THE GLEANERS AND I
G as in gleaning -
To glean is to gather after the harvest.
A gleaner is one who gleans.
In times past only women gleaned.
Millet's Glaneuses were in all dictionaries.
The original painting is at the Orsay.
Gleaming, that's the old way.
My mother'd say, "Pick everything up so nothing gets wasted".
But sadly we no longer do
because machines are so efficient nowadays.
But before, I used to glean
together with my neighbors,
for wheat, and rice too.
I would put my big apron on
and we'd go gleaning ears of wheat,
lovely ears we would find.
A whole day in the sun, with gnats and mosquitoes biting,
it wasn't too nice,
but we liked it.
Evenings, we were exhausted. Once home with our bags and our aprons
we'd have a good time laughing and drinking coffee together.
I was born in that farmhouse, and I'll die there too.
- But not quite yet! - OK, thank you very much.
Thanks very much, all of you.
I'm mixed up, you've confused me now.
Yes, I've always gleaned.
I remember, with my grandmother and my brothers and sisters.
Before, during the war, they had to glean, they were starving.
They pounded the grain to make flour,
for bread.
We no longer pick these days, we no longer glean to eat.
There are still a few gleaners of corn around.
Gleaming might be extinct
but steeping has not vanished from our sated society
Urban and rural gleaners all stoop to pick up
There's no shame, just worries
Yeah, food, grub
It's bad, sad, man
To bend down is not to beg
But when I see them sway My heart hurts!
Eating that scrap-crap
They've got to live on shit-bits
They've got to frisk for tidbits
Left on the street, leftovers
Rough stuff with no owners
Picking up trash like the streets weeper
Zero for us, for them much better
They got to roam around to kill the hunger
It's always been the same pain will always be the same game.
In the towns today as in the fields yesterday
gleaners still humbly stoop to glean.
But men have now joined with women
in gleaning.
What strikes me is that each gleans on his own.
Whereas in paintings
they were always in clusters, rarely alone.
But there's a famous one
painted by Jules Breton at the museum in Arras.
We took the road north.
Lots of big trucks, but I'll come back to that,
and we arrived in the town of Arras,
we saw its square,
we saw its museum,
and Breton's Woman Gleaning.
There is another woman gleaning in this film, that's me.
I'm happy to drop the ears of wheat and pick up my camera.
These new small cameras,
they are digital, fantastic.
Their effects are stroboscopic
narcissistic.
And even hyper-realistic.
No, it's not O rage,
no, it's not O despair,
it's not Ola/age, my enemy,
it might even be Old age, my friend but still, my hair
and my hands keep telling me that the end is near.
OK, right now, we are driving towards Beauce,
renowned for its wheat. The harvest being over
we'll focus on potato gleaning instead.
Destalking the fields makes furrows
and ridges ready for the grubbing machine.
Once the grubbing is over,
we can glean the whole field.
- Hello. - Hello Mrs. Buard.
Since this morning, I've collected a full 250 lbs alone.
And these are good ones you eat with herring.
Lots of restaurants buy them.
Some people are quite pleased when the machine malfunctions.
There are lots left here.
The tractor ploughs too deep and gets stuck.
They free it by lifting the machine and they miss potatoes there.
So gleaners have a field day?
Oh yes definitely.
The owners don't give a damn
so long as there's nothing left.
They won't have to treat.
You still must sort them.
In supermarkets, the firm ones are sold
in containers of 5 1/2 to 11 pounds,
and these have to be of a specific caliber,
of a specific size.
So we dump anything bigger.
The potato harvest averages 4,500 tons per season.
But 25 tons are rejected
and dumped.
We reject all the outsized, green ones, and stones,
the cut or damaged ones.
Because they're unsellable.
To the trade, we sell potatoes
within a range of 2 to 4 inches
and anything bigger is automatically thrown away.
Potatoes remain a staple foodstuff for many
and because large quantities of potatoes are dumped,
the practice of gleaning has reappeared.
In general people wait nearby
and follow the trailers.
We followed the trailers but didn't see anyone
except a man who might have known,
not through a newspaper though for they never announce
dumping here tomorrow, there next week.
Potatoes left in the open like that
soon become green and dangerous to eat.
Sometimes the children give the signal.
Hey, we found a big one here!
C'mon, catch it!
Monday, potatoes
Tuesday, potatoes
Wednesday, potatoes again
Thursday, potatoes
Friday, potatoes
Saturday, potatoes again
Sunday, potatoes au gratin
Look, I've picked up more or less
200 or 300 pounds.
You find very large ones in the leftovers.
The damaged ones we leave.
Some are too small, we take the large ones rather.
See,
misshapen ones,
heart-shaped ones.
The heart, I want the heart!
I was glad.
I immediately filmed them up close,
and set about filming perilously with one hand
my other hand gleaning heart-shaped potatoes.
Then I took a few home with me.
I looked at them again, filmed them again.
Then it dawned upon me: the Good Heart Charity Meals.
Why not organize an expedition
on the day the potatoes
are to be dumped?
When I think of all the food gone bad that's enough to make me mad
If you've been kicked out and you're down and out
Then you need food for nought
I take a few for me and my kids,
and we collect together.
I've joined the Charity Meals because I was unemployed.
I still am but I expect to start on a trial job soon
and meanwhile, I'd rather help people than do nothing,
help people in dire straits.
I'm a single mother.
I get food from the Red Cross and the Charity Meals.
When I see all this go to waste
and that some people have nothing to eat,
it's really disgraceful.
On that day they collected almost 700 lbs.
At least that's something.
A little later, almost on the same spot,
we saw a man approaching.
I went over to him and asked him
how much he thought there was.
Almost a ton if you add all the mounds together,
a ton of potatoes wasted.
Same thing with cauliflowers,
fruit and vegetables in other regions,
but here it's potato country, and we take what we find.
We're better off working in the fields than shoplifting.
It's the same for all of us, I'm not alone.
We get by as best we can.
We do potatoes, we look in trash cans,
that keeps me going for now.
It's a hard life, that's all.
The year 2K is upon us, great, heh?
OK, I'm on my way with my 7O lbs,
and there are several tons left, which could be picked,
but people don't know where to come to. There you are.
They are hoboes in caravans.
We are gypsies, we travel around. They're different from us.
It needs to be cut up for the scrap merchant to come.
We don't have the necessary tools. No electricity,just candles.
What do you do for water?
What?
Water? That's all we have. It's over there.
That's our tap.
- What if it freezes? - If it freezes...
we pad around the pipe, or we let it drip
to stop it freezing when it gets really cold,
like last year, when it got to -7OF on the ground.
You get used to it.
You seem to like beer?
I'd drink anything.
How many beers is that?
I drink a pack a day.
- What? - Yeah, a pack of 24 a day.
24 or even 32.
Tell me what happened to you.
Did you have a house before?
Yeah, I had a job.
I worked impossible hours,
21 or 22 hours a day.
- Truck driving? - Yeah.
- A trucker? - Yes.
I drove long vehicles.
Then one day the police breathalyzed me and then...
that's howl lost my job.
Then my wife left me, she took my three kids with her,
and I was in free-fall after that.
Divorce, everything?
Yes, and I haven't seen my kids for almost 2 years.
They're 500 miles away from me.
I can't go and see them.
I don't have a car or a license.
- It's terrible. - Yes it is.
I think of them every single day.
- Here's Guilene. - She'll tell you everything.
Did you know that once they're through picking potatoes,
you're allowed to take leftovers? - No.
You didn't know?
- It's not allowed. - Yes it is!
I have something very important to say:
Why has the Mayor put us here, I've been here four years,
and now he wants us to go.
He says he was fed up with us gypsies,
but I want to stay here.
I had an apartment but it cost too much.
Her first trailer cost her $350
and the latest one,
where I am housed at the moment, $35.
We met
when I was working in a café as a cleaning woman,
that's how we met.
So long as there's welfare money left, OK, but after...
we have to get by somehow.
Then we have to beg
and forage through the trash.
We find food in the garbage.
Good food?
We're badly off. We do find good food. Which could still be
sold in shops. But they have to change their shelves.
We take advantage of that, it's a lucky draw.
But we have to comb all the garbage cans everywhere
to recover stuff.
See for yourself.
For the soup!
My bunch of flowers!
- Another cucumber. - Sure, there's plenty.
That comes from the trash.
The expiry date is 11-29, two days ago.
- One day ago. - Right.
That's still valid for seven or eight days, a week or so.
I've got fish which I found there.
