1
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[ Horn Honks ]

2
00:01:13,114 --> 00:01:16,242
<i>[ Shawn Narrating ]</i>
<i>The life of a playwright is tough.</i>

3
00:01:16,351 --> 00:01:19,252
<i>It's not easy,</i>
<i>as some people seem to think.</i>

4
00:01:19,354 --> 00:01:22,915
<i>You work hard writing plays,</i>
<i>and nobody puts them on.</i>

5
00:01:23,024 --> 00:01:25,925
<i>You take up other lines of work</i>
<i>to try to make a living-</i>

6
00:01:26,027 --> 00:01:27,927
<i>I became an actor-</i>

7
00:01:28,029 --> 00:01:30,259
<i>and people don't hire you.</i>

8
00:01:30,365 --> 00:01:34,324
<i>So you just spend your days</i>
<i>doing the errands of your trade.</i>

9
00:01:35,370 --> 00:01:37,668
<i>Today I'd had to be up</i>
<i>by 1 0:00 in the morning...</i>

10
00:01:37,772 --> 00:01:39,865
<i>to make some</i>
<i>important phone calls.</i>

11
00:01:39,974 --> 00:01:44,172
<i>Then I'd gone to the stationery store</i>
<i>to buy envelopes. Then to the Xerox shop.</i>

12
00:01:44,279 --> 00:01:46,247
<i>There were dozens of things to do.</i>

13
00:01:51,986 --> 00:01:54,648
<i>By 5:00 I'd finally made it</i>
<i>to the post office...</i>

14
00:01:54,756 --> 00:01:57,156
<i>and mailed off</i>
<i>several copies of my plays...</i>

15
00:01:57,258 --> 00:01:59,556
<i>meanwhile checking constantly</i>
<i>with my answering service...</i>

16
00:01:59,661 --> 00:02:02,892
<i>to see if my agent</i>
<i>had called with any acting work.</i>

17
00:02:02,997 --> 00:02:06,489
<i>In the morning, the mailbox</i>
<i>had just been stuffed with bills.</i>

18
00:02:06,601 --> 00:02:09,229
<i>What was I supposed to do?</i>
<i>How was I supposed to pay them?</i>

19
00:02:09,337 --> 00:02:12,306
<i>After all, I was already doing my best.</i>

20
00:02:14,042 --> 00:02:16,408
<i>I've lived in this city all my life.</i>

21
00:02:16,511 --> 00:02:19,002
<i>I grew up on the Upper East Side...</i>

22
00:02:19,114 --> 00:02:23,016
<i>and when I was 1 0 years old</i>
<i>I was rich, I was an aristocrat...</i>

23
00:02:23,118 --> 00:02:26,645
<i>riding around in taxis,</i>
<i>surrounded by comfort...</i>

24
00:02:26,755 --> 00:02:29,747
<i>and all I thought about</i>
<i>was art and music.</i>

25
00:02:29,858 --> 00:02:35,194
<i>Now I'm 36,</i>
<i>and all I think about is money.</i>

26
00:03:04,926 --> 00:03:06,826
<i>It was now 7:00...</i>

27
00:03:06,928 --> 00:03:10,523
<i>and I would have liked nothing better than</i>
<i>to go home and have my girlfriend Debby...</i>

28
00:03:10,632 --> 00:03:13,396
<i>cook me a nice, delicious dinner.</i>

29
00:03:13,501 --> 00:03:16,026
<i>But for the last several years</i>
<i>our financial circumstances...</i>

30
00:03:16,137 --> 00:03:19,368
<i>have forced Debby to work</i>
<i>three nights a week as a waitress.</i>

31
00:03:19,474 --> 00:03:22,568
<i>After all, somebody had to</i>
<i>bring in a little money.</i>

32
00:03:22,677 --> 00:03:25,407
<i>So I was on my own.</i>

33
00:03:25,513 --> 00:03:29,347
<i>But the worst thing of all was that I'd been</i>
<i>trapped by an odd series of circumstances...</i>

34
00:03:29,451 --> 00:03:34,081
<i>into agreeing to have dinner</i>
<i>with a man I'd been avoiding literally for years.</i>

35
00:03:34,189 --> 00:03:36,089
<i>His name was André Gregory.</i>

36
00:03:36,191 --> 00:03:39,388
<i>At one time he'd been</i>
<i>a very close friend of mine...</i>

37
00:03:39,494 --> 00:03:42,292
<i>as well as my most valued colleague</i>
<i>in the theater.</i>

38
00:03:42,397 --> 00:03:44,695
<i>In fact, he was the man</i>
<i>who had first discovered me...</i>

39
00:03:44,799 --> 00:03:48,166
<i>and put one of my plays</i>
<i>on the professional stage.</i>

40
00:03:48,269 --> 00:03:52,000
<i>When I'd known André, he'd been at the height</i>
<i>ofhis career as a theater director.</i>

41
00:03:52,106 --> 00:03:55,007
<i>The amazing work he did with his company,</i>
<i>the Manhattan Project...</i>

42
00:03:55,109 --> 00:03:58,237
<i>had just stunned audiences</i>
<i>throughout the world.</i>

43
00:03:59,647 --> 00:04:02,480
<i>But then something</i>
<i>had happened to André.</i>

44
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<i>He dropped out of the theater.</i>
<i>He sort of disappeared.</i>

45
00:04:05,753 --> 00:04:08,745
<i>For months at a time, his family seemed</i>
<i>only to know that he was traveling...</i>

46
00:04:08,857 --> 00:04:11,291
<i>in some odd place like Tibet...</i>

47
00:04:11,392 --> 00:04:14,156
<i>which was really weird</i>
<i>because he loved his wife and children.</i>

48
00:04:14,262 --> 00:04:16,822
<i>He never used to like</i>
<i>to leave home at all.</i>

49
00:04:16,931 --> 00:04:20,367
<i>Or else you'd hear that someone had met him</i>
<i>at a party and he'd been telling people...</i>

50
00:04:20,468 --> 00:04:23,869
<i>that he talked with trees</i>
<i>or something like that.</i>

51
00:04:23,972 --> 00:04:27,408
<i>Obviously, something terrible</i>
<i>had happened to André.</i>

52
00:04:27,509 --> 00:04:30,876
<i>♪♪ [ Piano. LightJazz ]</i>

53
00:04:33,948 --> 00:04:36,348
<i>The whole idea of meeting him</i>
<i>made me very nervous.</i>

54
00:04:36,451 --> 00:04:38,646
<i>I mean, I really wasn't up</i>
<i>for that sort of thing.</i>

55
00:04:38,753 --> 00:04:42,553
<i>I had problems of my own.</i>
<i>I mean, I couldn't help André.</i>

56
00:04:42,657 --> 00:04:44,716
<i>Was I supposed to be a doctor, or what?</i>

57
00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:47,990
<i>♪♪ [ Piano Continues ]</i>

58
00:04:48,096 --> 00:04:49,996
- Hello.
- Hello.

59
00:04:51,499 --> 00:04:53,467
- Here you go.
- Thank you.

60
00:04:57,705 --> 00:05:01,835
- Yes, sir.
- Ah, sir, my name is Wallace Shawn.

61
00:05:01,943 --> 00:05:04,468
I'm expected at the table
of André Gregory.

62
00:05:06,948 --> 00:05:08,916
That table will be a moment, sir.

63
00:05:09,017 --> 00:05:11,485
If you like,
you may have a drink at the bar.

64
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:21,920
[ Woman Laughing ]

65
00:05:26,100 --> 00:05:28,000
[ Chattering ]

66
00:05:30,471 --> 00:05:33,440
- Good evening, sir.
- Uh, could I have a club soda, please?

67
00:05:33,541 --> 00:05:36,476
I'm sorry, sir.
We only serve Source de Pavilion.

68
00:05:36,578 --> 00:05:38,808
Oh, that'd be fine, thank you.

69
00:05:53,695 --> 00:05:57,062
<i>When I'd called André, and he'd suggested</i>
<i>that we meet in this particular restaurant...</i>

70
00:05:57,165 --> 00:06:01,465
<i>I'd been rather surprised, because</i>
<i>André's taste used to be very ascetic...</i>

71
00:06:01,569 --> 00:06:04,697
<i>even though people have always known</i>
<i>that he had some money somewhere.</i>

72
00:06:04,806 --> 00:06:08,333
<i>I mean, how the hell else could he have</i>
<i>been flying off to Asia and so on...</i>

73
00:06:08,443 --> 00:06:11,241
<i>and still have been supporting his family?</i>

74
00:06:12,981 --> 00:06:16,508
<i>The reason I was meeting André was that</i>
<i>an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield...</i>

75
00:06:16,618 --> 00:06:20,418
<i>had called me</i>
<i>and just insisted that I had to see him.</i>

76
00:06:20,521 --> 00:06:24,651
<i>Apparently, George had been walking his dog</i>
<i>in an odd section of town the night before...</i>

77
00:06:24,759 --> 00:06:26,750
<i>and he'd suddenly come upon André...</i>

78
00:06:26,861 --> 00:06:30,353
<i>leaning against a crumbling old building</i>
<i>and sobbing.</i>

79
00:06:30,465 --> 00:06:32,899
<i>André had explained to George</i>
<i>that he'd just been watching...</i>

80
00:06:33,001 --> 00:06:35,401
<i>the Ingmar Bergman movie</i>
Autumn Sonata...

81
00:06:35,503 --> 00:06:37,471
<i>about 25 blocks away...</i>

82
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<i>and he'd been seized</i>
<i>by a fit of ungovernable crying...</i>

83
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<i>when the character played</i>
<i>by Ingrid Bergman had said...</i>

84
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<i>''I could always live in my art,</i>
<i>but never in my life. ''</i>

85
00:06:54,122 --> 00:06:56,716
<i>WallyI</i>

86
00:06:56,824 --> 00:06:59,349
- Wow.
- My God.

87
00:07:00,628 --> 00:07:02,823
[ Wally Chuckling ]

88
00:07:02,930 --> 00:07:05,455
<i>[ Wally Narrating ] I remember, when I first</i>
<i>started working with André's company...</i>

89
00:07:05,566 --> 00:07:09,366
<i>I couldn't get over the way the actors</i>
<i>would hug when they greeted each other.</i>

90
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<i>''Wow. Now I'm really in the theater, ''</i>
<i>I thought.</i>

91
00:07:12,607 --> 00:07:14,768
Well, you look terrific.

92
00:07:14,876 --> 00:07:17,674
<i>Well, I feel terrible.</i>
<i>[ Laughing ]</i>

93
00:07:17,779 --> 00:07:19,679
[ Wally Laughing ]

94
00:07:19,781 --> 00:07:21,840
Good evening, sir.
Nice to see you again.

95
00:07:21,949 --> 00:07:25,214
Thank you. Good evening.
Ah, I think I'll have a spritzer, if I could.

96
00:07:25,319 --> 00:07:27,219
- Yes, sir.
- Thank you.

97
00:07:28,923 --> 00:07:31,016
<i>[ Wally Narrating ]</i>
<i>I was feeling incredibly nervous.</i>

98
00:07:31,125 --> 00:07:33,525
<i>I wasn't sure I could stick through</i>
<i>an entire meal with him.</i>

99
00:07:33,628 --> 00:07:35,255
Great.

100
00:07:35,363 --> 00:07:37,263
<i>So we talked about this and that.</i>

101
00:07:37,365 --> 00:07:39,595
<i>He told me a few things</i>
<i>aboutJerzy Grotowski...</i>

102
00:07:39,701 --> 00:07:41,601
<i>the great Polish theater director...</i>

103
00:07:41,703 --> 00:07:44,831
<i>who was a friend and almost like</i>
<i>a kind of a guru of André's.</i>

104
00:07:44,939 --> 00:07:47,339
- [ Indistinct Chattering ]
- <i>He'd also dropped out of the theater.</i>

105
00:07:47,442 --> 00:07:50,502
<i>Grotowski was a pretty</i>
<i>unusual character himself.</i>

106
00:07:50,611 --> 00:07:54,411
<i>At one time, he'd been quite fat, then he'd</i>
<i>lost an incredible amount of weight...</i>

107
00:07:54,515 --> 00:07:56,813
<i>and become very thin</i>
<i>and grown a beard.</i>

108
00:07:56,918 --> 00:07:59,751
- Your table is ready, if you feel like sitting down.
- Oh.

109
00:07:59,854 --> 00:08:01,754
- Oh.
- Yes. Thank you.

110
00:08:09,464 --> 00:08:12,661
<i>[ Wally Narrating ] I was beginning to realize</i>
<i>that the only way to make this evening bearable...</i>

111
00:08:12,767 --> 00:08:15,565
<i>would be to ask André</i>
<i>a few questions.</i>

112
00:08:15,670 --> 00:08:18,468
<i>Asking questions always relaxes me.</i>

113
00:08:18,573 --> 00:08:20,837
<i>In fact, I sometimes think</i>
<i>that my secret profession...</i>

114
00:08:20,942 --> 00:08:24,036
<i>is that I'm a private investigator,</i>
<i>a detective.</i>

115
00:08:24,145 --> 00:08:26,875
<i>I always enjoy finding out about people.</i>

116
00:08:26,981 --> 00:08:32,112
<i>Even if they're in absolute agony,</i>
<i>I always find it very... interesting.</i>

117
00:08:33,654 --> 00:08:37,488
- By the way, is he still thin?
- What?

118
00:08:37,592 --> 00:08:41,255
Grotowski. Is he still thin?

119
00:08:41,362 --> 00:08:43,387
Oh. [ Chuckles ] Absolutely.

120
00:08:47,101 --> 00:08:50,161
Oh, waiter?
Uh, I think we can do without this.

121
00:08:50,271 --> 00:08:52,569
- Yes, sir.
- Thank you.

122
00:08:52,673 --> 00:08:54,573
What about this one?

123
00:08:54,675 --> 00:08:57,872
[ Laughing ]
Seven swimming shrimp.

124
00:09:00,248 --> 00:09:02,182
- Ready for your order?
- Ah, yes.

125
00:09:02,283 --> 00:09:05,081
Uh, the Galuska -
How - How do you prepare that?

126
00:09:05,186 --> 00:09:07,586
<i>[ Wally Narrating ] André seemed</i>
<i>to know an awful lot about the menu.</i>

127
00:09:07,688 --> 00:09:10,088
- Dumpling with raisins, blanched almonds.
- <i>I didn't understand a word of it.</i>

128
00:09:10,191 --> 00:09:12,318
- Very good, I think.
- Hmm.

129
00:09:12,426 --> 00:09:15,020
No, I - I think I'll have
the Cailles aux Raisin, the quail.

130
00:09:15,129 --> 00:09:17,529
- Very good.
- Oh, quails! I'll have that as well.

131
00:09:17,632 --> 00:09:19,532
- Two.
- Great.
- Great!

132
00:09:19,634 --> 00:09:22,296
And then I think, to begin with,
the Terrine de Poissons.

133
00:09:22,403 --> 00:09:24,371
- Yes.
- What is that?

134
00:09:24,472 --> 00:09:27,635
Uh, it's a sort of pâte -
light, made of fish.

135
00:09:27,742 --> 00:09:30,609
- Does it have bones in it?
- [ Chuckles ] No bones.

136
00:09:30,711 --> 00:09:32,872
<i>Perfectly safe.</i>

137
00:09:32,980 --> 00:09:37,610
Well, um -What is
the, um, Bramborová Polévka?

138
00:09:37,718 --> 00:09:41,586
It's a potato soup.
It's quite delicious.

139
00:09:41,689 --> 00:09:43,782
<i>Oh, well, that's great.</i>
<i>I'll have that.</i>

140
00:09:43,991 --> 00:09:46,289
- Thank you very kindly.
- <i>Thank you very much.</i>

141
00:09:49,263 --> 00:09:51,163
Well.
[ Laughing ]

142
00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:54,191
When was the last time
that we saw each other?

143
00:09:54,302 --> 00:09:56,998
<i>[ Wally Narrating ] So we talked for a while</i>
<i>about my writing and my acting...</i>

144
00:09:57,104 --> 00:09:59,004
<i>and about my girlfriend, Debby.</i>

145
00:09:59,106 --> 00:10:02,906
<i>And we talked about his wife, Chiquita,</i>
<i>and his two children, Nicolas and Marina.</i>

146
00:10:03,010 --> 00:10:05,274
<i>[ André Laughing ]</i>
<i>And I'd stayed back in New York.</i>

147
00:10:05,379 --> 00:10:08,746
<i>[ Wally ] Finally, I got around to asking him</i>
<i>what he'd been up to in the last few years.</i>

148
00:10:08,850 --> 00:10:10,750
Oh, God. I'm just dying to hear it.

149
00:10:10,852 --> 00:10:12,479
- <i>Really?</i>
- Really.

150
00:10:12,587 --> 00:10:15,385
<i>At first, he seemed</i>
<i>a little reluctant to go into it...</i>

151
00:10:15,489 --> 00:10:19,084
<i>so I just kept asking,</i>
<i>and finally he started to answer.</i>

152
00:10:19,193 --> 00:10:21,855
...conference
on paratheatrical work then.

153
00:10:21,963 --> 00:10:25,763
And, uh, this must have been
about five years ago...

154
00:10:25,867 --> 00:10:30,361
and, uh, Grotowski and I were walking
along Fifth Avenue and we were talking.

155
00:10:30,471 --> 00:10:33,929
You see, he'd invited me to come
to teach that summer in Poland.

156
00:10:34,041 --> 00:10:37,533
You know, to teach a workshop
to actors and directors and whatever.

157
00:10:37,645 --> 00:10:41,979
And I had told him that I didn't want to come,
because, really, I had nothing left to teach.

158
00:10:42,083 --> 00:10:44,483
I had nothing left to say.
I didn't know anything.

159
00:10:44,585 --> 00:10:46,576
I couldn't teach anything.

160
00:10:46,687 --> 00:10:48,951
Exercises meant nothing to me anymore.

161
00:10:49,056 --> 00:10:51,354
Working on scenes from plays
seemed ridiculous.

162
00:10:51,459 --> 00:10:55,054
I - I didn't know what to do.
I mean, I just couldn't do it.

163
00:10:55,162 --> 00:10:59,189
So he said, ''Why don't you tell me anything
you'd like to have if you did a workshop for me.

164
00:10:59,300 --> 00:11:02,599
No matter how outrageous.
And maybe I can give it to you.''

165
00:11:02,703 --> 00:11:05,934
So I said,
''Well, if you could give me...

166
00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:08,907
''40 Jewish women who speak
neither English nor French -

167
00:11:09,010 --> 00:11:12,241
either women who've been in the theater
for a long time and want to leave it...

168
00:11:12,346 --> 00:11:14,246
but don't know why...

169
00:11:14,348 --> 00:11:17,545
or young women who love the theater,
but have never seen a theater they could love.

170
00:11:17,652 --> 00:11:19,984
And if these women could play
the trumpet or the harp...

171
00:11:20,087 --> 00:11:22,055
and if I could work in a forest, I'd come.''

172
00:11:22,156 --> 00:11:23,555
[ Laughing ]

173
00:11:23,658 --> 00:11:26,286
A week later, or two weeks later,
he called me from Poland.

174
00:11:26,394 --> 00:11:29,727
And he said, ''Well, 40 Jewish women -
that's a little hard to find.''

175
00:11:29,830 --> 00:11:33,789
But he said, ''I do have 40 women.
They all pretty much fit the definition.''

176
00:11:33,901 --> 00:11:36,335
And he said, ''I also have
some very interesting men...

177
00:11:36,437 --> 00:11:38,405
''but you don't have to work with them.

178
00:11:38,506 --> 00:11:41,441
''These are all people who have in common
the fact that they're questioning the theater.

179
00:11:41,542 --> 00:11:44,534
''They don't all play the trumpet or the harp,
but they all play a musical instrument.

180
00:11:44,645 --> 00:11:46,738
And none of them speak English.''

181
00:11:46,847 --> 00:11:48,781
And he'd found me a forest, Wally.

182
00:11:48,883 --> 00:11:53,183
And the only inhabitants of this forest
were some wild boar and a hermit.

183
00:11:53,287 --> 00:11:55,255
So that was an offer I couldn't refuse.

184
00:11:55,356 --> 00:11:57,256
I had to go.

185
00:11:57,358 --> 00:12:01,260
So, I went to Poland, and it was this
wonderful group of young men and women.

186
00:12:01,362 --> 00:12:04,331
And the forest he had found us
was absolutely magical.

187
00:12:04,432 --> 00:12:06,332
You know, it was a huge forest.

188
00:12:06,434 --> 00:12:08,334
I mean, the trees were so large...

189
00:12:08,436 --> 00:12:12,839
that four or five people linking their arms
couldn't get their arms around the trees.

190
00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:16,432
So we were camped out beside
the ruins of this tiny little castle...

191
00:12:16,544 --> 00:12:20,878
and we would eat around this great stone slab
that served as a sort of a table.

192
00:12:20,982 --> 00:12:24,145
And our schedule was that usually
we'd start work around sunset...

193
00:12:24,251 --> 00:12:27,118
and then generally we'd work
until about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning.

194
00:12:27,221 --> 00:12:29,587
And then, because the Poles
love to sing and dance...

195
00:12:29,690 --> 00:12:32,955
we'd sing and dance until about
1 0:00 or 1 1 :00 in the morning.

196
00:12:33,060 --> 00:12:37,622
And then we'd have our food, which
was generally bread, jam, cheese and tea.

197
00:12:37,732 --> 00:12:41,065
And then we'd sleep
from around noon to sunset.

198
00:12:42,436 --> 00:12:44,404
Now, technically, of course -

199
00:12:44,505 --> 00:12:46,905
Technically, the situation
is a very interesting one...

200
00:12:47,008 --> 00:12:49,806
because if you find yourself in a forest
with a group of 40 people...

201
00:12:49,910 --> 00:12:53,573
who don't speak your language,
then all your moorings are gone.

202
00:12:53,681 --> 00:12:55,581
What do you mean exactly?

203
00:12:55,683 --> 00:12:58,413
Well, what we'd do
is just sit there and wait...

204
00:12:58,519 --> 00:13:01,682
for someone to have
an impulse to do something.

205
00:13:01,789 --> 00:13:05,020
Now, in a way that's - that's something
like a theatrical improvisation.

206
00:13:05,126 --> 00:13:08,118
I mean, you know, if you were a director
working on a play by Chekhov...

207
00:13:08,229 --> 00:13:11,460
you might have the actors playing
the mother, the son and the uncle...

208
00:13:11,565 --> 00:13:15,001
all sit around in a room and do
a made-up scene that isn't in the play.

209
00:13:15,102 --> 00:13:17,070
For instance, you might say to them...

210
00:13:17,171 --> 00:13:20,436
''All right. Let's say that it's a rainy
Sunday afternoon on Sorin's estate...

211
00:13:20,541 --> 00:13:22,702
and you're all trapped
in the drawing room together.''

212
00:13:22,810 --> 00:13:24,778
And then everyone would improvise -

213
00:13:24,879 --> 00:13:29,248
saying and doing what their character
might say and do in that circumstance.

214
00:13:29,350 --> 00:13:33,286
Except that in this type of improvisation -
the kind we did in Poland -

215
00:13:33,387 --> 00:13:36,220
the theme is oneself.

216
00:13:36,323 --> 00:13:38,791
So, you follow
the same law of improvisation...

217
00:13:38,893 --> 00:13:42,260
which is that you do whatever your impulse,
as the character, tells you to do...

218
00:13:42,363 --> 00:13:45,093
but in this case,
you are the character.

219
00:13:45,199 --> 00:13:48,635
So there's no imaginary situation
to hide behind...

220
00:13:48,736 --> 00:13:51,762
and there's no other person
to hide behind.

221
00:13:51,872 --> 00:13:54,773
What you're doing, in fact,
is you're asking those same questions...

222
00:13:54,875 --> 00:13:59,835
that Stanislavsky said the actor should
constantly ask himself as a character:

223
00:13:59,947 --> 00:14:03,439
Who am I? Why am I here?

224
00:14:03,551 --> 00:14:07,146
Where do I come from,
and where am I going?

225
00:14:07,254 --> 00:14:11,520
But instead of applying them to a role,
you apply them to yourself.

226
00:14:11,625 --> 00:14:13,855
- Hmm.
- Or, to look at it a little differently...

227
00:14:13,961 --> 00:14:15,952
in a way, it's like going
right back to childhood...

228
00:14:16,063 --> 00:14:19,032
where a group of children simply come
into a room or are brought into a room -

229
00:14:19,133 --> 00:14:21,363
without toys - and begin to play.

230
00:14:21,469 --> 00:14:25,166
Grown-ups were learning
how to play again.

231
00:14:25,272 --> 00:14:29,038
So, you would, uh,
all sit together somewhere...

232
00:14:29,143 --> 00:14:31,805
and, uh, you would play in some way.

233
00:14:31,912 --> 00:14:34,972
- But what would you actually do?
- Well, I could give you a good example.

234
00:14:35,082 --> 00:14:38,483
You see, we worked, uh, together
for a week in the city...

235
00:14:38,586 --> 00:14:40,611
before we went off to our forest.

