TO NICK AND SAMUEL, WHO RAISED ME TO RESPECT IMAGE AND SOUND
...NEW AUTO TRAINS WITH SLEEPER CARS...
Happiness for example.
Whenever he desired something...
so did I.
Or fame...
For him.
When he didn't desire anything...
neither did I.
In this way I didn't live without desires.
For him.
When he was silent...
he must have been like me.
I only had the desires he manifested.
Excuse me.
Where should I put the whiskey?
Shall I change the towels? - Yes, please.
What's Atlantic Cité’s population?
63,000. Maybe over 62,500.
There was a big police crackdown on drivers last weekend.
In Paris too.
Weren't the Communists beaten here last year
in the local elections?
Yes. They wanted to requisition bathrooms if they won.
As pretty as ever, Miss Nelson?
- What are you doing here? - Let me in.
- What do you want? - I have things to tell you.
Like what?
Not in the hallway.
Okay.
You wanted to talk? Talk.
The Moroccan War made you a bit mean.
You know...
the war ended long ago for me.
Yes, all that's long gone.
Wars are never over.
Trafalgar, Sedan, Chemin des Dames, Mers el-Kebir,
Leningrad, Okinawa, Berlin, Hanoi.
The name changes, but it's always the same, as you can see.
What can I see?
What are you doing here yourself?
You're a jerk.
A filthy jerk.
So...
what do you have to tell me?
What did Richard die of?
Was it really heart failure?
How should I know? I read about it in Ouest-France,
so I came down pronto.
Right, Mr. Pronto.
So you weren't here at the time.
- Why me? - Listen, Mr. Typhus.
If you want to talk, fine. But talk straight.
I just arrived this morning. I didn't even unpack.
My train got in at 8:13.
I walked here from the station.
I crossed the street and saw you enter the hotel.
I asked for your room number and took the one next door,
and I came to talk to you.
Why can't we work together?
We have before.
Not with me.
With Dick, maybe.
What kind of work anyway?
What kind of work?
We're after the same thing.
Really? No kidding!
And what's that?
You know very well, Paula,
but you're trying to find out if I know more than you.
More about what?
You're a pain. I don't know a thing.
He sent me a telegram three days ago.
I couldn't come till yesterday.
We hardly saw each other anymore.
I don't even know if I still love him.
But this love indebted me to him.
His neighbors told me
he'd been taken to the hospital in the fifth region.
I understood from the article that he's already been buried.
I don't know.
I went down there... nothing.
Now tell me things I don't know.
You know it's a secret.
- What secret? - Come on. Don't start that again.
Never mind.
I'll manage on my own.
You know, in Paris, some people
must be shaking at the Information and Interior ministries.
Maybe even in the Cabinet.
Really? You think it's serious?
Yes, it's serious.
Very serious, even.
If we work together, do we share everything?
Sure. Fine. All right. Okay.
Which shoes go best with my dress?
The blue or the white? - Blue.
Now fiction overtakes reality.
Now there's blood and mystery.
Now I feel like I'm caught up in a Walt Disney movie,
but with Humphrey Bogart, so it's a political movie.
DR. SAMUEL KORVO AESTHETIC AUTOPSIES
What'd you do to Uncle Edgar?
- You his nephew? - Yes, ma'am.
Don't mind me.
Is he dead?
I'm the person he wanted to talk to.
Will you call the police? - Absolutely not.
- What's your name? - David Goodis.
Who's she?
The girl I love.
Doris Mizoguchi.
We were vacationing in Paris at Uncle Edgar's invitation.
How long were you in Paris?
- Exactly? - Yes, exactly.
How long were you in Paris?
- Exactly? - Yes, exactly.
Exactly...
127 years.
Really? Just as I thought.
You must not have seen your girlfriend often.
Rarely. She lived too far away.
I only saw her daily.
Mornings for breakfast, midday for lunch,
afternoons for tea,
sometimes between tea and dinner, then for a movie or a play after dinner.
She couldn't come often. She lived too far away.
She lived in the suburbs.
Since the suburbs aren't Paris, and Paris isn't France,
she had to get a visa every time she came to see me.
But couldn't you go see her?
Sure, but only outside breakfast, lunch,
tea and dinner.
You're a real moron.
If I was a moron, I wouldn't speak French.
So what are you doing in Atlantic-Cite?
"In this mirror I am enclosed alive
and real as one imagines the angels,
not like reflections."
