Original subtitles

(traffic whooshing)

(faint boat horn blowing)

(siren wailing in distance)

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(horn honks)

- We'll just work here.

- Okay.

- Rather than just take a picture of you-

- Yeah?

- I'm going to write on the screen

all the vital information about you.

- Blood pressure, heart rate? - Blood pressure?

Yes.

Uh-huh.

Foot shoe size. - 12.

You're losing my cleft.

- All right.

Bring the cleft back up.

Okay.

(shutter clicks)

- There's a lot of trust involved here.

- [Duane] On my part.

Boston, Mass.

I'll give you more graphics.

(camera shutter clicking)

Just put your face right here.

- [Speaker] What's this for?

- There.

Bring your chin up.

And let me see some of your pretty hair.

Let me get, push some out there.

There we are.

There we go.

Now, that is, that's perfect!

Go like this. (gasps)

(camera shutter clicking)

Thank you.

Thank you.

Wow.

Look at her.

(shutter clicks)

(gentle orchestral music)

"We spend our entire lives looking into mirrors

and believing the illusions reflected there

and comforted by the reality of appearances.

Unfortunately, people are seldom what they appear to be,

and what is seen is what we expect to see.

We look for reassurance, not revelation, and we do not know.

I knew my mother and my father my entire lifetime,

and not once did they ever reveal themselves to me.

And to whom have you revealed yourself?

Who shares your secrets?

What do you know about yourself to tell?

Who is reading this now?"

Oh, did you ever hear of David Hemmings?

- [Michael] I've heard the name, but I don't quite know him.

- [Duane] He was in "Blow-Up."

He was very big. - Yeah, I know who he is.

- [Duane] This was the night before "Blow-Up,"

before it was screened.

This is in his hotel, and on the top floor,

they had this screened-in area.

What I love is this texture of the screen.

And then the, I think this is very-

- [Michael] Is this in London or New York?

- No, New York.

It's a very mysterious photograph.

Oh.

Richard Gere.

This was in the hotel with the opening of,

what was that movie where he played the gigolo?

- "American Gigolo."

- (laughing) Yeah.

That's the one.

And this is a three-way mirror.

I love photographing people in many perspectives.

You see the front of them, the back of them,

the side of them.

I realised in the portrait book, I did that a lot.

I had no idea how often.

This is Jeremy Irons.

I photographed him backstage at the theatre.

I begin to notice how many things I do

that has mirrors in them.

So you get this scale, this scale, this scale.

I like this whole, The surface is not flat.

The surface goes back and forth.

- [Michael] There's four photographs in this one actually.

- Yeah.

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Stop staring at me.

I'm not staring at you.

I'm looking at my reflection in the mirror.

How do you know that my reflection

is the real one?

It's all in your mind, you know.

The mirror, everything, it's all reflected in your mind.

This isn't real.

What is real?

(gentle orchestral music continues)

I know your passion for Magritte.

And you know I photographed Magritte.

- I do know that.

- And I spent a week in Brussels visiting,

which was really terrific.

And I would visit the house every day,

and he was so generous.

It was so exciting walking down the street,

looking at all these, looking for,

and then, "Oh, yes, number 145."

I was 33 at the time,

and he was 65.

After lunch every day, Magritte would take a nap.

There he was in his suit, and he would just lay on the sofa

and fall asleep.

And I did his portrait, Magritte, asleep.

I loved it because I made,

can you imagine what kind of dreams he must have had?

I would love to know what Magritte's dreams were.

- [Michael] You had an opportunity to ask him.

You should have asked him.

- I should have asked him, yeah.

I was actually very intimidated by him.

I felt it was such a privilege to be there,

let alone be intrusive.

I was so young.

I didn't even know what questions to ask.

Well, this is great.

This is his doorbell.

I loved the idea that, you know,

you come down the street, you look at these houses,

and then it says,

It's like coming down the street and it says "Jesus"

or it says "Picasso."

Then I could push his buzzer.

- It would have been funnier if it said,

"For Magritte, press here."

- (laughs) Yeah.

Honk if you love Jesus.

Honk if you love Magritte. (laughing)

And then there he was.

He came to the door.

- I mean, who did you expect to answer the door?

- I don't know.

I expected somebody ethereal.

- God?

- And he looked like he always looked.

Then he said, "Oh, hello, Duane." (whimpers and laughs)

- That's funny.

- Then I ran away.

When I did the double exposure

of the empty easel,

he stood over here, and I could see him in the mirror.

I loved that, the fact that,

See how much more interesting it is seeing him

in the mirror?

- It's interesting because when I see this,

this seems like the ghost, and this seems real,

and yet he's transparent there.

- Yeah.

Because things, Double exposure against dark,

and that's very much a Magritte image,

or a concept.

That's what he- - I like that.

