The Themes of Debord’s Film
In girum imus nocte...

The entire film (including the images, but already in the text of the spoken “commentary”) is based on the theme of water. Hence the quotations from poets evoking the evanescence of everything (Li Po, Omar Khayyam, Heraclitus, Bossuet, Shelley?), who all used water as a metaphor for the flowing of time.

Secondarily, there is the theme of fire; of momentary brilliance — revolution, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, youth, love, negation in the night, the Devil, battles and “unfulfilled missions” where spellbound “passing travelers” meet their doom; and desire within this night of the world (“nocte consumimur igni”).

But the water of time remains, and ultimately overwhelms and extinguishes the fire. Thus the brilliant youth of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the fire of the ardent Charge of the Light Brigade, advancing “under the cannon fire of time,” were drowned in the flowing water of their century. . . .

GUY DEBORD
1977

Manuscript fragment (22 December 1977) reproduced in In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni: Édition critique (Gallimard, 1999).

The complete scripts of all of Debord’s films, with illustrations, detailed descriptions of the images, and extensive annotations, are included in Debord’s Complete Cinematic Works (AK Press, 2003; revised and expanded edition: PM Press, 2026). For further information, see Guy Debord’s Films.

Translation copyright 2003 and 2026 by Ken Knabb. (This copyright will not be enforced against personal or noncommercial use.)