Providence (1977) - full transcript

Damn, damn, damn. Damn.

Surely the facts are not in dispute?

This man, a harmless enough
old creature by all accounts...

was running away from an army patrol...

he's sick, terrified.

You're hurt...

Please.

- And you killed him, did you not?
- He was mortally wounded when I found him.

And you Kevin Woodford took it upon
yourself to put him out of his pain.

He said he was dying,
he begged me to finish him off.

A sick old man, frightened
doubted himself out of his wits.



No doctor present? No medical orderlies?

We hope not many such fall into your hand.

It wasn't just his bullet
wounds from the patrol.

- Really?
- His illness...

he had...

he was turning into an animal.

Are you being metaphorical Woodford?

Or are you suggesting some
kind of actual metamorphosis?

- A werewolf.
- A werewolf perhaps?

- Well, well, well.
- Changing, it seemed to me.

- Into some kind of animal.
- How extraordinary.

Well, that obviously justified
you finishing him off, didn't it?

I'm not saying that.

We shall not try to penetrate the odd
recesses of your imagination Woodford.



We shall ask you exactly what you
are trying to saying about his death.

Did you feel you personally have the right
to arbitrate on a matter of life and death?

Please.

Please...

I was confused.

As indeed I'm sure we all
are in this court today.

- But it wasn't murder.
- But you did shoot him?

Yes.

And you seriously plea that
this was an act of mercy?

Yes.

Well as in the eyes of
the law it was plain homicide.

I was confused.

As indeed I'm sure we all
are in this court today.

- But it wasn't murder.
- But you did shoot him?

Yes.

And you seriously plea that
this was an act of mercy?

Well as in the eyes
of the law is plain homicide.

I think maybe people should
be allowed to die the way they choose.

Ah, I see.

An expose of some higher moral law
to which you have privileged access.

- I wouldn't say that exactly.
- No, some moral argument.

Which exonerates you
from the charge of murder.

- I'd say that, yes, I would.
- I see.

So you feel that your action...

lies outside the inadequate
and pathetic assumption of this court...

that willful slaughter is murder?

Why you so contemptuous?

The idiosyncratic notions of moral law
which exist within the indicted's head...

are not our concern, however
innocent he is within his own eyes...

he is guilty before the laws of the state.

We are here to decide not
whether his action was justifiable...

nor even comprehensible.

Only if it is criminal.

We have the medical evidence
here of Dr. Mark Eddington.

We have the indicted's own word.

And we have the unequivocal
nature of the law of the state.

I'm assure the
ladies and gentlemen of the jury...

I'm sure that your conclusions must be...

inevitable.

Oh Sonia.

Why you marry that petrified
lawyer, the son of mine?

I tried to warn you.

It'll have to be rewritten
in so little time and...

Oh shit, it's Mark Eddington.

Damn it, I'll make you a
friend of Claude's, eh?

- I haven't seen you for ages.
- What did you make of that then?

Well, you've seen Claude prosecuting before.

- He was hateful today, I'm furious.
- I wouldn't say that.

Fury in Claude isn't like most
people, comes out ice-cold, logical.

The jury was obviously
sympathetic to that boy.

And it's not Claude's way to
let that confuse the issue.

What a strange young man.

- Funny sort of crank to find in the army.
- Crank? I thought what he did was brave.

- Well I...
- Mark.

You're going to have
lunch with Claude and me.

Come on, join us at
Luigi's in about half an hour.

Oh yes, yes fine, I'd love to.

But dear I'd, I'd...

Sonia, wait a minute.

But what are you in my
scheme of things Eddington?

The Jolly old, bloody old, doctor character?

God forbid...

Here he is again.

Never liked you Eddington, never
understood what Claude saw in you.

I'm getting rid of you at once.

Sonia, here no.

What she? Of course, she's intrigued.

She wants to meet that Kevin Woodford.

I get it, he wants to cut me up.

Shall we let him try?

Wait a minute though,
right hospital, wrong pathologist.

Wasn't Eddington going to
lunch with Sonia and Claude?

Oh, get out of my mind.

I regret nothing, damn and blast you.

My love and respect for the
human body, the hard muscle, fine skin.

At Cap Ferrat, those days
salty and strong out of the sea.

Not a vain man, well...

Ugly, Molly used to say, green...

but handsome in your
own fashion Clive Langham.

I loved the sun, loved the
cold wine, Christ, I can taste it now.

God, what a tailor's dummy he is.

Your mother, Molly where are you?

She always had the wine chilled
to exactly the right temperature.

And prawns red in their shells.

Yes, I see her laughing
there on the terrace in the sun.

- We...
- Can't you take a hint?

Didn't I say bugger off.

You think this horrifies me?

All the pain before I care about.

Well, there's the morphine I suppose...

Verdict, not guilty.

There wasn't a jury in there.
Was a twelve man law reform commission.

I wonder why Sonia asked me to lunch.

Well, why shouldn't she?
She's always seeking allies these days.

