Opium (2013) - full transcript

Raymond!

Illustrious Oedipus

Paeon

Creon, Jocasta

All that lovely bunch

At their crayon handrail, joke-casting

Quite awfully, seen up close

Cry out to the East and to the West

From their platform
of peony plaster

Over which spreads the big toe

Of the Oedipal appendage...



Youth has other tasks besides dying.

But heroes always die young.

My friends...

Pretend to weep.

For I am pretending...

to die.

I surrendered
to detoxification treatment.

I was admitting defeat,

giving myself up.

Baths, it seems, can be annoying.

They drove me mad.

I said to Dr K...

I know doctors.

You like me well enough,
but you like medicine more.



He said he had,
at last, an articulate patient,

that he learnt more from me,
as I described my symptoms,

than at the hospital,

where the question,
"Where does it hurt?"

Invariably received the reply:

"I dunno, Doctor".

Detoxifying the addict
is like saying to Tristan,

"Kill Iseult.

"You'll feel better afterwards."

Of course, opium is unique,

its euphoria
greater than that of health.

To it I owe all my perfect hours.

I remember it was in April '22,

in Villefranche.

I was rediscovering the sun,

as it shone on the sea.

The dazzling light, the fixed star,

the small port and the sailors.

The beach

and its exquisite torpor.

Then, suddenly, he was there.

Him.

The angel Heurtebise.

Radiant with youth
and the insolence of beauty.

Already aware
of those provocative poses

and lethal gestures.

This animal out of Rimbaud,
proud, merry,

ferocious

and already tragic.

Love cannot resist seasickness.

One must fall back
on ancient methods.

In the Middle Ages

they exhausted the patient,
drained him,

purged his bile...

returning to the legends
which drove out demons.

Monsieur,

there's a child asking for you.

A child with a stick.

Show him up.

Come in.

Cyprien announced a "child",

but you are a young man.

Thank you for seeing me.

I admire you above all else.
That goes without saying.

I am not a young man
with a future.

I am retired.

How amusing.

I've written a book.

I have the manuscript here.
I shall not write another.

I would like your opinion.

Nothing could be
more important to me.

Your opinion, that is all.

Very well. What is your name?

Raymond Radiguet.

We've already met, you know.

- I don't remember.
- You've forgotten.

Well...

I shall read your work, I promise.

We'll see you out.

Cyprien!

See Mr. Radiguet out.

Goodbye.

Events don't happen to us.
We encounter them

by the side of the road.

It is quite probable
that nothing ends

nor begins.

Every morning I tremble, I die

and I begin again.

I seem to have a gift
for suffering,

preferring to love than be loved,
I have been told.

Opium

is the femme fatale,

pagodas,

lanterns...

Since science

cannot separate its curative
and destructive effects,

I must yield.

There remains an antidote,

a pleasure,

an extreme siesta...

O heavenly kindness of opium!

Tell me where the load hurts

I shall nurse

The wound

Its cold lips

Wide open

Crying its cry

I shall hear the marrow flute

So light

Which the skeleton

Holds only by a thread

Because of the bag of blood

The bag of saliva,
the bag of bile

Bags badly fixed

To a wasp waist

Cut in two!

Look up!

Look how I stand out
against the sky like an angel.

An angel is talking to you.

That deserves a raising of your head!

Raymond, I always knew
that you'd been lent to me,

that I'd soon have to give you back.

The pupil Radiguet
soon became my master.

This seer of the real, this diver,

this cutter of crystal, was a master
of the art of seduction.

He'd lure you, without warning,
onto dangerously fast trains.

Monsieur.

I haven't yet paid my respects.

Raymond Radiguet.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I only invited you
because Jean asked me to.

Are you pleased with yourself?

I don't like you.

At all.

You're killing Jean.

But if you do kill him,
I'll kill you too.

I assure you I'm not joking.

A mystery is in the air...

Let us pretend
we are responsible for it.

No, it's not Raymond.

Nor is it the concierge.

Wait, I'll tell him.

Raymond, a lady for you.

She says her name's Emilie,
but I know the viscountess.

Do you want to talk to her?

Yes, I'm sorry, but apparently...

He's refusing to speak to you.

Well, what do you want me to do?
I can't do anything.

How charming you are!

Goodbye, Madame.

Bitch!

"That was nice, thank you."

Are you asleep?

Radiguet was a substance
impossible to analyse.

Alive,

capricious,

capable of suddenly turning on you,

like opium.

It's rare for a smoker to quit opium.

Opium quits him
after ruining everything.

