so here we see horsemouth in may 68 when he was part of a maoist groupuscle (and spoke french). he took part in a documentary filmed by celebrated director jean-luc godard who, with his film crew lived in the ‘commune’ for 6 months and ended up leaving with horsemouth’s then girlfriend (the somewhat babyfaced one on his right). she said size didn’t matter (turns out it did).
jean-luc noticed that horsemouth was employing a number of teaching techniques and structured the film (and many of his subsequent films) round them. jean-luc was particularly taken by the posters horsemouth used to make to help render his ideas clearer to himself. not mind-maps as such, but more focused down onto individual sentences, trying to reveal the structural similarities between sentences, laying them out in space to dramatise the relationships involved, leaving gaps for the student to replace the object or subject of the sentence (horsemouth would then quiz them on the changes this would bring). jean-luc would take photos of them at each stage of their production (horsemouth couldn’t understand why he was so interested in them).
other teaching techniques woud be used - situations would be dramatised - in a kind of, what we would later call, boal’ian forum theatre. louis, in particular was clearly interested in all of this, and indeed claimed to have invented it. at one point louis got horsemouth to read from one of his essays, but horsemouth didn’t understand it and got frustrated and reverted to maoist sloganising before the paragraph was over.
of course horsemouth got to meet all of jean-luc’s friends - louis althusser, elie faure, his little mate etienne balibar (lovely fellow), the outwardly friendly (but somewhat cold) michel foucault, there was a whole crew of them really, macherey, ranciere, jacques lacan’s son in law... though they didn’t always agree and horsemouth would sometimes have to ask them to leave if the conversation got too heated. ranciere and louis were always going at it (in a strange normalien kind of way - frankly ranciere showed so much irritation with the whole set up you often wondered why he was there (but he did take copious notes).
others were round less frequently - alain badiou would spout sartre and everyone would look away (horsemouth heard that he’d changed later and gone all mathematical), marguerite duras was busy with a reading group - she invited horsemouth to it (but she was somewhat older and he didn’t fancy her so he didn’t go). frankly horsemouth was only there for the chance to chat up women.
of course this gives the lie to anyone who suggests that jean-luc took all his ideas from guy debord. in girum imus nocte, can dialectics break bricks etc. horsemouth hasn’t thought about this stuff in years - painful memories - like many who survived the intense self-criticism of the maoists he was, as improv drummer chris cutler put it, walking wounded - it was not until the 90ies that (faced with the continued rightward turn of french politics and and the renegade philosophers who supported it - glucksman et al.) that horsemouth became nostalgic. he looks forward with some trepidation to going to see the movie redoubtable - someone must have spilled the beans or written a memoir or something, for there it is, bientôt sur cet écran, horsemouth’s life on screen.
and still the paragraph louis had him read bothers him;
‘I look back, and I am suddenly and irresistibly assailed by the question: are not these few pages, in their maladroit and groping way, simply that unfamiliar play El Nost Milan, performed on a June evening, pursuing in me its incomplete meaning, searching in me, despite myself, now that all the actors and sets have been cleared away, for the advent of its silent discourse? ‘
jean luc seemed bored but then as soon as horsemouth started speaking he began filming.
if you are reading this anna please get in touch.
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