WEBVTT

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(car engine buzzing)

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♪

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John Berger has lived in
the village of Quincy

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in the Alpine Haute-Savoie
for over 30 years.

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This is him walking
along the road with me

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there one day last December.

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My name is Tilda Swinton.

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♪

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John Berger and I were born
in the same city, London,

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on the same day,
November 5th,

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34 years apart.

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John in 1926, me in 1960.

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We\'ve been friends
for over 20 years,

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and this fact of
our shared birthday

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has from the very first
formed a kind of bedrock

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to our complicity, the
practical fantasy of twinship.

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♪

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Last year I noticed that
I hadn\'t seen John outside

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of our correspondence
in several years,

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and I missed him.

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I wanted a glimpse
of his gimlet eye,

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and a blast of his company.

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♪

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To say that we have a
lot of things in common,

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it\'s complicated.

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You\'re a woman, I\'m a man.

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I\'m old enough to
be your father.

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We\'ve had different experiences,

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we\'ve come from
different families.

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But also, there is something

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that we share.

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♪

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It\'s as though in another life

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we met or did something.

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We are aware of it
in some department

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which isn\'t memory, although
it\'s quite close to memory.

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♪

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And maybe, maybe we
made an appointment

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to see each other
again in this life.

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Okay, 5th of November.

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Okay, but it wasn\'t
the same year.

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That didn\'t matter,

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we weren\'t in that kind of time.

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That we got off at
the same station.

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Exactly.

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He\'d sent me a copy
of his latest book,

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Bento\'s Sketchbook,
the imagined reverie

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of Benedict Spinoza,
lens grinder, philosopher,

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and fellow radical humanist.

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And this particular book
feels so personal,

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so completely,
roundedly about John

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and the way his mind works,

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that it contributes him
to anyone who reads it,

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and it made me miss
him all the more.

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♪

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The last time I\'d seen him
after a long time apart,

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during which five years I
had, amongst other things,

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been variously bereaved
and had twins,

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he looked at me before speaking
for at least two minutes,

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and then told me that my
face had grown into itself.

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This attention to the
material empirical evidence

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of life lived seemed so
completely typical of him,

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lens polisher that he is.

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Let\'s look at the facts
before we do anything else.

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Let\'s look for our focus,
and for our connection.

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There, here.

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There are forces that now...

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♪

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englobe or control the world,

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which we\'ll call just for
the moment, market forces.

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But I mean, it\'s more
complicated than that.

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We could give them other names.

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They have almost no
sense of history,

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and they--it\'s not
that they live--

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It\'s not even that they
live for the moment,

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because if one lives
for the moment--

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I mean, the moment can,
if you\'re really aware,

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be absolutely vast.

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I mean, they, um,

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I mean, they live

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for the next deal,

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and the next deal
is a few seconds

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or a few minutes ahead.

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And that one is made,
and then the next.

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♪

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I tried to find you a scarf.

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♪

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I went to find him in Quincy
for a check-in, a check-up,

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for a catch-up, for a chin-wag.

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It was the week
before Christmas.

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♪

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One of the most
vivid memories,

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um, I have of my father,

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and maybe I don\'t have so,

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so, so many...

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but one of the most
vivid ones is...

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on the days when he
didn\'t leave early

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to go to work,

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and on the days
when I was at home,

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both of which were
not so frequent,

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and now I\'m talking
about when I was maybe

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four, three, four, five.

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For breakfast, he
would take an apple,

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and peel it,

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and cut it into quarters,

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and then--no, not peel it.

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He would take the apple,
cut it into quarters,

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and then peel each quarter.

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Take the pits out first,

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and then take the skin off.

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And he would put it there
in front of my plate

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-for me to eat.
-For you.

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So he would

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cut it in half...

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cut it in quarters...

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-Now he would core it.
-Yeah, yeah.

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-And now he would peel it.
-Yes.

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And maybe, maybe

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for him...

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Okay, so I was four.

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For him, that moment

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was the realization

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of some passing dream,

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uh, which occurred to him

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maybe, I guess,
from time to time

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in the four years that he spent

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as an infantry officer
in the trenches

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on the Western front.

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Um...

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Sometimes I would
surprise him...

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because there was a--

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there were two bookcases,

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one with glass doors,

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where we lived.

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\'Cause my mother was
a veracious reader.

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He didn\'t read,
he read newspapers,

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but not books.

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But on one of the
shelves of the bookcase

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with the glass doors

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there were maps,

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but they were army maps

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of the trenches and frontlines.

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I mean, very detailed.

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Maps that they used.

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And I would sometimes
surprise him

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when he was taking down
one or two of these maps.

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And then when he saw me he
would fold up the map and say,

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\"Oh, just looking
for something.\"

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Just looking for something.

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♪

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Did he have friends

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who he would talk to

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about that time?

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None.

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To you?

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Did he talk to you about it?

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Very, very little.

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He didn\'t talk to me very much.

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I think it was a choice,

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and if he did talk to me,
it was almost inadvertently.

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But he knew

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at least I was aware

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of the continent
of his experience,

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even if I couldn\'t name
any of the places on it

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or trace the roads.

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♪

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He hoped that I would, um,

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go to university, um,

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would become a
lawyer, or a doctor,

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or an economist, or something,

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and that, um,

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I would be, uh, an
English gentleman.

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♪

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Despite this--

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these very open conflicts,

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there was always, uh...

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♪

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a complicity,

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um, about...

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that First World War between us.

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Perhaps because
of his experience

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of the officer\'s mess,
when there was one,

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but--okay.

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He acquired the manners

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and the assurance

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of an incredibly honest,

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straight speaking
English gentleman.

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And later in his, in his career,

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he was, he was
really the frontman.

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Completely--I mean, very
good-looking, handsome,

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very well-spoken, very polite,

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um....

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A man you can trust,

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and he was the front guy

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for all the crooks who
worked behind him.

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And not literally crooks, but
I mean, in terms of business,

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crooks who worked behind him.

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♪

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Having first read, as so
many of my generation,

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his Ways of Seeing in
a school art room,

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and felt not only our
relationship to art,

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but also to culture
irrevocably affected

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by its radical
democratic humanism,

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it was a meeting
with one of my most

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profoundly influential teachers.

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The atmosphere of John\'s writing
in all its various shapes

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and sizes--essays, novels,

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stories, poetry--
is nonpareil,

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an accurate introduction
to the atmosphere

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of the man himself, the person
smoking in the summer garden

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with his sleeves rolled up,
and later, the collaborator

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with whom I made a film of one
of his stories in the Hebrides,

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wet on the ferry, giving me
his fisherman\'s jersey,

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which I still wear,
roaring with laughter

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more often than not
in all weathers.

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We came from the mountains.

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I didn\'t want to
leave it in the past.

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I thought it better
to bring it with me.

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Around her neck was
a white necklace.

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Pearls.

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♪

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And your father?

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My father,

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son of a brigadier general...

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grandson of a general,

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you know, for centuries.

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Um...

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Joined up in whatever
was commissioned

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in \'45 I think, \'44.

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And very quickly was wounded

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in France, as I understand it.

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Apparently discharged himself
from the field hospital

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where he was, and
went back--was on his way

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back to the front with
a wound in his shoulder,

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and was shot off a tank,

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and lost a leg.

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Um, and...

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And my brothers and
I were brought up

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with this one-legged man

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who never referred to it.

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Never even referred to the
fact that he had one leg,

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and went out of his way
to be, as he still is

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at the age of 85,
incredibly active,

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and, um, and, uh,

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we\'re always laughing
about the fact that he will

00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:26.041
probably fall off
a ladder eventually.

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I mean, his denial of this wound

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has been a very strong
story in our family.

00:14:32.667 --> 00:14:37.166
I remember one moment when my
brothers and I were teenagers

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watching some cowboy
film on television,

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and I remember one of
my brothers saying,

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\"I bet you don\'t die
as quickly as that.\"

00:14:45.542 --> 00:14:48.959
And my father was in the corner
reading The Daily Telegraph,

00:14:48.959 --> 00:14:53.291
crumpled down the paper
and said, \"You don\'t.\"

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Crumpled it up again.

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And that was all my brothers
and I have ever had from him

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about the experience really,
but that speaks volumes.

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Yeah, volumes.

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The silence can also be
incredibly communicative.

00:15:14.667 --> 00:15:17.500
Like the way you peel apples.

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I\'ve adapted my style
of peeling apples

00:15:20.583 --> 00:15:22.542
since the story
about your father.

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-I\'ve noticed.
-I\'m in character.

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(laughing)

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I mean, there\'s one
specific kind of silence

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which, you know, I
personally struggle with,

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which is the idea
of, of not talking

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to one\'s children
about such, um...

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possibly the inability
to hand this on.

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You know, we\'ve talked a lot,

00:15:49.417 --> 00:15:51.959
we talk a lot about
handing experience on.

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It\'s one of the
things, you know--

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standing on each
other\'s shoulders,

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and so the idea
of your experience

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kind of being cauterized,
and not handing it on

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to your children, um,

00:16:06.458 --> 00:16:08.959
such as my father\'s generation.

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It feels like there\'s
a, there\'s, um--

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That silence is what
I\'m talking about.

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Yes.

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And I suppose that they would
say, \"Well, we fought so that

00:16:20.625 --> 00:16:23.458
we wouldn\'t have to talk
to our children about it.

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We fought so that our
children wouldn\'t know.\"

00:16:27.333 --> 00:16:30.959
-Yes.
-But...

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You, you wrote, \"You cannot--

00:16:36.625 --> 00:16:40.083
history cannot have
its tongue cut out.\"

00:16:40.083 --> 00:16:42.625
♪

00:16:42.625 --> 00:16:47.000
Doesn\'t really work, that
silence, is what I, I sense.

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Because the curiosity and the
need to know is still there,

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and the need to learn.

00:16:54.834 --> 00:16:56.583
It\'s not the going into battle

00:16:56.583 --> 00:16:58.917
that I find most
difficult to imagine.

00:16:58.917 --> 00:17:03.250
It\'s the coming
back from battle.

00:17:03.250 --> 00:17:05.250
Yes.

00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:10.667
♪

00:17:10.667 --> 00:17:14.458
(dogs barking)

00:17:14.458 --> 00:17:19.667
♪

00:17:19.667 --> 00:17:22.208
We who draw do so

00:17:22.208 --> 00:17:25.917
not only to make
something observed,

00:17:25.917 --> 00:17:28.792
visible to others,

00:17:28.792 --> 00:17:31.417
but also to accompany

00:17:31.417 --> 00:17:33.792
something invisible

00:17:33.792 --> 00:17:38.500
to its incalculable destination.

