ABOUT MOTHER (PUDOVKIN)

par Jean-Paul Morel

Unpublished correspondence presented by Jean-Paul Morel

The "amiable" correspondence that will be read was exchanged between the surrealist group and Léon Moussinac, film critic at L'Humanité, after the second show of the "Théâtre Alfred Jarry" (directed by Aron, Artaud and Vitrac), Saturday, January 14, 1928, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées – memorable evening for the performance of "an unpublished act by a 'notorious' writer, played without the author's permission" – namely the third act of Partage de Midi, by Paul Claudel...

Mother, by Vladimir Pudovkin, which had not received its censorship visa, was screened there in an equally pirated manner. Moussinac will only speak of the film at its 2nd screening, for the 1st manifestation of the "Friends of Spartacus' – association he had just founded with Jean Lods (L'Humanité, no. 10688, Sa March 17, 1928). Contributing to this, and confirming the dates, are the "last" screenings of Abel Gance's Napoleon at the Marivaux, those of For the Peace of the World, a pacifist film produced by the "Broken Faces," presented in Paris, at the Casino de Grenelle, from January 13 to 19, 1928, "dedicated to the memory of the operators Alexis Lamothe, Étienne Barrel, Marcel Maillard and Marceau Garnier, killed by the enemy during filming," as well as the "camouflaged' deportation of Leon Trotsky to Astrakhan.
[The articles by Moussinac evoked by this exchange with the surrealists are found in: Le Surréalisme dans la presse de gauche, edited by Henri Béhar, Éditions Paris-Méditerranée, 2002; digital version accessible here: http://henri.behar.pagesperso-orange.fr/Documents/Editions.htm]

[Léon Moussinac Archives, Arsenal]

Document no. 1

[Letterhead]

Taverne Haussmann
12, boulevard Haussmann
corner rue Laffitte
Paris
Tel.: Provence 67 12 (or 67 16)

Claude director Monday, January 16, 1928

Sir,

It is you, it seems, who are responsible for the screening in the hall of the Comédie des Champs-Élysées of the film Mother. You have every reason to be satisfied, we think, with the conditions in which this presentation, before an audience of bourgeois scoundrels, took place. Both from the point of view of the execution of this enterprise, to disgust the most impassive and the most patient, the most contemptuous among us, and from the revolutionary point of view, more extra-cinematographic than your functions at L'Humanité allow you to suppose (we mean from the communist point of view). Your initiative and your collaboration in such a manner have made us see the aspect of a perfect piece of filth. It is true that you reserve all your forces for the defense of films like Napoleon and For the Peace of the World where your mental rot finds its account so well. What would you say of a "Gaumont News' offering the public (it's for free) the spectacle of Trotsky's departure for Astrakhan SO COMFORTING IN ALL RESPECTS? That's where, if you please, we await you, to break your filthy mug of idiot and dog.
[signed]
Marcel Noll - 16, rue Jacques Callot
Benjamin Péret - 11, rue Victor Massé
Louis Aragon - 29, rue Jacob
Jacques-André Boiffard - 22, boulevard Barbès
Pierre Unik - 25, rue des Petits-Hôtels Xe
Jacques Baron - 159, boulevard Montparnasse
Raymond Queneau - 20, rue Notre Dame des Victoires
André Breton - 42, rue Fontaine
Paul Eluard - 4, avenue Hemroque Eaubonne (S. et 0.)
Jacques Prévert - 54, rue du Château
Yves Tanguy - 54, rue du Château

[according to the handwriting, written by Marcel Noll]

Document no. 2

[Typed response]

Paris, January 20, 1928

Sir,

The Mail Service of L'Humanité only transmitted your letter of the 17th current to me yesterday.

I hate nothing so much in a man as the lack of conscience and the absence of character.

Here is my response:

For an eye both eyes, for a tooth the whole mug.

And my address:

12, rue de Cadix XVe

I go to my work every morning at 8:30, and I return at 12:30, leave again at 1:45, and am back home around 7:30.

If you need my photograph and my fingerprint, you can request them from the Police Prefecture.

to MM André Breton, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, Marcel Noll, Pierre Unik, Raymond Queneau, Benjamin Péret, Jacques-André Boiffard, Jacques Baron, Jacques Prévert, Yves Tanguy.

Document no. 3

[New letterhead]

Taverne Haussmann
12, boulevard Haussmann
corner rue Laffitte
Paris

Tel.: Provence 67 12 (or 67 16)

Claude director

Paris, January 26, 1928

CLARIFICATION

In Russia, all photos look exactly like those of Stalin. In France, all the mugs one encounters inside inhabited or deserted houses are those of Moussinac. One would have to be the worst cow in this country, a supercop like there's no shortage of in the anti-oppositional P.C.F., to find Moussinac like a tooth in a haystack. We will search, naturally. But Marty was found, wasn't he, just as Trotsky was found. It's the same ones who found them.

We, dear FRIEND, we seek revolutionaries and MEN

[signed]

Marcel Noll 16, rue Jacques Callot
p. Jacques André. Boiffard - 22, boulevard Barbès
Jacques Baron - 159, boulevard Montparnasse
p. Marcel Duhamel - Hôtel Ambassadeur, boulevard Haussmann
Jacques Prévert - 54, rue du Château M. N.
Yves Tanguy - 54, rue du Château
Pierre Unik - 25, rue des Petits-Hôtels Xe
André Breton - 42, rue Fontaine
Benjamin Péret - 6, rue de Verneuil
Louis Aragon - 29, rue Jacob
Paul Éluard - 4, avenue Hemroque Eaubonne (S. et 0.)
Antonin Artaud - 58, rue La Bruyère IXe
Roger Vitrac - 29, rue Jacob VIe

[Cf. for the previous one, according to the handwriting, and signature for the absent, Marcel Noll]