Wings of Desire (1987) - full transcript
Visible only to those like them and to human children, Damiel and Cassiel are two angels, who have existed even before humankind. Along with several other angels, they currently wander around West Berlin, generally on their own, observing and preserving life, sometimes trying to provide comfort to the troubled, although those efforts are not always successful. Among those they are currently observing are: the cast and crew of a movie - a detective story set in WWII Nazi Germany - which include a sensitive and perceptive Peter Falk; an elderly man named Homer looking for eternal peace; and the troupe of a financially failing circus, which has closed early for the season because of those financial problems. One day, Damiel tells Cassiel that he wants to become human, to feel not only the sensory aspects of physical beings, but also emotional aspects. He embarks on this thought with the full realization that there is no turning back if he decides to do so. His thoughts are largely because he has fallen in love with Marion, the trapeze artist with the circus. If he does decide to become a human, there is no guarantee that as a human that he will be able to locate Marion or that she will return his affection. His angels, however, may be looking out for him.
Best Director
Cannes Film Festival
When the child was a child...
it walked with its arms swinging.
It wanted the stream to be a river...
the river a torrent...
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child...
it didn't know it was a child.
Everything was full of life...
and all life was one.
When the child was a child...
it had no opinion about anything.
It had no habits.
It often sat cross-legged, took off running...
had a cowlick in its hair...
and didn't pull a face when photographed.
Look!
The consolation of lifting one's head
out here in the open...
the consolation of seeing the color...
enlightened through the sun
in all men's eyes.
At last mad, at last no longer alone!
At last mad, at last redeemed!
At last mad, at last at peace!
There's a little house...
with two floors and a terrace.
And every day we go bathing.
And the man who lives there....
I don't even understand this character.
It's amazing how little
I know about this part.
maybe we'll discover it during the shoot.
I'll get a good costume,
That's half the battle.
Berlin.
Emil Jannings.
Kennedy.
Von Stauffenberg.
Hell of a guy.
What a pretty picture!
That wasn't in Berlin.
What difference does it make? It happened.
If grandma was here, she'd say "spazier."
"Go spazieren."
Tokyo, Kyoto...
Paris, London, Trieste...
Berlin.
Nothing to see on TV.
You stumble over your colors
and are never punctual.
I'll think of something.
It's still the same smell. But dustier.
She collected everything.
...even U-Bahn tickets.
She never threw anything away.
Mother, my mother...
she never was.
My father....
My father was my father.
She is dead.
No tears, no grief.
Maybe later.
She doesn't love you,
she has never loved you.
And you too are only pretending.
You should be glad they've forgotten you.
At last you're free.
My God, what will become of the boy?
He's only got music in his head.
What does he want now?
I already bought him a guitar.
Now he wants drums.
In the end, I'm getting fed up with it.
Won't he ever grow up?
I'm getting fed up.
I can't help him anymore.
No wonder. He only learned rock n' roll.
Maybe he'll grow up one day.
When the child was a child...
it was the time of these questions.
Why am I me...
and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin,
and where does space end?
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?
Isn't what I see, hear, and smell...
just the mirage of a world before the world?
Does evil actually exist...
and are there people who are really evil?
How can it be that I, who am I...
wasn't before I was...
and that sometime I, the one I am...
no longer will be the one I am?
The child needs oxygen.
Breathe deep down.
If I could only suffer in her place.
It hurts! But it'll be over soon.
It's almost over.
Poor little mite, I'm anxious to see you.
I just wonder what you'll look like.
Bastard!
Women will fuck up your life.
Blackie, I've lost my way.
We wanted to go to the cemetery.
Well?
Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:28.
Moonrise at 7:04, moonset....
Water level of the Havel and the Spree.
Twenty years ago today...
a Soviet jet fighter crashed
in Spandau Lake.
Fifty years ago there were--
The Olympic Games.
Two hundred years ago,
Blanchard flew over the city in a balloon.
Like the fugitives the other day.
And today...
on the Lilienthaler Chaussee,
a man walks slowly...
and looks over his shoulder into space.
At Post Office 44, someone who wants
to put an end to it today...
has stuck collectors' stamps
on his farewell letters.
A different one on each.
Then he spoke English
with an American soldier...
for the first time since his schooldays,
very fluently.
A prisoner at Plötzensee...
just before dashing his head
against the wall...
said, "Now!"
At the Zoo U-Bahn station, the guard,
instead of the station's name...
suddenly shouted, "Tierra del Fuego!"
In the hills, an old man was reading
The Odyssey to a child...
and the young listener
stopped blinking his eyes.
And what do you have to tell?
A passer-by, in the rain,
folded her umbrella...
and was drenched.
A schoolboy...
who described to his teacher...
how a fern grows out of the earth,
and astounded the teacher.
A blind woman who groped for her watch...
feeling my presence.
It's great to live by the spirit,
to testify day by day...
for eternity, only what's spiritual
in people's minds.
But sometimes I'm fed up
with my spiritual existence.
Instead of forever hovering above...
I'd like to feel a weight grow in me...
to end the infinity and to tie me to earth.
I'd like, at each step, each gust of wind,
to be able to say "now."
"Now and now"...
and no longer "forever" and "for eternity."
To sit at the empty place at a card table...
and be greeted, even by a nod.
Every time we participated,
it was a pretense.
Wrestling with one...
allowing a hip to be put out in pretense...
catching a fish in pretense...
in pretense sitting at tables...
drinking and eating in pretense.
Having lambs roasted and wine...
served in the tents out there
in the desert, only in pretense.
No, I don't have to beget a child
or plant a tree...
but it would be rather nice...
coming home after a long day...
to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe...
to have a fever...
and blackened fingers from the newspaper...
to be excited not only by the mind...
but, at last, by a meal...
by the line of a neck...
by an ear.
To lie!
Through one's teeth.
As you're walking,
to feel your bones moving along.
At last to guess, instead of always knowing.
To be able to say "ah" and "oh" and "hey"...
instead of "yea" and "amen."
To be able, once in a while,
to enthuse for evil.
To draw all the demons
of the earth from passers-by...
and to chase them out into the world!
To be a savage.
Or at last to feel how it is...
to take off shoes under a table...
to wriggle your toes barefoot, like that.
Stay alone!
Let things happen!
Keep serious!
We can only be savages
in as much as we keep serious.
Do no more than look!
Assemble, testify, preserve!
Remain spirit!
Keep your distance. Keep your word.
Look, a convertible!
You don't buy that!
You steal it, if not it's stolen from you.
Just imagine...
open the roof, leave the smog behind....
In a pimp's jalopy.
Tell me, muse, of the storyteller...
who has been thrust
to the edge of the world...
both an infant and an ancient...
and through him reveal everyman.
With time...
those who listened to me
became my readers.
They no longer sit in a circle...
but rather sit apart...
and one doesn't know anything
about the other.
I'm an old man...
with a broken voice...
but the tale...
still rises from the depths...
and the mouth, slightly opened, repeats it...
as clearly, as powerfully.
A liturgy...
for which no one needs to be initiated...
to the meaning of words and sentences.
Maybe she doesn't have the money
to see another doctor.
It's four years since I saw her...
and two that she's been ill.
When will you finally pray
with your own words...
and not for life eternal?
And these young girls
who make eyes at men.
So why am I living?
How will I pay, with my small pension?
You are lost,
but it can go on for a long time.
Disowned by your parents,
betrayed by your wife...
your friend is in another town.
Your children only recall your stutter.
You could hit yourself
as you look in the mirror.
What's that?
What's going on?
I'm still there.
If I want it, if only I want it.
I must want it,
then I can get myself out of it again.
I let myself go.
I can drag myself out again.
You'd laugh if I couldn't!
Mother was right.
Look, two marks!
No, it's a beer top!
Nonsense! Quick, let's pull it up!
Only 10 pfennigs.
You Bet! was great last night.
You Bet! wasn't on last night.
A few days ago, or a month.
I'm all alone
just mad on my own
Three at play, that'll be the day
And they lived happily ever after.
Marion, not like that!
With a swing, not with force.
Don't dangle there, fly!
You are an angel!
For heaven's sake!
I can't fly with these things.
Yes, you can.
It's easier with wings than without!
Not with these chicken feathers!
What did she say?
Those chicken wings seem to bother her.
Marion, just imagine you're a dove!
And you a bunch of sparrows!
What are you playing at?
Sounds like a firemen's ball!
That's enough!
Concentrate, Marion!
You must admit she works hard
with those chicken feathers!
Make an effort!
Make an effort.
Of course I'm making an effort!
What do you think I'm doing?
