0:00:16 > 0:00:21The removal of cataracts of the eyes...
0:00:23 > 0:00:26..is comparable with the removal
0:00:26 > 0:00:30of a particular form of forgetfulness.
0:00:33 > 0:00:39Your eyes begin to remember first times...
0:00:40 > 0:00:43..and it is in this sense
0:00:43 > 0:00:47that what they experience after the intervention
0:00:47 > 0:00:51is a kind of visual renaissance.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04The unstartling
0:01:04 > 0:01:08heterogeneousness of the existent
0:01:08 > 0:01:11has marvellously returned...
0:01:16 > 0:01:19..and the two eyes,
0:01:19 > 0:01:24portcullises now removed,
0:01:24 > 0:01:30again and again register surprise.
0:02:09 > 0:02:12Tomorrow, it will be three weeks after the operation.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18And if I try to sum up
0:02:18 > 0:02:24the transformed experience of looking, I'd say it's like
0:02:24 > 0:02:30suddenly finding oneself in a scene painted by Vermeer.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38The surface of everything you're looking at
0:02:38 > 0:02:42is covered with a dew of light.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40Ah...
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Ah, such a...an endless
0:03:48 > 0:03:51storytelling imagination.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12HE LAUGHS
0:05:14 > 0:05:16I had a dream
0:05:16 > 0:05:19in which I was a strange dealer,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22a dealer in looks or appearances.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27I collected and distributed them.
0:05:28 > 0:05:33And in the dream I had just discovered a secret.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37I discovered it on my own, no help.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40The secret
0:05:40 > 0:05:45was to get inside whatever I was looking at,
0:05:45 > 0:05:47get inside it.
0:05:52 > 0:05:56When I woke up from that dream...
0:05:56 > 0:06:00I couldn't remember how it was done...
0:06:00 > 0:06:05and I now no longer know
0:06:05 > 0:06:07how to get inside things.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17I started writing art criticism.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20How old was I? I was...
0:06:20 > 0:06:2225, 26.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29And a great deal of my life up to that moment
0:06:29 > 0:06:33had been involved with drawing and with painting.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37Kokoschka, as both a man and a painter,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40has fascinated me for a long time.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42Somehow, when you consider Picasso,
0:06:42 > 0:06:46it is the spirit of the man, rather than any single work,
0:06:46 > 0:06:48which dominates and is so striking.
0:06:48 > 0:06:54The act of looking, for Giacometti, is a form of prayer,
0:06:54 > 0:06:58a way of grasping or glimpsing the absolute.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02Painting, drawing,
0:07:02 > 0:07:07was something that I thought I knew something about,
0:07:07 > 0:07:13and therefore the only experience I had really was about looking.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18Looking and doing something on paper or in three dimensions
0:07:18 > 0:07:22with what one saw, the interrogation of appearances.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58There I was about 16, 17, maybe 18, I don't know.
0:07:58 > 0:07:59And you were in your...
0:07:59 > 0:08:01- Yes.- Um...
0:08:01 > 0:08:03And that is...
0:08:03 > 0:08:05- That's at Roche Ballue. - Roche Ballue.- I think.- I think so...
0:08:05 > 0:08:07- I think it's at Roche Ballue. - I think so, too.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10- But we look good, don't we? - Very good.- Both of us.
0:08:10 > 0:08:12Very good.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17Since you were a small kid,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21we used to look at pictures, reproductions together.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25In books, on postcards,
0:08:25 > 0:08:28and then we would chat about them.
0:08:28 > 0:08:33- Exactly.- Um, so here...
0:08:33 > 0:08:37This is a little collection of pictures
0:08:37 > 0:08:40that could come from our life.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42- Let's go on chatting.- Exactly.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47Good. You start.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Do you feel like that, sometimes, in the morning?
0:08:56 > 0:08:59- SHE LAUGHS - Um...
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Not really.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06Not really, but I...
0:09:06 > 0:09:10I would love to be able to plunge my hand
0:09:10 > 0:09:13in such luxurious hair.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17I wish I could, but no, I don't.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22But do you think that this could be
0:09:22 > 0:09:26the head that fits behind this?
0:09:28 > 0:09:30HE LAUGHS
0:09:32 > 0:09:36- Well, they're both paintings by Courbet...- Mm-hmm.
