Regarding Susan Sontag Page #6

It was Sartre's old apartment,

so this is where Beauvoir

and Sartre would meet.

And she literally never spent

a night in the apartment.

She had immediately

moved in with Nicole.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I'm in love.

Don't ask me how

it's possible.

It's just not in character;

my nightmare-ridden, stubborn,

melancholy Jewish character.

And yet, it's happened.

[Woman speaking French]

SONTAG:

Despite the fact that I have

lived a good part of my adult

life by choice in Europe--

mostly in France--

I always come back here.

I certainly would not live in

this country if I didn't live

in New York City.

KOCH:
We were talking one

morning, chatting, and she said,

"Well I have to hang up now.

"I've got a very

busy day today.

"I have to find out whether I'm

being thrown out of my house

and whether I have cancer."

The answer to both those

questions by the end

of the week was, "Yes."

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

While I was busy zapping

the world with my mind,

my body fell down.

I was told the cancer

was too advanced to be

likely to be curable

and that I had 6 months

or a year to live.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

Trying to race ahead of my

death, to get in front of it,

then turn around and face it.

KOCH:
It was discovered that

she had a very aggressive

breast cancer

that would require

very radical surgery.

The phone rings and it's

Nicole, and she says, "You have

to come immediately.

She's going to have this

operation and it's a very good

chance she won't survive."

I never thought

Susan would die.

She was so alive.

SONTAG:
They were still

being very conservative

about how much

chemotherapy they

wanted to use.

So, I found a very mainstream

famous French chemotherapist

who was willing to give me

a lot more chemotherapy

for a lot longer time.

And it's really

as simple as that.

I didn't accept the fact

that my case was hopeless.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I feel like the Vietnam War.

They're using

chemical warfare on me.

My illness is invasive,

colonizing.

It makes me want to shut up.

My body is talking louder

than I ever could.

[Speaking French]

Only with Nicole could she

completely let her hair down,

and she treated

Nicole terribly--

yelled and screamed, and you

know, "Why are you living

and I'm dying?" and

you know all of this.

I remember these

marvelous moments.

We'd be at the dinner table,

and Nicole would literally feed

Susan by the fork.

She'd find some particularly

good morsel of whatever,

you know, and Susan would

just--would take it.

SONTAG:
I don't like

feeling like a victim.

And even though I had to

believe that my doctors were

probably right and that my

case was hopeless, I always

believe in the power

of being an exception.

[De Rothschild speaking French]

SONTAG, VOICE-OVER:

I fought for my life.

I really wanted to live.

I have no difficulty in saying,

"Yes, I fought for my life."

I did.

SONTAG:
Everything

remembered is dear,

touching, precious.

At least the past is safe,

though we didn't know it

at the time.

We know it now because

we have survived.

SONTAG:
The oldest idea

of illness, of what causes

illness, is that

it's some punishment,

something that you actually

deserve or that you've

brought on yourself.

SONTAG, VOICE-OVER:

My subject is not physical

illness itself, but the uses

of illness as a figure

or a metaphor.

My point is that illness is

not a metaphor and that the

most truthful way of regarding

illness is one most purified

of metaphoric thinking.

There is such a thing as

accident. There is such

a thing as fatality,

and there is such

a thing as thoroughly

undeserved catastrophe.

And one shouldn't

try to make sense out

of one's catastrophe

by coming to feel guilty

and feel therefore that you

merited this terrible

thing that happened

to you, or allow

other people to impose

that kind of judgment.

NUNEZ:
Susan had been in a

relationship for years

with Nicole Stephane who

lived always in Paris.

And Susan had been in the

habit of spending almost half

her time there--

all the summer,

for one thing.

But that relationship

broke up.

It was long and slow,

the break-up.

I think that's what

made it more painful.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

I had been hoping that

Nicole would take me back.

I have pleaded, wept,

denounced, argued, raged.

"Don't bother to lie.

Don't bother to call.

I am not interested anymore."

NUNEZ:
When I met David,

he was living at home.

Susan had just

had breast cancer.

She had never wanted to be

alone, but now of course she

was absolutely terrified

of being alone.

So, um, she really,

really did not want him to

move out of that apartment.

She didn't want to eat

a sandwich by herself

in the kitchen, or have her

morning coffee by herself.

She wanted us to be there.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

Do I resent not

being a genius?

Am I sad about it?

Would I be willing to pay

the price for that?

I think the price is solitude.

SONTAG:
I have lost

a number of close friends.

I've been going to funerals

for the last 5 years.

I realized that people were

made to feel guilty or ashamed

for being ill,

and that drives me--

that drives me crazy.

Then I do feel that I must

get on a horse and do battle

on behalf of

the punished ill.

PINCKNEY:
That memory

I have in the kitchen,

the phone ringing.

She explains that she's been

on the phone with a guy she

doesn't know who had AIDS and

who called her up and wanted

to talk about illness.

And at the time, you know,

there wasn't a lot about AIDS

and how to deal with it,

how to talk about it.

It was still a very

terrifying and stigmatizing

sort of thing.

And she got calls from guys,

because she had written

about what it was like to

have the kind of disease that

ostracized you.

SONTAG:

"When I was home," he is

reported to have said,

"I was afraid to sleep, as I

was dropping off each night.

"It felt like just that,

as if I were falling down

"a black hole. To sleep felt

like giving in to death.

I slept every night

with the light on."

"Never mentioned,"

Kate confirmed,

"that whatever happened

it was over,

"the way he had lived until now,

but, according to Ira,

"he did think about it,

the end of bravado,

"the end of folly,

the end of trusting life,

the end of taking life

"for granted, and of treating

life as something that,

samurai-like, he thought

himself ready to throw away

lightly, impudently."

Like a hyperactive queen,

I cruise culture daily,

have a thrill or flash of

ecstasy several times a week.

My appetite is compulsive,

promiscuous.

LEVINE:
Susan was attracted to

women who were dedicated to

something, right?

So, Irene had her plays,

Nicole was this producer,

Lucinda Childs.

They were very successful

at what they did.

Could never keep up

with Susan, but if there was

something she really wanted

to see or a book she really

wanted me to read, I

would make the effort.

PINCKNEY:

She was very commanding

and doing

something rather new.

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