Кристин Анго: Incest

Desire

It is connected to mnemic traces , to memories, it is realized through the unconscious and hallucinatory reproduction of perceptions that have become ‘signs’ of satisfaction. The demand is addressed to another, it is apparently directed at an object, this object is not essential because the demand is a demand for love. Desire is directed toward a fantasy, towards an imagined other, it is the desire to be the object of another’s desire and desire for absolute recognition by another at the cost of a fight to the death , which Lacan identifies with the dialectic of the master and the slave.

Schizophrenia

A type of mental illness with symptoms that include incoherence of thought, emotion, and action thinking, withdrawal and delirious activity . A pure state of insanity characterized by the subject’s internal entrenchment. The patient, male or female, falls into such a state of delirium that he or she seems to lose his sense of reality .

Night and day, eyes staring , eyelids never raised or lowered. Attempts are made to speak with the afflicted, he or she does not hear. A shard torn from the tomb, a kind of victory of life over death or death over life. But abruptly able to stop trembling and slowly say “the angels are all white.” (According to the clinical case of Louis Lambert.)

Loss of vital contact with reality and intent on not being himself .

There is “schizophrenic art,” wild, like art made by children and primitive peoples.

Foucault refuses to make any diagnosis but finds in the madness of Artaud, Nietzsche, Van Gogh, and Hölderlin the final instance of the work of art: “Where there is a work of art, there is no madness; and yet madness is contemporary with the work of art, since it inaugurates its time of truth.”

Applications

I see myself primarily in the two statements: Paranoid individuals love their delusion as they love themselves. And: It is a matter of being able to sustain a certain level of suffering. And in others on contempt and delusions of persecution that lead to destruction.

I recall having said, in reference to Seen from Above , that rape was good, “of course rape is good, otherwise we couldn’t bear it.” There was no doubt in my mind, at the time it seemed to me to be inarguable. I was quite simply: paranoid.

Nadine is intolerable and I’m not the only one to say so. “It’s a pathological defense mechanism , people become paranoid because they cannot bear certain things .” When we’re at table and she goes on and on about her problems with film shoots, Catherine Decourt here, Dupont there, Durand, Emmanuelle Vigner, who gave her an insanely expensive watch for Christmas last year. She was in the film, Mari et Femme , with André Dujardin, which I went to see in Sète and she’s presiding over the dinner after the screening, Marie-Christine sitting next to her, the crown princess, they burst into laughter at each other’s refined jokes. The entire table follows suit. Like the king, when the king laughs, the entire court joins in. When the jester makes the king laugh, the entire court doubles over. Marie-Christine, I’m neither sitting next to her nor across from her, but catty-corner along the table. Other friends are there. From Montpellier, doctors, professors, whom Nadine knows, lay it on as soon as she’s near, they ask Marie-Christine, “How’s Nadine? Is her film going well? And Decourt? How are things with Decourt? Of course we’d like to have dinner with Nadine.” Or, “I love Dupont.” And, “Nadine is a very warm person, and very generous.” They ask questions about Decourt, offer their opinions, list the films of hers they liked, inquire if, in fact, there is a ‘Decourt effect.’ Nadine calls her “Catou” to tease her gently. She recounts impossible moments on the set. Delays of unbelievable rudeness (but all in lavish juicy detail), and what she did to show Decourt, to teach her some respect, which they owe the technicians and the production team, NC. To embarrass her, to make it clear to her that everyone was waiting. I’m remembering Dominique Quentin in Edward II , her scream in the middle of the movie, I’m on another planet, this scream exists, no one is thinking about it. The conversations are all about plays that will be opening, about restaurants they’ve tried or want to try, about the third Michelin star given to the So-and-so brothers, the Pourcels and their Jardins des Sens, and about film ticket sales.

Paranoia is based on delusions of reference, Quentin or Eustache, I alternate. Persecution, jealousy, grandeur, of course. People become paranoid because they cannot bear certain things. That’s the way it is. Marie-Christine tells me, “I saw Nathalie Bayard, I had dinner with Nathalie Bayard, we went with Nadine to the beach where Nathalie Bayard always goes, if you saw how Nathalie Bayard is with her dog, everything revolves around the dog, she chooses the beach for him, she loves him.” This because she knows I don’t like the way she is with Baya, her dog, but if I saw how Nathalie Bayard is, I wouldn’t make any more comments. I saw Chambord , I’m not just speaking nonsense. Besides, Freud compared paranoia to a philosophical system because it’s so rigorous, because its expression is so logical, and because thought, intention, and action are so clear and ordered. Obviously “people become paranoid because they cannot bear certain things,” that is my case. Except for one scene, the film is so academic, it pretends to be sensitive. And even a little revolutionary, for example with the way it goes after the image of the star. “Look, I’m filming Decourt’s thighs, I’m bold enough to do it, she’s sixty years old and I dare film her thighs.” There was a scene in which Decourt was panic-stricken, I don’t remember what was happening to her (because on top of it all the screenplay is completely muddled), Decourt was supposed to get up and leave right away. But you know what she did right at that moment? Nadine was telling us (this wasn’t the first time I’d heard this anecdote), she said, Catou said, “and my bag?” Can you imagine, Nadine goes on, the bourgeois reflex that is deeply grounded, very deeply grounded inside her, she’s thinking about her bag. So I told her, “but Catherine, you don’t care about your bag at the moment, you really couldn’t care less, Catherine, you leave your bag, naturally, you don’t even think of it.” And everyone at the table agrees. Naturally, she doesn’t care about her bag at the moment. They all agree. Maybe there’s a picture of her son or godson in it, what do they know, all of them?

(I’m annoyed that I changed the names. It makes the book less good. But better that than paying damages.)

The object is not essential, what counts is the demand for love. I was asking her to spend Christmas with me. For a while, I thought I could master it. I said to myself “she’ll come back to Montpellier on the 25th, we’ll celebrate Christmas on the 25th.” I don’t like to celebrate Christmas on the 25th, I don’t like eating a big lunch. I can’t do celebrations at noon. A poor man’s Christmas, playing catch-up, the real celebration having been on Christmas Eve, I couldn’t, the foie gras from the evening before would still be weighing on her stomach, and the champagne, a magnum of Ruinart, in Paris, the real feast with twenty friends, and the godchildren, the godchildren, the godchildren, especially the godchildren, “me, I don’t have any children, of course, I was touched when Nadine asked me two times to be godmother to her children,” the children she feels closest to, whereas Léonore… if writing were visual I’d make the gesture of a finger tapping on a cheek swollen with air, which means ‘that’s rich,’ but she doesn’t give a shit. Léonore isn’t a part of her family and never will be, she doesn’t give a shit. Léonore’s just a little girl who is nothing to her, as they say. She gets a day-after Christmas, after the most urgent needs have been satisfied, the cousin, honor where honor is due, and the godchildren, the crown princes who will inherit her legacy as first cousins, closest kin, whereas Léonore is nothing to her and never will be anything to her. Never. Less even than her dog. The cleaning woman, the cook, the little poor child. She has never taken Léonore for a walk alone, even though she takes her dog out everyday. Alone with Léonore, she doesn’t want any part of it, not to the movies, not for a walk when I’m not there, not even going to pick her up from school, not once. For Christmas, it’s a Barbie doll put under the tree “from Marie-Christine” who’s celebrating in Paris after having trawled through the boutiques on the Boulevard Saint-Germain with her cousin who gets a forty percent discount at Prada and Jil Sander, while Dominique Quentin has to pay full price, as do I. It’s disgusting, clothing designers don’t care, just like everybody else.