1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:07,450 --> 00:00:09,770 (film reel whirring) 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 4 00:00:12,810 --> 00:00:14,210 The problem for us is not 5 00:00:14,210 --> 00:00:17,050 are our desires satisfied or not. 6 00:00:17,050 --> 00:00:19,570 (film reel whirring) 7 00:00:19,570 --> 00:00:22,450 The problem is how do we know what we desire? 8 00:00:22,450 --> 00:00:24,970 There is nothing spontaneous, 9 00:00:24,970 --> 00:00:29,370 nothing natural about human desires. 10 00:00:29,370 --> 00:00:32,009 Our desires are artificial. 11 00:00:32,009 --> 00:00:35,330 We have to be taught to desire. 12 00:00:35,330 --> 00:00:39,050 Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. 13 00:00:39,050 --> 00:00:41,410 It doesn't give you what you desire. 14 00:00:41,410 --> 00:00:44,930 It tells you how to desire. 15 00:00:44,930 --> 00:00:47,250 (dark, unsettling music) 16 00:01:09,930 --> 00:01:12,530 (bell dinging) 17 00:01:12,530 --> 00:01:16,050 Oh, I do like you, 18 00:01:16,050 --> 00:01:18,330 but it just isn't good enough. 19 00:01:18,330 --> 00:01:20,650 (bell dinging) 20 00:01:23,170 --> 00:01:25,490 Oh, I forgot. 21 00:01:25,490 --> 00:01:27,010 Your mother asked me up for supper. 22 00:01:27,010 --> 00:01:30,210 Okay, bring some ice cream with you, will you? 23 00:01:30,210 --> 00:01:32,850 Sure, what kind you want, chocolate or vanilla? 24 00:01:32,850 --> 00:01:34,410 -Chocolate. -Okay. 25 00:01:34,410 --> 00:01:36,170 What we get in this wonderful clip 26 00:01:36,170 --> 00:01:38,250 from Possessed 27 00:01:38,250 --> 00:01:41,850 is commentary on the magic art of cinema 28 00:01:41,850 --> 00:01:43,930 within a movie. 29 00:01:43,930 --> 00:01:46,130 We have an ordinary working-class girl 30 00:01:46,130 --> 00:01:48,330 living in a drab, small provincial town. 31 00:01:48,330 --> 00:01:50,650 All of a sudden, she finds herself in a situation 32 00:01:50,650 --> 00:01:56,370 where reality itself reproduces the magic cinematic experience. 33 00:01:56,370 --> 00:01:59,250 She approaches the rail. 34 00:01:59,250 --> 00:02:00,610 The train is passing, 35 00:02:00,610 --> 00:02:02,690 and it is as if 36 00:02:02,690 --> 00:02:05,970 what in reality is just a person standing near 37 00:02:05,970 --> 00:02:08,970 a slowly passing train, 38 00:02:08,970 --> 00:02:12,970 turns into a viewer observing 39 00:02:12,970 --> 00:02:16,250 the magic of the screen. 40 00:02:16,250 --> 00:02:18,570 (soft music) 41 00:02:56,329 --> 00:02:57,810 Have a drink? 42 00:02:57,810 --> 00:03:00,050 (upbeat music) 43 00:03:00,050 --> 00:03:01,570 Oh, don't go away. 44 00:03:01,570 --> 00:03:03,530 Looking in? 45 00:03:03,530 --> 00:03:06,170 Wrong way, get in and look out. 46 00:03:06,170 --> 00:03:09,490 We get a very real ordinary scene 47 00:03:09,490 --> 00:03:13,250 onto which the heroine's inner space, as it were, 48 00:03:13,250 --> 00:03:15,690 her fantasy space is projected, 49 00:03:15,690 --> 00:03:18,930 so that although all reality is simply there-- 50 00:03:18,930 --> 00:03:20,490 the train, the girl-- 51 00:03:20,490 --> 00:03:23,010 part of reality in her perception, 52 00:03:23,010 --> 00:03:24,810 and in our viewer's perception 53 00:03:24,810 --> 00:03:27,890 is, as it were, elevated to the magic level, 54 00:03:27,890 --> 00:03:30,570 becomes the screen of her dreams. 55 00:03:30,570 --> 00:03:33,210 This is cinematic art at its purest. 56 00:03:33,210 --> 00:03:35,930 (tense music) 57 00:03:39,690 --> 00:03:42,170 This is your last chance. 58 00:03:42,170 --> 00:03:44,690 After this, there is no turning back. 59 00:03:44,690 --> 00:03:48,170 You take the blue pill, the story ends, 60 00:03:48,170 --> 00:03:49,690 you wake up in your bed and believe 61 00:03:49,690 --> 00:03:51,450 whatever you want to believe. 