Excerpt from interview with Jorge Luis Borges in The Paris Review Interviews, I
INTERVIEWER
Epic literature has always interested you very much, hasn’t it?BORGES
Always, yes. For example, there are many people who go to the cinema and cry. That has always happened; it has happened to me also. But I have never cried over sob stuff, or the pathetic episodes. But, for example, when I saw the first gangster films of Joseph von Sternberg, I remember that when there was anything epic about them – I mean Chicago gangsters dying bravely – well, I felt that my eyes were full of tears. I have felt epic poetry far more than lyric or elegy. I always felt that. Now that may be, perhaps, because I come from military stock. My grandfather, Colonel Francisco Borges Lafinur, fought in the border warfare with the Indians, and he died in a revolution; my great-grandfather, Colonel Suarez, led a Peruvian cavalry charge in one the last great battles against the Spaniards; another great-great-uncle of mine led thhe vanguard of San Martin’s army – that kind of thing. And I had, well, one of my great-great-grandmothers was a sister of [Juan Manuel de] Rosas – I’m not especially proud of that relationship because I think of Rosas as being a kind of Peron in his day; but still all those things link me with Argentine history and also with the idea of a man’s having to be brave, no?INTERVIEWER
But the characters you pick as your epic heroes – the gangster, for example – are not usually thought of as epic, are they? Yet you seem to find the epic there?BORGES
I think there is a kind of, perhaps, of low epic in him – no?INTERVIEWER
Do you mean that since the old kind of epic is apparently no longer possible for us, we must look to this kind of character for our heroes?BORGES
I think that as to epic poetry or as to epic literature, rather – if we except such writers as T.E. Lawrence in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom or some poets like Kipling, for example, in “Harp Song of the Dane Women” or even in the stories – I think nowadays, while literary men seem to have neglected their epic duties, the epic has been saved for us, strangely enough, by the Westerns.INTERVIEWER
I have heard that you have seen the film West Side Story many times.BORGES
Many times, yes. Of course, West Side Story is not a Western.INTERVIEWER
No, but for you it has the same epic qualities?BORGES
I think it has, yes. During this century, as I say, the epic tradition has been saved for the world by, of all places, Hollywood. When I went to Paris, I felt I wanted to shock people, and when they asked me – they knew that I was interested in the films, or that I had been, because my eyesight is very dim now – and they asked me, What kind of film do you like? And I said, Candidly, what I most enjoy are the Westerns. They were all Frenchmen; they fully agreed with me. They said, Of course we see such films as Hiroshima mon amour or L’Annee derniere a Marienbad out of a sense of duty, but when we want to amuse ourselves, when we want to enjoy ourselves, when we want, well, to get a real kick, then we see American films.
The French have been so instrumental in “saving” many of our great entertainers for us, after they have been shunned critically in America. The examples are numerous (Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray – hell, even Mickey Rourke) – it’s like they keep the torch burning FOR us, of these artists that really are so quintessentially American, these are not cosmopolitan people – but local homegrown artists, and when they fall out of favor, the French have always reminded us and nudged us to not forget them.
The interview with Borges is a gem. I’ll be excerpting a lot from this book in the coming weeks. Thank you to cousin Mike for sending it to me. So far, I have read interviews with Dorothy Parker, TS Eliot, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut and Borges. And one small observation: in each interview, James Joyce, at one point, comes up. The opinions vary, but not the FACT of Joyce, and the FACT of his influence, good or bad.
I love the image of Jorge Luis Borges tearing up watching a gangster film. It seems beautifully poetic and perfect to me.
Sheila,
Thank goodness for Borges admission. Now I can rest easy at Edward G. Robinsonâs âMother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?â
And âThe Public Enenmyâ is certainly an epic, a Greek tragedy of sorts and if the final scene (Cagneyâs Tom Powers “goes home” (getting a bit misty eyed just thinking of one of the most powerful images ever)) doesnât get to the viewer then heâs obviously been lobotomized.
Oh yes, Public Enemy. And Scarface, too, speaking of Howard Hawks.
Cagney’s death scene at the end of Roaring Twenties also strikes me as incredibly epic – even the stairs there look like something from out of ancient Greece – you know the ones I mean? It’s not a literal moment – it is a swan-dive worthy of Oedipus.
I like the thought of Hollywood – with its blatant desire to, you know, entertain – keeping the tradition alive – at the very same moment (modernist literature) that literature was saying, “we can’t really handle this anymore”.
Here’s the clip of the last sequence in Roaring Twenties (which, naturally, if people haven’t seen it – don’t watch) – It is certainly one of my favorite death scenes ever filmed – really shows Cagney’s superior athletic ability.
(And also – the suddenly Greek-epic setting – we’re in a normal urban street scene, and then suddenly, we’re in an amphitheatre setting).