- Is it balancing?

- No, but it's cool.

- Maybe it will.

Let go.

- Wait.

Move it this way.

- Quick.

Get it for an instant.

- It's a little windy.

- Just let it fly.

Let it go.

Oh, great.

Do you wanna get it?

- That's where it's supposed to land.

- That's where it's meant, look at it.

I just don't want it to blow off the roof.

- It won't.

- Oh, it's the ghost of Magritte!

He's here!

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

"How foolish of me to believe

that it would be that easy.

I had confused the appearances of trees and people

with reality itself,

and I believed that a photograph

of these transient appearances

to be a photograph of it.

It is a melancholy truth that I can never photograph it

and must always fail.

I am a reflection photographing other reflections

within a reflection.

To photograph reality is to photograph nothing."

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Nicole.

- Yeah.

- The light's not right.

Let's see.

Hold the book higher.

Don't forget the source is up there.

- Okay.

- But hold the book higher.

And this way acts as a fill.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then when you turn the page very deliberately,

'cause it's nice seeing this.

You know what else is nice?

When the light hits your, oops.

Fingers.

- As I'm turning?

- Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Great.

- Cool.

- Terrific.

(Nicole sighs)

(knuckles rapping)

- Hello?

Hello?

- You found the box at the door.

You're curious.

You don't know why it's here or who sent it,

what it's about.

As you get closer to the table,

you find yourself getting a little,

The curiosity becomes nervousness.

You think, "Well, that's strange."

You go from "Oh, how nice" to "Ooh, that's strange."

As you get closer to the table,

you begin to open, you want to distance yourself.

It's like, you know,

And then you really see something.

Ugh.

You know, and then you turn.

When you flee, you just throw the door open

and leave it open.

- Okay.

Cool.

- Then we'll do that, okay.

- Cool, cool, cool, cool.

(Nicole gasping)

Oh!

Oh!

(gentle orchestral music)

(knuckles rapping)

Hello?

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(Nicole gasps)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(fire crackling)

(traffic whooshing)

- A mirror.

Hmm.

Dan, I see you in the mirror.

- [Dan] And I see you there.

Hello, Duane.

I was over here getting these for you

because you may not know we have these.

- Oh, my God.

- Recognise them?

- Yes, I do.

You know how old these are?

- I don't, no.

- These go back to the '60s.

Not my 60s, the 1960s.

- Oh, my God.

- Well, here.

Let's look.

Where'd you find these?

- [Dan] Like I said, they just appeared.

(Duane laughing)

- Wow.

- These things are amazing.

Old washing machines?

- This is my old laundromat.

- Oh, my God.

- I think it's a bodega now.

We've made great progress.

They look like little funny TV sets.

- Like under water. - Uh-huh.

It was based on Atget.

I love those empty streets.

They all look like stage sets.

Actually, these pictures are what led me to doing sequences.

Because when I started to see these places,

I thought, "Gee, why don't I just people them?"

This is one of my favourites because,

you see this little tunnel?

- [Dan] Mm-hmm.

- And I did a wonderful sequence here.

It was called The Senseless Act.

This is very early.

I took a box here, a large cardboard box

filled it with newspapers.

- Mm-hmm.

- It was just sitting there,

and a man comes down the street,

lights a match, sets the box on fire.

As he goes around the corner, it blazes up.

I just photographed the box burning down to nothing.

Photographers would take pictures like this.

For me, they're a point of departure.

- Mm-hmm.

- I mean, that's beautiful, but then what happens?

What's next?

- There's a story going on.

- Exactly.

It was very liberating once I realised

I could tell the story.

I didn't have to wait to find the story.

I could invent the story.

I think all creativity is an invention.

Inventing something that was never there before.

- Right.

- Thank you for finding these

'cause I'm just thrilled by them.

- Like I said, I hadn't gone through them.

It's great to go through them with you

because you're telling me the behind-the-scenes stuff.

- I see photographs all the time, and I often wonder,

well, what were the circumstances they were take...

What happened the minute before the guy pressed-

- Is that a good photograph?

Would a good photograph be one

where you didn't even have to ask that question

'cause it was just sort of giving you-

- The good photographs should have emotional impact.

- Right.

- Bill Brandt said, "All good photographs have mystery."

And Pikhurko, apropos of this photograph,

said that there should be a strangeness to work.

I love that, that there should be a strangeness.

I think if there's strangeness in poetry.

- It fits you very well.

- Thank you.

I'm very strange.

(Dan laughing)

Did that hurt?

It should have. - No, not at all.

- That wasn't my-

- I have a piece of iron down here,

if you'd like to use that.

- Don't tempt me.

This is so, this is nice.

- Yeah.

Really.

- I think you should take better care of my art.

- But look- - Whoa.

As good as I do.

Dan, thanks.