OUTOF LUCK

Radiguet delighted in the prestige

bestowed on him by his frivolity.

But his attraction
to the mirror's dark side

drew him inexorably to the cursed,

the unloved

and the unlucky.

You remind me of an old friend.

He was as pretty as you.

So pretty I was embarrassed.

Soused in alcohol,

he fought only those battles
he was sure to lose.

One day he just left.

It was fate.

Meant to be.

Out of luck

Don't fight it.

What's the point
of my nursing you?

If you stopped scratching
you'd be unable to write.

I didn't turn my jacket inside-out,

but my skin.

That's much harder.

The Mariés de la Tour Eiffel scandal
was dirty linen washed in the family.

I'd wanted to cover my tracks.

Trompe-I'ceil theatre,
children's games,

human phonographs,

laughter on every floor...

Heavens! A telegram.

Here's the manager
of the Eiffel Tower.

Monsieur, do you think
you're out hunting?

I was pursuing an ostrich.

End of dialogue.

Quiet!

But the precursor spirit

didn't please the dogmatists,

of whom there were many.

André Breton spat out his hatred.

It's a farce! A farce!

Bravo!

Maurice Sachs defended me,

but he could just as well
have done the opposite.

André, really!

It's an outrage!

Be quiet!

Curtain, curtain!

Curtain!

Jean?

Get up.

Come on.
Everyone wants to congratulate you.

There he is. Bravo, Jean!

Such modernity!
You put them all in the shade.

You're a genius of nonsense.

It was wonderful.
The people of Paris are behind you.

It's extraordinary.
So daring, so daring...

He's being Dadaist.

Theatre isn't his domain.

He dabbles in everything.

Bravo!

Man Ray wants a photo.
When you're ready...

They didn't understand tonight,

but you're a genius, Jean.

You will overcome.

God, it's so ugly.

That's the supreme power!

To be disliked...

How fabulous to be so disliked.

Few can achieve that.

Just a minute...

I know you're exhausted, Jean.
I'm sorry.

Tristan...
I'm nearly ready.

It was an era
of overturning all values,

ready to start again.

It was the Dada movement.

Tzara came up with the word.

Keep still... That's good.

Perfect.

Man Ray, that genius of form,
that anchor of light,

immortalised us.

Just between us, it was clownish

and grim.

No, it was a success.

Jean must be pleased.

He got his scandal!

He's no poet.

Nor even a novelist.

No, he's a custard pie.

Don't forget the pie dish.

That's very important.

What's the pie dish?

Also known as a Radiguet!

The turd, and the turd dish!

Stop it.

Jean is a huge talent.

An artist, a great writer, a poet...

- This mockery is just a fashion.
- Fashion or not...

Yes, it's racy and new,

but he bones the quail
before serving it.

So much honey on his paws
we can't see the claws.

All those innuendos...

So tiresome!

And repeating all the time:
"Heaven is for everyone!"

That's nice enough.

He's my toreador, adorned and adored.

How pretty!

He deserves some credit.

He got Picasso
to work on the sets and the masks.

They were fine.
Chanel's sets weren't unpleasant.

Personally,

I like Honneger.

It's unfair of the smart set
to attack him.

He's a great poet.

The so-called "blood-soaked poet"!

It's his human sensibility
you are making fun of.

And he knows it.

It's unjust.

He's living off the corpses
of Valéry and Marinetti.

Do you want my opinion?

Monsieur Cocteau
is an anti-creativity vaccine.

Frivolity before everything!

That's how you get in the dictionary.

One cocktail, several Cocteau!

Another Radiguet.

I prefer the original,
I hate imitations.

You're late. We're starving!

- Yes, Madame.
- "Madame"?

- Company!
- These communists scare you?

André Breton demanded obedience
from his entourage.

My independent character
incited his hatred.

Good evening.

Yet I hate only hatred.

I have always had esteem for those

I have judged to be worthy foes.

Raymond's name
began to circulate through Paris.

Fighting a new battle,
he had a passion for life,

a desire to please...

With his innocent looks

and diabolical smile,

they all succumbed.

Coco Chanel,

Tristan Tzara,

Man Ray.

His articles will appear

in Les Nouvelles Littéraires.

Bérard said Jean had a new "master".
The first since Satie.

One is 60, the other 19.

Of the same generation?

His talent would soon rub shoulders
with glory.

Sorry, but I'm very late.

MR RADIGUETSIGNS
WITH PUBLISHER GRASSET

MR RADIGUETON THE OCCASION
OF THE PUBLICATION OF HIS BOOK

How old are you?

