"Aragon..." "I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving" "Deafening silence of loving" "I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving" "I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving" "I'm filled with the deafening silence of loving" "Deafening" "Silence" "Of loving" " Do you know Elsa?" " I don't think so." "I keep thinking I know her well, but Elsa keeps changing the way I think about her, so I'm always thinking that Elsa is eluding me." "And yet I've been thinking this for the past 37... 38 years." "It's strange that you think that." "I remember" "Elsa's hat and fur coat the day I met her." "But the rest cannot be pinned down." "Well, I have quite precise memories." "Louis looked like a dance hall dancer." "His hair was incredibly dark, which no one can believe now, because he has blue eyes and his hair has gone white, so people think he was blond." "But he was ever so dark." "He was very thin... and very handsome" " a little too handsome - which made him look rather like those young men one would meet in dance halls." "The first time I saw Louis from behind, he was dressed in black and his suit was all shiny... like a piano." "I was sitting on this stool." "A friend said to me," ""You should meet that woman."" "I was playing dice by myself." "I turned and saw the corner table where the day before," "November 4th, 1928, there'd been many people." "One of them had said," ""Mr. Aragon, the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky" ""would like you to sit at his table."" "A Mayakovsky like this." "And so, quite independently, the next day, November 5th, you came into the café through this little swing door." "And from that day forward, we were never apart." "What would I be without you" "You who took the first step?" "What would I be without you" "But a heart turned to stone?" "But time standing still" "On this watch face?" "What would I be without you" "But this mumbling?" "I learned everything from you About matters human" "And now I see the world your way" "I learned everything from you" "How to drink from fountains" "How to read the distant stars In the sky" "How to take the song" "From a singing passerby" "I learned everything from you" "The true meaning of a thrill" "What would I be without you" "You who took the first step?" "What would I be without you But a heart turned to stone?" "But time standing still" "On this watch face?" "What would I be without you" "But this mumbling?" "You say in Le Grand Jamais (The Big Never)," ""In life you never know what people think, you can only imagine."" "I try to imagine your life." "Imagine you." "All I have left to do is imagine you." "A little girl..." "There was once in Russia a little girl called Zemlianichka, meaning "Wild Strawberry"." "It was the time of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov." "And at school, for a production of a Chekhov tale," "Wild Strawberry had been given a major role." "A little girl wakes up pointing at the floor and screaming," ""Oy krov sac!"" "Which means "Oh, a cockroach!"" "That's all." "The little girl has grown." "She is sixteen." "She has Elsa's eyes." "Elsa's Eyes by Aragon" "Your eyes are so deep As I bent to drink" "I saw every sun reflected in them" "And desperate souls jumping in to die" "Your eyes are so deep I lose my memory in them" "Eyes and Memory" "Shadows of birds, a murky ocean Then the sun and your eyes change" "Summer carves the street The sky is as blue as on wheat" "Enchanted by beauty The child's eyes widen" "When you open yours Wild flowers fall from the heavens" "Are there lightening bolts In the lavender?" "I'm caught in shooting stars Like a sailor dying in August" "O Paradise a hundred times Lost and found" "Your eyes are my Peru My Golconda, my Indies" "And so it happened The Universe smashed" "On the reefs The wreckers set ablaze" "But I saw shining above the sea" "Elsa's eyes, Elsa's eyes, Elsa's eyes" "That's when you introduced to your parents a funny guy who no one had noticed yet, and who had decided to deck himself out in a yellow coat," "Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky." "No, not that one, not the one in that photo, but a young man who looked like Belmondo." "A 6 foot 4 Belmondo." "What are you thinking about?" "One never knows what you're thinking about." "How can one pretend To trace in words your semblance?" "You who are so different, so fleeting" "Always changing and transformed" "You who nothing could fix In my eyes" "Neither passion nor the years" "Always new and surprising" "Love, love" "Whose portrait escapes The stroke of pen and brush" "Like the indefinable form of laughter" "As indefinable as a sob" "Memory without recollection" "And wound without dagger" "Imagine you..." "All I have left to do is imagine you." "One day, you went to join that Frenchman you had met back then." "There were Frenchmen then in Russia." "He's the one who gave you your pen name." "With this Frenchman you went to Tahiti." "And to evoke distant Tahiti, you later chose to use a painting of it in our strange Œuvres Romanesques Croisées which began coming out last year." "This painting by Le Douanier Rousseau, who had never travelled to tropical countries." "By 1923, you had left your Frenchman." "You were in Berlin where there were all kinds of people." "And in this café on the Kurfürstendamm when I came in, you were going out at the same time through that door." "We didn't meet." "There were Russians in Berlin, all kinds." "Writers like Gorki, Remizov, and Chklovski, who was in love with you." "He showed his book to Maxim Gorki and as there were six of your letters in the book," "Gorki wanted to meet you and persuade you to write." "In Russian, of course." "And this is the Elsa who, in Moscow in 1925, published In Tahiti." "You wrote a second book, Wild Strawberry, the story of this little girl." "But you had already gone back to France, intending to stay only a short while, when, in this empty bar..." "Caressed by kisses The years race into the void" "Avoid, avoid, avoid Broken memories" "The sun is the same To the pale pianist" "Who sang a few words Always the same" "Darling, do you remember Those carefree days" "When we lived together In Montparnasse?" "Life has slipped by Without our noticing it" "Evenings are already becoming cold The heart runs late" "Caressed by kisses The years