My Life and Times with Antonin Artaud

Transcription

Denis Freyd presente My LIFE AND TIMES WITH ANTONIN ARTAUD May 1. Artaud wrote me a long letter. If I could publish it, I'd be saved. But I haven't the money to go visit him at Rodez asylum. Jany has none either. May 20. For 4 years I've struggled to free my energy. I feel it's about to explode. I just learned Artaud will be in Paris on Sunday. "Marthe says Artaud arrives tomorrow. "I must mingle with the crowd and see him." Jacky? What are you doing? I didn't hear the alarm. Any money left? I don't know. Take a look. I have to see Artaud. Marthe said he'd be there at 11. Will you dare speak to him? I'll see... Introduce me. Antonin, may I introduce Jacques Prevel? I think he wrote you. So glad to meet you. When I got your book of poems in the asylum, I imagined you fatter, Mr Plevel, and older. The name's Jacques Prevel, Mr Artaud. P-R-E-V-E-L They're good for the brain. Thank you. Do you realize, Mr Prevel, that millions of people are bewitching me, and want to harm me? They're bewitching you too, Mr Prevel. I doubt it. I'm totally unknown. I'm sure you're known. Some literary circles know very well that you have things to write. They want to scare you. To deter Jacques Prevel from writing something they know has merit. They don't want it to be common knowledge... I loved your letter about my poems. Keep it to yourself. I published my letters from the asylum. But I absolutely don't want that one published. I don't want it circulated either... I'm asking that of you. He disappointed you? That's not it. I can tell you're disappointed. He's like my dad just before he died. For the lady? Broth. For the gentleman? We'll split it. The special is tongue. No thanks. We've also got pig's feet. No, that's all. The nerve! One broth for two! What did you expect? To make a friend? He won't let me use his letter. Your poems need no foreword. It would have helped. Maybe you'll make him change his mind. He's not lucid enough. Or he's so hyper-lucid that he's a stranger. You mean he's "strange"? No, a stranger. His world is impenetrable. 2 x 50 g of laudanum No admission Come in! I hope you won't be oFFended, Mr Prevel. At the cafe you said you wanted to see me for a chat. That wasn't the right expression. Only concierges chat. I told you I was charmed to meet you. That wasn't the point. It's all I could get... Mr Prevel, I must tell you a secret, but don't tell anyone. All the opium in Paris must be at Artaud's disposal so he can finish his work. Only then will I recover my strength and be able to help you. Think of that very hard, so it happens. I already have, Mr Artaud. Then you must be in great pain. If you want something furiously for years, in time you're bound to get it. I'll put that sentence in my next book, and credit you with it. You deserve recognition. Be at the Zephyr Friday at 6PM. It's a damn shame... I don't remember half of what he said to me. It all seems lost. You should take notes. You can't imagine what he's like. Go sit down. It's nearly ready. He gave me some photos, to get rid of them. What do you think? His face is emaciated. He looks very ill. He's not ill. He is. It's obvious. No cheese? I didn't know you were coming. June 5. This illness has undermined me for weeks. And the feeling of being rejected. That's what's unbearable. Being rejected. The awful feeling I'll never be accepted. In Antonin Artaud I met the only man I was waiting for. Mustn't forget to tell him: "I'm close to two people who suFFered a lot. "I'd like you to love them..." We were speaking of your wife... What did you say about her? That she was right out of Edgar Allan Poe. I was out selling your poems. I left two volumes at the Odeon library. Jacques... do you love me? Artaud promised to help me. He said I should be writing. Magazines must publish me. Sorry... Excuse me... Can you lend me the money for a ticket? I'm a bit short. Have mine. I'm on the committee. I'll get in. Thanks... Go in, or you'll be at the back. Got a cigarette? Here. Thanks. Did you know that Colette is very ill? No... She isn't ill because she is ill, but because of the harm done to her. She was raped. Raped? Yes. She was very tired and a man asked her if she wanted to rest at his place. Then he attacked her and wounded her in the belly. Next morning, her blood was even on the pillows. If I find him, I'll slit that man's throat. "There once was a king of Thule! "There once was a king of Thule! No! "There once was a king of Thule! No! Louder! "There