America As Seen by a Frenchman (1960) - full transcript
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---
Reichenbach's film proves that
despite robotism, depersonalisation
the threat of plural over singular,
invasion of the barracks
and a symmetry equal to death
there lies everywhere surprises,
excesses, wonderful disorders
an instinctive disobedience to rules
which saves us from boredom
and preserves for the world
the strange asymetrical beauty
of the human figure
America
as seen by a frenchman
I traveled America for 18 months
I was allowed everywhere
even in prisons
Nothing of what you will see
has been reconstituted
I wanted to show America's
rules and rituals
this appetite for youth and freedom
without which a film such as this
could not have been made
San Francisco, August 30th
We enter America throught the golden
door. The Golden Gate Bridge.
They say it stretches the
city like the virgin?s thread
The thread is sturdy
It is also workable
A thousand cars move across
at a regular pace
We drive
This bridge is a starting point
that we chose, perhaps
because of its great size
the size of the country
it pours onto
Here begin all journeys
to all possible Americas
And all are possible
The one that produces
the one that thinks
the one that worries
or the one that tempts
It?s the moment of decision
to wander in a setting which
as beautiful as it is
is only distraction
or to close our eyes
give up all ready-made ideas
and let ourselves fall into
the deep American body
And then, only then
open our eyes
and wait for men to appear
This is when we rode across
some men and horses
a strange carriage that seemed
to come from a childhood dream
When dawn came, they were there
they filled the horizon
Where are they going to,
who are they?
They are simple folks from Houston
Most of them work in offices
but once a year they rent horses
borrow carriages from the museum
and begin a sort of pilgrimage
on the old route of salt
Nostalgia for a time of
adventure drives them
For three days and nights,
they will be pioneers
Indians have almost disappeared
but their memory is still alive
Their history started here
In these camps where men
braved cold and fear
So that their kids might
come and kiss here
in a night without ambush
One spring morning, very early
On an empty beach of
Santa Monica
models have to suggest
the pleasures of summer
They don?t know each other
an agent brought them together
And suddenly, a secret accord
professional sense or are they
caught at their own game?
On a record cover
they will be tied forever
To glorify a certain view of happiness
is the first rule of American publicity
This is why so much work
is put into it
Photographers are the Sunday
painters of modern America
Cigarettes, camping gear,
toothpaste, cars are portrayed
just as donators in
primitive paintings
Another principle of publicity:
recreate life with movement
In a flash the photographer
will design
the cover of a calendar
intended for GIs
It is in studios that America creates
tall women painted like pharaohs
trained like horses
will fix for the entire world
the universal canon of beauty
and of the year
This skier is also a model
We are in Cypress Garden
paradise of amateur photographers
They don't seem to mind
taking the same picture
which is by the way also
available on postcards
For a moderate price, we can also
photograph world beauties
or harvest unattended
the forbidden orchid
In each American
there is a photographer
And in each photographer
there is a tourist
Don?t be surprised to see them travel
without looking around
Their Kodak is their memory
Back in their living room
album on the knees
they will relax
they will begin to love the world
they will start to travel
When they travel in their own country
Do they see the same America?
These frozen landscapes?
Those odd inventions which make
us feel from a different planet
Do they still smell this wilderness?
Or do they share the impression
that those vast horizons
are still waiting for something?
The invasion of Martians
or the return of pioneers?
Half machine half insect
with this abiltiy
to hover above ground
and ponder with their mandibles
Pioneers have come back
The plain is not countryside
but an immense desert
that let itself be tamed
by those engineers of the earth
America has 9 millions farmers
but not one peasant
Tender Mississippi of musical boats
Walt Disney recreated it
at the scale of children
25 000 people per day
visit this universe of automatons
Here Indians don?t scalp
Fire doesn?t burn
At once history book, farce, fair and zoo
It is a reduction of the
world, of fairy tales
where fake hippos scare real children
And at night, the boat
comes obediently back home
for it's guided by rails
America has thousands
of artificial worlds
Close to Los Angeles is a museum
consecrated to the heroic Far West
Your rail ticket includes
a masked robbery
and an attack on the postal wagon
Hollywood Extras play
their role assiduously
and animate this ghost town
We ride across the dream of a town
breathe in a dream of adventure
and sit with a dream of adultery
Here everything is reconstituted
but this woman is of the period
She?s the last survivor
of the civil war
She?s 104 years old
Old fiddlers have also come back
to relive the spirit of the past
And become without knowing
the truest characters of this museum
Real faces start to resemble
cartoon characters
Drawing artists have
nothing left to invent
You want the real grandmother
keeper of the bible and the apple pie?
