{"id":148650,"date":"2020-10-27T12:04:26","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T16:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=148650"},"modified":"2020-10-27T18:00:48","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T22:00:48","slug":"cinema-hardly-exists-duras-and-godard-in-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/27\/cinema-hardly-exists-duras-and-godard-in-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinema Hardly Exists: Duras and Godard in Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fall of 1979, Jean-Luc Godard<\/em> invited Marguerite<\/em>\u00a0Duras to appear in a scene for his film<\/em> Every Man for Himself. Because Duras refused <\/em>to be filmed, Godard recorded audio of a conversation with her instead, and later used a few <\/em>lines of what she said as part of the soundtrack to a sequence in the film. As Cyril B\u00e9ghin notes in the introduction to <\/em>Duras\/Godard Dialogues<\/a>, a new book featuring three conversations between the pair: \u201cTheir point of intersection is obvious. Duras, a writer, is also a filmmaker, and Godard, a filmmaker, has maintained a distinctive relationship with literature, writing, and speech since his first films.\u201d In the following excerpt from the transcript of their hour-long encounter, they discuss political speech, public appearances, the relationship between image and text, and much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Marguerite Duras and Jean-Luc Godard. Photo courtesy of Film Desk Books.<\/p><\/div>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

If I asked you to do something on television, would you accept?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

If it was you, yes.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

What do you mean by \u201cif it was me\u201d? What does it mean to know me?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

But knowing you and knowing your films are the same thing.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Well, for the moment, I\u2019m no longer making a lot of films \u2026 <\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Yes, but you have made films!<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

I think that you and I are a little bit like rival siblings because, perhaps unjustly, I have a hatred for writing [l\u2019\u00e9criture<\/em>]. Not for writing in and of itself, but once it\u2019s there, it\u2019s always there \u2026 Whereas in your case, without the writing\u2014I don\u2019t know whether to call it writing or text \u2026<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

I call it the writing<\/em> [l\u2019\u00e9crit<\/em>]: the text<\/em> or the writing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Still, there is some need for an image, isn\u2019t there?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

On the screen, I need both things, neither of which gets in the way of what I would call \u201cthe amplitude of speech.\u201d In general, I find that almost all images get in the way of the text. They prevent the text from being heard. And what I want is something that lets the text come through. That\u2019s my only concern. That\u2019s why I made India Song<\/em> in voice-over.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

That lets the text come through, but also carries it? Like a ship carries cargo?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Yes, like a truck carries it. But for me, the cinema hardly exists. I often say it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Hardly, or hard to do?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Hardly. Not hard to do, no, I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Personally, I think it talks too much. But more than anything, that it repeats its statement, that it repeats something written. I like your films because they don\u2019t come from the cinema, but they cross it.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

I make my texts bend to the cinema. I\u2019m not going to churn out a text that I would offer to be viewed, to be heard along with images, the way I would churn it out in a book, the way I would offer it to be read in a book. I have to use the screen to structure the reading of the text. That\u2019s not the same thing, after all.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

No, not at all.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

But as far as I\u2019m concerned, there is no cinema. Without text, it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

No. Silent film had a lot of text.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right. The silence that always exists around a text. Not a text, but the reading of a text. It\u2019s speech that can provide that silence, that creates it.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t want to talk in front of an audience the way you\u2019re talking now. Would you have had the impression you were stupidly repeating yourself?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

You\u2019re talking about Digne? [Invited to the Rencontres cin\u00e9matographiques de Digne-les-Bains festival in 1978 for the screening of Le Camion<\/em>, Duras attended but refused to introduce the film.]<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, or something else.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

You\u2019re talking about talking to an audience?<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, but at a festival. Do you go to them?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Yes. The festival in Hy\u00e8res asked me to come just so I would be there. That\u2019s all. Along with everyone else. But they didn\u2019t ask me to speak, not once. Oh yes, once, on the radio. But that was nothing. And I think that\u2019s the only acceptable option for me now. In Digne, in the heat of the moment, just like that, I had a kind of very violent reaction against speaking after the screening. That\u2019s over now. I will never again speak about my films after a screening. You see, writing is still a little bit like disappearing, like being behind something. As long as you\u2019re writing, you don\u2019t have to appear. A rather simple syllogism, but that\u2019s how it is.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Where did this need come from for you, at a certain point, to still be taken on, to be transported by \u2026 Was it because the texts were getting more difficult?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

