Boudu Saved From Drowning [antikvár]

FILM Bertrand Russell says that the first philosopher was Thaies of Miletus in the sixth century BC. Thaies, who tiiought that everything is made of water, was soon followed by Heraclitus of Ephesus, whose variation on the theme was that everything is in a state of flux. Since everything is in a state of flux, Heraclitus argued, you cannot step into the same river twice. Unless I have misunderstood him, Heraclitus took the argument only half the way: if you can't step into the same river twice it must be equally true to say that you can't step into the same river once. In any case, Boudu challenges Heraclitus by stepping into the river (or throwing himself or falling into it) once at the beginning of the film and again at the end. Whether it is the same river, and whether it is the same Boudu - these are matters we will have to think about. We are already in deep waters. As with stepping into rivers, you can't read the same book twice, or hear the same piece of music twice, or see the same film twice. Since (like everything else) we are in a state of flux, we are different people the second time - older, though not necessarily wiser, but better informed, and with knowledge which includes memory of the first experience. I first saw Boudu sauvé des eaux in Paris in the early 1960s. The next time (which was only a couple of years ago - the film has not been shown all that often) I found the film to be different from what I had remembered. For one thing it was much richer. The Boudu which I carried in my memory for some thirty years started with a tramp throwing himself off a bridge in Paris and being rescued by a Latin Quarter bookseller, Lestingois, who takes him into his house and cares for him. Boudu, the tramp, repays the good Samaritan with the basest ingratitude. It is not just his table manners that are appalling; his entire behaviour is atrocious. When Boudu is rebuked for spitting on the carpet, he hawks into one of the bookseller's rare leather-bound first editions instead. When told to clean his shoes, he applies the polish with his fingers and then wipes them on the bed-linen of the lady of the house. He not only seduces the housemaid but also Madame Bookseller herself In general he is as totally, gloriously, uproariously and anarchically reprehensible as Harpo Marx.