Hiroshima Mon Amour Page 3

  HE: Young-in-Nevers.

  SHE: Yes. Young in Nevers. And then too, once, mad in Nevers.

  (They are pacing back and forth in front of the hotel. She is waiting for the car that is supposed to come and pick her up to take her to Peace Square. Few people, but lots of cars passing. It's a boulevard. The dialogue is almost shouted because of the noise of the cars.)

  SHE: You see, Nevers is the city in the world, and even the thing in the world, I dream about most often at night. And at the same time it's the thing I think about the least.

  HE: What was your madness like at Nevers?

  SHE: Madness is like intelligence, you know. You can't explain it. Just like intelligence. It comes on you, it fills you, and then you understand it. But when it goes away you can't understand it at all any longer.

  HE: Were you full of hate?

  SHE: That was what my madness was. I was mad with hate. I had the impression it would be possible to make a real career of hate. All I cared about was hate. Do you understand?

  HE: Yes.

  SHE: It's true. I suppose you must understand that too.

  HE: Did it ever happen to you again?

  SHE: No. (In a near whisper:) It's all over.

  HE: During the war?

  SHE: Right after it.

  (Pause.)

  HE: Was that part of the difficulties of life in France after the war?

  SHE: Yes, that's one way of putting it.

  HE: When did you get over your madness?

  SHE (in a low voice, as she would talk in normal circumstances): It went away little by little. And then of course when I had children.

  (The noise of the cars grows and fades in inverse proportion to the seriousness of their remarks.)

  HE: What did you say?

  SHE: I said it went away little by little. And then of course when I had children. . . .

  HE: I'd really like to spend a few days with you somewhere, sometime.

  SHE: I would too.

  HE: Seeing you again today wouldn't really be seeing you again. You can't see people again in such a short time. I really would.

  SHE: No.

  (She stops in front of him, obstinate, motionless, silent. He almost accepts.)

  HE: All right.

  (She laughs, hut it's a little forced. She seems slightly, but actually, spiteful. The taxi arrives.)

  SHE: It's because you know I'm leaving tomorrow.

  (They laugh, but his is less hearty than hers. A pause.)

  HE: It's possible that's part of it. But that's as good a reason as any, no? The thought of not seeing you again . . . ever . . . in a few hours.

  (The taxi has arrived and stopped at the intersection. She signals to it that she's coming. She takes her time, looks at the Japanese, and says:)

  SHE: No.

  (His eyes follow her. Perhaps he smiles.)

  Part III

  (It's four P.M. at Peace Square in Hiroshima. In the distance a group of film technicians is moving away carrying a camera, lights, and reflectors. Japanese workers are dismantling the official grandstand that has just been used in the last scene of the film.

  An important note: we will always see the technicians in the distance and will never know what film it is they're shooting at Hiroshima. All we'll ever see is the scenery being taken down.

  Stagehands are carrying posters in various languages—Japanese French, German, etc.— NEVER ANOTHER HIROSHIMA. The workmen are thus busy dismantling the official grandstands and removing the bunting. On the set we see the French woman. She is asleep. Her nurse's kerchief has slipped partly off her head. She is lying in the shadow of one of the stands.

  We gather that they have just finished shooting an enlightening film on Peace at Hiroshima. It's not necessarily a ridiculous film, merely an enlightening one. A crowd passes along the square where they have just been shooting the film. The crowd is indifferent. Except for a few children, no one looks, they are used to seeing films being shot at Hiroshima.

  But one man passes, stops, and looks, the man we had seen previously in her hotel room. He approaches the nurse, and watches her sleeping. His gaze is what finally wakes her up, but only after he has been looking at her for a good while.

  During the scene perhaps we see a few details in the distance, such as a scale model of the Palace of Industry, a guide surrounded by tourists, a couple of war invalids in white, begging, a family chatting on a street corner. She awakes. Her fatigue vanishes. They suddenly find themselves involved again with their own story. This personal story always dominates the necessarily demonstrative Hiroshima story.