What's the matter with you?

We've know each other for thirty years
and trusted each other for nearly ten.

It was a command really.

- Are you and she in some sort of crisis?
- Oh, for Christ's sake Mark, really.

She always thinks I'm prosecuting
her when she sees me in court.

Do you resent the boy getting off free?

Have no things about him whatsoever.

- What about losing the case?
- Oh, I think my reputation will stand up.

Where the hell is she?

Look, I'm going to have a
pee and then I'm going to order.

Oh, I got another of those
telegrams this morning from my father.

He's still dying, of course. I've never
known anyone take quite so long about it.

And do it in such good health.

Claude, I thought you might
like to meet Kevin Woodford.

I have met him.

To apologize for your
aggressiveness in court I thought.

I was just going for a pee.

- Why you whether bring you here?
- I don't mind where I go.

I never mind where I am.

Oh dear. I think he's
fey, it's always tiresome.

You are fey aren't you?
Oh, I know that you have inner peace.

That usually implies no powers
of rational thinking, whatsoever.

I don't feel like lunch today...

suddenly.

Oh hell, these places are almost
becoming de rigueur as fear symbols.

Jolly well, bloody old de rigueur, eh?

Well, if one is had a fatuous life,
one might as well have fatuous nightmares.

But I am frightened.

You will not get me, you fucking bastards.

That's right children, go in, go in.

Why not in Claude's house?

Let battle commence.

Yes, in here.

Bang on Clive Langham,
get it down, no. No, stop.

It could seem vulgar and must not.

Now, that's fascinating, eh?

Yes, I approve of that.
Do get on with it children.

My god, he doesn't look
as if it's urgent though.

Not angry when rejected but wistful.

Good, good.

But what about the tyrannical
lawyer himself? Where would he be?

Ok, so in his office then.

And furthermore father...

since there's no point in
telephoning you, far less in visiting you.

Which would only be exposing ourselves
to our now familiar mutual recriminations.

Damn it all father, you're a rich man.

But if you must do your dying
with such a disgusting lack of dignity.

Why don't you do it in a
nursing home? Or some such place.

Where they can stand in
amazed, well paid tolerance.,

While you shout and drink and
protest your way to death's dark door.

The silence when you reach the other...

side will be our only
reassurance that you actually gone.

And I could add, .I could add.

When you find yourself potentially alone.

You sod, you odious, sanctimonious...

stiff necked little crumb,
I'm not having this, by god.

Watch it Langham, the blood pressure.

I mean to say, if I don't know
how to die at least I knew how to live.

But what about that mistress of yours my son?

What did I do with her?

- Don't tell me I mislaid her.
- ♪ I diddle I-de, a drunken life for me. ♪

Damned it I'm giving you
to the dreaded Claude.

Oh, I could do with you myself.

If I could just get off this bed,
out of this coffin of a room.

Yes, you'll do for the moment,
you can be Claude's mistress.

Quick, quick, quick, first
name into the mind, Helen Wiener.

Yeah, intellectual journalist.

Goes to conferences on every
bloody thing, that's you Helen Wiener.

Just another wee drinkie whilst
they get you onto Terra firma.

Did you know?

Did you know, those astronauts
who have been to the moon.

It's had a peculiar effect on some of them.

Lurching about on a lump of
frozen rock, hanging in space.

Claude is due back.

I think of God's eyes
watching them, a pair of huge...

brilliant eyes somewhere
out there beyond the sun...

brighter then the sun.

Kevin, I'm not overawed by the universe.

It's a very peaceful
place you have here, you and...

Claude should like it
quite a lot I should imagine.

And you also imagine that
we should get out before he arrives?

I've never done this before.

I always thought if I did it would be
somewhere else and in the sweat of guilt.

- On his account.
- I'm quite easy in most situations.

You see there's every indication
that some of the astronauts...

have been profoundly
disturbed by going out there.

- Kevin.
- Yes?

Why are you so bloody
obsessed by the fucking astronauts?

- Why you go on about the astronauts?
- Well I think it all has its poetic side.

Clomping about under the stars and so on.

Sod the moon, no poetry there anymore.

Another of those
stabbing pains right up the arse.

Then another stinger
coming right down the spine.

Meet the one from the backside.

Out there, in the icy universe...

nothing.

Physiological disaster...

there'll be some reddish brown
stains on the underpants yesterday.

No more doctors.

You know, I suppose he
meet his mistress in a motel.

No...

Hear Claude, hear.

You can't, not now, mustn't go home.

Inconvenient.

Or is it...

Now...

Am I springing Claude on them?

Will give me no end of fun.

With me it was almost the other way round,
husbands catching me with their wives.

Bang, thump, wallop, down you go Langham.

Always the bungler.

Never caught anyone with my wife.

I don't actually smell sex.

Hasn't there been any?

You should meet my brother.

He'd take it just like you,
he's a famous footballer.

The telephone, why not?

