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[ Shawn Narrating]
The life of a playwright is tough.

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It's not easy,
as some people seem to think.

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You work hard writing plays,
and nobody puts them on.

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You take up other lines of work
to try to make a living...

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I became an actor...

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and people don't hire you.

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So you just spend your days
doing the errands of your trade,

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Today I'd had to be up
by 10:00 in the morning...

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to make some
important phone calls.

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Then I'd gone to the stationery store
to buy envelopes. Then to the Xerox shop.

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There were dozens of things to do.

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By 5:00 I'd finally made it
to the post office...

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and mailed off
several copies of my plays...

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meanwhile checking constantly
with my answering service...

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to see if my agent
had called with any acting work.

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In the morning, the mailbox
had just been stuffed with bills.

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What was I supposed to do?
How was I supposed to pay them?

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After all, I was already doing my best.

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I've lived in this city all my life.

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I grew up on the Upper East Side...

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and when I was 10 years old
I was rich, I was an aristocrat...

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riding around in taxis,
surrounded by comfort...

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and all I thought about
was art and music.

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Now I'm 36,
and all I think about is money.

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It was now 7:00...

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and I would have liked nothing better than
to go home and have my girlfriend Debby...

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cook me a nice, delicious dinner.

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But for the last several years
our financial circumstances...

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have forced Debby to work
three nights a week as a waitress.

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After all, somebody had to
bring in a little money.

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So I was on my own.

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But the worst thing of all was that I'd been
trapped by an odd series of circumstances...

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into agreeing to have dinner
with a man I'd been avoiding literally for years.

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His name was André Gregory.

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At one time he'd been
a very close friend of mine....

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as well as my most valued colleague
in the theater.

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In fact, he was the man
who had first discovered me...

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and put one of my plays
on the professional stage,

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When I'd known André, he'd been at the height
of his career as a theater director

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The amazing work he did with his company
the Manhattan Project...

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Had just stunned audiences
throughout the world.

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But then something
had happened to André,

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He dropped out of the theater.
He sort of disappeared,

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For months at a time, his family seemed
only to know that he was traveling...

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In some odd place like Tibet...

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which was really weird
because he loved his wife and children.

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He never used to like
to leave home at all,

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Or else you'd hear that someone had met him
at a party and he'd been telling people...

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that he talked with trees
or something like that.

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Obviously, something terrible
had happened to André,

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The whole idea of meeting him
made me very nervous.

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I mean, I really wasn't up
for that sort of thing,

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I had problems of my own.
I mean, I couldn't help André.

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Was I supposed to be a doctor, or what?

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- Hello.
- Hello.

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- Here you go.
- Thank you.

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- Yes, sir.
- Sir, my name is Wallace Shawn.

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I'm expected at the table
of André Gregory.

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That table will be a moment, sir.

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If you like,
you may have a drink at the bar.

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- Good evening, sir.
- Could I have a club soda, please?

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I'm sorry, sir.
We only serve Source de Pavilion.

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Oh, that'd be fine, thank you.

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When I'd called André, and he'd suggested
that we meet in this particular restaurant...

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I'd been rather surprised, because
André's taste used to be very ascetic...

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even though people have always known
that he had some money somewhere.

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I mean, how the hell else could he have
been flying off to Asia and so on...

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and still have been supporting his family?

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The reason I was meeting André was that
an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield...

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had called me
and just insisted that I had to see him.

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Apparently, George had been walking his dog
in an odd section of town the night before...

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and he'd suddenly come upon André...

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leaning against a crumbling old building
and sobbing.

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André had explained to George
that he'd just been watching....

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the Ingmar Bergman movie
Autumn Sonata...

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about 25 blocks away...

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and he'd been seized
by a fit of ungovernable crying...

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when the character played
by Ingrid Bergman had said...

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"I could always live in my art,
but never in my life."

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Wally!

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- Wow.
- My God.

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[Wally Narrating] I remember, when I first
started working with André's company...

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I couldn't get over the way the actors
would hug when they greeted each other.

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"Wow. Now I'm really in the theater,"
I thought.

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Well, you look terrific.

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Well, I feel terrible.

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Good evening, sir.
Nice to see you again.

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Thank you. Good evening.
Ah, I think I'll have a spritzer, if I could.

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- Yes, sir.
- Thank you.

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[ Wally Narrating]
I was feeling incredibly nervous.

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I wasn't sure I could stick through
an entire meal with him.

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Great.

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So we talked about this and that.

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He told me a few things
about Jerzy Grotowski...

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the great Polish theater director...

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who was a friend and almost like
a kind of a guru of André's.

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He'd also dropped out of the theater.

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Grotowski was a pretty
unusual character himself

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At one time, he'd been quite fat, then he'd
lost an incredible amount of weight...

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and become very thin
and grown a beard.

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- Your table is ready, if you feel like sitting down.
- Oh.

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- Oh.
- Yes. Thank you.

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[Wally Narrating] I was beginning to realize
that the only way to make this evening bearable...

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would be to ask André
a few questions.

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Asking questions always relaxes me,

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In fact, I sometimes think
that my secret profession...

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is that I'm a private investigator,
a detective.

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I always enjoy finding out about people.

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Even if they're in absolute agony,
I always find it very... interesting

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- By the way, is he still thin?
- What?

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Grotowski. Is he still thin?

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Oh. Absolutely.

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Oh, waiter?
I think we can do without this.

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- Yes, sir.
- Thank you.

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What about this one?

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Seven swimming shrimp.

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- Ready for your order?
- Ah, yes.

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Uh, the Galuska...
How do you prepare that?

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[Wally Narrating] André seemed
to know an awful lot about the menu.

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- Dumpling with raisins, blanched almonds.
- I didn't understand a word of it.

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- Very good, I think.
- Hmm.

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No, I think I'll have
the Cailles aux Raisin, the quail.

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- Very good.
- Oh, quails! I'll have that as well.

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- Two.
- Great.
- Great!

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And then I think, to begin with,
the Terrine de Poissons.

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- Yes.
- What is that?

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Uh, it's a sort of pate;
light, made of fish.

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- Does it have bones in it?
- No bones.

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Perfectly safe.

130
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Well, um - What is
the Bramborova Polévka?

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It's a potato soup.
It's quite delicious.

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Oh, well, that's great.
I'll have that.

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- Thank you very kindly.
- Thank you very much.

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Well.

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When was the last time
that we saw each other?

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[Wally Narrating] So we talked for a while
about my writing and my acting...

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and about my girlfriend, Debby.

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And we talked about his wife, Chiquita,
and his two children, Nicolas and Marina.

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And I'd stayed back in New York.

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[Wally] Finally, I got around to asking him
what he'd been up to in the last few years.

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Oh, God. I'm just dying to hear it.

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- Really?
- Really.

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At first, he seemed
a little reluctant to go into it...

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so I just kept asking,
and finally he started to answer.

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...conference
on paratheatrical work then.

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And, this must have been
about five years ago...

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and, Grotowski and I were walking
along Fifth Avenue and we were talking.

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You see, he'd invited me to come
to teach that summer in Poland.

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You know, to teach a workshop
to actors and directors and whatever.

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And I had told him that I didn't want to come,
because, really, I had nothing left to teach.

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I had nothing left to say.
I didn't know anything.

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I couldn't teach anything.

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Exercises meant nothing to me anymore.

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Working on scenes from plays
seemed ridiculous.

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I didn't know what to do.
I mean, I just couldn't do it.

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So he said, "Why don't you tell me anything
you'd like to have if you did a workshop for me...

157
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...No matter how outrageous.
And maybe I can give it to you."

158
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So I said,
"Well, if you could give me...

159
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...40 Jewish women who speak
neither English nor French...

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...either women who've been in the theater
for a long time and want to leave it...

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...but don't know why...

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...or young women who love the theater,
but have never seen a theater they could love.

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...And if these women could play
the trumpet or the harp...

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...and if I could work in a forest, I'd come."

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A week later, or two weeks later,
he called me from Poland.

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And he said, "Well, 40 Jewish women,
that's a little hard to find."

167
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But he said, "I do have 40 women.
They all pretty much fit the definition."

168
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And he said, "I also have
some very interesting men...

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...but you don't have to work with them.

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...These are all people who have in common
the fact that they're questioning the theater.

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...They don't all play the trumpet or the harp,
but they all play a musical instrument.

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...And none of them speak English."

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And he'd found me a forest, Wally.

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And the only inhabitants of this forest
were some wild boar and a hermit.

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So that was an offer I couldn't refuse.

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I had to go.

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So, I went to Poland, and it was this
wonderful group of young men and women.

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And the forest he had found us
was absolutely magical.

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You know, it was a huge forest.

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00:12:08,318 --> 00:12:10,218
I mean, the trees were so large...

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that four or five people linking their arms
couldn't get their arms around the trees.

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00:12:14,824 --> 00:12:18,317
So we were camped out beside
the ruins of this tiny little castle...

183
00:12:18,428 --> 00:12:22,763
and we would eat around this great stone slab
that served as a sort of a table.

184
00:12:22,865 --> 00:12:26,028
And our schedule was that usually
we'd start work around sunset...

185
00:12:26,135 --> 00:12:29,002
and then generally we'd work
until about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning.

186
00:12:29,105 --> 00:12:31,472
And then, because the Poles
love to sing and dance...

187
00:12:31,574 --> 00:12:34,839
we'd sing and dance until about
10:00 or 11:00 in the morning.

188
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And then we'd have our food, which
was generally bread, jam, cheese and tea.

189
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And then we'd sleep
from around noon to sunset,

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00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:46,288
Now, technically, of course.

191
00:12:46,389 --> 00:12:48,790
Technically, the situation
is a very interesting one...

192
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because if you find yourself in a forest
with a group of 40 people...

193
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who don't speak your language,
then all your moorings are gone.

194
00:12:55,565 --> 00:12:57,465
What do you mean exactly?

195
00:12:57,567 --> 00:13:00,298
Well, what we'd do
is just sit there and wait...

196
00:13:00,403 --> 00:13:03,566
for someone to have
an impulse to do something.

197
00:13:03,673 --> 00:13:06,904
Now, in a way that's something
like a theatrical improvisation.

198
00:13:07,010 --> 00:13:10,002
I mean, you know, if you were a director
working on a play by Chekhov...

199
00:13:10,113 --> 00:13:13,344
you might have the actors playing
the mother, the son and the uncle...

200
00:13:13,449 --> 00:13:16,885
all sit around in a room and do
a made-up scene that isn't in the play.

201
00:13:16,986 --> 00:13:18,954
For instance, you might say to them...

202
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"All right. Let's say that it's a rainy
Sunday afternoon on Sorin's estate...

203
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and you're all trapped
in the drawing room together."

204
00:13:24,694 --> 00:13:26,662
And then everyone would improvise...

205
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saying and doing what their character
might say and do in that circumstance.

206
00:13:31,234 --> 00:13:35,171
Except that in this type of improvisation,
the kind we did in Poland...

207
00:13:35,271 --> 00:13:38,104
the theme is oneself.

208
00:13:38,207 --> 00:13:40,676
So, you follow
the same law of improvisation...

209
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which is that you do whatever your impulse,
as the character, tells you to do...

210
00:13:44,247 --> 00:13:46,978
but in this case,
you are the character.

211
00:13:47,083 --> 00:13:50,519
So there's no imaginary situation
to hide behind...

212
00:13:50,620 --> 00:13:53,646
and there's no other person
to hide behind.

213
00:13:53,756 --> 00:13:56,657
What you're doing, in fact,
is you're asking those same questions...

214
00:13:56,759 --> 00:14:01,720
that Stanislavsky said the actor should
constantly ask himself as a character:

215
00:14:01,831 --> 00:14:05,324
Who am I? Why am I here?

216
00:14:05,435 --> 00:14:09,030
Where do I come from,
and where am I going?

217
00:14:09,138 --> 00:14:13,405
But instead of applying them to a role,
you apply them to yourself.

218
00:14:13,509 --> 00:14:15,739
- Hmm.
- Or, to look at it a little differently...

219
00:14:15,845 --> 00:14:17,836
in a way, it's like going
right back to childhood...

220
00:14:17,947 --> 00:14:20,917
where a group of children simply come
into a room or are brought into a room...

221
00:14:21,017 --> 00:14:23,247
without toys... and begin to play.

222
00:14:23,352 --> 00:14:27,050
Grown-ups were learning
how to play again.

223
00:14:27,156 --> 00:14:30,922
So, you would,
all sit together somewhere...

224
00:14:31,027 --> 00:14:33,689
and, you would play in some way.

225
00:14:33,796 --> 00:14:36,857
- But what would you actually do?
- Well, I could give you a good example.

226
00:14:36,966 --> 00:14:40,368
You see, we worked, together
for a week in the city...

227
00:14:40,470 --> 00:14:42,495
before we went off to our forest.

228
00:14:42,605 --> 00:14:44,937
And of course,
Grotowski was there in the city too.

229
00:14:45,041 --> 00:14:47,772
I heard that every night,
he conducted something called a beehive.

230
00:14:47,877 --> 00:14:49,777
I loved the sound of this beehive...

231
00:14:49,879 --> 00:14:52,871
so a night or two before we were
supposed to go off to the country...

232
00:14:52,982 --> 00:14:56,077
I grabbed him by the collar, and I said,
"Listen, about this beehive.

233
00:14:56,185 --> 00:14:58,176
You know, I'd kind of like
to participate in one.

234
00:14:58,287 --> 00:15:01,086
Just instinctively I feel it would
be something interesting."

235
00:15:01,190 --> 00:15:04,160
And he said, "Well, certainly.
In fact, why don't you, with your group...

236
00:15:04,260 --> 00:15:06,922
lead the beehive
instead of participating in one?"

237
00:15:07,029 --> 00:15:10,863
You know, I got very nervous,
you know, and I said, "Well, what is a beehive?"

238
00:15:10,967 --> 00:15:13,629
He said, "Well, a beehive is...

239
00:15:13,736 --> 00:15:16,569
at 8:00 a hundred strangers
come into a room."

240
00:15:17,607 --> 00:15:20,042
I said, "Yes?" He said,
"Yes, and whatever happens is a beehive."

241
00:15:20,143 --> 00:15:23,340
I said, "Yes, but what am I supposed to do?"
He said, "That's up to you."

242
00:15:23,446 --> 00:15:27,178
I said, "No, no. I really don't want to do this.
I'll just participate."

243
00:15:27,283 --> 00:15:30,981
And he said,
"No, no. You lead the beehive."

244
00:15:31,087 --> 00:15:33,112
Well, I was terrified, Wally.

245
00:15:33,222 --> 00:15:36,522
I mean, in a way, I felt on stage.

246
00:15:37,627 --> 00:15:39,959
I did it anyway.

247
00:15:40,062 --> 00:15:42,429
God. Well, tell me about it.

248
00:15:42,532 --> 00:15:46,560
You see, there was this song -
I have a tape of it. I can play it for you one day.

249
00:15:46,669 --> 00:15:49,900
And it's just unbelievably beautiful.

250
00:15:50,006 --> 00:15:54,739
You see, one of the women in our group knew
a few fragments of this song of Saint Francis...

251
00:15:54,844 --> 00:15:57,939
and it's a song in which you
thank God for your eyes...

252
00:15:58,047 --> 00:16:01,244
and you thank God for your heart,
and you thank God for your friends...

253
00:16:01,350 --> 00:16:03,284
and you thank God for your life.

254
00:16:03,386 --> 00:16:06,378
And it repeats itself
over and over again.

255
00:16:06,489 --> 00:16:08,423
And this became our theme song.

256
00:16:08,524 --> 00:16:10,515
I really must play this thing
for you one day...

257
00:16:10,626 --> 00:16:15,029
because you just can't believe that a group
of people who don't know how to sing...

258
00:16:15,131 --> 00:16:18,795
could create something so beautiful.

259
00:16:18,901 --> 00:16:23,532
So, I decided that when the people
arrived for the beehive...

260
00:16:23,639 --> 00:16:26,404
that our group would already be there
singing this very beautiful song...

261
00:16:26,509 --> 00:16:30,309
and that we would simply sing it
over and over again.

262
00:16:30,413 --> 00:16:35,249
One of the people decided to bring
her very large teddy bear, you know.

263
00:16:35,351 --> 00:16:37,319
Well, she's a little afraid of this event.

264
00:16:37,420 --> 00:16:39,684
And somebody wanted
to bring a sheet.

265
00:16:39,789 --> 00:16:42,486
And somebody else wanted
to bring a large bowl of water...

266
00:16:42,592 --> 00:16:44,788
in case people got hot or thirsty.

267
00:16:44,894 --> 00:16:47,192
And somebody suggested
that we have candles...

268
00:16:47,296 --> 00:16:51,392
that there be no artificial light,
but candlelight.

269
00:16:51,500 --> 00:16:54,026
And I remember watching people
preparing for this evening.

270
00:16:54,136 --> 00:16:56,332
Of course, there was no makeup,
and there were no costumes...

271
00:16:56,439 --> 00:16:59,033
but it was exactly the way that people
prepare for a performance.

272
00:16:59,141 --> 00:17:02,270
You know, people sort of taking off
their jewelry and their watches...

273
00:17:02,378 --> 00:17:05,507
and stowing it away
and making sure it's all secure.

274
00:17:05,615 --> 00:17:08,516
And then slowly people arrived,
the way they would arrive at the theater...

275
00:17:08,618 --> 00:17:11,383
in ones and twos and 10s and 15s
and what have you.

276
00:17:11,487 --> 00:17:14,479
And we were just sitting there,
and we were singing this very beautiful song.

277
00:17:14,590 --> 00:17:17,924
And people started to sit with us
and started to learn the song.

278
00:17:18,027 --> 00:17:23,158
Now, there is, of course,
as in any performance or improvisation...

279
00:17:23,266 --> 00:17:25,701
instinct for when things
are gonna get boring.

280
00:17:25,801 --> 00:17:29,738
So, at a certain point... It may have taken
an hour to get there, an hour and a half...

281
00:17:29,839 --> 00:17:33,833
I suddenly grabbed this teddy bear
and threw it in the air...

282
00:17:33,943 --> 00:17:37,470
at which 140 or 130 people
suddenly exploded.

283
00:17:37,580 --> 00:17:40,572
You know, it was like
a Jackson Pollack painting, you know.

284
00:17:40,683 --> 00:17:45,086
Human beings exploded out of this tight
little circle that was singing the song.

285
00:17:45,187 --> 00:17:48,157
And before I knew it,
there were two circles, dancing, you know.

286
00:17:48,257 --> 00:17:51,557
one dancing clockwise,
the other dancing counterclockwise...

287
00:17:51,661 --> 00:17:53,857
with this rhythm
mostly from the waist down.

288
00:17:53,963 --> 00:17:58,264
In other words, like an American Indian dance,
with this thumping, persistent rhythm.

289
00:18:02,939 --> 00:18:06,170
Now, you could easily see,
'cause we're talking about group trance...

290
00:18:06,275 --> 00:18:10,712
where the line between something like this
and something like Hitler's Nuremberg rallies...

291
00:18:10,813 --> 00:18:12,975
is, in a way, a very thin line.

292
00:18:15,318 --> 00:18:19,380
Anyway, after about an hour
of this wild, hypnotic dancing...

293
00:18:19,488 --> 00:18:22,685
Grotowski and I found ourselves sitting opposite
each other in the middle of this whole thing.

294
00:18:22,792 --> 00:18:25,227
And we threw the teddy bear
back and forth.

295
00:18:25,328 --> 00:18:27,854
You know, on one level,
you could say this is childish.

296
00:18:27,964 --> 00:18:30,194
And I gave the teddy bear suck,
suddenly, at my breast.

297
00:18:30,299 --> 00:18:33,428
And then I threw the teddy bear to him,
and he gave it suck at his breast.

298
00:18:33,536 --> 00:18:35,937
And then the teddy bear
was thrown up into the air again...

299
00:18:36,038 --> 00:18:39,338
at which there was another explosion
of form into... something.

300
00:18:39,442 --> 00:18:42,241
- And these...
- What was it like?
- You know, this is the...

301
00:18:42,345 --> 00:18:45,872
There's something like a kaleidoscope,
like a human kaleidoscope.

302
00:18:45,982 --> 00:18:50,249
The evening was made up
of shiftings of the kaleidoscope.

303
00:18:50,353 --> 00:18:52,344
Now, the only other things
that I remember...

304
00:18:52,455 --> 00:18:54,355
other than constantly trying
to guide this thing...

305
00:18:54,457 --> 00:18:58,951
which was always involved with either
movement, rhythm, repetition or song...

306
00:18:59,061 --> 00:19:01,189
Or chanting, because, two people in my group...

307
00:19:01,297 --> 00:19:03,288
had brought musical instruments,
a flute and a drum...

308
00:19:03,399 --> 00:19:05,367
which, of course,
are sacred instruments...

309
00:19:05,468 --> 00:19:07,994
was that sometimes the room
would break up...

310
00:19:08,104 --> 00:19:11,369
into six or seven different things
going on at once.

311
00:19:11,474 --> 00:19:14,375
You know, six or seven
different improvisations...

312
00:19:14,477 --> 00:19:18,277
all of which seemed, in some way,
related to each other.

313
00:19:18,381 --> 00:19:21,749
It was like
a magnificent cobweb.

314
00:19:23,085 --> 00:19:27,249
And at one point, I noticed that Grotowski
was at the center of one group...

315
00:19:27,356 --> 00:19:30,155
huddled around a bunch of candles
that they'd gathered together.

316
00:19:30,259 --> 00:19:33,388
And like a little child
fascinated by fire...

317
00:19:33,496 --> 00:19:37,592
I saw that he had his hand right in the flame
and was holding it there.

318
00:19:37,700 --> 00:19:40,567
And as I approached his group,
I wondered if I could do it.

319
00:19:40,669 --> 00:19:45,539
I put my left hand in the flame and I found
I could hold it there for as long as I liked...

320
00:19:45,641 --> 00:19:48,008
and there was no burn
and no pain.

321
00:19:48,110 --> 00:19:52,240
But when I tried to put my right hand in the
flame, I couldn't hold it there for a second.

322
00:19:52,348 --> 00:19:57,252
So Grotowski said, "lf it burns,
try to change some little thing in yourself."

323
00:19:57,353 --> 00:20:00,812
And I tried to do that.
Didn't work.

324
00:20:00,923 --> 00:20:05,451
Then I remember a very, very beautiful
procession with the sheet...

325
00:20:05,561 --> 00:20:08,030
and there was somebody
being carried below the sheet.

326
00:20:08,130 --> 00:20:11,225
You know, the sheet was like
some great biblical canopy.

327
00:20:11,333 --> 00:20:15,463
And the entire group was weaving
around the room and chanting.

328
00:20:16,872 --> 00:20:19,603
And then at one point,
people were dancing...

329
00:20:19,708 --> 00:20:22,006
and I was dancing with a girl...

330
00:20:22,111 --> 00:20:24,637
and suddenly our hands began
vibrating near each other...

