Marx: The Video (A Politics of Revolting Bodies)

Laura Kipnis

University of Wisconsin, Madison

 

A note on the mise-en-scene: There are large projections –stills, film clips, etc.–behind the action (referred to in the text as KEYS) in many scenes. There is also a Greek chorus of DRAG QUEENS (or DQs) who pop in and out of the action (or are KEYED over the action) in other scenes.

 

FADE UP ON:

1. MARX'S ROOM, he is
lying in bed, carbuncular,
in pain. ROLLING TEXT OVER:

Karl Marx was born in Germany in 1818, and died in
London in 1883, having been deported from numerous
European countries for revolutionary activity.
Throughout his life he suffered from chronic and
painful outbreaks of carbuncles--agonizing skin
eruptions--particularly during the years he was at work
on his magnum opus, _Capital_. His 30-year
correspondence with Frederick Engels, his friend and
collaborator, deals regularly and in great detail with
the state of his own body.

DISSOLVE TO:

2. CLIP _La Marseillaise_    King: What is it?

SUPER TITLE: 1789            Minister: Sire, the
                             Parisians have taken the
                             Bastille.
                             King: So, is it a revolt?
                             Minister: No sire, it is
                             revolution.
FREEZE on king
                             V/O: Once power resided
                             in the person of the King.
                             The people's task was
                             clear. Get rid of the
                             king.

3. CLIP: Berlin wall         V/O: Once power resided
going down.                  in repressive state
                             bureaucracies. The
                             people's task was clear.
SUPER TITLE: 1989            Smash the state.

4. STILL dead Ceausescu      V/O: At certain moments in
                             history power is centralized
                             and visible, the sites of
                             repression are clear and
                             identifiable; resistance
                             movements arise out of
                             those relations of
                             subordination and
                             antagonism.

5. STILL Postmodern          V/O: At other moments the
urban landscapes             task is less clear. Power
                             is entrenched, but
                             dispersed. Where does
                             power reside? Who are the
                             agents of change?

TRANSITION EFFECT going
back in time

6. STILLS: 1848              V/O: In 1848, Toqueville
uprising                     warned: "We are sleeping
                             on a volcano. A wind of
TITLE: 1848                  revolution blows, the
                             storm is on the horizon."
                             That year Marx and Engels
                             completed The Communist
                             Manifesto. Jean Martin
                             Charcot, who would later
                             devote himself to the
                             study of hysteria, enters
                             medical school. The same
                             year, revolution swept
                             Europe. Students and
                             workers united, but three
                             years later the revolution
                             was toppled.

Time passing TRANSITION

7. STILLS Paris, May 68      V/O: France, May '68.
                             Students and workers
                             united in a three week
                             general strike, demanding
                             radical democratic
                             reforms. Momentarily,
                             revolution seemed
                             possible, but once again
                             that possibility was soon
                             dispelled. In the decades
                             following '68, like the
                             aftermath of 1848--the
                             defeat of forces of change
                             left traces, absences, an
                             unfilled place where
                             something is wanting.
                             Where is the repository of
                             those absences--where are
                             they buried, embodied,
                             misrecognized?

TITLE:  MARX: THE VIDEO  A Politics of Erupting Bodies
1848-1990
-------------------------------------------------------

8. SUPER: 1863               V/O BIOGRAPHER: Looking
over first image of          back, fifteen years later,
MARX; he lies in bed         to the failed revolution.

                             MARX: Dear Engels: One
                             thing is sure, the era of
                             revolution is now once
                             more fairly opened in
                             Europe. And the general
                             state of things is good.
                             But the comfortable
                             delusions and the almost
                             childish enthusiasms with
                             which we greeted the era
                             of revolution before
SUPER: Trotsky waving        February 1848 are gone to
from a train                 the devil. Old comrades
                             are gone, others have
                             fallen away or decayed,
                             and a new generation is
                             not yet in sight. In
looming supers of            addition, we now know what
Stalin, Lenin                role stupidity plays in
                             revolutions and how they
                             are exploited by
Stalin looms over body       scoundrels...Let us hope
                             that this time the lava
Mao looms over body          pours from East to West
                             and not vice versa.