0:09:38 > 0:09:44And...the funny thing is that, looking at this one,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48which is called The Origin of the World...
0:09:49 > 0:09:53..you don't think about the woman's face.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56You don't think about the rest of her.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00At the same time, it's not...
0:10:00 > 0:10:02it's not sexually provocative.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08You're just in the face of...
0:10:08 > 0:10:11astounding...
0:10:11 > 0:10:14always surprising reality.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19In that sense, is it like a naturmort?
0:10:20 > 0:10:23Like a naturmort?
0:10:23 > 0:10:27No. It's the opposite of a naturmort.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31I mean, we could call it the naturvivant.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34Huh? SHE LAUGHS
0:10:39 > 0:10:42This is the first of four programmes
0:10:42 > 0:10:45in which I want to question some of
0:10:45 > 0:10:49the assumptions usually made about the tradition of European painting.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52Filming this was a moment of great tension for me,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55because if John was going to screw it up
0:10:55 > 0:10:57there was no way we could repeat it.
0:10:58 > 0:11:05Well, this is where a lot of my old films and all this stuff...
0:11:05 > 0:11:09Including some... Including, I think...
0:11:09 > 0:11:15the original film cans containing the cutting copy of Ways of Seeing.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27There it is. Ways of Seeing.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32Programmes one and two.
0:11:34 > 0:11:35And the old film.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49I think the first idea he had was to use an archetypal European painting
0:11:49 > 0:11:51as a point of departure
0:11:51 > 0:11:53and deconstruct the concept of national heritage -
0:11:53 > 0:11:57what did national heritage mean when we talked about national heritage
0:11:57 > 0:11:59when we really were talking about the private wealth
0:11:59 > 0:12:01of enormous landowners?
0:12:01 > 0:12:04The process of seeing paintings or seeing anything else is
0:12:04 > 0:12:09less spontaneous and natural than we tend to believe.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12A large part of seeing depends upon habit and convention.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18All the paintings of the tradition used the convention of perspective,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20which is unique to European art.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22I remember saying, "Well,
0:12:22 > 0:12:25"John shouldn't we just say 'maybe' or 'perhaps' or something?"
0:12:25 > 0:12:28He said, "No, no, no, no, you've just got to say it.
0:12:28 > 0:12:33"If you say it and somebody disagrees, then they're engaged."
0:12:33 > 0:12:37Now, perspective centres everything on the eye of the beholder,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40just like a beam from a lighthouse,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44only instead of light travelling outwards, appearances travel in,
0:12:44 > 0:12:49and our tradition of art called those appearances "reality".
0:12:49 > 0:12:52We tried a lot of experiments and, funnily enough,
0:12:52 > 0:12:56most of them didn't work terribly well, but one worked amazingly,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59when we had the Caravaggio.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01- I think it's a man. - I think it's a woman.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04I think it's a woman. There's no bristles even.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06Yes, but he hasn't got any bristles.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09- He's got a moustache. - He hasn't got any bristles.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11Well, all of the...no, not quite all,
0:13:11 > 0:13:16but most of the boys thought that he was a man and most of the girls,
0:13:16 > 0:13:18you thought that she was a woman.
0:13:18 > 0:13:20- I'm not sure.- You said she was perhaps both.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24'Because they were really looking and really relating what they saw to
0:13:24 > 0:13:26'their own experience,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29'they recognised something that most adults wouldn't.
0:13:29 > 0:13:31'Without knowing the artist's name,
0:13:31 > 0:13:33'let alone anything about Caravaggio's life
0:13:33 > 0:13:35'or the fact that he was a homosexual,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38'they immediately saw how sexually ambivalent
0:13:38 > 0:13:40'the principal figure was.'
0:13:40 > 0:13:44Caravaggio is, I think...
0:13:44 > 0:13:46he's my favourite painter.
0:13:46 > 0:13:51I mean, there are paintings by other painters
0:13:51 > 0:13:53which perhaps I prefer,
0:13:53 > 0:13:55but as a figure,
0:13:55 > 0:13:58as a life...
0:14:02 > 0:14:04..he is my...
0:14:04 > 0:14:09His life is my favourite life of a painter.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11Um... And why?
0:14:13 > 0:14:17Because he was consistently a rebel.
0:14:17 > 0:14:22You cannot predict the impact a series has, and not...
