Bernard-Henri Lévy

From Philosopedia

Bernard-Henri Lévy (5 Nov 1949 - )

Algerian-born Lévy, who in 1968 graduated with a degree in philosophy from Ecole Normale Supérieure, is a journalist who has studied philosophy with Jacques Derrida and Louis Althusser and was a reporter for Combat, the underground journal founded by Albert Camus during the Nazi occupation of France.

In Paris he founded New Philosophers, a group of intellectuals who were critical both of the communists and socialists during May 1968 French political near-riots.

In 1971 as a journalist, he covered the Bangladesh-Pakistan war, obtaining material for Bangla-Desh, Nationalisme dans la révolution (Bangladesh, Nationalism in the Revolution).

In the 1970s he taught epistemology at the University of Strasbourg and philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. It was a time during which he and the new philosophers were critical also of capitalism and, in La barbarie a visage humain (Barbarism with a Human Face, 1977), called Marxism inherently corrupt.

L'Idéologie françaose (The French Ideology, 1981) is one of his best-known works in France. An example of his far-flung interests is Qui a tué Pearl? (Who Killed Danny Pearl? 2003), which suggests that Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter was killed because he knew too much about Pakistan's secret service, nuclear scientists, and al-Qaeda.

Lévy has been described as "somewhere between a writer and a show-biz hero, with his wife, the glamourous actress Arielle Dombasle." He is quoted as coining a dictum,

• God is dead but my hair is perfect.

In addition to having a pie thrown into his face, he is not happy with much that has written about his alleged narcissism. For example, a 16 Feb 1997 article in Sunday Times:

• THEY used to look upon his works in awe. Now they are laughing. France's most famous living philosopher is in danger of losing his revered status among the country's intellectuals after making a film derided as "soft-porn". Bernard-Henri Levy, a former student rebel leader turned intello, or intellectual, has for long been revered in France as a philosophe. He appears on television chat shows to muse about the state of French society and likes to be photographed in designer shirts open to the waist. He is so famous that he is known simply by his initials BHL. However, he has baffled France with his latest work, a film called Night and Day, about an affair between an ageing French writer and a beautiful blonde actress, played by Arielle Dombasle, Levy's wife. She spends a large part of the film without any clothes on. Film pundits are unimpressed. One critic, from the left-wing Libiration newspaper, said watching the film was like "wading through guacamole". He added: "This film reminds one of the wonderful days of adolescent fantasies when you pinned up 'playmate of the month' on your bedroom wall." The film features a sub-plot involving Mexican leftist guerrillas, but they take a back seat to the main subject of the film: sex. Levy dismisses all criticism as sour grapes. As for the nudity, he claims to have swapped his pen for the camera in order to study the subject of women. "Apart from politics, there are only two things that interest me, literature and women," he told Le Figaro newspaper. "The camera has allowed me to express, better than I have done before, my love for women and their bodies." They take their philosophy too seriously in France to let the matter rest unchallenged. "BHL is a writer and he should stick to that," said a film critic of Le Parisien, adding ominously: "No star shines eternally." Levy's wife, 37, does not escape criticism either. One reviewer described her as a piece of "charming blonde ectoplasm". There have been suggestions that Levy was "showing off" by having her in sex scenes. Such attacks against Levy are rare. With his film star good looks he has acquired an icon status usually reserved for rock stars. Now that image is eroding. Levy is a master of copinage and pistonnage - slang phrases that translate roughly as having influential friends and knowing how to pull strings. The film was financed with French and European public funds and by Canal Plus, the cable television channel. This has helped Levy to ensure the film received maximum publicity ahead of its opening on Valentine's day, and it featured on four magazine covers last week. There were also lengthy interviews with Levy pontificating about his philosophy of cinema. Several weeks before the film was released, private screenings were held for Levy's "friends", the closed circle of intellectuals who attend the same Left Bank dinner parties. To prevent any attacks ahead of its launch, film critics were allowed to see Night and Day only two days before its release, giving them little time to sharpen their poison pens. Le Canard Enchanni, the satirical newspaper, was not happy about such thoughtlessness. Unable to review the film because it was not invited to the private screenings, a critic said that no matter how bad it was, Levy should at least be given an award "for the best self-promotion".

American Vertigo, Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville (2006) was described in The New York Times (4 Feb 2006) as being "perhaps the most penetrating work on American society and politics ever written." In 15,000 miles of travel around the United States, Lévy describes visiting Rikers Island (a jail in which he watches as a male prisoner masturbates furiously in front of an impassive female guard); sees a stock-car race in Knoxville, Iowa; goes quail hunting in Georgia; tells the Chicago minister of a megachurch that he is an atheist; and describes various aspects of the country's poverty, urban decay, and pride in accomplishments.

Works in French

• Bangla-Desh, Nationalisme dans la révolution, 1973
• La barbarie à visage humain, 1977
• Le testament de Dieu, 1978
• Idéologie française, 1981
• Le diable en tête, 1984
• Eloge des intellectuels, 1988
• Les derniers jours de Charles Baudelaire, 1988
• Les aventures de la liberté, 1991
• Le jugement dernier, 1992
• Les hommes et les femmes, 1994
• La pureté dangereuse, 1994
• Le siècle de Sartre, 2000
• Réflexions sur la Guerre, le Mal et la fin de l’Histoire, 2002
• Qui a tué Daniel Pearl?, 2003
• Récidives, 2004

Works in English

• Bernard-Henri Lévy, War, Evil and End of History, October 2004
• Bernard-Henri Lévy, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, 2003,
• Bernard-Henri Levy, translated by Andrew Brown, Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century, 2003
• Edited by Bernard-Henry Lévy, What Good Are Intellectuals: 44 Writers Share Their Thoughts, 2000
• Bernard Henri Lévy, Richard Veasey, Adventures on the Freedom Road, 1995