Original subtitles

THE GLEANERS AND I

G as in “gleaming.”

To glean is to gather after the harvest.

A gleaner is one who gleans.

In days past, only women gleaned,

and Millet's famous gleaners were reproduced in dictionaries.

The original painting is at the Orsay.

Gleaning is the spirit of years past.

My mother would say...

“Pick up what's left so nothings wasted.”

But sadly we no longer do,

because machines are so efficient nowadays.

But I used to glean before,

together with my neighbors,

for wheat and rice.

I would put on my big apron...

and we'd glean beautiful ears of wheat.

A whole day in the sun, with gnats and mosquitoes,

can be unpleasant.

But we enjoyed it.

At night we were exhausted.

Once home with our bags and aprons,

we 'o' have a good time laughing together over coffee.

I was born in that farmhouse, and I'll die there too.

But not quite yet! We'll let you go. Thanks.

Thank you too.

I've forgotten what I was doing...

Yes, I've always gleaned.

I remember going with my grandmother and my brothers and sisters.

People gleaned during the war because there was no food.

They'd pound the grain to make flour for bread.

We no longer glean for food.

There are still a few gleaners, like for corn.

Gleaning may belong to another era,

but the posture hasn't vanished from our sated society.

Urban and rural gleaners bend down to gather up.

There's no shame, just worries.

Yeah, food, grub

It's bad, sad, man

To bend down is not to beg

But when I see them that way, my heart hurts!

Eating that scrap-crap

Forced to live on shit-bits

They've got to frisk for tidbits

Left on the street, leftovers

Rough stuff with no owners

Picking up trash like the street cleaner

Zero for us, for them much better

They've got to roam around to kill the hunger

It's always been the same pain, will always be the same game

In town and country today, just like in yesteryear,

gleaners still humbly stoop down.

But it's not just women anymore.

It's men too.

What struck me is how each person gleans on their own.

In old paintings...

they were always in clusters, rarely alone.

But there is one famous solitary gleaner

in a painting by Jules Breton, now in the museum in Arras.

We set out north on the highway.

There were lots of big trucks, but I'll come back to that.

Arriving in Arras...

we saw the square, the museum,

and Breton's La Glaneuse.

Included among the gleaners in the title of this film... is me.

I'm happy to drop the ears of wheat

and pick up my camera.

These new little digital cameras are fantastic.

Their effects are stroboscopic...

narcissistic...

even hyperrealistic.

No, it's not “Oh, rage!”

It's not “Oh, despair!”

It's not “Old age, my enemy!”

It might even be “Old age, my friend.”

Still, my hair and my hands

keep telling me the end is near.

Anyway, for now we're headed for Beauce.

It's renowned for its wheat, but the harvest is over.

So we'll focus on potato gleaning instead.

Destalking the potato fields leaves furrows and mounds

ready for the harvesting machine.

Once the harvest is over,

we can glean the whole field.

Since this morning, I've collected a full 250 pounds by myself.

And these are the good ones you eat with herring.

Lots of restaurants buy them.

Some people are quite pleased when the machine malfunctions.

There are lots left here.

The tractor plows too deep and gets stuck.

So they lift the machine up, leaving the potatoes below.

So gleaners have a field day?

Definitely.

The owners don't give a damn,

as long as there's nothing left.

Less work for them. - But they have to be sorted.

In supermarkets, firm potatoes are sold

in containers of 5 1/2 to 11 pounds.

Those have to be of a specific dimension,

a specific size.

We dump anything larger.

The potato harvest averages 4,500 tons per season.

About 25 tons...

are rejected and thrown away.

We followed the path of those rejects back to the fields.

We dump all those that are oversized, green,

cut or damaged.

They can't be sold.

To the trade, we sell potatoes

within a range of two to three inches.

Anything bigger is automatically thrown away.

Potatoes are a staple for lots of people,

and because large quantities of potatoes are dumped,

the practice of gleaning has reappeared.

People follow the trucks and wait nearby.

We followed the trucks but didn't see anyone,

except one man who may have been tipped off.

But we never saw signs in villages saying...

“We'll be dumping here next week.”

People know that potatoes left in the fields

quickly turn green and are dangerous to eat.

Sometimes it's children who give the signal.

We found a big one here!

Monday, potatoes

Tuesday, potatoes

Wednesday, potatoes again

Thursday, potatoes

Friday, potatoes

Saturday, potatoes again

Sunday, it's potatoes au gratin

I've gathered...

200 or 300 pounds.

You find really large ones among the discards.

We leave the damaged ones.

And we take the bigger ones over the smaller ones.

