All language subtitles for Film.About.A.Woman.Who.1974.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB

He feels a growing irritation.

He had run into her
on the way to the shooting.

He hadn't seen her for a year.

Some banter was exchanged.

Now he is reviewing
the conversation in his mind.

"She hasn't changed a bit,"
he muses to himself.

His mind works in spirals
as he watches the slides.

Earlier this week, she saw them
on the other side of the street

and was surprised
at her response:

mild distaste,

rather than the rage
she had anticipated.

The whole thing now seemed
rather sordid.

It was receding.

She had ducked into a shop
to avoid them.

He thinks about making love,

then about being in love,

then about performing.

Then he thinks about her.

His very gaze seemed
to transform her

into a performer,

a realized fantasy of herself.

Sometimes, it was almost
as if she were saying,

"Look at me, look at me,

a small price to pay
for my love in return."

He finds himself agreeing.

She tries to reconstruct
the passage from the novel

that had so impressed her.

The best she can do is,

"All is finally clarified.

It is unspeakable but clear.

The reach of my jealousy,
of my certainty of betrayal,

engulfs me at every step.

It is unthinkable
that I live in this condition

in intimacy
with another person,

and the possibility
of living a life

without intimate connections
is equally intolerable.

Is it any wonder that
the most plausible solution

is to remove my existence?

I see no way
through my dilemma.

I am not one to compromise.

I wish I were.

My life would be easier.

The phone is ringing.

It's always been
all or nothing for me.

This statement is for art,

even though,
at this very moment,

I don't know where to turn."

She can't remember,
hard as she tries,

the passage that had followed.

It had suggested
that such a dire solution

might not be necessary.

She is now racking her brain
to remember.

What else? What else?
What else?

The rain makes her think
of when she was 18 years old,

spending a summer in Chicago.

She was sitting
by an open window

in a room
with five other people.

It had started
to rain heavily.

A woman on the other side
of the room

was talking about
her babysitter.

She said, "I hope the stupid
girl has sense enough

to close the windows."

Without a second thought,

she reached over
and shut the window.

A stunned silence
fell on the room.

She thinks about
the snow in Vermont

and their last night
in the cabin,

the four of them
lolling about the sleeping loft

warmed by a wood fire.

Their talk had ranged
over motion

and phallic/vaginal body parts

and illusion and comfort

and back to sex as illusion.

Again, she repeats to herself
the remembered phrase:

"Easy locomotion between
comfort and discomfort."

Now it all seemed like
good social titillation.

"Contempt again," she thinks.

"But I can't help it.

Social interactions seem
to be mostly about seduction."

Events of the past
rose like waves,

and battering
against her mind,

threw it into a wild commotion
of shame, grief, and joy.

The man danced
with the three-year-old child.

It went on for a long time.

He didn't take his eyes
off of her.

He manipulated
her tiny, soft limbs

in time to the music.

He bent down to her,
lifted her up,

turned her around
under his hand,

delicately balancing
and maneuvering her body,

which at times
his two huge hands

all but concealed from view.

She could not stop looking
at the two of them.

The sensuality of the dance
fascinated her.

And then, as time passed,
it became bizarre.

She began to be uneasy
in the realization

that he knew that she,
in particular, was watching.

First, an emptiness
like a great white bird

soared through her.

Then she began to think
about particulars--

the quality of his intelligence
at the moment,

his insight into the nature
of her struggle,

his refusal to go along
with her desperate.

He had dragged it all
out of her.

Now she had to pay.

Yet it was a relief
that he was now

carrying the ball.

It was his turn to,

and not dance
the fandango in.

And there was still
so much she didn't know,

which, if known, might have
made her act differently.

How much of the problem
of their differences was real,

and how much was a smokescreen
to conceal?

Her mind clouded
when she tried to answer.

She had set him
an impossible task.

"To allow me to
when I need to,"

she had told him.

He had reminded her
that she was not so of his.

She pleaded
special circumstances.

They argued.

His voice was hard and curt.

The die seemed cast.

Yet, in some way,
she trusted him.

He would...

they would meet again.

If only he could say,
"But we really,"

which was all very well
for her to say,

having jumped the gun in.

Then, that terrible
accusation of his.

She couldn't even repeat it,
it...

yet it posed another question.

"Is it possible
I have really...

that I will never make...

only in this way survive?

So be it.

There are worse ways to live.

Being so may very well."

She felt, however,
little conviction,

and finally, she grew calmer,
almost resigned.

They had both been,

her terror and the...

slowly eroding,

and regard him

and pleasure.

She had dinner with him
and his male lover

and several of their friends.

It was a noisy,
ebullient gathering.