I'd have fallen on your heads long ago...
if I didn't make an effort.
Just a moment, please.
Hold everything.
We can't pay the rent or the electricity.
We're broke.
Tomorrow we pull out.
Caravans to winter quarters.
The bailiff's been.
This is it for the circus this year.
I'm sorry.
That's it.
It's over. Not even a season.
Once again, no time to get anywhere.
Tonight is the last night
of my good old number.
And it's a full moon.
And the trapeze artist breaks her neck...
Shut up!
I never imagined it like that...
the farewell to the circus.
The last evening, no one shows up,
you play like fools...
and I fly round the ring like a poor chicken!
And then I'm a waitress again.
Moments like that, moments like now.
My circus dream,
souvenirs for 10 years from now.
Time will heal.
What if time was the illness?
As if sometimes
one had to lean over to go on living.
To live, a look is enough.
The circus, I'll miss it.
It's funny, I don't feel a thing.
It's the end, and I feel nothing.
An angel passes by!
Another fallen angel!
All those I've known who remain
and who will remain in my head.
It begins, it always ends...
too good to be true.
At last, outside in the city...
I'll find out who I am, who I've become.
Most of the time, I'm too aware to be sad.
I waited an eternity...
to hear a loving word.
Then I went abroad.
Someone who'd say,
"I love you so much today."
That would be wonderful.
I just lift my head...
and the world appears before my eyes...
and fills my heart.
As a child...
I wanted to live on an island.
A woman alone, gloriously alone.
That's it.
Emptied, incompatible.
Fear.
The look of a small animal, lost in a wood.
Who are you? I don't know anymore.
Just that I won't be a trapeze artist anymore.
Don't cry.
That's how it is, shit happens.
It's not always as you'd like.
Emptiness.
Not think anymore.
Just simply be there.
Berlin!
Here I'm a foreigner, yet it's all so familiar.
Anyway I can't get lost,
You always end up at the Wall.
I'll wait for a photo by the photomat...
I'll come out with another face.
That will be the start of a story.
The faces.
I want to see faces.
Maybe I'll get a job as a waitress.
This evening scares me, it's silly.
Anxiety makes me sick.
Only part of me worries,
but the other doesn't believe in it.
How should I live?
Maybe that's not the question.
How should I think?
I know so little.
Maybe because I'm too curious.
I often think so wrongly...
because I think
as if I was talking to someone else.
Inside closed eyes...
close your eyes again.
Then even the stones come alive.
Be close to the colors!
The colors.
Neon lights in the evening sky.
the red and yellow S-Bahn.
Longing.
_
Longing for a wave of love
that would stir in me.
That's what makes me clumsy...
the absence of pleasure.
Desire for love.
Desire to love.
You never saw anyone die?
I stink of gasoline.
I saw it all clearly:
the Mercedes, the pool of oil.
Karin, I should have told you.
It can't be that simple,
I've still so much to do.
As I came up the mountain,
out of the misty valley into the sun.
The fire on the cattle range...
the potatoes in the ashes...
the boathouse floating in the lake.
The Southern Cross.
The Far East.
The Great North.
The Wild West.
The Great Bear Lake.
Tristan da Cunha.
The Mississippi Delta.
Stromboli.
The old houses of Charlottenburg.
Albert Camus.
The morning light.
The child's eyes.
The swim in the waterfall.
The spots of the first drops of rain.
The sun.
The bread and wine.
Hopping.
Easter.
The veins of leaves.
The blowing grass.
The color of stones.
The pebbles on the stream's bed.
The white tablecloth outdoors.
The dream of the house in the house.
The dear one asleep in the next room.
The peaceful Sundays.
The horizon.
The light from the room in the garden.
The night flight.
Riding a bicycle with no hands.
The beautiful stranger.
My father.
My mother.
My wife.
My child.
The world seems to be sinking into dusk...
but I recount, as in the beginning...
in my sing-song voice which sustains me...
saved by the tale from present troubles...
and protected for the future.
finished with the sweeping
over the centuries...
with the going back and forth,
as in the past.
Now I think only day by day.
My heroes are no longer...
The warriors and kings...
but the things of peace...
equal one to the other.
The drying onions being equal...
to the tree trunk crossing the marsh.
But no one has so far succeeded...
in singing an epic of peace.
What is wrong with peace...
that its inspiration doesn't endure...
and that it is almost untellable?
Must I give up now?
If I do give up,
then mankind will lose its storyteller.
And if mankind once loses its storyteller...
then it will lose its childhood.
I cannot find the Potsdamer Platz.
Here?
It cannot be here.
Potsdamer Platz.
That's where there was the Cafe Josti.
In the afternoons I went there to chat,
then to drink a coffee...
and to watch the crowd,
having smoked my cigar...
at Löhse and Wolff, a renowned tobacconist.
Just about here.
This can't be the Potsdamer Platz.
And no one whom you can ask.
It was a lively place.
Tramways, horse-drawn omnibuses...
and two cars:
mine and that of the chocolate shop.
The Wertheim store was here, too.
And then...
suddenly, the flags appeared.
There...
The whole Platz was covered with them.
And the people...
weren't friendly anymore.
And the police wasn't either.
I will not give up...
as long as I have not found
the Potsdamer Platz.
Where are my heroes?
Where are you, my children?
Where are my own, the curious ones...
the first, the original ones?
Name me, muse, the immortal singer...
who, abandoned by those
who listened to him...
lost his voice.
He who, from the angel of poetry
that he was, became the poet...
ignored or mocked...
outside on the threshold of no-man's land.
20 marks, 40 marks, 80 marks.
In a week, I could have 500. Off to the south!
What a crazy idea to be here.
Too much traffic.
Idiot! Three times he's been this way.
I want to get out of here.
If anyone recognizes me,
I'll be thrown out of high school.
I need Klaus, he'd take care of me.
He'd take good care of me.
He was too good. That's why he's dead.
Are there still borders? More than ever.
Each street has its borderline.
Between each lot
there's a no-man's land strip...
disguised by a hedge or by a ditch.
Whoever dares will fall on booby traps...
or be hit by laser rays.
The trout are really torpedoes.
Every proprietor, or even tenant...
sticks up his nameplate like a coat of arms...
and studies the morning paper
as if he were a world leader.
The German people have divided into
as many states as there are individuals.
And these small states are mobile.
Each one takes his own with him...
and demands a toll
when another wants to enter.
A fly caught in amber, or a leather bottle.
So much for the border.
But one can only enter each state
with the password.
The present-day German soul
can only be conquered and governed...
by he who arrives at each small state
with the password.
Fortunately, no one now has that power.
So everyone migrates...
and raises his own flag all over the world.
Their children already shake their rattles...
and trail their filth around them in circles.
-This is the book you were telling me about?
-Yeah.
-So what is it? Hitler had a double?
-Yeah.
-There were two Hitlers?
-Yeah.
-Two Hitlers?
-Not two.
-Hitler came from the east point.
-Yes.
And he died before he could land
at his home in the Alps.
And Goebbels got an actor to be Hitler?
Yes, because he doesn't want
anybody to know--
Let me ask you something.
This story, to me it's not too plausible.
Oh, well, I don't know.
Monsieur Falk, it will take another hour
before the next set.
Wonderful.
So it's more realistic than the film
we're making.
Let me explain to you.
People like detective stories.
They use any excuse
to make a detective story.
-You understand?
-Yeah.
It's dopey, I grant you.
But this is dopey, too.
Erika, come on, honey,
give me a break, please.
Okay, see you later.
I'm sorry. Hey, please, I want to talk to you.
Come here, sweetheart.
We have enough pictures.
So please, no more pictures, all right?
Oh, Helen, I'm looking for you.
I can't wear this fucking hat.
This is an excellent hat. It looks great.
-You put it on.
-Believe me.
You wear it.
Come on, we have other hats over here
you can find.
Yes, sir.
-All right. Just hold this. Very good.
-Thank you.
Now we've got some hats!
All right, now we're gonna get a hat
that fits the face.
A hat that fits the face.
-And we go over here and put.... Oh, Jesus!
-What kind of hat do you want?
How about this one?
I wanna look like a German.
I wanna look anonymous.
And I wanna look melt-into-the-crowd.
Not when you look like Humphrey Bogart.
Here, try that one.
All right. What about.... Oh, Jesus Christ!
-This one?
-All right.
-This here's for the opera.
-No, you look like a Jewish rabbi.
-Try that one.
-All right.
-This here, I'm 42nd Street.
-Here we go, there.
He's a bookmaker.
You know, a bookmaker?
What the hell is this here?
