"JEAN EUSTACHE'S WASTED BREATH" ""For the first time, I think I see a little more clearly."" "Jean-Pierre Léaud reads a text of Jean Eustache from 1971." ""Along with the simplification I sought in my first films," ""l wanted to be revolutionary," ""not to advance cinema," ""but to leap back to its origins." ""My aim since my first films," ""was to return to Lumière." ""I'm against new techniques" ""which is reactionary, but also revolutionary."" ""The Mother and the whore" 1972" "The poet in his rags, watches the girls go by," "The songs of Aristide Bruant, heroes of the streets, songs from before the war, are far from us all now, all faded into the night." "And we ask ourselves today... what became of the fortifications, and the bistros by the barricades, that were In every song?" "The lovely songs of erewhen." "where are Julo, Lili, Casque d'Or, and tough Louis, once so famous?" "where are the fortifications, and the heroes of the songs?" "Houses with six storeys, lifts, and central heating, have covered the old stones." "Tough Louis settled down, and opened a garage." "while Bruant has a street named after him." "Julo will be in the Academy soon, and Lili has a château..." "Gone are the fortifications, gone the bistros by the barricades, gone the setting for all the songs, the lovely songs of erewhen." "But others will come, different heroes, and pass away, in turn." "There are no more fortifications," "But there will always be the songs." "I know some old songs, too." "You know this one?" "Slmple as a rose, that you pluck without a care," "You took my sad heart, as you passed by my door." "My heart is an autumn flower." "without asking how or why, you took it, and I gave freely." "So simply." "You bother me." "I am in the darkness" "He was shooting inside a church, near Fontainebleau, I forget which village." "The producers asked me to go down." "There was some problem with the priest, so would I come?" "I told them we'd quarrelled, and Jean wouldn't be pleased to see me, they said, "No, no, quite the reverse..."" "So I went along and that night, I talked with Jean." "He told me what he planned, but I didn't want to be filmed, so he had to find another solution." "That's when he got the idea of a shot from the back of the church." "He advanced with the children, down both sides, in their white robes." "The shot followed them, from their viewpoint, and he ended on my hands when I gave Communion." "I don't agree with people who think he was marginal, at least his productions weren't." "His shoots were always pretty normal." "He wasn't an 'underground' film-maker." "On the other hand, I think he was 'underground'... in his choice of subject, and his idea of cinema." "it was a turning point, too." "when you see 'La Maman et la Putain', it breaks totally with the Grand Tradition of French films." "it stands apart from the other films of that period." "Father José Peña" "I had no photos of Eustache." "This one is in 1975 in America..." "His mother sent them, after his death." "And this one..." "Jean in a tuxedo... very odd..." "This one's much older, from the 'Cahiers' period." "Fieschi gave it to me, after Eustache's death." "That's all I've got." "with Jean, Fieschi and Biesse, we were a foursome." "I'll keep this one, because it's more... when Jean was..." "he wasn't so worn..." "I prefer to remember people when they were well, not later..." ""l am in the darkness," ""a citizen in a country occupied by foreign troops" ""which prevent me from being free." ""l don't know how long it will last." ""we are in a tunnel," ""l feel it physically." ""it's in the figures, too." ""Any old rubbish sells." ""There's no real politics." ""l can see no way out." ""And I see no way of resisting either..." ""Jean Eustache, January 1978"." "His birthplace in Pessac, near Bordeaux." ""why did I remake 'The Rosière of Pessac'?" ""Because in 1968, when I shot the film," ""l was sorry there was no version from 1896," ""the year this mediaeval tradition" ""was revived," ""about the same time as the invention of cinema."" "Françoise Lebrun reads a text from 1979." ""l imagined what the Lumière brothers would have done in 1905" ""in a silent film of this event." ""l imagined another cameraman filming it" ""in the Great war," ""with the soldiers, the village, and the crowds." ""l imagined the same film in 1936," ""during the Popular Front," ""when the Mayor was Communist, or at least Socialist." ""Then a 'Rosière' under the Occupation," ""with Germans watching the parade." ""In 1968, the film was finished before I had these thoughts." ""what an amazing witness those films would be!" ""l promised