What are you writing?
A novel that'll never end and that I'll call The Unfinished Novel.
"Who is that actress
with iris eyes so heavy and dark like a bouquet?
The Japanese girl
suddenly looked something like a Manet.
Surely, like me,
she wearied of their silly wordplays.
She uses only familiar words:
'You'll miss me, honey,
some of these days.'
Why then this feeling of a long agony?
And my life
and the world?
Who could ever still believe in them?
She only loved the here and now
And I was the color of time
She spoke of elsewhere
Forever elsewhere,
I listened, in dreams sublime
A woman is a door to the unknown halls
A woman is like the triumph of naked soles
Do you remember the song, the tone of that foolish carol..."
I couldn't rhyme that one.
"One day, alas!
You'll go off, Alice, with Lewis Carroll."
Thanks. Can I count on your help?
Sure, if you help me too.
But not a word to the police.
- He still works at? - No, they sacked him.
Okay.
When he comes to, tell him I vanished.
Is it really you I'll find dead?
O Richard.
O my king.
In what second-rate tragedy have you once again cast me in the final role?
Luckily I was now a brunette, and Dr. Korvo
didn't recognize the blond student from Agadir.
Madam Nelson, I have to talk to you!
You look unhappy. No luck?
Wasn't that funny?
- Hello, Thomas. - Hello, sir.
Don't call me sir.
Call me Bartender or Paul. It's easier.
I'm not much older than you.
Excuse me. Another shot of scotch.
Coming right up, Miss Nelson.
Don't call me sir.
Call me Bartender or Paul. It's easier.
I'm not much older than you.
You are. How old are you?
I'm 22. - You'll be twice that in 22 years.
In 22 years I'll be 26.
Not so, sir - sorry - Bartender or Paul.
In 22 years she'll be 44.
You're good at mental math, but she beats you in French.
I'll catch up. I'm only two years older.
I didn't know you were 19.
22 and 35 don't make 19.
They do, except during the war.
'70 and '14 added up to '40.
Mind doing some arithmetic for me?
All right, fella.
Could you inventory the objects in my bar?
- What's a bar? - Bartender!
Coming! A bar...
is a place... I mean, a room.
I mean, it's several persons who meet under a bartender's eye.
And it's also a room where liquids are served.
I mean, it's both people
meeting under a bartender's eye, and it's also a room -
A bar can't be two things at once.
Can the young lady be both a woman and a crocodile?
You ask tough questions. I have to think about it.
List the objects in the bar.
I see a glass, bottles,
a rose, windows on my right,
a door that's both in front of me and behind you.
You see, a thing can be in two places at once.
Keep going.
- A bartender. - Where's the bartender?
In front of me. It's you.
That's right. I didn't see myself.
Keep going.
An ashtray,
cups, saucers,
a coffee machine, three taps,
a cigarette, a striped dress.
And four walls that surround the bar,
a floor under my feet,
a worker and me, Paula,
who's stuck in a desperate situation.
You just throw words around. Do something with them!
Like what, Bartender or Paul?
What does one do with words?
- Is this necessary? - I sincerely think so.
I'll try to make sentences, but I don't like to.
Why don't you like to?
Because sentences are useless or empty words.
The dictionary says so.
But the dictionary also says
that sentences join words together...
to give them fuller meaning.
- I reject your definition. - Why?
Why do you reject it?
Sentences can't be meaningless and have fuller meaning.
Don't complicate things. If you don't talk in sentences,
I can't understand you and thus serve you a drink.
Then, Bartender or Paul, I'll give it a try.
The glass is not in my wine.
The bartender is in the pocket of the pencil's jacket.
The bar gives the young lady a few kicks.
The floor is stubbed out on the cigarette.
The tables are on the glasses.
The ceiling hangs from the lamp.
The window looks into the young lady's eyes.
I open them, and the door sits on the stool.
The telephone has three bars.
The coffee fills with vodka.
The Cinzano has four walls around it...
but the dictionary has only three windows:
One sash window and two French windows.
The doors jump out the window.
The bartender fills a cigarette with his whiskey.
He lights his tap.
I am what you are.
He is not what we are.
They are what you are.
I have what you have.
He has what they have.
They have what we don't have.
- What'll you have? - If anyone asks, you don't know.
Say something at least.
"What's the maximum speed of love?
Answer: 68 miles per hour.