                             V/O BIOGRAPHER: He writes
                             with nostalgia and longing
                             for something thwarted,
                             for something that didn't
                             happen.
-------------------------------------------------------

9. DOCTOR KEYED over         DOCTOR: His body just
examining room STILL.        erupted...It became
Addresses camera             like a battleground. The
                             only cure at the time was
                             arsenic. Terribly painful,
                             like a body trying to turn
                             itself into another body.
                             I think it started shortly
                             after his mother died.  It
                             continued throughout his
                             life.
-------------------------------------------------------

10. STILLS, 19c.             V/O NARRATOR: Marx took up
industrialization            the task of exhaustively
superimposed on              analyzing the historical
Marx's body                  moment in which he found
                             himself: the rise of
                             industrialization and the
                             inception of the working
                             class movement. He
                             stripped the facade off
Poster International         capital to reveal what was
workingmens assoc.           concealed: the labor in
STILL                        the commodity, the
                             alienation of the worker,
                             naked exploitation by the
                             capitalist. He looked to
                             the material foundations
zoom on worker body          of the moment, he looked
worker injury photo          to the body. His analysis
                             of capital relies on a
                             language of the body:
                             "production"
                             "consumption"
                             "reproduction" and
                             "circulation." For Marx,
                             the collective wealth of
                             the state is the body--the
                             labor--of the workers.
 worker injuries             Capital amputates the
                             worker from his own body;
                             he has phantom pain for
                             his missing limbs. But for
                             Marx, which bodies were
                             absent, unspoken,
                             unacknowledged?
-------------------------------------------------------

11.                          DRAG QUEEN 1: What's a
                             real body, a natural body?
                             It doesn't exist, there's
                             only a social body, the
                             body as theater,
                             the body that speaks,
                             unbidden. But in
                             whose language?
-------------------------------------------------------

12. MARX'S ROOM              MARX: Dear Frederick: Two
Fade up on MARX, in          hours ago I received a
foreground, writing.         telegram that my mother is
In suit, suitcase at         dead. Fate claimed one of
feet                         my family. I must go to
                             Trier to settle my
                             inheritance. I myself
                             stood with one foot in the
                             grave...
DRAG QUEEN CHORUS
supered over MARX,           DQ CHORUS: His body just
all dressed as nurses        erupted.
-------------------------------------------------------

13.                          DQ2: What a problem the
                             body is. Keeping it
                             confined to its boundaries
                             (like the lower classes).
                             Concealing anything that
BACKGROUND:                  comes out of it, or
CLIPS porn, slo-mo           protrudes from it.
                             Certainly not speaking of
                             such things. The creation
                             of a meek, submissive
                             hygienic public body.

                             DQ2: His body just
                             erupted.
-------------------------------------------------------

14. Hygiene products,        V/O NARRATOR: Capital
douche, dolls, float         produces a disgusting
through blue sky             body, so it can create new
                             regimes, new products, to
                             police it and make it
                             acceptable. Capital has
                             achieved historical
                             advances in the threshold
                             of delicacy, it produces
                             new varieties of bourgeois
                             disgust, then markets a
                             new and improved body
                             without byproducts,
                             without smells, to exist
                             in a public sphere that is
                             increasingly phobic about
                             the collective body, the
                             lower class body--the
                             mob--a body that might not
                             mind its manners.
-------------------------------------------------------

15. MARX'S ROOM, he          MARX: Dear Fred: It is
writes in bed.               clear that on the whole I
Dolly in                     know more about the
                             carbuncle disease than most
                             doctors...Here and there
                             I have the beginnings of
                             new carbuncles, which keep
                             on disappearing, but they
                             force me to keep my working
                             hours within limits...I
                             consider it my vocation to
                             remain in Europe to
                             complete the work in which
                             I have been engaged for so
                             many years but I cannot
                             work productively more
                             than a very few hours daily
                             without feeling the effect
                             physically...I think this
                             work I am doing is much
                             more important for the
                             working class than anything
                             I could do personally at a
                             Congress of any kind...I
                             would consider myself
                             impractical if I had
                             dropped dead without having
                             finished my book, at least
                             in manuscript.

Cut to second angle          V/O BIOGRAPHER: Writing
on MARX with smoking         Capital, his narrative of
factory, keyed in            the conditions of the
background                   English proletariat, his
                             body broke out with "a
                             proletarian disease."
                             Marx was desperate to
                             finish his work, but
                             unable to. Instead of
                             writing, he was being
                             written. The revolution he
                             anticipated, the thwarted
                             revolution, was displaced
                             onto his own skin.
-------------------------------------------------------

16. MARX'S ROOM: high        MARX: Dear Frederick: You
angle down on bed            see I am still here and I
                             will tell you more, I am
                             incapable of moving about.
                             This is a perfidious
                             Christian illness. In the
                             meantime, I can neither
                             walk, nor stand, nor sit,
                             and even lying down is
                             damned hard. You see how
                             the wisdom of nature has
                             afflicted me. Would it not
                             have been more sensible if
                             instead of me it had been
                             consigned to try the
                             patience of a good
                             Christian? Like a true
                             Lazarus, I am scourged on
                             all sides.

