Umbracle (1972) - full transcript
Absurdist protest movie set in Francoist Spain.
To understand censorship
in the Spanish film industry,
we have to take into account
that until 1973
it was completely arbritrary.
There where no written rules.
It was the result
of what the pertinent commission
of civil servants thought.
But the political evolution
of the country,
the transition from autarchy
and Falangism
to the neo-capitalism
of the Opus Dei
in the early sixties
a series of changes
were brought about.
These changes
rationalized Spanish life
in the economic, commercial
and industrial aspects.
Within this new politics
of Opus Dei
one of the areas affected
was that of the film industry.
The application of the set codes
depends on how they are applied
in order for them
to be more or less severe.
I will read some of the rules
and will comment on them.
For example, rule 14
of this censorship code
forbids the disparaging
or undignified presentation
of political ideologies
when in our country
many anti-soviet,
anti-revolutionary and anti-socialist
movies have been exhibited.
Of course,
this rule
has been interpreted
to favor the reactionary
and fascist film industry.
Rule 15
states that films
that promote hatred
between races and social
classes will be forbidden.
It's ridiculous.
Rule 16 states that films
whose theme neglects
the duty of defending
the homeland will be forbidden.
A very militaristic approach.
Rule 17 states
that anything against
the Catholic Church,
its dogma, its morals, its rites,
or against the basic principles
of the State, national identity,
interior or exterior security,
and against the Chief of State
will be forbidden.
These rules
clearly protect
the country's establishment.
In some cases, there will be
grotesquely ambiguous rules.
For example,
there is a very funny one,
rule 18, which states:
when the accumulations of scenes
which in themselves present no fault
yet collectively present
a lustful, brutal,
crude or morbid atmosphere,
the film will be forbidden.
In other words, scenes or shots
which in themselves are harmless
can also lead
to the prohibition of a film.
Again, the biggest paradox
lies in rule 34,
which is the key rule.
All these rules
will be applied equally
to all films submitted to censorship
regardless of nationality.
The code prohibits justification of
suicide, murder out of compassion,
revenge and duels,
divorce, adultery,
illicit sexual relationships,
prostitution, abortion
and birth control.
There is a long list. And finally,
rule 12
forbids the images or scenes
of cruelty
to people or animals,
or of terror.
This is hypocritical because
the police in this country
uses terrorist methods
on the streets,
brutality against civilians,
workers, students,
yet this hypocrisy forbids
showing on a screen
the brutality and terror
which it itself practices.
Finally, there is a general rule
under which everything falls.
Blasphemous, pornographic
and subversive films
will be forbidden for any audience
In other words,
pornography, subversion
and blasphemy are measured
with the same ruler.
It does, however,
reveal the political philosophy
of the regime as a whole.
Censorship is applied
at two levels.
There is an initial
application to the script.
Any Spanish film
has to go through
a script censorship first
which will cut, modify or simply,
the script will be forbidden.
Secondly, once the film is made
based on the approved script,
it will have to go
through a second censorship.
These two filters
applying these codes
make it practically impossible
to have freedom of expression.
Among the worst effects
of this censorship code
in my mind
is the inhibition,
the brutal self-censorship
which it leads to
and which is translated
into the self-castration
of its producers
and script-writers,
in other words, they won't write
a scene for fear of its being cut.
Their imagination is compressed
and the result leads to a weakening
of the scripts themselves.
The conclusion is clear in that:
the only kind of cinema
of some interest
and related somewhat
to reality
and in which there is
a minimum amount of self-expression
by the creators, falls
outside the realms of legality.
It is marginal cinema,
a cinema
which has become clandestine
due to its legal status.
From this standpoint,
there are clearly
two possibilities,
two alternatives which are
more or less practiced.
The last word will be
in the hands of those in filmmaking.
On the one hand, there is
a militant cinema,
cinema which for whatever reason
has not been able to be seen,
and then on the other hand,
a cinema which due to circumstances,
has faced the impossibility
of legal viability.
In a way
it forces marginal,
clandestine cinema
to disentangle itself from the sinister
tradition of self-censorship
which has always fallen heavily
on the Spanish film industry.
Yet, on the other hand,
it offers the film maker
the possibility of researching,
or looking for ways
which will be more meaningful
with his media. And above all,
it will help him get involved
and to communicate
through this new distribution
channel in which he works.
This type of film making,
whose dissemination won't be easy,
at least among us,
is a type of film that could
reach a ready
and qualified audience.