Some are misshapen. Heart-shaped.

I want the heart!

I was pleased.

I immediately filmed them up close.

With one hand I shakily filmed

my other hand gleaning heart-shaped potatoes.

I brought some home with me.

I had another look and filmed them again.

Then it came to me: the Good Heart Charity Meals.

Why not organize an expedition

on the day potatoes are to be dumped?

When I think of all the food gone bad

It makes me mad

If you've been kicked out and you're down and out

Then you need food for nought

I come gather a few for me and my kids.

We gather them together.

I joined Charity Meals because I was unemployed,

though I expect to start a training position soon.

Meanwhile, instead of doing nothing,

I'd rather come help people in dire straits.

I'm a single mother.

I get food from the Red Cross and Charity Meals.

When I see all this go to waste

while some people have nothing to eat,

it's really disgraceful.

They collected almost 700 pounds that day.

That's something at least.

A while later, in almost the same spot,

we saw a man approach.

I went over to him and asked

how much he thought there was.

Almost a ton, adding all the mounds together.

A ton of potatoes wasted.

Same thing with cauliflowers,

and fruit and vegetables in other regions.

But this is potato country, so we take what we find.

We're better off gathering in the fields than shoplifting.

It's the same for other people. I'm not alone.

You get by as best you can.

We gather potatoes. We rummage in trash cans.

That keeps me going for now.

But it's a hard life.

And the year 2000 is coming. Great, huh?

I'm off with my 70 pounds.

There are several tons left that people could gather,

but they don't know about it.

That's how it is.

They're hoboes living in trailers.

We're always moving. They're different from us.

It has to be cut up for the scrap dealer.

But we have no tools or electricity.

Just candles.

What do you do for water?

Water is all we have here. It's over there.

That's our tap.

- What if it freezes? - If it freezes...

we wrap the pipe in padding or let it drip slightly

so it doesn't freeze when it gets really cold.

Like last year, when it got to 10 below.

But you get used to it.

You seem to like beer.

I drink anything.

How many beers is that?

I drink a pack a day.

- What? - A pack of 24 a day.

Or even 32.

Tell me what happened to you.

Did you have a house before?

Yeah, I had a job.

I worked impossible hours,

21 or 22 hours a day.

- Were you a trucker? - Yeah.

I drove big oversized loads.

Then one day the cops stopped me and tested my breath.

I lost my job.

Then my wife left and took the three kids.

It all went downhill from there.

Divorce, everything?

Yes. I haven't seen my kids in almost two years.

They're 500 miles away.

I can't go see them.

I have no car and no license.

- That's terrible. - Yeah, it is.

I think of them every single day.

Here comes Guilène.

She'll tell you everything.

Did you know that once they've harvested the potatoes,

you're allowed to take the discards? - No.

You didn't know?

- It's not allowed. - Yes, iris.

I want you to listen to this:

Why did the mayor put us here — I've been here four years...

And now he wants us to leave?

He says he's fed up with itinerants,

but I want to stay here.

I had an apartment, but it cost too much.

Her first trailer cost her 2,000 francs.

And the most recent,

where I'm living at the moment, 200 francs.

We met when I was working in a cafe' as a cleaning woman.

That's how we met.

While the welfare money lasts, fine.

After that you have to get by somehow.

We have to panhandle...

and rummage through the trash.

We find food in the garbage.

Decent food?

Yes, we find good food...

that could still be sold in stores.

But they have to keep turning over their inventory.

That's to our advantage. It's lucky for us.

But we have to comb through garbage cans all over

to salvage stuff.

For soup.

My bouquet of flowers!

- Another cucumber. - There's plenty.

This came from the trash.

The expiration date is 11/29, two days ago.

One day ago.

It's still good for another week or so.

There's some fish up there that I salvaged.

It's good till 12/24.

We found it in the trash.

We're not afraid to get our hands dirty.

You can always wash your hands.

Guys, the new appetizer

is lamb kidney in a chicory root sauce

with a potato fritter...

and nut soup with anise...

and mushroom puree with truffle oil.

As I watched all this cooking,

I asked the chef if there were lots of leftovers

and what he did with them.

We try not to waste anything.

With the leftover lentils we make soup.

We mince the greens into a gratin.

We use the meat bones for stock and the fish bones for sauce.

We don't usually throw anything away.

You have to be economical.

If I had to buy all the herbs I pick daily in the hills...

A small bunch of savory costs eight francs,

and we use 20 per day.

We'd be spending a fortune on herbs.

And I love picking them.

This nice, inventive, and thrifty chef

offers a tasting menu for 600 francs.

