Sartre in Hollywood

March 1, 2010 12:48 AM

M. Sartre goes to Hollywood. In 1958, John Huston asked Jean-Paul Sartre to write a biopic of Sigmund Freud. "The Huston-Sartre collaboration fell apart in 1959, when Sartre travelled to Huston's home in Ireland to work on the script. The two didn't work well together. 'There was no such thing as a conversation with him,' Huston later recalled. 'He talked incessantly, and there was no interrupting him. You'd wait for him to catch his breath, but he wouldn't.' Meanwhile Sartre, in his letters to Simone de Beauvoir, described Huston as 'perfectly vacant, literally incapable of speaking to those whom he has invited.'" [via Bookslut]

Huston released Freud: The Secret Passion in 1962; Sartre did not want his name on the credits. Sartre's version was later published (and translated) as The Freud Scenario.

posted by Paragon (27 comments total)

Great post.
posted by smoke at 1:21 AM on March 1, 2010

Ha, that's cross-cultural studies 101. The following is a generalization, in that it is a broad brush stroke, but it is based on years of cultural studies (books have been written on this sort of thing) and generally holds true, meaning there are always exceptions. I added my own bit of interpretive humor, which is biased towards a Northwestern American experience, since that's where I'm originally from:

- French conversational etiquette: everyone talks over everyone, if you want to be heard, you talk louder. If you want to make a point in a meeting, you interrupt. If you don't have the courage to interrupt, then what you have to say must not be that important. If you don't want to be interrupted while making an important point, then you can start by saying "let me finish", or at worst, bombastically declare that what others have to say can wait for you to make your point so that they can respond with all the facts. Once your main point has been made, you once again let others interrupt you. Conversations are organic. If you watch interviews on French television, especially when they do them with more than two people, you'll notice that there's practically never a pause, and almost always "interruptions", which are actually considered the sign of being truly interested in a conversation.

- "Anglo-Saxon" (so I don't have to list all the countries) conversational etiquette: Point. Counterpoint. Declaration. Polite pause to show consideration. Statement of opinion. Polite pause while nodding to show you've listened. Question? Answer. Look of silent shock as someone steps on the last syllable of the answer to excitedly make their own response. Person who stepped in too quickly makes downcast, apologetic eyes. Everyone relaxes. Remark on the weather. Sip of tea. Remark on how nice the tea is.
posted by fraula at 2:13 AM on March 1, 2010 [40 favorites]

Huston: Look at me when you're talking! Oh. You were?
posted by hal9k at 3:38 AM on March 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'd love to see this film. Montgomery Clift as Sigmund Freud? Ye wows.
posted by Wolof at 4:36 AM on March 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

fraula: you just described the first year of my conversations with my Australian wife's family (I'm Spanish, but I think your description of French conversational etiquette applies to the one I grew up with).

They also declare topics "over" and pass on to the next one once everyone has had their say -- once. You can't double-dip in a topic, no sir. It's to the next one as if by clockwork.
posted by kandinski at 4:57 AM on March 1, 2010 [6 favorites]

In 1958, John Huston asked Jean-Paul Sartre to write a biopic of Sigmund Freud.

Jean-Paul, I have this great idea for an action thriller.
posted by three blind mice at 5:03 AM on March 1, 2010

He talked incessantly, and there was no interrupting him.

This is a great post. There are undoubtedly culture norms at work here, but Sartre also took quite a bit of speed, at least when he was writing. I wonder if that had anything to do with it.
posted by OmieWise at 5:15 AM on March 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Also, this puts me in mind Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion Visit Jean Paul Sartre. It has the same whiff of absurdity.
posted by OmieWise at 5:19 AM on March 1, 2010

I've seen Freud: The Secret Passion though not all that recently. What I remember most about it is Montgomery Clift playing Freud with what I imagine he thought of as a Jewish accent. When Freud spoke English in real life his accent was much more Germanic.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:34 AM on March 1, 2010

French conversational etiquette: everyone talks over everyone, if you want to be heard, you talk louder. If you want to make a point in a meeting, you interrupt. If you don't have the courage to interrupt, then what you have to say must not be that important.


