Les divisions de la nature (1981) - full transcript
A MAN
A CASTLE
Everything man sees
enters him through his eyes.
It's unthinkable that something big
can enter through something smaller.
By the foregoing, it follows that
nothing is bigger than man.
Man being the biggest,
it is unthinkable that
he can look at another man...
since the biggest can not
be bigger than his equal.
By the foregoing,
it follows that there are multiple men.
The Divisions of Nature
Four looks at
the castle of Chambord
Every man sees his peers
smaller than himself.
If every man thinks his peers
smaller than himself
and himself the biggest,
if this is not in fact true,
then another must be so.
Since if it is to the contrary,
the view is false.
By the foregoing, it follows that
there is a man bigger than all others:
It is the king.
When man sees the king,
he sees him smaller than himself.
Which goes against the
lessons given by the view.
By the foregoing, it follows
that the king should live in a castle.
1. GOD
Text by J. de Suarez
music by Ravel
and anonymous (13th century)
Since the king
is the biggest of creatures...
the castle should appear as the biggest.
Man, by consequence,
should not move too far from it.
If he would,
he would see the castle reduce
until it was smaller than a pebble,
which is unthinkable.
All man made constructions
should teach us something.
Since we are on the earth
but aspire to the sky...
all constructions
should help us find the sky.
The sky is found in the opposite
direction to a falling apple.
Since all construction goes
from the bottom to the top,
as teaches the law of nature,
it should, among other things,
point upwards.
To point out to us the only way...
as teaches divine law.
Every construction
culminates in the roof,
this shows the ultimate
end of all construction,
being God.
The roof of this castle,
meanwhile, is like a city,
with it's streets
and it's palaces.
Consequently this castle
doesn't teach the way of the sky,
but that of the city.
If we followed its teachings,
we should leave,
which goes against all laws.
By the foregoing, it follows
that this castle is wrong.
The king ordered the river to be deviated
so the castle would reflect in the water.
Inevitably this reflection
will be deformed by the wind.
The deformed reflection
of the castle in the river
masks a rebuttal of the four causes.
From this reflection we deduce
that the material cause
is imbued and ordered
by the formal cause...
under the fickle dictate
of the efficient cause.
Among others, the castle reflected here
has no final cause,
which does not comply with reason.
It can be said that the
study of the deformed reflection
teaches that of all possible forms
the truest one
is the one reflected by the eyes,
without intervention
of a deforming mirror.
Which is wrong.
Since by that reasoning
this castle would be perfect
in comparison to
its deformed reflection.
Since we've already shown
that this castle is wrong,
such a proposition
cannot be true.
II: IDEAS
The Spirit: Do you believe these objects
exist outside of yourself?
Me: It must be, because I can see them,
they must exist.
Spirit: Even if the form of these objects
resemble nothing you have ever seen before?
Me: Even in that case,
if they seem deformed,
it is nevertheless evident
that at a given moment there was
an original shape from which it derives.
Spirit: Even if this original shape
disappeared after being
reproduced by a kaleidoscope?
Me: Hm, in that case the answer is no.
Spirit: Will you affirm that
this object is beautiful?
Me: I believe it.
Spirit: Can you reproduce the beauty
without reproducing the object?
Me: The beauty is part of the object.
Spirit: Since you can distinguish a
beautiful object from one that is not,
it is that beauty must exist
independently of the object.
Me: I believe it.
Spirit: Maybe the beauty is indissolubly
linked to that from which it emanated.
Me: Maybe...
Spirit: Can you see in the darkness?
Me: Of course not.
Spirit: Nevertheless when you close
your eyes you can reproduce
in your head this chapel
that you've seen by day.
Me: Yes, I can see it even now.
Spirit: Can you add
another image to this one,
that you've seen elsewhere
and put it atop the first?
Me: No, this seems impossible.
Spirit: Of course you can do it.
Me: In fact you are right,
it is absolutely possible.
Spirit: The landscape is the work of
nature and the castle is the work of man.
Me: Since both are an illusion,
their non-existence makes them akin.
Spirit: This non-existence,
in your opinion, is it negative?
Me: Yes, since it opposes the union
between the me and the spirit.
