The core assumptions of philosophie panique are rooted in confusion and distrust towards reason, such as the refusal to perceive the world based on dichotomous systems of generally accepted knowledge and a defiance of linear conceptions of temporal and spatial cognition. As such, they are in many aspects convergent with the interests of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique. Whereas the Oulipo and its potential literature can be considered a direct offshoot of the Collège, the Panic Group was embraced by pataphysicians only retroactively. Of the three founders of le
panique, it was Arrabal who became fascinated with pataphysics and pulled the Mouvement
Panique onto the path initially forged by the Collège. This did not occur, however, until the 2000s, when he became actively involved in the life of the Collège. It is indeed in the 2000s when Arrabal starts making explicit references to pataphysics. For example, when asked in 2006 about his attitude towards philosophy, Arrabal responds: “La philosophie pataphysique des exceptions me passionne.”261 In his Manifeste pour le troisième millénaire of 2006 accompanied by the interview, he elaborates further that pataphysics is an inspiration for the development of certain aspects of his own panic philosophy: “[Le panique] aspire à l’exception pataphysique et à la fête sans vaches sacrées.”262 Thus Arrabal states that philosophie panique, just like Jarry’s imaginary science, strives to push the boundaries of what is familiar by focusing on exceptions rather than blindly following generally accepted rules.
Even though Arrabal does not start to express publicly his predilection for pataphysics until the 2000s, his first encounter with the Collège and its philosophy and lifestyle, one that
261 Debenedetti, “Interview d’Arrabal par Jean-Marc Debenedetti,” 213.
262 Fernando Arrabal, Panique: manifeste pour le troisième millénaire (Paris: Punctum, 2006), 194.
pushed him to make a leap into the imaginary science, occurred in 1970. In a concise but informative article entitled “Que fait Arrabal au Collège de ‘Pataphysique?” Thieri Foulc, an important figure within the Collège currently assuming responsibilities in diverse administrative and organizational matters, and Arrabal’s dear friend, fills in the details of the artist’s discovery of the group. Foulc boasts the fact that Arrabal’s first encounter with a pataphysician took place by chance, which only reinforces the significance of chance both within pataphysics and le
panique: “[…] en 1970 dans un aéroport new-yorkais Arrabal [a] croisé la route d'un Optimate
du Collège, le Régent Indicifique Marcel Troulay, […] à la suite de leur conversation Arrabal [a] fait ce que nous appelons le ‘bon bond’ et […] le 1 janvier 1971] il [est] né à la ‘Pataphysique.”263 Being born to pataphysics, as Foulc elaborates, means being officially registered as a member of the Collège and becoming a conscious pataphysician. Arrabal was thus registered as a Correspondant Réel of the group.264
At the time, as other members of the Collège were familiar and approving of Arrabal’s exploits and commitments, the Collège was happy to embrace Arrabal’s eccentricity to the point that the most prominent figures of the group, including Latis (Emmanuel Peillet), Raymond Queneau, and Theiri Foulc himself, immediately advocated for the new member’s promotion to the rank of a Satrape. Nevertheless, because of the somewhat unexpected occultation of the Collège in 1975 combined with Arrabal’s modesty, his promotion was indefinitely deferred.265 During the occultation, the Collège suspended all activity and decision-making with the exception of the journal’s publication, which at the time of occultation was officially published
263 Thieri Foulc, “Que fait Arrabal au Collège de ‘Pataphysique,” L’Atelier du roman 74 (2003): 25–26.
264 Correspondants Réels are those who actively participate in the Collège’s life and activities. 265 I will discuss the occultation of the Collège in more details in chapter 4.
not by the Collège but by an organ called Cymbalum Pataphysicum, an institution established to maintain the dormant but otherwise existing pataphysical community. It was therefore a secret not revealed until the end of the occultation that in 1990 the acting Vice-Curator of the Collège, Opach, made some decisions in petto, and these included the long-awaited promotion of Arrabal, of which he was not aware until the year 2000. Upon the desoccultation of the Collège and learning of his award of the title Satrape, Arrabal assumed a much more active role within the ranks of the pataphysical community.