Here she is
Walt Disney has only to sign her
We are in a cell
This man committed two murders
He is in for a hundred years
In the prison of Huntsville, Texas
is the convicts rodeo
Guests arrive
They are inmates from nearby towns
all wearing white from
cotton they weaved
We arrived in this strange ceremony
where the most dangerous criminals
were searched right in front of us
The stadium is in the
prison?s perimeter
It seats 25 000 people
They come from far to assist to
this rodeo, known to be fierce
The most fanatic spectators are
recruits from military school
And the game starts
There is probably no game in
the world with such high stakes
The prize is a remission of sentence
Like the matador killing death
the prisoner rides his own freedom
After the show each one regains his cell
Under the collar is inscribed the
number that identifies them
Last generosity of Huntsville
for each, a hot dog in the right hand
and in the left a hamburger
Part of the profit will go
to their relief fund
the rest to the
construction of churches
Provided for, in the present
future and eternity
prisoners regain their cells
Each brings back from this event
a strange souvenir
First prize won a year in remission
the second a week with his wife
What did he win this one?
The memory of being clown for a day
Huntsville
unbreakable prison but
without filth or rust
A prison without contempt
A small America behind bars
where they can bank money
or buy from the drugstore
Life goes on with its
perpetual need to produce
For the prisoners world
this weaving
For the world of freedom
these car plates
Here hope is never completely lost
This giant ice cream
adorned like a bride
is this American boy?s
first love story
the centrifugal pizza
also has its ceremony
it dances in the air
the ballet of seduction
Not far from there
Tom Dick and Harry
celebrate their common majority
together, they are 21 years old
They were three little children
that ate more than elephants
There will be left of those days
Only this song by Michel Legrand
These little twins without malice
have their future in publicity
We are driven to optimism
When we see them eat their meal
It seems to you a funny career
In America it's mighty well paid
Because in that foreign country
You earn your bread by eating away
My little sister is not happy
She won?t have any dessert
Sometimes a meal becomes
a party or a competition
The first to finish their Myrtle pie
will do the melon contest
On every sunny weekend
there is a giant barbecue
At Christmas, 53 million turkeys
and ten times that of chickens
are walked to the consumer
And yet sometimes a miracle
Look at this hen.
It is unique.
A breeder's publicity
trained to play bowling
The gist of the game is that
grain will only come
if all pins are up
The hen knows when it's useless
to go get the grain
Pins first
This hen saved by publicity
Will never find its prey
but through its shadow
This is what we call
a conditioned reflex
This gracious person
is she pin or grain?
We will not decide
She is anyhow a good
example of conditioning
Her role is to advertise
for rescue equipment
We count on the
client?s subconscious
to put away the girl
with the apparatus
and vaguely expect her
to appear on our stretcher
in case of a fire
hence our trust
hence a few callings of incendiary
But we need to specify
that she has a husband
and he's a wrestler
Here publicity is more solemn
Even so, it is only the
opening of a gymnasium
where this golden
athlete is a teacher
And as always, majorettes join in
Majorettes are a national institution
No publicity parade
no electoral campaign
no manifestation without them
Their role is to raise crowds
If in every girl
there is a Majorette
In each young man
there is a musician
Each university, school, sports team
has an orchestra that parades
in uniform with military precision
Here, two sports come together
football and insurrection
Cheerleaders are here to
direct the crowd?s uproar
Every gesture has a
clear significance
and motivates the public
to motivate the team
The same energy leads them
whether to defend the team?s colors
or the colors of America
On an aircraft carrier
close to Hawaii
we were left alone
with those men of the future
drunk on space and science fiction
Those young men who are taught
to conquer fear by playing with death
Go back with a simple joy
to the events of daily life
At the Red Cross
the same men take free classes
to prepare for fatherhood
Don?t think they're serious
they?re as amused as you are
to be in this situation
Americans never miss a
chance to go to school
Any age is good to learn
It?s the best way to stay young
After three weeks of classes
they will graduate as fathers
Technicians and space travelers
learn the careful handling of babies
Cheerfully
perhaps finding there a reality
that no progress can change
Because according to Dr. Von Braun
it would be wrong to assume
that with nine women
we could get a child in one month
Everything is ready
to welcome this baby
which shows up in America
every eleven seconds
To prove it, let?s count
together: eleven, ten,
nine, eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one, zero
An American has been born
On the hospital?s television
he comes to his father
like a news flash
the latest news
We are in a hospital
of Hialeah, Florida
Only just born, he will be filed
according to weight and height
kept from germs in
one of those incubators
where he will ripen like a melon
until he has gained sufficient weight
Newborns go rapidly from
being watched by television
To watching television
which by the way
has special programs for babies
What is the name of the river
going through Paris?
It?s the...the Seine. It?s the Seine.
