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On page five, the agreement says:
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The producers must examine
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any object or subject,
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ordinary or extraordinary,
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in any field,
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according to their actions or ideas,
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making sure to identify
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any existing trace
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of what we have agreed to call art...
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...to finally discover
if art is a legend
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or a reality.
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"One day," Van Gogh said,
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"we will seize death
in order to go to another star."
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I think we were right in taking
the boat to return from New York.
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In a plane,
you never see the whole sky.
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When they spoke to him about victims,
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Boltanski said... Listen to this:
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In church,
it's true, you get a certain feeling,
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but it's the church that creates it.
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Afterwards you just pile up clothes,
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at best, they're from agn�s b.
or Galeries Lafayette.
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To call that
the "Children's Museum Reserve"
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is not only an abuse of language,
it's also a kind of atrocity,
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an artistic crime
committed by a public figure
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who believes it's better
to be in agreement with all the world
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than in disagreement with himself.
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What should it be called, then?
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Don't call it anything, perhaps,
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since she doesn't have the strength
to call for help anymore.
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So it remains a document,
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and receives the Pulitzer Prize.
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In any case, we paid
the Sygma Agency 2,856 francs,
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plus 5.50 in taxes,
for the right to show this photo.
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No, for the duty.
- Yes.
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00:05:06,472 --> 00:05:10,203
But at the morgue in Blida,
after the Sidi Sehrane massacres,
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no one dared speak of art.
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Even so,
one speaks of "the art of war."
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That's different.
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There was that exhibition,
you remember,
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with photos
of the war in Yugoslavia.
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The newspapers accused
the photographer of making art,
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as they say,
with images of horror.
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One must tread carefully there.
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A man named William Haglund dug up
countless bodies, for months on end,
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for the court in The Hague.
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Those photos testify to the reality
of crimes against humanity.
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Now, if there's a misunderstanding,
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it's because the photographer
shouldn't have enlarged those photos,
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nor shown them on big canvases
as if they were paintings.
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What then is the difference
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00:07:08,795 --> 00:07:12,424
between the horrors of French policy
in Africa
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and the Goya of the "Horrors of War"?
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From Botticelli to Barnett,
it's the same view, the same silence,
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"for I always speak
the language of the other."
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"When I talk to myself,
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I talk to myself,
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using the words of the other."
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Now's the time to know where we're at.
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But that's hard,
a bit like flying blind.
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00:07:59,479 --> 00:08:04,542
It's true: legend, reality,
art, the year 2000...
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00:08:04,951 --> 00:08:07,943
The MoMA people haven't
really asked for anything specific.
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They'd like to make up their minds,
without knowing what about.
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There's something
I've often wondered about,
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but never asked.
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May I ask the question now?
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Of course!
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Why have you never been to the stars?
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00:08:30,676 --> 00:08:35,079
I tell myself I've stayed here
because I couldn't get away,
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but I don't really think that.
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But being able to get away
is part of our nature.
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So why didn't you do it?
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The idea
that man was free in the universe,
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that he could go anywhere he wanted,
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was a completely unfathomable miracle.
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And the fact that he has
reached this point alone,
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with his body and mind,
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and an inner power others don't have,
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is absolutely unbelievable.
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So in that case the legend is us.
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Maybe we're the ghosts of people
taken away
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when everybody vanished.
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You know, I have this impression again
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of hearing the noises
and murmuring of ghosts
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nestled in the midst of their works,
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in the last hiding place
left to them on earth.
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Yes.
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Our old world has collapsed,
and there's not a lot of it left.
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First we thought wed lost everything,
but with time
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we've realized
that this loss wasn't all bad.
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Maybe not bad at all.
And finally, instead of losing,
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we've gained the chance
to make a new start.
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00:10:20,152 --> 00:10:23,417
Theater, novel, painting, films...
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It seems that the question is not
knowing if man will continue,
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but knowing if he has the right to.
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Let's get on with the exercises, then.
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There's a moment when
the light begins to strike things,
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making them stammer out their shapes
and then their successive names,
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starting out with the very "thing"
that is the beginning.
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First there's "something,"
and then "some things."
