All language subtitles for Guns of the Trees (1961 - EUA - Jonas Mekas)

Dear Gregory,

how can I say
how I feel today, May 6th?

I have awoken from two days sleep
and there is sunshine everywhere.

I've gone out to walk in the streets

and withdrawn my money from the bank.

I've quit the university
and gone to buy honey donuts

and come home to sit in the sunshine.

I have four quarts of
milk in the refrigerator.

I wisht he milkman
would leave me alone.

He will. So will they all.

This is real now.

All these studies seem
senseless to me now.

They teach me how to work,

but I don't get any answers
to what really matters to me.

So, I sit in the sunshine
and look at the pigeons.

Why did Frances commit suicide?

Why should one commit suicide?

Why does one commit suicide? Why?

Why does one commit suicide today?

I walked on the banks of
the Tin Can Banana dock

and sat down under the huge shade
of a Southern Pacific locomotive

to look at the sunset
over the box house hills and cry.

I've spent forty years
of my life on the seas.

All this is nothing now.

I still see the widened
spaces of the ocean.

I look at the ocean.

There I can dream.

There I can still dream.

Bronx, factories,

Bronx.

Everybody in the Bronx is ugly.

I look at the ocean,

there, I can still dream there...

Take the police away, the army,

the navy, take the atom away,
and they will have something else.

The minds of men must be changed.

We shall win only
through the minds of men.

You think that people who live
by appearances all their lives

will be capable of any basic changes?

Look, Frank...

St. Paul was a criminal
before he was a saint.

Will our generation be capable of
any acts of an essential quality?

Every time I see a pregnant
woman I want to greet her

as a friend,

as a conspirator in
the plot of a new man...

What will he be like, our new man?

I don't know.

All I want is to
dream dreams into him.

If we don't do it,
nobody is going to do it.

Tell me what do we believe in, then?
They don't care.

You have said too much,

but not enough.

What do you believe in then?

I don't believe in half solutions.

What solutions?

Makes no sense.

No sense.

Listen to the night...

Subway...

The cars...

The people...

Strange, unrecognizable sounds.

At night, though, everything seems

so mysteriously beautiful.

These will be the first
sounds our child will hear.

Sounds of the night,

whispering behind venetian blinds,

sounds of people walking
their night dreams...

As long as this child is in me

I will think into him
only the most beautiful

and the most lovely thoughts...

Life itself is beauty
and truth, Frances.

Life is just a daily agitation,
agitation for the day,

it's just a bowl of only trivia.

- What do you learn by that?
- But you should learn.

The small people don't
learn from daily agitation

and trivial working, and so forth.

But people like you and me

should learn something from
everything that happens.

Why should I learn
to live with pain?

Do you always suffer?

Why do you always
think of suffering, Frances?

Aren't you ever happy?
Answer me that.

Aren't you ever, ever happy
once out of three months?

One day out of three months,
aren't you happy?

That's what you live for.

Live, that's all, forget everything.

Live, let your hair down, as they say.

Don't worry about it,
baby, just live...

We are all the same in the rain.

I see myself

and all of us in the thick air,

the cold small park across the street.

I pity its benches
over all the citizenry.

The beautiful, sweet pigeons there,

constant friends.

The stone and wood houses and stores

have magic in them in
the dark afternoons.

The leaves fall off the trees,

and sparrows in the leaves all
warm and damp from the rain.

We can stand by the windows
and feel the music coming in...

Mr. Maciunas?

I'm Mr. Carruthers,
from Consolidated Life Insurance.

Perhaps you would be
interested in obtaining

one of these policies
with Consolidated Life?

Would you be interested in
obtaining such a policy, Sir?

Don't we believe in death anymore?

Well...

...millions of agitated
fanatics in the bughouse

for the sake of the
screaming soprano of industry

Money-chant of soapers -

toothpaste apes in television sets -

deodoizers on hypnotic chairs -

petroleum mongers in Texas -

jet plane streaks among the clouds -

skywriters liars in
the face of Divinity -

fanged butchers of hats and shoes,

all owners!
Owners! Owners!

With their obsession on property
and the vanishing Selfhood!

And their long editorial on
the fence of the screaming negro

attacked by ants crawled
out of the front page!