It's good until 12-24.
We found it in the trash.
We're not afraid to get our hands dirty. You can wash hands.
Hey, guys, the new appetizer
is lamb kidney in a chicory root sauce
with a potato fritter
and an aniseed and nut soup
and mushroom mousse with truffle oil.
As I watched all this cooking,
I asked the chef if there were lots of leftovers, and
what he did with them.
Nothing should be wasted.
With the leftover lentils, we make a lentil soup,
we mince the greenery into a gratin,
the meat bones we use for stock
the fish bones for sauce.
We don't throw anything away.
You have to be economical.
If I had to buy all the herbs I pick daily on the hills...
A small bunch of savory like this is $1.50
and we use about 2O of them every day.
We'd be spending a fortune on herbs.
Anyway, I love picking them.
That nice inventive and thrifty chef
offers a gourmet menu for $100.
Edouard Loubet is the youngest French chef
to have earned 2 stars in the Michelin guide,
now called the Red Guide.
Surprisingly enough, Edouard is also a born gleaner,
or rather a born picker.
With his hat on, in his shirt sleeves, he looks like a Provencial figurine.
Don't tread on the apples!
We take what the farmers leave behind
or we pick the ripe fruit on the trees.
This is the best thing you can use
to make good spirits or good fruit jelly.
I never miss the chance.
How come you, a chef, also pick?
Firstly because my grandparents taught me to
along fields and roads,
and also because
I then know what produce I get and where I get it from.
I don't want refrigerated produce from Italy
which is sold only when someone feels like saying it is ripe.
As we're talking grapes and wine...
Let's go, Isa!
...we might as well go to a wine area.
We're off to Burgundy.
On the road, there are trucks, lots of trucks,
of the kind we loved when we were kids.
We pass them and gaze at them.
Here's a very big one passing us, transporting cars,
and here's another one.
And now we are passing him,
we struggle a little to pass this one.
It's like a child's game.
We're arriving in Burgundy.
Beaune to me is above all the Hospices
and the painting by Van der Weyden,
The Last Judgment.
The Archangel Michael weighs and judges the deeds of the dead.
The ones who are light are to be resurrected,
and the heavy ones are to suffer in hell.
The grape harvest is over, and yet nobody is in sight.
Why is that?
If you want your wine to be ranked as vintage,
the yearly production is limited.
That means you can only produce
a certain quota per plot.
Growing up, I didn't hear much about pickers.
Wine growers have always protected themselves against them,
for if you let people pick in your vines,
how can you be sure they are not
going to pick on a large scale?
These vintage vines have been entirely harvested
and the surplus has been deliberately left on the ground.
They're drying out, lost for everybody.
It's a measure to protect our profession and capital.
What you see here,
is called second generation grapes, verjuice,
or conscripts, depending on the area.
Conscripts.
Like soldiers?
Exactly, like conscripts. Some people pick them.
It's a second harvest and yields a cheaper wine
called wine of the pickings.
- Will it taste of Pommard? - No, not at all.
It makes a table wine, a really cheap table wine.
The vintage wine region is not a good one for picking.
Gleaming, or picking, is forbidden in Burgundy.
It ended 3 or 4 years ago.
It's sad, but that's the way it is.
Gleaning was lovely.
We would see the gleaner, tramping along,
Gathering the relics
of that which is falling Behind the reaper...
- Do you know? - Du Bellay?
- Right? - It is.
Impressive, you know it by heart!
I took over my father's estate.
From the grape to the bottle,
lam the only master on board.
I have no cellarman, no head cellarman.
With Nadine, we choose the best blends for our Chateau bottles.
- Do you both choose? - We both do.
Jean Laplanche,
a keen wine grower,
has another calling, psychotherapy.
I am a practicing therapist, but above all a theoretician,
or rather a philosopher of therapy.
What's your theory?
What distinguishes me, is that I have tried to integrate
into man's psyche.
The Other above the Ego, i.e. I developed an anti-ego philosophy,
a philosophy which shows how man first originates
in the Other.
He copes with his double life?
- Rather well. - He's good, isn't he?
- Rather well. - He's intelligent, I think. And modest.
It keeps me going.
- Isn't it daunting for you? - What is?
That he is a therapist and makes wine too.
I was analyzed so as to learn a little more.
- By him? - No, by Lacan.
' Ages ago. " I Was very young,
A long time ago.
We'll be married 5O years
in the year 2000.
Tell me how you met.
At a village dance, where most people meet.
- The kiss! - Right...
No one's interested in that!
I must tell you something,
something the whole world should know about.
I met him, it was like a lightning bolt.
You see?
The way he was dressed, I couldn't possibly miss him.
He had a red cap on, honest,
he was back from the Riviera. He looked so...
He had a red cotton cap,
a green shirt,
mustard yellow pants,
rope espadrilles and...
- Yellow ones! - Right.
And a multicolored belt. I couldn't miss him,just couldn't.
How was she dressed?
That I can't remember. Yeah, it's the old story.
But I didn't fall for her right away.
It all came later with me.
How mean of me!
Is it true, Huguette?
- I'm not in his heart. - It's true.
This is Laurent, my son.
A gleaner or a picker, I'm not sure.
But I heard Glanum, not gleaning,
that's why I talked about Saint-Rémy, where Glanum is.
Gleaming, no.
Because gleaning is very different from picking, you see.
But picking, yes.
What's the difference?
The difference is that you pick fruit that hangs,
that is hanging, but you glean things that sprout.
Like grain. It's different.
Olives and grain.
Almonds...
Figs too, people make jams out of figs.
The fig, you pick.
Look, nature's wonders!
Overripe and beautiful!
That's fruit from heaven!
I half-feel like interfering,
but it is none of my business, it's their fruit.
This one's almost pure alcohol, I'll be tipsy.
Anyway, half the people are stingy.
They won't allow gleaning because they don't feel like being nice.
There's a lot left.
The harvest is over now.
Are these not edible?
Edible, yes, but not good for making candied fruits.
Do you allow people to collect them?
No. I'm not the owner, but up to now, it's never been allowed.
The harvest of the cabbages is over,
only a few are left here and there.
These cabbages can be gleaned
with absolute impunity
by gleaners from Avignon or around.
Here are lovely tomatoes.
The machine couldn't take what's too low.
All these tomatoes,
which are just as red as my bible, the penal code,
all can be gleaned.
And it's not me, it's the penal code that says so,
in article R-26.10. Here:
gleaning is allowed from sunup until sundown.
First requirement.
The second requirement
is that gleaning occurs after the harvest.
And here, we can clearly see the harvest is over.
Paging through an old law commentary
I happened upon a decree,
or rather an edict, dated Nov. 2, 1554
which says just the same as the law today.
It allows the poor, the wretched,
the deprived, to enter the fields once harvesting is over.
Old documents talk of the poor, the destitute,
but how are we to consider those who want for nothing
and glean just for fun?
It's as if they needed something too.
If they glean for fun, it's because they have a need for fun.
So if the requirements and the times are adhered to,
they can glean as the poor used to.
Thank you.
Sure. I'll take a walk in the cabbages.
I'll walk my small camera among the colored cabbages
and film other vegetables which catch my eye.
On this type of gleaning, of images, impressions,
there is no legislation,
and gleaning is defined figuratively as a mental activity.
To glean facts, acts and deeds,
to glean information.
And for forgetful me,
it's what I have gleaned that tells where I've been.
From Japan, I brought back in my case souvenirs I had gleaned.
I am back home, the cats are here,
there's mail,
one plant's died, the others haven't.
Then I look at the leak in the ceiling and the mold,
I got used to it.
I like it in the end.
It's like a landscape, an abstract painting,
a Tapiés.
A Guo Qiang.
A Borderie.
There's water dripping.
I open my suitcase.
Amazing, in a department store in Tokyo,
on the top floor,
there were Rembrandt paintings,
original Rembrandts.
Sasha, up chase.
And then my hand up close,
I mean, this is my project:
to film with one hand my other hand.
To enter into the horror of it.
I find it extraordinary.
I feel as if I am an animal,
worse, I am an animal I don't know.
And here's Rembrandt's self-portrait,
but it's just the same in fact, always a self-portrait.
Maurice Utrillo's
we saw in a very small museum
in the former City Hall of Sannois.
We were going
to film nearby, at Hervé's, alias VR99.
In the year 2000, his alias will be VR2OOO.
'Loading up'
means retrieving heavy objects people get rid of.
To do so,
town councils and city halls provide
small maps such as this one.