62 00:03:51,450 --> 00:03:52,970 You take the red pill, 63 00:03:52,970 --> 00:03:55,370 you stay in wonderland, 64 00:03:55,370 --> 00:03:58,530 and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. 65 00:03:58,530 --> 00:04:01,090 (tense music) 66 00:04:01,090 --> 00:04:03,410 (thunder rumbling) 67 00:04:06,370 --> 00:04:10,170 But the choice between the blue and the red pill 68 00:04:10,170 --> 00:04:14,330 is not really a choice between illusion and reality. 69 00:04:14,330 --> 00:04:17,890 Of course, Matrix is a machine for fictions, 70 00:04:17,890 --> 00:04:23,170 but these are fictions which already structure our reality. 71 00:04:23,170 --> 00:04:26,050 If you take away from our reality 72 00:04:26,050 --> 00:04:28,770 the symbolic fictions that regulate it, 73 00:04:28,770 --> 00:04:31,250 you lose reality itself. 74 00:04:31,250 --> 00:04:33,409 I want a third pill! 75 00:04:33,409 --> 00:04:36,810 So what is the third pill? 76 00:04:36,810 --> 00:04:40,130 Definitely not some kind of transcendental pill 77 00:04:40,130 --> 00:04:43,250 which enables a fake fast-food religious experience, 78 00:04:43,250 --> 00:04:48,130 but a pill that would enable me to perceive 79 00:04:48,130 --> 00:04:50,610 not the reality behind the illusion, 80 00:04:50,610 --> 00:04:55,409 but the reality in illusion itself. 81 00:04:55,409 --> 00:04:58,170 If something gets too traumatic, too violent, 82 00:04:58,170 --> 00:05:02,890 even too... too filled in with enjoyment, 83 00:05:02,890 --> 00:05:06,130 it shatters the coordinates of our reality. 84 00:05:06,130 --> 00:05:08,170 We have to fictionalize it. 85 00:05:08,170 --> 00:05:10,490 (boat motor humming) 86 00:05:17,730 --> 00:05:20,050 (seagulls squawking) 87 00:05:23,530 --> 00:05:26,210 (birds chirping) 88 00:05:26,210 --> 00:05:28,090 The first key to horror films 89 00:05:28,090 --> 00:05:30,290 is to say, "Let's imagine 90 00:05:30,290 --> 00:05:33,690 the same story, but without the horror element." 91 00:05:33,690 --> 00:05:37,010 This gives us, I think, the background. 92 00:05:37,010 --> 00:05:39,850 (boat motor humming) 93 00:05:39,850 --> 00:05:41,970 We're in the middle of Bodega Bay, 94 00:05:41,970 --> 00:05:45,970 where the action of Hitchcock's Birds takes place. 95 00:05:45,970 --> 00:05:48,370 (seagull squawking ) 96 00:05:48,370 --> 00:05:50,690 (boat motor sputtering) 97 00:05:53,090 --> 00:05:58,570 Birds is film about a young, rich, social, 98 00:05:58,570 --> 00:06:00,530 socialite girl from San Francisco 99 00:06:00,530 --> 00:06:03,810 who falls in love with a guy. 100 00:06:03,810 --> 00:06:05,490 Goes after him to Bodega Bay, 101 00:06:05,490 --> 00:06:09,330 where she discovers that he lives with his mother. 102 00:06:09,330 --> 00:06:10,650 Of course, it's none of my business, 103 00:06:10,650 --> 00:06:11,930 but when you bring a girl like that-- 104 00:06:11,930 --> 00:06:14,490 -Darling? -Yes? 105 00:06:14,490 --> 00:06:18,050 I think I can handle Melanie Daniels by myself. 106 00:06:18,050 --> 00:06:23,370 Well, as long as you know what you want, Mitch. 107 00:06:23,370 --> 00:06:25,090 I know exactly what I want. 108 00:06:25,090 --> 00:06:28,410 And then, there is the standard edible imbroglio 109 00:06:28,410 --> 00:06:31,330 of incestuous tension between mother and son. 110 00:06:31,330 --> 00:06:33,770 The son's split between his possessive mother 111 00:06:33,770 --> 00:06:36,090 and the intrusive girl. 112 00:06:36,090 --> 00:06:37,409 What's the matter with them? 113 00:06:37,409 --> 00:06:39,250 What's the matter with all the birds? 114 00:06:39,250 --> 00:06:40,730 Where'd you want this coffee? 115 00:06:40,730 --> 00:06:42,370 Uh, in on the table, honey. 116 00:06:42,370 --> 00:06:44,130 Hurry up with yours, Mitch. 