No, come back…
I'm making the mistake of my life.
I can't live... I can't live without you anymore.
Listen, I found a sweet boy... to sleep bum against bum with.
How long ago?
Three months ago.
Yes, but come back anyway!
I made a mistake, I'm making a mistake.
Listen…
he's short, but he is nice...
he's nice with me…
It's impossible anyway…
Suffering like that all life long that's impossible!
I…
I don't want to hurt you.
No but, no but... no, no!
First I don't understand why we love, we love each other.
- I don't wanna hurt you but it's impossible. - I can't live without you.
I can't live without you!
I don't wanna hurt you but it's impossible.
We can't stay here, let's go...
Why?
Stay, stay, stay, no?
Now it's no more death, my death that scares me...
The others' death makes me cry.
I'm thirsty.
You want water? There isn't!
Give me tap water.
The found books, your absent look.
A form, as the fire changes its form.
The flames with terror, the church candles are blending in with bronze.
With pain I caress the words that you had written to me.
On a wall you had read «Error»… with «terror»…
At that moment a sort of rage seized your beautiful face, dark and calm…
in the frame… with terror,
With pain
I caress the words that you'd written. On a wall you...
read «Error», «Terror», «Pain», «Image and sound»
«Sound and image»…
a sort of rage threatens them...
your beautiful face, calm and dark behind the windowpanes…
In the basements…
Stop this.
- No! - Stop!
Stay!
At the end of the scene his pain is immense,
He goes through the seat rows in the room where...
producers sit, actors he was working with.
He just got the proposition to stage Snow White...
from Charles Perrault in the Comédie Française.
"Say yes" says the script girl. The program manager...
follows on his heels in the passage.
Give me 48 hours he says and then «What will it be? Snow White or Cinderella?»
From Perrault he thought of her, an image of Marie...
coming from behind into the middle of the company.
Yes but how to assign the roles in a play...
as fair as possible with a preestablished company.
First it seems impossible... Snow White, but it won't bring him Christa back.
He uses his love for her to feed the public...
but he won't live with her again for all that.
Sasse tarnishes the image of Art. He feels like saying no.
Something incites him to accept, but tears flow, he cries; it'll be useless.
Meant for each other, now they're apart forever, the rest has no importance.
And he will finally say no to the great Art which is before him
because he'd have been left without love too and it didn't matter anymore.
Come on, let's have a coffee.
- No. - Come on.
I'm ok.
I'm ok, I'm ok...
- You're gonna fall. - I can still walk alone.
Won't you do up your laces?
So?
So…
Positive! positive.
Positive, so it means... what it is – when you're expecting one?
Yes.
I keep him.
- We keep him? - I keep him. Of course.
How much?
Two hundreds round? Well-paid.
Shoot!
Where have I put with my keys?
Do we go?
To my place?
To your place.
I ceased to be puritanical and I found myself on a road fresh as flowers
and frost which settles onto books and onto the love to come.
Uh! I'm totally...
I've been waiting for you...
at the restaurant…
and you didn't come.
I thought you'd come.
I had seated near the windowpane and you didn't come.
If I'd known...
Come on, Marie…
What's the matter?
I think we'll go now.
Wait!
Don't move, I'll call a taxi.
No, we'll go by metro.
Hmm... yes.
Are you coming?
Yes.
Hey, look!
Looks like a fortified castle.
Five o'clock in the morning.
I'm in a basement with beton walls lit by neons.
On the table in front of me lies a blood-drenched monkey with a broken arm.
A child is just born, a midwife washes him under a tap
I take him in my arms, I'm sitting near an earthenware sink.
The midwife leaves me alone with the boy.
He comes to me as the huge void he creates around him.
Some chance left him here without any attractiveness for anyone.
I think, I'll go to bed.
His mother is still under anaesthesia.
I just touched the edge of the world.
I'm driving up the maternity alley with the child in a friend's car.
The car is cornering at the Boulevard de I'Hôpital's crossroads.
The life is beginning here.
This plane trees alley, those big administrative buildings,
that's the beginning of memory, the beginning of a life.