236
00:14:40,721 --> 00:14:43,053
And of course,
Grotowski was there in the city too.

237
00:14:43,157 --> 00:14:45,887
I heard that every night,
he conducted something called a beehive.

238
00:14:45,993 --> 00:14:47,893
I loved the sound of this beehive...

239
00:14:47,995 --> 00:14:50,987
so a night or two before we were
supposed to go off to the country...

240
00:14:51,098 --> 00:14:54,192
I grabbed him by the collar, and I said,
''Listen, about this beehive.

241
00:14:54,301 --> 00:14:56,292
''You know, I'd kind of like
to participate in one.

242
00:14:56,403 --> 00:14:59,201
Just instinctively I feel it would
be something interesting.''

243
00:14:59,306 --> 00:15:02,275
And he said, ''Well, certainly.
In fact, why don't you, with your group...

244
00:15:02,376 --> 00:15:05,038
lead the beehive
instead of participating in one?''

245
00:15:05,146 --> 00:15:08,980
You know, I - [ Laughing ] I got very nervous,
you know, and I said, ''Well, what is a beehive?''

246
00:15:09,083 --> 00:15:11,745
He said, ''Well, a beehive is...

247
00:15:11,852 --> 00:15:14,685
at 8:00 a hundred strangers
come into a room.''

248
00:15:15,723 --> 00:15:18,157
I said, ''Yes?'' He said,
''Yes, and whatever happens is a beehive.''

249
00:15:18,259 --> 00:15:21,456
I said, ''Yes, but what am I supposed to do?''
He said, ''That's up to you.''

250
00:15:21,562 --> 00:15:25,293
I said, ''No, no. I really don't want to do this.
I'll just participate.''

251
00:15:25,399 --> 00:15:29,096
And he said,
''No, no. You lead the beehive.''

252
00:15:29,203 --> 00:15:31,228
Well, I was terrified, Wally.

253
00:15:31,338 --> 00:15:34,637
I mean, in a way, I felt on stage.

254
00:15:35,743 --> 00:15:38,075
I did it anyway.

255
00:15:38,179 --> 00:15:40,545
God. Well, tell me about it.

256
00:15:40,648 --> 00:15:44,675
You see, there was this song-
I  have a tape of it. I can play it for you one day.

257
00:15:44,785 --> 00:15:48,016
And it's just unbelievably beautiful.

258
00:15:48,122 --> 00:15:52,855
You see, one of the women in our group knew
a few fragments of this song of Saint Francis...

259
00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,054
and it's a song in which you
thank God for your eyes...

260
00:15:56,163 --> 00:15:59,360
and you thank God for your heart,
and you thank God for your friends...

261
00:15:59,466 --> 00:16:01,400
and you thank God for your life.

262
00:16:01,502 --> 00:16:04,494
And it, uh - It repeats itself
over and over again.

263
00:16:04,605 --> 00:16:06,539
And this became our theme song.

264
00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:08,631
I really must play this thing
for you one day...

265
00:16:08,742 --> 00:16:13,145
because you just can't believe that a group
of people who don't know how to sing...

266
00:16:13,247 --> 00:16:16,910
could create something so beautiful.

267
00:16:17,017 --> 00:16:21,647
So, I decided that when the people
arrived for the beehive...

268
00:16:21,755 --> 00:16:24,519
that our group would already be there
singing this very beautiful song...

269
00:16:24,625 --> 00:16:28,425
and that we would simply sing it
over and over again.

270
00:16:28,529 --> 00:16:33,364
One of the people decided to bring
her very large teddy bear, you know.

271
00:16:33,467 --> 00:16:35,435
Well, she's a little afraid of this event.

272
00:16:35,536 --> 00:16:37,800
And somebody wanted
to bring a - a sheet.

273
00:16:37,905 --> 00:16:40,601
And somebody else wanted
to bring a large bowl of water...

274
00:16:40,708 --> 00:16:42,903
in case people got hot or thirsty.

275
00:16:43,010 --> 00:16:45,308
And somebody suggested
that we have candles -

276
00:16:45,412 --> 00:16:49,508
that there be no artificial light,
but candlelight.

277
00:16:49,617 --> 00:16:52,142
And I remember watching people
preparing for this evening.

278
00:16:52,253 --> 00:16:54,448
Of course, there was no makeup,
and there were no costumes...

279
00:16:54,555 --> 00:16:57,149
but it was exactly the way that people
prepare for a performance.

280
00:16:57,258 --> 00:17:00,386
You know, people sort of taking off
their jewelry and their watches...

281
00:17:00,494 --> 00:17:03,622
and stowing it away
and making sure it's all secure.

282
00:17:03,731 --> 00:17:06,632
And then slowly people arrived,
the way they would arrive at the theater-

283
00:17:06,734 --> 00:17:09,498
in ones and twos and 1 0s and 1 5s
and what have you.

284
00:17:09,603 --> 00:17:12,595
And we were just sitting there,
and we were singing this very beautiful song.

285
00:17:12,706 --> 00:17:16,039
And people started to sit with us
and started to learn the song.

286
00:17:16,143 --> 00:17:21,274
Now, there is, of course,
as in any performance or improvisation...

287
00:17:21,382 --> 00:17:23,816
instinct for when things
are gonna get boring.

288
00:17:23,917 --> 00:17:27,853
So, at a certain point - It may have taken
an hour to get there, an hour and a half-

289
00:17:27,955 --> 00:17:31,948
I suddenly grabbed this teddy bear
and threw it in the air...

290
00:17:32,059 --> 00:17:35,586
at which 1 40 or 1 30 people
suddenly exploded.

291
00:17:35,696 --> 00:17:38,688
You know, it was like
a - a Jackson Pollack painting, you know.

292
00:17:38,799 --> 00:17:43,202
Human beings exploded out of this tight
little circle that was singing the song.

293
00:17:43,304 --> 00:17:46,273
And before I knew it,
there were two circles, dancing, you know -

294
00:17:46,373 --> 00:17:49,672
one dancing clockwise,
the other dancing counterclockwise...

295
00:17:49,777 --> 00:17:51,972
with this rhythm
mostly from the waist down.

296
00:17:52,079 --> 00:17:56,379
In other words, like an American Indian dance,
with this thumping, persistent rhythm.

297
00:17:57,851 --> 00:17:59,751
<i>[ People Chuckling ]</i>

298
00:18:01,055 --> 00:18:04,286
Now, you could easily see,
'cause we're talking about group trance...

299
00:18:04,391 --> 00:18:08,828
where the line between something like this
and something like Hitler's Nuremberg rallies...

300
00:18:08,929 --> 00:18:11,090
is, in a way, a very thin line.

301
00:18:13,434 --> 00:18:17,495
Anyway, after about an hour
of this wild, hypnotic dancing...

302
00:18:17,604 --> 00:18:20,801
Grotowski and I found ourselves sitting opposite
each other in the middle of this whole thing.

303
00:18:20,908 --> 00:18:23,342
And we threw the teddy bear
back and forth.

304
00:18:23,444 --> 00:18:25,969
You know, on one level,
you could say this is childish.

305
00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:28,310
And I gave the teddy bear suck,
suddenly, at my breast.

306
00:18:28,415 --> 00:18:31,543
And then I threw the teddy bear to him,
and he gave it suck at his breast.

307
00:18:31,652 --> 00:18:34,052
And then the teddy bear
was thrown up into the air again...

308
00:18:34,154 --> 00:18:37,453
at which there was another explosion
of form into... something.

309
00:18:37,558 --> 00:18:40,356
And these -What was it like?
You know, this is the -

310
00:18:40,461 --> 00:18:43,988
There's something like a kaleidoscope,
like a human kaleidoscope.

311
00:18:44,098 --> 00:18:48,364
The evening was made up
of shiftings of the kaleidoscope.

312
00:18:48,469 --> 00:18:50,460
Now, the only other things
that I remember...

313
00:18:50,571 --> 00:18:52,471
other than constantly trying
to guide this thing...

314
00:18:52,573 --> 00:18:57,067
which was always involved with either
movement, rhythm, repetition or song -

315
00:18:57,177 --> 00:18:59,304
Or chanting, because,
uh, two people in my group...

316
00:18:59,413 --> 00:19:01,404
had brought musical instruments,
a flute and a drum...

317
00:19:01,515 --> 00:19:03,483
which, of course,
are sacred instruments -

318
00:19:03,584 --> 00:19:06,109
was that sometimes the room
would break up...

319
00:19:06,220 --> 00:19:09,485
into six or seven different things
going on at once.

320
00:19:09,590 --> 00:19:12,491
You know, six or seven
different improvisations...

321
00:19:12,593 --> 00:19:16,393
all of which seemed, in some way,
related to each other.

322
00:19:16,497 --> 00:19:19,864
It was - It was like
a magnificent cobweb.

323
00:19:21,201 --> 00:19:25,365
And at one point, I noticed that Grotowski
was at the center of one group...

324
00:19:25,472 --> 00:19:28,270
huddled around a bunch of candles
that they'd gathered together.

325
00:19:28,375 --> 00:19:31,503
And like a little child
fascinated by fire...

326
00:19:31,612 --> 00:19:35,708
I saw that he had his hand right in the flame
and was holding it there.

327
00:19:35,816 --> 00:19:38,683
And as I approached his group,
I wondered if I could do it.

328
00:19:38,786 --> 00:19:43,655
I put my left hand in the flame and I found
I could hold it there for as long as I liked...

329
00:19:43,757 --> 00:19:46,123
and there was no burn
and no pain.

330
00:19:46,226 --> 00:19:50,356
But when I tried to put my right hand in the
flame, I couldn't hold it there for a second.

331
00:19:50,464 --> 00:19:55,367
So Grotowski said, ''If it burns,
try to change some little thing in yourself.''

332
00:19:55,469 --> 00:19:58,927
And I tried to do that.
Didn't work.

333
00:19:59,039 --> 00:20:03,567
Then I remember a very, very beautiful
procession with the sheet...

334
00:20:03,677 --> 00:20:06,145
and there was somebody
being carried below the sheet.

335
00:20:06,246 --> 00:20:09,340
You know, the sheet was like
some great biblical canopy.

336
00:20:09,450 --> 00:20:13,580
And the entire group was weaving
around the room and chanting.

337
00:20:14,988 --> 00:20:17,718
And then at one point,
people were dancing...

338
00:20:17,825 --> 00:20:20,123
and I was dancing with a girl...

339
00:20:20,227 --> 00:20:22,752
and suddenly our hands began
vibrating near each other-

340
00:20:22,863 --> 00:20:24,763
like this -vibrating, vibrating.

341
00:20:24,865 --> 00:20:28,301
And we went down to our knees,
and suddenly I was sobbing in her arms...

342
00:20:28,402 --> 00:20:32,668
and she was sort of cradling me in her arms,
and then she started to cry too.

343
00:20:32,773 --> 00:20:35,173
And then we - then we just
hugged each other for a moment.

344
00:20:35,275 --> 00:20:38,574
And, uh, then we joined the dance again.

345
00:20:38,679 --> 00:20:42,137
And then at a certain point,
hours later...

346
00:20:42,249 --> 00:20:45,218
we returned to the singing
of the song of Saint Francis...

347
00:20:45,319 --> 00:20:47,651
and that was the end of the beehive.

348
00:20:49,056 --> 00:20:53,220
And then, again, when it was over, it was
just like the theater after a performance.

349
00:20:53,327 --> 00:20:56,490
You know, people sort of put on
their earrings and their wristwatches...

350
00:20:56,597 --> 00:20:58,565
and we went off
to the railroad station...

351
00:20:58,665 --> 00:21:02,726
to drink a lot of beer
and have a good dinner.

352
00:21:02,836 --> 00:21:05,600
Oh, and there was one girl,
who wasn't in our group...

353
00:21:05,706 --> 00:21:09,142
but who just wouldn't leave,
so we took her along with us.

354
00:21:09,243 --> 00:21:10,938
[ Chuckling ]

355
00:21:11,044 --> 00:21:12,944
Huh.

356
00:21:18,085 --> 00:21:21,612
God. Well, tell me some of the other things
you did with your group.

357
00:21:21,722 --> 00:21:25,419
Well- Oh, I remember once
when we were in the city...

358
00:21:25,526 --> 00:21:28,962
we tried doing an improvisation -you know,
the kind that I used to do in New York.

359
00:21:29,062 --> 00:21:31,462
Uh, everybody was supposed to be
on an airplane...

360
00:21:31,565 --> 00:21:34,329
and they've all learned from the pilot
there's something wrong with the motor.

361
00:21:34,434 --> 00:21:37,369
But what was unusual
about this improvisation...

362
00:21:37,471 --> 00:21:41,134
was that two people who
participated in it... fell in love.

363
00:21:41,241 --> 00:21:43,141
They've, in fact, married.

364
00:21:43,243 --> 00:21:45,939
And when we were -
Yeah, out of fear...

365
00:21:46,046 --> 00:21:49,243
of being on this plane,
they fell in love...

366
00:21:49,349 --> 00:21:51,442
thinking they were going to die
at any moment.

367
00:21:51,552 --> 00:21:55,181
And when we went to the forest,
these two disappeared...

368
00:21:55,289 --> 00:21:57,723
because they understood
the - the experiment so well...

369
00:21:57,824 --> 00:22:01,555
that they realized that to go off together
in the forest was much more important...

370
00:22:01,662 --> 00:22:05,098
than any kind of experiment
the group could do as a whole.

371
00:22:05,198 --> 00:22:08,497
So, uh, about halfway
through the week...

372
00:22:08,602 --> 00:22:10,797
we stumbled into
a clearing in the forest...

373
00:22:10,904 --> 00:22:14,305
and the two of them
were fast asleep in each other's arms.

374
00:22:14,408 --> 00:22:17,104
It was around dawn,
and we put flowers on them...

375
00:22:17,210 --> 00:22:20,338
to let them know we'd been there,
and then we crept away.

376
00:22:20,447 --> 00:22:23,712
And then on the last day of our stay
in the forest, these two showed up...

377
00:22:23,817 --> 00:22:26,684
and they shook me by my hands,
and they thanked me very much...

378
00:22:26,787 --> 00:22:29,449
for the wonderful work
they'd been able to do, you see.

379
00:22:29,556 --> 00:22:32,650
- [ Laughs ]
- They understood what it was about.

380
00:22:32,759 --> 00:22:36,160
I mean, that, of course, poses
the question of what was it about.

381
00:22:37,531 --> 00:22:40,967
But it has -has something
to do with living.

382
00:22:43,704 --> 00:22:46,434
And then on the final day
of our stay in the forest...

383
00:22:46,540 --> 00:22:49,065
the whole group did something
so wonderful for me, Wally.

384
00:22:49,176 --> 00:22:51,406
They arranged a christening -
a baptism - for me.

385
00:22:51,511 --> 00:22:53,809
And they filled the castle with flowers.

386
00:22:53,914 --> 00:22:56,314
And it was just a miracle of light...

387
00:22:56,416 --> 00:23:00,284
because they had literally set up
hundreds of candles and torches.

388
00:23:00,387 --> 00:23:03,220
I mean, no church
could have looked more beautiful.

389
00:23:03,323 --> 00:23:06,417
There was a simple ceremony, and one
of them played the role of my godmother...

390
00:23:06,526 --> 00:23:08,494
and another played the role
of my godfather.

391
00:23:08,595 --> 00:23:12,258
And I was given a new name.
They called me Yendrush.

392
00:23:12,366 --> 00:23:15,767
And some of the people
took it completely seriously...

393
00:23:15,869 --> 00:23:17,996
and some of them found it funny.

394
00:23:18,105 --> 00:23:21,336
But, uh, I really felt
that I had a new name.

395
00:23:22,609 --> 00:23:26,375
And then we had an enormous feast,
with blueberries picked from the field...

396
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,074
and chocolate someone
had gone a great distance to buy...

397
00:23:29,182 --> 00:23:31,173
and raspberry soup and rabbit stew.

398
00:23:31,284 --> 00:23:34,310
And we sang Polish songs
and Greek songs...

399
00:23:34,421 --> 00:23:37,322
and everybody danced
for the rest of the night.

400
00:23:37,424 --> 00:23:39,517
- Hmm.
- Oh, I have a picture.

401
00:23:42,162 --> 00:23:45,097
See, this was - Let's see.

402
00:23:46,133 --> 00:23:49,068
Oh, yeah.
This was me in the forest. See?

403
00:23:49,169 --> 00:23:51,763
- God!
- That's what I felt like.

404
00:23:52,806 --> 00:23:54,774
[ Chuckling ]

405
00:23:54,875 --> 00:23:57,139
- That's the state I was in.
- God.

406
00:23:58,178 --> 00:24:02,012
Yeah. I remember George, uh, told me
he'd seen you around that time.

407
00:24:02,115 --> 00:24:04,379
He said you looked like
you'd come back from a war.

408
00:24:04,484 --> 00:24:07,920
Yeah, I remember meeting him. He, uh -
He asked me a lot of friendly questions.

409
00:24:08,021 --> 00:24:10,251
I think I called you up, too,
that summer, didn't I?

410
00:24:10,357 --> 00:24:12,257
Huh.

411
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,328
I think I was out of town.

412
00:24:15,429 --> 00:24:19,092
Yeah, well, most people I met thought
there was something wrong with me.

413
00:24:19,199 --> 00:24:22,464
They didn't say that, but I could tell that
that was what they thought.

414
00:24:22,569 --> 00:24:24,662
But...

415
00:24:24,771 --> 00:24:29,470
you see, what I think
I experienced... was...

416
00:24:29,576 --> 00:24:32,306
for the first time in my life...

417
00:24:32,412 --> 00:24:34,880
to know what it means
to be truly alive.

418
00:24:34,981 --> 00:24:36,949
Now, that's very frightening...

419
00:24:37,050 --> 00:24:39,518
because with that comes
an immediate awareness of death...

420
00:24:39,619 --> 00:24:41,519
'cause they go hand in hand.

421
00:24:41,621 --> 00:24:45,057
You know, the kind of impulse that led to
Walt Whitman, that led to <i>Leaves of Grass.</i>

422
00:24:45,158 --> 00:24:47,626
That feeling of being connected
to everything...

423
00:24:47,728 --> 00:24:50,026
means to also be connected to death.

424
00:24:50,130 --> 00:24:52,291
And that's pretty scary.

425
00:24:52,399 --> 00:24:56,893
But I really felt as if I were floating
above the ground, not walking.

426
00:24:57,003 --> 00:24:59,597
You know, and I could do things
like go out to the highway...

427
00:24:59,706 --> 00:25:03,608
and watch the lights go from red to green
and think, ''How wonderful.''

428
00:25:03,710 --> 00:25:07,009
- [ Wally Chuckles ]
- And then one day, in the early fall...

429
00:25:07,114 --> 00:25:09,582
I was out in the country,
walking in a field...

430
00:25:09,683 --> 00:25:13,119
and I suddenly heard a voice
say, <i>''Little Prince. ''</i>

431
00:25:13,220 --> 00:25:16,018
Of course, <i>The Little Prince</i>
was a book that I always thought of...

432
00:25:16,123 --> 00:25:18,023
as disgusting, childish treacle.

433
00:25:18,125 --> 00:25:21,356
But still, I thought, ''Well, you know,
if a voice comes to me in a field'' -

434
00:25:21,461 --> 00:25:23,759
This was the first voice I had ever heard.

435
00:25:23,864 --> 00:25:25,832
Maybe I should go and read the book.

436
00:25:25,932 --> 00:25:28,230
Now, that same morning
I'd got a letter...

437
00:25:28,335 --> 00:25:30,633
from a young woman
who'd been in my group in Poland.

438
00:25:30,737 --> 00:25:32,967
And in her letter she'd written,
''You have dominated me.''

439
00:25:33,073 --> 00:25:35,064
You know,
she spoke very awkward English.

440
00:25:35,175 --> 00:25:38,167
So she'd gone to the dictionary,
and she'd crossed out the word ''dominated''...

441
00:25:38,278 --> 00:25:41,145
and she'd said,
''No. The correct word is 'tamed.'  "

442
00:25:41,248 --> 00:25:44,445
And then when I went to town
and bought the book and started to read it...

443
00:25:44,551 --> 00:25:48,578
I saw that ''taming'' was the most
important word in the whole book.

444
00:25:48,688 --> 00:25:52,556
By the end of the book, I was in tears,
I was so moved by the story.

445
00:25:52,659 --> 00:25:55,253
And then I went and tried to write
an answer to her letter...

446
00:25:55,362 --> 00:25:57,330
'cause she'd written me a very long letter.

447
00:25:57,430 --> 00:26:00,866
But I just couldn't find the right words,
so finally I took my hand...

448
00:26:00,967 --> 00:26:03,765
I put it on a piece of paper,
I outlined it with a pen...

449
00:26:03,870 --> 00:26:06,668
and I wrote in the center something
like, ''Your heart is in my hand.''

450
00:26:06,773 --> 00:26:08,400
Something like that.

451
00:26:08,508 --> 00:26:10,499
Then I went over
to my brother's house to swim...

452
00:26:10,610 --> 00:26:13,044
'cause he lives nearby in the country
and he has a pool.

453
00:26:13,146 --> 00:26:15,114
And he wasn't home.
I went into his library...

454
00:26:15,215 --> 00:26:18,275
and he had bought at an auction
the collected issues of <i>Minotaure.</i>

455
00:26:18,385 --> 00:26:22,788
You know, the surrealist magazine?
Oh, it's a great, great surrealist
magazine of the '20s and '30s.

456
00:26:22,889 --> 00:26:25,915
And I never-You know,
I consider myself a bit of a surrealist.

457
00:26:26,026 --> 00:26:28,586
I had never, ever seen
a copy of <i>Minotaure.</i>

458
00:26:28,695 --> 00:26:30,959
And here they all were,
bound, year after year.

459
00:26:31,064 --> 00:26:34,431
So, at random,
I picked one out, I opened it up...

460
00:26:34,534 --> 00:26:37,833
and there was a full-page reproduction
of the letter ''A''...

461
00:26:37,938 --> 00:26:39,997
from Tenniel's <i>Alice In Wonderland.</i>

462
00:26:40,106 --> 00:26:43,371
And I thought, that -Well, you know,
it's been a day of coincidences...

463
00:26:43,476 --> 00:26:46,240
but that's not unusual that the surrealists
would have been interested in <i>Alice...</i>

464
00:26:46,346 --> 00:26:48,314
and I did a play of <i>Alice.</i>

465
00:26:48,415 --> 00:26:52,647
So at random,
I opened to another page...

466
00:26:52,752 --> 00:26:56,244
and there were four handprints.

467
00:26:56,356 --> 00:26:59,223
One was André Breton,
another was André Derain...

468
00:26:59,326 --> 00:27:01,920
the third was André -
I've got it written down somewhere.

469
00:27:02,028 --> 00:27:05,896
It's not Malraux. It's, like, someone -
Another of the surrealists.

470
00:27:05,999 --> 00:27:10,868
All A's, and the fourth
was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry...

471
00:27:10,971 --> 00:27:12,996
who wrote <i>The Little Prince.</i>

472
00:27:13,106 --> 00:27:15,597
And they'd shown these handprints
to some kind of expert...

473
00:27:15,709 --> 00:27:18,507
without saying
whose hands they belonged to.

474
00:27:18,612 --> 00:27:22,412
And under Exupéry's,
it said that he was an artist...

475
00:27:22,515 --> 00:27:24,813
with very powerful eyes...

476
00:27:24,918 --> 00:27:28,718
who was a tamer of wild animals.

477
00:27:28,822 --> 00:27:31,017
I thought,
''This is incredible, you know.''

478
00:27:31,124 --> 00:27:34,855
And I looked back to see
when the issue came out.

479
00:27:34,961 --> 00:27:38,795
It came out on the newsstands
May 1 2, 1 934...

480
00:27:38,899 --> 00:27:43,097
and I was born during the day
of May 1 1 , 1 934.

481
00:27:44,237 --> 00:27:49,368
So, well, that's what started me on, uh,
Saint-Exupéry and <i>The Little Prince.</i>

482
00:27:57,050 --> 00:27:59,518
Now, of course today-

483
00:27:59,619 --> 00:28:03,055
today I think there's a very fascistic thing
under <i>The Little Prince.</i>

484
00:28:03,156 --> 00:28:05,386
You know, I -
Well, no, I think there's a kind of-

485
00:28:05,492 --> 00:28:10,896
[ Laughing ] I think a kind of S.S. totalitarian
sentimentality in there somewhere.

486
00:28:10,997 --> 00:28:13,727
You know, there's something, you know -
that -

487
00:28:13,833 --> 00:28:15,994
that love of, um -

488
00:28:16,102 --> 00:28:20,471
Well, that masculine love
of a certain kind of oily muscle.

489
00:28:20,573 --> 00:28:23,804
You know what I mean?
I mean, I can't quite put my finger on it.

490
00:28:23,910 --> 00:28:27,539
But I can just imagine
some beautiful S.S. man...

491
00:28:27,647 --> 00:28:29,615
- loving <i>The Little Prince.</i>
- [ Wally Laughs ]

492
00:28:29,716 --> 00:28:32,344
Now, I don't know why, but there's
something wrong with it. It stinks.

