"This is the story of a ghost," "Arthur Cravan, the poet and boxer who disappeared in 1916 in the Gulf of Mexico." "No one ever knew what became of him." "It's the story of a ghost." "It's my story." "My travel log begins here, in Lausanne, where Cravan was born over a century ago." "There's no monument here to commemorate him." "However, this exhibition is intended to celebrate his memory." "But, what memory?" "What can these people know about Cravan?" "Cravan was one of the most interesting poets of the 20th centuty." "He was a boxer, that's true, but isn't it surprising that he was a poet?" "A boxer, a writer..." "He's vety much an unrecognized poet." "But he was one of the driving forces of Dadaism, of Surrealism and of performance." "I think he was some relative, a nephew, perhaps, or a cousin of Oscar Wilde." "It seems like he was something of... an anachronism in his time." "You don't know if it's more surprising that he was a boxer or a poet." "He didn't live... vety long." "I believe he died in rather strange circumstances." "I don't know." "He went swimming and disappeared." "Really?" "Yes!" "It's fantastic!" "Maybe we should have read some of his stuff." "I'm surprised, there are lots of people here." "Where are the petits fours?" "This is my third glass of champagne!" "One doesn't know if it's because he was a boxer or because he was a poet." "I still prefer the Impressionists." "Modigliani?" "Yes." "It's vety strange." "Im not surprised Cravan left here as soon as he could." "Excuse me, sir." "I'm looking for Arthur Cravan's house." "Whose house?" "Arthur Cravan's." "And here..." "We have Mr. Oscar Wilde." "His tomb was paid for by a female admirer and built in 1901." "But when it was built in 1901, the statue wasn't broken." "Now, as you can see here..." "There's nothing left." "In 1901, there was a beautiful monument here, and morons, homosexuals and nymphomaniacs were always crawling up on top and getting it on with the statue." "In 1910, the cemetety decided to remove the object of ecstasy and it's now a paper weight on the director's desk." "Both sexes climbed up?" "Yes." "It is lovely." "Not just girls?" "No..." "What was Oscar Wilde?" "He was a homosexual." "There are girls who like it from behind." "And there are the gays." "They've forgotten what he had between his legs." "And after 9 years they took it away." "And now, do people still...?" "They just look at it, it's all they can do." "I was looking for someone who could give me some information." "I heard about Cravan and I wanted to get some specific information, some more details." "Yes, I've done a bit of research on Cravan's life." "It isn't that I'm an expert, but I've translated several literaty works by people of that time, by artistes, and gradually" "I came to like him as a person." "I'm fascinated by him." "But I don't know if I'll be able to help you." "What would you like to know?" "I'd like to know when he came here." "To Paris?" "Yes." "He came to Paris in 1909." "He was drawn here by the literaty world and by all that was starting to happen at that time in Paris." "So he was looking for adventure?" "Yes, that's it exactly." "He was a born adventurer." "When he arrived in Paris he didn't waste any time." "The first thing he did was visit, one by one, the members of the French Academy." "I think he must have done some kind of survey and he went to the home of each one." "He was serious about it." "He went to see them personally to introduce himself as a writer." "I can just imagine the expression on those men's faces, because writers were vety stiff then." "In fact, I think they still are today." "He was a colorful character." "He was well built too, but vety colorful." "Whether he was on the streets of Paris, in Montparnasse or mingling with the painters and writers of the time, he was vety provocative." "Everything that could shock or help to make him well known was welcome, and that was what he wanted." "Good morning." "Pleased to meet you." "Frank Nicotra." "My pleasure." "He really was a poet, without a doubt." "And as I said earlier, he was certainly a forerunner in behavioralism, but he was also a forerunner because of the style of his writing." "I'd like to see what you're writing." "I must say, his texts are vety..." "vety dense, and really... vety daring for the time." "From time to time, editors ask me to bring out a book." "Maybe we could do one together." "That would be a pleasure." "I write novels." "Yes, novels, and poetty too." "Yes, I tty." "He'd just turned 21, so he'd come of age, and since he'd arrived he'd been causing havoc, because he was quite something." "He was vety well built." "He was..." "He was over six feet tall." "Women said he was better looking than Modigliani, and a bit more disturbing, so he must have been interesting." "What's more, he loved to attract attention." "He loved making a fuss, causing a scandal." "He'd go out in the evenings with his friends, people like Blaise Cendrars." "Do you think he came here, to La Closerie?" "He came here." "Yes, he came here." "It was one of their meeting places." "And over there as well, on the corner." "Le Bal..." "Le Bal Bullier." "The original one burned down and it was rebuilt with the same name." "At Le Bal Bullier, Cendrars," "Delaunay, who was a painter, and Cravan were a threesome." "And they really lived it up!" "They'd dress in an outrageous way, with unmatching shoes, dinner jackets that were half green, half red." "You know, sheer provocation." "Cravan was... a bit of a dandy and he loved to dress like that." "He'd wear the tail of his shirt hanging over his trousers and his shirt, which would be black, would be open to show off the tattoos and the obscene writings on his skin." "Oh, yes!" "And they made all that fashionable." "The Futurists copied it quite soon afterwards." "People copied it in Italy, in Russia." "They set the fashion." "They did that because it was the theoty, and later the practice too, that scandal was a way of rocking society, and of changing the structures." "So he was a bit of a brawler." "Maybe that's why he liked boxing." "I think so, yes." "They go together, of course." "And he'd hit people too, when the three of them went out partying." "17 fights, 17 victories, 10 before the final bell." "25 next month, the great hope in the light heavyweight categoty, still unbeaten after 17 fights." "He'd already started to do some boxing in London, but it was in France, in Paris, that he started taking it seriously." "I think it was in his temperament." "He trained hard as a boxer and I think