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Bayrut Ya BeyrouthWalid Raad aa Assistant Professor in Video and Cultural Studies , Hampshire College , MassachusettsPublished online: 19 Jun 2008.

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Third Text 36, Autumn 1996 65

Bayrut Ya BeyrouthMaroun Baghdadi's Hors la vie and Franco-Lebanese History

Walid Raad

INTRODUCTION

Maroun Baghdadi's Hors la vie,1 the Frenchofficial selection to the 1991 Cannes filmfestival and winner of the Jury Prize, is about aFrenchman's ordeal in Beirut as a westernhostage. The film is inspired by the real-lifeaccount written by Roger Auque who wasabducted in Beirut on 13 January 1987, andreleased by the 'Organization for Revolut-ionary Justice' on 27 November 1987. Auque, afreelance reporter-photographer for French,Canadian and Belgian radio stations andphoto-feature agencies, was one of eighteenFrench nationals to have been abducted in andreleased or escaped from Beirut between March1985 and August 1991. By 15 May 1991, the dateof the opening of Hors la vie in France, all of theFrench hostages held in Lebanon had beenreleased but the 'Western Hostage Crisis'continued as all British, German and Americanhostages had, as of that date, not yet beenreleased. Today, Auque's book, Un otage àBeyrouth, and Baghdadi's film, Hors la vie, joinan expanding list of books and films writtenand produced by or about other former westernhostages who had been detained in Lebanon.2

The most intriguing element in Hors la vie'snarrative of a French photojournalist'sabduction and trials in Lebanon concerns the

film's treatment of Franco-Lebanese history. Infact what is so baffling about this treatment isthe complete absence of a direct reference byany of the film's characters to any history ofrelations between the two republics. This is allthe more significant in light of France's'special', historical ties to Lebanon, ties thatfound their most direct expression in 1920 withthe delegation by the League of Nations ofFrance as a mandatory power over Lebanon.While France's colonial history in the MiddleEast seems to have been forgotten by the film'scharacters, it nonetheless still manages to findexpression throughout Hors la vie. In thefollowing pages I will examine variousmoments when this history is referenced. I willalso argue that Baghdadi's treatment of theabduction of westerners in Lebanon in Hors lavie is both complicit with and critical of thepopular press's analyses of the episode referredto in France as 'L'affaire des otages'. The film attimes proposes a complex and originaltreatment of the ordeal of the Frenchman, onethat clarifies some aspects of the complexnature of France's historical relations withLebanon. Baghdadi's treatment, I will suggest,challenges the dominance of the hithertonarrowly geopolitical analyses of 'the Western

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Hostage Crisis', analyses that have beenprimarily concerned with unpacking thevarious political implications of The Iran-Contra Affair' in the United States, and'L'affaire Gordgï in France.3 At other times, thefilm offers some disturbingly simplistic charac-terisations of Lebanon, Lebanese subjects andFranco-Lebanese relations. My study willessentially concentrate on the followingquestion: what happens to Franco-Lebanesehistory in Hors la vie, a film that recounts aFrench photojournalist's 'ordeal' in Lebanon asa western hostage?

Praised by critics as presenting "the truth ofthis city (Beirut) and of this war (the Lebanesecivil war)", Hors la Vic's opening sequenceoffers a western audience two very distinct andfamiliar images.4 The first is that of thephotojournalist as hero in the figure of PatrickPerrault, and recalling the John Savagecharacter in Salvador and the Nick Noltecharacter in Under Fire.' And the second is thatof the Lebanon as represented by the popularpress for the past seventeen years, the Lebanonthat has become synonymous with anarchy anddestruction.

I propose firstly that Hors la vie relies on apopular and particular conception ofphotojournalism in order to present Perrault asa politically and ideologically neutral witnessto the civil war, and to establish subsequentlyhis account as the uncontested proof of theinability of the Lebanese and the Arabs togovern themselves. I will argue ' that thisrepresentation of photojournalism bothdisplaces French complicity in the abduction ofFrench nationals and in the sociopoliticalturmoil in Beirut, and justifies France's earlycolonial intervention in Lebanon as amandatory power.

On a deserted street littered with debris, adistant Jeep comes to a screeching halt. A groupof men pile out of it. On this barren strip, somemen are released, returned to their familieswho await them. The locale has already beenprovided by a voice-over of a radio broadcastthat announced in Arabic the toll of those killedand injured in Lebanon since the beginning ofthe war. We are in Beirut in the midst of a civilwar.

Two figures suddenly enter and cross the

frame. They settle, their backs towards theviewer, one centre-frame, the other in the right-hand corner of the screen. They focus their still

. cameras on the scene taking place ahead ofthem, the scene with the Jeep and the release ofmen. By their very entry into the cinematicframe the two photographers have obviouslyoverstepped a certain line for they areimmediately intercepted by Arabic-speakingarmed men. The photographers, one of whomis Perrault, are pushed back and off-screen.This is followed by a sequence in which wefollow Perrault as he not only witnesses, butmore importantly, as he photographically'captures' the images of this war, and fromwhich will also be recognised the familiarrepresentation of the 'nightmare terrain' inwhich he works: Lebanon. Perrault's entry intothe cinematic frame is all the more significantin that it coincides in this opening sequencewith his entry into another frame, that of theLebanese civil war. I want to suggest that themilitiamen's expulsion of the correspondents toa line located behind/alongside Baghdadi'scamera and off-screen stands as Baghdadi'scommentary on western correspondents'relation to the Lebanese civil war.

Having qualified as the 'hot spot' in theworld from the mid-1970s on, Lebanonwitnessed a deluge of western correspondentswho flocked to Beirut seeking to provide newsagencies and institutions with a bank of imagesand analyses that could have just as easily beenborrowed from the previous Third World 'hotspot' civil wars — Biafra, Benin, Chad,Bangladesh, or Katanga. However, the placethey represented came to signify not justanother 'hot spot'. The naming and visualisingof the Lebanon of the past two decadesbetrayed an ambivalence that was apparent inthe popular media's oscillation betweennostalgia and fear in its coverage of theLebanese civil war. In fact, nostalgia and fearare only a fraction of the truly baffling andmarvellous avalanche of descriptions andcharacterisations that have come to dominatethe bank of images and terms about Lebanesesubjects and spaces both in and outside ofLebanon.6

Indeed, Beirut for some western reporterswas not only "the most important story forquite a while"7 or "one of the most fascinatingmoments in history"8 but it was also "exciting,it was intoxicating, it was journalisticparadise",9 "the Casablanca, the centre, for the

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*.-{

Middle East correspondents".10 ToddRobertson, the assistant foreign editor of TheWashington Post, who was also abducted inLebanon in 1984, speaks of Beirut as a virtualamusement park, a place "like a playgroundwith a combination of thrilling work andthrilling social life and recreation"." SteveHagey of United Press International corrob-orates this view with the comment, 'The dirtylittle secret about Beirut is what fun it was. Itwas often scary and creepy, but it wasabsolutely hilarious fun. I can't rememberanything that was as much fun or as exhila-

rating."" Even Auque writes of the good times:

Tous ceux avec qui je rigolais le soir quand on rentrait' de reportage pendant la guerre du chouf, des camps

Palestiniens ou du siège de Tripoli. Au restaurant duCavalier, on décompressait autour d'un 'mézzé' aroséd'un Ksara '68."

