René Ballesteros
Je suis le responsable de la mort de Michel Foucault - Film - 2010
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 12
Film
« Yo soy el responsable de la muerte » of Michel Foucault. At the time I hadn't yet read him. Or perhaps I had flicked through a few articles or even a book, but I don't remember this period of my life very clearly. I arrived in the United States with no clear plan. I hung around a few months, perhaps a year, in Texas. I had a Chilean friend who worked in San Francisco. He knew that things weren't going very well for me and one night he called me at the hotel where I was renting a room. I wasn't there but he had left his name and telephone number. When I got back, I went out again to call him from the phone box. He asked me if I knew how to drive. Yes. "Do you speak French?" he asked me. "Yes" I answered, in my bad French (it hasn't changed). He asked me if I knew San Francisco. I didn't know the city at all but I needed to leave Texas and I told myself that with a map and a bit of intuition, it would be all right and I said "Yes, yes, of course I know the city". In San Francisco I didn't have time to get a map or anything and the very day I arrived I became the official chauffeur of the French philosopher.