It shows all the streets, the districts and the days
on which one can go and pick them up.
I think the maps show where to dump things rather.
Yes, right, well,
I read the map my own way because
that's where I find my raw material.
I am, among other things, a painter and a retriever.
I prefer night time,
and because I go by bike, I can only carry small things home.
It'll be easier if I show you.
I make images from salvaged material,
frames from wood,
I use food packages, slates,
and then I also recycle
my own packets of cigarette paper,
and what's good about these objects
is that they have a past, they've already had a life,
and they're still very much alive.
All you have to do is give them a second chance.
All you need to do is wander around, locate sites,
and then simply help yourself, like in a real department store.
On site, you find heaps of heavy objects,
it is best to get there quickly,
because the competition is fierce.
Objects go quickly.
They're like presents left on the street, it's like Christmas.
When I was a kid, my grandfather used to salvage things as well.
He made piles.
I've always liked the world of dumps and salvage,
anything that's been sort of discarded by society.
It's like a cavern here.
My own little cavern, that's right.
A place where I combine
objects differently.
I need to accumulate.
It's a shelter as well?
From what?
From emptiness. Because it's full here.
I'm moving towards emptiness now, or rather, towards minimization.
As much minimization as possible.
- You're still a long way away! - I am.
Right now, I store up things
because I know I will need to recycle some.
The encounter happens on the street.
The object beckons me, because it belongs here in a way.
The encounter also happens on the road,
and it happened to us.
On our left, an abandoned factory.
On the other side, a sign " Finds".
"Curios" is common, but "Finds” is more inviting.
Hello, how are you?
Hello.
Turn and face me! He won't.
I spotted some wheat behind that chap,
and behind the robot, I discovered a painting on gleaning.
It contained both
the humble stooping of Millet's Glaneuses
and the proud posture of Breton's Gleaner.
The painter had an old dictionary at hand.
Honest, this is no movie trick,
we really did find these Glaneuses purely by chance.
The painting had beckoned us because it belonged here in this film.
On the road again, off to the Ideal Palace of Bodan Litnanski,
a much visited, much publicized place.
This retired brickmason came from Russia
and started building totem towers
made of scraps he found in dumps
and brought back in his trailer hooked up to his moped.
It's solid stuff, you know, very solid.
I am a brickmason.
I like dolls, they're my system.
Dolls are characters.
What do you think of all this?
- He's an amateur. - Sorry?
He's an amateur.
We can't stop him, we let him.
But your husband is an artist.
An artist, well, maybe...
Why not?
There's better than that.
- What? - Better, much better than that.
Like Louis Pons, for instance,
who uses junk as an inspiration.
He draws through objects,
he accommodates chance.
All these objects around here
are my dictionary.
Useless things.
People think it's a cluster of junk.
I see it as a cluster of possibilities.
Each object gives a direction, each is a line,
picked up here and there,
indeed gleaned,
and which become
my paintings.
The aim of art is to tidy up
one's inner and exterior worlds.
These are just crayons, children's crayons.
Here we have tins and spools...
This is the tongue of a small bell.
I make sentences from things.
A cricket on a heap of trash.
Cages are interesting too, a bit like boats, like violins
and things whose...
shapes at first are very simple and the same,
but the possible variations are infinite.
These are skirting boards and frames.
There is a... from cars...
a windshield wiper.
But for me they are streaks.
I have to balance the streaks.
That's a statement. Horizontal statements, nothing else.
Again one hand filming the other hand, and more trucks.
I'd like to capture them.
To retain things passing?
No,just to play.
Noirmoutier is an island
renowned for its causeway and its oysters.
People glean there
after rough storms and very low tides.
Storms dislodge oysters from their beds
and wash them ashore.
But they all know that around Christmas time,
we are so busy that we leave it to the gleaners.
They go as soon as
the storm has abated.
A high sea over the beds is a pretty sight
but to profit from the low tide
gleaners need a copy of the Tide Tables.
We come every year for the lowest tide.
They're going to follow the receding sea
and anything they find they pick up.
People collect the oysters that have come loose.
In theory, they keep out of the poles around the beds.
They must keep out.
They are too close.
Here the oyster farmers let them carry on, but...
it degenerates sometimes.
We don't trespass!
The limit must be here, but...
we encroach a little sometimes.
We're not stupid. We see others and do the same.
If they tell us anything, we scram.
It's tolerated but not really allowed.
It's not downright illegal.
There still exists a right to glean,
provided people glean 15 yards from the beds.
- 25 yards away. - Is it 25 yards now?
What are people allowed to do?
To collect up to 7 pounds each, nothing more.
- I O yards away minimum. - Right.
11 pounds per person.
7 pounds of clams and 11 pounds of oysters,
something like that.
11 pounds per person, I think.
Three dozen per person
but surely they take more than that.
They pick up small inedible oysters
that were churned by the waves and are full of sand.
People from the mainland eat them,
and then say they get sick.
The Jura region was flooded.
The river Dard barred our route.
I liked it when animals barred my way,
or I just stopped for them.
The Nenon family, in the hills near Apt,
present a special case of picking.
The vineyard they found was wholly abandoned.
That's a fully fledged harvest here!
Yes, the entire vineyard was left unpruned last year.
An entire harvest going to waste.
I spotted this place and I was very intrigued by it.
Could anybody say anything?
- Don't the owners care? - No. After Nov. 1,
we are allowed to pick grapes in the vineyards.
If not, they're eaten by wild boars or birds.
- Do wild boars like grapes? - They love grapes.
On that day,
I filmed dancing pruning shears.
I forgot to turn my camera off,
which is why we get the dance of the lens cap.
The cap has stopped its crazy jig.
We're off to see the only owner
who cares for his gleaners.
I warn children about the terrible effects if they eat too much,
but I take for granted that the adults know and I leave them alone.
Jérome Noél-Bouton
shows us an old photo of his vines
which used to be Marey's.
There is a mini-museum in the cellar.
An engineer and erudite physiologist,
Marey invented chronophotography.
He was a visionary.
He analyzed movement
before Muybridge and the Lumieres. He is the ancestor of all movie makers,
and we're proud to be family.
Marey was my father's grandfather, which makes him my great-grandfather,
and to be more specific,
my grandfather was Marey's son-in-law, since...
his wife, my grandmother, was Marey's daughter.
She married a man named Bouton
and this estate, which used to be in the Bouton family,
was bought by Marey,
and returned to the Bouton family when his daughter married a Bouton.
Congratulations!
The tower you can see over there,
he built with his own two hands
to house his still camera equipment.
He set up wires and waited.
Animals or birds went past, triggering the camera.
That's the hut
from which,
with his chronophotographic rifle,
he broke down the flight of birds.
That's Demeny, Marey's assistant,
holding the rifle and the film reel.
I wonder who the boy with a bowler hat is.
Marey's experimental pictures
and film bits,
technical prowess aside, are pure visual delight.
Our train leaves Paris
and happens to slow down
as we pass lvry waste collection center.
The heart of our topic,
since we're going to Prades, home of our musician Joanna.
She met youngsters who had had a brush with the law
for damaging the trash bins of a supermarket
because the contents had been doused in bleach.
I thought I could film them explaining the case
if I met all the protagonists -
the youngsters gathered on the square,
the manager of the shop,
and the magistrate from the court,
who seemed concerned and polite.
I wanted to know how these homeless
coped with the law.
Should squatting be legalized?
I could work on it, if not for this robe.
But your robe is lovely!
It was a simple case of youngsters vandalizing things.
I found them guilty of violence.
Before bleach was sprayed on?
They'd knock over the trash
and my staff had to clean up after them.
That led me to apply the law
and bleach the trash, which they didn't appreciate.
- We got angry. - But nothing serious.
We knocked over trash cans,
and damaged the wall with graffiti and tomatoes.
They broke the camera.
It was locked, we had to climb a little.
They went over the fence.
They were trespassing on private property.
Appearing in court was itself a penalty
for these youths who want to be free of all rules.
We only stole trash.
The aim isn't to fine them but to remind them of the law.
They all played their part, applying their own logic.
The kids said what they were supposed to.
We filmed them with their dogs. It was picturesque.
I'm not that antisocial.
- May I ask you how old you are? - 22.
Their beauty is poignant when you realize that, for whatever reason,
they get most of their food from trash cans.
In court, I was told
it was a dialogue of the deaf, but not of the dumb.
They seized the chance to have fun.
I said she was mad, she cited me for contempt of court.