What would you say was interesting
about him? I mean, what exactly is the...

point about him, his attraction?

Any clues about yourself Woodford? Any ideas?

If your wife is attracted to me,
I think that's your problem not mine.

I don't think I've ever been
a problem, have I Claude?

Problems have a way of acquiring
status in a relationship, you see.

Hello?

Helen.

Where?

No, I'm having a drink
in the bedroom with my wife...

and the young man she seems keen on.

Now? Yes.

Right away.

Who's Helen?

I despise you Woodford.

- I'm sorry about that.
- He's frightfully unattractive.

It doesn't matter whether
you're good enough for my wife...

are you good enough for me?

- I really don't think so.
- Who is Helen?

- I don't remember.
- I don't remember, eh?

I think he'd better
get off and meet old Helen.

Oh, there goes another thing.

Slip the suppository into position.

No such luck for me, a sudden coronary.

No, has to be slow, squalid and messy things.

Live by the guts and die by the guts.

Now, let science soothe the troubled rectum.

And back to business.

Who does not know the mixture of fear and
excitement going to meet an old flame.

Carrying one's thundering prick.

Already composing the get out clauses, just
in case she's cooked up an actual demand...

or the erstwhile reliable member
should fail in it's exquisite duties.

And what's more if the new encounter
should turn out disastrous from the word go.

Will one be able to get rid of her
with a dash of style? A little panache?

Not you Woodford, damn and bugger
you, Christ he's intractable this one.

I'll never get the hang of him. Out. Out.

She looks like his mother.

Clearly the boy must've an
unconscious mind, just like everybody else.

Oh, Molly.

- You look well.
- I'm dying.

Have you ever heard of
an allegedly famous footballer...

called Woodford?

How's your wife?

I'm thinking of killing
this footballer's brother.

It's one of those rare, slow, deadly
diseases you can have without knowing.

Then suddenly accelerates and
nothing can stop it or reverse it.

Suddenly you are not just
aging, you are irrevocably dying.

- How's your father?
- He's still dying.

Well, he's an old man.

There's no necessary connection between one's
age and the length of time taken to die.

I am told I have about six months.

- Maybe a year.
- We must make the most of it.

What a bastard, great, smashing.

Of course it's been said about my work...

that the search for style is
often resulted in a want of feeling.

My goodness, does he find this erotic?

However I'd put it another
way I'd say that style is feeling.

Its most elegant and economic expression.

Ten out of ten Clive Langham.

Christ, it's the bloody footballer,
the dreaded younger Woodford.

He can't just, just trundle in here
and take a shower, can he?

So what to do? I suppose we could
start up again in another hotel.

We could live together.

And leave Sonia? To watch me die?

Shouldn't everyone live as if they're about
to die, not next week nor next month but now?

Anyway, it's impossible.

So how do you and Sonia live?

In a state of unacknowledged mutual
exhaustion behind which we scream...

silently.

Sounds binding.

I learn self control as a reaction
against my father, it started as a habit...

then became a trap.

We squirmed. How you get out?

- Maybe you really scream.
- No, never have.

No, you have to have a
big passion, a compelling reason.

I've had neither of
those, neither, I think, has she.

How glad I am, I chose to live alone.

- Right from the beginning.
- Are you?

- I feel nothing at all.
- He can say that again.

Damn.

He'll be bloody well blind anyway.

Poor Claude.

What a thin owlish little sod you
were at school, prig from the word go.

Ought we not always to
live as if one is going to die.

Eyes like marbles.

Why haven't you got the Nobel Prize daddy?

Our English master says you aren't
nearly as good as Graham Greene.

Beset the bugger, say I.

Some of us, fuck face...

wonder why Graham Greene
hasn't got the Nobel Prize either.

He once offered to
teach me how to masturbate.

- Your father?
- I was deeply shocked.

He'll have to go into a nursing home of
course. Eight housekeepers in five months.

Nobody tries still, he tries to screw them.

You are not going to put that
extraordinary old man in a nursing home.

That purely incontinent, aging infant.

You just resent his independence,
just as you'd resent mine, if I had any.

You're not a husband or
a son, you're a goddamn jailer.

How's Kevin?

And being a goddamn jailer is the
nearest thing you've got to an instinct.

You must want him very much.

Well, I don't want you very much.

- Not anymore...
- You must be forcefully attracted to him.

I want.

I want.

I suppose you fancy he's got the
poetic spirit or something like that.

I want, I would like...

I...

I...

I. First person singular.

Do I have to oppose you to
reassure myself that I exist?

Let's just say there's something
in Kevin that intrigues me.

In him?

You mean inside him? A kind of visionary?

Funny pictures, in his head?

- Chubby little people with wings?
- Get out.

Get out. Get out.

Now look I do insist, we
must do something about father.

When will you pull yourself
together? You're always sniveling.

Shall we never be free of you?

Well, yes father I,
I admire your books very much.

I think you're a very fine writer indeed.

And I hope that you die with every
nerve end in your body shrieking.