Name the colors please
Yellow, orange
purple, chestnut, grey...
And so begins the golden age
of American life: childhood
As soon as he walks, a child
spends all day with neighbors
He is given full independence
so he doesn't become a cry baby
obsession of all American parents
The first Hula Hoop contests
happened under police care
For a while now
parents were worried
A whole generation
in front of television
heading towards anchylosis
Their only effort was to choose
between a western and a cartoon
And here comes this novelty
Police took matters into their hands
and started to distribute
records and Hula Hoops
Kids followed the lead
the race was saved
A golden age is this moment
when wonder has come bare
when believing in miracles
makes them come true
when pigeons fly
horses fly
angels fly
humans fly
After the golden age:
the nickel age
A child, no matter his parents wages
must win his own pocket money
After school, he distributes
the evening paper
It is a scene which occurs everyday
in all provincial towns
Newspapers are deftly thrown
other kids collect them
eager to know the latest news
Not about those imaginary characters
called Ike, de Gaulle or Khrushchev
But about the real heroes
of this world: Pogo, Superman
Dick Tracy or little orphan Annie
For children, the national event
is the Soap Box Derby fought
every year in Acron, Ohio
The day starts, of course
with a brass band and majorettes
Then comes the long-awaited moment
the race begins
Boys between 8 and 14
built these cars by themselves
from identical materials
planks, wheels and nails
that the tire society gave them
Preliminaries selected
two boys in each state
The winners will get a scholarship
and a job when they?re twenty
as engineer in one of the tire
factories that sponsor the event
Here come the holidays
As in any country, boys love
to run after what?s forbidden
But here, they won?t be punished
Parents let their kids get bruises
to avoid those lumps
of the soul: hang-ups
The fastest runner, the most daring
will the the most admired
Waiting for real life to begin
the brain takes a rest
And as blindmen think with their hands
Americans think with their bodies
The beach in Santa Monica
is called Muscle beach
In french, la plage du muscle
He is trying to cover his shadow
Beaches facilitate transitions
As from childhood to adolescence
From the chaotic world of children
to the ones called teenagers, 13 to 20
For whom childhood gestures
suddenly change meaning
On summer afternoons
adolescent bodies seek each other
and give themselves
We talk very little
Verbal language is not how
boys and girls communicate
They have a more secret, more
heathen language of their own
Summer gone, college begins
Free college where rich and poor meet
and blend in American democracy
For boys, there is a future
to think of, and exams
For girls also, of course
But they must put other
aces up their sleeves
up their legs and smiles
Friendship made them
fond of boyish games
of a reality that will
give way to love
and America is filled with
young girls running to happiness
Majorette school teaches
the scales of seduction
which resemble in a way
the rituals of birds and insects
On school ground
without seeming to
begins the offensive
leading to marriage
each sides are watching
The lucky girls will not be
the most learned, pretty or clever
but the ones most resembling
Miss America
who resembles all American girls
To be chosen, Miss America must
have all the virtues of a young girl
She must also be strong
In Judo school, defensive strategy
is the last step in
a liberal education
Defensive strategy which may just be
a disguised form of offensive
To find a parody of seduction
we go to a striptease school in L.A.
Of course, Americans did not
invent naked women
But they were the first to give
them academic training
Here we learn with great skill
the complex rules behind
this solemn frustration
Students learn of the subtle line
between bold moves and
those sanctioned
We are always weary
of a border incident
of an unclear boundary
a disputed territory
If we dare say, of a no man's land
Striptease has a code
And so depending on the city
limits of shamelessness
lie on different rules
Who takes this class?