Come on, for Christ's sake,
get me a good hat, will you?
I'm in disguise, you see? I really
don't want to call attention to myself.
How about this one?
You know, it's ridiculous, these hats.
It doesn't go with the coat.
They're all gangsters' hats.
There, that's not a gangster hat.
This, I'm getting married.
-This is for a horse show in London.
-Try that one.
That one's good.
-That looks good.
-Maybe.
-I think that's it.
-Could be.
-Yeah.
-Possible.
Great. You look like
somebody's grandfather.
Charlie Chan.
"Number one son, not too clever."
Okay, look...
-it ain't great...
-It's super.
...but it'll be wonderful.
And you've been wonderful.
Olivier, that coat looks terrible.
Colombo had no hat,
That was a hell of a costume.
Well, it was your own coat.
Hey, Peter, where's your raincoat?
Been cleaned and burned.
What is it? What is it, Peter?
Why does your mind stray?
Think I'll have
filet of sole meunière tonight.
Do Germans make meunière?
Maybe pasta, tomato sauce, and basil.
Do Germans make pasta?
It will never change.
They were elegant, those guys.
They had style.
The one thing I shall miss...
from the outside, from the realm of light...
will be the sparrows.
Money makes for happiness. How to live?
The "Man in the Golden Helmet"
is a swindle.
You're not natives. You're all refugees.
I've been sitting here since this morning.
I'm cold and I'm bored.
Wind in the face, the first snow in the air.
Water in the gutter...
the balcony with the beautiful foreigner.
They could be real ones. They look like it.
Some stole food
from the dogs in the camps.
That would take the grin off your face.
Don't be too sure.
The Frenchman: I met him in the street.
"Berlin won't be there anymore," he said.
Constant.
The house had half gone.
Some of it still stood, for how long?
Yes, I can still see this woman
who was standing in the ruins...
and who was shaking the duvet.
When was that? In May, June '45.
Excuse me, may I draw you?
Sketch you? It's all right?
Yes, please.
Two minutes, very fast. Don't move.
I wonder if she's Jewish.
What a dear face!
Is it well done, what he's drawing?
Interesting.
What a nostril!
A dramatic nostril!
These people are extras.
Extra people.
Extras are so patient.
They just sit.
I'd like to see it.
Perhaps he'll give it to me.
Extras.
These humans are extras.
Extra humans.
Oh, very good.
Very nice picture.
Yellow star means death.
Why did they pick yellow?
Sunflowers.
Van Gogh killed himself.
This drawing stinks.
So what? No one sees it.
Someday you'll make a good drawing.
I hope, I hope, I hope.
Start the action for the stuntmen.
Come on, boys, I want to see action now!
Stop, cut!
They're not fighting.
It looks like it was choreographed.
I told you to hang that flag higher.
Get moving!
Make sure it hangs straight.
-Jerry?
-Yes, Peter?
Another interview. Berlin television.
You have some time, Peter.
I need you for a close-up afterwards,
for after the point-of-view shot.
All right, I'm coming fellas. We'll do it now.
Yeah, now is good.
What is it? What is it, Peter?
"Why, if I didn't have it, I'd miss it"...
said the general to the whore.
Come, I'll show you something else.
When the child was a child...
it choked on spinach, peas, rice pudding...
and steamed cauliflower...
and now eats all of that,
and not just because it has to.
When the child was a child...
it woke up once in a strange bed...
and now time and time again.
Many people seemed beautiful then...
but not so many anymore, only if it's lucky.
It had a precise picture of Paradise...
and now can only guess at it.
It couldn't imagine nothingness...
and today shudders at the idea.
When the child was a child...
it played with enthusiasm...
and now with such involvement...
only when it concerns its work.
Do you recall our first visit here?
History had not yet begun.
We let both mornings and evenings go by,
and we waited.
It was a long time
before the river found its bed...
and the stagnant water began to flow.
Valley of the primeval river.
One day, I still remember...
the glacier melted,
and the icebergs drifted to the north.
A tree passed by, still green,
with an empty bird's nest.
Over myriad years, only the fish had leapt.
Then came the moment
when the swarm of bees drowned.
Some time later,
the two stags fought on this bank.
Then the cloud of flies...
and the antlers, like branches,
flowing down the river.
All that ever grew again was the grass...
growing over the bodies of wild cats,
of wild boar, and buffalos.
Do you remember, one morning...
how, out of the savanna,
its forehead smeared with grass...
appeared the biped, our image,
so long awaited.
And its first word was a shout.
Was it "ah" or "oh"...
or was it merely a groan?
We were at last able to laugh
for the first time...
and through this man's shout
and the call of his followers...
-we learned to speak.
-A long story.
The sun, the lightning,
the thunder above in the sky...
and below, on earth,
the firesides, the leaps...
the round dances, the signs, the writing.
Then one of them broke through the circle
and ran straight ahead.
As long as he ran straight ahead...
swerving perhaps from joy...
he seemed free,
and we could laugh with him.
But then, suddenly...
he ran in a zigzag and stones flew.
With his flight began another story:
the story of wars.
It is still going on.
But the first story, too,
that of the grass, the sun...
of the leaps, and the shouts,
that still goes on.
Do you remember how one day
the highway was built...
which the next day
saw the Napoleonic retreat...
and was then paved?
Today it is covered with grass
and sunk like a Roman way,
its tank tracks, too.
But we weren't even spectators.
We've always been too few.
You really want--
To conquer a history for myself.
What my timeless downward look
has taught me, I want to transmute...
to sustain a glance...
a short shout, a sour smell.
I've been on the outside long enough.
Absent long enough.
Long enough out of the world.
Let me enter the history of the world.
If only to hold an apple in my hand.
Look, those feathers.
Look, there on the water, already vanished.
Look, the tire marks on the asphalt...
and the cigarette butt rolling.
The primeval river has dried up...
and only today's puddles still quiver.
Do away with the world behind the world!
Hey, Jerry!
Interesting drawing problem.
This man has eyes like a raccoon...
but he has a good hat.
What dark rings under his eyes!
Always worried.
I wonder if the director likes my work.
They always say "Wonderful!"...
no matter what you do.
Have to buy gifts for my children.
Maybe picture frames.
Am I a better actor now than I used to be?
Only the Roman roads still lead somewhere.
Only the most ancient traces lead anywhere.
Where is the top of the pass here?
Even the plains...
even Berlin has its hidden passes...
and it's only there that begins my country...
the country of the tale.
Why doesn't everyone see from childhood...
the passes, doors and crevices...
on the ground, and above in the sky?
If everyone saw them...
there would be a history
without murder or war.
Ten thousand times I thought about it,
but this time I'm doing it.
Funny I'm so calm.
Why red socks with black shoes?
Foggy, cold.
I put on a pullover, afraid to be cold.
Very good jacket. Was a bargain.
Pocket is un-sewn. She gave it to me.
Pebbles on the roof, I wonder why?
So it doesn't fly away or what?
I'd love to fly one day.
The plane circles over Berlin,
one day it'll crash.
It's really cold. My hands were always warm.
Really a good sign. It crackles underfoot.
How late is it? The sun's setting.
Logical, it's the West.
At least now I know where the West is.
I always took the U-Bahn to the East...
then bought 10 tickets, saved a mark.
The sun in my back, on the left, the star.
That's really good. Sun and a star.
Her little feet!
She hopped from one foot to the other.
She danced so sweetly.
We were all alone.
Has she already got my letter?
I don't want her to have read it.
Berlin means nothing to me.
Havel, is it a river or a lake?
The East? It's really everywhere.
Strange people, they're shouting.
I really don't care.
All these thoughts.
I'd really rather not think anymore.
I'm going, but why?
Story? Want to hear the story?
Story of '45, Berlin, war.
I'm an American detective.
German-American guy hires me.
His brother's son is in Germany.
Go to Germany, find him.
Brother's dead. The family is lost.
Find the kid.
In '45?
I'll never make it tonight.
No trapeze on full moon nights.
Not the last time. The very last time.
I think I should stop this dream.
The end of the circus!
The end.
Once again, night falls in my head.
Fear.
Fear of death.
Why not death?
The only important thing sometimes...
is just being beautiful...
or else absolutely nothing.
To look at oneself in the mirror
is to see oneself think.
So what do you think?
I think I've still the right to be afraid...
but not to talk about it.
You're not yet blind...
the heart still beats.
And now you're crying.
You'd like to cry like a very sad little girl.
Do you know why you're crying?
For whom?
Not for me. I don't know for whom.
I'd like to know.
I know nothing.
I'm a little bit afraid.