0:14:22 > 0:14:25I don't think it occurred to John and myself
0:14:25 > 0:14:27the effect the series was going to have,
0:14:27 > 0:14:30because it didn't certainly occur to the BBC
0:14:30 > 0:14:32that it might have any impact.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36To actually suggest at the end of a television film,
0:14:36 > 0:14:39"Be critical of what we're telling you,"
0:14:39 > 0:14:44that was also just something which was just so different.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48But remember that I am controlling and using for my own purposes
0:14:48 > 0:14:52the means of reproduction needed for these programmes.
0:14:52 > 0:14:57The images may be like words, but there is no dialogue yet.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59You cannot reply to me.
0:15:00 > 0:15:05I hope you will consider what I arrange, but be sceptical of it.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09From a very, very early age,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13really when I was a small kid at my first school...
0:15:15 > 0:15:18..um...
0:15:18 > 0:15:20I was...
0:15:25 > 0:15:29..sceptical about the world
0:15:29 > 0:15:32and what was happening around me.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38And...so...
0:15:38 > 0:15:43I became a conspirator against it.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50And then, now, I think, as soon as I'm really in contact with somebody,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53whether I know them very well and love them
0:15:53 > 0:15:55or whether it's a stranger,
0:15:55 > 0:15:59if there is that common feeling,
0:15:59 > 0:16:02I treat them as a fellow conspirator.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06As an accomplice? Complicity?
0:16:06 > 0:16:10An accomplice, and with a wink.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17I propose
0:16:17 > 0:16:20a conspiracy of orphans.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22We exchange winks.
0:16:24 > 0:16:29We reject hierarchies, all hierarchies.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35We take the shit of the world for granted...
0:16:35 > 0:16:40and we exchange stories about...
0:16:40 > 0:16:43ways in which we nevertheless get by.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49We are impertinent.
0:16:49 > 0:16:54Yes, we are impertinent.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59And I guess that I approach
0:16:59 > 0:17:05and chat up viewers and readers
0:17:05 > 0:17:08in the same way...
0:17:08 > 0:17:12as if you too were orphans.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Get what I mean?
0:17:17 > 0:17:21I said to him, you know, I knocked the ball to him and I said,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24"Well, how can we start? How shall we start?"
0:17:24 > 0:17:27And then he said to me, you know,
0:17:27 > 0:17:31with a bang, the ball came back, and he said...
0:17:31 > 0:17:34"Why don't you just send me a colour?"
0:17:34 > 0:17:37And I said, "OK, great," and it was...
0:17:37 > 0:17:40But then of course I put the phone down and thought,
0:17:40 > 0:17:43"What's he talking about? How am I going to do that?"
0:17:45 > 0:17:49Send him a colour, I mean, would I send him...
0:17:49 > 0:17:53some powder, I don't know, some coloured powder? What would I do?
0:18:08 > 0:18:15So, here we have the very first letter I sent.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19"Yesterday I went to a funeral - someone I didn't really know
0:18:19 > 0:18:22"very well - and during the service, before the cremation,
0:18:22 > 0:18:24"I was looking at the flowers..."
0:18:24 > 0:18:27But when I got home I was still thinking about these flowers
0:18:27 > 0:18:30and I thought... I posed myself a problem
0:18:30 > 0:18:35to try and find the red colour which I liked very much.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39I tried to identify it and I went to my watercolour box.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43"And so, for no better reason than the memory of those flowers,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45"I send you this cadmium red."
0:18:45 > 0:18:47And then very soon I got a letter back from him.
0:18:49 > 0:18:54BERGER: "Red is not usually an innocent colour...
0:18:54 > 0:18:57"but the red you sent me is."
0:18:58 > 0:19:00HE CHUCKLES
0:19:00 > 0:19:03"It's the red of childhood,
0:19:03 > 0:19:07"a pretend red...
0:19:07 > 0:19:14"or, if you like, the red of young eyelids shut tight."
0:19:15 > 0:19:18It's like the colour, when you're a kid,
0:19:18 > 0:19:22when you shut your eyes and look up at the sky, and it's that colour,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25that red colour with the blood in your eyelids.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28And I thought, "Gosh, that's amazing."
0:19:29 > 0:19:32And then of course we went on from that where we were making and making
0:19:32 > 0:19:35these different letters and replies.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39We didn't start off with a proper list or anything,
0:19:39 > 0:19:41I mean the list of colours, "These are the ones we're going to do,"
0:19:41 > 0:19:45they were very much colours that presented themselves to us.