race into the void" "Avoid, avoid, avoid Broken memories" "We lived here in Montparnasse." "We didn't have a penny." "How would we manage?" "Elsa thought of making necklaces." "She told the story in her last book in Russian, Busse." "As I did later in" "Le Cantique à Elsa." "You made jewelry for daytime Or evening wear" "Everything became a necklace In your lyrical hands" "Pieces of rags, pieces of mirrors" "Necklaces as fine as glory Unbelievably fine" "Elsa waltzes and keeps on waltzing" "Early in the morning," "I'd carry a suitcase filled with your necklaces." "I sold to merchants" "From New York and Berlin, Rio, Milan, Ankara" "The jewels Your gold washer's hands created" "These rocks which were like flowers Bearing your colors" "Elsa waltzes and keeps on waltzing" "We lived like that for two or three years." "We felt rich, until the day you'd had enough." "So I became a journalist for 1,300 francs a month." "That was in '33 or '34." "Berlin, the Reichstag Fire." "Paris, February 6th, 1934." "And then we lived here, in the heart of Paris." "It was the time of the Spanish Civil War." ""Writing a life story means going beyond this life, beyond history."" "We went to Madrid in a truck, taking gifts to the Republic's writers." ""Just as a train speeds through the landscape." ""With its stops, switches, signals, bridges, tunnels, catastrophes."" "And around this time, though you kept it from me, you wrote in French." "A miracle!" "In French." "Who was Thérèse?" "A name heard on the radio" "Between up and down" "Which wasn't destined for us" "Thérèse..." "As Max Ernst saw her for our Œuvres Croisées, but who were you talking about?" "For me, Thérèse is who you were then." "Your soft hand on your cheek." ""Good evening, Thérèse."" "Am I disturbing you?" "Not at all." "Come here." "You can give me a hand." "I've got myself all tangled up in these proofs." "Of course, if I'd asked you" ""Am I disturbing you?", you'd have said "Yes," ""I'm writing a poem about Elsa."" "I enter this country She opens up to me" "Where everything throbs With her presence" "And her hand opens the shutter Overlooking the garden" "Where there is the sound Of invisible things" "I'll invent for you my rose As many roses" "As there are jewels in the sea" "As many roses as there are centuries In celestial dust" "As there are dreams In a child's head" "As there is light in a sob" "I will invent for you the rose" "I will invent for you the rose" "You looked at me with your eyes Of pure oblivion" "You looked at me over memory Over wandering choruses" "Over faded roses" "Over thwarted joys Over abolished days" "You looked at me with your eyes Of blue oblivion" "All the roses I sing of All the roses I choose" "All the roses I invent I vaunt in vain with my voice" "Before the rose I see before me" "The readers of these poems expect me to be 20 years old forever." "As I cannot satisfy this need for beauty and youth that the readers have," "I feel guilty, and it makes me unhappy." "That's what's terrible, they're not just for me." "That's why I talk... of other poems, other texts." "At least I know what they're about, and all that remains a secret to others." "Maybe I'm not very good at sharing." "Aragon always says he's a shadow at your feet." "He's wrong." "He's doing me wrong." "He's always belittling himself, compared to me." "It annoys people, and they're right." "For thirty years I have been This shadow at your feet" "For thirty years my thought Has been the shadow of your thought" "You think all this is an allegory." "You don't hear me..." "I know I've done a lot for Aragon." "I never meant to, it just happened, because we were made for one another." "I've greatly influenced his writing." "He's very grateful to me, I think." "Because in the end, it went the way he wanted it to go." "There was a time when he was having trouble finding himself." "He had completely lost his way as a writer." "And having me by his side, without any false modesty, probably made him feel like his path was mapped out." "He's always thanking me for that." "He never stops thanking me." "What a miracle to be together" "The light on your cheek The wind playing around you" "When I see you, I still tremble Like on his first date" "A young man who looks like me" "Blame me if I cannot adjust" "Can one adjust to flames?" "They've killed before" "The soul's eyes gouged Adjusting to dark clouds" "For the first time Your mouth, your voice" "From wing to mountain top The tree trembles" "Always the first time When your dress touches me" "Take this heavy fruit Discard the rotten half" "Bite the happy half Thirty lost years" "Sink your teeth in I give my life to you" "My life truly began The day I met you" "Your arms barred the path Of my insanity" "Showed me a land Where bounty is sown" "In the confusion You cooled my fevers" "And I ignited Like gin at Christmas" "I was born of your lip" "My life begins with you" "All these poems are for you." "Do they make you feel loved?" "Oh, no!" "They aren't what makes me feel loved." "Not the poetry." "It's the rest." "Life." "Writing a life story, with its stops, switches, signals, bridges, tunnels, catastrophes..." "Here ends only this world, and this film." "Here we are separated, but here begins Elsa's second life for which she is Elsa Triolet." "The Elsa Triolet of today, who has written some 17 books." "Not the woman who I imagine, but the woman who imagines, who has given life to dreams and characters among whom I have lived for a quarter century, watching them be born, being one of them." "A long story that I'll tell you some other time." "For now, take this fairytale with its artificial resolutions." "They married and lived happily together." "As in every fairy tale." "When I knew in your arms I was a human being" "When I stopped pretending And became myself at your touch" "Take these books from my soul Open them everywhere" "Break them to better understand Their perfume and secret" "Brutally rip open the pages Crumple and tear them" "You will retain but one thing A single murmur, a single chorus" "A long thank you babbling This happiness like a meadow" "Child-God, my idolatry The endless Ave of the litanies" "My blossoming, my growing beauty O my reason, O my folly" "My month of May, my melody My paradise, my blazing fire" "My universe, Elsa, my life" "Subtitles by John Miller" "Subtitling Titra Film Paris"