00:17:38.500 --> 00:17:42.125
♪

00:17:42.125 --> 00:17:44.291
It is this element in
drawing that dovetails

00:17:44.291 --> 00:17:48.000
with the storyteller, and
lasts with the historian.

00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:51.166
This attention to
and quest towards

00:17:51.166 --> 00:17:54.125
incalculable destinations.

00:17:54.125 --> 00:18:00.417
♪

00:18:00.417 --> 00:18:03.041
We should go and
dig the car out.

00:18:03.041 --> 00:18:06.291
What\'s happened,
is the car rescued?

00:18:06.291 --> 00:18:10.000
♪

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:13.291
(car engine revving)

00:18:13.291 --> 00:18:15.709
John\'s call to
resistance is something

00:18:15.709 --> 00:18:18.125
of a lifelong contribution.

00:18:18.125 --> 00:18:21.458
He has an understanding of
the powerful radical gesture

00:18:21.458 --> 00:18:24.834
way beyond gunpowder and
bonfires, that I believe

00:18:24.834 --> 00:18:28.834
our later generations
could probably learn from.

00:18:28.834 --> 00:18:31.750
There\'s a passage in this
new book about protest,

00:18:31.750 --> 00:18:34.291
about justice, and
about the resistance

00:18:34.291 --> 00:18:38.542
of the word \"inconsequential\"
which I cherish.

00:18:38.542 --> 00:18:42.000
I quote, \"To protest is
to refuse being reduced

00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:45.709
to a zero and to an
enforced silence.

00:18:45.709 --> 00:18:47.709
♪

00:18:47.709 --> 00:18:50.667
One protests by
building a barricade,

00:18:50.667 --> 00:18:53.166
taking up arms, going
on a hunger strike,

00:18:53.166 --> 00:18:56.041
linking arms,
shouting, and writing

00:18:56.041 --> 00:18:58.709
in order to save
the present moment,

00:18:58.709 --> 00:19:03.083
whatever the future
holds,\" unquote.

00:19:03.083 --> 00:19:07.625
What has labeled the
death of communism for me

00:19:07.625 --> 00:19:12.709
dates back, well, dates
back at least 30 years.

00:19:12.709 --> 00:19:15.208
At the same time,

00:19:15.208 --> 00:19:18.875
there was a certain realization

00:19:18.875 --> 00:19:23.709
of that dream of equality

00:19:23.709 --> 00:19:26.834
in the Soviet Union.

00:19:26.834 --> 00:19:30.709
A very extraordinary
historical trick,

00:19:30.709 --> 00:19:33.709
because it was the
equality which exists

00:19:33.709 --> 00:19:37.625
between people who
have so little,

00:19:37.625 --> 00:19:40.875
that it\'s very easy to share.

00:19:40.875 --> 00:20:03.333
♪

00:20:03.333 --> 00:20:06.583
I want to read
this poem of yours.

00:20:06.583 --> 00:20:09.000
♪

00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:11.458
Your self-portrait.

00:20:11.458 --> 00:20:13.792
A self-portrait by you.

00:20:13.792 --> 00:20:18.166
\"Self-portrait, 1914 to \'18.\"

00:20:18.166 --> 00:20:23.750
♪

00:20:23.750 --> 00:20:25.875
Just say before I read it

00:20:25.875 --> 00:20:27.667
that one of the reasons

00:20:27.667 --> 00:20:29.583
that it touches me so much

00:20:29.583 --> 00:20:34.125
is that one of the many
strands of bond between us,

00:20:34.125 --> 00:20:38.041
I believe, um...

00:20:38.041 --> 00:20:41.709
is a shared sense in both of us

00:20:41.709 --> 00:20:46.750
of being the children
of soldiers who...

00:20:48.375 --> 00:20:53.250
who fought in wars about which

00:20:53.250 --> 00:20:57.333
they have never spoken to us,

00:20:57.333 --> 00:20:59.792
and this poem

00:20:59.792 --> 00:21:03.125
speaks to that.

00:21:05.750 --> 00:21:10.125
\"It seems now that I
was so near to that war.

00:21:10.125 --> 00:21:13.208
I was born eight
years after it ended,

00:21:13.208 --> 00:21:16.999
when the General Strike
had been defeated.

00:21:16.999 --> 00:21:20.500
Yet I was born by Very Light,

00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:23.500
and shrapnel on duck boards,

00:21:23.500 --> 00:21:27.166
among limbs without bodies.

00:21:27.417 --> 00:21:30.625
I was born of the
look of the dead,

00:21:30.625 --> 00:21:33.166
swaddled in mustard gas,

00:21:33.166 --> 00:21:36.417
and fed in a dugout.

00:21:36.709 --> 00:21:40.625
I was the groundless
hope of survival

00:21:40.625 --> 00:21:44.917
with mud between
finger and thumb,

00:21:44.917 --> 00:21:48.999
born near Abbeville.

00:21:49.834 --> 00:21:53.250
I lived the first
year of my life

00:21:53.250 --> 00:21:56.667
between the leaves
of a pocket bible,

00:21:56.667 --> 00:22:00.834
stuffed in a khaki haversack.

00:22:00.834 --> 00:22:04.250
I lived the second
year of my life

00:22:04.250 --> 00:22:06.750
with three photos of a woman

00:22:06.750 --> 00:22:11.750
kept in a standard
issue army paybook.

00:22:12.166 --> 00:22:16.542
In the third year of
my life, at 11 A.M.

00:22:16.542 --> 00:22:20.792
on November 11th, 1918,

00:22:20.792 --> 00:22:25.709
I became all that
was conceivable.

00:22:26.792 --> 00:22:29.375
Before I could see,

00:22:29.375 --> 00:22:32.250
before I could cry out,

00:22:32.250 --> 00:22:35.583
before I could go hungry,

00:22:35.583 --> 00:22:40.333
I was the world fit for
heroes to live in.\"

00:22:44.375 --> 00:22:47.542
November 5th,
our shared birthday,

00:22:47.542 --> 00:22:49.166
is Guy Fawkes Day in England.

00:22:49.166 --> 00:22:52.959
Both John and I remember being
shown London\'s sky lit up

00:22:52.959 --> 00:22:56.709
in gala mode, and
told it was for us.

00:22:56.709 --> 00:23:00.291
This childhood flavor of
identification with resistance,

00:23:00.291 --> 00:23:02.959
and the practical
realities of reprisals

00:23:02.959 --> 00:23:06.417
was one of the first things
John and I ever spoke about.

00:23:06.417 --> 00:23:11.875
It struck instantly an
indissoluble bond of kinship.

00:23:11.875 --> 00:23:17.875
♪

00:23:17.875 --> 00:23:21.375
\"A friend came to see me
in a dream from far away,

00:23:21.375 --> 00:23:22.667
and I asked in the dream,

00:23:22.667 --> 00:23:26.125
\'Did you come by
photograph, or by train?\'

00:23:26.125 --> 00:23:29.083
All photographs are
a form of transport,

00:23:29.083 --> 00:23:31.834
and an expression of absence.\"

00:23:31.834 --> 00:23:33.333
♪

00:23:33.333 --> 00:23:36.959
From John Berger\'s
A Seventh Man.

00:23:36.959 --> 00:24:10.458
♪

00:24:10.458 --> 00:24:13.500
Here is a photograph of a
meeting between friends,

00:24:13.500 --> 00:24:19.041
transported and present who
got off at the same station.

00:24:19.041 --> 00:24:25.041
♪

00:24:25.041 --> 00:24:27.999
John always calls
himself a storyteller

00:24:27.999 --> 00:24:29.250
rather than a writer.

00:24:29.250 --> 00:24:32.792
If we live our lives through
embedding ourselves day by day

00:24:32.792 --> 00:24:36.417
in layers of general
and particular story,

00:24:36.417 --> 00:24:40.458
maybe what John as a
storyteller does is to recognize

00:24:40.458 --> 00:24:43.083
the stories woven around people,

00:24:43.083 --> 00:24:46.792
to bear witness to them,
and simply, to identify

00:24:46.792 --> 00:24:50.375
stories good for
the reader\'s health.

00:24:50.375 --> 00:25:24.250
♪

00:25:24.250 --> 00:25:28.542
(car engine whirring)

00:25:35.375 --> 00:25:37.208
An apron full of apples,

00:25:37.208 --> 00:25:40.000
preferably from one\'s own tree,

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:42.583
three handfuls of spelt flour,

00:25:42.583 --> 00:25:45.917
three handfuls
of demerara sugar,

00:25:45.917 --> 00:25:48.792
a horse\'s cheek of oats,

00:25:48.792 --> 00:25:50.083
half a pack of butter,

00:25:50.083 --> 00:25:54.166
at least one sound finger
and thumb for crumbling,

00:25:54.166 --> 00:25:56.917
a brave amount of ground ginger,

00:25:56.917 --> 00:25:59.834
and a lot of lemon juice.

00:25:59.834 --> 00:26:03.500
Appetite, good company.

00:26:09.625 --> 00:26:12.083
(crickets chirping)

00:26:12.083 --> 00:26:16.750
Animals came from
over the horizon.

00:26:16.750 --> 00:26:20.250
They belonged there and here.

00:26:20.250 --> 00:26:22.250
(birds chirping)

00:26:22.250 --> 00:26:27.417
Likewise, they were
mortal and immortal.

00:26:27.417 --> 00:26:28.999
♪

00:26:28.999 --> 00:26:33.208
An animal\'s blood
flowed like human blood.

00:26:33.208 --> 00:26:37.625
♪

00:26:37.625 --> 00:26:42.125
But its species was undying.

00:26:42.125 --> 00:26:46.417
♪

00:26:46.417 --> 00:26:51.458
And each lion was lion.

00:26:51.458 --> 00:26:55.208
Each ox was ox.

00:26:55.208 --> 00:27:03.999
♪

00:27:03.999 --> 00:27:07.333
This is spring, and we came
to Quincy to make a film

00:27:07.333 --> 00:27:11.000
about politics, to
talk to John Berger

00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:13.083
about uprisings, about change,

00:27:13.083 --> 00:27:16.083
the future, and the
future of the past.

00:27:16.083 --> 00:27:19.959
We came to talk about the Prague
Spring and the Arab Spring,

00:27:19.959 --> 00:27:23.750
and the perpetual false
Spring of Capital.

