"ANATOMY OF A relationship" "(PICTURE)" "Still dodging bill-collectors?" "It always pays to be careful." "You seem distant." "A bite to eat?" "I'm not hungry." "Well, I could nibble on something." "You got a tan." "There's a letter from your brother." "Tell me about your trip." "Nothing to tell." "Did you get that tan in Portugal or Spain?" "At Hospitalet, where was the snow line?" "Shall I get some more radishes?" "When I came through there last year, the snow line was around 4 200 feet." "Tired from your trip?" "No, I'm OK." "Oh, that feels good." "Relax." "I don't know how to say this... lt's hard to get in." "You're playing some game." "That hurts!" "It always hurts me!" "This is the end." "How are you?" "I couldn't sleep." "Me neither." "Answer that. I'm not here." "Ask who it is and repeat the name aloud." "No, he's not in." "Who's calling?" "Bongabe?" "How are you?" "Yes, I'm in." "I'm always in for you." "You know I'm always in for Bongabe!" "What?" "I don't understand." "The customers are afraid of the lions?" "And you can't get rid of the lions in the evening?" "OK, call me when you've solved this lion thing." "You send the money and I'll send the film, OK?" "Good-bye and thank you." "Don't mention it." ""Good-bye, thank you, not at all, after you..."" "What's all that about lions?" "I was expecting money from Burundi but my exhibitor has lions around his theatres." "So, no audience, no money!" "It's so hard to sell your films?" "You can't imagine!" "Taiwan's a problem too." "A typhoon almost put my exhibitor out of business." "What am I going to live on next month?" "Earning money is easier for me." "I have enough to eat, my new flat's OK." "Only that's not enough." "My older students all want more homework." "They're already on the make." "The young ones are so independent that I feel useless." "I'm sick of teaching things I don't believe." "You hypocrite!" "You don't care how I feel." "You just want to fuck!" " No!" "It's just that I was frustrated yesterday." "It hurts not to have a real fuck." "It was like a wall." "As if I'd hit a bone." "And you made my cock bleed." "But the worst part is the frustration." "Like a punch, only not a quick punch, like in boxing..." "A punch that lasts for hours!" "I'm sure it's what Prometheus felt when the eagle ate out his guts." "You're talking crap!" "But with you, Iove-making is always rape." "I don't fantasize frustration like you do." "When I'm frustrated I blow off steam." "We can't go on like this." "I always feel lucid, I can see myself moving." "I'm sick of the way we've been making it." "I feel like a sex object." "This can't go on." "I don't want to brag, but you've been with me three years." "You must have gotten your kicks pretty often." "That's not true." "I was kidding myself." "I've been alone lately, and I've been masturbating." "I hadn't done it since I was a child." "I was probably ashamed to." "I feel I'm in touch with my body again." "(PICTURE)" "Mr. Thiébaut?" "No, he's not here." "He's in New York." "I don't understand what you meant just now." "(PICTURE)" "About how you get your kicks." "Did you ever take care of me?" "I bet you wouldn't even know where." "Most men don't." "You showed me what you can do." "Now maybe I should teach you." "I just met a girl who came on like you." "Girls all come on like that these days." "You've lost your individuality." "You're like robots all mouthing the same lesson." "Not a "lesson" a new collective consciousness." "But it doesn't concern you." "Your kicks are vaginal and always have been." "Liar!" "You never even tried." "Well, it's just a matter of an inch or so and it's all part of the same system." "There's a good explanation in here." "You must be kidding, a man wrote this." "You know we've been arguing for 15 minutes about something perfectly natural." "You mean traditional!" "I'm not talking about any particular way." "Start taking it apart and you kill instinct." "I was really getting into it, and then... wham!" "Even if you jumped on me now, I couldn't do a thing." "We've only got fifty years left to live, and a lot less to fuck!" "So why waste time?" "It wouldn't take any analyzing if you'd just realize what's going on." "It's not just my problem, it's yours too." "I'm criticizing the couple we form." "You insist on being blind, so I have to use your reasoning system to open your eyes." "You didn't reason like that when you were pretending to get off." "I was kidding myself into feeling "normal."" "I was afraid I was frigid." "But it didn't keep you from getting