493
00:28:32,452 --> 00:28:34,647
[ High-pitched Laughing ]

494
00:28:38,258 --> 00:28:42,627
Well, didn't George tell me that you were gonna
do a play that was based on <i>The Little Prince?</i>

495
00:28:42,729 --> 00:28:45,926
Hmm. Well, what happened, Wally...

496
00:28:47,100 --> 00:28:48,590
was that fall I was in New York...

497
00:28:48,702 --> 00:28:52,138
and I met this young Japanese
Buddhist priest named Kozan...

498
00:28:52,238 --> 00:28:54,729
and I thought he was Puck
from the <i>Midsummer Night's Dream.</i>

499
00:28:54,841 --> 00:28:57,071
You know,
he had this beautiful, delicate smile.

500
00:28:57,177 --> 00:28:59,111
I thought <i>he</i> was the Little Prince.

501
00:28:59,212 --> 00:29:02,613
So, naturally, I decided
to go off to the Sahara desert...

502
00:29:02,716 --> 00:29:06,174
to work on <i>The Little Prince</i>
with two actors and this Japanese monk.

503
00:29:06,286 --> 00:29:08,186
You did?

504
00:29:08,288 --> 00:29:13,248
Well, I mean, I was still in a very
peculiar state at that time, Wally.

505
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,727
You know, I would - I would look
in the rearview mirror of my car...

506
00:29:16,830 --> 00:29:19,628
and see little birds
flying out of my mouth.

507
00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:24,966
And I remember always being
exhausted in that period.

508
00:29:25,071 --> 00:29:29,132
I always felt weak. You know, I really
didn't know what was going on with me.

509
00:29:29,242 --> 00:29:33,144
I would just sit out there all alone
in the country for days...

510
00:29:33,246 --> 00:29:36,409
and do nothing but write in my diary.

511
00:29:36,516 --> 00:29:39,314
- And I was always thinking about death.
- <i>Huh.</i>

512
00:29:39,419 --> 00:29:41,387
<i>But you went to the Sahara.</i>

513
00:29:41,488 --> 00:29:43,581
Oh,yes, we went off into the desert...

514
00:29:43,690 --> 00:29:45,783
and we rode through the desert
on camels.

515
00:29:45,892 --> 00:29:47,792
And we rode and we rode.

516
00:29:47,894 --> 00:29:50,294
And then at night we would walk out
under that enormous sky...

517
00:29:50,397 --> 00:29:52,456
and look at the stars.

518
00:29:52,565 --> 00:29:56,092
I just kept thinking about the same things
that I was always thinking about at home -

519
00:29:56,202 --> 00:29:58,227
particularly about Chiquita.

520
00:29:58,338 --> 00:30:01,705
In fact, I thought about
just about nothing but my marriage.

521
00:30:03,676 --> 00:30:06,008
And then I remember
one incredibly dark night...

522
00:30:06,112 --> 00:30:09,343
being at an oasis, and there were
palm trees moving in the wind...

523
00:30:09,449 --> 00:30:13,146
and I could hear Kozan singing
far away in that beautiful bass voice.

524
00:30:13,253 --> 00:30:15,949
And I tried to follow his voice
along the sand.

525
00:30:16,056 --> 00:30:17,956
[ Laughing ]

526
00:30:18,058 --> 00:30:21,027
You see, I thought he had
something to teach me, Wally.

527
00:30:22,629 --> 00:30:24,620
And sometimes
I would meditate with him.

528
00:30:24,731 --> 00:30:27,666
Sometimes I'd go off
and meditate by myself.

529
00:30:29,035 --> 00:30:31,936
You know,
I would see images of Chiquita.

530
00:30:32,038 --> 00:30:34,302
Once I actually saw her growing old...

531
00:30:34,407 --> 00:30:37,001
and her hair turning gray
in front of my eyes.

532
00:30:37,110 --> 00:30:42,070
And I would just wail and yell my lungs out
out there on the dunes.

533
00:30:45,151 --> 00:30:49,053
Anyway,
the desert was pretty horrible.

534
00:30:49,155 --> 00:30:51,055
It was pretty cold.

535
00:30:51,157 --> 00:30:54,593
We were searching for something, but we
couldn't tell if we were finding anything.

536
00:30:54,694 --> 00:30:56,719
You know that once Kozan and I -

537
00:30:56,830 --> 00:30:59,298
we were sitting on a dune,
and we just ate sand.

538
00:30:59,399 --> 00:31:01,799
No, we weren't trying to be funny.
I started, then he started.

539
00:31:01,901 --> 00:31:05,735
We just ate sand and threw up.
That's how desperate we were.

540
00:31:05,839 --> 00:31:09,468
In other words,
we didn't know why we were there.
We didn't know what we were looking for.

541
00:31:09,576 --> 00:31:12,670
The entire thing seemed
completely absurd, arid and empty.

542
00:31:12,779 --> 00:31:16,215
It was like, uh -
like a last chance or something.

543
00:31:16,316 --> 00:31:18,648
Huh.

544
00:31:18,751 --> 00:31:21,015
So what happened then?

545
00:31:21,121 --> 00:31:23,885
Well, in those days...

546
00:31:23,990 --> 00:31:26,254
I went completely on impulse.

547
00:31:26,359 --> 00:31:29,487
So on impulse I brought Kozan back
to stay with us in New York...

548
00:31:29,596 --> 00:31:33,157
after we got back from the Sahara,
and he stayed for six months.

549
00:31:33,266 --> 00:31:37,202
And he really sort of took over
the whole family, in a way.
- What do you mean?

550
00:31:37,303 --> 00:31:41,501
Well, there was certainly a center
missing in the house at the time.

551
00:31:41,608 --> 00:31:44,099
There certainly wasn't a father,
'cause I was always thinking...

552
00:31:44,210 --> 00:31:47,646
about going off to Tibet
or doing God knows what.

553
00:31:47,747 --> 00:31:50,079
And so he taught the whole family
to meditate...

554
00:31:50,183 --> 00:31:54,381
and he told them all about Asia and the East
and his monastery and everything.

555
00:31:54,487 --> 00:31:58,947
He really captivated everybody
with an incredible bag of tricks.

556
00:31:59,058 --> 00:32:01,822
He had literally
developed himself, Wally...

557
00:32:01,928 --> 00:32:06,661
so that he could push on his fingers
and rise off out of his chair.

558
00:32:06,766 --> 00:32:08,734
I mean, he could literally go like this -

559
00:32:08,835 --> 00:32:11,030
You know, push on his fingers
and go into like a headstand...

560
00:32:11,137 --> 00:32:13,264
and just hold himself there
with two fingers.

561
00:32:13,373 --> 00:32:15,739
Or if Chiquita would suddenly get
a little tension in her neck...

562
00:32:15,842 --> 00:32:19,039
well, he'd immediately have her
down on the floor, he'd be walking
up and down on her back...

563
00:32:19,145 --> 00:32:22,171
doing these unbelievable massages,
you know.

564
00:32:23,349 --> 00:32:25,317
And the children found him amazing.

565
00:32:25,418 --> 00:32:28,649
I mean, you know, we'd visit friends
who had children...

566
00:32:28,755 --> 00:32:30,814
and immediately
he'd be playing with these children...

567
00:32:30,924 --> 00:32:32,915
in a way that, you know, we just can't do.

568
00:32:33,026 --> 00:32:35,722
I mean, those children -
just giggles, giggles, giggles...

569
00:32:35,828 --> 00:32:39,264
about what this Japanese monk
was doing in these holy robes.

570
00:32:39,365 --> 00:32:42,300
I mean, he was an acrobat,
a ventriloquist...

571
00:32:42,402 --> 00:32:44,893
a magician, everything.

572
00:32:45,004 --> 00:32:46,972
You know,
the amazing thing was that...

573
00:32:47,073 --> 00:32:49,405
I don't think he had any interest
in children whatsoever.

574
00:32:49,509 --> 00:32:51,739
None at all.
I don't think he liked them.

575
00:32:51,844 --> 00:32:53,937
I mean, you know,
when he stayed with us...

576
00:32:54,047 --> 00:32:56,743
in the first week, really, the kids
were just googly-eyed over him.

577
00:32:56,849 --> 00:32:59,750
But then a couple of weeks later,
Chiquita and I could be out...

578
00:32:59,852 --> 00:33:02,821
and Marina could have flu
or a temperature of 1 04...

579
00:33:02,922 --> 00:33:05,482
and he wouldn't even go in
and say hello to her.

580
00:33:05,592 --> 00:33:09,050
But he was taking over more and more.

581
00:33:09,162 --> 00:33:11,756
I mean, his own habits
had completely changed.

582
00:33:11,864 --> 00:33:16,631
You know, he started wearing these elegant
Gucci shoes under his white monk's robes.

583
00:33:16,736 --> 00:33:18,727
He was eating huge amounts of food.

584
00:33:18,838 --> 00:33:22,296
I mean, he ate twice as much
as Nicolas ate, you know?

585
00:33:22,408 --> 00:33:24,899
This tiny little Buddhist
when I first met him, you know...

586
00:33:25,011 --> 00:33:27,946
was eating a little bowl of milk-
hot milk with rice -

587
00:33:28,047 --> 00:33:30,641
was now eating huge beef.

588
00:33:32,652 --> 00:33:35,348
It was just very strange.

589
00:33:35,455 --> 00:33:38,913
You know, and we had tried working together,
but really our work consisted mostly...

590
00:33:39,025 --> 00:33:43,826
of my trying to do these incredibly painful
prostrations that they do in the monastery.

591
00:33:43,930 --> 00:33:46,956
You know, so really we hadn't
been working very much.

592
00:33:47,066 --> 00:33:52,402
Anyway, we were out in the country, and
we all went to Christmas mass together.

593
00:33:52,505 --> 00:33:54,769
You know, he was all dressed up
in his Buddhist finery.

594
00:33:54,874 --> 00:33:58,833
And it was one of those - one of those awful,
dreary Catholic churches on Long Island...

595
00:33:58,945 --> 00:34:02,904
where the priest talks about
communism and birth control.

596
00:34:03,016 --> 00:34:06,952
And as I was sitting there in mass, I was
wondering, ''What in the world is going on?''

597
00:34:07,053 --> 00:34:09,021
I mean, here I am. I'm a grown man...

598
00:34:09,122 --> 00:34:11,716
and there's this strange person living
in the house, and I'm not working -

599
00:34:11,824 --> 00:34:15,351
You know, I was doing nothing
but scribbling a little poetry in my diary.

600
00:34:15,461 --> 00:34:19,898
And I can't get a job teaching anymore,
and I don't know what I want to do.

601
00:34:19,999 --> 00:34:25,494
When all of a sudden a huge creature
appeared, looking at the congregation.

602
00:34:25,605 --> 00:34:30,042
It was about, I'd say, 6'8'' -
something like that, you know...

603
00:34:30,143 --> 00:34:33,078
and it was -
it was half bull, half man...

604
00:34:33,179 --> 00:34:35,272
and its skin was blue.

605
00:34:35,381 --> 00:34:39,010
It had violets growing out of its eyelids
and poppies growing out of its toenails.

606
00:34:39,118 --> 00:34:42,849
And it just stood there
for the whole mass.

607
00:34:42,955 --> 00:34:45,355
I mean, I could not make
that creature disappear.

608
00:34:45,458 --> 00:34:48,450
You know, I thought, ''Oh, well. You know,
I'm just seeing this 'cause I'm bored.''

609
00:34:48,561 --> 00:34:53,692
You know, close my-
I could not make that creature go away.

610
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:57,702
Okay. Now, I didn't talk with people about it,
because they'd think I was weird...

611
00:34:57,804 --> 00:35:03,299
but I felt that this creature
was somehow coming to comfort me...

612
00:35:03,409 --> 00:35:06,674
that somehow
he was appearing to say...

613
00:35:06,779 --> 00:35:11,341
''Well, you may feel low and you might
not be able to create a play right now...

614
00:35:11,451 --> 00:35:15,410
''but look at what can come to you
on Christmas Eve. Hang on, old friend.

615
00:35:15,521 --> 00:35:18,354
''I may seem weird to you,
but on these weird voyages...

616
00:35:18,458 --> 00:35:20,426
''weird creatures appear.

617
00:35:20,526 --> 00:35:24,394
It's part of the journey.
You're okay. Hang in there.''

618
00:35:29,769 --> 00:35:32,101
By the way, uh, did you ever see...

619
00:35:32,205 --> 00:35:35,800
that play, uh, <i>The Violets are Blue?</i>

620
00:35:37,677 --> 00:35:39,577
No.

621
00:35:39,679 --> 00:35:42,876
Oh, when you mentioned the violets,
it-it reminded me of that.

622
00:35:42,982 --> 00:35:45,917
It-It was about, um, people...

623
00:35:46,018 --> 00:35:49,112
being, uh, strangled
on a - on a submarine.

624
00:35:49,222 --> 00:35:51,417
Hmm.

625
00:35:55,428 --> 00:36:00,365
[ Sighs ] Well, so that was -
[ Chuckles ] that was Christmas.

626
00:36:00,466 --> 00:36:03,094
What happened after that?

627
00:36:03,202 --> 00:36:06,171
- Do you really want to hear about all this?
- Yeah.

628
00:36:06,272 --> 00:36:09,901
Well, around that time...

629
00:36:13,079 --> 00:36:16,845
I was beginning to think about going to India.
And Kozan suddenly left one day.

630
00:36:16,949 --> 00:36:20,282
I was beginning to get into a lot
of very strange ideas around that time.

631
00:36:20,386 --> 00:36:24,447
Now, for example, I'd developed this -
Well, I got this idea which I -

632
00:36:24,557 --> 00:36:27,720
Now, it was very appealing to me
at the time, you know -

633
00:36:27,827 --> 00:36:31,126
which was that I would have a flag,
a large flag...

634
00:36:31,230 --> 00:36:33,596
and that wherever I worked,
this flag would fly.

635
00:36:33,699 --> 00:36:37,965
Or if we were outside, say, with a group, that
the flag could be the thing we lay on at night...

636
00:36:38,070 --> 00:36:41,801
and that somehow, between
working on this flag and lying on this flag...

637
00:36:41,908 --> 00:36:43,808
this flag flying over us...

638
00:36:43,910 --> 00:36:47,869
that the flag would pick up
vibrations of a kind...

639
00:36:47,980 --> 00:36:50,710
that would still be in the flag
when I brought it home.

640
00:36:50,817 --> 00:36:53,911
So I went down to meet this flag maker
that I'd heard about.

641
00:36:54,020 --> 00:36:56,045
And you know, there was
this very straightforward-looking guy.

642
00:36:56,155 --> 00:37:00,922
You know, very sweet, really healthy-looking
and everything. Nice big, blond.

643
00:37:01,027 --> 00:37:04,019
And he had a beautiful, clean loft
down in the village with lovely, happy flags.

644
00:37:04,130 --> 00:37:07,566
And I was all into <i>The Little Prince,</i>
and I talked to him about <i>The Little Prince...</i>

645
00:37:07,667 --> 00:37:11,501
these adventures and everything, how I
needed the flag and what the flag should be.

646
00:37:11,604 --> 00:37:13,936
He seemed to really connect with it.

647
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,508
So, two weeks later, I came back.

648
00:37:16,609 --> 00:37:20,306
He showed me a flag that I thought
was very odd, you know...

649
00:37:20,413 --> 00:37:22,404
'cause I had, you know -
well, you know...

650
00:37:22,515 --> 00:37:25,882
I had expected something
gentle and lyrical.

651
00:37:25,985 --> 00:37:28,317
There was something about this
that was so powerful...

652
00:37:28,421 --> 00:37:30,355
it was almost overwhelming.

653
00:37:30,456 --> 00:37:32,424
And it did include the Tibetan swastika.

654
00:37:33,993 --> 00:37:36,188
He put a swastika in your flag?

655
00:37:36,295 --> 00:37:38,991
No, it was the Tibetan swastika,
not the Nazi swastika.

656
00:37:39,098 --> 00:37:41,464
It's one of the most ancient
Tibetan symbols.

657
00:37:41,567 --> 00:37:44,559
And it was just strange, you know?

658
00:37:44,670 --> 00:37:48,265
But I brought it home,
because my idea with this flag...

659
00:37:48,374 --> 00:37:50,842
was that before I left -
you know, before I left for India...

660
00:37:50,943 --> 00:37:54,777
I wanted several people who were close to me
to have this flag in the room for the night...

661
00:37:54,881 --> 00:37:58,317
to sleep with it, you know, and then
in the morning to sew something into the flag.

662
00:37:58,417 --> 00:38:02,444
So I took the flag into Marina, and I said,
''Hey, look at this. What do you think of this?''

663
00:38:02,555 --> 00:38:05,285
And she said, ''What is that? That's awful.''
I said, ''It's a flag.''

664
00:38:05,391 --> 00:38:07,018
And she said, ''I don't like it.''

665
00:38:07,126 --> 00:38:10,357
I said, ''I kind of thought you might like
to spend the night with it, you know.''

666
00:38:10,463 --> 00:38:13,398
But she really thought
the flag was awful.

667
00:38:13,499 --> 00:38:17,833
So then Chiquita threw this party
for me before I left for India...

668
00:38:17,937 --> 00:38:19,996
and the apartment
was filled with guests.

669
00:38:20,106 --> 00:38:23,166
And at one point Chiquita said,
''The flag, the flag. Where's the flag?''

670
00:38:23,276 --> 00:38:27,269
And I said, ''Oh, yeah. The flag.''
And I go and get the flag, and I open it up.

671
00:38:27,380 --> 00:38:31,214
Chiquita goes absolutely white
and runs out of the room and vomits.

672
00:38:31,317 --> 00:38:34,582
So the party just comes to a halt
and breaks up.

673
00:38:34,687 --> 00:38:37,383
And then the next day
I gave it to this young woman...

674
00:38:37,490 --> 00:38:40,084
who'd been in my group in Poland,
who was now in New York.

675
00:38:40,192 --> 00:38:43,684
I didn't tell her anything
about any of this.

676
00:38:43,796 --> 00:38:46,196
At 5:00 in the morning,
she called me up and she said...

677
00:38:46,299 --> 00:38:48,767
''I gotta come and see you right away.''
I thought, ''Oh, God.''

678
00:38:48,868 --> 00:38:52,599
She came up, and she said, ''I saw things -
I saw things around this flag.

679
00:38:52,705 --> 00:38:55,697
''Now, I know you're stubborn, and I know
you want to take this thing with you...

680
00:38:55,808 --> 00:38:58,800
''but if you'd follow my advice,
you'd put it in a hole in the ground...

681
00:38:58,911 --> 00:39:01,744
and burn it and cover it with earth,
cause the devil's in it.''

682
00:39:01,847 --> 00:39:03,747
I never took the flag with me.

683
00:39:03,849 --> 00:39:08,286
In fact, I gave it to her, and, uh,
she - she had a ceremony with it...

684
00:39:08,387 --> 00:39:10,855
six months later, in France,
with some friends...

685
00:39:10,957 --> 00:39:13,118
in which, uh, they did burn it.

686
00:39:14,260 --> 00:39:16,490
[ Laughing ]
God.

687
00:39:16,596 --> 00:39:19,963
That's really, really amazing.

688
00:39:21,667 --> 00:39:24,192
So, did you ever go to India?

689
00:39:24,303 --> 00:39:27,636
Oh, yes, I - I went to India
in the spring, Wally...

690
00:39:27,740 --> 00:39:30,208
and I came back home
feeling all wrong.

691
00:39:30,309 --> 00:39:34,746
I mean, you know, I'd been to India,
and I'd just felt like a tourist.

692
00:39:34,847 --> 00:39:37,645
I'd found nothing.

693
00:39:37,750 --> 00:39:42,414
So I was - I was spending, uh, the summer
on Long Island with my family...

694
00:39:42,521 --> 00:39:45,490
and I heard about this community
in Scotland called Findhorn...

695
00:39:45,591 --> 00:39:49,152
where people sang and talked
and meditated with plants.

696
00:39:49,261 --> 00:39:54,756
And it was founded by several rather
middle-class English and Scottish eccentrics.

697
00:39:54,867 --> 00:39:57,199
Some of them intellectuals,
and some of them not.

698
00:39:57,303 --> 00:39:59,703
And I'd heard that they'd
grown things in soil...

699
00:39:59,805 --> 00:40:02,968
that supposedly nothing can grow in,
'cause it's almost beach soil...

700
00:40:03,075 --> 00:40:07,239
and that they'd built - not built - they'd
grown the largest cauliflowers in the world...

701
00:40:07,346 --> 00:40:09,280
and there are sort of cabbages.

702
00:40:09,382 --> 00:40:13,182
And they've grown trees
that can't grow in the British Isles.

703
00:40:13,285 --> 00:40:16,015
So I went there.
I mean, it is an amazing place, Wally.

704
00:40:16,122 --> 00:40:20,286
I mean, if there are insects
bothering the plants...

705
00:40:20,393 --> 00:40:23,885
they will talk with the insects
and, you know, make an agreement...

706
00:40:23,996 --> 00:40:28,092
by which they'll set aside a special patch
of vegetables just for the insects...

707
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,293
and then the insects
will leave the main part alone.

708
00:40:30,403 --> 00:40:32,394
- Huh.
- Things like that.

709
00:40:32,505 --> 00:40:34,973
And everything they do
they do beautifully.

710
00:40:35,074 --> 00:40:37,838
I mean, the buildings just shine.

711
00:40:37,943 --> 00:40:41,879
And I mean, for instance, the icebox,
the stove, the car- they all have names.

712
00:40:41,981 --> 00:40:44,245
And since you wouldn't treat Helen,
the icebox...

713
00:40:44,350 --> 00:40:46,682
with any less respect
than you would Margaret, your wife...

714
00:40:46,786 --> 00:40:50,654
you know, you make sure that Helen is as clean
as Margaret, or treated with equal respect.

715
00:40:50,756 --> 00:40:52,883
[ Wally Giggles ]

716
00:40:52,992 --> 00:40:57,486
And when I was there, Wally,
I remember being in the woods...

717
00:40:57,596 --> 00:41:02,260
and I would look at a leaf,
and I would actually see that thing...

718
00:41:02,368 --> 00:41:05,531
that is alive in that leaf.

719
00:41:05,638 --> 00:41:08,630
And then I remember just running
through the woods as fast as I could...

720
00:41:08,741 --> 00:41:11,209
with this incredible laugh
coming out of me...

721
00:41:11,310 --> 00:41:16,475
and really being in that state,you know,
where laughter and tears seem to merge.

722
00:41:16,582 --> 00:41:18,550
I mean, it absolutely blasted me open.

723
00:41:18,651 --> 00:41:21,711
When I came out of Findhorn,
I was hallucinating nonstop.

724
00:41:21,821 --> 00:41:24,449
I was seeing clouds as creatures.

725
00:41:24,557 --> 00:41:27,151
The people on the airplane
all had animals' faces.

726
00:41:27,259 --> 00:41:31,286
I mean, I was on a trip. It was like being
in a William Blake world suddenly.

727
00:41:31,397 --> 00:41:33,331
Things were exploding.

728
00:41:33,432 --> 00:41:37,732
So immediately I went to Belgrade,
'cause I wanted to talk to Grotowski.

729
00:41:37,837 --> 00:41:41,068
Grotowski and I got together
at midnight in my hotel room...

730
00:41:41,173 --> 00:41:44,609
and we drank instant coffee
out of the top of my shaving cream...

731
00:41:44,710 --> 00:41:48,771
and we talked from midnight
until 1 1 :00 the next morning.

732
00:41:48,881 --> 00:41:51,349
- God. What did he say?
- Nothing!

733
00:41:51,450 --> 00:41:53,475
I talked. He didn't say a word.

734
00:41:53,586 --> 00:41:57,317
And -And then I guess really...

735
00:41:58,290 --> 00:42:02,283
the last big experience of this kind
took place that fall.

736
00:42:02,394 --> 00:42:04,362
It was out at Montauk on Long Island...

737
00:42:04,463 --> 00:42:08,058
and there were only about nine
of us involved, mostly men.

738
00:42:08,167 --> 00:42:11,159
And we borrowed Dick Avedon's property
out at Montauk.

739
00:42:11,270 --> 00:42:14,398
And the country out there
is like Heathcliff country.

740
00:42:14,507 --> 00:42:17,067
It's absolutely wild.

741
00:42:17,176 --> 00:42:19,576
What we wanted to do was
we wanted to take, you know -

742
00:42:19,678 --> 00:42:21,976
We wanted to take All Souls' Eve,
Halloween...

743
00:42:22,081 --> 00:42:24,413
and use it as a point of departure
for something.

744
00:42:24,517 --> 00:42:27,975
So each one of us prepared
some sort of event for the others...

745
00:42:28,087 --> 00:42:30,885
somehow in the spirit
of All Souls' Eve.

746
00:42:30,990 --> 00:42:33,891
But the biggest event
was three of the people...

747
00:42:33,993 --> 00:42:36,393
kept disappearing
in the middle of the night each night...

