Original subtitles

You have eggs or... - You want eggs?

Sure, yes, eggs.

We'll cook some eggs for you!

What did you say?

I have to tell you about a dream I had.

A dream? Oh, sure, tell me, what was it?

And I very rarely remember dreams.

What dream?

I had a dream that you died. Because you really...

You know what? - I was... this morning...

This morning, I woke and I was looking at the table,

I was clearing off the table

and I was sort of not awake

and I had this whole fantasy that what if Jonas died?

I live... therefore I make films.

I make films... therefore I live.

Light.

Movement.

I make home movies... therefore I live.

I live... therefore I make home movies.

They tell me I should be always searching.

But I am only celebrating what I see.

I am searching for nothing,

I am happy.

I am searching for nothing, I am happy.

I am searching for nothing, I am happy.

There is a cat somewhere sleeping in the sunshine,

there is the sun falling upon the window.

Oh remain, Alexandra, remain as you are,

Don't worry yet about the things to come...

Speaking distracts one...

speaking distracts one,

while silence and work recollects and strengthens the spirit...

while silence and work recollects and strengthens the spirit.

Once a person knows what has been told him for his benefit,

he no longer needs to hear or speak,

but to put it into practice,

silently and carefully, and in humility...

He must not then go in search of new things...

He must not then go in search of new things

that serve only to satisfy the appetite outwardly,

He must not then go in search of new things

that serve only to satisfy the appetite outwardly,

although they are not able to satisfy it...

and leave the spirit weak and empty, without interior virtue.

Hence it follows

that neither the former nor the latter is of profit.

We shall awaken only to find our labor and work done in the wrong way,

and thinking that we were carrying a lighted lamp,

we shall discover that it has gone out...

Because by blowing, in our opinion to keep it lighted,

We perhaps...

did more to extinguish it.

I say, then, so that this might not happen,

and that the spirit be preserved,

that there is no better remedy than to suffer,

to do, and to be silent,

and to close the senses to the inclination

toward and practice of solitude

and the forgetfulness of all creatures and happenings,

even though the whole world crumbles.

Never, whether in adversity or in prosperity,

cease to quiet your heart with deep love

so as to suffer whatever comes along.

For perfection is so singularly important,

and the delight of the spirit is so high priced,

that all of this is hardly enough to obtain it.

It is impossible to advance without doing and suffering virtuously,

all enveloped in silence, all enveloped in silence.

St. John of the Cross,

Grenada,

November 22, 1587.

Barbara!

Do you know how her last name is spelled?

R, U, B, I, N.

The idea is called "The Kreeping Kreplachs"

Kreplachs... - Spell it.

K, R, E, P, L, A, C, H... a Jewish word.

What does that mean?

Mr. Ginsberg...

It's rather an unusual name for this foundation. What is it?

Well, the tentative working title,

which may or may not be droppable,

is "The Kreeping Kreplach International

Communications Purple People Art Combine."

The whole culture has moved and changed,

this is really what we are announcing.

The entire culture, both in America and England,

has changed, a whole new generation has grown up,

everybody...

Do the people at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan,

know about this, do you think?

Henry Geldzahler at the Met would be delighted.

He does know about it.

Oh, he does know about it. Andy Warhol...

Do they know that culture has changed?

That there is a new generation?

They have been in the foreground of showing

all this new pop art themselves...

Warhol will be there in Albert Hall,

and Warhol's been on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art

for the last five years.

One last thing. What is your connection with this?

I'm a member of the central committee.

Central Kreeping Kreplachs... He is a Kreeping Kreplach.

I'm a Kreeping Kreplach. - Central committee...

Could you repeat it? What did you say? Kreplach?

It's like a piece of pasta, with meat inside...

It's like an oversize piece of ravioli that floats in soup.

A Kreplach is what a Jewish mother calls her son

when he decides to go into the arts

instead of taking a job that will earn some money.

I think it was just before Christmas.

They stood there,

they stood there all day, all night.

It was cold.

It was the coldest day of the year.

They stood there, the women for peace.

I stood on the corner of 42nd street and I watched them.

There were people passing by hurriedly.

Nobody stopped.

They were passing by.

Almost bare and yet escaped

from muddy trap and nettles,

the hippy Circus girl,

kidnapped the count's son.

Up on the street His mother screamed like crazy.

At the circus, atop a ladder

the child was learning to fly.

You can learn to fly at any age;

the circus is like a kite.

Over the nets, though the ropes

fly the stealers of children.

Stolen, robbers have wings

At night, behind the embankment,

where mother's cries

are no longer even heard.

'Come back, my sweet angel,

Have pity on my grief'.

The child unaware

laps up the soup of thieves.

Four times the child falls asleep

due to drowsy wine.

By the soup cauldron his mind is all at sea.

Dreams make flying easier.

The child dreams of a frightening

statue at the side of the road, stealing away with his hands.

I haven't dreamt lately.

I don't seem to remember my dreams any longer.

I am afraid to walk barefooted,

even in the room,

as if some terrible microbes were waiting for me,

or I'll step on glass, or splinters...

