Original subtitles

To me, it's a thing to do.

Funnily enough, it may sound ridiculous, with the

loss of the British Empire as such.

The changing of the guard is part of

our tradition, but now we find it's been

applied to us.

We've had to sell our stately homes to

pay our debts and taxes, and no one

can afford a chauffeur doing rows.

If we ever get invited to the palace,

then we'll all go there by the changing

of the guard.

We used to be respected as members of

the aristocracy.

The Earl of Windermere has raised a mortgage

on his mansion, and now he's paying back

at £30 a week, which he makes from

showing people around the manor.

You see, the

changing of the guard, we made our sacrifices,

we haven't got a butler or a maid.

The Lord of Scrum has got a son

who's working as a waiter, picking up the

tips he earns enough to pay his rent.

Lady Londonderry's got the family silver and the

money.

The changing of the guard presents a different

picture to when Britannia used to rule the

waves.

She comes from an evil family, if her

ancestors could see the way we're living.

You see, the way you

can see.

A dolly girl dresses how she feels, she

does what she likes, she's free, she doesn't

care about convention.

She's just free, she dresses, she does what

she likes, and has a wonderful time.

How else can you describe a dolly girl?

Probably young.

Oh, well, the clubs, I suppose, are the

Scotch and dollies, and I think Birdland is

a new one, which I've been to once

or twice, it's quite swinging.

Otherwise, there aren't really that many with-it

clubs in London, but the ones that are

are great.

You know, you just go there and drink,

talk, relax.

Do what you like.

No-one cares.

Do what you like.

No-one cares.

No-one cares.

What's going on?

You've been away for far too long.

You are still mad.

And you

don't really have to protest about your virginity.

In fact, it'll be a great disappointment to

him, if you say, you know, it's the

first time, I mean, he'll leave the room.

I suppose that's a sort of freedom, that

the woman doesn't have to disguise her libidism.

No, I can't say the word, but you

know the one I mean.

Her sexuality.

That's freedom.

The other thing that makes a woman free

now is, I suppose, money.

They have money and they can work.

And so the dependence on a man isn't

as great, but the thing that makes her

very unfree, and always will, I imagine, is

although she has a sort of vagrant heart,

a woman does tend to like being with

one man, even if it's only for three

months.

She's not as content, I think, going from

bed to bed.

You've always got decadent people, but what is

so strange now is that the most gifted,

the most articulate, and the most thinking and

conscious people are decadent because of the time

in history that they're alive in.

And there's nothing else you can say to

that unless you're God.

If you're God, you can say, it's all

right, I won't drop the bomb.

I do, I believe in female promiscuity, except

that it happens a different way, that a

woman probably likes to shack up with a

man for three months, and then with another

man, whereas a man would like to shack

up for an evening.

And I think there's still this awful, and

I wish we didn't have it, because it's

such a handicap, this thing of falling in

love.

It's such a nuisance.

And I think women, no man will agree

to this, but I'm sure it's true, women

are more devoted and committed to the notion

of falling in love, and therefore they fall

in love, than men are, because it is

the one territory of adventure that a woman

has.

She can't go across bloody Africa, or if

she does, she'll become pregnant, or anyhow, she

can't.

She just can't, yet.

And maybe never will.

Hello?

Yes.

Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Vanessa Redgrave.

We're here, and there are people in other

places who at this very second aren't here,

and aren't anywhere.

And why we write, and why we react,

and why we sing, is because we're alive.

And to the dead, what we write, and

what we sing, and what we say, is

of no use at all.

So, because Fidel's revolution brought life, and words,

and paintings, to people, but most of all,

life, I'm speaking from him, and from José

Martí, who wrote the words for a song

that was later made, that has become famous,

and that you will know, and I hope

you will sing it.

Cuba, Cuba, estudio, trabajo, fusil, alfabetizar, alfabetizar, venceremos.

Cuba, Cuba, estudio, trabajo, fusil, alfabetizar, alfabetizar, venceremos.

Dicen los americanos que Fidel es comunista.

Ningún dice que Batista mató a 20.000

cubanos.

Cuba sí, Cuba sí, Cuba sí, patria o

muerte, venceremos.

Guantanamera, Guajira, Guantanamera, Guantanamera, Guajira,

Guantanamera, Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde

crece la palma.

Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crece

la palma.

Antes de morirme quiero echar mis versos del

alma.

