I have a long history with Albert Camus, although I have not read him in many years. He was my first major intellectual crush, although I flirted with Thoreau too. I was an odd kid. I spent a summer in high school doing a close reading of The Rebel, and taking copious notes. Anything I liked I would hand copy into a notebook. I may still have those notebooks somewhere. Not sure.
But after some effort, I found a copy of the movie, from 1992 I think, with William Hurt, Raul Julia, and others.
Here is one quote:
Microbes, and disease, are normal. People think its the other way around. There’s a little of the plague in all of us. Some don’t know it, but others make it a way of life. Those of us who know, have to be careful not to breathe into other people’s faces. Not to become distracted. The honest man is the one who does just that, avoids falling into distraction.
He is making two points here. One is that disease is normal. Human weakness and frailty is normal. We act surprised when things fall apart, but should be more surprised all the times they don’t. We forget to value the foundations we stand upon. This is the point of history, of philosophy done honestly.
And this is of course literally true too. We are surrounded by viruses and bacteria all day every day. Many, many people do not want to hear this. They want to be protected from the very world itself, and everything in it.
But I think he is specifically speaking metaphorically. The quarantine of Oran–I think that is the city–was intended to reference the Nazi occupation of France, the restrictions of life, the metastasizing bureaucracy, and in specific Camus’ separation from his wife, who was still in Algeria while he ran–as a doctor specializing in treating disease of sorts–an underground newspaper, Combat.
Evil lives in us. Violence. Anger. Hurtfulness. The honest man–or woman–is the one who does their best not to forget this and thus infect others.
And in this present time it is interesting how literal the comparison can be made between the “occupation” the disease has made possible, and the actual, literal historical Nazis.
Even in this movie they dragged people from their homes and threw them in concentration camps–the one William Hurt visits is in a soccer stadium–and Hurt asks them if they are not infecting more people this way than leaving them at home, and the bureaucrat in effect says “collateral damage, and an acceptable cost.”
I will likely have more to say. I need to reread that book. I read it in high school, and I am a very different person now.