that he wanted to succeed at this sport." "Both he and his brother Otho boxed." "not for vety long, intensely, but for a short period of time." "You box too, don't you?" "Or so I believe." "Not any more." "I used to." "You used to?" "How did you start?" "What made you do it?" "I think you'd need a special motivation." "It's a bit complicated." "It's a kind of a personal thing, but I started boxing vety early, when I was 11." "You're not serious?" "That's interesting." "But this isn't about me." "No, but it's odd." "In fact, the similarities with Cravan are boxing and writing." "And writing with boxing." "Because the truth is" "I've always loved writing, and I've written some poems too, and when, one day, someone told me about a poet who loved boxing and who'd been a boxer, I tried to find out who it was." "That's why we're meeting now." "I think the great provocation was that there's nothing more extraordinaty, not conflicting or antagonistic, but further apart and more crazy than a boxer and a poet." "You have an idea of the boxer, an idea of the romantic poet in the cemetety, his true love weeping, tubercular..." "And he overturns that image." "He becomes a boxer poet." "I find that vety beautiful because that's where you have true provocation." "He called himself a poet and boxer." "The review he edited, "Maintenant", called one of his poems "Poet and boxer"." "And he really took boxing vety seriously" "I mean that he had fights." "And, undoubtedly, he was also a poet." "I'm vety touched when a boxer is interested in art or in literature." "It touches me deeply because I think he's someone who has come through a tough experience but has also widened his point of view." "It's a bit like your case which interests me vety much." "You have an experience which a poet can't have." "That solitude which says so much about, for example, the condition of a painter today, or a poet or a writer." "I'm sure that what I like so much about boxing is that victoty is already announcing defeat." "You can already see a trace of the melancholy of defeat in the victor." "It's hard to get to the top." "But it's even harder at the top." "That's Cravan's apartment." "He lived there for a while." "Number 29?" "29, Avenue de l'Observatoire." "I love the number 29." "I always bet on it at the casino." "You're joking, right?" "No." "I didn't knowthat you bet." "I do a lot of things you don't know about." "Yeah." "Well, Craven used to come here, to the race track, to sell his reviews." "You know, at that time, there were a lot of reviews, a lot of literaty magazines in which people defended their ideas." "It was the time of all the -isms." "But Cravan was the only one who had a reviewjust for himself." "He wrote all the articles under lots of different names." "That reminds me of a phrase, a verse, that he wrote." "He said: "I am all things, all men, all animals."" "But he wasn't unknown, because it became the strangest, oddest review in all of the Latin quarter." "Evetyone knew it, and I'm not surprised." "He covered the Blvd." "San Michel with posters and had sandwich men in the streets." "A lot of publicity." "Right." "He wanted to sell his review at any price." "He came here with a little wheelbarrow, or a trolley, something to transport his reviews." "He can't have sold many." "I think that, even if he didn't sell many, he must have given some away because he had a list of evetyone who received his review, and it includes André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein," "Maurice Ravel, Ezra Pound and the painter Van Dongen, his best friend." "In his address book, you'll find the names of all the artistes of that time." "Composers like Debussy, famous painters of the time like Delaunay, Van Dongen and many others." "All the people to whom he must have sent a copy of his review in order to publicize it, and many writers too." "In his review, where the texts are signed by pseudonyms but were all written by him, you find poems, you find a criticism of the "Salon des Indépendants", you find a visit, true or false," "that he paid to André Gide and also evocations of his uncle, Oscar Wilde, for whom he felt a great admiration." "He promoted mechanization, praising trains, liners, electricity, everything that arrived along with what would be the centuty of the machine, and perhaps he coincided there with the Futurists' attitude." "There's something he used to say:" ""In order to live and to write, you have to be like a wild horse."" "The sentences, the words, collide against each other with an unbelievable modernity." "The Futurists were fascinated by speed, by aviation." "It was a world, at that time, of mixing art with important things in life." "Strength, for example, or speed." "Let's look at this obituaty of Kees Van Dongen." "It's all that's left." "He was his best friend." "We may find something." "Kees Van Dongen, one of the most important Fauvist painters, died this week at the age of 91." "Van Dongen lived in his home in Monte Carlo, nostalgically named "Le Bateau Lavoir', and surrounded by his dearest mementoes." "Stop, stop." "Rewind." "You see?" "That painting, it's of Cravan." "In Paris, Van Dongen was Cravan's best friend." "They always hung out together." "And really Van Dongen devoted more time to his social life and to partying than to painting." "He'd organize tremendous fancy dress parties in his studio, attended by all of Paris." "Van Dongen loved to organize balls, competitions, boxing matches..." "And Cravan was in his element, surrounded by all the artistes of the time." "One of them, for example, was Gino Severini, an Italian Futurist." "The day they met, Severini was giving a lecture." "It was a huge scandal and the audience ended up fighting and wanting to lynch him." "Fortunately, Cravan was there, he jumped up on the stage and he saved the other's life with his fists." "Severini was so grateful he painted his portrait." "Soon, other painters and artistes became fascinated by Cravan and some of them painted his portrait." "I was looking for the painters who painted Cravan, but you painted him too," "I painted him." "I painted him a lot." "But what I did wasn't exactly painting." "It was a series of sketches that I made, which amused me greatly, of the state the poet was left in after he'd been boxing." "So it's a bruised head, the head of someone who has just been fighting." "I enjoyed taking the poet and putting him in the world of boxing, in the world of this boxer's head." "It can happen, after a fight, you see the painting of the fight..." "And yes, I made quite a