As a member of the Collège, Arrabal’s privileges have included, but were not limited to, regular reception of the group’s journal and internal publications, participation in manifestations and private events organized by the members, cooperation and assistance by other Optimates of the Collège, as well as the right to have the Collège’s official delegation present at his funeral in case of death. As a Satrape, he joined the body of such prominent figures as Raymond Queneau, Boris Vian and René Clair, whose role, as defined by the Statuts of the Collège, was to work as freely as they wish, without any limitations or impositions. Arrabal took this freedom seriously and became very active within the Collège, as, when asked about what exactly Arrabal’s contribution is, Foulc responds:
Je pourrais, pour répondre, énumérer les cérémonies collégiales, manifestations publiques, réunions optimatiques, banquets de grand et de petit apparat, outre l'innombrable correspondance écrite, calligraphiée, dessinée, électronisée, et les distributions de livres, de photographies, d'objets inutiles, de jambon PATA negra,
de crocodiles empaillés, mais sous cette activité je perçois aussi une action moins visible, un art de faire exister l'imaginaire.266
This partly humorous list of Arrabal’s contributions speaks also a deeper truth about his interest in the group. For Arrabal, the Collège provided not only a stimulating intellectual ground that was already aligned with his devotion to le panique, but also community and friendship. If his and Jodorowsky’s relationship was mostly intellectual, Arrabal regretted that Topor, who was his close friend, did not live long enough to be coopted to the Collège after its desoccultation. This is why in 2001 he arranged for Topor to be posthumously nominated a Satrape, during a Collège get-together that Arrabal organized at his home in Paris. In 2003, Arrabal was selected to become a Promoteur Insigne of the Ordre de la Grande Gidouille, an exclusive club within the Collège gathering its particularly devoted participants (such as Vian and Queneau in the past).267 Arrabal kept making his way up the hierarchy ladder in the Collège and in 2014 he had the honor of acting as the Unique Électeur, the person in charge of nominating the new Vice-Curateur. At the time, he chose Tanya Peixoto, a representative of the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics for the position.268 The activities of the Collège in the post-desoccultation era, which has seen Arrabal’s involvement, will be discussed in the fourth chapter.
266 Foulc, “Que fait Arrabal au Collège de ‘Pataphysique,” 30.
267 The Ordre de la Grande Gidouille was invented, again, by Alfred Jarry, and first described in 1899 in Almanach du Père Ubu illustré. The Order was named after Père Ubu’s grotesque stomach, the gidouille. Père Ubu was the first Maître of the Order. The Statuts of the Order define the function of a Promoteur Insigne as follows: “Un Promoteur Insigne, assisté de
Copromoteurs, en nombre variable, est chargé, en liaison avec les Offices du Conférent Majeur,
de préparer et d’élaborer les initiatives préalables propres à susciter les initiatives de la Chambre. L’initiative de ces initiatives préalables n’est l’objet d’aucune institution et est laissé à
l’Arbitraire du Promoteur Insigne et de ses Copromoteurs.” Ordre de la Grande Gidouille, Statuts (Condé-sur-Noireau: Corlet Numérique, 2013), titre IV.
268 Traditionally, one member of the Collège nominated as the Unique Électeur is responsible for nominating the new Vice-Curateur after the death of the previous one. Raymond Queneau, for
The connection between the Collège de ‘Pataphysique and the Mouvement Panique is not, however, limited to Arrabal’s engagement in the life of the pataphysical community; there are also intriguing overlaps between the philosophies associated with both groups, and they are discernible even in Jodorowsky’s work, even though, unlike Arrabal, he never sought to be involved with the Collège. Jodorowsky’s commitment to dismantling and neutralizing linear notions of time and space in his works, which I will investigate later in this chapter, his insistence on freezing his plays and the action of his films in the “here and now,” seems to be a remarkable quest for pataphysical “imaginary solutions” that are infinite and escape hierarchization. In Le Cercle des Pataphysiciens (2008), a publication by the Collège, in the entry on Arrabal, André Stas, a poet and a fellow pataphysician, thus reconnects the two philosophies:
[Arrabal] avait déjà opté, au sein de ce mouvement [panique] éminemment ravageur, pour ce qui ressemblait comme au frère au ‘principe d’équivalence’ des pataphysiciens: la confusion panique, qui accepte tous les postulats, toutes les philosophies, toutes les morales (en en revendiquant la part qui convient), et qui critique la connaissance tout en cherchant les mécanismes, le conduisit à considérer que ‘la ‘Pataphysique est une machine à explorer le monde’ […].269 The principle of equivalence evoked here by Stas is addressed in more detail in Dr. Sandomir’s testament: “Il n’y a donc aucune différence, ni de nature, ni de degré entre les esprits, non plus qu’entre leurs produits, non plus qu’entre les choses. Pour le Pataphysicien Total le graffito le
example, was the Unique Électeur after the death of Dr. Sandomir (it was an imaginary death as
Emmanuel Peillet, who at the time was impersonating Sandomir, was still alive) and nominated Baron Mollet as the successor of the deceased.
269 Collège de ‘Pataphysique, ed., “Fernando Arrabal, Satrape,” in Le Cercle des pataphysiciens (Paris: Mille et une nuits, 2008), 102.
plus banal équivaudrait au livre le plus achevé, voire aux Gestes et Opinions du Docteur Faustroll eux-mêmes […].”270 Thus, according to the pataphysical principle of equivalence, all things and phenomena can be considered equally important, impactful and worth of pataphysicians’ attention. Pataphysical ways of thinking abolish hierarchies and dichotomies, and so does confusion embraced within philosophie panique. Such confusion is the preferred mindset for the fullest connection with the surrounding world. In a state of confusion, one detaches from learned inhibitions conditioned by the existing systems of knowledge and notions of appropriateness. Yet, if one, for example, rejects being politically correct, it does not automatically mean that he or she chooses political incorrectness. Panic philosophers embrace all contradictory elements of being human. As Larouche explains, in panic confusion, “[c]es contradictions apparentes ne sont, en réalité, que le refus de l’homme panique de se faire intégrer dans une pensée normative, ce qui entraînerait une limitation, un jugement par rapport à des normes sociales.”271 Thus, a quest for a way out of normative systems of knowledge can be considered both pataphysical and panic. It is not, therefore, surprising that upon discovering pataphysics, Arrabal found this worldview particularly compelling.