We said she was out of her mind, and she would go: Write it down!
Recorder, write down: Out of her mind!
We felt it was a foregone conclusion. It was sickening.
She opted for trial in closed court. I shouted and slammed the door.
They're not through talking about this episode,
and I'm not through thinking about it in my hotel room.
We filmed and continue to film people who hang around trash cans.
They have various reasons for doing so.
Each experiences it differently.
- Hi! - Here he is!
How are you?
Sit down, there's coffee for you.
We had been told: "He wears
rubber boots. He salvages everything“.
Yes, I live almost 100% on things from the trash.
Everybody, rich or poor,
throws food away. Why?
Because we are so stupid with food!
If we're past the sell-by date of a yogurt, people go:
"Oh my God, I can't eat this!
It'll kill me!"
So stupid.
It's easy
to tell from the smell of it if it's OK or not.
It's quite simple, I've eaten 100% trash for 1 O years now...
for 1 O or 15 years,
I've never been ill.
- You don't have a job? - I do.
I have a job, a salary, a social security number.
So you are not forced to do that?
Absolutely not.
Salvaging is a matter of ethics for me,
because I find it utterly unacceptable to see
all this waste on the streets.
That proves we're heading for disasters, like the Erika oil spill.
Oil Slick
Put the head on the right.
Looser...
Sea birds,
guillemots, razorbill penguins,
all those who were smashed up real good by Total Fina Oil,
those who will get smashed up real good
by this over-consuming society... if they are cleaned,
the birds might still get caught in nets,
it's for them that I'm an activist.
All the rest can die in their apartments,
on their trash, I don't care. Birds first.
Do you always wear boots?
Yes, rubber boots have 2 advantages,
on this hostile ground, they're really good stuff.
There's a psychological aspect too,
with my boots, I'm like the lord of this town.
All these idiots dump away,
I come after them and rake in the chips.
Trash is Beautiful!
An exhibition featuring demonstration trash cans
was organized to teach children
how to sort out the trash.
At Trash is Beautiful, they like colors,
and children play with bits of junk.
This is just plastic from the street.
Gino Rizzi is in charge of the kids' workshop.
He himself transforms pots of yogurt into flowers
and plastic bottles into mobiles.
Where does play end and art start?
Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art
The American artist Sze
exhibits mobiles made with lots of bits and pieces.
The kitchen trash has made it to the art world,
where junk is highly-prized and priced.
In any case, museum trash
is small, cute, clean and colorful.
Have those kids ever seen brooms in action,
or shaken hands with a garbage collector?
- How are you? - Fine.
That's neighborhood life.
I live here
at Mr. Charlie Plusquellec's, because he's a friend.
More than a friend,
a protector, a godfather, he's everything to me.
I am so very very happy, very glad, I am here
surrounded by nature.
You see,
it's worse than paradise.
Salomon is a little bit like a migrating bird.
He arrives, he moves in,
and then one day, he disappears.
And then he comes back again, and then leaves.
So far he's been back 3 times.
Every day, I come out of here,
I wander around,
looking here and there for throw-aways.
Don't touch anything!
- You hear me? - Yes, Ma'am.
Don't you understand what I said?
Every morning, early, you come across a little something.
It's like a lottery.
It's good.
There's lots.
Do you need it?
Wait, he might want some.
Want some bread?
I always come here and help myself.
Sometimes you get good cold meats,
sometimes fowl, a bit of everything.
Salomon found
chicken legs.
So I'll cook the meat before it goes off.
You're going to eat chicken and rabbit for a month!
No, don't worry.
We always find someone to share with.
We give it to the neighbors, the woman next door especially.
That's good.
Right now.
We have 1, 2, 3.
4 fridges and 2 freezers
that we picked up and fixed.
I patch them up, I fix them,
and when the machine works I sell it or...
I give it away to our neighbors.
Fridges are everywhere on the streets.
Sometimes they work, sometimes not.
The Waste Ground artists of Villeneuve sur Lot
collects fridges
and recycle them as fully furnished, fitted spaces.
Fridge Demo
Free our comrades!
My neighbor the Lion of Denfert
is made of bronze.
My friend the Lion in Arles is made of stone.
We got there in the early hours.
The people from the fair were still asleep,
and I saw a man looking at the river flow by.
I half-felt like talking to him.
Further on, along the Rhone,
in a blissful orchard
I saw gleaners arrive.
You can tell them
from their boxes, sacks and plastic bags
which don't look anything like the standard containers of the workers.
My name's David, I'm a foreman at the Cape farm.
We often allow
gleaners to come in
after our pickers
provided they remain 10 yards behind.
Look, there's still a lot left in the trees.
We just take advantage of this.
I collect them so that they don't go to waste,
and I share them out,
we stew them or whatever.
I want to pick them because there're lots left as you can see.
I don't take damaged ones,
because my children are very particular.
They're used to getting the best.
This one is damaged sol chuck it away.
We gleaners also discard some fruit.
Here's an apple which has got nothing going for it,
it's like an ugly and stupid woman.
It's small and sunburnt.
Commercial value: zero.
We can't prevent people
from providing themselves with apples
once we have finished harvesting.
So we proclaim an official gleaning period,
we take car registrations down,
if it's a moped, we ask for a Xerox of the owner's ID
and we tell them from when to when they can come and collect.
Isn't it a bit over-regulated?
Well, it's either that or nothing at all.
Once people are registered,
they can take 400 pounds, I don't mind, even if it's a whole lot.
Good for them.
In this field of 3 hectares,
at least 1 O tons will be left unpicked.
That gives the gleaners quite a lot of exercise.
You have to find them behind the trees, under the leaves.
It takes a while to fill up a basket.
Picking is not a piece of cake, it's hard work.
Quite a few have fallen here.
You just have to pick them up.
Robert, a gleaner of many crops, let us follow him.
I'm looking for pine nuts.
You're really thorough!
Right, I really don't let anything go by.
In this greenhouse, the tomato harvest is over.
We pick the remains before they clean the place.
Here, see the tomatoes...
That's nature, it shouldn't be wasted.
It's abandoned. Once the harvest is over,
it's not worth hiring people just for those.
They'd rather let us do it.
Can anybody go in the greenhouses?
No, not the greenhouses. I don't know what the law is.
Greenhouses are a facility to grow vegetables.
Once the harvest is collected,
there's some left, a few tomatoes, grapes, carrots or celery.
If gleaners remain within the law
farmers can't say anything,
can't sue them for anything.
Even on their property?
Even then, precisely,
gleaning is always on private property.
Mr. Dessaud, our lawyer in the fields, explained gleaning rights.
Mrs. Espie, our lawyer in the streets, tells us about salvaging rights.
The law on gleaning doesn't apply to these objects.
"Res derelictae"
are ownerless things,
since the owner's intention has been clearly expressed:
they have deliberately abandoned them.
Only the penal code deals with their status
and says this property can't be stolen since it has no owner.
Those who take the object become its legal owners.
This acquisition is unusual, since it comes from no one.
Once taken, the object belongs to them
irrevocably.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Yeah. Sidelined beds on the sidewalk
Washed-out machines, tired-out fridges
lust bend down and grab your furniture
Yeah. Cookers, cushions, club armchairs
Weary wood chairs and TV sets, Worn-out couches
lust bend over, you're made over
Street rehab and TV rap, yeah, yeah!
Broken TVs
I've seen lots of TVs abandoned,
and within a few minutes
somebody was taking out the copper.
It's the copper from the deflector coils.
I looked at the magic screen thinking I began this film
right after the eclipse shown on TV,
continued while the countdown to Y2K was shown on TV,
and ended the film on the 1st of May...
Other people
take TVs home, hoping to repair them.
I found 2 small chairs on the street and took them home.
One night when the bulky refuse is thrown out,
I drove around with Francois who had done one of my film scores
and who also sang.
He has dressed in white for 25 years.
Francois is curious, he likes rummaging,
but he didn't find anything that night.
He looked at an empty clock
and he turned it down.
I picked it up and took it home.
A clock without hands is my kind of thing.
You don't see time passing.
I like filming rot, leftovers, waste,
mold and trash.
But I never forget
those who shop in the leftovers and trash when the market is over.
It's past 2 o'clock.
I've done my shopping and I linger on
until the market is over.
I notice a man with a large bag eating on the spot.
I would see him now and then, always with his bag,
always eating.
The day he was eating parsley
I went over to him.
Do you often eat parsley?
Sometimes yes. Parsley's full of vitamin C and E,
beta carotene, zinc, magnesium, it's excellent.