You know how it is. The requests are endless. People begged me once, they begged me ten times. You give in, and then there it is. But I had gotten physical signs that there was something about all this that was dubious, I would say nearly immoral\u2014about speaking afterward. It made me physically ill. I was disgusted with myself after I spoke. And that\u2019s how I understood that I was wrong.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

You had questions you wanted to ask me\u2014you were saying you wanted to come with me.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Yes, but when you tell me you hate text \u2026<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Text, but in the sense of the Law<\/em>. I have the feeling that Moses, for example, saw something in the Tables of the Law, and then after <\/em>that he made people believe there was something written.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Moses didn\u2019t talk. He talked before.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, but they were texts that he had made up.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

He never spoke; he shouted. Ultimately, I think they all shouted. I think that Jesus was in a constant state of anger. And Moses was so possessed by the spirit of God that he could only shout. He could not utter a word. It was a word that spoke. The Law was in itself.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, but it was written. I mean, they\u2019re the sacred texts<\/em>. Whether we\u2019re talking about ID cards or traffic laws or currency-exchange restrictions. I have the feeling I\u2019m being prevented from seeing. That I see things, but before I can formulate them, in a different formulation from the one in use, I\u2019m forced to see in a way that simply makes it a repetition of the old formulation. So there\u2019s no need to see.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Yes, yes.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Like a screenplay that says, \u201cThe forest is burning.\u201d If you have money, you burn a forest. Or \u201cThe Titanic<\/em> is sinking\u201d: eight hundred people in the water, so you put it in. But you didn\u2019t see anything.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

If I say, \u201cThe Titanic<\/em> is sinking,\u201d I see it.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s exactly the point: you wouldn\u2019t write a sentence like \u201cThe Titanic<\/em> is sinking\u201d!<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Oh, yes! I\u2019m constantly using pleonasms. I think that when you say, \u201cThe Titanic<\/em> is sinking,\u201d and the Titanic<\/em> is actually sinking, it\u2019s far stronger than if you say nothing. At one point in India Song<\/em>, I said, \u201cThere are the cries of oarsmen on the Ganges,\u201d calls from one boat to another, from one fisherman to another, and I say so. I say that these are the fishermen of the Ganges, the sounds of Calcutta\u2014while one hears them. Or rather after one has heard them, immediately after. That has a very powerful effect on me. It increases the sound tenfold. But there is nothing more opposed to text than the way magistrates speak. The speech of the law. For example, you see, I would argue that the thing most opposed to text, rather than image, is political speech. The speech of power.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

But is it possible to produce a text today that is not a form of magisterial speech? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

One can try.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

One can try, but I think it\u2019s a waste of time. And that\u2019s why you make Le camion<\/em>, India Song<\/em>, and Lol Val\u00e9rie Stein<\/em> [The Ravishment of Lol Stein<\/em>, 1964], or why you need to make [Baxter<\/em>,] Vera Baxter<\/em>. If you have Delphine Seyrig, it\u2019s not the same thing as if you don\u2019t have Delphine Seyrig. At the time of Un barrage contre le Pacifique<\/em>, that wasn\u2019t exactly the case, so there\u2019s been a turning point in terms of the anxiety of writing \u2026 I have the impression that we\u2019re crossing out the image \u2026<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

What are you talking about? Un barrage contre le Pacifique<\/em>?<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

What I hate, what I detest\u2014this is why I\u2019ve more or less stopped, though I\u2019m still trying to survive\u2014is that, in fact, people prevent you from making a film calmly, from calmly enjoying it. They force you to make it anxiously, and I think that it\u2019s in the writing that the anxiety develops, sooner or later\u2014maybe not for \u201creal writers,\u201d if that means anything. But that it comes from \u2026 Like you were saying, Moses saw the images, he didn\u2019t shout. Afterward, he started to shout.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