0:19:46 > 0:19:52It was John's question to do with Genevieve being pregnant -
0:19:52 > 0:19:55"What colour would you see inside her?"
0:19:55 > 0:20:01And so the colour I worked out or thought about was mother of pearl.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07And so, look, there's the photo.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11Genevieve's...
0:20:11 > 0:20:12Where is she? Hold on.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16Genevieve's there, this one little figure in the blue dress,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19and John described this,
0:20:19 > 0:20:22the bay, all the things leading to this figure.
0:20:24 > 0:20:30BERGER: "The world is spread out for her.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32"The waters break.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36"The bay opens.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39"The sand is skin-coloured.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44"The houses wait, watching.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49"I'd name that bay
0:20:49 > 0:20:52"Uterus Bay...
0:20:52 > 0:20:57"so conscious does it make us aware
0:20:57 > 0:21:03"of everything that is within, inside, moving, moving,
0:21:03 > 0:21:07"inside that tiny figure of Genevieve."
0:21:11 > 0:21:16So they were all things that came from really thinking about, um...
0:21:16 > 0:21:20just thinking about the show, I mean, I hadn't even looked at for...
0:21:20 > 0:21:23But cos I was writing about it to John,
0:21:23 > 0:21:25trying to make something interesting,
0:21:25 > 0:21:30I then discovered that things that I hadn't seen at all.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34- Now, don't you think it's John's son?- Maybe.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42- Johnny?- No, it's you!
0:21:42 > 0:21:46- It's not.- It's you!
0:21:46 > 0:21:48No, no, no, it's not me.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52- No, no.- No?- No, no. Really, really, you're completely wrong.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54Look again. It's really not me.
0:21:54 > 0:21:55Serious.
0:22:16 > 0:22:23Of all the things we've done together, books anyway...
0:22:23 > 0:22:26I think I'm proudest of The Seventh Man.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32On one hand, it's a book that
0:22:32 > 0:22:36we were incredibly precise about,
0:22:36 > 0:22:38laying out every page,
0:22:38 > 0:22:42- considering every space, every juxtaposition of image...- Mm-hmm.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46..seeing exactly where a poem should occur.
0:22:46 > 0:22:52So we actually made something with this maximum of concentration,
0:22:52 > 0:22:56which, in a certain sense, can be called aesthetic.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00And, at the same time, the book, once it's out,
0:23:00 > 0:23:05actually goes to its target, that is to say
0:23:05 > 0:23:08not really principally to sociologists
0:23:08 > 0:23:11but to migrant workers themselves.
0:24:19 > 0:24:24What I appreciate in him is that he goes up and down,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28I would be tempted to say, like a woman sometimes,
0:24:28 > 0:24:34but it's wrong because it doesn't belong only to women
0:24:34 > 0:24:38to be so expressive, so warm.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40But he's just outspoken.
0:24:58 > 0:25:03There are pictures of John as a young man,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06like that one,
0:25:06 > 0:25:12where he's very strong and certain of himself and...
0:25:12 > 0:25:14well, very positive,
0:25:14 > 0:25:19but it's more or less the public face he wants to give away,
0:25:19 > 0:25:22while in the last ten years
0:25:22 > 0:25:28I begin to catch on his face all kinds of other feelings,
0:25:28 > 0:25:30a certain anxiety,
0:25:30 > 0:25:35also doubts about some of his beliefs.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40OK, so here is somebody else travelling,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43and I know that this painting counted a lot for you
0:25:43 > 0:25:45in your whole life...
0:25:45 > 0:25:48- Yes.- Are we approaching motorbikes here?
0:25:50 > 0:25:52Yes.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55Yes. Yes, yes.
0:25:55 > 0:25:57Here we're approaching motorbikes.
0:25:57 > 0:26:02Oh! Incredibly.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05And if course it's by Rembrandt,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08and it is called The Polish Rider.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11Who he was,
0:26:11 > 0:26:12where he was...
0:26:12 > 0:26:17I don't think Rembrandt called it Polish Rider, but...
0:26:17 > 0:26:20if I was a manufacturer of motorbikes,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23I would call one The Polish Rider.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27- Yeah!- Bang! - Use that publicity.