myself, as a consolation," ""that I'd re-make it every year," ""like any Civil Servant..." ""To say to people, just watch, and see how it used to be." ""And they'd see the evolution of France," ""but also the evolution of cinema." ""In 1979," ""l decided to re-make 'La Rosière'," ""l told myself" ""it will be better, and easier, because I've done it before." ""In fact, it was much harder." ""The shadow of the other film was there," ""l could have shot it from a different point of view." ""That would have been a bad idea, because I have no point of view." ""l am my point of view," ""l can't have another." ""Jean Eustache, 1979."" "A moment's absence" "This was a project from INA, part of series about Employment." "But Eustache preferred to make a film about Unemployment, which seemed self-evident to him..." "About 'Offer of Employment' 1980" "He found it hard to write so he asked me, rather insistently, to do what I could." "I was very reticent, I didn't see what I could do, but he kept insisting," "it was emotional blackmail." "I was very intimidated because" "I came from an intellectual background, but he was self-taught, and very well-read, and I had no idea what to do with the material." "Then one day, rather violently... violent from his side..." "I said, give me two or three hours," "I'll lock myself in the room and see what I can do." "I just did what he asked me to." "it was his idea, not mine." "As for the interviews, I just cut them together." "what was hard for me was to work with someone who considered himself an archivist." "Archlve comes from the Greek word meaning ancient." "Archivists collect documents here and there, and store them." "They have a tendency to hold onto things they consider part of the past." "That was the contradiction in his way of dealing with life." "For instance... during 'La Maman et la Putain', or the events in his private life, which became the film..." "I'm not the only one he told... when he argued with one of his heroines - or both of them, he'd rush out to a café, and write down the outcome, he noted it immediately." "Obviously, someone who acts like that isn't fully involved in the present." "it was hard for me to imagine..." "I believe in the classical definition of an author as someone who adds to the world," "but he had a different idea:" "an author selects, dissects, and somehow trims away." "He produces something which he's modified just through his way of seeing." "So... the same thing happened with the text called, 'A Moment's Absence', which he was working on when he died." "He had the title, which I think is wonderful, and there was also the commission from INA" "who asked him to do something with very slender means, such slender means, in fact, they said could he please shoot it in just one room." "it was just a figure of speech, because in the same series Benoit Jacquot made 'Amerika', one chapter of Kafka's 'Amerika', I think." "So things weren't restricted to such a narrow framework, but I liked the idea of limits." "So, by adding the idea of a camera in a room, to a moment's absence," "I thought I could do a piece about him and his way of living out of step with the world." ""He fears the day when it rises." ""So he no longer rises." ""Not he, who stays abed to make night of day." ""Nor banished day, which rises not for him." ""He fears night when it falls," ""so creates artificial day before." ""He fears silence, so speaks without cease." ""whether another replies, or listens, or not," ""he talks without respite." ""As if he heard not." "Indeed, he hears naught." ""Before him, others twist, gurn and grimace." ""Until they no longer know how to speak or act," ""and knowing not, they speak no more, act no more." ""when others can no longer pretend," ""he returns to his machines." ""He has many, and makes them say what he wishes." ""They obey his every whim," ""repeat his every muttering with infinite complicity." ""They listen 24 hours a day." ""They are not great talkers." ""He doesn't mind as he hates being contradicted." ""But, he can get bored, lose his temper," ""and break them sometimes." ""This is a major event in his life," ""when a machine does not obey orders." ""The rest of the time, they roll without cease," ""receiving 5 out of 5, they have taken over the room." ""The radio drones, a voice from elsewhere murmurs," ""following the intonation, the radio glows or dims." ""But neither the faint glow," ""not the voice in the dark Trouble his slumber," ""nestled in his bed." ""They rock him," ""and if the voice ceased, if the light flickered out," ""he would leap awake, startled by the silence and darkness." ""A