But Deuteronomy, all of Esther, that\u2019s speech \u2026<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s people preventing the image. They\u2019ve always said as much: \u201cYou shall not make images,\u201d \u201cit is forbidden to make images.\u201d But they don\u2019t forbid themselves from making them.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

The entire French and European Middle Ages, all of Islam, are also deprived of images. Historically, it had another meaning.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, but it\u2019s rare. Or the story of Van Gogh\u2014it\u2019s true that he was one of the rare painters to paint in anger. But that\u2019s not certain: I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just some regular anger, that\u2019s not exactly it. One might think so, but I think it\u2019s something else. Yet it seems to me that writers and musicians are angry. They need shouting and hollering.<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t imagine a literature of peace and quiet. I think of it more like a literature of crisis. I don\u2019t think the image can ever replace what I\u2019ve called \u201cthe indefinite proliferation\u201d of the word.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Why completely eliminate it?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Why eliminate the word?<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

No! Why eliminate the fact of seeing without saying<\/em>!<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not eliminating it, since I\u2019m making films. Now, what I\u2019ve eliminated in the last three or four films are the actors. I\u2019ve just made five films without actors. I don\u2019t know if there are actors in India Song<\/em>. There are proposals, but I don\u2019t know if they are actors, in the full sense of the term. In any case, they\u2019re not acting. They are offering themselves as an approximation of the character. I can no longer get into a film in which actors take charge of representation. I can no longer stand having that intermediary between the filmmaker and myself, as the viewer. You\u2019re the only one who uses actors by negating them.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Do you believe in the Devil?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Me? I believe in the Devil, yes. I believe in the Devil. I believe in evil. Because I believe in love, I also believe in evil.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yesterday you were saying that you were surprised that people don\u2019t talk about the disinfection of politics?<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Disaf<\/em>fection.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes \u2026<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

You changed the word on purpose. We don\u2019t want to disinfect [politicians]. They will always proliferate. Screens are completely poisoned by this way of speaking, which represents a degraded kind of speech, a completely degraded discourse. The antithesis of true speech. A kind of speech that is antithetical to speech. All the great politicians wrote. They didn\u2019t speak. I mean, we\u2019re far from after-the-fact speech, from the kind of speech we started talking about earlier. One that comments<\/em>. The kind I refused in Digne. Nothing is less written than the political discourse of power. By \u201cpower,\u201d I obviously mean the institutionalized parties, whether on the left or the right. In other words, the speech of the political trade, the speech of propaganda. Of the street performer. Nothing is more opposed to true speech than that. And it must be said that often the speech of cinema, cinematic<\/em> speech, follows this example. It\u2019s a speech that sells, that sells its merchandise. Deep down, I\u2019m very moral! [laughs<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

If we ever go on television, we should do this interview \u2026<\/p>\n

DURAS<\/p>\n

Which television? Do you really want to go on television with me? I thought you were asking me a question of principle, that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

GODARD<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s also true. I\u2019d prefer to make television. But that\u2019s more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u2014Translated from the French by Nicholas Elliott<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nicholas Elliott has been the New York correspondent for <\/em>Cahiers du cine\u0301ma since 2009. He is a programmer for the Locarno Film Festival and a contributing editor for film for <\/em>BOMB<\/small> magazine. His writing on film has appeared in <\/em>Film Comment, <\/em>4Columns, and anthologies on the work of Chantal Akerman, Philippe Garrel, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.<\/em><\/p>\n

From <\/em>Duras\/Godard Dialogues<\/a>, translated from the French by Nicholas Elliott and published by Film Desk Books this month.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marguerite Duras and Jean-Luc Godard discuss discuss political speech, public appearances, the relationship between image and text, and much more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-148650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCinema Hardly Exists: Duras and Godard in Conversation by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Marguerite Duras and Jean-Luc Godard discuss discuss political speech, public appearances, the relationship between image and text, and much more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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