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This transcript is a work in progress.
Weapons of the Spirit, the film, is finished, for better or for worse. But words have always mattered to me as much or more than pictures. This transcript will in time evolve into Weapons of the Spirit-The Book. The idea is an illustrated and annotated transcript-annotated by me and by others, perhaps including you.
My model, simplistically speaking, is the Talmud: I love the idea of commentaries upon commentaries. The few rough and random footnotes included in today's edition probably do not suggest what I am still groping towards.
Another model, at least for the marketing of this transcript, is the computer software industry, with its periodic upgrades of programs. This is release 1.1.
I welcome your feedback, your comments, your questions, your criticisms. I will not answer all of those who may write-I have still not mastered my schedule that way. But I certainly always read all that I receive, often with extreme interest.
Indeed, I will especially welcome comments bearing on specific, even ostensibly minor points. I will in fact integrate some of these comments in the future updates that will precede final hard-bound publication.
Finally, I wish to stress that a film, of course, is not meant to be read. Its words are chosen for their effect in combination with pictures, silence, sounds, and music.
Anybody reading this without having seen the film will be missing much essential and indeed quintessential material which has not here been reduced to words, or even as yet to photographs. Moreover, the interruptions that I will provide-more and more frequent as this transcript evolves, and as yet frustratingly unmediated by artful page layout-will for such a reader resemble the annoying mumbling of somebody who insists on talking to you when you're obviously trying to concentrate on something else.
Chances are, however, that if you've ordered the transcript, you may be interested in knowing more about how the film came to be and some of the choices and influences that brought it into being. Am I right?
Most sincerely,
Pierre Sauvage
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© Copyright 2004, Chambon Foundation. All rights reserved. Revised: May 20, 2010