few sketches." "It's amazing when you see all of Craven's portraits together." "It's like a little resume of avant-garde painting:" "Impressionism, Fauvism, Futurism..." "There's almost a painting in each style." "What exactly happened at the "Salon des Indépendants"?" "There was a scandal, I believe." "Yes, the thing was he spoke out vety clearly about what he didn't like and he caused a great scandal because his criticisms were caustic." "He was insulting." "Even today, perhaps, he would have ended up in court, you know." "It was all vety..." "Vety violent." "It's hard to imagine today what it was like in those days." "They fought over their ideas, but they fought physically." "When I came to Paris in 1958, there were gangs, like neighborhood gangs." "Noisistes, Abstractionists, Figuratives." "And it must have been even harder around 1900, when Cravan was active, than it is today." "This is vety important." "More important than the "Salon des Indépendants"." "No, it's different but it's a bit similar." "There's something I'd like you to see." "It's this, a lovely sketch by Malevitch." "And I must say... that Cravan wasn't vety fond of him." "He was one of his bêtes noires." "There are criticisms of Malevitch in the Salon des Indépendants, as well as of Chagall." "He called him " jackal"" "He wasn't an easy person and he said what he thought." "I like him vety much." "He is perhaps the greatest figure of the time, of Russian painting." "But I think that Cravan was against him." ""Why, if I'm contemptuous of painting, do I review it?" "Vety simple." "It's to drive my colleagues wild." "And my pen can help me pass for a connoisseur, because no more than two intelligent people will visit the Salon." "Seen from outside, I like it." "But it'll be filled with lousy artistes." "Soon you'll only see artistes in the street and it'll be hard to find a man." "False Cézannes, Gauguins, Maurice Denis." "I'd give them all a kick on the ass!" "Maurice Denis is equally unaware of fine living and dirty feet." "I don't find it daring to paint an acrobat or a turd." "However, a rose painted with innovation is much more devilish." "Hayden, I'd rather sit under water than in front of this painting." "I'd feel less suffocated." "Chamier, a nothing." "Frost, nothing." "Run through the fields, race across the plains, and, when you're six years old, you won't know any more." "Metzinger, a failure grabbing on to cubism." "Malevitch, a sham." "Cara or Boccioni, nonentities." "Hagin, sad, sad." "Peské, rotten!" "Deltombe, an asshole!" "Aurora Folquer, get lost!" "Puech, the pink rose, shut up." "It isn't that I'm prejudiced against Cubism." "I prefer the eccentricities of a banal spirit to the dullness of a bourgeois idiot." "Delauney went wrong." "If you can be a brute, remain like one." "It's obvious I prefer a large St. Bernard to Miss Faufreluche, a yellowto a white, a black to a yellow, a black boxer to a black student." "Painting is walking, running, drinking, eating, relieving oneself." "You may say I'm disgusting, but it's all that." "I'll say it for once and for all:" "I will not be civilized."" "What connection did Arthur Cravan have, though Dadaism, with you circus people?" "He toured with a circus in the U.S." "He toured with a circus and he was a boxer." "He did a boxing routine?" "Yes." "In a circus?" "Yes." "Pierre works in a company called..." "Go on, tell him." "I work in a company called Délice Dada, and it does street theater, a bit like the circus, and we use Surrealist and Dadaist techniques." "to write the shows." "I heard about Cravan." "Then I looked for information about him and found nothing." "Not even in the encyclopedia?" "Not a mention of Cravan." "You told me about a Dada manifesto." "The Surrealists also said that the circus arts were superior to the traditional arts." "That's right." "Cravan said that the circus arts, athletes, homosexuals..." "Lunatics." "Lunatics, the Louvre thieves, were superior to artistes." "All in together!" "So do you know about the lectures that Cravan gave?" "Cravan's lectures were a real theatrical spectacle." "It was vety newfor the time." "You could even say they were the first "happenings"." "But do you really think Cravan had something to say?" "Yes, but Cravan said that, artistically at least, you had to change the method, take the theaters by storm and bring the punch into the artistic struggle." "Nice, isn't it?" "But he didn't propose" "a new method." "Yes, the punch!" "And in his lectures, he did just that." "He'd arrive drunk, he'd get undressed..." "He'd do a striptease." "I love that." "No, really." "It's great." "It doesn't happen now." "Men don't give lectures and undress." "I'd go if they did!" "He did three." "One in 1913, one in June 1914, and one earlier when he didn't turn up at all." "He didn't turn up?" "No." "He was in a bar." "He was drunk." "He started to fight with his brother, and his mother wrote that she was afraid for Otho, his brother, because Arthur was much stronger." "But Otho was much faster." "A good mother." "You know about the dodge with the posthumous works?" "No." "Yes, you do!" "Oh, yes, yes!" "He wrote..." "He pretended he was dead." "No, he wanted to do that." "That's right." "I read that he wrote to his mother saying: "I'm coming," "I'm going to die, I'm going to pretend to be dead..."" ""Don't tell anyone." "I'm going to hide at your house."" "He found a way to become famous vety quickly." "And then he said:" ""No one has ever had this brilliant idea." "I'll write my posthumous works." "I'll pretend to be dead."" "But he never did it." "It was a good strategy." "And he organized huge publicity for his lectures, didn't he?" "Yes, yes, he did a lot of promotion." "He dressed as a sandwich man, he walked up and down the streets, he announced his lectures." "There were a lot of people, who thought, who were looking for independent ideas." "Come and see the poet" "Arthur Cravan." "Cravan, boxing champion." "Oscar Wilde's nephew." "Weight: 125 kilos." "Height: 2 meters." "A brutal critic." "He'll talk." "He'll box." "He'll dance." "The new boxing dance." "The vety box." "Another eccentric act." "Black, Boxer and Dancer." "But it's funny when you read about his striptease." "People were scandalized because he took off his detachable collar and put a handkerchief around his neck." "He took off his jacket." "At the time, it was a scandal." "He was so provocative that on one occasion he was sentenced to a week in prison." "It was Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet, who felt offended." "He wanted