748
00:42:36,495 --> 00:42:38,861
and we knew they were
preparing something big...

749
00:42:38,964 --> 00:42:40,932
but we didn't know what.

750
00:42:41,033 --> 00:42:45,231
And midnight on Halloween,
under a dark moon, above these cliffs...

751
00:42:45,337 --> 00:42:49,103
we were all told to gather at the topmost cliff
and that we would be taken somewhere.

752
00:42:49,208 --> 00:42:53,542
And we did.
And we waited, and it was very, very cold.

753
00:42:53,646 --> 00:42:57,309
And then the three of them - Helen, Bill
and Fred - showed up wearing white.

754
00:42:57,416 --> 00:43:01,477
You know, something they'd made out
of sheets - looked a little spooky, not funny.

755
00:43:01,587 --> 00:43:06,286
And they took us into the basement of this house
that had burned down on the property.

756
00:43:06,392 --> 00:43:10,453
And in this ruined basement, they had set up
a table with benches they'd made.

757
00:43:10,563 --> 00:43:15,660
And on this table they had laid out paper,
pencils, wine and glasses.

758
00:43:15,768 --> 00:43:21,035
And we were all asked to sit at the table
and to make out our last will and testament.

759
00:43:21,140 --> 00:43:24,667
You know, to think about and write down
whatever our last words were to the world...

760
00:43:24,777 --> 00:43:27,075
or to somebody we were very close to.

761
00:43:27,179 --> 00:43:29,807
And that's quite a task.

762
00:43:29,915 --> 00:43:33,373
I must have been there for about
an hour and a half or so, maybe two.

763
00:43:33,485 --> 00:43:36,921
And then one at a time they would ask
one of us to come with them...

764
00:43:37,022 --> 00:43:38,990
and I was one of the last.

765
00:43:39,091 --> 00:43:41,491
And they came for me,
and they put a blindfold on me...

766
00:43:41,594 --> 00:43:43,789
and they ran me through these fields -
two people.

767
00:43:43,896 --> 00:43:47,992
And they'd found a kind of potting shed -
you know, a kind of shed, on the grounds...

768
00:43:48,100 --> 00:43:51,592
a little tiny room
that had once had tools in it.

769
00:43:51,704 --> 00:43:54,696
And they took me down the steps,
into this basement...

770
00:43:54,807 --> 00:43:59,676
and the room was just filled
with harsh white light.

771
00:43:59,778 --> 00:44:03,305
Then they told me to get undressed
and give them all my valuables.

772
00:44:03,415 --> 00:44:05,815
Then they put me on a table,
and they sponged me down.

773
00:44:05,918 --> 00:44:10,412
Well, you know, I just started flashing
on-on-on death camps and secret police.

774
00:44:10,522 --> 00:44:14,322
I don't know what happened to the other people,
but I just started to cry uncontrollably.

775
00:44:14,426 --> 00:44:18,954
Uh, then-then they got me to my feet
and they took photographs of me, naked.

776
00:44:19,064 --> 00:44:21,862
And then naked, again blindfolded,
I was run through these forests...

777
00:44:21,967 --> 00:44:25,164
and we came to a kind of tent made of sheets,
with sheets on the ground.

778
00:44:25,271 --> 00:44:27,262
And there were all these naked bodies...

779
00:44:27,373 --> 00:44:30,865
huddling together
for warmth against the cold.

780
00:44:30,976 --> 00:44:33,103
Must have been left there
for about an hour.

781
00:44:33,212 --> 00:44:36,340
And then again, one by one,
one at a time, we were led out.

782
00:44:36,448 --> 00:44:38,416
The blindfold was put on...

783
00:44:38,517 --> 00:44:42,180
and I felt myself being lowered
onto something like a stretcher.

784
00:44:42,288 --> 00:44:47,191
And the stretcher was carried a long way,
very slowly, through these forests...

785
00:44:47,293 --> 00:44:53,061
and then I felt myself
being lowered into the ground.

786
00:44:53,165 --> 00:44:56,862
They had, in fact, dug six graves...

787
00:44:56,969 --> 00:44:59,597
eight feet deep.

788
00:44:59,705 --> 00:45:04,039
And then I felt these pieces of wood
being put on me.

789
00:45:04,143 --> 00:45:07,510
And I cannot tell you, Wally,
what I was going through.

790
00:45:07,613 --> 00:45:10,912
And then the stretcher was lowered
into the grave...

791
00:45:11,016 --> 00:45:12,984
and then this wood was put on me...

792
00:45:13,085 --> 00:45:15,576
and then my valuables were put on me,
in my hands.

793
00:45:15,688 --> 00:45:18,452
And they'd taken, you know,
a kind of sheet or canvas...

794
00:45:18,557 --> 00:45:21,048
and they'd stretched about this much
above my head...

795
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:23,924
and then they shoveled dirt
into the grave...

796
00:45:25,264 --> 00:45:29,860
so that I really had the feeling
of being buried alive.

797
00:45:32,004 --> 00:45:34,871
And after being in the grave
for about half an hour-

798
00:45:34,974 --> 00:45:38,205
I mean, I didn't know how long
I'd be in there -

799
00:45:38,310 --> 00:45:40,835
I was resurrected,
lifted out of the grave...

800
00:45:40,946 --> 00:45:43,312
blindfold taken off,
and run through these fields.

801
00:45:43,415 --> 00:45:47,852
And we came to a great circle of fire,
with music and hot wine...

802
00:45:47,953 --> 00:45:50,046
and everyone danced until dawn.

803
00:45:50,155 --> 00:45:53,454
[ Chuckling ]
And then at dawn...

804
00:45:53,559 --> 00:45:56,528
to the best of our ability,
we filled up the graves...

805
00:45:56,628 --> 00:45:59,290
and went back to New York.

806
00:46:02,401 --> 00:46:06,098
And that was really the last big event.
I mean, that was the end.

807
00:46:06,205 --> 00:46:08,173
I mean, you know, I began to realize...

808
00:46:08,273 --> 00:46:10,935
I just didn't want to do these things
anymore, you know?

809
00:46:11,043 --> 00:46:15,480
I felt sort of becalmed, you know,
like that chapter in <i>Moby Dick...</i>

810
00:46:15,581 --> 00:46:18,675
where the wind goes out of the sails.

811
00:46:18,784 --> 00:46:21,514
And then last winter, without, uh,
thinking about it very much...

812
00:46:21,620 --> 00:46:25,920
I went to see this agent I know to tell him
I was interested in directing plays again.

813
00:46:26,025 --> 00:46:28,391
Actually,
he seemed a little surprised...

814
00:46:28,494 --> 00:46:31,952
to see that Rip Van Winkle
was still alive.

815
00:46:37,669 --> 00:46:39,569
Mmm.

816
00:46:39,671 --> 00:46:41,662
God.

817
00:46:41,774 --> 00:46:43,639
I didn't know they were so small.

818
00:46:43,742 --> 00:46:46,438
[ André Chuckles ]

819
00:46:46,545 --> 00:46:48,638
Well,you know, frankly...

820
00:46:48,747 --> 00:46:51,545
I'm sort of repelled by the whole story,
if you really want to know.

821
00:46:51,650 --> 00:46:54,050
- What?
- Ah, you know -

822
00:46:54,153 --> 00:46:56,121
Who did I think I was, you know?

823
00:46:56,221 --> 00:47:00,851
I mean, that's the story of some kind
of spoiled princess, you know.

824
00:47:00,959 --> 00:47:03,223
Who did I think I was,
the Shah of Iran?

825
00:47:03,328 --> 00:47:08,095
You know, I really wonder if people such
as myself are really not Albert Speer, Wally.

826
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:12,398
- You know, Hitler's architect, Albert Speer?
- What?

827
00:47:12,504 --> 00:47:16,133
No, I've been thinking a lot about him recently
because, uh, I think I am Speer.

828
00:47:16,241 --> 00:47:19,267
And I think it's time that I was caught
and tried the way he was.

829
00:47:19,378 --> 00:47:21,005
What are you talking about?

830
00:47:21,113 --> 00:47:24,947
Well, you know, he was a very cultivated man,
an architect, an artist, you know...

831
00:47:25,050 --> 00:47:28,417
so he thought the ordinary rules of life
didn't apply to him either.

832
00:47:31,123 --> 00:47:34,923
I mean, I really feel
that everything I've done...

833
00:47:35,027 --> 00:47:37,552
is horrific, just horrific.

834
00:47:37,663 --> 00:47:40,598
My God. But why?

835
00:47:40,699 --> 00:47:45,261
You see -You see, I've seen a lot of death
in the last few years, Wally...

836
00:47:45,370 --> 00:47:47,668
and there's one thing
that's for sure about death -

837
00:47:47,773 --> 00:47:50,207
You do it alone, you see.
That seems quite certain, you see.

838
00:47:50,309 --> 00:47:53,437
That I've seen. That the people
around your bed mean nothing.

839
00:47:53,545 --> 00:47:56,537
Your reviews mean nothing.
Whatever it is, you do it alone.

840
00:47:56,648 --> 00:48:00,675
And so the question is, when I get on my
deathbed, what kind of a person am I gonna be?

841
00:48:00,786 --> 00:48:03,619
And I'm just very dubious about the kind
of person who would have lived his life...

842
00:48:03,722 --> 00:48:05,622
those last few years the way I did.

843
00:48:05,724 --> 00:48:08,352
Why should you feel that way?

844
00:48:08,460 --> 00:48:12,897
You see, I've had a very rough time
in the last few months, Wally.

845
00:48:12,998 --> 00:48:16,900
Three different people in my family
were in the hospital at the same time.

846
00:48:17,002 --> 00:48:18,936
Then my mother died.

847
00:48:19,037 --> 00:48:22,029
Then Marina had something wrong with her back,
and we were terribly worried about her.

848
00:48:22,141 --> 00:48:25,269
You know, so - so, I mean,
I'm feeling very raw right now.

849
00:48:25,377 --> 00:48:28,505
I mean, uh - I mean, I can't sleep,
my nerves are shot.

850
00:48:28,614 --> 00:48:30,582
I mean, I'm affected by everything.

851
00:48:30,682 --> 00:48:34,778
You know, la-last week I had this really nice
director from Norway over for dinner...

852
00:48:34,887 --> 00:48:37,082
and he's someone
I've known for years and years...

853
00:48:37,189 --> 00:48:39,453
and he's somebody
that I think I'm quite fond of.

854
00:48:39,558 --> 00:48:42,721
And I was sitting there just thinking
that he was a pompous, defensive...

855
00:48:42,828 --> 00:48:45,228
conservative stuffed shirt
who was only interested in the theater.

856
00:48:45,330 --> 00:48:48,788
He was talking and talking. His mother
had been a famous Norwegian comedienne.

857
00:48:48,901 --> 00:48:53,235
I realized he had said ''I remember my mother''
at least 400 times during the evening.

858
00:48:53,338 --> 00:48:56,466
And he was telling story after story
about his mother.

859
00:48:56,575 --> 00:48:59,442
You know, I'd heard these stories
20 times in the past.

860
00:48:59,545 --> 00:49:02,241
He was drinking this whole bottle
of bourbon very quietly.

861
00:49:02,347 --> 00:49:04,406
His laugh was so horrible.

862
00:49:04,516 --> 00:49:08,111
You know, I could hear his laugh -
the pain in that laugh, the hollowness.

863
00:49:08,220 --> 00:49:10,620
You know, what being that woman's son
had done to him.

864
00:49:10,722 --> 00:49:14,385
You know, so at a certain point I just had
to ask him to leave - nicely, you know.

865
00:49:14,493 --> 00:49:17,951
I told him I had to get up early
the next morning, 'cause it was so horrible.

866
00:49:18,063 --> 00:49:20,463
It was just as if he had died
in my living room.

867
00:49:20,566 --> 00:49:24,627
You know, then I went into the bathroom
and cried 'cause I felt I'd lost a friend.

868
00:49:24,736 --> 00:49:26,863
And then after he'd gone,
I turned the television on...

869
00:49:26,972 --> 00:49:29,372
and there was this guy who had
just won the something-something.

870
00:49:29,474 --> 00:49:32,910
Some sports event - some kind of a great big
check and some kind of huge silver bottle.

871
00:49:33,011 --> 00:49:35,411
And he, you know - he couldn't stuff
the check in the bottle...

872
00:49:35,514 --> 00:49:38,711
and he put the bottle in front of his nose
and pretended it was his face.

873
00:49:38,817 --> 00:49:41,115
He wasn't really listening
to the guy who was interviewing him...

874
00:49:41,220 --> 00:49:44,656
but he was smiling malevolently at his friends,
and I looked at that guy and I thought...

875
00:49:44,756 --> 00:49:48,749
''What a horrible, empty,
manipulative rat.''

876
00:49:48,860 --> 00:49:52,762
Then I thought, ''That guy is me.''
[ Laughing ]

877
00:49:52,864 --> 00:49:56,027
Then last night actually, you know,
it was our 20th wedding anniversary...

878
00:49:56,134 --> 00:49:58,329
and I took Chiquita to see
this show about Billie Holiday.

879
00:49:58,437 --> 00:50:01,929
I looked at these show business people who
know nothing about Billie Holiday, nothing.

880
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:05,703
You see, they were really kind of,
in a way, intellectual creeps.

881
00:50:05,811 --> 00:50:09,645
And I suddenly had this feeling.
I mean, you know I was just sitting there,
crying through most of the show.

882
00:50:09,748 --> 00:50:12,546
And I suddenly had this feeling
I was just as creepy as they were...

883
00:50:12,651 --> 00:50:14,585
and that my whole life
had been a sham...

884
00:50:14,686 --> 00:50:17,519
and I didn't have the guts
to be Billie Holiday either.

885
00:50:17,623 --> 00:50:21,457
I mean, I really feel
that I'm just washed up, wiped out.

886
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:24,256
I feel I've just squandered my life.

887
00:50:27,733 --> 00:50:31,669
André, now, how can you say
something like that?

888
00:50:31,770 --> 00:50:33,670
I mean -

889
00:50:41,413 --> 00:50:46,976
Well, you know, I may be in
a very emotional state right now, Wally...

890
00:50:47,085 --> 00:50:50,145
but since I've come back home I've just
been finding the world we're living in...

891
00:50:50,255 --> 00:50:52,689
more and more upsetting.

892
00:50:52,791 --> 00:50:55,692
I mean, last week I went down
to the Public Theater one afternoon.

893
00:50:55,794 --> 00:50:58,024
You know, when I walked in,
I said hello to everybody...

894
00:50:58,130 --> 00:51:00,963
'cause I know them all, and they all know me,
they're always very friendly.

895
00:51:01,066 --> 00:51:04,900
You know that seven or eight people
told me how wonderful I looked?

896
00:51:05,003 --> 00:51:08,530
And then one person - one - a woman
who runs the casting office, said...

897
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:10,608
''Gee, you look horrible.
Is something wrong?''

898
00:51:10,709 --> 00:51:13,701
Now, she -You know, we started talking.
Of course, I started telling her things.

899
00:51:13,812 --> 00:51:17,771
And she suddenly burst into tears
because an aunt of hers who's 80...

900
00:51:17,883 --> 00:51:22,081
whom she's very fond of, went into
the hospital for a cataract, which was solved.

901
00:51:22,187 --> 00:51:25,679
But the nurse was so sloppy,
she didn't put the bed rails up...

902
00:51:25,791 --> 00:51:28,885
and so the aunt fell out of bed
and is now a complete cripple.

903
00:51:28,994 --> 00:51:31,360
So you know, we were talking
about hospitals.

904
00:51:31,463 --> 00:51:34,728
Now, you know, this woman,
because of who she is -

905
00:51:34,833 --> 00:51:37,165
You know, 'cause this had happened
to her very, very recently.

906
00:51:37,269 --> 00:51:40,727
- She could see me with complete clarity.
- Uh-huh.

907
00:51:40,839 --> 00:51:42,864
She didn't know anything
about what I'd been going through.

908
00:51:42,974 --> 00:51:45,534
But the other people, what they saw
was this tan, or this shirt...

909
00:51:45,644 --> 00:51:47,612
or the fact that the shirt
goes well with the tan.

910
00:51:47,713 --> 00:51:49,578
So they said, ''Gee, you look wonderful.''

911
00:51:49,681 --> 00:51:52,980
Now, they're living
in an insane dreamworld.

912
00:51:53,085 --> 00:51:56,316
They're not looking.
That seems very strange to me.

913
00:51:56,421 --> 00:51:59,652
Right, because they just didn't
see anything, somehow...

914
00:51:59,758 --> 00:52:03,091
except, uh, the few little things
that they wanted to see.

915
00:52:06,198 --> 00:52:10,726
Yeah, you know, it's like what happened
just before my mother died.

916
00:52:10,836 --> 00:52:13,270
You know, we'd gone to the hospital
to see my mother...

917
00:52:13,372 --> 00:52:15,738
and I went in to see her...

918
00:52:15,841 --> 00:52:20,369
and I saw this woman who looked as bad
as any survivor of Auschwitz or Dachau.

919
00:52:20,479 --> 00:52:24,176
And I was out in the hall
sort of comforting my father...

920
00:52:24,282 --> 00:52:28,343
when a doctor who was a specialist
in a problem she had with her arm...

921
00:52:28,453 --> 00:52:31,251
went into her room
and came out just beaming.

922
00:52:31,356 --> 00:52:35,122
And he said, ''Boy, don't we have
a lot of reason to feel great?

923
00:52:35,227 --> 00:52:38,788
Isn't it wonderful
how she's coming along?''

924
00:52:38,897 --> 00:52:43,800
Now, all he saw was the arm.
That's all he saw.

925
00:52:43,902 --> 00:52:48,339
Now, here's another person
who's existing in a dream.

926
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:50,874
Who, on top of that,
is a kind of butcher...

927
00:52:50,976 --> 00:52:53,206
who's committing
a kind of familial murder...

928
00:52:53,311 --> 00:52:56,508
because when he comes out of that room,
he psychically kills us...

929
00:52:56,615 --> 00:52:58,606
by taking us into a dream world...

930
00:52:58,717 --> 00:53:02,153
where we become confused
and frightened...

931
00:53:02,254 --> 00:53:05,519
'cause the moment before,
we saw somebody who already looked dead...

932
00:53:05,624 --> 00:53:10,118
and now here comes a specialist
who tells us they're in wonderful shape.

933
00:53:10,228 --> 00:53:12,958
I mean, they were literally
driving my father crazy.

934
00:53:13,064 --> 00:53:16,158
I mean, you know, here's an 82-year-old man
who's very emotional...

935
00:53:16,268 --> 00:53:19,260
and you know, and if you go in one moment,
and you see the person's dying...

936
00:53:19,371 --> 00:53:22,363
and you don't want them to die, and then
a doctor comes out five minutes later...

937
00:53:22,474 --> 00:53:24,442
and tells you they're in wonderful shape -

938
00:53:24,543 --> 00:53:27,137
I mean, you know, you can go crazy.

939
00:53:27,245 --> 00:53:31,011
- Yeah. I know what you mean.
- I mean, the doctor didn't see my mother.

940
00:53:31,116 --> 00:53:33,607
The people at the Public Theater
didn't see me.

941
00:53:33,718 --> 00:53:36,710
I mean, we're just walking around
in some kind of fog.

942
00:53:36,822 --> 00:53:40,918
I think we're all in a trance.
We're walking around like zombies.

943
00:53:41,026 --> 00:53:44,655
I don't - I don't think we're even aware
of ourselves or our own reaction to things.

944
00:53:44,763 --> 00:53:47,596
We -We're just going around all day
like unconscious machines...

945
00:53:47,699 --> 00:53:50,793
and meanwhile there's all of this rage
and worry and uneasiness...

946
00:53:50,902 --> 00:53:52,995
just building up
and building up inside us.

947
00:53:53,104 --> 00:53:55,402
That's right. It just builds up, uh...

948
00:53:55,507 --> 00:53:58,806
and then it just leaps out
inappropriately.

949
00:54:00,312 --> 00:54:02,974
I mean, I remember
when I was, uh, acting in this play...

950
00:54:03,081 --> 00:54:05,049
based on <i>The Master and Margarita</i>
by Bulgakov.

951
00:54:05,150 --> 00:54:07,516
And I was playing the part of the cat.

952
00:54:07,619 --> 00:54:10,053
But they had trouble, uh,
making up my cat suit...

953
00:54:10,155 --> 00:54:13,784
so I didn't get it delivered to me
till the night of the first performance.

954
00:54:13,892 --> 00:54:17,487
Particularly the head - I mean,
I'd never even had a chance to try it on.

955
00:54:17,596 --> 00:54:21,123
And about four of my fellow actors
actually came up to me...

956
00:54:21,233 --> 00:54:23,793
and they said these things
which I just couldn't help thinking...

957
00:54:23,902 --> 00:54:25,870
were attempts to destroy me.

958
00:54:25,971 --> 00:54:29,805
You know, one of them said, uh,
''Oh, well, now that head...

959
00:54:29,908 --> 00:54:32,376
''will totally change your hearing
in the performance.

960
00:54:32,477 --> 00:54:35,537
''You may hear everything
completely differently...

961
00:54:35,647 --> 00:54:37,911
''and it may be very upsetting.

962
00:54:38,016 --> 00:54:41,179
''Now, I was once in a performance
where I was wearing earmuffs...

963
00:54:41,286 --> 00:54:44,949
and I couldn't hear anything
anybody said.''

964
00:54:45,056 --> 00:54:48,753
And then another one said, ''Oh, you know,
whenever I wear even a hat on stage...

965
00:54:48,860 --> 00:54:50,828
I tend to faint.''

966
00:54:50,929 --> 00:54:53,864
I mean, those remarks
were just full of hostility...

967
00:54:53,965 --> 00:54:57,401
because, I mean, if I'd listened to those people,
I would have gone out there on stage...

968
00:54:57,502 --> 00:55:00,300
and I wouldn't have been able to hear anything,
and I would have fainted.

969
00:55:00,405 --> 00:55:02,339
But the hostility
was completely inappropriate...

970
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,408
because, in fact,
those people liked me.

971
00:55:04,509 --> 00:55:07,945
I mean, that hostility was just
some feeling that was, you know...

972
00:55:08,046 --> 00:55:10,879
left over from
some previous experience.

973
00:55:10,982 --> 00:55:14,349
Because somehow
in our social existence today...

974
00:55:14,452 --> 00:55:17,683
we're only allowed to
express our feelings, uh...

975
00:55:17,789 --> 00:55:19,916
weirdly and indirectly.

976
00:55:20,025 --> 00:55:22,459
If you express them directly,
everybody goes crazy.

977
00:55:22,561 --> 00:55:25,724
Well, did you express your feelings
about what those people said to you?

978
00:55:25,830 --> 00:55:29,857
No. [ Chuckles ] I mean, I didn't even know
what I felt till I thought about it later.

979
00:55:29,968 --> 00:55:33,335
And I mean, at the most, you know,
in a situation like that, uh...

980
00:55:33,438 --> 00:55:35,668
even if I had known what I felt...

981
00:55:35,774 --> 00:55:38,470
I might say something,
if I'm really annoyed...

982
00:55:38,577 --> 00:55:42,377
like, uh, ''Oh, yeah.
Well, that's just fascinating...

983
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:46,177
and, uh, I probably will
faint tonight,just as you did.''

984
00:55:46,284 --> 00:55:49,151
I do just the same thing myself.

985
00:55:49,254 --> 00:55:52,553
We can't be direct, so we end up
saying the weirdest things.

986
00:55:52,657 --> 00:55:55,854
I mean, I remember a night. It was
a couple of weeks after my mother died.

987
00:55:55,961 --> 00:55:57,861
And I was in pretty bad shape.

988
00:55:57,963 --> 00:56:00,090
And I had dinner with three
relatively close friends...

989
00:56:00,198 --> 00:56:02,166
two of whom had
known my mother quite well...

990
00:56:02,267 --> 00:56:04,792
and all three of whom
had known me for years.

991
00:56:04,903 --> 00:56:07,701
You know that we went through that
entire evening without my being able to...

992
00:56:07,806 --> 00:56:09,740
for a moment,
get anywhere near what -

993
00:56:09,841 --> 00:56:12,036
Not that I wanted to sit
and have this dreary evening...

994
00:56:12,143 --> 00:56:15,010
in which I was talking about all this pain
that I was going through and everything.

995
00:56:15,113 --> 00:56:16,740
Really, not at all.

996
00:56:16,848 --> 00:56:19,009
But the fact that nobody could say...

997
00:56:19,117 --> 00:56:21,950
''Gee, what a shame about your mother''
or ''How are you feeling?''

998
00:56:22,053 --> 00:56:25,386
It was just as if nothing had happened.
They were all making these jokes and laughing.

999
00:56:25,490 --> 00:56:27,458
I got quite crazy, as a matter of fact.

1000
00:56:27,559 --> 00:56:30,084
One of these people mentioned
a certain man whom I don't like very much...

1001
00:56:30,195 --> 00:56:34,063
and I started screeching about how
he had just been found in the Bronx River...

1002
00:56:34,165 --> 00:56:38,295
and his penis had dropped off from gonorrhea,
and all kinds of insane things.