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Exactly like in the Book of Books.
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00:11:43,836 --> 00:11:48,170
There's an infancy of the features
of the world, of a day,
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of any given place.
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They are more alone than ever.
In fact, they've disappeared.
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They've left the landscape,
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or at least our idea
of a familiar landscape.
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In some places,
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they still organize a small
demonstration, but only for love.
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00:12:47,967 --> 00:12:50,492
And the next year,
they fall into a ditch,
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or cling to an embankment
on the edge of the road, the highway,
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or the freeway.
Always on the fringes.
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As if they were refugees.
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So much fine blood
this earth has drunk,
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workers' and farmers' blood,
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because the crooks who start the wars
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never die.
Only the innocents get killed.
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"Red Hill," it's called,
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baptized with blood one morning.
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All those who went up there
ended up down in the ravine.
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Now there are vines
and grapes are growing there.
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Whoever drinks that wine,
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drinks the blood of his friends.
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You could call them the last artists.
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Can time be recounted?
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Time as it is,
as such and in itself?
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No, that would really be
a hare-brained undertaking.
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Art wasn't protected from time.
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It was what protected time.
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Someone forgotten who, but someone
once said that he who sings
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is not always happy.
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We work in the dark,
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we do what we can,
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we give what we have.
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00:16:16,608 --> 00:16:20,738
Our doubt is our passion,
and our passion is our task.
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The rest is the madness of art.
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00:17:02,021 --> 00:17:04,012
That reminds me
of my old philosophy teacher,
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Mr. Brunschwig:
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"One is in the other,
and the other is in the one,
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and those are the three persons."
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00:17:26,612 --> 00:17:30,810
The spirit borrows from matter
the perceptions
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it draws its nourishment from,
and gives them back as movement
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stamped with its freedom.
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The spirit borrows from matter...
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and gives them back
as movement stamped with its freedom.
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00:18:19,465 --> 00:18:21,626
With the red hair
of a little street girl
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I'd torch all of modern civilization.
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00:18:25,237 --> 00:18:28,695
Since a girl has to have long hair,
she has to have clean hair.
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00:18:29,108 --> 00:18:33,204
Since she has to have clean hair,
she mustn't have a messy house.
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00:18:33,612 --> 00:18:39,244
Since she mustn't have a messy house,
her mother must be carefree.
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00:18:39,651 --> 00:18:41,949
Since her mother must be carefree,
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the landlord can't be a profiteer.
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Since the landlord
can't be a profiteer,
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there has to be
a redistribution of property.
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00:18:51,663 --> 00:18:54,461
Since there has to be
a redistribution of property,
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there has to be a revolution.
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The girl with the red-gold hair
is the sacred image of humanity.
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The KEO project,
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the archeological bird of the future.
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A microsatellite shaped like a bird.
Launched in 2001,
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it will return to Earth
in 50,000 years
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to tell our distant descendants
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what Earth and its inhabitants
were like today.
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00:19:27,833 --> 00:19:33,362
In addition to standard subjects
like geography, biology, history, etc.,
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the bird will also deliver messages
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sent by the inhabitants of the earth
into their future.
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What kind of messages?
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I don't know... "Love one another."?
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I'd be surprised.
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00:19:49,922 --> 00:19:55,622
Perhaps:
"Stop discrimination against women."
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That would surprise me too.
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00:20:00,332 --> 00:20:04,200
Or: "Show a Griffith film
once a year."
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I have my doubts.
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00:20:30,429 --> 00:20:35,332
It's the future that decides
if the past is alive or not.
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A man with plans for progress
defines his old self
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as the self that no longer exists,
and loses interest in it.
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On the other hand, some peoples plan
involves the rejection of time
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and an identification with the past.
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This is the case for most people.
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They reject time because they
don't want to come down in the world.
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00:21:27,786 --> 00:21:30,721
So many things you haven't even seen,
like on this street
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you walk down six times a day,
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or in your room,
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where you spend so many hours a day.
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00:21:40,399 --> 00:21:42,731
Look at the angle,
the edge of that furniture
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makes with the windowpane.
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00:21:47,105 --> 00:21:50,506
You have to reclaim it from banality,
from the unseen visible.