- Thank you so much.

- I had the best time.

- I learned so much.

- Take care of my baby.

- I promise.

- Bye.

- Bye-bye.

Say hi to Fred for me.

- I will.

(gentle orchestral music)

"Although he had to walk blocks out of his way,

it had become a daily ritual with him

to look in the store window.

He was strangely pleased to see that they were still there.

Of course it had occurred to him to buy the gloves,

but to own them would have ruined it.

It would not be the same.

He sat much too long staring at his gloves.

His eyes kept returning

to the curious shape his gloves had taken.

One had become a queer, furry tunnel,

all warm and dark inside.

The glove swallowed his hand.

He sat there reading "The Times."

She sat there reading "The Times," wearing only one glove.

He could almost touch the glove.

The hand in her glove became his hand.

The hand moved slowly along the contours of her face

and down her body.

The glove did what it wanted to do.

She rose abruptly, leaving one glove.

How wonderful."

(traffic whooshing)

Taxi.

Taxi!

Whoa!

Taxi!

Yo, taxi!

Taxi?

Taxi, taxi!

You're going the wrong way.

I want to go that way.

(person speaking indistinctly)

Thanks anyway.

Oh.

(gentle chiming music)

(gentle chiming music continues)

(Duane clicking tongue rhythmically)

Time is such a funny thing.

It's like a hole inside a ring.

It's always now and never then.

But when I say "It's now again,"

it's never now, but always then.

If you think you're very tall,

beside a tree you're not at all.

And if you think you're very small,

beside a bee you're 10 feet tall.

When we dream, it seems awake,

but all along the dream was fake.

You say you're I and also me.

How can that be since I'm not you

and you're not me?

Time is not what you might think.

It is and isn't in a wink.

(Duane clicking tongue rhythmically)

(gentle chiming music)

You know, this first shot, you were 19.

It says five to 2:00.

I don't know why it says five to 2:00.

The second shot, when you're 26, it says 20 after.

It's interesting because, you know,

10 years later, you have two kids, you're married

and you've been in prison for five years.

You're on parole.

I mean, good behaviour.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You must have had a good time in the slammer.

- It was nice.

- Food was good.

- It was, yeah.

Good TV.

- Well, and it's interesting because, you know,

the first picture, when you're 19,

you look like a little boy.

Then in the second picture, with the long hair

and the beard and the whole thing,

you look older than you do now,

so we could reverse these,

and nobody would ever know the difference.

- Well, you know.

- No, really.

Today you look younger than you did when you were 26.

Are you doing funny pills or something?

- (laughing) I found the fountain of youth.

- Tell me, where is it?

I'll go.

- It's called a haircut and a shave.

- Two bits.

- Looks like you got the haircut down.

- Well, we're getting, we're getting...

So let's have time march on.

- Okay.

- I've already set the clock, this is a new clock.

I can't find this one.

Apparently, it hid when it realised

I was going to do another shot with you.

Oh, take your shirt off.

- All right.

- Well, thank God you got rid of that rash.

- That's right.

And the tattoos. (laughing)

- Okay, the hands are like that.

- Okay.

- And the clock is right,

Now, it's up, that's good.

The fingers go on top.

- Okay.

You'd think we've done this before.

- Well, this is amazing.

Here it is.

No, it's the same thing.

Let me look, No, this has to tilt down.

- Okay. - Wow.

That looks good.

Let me get the camera.

- [John] All right.

- Where in the hell's the camera?

Who took my camera?

(John laughing)

How do you turn this thing on?

I'm one of the few people who doesn't use digital.

You know, I do everything the old-fashioned way.

- Why don't we just make sure there's film

in the camera then?

- That's been known to happen with me too.

A-ha!

Film.

Well, this has to tilt down more.

That's better.

And just, there.

Mm-hmm.

That's it.

There it is.

(shutter clicks)

One more.

Just to cover.

The other shots were black-and-white, and this is colour.

It's so great because, you know, the blue, the skin tone,

the bloodshot eyes. (laughs)

I'm sorry.

(shutter clicks)

(shutter clicks)

Beautiful.

(shutter clicks)

Let me just take one last,

'cause I think we're done.

One last look.

Yeah, perfect.

Here we go.

(shutter clicking)

And one more bracket.

Oh.

(shutter clicks)

Done.

Done.

Applause, applause, applause.

- That's right. - Okay.

You know what?

I wanted to, I wanted to show you this, so,

let me get rid of this thing.

Look at this frontispiece here.

Right here.

- Oh, sure.

- Yeah.

I was 17, and I went into this store,

and I found this copy of "Leaves of Grass,"

and I began to read it.

But when I read this, I found the writing so accessible

and so direct.

He was talking about nature.

He was talking about Buddhism.