A HA HA HA. To understand why this is so hilarious, you have to know I have two close friends, one from France, one from England, who both think the other is unspeakably rude in conversation because one "Just talks over everyone" and the other "Just sits there not talking or interacting in any way."
posted by The Whelk at 6:03 AM on March 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

There are undoubtedly culture norms at work here, but Sartre also took quite a bit of speed...

Less of the former, more of the latter (Corydrane, specifically).
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 6:04 AM on March 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

To follow up on OmieWise and Bathtub Bobsled:

"To put it briefly," [Sartre] told Simone de Beauvoir some time later, "in philosophy, writing consisted of analysing my ideas; and a tube of [amphetamine and aspirin] meant 'these ideas will be analysed in the next two days.' " Or, as the Ramones used to put it, Gabba Gabba Hey.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:44 AM on March 1, 2010

What this puts me in mind of are the Edward Gorey/Monty Python collaborations.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:45 AM on March 1, 2010

I worked on [Critique de la raison dialectique] ten hours a day, taking corydrane—in the end I was taking twenty pills a day—and I really felt that this book had to be finished. The amphetamines gave me a quickness of thought and writing that was at least three times my normal rhythm, and I wanted to go fast.

Rappelez, enfants... Simplement Dites Non.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:49 AM on March 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Am I the only one that imagines that, more than just a cross-cultural misunderstanding, they were most likely both a couple of insufferable pricks?
posted by Pollomacho at 7:07 AM on March 1, 2010 [5 favorites]

"I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. "
posted by octothorpe at 7:37 AM on March 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is Sartre seriously read anymore? It's not a snarky question, just wondering. I have a vague sense that he's sort of out of fashion.

The article reminded me of another Houston collaboration with another writer, Ray Bradbury, on Moby Dick. Apparently Bradbury loved Houstons joie de vivre but found working with him on the abusive side.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:15 AM on March 1, 2010

Yeah, Sartre is still seriously read.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:25 AM on March 1, 2010

Bradbury used his experience with Huston as the basis for his short story, "Banshee", which was later adapted for Ray Bradbury Theater- Peter O'Toole played the John Huston part!
posted by TSOL at 9:36 AM on March 1, 2010

He had the sun in his eyes.
posted by broken wheelchair at 9:39 AM on March 1, 2010

Is No Exit still performed? Yes, I think Monsieur Sartre is still read. He would be amused at the question.

Apparently Bradbury loved Houstons joie de vivre but found working with him on the abusive side.

Many actors who worked with Huston found the same thing.
posted by blucevalo at 9:48 AM on March 1, 2010

Is Sartre seriously read anymore? It's not a snarky question, just wondering. I have a vague sense that he's sort of out of fashion.

Yes, certainly. I don't know about other disciplines, but I've read his literary criticism in my English classes.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:57 AM on March 1, 2010

I saw a one-woman show quite a few years ago by Susan Tyrell, who was in Huston's incredibly bleak adaptation of Fat City. The play was set in the anteroom to hell, where Tyrell was waiting with her poode after committing suicide ("Yes, I took him too.") What followed was a song-and-dance-number inspired, in large part, by Tyrell's experiences with Huston, which she seemed still to be traumetized by.

She was also nominated for an Oscar for her role in the film, so there's that.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:08 AM on March 1, 2010

Ha, that's cross-cultural studies 101. The following is a generalization, in that it is a broad brush stroke, but it is based on years of cultural studies (books have been written on this sort of thing) and generally holds true, meaning there are always exceptions. I added my own bit of interpretive humor, which is biased towards a Northwestern American experience, since that's where I'm originally from:

- French conversational etiquette: everyone talks over everyone, if you want to be heard, you talk louder. If you want to make a point in a meeting, you interrupt. If you don't have the courage to interrupt, then what you have to say must not be that important. If you don't want to be interrupted while making an important point, then you can start by saying "let me finish", or at worst, bombastically declare that what others have to say can wait for you to make your point so that they can respond with all the facts. Once your main point has been made, you once again let others interrupt you. Conversations are organic. If you watch interviews on French television, especially when they do them with more than two people, you'll notice that there's practically never a pause, and almost always "interruptions", which are actually considered the sign of being truly interested in a conversation.