Edouard Loubet is the youngest French chef

to earn two stars in the Michelin guide,

now called the Red Guide.

I Surprisingly enough, Edouard is also a born gleaner,

or rather a born picker.

With his hat and shirt and basket,

he looks like a Provençal figurine.

Don't step on the apples!

We take what the farmers leave behind,

or we pick the ripe fruit off the trees.

That's the best stuff around

for making good spirits or good fruit jelly.

I don't let anything get past me.

How come you pick leftovers? You're a chef.

First, because my grandparents taught me to

along fields and roads.

And this way I know what I'm getting

and where it came from.

I don't want three-week-old refrigerated produce

picked green and trucked from Italy

and sold when someone feels like saying it's ripe.

Since we're talking grapes and wine...

we might as well visit a wine region.

We're off to Burgundy.

On the highway there are lots of trucks,

the kind we loved when we were kids.

We pass by them, gaze at them.

This big rig hauling cars passes us.

As does a second.

Now it's our turn to pass the second one,

but we have trouble overtaking the first.

It's like a child's game.

We're arriving in Burgundy.

For me, Beaune is the old almshouse

and the magnificent painting by Van der Weyden,

The Last Judgment.

The archangel Michael weighs and judges the deeds of the dead.

Those to be resurrected weigh lightly on the scale.

Those who are to suffer in hell weigh heavily.

The grape harvest is over, yet there's no one in sight.

Why?

If you want your wine to be ranked as vintage,

your yearly production is limited,

meaning you can only produce

a certain quota per plot.

I didn't hear much about “pickers” growing up.

Wine growers have always fended off all that,

because if you let people come pick grapes from your vines,

how can you be sure

they won't do so on a large scale?

So these vintage vines have been completely harvested,

but due to quotas,

the surplus has been deliberately left on the ground.

There it just dries up, a loss for everyone.

It's a way to protect our profession and capital.

What you see here are second-generation grapes,

called “verjuice” or “conscripts,”

depending on the area.

- Conscripts. - Like soldiers?

Exactly.

Some people pick them.

Being a second harvest, it yields a lesser-quality wine,

called “pickers' wine.”

- Will it taste like Pommard? - No, not at all

It's a cheap table wine.

The vintage wine region isn't a good one for grape picking.

Grape picking is against the law in Burgundy

as of three or four years ago.

It's sad, but that's the way it is.

Gleaning was a lovely activity.

“Just as one sees the gleaner walking along,

gathering what the harvesters left behind...”

You know those lines? - Du Bellay, right?

Yes.

Impressive! You know it by heart!

I took over my father's estate.

From grape to bottle...

I'm the only master on board.

I have no cellarman.

Nadine and I choose the best blends for our vintage output.

- You choose together? - We do.

Jean Laplanche, avid winegrower,

has another profession too: psychoanalysis.

I'm a practicing analyst, but above all I'm a theoretician,

or rather a philosopher of therapy.

In what particular school?

What distinguishes me is that I have tried to integrate

into man's psyche

the Other above the Ego.

I developed an anti-ego philosophy,

a philosophy that shows how man first originates

in the Other.

How does he manage his double life?

Very well.

He's an intelligent man. And modest too.

It keeps me going.

Isn't it a bit daunting?

The fact he's a psychoanalyst and a winegrower?

No, I underwent analysis to help me understand.

- Not with him! - No, with Lacan.

- A long time ago. - I was very young.

In the year 2000 we'll have been married 50 years.

Tell me how you met.

Like most people: at a local dance.

Your first kiss!

No one's interested in that!

I have to explain something

the whole world should know about.

When I met him, it was like a flash of lightning.

The way he was dressed, I couldn't possibly miss him!

He had a red cap on — honest!

He was just back from the Riviera.

He was wearing a red cotton cap...

a green shirt...

mustard-yellow pants...

rope espadrilles —

Yellow espadrilles.

And a multicolored belt.

I couldn't possibly miss him!

And how was she dressed?

I can't remember. Same old story, huh?

But it wasn't a lightning bolt for me.

That came later.

I know — bad man!

Is that true, Huguette?

- I can't speak for him. - It's true.

This is Laurent, my son.

I'm not sure he's a gleaner.

I thought she said “Glanum.”

That's why I mentioned Saint-Rémy, where Glanum is.

I've never gleaned.

“Gleaning” is very different from “picking.”

I've done picking.

Explain the difference.

You “pick” what hangs down,

but you “glean” what grows up out of the earth.

Like grain. It's different.

Olives and grains are different.

And almonds.

Figs too. People make fig jam.

You pick figs.