Nineteen.

Explain the success
of The Devil in the Flesh.

I must have some talent.

Is it genius?

I am, at best, a taxidermist
or tightrope walker.

Jean Cocteau has called you
"a machine that cuts crystal".

He's generous.

Writing is more necessary to me
than bread and water.

Maurice Sachs had endless charm.

I could not say
where or how I met him.

He haunted the clinics in which
my health kept me for long periods.

Le Boeuf sur le Toit was the hub
of audacity and revolution,

a rendezvous for the avant-garde,
encounters and metamorphoses.

I spent much of my time there.

Talent leads to a fall.

If one does not see them in time,

one slides down every slope.

He's dead drunk half the time.
Violently vain as a peacock.

I bumped into him.

He wants to seduce.

Nothing more.

A marvellous owl.

Unmoving

and blind on his perch.

And Jean, his protector,

is an insect with metal wings.

We watch him squander his wit,

fearing he is
an unrecognised genius.

The smart set attribute
every kind of marvel to him.

"Unrecognised"?

He peddles poison to the young.

He's a harmful, morbid charmer.

- Look who it is!
- Diaghilev.

Diaghilev's moist eye

had the curve of a Portuguese oyster.

He and Nijinsky

toured the world
with their dance troupe,

like a gaudy funfair.

Drink bird milk,
wash chocolate, eat veal!

He's coming apart.

You should sign him,
poet that you are.

An amusing game.

It isn't a game.

When he was 16, his mother
realised he was short-sighted,

had glasses made,

and it was then that Raymond

saw how ugly the world is.

Here, you'll look serious at last.

Accept, purely to please me.

On a sea in the air

Houses and the void

Don't forget the ball

A boat made of wire

Sailors entwined

Whom the waltz has destroyed

Offering to all takers

Many profiles to admire

The piano of love

The sailors mechanic

The girls scorning

The oarsmen's bare arms

At times on the dance floor

A young epileptic

Fought the angel

Midst clamour and charms

They were but houses

Which were shipwrecked midstream

And balconies everywhere

Dark with lovers' shades

Rather than escaping

Far from their colonnades

Allowed themselves

To be swallowed by the dream...

Beauty is a trick of nature

to draw creatures together

and ensure their support.

It works in a disorderly way,

its mechanism gropes its way along,

but it gets there at all costs.

Picasso said that opium has
the least stupid smell in the world.

But if it's not in a metal box,

the black serpent
will soon have slipped away.

It will creep along the walls

and in no time
wrap around the local constable.

More, more...

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Apologise to her for me.
I'm not hungry.

Come in.

Mr. Cocteau.
There's a Maurice Sachs for you.

Show him in.

It's a very good clinic.

Dr Blanche has treated
De Maupassant,

Nerval, Baudelaire...

You could go for a few days.
I spent 3 nights there.

Yes, I know it.

I know it.

In the meantime,
I have brought you...

this.

It's astounding.

Thank you.

"Art is dead. Let us kill it."

That's beautiful.

Really beautiful.

I've corrected
a few punctuation mistakes.

I hope you like it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Master.

May I read it?

Be my guest.

It's not my work.

It's your handwriting.

Count d'Orgel's Ball...

Nice.

It's the outline of a novel.
There's more to write.

But I won't write it.
Raymond will.

And it will be a masterpiece.

You know, Master...

I understand why so many
have sacrificed their youth for you.

You cause them to be born.
As simple as that.

I simply want to say that...

I am one of them.

Do with me what you will.

I have Cocteau in my hand!

I'm his typist! His typist!

I cannot bemoan being fooled.

If he stole from me,
it was to buy me gifts.

He gave more than he took,

and took in order to give.

In love, he said,
there is one who gives life

and one who kills.

The infernal machine

was powered by calculations
unknown to the stagehands,

from ladders in the wings
forbidden to the sweeps,

on pain of death.

The infernal machine...

The infernal machine,

with sickening precision,

also kept
the candelabra of stars in motion...

Good evening.

- For Monsieur Cocteau.
- Very well, Viscountess.

Tell him they're Chinese curios.

Very well, Viscountess.

It's a lot more than last time.

Mr. Raymond
has the adjoining room.

Mr. Jean said you agreed,

otherwise I should never
have taken the liberty.

He receives a good number
of young people.

Well, well.

Talk of the devil!

Jean is in an awful state.

There's nothing I can do.

There's a lot you could do.
You're well suited to cruelty.

You're writing a book
at no great cost to you.

Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel.

The aristocracy is more susceptible
to your interest

than intellectuals and artists.
You need the former.