His answer amazed me.
Over the following weeks, I filmed him
repeatedly, with or without sound, and he talked in snatches.
I pick up food at the markets
and I save money that way.
I'm mostly a vegetarian,
sol find what I need.
I don't make much,
but I still have to eat.
You should see what they get rid of...
From the markets, I get fruit,
vegetables mostly,
sometimes cheese too, but that's rare.
I eat a lot of apples.
And here I can get as many apples as I want.
- How many apples a day do you eat? - 6 or 7.
Is it your staple diet?
I also eat bread.
I get up at 4, I take the train
and I arrive in Paris at 5:45.
Between 6 and 7,
they throw away all of the bread from the day before.
If you spot a trash can near a bakery
it's likely to contain sandwiches, bread,
and all that.
I eat a lot of bread. It's a staple food full of proteins and glucids.
It's strange to be concerned...
- About balanced diets? - Yes.
Since I studied biology,
it's quite normal I should be concerned.
I used to be a teaching assistant.
When people find out I have a Master's degree,
they don't understand why I sell papers to make money.
I sell street papers or magazines.
Most times in front of the train station.
I live in a shelter where 50%
of the people are illiterate.
Immigrants from Mali and Senegal mostly.
I arrived in that shelter 8 years ago,
and I've been teaching them to read and write for 6 years.
I am not part of the school system, I don't get paid for it.
I teach every evening from 6:30 / 7:00
until 8:30 / 9:00.
He arranged and decorated the classroom himself
for the students who may attend whenever they please.
Ac, ec, ic, oc...
And see, for example,
a nocturnal activity.
Right, a nocturnal activity.
What does "nocturnal" mean?
Success? Success is...
Isn't success like a behavior?
It's to succeed in life.
Somebody who has succeeded.
- Like Céline Dion has? - Right.
Famous?
But it's more like the will to...
Succeed.
Yes, when you've succeeded, that's success.
A use-M... "m-sect.
What's that?
A cockroach.
I don't know if it is useful but...
but it is an insect.
Meeting that man
is what impressed me the most.
And the time it took to find out about his nocturnal
and voluntary activity in a suburban basement.
The other high point is quite different in kind.
I talked the Museum of Villefranche
into bringing out from its reserves
a painting by Hédouin
which I had seen reproduced in black and white.
Brigitte, the curator, and her assistant, Julie
had to disturb several sleepy paintings
before finding the one I wanted to reveal:
Gleaners Fleeing Before the Storm.
To see them in broad daylight,
with stormy gusts lashing against the canvas,
was true delight.
THE GLEANERS AND I in under 3 minutes
Right now... the BONUS
TWO YEARS LATER
THE GLEANERS AND I TWO YEARS ON
With the gleaners of yesterday and today
I thank them
These thumbnails are from The Gleaners and I
which came out in 2000.
You can see the repeated gesture of bending down to pick things up.
Gleaming urban waste,
gleaning the earth's fruit, food abandoned on the ground.
Strangely, I was given some earth in Mainz
from several European countries.
The Heimat Prize - "Heimat" meaning "homeland" -
is the most appropriate trophy
that this film has picked up:
the medals, diplomas, pyramids, columns, etc.
And the prizes given to me in my old age.
Here they are. Shows over.
Now let's move on.
Other rewards: letters and gifts
None of my films elicited so many letters.
Often containing original items,
embroidered cards,
unusually-sized envelopes,
tiny wallets, fragile little notes,
feathers, images, photos, beautiful pictures...
Sometimes I replied, not always.
Colors, collages...
If I didn't reply, I apologize and say thank you.
Who wrote to me from a train'?
And put a stamp on his travel wallet?
And sent his cinema ticket
and spoke for both of them'? Who are they?
Curious to meet them, I also took a train ticket
and my new backpack.
As I went along the Loire,
I look at Mauves Bridge.
"Jacquot" made an animation film on it when he was 'l 'l.
You can recognize the crosspieces
and the bombing drawn frame by frame.
The airplanes go away...
And I arrive in Trentemoult.
My passport!
That day I had a sore throat.
We've never met but...
I feel I know you.
This letter brought us together!
They take me home,
an old butcher's shop, now their workshop
and the neighborhood workshop
which salvages materials.
When we first arrived, we salvaged
a lot of things from the markets.
Food... and these crates.
We find them useful for making all kinds of things.
We transform everyday life, we make it our own.
It takes different forms.
It may become a book or an installation.
Objects, too.
- Practical, everyday objects? - That, too.
They show me a collective book,
made of leftovers, offcuts of drawings,
pieces of paper and paintings.
Everyone did their bit.
They also show me a photo album.
Oh, look!
We have this in common, too.
This potato warms my heart!
As does their letter which he rereads to me.
I may be a boy who "doesn't cry", they say.
Tears came to my eyes for the second time that day.
I'm writing for both of us.
What effect does a film have'?
What reaches the filmgoer'?
That's my question.
What came through to you'?
I think that seeing this film was like a rebirth.
After what had happened...
We had come for the death of a friend.
Then, this film just completely
put us back in touch with ourselves... with life.
Yet it talks a lot about leftovers...
things that are abandoned.
Yes, but... it's made by someone who's alive.
The filmmaker is very much alive.
So far, so good!
So many people are poor, in precarious situations.
- But they... - ...get by, they adapt.
That's what life's about - learning to adapt.
I'll remember this lunch in the sunshine,
with sunflower seeds in the salad.
I'll remember their lovely, smiling faces.
Philippe carefully reading his own letter,
Delphine's hair held up by a pencil,
her hands upturned in offering,
and the gust of wind when I was about to leave...
shaking the pink flowers of their fruit tree
while they finished their drinks.
The letters on the wall reminded us
we were near Nantes, home of LU cookies.
Other letters awaited me when I arrived home.
The letter writers liked the film.
Some tell me about their lives, about gleaming...
They enjoyed meeting the gleaners in the film,
especially Alain F who impressed them.
They use the same words:
"vegetarian", "black faces",
"volunteer", "vegetarian",
"biologist", "teaching illiterates"...
ALAIN F, market gleaner,
newspaper seller and teacher
I've often met Alain over the past 2 years.
Saturdays, I come at the end of the market.
We have a coffee when he's finished filling his big bag.
His blue bag was stolen,
so now it's a red bag.
My personal situation hasn't changed.
I'm still a volunteer, gleaner and paper seller.
No change there!
Financially speaking, yes, some people stop and buy my paper.
People who never stopped before
do now after seeing the film.
They talk to me more.
Theater managers asked him to come along
to the debates.
We said, "OK, hire him".
After the film, I was contacted...
5 times.
He was paid to talk.
His pet subject: famine, world hunger.
He knows his subject and can quote statistics.
And the film?
What do I think about it'?
Personally, I think that the film is...
well-done...
It has reached a lot of people.
What are you less fond of'?
Your presence, mainly!
I think your self-portrait is not well-done.
At least that's what I think...
Not well-done or unnecessary?
I think it's unnecessary.
It didn't bother people too much, though.
I haven't heard any remarks about it.
I glean, too. I glean images
for my film.
No, that's not it. It's when you film yourself.
You're not picking things up - you're just there.
When you show your hair, your liver spots...
You're showing your old age...
If people find it interesting, good for them, but I don't.
I didn't like that, but that's my opinion.
She's not that present. She's always behind her camera.
I think so, too, but...
it's good to hear other opinions.
Well, I saw the film several times, but...
- It was on TV recently... - Yes, on Arte.
Someone recorded it for me, and I enjoyed watching it again.
- Still teaching people to read? - Oh, yes.
He's a plucky lad. Amazing.
What he does is so great...
Don't exaggerate...
I'm not exaggerating.
It makes you want to be a better person...
to pay more attention to other people.
"Makes a change" as TEIErama wrote.
Text and photos
of Alain teaching students by night
and gleaming his food by day.
He's exemplary. He's much talked about.
He's a star ever since I saw him on TV.
After that TV report, I had the opportunity
to go up and speak to him. I wouldn't have dared to, otherwise.
He's clearly pleased by this.
Have the two of you become pals'?
When we run into each other...
Let me buy you coffee.
We're acquaintances.
It was a surprise to see
that he was a volunteer
although he's in a difficult financial situation.
- Decaf? - For me.
They talked about consumerism, ecology, gleaming.
She asked questions:
Did he find all his food'?
Didn't he buy anything? Yes, the coffee.