Machinery of a mass electrical dream!

A war-creating whore of Babylon
bellowing over Capitols and Academies!

Money! Money! Money!

Shrieking mad celestial
money of illusion!

Money made of nothing,
starvation, suicide!

Money of failure! Money of death!

Money against eternity!

And eternity's strong mills
grind out vast paper of illusion!

You know, you're still an idealist.

You have to grow up,
or you won't succeed.

You know, sooner or later,

everybody gives up,
everybody gives up...

Your mother's still up?

She can't sleep.

Sometimes I get up in
the middle of the night

and I see her there,
standing, staring.

Walk out into the land with me,

warmly clothed against
the chilled brown sun,

and dance between these trees,

their arms thrust fearfully to
the sky, their mouths scream.

Surely, in the background,
out of human sight,

a gun is trained on them.

What is man?

The Chinese used to say,
just a reed...

Perhaps just that. Just to be,

to sway, for a hundred years...

I don't want a hundred
years of this life!

What I see and live with
is not worth living.

Ugly, ugly, ugly...

Will this ever change?

What'd you say about
my United Fruit?

Don't be nasty
you lower class piece of trade.

I'll show you who's
Miss Liberty or not-

I got what it takes!

I got the 1920s!
(Snap your fingers kid!)

I got Nostalgia of Depression!

I got the N.R.A.!
I got Roosevelt I got Hoover

I got Wilkie I got Hitler
I got Franco I got World War II!

I got the works (cha! cha!)
I got the atom bomb!

Why, anybody stop being
contained in my presence,

I got a big black,
thousand foot long bomb!

I got cancer! I got fission!
I got legal prohibition!

I got the works! I got the junk law!
I got a hundred billion bucks a year!

Yassah! Yassah!
I got Formosa!(Catch me man)

I got Chiang Kai-Shek!

And I got my Central Intelligence
gettin' rid of him right now!

I got a million planes
flying over Siberia!

I gotten million
upstanding young Americans

chargin' on the rice fields of China

Jazzin' and waltzin' and shootin'
and hollering all day! Whoopee!

I got cross-eyed yellow cuties
in every corner of the world

I got my Guantánamo,
I even got my own marines!

You'd think I was an old thing
way back from the 19th century

With Isadora Duncan, Robert
Duncan and the Floradora Sextette!

But I still got my old man,
my handsome lovin' blond Marines!

I'm Miss America! I'm Mae West!

I'm the Sophie Tucke of Forever!
I'm the red Hot Mama of Tomorrow!

Ain’t nobody gonna burn down
my Miami Hotel!

This is my free country and I'll
denounce my people all I want,

if it's going rotten and full
of paid smug college boys

spying on my private life!

I dreamed J.Edgar Hoover groped me
in a silent hallway in the Capitol -

...alarmed. Drivers pull to
the curb and take shelter.

Pedestrians go to
the nearest air-raid shelter.

This is a test,
repeat, this is a test.

Do not become alarmed.

Drivers pull to the curb
and take shelter.

Pedestrians go to the nearest
air-raid shelter for cover.

This is a test,

repeat, this is a test.
Do not become alarmed.

What flowers will grow in
the desert park of our youth?

You would like to burn it,

to burn the wild park of our youth.

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek?

- The policemen?
- The policemen!

The atomic pirates...

At 12 o'clock today, at 12 o'clock,

the atomic pirates...

The scientists...

The generals, the generals,

the world will be made yours,
for the generals...

I am the eternal man.

Tabularasa...

I have begotten you all,

in my blind passion,

that you might live in blind passion.

I am eternal woman.

My womb brought you all

into the world.

The faceless ones,

the quiet ones.

Presidents.

The generals.

Anonymous and blank.

Weren't we born animals

and aren't we going to die animals?

There is nothing wrong
with Fidel Castro.

You compare yourself to Fidel Castro?

No,

I identify with him.

You realize Fidel Castro
is a revolutionary.

Are you revolting against something?

- Yes, I am.
- What are you revolting against?

Against dishonesty, corruption.

What do you want? To change the world?
Is that your idea?

I think everybody wants
to change the world, no?

Well some people
are willing to work...