Look at these marvels of nature.

What plump beauties!

Fruit from heaven!

I half feel like saying something to the owners.

But it's none of our business. It's their fruit.

This one's almost pure alcohol. I'm gonna be tipsy.

Anyway, lots of people are stingy.

They don't allow gleaning.

They just don't feel like being nice.

There's a lot left here.

The harvest is over.

They're no good for eating?

For eating, yes, but not for candied fruit.

Do you allow people to come gather them?

No. I'm not the owner,

but so far it's never been allowed.

The cabbage harvest is over.

Only a few cabbages are left here and there.

Those can be gleaned

with absolute impunity

by gleaners from the Avignon area.

Beautiful tomatoes.

The machine couldn't pick what lay too low.

All these tomatoes...

As red as my bible, the Penal Code —

Can be gleaned.

It's not me who says so.

It's Penal Code article R-26.10.

“Gleaning is allowed from sunup till sundown.”

First condition.

The second condition

is that gleaning take place after the regular harvest.

Here the harvest is clearly over.

Perusing some old law texts,

I came across a decree, or rather an edict,

dated November 2, 1554,

which said exactly the same as today's laws.

It authorized the poor, the wretched, and the underprivileged

to go into the fields once the harvest is over.

The old texts spoke of the poor and destitute.

But what to make of those who want for nothing

and glean for pleasure?

They lack a type of sustenance too.

If they glean for pleasure, they lack a certain pleasure.

So if the conditions and hours are respected,

they can glean like the poor once did.

- Thank you, Counselor. - I'll just stroll among the cabbages.

And I'll stroll with my little camera among the colored cabbages

and film other vegetables that catch my eye.

There's no law governing this type of gleaning —

Of images, impressions, emotions.

And “gleaning” in the dictionary has a figurative meaning as well:

to glean facts, actions, and information.

And for forgetful me,

what I've gleaned tells me where I've been.

From Japan I brought back souvenirs I'd gleaned.

I'm back home. The cats are here.

There's mail.

One plant died. The others didn't.

I look at the leak in the ceiling and the mold.

I got used to it.

I actually like it.

It's like a landscape or an abstract painting...

a Tàpies...

a Guo-Qiang...

a Borderie.

There's water dripping.

I open my suitcase.

This was amazing.

In a department store in Tokyo,

on the top floor,

there were actual Rembrandt originals.

Saskia up close.

Then there's my hand up close.

This is what this project is about:

filming one hand with the other.

To enter into the horror of it. I find it extraordinary.

I feel like some kind of animal.

Even worse, an animal I don't know.

Here's Rembrandt's self-portrait.

But it's really the same thing.

It's always a self-portrait.

Maurice Utrillo's self-portrait

we saw in a crowded little museum

in the former town hall in Sannois.

We were headed nearby to film Hervè, alias VR99.

In the year 2000 his alias will be VR2000.

“Loading up”

means going out to scavenge bulky items

that people are getting rid of.

Town councils and city halls give out

little maps like this one.

It shows all the streets and neighborhoods

and lists the days you can go out and scavenge.

I think the map is more for those with things to dump.

True.

I read the map my own way,

because it's how I find my raw material.

I am, among other things, a painter and a scavenger.

I prefer nighttime.

And because I go by bike,

I can only carry small things home.

It'll be simpler just to show you.

I make images from salvaged material.

Wood for the frame,

packaging materials, slate.

I also recycle

my own packets from cigarette papers.

The good thing about these recycled items

is that they've already had a life.

They're unwanted but still very much alive.

You just have to give them a second chance.

You just have to make the rounds, find the piles,

and simply help yourself.

It's like a department store the size of a town.

When a site has lots of stuff,

it's best to get there quickly,

because there's competition.

Things go quickly-

It's like presents left on the street. It's like Christmas.

My grandfather used to salvage things when I was a kid.

He had stuff everywhere.

I've always liked the world of dumps and salvaging...

anything that's been discarded by society.

It's like a cavern here.

Yes, my own little cavern.

Where I combine objects in different combinations.

You have to stock up for that.

Is it a shelter as well?

From what?

From emptiness. It's full in here, overflowing.

Personally I'm moving toward emptiness now.

Or at least toward less.

As much “less” as possible.

- You have a ways to go. - I do.

Right now I'm accumulating,

because I know I'll need these recycled materials.

The encounter happens on the street.

The object beckons to me, because in some way it belongs here.

And sometimes the encounter happens on the highway.

That's what happened to us.

On our left, an abandoned factory.

To the right we see a sign: “Finds.”

“Curios” is common, but “finds” is more inviting.