331
00:20:24,747 --> 00:20:26,647
like this... vibrating, vibrating.

332
00:20:26,749 --> 00:20:30,185
And we went down to our knees,
and suddenly I was sobbing in her arms...

333
00:20:30,286 --> 00:20:34,553
and she was sort of cradling me in her arms,
and then she started to cry too.

334
00:20:34,657 --> 00:20:37,058
And then we just
hugged each other for a moment.

335
00:20:37,159 --> 00:20:40,459
And, then we joined the dance again.

336
00:20:40,563 --> 00:20:44,022
And then at a certain point,
hours later...

337
00:20:44,133 --> 00:20:47,103
we returned to the singing
of the song of Saint Francis...

338
00:20:47,203 --> 00:20:49,535
and that was the end of the beehive.

339
00:20:50,940 --> 00:20:55,104
And then, again, when it was over, it was
just like the theater after a performance.

340
00:20:55,211 --> 00:20:58,374
You know, people sort of put on
their earrings and their wrist watches...

341
00:20:58,481 --> 00:21:00,449
and we went off
to the railroad station...

342
00:21:00,549 --> 00:21:04,611
to drink a lot of beer
and have a good dinner.

343
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,485
Oh, and there was one girl,
who wasn't in our group...

344
00:21:07,590 --> 00:21:11,026
but who just wouldn't leave,
so we took her along with us.

345
00:21:19,969 --> 00:21:23,496
God. Well, tell me some of the other things
you did with your group.

346
00:21:23,606 --> 00:21:27,304
Well, I remember once
when we were in the city...

347
00:21:27,409 --> 00:21:30,845
we tried doing an improvisation, you know,
the kind that I used to do in New York.

348
00:21:30,946 --> 00:21:33,347
Uh, everybody was supposed to be
on an airplane...

349
00:21:33,449 --> 00:21:36,214
and they've all learned from the pilot
there's something wrong with the motor.

350
00:21:36,318 --> 00:21:39,253
But what was unusual
about this improvisation...

351
00:21:39,355 --> 00:21:43,019
was that two people who
participated in it... fell in love.

352
00:21:43,125 --> 00:21:45,025
They've, in fact, married.

353
00:21:45,127 --> 00:21:47,824
And when we were.
Yeah, out of fear...

354
00:21:47,930 --> 00:21:51,127
of being on this plane,
they fell in love...

355
00:21:51,233 --> 00:21:53,327
thinking they were going to die
at any moment.

356
00:21:53,435 --> 00:21:57,065
And when we went to the forest,
these two disappeared...

357
00:21:57,173 --> 00:21:59,608
because they understood
the experiment so well...

358
00:21:59,708 --> 00:22:03,440
that they realized that to go off together
in the forest was much more important...

359
00:22:03,546 --> 00:22:06,982
than any kind of experiment
the group could do as a whole.

360
00:22:07,082 --> 00:22:10,382
So, about halfway
through the week...

361
00:22:10,486 --> 00:22:12,682
we stumbled into
a clearing in the forest...

362
00:22:12,788 --> 00:22:16,190
and the two of them
were fast asleep in each other's arms.

363
00:22:16,292 --> 00:22:18,989
It was around dawn,
and we put flowers on them...

364
00:22:19,094 --> 00:22:22,223
to let them know we'd been there,
and then we crept away.

365
00:22:22,331 --> 00:22:25,596
And then on the last day of our stay
in the forest, these two showed up...

366
00:22:25,701 --> 00:22:28,568
and they shook me by my hands,
and they thanked me very much...

367
00:22:28,671 --> 00:22:31,333
for the wonderful work
they'd been able to do, you see.

368
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,535
They understood what it was about.

369
00:22:34,643 --> 00:22:38,045
I mean, that, of course, poses
the question of what was it about.

370
00:22:39,415 --> 00:22:42,851
But it has something
to do with living,

371
00:22:45,588 --> 00:22:48,319
And then on the final day
of our stay in the forest...

372
00:22:48,424 --> 00:22:50,950
the whole group did something
so wonderful for me, Wally.

373
00:22:51,060 --> 00:22:53,290
They arranged a christening,
a baptism, for me.

374
00:22:53,395 --> 00:22:55,693
And they filled the castle with flowers.

375
00:22:55,798 --> 00:22:58,199
And it was just a miracle of light...

376
00:22:58,300 --> 00:23:02,168
because they had literally set up
hundreds of candles and torches.

377
00:23:02,271 --> 00:23:05,104
I mean, no church
could have looked more beautiful.

378
00:23:05,207 --> 00:23:08,302
There was a simple ceremony, and one
of them played the role of my godmother...

379
00:23:08,410 --> 00:23:10,378
and another played the role
of my godfather.

380
00:23:10,479 --> 00:23:14,143
And I was given a new name.
They called me Yendrush.

381
00:23:14,250 --> 00:23:17,652
And some of the people
took it completely seriously...

382
00:23:17,753 --> 00:23:19,881
and some of them found it funny.

383
00:23:19,989 --> 00:23:23,220
But, I really felt
that I had a new name.

384
00:23:24,493 --> 00:23:28,259
And then we had an enormous feast,
with blueberries picked from the field...

385
00:23:28,364 --> 00:23:30,958
and chocolate someone
had gone a great distance to buy...

386
00:23:31,066 --> 00:23:33,057
and raspberry soup and rabbit stew.

387
00:23:33,168 --> 00:23:36,194
And we sang Polish songs
and Greek songs...

388
00:23:36,305 --> 00:23:39,206
and everybody danced
for the rest of the night.

389
00:23:39,308 --> 00:23:41,402
- Hmm.
- Oh, I have a picture.

390
00:23:44,046 --> 00:23:46,981
See, this was
- Let's see.

391
00:23:48,017 --> 00:23:50,952
Oh, yeah.
This was me in the forest. See?

392
00:23:51,053 --> 00:23:53,647
- God!
- That's what I felt like.

393
00:23:56,759 --> 00:23:59,023
- That's the state I was in.
- God.

394
00:24:00,062 --> 00:24:03,896
Yeah. I remember George, told me
he'd seen you around that time.

395
00:24:03,999 --> 00:24:06,263
He said you looked like
you'd come back from a war.

396
00:24:06,368 --> 00:24:09,804
Yeah, I remember meeting him.
He asked me a lot of friendly questions.

397
00:24:09,905 --> 00:24:12,135
I think I called you up, too,
that summer, didn't I?

398
00:24:14,243 --> 00:24:17,213
I think I was out of town.

399
00:24:17,313 --> 00:24:20,977
Yeah, well, most people I met thought
there was something wrong with me,

400
00:24:21,083 --> 00:24:24,348
They didn't say that, but I could tell that
that was what they thought.

401
00:24:24,453 --> 00:24:26,547
But...

402
00:24:26,655 --> 00:24:31,354
you see, what I think
I experienced... was...

403
00:24:31,460 --> 00:24:34,191
for the first time in my life...

404
00:24:34,296 --> 00:24:36,765
to know what it means
to be truly alive.

405
00:24:36,865 --> 00:24:38,833
Now, that's very frightening...

406
00:24:38,934 --> 00:24:41,403
because with that comes
an immediate awareness of death...

407
00:24:41,503 --> 00:24:43,403
'cause they go hand in hand.

408
00:24:43,505 --> 00:24:46,941
You know, the kind of impulse that led to
Walt Whitman, that led to Leaves of Grass,

409
00:24:47,042 --> 00:24:49,511
That feeling of being connected
to everything...

410
00:24:49,611 --> 00:24:51,909
means to also be connected to death.

411
00:24:52,014 --> 00:24:54,176
And that's pretty scary.

412
00:24:54,283 --> 00:24:58,777
But I really felt as if I were floating
above the ground, not walking.

413
00:24:58,887 --> 00:25:01,481
You know, and I could do things
like go out to the highway...

414
00:25:01,590 --> 00:25:05,493
and watch the lights go from red to green
and think, "How wonderful."

415
00:25:05,594 --> 00:25:08,894
And then one day, in the early fall...

416
00:25:08,997 --> 00:25:11,466
I was out in the country,
walking in a field...

417
00:25:11,567 --> 00:25:15,003
and I suddenly heard a voice
say, "Little Prince".

418
00:25:15,104 --> 00:25:17,903
Of course, The Little Prince
was a book that I always thought of...

419
00:25:18,006 --> 00:25:19,906
as disgusting, childish treacle.

420
00:25:20,008 --> 00:25:23,239
But still, I thought, "Well, you know,
if a voice comes to me in a field"

421
00:25:23,345 --> 00:25:25,643
This was the first voice I had ever heard.

422
00:25:25,748 --> 00:25:27,716
Maybe I should go and read the book.

423
00:25:27,816 --> 00:25:30,114
Now, that same morning
I'd got a letter...

424
00:25:30,219 --> 00:25:32,517
from a young woman
who'd been in my group in Poland.

425
00:25:32,621 --> 00:25:34,851
And in her letter she'd written,
"You have dominated me."

426
00:25:34,957 --> 00:25:36,948
You know,
she spoke very awkward English.

427
00:25:37,059 --> 00:25:40,051
So she'd gone to the dictionary,
and she'd crossed out the word "dominated"...

428
00:25:40,162 --> 00:25:43,029
and she'd said,
"No. The correct word is "tamed".

429
00:25:43,132 --> 00:25:46,329
And then when I went to town
and bought the book and started to read it...

430
00:25:46,435 --> 00:25:50,463
I saw that "taming" was the most
important word in the whole book.

431
00:25:50,572 --> 00:25:54,440
By the end of the book, I was in tears,
I was so moved by the story.

432
00:25:54,543 --> 00:25:57,137
And then I went and tried to write
an answer to her letter...

433
00:25:57,246 --> 00:25:59,214
'cause she'd written me a very long letter.

434
00:25:59,314 --> 00:26:02,750
But I just couldn't find the right words,
so finally I took my hand...

435
00:26:02,851 --> 00:26:05,650
I put it on a piece of paper,
I outlined it with a pen...

436
00:26:05,754 --> 00:26:08,553
and I wrote in the center something
like, "Your heart is in my hand."

437
00:26:08,657 --> 00:26:10,284
Something like that.

438
00:26:10,392 --> 00:26:12,383
Then I went over
to my brother's house to swim...

439
00:26:12,494 --> 00:26:14,929
'cause he lives nearby in the country
and he has a pool.

440
00:26:15,030 --> 00:26:16,998
And he wasn't home.
I went into his library...

441
00:26:17,099 --> 00:26:20,160
and he had bought at an auction
the collected issues of Minotaure.

442
00:26:20,269 --> 00:26:24,672
You know, the surrealist magazine? Oh, it's a great,
great surrealist magazine of the '20s and '30s.

443
00:26:24,773 --> 00:26:27,799
And I never, you know,
I consider myself a bit of a surrealist.

444
00:26:27,910 --> 00:26:30,470
I had never, ever seen
a copy of Minotaure.

445
00:26:30,579 --> 00:26:32,843
And here they all were,
bound, year after year.

446
00:26:32,948 --> 00:26:36,316
So, at random,
I picked one out, I opened it up...

447
00:26:36,418 --> 00:26:39,718
and there was a full-page reproduction
of the letter

448
00:26:39,822 --> 00:26:41,881
from Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland.

449
00:26:41,990 --> 00:26:45,255
And I thought that, well you know,
it's been a day of coincidences...

450
00:26:45,360 --> 00:26:48,125
but that's not unusual that the surrealists
would have been interested in Alice...

451
00:26:48,230 --> 00:26:50,198
And I did a play of Alice,

452
00:26:50,299 --> 00:26:54,532
So at random,
I opened to another page...

453
00:26:54,636 --> 00:26:58,129
and there were four handprints.

454
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,107
One was André Breton,
another was André Derain...

455
00:27:01,210 --> 00:27:03,804
the third was André -
I've got it written down somewhere.

456
00:27:03,912 --> 00:27:07,780
It's not Malraux. It's, like, someone...
Another of the surrealists.

457
00:27:07,883 --> 00:27:12,753
All A's, and the fourth
was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry...

458
00:27:12,855 --> 00:27:14,880
who wrote The Little Prince.

459
00:27:14,990 --> 00:27:17,482
And they'd shown these handprints
to some kind of expert...

460
00:27:17,593 --> 00:27:20,392
without saying
whose hands they belonged to.

461
00:27:20,496 --> 00:27:24,296
And under Exupéry's,
it said that he was an artist...

462
00:27:24,399 --> 00:27:26,697
with very powerful eyes...

463
00:27:26,802 --> 00:27:30,602
who was a tamer of wild animals.

464
00:27:30,706 --> 00:27:32,902
I thought,
"This is incredible, you know."

465
00:27:33,008 --> 00:27:36,740
And I looked back to see
when the issue came out.

466
00:27:36,845 --> 00:27:40,679
It came out on the newsstands
May 12, 1934...

467
00:27:40,782 --> 00:27:44,980
and I was born during the day
of May 11,1934.

468
00:27:46,121 --> 00:27:51,252
So, well, that's what started me on,
Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince.

469
00:27:58,934 --> 00:28:01,403
Now, of course today...

470
00:28:01,503 --> 00:28:04,939
today I think there's a very fascistic thing
under The Little Prince.

471
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,270
You know, I...
Well, no, I think there's a kind of...

472
00:28:07,376 --> 00:28:12,780
I think a kind of SS totalitarian
sentimentality in there somewhere.

473
00:28:12,881 --> 00:28:15,612
You know, there's something, you know, that...

474
00:28:15,717 --> 00:28:17,879
that love of...

475
00:28:17,986 --> 00:28:22,355
Well, that masculine love
of a certain kind of oily muscle.

476
00:28:22,457 --> 00:28:25,688
You know what I mean?
I mean, I can't quite put my finger on it.

477
00:28:25,794 --> 00:28:29,424
But I can just imagine
some beautiful SS man...

478
00:28:29,531 --> 00:28:31,499
...loving The Little Prince.

479
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,228
Now, I don't know why, but there's
something wrong with it. It stinks.

480
00:28:40,142 --> 00:28:44,511
Well, didn't George tell me that you were gonna
do a play that was based on The Little Prince?

481
00:28:44,613 --> 00:28:47,810
Hmm. Well, what happened, Wally...

482
00:28:48,984 --> 00:28:50,474
was that fall I was in New York...

483
00:28:50,586 --> 00:28:54,022
and I met this young Japanese
Buddhist priest named Kozan...

484
00:28:54,122 --> 00:28:56,614
and I thought he was Puck
from the Midsummer Night's Dream,

485
00:28:56,725 --> 00:28:58,955
You know,
he had this beautiful, delicate smile.

486
00:28:59,061 --> 00:29:00,995
I thought he was the Little Prince.

487
00:29:01,096 --> 00:29:04,498
So, naturally, I decided
to go off to the Sahara desert...

488
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:08,059
to work on The Little Prince
with two actors and this Japanese monk.

489
00:29:08,170 --> 00:29:10,070
You did?

490
00:29:10,172 --> 00:29:15,133
Well, I mean, I was still in a very
peculiar state at that time, Wally.

491
00:29:15,243 --> 00:29:18,611
You know, I would look
in the rearview mirror of my car.

492
00:29:18,714 --> 00:29:21,513
And see little birds
flying out of my mouth.

493
00:29:22,584 --> 00:29:26,851
And I remember always being
exhausted in that period.

494
00:29:26,955 --> 00:29:31,017
I always felt weak. You know, I really
didn't know what was going on with me.

495
00:29:31,126 --> 00:29:35,029
I would just sit out there all alone
in the country for days...

496
00:29:35,130 --> 00:29:38,293
and do nothing but write in my diary.

497
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,199
And I was always thinking about death.

498
00:29:41,303 --> 00:29:43,271
But you went to the Sahara,

499
00:29:43,372 --> 00:29:45,466
Oh, yes, we went off into the desert....

500
00:29:45,574 --> 00:29:47,668
and we rode through the desert
on camels.

501
00:29:47,776 --> 00:29:49,676
And we rode and we rode.

502
00:29:49,778 --> 00:29:52,179
And then at night we would walk out
under that enormous sky...

503
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,339
and look at the stars.

504
00:29:54,449 --> 00:29:57,976
I just kept thinking about the same things
that I was always thinking about at home...

505
00:29:58,086 --> 00:30:00,111
particularly about Chiquita.

506
00:30:00,222 --> 00:30:03,590
In fact, I thought about
just about nothing but my marriage.

507
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,892
And then I remember
one incredibly dark night...

508
00:30:07,996 --> 00:30:11,227
being at an oasis, and there were
palm trees moving in the wind...

509
00:30:11,333 --> 00:30:15,031
and I could hear Kozan singing
far away in that beautiful bass voice.

510
00:30:15,137 --> 00:30:17,834
And I tried to follow his voice
along the sand.

511
00:30:19,941 --> 00:30:22,911
You see, I thought he had
something to teach me, Wally.

512
00:30:24,513 --> 00:30:26,504
And sometimes
I would meditate with him.

513
00:30:26,615 --> 00:30:29,550
Sometimes I'd go off
and meditate by myself.

514
00:30:30,919 --> 00:30:33,820
You know,
I would see images of Chiquita.

515
00:30:33,922 --> 00:30:36,186
Once I actually saw her growing old...

516
00:30:36,291 --> 00:30:38,885
and her hair turning gray
in front of my eyes.

517
00:30:38,994 --> 00:30:43,955
And I would just wail and yell my lungs out
out there on the dunes.

518
00:30:47,035 --> 00:30:50,938
Anyway,
the desert was pretty horrible.

519
00:30:51,039 --> 00:30:52,939
It was pretty cold.

520
00:30:53,041 --> 00:30:56,477
We were searching for something, but we
couldn't tell if we were finding anything.

521
00:30:56,578 --> 00:30:58,603
You know that once Kozan and I...

522
00:30:58,714 --> 00:31:01,183
we were sitting on a dune,
and we just ate sand.

523
00:31:01,283 --> 00:31:03,684
No, we weren't trying to be funny.
I started, then he started.

524
00:31:03,785 --> 00:31:07,619
We just ate sand and threw up.
That's how desperate we were.

525
00:31:07,723 --> 00:31:11,353
In other words, we didn't know why we were there.
We didn't know what we were looking for.

526
00:31:11,460 --> 00:31:14,555
The entire thing seemed
completely absurd, arid and empty.

527
00:31:14,663 --> 00:31:18,099
It was like, like a last chance or something.

528
00:31:20,635 --> 00:31:22,899
So what happened then?

529
00:31:23,004 --> 00:31:25,769
Well, in those days....

530
00:31:25,874 --> 00:31:28,138
I went completely on impulse.

531
00:31:28,243 --> 00:31:31,372
So on impulse I brought Kozan back
to stay with us in New York...

532
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:35,041
after we got back from the Sahara,
and he stayed for six months.

533
00:31:35,150 --> 00:31:39,087
- And he really sort of took over the
whole family, in a way.
- What do you mean?

534
00:31:39,187 --> 00:31:43,385
Well, there was certainly a center
missing in the house at the time,

535
00:31:43,492 --> 00:31:45,984
There certainly wasn't a father,
'cause I was always thinking...

536
00:31:46,094 --> 00:31:49,530
about going off to Tibet
or doing God knows what.

537
00:31:49,631 --> 00:31:51,963
And so he taught the whole family
to meditate...

538
00:31:52,067 --> 00:31:56,265
and he told them all about Asia and the East
and his monastery and everything.

539
00:31:56,371 --> 00:32:00,831
He really captivated everybody
with an incredible bag of tricks.

540
00:32:00,942 --> 00:32:03,707
He had literally
developed himself, Wally...

541
00:32:03,812 --> 00:32:08,545
so that he could push on his fingers
and rise off out of his chair.

542
00:32:08,650 --> 00:32:10,618
I mean, he could literally go like this...

543
00:32:10,719 --> 00:32:12,915
You know, push on his fingers
and go into like a headstand...

544
00:32:13,021 --> 00:32:15,149
and just hold himself there
with two fingers.

545
00:32:15,257 --> 00:32:17,624
Or if Chiquita would suddenly get
a little tension in her neck...

546
00:32:17,726 --> 00:32:20,923
well, he'd immediately have her down on the floor,
he'd be walking up and down on her back...

547
00:32:21,029 --> 00:32:24,055
doing these unbelievable massages,
you know.

548
00:32:25,233 --> 00:32:27,201
And the children found him amazing.

549
00:32:27,302 --> 00:32:30,533
I mean,you know, we'd visit friends
who had children...

550
00:32:30,639 --> 00:32:32,698
and immediately
he'd be playing with these children...

551
00:32:32,808 --> 00:32:34,799
in a way that, you know, we just can't do.

552
00:32:34,910 --> 00:32:37,607
I mean, those children...
just giggles, giggles, giggles...

553
00:32:37,712 --> 00:32:41,148
about what this Japanese monk
was doing in these holy robes.

554
00:32:41,249 --> 00:32:44,184
I mean, he was an acrobat,
a ventriloquist...

555
00:32:44,286 --> 00:32:46,778
a magician, everything.

556
00:32:46,888 --> 00:32:48,856
You know,
the amazing thing was that...

557
00:32:48,957 --> 00:32:51,289
I don't think he had any interest
in children whatsoever.

558
00:32:51,393 --> 00:32:53,623
None at all.
I don't think he liked them.

559
00:32:53,728 --> 00:32:55,822
I mean,you know,
when he stayed with us...

560
00:32:55,931 --> 00:32:58,628
in the first week, really, the kids
were just googly-eyed over him.

561
00:32:58,733 --> 00:33:01,634
But then a couple of weeks later,
Chiquita and I could be out...

562
00:33:01,736 --> 00:33:04,706
and Marina could have flu
or a temperature of 104...

563
00:33:04,806 --> 00:33:07,366
and he wouldn't even go in
and say hello to her.

564
00:33:07,475 --> 00:33:10,934
But he was taking over more and more.

565
00:33:11,046 --> 00:33:13,640
I mean, his own habits
had completely changed.

566
00:33:13,748 --> 00:33:18,515
You know, he started wearing these elegant
Gucci shoes under his white monk's robes.

567
00:33:18,620 --> 00:33:20,611
He was eating huge amounts of food.

568
00:33:20,722 --> 00:33:24,181
I mean, he ate twice as much
as Nicolas ate, you know?

569
00:33:24,292 --> 00:33:26,784
This tiny little Buddhist
when I first met him, you know...

570
00:33:26,895 --> 00:33:29,830
was eating a little bowl of milk,
hot milk with rice...

571
00:33:29,931 --> 00:33:32,525
was now eating huge beef.

572
00:33:34,536 --> 00:33:37,233
It was just very strange.

573
00:33:37,339 --> 00:33:40,798
You know, and we had tried working together,
but really our work consisted mostly...

574
00:33:40,909 --> 00:33:45,710
of my trying to do these incredibly painful
prostrations that they do in the monastery.

575
00:33:45,814 --> 00:33:48,840
You know, so really we hadn't
been working very much.

576
00:33:48,950 --> 00:33:54,286
Anyway, we were out in the country, and
we all went to Christmas mass together.