Not a massive or
indiscriminate audience
as we see
in our movie theaters today.
I think one can talk
about underground cinema
as a cultural option
within a system,
a cultural option as a reply
to that system
without trying to break it
but work alongside it.
However, in the experience
of what has been called
underground cinema
in Madrid and Barcelona,
the intention has been
to integrate oneself
into the profession
but through parallel channels.
As for the ideological
meaning of these films,
I think we can refer to them
as types of psychodramas
or almost subconscious
presentations
of the frustrations
or conditioning
of their creators.
By no means are they
considered as works of art
in the sense that they portray
a view of a life
far from the creators'
own frustrations
or of their own egos,
or are they films with
political or even
militant implications.
On this last point of political
and militant cinema
we should probably point out
that there is,
in all cultural works,
a political and ideological
implication,
which is to say, seeing
the ideological/political significant
in any work of art.
But, at the same time, we find
that there exists
a militant cinema and literature
in the sense that the objective
has a political end.
We are no longer
living the times
when a team of the Opus Dei
within the government
tries and opening-up process
towards the exterior,
the exterior being understood
as a supposed
liberalization of the regime.
This proves to be a failure
due to the fact that the government
is incapable of controlling
this supposed liberalization
and the repercussions
resulting from this liberalization
which deeply attacks its politics.
It is then obliged
to take a hard line again.
This hard line goes back
to that taken after the Civil War
both at political
and cultural levels.
And film making
is submitted
to the same conditioning
and the impossibility of creating
a new Spanish film industry
to replace the earlier one.
FRAGMENT OF INFINITE FRONT
1956, PEDRO LAZAGA.
- The Father is inside.
- Bad timing for your arrival, Captain.
- Where's Father?
- He's around here somewhere.
Father Herrera, come on!
- Father.
- I can't! I can't!
I have tried but...
Sometimes I wonder if God refuses
to hear me beseeching him.
It's awful!
Do you realize
what you are saying?
No, I don't.
Get up. Get up, Father.
Once I told you that your mission
would be difficult.
You wear a uniform and a star.
This isn't a post of comfort
but one of sacrifice.
You can't evade fulfilling
your mission as a priest
however hard
and unpleasant it is.
As a priest and as an officer,
your post is here.
Here,
with no weaknesses of spirit
or of self-confessions.
Fight and overcome it
and pray.
Remember the excuse
Peter gave the Lord.
"Lord, I have tried
fishing all night
but haven't been successful."
God reprimanded him
and the apostle bowed his head.
"Trusting your word
I will throw my nets."
Remember it Father,
remember it.
And a miracle took place.
And if you do it this way, Father,
God will smile upon you
but he will let it be you
who makes the effort.
And this effort
will have its reward.
This is your war, Father.
Stand at attention
on the count of one.
Two.
And three.
At ease!
Attention!
Headquarters. Yes.
Captain.
Staff. Yes, yes, okay.
Thank you.
We have visitors.
- Enemy planes are approaching.
- Tell the Father.
Tell the Father to hurry up.
It's impossible to do that now.
He is doing the consecration.
Scatter yourselves, hurry!
This isn't anything major.
Paco!
Hello, hello, how are you?
How are you all?
- Hey, hey, how am I?
- How are you?
If I tell you how you are,
you won't get mad at me?
- I won't get mad.
- Are you sure? Then I will tell you.
My friend Tony,
you are very rude.
- What did you say?
- You are very rude.
Okay, then show me
why I am rude.
Okay, an explanation
of why you are rude.
Very simple.
The first thing you should do
when you stand
before an audience
is to take off your hat,
greet the public,
say good morning, good
afternoon, or good evening,
whatever you prefer.
You have this horrible habit
of not taking off your little hat.
- Hey, hey, give me my little hat.
- Nope, I won't.
- Give me the little hat.
- I won't give it to you.
- My head will get cold.
- Doesn't matter.
Look, I'm getting a bee in my bonnet
and it's going to get ugly.
Doesn't matter.
Look, I am not going to give it
to you. Let it be a lesson.
I don't want to give it to you.
Come here and kindly
don't play with my wardrobe.
- Give me my hat.
- Give me mine first.
No, Sir. You give me mine first.
- Today he doesn't trust me.
- So you don't want to give it to me.
Won't you give me my hat first?
You won't give it to me?
- You first.
- Oh yeah? Well, let's see.
If I make a comparison
and I convince you,
you will give me my hat.
