The French working class won't politically unite
nor go to the barricades
just for a 12% rise in wages.
In the foreseeable future, there will be
no capitalist crisis great enough
for the workers to fight for their vital interests
by a general revolutionary strike
or an armed revolt.
Moreover, the bourgeoisie will never give up power without a fight
forced on them by the revolutionary masses.
So the main problem for socialist tactics
is how to create the objective and subjective conditions
which make a mass revolutionary action possible
and which render the use of force against the bourgeoisie feasible.
THE
What is a word?
A word is what's unsaid.
And you?
Me?
Both sides against the other.
Me.
No, you,
who tries to tame the unforgettable
that might surprise us.
Myself now.
The you of excuses and rejections.
And us now?
We are the words of others.
WE SHOULD REPLACE VAGUE IDEAS WITH CLEAR IMAGES
They know?
No.
Are they gone long?
All summer.
What do the parents do?
They own factories or something.
But Veronique is a close friend?
I don't think so.
Still, it's nice of them.
Liberalism in militant groups
based on collectivism is very harmful.
Liberalism deprives the revolution
of solid organisation and strict discipline.
This is Radio Peking.
During last June and July,
when the Red Guard appeared,
Mao was aware of their vast vitality
and gave them his warm support.
In a very short time,
Red Guards were created in schools,
in many factories
and throughout the country.
They became an army for the Cultural Revolution.
THE IMPERIALISTS
God, why have you forsaken me?
Because I don't exist.
This is Radio Peking.
The cell needs a name.
Remember Paul Nizan?
The conspirator.
He wrote a novel, Aden Arabia.
Cell Aden Arabia.
Right.
A MINORITY WITH THE RIGHT IDEAS IS NOT A MINORITY
- He was beaten. - By whom?
- I'll get some water. - By whom?
A commando.
Hurt? Was it fascists?
No, Communists.
Now, right away, where?
The meeting on the Cultural Revolution.
The Sorbonne Marxist-Leninist group?
I told you they were disgusting.
An enemy attack is a good thing.
It proves we've made a clear distinction to separate us.
A FILM IN THE MAKING
In her eyes are fear andinnocence“.
Humility.
Not of a servant, but a friend and a woman,
with a wide and precise mouth,
not persuasive but loyal.
A kind forehead willingly bending in silence.
In all that,
agreement can only be guessed.
Not in pain or success...
as if from a scattered past, something serious appeared.
An actor?
It's hard to say.
Yes, yes, I'm an actor.
I'll show you something. It's an idea of what theatre is.
Young Chinese students demonstrated in Moscow
and of course the Russian police beat them up.
The next day, in protest,
the Chinese met in front of their embassy
with all the Western reporters.
Guys from Life, France Soir and so on.
And a student came up,
his face covered with bandages
and started yelling.
Look what they did to me.
Look what the dirty revisionists did.
So the reporters rushed over
and began taking photos
as he removed the bandages.
They expected a cut face,
covered with blood or something.
And he carefully removed his bandages
as they took pictures.
When they were all off,
they realised his face was alright.
So the reporters began yelling,
This Chinaman's a fake.
He's a clown, what is this?
But they hadn't understood.
They didn't realise it was theatre.
Real theatre.
Reflection on reality.
I mean,
like Brecht or Shakespeare.
UNION: COMMUNIST YOUTH (MARXIST-LENINIST)
We must be different from our parents.
My father fought the Germans hard in the war.
Now he runs a Club Med resort.
A big holiday camp by the sea.
What's terrible is
he doesn't realise that it's made exactly
along the lines of the concentration camps.
A socialist theatre?
No, I don't know.
I'm looking.
Yes, yes... Mao's ideas can help me.
In any case, you need sincerity and violence.
You're getting a kick out of this.
Like I'm joking for the film,
because of all the technicians here.
But that's not it.
It's not because of a camera.
I'm sincere.
Yes... in China,
the leaps forward
by the Peking Opera were wonderful.
And in Europe, in France?
In Milan, Strehler does good work.
Yes, he has...
There's a great Althusser text about a Brecht play...
...and I've made it mine.
I turn around...
And suddenly the question is...
are the words I've just said, so awkwardly and blindly...
part of a greater play continuing through me
a worker in the world theatre.
The sense incomplete...
looking through and with me...
all the actors and settings
of the silent oration.
That's why I'm speaking.
Yes, that's why.
Cut, fine. Take five.
Go ahead.
I'll go with Serge.
Don't I get a kiss?
You said we'd go see 8 1/2.
Bye.
It's disgusting.
He always goes if I want him to stay.
It's a starting point.
Politics
are the starting point of practical revolutionary action.
I don't get it.
You're too much.
I don't understand.
Now listen carefully, Yvonne, it's easy.
All revolutionary party action is applied policy.
If it's the wrong policy,
it's the wrong politics.
If you're unaware, you're blind.
Why are you doing dishes, for example?
To clean them.
Then you've understood.
So 1967 France is like dirty dishes.
Yeah.
On a farm
near Grenoble.
It's a small village.
5am in summer, 7am in winter.
Light the fire, then go to the dairy.