  She gets up and goes toward him. He laughs, a bit stiffly. Then they become serious again.)

  HE: It was easy to find you in Hiroshima.

  (She laughs happily. A pause. He looks at her again. Two workers—carrying an enlarged photograph from the picture The Children of Hiroshima showing a dead mother and a child crying in the smoking ruins of Hiroshima—pass between them. They don't look at the photograph. Another photograph, of Einstein, follows immediately after the one of the mother and child.)

  HE: Is it a French film?

  SHE: No. International. On Peace.

  HE: Is it finished?

  SHE: Yes, for me it's finished. They still have some crowd scenes to shoot. . . . We have lots of filmed commercials to sell soap. So . . . by stressing it . . . perhaps.

  HE (with very clear ideas on the subject): Yes, by stressing it. Here, at Hiroshima, we don't joke about films on Peace.

  (He turns hack toward her. The photographs have gone completely by. Instinctively they move closer together. She readjusts her kerchief, which has slipped partly off while she was sleeping.)

  HE: Are you tired?

  SHE (looking at him in a way that is both provocative and gentle. Then, with an almost sad smile, she says): No more than you are.

  HE (meaningfully): I thought of Nevers in France.

  (She smiles.)

  HE: I've been thinking of you. Is your plane still leaving tomorrow?

  SHE: Still tomorrow.

  HE: Irrevocably tomorrow?

  SHE: Yes. The picture is behind schedule. I'm a month overdue returning to Paris.

  (She looks squarely at him. Slowly he takes her kerchief off. Either she is very heavily made up, in which case her lips are so dark they seem black, or else she is hardly made up at all and seems pale under the sun.

  The man's gesture is extremely free, composed, producing much the same erotic shock as in the opening scenes. Her hair is as mussed as it was in bed the night before. She lets him take off her kerchief, she lets him have his way as she must have let him have his way in love the night before. [Here, give him an erotically functional role.]

  She lowers her eyes. An incomprehensible pout. She toys with something on the ground, then raises her eyes again.)

  HE: You give me a great desire to love.

  (She doesn't answer right away. His words upset her, and she lowers her eyes again. The cat of Peace Square rubbing against her foot?)

  SHE (slowly): Always . . . chance love affairs. . . . Me too.

  (Some extraordinary object, not clearly defined, passes between them. I see a square frame, some [atomic?] very precise form, but without the least idea what it's used for. They pay no attention to it.)

  HE: No. Not always like this. You know it.

  (Shouts in the distance. Then children singing. But it doesn't distract them. She makes an incomprehensible face [licentious would be the word]. She raises her eyes again, but this time to the sky, and says, again incomprehensibly, as she wipes the sweat from her forehead:)

  SHE: They say there'll be a thunderstorm before nightfall.

  (A shot of the sky she sees. Clouds scudding. . . The singing becomes more distinct. Then [the end of] the parade begins.

  They back away. She clings to him [like the postures in women's magazines], her hand on his shoulder. His face against her hair. When she raises her eyes she sees him. He'll try and le
ad her away from the parade. She'll resist. But she'll go anyway, without realizing she's leaving.

  Children parading carrying posters.)

  FIRST SERIES OF POSTERS SECOND SERIES OF POSTERS

  1st Poster

  If 14 A-bombs equal 100 million ordinary bombs.

  2nd Poster

  And if the H-bomb equals 1500 A-bombs.

  3rd Poster

  How much do the 40,000 A- and H-bombs actually manufactured in the world equal?

  4th Poster

  10 H-bombs dropped on the world mean prehistory again.

  5th Poster

  What do 40,000 H- and A-bombs mean?

  I

  This extraordinary achievement bears witness to man's scientific inteligence.*

  II

  But it's regrettable that man's political intelligence is 100 times less developed than his scientific intelligence.

  III

  Which keeps us from really admiring man.

  (Men, women, follow the singing children. Dogs follow the children. Cats at the windows. [The Peace Square cat is used to it, and is asleep.]

