In his speech in praise of the number three, the comedian known as Bruscambille (see other posts, passim) asserts that the umbilical pistol (‘pistolet umbilicaire’) needs three things:

1. To be well cocked and full of gunpowder;

2. To be charged with a couple of bullets;

3. To have a new holster, for if you put it in a old rotten holster covered in cobwebs, your pistol will be ruined.

Things have changed since Bruscambille’s day, of course, and Dominic Hill’s animated print of the umbilical pistol takes inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard’s observation that all you need to make a film is a gun and a girl:

Pistolet umbilicaire
© Dominic Hills