577
00:33:54,389 --> 00:33:56,653
You know, he was all dressed up
in his Buddhist finery.

578
00:33:56,758 --> 00:34:00,717
And it was one of those awful,
dreary Catholic churches on Long Island...

579
00:34:00,829 --> 00:34:04,788
where the priest talks about
communism and birth control.

580
00:34:04,900 --> 00:34:08,837
And as I was sitting there in mass, I was
wondering, "What in the world is going on?"

581
00:34:08,937 --> 00:34:10,905
I mean, here I am. I'm a grown man..

582
00:34:11,006 --> 00:34:13,600
And there's this strange person living
in the house, and I'm not working...

583
00:34:13,708 --> 00:34:17,235
You know, I was doing nothing
but scribbling a little poetry in my diary.

584
00:34:17,345 --> 00:34:21,782
And I can't get a job teaching anymore,
and I don't know what I want to do.

585
00:34:21,883 --> 00:34:27,378
When all of a sudden a huge creature
appeared, looking at the congregation.

586
00:34:27,489 --> 00:34:31,926
It was about, I'd say, 6'8"
something like that, you know...

587
00:34:32,027 --> 00:34:34,962
and it was half bull, half man...

588
00:34:35,063 --> 00:34:37,157
and its skin was blue.

589
00:34:37,265 --> 00:34:40,895
It had violets growing out of its eyelids
and poppies growing out of its toenails.

590
00:34:41,002 --> 00:34:44,734
And it just stood there
for the whole mass.

591
00:34:44,839 --> 00:34:47,240
I mean, I could not make
that creature disappear.

592
00:34:47,342 --> 00:34:50,334
You know, I thought, "Oh, well. You know,
I'm just seeing this 'cause I'm bored."

593
00:34:50,445 --> 00:34:55,576
You know, close my...
I could not make that creature go away.

594
00:34:55,684 --> 00:34:59,587
Okay. Now, I didn't talk with people about it,
because they'd think I was weird...

595
00:34:59,688 --> 00:35:05,183
but I felt that this creature
was somehow coming to comfort me...

596
00:35:05,293 --> 00:35:08,558
that somehow
he was appearing to say...

597
00:35:08,663 --> 00:35:13,225
"Well,you may feel low and you might
not be able to create a play right now...

598
00:35:13,335 --> 00:35:17,294
but look at what can come to you
on Christmas Eve. Hang on, old friend.

599
00:35:17,405 --> 00:35:20,238
I may seem weird to you,
but on these weird voyages...

600
00:35:20,342 --> 00:35:22,310
weird creatures appear.

601
00:35:22,410 --> 00:35:26,278
It's part of the journey.
You're okay. Hang in there."

602
00:35:31,653 --> 00:35:33,985
By the way, did you ever see...

603
00:35:34,089 --> 00:35:37,684
that play, The Violets are Blue?

604
00:35:39,561 --> 00:35:41,461
No.

605
00:35:41,563 --> 00:35:44,760
Oh, when you mentioned the violets,
it reminded me of that.

606
00:35:44,866 --> 00:35:47,801
It was about people...

607
00:35:47,902 --> 00:35:50,997
being, strangled on a submarine.

608
00:35:57,312 --> 00:36:02,250
Well, so that was... that was Christmas.

609
00:36:02,350 --> 00:36:04,978
What happened after that?

610
00:36:05,086 --> 00:36:08,056
- Do you really want to hear about all this?
- Yeah.

611
00:36:08,156 --> 00:36:11,786
Well, around that time...

612
00:36:14,963 --> 00:36:18,729
I was beginning to think about going to India.
And Kozan suddenly left one day.

613
00:36:18,833 --> 00:36:22,167
I was beginning to get into a lot
of very strange ideas around that time.

614
00:36:22,270 --> 00:36:26,332
Now, for example, I'd developed this.
Well, I got this idea which I...

615
00:36:26,441 --> 00:36:29,604
Now, it was very appealing to me
at the time, you know...

616
00:36:29,711 --> 00:36:33,011
which was that I would have a flag,
a large flag...

617
00:36:33,114 --> 00:36:35,481
and that wherever I worked,
this flag would fly.

618
00:36:35,583 --> 00:36:39,850
Or if we were outside, say, with a group, that
the flag could be the thing we lay on at night...

619
00:36:39,954 --> 00:36:43,686
and that somehow, between
working on this flag and lying on this flag...

620
00:36:43,792 --> 00:36:45,692
this flag flying over us...

621
00:36:45,794 --> 00:36:49,753
that the flag would pick up
vibrations of a kind...

622
00:36:49,864 --> 00:36:52,595
that would still be in the flag
when I brought it home.

623
00:36:52,700 --> 00:36:55,795
So I went down to meet this flag maker
that I'd heard about.

624
00:36:55,904 --> 00:36:57,929
And you know, there was
this very straightforward-looking guy.

625
00:36:58,039 --> 00:37:02,806
You know, very sweet, really healthy-looking
and everything. Nice big, blond.

626
00:37:02,911 --> 00:37:05,903
And he had a beautiful, clean loft
down in the village with lovely, happy flags.

627
00:37:06,014 --> 00:37:09,450
And I was all into The Little Prince,
and I talked to him about The Little Prince...

628
00:37:09,551 --> 00:37:13,385
these adventures and everything, how I
needed the flag and what the flag should be.

629
00:37:13,488 --> 00:37:15,820
He seemed to really connect with it.

630
00:37:15,924 --> 00:37:18,393
So, two weeks later, I came back.

631
00:37:18,493 --> 00:37:22,191
He showed me a flag that I thought
was very odd, you know...

632
00:37:22,297 --> 00:37:24,288
'cause I had, you know,
well, you know...

633
00:37:24,399 --> 00:37:27,767
I had expected something
gentle and lyrical.

634
00:37:27,869 --> 00:37:30,201
There was something about this
that was so powerful...

635
00:37:30,305 --> 00:37:32,239
it was almost overwhelming.

636
00:37:32,340 --> 00:37:34,308
And it did include the Tibetan swastika.

637
00:37:35,877 --> 00:37:38,073
He put a swastika in your flag?

638
00:37:38,179 --> 00:37:40,876
No, it was the Tibetan swastika,
not the Nazi swastika.

639
00:37:40,982 --> 00:37:43,349
It's one of the most ancient
Tibetan symbols.

640
00:37:43,451 --> 00:37:46,443
And it was just strange, you know?

641
00:37:46,554 --> 00:37:50,149
But I brought it home,
because my idea with this flag...

642
00:37:50,258 --> 00:37:52,727
was that before I left...
you know, before I left for India...

643
00:37:52,827 --> 00:37:56,661
I wanted several people who were close to me
to have this flag in the room for the night...

644
00:37:56,764 --> 00:38:00,200
to sleep with it, you know, and then
in the morning to sew something into the flag.

645
00:38:00,301 --> 00:38:04,329
Sol took the flag into Marina, and I said,
"Hey, look at this. What do you think of this?"

646
00:38:04,439 --> 00:38:07,170
And she said, "What is that? That's awful."
I said, "It's a flag."

647
00:38:07,275 --> 00:38:08,902
And she said, "I don't like it."

648
00:38:09,010 --> 00:38:12,241
I said, "I kind of thought you might like
to spend the night with it, you know."

649
00:38:12,347 --> 00:38:15,282
But she really thought
the flag was awful.

650
00:38:15,383 --> 00:38:19,718
So then Chiquita threw this party
for me before I left for India...

651
00:38:19,821 --> 00:38:21,880
and the apartment
was filled with guests.

652
00:38:21,990 --> 00:38:25,051
And at one point Chiquita said,
"The flag, the flag. Where's the flag?"

653
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:29,154
And I said, "Oh, yeah. The flag."
And I go and get the flag, and I open it up.

654
00:38:29,264 --> 00:38:33,098
Chiquita goes absolutely white
and runs out of the room and vomits.

655
00:38:33,201 --> 00:38:36,466
So the party just comes to a halt
and breaks up.

656
00:38:36,571 --> 00:38:39,268
And then the next day
I gave it to this young woman...

657
00:38:39,374 --> 00:38:41,968
who'd been in my group in Poland,
who was now in New York.

658
00:38:42,076 --> 00:38:45,569
I didn't tell her anything
about any of this.

659
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,081
At 5:00 in the morning,
she called me up and she said...

660
00:38:48,183 --> 00:38:50,652
"I got to come and see you right away."
I thought, "Oh, God."

661
00:38:50,752 --> 00:38:54,484
She came up, and she said,
"I saw things. I saw things around this flag.

662
00:38:54,589 --> 00:38:57,581
Now, I know you're stubborn, and I know
you want to take this thing with you...

663
00:38:57,692 --> 00:39:00,684
but if you'd follow my advice,
you'd put it in a hole in the ground...

664
00:39:00,795 --> 00:39:03,628
and burn it and cover it with earth,
cause the devil's in it."

665
00:39:03,731 --> 00:39:05,631
I never took the flag with me.

666
00:39:05,733 --> 00:39:10,170
In fact, I gave it to her, and,
she had a ceremony with it...

667
00:39:10,271 --> 00:39:12,740
six months later, in France,
with some friends...

668
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,002
in which, they did burn it.

669
00:39:16,144 --> 00:39:18,374
God.

670
00:39:18,479 --> 00:39:21,847
That's really, really amazing.

671
00:39:23,551 --> 00:39:26,077
So, did you ever go to India?

672
00:39:26,187 --> 00:39:29,521
Oh, yes, I went to India
in the spring, Wally...

673
00:39:29,624 --> 00:39:32,093
and I came back home
feeling all wrong.

674
00:39:32,193 --> 00:39:36,630
I mean, you know, I'd been to India,
and I'd just felt like a tourist.

675
00:39:36,731 --> 00:39:39,530
I'd found nothing.

676
00:39:39,634 --> 00:39:44,299
So I was spending, the summer
on Long Island with my family...

677
00:39:44,405 --> 00:39:47,375
and I heard about this community
in Scotland called Findhorn...

678
00:39:47,475 --> 00:39:51,036
where people sang and talked
and meditated with plants.

679
00:39:51,145 --> 00:39:56,640
And it was founded by several rather
middle-class English and Scottish eccentrics.

680
00:39:56,751 --> 00:39:59,083
Some of them intellectuals,
and some of them not.

681
00:39:59,187 --> 00:40:01,588
And I'd heard that they'd
grown things in soil...

682
00:40:01,689 --> 00:40:04,852
that supposedly nothing can grow in,
'cause it's almost beach soil...

683
00:40:04,959 --> 00:40:09,123
and that they'd built, not built, they'd
grown the largest cauliflowers in the world...

684
00:40:09,230 --> 00:40:11,164
and there are sort of cabbages.

685
00:40:11,266 --> 00:40:15,066
And they've grown trees
that can't grow in the British Isles.

686
00:40:15,169 --> 00:40:17,900
So I went there.
I mean, it is an amazing place, Wally.

687
00:40:18,006 --> 00:40:22,170
I mean, if there are insects
bothering the plants...

688
00:40:22,277 --> 00:40:25,770
they will talk with the insects
and, you know, make an agreement...

689
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:29,976
by which they'll set aside a special patch
of vegetables just for the insects...

690
00:40:30,084 --> 00:40:32,178
and then the insects
will leave the main part alone.

691
00:40:32,287 --> 00:40:34,278
- Huh.
- Things like that.

692
00:40:34,389 --> 00:40:36,858
And everything they do
they do beautifully.

693
00:40:36,958 --> 00:40:39,723
I mean, the buildings just shine.

694
00:40:39,827 --> 00:40:43,764
And I mean, for instance, the icebox,
the stove, the car... they all have names.

695
00:40:43,865 --> 00:40:46,129
And since you wouldn't treat Helen,
the icebox...

696
00:40:46,234 --> 00:40:48,566
with any less respect
than you would Margaret, your wife...

697
00:40:48,670 --> 00:40:52,538
you know, you make sure that Helen is as clean
as Margaret, or treated with equal respect.

698
00:40:54,876 --> 00:40:59,370
And when I was there, Wally,
I remember being in the woods...

699
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:04,145
and I would look at a leaf,
and I would actually see that thing...

700
00:41:04,252 --> 00:41:07,415
that is alive in that leaf.

701
00:41:07,522 --> 00:41:10,514
And then I remember just running
through the woods as fast as I could...

702
00:41:10,625 --> 00:41:13,094
with this incredible laugh
coming out of me...

703
00:41:13,194 --> 00:41:18,360
and really being in that state, you know,
where laughter and tears seem to merge,

704
00:41:18,466 --> 00:41:20,434
I mean, it absolutely blasted me open.

705
00:41:20,535 --> 00:41:23,596
When I came out of Findhorn,
I was hallucinating nonstop.

706
00:41:23,705 --> 00:41:26,333
I was seeing clouds as creatures.

707
00:41:26,441 --> 00:41:29,035
The people on the airplane
all had animals' faces.

708
00:41:29,143 --> 00:41:33,171
I mean, I was on a trip. It was like being
in a William Blake world suddenly.

709
00:41:33,281 --> 00:41:35,215
Things were exploding.

710
00:41:35,316 --> 00:41:39,617
So immediately I went to Belgrade,
'cause I wanted to talk to Grotowski.

711
00:41:39,721 --> 00:41:42,952
Grotowski and I got together
at midnight in my hotel room...

712
00:41:43,057 --> 00:41:46,493
and we drank instant coffee
out of the top of my shaving cream...

713
00:41:46,594 --> 00:41:50,656
and we talked from midnight
until 11:00 the next morning.

714
00:41:50,765 --> 00:41:53,234
- God. What did he say?
- Nothing!

715
00:41:53,334 --> 00:41:55,359
I talked. He didn't say a word.

716
00:41:55,470 --> 00:41:59,202
And then I guess really...

717
00:42:00,174 --> 00:42:04,168
the last big experience of this kind
took place that fall.

718
00:42:04,278 --> 00:42:06,246
It was out at Montauk on Long Island...

719
00:42:06,347 --> 00:42:09,942
and there were only about nine
of us involved, mostly men.

720
00:42:10,051 --> 00:42:13,043
And we borrowed Dick Avedon's property
out at Montauk.

721
00:42:13,154 --> 00:42:16,283
And the country out there
is like Heathcliff country.

722
00:42:16,391 --> 00:42:18,951
It's absolutely wild.

723
00:42:19,060 --> 00:42:21,461
What we wanted to do was
we wanted to take, you know...

724
00:42:21,562 --> 00:42:23,860
We wanted to take All Souls' Eve,
Halloween...

725
00:42:23,965 --> 00:42:26,297
and use it as a point of departure
for something.

726
00:42:26,401 --> 00:42:29,860
So each one of us prepared
some sort of event for the others...

727
00:42:29,971 --> 00:42:32,770
somehow in the spirit
of All Souls' Eve.

728
00:42:32,874 --> 00:42:35,775
But the biggest event
was three of the people...

729
00:42:35,877 --> 00:42:38,278
kept disappearing
in the middle of the night each night...

730
00:42:38,379 --> 00:42:40,746
and we knew they were
preparing something big...

731
00:42:40,848 --> 00:42:42,816
but we didn't know what.

732
00:42:42,917 --> 00:42:47,115
And midnight on Halloween,
under a dark moon, above these cliffs...

733
00:42:47,221 --> 00:42:50,987
we were all told to gather at the topmost cliff
and that we would be taken somewhere.

734
00:42:51,092 --> 00:42:55,427
And we did.
And we waited, and it was very, very cold.

735
00:42:55,530 --> 00:42:59,194
And then the three of them: Helen, Bill
and Fred... showed up wearing white.

736
00:42:59,300 --> 00:43:03,362
You know, something they'd made out
of sheets... looked a little spooky, not funny.

737
00:43:03,471 --> 00:43:08,170
And they took us into the basement of this house
that had burned down on the property.

738
00:43:08,276 --> 00:43:12,338
And in this ruined basement, they had set up
a table with benches they'd made.

739
00:43:12,447 --> 00:43:17,544
And on this table they had laid out paper,
pencils, wine and glasses.

740
00:43:17,652 --> 00:43:22,920
And we were all asked to sit at the table
and to make out our last will and testament.

741
00:43:23,024 --> 00:43:26,551
You know, to think about and write down
whatever our last words were to the world...

742
00:43:26,661 --> 00:43:28,959
or to somebody we were very close to.

743
00:43:29,063 --> 00:43:31,691
And that's quite a task.

744
00:43:31,799 --> 00:43:35,258
I must have been there for about
an hour and a half or so, maybe two.

745
00:43:35,369 --> 00:43:38,805
And then one at a time they would ask
one of us to come with them...

746
00:43:38,906 --> 00:43:40,874
and I was one of the last.

747
00:43:40,975 --> 00:43:43,376
And they came for me,
and they put a blindfold on me...

748
00:43:43,478 --> 00:43:45,674
and they ran me through these fields,
two people.

749
00:43:45,780 --> 00:43:49,876
And they'd found a kind of potting shed,
you know, a kind of shed, on the grounds...

750
00:43:49,984 --> 00:43:53,477
a little tiny room
that had once had tools in it.

751
00:43:53,588 --> 00:43:56,580
And they took me down the steps,
into this basement...

752
00:43:56,691 --> 00:44:01,561
and the room was just filled
with harsh white light.

753
00:44:01,662 --> 00:44:05,189
Then they told me to get undressed
and give them all my valuables.

754
00:44:05,299 --> 00:44:07,700
Then they put me on a table,
and they sponged me down.

755
00:44:07,802 --> 00:44:12,296
Well, you know, I just started flashing
on death camps and secret police.

756
00:44:12,406 --> 00:44:16,206
I don't know what happened to the other people,
but I just started to cry uncontrollably.

757
00:44:16,310 --> 00:44:20,838
Uh, then they got me to my feet
and they took photographs of me, naked.

758
00:44:20,948 --> 00:44:23,747
And then naked, again blindfolded,
I was run through these forests...

759
00:44:23,851 --> 00:44:27,048
and we came to a kind of tent made of sheets,
with sheets on the ground.

760
00:44:27,154 --> 00:44:29,145
And there were all these naked bodies...

761
00:44:29,257 --> 00:44:32,750
huddling together
for warmth against the cold.

762
00:44:32,860 --> 00:44:34,988
Must have been left there
for about an hour.

763
00:44:35,096 --> 00:44:38,225
And then again, one by one,
one at a time, we were led out.

764
00:44:38,332 --> 00:44:40,300
The blindfold was put on...

765
00:44:40,401 --> 00:44:44,065
and I felt myself being lowered
onto something like a stretcher.

766
00:44:44,171 --> 00:44:49,075
And the stretcher was carried a long way,
very slowly, through these forests...

767
00:44:49,176 --> 00:44:54,945
and then I felt myself
being lowered into the ground.

768
00:44:55,049 --> 00:44:58,747
They had, in fact, dug six graves...

769
00:44:58,853 --> 00:45:01,481
eight feet deep.

770
00:45:01,589 --> 00:45:05,924
And then I felt these pieces of wood
being put on me.

771
00:45:06,027 --> 00:45:09,395
And I cannot tell you, Wally,
what I was going through.

772
00:45:09,497 --> 00:45:12,797
And then the stretcher was lowered
into the grave...

773
00:45:12,900 --> 00:45:14,868
and then this wood was put on me...

774
00:45:14,969 --> 00:45:17,461
and then my valuables were put on me,
in my hands.

775
00:45:17,572 --> 00:45:20,337
And they'd taken, you know,
a kind of sheet or canvas...

776
00:45:20,441 --> 00:45:22,933
and they'd stretched about this much
above my head...

777
00:45:23,044 --> 00:45:25,809
and then they shoveled dirt
into the grave...

778
00:45:27,148 --> 00:45:31,745
so that I really had the feeling
of being buried alive.

779
00:45:33,888 --> 00:45:36,755
And after being in the grave
for about half an hour...

780
00:45:36,857 --> 00:45:40,088
I mean, I didn't know how long
I'd be in there...

781
00:45:40,194 --> 00:45:42,720
I was resurrected,
lifted out of the grave...

782
00:45:42,830 --> 00:45:45,197
blindfold taken off,
and run through these fields.

783
00:45:45,299 --> 00:45:49,736
And we came to a great circle of fire,
with music and hot wine...

784
00:45:49,837 --> 00:45:51,931
and everyone danced until dawn.

785
00:45:52,039 --> 00:45:55,339
And then at dawn...

786
00:45:55,443 --> 00:45:58,413
to the best of our ability,
we filled up the graves...

787
00:45:58,512 --> 00:46:01,174
and went back to New York.

788
00:46:04,285 --> 00:46:07,983
And that was really the last big event.
I mean, that was the end.

789
00:46:08,089 --> 00:46:10,057
I mean,you know, I began to realize...

790
00:46:10,157 --> 00:46:12,819
I just didn't want to do these things
anymore, you know?

791
00:46:12,927 --> 00:46:17,364
I felt sort of becalmed, you know,
like that chapter in Moby Dick...

792
00:46:17,465 --> 00:46:20,560
where the wind goes out of the sails.

793
00:46:20,668 --> 00:46:23,399
And then last winter, without,
thinking about it very much...

794
00:46:23,504 --> 00:46:27,805
I went to see this agent I know to tell him
I was interested in directing plays again.

795
00:46:27,908 --> 00:46:30,275
Actually,
he seemed a little surprised...

796
00:46:30,378 --> 00:46:33,837
to see that Rip Van Winkle
was still alive.

797
00:46:39,553 --> 00:46:41,453
Mmm.

798
00:46:41,555 --> 00:46:43,546
God.

799
00:46:43,658 --> 00:46:45,524
I didn't know they were so small.

800
00:46:48,429 --> 00:46:50,523
Well, you know, frankly...

801
00:46:50,631 --> 00:46:53,430
I'm sort of repelled by the whole story,
if you really want to know.

802
00:46:53,534 --> 00:46:55,935
- What?
- Ah, you know...

803
00:46:56,037 --> 00:46:58,005
Who did I think I was, you know?

804
00:46:58,105 --> 00:47:02,736
I mean, that's the story of some kind
of spoiled princess, you know.

805
00:47:02,843 --> 00:47:05,107
Who did I think I was,
the Shah of Iran?

806
00:47:05,212 --> 00:47:09,979
You know, I really wonder if people such
as myself are really not Albert Speer, Wally.

807
00:47:10,084 --> 00:47:14,282
- You know, Hitler's architect, Albert Speer?
- What?

808
00:47:14,388 --> 00:47:18,018
No, I've been thinking a lot about him recently
because, I think I am Speer.

809
00:47:18,125 --> 00:47:21,151
And I think it's time that I was caught
and tried the way he was.

810
00:47:21,262 --> 00:47:22,889
What are you talking about?

811
00:47:22,997 --> 00:47:26,831
Well, you know, he was a very cultivated man,
an architect, an artist, you know...

812
00:47:26,934 --> 00:47:30,302
so he thought the ordinary rules of life
didn't apply to him either.