That is true.

With the aristocracy,
one soon touches bottom.

But you enjoy that, touching bottom.

Keep the change.

I like Brancusi's portrait of you.
Astonishing.

See you Tuesday.

You may check.

I trust you, my good fellow.

Now I feel like a Manhattan.

You wouldn't have any gin,
would you?

We can ask for some to be sent up.

No, don't bother.

Picabia told me,

"Painting is for dentists.

"2 and 2 make 22.

"Dada,
the cabaret of nothingness."

How funny.

I won't write this novel.
I'm not your creature.

- Where are you going?
- Out!

To drink an Alaska,
then sleep at the studio.

You're penniless.

But Juan is in Spain.

I have the keys.

See you Tuesday
at your friend the Viscountess's ball.

You know,

I hate those rebellious toffs
you hang around with.

Who has been more loved than me?

No one...

Who has been more hated than me?

No one...

And you...
What do you think of me?

I know what a Greek knows

As the eldest I arose

I have the Greek nose,
that Aeneas knows

I am mural art

Art immured

The armour

I am vigour inherited

I am rigour and verity

I am severity

I am the callous and cruel

My lies are verity

Severity where it lies

I am the myth, the taken

The mistaken, the taken Miss

Lance the brow, balance now

I am the marrow...

And me?

What do you think of me?

Your cries

Even under torture

Are cries written helping pride

The sea changes into scripture

Once one dips one's nib

In its inky depths...

I'd like to sleep at your place
tonight.

I have my novel!

I've set my easel before
The Princess of Cleves, and it works!

A Madame de La Fayette key,

a Dangerous Liaisons bass
and Benjamin Constant strings.

It'll take some doing.

It's simple.

One character watches himself
live, love and exult,

before being betrayed,

with the calm of someone shaving.

The other

suffers constant cases
of amorous mistaken identity.

It's a geometric principle!

What time is it?

10 o'clock, Mademoiselle.

Then I must go.

What a coincidence!

See you Tuesday.

I love you.

I love you.

If we could measure the distance

between us
and those we think closest to us,

it would frighten us.

Childhood knows what it wants:
To leave childhood behind.

Then uneasiness begins,

for youth knows what it doesn't want

before knowing what it wants.

But what it doesn't want
is what we want.

Sunday morning, on a gambling spree

Cyclists dressed in their initials

Cyclists, kings, idlers from Les Halles

Your river of love adorns all Paree

The market gardeners sleep on the roses

The racers shoot over the horizon

From earth and heaven,
illustrious virtuosos

Fade away like the sound
of the diapason...

Bravo! What's your name?

Here, you'll make better use of it.

Wait! What's your name?

I'll tell you after.

After what? Wait...

Nice and hot!

Thank you.

At least tell me your name.

We've met before.

The Marchioness de Casati.

I know her by heart.
I've photographed her.

I gave her four pairs of eyes.

She said, "You've saved my soul".

There's the rat.

What is his game?

Hide-and-seek, like everyone else.

Through your legs,
the landscape gardeners!

Mademoiselle.

Which is Mr. Cocteau's room?

Mr. Cocteau wants no visitors today.

But I have an appointment.

He's not receiving visitors today.

He's expecting me.

- No visitors today.
- I've been here 4 hours!

Look. They are his own instructions.

Please. Let him rest.

- Tomorrow, then.
- No.

He's going south to take the waters.

Just let me see him for 5 minutes.

Monsieur, please don't insist.
Thank you.

I do not like to sleep

When your face inhabits

The night against my neck

For I think of Death

Which comes too soon

To make us sleep so much

I shall die, you will live

And that keeps me awake

Is there another fear?

One day I'll no longer hear,
next to my ear

Your breathing and your heart

How sweet it would be for me

To disturb your dream

To inhabit it for a while

So I will tremble

As the sun rises

And opens both shutters for you

Hurry we must,
let us waste no time

We shall take no rest
nor endure hunger

A few days from now
you will still be younger

Whereas I shall not,
I am thirty years old

Alas! Am I now going

To complain in these lines

About seeing, next to Charon

Death's indifference

To these circumstances

Which will decide it?

It lives, it waits

It is not its role
to choose our port

For it, this detail

Is a shrug of the shoulder

Given it by Fate

There is no point in praying
to that old statue

In knowing its plans

For it is not Death itself
which kills

It has its assassins...

Opium cushions us,

carries us to the river of the dead,

disembodies us
so we become a light meadow.

The night of the body
teems with stars.

But our happiness
is a happiness in a mirror.