How are you?

Hello.

Look at me when I speak to you!

I spotted some wheat behind this fellow here...

and behind this robot, a painting of gleaners.

It combined the humble stooping of Millet's gleaners

with the proud bearing of Breton's Woman Gleaning.

The painter clearly had the old Larousse dictionary handy.

Honest, this is no movie trick.

We really did find those gleaners purely by chance.

The painting had beckoned to us

because it belonged in this film.

On the road again,

off to the Ideal Palace of Bodan Litnianski,

a much visited, much publicized place.

This retired bricklayer from Russia

began constructing totem towers

from whatever he found in dumps

end Io wed beck home in a trailer hooked to his moped.

It's very solid.

I'm a bricklayer.

I really like dolls.

They're my system. Dolls are characters.

What do you think of all this?

He's passionate about it.

There's no stopping him.

Your husband is an artist.

Well, maybe...

Why not?

There's much better around.

Louis Pans, for instance,

who uses salvaged items in his paintings.

He designs using objects and lets chance shape his compositions.

Everything you see around here...

is my dictionary.

Useless stuff.

Others might call it a heap of junk.

For me its a wondrous heap of possibilities.

Each object is a pointer, a flourish,

that I've picked up here and there,

that I've gleaned.

And they become

my paintings,

The highest art is to bring order to one's inner and outer worlds.

These are just children's crayons.

Here we have cans and spools...

the clapper from a small bell.

I turn objects into sentences.

A cricket on a junk pile.

Cages are interesting too.

They're like boats and violins and similar objects

whose shapes seem at first very simple and uniform.

But the possible variations are infinite.

These are baseboards and frames.

This is one of those things on a car...

a windshield wiper.

But for me they're flourishes.

I have to balance the lines on a work.

They're horizontal statements, nothing else.

Again one hand filming the other, and more trucks.

I'd like to capture them.

To hold on to what's passing by? No, just for fun.

The island of Noirmoutier is renowned

for the causeway leading to it and for its oysters.

People glean there

after rough storms and at very low tide.

Storms dislodge oysters from the beds

and carry them close to shore.

But people know that around Christmas time

we're so busy that we can't gather them back up.

So we leave them for gleaners.

They're out there the day after a storm.

A high sea over the beds is a pretty sight.

But to profit from the low tide,

gleaners need a copy of the tide tables.

We come every year at low tide.

They follow the water as it recedes

and gather anything they find.

People collect the oysters loosed from the beds.

In theory, they should respect the wooden posts

around the beds.

Those people are too close.

If the oyster farmers are in a good mood, fine.

But sometimes it turns nasty.

We don't touch their beds.

I guess those posts are the limit.

We might cross over a bit sometimes.

We're not stupid. We watch others and do the same.

If they say anything, we leave.

It's tolerated but not really allowed.

It's not outright illegal.

The right to glean still exists,

provided you glean 10-15 yards from the beds.

- No, 25 yards. - Is it 25 now?

What are people allowed to do?

To collect seven pounds per person.

Ten yards away minimum.

Eleven pounds per person.

Seven pounds of clams and 11 pounds of oysters,

something like that.

Eleven pounds of oysters per person, I think.

Three dozen per person, but they take more than that.

They gather inedible little oysters

that were churned in the waves, so they're full of sand.

They come from the mainland.

They eat them and get sick.

The Jura region saw heavy flooding.

The river Dard blocked our route.

Elsewhere I had enjoyed it when animals blocked our way.

Or I'd just stop to look at them.

The Nenon family, in the hills near Apt,

present a special case of grape picking.

It wasn't a few grapes they found but a whole vineyard.

That's a real harvest!

Yes, the entire vineyard was left unpruned last year.

It's an entire harvest going to waste.

I spotted this place and was astonished.

Could anyone say anything?

Don't the owners care? - No. After November 1...

we're allowed to pick grapes in any vineyard.

They'd just be eaten by wild boar or birds anyway.

- Wild boars like grapes? - They love them.

That day...

I filmed dancing pruning shears.

I forgot to turn my camera off...

thus the dance of the lens cap.

The lens cap has stopped its crazy jig.

We're off to see the only winegrower

who cares about gleaners.

I warn kids of the terrible effects of eating too much,

but I figure the adults know,

so I leave them alone.

Jérôme Noël-Bouton shows us an old photo of the vines here,

which once belonged to Étienne-Jules Marey.

A mini-museum in the cellar is dedicated to him.

Engineer, physiologist, and scientist,

Marey invented chronophotography.

He was a visionary.

He deconstructed movement before Muybridge and the Lumieres.

