In 1970 this film was called "Victory".
In 1974 it is called "Here and Elsewhere".
And Elsewhere. And...
In 1970 this film was called "Victory".
In 1974 it is called "Here and Elsewhere".
And Elsewhere. And...
We have chosen a Palestinian revolution to prove to the world,
that this Palestinian earth,
which has been taken away by the Zionist enemy,
we would give it back to its people, to its first origins.
And we won't give it back by peaceful means.
After having lost hope to give it back by peaceful means...
we undertook this task through war...
and with a gun.
And we shall construct peace with the help of this gun.
"The most important result...
of the armed Palestinian Revolution...
is the direct participation...
of the Palestinian woman...
in the revolution...
in order to accomplish her part...
side by side with the Palestinian man."
So it was in the middle or the beginning...
So it was in the beginning or the middle of 1970.
We go to the Middle East. Who is that "we"?
In February, July 1970 there is I...
there is you, there is she, there is he, who goes to the Middle East,
amongst the Palestinians, to make a film,
And we shot things in this order, and we organized it.
She, you, he, I organized the film like that.
First, of course, the people...
the people...
"What Israel says is untrue;
It is not a problem of borders between the Arabs in general,
and Israel in particular."
The people, the people's will.
Then there is the people taking up arms, the armed struggle...
the people's war...
the armed struggle, the people's war...
Then there was the political work. The political work...
"There is truly a victory of the Palestinian people".
...the political work. The people's education.
Then there was the time that it takes, the popular war extended.
The effort extended the long march.
The popular war extended, commanded by the people's logic.
And all that, until victory.
"Revolution until victory".
"By the people, for the people, revolution until victory".
All that, we had all organized like that.
All the sounds, all the images, in that order.
All the sounds, all the images, in that order...
saying: here is what was beautiful in the Middle East.
Five images, five sounds that hadn't been heard or seen on Arab earth.
The people's will, plus...
plus the armed struggle equal the people's war, plus...
plus the political work equal the people's education, plus...
plus the people's logic equal the popular war extended...
extended...
extended until victory of the Palestinian people...
And this is what one, what he, what I, what she,
what you had shot elsewhere.
Elsewhere, 1970, February-July.
Elsewhere, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria.
Elsewhere, the Fatah's Information Department.
Elsewhere, the 8,000 dollars from the Arabic League.
And then we came back home, I came back, you came back.
From that, anyway, we haven't recovered yet.
She, you, he, I finally came back here, in France.
It didn't go well.
And then days passed, months passed...
THE ME'S AND THE YOU'S
"This one, I say, doesn't want to be a member of the Socialist Party"...
THE YOU'S AND THE ME'S
"This past week, in order to bring the government bankers
to submit on several demands, we saw that the workers' strength..."
It doesn't go well anywhere. Nowhere does it go well.
Here it doesn't go well, I can't do anything.
Back in France, very soon you don't know what to make of the film.
Very soon, as one says, the contradictions explode, including you.
I begin to see it. I begin to see it.
Very soon - as one says the contradictions explode, including you...
...and you too, you too.
Because of this...this...this...
this...became that.
Or because that...that...that...
that...became this:
THINKING OF THAT AGAIN
ALMOST ALL THE ACTORS ARE DEAD
THE ACTORS IN THE FILM WERE FILMED IN DANGER OF DEATH
DEATH IS REPRESENTED IN THIS FILM BY A FLOW OF IMAGES
A FLOW OF IMAGES AND SOUNDS THAT HIDE SILENCE
A SILENCE THAT BECOMES DEADLY
BECAUSE IT IS PREVENTED TO COME OUT ALIVE
MAYBE, IN A THOUSAND AND ONE DAYS,
SHEHERAZADE WILL TELL THIS OTHERWISE.
Through adding hope to dream, figures have probably been mistaken.
Or rather: since we find ourselves near zero, we didn't add but subtract.
Or rather: it's negative that has been added and first:
HERE AND ELSEWHERE
French Revolution and Arab Revolution.
Arab Revolution and French Revolution.
Here and Elsewhere;
Victory and Defeat;
Foreign and National;
Quick and Slowly; Everywhere and Nowhere;
To Be and to Have;
Space and Time; Questions and Answers; In and Out;
Order and Disorder; Interior and Exterior; Black and White;
Yet and Already;
Dream and Reality.
Here or Elsewhere;
Powerful or Miserable; Today or Tomorrow;
Normal or Mad;
Everything or Nothing;
Always or Never;
Man or Woman;
More or Less;
To Live or to Die;
Poor or Rich.
ABOUT WEALTHY AND POOR.
Too simple and too easy to simply divide the world in two.
Too easy or too simple to say simply
that the wealthy are wrong and the poor are right.
Too simple and too easy to simply say
that the poor are right and the wealthy are wrong.