A mile faster and you're in a cock-up."
Very well.
ARMED TROOPS ARE PROTECTING
CANDIDATES IN SUNDAY'S ELECTIONS...
Say something at least.
I'm fed up.
Here's the address you wanted.
Whatever I do...
I can't shirk my responsibilities toward others.
My silence has the same effect on him as my words.
My leaving disturbs him as much as my presence.
My indifference can be his undoing as much as my involvement.
My sometimes rash concern...
can be fatal to him.
Either this life is nothing
or it must be everything.
By imagining that it could be lost,
rather than subjected to the absurd,
I place at the very center of my relative existence
an absolute benchmark -
that of ethics.
The absolute in this sense is not elsewhere.
No past justifies it.
No future can promise it.
I choose to exist to become increasingly present
for myself,
for Dick...
and for others.
Miss Daisy Kenyon, please report to Solarium 4.
Miss Ruby Gentry, please report to the oxygenation room.
This way.
Calling Dr. Ludwig.
Calling Dr. Edward Ludwig.
Is it you?
Yes, miss. Miss...?
Paula Nelson.
I don't do special consultations.
No, I just want some information.
- Are you a reporter? - Who said I was?
You're from Paris?
I just want to know if Dick really -
If Richard P... died of heart failure.
Are you his sister?
We were to marry two years ago. THE BOOK OF THE IT
During the events in Marseille?
Why don't you answer my question?
I am. Look.
I have his file here. There's no mystery.
Of course. Even in Treblinka and Auschwitz,
people ended up dying of heart failure.
What did he do before coming to Atlantic-Cite?
Did you work together?
Excuse me.
Go right ahead.
Tell Mr. Widmark the person in question did call.
Why did they call you to confirm his death?
Because I saw him often.
We'd play tennis three times a week.
I'm the club president.
He was alone. I introduced him to people.
He was lonely, you know.
Loneliness isn't a cause of death.
How can you not see
the link between loneliness and physical illness?
Why tell me stories?
I just want the truth.
You don't like telling stories. I think you're wrong.
Dickens, Melville, and Hammett are better
than all these new audiovisual truth-detecting methods.
Weren't you the mayor's deputy until '67?
The mayor was a Communist.
He was killed too.
An explosion in a gas depot.
The Communist utopia is no longer the revolutionary utopia of 40 years ago.
You're sure he had no family?
They should be informed.
He had only me.
I'll avenge him.
I don't understand you.
In that case,
let's stop DICK-ing around with this ri-DICK-ulous nonsense.
I understood very quickly.
This affair had to remain murky for everyone,
and my life was on the line.
But maybe, too, I'd come across something
that I could then sell to the opposition press.
To recover Richard's things,
I went back late that afternoon to the address I'd been given.
It was once again the kind of day for taking out a camera
and making a color movie.
An anonymous voice had given me the address of a garage.
I thought I'd recognized the northern accent
of a typist he'd run off with.
Where am I?
I'm crossing countries drenched in blood.
War is war...
whether you call it that or not.
War.
And life -
has it ever been anything but war?
To kill less than in a war -
is that the law in life?
Where am I?
Why was I told he was in the military hospital?
Who gave you the address of this garage?
Someone from around here.
And I remembered his fondness for cars.
And I saw his Alfa.
That idiot Donald! I told him to torch it.
- Was it after the elections? - Maybe.
You killed him.
What makes you think that?
The corpse at that doctor's office, Dr. -
Korvo? I don't know anything about it.
You can fool the movie audience, but not me.
Why do you want to avenge P?
This may surprise you, but out of idealism.
Ah, right.
I remember an editorial...
where he wrote that fascism was the dollar of ethics.
What did they do to him?
It's the other way around:
It was Dr. Korvo who informed Ludwig that you'd come by.
How'd you get to Atlantic-Cite so fast?
- Who slugged me? - I do the questioning here.
Then do the answering too.
He'd kept evidence about the mayor's death.
It had to vanish.
Something new,
criminally speaking.
It was worse here than Marseille or Chicago.
You know, I'm in charge of planning
for all of Region 5.
If you kill me, you won't learn a thing.
Your theory doesn't hold water.
The main thing is to find out if you know where it is.
I tell her I know exactly what she's looking for.
She'd heard that P... was dead
and thought that once here, it would all be easy.
And I tell him it's all Chinese to me.
Cold.
Colder.
Freezing.