That correspondents should unabashedly extolthe joys of working in war-torn terrain shouldnot come as much of a surprise. One needs onlyto be reminded of the statements of suchheralded war photojournalists as Don McCullih

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boasting that he "used to be a war-a-year man,but now it is not enough. I need two a year"."Such statements highlight a seldom publiclyacknowledged aspect of war photojournalismand photojournalists' interests, an aspect thatchallenges the popular conception which holdsthat: 1) war photojournalists are neutralobservers, faithful and uncorrupted witnessesto the situations and events of the world;2) they are committed, humanly and morally,to the stories they cover and are willing to put

themselves in situations of extreme danger inorder to record and report on the oppressionand struggles of others; 3) the truth of theevents and situations they witness and recordtranscends the local sociopolitical context, andis a reflection of a common human experienceof joy and pain, mourning and celebration;4) the representation of the truth of thiscommon human experience as being a questionof the spatiotemporal proximity of thephotojournalist to the situation at hand, so that

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the photographer "needs to go to the edge","needs to be "close enough"1' in order to capturethose now canonised moments most clearlycelebrated in Eddie Adams' 1968 photograph ofthe execution of a suspected Vietcong leader byVietnam's police chief." By acknowledging the'fun', and 'exhilaration', photojournalistsexperienced as they recorded the oppressionsand struggles of others, war correspondentssully the aura of selflessness and benevolencethat is the hallmark of the popular conceptionof war photojournalism. Their statementsaffirm that, far from being motivated solely bythe philanthropic and urgent need 'to let theworld know', war photojournalists, like earlycolonial Orientalist travellers, are alsoadventurers, tourists seeking as their mainattraction situations of extreme danger anddestruction;" and much like tourists,photojournalists always have the option toreturn 'home', to get away from this "putain deguerre dans ce pays de merde"."

Hors la vie and Un otage à Beyrouth assertagain the popular conception of photojour-nalism mentioned above. In Hors la vie, this isclearly demonstrated in a street scene after ashelling or a car bomb explosion. In this scenePerrault agrees to 'put down his camera'following the urgent demand of his Lebanesedriver Ali, and assists in transporting thevictims to a hospital. Perrault resumes hispicture-making in the car. This short sequencehighlights the intimate links between: 1) theFrench photojournalist's 'humanity', hissensitivity to the Lebanese victims, hiswillingness 'to get involved', or more preciselythe fact that some Lebanese, represented in thefigure of his driver Ali, want the westerncorrespondent to get involved. And 2) thephotojournalist's allegiance to the grand andmoral aspects that define his mission and hisprofession, "irrespective of any philosophicalconsideration".20

Perrault's neutrality as a photojournalist alsofinds support in the photograph's semioticvalue as an indexical sign, a process of signifi-cation which seems to exclude the possibility ofan interference between the referent and thesignified. Hors la vie relies on this semioticquality of the photograph in order to neutraliseideologically and ontologically naturalise theFrench photojournalist's relation to theLebanese civil war. This is produced in the finalscene of the opening sequence by establishing acorrespondence between the photojournalist's

eyes and his roll of film. At one point during hisheroic manoeuvring through the debris of thecivil war, Perrault enters a warehouse where heencounters two militiamen. The two men forcethe photojournalist to photograph them as theyproudly stand next to and display themutilated body of another militiaman. Walkingaway from the warehouse, an obviouslydisturbed Perrault intentionally 'burns' his filmby unwinding it and throwing it to the ground.This gesture "blinds', however, more than theframes that he had just produced. Itblind(fold)s Perrault as well since he isabducted and hooded in the very next scene.This sequence performs a slippage whereby thephotojournalist's eyes come to occupy the samerelation that his roll of film occupied vis-à-visthe atrocities that he had just witnessed. Thecorrespondence between the Frenchman's eyesand his roll of film confirms once more theideological neutrality of his photographicdocumentation; Perrault's visual testimony ishere represented as the photochemical imprintstamped on the Frenchman's eyes by theLebanese civil war, equivalent to and as naturaland neutral as the photochemical process thatsensitises film.

This sequence also clarifies the consequencesof the militiamen's expulsion of Perrault, at thebeginning of Hors la vie to behind/alongsideBaghdadi's camera. As Perrault's visionmetonymically and metaphorically stands infor the roll of film as the 'burned', blindedsensitised plane, another crucial shift isproduced. Riding on Perrault's 'neutral' capitalas a photojournalist, this shift represents atransfer of representational authority from theFrench photojournalist to the Lebanesefilmmaker. Baghdadi's adopted 'neutrality' is,however, radically different from Perrault's.While Perrault's 'neutrality' referred to anunproblematic relation to a phenomenal 'real',a 'truth' toward which a photojournalistgravitated, Baghdadi's is essentiallyreconfigured and redefined around the notionof balance'. Baghdadi's balanced' point ofview, his 'neutrality', leans centrally on twofactors, the first being that it is attested to by hisown history as filmmaker. Indeed, Baghdadi'sfilm projects have ranged from a series of shortdocumentaries for the Lebanese NationalMovement (LMN) — a political and militarycoalition formed in 1969 by Kamal Jumblatt,and which grouped socialists, communists,Arab nationalists, and various other leftists and

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secularists — to fiction and non-fiction films forFrench and British TV; among them Mara, 1989,on the occasion of the French Revolution bi-centennial, and culminating with the Frenchofficial entry at Cannes in '91, Hors la vie.™ Thusas a filmmaker who has produced work forboth the Lebanese left and French agencies,Baghdadi's balanced point of view is the resultof his demonstrated sensitivity to thecomplexities of the Lebanese war andsympathy to French interests.

The second factor upon which Baghdadi'sbalanced perspective depends is that it issanctioned and acknowledged by the film'smain characters, Perrault and the Lebanesemilitiamen. The militiamen's blessing isperformed at the very beginning of the film asthey aggressively push Perrault off screen. Thisaggressive intervention had also inadvertentlyset up two zones from which to frame the civilwar; one occupied — even if temporarily — byPerrault the photojournalism and the other byBaghdadi the filmmaker. It is important to keepin mind that unlike Perrault, Baghdadi'simaging efforts suffer no harm at the hands ofthe militiamen. The Lebanese filmmaker'spoint of view, we are led to believe, is in linewith the militiamen's.

As for Perrault's blessing, it is granted at thevery last moments of the opening sequence.This sequence ends with a fade-out to black ona close-up shot of the roll of film that Perraulthad just discarded. As soon as the frame fadesto black, Baghdadi's credits as director of thefilm appear on screen. As the precipitate ofPerrault's actions, as that which remains,Baghdadi's name and title represent that whicheffectively cannot be burned and erased.Perrault's 'blinding' gesture thus sheds lightnot only on his roll of film but also onBaghdadi. It grants the Lebanese filmmaker (inplace of Perrault) authority and legitimacy as araconteur of the ordeal of the French hostage.

IIAs the selfless witness to the Lebanese civilwar, Perrault simply cannot make sense of hisabduction. His bewilderment parallels RogerAuque's conclusion in Un otage à Beyrouthregarding the possible reasons for his fate,"...j'ai beau chercher, j'arrive toujours à la mêmeconclusion: je n'ai rien à me reprocher!"22 The film,however, offers a variety of motives to answer

the Frenchman's bewilderment as to hissituation, some that are terribly simplistic andbanal, and others that are quite complex. Horsla vie initially proposes through one ofPerrault's guards, 'De Niro', a narrowlycriminal reason for the Frenchman's abduction.The English speaking Lebanese man, amilitiaman/actor who claims to have been thepersonal bodyguard of Robert De Niro,explains that the Frenchman's abduction isdirectly tied to the conviction and imprison-ment by the French authorities of a brother ofthe abductors' chief on drug-related charges.This explanation, which borrows from therecent dissemination in the western popularpress of stories unveiling the growth of a drugproduction industry in Lebanon, furthershrouds French complicity in the abduction ofits nationals in Beirut.23 Shying away from thegeopolitical analyses behind the kidnappingsthat were common in many French periodicalsand newspapers, Hors la vie's emphasis fallsinstead on the legal and moral grounds onwhich France stands in its dealings with drugdealers and in retaliation to which France isunjustly being punished by Perrault'sabduction. This emphasis effectivelyestablishes the abductors as criminals,stripping their actions of any ideological andpolitical validity and thus further margin-alising them as politicised agents.