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00:21:51,276 --> 00:21:53,642
You have to save it,
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give it what you can, through imitation
and the shortfalls of your sensibility,
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to any sublime landscape, sunset,
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storm at sea,
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or any artwork in a museum.
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00:22:09,094 --> 00:22:11,119
Those are readymade views.
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00:22:12,597 --> 00:22:15,794
But give to this poor person,
to this place,
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to this insipid moment and thing,
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00:22:19,905 --> 00:22:22,840
and you'll be rewarded a hundredfold.
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00:24:18,356 --> 00:24:19,755
So who are you?
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00:24:20,158 --> 00:24:22,558
I'm the person who speaks,
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the one named I,
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and who, from body to body,
from face to face,
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indeed, in all of life itself,
in all form, has the moment to act,
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and can't do anything but be.
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We haven't done much yet.
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00:24:42,614 --> 00:24:44,912
We've visited a few stars.
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00:24:47,519 --> 00:24:51,683
This image that you are, that I am,
which Walter Benjamin speaks of,
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that point where the past resonates
with the present for a split second
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to form a constellation.
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00:25:03,969 --> 00:25:05,903
"The work of art," he says,
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00:25:06,638 --> 00:25:10,506
"is the sole apparition of something
distant, however close it may be."
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00:25:10,909 --> 00:25:14,640
But I'm not sure I understand:
close and distant at the same time.
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00:25:16,314 --> 00:25:18,646
People often say:
"In the beginning was..."
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00:25:19,050 --> 00:25:22,986
The origin is both
what is discovered as absolutely new,
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and what recognizes itself
as having existed forever.
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00:25:27,592 --> 00:25:29,890
The sum of all ideas,
according to Benjamin,
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00:25:30,295 --> 00:25:33,128
makes up a primal,
ever-present landscape.
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00:25:45,377 --> 00:25:47,470
Even when people have forgotten it,
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00:25:47,879 --> 00:25:50,279
and it's a question of returning.
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00:26:02,961 --> 00:26:04,724
There are the stars,
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which are to the constellations
what things are to ideas.
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00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:12,328
Instead of "exercises,"
we could've said "an object lesson."
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00:26:12,737 --> 00:26:16,104
"Exercises in artistic thinking,"
was what we said.
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00:26:20,579 --> 00:26:22,444
The concept is that of approach.
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00:26:23,148 --> 00:26:27,346
Just as stars simultaneously approach
and move away from each other,
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driven by the laws of physics
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as they form a constellation,
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so too do certain things and thoughts
approach each other
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to form one or more images.
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So to understand
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what goes on
between stars and between images,
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you must start
by looking at the simple links.
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So everything's far away,
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and close at the same time.
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Between the infinitely small
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and the infinitely large,
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we'll eventually find an average.
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00:28:05,650 --> 00:28:09,108
And the average
will be the average person, no doubt.
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00:28:10,555 --> 00:28:14,753
What already has been will be,
and what will be has already been.
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00:28:38,917 --> 00:28:41,909
19 people attended the Crucifixion,
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00:28:42,921 --> 00:28:46,357
1400 the first performance of "Hamlet."
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00:28:55,767 --> 00:28:59,430
And two and a half billion
attended the World Cup final.
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00:29:01,740 --> 00:29:03,901
An image isn't only an atom.
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It is, has been, will be its own image,
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00:29:07,812 --> 00:29:12,340
the image of the image,
the image of all these possibilities.
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00:29:14,552 --> 00:29:17,953
Working as an artist
isn't just a matter of observing,
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00:29:18,356 --> 00:29:20,586
of collecting experimental data,
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00:29:20,992 --> 00:29:25,929
then coming up with a theory,
a picture, a novel, a film, etc.
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00:29:29,634 --> 00:29:33,070
Artistic thinking begins
with the invention of a possible world,
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or a fragment of a possible world,
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00:29:36,508 --> 00:29:39,238
then using experience and work,
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00:29:39,778 --> 00:29:43,874
painting, writing, filming,
to confront it with the outside world.
