Nice-Premium: Who is Christian Brendel?
Christian Brendel: A 50-year-old actor. I entered this profession in a rather strange way. I was in a business school preparatory class; it was quite tough. I felt quite alone at that time. I had seen two or three movies that year. It felt good, so I thought it was a wonderful profession. I had no idea if I was capable of doing it or not. I went to the Odéon, where there was a theater. I took classes, entered competitions, and then it became my profession.
N-P: But Christian Brendel is not just an actor?
C.B.: Indeed, I am someone who has not devoted his whole life to this profession. I am primarily a father. I have a son who is taking his baccalaureate. It’s important.
N-P: Philosophy this morning.
C.B.: Yes, he chose the topic on desire.
N-P: And does philosophy inspire you?
C.B.: It’s an absolutely extraordinary subject because it defines the individual. Its power of reflection and the way this reflection fits into a social and historical context. The philosophy grade, that’s the grade you remember all your life whereas the grades in physics, math, or English, you can forget. The philosophy grade, that’s one’s own grade, it’s who you are.
N-P: That’s true.
C.B.: Unfortunately, it’s a subject that’s only studied for a year. That’s not enough.
N-P: Indeed, in the final year, we are given philosophy classes, then we start to think, to analyze, to see the world differently, and then it all stops. One year, it’s too short.
C.B.: I quite agree with you. But there is a problem of maturity. To approach philosophy, the final year class isn’t a bad class. It’s at the same time the end of a study cycle and then the start of a higher cycle if you want to continue. People generally lean towards sciences, humanities, or economics. We lose this beautiful contact with the opening of deep and rich thought. We’ve opened a window for a year and it closes very quickly for a large part of the students who continue. It’s a pity.
N-P: Introduce it earlier?
C.B.: I don’t really know how to do that.
N-P: What is your perspective on current philosophy?
C.B.: It is funny to see how philosophy in ancient times and how it is today. I find that current philosophy has incorporated a very strange dimension, which is that of the instant while it should not be situated in the instant. I say this because philosophers nowadays are all almost in a race for media attention like Bernard Henri Levy, for example. They all run after media visibility, media recognition, but media recognition is by its very nature something ephemeral, instant. Philosophy should be able to escape, to emancipate. It’s very paradoxical.
N-P: These people are still philosophers.
C.B.: They are media personalities but whether they are philosophers, I don’t know. They are very intelligent people no doubt but insofar as they seek mediatisation, they are situated outside of a context that is the age of reflection, which must transcend ages, eras, and take into account the era in which we live. We still study philosophers, Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche; these are not contemporary people so if we study them, it’s because they have made a contribution that goes well beyond their era. They contribute to something like architecture which is something that lasts, a reference in our thought. The media figures of our age lose the spirit of philosophy. But I am not smart enough to debate this.