What do you think of America?
You who run America,

vote hypocrite, edit school books,

make foreign wars,
appoint aldermen and football coaches?

You who there foe are America,
the land that opens its mouth

to speak with 400
billion dollars of armaments

all for bombs and horror,
fraud, dope fiends, Syngman Rhee,

Batista, Chiang Kai-Shek, madmen,

Franco -who else god knows.
I refuse to read the paper!

You are not insane, you are harmless.

But you are asocial.

I don't know how to
make you understand me.

I am what I am because I do care,

I passionately care about people.

I care about what I do
and about the consequences.

For me, this is
the only way of living.

Tell me: do I have any choice?

My only choice is between
one corruption and another,

between one lie and another,

between one pretension and another.

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles.

- Bubbles?
- Yes, bubbles.

I always have this feeling when
I speak with people like you.

Like speaking under water.

A wall of water.

We speak, we listen,

but we don't understand each other.

Why then don't you speak up clearly?

There is nothing the matter with me,
don't you see?

There is nothing the matter...

More bubbles...

What is it the matter of?

I remember the day she was born,
in the hospital.

The nurse brought her in,

the milky little thing.

And there she was,

awake-asleep,

with her dreaming child's
fingers touching mine

for the first time,

changing the color of the morning.

I said to myself:

Who am I? Who is she?

As I lay there,
I suddenly felt a solemn earthiness

fill my soul and my body,

as I touched her,

I'll never forget that ecstasy,
that serenity.

...but I heard music in boxes

and sweet calls eclipsing
an afternoon bright

...believe me,
I have seen what the window shows.

...I have not died yet.

...beautiful hatred
into this fierce sky.

It is hurting us.

I want to go home

and have cookies in dull
kitchens and glasses of milk.

I wonder what his eyes are like...

It's strange

how one remembers nothing
from this small age...

...where are
the snows of yesteryear...?

When he looks into my eyes, I tremble.

It's almost as if he knows
more about life than we do.

It's so humid...

He's sleeping now.
He cried and cried all morning.

But maybe it's his teeth,
too, you know...

Yes, he is just getting them.

I think they usually
get the ones in the front first...

Because there is a little tiny
white thing showing on his gum...

So that must be the tooth...

It's so funny,
I don't know anything about...

Eat, eat. Good...

- Is anybody going to die here tonight?
- Yes.

- I can't eat this much...
- Honey, this is good, isn't it?

- You like it, Gregory?
- Enjoy it?

I dig it.
I dig it more than anything

because it only costs less
than two dollars. That's why I dig it.

- What do you call it?
- Pot luck.

You have a spoon?

Who killed Frances?

Nobody commit suicide!

Nobody commit suicide!

Mayakovsky, Lorca, Crane,

Neruda, Essenin, Appolinaire, Artaud -

suicided, murdered prophets!

Damn the world from your great graves!

Utter the poet's curse from death
for its starvation and hypocrisy -

I will be with you soon.

None listens to the howl of wolf
from the deepest voices of the age.

None hears the cry of
famine of the soul -

I will be with you soon in
that dark grave that gapes for...

We sat by the lake eating apples.

I said: "What do you propose?
What's the way out?"

Leo said:

"What is the way out for an asp tree?

Or an apple?"

We sat silently.

The apple is passive."

Leo said:

"Tell me, if you know,
what is action?"

And then Leo said: "Let us not talk.

I don't trust words,
not any longer, or not yet."

Leo finished his apple
and threw the core into the lake.

We watched it.

I said: "Don't you see?"

"Why did Frances really
commit suicide," I said.

"Why does one commit suicide?

From strength or from weakness?"

"But then, what's the way out?"
he said.

I've lived 22 years! 22 autumns.

Still, to watch the autumn come
so automatically is painful.

It is vulgar, how it forces itself
through the trees and sky and windows.

I'll not accept it.

Let it rain!

Let it come down!
Let it rain and fall!

Let it rain!

Let it rain on the harbor,
on the trees, on the city.

How it rains!

It will probably be
the last pure rain.

The next rain will
be full of strontium.

Chessman dies in the gas chamber!

An atomic missile
explodes in New Jersey!