Guantanamera, Guajira, Guantanamera,

Guantanamera, Guajira, Guantanamera.

Mi verso es de un verde claro y

de un Carmen encendido.

Mi verso es de un verde claro y

de un Carmen encendido.

Mi verso es de un siervo herido que

busca en el monte amplaro.

Guantanamera, Guajira, Guantanamera,

Guantanamera, Guajira, Guantanamera.

Here we go...

There is a slight pause after the bam

bam bam bam bam, before you come in

like enough like this bam bam bam bam

bam, bam bam bam bam bam, Mother told

me always like that Mother told me Mother

told me, Mother told me, Mother told me,

Mother told me, Mother told me, Mother told

me, always to follow the golden rule.

That's right.

But don't make rule too West Country.

Mother told

me, Mother

told me, Mother told me.

in every end.

I mean, I don't enjoy really having to

say account for money, therefore I couldn't write

articles like Paul Getty in Playboy on what

to do with his tongues and what to

do with the other throats.

I just have personal things that I need

money for, whether it's business or what, just

for whatever I happen to be doing.

I just use it for that.

What do you intend to do other than

pop music?

I really don't know.

I've sort of suddenly got reinterested in pop

music again after having gone through a sort

of fairly bored stage, and I've got vague

ideas about what I might do, but it's

what everybody on a particular rung of the

ladder wants to do.

I suppose the obvious thing is to say

one day I would like to go into

films, but I would like to go into

films when the time is right, also without

having any knowledge of it now.

I intend to get sort of more interested

in politics, because I think that's another sort

of...

How do you intend to get to know

what you can about the film business?

By listening.

Would you give that advice to a person

who wanted to get to know about the

pop business?

I think about any business.

I think that once you cease to become

a pupil, then you've ceased.

It seems strange to say, because if I

say the violence of it, which is one

part, which if you ask most young people,

they say they don't like the violence, they

don't like the war, they don't like that.

They themselves are violent, which doesn't seem to

make sense.

No, it seems that you're encouraging it in

a way.

But it's, I suppose, I don't think you

have to be violent to overcome it.

But some people do, and when they're violent

against the police, it's just their way, the

only way they have of showing it.

Because they're not organised.

How would you organise them?

I wouldn't want to organise them.

I don't feel that I'm a leader of

them that we're talking about.

If you're a realist, and if you see

the world as you think it is, as

it really is, you try and see it

as it really is, you can be just

as angry and right from anger.

Okay.

I don't think, oh, I'm screwed up, I

must write a song about that.

It doesn't happen like that.

It's just a lack of people liking what

you do.

It's not a secret of anything.

It's just doing the best you can, and

putting everything you've got into it, and hoping

people will like it.

There's no real secret to that.

Either people do like it or they don't.

As long as people know about it, they

have to know that you exist, which is

a very important part of, if you're somebody

new, starting out in pop music, everyone has

to know you exist.

And once they know you exist, and they

hear what you have to offer, either they

like you or they don't.

And if they don't like you, which happened

to us in America, when we, people knew

about us, but they didn't like us.

They didn't buy our records, until satisfaction.

Which was a really big one.

Well, because I, because I just feel part

of the thing that started off, I suppose.

Because, and I feel part of the people

that I want, this isn't the first generation

that's questioned the moral values of the last

generation.

But it's, I think it's one of the

first generations which has not had to worry

about the material things.

Because if you're, if you're hungry, you haven't

really got much time to worry about morals.

I mean, when I say morals, I mean

like fighting wars, and whether this is right,

or that is right for this society to

do that.

If you're hungry, and if you, if your

stomach's full of food, you can start worrying

about them.

And this is what's happened, is people will

worry and worry more, and they'll have less

and less work to do, as the years

go on.

They won't have hardly any work to do,

because there will be machines to do it

for them, which has already happened.

And so that they'll have to work like

four hours a day, and the rest of

the time they've got to do something else.

Well, that something else isn't, isn't going to

be what people think.

It isn't going to be just jumping around,

and swimming, and, and just reading books, and

going to movies.

Because they're, they're very, you get very bored

with those things very quickly.

Well, we don't know, that's the problem.

But it's going to be, I hope it's

going to be something good.

My sweet

Lady Jane, you again, your servant

of iron, and will humbly remain, just

be my

dear Lady Anne.

I've done what I can, must take my

leave, for promised I am, Lady Jane.

