Original subtitles

It was 1967, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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I was going to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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Every year there, at the end of school year,

there is an experimental painting and sculpture contest.

This particular year, earlier in that year,

I was in a room, it's a big studio in the school,

where people had little compartments

that they block off for themselves to paint

I was painting a black painting

with some garden, some green garden.

The green plants were sort of coming out of black.

Real you know, dark green coming out of black.

I was looking at this painting,

I heard a wind and saw the painting move a little bit.

And that's what started the whole thing.

I wanted to see a painting move and have sound to it.

That lead to an animated project

on a sculpted screen

for this experimental painting sculpture contest.

I built a sculptured screen about 6 ft x 8 ft.

I animated a minute of animation

to be projected upon that sculptured screen.

I made this siren loop that went with it.

I was married at the time to Peggy.

Formerly Peggy Lenz, of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

Peggy was an art student at the academy as well.

Peggy was a beautiful girl with a beautiful singing voice.

Really good painter.

Peggy went to her parents house for a visit.

Her little niece was there,

and I think in a darken room, in a little bed.

And was having a nightmare,

and repeating the alphabet over and over in this nightmare.

So Peggy told me about this.

It must have you know, triggered something

and that what I went to work on is...

the alphabet based on Peggy's niece's nightmare.

Or my imaginings of it.

A, B, C...

Please remember you are dealing with a human form.

Now I said my A, B, C's

Tell me what you think of me.

DuringThe Alphabet, I kinda got the bug.

I don't know what would have happened, you know, after a while

if I hadn't got a green lights.

I got this fixation on it.

I really wanted to make The Grandmother.

I wrote this script...

it was...

It was very dense and short.

And it had no form like a regular script.

It might have been eight pages long.

It had sentences only.

It's broken down into lines of sentences as in shots or scenes.

At that time, my friend Bushnell Keeler...

And that's another whole story.

Bushnell Keeler, completely changed my life.

And helped me in very critical times in my life.

And somewhere along in here,

Bushnell and his wife Tootie

told me about a new thing called:

The American Film Institute.

They were headquartered on H. Street in Washington, D.C.

Bushnell and Tootie lived in Alexandria.

There was an independent grant program established.

And Bushnell said: "You should apply for a grant."

And so I thought abou that.

I looked into it

and found you needed to submit previous work

and a script for something that you wanted to do.

I had those two things now so I applied.

And I waited.

While I was waiting,

there had been a group earlier that had applied.

They give them four times a year.

While I was waiting,

the first group of winners were announced.

I was begining to learn

established underground filmmakers

and who had been working in film for a long time.

It dawned on me that I was a fool.

At that time figured...

that there wasn't one chance I would get a grant.

And I kept going to work you know printing.

One day it was raining in Philadelphia,

and I went out to go to work.

I was on the front step, in the rain, and Peggy was in the doorway.

I sort of half-heartedly said: "Call me if anything exciting happens."

And she said: "Call me if anything exciting happens."

As if something exicting gonna happen.

So I drove out to Germantown,

where I worked, and began printing with flash.

That afternoon,

I heard the phone ring, but the phone rang sometimes everyday.

But I remember, the phone ringing.

It was Peggy calling.

But she only talk to Roger.

And Roger came downstairs and said:

"You'll get a phone call in a couple of minutes."

Like he knew something.

And then, a couple of minutes later, the phone rang again.

It was George Stevens Jr. and Tony Vellani.

That phone call changed my life completely.

I had a grant to make a film

It was 1973.

We had been shooting Eraserhead

for about one year,

and at that point, we ran out of money.

It was a depressing time.

And around that time Fred came down to the stables one afternoon.

And said that he had been asked to shoot

a test using two different black-and-white video stocks.

for the AFI to determine which stock was the best,

because they were gonna buy a bunch.

When Fred told me that the AFI was buying video tapes,

it gave me a sadness.

And I worried that they might have to change the name of the place.

So, I looked at Fred and I got an idea and I said:

"Fred, does it matter what you shoot?"