Another guard, Ahmad, provides Perraultwith an indirect but complex clue to hisabduction. This clue unsettles not only thérelation to Lebanon of Perrault, the photojour-nalist, but also the relation to Lebanon ofPerrault, the Frenchman. In answer toPerrault's query, "Pourquoi je suis là, pourquoitout ça", Ahmad answers, "Si tu es ici, c'est quetu as fait quelque chose de mal".2' By effectivelyturning Perrault's logic on its head — from'What have I done to be here' to 'Since you arehere, you must have done something bad',Ahmad effects a shift in the locale demarcatedby the spatial markers '/à' and 'ici'. I want tosuggest that while Perrault's 'là' in his questionclearly referred to the photojournalist's place incaptivity, Ahmad's 'ici' in his answercorresponds to the Frenchman's presence inanother locale, Lebanon. Ahmad's answerbaffles Perrault precisely because theFrenchman's relation to Lebanon is determinedprimarily by his role as a photojournalism assomeone who has to be there (lä) in order toproduce the images of this war. The authority

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of Perrault's photographs as accurate and'truthful' images of the Lebanese civil warrelies precisely on the fact that they wereproduced 'lä' — in Lebanon. Ahmad'sintervention thus completely scrambles thespatio-temporal fixity upon which Perraultrelies in order for his photographs to acquirethe belief of their viewers. With Ahmad'sanswer, the spatial markers 'lä' and 'id' becomequestions regarding the reasons and motivesthat make possible the presence of theFrenchman in Lebanon. They point, in otherwords, not only to the photojournalist's field ofoperation, nor only the place of his captivity,but also to his very presence 'là', 'ici', inLebanon.

Ahmad's interrogation of the Frenchman'spresence in Lebanon indirectly brings forth forthe viewer the memory of the intervention ofthe European country as a mandatory power inthe Levant. This memory, seemingly forgottenby Perrault and not once directly mentioned byany of Hors la vie's characters, is not completelyerased in the film. In this instance, it is grantedexpression in the relation to Lebanon that isestablished between Perrault the photojour-nalist and Perrault the Frenchman. What I amproposing is that between Perrault's photojour-nalistic mission of 'letting the world know' andFrance's moral commitment to Lebanon.whichfound its clearest expression in the selfless and'civilising' terms of the Mandate, there is acontinuum of interests that rides on the moralcapital of photojournalism. In Hors la vie and inUn otage à Beyrouth, the visibility of thiscontinuum is disrupted by Perrault, Auque andthe Lebanese militiamen's incredible amnesiaregarding French colonial history in the MiddleEast. In the following pages, I will argue that itis precisely this forgetting that the filmattempts to regulate, manage and maintainthrough a repetition of specific representationsof the city of Beirut.

IllSince the seventeenth century, France's moralinfluence in the Middle East had been religiousin focus, disseminated through a network ofCatholic schools, religious institutions andmissionary societies.25 France's interests werealso clearly political, social and economic.However, these interests were initially framedby the European power's centuries-long claim

not only to a protectorate of the Catholicsubjects of western European states resident inthe Ottoman Empire, but also to the Catholicand other Christian subjects of the Empire.Political authority and moral influence througha religious protectorate became an essentialstrategy of French diplomacy in the Orientfrom the seventeenth century on. After 1900and as her religious protectorate waschallenged in various parts of the Middle Eastby other European powers, France deepenedher investments specifically in Syria andLebanon.

The Maronites of Mount Lebanon, France'sclosest Christian allies in the Levant, benefitedsocially, politically and economically the mostfrom this protectorate at the expense of thenumerically dominant but politically weakenedMuslim majority of Syria and Lebanon. TheFrench certainly did not conceal theirpreference for the Christians over the majorityMuslims of the region. The Muslims of thecoast were considered by the French as"physically mediocre, less intelligent, fanatic,and untrustworthy".26 Greater Lebanon, longdesired by the Maronites, was created in 1920.To create the economically and territoriallyviable Lebanese state, the French annexed tothe mostly Maronite area of Mount Lebanonthe predominantly Muslim coastal cities of Tyr,Sidon, Tripoli and their administrativehinterlands, the capital Beirut, and the fertileBekaa valley. This move effectivelysubordinated a large Muslim populace, who forthe most part had wanted union with Syria,into a Maronite dominated Lebanon.27

In Hors la vie emphasis on the Frenchman'saccount of his 'ordeal' in Beirut functions at theexpense of a critical historical analysis of thecultural, ideological, religious and classspecificity of the French intervention thatresulted in the emergence of a Lebanonpolitically dominated by Christian Maronites.The film's disregard of the specificity of theFrench intervention is aided and facilitated bytwo themes about Lebanese subjects and theLebanese civil war that find expression also inthe opening sequence of the film.

Here, the viewer is witness to the bravery ofthe photojournalist who enters a situation ofphysical restrictedness and decay and emergesunscathed, yet in this instance baffled andconfused by the sight of the horrors takingplace around him. It is important to note thatthe viewer is just as baffled and confused,

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unable to distinguish here between the warringfactions. This blurring of the distinctionsbetween the various militias goes hand in handwith the tendency to naturalise the violence ofthe Lebanese civil war by forwarding imagesand analyses that obscure the ideological, socialand political differences between the warringparties while concentrating solely andreductively on the destruction of the city anddeath of its residents. However, the source ofPerrault's bafflement is made evident in hisstatement, "Quand les Israéliens attaquent lesPalestiniens, y'a une logique, et encore. Mais quandles Palestiniens et les Chi'ites se massacrent entreeux, putain, j'y comprends plus rien".2* Thisstatement points to particular racial, nationaland linguistic differences between threeseparate parties, the Israelis, the Palestiniansand the Shi'a. Perrault makes it clear that whatbaffles him is not the conflict between theIsraelis and the Palestinians but the conflictbetween the Arabs, the Shi'a and thePalestinians. This emphasis on the confusingnature of the conflict between the Shi'a and thePalestinians is quite revealing. It points to theFrenïh photojournalist's phantasy of a politicaland ideological conformity between thePalestinians and the Shi'a, a conformity whichwould render a conflict between them unimag-inable. It also legitimates, as I want to suggest,French intervention along the lines of theMandate of 1920.

The western representation of Palestinianand Shi'a men as 'terrorists' has played asignificant role in shaping western popularpreconceptions of who the Shi'a and thePalestinian communities are.29 From the late1960s until the 1980s, and at the height of theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, the representationof 'the terrorist' in the western popular mediawas dominated initially by the figure of thePalestinian Arab.30 However, in the 1980s,following the Iranian Revolution and the Israeliinvasion of Lebanon in 1982, the 'IslamicFundamentalists' ('Les fous de dieu' as theFrench press referred to the Shi'a) became theprivileged 'terrorist' representatives in westernfilms.31 The representation in Hors la vie of in-fighting between the two most likely andfamiliar (to western audiences) 'terrorist'groups must be critically assessed for itreinforces the media's representation of thesegroups as barbarous and repugnant. Thiswestern representation also confirms the stateof anarchy and destruction that characterises

not only the Lebanese civil war but 'this part ofthe world in general', the Middle East. Theimage of Arabs as people who cannot 'getalong' also reiterates that which Francesupposedly knew all along and had statedthrough the programmes of its missioncivilisatrice, and that which Auque will repeatin his book, namely that "le comportementorientale est parfaitement illogique. La tournured'esprit de l'orient n'a rien de cartésien. Ils pensent,parlent, réfléchissent suivant un raisonnement quin'est pas le nôtre".32 This statement is in perfectaccord with the objective of Orientalist andcolonial discourse to "construe the colonised asa population of degenerate types on the basis ofracial origin, in order to justify conquest and toestablish systems of administration andinstruction".33 The fighting between thePalestinian and the Shi'a thus provides thebasis for a legitimate foreign intervention,reminiscent of the European powers'intervention as mandatory powers in the wakeof World War I. After all, the Mandate'spremises were based on the 'civilising' relationbetween the mandatory power and the"backward nation', its ultimate goal being to"lead the backward nations to a higher level ofcivilisation whose flower was independenceand democracy".34

