도스토예프스키와 타르코프스키

도스토예프스키(1821-1881)와 타르코프스키(1932-1986)는 물론 러시아를 대표하는 작가와 감독이다. 두 사람의 이름을 제목으로 달았지만, 내가 맘잡고 이들에 대해서 몇 마디 하겠다는 건 전혀 아니다. 읽어야 할 책이 잘 읽히지 않아서 이것저것 뒤적이다가 <타르코프스키의 순교일기>(두레, 1997)을 펴들게 됐는데, 1970년부터 시작되는 이 일기의 첫 페이지가 우연히도 도스토예프스키에 관한 것이었을 뿐이다(이 책을 몇 년만에 펴든 듯하다. 참고로, 타르코프스키의 이 일기는 1986년 12월 그가 폐암으로 사망하기 불과 2주전의 기록까지도 포함하고 있다). 그 4월 30일자 일기를 따라가 본다. 아래는 자신의 어머니에게 바쳐진 영화 <거울>(1975)에 등장하는 실제의 어머니.

-우리는 다시 한번 <도스토예프스키>를 영화화하는 작업에 관해 사샤 마사린과 이야기했다(*역주에도 있지만, 마사린은 영화 <거울>의 시나리오 작업을 타르코프스키와 함께 했었다). 당연히 우선 작품구상을 문서로 작성해야 한다는 대답이었고 당분간 연출구상은 하지 말라는 것이다. 도스토예프스키의 작품을 영화화하려는 계획은 의미가 없을 것이며 도스토예프스키 자신에 관한 영화를 찍어야 할 것이다...(*마치 <페테르부르크의 대가>(책세상, 2001)를 쓴 존 쿳시처럼. 쿳시의 책은 러시아어로도 번역돼 있다.)

-도스토예프스키의 성격, 그의 신, 그의 악령들, 그가 이룩한 일들에 관한 영화를 만들어야 할 것이다. 톨야 솔로니친은 도스토예프스키 역할을 훌륭하게 해낼 수 있을 것이다.(*'톨랴 솔로니친'이 맞는 표기겠다. '톨랴'는 '아나톨리'의 애칭이며, 아나톨리 솔로니친(1934-1982)은 <안드레이 루블료프>에서 주역을 맡았던 그 배우이다. 타르코프스키는 이 솔로니친을 도스토예프스키의 배역으로 염두에 두고 있었다는 것. 아래 사진은 <안드레이 루블료프>의 솔로니친과 도스토예프스키.)  

-이제 나는 우선 도스토예프스키 자신이 쓴 글을 모조리 읽어야만 하겠다. 그리고 그에 관해 쓴 모든 글들 그리고 러시아 종교철학자들인 솔로비요프, 베르쟈예프, 레온체프의 글들도 모두 읽어야겠다. 도스토예프스키는 내가 영화 속에서 실현시키고자 하는 이 모든 것들의 총체가 될 수 있을 것이다.(*해서 도스토예프스키를 읽지 않고 타르코프스키의 영화를 이야기한다는 것은 제법 '용감한' 일에 속한다. 아래 사진은 모스크바의 국립레닌도서관 앞에 있는 도스토예프스키 동상. 그의 동상으로서는 가장 유명하다.) 

(*)타르코프스키가 언급하고 있는 러시아의 (종교)철학자들 가운데, 국내에는 베르쟈예프 정도만 소개돼 있다. 그리고, 물론 도스토예프스키를 영화화하려던 타르코프스키의 계획은 실현되지 못했다. 그가 세번째로 찍게 된 영화를 스타니슬라프 렘 원작의 <솔라리스>였으며, 그에게 다른 기회는 주어지지 않았다. <순교일기>를 가득 채우고 있는 그의 '계획'들에 비추어 보면, 우리에게 주어진 7편의 '타르코프스키'는 정말로 '한줌'밖에 되지 않는다. 몇 달 뒤, 그러니까 1970년 9월 7일 일기의 한 대목.

-알베르 카뮈의 <페스트>가 영화화되었는지를 꼭 알아보아야겠다고 별렀으면서도 아직도 알아보지 못했다. 아직도 영화화된 적이 없다면 테니슈빌리가 감바로프에게 두 개의 주제를 제안했으면 한다. '카뮈'와 '도스토예프스키'에 관한 시나리오, 사샤 마샤린이 우리와 함께 이 시나리오를 쓰고자 했었지. 솔로니친은 도스토예프스키의 역할을 멋지게 해낼 수 있을 것이다.(40쪽)

이어서 그는 '내가 기꺼이 만들고 싶은 영화들'의 목록을 적어놓고 있는데, 13편이다. 그 중에는 토마스 만의 <요셉과 그 형제들>과 솔제니친의 <마트료나의 마당>(*<마트료나의 집>이라 번역돼 있다), 그리고 카뮈의 <페스트>가 포함돼 있다. 도스토예프스키 원작으로는 <젊은이>(*<미성년>을 가리키는 것이겠다)가 올라와 있다.

-좋은 시절이라면 나도 백만장자가 될 수 있을 텐데! 내가 만일 일년에 영화 두 편씩을 찍을 수 있다면 1960년부터 시작해서 이미 20편을 찍었을 것이다. 바보 천치 같은 자들이 결재를 하고 있는 판에 무슨 영화를 찍을 수 있단 말인가!(*1970년이면 타르코프스키의 나이가 바로 내 나이이다. 나도 주변에서 '바보 천치'들을 찾아봐야겠다!) 

-자기자신을 구원함으로써만 모든 사람을 구원할 수 있다.(41쪽)(*이것이 '오늘의 밑줄'이다. 나도 물론 진작부터 알고 있는 '지혜'이긴 하지만, 타르코프스키의 '어록'에 올려놓도록 한다.) 

06. 04. 08.

러시아의 국영백화점 <굼>

올 12월에 모스크바의 아르바트 거리에 롯데백화점이 개점할 예정이라고 이미 보도된 바 있다(내가 알기에 러시아에 최초로 들어서는 외국 백화점이다). 러시아 최대 백화점은 모스크바의 <굼(GUM)>이다. GUM은 'Gosudarstvenniy Universalniy Magazin'의 약자로 국영백화점' 정도의 뜻이며, 모스크바의 굼은 크레믈린 바로 옆, 붉은광장 동편에 있다. 굼 광장과 내부 모습을 담은 몇 장의 사진을 옮겨놓는다.

06. 04. 07.

앙드레 브르통의 '초현실주의 선언'(자료)

Manifesto of Surrealism

by

André Breton

1924

So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life--real life, I mean--that in the end this belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, daily more discontent with his destiny, has trouble assessing the objects he has been led to use, objects that his nonchalance has brought his way, or that he has earned through his own efforts, almost always through his own efforts, for he has agreed to work, at least he has not refused to try his luck (or what he calls his luck!). At this point he feels extremely modest: he knows what women he has had, what silly affairs he has been involved in; he is unimpressed by his wealth or his poverty, in this respect he is still a newborn babe and, as for the approval of his conscience, I confess that he does very nicely without it. If he still retains a certain lucidity, all he can do is turn back toward his childhood which, however his guides and mentors may have botched it, still strikes him as somehow charming. There, the absence of any known restrictions allows him the perspective of several lives lived at once; this illusion becomes firmly rooted within him; now he is only interested in the fleeting, the extreme facility of everything. Children set off each day without a worry in the world. Everything is near at hand, the worst material conditions are fine. The woods are white or black, one will never sleep.

But it is true that we would not dare venture so far, it is not merely a question of distance. Threat is piled upon threat, one yields, abandons a portion of the terrain to be conquered. This imagination which knows no bounds is henceforth allowed to be exercised only in strict accordance with the laws of an arbitrary utility; it is incapable of assuming this inferior role for very long and, in the vicinity of the twentieth year, generally prefers to abandon man to his lusterless fate.

Though he may later try to pull himself together on occasion, having felt that he is losing by slow degrees all reason for living, incapable as he has become of being able to rise to some exceptional situation such as love, he will hardly succeed. This is because he henceforth belongs body and soul to an imperative practical necessity which demands his constant attention. None of his gestures will be expansive, none of his ideas generous or far-reaching. In his mind’s eye, events real or imagined will be seen only as they relate to a welter of similar events, events in which he has not participated, abortive events. What am I saying: he will judge them in relationship to one of these events whose consequences are more reassuring than the others. On no account will he view them as his salvation.

Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.

There remains madness, "the madness that one locks up," as it has aptly been described. That madness or another.... We all know, in fact, that the insane owe their incarceration to a tiny number of legally reprehensible acts and that, were it not for these acts their freedom (or what we see as their freedom) would not be threatened. I am willing to admit that they are, to some degree, victims of their imagination, in that it induces them not to pay attention to certain rules--outside of which the species feels threatened--which we are all supposed to know and respect. But their profound indifference to the way in which we judge them, and even to the various punishments meted out to them, allows us to suppose that they derive a great deal of comfort and consolation from their imagination, that they enjoy their madness sufficiently to endure the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. And, indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure. The best controlled sensuality partakes of it, and I know that there are many evenings when I would gladly that pretty hand which, during the last pages of Taine’s L’Intelligence, indulges in some curious misdeeds. I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naiveté has no peer but my own. Christopher Columbus should have set out to discover America with a boatload of madmen. And note how this madness has taken shape, and endured.  

It is not the fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the flag of imagination furled.

The case against the realistic attitude demands to be examined, following the case against the materialistic attitude. The latter, more poetic in fact than the former, admittedly implies on the part of man a kind of monstrous pride which, admittedly, is monstrous, but not a new and more complete decay. It should above all be viewed as a welcome reaction against certain ridiculous tendencies of spiritualism. Finally, it is not incompatible with a certain nobility of thought.

By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog’s life. The activity of the best minds feels the effects of it; the law of the lowest common denominator finally prevails upon them as it does upon the others. An amusing result of this state of affairs, in literature for example, is the generous supply of novels. Each person adds his personal little "observation" to the whole. As a cleansing antidote to all this, M. Paul Valéry recently suggested that an anthology be compiled in which the largest possible number of opening passages from novels be offered; the resulting insanity, he predicted, would be a source of considerable edification. The most famous authors would be included. Such a though reflects great credit on Paul Valéry who, some time ago, speaking of novels, assured me that, so far as he was concerned, he would continue to refrain from writing: "The Marquise went out at five." But has he kept his word?

If the purely informative style, of which the sentence just quoted is a prime example, is virtually the rule rather than the exception in the novel form, it is because, in all fairness, the author’s ambition is severely circumscribed. The circumstantial, needlessly specific nature of each of their notations leads me to believe that they are perpetrating a joke at my expense. I am spared not even one of the character’s slightest vacillations: will he be fairhaired? what will his name be? will we first meet him during the summer? So many questions resolved once and for all, as chance directs; the only discretionary power left me is to close the book, which I am careful to do somewhere in the vicinity of the first page. And the descriptions! There is nothing to which their vacuity can be compared; they are nothing but so many superimposed images taken from some stock catalogue, which the author utilizes more and more whenever he chooses; he seizes the opportunity to slip me his postcards, he tries to make me agree with him about the clichés:

The small room into which the young man was shown was covered with yellow wallpaper: there were geraniums in the windows, which were covered with muslin curtains; the setting sun cast a harsh light over the entire setting.... There was nothing special about the room. The furniture, of yellow wood, was all very old. A sofa with a tall back turned down, an oval table opposite the sofa, a dressing table and a mirror set against the pierglass, some chairs along the walls, two or three etchings of no value portraying some German girls with birds in their hands--such were the furnishings. (Dostoevski, Crime and Punishment) 

I am in no mood to admit that the mind is interested in occupying itself with such matters, even fleetingly. It may be argued that this school-boy description has its place, and that at this juncture of the book the author has his reasons for burdening me. Nevertheless he is wasting his time, for I refuse to go into his room. Others’ laziness or fatigue does not interest me. I have too unstable a notion of the continuity of life to equate or compare my moments of depression or weakness with my best moments. When one ceases to feel, I am of the opinion one should keep quiet. And I would like it understood that I am not accusing or condemning lack of originality as such. I am only saying that I do not take particular note of the empty moments of my life, that it may be unworthy for any man to crystallize those which seem to him to be so. I shall, with your permission, ignore the description of that room, and many more like it.

Not so fast, there; I’m getting into the area of psychology, a subject about which I shall be careful not to joke.

The author attacks a character and, this being settled upon, parades his hero to and fro across the world. No matter what happens, this hero, whose actions and reactions are admirably predictable, is compelled not to thwart or upset--even though he looks as though he is--the calculations of which he is the object. The currents of life can appear to lift him up, roll him over, cast him down, he will still belong to this readymade human type. A simple game of chess which doesn't interest me in the least--man, whoever he may be, being for me a mediocre opponent. What I cannot bear are those wretched discussions relative to such and such a move, since winning or losing is not in question. And if the game is not worth the candle, if objective reason does a frightful job--as indeed it does--of serving him who calls upon it, is it not fitting and proper to avoid all contact with these categories? "Diversity is so vast that every different tone of voice, every step, cough, every wipe of the nose, every sneeze...."* (Pascal.) If in a cluster of grapes there are no two alike, why do you want me to describe this grape by the other, by all the others, why do you want me to make a palatable grape? Our brains are dulled by the incurable mania of wanting to make the unknown known, classifiable. The desire for analysis wins out over the sentiments.** (Barrès, Proust.) The result is statements of undue length whose persuasive power is attributable solely to their strangeness and which impress the reader only by the abstract quality of their vocabulary, which moreover is ill-defined. If the general ideas that philosophy has thus far come up with as topics of discussion revealed by their very nature their definitive incursion into a broader or more general area. I would be the first to greet the news with joy. But up till now it has been nothing but idle repartee; the flashes of wit and other niceties vie in concealing from us the true thought in search of itself, instead of concentrating on obtaining successes. It seems to me that every act is its own justification, at least for the person who has been capable of committing it, that it is endowed with a radiant power which the slightest gloss is certain to diminish. Because of this gloss, it even in a sense ceases to happen. It gains nothing to be thus distinguished. Stendhal's heroes are subject to the comments and appraisals--appraisals which are more or less successful--made by that author, which add not one whit to their glory. Where we really find them again is at the point at which Stendahl has lost them. 

We are still living under the reign of logic: this, of course, is what I have been driving at. But in this day and age logical methods are applicable only to solving problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience. Logical ends, on the contrary, escape us. It is pointless to add that experience itself has found itself increasingly circumscribed. It paces back and forth in a cage from which it is more and more difficult to make it emerge. It too leans for support on what is most immediately expedient, and it is protected by the sentinels of common sense. Under the pretense of civilization and progress, we have managed to banish from the mind everything that may rightly or wrongly be termed superstition, or fancy; forbidden is any kind of search for truth which is not in conformance with accepted practices. It was, apparently, by pure chance that a part of our mental world which we pretended not to be concerned with any longer--and, in my opinion by far the most important part--has been brought back to light. For this we must give thanks to the discoveries of Sigmund Freud. On the basis of these discoveries a current of opinion is finally forming by means of which the human explorer will be able to carry his investigation much further, authorized as he will henceforth be not to confine himself solely to the most summary realities. The imagination is perhaps on the point of reasserting itself, of reclaiming its rights. If the depths of our mind contain within it strange forces capable of augmenting those on the surface, or of waging a victorious battle against them, there is every reason to seize them--first to seize them, then, if need be, to submit them to the control of our reason. The analysts themselves have everything to gain by it. But it is worth noting that no means has been designated a priori for carrying out this undertaking, that until further notice it can be construed to be the province of poets as well as scholars, and that its success is not dependent upon the more or less capricious paths that will be followed.  

