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HOW WANG-FO WAS SAVED
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I met Wang-Fo one night in a tavern
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The old painter had been drinking
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and the alcohol loosened
an otherwise taciturn tongue
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Wang-Fo talked...
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...as if silence were a wall...
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...and words were shapes
designed to cover it
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Thanks to him I saw colors...
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...a harmonious construction
in people's faces...
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...which I had previously found
uninteresting or repulsive
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He taught me how
to see beauty in things
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He gave me a new spirit,
a new way of looking at things
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I was shy and had grown up
in a family...
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where we were cocooned by wealth
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When I was fifteen,
my father found me a wife
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He chose a beautiful woman
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I took Wang-Fo to our home
to meet her
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Wang-Fo taught me to appreciate
the representation of reality...
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...rather than reality itself
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My wife came to realize I liked Wang-Fo's
portraits of her better than herself
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and her face lost its bloom
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like the flower exposed to the heat
of the summer wind and rain
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My master painted my wife
one last time
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He liked the green tinge
of a dead person's skin
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To buy purple ink for my master,
rolls of silk and paintbrushes
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I sold all I owned
and we left for the kingdom of Han
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We travelled light because my master
liked the images of things...
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...and not the things themselves
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We were poor and exchanged
paintings for a little food...
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...but in my bag were snow-covered
mountains, rivers in springtime...
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...and the face of the summer moon
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Wang-Fo was no doubt
trying to remember...
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...if he had painted an unflattering
portrait of the emperor...
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...which would earn him
the death sentence
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00:06:14,921 --> 00:06:18,220
He told the Celestial Master
that he was old, poor and weak...
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...and that he did not know
what he had done
37
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You ask me what you have done,
Wang-Fo
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As others' poison finds its way
into us through our nine openings...
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...to confront you with the wrongs
you have done
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I have to tell you my life story
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My father had put together
a collection of your paintings...
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...in the palace's most secret rooms
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He thought the subjects in the pictures...
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...should be shielded from
the eyes of the uninitiated...
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...and I was brought up in these rooms
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Of course, needing to rebel,
I denied the reality of your pictures
47
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I tried to escape them
by losing myself in play
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My father, the Emperor,
reacted severely
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I grew up in enforced solitude
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I was removed from the tumult
of my future subjects
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The hours ticked by
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The colors of your paintings
became more brilliant at daybreak...
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...and paler at dusk
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At night when I couldn't sleep
I used to look at them
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I looked at them every night
for nearly ten years
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I imagined the world
with the kingdom of Han at its centre...
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...as if nestling
in the palm of my hand...
58
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...furrowed by the fatal lines
of the Five Rivers
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00:08:07,901 --> 00:08:12,429
Around it, the sea,
the birthplace of monsters
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00:08:12,539 --> 00:08:17,033
and further away the mountains
which support the sky
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00:08:17,143 --> 00:08:22,012
I used your paintings
to help myself imagine all this
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You made me think the sea was like
the sheet of water in your paintings...
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...that women
open and closed like flowers...
64
00:08:34,561 --> 00:08:38,156
...and that the young warriors
were arrows...
65
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...that could pierce your heart
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At sixteen the doors that had kept me
apart from the world, opened again
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I went out onto the terrace
of the palace to look at the clouds
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But they were not as beautiful
as those in your paintings of dusk
69
00:09:08,528 --> 00:09:13,431
I walked along roads
not expecting to find stones or mud
70
00:09:13,533 --> 00:09:19,301
I searched the empire to find gardens
full of women like fireflies
71
00:09:19,405 --> 00:09:21,965
Pebbles on the seashore marred
the ocean for me
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00:09:22,075 --> 00:09:26,171
Vermin in villages prevented me from
seeing the beauty of the rice fields
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The blood of victims isn't as red
as the pomegranate in your paintings
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Women's flesh repulses me
like meat on a butcher's hook...
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...and my soldiers' throaty laugh
turns my stomach
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You lied to me, Wang-Fo,
you hoary impostor
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The world is just a mass
of confused blotches...
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...thrown at a blank canvas
by an insane painter...
79
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...and constantly obliterated
by our tears
80
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The kingdom of Han
is not the most beautiful kingdom...
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00:10:01,714 --> 00:10:04,444
...and I am not the Emperor
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The only empire that is worth ruling...
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...is the one that you enter
by the Path Of A Thousand Curves...
84
00:10:12,759 --> 00:10:15,819
...And A Thousand Colors
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00:10:15,929 --> 00:10:19,922
That is why I had to think
what your punishment should be
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00:10:20,033 --> 00:10:24,470
You, whose magic made me abhor
what I have...
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00:10:24,570 --> 00:10:28,734
...and makes me want
what I cannot have
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And to imprison you in the only place
from which you can't escape...
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00:10:34,547 --> 00:10:39,109
...I've decided
that we will burn your eyes
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00:10:39,218 --> 00:10:42,585
And as your hands
are the conduits to the ten routes...
91
00:10:42,689 --> 00:10:45,419
...which take you
to the heart of your empire
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00:10:45,525 --> 00:10:48,585
I've decided that your hands
will be cut off
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Do you understand?
94
00:11:09,115 --> 00:11:14,417
I hate you, Wang-Fo, because you
knew how to make people love you
95
00:11:16,055 --> 00:11:17,716
Kill this dog
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00:11:25,698 --> 00:11:29,794
Dry your tears.
Now is not the time to cry
97
00:11:29,902 --> 00:11:32,427
Your eyes must stay clear
98
00:11:32,538 --> 00:11:36,531
It's not simply to get my revenge
that I want you to die
99
00:11:36,642 --> 00:11:40,669
It's not simply out of cruelty
that I want to see you suffer
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00:11:40,780 --> 00:11:43,578
I have other plans
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00:11:44,550 --> 00:11:47,815
In my collection of your early works
102
00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:51,856
I have a wonderful painting,
perhaps your greatest masterpiece...
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...which is sadly unfinished
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I want you to spend the hours of light
you have left...
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...to finish this painting
106
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Don't worry, Master.
They'll soon be on dry land again
107
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They won't even remember
that their sleeves were wet
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00:13:31,491 --> 00:13:36,394
Maybe just the Emperor will keep
some bitter memory of the sea
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They're not the sort of people
to lose themselves in a painting
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Based on a short story
by Marguerite Yourcenar
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from the collection
"Oriental Tales"
9623
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