L’Engrenage

This text reflects Sartre’s experience in the world of cinema, when he was working as a screenwriter for the Pathé film company. The screenplay was never adapted for the screen, as Sartre soon returned to writing, but rather than abandoning the project, he decided to adapt it for the stage. The play premiered at the Théâtre de la Ville on 18 February 1969, in a production directed by Jean Mercure with Raymond Pellegrin.

“The screenplay of L’Engrenage was written in 1946. What amused me at first was transposing to the screen a technique that Anglo-Saxon novelists commonly used before the war: the plurality of points of view. The idea was in the air… In the film I imagined, not only was the chronology disrupted, but the same character, Hélène, appeared in completely different lights depending on who was speaking about her… I thought of a small country rich in oil, for instance, entirely dependent on foreign powers. I imagined the case of a man who comes to power with revolutionary intentions… By choosing a perfectly honest and sincere character, who genuinely believes in socialism, I wanted to show that this is not a matter of the man or his character: it is power itself that is corrupt.”