0:26:27 > 0:26:29THEY LAUGH
0:27:24 > 0:27:28If you're going to survive riding a bike,
0:27:28 > 0:27:34you have to be totally concentrated on the here and now,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38about everything observed of the here and now.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40You don't think about the past, you don't think about the future,
0:27:40 > 0:27:43you don't have memories, you don't have expectations,
0:27:43 > 0:27:48except the immediate ones which are to be negotiated.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52And this concentration on the here and now
0:27:52 > 0:27:54is curiously calming.
0:27:57 > 0:28:02Because...well, you are alive, you're moving...
0:28:03 > 0:28:09..and you notice what you're moving through and that's all that exists.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00When my father moved out of London, out of England,
0:29:00 > 0:29:05the few things I know just from what I heard of him,
0:29:05 > 0:29:09first that he never felt at home in England, and also, politically,
0:29:09 > 0:29:15the story of England and the years of Thatcher
0:29:15 > 0:29:19and all the conservatism going on there...
0:29:19 > 0:29:22Well, he couldn't...he simply...
0:29:22 > 0:29:25It was a war, a rather grey, sad war,
0:29:25 > 0:29:28and I think at that time, for him,
0:29:28 > 0:29:33France, in general, with its history and its politics
0:29:33 > 0:29:37- at least at that time - was quite the opposite.
0:30:07 > 0:30:12I think he says that he never felt really at home anywhere,
0:30:12 > 0:30:16but probably here more than anywhere else,
0:30:16 > 0:30:20because of his relations with the people here
0:30:20 > 0:30:23which was mostly based upon their work.
0:31:12 > 0:31:16When he had this project of writing this trilogy about
0:31:16 > 0:31:22the peasant community and this disappearing way of living,
0:31:22 > 0:31:27he started to basically offer help to those people and...
0:31:29 > 0:31:33..learn from them throughout this help
0:31:33 > 0:31:39he was trying to provide in his unexperimented way,
0:31:39 > 0:31:43because those people are so rooted with the land,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47the place, the time, the season, everything.
0:31:47 > 0:31:49I think that maybe made him...
0:31:53 > 0:31:57It allowed him to have some roots here.
0:32:10 > 0:32:14THEY MIME THE WHOOSHING OF SCYTHES
0:32:23 > 0:32:28I was looking at that time for a piece that I was going to make,
0:32:28 > 0:32:30and a friend of mine said,
0:32:30 > 0:32:34"Oh, but you'll remember what John wrote in Pig Earth.
0:32:34 > 0:32:36"Do you remember The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol?"
0:32:37 > 0:32:40And I wrote to John and said, you know,
0:32:40 > 0:32:43"Would you consider letting me make this for the stage?"
0:32:45 > 0:32:48And John being John said, "Well, of course.
0:32:48 > 0:32:50"The only payment I would require
0:32:50 > 0:32:55"is if I could come and watch you work at some point."
0:32:55 > 0:32:58So then I went up to visit him for the first time in the mountains
0:32:58 > 0:33:01with my designer...
0:33:04 > 0:33:07..and we walked with John through the mountains,
0:33:07 > 0:33:11and he'd showed us the very places which had been inspirational
0:33:11 > 0:33:15to him in making Lucie Cabrol,
0:33:15 > 0:33:20and that really started what became a very deep friendship.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24And so, as a consequence, we've done many, many...
0:33:24 > 0:33:27created many pieces together.
0:33:27 > 0:33:29You know, the story of Lucie Cabrol,
0:33:29 > 0:33:34there was really a woman, and most of the characters in the story are
0:33:34 > 0:33:37people I came to know very closely.
0:33:37 > 0:33:43And now, to see those lives transported here
0:33:43 > 0:33:48and actually speaking to thousands of people who are so,
0:33:48 > 0:33:55so far away from the life of peasants in mountain villages
0:33:55 > 0:33:59is still something which is very, very mysterious to me.
0:34:12 > 0:34:19Lucie Cabrol, who is known as the cocadrille, is dead.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22SHE WAILS
0:34:24 > 0:34:26In the writing of Into Their Labours,
0:34:26 > 0:34:32he holds sort of the generations of all these people who don't...
0:34:32 > 0:34:35who are nameless and who had no voice,
0:34:35 > 0:34:38who don't exist, really, for us - they've disappeared -
0:34:38 > 0:34:40and he brings them to life.
