as they should?"

"Am I going somewhere?"
Otherwise I won't have it.

We gave a moral overtone
to the way

we were represented in films,

which could not have worked without,
say, Hitchcock, who did that best of all.

Now we've moved towards
a system that people

– technocrats – speak of with...

with... great candour and much joy

because it opens the doors to some kind
of paradise for them: participation.

That is, spectators interact
with the image,

which therefore no longer has
to represent them.

Likewise, spectators no longer have
to monitor the image or...

work on their relationship with it,
or check whether it works on reality.

They participate,

simply, in a period that
is no longer one of war and fear

but rather one of peace and anxiety –

which is not the same; peace
is more associated with television.

In this context, spectators are targeted
as individuals or, at best, citizens.

Simply put, if we think about
what is just around the corner –

digital and computer-generated images,
which people are already working on –

we get a funny feeling:

we think that now we have
software, programs and so on,

images can generate one another –
one begets another, like in fission.

So instead of having children...

A film, you said, is a child:
there's a sex act

...love,

and the image supposedly reproduces itself
like an amoeba or a clone.

It’s an increasingly

synthetic world,

rather as if we had extracted

figures from the surrounding world

then noticed that the camera was
also recording the surroundings.

Some filmmakers had already worked
a lot on on how to go

from a detail towards the whole,
or else on, say, angles and editing.

Now we

...have...

Well, we...

seem to have only one thing on mind:

to have images that work autonomously

and as if, so to speak,
in a trapeze act;

that is, in a vacuum

or in vitro.

We're no longer interested .
What are the surroundings?

Our relationship to others, for one thing,
and to the rest of the world.

That's why things are now so clannish:

television is not interested
in the rest of the world –

it provides a few documents
(not even documentaries)

But these are too parochial
to be of interest.

What strikes me is that modern cinema

takes the human figure and says:
"Careful, this figure has been destroyed.

It's been disfigured and
we're not going to “re-figure” it."

Only bad films did... resistance stories

where attractive heroes got out
of the concentration camps and so on.

No, the human essence was damaged
metaphysically –

everyone knew that very early on,

though it sunk in very late
and even incompletely.

We are now in a period where we say

that cinema can no longer report
on our surroundings –

on what is nearby, in the environs
or unexpected – simply there.

It can no longer capture the world. But...

...it will have great difficulties,
(perhaps it won’t be the one to do so)

on what seems to interest
the powers that be nowadays –

people working in advertising,
communications and media.

Namely: now that we have little synthetic
characters lifted of their context,

where are we going to put them?

As for the surroundings,
currently there are none.

I think that’s why films like "The Bear"
and "The Big Blue" have been successful:

they tell the story of little specimens –

not necessarily humans,
but individualised specimens –

in a landscape that is
far too big for them.

I think advertising played
a huge role in this.

But we didn’t really notice
because we’ve always criticised it

on slightly reductive
or puritanical moral grounds.

It has got us used to seeing

only a a character or...
Or... how to put it?

A body, a character
and a human combined.

And we thought: "Ah, he's selling
deodorant or Marlboros – how rotten!"

But what the person was selling
does not matter.

What matters is that we saw
these characters alone

and in a non-environment,
or just with a bit of blue behind –

a swimming pool or the sky, say.

This matter of remaking the surroundings

is very important, because

we don't know what world
the modern individual will inhabit,

given how he is today.

For the time being
he's completely alone.

He's a figure much closer

to the experiments in
"The Island of Dr. Moreau" or "Frankenstein".

That is, we don’t really know
how things work

and so we try miming,

using an animal similar to humankind –
a mammal, like the bear –

in order to teach humans
what they look like

while showing them
something alongside:

an animal that stands up
like a human.

And we say, "Your story should look
something like that, but we’re not sure."

It’s because we're not sure
that Annaud rather unscrupulously plays

with both realism and special effects.

For him that changes nothing.

As for myself, I consider it tragic.
Perhaps you do too.