Beginners or professionals
in want of perfection
who thought of Luther's say
that to conquer evil
one sometimes needs
to steal its weapons
Baffling America
No other country has as
much respect for marriage
And yet we find in a parking lot
a chapel dispensing
for couples in a rush
a fixed rate ceremony
For small fee, a lady
standing in for family
will throw good luck rice
on the newlyweds
Honeymoon
Baffling America
These concrete tents
those motels that proliferate
make it hard to believe
that Americans are traditionally
bound to the intimacy of home
Like attracts like
America produces enough twins
to hold a congress
every year in Huntington
For the pleasure of assembling
and resembling
Stilt houses and boardwalks
This surprising place is Fire Island
Where cats and dogs are
holding their own congress
Here are the major
races of American society
The dog race: kind, sociable
a little too excitable
And the cat race: secretive
righteous and dark
whose watchfulness reveals a
hoard of movement and violence
These sons of violence
those felines have an ideal
To escape from everyday life
They are American Gypsies
They ride the country following
seasons like migratory birds
The world of bikers
created heroes, myths
Leather, boots and guitars
are both emblem and gathering call
Elsewhere, fanatics gather
to wait for Hot Rods
In french: piston brulant
With old frameworks
junk parts, boosted engines
lovers of speed and mechanics
made these machines
that reach a 150 mph
Racing is a tranquilizer
for those young men
reduced all week to 50 mph
Faster than the wind
faster than blood in my veins
faster that sap in a tree
faster than Mississippi waters
said James Dean
America resonates
with games of violence
mechanical violence
Across the country, cars flame up
motorcycles fly
roller coasters spin
Thin line between
pleasure and torture
In other days, these would
be instruments of pain
In all these activities
accidents are accidental
but they had to
make it deliberate
the ragtime of dead ends,
of catastrophes
defying the devil
a game for Hell Drivers
To boost our national pride
these men from Kansas
call themselves The Parisians
Here's one of those Parisians
from fair to fair
doing the same number
As if this society based on comfort
found genuine pleasure
in seeing baffled and destroyed
the symbols of that comfort
Here
the ceremony is over
Kids learn that cars can die
They say she's an Italian princess
We'll never why she was there
going through waste
looking for souvenirs perhaps
We'll never know precisely
what she was doing
We'll know nothing also
of these drowned vehicles
At dawn, by the Mississippi
in New Orleans
While fog dissipates
Characters wait for the boat
of a Negro king
That will open the black carnival
Nearby is the white carnival
We saw blackmen dressed as negroes
Here's women dressed as naked women
But if bodies have fake skins
souls are bare
Far from worn-out carnivals
where we dress up out of habit
All of its violence is there
A travesty, a mask
is a confession
All day the carnival played
its obscene lament
In a few hours, Ash wednesday.
Everything must be back to normal
At nightfall
the strangest characters
began to appear
In the dark, adolescents wait
Waiting that sometimes
leads to stealing and crime
as if to feed something inside
with the only thing they've
never tasted: punishment
At Houston police station:
identification of a suspect
Six boys are suspects
in a garage theft
In the shadow a witness
will single one out
There
That's him
Each night a dozen boys line up
guilty of mild crimes
but also of irrational, violent ones
Here they have all vices
laziness, brutality
and worse of all: sadness
In obstinate silence
they tell their parents
That all is not well, not simple
Their gang tells of a
need for community
their cruelty, the need
for a loved one
In a void that they couldn't fill
men raise these absurd animals
Those too tough to go home
spend time in a cell
It doesn't touch them
They have the patience of a rock
and it's indifference
Our presence doesn't
seem to surprise them
or irritate them
They are elsewhere
On the road
But the prisoner's
dream is short-lived
It dissipates at daybreak
with the strange ceremony
of a meal for guilty children
America believes in prophets
when they speak the bible
But the muteness of these youths
within the clamor of those
speaking God's name
might just be His silence
the only language left
In this country that seems so
content with paradise on earth
We sometimes felt a
desire to be elsewhere
the call of the unseen
of a new America to be discovered
This America, is it at
the end of the desert
or at the end of life?
Infinite are the roads leading
to God and to salvation
Holy Rollers are Christians
Temples of this sect are open to all
Followers are believers
wanting to chase
with this Holy rolling
a demon from their soul
Elsewhere, other cults light up
This need to give physical
form to religious fervor
created in America
this ballet of lights
We had found it in the
world of advertising
Commerce seems an excuse
for the creation of beauty
And beauty itself
is more than pleasure
It is an offering to the Gods
The American night with its
comets and imaginary zodiac
is full of these offerings
And we ride to Las Vegas
with its galaxies of Casinos
That our speed animates like
a procession coming to us
Las Vegas, a city made of lights
born in the middle of the desert
is the capital of game and chance
Chance: a prisoner in its cell
the little boy with an ice cream
the negro during carnival
the young girl with her plans
Chance. Their chance.
Given to all citizens at birth
That each one carries with him
like a token of happiness
always within reach
whatever happens
In Las Vegas where gambling is legal
8 million people every year
speak directly to chance
where a dollar is its sign
and slot machines are praying mills
San Francisco, Louisiana, Texas
America, if I didn't loose
myself in your maze
It is because I didn't try to
understand or deduce or explain
It is because, in a way
I have loved you, simply
New York, they say you
have no heart or past
In your reflections I found
treasures, cathedrals
New York, November 18
We leave America
The one we saw. Because there are
as many Americas as people
Each one discovers something
that they keep for themselves
And we almost consider this
country a superstore
the slogan of which would be
If you don't know what you want
come on in, we have it
But it would be easy to say
that America is strange
This way of life, so
criticized but so imitated
Is the art of giving to man's will
what he though was his fate
It might be all of Europe
in twenty years
And if it is to be ours
perhaps was it worthwhile
to consider it well
---
Reichenbach's film proves that
despite robotism, depersonalisation
the threat of plural over singular,
invasion of the barracks
and a symmetry equal to death
there lies everywhere surprises,
excesses, wonderful disorders
an instinctive disobedience to rules
which saves us from boredom
and preserves for the world
the strange asymetrical beauty
of the human figure
America
as seen by a frenchman
I traveled America for 18 months
I was allowed everywhere
even in prisons
Nothing of what you will see
has been reconstituted
I wanted to show America's
rules and rituals
this appetite for youth and freedom
without which a film such as this
could not have been made
San Francisco, August 30th
We enter America throught the golden
door. The Golden Gate Bridge.
