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A HISTORY OF WATER
2
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I went to my flower bed, To pick some roses red
...
3
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Nothing!
4
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Always the same every February!
5
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So much water! So much water!
Cry all the people of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges.
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<i>rapidly fleeing
the avalanche of Alpine snow</i>
7
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<i>transformed by the arrival
of spring sunlight over ?le-de-France</i>
8
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Where
I go every morning to take the bus to Paris.
9
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What a mess, this flood!
10
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Luckily...
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My Cousin Bebert, old stuffed shirt
happens to be passing.
12
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Then I made like Blondin.
13
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If you do not know
Blondin... What a shame!
14
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I was afraid I'd be late for class,
15
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so I called for boots,
16
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"Yes, boots!"
from my second-cousin L?on.
17
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Handsome young L?on
King of the accordion
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I felt the water grope my legs
and watched it invade garages,
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and watched it invade garages, and living rooms.
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I said, "Farewell, My Lovely!"
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Thinking of Raymond Chandler,
a writer I admire.
22
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A suburban "Puss in Boots"
23
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I ventured forth
like the famous Arthur Gordon Pym,
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and so did many of my fellow citizens.
25
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Old Man Franju yelled that no buses
were running due to the inundation.
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From the Latin,
in, "on" unda, "wave."
27
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I hitchhiked and caught a ride
with a guy who wasn't what?
28
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Wasn't bad at all.
29
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We sped off...
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- Together...
- towards Paris.
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We had to outrun the water
before Highway who-knows-what.
32
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before Highway who-knows-what was flooded.
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Do not know how many times you were interrupted.
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We turned back often...
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because of water blocking the path.
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so that the car,
skipping like a fox over the bumpy roads,
37
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was again nose to the water
five minutes later.
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Did you know that on the French Riviera,
"after" means "before"?
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You're going to say
I'm straying off-topic, that I shouldn't digress,
.
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but it reminds me of something
at the Sorbonne,
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Aragon giving a lecture on Petrarch.
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Here, I'll digress
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everyone despises Aragon.
I love him. End of digression.
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Then in "La Sorbonne".
45
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Louis Aragon lectures on Petrarch.
46
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He starts off
with a terrific tribute to Matisse.
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It goes on for at least 45 minutes.
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Finally, a student
shouted from the back of the room.
49
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"Get back to the subject!"
50
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"The originality of Petrarch
lies precisely in the art of digression."
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said "The originality of Petrarch
lies precisely in the art of digression."
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For me this is the same.
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I'm not straying from the subject,
54
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and if I do, that's my real subject,
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exactly like a car that strays
from its usual path
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because a flood forces it to drive
across fields to reach the road to Paris.
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Instead flirt with me and tell me:
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I have aristocratic ears...
I have adorable breasts.
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the guy next to me
kept talking about his car, praising its qualities in a voice
that contrasted artistically with the sound of the wind
against the hood.
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The Ford Taunus is "queen".
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Then I thought "403", Chrysler,
Maserati, Lotus, sure...
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but not "Ford Taunus".
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Not because it's German.
I love the Germans.
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H?lderling, Max and Moritz ,Wagner.
But not the Taunus.
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The Fordist asked
what I had against the car, and what things I was for,
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and I said I was for getting to Paris
before nightfall.
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Do not worry.
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- He said, avoiding a slug on the road
...
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that had been, for the last 20 minutes,
winding around the Parisian basin,
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and flashing past rhythmically
in the rearview mirror.
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By driving all over
trying to find the highway,
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we ended up going in circles.
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We passed the pool where L?on
taught me to breaststroke last year.
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Then we ended up where we'd started.
75
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We saw ?mile and Gaspard.
They yelled, "Try Villeneuve-le-Roi.
76
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Too late.
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The floods had trapped us.
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In France it is always the same, I said.
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"They say you're free, but it's a lie.
Here's proof."
80
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Though "freedom"
isn't an empty word in France.
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Paris, for example.
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It's the only city in the world
where you can walk down Stalin Avenue
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and end up on Nicolas II Boulevard
84
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So, France is a free country.
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But free as we are,
we still had no way to get to Paris.
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- Result?
- We decided to continue on foot.
87
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It may not look like it,
but I'm thinking of a million things:
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The damp air, the sunshine.
89
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Baudelaire is the ideal poet.
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- He's the one who said:
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"The misty sunlight
Of those cloudy skies
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>Has for my spirit the charms,
So mysterious, Of your treacherous eyes,
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Shining brightly through their tears."
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- What can you say after this?
- Be quiet!
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Okay, I'll be quiet.!
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Usually, I don't care about the image.
It's the words that matter.
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But this time I'm wrong.
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Because here, everything is beautiful.
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No noise, no music. Silence.
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And now you wll see...
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How the young belle
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will be seduced...
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by a wolf.
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He kissed me.