off." "(PICTURE)" "Which means... either I'm a great pretender" "or you never paid attention to me." "I think you're putting me on." "Me?" "You're the one who's kidding!" "If it's true, I feel empty inside." "I got off thinking you were getting off." "Bullshit!" "All that noise you made excited me." "You know you never heard me come." "Well, you sound sincere." "It's as if I'd been dreaming for 3 years." "I don't feel at home in my body any more." "I'm just beginning to feel at home in mine." "I hoped work would take my mind on my problems," "(PICTURE)" "Book-keeping brought back the normalcy that I missed more and more in my private life," "But I still couldn't concentrate, I kept thinking about her and me," "There was only one thing left to do," "The exercise did me good," "This was the physical harmony I wanted with her," "Maybe I'd been foolish to spend so much energy for only a few seconds of enjoyment," "It just wasn't worth it," "Here I had a satisfying relationship which could last hours," "One I could dominate one which involved no problems, I tried to ride in a straight line," "The more circuitous things got to be, the more I liked straight lines," "I wish my life were a straight line," "Still, this thing of sex didn't satisfy me, I felt it was a substitute" "unworthy of my ambitions, I promised myself not to give up so easily, but for now I let myself go, I needed a breather," "I felt guilty, I envied people I passed," "They probably had an untroubled sex-life," "They weren't intellectuals," "How could he have my problems?" "Goddamned workers with your $ 300 a month, how dare you complain when I'm starving?" "How could he even understand my problem?" "after 65 miles I felt ready to do battle again in the sphere of reality," "No good." "Too mechanical." "You can tell it's the first time." "Don't be critical." "It's castrating." "I'm doing my best." "Other guys did better." "So why are you in my bed?" "I respect you enough to work on this with you." "Thanks a lot!" "And it'd be even harder with a guy I didn't know." "You think it's fun being a work-object?" "But I want us to work together." ""Object" and "subject" are notions to be rid of." "I'd be a subject if we made it the normal way again." "Then I'd be the object." "Oh, I'm fed up with this dialectics!" "You're just insensitive." "I am not." "Even your hand is drawn to my vagina." "What a schmuck!" "That's not where it's at!" "Stop shaking it like that." "You're still treating me like an object." "But I'm trying to take care of you." "You feel like a machine to me, too." "You might try caressing me." "What a grind... (PICTURE)" "There's nothing sexy in our love-making." "If there were" "you wouldn't want to come into me." "Let's focus on bodies not genitals." "But you intimidate my body, I have to plan every movement I make." "You turned me on my cock needed room, I had to keep it from getting jammed between us." "It's as simple as that." "I feel like a martyr." "For thousands of years women accepted normal sex." "And now bang!" "That's all over, sex is some place else." "And that's when I had to be born." "It's unfair!" "I couldn't enjoy those thousands of years when billions of men had normal sex." "Life is laughing at me." "I'm the First Victim." "The sexes and their pleasure used to seem complementary." "That was a beautiful ideal like the triangle, the Omega or the circle." "And now it's all gone." "And my kicks are all gone too." "The things you say are an awful anomaly to me." "Like the appendix." "How can we reproduce if one partner doesn't get off doing it?" "We'd be extinct before we even realised it." "At one point there you really hurt me." "This thing's making me dizzy, like a nightmare." "Poor baby, I feel sorry for you." "After each time now I feel my balls to see if they're still there." "Surreptitiously, so you won't worry." "I bet you never noticed." "If you had noticed, you'd have questioned me and gotten even more worried." "You can't imagine what that fear's like." "A cock isn't meant to be out in the open." "You know one solution for your cock would be to cut it off." "... the first time in a film." "Right, it's never been done before." "But a detail can make all the difference." "A film seems good in given circumstances." "20 years later it can seem bad (or good)." "Haven't you noticed that?" "But what about the men in women's roles?" "The women were played by men?" "Well, now I'm a little mixed up." "My impression was a confusion of sexes l couldn't tell the men from the women." "The confusion's in your head... ln