Deconstruction: Forgive My Clumsiness in Asking

As the routine of the COLLEGE CHUMS continues, slowly until even the last two standouts join in joyfully, we hear a VOICEOVER...

BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER: "Last question, professor. You've mentioned the importance of having Claude Levi-Strauss and the others here, and what that brings, as far as the world's attention. Is there anyone here at the conference who you might say could be, an unknown to look out for, who you might say could be, well, forgive my clumsiness in how to even ask it, the new wave...of the new wave? You mentioned one speaker. I have his name written written down here...a Monsieur..."

Deconstruction: Old College Chums

Among the previous snippets we saw of people during the coffee break, let's stipulate that we also saw a group of OLD COLLEGE CHUMS apparently having a mini-reunion on the occasion of the conference, by whatever circumstance. They are graduate student or post graduate students, maybe young professors. There are six---three men and three women.  When we first see them the women are especially social with each other.

We CUT from Derrida's view point back to the these same group of COLLEGE CHUMS, a second time. Two of the women, joined by the rest of them, begin going through the motions of some ancient routine they have learned, touching their hips and then putting their hands out together, chanting or singing.

Deconstruction: Amendment to Walk & Talk

In previous scene, when MACKSEY is talking to BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER,

change: instead of "Nietzsche", Macksey says "Wolfgang Iser in Der Akt des Lesens".

Deconstruction: The Jerk

Somewhere along the same hallway, amidst a flow of people, a door open and out comes DERRIDA, blinking a little as if adjusting from darkness to light, and getting his bearing. He hardly has a beat to adjust before a young woman, one of three walking to together,  collides with him gently as she passes, and scowls with displeasure and annoyance as she does. As the trio of women walk on she continues to express her disapproval of his rudeness. Meanwhile he, as is oblivious to them, is lost is a pure gentle appreciation of the tableau in front of him.

Deconstruction: The Great Hermeneut

Now we come back to MACKSEY and the BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER, still walking.

No longer encumbered by coffee cup nor donut, Macksey is loose and free. The reporter is listening.

MACKSEY (absorbing what was just said): "The way you just put that...is very interesting. Not many people know this but NIETZSCHE WOLFGANG ISER said something very close to that in Der Akt des Lesens."

Deconstruction: Yes Yes Yes

After seeing the first colleague, we also see the SECOND COLLEAGUE, standing and listening attentively to YOUNG WOMAN, the age of a college senior, who is talking to him. She is carrying a spiral notebook under her arm. He says something back to her, as if opining briefly on what she just said. She nods back appreciatively, as if to say, yes yes yes.

Deconstruction: The Blast

From the walk and talk we JUMP to multiple wide and medium shots in the corridors, and open floor spaces where anyone might gather, of conference attendees and other people talking to each other, in various combinations, modes and registers. Pairs and triplets. More men than women. Continentals and Anglophones. Locals and exotics.

At times we catch snippets of what they say (some of that to be specified). Other times we just hear the ambient noise of the collective of people present.

Amidst these views we see the FIRST COLLEAGUE talking to several other men, as if explaining something to them. We walk for several seconds and then he taps the outside breast of his jacket quickly, indicating that he has something there. Leaning in towards the men a little, as if sharing something discrete, pantomimes a tiny explosion with his hands--- la boum.

Deconstruction: The Martin Heidegger Walk & Talk

CUT TO:

OUTSIDE THE LECTURE HALL in a busy corridor with many people walking and talking. At the end of a long hospitality table with coffee urns, paper cups, and a tray of donuts, is RICHARD MACKSEY,  y himself for the moment. He has just picked up both a coffee cup full of coffee and a donut in the other hand. He carefully takes a bite of the donut, and then starts to walk away, slowly at first.

Just as he does,  a man of middle age, the BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER, enters the scene up along side of him, and walks beside him in stride.

As they continue walking, passing others in the hallway but not having to swerve very much, as other make room for them.

REPORTER: "Professor Macksey...[NAME], Baltimore Sun. Really enjoyed your speech. Mind if I ask you a question or two while we walk?"

In good  humor, MACKSEY, a slow chewer, indicates that he has a mouth full of food, but he doesn't mind so long as they can continue walking.

REPORTER : "Ah, of course. (grins) Well, Professor what I wanted to ask you is---could you describe, in words that the layman would understand, the general significance of this conference, specifically what it means for Johns Hopkins as a research institution, and for the City of the Baltimore?"

The reporter glances up to see that MACKSEY has lagged a step behind, because just at that very instant Macksey has taken a sip of his coffee, breaking stride a tiny bit so as not to spill

MACKSEY, catching up in stride, indicates with full mouth a second time that he appreciates the irony.