IVHors la vie visually frames the narrative of theFrenchman's ordeal by two specific and distinctrepresentations of the city of Beirut. The first isthat of the opening sequence in which the cityis seen in the midst of its self-destruction, withPerrault and the viewer as witnesses to thecarnage and devastation. The second,presented after Perrault's abduction andblindfolding and functioning as a seguebetween the various episodes of his captivity,surfaces through two main cinematic formalstrategies, the pan and the tracking shot. In thepan shots, Beirut is imaged as a métropole likeany other, a city where the physical traces of aviolent war are hardly noticeable. In thetracking shots, Beirut is seen through thewindshield of a moving vehicle as we are ledthrough the rubble and debris of streets thathad obviously been the site of some intensefighting. The city represented after theFrenchman's abduction is thus a city thatstands temporally and spatially around the

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time and space of the Beirut that is representedin the opening sequence. The framing ofPerrault's account by these distinct represent'ations and more importantly the repetition ofthe tracking shots throughout the film is quiteintriguing. My question here is the following:what is at stake in the film in the repetition ofthe tracking shots of Beirut's devastatedstreets?

The first two tracking shots in Hors la viefunction in complete accord with the linearnarrative progression of the film. The firstappears at the beginning of the film, directly

following the scene of Perrault's abduction.Having seized the Frenchman in front of hishome in broad daylight, the abductors, rushingto flee the scene of their crime, hurry throughthe streets of the city. The destructionevidenced in this and every other tracking shotis of an unimaginable scope. Abandoned,burned, shelled carcasses of what appear tohave been residential and commercialbuildings endlessly line both sides of thisforsaken arena. The shot offers this view asseen through the windshield of the moving car,as seen by the Lebanese men. What most

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audiences would interpret as a 'no-man's land',a labyrinth of rubble is clearly in this firsttracking shot a comforting, familiar andfriendly territory to these men who, at highspeed, skilfully manoeuvre their way throughthe unmarked deserted urban setting. In fact,their ability to flee successfully the scene oftheir crime clearly depends on their 'gettinglost' in this labyrinth.

If the first two tracking shots seeminglypresent the point of view of the Lebanese menas emphasised by the accompanying audio, thesubsequent tracking shots, even as they offerthe visual equivalent of the previous ones,scramble this certainty and beg the question ofthe point of view presented. This is produced inone instance by the immediate cut from one ofthe tracking shots to a close-up of a wide-eyedPerrault lying down in the darkness of his cell.This sequence suggests that the scenes imagedin the tracking shots are actually theFrenchman's day-dreams, his reminiscences oreven his hallucinations. In another, at the veryend of the film, a very similar sequence repeatsthis suggestion. In the scene in question we seePerrault, after his release and return to Franceat a pay-phone dialling the number of aresidence in Lebanon, the place where he had atone point been detained.35 The sounds of aphone ringing at the other end of the line leadthe viewer into the apartment in Lebanon.After a few pan shots of the desolate flat, thefilm cuts into a medium close-up shot of ablankly staring Perrault, holding the receiver,'lost in thought'. This is immediately followedby a cut to the tracking shot of the Beirut street.The suggestion here again is that the trackingshot is the visualisation of the scene that hasPerrault 'lost in thought', as he recalls the cityof his captivity. What I am suggesting is thatthe initial tracking shot which offers the pointof view of the abductors 'getting lost' in thelabyrinth of the city, rushing away from thescene of their abduction of Perrault, is not theonly one illustrating an escape from the sceneof a crime. The subsequent tracking shots bearthe marks of yet other crimes.

The destruction evidenced in the trackingshots of Beirut's streets presents a truly horrificspectacle. As images that repeatedly haunt theFrenchman during and after the ordeal of hiscaptivity, the repetition of these dreams, day-dreams and hallucinations presents a curiousphenomenon. Commenting on the psycho-logical consequences of captivity on the

hostages, French Surgeon General Louis Crocqspeaks of the traumatic potential that theexperience of captivity can have on the releasedhostage. By appealing to a type of traumaticneurosis, characterised as post-traumatic stressdisorder, he proposes that repetition is a modeof psychological defense:

Cette névrose (PTSD) se manifeste par le syndrome derépétition: des cauchemars, où le sujet revit avec uneintensité émotionelle énorme le traumatisme... 'Ils'agit pour la victime, en revivant ces scènes, d'essayerd'improviser les actes de défense qu'elle n'a pas pu oupas su acomplir dans la réalité'.x

Crocq's characterisation of repetition as a modeof psychological defence repeats Freud'shypothesis in Beyond the Pleasure Principlewhere he proposes a relation betweenrepetition and a process of retroactivelymanaging trauma. He writes that repetition"endeavours to master the stimulus retrospec-tively by developing the anxiety whoseomission was the cause of the traumaticneuroses", and moreover that this compulsionto repeat "is supported by the wish... to conjureup what has been forgotten and repressed".37

Crocq and Freud's hypotheses emphasise twothemes about the relation between repetitionand trauma. Firstly, it is suggested thatrepetition is the method/action by which thetraumatised attempt to manage the traumaticoccurrence by retroactively producing theanxiety to cushion the impact of the unexpectedtraumatic occurrence. And secondly, thatrepetition functions in relation to a "forgottenand repressed", and thus acts as a link to thisoccurrence, event and history. The underlyingsupposition in these formulations is that sincethe "forgotten and repressed" cannot beremembered by the traumatised, it is repeated,"reproduced... as an action". Repetition, inother words, is one way for the traumatisedsubject to remember. One could readBaghdadi's representations of the streets ofBeirut in Hors la vie as indebted to Crocq andFreud's theories. In this case the trauma that ismanaged through the repetition of the imagesof the city is, as Crocq insists, that of theFrenchman's captivity. In this case, the"repressed and forgotten" would correspond tothe experience of captivity that the westernerendured. What I want to propose, however, isthat the repetition of the street scenes works inthis instance to master retrospectively some

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other trauma, seemingly forgotten butultimately not completely erased in Hors la vie.

In the Arab press Maroun Baghdadi is oftenfaulted for exaggerating and sensationalisingthe image of Beirut as a devastated métropole.38

On this matter Baghdadi's critics are not totallywrong. The only streets that actually bear themarks of as much destruction as thoserepresented in the tracking shots of the film arethose of the so-called 'Green Line' in Beirut.39

The 'Green Line' is the 'no-man's land' thatduring the civil war cut Beirut in half, and borethe brunt of the fighting between the militiasthat lined the rival banks of east and westBeirut. The 'Green Line' ran through the centreof the city, effectively decentring it and thecountry, physically and symbolically.Baghdadi's representation of the devastatedstreets of Beirut's 'Green Line' thus bears thetraces of a crucial loss, the loss of the city'scentre. Jade Tabet in his article 'Beyrouth et laguerre urbaine' reminds us of the historicalsignificance of Beirut's centre.40 This centreconstituted since the second half of the 19thcentury the major element in the spatial organi-sation of a base for French intervention in theMiddle East. The construction of the road andthe rail tracks linking Beirut to Damascus aswell as the expansion of Beirut's harbour werecrucial in the establishment of Beirut as amilitary, economic and political base for theFrench and other European powers." After1920 and with the establishment of the FrenchMandate, the vast urban renovations of thecity's centre transformed it into a majortransportation, hotel and tourism hub. AfterLebanon's independence, this same centrebecame the seat of the new state's economicand political powers.42