He's the ancestor of all filmmakers.

I'm proud to be family.

Marey was my father's grandfather, hence my great-grandfather.

To be more specific...

my grandfather was Marey's son-in-law.

His wife, my grandmother, was Marey's daughter.

She married a man named Bouton,

and this estate, previously owned by the Bouton family,

was bought by Marey.

It was returned to the Bouton family when his daughter married a Bouton.

Well done!

The tower you see over there...

he built with his own two hands

to house his still camera equipment.

He'd set his cameras up with wires and leave them.

Animals or birds going past would trigger the camera.

That's the famous hut in which,

using his chronophotographic rifle,

he broke down the flight of birds.

This is Demenÿ, Marey's assistant,

with rifle and film reel.

I wonder who the boy in the bowler hat is.

Marey's experimental pictures

and film strips

are a pure visual delight.

Our train leaving Paris

just happens to slow down

near the waste collection center in Ivry, very relevant to our subject.

We're headed for Prades, where our composer Joanna lives.

She'd encountered some youths who'd had a brush with the law

for wreaking havoc with a supermarket's trash bins.

The bins' contents had been doused in bleach.

I thought I could create a sort of filmed account

if I met all the protagonists —

The youngsters gathered on the square,

the store manager...

and the court magistrate,

who was very concerned and very polite.

I wanted to know more

About these homeless youths' encounter with the law.

Should squatting be legalized?

I could champion that cause if not for this robe.

It's a very nice robe!

It was a simple case of young people committing vandalism.

I found them guilty of violence.

This was before the bleach?

They'd knock over the bins and rummage through them.

My staff had to clean it up every morning.

That led me to apply the law

and bleach the trash, which they didn't appreciate.

- We got mad. - It was nothing!

Defaced? We knocked over a few bins,

scrawled a bit of graffiti, threw a few tomatoes.

They broke the camera.

It was locked. We had to climb a bit.

They climbed over the fence,

so they were trespassing.

Having to appear in court was itself a penalty

for these youths who live outside of all rules.

All we took was trash.

The point isn't to fine them but to remind them of the law.

Each party played its part, applying its own blinkered logic.

The kids said what you'd expect.

We filmed them with their dogs. It was picturesque.

I'm not that I'm antisocial.

- May I ask your age? - Twenty-two.

Their beauty is poignant when you realize that,

for whatever reason,

they get most of their food from trash bins.

In court it was apparently “a dialogue of the deaf” —

But not the mute.

The kids made some noise!

I said she was crazy. She cited me for contempt of court.

We said she was bonkers, and she'd go, “Write that down!”

“Clerk, write that down! 'She's bonkers!”

We could tell it was a foregone conclusion.

I got disgusted. She opted for a closed court.

I yelled and slammed the door.

They're still talking about the whole episode,

and I continue thinking about it in my hotel room.

We continue to film people who spend time around trash cans...

yet they all have different reasons,

and ifs a different experience for each.

Hi! How are you?

Sit down. I ordered you a coffee.

We were told...

“He wears rubber boots and salvages everything.”

I live almost 100% on stuff I've salvaged.

Rich, poor, or middle-class, everyone throws food away.

Why? Because we have such idiotic ideas.

People see a certain expiration date on a yogurt.

“My God, I can't eat this! It'll kill me!”

That's so stupid!

It's easy to tell from the smell and other signs if ifs okay.

I've gotten 100% of my food from the trash...

for 10 or 15 years now.

And I've never gotten sick.

- You don't have a job? - Sure I do.

I have a job, a salary, a social security number.

So it's not due to poverty?

Absolutely not.

I salvage out of ethical concerns.

Seeing all the waste in the streets is disgraceful.

It all proves we're heading for disasters like the Erika oil spill.

OIL SLICK

Turn its head to the right.

Loosen"

Sea birds, guillemots, razorbills,

all the creatures royally screwed by Total Fina Oil,

all those who will be royally screwed

by this over-consuming society —

Because even if they're cleaned up, they can still get caught in our nets.

I'm an activist for their sake.

People can croak in their apartments amid their trash.

Fine by me. Birds first.

Do you always wear boots?

Yes. Rubber boots have two advantages.

They're just the thing on all this hostile terrain.

There's a psychological aspect too.

In my boots, I'm like the lord of the town.

All these idiots dump away.

I come along after them and rake in the chips.

TRASH IS BEAUTIFUL!

An exhibition featuring pretend trash cans

was organized to teach children

how to sort the trash.

At “Trash is Beautiful,” they like colors...

and children play with bits of salvaged junk.