REPORTER (after chuckling): "In that case, while I let you think of an answer to my question, I'll just fill the space while we walk by telling you that I personally very much appreciate being at this conference. In my profession---well, let's say I haven't heard anyone mention Martin Heidegger in a long time...You know I actually read some Heidegger back when I was in the service? An Army chaplain in Korea gave me a copy. Can you believe it?"

The first issue of The Sun, a four-page tabloid, was printed at 21 Light Street in downtown Baltimore in the mid-1830s. A five-story structure, at the corner of Baltimore and South streets, was built in 1851. The "Iron Building", as it was called, was destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.
In 1906, operations were moved to Charles and Baltimore streets, where The Sun was written, published and distributed for nearly 50 years. In 1950, the operation was moved to a larger, modern plant at Calvert and Centre streets (show in photo above). 

By Marylandstater (talk) at English Wikipedia. - I created this image entirely by myself., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373173

Deconstruction: Relaxed Samurai in the Town Square

From the Busby Berkeley shot, we cut to a WIDE VIEW from the back of the nearly empty LECTURE HALL looking down and gathering in all of the rows.

Ideally we'd prefer to make the lecture hall or auditorium be based on the one used at the conference at the (then brand-new) Johns Hopkins Center for Humanities.

In the meantime, for story purposes, let's suppose we have the auditorium we need to tell the story.

The lecture hall has a pitch: theater seating. It need not be steep. It can be a gentle slope, and is modern and open, like in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, which was built from 1948 and 1952, but obviously much smaller and less grandiose than that famous room.

The lecture hall is broad---enough to fill a wide shot looking down towards the stage, as we are going to do. There are aisles along the sides, maybe also in the middle.

DERRIDA is the last person (or two) in the empty rows, and the last one who is standing amidst the rows: the only one not making for the aisle, or going up and down the aisles towards the door. Perhaps a few people are still sitting solo or in a pair amidst the rows. Let's place DERRIDA about two-thirds of the way up the rows. He is comfortable, contrapposto,  apparently looking with vague focus, askew down across the rows towards the corner towards the direction of LEVI-STRAUSS and his cluster, whom we have placed by the doors. Let us specify that the doors next to the stage and there is an ample there for the cluster to form, like an eddy in a draining pool.

We linger here for a moment, in a moment of equilibrium and difference, seeing the slow motion of the room, with the two men like two poles, Derrida being a perspective-skewed giant, being he is closer.  Between them in the gulf of the rows and seats, and the VACUUM of the auditorium. The podium and stage is like a third force between them, to separate them, to create distance between their respective spaces.

The music should be from the same Walter Wanderley album, but a more gentle tract, like this one:

GOING BACK FOR A MOMENT: it is important that during the previous PAN OVER THE AUDITORIUM  that we eventually arrive at a wide shot of RICHARD MACKSEY enunciating the words of his introductory lecture while at the podium on the stage in front of the seats filled with attentive people. We don't see him otherwise in the scenes so far.

Deconstruction: The Busby Berkeley Shot

A split second after LEVI-STRAUSS finishes speaking...

CUT TO

TOP-DOWN SHOT at ceiling level of the auditorium, of Levi-Strauss surrounded by his fans.

Over the next beats, him move about him while LEVI-STRAUSS is the FIXED POLE. What we see should be evocative in some form, even shamelessly, of a classic BUSBY BERKELEY shot of a musical stage number, found in many of his movies, but instead of dancers moving in delightful coordinated movements, it should have a feeling that is beehive-like, spontaneous, glacially chaotic and not at all frenzied, tantalizingly close at some points, with certain pairs or triplets of individuals, to something that might possibly be a jovial medieval dance, and the negative black-for-white of the conventional Berkeley shot in that the we dark clothed people moving againt a light background of the floor.

During this we hear the same music continue from the zoetrope montage of Levi-Strauss.

Deconstruction: Zoetrope Montage/The Professor Signs His Oeuvre

A young man, the age of a graduate student, is able to get his question expressed amidst the others:

"Professor Lévi-Strauss, would you say that your work has given us the first SCIENTIFIC study of the Oedipus myth?"

IMMEDIATELY CUT to a music-only ZOETROPE-LIKE MONTAGE of still shots of Lévi-Strauss answering the question in various expressions and with various animated gestures, and then subsequently interacting with the people around him, including autographing a 1955 PLON first edition of Tristes Tropiques handed to him by a young woman of college here, who is delighted as he signs it.

During the montage, perhaps we hear something like this from Rain Forest by Walter Wanderley:


After the autographing, we see a couple more stills, indicating Lévi-Strauss is answering another question. At the end of the quick montage, we come back into the live action, with Lévi-Strauss, having handed the book back that he signed, making a soft-landing:

"And that is why, that event though Monsieur FOUCAULT and I differ greatly in regard to the definition of the concept of MAN, we nevertheless have many overlapping thoughts that are in accordance with each other on a fundamental level."