My brother's meal, then the pigs, clean the stable.
Lunch, the dishes, washing, the mending.
Usually had no time to mend.
In the afternoon, gather the eggs, then dinner.
Then feed the calves.
Light the lights in the hen-house.
Then make yoghurt.
Neocapitalist society won't look at its own face...
I arrived in Paris in 1960. No, '65...
Yes... sorry, in '64.
Cleaning lady for three years.
It's nice here on the top floor.
It's well lit, airy.
You know I worked at Passy before.
Then at Auteuil in those big bourgeois flats
on the first floor.
It's always so dark.
I had to sweep in the dark.
Already the metro was dark.
So I went from dark to darkness.
Always black.
Then back into the dark metro after work.
Whereas here they talk and discuss.
It's very clear for me.
I used to talk while milking cows,
mostly with strangers.
In the country women are pretty lost.
Yes, I did some prostitution.
Nearly a year...
over by Stalingrad where I lived,
and then on the Champs Elysees
after I'd bought a car with my money.
A Fiat 850 convertible.
When money's short, I still do it.
When Henri can't sell Red Guard for example,
or when Veronique can't find work teaching.
I know it's a contradiction.
Besides, Henri...
...says I'm living proof
of the answer to the people's contradictions.
I don't trust the Russians so much.
When we screamed "US killers",
all they could answer was,
Red Guard killers.
So I distrust them.
Marxism-Leninism?
Definitions.
When the sun sets, it's all red.
Then it disappears.
But in my heart the sun never sets.
Dictatorship is needed to stop thieves,
crooks, killers,
pyromaniacs, gangs
and all other evil minds that upset public order.
A Communist is frank, open-minded, devoted,
putting the revolution before his life,
above any personal interests.
He must always hold to just principles
and fight any wrong ideas or actions
so as to help the collective Party life
reinforcing ties with the masses.
He will think more of the Party than the individual.
He'll care for others more than himself.
Then he'll deserve the name 'Communist'.
A Communist must always ask himself why
and think carefully
to see if everything conforms to reality.
A Communist is never infallible,
should never be arrogant
and never think things are OK only at home.
The history of mankind
is a continual progress from necessity
to the reign of liberty.
What's for Monday?
Crime and politics.
THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL
The student revolutionary movement has grown.
The white-collar revolutionary struggle
has spread among the workers and peasants.
This is Radio Peking.
Comrades, that is the latest news bulletin.
- This is Omar. - Louder.
This is Omar, a comrade in philosophy at Nanterre.
That's enough.
Comrades and friends...
In addition to his crimes and faults,
those who blame Stalin...
for all our deceptions,
our mistakes and despair in any sphere.
They might be very upset
to realise the end of intellectual totalitarianism...
- That's dogmatism. - If you like.
The end of intellectual dogmatism
hasn't given us Marxism
in its complete form.
After all, we can only liberate
what already exists, even from dogmatism.
Stalin's death meant freedom for research
and a fever of people rushing to philosophise
about their feelings on liberation
and their taste for freedom.
Stalin's death gave us
the right to count exactly what we own.
To call both wealth and nakedness...
by their real names,
to think and talk aloud about our problems
and to undertake serious research.
Stalin's death allowed us
to get partially away from our provincial theories.
To recognise and know the existence of others aside from us
and seeing this exterior, begin to see ourselves better.
To know the place we occupy in the knowledge
and ignorance of Marxism
and then begin to know ourselves.
Today's task is simply to define,
to face these problems in the light of day
if we want to give some existence
and consistency to Marxist philosophy.
Any questions?
Can a non-socialist revolution
peacefully be changed into a socialist one?
Yes, under specific conditions.
But never can
an absence of revolution be changed to revolution,
nor into a socialist revolution, and even to socialism.
No matter how you look at it,
the road to socialism leads to revolution.
But your question reveals a false underlying notion.
Where do just ideas arise?
Where do just ideas come from?
Out of the sky.
No, they come from social interaction, and...
The fight to produce?
Yes, and then...
From scientific research.
Yes, and what else?
From the class struggle.
Some classes are victorious, others defeated.
That's history.
The history of all civilizations.
Will it end under proletarian dictatorship?
No. In his speech
to the transport workers
on 29 March 1921,
Lenin showed
class struggle doesn't disappear under proletarian dictatorship.
It takes on other forms.
As is happening in Russia today.
Yes, in spite of the lies of the duo, Brezhnev - Kosygin.
Give up illusions and prepare to fight.
This world is as much yours as ours.
Hope lies with you.
To work is to fight
and you must seek truth in the facts.
But exactly what is a fact?
Facts are things and phenomena
as they exist objectively.
Truth is the link between things and phenomena.
Which is to say the laws.
To seek is to study.
We must begin
with the internal and external situation
going from country to country.
Sort out the laws that apply to serve as guides
and not use our imaginations.
Which is to say find the internal ties in events
occurring around us.
What made me discover Marxism?
At first Nanterre bored me,
because it was surrounded by slums.
Then little by little,
I found philosophy suited a worker's suburb.
We and the workers lived like penned rabbits.
But rabbits multiply.