Everything's happened to me, and I haven't happened

to anything.

Things have happened to me, I think I'd

better start happening to something.

And one thing, yes, and one thing after

another has happened to me.

I mean, it's quite incredible, actually.

It's the most extraordinary thing.

I don't know how it's happened, I think

it's going to stop any minute.

Am I allowed to talk?

Yes.

Where did you get your tie from?

Fascinating.

Did you have me saying I didn't like

that Sidney Livermore moment?

You won't be kind, won't you?

No, I won't be.

I trust you.

I'm not secure enough that I can lose

parts here.

I suppose the part that, I go back

to the Beatles, I mean, really, isn't it?

That, you know, we were lucky enough that

they were quite cool and hip, and there

weren't an awful lot of cool hip people

around, not a majority, and that they became

idols and like any idol they were copied.

So that's why London perhaps is now cool

and hip.

Oh, I think it's a super thing.

Terrific.

I mean, because it's not only associated with

the idea of freedom, that from there goes

on to be an idea of pleasure in

a way.

And I think that people are sort of

having a good time.

Maybe, I don't know whether, when I say

a majority, I don't know, because one only

knows a certain group of people, and maybe

it's a minority.

But it seems to me that a good

time is much easier had by all now

than ever before.

Pleasure?

Pleasure, I think is terrific.

Fine, yes.

And if you haven't got anything else, then

you're lucky to have that.

What do you love?

The sun.

I'm terribly superficial, you know.

Terribly.

Sunflowers, good book, cats.

What do you love?

I love strong relationships, anyhow.

Of any sort.

I mean, everybody loves strong relationships, don't they?

The sort of thing in cinema of, oh,

it's exhausting, of this working up so that

your two, three-second take is absolutely the

right pitch of emotion, however low or high

it is.

You have to work yourself up, because I

mean, whatever you're doing, I mean, you have

to be in some sort of state of

emotion for it to be able to do

it and not be yourself just talking.

And that sort of constant screwing up of

hitting the right note without testing anywhere.

And then, you know, of course on stage

you start, and you hit along testing all

the time.

That vasso is one of the main things

for me, one of the main differences.

I enjoy it very much, all that screwing

up of nerves and energy and everything to

go bonk.

But then I love sort of working up

to something and feeling it coming and sort

of flowing and or not going, you know,

that as well.

There's something in this.

No, I went away to, of all places,

the Canary Islands after Dr Zhivago all by

myself and didn't talk to anyone for a

week, which was marvellous.

Terrific.

Like being a child again.

Oh, lovely, you know, time to indulge all

your fantasies and daydreams.

Almost become religious again.

Why are you religious?

Well, I went to a convent.

Well, everybody's religious when they're little, aren't they?

A lot of people, I think, but middle

age is the time I would have thought,

when you're ripe for happiness.

You're not ripe for happiness now.

No, certainly not.

Not that sort of happiness.

You see, we don't want to get drunk

or go out, what is properly known as

womanising until two o'clock in the morning.

What we want is the freedom to do

so should we wish.

We don't want a lot of rules and

regulations.

To me, the pubs closing at 11 o

'clock and more expensive clubs keeping open later

is the most condescending piece of class consciousness

I've ever heard, is to keep the workers

out of the pub so they're not drunk

and up late for work in the morning.

This was the original idea of it for

the munitions factories in the First World War.

To me, I'm not a puritan by any

means or a moralist, but to me the

idea, for instance, of short skirts and things

like that, this seems to be, we seem

to be selling our morals in return for

a mess of cultural potage in a way.

Short skirts, for instance, are a sexual thing

in order to show as much of a

girl's legs as possible.

Topless dresses in America are in order to

show as much of the other half as

possible.

To me, we seem to have lost a

certain amount of moral fiber, I suppose you'd

call it, but that's only in comparison with

other English people.

I know, for instance, a very English attitude

is one, if an Italian touches a girl

up in a street in Rome, it's because

they're all very sexy, hot-blooded, passionate Latin

peoples.

If an Englishman does it, he's a dirty

rogue and should be fined five pounds immediately

and taken into court.

And the English have two sets of standards

which they set for themselves and others, you

know.

If a Frenchman comes up and asks a

girl if she wants to get laid, that's

romantic.

If an Englishman does it, she says, what

do you think I'm a prostitute?

Well, I certainly never ask.