westerns women are always men's images of women." "So this film goes all the way:" "men play woman!" "But that's all in your head, what counts is the result." "There's an effect of strangeness, but that idea doesn't come across." "You're a man." "It wasn't made for..." "What do you mean "l'm a man?"" "The film is for women." "Well, anybody can see it, and when I see it it doesn't mean what you say." "A few men can get into it, but right now it's mostly for women." "Then what's the point?" "What women need to do is convince men to think in their terms." "Why should you preach to each other?" "Because we're still looking for our identity." "Well, sure..." "So am I." "But you can't do that by cutting yourselves off." "Men have to get into it too." "In my opinion, the film fails to communicate." "Some men do get into it." "You can't, so work on it." "Just drifting?" "Oh, no." "I quit my job." "But I've been painting my room, hanging curtains..." "Feeling freer?" "A little. I'm trying." " Ever been to the Mosque?" " No." "A girlfriend took me there last week." "(PICTURE)" "(PICTURE)" "There's a bath-house with a big room" "(PICTURE) where the women lie around on couches drinking tea." "But first you bathe, in a series of rooms, each hotter than the last with cold showers in between." "It's great." "(PICTURE)" "Every day?" "There are days for women and days for men." "I'd like to go sometime." "(PICTURE)" "What are you into now?" " Same old thing." "Luckily I've got some bread left." "Gives me time to think things over." "You're not going away?" "I've had travelling..." "After May '68 I went to Acapulco, an awful place, with big American hotels." "That's not what you usually hear." "It's awful." "Anyway, I met this American, a sci-fi writer shaved head and all that driving off to take pictures of Indians." "I had an address from friends in Mexico City, way down on the coast, in the palm-groves." "So I went down there with this guy and took him to see this Indian family." "All these Indians were sitting around in huts, drinking." "My contact's name was Tako." "There was this fantastic lake..." "And Tako called his son and told him to take us out to an island." "So we went along, but I hardly knew this guy." "And he didn't know me, either." "So this kid took us out on the lake and we came to this island." "He took us to a hut with three hammocks in it two big ones and one little one." "So this guy and I, who didn't know each other found ourselves in a hut with three hammocks." "We had a choice:" "either live like Indians or get out of there." "(PICTURE)" "The whole thing had gotten out of hand." "Well, we behaved like cowards." "We told the Indians we had some shopping to do, we hadn't expected such hospitality." "We offered to get anything they needed." "They asked for some vegetables." "And we split in the guy's Mercedes." "He left me in Acapulco and I never saw him again." "So since then I'm not such a traveller." "Then I tried to do something in Paris." "But now I'm fed up." "Why?" "I've been trying to teach... but it's a drag." "I was sick of all this sex business, after all there were other things in life:" "hot baths, Jodorowsky movies, candy, hiking," "But I couldn't forget," "Hard work was the only answer," "Internal Revenue Dept. speaking." " He's in Katmandu." " In Katmandu?" "Well, good hiking!" "That was mean of you." "My heart... I'm OK." "And you?" "I quit my job." "I couldn't take anymore." "I've some bread left." "I'm pretty free." "Are you busy tomorrow?" "I'm going to the country for some fresh air." "That's a great idea." "9:10 at Luxembourg Station." "Bye." "I was beginning to miss her," "Being with her was better than being alone, even if we didn't do anything," "and I wanted to prove I didn't just want to fuck," "for the first time I felt easy with him ," "We related better than we did talking or fucking," "He seemed less alienated by his work," "He let go, He didn't have to be in control all the time," "He seemed closer to me able to understand me," "It'd be nice to be together like this, but you're so obsessed with sex," "you always put out bad vibes." "I'd like us just to stay friends." "That's kind of artificial, no?" "You're right, in away." "You turn me on and I'd like to pretend you don't." "It'd be so fake!" "I'd rather we didn't see each other at all." "If you like, I'm willing to try it again." "We blew it last time it's sure to happen again." "It's too hard." "I feel like I were taking an exam." "I'll whisper the answers." "(PICTURE)" "This time, we had better sex and