00:27:23.750 --> 00:27:29.208
Spring is utopia, and
politics is spring.

00:27:32.667 --> 00:27:35.625
But when we arrived
in the French Alps

00:27:35.625 --> 00:27:37.709
everything was different.

00:27:37.709 --> 00:27:42.208
A private winter had established
itself in the household.

00:27:42.208 --> 00:27:44.250
The illness and the
death of Beverly,

00:27:44.250 --> 00:27:48.417
John Berger\'s wife,
disbanded everything.

00:27:48.417 --> 00:27:59.875
♪

00:28:12.125 --> 00:28:16.041
\"Fox,\" fox says, \"for us,

00:28:16.041 --> 00:28:18.125
time doesn\'t exist.

00:28:18.125 --> 00:28:22.458
When we are somewhere,
time is something

00:28:22.458 --> 00:28:26.750
that proceeds us
or follows us.\"

00:28:33.458 --> 00:28:35.792
\"If the first
metaphor was animal

00:28:35.792 --> 00:28:37.375
it was because the
essential relation

00:28:37.375 --> 00:28:40.834
between man and animal
was metaphoric.

00:28:40.834 --> 00:28:43.333
Within that relation,
what the two terms,

00:28:43.333 --> 00:28:45.750
man and animal, shared in common

00:28:45.750 --> 00:28:49.875
revealed what differentiated
them and vice versa.\"

00:28:49.875 --> 00:29:02.041
♪

00:29:02.041 --> 00:29:05.667
Barns here make
everybody think of time.

00:29:05.667 --> 00:29:09.250
After the haymaking,
a barn is full.

00:29:09.250 --> 00:29:10.999
Now it\'s empty.

00:29:10.999 --> 00:29:13.041
And it\'s the same every year,

00:29:13.041 --> 00:29:15.250
except for the disastrous ones.

00:29:15.250 --> 00:29:19.250
At first, they are
solid with packed hay,

00:29:19.250 --> 00:29:23.083
and then they\'re filled
only with light,

00:29:23.083 --> 00:29:25.667
and have to be refilled again.

00:29:25.667 --> 00:29:29.583
And all this for the
animals during the winter.

00:29:29.583 --> 00:29:33.166
The animals down below
there in the stable.

00:29:33.166 --> 00:29:36.125
A ten-year-old cow
is already old,

00:29:36.125 --> 00:29:39.000
and you can double
it for a horse.

00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:41.458
But for the peasant,
his animals,

00:29:41.458 --> 00:29:44.875
every year, except for
the disastrous ones,

00:29:44.875 --> 00:29:49.458
are an unbroken,
continued presence.

00:29:49.458 --> 00:29:53.291
When a cow is slaughtered
and its replaced by another,

00:29:53.291 --> 00:29:56.333
the new one is often
given the same name.

00:29:56.333 --> 00:29:59.834
The goat is dead,
long live the goat.

00:29:59.834 --> 00:30:03.208
And that\'s why
every shepherd knows

00:30:03.208 --> 00:30:08.000
that the herd
outlasts the herdsman.

00:30:09.083 --> 00:30:11.792
Yet animals have little sense

00:30:11.792 --> 00:30:13.750
of time as we understand it.

00:30:13.750 --> 00:30:16.709
They wait down
there in the stable,

00:30:16.709 --> 00:30:18.917
and there are holes
where you can drop

00:30:18.917 --> 00:30:20.417
the hay down into their mangers.

00:30:20.417 --> 00:30:23.250
They way patiently to be fed.

00:30:23.250 --> 00:30:27.875
But this patience is not
quite what it seems to be.

00:30:31.999 --> 00:30:33.625
Yet fly,

00:30:33.625 --> 00:30:37.959
fly walks on an instant.

00:30:37.959 --> 00:30:40.166
Should I say it again?

00:30:40.166 --> 00:30:44.583
Fly walks on an instant.

00:30:44.583 --> 00:30:48.875
♪

00:30:48.875 --> 00:30:51.999
Up here, spring is the
time when the animals

00:30:51.999 --> 00:30:53.667
first leave the stables

00:30:53.667 --> 00:30:56.291
after a long winter.

00:30:56.291 --> 00:31:00.166
John Berger moved here
with Beverly in the mid-1970s

00:31:00.166 --> 00:31:04.709
to understand the lived
experience of peasants.

00:31:04.709 --> 00:31:07.750
(mooing)

00:31:09.333 --> 00:31:12.250
Much of his writing
is about animals--

00:31:12.250 --> 00:31:16.667
how we see them and
how we fail to see them.

00:31:18.250 --> 00:31:20.417
(goats bleating)

00:31:20.417 --> 00:31:23.500
(bells ringing)

00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:26.250
(insects and birds chirping)

00:31:26.250 --> 00:31:28.917
♪

00:31:28.917 --> 00:31:31.333
(oinking)

00:31:31.333 --> 00:31:37.959
♪

00:31:37.959 --> 00:31:41.709
And each lion was lion,

00:31:41.709 --> 00:31:44.458
and each ox was ox.

00:31:44.458 --> 00:31:49.542
This maybe the first
existential dualism

00:31:49.542 --> 00:31:53.917
was then reflected in
the treatment of animals.

00:31:53.917 --> 00:31:57.333
They were subjected
and worshipped,

00:31:57.333 --> 00:31:58.709
bred and sacrificed.

00:31:58.709 --> 00:32:03.792
Today, the vestiges of
this dualism still remain

00:32:03.792 --> 00:32:07.041
among those who
live intimately with,

00:32:07.041 --> 00:32:10.000
and depend upon animals.

00:32:37.500 --> 00:32:39.583
A peasant becomes
fond of his pig

00:32:39.583 --> 00:32:42.333
and is glad to
sort away its pork.

00:32:42.333 --> 00:32:43.500
And what is
significant here,

00:32:43.500 --> 00:32:47.542
and so difficult for the
urban stranger to understand,

00:32:47.542 --> 00:32:50.959
is that those two
statements in that sentence

00:32:50.959 --> 00:32:56.291
are connected by an
\"and\" and not a \"but.\"

00:32:56.667 --> 00:32:58.917
Peasant becomes
fond of his pig

00:32:58.917 --> 00:33:03.458
and is glad to
sort away its pork.

00:33:13.917 --> 00:33:21.500
♪

00:33:21.500 --> 00:33:22.333
To each kind of animal,

00:33:22.333 --> 00:33:26.542
Pepe spoke in a different
voice making different sounds.

00:33:26.542 --> 00:33:30.125
With the mayor, he
spoke softly and evenly,

00:33:30.125 --> 00:33:31.667
and when he repeated himself,

00:33:31.667 --> 00:33:34.625
it was as if he was
speaking to a companion

00:33:34.625 --> 00:33:36.500
or had become deaf.

00:33:36.500 --> 00:33:39.208
To the pig, his language
was full of abrupt,

00:33:39.208 --> 00:33:44.125
high-pitched sounds interspersed
with exhaling grunts.

00:33:44.125 --> 00:33:48.500
Pepe sounded like a turkey
when he spoke to the pig.

00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:52.750
(speaking gibberish)

00:33:54.125 --> 00:33:55.333
Whilst he made this noise,

00:33:55.333 --> 00:33:58.000
he fitted a noose
around the pig\'s snout

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.417
being careful not
to let it tighten.

00:34:01.417 --> 00:34:03.041
The pig followed him obediently,

00:34:03.041 --> 00:34:05.917
past the five
cows and the mayor,

00:34:05.917 --> 00:34:06.709
through the stable doors

00:34:06.709 --> 00:34:10.417
and into the sudden
harsh light of the snow.

00:34:10.417 --> 00:34:13.875
There, the pig hesitated.

00:34:14.125 --> 00:34:17.208
All his life, the
pig had complied.

00:34:17.208 --> 00:34:20.875
Meme had fed him as if he
were a member of the family.

00:34:20.875 --> 00:34:25.959
He, for his part, had
put on his kilo per day--

00:34:25.959 --> 00:34:31.959
140 kilos...141...142.

00:34:31.959 --> 00:34:36.792
Now, for the first
time, he hesitated.

00:34:36.792 --> 00:34:39.959
He saw the four men
standing before him.

00:34:39.959 --> 00:34:41.875
Their hands, not
in their pockets

00:34:41.875 --> 00:34:43.542
to protect them from the cold,

00:34:43.542 --> 00:34:46.667
but held out in front,
he saw my grandmother

00:34:46.667 --> 00:34:50.875
waiting in the kitchen doorway
without a bucket of food.

00:34:50.875 --> 00:34:54.333
Perhaps he saw my mother,
staring with anticipation

00:34:54.333 --> 00:34:56.999
through the kitchen window.

00:34:56.999 --> 00:34:58.625
The men threw themselves on him.

00:34:58.625 --> 00:35:02.375
For a moment, he was invisible
beneath the heap of men,

00:35:02.375 --> 00:35:04.917
and he lay still.

00:35:04.917 --> 00:35:06.999
I could see one of his eyes.

00:35:06.999 --> 00:35:09.083
The pig has intelligent eyes,

00:35:09.083 --> 00:35:12.083
and his fear was
now intelligent.

00:35:12.083 --> 00:35:14.000
Suddenly, lunging and kicking,

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:19.834
he fought like a man--
a man fighting off robbers.

00:35:19.834 --> 00:35:21.083
My grandmother shouted at me,

00:35:21.083 --> 00:35:24.750
\"You\'ll be careful
he doesn\'t kick you!\"

00:35:24.750 --> 00:35:26.083
Then she gave Pepe the knife,

00:35:26.083 --> 00:35:29.583
a small one, no longer
than the ones used at table,

00:35:29.583 --> 00:35:33.583
and she knelt on the
ground with her basin.

00:35:33.583 --> 00:35:37.125
Low down, Pepe made
a very short cut

00:35:37.125 --> 00:35:38.792
from which the blood gushed out

00:35:38.792 --> 00:35:42.542
as if it had always been
waiting to do just that.

00:35:42.542 --> 00:35:46.125
The pig struggled,
knowing it was too late.

00:35:46.125 --> 00:35:49.291
The five of us were
too heavy for him.

00:35:49.291 --> 00:35:52.500
His screams became deep breaths.

00:35:52.500 --> 00:35:56.458
His death was like
a basin emptying.