The significance of Beirut in the spatialorganisation of a base for French interventionfinds indirect expression in Hors la vie duringan exchange that takes place between Perraultand another of his guards, Ali. The Lebaneseguard, speaking of his desires to some day visitthe Frenchman's country proclaims, "Mais tusais, on peut aller en France en restant au Liban,rien que les noms des rues. Rue Jean D'Arc, RueVerdun, Rue Justanien, Rue Clemenceau, AvenueCharles De Gaulle".*3 Ali's reference to thenaming of streets in Beirut 'in honour' ofFrench political and historical figures andevents is remarkable in its succinctness. Thisreference, which is the closest that anycharacter will come to mentioning France's

history in the Middle East, contrasts withPerrault's incredible uncertainty as to thishistory. The young militiaman's referencedirectly links the representation of the streets ofBeirut with the European power's historicalpresence in the Middle East. In fact, Ali'sstatement, "On peut aller en France en restant àBeyrouth", places the European nation-state notat a geographical, historical and politicalremove or distance from the Lebanese capital,but right in the heart of the 'Paris of the Mid-East', within the streets that regulated the city'ssocial, economic, cultural and political life. Therepetition of the tracking shots when readalongside Ali's reference thus acquires asomewhat more significant function thanmerely the managing of Perrault's traumaticcaptivity experience. The repetition servesinstead to also manage, maintain and regulatethe remembering and forgetting of anotheroccurrence, one in which France's missioncivilisatrice is confronted with the "displacedand decentred image of itself in 'double dutybound', at once a civilising mission and asubjugating force".44 This is the history thatreminds France's mission civilisatrice of its 'notso civilising' pillars, and of the fact that itsintervention in Lebanon was always at thesame time a 'subjugating force', a force whichalso resulted in the emergence of a Lebanonpolitically dominated by one confessionaldenomination, the Maronites. These repressedpillars surface through the geographical andpolitical 'cut', the 'Green Line', a 'cut' thatBaghdadi attempts to patch with a cinematicrepetition. This repetition remains nonethelessthe mark of a nostalgic yearning for a centredBeirut, a Beirut where violence against Frenchnationals is unimaginable.

VThe repressed 'half light' of French interventionalso surfaces in the certainty with which thefilm names and identifies Perrault's abductors.The identification of the Lebanese men revolvesprimarily around the question of their confes-sional affiliation. Hors la vie reworks completelythe uncertainty that was dominant in Un otage àBeyrouth as to the identity of the kidnappers.While in the book, Auque spends a fair amountof time recounting his attempts to determinewhether the men holding him werePalestinians, Shi'a, Druze, or pro-Libyan

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elements, in the film, their identity is absolutelyclear. They are Lebanese Shi'a. As the mostpolitically, economically and sociallydisenfranchised and least empoweredconfession by the Lebanese political system andby the French intervention that played asignificant role in establishing this politicalsystem in the early part of the century, the Shi'ahave historically every reason to hold Franceresponsible for their political and economicdisadvantage in Lebanon, and thus to bepolitically justified in their abduction of theFrench nationals.45 In this section, I will arguethat Hors la vie strategically manages to divertattention away from a critical examination ofthe French complicity in the sociopoliticalmarginalisation of this dominant Muslimconfession through the personal narratives thatPerrault's guards present as they explain how itis that they came to be involved in suchactivities as the kidnapping of westerners.

Perrault's three main guards, Ali, Ahmadand Omar will all at one point or another in thefilm tell their personal stories. These'confessions' function "to show the abductorsas victims as well", hostages of a different sortas Maroun Baghdadi emphasised.44 BetweenAhmad and All's pronounced reasons forjoining the militia, the abductors in fact doemerge in Hors la vie as victims; victims of apolitical system that discriminates againstthem/and victims of the Israeli invasion of theirhomes and lands in South Lebanon.47

The clearest expression of the Shi'a's social,political and economic marginalisation inLebanon is provided by Ahmad who inresponse to Ali's yearning for an educationstates, "Ali croyait qu'il pouvait changer sa vie avecdes études, comme si un Chi'ite avait une chancedans ce pays".4' By belittling Ali's wishes for aneducation, Ahmad expresses the widespreadpessimism of a community that understands itsmarginalisation in Lebanon to be based on adiscriminatory sociopolitical Lebanese system.Indeed, the Shi'a community's politicalleverage in Lebanon is far from being propor-tional to its numerical dominance.49 In Hors lavie, the social, political and economic standingof the Shi'a in Lebanon serves as the primarybasis and motive for the young militiamen'sinvolvement in the abduction of westerners.Their participation in revolutionary organi-sations is explained as a direct consequence oftheir marginalisation. The abductors figure aseconomically disadvantaged, politically naive

mercenaries, and as ideological dupes whoabduct and terrorise westerners. Their politicaland ideological affiliation is presented assuspect and somewhat arbitrary. Ahmad'smultiple ideological affiliations as expressed inhis statement, "J'ai combattu les Israéliens àAytaroun. J'étais avec les Palestiniens. Puis j'aicombattu contre les Palestiniens à Beyrouth. Maisd'abord j'étais avec les Communistes, puis laMunazzameh (PLO in Arabie), puis Amal, puis Idon't know who (in Arabic). Aujourd'hui avecl'Islam. On va changer le monde"*0 — seemsexcessive and somewhat ridiculous in light ofthe absence in the film of a critical andhistorical exposition of the programme andagendas of the various militias mentioned.

The abductors' political and ideologicalmembership is also presented as existing in asystematic and determined relation to theireconomic disadvantage within Lebanon. Ali'sexplanation - "j'aurai aimé faire autre chose (thanto be Perrault's guard), je n'ai rien, I have tomake a living (in Arabic) —je viens de Aytaroun.C'est un village très pauvre dans le Sud"" — positsa direct relation between, on the one hand Ali'spoverty, his need to make a living, and hisinvolvement in a militia. On the other, thisexplanation also highlights the militiaman'sexile from Aytaroun, his village in southLebanon. As economically the least developed,and politically the least stable region inLebanon, south Lebanon is far from being ahospitable environment for the majority Shi'aMuslims who populate it. It is also evident inHors la vie via a series of background radioreports that Ali's exile from the south is alsomotivated by a ferocious and regular Israelishelling of the region.. All these motives thusexplain the Lebanese men's violence towardthe French national as the matter of theunreasonable and cruel yet understandabledisplaced aggression toward an innocentperson (Perrault) by the disgruntled yet trulyexploited Lebanese Shi'a community. Byexclusively focusing on the oppression of theShi'a by other Lebanese and on the Israelioccupation of the South, French complicity ineither the establishment of the Lebanesepolitical system or in the Arab-Israeli conflict isthus strategically and conveniently overlookedin Hors la vie.

The certainty with which the confessionalidentity of the abductors is affirmed functionsin marked contrast with the ambiguity thatcharacterises the personal naming of the young

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Muslim men. During his initial period ofcaptivity, Perrault bestows on his guardsFrench and western names to differentiatethem from each other. Ali is thus namedPhillipe, and similarly Ahmad becomesFrankenstein. This naming strategy amuses oneof the guards, Ali, who in turn chooses toconfer an Arabic name on the French hostage.Perrault, not the least bit amused by this, reactsviolently by interrupting the domino game hehad been engaged in with his guard. "Jem'appelle Patrick Perrault... je veux pas changer denom", he protests. "Mais nous tous ici on changéde noms. Moi, par example, on m'appelle Ali mais jene m'appelle pas Ali", explains the militiaman; towhich Perrault replies, "Mais moi, j'ai aucuneraison de changer de noms", "Tu es comme nous!En Arabe il y a un proverbe: 'Qui te traite commelui n'est pas injuste envers toi'", replies Ali. Thisexchange between Ali and Perrault is crucial inthat it suggests and asserts a differencebetween the two men, a national difference thatdenies precisely the sameness implied by Ali.In fact, and as Perrault asserts, by his defiantstance, the Frenchman is far from being 'commenous', like the Lebanese men. It is thisdifference from the young Arab men that is atstake in the various relations to the personalname adopted by the film's main character.