As I'd filled the emptiness left by Christa with the birth of a child,
I was hugging this child and was looking at his eyes as he looked up to me.
I'm thinking about Picasso.
When I was a child, I always had on my bed the...
picture where his son is portrayed as Arlequin.
The painting is unfinished like David's Bonaparte.
I dreamed about Picasso too because of last Godard's films.
I was dreaming... Godard mixed all the classic...
painting and Picasso together, that's fantastic.
You don't wanna sleep?
But tell me, Philippe, if Christa's going crazy,
it's not only a matter of heroin, it's still a matter of life's failure, right?
So, What troubles me is that you... you...
you're calling me to play these kind of characters
who are very far from me, and you know that perfectly well. I mean...
so, what's the relation?
And there's still something you didn't tell me…
She's a very bad woman, Christa, she's racist!
She attacked a black woman in a caf and slashed her face with as razor blade!
Yes, that's true.
She did that one day she was suffering from withdrawal.
Who told you that? Someone who was in this café?
Maybe I shouldn't have told you. It's.. it's...
Wait, I'll tell you. Downstairs at the Chelsea Hotel, in the bar, it was Paul,
who told her "Go out, go out, the cops will arrive now, etc... "
and they run off and then Andy came and paid the surgery for the black woman.
What?
Andy paid, Andy Warhol paid the surgery for the black woman.
Yes, but what happened? She is...
My friend said that he saw her in a café...
fall upon another woman, black, not white, black and...
damage her face with shards or, I don't know, with razor blades. Why?
- Because he was there in this café!? - Jacques?
So it's true?
I don't know. I was in this café 3 or 4 years before...
speaking with some mate downstairs at the Chelsea.
Well, after that, it's Warhol who paid the surgery.
Then... - Yes but what I'd like to know…
Christa has an obsessive fear of black people, you see.
Like me, as she's crazy...
She's the daughter, her father died in a camp, her mother worked at the factory
that made grenades for Germany... the two mixed up.
Her father left then he was in the SS and deserted.
He disappeared, you suppose that the SS who deserted...
were sent to camps too, their deserters...
So he was killed or put in a camp. This plus the story of her unrecognized son…
As a result, you see: deprivation, no right to come into the studio,
as the other one would not recognize the child. Father's deprivation, all that.
So, well, suddenly she took a glass, broke it...
and stuck it into the young black woman's face.
And how can one act that?
Here you cut! I'll make a close...
Wait, I'll tell you about Chantal... Akerman.
But I wanted to tell you about Jean Eustache. Because I think he's a genius.
I think that "The Mother and the Whore" is "The Rules of the Game" of.. of
Jean... but Jean doesn't really understand.
That's it, Christa! We can shoot the film, you know!
Oh, Philippe, that's fantastic! When do I begin?
Hm, well, I can begin now but... hm...
I'll shoot it without you because I love you and cinema destroyed life, you know.
No, Philippe, why? For once you have money it's not me who's in the film?
Why do I always play in penniless films?
What are you...? Who are you shooting this film with?
You'll take of your little silly worthless actresses, yes?
You know who you are, Philippe? You're absolutely disloyal!
Do you know why I'm doing this?
To make a film for cinema.
I study medicine, and then I quit. Bullshit!
41, first take!
Oh shit, the cops!
No, don't move, don't move!
What are you doing? Cut the crap!
Stop it, Gracq!
Cut! Cut! Cut!
I woke you?
- Wait, first I'm supposed to say... - Oh yes, ok.
- The ministry of Art… - Ministries.
The ministries of Art.
The directors in the fields... in the field.
- Did I wake you, Chantal? - Oh no, I didn't sleep a wink.
Ah, that's it. I found money to shoot my film.
- How did you get it? - I can't say.
Show me!
I made an heroin deal to...
Ah, that's why you looked so worried last Friday!
At last, I'll do my Faust, ou know. Look what I have here!
Don't you have a line of coke?
Nothing's left but you and my arms looking for you.
And my body and my heart calling you.
Nothing's left but you, your hands, your soft chest
Your eyes, your arms, your neck.