When will you pull yourself
together? You're always sniveling.

Shall we never be free of you?

Yes, father I...

- Well, yes I do.
- He's improving, improving.

So now...

how about a half of cold champagne.

Petite truffles.

Damn footballer, must've got
lost in that hotel somewhere.

Molly...

if you're out there in the
cosmic dark somewhere...

don't wait for me.

I'm not coming.

There we go.

The tremors, the warnings.

Once death seemed like a gentlest
earthquake of the system, but now...

gathering force, the years.

What I really mean to say Molly
is of course, I'd prefer not to come.

I think we'll try this one again.

How's Helen?

He killed her. Father killed her really.

Those holidays of ours
at Cap Ferrat, he tortured her.

He was always randy when he had a hangover.

There's a chap in football
gear jogging along the street.

I haven't been, no,
I wouldn't say bored with you.

Self eliminating, yes.

- Clever of you to catch me at seventeen.
- Well I've been dreaming you'd wake up.

- You became my authority.
- There's a deep sadness.

You remain my only authority.

As if dreaming is my
only real level of existence.

And so I passed from...

childhood, more or less to wife hood?

Without the tiresome intervention of a
developing personality in between.

I'm not a person, I'm a fucking construction.

Yours.

Was.

After certain dreams nothing
in waking life can have such intensity.

Even if it's a common fiction...

it's still poignant.

One thinks, ho-hum.

You might as well drink my drink too.

Not Molly, you can't have my wife.

Do I resemble your mother?

There's something.

Mugged.

Yes mugged.

This city is definitely falling to pieces.

All hell out there sometimes.

My last conscious words were...

on the question of
subatomic particles gentlemen.

One gets confused by
what is infinitely small.

And what is infinitely large.

The mind buckles.

The head aches.

Much more violently than
the impact of your fists gentlemen.

- So this is how it was?
- This is how it was.

Nothing can compare
with the memories of childhood.

And yours and mine of each others.

I think I began to love you because
I knew straight away you wouldn't...

invade me, colonize me.

Not some kind of moral
achievement on your part, it's just that I...

suppose you simply exhausted
your prejudices on your wife.

How penetrating.

Truly, I wouldn't have lived
as I have if I'd met you first.

I now look back on all
those years with bitter skepticism.

I'm ready to defect.

It's a little late.

Aren't you rather letting
yourself down by saying that?

I thought you were bored and disgusted by
the idea of living with someone continuously.

How you and father would've fought.

There's a terrific fire across
the city, the sky is red for miles.

Are you still here?

What your opinions on adultery?

You care about the nature of things?

Have you got a
philosophical bent? Do you worry?

- What you think of my wife's body?
- It isn't the point.

I beg your pardon?

Let me put it this way, it isn't the point.

Did you hear that old boy?

She has a concise way of putting things.
Well, what you make of it?

What do you make of love?

How'd you like to run away with her?

There's no need to run anywhere.

I've already left you, so why run?
We can manage perfectly well just as we are.

See if you can cope, I'd be fascinated, you
will continue to exert self control I'm sure.

The chap is an enigma, he really is.

She is an enterprising fuck
though, isn't she?

I'm always content where I am.

My husband you see Kevin,
Claude, is committed to self control.

He exaggerates of course, it's a performance.

If you knew him you'd realize
he has no emotions to control.

My wife has turned your head. Oh yes she had.

I can tell the signs.

Woodford, don't go to sleep.

- I know you have inner peace.
- And you have inner stagnation.

Childhood is shattering, I can see
that you must've got off to a bad start.

But you've got more than your
fair share of inner peace old boy.

You'll have to be put down.

Like a mad dog as they say.

Sonia, put him down at once.

- Where's the lady?
- Going for a swim.

- Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
- I get around.

Aren't you the famous footballer?

Or is it cricket?

Steady, I believe I'm the affronted party.

After all it is your brother
who's screwing my wife, isn't it?

He's not screwing anybody, isn't Kevin.

You spend very much time
jogging about town dressed like that?

- Oh, training are we? Big match coming on.
- I'm very famous indeed, see.

And an equally serious occupation
of mine is taking care of our Kevin.

- He needs it, he needs it.
- Our childhood Mr. Langham.

We was brought up like pigs.

My goodness.

You do seem to be
a very serious sort of chap.

It's a fine game
football, beautiful to watch.

Well, you know.

I mean as a general
activity it seems meaningless...

but the form, pattern, is elegant.

If it is football.

Choreographically there's
plenty of poetry there, plenty, plenty.

Oh, when one gets hold of the ball and...

tickles it along.

Can I do anything for you famous footballer?

Ah, this'll never do.

Won't do at all.

Can't have people thumping
our poor old bloody Claude.

Can we?

Oh, for Christ's sake, the pains are
banging in my neck like sodding tom-toms.

Oh, is it the arteries?

Or the jugular.

Going to burst?

Then spew out, living, red juice.

Helen? Molly?