249
00:29:44,282 --> 00:29:47,945
This endless dialogue
between imagination and work
250
00:29:48,353 --> 00:29:51,914
allows for the formation
of an ever-clearer representation
251
00:29:52,323 --> 00:29:55,292
of what we agree to call reality.
252
00:30:39,204 --> 00:30:42,037
We're all lost
in the immensity of the universe.
253
00:30:42,407 --> 00:30:45,001
We've lost our native country,
254
00:30:45,410 --> 00:30:48,402
we have no place to go,
or worse yet,
255
00:30:48,780 --> 00:30:52,147
too many places that we could go.
256
00:30:52,550 --> 00:30:55,542
We're lost, not only
in the depths of the universe,
257
00:30:56,354 --> 00:30:59,653
but also
in the depths of our own minds.
258
00:31:00,058 --> 00:31:04,324
When people only lived on one planet,
they knew where they were.
259
00:31:04,762 --> 00:31:06,457
They had a yardstick,
260
00:31:07,131 --> 00:31:10,999
they had their index finger
to check the direction of the wind.
261
00:31:11,402 --> 00:31:16,465
But now we're lost, even when
we think that we know where we are.
262
00:31:16,875 --> 00:31:19,901
Either there's no path
leading back home,
263
00:31:20,311 --> 00:31:25,647
or we don't have a homeland
worth going back to.
264
00:31:40,031 --> 00:31:41,589
We don't have a home anymore.
265
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,560
Humankind has broken up, scattered,
266
00:31:45,203 --> 00:31:48,331
and is still scattering out
among the stars.
267
00:31:49,173 --> 00:31:53,405
Our species, as a whole,
cannot bear the past.
268
00:31:53,811 --> 00:31:56,473
Many of us also hate the present,
269
00:31:56,881 --> 00:31:59,941
and we only have
one direction: the future,
270
00:32:00,818 --> 00:32:05,448
which takes us further away from
the concept of a homeland of our own.
271
00:32:46,130 --> 00:32:50,396
As a whole, our species
is made up of incurable wanderers.
272
00:32:50,802 --> 00:32:55,239
We reject all ties,
everything we could cling to.
273
00:32:55,606 --> 00:32:59,565
And that will certainly continue
until the ineluctable day,
274
00:32:59,944 --> 00:33:04,677
when we each begin to understand
that we're not free, as we thought,
275
00:33:05,083 --> 00:33:06,744
but lost.
276
00:33:07,151 --> 00:33:11,383
Only when we try to remember,
with our ancestral memory,
277
00:33:11,789 --> 00:33:14,121
where we went, and why,
278
00:33:14,525 --> 00:33:18,325
will we fully understand
how lost we are.
279
00:33:54,432 --> 00:33:58,459
Haven't we forgotten to talk about
the decisive turn in painting?
280
00:33:58,870 --> 00:34:03,330
Later. Now we're dealing with
the technology of the future.
281
00:34:30,101 --> 00:34:34,561
But when we left the earth,
rejecting and scorning our native planet
282
00:34:34,972 --> 00:34:38,135
to go off to distant, brighter stars,
283
00:34:38,509 --> 00:34:41,034
we expanded our space enormously.
284
00:34:42,046 --> 00:34:44,981
We don't have those few million years.
285
00:34:45,349 --> 00:34:48,443
In our haste,
we don't have time anymore...
286
00:34:52,557 --> 00:34:55,754
When Jean-Fran�ois Millet
paints two peasants praying in a field,
287
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,924
and calls it "The Angelus,"
288
00:34:59,330 --> 00:35:02,356
the title matches the reality.
289
00:35:02,733 --> 00:35:06,066
When Francis Picabia draws a bolt
290
00:35:06,437 --> 00:35:10,533
and calls it "Portrait
of an American Girl in the Nude,"
291
00:35:10,875 --> 00:35:13,207
the title no longer
matches the reality.
292
00:35:13,911 --> 00:35:18,575
"All the same to me," says Picabia,
after Duchamp and before Warhol,
293
00:35:18,950 --> 00:35:24,081
just like the owner of the
station caf� as he hands you the menu.
294
00:35:35,500 --> 00:35:39,459
That was the decisive turn in painting.