1003
00:56:38,403 --> 00:56:43,067
And later, when I got home, I realized I'd just
been desperate to break through this ice.

1004
00:56:43,174 --> 00:56:44,641
Yeah.

1005
00:56:44,743 --> 00:56:48,770
I mean, do you realize, Wally, if you brought
that situation into a Tibetan home -

1006
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:51,872
That'd be just so far out. I mean,
they wouldn't be able to understand it.

1007
00:56:51,983 --> 00:56:54,417
That would be simply-
simply so weird, Wally.

1008
00:56:54,519 --> 00:56:58,353
If four Tibetans came together,
and tragedy had just struck one of the ones...

1009
00:56:58,456 --> 00:57:03,086
and they spent the whole evening going -
[ Loud Laughing ]

1010
00:57:03,194 --> 00:57:05,424
I mean,you know,
Tibetans would have looked at that...

1011
00:57:05,530 --> 00:57:08,556
and would have thought that was
the most unimaginable behavior.

1012
00:57:08,667 --> 00:57:10,999
- But for us, that's common behavior.
- Mm-hmm.

1013
00:57:11,102 --> 00:57:14,833
I mean, really, the - the Africans would have
probably put their spears into all four of us...

1014
00:57:14,939 --> 00:57:16,873
'cause it would have driven them crazy.

1015
00:57:16,975 --> 00:57:19,500
They would have thought we were
dangerous animals or something like that.

1016
00:57:19,611 --> 00:57:23,411
- Right.
- I mean, that's absolutely abnormal behavior.

1017
00:57:23,515 --> 00:57:25,642
Is everything all right, gentlemen?

1018
00:57:25,750 --> 00:57:27,650
- Great.
- Yeah.

1019
00:57:31,823 --> 00:57:34,018
But those are
typical evenings for us.

1020
00:57:34,125 --> 00:57:38,255
I mean, we go to dinners and parties
like that all the time.

1021
00:57:38,363 --> 00:57:41,389
These evenings are really
like sort of sickly dreams...

1022
00:57:41,499 --> 00:57:43,967
because people are talking in symbols.

1023
00:57:44,069 --> 00:57:48,301
Everyone is sort of floating through
this fog of symbols and unconscious feelings.

1024
00:57:48,406 --> 00:57:50,738
No one says what they're
really thinking about.

1025
00:57:50,842 --> 00:57:55,836
Then people will start making these jokes
that are really some sort of secret code.

1026
00:57:55,947 --> 00:57:58,347
Right. Well, what often happens
in some of these evenings...

1027
00:57:58,450 --> 00:58:02,853
is that these really crazy little fantasies
will just start being played with, you know...

1028
00:58:02,954 --> 00:58:06,048
and everyone will be talking at once
and sort of saying...

1029
00:58:06,157 --> 00:58:10,025
''Hey, wouldn't it be great if Frank Sinatra
and Mrs. Nixon and blah-blah-blah...

1030
00:58:10,128 --> 00:58:12,619
were in such and such a situation?''

1031
00:58:12,731 --> 00:58:16,064
You know, always with famous people,
and always sort of grotesque.

1032
00:58:16,167 --> 00:58:18,795
Or people will be talking about
some horrible thing...

1033
00:58:18,903 --> 00:58:23,363
like - like, uh, the death of that girl
in the car with Ted Kennedy...

1034
00:58:23,475 --> 00:58:25,909
and they'll just be
roaring with laughter.

1035
00:58:26,010 --> 00:58:28,444
I mean, it's really amazing.
It's just unbelievable.

1036
00:58:28,546 --> 00:58:33,643
That's the only way anything is expressed,
through these completely insane jokes.

1037
00:58:33,752 --> 00:58:36,983
I mean, I think that's why I never understand
what's going on at a party.

1038
00:58:37,088 --> 00:58:40,251
I'm always completely confused.

1039
00:58:40,358 --> 00:58:45,091
You know, uh, Debby once said,
after one of these New York evenings...

1040
00:58:45,196 --> 00:58:47,460
she thought she'd traveled
a greater distance...

1041
00:58:47,565 --> 00:58:51,057
just by journeying from her origins
in the suburbs of Chicago...

1042
00:58:51,169 --> 00:58:53,103
to that New York evening...

1043
00:58:53,204 --> 00:58:56,230
than her grandmother had traveled
in, uh, making her way...

1044
00:58:56,341 --> 00:58:58,969
from the steppes of Russia
to the suburbs of Chicago.

1045
00:58:59,077 --> 00:59:01,375
- I think that's right.
- [ Wally Chuckles ]

1046
00:59:02,547 --> 00:59:05,141
You know, it may- it may be, Wally,
that one of the reasons...

1047
00:59:05,250 --> 00:59:07,184
that we don't know
what's going on...

1048
00:59:07,285 --> 00:59:10,152
is that when we're there at a party,
we're all too busy performing.

1049
00:59:10,255 --> 00:59:11,552
Uh-huh.

1050
00:59:11,656 --> 00:59:15,057
That was one of the reasons
that, uh, Grotowski gave up the theater.

1051
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:19,290
He just felt that people in their lives now
were performing so well...

1052
00:59:19,397 --> 00:59:22,059
that performance in the theater
was sort of superfluous...

1053
00:59:22,167 --> 00:59:24,067
and, in a way, obscene.

1054
00:59:24,169 --> 00:59:26,330
Huh.

1055
00:59:26,437 --> 00:59:29,167
Isn't it amazing
how often a doctor...

1056
00:59:29,274 --> 00:59:31,970
will live up to our expectation
of how a doctor should look?

1057
00:59:32,076 --> 00:59:35,568
When you see a terrorist on television,
he looks just like a terrorist.

1058
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:38,148
I mean, we live in a world
in which fathers...

1059
00:59:38,249 --> 00:59:40,444
or single people, or artists...

1060
00:59:40,552 --> 00:59:42,747
are all trying to live up
to someone's fantasy...

1061
00:59:42,854 --> 00:59:46,813
of how a father, or a single person,
or an artist should look and behave.

1062
00:59:46,925 --> 00:59:49,723
They all act as if they know exactly how
they ought to conduct themselves...

1063
00:59:49,828 --> 00:59:51,728
at every single moment...

1064
00:59:51,830 --> 00:59:53,889
and they all seem totally self-confident.

1065
00:59:53,998 --> 00:59:56,466
Of course, privately people
are very mixed up about themselves.

1066
00:59:56,568 --> 00:59:57,694
Yeah.

1067
00:59:57,802 --> 00:59:59,997
They don't know what they should
be doing with their lives.

1068
01:00:00,104 --> 01:00:02,231
- They're reading all these self-help books.
- Oh, God!

1069
01:00:02,340 --> 01:00:04,831
I mean, those books are just so touching,
because they show...

1070
01:00:04,943 --> 01:00:07,844
how desperately curious we all are
to know how all the others of us...

1071
01:00:07,946 --> 01:00:09,914
are really getting on in life...

1072
01:00:10,014 --> 01:00:12,710
even though, by performing
these roles all the time...

1073
01:00:12,817 --> 01:00:15,809
we're just hiding the reality of ourselves
from everybody else.

1074
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:18,480
I mean, we live in such
ludicrous ignorance of each other.

1075
01:00:18,590 --> 01:00:20,785
We usually don't know
the things we'd like to know...

1076
01:00:20,892 --> 01:00:22,860
even about our supposedly
closest friends.

1077
01:00:22,961 --> 01:00:24,861
I mean - I mean, you know...

1078
01:00:24,963 --> 01:00:27,454
suppose you're going through
some kind of hell in your own life.

1079
01:00:27,565 --> 01:00:30,932
Well, you would love to know if your friends
have experienced similar things.

1080
01:00:31,035 --> 01:00:33,003
But we just don't dare to ask each other.

1081
01:00:33,104 --> 01:00:35,504
No. It would be like asking
your friend to drop his role.

1082
01:00:35,607 --> 01:00:39,008
I mean, we just put no value at all
on perceiving reality.

1083
01:00:39,110 --> 01:00:42,705
I mean, on the contrary, this incredible
emphasis that we all place now...

1084
01:00:42,814 --> 01:00:44,748
on our so-called careers...

1085
01:00:44,849 --> 01:00:49,479
automatically makes perceiving reality
a very low priority...

1086
01:00:49,587 --> 01:00:54,217
because if your life is organized around
trying to be successful in a career...

1087
01:00:54,325 --> 01:00:59,388
well, it just doesn't matter what
you perceive or what you experience.

1088
01:00:59,497 --> 01:01:02,762
You can really sort of shut your mind off
for years ahead, in a way.

1089
01:01:02,867 --> 01:01:05,802
You can sort of
turn on the automatic pilot.

1090
01:01:05,904 --> 01:01:09,237
You know,just the way your mother's doctor
had on his automatic pilot...

1091
01:01:09,340 --> 01:01:11,535
when he went in
and he looked at the arm...

1092
01:01:11,643 --> 01:01:14,077
and he totally failed
to perceive anything else.

1093
01:01:14,178 --> 01:01:18,137
That's right. Our- Our minds are just
focused on these goals and plans...

1094
01:01:18,249 --> 01:01:20,183
which in themselves
are not reality.

1095
01:01:20,285 --> 01:01:23,618
No. Goals and plans are not -

1096
01:01:23,721 --> 01:01:28,090
I mean, they're - they're fantasy.
They're part of a dream life.

1097
01:01:28,192 --> 01:01:31,719
I mean, you know, it always just
does seem so ridiculous, somehow...

1098
01:01:31,829 --> 01:01:35,492
that everybody has to have
his little - his little goal in life.

1099
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:39,866
I mean, it's so absurd, in a way, when you
consider that it doesn't matter which one it is.

1100
01:01:39,971 --> 01:01:42,405
Right. And because people's
concentration is on their goals...

1101
01:01:42,507 --> 01:01:45,499
in their life
they just live each moment by habit.

1102
01:01:45,610 --> 01:01:48,738
Really, like the Norwegian telling
the same stories over and over again.

1103
01:01:48,846 --> 01:01:51,371
- Mm-hmm.
- Life becomes habitual.

1104
01:01:51,482 --> 01:01:53,677
And it is today.

1105
01:01:53,785 --> 01:01:55,810
I mean, very few things happen now
like that moment...

1106
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:58,684
when Marlon Brando sent the Indian woman
to accept the Oscar...

1107
01:01:58,790 --> 01:02:00,690
and everything went haywire.

1108
01:02:00,792 --> 01:02:03,226
Things just very rarely
go haywire now.

1109
01:02:03,328 --> 01:02:06,320
And if you're just operating by habit...

1110
01:02:06,431 --> 01:02:09,229
then you're not really living.

1111
01:02:09,334 --> 01:02:11,962
I mean, you know, in Sanskrit,
the root of the verb ''to be''...

1112
01:02:12,070 --> 01:02:14,334
is the same as ''to grow''
or ''to make grow.''

1113
01:02:14,439 --> 01:02:16,339
Huh.

1114
01:02:17,675 --> 01:02:19,700
<i>[ Woman Laughing ]</i>

1115
01:02:19,811 --> 01:02:21,711
- <i>Do you know about Roc?</i>
- Hmm?

1116
01:02:21,813 --> 01:02:23,838
[ Chuckling ]
Oh, well.

1117
01:02:23,948 --> 01:02:25,939
Roc was a wonderful man.

1118
01:02:26,050 --> 01:02:28,314
He was one of the founders
of Findhorn...

1119
01:02:28,419 --> 01:02:32,719
and he was one of Scotland's -well,
he was Scotland's greatest mathematician...

1120
01:02:32,824 --> 01:02:35,292
and he was one of the century's
great mathematicians.

1121
01:02:35,393 --> 01:02:40,524
And he prided himself on the fact
that he had no fantasy life, no dream life -

1122
01:02:40,631 --> 01:02:43,259
nothing to stand be -
no imaginary life -

1123
01:02:43,368 --> 01:02:47,771
nothing to stand between him
and the direct perception of mathematics.

1124
01:02:47,872 --> 01:02:51,831
And one day when he was in his mid-50s,
he was walking in the gardens of Edinburgh...

1125
01:02:51,943 --> 01:02:54,776
and he saw a faun.

1126
01:02:54,879 --> 01:02:58,440
The faun was very surprised because fauns
have always been able to see people...

1127
01:02:58,549 --> 01:03:01,177
but you know,
very few people ever see them.

1128
01:03:01,285 --> 01:03:03,947
You know, uh,
those little imaginary creatures.

1129
01:03:04,055 --> 01:03:05,955
- Not a deer.
- Oh.

1130
01:03:06,057 --> 01:03:09,322
- You call them fauns, don't you?
- I thought a fawn was a baby deer.

1131
01:03:09,427 --> 01:03:12,624
Yeah, well, there's a deer that's called a fawn,
but these are like those little imagi...

1132
01:03:12,730 --> 01:03:15,255
- Oh! The kind that Debussy-
- Yes. Right.

1133
01:03:15,366 --> 01:03:18,767
Well, so he got to know the faun,
and he got to know other fauns...

1134
01:03:18,870 --> 01:03:21,134
and a series of conversations began...

1135
01:03:21,239 --> 01:03:24,037
and more and more fauns would
come out every afternoon to meet him.

1136
01:03:24,142 --> 01:03:26,110
And he'd have talks with the fauns.

1137
01:03:26,210 --> 01:03:29,475
Then one day, after a while, when, you know,
they'd really gotten to know him...

1138
01:03:29,580 --> 01:03:32,048
they asked him
if he would like to meet Pan...

1139
01:03:32,150 --> 01:03:34,243
because Pan would like to meet him.

1140
01:03:34,352 --> 01:03:36,377
And of course,
Pan was afraid of terrifying him...

1141
01:03:36,487 --> 01:03:39,081
because he knew
of the Christian misconception...

1142
01:03:39,190 --> 01:03:42,785
which portrayed Pan as an evil creature,
which he's not.

1143
01:03:42,894 --> 01:03:45,829
But Roc said he would love to meet Pan,
and so they met...

1144
01:03:45,930 --> 01:03:48,626
and Pan indirectly sent him
on his way on a journey...

1145
01:03:48,733 --> 01:03:53,033
in which he met the other people
who began Findhorn.

1146
01:03:53,137 --> 01:03:56,231
But Roc used to practice
certain exercises -

1147
01:03:56,340 --> 01:03:59,434
like, uh, for instance,
if he were right-handed...

1148
01:03:59,544 --> 01:04:01,842
all today he would do everything
with his left hand.

1149
01:04:01,946 --> 01:04:04,676
All day- eating, writing,
everything - opening doors...

1150
01:04:04,782 --> 01:04:07,546
in order to break the habits of living.

1151
01:04:07,652 --> 01:04:10,212
Because the great danger,
he felt, for him...

1152
01:04:10,321 --> 01:04:13,586
was to fall into a trance,
out of habit.

1153
01:04:13,691 --> 01:04:18,219
He had a whole series of very simple
exercises that he had invented...

1154
01:04:18,329 --> 01:04:22,493
just to keep
seeing, feeling, remembering.

1155
01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:24,534
Because you have to learn now.

1156
01:04:24,635 --> 01:04:27,604
It didn't used to be necessary,
but today you have to learn something...

1157
01:04:27,705 --> 01:04:29,764
like, uh, are you really hungry...

1158
01:04:29,874 --> 01:04:32,934
or are you just stuffing your face -
[ Laughing ]

1159
01:04:33,044 --> 01:04:35,239
Because that's what you do,
out of habit?

1160
01:04:35,346 --> 01:04:37,940
I mean, you can afford to do it,
so you do it...

1161
01:04:38,049 --> 01:04:40,017
whether you're hungry or not.

1162
01:04:40,118 --> 01:04:42,916
You know, if you go to
the Buddhist Meditation Center...

1163
01:04:43,020 --> 01:04:45,454
they make you taste
each bite of your food...

1164
01:04:45,556 --> 01:04:49,219
so it takes two hours -
it's horrible - to eat your lunch.

1165
01:04:49,327 --> 01:04:52,728
But you're conscious
of the taste of your food.

1166
01:04:52,830 --> 01:04:56,061
If you're just eating out of habit,
then you don't taste the food...

1167
01:04:56,167 --> 01:04:59,034
and you're not conscious of the reality
of what's happening to you.

1168
01:04:59,137 --> 01:05:01,196
You enter the dream world again.

1169
01:05:01,305 --> 01:05:04,741
Now, do you think maybe
we live in this dream world...

1170
01:05:04,842 --> 01:05:08,175
because we do so many things every day
that affect us in ways...

1171
01:05:08,279 --> 01:05:11,715
that somehow
we're just not aware of?

1172
01:05:11,816 --> 01:05:16,116
I mean, you know, I was thinking,
um, last Christmas...

1173
01:05:16,220 --> 01:05:19,383
Debby and I were given
an electric blanket.

1174
01:05:19,490 --> 01:05:24,223
I can tell you that it is just
such a marvelous advance...

1175
01:05:24,328 --> 01:05:28,856
- over our old way of life, and it is just great.
- [ André Chuckling ]

1176
01:05:28,966 --> 01:05:32,402
But, uh, it is quite different
from not having an electric blanket...

1177
01:05:32,503 --> 01:05:35,404
and I sometimes sort of wonder,
well, what is it doing to me?

1178
01:05:35,506 --> 01:05:39,067
I mean, I sort of feel, uh,
I'm not sleeping quite in the same way.

1179
01:05:39,177 --> 01:05:41,077
[ Chuckles ]
No, you wouldn't be.

1180
01:05:41,179 --> 01:05:44,080
I mean, uh, and my dreams
are sort of different...

1181
01:05:44,182 --> 01:05:46,980
and I feel a little bit different
when I get up in the morning.

1182
01:05:48,119 --> 01:05:51,577
I wouldn't put an electric blanket on
for anything.

1183
01:05:51,689 --> 01:05:56,422
First, I'd be worried I might get electrocuted.
No, I don't trust technology.

1184
01:05:56,527 --> 01:06:00,122
But I mean, the main thing, Wally,
is that I think that that kind of comfort...

1185
01:06:00,231 --> 01:06:03,359
just separates you from reality
in a very direct way.

1186
01:06:03,467 --> 01:06:06,163
- You mean -
- I mean, if you don't have that electric blanket...

1187
01:06:06,270 --> 01:06:08,966
and your apartment is cold
and you need to put on another blanket...

1188
01:06:09,073 --> 01:06:12,509
or go into the closet and pile up coats
on top of the blankets you have...

1189
01:06:12,610 --> 01:06:14,737
well, then you know it's cold.

1190
01:06:14,845 --> 01:06:17,109
And that sets up a link of things.

1191
01:06:17,215 --> 01:06:20,707
You have compassion for the per-
Well, is the person next to you cold?

1192
01:06:20,818 --> 01:06:22,945
Are there other people in the world
who are cold?

1193
01:06:23,054 --> 01:06:25,488
What a cold night!
I like the cold.

1194
01:06:25,590 --> 01:06:29,026
My God, I never realized.
I don't want a blanket. It's fun being cold.

1195
01:06:29,126 --> 01:06:32,459
I can snuggle up against you even more
because it's cold.

1196
01:06:32,563 --> 01:06:35,123
All sorts of things occur to you.

1197
01:06:35,233 --> 01:06:38,566
Turn on that electric blanket,
and it's like taking a tranquilizer...

1198
01:06:38,669 --> 01:06:41,137
or it's like being lobotomized
by watching television.

1199
01:06:41,239 --> 01:06:43,207
I think you enter
the dream world again.

1200
01:06:44,875 --> 01:06:48,003
I mean, what does it do to us, Wally,
living in an environment...

1201
01:06:48,112 --> 01:06:52,105
where something as massive
as the seasons, or winter, or cold...

1202
01:06:52,216 --> 01:06:54,343
don't in any way affect us?

1203
01:06:54,452 --> 01:06:56,420
I mean, we're animals, after all.

1204
01:06:56,520 --> 01:06:58,420
I mean, what does that mean?

1205
01:06:58,522 --> 01:07:01,616
I think that means that instead
of living under the sun...

1206
01:07:01,726 --> 01:07:04,388
and the moon and the sky
and the stars...

1207
01:07:04,495 --> 01:07:07,293
we're living in a fantasy world
of our own making.

1208
01:07:07,398 --> 01:07:10,731
Yeah, but I mean, I would never
give up my electric blanket, André.

1209
01:07:10,835 --> 01:07:13,599
I mean, because New York
is cold in the winter.

1210
01:07:13,704 --> 01:07:16,901
I mean, our apartment is cold.
It's a difficult environment.

1211
01:07:17,008 --> 01:07:19,135
I mean, our lives
are tough enough as it is.

1212
01:07:19,243 --> 01:07:22,735
I'm not looking for ways to get rid of
the few things that provide relief and comfort.

1213
01:07:22,847 --> 01:07:25,645
I mean, on the contrary,
I'm looking for more comfort...

1214
01:07:25,750 --> 01:07:28,082
because, uh, the world is very abrasive.

1215
01:07:28,185 --> 01:07:30,585
I mean, uh,
I'm trying to protect myself...

1216
01:07:30,688 --> 01:07:34,283
because, really, there are these abrasive
beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.

1217
01:07:34,392 --> 01:07:38,385
But, Wally, don't you - don't you see
that comfort can be dangerous?

1218
01:07:38,496 --> 01:07:41,693
I mean, you like to be comfortable,
and I like to be comfortable too...

1219
01:07:41,799 --> 01:07:45,257
but comfort can lull you
into a dangerous tranquillity.

1220
01:07:46,404 --> 01:07:49,373
I mean, my mother knew
a woman, Lady Hatfield...

1221
01:07:49,473 --> 01:07:51,566
who was one of the richest women
in the world...

1222
01:07:51,676 --> 01:07:54,941
and she died of starvation
because all she would eat was chicken.

1223
01:07:55,046 --> 01:07:57,844
I mean, she just liked chicken, Wally,
and that was all she would eat.

1224
01:07:57,948 --> 01:08:01,008
And actually her body was starving,
but she didn't know it...

1225
01:08:01,118 --> 01:08:04,713
'cause she was quite happy eating her chicken,
and so she finally died.

1226
01:08:04,822 --> 01:08:08,952
See, I honestly believe
that we're all like Lady Hatfield now.

1227
01:08:09,060 --> 01:08:12,996
We're having a lovely, comfortable time
with our electric blankets and our chicken...

1228
01:08:13,097 --> 01:08:16,965
and meanwhile we're starving because
we're so cut off from contact with reality...

1229
01:08:17,068 --> 01:08:20,868
that we're not getting any real sustenance,
'cause we don't see the world.

1230
01:08:20,971 --> 01:08:22,871
We don't see ourselves.

1231
01:08:22,973 --> 01:08:25,100
We don't see how our actions
affect other people.

1232
01:08:25,209 --> 01:08:28,303
Have you read Martin Buber's book
<i>On Hasidism?</i>

1233
01:08:28,412 --> 01:08:30,607
- No.
- Well, here's a view of life.

1234
01:08:30,715 --> 01:08:33,650
I mean, he talks about the belief
of the HasidicJews...

1235
01:08:33,751 --> 01:08:35,651
that there are spirits chained
in everything.

1236
01:08:35,753 --> 01:08:38,654
There are spirits chained in you.
There are spirits chained in me.

1237
01:08:38,756 --> 01:08:41,122
Well, there are spirits chained
in this table.

1238
01:08:41,225 --> 01:08:46,128
And that prayer is the action of liberating
these enchained embryo-like spirits...

1239
01:08:46,230 --> 01:08:48,255
and that every action of ours in life...

1240
01:08:48,366 --> 01:08:51,392
whether it's, uh,
doing business, or making love...

1241
01:08:51,502 --> 01:08:53,470
or having dinner together,
or whatever-

1242
01:08:53,571 --> 01:08:56,165
that every action of ours
should be a prayer...

1243
01:08:56,273 --> 01:08:58,070
a sacrament in the world.

1244
01:08:58,175 --> 01:09:00,735
Now, do you think we're living like that?

1245
01:09:00,845 --> 01:09:02,870
Why do you think
we're not living like that?

1246
01:09:02,980 --> 01:09:05,972
I think it's because if we allowed ourselves
to see what we do every day...

1247
01:09:06,083 --> 01:09:08,051
we might just find it too nauseating.

1248
01:09:08,152 --> 01:09:10,120
I mean, the way we treat other people.

1249
01:09:10,221 --> 01:09:13,782
You know, every day, several times a day,
I walk into my apartment building.

1250
01:09:13,891 --> 01:09:17,349
The doorman calls me Mr. Gregory,
and I call him Jimmy.

1251
01:09:17,461 --> 01:09:20,555
Already, what's the difference
between that...

1252
01:09:20,664 --> 01:09:23,462
and the Southern plantation owner
who's got slaves?

1253
01:09:23,567 --> 01:09:26,559
You see, I think that an act of murder
is committed in that moment...

1254
01:09:26,670 --> 01:09:28,638
when I walk into that building.

1255
01:09:28,739 --> 01:09:32,869
Because here's a dignified, intelligent man -
a man of my own age -

1256
01:09:32,977 --> 01:09:36,572
and when I call him Jimmy,
then he becomes a child, and I'm an adult...

