Original subtitles

A HISTORY OF WATER

I went to my flower bed, To pick some roses red ...

Nothing!

Always the same every February!

So much water! So much water! Cry all the people of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges.

rapidly fleeing the avalanche of Alpine snow

transformed by the arrival of spring sunlight over Île-de-France

Where I go every morning to take the bus to Paris.

What a mess, this flood!

Luckily...

My Cousin Bebert, old stuffed shirt happens to be passing.

Then I made like Blondin.

If you do not know Blondin... What a shame!

I was afraid I'd be late for class,

so I called for boots,

"Yes, boots!" from my second-cousin Léon.

Handsome young Léon King of the accordion

I felt the water grope my legs and watched it invade garages,

and watched it invade garages, and living rooms.

I said, "Farewell, My Lovely!"

Thinking of Raymond Chandler, a writer I admire.

A suburban "Puss in Boots"

I ventured forth like the famous Arthur Gordon Pym,

and so did many of my fellow citizens.

Old Man Franju yelled that no buses were running due to the inundation.

From the Latin, in, "on" unda, "wave."

I hitchhiked and caught a ride with a guy who wasn't what?

Wasn't bad at all.

We sped off...

- Together... - towards Paris.

We had to outrun the water before Highway who-knows-what.

before Highway who-knows-what was flooded.

Do not know how many times you were interrupted.

We turned back often...

because of water blocking the path.

so that the car, skipping like a fox over the bumpy roads,

was again nose to the water five minutes later.

Did you know that on the French Riviera, "after" means "before"?

You're going to say I'm straying off-topic, that I shouldn't digress, .

but it reminds me of something at the Sorbonne,

Aragon giving a lecture on Petrarch.

Here, I'll digress

everyone despises Aragon. I love him. End of digression.

Then in "La Sorbonne".

Louis Aragon lectures on Petrarch.

He starts off with a terrific tribute to Matisse.

It goes on for at least 45 minutes.

Finally, a student shouted from the back of the room.

"Get back to the subject!"

"The originality of Petrarch lies precisely in the art of digression."

said "The originality of Petrarch lies precisely in the art of digression."

For me this is the same.

I'm not straying from the subject,

and if I do, that's my real subject,

exactly like a car that strays from its usual path because a flood forces it to drive across fields to reach the road to Paris.

Instead flirt with me and tell me:

I have aristocratic ears... I have adorable breasts.

the guy next to me kept talking about his car, praising its qualities in a voice that contrasted artistically with the sound of the wind against the hood.

The Ford Taunus is "queen".

Then I thought "403", Chrysler, Maserati, Lotus, sure...

but not "Ford Taunus".

Not because it's German. I love the Germans.

Hölderling, Max and Moritz ,Wagner. But not the Taunus.

The Fordist asked what I had against the car, and what things I was for,

and I said I was for getting to Paris before nightfall.

Do not worry.

- He said, avoiding a slug on the road ...

that had been, for the last 20 minutes, winding around the Parisian basin, and flashing past rhythmically in the rearview mirror.

By driving all over trying to find the highway,

we ended up going in circles.

We passed the pool where Léon taught me to breaststroke last year.

Then we ended up where we'd started.

We saw Émile and Gaspard. They yelled, "Try Villeneuve-le-Roi.

Too late.

The floods had trapped us.

In France it is always the same, I said.

"They say you're free, but it's a lie. Here's proof."

Though "freedom" isn't an empty word in France.

Paris, for example.

It's the only city in the world where you can walk down Stalin Avenue

and end up on Nicolas II Boulevard

So, France is a free country.

But free as we are, we still had no way to get to Paris.

- Result? - We decided to continue on foot.

It may not look like it, but I'm thinking of a million things:

The damp air, the sunshine.

Baudelaire is the ideal poet.

- He's the one who said:

"The misty sunlight Of those cloudy skies

>Has for my spirit the charms, So mysterious, Of your treacherous eyes,

Shining brightly through their tears."