0:34:43 > 0:34:45It's a girl!
0:34:45 > 0:34:49Generations of labour,
0:34:49 > 0:34:55a particularly precarious form of
0:34:55 > 0:34:59very, very brutal agriculture.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10I might say, "Well, what if we do this?"
0:35:10 > 0:35:11and we change it and develop it,
0:35:11 > 0:35:13or I might add something
0:35:13 > 0:35:15or I'd found something or we missed something and
0:35:15 > 0:35:17I would invent something else.
0:35:17 > 0:35:20Whatever I suggested,
0:35:20 > 0:35:23he would not only consider it or be open to it,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26he would be immediately interested.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29My father...
0:35:29 > 0:35:32mother, brothers, sisters,
0:35:32 > 0:35:36cows, horses, rabbits, chickens, goats,
0:35:36 > 0:35:38all have gone.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44And Lucie Cabrol...
0:35:45 > 0:35:48- Is dead. - ..is dead.
0:35:49 > 0:35:51I say that...
0:35:51 > 0:35:54..but I do not altogether believe it...
0:35:54 > 0:35:56And I don't altogether believe it.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59Sometimes it seems to me...
0:35:59 > 0:36:02..that I am nearing the edge of the forest.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05I will never again be 16,
0:36:05 > 0:36:07and if I am to leave the forest,
0:36:07 > 0:36:09it will be on the far side.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11..it will be on the far side.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14Do I feel this because I am old and tired?
0:36:15 > 0:36:17I doubt it.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20But there are moments when I see something different...
0:36:21 > 0:36:25Moments when a blue sky...
0:36:27 > 0:36:31..reminds me of Lucie Cabrol.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43For myself, he was my father, not John Berger the writer.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47I didn't really notice almost...
0:36:49 > 0:36:54..what my father was doing, or I didn't pay any attention anyway,
0:36:54 > 0:37:01and I didn't read what he wrote until very, very late.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07To think of the people here and the peasants...
0:37:07 > 0:37:10the fact that my father was a writer,
0:37:10 > 0:37:13and even if he was writing...
0:37:13 > 0:37:17about them, they knew that...
0:37:17 > 0:37:23but, to consider that as a real work,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26that's a bit too much for them.
0:37:33 > 0:37:39A week ago, I cleared out and buried the year's shit.
0:37:40 > 0:37:46The shit of my family and of our friends who visit us.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49Has to be done once a year.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52Cow and horse dung
0:37:52 > 0:37:54are relatively agreeable.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58You could even become nostalgic about them,
0:37:58 > 0:38:03even though they smell of fermented grain...
0:38:03 > 0:38:09and somewhere on the far side of their smell there's hay and grass.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16Chicken shit is disagreeable and rasps the throat
0:38:16 > 0:38:20because of the quality of ammonia in it.
0:38:23 > 0:38:28Pig and human excrement, however, smell the worst,
0:38:28 > 0:38:33because men and pigs are carnivorous
0:38:33 > 0:38:36and their appetites are indiscriminate.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43Whilst shovelling, images of paradise come into my mind.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51But from where I dug the hole,
0:38:51 > 0:38:54a lilac tree is coming into flower.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58I can smell the lilac through the shit.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03It smells of mint
0:39:03 > 0:39:07mixed with a lot of honey...
0:39:07 > 0:39:14and this perfume takes me back to my very early childhood...
0:39:14 > 0:39:18to the first garden I ever knew,
0:39:18 > 0:39:22from long before I learnt
0:39:22 > 0:39:26lilac or shit had a name.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48My mother, Beverley, was...
0:39:48 > 0:39:51played a great role in...
0:39:53 > 0:39:56..in my father's work,
0:39:56 > 0:40:00simply because she did everything else from writing.
0:40:00 > 0:40:06She took care of everything which was needed to be done...
0:40:06 > 0:40:11for my father to be able just to concentrate on writing.
0:40:16 > 0:40:21So that goes from typing what he wrote,
0:40:21 > 0:40:23because he writes by hand,
0:40:23 > 0:40:25sending it out,
0:40:25 > 0:40:30doing all the relation with the publishers and newspapers,
0:40:30 > 0:40:34creating the archive gradually,
0:40:34 > 0:40:37doing his accounting, his taxes.
0:40:40 > 0:40:45And she did that out of...
0:40:45 > 0:40:50not only out of love for him, of course...