Yes or no?
Well, if you can convince me
maybe I'll give it to you.
Good, I am going
to make a comparison.
Let's suppose that there is a large
hat shop right in front of here.
You are in front of this hat shop.
You go inside...
- and they show you a new...
- New.
- elegant...
- Elegant.
- fabulous...
- Tuberculous.
No, no. Fabulous.
With feathers,
a really lovely hat.
- An ugly hat?
- No, really lovely.
And then they show you
a really horrible one.
An old, green, bare...
Bare like its owner.
- Worth nothing.
- It cost me five...
Look, if someone were going
to give you one of them,
which one would you choose?
The new one or the old one?
Well... the new one!
You would choose the new one.
Well, that's it then.
Take mine because
it's the new one.
- That's not a bad comparison.
- Naturally.
- What did you say?
- Naturally, I convinced you.
- Yes. Naturally?
- Of course.
Well look, neither naturally
or factually.
You won't give it to me?
But let's see,
didn't I convince you?
- Yes.
- Then give me my hat right now.
Now it's my turn
to make a comparison.
That's a good one. You are going
to give me a comparison.
Go ahead.
- Let's suppose tomorrow you go out.
- I go out.
And one of those athletic types
passes in front of your house.
An athlete, a young man.
And from the other direction
comes a little old man
about 90 or 95 years old.
Okay, an old man.
Comes from the opposite direction.
They reach the middle and trip
and both fall.
Both fall on the ground.
Who would you help get up first,
the old or the young man?
What kind of a question is that?
Of course, I would help
the old man get up first.
Just like my hat,
which is 90 years old.
Well, that it just great!
You have really convinced me.
Here's your hat.
But hey,
now you pick up mine.
- Yours?
- Yep.
Well, since it's young
it can get up by itself.
Well, that is just great.
I didn't like that at all.
So you think
you are really smart, huh?
Of course.
So so smart.
Much smarter than you.
- Very good.
- Did you like it?
Let's play another.
Very good.
I have decided to make a slight
change in this pattern, as just to say…
As an actor I am now going to do
something which isn’t in the script,
which hasn’t been rehearsed and
which the director has not prepared.
I am going to do something,
so to speak, for myself.
I am going to sing.
I am going to sing because
I love singing and I love music
and because I was
a singer for a time.
But I have neverdone it on the
screen; I’ve never done it in a film.
I am also going to read
something from a poem.
I’m going to read from a poem by
Edgar Allan Poe called The Raven.
A beautiful poem.
Damn!
Excuse me.
Let's start all over. Sorry.
I'll start over
because I missed something.
Silence.
Cut!
Give it to me.
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe,
is I suppose, completely unique
in the English language.
It has a unique rhythm
and it has also
a unique atmosphere surrounding it.
I suppose, in a way, the central
figure who tells the story
is a little bit like
Edgar Allan Poe himself.
He was a sad, bitter,
lonely, unhappy man
and in this poem, of course,
we have just such a person.
It starts with the man in his house,
sitting, dreaming in front of the fire
and he hears this noise and he goes to
the window (this is making it very brief),
and he opens the window
and in steps this bird.
And the bird perches on this
bust which is in the man’s room
and the man, at first, quite
quite calmly,
almost in an amused sense
starts to talk to the bird.
Well it soon becomes quite obvious
that the raven can only say one word
and this one word gradually
produces ever increasing sense of hysteria
in the man himself because it
doesn’t matter what questions he asks,
and they are very important questions
to him, about his lost love,
about his life, about his future;
the answer is always the same.
It must be the only poem
in I suppose any language, certainly
any language that I am acquainted with,
or any poem that I know of,
where the entire work
devolves from one phrase, indeed,
one word.
Cut.
How much film do we have left?
Let's do another take.
Yes, you told me that when I finish
my narration, we could cut the take.
- Yes, when you were finished.
- Yes, but we are still filming.
Cut, cut, cut!
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered,
weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
" 'This some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter,
when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven,
of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he;
not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady,
perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas,
just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird
beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum
of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn
and shaven thou," I said,
"art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven,
wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is
on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
"Be that word
our sign of parting, bird or fiend!"
I shrieked, upstarting—
"Get thee back into the tempest
and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token
of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—
quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart,
and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting,
still is sitting,
still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas
just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the
seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming
throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow
that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—
nevermore!
Ok, are you ready?
What do I have to say,
"never more"?