And my heart gets loose.
It's night time. Another night without you.
The first time we met, you wore these wooden shoes at the Olympik.
The second time, it was at the Entrepot, the third time, once again in Rotterdam…
- I have no memories. - Twice in Rotterdam
In Rotterdam with the beautiful red-haired girl
- Was I with a woman that time? - You were with your actress.
- Anne? The one who's in the film. - Anne.
She's so beautiful and mild-mannered…
- Yes, I remember this very well. - Yes, she's playing the stoned girl.
I'm shooting a film against the use of heroin and...
the temptation of armed conflict in the revolution.
Marie!
- What are you doing? - We're making cinema, madame.
- Really! - Yes.
To make a film that you can look at every night on your television.
- Nearby? - No, no, here in the street!
I wanted you to meet Lou, he'll play Gracq.
It's Marie.
I have to check something at the camera.
- What are you doing? - Pardon?
- Are you doing theater? - Theater? Yes, I do, sometimes.
Well, yes. Well.
You just have to tell me what it is then.
Weren't there conditions?
Don't want to see him anymore, do you? You don't want to see him anymore.
No.
No, that's not the problem. It's not that either. Not because of that either.
That's not like that anymore.
Like that?
No, I think we don't have to see each other much in real life...
because...
because we're in a too tight spot with the baby...
and one have to leave the other alone…
and then…
and…
that's all in fact.
Because otherwise…
otherwise…
no… but, we'll know how to meet each other again but...
there's a whole way to go to that point.
It's almost the same for everybody.
Revolution is the last fate of men. Without conditions.
Hi there!
You don't wanna talk to me anymore?
I decided to leave you.
What?
He goes through the seat where producers sit,
actors he was working with. He almost faints.
He just got the proposition to stage Snow White...
from Charles Perrault in the Comédie Française.
The programm manager follows on him in the passage.
From Perrault, he thought of her.
An image of Marie in white coming out from...
behind the scene into the middle of the company.
Yes Christa.
Snow White won't give him back Christa.
Just a way to use his love.
To feed the public.
But...
he won't live that again for her.
Sasse tarnishes the image of Art, he feels like saying no.
Something incites him to accept, but tears flow, he cries; it will be no use.
Meant for each other and now they're apart forever, the rest doesn't matter.
And he will finally say no to great Art because it would leave him without love.
And it didn't matter anymore.
Philippe, can you come for a minute?
Enough now! Cut.
Cut!
Yeah, these are love letters.
I don't send them.
As if I was keeping them for myself. Now I have love letters for Marie.
I wander with them. Maybe I'll give her, who knows.
It was with Marie.
Yes, when I was with her, before the separation.
I've always been someone who thought of himself as a traveller, so...
it doesn't change anything.
There was jealousy holding me but it was worth though, because...
Why jealousy? Did she go away with some guy or did she go away alone?
Before there was even another guy!
I liked to think that...
I had to get home, I couldn't stand when calling from outside the line was busy.
That was jealousy who was bringing me home like a true dog.
That's it.
I had a friend, Frederic, who used to say that women always betray first.
I'm telling you this because... well. I know that women are equals,
- But I had noticed that it was true. - Did you learn that to your cost?
Take it. If you want some later, you'll ask me.
Hey friend! Are you now helping the anarchists?
You'd like a thing like that?
No, I wouldn't know how to use it and I could commit suicide.
I was to the labo to develop the film and it went a little wrong.
I wrote «Long live anarchy!» on the timeclock and I tried to start a strike.
You know, where the workers are waiting for employment.
And four guys threw me out of the lab on the...
pavement and closed the lab's gate behind me.
Did you ever read "The Big Mess" by Daniel Cohn-Bendit?
I've read nothing by him.
He's a journalist now.
It's mostly the new use of imaginery in this country that's really disgusting.
Because, you're an instrument to maintain the...
world as it is and after a while you're part of it.
Well, you have your status, you're protected this way and then,
Also the poverty, you saw. That's something huge.
You saw how many guys in Paris are starving.