once was a king of Thule! Louder! "Whose faithful courtesan... "gave him a talisman..." No, that's softer. Louder! "There once was a king of Thule "Whose faithful courtesan... "gave him as a talisman..." Louder! Louder! Go on, Colette! The sound must spurt out! Make it vibrate till the fiber of life squeals! Use your scream box! Once more! Again! "There once was a king of Thule... "whose faithful courtesan... "gave him as a talisman "a cup of chiseled gold... "In this treasure he kept... Once more! "There once was a king of Thule... No, once more. Come on, Colette! Open your mouth so the sounds that were under the coccyx reach the upper stories of the uvula! Not at the front of the uvula, at the back! Work on it, Colette, don't pretend to! Second verse! Now both! Second! "In this treasure he kept... No, together! "In this... Both... Wait for me! "In this... "In this treasure he kept, "his love for the lady fair, "But when he drank from there, "he wept." Louder! Louder, Colette! Belt it out! Go on. "Sensing his end was near "He divided all his riches, "but not the cup, his dear souvenir." Don't you realize what you must do? Go on. "Sensing his end was near "He divided all his riches "but not the cup, his dear souvenir." You must find a way... to make the words ring like steel, like the bang of a bomb, or the crack of a gun! A raging heart... can get it across... Mr Prevel. I was going out. Your poems were a great success. So they say. But I was disappointed. I sensed that everyone... felt guilty... I've got some chloral... Why didn't you sit at my table last night? I didn't dare. Four spoonfuls. My supply mustn't run out. What time is it? Past noon. My husband will make a scene... Your husband isn't Bluebeard. When will you be back? I can't take any more... Colette, you must keep rehearsing with me... Come back Thursday. Yes, Antonin Artaud. Look at that woman. She waits here every day, motionless. Have lunch with me, Colette. Mr Prevel will get us some ham. Do you like ham, Colette? Yes, Antonin Artaud. Good! Eating is living! I see the conflict of the male and the female... Science and legends are wrong to say the earth existed for millions of years before we appeared. We followed parallel paths. The world in turmoil is hell, perpetually at war, never finished so as to stay youthful a time of men, all warriors and heroes. And one day, those giant beings, who were all women, and souls, as they danced felt like creating not their works, but mine, and those beings collapsed. And... of this love there remained an envy in the chaos and in this envy some agreed to remain female, others to be males. Some with remorse, others without. Yet... Jacques Prevel was among those who felt male but with remorse. Now I've lost track of male and female. I see myself as an old tree trunk. I see a forest, in it many consciences float by, some of them are appallingly hostile and inimical. Others, like Jacques Prevel, attest of a friendship that seems to come from awfully far away. The music of your poems is at the bottom. By that I mean... your poetry is under the ground, under ground where so many catastrophes are piled up... After such suFFering, and feeling infinite fear tear at your face, your heart is about to burst before the last, always the last, and that's the irony of it, the last torture that awaits you: To suFFer more. Whereas I feel born of that, that's what conscience utters. Yet... those who utter it loudest are those who never felt the stirrings of pain, not even that art, that pursues ceaselessly the existence of Jacques Prevel... Don't leave me alone with him. Don't worry. Please, Jacques... You always worry. Go to bed. He won't wake up. I have a class at 8AM. I'll be back. Yes? Mr Prevel isn't in? He'll be back. Are you ill? Why are you in bed? It's very early. And I'm pregnant. Don't have a child, Madame Prevel. Every time a child is born, it drains blood from my heart. He left? - He woke me up at 6AM. - Why? He thought I was waiting for him in bed. Any coFFee? He left you a note. He wanted laudanum. He looked satanic. Did he leave any money? No, why? - I have to go. - And your coFFee? I'm sick of your Artaud! Henri? Going to Ivry? Yes, why? Mind if I come along? Frankly, Prevel, I do. I have to see Artaud. So do I. We can't all descend on him. I have to lecture you. Look at Colette. She's desperate. She said: "I know who's getting drugs for Artaud." Watch your step, Prevel. Know what goes on in Colette's subconscious? You can't imagine. Why is she always sick