Some of her previous
reservations about him

were revived
with renewed force.

He seems to be one way,

and then you meet his friends,
and you think,

"How can he stand them?"

And then you realize
that he can stand them

because he is like them in
certain disagreeable respects.

And yet, she didn't want
to dismiss him.

"It isn't that I expect him
to be only--I mean,

I want him to..."

"Don't waste your time over
these old-fashioned faggots,"

she admonishes herself,

"with their pendulum swings
from gentle passivity

to nasty aggression.

The ones who still refer
to each other as 'she.'"

She likes him
because he is so gifted

and has done so much work
on himself.

He still thinks of art,
however,

as a form of self-immolation.

"Why did you not write
about them?"

he had asked her,

an indirect rebuke
for her self-involvement.

She had to admit
that she really did believe

that her own life
was more interesting

than that of anyone
who might portray it

in performance,

or she couldn't deal
with anyone else's life

as interestingly
as she could with her own.

If this applied to her,

it was equally true of him.

But she didn't want
to go into it at the dinner,

and besides,
it would have put her

in a condescending position.

He had never sought
her advice.

She didn't want to risk
taking on

needless responsibility
with regard to him.

She had a kind of mind
incapable of encompassing

historical data.

She could understand an event
only through illustration,

such as the plaster casts
of people in death throes

at Pompeii,

the paintings at Versailles

depicting the inflated gestures
of Louis XIV.

She visited the Pantheon
at different times of day.

She didn't respond
when he beckoned to her

to come over to listen
to the recorded lecture

on the earphones.

She knew that
to know who was buried there

would not make the visit
any more meaningful to her.

She stood in the great expanse
of floor and enclosed light

and felt her mind soar.

By the end of the day,

she was sick of madonnas
holding up their male infants,

saints holding
their bloody foreheads,

martyrs holding
their severed heads,

angels holding
their fingers up,

duchesses holding up
their robes,

dukes holding their falcons,

soldiers holding their spears,

lions holding up banners,

and virgins holding up mirrors.

Everything is about
seduction or death.

But then she thinks
of her own recent situation

and the word "resignation"
springs to her mind.

But she knows she can't
resign herself to it

and must sooner or later
have a confrontation

or simply end it.

She would not add her name

to his collection
of dubious friendships.

After three days in that city,
she began to panic.

How was she to face him
when he arrived?

What she had not allowed
to intrude

on her consciousness at home
was now a reality.

She couldn't go on with it.

Even this brief interlude
was enough to make her aware

of a tremendous relief
and renewed purpose.

She had to tell him.

She felt at once
anxious and happy.

How had she stood it
for so long?

She tries to go back
to the earliest move

that had launched this
particular series of faux pas.

Perhaps it was not too late
to set things right.

He is puzzled
by her behavior.

She pretends to sleep.

Would you hold me?

He apologizes.

She whimpers.

He congratulates himself
on clearing up the matter.

He becomes aroused.

She participates
with pleasure,

but something
is still bugging her.

He analyzes a situation.

She doesn't say much.

She feels uneasy.

She agrees that
getting what you want

is the only way to proceed,

but she doesn't--

He thinks a situation
is resolved.

They see each other that night

in a complicated
social situation.

I'd like to kick your ass in.

Doesn't that make you think
of the movie?

- What movie?
- 2001.

Oh yes, of course.

Only in the movies
can you send your mind away.

For some reason,

she is embarrassed
about her reverie.

I don't think
she really wanted to die.

She just wanted to be asleep,
to not be alive,

to stop the pain
of that Saturday night.

I said, I don't think
she really wanted to die.

She just wanted
to be asleep,

to not be alive,

to escape the pain
of that Saturday night.

Always, it was someone's passion
that started me off.

I'm just not going to get
excited about it.

I know you're distorting things
for the sake of fiction,

exaggerating and displacing
and so forth.

That's such a relief.

I thought you'd be angry at
the way I referred to your work.

I would have done it
so differently.

I'd make a few changes myself.

I would have had
that intertitle:

"I dreamed of my mother
last night, and of my wife.

My wife was crying for me."

I would have shown somehow

that he was really thinking
of something else.

And I would have put
some jumps in that solo

and maybe a longer fade
at the end of that shot

on the stairs.

Now when she thinks
of the work,

all she can see
are the flaws.

That part is too long.

that too short,

that too quick,

that too slow.

Her mind overruns
with the faces of people

gone from her life.

This one made
unreasonable demands.

That one,
unacceptable criticism.

This one let her down
once too often.

That one grew tired
of her elusive reserve.

Maybe it was true
that in spite

of all her protestations
to the contrary,

she really preferred
her own company.

