[from “Portrait of Michel Simon by Jean Renoir or
Portrait of Jean Renoir by Michel Simon or The direction of actors: dialogue”
(1966) directed by Jaques Rivette]
MICHEL SIMON: It was 3:00 a.m., and you and I had
been drinking heavily. Since you had an avid listener, you launched into a long
lecture. I sat there rapt, drinking in your every word. You paced back and
forth and addressed me as if I were an entire audience. You couldn’t have been
more enthusiastic before a crowd of 600! You said, “It’s wrong to think that
science and scientists are something new. Though the Romans are mostly known
for their military leaders and philosophers, their thinkers, poets, painters,
sculptors, and so on, they also had men of science. For example: One scientist
was studying human suffering. He carried out his experiments on animals, but he
wasn’t satisfied, because an animal can only bark or whine. So he thought he’d
experiment on slaves, because a slave could speak or offer more precise
information. One of his colleagues was also experimenting on slaves. This
colleague visited him and said, ‘Even though I’m wealthy, my slaves keep
running away. They don’t like it. They don’t like to suffer, so they run off.
I’m constantly buying new ones.’ His friend said, ‘Why don’t you buy Christians
instead? They’re cheaper than slaves. And the incredible thing is that they
love to suffer! The more they suffer, the happier they are. They dedicate their
suffering to their god to earn honor in heaven for all eternity. Buy Christians
– they won’t run off.’ And indeed, they were happy to suffer, but still, after
a week they’d run off. So what did our scientist do? Exactly what we’d do in
his position: He nailed his slaves to crosses. He wasn’t being cruel; it was
just to make them stay!”
JEAN RENOIR: It’s a great story, but it’s not mine!