Television voices outside...

the window open... all night...

Am I really losing slowly everything

I had brought with me from the outside?

And now, dear viewer,

as you sit

and as you watch

and as the life outside in the streets is still rushing...

maybe a little bit slower,

but still rushing, from inertia...

just watch these images.

Nothing much happens.

The images go, no tragedy, no drama,

no suspense.

Just images, for myself,

and for a few others.

One doesn't have to watch, one doesn't.

But if one feels so,

one can just sit and watch, these images...

which, I figure, as life will continue,

won't be here for very long.

There won't be small,

peaceful cities on the shores of oceans,

there won't be.

No boats in the morning,

and maybe not even trees, nor flowers,

at least not in such an abundance.

This is Walden, this is Walden, what you see...

It looks all very foolish now,

when I am looking back,

but that fall, one Sunday morning,

we packed up...

Gideon, Willard, Adolfas, myself,

and Gideon's TV crew from Germany,

and we went to New Jersey.

Gideon wanted to find a place in New Jersey,

where he could shoot something with us,

anything, he said,

because he had promised to take something to Germany,

to show how Underground filmmakers work.

It's all very foolish,

but we said, "why don't we go to New Jersey."

So we went.

It was fall, and the hunting period

Everybody was walking with red caps and jackets...

No Trespassing signs everywhere...

We were told to continue, just to go,

nobody wants us there.

We stopped at a roadside cafeteria for a conference,

and for coffee, and donuts,

and to look at the maps, and to reconsider,

and we had more coffee and more donuts,

and sat around, and snapped single frames.

Gideon took the camera and he snapped a few single frames.

Gideon said: "Oh, don't worry, we are going to find a place."

We found a place, somewhere,

after three hours, three hours, of circling around,

a place full of hunters, with red caps and jackets.

Anyway, we settled down.

Gideon said to Adolfas,

'OK, arrange a scene,

the way you would be shooting an Underground movie.'

So Adolfas climbed into a tree,

and down out of the tree,

again into the tree, and Hella went up the tree,

and Adolfas said,

'Hm, hm, OK, here I am, directing an Underground movie,'

and the German television kept shooting, kept shooting.

You know, for TV, we said,

'who knows in Germany!

Let them believe that's how an Underground movie is being made,

and we are having a good time, in New Jersey, an autumn day,

and look at the colors, fantastic.'

We found some kind of dugout,

and Adolfas said,

'Now I'll make, I'll show how a socially engaged movie is being made.

Don't show them the surroundings,

just show them this dugout.

Tell them that I am shooting a movie in the South,

against exploitation of the black people...

You can put, you know, some kind of narration,

you know, Underground Cinema is a socially engaged cinema,

that's what Europe wants to know about us,

so give that to them...

and the German television team moved in, moved in...

I ran around with my camera,

pointing at the grass, at the ground,

'Underground movies, Underground movies!'

and Hella went, Hella went click click click with her still camera...

Oh, Hella, at this age, this age of Marshall McLuhan,

you are still clicking with your still camera."

The other day, on my way back home from Buffalo,

early in the morning,

coming back from long distances,

coming back to New York by train,

the train always pulls in at sunrise.

There is always this good feeling coming back to New York.

These are the only times when you see sunrise.

The sun never rises in New York.

So there it was, the sun was rising, over Manhattan,

over the Harlem river,

just on the other end of 42nd street,

that's where the sun rises in Manhattan.

In New York, back in New York,

that Sunday morning,

that early Sunday morning,

Gideon got all of us together.

He was still working on his German movie.

He said he needs,

he could use some "real Underground footage," he said.

So he got us together, Shirley, Yalkut.

And there we were.

I was shooting all kinds of strange footage,

with glasses in front of my lens.

And Shirley was there, sorting her buttons,

trying to look like a hippie,

and eating her bagels,

oh, poor filmmaker's food.

Anyway, Gideon got his footage,

we fooled around in the park, shot some more,

and then I got tired of it all

and I started shooting just for myself.

That's what cinema is, single frames.

Frames.

Cinema is between the frames.

Cinema is...

Light...

Movement...

Sun...

Light...

Heart beating...

Breathing...

Light...

Frames...

In the background, these are the steps of the filmmaker,

as he walks the city,

day and night, day and night...

In the background, the music of the people...

In the background,

those are the voices of the children of the people...

In the foreground, those are the cameras of the filmmakers.

In the background you begin to hear another music coming in:

Mozart.

And now the music of gods

and the cameras of the filmmakers begin to mix.

Becks. Peace. Anarchy.

I remember, that early morning, one Sunday,

they were there, in front of the United Nations building,

their rucksacks full of leaflets.

It was snowing, it was freezing,

and nobody was there, I don't know where the city was,

I don't know where anybody was.

Sleeping, in the churches...

But the Becks were there, walking for peace.

It was cold, it was snowing, it was freezing.

They looked so lonely and lost.

I'm awed, Mr. Mekas, really awed...

Fantastic!

You see... the Empire State building, in the blue evening light...

Blue...

I think it's kind of quaint.

You're speechless again?

Yes.