Furthermore, what brings pataphysics and le panique together is the deliberate absence of a broader political agenda. If pataphysicians and paniques work to explore potentiality and push the apparent limitations of artistic creation, be it in literature, film, or any other medium, and by extension of the human mind, they emphasize that they do so without any political goal in mind. After all, the Collège specifically proclaims its research “inutilous,” which means that it is not
270 Irénée-Louis Sandomir, “Testament de Sa Feue Magnificence le Docteur I. L. Sandomir” (Open Access Patakosmos Press, 2014), 3, http://www.patakosmos.com/database-open- access/Testament-Sandomir-opus-pataphysicum-college-de-pataphysique.pdf.
being developed in order to attain premeditated goals. This attitude of pataphysicians is best summarized by a famous statement that according to Noël Arnaud is often attributed to Boris Vian: “seul le Collège de ‘Pataphysique n’entreprend pas de sauver le monde.”272 When pataphysicians say that they do not want to save the world, it means that they do not work in order to convert their readers to follow their own philosophy, or to prove their worldview’s superiority over other systems of thought; they merely want to show, to themselves more than anyone else, that alternative ways of connecting to the world are possible, and that, in this regard, possibilities can be endless. In his panic manifesto of 2006, Arrabal, possibly echoing some proclamations of the Collège, speaks of le panique as follows: “Le panique n’essaie pas d’améliorer le monde avec des légions de soumis, ni d’inspirer une seule ligne aux panicophiles.”273 This statement shows that the paniques, much like the Collège, did not adopt an idealistic mission to convince anyone to their philosophy or to recruit more and more followers. If the Mouvement Panique gained several new members beside the three founders, it was because of mutual respectful curiosity regarding their creative work and not the group’s active propaganda.274
The final connection between philosophie panique and pataphysics that I want to establish goes by way of “legitimate” philosophy broadly recognized within academic circles. In the interview with Debenedetti, Arrabal links le panique with the work of Deleuze: “Gilles Deleuze, peu avant de mourir, a cherché à comprendre ce qu’il appelait ‘l’épiphénomène
272 Noël Arnaud, Les Vies parallèles de Boris Vian (Paris: Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1998), 336.
273 Arrabal, Panique: manifeste, 194.
274 Artists who joined the Mouvement Panique later on were Diego Baron, Olivier O. Olivier, Sam Szafran, Christian Zeimert and Abel Ogier.
panique’”.275 While Arrabal does not elaborate on this statement and it remains unclear to which part of Deleuze’s work he refers, it indicates a common ground between panic philosophy and the philosopher’s take on phenomenology. As I will demonstrate in the subsequent sections of my analysis, Deleuze’s theorization of time as a phenomenon that can be perceived not in a linear manner but as a concept that collapses the past, the present and the future onto one plane, can deepen our understanding of the panic conception of time. Moreover, Deleuze’s idea that immediate bodily sensations can constitute a way of communication with the surrounding world that is grounded in affect rather than reason and cognition, is particularly fitting to elucidate the focus of le panique on the human body and its possibilities.
Finally, Deleuze’s theoretical framework will help me inscribe panic philosophy within the tradition of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique because of the philosopher’s personal interest in pataphysics. In an essay from 1964, published under the title “En créant la pataphysique Jarry a ouvert la voie à la phénoménologie,” then heavily edited and reprinted as “Un précurseur méconnu de Heidegger, Alfred Jarry” in the volume Critique et clinique in 1993, Deleuze traces the attempts to overcome the limitations of metaphysics with phenomenology back to Alfred Jarry’s imaginary science. In the essay, Deleuze refers to a modern prophecy according to which metaphysics must be exceeded by something else. This something else, he says, “[…] est conçu comme une force agissant déjà dans la subjectivité humaine, mais se cachant en elle, et aussi bien la détruisant.”276 Deleuze identifies the presence of this thus-far undefined force, which he decides to include under the umbrella of pataphysics, within the thought of Nietzsche, Marx, as well as Heidegger’s phenomenology. In the Critique et clinique reprint, Deleuze brings
275 Debenedetti, “Interview d’Arrabal par Jean-Marc Debenedetti,” 222. 276 Deleuze, “En créant la pataphysique,” 106.
pataphysics and phenomenology even closer: “En premier lieu, la pataphysique comme dépassement de la métaphysique est inséparable d’une phénoménologie, c’est-à-dire d’un nouveau sens et d’une nouvelle compréhension du phénomène.”277 I propose to read the search for a new understanding of a phenomenon, advocated here by Deleuze, as an investigation of what Arrabal refers to as a panic epiphenomenon in the Debenedetti interview. Linking pataphysics and philosophie panique by way of Deleuze’s philosophical writings will demonstrate the ways in which Jarry’s imaginary science can be freed from its initial location in literature and allowed to seep into cinema.
4.4 PANIC FILMS: FROM LINEAR TEMPORAL PROGRESSION TO MEMORY