- What can you say after this? - Be quiet!

Okay, I'll be quiet.!

Usually, I don't care about the image. It's the words that matter.

But this time I'm wrong.

Because here, everything is beautiful.

No noise, no music. Silence.

And now you wll see...

How the young belle

will be seduced...

by a wolf.

He kissed me.

He caessed me.

Around us the flood damages cost more and more money, not "Monet."

The picture was impressive, not Impressionist

"How about another kiss?" he said. - "No."

"Nothing wrong with having fun," he added. "I don't feel like it."

"I bet I can make you laugh," he went on, forgetting our dire straits.

"I bet you can't."

We made a deal: If he's able to tell me a funny story, okay, he can kiss me. "I'll start," he said.

"Know this one? 'Madam, is that egghead your son? How many do you have?'

Twelve.' 'What an omelet!'"

I thought, how stupid!

How about the Yugoslavian who spent his life proving

The Iliad wasn't written by Homer, but by another Greek, also called Homer?"

"What's funny about that?" No I got it.

"How about," he continued, "the two madmen telling jokes?"

'You start,' says the first one. '18,' says the other. 'Ha, ha! That's a good one!' 'You tell one now.'

23!

'I've already heard that one.'

"I've already heard that one too."

He made a face because it was a flop.

"Have you heard the one about Prince Yusupov?"

"I might have."

"It goes:

This happened to Prince Rechewski.

He hosted a banquet in honor of Prince Youssoupof, the assassin of Rasputin.

Do you know it?" - No!

"Good. I'll continue," he continued,

"Prince Yusupov agrees to come, with the condition of not talking about Rasputin.

'Dear friend,' Rachevski says, 'I promise. We won't even mention Russia.'

After dinner, a guest asks to be introduced to the prince.

Rachevski brings him to Yusupov and bows.

'Allow me to introduce Prince Rasputov.'"

Should I laugh or cry?

He kissed me and it hummed on my lips like a drop of water.

He kissed me and it hummed on my lips like a drop of water.

>To return to the matter at hand. from drops of water to a flood is only one step,

and our problem was: How to get to Paris?

It was impossible to continue on foot.

We started looking for a boat...

to reach the Ford Taunus, now separated from us by a lake.

I was lost in my thoughts...

Thoughts rose and flitted across my brain

as clouds are whirled by the wind across the gray veil of mist that shuts out the sun..

Those aren't my words, but Balzac's, in The Duchess of Langeais.

While we passed...

- Without transition.

From one stage to the other.

My unfortunate partner said it was not a "serious" girl.

But the drama in our time is that everything is done seriously.

No one whistles anymore, we work out of duty.

It's true. Today, art is ruined because everything's so serious.

Those Pied Nickéles comics were smashing.

Now, everyone loathes the word "smashing."

>Instead, we use horribly ordinary words,

Like "authentic" for example, when "smashing" was accurate and charming. There are other words too. It's a shame they've disappeared.

Like "moolah" instead of "money" and "popinjay"' for a fancy young man.

"Popinjay" was wonderful. But that's all over now.

Valery Larbaud is dead, Paul Eluard is dead, Jean Giraudoux is dead

This string of ideas trotted through my heart

while the Taunus' 18 horses galloped happily down the road to Paris, found at last.

The more the Fordist accelerated more quickly,

the less his loving demands made me die less quickly. Like that thing, you know?

The less I pedal, less quickly, the more I advance more quickly

or the more I pedal less quickly, the less I advance more quickly.

Anyway... we arrived.

And water was already climbing the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Well, I was happy.

This guy, who I called "Pig!" when he kissed me, this popinjay,

I'll probably sleep at his place tonight.

If water covered France, to me, that's happiness.

You should know that this is a film of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard

Photography by Michel Latouche

Produced by Roger Fleytoux Dedicated to Pierre Braunberger

Dedicated to Mack Sennett, by Films de la Pléiade

(Censorship No. 21,696)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's over.