He was talking about all kinds of things

that I didn't know anything about,

but I was attracted to it.

And then I began to read some of the poems

where there were references to friends of his, men.

And, whoa.

Must be a misprint, you know?

And then more and more,

I realised what he was talking about,

the legitimacy of affection between guys.

That was 1949.

That was, whoa.

What the hell is this? - Right.

- So it was really a revolution for me to read this.

(gentle orchestral music)

"To think of time, of all that retrospection,

to think of today and the ages continued henceforth,

have you guessed you, yourself, would not continue?

Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?

Have you feared the future would be nothing to you?

Is today nothing?

Is the beginningless past nothing?

If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing.

To think that the sun rose in the East,

that men and women were flexible, real, alive,

that everything was alive.

To think that you and I did not see, feel,

think or bear our part.

To think that we are now here and bear our part."

And it's just reconfirming

being, you know, now.

This is now, and we're here.

And you know, your kids are gonna go on.

You know your kids could live to the year 2100?

- It's possible.

- That would be 97 or something.

Course, you'll be long dead, gone.

- Hopefully.

- Smouldering in the grave.

Stinky you. (laughs)

Well, anyway, I wanted to share this with you.

- That's great.

Thank you.

- Now go home.

- All right.

- You have to get back to school.

You're late.

(John laughing)

Come on.

See you.

- So long.

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

- I seem to be an atmosphere of being.

I'm in an atmosphere.

I'm in this little drama.

It's a place,

and I don't know where the place is.

It's very scary.

And then I won't be around anymore.

Yeah, that's scary.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

When I say "This is now," it becomes then.

There is no now.

It appears to us as a moment,

but the moment itself is an illusion.

It is and isn't,

and this illusion is a series of about-to-be's and has-beens

that put together seem an event,

It is a construction, an invention of our minds.

Its familiarity makes it invisible.

Our lives are real dreams

that have been just one moment,

all at once, now."

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Do you see what my idea was here?

This thin line is now.

This is time going forward,

and this is time retreating into memory.

But it's always based on this infinitesimal line

that goes forward and backwards simultaneously.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

I remember.

It looks exactly the same

as when I was a boy.

I would take the streetcar from McKeesport, the number 68,

and it took me an hour to get here.

I always came to this room

because suddenly I was in the rest of the world.

This is the rest of the world.

This wasn't Pittsburgh.

This wasn't McKeesport.

This was the rest of the world,

and it was filled with amazing things.

But of all the amazing things,

this is the most amazing.

I still get excited looking at it.

This is an authentic

300 BC cell phone.

This is the first cell,

the Greeks even invented cell phones.

I got the last one.

It was 200 euros.

But it really doesn't work

because I don't have ancient Greek batteries.

Watch.

Hello,

Can you hear me?

Ring-ring, ring-ring.

Ring-ring, ring-ring.

Hello.

Athena, can you hear me?

No, I can't.

I'm not here.

Go away.

She's so rude.

I came all this distance.

(finger tapping)

Well, anyway.

For 200 euros, what can you expect?

My contribution.

Bye.

Hmm.

Belle ass.

(gentle upbeat music)

(door creaking)

"It is no accident that you are reading this.

I am making black marks on white paper.

These marks are my thoughts.

And although I do not know

who you are reading this now,

in some way, the lines of our lives have intersected here

on this paper.

For the length of these few sentences, we meet here.

It is no accident that you are reading this.

This moment has been waiting for you.

I have been waiting for you.

Remember me."

(gentle chiming music)

(gentle chiming music continues)

"When I was a little boy, it seemed to me

that there were many moons.

My grandmother had a moon above her house,

and my other grandmother had one too.

We had a moon over our backyard,

and my best friend Art had moonshine

through his bedroom window.

Even when we visited our cousin in Chicago,

I wasn't surprised to discover

that they had their own moon.

Then one night, coming home from a visit to Grandmother's,

I watched out of our car's back window

and saw her moon follow us home.

Her moon was our moon.

There was just one moon.

Now the sky seems so empty."

(Duane howling)

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

I used to, I was brought up in this house.

I was born here

79 years ago.

It was filled with life, and now it's all dead.

And the street's dead.

And the city's been abandoned.

And all I have left are my memories.

(train whistle blows)

When I was a child, the house was filled

with laughter and fun.

Our next door neighbour was Mrs. Havisham.

And she would sometimes have me come in

and play with Estella.

And it was fun.

Up there was where Madame Bovary lived,

Emma, as we called her.

She was a good neighbour.

And, I think she was always trying to hit on my dad.

But I don't think, I'm never quite sure.

Next door, Mr. Darcy lived.

And he would come here, and we would have high tea

with cucumber sandwiches and Iron City pilsner.

He loved Iron City beer.

He could drink a six-pack just like that.