And eating raw, cold fruit and vegetables and bread -
is that a healthy diet'?
Yes, indeed. In fact, next month, I'm running the marathon.
Forte de Versailles, the day before the race.
Here's where it starts.
City Hall offers the runners a plate of pasta.
Alain eats theses slow sugars... slowly.
He's taking it seriously.
I'll go home slowly,
drink some horsetail tea,
a yogurt, and there you are.
I drink the horsetail
so that my knees don't hurt during the marathon,
to make my joints solid.
7:30 next day, he's on the Champs Elyslées.
It's cold. He walked from Montparnasse.
He's warming up.
Do you train beforehand?
No, but I walk.
Sometimes I walk from La Verriere to Paris.
It's 2O miles.
It's still cold. The others are dressed
in pullovers, space blankets, garbage bags, fine sweaters.
He's the only one in a "Street" jersey,
an anti-exclusion newspaper.
And his special running shoes?
Reeboks I gleaned in a trash can!
Where?
Montparnasse.
A decent pair of Reeboks.
- Your size? - Yes.
One last orange, then he's off
on his 10th marathon.
They all throw away their pullovers and sweaters.
I never thought I'd find gleaning here.
Walking through the garbage bags,
they pick up the discarded pullovers.
They are very picky
as they fill their bags.
Then, along come the garbage trucks.
The runners are already far away.
29,000 at the start. Based on their average,
we more or less know when they'll come by.
I wait in the park. Alain shouldn't be long.
I scrutinize the crowd.
Jean-Noil manages to film Alain from the side.
I get distracted and nearly miss him.
I'm not much use as a sports reporter!
Further on, a supplies post.
Isabelle films Alain.
Meanwhile, I hurry off in the car
to Solflérino Bridge, then I approach the runners.
I hope in vain to see Alain.
I go to the finishing line,
the scene of enthusiasm and exhaustion.
Will Alain salute, yell, embrace someone? No.
He's arrived, he's here...
just as calm and serious as at the start.
He has the microchip removed
that was inserted at the start
to record his exact time.
Alain ran the 26 or so miles
in 3 hours 37 minutes.
He then walked for 4 hours to loosen up his muscles.
What a guy!
I walk slowly, but often,
sometimes with the camera pointing down
to record the voices of people who don't want to be filmed.
In town
or in the country.
I return to the potato growers of Beauce,
the region of a thousand towns ("villes").
Potato growers
We came to film you 2 years ago.
Do we look older'? Younger?
You don't look bad. You've kept well!
Everyone says those farmers are handsome.
They said that?
No one ever phoned up to ask to marry us!
Did you see the film?
Actually, I arrived 10 minutes after the start of the film.
Unluckily for us, the bit we're in
is at the start.
So, I had to stay in the theater
and watch the second showing.
Shows I was determined!
Lots of people from around here phoned up to say
they'd seen us on TV.
We're not necessarily on the right side.
The bosses' side...
Right, we're on the bosses' side but...
it takes all sorts to make a world.
They were going to dump potatoes.
Nicolas took me with him.
On the way,
he told me about his life, his family... his children, mostly.
Over the engine noise,
his confidence and his confidences moved me.
He empties the truck.
I hoped I'd find more heart-shaped potatoes.
It's now the film's symbol.
Perhaps my emblem.
I film, I look... Ah, here's one!
Phew, found one!
One day, I receive an original drawing from Cardon.
A winged horse... and perhaps me.
I reply at once on my dictionary paper:
"Thank you, dear Cardon." Then, he sends another gift.
A whole book.
I think to myself:
"Thanks to my film which Cardon discovered,
I discovered Cardon's world."
Solitary people,
people who have trouble understanding...
A screaming man.
Soon after, I see Edward Munch's Scream
in Oslo where I went to present the film.
The Scream along with other paintings by him.
I tend to agree to show my film
in towns with museums
to discover or rediscover.
The title of my film
in French, "The Gleaners
and the Gleaneress" became "and I".
In Portugal, I'm a "Respigadora". Ola!
In Japan, it's "O Chi Bo Hi Lo Hi"... I think!
More or less.
"Gleaming fallen wheat".
The subtitle is "Agnes travels with her camera".
Talking of traveling, it's always the same:
windows of sky,
stewed tea,
and numb feet.
Back home.
Zgougou drinks milk, and me mild tea.
A gift: jam made from gleaned grapes.
A gift: my initials made of chocolate.
Another gift from Japan
for Children's Day:
tiny candies.
Sophie from the 101 Nights crew
sends a book made by her brother Guillaume.
It's a "thing for writing in".
I never will - it's too good.
I can't get used to all the gifts from the audience.
I'm filled with wonder.
I receive books and projects on the subject
of leftovers. And beautiful leftovers.
Gleaner of inconsolable things
I'll get everything out. A doily...
I think this is magnificent, it's like a signal.
These little things...
By the huge Palais de Chaillot,
Macha gets out her tiny, shabby objects.
It's as if gleaming is my mission.
I pick things up
to tell our story.
I think that objects contain a part of us.
- Tell our story or...'? - Contain us.
- Are you in this yellow doily'? - Yes.
It's fragile...
I'm not a collector, I don't...
look at an object for itself but...
There's a huge transfer of things that are lost...
lost, picked up...
There's this trade in all things...
Connections, things which circulate.
They leave wonderful traces of...
I imagine... the relationship people had with these objects.
It's a rather indirect, modest way
of meeting these people.
It's as if they gave me a sign.
Are they the couple off a wedding cake'?
They were still wrapped.
They weren't used
or chosen. That interested me.
An inert object tells of life
and celebrates it.
That's what ah exhibition is: a celebration.
There's something painful in all of this.
The order seeks to ease that pain.
At the same time,
there's an attempt at humor.
Dried, abandoned, artificial flowers.
I just put them there like that,
as if they just landed on a table.
The table,
the bed: the key furniture in the house.
This is the bed.
It is the scene of both desire and disaster.
It is both a bed...
a nuptial bed, a tomb, a dream...
the remains of an unforgettable day.
A sentimental gleaner, no doubt.
A gleaner of yore, perhaps.
Handwritten letters,
some collectively written,
all friendly.
A few neatly typed ones.
One with an anagram
and a button stuck on it and a giant button photo.
Michel does button theme parties.
I call him Mr Buttons
and off I go to see him.
Will we come unstitched'?
I identified with every twist and turn of your film.
I pick up watch parts. That's lost time.
Your clock with no hands is perfect.
I collect little things which are scattered here and there
and which are no use.
4 or 5 years ago, I just became interested in buttons.
I started with the idea of a flock of buttons.
In terms of the form...
A flock of mutton or buttons?
A flock of buttons because of the slight shift in meaning.
I thought, there's nothing more dumb than a button!
It's round with 2 round holes.
In terms of the form, it's interesting to explore.
A mine of possibilities.
Then I started to sew on a white button with white thread
in tribute to Malevich's White Square.
Then, a black button and thread. And one thing just led to another.
As a child, I would play with my mom's button box.
So, I sensed there was something in it
linked to the mother.
Patrimony with an "M"!
I have my mother's button box.
My daughter does costumes,
so she collects buttons.
In the end, I realized it had to do with the emotions,
that it conveyed memories.
Today I picked up eleven.
Where?
This one, Rue de la Pierre PIantee.
- On the ground? - Yes.
You're a button gleaner?
It shows my journey. I found the first in Buenos Aires,
the second in Phom Penh, the third here in Villefranche.
Maybe this was a portent of our meeting:
I lost a button half an hour ago. Here.
Maybe I can pick up one off you.
What you need is a little pink one with two holes.
Yes, that one.
Someone who lost a button misses it.
So, you're always in touch with the person who lost it.
I'd lost touch with the people from the caravans.
The people from the caravans Claude M.
Claude had left the travelers' camp where I had filmed him.
I heard from various people that he was in central France.
I went back on the road.
I found him.
Things weren't working out too great at Etampes, you know.
Living in a caravan...
Well, a friend
said he'd help me out:
"You can come here, no problem."
Let me tell you something.
For now he lives here for now...
I took him in.
That's good of you.
For a few months, then...
Little George came to the camp
and asked if I'd help his mom.
If it's for his mom, there's no problem.
I fix up the house, do this and that... the gardening.
The leaves need picking up, so I do it.
I look after... I look after the whole place.
In exchange, he gets board and lodging.
Well, a meal a day.
Your family?
Your children?
Not much news.
I don't even have any news of my mom. That's partly my fault.
For a while I really let myself...