Freud very rightly brought his critical faculties to bear upon the dream. It is, in fact, inadmissible that this considerable portion of psychic activity (since, at least from man's birth until his death, thought offers no solution of continuity, the sum of the moments of the dream, from the point of view of time, and taking into consideration only the time of pure dreaming, that is the dreams of sleep, is not inferior to the sum of the moments of reality, or, to be more precisely limiting, the moments of waking) has still today been so grossly neglected. I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams. It is because man, when he ceases to sleep, is above all the plaything of his memory, and in its normal state memory takes pleasure in weakly retracing for him the circumstances of the dream, in stripping it of any real importance, and in dismissing the only determinant from the point where he thinks he has left it a few hours before: this firm hope, this concern. He is under the impression of continuing something that is worthwhile. Thus the dream finds itself reduced to a mere parenthesis, as is the night. And, like the night, dreams generally contribute little to furthering our understanding. This curious state of affairs seems to me to call for certain reflections:

1) Within the limits where they operate (or are thought to operate) dreams give every evidence of being continuous and show signs of organization. Memory alone arrogates to itself the right to excerpt from dreams, to ignore the transitions, and to depict for us rather a series of dreams than the dream itself. By the same token, at any given moment we have only a distinct notion of realities, the coordination of which is a question of will.* (Account must be taken of the depth of the dream. For the most part I retain only what I can glean from its most superficial layers. What I most enjoy contemplating about a dream is everything that sinks back below the surface in a waking state, everything I have forgotten about my activities in the course of the preceding day, dark foliage, stupid branches. In "reality," likewise, I prefer to fall.) What is worth noting is that nothing allows us to presuppose a greater dissipation of the elements of which the dream is constituted. I am sorry to have to speak about it according to a formula which in principle excludes the dream. When will we have sleeping logicians, sleeping philosophers? I would like to sleep, in order to surrender myself to the dreamers, the way I surrender myself to those who read me with eyes wide open; in order to stop imposing, in this realm, the conscious rhythm of my thought. Perhaps my dream last night follows that of the night before, and will be continued the next night, with an exemplary strictness. It's quite possible, as the saying goes. And since it has not been proved in the slightest that, in doing so, the "reality" with which I am kept busy continues to exist in the state of dream, that it does not sink back down into the immemorial, why should I not grant to dreams what I occasionally refuse reality, that is, this value of certainty in itself which, in its own time, is not open to my repudiation? Why should I not expect from the sign of the dream more than I expect from a degree of consciousness which is daily more acute? Can't the dream also be used in solving the fundamental questions of life? Are these questions the same in one case as in the other and, in the dream, do these questions already exist? Is the dream any less restrictive or punitive than the rest? I am growing old and, more than that reality to which I believe I subject myself, it is perhaps the dream, the difference with which I treat the dream, which makes me grow old.

2) Let me come back again to the waking state. I have no choice but to consider it a phenomenon of interference. Not only does the mind display, in this state, a strange tendency to lose its bearings (as evidenced by the slips and mistakes the secrets of which are just beginning to be revealed to us), but, what is more, it does not appear that, when the mind is functioning normally, it really responds to anything but the suggestions which come to it from the depths of that dark night to which I commend it. However conditioned it may be, its balance is relative. It scarcely dares express itself and, if it does, it confines itself to verifying that such and such an idea, or such and such a woman, has made an impression on it. What impression it would be hard pressed to say, by which it reveals the degree of its subjectivity, and nothing more. This idea, this woman, disturb it, they tend to make it less severe. What they do is isolate the mind for a second from its solvent and spirit it to heaven, as the beautiful precipitate it can be, that it is. When all else fails, it then calls upon chance, a divinity even more obscure than the others to whom it ascribes all its aberrations. Who can say to me that the angle by which that idea which affects it is offered, that what it likes in the eye of that woman is not precisely what links it to its dream, binds it to those fundamental facts which, through its own fault, it has lost? And if things were different, what might it be capable of? I would like to provide it with the key to this corridor.

3) The mind of the man who dreams is fully satisfied by what happens to him. The agonizing question of possibility is no longer pertinent. Kill, fly faster, love to your heart's content. And if you should die, are you not certain of reawaking among the dead? Let yourself be carried along, events will not tolerate your interference. You are nameless. The ease of everything is priceless.

What reason, I ask, a reason so much vaster than the other, makes dreams seem so natural and allows me to welcome unreservedly a welter of episodes so strange that they could confound me now as I write? And yet I can believe my eyes, my ears; this great day has arrived, this beast has spoken.

If man's awaking is harder, if it breaks the spell too abruptly, it is because he has been led to make for himself too impoverished a notion of atonement.

4) From the moment when it is subjected to a methodical examination, when, by means yet to be determined, we succeed in recording the contents of dreams in their entirety (and that presupposes a discipline of memory spanning generations; but let us nonetheless begin by noting the most salient facts), when its graph will expand with unparalleled volume and regularity, we may hope that the mysteries which really are not will give way to the great Mystery. I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak. It is in quest of this surreality that I am going, certain not to find it but too unmindful of my death not to calculate to some slight degree the joys of its possession.

A story is told according to which Saint-Pol-Roux, in times gone by, used to have a notice posted on the door of his manor house in Camaret, every evening before he went to sleep, which read: THE POET IS WORKING.

A great deal more could be said, but in passing I merely wanted to touch upon a subject which in itself would require a very long and much more detailed discussion; I shall come back to it. At this juncture, my intention was merely to mark a point by noting the hate of the marvelous which rages in certain men, this absurdity beneath which they try to bury it. Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.  

In the realm of literature, only the marvelous is capable of fecundating works which belong to an inferior category such as the novel, and generally speaking, anything that involves storytelling. Lewis' The Monk is an admirable proof of this. It is infused throughout with the presence of the marvelous. Long before the author has freed his main characters from all temporal constraints, one feels them ready to act with an unprecedented pride. This passion for eternity with which they are constantly stirred lends an unforgettable intensity to their torments, and to mine. I mean that this book, from beginning to end, and in the purest way imaginable, exercises an exalting effect only upon that part of the mind which aspires to leave the earth and that, stripped of an insignificant part of its plot, which belongs to the period in which it was written, it constitutes a paragon of precision and innocent grandeur.* (What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic: there is only the real.) It seems to me none better has been done, and that the character of Mathilda in particular is the most moving creation that one can credit to this figurative fashion in literature. She is less a character than a continual temptation. And if a character is not a temptation, what is he? An extreme temptation, she. In The Monk the "nothing is impossible for him who dares try" gives it its full, convincing measure. Ghosts play a logical role in the book, since the critical mind does not seize them in order to dispute them. Ambrosio's punishment is likewise treated in a legitimate manner, since it is finally accepted by the critical faculty as a natural denouement.

It may seem arbitrary on my part, when discussing the marvelous, to choose this model, from which both the Nordic literatures and Oriental literatures have borrowed time and time again, not to mention the religious literatures of every country. This is because most of the examples which these literatures could have furnished me with are tainted by puerility, for the simple reason that they are addressed to children. At an early age children are weaned on the marvelous, and later on they fail to retain a sufficient virginity of mind to thoroughly enjoy fairy tales. No matter how charming they may be, a grown man would think he were reverting to childhood by nourishing himself on fairy tales, and I am the first to admit that all such tales are not suitable for him. The fabric of adorable improbabilities must be made a trifle more subtle the older we grow, and we are still at the age of waiting for this kind of spider.... But the faculties do not change radically. Fear, the attraction of the unusual, chance, the taste for things extravagant are all devices which we can always call upon without fear of deception. There are fairy tales to be written for adults, fairy tales still almost blue.

The marvelous is not the same in every period of history: it partakes in some obscure way of a sort of general revelation only the fragments of which come down to us: they are the romantic ruins, the modern mannequin, or any other symbol capable of affecting the human sensibility for a period of time. In these areas which make us smile, there is still portrayed the incurable human restlessness, and this is why I take them into consideration and why I judge them inseparable from certain productions of genius which are, more than the others, painfully afflicted by them. They are Villon's gibbets, Racine's Greeks, Baudelaire's couches. They coincide with an eclipse of the taste I am made to endure, I whose notion of taste is the image of a big spot. Amid the bad taste of my time I strive to go further than anyone else. It would have been I, had I lived in 1820, I "the bleeding nun," I who would not have spared this cunning and banal "let us conceal" whereof the parodical Cuisin speaks, it would have been I, I who would have reveled in the enormous metaphors, as he says, all phases of the "silver disk." For today I think of a castle, half of which is not necessarily in ruins; this castle belongs to me, I picture it in a rustic setting, not far from Paris. The outbuildings are too numerous to mention, and, as for the interior, it has been frightfully restored, in such manner as to leave nothing to be desired from the viewpoint of comfort. Automobiles are parked before the door, concealed by the shade of trees. A few of my friends are living here as permanent guests: there is Louis Aragon leaving; he only has time enough to say hello; Philippe Soupault gets up with the stars, and Paul Eluard, our great Eluard, has not yet come home. There are Robert Desnos and Roger Vitrac out on the grounds poring over an ancient edict on duelling; Georges Auric, Jean Paulhan; Max Morise, who rows so well, and Benjamin Péret, busy with his equations with birds; and Joseph Delteil; and Jean Carrive; and Georges Limbour, and Georges Limbours (there is a whole hedge of Georges Limbours); and Marcel Noll; there is T. Fraenkel waving to us from his captive balloon, Georges Malkine, Antonin Artaud, Francis Gérard, Pierre Naville, J.-A. Boiffard, and after them Jacques Baron and his brother, handsome and cordial, and so many others besides, and gorgeous women, I might add. Nothing is too good for these young men, their wishes are, as to wealth, so many commands. Francis Picabia comes to pay us a call, and last week, in the hall of mirrors, we received a certain Marcel Duchamp whom we had not hitherto known. Picasso goes hunting in the neighborhood. The spirit of demoralization has elected domicile in the castle, and it is with it we have to deal every time it is a question of contact with our fellowmen, but the doors are always open, and one does not begin by "thanking" everyone, you know. Moreover, the solitude is vast, we don't often run into one another. And anyway, isn't what matters that we be the masters of ourselves, the masters of women, and of love too?