I hate funerals.

Angel Heurtebise

My guardian angel

I guard you, I hurt you

I break you, I change your guard

On guard, summer!

I challenge you

If you are a man

Confess, my angel of white lead

Angel Heurtebise, in watery robe

Beloved angel, his grace did me harm

He tortures me

In me the demon is a turtle

Once melodious, arrive,
depart from agate

Hard smoke, the speed that kills

Beneath your diamond blades

Reigns the mirror of maladies

The walls, the walls have ears

And the mirrors, lovers' eyes...

Hello, stranger!
It's lovely to see you.

To the hotel... bienvenue.

How are you, my beauty?

Tell me where the load hurts

I shall nurse you

With cotton and gauze

And the pink cross

Stuck on top

Tell me where the load hurts...

Jean.

You've never told me.

Radiguet...

How did he die?

How can one die at 20 years old?

Raymond died

in the stupidest way possible.

He died after eating oysters.

The truth is...

oysters are more dangerous than opium.

Fix me a pipe.

Yes.

No.

It amazes me
that so many people fear death,

for it is always in us.

They should be resigned to it.

We would not be so terrified
of someone we live with.

Far better to embrace it,

becoming inured to its character,
however deceitful.

For it can be forgotten.

We all accommodate death,
reassuring ourselves with the lie

that it's an allegorical figure
appearing in the last act.

It is our joie de vivre.

Our youth.

You all lie.

Our growth.

I don't lie to myself.

Our loves.

I love truth.

But truth doesn't love you.

Truth loves no one.

But I have no love for lies.

I swear.

Lying can create dreadful problems.

We trip over our lies,

stumble and fall,

unable to get back up.

Everyone lies.

That says it all.
Don't you agree?

I am much simpler than that.

I am a lie
who always tells the truth.

Now, ladies and gentlemen,

the strongest man in the world!

Hear the story
of the world's strongest man.

He's crossed borders,

conquered the greatest capitals,

cleaved through oceans...

Here he is, tonight,

to tell you
the most secret story of all.

The most terrible!

The most improbable and horrible.

Quake, young people.
Quake!

For you tonight,
ladies and gentlemen,

the strongest man

in the world!

Almost naked

Escaped from a trap
of mud and nettles

The Gypsy girl

For the circus accounts
robs the son of a count

While the mother

Crazily calls

To the child on top of the ladder

At the circus learning to fly

Keep moving

I'll teach you how not to fall!

One can fly at any age

The circus is a kite

On its canvases and its ropes

Pilferers of children fly

Fly, pilferers!

The night behind the embankment

Where maternal cries
can no longer be heard...

Come back, my dear!

Pity my pain!

But the child remains deaf

And eats supper with the thieves!

Now, ladies and gentlemen,

the strongest man in the world,

and his doll,

who leaps from one world
to the next!

You'll see that when Raymond
has finished

sucking his little lollipop,

he'll plunge it into my heart.

Admire the strength!

The strongest man in the world!

Graziella?

- Are you there, darling?
- Go away!

Let me in.

Be nice, my princess.

I've made some onion soup.
Let me in.

Let me in!

You're annoying me!

We live in an enigma.

We mustn't think we know any more
than those watching us.

We live,

and do not see ourselves living.

Angel Heurtebise, Rue d'Anjou

Plays on the roof

At hopscotch, hopping and fluttering

Like a magpie or blackbird,
cheeks afire

Watch out, Heurtebise,
my beautiful cripple

We are being spied on

Hide your pearls

They must not kill you

For by killing you each month

It's me they kill, not you

The death of the angel Heurtebise

Was the death of the angel, the death

Heurtebise was a death of an angel

A death of an angel, Heurtebise

A mystery of change

An ace missing from the game

A crime which the vine entwines

A moonlit stock

A song of a dining swan...

If there was a fire at my house,

it's the fire that I'd save.

All finished off, antiquity

Flat and rolled out, eternity

Flat, finished, with fluted cavity

I imagine antiquity

Nose up, feet all pretty

Folds from the head
to the extremity

Flat and rolled out, eternity

Flat and finished, antiquity

Flat, finished, with fluted cavity

With ringed and fluted cavity

With winged and moulded canopy

The wet rose, scalloped and pretty

Buttoned and deshabillé

The sea of sculpted vitality

The column with hair all curly

Finished off, antiquity

Youth of eternity...

Mystery has its mysteries.

The gods have their own gods.

We have ours, they have theirs.

It's called the infinite.

Subtitles by Howard Bonsor

Subtitling by L.V.T. - Paris