The South Pole.
Still the South Pole.
Warming up.
Warmer.
Crossing the Equator.
The Sahara.
Starting to burn.
Burning.
Let's listen to it.
Paragraph 3.
Permanent revolution only has meaning
if the diversity and seriousness of the politico-economic team
allows us to surmount the hazards of the situation.
Paragraph 7.
What Robespierre and St. Just had glimpsed empirically
as part of a program -
What Robespierre and St. Just had glimpsed empirically
as part of a program that remained to be defined,
but whose surprising topicality still amazes... others have drafted.
I am one of them, and you shouldn't blame us, comrades.
Paragraph 12.
As colonial independence in the interim
checks the fascist evolution of the regime,
domestic conquest and the struggle for the presidency
should open a new field of club activity.
I've changed my mind.
Why did I go to Dr. Korvo's?
And why did I go to the military solarium?
And without any risk.
You know, I could kill you right now.
Here I am in my dark suit
and bright tie.
I tell her I still have a lot of friends in Paris
who will be back in power someday.
To be classified.
We asked a nation to base its opinion
not on adversarial analysis within public opinion,
or on the study of hard evidence,
but on what certain officials
have chosen to leak from secret archives.
Such methods, comrades -
Let me start again.
We asked a nation to base its opinion
not on adversarial analysis within public opinion,
or on the study of hard evidence,
but on what certain officials
have chosen to leak from secret archives.
Such methods, comrades,
epitomize a police state.
Looking at the two of them,
I suddenly understood the adjective "parallel"
as applied to the police.
The inspector looked like a political science graduate.
He shouted at me to beware
of those Regional Planning people.
Dick had no secrets.
He was a liar. I knew him well.
Someone killed Typhus.
It wasn't you or me.
It proves someone's after the same thing we are.
Help me.
I'll do the same.
We'll share.
- Why does the cock flatter the cuckoo? - I don't get it.
Because the cuckoo flatters the cock.
Mr. Khrushchev's speech to the Komsomol.
I'm sure you killed Dick.
Why? I don't know yet.
It doesn't hold water.
It does too hold water.
You'll see.
- Then it was you. - You're a pain.
- Not exactly. - I don't get it.
Let's just say there were several of us.
But what if I went ahead and told them
what I know and what I guess.
You wouldn't.
Right now, he thinks that you killed Typhus.
I'm the only one who knows I was with you at the time.
He doesn't look so mean for a homicide detective.
His parents fought mine at Dakar and Mers el-Kebir.
They worked for the French Gestapo.
Mine worked in London for Colonel Passy.
You know we called him,
"I tawt I taw a 'Passy' tat!"
I'm coming.
I'll take her.
Be right back.
You absolutely must...
Paris.
That's enough!
I can't tell you just how much
I hate the police.
It was her.
She killed Uncle Edgar.
- I recognize her. - He's nuts!
I said to wait outside. Take him away.
It was her.
I can't tell you just how much
I hate the police.
Unless I'm mistaken, Mr. Typhus had business dealings with you.
Not with me. You're wrong.
Am I?
That's what I'd been led to understand.
So in fact your relations with Mr. Typhus were purely friendly.
Let's just say we'd met a few times.
I see.
I can't tell you just how much...
- Yes? - I hate the police.
I'm from Atlantic-Cite Magazine.
Wasn't Mr. Typhus an ex-lieutenant of Jo Atilla's?
No comment.
Same old story.
Why do the Paris police snub the provincial press?
And you, miss - anything to say?
You knew Richard P... well.
No comment either.
25 Ben Hecht Street.
He worked there three months, from January 25 to April 25.
That all? - Yes. Wait in the Peugeot.
Secret? What secret?
Richard P... died a natural death. Suicide at worst.
Suicide by shooting himself in the back of the neck?
I'm new, but it's not the first time.
I asked her real name.
Marie Dufour.
Was she the one who called me?
Why?
I told her not to be afraid.
Because I'd tried to kill myself.
Why kill yourself?
Was it long after Richard's death?
Or because they tortured you?
With a razor blade.
Richard told you something.
They tortured you to find out what.
With a razor blade.
What did he tell you?
Afraid they'll come back if you talk to me?
Yes, I am.
LIBERTY
Excuse me, mister. I'm the sister of Richard P...
He worked here in February or March.
Did he leave a letter or package for me?
I wouldn't know.
What is it?
I just heard you mention Richard P...