to challenge Cravan to a duel." "Yes." "It seems they exchanged serious insults and, in the end," "Cravan decided to apologize." "In his own way, of course." "He said that Apollinaire had a big stomach, that he was more like a rhinoceros than a giraffe, more like a vulture than a stork, and the funniest thing was" "Apollinaire accepted his apologies and forgot about the duel." "And he'd throwthings at the public." "Didn't you get hit on the head?" "Yes, I did, a lot." "Long live the lunatics!" "Down with artistes!" "Down with painters!" "Picasso, thief!" "Picasso, thief!" "Dali, fascist!" "Then, when he'd insulted evetyone and thrown things at the audience, finally the audience started to fight." "They attacked him." "His friends gathered around him." "The police arrived with their handcuffs, to catch him, and then he started practicing his art, his art of boxing." "Frank Nicotra is ready for this match which is the most important in his career." "Frank Nicotra who is going to attempt to become" "European champion in this categoty." "And here is the champion," "James Cook." "He's going to defend his title for the third time." "Nicotra is an intelligent boxer, but he isn't the favorite tonight as he's never had an opponent as tough as James Cook." "The first blows in this European championship." "Oh!" "What a right!" "He started with a tremendous right!" "James Cook is in trouble." "He undoubtedly felt that blow." "And a second one!" "James Cook's holding up as best he can." "It's almost a knockout." "Nicotra has exploded." "A terrific start by the Frenchman." "Another right!" "And it's a knockout." "It's a knockout." "It's over, it's over." "A knockout." "It's over." "After half a minute of fighting," "Frank Nicotra is the European champion!" "Cravan wrote that he wanted to fill his gloves with women's curls." "I don't know what he meant by that, but I'm sure that, like all boxers, he must have known that no matter howfast you are, there's always someone faster, and we should always fear our opponent," "as it's the best way to forget the fear aroused by death." "Cravan was a multiple character, and among his many occupations he was also a painter under the name of Edouard Archinard." "That's a painting that was done by him in 1914." "It was painted in Nice." "I think that the person looking at us is the famous Renée with whom he was living at the time." "Here is an example of a picture painted by Archinard, and signed, which shows Miss Renée who was his fiancée at the time." "It was exhibited in 1914 in the Galerie Bernheim Jeune." "I found these pictures, these four canvases, signed by Edouard Archinard." "I was puzzled because I found them vety interesting." "So I went around all the museums to see if I could find any Edouard Archinards, but I found nothing." "And, in fact..." "Then, it so happened that in 1977," "Cravan's review, "Maintenant", was re-edited with a preface by Maria Luisa Borras, explaining that all the texts in the six issues of "Maintenant"" "were actually all by Arthur Cravan." "And in one of the issues was a text, a poem, signed Edouard Archinard." "Obviously I made the immediate connection between Cravan and the canvases I'd seen." "The question of Archinard is a vety difficult one." "I have to explain how I work." "A researcher can work in many ways." "I get a feeling." "I think:" "It must be like this." "And I don't stop until I prove it with documents." "I never felt that these paintings were by Cravan." "One of the pseudonyms in the review "Maintenant"" "is Edouard Archinard." "The paintings are signed by Edouard Archinard." "There's evety chance that it's the same person." "There was an exhibition by a painter called Archinard, and Heidsieck inherited that gallety's entire collection." "It includes this painting signed Archinard." "As there is a text in "Maintenant" signed Archinard, they said:" "It's Cravan." "In the poem "Des paroles", signed Edouard Archinard, he says at one point:" ""Remain a mystety." "Rather than being pure accept that you are many." That's a way of saying:" ""You have to be several people at once", which he was." "But in "Maintenant"" "there is also a text by Lajeunesse, someone who is well known, a writer, a caricaturist, who is perfectly documented." "Just because we can't document Archinard doesn't make me say he's Cravan." "Bénédicte names Edouard Archinard, a painter who'd have disappeared in the 1914 war." "Cravan disappeared when he went to Barcelona in 1917 and then to the United States." "You have that famous crticisim he wrote of the Salon de Paris in which he says that all those painters were just frauds and weren't in their time." "But you can hate other painters and still paint as an amateur, in my opinion." "He criticizes painting." "If it were even a painting done from the gut," "I'd say:" Well, one day he painted." But it's a vety correct painting, an out-dated, pointillist painting, imitating a series of techniques from the past." "I believe that in "Maintenant" nº 2, he says: "I am a boxer, a poet, a painter."" "I can't see Cravan imitating an out-dated technique, imitating a Seurat or Dufy." "I just can't see it." "But if they prove it to me, I'll accept it." "At times you find a trace of the word "painter"" "in what he himself says." "Nevertheless, one time, in one of the letters he sent to his mother, he said:" ""Fortunately I'm not a painter"." "Yes, that's true." "I have a Cravan inside me, I can't help it." "And it isn't a Cravan who starts painting vety meticulously, aiming to present a work in the "Salon des Indépendants"." "There is additional evidence because recently" "I had in my hand the photocopy of a water color with a certificate, which belonged to Blaise Cendrars, certifying that he'd bought it from Arthur Cravan and it's signed Archinard." "It's one of the irrefutable proofs that Archinard was Cravan." "Many of the things which Cendrars wrote about Cravan are probably false." "He was a great writer, but often what he said had nothing to do with reality." "I ask myself a question about this portrait." "I say to myself: "Who other than Cravan could have painted it?"" "Yes, exactly, because there's such a resemblance between this lady and Miss Renée:" "the same hat, the same blouse, so I don't know who, unless he asked a friend to paint his fiancée." "But there are too many things." "Bear in mind that when you judge an era which has passed, all the people from that era are similar because they all have something in common." "So Renée, the real one whom we knowfrom photos, looks like many other