00:35:56.458 --> 00:36:18.625
♪

00:36:19.959 --> 00:36:22.875
(birds chirping)

00:36:24.125 --> 00:36:27.291
We animals are disappearing.

00:36:27.291 --> 00:36:28.333
We have made a film,

00:36:28.333 --> 00:36:32.834
not so much of what
remains of us, the animals,

00:36:32.834 --> 00:36:35.583
but of you, the people.

00:36:35.583 --> 00:36:37.125
♪

00:36:37.125 --> 00:36:41.125
Make no mistake,
we are not victims.

00:36:41.125 --> 00:36:42.625
We are emigrants.

00:36:42.625 --> 00:36:45.500
We are going back into the Ark.

00:36:45.500 --> 00:36:47.500
♪

00:36:47.500 --> 00:36:52.959
Man becomes aware of
himself returning the look.

00:36:52.959 --> 00:36:57.041
The animal scrutinizes
him across a narrow abyss

00:36:57.041 --> 00:37:00.041
of non-comprehension.

00:37:00.041 --> 00:37:04.041
This is why the man
can surprise the animal,

00:37:04.041 --> 00:37:07.834
yet the animal,
even if domesticated,

00:37:07.834 --> 00:37:11.417
can also surprise the man.

00:37:11.917 --> 00:37:13.917
Jacques Derrida, for instance,

00:37:13.917 --> 00:37:15.917
was surprised by his cat.

00:37:15.917 --> 00:37:20.959
Caught naked, in silence
by the gaze of an animal.

00:37:20.959 --> 00:37:23.625
For example, the eyes of my cat.

00:37:23.625 --> 00:37:24.709
I have trouble, yes,

00:37:24.709 --> 00:37:29.125
a bad time overcoming
my embarrassment.

00:37:29.375 --> 00:37:34.667
The animal looks at us
and we are naked before it.

00:37:34.667 --> 00:37:38.291
Thinking perhaps begins here.

00:38:03.166 --> 00:38:05.250
With their parallel lives,

00:38:05.250 --> 00:38:09.041
animals offer man
a companionship,

00:38:09.041 --> 00:38:15.250
which is different from any
offered by human exchange.

00:38:15.250 --> 00:38:18.667
Different because
it is a companionship

00:38:18.667 --> 00:38:24.417
offered to the loneliness
of man as a species.

00:38:24.417 --> 00:38:27.917
♪

00:38:27.917 --> 00:38:29.625
At the end of his lecture,

00:38:29.625 --> 00:38:32.291
The Animal That Therefore I Am,

00:38:32.291 --> 00:38:35.667
Derrida speaks of \"animot.\"

00:38:35.667 --> 00:38:38.208
\"Animot\" sounds like \"animaux\"--

00:38:38.208 --> 00:38:40.959
\"animals\" in the
the French plural.

00:38:40.959 --> 00:38:43.458
Derrida wants us
to hear \"animals\"

00:38:43.458 --> 00:38:44.834
in the plural singularity

00:38:44.834 --> 00:38:49.291
rather than the generality
as in the \"animal.\"

00:38:49.291 --> 00:38:56.041
A plurality of forms, modes,
and a dance of relating.

00:38:57.959 --> 00:39:00.667
\"Animot\" contains within itself

00:39:00.667 --> 00:39:03.750
the word for \"word\"--le mot--

00:39:03.750 --> 00:39:08.625
also translated as \"speech,\"
which is to say \"language\"

00:39:08.625 --> 00:39:11.375
and access to
the being of beings

00:39:11.375 --> 00:39:16.500
that has traditionally
been denied to animals.

00:39:16.500 --> 00:39:18.750
♪

00:39:18.750 --> 00:39:22.750
\"Between two men, the two
abysses are, in principle,

00:39:22.750 --> 00:39:24.041
bridged by language,\"

00:39:24.041 --> 00:39:27.208
Berger writes in
Why Look at Animals?

00:39:27.208 --> 00:39:30.834
\"Language allows man to
reckon with each other

00:39:30.834 --> 00:39:32.333
as with themselves.

00:39:32.333 --> 00:39:35.208
The animal can be
killed and tamed...

00:39:35.208 --> 00:39:37.333
but the lack of
common language--

00:39:37.333 --> 00:39:40.959
its silence guarantees
our words its distance,

00:39:40.959 --> 00:39:46.917
its distinction, its
exclusion from and of man.\"

00:39:46.917 --> 00:39:50.250
(children playing and screaming)

00:39:55.291 --> 00:39:57.667
♪ No one you see ♪

00:39:57.667 --> 00:40:00.875
♪ Is smarter than he ♪

00:40:00.875 --> 00:40:02.834
♪ And we know Flipper

00:40:02.834 --> 00:40:06.125
lives in a world
full of wonder ♪

00:40:06.125 --> 00:40:12.083
♪ Flying there under,
under the sea ♪

00:40:12.083 --> 00:40:23.875
♪

00:40:23.875 --> 00:40:29.125
My mother died during the
post-production of this film.

00:40:29.125 --> 00:40:32.500
She was 76 years old.

00:40:32.500 --> 00:40:33.458
Two months later,

00:40:33.458 --> 00:40:37.999
the mother of my
mother died at 96.

00:40:38.125 --> 00:40:41.333
I hadn\'t eaten meat
for more than 20 years.

00:40:41.333 --> 00:40:44.959
Now I\'ve stopped
eating fish as well.

00:40:44.959 --> 00:40:46.291
♪

00:40:46.291 --> 00:40:51.542
My name is Christopher Roth,
and I put this film together.

00:40:51.542 --> 00:41:01.792
♪

00:41:01.792 --> 00:41:06.000
Martin Heidegger evokes
the sadness of the animal

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:08.917
due to its lack of word.

00:41:08.917 --> 00:41:10.125
For him, being for death

00:41:10.125 --> 00:41:14.792
is not the being of something
living, which can only end.

00:41:14.792 --> 00:41:17.750
In Heidegger\'s
dogmatic anthropocentrism

00:41:17.750 --> 00:41:24.709
only...along with speech
foresees death as such.

00:41:24.709 --> 00:41:29.166
But what means as such
in the case of death?

00:41:29.166 --> 00:41:31.458
And to ask with
Jacques Derrida...

00:41:31.458 --> 00:41:34.291
How can one maintain
that the hedgehog

00:41:34.291 --> 00:41:35.917
has no apprehension of death

00:41:35.917 --> 00:41:39.500
when it rolls
itself up in a ball?

00:41:39.500 --> 00:41:40.875
♪

00:41:40.875 --> 00:41:43.000
Anyway, I think
John Berger would agree

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:45.917
that it seems very odd
that people meditate

00:41:45.917 --> 00:41:49.000
on whether animals
comprehend death

00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:53.458
as if humans understood
what it means to die.

00:41:53.458 --> 00:42:10.041
♪

00:42:10.041 --> 00:42:14.125
As each lion was lion,

00:42:14.125 --> 00:42:18.000
each ox was ox.

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:31.667
♪

00:42:31.667 --> 00:42:35.542
It appears the animals, Beverly,

00:42:35.542 --> 00:42:37.041
are emigrating.

00:42:37.041 --> 00:42:41.083
Their America, the
constellations in the sky,

00:42:41.083 --> 00:42:48.000
lizard, lion, great bear,
ram, bull, crow, hare.

00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:49.333
Perhaps the more prudent

00:42:49.333 --> 00:42:54.709
like the agouti have
chosen the Milky Way.

00:42:54.709 --> 00:42:57.792
And fasten them well tonight.

00:42:57.792 --> 00:43:02.166
Bed them with beech
leaves, Beverly.

00:43:02.166 --> 00:43:04.834
They are the last.

00:43:04.834 --> 00:43:12.875
♪

00:43:12.875 --> 00:43:16.166
(singing in French)

00:43:16.166 --> 00:45:02.667
♪

00:45:08.750 --> 00:45:15.417
♪

00:45:15.417 --> 00:45:19.125
(singing in foreign language)

00:45:19.125 --> 00:45:46.417
♪

00:45:46.417 --> 00:45:47.166
Hello and welcome.

00:45:47.166 --> 00:45:50.208
I\'m Colin MacCabe, literary
critic and film producer,

00:45:50.208 --> 00:45:54.458
and I\'ve come from
the small town of...

00:45:55.750 --> 00:45:59.834
♪

00:45:59.834 --> 00:46:03.875
As a teenager growing up
in London in the early \'60s,

00:46:03.875 --> 00:46:07.208
television was my
most exciting teacher.

00:46:07.208 --> 00:46:10.000
This was an era of
only two channels,

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:11.709
but an arts program could find

00:46:11.709 --> 00:46:14.750
three or four million viewers.

00:46:14.750 --> 00:46:17.792
This audience
was eager to learn.

00:46:17.792 --> 00:46:18.750
On the other side of the screen

00:46:18.750 --> 00:46:21.959
was a young generation of
intellectuals and writers

00:46:21.959 --> 00:46:24.542
who wanted to speak
to that audience.

00:46:24.542 --> 00:46:27.834
The arranging of artists
in an order of merit

00:46:27.834 --> 00:46:30.000
seems to me to be an idle game.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:32.417
They saw television
as a chance to deepen

00:46:32.417 --> 00:46:35.792
and develop the social
democratic settlement.

00:46:35.792 --> 00:46:39.000
This was the era of
Huw Wheldon\'s Monitor.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:43.208
It was on this arts program
that I first saw John Berger

00:46:43.208 --> 00:46:45.333
talking about Giacometti,

00:46:45.333 --> 00:46:49.083
about Picasso, about Léger.

00:46:49.542 --> 00:46:53.542
To talk with John Berger
and three other artists

00:46:53.542 --> 00:46:56.542
about politics and
politics and art.

00:46:56.542 --> 00:47:00.250
John is a storyteller,
but he is a storyteller

00:47:00.250 --> 00:47:04.083
who has reflected
continuously on the relation

00:47:04.083 --> 00:47:07.125
between storytelling
and politics

00:47:07.125 --> 00:47:09.999
and who\'s involved
himself in politics

00:47:09.999 --> 00:47:12.208
all of his life.

00:47:12.208 --> 00:47:14.083
As a revolutionary writer,

00:47:14.083 --> 00:47:17.834
I\'m actually going
to give half the prize

00:47:17.834 --> 00:47:19.999
to the London-based
Black Panther movement.

00:47:19.999 --> 00:47:26.333
Why don\'t we ask an extremely
contemporary question?

