Querelle: French Intertitles in English
If you find yourself watching R.W. Fassbinder’s dazzling final film, 1982’s Querelle, but don’t seem to have the English subtitles for the French intertitles, here you go:
A soldier who had fallen on his face in the course of battle asked his enemy, as the man prepared to deal him the death blow, to wait until he had turned over– so that his love should not see him with a wound on his back.
Plutarch: “On Love”
We would like to associate the idea of sorrow to these moments when Querelle felt the soft folds of oblivion on his ravaged body.
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For the first time in his life, Querelle kissed a man on the mouth. He felt like he was jamming his face against a mirror reflecting his own image. It was like he was sticking his tongue into a hole in a head made of granite.
He is of average height, healthy, and well proportioned. His hair is thick. His eyes are full of contempt. His features are balanced. The expression on his face is severe, his voice powerful, but muted. Fear hangs on his entire being. His manner exudes an extreme coldness. Suspicious, shifty, dark, he is a natural at being impenetrable and keeping his secret.
“Portrait of Saint-Just” by Paganel
They knew that they risked nothing, that nothing spoiled the purity of their games. No passion.
The moral solitude of the criminal is like that of the artist, who recognizes no authority save that of another artist.
Querelle had entered into a kind of unspoken pact with the Devil. He had promised him neither his body, nor his soul, but something just as precious. A friend. And the love of that friend would sanctify his crime. It is our duty to express that which is universal in a particular phenomenon. Here, we are not talking about a work of art. Because a work of art is free.