And in the mornings I met the Algerian children
and the mechanics from Simca.
Right, so...
I thought I passed them by,
but we stopped in the same cafes.
We were at the station together,
had the same rain and nearly the same work.
That's where I understood
the three basic inequalities of capitalism
and especially of the Gaullist regime in France.
No difference in intellectual and manual work
between town and country.
I see those here all the time.
Third, between farming and industry.
That also pushed me to study Marxism-Leninism.
Seriously, if I were brave,
I'd dynamite the Sorbonne, the Louvre, the Comedie-Frangaise.
Really?
The revolution's no party.
It's not made like a work of art.
It can't be done with elegance and peace of mind,
with such tenderness and manners
with reserve and generosity.
Revolution is a violent uprising
when one class overthrows another.
I'm in the philosophy class.
I know I'm cut off from the workers.
After all, my family are bankers.
I've always lived with them.
None of that's very clear.
That's exactly why I keep on studying.
To understand first and then to change,
and then formulate a theory.
For myself, for example.
Not based on misery, but prosperity.
Since I often profit from it.
Even if I am ashamed of it.
You often hear "a quick retort",
what does that mean?
Quick retort?
For us it's to first eliminate exams.
Since we learn nothing and can't copy
and it's a kind of racism,
since they're for full-time students
and create anxiety and sexual frustration.
Should books be burned?
No, they shouldn't.
We couldn't criticize them then.
And youth all aflame holds nothing back.
Hate, love, sorrow, happiness.
It is ready to pour out its heart.
In love like an invalid, Onéguine...
With a serious look, Onéguine
listened to the poet's heart
reveal its guileless awareness.
I want to be blind.
Why?
To speak to each other better. We'd listen carefully.
Yes, how?
We'd use language differently.
Don't forget in 2,000 years words have changed meaning.
So?
So, we'd talk seriously to each other.
Which means
finally meanings would change words.
Right.
Talk as if words were sounds and matter.
That's...
what they are.
Veronique.
Right, let's try then.
On the river bank.
Green and blue.
Tenderness.
A bit of despair.
After tomorrow.
Maybe.
Literary theory.
A film by Nicolas.
Ray.
The Moscow trials.
Red bird.
Rock...
and roll.
Et cetera.
You know I love you.
The...
theoretical...
base“.
Which...
serves...
8S...
a guide...
in...
OUT...
thinking...
is...
Marxism...
Leninism.
THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL ALIVE
Comrades and friends.
Today is current events.
We see them daily at the movies.
There's a false idea about current events at the movies.
They say Lumiere invented current events.
He made documentaries.
But there was also Melies,
who made fiction.
He was a dreamer filming fantasies.
I think just the opposite.
Prove it.
Two days ago I saw a film by Mr Langlois,
the director of the Cinematheque, about Lumiere.
It proves Lumiere was a painter.
He filmed the same things
painters were painting at that time,
men like Charo, Manet or Renoir.
What did he film?
He filmed train stations.
He filmed public gardens,
workers going home,
men playing cards.
He filmed trams.
One of the last great Impressionists?
Exactly, a contemporary of Proust.
So Melies did the same thing.
No, what was Melies doing at that time?
He filmed a trip to the moon.
Melies filmed
the King of Yugoslavia's visit to President Fallieres.
And now in perspective,
we realise those were the current events.
No kidding, it's true.
He made current events. They were re-enacted, alright.
Yet they were the real events.
I'd even say Melies was like Brecht.
We mustn't forget that.
And why mustn't we?
Why mustn't we?
So Why?
Why?
Because an analysis of a specific situation,
as Lenin says, is the essential...
An analysis?
...the soul of Marxism.
What's analysis?
It's seeing the inherent contradictions...
OK, but why analysis?
Because
things are complicated by determining factors.
Yes, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin
teach us to carefully study the situation
very conscientiously.
Starting from objective reality,
not from our subjective desires.
Right?
OK, exactly.
Especially in the news.
We must examine the different aspects,
not just one.
Enough theory. Now a problem.
Which one do you want?
War.
Asia.
The war in Asia, Vietnam, then.
Who are the actors?
The Americans.
Americans... who have dropped more bombs on a tiny country
than during the World War and are wrong in their doctrine,
Asia for the Americans.
The Russians.
The Russians are a bit cowardly as they go,
Do as I say, not as I do.
The Chinese.
Oh yes... the Chinese.
The Chinese who apply Mao's ideas.
Reactionaries are paper tigers.
They appear ferocious.
But they're not really so powerful.
At the Moscow conference
of Communist workers on 18 November 1957:
Strategically we must scorn the enemy
but tactically weigh him carefully.
Then there are the others, the on-lookers,
the indifferent, the lazy, people like...
like the French...
Or the English.
Isn't Vietnam an actor?
Yes, Vietnam.
Help, help.
First a few facts, as truth lies there.
The NLF Will Win.
In short.
The liberation army in Ta Kien province
has killed and captured 10 of the 300 puppet soldiers.
Radio Peking...
In brief, Johnson's fighting Communism in Vietnam.
OK, right.
That proves there are two kinds of Communism,
since in Europe he's not fighting it at all.