813
00:47:33,007 --> 00:47:36,807
I mean, I really feel
that everything I've done...

814
00:47:36,911 --> 00:47:39,437
is horrific, just horrific.

815
00:47:39,547 --> 00:47:42,482
My God. But why?

816
00:47:42,583 --> 00:47:47,145
You see, I've seen a lot of death
in the last few years, Wally...

817
00:47:47,254 --> 00:47:49,552
and there's one thing
that's for sure about death...

818
00:47:49,657 --> 00:47:52,092
You do it alone, you see.
That seems quite certain, you see.

819
00:47:52,193 --> 00:47:55,322
That I've seen. That the people
around your bed mean nothing.

820
00:47:55,429 --> 00:47:58,421
Your reviews mean nothing.
Whatever it is, you do it alone.

821
00:47:58,532 --> 00:48:02,560
And so the question is, when I get on my
deathbed, what kind of a person am I gonna be?

822
00:48:02,670 --> 00:48:05,503
And I'm just very dubious about the kind
of person who would have lived his life...

823
00:48:05,606 --> 00:48:07,506
those last few years the way I did.

824
00:48:07,608 --> 00:48:10,236
Why should you feel that way?

825
00:48:10,344 --> 00:48:14,781
You see, I've had a very rough time
in the last few months, Wally.

826
00:48:14,882 --> 00:48:18,785
Three different people in my family
were in the hospital at the same time.

827
00:48:18,886 --> 00:48:20,820
Then my mother died.

828
00:48:20,921 --> 00:48:23,913
Then Marina had something wrong with her back,
and we were terribly worried about her.

829
00:48:24,024 --> 00:48:27,153
You know, so, I mean,
I'm feeling very raw right now.

830
00:48:27,261 --> 00:48:30,390
I mean, I can't sleep,
my nerves are shot.

831
00:48:30,498 --> 00:48:32,466
I mean, I'm affected by everything.

832
00:48:32,566 --> 00:48:36,662
You know, last week I had this really nice
director from Norway over for dinner...

833
00:48:36,771 --> 00:48:38,967
and he's someone
I've known for years and years...

834
00:48:39,073 --> 00:48:41,337
and he's somebody
that I think I'm quite fond of.

835
00:48:41,442 --> 00:48:44,605
And I was sitting there just thinking
that he was a pompous, defensive...

836
00:48:44,712 --> 00:48:47,113
conservative stuffed shirt
who was only interested in the theater.

837
00:48:47,214 --> 00:48:50,673
He was talking and talking. His mother
had been a famous Norwegian comedienne.

838
00:48:50,785 --> 00:48:55,120
I realized he had said "I remember my mother"
at least 400 times during the evening.

839
00:48:55,222 --> 00:48:58,351
And he was telling story after story
about his mother.

840
00:48:58,459 --> 00:49:01,326
You know, I'd heard these stories
20 times in the past.

841
00:49:01,428 --> 00:49:04,125
He was drinking this whole bottle
of bourbon very quietly.

842
00:49:04,231 --> 00:49:06,290
His laugh was so horrible.

843
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,995
You know, I could hear his laugh...
the pain in that laugh, the hollowness.

844
00:49:10,104 --> 00:49:12,505
You know, what being that woman's son
had done to him.

845
00:49:12,606 --> 00:49:16,270
You know, so at a certain point I just had
to ask him to leave... nicely, you know.

846
00:49:16,377 --> 00:49:19,836
I told him I had to get up early
the next morning, 'cause it was so horrible.

847
00:49:19,947 --> 00:49:22,348
It was just as if he had died
in my living room.

848
00:49:22,449 --> 00:49:26,511
You know, then I went into the bathroom
and cried 'cause I felt I'd lost a friend.

849
00:49:26,620 --> 00:49:28,748
And then after he'd gone,
I turned the television on...

850
00:49:28,856 --> 00:49:31,257
and there was this guy who had
just won the something.

851
00:49:31,358 --> 00:49:34,794
Some sports event, some kind of a great big
check and some kind of huge silver bottle.

852
00:49:34,895 --> 00:49:37,296
And he, you know, he couldn't stuff
the check in the bottle...

853
00:49:37,398 --> 00:49:40,595
and he put the bottle in front of his nose
and pretended it was his face.

854
00:49:40,701 --> 00:49:42,999
He wasn't really listening
to the guy who was interviewing him...

855
00:49:43,103 --> 00:49:46,539
but he was smiling malevolently at his friends,
and I looked at that guy and I thought...

856
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:50,634
"What a horrible, empty,
manipulative rat."

857
00:49:50,744 --> 00:49:54,647
Then I thought, "That guy is me."

858
00:49:54,748 --> 00:49:57,911
Then last night actually, you know,
it was our 20th wedding anniversary...

859
00:49:58,018 --> 00:50:00,214
and I took Chiquita to see
this show about Billie Holiday.

860
00:50:00,321 --> 00:50:03,814
I looked at these show business people who
know nothing about Billie Holiday, nothing.

861
00:50:03,924 --> 00:50:07,588
You see, they were really kind of,
in a way, intellectual creeps.

862
00:50:07,695 --> 00:50:11,529
And I suddenly had this feeling. I mean, you know I was
just sitting there, crying through most of the show.

863
00:50:11,632 --> 00:50:14,431
And I suddenly had this feeling
I was just as creepy as they were...

864
00:50:14,535 --> 00:50:16,469
and that my whole life
had been a sham...

865
00:50:16,570 --> 00:50:19,403
and I didn't have the guts
to be Billie Holiday either.

866
00:50:19,506 --> 00:50:23,340
I mean, I really feel
that I'm just washed up, wiped out.

867
00:50:23,444 --> 00:50:26,141
I feel I've just squandered my life.

868
00:50:29,617 --> 00:50:33,554
André, now, how can you say
something like that?

869
00:50:33,654 --> 00:50:35,554
I mean,

870
00:50:43,297 --> 00:50:48,861
Well, you know, I may be in
a very emotional state right now, Wally...

871
00:50:48,969 --> 00:50:52,030
but since I've come back home I've just
been finding the world we're living in...

872
00:50:52,139 --> 00:50:54,574
more and more upsetting.

873
00:50:54,675 --> 00:50:57,576
I mean, last week I went down
to the Public Theater one afternoon.

874
00:50:57,678 --> 00:50:59,908
You know, when I walked in,
I said hello to everybody...

875
00:51:00,014 --> 00:51:02,847
'cause I know them all, and they all know me,
they're always very friendly.

876
00:51:02,950 --> 00:51:06,784
You know that seven or eight people
told me how wonderful I looked?

877
00:51:06,887 --> 00:51:10,414
And then one person, one, a woman
who runs the casting office, said...

878
00:51:10,524 --> 00:51:12,492
"Gee, you look horrible.
ls something wrong?"

879
00:51:12,593 --> 00:51:15,585
Now, she, you know, we started talking.
Of course, I started telling her things.

880
00:51:15,696 --> 00:51:19,655
And she suddenly burst into tears
because an aunt of hers who's 80...

881
00:51:19,767 --> 00:51:23,965
whom she's very fond of, went into
the hospital for a cataract, which was solved.

882
00:51:24,071 --> 00:51:27,564
But the nurse was so sloppy,
she didn't put the bed rails up...

883
00:51:27,675 --> 00:51:30,770
and so the aunt fell out of bed
and is now a complete cripple.

884
00:51:30,878 --> 00:51:33,245
So you know, we were talking
about hospitals.

885
00:51:33,347 --> 00:51:36,612
Now, you know, this woman,
because of who she is...

886
00:51:36,717 --> 00:51:39,049
You know, 'cause this had happened
to her very, very recently.

887
00:51:39,153 --> 00:51:42,612
She could see me with complete clarity.

888
00:51:42,723 --> 00:51:44,748
She didn't know anything
about what I'd been going through.

889
00:51:44,858 --> 00:51:47,418
But the other people, what they saw
was this tan, or this shirt...

890
00:51:47,528 --> 00:51:49,496
or the fact that the shirt
goes well with the tan.

891
00:51:49,596 --> 00:51:51,462
So they said, "Gee, you look wonderful."

892
00:51:51,565 --> 00:51:54,865
Now, they're living
in an insane dream world.

893
00:51:54,969 --> 00:51:58,200
They're not looking.
That seems very strange to me.

894
00:51:58,305 --> 00:52:01,536
Right, because they just didn't
see anything, somehow...

895
00:52:01,642 --> 00:52:04,976
except, the few little things
that they wanted to see.

896
00:52:08,082 --> 00:52:12,610
Yeah, you know, it's like what happened
just before my mother died.

897
00:52:12,720 --> 00:52:15,155
You know, we'd gone to the hospital
to see my mother...

898
00:52:15,255 --> 00:52:17,622
and I went in to see her...

899
00:52:17,725 --> 00:52:22,253
and I saw this woman who looked as bad
as any survivor of Auschwitz or Dachau.

900
00:52:22,363 --> 00:52:26,061
And I was out in the hall
sort of comforting my father...

901
00:52:26,166 --> 00:52:30,228
when a doctor who was a specialist
in a problem she had with her arm...

902
00:52:30,337 --> 00:52:33,136
went into her room
and came out just beaming.

903
00:52:33,240 --> 00:52:37,006
And he said, "Boy, don't we have
a lot of reason to feel great?

904
00:52:37,111 --> 00:52:40,672
Isn't it wonderful
how she's coming along?"

905
00:52:40,781 --> 00:52:45,685
Now, all he saw was the arm.
That's all he saw.

906
00:52:45,786 --> 00:52:50,223
Now, here's another person
who's existing in a dream.

907
00:52:50,324 --> 00:52:52,759
Who, on top of that,
is a kind of butcher...

908
00:52:52,860 --> 00:52:55,090
who's committing
a kind of familial murder...

909
00:52:55,195 --> 00:52:58,392
because when he comes out of that room,
he psychically kills us...

910
00:52:58,499 --> 00:53:00,490
by taking us into a dream world...

911
00:53:00,601 --> 00:53:04,037
where we become confused
and frightened...

912
00:53:04,138 --> 00:53:07,403
'cause the moment before,
we saw somebody who already looked dead...

913
00:53:07,508 --> 00:53:12,002
and now here comes a specialist
who tells us they're in wonderful shape.

914
00:53:12,112 --> 00:53:14,843
I mean, they were literally
driving my father crazy.

915
00:53:14,948 --> 00:53:18,043
I mean, you know, here's an 82-year-old man
who's very emotional...

916
00:53:18,152 --> 00:53:21,144
and you know, and if you go in one moment,
and you see the person's dying...

917
00:53:21,255 --> 00:53:24,247
and you don't want them to die, and then
a doctor comes out five minutes later...

918
00:53:24,358 --> 00:53:26,326
and tells you they're in wonderful shape...

919
00:53:26,427 --> 00:53:29,021
I mean, you know, you can go crazy.

920
00:53:29,129 --> 00:53:32,895
- Yeah. I know what you mean.
- I mean, the doctor didn't see my mother.

921
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,492
The people at the Public Theater
didn't see me.

922
00:53:35,602 --> 00:53:38,594
I mean, we're just walking around
in some kind of fog.

923
00:53:38,705 --> 00:53:42,801
I think we're all in a trance.
We're walking around like zombies.

924
00:53:42,910 --> 00:53:46,540
I don't think we're even aware
of ourselves or our own reaction to things.

925
00:53:46,647 --> 00:53:49,480
We're just going around all day
like unconscious machines...

926
00:53:49,583 --> 00:53:52,678
and meanwhile there's all of this rage
and worry and uneasiness...

927
00:53:52,786 --> 00:53:54,880
just building up
and building up inside us.

928
00:53:54,988 --> 00:53:57,286
That's right. lt just builds up...

929
00:53:57,391 --> 00:54:00,691
and then it just leaps out
inappropriately.

930
00:54:02,196 --> 00:54:04,858
I mean, I remember
when I was, acting in this play...

931
00:54:04,965 --> 00:54:06,933
based on The Master and Margarita
by Bulgakov.

932
00:54:07,034 --> 00:54:09,401
And I was playing the part of the cat.

933
00:54:09,503 --> 00:54:11,938
But they had trouble,
making up my cat suit...

934
00:54:12,039 --> 00:54:15,669
so I didn't get it delivered to me
till the night of the first performance.

935
00:54:15,776 --> 00:54:19,371
Particularly the head, I mean,
I'd never even had a chance to try it on.

936
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:23,007
And about four of my fellow actors
actually came up to me...

937
00:54:23,117 --> 00:54:25,677
and they said these things
which I just couldn't help thinking...

938
00:54:25,786 --> 00:54:27,754
were attempts to destroy me.

939
00:54:27,855 --> 00:54:31,689
You know, one of them said,
"Oh, well, now that head...

940
00:54:31,792 --> 00:54:34,261
...will totally change your hearing
in the performance.

941
00:54:34,361 --> 00:54:37,422
...You may hear everything
completely differently...

942
00:54:37,531 --> 00:54:39,795
...and it may be very upsetting.

943
00:54:39,900 --> 00:54:43,063
"Now, I was once in a performance
where I was wearing earmuffs...

944
00:54:43,170 --> 00:54:46,834
and I couldn't hear anything
anybody said."

945
00:54:46,940 --> 00:54:50,638
And then another one said, "Oh, you know,
whenever I wear even a hat on stage...

946
00:54:50,744 --> 00:54:52,712
...I tend to faint."

947
00:54:52,813 --> 00:54:55,748
I mean, those remarks
were just full of hostility...

948
00:54:55,849 --> 00:54:59,285
because, I mean, if I'd listened to those people,
I would have gone out there on stage...

949
00:54:59,386 --> 00:55:02,185
and I wouldn't have been able to hear anything,
and I would have fainted.

950
00:55:02,289 --> 00:55:04,223
But the hostility
was completely inappropriate...

951
00:55:04,324 --> 00:55:06,292
because, in fact,
those people liked me.

952
00:55:06,393 --> 00:55:09,829
I mean, that hostility was just
some feeling that was, you know...

953
00:55:09,930 --> 00:55:12,763
left over from
some previous experience.

954
00:55:12,866 --> 00:55:16,234
Because somehow
in our social existence today...

955
00:55:16,336 --> 00:55:19,567
we're only allowed to
express our feelings.

956
00:55:19,673 --> 00:55:21,801
Weirdly and indirectly.

957
00:55:21,909 --> 00:55:24,344
If you express them directly,
everybody goes crazy.

958
00:55:24,444 --> 00:55:27,607
Well, did you express your feelings
about what those people said to you?

959
00:55:27,714 --> 00:55:31,742
No. I mean, I didn't even know
what I felt till I thought about it later.

960
00:55:31,852 --> 00:55:35,220
And I mean, at the most, you know,
in a situation like that...

961
00:55:35,322 --> 00:55:37,552
even if I had known what I felt...

962
00:55:37,658 --> 00:55:40,355
I might say something,
if I'm really annoyed...

963
00:55:40,460 --> 00:55:44,260
like, "Oh, yeah.
Well, that's just fascinating...

964
00:55:44,364 --> 00:55:48,062
and, I probably will
faint tonight, just as you did."

965
00:55:48,168 --> 00:55:51,035
I do just the same thing myself.

966
00:55:51,138 --> 00:55:54,438
We can't be direct, so we end up
saying the weirdest things.

967
00:55:54,541 --> 00:55:57,738
I mean, I remember a night. It was
a couple of weeks after my mother died.

968
00:55:57,844 --> 00:55:59,744
And I was in pretty bad shape.

969
00:55:59,846 --> 00:56:01,974
And I had dinner with three
relatively close friends...

970
00:56:02,082 --> 00:56:04,050
two of whom had
known my mother quite well...

971
00:56:04,151 --> 00:56:06,677
and all three of whom
had known me for years.

972
00:56:06,787 --> 00:56:09,586
You know that we went through that
entire evening without my being able to...

973
00:56:09,690 --> 00:56:11,624
for a moment,
get anywhere near what...

974
00:56:11,725 --> 00:56:13,921
Not that I wanted to sit
and have this dreary evening...

975
00:56:14,027 --> 00:56:16,894
in which I was talking about all this pain
that I was going through and everything.

976
00:56:16,997 --> 00:56:18,624
Really, not at all.

977
00:56:18,732 --> 00:56:20,894
But the fact that nobody could say...

978
00:56:21,001 --> 00:56:23,834
"Gee, what a shame about your mother"
or "How are you feeling?"

979
00:56:23,937 --> 00:56:27,271
It was just as if nothing had happened.
They were all making these jokes and laughing.

980
00:56:27,374 --> 00:56:29,342
I got quite crazy, as a matter of fact.

981
00:56:29,443 --> 00:56:31,969
One of these people mentioned
a certain man whom I don't like very much...

982
00:56:32,079 --> 00:56:35,947
and I started screeching about how
he had just been found in the Bronx River...

983
00:56:36,049 --> 00:56:40,179
and his penis had dropped off from gonorrhea,
and all kinds of insane things.

984
00:56:40,287 --> 00:56:44,952
And later, when I got home, I realized I'd just
been desperate to break through this ice.

985
00:56:45,058 --> 00:56:46,526
Yeah.

986
00:56:46,627 --> 00:56:50,655
I mean, do you realize, Wally, if you brought
that situation into a Tibetan home...

987
00:56:50,764 --> 00:56:53,756
That'd be just so far out. I mean,
they wouldn't be able to understand it.

988
00:56:53,867 --> 00:56:56,302
That would be simply so weird, Wally.

989
00:56:56,403 --> 00:57:00,237
If four Tibetans came together,
and tragedy had just struck one of the ones...

990
00:57:00,340 --> 00:57:04,971
and they spent the whole evening going...

991
00:57:05,078 --> 00:57:07,308
I mean, you know,
Tibetans would have looked at that,

992
00:57:07,414 --> 00:57:10,440
and would have thought that was
the most unimaginable behavior.

993
00:57:10,550 --> 00:57:12,882
But for us, that's common behavior.

994
00:57:12,986 --> 00:57:16,718
I mean, really, the Africans would have
probably put their spears into all four of us...

995
00:57:16,823 --> 00:57:18,757
'cause it would have driven them crazy.

996
00:57:18,859 --> 00:57:21,385
They would have thought we were
dangerous animals or something like that.

997
00:57:21,495 --> 00:57:25,295
- Right.
- I mean, that's absolutely abnormal behavior.

998
00:57:25,399 --> 00:57:27,527
Is everything all right, gentlemen?

999
00:57:27,634 --> 00:57:29,534
- Great.
- Yeah.

1000
00:57:33,707 --> 00:57:35,903
But those are
typical evenings for us.

1001
00:57:36,009 --> 00:57:40,139
I mean, we go to dinners and parties
like that all the time.

1002
00:57:40,247 --> 00:57:43,273
These evenings are really
like sort of sickly dreams...

1003
00:57:43,383 --> 00:57:45,852
because people are talking in symbols.

1004
00:57:45,952 --> 00:57:50,185
Everyone is sort of floating through
this fog of symbols and unconscious feelings.

1005
00:57:50,290 --> 00:57:52,622
No one says what they're
really thinking about.

1006
00:57:52,726 --> 00:57:57,721
Then people will start making these jokes
that are really some sort of secret code.

1007
00:57:57,831 --> 00:58:00,232
Right. Well, what often happens
in some of these evenings...

1008
00:58:00,334 --> 00:58:04,737
is that these really crazy little fantasies
will just start being played with, you know...

1009
00:58:04,838 --> 00:58:07,933
and everyone will be talking at once
and sort of saying...

1010
00:58:08,041 --> 00:58:11,909
"Hey, wouldn't it be great if Frank Sinatra
and Mrs. Nixon and blah-blah-blah...

1011
00:58:12,012 --> 00:58:14,504
were in such and such a situation?"

1012
00:58:14,614 --> 00:58:17,948
You know, always with famous people,
and always sort of grotesque.

1013
00:58:18,051 --> 00:58:20,679
Or people will be talking about
some horrible thing...

1014
00:58:20,787 --> 00:58:25,247
like, the death of that girl
in the car with Ted Kennedy...

1015
00:58:25,359 --> 00:58:27,794
and they'll just be
roaring with laughter.

1016
00:58:27,894 --> 00:58:30,329
I mean, it's really amazing.
It's just unbelievable.

1017
00:58:30,430 --> 00:58:35,527
That's the only way anything is expressed,
through these completely insane jokes.

1018
00:58:35,635 --> 00:58:38,866
I mean, I think that's why I never understand
what's going on at a party.

1019
00:58:38,972 --> 00:58:42,135
I'm always completely confused.

1020
00:58:42,242 --> 00:58:46,975
You know, Debby once said,
after one of these New York evenings...

1021
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:49,344
she thought she'd traveled
a greater distance...

1022
00:58:49,449 --> 00:58:52,942
just by journeying from her origins
in the suburbs of Chicago...

1023
00:58:53,053 --> 00:58:54,987
to that New York evening...

1024
00:58:55,088 --> 00:58:58,114
than her grandmother had traveled
in, making her way...

1025
00:58:58,225 --> 00:59:00,853
from the steppes of Russia
to the suburbs of Chicago.

1026
00:59:00,961 --> 00:59:03,259
I think that's right.

1027
00:59:04,431 --> 00:59:07,025
You know, it may be, Wally,
that one of the reasons...

1028
00:59:07,134 --> 00:59:09,068
that we don't know
what's going on...

1029
00:59:09,169 --> 00:59:12,036
is that when we're there at a party,
we're all too busy performing.

1030
00:59:13,540 --> 00:59:16,942
That was one of the reasons
that, Grotowski gave up the theater.

1031
00:59:17,043 --> 00:59:21,173
He just felt that people in their lives now
were performing so well...

1032
00:59:21,281 --> 00:59:23,943
that performance in the theater
was sort of superfluous...

1033
00:59:24,050 --> 00:59:25,950
and, in a way, obscene.

1034
00:59:26,052 --> 00:59:28,214
Huh.

1035
00:59:28,321 --> 00:59:31,052
Isn't it amazing
how often a doctor...

1036
00:59:31,158 --> 00:59:33,855
will live up to our expectation
of how a doctor should look?

1037
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:37,453
When you see a terrorist on television,
he looks just like a terrorist.

1038
00:59:37,564 --> 00:59:40,033
I mean, we live in a world
in which fathers...

1039
00:59:40,133 --> 00:59:42,329
or single people, or artists...

1040
00:59:42,436 --> 00:59:44,632
are all trying to live up
to someone's fantasy...

1041
00:59:44,738 --> 00:59:48,697
of how a father, or a single person,
or an artist should look and behave.

1042
00:59:48,809 --> 00:59:51,608
They all act as if they know exactly how
they ought to conduct themselves...

1043
00:59:51,711 --> 00:59:53,611
at every single moment.

1044
00:59:53,713 --> 00:59:55,772
And they all seem totally self-confident.

1045
00:59:55,882 --> 00:59:58,351
Of course, privately people
are very mixed up about themselves.

1046
00:59:58,452 --> 00:59:59,578
Yeah.