117 00:06:44,130 --> 00:06:46,690 I'm sure Miss Daniels wants to be on her way. 118 00:06:46,690 --> 00:06:49,130 I think you ought to stay the night, Melanie. 119 00:06:49,130 --> 00:06:51,450 We have an extra room upstairs and everything. 120 00:06:51,450 --> 00:06:54,090 The big question about The Birds, of course, is 121 00:06:54,090 --> 00:06:55,610 the stupid obvious one: 122 00:06:55,610 --> 00:06:59,450 Why do the birds attack? 123 00:06:59,450 --> 00:07:00,650 Mitch? 124 00:07:00,650 --> 00:07:02,970 (birds flocking) 125 00:07:06,130 --> 00:07:07,890 It is not enough to say that 126 00:07:07,890 --> 00:07:12,130 the birds are part of the natural setup of reality. 127 00:07:12,130 --> 00:07:16,170 It is rather as if a foreign dimension intrudes, 128 00:07:16,170 --> 00:07:20,010 that literally tears apart reality. 129 00:07:20,010 --> 00:07:22,530 (birds screeching) 130 00:07:22,530 --> 00:07:26,410 We humans are not naturally born into reality. 131 00:07:26,410 --> 00:07:29,050 In order for us to act as normal people 132 00:07:29,050 --> 00:07:30,730 who interact with other people 133 00:07:30,730 --> 00:07:33,090 who live in the space of social reality, 134 00:07:33,090 --> 00:07:34,450 many things should happen, 135 00:07:34,450 --> 00:07:36,130 like we should be properly installed 136 00:07:36,130 --> 00:07:38,330 within the symbolic order, and so on. 137 00:07:38,330 --> 00:07:42,690 When this, our proper dwelling within a symbolic space, 138 00:07:42,690 --> 00:07:45,370 is disturbed, reality disintegrates. 139 00:07:45,370 --> 00:07:47,290 (wings beating) 140 00:07:48,970 --> 00:07:52,730 So to propose the psychoanalytic formula, 141 00:07:52,730 --> 00:07:55,530 the violent attacks of the birds are obviously 142 00:07:55,530 --> 00:07:58,690 explosive outbursts of maternal superego, 143 00:07:58,690 --> 00:08:02,490 of the maternal figure preventing, trying to prevent 144 00:08:02,490 --> 00:08:04,810 sexual relationship. 145 00:08:04,810 --> 00:08:08,330 So, the birds are raw incestuous energy. 146 00:08:08,330 --> 00:08:10,730 (boat motor humming) 147 00:08:10,730 --> 00:08:13,410 What am I doing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, now I got it. 148 00:08:13,410 --> 00:08:15,730 (boat motor humming) 149 00:08:20,210 --> 00:08:22,530 My God, I'm thinking like Melanie. 150 00:08:22,530 --> 00:08:25,130 You know what I'm thinking now? 151 00:08:25,130 --> 00:08:29,370 I want to fuck Mitch, that's what she was thinking. 152 00:08:29,370 --> 00:08:30,890 Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. 153 00:08:30,890 --> 00:08:34,970 I got this spontaneous confusion of directions. 154 00:08:34,970 --> 00:08:37,289 (boat motor humming) 155 00:08:44,290 --> 00:08:45,490 Mrs. Bates? 156 00:08:45,490 --> 00:08:47,810 (suspenseful music) 157 00:08:55,450 --> 00:08:57,690 (screaming) 158 00:08:59,210 --> 00:09:02,450 We are in the cellar of the mother's house 159 00:09:02,450 --> 00:09:04,210 from Psycho. 160 00:09:04,210 --> 00:09:05,770 What's so interesting is that 161 00:09:05,770 --> 00:09:10,130 the very disposition of mother's house. 162 00:09:10,130 --> 00:09:15,170 Events took place in it at three levels: 163 00:09:15,170 --> 00:09:19,290 first floor, ground floor, basement. 164 00:09:19,290 --> 00:09:21,490 It is as if they reproduced 165 00:09:21,490 --> 00:09:24,730 the three levels of human subjectivity. 166 00:09:26,490 --> 00:09:28,850 Ground floor is ego. 167 00:09:28,850 --> 00:09:32,650 Norman behaves there as a normal son, 168 00:09:32,650 --> 00:09:36,650 whatever remains of his normal ego taking over. 169 00:09:36,650 --> 00:09:38,930 Up there, it's the superego... 170 00:09:40,850 --> 00:09:42,650 ...maternal superego because 171 00:09:42,650 --> 00:09:45,890 the dead mother is basically a figure of superego. 