Then way on top of the hill, it's all gone now,

there used to be a lighthouse.

We would go to the lighthouse,

and the lighthouse had 1000 steps.

And if you would go to the lighthouse

and make it to the 800th step,

you could see Land's End on a clear day.

And then if you went all the way on the top

to the 1,000th step,

on a clear night, you could see

those twinkling, glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower,

which was totally magic.

And then one day, it just fell down.

I guess it was very tired.

And there was a big crash and stones went everywhere

and now it's all gone.

The family's gone, the street's gone, the house is gone.

(metal clattering)

And I am going too.

(wind howling)

All things that he experienced in his lifetime

were his inventions.

He invented the trees and the sky

and all things visible and invisible.

And at this moment,

he is inventing me writing this and you reading this.

Yes, you, too, are his invention.

But if you told him this, he would not understand it,

even though all things he thought possible became possible,

and all things he thought impossible were impossible.

And in the end, he would even invent his own death,

and he would never know that he had invented it all.

The man who invented himself.

(church bells pealing)

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

"This abandoned wooden box is the cabinet

where my family's curiosities are stored.

I now reopen all its shuttered windows

and unlock all its boarded doors.

Sonny returns to the house of ghosts

where he was born 70 years ago.

A photographic memoir with verse."

And I am Sonny.

When I was a little boy, my nickname was Sonny.

And everybody thought I was Sonny Maddek,

because that was my grandparents' name,

and so everybody called me Sonny.

And, (laughs)

actually, I am sunny.

I'm very sunny.

This is a picture taken,

and there's a lot of text because

I call myself an expressionist,

and by that I mean

that I'm not just interested in photography.

For me, the key word is

how well do I express myself?

And if I need to use photographs,

if I need to write with it, I couldn't care less.

So I'm not a purist.

I haven't been pure in years.

I spit on purity. (laughing)

I don't, never mind.

There are a lot of things come out of my head

that sometimes even amaze me.

And it says, "As a child, I did not understand

that I was a prince,

and that my father was the king.

And although we did not live in a castle

and my father worked in the mill,

I began to realise that in the realm of my dreams,

I was the dauphin.

And through my bedroom window,

I could see a spectacle of turrets and minarets

float above the soiled city below

like an iridescent mist.

And my imagination would be both my wand and my sceptre.

And there would be no boundaries to my domain."

The room today is really, really falling down.

But I was struck when I went into that room because

I was born in that room, and there it was 70 years later

that I returned to that room.

And I felt that I had gone complete circle.

It was amazing.

I'm still very much touched by being in that room.

(gentle orchestral music)

I like these ghosts.

I think the ghost pictures are wonderful.

'Cause you can see who was actually,

you can almost see the vibrations and the energy

and the light.

And I love taking double exposures,

'cause I never know what I'm going to get.

You're taking pictures

that you can't see when you take them.

You're making a there there that wasn't there

when you took the picture.

And I have this feeling that,

I wondered if rooms,

if somehow the walls absorb all those thoughts

and words and sounds and tears and fights

and the snow on the window.

If somehow it was all there.

And I wonder if maybe when a house burns down,

you could hear the house crying.

I wonder if the house cries.

I wonder if it makes noises in the crackling frame

as all those memories go up in flame, you naughty child.

(Duane sighs)

It's so extraordinary that that moment is still there.

But my grandmother was wonderful.

She used to say, "You have to be a toughie tough."

Not just tough.

You've got to be a toughie tough.

If you want something, nobody's gonna give it to you.

You have to go get it.

You know, and in other words, self-reliance.

Where have I heard that before?

"I'll tell you what I know.

Father lived incognito in his own house.

He was a stranger to his spouse.

Jack worked three shifts in Mr. Carnegie's mill

for little pay and smoked three packs of Camel's every day.

Cigarettes were his best friends

until they betrayed him in the end.

Mother said he was a good man and a good provider.

Between mother and me, he was always the outsider.

When he was told that he had been cuckolded,

Father went from an amateur drinker

to a professional.

Mother took to her confessional.

Once I saw him cry.

I never thought to ask why.

He was already a ghost when he died."

I think that says, that says it.

"He was already a ghost when he died."

"It pains me to write this.

He was not missed."

And I think that's terrible.

That's a terrible, terrible thing to say.

But, you know,

I did this not to become rich and famous

or to become an "artiste."

One should never try to be an artist.

That's a huge mistake people make, trying to be an artist.

One should be true to yourself.

And I couldn't have written this

10 years earlier 'cause everybody was alive.

But it's a true story.

(gentle orchestral music)

Here's a picture of my mother

in the old bedroom.

And it said, "Mother did not love my father.

She loved another.

Margaret lived a secret melancholy.

The life she chose to live was her great folly.

For you see, Mother believed that she had sinned.

