Regarding Susan Sontag Page #7

And plus Lucinda was a real

star of downtown New York.

Susan's feeling was that

she preferred to stay

very private,

wanting to just be

a professional.

"That's my identity,

as far as I'm concerned.

I'm a professional.

"And not wanting

to hide anything,

"but you know just not

wanting to necessarily

demonstrate or be

demonstrative about

my private life."

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

It hurts to love.

It's like giving yourself to

be flayed and knowing that

at any moment the other person

may just walk off with your skin.

MAN:
Susan broke off

with Lucinda.

She was wretched, and I

took her home from something

and stayed there that night,

all night long with her, cause

she was so miserable.

She spent about half the night

telling me what a horrible

person Lucinda was and

how much she hated her

and so forth.

And then, we got past that

and she then said, "You know,

"about poetry, Richard.

Could you tell me about

how to read verse?"

And we spent the rest of

the night doing that

with Wallace Stevens.

WOMAN:
Annie Leibovitz,

welcome back!

Nice to see you.

Nice to see you.

So, why, Annie, a book of

photographs about women?

Why not?

I mean it's a glorious,

incredible subject.

I mean it's half

the human race.

Like a half stop darker

or something like that.

LEIBOVITZ:
It was Susan Sontag

who suggested American

women, and I said

I would do it if she

would write the essay.

She was interested, of course,

in photography, like she was

interested in so many things,

and, you know, she said,

"You're good, but you

could be better."

Annie photographed her,

and then some flowers came.

And Susan said she saw the

flowers coming toward her

and she was thinking, "I

hope they're from Annie."

MAN:
Susan Sontag was

your very close friend

and companion?

We never used words

like y'know like that.

I mean, you know, "very intimate

friendship" is probably a better,

you know,

better way.

I just never felt--we never

used the jargon words.

COHEN:
I would go to New York

and stay with Susan.

Susan would leave in

the middle of the night

because Annie was

having a crisis--

Annie was having a crisis

with her family or something.

Well, that story got to wear

very thin after a while,

and I kind of figured it out.

KOESTENBAUM:

Susan Sontag lived in,

I think 410 W. 24th,

and Annie Leibovitz

lived in the tower here 465.

So they could see each

other from their penthouses.

[Raining]

LEVINE:
I remember having dinner

with Susan and Annie, and Susan

starts yelling at her about

being stupid and all of this.

And then the next day, we're

going off to something

at the Museum of Modern Art

during the day and I'm walking

behind them, and I see Susan

and Annie are holding hands as

they walk along.

WOMAN, AS SONTAG:

What makes me feel strong?

Being in love and work.

I must work.

My name is Susan Sontag,

President of American Center

of PEN.

DANNER:
Susan really

embodied an idea

of an intellectual that is,

indeed, you could argue, passe.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished

members of the subcommittee,

I'm very...

DANNER:
It had to

do with her belief in what

the role of the writer

should properly be.

The writer was supposed

to take a stand.

The writer was supposed to

be there on the front lines.

The writer was supposed

to stand for something.

[Explosion]

[Gunfire]

SONTAG, VOICE-OVER: I guess

I go to war because I think

it's my duty to be in as

much contact with

reality as I can be.

And war is a tremendous

reality in our world.

You didn't go to be

a spectator either.

What did you do?

No, no. I worked in the city.

I worked in the city.

I mean, when I first went,

to my great surprise

they asked me

to work in the theater.

I said, "No, you know,

I don't want--"

In the midst of war?

Yeah. I said, "What do you

want a play for?"

And they said,

"We're not animals.

"We're not just people

sheltering in our basements

"and standing on bread

lines and water lines

getting killed."

Yes, and says, "That's

and end to his..."

I chose to do "Waiting for

Godot" because it did seem to

illustrate a lot of the things

that people are feeling now

in Sarajevo.

The play is about weak,

vulnerable, abandoned people

trying to keep their spirits

up while they wait for some

greater power to

help them out.

KOCH:
There's a certain kind

of person who likes to put

themselves in extreme

situations because they feel

life is lived

more fully there.

And Susan was one

of those people.

You're just a little bit

more notched up than you are

sitting around having

coffee in New York City.

LEBOWITZ:

Writers don't save lives.

Writers would like to save lives

because it's more heroic.

Military action. That's

what it takes to stop

a genocide, by the way,

not productions of

"Waiting for Godot."

She had this kind of heroic

sense of what some human beings

could accomplish, in music,

in writing, in art, in film,

in everything.

Extraordinary people.

But, you know, it was

a limited number of people,

and was she ever going to drag

herself up there onto Olympus.

What do you

believe in, then?

The hanging curve ball,

high fiber, good scotch.

that the novels of Susan

Sontag are self-indulgent,

overrated crap.

I believe in long, slow,

deep, soft, wet kisses

that last three days.

And I think Susan

Sontag is brilliant!

NELSON:
She had

an unbelievably good

sense of what was important,

of what was interesting,

and what was significant...

and I'm talking mostly about

the sixties and seventies and

maybe the early eighties.

I mean, I think

as time goes on, she's

less engaged with the moment

because she's getting older,

her interests are changing,

and she's less

on the front lines.

SONTAG:
When I began to

write in the sixties when

I was very young,

I worried that certain forms of

the popular culture were being

neglected or ruled out

or treated in a snobbish

and stupid way.

And so I seemed to be

defending popular culture.

I think that the high culture

which I took for granted when

I was growing up--the high

culture that I aspired

to live in

and to make my minute

contribution to--

that certainly has the quality

of an endangered species.

What sort of civilization

are you speaking

of, Creature?

Diplomacy, creation--

that's what we're

reaching toward.

The Geneva Convention,

chamber music, Susan Sontag.

Everything your society

has worked so hard

to accomplish

over the centuries,

that's what we aspire to.

We want to be civilized.

I mean, you take a look

at this fellow here.

Bee-bee-ba-ba-bee-bee!

[Bang]

[Thud]

MAN:
Don't you find yourself

almost inevitably drawn to

the television set,

to the so-called popular

questions...the questions

of what most people

are seeing as art,

thinking, being sold,

um...

No.

No, I don't,

and you know I don't.

I've said it in

countless interviews.

Not that I'd read.

Oh, well, then you haven't

read many interviews.

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