when I want to work with her? Why won't she rehearse? I don't understand. I'll tell you. Colette is jealous of my writings. She thinks she thought up and wrote my poems, that I stole them from her. I can't believe it. Last Friday, she came to rehearse. I was lying down, very tired. I read the text correctly for her. She said: "That's how I'd have read it." Is that normal? No. I think she wants a child by me. People will tell you bad things about me. Please ignore them. You're a friend. You can even ask me for money. Why wouldn't I help a friend? One moment, Mr Prevel. You may come in, Mr Prevel. Thank you, Professor. Don't thank me, Mr Artaud. You're doing me a great favor. Most people's bodies ooze opium. Mine hasn't a drop. You're living like Nerval... "There once was a king in Thule, "faithful till the grave..." Each and every time a man and a woman have sex, I feel it. They deprive me, Antonin Artaud, of something. Sex isn't pure. It has become dirty, as eating was in some periods. That's how Sodom and Gomorrah perished. Don't have sex, Mr Prevel. You must avoid it, it's a threat to the spirit. One day it will no longer be desired, or necessary, or exist anymore! Soon! Drugs taught you that? I take drugs to rid myself of sexual obsessions! Because you never found love? I doubt it, Mr Prevel. I'd ask someone who loved me to renounce all sex. Love isn't about sex games. A man and a woman in love must be of one flesh. Only a hermaphrodite shows what love should be, the rest just saps energy. No, it generates energy. September 22. I haven't seen Artaud for two weeks. He was resting down south. I've waited 2 hours for him. Either he missed me or forgot me. Have you seen Colette? I just got here. And Marthe? No one. No woman loves me. They all dispense a deadly poison. Orthedrine does nothing for me. Opium is poisoned. There's no more light. Just filth. A friend asked me if you'd agree to read an original text on the radio. Could I say anything I want? He assured me nothing would be cut. Could I say things like: I love the taste of kisses in kisses. I love the taste of ass in ass. I love the taste of sex in sex. The hive... The heave... Ready? Some nerve! Hurry, kid. Your mom pays for these lessons! Don't yawn! The ax... The ox... I'm through writing. I don't want to write any more. May I borrow your exercise book, my child? Thank you. Why do you need it, if you've quit writing? To practice strokes. "What will remain of our defused love... "I want to imagine... "so it lights my life... "I write like a man whose dream "is as real as your face "You were born in a city black as my soul, "a girl of amazing frailty... "Raised on the shore of a sea of mists, "Our bright sun "was walking back up your quivering life "to show you it quivered..." That's all you've got? Yes. You got nothing? No. What'll we do? Can't you ask your mother? Why don't you ask Rolande? I'm embarrassed. That's new. Don't start that. Jany... Hello, Mom? It's me. How are you? Sorry to ask again, but could you help us out? Artaud's been in Paris several months now. I'm alone, always alone. I'm writing this diary to justify myself, to recapture moods I was in. I write for people who'll be alive when I'm dead. This diary's only value is that it is life. I must die. Life must remain. I was leaving. Not waiting for him? No, I have to... You should look after yourself. You were with Artaud? Yes. I left him with Dr Delmas. He won't be long. He spoke to me of your poems. Sit down. He asked me how I felt about him. Imagine! It was so embarrassing! What did he say about my poems? That you gave him lovely things to read. Remember when you used to beg for money? You nearly always got some. Then they ran to the police. That's one reason I was locked up for nine years, with mad shepherds... and senile mountain men... Beware, there are informers everywhere. Antonin, you talk crap! What an amazing woman! The ticker inside was that the traveler who is still there can stand being there only because immobility carries him while melting forever the carrier who is of forever carrying him from the beginning. Well, child, what do you think? It's like being hit on the head with a hammer. That's it! That's exactly it! Mr Prevel, terrible things are happening. You know that Marthe and Colette were my favorite people. I'm through with them. Know what happened at Arthur's? How could I? He'd brought back some laudanum. Then they masturbated. I knew Arthur was a sex fiend, but not that Marthe was his tool. What do you think of