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He caessed me.
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Around us the flood damages cost
more and more money, not "Monet."
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The picture was impressive,
not Impressionist
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"How about another kiss?" he said.
- "No."
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"Nothing wrong with having fun,"
he added. "I don't feel like it."
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"I bet I can make you laugh,"
he went on, forgetting our dire straits.
111
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"I bet you can't."
112
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We made a deal:
If he's able to tell me a funny story,
okay, he can kiss me.
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"I'll start," he said.
114
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"Know this one? 'Madam, is that egghead your son?
How many do you have?'
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Twelve.' 'What an omelet!'"
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I thought, how stupid!
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How about the Yugoslavian
who spent his life proving
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The Iliad wasn't written by Homer,
but by another Greek, also called Homer?"
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"What's funny about that?" No I got it.
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"How about," he continued,
"the two madmen telling jokes?"
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'You start,' says the first one.
'18,' says the other.
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'Ha, ha! That's a good one!'
'You tell one now.'
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23!
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'I've already heard that one.'
125
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"I've already heard that one too."
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He made a face
because it was a flop.
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"Have you heard the one
about Prince Yusupov?"
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"I might have."
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"It goes:
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This happened to Prince Rechewski.
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He hosted a banquet in honor of Prince
Youssoupof, the assassin of Rasputin.
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Do you know it?"
- No!
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"Good. I'll continue," he continued,
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"Prince Yusupov agrees to come, with the
condition of not talking about Rasputin.
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'Dear friend,'
Rachevski says, 'I promise.
We won't even mention Russia.'
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After dinner, a guest asks
to be introduced to the prince.
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Rachevski brings him
to Yusupov and bows.<
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'Allow me to introduce Prince Rasputov.'"
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Should I laugh or cry?
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He kissed me and it hummed on my lips
like a drop of water.
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He kissed me and it hummed on my lips
like a drop of water.
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>To return to the matter at hand. from drops of water to
a flood
is only one step,
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and our problem was:
How to get to Paris?
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It was impossible to continue on foot.
145
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We started looking for a boat...
146
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to reach the Ford Taunus,
now separated from us by a lake.
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I was lost in my thoughts...
148
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Thoughts rose
and flitted across my brain
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as clouds are whirled by the wind
across the gray veil of mist
that shuts out the sun..
150
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Those aren't my words, but Balzac's,
in The Duchess of Langeais.
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While we passed...
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- Without transition.
153
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From one stage to the other.
154
00:13:14,205 --> 00:13:17,071
My unfortunate partner said it was not a "serious"
girl.
155
00:13:17,208 --> 00:13:19,869
But the drama in our time
is that everything is done seriously.
156
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No one whistles anymore,
we work out of duty.
157
00:13:22,815 --> 00:13:25,785
It's true. Today, art is ruined
because everything's so serious.
158
00:13:25,919 --> 00:13:27,476
Those Pied Nick?les comics
were smashing.
159
00:13:27,821 --> 00:13:30,382
Now, everyone loathes
the word "smashing."
160
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>Instead, we use
horribly ordinary words,
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Like "authentic" for example,
when "smashing" was
accurate and charming.
162
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There are other words too.
It's a shame they've disappeared.
163
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Like "moolah" instead of "money"
and "popinjay"' for a fancy young man.
164
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"Popinjay" was wonderful.
But that's all over now.
165
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Valery Larbaud is dead,
Paul Eluard is dead, Jean Giraudoux is dead
166
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This string of ideas
trotted through my heart
167
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while the Taunus' 18 horses galloped happily
down the road to Paris, found at last.
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The more the Fordist
accelerated more quickly,
169
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the less his loving demands
made me die less quickly.
Like that thing, you know?
170
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The less I pedal, less quickly,
the more I advance more quickly
171
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or the more I pedal less quickly,
the less I advance more quickly.
172
00:14:10,709 --> 00:14:11,471
Anyway...
we arrived.
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00:14:11,611 --> 00:14:13,875
And water was already climbing
the base of the Eiffel Tower.
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00:14:14,013 --> 00:14:15,570
Well, I was happy.
175
00:14:15,815 --> 00:14:19,081
This guy, who I called "Pig!"
when he kissed me, this popinjay,
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I'll probably sleep at his place tonight.
177
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If water covered France,
to me, that's happiness.
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00:14:25,527 --> 00:14:28,498
You should know that this is a film of Fran?ois Truffaut
and Jean-Luc Godard
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00:14:28,631 --> 00:14:29,894
Photography by Michel Latouche
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00:14:30,032 --> 00:14:33,400
Produced by Roger Fleytoux Dedicated to Pierre Braunberger
181
00:14:33,537 --> 00:14:36,405
Dedicated to Mack Sennett,
by Films de la Pl?iade
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00:14:36,541 --> 00:14:39,510
(Censorship No. 21,696)
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Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's over.
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