It's gone.
It's gone away.
It'll come back.
It doesn't matter.
Just to be able to say...
like now:
"I'm happy."
I've a story...
and I'll go on having one.
There it is again, my feeling of well-being...
as if inside my body,
a hand was softly tightening.
When the child was a child...
it was the time of these questions:
Why am I me and why not you?
Why am I here and why not there?
When did time begin,
and where does space end?
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?
Walking.
Looking and seeing.
I wish you were here, Grandma.
This must be the station
they told me about...
with the funny name.
Not the station where the train stopped.
But the station...
where the station stopped.
Isn't that Colombo?
No, don't think so.
Not with that moth-eaten coat.
Why should he be walking
through this mud!
SNACK BAR
I can't see you, but I know you're here.
I feel it.
You've been hanging around
since I got here.
I wish I could see your face.
Just look into your eyes,
and tell you how good it is to be here.
Just to touch something.
See, that's cold.
That feels good.
Here.
To smoke...
to have coffee.
And if you do it together, it's fantastic.
Or...
to draw.
You know, you take a pencil,
and you make a dark line...
then you make a light line.
And together, it's a good line.
But when your hands are cold...
you rub them together.
You see, that's good. That feels good.
There's so many good things.
But you're not here. I'm here.
I wish you were here.
I wish you could talk to me...
because I'm a friend.
Well?
I'm going to enter the river.
Old human expression, often heard,
that I just understood today.
Now or never, moment of the ford.
But there is no other bank,
there is only the river.
Forward in the ford of time,
in the ford of death.
We are not yet born, so let's descend.
To look is not to look from on high,
but at eye level.
First, I'll have a bath.
Then I'll be shaved...
by a Turkish barber...
who will massage me
down to the fingertips.
Then I'll buy a newspaper...
and read it from headlines to horoscope.
On the first day, I'll be waited upon.
For requests, ask the neighbor.
If someone stumbles over my legs,
he'll have to apologize.
I'll be pushed around, and I'll push back.
In the crowded bar,
the bartender will find me a table.
A service car will stop,
and the mayor will take me aboard.
I'll be known to everyone,
and suspect to no one.
I won't say a word,
and will understand every language.
This will be my first day.
None of it will come true.
I'll take her in my arms.
And she'll take me in her arms.
I think he's drunk.
Let's go!
It's got a taste!
Now I begin to understand!
-Is that red?
-Yes.
Have you hurt yourself?
Is today a good day?
The pipes?
They're yellow.
-What about him?
-He's gray-blue.
He's orange. Ochre.
Ochre or orange?
Yellow, red.
-And him?
-He's green.
-And what's that, over the eyes?
-That's blue.
-Is it very cold today?
-Oh, it'll soon be over.
I'd like to have a coffee.
You have no money?
I'm glad that today everything's fine.
Beautiful!
Milk and sugar?
Black.
When the child was a child.
it lived on apples and bread,
that was enough.
And it is still that way.
When the child was a child...
berries fell only like berries into its hand...
and they still do now.
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw...
and they still do now.
Atop each mountain, it was longing...
for a higher mountain.
And in each city, it was longing...
for a bigger city...
and it still does.
Reached in the treetop for the cherries...
as elated...
as it still is.
Was shy...
in front of strangers.
And it still is.
Waited for the first snow...
and still waits that way.
When the child was a child...
it threw a stick, like a lance, into a tree.
And it's still quivering there today.
ANTIQUES
How do I get to Akazienstrasse?
Go up Potsdamer to Kleistpark.
Then right at Grunewald,
past Elssholz and Gleditsch.
No right turn at Goltzstrasse,
it goes to Winterfeldplatz.
Turn left, and there you are.
Entrance reserved for the crew.
Extras, the other way.
Oh, yes!
Extra.
You look like one!
They all want autographs!
Idiot cop!
I'm so happy to see you.
-How's it going?
-Fine.
You see, I expected a much taller man.
I don't know why.
-Even taller?
-Even taller.
How long?
Minutes...
hours...
days, weeks, months.
Time!
Let me give you a few dollars,
just to tide you over.
I have money.
I sold something.
The armor?
Right? What did you get for it?
Two hundred marks.
You got robbed. But that happens.
I got to tell you something.
I'm going back now 30 years.
New York City.
Pawn shop, 23rd and Lex.
The guy gave me $500.
You were....
Yeah.
You are....
-You, too?
-Oh, yeah.
There's lots of us.
Mr. Falk, I've been looking for you all over.
We're ready for you now.
Okay, David, I'll be right with you.
You're not the only one.
So what're you going to do now?
There is a girl.
A girl! Good!
Hey, wait! You wanted to tell me more!
I want to know...
everything!
That you have to find out yourself.
That's the fun of it.
Come on, Marion, don't worry.
It'll be all right.
I'll send you postcards of the Eiffel Tower.
See you next season!
Don't forget the Circus Alekan!
Bye, Archie, see you next year!
A thousand kisses!
I'll send a little parcel. What do you want?
Some Camembert cheese?
I couldn't say who I am,
I haven't the slightest idea.
I'm someone with no roots...
no story, no country.
And I like it that way.
I'm here, I'm free.
I can imagine anything.
It's all possible.
I only have to raise my eyes...
and once again, I become the world.
Now...
in this very place...
a feeling of happiness...
that I could always have.
-What are you doing there?
-I'm sitting here.
Are you sad?
-Are you sick?
-Yes.
-What's the matter?
-A need.
Is that so?
A double-knot is the only way
to make it hold.
A need of food perhaps, or need of drink.
She has not gone, Cassiel, I know that.
I'll find her.
Something will happen,
something important, tonight.
There are other suns
than the one up in the sky, Cassiel!
In deepest night, spring will begin today.
Other wings will grow
in place of the old ones.
Wings that will, at last, astound me.
Can I have a coffee please?
Lieutenant...
I bet you must know how to find people.
Well, I know how to look for them.
I don't always find them.
You're looking for somebody?
-I don't know. I just want to find someone.
-Yeah, who?
Boy, girl, man, woman?
Man.
Well, do you know his name?
No?
Do you know where he lives?
-I know nothing.
-Nothing?
Well, this is a tough case.
I got to go. Good night.
-Good luck.
-Lieutenant.
I can't see you, but I know you're here.
I feel it.
I wish I could see your face, because
there are so many things I want to tell you.
I'm your friend.
One more song, and it's over.
But I'm not going to tell you about a girl.
I want to tell you about a girl.
It must finally become serious.
I've often been alone...
but I've never lived alone.
When I was with someone,
I was often happy.
But at the same time,
it all seemed a coincidence.
These people were my parents.
But it could have been others.
Why was this brown-eyed boy my brother...
and not the green-eyed boy
on the opposite platform?
The taxi driver's daughter was my friend.
But I might as well have
put my arm round a horse's neck.
I was with a man...
in love...
and I might as well have left him there...
and gone off with the stranger
I met in the street.
Look at me or don't.
Give me your hand or don't.
No.
Don't give me the hand, and look away.
I think tonight is the new moon.
No night more peaceful.
No bloodshed in all the city.
I've never played with anyone...
and yet I've never opened my eyes
and thought:
Now it's serious.
At last it's becoming serious.
So I've grown older.
Was I the only one who wasn't serious?
Is it our times that are not serious?
I was never lonely...
neither when I was alone, nor with others.
But I would have liked to be alone at last.
Loneliness means I'm finally whole.
Now I can say it...
as tonight, I'm at last alone.
I must put an end to coincidence.
The new moon of decision.
I don't know if there's destiny...
but there's a decision.
Decide!
We are now the times.
Not only the whole town...
the whole world is taking part
in our decision.
We two are now more than us two.
We incarnate something.
We're representing the people now...
And the whole place is full of those...
who are dreaming the same dream.
We are deciding everyone's game.
I am ready.
Now...
it's your turn.
You hold the game in your hand.
Now...
or never.
You need me.
You will need me.
There's no greater story than ours...
that of man and woman.
It will be a story of giants...
invisible...
transposable...
a story of new ancestors.
Look.
My eyes...
they are the picture of necessity...
of the future of everyone in the place.
Last night...
I dreamt of a stranger...
of my man.
Only with him could I be alone...
open up to him...
wholly open, wholly for him.
Welcome him wholly into me...
surround him with the labyrinth...
of shared happiness.
I know...
it's you.
Something happened.
It is still going on.
It binds me.
It was true at night, and it's true in the day.
Even more so now.
Who was who?
I was in her, and she was around me.
Who in the world can claim that he was
ever together with another being?
I am together.
