living pantomimist, an eloquent poet of silence

who manages to express through the language of a

disciplined body the universality of man's

struggle against life's minor problems. In the

years since World War II, he's toured the world,

delighting audiences in Europe, America, and Asia

with an artistry that speaks in a language

easily and readily understood in every

country. Bip, the character of Marceau's

lively imagination, is the character of every man set

against the vicissitudes of his own tiny and

teasing world. Twenty years ago, Marcel Marceau

established his own company of pantomimists in Paris,

and attached to it a school where the skills of his ancient

art are passed on to those who will follow.

♪ [Theme Music] ♪

JAMES DAY: Mr. Marceau, I suppose

every art has its limitations; it's one

thing that makes it art. Do you find limitations in

mime in your ability to express all that you might

wish to express; in abstractions, for example?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Well, there are limitations, as

you say very well, in every art. But we have not

to mix limitations and limitants. If we are

limited, something is missing. But limitations

are very good because they force you to become very

rich within the borders of a discipline. And I would

say that life is limited by death and it could be

unlimited because we can go on in the memories of

people, as civilizations have done, that it's unlimited.

JAMES DAY: Without limitations

there'd be no life, and no art.

MARCEL MARCEAU: That's right. And I think,

for instance, a painting is limited in

the frame, a matador in a bull-- and this bull is limited

because he is in an arena. A boxer is limited in a ring.

I think a piece is limited by the construction, which

has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But

within those rules, what is marvelous is that those

limits force us to choose, and the choice is the

freedom of expressing one's self within the

frames of strict definitions. Like in

music, the definitions, the writing -- like

writing, itself. And mime has the same discipline.

And very often people have thought that pantomime is

just gesturing or imitating.

JAMES DAY: It is movement. Only movement.

MARCEL MARCEAU: It's movement, attitude, and a reflection of

situations which happen in our lives which are funny, sad;

which could be dreams, which could be hopes, transformations,

frustrations. Everything we feel, we hear, we think;

expressed through body movement.

JAMES DAY: So the fact that there's limited movement does

not limit the kind of expression which you --

MARCEL MARCEAU: On the contrary,

it's more strict than to choose the right

movement for the right situation. And it has to

be specific. You see, there's a grammar of

language. When you look at the Indian mudra, it is a

sign language the Indians use. They have 48

positions of hands. But if I have to use movements, I

would refer also to a grammar which is codified

-- we have -- and which comes from Greek, Roman

civilization, it comes from all the [PH] sartes

of all the civilizations we know about Indian,

Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Roman, Latin. But you will

be surprised to see that the convention of those

gestures -- people do them without being aware that

they do conventional gestures. When you say,

"Get out," "Come here," "Hello, how are you?"

Shaking hands. These are all conventions. And --

JAMES DAY: Are they universal conventions?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Oh yes. But of course if you go to

Japan, the Japanese are the people who have two

civilizations in one. They are Western, and they

become Japanese when they are home, when the

Japanese woman puts on his -- I would say kimono, you see.

JAMES DAY: Kimono.

MARCEL MARCEAU: And she would move in a different

way than when she has Western clothes.

JAMES DAY: Even gestures are different. As I recall

in Japan, the gesture of waving means, "Come here."

MARCEL MARCEAU: Yes.

JAMES DAY: Do you have to be conscious of that when you're --

MARCEL MARCEAU: Yeah, absolutely.

JAMES DAY: - when you're performing

in different countries?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Well, but you see, in life

the gestures people do and the gestures I would do

would not be the same I do on a stage. But the

gestures I do on a stage are very close to the

Japanese. And the choice of the subject is almost

very Asiatic sometimes. Let's say the mask maker.

Because all the Japanese theater is based with a

face expression also and movements of course of the

body. But the combination of expression of face and

movement is a whole painting in movement. And

the Chinese too. And I played very often in Japan

and I was amazed to see how immediately -- you see,

the world, our world, has grown very quickly in the

best and in the worst. But in the best too. For in

the best, let's speak a little about the best

because we always learn from so -- terrible things

happening that sometimes it's good to speak about

good things. And the best for me is a knowledge

people have about art, which is much stronger.

When I arrived in Japan in '55, my stylized

character, Bip, or the man in white, was immediately

very natural to the Japanese who live in this

stylized Kabuki. But for America, it was suddenly

something completely new. And maybe because it was

so new, it attracted immediately attention.

Then critics wrote about the connection of mime

with circus, clowns, the difference between I -- or,

we, as mimes, because I represent a lot and I will

often say "we" instead of saying "I" because in

French we say, "le moi ee ay ee sable". I don't

know how to say it in English. I don't like to

say "I" because I am not alone on a stage. Even

being alone, I am with people; I have the

technicians, the lighting, the music. It's a whole team.