1047
00:59:59,686 --> 01:00:01,882
They don't know what they should
be doing with their lives.

1048
01:00:01,988 --> 01:00:04,116
- They're reading all these self-help books.
- Oh, God!

1049
01:00:04,224 --> 01:00:06,716
I mean, those books are just so touching,
because they show...

1050
01:00:06,827 --> 01:00:09,728
how desperately curious we all are
to know how all the others of us...

1051
01:00:09,830 --> 01:00:11,798
are really getting on in life...

1052
01:00:11,898 --> 01:00:14,595
even though, by performing
these roles all the time...

1053
01:00:14,701 --> 01:00:17,693
we're just hiding the reality of ourselves
from everybody else.

1054
01:00:17,804 --> 01:00:20,364
I mean, we live in such
ludicrous ignorance of each other.

1055
01:00:20,474 --> 01:00:22,670
We usually don't know
the things we'd like to know...

1056
01:00:22,776 --> 01:00:24,744
even about our supposedly
closest friends.

1057
01:00:24,845 --> 01:00:26,745
I mean, you know..

1058
01:00:26,847 --> 01:00:29,339
Suppose you're going through
some kind of hell in your own life.

1059
01:00:29,449 --> 01:00:32,817
Well, you would love to know if your friends
have experienced similar things.

1060
01:00:32,919 --> 01:00:34,887
But we just don't dare to ask each other.

1061
01:00:34,988 --> 01:00:37,389
No. It would be like asking
your friend to drop his role.

1062
01:00:37,491 --> 01:00:40,893
I mean, we just put no value at all
on perceiving reality.

1063
01:00:40,994 --> 01:00:44,589
I mean, on the contrary, this incredible
emphasis that we all place now...

1064
01:00:44,698 --> 01:00:46,632
on our so-called careers...

1065
01:00:46,733 --> 01:00:51,364
automatically makes perceiving reality
a very low priority...

1066
01:00:51,471 --> 01:00:56,102
because if your life is organized around
trying to be successful in a career...

1067
01:00:56,209 --> 01:01:01,272
well, it just doesn't matter what
you perceive or what you experience.

1068
01:01:01,381 --> 01:01:04,646
You can really sort of shut your mind off
for years ahead, in a way.

1069
01:01:04,751 --> 01:01:07,686
You can sort of
turn on the automatic pilot.

1070
01:01:07,787 --> 01:01:11,121
You know, just the way your mother's doctor
had on his automatic pilot...

1071
01:01:11,224 --> 01:01:13,420
when he went in
and he looked at the arm...

1072
01:01:13,527 --> 01:01:15,962
and he totally failed
to perceive anything else.

1073
01:01:16,062 --> 01:01:20,021
That's right. Our minds are just
focused on these goals and plans...

1074
01:01:20,133 --> 01:01:22,067
which in themselves
are not reality.

1075
01:01:22,168 --> 01:01:25,502
No. Goals and plans are not...

1076
01:01:25,605 --> 01:01:29,974
I mean, they're fantasy.
They're part of a dream life.

1077
01:01:30,076 --> 01:01:33,603
I mean,you know, it always just
does seem so ridiculous, somehow...

1078
01:01:33,713 --> 01:01:37,377
that everybody has to have
his little goal in life.

1079
01:01:37,484 --> 01:01:41,751
I mean, it's so absurd, in a way, when you
consider that it doesn't matter which one it is.

1080
01:01:41,855 --> 01:01:44,290
Right. And because people's
concentration is on their goals...

1081
01:01:44,391 --> 01:01:47,383
in their life
they just live each moment by habit.

1082
01:01:47,494 --> 01:01:50,623
Really, like the Norwegian telling
the same stories over and over again.

1083
01:01:50,730 --> 01:01:53,256
Life becomes habitual.

1084
01:01:53,366 --> 01:01:55,562
And it is today.

1085
01:01:55,669 --> 01:01:57,694
I mean, very few things happen now
like that moment...

1086
01:01:57,804 --> 01:02:00,569
when Marlon Brando sent the Indian woman
to accept the Oscar...

1087
01:02:00,674 --> 01:02:02,574
and everything went haywire.

1088
01:02:02,676 --> 01:02:05,111
Things just very rarely
go haywire now.

1089
01:02:05,211 --> 01:02:08,203
And if you're just operating by habit...

1090
01:02:08,315 --> 01:02:11,114
then you're not really living.

1091
01:02:11,217 --> 01:02:13,845
I mean, you know, in Sanskrit,
the root of the verb "to be"...

1092
01:02:13,954 --> 01:02:16,218
is the same as "to grow"
or "to make grow."

1093
01:02:16,323 --> 01:02:18,223
Huh.

1094
01:02:21,695 --> 01:02:23,595
- Do you know about Roc?
- Hmm?

1095
01:02:23,697 --> 01:02:25,722
Oh, well.

1096
01:02:25,832 --> 01:02:27,823
Roc was a wonderful man.

1097
01:02:27,934 --> 01:02:30,198
He was one of the founders
of Findhorn...

1098
01:02:30,303 --> 01:02:34,604
and he was one of Scotland's, well,
he was Scotland's greatest mathematician...

1099
01:02:34,708 --> 01:02:37,177
and he was one of the century's
great mathematicians.

1100
01:02:37,277 --> 01:02:42,408
And he prided himself on the fact
that he had no fantasy life, no dream life...

1101
01:02:42,515 --> 01:02:45,143
nothing to stand by, no imaginary life...

1102
01:02:45,251 --> 01:02:49,654
nothing to stand between him
and the direct perception of mathematics.

1103
01:02:49,756 --> 01:02:53,715
And one day when he was in his mid-60s,
he was walking in the gardens of Edinburgh...

1104
01:02:53,827 --> 01:02:56,660
and he saw a faun.

1105
01:02:56,763 --> 01:03:00,324
The faun was very surprised because fauns
have always been able to see people...

1106
01:03:00,433 --> 01:03:03,061
but you know,
very few people ever see them.

1107
01:03:03,169 --> 01:03:05,831
You know,
those little imaginary creatures.

1108
01:03:05,939 --> 01:03:07,839
- Not a deer.
- Oh.

1109
01:03:07,941 --> 01:03:11,206
- You call them fauns, don't you?
- I thought a fawn was a baby deer.

1110
01:03:11,311 --> 01:03:14,508
Yeah, well, there's a deer that's called a fawn,
but these are like those little imagi-

1111
01:03:14,614 --> 01:03:17,140
- Oh! The kind that Debussy...
- Yes. Right.

1112
01:03:17,250 --> 01:03:20,652
Well, so he got to know the faun,
and he got to know other fauns...

1113
01:03:20,754 --> 01:03:23,018
and a series of conversations began...

1114
01:03:23,123 --> 01:03:25,922
and more and more fauns would
come out every afternoon to meet him.

1115
01:03:26,026 --> 01:03:27,994
And he'd have talks with the fauns.

1116
01:03:28,094 --> 01:03:31,359
Then one day, after a while, when, you know,
they'd really gotten to know him...

1117
01:03:31,464 --> 01:03:33,933
they asked him
if he would like to meet Pan...

1118
01:03:34,034 --> 01:03:36,128
because Pan would like to meet him.

1119
01:03:36,236 --> 01:03:38,261
And of course,
Pan was afraid of terrifying him...

1120
01:03:38,371 --> 01:03:40,965
because he knew
of the Christian misconception...

1121
01:03:41,074 --> 01:03:44,669
which portrayed Pan as an evil creature,
which he's not.

1122
01:03:44,778 --> 01:03:47,713
But Roc said he would love to meet Pan,
and so they met...

1123
01:03:47,814 --> 01:03:50,511
and Pan indirectly sent him
on his way on a journey...

1124
01:03:50,617 --> 01:03:54,918
in which he met the other people
who began Findhorn.

1125
01:03:55,021 --> 01:03:58,116
But Roc used to practice
certain exercises...

1126
01:03:58,224 --> 01:04:01,319
like, for instance,
if he were right-handed...

1127
01:04:01,428 --> 01:04:03,726
all today he would do everything
with his left hand.

1128
01:04:03,830 --> 01:04:06,561
All day... eating, writing,
everything, opening doors...

1129
01:04:06,666 --> 01:04:09,431
in order to break the habits of living.

1130
01:04:09,536 --> 01:04:12,096
Because the great danger,
he felt, for him...

1131
01:04:12,205 --> 01:04:15,470
was to fall into a trance,
out of habit.

1132
01:04:15,575 --> 01:04:20,103
He had a whole series of very simple
exercises that he had invented...

1133
01:04:20,213 --> 01:04:24,377
just to keep
seeing, feeling, remembering.

1134
01:04:24,484 --> 01:04:26,418
Because you have to learn now.

1135
01:04:26,519 --> 01:04:29,489
It didn't used to be necessary,
but today you have to learn something...

1136
01:04:29,589 --> 01:04:31,648
like, are you really hungry...

1137
01:04:31,758 --> 01:04:34,819
or are you just stuffing your face...

1138
01:04:34,928 --> 01:04:37,124
Because that's what you do,
out of habit?

1139
01:04:37,230 --> 01:04:39,824
I mean, you can afford to do it,
so you do it...

1140
01:04:39,933 --> 01:04:41,901
whether you're hungry or not.

1141
01:04:42,001 --> 01:04:44,800
You know, if you go to
the Buddhist Meditation Center...

1142
01:04:44,904 --> 01:04:47,339
they make you taste
each bite of your food...

1143
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:51,104
so it takes two hours...
it's horrible, to eat your lunch.

1144
01:04:51,211 --> 01:04:54,613
But you're conscious
of the taste of your food.

1145
01:04:54,714 --> 01:04:57,945
If you're just eating out of habit,
then you don't taste the food...

1146
01:04:58,051 --> 01:05:00,918
and you're not conscious of the reality
of what's happening to you.

1147
01:05:01,020 --> 01:05:03,079
You enter the dream world again.

1148
01:05:03,189 --> 01:05:06,625
Now, do you think maybe
we live in this dream world...

1149
01:05:06,726 --> 01:05:10,060
because we do so many things every day
that affect us in ways...

1150
01:05:10,163 --> 01:05:13,599
that somehow
we're just not aware of?

1151
01:05:13,700 --> 01:05:18,001
I mean, you know, I was thinking,
um, last Christmas...

1152
01:05:18,104 --> 01:05:21,267
Debby and I were given
an electric blanket.

1153
01:05:21,374 --> 01:05:26,107
I can tell you that it is just
such a marvelous advance...

1154
01:05:26,212 --> 01:05:30,740
...over our old way of life, and it is just great.

1155
01:05:30,850 --> 01:05:34,286
But, it is quite different
from not having an electric blanket...

1156
01:05:34,387 --> 01:05:37,288
and I sometimes sort of wonder,
well, what is it doing to me?

1157
01:05:37,390 --> 01:05:40,951
I mean, I sort of feel,
I'm not sleeping quite in the same way.

1158
01:05:41,060 --> 01:05:42,960
No, you wouldn't be.

1159
01:05:43,062 --> 01:05:45,963
I mean, and my dreams
are sort of different...

1160
01:05:46,065 --> 01:05:48,864
and I feel a little bit different
when I get up in the morning.

1161
01:05:50,003 --> 01:05:53,462
I wouldn't put an electric blanket on
for anything.

1162
01:05:53,573 --> 01:05:58,306
First, I'd be worried I might get electrocuted.
No, I don't trust technology.

1163
01:05:58,411 --> 01:06:02,006
But I mean, the main thing, Wally,
is that I think that that kind of comfort...

1164
01:06:02,115 --> 01:06:05,244
just separates you from reality
in a very direct way.

1165
01:06:05,351 --> 01:06:08,048
- You mean...
- I mean, if you don't have that electric blanket...

1166
01:06:08,154 --> 01:06:10,851
and your apartment is cold
and you need to put on another blanket...

1167
01:06:10,957 --> 01:06:14,393
or go into the closet and pile up coats
on top of the blankets you have...

1168
01:06:14,494 --> 01:06:16,622
well, then you know it's cold.

1169
01:06:16,729 --> 01:06:18,993
And that sets up a link of things.

1170
01:06:19,098 --> 01:06:22,591
You have compassion for the per-
well, is the person next to you cold?

1171
01:06:22,702 --> 01:06:24,830
Are there other people in the world
who are cold?

1172
01:06:24,938 --> 01:06:27,373
What a cold night!
I like the cold.

1173
01:06:27,473 --> 01:06:30,909
My God, I never realized.
I don't want a blanket. It's fun being cold.

1174
01:06:31,010 --> 01:06:34,344
I can snuggle up against you even more
because it's cold.

1175
01:06:34,447 --> 01:06:37,007
All sorts of things occur to you.

1176
01:06:37,116 --> 01:06:40,450
Turn on that electric blanket,
and it's like taking a tranquilizer...

1177
01:06:40,553 --> 01:06:43,022
or it's like being lobotomized
by watching television.

1178
01:06:43,122 --> 01:06:45,090
I think you enter
the dream world again.

1179
01:06:46,759 --> 01:06:49,888
I mean, what does it do to us, Wally,
living in an environment...

1180
01:06:49,996 --> 01:06:53,990
where something as massive
as the seasons, or winter, or cold...

1181
01:06:54,100 --> 01:06:56,228
don't in any way affect us?

1182
01:06:56,336 --> 01:06:58,304
I mean, we're animals, after all.

1183
01:06:58,404 --> 01:07:00,304
I mean, what does that mean?

1184
01:07:00,406 --> 01:07:03,501
I think that means that instead
of living under the sun...

1185
01:07:03,610 --> 01:07:06,272
and the moon and the sky
and the stars...

1186
01:07:06,379 --> 01:07:09,178
we're living in a fantasy world
of our own making.

1187
01:07:09,282 --> 01:07:12,616
Yeah, but I mean, I would never
give up my electric blanket, André.

1188
01:07:12,719 --> 01:07:15,484
I mean, because New York
is cold in the winter.

1189
01:07:15,588 --> 01:07:18,785
I mean, our apartment is cold.
It's a difficult environment.

1190
01:07:18,892 --> 01:07:21,020
I mean, our lives
are tough enough as it is.

1191
01:07:21,127 --> 01:07:24,620
I'm not looking for ways to get rid of
the few things that provide relief and comfort.

1192
01:07:24,731 --> 01:07:27,530
I mean, on the contrary,
I'm looking for more comfort...

1193
01:07:27,634 --> 01:07:29,966
because, the world is very abrasive.

1194
01:07:30,069 --> 01:07:32,470
I mean,
I'm trying to protect myself...

1195
01:07:32,572 --> 01:07:36,167
because, really, there are these abrasive
beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.

1196
01:07:36,276 --> 01:07:40,270
But, Wally, don't you see
that comfort can be dangerous?

1197
01:07:40,380 --> 01:07:43,577
I mean, you like to be comfortable,
and I like to be comfortable too...

1198
01:07:43,683 --> 01:07:47,142
but comfort can lull you
into a dangerous tranquillity.

1199
01:07:48,288 --> 01:07:51,258
I mean, my mother knew
a woman, Lady Hatfield...

1200
01:07:51,357 --> 01:07:53,451
who was one of the richest women
in the world...

1201
01:07:53,559 --> 01:07:56,824
and she died of starvation
because all she would eat was chicken.

1202
01:07:56,930 --> 01:07:59,729
I mean, she just liked chicken, Wally,
and that was all she would eat.

1203
01:07:59,832 --> 01:08:02,893
And actually her body was starving,
but she didn't know it...

1204
01:08:03,002 --> 01:08:06,597
'cause she was quite happy eating her chicken,
and so she finally died.

1205
01:08:06,706 --> 01:08:10,836
See, I honestly believe
that we're all like Lady Hatfield now.

1206
01:08:10,944 --> 01:08:14,881
We're having a lovely, comfortable time
with our electric blankets and our chicken...

1207
01:08:14,981 --> 01:08:18,849
and meanwhile we're starving because
we're so cut off from contact with reality...

1208
01:08:18,952 --> 01:08:22,752
that we're not getting any real sustenance...
'cause we don't see the world.

1209
01:08:22,855 --> 01:08:24,755
We don't see ourselves.

1210
01:08:24,857 --> 01:08:26,985
We don't see how our actions
affect other people.

1211
01:08:27,093 --> 01:08:30,188
Have you read Martin Buber's book
On Hasidism?

1212
01:08:30,296 --> 01:08:32,492
- No.
- Well, here's a view of life.

1213
01:08:32,598 --> 01:08:35,533
I mean, he talks about the belief
of the Hasidic Jews...

1214
01:08:35,635 --> 01:08:37,535
that there are spirits chained
in everything.

1215
01:08:37,637 --> 01:08:40,538
There are spirits chained in you.
There are spirits chained in me.

1216
01:08:40,640 --> 01:08:43,007
Well, there are spirits chained
in this table.

1217
01:08:43,109 --> 01:08:48,013
And that prayer is the action of liberating
these enchained embryo-like spirits...

1218
01:08:48,114 --> 01:08:50,139
and that every action of ours in life...

1219
01:08:50,249 --> 01:08:53,275
whether it's,
doing business, or making love...

1220
01:08:53,386 --> 01:08:55,354
or having dinner together,
or whatever...

1221
01:08:55,455 --> 01:08:58,049
that every action of ours
should be a prayer...

1222
01:08:58,157 --> 01:08:59,955
a sacrament in the world.

1223
01:09:00,059 --> 01:09:02,619
Now, do you think we're living like that?

1224
01:09:02,729 --> 01:09:04,754
Why do you think
we're not living like that?

1225
01:09:04,864 --> 01:09:07,856
I think it's because if we allowed ourselves
to see what we do every day...

1226
01:09:07,967 --> 01:09:09,935
we might just find it too nauseating.

1227
01:09:10,036 --> 01:09:12,004
I mean, the way we treat other people.

1228
01:09:12,105 --> 01:09:15,666
You know, every day, several times a day,
I walk into my apartment building.

1229
01:09:15,775 --> 01:09:19,234
The doorman calls me Mr. Gregory,
and I call him Jimmy.

1230
01:09:19,345 --> 01:09:22,440
Already, what's the difference
between that...

1231
01:09:22,548 --> 01:09:25,347
and the Southern plantation owner
who's got slaves?

1232
01:09:25,451 --> 01:09:28,443
You see, I think that an act of murder
is committed in that moment...

1233
01:09:28,554 --> 01:09:30,522
when I walk into that building.

1234
01:09:30,623 --> 01:09:34,753
Because here's a dignified, intelligent man,
a man of my own age...

1235
01:09:34,861 --> 01:09:38,456
and when I call him Jimmy,
then he becomes a child, and I'm an adult...

1236
01:09:38,564 --> 01:09:40,828
because I can buy my way
into the building.

1237
01:09:40,933 --> 01:09:43,561
Right. That's right.

1238
01:09:43,669 --> 01:09:47,537
I mean, my God,
when I was a Latin teacher...

1239
01:09:47,640 --> 01:09:49,734
I mean, people used to treat me...

1240
01:09:49,842 --> 01:09:52,607
I mean, you know,
if I would go to a party...

1241
01:09:52,712 --> 01:09:55,579
of professional or literary people...

1242
01:09:55,681 --> 01:09:59,174
I mean, I was just treated,
in the nicest sense of the word...

1243
01:09:59,285 --> 01:10:00,912
...like a dog.

1244
01:10:01,020 --> 01:10:03,045
I mean, in other words,
there was no question...

1245
01:10:03,156 --> 01:10:06,786
of my being able to participate on
an equal basis in a conversation with people.

1246
01:10:06,893 --> 01:10:09,328
I mean, you know, I'd occasionally
have conversations with people...

1247
01:10:09,429 --> 01:10:11,921
but then,
when they asked what I did...

1248
01:10:12,031 --> 01:10:14,500
which would always happen
after about five minutes...

1249
01:10:14,600 --> 01:10:16,728
you know, their faces...

1250
01:10:16,836 --> 01:10:20,568
Even if they were enjoying the conversation, or
they were flirting with me, or whatever it was...

1251
01:10:20,673 --> 01:10:24,109
their faces would just have that expression
just like the portcullis crashing down.

1252
01:10:24,210 --> 01:10:27,578
You know, those medieval gates.
They would just walk away.

1253
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:31,014
I mean, I literally lived like a dog.

1254
01:10:31,117 --> 01:10:34,644
And I mean, when Debby was
working as a secretary, you know...

1255
01:10:34,754 --> 01:10:38,315
if she would tell people what she did,
they would just go insane.

1256
01:10:38,424 --> 01:10:40,722
I mean, it would be just
as if she'd said...

1257
01:10:40,827 --> 01:10:45,628
"Oh, well, I've been serving a life sentence
recently, for child murdering."

1258
01:10:46,866 --> 01:10:50,825
I mean, my God, you know, when you talk
about our attitudes toward other people...

1259
01:10:52,205 --> 01:10:54,173
I mean, I think of myself...

1260
01:10:54,273 --> 01:10:58,232
as just a very decent,
good person, you know...

1261
01:10:58,344 --> 01:11:00,676
just because I think
I'm reasonably friendly...

1262
01:11:00,780 --> 01:11:03,010
to most of the people
I happen to meet every day.

1263
01:11:03,116 --> 01:11:05,778
I mean, I really think
of myself quite smugly.

1264
01:11:05,885 --> 01:11:08,980
I just think I'm a perfectly nice guy,
uh, you know...

1265
01:11:09,088 --> 01:11:12,149
so long as I think of the world
as consisting of, you know...

1266
01:11:12,258 --> 01:11:15,023
just the small circle of the people
that I know as friends...

1267
01:11:15,128 --> 01:11:18,120
or the few people that we know
in this little world of our little hobbies...

1268
01:11:18,231 --> 01:11:20,131
the theater or whatever it is.

1269
01:11:20,233 --> 01:11:23,259
And I'm really quite self-satisfied.
I'm just quite happy with myself.

1270
01:11:23,369 --> 01:11:25,497
I just have no complaint about myself.

1271
01:11:25,605 --> 01:11:27,573
I mean, you know, let's face it.

1272
01:11:27,673 --> 01:11:31,439
I mean, there's a whole enormous world
out there that I just don't ever think about.

1273
01:11:31,544 --> 01:11:35,777
I certainly don't take responsibility
for how I've lived in that world.

1274
01:11:35,882 --> 01:11:38,681
I mean, you know, if I were actually
to sort of confront the fact...

1275
01:11:38,784 --> 01:11:40,912
that I'm sort of sharing this stage...

1276
01:11:41,020 --> 01:11:43,512
with this starving person
in Africa somewhere...

1277
01:11:43,623 --> 01:11:46,115
well, I wouldn't feel so great
about myself.

1278
01:11:46,225 --> 01:11:50,924
So naturally I just blot all those
people right out of my perception.

1279
01:11:51,030 --> 01:11:54,125
So, of course, I'm ignoring...

1280
01:11:54,233 --> 01:11:57,567
a whole section of the real world.

1281
01:11:57,737 --> 01:12:00,172
But frankly, you know...