172 00:09:45,890 --> 00:09:48,930 Now, Mother, I'm gonna 173 00:09:48,930 --> 00:09:50,770 bring something up. 174 00:09:50,770 --> 00:09:54,370 I am sorry, boy, but you do manage to look ludicrous 175 00:09:54,370 --> 00:09:55,730 when you give me orders. 176 00:09:55,730 --> 00:09:57,330 Please, Mother. 177 00:09:57,330 --> 00:10:00,650 No, I will not hide in the fruit cellar! 178 00:10:00,650 --> 00:10:03,810 Ha, you think I'm fruity, huh? 179 00:10:03,810 --> 00:10:06,410 And down in the cellar, 180 00:10:06,410 --> 00:10:08,650 it's the id, 181 00:10:08,650 --> 00:10:13,690 the reservoir of these illicit drives. 182 00:10:13,690 --> 00:10:16,610 So we can then interpret 183 00:10:16,610 --> 00:10:19,050 the event in the middle of the film 184 00:10:19,050 --> 00:10:22,450 when Norman carries 185 00:10:22,450 --> 00:10:26,650 the mother--or, as we learn at the end, Mother's mummy, 186 00:10:26,650 --> 00:10:30,970 corpse, skeleton--from the first floor to the cellar. 187 00:10:30,970 --> 00:10:34,850 Not ever again, now get out! 188 00:10:34,850 --> 00:10:36,810 I told you to get out, boy. 189 00:10:36,810 --> 00:10:38,170 I'll carry you, Mother. 190 00:10:38,170 --> 00:10:41,450 It's as if he is transposing her 191 00:10:41,450 --> 00:10:42,970 in his own mind 192 00:10:42,970 --> 00:10:45,010 as a psychic agency 193 00:10:45,010 --> 00:10:49,890 from superego to id. 194 00:10:49,890 --> 00:10:52,810 Put me down, put me down! 195 00:10:52,810 --> 00:10:54,850 Of course, the lesson of it is 196 00:10:54,850 --> 00:10:57,450 the old lesson elaborated already by Freud, 197 00:10:57,450 --> 00:11:01,610 that superego and id are deeply connected. 198 00:11:01,610 --> 00:11:04,570 The mother complains first as a figure of authority. 199 00:11:04,570 --> 00:11:06,850 "How can you be doing this to me? 200 00:11:06,850 --> 00:11:08,210 Aren't you ashamed? 201 00:11:08,210 --> 00:11:09,810 This is a fruit cellar!" 202 00:11:09,810 --> 00:11:13,450 And then, mother immediately turns in to obscenity. 203 00:11:13,450 --> 00:11:15,650 "Do you think I'm fruity?" 204 00:11:15,650 --> 00:11:17,290 Superego is not an ethical agency. 205 00:11:17,290 --> 00:11:20,410 Superego is an obscene agency 206 00:11:20,410 --> 00:11:23,850 bombarding us with impossible orders, 207 00:11:23,850 --> 00:11:27,770 laughing at us when, of course, we cannot ever 208 00:11:27,770 --> 00:11:30,050 fulfill its demand. 209 00:11:30,050 --> 00:11:33,810 The more we obey it, the more it makes us guilty. 210 00:11:33,810 --> 00:11:36,450 There is always some aspect 211 00:11:36,450 --> 00:11:38,530 of an obscene madman 212 00:11:38,530 --> 00:11:41,330 in the agency of the superego. 213 00:11:41,330 --> 00:11:43,650 (footsteps) 214 00:11:48,130 --> 00:11:52,570 We often find references to psychoanalysis 215 00:11:52,570 --> 00:11:57,250 embodied in the very relations between persons. 216 00:11:57,250 --> 00:11:59,970 For example, the three Marx brothers, 217 00:11:59,970 --> 00:12:03,970 Groucho, Chico, Harpo. 218 00:12:03,970 --> 00:12:07,170 It's clear Groucho, the most popular one 219 00:12:07,170 --> 00:12:11,610 with his nervous hyperactivity, is superego. 220 00:12:11,610 --> 00:12:13,050 Well, that covers a lot of ground. 221 00:12:13,050 --> 00:12:14,850 Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself. 222 00:12:14,850 --> 00:12:16,490 You better beat it, I hear they're gonna tear you down, 223 00:12:16,490 --> 00:12:18,090 and put up an office building where you're standing. 224 00:12:18,090 --> 00:12:19,450 You can leave in a taxi, 225 00:12:19,450 --> 00:12:21,170 if you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. 226 00:12:21,170 --> 00:12:22,890 If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. 