Spirit: How do you know?
Me: I know since I contain both the spirit
and that which holds me from it.
Spirit: It must be so, because it
is me who thinks that.
Spirit: This castle, does it move you?
Me: Since I know it's here,
it moves me.
Spirit: According to you
we only know that which we love.
Me: Without a doubt.
Spirit: This emotion, does it come
before or after the thing you know?
Me: Before, without a doubt.
Spirit: In that case,
all you know is your emotion.
Me: I know the castle is here and
that moves me, but I also know that
I am touched and that this emotion
makes me see the castle.
Since this emotion seems
to me to be imperfect
my natural reaction is to
take action and to improve it
Spirit: What is the goal of this act?
Me: To create a better world
where there is no injustice.
Spirit: If the world is an illusion,
how would a better world be less so?
Me: Because such a world
would exist outside of me.
III THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD
Spirit: How could you have
this castle be outside of you?
Me: By the canceling
of it's only witness, myself.
...as we said before, Charles Terrasse
in his biography of Francois the 1st...
This castle is worth what it is
and what it represents
The same Charles Terrasse
speaks about his great pleasure
in seeing animals of all kinds.
He had five small zoos, one of which
followed him everywhere.
Exotic birds, lions, tigers, bears,
civets, leopards, camels and ostriches...
During the centuries we
gave it different values.
Built to be seen, its representation
is its value in use.
Its embedded value is equivalent
to its exchange value,
since its marginal usefulness
is equivalent to its value in use.
...bn, ms, fr 393...
...the building and also to order the....
...etcetera...
...etcetera...
What this castle represents,
is its reproducibility
Because it is here to be shown,
its value does not diminish by being
reproduced on postcards or in movies,
On the contrary:
this increases its value.
...nothing responds
to my voice, the trees....
...four miles from Blois,
one mile from the Loire
in a little valley, between swamps
and forests. Far away from all roads
all of the sudden
appears a royal castle...
This value is not only shown
by the number of visiting tourists,
since with 3000 visitors a day,
we have reached the point of saturation.
This saturation generates
a marginal usefulness,
because tourists who cannot enter,
find their way to the nearest castle
and in this way the notion
of the monument as a whole
becomes more valuable.
...yesterday I visited Chambord,
you can imagine how beautiful it is....
...it supports the towers
with her staunch spikes
and colors the windows
with her fire: the snake with...
Since this castle
is constantly being restored,
the stones replaced one after the other,
we could say that its value
is not its timelessness,
but the drive to keep it permanent.
This drive is the same one
that pushes members of a nation
to persist in their national character.
Chambord has only a double stairway,
to go up and down,
All is done
for the mystery of war...
...Talking about this stairway, we
can admire the breeziness of its decree...
This drive, among other things, leads
nations beyond their borders.
To find strong images, like this castle.
To make prevail and to impose their
national character on other nations
...architect, painter and sculptor...
In the beginning of 1516 Leonardo
is in Rome, he stays until August...
The life of a guard at Chambord
is like this:
In the summer
we open at nine thirty until 12
The castle is closed
between twelve and two.
We have big crowds in July and August,
it's a bad time for us.
The best season for us is the winter.
Because, it's cold but,
there aren't many visitors. We light
the fireplaces and heat the place.
A lot of rooms have been altered,
the castle gets better each year.
We restore a room or two every year,
and bit by bit
the visits last longer.
The tapestries are original.
On the walls, the wallpaper...
the wallpaper is new,
but the tapestries are original...
What is special at Chambord
is above all the stairway.
A double-helix stairway.
Many visitors don't understand.
They don't understand.
Many visitors arrive at the second floor.
Without knowing they took
a double-helix stairway.
From the period of Francois the Ist
there isn't much left.
Some ceilings, tiling,
and the stairway off course
The roof tiling has been redone.
The roof framework.
The terrace has been redone.
There isn't much left.
The famous story about Francois the 1st:
Francois I wrote on his bedroom window
with the diamond in his ring:
"Women often change,
if you count on them you are crazy"
The legend tells that Louis XIV
broke the window
to please one of his mistresses,
Mme de La Vallière.