people from that era." "She isn't cross-eyed, she doesn't have a defect by which you can say:" "That's Renée." "She's a normal person." "That is, it could be Renée, why not?" "But I don't think so." "Renée was the girlfriend of Haydn, a painter who was a friend of Cravan and who did a portrait of Cravan." "And while he was doing it..." "Well, I don't know, but after that," "Cravan went off with Renée, Renée went off with Cravan, and they lived together for seven years, so it was serious." "This girl, Renée, came from a little village in Morvan called Cravant, with a "t" at the end." "Cravan must have been a romantic at heart, capable of changing his name for love." "In fact, he had two wives and both were vety important in his life." "Renée and, later, Mina Loy, a poetess with whom he spent the last days of his life in Mexico." "I looked in an old copy of the French Academy dictionaty and found that "cravanter"" "used to mean "to hit"." ""Cravanter"?" "Yes, "cravanter"." "And then I also discovered that "cravan" is a water bird, and also a little mollusk which sticks to the keels of boats." "It's like a premonition of his disappearance in the Gulf of Mexico." "But his work is full of premonitions of his end." "But do you really believe that he died at sea?" "I don't know." "In fact, there's a phrase which says:" ""The first condition for being a poet is to know howto swim."" "His death raises a lot of questions." "Some people say they saw him setting out in a little boat in the Gulf of Mexico, and that he never came back from that adventure." "Others think that he was killed on the American-Mexican border, ttying to get into Mexico." "Like many things to do with Cravan, his death is a mystety, to such an extent that a French writer, Tony Cartano, wrote a novel, it's pure fiction, "Le bel Arturo"," "Arturo being Arthur Cravan." "It recounts how someone comes to tell his wife Mina Loy, in Paris where she has a gallety, that Cravan is still alive and is in Mexico." "She immediately takes a boat and leaves for Mexico and she finds him hanging around a boxing ring, you know, like his first love, but he's got amnesia." "She has found him again but he doesn't remember her." "He's there, but he's got no memoty." "And your personal opinion?" "My opinion?" "That's just a stoty, isn't it?" "But I've got no opinion, I couldn't say." "It remains a mystety, like many things to do with Cravan." "Who can show what doesn't have an image?" "How can you film someone who's disappeared?" "There's a short film made in Barcelona where he appears for two minutes." "He's in the final frames." "He no longer appears as the ghost forgotten by histoty, the silhouette already moving towards his disappearance." "But who, really, is this Arthur Cravan?" "War has broken out!" "Evety party is a war..." "When war broke out, I was in Budapest." "A steamer brought me to Belgrade, which was being bombarded by Austrian forces." "I escaped during a 4-hour truce called to allowforeigners to leave." "Then, I traveled through Rumania, Russia, Odessa and via the Black Sea to Constantinople." "In Athens, I beat the Olympic champion in 3 rounds." "Later, I want to Egypt, Cairo, Brindisi Italy, Marseille, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain and Barcelona." "Cravan arrived in Barcelona from Paris." "Really, he was following Van Dongen, who had told him about Barcelona." "What's more, he met up here with Otho Lloyd, his brother." "And they met a whole group of French people, artistes and intellectuals, who were what, in the 1914 war, were called "defetiste"." "Just as in the II World War you had to be involved, or else you were a "colabo", in France, in the 1914 war, collaborationism didn't exist." "It was simply fashionable to be "defetiste", to say: "I don't give a damn, I don't care about the war."" "So here, in Barcelona, word got around and there was a large colony of artistes." "They included Francis Picabia, the Delaunays," "Gleizes' wife, Juliette, Valentine de Saint-Point, a striking number of artistes." "Otho Lloyd, Cravan's brother, was an unsociable man." "He was an excellent photographer but he wanted to be a painter." "He had a meaningless, academic style of painting." "It was boring, no one wanted it." "As we were neighbors, I'd visit him because I was keen to know what had happened before." "I had never heard of Cravan, but what Otho explained to me about an unruly, horrible, wicked, perverse man, when he was the good one in the house, certainly caught my attention." "I'd always ask him about Cravan but he never really wanted to talk about him." "From what he didn't want to tell me," "I gradually extracted the stoty of Cravan." "Then he talked to me about the years in Barcelona during the First World War the '14-'19 war, when it was full of exiled painters and artistes, among them, Cravan." "He came with those artistes fleeing from World War I." "There was Olga Sacharoff and her brother who couldn't stand Arthur Cravan." "He crossed the Gulf of Mexico by boat." "Anyone can do that." "But he... swam from Hendaya to Fuenterrabia to cross the French-Spanish border." "That requires a boxer with good biceps and lungs." "Then on to Portugal, but when Portugal went to war he came here, and not through Marseille." "That trip Cravan took was... through here and all of Europe." "Yes, Eastern Europe, and Greece." "Fleeing throughout Europe because, actually... that boxing match in Greece was a bit suspicious as well." "He fought the Olympic champion... but it was never proven he beat him." "His winning isn't documented." "None of his fights are." "Not a single one." "A deserter who looks as fighter." "Cravan flees from the war." "Like evetyone." "Most of them are deserters... who got here by coincidence." "Here, like anywhere else... they found the dadaism of farmers and fishermen... and the innkeeper, on the one hand... and the performance environment of Barcelona... with the anarcos, the bombers." "The city of the bomb at the Opera... the first radical... performance." "The avant-garde begins with that bomb." "Yes, yes." "There was a female poet... called Juliette Gleizcs... who said Cravan was a coward." "Not a pacifist, but a coward deserter!" "Right?" "Cravan never admits that." "He's against the notion, not a deserter." "It's fine to be a coward and not want to defend any countty." "He hated being compared to Apollinaire... the poet who went to die at war." "While he fled." "Cummings went to jail for his dadaist letters thinking they were coded messages." "In East Germany, Valety Scherstjenoi... was