Too easy and...
Too easy and too simple.
Too simple and too easy.
Too easy and too simple to simply divide the world in two.
Here is how the Capital functions; something like that,
perhaps one poor and one zero equal one less poor...
one less poor and another zero equal one even less poor...
one even less poor and one zero equal one richer...
one richer and another zero equal one even richer...
one even richer and another zero equal one much richer.
The Capital functions like that.
At one given moment it adds, and what are added are zeros.
"Yes but zeros that represent tens, hundreds, thousands of you and me,
the capitalist says, thus in fact they are not really zeros".
One must see or learn to see that tens, hundreds, thousands of me and you,
when it's time to pay...
when it's time to sum up defeats and victories...
one gets it up the ass very often, one gets it up the ass because one...
I didn't want to see you either, she either...
and he either didn't want to see that all those dreams are represented.
He didn't want to see that all those dreams
are represented at a given time.
Time given and taken back again by zeros that multiply them.
LEARNING TO SEE, NOT TO READ
But as they are zeros, it multiplies and nullifies at the same time.
And so one hasn't had the time to see that at this moment, in this place,
our hopes have been reduced to zero.
To see for instance that the image of a 17-plus for instance...
...the image of a 36 equal already, here in May, the image of a 68...
...whereas for instance, the image of a 17-plus the image of a 36...
elsewhere in September, still equal the image of a 70.
In the Soviet or American capitalistic system,
it is the system that works, works, works...
It works like that.
And since our dreams are most of the time added as series of zeros...
it has to be said that the images of the sum
will have nothing to do with the sum of images.
Here as elsewhere...
One can be poor, here, at one place, and be a millionaire elsewhere...
a millionaire in images of the place.
This should begin to be crammed into your head.
Poor revolutionary fool.
Millionaire in images of revolution.
Poor revolutionary fool, millionaire in images of revolution.
THINKING OF THAT AGAIN, HERE AND ELSEWHERE
Millionaire in images of revolution.
So, one can finally see that what happened in this film happens
In any American movie, where I added, you added...
Armed struggle.
Political work.
Extended war.
Until victory.
O.K., but here, the images can be seen altogether.
At the movies, this is impossible.
One is obliged to see them separately, one after the other...
which results in:
The people's will.
Armed struggle.
Political work.
Extended war.
Until victory.
But it is seen as such because in fact when one makes a film,
things really happen this way.
Each time, one image ceases to replace the other.
Each time the image after expels the images before and takes its place...
keeping of course, more or less, the memory of it.
This is made possible because the film is moving...
and the images don't come altogether, but separately to inscribe themselves
one after the other, on their support:
Agfa, Kodak, Orvo, Gevaert...
And on the whole, time has replaced space, speaks for it, or rather:
Space - the people's will.
Space has inscribed itself on film in another form...
Time - the people's will.
Space - the armed struggle.
which is not a whole any more, but a sum of translations,
a sum of feelings which are forwarded...
Space - political work.
...that is, time...
Time - political work.
Space - extended war.
...and the film that is, on the whole, chain-work images...
Time - extended war.
...renders good accout, through this series of images,
of my double identity, space and time chained one to the other...
Time - until victory.
...as two workers on the assembly line...
where each is at the same time the copy and the original of the other.
FIRST
Well then, how to use one's time to occupy one's space?
FIRST QUESTION
How is a schedule organized?
Well, like this...like this...
But also like that.
Or like that.
Or again like that.
Moreover, in fact, like this.
As a matter of fact, it is likely that a chain
also consists in arranging memories...
chaining them in a certain order...
which will get everybody to find one's place on the chain again...
that is, to rediscover one's own image.
O.K. but then: how does one find one's own image
in the other's order or disorder?
With the agreement or the disagreement of the other?
And then: How to construct one's own image?
One's trademark, that is, an image that marks, an image that leaves tracks.
Well, like this...or this... but also like that...
that is, like that... or that...or that...
by using the gaze of another...
that for convenience one calls "my likeness".
And under the gaze of a third person who is not yet there...
but is already represented by a photographic lens...
and who will believe you or me...
you and me when we will look at this image.
As a matter of fact,
it is likely that one constructs one's own image with the other's.
Friend or enemy, you produce your image...
You produce and consume your image with mine...
distributing mine to your image.
So, we have said stuff like that, in all sorts of directions...
when we thought of what we had done there 4 or 5 years ago...
and now thinking of what we are doing here...
"Have you finished your homework?"
"Why hasn't Daddy found a job yet?"
"You'll ask when he comes back."
"Always asking the same question 'why'..."
Nobody knows how to answer, or answers are crooked.
We don't do much better, anyway.
And by continuously doing bad,
one ends up thinking that it's not the answers that don't fit,
but the questions...
"Have you found anything?"
"No, I arrived too late."
