Hiroshima mon amour

I just finished reading the screenplay Hiroshima mon amour. The French is quite pretty in its simplicity. With short clips of dialogue such as:
Lui: Tu n'as rien vu a Hiroshima. Rien.
Elle: J'ai tout vu. Tout... Ainsi l'hopital je l'ai vu. J'en suis sure. L'hopital existe a Hiroshima. Comment aurais-je pu eviter de le voir?
Lui: Tu n'as pas vu d'hopital a Hiroshima. Tu n'as rien vu a Hiroshima...
Elle: Je n'ai rien invente.
Lui: Tu as tout invente.

my copy: Gallimard (1960)

I haven not yet seen the movie, though I was shown the first three minutes or so in Jason Stevens' Faulkner class. He wanted us to see the use of montage and disordered scenes, suggesting the large influence Faulkner had on Japanese authors and screenwriters. He argued that many Japanese people related Japan's history to that of the rise and fall of the Old and New South. I do not know enough about Japanese history to write any more on this comparison. However, Faulkner's celebrity in Japan is undeniable. In Houghton Library our class was able were able to look at the transcript and photos of one of Faulkner's visit to a Japanese university. Indeed, his reception there was much warmer and more immediate than here in the states.

but the book. it ends: She says to him, "Hi-ro-shi-ma. C'est ton nom." and he calls her "Ne-vers-en-Fran-ce." What is the significance of these appellations? Does Duras suggest that for these two characters their identity is almost completely a result of where they are from? Are these locations, where they were both tremendously scarred, all they amount to, boil down to, as people? "vers" can mean "towards" in French. Is there a play on words, un jeu de mots, going on here-- the Japanese man saying "not towards France?" something like that? Maybe not. but Ne-vers is a great name for a city as the man says at least once in the script. And what a happy correspondence in English: nevers. multiple never. more than one never? what is the plural of an ultimatum like that? It somehow does not have the happy ring of "Never Never Land."

The land of Never, where she (she who is never named in the film, but through the screen play we come to learn is called Riva) was trapped in a cave, shorn like a sheep with bloody fingers from their attempts to climb the walls. she is left in the cave because she has shamed her family, for sleeping with the German enemy.

Nevers. c'est superbe comme mot. je l'aime bien.

My next task, watch this movie in full. From the snippet i've seen it's beautiful. I would love to know anyone's thoughts on the screenplay or film if you've encountered them. I'd wanted to read it for a long time. Now I will never say that I never read it. voila-- some nevers.

Comments

[Josh Cohen]

oh, jesus christ, that film. i don't think if i've ever seen a film that's felt more like a dream, watching it but also thinking about it after, than that one. it erases its tracks after itself. it forgets itself -- which makes the moments/words/scenes it repeats particularly horribly weird. it's the most particular slow, man. it's slow (tell me if when you see it you figure out how to describe it), and it stays quiet for too long, and even though it was probably in part the situation (childhood bedroom, in bed, late night, summer after college, on the heels of an email to the hs gf), still, at times it felt like the film'd stopped altogether, and there was just breathing in darkness. in a few scenes there is literally just breathing in darkness, i think. these close-up shots of very human flesh that doesn't necessarily belong to people, too. it's mostly flesh and dark, now that i'm thinking about it. sometimes the voices circle back in. once you've accepted the unceasing muted bedroom whispering (it doesn't take long), the voices -- the Lui and the Elle -- become just some of the worst things you've ever heard. of course you don't want to stop hearing them. and they -- this, actually, might be the worst part -- make these circles around one another that has you wishing the circles would never end, because even though the circling is awful, their ceasing would be worst.

you could most certainly call what i'm calling circles nevers. (you may seriously have found the only happy correspondence in the history of this film.)

that snippet you quote up there: you could, i guess, read that as the expression of how their love for one another is predicated on their unceasingly negating one another ... i don't think that's it, though. i think it's more: the Lui and the Elle (no names, never) are as totally locked into one another as you can get while at the same time being as far from one another as possible.

anyway, lord help you, see it, top of the list, and let me know when you do. she's most definitely never named in the film (if she were, the film'd forget her name), but if we do learn she calls "riva" that's at least in part a reference to who plays her in it: emmanuel riva, about whom i dare not comment on. (watch the extras on the dvd with me.) and i don't know if duras is suggesting that their identity boils down to where they're from; or, i think it's got more to do with the tremendously scarred part, less with i = where i'm from (in anothers' eyes). i do think she's suggesting that they're made in their tremendous scarring. and then it's not really self-scarring we're talking about. "hi-ro-shi-ma, c'est ton nom": the lilting, christ, it's her turn to invent him, there, him and a place in one breath -- well, and maybe it's a trick q, but is she inventing him or discovering him?

only the french could make jeu de mots so painful?

[Josh Cohen]

funny, i masculinized her.