followed by the communist police believing futuristic poems... were actually revolutionaty messages... as Artaud said." "He says: "You won't catch me at this or at that." "If you didn't in Fine Arts, you won't at war either."" "I rather doubt Cravan existed." "People say so much about him that he may not exist." "There are works signed by him... of Ribemont-Dessaignes and others." "From the "Dada" magazine... there are works of his when he navigated." "I'm fascinated about the curiosity for... someone who went so unnoticed." "The pantheon is packed with characters." "But we're obsessed with sticking Cravan in." "Those people exiled with Cravan... met on the beach." "They come to the hermitage... to the pine grove." "And the rocks and Cravan." "In summer or winter?" "In spring, judging by the pictures." "In Barcelona he lived in Gracia." "Nowthere's a convent of Clare nuns." "Of enclosed nuns." "Having Arthur Cravan being there... it was sanctified although... many parties were held there." "Parties that at times went a bit overboard." "Those enormous, beautiful rooms where they'd held big parties were far too big for us." "They were of no use so we gradually divided them up." "A kitchen, pantries, a recreation room and the chapel." "This is the only room of the tower which we have preserved." "There was a big room here which is where they had their parties, those parties that society had." "The friends would gather here and have the kind of parties which the jet set have now." "This was where they had their parties and their dances." "The only things still left of the tower are the large windows and this door." "This door is from the tower." "All these edges were painted in gold and they were beautiful, but the monks covered them up." "They were too luxurious for us." "People are vety fond of that gentleman!" "Was he such a famous poet?" "He died..." "before 1914." "You must remember him." "How can I?" "The tower was beautiful." "As children, we'd come in in single file and say: "A ghost will appear", or whatever." "We'd back up." "I didn't know this was so famous!" "No, not the house." "Those who lived here." "They've left their mark here." "I hope they didn't leave a ghost!" "I doubt it." "One that plays the piano at night." "Are you following other traces of him in Barcelona?" "Today I finally saw Arthur Cravan." "In Barcelona, he drew so much attention that the Baños brothers, the movie pioneers, filmed him while he was training." "Arthur Cravan resting at a boxing match." "He got up in public and challenged Johnson... who was there watching." "He was the world's champion then." "That was the beginning... of the stoty, because Johnson accepted." "This fight had created lot of excitement in Barcelona, because it had been mentioned in all the media." "There'd been a lot of publicity about this fight between the European champion, as Cravan was thought to be but he was only French champion, and the great boxer of that time, Jack Johnson." "Johnson was important, well-known then." "The first champion of the black race... in heavyweights." "It was a scandal in the U.S.A." "that a black man were champion, and Jack London... went against him, calling him a pimp." "And so... he had to leave the U.S.A." "When he got to Europe, there were... also strange things he had done." "He organized boxing demonstrations." "He got involved in music halls." "At that time, boxing involved... cabarets and nightclubs." "There were many here in Barcelona." "The Barri Xino, Paral.lel." "And then, suddenly, some boxers appeared who would give... demonstration boxing matches." "They liked to play pool, they went to some big pool halls." "Otho Lloyd played pool and they all said:" ""Otho Lloyd has a really weird brother." "His name's Cravan and he's a boxer."" "His friends were boxers, not artistes or intellectuals." "About a month before the fight... an order was... received from the British Government or British Embassy... saying that all British citizens... should go back home because of the war." "He said: "I've got to get money however I can... to get away from the war."" "And one way was the fight... with the great Jack Johnson." "We'll never know if it was nothing more than a dadaist act or if he was after the purse that was offered." "He falsely said he was European champ." "Here evetyone believed him and he wanted... to become the world champion." "When the world championship comes," "I'll be prepared morally and physically." "Most people were saying that Cravan was vety good... the best boxer to ever be in Barcelona." "But many other people said he was just a bluff." "Cravan told the press he was going to win." "They asked him if he had probabilities." "He said not probabilities, certainty." "When I get in the ring, I want to win, I want to be champion, because I feel I'm a champion, and I am one." "Like evetyone does..." "Cravan said he'd win and that he admired Johnson... considering him a great American, like..." "Allan Poe, Jefferson..." "Whitman and the day of the revolution..." "Johnson would be king of America... indisputable." "We knowthat Johnson shot an adventure film here... rescuing a princess removed from the throne of Catalonia." "But this film was also lost... although 2 minutes of it still exist." "An adventure film." "Perhaps a work of art of Catalonian films." "Cravan's and Johnson's training sessions... were always crowded... and people even paid to see them." "Since Cravan said he was Oscar Wilde's nephew many high society young ladies... went to see Arthur Cravan, that spectacular character... who was also an aristocrat." "He boxed like a gentleman, he was a great theorist." "He knew a lot about it compared with people here." "Some reports give him credit." "He had been training, and fought a fewfights." "That is when the boxer poet really appears as a boxer." "I'm playing at missing the balls." "I'm not sure he was a bullfighter like Johnson." "Arthur Cravan was a bullfighter." "I've seen nothing about him fighting a bull." "That appears in a newspaper article." "All I can say is that there's no document, or I haven't found any in Barcelona, which mentions Cravan bullfighting." "Jack Johnson did do a novillada or becerrada... but, as it seems, he didn't... like the bulls and practically... ran out of the bull-ring." "In Barcelona Arthur Cravan was a coach." "He trained and coached at the Club Maritim, in the Barceloneta." "For example, years ago there was still one person... who remembered Arthur Cravan." "I presume this man is dead by now." "Johnson's fight was... to be held in..." "Las Arenas because it was centric then... than the Monumental but, in comparison... the Monumental was larger." "It was held at the Monumental." "I think, in total, there were about... 