This is plastic found in the street.

Gino Rizzi is in charge of the kids' workshop.

He himself transforms yogurt containers into flowers...

and plastic bottles into mobiles.

Where does play end and art begin?

CARTIER FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

American artist Sarah Sze

exhibits huge mobiles made of lots of bits and pieces.

Kitchen trash has made it into the art world,

where junk is highly prized... and highly priced.

But trash in museums

is small, cute, clean, and colorful.

Have these kids ever seen what a broom really sweeps up...

or shaken hands with a garbage collector?

How you doing?

Everything okay? - Yeah.

This is neighborhood life.

I live here

at Mr. Charlie Plusquellec's, because he's a friend.

More than a friend.

He's a protector, a godfather. He's everything to me.

I'm very, very happy-

I'm surrounded by nature here.

You can see: It's like paradise.

Salomon is a bit like a migrating bird.

He arrives, he moves in.

Then one day he disappears.

Then he comes back again. Then he leaves again.

This is his third time here.

Every day I leave here...

I wander around...

looking here and there for discards.

I said don't touch anything!

You hear me? - Yes, ma'am.

Don't you understand?

Early every morning we come salvage a little something.

It's like the lottery.

There's plenty for everyone.

It's good.

There's lots.

You need any?

He might want some. Want some bread?

I always come and help myself.

Sometimes you find good cold meats,

sometimes poultry, a bit of everything.

Salomon found...

some chicken legs.

I'm cooking them before they go bad.

You'll be eating chicken and rabbit for a month!

Don't worry.

We always find someone to share with.

We give it to the neighbors. Especially the woman next door.

Not bad.

Right now we have 1, 2, 3...

four refrigerators and two freezers

that we picked up and fixed.

I patch them up and fix them.

When they're working, I sell them...

or I give them away to neighbors.

The streets are full of refrigerators.

Some work, some don't.

The “Empty Lot” collective in Villeneuve-sur-Lot

reimagines salvaged refrigerators

and furnishes them with all modern amenities.

DEMONSTRATION FRIDGE

Free our comrades!

My neighbor the Lion of Denfert

is made of bronze.

My friend the Lion of Aries is made of stone.

We got there early one morning.

The carnies were still asleep.

I saw a man Watching the river flow by.

Part of me felt like approaching. Part of me didn't.

Further on along the Rhône,

in an almost heavenly orchard,

the gleaners arrive.

You can tell them

by their baskets, crates, plastic bags, and other containers

that look nothing like those used by the workers here.

My name's David. I'm the foreman here.

We frequently allow gleaners to come in

after our harvesters,

provided they remain 10 yards behind.

There are lots of apples left on the trees.

We take advantage of that.

I collect them so they don't go to waste.

I share them with others.

We make applesauce.

Seeing so many left just makes you want to pick them.

I don't take damaged ones,

because my children are very particular.

They're used to the best.

This one's damaged, so I toss it.

Even gleaners are selective.

Here's an apple with nothing going for it.

It's like an ugly and stupid person.

It's small and has burn marks too.

Commercial value: zero.

We can't tell people

not to help themselves to apples

once we've finished harvesting.

So we define a very specific gleaning period.

We take down license plate numbers.

For mopeds we ask for a copy of the owners' ID.

And we give them precise dates when they can come pick apples.

Isn't that a bit over-regulated?

It's either that or nothing at all.

Once people are registered,

I don't care if they take 400 pounds,

a whole season's worth.

Good for them.

In this seven-acre field,

at least 10 tons won't be harvested.

That gives the gleaners quite a bit of exercise.

You have to look behind branches, among the leaves.

It takes a while to fill up a basket.

It's no piece of cake. It's hard work.

Quite a few fell down.

You just have to pick them up.

Robert a gleaner of many crops, invited us to follow him.

He knows where to find quince

and what to look for in greenhouses.

I'm looking for pine nuts.

You don't miss a trick!

Nothing gets by me.

They've harvested the tomatoes in this greenhouse.

I'll gather what's left before they clean the place.

There are some tomatoes.

This is nature. It shouldn't be wasted.

They're left behind. Once the harvest is over,

it's not worth hiring people just for those.

They'd rather let us do it.

Can anyone go in the greenhouses?

I don't know what the law says about greenhouses.

A greenhouse is a facility for growing vegetables.

Once the harvest is done,

a few tomatoes, grapes, carrots, or celery are left behind.

If gleaners adhere to the law,

growers can't say anything

or press charges.

Even on their own property?

Precisely. Gleaning is always on private property.

Mr. Dessaud, our lawyer in the fields, explained gleaning rights.