The pains are catching up with me,
In the end I shall call for morphine.

No hero, not heroic, never was.

Do you see Molly? They're
taking some of them away.

But not you my love.

No...

What a punctual fellow you are, come on.

Miss Boon.

Ah Miss Boon,
how erotic you look this morning.

This is my friend Woodford.

He used to be in the army.

But now he's nothing more,
nor less, than a failed astronaut.

That's his, his brother Dave.

The famous footballer.

What can I do for you
Mr. Langham and or Mr. Woodford?

Well you see, frankly.

My wife is thinking
of taking him away with her.

He has to be taken otherwise he'd never go.

He's never had the urge for Bangkok...

Venice, Tokyo.

Any of those places you and I would side for.

Woodford, sit down and explain your problem.

Well...

it all started after his
wife had asked me out to lunch.

I'd just been acquitted of murder.

What's more I think that he and Sonia
should've a quiet, beautiful place...

where they can fuck, night and day.

- A sort of backdrop of a place.
- I don't even know his wife, not really.

Nonetheless, bundle him
out of the country we must.

Before I shoot him.

You approve of violence Miss Boon?

- Certainly not.
- Neither do I.

It reeks of spontaneity.
Come, come, young Buddha.

Right, now...

Yes.

Where was I? In the travel agent.

In case there's a myocardial
infarction but patient.

No.

Jesus, that was a spear of fire.

So.

Dress the creature, will you?

- What was that Mr. Langham?
- Dress the creature, don't bugger about.

He can't walk with my wife dressed like that.

Yes Mr.Langham.

Dress not the humble exterior clay
Mr. Jennings, but the man within.

Oh come, come, come.

I have to leave for my gun maker by noon.

Your father rang yesterday,
ordered a dozen shirts.

Shirts?

He should be ordering shrouds.

Yes, yes into bed.

Ah, there that's better.

A little whiskey this time?

Why not?

Where do they say the
thrombosis, the symptoms?

Now, there's a symptom
my, my such a type is this?

Now just look at that Clive Langham,
that isn't quite something of a heart, eh?

Marvelous to behold, stiff as a...

Watch out, watch out.

You look very cool this morning, very lovely.

Those gloves.

Molly was always fond of
wearing gloves like those.

In the summer, at the races.

- Who?
- What?

- Molly?
- I don't know anyone called Molly.

- But you just said...
- I can't remember what I just said.

How curious.

You see, Molly was Claude's
mother, she committed suicide.

Because well, as it turned out
she was already dying and in great pain.

Claude, of course, considers her death
as crucial evidence against his father.

How strange.

- So is this.
- What?

I've got an erection.

Oh, so you have. Is it urgent?

- It isn't mine.
- Then who's is it Woodford?

I mean if it's going to break up my marriage
we have the right to know the culprit.

You can't just bring your
erection into my marriage Woodford...

and then disown it.

Your own flesh and blood.

Do you think he resembles the elder Langham?

He was prone to random
erections, that's one thing I do know.

I'm quite prepared to be
civilized about the whole business.

I though to it might help keep my
own pecker up, as you might say.

- If I invited my mistress.
- Oh, that ridiculous word.

Our dear Molly, of the
long white summer gloves.

You met her, she must've
had about thirty pairs.

I would say that anyone that'd take you on
in that role must be nothing short of heroic.

Could she be conducting some
obscure form of research I wonder?

Dear Helen, what a crusader
for women's rights she was.

In her time.

And how nice to be able to relax
when one's intellectual convictions...

now and then, with the man
who finds them so unconvincing.

You know Woodford,
I even detest the way you eat.

- Do you like the way he masticates?
- I'm more interested in how he fornicates.

I'm more interested in how he fornicates.

Splendid word, fornicate.

Yes.

Twilight.

Dawn.

How darkness creeps into the blood.

Darkness...

the chill obsidian fingers.

A little more venom children.

A little more violence.

Not hard to come by.

Violence, is quite unnecessary.

Rows, scenes, exhibitions.

I myself posses nothing with such
tenacity, that I cannot bear its loss.

On the other hand.

I cannot lose with such
equanimity that I will not have my say.

Do you think we should
look upon this occasion...

as a very civilized board meeting?

You obviously have no intention
of hearing the truth from anyone.

- You're the lady who's dying?
- Isn't the boy refreshingly direct.

I gather that his mind is in
outer space for most of the time.

So when it returns to us it has all the
uneasy candor of a cosmic scale of values.

Yes, I'm the lady who's dying.

I feel closer to someone who's dying.

I once killed a man who was
already dying, he asked me to.

I think it was a peaceful
experience for both of us.

I don't think we
have to go into all that again.

- Do we?
- He wouldn't dare, would he?

Oh Claude, some people might
say you're your own worst enemy...

- but I'd say you're your only best friend.
- I went on trial for murder.

I think in some other period of history
I might've done quite well as a saint.

- One of those that got burnt at the stake.
- Woodford.