On the contrary, he signs agreements with Moscow.
He invites Hungarian swimmers to Los Angeles.
He invites Czech violinists
to play with the Boston Symphony.
He builds factories in Romania, in Poland,
while destroying the factories in Hanoi.
Help, help, help-
Help, Mr Kosygin, help.
That proves there are two Communisms.
A dangerous one,
and one not dangerous.
A Communism Johnson must fight,
and one he holds out his hand to.
Hello Kosygin, you OK?
And why is one of them no longer dangerous?
Because it has changed.
The Americans haven't.
They're an imperialist power.
Since they haven't changed, then it's the others who've changed.
The Russians and their friends have become revisionists
that Americans can get on with.
While the real Communists that haven't changed
need to be kicked in the face.
That's what Vietnam's about.
I'm for peace in Vietnam.
Whether intentionally or not,
both the Russians and Americans...
I'm for peace in Vietnam.
...are fighting the real Communists, in China.
That's a general conclusion.
As for Vietnam...
Help, help, Mr Kosygin!
Help, Mr Kosygin!
Hurry, Mr Kosygin!
A specific conclusion is...
ANY
progressive
war... is just.
Any war... opposing progress...
is unjust.
We other...
Communists... are fighting... against...
all“.such“.
Unjust... wars.
But we aren't... against... progressive wars.
Friends, comrades.
Why is being American intolerable?
An important question.
Indeed, if a socialist might admire the wealth of the US
he must place it in perspective in the relative world context...
...and at that level understand it,
using rareness and exploitation as criteria.
Rareness, exploitation.
Protesting the structures that feed it.
Structures.
Otherwise socialism falls into the right-wing trap...
Trap.
...which is the Stalinism of Capitalistic abundance,
an apology for power, for luxury.
A good example is
the current French Finance Minister, Mr Michel Debre.
For us,
the human sciences must again be...
what they were for Marx.
A political instrument.
A fighting truth.
Don't forget the 19th century Marxists,
before filling the Russian academies,
were men of science.
Hooligan iconoclasts
and revolutionaries.
Revolutionaries.
Today some schools for human sciences
are retracing the road to Marxism, but backwards.
Not to show flaws in society,
but to show flaws as part of a whole,
to show how men's will and projects cannot change.
Structure, change.
In short, man is an idea of modern thinkers
that can be transcended.
This situation in the human sciences
that Sartre tried to upset by his genius...
this situation is disturbing...
Disturbing.
It's the image
of the impotence of Europe's left.
That impotence indicates its decline.
THEY CONTINUE
We're a bit like Robinson.
Remember Engel's text on Robinson?
In what?
In Anti-Duhring.
Guillaume, answer the phone!
What surprises me are your quarrels with the Party.
After a while I discovered
three quarters of the ideas and analyses
by the Party are false
for intellectuals.
Too close to Moscow.
Look. Nizan is dead, Merleau is dead.
Sartre's hiding in Flaubert, Aragon in maths.
I find them both moving now.
Right, but it's tragic also.
It's the Party's fault?
Yes, exactly.
That's why we must seek our ideal
1,000 km away in Peking.
Listen: No matter what his position,
no Communist should automatically treat,
without clue process, the Chinese Cultural Revolution
like just another fact or argument.
The Cultural Revolution isn't an argument.
First it's historical fact,
an historical fact unlike any other.
Then there's this.
Exporting cultural revolt is impossible,
as it belongs to China.
But the theoretical lessons belong to all Communists.
They must borrow the lessons and make them their own.
Guillaume, answer the phone!
I'm Veronique Supervielle.
I'm 19 years, eight months,
14 hours, two minutes,
SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE FILM
Vietnam burns and me I spurn Mao Mao
Johnson giggles and me I wiggle Mao Mao
Napalm runs and me I gun Mao Mao
Cities die and me I cry Mao Mao
Whores cry and me I sigh Mao Mao
The rice is mad and me a cad
It's the Little Red Book
That makes it all move
Imperialism lays down the law
Revolution is not a party
The A-bomb is a paper tiger
The masses are the real heroes
The Yanks kill and me I read Mao Mao
The jester is king and me I sing Mao Mao
The bombs go off and me I scoff Mao Mao
Girls run and me I follow Mao Mao
The Russians eat and me I dance Mao Mao
I denounce and I renounce Mao Mao
It's the Little Red Book
That makes it all move.
THEY CONTINUE THE REIGN
And now El Cordobes.
Paco Camino.
Why did he ditch our bull's head?
We can't have any more fun.
He's mad and going to commit suicide.
- Hurry up, Fernand. - Coming...
Look at that, Isabelle.
Great racing handlebars and a seat.
- He took it? - Yes.
He's a stupid prick.
No, that worker's a genius.
With a bull's head he made handlebars and a seat.
Divine metamorphosis, Mr Malraux.
He who speaks of struggle...
...speaks of sacrifice.
And death...
...is a common thing.
THE REIGN OF DESPOTISM IN ASIA, AFRICA...
...AND LATIN AMERICA
One: the history of art in the last 100 years
is the road leading to the concept
of art as its own science.