And he said: "What are you talking about?"

I said: "Could you shoot anything you want twice?"

"Once with one stock, another with the other

and go like that for the test?"

He said: "I don't see why not."

So I said:

"Could I write and make something for tomorrow?"

And he said okay.

This isn't what I'm telling you.

You weren't in the room when Jim said that.

And I was.

And he really did.

He told me

that everything was fine

between Helen and him.

And I knew, even if he didn't say it.

That it was true.

He knew that then.

No one else did.

You may be thought you did,

but I knew you didn't.

And it makes me furious when you tell me

that I didn't know about Helen.

She was my best friend.

She even told me about that time

she drank gin with you.

So maybe now you believe me.

After that,

I got sick of the beach.

Harry turned on all of the burners on the stove

before we left the cabin.

He said he wanted to set fire to the whole row.

It made me sick.

Everything was bad between us.

And that was it for me.

I never said one word to him on the way back.

When he stopped,

and we saw Joanne and Jim's,

he bought some cigarettes

and told Joanne that I was a flirt.

A damn flirt.

I never was a flirt.

I was not flirting with Jim.

I didn't flirt then.

And I don't flirt now.

And you started this that night Jim told me.

You have never understood Jim.

After the way you treated Helen,

it isn't a wonder that he feels the way he does.

And you know it.

You know that even Paul isn't the same.

You have never understood Jim.

You had it all wrong, honey.

You...

and Joanne.

Now, you know what Paul was really talking about.

By the way...

where were you when Paul got home

at 3 in the morning?

This isn't what I'm telling you.

You weren't in the room when Jim said that.

And, I was.

And he really did.

He told me that everything was fine

between Helen and him.

I knew that even if he didn't say it.

That it was true.

He knew it then.

No one else did.

You may be thought you did,

but I knew you didn't.

And it makes me furious when you tell me

that I didn't know about Helen.

She was my best friend.

She even told me about that time, she drank gin with you.

So now maybe you believe me.

After that,

I got sick of the beach.

Harry turned on all of the burners on the stove

before we left the cabin.

He said he wanted to set fire to the whole row.

It made me sick.

Everything was bad between us.

And that was it for me.

I never said one word to him on the way back.

When he stopped,

and we saw Joanne and Jim's,

he bought some cigarettes

and told Joanne that I was a flirt.

A damn flirt.

I never was a flirt.

I was not flirting with Jim.

I didn't flirt then.

And I don't flirt now.

And you started this that night Jim told me.

You have never understood Jim.

After the way you treated Helen,

it isn't a wonder that he feels the way he does.

And you know it.

You know that even Paul isn't the same.

You have never understood Jim.

You had it all wrong, honey.

You and Joanne.

Now, you know what Paul was really talking about.

By the way...

where were you that night when Paul got home

at 3 in the morning?

This was...

in the late 90's, when cinema reached its 100th anniversary.

And a Frenchman got the idea.

He had the original camera or cameras.

And he knew the formula for the original emulsion.

The only difference was, he used...

Acetate, it's Acetate, right?

Rather than nitrate based stock.

He mixed up this emulsion and put it on 35 mm film.

But this film only has one sprocket holes per frame

for the original camera.

And the magazine of the camera...

the whole camera is made of wood, metal and glass.

A lot of wood.

And it has a crank

and it has a little magazine made of wood and metal.

The magazine only holds 55 ft of film.

So, they got this idea, they would get the camera to

several directors around the world,

and let them make a 55 mintue film.

They put some restrictions on.

The restrictions were, you got three takes.

You had to use natural light.

You couldn't shoot sync sound.

And you couldn't stop the camera

once you started crancking you couldn't stop.

I think those were the restrictions.

People from all over the world got a chance to

to work with this original Lumière brothers camera.

55 seconds! Did I say 55 minutes?

I wish it was, but it was 55 seconds of film.

Yeap, 55 seconds of film.

Yeah, it came out to be about 55 seconds of film.