All language subtitles for North of Vortex-EN

(slow jazz music)

- [Voiceover] Kept
awake in the small hours

of very long nights,
no number of cigarettes

or midnight rhapsodies
from a chance encounter

in East Village Bar, badly
singing Billie Holiday,

could deliver him back to sleep.

Europe, long way away,

across ocean of indifference.

His indifference.

No going back, not yet.

(slow jazz music)

(tires screeching)

(slow jazz music)

(traffic whooshing)

(slow jazz music)

- [Voiceover] Next presentation
will be The Sleazy Uncle,

a comic gem from Italy
by Franco Brusati,

director of Bread and Chocolate.

The Sleazy Uncle stars
Giancarlo Giannini

as the stuffed shirted Riccardo.

His well-ordered bourgeois
lifestyle is thrown into chaos

by the arrival of his
amoral Uncle Luca.

- [Voiceover]
Anywhere in the world.

- [Voiceover] He read
his poems about death

and finding peace.

- [Voiceover] I went
to photograph him

and I got all these
sort of very normal,

poet photographs of
him lying on the ground

under trees and
sitting in his library

and you know I come
out of the drive way

and I look up at the
window of his bedroom,

he was looking out
the window, staring

and kind of a deep stare

and I drove away and I said.

- [Voiceover] Our message today.

- [Voiceover] I gotta get
back, I got to go back.

You know I don't have
it, I don't have it.

- [Voiceover]
Electromagnetic power.

(radio static)

(slow jazz music)

(radio static)

- [Voiceover] The
poet's life was a trail

of disconnected moments.

And each moment was composed
of some small gesture,

captured as if in mid-flight.

He would try to discern
some meaning in them.

But he would be overtaken by
a violent, eddying feeling.

Exhilarating as
it was pointless.

(distant train horn)

(train rumbling)

- [Voiceover] He was sprucing,

dangling at the cavaliers,

now called poise or leave.

Are they sons of Mars or Venus?

Pastures, toasts,

demeanor, salute,
drills, commands.

Martial rule defeat.

His dances of the eyes

of the hands, the
neck, the voice,

the ramrod backbone, abdomen,

Succulent, oh so good.

(tires screeching)

The shield of the killers,

and witches engraved,

the whole world.

(soft instrumental music)

- [Voiceover] For the poet,

the sailor represented
everything a fag could want.

Good solid hands,

presentable face,

and a restless cock,

which the poet could
almost hear slapping

up against his stomach.

His passion for women was great,

but he would make due
if things were tight.

The poet liked that
pragmatic approach.

It was what made America great.

For the sailor, the
poet was strange.

He had no visible
means of support

or some from anywhere the
sailor would remotely call home.

He never shaved

and when asked where he was
heading he would simply reply,

"Out west."

(soft jazz music)

(voices chattering)

(soft band music)

* Hello baby

* Yes it's really me

* After all the wrong I've done

* I guess you're
surprised to see me

* Here at your door

* Like a sparrow
with a broken wing

* Who's come back to beg you

* Oh

* Reconsider me

* Oh please

* Reconsider me

* I can't make it

* Without your love

* Can you see

- War is good business.

Invest your son.

- I need a blow job.

Who do I call?

(heavy breathing)

* Oh please

* Reconsider me

* I can't make it,
I can't make it

* Without you girl

* Can't you see

- [Voiceover] Jackie was
intrigued by the poet

and the magical
and turbulent world

that his arrival suggested.

The stranger had
parachuted into her life

and she had need of a savior

even if it was bit queer.

The sailor's presence
was an afterthought.

* Oh baby, baby

* Oh baby

* Reconsider me

(soft jazz music)

- [Voiceover] I have a friend
who is a pathological liar.

I found out later

they smoked pot and took LSD.

Do you think people on LSD
might travel into far beyond?

- [Voiceover] Marty
are you a pot smoker?

- [Voiceover] Are you kidding?

- [Voiceover] Just
chill, hey just asking.

I'm the talker right?