What do you think about Bangkok?

Palm trees, beaches, that kind of thing.

Maybe I should just take
you out and thrash you.

You'll have noticed, as I did
early on in our marriage.

- Claude is a very frightened man.
- He's frightened of himself, that's all.

It's a great deal, it haunts him.

He's tragically incomplete.

He admits no rage.

How do you find him?

Much the same as you do Sonia,
but in my case, right from the beginning,

I've used him.

Quite tenderly though.

- I shall put him in my next novel.
- Before you die?

Garrote him with words.
Its an amusing little bourgeois.

Another bomb.

They're closing in.

I suppose in the last resort we
could always blame the bourgeoisie.

Don't you blame the bourgeoisie
Woodford? Are you political at all?

You know the jargon old boy?

My father was a great
revolutionary, in his time, inside his head.

What is a bourgeois Woodford?

What if not someone
who simply has lost faith...

in the capacity of human
nature for radical transformation.

Do we have the slightest
shred of evidence to the contrary?

Do we have the slightest
shred of evidence to the contrary?

That's not amusing at all.

Kidney walloping, his
balls the size of three.

Revolutionary, inside my head.

Well, where else damn buggers.

Evolution.

Ah, Molly.

Your breasts, a biological triumph.

Ditto the thighs.

And the little tuft of hair so snug between.

Bless you.

Very amusing.

Listen, if Claude every
blamed me for your death...

he will grimly blame me for my own too.

Well, it's typical of the way in which...

parents and their children
approach the problem of justice.

- Does all this embarrass you Miss Lister?
- Yes sir.

- Hard words for a dying man.
- Since you mention it Mr. Langham.

But he's not dying.

He's having what you might
call a long drawn out tantrum.

In addition to which
he has the bloody effrontery...

to draw attention to himself by withdrawing
to that enormous, royalist, expensive house.

And what is it to you after all Miss Lister?

- Why are you crying?
- I thought him a very impressive man.

He hadn't more than one.

- Why shouldn't I get fucked by a genius.
- Why shouldn't I be fucked by a genius.

I remember Molly...

when Claude was about fifteen he said
something I've always remembered.

At dinner it was.

I was half drunk as usual.

And you were dark with misery, as usual.

Very grave and thoughtful he was.

Rather pompous, as usual.

Don't you think father he said,
that one of the tasks of growing up...

is to discover moral language.

Something as absolute in
its way as a logical proposition?

- I thought you might come to see me.
- I was drawn to you.

- Morbidly?
- You reassure me.

Somehow you seem quiet.

One thing I can say about my
personal experience of dying...

somehow removes the problem
of willing things, how's the wine?

- Nutty.
- Claude always drinks white wine.

Anyone who cares for Claude should
always make sure to have white wine.

When you love someone
your sensitive to their tastes.

It's rarely mutual and
that's because one is rarely loved.

Between the terrorist bombs
and the demolition of all those...

lovely old buildings
there soon won't be much left.

Let me just tell you what
was like all those years.

I wish you wouldn't.

Your father behaved
as if I simply did not exist.

- My father...
- When you went away to...

school I was desolate.

One of his more childishly insulting
games was to pretend that I wasn't there.

That he didn't know me.

He was giving some lectures
once in Vienna and he didn't...

introduce me to a single person in ten days.

There was this big public
reception on the last evening...

and someone says,
why don't you introduce your friend.

He just turned and stared at me in silence
and I was trembling in embarrassment.

He said, I haven't the faintest
idea who she is, he said to me.

I haven't the faintest idea who she is.

I think you noticed everything.

No wonder you became a remote little boy
and grew into a cold, hard young man.

I began to loathe
you as much as I feared him.

Will you kindly get out of my mind Molly.

Will you please stop
interfering with my last feeble efforts.

Suicide.

Surely, in your case an act
of vengeance on the living.

Oh, cross out.

And transpose the long
suffering Woodford to...

to...

Ah Wooders, chased me down then, have you?

I don't know how I got here.

When in doubt attempt a little style,
surprise them, keep them off balance.

Establish your unpredictability.

I needn't tell you that, need I?

If you didn't love my mother...

at least you needn't to destroyed her.

- What's that?
- I mean...

Did you create hell all these years
just to have something to write about.

Oh, Wooders, Wooders, do try again.

I really saw Claude that day in
court when he was prosecuting you.

I hated him, it tipped
some delicate balance in my mind.

I know that marrying him was
my own choice but at seventeen...

That man, he saw me as I saw myself...

which was as a reflection
of how others saw me.

- I've never even been unfaithful to him.
- Including now.

I wish you could convince him.

My life and Claude's is
been highly organized.

- I can see that.
- To achieve...

Yes.

- The minimum possible friction.
- How ambitious.

- How you regard suicide?
- Terminal.

They just thought me we might blow
each other's brains out, if we had a gun.

I thought we would
make love, if we had the desire.

I just thought, lying
alone in bed last night that...

a middle aged women's fantasies are not
humiliating and I will not reject them.