227 00:12:22,890 --> 00:12:25,090 You know you haven't stopped talking since I came here? 228 00:12:25,090 --> 00:12:27,450 Chico, the rational guy, 229 00:12:27,450 --> 00:12:31,650 egotistic, calculating all the time, is ego. 230 00:12:31,650 --> 00:12:33,850 Chicolini, you're charged with high treason. 231 00:12:33,850 --> 00:12:35,730 And if found guilty, you'll be shot. 232 00:12:35,730 --> 00:12:37,970 -I object! -Oh, you object? 233 00:12:37,970 --> 00:12:39,170 On what grounds? 234 00:12:39,170 --> 00:12:41,250 I couldn't think of anything else to say. 235 00:12:41,250 --> 00:12:42,410 Objection sustained! 236 00:12:42,410 --> 00:12:44,490 And the weirdest of them all, 237 00:12:44,490 --> 00:12:48,330 Harpo, the mute guy, he doesn't talk. 238 00:12:48,330 --> 00:12:51,170 Freud said that drives are silent. 239 00:12:51,170 --> 00:12:52,530 He doesn't talk. 240 00:12:52,530 --> 00:12:55,010 He, of course, is id. 241 00:12:55,010 --> 00:12:57,890 Who are you guys? 242 00:12:57,890 --> 00:12:59,570 What are you doing in my room? 243 00:12:59,570 --> 00:13:01,450 He's my partner, but he no speak, 244 00:13:01,450 --> 00:13:02,850 he's dumb and deaf. 245 00:13:06,010 --> 00:13:09,130 The id in all its radical ambiguity. 246 00:13:09,130 --> 00:13:11,450 (honking) 247 00:13:14,250 --> 00:13:17,090 Maybe what is so weird about the Harpo character 248 00:13:17,090 --> 00:13:20,050 is that he's childishly innocent, 249 00:13:20,050 --> 00:13:22,050 just striving for pleasure, 250 00:13:22,050 --> 00:13:25,370 likes children, plays with children, and so on. 251 00:13:25,370 --> 00:13:28,050 But, at the same time... 252 00:13:29,770 --> 00:13:33,810 ...possessed by some kind of primordial evil, 253 00:13:33,810 --> 00:13:35,050 aggressive all the time. 254 00:13:35,050 --> 00:13:37,170 And this unique combination 255 00:13:37,170 --> 00:13:40,050 of utter corruption and innocence 256 00:13:40,050 --> 00:13:43,490 is what the id is about. 257 00:13:43,490 --> 00:13:45,570 -Get him off there! -Get off the table! 258 00:13:45,570 --> 00:13:48,370 What do you think you're--what d'ya think this is here anyway? 259 00:13:48,370 --> 00:13:50,690 (yelling) 260 00:13:58,530 --> 00:14:00,410 -Dr. Klein. -Yes, I'm Dr. Klein. 261 00:14:00,410 --> 00:14:02,010 -This is Dr. Taney. -How do you do? 262 00:14:02,010 --> 00:14:03,290 Things have gotten worse since I phoned you. 263 00:14:03,290 --> 00:14:04,370 I think you better come upstairs. 264 00:14:04,370 --> 00:14:05,610 She having the spasms again? 265 00:14:05,610 --> 00:14:06,970 Yeah, but they've gotten violent. 266 00:14:06,970 --> 00:14:08,010 Did you give her the medication? 267 00:14:08,010 --> 00:14:11,770 Voice is not an organic part 268 00:14:11,770 --> 00:14:13,730 of the human body. 269 00:14:13,730 --> 00:14:18,570 It's coming from somewhere in-between your body. 270 00:14:18,570 --> 00:14:20,490 Mother, please! 271 00:14:20,490 --> 00:14:22,410 Please, Mother, make it stop! 272 00:14:22,410 --> 00:14:23,850 It's burning! 273 00:14:23,850 --> 00:14:26,290 -It's burning! -Do something, doctor! 274 00:14:26,290 --> 00:14:28,170 Whenever we talk to another person, 275 00:14:28,170 --> 00:14:32,370 there is always this minimum of ventriloquist effect, 276 00:14:32,370 --> 00:14:35,610 as if some foreign power took possession. 277 00:14:35,610 --> 00:14:36,530 (screaming) 278 00:14:36,530 --> 00:14:38,290 Let the enemy have no power over her. 279 00:14:38,290 --> 00:14:40,210 And the son of iniquity be powerless to harm her. 280 00:14:40,210 --> 00:14:41,730 Your mother sucks cocks in Hell, 281 00:14:41,730 --> 00:14:45,650 Karras, you faithless slime. 282 00:14:45,650 --> 00:14:47,610 Remember that at the beginning of the film, 283 00:14:47,610 --> 00:14:51,410 this was a beautiful young girl. 284 00:14:51,410 --> 00:14:54,090 How did she become a monster that we see? 285 00:14:54,090 --> 00:14:56,970 By being possessed, 286 00:14:56,970 --> 00:14:59,050 but who possessed her? 287 00:14:59,050 --> 00:15:01,370 (growling) 288 00:15:03,210 --> 00:15:07,410 A voice, a voice in its obscene dimensions. 