"Women often change,
if you count on them you are crazy"
A CASTLE
Everything man sees
enters him through his eyes.
It's unthinkable that something big
can enter through something smaller.
By the foregoing, it follows that
nothing is bigger than man.
Man being the biggest,
it is unthinkable that
he can look at another man...
since the biggest can not
be bigger than his equal.
By the foregoing,
it follows that there are multiple men.
The Divisions of Nature
Four looks at
the castle of Chambord
Every man sees his peers
smaller than himself.
If every man thinks his peers
smaller than himself
and himself the biggest,
if this is not in fact true,
then another must be so.
Since if it is to the contrary,
the view is false.
By the foregoing, it follows that
there is a man bigger than all others:
It is the king.
When man sees the king,
he sees him smaller than himself.
Which goes against the
lessons given by the view.
By the foregoing, it follows
that the king should live in a castle.
1. GOD
Text by J. de Suarez
music by Ravel
and anonymous (13th century)
Since the king
is the biggest of creatures...
the castle should appear as the biggest.
Man, by consequence,
should not move too far from it.
If he would,
he would see the castle reduce
until it was smaller than a pebble,
which is unthinkable.
All man made constructions
should teach us something.
Since we are on the earth
but aspire to the sky...
all constructions
should help us find the sky.
The sky is found in the opposite
direction to a falling apple.
Since all construction goes
from the bottom to the top,
as teaches the law of nature,
it should, among other things,
point upwards.
To point out to us the only way...
as teaches divine law.
Every construction
culminates in the roof,
this shows the ultimate
end of all construction,
being God.
The roof of this castle,
meanwhile, is like a city,
with it's streets
and it's palaces.
Consequently this castle
doesn't teach the way of the sky,
but that of the city.
If we followed its teachings,
we should leave,
which goes against all laws.
By the foregoing, it follows
that this castle is wrong.
The king ordered the river to be deviated
so the castle would reflect in the water.
Inevitably this reflection
will be deformed by the wind.
The deformed reflection
of the castle in the river
masks a rebuttal of the four causes.
From this reflection we deduce
that the material cause
is imbued and ordered
by the formal cause...
under the fickle dictate
of the efficient cause.
Among others, the castle reflected here
has no final cause,
which does not comply with reason.
It can be said that the
study of the deformed reflection
teaches that of all possible forms
the truest one
is the one reflected by the eyes,
without intervention
of a deforming mirror.
Which is wrong.
Since by that reasoning
this castle would be perfect
in comparison to
its deformed reflection.
Since we've already shown
that this castle is wrong,
such a proposition
cannot be true.
II: IDEAS
The Spirit: Do you believe these objects
exist outside of yourself?
Me: It must be, because I can see them,
they must exist.
Spirit: Even if the form of these objects
resemble nothing you have ever seen before?
Me: Even in that case,
if they seem deformed,
it is nevertheless evident
that at a given moment there was
an original shape from which it derives.
Spirit: Even if this original shape
disappeared after being
reproduced by a kaleidoscope?
Me: Hm, in that case the answer is no.
Spirit: Will you affirm that
this object is beautiful?
Me: I believe it.
Spirit: Can you reproduce the beauty
without reproducing the object?
Me: The beauty is part of the object.
Spirit: Since you can distinguish a
beautiful object from one that is not,
it is that beauty must exist
independently of the object.
Me: I believe it.
Spirit: Maybe the beauty is indissolubly
linked to that from which it emanated.
Me: Maybe...
Spirit: Can you see in the darkness?
Me: Of course not.
Spirit: Nevertheless when you close
your eyes you can reproduce
in your head this chapel
that you've seen by day.
Me: Yes, I can see it even now.
Spirit: Can you add
another image to this one,
that you've seen elsewhere
and put it atop the first?
Me: No, this seems impossible.
Spirit: Of course you can do it.
Me: In fact you are right,
it is absolutely possible.
Spirit: The landscape is the work of
nature and the castle is the work of man.
Me: Since both are an illusion,
their non-existence makes them akin.
Spirit: This non-existence,
in your opinion, is it negative?
Me: Yes, since it opposes the union
between the me and the spirit.
Spirit: How do you know?