                             DRAG QUEEN 3: His body
                             became sarcastic, taunting
                             the tasteful, discreet
                             body, the one that stays
                             politely behind the
                             scenes, the one that knows
                             its place like the servant
                             serving the master, like
                             the subject serving the
                             state. This wasn't a body
                             you could take into the
                             drawing room.  This was an
                             ill-mannered body.
-------------------------------------------------------

17. MARX writing             Dear Kugelmann: Cut,
at desk, bandaged            lanced, etc, in
REAR SCREEN CLIPS            short treated in every
Russian Revolution           respect. In spite of this
                             the thing is continually
                             breaking out anew...I
                             hope it will end this
                             week, but who can
                             guarantee me against
                             another eruption?

DRAG QUEEN CHORUS            V/O: Marx, writing
POPS ON                      Capital, imagining
                             Capital's overthrow. His
                             body living out his split
                             identifications--

                             DQ1: (the bourgeois who
                             champions the overthrow of
                             the bourgeoisie)

                             DQ3...the body begins to
                             embody another kind of
                             psyche, another sociality.
                             It desired transformation.

                             DQ2: He swathed his
                             carbuncles behind bandages
                             and focused his attention
                             on the working class.

CU Marx at                   BIOG V/O: As he nears
desk, bandaged               completion of the first
                             volume, his carbuncles,
                             mobile, sardonic, and
                             insistent, break out in
                             ever new vicinities.
                             Seizing the flesh,
                             sculpting it into a body
                             bulging, protuberant, not
                             closed and finished, not
                             refined.

                             MARX: You have too low an
                             opinion of the English
                             doctors if you think that
                             they cannot diagnose
                             carbuncles, particularly
                             here in England--the
                             land of carbuncles, which
                             is actually a proletarian
                             illness. It is only in the
                             last few years that I have
                             been persecuted by the
                             thing. Before that, it was
                             entirely unknown to me.
-------------------------------------------------------

18. CLIP riot footage        V/O BIOGRAPHER: Marx--who
KEYED onto his body          would disavow the
high overhead onto           opposition between the
body lying in bed            social and the psychic as
                             mere bourgeois psychology
                             --was possessed of a body
                             whose symptoms mocked the
                             social order; it had
                             become grotesque: open,
                             protruding, extended,
                             secreting: in process,
                             taking on new forms,
                             shapes; his body the
                             figure of the new society
                             that had failed to emerge.
                             He was producing more and
                             more body--too much body
                             for a social order
                             dedicated to its
                             concealment.
-------------------------------------------------------

19. MARX'S ROOM              Dear Engels: It was good
he writes on couch           you did not come on
                             Saturday. My story--now
                             fourteen days old--had
                             reached the crisis point.
                             I could talk a little, and
                             it hurt even to laugh on
                             account of the big abscess
                             between nose and mouth,
                             which this morning has
                             been reduced at least to
                             reasonable proportions.
                             Also the violently swollen
                             lips are becoming reduced
                             closer to their previous
                             dimensions. May the head
                             of the devil go through
                             such fourteen days. All
                             this stops being a joke.
-------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: ELIMINATING THE BODY.

20. TEENAGE GIRL'S ROOM,     I hate my body, god, it's
a number of TEENAGE          so gross, look at these
GIRLS gabbing, shot          thighs...It's disgusting,
documentary style            I'm so fat...
-------------------------------------------------------

21. DISSOLVE TO:
BATHROOM, high shot
toilet, GIRL retching
-------------------------------------------------------

SUPER TITLE: THE AGE OF CONSUMPTION
-------------------------------------------------------

22. Map of the U.S.          V/O: Anorexia, bulimia
little inserts of            --epidemic in abundant
girls retching into          western societies, post
toilets keyed over           1968. 10 to 20 percent
U.S. capitals                of American women now have
                             eating disorders. A
                             symptomatic eruption of the
                             body. Let's wrest this out
                             of secrecy, out of the
                             private sphere and view it
                             for a moment as the social
                             collective act that it is.

TITLE: THINKING THROUGH THE BODY
-------------------------------------------------------

23.                          DRAG QUEEN 3: Like a body
                             trying to turn itself into
                             another body, like a body
                             trying to invent another
                             kind of social existence.