(birds chirping)

- [Voiceover] I wanted to take
a trip for over five years

and every time I am
about depart on the trip,

about a couple weeks before I
always end up canceling out.

And a couple of my
friends have gotten

rather annoyed with me.

(radio chatter)

- [Voiceover] I think the lion

does a trick into,

it's very great.

You can tell somebody
they're in Idaho

and they're in Los Angeles ,

and if you stop long enough

and probably convinced him,

he might think he's
in Idaho who knows?

- [Voiceover] My girlfriend's
grandmother died.

- [Voiceover] Hmm, okay
so that made you feel

that you were justified
in not having left.

- [Voiceover] Exactly.

(soft jazz music)

(radio chatter)

(voices chattering)

- Bop it and shoot for this one.

- [Voiceover] The
sailor liked Jackie.

She was glamorous.

Her attraction to the
poet was a harmless

and meaningless infatuation.

He liked that Jackie
was difficult,

he had nothing but
contempt for whores.

The sailor reminded Jackie of
all the men in her home town.

He was too young,
not too bright.

She couldn't imagine beneath
that ordered exterior

lay a more complex
set of desires.

The poet was slow in unraveling
Jackie's amorous interest.

For him, that was another world

which he had long gone rejected

in the name of liberation.

(loud slap)

(soft instrumental music)

(soft jazz music)

- Have you got a light?

(slow jazz music)

- [Voiceover] Page Mr. Brown.

Page Mr. Big Brown.

- [Voiceover] The sailor
and the poet were linked

through sex.

The poet and Jackie were
made one through ritual.

The sailor now felt
marginal to their concerns

and he could reassert himself
in the only way he knew,

through violence.

- Give me some money.

I said give me some money.

Do it, do it.

(brooding instrumental music)

- Burn a hole in it.

Fuck you faggot.

Burn a hole in it.

Do it, do it.

(loud punches)

(groaning)

- [Voiceover] The poet had
felt the violence of men

many times.

It was the glue which
cemented his existence.

But far from being a
threat to other men,

he was in fact tolerated
because of their need

to be worshiped.

In that perverse
ritual of adoration,

the poet had elected
to play the role

of sacrificial offering.

With tears and blood
he bathed their bodies

and made them clean.

- [Voiceover] Fly through
the air under three minutes

or even teaming
up and beating up,

that's paramount, but
you know what I'm saying.

- [Voiceover] Yeah but
I just wonder how they,

how they form those
races and pack up,

you know the cars
when they race around

and their chasing each
other, then they blow up.

- [Voiceover] Those are
really, those are done

by stunt performers.

- [Voiceover] Oh
well that's scary.

- [Voiceover] Well yeah

and stunt performers
get paid a lot

and every once in a
while a stunt performer

is really injured or
killed while working.

Remember.

(slow jazz music)

- [Voiceover] Toto,

I have a feeling we're
not in Kansas anymore.

(radio static)

- [Voiceover] The sailor's
moment of triumph,

his conquest of Jackie
was a terrible revelation,

his desire had been
grounded in nothing.

But the poet chose to except
Jackie's love as real.

He could not comprehend that
by giving himself to her,

he was destroying that which
made him desirable in her eyes.

His unavailability.

(soft jazz music)

Kissing the poet,

the sailor had sensed
the dizzying familiarity

he felt when looking
into a mirror.

Self-love propelled him
to receive the poet.

In whom he glimpsed
for the first time,

the reflection of his
own feminine self.

Just as for the poet,

the sailor was the dream of
the dominant male made flesh.

Such a union is at
best improbable,

and fragile.

(brooding instrumental music)

(soft jazz music)

- [Voiceover] Get out of this
relationship immediately,

and yet here I am.

I mean if I was with him,
if I was in the audience,

look I would say run away.

You need to get out of that.

This is...

- [Voiceover] The
escapade has nothing to do

with your gender confusions.

Some counseling will help you.

- [Voiceover] Jackie took
the car and headed south

for Mexico,

at least there men were men

and you could spot
a fag a mile away.

She felt relieved and free.

She was lying to herself.

(soft jazz music)