"Can you explain to me, Daddy, I don't understand..."
"No, I have no time for that, maybe later..."
Thinking that this system of questions and answers must be abandoned...
that something else has to be found.
How to find a job...
Earn one's living...
Live with one's time...
Be employed by the other's time and employ it in turn.
Before producing, one will have to distribute.
In order to revolt...
one must find the time to...
have the time to see things simply...
i.e. not to be scared anymore to say that it's things that are complicated...
and that anxiety is simple, too simple...
as for instance, to put the sound too loud:
"No, no, no, the sound not too loud!"
"Say rather that it's you who wants it that way!"
"Yes it's me! When I'm fed up, I like it when it shouts!"
"Listen, it's not my fault if I don't find a job."
"If you spent less time at your political meetings,
you could maybe find some to look for a job!"
"Really, that's bullshit!"
"You too! Please turn the sound down."
"Oh, come on!"
Turn the sound louder, in reality, how does it happen?
Sometimes like this...
Sometimes, also like that...
or like that...
Well, let's split up one of these movements and look at it slowly.
One sees that there isn't only one but two movements.
Two noises that move in relation to one another.
In time of panic and lack of imagination...
there is always one that takes power.
Here, for instance, there was first the noises of the school and the family.
Then there will be the noise erasing that of the family and school.
A point in time...
when one sound takes power over the others.
A point in time when this sound seeks, almost desperately, to keep this power.
How did that sound take power?
It took power because at one given time it made itself represented by an image.
This one for instance:
The image of a gangster who represents the Mafia.
Or more simply, the image of a foreman who represents his boss.
To take power is made possible when the image,
at the same time it reinforces a sound by taking its place...
when the image in return makes itself represented by another sound.
Like a worker, making himself represented by a union...
and this organization translating this fact by keywords
which are in turn given back to the worker.
MY GUN
A young guy who reads a porn novel to forget the factory.
Any daily image will also be part of a vague and complicated system,
where the whole world enters and leaves at each moment.
Any image. Any image.
Daily. Daily.
To forget the factory. to forget the factory.
A vague and complicated system.
The whole world. The whole world.
No matter how. No matter how.
My daily image will be part of a vague and complicated system...
where the whole world enters and leaves at each moment.
the whole world, that's too much for one image.
"No, not too much" says the international capitalism...
which builds all its wealth on this truth.
There are no more simple images,
only simple people, who will be forced to stay quiet, like an image.
Each of us thus becomes too many inside oneself...
not enough outside.
Little by little, we are replaced...
by uninterrupted chains of images, enslaving one another.
Little by little...
we are replaced by uninterrupted chains of images enslaving one another...
each image at its place, as each of us, at our place...
in the chain of events on which we have lost all power.
HERE AND ELSEWHERE
We did as several people.
We took images and put the sound too loud.
Vietnam...always the same sound, always too loud.
Prague, May 68 - France, Italy.
Chinese cultural Revolution.
Strikes in Poland.
Tortures in Spain.
Ireland, Portugal, Chile, Palestine.
The Sound so loud...
that it almost drowned the voice it wanted to draw out of the image.
Amongst the ruins of the city of Karame,
a little girl from the Fatah recites a poem.
"I shall resist..."
Listen, you could talk first about the setting...
and about the actor in this set, that is, about theater.
This theater, where does it come from?
It comes from 1789, from the French Revolution...
and from the pleasure that the Delegates of '89...
took in making large gestures and reciting their claims publicly.
This little girl is acting for the Palestinian Revolution, of course.
She is innocent, but maybe not this form of theater.
Near the Jordan, a small group of Feddayin tries through discussion
to bind revolutionary theory and practice.
Listen, be a little simpler in your speech!
What are they saying, those Feddayin?
They are speaking about their links to the earth,
taking as an example the digging of trenches.
And they say exactly:
"In digging our soil we bind ourselves to it, we love it more."
"And when the earth protects you, you become its lover."
"So don't talk about practice and theory."
They have said "make love" to their earth, then say: love and say: make.
In a school, the Democratic Front organizes alphabetized classes.
A woman repeats a text from the union.
You see, at first she seems happy to do this little work.
I find her beautiful.
Since she doesn't know how to read,
she is quite pleased to participate in the struggle,
even by just repeating a text.
But while this repetition proceeds...
she seems more and more morose, bored.
She seems to wish she could go back to duties which don't ask her to speak,
even if those duties have to do with repetition.
Daily life, everyday tasks inside a revolution - or outside.
Automatisms settle while repeating words in a certain order,
words that she would never have said like that.
But what would she have said? And how?
In any case, the unions don't ask this question.
Texts talk, talk but never talk about silence.
In the camp of Bakka, not far from Amman, a leader from the Fatah speaks;
delivers a speech to celebrate the anniversary of the victory of Karame.
You see, we were talking about silence.