She preferred,
as Rilke said,

to love her solitude

and bear with
sweet-sounding lamentation

the suffering it caused her.

She knew that he would be back.

He had to work things out
his own way,

and he was assured
of his prior claim

on her affections.

His arrogance
at first astounded her,

then finally
could be forgiven

in her anticipation
of the pleasure

they both knew
would again be shared,

even if it had to be
postponed a whole year.

Then she remembers what
the scene had reminded her of.

The sky
with its leaden clouds,

the wet spray of the sea,

the thump of surf
against the rocks.

The two weeks
had fled past them.

She didn't remember
a single argument,

not even
the kind of maneuvering

for a brief privateness

that people do when
they are together constantly.

At this remove,
it seemed impossibly idyllic.

Looking at those two weeks

against the backdrop
of later events,

she was at a loss to understand
the nature of his feelings.

She herself felt like a fool
thinking about it,

deceived and humiliated.

But she also felt
a deep sadness.

There's no denying
her own happiness

and sense of completion
at the time.

Had he ever felt such things
in her presence,

for even a single moment?

She wondered.

On the way
back to the city,

she was careful
not to touch him

as they sat
in the back seat of the car.

When he unconcernedly,
or calculatingly--

she couldn't tell which--

shifted his position so that
his knee grazed her thigh,

she carefully disengaged
herself from contact.

By the time
they arrived in town,

he occupied most of the seat,

and she had squished herself
into a cramped, tight ball.

She was enraged.

She stumbles
out of the theater.

Her disgust with the film
and actual nausea

drive her body
into the street.

She recalls, roughly,
the location of the hotel

and starts walking
in that direction.

Her gut burns and she has
to keep spitting out

the bitter saliva
that collects in her mouth.

The streets are dimly lit
and deserted,

the houses
shuttered and silent.

She wonders if she will find
the hotel in time.

At a certain point,
not having seen

any familiar landmarks
for a while,

she realizes
that she is lost

and experiences
a powerful exaltation.

The discomfort of her body,

the presence of the night,

her solitude,

all give her an acute sense
of the moment.

She finds a vacant grassy lot,

gropes her way past the open
door of a parked truck,

and vomits.

Relieved, she straightens up
and sees the looming outline

of a huge gas storage tank,

and remembers standing
in the street

across from the hotel
that morning

watching two men on a scaffold
painting the tank orange.

She then knows that she's now
only a block away.

Almost regretfully,
she goes directly to the hotel,

willing to take care
of her body,

reluctant to terminate being
lost in the sleeping town.

Yeah, he said, "Willie,
say goodbye to America."

This.

This was given to me
by a friend of my brother's

when I was 15.

He and Ernie had practically
been raised together.

And then I didn't see him
for a long time,

until Ernie discovered
he was living with his mother

just a few blocks from us,

and he started showing up
at our house.

I guess he always
had been homosexual,

'cause I remember him
as a very young boy

running around
in his mother's nightgown

with pears stuck
in the bosom.

By the time I saw him again,
he was extraordinarily handsome.

And then he went to Mexico.

And he brought this back
with him.

Must have been
the very first necklace

I ever owned.

And I had a huge crush on him.

And I would send long,
lingering looks at him.

And he took it
quite graciously.

Although, I remember when he
presented me with the necklace,

his hand trembled slightly

as he withstood
the ardor of my gaze.

And Ernie saw him
very infrequently

during the next four years,

and only when he invited him
to his house.

By that time, my brother...

I remember him
as a very young boy

running around
in his mother's nightgown

with pears stuck
in the bosom.

By the time I saw him again,
he was extraordinarily handsome.

And then he went to Mexico.

And he brought this back
with him.

Must have been
the very first necklace

I ever owned.

And I had a huge crush on him.

And I would send long,
lingering looks at him.

And he took it
quite graciously.

Although, I remember when he
presented me with the necklace,

his hand trembled slightly

as he withstood
the ardor of my gaze.

And Ernie saw him
very infrequently

during the next four years,

and only when he invited him
to his house.

By that time, my brother
was married and had a baby.

And sometimes
I would be invited to dinner

and he would be there.

I remember it might have been
the last time I ever saw him.

We left Ernie's place
one evening together.

He told me
that by the time I was 30

I would probably be
a very beautiful woman.

I think the primary distinction
has been between...

She finds herself looking
at the other woman

with curiosity.

She has a way of talking,

delicate, precise,
and lilting,

that reminds her of women

she has had disdain for
in the past.

Effeminate women, yes,

yet this woman's assertion
emerges in spite of the style,

and not unpleasantly.

She is intrigued
and self-conscious.

The three of them talk
about sexual fantasies.