- "Anglo-Saxon" (so I don't have to list all the countries) conversational etiquette: Point. Counterpoint. Declaration. Polite pause to show consideration. Statement of opinion. Polite pause while nodding to show you've listened. Question? Answer. Look of silent shock as someone steps on the last syllable of the answer to excitedly make their own response. Person who stepped in too quickly makes downcast, apologetic eyes. Everyone relaxes. Remark on the weather. Sip of tea. Remark on how nice the tea is.
posted by fraula at 2:13 AM on March 1 [26 favorites +] [!]



If it wasn't a post and I had actually listened to you uttering those words, you wouldn't have made it past "louder" in your description of our conversational manners. Of course, it would have helped you to make your point across. But you must also admit that where you were going was obvious from this point on and that the rest of your speech was somehow superfluous. This is really nicely put, but that's hitting the nail's head way harder than we would have done.
posted by nicolin at 12:07 PM on March 1, 2010

I think the real clash here is between a writer of philosophy and a hollywood director.

You've got the one who is used to sitting in a room by himself, on copious amounts of amphetamine, thinking and writing at a breakneck pace with no one to interrupt his own thoughts but himself and where HIS mind wants to go.

And you've got the other, a Hollywood film director who is used to everyone on the set listening to him and only him, jumping when he says so and calling it a day when he says so. And by all accounts I've read, Houston was a particular kind of control freak, even amongst directors.

Is it any wonder the two of them didn't get along when locked in an Irish cottage?
posted by kaiseki at 12:58 PM on March 1, 2010

For all of his criticisms of the Freudian notion of the unconscious, Sartre distinguishes himself in The Freud Scenario for offering a fairly sophisticated (and yet accessible, I thought) account of the unconscious and of the deferred action of traumatic experiences. When I saw Freud: The Secret Passion, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the filmic rendering of the underlying concepts of psychoanalysis had largely been preserved by Houston.

It's hard to understand where philosophy coming out of France (if not Europe) has arrived in the past fifty years (and possibly why it has painted itself into a corner) without a grasp, at the very least, of Sartre's notion of the gaze (not 'the look'), from which issued not simply responses, but rather some headlong changes in course. For that reason alone, he still merits serious reading. And for other reasons as well, such as the following: a prophetic critique of personal identity without reliance on a suspect idea of a homunculus or ego at the center of intentional behavior; a concept of freedom irreducible to either determinism or indeterminism (yes), and rid of any bias towards voluntarism; a model of self-awareness (not entirely his own) that avoids presupposing that to be self-aware means to reflect on oneself, qua one's internal states or qualities.
posted by rudster at 2:49 PM on March 1, 2010

Is Sartre seriously read anymore? It's not a snarky question, just wondering. I have a vague sense that he's sort of out of fashion.

I can't speak to his popularity in (so-called) Continental philosophy circles, but the hazy sense that analytic philosophers have about things "over there" is that Sartre's star was overtaken by Derrida et al. That factoid is probably something you could get from Wikipedia, though.

As for the analytic philosophy scene, Sartre is probably being taken more seriously than he used to be (he used to mostly be caricatured). For a couple of recent serious engagements with Sartre, though not exclusively with him, check out Dan Zahavi's book Subjectivity and Selfhood and Richard Moran's influential Authority and Estrangement. The first is philosophy of mind, and the second is probably best characterized as moral psychology. Both contain rigorous discussions of the model of self-awareness that rudster mentions above.
posted by Beardman at 5:22 PM on March 1, 2010