They say it stretches the
city like the virgin?s thread
The thread is sturdy
It is also workable
A thousand cars move across
at a regular pace
We drive
This bridge is a starting point
that we chose, perhaps
because of its great size
the size of the country
it pours onto
Here begin all journeys
to all possible Americas
And all are possible
The one that produces
the one that thinks
the one that worries
or the one that tempts
It?s the moment of decision
to wander in a setting which
as beautiful as it is
is only distraction
or to close our eyes
give up all ready-made ideas
and let ourselves fall into
the deep American body
And then, only then
open our eyes
and wait for men to appear
This is when we rode across
some men and horses
a strange carriage that seemed
to come from a childhood dream
When dawn came, they were there
they filled the horizon
Where are they going to,
who are they?
They are simple folks from Houston
Most of them work in offices
but once a year they rent horses
borrow carriages from the museum
and begin a sort of pilgrimage
on the old route of salt
Nostalgia for a time of
adventure drives them
For three days and nights,
they will be pioneers
Indians have almost disappeared
but their memory is still alive
Their history started here
In these camps where men
braved cold and fear
So that their kids might
come and kiss here
in a night without ambush
One spring morning, very early
On an empty beach of
Santa Monica
models have to suggest
the pleasures of summer
They don?t know each other
an agent brought them together
And suddenly, a secret accord
professional sense or are they
caught at their own game?
On a record cover
they will be tied forever
To glorify a certain view of happiness
is the first rule of American publicity
This is why so much work
is put into it
Photographers are the Sunday
painters of modern America
Cigarettes, camping gear,
toothpaste, cars are portrayed
just as donators in
primitive paintings
Another principle of publicity:
recreate life with movement
In a flash the photographer
will design
the cover of a calendar
intended for GIs
It is in studios that America creates
tall women painted like pharaohs
trained like horses
will fix for the entire world
the universal canon of beauty
and of the year
This skier is also a model
We are in Cypress Garden
paradise of amateur photographers
They don't seem to mind
taking the same picture
which is by the way also
available on postcards
For a moderate price, we can also
photograph world beauties
or harvest unattended
the forbidden orchid
In each American
there is a photographer
And in each photographer
there is a tourist
Don?t be surprised to see them travel
without looking around
Their Kodak is their memory
Back in their living room
album on the knees
they will relax
they will begin to love the world
they will start to travel
When they travel in their own country
Do they see the same America?
These frozen landscapes?
Those odd inventions which make
us feel from a different planet
Do they still smell this wilderness?
Or do they share the impression
that those vast horizons
are still waiting for something?
The invasion of Martians
or the return of pioneers?
Half machine half insect
with this abiltiy
to hover above ground
and ponder with their mandibles
Pioneers have come back
The plain is not countryside
but an immense desert
that let itself be tamed
by those engineers of the earth
America has 9 millions farmers
but not one peasant
Tender Mississippi of musical boats
Walt Disney recreated it
at the scale of children
25 000 people per day
visit this universe of automatons
Here Indians don?t scalp
Fire doesn?t burn
At once history book, farce, fair and zoo
It is a reduction of the
world, of fairy tales
where fake hippos scare real children
And at night, the boat
comes obediently back home
for it's guided by rails
America has thousands
of artificial worlds
Close to Los Angeles is a museum
consecrated to the heroic Far West
Your rail ticket includes
a masked robbery
and an attack on the postal wagon
Hollywood Extras play
their role assiduously
and animate this ghost town
We ride across the dream of a town
breathe in a dream of adventure
and sit with a dream of adultery
Here everything is reconstituted
but this woman is of the period
She?s the last survivor
of the civil war
She?s 104 years old
Old fiddlers have also come back
to relive the spirit of the past
And become without knowing
the truest characters of this museum
Real faces start to resemble
cartoon characters
Drawing artists have
nothing left to invent
You want the real grandmother
keeper of the bible and the apple pie?