Marthe? What do Marthe and Arthur feel for each other? It's very serious, Mr Prevel! You may think I'm delirious. I am not. An army of men is masturbating on me, to bewitch me. I don't need 50 g of laudanum, I need a liter! It could harm you. One can't harm the dead! Yes, Mr Prevel, I am dead... Have been for long. I've survived myself, but I'm dead. I had... ...a dream at your place the other night... I was in a prison and as I awoke, I was handed a sheet of paper and I could read: "Lament that Artaud, murdered in this world, "can't be reborn in the next." Mr Artaud, may I introduce Jany? Who? Jany. I'll go home. Look at my eyes. I feel awful. Is he there? Who? Mr Prevel. His wife's giving birth. Damn... Here. You're going to eat it! No thanks. You'll eat it! No thanks, Mr Artaud. I don't want any. You have such thin arms, you can't turn down food! I'm not hungry. What a phony! Jany's not a phony. She's been through a lot. Don't talk to her like that. I'll draw you... as a gorgon... Do you know Nerval's line: "Napoleon, dying, saw a gorgon's head..." Yes... Like that... With those wide eyes asking: "What's that?" I don't know if you'll like it. At one point it was remarkable. I spoiled it. Here, it's for you. It's 100,000 francs. I left Jany at 7PM to see Artaud. As usual, he wants laudanum. I'll get it tomorrow, and accept 100 francs. What else can I do? I can't take it any more! You show up, you eat, you leave... Is this a hotel? Tell that girl to do your laundry, to cook! No answer! He's too busy writing! Listen to me! Are you listening? You crazy? That's enough! You're hysterical! Horrible scene with Rolande. Her jealousy drives me insane! I'm at my wits' end. I leap at her. She struggles, hits me in the mouth. Artaud arrives shortly after. I don't know if he heard. I have something serious to tell you. After hearing it, you may stop seeing me. I've been told that girl is causing your wife great pain. I don't understand... She's an evil influence on you. I'm surprised you say that. You've changed. She's harming you. She's just a child. There's no such thing. Jany's vulnerable. Her life is useless... Seven or eight hundred million people need to be annihilated. What would it do to the three or four billion on earth? Their lives may be useless. Not Jany's. She and them. She likes you a lot. I'm sure she doesn't. Not at all. I can't stand anyone now. I'll take a knife and a hammer and attack people. All I want is opium and grub. Why do they all fight each other like wolves? What the hell do I care about those people? There... Thank you, Mr Marcel. See you Monday. Good bye, Mr Artaud. Could you buy me some French fries at Charenton Bridge? I have to return to Paris... If you have to return to Paris... I've read your poems, Mr Prevel. You've made a great leap forward. You're more and more exasperated. Reading your work I realize you suFFer from the same ills as I do. But you must still banish one thing: Social conformism. So my last poems disappointed you. I won't say that. You're not rebellious enough. Mr Prevel... you must become a great poet. I'll show you the sensitive areas of the body you need to touch. You too are very sick. Very sick. I wonder what's wrong with you. I've waited for Artaud since noon. I wrote in one go: "If my voice is still unknown, "then all was lost before it was reborn. "And all is patience, too." There's an agony in your poems... They have... real size... There's also a kind of indolence, a kind of laziness... Laziness? Yes. It keeps them from achieving their true dimension. It's me, Jacques Prevel. I'm quite unwell... What time is it, Mr Prevel? Nearly three. Don't take such large doses. It destroys me... There are... ...in your poems... some ideas... that are very closed... that prevent them from being published... I hoped you'd help me... I'll help you... but it's true, your poems aren't quite ready... Yet... you had only praise for the one I read at Marthe's. I never said I liked it. I said I was moved by the text. You see, Mr Prevel, it's a matter of words. One has to find the words... that are necessary. It happens to me... quite often... to throw out what I've written. You should... become fully aware... Jacques Prevel must become fully aware of what's stifling him... What is this, Mr Prevel! I asked you for laudanum! Why haven't you found any? Answer, or you won't leave this room alive! There's none! - You don't know how to look! - Go look for yourself! Who asked you? Think it's easy? I gave you 200 francs! Keep them! Fuck