Capisco lo che vuoi dire.
They're shooting up there. Behind me cops are trying...
to avoid the fire coming from one of the roofs.
It's an anarchist, she found refuge up there.
Here's a police captain yelling to another police captain
pining him against the wall:
"Go and see if you can take her from behind".
I'm going up little wooden stairs, they're full of cops.
«What the hell are you doing here? Go with the journalists, you're crazy!".
There are actually two journalists trying...
to make their way against the grain.
"Damned job!" A cop. "What they wouldn't do to have...
a paper! You bastards, they took us hostages!»
The cop... hm "Clear off, clear off, clear off".
I'm taking advantage of a break to climb the last...
steps and rush into a little attic in the sixth floor.
It's a little garret. Marie's in there, all dressed in black.
Marie, whose hair are dishevelled and clothes are torn…
"Don't be afraid", I say when I come in. "It's me". Marie!
She's holding in her fist a little black pistol that she's reloading.
«Which proof do I have?», - she says.
«Which proof do I have?»
Have we enough to shoot?
No, the film is not arrived.
Ah, the film's not here!
All the rest is ok. Camera is here, material is here.
I think Pascal would like to test the film at least once.
You must call Paris and Denis about the money.
Soon we'll have nothing left. But I believe you.
I believe you because now there are so many things that are uncoupling.
You're kicking the habit, you're leaving it behind
Thank you for believing me because it was...
really horrorful... staying in this hospital...
How was it?
Are they many doctors?
Did just one doctor take care of you?
There've been many doctors, there... there have been really hard times.
But you know, I'm still seeing some of them. Every week I'm seeing one.
And, well, I'm taking some medicines so…
- I'd like you to give me some money too. - That too!
Another thing too that is uncoupling from me.
I found that so nice that you agree to shoot the...
film, what name was it? Cinderella? Snow White?
«Snow White». There wasn't enough for you.
Snow White and me being on detox treatment, that was very...
Do you want this one? It's my last one.
Is it true that you had a child?
With this girl, Marie. A little boy.
You know, if...
If there's something I deeply regret, it's we haven't done that.
Yes, I believe you kicked the habit... it's a good coincidence because...
it's the same for me, eveything's unhooking...
at once, Marie, Snow White: I unhooked Snow White and I'm unhooked from it.
I mean, everything's stopping.
I thank you because this time it's over. There are things I won't do anymore.
- And that crap it's finished. - You'll work it out.
Yes.
How is it going? Have you one or some doctors?
I have one doctor, I see him once a week. It's discussions.
He still gives me some sedatives.
And if you can give me some money… I wish... it was you giving it to me.
Is that why you thought of me?
No, I wanted to thank you for…
No, you're right, I was becoming too attached. Here, I'm freeing myself.
More. More.
These are tickets, that's nothing.
I assure, I...
I think that this is over.
I'm gonna leave. I'm not sure we'll see each other again.
I'm glad that you had a child.
I wish I'd done this with you but at least one of us did it. Boy or girl?
A little boy.
You wanna go?
- Do you want to make love before? - No.
I don't want to do this too anymore.
But…
You're here, I'm thinking about you.
During many years we didn't do as we should have.
But we could live together now. Now that it's impossible.
What if I'm coming back?
You'll still be with Marie?
No, Marie it's over.
No, I don't believe you. Marie is very good for you.
No, it lasted some months, she gave me a piece of her twenty years.
And she left, probably with some guy who's got dough.
It suits you well!
You see, I was right to buy it. I'm glad I've bought this coat.
I'm beginning to warm up.
We're feeling fine like that.
You know…
I think, you've done the hardest. Now it's gonna be fine.
Thank you.
Here there's a taxi every thirty minutes.
Better like that. When do you have to be at the station?
My train is leaving in thirty minutes.
It would be great not to miss it.
I wanted you to hang out a little more.
Thank you anyway.
It's better like this... live like this. We'll now visit each other, that's good.
There's no taxi at this station.
We have to find another one.
There!
- No… - No, it's occupied.
There will be one, let's wait five minutes more.
We have time.