I take a lesson from Vance Packard and

use hidden persuaders.

Which of course is very modern.

Yeah, pop art or anything.

Pop art seduction.

I would say to really practice pop art

seduction, you have to be a movie star

because, or something of that kind, or rock

and roll star, or at least you have

to be in the first 200 people on

the Order, Master and March.

Psychic masturbation.

What makes you think, what are the qualities

in your work that have made you and

it so successful?

I don't know really.

Devotion, I think.

I think the amount of work one really

puts into it.

The fact that you're willing to make up

plaster heads and paint minis, paint naked ladies,

be obsessed with colour and not turn in

a tatty job at all and not be

mediocre.

To really try and do something new and

fresh and different.

This is, I presume, what people are paying

me for and so I try and turn

it in.

The sort of stuff that I'm doing is

absolute ephemera.

It's, I do it today and I want

to forget about it by midnight and I'm

on something else.

And this is how I see, you know,

if anything is pop, it's pop for the

minute and it's with, you know, I'm absolutely,

for the minute I do the job and

it's forgotten and I'd sometimes even forget to

look at it printed because I'm so obsessed

with the job I'm on at the time.

It's not like tatting about in front of

a canvas for eight months, waiting for sort

of all crazy inspirations.

You're given a job and you do it.

Do I make a lot of money?

Yeah, well, I don't know what a lot

of money is.

I mean, compared to John Lennon, no, I

make nothing but compared to the guy down

in the insurance company, I suppose I make

a lot of money.

How do you think the success of yours

so quickly has affected you as a person?

Not at all, absolutely not at all, except

I come to work with a chauffeured car

as opposed to coming to work in a

bus.

That's about the only affectation I have.

Why did I paint on a woman?

Well, I was thrashing around with ideas to

present myself to art schools when I took

over the Penguin job.

My wife came in semi-naked and it

occurred to me it'd be rather nice as

the female form is considered artistic and presentable

in art schools to do a painting on

a girl.

Looking back I think I could have done

it a lot better now but this apparently

started a whole trend of things in art

schools.

Girls going to parties painted up and I've

been asked to paint girls up for advertising

purposes and paint girls up for editorial things

and all sorts of...

I'm getting quite kinky about painting girls up

actually.

Oh, what I do find is very sexy

is the new Fortness stamp with the footballers

kicking the legs up.

Pardon?

Yes, I think so.

It could be Trevor, I think.

Wait, should I just...

The point is those things are kind of

rather meaningless in a way, aren't they?

For instance, I mean, if next week this

country did collapse but on the very day

it collapsed you met your absolute true love,

you wouldn't give two hoots about the bloody

place collapsing, would you?

I mean, you know, you'd think, oh, all's

right with the world if we have a

sandwich and a glass of beer, it doesn't

matter.

I mean, in a way they're that meaningless,

aren't they?

I never, for instance, I never plan...

I can't plan a working day, you see,

really.

But in California, say, if I work, I

used to work on a morning and then

in the afternoon it got very hot and

sunny so I'd go and lie on the

beach and then I'd work again in the

evening and I'd maybe work until about 10

o'clock or 11 o'clock and then

I'd go for a drink, you see.

And in California the bars don't close until

two, which seems to me, in a way,

the ideal hour.

If you're going to close them at all,

it's the ideal hour because in a way

it's not too late and you can make

up your mind about things, I suppose, you

see, at two o'clock.

Four o'clock is a bit late, really.

But anyway, you can do it, you know,

work.

I seem to work in the evening and

do that.

In London you can't do this because if

you want to go out for a drink,

unless you go to those awful places that

my pet hates, really, what's that place called?

I've been once.

It looks like a Rhythm & Blues Angus

Steakhouse.

It's got tartan on the walls.

But the bills seem to be, you know,

it costs, each drink seems to cost about

a pound or something.

It's just ridiculous.

I just object to paying a pound for

one drink in a place like that.

Anyway, it's not a problem.

In fact, the chairs are so small, it's

like an organised children's tea party.

Terrible.

Because, I mean, in comparison with Bradford, I

suppose it is a kind of swinging place.

But, I mean, in comparison with lots and

lots of other cities, it seems to me,

I mean, I think of London now sometimes

like I used to think of Bradford.

When I first came to London, I thought,

oh, I'm so much better than Bradford.

Well, now, when I go to America, I

think of London like, oh, Bradford, it's so

much better.