Here she is
Walt Disney has only to sign her
We are in a cell
This man committed two murders
He is in for a hundred years
In the prison of Huntsville, Texas
is the convicts rodeo
Guests arrive
They are inmates from nearby towns
all wearing white from
cotton they weaved
We arrived in this strange ceremony
where the most dangerous criminals
were searched right in front of us
The stadium is in the
prison?s perimeter
It seats 25 000 people
They come from far to assist to
this rodeo, known to be fierce
The most fanatic spectators are
recruits from military school
And the game starts
There is probably no game in
the world with such high stakes
The prize is a remission of sentence
Like the matador killing death
the prisoner rides his own freedom
After the show each one regains his cell
Under the collar is inscribed the
number that identifies them
Last generosity of Huntsville
for each, a hot dog in the right hand
and in the left a hamburger
Part of the profit will go
to their relief fund
the rest to the
construction of churches
Provided for, in the present
future and eternity
prisoners regain their cells
Each brings back from this event
a strange souvenir
First prize won a year in remission
the second a week with his wife
What did he win this one?
The memory of being clown for a day
Huntsville
unbreakable prison but
without filth or rust
A prison without contempt
A small America behind bars
where they can bank money
or buy from the drugstore
Life goes on with its
perpetual need to produce
For the prisoners world
this weaving
For the world of freedom
these car plates
Here hope is never completely lost
This giant ice cream
adorned like a bride
is this American boy?s
first love story
the centrifugal pizza
also has its ceremony
it dances in the air
the ballet of seduction
Not far from there
Tom Dick and Harry
celebrate their common majority
together, they are 21 years old
They were three little children
that ate more than elephants
There will be left of those days
Only this song by Michel Legrand
These little twins without malice
have their future in publicity
We are driven to optimism
When we see them eat their meal
It seems to you a funny career
In America it's mighty well paid
Because in that foreign country
You earn your bread by eating away
My little sister is not happy
She won?t have any dessert
Sometimes a meal becomes
a party or a competition
The first to finish their Myrtle pie
will do the melon contest
On every sunny weekend
there is a giant barbecue
At Christmas, 53 million turkeys
and ten times that of chickens
are walked to the consumer
And yet sometimes a miracle
Look at this hen.
It is unique.
A breeder's publicity
trained to play bowling
The gist of the game is that
grain will only come
if all pins are up
The hen knows when it's useless
to go get the grain
Pins first
This hen saved by publicity
Will never find its prey
but through its shadow
This is what we call
a conditioned reflex
This gracious person
is she pin or grain?
We will not decide
She is anyhow a good
example of conditioning
Her role is to advertise
for rescue equipment
We count on the
client?s subconscious
to put away the girl
with the apparatus
and vaguely expect her
to appear on our stretcher
in case of a fire
hence our trust
hence a few callings of incendiary
But we need to specify
that she has a husband
and he's a wrestler
Here publicity is more solemn
Even so, it is only the
opening of a gymnasium
where this golden
athlete is a teacher
And as always, majorettes join in
Majorettes are a national institution
No publicity parade
no electoral campaign
no manifestation without them
Their role is to raise crowds
If in every girl
there is a Majorette
In each young man
there is a musician
Each university, school, sports team
has an orchestra that parades
in uniform with military precision
Here, two sports come together
football and insurrection
Cheerleaders are here to
direct the crowd?s uproar
Every gesture has a
clear significance
and motivates the public
to motivate the team
The same energy leads them
whether to defend the team?s colors
or the colors of America
On an aircraft carrier
close to Hawaii
we were left alone
with those men of the future
drunk on space and science fiction
Those young men who are taught
to conquer fear by playing with death
Go back with a simple joy
to the events of daily life
At the Red Cross
the same men take free classes
to prepare for fatherhood
Don?t think they're serious
they?re as amused as you are
to be in this situation
Americans never miss a
chance to go to school
Any age is good to learn
It?s the best way to stay young
After three weeks of classes
they will graduate as fathers
Technicians and space travelers
learn the careful handling of babies
Cheerfully
perhaps finding there a reality
that no progress can change
Because according to Dr. Von Braun
it would be wrong to assume
that with nine women
we could get a child in one month
Everything is ready
to welcome this baby
which shows up in America
every eleven seconds
To prove it, let?s count
together: eleven, ten,
nine, eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one, zero
An American has been born
On the hospital?s television
he comes to his father
like a news flash
the latest news
We are in a hospital
of Hialeah, Florida
Only just born, he will be filed
according to weight and height
kept from germs in
one of those incubators
where he will ripen like a melon
until he has gained sufficient weight
Newborns go rapidly from
being watched by television
To watching television
which by the way
has special programs for babies
What is the name of the river
going through Paris?
It?s the...the Seine. It?s the Seine.