Will I see your child some day?
So, yes, this day... No, that day...
Let's say... this day...
forced to admit that if I'd found Marie instead of Christa
and if I had suspected her of the least relation with some scriptwriter,
I would have tried to hug this mystery on my...
chest with the same heart that was hugging Christa.
Marie…
Marie… and our child…
What was I saying?
This plane trees alley, those big administrative buildings,
that's the beginning of memory, the beginning of a life.
And after that… When I saw our child again...
After that, I carefully counted your fingers to see if none were missing.
NATIVITY
She came just like that, Marie, just like that we had met.
It was maybe 3 o'clock in the morning and behind...
us the front door of the apartment is closing...
and we're getting into her car.
Me and you Marie, yes…
And she drives me at her place as someone is brought back home.
Incredibile, meraviglioso…
Incredible! Marvellous!
Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous!
I can't remember, incredible is a he and marvellous a she or...
marvellous is a he and incredible is a she! Incredible, marvellous!
Incredible, marvellous! Marvellous, marvellous!
Oh, look, an incredible he!
Or maybe a marvellous he?
Incredible! Marvellous!
Incredible, marvellous! Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous!
Love…
«She spent so many hours under the sun lamps», 81, take one.
Shouldn't we have broken up at scene 81?
Oh, that's marvellous.
It's like scene 24, we were on a beach at low tide...
and it was too cold, we were going into a café.
Why didn't we shoot that?
We were three with the child. That was marvellous.
Incredible.
So many hours without seeing you…
wonderful!
Incredible.
I mean...
Didn't you leave me?
Oh, yes!
You know, I had written to myself for our child:
- 'Don't ever spank him'. - Really?
Why?
I thought it was marvellous.
Really? Incredible.
She spent so many hours under the sun lamps… Excuse me.
My coat…
What do you feel? Is it better?
From the better to the best? Incredible!
- Marvellous. - Marvellous.
Incredible!
Did he say we should move?
Marvellous.
- Wait… - What?
- Incredible. - What?
- It's marvellous! - What is marvellous?
All, all, incredible…
What does marvellous mean? What is marvellous?
Incredible! Incredible!
- What is incredible? - Eh, all incredible!
Wait…
Marvellous.
Incredible!
Oh, yes, yes, yes!
I found myself on a perfectly ridiculous beach.
I had adopted... the clothes of French people on holiday. Trouville.
And I was saying to myself…
- Incredible!? - Marvellous!
Look, I thought of you.
It's… wait!
a little pillow.
Don't you have you anything for me? I don't want to force you.
- A little pillow? - Yes, it's in exchange for a little present.
You do what you want!
The beautiful Incredible! How is it, is «Incredible» a "he" or a "she"?
- Incredible is a "he". - A "he"! Marvellous then is a "she"…
Come on…
What? The other one?
Okay.
So, we're gonna shoot: the bedroom overlook the sea
And she's knitting some clothes for her child, good?
What? But Philippe, you know, there's something next…
"I have a surprise for you" And you would have answered:
"Marie has had a child". I'd rather recite you an erotic dream.
That's how it was:
Valentina, Marie, Christa gave me four months of their twenty years.
And they came back to a big rich who lived in the Plaza.
All day long they were watching TV.
I liked to take them by surprise, on the sly.
I liked to take them by surprise and behind to kiss their little asshole.
It was in a little hotel room at the Chelsea.
We never let nobody in.
I think they didn't give a damn about my rags.
Let's go somewhere else. There are bad vibrations here.
Ah you think there are unpleasant vibrations here?
There are spectators who are watching.
Are they watching for a long time, those who are sitting here?
Because "She spent so many hours under the sun lamps", well, she died of it!
Well! A Polichinelle in a drawer!.
So much I have loved your shadow...
be a shadow among shadows... free...
a shadow among...
I've just passed by. I hadn't seen you.
Oh no, I mean yes. Really?
He's training.
I have dreamt so strongly of you
I have walked so much, talked so much, loved your shadow so much
That there now remains for me nothing more of you,
It remains with me to be a shadow... among shadows
A shadow among shadows that'll come and come again into your sun blessed life.