1257
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:38,944
because I can buy my way
into the building.

1258
01:09:39,049 --> 01:09:41,677
Right. That's right.

1259
01:09:41,786 --> 01:09:45,654
I mean, my God,
when I was a Latin teacher...

1260
01:09:45,756 --> 01:09:47,849
I mean, people used to treat me -

1261
01:09:47,958 --> 01:09:50,722
I mean, uh, you know,
if I would go to a party...

1262
01:09:50,828 --> 01:09:53,695
of professional or literary people...

1263
01:09:53,798 --> 01:09:57,290
I mean, I was just treated, uh,
in the nicest sense of the word...

1264
01:09:57,401 --> 01:09:59,028
uh, like a dog.

1265
01:09:59,136 --> 01:10:01,161
I mean, in other words,
there was no question...

1266
01:10:01,272 --> 01:10:04,901
of my being able to participate on
an equal basis in a conversation with people.

1267
01:10:05,009 --> 01:10:07,443
I mean, you know, I'd occasionally
have conversations with people...

1268
01:10:07,545 --> 01:10:10,036
but then, uh,
when they asked what I did...

1269
01:10:10,147 --> 01:10:12,615
which would always happen
after about five minutes...

1270
01:10:12,716 --> 01:10:14,843
uh, you know, their faces -

1271
01:10:14,952 --> 01:10:18,683
Even if they were enjoying the conversation, or
they were flirting with me, or whatever it was -

1272
01:10:18,789 --> 01:10:22,225
their faces would just have that expression
just like the portcullis crashing down.

1273
01:10:22,326 --> 01:10:25,693
You know, those medieval gates.
They would just walk away.

1274
01:10:25,796 --> 01:10:29,129
I mean, I literally lived like a dog.

1275
01:10:29,233 --> 01:10:32,760
And I mean, uh, when Debby was
working as a secretary, you know...

1276
01:10:32,870 --> 01:10:36,431
if she would tell people what she did,
they would just go insane.

1277
01:10:36,540 --> 01:10:38,838
I mean, it would be just
as if she'd said, uh...

1278
01:10:38,943 --> 01:10:43,744
''Oh, well, I've been serving a life sentence
recently, uh, for child murdering.''

1279
01:10:44,982 --> 01:10:48,941
I mean, my God, you know, when you talk
about our attitudes toward other people...

1280
01:10:50,321 --> 01:10:52,289
I mean, I think of myself...

1281
01:10:52,389 --> 01:10:56,348
as just a very decent,
good person, you know...

1282
01:10:56,460 --> 01:10:58,792
just because I think
I'm reasonably friendly...

1283
01:10:58,896 --> 01:11:01,126
to most of the people
I happen to meet every day.

1284
01:11:01,232 --> 01:11:03,894
I mean, I really think
of myself quite smugly.

1285
01:11:04,001 --> 01:11:07,095
I just think I'm a perfectly nice guy,
uh, you know...

1286
01:11:07,204 --> 01:11:10,264
so long as I think of the world
as consisting of, you know...

1287
01:11:10,374 --> 01:11:13,138
just the small circle of the people
that I know as friends...

1288
01:11:13,244 --> 01:11:16,236
or the few people that we know
in this little world of our little hobbies -

1289
01:11:16,347 --> 01:11:18,247
the theater or whatever it is.

1290
01:11:18,349 --> 01:11:21,375
And I'm really quite self-satisfied.
I'm just quite happy with myself.

1291
01:11:21,485 --> 01:11:23,612
I just have no complaint about myself.

1292
01:11:23,721 --> 01:11:25,689
I mean, you know, let's face it.

1293
01:11:25,789 --> 01:11:29,555
I mean, there's a whole enormous world
out there that I just don't ever think about.

1294
01:11:29,660 --> 01:11:33,892
I certainly don't take responsibility
for how I've lived in that world.

1295
01:11:33,998 --> 01:11:36,796
I mean, you know, if I were actually
to sort of confront the fact...

1296
01:11:36,901 --> 01:11:39,028
that I'm sort of sharing this stage...

1297
01:11:39,136 --> 01:11:41,627
with-with-with this starving person
in Africa somewhere...

1298
01:11:41,739 --> 01:11:44,230
well, I wouldn't feel so great
about myself.

1299
01:11:44,341 --> 01:11:49,040
So naturally I just - I just blot all those
people right out of my perception.

1300
01:11:49,146 --> 01:11:52,240
So, of course -
of course, I'm ignoring...

1301
01:11:52,349 --> 01:11:55,682
a whole section of the real world.

1302
01:11:55,853 --> 01:11:58,287
But frankly, you know...

1303
01:11:58,389 --> 01:12:02,689
when I write a play, in a way, one of the things
I guess I think I'm trying to do...

1304
01:12:02,793 --> 01:12:05,990
is I'm trying to bring myself up
against some little bits of reality...

1305
01:12:06,096 --> 01:12:09,122
and I'm trying to share that, uh,
with an audience.

1306
01:12:10,634 --> 01:12:13,535
I mean - I mean,
of course we all know, uh...

1307
01:12:13,637 --> 01:12:16,162
the theater is, uh,
in terrible shape today.

1308
01:12:16,273 --> 01:12:20,642
I mean, uh - I mean, at least a few years ago
people who really cared about the theater...

1309
01:12:20,744 --> 01:12:23,042
used to say, ''The theater is dead.''

1310
01:12:23,147 --> 01:12:26,048
And now everybody's redefined
the theater in such a trivial way...

1311
01:12:26,150 --> 01:12:28,084
that, I mean - I mean, God...

1312
01:12:28,185 --> 01:12:32,349
I know people who are involved with
the theater who go to see things now that -

1313
01:12:32,456 --> 01:12:34,788
I mean, a few years ago
these same people...

1314
01:12:34,892 --> 01:12:37,759
would have just been embarrassed
to have even seen some of these plays.

1315
01:12:37,861 --> 01:12:40,386
I mean, they would have just shrunk,
you know,just in horror...

1316
01:12:40,497 --> 01:12:42,692
at the superficiality of these things.

1317
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:45,360
But now they say,
''Oh, that was pretty good.''

1318
01:12:45,469 --> 01:12:47,437
It's just incredible.

1319
01:12:47,538 --> 01:12:50,666
And I really just find that attitude
unbearable...

1320
01:12:50,774 --> 01:12:54,540
because I really do think the theater
can do something very important.

1321
01:12:54,645 --> 01:12:59,514
I mean, I do think the theater can help
bring people in contact with reality.

1322
01:12:59,617 --> 01:13:04,247
Now, now, you may not feel that at all.
You may just find that totally absurd.

1323
01:13:05,656 --> 01:13:08,591
Yeah, but, Wally,
don't you see the dilemma?

1324
01:13:08,692 --> 01:13:12,651
You're not taking into account
the period we're living in.

1325
01:13:12,763 --> 01:13:14,924
I mean, of course that's what
the theater should do.

1326
01:13:15,032 --> 01:13:16,966
I mean, I've always felt that.

1327
01:13:17,067 --> 01:13:20,434
You know, when I was a young director,
and I directed the <i>Bacchae</i> at Yale...

1328
01:13:20,537 --> 01:13:23,802
my impulse, when Pentheus has been
killed by his mother and the Furies...

1329
01:13:23,907 --> 01:13:26,501
and they pull the tree back,
and they tie him to the tree...

1330
01:13:26,610 --> 01:13:29,841
and fling him into the air, and he flies
through space and he's killed...

1331
01:13:29,947 --> 01:13:32,916
and they rip him to shreds
and I guess cut off his head -

1332
01:13:33,017 --> 01:13:36,646
my impulse was that the thing to do was
to get a head from the New Haven morgue...

1333
01:13:36,754 --> 01:13:38,722
and pass it around the audience.

1334
01:13:38,822 --> 01:13:41,655
Now, I wanted Agawe
to bring on a real head...

1335
01:13:41,759 --> 01:13:44,227
and that this head should be
passed around the audience...

1336
01:13:44,328 --> 01:13:47,923
so that somehow people realized
that this stuff was real, see?

1337
01:13:48,032 --> 01:13:50,557
That it was real stuff.

1338
01:13:50,668 --> 01:13:54,399
- Now, the actress playing Agawe
absolutely refused to do it.
- [ Giggling ]

1339
01:13:54,505 --> 01:13:56,564
You know, Gordon Craig
used to talk about...

1340
01:13:56,674 --> 01:14:00,838
why is there gold or silver in the churches
or something - the great cathedrals -

1341
01:14:00,944 --> 01:14:04,471
when actors could be wearing
gold and silver?

1342
01:14:04,581 --> 01:14:08,278
And I mean, people who saw Eleonora Duse
in the last couple of years of her life, Wally-

1343
01:14:08,385 --> 01:14:11,752
people said that is was like
seeing light on stage, or mist...

1344
01:14:11,855 --> 01:14:13,823
or the essence of something.

1345
01:14:13,924 --> 01:14:16,552
I mean, then when you think
about Bertolt Brecht -

1346
01:14:16,660 --> 01:14:19,788
He somehow created a theater
in which people could observe...

1347
01:14:19,897 --> 01:14:22,092
that was vastly entertaining
and exciting...

1348
01:14:22,199 --> 01:14:25,225
but in which the excitement
didn't overwhelm you.

1349
01:14:25,335 --> 01:14:29,601
He somehow allowed you the distance
between the play and yourself...

1350
01:14:29,707 --> 01:14:32,574
that, in fact, two human beings need
in order to live together.

1351
01:14:32,676 --> 01:14:36,703
You know, the question is whether
the theater now can do for an audience...

1352
01:14:36,814 --> 01:14:40,181
what Brecht tried to do
or what Craig or Duse tried to do.

1353
01:14:40,284 --> 01:14:42,184
Can it do it now?

1354
01:14:42,286 --> 01:14:45,619
'Cause, you see, I think that
people today are so deeply asleep...

1355
01:14:45,723 --> 01:14:48,351
that unless, you know, you're putting on
those sort of superficial plays...

1356
01:14:48,459 --> 01:14:50,689
that just help your audience
to sleep more comfortably...

1357
01:14:50,794 --> 01:14:53,558
it's very hard to know
what to do in the theater.

1358
01:14:53,664 --> 01:14:55,564
<i>[ People Chattering, Laughing ]</i>

1359
01:14:55,666 --> 01:15:00,262
Because, you see, I think that if you
put on serious, contemporary plays...

1360
01:15:00,370 --> 01:15:02,270
by writers like yourself...

1361
01:15:02,372 --> 01:15:05,034
you may only be helping to deaden
the audience in a different way.

1362
01:15:05,142 --> 01:15:07,702
What do you mean?

1363
01:15:07,811 --> 01:15:09,836
Well, I mean, Wally...

1364
01:15:09,947 --> 01:15:13,280
how does it affect an audience
to put on one of these plays...

1365
01:15:13,383 --> 01:15:16,352
in which you show that people
are totally isolated now...

1366
01:15:16,453 --> 01:15:19,650
and they can't reach each other,
and their lives are desperate?

1367
01:15:19,757 --> 01:15:23,124
Or how does it affect them to see a play
that shows that our world...

1368
01:15:23,227 --> 01:15:27,391
is full of nothing but shocking
sexual events, and terror, and violence?

1369
01:15:27,498 --> 01:15:29,762
Does that help to wake up
a sleeping audience?

1370
01:15:29,867 --> 01:15:32,995
See, I don't think so,
'cause I think it's very likely...

1371
01:15:33,103 --> 01:15:36,129
that the picture of the world that you're
showing them in a play like that...

1372
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:39,266
is exactly the picture of the world
they have already.

1373
01:15:39,376 --> 01:15:42,174
I mean, you know, they know
their own lives and relationships...

1374
01:15:42,279 --> 01:15:44,247
are difficult and painful.

1375
01:15:44,348 --> 01:15:46,509
And if they watch the evening news
on television...

1376
01:15:46,617 --> 01:15:49,745
well, there what they see
is a terrifying, chaotic universe...

1377
01:15:49,853 --> 01:15:53,880
full of rapes and murders
and hands cut off by subway cars...

1378
01:15:53,991 --> 01:15:57,518
and children pushing their parents
out of windows.

1379
01:15:57,628 --> 01:16:00,893
So the play tells them that
their impression of the world is correct...

1380
01:16:00,998 --> 01:16:02,966
and that there's absolutely no way out.

1381
01:16:03,066 --> 01:16:04,966
There's nothing they can do.

1382
01:16:05,068 --> 01:16:08,003
And they end up feeling
passive and impotent.

1383
01:16:08,105 --> 01:16:10,573
I mean, look- look, at something
like that christening...

1384
01:16:10,674 --> 01:16:12,972
that my group arranged for me
in the forest in Poland.

1385
01:16:13,076 --> 01:16:16,068
Well, there was an example of something
that really had all the elements of theater.

1386
01:16:16,180 --> 01:16:19,343
It was worked on carefully.
It was thought about carefully.

1387
01:16:19,449 --> 01:16:21,815
It was done with
exquisite taste and magic.

1388
01:16:21,919 --> 01:16:24,046
And they, in fact, created something...

1389
01:16:24,154 --> 01:16:27,885
which, in this case, was, in a way,
just for an audience of one -just for me.

1390
01:16:27,991 --> 01:16:31,859
But they created something
that had ritual, love, surprise...

1391
01:16:31,962 --> 01:16:33,930
denouement,
beginning, a middle and end...

1392
01:16:34,031 --> 01:16:37,296
and was an incredibly beautiful
piece of theater.

1393
01:16:37,401 --> 01:16:39,596
And the impact that it had
on its audience - on me -

1394
01:16:39,703 --> 01:16:42,001
was somehow a totally positive one.

1395
01:16:42,105 --> 01:16:44,573
It didn't deaden me.
It brought me to life.

1396
01:16:47,477 --> 01:16:49,741
Yeah, but I mean, are you saying
that it's impossible -

1397
01:16:49,847 --> 01:16:53,977
I mean, uh - I mean -
I mean, uh, isn't it a little upsetting...

1398
01:16:54,084 --> 01:16:57,884
to come to the conclusion that there's
no way to wake people up anymore...

1399
01:16:57,988 --> 01:17:02,288
except to involve them in some kind
of a strange, uh, christening in Poland...

1400
01:17:02,392 --> 01:17:04,952
or some kind of a strange experience
on top of Mount Everest?

1401
01:17:05,062 --> 01:17:09,431
I mean, uh, because, uh,
you know that the awful thing is...

1402
01:17:09,533 --> 01:17:11,728
if you really say that it's-it's necessary...

1403
01:17:11,835 --> 01:17:14,360
to, uh, take everybody to, uh, Everest...

1404
01:17:14,471 --> 01:17:18,464
it's really tough, because everybody
can't be taken to Everest.

1405
01:17:18,575 --> 01:17:21,772
I mean, there must have been periods in history
when it would have been possible...

1406
01:17:21,879 --> 01:17:24,814
to, uh, save the patient
through less drastic measures.

1407
01:17:24,915 --> 01:17:27,509
I mean, there must have been periods
when in order to give people...

1408
01:17:27,618 --> 01:17:29,586
a strong or meaningful experience...

1409
01:17:29,686 --> 01:17:32,655
you wouldn't actually have to
take them to Everest.

1410
01:17:32,756 --> 01:17:35,054
But you do now.
In some way or other, you do now.

1411
01:17:35,158 --> 01:17:37,956
You know, there was a time when you
could have just, for instance, written...

1412
01:17:38,061 --> 01:17:41,462
I don't know,
uh, <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> byJane Austen.

1413
01:17:41,565 --> 01:17:45,194
And I'm sure the people who read it had
a pretty strong experience. I'm sure they did.

1414
01:17:45,302 --> 01:17:47,964
I mean, all right, now you're saying
that people today wouldn't get it.

1415
01:17:48,071 --> 01:17:51,700
Maybe that's true. But I mean, isn't there
any kind of writing or any kind of a play-

1416
01:17:51,808 --> 01:17:54,276
I mean, isn't it still legitimate
for writers...

1417
01:17:54,378 --> 01:17:57,643
to try to portray reality
so that people can see it?

1418
01:17:57,748 --> 01:18:01,809
I mean, really, tell me, why do we
require a trip to Mount Everest...

1419
01:18:01,919 --> 01:18:04,217
in order to be able to perceive
one moment of reality?

1420
01:18:04,321 --> 01:18:07,119
I mean - I mean, is Mount Everest
more real than New York?

1421
01:18:07,224 --> 01:18:09,249
I mean, isn't New York real?

1422
01:18:09,359 --> 01:18:13,455
I mean, you see, I think if you
could become fully aware...

1423
01:18:13,563 --> 01:18:17,021
of what existed in the cigar store
next door to this restaurant...

1424
01:18:17,134 --> 01:18:19,102
I think it would just
blow your brains out.

1425
01:18:19,202 --> 01:18:21,693
I mean - I mean, isn't there
just as much reality to be perceived...

1426
01:18:21,805 --> 01:18:23,773
in a cigar store
as there is on Mount Everest?

1427
01:18:23,874 --> 01:18:25,466
I mean, what do you think?

1428
01:18:25,575 --> 01:18:28,237
I think that not only is there nothing
more real about Mount Everest...

1429
01:18:28,345 --> 01:18:30,370
I think there's nothing that different,
in a certain way.

1430
01:18:30,480 --> 01:18:32,971
I mean, because reality
is uniform, in a way...

1431
01:18:33,083 --> 01:18:35,051
so that if your-
if your perceptions are -

1432
01:18:35,152 --> 01:18:37,950
I mean, if your own mechanism
is operating correctly...

1433
01:18:38,055 --> 01:18:41,354
it would become irrelevant to go
to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd...

1434
01:18:41,458 --> 01:18:44,256
because, I mean - it just -
I mean, of course, on some level, I mean...

1435
01:18:44,361 --> 01:18:47,956
obviously it's very different
from a cigar store on 7 th Avenue.

1436
01:18:48,065 --> 01:18:51,262
- But I mean -
- Well, I agree with you, Wally.

1437
01:18:51,368 --> 01:18:54,030
But the problem is that people
can't see the cigar store now.

1438
01:18:54,137 --> 01:18:56,605
I mean, things don't affect people
the way they used to.

1439
01:18:56,707 --> 01:18:59,107
I mean, it may very well be
that 1 0 years from now...

1440
01:18:59,209 --> 01:19:01,939
people will pay $1 0,000 in cash
to be castrated...

1441
01:19:02,045 --> 01:19:04,673
just in order to be affected by something.

1442
01:19:06,283 --> 01:19:09,377
Well, why-why do you think that is?
I mean, why is that?

1443
01:19:09,486 --> 01:19:13,946
I mean, is it just because people
are lazy today, or they're bored?

1444
01:19:14,057 --> 01:19:17,151
I mean, are we just
like bored, spoiled children...

1445
01:19:17,260 --> 01:19:19,751
who've just been lying
in the bathtub all day...

1446
01:19:19,863 --> 01:19:22,161
just playing with their plastic duck...

1447
01:19:22,265 --> 01:19:25,632
and now they're just thinking,
''Well, what can I do?''

1448
01:19:27,204 --> 01:19:29,968
Okay. Yes. We're bored.

1449
01:19:30,040 --> 01:19:32,008
We're all bored now.

1450
01:19:32,109 --> 01:19:34,304
But has it every occurred to you, Wally,
that the process...

1451
01:19:34,411 --> 01:19:36,902
that creates this boredom
that we see in the world now...

1452
01:19:37,014 --> 01:19:41,383
may very well be a self-perpetuating,
unconscious form of brainwashing...

1453
01:19:41,485 --> 01:19:44,716
created by a world totalitarian government
based on money...

1454
01:19:44,821 --> 01:19:47,449
and that all of this is much more dangerous
than one thinks...

1455
01:19:47,557 --> 01:19:50,390
and it's not just a question
of individual survival, Wally...

1456
01:19:50,494 --> 01:19:52,894
but that somebody who's bored
is asleep...

1457
01:19:52,996 --> 01:19:56,124
and somebody who's asleep
will not say no?

1458
01:19:56,233 --> 01:19:59,031
See, I keep meeting these people -
I mean, uh,just a few days ago...

1459
01:19:59,136 --> 01:20:01,070
I met this man whom I greatly admire.

1460
01:20:01,171 --> 01:20:03,469
He's a Swedish physicist.
Gustav Björnstrand.

1461
01:20:03,573 --> 01:20:06,098
And he told me that he
no longer watches television...

1462
01:20:06,209 --> 01:20:09,110
he doesn't read newspapers,
and he doesn't read magazines.

1463
01:20:09,212 --> 01:20:11,476
He's completely
cut them out of his life...

1464
01:20:11,581 --> 01:20:16,041
because he really does feel that we're living
in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now...

1465
01:20:16,153 --> 01:20:20,180
and that everything that you hear now
contributes to turning you into a robot.

1466
01:20:21,291 --> 01:20:24,920
And when I was at Findhorn, I met
this extraordinary English tree expert...

1467
01:20:25,028 --> 01:20:27,121
who had devoted his life
to saving trees.

1468
01:20:27,230 --> 01:20:29,596
Just got back from Washington,
lobbying to save the redwoods.

1469
01:20:29,699 --> 01:20:32,532
He's 84 years old,
and he always travels with a backpack...

1470
01:20:32,636 --> 01:20:34,604
'cause he never knows
where he's gonna be tomorrow.

1471
01:20:34,704 --> 01:20:37,696
And when I met him at Findhorn,
he said to me, ''Where are you from?''

1472
01:20:37,808 --> 01:20:40,834
I said, ''New York.'' He said, ''Ah, New York.
Yes, that's a very interesting place.

1473
01:20:40,944 --> 01:20:44,846
Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep
talking about the fact that they want to leave,
but never do?''

1474
01:20:44,948 --> 01:20:47,576
And I said, ''Oh, yes.'' And he said,
''Why do you think they don't leave?''

1475
01:20:47,684 --> 01:20:51,552
I gave him different banal theories.
He said, ''Oh, I don't think it's that way at all.''

1476
01:20:51,655 --> 01:20:56,217
He said, ''I think that New York is the new
model for the new concentration camp...

1477
01:20:56,326 --> 01:20:58,760
''where the camp has been built
by the inmates themselves...

1478
01:20:58,862 --> 01:21:02,423
''and the inmates are the guards, and they
have this pride in this thing they've built.

1479
01:21:02,532 --> 01:21:04,432
''They've built their own prison.

1480
01:21:04,534 --> 01:21:06,525
''And so they exist
in a state of schizophrenia...

1481
01:21:06,636 --> 01:21:08,536
''where they are both guards
and prisoners.

1482
01:21:08,638 --> 01:21:12,005
''And as a result, they no longer have -
having been lobotomized -

1483
01:21:12,109 --> 01:21:14,475
''the capacity to leave
the prison they've made...

1484
01:21:14,578 --> 01:21:17,445
or to even see it as a prison.''

1485
01:21:17,547 --> 01:21:20,744
And then he went into his pocket,
and he took out a seed for a tree...

1486
01:21:20,851 --> 01:21:22,785
and he said, ''This is a pine tree.''

1487
01:21:22,886 --> 01:21:26,481
He put it in my hand and he said,
''Escape before it's too late.''

1488
01:21:27,757 --> 01:21:30,419
See, actually,
for two or three years now...

1489
01:21:30,527 --> 01:21:34,793
Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant
feeling that we really should get out.

1490
01:21:34,898 --> 01:21:37,662
We really feel likeJews in Germany
in the late '30s.

1491
01:21:37,767 --> 01:21:39,667
Get out of here.

1492
01:21:39,769 --> 01:21:41,828
Of course, the problem is
where to go.

1493
01:21:41,938 --> 01:21:46,739
'Cause it seems quite obvious that the
whole world is going in the same direction.

1494
01:21:48,812 --> 01:21:52,077
See, I think it's quite possible
that the 1 960s...

1495
01:21:52,182 --> 01:21:56,881
represented the last burst of the human being
before he was extinguished...

1496
01:21:56,987 --> 01:21:59,649
and that this is the beginning
of the rest of the future, now...

1497
01:21:59,756 --> 01:22:03,817
and that from now on there'll simply be
all these robots walking around...

1498
01:22:03,927 --> 01:22:06,225
feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

1499
01:22:06,329 --> 01:22:09,264
And there'll be nobody left almost
to remind them...

1500
01:22:09,366 --> 01:22:12,631
that there once was a species
called a human being...

1501
01:22:12,736 --> 01:22:14,704
with feelings and thoughts...

1502
01:22:14,804 --> 01:22:17,637
and that history and memory
are right now being erased...

1503
01:22:17,741 --> 01:22:20,642
and soon nobody
will really remember...

1504
01:22:20,744 --> 01:22:22,939
that life existed on the planet.

1505
01:22:24,614 --> 01:22:29,051
Now, of course, Björnstrand feels
that there's really almost no hope...

1506
01:22:29,152 --> 01:22:32,519
and that we're probably
going back to a very savage...

1507
01:22:32,622 --> 01:22:35,648
lawless, terrifying period.

