Original subtitles

Look, I know the neighborhood doesn't look like much, but...

plenty of people are moving out here to Brooklyn.

Writers, painters, filmmakers, rock and roll musicians...

I mean it's just a matter of time before this neighborhood becomes the art capital of the world

New York, Soho, that's all in the past.

I mean an art capital needs to be a place where people can afford to live.

Who can afford to live in New York City?

Look at Paris in the twenties.

You think Hemingway lived in a six room duplex on the Champs-Élysées?

No. He lived in squalor.

I mean, it's just a matter of time before they start

opening up cafés all along the BQE.

All right, fine. Fine, walk away. See what I care.

You're gonna be missing out, man.

You're walking away from the center of late twentieth-century art.

The city of light. The Paris of Brooklyn.

He who does his own work well, will find that his first lesson

is to know what he is and that which is proper to himself.

And he who understands himself will never mistake another man's work for his own

but will recognise the value of his work

as being the appropriate outcome of his temperament and his needs.

He will refuse superfluous employments and reject

all unprofitable thoughts and propositions

- Love is a form of knowledge. - I know that!

To know we can die is to be dead already!

Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Hardy, Elvis Costello, Peter Kropotkin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Bresson...

Saint Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King, Sacco and Vanzetti...

Yes, yes, yes, you can go on forever, but what does it mean?

If you can't understand what someone is saying, has anything been expressed or conveyed?

What two images or sounds are juxtaposed...

...in a relationship that is...

...not concrete or...

...logical...

...in terms of conventional perception...

...conventional perception becomes either...

...obsolete or...

...is obliged to reassess its intentions.

Why does it look? What does it want to see?

Does it ask to see only...

...what reaffirms its own existence?

Meaning is differential!

Greenwich Village large studio, four-floor walkup,

separate bathroom and hot plate. $900 per month.

Chelsea one-bedroom, large windows,

eat-in kitchen, nice lobby, $1050 per month.

Fashionable Soho loft.

Near all subway trains. Asking $400,000.

Honey!

- Ingrid, what are you doing back in town so soon? - Bob, who are those people in my apartment?

I sublet it.

- You sublet my apartment? - Just short term.

- I was gonna split the money with you, I promise. - Who are they?

- You know, they're like us. - And what is that supposed to mean?

Broke.

You mean they're like you. I'm not broke. Espresso please?

- Ingrid, marry me. Be my wife. - Where do they come from? What are they like?

Young, middle-class, college-educated, unskilled.

- Well, we've got to get them out of there. - But how?

You could talk to them.

- What am I gonna say? - I don't know.

Bub, you've got to find them somewhere else to live.

- You're gonna have to move out, Bill. - She's locked herself in the bathroom.

What do you mean, for good?

She says until I quit my job.

Self-contempt is a serpent that gnaws in one's breast,

sucking out the heart's lifeblood.

We must love our work, or our labor will devour us whole.

Or our labor will devour us whole.

- What do you do? - I guess I just wait for her to come out.

- No, I mean what do you do for a living? - I go to work.

- What kind of work? - Work I don't like.

- Why do you do it then? - I gotta the rent.

- What do you wanna do? - I wanna write songs.

Love songs. Really beautiful timeless love songs.

But I can't sing and I don't know music.

You see? What did I tell you? This is where it happens. This is where the artists live.

- Yeah but he's not an artist, he said so himself. - But he wants to be.

But it doesn't make him one. You are what you do.

No, you do what you can't avoid. You are whatever you can get away with.

You do what you need to survive and then you are what you become.

- Come on, Ingrid, marry me. - So what do you think you are, then?

- I'm a writer. - No you're not.

You're a low-rent real estate agent and you're bad at your job.

I'm bad at my job on purpose.

If I was any better at it, I might become what I do for a living.

I'm only a waitress on the outside.

So he comes up to me and asks if the boss is in.

So I say "Who should I say is here to see him?"

So he says "His spiritual advisor".

So I give him the once-over and ask him if he has any identification

And he says "Don't I look like a spiritual advisor?"

