Ulysse (1983) - full transcript

It was Sunday by the sea,
near Calais.

When I took this picture
with a plate-camera,

I saw upside down
on the frosted glass

the man on his head, lower right,

the boy center-right instead of left,

the goat floating in a sky full
of meteors, like a sign of the Zodiac.

And yet

I first saw it from a cliff top,
lying still,

probably stunned by the fall.

A dead goat was a prize subject

for the kind of pictorial composition
I loved then.



A still life or a landscape
with figures, as the old masters said.

Figures, that is, nudes in the open.

Here, a man and a child: My models.

The goat was born and died
in St. Aubin-sur-Mer.

The child was born in Denia, Spain.
The man in Alexandria.

He never saw the child
before that Sunday.

And I hadn't seen the Egyptian since.

How long has it been?

How long since I've seen you?

I don't know... 30...

maybe 28, 26 years.

Not since 1955, 56, 54.

Fouli Elia is the art director of Elle.

I brought you the picture
and some pebbles.



I don't especially remember this one.

I do remember the boy.

Remember his name?

I believe it was...

- Ulysses?
- Yes, that's it, not Maurice.

I remember him.
Didn't you have to carry him?

I don't think I ever saw him walk.

I remember you often took pictures

of dead things on the beach.

I remember one particular bird.

I remember you made us pose
without clothes.

You liked that.

I don't remember much else.

We were shy
and didn't know how to act.

So you told us:
Like this, not like that...

You didn't do pretty landscapes.

It was usually...

...dreamlike things.

I do like to look out at the sea.

I was waiting for it to happen.

We were glad to put
our clothes back.

And this portrait
of you in your clothes?

I don't remember it at all.

It was...

I remember the sweater
and the shoes,

but not where we were.

It was near Veules-les-Roses.

We used to go on weekends.

I don't even remember this coat.
I remember the shirt,

but I don't remember the person.

How strange!

You remember the clothes
but not who you were.

I don't want to remember.

If we don't remember,
we're in trouble.

I'm just talking.

What do I know?

Well, now that I'm 100,000 years old,

I begin to understand.

Me too, and I'm 50,000.

But do I know
where my head was at, 28 years ago,

when I placed this child
in the middle of a beach,

in the middle of the picture
that now bears his name?

Ulysses Llorca owns a bookshop
on Rue de Rivoli in Paris.

He is married to Isabelle.
They have two daughters.

Aurore is the age Ulysses was
when I first met him.

He was my first child,

well... my favorite child,
not really my child,

for he had a mother.

Bienvenida, whom we called Bienv?,

and a father, Juan,
bricklayer and Republican.

They were Spanish, of course,
political exiles.

We shared the same courtyard
on Rue Daguerre,

as did the Italians in the back:

The Antonuccis,
Adelgisa and Mimi

and Horace, who was not
at the window that day.

From my bedroom

I would go to
my old-fashioned camera,

which in French is called room,

in Latin camera obscura,

then on to the dark room, the lab,

where Bienv? worked, singing
as if picking olives in Alicante.

The Llorcas, starting with Ulysses,

inspired me with love
and with many pictures.

This image of...

of Bienv? and you...

I never saw it before.

Does it touch you?

No. I know it was at home
on Rue Daguerre.

In my studio where I used daylight,

like Daguerre, like Nadar.

Near or far,

daylight's my delight.

Any memory of this photograph?

Of that day?

None.

You don't see yourself on the beach?

You don't remember the animal?

Or that guy there?

I really have no memory.

And yet, at the time, Ulysses
did a painting from my photo.

In his version,
the child touches the man.

Does he remember it?

I used to see it on the closet door,
in your studio.

It was always there.

In any case,
I don't remember doing it.

It's evidence, a statement
from your childhood,

but you don't want to admit it!

I mean, for you
this image is fictitious.

Yes, surely.

It's real but not for you.
You must imagine your childhood.

Yes, that's it.

It's my version of the facts.

To each his own story, after all.

Even if it's strange,
between reality and fiction.

Among my pictures of Ulysses,

the one on the beach
isn't your favorite, is it?

Is it because of the memories,
or because of the image?

It's not quite the image,
it's the memory.

It was beautiful on the beach,
but also a little sad.

- You mean for Ulysses?
- Of course.

- You were very worried?
- Very.

You had good reason to.

Ulysses suffered from coxa plana,
a hip-bone condition.

A doctor said he'd limp
all his life, if not treated.

A season by the sea, for instance,
and seaweed massages.

That's why we were
at St. Aubin-sur-Mer,

and why we carried him.

At first he was in pain
and he lost weight.

But there was hope.

In fact, he recovered very fast.

Three months earlier than expected.

Do you remember the pain
in the hip?

Perfectly.

Then you remember
your body, your pain.

The body, the pain,
and also where I was.

At home, Rue Daguerre,
stretched out for 9 months.

But I don't remember the trip,

the photo, the beach, nothing.

As for the goat,

not that which rotted away
so long ago,

to become pebble sand
and bone dust,

the image of a goat,

not that of Picasso

made from scrap metal,
by hook or by crook,

and later cast in bronze
and immortalized

like the goat Almathea
that nourished Zeus,

nor that of Monsieur S?guin,
standing up to the wolf,

nor that of Couturier,
another piece of wreckage.

Just a goat, any goat.

How does she see her
own goat image?