Questions of editing, that is,

of all at once juxtaposing
two very different things,

are no longer posed.

We’ve gone beyond that.

Now it’s all a question of figures.

When I say “figure”,
I don’t necessarily mean human figures.

If there is some truth in all that,

then one can see that
you are telling the (hi)story of cinema,

because cinema is not interested
in these matters.

Simply, when talkies appeared,

cinema played the game for a while –

something that really backfired,
incidentally:

it flirted with propaganda, that is,

with propaganda

that created “supermen”.

But it didn’t work,
and all of modern cinema

has been an attempt
not to reconcile too quickly –

to use the title
of Jean-Marie’s magnificent film

"Not Reconciled".

And now it’s as if...

well, so to speak:
“Nacht und Nebel: Not Reconciled”.

It’s as if you could hear
a voice everywhere;

you sense a sort of euphoria

that is both cynical and anxious,

saying: "It's all over."

There is a reconciliation –
we don’t know between what and what,

but we’re not going to trouble ourselves
with recording the world.

We're simply going to have
some figures work for us

and they no longer
come from perception,

but rather from the mental world

of our commercial needs.

That was a long digression.

Well, we'll try to bear that in mind...

Because that’s what needs to be resisted.

...we’ll bring back other figures.

In figure skating you have
free figures and set figures,

like in tennis,

...too....

It’s possible...

Badly done as television is,

there’s something

that I’ve stopped criticising because...

because we're in an “occupied country”;
we’re not going to change everything,

and meanwhile
we must go on living in the country.

I mean sports and matches in general...

I’m not keen on boxing,

but take tennis, football...

unfortunately there’s
too little basketball and volleyball

and too few matches played
between women, as well.

But sport is one of the rare things,

like films...

that are successful on TV –

that is, that attract
the largest audiences.

Simply because...

in watching a football match,
people communicate.

Sure, it's just a ball...

Yes, but they also know the rules.

But note: they apply certain rules
and break others.

So you have simultaneously

rights, duties,

desires, play

and work.

Work because these are professionals –
you never see amateurs on TV.

I would like to see more amateurs.

We will continue
to make amateur films

as opposed to professional films,

with both amateur figures

and other types of figure.

When you see

a drawing by Matisse
and a drawing by Giotto,

it’s almost the same thing.

Yet that

did not stop Matisse
from painting all his life and...

In terms of needing an image,

we can take the example of sport on TV.

If there's an important
football match

and the cameraman,
out of aesthetic zeal,

starts filming elsewhere
when a goal is scored,

you may end up with a riot.

Whereas if you film the Pope
on one of his countless trips

that no longer interest anyone,

and at some point someone else
is filmed instead of the Pope,

nobody will notice.

So the real...

The very minimal morality that still
exists in the audiovisual world

is sport on TV.

That's because people know the rules.

So you could say that,

regardless of the human activity

being filmed,

people need to know the rules
in order to enjoy the performance.

It’s about trying to find
what we might call “subject matter”.

It’s about finding

a few rules...

Because something TV has plenty of
is rules specific to TV.

Rules that do not match
the rules of the subject at all.

TV imposes procedures,
orders of truth and so on.

- No...
- But political life is not like that...

- ... not the same speed, not...
- I think that cinema worked...

for a long time, and people liked it,
but no longer do, on the basis of:

"You’re going to see something
you’ve never seen before."

Today it’s the same thing.

But it's...

You have the two together –
though one is always stronger...

"You're going to see..."

It's what we’ve never seen
of what we already know.

Exactly.

That's where it comes from...
When it's,..

say, Spielberg
or Lelouche doing it,

it works

for four or five films.

Then all at once
there's a film that doesn’t work.

Then when others, like us,

do it, we need to know
even better what we're doing.

we have to try more to speak...

to try to find a subject...

In what way are we a subject?
In what way are we an object?

It’s somewhat the opposite...
TV, or take Annaud, as you were saying...