00:47:26.333 --> 00:47:28.792
All the important decisions,

00:47:28.792 --> 00:47:33.709
which determine
the use, exploitation,

00:47:33.709 --> 00:47:38.583
and organization of the
planet and its resources,

00:47:38.583 --> 00:47:44.834
are now taken by
financial speculators.

00:47:44.834 --> 00:47:46.709
And the power of governments

00:47:46.709 --> 00:47:48.834
and the power of
political leaders

00:47:48.834 --> 00:47:54.125
in so-called
democratic countries,

00:47:54.125 --> 00:47:58.250
um, has been enormously reduced,

00:47:58.250 --> 00:48:00.125
which is why, in actual fact,

00:48:00.125 --> 00:48:01.500
when they talk,
they say nothing

00:48:01.500 --> 00:48:03.959
because they are
actually powerless--

00:48:03.959 --> 00:48:06.250
have been made impotent.

00:48:06.250 --> 00:48:09.834
How do we contest them?

00:48:09.834 --> 00:48:11.792
They are contestable.

00:48:11.792 --> 00:48:15.917
And not to contest them is to...

00:48:15.917 --> 00:48:23.250
uh, is...deeply shameful.

00:48:23.250 --> 00:48:25.500
Uh, we have to contest them.

00:48:25.500 --> 00:48:28.458
There is very little
idea at the moment

00:48:28.458 --> 00:48:29.999
of how one could alter

00:48:29.999 --> 00:48:34.583
this complicated, political,
media, economic system,

00:48:34.583 --> 00:48:37.250
which is constantly on
the verge of collapse,

00:48:37.250 --> 00:48:40.709
which is constantly
living off the exploitation--

00:48:40.709 --> 00:48:42.834
the terrible
exploitation of others,

00:48:42.834 --> 00:48:46.959
but which there doesn\'t
seem to be any notion

00:48:46.959 --> 00:48:48.917
of how one could change that.

00:48:48.917 --> 00:48:54.250
It\'s terribly frightening,
but it\'s also...

00:48:54.250 --> 00:48:56.166
something could
come of it, maybe,

00:48:56.166 --> 00:49:00.250
out of the sense of--
of not knowing,

00:49:00.250 --> 00:49:02.041
of this uncertainty.

00:49:02.041 --> 00:49:07.125
Uncertainty, which has
a lot to do with hope,

00:49:07.125 --> 00:49:08.792
because let\'s be quite clear--

00:49:08.792 --> 00:49:13.709
hope has nothing, nothing
to do with optimism.

00:49:13.709 --> 00:49:16.875
The problem is
that in that vacuum,

00:49:16.875 --> 00:49:20.834
the right is better at
telling a story, right,

00:49:20.834 --> 00:49:25.375
and finding a victim,
and mobilizing a population

00:49:25.375 --> 00:49:26.333
with a language of unreason,

00:49:26.333 --> 00:49:28.333
so to me it seems
the question is--

00:49:28.333 --> 00:49:30.667
it\'s not about whether
or not capitalism

00:49:30.667 --> 00:49:31.500
is just gonna continue.

00:49:31.500 --> 00:49:35.458
Capitalism, in a certain
sense, has already ended.

00:49:35.458 --> 00:49:38.542
And the question
is who\'s gonna--

00:49:38.542 --> 00:49:39.750
how can we make use of the fact

00:49:39.750 --> 00:49:42.959
that the pessimism about
its functioning has been--

00:49:42.959 --> 00:49:44.875
has been generalized?

00:49:44.875 --> 00:49:47.792
♪

00:49:47.792 --> 00:49:51.125
(singing in foreign language)

00:49:51.125 --> 00:49:56.917
♪

00:49:56.917 --> 00:50:00.875
There\'s this way in which
capitalism and neoliberalism--

00:50:00.875 --> 00:50:03.000
the most latest
incarnation of capitalism,

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:05.291
has been a total
failure economically.

00:50:05.291 --> 00:50:09.000
Many of us have the sense
that it can\'t possibly go on,

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:12.250
and yet it\'s been a total
triumph ideologically

00:50:12.250 --> 00:50:15.041
because so many people
have difficulty imagining

00:50:15.041 --> 00:50:17.041
any alternative, so
there\'s this strange sense

00:50:17.041 --> 00:50:20.417
that it\'s both doomed
and the only option,

00:50:20.417 --> 00:50:22.583
and I think that gets
back to storytelling.

00:50:22.583 --> 00:50:25.375
I mean, how do we have
stories that we can tell

00:50:25.375 --> 00:50:28.834
about a way of living or a way
of thinking about community

00:50:28.834 --> 00:50:31.583
that isn\'t this sense
of despair about capital,

00:50:31.583 --> 00:50:35.542
but also this kind of
sense of its inevitability?

00:50:35.542 --> 00:50:38.834
If I\'m a storyteller,

00:50:38.834 --> 00:50:40.166
it\'s because I listen.

00:50:40.166 --> 00:50:43.208
For me, a storyteller,
he\'s like a parser.

00:50:43.208 --> 00:50:44.959
I mean, that\'s to
say like somebody

00:50:44.959 --> 00:50:48.041
who gets contraband
across a frontier.

00:50:48.041 --> 00:50:51.667
I mean, stories come
to you all the time

00:50:51.667 --> 00:50:54.959
if you listen, if you
listen, if you listen.

00:50:54.959 --> 00:51:01.125
If one imagines
trying to describe

00:51:01.125 --> 00:51:08.458
some of the things happening
in the world today, now,

00:51:08.458 --> 00:51:14.166
it seems to me that, mostly,

00:51:14.166 --> 00:51:16.667
prose is inadequate,

00:51:16.667 --> 00:51:23.417
because the vocabulary of prose
has become so discredited.

00:51:23.417 --> 00:51:28.834
It is inadequate for describing
what people are living

00:51:28.834 --> 00:51:29.999
across the world today.

00:51:29.999 --> 00:51:33.542
But by contrast, I think
what people what people

00:51:33.542 --> 00:51:36.000
are living across
the world today

00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:40.875
is very translatable
and expressible

00:51:40.875 --> 00:51:44.875
and shareable in song.

00:51:44.875 --> 00:51:47.542
Maybe we live in a time

00:51:47.542 --> 00:51:53.875
where the truth is most
easily told in song.

00:51:53.875 --> 00:51:58.125
♪ The people\'s flag
is deepest red ♪

00:51:58.125 --> 00:52:02.709
♪ It shrouded oft
our martyred dead ♪

00:52:02.709 --> 00:52:06.792
♪ And ere their limbs
grew stiff and cold ♪

00:52:06.792 --> 00:52:13.625
♪ Their hearts\' blood
dyed its every fold ♪

00:52:13.625 --> 00:52:14.875
One of the features
of our times,

00:52:14.875 --> 00:52:17.458
people worship ideas,
and objects,

00:52:17.458 --> 00:52:18.625
but ideas particularly.

00:52:18.625 --> 00:52:19.999
Quite arbitrarily
without really

00:52:19.999 --> 00:52:21.250
understanding their meaning.

00:52:21.250 --> 00:52:25.166
I mean, take modern art
and the idea of modernity.

00:52:25.166 --> 00:52:27.417
This is the criterion by
which people judge things

00:52:27.417 --> 00:52:30.250
without really inquiring
what makes a thing modern.

00:52:30.250 --> 00:52:31.625
If a thing is really modern.

00:52:31.625 --> 00:52:34.709
So far as I\'m concerned,
there\'s only one artist

00:52:34.709 --> 00:52:36.083
who\'s really of our time,

00:52:36.083 --> 00:52:37.083
and that\'s Fernand Léger.

00:52:37.083 --> 00:52:41.083
There was a very nice
project in New York in 2008.

00:52:41.083 --> 00:52:44.291
They printed a fake
New York Times

00:52:44.291 --> 00:52:46.625
and said \"Iraq War is Over.\"

00:52:46.625 --> 00:52:49.041
-It was done by the Yes Men.
-Yeah, the Yes Men.

00:52:49.041 --> 00:52:51.000
I mean, it was
very, very well done.

00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:54.000
They wrote every article
in the New York Times

00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.875
in the New York Times style,

00:52:55.875 --> 00:52:58.917
but they were all
kind of Utopian,

00:52:58.917 --> 00:53:03.166
but then people realized,
having it in their hands,

00:53:03.166 --> 00:53:06.667
it\'s fake, but they
read the whole paper.

00:53:06.667 --> 00:53:09.208
And the nice thing
about this dream of it

00:53:09.208 --> 00:53:12.333
was that people imagined
that it was possible

00:53:12.333 --> 00:53:15.417
that the Iraq War
could have been over.

00:53:15.417 --> 00:53:17.500
And that\'s a very
nice thing, I think,

00:53:17.500 --> 00:53:21.125
how art and politics and
writing could be together,

00:53:21.125 --> 00:53:23.750
because you give the
people this moment,

00:53:23.750 --> 00:53:25.999
where the impossible
is possible.

00:53:25.999 --> 00:53:27.709
What you described
was incredible,

00:53:27.709 --> 00:53:31.250
but the writer\'s also extremely
good at telling stories.

00:53:31.250 --> 00:53:34.000
I mean the right has
no contemporary story.

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:36.500
That\'s why people
like the Tea Party,

00:53:36.500 --> 00:53:38.959
they always dramatize the past.

00:53:38.959 --> 00:53:44.291
They even put uniforms on
from the Civil War or something.

00:53:44.291 --> 00:53:47.375
That\'s something else that
I want us to think about

00:53:47.375 --> 00:53:49.083
when we\'re talking about stories

00:53:49.083 --> 00:53:50.750
because they can pull you in

00:53:50.750 --> 00:53:53.583
and they can make you
aspire to something,

00:53:53.583 --> 00:53:55.583
but they can also
come from anywhere.

00:53:55.583 --> 00:53:57.750
The moment you
saw this newspaper,

00:53:57.750 --> 00:53:59.291
you knew that it\'s fake.

00:53:59.291 --> 00:54:01.792
That\'s like a Brechtian
Verfremdungseffekt.

00:54:01.792 --> 00:54:04.917
-The alienation effect, yeah.
-The alienation effect.

00:54:04.917 --> 00:54:07.583
(singing foreign language)

00:54:07.583 --> 00:54:19.917
♪

00:54:19.917 --> 00:54:22.250
But at the same time, we
also seem to have developed

00:54:22.250 --> 00:54:25.083
a remarkable ability
to just--just to forget.

