Regarding Susan Sontag Page #2

at some point, some physical

attraction somewhere,

and they certainly

acted like there was.

They were just really kind

of like they were one person.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I had a difficult birth.

David was big.

A lot of pain.

I wanted to be knocked out,

not to know anything.

[Woman, as Sontag]

If only I get the fellowship

to Oxford, then at least I'll

know if I'm anything

outside the domestic stage,

The feathered nest.

I think for a while it was

just really fine, but people

change in their marriages,

and obviously she did.

He did not.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

In marriage, I have suffered

a certain loss of personality.

At first the loss was

pleasant, easy; now it aches

and stirs up my general

disposition to be malcontented

with a new fierceness.

Just got the fellowship.

Study philosophy in Oxford.

WOMAN:
She had made

arrangements for her

husband's parents to take

care of the child.

But to today's parents,

it's just unthinkable.

Because she was so young when

she had her child, she hadn't

been able to live out

her own adolescence.

I think she just wanted to

do what she wanted to do.

And you know, it's...that's

really all there is to it.

[Woman, as Sontag]

Je l'aime beaucoup is

more than je l'aime bien

but less than je l'aime.

I like Paris--stronger,

more reserved.

J'aime Paris.

I like Paris.

ZWERLING:
The end of '57,

she came to Paris

at Christmas from Oxford

and she stayed,

and we started living

together in a hotel.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

Harriet is beautiful,

relaxed, affectionate.

I, dizzy with passion and

need for her, am happy.

Good God, I am happy!

ZWERLING:

We gave a big party, and the

night before the big party,

we had a lesbian couple over

to visit, but we drank a lot

and we smoked a lot of grass

and things started getting

a little sexy, and Susan got

into it a little too much,

and I got very jealous and

punched her in the face.

The next day was our big party

with all the American ex-pats,

the Beats.

Ginsberg and Corso and all

those people were coming.

And Ginsberg came over

to me at one point.

Susan had this big

black-and-blue mark on her jaw.

And he said to me,

"Why'd you hit her?

She's younger and

prettier than you."

And I said, "That's why."

Ha! So...

I was, at that time,

the assistant,

to a director named

Pierre Kast.

Susan was having

money problems,

and I offered her a walk-on

in this film.

It's just so funny to think of

Sontag being in a New Wave film

since she's going to

go on to make New Wave film

something very, very

important in the U.S.

She is somebody who is

constantly being reborn.

I mean it wasn't just from

being in France or from making

love with Harriet.

She was constantly discovering

things and becoming

a new person.

And that's her kind of

essential avant-gardism.

You can either suspect it

or really, really admire it.

I see Paris as getting her

out of her marriage.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

The thought of going back to

my old life...it hardly seems

like a dilemma anymore.

I can't.

I won't.

Susan had her year

or whatever it was,

came home, and said,

"That's it."

It was not a really

pleasant divorce.

WOMAN:
College at 15.

Marriage at 17?

SONTAG:
Yes.

A child at...

Yeah.

These numbers

suggest what?

Eagerness to grow up.

I hated being a child.

I couldn't do what

I wanted to do.

I wanted to stay up

all night.

I wanted to see the world.

I wanted to

talk to people.

I wanted to meet people who

were interested in what

I was interested in.

My parents lived abroad.

They lived in China.

My father was a

businessman in China.

They came back to the

United States for my birth

and for that of my

younger sister.

Then they left us with

various relatives.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

Milk with vanilla flavor in it

and peanut butter crackers.

The egg timer on the

wall in the kitchen.

Betting 25 cents on the

world series with Gramps.

I for the Yanks,

he for The Bums.

From my upper bunk, testing

Judith on the capitals

of all the states.

Daddy died

October 19, 1938.

COHEN:
He fell ill

for the last time

and died in China of

tuberculosis.

SONTAG:
My father died

so far away and without

my knowing it.

I didn't even know

he was dead until about

a year after.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I didn't really believe

my father was dead.

For years and years, I

dreamed he turned up one day

at the door.

When I was 6,

my sister was 3,

we ended up with my

mother, who was very

much a part-time mother

in Tucson, Arizona.

COHEN:
Our mother, Mildred,

didn't focus totally on us.

Let me put it this way. We had

a lot of uncles who were not

our uncles.

And they just kind

of came and went.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I wasn't my mother's child.

I was her subject, companion,

friend, consort.

My habit of "holding back"

is loyalty to my mother.

SONTAG:
My mother met a very

glamorous war veteran,

full of medals and shrapnel.

He had been shot down

6 days after D-Day and was

convalescing in Tucson.

And his name was Sontag.

COHEN:
They just went to Mexico

one day, and they came back

and they said,

"We're married."

Susan and I were extremely

hurt that we weren't invited

to go to Mexico

to the wedding.

We were delighted to have

a change in name.

We were so clearly identified

as being Jewish with a name

like Rosenblatt that my sister

who was older and I guess

an easier target did get hit

in the head and called names.

From Tucson, we moved to

Southern California and ended up

in Sherman Oaks

in the valley.

SONTAG, VOICE-OVER:

I can remember a rather

small house, very modest.

And I was lying on my stomach

in the living room and I

was reading.

And then this large pair of

pants and shoes walked by me,

and it was of course

Mr. Sontag.

He said "Sue, if you read

so much, you'll never

get married."

And I burst out laughing.

I thought this was the most

preposterous thing I ever heard,

because it never

occurred to me that I would

want to marry someone who

didn't like someone who

read a lot of books.

[Sontag speaking French]

[Man speaking French]

[Speaking French]

[Speaking French]

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

The truth is always something

that is told, not something

that is known.

If there were no speaking or

writing, there would be no

truth about anything.

There would only be what is.

She gave me a

copy of the book,

signed to me and the baby.

It's back here somewhere.

"The Benefactor."

That's her first novel.

It's awful.

"TIME" magazine reviewer for

"The Benefactor" in 1963 said it

sounded like a blurred

translation from some

other language.

All interesting writers now

have been touched in some way

by this search for new forms

or trying to do something

with the story or with

narration in one way or another.

That nobody's really

writing straight stories.

Sontag really opted

out of realism.

Very abstract,

philosophical prose.

That's what she was going for.

And I think she fashioned

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