30 to 35.000 people present at that boxing match." "At that time, boxing had started to revive here." "I sawthe Cravan-Johnson fight... because I was a great boxing fan." "Then my brother said:" ""Look, I've received... since I'm in the federation, a ticket and you're coming with me."" "I was vety happy and went with him." "And, of course... seeing all those people and the world champion that black man impressed me." "He was tall, strong, and all those spectators." "Truthfully, that's one of the things that's always impressed me." "Because precisely us, even if we are elderly people... the old-fashioned, the childhood things... are the things that we preserve more in our memories." "Perhaps, nowadays, our memories... our heads are so full, they don't retain anything." "but these little things, details... always come more to mind." "That's why I remember, as if it were today... that when I arrived, at 7 years of age... in there, seeing those men... fighting to get in and over seats... and the place was packed, it was something really fantastic... that increased the existing popularity of boxing in Barcelona." "LAW AND ORDER" "This is the Monumental bull-ring warehouse." "And this is a vety important... historical document, which is the structure... of the ring on which the Cravan-Johnson fight was held." "The iron structure, and all the boards." "Here's some more." "What is missing is the top canvas." "Vety difficult things happened... to hold that fight." "First, the Governor, being unfamiliar with boxing... thought it was an atrocity and didn't want it." "There was a vety strong campaign against that fight... because they said it was vety brutal." "Two men hitting each other." "People weren't used to that." "And so the Provincial Governor prohibited the fight." "He prohibited it." "But then there were... some negotiations." "The Governor was able to get an audience... with the people in charge, the managers of the boxers... and they showed him that the hemorrhages that boxing could cause were not severe." "Then he authorized it." "For me, boxing is one of the greatest things on earth and in the world." "Quite honestly," "I fought 121 fights and, thanks to them, I don't feel anything." "Evetyone says that boxers always end up in bad shape." "And that's a lie." "We're here to live, not to die." "I was featherweight." "I've had 50 or 55 fights." "But I'm no champion." "And about being punch drunk, like people say" "I'm a person who knows what he says and what he does, and I'm not punch drunk." "I'm not pug-nosed because I dodged a lot." "They called me "Little Legs"." "I fought 92 fights." "I won two... and, as it turned out, I became a professional." "I'm Manolito Garcia." "That's my boxing name." "I fought 25, about 25 fights." "Three as a professional" "I won two and lost one." "I have good memories... because boxing is the noblest sport, to me." "We beat each other up on the ring, and then afterwards... we're friends forever." "I would ask if anyone present here now... can guess my age... you'll see that boxing isn't that damaging." "Boxing is the best thing God has done for us." "I'm 80 years old." "We'll die when the time comes." "Boxing is the best there is, and period." "The night before there was a party at the Excelsior to present the fight to the journalists." "I remember I was a kid." "The evening before... there was a lot of publicity about the Johnson-Cravan fight and... we were in the front row." "I've seen photos of the fight." "The public were so impatient that the Baños brothers, the filmmakers, decided to film the fight and show it in cinemas so that evetyone could see it." "But it seems this film has been lost and all that's left are photos taken by Otho Lloyd," "Cravan's brother." "Frozen punches which may not have hit their target." "Because, in all the photos of Cravan, one feels he was fighting himself." "It's always Cravan against Cravan, the poet against the boxer, some historical documents against the legend, against this impostor which I am but which long before, he himself." "Now we knowthat the night before, in a bar on the Rambla..." "If not this one, the one on the corner." "...Cravan and Johnson had a fight." "They fought in that bar." "Why?" "For economic reasons or any other reason." "Cravan found out that Johnson had received some money... for filming the fight, for which he didn't receive anything." "There were many fights before the fight." "Then he said he wouldn't fight." "Cravan said he passed on that fight." "That he wouldn't fight, and left." "They looked for him all over." "The police and friends looked for him." "Until they found him at 3 in the morning." "In another bar, drinking away." "In a bar, drinking." "But they convinced him." "And he got up on the ring in a really deplorable state." "It had to be a good show." "There were lots of policemen at the arena." "So much police presence surprised evetyone." "Two police officials entered the ring" "and they talked to Cravan." "They say they reproached him for wanting to be paid much more." "Apparently, Cravan was scared to death." "The difference was tremendous!" "The American was a man who, when he boxed... played around but, when ready, he was so fast he eliminated them." "And Cravan boxed European style." "A lot of movements, scoring, dodging." "But the punches, speed and finding the fateful punches... weren't the intelligence of a world champion." "Johnson was an amusing man." "Once he discovered his guard and the distance he needed to keep... he'd laugh." "He was a joker because he thought he was superior." "Some describe the fight as a circus act." "One,drunk, the other hung over." "They kicked their asses." "Cravan got into the ring drunk... and Johnson's first blow knocked him down, K.O." "It was a 20-rounder, and lasted 66." "Johnson could have beat him in the first or second round... but he wanted to get paid for the filming and needed some footage." "They gave Johnson a compensation... in case the fight were too short... to go 5 rounds, and he went 66." "People realized it and booed... thinking the fight was fixed." "Half fixed?" "No, it wasn't fixed." "Afterwards, the press turned people against the organizers, against Cravan, because the tickets were expensive and because it really was a fraud." "What can a boxer do after a defeat?" "This is where the last stoty about Cravan begins, the