No mortal child was begot...
but an immortal, common image.
I learned astonishment that night.
She came to take me home...
and I found home.
It happened once.
Only once, and therefore forever.
The picture that we have created
will be with me when I die.
I will have lived within it.
First the amazement about the two of us.
Amazement about man and woman...
has made a human being of me.
I...
know...
now...
what...
no...
angel...
knows.
Name me the men, women, and children...
who will look for me...
me, their storyteller...
their spokesman...
for they need me...
more than anything in the world.
We have embarked!
Cannes Film Festival
When the child was a child...
it walked with its arms swinging.
It wanted the stream to be a river...
the river a torrent...
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child...
it didn't know it was a child.
Everything was full of life...
and all life was one.
When the child was a child...
it had no opinion about anything.
It had no habits.
It often sat cross-legged, took off running...
had a cowlick in its hair...
and didn't pull a face when photographed.
Look!
The consolation of lifting one's head
out here in the open...
the consolation of seeing the color...
enlightened through the sun
in all men's eyes.
At last mad, at last no longer alone!
At last mad, at last redeemed!
At last mad, at last at peace!
There's a little house...
with two floors and a terrace.
And every day we go bathing.
And the man who lives there....
I don't even understand this character.
It's amazing how little
I know about this part.
maybe we'll discover it during the shoot.
I'll get a good costume,
That's half the battle.
Berlin.
Emil Jannings.
Kennedy.
Von Stauffenberg.
Hell of a guy.
What a pretty picture!
That wasn't in Berlin.
What difference does it make? It happened.
If grandma was here, she'd say "spazier."
"Go spazieren."
Tokyo, Kyoto...
Paris, London, Trieste...
Berlin.
Nothing to see on TV.
You stumble over your colors
and are never punctual.
I'll think of something.
It's still the same smell. But dustier.
She collected everything.
...even U-Bahn tickets.
She never threw anything away.
Mother, my mother...
she never was.
My father....
My father was my father.
She is dead.
No tears, no grief.
Maybe later.
She doesn't love you,
she has never loved you.
And you too are only pretending.
You should be glad they've forgotten you.
At last you're free.
My God, what will become of the boy?
He's only got music in his head.
What does he want now?
I already bought him a guitar.
Now he wants drums.
In the end, I'm getting fed up with it.
Won't he ever grow up?
I'm getting fed up.
I can't help him anymore.
No wonder. He only learned rock n' roll.
Maybe he'll grow up one day.
When the child was a child...
it was the time of these questions.
Why am I me...
and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin,
and where does space end?
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?
Isn't what I see, hear, and smell...
just the mirage of a world before the world?
Does evil actually exist...
and are there people who are really evil?
How can it be that I, who am I...
wasn't before I was...
and that sometime I, the one I am...
no longer will be the one I am?
The child needs oxygen.
Breathe deep down.
If I could only suffer in her place.
It hurts! But it'll be over soon.
It's almost over.
Poor little mite, I'm anxious to see you.
I just wonder what you'll look like.
Bastard!
Women will fuck up your life.
Blackie, I've lost my way.
We wanted to go to the cemetery.
Well?
Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:28.
Moonrise at 7:04, moonset....
Water level of the Havel and the Spree.
Twenty years ago today...
a Soviet jet fighter crashed
in Spandau Lake.
Fifty years ago there were--
The Olympic Games.
Two hundred years ago,
Blanchard flew over the city in a balloon.
Like the fugitives the other day.
And today...
on the Lilienthaler Chaussee,
a man walks slowly...
and looks over his shoulder into space.
At Post Office 44, someone who wants
to put an end to it today...
has stuck collectors' stamps
on his farewell letters.
A different one on each.
Then he spoke English
with an American soldier...
for the first time since his schooldays,
very fluently.
A prisoner at Plötzensee...
just before dashing his head
against the wall...
said, "Now!"
At the Zoo U-Bahn station, the guard,
instead of the station's name...
suddenly shouted, "Tierra del Fuego!"
In the hills, an old man was reading
The Odyssey to a child...
and the young listener
stopped blinking his eyes.
And what do you have to tell?
A passer-by, in the rain,
folded her umbrella...
and was drenched.
A schoolboy...
who described to his teacher...
how a fern grows out of the earth,
and astounded the teacher.
A blind woman who groped for her watch...
feeling my presence.
It's great to live by the spirit,
to testify day by day...
for eternity, only what's spiritual
in people's minds.
But sometimes I'm fed up
with my spiritual existence.
Instead of forever hovering above...
I'd like to feel a weight grow in me...
to end the infinity and to tie me to earth.
I'd like, at each step, each gust of wind,
to be able to say "now."
"Now and now"...
and no longer "forever" and "for eternity."
To sit at the empty place at a card table...
and be greeted, even by a nod.
Every time we participated,
it was a pretense.
Wrestling with one...
allowing a hip to be put out in pretense...
catching a fish in pretense...
in pretense sitting at tables...
drinking and eating in pretense.
Having lambs roasted and wine...
served in the tents out there
in the desert, only in pretense.
No, I don't have to beget a child
or plant a tree...
but it would be rather nice...
coming home after a long day...
to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe...
to have a fever...
and blackened fingers from the newspaper...
to be excited not only by the mind...
but, at last, by a meal...
by the line of a neck...
by an ear.
To lie!
Through one's teeth.
As you're walking,
to feel your bones moving along.
At last to guess, instead of always knowing.
To be able to say "ah" and "oh" and "hey"...
instead of "yea" and "amen."
To be able, once in a while,
to enthuse for evil.
To draw all the demons
of the earth from passers-by...
and to chase them out into the world!
To be a savage.
Or at last to feel how it is...
to take off shoes under a table...
to wriggle your toes barefoot, like that.
Stay alone!
Let things happen!
Keep serious!
We can only be savages
in as much as we keep serious.
Do no more than look!
Assemble, testify, preserve!
Remain spirit!
Keep your distance. Keep your word.
Look, a convertible!
You don't buy that!
You steal it, if not it's stolen from you.
Just imagine...
open the roof, leave the smog behind....
In a pimp's jalopy.
Tell me, muse, of the storyteller...
who has been thrust
to the edge of the world...
both an infant and an ancient...
and through him reveal everyman.
With time...
those who listened to me
became my readers.
They no longer sit in a circle...
but rather sit apart...
and one doesn't know anything
about the other.
I'm an old man...
with a broken voice...
but the tale...
still rises from the depths...
and the mouth, slightly opened, repeats it...
as clearly, as powerfully.
A liturgy...
for which no one needs to be initiated...
to the meaning of words and sentences.
Maybe she doesn't have the money
to see another doctor.
It's four years since I saw her...
and two that she's been ill.
When will you finally pray
with your own words...
and not for life eternal?
And these young girls
who make eyes at men.
So why am I living?
How will I pay, with my small pension?
You are lost,
but it can go on for a long time.
Disowned by your parents,
betrayed by your wife...
your friend is in another town.
Your children only recall your stutter.
You could hit yourself
as you look in the mirror.
What's that?
What's going on?
I'm still there.
If I want it, if only I want it.
I must want it,
then I can get myself out of it again.
I let myself go.
I can drag myself out again.
You'd laugh if I couldn't!
Mother was right.
Look, two marks!
No, it's a beer top!
Nonsense! Quick, let's pull it up!
Only 10 pfennigs.
You Bet! was great last night.
You Bet! wasn't on last night.
A few days ago, or a month.
I'm all alone
just mad on my own
Three at play, that'll be the day
And they lived happily ever after.
Marion, not like that!
With a swing, not with force.
Don't dangle there, fly!
You are an angel!
For heaven's sake!
I can't fly with these things.
Yes, you can.
It's easier with wings than without!
Not with these chicken feathers!
What did she say?
Those chicken wings seem to bother her.
Marion, just imagine you're a dove!
And you a bunch of sparrows!
What are you playing at?
Sounds like a firemen's ball!
That's enough!
Concentrate, Marion!
You must admit she works hard
with those chicken feathers!
Make an effort!
Make an effort.
Of course I'm making an effort!
What do you think I'm doing?
I'd have fallen on your heads long ago...
if I didn't make an effort.
Just a moment, please.
Hold everything.
We can't pay the rent or the electricity.
We're broke.
Tomorrow we pull out.
Caravans to winter quarters.
The bailiff's been.
This is it for the circus this year.
I'm sorry.
That's it.
It's over. Not even a season.
Once again, no time to get anywhere.
Tonight is the last night
of my good old number.
And it's a full moon.
And the trapeze artist breaks her neck...
Shut up!