Yes, the last phrase.
nevermore!
in the Spanish film industry,
we have to take into account
that until 1973
it was completely arbritrary.
There where no written rules.
It was the result
of what the pertinent commission
of civil servants thought.
But the political evolution
of the country,
the transition from autarchy
and Falangism
to the neo-capitalism
of the Opus Dei
in the early sixties
a series of changes
were brought about.
These changes
rationalized Spanish life
in the economic, commercial
and industrial aspects.
Within this new politics
of Opus Dei
one of the areas affected
was that of the film industry.
The application of the set codes
depends on how they are applied
in order for them
to be more or less severe.
I will read some of the rules
and will comment on them.
For example, rule 14
of this censorship code
forbids the disparaging
or undignified presentation
of political ideologies
when in our country
many anti-soviet,
anti-revolutionary and anti-socialist
movies have been exhibited.
Of course,
this rule
has been interpreted
to favor the reactionary
and fascist film industry.
Rule 15
states that films
that promote hatred
between races and social
classes will be forbidden.
It's ridiculous.
Rule 16 states that films
whose theme neglects
the duty of defending
the homeland will be forbidden.
A very militaristic approach.
Rule 17 states
that anything against
the Catholic Church,
its dogma, its morals, its rites,
or against the basic principles
of the State, national identity,
interior or exterior security,
and against the Chief of State
will be forbidden.
These rules
clearly protect
the country's establishment.
In some cases, there will be
grotesquely ambiguous rules.
For example,
there is a very funny one,
rule 18, which states:
when the accumulations of scenes
which in themselves present no fault
yet collectively present
a lustful, brutal,
crude or morbid atmosphere,
the film will be forbidden.
In other words, scenes or shots
which in themselves are harmless
can also lead
to the prohibition of a film.
Again, the biggest paradox
lies in rule 34,
which is the key rule.
All these rules
will be applied equally
to all films submitted to censorship
regardless of nationality.
The code prohibits justification of
suicide, murder out of compassion,
revenge and duels,
divorce, adultery,
illicit sexual relationships,
prostitution, abortion
and birth control.
There is a long list. And finally,
rule 12
forbids the images or scenes
of cruelty
to people or animals,
or of terror.
This is hypocritical because
the police in this country
uses terrorist methods
on the streets,
brutality against civilians,
workers, students,
yet this hypocrisy forbids
showing on a screen
the brutality and terror
which it itself practices.
Finally, there is a general rule
under which everything falls.
Blasphemous, pornographic
and subversive films
will be forbidden for any audience
In other words,
pornography, subversion
and blasphemy are measured
with the same ruler.
It does, however,
reveal the political philosophy
of the regime as a whole.
Censorship is applied
at two levels.
There is an initial
application to the script.
Any Spanish film
has to go through
a script censorship first
which will cut, modify or simply,
the script will be forbidden.
Secondly, once the film is made
based on the approved script,
it will have to go
through a second censorship.
These two filters
applying these codes
make it practically impossible
to have freedom of expression.
Among the worst effects
of this censorship code
in my mind
is the inhibition,
the brutal self-censorship
which it leads to
and which is translated
into the self-castration
of its producers
and script-writers,
in other words, they won't write
a scene for fear of its being cut.
Their imagination is compressed
and the result leads to a weakening
of the scripts themselves.
The conclusion is clear in that:
the only kind of cinema
of some interest
and related somewhat
to reality
and in which there is
a minimum amount of self-expression
by the creators, falls
outside the realms of legality.
It is marginal cinema,
a cinema
which has become clandestine
due to its legal status.
From this standpoint,
there are clearly
two possibilities,
two alternatives which are
more or less practiced.
The last word will be
in the hands of those in filmmaking.
On the one hand, there is
a militant cinema,
cinema which for whatever reason
has not been able to be seen,
and then on the other hand,
a cinema which due to circumstances,
has faced the impossibility
of legal viability.
In a way
it forces marginal,
clandestine cinema
to disentangle itself from the sinister
tradition of self-censorship
which has always fallen heavily
on the Spanish film industry.
Yet, on the other hand,
it offers the film maker
the possibility of researching,
or looking for ways
which will be more meaningful
with his media. And above all,
it will help him get involved
and to communicate
through this new distribution
channel in which he works.
This type of film making,
whose dissemination won't be easy,
at least among us,
is a type of film that could
reach a ready
and qualified audience.