And, of course, Catholics don't divorce."

That really pisses me off.

I mean, God would have been so unhappy

if my mother would be happy.

I mean, what is it that God gets unhappy when we're happy?

I mean, it's ridiculous.

I mean, it's insane.

Why should he be unhappy because my mother was happy?

Well, anyway.

And then here's an interesting thing about Prince Valiant.

It's one of the first inklings

I ever had to being gay.

Although I didn't know I was gay.

But I, it was one, I should have known. (chuckles)

Anyway, I loved Prince Valiant.

I don't even know if Prince Valiant's around anymore.

Oh, I'll read what it says.

"When I was 15, I first discovered desire

in my favourite Sunday funnies.

It was a paper owned by Hearst, that Prince Valiant

freed Aleta from a curse."

I love to rhyme.

You know.

I rhyme in my head all the time.

"But everything went wrong.

He was captured as she escaped.

And his captors stripped him to a kind of thong."

Wrong, thong. (laughing)

"Suddenly a strange awareness."

Hmm.

What could that be, says I.

"Some blurred yearning", I love that,

"blurred yearning stirred."

"What was this curiosity that urged me to touch?

I did not understand this novelty was desire for a man."

Whoa.

"I hid the comics in a drawer,

so I could peek at his physique encore."

That's very French, encore.

"Desire had whispered in my mind thoughts

I had never thought of before, heard before.

Now as I decline, in the ripening of time,

I've forgotten just what those thought once were."

But not totally. (laughs)

Desire never goes away.

You just turn down the gas under your libido.

But if you sneeze, you blow it out.

Oh!

Complete circle.

This is like, am I dying?

It's like having my life flash in front of my eyes.

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

"My father could walk in the sky.

He promised to teach me how.

But he left without saying good-bye.

I don't cry.

I'm a grown-up now."

(gentle orchestral music continues)

♪ I am Duane Don Quixote, the man from McKeesport ♪

♪ I come here to free all the serfs ♪

And this is my squire, Sancho Tanya.

Tanya, behold the castle of the King of Carnegie

and his dreaded henchmen, Frick and the Pinkertons.

Let us free the steelworkers.

Avanti!

(gentle orchestral music)

(train horn blowing in distance)

I've come to free the workers.

Carnegie, where are you?

You coward!

Take your Pinkertons and get out of here!

Oh!

Come on.

Tanya, look.

They've fled.

Kindness has triumphed.

Ah.

I'm so happy.

I light this candle in memory

of all the men who worked here.

My father, who worked in a place like this,

and my uncles and my grandfathers.

They're all gone.

Can you hear the noise?

They're all gone.

We've won.

We've won.

(sighs) I can die a happy man.

Hello, my pretties. (cackling)

I brought a, in case,

I always do a precautionary thing.

I bring my own student just in case I find you boring.

So I brought my student,

and if I find you boring and nobody asks questions,

he will ask questions.

Hello.

Hello.

Okay, good.

He's working.

Oh, this is the bewitched bee.

"The bee was bewitched by the beauty of the boy.

The bee kissed the boy with a sting.

The boy fell into an enchanted melancholy.

His head heaved heavy horns.

(light piano music)

He became an antlered creature.

Only furry things and things with wings

could love an antlered creature.

The boy wandered into the woods looking for love.

Lost and lonely, he drowned in a sea of leaves."

(gentle orchestral music)

Photographers never photograph what they can't see.

Of course, the most important things are what you can't see.

It's what you feel.

What you feel is much more important than what you can see.

That's why I had to write.

That's why I had to find other ways of expressing myself.

If you're at all interested,

it's how do you express yourself,

and the more you express yourself,

the healthier you're going to be,

the richer you're going to be.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

And I love that.

I love the concept of touching somebody with your writing.

I think that's a beautiful,

does it mean anything?

No, no, no.

But it's this beautiful thing. (blows)

It's like that, and that's the best stuff. (blowing)

You can't hold onto it.

That's why it's so precious.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Have you ever been in a situation

where you've been with another person,

whatever gender suits you,

and suddenly you begin to realise in the conversation

that there's another agenda?

Suddenly something's being hinted at.

Suddenly somebody is telling you that they're available.

Somehow they're letting you know, without saying the word,

but suddenly the atmosphere becomes charged.

Sex is about the building up

of tension and the releasing of tension,

and this is the part that's the most exciting part.

It's not the gratification.

It's this moment.

It's this,

and you can just feel your hands, and you're that close,

and you're hoping something will happen, you know?

(gentle orchestral music continues)

And we need touch.

Touch is a human need.

And that's the one thing we're afraid to give each other.

And there are so many issues involved

in the subject of desire.

It's very wholesome and natural.

Desire is very natural.

But like all things, it should only be done in moderation,

but the more intimate, the more nuanced,

So you have to find your own desire,

and all desires are not made alike.