we decided to go back to the country again," "The first time, everything I saw got mixed up with my thoughts," "Today I was able to see what was around me," "I thought you were broke." "I've never been so broke that's why we're here." "Didn't you notice they take credit cards?" "That won't get you very far." "Gives me six weeks to pay." "When I sell my film, we'll buy a big bed." "I feel good here." "I'm a little high from the wine." "I know what you want." "You don't mind?" "Hypocrite!" "Ah, it's been such a long time!" "I'd forgotten what it was like." "I can feel you all around me." "(PICTURE)" "I can hear a car going down the freeway." "I didn't hear them before." "(PICTURE) lt's always like this when I get off." "I seem to hear things for the first time." "You hear the tires?" "I don't hear a thing." "That truck climbing the grade, must make an awful noise" "but when I hear it now it's very deep." "It seems to come from another world." "Right now, I'm sure that if I heard a buzz-saw or a milkman or a jet or Mireille Mathieu they'd sound great." "Ever heard an ambulance right after you came?" "(PICTURE) I feel empty, it's great, I can stop thinking." "The azaleas are climbing..." "What a drag!" "I got off, I was really into it, and all you think of is getting up to wash!" "You make me feel I'm exploiting you." "It's castrating!" "I'm not up in the clouds, I didn't come." "We hardly ever fuck like that." "So when I come into you, I'm too sensitized." "I can't hold back." "I'm sleepy." "Now I was afraid of waking her, I felt ashamed: another fuck-up," "I feel you're doing me a favour, so I don't get off." "is that what I feel?" "Let me think it over." "I think you're running the show." "Coming into you, I don't feel like a man any more." "And I'm afraid you won't get off." "But now I can get off without coming into you and the anxiety over failure is gone." "I'd like to write," "about this relationship, but I can't," "all can do is think about it, I'm out of the habit of writing," "I come across words I don't use anymore," "I feel shackled by them," "Two years ago, I still had ambitions," "I looked for permanent, satisfying work which could gain me recognition," "I neglected sex," "Gradually all my ambitions collapsed," "I no longer have a goal in life, ln all my time with pleasurable activities," "My days are busy... and empty," "The entire worlds around me are unconnected," "I'm less ready to compromise," "I feel freer but sadder," "I'm afraid of being alone," "I have a better idea of what I want out of a relationship," "When it doesn't work I know the reasons why, for a while I thought I'd made some headway," "Now I have the feeling my role is passive again, as monotonous and ambiguous as ever," "I'm resigned to a quiet relationship with a person who listens but doesn't understand," "Often I imagine I've gotten through to him but then something he'll say tells me I haven't," "Do we communicate about anything?" "Yes, movies," "Our relationship hides behind movies," "(PICTURE)" "We always have something to talk about," "Aren't you finished yet?" "You know my period's late?" "Don't worry, I'm sure of my calculations." "We haven't done much that could make it late." "I don't trust calculations." "Bad arithmetic is why most babies are born." "Mine is perfect." "And if you took the pill, we could fuck anytime." "That sounds familiar." "Why should I take it?" "You're the one who digs vaginal sex!" "I'm going to stay here tonight." "We'll check your arithmetic with a P-Test." "I've checked, don't worry." "It's revolting!" "You always say that." "Do you really eat out of these plates?" "Yesterday, I cleaned the whole place." "You could at least admit it's filthy." "Don't be so finicky." "Oh sure, I'm finicky." "You could live in shit and never notice!" "Keep at least two!" "There's something I don't understand." "When it's twins are there two brown rings?" "When my welfare check comes, I'll buy you a bike." "Here, pick one out." "(PICTURE)" "Or else we'll go to America." "Right here, the altitude's 18 OOO ft." "It'll be very good for you." "I didn't have to pick up this film today but it was an excuse to get out of the bath and avoid waiting for the test result," "She had me worried, film-cans and sewer-holes are the same shape," "This always frightens me," "I knew that if I made detours or walked slowly, I'd arrive home just when the test was done," "I can't understand it." "incredible!" "You don't realize how awful this is for me." "Plenty of girls get pregnant by accident, but at least they