                             DRAG QUEEN 2: Women's
                             bodies as tablets of
                             social meaning, as sites
                             of regulation...
-------------------------------------------------------

24. Pills, laxatives,        V/O: With our increasingly
diet products float          phobic relation to the
through blue sky             collective body, the
                             working class body, with
                             our creation of an ideal
                             public body without fat,
                             without snot or BO, with a
                             yearning for refinement,
                             we will the disappearance
                             of the body, the
                             containment of the mass,
                             the body politic, the
                             threat.
-------------------------------------------------------

25. Worker STILLS            BIOGRAPHER V/O: Marx,
dissolve to                  writing history from
MARX body/                   below: a history of wealth
dissolve to                  as labor, a history of the
riots                        body, a history of the
                             mass, his own body acting
                             out...

                             V/O: Stories told by the
SUPER:                       body--after the failed
STILLS hysterics             revolutions of 1848 this
                             comes to be known as
                             "hysteria" and sweeps
                             Europe.
-------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: THE HYSTERIC IS SUBJECT TO MULTIPLE
IDENTIFICATIONS
-------------------------------------------------------

26. MARX ROOM, he is         Dear Frederick: I would
writing at desk. REAR        have written you sooner,
SCREEN workers               but for approximately the
                             last twelve days all
                             reading writing and
                             smoking have been strictly
                             forbidden. I had a sort of
                             eye inflammation tied up
                             with very unpleasant
                             effects on the nervous
                             system. The thing is now
                             so far under control that
                             I can again dare to write.
                             In the meantime I had all
                             kinds of psychological
                             reveries, like a person
                             going blind or crazy.
-------------------------------------------------------

27. STILL:                   V/O: Marx's symptoms make
"Lecon clinique              their appearance around
de Charcot"                  the time that Freud's
                             future teacher, Charcot,
                             is beginning to recognize
                             and treat a new disease,
                             "traumatic hysteria."
                             Before hysteria was
                             relegated to a female
                             disorder, it afflicted
                             many men as well: Charcot
                             began to recognize that
                             what is novel about
                             traumatic hysteria is that
                             in these cases what lay
                             behind the symptoms were
                             not physical disorders,
                             and not just nerves, but
                             ideas.
-------------------------------------------------------

28.  CHARCOT speaks          "Male hysteria is not all
                             that rare, and just among
                             us, gentlemen, if I can
                             judge from what I see each
                             day, these cases are often
                             unrecognized even by
                             distinguished doctors.
                             One will concede that a
                             young and effeminate man
                             might develop hysterical
                             findings after
                             experiencing significant
                             stress, sorrow or deep
                             emotions. But that a
                             strong and vital worker,
                             for instance, a railway
                             engineer never prone to
                             emotional instability
                             before, should become
                             hysteric--just as a woman
                             might--this seems to us
                             beyond imagination. And
                             yet it is a fact--one
                             which we must get used
                             to."

                             DRAG QUEEN 1: Hysteria
                             which entraps and speaks
                             the patient.
-------------------------------------------------------

29. FILM: BRITISH            Dear Fred: I wanted to
MUSEUM LOCATION              write you yesterday from
Marx, ill, stumbling,        the British Museum, but
drops a book, camera         I suddenly became so
zoom in on copy of           unwell that I had to close
"Vindication of the          the very interesting book
Rights of Women"             that I held in my hand. A
                             dark veil fell over my
                             eyes. Then a frightful
                             headache and a pain in the
                             chest. I strolled home.
                             Air and light helped and
                             when I got home I slept
                             for some time. My
                             condition is such that I
                             really should give up all
                             working and thinking for
                             some time to come; but
                             that would be difficult,
                             even if I could afford it.
--------------------------------------------------------

30. STILL, male              V/O: Freud recounted how
hysterics                    disturbed Charcot became
                             when the German school of
                             neurology resisted the
                             idea of male hysteria and
                             suggested pejoratively
                             that if it occurred in
                             males, it occurred
                             only in French males.
--------------------------------------------------------

31. MARX'S ROOM, he          Dear Frederick: In recent
paces in the set             weeks it has been
                             positively impossible for
                             me to write even two
                             hours a day. Apart from
                             pressure from without,
                             there are the household
                             headaches which always
                             affect my liver. I have
                             become sleepless again,
                             and have had the pleasure
                             of seeing two carbuncles
                             bloom near the penis.
                             Fortunately they faded
                             away. My illness always
                             comes from the head.
-------------------------------------------------------

32. STILL another            V/O: Charcot related male
male hysteric                hysteria to trauma. As the
                             industrial era progressed,
                             the number of unexplained
                             work related illnesses
                             increased enormously;
                             Charcot worked to
                             demonstrate how these
                             could be understood as
                             hysterical.
-------------------------------------------------------

33.                          DRAG QUEEN 2: There were
                             many who thought that the
                             commotion of the French
DRAG QUEEN CHORUS            Revolution may have
supered over                 affected the nervous system
Delacroix's "Libertie        of Frenchmen and Europeans
Leading the Masses"          adversely.