Two.
We are not the ones
using obscure language.
It's our society,
which is hermetic and closed up
in the poorest of languages possible.
Three:
Maiakovsky in poetry.
Eisenstein in movies.
All those fighting
for a definition of socialist art
were knifed in the back
by Trotsky and the others.
Those who two months after taking the Winter Palace,
accepted imperialist language
to sign the peace treaty
of Brest-Litovsk.
Art doesn't reproduce the visible.
It makes visible.
But the aesthetic effect is imaginary.
Yes, but the imaginary doesn't reflect reality.
It's the reality of the reflection.
You sometimes hear statements like,
Use only three colours.
The three primary colours,
blue, yellow and red.
Perfectly pure and perfectly balanced,
on the pretext that all the other colours are there.
For everything we see,
we must consider three things.
The position of the seeing eye,
of the object seen
and of the source of light.
Perhaps reality
hasn't yet appeared to anyone.
As for us...
we demand the unity of politics and art.
The unity of content and form,
the unity of a revolutionary content.
And...
...an artistic form
as perfect as possible.
Works lacking artistic value,
no matter how politically advanced
are ineffective.
In literature and in art we must
fight on two fronts.
Fighting on two fronts...
I find too complicated.
I do only one thing at a time.
I don't understand how you can
listen to music and write at the same time.
Two fronts.
Too complicated.
Do you love me?
Of course I do.
I've decided I don't love you anymore.
What's going on?
I no longer like your face, eyes, mouth.
Nor your sweaters. And you bore me terribly.
What's happening?
I don't love you.
I don't understand.
You will.
Veronique.
You will.
Explain why you're saying that.
I no longer love you.
You interfere.
You worry me.
Love's too difficult with you.
I hate how you discuss things you ignore.
I don't love you.
Understand now?
Yeah, I do.
I'm very sad...
...but I understand.
You see, you can do two things at once.
To understand you had to do it.
Music and language.
You must struggle on two fronts.
But you really scared me.
Me too, I'm often scared.
THEY CONTINUE OPPRESSION IN THE WEST
Some comrades have bad work habits,
the antithesis of the Marxist spirit.
Like catching birds blindfolded.
Why are you looking at me?
I'm not a strange animal.
I'm a human being.
And your look
is the same as Whites in America looking at Blacks
or Arabs looking at Jews,
or vice versa in the Middle East.
And in the Communist world, Russians
looking at Chinese.
1,2, 3, 4, 5.
There's no face that can't be drawn,
like the face of a dream.
Serge Dimitri Kirilov.
Not Novalis.
But it was voted yesterday.
But he's a scholar, not a poet.
A scholar on poetry like Brecht on theatre.
The Party controls the guns. Guns must not control the Party.
Poor Novalis.
How to unite Marxist-Leninist theory
and the practice of revolution?
There's a well-known saying.
It's like shooting at a target.
Just like aiming at the target,
Marxism-Leninism must aim at revolution.
You can disagree
with the terms I use to define the problem.
But if, like most workers,
who use their hands and heads
you judge or vaguely feel
that capitalism is no better today than yesterday...
Back to Moscow!
...As economic and social development,
as a way of life, as a system of relations
of men together.
With their work, with nature.
With the people of the world.
Kosygin and Johnson are killers.
By the use he does or does not make of resources and science,
of present and future creative capacities,
of each person.
What of Siniavsky?
And if you adhere to socialism with that feeling
the problem of its rise to power is put in those terms.
Once you admit that violent revolt and barricades
can't occur in advanced capitalism
in France, Sweden, Italy,
you can agree with the French Communist Party...
Revisionist, revisionist!
THIRD MOVEMENT OF THE FILM
Isn't that Michel?
You think so?
Listen to how he pronounces
Maybe you're right.
Maybe Claude's there.
Veronique said she had a letter.
In July he'll bring committee orders
on beginning hostilities and against whom.
- Am I in it?
The combat group will have its own organisation, personnel and finances.
This is Radio Peking.
Comrades and friends...
Those in favour raise their hands.
Majority decision is to create a special combat organisation
which, in strict observance of conspiracy
and division of labour
will take care exclusively of terrorist activity.
Now let's draw lots.
Open it and read.
Men use
the sciences of nature
8S a weapon
in their struggle for liberty.
DIALOGUE 4 HENRI AFTER HIS EXCLUSION
Since January,
maybe December.
You left them?
Yes, well, they excluded me.
It's all the same.
Why did they throw you out?
I refused to criticize myself.
How did it happen?
Like in all cells,
there was a vote.
But what led to the vote?
It started
during Veronique's exposé.
The forms of oppression aren't the same.
Life now under Pompidou
isn't like during the war under Hitler.
Yet, comrades and friends...
Just as Serge showed how art doesn't reflect reality,
but is the reality of reflection,
such is the reality of formulas used by friends of Pompidou and Malraux
to ban a film like The Nun by Jacques Rivette.
It's that reality, since in formulas there's form
which makes me think it's a form of oppression.
She was confusing Marx and theatre
and politics, and that's romanticism.
She behaved in life like an actress.
She was influenced by Guillaume.