I shall be proved guilty of poetic dishonesty: everyone will go parading about saying that I live on the rue Fontaine and that he will have none of the water that flows therefrom. To be sure! But is he certain that this castle into which I cordially invite him is an image? What if this castle really existed! My guests are there to prove it does; their whim is the luminous road that leads to it. We really live by our fantasies when we give free reign to them. And how could what one might do bother the other, there, safely sheltered from the sentimental pursuit and at the trysting place of opportunities? 

Man proposes and disposes. He and he alone can determine whether he is completely master of himself, that is, whether he maintains the body of his desires, daily more formidable, in a state of anarchy. Poetry teaches him to. It bears within itself the perfect compensation for the miseries we endure. It can also be an organizer, if ever, as the result of a less intimate disappointment, we contemplate taking it seriously. The time is coming when it decrees the end of money and by itself will break the bread of heaven for the earth! There will still be gatherings on the public squares, and movements you never dared hope participate in. Farewell to absurd choices, the dreams of dark abyss, rivalries, the prolonged patience, the flight of the seasons, the artificial order of ideas, the ramp of danger, time for everything! May you only take the trouble to practice poetry. Is it not incumbent upon us, who are already living off it, to try and impose what we hold to be our case for further inquiry?

It matters not whether there is a certain disproportion between this defense and the illustration that will follow it. It was a question of going back to the sources of poetic imagination and, what is more, of remaining there. Not that I pretend to have done so. It requires a great deal of fortitude to try to set up one's abode in these distant regions where everything seems at first to be so awkward and difficult, all the more so if one wants to try to take someone there. Besides, one is never sure of really being there. If one is going to all that trouble, one might as well stop off somewhere else. Be that as it may, the fact is that the way to these regions is clearly marked, and that to attain the true goal is now merely a matter of the travelers' ability to endure. 

We are all more or less aware of the road traveled. I was careful to relate, in the course of a study of the case of Robert Desnos entitled ENTRÉE DES MÉDIUMS,* (See Les Pas perdus, published by N.R.F.) that I had been led to" concentrate my attention on the more or less partial sentences which, when one is quite alone and on the verge of falling asleep, become perceptible for the mind without its being possible to discover what provoked them." I had then just attempted the poetic adventure with the minimum of risks, that is, my aspirations were the same as they are today but I trusted in the slowness of formulation to keep me from useless contacts, contacts of which I completely disapproved. This attitude involved a modesty of thought certain vestiges of which I still retain. At the end of my life, I shall doubtless manage to speak with great effort the way people speak, to apologize for my voice and my few remaining gestures. The virtue of the spoken word (and the written word all the more so) seemed to me to derive from the faculty of foreshortening in a striking manner the exposition (since there was exposition) of a small number of facts, poetic or other, of which I made myself the substance. I had come to the conclusion that Rimbaud had not proceeded any differently. I was composing, with a concern for variety that deserved better, the final poems of Mont de piété, that is, I managed to extract from the blank lines of this book an incredible advantage. These lines were the closed eye to the operations of thought that I believed I was obliged to keep hidden from the reader. It was not deceit on my part, but my love of shocking the reader. I had the illusion of a possible complicity, which I had more and more difficulty giving up. I had begun to cherish words excessively for the space they allow around them, for their tangencies with countless other words which I did not utter. The poem BLACK FOREST derives precisely from this state of mind. It took me six months to write it, and you may take my word for it that I did not rest a single day. But this stemmed from the opinion I had of myself in those days, which was high, please don't judge me too harshly. I enjoy these stupid confessions. At that point cubist pseudo-poetry was trying to get a foothold, but it had emerged defenseless from Picasso's brain, and I was thought to be as dull as dishwater (and still am). I had a sneaking suspicion, moreover, that from the viewpoint of poetry I was off on the wrong road, but I hedged my bet as best I could, defying lyricism with salvos of definitions and formulas (the Dada phenomena were waiting in the wings, ready to come on stage) and pretending to search for an application of poetry to advertising (I went so far as to claim that the world would end, not with a good book but with a beautiful advertisement for heaven or for hell).

In those days, a man at least as boring as I, Pierre Reverdy, was writing:

The image is a pure creation of the mind.

It cannot be born from a comparison but from a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities.

The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be--the greater its emotional power and poetic reality...* (Nord-Sud, March 1918)

These words, however sibylline for the uninitiated, were extremely revealing, and I pondered them for a long time. But the image eluded me. Reverdy's aesthetic, a completely a posteriori aesthetic, led me to mistake the effects for the causes. It was in the midst of all this that I renounced irrevocably my point of view. 

One evening, therefore, before I fell asleep, I perceived, so clearly articulated that it was impossible to change a word, but nonetheless removed from the sound of any voice, a rather strange phrase which came to me without any apparent relationship to the events in which, my consciousness agrees, I was then involved, a phrase which seemed to me insistent, a phrase, if I may be so bold, which was knocking at the window. I took cursory note of it and prepared to move on when its organic character caught my attention. Actually, this phrase astonished me: unfortunately I cannot remember it exactly, but it was something like: "There is a man cut in two by the window," but there could be no question of ambiguity, accompanied as it was by the faint visual image* (Were I a painter, this visual depiction would doubtless have become more important for me than the other. It was most certainly my previous predispositions which decided the matter. Since that day, I have had occasion to concentrate my attention voluntarily on similar apparitions, and I know they are fully as clear as auditory phenomena. With a pencil and white sheet of paper to hand, I could easily trace their outlines. Here again it is not a matter of drawing, but simply of tracing. I could thus depict a tree, a wave, a musical instrument, all manner of things of which I am presently incapable of providing even the roughest sketch. I would plunge into it, convinced that I would find my way again, in a maze of lines which at first glance would seem to be going nowhere. And, upon opening my eyes, I would get the very strong impression of something "never seen." The proof of what I am saying has been provided many times by Robert Desnos: to be convinced, one has only to leaf through the pages of issue number 36 of Feuilles libres which contains several of his drawings (Romeo and Juliet, A Man Died This Morning, etc.) which were taken by this magazine as the drawings of a madman and published as such.) of a man walking cut half way up by a window perpendicular to the axis of his body. Beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, what I saw was the simple reconstruction in space of a man leaning out a window. But this window having shifted with the man, I realized that I was dealing with an image of a fairly rare sort, and all I could think of was to incorporate it into my material for poetic construction. No sooner had I granted it this capacity than it was in fact succeeded by a whole series of phrases, with only brief pauses between them, which surprised me only slightly less and left me with the impression of their being so gratuitous that the control I had then exercised upon myself seemed to me illusory and all I could think of was putting an end to the interminable quarrel raging within me.* (Knut Hamsum ascribes this sort of revelation to which I had been subjected as deriving from hunger, and he may not be wrong. (The fact is I did not eat every day during that period of my life). Most certainly the manifestations that he describes in these terms are clearly the same:

"The following day I awoke at an early hour. It was still dark. My eyes had been open for a long time when I heard the clock in the apartment above strike five. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I couldn't; I was wide awake and a thousand thoughts were crowding through my mind.