Name the colors please
Yellow, orange
purple, chestnut, grey...
And so begins the golden age
of American life: childhood
As soon as he walks, a child
spends all day with neighbors
He is given full independence
so he doesn't become a cry baby
obsession of all American parents
The first Hula Hoop contests
happened under police care
For a while now
parents were worried
A whole generation
in front of television
heading towards anchylosis
Their only effort was to choose
between a western and a cartoon
And here comes this novelty
Police took matters into their hands
and started to distribute
records and Hula Hoops
Kids followed the lead
the race was saved
A golden age is this moment
when wonder has come bare
when believing in miracles
makes them come true
when pigeons fly
horses fly
angels fly
humans fly
After the golden age:
the nickel age
A child, no matter his parents wages
must win his own pocket money
After school, he distributes
the evening paper
It is a scene which occurs everyday
in all provincial towns
Newspapers are deftly thrown
other kids collect them
eager to know the latest news
Not about those imaginary characters
called Ike, de Gaulle or Khrushchev
But about the real heroes
of this world: Pogo, Superman
Dick Tracy or little orphan Annie
For children, the national event
is the Soap Box Derby fought
every year in Acron, Ohio
The day starts, of course
with a brass band and majorettes
Then comes the long-awaited moment
the race begins
Boys between 8 and 14
built these cars by themselves
from identical materials
planks, wheels and nails
that the tire society gave them
Preliminaries selected
two boys in each state
The winners will get a scholarship
and a job when they?re twenty
as engineer in one of the tire
factories that sponsor the event
Here come the holidays
As in any country, boys love
to run after what?s forbidden
But here, they won?t be punished
Parents let their kids get bruises
to avoid those lumps
of the soul: hang-ups
The fastest runner, the most daring
will the the most admired
Waiting for real life to begin
the brain takes a rest
And as blindmen think with their hands
Americans think with their bodies
The beach in Santa Monica
is called Muscle beach
In french, la plage du muscle
He is trying to cover his shadow
Beaches facilitate transitions
As from childhood to adolescence
From the chaotic world of children
to the ones called teenagers, 13 to 20
For whom childhood gestures
suddenly change meaning
On summer afternoons
adolescent bodies seek each other
and give themselves
We talk very little
Verbal language is not how
boys and girls communicate
They have a more secret, more
heathen language of their own
Summer gone, college begins
Free college where rich and poor meet
and blend in American democracy
For boys, there is a future
to think of, and exams
For girls also, of course
But they must put other
aces up their sleeves
up their legs and smiles
Friendship made them
fond of boyish games
of a reality that will
give way to love
and America is filled with
young girls running to happiness
Majorette school teaches
the scales of seduction
which resemble in a way
the rituals of birds and insects
On school ground
without seeming to
begins the offensive
leading to marriage
each sides are watching
The lucky girls will not be
the most learned, pretty or clever
but the ones most resembling
Miss America
who resembles all American girls
To be chosen, Miss America must
have all the virtues of a young girl
She must also be strong
In Judo school, defensive strategy
is the last step in
a liberal education
Defensive strategy which may just be
a disguised form of offensive
To find a parody of seduction
we go to a striptease school in L.A.
Of course, Americans did not
invent naked women
But they were the first to give
them academic training
Here we learn with great skill
the complex rules behind
this solemn frustration
Students learn of the subtle line
between bold moves and
those sanctioned
We are always weary
of a border incident
of an unclear boundary
a disputed territory
If we dare say, of a no man's land
Striptease has a code
And so depending on the city
limits of shamelessness
lie on different rules
Who takes this class?