Me: I know since I contain both the spirit
and that which holds me from it.
Spirit: It must be so, because it
is me who thinks that.
Spirit: This castle, does it move you?
Me: Since I know it's here,
it moves me.
Spirit: According to you
we only know that which we love.
Me: Without a doubt.
Spirit: This emotion, does it come
before or after the thing you know?
Me: Before, without a doubt.
Spirit: In that case,
all you know is your emotion.
Me: I know the castle is here and
that moves me, but I also know that
I am touched and that this emotion
makes me see the castle.
Since this emotion seems
to me to be imperfect
my natural reaction is to
take action and to improve it
Spirit: What is the goal of this act?
Me: To create a better world
where there is no injustice.
Spirit: If the world is an illusion,
how would a better world be less so?
Me: Because such a world
would exist outside of me.
III THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD
Spirit: How could you have
this castle be outside of you?
Me: By the canceling
of it's only witness, myself.
...as we said before, Charles Terrasse
in his biography of Francois the 1st...
This castle is worth what it is
and what it represents
The same Charles Terrasse
speaks about his great pleasure
in seeing animals of all kinds.
He had five small zoos, one of which
followed him everywhere.
Exotic birds, lions, tigers, bears,
civets, leopards, camels and ostriches...
During the centuries we
gave it different values.
Built to be seen, its representation
is its value in use.
Its embedded value is equivalent
to its exchange value,
since its marginal usefulness
is equivalent to its value in use.
...bn, ms, fr 393...
...the building and also to order the....
...etcetera...
...etcetera...
What this castle represents,
is its reproducibility
Because it is here to be shown,
its value does not diminish by being
reproduced on postcards or in movies,
On the contrary:
this increases its value.
...nothing responds
to my voice, the trees....
...four miles from Blois,
one mile from the Loire
in a little valley, between swamps
and forests. Far away from all roads
all of the sudden
appears a royal castle...
This value is not only shown
by the number of visiting tourists,
since with 3000 visitors a day,
we have reached the point of saturation.
This saturation generates
a marginal usefulness,
because tourists who cannot enter,
find their way to the nearest castle
and in this way the notion
of the monument as a whole
becomes more valuable.
...yesterday I visited Chambord,
you can imagine how beautiful it is....
...it supports the towers
with her staunch spikes
and colors the windows
with her fire: the snake with...
Since this castle
is constantly being restored,
the stones replaced one after the other,
we could say that its value
is not its timelessness,
but the drive to keep it permanent.
This drive is the same one
that pushes members of a nation
to persist in their national character.
Chambord has only a double stairway,
to go up and down,
All is done
for the mystery of war...
...Talking about this stairway, we
can admire the breeziness of its decree...
This drive, among other things, leads
nations beyond their borders.
To find strong images, like this castle.
To make prevail and to impose their
national character on other nations
...architect, painter and sculptor...
In the beginning of 1516 Leonardo
is in Rome, he stays until August...
The life of a guard at Chambord
is like this:
In the summer
we open at nine thirty until 12
The castle is closed
between twelve and two.
We have big crowds in July and August,
it's a bad time for us.
The best season for us is the winter.
Because, it's cold but,
there aren't many visitors. We light
the fireplaces and heat the place.
A lot of rooms have been altered,
the castle gets better each year.
We restore a room or two every year,
and bit by bit
the visits last longer.
The tapestries are original.
On the walls, the wallpaper...
the wallpaper is new,
but the tapestries are original...
What is special at Chambord
is above all the stairway.
A double-helix stairway.
Many visitors don't understand.
They don't understand.
Many visitors arrive at the second floor.
Without knowing they took
a double-helix stairway.
From the period of Francois the Ist
there isn't much left.
Some ceilings, tiling,
and the stairway off course
The roof tiling has been redone.
The roof framework.
The terrace has been redone.
There isn't much left.
The famous story about Francois the 1st:
Francois I wrote on his bedroom window
with the diamond in his ring:
"Women often change,
if you count on them you are crazy"
The legend tells that Louis XIV
broke the window
to please one of his mistresses,
Mme de La Vallière.
"Women often change,
if you count on them you are crazy"