I overheard you from the accounting office.
They're scared.
They doubled our pay to keep us quiet.
But Mr. P... was very nice to me.
He was the only one.
He once asked me to come to his home to check the books
in a villa outside Atlantic-Cite.
Where?
Near the military airfield.
Preminger Street.
Something like that. That's all I know.
Well, well.
Find anything?
- No more than you. - What makes you say that?
You'd either leave me in peace
or get rid of me.
I think Inspector Aldrich is smarter.
Ever think about what would happen
if he's the first to learn who killed Typhus?
He takes himself too seriously.
He gives me a pain.
But I have to find a way.
He say what he thought of me?
Why the hell should I care?
I'm in charge of the fifth region, not him. Right?
Sure you are.
Sure.
What did you tell him?
Tell who?
David Goodis.
When Aldrich questioned him the second time, he got nothing out of him.
He said there'd been a mix-up...
that you resembled someone else...
that he'd never seen you with his uncle.
What did you tell him?
Nothing.
Well, I've been thinking.
Whoever killed Typhus
is probably the same person who slugged you.
I know it sounds crazy,
but it proves he didn't find anything either.
- And Dr. Ludwig? - What?
Maybe it was him.
I don't get it.
Why wouldn't he be involved?
Sure. Like you, he's a priceless hostage for me.
You really think so?
You still don't think Richard was just a dreamer?
Have you ever seen a Communist dreamer?
He was expelled from the party when Picasso died.
A charade, a charade.
What?
You fell for it,
like everyone else.
The MP who'd lent him his Citroen
had taken it back for the weekend,
so Widmark drove me back in his killers' Chrysler to the hotel,
threatening to kill me if I went out,
since I refused to tell him where the villa was.
THE ROOM ON THE FIRST FLOOR...
WHICH FOR US WILL BE...
GARDENS OF ARMIDA...
EIFFEL TOWER...
DID YOU...
Next: As the police still suspected me,
which is how Widmark could hold me,
I called him back and gave him the name of a guy
who, in my opinion and in his, could very well have killed Typhus.
Paragraph 19.
Yes, comrades, times have changed.
But I say that the lies remain,
among those whom you know well,
those who feel a threat to their social influence...
... patriotism.
The current government uses patriotic speeches
and glorification of the nuclear adventure
as a diversion from the rise
of worker and social issues.
Paragraph 47.
Dumouriez had denounced this penchant for sublime parry
being used by the Right today,
which gives the masses the facile emotion of courage without risk
and pride without sacrifice.
Politics.
Money.
How can I not feel like puking
after being mixed up in all that for so long?
Oh, Richard.
Paragraph 48.
How is it, I will be asked with eloquent outrage,
that French policy aims to relieve us of this enormous power,
and yet a fraction -
a faction of our power will have contributed to such crimes?
My answer to that, comrades,
to Louis and Benoit:
It's not the first time power has been divided,
that a court could be Catholic and Protestant.
And Danton? Dumouriez?
Would it be the first time policy swung Left and Right,
torn between the demands of a Grand Old Man -
Would it be the first time policy swung Left and Right,
torn between the sublime demands of a Grand Old Man
capable of imposing them on his nation at the expense of food
and the interests of his heirs,
who know they can only control the people by fattening them up?
Paragraph 89.
The main reason for these errors
is that men claiming to be of the Left continue to accept Communist votes
even as they form alliances with reactionary forces.
I ask you, comrades:
What progress can there be with Lecanuet, Pinay, Pleven,
who claim that without an anti-American stance,
nothing would separate our policies from theirs?
How can we seek the defeat of the current government
when it could only lead to the following results:
Either the survival of Gaullism,
even if the UNR loses its majority in the next National Assembly,
or a lasting discredit to the democratic regime
if power returns to a majority that includes part of the non-Communist Left
and those so-called progressive republicans.
It's to bar the way -
It's to bar the way, comrades -
It's to bar the way, comrades, to such an alternative
that the French Communist Party will pursue its efforts
for the true victory of the Left.
This is probably the fear of the anti-Communist factions.
They don't want the victory of the Left.
This is probably -
Just as I thought.
To get back at his boss, who didn't want him anymore,
young Donald brought me photos of Richard's death.
Yes, we were in a political movie,
meaning Walt Disney with blood.
He also told me he'd childishly killed Typhus and his niece.
They'd caught him searching my room.