The French hostage's naming strategy hadamused Ali because the Lebanese man hadrecognised in it a strategy that he and hiscomrades partake in. When Ali states "Moi, onm'appelle Ali mais je ne m'appelle pas AH", he ineffect explains that Ali is his nom de guerre andnot his real name. The potential complicity ofthe personal name in the violent economy ofdetention, torture and interrogation is thusasserted. The nom de guerre adopted by themilitiamen isolates the individual in a cell, andthe cell from the military or political organis-ation. In this first economy of naming the namebetrays but other names which are equallyunreliable at the hands of the enemy who seeksto prove the membership of this or that personin the militia. The Lebanese men's names, Ali,Ahmad, Mustapha, Omari and Walid thusbecome as Jean Genet remarks "a thin,sometimes transparent mask beneath whichthere was another name... through which couldbe glimpsed another name".52. It is in thiscontext of interrogation, detention, and tortureas demarcated by the nom de guerre that thesecond notable performance of naming isplayed out, that between Perrault and his

captors. Here, however, the dynamic of namingis turned on its head. There is no doubt, nouncertainty as to the Frenchman's personalname. The name in this second economy doesnot isolate the person named but on thecontrary unites the named subject with hisnation-state. The abductors' seizure ofPerrault's passport upon kidnapping him, inorder to verify the identity of the man they areholding, seals the link between theFrenchman's name and his nationality. Perraultrejects the name granted him by Ali preciselybecause he has been stripped of his institu-tionally endorsed certificate of nationalidentity, his passport, and not because hewants to hold on to his personal individualidentity. His insistence on maintaining hisFrench personal name certifies that what is atstake for Perrault with his defiant stance is thatwhich he is certain can save his life, hisFrenchness. Indeed Roger Auqùe in Un otage àBeyrouth clearly believed that the nationalidentity of the French hostage was the onlyguarantor of a hostage's survival. He states,"Toujours pour se rassurer, on pensait que le risqued'être tué, si l'on était un otage français, restaitminime. Ce sont les Américains (le Grand Satan)qui sont les plus visés"." No explanation isprovided the reader as to the exemption ofFrenchmen from the possibility of being killed,or as to why Americans would be a more likelytarget of an execution. Underlying thisproposition is, on the one hand, a faith in thenatural and ahistorical antagonism between theArab world and the United States," and on theother, a faith in the 'special' historical relationbetween France and Lebanon, a faith in themoral capital of French relations with Lebanon.France's history in the Middle East is thusagain indirectly referred to, this time throughthe various relations to the personal nameadopted by the Frenchman and the militiamen,all of whom remain silent about Franco-Lebanese history.

VTIn this final section, I want to argue that Hors lavie proposes a specific relation betweenphotography and film. This relation, as I willdemonstrate, resists the film's complicity in themanagement of France's colonial history, andmoreover proposes a crucial shift in theanalyses of 'L'affaire des otages'.

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Hors la vie's opening sequence clearlyfunctions as an illustration and a celebration ofphotography. It is filled with distinct moments(execution scenarios, flight of refugees, carbomb explosions, etc) loaded with certaintemporal and semiotic qualities that providethe 'material' for the production of what iscommonly referred to in photojournalism as'the shot'. The Lebanese militiamen'sblindfolding of Perrault, I would argue, mustbe read as a specific kind of violence onphotography which strips the photographer ofhis ability to detect, arrest, and strategically to

capture photojournalism's celebratedmoments. However, as Perrault's vision isobstructed, Hors la vie, as a film, recuperates theloss Perrault's vision had incurred. The filmreveals what the photojournalist was notpermitted to see — the faces of the abductors —and what the abductors did not see —Perrault's ordeal in the darkness of his cells.Access to what either the abductors or Perraultcould not or did not see comes at a price: thephotographer's ability to produce photojour-nalism's cherished moments.

Perrault's blindfolding is, however, the mark

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of a specific kind of violence. This violence isnot the signature of a physical force exerted forthe sole purpose of handicapping theFrenchman. In other words, blindfoldingPerrault not only prevents him from seeing butalso forces him to look at what is located on theperiphery of his vision. At different momentsin the film, it is made clear that Perrault is ableto 'cheat', to peek through a slit of the clothcovering his eyes. This 'cheating' produces aspatial reorganisation vis-à-vis the location ofthe object of his look, from the centre to themargin. Thus blindfolded, the Frenchphotojournalist is forced to focus on the spaceshe previously deemed marginal, on theperiphery of the centre he hitherto had placedso much emphasis on. The Frenchman is in asituation in which he finds himself investinginterest in a place that is in proximity to theoriginal site/sight of interest, a displacementthat recalls the film's treatment of the represen-tation of the city. The blindfolding of thephotojournalist thus becomes the demand tofocus in the analysis of the 'Western HostageCrisis' on temporal and spatial margins, on theside of the original site/sight of interest.

CONCLUSIONTwice a day throughout the captivity of theircompatriots in Lebanon, at the start of the oneo'clock and eight o'clock newscasts, Frenchviewers were reminded of their fellow citizensheld in Beirut. The snapshots of the hostagesand the number of days they, had been heldflashed onto the screen in a twelve-secondsequence. This sequence led one French writerto comment, "Tous les soirs, à la même heure, ungrand moment de gêne descend sur la France et surla famille reunie autour du fricot ou de la quichelorraine, à la pensée des hommes qui passerontencore cette nuit en prison".!5 This "grand momentde gêne" referred primarily to what Frenchviewers knew too well, and to that which thevoice-over accompanying the sequencereminded them, namely that the Frenchhostages in Lebanon had still not been freed.

In this paper I have argued that this "grandmoment de gêne" must also be read as thememory of France's colonial adventuresurfacing to remind France's mission civilisatriceof its not so civilising aspects. The blindfoldingof the Frenchman and the various represent-ations of the city serve as hints, traces that

'L'affaire des otages' cannot be read merely asthat of the oppression of innocent Frenchnationals, as the TV sequence attempts to do,nor as the consequence of the recentgeopolitical developments in the Middle East,as most popular analyses have done, nor as adesperate move on the part of the oppressedLebanese Shi'a as Hors la vie at times seems tosuggest. The blindfolding of the photojour-nalist and the various representations of Beirutare the expressions of a demand to read thehistory of 'L'affaire des otages' not straight centrebut on the periphery of this crisis, on themargins of the hitherto dominant represent-ations of the Lebanese civil war, along thattemporal and spatial boundary known as thecolonial periphery.

Notes

1 Hors la vie, directed by Maroun Baghdadi, withHippolyte Girardot, Rafic AH Ahmad, Hussein Sbeity,Habib Hammoud, Magdi Machmouchi, Hassan Farhatand Hassan Zbib, BAC Films, 1991.