End of reel!

We're...

I don’t know.

- It's true that...
- We can only hope

Ask me a question.

I’d like you to give a “lecture”

on all these files that are
in front of you –

impeccably presented,
each a different colour, and...

all initialed
in your famous handwriting.

I suppose that this is the artillery?

For your (hi)stories of cinema?

Yes I haven’t really
gone through it properly.

I’ve put everything into sections –

two subsections.

Then I decided to buy a book on...

Before beginning I thought I should read

the life of Littré
and then that of Cuvier.

So you can imagine
that I haven’t yet...

I wanted to know how

he came to the idea
of classifying things –

not even the practice, so much,

but the desire he had

to classify.

That was also the time that
Marx...

cam up with the idea
of class struggle

and things like that.

In this case it’s relatively simple.

My Histoires du Cinéma begins with
All the (Hi)stories –

lots of little stories, but
stories in which you can see signs.

Then you have A Single (Hi)story

because it’s the only (hi)story
there has ever been.

You know how excessively ambitious
I always am,

and I want to say that it’s
not only a single story but the only story

that has ever been and ever will be
and that has ever...

and that there ever can be.

There can be no others.
Otherwise it won’t be a (hi)story.

You're the only one
who'll have told it, then.

It’s not that I want it to be that way,
but I must...

It’s my mission.

I’m like a village vicar who proclaims:

"I’m the vicar of village x".
That’s all.

Then there come some studies,

some cross-sections, so to speak.

One of them I have called, for example,
Deadly Beauty,

in reference to a film
by Siodmak, called D

Deadly Beauty,

and starring Ava Gardner.
It was based on

a novel, I think:
Dostoevsky’s The Gambler.

Why Deadly Beauty?
Well, cinema consisted, largely,

of guys filming girls,

which was deadly
to this particular (hi)story,

and to history generally:

to the fact that
we want to tell (hi)stories,

and to the fact that
we all want to make of these (hi)stories

something that we call,
well, once called, “history”.

Then there's a more practical study

that I've always wanted to do.

It can be done on video, and I call it
The Coin of the Absolute –

from the title of Malraux's

book on art.

It's...

It focuses more on criticism.

I wanted to analyse just once,
since it's never been done.

I’ve always done what's not been done.

At one point it was almost systematic:

"Rivette’s done that," I’d say,
"and Rohmer’s done that...

And Chabrol’s done that...
So I’ll do this other thing.

If they go one way, I'll go the other way,
that we will cover

all the ground." If nobody wants
to do something, I’ll do it.

I'll find a way.

I stand by Sartre
from that point of view:

man is what he does,
and what one makes of him.

So criticism...

But visual.

I did that once in a programme,
but here it's better.

We'll say,

We'll say, for example: war –
here’s how Kubrick, a great filmmaker,

shows war, shows America…

And here’s how a Cuban
documentary maker

(this will be an opportunity to talk
about documentaries),

shows the same war
and the same place.

So here are two cinemas.

Judge for yourself. Take a look.
Here’s what’s been done.

And then I bring out a few ideas and so on.

So some basic criticism.

I think I’ll take July 14.

I’ll read a line or two of what
you’ve written about it,

and I’ll think: "How ever

can he say that?"

When you’ve got Pola Illéry doing this,

and Annabella doing that,
and someone else doing...

while the reveller is putting on
his white...

how can you describe
things like that? Non.

I’ll think: "Serge was clearly had
by absolute evil,

which must have been winging over
at the time."

Another part (I mentioned it before)
is called Answer from the Shadows.

It asks why Italy was

the only country
that made a resistance film.

Then there’s another on editing

I call it "Editing: My Beautiful Problem".

I’d written an article,

very innocently at the time,

but that I don’t
really understand any more,

though there was something in it:

the idea that cinema just as...

painting succeeded with perspective,

and Bach succeeded
with certain things in music,

and certain things have been achieved
by novelists., Well, cinema should have

achieved something but

but couldn't because
of the invention of talkies.