1508
01:22:35,759 --> 01:22:38,193
Findhorn people
see it a little differently.

1509
01:22:38,295 --> 01:22:41,128
They're feeling that there'll be
these pockets of light...

1510
01:22:41,231 --> 01:22:43,290
springing up
in different parts of the world...

1511
01:22:43,400 --> 01:22:47,700
and that these will be, in a way,
invisible planets on this planet...

1512
01:22:47,804 --> 01:22:50,295
and that as we, or the world,
grow colder...

1513
01:22:50,407 --> 01:22:54,002
we can take invisible space journeys
to these different planets...

1514
01:22:54,110 --> 01:22:57,546
refuel for what it is we need to do
on the planet itself...

1515
01:22:57,647 --> 01:22:59,945
and come back.

1516
01:23:00,050 --> 01:23:02,917
And it's their feeling that
there have to be centers now...

1517
01:23:03,019 --> 01:23:07,319
where people can come and reconstruct
a new future for the world.

1518
01:23:07,424 --> 01:23:09,392
And when I was talking
to, uh, Gustav Björnstrand...

1519
01:23:09,492 --> 01:23:12,723
he was saying that actually these centers
are growing up everywhere now...

1520
01:23:12,829 --> 01:23:15,821
and that what they're trying to do,
which is what Findhorn was trying to do...

1521
01:23:15,932 --> 01:23:18,127
and, in a way, what I was trying to do -

1522
01:23:18,235 --> 01:23:20,567
I mean,
these things can't be given names...

1523
01:23:20,670 --> 01:23:24,868
but in a way, these are all attempts
at creating a new kind of school...

1524
01:23:24,975 --> 01:23:27,170
or a new kind of monastery.

1525
01:23:27,277 --> 01:23:29,745
And Björnstrand talks about
the concept of''reserves'' -

1526
01:23:29,846 --> 01:23:32,610
islands of safety where history
can be remembered...

1527
01:23:32,716 --> 01:23:35,276
and the human being
can continue to function...

1528
01:23:35,385 --> 01:23:39,014
in order to maintain the species
through a dark age.

1529
01:23:41,124 --> 01:23:43,456
In other words, we're talking
about an underground...

1530
01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:46,188
which did exist in a different way
during the Dark Ages...

1531
01:23:46,296 --> 01:23:48,992
among the mystical orders
of the church.

1532
01:23:49,099 --> 01:23:51,192
And the purpose of this underground...

1533
01:23:51,301 --> 01:23:56,466
is to find out how to preserve
the light, life, the culture...

1534
01:23:56,573 --> 01:24:00,009
how to keep things living.

1535
01:24:00,110 --> 01:24:03,011
You see, I keep thinking
that what we need...

1536
01:24:03,113 --> 01:24:05,911
is a new language -

1537
01:24:06,016 --> 01:24:08,143
a language of the heart...

1538
01:24:08,251 --> 01:24:12,187
a language, as in the Polish forest,
where language wasn't needed.

1539
01:24:12,289 --> 01:24:17,226
Some kind of language between people
that is a new kind of poetry...

1540
01:24:17,327 --> 01:24:21,855
that's the poetry of the dancing bee
that tells us where the honey is.

1541
01:24:21,965 --> 01:24:25,025
And I think that in order
to create that language...

1542
01:24:25,135 --> 01:24:28,627
you're going to have to learn how
you can go through a looking glass...

1543
01:24:28,738 --> 01:24:30,706
into another kind of perception...

1544
01:24:30,807 --> 01:24:35,710
where you have that sense
of being united to all things...

1545
01:24:35,812 --> 01:24:39,009
and suddenly you understand everything.

1546
01:24:43,420 --> 01:24:47,117
<i>[ Siren Wailing In Distance]</i>

1547
01:24:48,158 --> 01:24:50,422
Are you ready for some dessert?

1548
01:24:50,527 --> 01:24:52,654
Uh, I think I'll just have an espresso.
Thank you.

1549
01:24:52,762 --> 01:24:56,698
- Very good.
- I'll - I'll also have one. Thank you.

1550
01:24:56,800 --> 01:25:00,099
And -And, uh, could I also
have, uh, an amaretto?

1551
01:25:00,203 --> 01:25:02,831
Certainly, sir.

1552
01:25:02,939 --> 01:25:05,032
Thank you.

1553
01:25:05,141 --> 01:25:09,407
You see, Wally, there's this incredible
building that they built at Findhorn.

1554
01:25:09,512 --> 01:25:12,106
And the man who designed it
had never designed anything in his life.

1555
01:25:12,215 --> 01:25:14,149
He wrote children's books.

1556
01:25:14,250 --> 01:25:17,413
And some people wanted it to be
a sort of hall of meditation...

1557
01:25:17,520 --> 01:25:19,920
and others wanted it to be
a kind of lecture hall.

1558
01:25:20,023 --> 01:25:24,084
But the psychic part of the community
wanted it to serve another function as well...

1559
01:25:24,194 --> 01:25:27,789
because they wanted it to be a kind
of spaceship which at night could rise up...

1560
01:25:27,897 --> 01:25:30,661
and let the U.F.O.'s know that this
was a safe place to land...

1561
01:25:30,767 --> 01:25:32,735
and that they would find friends there.

1562
01:25:32,836 --> 01:25:36,602
So, the problem was -
'cause it needed a massive kind of roof-

1563
01:25:36,706 --> 01:25:39,766
was how to have a roof
that would stay on the building...

1564
01:25:39,876 --> 01:25:43,312
but at the same time be able to fly up
at night and meet the flying saucers.

1565
01:25:43,413 --> 01:25:46,143
So, the architect
meditated and meditated...

1566
01:25:46,249 --> 01:25:49,047
and he finally came up with
the very simple solution...

1567
01:25:49,152 --> 01:25:51,450
of not actually joining the roof
to the building...

1568
01:25:51,554 --> 01:25:53,522
which means that it should fall off...

1569
01:25:53,623 --> 01:25:56,751
because they have great gales
up in northern Scotland.

1570
01:25:56,860 --> 01:26:00,352
So, to keep it from falling off,
he got beach stones from the beach -

1571
01:26:00,463 --> 01:26:03,227
or we did,
'cause I-I worked on this building -

1572
01:26:03,333 --> 01:26:05,392
all up and down the roof,
just like that.

1573
01:26:05,502 --> 01:26:09,802
And the idea was that the energy
that would flow from stone to stone...

1574
01:26:09,906 --> 01:26:11,874
would be so strong, you see...

1575
01:26:11,975 --> 01:26:15,274
that it would keep the roof down
under any conditions...

1576
01:26:15,378 --> 01:26:19,872
but at the same time, if the roof needed
to go up, it would be light enough to go up.

1577
01:26:19,983 --> 01:26:23,646
Well - [ Chuckling ]
it works, you see.

1578
01:26:23,753 --> 01:26:26,313
Now, architects
don't know why it works...

1579
01:26:26,423 --> 01:26:28,391
and it shouldn't work,
'cause it should fall off.

1580
01:26:28,491 --> 01:26:30,391
But it works. It does work.

1581
01:26:30,493 --> 01:26:34,190
The gales blow, and the roof should fall off,
but it doesn't fall off.

1582
01:26:35,432 --> 01:26:37,263
<i>[ Man Coughing ]</i>

1583
01:26:38,868 --> 01:26:40,768
Yep.

1584
01:26:40,870 --> 01:26:42,770
Well, uh...

1585
01:26:43,907 --> 01:26:46,603
do you want to know
my actual response to all this?

1586
01:26:46,709 --> 01:26:49,007
- Do you want to hear my actual response?
- Yes!

1587
01:26:50,814 --> 01:26:53,078
See, my actual response -
I mean -

1588
01:26:53,183 --> 01:26:58,246
[ Laughing ] I mean - I mean,
I'm just trying to - to survive, you know?

1589
01:26:58,354 --> 01:27:01,482
I mean,
I'm just trying to earn a living...

1590
01:27:01,591 --> 01:27:04,219
just trying to pay my rent and my bills.

1591
01:27:04,327 --> 01:27:06,693
I mean, uh -

1592
01:27:06,796 --> 01:27:10,129
Ah, I live my life.

1593
01:27:10,233 --> 01:27:13,293
I enjoy staying home with Debby.

1594
01:27:13,403 --> 01:27:16,236
I'm reading Charlton Heston's
autobiography.

1595
01:27:16,339 --> 01:27:17,966
And that's that.

1596
01:27:18,074 --> 01:27:20,975
I mean, you know -
I mean, occasionally, maybe...

1597
01:27:21,077 --> 01:27:25,514
Debby and I will step outside,
we'll go to a party or something.

1598
01:27:25,615 --> 01:27:29,051
And if I can occasionally get my little talent
together and write a little play...

1599
01:27:29,152 --> 01:27:31,347
well, then that's just -
that's just wonderful.

1600
01:27:31,454 --> 01:27:34,423
And I mean, I enjoy reading about
other little plays people have written...

1601
01:27:34,524 --> 01:27:37,891
and reading the reviews of those plays
and what people said about them...

1602
01:27:37,994 --> 01:27:41,191
and what people said
about what people said.

1603
01:27:41,297 --> 01:27:45,734
And I mean, I have - I have a list of errands
and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook.

1604
01:27:45,835 --> 01:27:48,303
I enjoy going through the notebook...

1605
01:27:48,404 --> 01:27:50,804
carrying out the responsibilities,
doing the errands...

1606
01:27:50,907 --> 01:27:54,070
and crossing them off the list.

1607
01:27:54,177 --> 01:27:58,614
And, I mean, I just - I just don't know
how anybody could enjoy anything more...

1608
01:27:58,715 --> 01:28:03,084
than I enjoy, uh, reading
Charlton Heston's autobiography...

1609
01:28:03,186 --> 01:28:05,984
or, uh, you know, uh,
getting up in the morning...

1610
01:28:06,089 --> 01:28:09,581
and having the cup of cold coffee
that's been waiting for me all night...

1611
01:28:09,692 --> 01:28:12,160
still there for me
to drink in the morning...

1612
01:28:12,262 --> 01:28:15,663
and no cockroach or fly
has-has died in it overnight.

1613
01:28:15,765 --> 01:28:18,427
I mean, I'm just so thrilled
when I get up...

1614
01:28:18,535 --> 01:28:21,993
and I see that coffee there,
just the way I wanted it.

1615
01:28:22,105 --> 01:28:24,369
I mean, I just can't imagine...

1616
01:28:24,474 --> 01:28:27,034
how anybody could enjoy something else
any more than that.

1617
01:28:27,143 --> 01:28:30,977
I mean - I mean, obviously, if the cockroach -
if there <i>is</i> a dead cockroach in it...

1618
01:28:31,080 --> 01:28:33,844
well, then I just have a feeling
of disappointment, and I'm sad.

1619
01:28:33,950 --> 01:28:37,078
But I mean, I - I just -
I just don't think...

1620
01:28:37,186 --> 01:28:39,450
I feel the need for anything more
than all this.

1621
01:28:39,556 --> 01:28:42,150
Whereas, you know,
you seem to be saying...

1622
01:28:42,258 --> 01:28:45,159
that, uh...

1623
01:28:45,261 --> 01:28:48,628
it's inconceivable that anybody could
be having a meaningful life today...

1624
01:28:48,731 --> 01:28:50,858
and, you know,
everyone is totally destroyed...

1625
01:28:50,967 --> 01:28:53,527
and we all need to live
in these outposts.

1626
01:28:53,636 --> 01:28:56,264
But I mean, you know,
I just can't believe - even for you -

1627
01:28:56,372 --> 01:28:59,705
I mean, don't you find - Isn't it pleasant
just to get up in the morning...

1628
01:28:59,809 --> 01:29:03,245
and there's Chiquita,
there are the children...

1629
01:29:03,346 --> 01:29:05,780
and <i>The Times</i> is delivered,
you can read it.

1630
01:29:05,882 --> 01:29:08,749
I mean, maybe you'll direct a play,
maybe you won't direct a play.

1631
01:29:08,851 --> 01:29:11,479
But forget about the play
that you may or may not direct.

1632
01:29:11,588 --> 01:29:16,150
Why is it necessary to -Why not lean back
and just enjoy these details?

1633
01:29:16,259 --> 01:29:20,787
I mean, and there'd be a delicious cup
of coffee and a piece of coffeecake.

1634
01:29:20,897 --> 01:29:23,559
I mean, why is it necessary
to have more than this...

1635
01:29:23,666 --> 01:29:25,998
or to even think about
having more than this?

1636
01:29:26,102 --> 01:29:29,401
I mean, I don't really know
what you're talking about.

1637
01:29:30,707 --> 01:29:33,335
I mean - I mean,
I know what you're talking about...

1638
01:29:33,443 --> 01:29:36,241
but I don't <i>really</i> know
what you're talking about.

1639
01:29:36,346 --> 01:29:39,543
And I mean, you know, even if I were
to totally agree with you, you know...

1640
01:29:39,649 --> 01:29:42,846
and even if I were to accept the idea
that there's just no way for anybody...

1641
01:29:42,952 --> 01:29:44,977
to have personal happiness now...

1642
01:29:45,088 --> 01:29:47,454
well, you know,
I still couldn't accept the idea...

1643
01:29:47,557 --> 01:29:50,185
that the way to make life wonderful
would be to just totally...

1644
01:29:50,293 --> 01:29:52,591
you know,
reject Western civilization...

1645
01:29:52,695 --> 01:29:56,028
and fall back into some kind of belief
in some kind of weird something -

1646
01:29:56,132 --> 01:29:58,532
I mean, I don't even know how
to begin talking about this...

1647
01:29:58,635 --> 01:30:01,968
but you know, in the Middle Ages...

1648
01:30:02,071 --> 01:30:05,632
before the arrival of
scientific thinking as we know it today...

1649
01:30:05,742 --> 01:30:08,040
well, people could believe anything.

1650
01:30:08,144 --> 01:30:10,738
Anything could be true -
the statue of the Virgin Mary...

1651
01:30:10,847 --> 01:30:12,906
could speak or bleed
or whatever it was.

1652
01:30:13,016 --> 01:30:14,984
But the wonderful thing
that happened...

1653
01:30:15,084 --> 01:30:18,053
was that then in the development
of science in the Western world...

1654
01:30:18,154 --> 01:30:22,887
certain things did come slowly
to be known and understood.

1655
01:30:22,992 --> 01:30:25,552
I mean, you know...

1656
01:30:25,662 --> 01:30:29,098
obviously, all ideas in science
are constantly being revised.

1657
01:30:29,198 --> 01:30:31,098
I mean, that's the whole point.

1658
01:30:31,200 --> 01:30:36,160
But we do at least know that the universe
has some shape and order...

1659
01:30:36,272 --> 01:30:40,766
and that, uh, you know, trees do not
turn into people or goddesses...

1660
01:30:40,877 --> 01:30:43,175
and there are very good reasons
why they don't...

1661
01:30:43,279 --> 01:30:45,543
and you can't just believe
absolutely anything.

1662
01:30:45,648 --> 01:30:47,548
Whereas, the things
that you're talking about -

1663
01:30:47,650 --> 01:30:51,177
I mean - I mean, you found
the handprint in the book...

1664
01:30:51,287 --> 01:30:55,246
and there were - there were three Andrés
and one Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

1665
01:30:55,358 --> 01:30:58,122
And to me that is a coincidence.

1666
01:30:58,227 --> 01:31:01,162
But -And-And then, you know,
the people who put that book together...

1667
01:31:01,264 --> 01:31:03,459
well, they had their own reasons
for putting it together.

1668
01:31:03,566 --> 01:31:06,763
But to you it was significant, as if that book
had been written 40 years ago...

1669
01:31:06,869 --> 01:31:10,828
so that you would see it,
as if it was planned for you, in a way.

1670
01:31:10,940 --> 01:31:12,999
I mean, really- I mean -

1671
01:31:13,109 --> 01:31:17,637
I mean, all right, let's say, if I get
a fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant...

1672
01:31:17,747 --> 01:31:19,738
I mean, of course,
even I have a tendency-

1673
01:31:19,849 --> 01:31:22,647
I mean, you know - I mean, of course,
I would hardly throw it out.

1674
01:31:22,752 --> 01:31:25,721
I mean, I read it.
I read it, and - and, uh -

1675
01:31:25,822 --> 01:31:29,053
I just instinctively sort of-
You know, if it says something like, uh...

1676
01:31:29,158 --> 01:31:32,787
''A conversation with a dark-haired man
will be very important for you''...

1677
01:31:32,895 --> 01:31:35,887
well, I just instinctively think, you know,
''Who do I know who has dark hair?

1678
01:31:35,998 --> 01:31:38,762
Did we have a conversation?
What did we talk about?''

1679
01:31:38,868 --> 01:31:43,168
In other words, uh, there's something
in me that makes me read it...

1680
01:31:43,272 --> 01:31:46,901
and I instinctively interpret it
as if it were an omen of the future.

1681
01:31:47,009 --> 01:31:50,536
But in my conscious opinion, which is
so fundamental to my whole view of life -

1682
01:31:50,646 --> 01:31:53,809
I mean, I would just have to change totally
to not have this opinion.

1683
01:31:53,916 --> 01:31:55,884
In my conscious opinion,
this is simply something...

1684
01:31:55,985 --> 01:32:00,149
that was written in the cookie factory
several years ago and in no way refers to me.

1685
01:32:00,256 --> 01:32:02,986
I mean, you know,
the - the fact that I got it -

1686
01:32:03,092 --> 01:32:05,822
I mean, the man who wrote it
did not know anything about me.

1687
01:32:05,928 --> 01:32:07,919
I mean, he could not have known
anything about me.

1688
01:32:08,030 --> 01:32:10,658
There's no way that this cookie
could actually have to do with me.

1689
01:32:10,767 --> 01:32:13,292
And the fact that I've gotten it
is just basically a joke.

1690
01:32:13,402 --> 01:32:16,200
And I mean, if I were gonna go
on a trip on an airplane...

1691
01:32:16,305 --> 01:32:18,296
and I got a fortune cookie
that said ''Don't go''...

1692
01:32:18,407 --> 01:32:22,173
I mean, of course, I admit I might feel
a bit nervous for about one second.

1693
01:32:22,278 --> 01:32:24,746
But in fact, I would go because,
I mean...

1694
01:32:24,847 --> 01:32:27,281
that trip is gonna be successful
or unsuccessful...

1695
01:32:27,383 --> 01:32:29,977
based on the state of the airplane
and the state of the pilot.

1696
01:32:30,086 --> 01:32:32,816
And the cookie is in no position
to know about that.

1697
01:32:32,922 --> 01:32:34,822
And I mean, you know, it's the same...

1698
01:32:34,924 --> 01:32:37,688
with any kind of, uh, prophecy,
or a sign, or an omen.

1699
01:32:37,794 --> 01:32:42,163
Because if you believe in omens,
then that means that the universe -

1700
01:32:42,265 --> 01:32:44,665
I mean, I don't even know how
to begin to describe this.

1701
01:32:44,767 --> 01:32:48,225
That means that the future
is somehow sending messages...

1702
01:32:48,337 --> 01:32:50,396
backwards to the present.

1703
01:32:50,506 --> 01:32:53,805
Which-Which means that the future
must exist in some sense already...

1704
01:32:53,910 --> 01:32:56,879
in order to be able
to send these messages.

1705
01:32:56,979 --> 01:33:01,109
And it also means that things in the universe
are there for a purpose - to give us messages.

1706
01:33:01,217 --> 01:33:03,617
Whereas I think that things
in the universe are just there.

1707
01:33:03,719 --> 01:33:05,619
I mean, they don't mean anything.

1708
01:33:05,721 --> 01:33:10,181
I mean, you know, if the turtle's egg falls out
of the tree and splashes on the paving stones...

1709
01:33:10,293 --> 01:33:13,353
it's just because that turtle was clumsy-
by accident.

1710
01:33:13,462 --> 01:33:17,558
And-And to decide whether to send
my ships off to war on the basis of that...

1711
01:33:17,667 --> 01:33:19,726
seems a big mistake to me.

1712
01:33:19,836 --> 01:33:23,431
Well, what information would
you send your ships to war on?

1713
01:33:23,539 --> 01:33:25,234
Because if it's all meaningless...

1714
01:33:25,341 --> 01:33:27,332
what's the difference whether
you accept the fortune cookie...

1715
01:33:27,443 --> 01:33:29,468
or the statistics
of the Ford Foundation?

1716
01:33:29,579 --> 01:33:31,547
It doesn't seem to matter.

1717
01:33:31,647 --> 01:33:35,777
Well, the meaningless fact
of the fortune cookie or the turtle's egg...

1718
01:33:35,885 --> 01:33:39,651
can't possibly have any relevance
to the subject you're analyzing.

1719
01:33:39,755 --> 01:33:42,986
Whereas a group of meaningless facts
that are collected and interpreted...

1720
01:33:43,092 --> 01:33:46,493
in a scientific way
may quite possibly be relevant.

1721
01:33:46,596 --> 01:33:49,258
Because the wonderful thing
about scientific theories about things...

1722
01:33:49,365 --> 01:33:52,960
is that they're based on experiments
that can be repeated.

1723
01:33:54,070 --> 01:33:55,970
Hmm.

1724
01:34:10,920 --> 01:34:13,013
Well, it's true, Wally.

1725
01:34:13,122 --> 01:34:15,818
I mean, you know,
following omens and so on...

1726
01:34:15,925 --> 01:34:18,655
is probably just a way
of letting ourselves off the hook...

1727
01:34:18,761 --> 01:34:23,061
so that we don't have to take individual
responsibility for our own actions.

1728
01:34:23,165 --> 01:34:25,463
But I mean, giving yourself over
to the unconscious...

1729
01:34:25,568 --> 01:34:30,870
can leave you vulnerable to all sorts
of very frightening manipulation.

1730
01:34:30,973 --> 01:34:34,306
And in all the work that I was involved in,
there was always that danger.

1731
01:34:34,410 --> 01:34:37,937
And there was always that question
of tampering with people's lives...

1732
01:34:38,047 --> 01:34:41,676
because if I lead one of these workshops,
then I do become partly a doctor...

1733
01:34:41,784 --> 01:34:43,877
and partly a therapist,
and partly a priest.

1734
01:34:43,986 --> 01:34:48,389
And I'm not a doctor,
or a therapist, or a priest.

1735
01:34:48,491 --> 01:34:51,051
And already some
of these new monasteries...

1736
01:34:51,160 --> 01:34:53,720
or communities or whatever
we've been talking about...

1737
01:34:53,829 --> 01:34:55,854
are becoming institutionalized...

1738
01:34:55,965 --> 01:34:59,162
and I guess even in a way, at times,
sort of fascistic.

1739
01:34:59,268 --> 01:35:03,295
You know, there's a sort of self-satisfied
elitist paranoia that grows up -

1740
01:35:03,406 --> 01:35:06,432
a feeling of''them'' and ''us'' -
that is very unsettling.

1741
01:35:06,542 --> 01:35:10,740
But I mean, uh, the thing is, Wally, I think
it's the exaggerated worship of science...

1742
01:35:10,846 --> 01:35:12,814
that has led us into this situation.

1743
01:35:12,915 --> 01:35:15,509
I mean, science has been held up to us
as a magical force...

1744
01:35:15,618 --> 01:35:17,586
that would somehow solve everything.

1745
01:35:17,687 --> 01:35:19,882
Well, quite the contrary.
It's done quite the contrary.

1746
01:35:19,989 --> 01:35:21,957
It's destroyed everything.

1747
01:35:22,058 --> 01:35:24,026
So that is what has really led,
I think...

1748
01:35:24,126 --> 01:35:28,085
to this very strong, deep reaction
against science that we're seeing now...

1749
01:35:28,197 --> 01:35:30,893
just as the Nazi demons that were
released in the '30s in Germany...

1750
01:35:31,000 --> 01:35:34,800
were probably a reaction against
a certain oppressive kind of knowledge...

1751
01:35:34,904 --> 01:35:37,338
and culture and rational thinking.

1752
01:35:37,440 --> 01:35:40,967
So I agree that we're talking about
something potentially very dangerous.

1753
01:35:41,077 --> 01:35:44,308
But modern science has not been
particularly less dangerous.

1754
01:35:44,413 --> 01:35:46,347
Right. Well, I agree with you.

1755
01:35:46,449 --> 01:35:48,417
I completely agree.

1756
01:35:50,286 --> 01:35:52,754
No, you know, the truth is...

1757
01:35:52,855 --> 01:35:56,985
I think I do know what really disturbs me
about the work you've described...

1758
01:35:57,093 --> 01:36:00,085
and I don't even know if I can express it.

1759
01:36:00,196 --> 01:36:04,064
But somehow it seems that the whole point
of the work that you did in those workshops...

1760
01:36:04,166 --> 01:36:08,068
when you get right down to it
and you ask what was it really about -

1761
01:36:08,170 --> 01:36:10,104
The whole point, really, I think...

1762
01:36:10,206 --> 01:36:13,334
was to enable the people in the workshops,
including yourself...

1763
01:36:13,442 --> 01:36:17,811
to somehow sort of strip away
every scrap of purposefulness...