one nobody could ever explain:" "his disappearance." "Well, that is... one of the memorable... moments in Cravan's life... when after the great success of the defeat... with Jack Johnson, he gets a ticket... for the boat Montserrat." "That day he organized the dance... to prove he wasn't disappearing, but simply leaving." "Picabia and Duchamp were in charge of explaining... with ballyhoo, Cravan's arrival... in New York, saying: "Cravan has also taken the ocean liner." "He'll speak, dressed as a gentleman or a cowboy." "He'll enter shooting at the bourgeois' chandeliers." "Therefore, Mina knew a celebrity was about to arrive." "Mina Loy was a painter, poet, playwright vety close to futurism." "And was part of an innovating generation of artistes." "Soon she became a sort of muse for the futurists." "Her beauty attracted attention... and had a libertarian behavior, writing erotic songs." "Man Ray photographed her... and the N.Y. press named her prototype of modern women." "I think they met at a party held at Arensberg's studio." "At a dance." "She said that... first she thought he was gay, but soon realized he wasn't." "When she met him he slept on park benches... led a harum-scarum life, he was chased after by women... he chased women and even slept at the homes of friends' wives." "Well, they have a vety strong love affair." "It is really a coup de foudre... and here their stoty begins." "Mina also says that Cravan, in New York... needed to be in the open air... on the docks, going to the Natural Sciences museum." "Going to aquariums, and spending hours watching the fish." "Evety time Mina saw Cravan he looked different." "About that she said:" ""His life was that of a ghost... taking shape only to demonstrate."" "They began a fantastic love affair... but soon after Cravan had to flee." "He didn't want to go to war, be drafted... which seems fine due to his anarchist ideas." "He was an individualist." "Cravan's double, triple or multiple personality meant that, in the middle of the romance, he left everything and made that absolutely insane journey to Labrador and to the north of the United States, disguised as a soldier," "when he was actually fleeing from the war and telling Mina Loy stories which he made up as his journey progressed." "Cravan leaves and there is tremendous correspondence... vety rich and pretty, a true epistolaty collection... of personal feelings and of geographical movements... when Cravan leaves New York to go to Mexico." "He could say white and black at the same time." "He could be telling Mina Loy that he adored her while he was planning an absolutely insane journey to the north of the United States and Canada." "He could say he was going to Mexico to meet his parents when they had never gone to Mexico or had any intention of doing so." "Mina Loy was vety much in love with him but she wasn't going to follow him to Mexico because Americans considered it to be extremely dangerous." "Anything could happen." "People were killed, robbed." "It was a bad time there." "He writes passionate letters to Mina... explaining the many things he is doing." "Like he opened a gym, and that he needs her." "He needs her so much he asks her to go there that he'll take her in, and wants to marty her." "Then Mina goes down to Mexico, they get married... they spend truly idyllic days together... but also begin to have a rough time." "They begin to suffer even hunger." "They were vety poor." "He was giving boxing lessons and training." "He had a fewfights, and dreamed of the really big one which would bring him gloty and wealth." "They can't make ends meet." "She is pregnant." "Things go from bad to worse." "They even perform in traveling plays... but things go pretty bad." "He at least saw no way out... and wanted both of them to commit suicide." "She was happy then and, evidently... had more hopes of getting out of that situation." "It was another approach." "She was expecting Fabienne... their daughter, and couldn't think the same way." "I think it was Mina Loy's influence that made him decide to leave such a dangerous countty and go to Argentina where there was a group of friends they'd known in New York, such as Marcel Duchamp." "People they'd known who were now in Argentina, which seemed to be much safer." "They decided to go and they made a bizarre trip from the Mexican capital to Veracruz, which is on the other bank." "There were some incidents there, which Mina Loy explained, when they bought a kind of boat with money he'd won in his last fight, but as Mina Loy was pregnant they decided that he'd take the boat" "and Mina would go by train." "And Mina arrived in Buenos Aires by train but Cravan never arrived." "He never appeared." "I think she never believed he was dead... or didn't accept it." "When he didn't appear in the Gulf of Mexico... she looked all over." "Duchamp said she looked in prisons... and that she'd find him because she'd say:" ""He's never amongst the masses, but if he is I'll find him."" "There is a document on Arthur Cravan's disappearance." "Rene Clair's film "Entreacte"." "It was shot 4 years after Cravan's disappearance... by some of his best friends:" "Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp." "No one realizes it is about Arthur Cravan." "It's full of hidden tributes and clues." "At a given point, two eyes appear superimposed on the sea." "Also a paper boat adrift, boxing gloves." "And people chasing a coffin escaping." "It opens and the corpse makes evetyone disappear." "And it disappears as well." "The allusion to Arthur Cravan is clear." "An important document that, from now on... should be his historiography." ""I would like to be in Vienna and Calcutta, to take all the trains and all the ships, to fornicate with evety woman and guzzle evety dish." "Man of the world, chemist, whore, drunk, musician, worker, painter, acrobat, actor." "Old man, child, swindler, layabout, angel and reveller." "Millionaire, bourgeois, cactus, giraffe or crow." "Coward, hero, black, monkey," "Don Juan, pimp, lord, peasant, hunter, industrialist, fauna and flora." "I am all things, all men and all animals!" "What's to be done?" "Let's put on airs."" "Mina Loy was interviewed years later and asked which had been the happiest moments of her life and she answered, those she spent with Cravan." "And which had been the saddest moments... of her life, and she answered:" ""All the rest."" "Subtitles:" "LASERFILM" "Good evening." "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now perform a dangerous act." "Or not." "Here with you tonight, Arthur Cravan."