Hell is other people removing your cigarette (Sartre photo airbrushed to comply with French law)

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | March 10, 2005 | Henry Samuel

[Stoat]

Hell is other people removing your cigarette
By Henry Samuel in Paris
(Filed: 10/03/2005)

France's National Library has airbrushed Jean-Paul Sartre's trademark cigarette out of a poster of the chain-smoking philosopher to avoid prosecution under an anti-tobacco law.

"Smoking," the Left-wing existentialist wrote, is "the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world."

And yet in its poster for an exhibition to mark the hundredth anniversary of Sartre's birth the Bibliothèque Nationale de France decided, destructively or not, to edit out the philosopher's Gauloise.

The library's president, Jean-Noël Jeanneney, confirmed that the cigarette had been discreetly smudged to comply with the 1991 loi Evin - a law banning tobacco advertising - but also so as not to frighten away potential sponsors from the exhibition, which opened yesterday.

Sartre's love of tobacco is well documented: he reportedly smoked his way through two packets and several pipes a day.

Indeed, all the best-known photographs of the author of La Nausée, such as his portrait by Henri Cartier-Bresson on the Pont des Arts in Paris, depict him with a cigarette or pipe in hand.

So organisers homed in on a photo taken by the artist Lipnitzki in 1946 during a rehearsal of Sartre's play La Putain Respectueuse, (The Respectful Prostitute), from which Sartre's cigarette could easily be removed.

The doctoring of the photo was first spotted by Libération, fittingly enough the Left-wing newspaper founded by Sartre.

The exhibition, which runs until Aug 21, shows previously unseen letters and manuscripts by the prolific writer and author of the immortal line: "Hell is other people."

[Stoat]

The Jean-Paul Sartre Internet Archive

[Spok]

"Smoking," the Left-wing existentialist wrote, is "the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world."

This kind of reasoning is caused by smoking something other than tobacco.

[Huck]

Hell is other ppl is a funny line, but philosophy is mostly an old europe waste of time if you ask me. Endless droning on about Hegel and marx and Kierkagaard, and none of it relevant to life in any measureable way. Just a waste of time.

[Marak]

Rewriting history as we watch.

[EllaMinnow]

I have a big photo poster of Monet with a battered hat and a cigarette in his mouth. I suppose he's next on their list.

[SengirV]

What year is it exactly? I could have sworn we had passed 1984.

[Publius6961]

And yet in its poster for an exhibition to mark the hundredth anniversary of Sartre's birth the Bibliothèque Nationale de France decided, destructively or not, to edit out the philosopher's Gauloise.

At the risk of being accused of hyperbole and gratuitous exaggeration, I can't help but note the company this puts France in...

Think. What countries come to mind who have attempted to revise or "forget" reality by airbrushing historical photographs, thereby "erasing" actual history for political purposes?

Sadly, one of those countries is the U.S., reference FDR...

[self_evident]

Lol. Or maybe we could airbrush out France.

[Publius6961]

Actually, I would prefer that they keep the cigarette while airbrushing Sartre out of the picture.

Ahhhh. A critic!

[numberonepal]

but philosophy is mostly an old europe waste of time if you ask me

Then why do you come here to discuss things with people who have similar philosophical beliefs as you? Rand one time asked, "Philosophy - who needs it?" Her answer was everyone. You have a philosophy whether you'd like to admit it or not. I'd say that a conservative political philosophy is crucial to the survival of freedom.

[The Great RJ]

Sartre with a cigarette ..into the "memory hole"....why we have always been at war with Eurasia... How prophetic Orwell was when he wrote 1984.

[TigerTale]

Endless droning on about Hegel and marx and Kierkagaard, and none of it relevant to life in any measureable way.

If it were measurable, it would not be philosophy, it would be natural science.

[Old Professer]

I often close my eyes when faced with the ghosts of truth.

[Eepsy]

I'd like a source for that. Not that I disbelieve you, but it never came up in AP History and now my curiousity is piqued.

[numberonepal]

Ahhhh. A critic!

Sartre: Life begins on the other side of despair.
Goth Stan: What's the point in caring, when all it brings is pain?

[Huck]

Then why do you come here to discuss things with people who have similar philosophical beliefs as you? Rand one time asked, "Philosophy - who needs it?" Her answer was everyone. You have a philosophy whether you'd like to admit it or not. I'd say that a conservative political philosophy is crucial to the survival of freedom.

That's a semantical argument. What you are calling philosophy, I call politics. I discuss politics that is real, that has consequences, that is actionable, that affects my life.

What I refer to as philosophy is what I decribed above. Endless droning on without ever reaching any palpable conclusions, all the while simply getting into mind games with other "philosophers." I just think it's a waste and has no value in life.

[Joe 6-pack]

This is not a pipe.

[Aquinasfan]

Whenever I think of Satre, I think of that song, "I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me."

That the French would honor this schlep speaks volumes.

[nothingnew]

Nice pic...

FMCDH(BITS)