I never imagined it like that...
the farewell to the circus.
The last evening, no one shows up,
you play like fools...
and I fly round the ring like a poor chicken!
And then I'm a waitress again.
Moments like that, moments like now.
My circus dream,
souvenirs for 10 years from now.
Time will heal.
What if time was the illness?
As if sometimes
one had to lean over to go on living.
To live, a look is enough.
The circus, I'll miss it.
It's funny, I don't feel a thing.
It's the end, and I feel nothing.
An angel passes by!
Another fallen angel!
All those I've known who remain
and who will remain in my head.
It begins, it always ends...
too good to be true.
At last, outside in the city...
I'll find out who I am, who I've become.
Most of the time, I'm too aware to be sad.
I waited an eternity...
to hear a loving word.
Then I went abroad.
Someone who'd say,
"I love you so much today."
That would be wonderful.
I just lift my head...
and the world appears before my eyes...
and fills my heart.
As a child...
I wanted to live on an island.
A woman alone, gloriously alone.
That's it.
Emptied, incompatible.
Fear.
The look of a small animal, lost in a wood.
Who are you? I don't know anymore.
Just that I won't be a trapeze artist anymore.
Don't cry.
That's how it is, shit happens.
It's not always as you'd like.
Emptiness.
Not think anymore.
Just simply be there.
Berlin!
Here I'm a foreigner, yet it's all so familiar.
Anyway I can't get lost,
You always end up at the Wall.
I'll wait for a photo by the photomat...
I'll come out with another face.
That will be the start of a story.
The faces.
I want to see faces.
Maybe I'll get a job as a waitress.
This evening scares me, it's silly.
Anxiety makes me sick.
Only part of me worries,
but the other doesn't believe in it.
How should I live?
Maybe that's not the question.
How should I think?
I know so little.
Maybe because I'm too curious.
I often think so wrongly...
because I think
as if I was talking to someone else.
Inside closed eyes...
close your eyes again.
Then even the stones come alive.
Be close to the colors!
The colors.
Neon lights in the evening sky.
the red and yellow S-Bahn.
Longing.
_
Longing for a wave of love
that would stir in me.
That's what makes me clumsy...
the absence of pleasure.
Desire for love.
Desire to love.
You never saw anyone die?
I stink of gasoline.
I saw it all clearly:
the Mercedes, the pool of oil.
Karin, I should have told you.
It can't be that simple,
I've still so much to do.
As I came up the mountain,
out of the misty valley into the sun.
The fire on the cattle range...
the potatoes in the ashes...
the boathouse floating in the lake.
The Southern Cross.
The Far East.
The Great North.
The Wild West.
The Great Bear Lake.
Tristan da Cunha.
The Mississippi Delta.
Stromboli.
The old houses of Charlottenburg.
Albert Camus.
The morning light.
The child's eyes.
The swim in the waterfall.
The spots of the first drops of rain.
The sun.
The bread and wine.
Hopping.
Easter.
The veins of leaves.
The blowing grass.
The color of stones.
The pebbles on the stream's bed.
The white tablecloth outdoors.
The dream of the house in the house.
The dear one asleep in the next room.
The peaceful Sundays.
The horizon.
The light from the room in the garden.
The night flight.
Riding a bicycle with no hands.
The beautiful stranger.
My father.
My mother.
My wife.
My child.
The world seems to be sinking into dusk...
but I recount, as in the beginning...
in my sing-song voice which sustains me...
saved by the tale from present troubles...
and protected for the future.
finished with the sweeping
over the centuries...
with the going back and forth,
as in the past.
Now I think only day by day.
My heroes are no longer...
The warriors and kings...
but the things of peace...
equal one to the other.
The drying onions being equal...
to the tree trunk crossing the marsh.
But no one has so far succeeded...
in singing an epic of peace.
What is wrong with peace...
that its inspiration doesn't endure...
and that it is almost untellable?
Must I give up now?
If I do give up,
then mankind will lose its storyteller.
And if mankind once loses its storyteller...
then it will lose its childhood.
I cannot find the Potsdamer Platz.
Here?
It cannot be here.
Potsdamer Platz.
That's where there was the Cafe Josti.
In the afternoons I went there to chat,
then to drink a coffee...
and to watch the crowd,
having smoked my cigar...
at Löhse and Wolff, a renowned tobacconist.
Just about here.
This can't be the Potsdamer Platz.
And no one whom you can ask.
It was a lively place.
Tramways, horse-drawn omnibuses...
and two cars:
mine and that of the chocolate shop.
The Wertheim store was here, too.
And then...
suddenly, the flags appeared.
There...
The whole Platz was covered with them.
And the people...
weren't friendly anymore.
And the police wasn't either.
I will not give up...
as long as I have not found
the Potsdamer Platz.
Where are my heroes?
Where are you, my children?
Where are my own, the curious ones...
the first, the original ones?
Name me, muse, the immortal singer...
who, abandoned by those
who listened to him...
lost his voice.
He who, from the angel of poetry
that he was, became the poet...
ignored or mocked...
outside on the threshold of no-man's land.
20 marks, 40 marks, 80 marks.
In a week, I could have 500. Off to the south!
What a crazy idea to be here.
Too much traffic.
Idiot! Three times he's been this way.
I want to get out of here.
If anyone recognizes me,
I'll be thrown out of high school.
I need Klaus, he'd take care of me.
He'd take good care of me.
He was too good. That's why he's dead.
Are there still borders? More than ever.
Each street has its borderline.
Between each lot
there's a no-man's land strip...
disguised by a hedge or by a ditch.
Whoever dares will fall on booby traps...
or be hit by laser rays.
The trout are really torpedoes.
Every proprietor, or even tenant...
sticks up his nameplate like a coat of arms...
and studies the morning paper
as if he were a world leader.
The German people have divided into
as many states as there are individuals.
And these small states are mobile.
Each one takes his own with him...
and demands a toll
when another wants to enter.
A fly caught in amber, or a leather bottle.
So much for the border.
But one can only enter each state
with the password.
The present-day German soul
can only be conquered and governed...
by he who arrives at each small state
with the password.
Fortunately, no one now has that power.
So everyone migrates...
and raises his own flag all over the world.
Their children already shake their rattles...
and trail their filth around them in circles.
-This is the book you were telling me about?
-Yeah.
-So what is it? Hitler had a double?
-Yeah.
-There were two Hitlers?
-Yeah.
-Two Hitlers?
-Not two.
-Hitler came from the east point.
-Yes.
And he died before he could land
at his home in the Alps.
And Goebbels got an actor to be Hitler?
Yes, because he doesn't want
anybody to know--
Let me ask you something.
This story, to me it's not too plausible.
Oh, well, I don't know.
Monsieur Falk, it will take another hour
before the next set.
Wonderful.
So it's more realistic than the film
we're making.
Let me explain to you.
People like detective stories.
They use any excuse
to make a detective story.
-You understand?
-Yeah.
It's dopey, I grant you.
But this is dopey, too.
Erika, come on, honey,
give me a break, please.
Okay, see you later.
I'm sorry. Hey, please, I want to talk to you.
Come here, sweetheart.
We have enough pictures.
So please, no more pictures, all right?
Oh, Helen, I'm looking for you.
I can't wear this fucking hat.
This is an excellent hat. It looks great.
-You put it on.
-Believe me.
You wear it.
Come on, we have other hats over here
you can find.
Yes, sir.
-All right. Just hold this. Very good.
-Thank you.
Now we've got some hats!
All right, now we're gonna get a hat
that fits the face.
A hat that fits the face.
-And we go over here and put.... Oh, Jesus!
-What kind of hat do you want?
How about this one?
I wanna look like a German.
I wanna look anonymous.
And I wanna look melt-into-the-crowd.
Not when you look like Humphrey Bogart.
Here, try that one.
All right. What about.... Oh, Jesus Christ!
-This one?
-All right.
-This here's for the opera.
-No, you look like a Jewish rabbi.
-Try that one.
-All right.
-This here, I'm 42nd Street.
-Here we go, there.
He's a bookmaker.
You know, a bookmaker?
What the hell is this here?
Come on, for Christ's sake,
get me a good hat, will you?
I'm in disguise, you see? I really
don't want to call attention to myself.
How about this one?
You know, it's ridiculous, these hats.
It doesn't go with the coat.
They're all gangsters' hats.
There, that's not a gangster hat.
This, I'm getting married.
-This is for a horse show in London.
-Try that one.
That one's good.
-That looks good.
-Maybe.
-I think that's it.
-Could be.
-Yeah.
-Possible.
Great. You look like
somebody's grandfather.