                             DRAG QUEEN 1: It was an
                             infection by ideas, the
                             spread of violent
                             influences displaced from
                             social and class upheaval,
                             fearful ideas about
                             progress, new
                             technologies, social
                             transformations.
-------------------------------------------------------

34. REARSCREEN: Capital      Dear Frederick: The dr. is
MARX at desk, single         quite right: the excessive
lamp burning, fullscreen     nightwork was the main
behind of "workday" text,    cause of the relapse. The
violently moving camera      most disgusting thing for me
                             was the interruption of my
                             work. But I have drudged on,
                             lying down, even if only
                             at short intervals during
                             the day. I could not
                             proceed with the purely
                             theoretical part, the
                             brain was too weak for
                             that. Hence I have
                             enlarged the historical
                             part on the workday, which
                             lay outside the original
                             plan.
-------------------------------------------------------

35. Keyed over Marx          DRAG QUEEN 3 (as Nurse)
                             Like other symptomatics of
                             the day, he took the cure.
MARX in wheelchair,
spa backdrop                 BIOGRAPHER V/O: The
                             medical world had
                             devised various techniques
                             for palliating an
                             irritated and erupting
                             human nervous system.
                             Popular techniques
                             included warm milk and bed
                             rest, hydrotherapy and
                             sojourns at peaceful
                             pastoral spas. Doctors
                             intuitively offered
                             patients physical and
                             psychological means to
                             flee psycho-cultural
                             stress--sending patients
                             to the country, the sea,
                             the mountains. Marx tried
                             all of these. On doctor's
                             orders, he fled his work.
-------------------------------------------------------

36. MARX writing from        Dear Frederick: So far I
lounge chair, spa            have had two sulfur baths,
background, rushing          tomorrow the third.
water noise                 From the bath one steps on
                             a raised board, in the
                             altogether; the bath
In bathing costume           attendant uses the hose
                             (the size of a firehose)
                             the way a virtuoso does
                             his instrument; he
                             commands the movement of
                             the body and alternately
                             bombards all parts of the
                             corpus except the head for
                             three minutes, first
                             strongly, then weakly, up
                             to the legs and feet, an
                             always advancing
                             crescendo. You can see how
                             little desire a man has to
                             write here.

DRAG QUEEN KEYED OVER        DRAG QUEEN 2 (as nurse):
as nurse                     Removing himself from his
                             work brought some relief.
-------------------------------------------------------

37.  MARX at the spa         Dear Frederick: From the
walking around, in           delayed appearance of this
suit, cane                   letter you can see how
                             professionally I use
                             my time here. I read
                             nothing, write nothing.
                             Because of the arsenic
                             three times daily, one has
                             time only for meals and
                             strolling along the coast
                             and the neighboring
                             hills, there is no time
                             left for other things.
                             Evenings one is too tired
                             to do anything but sleep.

DRAG QUEEN KEYED OVER        DRAG QUEEN 1: His symptoms
                             began to speak him.
-------------------------------------------------------

38. MARX, spa                My dear daughter: I run
walking                      about the greatest part of
                             the day, airing myself,
                             going to bed at ten, reading
                             nothing, writing less, and
                             altogether working up my
                             mind to that state of
                             nothingness which Buddhism
                             considers the climax of
                             human bliss...I am
                             afflicted with an
                             inflammation of the eye,
                             not that there is much to
                             be seen of it...the eye
                             has taken to the vicious
                             habit of shedding tears on
                             its own account, without
                             the least regard to the
                             feelings of his master.
-------------------------------------------------------

39. MARX'S ROOM; he          V/O BIOGRAPHER: The
writhes in bed               carbuncles continued
                             to erupt, stalling the
                             writing of Capital,
                             inscribing themselves into
                             the text. Marx focused
                             doggedly on the laboring
                             body (while his own body
                             exploded into new and
                             ever changing configurations)
Pan to STILL of              as if fearful of the
"Libertie Leading the        effect of introducing the
Masses" over desk            unregimented body into the
                             realm of the political.