2 Roger Auque, Un otage à Beyrouth (Filipacchi, Paris,1988). David Jacobsen and Gerald Astor, My Life as aHostage: The Nightmare in Beirut (Donald I Fine, NewYork, 1991). Benjamin Weir et al, Hostage Bound,Hostage Free (Westminster John Knox, New York, 1987).Charles Glass, Tribes and Flags: A Dangerous PassageThrough the Chaos of the Middle East (Atlantic MonthlyPress, New York, 1990). Terry Anderson, Den of Lions:Memoirs of Seven Years (Crown Publishing Group, NewYork, 1993). Brian Keenan, An Evil Cradling: The FiveYear Ordeal of a Hostage (Viking Penguin, New York,1993). Terry Waite, Taken on Trust (Harcourt Brace &Company, New York, 1993). Joseph Cicippio, andRichard W. Hope, Chains to Roses: The Joseph CicippioStory (WRS Publishing, Waco, Texas, 1993). Sis Levin,Beirut Diary: A Husband Held Hostage and a WifeDetermined to Set Him Free (InterVarsity, New York,1989). Marie Seurat, Les corbeaus d'Alep (France, 1988).Marie Seurat, Un si proche Orient (Grasset, Paris, 1991).Peggy Say & Peter Knobler, Forgotten: A Sister'sStruggle to Save Her Brother (S&S Trade, New York,1991). Trevor Barnes, Terry Waite, Man with a Mission(W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapid, Michigan,1987). Thomas Vickers, Terry, Come Home: The Story of aPastor and the Family of Terry Anderson (Judson Pr.,Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 1988). Con Coughlin,Hostage (Warner Books, London, 1992). John McCarthyand Jill Morell, Some Other Rainbow (Bantam, London,1994). Television productions include Hostages, withNatasha Richardson, Kathy Bates, Ruth McCabe,Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, HBO, 1993. Held Hostage:The Sis and Jerry Levin Story, with David Duke, andMario Thomas, ABC, 1991. The Delta Force, with ChuckNorfis, ABC, 1986.

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3 I do not mean to devalue the usefulness of traditionalgeopolitical analyses, especially in this case, when thepolitical implications of the various stories that wereunveiled around the issue of the 'Western hostagecrisis', notably in the United States what has come tobe known as thé 'Iran-Contra Affair', and in France'L'affaire Gordji', have been far from exhausted. For ageopolitical analysis of the hostage crisis and 'L'affaireGordji' in France, see Appendix.

4 'Jamais aucune camera de reportage n'a montré la vérité decette petite ville et de cette guerre comme Bagdadi le fait enquelques plans.' M.P., Le Point, 13 May 1991. 'Des cris.Du sang. La mort. Des ruines. Un vertige, une nausée. Lefeu. Encore des morts. C'est le générique de Hors la vie,une manière de gifle qui met le regard en place. Plus jamaisau cours du film de Maroun Bagdadi on se demandera cequi a vraiment été tourné à Beyrouth ou reconstitué. On està Beyrouth, dans l'enfer de la guerre civile.' Jean-MichelFrodon, Le Monde, 15 May 1991, p 12. 'Au debut, tout vatrès vite comme dans un vrai film de guerre. Au coeur d'unBeyrouth devasté, des factions incertaines s'affrontent dansle désordre le plus total. C'est la grande melée.' GillesAnquetil, Le Nouvel Observateur, 13 May 1991, p 74.

5 Salvador, dir. Oliver Stone, with James Woods, JamesBelushi, John Savage, and Michael Murphy, Hemdale,1986. Under Fire, dir. Roger Spottiswoode, with NickNolte, Ed Harris and Gene Hackman, Lion's Gate,1983.

6 I cite first some titles of articles followed by characteri-sations of Lebanon and Beirut in the western popularpress: A) 'Agony in Beirut', Macleans, 4 December 1989,p 26. 'Beleaguered Beirut', Macleans, 8 May 1989, p 26.'More Madness in Bloody Beirut', Newsweek, 1 October1984, p 18. The Collapse of a Nation', Macleans, 20February 1984, p 33. 'Carnage in Lebanon', Time, 31October 1983, p 122. 'Slaughter in Lebanon', Macleans,19 September 1983, p 24. 'Blood and Terror in Beirut',Newsweek, 2 May 1983, p 22. 'In Beirut, Run for YourLives', US News and World Report, 16 August 1982, p23. 'Beirut Days. Life and Death', Newsweek. 13November 1989. 'Who Killed Lebanon', The ChristianCentury, 11 October 1989, p 900. 'A Preview of theApocalypse: A War Without End Tests the Limits ofEndurance in Beirut', Time, 28 August 1989, p 23. B)'Garden without Fences'; 'Pearl of the Orient'; ThePlayground of the Middle-East'; 'Land of Welcome andTolerance'; 'Land of Milk and Honey'; The LastSanctuary'; 'City of One Thousand and One Nights';'City of Eternity'; 'City of Bliss'; 'Paris of the Orient';'Hong Kong of the Levant'; 'Switzerland of the MiddleEast'; 'Window on the West'; 'Gateway Between Eastand West'; 'Crossroads of the Middle East'; Crossroadsof Three Continents'; Crossroads of Civilisation'; 'ACity That Will Not Surrender'; 'A City of Middlemen';The Suckling Child'; 'Improbable City'; Trojan Horse';'Bastard French'; 'City of Regrets'; 'City of Strife'; 'Cityof. Fear'; 'City in Crisis'; 'A Broken City'; 'ForbiddenCity'; 'A World No More'; 'Hell by the Sea'; The

Impossible City'; 'Lebanam'; 'Land BeyondRedemption'; 'Land of Cruelty and Hatred'; 'AByword of Barbarity'; l ine ville qui refuse de mourir';'Mille fois morte, mille fois revécue'. I would like tothank Jayce Salloum for permission to use some of thetitles cited above; that initially appear in his videoLetter from Beirut (part I).

7 Larry Pintak, CBS News correspondent in Beirut from1980-85, and as cited by Debra Gersh in 'JournalistsRecall the Allure of Beirut', Editor & Publisher, 6 April1991, p 9.

8 Robin Wright, of the Sunday Times of London, who wasin Beirut from 1981-85, and as cited by Gersh in'Journalists...', op cit, p 10.

9 Gersh, p.9.10 Steve Hagey, of United Press International, who was in

Beirut for 13 months from late 1983 to January 1985.and as cited in Gersh, 'Journalists...', op cit, p 10.

11 Gersh, p 10.

12 Gersh, p 11.13 'With all those with whom I would have fun when we

would return in the evening after covering the war inthe Chouf, or in the Palestinian camps, or the siege ofTripoli. At the Cavalier Restaurant we would sitaround and enjoy some Mezze and a bottle of Ksara'68.' Roger Auque, Un otage à Beyrouth, Filipacchi,Paris, 1988, p 190.

14 As cited by Fred Richtin in 'Photography of Conflict',Aperture, vol 97, p 22.

15 Todd Robertson describes the 'adrenaline rush' ofstepping 'a little closer to the edge' while working inBeirut during the war. See Gersh, 'Journalists...', op cit,p 10.

16 I am thinking here of Cornell Capa's grand statement,war photojournalism's most glorious and most quoteddictum, 'If your pictures aren't good enough, thenyou're not close enough'. See Richtin, 'Photography...',op cit, p 22.

17 The moral claims of photojournalism have been thesubject of numerous analyses notably Martha Rosler's'In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On DocumentaryPhotography)', Three Works, The Press of the NovaScotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, 1981, pp 59-86; Abigail Solomon Godeau, 'Who is Speaking Thus:Some Questions About Documentary Photography',and 'Reconstructing Documentary: Connie Hatch'sRepresentational Resistance', Photography at the Dock,Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis, 1991, pp 169-218.

18 See Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing andTransculturation, Routledge, New York, 1992.

19 'damn war in this damn country'.20 Auque, op cit, p 64.21 See Mhammad Sweid's interview with Maroun

Baghdadi in Al-Mulhaq, 5 September 1992, pp 8-10;Ibrahim Al 'Ariss, Al Hulm Al Mua'alaq, Al-NaharPress, Beirut, 1994.

22 'I keep searching for a motive but I continually comeup with the same conclusion: I have done nothing todeserve this!', Auque, op cit, p 65.