Gay people,

straight people and gay people

are the same, except they're different.

But it's all about the need, first of all, you're born gay.

You're not born straight, then you went, "Hmm.

I think I'll go crazy.

I think I'll go queer."

Doesn't happen.

Doesn't work that way.

And why are only gay people the people

who have the right to make that choice?

Did it ever occur to you, "I think I'll go gay"?

"No, I think I'll go straight.

No, I think I'll go gay.

The clothes are better."

But I mean, there's this whole process.

And so, it's about the expression of human love

and touching.

Except in the gay world, it's the same gender,

and in the straight world, it's the opposite gender.

But being gay is just like being straight,

except straight people are not punished for what they are.

You know, that's the big difference.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

"The unfortunate man

could not touch the one he loved.

It had been declared illegal by the law.

Slowly his fingers became toes

and his hands gradually became feet.

He began to wear shoes on his hands to disguise his pain.

It never occurred to him to break the law."

(gentle orchestral music continues)

And sometimes you have to break the law,

especially when, you know, when it affects

the very nature of who you are and what you are, okay?

(Duane whinnies like a horse)

Where's sound when you need it?

Whoo-hoo!

Oh, you!

Mr. Striebel! (giggles)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Boom.

Ba-rum-bum.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Brian, I need your help.

I'm trying to write something about desire.

I'm working on a new book, and, I'm gonna

run a few ideas by you and see what you think, okay?

(gentle orchestral music continues)

"When in the season of desire,

reason and common sense are dispensed,

and we risk all for the object of our whim."

That's not quite right.

"We please to be pleased."

I like that.

"We please to be pleased."

'Cause if we please somebody, we get what we want.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Desire denied multiplies.

Desire dies when satisfied.

I like that.

Oh, well.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

"Take one and see Mount Fujiyama.

It was a very hot day.

The book was dull.

He was bored.

Someone slimmed a..." (Whistles)

"Someone slipped an envelope under the door.

There was something peculiar written on it."

It says, "Take one and see Mount Fujiyama."

"Inside were some pi, green pills,

and without any hesitation, he gulped down a pill.

He felt like a balloon with its air being let out.

Instantly he became six inches tall.

The door squeaked behind him

as the largest woman he had ever seen entered the room.

She grew larger as she approached his chair

and began to tower over him.

The giant woman appeared not to see him.

He was excited by her size.

His excitement turned to terror when he realised

that she was going to sit on his chair

and on him.

As her colossal ass descended upon him,

he tried to run but was paralysed.

His tiny legs refused to move.

He stood frozen with excitement as the big behind

settled down closer and closer.

She sat on him!

Miraculously, in the darkness,

he began to see the snow-covered peak of Mount Fujiyama."

♪ Life is just a bowl of cherries ♪

♪ It's too mysterious ♪

♪ So why be serious? ♪

♪ Oh, the best things in life ♪

♪ To you were just loaned ♪

♪ How can you lose what you never owned ♪

(Duane whistling)

♪ Going home ♪

♪ Going home ♪

(birds chirping)

Watch it.

That ladder's not the best.

That's it.

There we go.

That's good.

If I was really smart, I'd have silver on the back of that.

You know?

That's it.

Wiggle it a lot more.

And then drop it down slowly.

(shutter clicks)

Drop it.

Keep coming down with it.

Drop, drop, drop.

Down, down, down.

(shutter clicking)

Keep dropping it.

Keep dropping it.

Okay, leave it there.

Now, Brian, walk up to the tree.

Climb up, Brian, and then unhook it and bring it down.

And tilt it back.

It'll catch the light.

There.

Beautiful.

Stay like that.

(shutter clicks)

Okay, bring it down.

And then put it in your hat.

(shutter clicking)

Go like this, Brian.

You're surprised. (gasps)

Lean to it like this with your face.

Tilt it up more.

It'll get more light.

Right there.

Perfect.

(shutter clicks)

Nice.

(shutter clicks)

Okay, now don't smile.

Just be...

More wiggle.

Faster.

(shutter clicks)

Great.

(shutter clicks)

Faster, faster, faster.

Just keep it toward me.

Uh-huh.

(shutter clicks)

Oh.

And aim it so the sun hits it.

There.

This way.

One more.

(shutter clicks)

- So just right there?

- Yeah.

No, that's no good.

Let's just walk away with the hat in.

I wonder if there's a way I can have the hat, the star,

no.

If I can have the star...

Oh, that's, that's great.

Well, that's great.

We'll put the hat,

Or maybe just hold the hat out

like I'm taking your portrait.

Tilt your head this way.

There.

(shutter clicks)

(shutter clicks)

Greatest.

That's it.

I love changing it and having you wear the star.

Then you become the star.