I did it myself. I let myself go.
Now I want to fight back.
He seemed sincere and he hadn't drunk anything,
but in the car, he stank of wine.
I might have the odd glass,
but compared to before, when it was 2 or 3 bottles...
I've totally changed!
Claude's old pals
One day in Etampes, while I focus my camera,
I recognize Gislaine. I go nearer.
We met 2 years ago.
Yes, at the travelers' camp.
- You're not there anymore? - No.
- And Bebert'? - I'm living with him in a garden.
A friend has a garden shed.
- This is my place. - His place.
But it's tough.
We share our meals.
We help each other out.
You know, you look better than before.
I got a boyfriend. We'll see...
A lot of people don't like it.
Oh, why?
He's West Indian.
I've known him for a month, but we see each other once a week.
I'm seeing him tomorrow.
You're in love'?
Well, yeah! They say that at my age...
But you're never too old.
I'm 49 and he's 31.
- He's a bit younger. - Yes, a bit.
Now I can go 5 or 6 days without drinking.
- Maybe it's love'? - Maybe.
You used to drink a lot'?
Yes, I did, but I still drink.
Less than before, but I still do.
How much is "a lot"?
Drinking a lot means...
10 to 15 liters a day. It's an awful lot.
Liters of what?
I drink rose. It's terrible...
Last time, I filmed you when you were shouting.
- Can I put it in the film? - No problem.
Claude, let's go see Gislaine, because...
we got on well.
We can try...
Get lost.
The lady wants to talk.
I don't wanna talk to anybody! Shut the door! Leave me alone!
Are you angry?
Or are you sick?
Shut the door or I'll kick your head in!
I was afraid I'd upset you. You were so drunk that day.
Yes, I know. So what?
I want a lot of people to see that and understand.
Then they'll see what it's like to live in poverty
in the street and all, and why they drink.
Some people want to stop drinking. If they don't get help,
they'll never manage it.
Will I still see you on Saturday?
It's sunny here today.
Isn't it sunny there'?
Well, the sun's in your heart. That's a good start.
6 months later,
quite by chance,
while looking for someone
at the Catholic Aid canteen,
I was surprised to find Claude.
I let him finish eating
his good, Catholic meal:
salad, chicken, potatoes, cheese, and fruit.
We meet in the yard.
He has a nice jacket and shirt.
Now he's wired for sound.
I came back, I've got friends here.
I met Gislaine. She got me in there.
I lived there for a couple of months.
When I saw how things were there,
I went to Coluche's. They helped me find...
The Coluche who started the Restaurants of the Heart.
I know Pquerette (Daisy).
She runs the Restaurant.
She helped me get into the Sonacotra shelter.
They took me right away.
Now I don't sleep in caravans or outside.
I'm in the warm.
- Is life better? - Much.
Got a TV'?
In the evening, I watch the news. I like that.
I helped Gislaine get into the Sonacotra.
She's there now, not outside.
- You're still friends? - Oh, yeah, sure.
We're not together how, but we get on, we see each other a lot.
A change for her, too'?
Yes, I think so. Starting with personal hygiene and so on.
Is she still in love'?
With her guy from Martinique, I suppose so.
I'm more independent now.
I'm not at the mercy of... Do this or do that...
The man from Aix who had big boots
- Peek-a-boo! It's me! - Ah, it's Franaois.
A little kiss.
We were to meet in Aix, but Franaois came to Paris.
That's right.
We saw you
walking around Aix, proud and virtually proclaiming
the right to salvage things.
2 years later, I still proclaim that right,
but that right isn't granted to me anymore.
I thought there was a problem.
One day, you called me, not from home.
I wasn't exactly home - I was in the psychiatric ward.
Franaois took home stuff
which he stored in the cellar and stairwells.
The neighbors called the police.
There was trouble between them and me.
- And'? - The police considered it necessary
to put me under psychiatric observation.
How did you feel?
It was hard.
I felt victimized and condemned at the same time.
By who? Society?
By society, in a way.
They don't like the way I live.
Didn't a neighbor say you were nice?
Being nice isn't enough for them. You have to be normal, too.
What happened to your boots'?
The boots are very symbolic,
because when I was institutionalized,
they were worn out and went in the trash.
So, what the trash gave, the trash took away.
I'm no longer the lord of the town.
In a way, I'm the prisoner of the town.
And yet, not long before,
on the TV show, Nulle Part Ailleurs (Nowhere Else),
he was sure of his right and his choices.
You've lived 100% off salvaging for 10 years.
So, is it by choice?
Absolutely. I'm someone who eats 100% trash.
The body's cells are regenerated every 7 years,
so I'm 100% trash. My clothes are 100% trash.
It's a choice on ethical grounds.
What I hate seeing is people all over the world going hungry.
That will always be the case,
but most of all, I hate seeing everything people throw out.
What's the best you found?
A whole vacuum-packed "foie gras".
Top quality... Vacuum-packed duck.
Another thing which breaks my heart is
the stock of frozen fish.
This wastage is scandalous, so gleaning makes sense.
It makes sense not to throw out yogurt once it's expired,
not to throw out fish once it's officially expired.
The food industry has got incredibly high safety standards.
Do you never get sick?
Never! No, never.
RECYCLING HAP
Are you OK with people starving?
No one cares
Look at the market stalls
Look at the food thrown away
Bend down, but don't lower yourself
When I see them stooping I suffer for them
I hurt to see them salvaging for food
Having to pick up food that's rotting
Going around markets, eating trash
There are only leftovers left
They salvage things of no value to us
Before the street sweepers come
The man with the artichoke
As well as salvaging food, I'm a vegetarian.
- Is that all you live off'? - No, but...
I try to keep my hand in.
With our present and future governments,
I don't think we'll have
much chance of moving forward and saving people from poverty.
Look at this well-cleaned artichoke.
Even in poor countries,
some social classes
waste a lot, too.
Wasting something shows a lack of respect
for the worker who made it.
That's one of the main reasons I salvage.
I've "recycled" myself in anti-consumerism.
As I'm a vegetarian, I don't have the problem
of eating meat that has gone bad.
If a vegetable has gone bad, it shows.
You don't take it.
And in theory, it's not toxic.
- Where do you live'? - In a squat.
We don't live in places now - we squat.
Why are you filming this?
I tell him it's a documentary.
I've spent 2 years talking to salvagers
and I film them.
I enjoyed filming him.
I also enjoy filming potatoes, life going by,
and cats.
Hi Salomon, so long Charlie
Hello, Salomon.
How goes it'?
- It's been a while. - Unbelievable!
Two years!
Salomon takes me to the house we filmed in.
Charlie's house.
A face like Ho Chi Minh's.
Charlie is no more.
He died a few months ago.
He was your friend.
Yes, and it's hard to...
get along without him. It really is.
I feel so sad.
Charlie
went out on Wednesdays
to go to the Post Office and to come see me.
More than a customer, he became a friend.
One thing I remember about him
was that he came to offer me champagne before Christmas.
And he had a sword in his cane. Everyone knew that.
What can you say about Charlie'?
He was a wise man. A wise man.
Here and there, bit by bit
I work with the merchants
every Wednesday and every Sunday.
I unload the goods off their trucks.
I help them set up.
This morning, I got 150 francs.
And later on, when the market's over,
they'll pay me some more.
Every little helps...
Yes, but it's not much. They just take advantage.
Oh, you know... I don't do very much.
Here and there, bit by bit...
Is it enough to live on'?
Well, it's not bad.
This is my bedroom.
- Can you sleep in there'? - Sure, no problem.
Where do you find water and so on'?
- I've got water. - Where? Show me.
I've always got water.
- Where do you wash? - At the garage.
- They have a shower? - Yes.
If you know how to get by...
you'll always be alright.
Are you mad at anyone?
No, no! No way.
On the contrary. I prefer to make people laugh,
make them happy, cheer them up.
A bedroom in an old van,
the washing machine on the sidewalk,
an armchair,
two armchairs,
a sofa...
That reminds me of something.
An Emotion Picture by Agnes
- This one? - Yes.
Let's roll it.
Don't hurt yourself.
3 children run past.
3 children.
There's the tale of the three little children
who gleaned in the fields.
Alone or with mom.
Poor children.
The sky is threatening, a storm is brewing.
The children must be afraid.
The storm also threatens the Chambaudoin Gleaners,
painted by Hedouin in 1852 before Millet's Gleaners.
When a painting leaves its reserve
Now we can caress the painting!