  Posters. More posters. Everyone very hot.The sky, above the parade, is threatening. Clouds cover the sun. There are lots of children, beautiful children. They are hot, and sing heartily as children will. Irresistibly, and almost without realizing it, the Japanese pushes the French woman in the same—or in the opposite—direction the parade is moving. She closes her eyes and sighs, and while she is sighing:)

  HE: I hate to think about your leaving. Tomorrow. I think I love you.

  (He buries his lips in her hair. Her hand tight on his shoulder. Slowly her eyes open. The parade goes on. The children's faces are made up white. Dots of sweat stand out on the white powder. Two of them argue over an orange, angrily. A man, made up as if burned in the bombing, passes. He probably had played in the film. The wax on his neck melts and falls off. Perhaps disgusting, terrifying. They look at each other.)

  HE: You're coming with me, once more.

  (She doesn't answer. A beautiful Japanese woman, sitting on a float, passes. She looses a flock of pigeons [or maybe some other allegorical float—an atomic ballet, for instance].)

  HE: Answer me.

  (She doesn't answer. He bends and whispers in her ear.)

  HE: Are you afraid?

  SHE (smiling, shaking her head): No.

  (The formless songs of the children continue, but fading away. A monitor scolds the two children arguing over the orange. The big one takes the orange. The big one begins to eat the orange. All this lasts longer than it should. Behind the crying child, the five hundred Japanese students arrive. It's a little terrifying, and he pulls her against him. They look upset. He looking at her, she looking at the parade. One should have the feeling that this parade is depriving them of the short time they have left. They are silent. He leads her by the hand. She lets him. They exit, moving against the current of the parade. We lose sight of them.*)

  (We see them next in the middle of a large room in a Japanese house. Soft light. A feeling of freshness after the heat of the parade. A modern house, with chairs, etc. She stands there, like a guest. Almost intimidated. He approaches her from the far side of the room [as if he had just closed the door, or come from the garage, etc.].)

  HE: Sit down.

  (She doesn't sit down. Both remain standing. We feel that eroticism is held in check between them by love, at least for the moment. He is facing her. And in the same state, almost awkward. The opposite of what a man would do if this were an aubaine.)

  SHE (making conversation): You're alone at Hiroshima? . . . Where's your wife?

  HE: She's at Unzen, in the mountains. I'm alone.

  SHE: When is she coming back?

  HE: In a few days.

  SHE (softly, as if in an aside): What is your wife like?

  HE (purposefully): Beautiful. I'm a man who's happy with his wife.

  (Pause.)

  SHE: So am I. I'm a woman who's happy with her husband.

  (This exchange charged with real emotion, which the ensuing moment covers.)

  SHE: Don't you work in the afternoon?

  HE: Yes. A lot. Mainly in the afternoon.

  SHE: The whole thing is stupid. . . .

  (As she would say “I love you.” They kiss as the telephone rings. He doesn't answer.)

  SHE: Is it because of me you're wasting your afternoon?

  (He still doesn't answer the phone.)

  SHE: Tell me. What difference does it make?

  (At Hiroshima. The light is already different. Later. After they have made love.)

  HE: Was he French, the man you loved during the war?

  (At Nevers. A German crosses a square at dusk.)

  SHE: No . . . he wasn't French.

  (At Hiroshima. She is lying on the bed, pleasantly tired. Darker now.)

  SHE: Yes. It was at Nevers.

  (Nevers. A shot of love at Nevers. Bicycles racing. The forest, etc.)

  SHE: At first we met in barns. Then among the ruins. And then in rooms. Like anywhere else.

  (Hiroshima. In the room, the light has faded even more. Their bodies in a peaceful embrace.)

  SHE: And then he was dead.

  (Nevers. Shots of Nevers. Rivers. Quays. Poplar trees in the wind, etc. The quay deserted. The garden. Then at Hiroshima again.)

  SHE: I was eighteen and he was twenty-three.