The second one.
295
00:35:39,871 --> 00:35:44,831
The first was when painters decided
to paint eternal woman.
296
00:35:45,243 --> 00:35:49,236
That happened almost from the start,
but it did no harm to the Virgin Mary.
297
00:35:52,750 --> 00:35:54,411
So from sacred legends
298
00:35:54,852 --> 00:35:57,377
we moved to natural history.
299
00:35:58,122 --> 00:36:01,489
I get the feeling
the titles have taken their revenge.
300
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:05,186
Today you don't see the image,
301
00:36:05,563 --> 00:36:07,724
you see what the title says about it.
302
00:36:08,666 --> 00:36:11,134
It's modern advertising.
303
00:36:15,540 --> 00:36:18,441
"Sad tropics," writes L�vi-Strauss.
304
00:36:20,645 --> 00:36:23,079
That's what those bears
were thinking just now,
305
00:36:23,481 --> 00:36:27,315
and the walking man, and Paul Gauguin.
306
00:36:29,820 --> 00:36:31,048
I read somewhere
307
00:36:31,422 --> 00:36:35,654
that Chardin once said of art
that he didn't know what it was.
308
00:36:36,027 --> 00:36:40,123
Or that it was an island whose shores
he had glimpsed from far off.
309
00:36:42,500 --> 00:36:47,460
And Andy Warhol says that art
is a market for buying and selling.
310
00:36:48,873 --> 00:36:52,775
And then the real battle begins,
the battle of money and blood.
311
00:36:59,250 --> 00:37:01,115
From an art history point of view,
312
00:37:01,519 --> 00:37:05,819
if Malevich can put a black square
on a white canvas,
313
00:37:06,157 --> 00:37:08,523
I don't think
World War I is such a disaster.
314
00:37:09,961 --> 00:37:15,331
Poisoned by photography,
painting itself committed suicide,
315
00:37:15,733 --> 00:37:18,827
and Soulages laid it in its grave
after World War II.
316
00:37:21,105 --> 00:37:23,039
From an art history point of view,
317
00:37:23,441 --> 00:37:26,808
the 20th century
is the Hundred Years' War.
318
00:37:27,812 --> 00:37:33,011
It took a while for one man to own the
La Redoute and Christie's catalogues.
319
00:37:35,152 --> 00:37:38,644
And then advertising space
takes over the spaces of Hope
320
00:37:39,023 --> 00:37:41,287
and of Proust's madeleine.
321
00:37:42,893 --> 00:37:46,294
And the latest Citroen
is called "Picasso".
322
00:37:49,433 --> 00:37:52,891
Even so, I have the feeling
that something is resisting,
323
00:37:53,271 --> 00:37:55,364
something original,
324
00:37:55,673 --> 00:37:59,837
that the origin will always be there,
and that it resists.
325
00:39:52,423 --> 00:39:56,484
If you want to look out
over the world's loveliest landscape,
326
00:39:57,461 --> 00:40:02,728
you must climb to the top
of the Tower of Victory in Chitor.
327
00:40:05,569 --> 00:40:08,436
There, standing on a circular terrace,
328
00:40:08,839 --> 00:40:12,240
one has a sweep
of the whole horizon.
329
00:40:12,676 --> 00:40:16,612
A winding stairway
leads up to the terrace,
330
00:40:17,615 --> 00:40:19,845
but only those people dare to go up
331
00:40:20,251 --> 00:40:22,651
who don't believe the tale:
332
00:40:29,193 --> 00:40:34,961
In the stairway of the Tower of Victory
has lived since the beginning of time
333
00:40:35,366 --> 00:40:40,804
a being so sensitive to the shades
of the human soul: the A Bao A Qu.
334
00:40:42,106 --> 00:40:47,203
It lives in a lethargic state
on the first step,
335
00:40:47,611 --> 00:40:50,808
and only becomes consciously alive
336
00:40:51,215 --> 00:40:53,843
when someone climbs the stairs.
337
00:40:55,419 --> 00:41:01,051
The vibrations of the approaching person
breathe life into it,
338
00:41:02,059 --> 00:41:05,961
and it is filled with an inner glow.