He was looking for a treasure, but now he was scared.
He didn't believe in any secret file
or political mystery -
just money.
He confirmed that there was a villa
and offered to take me there for two million old francs.
He wanted it to flee to South America,
where, in his own idealistic way,
he'd help finance a mercenary army
to eliminate Jews,
blacks, Chinese and Indians.
If you had to die...
would you rather be warned
or die suddenly?
Die suddenly!
Mama!
This is probably the fear of the anti-Communist factions.
Finding out why Richard died
was to find out why I should stay alive.
"He remembers...
a lock of brown hair."
Not helping me anymore?
Sure I am.
"He remembers to the point of disbelief..."
And then?
- Scram! The police! - Help me, ma'am.
"...our two strange destinies." At the villa in an hour!
You can leave Atlantic-Cite.
Really? Thanks.
I'm off the Typhus case.
Really?
Same old story.
I just had orders from Paris to suspend the investigation.
That shouldn't surprise you.
I don't care.
Was the wrong man your idea?
What wrong man?
According to Widmark,
it was a certain...
Mark Dixon, a private detective, who killed Typhus.
It's plausible.
A feud between two Moroccan War veterans.
Did you arrest this Mr. Mark Dixon?
Not yet. I'll try. I doubt I can.
- Why not? - He's already dead. A fire near Agadir.
Then how will you arrest him? I don't get it.
He'll be sentenced in absentia.
Officially no one knows he's dead, except for two people.
I'm one, but only by chance. I was engaged to his sister.
And one other person -
Mr. Widmark?
Not Widmark.
A young woman in a pretty dress.
Just like yours, in fact.
What color is it? Orange or yellow?
None of your business, since the case is closed.
I know.
You suspected me?
It would be an exaggeration to say I did,
but it was a possibility.
He was killed in your room, so you let him in.
No, he may have been after something,
something to steal.
Were you in the same hotel by chance?
Were you supposed to meet him?
I didn't expect to run into Typhus.
I'd read in Ouest-France that my friend, Richard P..., was dead.
So I came here. So did he, I think.
Who'd you vote for two years ago?
None of your business.
I can easily find out.
You were working for L 'Express a bit earlier, in '66.
Yes. What if I was?
No, nothing.
This Richard P... was the same one who wrote the editorials?
Yes. He stayed on.
I quit when... the Havas Agency.
Why?
I think advertising is a form of fascism.
I got wary when Goodis went back on his declarations.
I'm not as stupid as you think.
You're probably mixed up in something political
that also involves personal feelings:
Revenge, jealousy, friendship.
I'd go back to Paris if I were you.
Things are going to get ugly here.
I'm telling you for your own sake.
You know, we live in a part of the universe that's already old,
where nothing much happens,
whereas elsewhere, explosions are forging new galaxies.
So long.
KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE
Silence!
You'll get everyone in trouble.
I don't buy it.
Tell Ludwig I'll call him tonight.
Okay, but this is the last time.
- What's your name? - Robert McNamara.
- Aren't you tired of all this killing? - It's my job. It makes me happy.
And you?
I'm Richard Nixon. I feel the same way.
Let's go see your boss, since you're watching me.
- I don't know where he is. - I know.
Take off!
I still have my yellow-and-red dress,
but my voice has changed.
I tell him it was barbaric to torture the poor girl
to get the villa's address.
I answer, it's not the first time
that I have blood on my hands.
Agadir...
the Charonne metro station...
Mehdi Ben Barka.
Besides, we gave that fat woman 100,000 francs
to make up a story to explain her burns.
It's always blood, fear,
politics, money.
How can I not feel like puking
after being mixed up in all that for so long?
Oh, Richard.
It's to bar the way, comrades, to such an alternative
that the French Communist Party will pursue its efforts
for the true victory of the Left.
I dismissed the others.
He says Richard killed Lacroix.
- In case I kill Paula. - The fire was a cover-up.
- The villa is where the party met, - The party framed the Socialists.
Without telling its own militants.
Two years ago, in '67, they decided to sabotage
- the alliance with the Left. - Richard was killed
for playing too personal a game.
- That's what I think. - It all started there.
- The ex-mayor Lacroix, Richard P... - I won't get out of this alive.
I shouldn't have listened to Donald.
They had to be silenced.
Now, because of her, we must keep on fighting and killing...
I have to see this through.
Our opponents...