Who's he?
An actor.
He was one of the group?
Yes... a fanatic.
His father had worked with Arthaud.
While with Kosygin, Wilson, Pompidou, it's sweet death.
If that doesn't suit you,
there's violent death in North Vietnam.
While in the South, sweet death is enough.
But I say it's the same
in literary and scientific studies.
The Left has suggested reforms.
As long as Racine portrays men as they are.
As long as Sade is prohibited.
As long as maths isn't taught in nurseries.
As long as they subsidize the queers at the Comédie-Frangaise
more than Planchon or Bourseiller.
The reforms are a dead letter,
because it's dead language.
It's class culture
taught by one class.
A culture belonging to a certain class
that pursues a certain policy.
The analysis...
...was amiss.
So the conclusion was unreal.
If you don't agree it's...
Yes, I'm for peaceful co-existence.
What's the Party doing to change that?
There are some good things.
Two weeks ago they were praising books that confuse words and things,
that serve reactionary thinking.
Comrades, we must: one, close the puppet university.
Right, but how?
What do you suggest, dreamer?
Two, by terror.
Yes, but what kind of terror?
Terror leads to nothing today.
However,
that culture is 0.43% of the national budget...
Veronique was right.
As for Aragon...
If the Party's more supple,
it's because of him.
Sometimes I was enthusiastic,
glorifying the socialist edifice in my writing.
But the next day I countered
with criminal-like practical action.
There was formed
what Hegel called
an unhappy conscience.
It differed from the ordinary conscience...
BOUKARIN'S LAST WORDS AT THE LAST MOSCOW TRIALS
...In that it was also a criminal conscience.
Ad in France Soir on June 14.
Old Russia, the great religious centres
of Czarist Russia, brought to life
and May Day in Moscow.
Information at Monit Travel,
4 place de I'Opera, phone 7420646.
Where are the old revolutionaries?
Sad, huh?
It's sad, alright.
Their argument was Sputnik Digest.
It's a pretty disgusting magazine.
But that's not enough
to systematically condemn the Party attitude
the way they do in L'Humanite Nouvelle or Garde Rouge.
The main organ of the French Marxist-Leninist movement.
During the elections in March,
the only people to talk of the price of a fridge,
of work rates or bathrooms,
and not just general philosophy...
It wasn't Mitterrand or Mendes France,
it was the delegates of the French Communist Party.
It's not that. I said they haven't read all of Marx.
- You're way off. - Not read him seriously.
Well, I'm for peaceful coexistence.
Lenin said to cut off one enemy finger to save ten.
Rosa Luxembourg
saw the difficulty in answering.
How troubled she was.
How she blushed without understanding.
Why, because movies and plays
cost money and the army is free.
It should be the opposite.
Shows should be free.
Those who want to make war should pay to do so.
When they say the leftist agreement is a dagger for Vietnam,
or that the Communist press...
Everyone talks of the crimes of the Red Guard
in the Cultural Revolution.
Listen, this is fantastic.
The first date for Juliette and Pierre
opened doors to a new world of magic.
The world of words no one had spoken before them.
What are you reading?
Henri gave me the Party's women's magazine.
Let's see.
Like the night before, their eyes met.
Pierre couldn't speak.
No point in being Communist to use that soap opera language.
I forbid you to read that.
I said Henri's a revisionist.
The joker's a king and I sing Mao Mao...
Reminds me of pictures of L'lllustration from 1917,
that treated Bolsheviks as beatniks.
They used the same terms for the Bolsheviks
as that paper uses for the Red Guard.
You expect Le Figaro to say that sort of thing.
But when L'Humanite does, it's disgusting.
OK, there's work to do.
For everyone.
The other day I was reading L'Humanite Nouvelle.
They talked about the film Johnny Guitar,
that the Party leaders had shown
at a meeting somewhere,
I'm not sure where.
But they attack the film because it's American,
even if it's good.
So, as Veronique's big enemy, Malraux says,
liberty doesn't always have clean hands.
Veronique, what's the matter?
Problems?
I have too many enemies.
Enemies? You?
But who?
You know, the warlords,
the bureaucrats, magnates and landowners
and the reactionary intellectuals.
Those are my enemies.
Well, that makes a lot of enemies, indeed.
What are you up to?
Not much.
Writing in Les Temps Modernes as always,
some books...
ENCOUNTER WITH FRANCIS JEANSON
For this year I have a new project.
What?
I want to do cultural action.
But what's that?
I don't think anyone really knows yet.
And I want to try an experiment.
But culture and action are old words.
Yes, but culture is cut off from action now.
At least it seems so.
So it doesn't interest me.
- Besides, I agree with you. - You do?
What interests me is
that culture gives control of the world.
Concretely, when will you do it?
I start in two months.
The experiment will last a year.
Because I want to see what's possible.
What is the experiment?
With a whole team, we're going to try...
- In what area? - Acting, for example.
- Theatre? - Yes, in a theatre at Chélon.
The Bourgogne Theatre. We'll try to...
You'll move out of town?
I'm going to Bourgogne.
But you know, Chélon isn't very far.
Isn't leaving Paris sad?