Or rather, because of the application
of that invention at a specific time –

historical,

And there are still traces of that.
You see traces

when you watch
Harry Langdon’s "Three's a Crowd" ,

and see it's possible to make a film

about a baby in a pram
that lasts an hour.

It's a film ..

of its time...

Such a film would be unthinkable today.

We don’t want to see
work like that...

So, yes, stuff like that.

And then there’s the last part
called "The Signs Among Us".

The idea is that cinema,

and those who make it,
are an image, yes,

but an image of images of images

that represents

a large part of humanity.

And we would have been able,
had we wished,

have found in cinema

at least 80% of solutions.

If I film a traffic jam in Paris,

and I know I can see it –
but not me alone:

say that, also,
the biologist François Jacob sees it.

In that case we'll discover a vaccine
against cancer,

if there exists such a vaccine –
I don’t think so;

but a vaccine for AIDS, say.

We can do so if we know
how to see,

and if we know how to act,

because we’re seeing things magnified.

Moreover,

because of the way it functions,

cinema is a bit like those

pre-war peddlers.

Like in the novel by Ramuz –

My title is the title of
one of his little-known novels

that I’ve always wanted t
o work on, but won't.

Like "Michael, Brother of Jerry"...

Not Jean-Luc persécuté
[The persecution of Jean-Luc]?

No, "The Signs Among Us".
It’s the story of a peddler

who arrives in a little village
in the region of Lavaux, above Vevey.

Like in two or three other novels by Ramuz,

his arrival portends the end of the world.

There's a terrible storm
that lasts five days after his arrival.

The peddler settles in...
Then the sun comes back

and he's driven out.
Cinema is the peddler.

What have you got in the folders?
Photos?

Photos that I haven’t yet sorted.

But they're the sort of thing..

For example in Only Cinema...

These are photos

that can only be cinema photos –

They are not Tintoretto...

not Madame Bovary,

They are “only cinema”.

Only Cinema can have...
But there are subfolders

to prepare the way:

“Cinema was alone”,
and “Only cinema was alone”.

And that’s it.

So there are some photos...

...but you also use s
ome tapes, some clips…

Yes, some clips: quotations,
but not necessarily,

because, given what
television has become,

if you put in a photo
with some text above...

all that suddenly acquires...

a power and so you can’t

necessarily keep it up.

Because you trap yourself.

If you show a photo of a dead person...

and then you say: "War was…"

I don’t know, like they do on TV...

Well, you can’t. Because
you'd be saying ten times too much.

So the idea is to let photos be photos,

and, if possible, restore
their completely individual character.

A photo needs a name.

That's what René Benjamin said.
No... not Réné.

the Benjamin...

of Brecht’s time...

- Walter.
- Right, Walter.

For him photos only exist
via their name,

or the legend you give them,

whereas films can exist without a legend,

because you have the legends right there
and you put them...

Though photograph must...

But the name must be the name
of each photo,

and when you put it with films,
it becomes more general,

but it remains the name of the photo.
It should not be emblematic –

which it usually is today.

Sure, recognise each photo as individual.

Nor should you not leave it...

So sometimes, in using a photo,
I hesitate between...

For example, in the episode I've done,
there was a photo of...

We were talking about
the Spanish Civil War.

I had my plan...

I wanted to put in Malraux and...

But it went that way because
I had the photos.

I had a photo of Malraux
and a photo of Ingrid Bergman

in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" .

I wondered about it, because for Malraux
I had the same document in photo form

but also in video format –

a video of him speaking.

I was undecided for a long time,
but I chose to use the photo

because if I'd shown the video...

it'd have become an interview
with Jean-Marie Drot,

and that didn’t work.
It spoiled the whole.

So I put in the photo and
I just used the audio.

And there you have...

the couple
from "For Whom the Bell Tolls" –

Malraux and Ingrid Bergman, of course.