In some ways, it's much more democratic, you

see, and that's why London, I don't think,

will ever really be a, what you'd call,

a swinging place.

You see, it's nightlife in London.

You need too much money for it.

And because of that, you can't go in

any place and meet a plumber from Camberwell,

whereas in New York you could.

I mean, you could go in a bar

and meet the equivalent.

A plumber from Brooklyn could be sat at

the next stool, and some other guy, you

know, a movie maker from Hollywood could be

sat on the next stool.

I mean, it just, that can happen.

Here, it just doesn't.

The nightlife, which some people really think is

terrific.

I mean, obviously, somebody's really sold the idea,

haven't they?

And as far as I can see, they

must make a fortune.

But it's, what's that?

Didn't I tell you a story?

Do you know Eric Burden?

The Animals.

Well, it was on, I think it was

on a television program, I told you a

story, did I?

Of, now, I mean, he's a musician in

London, isn't he?

And we were talking about America, matter of

fact.

He said he didn't like it really at

all.

And he gave, he told me this story

as a story against America.

And he said he was in New York,

and he was with a policeman, you see,

a cop.

I suppose it's a bit different for him,

he's a singer, and he thought people might

attack him or something.

But anyway, they went in this bar, and

there was music playing, you see, there was

a jukebox.

And the cop said to the guy behind

the bar, can you dance in here?

And they said, sure.

So he hung up his gun and started

dancing with a girl, you see.

And Eric Burden said this was terrible.

He said that cop is the sort of

cop who'd take a backhand and, you know,

money and this, that, and he thought it

was terrible.

Well, I thought it sounded marvellous.

I mean, really, it's kind of like an

ideal for a musician.

I said it simply proved there were more

art lovers there.

He was affected by the music when he

went in the bar.

And the idea of him hanging up a

gun, I thought was terrific.

But he thought it was terrible.

Well, I suppose, I mean, in a way,

maybe lots of other people in London would

think that situation was terrible.

If he did, would they?

But it's hardly the story you'd say to

run down America, is it?

I wouldn't think so.

If it had happened to me, if it

happened to me, I would be always telling

it, saying what a great place it was.

When we first

thought about a club for, a playboy club

in Europe, we thought primarily of Paris as

being the first place to go.

An American, the American expatriate or the American

tourist concept always revolves around Paris or used

to do.

And now London has kind of taken the

lead away from Paris as the place for

Americans to visit, the European city to go

to.

I think what happened to us was Pat

Spooner, the director of the British Trade Center

in New York, came to us and made

a big pitch for us to come to

London and told us about all of the

things that were happening here.

And we were persuaded.

And we're not sorry.

I think this is where it's all happening.

What is all happening?

Well, there's more excitement here.

You have the feeling that this is a

town that there's more to do in.

And I think there's a kind of a

logical explanation for that.

And that's that London is like another Hollywood

in some respects.

There are more recognizable people around on the

scene, the people from the music world and

the people from the movie world.

And wherever you go, whatever restaurant you happen

to be sitting in or nightclub you happen

to be visiting, there's a good chance that

there are two or three people in the

room that you recognize.

So you feel that you're sort of in

on the thing that recognizable people are doing.

I think everybody feels this way.

And it looks like you get that feeling

that it's all happening where you are.

I think it's the reason for London being

so successful.

It's so successful in the sense of everybody

who comes here goes away with the feeling

that, gee, I went to London and I

really was in on everything.

I was a part of all kinds of

exciting activities.

Well, I just go to nightclubs or restaurants.

But when they turn around, they see a

beetle here, a movie actor there, a movie

star over there.

You know, the whole idea of the mini

situation, mini cars and mini skirts.

I can't say too much about the skirts

because I don't know much about that.

But there's more room in a mini car

than there is in a Cadillac, which seems

impossible.

I don't know if that holds true with

the skirts or not, but at least they

wear them with total abandon, you know, which

is nice.

I mean, they're not always kind of pulling

them down.

They say, that's how short it is and

I can make it shorter.

And I say, good, that's a freedom because

I don't think that girls really vary that

much in their physical appearance.

So it's a good, healthy breakaway from everything

that was, you know, stolid and stoic and

stayed.

So I enjoy it.

Tonight, let's

all make love in London, as if it

were the year to be kind

also to the poor soul, to

the ghosts and the demons, to

end against his own since the days

of the snake.