Deconstruction: Trocadero Metro

Perhaps Macksey and the newspaper reporter have lines that are spoken over the zoomed-in scene we see, of Derrida and Miller posing in a half-serious, half goofy pose for the young woman with the box camera. We don't know know what we might want them to say here. Perhaps not anything. Maybe we just see the silent scene play out. Derrida spots de Man and they wave him over as well, encouraging him, and jogs slowly into the scene and makes a quick pantomime of greeting the young woman as he passes her and jumps into the photo.

The important thing is eventually, in this silence, he arrive at a close-up of Derrida, and he is somewhat absorbed in the beauty of the moment, as he relaxes from the photo pose, as he looks straight ahead. We can see into his eyes.

From there we want to jump somewhere else. We want to jump back in time.

It is several years before. A beautiful spring afternoon. We see the outside entrance of a Paris Metro station  in the midst of a little traffic island. A few of the trees are in blossoms. One sees flowers. There is lively gentle activity, with cars and people on the streets.

The sign on the Metro station says Trocadero.

We hear music through this (more on that later)

Up the stairs from the Metro come Derrida and MARGUERITE DERRIDA. Here is she is younger than when we saw her in the maternity ward. She is in her late 20s.

They are smiling holding hands as they walk up. Derrida stops at the top to light a cigarette, and offer one to her, which she declines. The cigarette lit, he picks up his spirit where he left out, looks along the storefronts opposite to the train station, animatedly points to a cafe across the street, and then motions along the sidewalk.

As it happens, what he is doing here for her amusement is pointing out what he claims must be the real-life Parisians locations depicted in the drama La Folle de Chaillot  by Jean Girardoux. She knows it and he recites and mimics one of the lines said by the Ragpicker. He pulls her towards the cafe, wanting to sit and have a drink perhaps, but she, with enthusiasm pleads to first go the other direction, up towards...