No, I'm glad.
Delighted?
Because I can't work here anymore.
Anyway, I don't write when I'm in Paris.
My books aren't progressing.
Maybe I can start this action outside Paris
and write too.
Is it important to take action?
Yes, if we manage
to do something effective.
I don't want to start something just for pleasure
or to soothe my conscience.
So why start any action?
It seems to me, on that level there's something to be done.
To place today's men and women
in a position to receive the world as it is.
Not only to receive, but to act on it,
to have a hold.
That means you're leaving the university?
Leaving, if you want.
I'm breaking with an attitude widespread in the university,
which is to consider the others,
the ones we address, as mere receivers.
It's true, and I wouldn't want to be...
Isn't what's happening in China important?
Of course it's important.
For example, closing the universities I think is great.
Right, you think it's great.
But do you have an idea what will happen afterwards?
They must re-open them.
The students are in the fields for now.
That reminds me of something.
Remember Natalie?
Yes, I do.
Her parents voted for Mendes France.
That doesn't matter.
Before I prepared for my exams with you in September,
she and I picked peaches near Avignon.
Now it seems to me that
doing manual labour beforehand
helped me pass the exams.
That helped you understand what I said,
talking about philosophy?
A little. In June...
I think there's a link.
In June, I didn't do anything physical and failed.
I think there's a possible link.
What's the conclusion?
You should pick peaches?
But you agree with me?
Something's wrong at the university. Many things.
Of course.
It's apparent enough. So?
You agree education's the big problem?
It's one of the biggest problems.
So?
Shouldn't we start from scratch?
But how?
Close the universities, like in China.
You will do that yourself?
If the authorities aren't capable of it.
If necessary, I'll close them.
How?
I have an idea.
Tell me your idea,
if you can.
You see, what disgusts me is teaching.
It's always a question of class. Culture is class culture.
You know the Tutankhamen exhibit.
Why do all the people run there? The gold.
Even workers act bourgeois and go and see the gold.
Because if it was in paper, they wouldn't bother.
I understand,
but your idea...
- Close the university. - But how?
With bombs.
With bombs!
You're going to throw bombs?
THIS SITUATION
Once we kill students and teachers, they'll stop going.
The university will close.
You're doing that alone?
Well, there are two or three of us.
Two or three... But...
But during the Algerian War,
when Djamila Bouhired blew up cafes, you defended her
while all the press was against her.
All of France was against her.
That's right.
Only there was a difference.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
Explain it to me.
There was a whole people behind Djamila.
Men and women were already fighting.
It was for independence and I, too, want mine.
You want independence. How many of you want it that way?
You told me two or three.
But many people don't realise it yet. And we think for them.
It's for them.
You think you can make a revolution for others?
But you agree working is part of the struggle.
But what is the struggle?
THIS SITUATION MUST CHANGE
Look, if I want to know
revolutionary theory and methods,
I must participate in a revolution.
You can participate, but you can't invent one.
But if I want knowledge, I need practical experience.
- Do you agree? - I do.
Only revolutionary practice
implies a knowledge of the situation.
The situation is bad.
You know that, but do you know...
And that'll make it known.
Do you know a possible remedy?
But authentic knowledge comes from direct experience.
First-hand experience.
Does it tell you the content to give your action?
Because terrorism is only a start.
- Isn't it terrorism? - Yes, it is.
So terrorism supposes underlying bases.
We've studied for two years.
For two years, and how have you studied it?
We live the problem.
You live it.
You're no longer a student. You may know nothing.
I still know a few things.
No, I'm sorry.
You're right. I know a few things. Not as much as you, of course.
- I'm in it. - I don't suffer directly.
I suffer and I'm not alone.
But what's the point
of killing people if you don't know
what you'll do next, if you don't know what terms...
But we know what we'll do.
So, what will you do afterwards?
I don't believe you know.
You only know the present system is awful
and you're impatient to end it.
Not awful, just bad.
What we do afterwards is not my work.
- You don't care. - No, I don't.
Afterwards, I'll continue studying the situation.
Where will you study it?
I'm only a worker producing revolution.
So be a worker and really work.
The way you're going you won't last a week, as I see it.
- Why? - You'll be arrested long before.
But you ran from the police.
And it lasted a long time...
There were many sympathizers among the population,
because even those not quite in favour
of Algerian independence didn't denounce us.
You have sympathizers, but they won't go
as far as mass murder.
And it'll be mass murder.
We need help since some Communists
are allied with revisionists to denounce us.
- You didn't know. - You're not prepared...
L'Humanite and Le Figaro are in league now.
Alright.
But your action will lead to nothing
if it isn't upheld by a group, a class,
by many men and women
who agree entirely and will pay...
Take the young Russian nihilists, for example.
So?
They made bombs and criminal attempts.
And the 1917 revolution came afterwards. In October.
You think you can compare Czarist Russia
and the situation now in France?
You call yourself Marxist-Leninist.
Well, even if we can't compare them,
we can draw a lesson from China.
But the lessons you draw are very abstract.
You don't draw lessons by superposing...
You think it's a mistake?
I think so.
You're heading towards a dead-end.