Moment's Absence, 1980."" "There he is!" "See him?" "There!" "In the middle, turning his head." "There he is!" ""l think it's dishonest" ""to speak of a film-maker's eye." ""This idea of a look that can miraculously transform things," ""was dealt with in 'The Pig'," ""in strict collaboration with Jean-Michel Barjol." ""we filmed the same event at the same time." ""Barjol shot what he wanted, how he wanted," ""and so did I." ""we could have made two films," ""which is perhaps not such a bad idea," ""but that wasn't the point," ""that would have been artistic." ""Two versions of the same event" ""is precisely what I didn't want." ""So, we mixed up the rushes, and cut them together." ""But 'The Pig' established at least one thing:" ""l believe one can no longer speak" ""of the fllm-maker's eye, since this film."" "well, I can hardly disagree, as that's exactly what I think, exactly what I said, except for one point:" "as soon as you choose a character, or an event, or a story, that character, event, or story becomes vital to the film." "And this holds true for very different people, such as Dreyer, Bresson, or Renoir," "you have to respect the event, even if you invented it, or the story." "And in the case of 'The Pig', where I differ slightly with Eustache, is that we couldn't have done just anything." "He's a film-maker, and so am I, and if you respect what you're filming, you can't do just anything, you have to take into account what's in front of you." "Neither of us, could have made a different film from the one we made." "Begin at the beginning" "A film given by Jean Eustache to his son Boris" ""l remember walking in Paris" ""from Montparnasse to the 18th arrondissement" ""walking and thinking," ""like walking back in time." ""when I got home" ""my Grandmother talked for ages." ""l realised she was telling me important things." ""when I said, 'we have to record this'," ""she said, 'it's not pretty...'" ""l said, 'it doesn't matter,' 'you have to record things, whether they're pretty or not." "'They're important.'" ""l got money for some black-and-white, 16mm film," ""l rented two cameras," ""asked Théaudière to operate them" ""and Jean-Pierre Ruh to do the sound." ""The running time was the length of the reels."" "Jean turned his back, a bit shy." "There were two cameras over there, at the same height." "One wide for a two-shot, one zoom, for close-ups of Odette." "I remember where the mikes were, too." "One at table level for Odette, and one here for Jean, three-quarters from behind." "2 mikes - one Beyer M88 cardoid which tolerated changes in timbre." "what about lamps?" "No, no, no..." "so we didn't dazzle Odette, with Jean's firm principle not to interrupt his Grandmother." "So, two cameras, two Nagras, staggered, so there was always one sound and one image." "Shooting, 12-2-1971." "Jean Eustache." "Title: 'Numéro Zéro'" "Are they both running?" "Yes." "Mark it!" "'Zéro', AB, take one." "Bye, Gran." "work hard." "whenever you're ready..." "You want coffee?" "No, it's bad for me." "whiskey, then?" "It's good whiskey." "I already had some of that particular whiskey." "I prefer ice in my whiskey." "I'd like you to talk like the other day." "Starting with my birth?" "Begin at the beginning, with your mother's death." "First, start with where I was born... the little village of Noès, such places don't exist any more, but you like it, because it's where you're from." "I lived happily until my mother died, when I was seven." "The seven happiest years of my life..." " Do you remember?" " Of course." "I have an idea that shifts about, but with the years becomes clearer." "An author in cinema should have a role of non-intervention, the reverse of a dramatic author, who creates..." "A cinema author should be there, to stop others taking control, not to impose his own will." "whenever the camera turns, that's cinema." "There's no point in adding to it..." "or doing acrobatics... or adding virtuosity, because... whenever a camera turns, and is positioned, that is cinema." "Adding anything is interference by a dramatic author." "There might be other paths, but I believe the history of cinema was made by people who didn't use it that way." "Griffith, Renoir or Dreyer never..." "or Fritz Lang... the great..." "the greatest creators never used the camera..." "in any other way than to record what happened in front of it." ""Father Christmas Has Blue Eyes"" "Girls!" "A photo with Father Christmas?" "Ah, Father Christmas!" "Girls who'd never glanced, smiled as they passed by." "In the photos they hugged me, and gazed into my eyes, to see who I was." "Timidly at first," "I held