"Suddenly a few good fragments came to mind, quite suitable to be used in a rough draft, or serialized; all of a sudden I found, quite by chance, beautiful phrases, phrases such as I had never written. I repeated them to myself slowly, word by word; they were excellent. And there were still more coming. I got up and picked up a pencil and some paper that were on a table behind my bed. It was as though some vein had burst within me, one word followed another, found its proper place, adapted itself to the situation, scene piled upon scene, the action unfolded, one retort after another welled up in my mind, I was enjoying myself immensely. Thoughts came to me so rapidly and continued to flow so abundantly that I lost a whole host of delicate details, because my pencil could not keep up with them, and yet I went as fast as I could, my hand in constant motion, I did not lose a minute. The sentences continued to well up within me, I was pregnant with my subject."

Apollinaire asserted that Chirico's first paintings were done under the influence of cenesthesic disorders (migraines, colics, etc.).) 

Completely occupied as I still was with Freud at that time, and familiar as I was with his methods of examination which I had some slight occasion to use on some patients during the war, I resolved to obtain from myself what we were trying to obtain from them, namely, a monologue spoken as rapidly as possible without any intervention on the part of the critical faculties, a monologue consequently unencumbered by the slightest inhibition and which was, as closely as possible, akin to spoken thought. It had seemed to me, and still does--the way in which the phrase about the man cut in two had come to me is an indication of it--that the speed of thought is no greater than the speed of speech, and that thought does not necessarily defy language, nor even the fast-moving pen. It was in this frame of mind that Philippe Soupault--to whom I had confided these initial conclusions--and I decided to blacken some paper, with a praiseworthy disdain for what might result from a literary point of view. The ease of execution did the rest. By the end of the first day we were able to read to ourselves some fifty or so pages obtained in this manner, and begin to compare our results. All in all, Soupault's pages and mine proved to be remarkably similar: the same overconstruction, shortcomings of a similar nature, but also, on both our parts, the illusion of an extraordinary verve, a great deal of emotion, a considerable choice of images of a quality such that we would not have been capable of preparing a single one in longhand, a very special picturesque quality and, here and there, a strong comical effect. The only difference between our two texts seemed to me to derive essentially from our respective tempers. Soupault's being less static than mine, and, if he does not mind my offering this one slight criticism, from the fact that he had made the error of putting a few words by way of titles at the top of certain pages, I suppose in a spirit of mystification. On the other hand, I must give credit where credit is due and say that he constantly and vigorously opposed any effort to retouch or correct, however slightly, any passage of this kind which seemed to me unfortunate. In this he was, to be sure, absolutely right.* (I believe more and more in the infallibility of my thought with respect to myself, and this is too fair. Nonetheless, with this thought-writing, where one is at the mercy of the first outside distraction, "ebullutions" can occur. It would be inexcusable for us to pretend otherwise. By definition, thought is strong, and incapable of catching itself in error. The blame for these obvious weaknesses must be placed on suggestions that come to it from without.) It is, in fact, difficult to appreciate fairly the various elements present: one may even go so far as to say that it is impossible to appreciate them at a first reading. To you who write, these elements are, on the surface, as strange to you as they are to anyone else, and naturally you are wary of them. Poetically speaking, what strikes you about them above all is their extreme degree of immediate absurdity, the quality of this absurdity, upon closer scrutiny, being to give way to everything admissible, everything legitimate in the world: the disclosure of a certain number of properties and of facts no less objective, in the final analysis, than the others.

In homage to Guillaume Apollinaire, who had just died and who, on several occasions, seemed to us to have followed a discipline of this kind, without however having sacrificed to it any mediocre literary means, Soupault and I baptized the new mode of pure expression which we had at our disposal and which we wished to pass on to our friends, by the name of SURREALISM. I believe that there is no point today in dwelling any further on this word and that the meaning we gave it initially has generally prevailed over its Apollinarian sense. To be even fairer, we could probably have taken over the word SUPERNATURALISM employed by Gérard de Nerval in his dedication to the Filles de feu.* (And also by Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus ([Book III] Chapter VIII, "Natural Supernaturalism"), 1833-34.) It appears, in fact, that Nerval possessed to a tee the spirit with which we claim a kinship, Apollinaire having possessed, on the contrary, naught but the letter, still imperfect, of Surrealism, having shown himself powerless to give a valid theoretical idea of it. Here are two passages by Nerval which seem to me to be extremely significant in this respect:

I am going to explain to you, my dear Dumas, the phenomenon of which you have spoken a short while ago. There are, as you know, certain storytellers who cannot invent without identifying with the characters their imagination has dreamt up. You may recall how convincingly our old friend Nodier used to tell how it had been his misfortune during the Revolution to be guillotined; one became so completely convinced of what he was saying that one began to wonder how he had managed to have his head glued back on.

...And since you have been indiscreet enough to quote one of the sonnets composed in this SUPERNATURALISTIC dream-state, as the Germans would call it, you will have to hear them all. You will find them at the end of the volume. They are hardly any more obscure than Hegel's metaphysics or Swedenborg's MEMORABILIA, and would lose their charm if they were explained, if such were possible; at least admit the worth of the expression....** (See also L'Idéoréalisme by Saint-Pol-Roux.)

Those who might dispute our right to employ the term SURREALISM in the very special sense that we understand it are being extremely dishonest, for there can be no doubt that this word had no currency before we came along. Therefore, I am defining it once and for all:

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express--verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner--the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life. The following have performed acts of ABSOLUTE SURREALISM: Messrs. Aragon, Baron, Boiffard, Breton, Carrive, Crevel, Delteil, Desnos, Eluard, Gérard, Limbour, Malkine, Morise, Naville, Noll, Péret, Picon, Soupault, Vitrac.

They seem to be, up to the present time, the only ones, and there would be no ambiguity about it were it not for the case of Isidore Ducasse, about whom I lack information. And, of course, if one is to judge them only superficially by their results, a good number of poets could pass for Surrealists, beginning with Dante and, in his finer moments, Shakespeare. In the course of the various attempts I have made to reduce what is, by breach of trust, called genius, I have found nothing which in the final analysis can be attributed to any other method than that.

Young's Nights are Surrealist from one end to the other; unfortunately it is a priest who is speaking, a bad priest no doubt, but a priest nonetheless.

Swift is Surrealist in malice,

Sade is Surrealist in sadism.

Chateaubriand is Surrealist in exoticism.

Constant is Surrealist in politics.

Hugo is Surrealist when he isn't stupid.

Desbordes-Valmore is Surrealist in love.

Bertrand is Surrealist in the past.

Rabbe is Surrealist in death.

Poe is Surrealist in adventure.

Baudelaire is Surrealist in morality.

Rimbaud is Surrealist in the way he lived, and elsewhere.

Mallarmé is Surrealist when he is confiding.

Jarry is Surrealist in absinthe.

Nouveau is Surrealist in the kiss.

Saint-Pol-Roux is Surrealist in his use of symbols.

Fargue is Surrealist in the atmosphere.

Vaché is Surrealist in me.

Reverdy is Surrealist at home.

Saint-Jean-Perse is Surrealist at a distance.

Roussel is Surrealist as a storyteller.

Etc.

I would like to stress the point: they are not always Surrealists, in that I discern in each of them a certain number of preconceived ideas to which--very naively!--they hold. They hold to them because they had not heard the Surrealist voice, the one that continues to preach on the eve of death and above the storms, because they did not want to serve simply to orchestrate the marvelous score. They were instruments too full of pride, and this is why they have not always produced a harmonious sound.* (I could say the same of a number of philosophers and painters, including, among the latter, Uccello, from painters of the past, and, in the modern era, Seurat, Gustave Moreau, Matisse (in "La Musique," for example), Derain, Picasso, (by far the most pure), Braque, Duchamp, Picabia, Chirico (so admirable for so long), Klee, Man Ray, Max Ernst, and, one so close to us, André Masson.)

But we, who have made no effort whatsoever to filter, who in our works have made ourselves into simple receptacles of so many echoes, modest recording instruments who are not mesmerized by the drawings we are making, perhaps we serve an even nobler cause. Thus do we render with integrity the "talent" which has been lent to us. You might as well speak of the talent of this platinum ruler, this mirror, this door, and of the sky, if you like.