                             DRAG QUEEN 2: But then,
dressed as Marianne,         this brings other bodies
one "breast" bare            into the picture--the
                             desiring body, the woman's
                             body, the undisciplined
                             body.
-------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: WOMEN'S BODIES
-------------------------------------------------------

40.                          HELENE V/O: For the 19th
                             century bourgeois male,
                             the servant provokes
                             social anxiety: she is the
                             conduit through which the
                             working class infiltrates
                             the middle class home.
                             Introducing the maid and
                             her sexuality into the
                             bourgeois household is
                             threatening in a period in
                             which both were linked in
                             the bourgeois imagination
                             to the discontent of a
                             dissatisfied working
                             class. But then what is
                             excluded socially is
                             desired, eroticized--the
                             maid becomes a figure of
                             transgressive desire for
                             the bourgeois male, a
                             desire produced by the
                             very categories that rule
                             the bourgeois body. Marx,
                             in the Communist Manifesto
                             mocks the bourgeois male,
                             with an array of women at
                             his disposal, not only
                             proletarian wives and
                             daughters but prostitutes
                             to pick up the slack. This
                             was written two years
                             before he conceived a son
                             with the family maid.
-------------------------------------------------------

41. 19c porn STILLS of       V/O: Women in the public
maids                        sphere were tantamount to
                             prostitutes: they bring the
                             filth and corruption of the
                             market, of wage labor, into
                             the middle class home.
-------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: HELENE
-------------------------------------------------------

42. MARX'S ROOM, he          V/O BIOGRAPHER: Marx, even
writes, HELENE enters,       in the most dire poverty,
serves tea                   did what he could to
                             maintain a bourgeois
                             household. It was Helene
                             Demuth, the servant, who
                             marked his own separation
                             from the working class.
                             She, more than Marx,
                             straddles two worlds,
                             belonging to both the
                             bourgeois family and the
                             working class: she was the
                             certainly the member of
                             that world that Marx knew
                             best.

"pregnant" DRAG QUEEN        DRAG QUEEN 3: The hysteric
KEYED OVER                   is subject to multiple
                             identifications.
-------------------------------------------------------

43. MARX'S ROOM, writing.    Dear Laura, Some recent
PROJECTION from October,     Russian publications,
on rearscreen as HELENE      printed in Holy Russia,
serves tea                   not abroad, show the great
                             run of my theories in that
                             country. Nowhere is my
                             success more delightful to
                             me, it gives me the
                             satisfaction that I damage
                             a power, which besides
                             England, is the true
                             bulwark of the old
                             society.
-------------------------------------------------------

44. Looking down on tile     HELENE V/O: She was ten
floor, HELENE scrubbing,     years younger than Marx's
as MARX walks across         wife Jenny. Lenchen, as
frame                        she was called, ran the
                             Marx household. Often
                             Marx was too poor to pay
                             her but she cast her lot
                             with the Marx family. She
                             did the cooking,
                             housecleaning, laundering,
                             dressmaking, nursing, and
                             everything else, including
                             taking the bedsheets to
                             the pawn shop when
                             eviction was threatened.
                             In 1851, at age 28, she
                             gave birth to Marx's son,
                             secretly.
-------------------------------------------------------

45.  HELENE appears very     BIOGRAPHER V/O: Marx wrote
pregnant, serving tea        to Engels of a "very
                             tangled family situation,"
                             hinting at a "mystery," a
                             "tragicomic" mystery, in
                             which he, Engels, also
                             played a role. Marx
                             traveled to Manchester, to
                             see Engels, where the two
                             negotiated Lenchen's fate.

DRAG QUEEN KEYED OVER        DRAG QUEEN 1: As men are
                             accustomed to negotiating
                             the fate of women's
                             bodies.
-------------------------------------------------------

46. CLIP: beauty             HELENE V/O: Did
contest                      introducing a woman into
                             their collaborative
                             association disrupt it?
                             This triangle--did it
                             trouble a theory that saw
                             the role of women strictly
                             in economic terms? What
                             bodies aren't
                             acknowledged?

clip: Stalin kissing         BIOGRAPHER V/O: Marx
woman; footage keyed         persuaded Engels to accept
onto Helene's pregnant       paternity for Lenchen's
stomach                      child, who was named
                             Frederick, after him, in
                             the custom of
                             patrilineage. Engels
                             accepted responsibility
                             for the child, binding the
                             two men together over
                             Helene's mute body, over
                             the body of the working
                             class woman.