their shoulders, but I soon stopped being shy." "I caressed almost all the girls in the photos, and not one breathed a word." "Miss, a photo with Father Christmas?" "That's my hairdresser's daughter, I didn't dare go near her, but I'd seen her kissing a boy." "I knew her name." "Hello, Christiane!" "Her mother came later." "She knew the photographer." "I just saw your daughter." "She told me she'd seen you with a Father Christmas with blue eyes." "Really?" "Martine!" "A photo with Father Christmas?" "I called and she came." "I felt she abandoned herself against me." "Just after his electrician's diploma" "Eustache joined the SNCF (railways) and left for the Paris workshops at Villeneuve St. Georges." "He slept in the carriages used as dormitories." "Then he met Jeanette Delos... whom he married and sent me this splendid photo to prove he was in Paris, with Sacré Coeur..." "I found myself... because I kept in touch with Eustache... involved in the adventures of the films 'Père Noël' and 'Mes Petites Amoureuses'." ""Tuesday, 6th April:" ""Dear fellow," ""In 2 days, it will be 8 years since I came here." ""Dizzy with waiting, as René Char might say." ""Yesterday my son was six, damn!" ""Reply fast if you're coming to Paris, if so, when?" ""I'm having a screening of my film," ""if you're coming, I'II wait." "I can't afford another." "As usual." ""Haven't developed the photos yet." "See you, Jean."" ""Monday 4th February, 1974." "Dear fellow," ""Your letter comes as I leave for Belgrade." "Back Saturday." ""Grandmother is unwell, in hospital on a drip," ""with a pacemaker for her heart." "'Mes Petites Amoureuses' is almost there." ""I'm coming down to work or scout locations soon." ""I'll need you for many things," ""especially the dialogues." ""Have I forgotten the way people talk?" ""See you, Jean."" "At first he often came to Narbonne." "well, at first, being with the railway, it was easy, but even after he quit the SNCF, he always managed to come." "Usually hitch-hiking." "He enjoyed that because he could talk away, the driver wouldn't fall asleep!" "In those days, he came often." "Very often." "He came up till 'Père Noël', then there was a long silence." "we got back in touch after 'La Maman et la Putain', when I went up for the screening." "But it was few and far between." "Anyway, you could see the total change in him when he went back up the motorway, it wasn't the same person here that you met in Paris." "After that, we only had phone conversations, rather long ones." "If the phone rang at midnight, or later, I knew it was him." "we would go on and on..." "One day, rather one night, as usual, he calls... and asks if he can come, I say, sure, there's always a sofa, come when you want." "He says, "I'll see, I don't know, I'm tired"." "This was after the accident... in Greece, which left his legs all messed up." "I ask how he'll manage, with his dodgy legs." ""I'll take the train, like everyone."" "I say, do what you want, you don't need to book." ""I'll call next week and we'll see."" "That was Thursday." "Next week, my wife says, "Did you call Eustache?"" "No, there's no need, he'll come, or he won't - as usual." "2 or 3 days later I was at work with the radio on and that's how I heard they'd found the film-maker Jean Eustache dead in his flat." "So I rushed out, went home, and called his mother, who sadly had to confirm that the information was correct." "Being a railway man, I jumped on the first train... and was at his mother's the next morning, and we went to the morgue, at Quai de la Rapée... to see Eustache." "That reminds me what my father said... he liked Eustache, and it was mutual... what he said when he found out Eustache had shot himself... with his way of speaking that I'll try to imitate," ""Just remember, your pal's an imbécll"." "Because he couldn't accept that someone could shoot themselves, on the one hand, and lead such a full life, on the other." "He didn't accept that you could interrupt such a life deliberately." "He never accepted it, never." "So, Quai de la Rapée, then back to Narbonne, because the service was much later, a week later, I think." "That was that." "I made the last trip with my father for the funeral of Mr. Eustache." ""I've often wished to wake again, to be born again," ""to feel once more the joys, the sorrows, everything." ""But this would be too harsh or too dangerous" ""for the man I have become." ""This doorway to happiness that comes in my dreams" ""can only be, I fear, that of death."" "wasted Breath." "Jean Eustache." "Fragments from an abandoned script." "Subtitles:" "Russell Richardson" "Processed by C. M. C." " Paris"