But that’s also the couple “of hope”.

If I’d used the video clip of Malraux,
that would have changed everything.

I’d have had to put in one
– the right one – of Bergman as well.

So you see, things like that.

Even in preserving the name of each thing...

I feel very close to...

somebody who really...

I haven’t read his work in a long time,
but at the time he influenced me a lot:

Francis Ponge.

He said that

a creator is a repairman
for the universe.

Which is just what I am.
I’m a repairman.

We have to repair wrongs,

and I'm probably
the first to be wrong

in thinking I should repair wrongs...

An eternal problem.

And what about
your physical presence?

Do we see you? Do you speak?

That’s for a touch of television.

I show myself doing...

But I think
all the main programmes will be...

The first is done with books,
with book titles.

The other one will be
with the titles of musical works,

titles of visual artworks,

and titles...

based on landscapes and places.

Which of your files is giving you
the most trouble?

- None of them.
- None?

None. Once they're...

Though things change
as you go along.

I realised I’d done the first one
with barely a glance at the file.

That’s what I call "training", if you will.

I’d say that in the case of television,

it’s not that there isn’t any work,
but there’s no training.

The result is like
one of Leconte's matches:

Lost in advance!

A write-off.

With respect to what you are saying:
what can you do?

Yes, I was a little defeatist in the past.
And too critical.

Now it’s different:

I say: "Sure, not bad".
I feel that everything's...

Sometimes you feel a bit jealous –
at least I do.

That’s my nature...

When I think that
"The Bear" was so successful...

Well, OK, that's how it is.

But I still feel jealous
that it was that successful.

It's tough. Sometimes I think of Straub,
who must be much more...

Straub does me good
because he's outdone me in bitterness.

So, as I'm contrary by nature...

I tell myself that it's good you make
those remarks about figures.

I'll do some figures!

and in my next film...
I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

I’m not going to do
another story about a couple.

I’ve done hundreds and
botched them all.

Perhaps there was no figure
or not the right figure –

One that "fait bonne figure"
as we say in French.

Maybe we should create
a character who fait bonne figure –

It could be a terrible figure,
but one that puts on a good front.

The trait...
Well, there’s doubtless something else...

All that will stick around a while,
at least during my lifetime.

Computer-generated images, I mean.
Because otherwise...

If today there were only
computer-generated images coming in –

just like when talkies came in...

In that case I think I’d give up.

I’d try a bit, I wouldn’t succeed,
I wouldn’t want to do it, and I’d give up.

In particular, with respect
to machines, for instance,

I don’t feel at all...

the equal of people
who work with computers.

You know, it's a specific,
very precise type of machine

that allows them to think
that they’re doing something.

If you give kids a Minitel,

they'll tap away like madmen
and are just delighted.

But then it’s like with the Polaroid:
two years later,

when they’re caught up
in problems with their girlfriends,

the Minitel isn't much use.

At least for the time being.

It’s like me, if you will...
One more minute?

You see, given that
I like machines very much...

Anne-Marie's the same.

When I finish "Histoires du Cinéma"
I will say thank you to each machine.

I’m not saying that to...
But sometimes I feel I have to.

I go round and thank each of them in turn.

Even the little one I might
easily forget – a flashing light.

I thank that too.

Sometimes they're very useful.

These things have all been invented.
I can’t feel annoyed with the Japanese.

Sure, I’m annoyed with what they do,
but they’re the work of someone's hands.

I would like to give those hands
a squeeze. How could I not?

I feel we’re equals.

I criticise them because

their machines should not be
used only in that way.

Fine, have your computer-generated images.

Go ahead. Just don't expect me
to write the script for you.

But do as you please...

Back to the law of X and Y again.

Yes, of course.

I know them well.

It's a clean slate each time.

As Jean Rostand said,
theories come and go

but the frog remains.

Well, I think we’re done...

Adaptation: Jennifer Tennant