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When I am asked and I am often asked for I am not as solitary
as you may think, I say, pretending to consider a minute or
two, it all began in the Thalia Theatre in New York, where the
management talks so loud you can’t hear the subtitles. And you
need the subtitles, to learn what to say when you are falling out
of love, when you cannot communicate, when you are estranged.
Although none of these were my problem at the time. It
is silence that terrifies me. But I wanted to have the problems of
Antonioni’s heroes and heroines. I wanted to languish and defer
to the unspeakable like Mastroianni’s Giovanni in La Notte, and
Vitti’s Claudia in L’Avventura, and Moreau’s Lidia in La Notte,
and Delon’s stockbroker in L’Eclisse. I wanted to be faithful to
them all, I did not foresee the bloom of new allegiances when
under their spell. That night I sat down, in semi-darkness. I
expected to be ousted very soon by somebody who had just run
out to grab a bite, a bit of egg foo yong to sustain him through
the credits. But at the same time I was prepared to stand my
ground. My view of all the narcissistic latecomers was clouded
suddenly. They always rushed in at the last moment, they of the
frizzed coiffures, handlebar moustaches, tasselled shoulder bags.
They ducked scurrying or scurried ducking towards the front.
Their routine was a parody of frantic diffidence. They conspicuously
played at inconpicuousness. And I envied them. But why
did they sit so close. They expected the oblong still blank in
front of them to pull them in, salvage them from the slagheap of
us earthlings.
------ Smoking reminded me of Mastroianni smoking in "8 1/2" to the tune of his mistress's babble about her husband--he martyrs his fumes to her babble. Smoking reminded me of Olivier smoking during the confession scene in "Rebecca." Smoking made me one with Anna Karina in "Vivre sa vie" when she explains to Brice Parain that she is responsible for every gesture; smoking permitted me to emigrate to the foreign country of "Pierrot le Fou" where Belmondo nursed a butt between his teeth, stoic, stunned, impassive, as Karina sings to him of their love. I had precedents for my behavior. But in their case, except perhaps in the case of Karina, their energy was channeled completely into smoking. It was not partitioned between smoking and watching themselves smoke. And I was condemned to watching myself, in case she ambushed me. I had to maintain a vigil for the self that preserved its calm, its innocence, in the face of her outflow, the self that would at all costs survive her ambush. She gripped her syllables as a woman in labor the bedposts. Midwife uncertified, I was not quite prepared for what she expelled, bloody and bristling. But the black man survived without smoking, without benefit of a third cigarette to put an end to the turmoil he must be feeling in listening to her. Smoking was supposed to protect me and then like all props it became an impediment on the way to defending myself against all she expelled. She was on to the pots again.
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