Beginners or professionals
in want of perfection
who thought of Luther's say
that to conquer evil
one sometimes needs
to steal its weapons
Baffling America
No other country has as
much respect for marriage
And yet we find in a parking lot
a chapel dispensing
for couples in a rush
a fixed rate ceremony
For small fee, a lady
standing in for family
will throw good luck rice
on the newlyweds
Honeymoon
Baffling America
These concrete tents
those motels that proliferate
make it hard to believe
that Americans are traditionally
bound to the intimacy of home
Like attracts like
America produces enough twins
to hold a congress
every year in Huntington
For the pleasure of assembling
and resembling
Stilt houses and boardwalks
This surprising place is Fire Island
Where cats and dogs are
holding their own congress
Here are the major
races of American society
The dog race: kind, sociable
a little too excitable
And the cat race: secretive
righteous and dark
whose watchfulness reveals a
hoard of movement and violence
These sons of violence
those felines have an ideal
To escape from everyday life
They are American Gypsies
They ride the country following
seasons like migratory birds
The world of bikers
created heroes, myths
Leather, boots and guitars
are both emblem and gathering call
Elsewhere, fanatics gather
to wait for Hot Rods
In french: piston brulant
With old frameworks
junk parts, boosted engines
lovers of speed and mechanics
made these machines
that reach a 150 mph
Racing is a tranquilizer
for those young men
reduced all week to 50 mph
Faster than the wind
faster than blood in my veins
faster that sap in a tree
faster than Mississippi waters
said James Dean
America resonates
with games of violence
mechanical violence
Across the country, cars flame up
motorcycles fly
roller coasters spin
Thin line between
pleasure and torture
In other days, these would
be instruments of pain
In all these activities
accidents are accidental
but they had to
make it deliberate
the ragtime of dead ends,
of catastrophes
defying the devil
a game for Hell Drivers
To boost our national pride
these men from Kansas
call themselves The Parisians
Here's one of those Parisians
from fair to fair
doing the same number
As if this society based on comfort
found genuine pleasure
in seeing baffled and destroyed
the symbols of that comfort
Here
the ceremony is over
Kids learn that cars can die
They say she's an Italian princess
We'll never why she was there
going through waste
looking for souvenirs perhaps
We'll never know precisely
what she was doing
We'll know nothing also
of these drowned vehicles
At dawn, by the Mississippi
in New Orleans
While fog dissipates
Characters wait for the boat
of a Negro king
That will open the black carnival
Nearby is the white carnival
We saw blackmen dressed as negroes
Here's women dressed as naked women
But if bodies have fake skins
souls are bare
Far from worn-out carnivals
where we dress up out of habit
All of its violence is there
A travesty, a mask
is a confession
All day the carnival played
its obscene lament
In a few hours, Ash wednesday.
Everything must be back to normal
At nightfall
the strangest characters
began to appear
In the dark, adolescents wait
Waiting that sometimes
leads to stealing and crime
as if to feed something inside
with the only thing they've
never tasted: punishment
At Houston police station:
identification of a suspect
Six boys are suspects
in a garage theft
In the shadow a witness
will single one out
There
That's him
Each night a dozen boys line up
guilty of mild crimes
but also of irrational, violent ones
Here they have all vices
laziness, brutality
and worse of all: sadness
In obstinate silence
they tell their parents
That all is not well, not simple
Their gang tells of a
need for community
their cruelty, the need
for a loved one
In a void that they couldn't fill
men raise these absurd animals
Those too tough to go home
spend time in a cell
It doesn't touch them
They have the patience of a rock
and it's indifference
Our presence doesn't
seem to surprise them
or irritate them
They are elsewhere
On the road
But the prisoner's
dream is short-lived
It dissipates at daybreak
with the strange ceremony
of a meal for guilty children
America believes in prophets
when they speak the bible
But the muteness of these youths
within the clamor of those
speaking God's name
might just be His silence
the only language left
In this country that seems so
content with paradise on earth
We sometimes felt a
desire to be elsewhere
the call of the unseen
of a new America to be discovered
This America, is it at
the end of the desert
or at the end of life?
Infinite are the roads leading
to God and to salvation
Holy Rollers are Christians
Temples of this sect are open to all
Followers are believers
wanting to chase
with this Holy rolling
a demon from their soul
Elsewhere, other cults light up
This need to give physical
form to religious fervor
created in America
this ballet of lights
We had found it in the
world of advertising
Commerce seems an excuse
for the creation of beauty
And beauty itself
is more than pleasure
It is an offering to the Gods
The American night with its
comets and imaginary zodiac
is full of these offerings
And we ride to Las Vegas
with its galaxies of Casinos
That our speed animates like
a procession coming to us
Las Vegas, a city made of lights
born in the middle of the desert
is the capital of game and chance
Chance: a prisoner in its cell
the little boy with an ice cream
the negro during carnival
the young girl with her plans
Chance. Their chance.
Given to all citizens at birth
That each one carries with him
like a token of happiness
always within reach
whatever happens
In Las Vegas where gambling is legal
8 million people every year
speak directly to chance
where a dollar is its sign
and slot machines are praying mills
San Francisco, Louisiana, Texas
America, if I didn't loose
myself in your maze
It is because I didn't try to
understand or deduce or explain
It is because, in a way
I have loved you, simply
New York, they say you
have no heart or past
In your reflections I found
treasures, cathedrals
New York, November 18
We leave America
The one we saw. Because there are
as many Americas as people
Each one discovers something
that they keep for themselves
And we almost consider this
country a superstore
the slogan of which would be
If you don't know what you want
come on in, we have it
But it would be easy to say
that America is strange
This way of life, so
criticized but so imitated
Is the art of giving to man's will
what he though was his fate
It might be all of Europe
in twenty years
And if it is to be ours
perhaps was it worthwhile
to consider it well