Not a massive or
indiscriminate audience
as we see
in our movie theaters today.
I think one can talk
about underground cinema
as a cultural option
within a system,
a cultural option as a reply
to that system
without trying to break it
but work alongside it.
However, in the experience
of what has been called
underground cinema
in Madrid and Barcelona,
the intention has been
to integrate oneself
into the profession
but through parallel channels.
As for the ideological
meaning of these films,
I think we can refer to them
as types of psychodramas
or almost subconscious
presentations
of the frustrations
or conditioning
of their creators.
By no means are they
considered as works of art
in the sense that they portray
a view of a life
far from the creators'
own frustrations
or of their own egos,
or are they films with
political or even
militant implications.
On this last point of political
and militant cinema
we should probably point out
that there is,
in all cultural works,
a political and ideological
implication,
which is to say, seeing
the ideological/political significant
in any work of art.
But, at the same time, we find
that there exists
a militant cinema and literature
in the sense that the objective
has a political end.
We are no longer
living the times
when a team of the Opus Dei
within the government
tries and opening-up process
towards the exterior,
the exterior being understood
as a supposed
liberalization of the regime.
This proves to be a failure
due to the fact that the government
is incapable of controlling
this supposed liberalization
and the repercussions
resulting from this liberalization
which deeply attacks its politics.
It is then obliged
to take a hard line again.
This hard line goes back
to that taken after the Civil War
both at political
and cultural levels.
And film making
is submitted
to the same conditioning
and the impossibility of creating
a new Spanish film industry
to replace the earlier one.
FRAGMENT OF INFINITE FRONT
1956, PEDRO LAZAGA.
- The Father is inside.
- Bad timing for your arrival, Captain.
- Where's Father?
- He's around here somewhere.
Father Herrera, come on!
- Father.
- I can't! I can't!
I have tried but...
Sometimes I wonder if God refuses
to hear me beseeching him.
It's awful!
Do you realize
what you are saying?
No, I don't.
Get up. Get up, Father.
Once I told you that your mission
would be difficult.
You wear a uniform and a star.
This isn't a post of comfort
but one of sacrifice.
You can't evade fulfilling
your mission as a priest
however hard
and unpleasant it is.
As a priest and as an officer,
your post is here.
Here,
with no weaknesses of spirit
or of self-confessions.
Fight and overcome it
and pray.
Remember the excuse
Peter gave the Lord.
"Lord, I have tried
fishing all night
but haven't been successful."
God reprimanded him
and the apostle bowed his head.
"Trusting your word
I will throw my nets."
Remember it Father,
remember it.
And a miracle took place.
And if you do it this way, Father,
God will smile upon you
but he will let it be you
who makes the effort.
And this effort
will have its reward.
This is your war, Father.
Stand at attention
on the count of one.
Two.
And three.
At ease!
Attention!
Headquarters. Yes.
Captain.
Staff. Yes, yes, okay.
Thank you.
We have visitors.
- Enemy planes are approaching.
- Tell the Father.
Tell the Father to hurry up.
It's impossible to do that now.
He is doing the consecration.
Scatter yourselves, hurry!
This isn't anything major.
Paco!
Hello, hello, how are you?
How are you all?
- Hey, hey, how am I?
- How are you?
If I tell you how you are,
you won't get mad at me?
- I won't get mad.
- Are you sure? Then I will tell you.
My friend Tony,
you are very rude.
- What did you say?
- You are very rude.
Okay, then show me
why I am rude.
Okay, an explanation
of why you are rude.
Very simple.
The first thing you should do
when you stand
before an audience
is to take off your hat,
greet the public,
say good morning, good
afternoon, or good evening,
whatever you prefer.
You have this horrible habit
of not taking off your little hat.
- Hey, hey, give me my little hat.
- Nope, I won't.
- Give me the little hat.
- I won't give it to you.
- My head will get cold.
- Doesn't matter.
Look, I'm getting a bee in my bonnet
and it's going to get ugly.
Doesn't matter.
Look, I am not going to give it
to you. Let it be a lesson.
I don't want to give it to you.
Come here and kindly
don't play with my wardrobe.
- Give me my hat.
- Give me mine first.
No, Sir. You give me mine first.
- Today he doesn't trust me.
- So you don't want to give it to me.
Won't you give me my hat first?
You won't give it to me?
- You first.
- Oh yeah? Well, let's see.
If I make a comparison
and I convince you,
you will give me my hat.
Yes or no?