23 In U.S newspapers see for example, Ellen Wallace,'Issue of Drug Laundering Leads to Swiss Resignation',Christian Science Monitor, 19 December 1988, p 10;Robin Wright, 'Lebanon Faces Crisis Over Leader', LosAngeles Times, 22 September 1988, p 1; E.A. Wayne,'Militias Cooperate on Drug Trade' to Pay for War-Against Each Other', Christian Science Monitor, 9 March.1988, p 1; 'Lebanese Hashish Farmers Profit,Unabashedly', Boston Globe, 23 November 1989, p 2;

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Amy Kaslow, 'New Lebanese Plan Would FightHashish in the Bekaa Valley', Christian Science Monitor,7 March 1990, p 7; Marilyn Raschka, 'A ForbiddingLand of Drugs, Guns', Los Angeles Times, 17 April 1990,p 21; Ralph Overman, 'Lebanon's Valley of Drugs',Washington Post, 18 November 1990, p 1; David Kelly,'US: Syrians Aid Supply of Heroin', Chicago Tribune, 7December 1990, p 13.

24 Perrault: Why am I here, why all this?Ahmad: Since you are, you must have done somethingbad.

25 J.-B. Piolet, Les missions Catholiques Françaises au XIXesiècle, Librairie Armand Colin, Paris, 1901.

26 Phillip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate,Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1987, p 53.

27 For geopolitical histories of the French Mandate andthe creation of Lebanon see the following: John P.Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon: 1861-1914,Ithaca Press, London, 1977; Phillip S. Khoury, op cit;Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, CornellUniversity Press, Ithaca, 1985; Albert H. Hourani, Syriaand Lebanon, Oxford University Press, Beirut, 1946;William I. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the MiddleEast, Wisconsin University Press, Madison, 1981;Christopher M. Andrew, and A.S. Kenya Forstner, TheClimax of French Imperialism, Stanford University Press,Stanford, 1981; Meir Zamir, 'Faisal and the LebaneseQuestion, 1918-20', Middle Eastern Studies 27, 1991, p404. J.P. Spagnolo, 'French Influence in Syria Prior toWorld War I: The Functional Weakness ofImperialism', The Middle East Journal 23.2, 1969, pp 45-62.

28 See note 1.29 See Laurence Michalek, The Arab in American

Cinema: A Century of Otherness', and Jack Shaheen,TV: Arab as Terrorist', Cinéaste 17.1, 1989, pp 3-12.

30 Shaheen, op cit, pp 10-12. See also Muqqadimah LiNihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument),dir. Jayce Salloum and Elia Suleiman, 1989.

31 Nina Easton, 'Movies' Mideast Myopia', Los AngelesTimes, 10 January 1991, F1.

32 The Oriental behaviour is illogical. The Oriental mindhas no Cartesian qualities to it. They think and talkaccording to a reasoning that is not ours.' Auque, opcit, p 202.

33 Homi K. Bhabha, The Other Question: Difference,Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism', OutThere: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, MITPress, Cambridge, Mass., 1990, p 71.

34 Khoury, op cit, p 45.35 In a failed escape attempt, Perrault memorises the

number inscribed on the telephone in the apartmentwhere he was temporarily held.

36 This neurosis (PTSD) manifests itself throughrepetition of nightmares where the subject relives theemotional intensity of the trauma... in reliving thesescenes, the victim attempts to improvise the defencesthat they have not or could not produce in reality.'Phillipe Chatenay, 'Le choc de la liberté', Le Point, 9May 1988, pp 65-66.

37 Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (trans &ed) James Strachey, W J Norton & Co, New York, 1961,pp 26-39.

38 See Muhammad Sweid's interview with Maroun Bagh-dadi in Mulhaq Al-Nahar, 5 September 1992, pp 8-10.

39 Maroun Baghdadi's cameraman in Beirut, HassanNaamani, in a private conversation with this writer,confirmed that the tracking shots were shot in the Rasel-Nabeh region, one of the main 'Green Line' frontsduring the civil war.

40 Jade Tabet, 'Beyrouth et la guerre urbaine: la ville et levide'. Peuples Meditérranéens 37, 1986, pp 41-49.

41 This was also the case for the establishment of Beirutas an economic centre for local entrepreneurs, mostlyChristians — See Leila Fawaz, The ForeignEntrepreneurs' and The Local Entrepreneurs',Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth Century Beirut,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1983, pp61-102.

42 This centre was the state's and the city's politicalpowers (parliament, ministries and municipality), theeconomy (business and banking district),transportation (road and rail), religious sites (cathedraland grand mosque), popular spots (cinemas and cafes),and of course prostitution. See Tabet, 'Beyrouth...', opcit, p 42.

43 'But you know, one could go to France by staving inLebanon. Just look at the names of the streets, JeanD'Arc Street, Verdun Street, Justanien Street,Clemenceau Street, Charles de Gaulle Avenue.'

44 Bhabha, 'The Other Question...', op cit, p 71.45 This is in no way meant to place responsibility solely

on the French in the establishment of a discriminatoryLebanese political system or in the development of theMiddle East conflicts. What I am pointing to is thecomplete erasure in the film of the role that France alsoplayed in both instances.

46 Maroun Baghdadi stresses that part of his intention inthe making of the film was to reveal that, 'theFrenchman was not the only victim... I [Bhagdadi]insisted on showing the Lebanese as victims as well'.Sweid, op cit, p 9.

47 The Israeli occupation of the south is referred todirectly and indirectly in Hors la vie. Both Ali andAhmad affirm and point to the fact that they are fromthe village of Aytaroun, a poor village in the south thatis occupied by the Israelis. This occupation alsoindirectly surfaces in the background soundtrack ofradio news flashes announcing in Arabic, (and notsubtitled) the latest casualties of Israeli air raids onvillages in south Lebanon.

48 'Ali thought that he could change his life by getting aneducation, as if a Shi'a had a chance in this country.'

49 See Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi'a,Texas University Press, Austin, 1987; AugustusRichard Norton, 'Shi'ism and Social Protest inLebanon', Shi'ism and Social Protest, (ed) Juan R.I.Cole& Nikki Keddie, Yale University Press, New Haven,1986; Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam, CornellUniversity Press, Cornell, 1981.

50 'I fought the Israelis at Aytaroun. I was with thePalestinians. Then I fought against the Palestinians inBeirut. But first I was with the Communists, then thePLO, then Amal, then I don't know who. Today, I amwith Islam. We will change the world.'

51 'I would have liked to do something else, I have

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nothing, I have to make a living. I come fromAytaroun. It is a very poor village in the south.'

52 Jean Genet, Prisoner of Love, (trans) Barbara Bray,Wesleyan University Press, Hanover, 1992, p 30.

53 Auque, op cit, p 20.54 Both assumptions demand to be reconsidered,

especially the second as it is read in light of the recentGulf War which pitted 'good Arabs' (those who sidedwith the 'International Coalition', such as Saudi Arabiaand Syria for example) against 'bad Arabs' (those whosided with Iraq or remained neutral such as the PLOand Jordan for example). One should also consider thefollowing: in the wake of World War 1 (1919) and inresponse to an international inquiry expedition, theKing-Crane Commission's question as to whatmandatory power the people of the Levant wouldchose if given a choice, most expressed a preference forliving under a US mandate as opposed to living undera French or British administration, in light of the US'lack of a colonial history in the Mid-East.

55 'Every night, at the same hour, a heavy burden falls onFrance and on the family gathered for dinner, with thethought of the men who will spend another night indetention.' Jacques Julliard, 'Otages: taisons-nous!', LeNouvel Observateur, 6 February 1987, p 23. On the 12second hostage sequence see James A. Markham, 'ATV Watch in France for Hostages', New York Times, 20September 1987, p 3.

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