you! Fuck you too! That was very good, Mr Prevel. We'd be a big success on stage. I hope I didn't scare you? While I search for laudanum Artaud writes: "Sickness is a state. "Health is another, baser one, "I mean more cowardly and more vile. "Sickness makes you stronger. "Health makes a traitor of you, to escape sickness, "like the doctors I had to endure. "I've been sick all my life "and it suits me fine. "Being in a state of want "taught me more about my power excesses "than bourgeois beliefs like: "'Health is wealth'. "I am beautiful but ugly, "only beautiful because I am ugly." Dr Petit was out. Know what this is, Mr Prevel? Syrup of paregoric. This is how I live, day after day, with 100 grams of syrup of paregoric. I have nothing, but I resist. I work... I'm in hell. What I need is cocaine. May I have one? I bought them for you. Maybe Arthur could help... Don't mention him. Now I know him, I want no part of him. Nor I. He never returns books. Flies are unbearable. What is a fly? I'd say a kind of vampire that sucks our blood. Then you don't know. A fly is an evil thought by someone far away who wishes you harm. It's the trigger of someone's evil thought. I should kill someone. Once old Artaud is buried in the chimney hole that is like his cold gums the day he was killed and then... then? Will you shut up, you savage? You're going to shut up! If you stop me from reciting Artaud, I'll to turn you into a flat-headed snake! Smells good. You don't know how I suFFer, Mrs Prevel. Unless I use sarcasm, I sink into chaos. This soup is sheer velvet. Mr Artaud, what about the forces of good? Mrs Prevel, there are only the forces of evil. Even when someone has a good thought, by defining it as good, he deprives others of free choice. Which proves he is on the side of evil. We go oFF into the night. I must get him laudanum by Friday. After a long silence: "Mr Prevel, "never make people suFFer." I'm sure someone stole my keys and my pencil. You can't lose two such items in one day. Ring the bell? Who'll hear? Those jerks are asleep! We'll go around. Mr Prevel, give me a leg-up. What's going on? I must get home. Let's see your I.D. My keys were stolen. And my pencil. He needs a leg-up. A patient breaking into the nuthouse! OK, pops, we'll give you a hand. Hold this! Go on. Good night, gentlemen. Long ago I was crucified. In this life I was locked in an asylum. Shouldn't I avenge myself? I remember them flagellating me. No painter has captured that, not even Cranach. There was a stool, I remember, then they nailed me to the cross. Then I realized with horror that they would raise that cross. I was attached only by my hands. I thought of when my hands would rip. It's all I could think of. When they raised the cross I screamed, but as I screamed I felt nothing more. All the pain had gone. I hung a long time, and remember asking for a drink. A soldier oFFered me a kind of gourd, then another stabbed me in the ribs with his spear. I died... When you die, nothing changes. Everything looks the same, but you're elsewhere. You're not part of your body, and you don't mind one bit. I remember seeing the Judaean landscape as it was, but I could also see the far side of the earth. If I wanted, I could see the sky, the planets, the stars. I felt them passing under my arm... They took me down, dumped me on a dunghill. I didn't mind at all. A woman who wanted to piss, pissed on me. I wasn't dead enough to get back in my body. At last, I died completely. It's Jany, Rolande! He's going to die. He's spitting blood. You must come, I don't know what to do! Wait for me. Mrs Reine! Wake up! My husband's very sick! Mind the baby. Don't know when I'll be back! Sweet Jesus! For 3 days I've thought of your poems. It worried me a lot. I wasn't precise about your writings. What I wanted to say is that a grave injustice has been done to you. I'm screwed. Com-ple-tely... screwy-ed. I ache in all the places where others get pleasure. That's what's unbearable. I desperately need a body I don't have when so many bodies are idle. All those with guts got tortured... or got suicided. I don't want to live another minute. Since I've been in Paris I've only seen one man who was alive and torn... You... Jacques Prevel... There... That's all. I knew Antonin Artaud. He's the only man I loved. No one will ever realize who he was. Nothing written about him will ever match the truth. One had to know him. The world may well be shattered by his death, today, March 4th. Subtitles: A. Whitelaw Processed by: C.M.C. - Paris