Charlie Chan.
"Number one son, not too clever."
Okay, look...
-it ain't great...
-It's super.
...but it'll be wonderful.
And you've been wonderful.
Olivier, that coat looks terrible.
Colombo had no hat,
That was a hell of a costume.
Well, it was your own coat.
Hey, Peter, where's your raincoat?
Been cleaned and burned.
What is it? What is it, Peter?
Why does your mind stray?
Think I'll have
filet of sole meunière tonight.
Do Germans make meunière?
Maybe pasta, tomato sauce, and basil.
Do Germans make pasta?
It will never change.
They were elegant, those guys.
They had style.
The one thing I shall miss...
from the outside, from the realm of light...
will be the sparrows.
Money makes for happiness. How to live?
The "Man in the Golden Helmet"
is a swindle.
You're not natives. You're all refugees.
I've been sitting here since this morning.
I'm cold and I'm bored.
Wind in the face, the first snow in the air.
Water in the gutter...
the balcony with the beautiful foreigner.
They could be real ones. They look like it.
Some stole food
from the dogs in the camps.
That would take the grin off your face.
Don't be too sure.
The Frenchman: I met him in the street.
"Berlin won't be there anymore," he said.
Constant.
The house had half gone.
Some of it still stood, for how long?
Yes, I can still see this woman
who was standing in the ruins...
and who was shaking the duvet.
When was that? In May, June '45.
Excuse me, may I draw you?
Sketch you? It's all right?
Yes, please.
Two minutes, very fast. Don't move.
I wonder if she's Jewish.
What a dear face!
Is it well done, what he's drawing?
Interesting.
What a nostril!
A dramatic nostril!
These people are extras.
Extra people.
Extras are so patient.
They just sit.
I'd like to see it.
Perhaps he'll give it to me.
Extras.
These humans are extras.
Extra humans.
Oh, very good.
Very nice picture.
Yellow star means death.
Why did they pick yellow?
Sunflowers.
Van Gogh killed himself.
This drawing stinks.
So what? No one sees it.
Someday you'll make a good drawing.
I hope, I hope, I hope.
Start the action for the stuntmen.
Come on, boys, I want to see action now!
Stop, cut!
They're not fighting.
It looks like it was choreographed.
I told you to hang that flag higher.
Get moving!
Make sure it hangs straight.
-Jerry?
-Yes, Peter?
Another interview. Berlin television.
You have some time, Peter.
I need you for a close-up afterwards,
for after the point-of-view shot.
All right, I'm coming fellas. We'll do it now.
Yeah, now is good.
What is it? What is it, Peter?
"Why, if I didn't have it, I'd miss it"...
said the general to the whore.
Come, I'll show you something else.
When the child was a child...
it choked on spinach, peas, rice pudding...
and steamed cauliflower...
and now eats all of that,
and not just because it has to.
When the child was a child...
it woke up once in a strange bed...
and now time and time again.
Many people seemed beautiful then...
but not so many anymore, only if it's lucky.
It had a precise picture of Paradise...
and now can only guess at it.
It couldn't imagine nothingness...
and today shudders at the idea.
When the child was a child...
it played with enthusiasm...
and now with such involvement...
only when it concerns its work.
Do you recall our first visit here?
History had not yet begun.
We let both mornings and evenings go by,
and we waited.
It was a long time
before the river found its bed...
and the stagnant water began to flow.
Valley of the primeval river.
One day, I still remember...
the glacier melted,
and the icebergs drifted to the north.
A tree passed by, still green,
with an empty bird's nest.
Over myriad years, only the fish had leapt.
Then came the moment
when the swarm of bees drowned.
Some time later,
the two stags fought on this bank.
Then the cloud of flies...
and the antlers, like branches,
flowing down the river.
All that ever grew again was the grass...
growing over the bodies of wild cats,
of wild boar, and buffalos.
Do you remember, one morning...
how, out of the savanna,
its forehead smeared with grass...
appeared the biped, our image,
so long awaited.
And its first word was a shout.
Was it "ah" or "oh"...
or was it merely a groan?
We were at last able to laugh
for the first time...
and through this man's shout
and the call of his followers...
-we learned to speak.
-A long story.
The sun, the lightning,
the thunder above in the sky...
and below, on earth,
the firesides, the leaps...
the round dances, the signs, the writing.
Then one of them broke through the circle
and ran straight ahead.
As long as he ran straight ahead...
swerving perhaps from joy...
he seemed free,
and we could laugh with him.
But then, suddenly...
he ran in a zigzag and stones flew.
With his flight began another story:
the story of wars.
It is still going on.
But the first story, too,
that of the grass, the sun...
of the leaps, and the shouts,
that still goes on.
Do you remember how one day
the highway was built...
which the next day
saw the Napoleonic retreat...
and was then paved?
Today it is covered with grass
and sunk like a Roman way,
its tank tracks, too.
But we weren't even spectators.
We've always been too few.
You really want--
To conquer a history for myself.
What my timeless downward look
has taught me, I want to transmute...
to sustain a glance...
a short shout, a sour smell.
I've been on the outside long enough.
Absent long enough.
Long enough out of the world.
Let me enter the history of the world.
If only to hold an apple in my hand.
Look, those feathers.
Look, there on the water, already vanished.
Look, the tire marks on the asphalt...
and the cigarette butt rolling.
The primeval river has dried up...
and only today's puddles still quiver.
Do away with the world behind the world!
Hey, Jerry!
Interesting drawing problem.
This man has eyes like a raccoon...
but he has a good hat.
What dark rings under his eyes!
Always worried.
I wonder if the director likes my work.
They always say "Wonderful!"...
no matter what you do.
Have to buy gifts for my children.
Maybe picture frames.
Am I a better actor now than I used to be?
Only the Roman roads still lead somewhere.
Only the most ancient traces lead anywhere.
Where is the top of the pass here?
Even the plains...
even Berlin has its hidden passes...
and it's only there that begins my country...
the country of the tale.
Why doesn't everyone see from childhood...
the passes, doors and crevices...
on the ground, and above in the sky?
If everyone saw them...
there would be a history
without murder or war.
Ten thousand times I thought about it,
but this time I'm doing it.
Funny I'm so calm.
Why red socks with black shoes?
Foggy, cold.
I put on a pullover, afraid to be cold.
Very good jacket. Was a bargain.
Pocket is un-sewn. She gave it to me.
Pebbles on the roof, I wonder why?
So it doesn't fly away or what?
I'd love to fly one day.
The plane circles over Berlin,
one day it'll crash.
It's really cold. My hands were always warm.
Really a good sign. It crackles underfoot.
How late is it? The sun's setting.
Logical, it's the West.
At least now I know where the West is.
I always took the U-Bahn to the East...
then bought 10 tickets, saved a mark.
The sun in my back, on the left, the star.
That's really good. Sun and a star.
Her little feet!
She hopped from one foot to the other.
She danced so sweetly.
We were all alone.
Has she already got my letter?
I don't want her to have read it.
Berlin means nothing to me.
Havel, is it a river or a lake?
The East? It's really everywhere.
Strange people, they're shouting.
I really don't care.
All these thoughts.
I'd really rather not think anymore.
I'm going, but why?
Story? Want to hear the story?
Story of '45, Berlin, war.
I'm an American detective.
German-American guy hires me.
His brother's son is in Germany.
Go to Germany, find him.
Brother's dead. The family is lost.
Find the kid.
In '45?
I'll never make it tonight.
No trapeze on full moon nights.
Not the last time. The very last time.
I think I should stop this dream.
The end of the circus!
The end.
Once again, night falls in my head.
Fear.
Fear of death.
Why not death?
The only important thing sometimes...
is just being beautiful...
or else absolutely nothing.
To look at oneself in the mirror
is to see oneself think.
So what do you think?
I think I've still the right to be afraid...
but not to talk about it.
You're not yet blind...
the heart still beats.
And now you're crying.
You'd like to cry like a very sad little girl.
Do you know why you're crying?
For whom?
Not for me. I don't know for whom.
I'd like to know.
I know nothing.
I'm a little bit afraid.
It's gone.
It's gone away.
It'll come back.
It doesn't matter.
Just to be able to say...
like now:
"I'm happy."
I've a story...
and I'll go on having one.
There it is again, my feeling of well-being...
as if inside my body,
a hand was softly tightening.
When the child was a child...
it was the time of these questions:
Why am I me and why not you?
Why am I here and why not there?
When did time begin,
and where does space end?
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?
Walking.
Looking and seeing.
I wish you were here, Grandma.
This must be the station
they told me about...
with the funny name.