She keeps thinking
about privacy.

No, it isn't hard
to talk about these things.

It is almost too easy,
almost meaningless,

almost absurd.

"What will I say to her
when we meet

for the second time?,"
she thinks.

Then she realizes that
the subject of conversation

has come up because
there are three of them.

An intimate revelation
to her alone

might demand a comparable
gesture, she reasons.

With an audience of two,

my revelations are reduced
to gratuitous display.

I become a performer.

An hour and a half
since the last embrace.

You're still here,
I see you, we are one,

and this indestructible
togetherness,

they'll never be powerful
enough to wrest away from us.

That so much love could exist
anywhere in any two people,

even between us,
I never realized.

It makes me feel all fluttery
and kind of weak.

Not enough, though,

in the sense
of succumbing to weakness,

for it makes me feel
so much stronger,

my lifelong husband.

She catches herself
snorting gleefully

at the scene of the two women
being totally bitchy

to one another.

She remembers a similar scene.

Was it Dorothy Lamour
or Betty Grable

in a movie she saw when she was
no more than nine or ten.

One woman had ripped
another woman's dress off.

She had stayed
in the movie theater

long after her friends had left

until that scene
came around again.

She had laughed louder
than anyone around her

and she must've felt guilty
about it

because she never told anybody,

not her mother nor anybody.

Hello?

Oh, hi, hi.

Yeah, I just got it in the mail.

You want to hear it?

Well, I'll try but, you know,

your handwriting
is sort of hard to read.

Okay, okay, here it goes.

"This is the poetically
licensed story

of a woman
who finds it difficult

to reconcile certain
external facts

with her image
of her own perfection.

It is also
the same woman's story

if we say she can't reconcile
these facts with her image

of her own deformity.

She would like to
engage in politics

but she can't decide whether
to join the Big Women

or the Hunch Twats.

The Big Women
have a lot to offer

but she has discovered
a central weaknesses

in their proposal to use wads
of counterfeit money for..."

doorstops?

What is this?

Box tops? Oh...

Box-stops.

"Neither is she attracted
to the naiïve notion

of the Hunch Twats that every
connection brings bed chains.

Not that it's a matter
of victims and oppressors.

She simply can't find
alternatives

to being inside with her fear
or standing in the rain

with her self-contempt.

How long can you go on this way?
Hm?

You still think it's all going
to come out right, don't you?

For instance,
if you get up in the morning

and feel your feelings
well enough

you will receive
the right gifts from heaven

without ever having
to ask for them

or even to find them.

It should be smooth sailing now,
right?

Just deciding
which side you're on

should ensure that
all the best things in life

will beat a path to your door,
right?

After all, you've paid
your dues, haven't you?

What do you want?

Her pretense of innocence
must end.

Nothing is new anymore,
thank God.

Now at last, she can use
her head and her eyes.

If the mind if a muscle
then the head is a huntress

and the eye is an arrow.

Thanking you for your immediate
attention to this matter.

I look forward
to hearing from you

at your earliest
possible convenience.

Respectfully,
blah, blah, blah, blah."

Yeah.

I think it's pretty good.

I think they'll get the message.

Because she has younger looking
breasts than you.

Because she has younger looking
breasts than you.

I'll leave.

I don't want you going down
there alone this time of night.

Propelled by
an avalanche of rage,

her limbs catapulted
her body into her clothing.

She hardly knew
what she was doing,

and when her voice came out,
it surprised her.

You're not moving fast enough.

He lost no further time
and bolted out the door,

then she became aware
of her heartbeat.

When it had settled down
she thought

that she had never been
that angry in her whole life.

She thought she knew
how someone could murder.

The places for sitting
in the Luxembourg Gardens

are individual chairs
rather than benches,

so one can make
small adjustments

in placing one's self
in relation

to a companion
with a total view.

She sees him
and tries to turn away

but it is too late.

He has already caught sight
of her.

He tells her about
his eidetic images.

She listens intently watching
his graceful, quick gestures,

his darting eyes,
the mouth moving,

pursing, curving, opening.

The slender fingers
curving around the cigarette.

Her eyes devour him.

Her mouth becomes hollow
with expectation.

She moves her knees cautiously
so that they are further apart.

He doesn't notice
or pretends not to.

She holds back,
continues to listen,

and the sensations pass.

What was it like for him
when he was with her?

Images with oily outlines
waver in her reverie.

She sees them eating together
but not the place.

She sees them talking
but not their expressions.

One of them
may have just smiled

in response to the other.

She can't quite make it gel

but she feels
her jealousy acutely.

The knowledge
of their past urbanity

and mutual congratulations
releases slivers

of jealousy through
her mind in a slow drip.