We do not have any talent; ask Philippe Soupault:

"Anatomical products of manufacture and low-income dwellings will destroy the tallest cities."

Ask Roger Vitrac:

"No sooner had I called forth the marble-admiral than he turned on his heel like a horse which rears at the sight of the North star and showed me, in the plane of his two-pointed cocked hat, a region where I was to spend my life."

Ask Paul Eluard:

"This is an oft-told tale that I tell, a famous poem that I reread: I am leaning against a wall, with my verdant ears and my lips burned to a crisp."

Ask Max Morise:

"The bear of the caves and his friend the bittern, the vol-au-vent and his valet the wind, the Lord Chancellor with his Lady, the scarecrow for sparrows and his accomplice the sparrow, the test tube and his daughter the needle, this carnivore and his brother the carnival, the sweeper and his monocle, the Mississippi and its little dog, the coral and its jug of milk, the Miracle and its Good Lord, might just as well go and disappear from the surface of the sea."

Ask Joseph Delteil:

"Alas! I believe in the virtue of birds. And a feather is all it takes to make me die laughing."

Ask Louis Aragon:

"During a short break in the party, as the players were gathering around a bowl of flaming punch, I asked a tree if it still had its red ribbon."

And ask me, who was unable to keep myself from writing the serpentine, distracting lines of this preface.

Ask Robert Desnos, he who, more than any of us, has perhaps got closest to the Surrealist truth, he who, in his still unpublished works* (NOUVELLES HÉBRIDES, DÉSORDRE FORMEL, DEUIL POUR DEUIL.) and in the course of the numerous experiments he has been a party to, has fully justified the hope I placed in Surrealism and leads me to believe that a great deal more will still come of it. Desnos speaks Surrealist at will. His extraordinary agility in orally following his thought is worth as much to us as any number of splendid speeches which are lost, Desnos having better things to do than record them. He reads himself like an open book, and does nothing to retain the pages, which fly away in the windy wake of his life.

(*)앙드레 브르통의 (1차) '초현실주의 선언'(1924)을 세미나 자료로 올려놓는다. 브르통은 이 선언문에서 '심리적 오토마티즘(Psychic automatism)'을 초현실주의의 핵심적인 규정으로 제시한다: "Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern."

더불어, 사드, 보들레르, 랭보, 로트레아몽, 레이몽 루셀, 심지어 단테의 작품들까지도 '초현실주의 이전의 초현실주의'로 규정함으로써 자신들의 문학사/예술사적 계보를 정립하고자 한다. 이 선언문의 우리말 번역은 송재영 편역, <다다/쉬르레알리슴 선언>(문학과지성사, 1987)에 수록돼 있다. 초현실주의의 역사에 관한 기본 문헌은 모리스 나도의 <초현실주의의 역사>(고려원, 1985; 원저는 1945)이다.

06. 04. 07.

Nobody has to be vile

'London Review of Books'(06. 04. 06)에 실린 지젝의 글을 옮겨놓는다. 지젝은 이 저널에 해마다 두어 편의 글을 기고하고 있는데, 'Nobody has to be vile'(아무도 야비해질 필요가 없다)은 올해의 첫번째 기고문이다. 시간이 나면(언제?) 내용을 정리해두도록 하고, 일단은 창고에 넣어둔다.  

Since 2001, Davos and Porto Alegre have been the twin cities of globalisation: Davos, the exclusive Swiss resort where the global elite of managers, statesmen and media personalities meets for the World Economic Forum under heavy police protection, trying to convince us (and themselves) that globalisation is its own best remedy; Porto Alegre, the subtropical Brazilian city where the counter-elite of the anti-globalisation movement meets, trying to convince us (and themselves) that capitalist globalisation is not our inevitable fate – that, as the official slogan puts it, ‘another world is possible.’ It seems, however, that the Porto Alegre reunions have somehow lost their impetus – we have heard less and less about them over the past couple of years. Where did the bright stars of Porto Alegre go?

Some of them, at least, moved to Davos. The tone of the Davos meetings is now predominantly set by the group of entrepreneurs who ironically refer to themselves as ‘liberal communists’ and who no longer accept the opposition between Davos and Porto Alegre: their claim is that we can have the global capitalist cake (thrive as entrepreneurs) and eat it (endorse the anti-capitalist causes of social responsibility, ecological concern etc). There is no need for Porto Alegre: instead, Davos can become Porto Davos.

So who are these liberal communists? The usual suspects: Bill Gates and George Soros, the CEOs of Google, IBM, Intel, eBay, as well as court-philosophers like Thomas Friedman. The true conservatives today, they argue, are not only the old right, with its ridiculous belief in authority, order and parochial patriotism, but also the old left, with its war against capitalism: both fight their shadow-theatre battles in disregard of the new realities. The signifier of this new reality in the liberal communist Newspeak is ‘smart’. Being smart means being dynamic and nomadic, and against centralised bureaucracy; believing in dialogue and co-operation as against central authority; in flexibility as against routine; culture and knowledge as against industrial production; in spontaneous interaction and autopoiesis as against fixed hierarchy.

Bill Gates is the icon of what he has called ‘frictionless capitalism’, the post-industrial society and the ‘end of labour’. Software is winning over hardware and the young nerd over the old manager in his black suit. In the new company headquarters, there is little external discipline; former hackers dominate the scene, working long hours, enjoying free drinks in green surroundings. The underlying notion here is that Gates is a subversive marginal hooligan, an ex-hacker, who has taken over and dressed himself up as a respectable chairman.

Liberal communists are top executives reviving the spirit of contest or, to put it the other way round, countercultural geeks who have taken over big corporations. Their dogma is a new, postmodernised version of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: the market and social responsibility are not opposites, but can be reunited for mutual benefit. As Friedman puts it, nobody has to be vile in order to do business these days; collaboration with employees, dialogue with customers, respect for the environment, transparency of deals – these are the keys to success. Olivier Malnuit recently drew up the liberal communist’s ten commandments in the French magazine Technikart:

1. You shall give everything away free (free access, no copyright); just charge for the additional services, which will make you rich.

2. You shall change the world, not just sell things.

3. You shall be sharing, aware of social responsibility.

4. You shall be creative: focus on design, new technologies and science.

5. You shall tell all: have no secrets, endorse and practise the cult of transparency and the free flow of information; all humanity should collaborate and interact.

6. You shall not work: have no fixed 9 to 5 job, but engage in smart, dynamic, flexible communication.

7. You shall return to school: engage in permanent education.

8. You shall act as an enzyme: work not only for the market, but trigger new forms of social collaboration.

9. You shall die poor: return your wealth to those who need it, since you have more than you can ever spend.

10. You shall be the state: companies should be in partnership with the state.

Liberal communists are pragmatic; they hate a doctrinaire approach. There is no exploited working class today, only concrete problems to be solved: starvation in Africa, the plight of Muslim women, religious fundamentalist violence. When there is a humanitarian crisis in Africa (liberal communists love a humanitarian crisis; it brings out the best in them), instead of engaging in anti-imperialist rhetoric, we should get together and work out the best way of solving the problem, engage people, governments and business in a common enterprise, start moving things instead of relying on centralised state help, approach the crisis in a creative and unconventional way.

Liberal communists like to point out that the decision of some large international corporations to ignore apartheid rules within their companies was as important as the direct political struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Abolishing segregation within the company, paying blacks and whites the same salary for the same job etc: this was a perfect instance of the overlap between the struggle for political freedom and business interests, since the same companies can now thrive in post-apartheid South Africa.

Liberal communists love May 1968. What an explosion of youthful energy and creativity! How it shattered the bureaucratic order! What an impetus it gave to economic and social life after the political illusions dropped away! Those who were old enough were themselves protesting and fighting on the streets: now they have changed in order to change the world, to revolutionise our lives for real. Didn’t Marx say that all political upheavals were unimportant compared to the invention of the steam engine? And would Marx not have said today: what are all the protests against global capitalism in comparison with the internet?