DRAG QUEEN KEYED OVER        DRAG QUEEN 3: Jenny, the
                             wife, was easily persuaded
                             that Engels was the father
                             as she never really
                             approved of his morals.
-------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: THE SECRET
-------------------------------------------------------

47. HELENE speaks            I never betrayed the
directly to camera           secret; I let my baby be
                             brought up by a working
                             class family. Engels
                             occasionally sent money.
                             Marx never acknowledged
                             Freddy as his son. He
                             chose not to acknowledge
                             paternity. After Marx's
                             death, I moved into
                             Engel's home as his
                             housekeeper. My  son
                             Freddy visited regularly
                             once a week: however, as
                             an ordinary working-
                             man, he entered through
                             the kitchen. He was Marx's
                             only living son. He had
                             grown up to be a poorly
                             educated proletarian, his
                             wife had left him and run
                             away with his few
                             possessions. His life was
                             one of trouble, worry and
                             hardship.
-------------------------------------------------------

48.                          V/O BIOGRAPHER: "We
                             should, none of us, want
                             to meet our pasts in flesh
                             and blood," wrote Marx's
                             daughter after his death,
                             after discovering that
                             Freddy Demuth was her
                             father's son. These
                             strategies of concealment
                             are central to bourgeois
                             identity, which wishes
                             most of all to conceal the
                             crucial place of the
                             woman in its network of
                             exploitation, which wishes
                             most of all to conceal the
                             symptomatic and erupting
                             body and the tales it
                             tells.
-------------------------------------------------------

49. DRAG QUEEN CHORUS        DQ 1: The pregnant body,
                             the unruly female body,
                             swollen, grotesque, must
                             be regulated, particularly
                             its appearances in the
                             public sphere.

                             DQ 3: As men are
                             accustomed to negotiating
                             the fate of women's
                             bodies.
-------------------------------------------------------

50. COURTROOM LOCATION       NEWSCASTER: "COURT
                             REJECTS PLEA FOR ABORTION
                             BEFORE JAIL" Oct 26, 1989
                             A Florida county judge
                             has refused a woman's
                             request to postpone her 60
                             day jail sentence so she
                             can have an abortion
                             first. You want a
                             continuance so you can
                             murder your baby, is that
                             it?" Judge Rasmussen of
                             Pasco County Court asked
                             the 26 year old defendant
                             before sending her to
                             jail. While the prosecutor
                             agreed that Ms. Forney
                             whose third month of
                             pregnancy began today,
                             could postpone her
                             sentence by 10 days before
                             serving her term for
                             violating probation for
                             driving under the
                             influence of alcohol. The
                             violation was that she
                             paid only $100 of the $500
                             fine assessed against her.
                             Ms. Forney, a part time
                             bartender who is not
                             married, asked for the
                             additional time because,
                             she said, she was afraid
                             it might be to late for a
                             safe abortion when she got
                             out of jail. She pleaded
                             that she was financially
                             unable to care for a baby.
                             Judge Rasmussen suggested
                             that she carry the baby to
                             full term and then give it
                             up for adoption. In a jail
                             interview Tuesday Ms.
                             Forney said: I thought it
                             was my choice. He's
                             telling me I don't have a
                             choice. It's not right
                             that he can choose for
                             me."
------------------------------------------------------

SCENES 51-60 QUICK MONTAGE:

51. HELENE addresses         He simply chose not to
camera                       acknowledge paternity. I
                             hadn't that choice.

52. Abortion rally           "Get your laws off my
FOOTAGE                      body. Get your laws off my
                             body."

53. Background:              DRAG QUEEN 1: Get your
Bondage STILLS               laws off my body.

54. COURTROOM                JUDGE: I can't define it
                             but I know it when I see
                             it.

55. Background:              DRAG QUEEN 2: They want to
Bondage STILLS               ban pornography because it
                             tells the truth.

56. TITLE: THE LINKING OF WHAT IS POLITICALLY DANGEROUS
TO FEELINGS OF SEXUAL HORROR AND FASCINATION.

57. Abortion rally           "Get your laws off my
FOOTAGE                      body..."

58. WOMAN bent over          DQ3: Desiring a body that
toilet, bathroom             doesn't speak, desiring a
                             body that has the right
DRAG QUEEN keyed over        desires, desiring a
                             different social being, a
                             different social body...

59. WOMAN bent over          WOMAN: How can I live in
toilet                       my body? Where could I
                             live in my body?
-------------------------------------------------------

60. MARX'S ROOM, Marx        How can I live in my body?
in bed, writhing (FIRST      Where can I live in my
SYNC SOUND ON MARX)          body?