0:40:50 > 0:40:54but I think because both shared the same belief -
0:40:54 > 0:40:58the belief that doing that was worth it,
0:40:58 > 0:41:03that it brought something which was needed into the world.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10She was the first one with whom he shared what he wrote,
0:41:10 > 0:41:15and always when he was writing he was waiting for her response.
0:41:17 > 0:41:21So they had this very strong complicity.
0:41:21 > 0:41:24My father wrote his dedication to her...
0:41:24 > 0:41:28"To Beverley, mistress of each page."
0:41:29 > 0:41:33And he showed it to her when she was in the bed,
0:41:33 > 0:41:38the bed where she died, just next-door,
0:41:38 > 0:41:42and that made her very happy to see that dedication.
0:41:44 > 0:41:49Since Beverley is gone, my father now mostly lives in Paris,
0:41:49 > 0:41:53but we're in very close contact and
0:41:53 > 0:41:57there's many ways by which we share
0:41:57 > 0:41:59what we're doing.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20There, this is a present for you.
0:42:21 > 0:42:23I will show it.
0:42:25 > 0:42:27Oh!
0:42:31 > 0:42:33Wow.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39Gosh. This is beautiful.
0:42:52 > 0:42:54I think he's going upstream a river.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57Yes, indeed. LAUGHTER
0:42:57 > 0:42:59Exactly, exactly.
0:43:57 > 0:43:59OK?
0:44:02 > 0:44:06It was hot, perhaps 28 degrees centigrade,
0:44:06 > 0:44:09and it was the end of the month of May.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15An old woman with an umbrella was sitting very still
0:44:15 > 0:44:17on one of the park benches.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23She had the kind of stillness that draws attention to itself.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28To whom was it addressed?
0:44:28 > 0:44:32Abruptly, abruptly, as I was asking myself this question,
0:44:32 > 0:44:34she got to her feet and turned and,
0:44:34 > 0:44:37using her umbrella like a walking stick,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40came towards me,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45and I recognised her walk long before I could see her face -
0:44:45 > 0:44:49the walk of somebody already looking forward
0:44:49 > 0:44:51to arriving and sitting down.
0:44:52 > 0:44:54It was my mother.
0:44:56 > 0:45:01"All my books have been about you," I suddenly say.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06"Books are also about language, and language, for me,
0:45:06 > 0:45:09"is inseparable from your voice, Mother."
0:45:09 > 0:45:11"Nonsense.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14"Maybe you wrote them so I should be there, keeping you company,
0:45:14 > 0:45:16"and I was.
0:45:16 > 0:45:20"Yet they were about everything in the world but me.
0:45:20 > 0:45:25"I've had to wait until now, until you're an old man in Lisboa,
0:45:25 > 0:45:30"for you to be writing this very short story about me."
0:46:30 > 0:46:32In The Economy of Death,
0:46:32 > 0:46:39you said that the living are at the core of the dead.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42They surround us and they depend on us,
0:46:42 > 0:46:49like the passage that you read where you meet your mother in Lisbon.
0:46:49 > 0:46:51Hmmmmm...
0:46:51 > 0:46:53No, I mean, I follow what you mean.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57Maybe I suggest that, but it's not really quite what I mean,
0:46:57 > 0:47:02it's rather more the other way round.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04I mean, it is that...
0:47:04 > 0:47:07We need the dead...
0:47:08 > 0:47:10Um...
0:47:10 > 0:47:15to... um...
0:47:17 > 0:47:21To recognise ourselves in any way,
0:47:21 > 0:47:24the dead are essential to us.
0:47:24 > 0:47:27And...
0:47:29 > 0:47:34..that recognition begins with their company in mortality.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39Not immortality, mortality.
0:47:40 > 0:47:45Paul. It's a very curious painting.
0:47:45 > 0:47:47- Isn't it?- Very, very curious.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51Do you have anything to tell me about this man?
0:47:52 > 0:47:56I think the window is his life...
0:47:58 > 0:48:02..and he's trapped in it,
0:48:02 > 0:48:06maybe wondering what's outside...
0:48:09 > 0:48:11..and when he shuts his eyes...
0:48:13 > 0:48:16..the window...
0:48:16 > 0:48:18will vanish.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40What does he tell you? About himself?
0:48:40 > 0:48:43What does he tell me?