- I have to play-act - instead of quietly exercising power...
- and not go lie on a beach. - Inaugurating dams...
and stabilizing the currency.
We don't trust each other.
There's too much at stake. It's really a pity.
But if we keep watching each other,
we'll never get anywhere.
Remember who killed Typhus.
You may be right.
We should trust each other.
That's what I just said.
I'll be frank, Paula.
Even if you swore on Lenin's complete works
that the sun was out,
I wouldn't believe it
without first confirming it myself.
No, I can't trust you.
It's totally impossible.
- There is a way. - What way?
I'll give you a weapon
that will automatically turn on me if I betray you.
I don't see what you mean.
I write a letter
saying I killed Edgar Typhus.
I sign it...
and I give it to you.
Sure, that could work.
Not a bad idea.
That way I could trust you.
But you too.
What me too?
You write a letter too.
Saying what? That I killed Typhus?
You stupid or what?
No, that you killed Richard P...
Why and how could I remain alive,
when sooner or later
I'd end up like the 17 witnesses
to Kennedy's death, who were also murdered,
according to the October 10 issue of Le Monde.
"I killed Richard P..."
"I killed Edgar Typhus."
"He tried to extort money from me."
"He came to see me in my room."
"And his death was an accident."
"We had an argument."
"Dr. Ludwig was aware of everything."
I knocked him out with an ashtray.
He helped hush up the affair
thanks to his many political connections."
"September 17, 1968."
"Paul Widmark, September 17, 1968."
"Paula Nelson."
Will that do?
Hands in the air!
- What is this? - Don't move.
Now I know you figured it out.
Otherwise you wouldn't have had the idea for the letter.
I didn't figure out anything.
There's no secret, no mystery.
You're lying.
I have no reason to lie anymore.
Not now.
Since you know you're going to die.
Thanks, David.
"Far from time and space...
Man has gone astray...
slender as a hair...
vast as the dawn...
his ears foaming...
his two eyes rolling...
and his hands outstretched...
to feel his way...
which is nonexistent."
Thanks, ma'am. Now I can finish my novel.
Prepare to die.
No one must know the truth.
If you finish your novel, everyone will know,
since poetry is truth.
Why do you always speak in metaphors?
If I speak of time...
it's not yet come to pass.
If I speak of place...
it's vanished into space.
If I speak of time...
it's gone without a trace.
If I speak of a man...
he's soon to breathe his last.
Oh, Paula...
you robbed me of my youth.
Oh, David...
...sadness.
Where am I?
Is this me talking?
Can I say I am this language I speak,
and where my thoughts slip?
Can I say I am these murders that I've committed with my hands
and that elude me like a task not only when I'm done,
but even before I begin it?
Can I say I am this life I feel inside me?
It envelops me in wonderful times -
Night...
as long as day in this endless equinox.
It falls.
I go on.
I'll set off before dawn.
... of birth...
of death...
of the life of things around me,
the life of my own body,
this body that Richard kissed.
This knowledge is by nature
incomplete and misleading,
as it only comes through changes in my body and thoughts.
The tragedy of my conscience...
lies in, once having lost the world, trying to find myself...
and getting lost in that very motion.
Hey, Philippe!
- What are you doing here? - And you?
I just did a report on Chateauroux.
How about you?
- I've just come off a murky case. - Really?
- I killed two people. - I don't believe it.
- Give me a lift? - Sure.
LEFT, YEAR ZERO
You shouldn't be scared.
Fascism won't come to pass.
On the contrary.
Fascism must pass, and pass it will...
like sailboats, miniskirts and rock 'n' roll.
We have years of struggle ahead...
and often within ourselves.
That's why I'm scared:
Scared of being weary in advance,
scared of giving up the struggle.
Got a cigarette?
Check the glove box.
Want one?
About Richard...
I think it had to do with revenge.
But this whole business of yours is not very clear.
The Ben Barka affair was clear?
That's ancient history now.
Okay, but I have principles.
You still work for Radar?
Good.
You can do an article, maybe even a book,
like the one you wanted to do on Oswald.
Sure.
Then don't say you have principles.
There's no changing her!
What?
Remember Elisabeth in Les enfants terribles?
Left and Right are the same.
There's no changing them!
The Right...
because it's so cruel it's brainless.
The Left because it's sentimental.
Besides...
Left and Right are completely obsolete notions.
We shouldn't phrase things in those terms.
How then?