1282
01:12:00,273 --> 01:12:04,574
when I write a play, in a way, one of the things
I guess I think I'm trying to do...

1283
01:12:04,677 --> 01:12:07,874
is I'm trying to bring myself up
against some little bits of reality...

1284
01:12:07,980 --> 01:12:11,006
and I'm trying to share that,
with an audience.

1285
01:12:12,518 --> 01:12:15,419
I mean, of course we all know.

1286
01:12:15,521 --> 01:12:18,047
The theater is,
in terrible shape today.

1287
01:12:18,157 --> 01:12:22,526
I mean, at least a few years ago
people who really cared about the theater...

1288
01:12:22,628 --> 01:12:24,926
used to say, "The theater is dead."

1289
01:12:25,031 --> 01:12:27,932
And now everybody's redefined
the theater in such a trivial way...

1290
01:12:28,034 --> 01:12:29,968
that, I mean, God...

1291
01:12:30,069 --> 01:12:34,233
I know people who are involved with
the theater who go to see things now that...

1292
01:12:34,340 --> 01:12:36,672
I mean, a few years ago
these same people...

1293
01:12:36,776 --> 01:12:39,643
would have just been embarrassed
to have even seen some of these plays.

1294
01:12:39,745 --> 01:12:42,271
I mean, they would have just shrunk,
you know, just in horror...

1295
01:12:42,381 --> 01:12:44,577
at the superficiality of these things.

1296
01:12:44,684 --> 01:12:47,244
But now they say,
"Oh, that was pretty good."

1297
01:12:47,353 --> 01:12:49,321
It's just incredible.

1298
01:12:49,422 --> 01:12:52,551
And I really just find that attitude
unbearable...

1299
01:12:52,658 --> 01:12:56,424
because I really do think the theater
can do something very important.

1300
01:12:56,529 --> 01:13:01,399
I mean, I do think the theater can help
bring people in contact with reality.

1301
01:13:01,500 --> 01:13:06,131
Now, now, you may not feel that at all.
You may just find that totally absurd.

1302
01:13:07,540 --> 01:13:10,475
Yeah, but, Wally,
don't you see the dilemma?

1303
01:13:10,576 --> 01:13:14,535
You're not taking into account
the period we're living in.

1304
01:13:14,647 --> 01:13:16,809
I mean, of course that's what
the theater should do.

1305
01:13:16,916 --> 01:13:18,850
I mean, I've always felt that.

1306
01:13:18,951 --> 01:13:22,319
You know, when I was a young director,
and I directed the Bacchae at Yale...

1307
01:13:22,421 --> 01:13:25,686
my impulse, when Pentheus has been
killed by his mother and the Furies...

1308
01:13:25,791 --> 01:13:28,385
and they pull the tree back,
and they tie him to the tree...

1309
01:13:28,494 --> 01:13:31,725
and fling him into the air, and he flies
through space and he's killed...

1310
01:13:31,831 --> 01:13:34,801
and they rip him to shreds
and I guess cut off his head...

1311
01:13:34,900 --> 01:13:38,530
my impulse was that the thing to do was
to get a head from the New Haven morgue...

1312
01:13:38,638 --> 01:13:40,606
and pass it around the audience.

1313
01:13:40,706 --> 01:13:43,539
Now, I wanted Agawe
to bring on a real head...

1314
01:13:43,643 --> 01:13:46,112
and that this head should be
passed around the audience...

1315
01:13:46,212 --> 01:13:49,807
so that somehow people realized
that this stuff was real, see?

1316
01:13:49,915 --> 01:13:52,441
That it was real stuff.

1317
01:13:52,551 --> 01:13:56,283
Now, the actress playing Agawe
absolutely refused to do it.

1318
01:13:56,389 --> 01:13:58,448
You know, Gordon Craig
used to talk about...

1319
01:13:58,557 --> 01:14:02,721
why is there gold or silver in the churches
or something, the great cathedrals...

1320
01:14:02,828 --> 01:14:06,355
when actors could be wearing
gold and silver?

1321
01:14:06,465 --> 01:14:10,163
And I mean, people who saw Eleonora Duse
in the last couple of years of her life, Wally...

1322
01:14:10,269 --> 01:14:13,637
people said that is was like
seeing light on stage, or mist...

1323
01:14:13,739 --> 01:14:15,707
or the essence of something.

1324
01:14:15,808 --> 01:14:18,436
I mean, then when you think
about Bertolt Brecht...

1325
01:14:18,544 --> 01:14:21,673
He somehow created a theater
in which people could observe...

1326
01:14:21,781 --> 01:14:23,977
that was vastly entertaining
and exciting...

1327
01:14:24,083 --> 01:14:27,109
but in which the excitement
didn't overwhelm you.

1328
01:14:27,219 --> 01:14:31,486
He somehow allowed you the distance
between the play and yourself...

1329
01:14:31,590 --> 01:14:34,457
that, in fact, two human beings need
in order to live together.

1330
01:14:34,560 --> 01:14:38,588
You know, the question is whether
the theater now can do for an audience...

1331
01:14:38,698 --> 01:14:42,066
what Brecht tried to do
or what Craig or Duse tried to do.

1332
01:14:42,168 --> 01:14:44,068
Can it do it now?

1333
01:14:44,170 --> 01:14:47,504
'Cause, you see, I think that
people today are so deeply asleep...

1334
01:14:47,606 --> 01:14:50,234
that unless, you know, you're putting on
those sort of superficial plays...

1335
01:14:50,343 --> 01:14:52,573
that just help your audience
to sleep more comfortably...

1336
01:14:52,678 --> 01:14:55,443
it's very hard to know
what to do in the theater.

1337
01:14:57,550 --> 01:15:02,147
Because, you see, I think that if you
put on serious, contemporary plays...

1338
01:15:02,254 --> 01:15:04,154
by writers like yourself...

1339
01:15:04,256 --> 01:15:06,918
you may only be helping to deaden
the audience in a different way.

1340
01:15:07,026 --> 01:15:09,586
What do you mean?

1341
01:15:09,695 --> 01:15:11,720
Well, I mean, Wally...

1342
01:15:11,831 --> 01:15:15,165
how does it affect an audience
to put on one of these plays...

1343
01:15:15,267 --> 01:15:18,237
in which you show that people
are totally isolated now...

1344
01:15:18,337 --> 01:15:21,534
and they can't reach each other,
and their lives are desperate?

1345
01:15:21,640 --> 01:15:25,008
Or how does it affect them to see a play
that shows that our world...

1346
01:15:25,111 --> 01:15:29,275
is full of nothing but shocking
sexual events, and terror, and violence?

1347
01:15:29,382 --> 01:15:31,646
Does that help to wake up
a sleeping audience?

1348
01:15:31,751 --> 01:15:34,880
See, I don't think so,
'cause I think it's very likely...

1349
01:15:34,987 --> 01:15:38,013
that the picture of the world that you're
showing them in a play like that...

1350
01:15:38,124 --> 01:15:41,150
is exactly the picture of the world
they have already.

1351
01:15:41,260 --> 01:15:44,059
I mean, you know, they know
their own lives and relationships...

1352
01:15:44,163 --> 01:15:46,131
are difficult and painful.

1353
01:15:46,232 --> 01:15:48,394
And if they watch the evening news
on television...

1354
01:15:48,501 --> 01:15:51,630
well, there what they see
is a terrifying, chaotic universe...

1355
01:15:51,737 --> 01:15:55,765
full of rapes and murders
and hands cut off by subway cars...

1356
01:15:55,875 --> 01:15:59,402
and children pushing their parents
out of windows.

1357
01:15:59,512 --> 01:16:02,777
So the play tells them that
their impression of the world is correct...

1358
01:16:02,882 --> 01:16:04,850
and that there's absolutely no way out.

1359
01:16:04,950 --> 01:16:06,850
There's nothing they can do.

1360
01:16:06,952 --> 01:16:09,887
And they end up feeling
passive and impotent.

1361
01:16:09,989 --> 01:16:12,458
I mean, look, at something
like that christening...

1362
01:16:12,558 --> 01:16:14,856
that my group arranged for me
in the forest in Poland.

1363
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:17,952
Well, there was an example of something
that really had all the elements of theater.

1364
01:16:18,063 --> 01:16:21,226
It was worked on carefully.
It was thought about carefully.

1365
01:16:21,333 --> 01:16:23,700
It was done with
exquisite taste and magic.

1366
01:16:23,803 --> 01:16:25,931
And they, in fact, created something...

1367
01:16:26,038 --> 01:16:29,770
which, in this case, was, in a way,
just for an audience of one... just for me.

1368
01:16:29,875 --> 01:16:33,743
But they created something
that had ritual, love, surprise...

1369
01:16:33,846 --> 01:16:35,814
denouement,
beginning, a middle and end...

1370
01:16:35,915 --> 01:16:39,180
and was an incredibly beautiful
piece of theater.

1371
01:16:39,285 --> 01:16:41,481
And the impact that it had
on its audience, on me...

1372
01:16:41,587 --> 01:16:43,885
was somehow a totally positive one.

1373
01:16:43,989 --> 01:16:46,458
It didn't deaden me.
It brought me to life.

1374
01:16:49,361 --> 01:16:51,625
Yeah, but I mean, are you saying
that it's impossible...

1375
01:16:51,730 --> 01:16:55,860
I mean, isn't it a little upsetting...

1376
01:16:55,968 --> 01:16:59,768
to come to the conclusion that there's
no way to wake people up anymore...

1377
01:16:59,872 --> 01:17:04,173
except to involve them in some kind
of a strange, christening in Poland...

1378
01:17:04,276 --> 01:17:06,836
or some kind of a strange experience
on top of Mount Everest?

1379
01:17:06,946 --> 01:17:11,315
I mean, because,
you know that the awful thing is...

1380
01:17:11,417 --> 01:17:13,613
if you really say that it's necessary...

1381
01:17:13,719 --> 01:17:16,245
to take everybody to Everest...

1382
01:17:16,355 --> 01:17:20,349
it's really tough, because everybody
can't be taken to Everest.

1383
01:17:20,459 --> 01:17:23,656
I mean, there must have been periods in history
when it would have been possible...

1384
01:17:23,762 --> 01:17:26,697
to, save the patient
through less drastic measures.

1385
01:17:26,799 --> 01:17:29,393
I mean, there must have been periods
when in order to give people...

1386
01:17:29,502 --> 01:17:31,470
a strong or meaningful experience...

1387
01:17:31,570 --> 01:17:34,540
you wouldn't actually have to
take them to Everest.

1388
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:36,938
But you do now.
In some way or other, you do now.

1389
01:17:37,042 --> 01:17:39,841
You know, there was a time when you
could have just, for instance, written...

1390
01:17:39,945 --> 01:17:43,347
I don't know,
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

1391
01:17:43,449 --> 01:17:47,079
And I'm sure the people who read it had
a pretty strong experience. I'm sure they did.

1392
01:17:47,186 --> 01:17:49,848
I mean, all right, now you're saying
that people today wouldn't get it.

1393
01:17:49,955 --> 01:17:53,585
Maybe that's true. But I mean, isn't there
any kind of writing or any kind of a play...

1394
01:17:53,692 --> 01:17:56,161
I mean, isn't it still legitimate
for writers...

1395
01:17:56,262 --> 01:17:59,527
to try to portray reality
so that people can see it?

1396
01:17:59,632 --> 01:18:03,694
I mean, really, tell me, why do we
require a trip to Mount Everest...

1397
01:18:03,802 --> 01:18:06,100
in order to be able to perceive
one moment of reality?

1398
01:18:06,205 --> 01:18:09,004
I mean, is Mount Everest
more real than New York?

1399
01:18:09,108 --> 01:18:11,133
I mean, isn't New York real?

1400
01:18:11,243 --> 01:18:15,339
I mean, you see, I think if you
could become fully aware...

1401
01:18:15,447 --> 01:18:18,906
of what existed in the cigar store
next door to this restaurant...

1402
01:18:19,018 --> 01:18:20,986
I think it would just
blow your brains out.

1403
01:18:21,086 --> 01:18:23,578
I mean, isn't there
just as much reality to be perceived...

1404
01:18:23,689 --> 01:18:25,657
in a cigar store
as there is on Mount Everest?

1405
01:18:25,758 --> 01:18:27,351
I mean, what do you think?

1406
01:18:27,459 --> 01:18:30,121
I think that not only is there nothing
more real about Mount Everest...

1407
01:18:30,229 --> 01:18:32,254
I think there's nothing that different,
in a certain way.

1408
01:18:32,364 --> 01:18:34,856
I mean, because reality
is uniform, in a way...

1409
01:18:34,967 --> 01:18:36,935
so that if your, if your perceptions are...

1410
01:18:37,036 --> 01:18:39,835
I mean, if your own mechanism
is operating correctly...

1411
01:18:39,939 --> 01:18:43,239
it would become irrelevant to go
to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd...

1412
01:18:43,342 --> 01:18:46,141
because, I mean, it just,
I mean, of course, on some level, I mean...

1413
01:18:46,245 --> 01:18:49,840
obviously it's very different
from a cigar store on 7th Avenue.

1414
01:18:49,949 --> 01:18:53,146
- But I mean...
- Well, I agree with you, Wally.

1415
01:18:53,252 --> 01:18:55,914
But the problem is that people
can't see the cigar store now.

1416
01:18:56,021 --> 01:18:58,490
I mean, things don't affect people
the way they used to.

1417
01:18:58,591 --> 01:19:00,992
I mean, it may very well be
that 10 years from now...

1418
01:19:01,093 --> 01:19:03,824
people will pay $10,000 in cash
to be castrated...

1419
01:19:03,929 --> 01:19:06,557
just in order to be affected by something.

1420
01:19:08,167 --> 01:19:11,262
Well, why do you think that is?
I mean, why is that?

1421
01:19:11,370 --> 01:19:15,830
I mean, is it just because people
are lazy today, or they're bored?

1422
01:19:15,941 --> 01:19:19,036
I mean, are we just
like bored, spoiled children...

1423
01:19:19,144 --> 01:19:21,636
who've just been lying
in the bathtub all day...

1424
01:19:21,747 --> 01:19:24,045
just playing with their plastic duck...

1425
01:19:24,149 --> 01:19:27,517
and now they're just thinking,
"Well, what can I do?"

1426
01:19:29,088 --> 01:19:31,853
Okay. Yes. We're bored.

1427
01:19:31,924 --> 01:19:33,892
We're all bored now.

1428
01:19:33,993 --> 01:19:36,189
But has it every occurred to you, Wally,
that the process...

1429
01:19:36,295 --> 01:19:38,787
that creates this boredom
that we see in the world now...

1430
01:19:38,897 --> 01:19:43,266
may very well be a self-perpetuating,
unconscious form of brainwashing...

1431
01:19:43,369 --> 01:19:46,600
created by a world totalitarian government
based on money...

1432
01:19:46,705 --> 01:19:49,333
and that all of this is much more dangerous
than one thinks...

1433
01:19:49,441 --> 01:19:52,274
and it's not just a question
of individual survival, Wally...

1434
01:19:52,378 --> 01:19:54,779
but that somebody who's bored
is asleep...

1435
01:19:54,880 --> 01:19:58,009
and somebody who's asleep
will not say no?

1436
01:19:58,117 --> 01:20:00,916
See, I keep meeting these people...
I mean, just a few days ago...

1437
01:20:01,020 --> 01:20:02,954
I met this man whom I greatly admire.

1438
01:20:03,055 --> 01:20:05,353
He's a Swedish physicist.
Gustav Bjornstrand.

1439
01:20:05,457 --> 01:20:07,983
And he told me that he
no longer watches television...

1440
01:20:08,093 --> 01:20:10,994
he doesn't read newspapers,
and he doesn't read magazines.

1441
01:20:11,096 --> 01:20:13,360
He's completely
cut them out of his life...

1442
01:20:13,465 --> 01:20:17,925
because he really does feel that we're living
in some kind of Orwellian nightmare now...

1443
01:20:18,037 --> 01:20:22,065
and that everything that you hear now
contributes to turning you into a robot.

1444
01:20:23,175 --> 01:20:26,805
And when i was at Findhorn, i met
this extraordinary English tree expert...

1445
01:20:26,912 --> 01:20:29,006
who had devoted his life
to saving trees.

1446
01:20:29,114 --> 01:20:31,481
Just got back from Washington,
lobbying to save the redwoods.

1447
01:20:31,583 --> 01:20:34,416
He's 84 years old,
and he always travels with a backpack...

1448
01:20:34,520 --> 01:20:36,488
'cause he never knows
where he's gonna be tomorrow.

1449
01:20:36,588 --> 01:20:39,580
And when I met him at Findhorn,
he said to me, "Where are you from?"

1450
01:20:39,692 --> 01:20:42,718
I said, "New York." He said, "Ah, New York.
Yes, that's a very interesting place.

1451
01:20:42,828 --> 01:20:46,731
Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about
the fact that they want to leave, but never do?"

1452
01:20:46,832 --> 01:20:49,460
And I said, "Oh,yes." And he said,
"Why do you think they don't leave?"

1453
01:20:49,568 --> 01:20:53,436
I gave him different banal theories.
He said, "Oh, I don't think it's that way at all."

1454
01:20:53,539 --> 01:20:58,101
He said, "I think that New York is the new
model for the new concentration camp...

1455
01:20:58,210 --> 01:21:00,645
...where the camp has been built
by the inmates themselves...

1456
01:21:00,746 --> 01:21:04,307
...and the inmates are the guards, and they
have this pride in this thing they've built.

1457
01:21:04,416 --> 01:21:06,316
...They've built their own prison.

1458
01:21:06,418 --> 01:21:08,409
...And so they exist
in a state of schizophrenia...

1459
01:21:08,520 --> 01:21:10,420
...where they are both guards
and prisoners.

1460
01:21:10,522 --> 01:21:13,890
...And as a result, they no longer have,
having been lobotomized...

1461
01:21:13,992 --> 01:21:16,359
...the capacity to leave
the prison they've made...

1462
01:21:16,462 --> 01:21:19,329
...or to even see it as a prison."

1463
01:21:19,431 --> 01:21:22,628
And then he went into his pocket,
and he took out a seed for a tree...

1464
01:21:22,735 --> 01:21:24,669
and he said, "This is a pine tree."

1465
01:21:24,770 --> 01:21:28,365
He put it in my hand and he said,
"Escape before it's too late."

1466
01:21:29,641 --> 01:21:32,303
See, actually,
for two or three years now...

1467
01:21:32,411 --> 01:21:36,678
Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant
feeling that we really should get out.

1468
01:21:36,782 --> 01:21:39,547
We really feel like Jews in Germany
in the late '30s.

1469
01:21:39,651 --> 01:21:41,551
Get out of here.

1470
01:21:41,653 --> 01:21:43,712
Of course, the problem is
where to go.

1471
01:21:43,822 --> 01:21:48,623
'Cause it seems quite obvious that the
whole world is going in the same direction.

1472
01:21:50,696 --> 01:21:53,961
See, I think it's quite possible
that the 1960s...

1473
01:21:54,066 --> 01:21:58,765
represented the last burst of the human being
before he was extinguished...

1474
01:21:58,871 --> 01:22:01,533
and that this is the beginning
of the rest of the future, now...

1475
01:22:01,640 --> 01:22:05,702
and that from now on there'll simply be
all these robots walking around...

1476
01:22:05,811 --> 01:22:08,109
feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

1477
01:22:08,213 --> 01:22:11,148
And there'll be nobody left almost
to remind them...

1478
01:22:11,250 --> 01:22:14,515
that there once was a species
called a human being...

1479
01:22:14,620 --> 01:22:16,588
with feelings and thoughts...

1480
01:22:16,688 --> 01:22:19,521
and that history and memory
are right now being erased...

1481
01:22:19,625 --> 01:22:22,526
and soon nobody
will really remember...

1482
01:22:22,628 --> 01:22:24,824
that life existed on the planet.

1483
01:22:26,498 --> 01:22:30,935
Now, of course, Bjornstrand feels
that there's really almost no hope...

1484
01:22:31,036 --> 01:22:34,404
and that we're probably
going back to a very savage...

1485
01:22:34,506 --> 01:22:37,532
lawless, terrifying period.

1486
01:22:37,643 --> 01:22:40,078
Findhorn people
see it a little differently.

1487
01:22:40,179 --> 01:22:43,012
They're feeling that there'll be
these pockets of light...

1488
01:22:43,115 --> 01:22:45,174
springing up
in different parts of the world...

1489
01:22:45,284 --> 01:22:49,585
and that these will be, in a way,
invisible planets on this planet...

1490
01:22:49,688 --> 01:22:52,180
and that as we, or the world,
grow colder...

1491
01:22:52,291 --> 01:22:55,886
we can take invisible space journeys
to these different planets...

1492
01:22:55,994 --> 01:22:59,430
refuel for what it is we need to do
on the planet itself...

1493
01:22:59,531 --> 01:23:01,829
and come back.

1494
01:23:01,934 --> 01:23:04,801
And it's their feeling that
there have to be centers now...

1495
01:23:04,903 --> 01:23:09,204
where people can come and reconstruct
a new future for the world.

1496
01:23:09,308 --> 01:23:11,276
And when I was talking
to, Gustav Bjornstrand...

1497
01:23:11,376 --> 01:23:14,607
he was saying that actually these centers
are growing up everywhere now...

1498
01:23:14,713 --> 01:23:17,705
and that what they're trying to do,
which is what Findhorn was trying to do...

1499
01:23:17,816 --> 01:23:20,012
and, in a way, what I was trying to do...

1500
01:23:20,118 --> 01:23:22,450
I mean,
these things can't be given names...

1501
01:23:22,554 --> 01:23:26,752
but in a way, these are all attempts
at creating a new kind of school...

1502
01:23:26,859 --> 01:23:29,055
or a new kind of monastery.

1503
01:23:29,161 --> 01:23:31,630
And Bjornstrand talks about
the concept of "reserves"

1504
01:23:31,730 --> 01:23:34,495
islands of safety where history
can be remembered...

1505
01:23:34,600 --> 01:23:37,160
and the human being
can continue to function...

1506
01:23:37,269 --> 01:23:40,899
in order to maintain the species
through a dark age.

1507
01:23:43,008 --> 01:23:45,340
In other words, we're talking
about an underground...

1508
01:23:45,444 --> 01:23:48,072
which did exist in a different way
during the Dark Ages...

1509
01:23:48,180 --> 01:23:50,877
among the mystical orders
of the church.

1510
01:23:50,983 --> 01:23:53,077
And the purpose of this underground...

1511
01:23:53,185 --> 01:23:58,351
is to find out how to preserve
the light, life, the culture...

1512
01:23:58,457 --> 01:24:01,893
how to keep things living,

1513
01:24:01,994 --> 01:24:04,895
You see, I keep thinking
that what we need...

1514
01:24:04,997 --> 01:24:07,796
is a new language...

1515
01:24:07,900 --> 01:24:10,028
a language of the heart...

1516
01:24:10,135 --> 01:24:14,072
a language, as in the Polish forest,
where language wasn't needed.