enjoyed the sex." "I not only don't want a baby, I didn't even get off!" "This is insane, none of this is me!" "I'd like to plug myself up." "I wouldn't mind having at least one baby." "I make movies - not very often." "But I'd like to create a real person for once." "Compared with other people, I feel I'm late." "And it would be good for me, it would be a big change from my work." "And I'm sure I'd make a good father." "I don't think so." "You play along with this competitive society." "A kid would be a way for you to keep up." "You only think you're outside the system." "I don't want one." "I wouldn't know what to say to it." "Anyway, you're suggesting I keep it" "just to make sure I don't want it." "You want me to take the responsibility alone." "OK, I'll take care of it by myself." "You mustn't think that!" "I'll raise the bread." "I'll juggle my bank accounts." "(PICTURE)" "Maybe I can't produce films and babies at the same time." "Meet me at 3:10 at Sèvres-Babylone." "Hi." "This is for you." "Let me carry your bag." "Where is it?" " This way." "No, this way, trust my sense of direction." "We're early." "It's closed." "Let's have a drink while we wait." "No, look, I can't stand having you around." "I keep tying to see this as our problem, but ultimately it's mine." "Go away!" "You're just trying to make me feel guilty." "You're acting as if I'd let you down." "I'm pregnant and you're complaining." "Go home!" "It's all set." "I arrive Thursday from London by bus." "Meet me at St. Lazare." "an unexpected check, I should've jumped for joy, I was too surprised," "But soon I was feeling elated," "2 Ibs. of peaches," "4 Ibs. of bananas another head of lettuce..." "6 Ibs. of tomatoes." "How'd it go?" "OK, but it was rough." "Did you wait long?" "A bit." "Why were you so late?" "(PICTURE)" "The bus company screwed us." "There were forty of us, country girls, factory girls, thirteen-year-olds and women in their forties." "Some were going to be sterilized." "(PICTURE)" "So we got to London and they took us straight to a fancy nursing-home." "First, they gave us the third degree:" "who was the father?" "Why didn't we want it?" "Then we filled out a form." "Then they put a piece of cloth over our legs" "and checked to see if the operation was possible." "Then they put us under." "We had pink rooms with radios." "Five o'clock tea..." "They asked us if we wanted to go sight-seeing, or shopping." "Shopping, yes, sight-seeing, no." "We came through a park and a man said:" ""The bus is over behind those bushes."" "We got in and it was the same driver." "He didn't know how to drive on the left." "We got stuck in traffic, there was a crash." "Later the brakes began to fail." "We had to push the bus off the ferry." "Then we got to Arras, the brakes gave out altogether." "We waited till 1 A.M." "Then another bus came to get us." "There were some great girls on that bus." "You're all dressed up, what's happened?" "Two days ago, I got notice that $ 14 OOO had been paid to my account for guns sold to Chili." "Great!" "You're selling guns to Chili now?" "Not me a guy who has the same name." "He got a degree in public affairs, did a lot of work with Biafra, Viet Nam... where else?" "Oh, yeah, Spain." "And now Chili." "He's rich." "He's got a good government job." "Anyway, now that bank employees are demanding higher wages, they're replaced by computers." "And computers make more mistakes than people." "Errors have increased by 1500/o, I believe." "Still, the banks come out on top." "Computer errors cost less than extra people." "So this guy has the same name as me." "The address is different but the postal code is the same so the computer goofed and sent me the $ 14 OOO." "It really comes at the right time." "It's like the hand of God." "And I've been wondering about that." "I've had problems all my life and now this windfall comes along." "Why should God do me this favour when all my life has been going to dirt?" "And it isn't necessarily the Christian god." "He's so full of contradictions" "He must be Oriental or African or something." "So I went to look Him up in the library, but I didn't find Him." "And in a way, I'm glad I didn't." "If I had, it would have been a problem for me, because I'm not religious." "But I found an explanation." "God never existed, of course but He did exist for the second it took to do me a favour by putting the ace on that computer." "And then He died and I got a haircut, had my bike repaired, paid my debts, bought a new pair of glasses, a suit, a shirt and here I am." "If you're so