0:48:43 > 0:48:47- Yeah.- For some reason he tells me that, and I'll tell you why.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51Because he actually looks like you and always made me think of you.
0:48:53 > 0:48:55And there's something there, too.
0:48:55 > 0:48:59Well, I mean, that's too flattering...
0:48:59 > 0:49:02- ..but his scepticism...- Mm-hmm.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05..which is never cynical,
0:49:05 > 0:49:07is...
0:49:07 > 0:49:10very close to me.
0:49:11 > 0:49:15And you know, this is not to claim anything for myself,
0:49:15 > 0:49:21but, I mean, that is really the image of the storyteller.
0:49:21 > 0:49:22- Mm-hmm.- Huh?
0:49:22 > 0:49:25Not the novelist,
0:49:25 > 0:49:29not the fashionable literary creator,
0:49:29 > 0:49:33but the guy, often nomadic,
0:49:33 > 0:49:37who goes from place to place
0:49:37 > 0:49:43and tells stories that he has lived or that he's making up.
0:49:43 > 0:49:47And that idea of a traveller...
0:49:47 > 0:49:49that idea of...
0:49:52 > 0:49:59..somebody who is completely free from institutions...
0:49:59 > 0:50:02is something also which
0:50:02 > 0:50:05is contained for me in this term, storyteller.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09And which in all modesty...
0:50:09 > 0:50:11I try to be myself.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22I do mostly painting and my father mainly draws,
0:50:22 > 0:50:26but the reason for that, for him,
0:50:26 > 0:50:32he did paint when he was much younger and he went to art school,
0:50:32 > 0:50:35then he wanted to become a painter
0:50:35 > 0:50:38and he started to work as a painter,
0:50:38 > 0:50:42but, from what he says, at some point he felt the urge
0:50:42 > 0:50:45to write more important,
0:50:45 > 0:50:51more politically, historically important at that point.
0:50:58 > 0:50:59Hmmm.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04But he kept on drawing.
0:51:04 > 0:51:06It's a way of listening,
0:51:06 > 0:51:10it's a way of understanding,
0:51:10 > 0:51:12discovering the visible.
0:51:15 > 0:51:20And I think that's why, in the last years, my father has
0:51:20 > 0:51:23done a lot of drawings of
0:51:23 > 0:51:28very simple things such as flowers or...
0:51:28 > 0:51:32mainly subjects coming from nature.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36"Dearest Yves,
0:51:36 > 0:51:41"In answer to your last letter, I send two postcards.
0:51:43 > 0:51:45"One is a photo
0:51:45 > 0:51:49"of a terracotta by Della Robbia...
0:51:51 > 0:51:54"..and the second is a sketch,
0:51:54 > 0:51:59"primarily what I call a text, of a white rose from the garden.
0:52:02 > 0:52:07"I noticed that it had a certain curious echo
0:52:07 > 0:52:10"with the photo of the Madonna...
0:52:11 > 0:52:14"..something a little similar in mood and rhythm, no?
0:52:14 > 0:52:16"You see?
0:52:16 > 0:52:21"Neighbours on the same table, that's all.
0:52:23 > 0:52:29"And the rose doesn't offer consolation but resists -
0:52:29 > 0:52:33"resists by itself the cruelty of life."
0:53:08 > 0:53:12During the last week, I've been drawing.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14Mostly flowers.
0:53:19 > 0:53:24I've been asking myself whether natural forms
0:53:24 > 0:53:30- a tree, a cloud, a river, a stone, a flower -
0:53:30 > 0:53:35can be looked at and perceived as messages.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37Messages, it goes without saying,
0:53:37 > 0:53:40which can never be verbalised
0:53:40 > 0:53:44and are not particularly addressed to us.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49'Is it possible to read
0:53:49 > 0:53:55'natural appearances as texts?' Hmm.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05Well, that'll be a bit of fun amongst all the pretension.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08LAUGHTER
0:54:08 > 0:54:10Why don't you have some wine?
0:54:10 > 0:54:14- Yes.- We have.- Or some whisky. LAUGHTER
0:54:14 > 0:54:18JOHN MAKES A TOAST AND THEY CLINK GLASSES
0:54:18 > 0:54:20Wonderful. LAUGHTER
0:54:20 > 0:54:22That's incredible.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26- It is wonderful. - JOHN LAUGHS UNCONTROLLABLY