Well, if you can convince me
maybe I'll give it to you.
Good, I am going
to make a comparison.
Let's suppose that there is a large
hat shop right in front of here.
You are in front of this hat shop.
You go inside...
- and they show you a new...
- New.
- elegant...
- Elegant.
- fabulous...
- Tuberculous.
No, no. Fabulous.
With feathers,
a really lovely hat.
- An ugly hat?
- No, really lovely.
And then they show you
a really horrible one.
An old, green, bare...
Bare like its owner.
- Worth nothing.
- It cost me five...
Look, if someone were going
to give you one of them,
which one would you choose?
The new one or the old one?
Well... the new one!
You would choose the new one.
Well, that's it then.
Take mine because
it's the new one.
- That's not a bad comparison.
- Naturally.
- What did you say?
- Naturally, I convinced you.
- Yes. Naturally?
- Of course.
Well look, neither naturally
or factually.
You won't give it to me?
But let's see,
didn't I convince you?
- Yes.
- Then give me my hat right now.
Now it's my turn
to make a comparison.
That's a good one. You are going
to give me a comparison.
Go ahead.
- Let's suppose tomorrow you go out.
- I go out.
And one of those athletic types
passes in front of your house.
An athlete, a young man.
And from the other direction
comes a little old man
about 90 or 95 years old.
Okay, an old man.
Comes from the opposite direction.
They reach the middle and trip
and both fall.
Both fall on the ground.
Who would you help get up first,
the old or the young man?
What kind of a question is that?
Of course, I would help
the old man get up first.
Just like my hat,
which is 90 years old.
Well, that it just great!
You have really convinced me.
Here's your hat.
But hey,
now you pick up mine.
- Yours?
- Yep.
Well, since it's young
it can get up by itself.
Well, that is just great.
I didn't like that at all.
So you think
you are really smart, huh?
Of course.
So so smart.
Much smarter than you.
- Very good.
- Did you like it?
Let's play another.
Very good.
I have decided to make a slight
change in this pattern, as just to say…
As an actor I am now going to do
something which isn’t in the script,
which hasn’t been rehearsed and
which the director has not prepared.
I am going to do something,
so to speak, for myself.
I am going to sing.
I am going to sing because
I love singing and I love music
and because I was
a singer for a time.
But I have neverdone it on the
screen; I’ve never done it in a film.
I am also going to read
something from a poem.
I’m going to read from a poem by
Edgar Allan Poe called The Raven.
A beautiful poem.
Damn!
Excuse me.
Let's start all over. Sorry.
I'll start over
because I missed something.
Silence.
Cut!
Give it to me.
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe,
is I suppose, completely unique
in the English language.
It has a unique rhythm
and it has also
a unique atmosphere surrounding it.
I suppose, in a way, the central
figure who tells the story
is a little bit like
Edgar Allan Poe himself.
He was a sad, bitter,
lonely, unhappy man
and in this poem, of course,
we have just such a person.
It starts with the man in his house,
sitting, dreaming in front of the fire
and he hears this noise and he goes to
the window (this is making it very brief),
and he opens the window
and in steps this bird.
And the bird perches on this
bust which is in the man’s room
and the man, at first, quite
quite calmly,
almost in an amused sense
starts to talk to the bird.
Well it soon becomes quite obvious
that the raven can only say one word
and this one word gradually
produces ever increasing sense of hysteria
in the man himself because it
doesn’t matter what questions he asks,
and they are very important questions
to him, about his lost love,
about his life, about his future;
the answer is always the same.
It must be the only poem
in I suppose any language, certainly
any language that I am acquainted with,
or any poem that I know of,
where the entire work
devolves from one phrase, indeed,
one word.
Cut.
How much film do we have left?
Let's do another take.
Yes, you told me that when I finish
my narration, we could cut the take.
- Yes, when you were finished.
- Yes, but we are still filming.
Cut, cut, cut!
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered,
weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
" 'This some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter,
when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven,
of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he;
not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady,
perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas,
just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird
beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum
of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn
and shaven thou," I said,
"art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven,
wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is
on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
"Be that word
our sign of parting, bird or fiend!"
I shrieked, upstarting—
"Get thee back into the tempest
and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token
of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—
quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart,
and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting,
still is sitting,
still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas
just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the
seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming
throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow
that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—
nevermore!
Ok, are you ready?
What do I have to say,
"never more"?
Yes, the last phrase.
nevermore!