289 00:15:09,170 --> 00:15:10,970 See the cross of the Lord. 290 00:15:10,970 --> 00:15:13,210 Be gone, you hostile power. 291 00:15:13,210 --> 00:15:14,770 The first big film 292 00:15:14,770 --> 00:15:18,330 about this traumatic dimension of the voice-- 293 00:15:18,330 --> 00:15:21,010 the voice which freely floats around 294 00:15:21,010 --> 00:15:22,810 and is a traumatic presence, 295 00:15:22,810 --> 00:15:25,290 feared the ultimate moment, 296 00:15:25,290 --> 00:15:28,330 object of anxiety, which distorts reality-- 297 00:15:28,330 --> 00:15:32,090 was in '31 in Germany, 298 00:15:32,090 --> 00:15:34,610 Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. 299 00:15:57,610 --> 00:16:01,050 We do not see Mabuse till the end of the film. 300 00:16:01,050 --> 00:16:02,810 He's just a voice. 301 00:16:12,410 --> 00:16:14,930 And to redeem through Your Son, 302 00:16:14,930 --> 00:16:16,490 who lives and reigns with You 303 00:16:16,490 --> 00:16:18,650 in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 304 00:16:18,650 --> 00:16:21,210 God, forever and ever. 305 00:16:21,210 --> 00:16:22,650 Amen. 306 00:16:22,650 --> 00:16:24,450 So, the problem is-- 307 00:16:24,450 --> 00:16:27,010 which is why we have the two priests at her side-- 308 00:16:27,010 --> 00:16:29,810 how to get rid of this intruder, 309 00:16:29,810 --> 00:16:31,850 of this alien intruder? 310 00:16:31,850 --> 00:16:34,370 It is as if we are expecting 311 00:16:34,370 --> 00:16:36,770 the famous scene from Ridley Scott's Alien 312 00:16:36,770 --> 00:16:38,570 to repeat itself. 313 00:16:38,570 --> 00:16:40,890 (screaming) 314 00:16:50,370 --> 00:16:53,570 As if we just wait for some 315 00:16:53,570 --> 00:16:58,290 terrifying alien, evil-looking, small animal 316 00:16:58,290 --> 00:16:59,890 to jump out. 317 00:16:59,890 --> 00:17:02,210 (heart beating) 318 00:17:05,050 --> 00:17:08,170 There is a fundamental imbalance, gap, 319 00:17:08,170 --> 00:17:10,770 between our psychic energy-- 320 00:17:10,770 --> 00:17:13,450 called by Freud, libido, 321 00:17:13,450 --> 00:17:17,569 this endless, undead energy 322 00:17:17,569 --> 00:17:19,970 which persists beyond life and death-- 323 00:17:19,970 --> 00:17:24,210 and the poor, finite, mortal reality 324 00:17:24,210 --> 00:17:26,089 of our bodies. 325 00:17:26,089 --> 00:17:28,810 (groaning) 326 00:17:28,810 --> 00:17:31,130 (intense music) 327 00:17:33,690 --> 00:17:36,490 This is not just the pathology of 328 00:17:36,490 --> 00:17:38,170 being possessed by ghosts. 329 00:17:38,170 --> 00:17:40,890 (intense music) 330 00:17:40,890 --> 00:17:42,730 The lesson that we should learn, 331 00:17:42,730 --> 00:17:46,010 and that the movies try to avoid, 332 00:17:46,010 --> 00:17:49,330 is that we ourselves are the aliens 333 00:17:49,330 --> 00:17:51,170 controlling our bodies. 334 00:17:51,170 --> 00:17:55,370 Humanity means the aliens are controlling our animal bodies. 335 00:17:55,370 --> 00:17:58,090 (heart beating) 336 00:18:00,410 --> 00:18:03,570 Our ego, our psychic agency 337 00:18:03,570 --> 00:18:06,090 is an alien force 338 00:18:06,090 --> 00:18:10,250 distorting, controlling our body. 339 00:18:10,250 --> 00:18:12,570 Nobody was as fully aware 340 00:18:12,570 --> 00:18:14,610 of the properly traumatic 341 00:18:14,610 --> 00:18:16,810 dimension of the human voice-- 342 00:18:16,810 --> 00:18:20,770 the human voice, not as the sublime, ethereal 343 00:18:20,770 --> 00:18:24,130 medium for expressing the depth of human subjectivity, 344 00:18:24,130 --> 00:18:27,650 but the human voice as a foreign intruder-- 345 00:18:27,650 --> 00:18:31,250 nobody was more aware of this than Charlie Chaplin. 