Notes of a film director (1959)

ing, hostile, tricky and equivocal questions. Later I learned that police pickets were stationed outside the Sorbonne; lorries full of plain-clothes men waited near by. M. Kiappe* himself was rushing to and fro, anticipating a skirmish and hoping to take advantage of the turmoil to detain undesirable persons: after all, the audience included representatives of the "other side" too, including Marcel Cachin. The game went on successfully for more than an hour. The questions and answers came with lightning rapidity. The audience was in a responsive mood. We were never at a loss for a repartee. But it was time to finish. I was anxiously watching for a question that would enable me to close the debate with a flourish. At last it came. A lean, malicious-looking, sallow-faced individual rose in the gallery. "Why aren't there any comedies in your country? Is it true the Soviets have killed laughter?" A deadly silence ensued. Usually I am slow at finding a proper answer, especially in front of the public. But this time I had a brain-wave. Instead of replying, I burst out laughing. "They'll roar with laughter in the Soviet Union when I tell them of your question!" We concluded the meeting amid general merriment and left the building by way of the old Sorbonne yard. The university looked like a besieged fortress. But nothing untoward occurred. We had conducted the debate in a seemingly free and easy manner and finished it with laughter. There were no objective grounds for police interference. No one can be arrested for laughing. The next morning some of the newspapers wrote: "Bolsheviks with daggers in their teeth are not so dangerous as Bolsheviks with a smile on their lips." But I read no papers that day: I spent it at police-stations, gendarmerie, the Prefecture. They ordered me to leave Paris, France. But that is beside the point. What I am concerned with in this article is * Paris police commissioner. — Tr. 107