1517
01:24:14,172 --> 01:24:19,110
Some kind of language between people
that is a new kind of poetry...

1518
01:24:19,211 --> 01:24:23,739
that's the poetry of the dancing bee
that tells us where the honey is.

1519
01:24:23,849 --> 01:24:26,910
And I think that in order
to create that language...

1520
01:24:27,019 --> 01:24:30,512
you're going to have to learn how
you can go through a looking glass...

1521
01:24:30,622 --> 01:24:32,590
into another kind of perception...

1522
01:24:32,691 --> 01:24:37,595
where you have that sense
of being united to all things...

1523
01:24:37,696 --> 01:24:40,893
and suddenly you understand everything.

1524
01:24:50,042 --> 01:24:52,306
Are you ready for some dessert?

1525
01:24:52,411 --> 01:24:54,539
Uh, I think I'll just have an espresso.
Thank you.

1526
01:24:54,646 --> 01:24:58,583
- Very good.
- I'll also have one. Thank you.

1527
01:24:58,684 --> 01:25:01,984
And, could I also
have, an amaretto?

1528
01:25:02,087 --> 01:25:04,715
Certainly, sir.

1529
01:25:04,823 --> 01:25:06,917
Thank you.

1530
01:25:07,025 --> 01:25:11,292
You see, Wally, there's this incredible
building that they built at Findhorn.

1531
01:25:11,396 --> 01:25:13,990
And the man who designed it
had never designed anything in his life.

1532
01:25:14,099 --> 01:25:16,033
He wrote children's books.

1533
01:25:16,134 --> 01:25:19,297
And some people wanted it to be
a sort of hall of meditation...

1534
01:25:19,404 --> 01:25:21,805
and others wanted it to be
a kind of lecture hall.

1535
01:25:21,907 --> 01:25:25,969
But the psychic part of the community
wanted it to serve another function as well...

1536
01:25:26,078 --> 01:25:29,673
because they wanted it to be a kind
of spaceship which at night could rise up...

1537
01:25:29,781 --> 01:25:32,546
and let the UFO's know that this
was a safe place to land...

1538
01:25:32,651 --> 01:25:34,619
and that they would find friends there.

1539
01:25:34,720 --> 01:25:38,486
So, the problem was,
'cause it needed a massive kind of roof...

1540
01:25:38,590 --> 01:25:41,651
was how to have a roof
that would stay on the building...

1541
01:25:41,760 --> 01:25:45,196
but at the same time be able to fly up
at night and meet the flying saucers.

1542
01:25:45,297 --> 01:25:48,028
So, the architect
meditated and meditated...

1543
01:25:48,133 --> 01:25:50,932
and he finally came up with
the very simple solution...

1544
01:25:51,036 --> 01:25:53,334
of not actually joining the roof
to the building...

1545
01:25:53,438 --> 01:25:55,406
which means that it should fall off...

1546
01:25:55,507 --> 01:25:58,636
because they have great gales
up in northern Scotland.

1547
01:25:58,744 --> 01:26:02,237
So, to keep it from falling off,
he got beach stones from the beach...

1548
01:26:02,347 --> 01:26:05,112
or we did,
'cause I worked on this building...

1549
01:26:05,217 --> 01:26:07,276
all up and down the roof,
just like that.

1550
01:26:07,386 --> 01:26:11,687
And the idea was that the energy
that would flow from stone to stone...

1551
01:26:11,790 --> 01:26:13,758
would be so strong, you see...

1552
01:26:13,859 --> 01:26:17,159
that it would keep the roof down
under any conditions...

1553
01:26:17,262 --> 01:26:21,756
but at the same time, if the roof needed
to go up, it would be light enough to go up.

1554
01:26:21,867 --> 01:26:25,531
Well, it works, you see.

1555
01:26:25,637 --> 01:26:28,197
Now, architects
don't know why it works...

1556
01:26:28,306 --> 01:26:30,274
and it shouldn't work,
'cause it should fall off.

1557
01:26:30,375 --> 01:26:32,275
But it works. It does work.

1558
01:26:32,377 --> 01:26:36,075
The gales blow, and the roof should fall off,
but it doesn't fall off.

1559
01:26:40,752 --> 01:26:42,652
Yep.

1560
01:26:42,754 --> 01:26:44,654
Well, uh...

1561
01:26:45,791 --> 01:26:48,488
do you want to know
my actual response to all this?

1562
01:26:48,593 --> 01:26:50,891
- Do you want to hear my actual response?
- Yes!

1563
01:26:52,697 --> 01:26:54,961
See, my actual response, I mean...

1564
01:26:55,067 --> 01:27:00,130
I mean,
I'm just trying to survive, you know?

1565
01:27:00,238 --> 01:27:03,367
I mean,
I'm just trying to earn a living...

1566
01:27:03,475 --> 01:27:06,103
just trying to pay my rent and my bills.

1567
01:27:06,211 --> 01:27:08,578
I mean...

1568
01:27:08,680 --> 01:27:12,014
Ah, I live my life.

1569
01:27:12,117 --> 01:27:15,178
I enjoy staying home with Debby.

1570
01:27:15,287 --> 01:27:18,120
I'm reading Charlton Heston's
autobiography.

1571
01:27:18,223 --> 01:27:19,850
And that's that.

1572
01:27:19,958 --> 01:27:22,859
I mean, you know,
I mean, occasionally, maybe...

1573
01:27:22,961 --> 01:27:27,398
Debby and I will step outside,
we'll go to a party or something.

1574
01:27:27,499 --> 01:27:30,935
And if I can occasionally get my little talent
together and write a little play...

1575
01:27:31,036 --> 01:27:33,232
well, then that's just wonderful.

1576
01:27:33,338 --> 01:27:36,308
And I mean, I enjoy reading about
other little plays people have written...

1577
01:27:36,408 --> 01:27:39,776
and reading the reviews of those plays
and what people said about them...

1578
01:27:39,878 --> 01:27:43,075
and what people said
about what people said.

1579
01:27:43,181 --> 01:27:47,618
And I mean, I have a list of errands
and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook.

1580
01:27:47,719 --> 01:27:50,188
I enjoy going through the notebook...

1581
01:27:50,288 --> 01:27:52,689
carrying out the responsibilities,
doing the errands...

1582
01:27:52,791 --> 01:27:55,954
and crossing them off the list.

1583
01:27:56,061 --> 01:28:00,498
And, I mean, I just don't know
how anybody could enjoy anything more...

1584
01:28:00,599 --> 01:28:04,968
than I enjoy, reading
Charlton Heston's autobiography...

1585
01:28:05,070 --> 01:28:07,869
or, you know,
getting up in the morning...

1586
01:28:07,973 --> 01:28:11,466
and having the cup of cold coffee
that's been waiting for me all night...

1587
01:28:11,576 --> 01:28:14,045
still there for me
to drink in the morning...

1588
01:28:14,146 --> 01:28:17,548
and no cockroach or fly
has died in it overnight.

1589
01:28:17,649 --> 01:28:20,311
I mean, I'm just so thrilled
when I get up...

1590
01:28:20,418 --> 01:28:23,877
and I see that coffee there,
just the way I wanted it.

1591
01:28:23,989 --> 01:28:26,253
I mean, I just can't imagine..

1592
01:28:26,358 --> 01:28:28,918
How anybody could enjoy something else
any more than that.

1593
01:28:29,027 --> 01:28:32,861
I mean, obviously, if the cockroach,
if there is a dead cockroach in it...

1594
01:28:32,964 --> 01:28:35,729
well, then I just have a feeling
of disappointment, and I'm sad.

1595
01:28:35,834 --> 01:28:38,963
But I mean, I just don't think...

1596
01:28:39,070 --> 01:28:41,334
I feel the need for anything more
than all this.

1597
01:28:41,439 --> 01:28:44,033
Whereas, you know,
you seem to be saying...

1598
01:28:44,142 --> 01:28:47,043
that, uh...

1599
01:28:47,145 --> 01:28:50,513
it's inconceivable that anybody could
be having a meaningful life today...

1600
01:28:50,615 --> 01:28:52,743
and, you know,
everyone is totally destroyed...

1601
01:28:52,851 --> 01:28:55,411
and we all need to live
in these outposts.

1602
01:28:55,520 --> 01:28:58,148
But I mean, you know,
I just can't believe, even for you...

1603
01:28:58,256 --> 01:29:01,590
I mean, don't you find, isn't it pleasant
just to get up in the morning...

1604
01:29:01,693 --> 01:29:05,129
and there's Chiquita,
there are the children....

1605
01:29:05,230 --> 01:29:07,665
and The Times is delivered,
you can read it.

1606
01:29:07,766 --> 01:29:10,633
I mean, maybe you'll direct a play,
maybe you won't direct a play.

1607
01:29:10,735 --> 01:29:13,363
But forget about the play
that you may or may not direct.

1608
01:29:13,471 --> 01:29:18,033
Why is it necessary to, why not lean back
and just enjoy these details?

1609
01:29:18,143 --> 01:29:22,671
I mean, and there'd be a delicious cup
of coffee and a piece of coffeecake.

1610
01:29:22,781 --> 01:29:25,443
I mean, why is it necessary
to have more than this...

1611
01:29:25,550 --> 01:29:27,882
or to even think about
having more than this?

1612
01:29:27,986 --> 01:29:31,286
I mean, I don't really know
what you're talking about.

1613
01:29:32,591 --> 01:29:35,219
I mean,
I know what you're talking about...

1614
01:29:35,327 --> 01:29:38,126
but I don't really know
what you're talking about.

1615
01:29:38,230 --> 01:29:41,427
And I mean, you know, even if I were
to totally agree with you, you know...

1616
01:29:41,533 --> 01:29:44,730
and even if I were to accept the idea
that there's just no way for anybody...

1617
01:29:44,836 --> 01:29:46,861
to have personal happiness now...

1618
01:29:46,972 --> 01:29:49,339
well, you know,
I still couldn't accept the idea...

1619
01:29:49,441 --> 01:29:52,069
that the way to make life wonderful
would be to just totally...

1620
01:29:52,177 --> 01:29:54,475
you know,
reject Western civilization...

1621
01:29:54,579 --> 01:29:57,913
and fall back into some kind of belief
in some kind of weird something.

1622
01:29:58,016 --> 01:30:00,417
I mean, I don't even know how
to begin talking about this...

1623
01:30:00,518 --> 01:30:03,852
but you know, in the Middle Ages...

1624
01:30:03,955 --> 01:30:07,516
before the arrival of
scientific thinking as we know it today...

1625
01:30:07,626 --> 01:30:09,924
well, people could believe anything.

1626
01:30:10,028 --> 01:30:12,622
Anything could be true,
the statue of the Virgin Mary...

1627
01:30:12,731 --> 01:30:14,790
could speak or bleed
or whatever it was.

1628
01:30:14,899 --> 01:30:16,867
But the wonderful thing
that happened...

1629
01:30:16,968 --> 01:30:19,938
was that then in the development
of science in the Western world...

1630
01:30:20,038 --> 01:30:24,771
certain things did come slowly
to be known and understood.

1631
01:30:24,876 --> 01:30:27,436
I mean, you know...

1632
01:30:27,545 --> 01:30:30,981
obviously, all ideas in science
are constantly being revised.

1633
01:30:31,082 --> 01:30:32,982
I mean, that's the whole point.

1634
01:30:33,084 --> 01:30:38,045
But we do at least know that the universe
has some shape and order...

1635
01:30:38,156 --> 01:30:42,650
and that, you know, trees do not
turn into people or goddesses...

1636
01:30:42,761 --> 01:30:45,059
and there are very good reasons
why they don't...

1637
01:30:45,163 --> 01:30:47,427
and you can't just believe
absolutely anything.

1638
01:30:47,532 --> 01:30:49,432
Whereas, the things
that you're talking about...

1639
01:30:49,534 --> 01:30:53,061
I mean, I mean, you found
the handprint in the book...

1640
01:30:53,171 --> 01:30:57,130
and there were three "André"s
and one Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

1641
01:30:57,242 --> 01:31:00,007
And to me that is a coincidence.

1642
01:31:00,111 --> 01:31:03,046
But, and, and then, you know,
the people who put that book together...

1643
01:31:03,148 --> 01:31:05,344
well, they had their own reasons
for putting it together.

1644
01:31:05,450 --> 01:31:08,647
But to you it was significant, as if that book
had been written 40 years ago...

1645
01:31:08,753 --> 01:31:12,712
so that you would see it,
as if it was planned for you, in a way.

1646
01:31:12,824 --> 01:31:14,883
I mean, really, I mean...

1647
01:31:14,993 --> 01:31:19,521
I mean, all right, let's say, if I get
a fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant...

1648
01:31:19,631 --> 01:31:21,622
I mean, of course,
even I have a tendency.

1649
01:31:21,733 --> 01:31:24,532
I mean, you know, I mean, of course,
I would hardly throw it out.

1650
01:31:24,636 --> 01:31:27,606
I mean, I read it.
I read it, and, and...

1651
01:31:27,706 --> 01:31:30,937
I just instinctively sort of,
you know, if it says something like, uh...

1652
01:31:31,042 --> 01:31:34,672
"A conversation with a dark-haired man
will be very important for you"

1653
01:31:34,779 --> 01:31:37,771
Well, I just instinctively think, you know,
"Who do I know who has dark hair?"

1654
01:31:37,882 --> 01:31:40,647
"Did we have a conversation?"
"What did we talk about?"

1655
01:31:40,752 --> 01:31:45,053
In other words, there's something
in me that makes me read it...

1656
01:31:45,156 --> 01:31:48,786
and I instinctively interpret it
as if it were an omen of the future.

1657
01:31:48,893 --> 01:31:52,420
But in my conscious opinion, which is
so fundamental to my whole view of life...

1658
01:31:52,530 --> 01:31:55,693
I mean, I would just have to change totally
to not have this opinion.

1659
01:31:55,800 --> 01:31:57,768
In my conscious opinion,
this is simply something...

1660
01:31:57,869 --> 01:32:02,033
that was written in the cookie factory
several years ago and in no way refers to me.

1661
01:32:02,140 --> 01:32:04,871
I mean, you know,
the, the fact that I got it.

1662
01:32:04,976 --> 01:32:07,707
I mean, the man who wrote it
did not know anything about me.

1663
01:32:07,812 --> 01:32:09,803
I mean, he could not have known
anything about me.

1664
01:32:09,914 --> 01:32:12,542
There's no way that this cookie
could actually have to do with me.

1665
01:32:12,650 --> 01:32:15,176
And the fact that I've gotten it
is just basically a joke.

1666
01:32:15,286 --> 01:32:18,085
And I mean, if I were gonna go
on a trip on an airplane...

1667
01:32:18,189 --> 01:32:20,180
and I got a fortune cookie
that said "Don't go!"

1668
01:32:20,291 --> 01:32:24,057
I mean, of course, I admit I might feel
a bit nervous for about one second.

1669
01:32:24,162 --> 01:32:26,631
But in fact, I would go because,
I mean...

1670
01:32:26,731 --> 01:32:29,166
that trip is gonna be successful
or unsuccessful...

1671
01:32:29,267 --> 01:32:31,861
based on the state of the airplane
and the state of the pilot.

1672
01:32:31,970 --> 01:32:34,701
And the cookie is in no position
to know about that.

1673
01:32:34,806 --> 01:32:36,706
And I mean, you know, it's the same...

1674
01:32:36,808 --> 01:32:39,573
with any kind of, prophecy,
or a sign, or an omen.

1675
01:32:39,677 --> 01:32:44,046
Because if you believe in omens
then that means that the universe...

1676
01:32:44,149 --> 01:32:46,550
I mean, I don't even know how
to begin to describe this.

1677
01:32:46,651 --> 01:32:50,110
That means that the future
is somehow sending messages...

1678
01:32:50,221 --> 01:32:52,280
backwards to the present.

1679
01:32:52,390 --> 01:32:55,690
Which, which means that the future
must exist in some sense already...

1680
01:32:55,794 --> 01:32:58,764
in order to be able
to send these messages.

1681
01:32:58,863 --> 01:33:02,993
And it also means that things in the universe
are there for a purpose... to give us messages.

1682
01:33:03,101 --> 01:33:05,502
Whereas I think that things
in the universe are just there.

1683
01:33:05,603 --> 01:33:07,503
I mean, they don't mean anything.

1684
01:33:07,605 --> 01:33:12,065
I mean, you know, if the turtle's egg falls out
of the tree and splashes on the paving stones...

1685
01:33:12,177 --> 01:33:15,238
it's just because that turtle was clumsy
by accident.

1686
01:33:15,346 --> 01:33:19,442
And, and to decide whether to send
my ships off to war on the basis of that...

1687
01:33:19,551 --> 01:33:21,610
seems a big mistake to me.

1688
01:33:21,719 --> 01:33:25,314
Well, what information would
you send your ships to war on?

1689
01:33:25,423 --> 01:33:27,118
Because if it's all meaningless...

1690
01:33:27,225 --> 01:33:29,216
what's the difference whether
you accept the fortune cookie...

1691
01:33:29,327 --> 01:33:31,352
or the statistics
of the Ford Foundation?

1692
01:33:31,463 --> 01:33:33,431
It doesn't seem to matter.

1693
01:33:33,531 --> 01:33:37,661
Well, the meaningless fact
of the fortune cookie or the turtles egg...

1694
01:33:37,769 --> 01:33:41,535
can't possibly have any relevance
to the subject you're analyzing.

1695
01:33:41,639 --> 01:33:44,870
Whereas a group of meaningless facts
that are collected and interpreted...

1696
01:33:44,976 --> 01:33:48,378
in a scientific way
may quite possibly be relevant.

1697
01:33:48,480 --> 01:33:51,142
Because the wonderful thing
about scientific theories about things...

1698
01:33:51,249 --> 01:33:54,844
is that they're based on experiments
that can be repeated.

1699
01:34:12,804 --> 01:34:14,898
Well, it's true, Wally.

1700
01:34:15,006 --> 01:34:17,703
I mean, you know,
following omens and so on...

1701
01:34:17,809 --> 01:34:20,540
İs probably just a way
of letting ourselves off the hook...

1702
01:34:20,645 --> 01:34:24,946
so that we don't have to take individual
responsibility for our own actions.

1703
01:34:25,049 --> 01:34:27,347
But I mean, giving yourself over
to the unconscious...

1704
01:34:27,452 --> 01:34:32,754
can leave you vulnerable to all sorts
of very frightening manipulation.

1705
01:34:32,857 --> 01:34:36,191
And in all the work that I was involved in,
there was always that danger.

1706
01:34:36,294 --> 01:34:39,821
And there was always that question
of tampering with people's lives...

1707
01:34:39,931 --> 01:34:43,561
because if I lead one of these workshops,
then I do become partly a doctor...

1708
01:34:43,668 --> 01:34:45,762
and partly a therapist,
and partly a priest.

1709
01:34:45,870 --> 01:34:50,273
And I'm not a doctor,
or a therapist or a priest.

1710
01:34:50,375 --> 01:34:52,935
And already some
of these new monasteries...

1711
01:34:53,044 --> 01:34:55,604
or communities or whatever
we've been talking about...

1712
01:34:55,713 --> 01:34:57,738
are becoming institutionalized...

1713
01:34:57,849 --> 01:35:01,046
and I guess even in a way, at times,
sort of fascistic.

1714
01:35:01,152 --> 01:35:05,180
You know, there's a sort of self-satisfied
elitist paranoia that grows up...

1715
01:35:05,290 --> 01:35:08,316
a feeling of "them" and "us"...
that is very unsettling.

1716
01:35:08,426 --> 01:35:12,624
But I mean, the thing is, Wally, I think
it's the exaggerated worship of science...

1717
01:35:12,730 --> 01:35:14,698
that has led us into this situation.

1718
01:35:14,799 --> 01:35:17,393
I mean, science has been held up to us
as a magical force...

1719
01:35:17,502 --> 01:35:19,470
that would somehow solve everything.

1720
01:35:19,571 --> 01:35:21,767
Well, quite the contrary.
It's done quite the contrary.

1721
01:35:21,873 --> 01:35:23,841
It's destroyed everything.

1722
01:35:23,942 --> 01:35:25,910
So that is what has really led,
I think...

1723
01:35:26,010 --> 01:35:29,969
to this very strong, deep reaction
against science that we're seeing now...

1724
01:35:30,081 --> 01:35:32,778
just as the Nazi demons that were
released in the '30s in Germany...

1725
01:35:32,884 --> 01:35:36,684
were probably a reaction against
a certain oppressive kind of knowledge...

1726
01:35:36,788 --> 01:35:39,223
and culture and rational thinking.

1727
01:35:39,324 --> 01:35:42,851
Sol agree that we're talking about
something potentially very dangerous.

1728
01:35:42,961 --> 01:35:46,192
But modern science has not been
particularly less dangerous.

1729
01:35:46,297 --> 01:35:48,231
Right. Well, I agree with you.

1730
01:35:48,333 --> 01:35:50,301
I completely agree.

1731
01:35:52,170 --> 01:35:54,639
No, you know, the truth is...

1732
01:35:54,739 --> 01:35:58,869
I think I do know what really disturbs me
about the work you've described...

1733
01:35:58,977 --> 01:36:01,969
and I don't even know if I can express it.

1734
01:36:02,080 --> 01:36:05,948
But somehow it seems that the whole point
of the work that you did in those workshops...

1735
01:36:06,050 --> 01:36:09,953
when you get right down to it
and you ask what was it really about...

1736
01:36:10,054 --> 01:36:11,988
The whole point, really, I think...

1737
01:36:12,090 --> 01:36:15,219
was to enable the people in the workshops,
including yourself...

1738
01:36:15,326 --> 01:36:19,695
to somehow sort of strip away
every scrap of purposefulness...

1739
01:36:19,797 --> 01:36:22,323
from certain selected moments.

1740
01:36:22,433 --> 01:36:25,664
And the point of it was so that you would
then all be able to experience...

1741
01:36:25,770 --> 01:36:28,967
somehow just pure being.

1742
01:36:29,073 --> 01:36:32,941
In other words, you were trying to discover what
it would be like to live for certain moments...

1743
01:36:33,044 --> 01:36:36,139
without having any particular thing
that you were supposed to be doing.

1744
01:36:36,247 --> 01:36:38,579
And I think
I just simply object to that.

1745
01:36:38,683 --> 01:36:41,778
I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea
that there should be moments...

1746
01:36:41,886 --> 01:36:44,048
in which you're not trying
to do anything.

1747
01:36:44,155 --> 01:36:48,149
I think,
it's our nature, to do things.

1748
01:36:48,259 --> 01:36:50,159
I think we should do things.

1749
01:36:50,261 --> 01:36:52,355
I think that, purposefulness...

1750
01:36:52,463 --> 01:36:56,798
is part of our ineradicable
basic human structure.

1751
01:36:56,901 --> 01:36:59,700
And to say that we ought to
be able to live without it...

1752
01:36:59,804 --> 01:37:03,763
is like saying that, a tree ought to
be able to live without branches or roots.