I would just like the idea of
my freedom to be more than a...

patronizing smear on Claude's face.

Finally one loses
control of everything, body...

memory.

They keep me here in
this frightening place, waiting.

Watching the tragic fate of theirs.

Have they got you Molly?

Fragments of the remote past, become vivid.

I do remember...

a green branch waving
against the blue sky, over my head.

Rustling leaves.

Claude.

I thought you might like
to meet Kevin Woodford.

How do you do?

Not very well.

I think something must've gone
wrong at some early stage.

It could be childhood.

But then I don't suppose we could
spend the rest of our lives...

attributing it to that.

What I'm searching for...

Mr. Langham?

Is a moral language.

If I don't leave you,
I'll probably make you suffer for it.

You understand?

I blame you for nothing,
I don't even blame myself.

So what then is this huge, huge
sense of spiritual emptiness.

Commonplace.

- Yours is the misery of triviality.
- And yours?

I don't suffer.

Who could possibly ever forgive you for that?

I thought you might come to see me.

I wanted you to know that I don't
intend to change my life in any way.

- I propose, as it were, to let you down.
- I simply wonder.

Whether my arrival might provoke
some sort of crisis in your life.

- Do you think a crisis would be good for me?
- Your father thought so.

I cabled him.

This is his reply.

Death no problem. Stop.

My son, an emotional cripple.

Stop.

By all means descend
on him if it will amuse you.

Stop.

Set and game to father.

Set...

and game...

to father.

Woodys.

Wooders.

Woodford.

- You don't look quite yourself.
- Not at all the same person.

I got to put you out of your misery.

- Or should I say my misery?
- Get on with it then.

How you must've driven my mother.

Did it amuse you to pretend that
you didn't recognize her in public?

I'm her witness.

And I propose to kill you.

- Such hatred.
- Not hatred.

- Justice.
- In my own curious fashion.

I think, I've always loved you.

Children not here yet?

They rang on their way down, about half
an hour ago sir. They won't be long.

- Yes, did you find me out here this morning?
- No sir, on the bathroom floor.

Pissed?

I took the liberty of bathing and
dressing you sir, then bring you down here.

- I thought perhaps the sun...
- Another bloody awful night.

Kept on waking up and
trying to jot a few things down.

Then needless to say,
more boozes and more nightmares.

I'm sorry Mr. Langham.

Karen I want everything to be
especially wonderful today.

We don't often get the
chance to see them, do we?

It shall be the very
best week in due Mr. Langham.

Your old age is got to be so bloody awful.

I think we have the right to indulge them
in a few compensatory foibles, don't you eh?

- I think I hear Mr. Claude's car now sir.
- Alright then, raise me up a bit, will you?

- Here we are sir.
- Thank you.

Sonia, Claude.

Children, come quickly, take a paw each.

Happy birthday Clive.

Happy birthday father.

Come my dears, sit down. Lots of
boozes on the way, damn good lunch too.

- What's the talk, eh?
- Don't you want to see your presents?

My dear girl at my age one either lives
just long enough to make presents useless...

or not long enough to
make the question relevant.

Where are they? Where are they?

Nils, Nils, Nils. Wine, wine, wine.

If you please.

And what the fuck is this?

Well this is my contribution, it belonged
to Ernest Hemingway or so they told me.

I bet they bloody well did.

What a brilliant
inspiration, thank you Sonia.

Of course you know he wasn't anything like
such a damned innovator as they all make out.

What's this? What's this?

Oh, not old bum Peter's latest dribble.

Ah, Claude dear boy, always so
maladroit when it comes to presents.

The Scales of Time,
that sounds provocatively obscure.

I might just ask old bum face you know, if
I can use it as the title for my new novel.

Very flattered he'd be.
Delighted my dear Langham.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

Just can't wait to see his
sycophantic expression.

Father.

Is that Kevin? Is that my favorite bastard?

Don't you think
have only one bastard after...

60 years of action is
almost tantamount to self denial?

- And all the way from bloody old Geneva.
- The only one you admitted to.

That's right, I signed a piece
of paper, like a dog license.

Happy birthday.

- Hello Claude, have we just made it.
- Good

Sonia.

- How are things?
- Good.

- I thought you were in Geneva?
- Well, I was in Geneva.

Come to have the
last glimpse before I pop off, eh?

Oh, now that is functional.

Especially as I'm half
sodding blind these days.

- I thought you'd like the workmanship.
- Those Victorians.

I once knew a Victorian.

- How are the physical sciences?
- Astrophysics, father.

Same damn thing, bound to turn out that way.

I once knew a woman with
tits like a spiraled nebula.

Karen tells me you haven't been well.

How are the dreaded law courts, my son?

I do wish you'd let us know
when you're not feeling well Clive.

Oh, you know how it is.

The heart pumps as if it was trying to push
a tonne of shit through a concrete wall.

The lungs don't so much breath as
squeak ineffectually for mercy.