(Brian laughs)

Fantastic.

(birds chirping)

(gentle orchestral music)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

You know, don't worry.

I'm not going to paint you. (quacking)

No, I said I'm not gonna paint you. (quacks)

Did I ever tell you that I'm a frustrated painter?

(quacking) Oh, no?

You're one too?

(quacking) Let me tell you a story.

When I was a boy, I used to love painting,

and I used to go to Saturday drawing classes

at the museum in Pittsburgh. (quacking)

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, you've been there?

Yeah.

Well, you know.

And I've always been a frustrated painter,

and I didn't know I was gonna become a photographer.

(quacking) What do you mean you never knew

you were gonna be a duck?

(quacks) You were always a duck.

Anyway, and I've always been a frustrated painter,

and I love, I like paint.

I take more from painters than I do

from photographers, I find.

If I look at a Cézanne, if I look at a Picasso,

I like to see the way they applied paint to canvas.

It's really quite beautiful.

I like the texture.

I like the smell of,

so what I wanted to do was do something about that space

between painting and photography.

(quacking) No, don't leave.

Just stay. (quacking)

All right, stay.

(quacking) You're going south today?

(quacks) What do you mean you have to go south?

It's only September.

You can sit.

You can wait another five minutes.

(quacking) You didn't tell me that.

I mean, oh, I see.

I guess it's all right.

Listen, I'll see you in the spring.

Anyway, when I go to museums,

I now look at how things are painted.

How does a painter add brush strokes?

What do his strokes look like?

What are they, What are they next?

So I like primitive stuff.

I like things to be awkward.

(quacking) I know I'm awkward and I know I'm primitive.

You don't have to remind me.

And when photographers use paint,

what they do is they tint.

They make a blue sky blue.

It's Roger colours or Marshall colours.

But I like to paint on photographs with oils.

I love oils.

(quacking) All right, I'll speed it up.

What do you mean you don't have all day?

Did I tell you this?

(quacks) Well, you know, I'm not hip, I'm not cool.

I will never be hip. (quacks)

I will never be cool.

But what I am is charming. (quacks)

I said "charming."

(quacking) You know, I almost heard you speak English.

Boy, that's interesting.

Anyway, I,

and I find this work charming.

And the other thing I like, I like,

always I like contradiction,

and not just in the surrealist sense,

but I like contradiction in a sense that

it presents me with something I never thought of before.

(quacking) You hate contradiction?

(quacking) Will you sit still?

I'm trying to talk to you.

Now, see?

You blew the light out with all that quacking.

Now, be good.

What do you think? (quacks)

Ah, no?

What's wrong with that?

Well, I tell you, you look good in there.

Yeah, your profile too.

Anyway, you're the worst model.

You just quack too much. (quacking)

You too.

Quack yourself.

Okay, I know you have to go south today.

So call me when you get back in the spring and we'll,

maybe I'll be good enough to paint you then.

(quacks) All right, I won't paint you.

Come back anyway.

I like you.

Honk if you love Jesus. (quacks)

(water rushing) (birds chirping)

(leaves rustling)

(water rushing)

I decided, since I lived in the country

surrounded by animals in the forest,

I would do an exhibition only for animals

and not for people.

(gentle orchestral music)

"How could it be that one day

I will say good-bye to all of this

and miss the lilac spring, the May times whistling

on the wing and the robin's kiss.

In the summertime, when days and evenings are in rhyme,

you will not find me in the grove among the lilacs in repose

or weeding in the garden path

where scented sedums hold on fast.

When autumn falls, I'll cast no shadow on the wall

or hear the owl's haunted hoot

high above the rotting root.

When all is orange, russet red,

I'll not be there with you in bed.

The day the silent snow descends

and lulls to sleep all living friends,

I, too, will slumber in the earth

among the seeds and squirrel's birth.

Who will miss me?

Who will care when I am called and no one's there?"

(wind whistling)

I think everything is a great energy,

and that energy the Chinese call the "chi."

It's the animating energy.

Japanese call it the "qi."

I call it the animating energy.

It's the energy that moves.

And when I have my last breath, the energy continues.

But this is the doyen suit.

And when we die, it all evaporates.

We evaporate.

I think I'm going to evaporate myself soon.

(clicks tongue) So suddenly it's over.

(Duane exhales)

Boo!

What year is it?

(Duane sighs)

(gentle orchestral music)

Hello, New York!

Wake up!

Hello, New York, it's Duane Michals calling!

Hello, New York, it's your 5:00 wake-up call!

How do you do, New York?

How do you do?

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Do it, say it, be it.

You will never be duplicated again in the universe.

I'm getting dizzy up here.

Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

Whoo!

Whoo!

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Just because you don't have wings

doesn't mean you can't fly!

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)

(gentle orchestral music continues)