JAMES DAY: What about the relationship

between you and the audience? Even as I watch

you, I find myself empathizing with your

movements. Are you conscious of the audience?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Yes.

JAMES DAY: Turning their heads,

opening their eyes or whatever we do?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Absolutely. I can feel them, you see. First

of all you have a black hole before you because

you don't see the audience. You feel the

audience. You feel when they laugh; at one second

-- if you miss the cue, they don't laugh anymore.

You have to slide over a banana peel the right

moment. They will be moved if the movement is

lyrical, but they will be moved because they relate.

And also, we have not to forget, there are two

things which are very important: style and

meaning. The public is moved by meaning, but also

by the style, though he is not aware that it is a

style. I give you an example.

JAMES DAY: The artist is well aware that it is a style.

MARCEL MARCEAU: Oh, absolutely. I think that when I do

"Youth, Maturity, Old Age, and Death," the public

cannot be moved because I die, because they know

that I am not dead. But they are moved from the

poetry, the flow, the [PH] samble of the image of

death, the timing, exactly as you're moved through

music. It gives to you a soul, a certain excitement

and nostalgia. For instance, there's another

number called "The Butterfly."

JAMES DAY: Very well-known.

MARCEL MARCEAU: Well, and I did it when I was very young.

And I don't think that this is a mystery.

You see, when I create numbers now, I know why,

but the first numbers I did, maybe 10, 20 numbers because I

have a repertoire now of 80 pieces. 80.

JAMES DAY: 80?

MARCEL MARCEAU: 80, yes. Some numbers I just

did it because it was in me.

I think that between 20 and 30, you have in you

all the -- it's like an egg. But then it develops,

you see, it grows. But a piece like "The

Butterfly," I wondered why the public was so moved

because a butterfly is dying. But I found out

later that when I catch the butterfly, first of

all, it's an identification with the

butterfly. Then I play with it, and I kill the

butterfly, and then in the wings -- and there was

utter silence the moment the butterfly is dead. And

suddenly it was a reflection of our hearts.

It was no more a butterfly. It became --

JAMES DAY: It's the beating of the heart.

MARCEL MARCEAU: It was the beating of the heart. And

when the heart stops to beat, it was as if our

heart would have stopped beating.

JAMES DAY: A moment of terror, I suppose.

MARCEL MARCEAU: Well, of terror, and of suspension of time. And

then -- Bip was a butterfly hunter; he had many

butterflies. And there is one -- and then he

understood what death is, to destroy, he has to

love. And he took a butterfly, and he let him

free. But the same moment he let him free, he was

crying inside because it was like losing his own

freedom or losing his own youth, trying to protect

freedom. At the same time there was a loss because

he has lost something. And there was a remembrance,

still, of death. You see? And then the public begins

to dream. And I think -- I defined one day that mime

is a language of identification of men with

elements, people, and nature which surrounds us.

JAMES DAY: Over the past 20 or more years that

you've been creating this repertoire of more than 80

pieces, are you conscious of the passage of time

over those years? Do you have to be conscious of

contemporary thought, contemporary opinion?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Yes.

JAMES DAY: Does it change?

MARCEL MARCEAU: Yes. Time, and time. There is time

with us because, well, time passes. Then there

has to be growth. The older one gets, the better

one has to be, or he has to quit. You see? You have

to grow like a tree. If there is no more growth,

you stop. And, like Maria Rilke said, "The

further we go, the further the aim." And of course,

life has changed, and the mime is a silent witness

of his time. And then first of all I created

what we call pantomime distill, which was to make

a public aware that man is struggling against the

wind, fire, air, tight ropes. Mountains were on

the stage and the mountains were there. I

did not go to the mountain; the mountain was

in me. I was a flower, a tree, I break through

walls. And I create the character of Bip, who

first was pretending to skate, going in the social

party, hunting butterflies. But life

learned me also to look at life with not my two eyes,

but I would say a third eye. You have an eye here,

you have an eye here. Here. And in the center.

And then the world became much nearer, smaller, but

at the same time, infinite. And then I chose

themes like Bip in confrontation with

technology, modern and future life, heart

transplants, brain transplants, going in the

search of eternity, and lost in space and

discovering that if he's a small point among millions

of stars and planets, he is the center of the world

because our thought is still that we know about

the universe, that the universe knows about us.

You see? This is the great enigma of life. And I was

aware to go deeper in subjects like, Bip Dreams

of a Better World. And I think that mime is a very,

very modern and futuristic art because...going to the

moon -- have you seen? It's like a ballet, you know?

The astronauts are like ballet, they're doing

ballet slow motion. And we always played in slow

motion, you see? And we do this. I think that the