Some comrades
undertake their main task...
But not firmly in hand.
They can't do good work.
Committee Work Techniques, 13 March 1949.
It's not so much that.
I told you the arguments were valid
but all mixed up.
Marxism is first of all a science.
And there,
the arguments were a mess, off the cuff.
They were a bit like children.
Yes, you know the story of the Egyptian children?
Then I'll tell you.
The Egyptians believed their language
was that of the gods.
One day, to prove it,
they put new-born babies in a house
far from any society
to see if they would learn to talk.
To speak Egyptian alone.
They came back 15 years later.
And What did they find?
The kids talking together, but bleating like sheep.
They hadn't noticed
that next to the house was a sheep-pen.
For us, in that flat where we were,
Marxism-Leninism was a bit like the sheep.
Any volunteers?
OK. Me.
I believe in terror.
For me, whole revolutions
are made of terror.
Who is it?
A bombless revolutionary isn't a revolutionary.
For the moment, we're only a few.
Tomorrow, we'll be many.
Tomorrow, I may no longer exist.
I am happy, I am proud of that.
Terrorism is not an act of liberation,
but a means to impose a programme.
Give me a bomb.
Let's talk in the kitchen.
I suggest refusing Kirilov and drawing lots.
You think he'll commit suicide?
I'm sure of it.
They say that, but when the time comes...
It's been going on for two weeks.
But he's serious this time.
Still, he didn't want to sign the paper.
Ask him again.
I tried all day yesterday.
You can't talk to him.
He doesn't want to.
He still has the revolver?
He's keeping it.
He'll give it up once he's shot himself.
Listen, Serge...
Give me the paper.
In my pocket.
Leave me alone.
Did you sign it?
I, Serge Dimitri Kirilov,
have murdered Michael Sholokov,
the Soviet Minister of Culture,
in Paris as the French government's guest.
The purpose of this murder was,
one, to stop the Soviet puppet from inaugurating
the new university buildings
where he was to speak before the puppet Malraux...
Go on.
Two, this is the first murder in a series.
Violence will be the answer to the cultural suffocation
willingly imposed on the universities.
Serge Kirilov, 15 August 1967. Very good.
Do I wear the hat or not?
No, I won't.
You have the gun?
What's his name again?
Uh, Shokolov...
No, Sholokov.
You sure?
Yes, that's it.
But I can't ask his name.
Do as we already said, you ask for...
When he looks at the register, you find Sholokov.
It will be upside down.
They write big, it's easy.
Alright.
So?
He opened the door and I fired. Come on.
Shit, shit, stop.
What is it?
- I made a mistake. - How's that?
I read Sholokov upside down alright
and the room number 23.
But since it was upside down linvefled.
That made it 32, so I went to room 32.
You shot the guy in 32.
Go back.
But park in front this time.
We... Communists
...not only...
...do not fight...
...against just wars...
...but take an active part.
He committed suicide?
I didn't know.
Kirilov.
If Marxism-Leninism exists,
then anything goes.
That means we must pay...
Attention...
To the quantitative aspect of a problem...
...and do quantitative analysis.
I'm fed up with this job!
You must participate in changing reality.
Maybe I'll return to Besancon.
Will you join the normal Communist Party?
Certainly, as soon as I find work.
I've applied at a laboratory.
And if it doesn't work out,
I'll go to East Germany.
They need chemists.
It's too bad about your quarrels.
I know it's stupid.
But you know, what I want...
...is some quiet.
They were too fanatical.
The silence of infinite space.
It's not silence that scares me, but sound and fury.
You never saw them again?
I don't know what became of them.
YEAR ZERO THEATRE
THE
THEATRICAL
VOCATION
OF
GUILLAUME MEISTER
Look, how funny.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO PEKING
It's disgusting. Mum will be furious.
They put up your cousin.
Maybe they killed the minister.
I hope inside is alright.
AND
Fruit and vegetables!
HIS
YEARS
Lettuce, tomatoes...
OF
Radishes and eggs: 10 cents!
One price, fruit and vegetables!
One lettuce: 10 cents.
APPRENTICESHIP
10 cents, one price, try your luck.
AND
OF
TRAVELS ON THE ROAD
I don't want to see anyone.
Don't be hurt if my zeal breaks the secret of your solitude.
How long have you been so afraid?
Since Marcel left me.
Under what sign did you bring into the world such an unhappy creature?
OF A TRUE
What'll I do?
Never doubt a god is fighting for you. The sacrifice is over.
SOCIALIST THEATRE
Just join the Marxists.
I want vengeance.
- You'll lose. - Get out of here.
But why leave?
Why be your own enemy?
I have too much pain.
Enough, stop. It's time to be logical.
LAST SCENE OF THE MOVIE
What shall I tell them?
I'll write to them.
You're crazy.
A dreamer.
OK, it's fiction, but it brings me closer to reality.
Everything must be ready Saturday. Coming, Blandine?
Think about it.
It was all thought out.
The end of summer meant back to school for me.
A struggle for me and some comrades.
On the other hand, I was wrong.
I thought I'd made a leap forward.
And I realised
I'd made only the first timid step of a long march.