346 00:18:31,250 --> 00:18:33,570 (speaking foreign language) 347 00:18:46,850 --> 00:18:49,170 (coughing) 348 00:18:52,850 --> 00:18:57,250 Chaplin himself plays in the film two persons, 349 00:18:57,250 --> 00:19:00,530 the good, small Jewish barber... 350 00:19:00,530 --> 00:19:02,970 (whimsical music) 351 00:19:02,970 --> 00:19:05,250 ...and his evil double... 352 00:19:05,250 --> 00:19:07,410 (speaking foreign language) 353 00:19:07,410 --> 00:19:08,450 ...Hynkel, 354 00:19:08,450 --> 00:19:11,370 dictator, Hitler of course. 355 00:19:11,370 --> 00:19:14,050 Come on, why you! 356 00:19:14,050 --> 00:19:15,170 Oh! 357 00:19:17,530 --> 00:19:20,810 Oh, he bit my finger! 358 00:19:20,810 --> 00:19:22,690 The Jewish barber, the tramp figure, 359 00:19:22,690 --> 00:19:25,930 is, of course, the figure of silent cinema. 360 00:19:25,930 --> 00:19:27,610 Silent figures are basically like 361 00:19:27,610 --> 00:19:29,130 figures in the cartoon. 362 00:19:29,130 --> 00:19:30,570 They don't know death, 363 00:19:30,570 --> 00:19:32,410 they don't know sexuality, even. 364 00:19:32,410 --> 00:19:34,090 They don't know suffering. 365 00:19:34,090 --> 00:19:38,370 They just go on in their oral egotistic striving, 366 00:19:38,370 --> 00:19:41,410 like cat and mouse in a cartoon. 367 00:19:41,410 --> 00:19:43,930 You cut them into pieces, they're reconstituted. 368 00:19:43,930 --> 00:19:47,010 There is no finitude, no mortality here. 369 00:19:47,010 --> 00:19:48,730 There is evil, 370 00:19:48,730 --> 00:19:51,010 but kind of a naive, good evil. 371 00:19:51,010 --> 00:19:52,170 You're just egotistic. 372 00:19:52,170 --> 00:19:53,330 You want to eat, 373 00:19:53,330 --> 00:19:54,810 you want to hit the other, 374 00:19:54,810 --> 00:19:58,210 but there is no guilt proper. 375 00:19:58,210 --> 00:20:01,210 What we get with sound is 376 00:20:01,210 --> 00:20:04,770 interiority, depth, guilt... 377 00:20:07,330 --> 00:20:09,570 ...culpability. 378 00:20:09,570 --> 00:20:13,570 In other words, the complex, oedipal universe. 379 00:20:13,570 --> 00:20:15,610 Here you are, get a Hynkel button, get a Hynkel button. 380 00:20:15,610 --> 00:20:17,730 A fine photo with a phooey on each and every button. 381 00:20:17,730 --> 00:20:19,170 Two? 382 00:20:19,170 --> 00:20:21,490 (indistinct announcement) 383 00:20:24,290 --> 00:20:26,610 The problem of the film 384 00:20:26,610 --> 00:20:28,410 is not only the political problem-- 385 00:20:28,410 --> 00:20:31,850 how to get rid of totalitarianism, 386 00:20:31,850 --> 00:20:34,010 of its terrible seductive power-- 387 00:20:34,010 --> 00:20:36,810 but it's also this more formal problem, 388 00:20:36,810 --> 00:20:39,930 how to get rid of this terrifying dimension 389 00:20:39,930 --> 00:20:41,090 of the voice? 390 00:20:41,090 --> 00:20:43,410 (announcement continues) 391 00:20:51,970 --> 00:20:54,650 Or, since we cannot simply get rid of it, 392 00:20:54,650 --> 00:20:56,690 how to domesticate it? 393 00:20:56,690 --> 00:20:58,930 How to transform this voice 394 00:20:58,930 --> 00:21:02,170 nonetheless into a means of expressing 395 00:21:02,170 --> 00:21:05,530 humanity, love, and so on? 396 00:21:05,530 --> 00:21:07,850 (solemn music) 397 00:21:18,570 --> 00:21:20,850 German police grabs the poor tramp, 398 00:21:20,850 --> 00:21:23,730 thinking this is Hitler, and he has 399 00:21:23,730 --> 00:21:26,850 to address a large gathering. 400 00:21:26,850 --> 00:21:29,170 (solemn music) 401 00:21:33,490 --> 00:21:35,210 I'm sorry, 402 00:21:35,210 --> 00:21:37,010 but I don't want to be an emperor. 403 00:21:37,010 --> 00:21:39,130 That's not my business. 404 00:21:39,130 --> 00:21:41,610 I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. 