339
00:41:06,363 --> 00:41:12,131
At the same time,
its body and almost translucent skin
340
00:41:12,536 --> 00:41:14,800
begin to stir.
341
00:41:33,757 --> 00:41:36,988
When someone climbs the spiral stairs,
342
00:41:37,394 --> 00:41:41,831
the A Bao A Qu follows
closely upon the visitor's heels
343
00:41:42,900 --> 00:41:47,303
and climbs
along the outside of the steps,
344
00:41:47,638 --> 00:41:52,268
which are worn down by the feet
of generations of pilgrims.
345
00:41:54,278 --> 00:41:58,612
With each step,
its color becomes more intense,
346
00:41:59,016 --> 00:42:01,416
its shape more perfect,
347
00:42:02,820 --> 00:42:04,651
and the light it gives off
348
00:42:05,489 --> 00:42:07,684
more brilliant.
349
00:42:13,264 --> 00:42:16,756
The proof of its sensitivity
350
00:42:17,134 --> 00:42:20,297
lies in the fact that
it only achieves its ultimate form
351
00:42:21,305 --> 00:42:24,536
at the top step,
352
00:42:25,943 --> 00:42:31,438
and only when the person climbing
is a spiritually evolved being.
353
00:42:33,484 --> 00:42:38,285
Otherwise, the A Bao A Qu remains,
as if paralyzed,
354
00:42:38,689 --> 00:42:40,816
short of its goal,
355
00:42:41,225 --> 00:42:44,285
its body incomplete,
356
00:42:44,695 --> 00:42:47,391
its color undefined,
357
00:42:48,399 --> 00:42:50,390
and its glow faltering.
358
00:43:09,219 --> 00:43:11,710
The A Bao A Qu suffers
359
00:43:12,723 --> 00:43:15,692
when it cannot come to completion,
360
00:43:16,694 --> 00:43:21,290
and its moan
is a barely audible sound,
361
00:43:21,699 --> 00:43:25,635
something like the rustling of silk.
362
00:43:37,715 --> 00:43:41,617
But when the man or woman
bringing it back to life
363
00:43:41,986 --> 00:43:44,113
is totally pure,
364
00:43:45,055 --> 00:43:49,754
the A Bao A Qu
can make it to the top step.
365
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,458
Having achieved full form,
366
00:43:52,863 --> 00:43:56,458
it glows with a vivid blue light.
367
00:43:59,903 --> 00:44:04,966
But its return to life is very brief,
for when the pilgrim descends,
368
00:44:05,376 --> 00:44:11,406
the A Bao A Qu rolls and tumbles
back down to the first steps,
369
00:44:12,416 --> 00:44:15,408
where, already faded
370
00:44:15,786 --> 00:44:20,883
and looking like
an engraving with vague contours,
371
00:44:21,291 --> 00:44:23,851
it awaits the next visitor.
372
00:44:30,434 --> 00:44:33,631
It can't be seen clearly
373
00:44:34,038 --> 00:44:37,132
until its halfway up the stairs,
374
00:44:38,242 --> 00:44:42,269
when the little tentacles
that extend from its body,
375
00:44:42,646 --> 00:44:47,106
which it uses to climb,
take on a clear definition.
376
00:44:50,054 --> 00:44:54,855
It is also said
that it can see with its entire body,
377
00:44:55,859 --> 00:45:00,592
and that at sunset
it looks like the skin of a peach.
378
00:45:09,339 --> 00:45:11,569
In the course of the centuries,
379
00:45:11,975 --> 00:45:17,709
the A Bao A Qu
has only once achieved perfection.
380
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:22,811
Sir Richard Burton recounts
381
00:45:23,153 --> 00:45:25,212
the legend of the A Bao A Qu
382
00:45:25,622 --> 00:45:26,748
in a note to his version
383
00:45:27,157 --> 00:45:28,818
of "A Thousand and One Nights."
384
00:45:29,159 --> 00:45:30,353
We've decided
385
00:45:30,761 --> 00:45:33,662
to close with this text, because
386
00:45:33,997 --> 00:45:37,160
it illustrates the film perfectly.
31418
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