00:54:25.083 --> 00:54:27.500
I\'m thinking right now
of the Gujarat riots

00:54:27.500 --> 00:54:31.375
and with Narendra Modi as a
prime ministerian candidate,

00:54:31.375 --> 00:54:34.417
there\'s just thing
sense that it\'s--

00:54:34.417 --> 00:54:37.709
something massive
has been forgotten.

00:54:37.709 --> 00:54:40.667
(speaking foreign language)

00:54:42.834 --> 00:54:46.583
I remember I was in school
when the riots took place,

00:54:46.583 --> 00:54:50.542
and I remember sort
of week after week,

00:54:50.542 --> 00:54:51.375
the weekly magazine

00:54:51.375 --> 00:54:54.000
and the pictures of
carnage on the covers,

00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:56.083
and I don\'t think I\'ll
be able to forget that.

00:54:56.083 --> 00:54:58.917
It seemed like a very
organized massacre

00:54:58.917 --> 00:55:00.750
of Muslims in Gujarat.

00:55:00.750 --> 00:55:03.875
The man who at that
time was almost--

00:55:03.875 --> 00:55:10.000
was publically condemned
as being sort of part of those,

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:12.542
as in part of the way
in which those massacres

00:55:12.542 --> 00:55:16.917
were facilitated,
um, is a very popular

00:55:16.917 --> 00:55:19.709
prime ministerial
candidate in India.

00:55:19.709 --> 00:55:22.500
And one can find those images,

00:55:22.500 --> 00:55:23.750
one can find those articles.

00:55:23.750 --> 00:55:25.917
They\'re freely available
on the internet.

00:55:25.917 --> 00:55:28.834
One can Google him
and find out--and read

00:55:28.834 --> 00:55:32.999
about the ways in
which he\'s implicated

00:55:32.999 --> 00:55:35.709
in that large scale
violence that happened,

00:55:35.709 --> 00:55:38.959
but at the same
time as a nation,

00:55:38.959 --> 00:55:41.166
it seems that it\'s
been possible to forget.

00:55:41.166 --> 00:55:42.959
Well, I think--I
mean, I think the idea

00:55:42.959 --> 00:55:45.041
that information is power,

00:55:45.041 --> 00:55:49.041
that just more information
informs a public,

00:55:49.041 --> 00:55:51.250
has been disproved, right?

00:55:51.250 --> 00:55:54.709
I mean, that is to say
that the war crimes

00:55:54.709 --> 00:55:57.166
of the Bush
administration or whatever

00:55:57.166 --> 00:55:58.917
are just there in
plain sight, right?

00:55:58.917 --> 00:56:01.083
I mean, Watergate
was a scandal,

00:56:01.083 --> 00:56:02.709
but it was kind of like,

00:56:02.709 --> 00:56:03.834
when you have too--you have

00:56:03.834 --> 00:56:05.542
such just this
excess of information

00:56:05.542 --> 00:56:09.709
that isn\'t organized, it just
all becomes a kind of noise.

00:56:09.709 --> 00:56:11.875
You see with like
Snowden or Assange

00:56:11.875 --> 00:56:14.417
with like WikiLeaks,
they seem kind of amazed

00:56:14.417 --> 00:56:15.917
that people stopped
listening to them.

00:56:15.917 --> 00:56:21.125
I mean, they have this
kind of uncontested evidence

00:56:21.125 --> 00:56:25.250
about things that give the
lie to every official policy

00:56:25.250 --> 00:56:26.583
of the United States
or whatever...

00:56:26.583 --> 00:56:28.959
-And people are bored.
-And people are bored, right,

00:56:28.959 --> 00:56:31.125
there\'s like too much of it.

00:56:31.125 --> 00:56:41.917
♪

00:56:41.917 --> 00:56:45.375
In the monotheistic religions,

00:56:45.375 --> 00:56:51.125
I mean, there\'s this
notion of Heaven and Hell.

00:56:51.125 --> 00:56:55.250
Different interpretations,
but these two categories.

00:56:55.250 --> 00:56:59.750
And it\'s worth
asking the question,

00:56:59.750 --> 00:57:03.625
uh, the following:

00:57:04.083 --> 00:57:09.542
It\'s in Hell where
solidarity is important,

00:57:09.542 --> 00:57:13.125
not in Heaven.

00:57:13.125 --> 00:57:14.000
Isn\'t it?

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:15.125
Yeah, that\'s very good.

00:57:15.125 --> 00:57:17.792
That\'s very good, yeah.

00:57:22.875 --> 00:57:25.208
So, so, what--

00:57:25.208 --> 00:57:27.709
I\'m grasping now.

00:57:27.709 --> 00:57:29.583
(laughing)

00:57:29.583 --> 00:57:43.417
♪

00:57:43.417 --> 00:57:45.375
The two things
about John\'s work

00:57:45.375 --> 00:57:47.959
that I think will always
make me think of him

00:57:47.959 --> 00:57:50.625
as a political artist
that really matters now--

00:57:50.625 --> 00:57:53.750
I mean, the many things,
but the two things

00:57:53.750 --> 00:57:56.834
that, like in our
conversation today,

00:57:56.834 --> 00:57:57.959
have been prominent for me.

00:57:57.959 --> 00:58:01.999
While there is a commitment--
an unwavering commitment

00:58:01.999 --> 00:58:04.709
to a recognition of the
hell that surrounds us

00:58:04.709 --> 00:58:06.333
and the need for solidarity,

00:58:06.333 --> 00:58:09.999
there is also an
openness and attention

00:58:09.999 --> 00:58:13.792
to the sensual world
that never goes away.

00:58:13.792 --> 00:58:15.542
It isn\'t just baleful.

00:58:15.542 --> 00:58:18.417
It isn\'t just
suffering or despairing

00:58:18.417 --> 00:58:19.458
that, even though it can lead

00:58:19.458 --> 00:58:20.750
to more suffering
in a certain way,

00:58:20.750 --> 00:58:23.375
there\'s a commitment--
there\'s a total commitment

00:58:23.375 --> 00:58:25.000
to being alive
to the possibilities

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:27.709
of contingency and
experience in the moment.

00:58:27.709 --> 00:58:31.041
That\'s one thing and the other
thing is that even though

00:58:31.041 --> 00:58:34.500
there\'s a commitment
to talking about preserving

00:58:34.500 --> 00:58:37.999
or memorializing or at least
having a memory of modes

00:58:37.999 --> 00:58:42.125
of life and experience
that have passed away,

00:58:42.125 --> 00:58:44.166
there is no nostalgia.

00:58:44.166 --> 00:58:45.542
And that, to me,
is a big difference

00:58:45.542 --> 00:58:49.917
between the possibility of
a kind of left storytelling

00:58:49.917 --> 00:58:52.125
and the Tea Party dressing up

00:58:52.125 --> 00:58:55.792
with historically inaccurate
Revolutionary costumes,

00:58:55.792 --> 00:58:56.875
or whatever, right?

00:58:56.875 --> 00:58:59.709
Is that--so that
there\'s a commitment

00:58:59.709 --> 00:59:01.959
to the possibilities
of the world before us

00:59:01.959 --> 00:59:05.125
in a sensory, sensual,
libidinal, neurotic way,

00:59:05.125 --> 00:59:08.417
\'cause those energies
have to be harnessed

00:59:08.417 --> 00:59:09.250
for the political.

00:59:09.250 --> 00:59:11.999
And there\'s a
commitment to memory

00:59:11.999 --> 00:59:13.792
and having a
relationship to the dead

00:59:13.792 --> 00:59:19.583
that never degenerates into
the seductions of nostalgia.

00:59:19.583 --> 00:59:41.875
♪

00:59:41.875 --> 00:59:45.417
I mean because Léger was
a Marxist and because I am,

00:59:45.417 --> 00:59:47.250
I think I appreciate
his paintings

00:59:47.250 --> 00:59:50.333
because I see his
whole view of life,

00:59:50.333 --> 00:59:52.166
history, place of man.

00:59:52.166 --> 00:59:55.709
His view of politics,
my view of politics,

00:59:55.709 --> 00:59:56.750
is a very bored one.

00:59:56.750 --> 00:59:58.917
It\'s not the usual
view of politics,

00:59:58.917 --> 01:00:00.125
which is small.

01:00:00.125 --> 01:00:03.125
You know, ...he said that

01:00:03.125 --> 01:00:05.500
for a Marxist as for an artist,

01:00:05.500 --> 01:00:07.542
nothing is trivial.

01:00:07.542 --> 01:00:08.458
It embraces all life.

01:00:08.458 --> 01:00:13.291
When we were making a
book about migrant workers

01:00:13.291 --> 01:00:17.041
called The Seventh Man...

01:00:17.041 --> 01:00:21.041
which if I had to choose
any from my many books,

01:00:21.041 --> 01:00:24.750
one that, if there
was one to survive,

01:00:24.750 --> 01:00:25.959
I would choose that one.

01:00:25.959 --> 01:00:28.709
I spent a lot of time
with migrant workers

01:00:28.709 --> 01:00:33.417
forced economically to
emigrate to Western Europe.

01:00:33.417 --> 01:00:36.125
Most of them came
from small villages,

01:00:36.125 --> 01:00:38.375
and they would
also talk about home

01:00:38.375 --> 01:00:42.125
and their village
life before they left.

01:00:42.125 --> 01:00:43.792
And then I realized

01:00:43.792 --> 01:00:49.417
that I couldn\'t really
imagine that firsthand.

01:00:49.667 --> 01:00:52.750
And then I said to myself,
\"But, you know, I mean,

01:00:52.750 --> 01:00:56.041
what you can\'t imagine
concerns two thirds

01:00:56.041 --> 01:00:59.834
of the population of the world.\"

01:00:59.834 --> 01:01:03.625
So I looked for old peasants
who still belonged

01:01:03.625 --> 01:01:08.709
to that tradition of small,
really small holdings

01:01:08.709 --> 01:01:12.208
in remote village places.

01:01:12.208 --> 01:01:15.500
And at that time, 40 years
ago, when we came here,

01:01:15.500 --> 01:01:17.583
there were such men here.

01:01:17.583 --> 01:01:18.834
They became my teachers.

01:01:18.834 --> 01:01:23.041
I never went to university,
but they, that was like

01:01:23.041 --> 01:01:23.834
being at a university.