Above all, liberal communists are true citizens of the world – good people who worry. They worry about populist fundamentalism and irresponsible greedy capitalist corporations. They see the ‘deeper causes’ of today’s problems: mass poverty and hopelessness breed fundamentalist terror. Their goal is not to earn money, but to change the world (and, as a by-product, make even more money). Bill Gates is already the single greatest benefactor in the history of humanity, displaying his love for his neighbours by giving hundreds of millions of dollars for education, the fight against hunger and malaria etc. The catch is that before you can give all this away you have to take it (or, as the liberal communists would put it, create it). In order to help people, the justification goes, you must have the means to do so, and experience – that is, recognition of the dismal failure of all centralised statist and collectivist approaches – teaches us that private enterprise is by far the most effective way. By regulating their business, taxing them excessively, the state is undermining the official goal of its own activity (to make life better for the majority, to help those in need).

Liberal communists do not want to be mere profit-machines: they want their lives to have deeper meaning. They are against old-fashioned religion and for spirituality, for non-confessional meditation (everybody knows that Buddhism foreshadows brain science, that the power of meditation can be measured scientifically). Their motto is social responsibility and gratitude: they are the first to admit that society has been incredibly good to them, allowing them to deploy their talents and amass wealth, so they feel that it is their duty to give something back to society and help people. This beneficence is what makes business success worthwhile.

This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Remember Andrew Carnegie, who employed a private army to suppress organised labour in his steelworks and then distributed large parts of his wealth for educational, cultural and humanitarian causes, proving that, although a man of steel, he had a heart of gold? In the same way, today’s liberal communists give away with one hand what they grabbed with the other.

There is a chocolate-flavoured laxative available on the shelves of US stores which is publicised with the paradoxical injunction: Do you have constipation? Eat more of this chocolate! – i.e. eat more of something that itself causes constipation. The structure of the chocolate laxative can be discerned throughout today’s ideological landscape; it is what makes a figure like Soros so objectionable. He stands for ruthless financial exploitation combined with its counter-agent, humanitarian worry about the catastrophic social consequences of the unbridled market economy. Soros’s daily routine is a lie embodied: half of his working time is devoted to financial speculation, the other half to ‘humanitarian’ activities (financing cultural and democratic activities in post-Communist countries, writing essays and books) which work against the effects of his own speculations. The two faces of Bill Gates are exactly like the two faces of Soros: on the one hand, a cruel businessman, destroying or buying out competitors, aiming at a virtual monopoly; on the other, the great philanthropist who makes a point of saying: ‘What does it serve to have computers if people do not have enough to eat?’

According to liberal communist ethics, the ruthless pursuit of profit is counteracted by charity: charity is part of the game, a humanitarian mask hiding the underlying economic exploitation. Developed countries are constantly ‘helping’ undeveloped ones (with aid, credits etc), and so avoiding the key issue: their complicity in and responsibility for the miserable situation of the Third World. As for the opposition between ‘smart’ and ‘non-smart’, outsourcing is the key notion. You export the (necessary) dark side of production – disciplined, hierarchical labour, ecological pollution – to ‘non-smart’ Third World locations (or invisible ones in the First World). The ultimate liberal communist dream is to export the entire working class to invisible Third World sweat shops.

We should have no illusions: liberal communists are the enemy of every true progressive struggle today. All other enemies – religious fundamentalists, terrorists, corrupt and inefficient state bureaucracies – depend on contingent local circumstances. Precisely because they want to resolve all these secondary malfunctions of the global system, liberal communists are the direct embodiment of what is wrong with the system. It may be necessary to enter into tactical alliances with liberal communists in order to fight racism, sexism and religious obscurantism, but it’s important to remember exactly what they are up to.

Etienne Balibar, in La Crainte des masses (1997), distinguishes the two opposite but complementary modes of excessive violence in today’s capitalism: the objective (structural) violence that is inherent in the social conditions of global capitalism (the automatic creation of excluded and dispensable individuals, from the homeless to the unemployed), and the subjective violence of newly emerging ethnic and/or religious (in short: racist) fundamentalisms. They may fight subjective violence, but liberal communists are the agents of the structural violence that creates the conditions for explosions of subjective violence. The same Soros who gives millions to fund education has ruined the lives of thousands thanks to his financial speculations and in doing so created the conditions for the rise of the intolerance he denounces.

06. 04. 07.

세 편의 영화, 혹은 진실과 외설과 불치

민방위 소집훈련이 있는 날인지라 7시도 되기 전에 집을 나서야 했다(지난번에 빠졌기 때문에 '보충1차'였다). 민방위도 벌써 8년차인데, 언제 소집 해제되는 것인지?(물론 편한 소리이긴 하다. 예비군때만 해도 총자루를 어깨에 매고 어슬렁 거리며 '터널 경비'도 하곤 했으니.) 여하튼 다른 날보다 좀 일찍 시작한 하루였고, 그래서인지 버스-전철-버스 출근길에서 마지막 버스는 자리에 앉아서 타고올 수 있었다. 그리고 그 덕에 출근길에 집어든 '한국일보'를 대중문화면 정도는 다 읽어볼 수 있었다. '세 편의 영화'는 아침에 읽은, 세 편의 영화에 대한 각기 다른 소개 기사이다.  

먼저. 박선영 기자가 쓴 영화 <스위트룸> 소개는 '그날 밤, 추악한 욕망의 공간'이란 타이틀을 달고 있다. 

-스위트룸은 공간의 폐쇄성과 화려함이라는 두 가지 특징으로 인해 인간 욕망의 극단을 실험하기에 썩 괜찮은 장소다. 1950년대 미국 연예계를 배경으로 화려한 쇼비즈니스 세계의 허구와 그 속에 감춰진 인간의 추악한 욕망을 까발리는 영화 <스위트룸>은 아무도 보지 않는 곳에서 가장 화려한 것을 손아귀에 쥔 인간의 원초적 모습을 조명하는 ‘인간 욕망의 보고서’다. 미국 연예계 최고의 스타 콤비인 래니(케빈 베이컨)와 빈스(콜린 퍼스)의 화려한 이면에는 팬들이 상상조차 할 수 없는 비밀스런 사생활이 숨겨져 있다. 제멋대로인 악동 래니와 젠틀한 매너의 빈스가 약물과 성에 탐닉하며 방탕하게 생활하는 동안 매니저 루벤(데이빗 헤이먼)은 이들의 모든 뒤처리를 전담한다.

-국민적인 관심을 받고 있는 ‘소아마비 기금 생방송’ 전날, 그들은 긴장을 풀기 위해 최고급 호텔의 스위트룸에서 웨이트리스 모린(레이첼 블랜챗)을 불러 환각의 섹스파티를 벌이지만, 다음날 방송을 끝내고 돌아왔을 때 이들을 기다리는 건 모린의 전라 시체. 래니와 빈스의 알리바이가 뚜렷해 사건은 자살로 종결되지만, 이 사건으로 두 사람은 결별을 하고, 20년 뒤 이들의 열혈 팬이었던 작가 카렌(알리슨 로만)이 그 사건에 관한 책을 쓰기 위해 접근하면서 감춰졌던 진실이 서서히 윤곽을 드러내기 시작한다.

-영화는 래니와 빈스, 루벤 세 사람의 상반된 증언과 각자가 서로를 관찰하는 시선의 교차를 통해 ‘라쇼몽’ 같은 다중의 진실을 구축하려 하지만, 산만한 구성 끝에 드러나는 진실의 실체는 다소 싱겁다. 영화 <일급살인>, <‘미스틱 리버> 등을 통해 미국적인 자유분방함을 선보여온 케빈 베이컨과 ‘브리짓 존스의 일기’ 등에서 영국 신사의 전형을 보여준 콜린 퍼스가 전형적인 상업영화의 틀 안에서 약물중독과 동성애, 양성애 등의 파격을 연기하는 모습이 다소 낯설다. 원제는 ‘Where the truth lies’(2005)로 <엑조티카>를 만든 캐나다 출신 아톰 에고이안(아래 사진) 감독의 할리우드 진출작이다.

(*) '스위트룸'의 제목이나 줄거리는 그다지 눈길은 끄는 게 아닌데, 감독 '아톰 에고이안'은 호기심을 유발한다. 그의 <엑조티카> 등도 보았지만, 아마도 동시대 캐나다 감독들 중에서 가장 명망 높은 감독의 한 사람이기 때문이다(칸느영화제 등의 단골이기도 하다). 그의 '헐리우드 진출작'이라고 하니까  기대 반 우려 반이다. "영화는 래니와 빈스, 루벤 세 사람의 상반된 증언과 각자가 서로를 관찰하는 시선의 교차를 통해 ‘라쇼몽’ 같은 다중의 진실을 구축하려 하지만, 산만한 구성 끝에 드러나는 진실의 실체는 다소 싱겁다."는 평을 보면, 기대는 우려에 가까운 듯하지만.  