Without making animals talk,
like in American cartoons,

or defining memory
as a rumination of mental images,

may I suggest that there is
an animal "eatingmagination",

a self-predatory imagination?

Let's return to simpler matters.

Once there was
a sweet-tempered goat,

there was an image,
there were children.

It's a goat.

She seems to be dead on the rocks.

A man, a little boy...

It shows pebbles, rocks,

the beach, and then...

It's not during the holidays,

there aren't enough people.

The man has taken his pants off
to go for a swim.

He's totally naked.

The little boy's totally naked.

If I were him,
I wouldn't go in for nudism.

And the goat...

It's dead!

Funny, the eyes are open.

When you die
your eyes are open.

Don't know what the yellow stuff is,
but it's dirty.

- It's a plain.
- There's a dog...

And a doe...

A dead cow on the pebbles...

I think the belly's too big,

as if she were expecting a baby.

It also seems to be raining...

Snowing...

I prefer the photograph.

I think the painting's pretty.

It's funny...

I think

the photograph is more human
than the painting...

- More normal.
- A little more real.

Children say: True, human, real.

What was real that day
I went to the beach?

What was happening on May 9, 1954?

By a strange twist of fate
the victory celebration

coincided with the fall
of Dien Bien Phu.

In an old country like France,
so rich in military feats,

the memory of one victory

also means mourning,
because of the sacrifices,

the fallen for whom the flame burns,

those of yesterday and today.

The shadow of Dien Bien Phu
hung over this anniversary,

a date in the French conscience.

A page in history

bearing witness
to the moral existence of a nation.

The country went into mourning.

The opera shut its doors.
Theaters too.

Radio and television
saluted in silence.

As did De Gaulle on Sunday May 9,

at the time of my photo.

Gaullists surged
onto the Champs-Elys?es

and the Vespa riders of Europe
swept over Paris

like a song by Brassens.

It was the time of his songs

and that of old-timer Tino.

It was the last spring of Colette,
Our-Lady-of-Letters,

the recluse of the Palais Royal.

Sylvie Vartan was ten,
Yvonne Printemps was?

Yves Montand was already "in",
and spring was "out" for Piaf.

I'm not reciting from memory.
I had to scan

the sand, the newsreels
and newspapers of that day.

The Geneva Conference had opened.

Han Van Dong
represented the Viet Minh

and spent Sunday watching
the most neutral of fountains

while the French dropped bombs
on the Tonkin delta.

Georges Bidault proposed
an armistice

much desired by the Socialists.

Molotov had a cocktail
between bodyguards,

thinking of destalinization.

And Chou En Lai, happy about
the liberation of Dien Bien Phu,

daydreamed of Han-Shu Lake.

"Like time,
Water never stops running",

so sang Li-Po in the 8th Century,

and Lamartine, 11 centuries later:

"O Time, suspend your flight..."

If you watch the water's edge,
time is no longer the same.

The performers of History,
who are its official memory,

pass like shadows
seen from Plato's cave,

or turn like dancers
in this marathon that began early May

and was now on its ninth day.

Wise or selfish,
I gave myself to that image,

to those I would expose
a few weeks later.

G?rard Philipe.

Jean Vilar making up.

The Calder family.

My neighbor Mimi.

Salt.

Dali and others.

And of course Ulysses and Co.,

caught the day I pursued an idea,

the idea of an image.

That day I could have seen Fabrizi
chasing Toto in Cops and Robbers,

but I was not one of the 60,000
French who had TV in 1954.

I doubt I would have watched it.

I didn't to the movies either,
so I hadn't seen Toto,

Gina or Marilyn, Orson or
The Battleship, nor Sacha Guitry,

yet I was to make a film.

July 1954 is clear in my memory.

I shot my first film with the villagers
of La Pointe Courte; with fishermen

and two young actors,

Silvia Montfort and Philippe Noiret.

I have placed this image in my life

and in its time
as I was taught in school,

but anecdotes,
interpretations, gossip...

nothing appears in the image.

I could have taken it last Sunday
or yesterday... I or someone else.

There is only the image.

You see anything you want in it.

An image is this and more.

The other day I saw in it
the clich?s of a childhood

torn between the image
of the upright father (the future)

And the image of the mother,
prone and big-bellied.

What does the child think?

I see him as one of Los Olvidados,
or as The Little Prince, Poor Blaise,

Oliver Twist, or every other child,
legendary and sad.

Once I saw in the image
the riddle of the Sphinx,

the ages of Man in three visions.

Myths, you make me dream!

Ulysses is the absolute hero

and in this image
I keep seeing the Mediterranean.

It's Ulysses who dreams on the shore,

who never manages to return
to his goat-wife Penelope,

who is reborn in every port,
has a woman in every island:

Nausicaa found him naked
in the reeds, Calypso seduced him

and Circe bewitched him.

You always call him Ulysses...

Ulysses of a 1,000 tricks,
who led his men out of Cyclops' lair,

hidden beneath the fleece
of rams and goats,

Ulysses always leaves,

dropping semi-immortal
demi-goddesses

and Ulysses juniors,

little Ulysses who grow up
while the sirens sing,

the sirens of memory.

Why was he named Ulysses?

Juan wanted it.

When I went to register him
as Ulysses,

since the name was not
in the Catholic calendar,

they didn't let me.

He had to be named Antonio,
like his grandfather.

- But you always called him Ulysses.
- We always did.

- Why did you chose that name?
- I didn't. His father did

because he read a lot
and loved the name.