Mrs. Espié, our lawyer in the streets, tells us about salvaging rights.

A different law applies to these items.

“Res derelictae” are items with no owner,

since the original owner's intention has been clearly expressed:

They have deliberately abandoned them.

Only the penal code speaks to their status.

It says these items can't be stolen because they have no owner.

Whoever salvages these items becomes their legal owner.

Ownership isn't being transferred between parties.

Once they take these items, they belong to them...

irrevocably.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Sidelined beds on the sidewalk

Washed-out machines, tired-out fridges

Just bend down and grab your furniture

Yeah, cookers, cushions, club armchairs

Weary wood chairs, TV sets, worn-out couches

Iron, rattan, stoves, and cushions

Just bend over, you're made over

TV crap and TV rap...

I've seen lots of TVs abandoned,

and within minutes...

someone was salvaging the copper.

Copper from the deflection coils.

I looked at the magic screen, thinking how I began this film

right after the eclipse shown on TV,

continued it while the countdown to Y2K was shown on TV,

and ended the film on May 1st.

Other less violent souls take a TV home,

hoping to repair it.

I found two small chairs on the street

and took them home.

One night when bulky items were set out,

I drove around with François Wertheimer,

who 'o' composed one of my film scores,

and who also sang.

He has dressed all in white for 25 years.

François is curious and enjoys rummaging.

But nothing caught his eye that night.

He looked at an empty clock

but put it back down.

I picked it up and took it home.

A clock without hands works fine for me.

You don't see time passing.

I like filming rot...

leftovers, waste...

mold and trash.

But I never forget

those who do their shopping in the leftovers and trash

when the market is over.

It's past 2:00.

I've done my shopping, and I linger on

until the market is over.

I notice a man with a big bag eating on the spot.

I'd see him now and then, always with his bag,

always eating.

The day he was eating parsley,

I went over to him.

Do you eat a lot of parsley?

Sometimes. It's full of vitamin C and E,

beta carotene, zinc, magnesium.

It's excellent.

His answer amazed me.

Over the following weeks, I filmed him repeatedly,

with or Without sound, as he talked to me in snatches.

I pick up food at the markets.

It's that much less to buy.

I'm mostly vegetarian,

so I find what I need.

I don't earn much,

but I still have to eat.

When you see what they throw away here...

In the markets I find mostly fruit and vegetables.

Sometimes cheese, but that's rare.

I eat a lot of fruit. I love apples.

I find all the apples I want.

- How many apples a day? - Six or seven.

Is that your staple diet?

I eat bread too.

I get up at 4:00, I catch the train,

and I arrive in Paris at 5:45.

Between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m.,

they throw away bread left over from the day before.

If you spot a trash can near a bakery,

it's likely to contain sandwiches, bread,

and all that.

I eat lots of bread.

It's a staple food full of protein and carbohydrates.

It's odd, this concern —

- For a balanced diet? - Yes.

Well, I studied biology,

so it's natural to know a thing or two.

I used to be a teaching assistant.

When people find out I have a master's degree,

they can't understand why I sell papers to earn a living.

I sell magazines or street papers.

Usually in front of the train station.

I live in migrant housing, where 50 % of the residents

are illiterate.

Immigrants from Mali and Senegal, mostly.

I moved here eight years ago...

and I've been teaching them to read and write for six years.

I'm not part of the school system. I don't get paid for it.

I teach every evening from 61-30 or 7:00

until 8:30 or 9:00.

He set up and decorated the classroom himself

for the students, who come and go as they please.

Here are a few examples

using those syllables.

And the example is...

That's right.

“A nocturnal activity.”

What does “nocturnal” mean?

What is success?

Isn't it a behavior?

When someone has succeeded in life.

Someone who has succeeded.

- Like Céline Dion? - Exactly.

Someone famous?

- It's more the will to... - Succeed.

When you've achieved something, that's success.

“A useful insect.”

An example?

A cockroach.

I'm not sure a cockroach is useful...

but it is an insect.

Meeting this man is what surprised me the most

in the whole time I was filming.

That and how long it took me to find out

about his nocturnal activity as a volunteer in a suburban basement.

The other high point is quite different in kind.

I talked the museum in Villefranche-sur-Saône

into bringing out of storage

a painting by Hédouin

that I'd seen reproduced in black and white in a catalog.

Brigitte, the curator, and her assistant Julie

had to disturb several slumbering paintings

before finding the one I wanted to bring to light:

Gleaners Fleeing Before the Storm.

To see the gleaners in broad daylight,

with stormy gusts lashing the canvas,

was a true delight.

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