두번째 기사는 라제기 기자가 쓴 '씨네 다이어리'로 '외설 무서워 영화 못보나'란 타이틀이고 최근 개봉된 차이밍량의 영화 <흔들리는 구름>에 관한 것이다.

-10여년 전 한 동시상영관에서 스페인 감독 페드로 알모도바르의 <욕망의 낮과 밤>을 친구와 함께 관람했다. 친구는 극장 문을 나설 때 “욕망은 무슨…”이라며 불만을 터트렸다. 동시상영관이라는 야릇한 장소와 꿈보다 해몽이 좋은 제목이 만들어낸, ‘뼈와 살이 타는’ 화끈한 영화일 것이라는 기대가 여지없이 무너졌기 때문이다.(*<욕망의 낮과 밤>의 원제는 'Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down'이었다. '나를 묶어주세요, 나를 풀어주세요' 정도의 뜻인지.)

 

-한때 동시상영관이 욕정 해소의 동의어 역할을 한적이 있다. 그러나 90년대 중반 에로 비디오 사업이 ‘배설구’ 역할을 대신하면서 동시상영관은 급속도로 사라져갔다. 활황을 누리던 에로 비디오도 짧은 전성기 끝에 ‘포르노의 바다’ 인터넷에 밀려 사양 길로 접어들었다. 지난해 베를린영화제에서 예술공헌 은곰상 등 3개 상을 수상한 대만 차이밍량(蔡明亮) 감독의 <흔들리는 구름>이 약 2분 가량 삭제된 채 지난달 31일 개봉됐다. 영상물등급위원회가 수입사 유레카픽처스가 낸 18세 관람가 등급 신청에 대해 2차례나 제한상영(성인영화 전용 상영관에서만 상영 가능) 판정을 내렸기 때문이다. 성인 전용관이 전무해 제한상영 판정이 사형선고나 다름없는 현실에서 수입사는 자진 삭제를 선택해야만 했다.(*<몽상가들>의 선례도 있는데, 굳이 '제한상영' 판정을 내려야 했을까 의문이 든다. 덕분에 극장에서 이 영화를 보려던 생각이 싹 가셨다.) 

-<흔들리는 구름>은 무척 야해 보이는 영화다. 남녀의 하얀 나신이 무시로 등장하며 다양한 성 행위를 적나라하게 묘사한다. 웬만한 포르노는 저리 가라 할만한 결말은 정말 극장에 걸릴 수 있는 영화인가 의문이 들 정도로 충격적이다. 그러나 영화는 숨막힐듯한 관능을 내뿜거나 관객의 몸을 뜨겁게 달구지 않는다. 가뭄으로 표현되는 삭막한 인간관계 속에서 애정에 목 말라 하는 주인공들의 애처로운 모습이 가슴을 짓누를 뿐이다. <흔들리는 구름>은 우리와 정서가 비슷한 대만에서 무삭제로 개봉돼 예술영화로는 드물게 15만 관객을 동원하는 성과를 올렸다.

-인터넷이 ‘에로 시장’을 장악하면서 극장에서 숨은 욕정을 털어내려던 시대도 완전히 저물었다. <흔들리는 구름>이 무삭제 개봉됐어도 ‘예설’ 대신 ‘외설’을 탐닉하려는 관객, 특히 학생은 극소수에 불과했을 것이다.(*우리 청소년들이 '포르노의 바다'를 놔두고 왜 엉뚱한 데서 헤엄을 치겠는가?) 18세와 20세 사이의 청소년을 보호하겠다는 현행 등급분류 체계의 제한상영 규정이 애먼 예술영화의 정상적인 상영만 가로 막는 게 아닌지 고민해봐야 할 시점이다.(*고민은 고민이고 짜증은 짜증이다. 아침부터 좀 짜증이 났다. 우리에게 포르노를 보여달라!)

세번째는 다시 박선영 기자의 <연리지> 리뷰이다. 인터넷판 타이틀은 '한국멜로의 불치병 <연리지>'인데, 지면에는 '"바보야, 나 죽어" 또 그 소리네'로 돼 있다.

-멜로영화 만들기가 갈수록 힘들다. 연인들을 애절하게 떼어놓는 게 멜로영화의 관건일진대, 신분이나 계급 차별은 줄어들고, 어지간한 병은 치료만 잘 받으면 죽음에까지 이르진 않는다. 작가와 감독들은 기를 쓰고 희귀병과 사회적 금기를 찾아 보지만, 선택의 폭은 좁아진다.(*영화건 드라마건 한국멜로의 두 가지 공식은 희귀병이거나 (알고보니) 남매이거나, 이다.) 

-한류스타 최지우의 스크린 복귀작 <연리지>는 이뤄질 수 없는 사랑의 설득기제를 찾으려다 막다른 골목과 마주친 한국영화의 현주소를 여실히 보여준다. 그야말로 한국 멜로영화의 ‘불치병’인 불치병을 소재로 한 이 영화는 나름의 변주와 반전을 통해 새로운 내러티브를 창출해보려 한 감독의 고민과 노력이 엿보인다. 그러나 관객에게는 되레 두 배의 황당함과 실소를 선사하며 ‘불치병 코드’가 한계에 봉착했음을 반증한다.

-수십 년에 걸쳐 축적된 멜로영화의 관습들을 고스란히 집대성한 <연리지>는 천하의 바람둥이 민수(조한선)가 원발성폐고혈압이라는 희귀병에 걸린 혜원(최지우)을 만나 진정한 사랑을 깨닫는 과정을 기시감(旣視感)으로 충만한 장면들에 빼곡히 나눠 담았다. 두 연인은 비오는 날 난폭운전으로 흰 옷에 빗물을 튀기면서 우연히 만나고, 차에 탄 여자는 약속한 듯 휴대폰을 두고 내린다.

-불치병에도 불구하고 천진발랄한 그녀는 남자와 첫 키스를 하다 수줍게 도망치고, 장대비를 맞고 대문 앞에 서 있는 남자에게 “바보야, 나 죽어”를 울며 외친다. 가히 클리셰의 총출동이라 할 만한 상투적 서사 전개로 인해 반전의 효과는 코웃음 속에 묻혀버리고, 두 주인공의 감정에 동참하지 못하는 관객은 지루하다 못해 외로울 정도다.

-영화는 신파의 혐의를 벗기 위해 최성국, 서영희 커플의 코믹한 사랑 이야기를 곁들이며 로맨틱 코미디의 경쾌한 분위기를 연출하지만, 코믹과 신파는 물과 기름처럼 시종 겉돈다. 30대 여배우들이 나이에 맞는 다양한 배역으로 한국영화의 중흥을 이끌고 있는 요즘, 서른 한 살의 최지우가 극중 배역과 유리된 채 ‘지우히메’의 청순하고 귀여운 이미지에 과도하게 집착하는 모습은 이 아름다운 한류스타의 미래를 심히 염려하게 만든다.

-그러나 불치병이 어디 <연리지>만의 잘못이겠는가. 사랑의 슬픔은 불치병 같은 외부의 방해 때문이 아니라 사랑이 그 내적 기제에 의해 자체 소멸하고 침식된다는 사실에서 비롯되고 있음을 왜 한국영화만 간과하고 있는지(*'성관계는 없다'는 라캉의 정식이 말하고 있는 것도 이것이다) 안타까울 따름이지만, 최근 한 해 동안만도 <내 머리 속의 지우개> <파랑주의보> <백만장자의 첫사랑> 등이 불치병 릴레이를 펼치며 동어반복을 계속했다. <연리지>는 두 나무가 자라면서 가지가 붙어 하나의 나무로 합쳐지는 현상으로, 불치병으로 인해 하나가 되는 두 주인공의 사랑을 은유하는 제목이다.(*아래는 송혜교, 차태현 주연의 <파랑주의보>.)

해서, 세 편의 영화는 각기 '진실'과 '외설'과 '불치'에 대해서 생각해보게 한다(뭘 봐야 하나?). 아침부터 그런 걸 생각, 해보게...

06. 04. 06.