A look at the emergence of the Groupe Panique in French artistic circles demonstrates that its philosophy is profoundly diverse; it is not devoted to a rigid, predetermined set of ideas. The
244 Gilles Deleuze, “En créant la pataphysique Jarry ouvert la voie à la phénoménologie,” in L’île
déserte et autres textes: Textes et entretiens 1953-1974 (Paris: Éditions de minuit, 2002) 105-
108; Gilles Deleuze, “Un Précurseur méconnu de Heidegger, Alfred Jarry,” in Critique et
clinique (Paris: Éditions de minuit, 1993), 113–25.
245 Jean-Marc Debenedetti, “Interview d’Arrabal par Jean-Marc Debenedetti,” in Panique:
cement that keeps the three founders of the movement together is their overlapping vision of what aesthetic and artistic experience ought to be. More importantly, they agree to disagree and embrace the irreconcilable differences in their individual ways of pursuing their shared goal. What drew the three paniques to one another was their shared curiosity about their works. In an interview with Jean-Marc Debenedetti, Arrabal reveals that his first direct encounter with Jodorowsky’s work occurred when the latter decided to stage Arrabal’s play, Fando y Lis (1958). Jodorowky’s fascination with the play was so profound that it inspired him to give up his successful career as a mime to devote his time to theater and directing for the stage.246 Subsequently, Arrabal discovered intriguing drawings published around the time in a satirical and controversial journal Hara-Kiri, and he contacted their creator, Topor, by sending his newly published first novel, L’Enterrement de la sardine, in 1960. Topor reminisced about this unorthodox introduction with fondness:
Je travaille à Hara-Kiri, je reçois un livre d’Arrabal, L’Enterrement de la sardine qu’il m’envoie avec admiration et sympathie. Je ne sais pas comment il est ni son âge, et je lui envoie un dessin. Ensuite, un type me téléphone, soi-disant son secrétaire, […] et on se donne rendez-vous au Saint-Claude, boulevard Saint- Germain. On découvre qu’on a des goûts communs: Hara-Kiri, la science-fiction, les romans noirs, Lewis Carroll... On se dit que fonder un mouvement serait intéressant.247
While the rapport between Arrabal and Topor began and continued as cordial, Arrabal’s relationship with Jodorowsky was purely intellectual rather than affectionate. It was indeed
246 Debenedetti, “Interview d’Arrabal par Jean-Marc Debenedetti,” 223. 247 Philippe Krebs, “Dossier sur panique,” Les Éditions Hermaphrodite, 1999, http://sitehermaphrodite.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=125.
Arrabal who decided to introduce the other two in 1960 because he saw, despite their differences, the potential for a fruitful encounter of minds.
Arrabal, Jodorowsky and Topor met for the first time as a trio in 1960 at the Café de la Paix in Paris. It was evident from the start that they did not see eye to eye on all matters. Topor, for example, was instantly taken aback by Jodorowsky’s spirituality that was grounded in Eastern philosophies such as Zen and Buddhism.248 Furthermore, despite a profound sense of friendship, the relationship between Arrabal and Topor was marred by their polarized attitude toward the Surrealist group, which all of the paniques were invited to join.249 The fundamental differences of opinions regarding their personal convictions aside, the three founders of the Mouvement Panique did not let these divergences overshadow their yearning to create an artistic space that would allow for contradictions to coexist and interact. Aranzueque-Arrieta calls the original paniques “[une] trinité subversive et polymorphe” in which each individual retains his views, values and experiences.250 Such diversity assumes that sharp differences are unavoidable, a premise that constitutes the basis of philosophie panique that turns them into an asset. If I insist on introducing the Groupe Panique by laying out the differences and diverging opinions of its members, it is because their acknowledgment and respect for them was a crucial factor in devising the group’s philosophy regarding their artistic pursuits. The paniques took on as their first collective goal to make a statement of their mission without curbing their creativity the way
248 Aranzueque-Arrieta, Panique, 36.
249 Philippe Krebs, “Roland Topor et l’art,” Les Éditions Hermaphrodite, 2007,
http://sitehermaphrodite.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=629. Arrabal considered the invitation to the meetings of the Surrealist group as an honor, and even though he did not agree with Breton’s dogmatism, he maintained a lifelong relationship with the group. Topor, in turn, could not stand the atmosphere of the group and, as an anecdote goes, he excused himself to go to the bathroom during the first meeting he attended and never came back.
other movements did at the time, for example the infamous Surrealists. Topor talks about their endeavor as follows:
Avec Panique, nous essayons de mettre sur pied un programme, suffisamment flou pour ne pas être acculé à le suivre, mais pas trop tarte, pour qu’il se maintienne harmonieusement tout en favorisant nos épanouissements respectifs. Ensuite, comme de juste, nous cherchons quelques compagnons de route, des types marrants sans nous laisser piéger, c’est-à-dire sans oublier qu’il s’agit d’un faux-mouvement...251
Here, Topor explains that even though the intention of founding a movement was not entirely serious, together with the other paniques they wanted to define goals for their group that would allow them to assume a direction but at the same time protect their artistic individualism; their goals reflect their strong identity in opposition to the mainstream art but at the same time allow for their artistic creativity to thrive freely.
This conundrum resulting from the will to articulate philosophie panique but at the same time to leave it as open-ended as possible starts already with the question of the best way to communicate it to the world, as the paniques consider written language a medium that is seriously flawed, which will be reflected in the group’s preference for body/vision-based media, such as performance and film. This opinion was later explicitly expressed by Jodorowsky in his essay – in the end the paniques did not succeed in foregoing written language altogether – on
l’éphémère panique in 1965: “La langue écrite ne peut pas être panique; pour l’être, elle doit
251 Krebs, “Dossier sur panique.”
s’intégrer dans un ensemble corporel, vocal, spectaculaire; être un élément de la fête panique.”252 I contend that the reluctance towards written language as an abstract and artificial system separated from human body was the reason that the Groupe Panique at first did not produce an official manifesto regarding their deliberations on philosophie panique, and that the first essay outlining their agenda, which appeared under the title “L’Homme panique,” was a transcription of Arrabal’s speech presented at the University of Sydney in 1963. Moreover, the only traces of the principles that the paniques worked out together are texts that they published throughout the 1960s as individuals, not as a collective. These texts, starting with “L’Homme panique,” published independently and only later collected in a volume edited by Arrabal entitled Le
Panique (1973) include Jodorowsky’s “Panique et poulet rôti” and “Vers l’éphémère panique ou
sortir le théâtre du théâtre,” and Topor’s “Petit Memento panique.”253 It was not until 2006 that Arrabal officially used the word “manifesto” in reference to a collection of theoretical texts about the panique when he published a volume entitled Panique: manifeste pour le troisième
millénaire. The collection of these texts, which were relatively scattered in the beginning of the panique’s existence, along with numerous interviews given by the group’s members, allow for a
detailed picture of what the philosopie panique is and an understanding of how it relates to Jarry’s pataphysics.
252 Alejandro Jodorowsky, “Vers l’éphémère panique ou sortir le théâtre du théâtre,” in Le
“Panique,” ed. Fernando Arrabal (Paris: Union générale d’éditions, 1973), 79.
253 Arrabal, “L’Homme panique”; Alejandro Jodorowsky, “Panique et poulet rôti,” in Le
“Panique,” ed. Fernando Arrabal (Paris: Union générale d’éditions, 1973), 55–64; Jodorowsky,
“Vers l’éphémère”; Roland Topor, “Petit memento panique,” in Le “Panique,” ed. Fernando Arrabal (Paris: Union générale d’éditions, 1973), 66–73.