I was invited,
having brought this painting out of the shadowy reserve,
to witness its unpacking after its restoration.
I'm completely carried away
to take part in this painting's history.
After the film came out, many people asked to see this painting.
I thought that it should be the first painting
to be restored and displayed
for the opening of the old museum's reserve.
Here's Brigitte Lauren/Son, the curator,
telling the story:
I phoned up and spoke of this hidden painting I knew about,
I had come to film, the painting had been brought up
into the light of day.
When we came to your little courtyard,
it suddenly became windy.
Your hair and your skirt all...
Suddenly there was the gust of wind before the impending storm.
It seemed like a miracle of cinema: you organize things,
the people are kind, competent,
favorable, cooperative...
Then, this marvelous gust of wind comes along.
And no filmmaker can order and obtain that.
Nor did I order or choose this calendar
with Jules Breton's The Gleaners' Return.
The mailman from Bonnieux chose it for me.
He also gave me a painting in which he's tall
and handing me a letter. At least I think it's me.
This is the painting mailman, Jackie Patin.
I liked his gift.
Another funny gift.
Now it's the opposite:
I'm the giant,
according to this supposedly crazy guy, Jacques Arnaud.
A drawing by Chris Marker with the famous cat, Guillaume en Egypte.
He reminds me that in his (DD-ROM lmmemory - a unique work -
we see gleaners picking up a bloody silhouette,
crushed by a nightmarish tank.
Gleaners galore!
I'm shown them, I'm sent them, I see them everywhere.
Could Jean-Franaois Millet ever have imagined
so many of his Gleaners in so many colors?
Hand-colored postcards...
The brightest one was sent to me by Paoni.
The most eccentric is Prevert's version.
Laurent Roth sent a copy of the collage.
I go to the National to film the original
and study the collage close up.
It becomes a game of Spot the Differences!
To compare the aprons, the photocopy and a postcard.
The bow has become a propeller.
Only the gleaner on the right can fly!
Lubtchansky sends me a photo of his collection of "chromo-gleaners".
Like me, he's a fan of "picker-uppers".
Not to be outdone, Leendert de Jong sends me a Dutch porthole
with the Gleaners inside.
The frames vary.
Except the Orsay one, they're modest.
This painting has become popular.
Even embroideresses reproduce it.
And advertisers.
This is the smallest picture of the Gleaners
with advertising on the back.
Against poultry cholera Gallia Powder
The stamps from Togo are small, too.
The gleaners of stars is a charming idea.
Leftover stars.
Gleaners of stardust.
More down-to-earth: let's talk potatoes!
Some light-hearted education...
The heart-shaped potato I launched bounced back:
I get them in my mailbox and even in a letter.
Or in pictures.
This one offered up in memory of a child.
One can't help but be moved.
People bring them, too.
I treat them like treasures.
I watch them grow old.
Then, I get a heart-shaped carrot.
A carrot with 2 ventricles or 2 heads.
It was taken by a documentary maker, Remy Batteault.
He says his mother found the carrot. I have to go find her.
Ah, it's the card he sent you'?
I didn't know.
"After the now ubiquitous heart-shaped potato,
Ma Josette has found..."
I'm far too emotional to be able to speak!
What your son did was great.
Yes, that's true.
Read it out to me.
"After the now ubiquitous heart-shaped potato,
Ma Josette has found for you the heart-shaped carrot.
The whole thing was of course done without any special effects
and can be used in The Gleaners and I, Part ll."
What a story!
He talks of his projects in his letter to me.
"I'm thinking of you as I'm making a documentary
on my family's butcher's."
The store gives me the chance to communicate with people.
I have a lot of customers with whom I exchange
impressions and so on.
The Gleaners and I, for everyone here,
- was marvelous. - Very instructive.
People are deeply moved by this film.
There is an intensity of feeling.
It's the people in it that are extraordinary.
Make no mistake.
They are the actors in the film
and it's true that they are very touching.
I've got Rosette sausages for you all, which I made myself.
Ah, the Rosette is my passion.
It's the thing I like making best of all.
I've won 12 gold medals with that Rosette
since I started.
I'm so fond of this particular product that I like it
when people try it and give me their opinion.
- 3 Rosettes... - There you go.
Thanks, Josette, thanks, Roger.
Rosette comes from Roger and Josette:
"Ro" and "sette".
As luck would have it, Roger met Josette,
and Roger likes making Rosettes!
- For a long time... - A long time what?
I've liked Josette!
A fine declaration! Thank you.
Dare I say it'? From Rosette to rose...
Let's just say, from a Beaune street to the slopes of Pommard...
Psychoanalysis is gleaming
I'll open up.
You came to see 2 years ago for this film.
I didn't know you were...
a learned philosopher of psychoanalysis.
I didn't even know you had written books
nor that you compiled the Language of Psychoanalysis with Pontalis.
But one has to accept that one makes a documentary
spontaneously, instinctively even.
In the film, we went
from wine growing to psychoanalysis.
I spoke about the question of grape gleaning.
Of course, that was what attracted you:
seeing all those grapes on the ground, wondering how to use them.
And it didn't occur to me
that you didn't ask me if there was gleaning in psychoanalysis.
And yet that's what was missing in what I told you.
When I left, I felt stupid...
And I couldn't believe my stupidity
for not having thought about it.
The analyst's job, when he is analyzing someone
in the Freudian way - with a chair and a couch -
you really can call it a kind of gleaming.
That's not going too far.
In other words, we pay attention
to things no one else does:
what falls from speech.
What is dropped, what is picked up...
Words which are beside usual speech
are of special value to psychoanalysts,
because things which are picked up or gleaned
are more valuable to us than what is harvested.
Isn't there also a notion of poverty'?
- A lack'? - Yes, indeed.
The psychoanalyst is also in a state of poverty
in that he is in a state of not knowing.
He doesn't know beforehand what he'll glean.
- So, that's his poverty. - That's funny.
Isn't it the patient who comes to see the analyst
who lacks something?
Yes, he lacks... He comes and asks:
"Doctor, what's wrong with me'? You know.
Doctor, what's wrong with me?"
But the doctor has no more idea than the patient.
That's the great thing.
Both are poor... poor in knowledge.
And even if the doctor knows, or thinks he knows,
he must give up what he knows
so he can be receptive to something which is completely new.
I really liked your oddly-shaped potatoes.
We'd never seen heart-shaped potatoes like that.
It's a rather symbolic shape.
Better than the real thing!
Pretty, isn't it'?
This photo was taken in my kitchen
in front of a painting found in a junk store.
STRAIGHT TO THE HEART
That photo appeared in Aden,
because I was interviewed by Philippe Piazzo.
I was here, and something strange happened.
Philippe was talking to me about the Gleaners.
He said he was deeply moved by the shots
in which I showed my hands and hair.
Then, he said,
"I was also moved, because it reminded me of Jacquot de Nantes
and of the shots you filmed of Jacques Demy,
of his arms and hands,
and one which went from his hair to his eye."
When he said that, I started crying.
I wasn't particularly crying
for Jacques or something, but...
I realized I'd done it unwittingly.
I realized something extraordinary:
without ever thinking about it,
I redid on myself... I refilmed on myself...
what I had filmed of Jacques Demy.
But as the context was different: what I did
concerned ageing. I wanted to be as honest as the Gleaners had been...
So, I never saw the similarity.
But when he said that, I saw there was...
a sort of thread linking the two films,
between Jacques' hands,
his skin damaged by disease
and mine damaged by old age.
His white hair, my white hair.
I said to my daughter and the others:
"Piazzo said it reminded him of Jacquot de Nantes,
of the close-ups of Jacques."
Rosalie said: "Yes, of course, everyone saw that."
Everyone except me.
I'm not trying to sound stupid or naive, but...
it struck me how we work...
how we work without knowing, without...
We don't work on the meaning or with continuity...
People say to me: "Your work is very consistent".
They say what they like, of course. I realize...
that I work as best I can.
Sometimes, 6 or 12 months later, someone says something...
And that really amazed me.
I was very grateful to Piazzo for telling me.
I was amazed no one had told me before
and even more amazed to have done it.
May 1st 2000: I filmed some lily of the valley for The Gleaners' last shot
and quickly put it in the film before Cannes.
And now I end this film with more lily of the valley for May Day.
And what a May Day!
A march against the Front National.
Against the far right of Le Pen.
Down with the Front National!
F for Fascist and N for Nazi
First, second, third generation
We're all children of immigrants
Erase the shame - Vote
LE PEN OUT!