And I say "Yeah... but rules are rules. I have to follow instructions."

And then he says...

"Blind obedience is no way to achieve grace".

- You shoulda hit him - Well my job was on the line.

Look at Paris in the twenties.

You think Henry Miller lived in a luxury condo on the Boulevard Saint-Germain?

No. He was broke and unshaven. Like me.

Henry Miller was born in Williamsburg.

If he was alive today, he'd be living right here in Brooklyn.

In Williamsburg in particular.

What?

Young, middle-class, college-educated, broke.

Young, middle-class, white...

college-educated, unskilled, and broke

Young, middle-class, white...

college-educated, unskilled, broke... drunk.

- That's it. - Yeah I think we got it, now.

The jackpot is buildin', it's close to twelve million

The lines are long as can be

I'll spend my time, put my cash on the line

Oh lord, please let it be me.

Oh please let my numbers all come out this one time

I've got a feeling they're right

Quit my job, take a vacation of 64 nations

Let me win lotto tonight

Six years I've played and I ain't won a dollar

My wife she could holler, my kids hate my guts

I lost all our savings, heard rantings and ravings

My friends say they all think I'm nuts

Oh please let me numbers all come out this one time

I've got a feeling they're right

Quit my job, take a vacation of 64 nations

Let me win lotto tonight

Please don't you laugh but I've got me this system

It's guaranteed sure it'll work

I read in the back of the weekly world news

If you can't win with this you're a jerk

Oh please let me numbers all come out this one time

I've got a feeling they're right

Quit my job, take a vacation of 64 nations

Let me win lotto tonight

Oh please let me numbers all come out this one time

I've got a feeling they're right

Quit my job, take a vacation of 64 nations

Let me win lotto tonight

Let me win lotto please, let me win lotto please

Let me win lotto tonight

- The need to make sense of something - The need to make sense of something

- Something you're not sure about yourself - Something you're not sure about yourself

- The need to express this sense - The need to express this sense

- Of things to someone else - Of things to someone else

- And to work things out as you relate them - And to work things out as you relate them

- These images - These images

- These sounds - These sounds

- These words and gestures can be considered - These words and gestures can be considered

- What your life - What your life

- In the final analysis - In the final analysis

- Is worth - Is worth

I quit my job.

- Are you sure? - Yeah.

Her behind small and round

Fit snug in her jeans

Well full lips that whisper

Innocent sins and well-kept secrets

I will die in my dreams

If not in her arms

And her green eyes they do sparkle

With fear as well as laughter

Disappointment and loneliness

Is all I'll taste of her dreams

But her wet full lips will whisper

Innocent sins and well-kept secrets

I will die in my dreams

If not in her arms

To know we can die is to be dead already.

I read that in a book somewhere.

Meaning is differential.

I heard that in a course I took at college.

Love is a form of knowledge.

I copied that out of my notebook.

I can't remember where I found it, but I believe it.

He who does his own work well will find that his first lesson

is to know what he is and that which is proper to himself.

There's a bright new renovated loft in Soho for $400,000.

- Is it close to the subways? - Yes, but they've been closed by the Board of Health.

- We'll live on the streets. - Look, don't panic.

- To know we can die is to be dead already. - I know that.

- I know you know that. - I told you that.

Love is a form of knowledge.

- We can't eat poetry. - How will we live?

- We'll get jobs. - Yes, we'll get jobs and be happy.

No, we'll get jobs and pay the rent. We'll get credit cards and be happy.

Why do we struggle?

- Because we want things. - What do we want?

- Listen, Bill. I want you to take my apartment. - Really?

I do. I want you to move right in.

it's a nice place. Rent-stabilized and well-maintained.

I want you to take it. Enjoy it. I want that.

Because you're beautiful. I love you guys.

- Gee, Bob. - Bob, where are you going to live?

I'm going to move in here with Ingrid. Because she's beautiful, too. I love Ingrid.

- Bob, you got that twenty bucks you owe me? - I love you Mark.

Love is a form of knowledge.

I've got to call my mother.

- I'm broke. - You're not alone.