rich, I can take two years off." "Yeah, but then we'd be broke again." "So we've got to find another idea." "We could see this movie with just two actors, locked up in a single set for 72 hours." "I bet you'd rather see Ferreri's Harem." "I saw it." "There's always Cancer," "Or NightMale." "I thought you'd bug me after that, but no..." "Don't worry, I'm not letting you off so easy." "What'll that poor thing do without a burrow?" "We've got the makings of a great porn movie:" "the actors, the props, the place, the bread..." "Porn is the only thing going now." "At least we wouldn't starve." "(PICTURE) lt wouldn't cost much, either." "And it would be a useful film." "It would show us exactly where we're at." "Remember what it was like at that inn?" "Don't you remember?" "(PICTURE) I've got a feeling we're being filmed already." "You're doing it for the camera, not for me." "You know that's not what I want." " This is how it was!" "Stop it, will you!" "Cut!" "I can't accept that ending." "It really spoils the film's whole statement." "You make the girl seem a masochist." "We need another ending." "I agree with the co-director, it's no good the way it is." "I don't agree, I think it's a beautiful ending." "It's strong." "It gives the film a circular form." "And there's something tragic about it." "This guy who can't fuck the way he wants and has to use this subterfuge," "has to make a film to fuck the way he wants." "It's Shakespearian." "Sure, but you're saying "he."" "It's you, isn't it?" "Why this split?" "It's not the problem, he's the character." "It doesn't matter whether it's "he" or "l."" "Give me your personal reasons and your reasons in terms of the film." "(PICTURE)" "Well, let me think it over." "Read the script." "It's a good ending." "You may think so, but we can't leave it at that." "Maybe it's a phase in your life and in the film, but we're going on." "Maybe you want to stop there, but we don't." "You'd better explain that, I don't get it." "Anyway, anything we're talking about now is cancelled out by fictional reality." "That's why this shot is interesting." "We carry on the reality of the story as much as we do the illusion of reality, which you try to achieve." "But why didn't you play yourself?" "Yes... I realize I made a mistake there." "I recited on one level acted on another." "It was mostly out of phase, but that seemed OK to me." "I don't see why film actors should always be expected to convey an illusion of reality." "After all, reality itself... reality is just in our heads." "If it's not experienced, it's just words." "And there are shots in which you admit there's something over didactic about it." "But the girl is didactic in the film." "That's normal She's a teacher." "That's not the reason!" "Ridiculous!" "That's not the reason." "She can only reach him with words." "But if you grasp what's underneath, it's not didactic." "There are silences which carry a lot of weight" " lacking in some shots however - and which raises things to the level of sensibility." "No, the problem is that living reality doesn't end." "It just goes on, and that's a drag, because it's nice to have a definite ending." "Maybe it's a commercial principle or a principle of communication, but I've always felt a need to end a film on a strong note." "I've always planned endings for my films before the beginnings or even the action." "So I'm a little frustrated." "Then you'll be frustrated when you die, because you'll expect a strong ending." "I've never thought of that." "I disagree technically with what follows," "The cameraman didn't consult us," "You'll be very tired." "I hope I'll be unconscious." "That way, I won't realize." "I think you caught that drama bug somewhere, either going to the movies or..." "That's right, the movies." "It's a basic part of civilization." "I was interested in bringing it into a story handled in a new way, especially one based on sex." "Yes, but it's historically limited." "It's not necessarily the last word in..." "What bothers me is that the audience will think this is all ad lib when actually we have spent two days working it out." "What difference does it make whether it's planned or spontaneous?" "Either way, it takes us back to fictional reality." "There is no other reality." "Antoinette aren't you coming into the shot?" "No, I'm OK for the moment." "Cut." "Why are you cutting?" "Don't cut!" "I don't think we have anything more to say." "We have nothing to say now." "Why don't you say so?" " l just did." "Subtitles by Noel Burch" "Processed by B.B. COM" " Paris"