One continues to smoke and drink too much.

If only they let me get my
hands on a pretty little nurse.

They always sends me hags, you know.

But a nice new belle
girl and I might even manage...

to go out of this world
screwing too much as well.

How's the new book coming along father?

Who are you disemboweling this time?

Seventy eight fucking years old today.

Molly would've been seventy one.

I know you adored her.

But for me you had nothing more
profound, damn it, than disapproval.

It's your birthday father.

You know it seems only
yesterday you and I were having...

solemn conversations
about your becoming an astronaut.

It must be fifteen years ago.

And when was that first
Russian thing? Sput-something.

Nik, Sputnik, whirling some
poor damn dog around the planet.

I used to think I was a Bolshevik, you know.

Centuries ago.

It wasn't revolution which
frightened him, it was the revolutionaries.

Quite...

But...

Ok then chaps.

More, more, more of that
exquisite chilled, that lovely wine please.

Claude easily shies away
from you, he always has.

He might never admit it,
but he's always disproved of me.

You know the trouble
with Claude is that he's...

lead such an impeccable
life, not one detectable vice.

I'm his detectable vice.

Never could get my teeth into him.

- And then my wife committed suicide.
- Oh, no must you, especially today.

- Hasn't he ever had a mistress?
- Neither of us has had anyone.

Haven't you ever got bored with it all?

Wanted to take off for Bangkok with
some well hung hippie or something.

No, for the hundredth time,
we've been very happy.

He and I could never get things cleared up.

His mother?

- I never knew.
- You will nag at it.

You baffle me Sonia,
you've always been opaque to me.

But then, I've always liked enigmatic women.

- Ah, he's watching us.
- Well, why shouldn't he?

I've always been able to sense him
watching me, even when he was a boy.

- God, I felt ill last night.
- You look well today.

Don't deceive yourself, death creeps on.

You're afraid?

I disapprove of death.

You begin to sniff the
temptation of believing in something.

Will it be harder to die without god?

Your turn will come.

Do you intend to die with god?

I don't think about it.

For god's sake drink something, will you?

First dead man of the day.

Who's going to be the second I wonder.

What about the law then?
What is law? Whose fucking law?

But your, managing to look
pretty sleek on it young Langers.

- Remember those summers in Cap Ferrat?
- I'm not senile yet, you know.

- When mother used to put out..
- Who?

When mother used to put out the
chilled wine and the prawns.

- When we were swimming.
- Mildly pissed by lunchtime.

The longest time we were
ever together you know.

Parents ought to have the discretion
not to impose on their children.

Beyond a certain point.

Oh, I didn't give a damn about you
wandering around the world all that time.

Your boozing and your
women, those absurd scandals.

No I realized that the search for a moral...

language had to
yield to the incomprehensible.

Matter of fact, I always thought you
were a rather conventional old shit.

So I was, so I was, sharp
little bugger you must've been.

You know the point about being
conventionally unconventional...

is that it provides a mask behind which
one's true squalor can rest in peace.

Well, relative peace.

People still get hurt
though, women, family friends.

Cats, dogs, mice, pigeons...

For your mother to die was one thing.

For her to cut her wrists all by herself in
the middle of the night was quite another.

Rather excessive, don't you think?

When it was terminal cancer?

Seemed to me logical
at the time, I didn't blame you.

I've never been hurt by you.

I suppose that means that
you think that I think you were.

Sometimes.

Your beginning to sound
like someone performing the last rites.

Claude, lunch is ready.

- He said you and I are a bit unreal.
- Yes, I know he thinks that.

Are we?

- That's for my benefit.
- I think it's for theirs.

Karen, Nils. Splendid. Excellent.

Don't give a damn if the stomach
is fucked then fuck it some more.

Your father sir, he never treat service.

- Ever I saw a bloody old bourgeois.
- Your father is not an immoral man.

- What?
- He is simply a...

One many have disapproved of.

A bourgeois...

is merely a man who refuses to
accept the ideological muse.

You know children this
effing pain I get up the ass.

No father, no.

The bourgeois is
only the man who understands...

the ideological
muse as the death of his values.

I suppose I'm one of them.

I don't know if my values
are correct or incorrect.

They're just the moral
structures by which I can live.

The only question is young
Langers, what are they?

Honesty. Scrupulousness. Discrimination.

Protectiveness. Tenderness.

Aversion to violence
and the conscious practice of terror.

Hardly the monopoly of the bourgeoisie.

What's more he's confusing
private virtue with public justice.

Is he naive or just a hypocrite?

To my father on his seventy eighth birthday.

Live long father.

I love you all very much.

I shall continue to refuse to die.

Besides I have a book to finish.

To all of you my dears, to your future.

Nothing is written.

We all believe that, don't we?

One last thing, after this
strange and marvelous afternoon.

Sonia, Claude, Kevin...

Just leave, now please.

With neither kiss, nor touch.

With my blessing.

I think there's time for just one more.