1764
01:36:17,913 --> 01:36:20,438
from certain selected moments.

1765
01:36:20,549 --> 01:36:23,780
And the point of it was so that you would
then all be able to experience...

1766
01:36:23,886 --> 01:36:27,083
somehow just pure being.

1767
01:36:27,189 --> 01:36:31,057
In other words, you were trying
to discover what it would be like
to live for certain moments...

1768
01:36:31,160 --> 01:36:34,254
without having any particular thing
that you were supposed to be doing.

1769
01:36:34,363 --> 01:36:36,695
And I think
I just simply object to that.

1770
01:36:36,799 --> 01:36:39,893
I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea
that there should be moments...

1771
01:36:40,002 --> 01:36:42,163
in which you're not trying
to do anything.

1772
01:36:42,271 --> 01:36:46,264
[ Chuckling ] I think, uh,
it's our nature, uh, to do things.

1773
01:36:46,375 --> 01:36:48,275
I think we should do things.

1774
01:36:48,377 --> 01:36:50,470
I think that, uh, purposefulness...

1775
01:36:50,579 --> 01:36:54,913
is part of our ineradicable
basic human structure.

1776
01:36:55,017 --> 01:36:57,815
And to say that we ought to
be able to live without it...

1777
01:36:57,920 --> 01:37:01,879
is like saying that, uh, a tree ought to
be able to live without branches or roots.

1778
01:37:01,991 --> 01:37:04,687
But - But actually, without branches
or roots, it wouldn't be a tree.

1779
01:37:04,794 --> 01:37:07,627
I mean, it would just be a log.
Do you see what I'm saying?

1780
01:37:07,730 --> 01:37:09,357
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

1781
01:37:09,465 --> 01:37:12,832
I mean, in other words, if I'm sitting at home
and I have nothing to do...

1782
01:37:12,935 --> 01:37:14,835
well, I naturally reach for a book.

1783
01:37:14,937 --> 01:37:18,634
I mean, what would be so great about
just sitting there and, uh, doing nothing?

1784
01:37:18,741 --> 01:37:20,641
It just seems absurd.

1785
01:37:20,743 --> 01:37:22,301
And if Debby is there?

1786
01:37:23,579 --> 01:37:25,479
Well, that's just the same thing.

1787
01:37:25,581 --> 01:37:28,448
I mean, is there really
such a thing as, uh...

1788
01:37:28,551 --> 01:37:32,453
two people doing nothing
but just being together?

1789
01:37:32,555 --> 01:37:34,546
I mean, would they simply then...

1790
01:37:34,657 --> 01:37:37,717
be, uh, ''relating,''
to use the word we're always using?

1791
01:37:37,827 --> 01:37:39,727
I mean, what would that mean?

1792
01:37:39,829 --> 01:37:41,797
I mean, either we're
gonna have a conversation...

1793
01:37:41,897 --> 01:37:44,024
or we're going to, uh,
carry out the garbage...

1794
01:37:44,133 --> 01:37:47,694
or we're going to do something,
separately or together.

1795
01:37:47,803 --> 01:37:49,703
I mean, do you see what I'm saying?

1796
01:37:49,805 --> 01:37:53,673
I mean, what does it mean
to just, uh, simply, uh, sit there?

1797
01:37:53,776 --> 01:37:56,074
That makes you nervous.

1798
01:37:56,178 --> 01:38:00,581
Well, well, why shouldn't it make me nervous?
It just seems ridiculous to me.

1799
01:38:00,683 --> 01:38:02,651
That's interesting, Wally.

1800
01:38:03,819 --> 01:38:07,619
You know, when I went to Ladakh in western
Tibet and stayed on a farm for a month...

1801
01:38:07,723 --> 01:38:11,591
well, there, you know, when people come over
in the evening for tea, nobody says anything.

1802
01:38:11,694 --> 01:38:13,787
Unless there's something to say,
but there almost never is.

1803
01:38:13,896 --> 01:38:17,423
So they just sit there and drink their tea,
and it doesn't seem to bother them.

1804
01:38:20,436 --> 01:38:23,200
I mean, you see, the trouble, Wally,
with always being active and doing things...

1805
01:38:23,305 --> 01:38:26,399
is that I think it's quite possible
to do all sorts of things...

1806
01:38:26,509 --> 01:38:29,910
and at the same time
be completely dead inside.

1807
01:38:30,012 --> 01:38:32,412
I mean, you're doing all these things,
but are you doing them...

1808
01:38:32,515 --> 01:38:34,608
because you really feel
an impulse to do them...

1809
01:38:34,717 --> 01:38:37,447
or are you doing them mechanically,
as we were saying before?

1810
01:38:37,553 --> 01:38:40,147
Because I really do believe
that if you're just living mechanically...

1811
01:38:40,256 --> 01:38:42,486
then you have to change your life.

1812
01:38:42,591 --> 01:38:45,583
I mean, you know, when you're young,
you go out on dates all the time.

1813
01:38:45,694 --> 01:38:48,595
You go dancing or something.
You're floating free.

1814
01:38:48,697 --> 01:38:51,825
And then one day suddenly
you find yourself in a relationship...

1815
01:38:51,934 --> 01:38:54,061
and suddenly everything freezes.

1816
01:38:54,170 --> 01:38:56,934
And this can be true
in your work as well.

1817
01:38:57,039 --> 01:38:59,837
And I mean, of course,
if you're really alive inside...

1818
01:38:59,942 --> 01:39:01,910
then of course there's no problem.

1819
01:39:02,011 --> 01:39:04,241
I mean, if you're living with somebody
in one little room...

1820
01:39:04,346 --> 01:39:07,144
and there's a life going on between you
and the person you're living with...

1821
01:39:07,249 --> 01:39:11,709
well, then a whole adventure
can be going on right in that room.

1822
01:39:11,820 --> 01:39:15,415
But there's always the danger
that things can go dead.

1823
01:39:15,524 --> 01:39:19,085
Then I really do think you have to kind of
become a hobo or something, you know...

1824
01:39:19,195 --> 01:39:21,322
like Kerouac,
and go out on the road.

1825
01:39:21,430 --> 01:39:23,591
I really believe that.

1826
01:39:23,699 --> 01:39:27,533
You know, it's not that wonderful
to spend your life on the road.

1827
01:39:27,636 --> 01:39:32,164
My own overwhelming preference
is to stay in that room if you can.

1828
01:39:32,274 --> 01:39:35,471
But you know, if you live with somebody for
a long time, people are constantly saying...

1829
01:39:35,578 --> 01:39:39,207
''Well, of course it's not as great
as it used to be, but that's only natural.

1830
01:39:39,315 --> 01:39:42,751
The first blush of a romance goes,
and that's the way it has to be.''

1831
01:39:42,851 --> 01:39:46,048
Now, I totally disagree with that.

1832
01:39:46,155 --> 01:39:50,819
But I do think that you have to constantly ask
yourself the question, with total frankness:

1833
01:39:50,926 --> 01:39:53,019
Is your marriage still a marriage?

1834
01:39:53,128 --> 01:39:55,289
Is the sacramental element there?

1835
01:39:55,397 --> 01:39:57,991
Just as you have to ask about
the sacramental element in your work-

1836
01:39:58,100 --> 01:40:00,432
Is it still there?

1837
01:40:00,536 --> 01:40:03,198
I mean, it's a very frightening thing, Wally,
to have to suddenly realize...

1838
01:40:03,305 --> 01:40:07,537
that, my God, I thought I was living my life,
but in fact I haven't been a human being.

1839
01:40:07,643 --> 01:40:09,543
I've been a performer.

1840
01:40:09,645 --> 01:40:12,808
I haven't been living. I've been acting.
I've - I've acted the role of the father.

1841
01:40:12,915 --> 01:40:16,442
I've acted the role of the husband.
I've acted the role of the friend.

1842
01:40:16,552 --> 01:40:19,953
I've acted the role of the writer,
or director, or what have you.

1843
01:40:20,055 --> 01:40:23,923
I've lived in the same room with this person,
but I haven't really seen them.

1844
01:40:24,026 --> 01:40:28,053
I haven't really heard them.
I haven't really been with them.

1845
01:40:28,163 --> 01:40:30,825
Yeah, I know some people
are just sometimes...

1846
01:40:30,933 --> 01:40:33,527
uh, existing just side by side.

1847
01:40:33,636 --> 01:40:38,539
I mean, uh, the other person's, uh, face
could just turn into a great wolf s face...

1848
01:40:38,641 --> 01:40:41,439
and, uh, it just wouldn't be noticed.

1849
01:40:41,543 --> 01:40:44,842
And it wouldn't be noticed, no.
It wouldn't be noticed.

1850
01:40:46,181 --> 01:40:48,342
I mean, when I was in Israel
a little while ago -

1851
01:40:48,450 --> 01:40:51,044
I mean, I have this picture of Chiquita
that was taken when she -

1852
01:40:51,153 --> 01:40:54,748
I always carry it with me. It was taken
when she was about 26 or something.

1853
01:40:54,857 --> 01:40:57,655
And it's in summer,
and she's stretched out on a terrace...

1854
01:40:57,760 --> 01:41:00,695
in this sort of old-fashioned long skirt
that's kind of pulled up.

1855
01:41:00,796 --> 01:41:03,287
And she's slim and sensual
and beautiful.

1856
01:41:03,399 --> 01:41:07,733
And I've always looked at that picture
and just thought about just how sexy she looks.

1857
01:41:07,836 --> 01:41:10,202
And then last year in Israel,
I looked at the picture...

1858
01:41:10,306 --> 01:41:14,572
and I realized that that face in the picture
was the saddest face in the world.

1859
01:41:14,677 --> 01:41:17,737
That girl at that time was just lost...

1860
01:41:17,846 --> 01:41:19,814
so sad and so alone.

1861
01:41:19,915 --> 01:41:23,442
I've been carrying this picture for years
and not ever really seeing what it is, you know.

1862
01:41:23,552 --> 01:41:26,680
I just never really
looked at the picture.

1863
01:41:28,724 --> 01:41:33,024
And then, at a certain point , I realized I'd
just gone for a good 1 8 years unable to feel...

1864
01:41:33,128 --> 01:41:35,323
except in the most extreme situations.

1865
01:41:35,431 --> 01:41:38,423
I mean, to some extent, I still had
the ability to live in my work.

1866
01:41:38,534 --> 01:41:40,434
That was why I was such a work junkie.

1867
01:41:40,536 --> 01:41:44,734
That was why I felt that every play that I did
was a matter of my life or my death.

1868
01:41:44,840 --> 01:41:47,001
But in my real life, I was dead.

1869
01:41:47,109 --> 01:41:49,669
I was a robot.

1870
01:41:49,778 --> 01:41:52,713
I mean, I didn't even allow myself
to get angry or annoyed.

1871
01:41:52,815 --> 01:41:55,613
I mean, you know, today
Chiquita, Nicolas, Marina -

1872
01:41:55,718 --> 01:41:59,552
All day long, as people do, they do things that
annoy me and they say things that annoy me.

1873
01:41:59,655 --> 01:42:02,419
And today I get annoyed.
And they say, ''Why are you annoyed?''

1874
01:42:02,524 --> 01:42:04,617
And I say, ''Because you're annoying,''
you know.

1875
01:42:06,328 --> 01:42:08,592
And when I allowed myself
to consider the possibility...

1876
01:42:08,697 --> 01:42:11,222
of not spending
the rest of my life with Chiquita...

1877
01:42:11,333 --> 01:42:15,030
I realized that what I wanted most in life
was to always be with her.

1878
01:42:16,472 --> 01:42:19,805
But at that time, I hadn't learned what
it would be like to let yourself react...

1879
01:42:19,908 --> 01:42:21,808
to another human being.

1880
01:42:21,910 --> 01:42:23,901
And if you can't react
to another person...

1881
01:42:24,012 --> 01:42:27,175
then there's no possibility
of action or interaction.

1882
01:42:27,282 --> 01:42:32,310
And if there isn't, I don't really know
what the word ''love'' means...

1883
01:42:32,421 --> 01:42:37,188
except duty, obligation,
sentimentality, fear.

1884
01:42:39,661 --> 01:42:42,152
I mean -
[ Chuckling ]

1885
01:42:43,198 --> 01:42:45,223
I don't know about you, Wally, but I -

1886
01:42:45,334 --> 01:42:49,361
I just had to put myself into a kind of training
program to learn how to be a human being.

1887
01:42:49,471 --> 01:42:51,666
I mean, how did I feel about anything?
I didn't know.

1888
01:42:51,774 --> 01:42:56,074
What kind of things did I like? What kind of
people did I really want to be with? You know?

1889
01:42:56,178 --> 01:42:58,578
And the only way
that I could think of to find out...

1890
01:42:58,680 --> 01:43:02,616
was to just cut out all the noise
and stop performing all the time...

1891
01:43:02,718 --> 01:43:06,051
and just listen to what was inside me.

1892
01:43:06,155 --> 01:43:09,147
See, I think a time comes
when you need to do that.

1893
01:43:09,258 --> 01:43:12,318
Now, maybe in order to do it,
you have to go to the Sahara...

1894
01:43:12,428 --> 01:43:14,396
and maybe you can do it at home.

1895
01:43:14,496 --> 01:43:16,828
But you need to cut out the noise.

1896
01:43:19,067 --> 01:43:20,967
<i>[ Car Horn Honks On Street ]</i>

1897
01:43:21,069 --> 01:43:23,037
Yeah. Of course, personally,
I-I just, uh -

1898
01:43:23,138 --> 01:43:26,801
I usually don't, uh - [ Chuckles ]
like those quiet moments, you know.

1899
01:43:26,909 --> 01:43:28,536
I really don't.

1900
01:43:28,644 --> 01:43:33,343
I mean, uh, I don't know if
it's that, uh, Freudian thing or what -

1901
01:43:33,449 --> 01:43:36,111
But, uh, you know, the fear
of unconscious impulses...

1902
01:43:36,218 --> 01:43:39,381
or my own aggression
or whatever, but, uh...

1903
01:43:39,488 --> 01:43:43,151
if things get too quiet, and I find myself
just, uh, sitting there...

1904
01:43:43,258 --> 01:43:45,226
you know,
as we were saying before...

1905
01:43:45,327 --> 01:43:49,923
I mean, whether I'm by myself,
or-or I'm-I'm with someone else...

1906
01:43:50,032 --> 01:43:53,092
I just, uh -
I just have this feeling of...

1907
01:43:53,202 --> 01:43:57,229
uh, my God,
I'm going to be revealed.

1908
01:43:57,339 --> 01:44:01,469
In other words, I'm adequate
to do any sort of a task, um...

1909
01:44:01,577 --> 01:44:05,513
but I'm not adequate, uh,
just to - to be a human being.

1910
01:44:05,614 --> 01:44:07,514
I mean, in other words, I'm not, uh -

1911
01:44:07,616 --> 01:44:10,915
If I'm just, uh, trapped there
and I'm not allowed to do things...

1912
01:44:11,019 --> 01:44:14,420
but all I can do is just,
um, be there...

1913
01:44:14,523 --> 01:44:16,753
well, I'll just fail.

1914
01:44:16,859 --> 01:44:18,827
I mean, in other words, uh...

1915
01:44:18,927 --> 01:44:21,327
I can pass any other sort of a test...

1916
01:44:21,430 --> 01:44:25,196
and, you know, I can even get an ''A''
if I put in the required effort...

1917
01:44:25,300 --> 01:44:27,427
but I just don't, uh -

1918
01:44:27,536 --> 01:44:30,232
I just don't have a clue
how to pass this test.

1919
01:44:30,339 --> 01:44:33,740
I mean - I mean, of course,
I realize this isn't a test...

1920
01:44:33,842 --> 01:44:36,538
but, um, I see it as a test...

1921
01:44:36,645 --> 01:44:38,670
and I feel I'm going to fail it.

1922
01:44:38,780 --> 01:44:40,714
I mean, it's - it's very scary.

1923
01:44:40,816 --> 01:44:45,048
I just feel, uh,just totally at sea.
I mean -

1924
01:44:45,153 --> 01:44:47,621
Well, you know,
I could imagine a life, Wally...

1925
01:44:47,723 --> 01:44:52,490
in which each day would become
an incredible, monumental, creative task...

1926
01:44:52,594 --> 01:44:54,755
and we're not necessarily up to it.

1927
01:44:54,863 --> 01:44:58,299
I mean, if you felt like walking out
on the person you live with, you'd walk out.

1928
01:44:58,400 --> 01:45:00,368
Then if you felt like it,
you'd come back.

1929
01:45:00,469 --> 01:45:04,132
But meanwhile, the other person
would have reacted to your walking out.

1930
01:45:04,239 --> 01:45:07,470
It would be a life of such feeling.

1931
01:45:07,576 --> 01:45:09,874
I mean, what was amazing
in the workshops I led...

1932
01:45:09,978 --> 01:45:13,573
was how quickly people seemed
to fall into enthusiasm...

1933
01:45:13,682 --> 01:45:18,016
celebration,joy, wonder,
abandon, wildness, tenderness.

1934
01:45:18,120 --> 01:45:20,281
Could we stand to live like that?

1935
01:45:20,389 --> 01:45:23,358
Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact
with another person.

1936
01:45:23,458 --> 01:45:25,358
I mean, that's what scares us.

1937
01:45:25,460 --> 01:45:28,861
I mean, that moment of being
face to face with another person.

1938
01:45:28,964 --> 01:45:30,864
I mean, now -
[ Laughs ]

1939
01:45:30,966 --> 01:45:35,198
You wouldn't think it would be so frightening.
It's strange that we find it so frightening.

1940
01:45:35,304 --> 01:45:37,204
Well, it isn't that strange.

1941
01:45:37,306 --> 01:45:40,434
I mean, first of all, there are some
pretty good reasons for being frightened.

1942
01:45:40,542 --> 01:45:44,876
I mean, you know, the human being
is a complex and dangerous creature.

1943
01:45:44,980 --> 01:45:47,608
I mean, really,
if you start living each moment?

1944
01:45:47,716 --> 01:45:49,650
Christ, that's quite a challenge.

1945
01:45:49,751 --> 01:45:53,346
I mean, if you really reach out and you're
really in touch with the other person...

1946
01:45:53,455 --> 01:45:56,891
well, that really is something
to strive for, I think, I really do.

1947
01:45:56,992 --> 01:45:59,654
Yeah, it's just so pathetic
if one doesn't do that.

1948
01:45:59,761 --> 01:46:04,130
Of course there's a problem, because the closer
you come, I think, to another human being...

1949
01:46:04,232 --> 01:46:07,292
the more completely mysterious -
and unreachable -

1950
01:46:07,402 --> 01:46:09,302
that person becomes.

1951
01:46:09,404 --> 01:46:13,033
I mean, you know, you have to reach out,
you have to go back and forth with them...

1952
01:46:13,141 --> 01:46:17,100
and you have to relate, and yet you're
relating to a ghost or something.

1953
01:46:17,212 --> 01:46:19,180
I don't know,
because we're ghosts.

1954
01:46:19,281 --> 01:46:23,047
We're phantoms.
Who are we?

1955
01:46:23,151 --> 01:46:26,018
And that's to face, to confront the fact
that you're completely alone.

1956
01:46:26,121 --> 01:46:28,851
And to accept that you're alone
is to accept death.

1957
01:46:28,957 --> 01:46:32,188
You mean, because somehow when you
are alone, you're alone with death.

1958
01:46:32,294 --> 01:46:36,458
I mean, nothing's obstructing your view of it,
or something like that.

1959
01:46:36,565 --> 01:46:38,362
Right.

1960
01:46:38,467 --> 01:46:41,334
You know, if I understood it correctly,
I think, uh, Heidegger said...

1961
01:46:41,436 --> 01:46:45,702
that, uh, if you were to experience
your own being to the full...

1962
01:46:45,807 --> 01:46:50,744
you'd be experiencing the decay
of that being toward death...

1963
01:46:50,846 --> 01:46:53,212
as a part of your experience.

1964
01:46:53,315 --> 01:46:56,443
You know, in the sexual act there's
that moment of complete forgetting...

1965
01:46:56,551 --> 01:46:58,178
which is so incredible.

1966
01:46:58,286 --> 01:47:00,481
Then in the next moment,
you start to think about things:

1967
01:47:00,589 --> 01:47:02,819
work on the play,
what you've got to do tomorrow.

1968
01:47:02,924 --> 01:47:06,360
I don't know if this is true of you,
but I think it must be quite common.

1969
01:47:06,461 --> 01:47:08,952
The world comes in quite fast.

1970
01:47:09,064 --> 01:47:12,556
Now, that again may be because we're
afraid to stay in that place of forgetting...

1971
01:47:12,668 --> 01:47:14,693
because that, again, is close to death.

1972
01:47:14,803 --> 01:47:17,169
Like people
who are afraid to go to sleep.

1973
01:47:17,272 --> 01:47:21,140
In other words, you interrelate, and you
don't know what the next moment will bring.

1974
01:47:21,243 --> 01:47:23,234
And to not know
what the next moment will bring...

1975
01:47:23,345 --> 01:47:25,370
brings you closer
to a perception of death.

1976
01:47:25,480 --> 01:47:29,143
You see, that's why I think
that people have affairs.

1977
01:47:29,251 --> 01:47:31,651
I mean, you know, in the theater,
if you get good reviews...

1978
01:47:31,753 --> 01:47:34,153
you feel for a moment
that you've got your hands on something.

1979
01:47:34,256 --> 01:47:36,451
You know what I mean?
I mean, it's a good feeling.

1980
01:47:36,558 --> 01:47:38,856
But then that feeling goes quite quickly.

1981
01:47:38,960 --> 01:47:42,259
And once again you don't know
quite what you should do next.

1982
01:47:42,364 --> 01:47:43,991
What'll happen?

1983
01:47:44,099 --> 01:47:46,624
Well, have an affair,
and up to a certain point...

1984
01:47:46,735 --> 01:47:49,397
you can really feel
that you're on firm ground, you know.

1985
01:47:49,504 --> 01:47:53,065
There's a sexual conquest to be made.
There are different questions.

1986
01:47:53,175 --> 01:47:55,143
Does she enjoy the ears being nibbled?

1987
01:47:55,243 --> 01:47:58,701
How intensely can you talk about Schopenhauer
at some elegant French restaurant?

1988
01:47:58,814 --> 01:48:01,180
Whatever nonsense it is.

1989
01:48:01,283 --> 01:48:05,276
It's all, I think, to give you the semblance
that there's firm earth.

1990
01:48:05,387 --> 01:48:09,323
Well, have a real relationship
with a person that goes on for years -

1991
01:48:09,424 --> 01:48:12,052
That's completely unpredictable.

1992
01:48:12,160 --> 01:48:15,391
Then you've cut off all your ties to the land,
and you're sailing into the unknown...

1993
01:48:15,497 --> 01:48:17,931
into uncharted seas.

1994
01:48:18,033 --> 01:48:22,732
I mean, you know, people hold on to these
images of father, mother, husband, wife...

1995
01:48:22,838 --> 01:48:24,738
again for the same reason -

1996
01:48:24,840 --> 01:48:28,332
'cause they seem to provide
some firm ground.

1997
01:48:28,443 --> 01:48:30,741
But there's no wife there.

1998
01:48:30,846 --> 01:48:32,871
What does that mean?
A wife.

1999
01:48:32,981 --> 01:48:35,677
A husband. A son.

2000
01:48:35,784 --> 01:48:37,752
A baby holds your hands...

2001
01:48:37,853 --> 01:48:41,482
and then suddenly there's this huge man
lifting you off the ground...

2002
01:48:41,590 --> 01:48:43,490
and then he's gone.

2003
01:48:43,592 --> 01:48:45,492
Where's that son?

2004
01:49:04,679 --> 01:49:08,706
<i>[ Wally Narrating ] All the other customers</i>
<i>seemed to have left hours ago.</i>

2005
01:49:08,817 --> 01:49:13,015
<i>We got the bill,</i>
<i>and André paid for our dinner.</i>

2006
01:49:13,121 --> 01:49:14,588
Really?

2007
01:49:16,925 --> 01:49:20,019
[ Conversing, Indistinct ]

2008
01:49:40,882 --> 01:49:43,077
<i>[ Wally Narrating ]</i>
<i>I treated myself to a taxi.</i>

2009
01:49:44,586 --> 01:49:47,054
<i>I rode home through the city streets.</i>

2010
01:49:48,323 --> 01:49:50,951
<i>There wasn't a street,</i>
<i>there wasn't a building...</i>

2011
01:49:51,059 --> 01:49:54,324
<i>that wasn't connected</i>
<i>to some memory in my mind.</i>

2012
01:49:55,764 --> 01:49:58,858
<i>There, I was buying a suit</i>
<i>with my father.</i>

2013
01:50:01,536 --> 01:50:04,994
<i>There, I was having</i>
<i>an ice cream soda after school.</i>

2014
01:50:09,110 --> 01:50:12,511
<i>When I finally came in,</i>
<i>Debby was home from work...</i>

2015
01:50:12,614 --> 01:50:16,072
<i>and I told her everything</i>
<i>about my dinner with André.</i>