80% of the budget is
spent for war industries!

Nixon is running for president!

And Argus is gonna have a baby!

Let us drink to this beautiful,
beautiful atom bomb...

Stop it. Stop it, Benny.
I can't stand it anymore.

Let us drink then,
this flower of the clouds!

- Let us drink.
- I can't stand it anymore...

Pale hot days retreat now

full of wild leaves in the window

and the pleasant river.

I've been there today,

It was ninety degrees
sitting on the bank -

and I watched dark
clouds pass the sun.

I am burnt

and go home dizzy as the light
is lengthening along the street

and there are old leaves
and last year's newspapers,

cars and cars going...

Home I guess.

It's the whole system.

We have to destroy
and burn the whole system.

A man, a man must live here and now,

and here and now!

Why don't you go home?
You know you're drunk.

We were born pure.

We were born pure, goddamit!

- You're getting really drunk.
- I'm not drunk.

I'm not drunk. But I will be drunk.

You've had enough.

That's enough now.

Come here, come here,
how much for the beer?

Let's you and me, let's you and me,

just forget about it,
and go out and have a little toot.

I'm a wolf.
I'm going back to the woods.

You are, huh?

"Our policy is one of trust."

You think it would be alright if
I make a deposit, right here and now?

- I think I'll make a deposit then.
- It will be safe and secure!

Right here and now.

You can't piss on the bank here.
Come on, come on! Let's go.

Brothers, brothers,
we are all brothers,

but we are brother wolves.

Where are we over here,
where are we going?

Where do you live?

What are those plants?

What is that?

Leave them alone,
Something growing there.

Plants in the middle of the ruins.

Come on, get away from them.
Let's go, let's go home... let's go.

Only the roots are clean...

Only the roots are clean...

Only the roots are clean...

Roots boots schmoots, let's go home.

You're flat!

It is we who fool ourselves

with every little
insignificant change,

every new president, new words...

It's I who fool myself
with every new president,

every little insignificant change,

new words...

I'm losing ground, getting weak.
Ugliness is taking over.

I no longer have
the strength to resist it.

To conform or be free?

To commit lies every day or be free?

Should I give way to it
or get out before it crushes me?

Tell me: my being or my life?

I need your help. Help me.

Darkness is taking over.

Don't be kind, be truthful.
Have you faith?

I am searching.

I'm trying to keep my faith.

The minute I find it,
that minute it's gone.

And I'm searching for it again.

Autumn.
Frances says: "You never talk."

Gregory says: "I used to.
I'm silent now.

Every time I open my mouth I feel
bullets would shoot out.

There are too many
things that anger me."

Frances stops.

"You can take it with silence!
But I'm a woman!

I'm a woman! I'm a woman!

Woman! Woman! Woman!

But I am a woman!"

I am the defense early
warning radar system.

I see nothing but bombs.

...Fortunately all governments
will fall.

The only ones which won't
fall are the good ones

and the good ones don't yet exist.

Butt hey have to begin existing,
they exist in my poems.

They exist in the death of
the Russian and American governments.

They exist in the death
of Hart Crane and Mayakovsky.

Now is the time for prophecy
without death as a consequence.

The universe
will ultimately disappear.

History will make this poem prophetic

and its awful silliness
a hideous spiritual music.

I have the moan of doves
and the feather of ecstasy.

Man cannot long endure
the hunger of the cannibal abstract.

Unholy battered old thing you were,
my sunflower

O my soul, I loved you then!

The grime was no man's grime
but death and human locomotives,

all that dress of dust,
that veil of darkened railroad skin,

that smog of cheek,
that eyelid of black mis'ry,

that sooty hand
or phallus or protuberance

of artificial
worse-than-dirt -industrial - modern -

all that civilization spotting
your crazy golden crown -

and those blear thoughts of
death and dusty loveless eyes

and ends and withered roots below,

in the home-pile of
sand and sawdust...

...and deliver my sermon to my soul,
and Jack's soul too,

and anyone who'll listen,

- We're not our skin of grime,

we'e not our dread bleak
dusty imageless locomotive,

we'e all beautiful
golden sunflowers inside,

we are blessed by our own seed

and golden hairy naked
accomplishment-bodies...