Desnos.
I understood that he was just waiting. At the sound of the camera...
We can do it again. I'm sure that they're still shooting.
Sound taping in the Memorial.
Shooting.
«I have dreamed so strongly of you, I've walked so...
much, talked so much, loved your shadow so much,
that there now remains for me nothing more of you.
It remains with me to be a shadow among shadows,
the shadow that will come and come again into your sun blessed life».
Desnos.
For the price of a car, imagine!
I personally dream of being in a car with my son and...
and...
my wife and a camera at the back seat, you see,
driving aimlessly to make some shots in the woods as you do with your daughter.
When you're saying... well, you see, I wanted to...
shoot my son a while ago. I sat him up on a chest.
Well, his mother said: "No, I don't want you to shoot him".
Well, how do you think:
Maybe let's say when he goes to nursery school,
I might take some liberties with the mum's...
It's strange how you always relate this to the mother.
Some kind of person between your kid and yourself
who allows you or doesn't allow you to shoot him here.
No the place of...
It's weird that the mother is here to... that the permission goes through her.
I don't think it's bad, I just find that a little weird.
Ah you mean that even without… without...
Why... why would you go and ask her "Can I make...
this shot of my... of our child upon the chest"?
Well, I ask her because I think that in France, you see,
children are always entrusted to mums, still, their education, I mean...
So I think, if a mother instinctively…
Yes, but when you're shooting your child, it's your own education again.
You don't need any go-between for this.
You, for example, the first shots, the first shot you took of your daughter.
How did you go about it, tactically?
I don't remember. It was... well it was "The crying woman".
But what was the first shot inside the Cruing Woman... I don't remember.
Well, the tactic was to chase people away.
There was an hidden camera who was not as noisy as this one
There was a microphone here and I was supposing...
that this way I was disturbing her a little less.
We had chased away the invaders and I found myself with her again.
So the idea was, I suppose, that once the invaders away and us being together,
I supposed that it could only delight her and scare her a little less.
- You mean the technical crew? - Yes, then...
I think she was making it but she knew too.
she was three years old and she knew we were shooting, I suppose.
It was concerning us, nobody else, no one was watching us.
The others, the crew weren't.
So that's why it was a little easier for her this way.
I wonder if in this moments of anxiety from our side,
I mean from her side and from mine,
I wonder if it wasn't a little easier to talk, to hug ourselves,
because there was still this huge effort from her side and from mine
when it was shooting and she knew it was...
And I think she accepted that very well.
And we were actually meeting together again. So it wasn't bad.
So I'll do it too.
I'll shoot my son because, you see, he is now the love of my life.
You see, as before I loved a woman.
And here then, for example... wait, I was saying something to myself, wait...
I had it written down on an handkerchief...
"I wanted to talk to you about the children's education but I fell in love.
You know, the actress that was acting Marie in this film...
You see, that was weird...
Can't you tell her that I love her?
Hey, Jacques, don't you wanna take Anne now?
It's a little girl from the people, like that, a doll, look.
Well answer, Jacques, do you want to shoot with her, yes or no?
Well if you don't, I'll keep her, you know, on the set.
Do you come, Jacques! We're going.
I'm the little knight
Upon my eyes the sky
I can't fear myself.
I'm the little knight
Under my feet the earth
I'll come to visit you I'll come to visit you
Where's Marie now? Wasn't she supposed to be here for the last scene?
Yes, he thinks: "Marie's dead, yes, she jumped out of the window. "
And I want Michel Rocard to be elected in 1988.
He's now minister of Agriculture. Today is the 22th of November 1984.
So, as P.G. had it written at the bottom of a page he didn't turn.
«I don't think about suicide anymore, life's long, you know, I have to leave».
I have to leave.
Marie is gone.
Gone, gone, gone.
I kept the child with me, you know. I keep him.
As she is still with me in my dreams…
I know what to say, what to do, you know.
I dream a lot of Marie.
He's in the next room. He came back from school not long ago.
He's now sleeping.