Not the station where the train stopped.
But the station...
where the station stopped.
Isn't that Colombo?
No, don't think so.
Not with that moth-eaten coat.
Why should he be walking
through this mud!
SNACK BAR
I can't see you, but I know you're here.
I feel it.
You've been hanging around
since I got here.
I wish I could see your face.
Just look into your eyes,
and tell you how good it is to be here.
Just to touch something.
See, that's cold.
That feels good.
Here.
To smoke...
to have coffee.
And if you do it together, it's fantastic.
Or...
to draw.
You know, you take a pencil,
and you make a dark line...
then you make a light line.
And together, it's a good line.
But when your hands are cold...
you rub them together.
You see, that's good. That feels good.
There's so many good things.
But you're not here. I'm here.
I wish you were here.
I wish you could talk to me...
because I'm a friend.
Well?
I'm going to enter the river.
Old human expression, often heard,
that I just understood today.
Now or never, moment of the ford.
But there is no other bank,
there is only the river.
Forward in the ford of time,
in the ford of death.
We are not yet born, so let's descend.
To look is not to look from on high,
but at eye level.
First, I'll have a bath.
Then I'll be shaved...
by a Turkish barber...
who will massage me
down to the fingertips.
Then I'll buy a newspaper...
and read it from headlines to horoscope.
On the first day, I'll be waited upon.
For requests, ask the neighbor.
If someone stumbles over my legs,
he'll have to apologize.
I'll be pushed around, and I'll push back.
In the crowded bar,
the bartender will find me a table.
A service car will stop,
and the mayor will take me aboard.
I'll be known to everyone,
and suspect to no one.
I won't say a word,
and will understand every language.
This will be my first day.
None of it will come true.
I'll take her in my arms.
And she'll take me in her arms.
I think he's drunk.
Let's go!
It's got a taste!
Now I begin to understand!
-Is that red?
-Yes.
Have you hurt yourself?
Is today a good day?
The pipes?
They're yellow.
-What about him?
-He's gray-blue.
He's orange. Ochre.
Ochre or orange?
Yellow, red.
-And him?
-He's green.
-And what's that, over the eyes?
-That's blue.
-Is it very cold today?
-Oh, it'll soon be over.
I'd like to have a coffee.
You have no money?
I'm glad that today everything's fine.
Beautiful!
Milk and sugar?
Black.
When the child was a child.
it lived on apples and bread,
that was enough.
And it is still that way.
When the child was a child...
berries fell only like berries into its hand...
and they still do now.
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw...
and they still do now.
Atop each mountain, it was longing...
for a higher mountain.
And in each city, it was longing...
for a bigger city...
and it still does.
Reached in the treetop for the cherries...
as elated...
as it still is.
Was shy...
in front of strangers.
And it still is.
Waited for the first snow...
and still waits that way.
When the child was a child...
it threw a stick, like a lance, into a tree.
And it's still quivering there today.
ANTIQUES
How do I get to Akazienstrasse?
Go up Potsdamer to Kleistpark.
Then right at Grunewald,
past Elssholz and Gleditsch.
No right turn at Goltzstrasse,
it goes to Winterfeldplatz.
Turn left, and there you are.
Entrance reserved for the crew.
Extras, the other way.
Oh, yes!
Extra.
You look like one!
They all want autographs!
Idiot cop!
I'm so happy to see you.
-How's it going?
-Fine.
You see, I expected a much taller man.
I don't know why.
-Even taller?
-Even taller.
How long?
Minutes...
hours...
days, weeks, months.
Time!
Let me give you a few dollars,
just to tide you over.
I have money.
I sold something.
The armor?
Right? What did you get for it?
Two hundred marks.
You got robbed. But that happens.
I got to tell you something.
I'm going back now 30 years.
New York City.
Pawn shop, 23rd and Lex.
The guy gave me $500.
You were....
Yeah.
You are....
-You, too?
-Oh, yeah.
There's lots of us.
Mr. Falk, I've been looking for you all over.
We're ready for you now.
Okay, David, I'll be right with you.
You're not the only one.
So what're you going to do now?
There is a girl.
A girl! Good!
Hey, wait! You wanted to tell me more!
I want to know...
everything!
That you have to find out yourself.
That's the fun of it.
Come on, Marion, don't worry.
It'll be all right.
I'll send you postcards of the Eiffel Tower.
See you next season!
Don't forget the Circus Alekan!
Bye, Archie, see you next year!
A thousand kisses!
I'll send a little parcel. What do you want?
Some Camembert cheese?
I couldn't say who I am,
I haven't the slightest idea.
I'm someone with no roots...
no story, no country.
And I like it that way.
I'm here, I'm free.
I can imagine anything.
It's all possible.
I only have to raise my eyes...
and once again, I become the world.
Now...
in this very place...
a feeling of happiness...
that I could always have.
-What are you doing there?
-I'm sitting here.
Are you sad?
-Are you sick?
-Yes.
-What's the matter?
-A need.
Is that so?
A double-knot is the only way
to make it hold.
A need of food perhaps, or need of drink.
She has not gone, Cassiel, I know that.
I'll find her.
Something will happen,
something important, tonight.
There are other suns
than the one up in the sky, Cassiel!
In deepest night, spring will begin today.
Other wings will grow
in place of the old ones.
Wings that will, at last, astound me.
Can I have a coffee please?
Lieutenant...
I bet you must know how to find people.
Well, I know how to look for them.
I don't always find them.
You're looking for somebody?
-I don't know. I just want to find someone.
-Yeah, who?
Boy, girl, man, woman?
Man.
Well, do you know his name?
No?
Do you know where he lives?
-I know nothing.
-Nothing?
Well, this is a tough case.
I got to go. Good night.
-Good luck.
-Lieutenant.
I can't see you, but I know you're here.
I feel it.
I wish I could see your face, because
there are so many things I want to tell you.
I'm your friend.
One more song, and it's over.
But I'm not going to tell you about a girl.
I want to tell you about a girl.
It must finally become serious.
I've often been alone...
but I've never lived alone.
When I was with someone,
I was often happy.
But at the same time,
it all seemed a coincidence.
These people were my parents.
But it could have been others.
Why was this brown-eyed boy my brother...
and not the green-eyed boy
on the opposite platform?
The taxi driver's daughter was my friend.
But I might as well have
put my arm round a horse's neck.
I was with a man...
in love...
and I might as well have left him there...
and gone off with the stranger
I met in the street.
Look at me or don't.
Give me your hand or don't.
No.
Don't give me the hand, and look away.
I think tonight is the new moon.
No night more peaceful.
No bloodshed in all the city.
I've never played with anyone...
and yet I've never opened my eyes
and thought:
Now it's serious.
At last it's becoming serious.
So I've grown older.
Was I the only one who wasn't serious?
Is it our times that are not serious?
I was never lonely...
neither when I was alone, nor with others.
But I would have liked to be alone at last.
Loneliness means I'm finally whole.
Now I can say it...
as tonight, I'm at last alone.
I must put an end to coincidence.
The new moon of decision.
I don't know if there's destiny...
but there's a decision.
Decide!
We are now the times.
Not only the whole town...
the whole world is taking part
in our decision.
We two are now more than us two.
We incarnate something.
We're representing the people now...
And the whole place is full of those...
who are dreaming the same dream.
We are deciding everyone's game.
I am ready.
Now...
it's your turn.
You hold the game in your hand.
Now...
or never.
You need me.
You will need me.
There's no greater story than ours...
that of man and woman.
It will be a story of giants...
invisible...
transposable...
a story of new ancestors.
Look.
My eyes...
they are the picture of necessity...
of the future of everyone in the place.
Last night...
I dreamt of a stranger...
of my man.
Only with him could I be alone...
open up to him...
wholly open, wholly for him.
Welcome him wholly into me...
surround him with the labyrinth...
of shared happiness.
I know...
it's you.
Something happened.
It is still going on.
It binds me.
It was true at night, and it's true in the day.
Even more so now.
Who was who?
I was in her, and she was around me.
Who in the world can claim that he was
ever together with another being?
I am together.
No mortal child was begot...
but an immortal, common image.
I learned astonishment that night.
She came to take me home...
and I found home.
It happened once.
Only once, and therefore forever.
The picture that we have created
will be with me when I die.
I will have lived within it.
First the amazement about the two of us.
Amazement about man and woman...
has made a human being of me.
I...
know...
now...
what...
no...
angel...
knows.
Name me the men, women, and children...
who will look for me...
me, their storyteller...
their spokesman...
for they need me...
more than anything in the world.
We have embarked!