  (Nevers. In a “hut” at night. The “marriage” at Nevers. During the shots of Nevers she answers the questions that he is presumed to have asked, but doesn't out loud. The sequence of shots of Nevers continues. Then:)

  SHE (calmly): Why talk of him rather than the others?

  HE: Why not?

  SHE: No. Why?

  HE: Because of Nevers. I can only begin to know you, and among the many thousands of things in your life, I'm choosing Nevers.

  SHE: Like you'd choose anything else?

  HE: Yes.

  (Do we know he's lying? We suspect it. She becomes almost violent, searching for something to say:)

  SHE: No, it's not by chance. (Pause.) You have to tell me why.

  (He can reply—a very important point for the film—either:)

  HE: It was there, I seem to have understood, that you were so young . . . so young you still don't belong to anyone in particular. I like that.

  (or:)

  SHE: No, that's not it.

  HE: It was there, I seem to have understood, that I almost . . . lost you . . . and that I risked never knowing you.

  (or else:)

  HE: It was there, I seem to have understood, that you must have begun to be what you are today.

  (Choose from among the three possibilities, or use all three, either one after the other, or separately, at random with the movements of love in the bed. The last is the solution I would prefer, if it doesn't make the scene too long.*

  One last time we come back to them.)

  SHE (shouting): I want to leave here. (She clings to him almost savagely.)

  (They are dressed and in the same room where they were earlier. The lights are on now. They are both standing.)

  HE (very calmly): All we can do now is kill the time left before your departure. Still sixteen hours before your plane leaves.

  SHE (terribly upset, distressed): That's a terribly long time. . . .

  HE (gently): No. You mustn't be afraid.

  *Resnais decided to leave in the error in spelling.

  *Resnais has them get lost in the crowd.

  *Instead of using only one, Resnais decided to use all three.

  Part IV

  (Night falls over Hiroshima, leaving long trails of light. The river drains and fills with the hours, the tides. Sometimes people along the muddy banks watch the tide rising slowly.

  Opposite this river is a café. A modern café, Americanized, with a wide bay window. Those seated at the back of the café don't see the banks of the river, but only the river itself. The mouth of the river is only vaguel
y outlined. There Hiroshima ends and the Pacific begins. The place is half empty. They are seated at a table in the back of the room, facing each other, either cheek-to-cheek, or forehead against forehead. In the previous scene they had been overwhelmed by the thought that their final separation was only sixteen hours away. When we see them now they are almost happy. They don't notice the time passing. A miracle has occurred. What miracle? The resurrection of Nevers. And in this posture of hopelessly happy love, he says:)

  HE: Aside from that, Nevers doesn't mean anything else in French?

  SHE: No, Nothing.

  HE: Would yon have been cold in that cellar at Nevers, if we had loved each other there?

  SHE: I would have been cold. In Nevers the cellars are cold, both summer and winter. The city is built along a river called the Loire.

  HE: I can't picture Nevers.

  (Shots of Nevers. The Loire.)

  SHE: Nevers. Forty thousand inhabitants. Built like a capital—(but). A child can walk around it. (She moves away from him.) I was born in Nevers (she drinks), I grew up in Nevers. I learned how to read in Nevers. And it was there I became twenty.

  HE: And the Loire?

  (He takes her head in his hands. Nevers.)

  SHE: It's a completely unnavigable river, always empty, because of its irregular course and its sand bars. In France, the Loire is considered a very beautiful river, especially because of its light . . . so soft, if you only knew.

  (Ecstatic tone. He frees her head and listens closely.)

  HE: When you are in the cellar, am I dead?

  SHE: You are dead . . . and . . .

  (Nevers: the German is dying very slowly on the quay.)

  SHE: . . . how is it possible to bear such pain? The cellar is small.

  (To show with her hands how small it is, she withdraws her cheek from his. Then she goes on, still very close to him, but no longer touching him. No incantation. She speaks to him with passionate enthusiasm.)

  SHE: . . . very small. The Marseillaise passes above my head. It's . . . deafening. . . .