All that goes wrong can very well be seen in this image.
The one that represents the people is speaking alone, far from the people.
As always, theater.
In Beyrouth...
"Can you say it one more time?"
...a pregnant woman is proud to give her son to the revolution.
In this take, this is not the most interesting; but that:
"Can you say it one more time?"
"Would you straighten your head a little?" "Yes, like that."
First thing to say:
It's always the one who is directed that is seen,
never the one who is directing.
The one that commands and gives orders is never seen.
There is another thing that doesn't fit.
You have chosen for that take a young intellectual,
sympathizing with the Palestinian cause,
who is not pregnant but accepts to play the part.
Furthermore she is young and beautiful.
About that, you remain silent.
But from secrets of this type to fascism, there is only one quick step.
"And then, in this town inhabited mainly by Oriental Jews,
anger and hate exploded."
"At a paroxysm of anger, in a quasi-collective delirium,
a hysterical crowd rushes inside the building..."
When these images are seen...
"The bodies of the four Feddayin, thrown out by the windows,
are then burnt by the crowd shouting 'Death to the terrorists'".
When these images are seen,
there is only one thing to say, one sound to make:
"Auschwitz...Treblinka..."
Munich - September 72: Olympic Games.
A Palestinian commando seizes a dozen hostages from the Isreali team
and threatens to execute them if a hundred of his Palestinian fellows,
prisoners in Isreal, aren't released.
I don't know.
I am sure that there was something else to be done.
Think! The conditions under which that happened:
In Munich, that very day, the strength of imperialism was in television
and billions of spectators demanding a program.
It could have been possible
to take advantage of a world-wide audience listening and say:
"Show this image from time to time!"
If that was refused,
to take advantage of a world-wide audience watching TV and say:
"You refuse to show this image." - at each final, for instance.
Okay, we'll kill the hostages and we'll be killed afterwards.
And for them as for us,
one finds it silly to die for an image and one is a little scared.
"...crimes of humanity: This time, the Gates of Hell will be passed..."
Okay, not too many pompous sentences.
I noticed something, you know, while reading books on concentration camps
when the prisoners couldn't stand on their feet
and weren't really worth anything.
at the last stage of physical decay,
well, a prisoner was called a Muslim:
"Twelve million men, women and children were deported, nine million were dead."
"For six million of them, their only crime was to be Jewish."
Here is a Jew in such a condition that the SS called him: Muslim.
The silence. The family. The television.
My silence. Your silence.
The factory and the sexes.
The working conditions.
Pleasure and money.
The working conditions.
Oil and revolution.
The working conditions.
So what are they saying?
They say: concerning the crossing of the river,
did you find any difficulties, or make any mistakes?
There is one serious mistake:
since we cross the river always at the same place,
we are going to have ourselves located by the enemy's machine-guns
and thus we may cause the tragic end of the whole group.
I do remember when we shot this.
That was three months before the September slaughters.
That was in June '70 and in three months,
the whole little group will be dead.
What is really tragic is that they are here talking...
talking of their own death.
But nobody said that.
No, because it was up to you to say it and what is tragic is that you didn't.
As they are simple revolutionaries, they talk about simple things.
Incredibly simple.
What are they saying?
"The enemy could easily recognize our entry post...
encircle us and hit us and destroy us.
Instead of beating and annihilating him, he will beat and annihilate us.
This is why this type of mistake should be avoided.
This is why we shouldn't gather at one point.
These passages shouldn't be individual,
but made so that two or three of our group could cross the river at once.
It is true that even to silence, we never listened in silence.
We wanted to crow victory right away, and furthermore at their place.
If we wanted to make the Revolution for them,
it's perhaps because at that time
we didn't really want to make it where we are,
instead of where we aren't.
"Do you think that we have sufficient knowledge on Isreali positions
to carry through missions against the enemy?"
"No, we don't know enough."
"Are you able to manage a suicide operation
on an important position held by the enemy?"
"Yes, we agree. Of course."
THINKING OF THAT AGAIN, HERE AND ELSEWHERE
In 1970 this film was called: Victory.
In 1975 it is called: Here and Elsewhere.
Here, a French family watches television.
Elsewhere, images of the Palestinian revolution.
Here, today, the sound and images of today's noise.
Elsewhere, first yesterday, abroad, then tomorrow.
Here, very simple images.
The children watch television, before doing their homework and after supper.
Elsewhere, very simple images.
The Fedayin discuss the way to liberate the river from the Israeli machineguns.
Where did the inability to see or hear these very simple images come from?
We have, like everyone, said something else about them.
Something else than what they are saying.
It seems most likely that we do not know how to see or listen.
Or, that the sound is too loud and covers reality.
Learn to see here, in order to understand elsewhere.
Learn to understand speech in order to see what others do.
The others, the "elsewhere" of our "here".