1753
01:37:03,875 --> 01:37:06,572
But, but actually, without branches
or roots, it wouldn't be a tree.

1754
01:37:06,678 --> 01:37:09,511
I mean, it would just be a log.
Do you see what I'm saying?

1755
01:37:11,349 --> 01:37:14,717
I mean, in other words, if I'm sitting at home
and I have nothing to do...

1756
01:37:14,819 --> 01:37:16,719
well, I naturally reach for a book.

1757
01:37:16,821 --> 01:37:20,519
I mean, what would be so great about
just sitting there and, doing nothing?

1758
01:37:20,625 --> 01:37:22,525
It just seems absurd.

1759
01:37:22,627 --> 01:37:24,186
And if Debby is there?

1760
01:37:25,463 --> 01:37:27,363
Well, that's just the same thing.

1761
01:37:27,465 --> 01:37:30,332
I mean, is there really
such a thing as, uh...

1762
01:37:30,435 --> 01:37:34,338
two people doing nothing
but just being together?

1763
01:37:34,439 --> 01:37:36,430
I mean, would they simply then...

1764
01:37:36,541 --> 01:37:39,602
be, "relating,"
to use the word we're always using?

1765
01:37:39,711 --> 01:37:41,611
I mean, what would that mean?

1766
01:37:41,713 --> 01:37:43,681
I mean, either we're
gonna have a conversation...

1767
01:37:43,781 --> 01:37:45,909
or we're going to,
carry out the garbage...

1768
01:37:46,017 --> 01:37:49,578
or we're going to do something,
separately or together.

1769
01:37:49,687 --> 01:37:51,587
I mean, do you see what I'm saying?

1770
01:37:51,689 --> 01:37:55,557
I mean, what does it mean
to just, simply, sit there?

1771
01:37:55,660 --> 01:37:57,958
That makes you nervous.

1772
01:37:58,062 --> 01:38:02,465
Well, why shouldn't it make me nervous?
It just seems ridiculous to me.

1773
01:38:02,567 --> 01:38:04,535
That's interesting, Wally.

1774
01:38:05,703 --> 01:38:09,503
You know, when I went to Ladakh in western
Tibet and stayed on a farm for a month...

1775
01:38:09,607 --> 01:38:13,475
well, there, you know, when people come over
in the evening for tea, nobody says anything.

1776
01:38:13,578 --> 01:38:15,672
Unless there's something to say,
but there almost never is.

1777
01:38:15,780 --> 01:38:19,307
So they just sit there and drink their tea,
and it doesn't seem to bother them.

1778
01:38:22,320 --> 01:38:25,085
I mean, you see, the trouble, Wally,
with always being active and doing things...

1779
01:38:25,189 --> 01:38:28,284
is that I think it's quite possible
to do all sorts of things...

1780
01:38:28,392 --> 01:38:31,794
and at the same time
be completely dead inside.

1781
01:38:31,896 --> 01:38:34,297
I mean, you're doing all these things,
but are you doing them...

1782
01:38:34,398 --> 01:38:36,492
because you really feel
an impulse to do them...

1783
01:38:36,601 --> 01:38:39,332
or are you doing them mechanically,
as we were saying before?

1784
01:38:39,437 --> 01:38:42,031
Because I really do believe
that if you're just living mechanically...

1785
01:38:42,140 --> 01:38:44,370
then you have to change your life.

1786
01:38:44,475 --> 01:38:47,467
I mean, you know, when you're young,
you go out on dates all the time.

1787
01:38:47,578 --> 01:38:50,479
You go dancing or something.
You're floating free.

1788
01:38:50,581 --> 01:38:53,710
And then one day suddenly
you find yourself in a relationship...

1789
01:38:53,818 --> 01:38:55,946
and suddenly everything freezes.

1790
01:38:56,053 --> 01:38:58,818
And this can be true
in your work as well.

1791
01:38:58,923 --> 01:39:01,722
And I mean, of course,
if you're really alive inside...

1792
01:39:01,826 --> 01:39:03,794
then of course there's no problem.

1793
01:39:03,895 --> 01:39:06,125
I mean, if you're living with somebody
in one little room...

1794
01:39:06,230 --> 01:39:09,029
and there's a life going on between you
and the person you're living with...

1795
01:39:09,133 --> 01:39:13,593
well, then a whole adventure
can be going on right in that room.

1796
01:39:13,704 --> 01:39:17,299
But there's always the danger
that things can go dead.

1797
01:39:17,408 --> 01:39:20,969
Then I really do think you have to kind of
become a hobo or something, you know...

1798
01:39:21,078 --> 01:39:23,206
like Kerouac,
and go out on the road.

1799
01:39:23,314 --> 01:39:25,476
I really believe that.

1800
01:39:25,583 --> 01:39:29,417
You know, it's not that wonderful
to spend your life on the road.

1801
01:39:29,520 --> 01:39:34,048
My own overwhelming preference
is to stay in that room if you can.

1802
01:39:34,158 --> 01:39:37,355
But you know, if you live with somebody for
a long time, people are constantly saying...

1803
01:39:37,461 --> 01:39:41,091
"Well, of course it's not as great
as it used to be, but that's only natural.

1804
01:39:41,199 --> 01:39:44,635
The first blush of a romance goes,
and that's the way it has to be."

1805
01:39:44,735 --> 01:39:47,932
Now, I totally disagree with that.

1806
01:39:48,039 --> 01:39:52,704
But I do think that you have to constantly ask
yourself the question, with total frankness:

1807
01:39:52,810 --> 01:39:54,904
"Is your marriage still a marriage?"

1808
01:39:55,012 --> 01:39:57,174
"Is the sacramental element there?"

1809
01:39:57,281 --> 01:39:59,875
Just as you have to ask about
the sacramental element in your work...

1810
01:39:59,984 --> 01:40:02,316
"Is it still there?"

1811
01:40:02,420 --> 01:40:05,082
I mean, it's a very frightening thing, Wally,
to have to suddenly realize...

1812
01:40:05,189 --> 01:40:09,422
that, my God, I thought I was living my life,
but in fact I haven't been a human being.

1813
01:40:09,527 --> 01:40:11,427
I've been a performer.

1814
01:40:11,529 --> 01:40:14,692
I haven't been living. I've been acting.
I've, I've acted the role of the father.

1815
01:40:14,799 --> 01:40:18,326
I've acted the role of the husband.
I've acted the role of the friend.

1816
01:40:18,436 --> 01:40:21,838
I've acted the role of the writer,
or director, or what have you.

1817
01:40:21,939 --> 01:40:25,807
I've lived in the same room with this person,
but I haven't really seen them.

1818
01:40:25,910 --> 01:40:29,938
I haven't really heard them.
I haven't really been with them.

1819
01:40:30,047 --> 01:40:32,709
Yeah, I know some people
are just sometimes...

1820
01:40:32,817 --> 01:40:35,411
uh, existing just side by side.

1821
01:40:35,519 --> 01:40:40,423
I mean, the other person's, face
could just turn into a great wolf's face...

1822
01:40:40,524 --> 01:40:43,323
and, it just wouldn't be noticed.

1823
01:40:43,427 --> 01:40:46,727
And it wouldn't be noticed, no.
It wouldn't be noticed.

1824
01:40:48,065 --> 01:40:50,227
I mean, when I was in Israel
a little while ago...

1825
01:40:50,334 --> 01:40:52,928
I mean, I have this picture of Chiquita
that was taken when she...

1826
01:40:53,037 --> 01:40:56,632
I always carry it with me. It was taken
when she was about 26 or something.

1827
01:40:56,741 --> 01:40:59,540
And it's in summer,
and she's stretched out on a terrace...

1828
01:40:59,644 --> 01:41:02,579
in this sort of old-fashioned long skirt
that's kind of pulled up.

1829
01:41:02,680 --> 01:41:05,172
And she's slim and sensual
and beautiful.

1830
01:41:05,283 --> 01:41:09,618
And I've always looked at that picture
and just thought about just how sexy she looks.

1831
01:41:09,720 --> 01:41:12,087
And then last year in Israel,
I looked at the picture...

1832
01:41:12,189 --> 01:41:16,456
and I realized that that face in the picture
was the saddest face in the world.

1833
01:41:16,560 --> 01:41:19,621
That girl at that time was just lost...

1834
01:41:19,730 --> 01:41:21,698
so sad and so alone.

1835
01:41:21,799 --> 01:41:25,326
I've been carrying this picture for years
and not ever really seeing what it is, you know.

1836
01:41:25,436 --> 01:41:28,565
I just never really
looked at the picture.

1837
01:41:30,608 --> 01:41:34,909
And then, at a certain point, I realized I'd
just gone for a good 18 years unable to feel...

1838
01:41:35,012 --> 01:41:37,208
except in the most extreme situations.

1839
01:41:37,315 --> 01:41:40,307
I mean, to some extent, I still had
the ability to live in my work.

1840
01:41:40,418 --> 01:41:42,318
That was why I was such a work junkie.

1841
01:41:42,420 --> 01:41:46,618
That was why I felt that every play that I did
was a matter of my life or my death.

1842
01:41:46,724 --> 01:41:48,886
But in my real life, I was dead.

1843
01:41:48,993 --> 01:41:51,553
I was a robot.

1844
01:41:51,662 --> 01:41:54,597
I mean, I didn't even allow myself
to get angry or annoyed.

1845
01:41:54,699 --> 01:41:57,498
I mean, you know, today
Chiquita, Nicolas, Marina...

1846
01:41:57,601 --> 01:42:01,435
All day long, as people do, they do things that
annoy me and they say things that annoy me.

1847
01:42:01,539 --> 01:42:04,304
And today I get annoyed.
And they say, "Why are you annoyed?"

1848
01:42:04,408 --> 01:42:06,502
And I say, "Because you're annoying."
you know.

1849
01:42:08,212 --> 01:42:10,476
And when I allowed myself
to consider the possibility...

1850
01:42:10,581 --> 01:42:13,107
of not spending
the rest of my life with Chiquita...

1851
01:42:13,217 --> 01:42:16,915
I realized that what I wanted most in life
was to always be with her.

1852
01:42:18,356 --> 01:42:21,690
But at that time, I hadn't learned what
it would be like to let yourself react...

1853
01:42:21,792 --> 01:42:23,692
to another human being.

1854
01:42:23,794 --> 01:42:25,785
And if you can't react
to another person...

1855
01:42:25,896 --> 01:42:29,059
then there's no possibility
of action or interaction.

1856
01:42:29,166 --> 01:42:34,195
And if there isn't, I don't really know
what the word "love" means...

1857
01:42:34,305 --> 01:42:39,072
except duty, obligation,
sentimentality, fear.

1858
01:42:41,545 --> 01:42:44,037
I mean...

1859
01:42:45,082 --> 01:42:47,107
I don't know about you, Wally, but I...

1860
01:42:47,218 --> 01:42:51,246
I just had to put myself into a kind of training
program to learn how to be a human being.

1861
01:42:51,355 --> 01:42:53,551
I mean, how did I feel about anything?
I didn't know.

1862
01:42:53,657 --> 01:42:57,958
What kind of things did I like? What kind of
people did I really want to be with? You know?

1863
01:42:58,062 --> 01:43:00,463
And the only way
that I could think of to find out...

1864
01:43:00,564 --> 01:43:04,501
was to just cut out all the noise
and stop performing all the time...

1865
01:43:04,602 --> 01:43:07,936
and just listen to what was inside me.

1866
01:43:08,039 --> 01:43:11,031
See, I think a time comes
when you need to do that.

1867
01:43:11,142 --> 01:43:14,203
Now, maybe in order to do it,
you have to go to the Sahara...

1868
01:43:14,311 --> 01:43:16,279
and maybe you can do it at home.

1869
01:43:16,380 --> 01:43:18,712
But you need to cut out the noise.

1870
01:43:22,953 --> 01:43:24,921
Yeah. Of course, personally,
I, I just...

1871
01:43:25,022 --> 01:43:28,686
I usually don't
like those quiet moments, you know.

1872
01:43:28,793 --> 01:43:30,420
I really don't.

1873
01:43:30,528 --> 01:43:35,227
I mean, I don't know if
it's that, Freudian thing or what...

1874
01:43:35,332 --> 01:43:37,994
But, you know, the fear
of unconscious impulses...

1875
01:43:38,102 --> 01:43:41,265
or my own aggression
or whatever, but...

1876
01:43:41,372 --> 01:43:45,036
if things get too quiet, and I find myself
just, sitting there...

1877
01:43:45,142 --> 01:43:47,110
you know,
as we were saying before...

1878
01:43:47,211 --> 01:43:51,808
I mean, whether I'm by myself,
or, or I'm, I'm with someone else...

1879
01:43:51,916 --> 01:43:54,977
I just,
I just have this feeling of...

1880
01:43:55,086 --> 01:43:59,114
my God,
I'm going to be revealed.

1881
01:43:59,223 --> 01:44:03,353
In other words, I'm adequate
to do any sort of a task...

1882
01:44:03,461 --> 01:44:07,398
but I'm not adequate,
just to, to be a human being.

1883
01:44:07,498 --> 01:44:09,398
I mean, in other words, I'm not...

1884
01:44:09,500 --> 01:44:12,800
If l'm just, trapped there
and I'm not allowed to do things...

1885
01:44:12,903 --> 01:44:16,305
but all I can do is just,
be there...

1886
01:44:16,407 --> 01:44:18,637
well, I'll just fail.

1887
01:44:18,742 --> 01:44:20,710
I mean, in other words...

1888
01:44:20,811 --> 01:44:23,212
I can pass any other sort of a test...

1889
01:44:23,314 --> 01:44:27,080
and, you know, I can even get an "A"
if I put in the required effort...

1890
01:44:27,184 --> 01:44:29,312
but I just don't...

1891
01:44:29,420 --> 01:44:32,117
I just don't have a clue
how to pass this test.

1892
01:44:32,223 --> 01:44:35,625
I mean, of course,
I realize this isn't a test...

1893
01:44:35,726 --> 01:44:38,423
but, I see it as a test...

1894
01:44:38,529 --> 01:44:40,554
and I feel I'm going to fail it.

1895
01:44:40,664 --> 01:44:42,598
I mean, it's, it's very scary.

1896
01:44:42,700 --> 01:44:46,933
I just feel, just totally at sea.
I mean...

1897
01:44:47,037 --> 01:44:49,506
Well, you know,
I could imagine a life, Wally...

1898
01:44:49,607 --> 01:44:54,374
in which each day would become
an incredible, monumental, creative task...

1899
01:44:54,478 --> 01:44:56,640
and we're not necessarily up to it.

1900
01:44:56,747 --> 01:45:00,183
I mean, if you felt like walking out
on the person you live with, you'd walk out.

1901
01:45:00,284 --> 01:45:02,252
Then if you felt like it,
you'd come back.

1902
01:45:02,353 --> 01:45:06,017
But meanwhile, the other person
would have reacted to your walking out.

1903
01:45:06,123 --> 01:45:09,354
It would be a life of such feeling.

1904
01:45:09,460 --> 01:45:11,758
I mean, what was amazing
in the workshops I led...

1905
01:45:11,862 --> 01:45:15,457
was how quickly people seemed
to fall into enthusiasm...

1906
01:45:15,566 --> 01:45:19,901
celebration, joy, wonder,
abandon, wildness, tenderness.

1907
01:45:20,004 --> 01:45:22,166
Could we stand to live like that?

1908
01:45:22,273 --> 01:45:25,243
Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact
with another person.

1909
01:45:25,342 --> 01:45:27,242
I mean, that's what scares us.

1910
01:45:27,344 --> 01:45:30,746
I mean, that moment of being
face to face with another person.

1911
01:45:30,848 --> 01:45:32,748
I mean, now...

1912
01:45:32,850 --> 01:45:37,083
You wouldn't think it would be so frightening.
It's strange that we find it so frightening.

1913
01:45:37,188 --> 01:45:39,088
Well, it isn't that strange.

1914
01:45:39,190 --> 01:45:42,319
I mean, first of all, there are some
pretty good reasons for being frightened.

1915
01:45:42,426 --> 01:45:46,761
I mean, you know, the human being
is a complex and dangerous creature.

1916
01:45:46,864 --> 01:45:49,492
I mean, really,
if you start living each moment?

1917
01:45:49,600 --> 01:45:51,534
Christ, that's quite a challenge.

1918
01:45:51,635 --> 01:45:55,230
I mean, if you really reach out and you're
really in touch with the other person...

1919
01:45:55,339 --> 01:45:58,775
well, that really is something
to strive for, I think, I really do.

1920
01:45:58,876 --> 01:46:01,538
Yeah, it's just so pathetic
if one doesn't do that.

1921
01:46:01,645 --> 01:46:06,014
Of course there's a problem, because the closer
you come, I think, to another human being...

1922
01:46:06,116 --> 01:46:09,177
the more completely mysterious and unreachable...

1923
01:46:09,286 --> 01:46:11,186
that person becomes.

1924
01:46:11,288 --> 01:46:14,918
I mean, you know, you have to reach out,
you have to go back and forth with them...

1925
01:46:15,025 --> 01:46:18,984
and you have to relate, and yet you're
relating to a ghost or something.

1926
01:46:19,096 --> 01:46:21,064
I don't know,
because we're ghosts.

1927
01:46:21,165 --> 01:46:24,931
We're phantoms.
Who are we?

1928
01:46:25,035 --> 01:46:27,902
And that's to face, to confront the fact
that you're completely alone.

1929
01:46:28,005 --> 01:46:30,736
And to accept that you're alone
is to accept death.

1930
01:46:30,841 --> 01:46:34,072
You mean, because somehow when you
are alone, you're alone with death.

1931
01:46:34,178 --> 01:46:38,342
I mean, nothing's obstructing your view of it,
or something like that.

1932
01:46:38,449 --> 01:46:40,247
Right.

1933
01:46:40,351 --> 01:46:43,218
You know, if I understood it correctly,
I think, Heidegger said...

1934
01:46:43,320 --> 01:46:47,587
that, if you were to experience
your own being to the full...

1935
01:46:47,691 --> 01:46:52,629
you'd be experiencing the decay
of that being toward death...

1936
01:46:52,730 --> 01:46:55,097
as a part of your experience.

1937
01:46:55,199 --> 01:46:58,328
You know, in the sexual act there's
that moment of complete forgetting...

1938
01:46:58,435 --> 01:47:00,062
which is so incredible.

1939
01:47:00,170 --> 01:47:02,366
Then in the next moment,
you start to think about things:

1940
01:47:02,473 --> 01:47:04,703
work on the play,
what you've got to do tomorrow.

1941
01:47:04,808 --> 01:47:08,244
I don't know if this is true of you,
but I think it must be quite common.

1942
01:47:08,345 --> 01:47:10,837
The world comes in quite fast.

1943
01:47:10,948 --> 01:47:14,441
Now, that again may be because we're
afraid to stay in that place of forgetting...

1944
01:47:14,551 --> 01:47:16,576
because that, again, is close to death.

1945
01:47:16,687 --> 01:47:19,054
Like people
who are afraid to go to sleep.

1946
01:47:19,156 --> 01:47:23,024
In other words, you interrelate, and you
don't know what the next moment will bring.

1947
01:47:23,127 --> 01:47:25,118
And to not know
what the next moment will bring...

1948
01:47:25,229 --> 01:47:27,254
brings you closer
to a perception of death.

1949
01:47:27,364 --> 01:47:31,028
You see, that's why I think
that people have affairs.

1950
01:47:31,135 --> 01:47:33,536
I mean, you know, in the theater,
if you get good reviews...

1951
01:47:33,637 --> 01:47:36,038
you feel for a moment
that you've got your hands on something.

1952
01:47:36,140 --> 01:47:38,336
You know what I mean?
I mean, it's a good feeling.

1953
01:47:38,442 --> 01:47:40,740
But then that feeling goes quite quickly.

1954
01:47:40,844 --> 01:47:44,144
And once again you don't know
quite what you should do next.

1955
01:47:44,248 --> 01:47:45,875
What'll happen?

1956
01:47:45,983 --> 01:47:48,509
Well, have an affair,
and up to a certain point...

1957
01:47:48,619 --> 01:47:51,281
you can really feel
that you're on firm ground, you know.

1958
01:47:51,388 --> 01:47:54,949
There's a sexual conquest to be made.
There are different questions.

1959
01:47:55,059 --> 01:47:57,027
Does she enjoy the ears being nibbled?

1960
01:47:57,127 --> 01:48:00,586
How intensely can you talk about Schopenhauer
at some elegant French restaurant?

1961
01:48:00,698 --> 01:48:03,065
Whatever nonsense it is,

1962
01:48:03,167 --> 01:48:07,161
It's all, I think, to give you the semblance
that there's firm earth.

1963
01:48:07,271 --> 01:48:11,208
Well, have a real relationship
with a person that goes on for years...

1964
01:48:11,308 --> 01:48:13,936
That's completely unpredictable.

1965
01:48:14,044 --> 01:48:17,275
Then you've cut of fall your ties to the land,
and you're sailing into the unknown...

1966
01:48:17,381 --> 01:48:19,816
into uncharted seas.

1967
01:48:19,917 --> 01:48:24,616
I mean, you know, people hold on to these
images of father, mother, husband, wife...

1968
01:48:24,722 --> 01:48:26,622
again for the same reason...

1969
01:48:26,724 --> 01:48:30,217
'cause they seem to provide
some firm ground.

1970
01:48:30,327 --> 01:48:32,625
But there's no wife there.

1971
01:48:32,730 --> 01:48:34,755
What does that mean?
A wife.

1972
01:48:34,865 --> 01:48:37,562
A husband. A son.

1973
01:48:37,668 --> 01:48:39,636
A baby holds your hands...

1974
01:48:39,737 --> 01:48:43,367
and then suddenly there's this huge man
lifting you off the ground...

1975
01:48:43,474 --> 01:48:45,374
and then he's gone.

1976
01:48:45,476 --> 01:48:47,376
Where's that son?

1977
01:49:06,563 --> 01:49:10,591
[Wally Narrating] All the other customers
seemed to have left hours ago,

1978
01:49:10,701 --> 01:49:14,899
We got the bill,
and André paid for our dinner,

1979
01:49:15,005 --> 01:49:16,473
Really?

1980
01:49:42,766 --> 01:49:44,962
[Wally Narrating]
I treated myself to a taxi,

1981
01:49:46,470 --> 01:49:48,939
I rode home through the city streets.

1982
01:49:50,207 --> 01:49:52,835
There wasn't a street,
there wasn't a building....

1983
01:49:52,943 --> 01:49:56,208
that wasn't connected
to some memory in my mind,

1984
01:49:57,648 --> 01:50:00,743
There, I was buying a suit
with my father.

1985
01:50:03,420 --> 01:50:06,879
There, I was having
an ice cream soda after school.

1986
01:50:10,994 --> 01:50:14,396
When I finally came in,
Debby was home from work....

1987
01:50:14,498 --> 01:50:17,957
and I told her everything
about my dinner with André.