01:01:23.834 --> 01:01:28.792
It wasn\'t a question of going,
having a glass in the evening

01:01:28.792 --> 01:01:32.166
and asking them questions,
you couldn\'t work like that.

01:01:32.166 --> 01:01:37.417
The only thing to do
was to offer to help them

01:01:37.417 --> 01:01:41.709
with their physical
work, clumsy as I was.

01:01:41.709 --> 01:01:43.000
But the work is ceaseless,

01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:47.417
and in its long-term,
rather merciless.

01:01:47.417 --> 01:01:53.875
But aside that, their
lives are not so bad,

01:01:53.875 --> 01:01:56.625
and contrary to
what people think,

01:01:56.625 --> 01:02:01.417
life among them and
amongst them is very social.

01:02:01.417 --> 01:02:06.625
The amount of visiting,
seeing, gossiping, talking,

01:02:06.625 --> 01:02:09.999
arguing that goes on,
in the little village

01:02:09.999 --> 01:02:12.333
of Quincy, of 100
people where I\'ve lived

01:02:12.333 --> 01:02:15.125
for forty years, it\'s
absolutely remarkable.

01:02:15.125 --> 01:02:20.250
Of course, everybody knows
everything about everybody.

01:02:20.250 --> 01:02:22.542
Therefore, they\'re forgiving.

01:02:22.542 --> 01:02:23.417
(laughs)

01:02:23.417 --> 01:02:26.750
There, there, a
place called Quincy.

01:02:26.750 --> 01:02:29.250
So we went up there,
walked up there.

01:02:29.250 --> 01:02:35.625
Argideen was in her little
stable, milking her four goats.

01:02:35.625 --> 01:02:40.208
And we said, we heard
there was maybe somewhere,

01:02:40.208 --> 01:02:44.792
s\'il vous, where we could
stay, vent for a little.

01:02:44.792 --> 01:02:48.750
But in the summer,
you have to leave,

01:02:48.750 --> 01:02:51.917
because she rents it in
the summer to tourists.

01:02:51.917 --> 01:02:56.333
And that will be of a
higher rent than you pay.

01:02:56.333 --> 01:02:59.250
We said, \"Where do
we go in the summer?\"

01:02:59.250 --> 01:03:03.667
And she said, \"You go up
the alpage, up there,

01:03:03.667 --> 01:03:04.917
where there\'s a chalet.\"

01:03:04.917 --> 01:03:10.208
Then, due to a shepherd
we knew up there,

01:03:10.208 --> 01:03:13.667
who we became friends with,
and we said we wanted to live

01:03:13.667 --> 01:03:20.583
somewhere a little larger,
because Yves was born.

01:03:20.583 --> 01:03:22.750
♪

01:03:22.750 --> 01:03:28.083
\"If you set out in this world,
better be born seven times.

01:03:28.083 --> 01:03:30.500
Once in a house on fire,

01:03:30.500 --> 01:03:33.083
once in a freezing flood,

01:03:33.083 --> 01:03:35.709
once in a wild madhouse,

01:03:35.709 --> 01:03:38.792
once in a field of ripe wheat,

01:03:38.792 --> 01:03:41.709
once in an empty cloister,

01:03:41.709 --> 01:03:44.792
and once among pigs in sty.

01:03:44.792 --> 01:03:47.083
Six babes crying, not enough.

01:03:47.083 --> 01:03:50.583
You yourself must
be the seventh.

01:03:50.583 --> 01:03:55.667
When you must fight to survive,
let your enemies see seven.

01:03:55.667 --> 01:03:58.333
One, away from work on Sunday,

01:03:58.333 --> 01:04:01.291
one starting his work on Monday,

01:04:01.291 --> 01:04:03.875
one who teaches without payment,

01:04:03.875 --> 01:04:07.333
one who learned to
swim by drowning,

01:04:07.333 --> 01:04:09.792
one who is the seed of a forest,

01:04:09.792 --> 01:04:13.166
and one whom wild
forefathers protect.

01:04:13.166 --> 01:04:15.375
But all their tricks
are not enough,

01:04:15.375 --> 01:04:18.625
you yourself must
be the seventh.\"

01:04:18.625 --> 01:04:39.166
♪

01:04:39.166 --> 01:04:41.000
(mechanical humming)

01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:48.250
♪

01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:53.917
(birds chirping)

01:04:58.417 --> 01:05:01.291
(bells chiming)

01:05:15.458 --> 01:05:22.333
Uh, just as with
the internet and web,

01:05:22.333 --> 01:05:26.166
people live in...

01:05:26.166 --> 01:05:32.458
...an endlessly extensive
present moment,

01:05:32.458 --> 01:05:36.458
with collections of the present,
absolutely unimaginable

01:05:36.458 --> 01:05:37.792
a little while ago.

01:05:37.792 --> 01:05:40.250
I mean, enormous extension,

01:05:40.250 --> 01:05:44.458
positive and negative
in this way.

01:05:44.458 --> 01:05:46.083
But it\'s of the instant,

01:05:46.083 --> 01:05:50.750
but it\'s as it were
geographic and spatial.

01:05:50.750 --> 01:05:55.125
In the country, and in
a village like Quincy,

01:05:55.125 --> 01:06:00.041
that extension is vertical,

01:06:00.041 --> 01:06:02.917
and it\'s to do with time.

01:06:02.917 --> 01:06:09.125
And that\'s where
the dead take prop.

01:06:09.125 --> 01:06:12.667
And the present, and...

01:06:12.667 --> 01:06:16.792
...and in a certain
sense, the future,

01:06:16.792 --> 01:06:22.250
because the idea of children

01:06:22.250 --> 01:06:25.792
is not only all
the natural reasons,

01:06:25.792 --> 01:06:33.959
but also a question of...

01:06:33.959 --> 01:06:40.417
...that continuity,
that vertical continuity.

01:06:40.417 --> 01:06:51.291
♪

01:06:51.291 --> 01:06:54.166
(waves crashing)

01:07:04.083 --> 01:07:07.750
(dogs barking)

01:07:07.750 --> 01:07:10.667
(wind blowing)

01:07:12.375 --> 01:07:16.834
♪

01:07:16.834 --> 01:07:20.583
(birds chirping)

01:07:20.583 --> 01:07:51.417
♪

01:07:53.417 --> 01:07:56.750
♪ ...Anyone can see ♪

01:07:56.750 --> 01:08:00.959
♪ Nothing really matters ♪

01:08:00.959 --> 01:08:04.291
♪ Nothing really matters ♪

01:08:04.291 --> 01:08:10.166
♪ To me ♪

01:08:10.166 --> 01:08:46.166
♪

01:08:46.166 --> 01:08:50.125
Look at that green.

01:08:50.125 --> 01:08:52.583
No!

01:08:52.583 --> 01:08:54.625
-Eggs!
-The best eggs

01:08:54.625 --> 01:08:55.917
you\'ll ever taste.

01:08:55.917 --> 01:08:57.417
Ah, well I adore eggs.

01:08:57.417 --> 01:08:59.417
-Thank you, thank you.
-You\'re welcome.

01:08:59.417 --> 01:09:03.792
Oh, that\'s such a
beautiful present.

01:09:03.792 --> 01:09:27.291
♪

01:09:30.125 --> 01:09:31.709
Do you like raspberries?

01:09:31.709 --> 01:09:33.917
-Yes, very much.
-Very much so.

01:09:33.917 --> 01:09:34.917
Good.

01:09:34.917 --> 01:09:39.917
Well, in the garden,
a little further back

01:09:39.917 --> 01:09:44.542
from where we cook meat
on stones in the garden,

01:09:44.542 --> 01:09:49.208
back there, there
are raspberry canes.

01:09:49.208 --> 01:09:53.041
And this year,
they are enormous,

01:09:53.041 --> 01:09:53.875
in enormous numbers.

01:09:53.875 --> 01:10:01.750
And those raspberry canes were
mostly planted by Beverly,

01:10:01.750 --> 01:10:04.583
when we first moved
there 40 years ago,

01:10:04.583 --> 01:10:08.083
and she took enormous
pains not only within,

01:10:08.083 --> 01:10:11.500
with the garden, but
always she was talking

01:10:11.500 --> 01:10:15.291
and referring to raspberries
which she loved.

01:10:15.291 --> 01:10:19.166
So I want you to go
and pick raspberries,

01:10:19.166 --> 01:10:23.667
a big bowl of raspberries
for whoever you like,

01:10:23.667 --> 01:10:25.875
and then if,
\'cause you like them,

01:10:25.875 --> 01:10:30.625
take two small bowls
of those raspberries,

01:10:30.625 --> 01:10:31.917
add sugar and cream if you want,

01:10:31.917 --> 01:10:36.166
or by themselves, you\'ll see
what they need or don\'t need,

01:10:36.166 --> 01:10:43.083
and then, find an image of
Beverly, where she\'s there,

01:10:43.083 --> 01:10:45.333
and eat them there,

01:10:45.333 --> 01:10:50.375
because your pleasure
would give her pleasure.

01:10:51.291 --> 01:10:54.208
(fly buzzing)

01:10:55.208 --> 01:10:57.750
(background chatter)

01:10:57.750 --> 01:10:59.834
(ding)

01:10:59.834 --> 01:11:03.041
(announcer speaking in French)

01:11:12.709 --> 01:11:19.792
♪

01:11:19.792 --> 01:11:23.583
Uh, one of the sounds,
one of the sounds,

01:11:23.583 --> 01:11:30.542
is very special,
because in my village,

01:11:30.542 --> 01:11:33.083
in order to keep the
fields down below,

01:11:33.083 --> 01:11:37.000
for the grass to grow
to make hay for the winter

01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:39.875
when there\'s snow and the cattle
have to be in their stable

01:11:39.875 --> 01:11:42.792
and fed with hay, in order
to make that possible,

01:11:42.792 --> 01:11:46.875
the cows used to be taken up
to what we call the alpage,

01:11:46.875 --> 01:11:56.000
which are pastures at about,
um, 1,300, 1,400 meters.

01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:59.542
♪

01:11:59.542 --> 01:12:03.041
The same flowers that
grow down in the valley,

01:12:03.041 --> 01:12:05.709
there, go brighter.

01:12:05.709 --> 01:12:09.000
The blues are bluer,
the yellows are yellower,

01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:11.959
and there are the
cattle grazing.

01:12:11.959 --> 01:12:15.083
♪

01:12:15.083 --> 01:12:19.500
Each cow has a bell on its neck,

01:12:19.500 --> 01:12:22.999
so you can tell where it is.