-------------------------------------------------------

61. KEY text of Capital      Dear Engels: I had decided
over MARX body so            not to write you until I
that one seems to be         could announce the
emerging from the other      completion of the book
                             which is now the case.
                             Also I did not want to
                             bore you with the reasons
                             for the frequent delays,
                             namely carbuncles on my
                             posterior and in the
                             vicinity of the penis, the
                             remains of which are now
                             fading and which permit me
                             to assume a sitting (that
                             is, writing) position only
                             at great pain. I do not
                             take arsenic, because it
                             makes me too stupid and at
                             least for the little time
                             that I have when writing
                             is possible, I want to
                             have a clear head.

                             V/O BIOGRAPHER: Finishing
                             the book left his body
                             racked and scarred. He
                             was subject to increasing
                             outbursts with each new
                             translation of the book.
                             He continued to search for
                             a cure.
-------------------------------------------------------

62. MARX writing,            My dear Jenny: I am
HELENE cleaning              sending you today the
                             proofs of the French
                             translation of Das
                             Kapital. Today is the
                             first day that I have been
                             able to do anything at
                             all. Until now despite
                             baths, walking, splendid
                             air, careful diet, etc. my
                             condition has been worse
                             than in London. That is
                             also the reason why I am
                             postponing my return,
                             because it is absolutely
                             necessary to return in a
                             condition for work.

                             BIOGRAPHER V/O: The
                             eruptions of his body
                             weren't matched by the
                             social eruptions he
                             anticipated.
-------------------------------------------------------

63. MARX'S ROOM              Dear Sorge: How did it
REARSCREEN civil             happen that in the US
rights riots                 where relatively that is,
                             compared to civilized
                             Europe, land was
                             accessible to the great
                             masses of the people and
                             to a certain degree (again
                             relatively) still is, the
                             capitalist economy and the
Text emerging                corresponding enslavement
from carbuncles              of the working class have
                             developed more rapidly and
                             more shamelessly than in
                             any country?

DRAG QUEEN KEYED OVER        DQ 2: His body continued
                             its parody. Marx came to
                             regard the carbuncles as
                             having a life of their
                             own, his affliction had
                             a theory and a practice.
-------------------------------------------------------

64. MARX'S ROOM, bed.        Dear Kugelmann: After my
Riot FOOTAGE KEYED onto      return, a carbuncle broke
bandages                     out on my right cheek
                             which had to be operated
                             on, then it had several
                             smaller successors, and I
                             think that at the present
                             moment I am suffering from
                             the last of them. For the
                             rest don't worry at all
                             about newspaper gossip;
                             still less answer it. I
                             myself allow the English
                             papers to announce my
                             death from time to time,
                             without giving a sign of
                             life.

DRAG QUEEEN KEYED OVER       DQ 3: Like the
                             revolutionary, the
                             erupting, symptomatic body
                             displays monstrous and
                             unreadable forms to a
                             horrified society.
-------------------------------------------------------

65. HELENE clears the        Dear Frederick: The doctor
table as MARX writes         has opened up the pleasant
in bed                       prospect that I will have
                             to deal with this
                             loathsome disease until
                             late in January. Still
                             this second Frankenstein
                             on my hump is by far not
                             so fierce as was the first
                             in London. You can see
                             this from the fact that I
                             am able to write.  If one
                             wants to vomit politics
                             out of nausea, one must
                             take it daily in the form
                             of telegraphic pills, such
                             as are delivered by the
                             newspapers.
-------------------------------------------------------

TITLE: IF ONE WANTS TO VOMIT POLITICS OUT OF NAUSEA...
-------------------------------------------------------

66. STUDIO high shot         WOMAN: How can I live in
toilet, WOMAN bending        my body? where can I live
over in black space          in my body?

Pan to drag queen            DQ1: Where is the history
riot FOOTAGE                 of the body written? In
KEYED behind toilet          your politeness, in your
                             deodorant and douche,
                             behind the bathroom door,
                             in your shame and
                             revulsion.

Pan to next drag queen       DQ2: In your symptoms.
-------------------------------------------------------

67. MARX'S ROOM              Dear Frederick: I hope
in bed. Zoom into            that with this, I will
bandaged carbuncle           have paid my debt to
                             nature. In my state of ill
                             health, I can do little
                             writing, and then only by
revolutions                  fits and starts. At any
emerging out of              rate, I hope the
carbuncles                   bourgeoisie will remember
                             my carbuncles all the rest
                             of their lives.
Zoom into, then
CREDITS