01:12:22.999 --> 01:12:27.625
And they stay out all night,
and they\'re there all day,

01:12:27.625 --> 01:12:31.917
and you go up there
and you hear these bells,

01:12:31.917 --> 01:12:37.250
particularly at dusk,
or very slightly

01:12:37.250 --> 01:12:38.291
because they\'re mostly sleeping

01:12:38.291 --> 01:12:43.458
but still one of them stirs
at two in the morning.

01:12:43.458 --> 01:12:49.291
Another one stirs in reply,
you just hear the bells.

01:12:49.291 --> 01:12:53.083
That\'s a beautiful sound,
and the shepherds

01:12:53.083 --> 01:12:59.333
who look after the cows
can recognize which cow it is

01:12:59.333 --> 01:13:02.083
by the tone of the bell.

01:13:02.083 --> 01:13:04.999
(bells chiming)

01:13:11.041 --> 01:13:33.250
♪

01:13:33.250 --> 01:13:39.999
When you go there,
talk to my son Yves

01:13:39.999 --> 01:13:43.291
who knows all this by heart.

01:13:43.291 --> 01:13:46.959
(birds chirping)

01:13:46.959 --> 01:14:07.583
♪

01:14:07.583 --> 01:14:11.375
I grew up here in this village,

01:14:11.375 --> 01:14:16.166
this valley, plus all this
horizon you can see there,

01:14:16.166 --> 01:14:18.083
which seemed to be really huge.

01:14:18.083 --> 01:14:21.625
I thought that was the world.

01:14:21.625 --> 01:14:24.542
(wind blowing)

01:14:29.083 --> 01:14:32.000
(cows mooing)

01:14:39.291 --> 01:14:42.875
Interesting that for a peasant,
the way he reads the landscape

01:14:42.875 --> 01:14:46.542
is completely
different than ours,

01:14:46.542 --> 01:14:51.583
in the sense that what we would
find a beautiful landscape,

01:14:51.583 --> 01:14:54.458
he could find beautiful equally,
but for other reasons,

01:14:54.458 --> 01:14:56.917
that\'s to say, the
beauty would come from

01:14:56.917 --> 01:15:00.083
the value of the work,
which has been put

01:15:00.083 --> 01:15:05.208
into that landscape, which
has shaped that landscape.

01:15:05.208 --> 01:15:08.250
Detail reveals something

01:15:08.250 --> 01:15:11.333
of the work done of it.

01:15:11.333 --> 01:15:14.917
For example, most of them,
this is where you see trees

01:15:14.917 --> 01:15:18.542
in the fields, you know,
line of trees like over here,

01:15:18.542 --> 01:15:22.500
it\'s places where stones were
collected from the fields

01:15:22.500 --> 01:15:26.959
to keep the fields clean,
and the stones were just

01:15:26.959 --> 01:15:29.999
piled up there,
and after trees grew

01:15:29.999 --> 01:15:33.709
on that place where
the grass wasn\'t cut

01:15:33.709 --> 01:15:35.625
line each shape, has to do

01:15:35.625 --> 01:15:40.208
with the work of these men.

01:15:40.208 --> 01:15:44.999
♪

01:15:44.999 --> 01:15:51.000
See the beams holding
the roof of this farm?

01:15:51.000 --> 01:15:55.208
They come from the
same wood as those trees

01:15:55.208 --> 01:15:57.583
growing on the hill.

01:15:57.583 --> 01:16:03.959
♪

01:16:03.959 --> 01:16:10.166
Hay has been touching
those beams for so long,

01:16:10.166 --> 01:16:12.000
that now their surface

01:16:12.000 --> 01:16:16.375
is as soft as skin.

01:16:17.709 --> 01:16:22.041
The rhythm of one year,
the whole bond gets filled

01:16:22.041 --> 01:16:24.500
with hay, and during the
winter, the six months

01:16:24.500 --> 01:16:26.792
where you have to
feed the cows inside,

01:16:26.792 --> 01:16:30.667
gradually this
mountain disappears.

01:16:30.667 --> 01:16:35.917
The cows eat it, they
digest it, they shit,

01:16:35.917 --> 01:16:38.083
and the cow shit
goes behind the house,

01:16:38.083 --> 01:16:43.000
and then into the fields
where the grass grows again.

01:16:43.000 --> 01:16:49.500
So, there\'s this circle
going around all year.

01:16:49.500 --> 01:16:57.583
♪

01:16:57.583 --> 01:17:00.834
There\'s a fantastic
photo Jamal took

01:17:00.834 --> 01:17:03.999
of my father lying in the hay

01:17:03.999 --> 01:17:08.583
and just resting and thinking.

01:17:08.583 --> 01:17:10.834
Beautiful.

01:17:10.834 --> 01:17:29.667
♪

01:17:29.667 --> 01:17:32.583
(music stops)

01:17:35.834 --> 01:17:38.834
♪

01:17:38.834 --> 01:17:44.041
We\'ve got a gift from
Scotland for our harvest.

01:17:44.041 --> 01:17:45.750
No!

01:17:45.750 --> 01:17:47.417
Wow!

01:17:47.417 --> 01:17:49.000
From our garden.

01:17:49.000 --> 01:17:50.709
Could I guess now?

01:17:50.709 --> 01:17:52.417
-Sure!
-Okay.

01:17:52.417 --> 01:17:55.542
No, but is it possible
I can guess, I mean...

01:17:55.542 --> 01:17:58.959
-Yeah.
-Give it a go, try.

01:17:58.959 --> 01:18:01.041
-It\'s from France.
-From your garden?

01:18:01.041 --> 01:18:03.291
Well, it\'s not from,
well, it is from

01:18:03.291 --> 01:18:07.083
our garden, but it\'s
not from our garden,

01:18:07.083 --> 01:18:09.834
which, I\'m trying to--

01:18:09.834 --> 01:18:11.625
-Okay.
-I think it\'s safe to say

01:18:11.625 --> 01:18:15.458
it\'s from friends of
ours and it\'s fragile.

01:18:15.458 --> 01:18:16.625
Okay.

01:18:16.625 --> 01:18:18.417
I was gonna say it\'s fragile.

01:18:18.417 --> 01:18:20.834
Okay, so maybe now I\'ll open.

01:18:20.834 --> 01:18:25.125
And we gave some
to John in Paris.

01:18:29.500 --> 01:18:34.041
♪

01:18:34.041 --> 01:18:40.291
In the country where
you are so open

01:18:40.291 --> 01:18:44.792
and some kind of horizon
is always there,

01:18:44.792 --> 01:18:47.625
you\'re never shut in.

01:18:47.625 --> 01:18:50.417
(wind blowing)

01:18:50.417 --> 01:18:57.166
♪

01:18:57.166 --> 01:19:02.583
Because you\'re open,
I mean every season

01:19:02.583 --> 01:19:07.667
has its particularities.

01:19:07.667 --> 01:19:10.375
Some of which you like.

01:19:10.375 --> 01:19:18.834
♪

01:19:18.834 --> 01:19:25.166
In other words, a season isn\'t
something that befalls you,

01:19:25.166 --> 01:19:31.083
it is something
that you inhabit.

01:19:31.709 --> 01:19:34.959
(thunder in distance)

01:20:03.625 --> 01:20:09.000
♪

01:20:09.000 --> 01:20:12.542
(woman speaking unintelligibly)

01:20:12.542 --> 01:21:04.709
♪

01:21:04.709 --> 01:21:07.750
(girl humming tune)

01:21:17.000 --> 01:21:20.333
(water dripping)

01:21:20.333 --> 01:21:23.583
(children playing in distance)

01:21:32.000 --> 01:22:19.375
♪

01:22:19.375 --> 01:22:22.709
(bells chiming)

01:22:22.709 --> 01:23:10.834
♪

01:23:10.834 --> 01:23:13.709
(engine revving)

01:23:27.041 --> 01:23:30.250
(rhythmic clapping, hitting)

01:23:43.542 --> 01:23:46.875
(bees buzzing)

01:23:46.875 --> 01:25:39.583
♪

01:25:39.583 --> 01:25:42.208
Another word my father
likes very much

01:25:42.208 --> 01:25:45.625
and uses often is mother-tongue.

01:25:45.625 --> 01:25:50.999
And homeland and mother-tongue
go well together.

01:25:50.999 --> 01:25:53.375
♪

01:25:53.375 --> 01:25:57.875
And in fact, he\'s always
lacking a homeland.

01:25:57.875 --> 01:26:02.959
He moved from England because
it wasn\'t his homeland.

01:26:02.959 --> 01:26:06.999
In a way, he found
other homelands.

01:26:06.999 --> 01:26:09.917
Not one here, but...

01:26:09.917 --> 01:26:12.500
...not totally.

01:26:12.500 --> 01:26:19.041
♪

01:26:19.041 --> 01:26:24.250
Now, he\'s lacking more
homeland than before.

01:26:24.250 --> 01:26:29.792
My mother left with
part of his homeland.

01:26:29.792 --> 01:27:19.959
♪

01:27:19.959 --> 01:27:24.583
Next year when you\'re 17,
you take motorbike lessons,

01:27:24.583 --> 01:27:30.208
and I would love to
offer them to you there.

01:27:30.208 --> 01:27:32.417
Thanks.

01:27:32.417 --> 01:27:35.709
You want to for five minutes?

01:27:35.709 --> 01:27:37.750
Yes please!

01:27:37.750 --> 01:27:42.250
He\'s going to take
her on a motorbike.

01:27:42.250 --> 01:27:44.917
Crash helmet?

01:27:44.917 --> 01:27:47.834
(man humming)

01:28:08.291 --> 01:28:11.166
(engine starts)

01:28:14.917 --> 01:28:16.000
And it\'s quite simple.

01:28:16.000 --> 01:28:19.041
I mean, when you\'re
on that bike,

01:28:19.041 --> 01:28:21.125
and when you\'re moving,

01:28:21.125 --> 01:28:25.750
the bike goes when
you\'re functioning

01:28:25.750 --> 01:28:28.917
to where you\'re
looking with your eyes.

01:28:28.917 --> 01:28:31.500
So if it\'s a
difficult situation,

01:28:31.500 --> 01:28:33.999
you look for the solution

01:28:33.999 --> 01:28:38.542
and you and the bike will do it.

01:28:39.333 --> 01:28:42.417
(motorbike speeds off)

01:28:50.417 --> 01:28:53.500
(wind blowing faintly)