405 00:21:41,610 --> 00:21:43,490 I should like to help everyone if possible. 406 00:21:43,490 --> 00:21:46,890 Jew, gentile, Black man, white, 407 00:21:46,890 --> 00:21:48,330 we all want to help one another. 408 00:21:48,330 --> 00:21:49,890 Human beings are like that. 409 00:21:49,890 --> 00:21:52,170 There, of course, he delivers his big speech 410 00:21:52,170 --> 00:21:55,370 about the need of love, understanding between people. 411 00:21:55,370 --> 00:21:58,370 But there is a catch, 412 00:21:58,370 --> 00:21:59,650 even a double catch. 413 00:21:59,650 --> 00:22:02,170 Soldiers, in the name of democracy, 414 00:22:02,170 --> 00:22:03,890 let us all unite! 415 00:22:03,890 --> 00:22:06,210 (cheering) 416 00:22:07,850 --> 00:22:10,130 People applaud exactly in the same way 417 00:22:10,130 --> 00:22:12,450 as they were applauding Hitler. 418 00:22:14,650 --> 00:22:18,770 The music that accompanies this great humanist finale, 419 00:22:18,770 --> 00:22:21,770 the overture to Wagner's opera, Lohengrin, 420 00:22:21,770 --> 00:22:24,450 is the same music as the one we hear 421 00:22:24,450 --> 00:22:29,250 when Hitler is daydreaming about conquering the entire world, 422 00:22:29,250 --> 00:22:33,210 and where he has a balloon in the shape of the globe. 423 00:22:33,210 --> 00:22:35,050 The music is the same. 424 00:22:35,050 --> 00:22:37,370 (solemn music) 425 00:22:51,490 --> 00:22:55,610 This can be read as the ultimate redemption of music, 426 00:22:55,610 --> 00:22:58,290 that the same music which served evil purposes 427 00:22:58,290 --> 00:23:00,330 can be redeemed to serve the good. 428 00:23:00,330 --> 00:23:03,170 Or, it can be read-- and I think it should be read-- 429 00:23:03,170 --> 00:23:05,090 in the much more ambiguous way 430 00:23:05,090 --> 00:23:08,970 that with music, we cannot ever be sure. 431 00:23:08,970 --> 00:23:11,290 (somber music) 432 00:23:13,170 --> 00:23:15,970 In so far as it externalizes 433 00:23:15,970 --> 00:23:18,130 our inner passion, 434 00:23:18,130 --> 00:23:21,410 music is potentially always a threat. 435 00:23:22,570 --> 00:23:24,890 (singing in foreign language) 436 00:23:45,810 --> 00:23:48,290 There is a short scene 437 00:23:48,290 --> 00:23:50,930 in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, 438 00:23:50,930 --> 00:23:53,170 which takes place in the theatre 439 00:23:53,170 --> 00:23:54,490 where we are now, 440 00:23:54,490 --> 00:23:56,330 where behind the microphone, 441 00:23:56,330 --> 00:23:58,050 a woman is singing. 442 00:23:58,050 --> 00:24:01,850 Then, out of exhaustion, or whatever, she drops down. 443 00:24:01,850 --> 00:24:05,690 Surprisingly, the singing goes on. 444 00:24:05,690 --> 00:24:08,770 (singing in foreign language) 445 00:24:08,770 --> 00:24:10,210 Immediately afterwards, 446 00:24:10,210 --> 00:24:13,210 it is explained it was a playback. 447 00:24:13,210 --> 00:24:15,410 But for that couple of seconds, 448 00:24:15,410 --> 00:24:16,890 when we are confused, 449 00:24:16,890 --> 00:24:19,770 we confront this nightmarish dimension 450 00:24:19,770 --> 00:24:23,370 of an autonomous partial object. 451 00:24:23,370 --> 00:24:26,850 (singing in foreign language) 452 00:24:26,850 --> 00:24:29,810 Like, in the well-known adventure of Cheshire Cat 453 00:24:29,810 --> 00:24:32,850 from Alice in Wonderland, where the cat disappears, 454 00:24:32,850 --> 00:24:34,490 the smile remains. 455 00:24:35,770 --> 00:24:38,650 You may have noticed 456 00:24:38,650 --> 00:24:41,890 that I'm not all there 457 00:24:41,890 --> 00:24:43,050 myself. 458 00:24:43,050 --> 00:24:46,010 (laughing) 459 00:24:46,010 --> 00:24:49,530 And the mome raths outgrabe 460 00:24:53,610 --> 00:24:57,050 The fascinating thing about partial objects, 461 00:24:57,050 --> 00:24:59,450 in the sense of organs without bodies, 462 00:24:59,450 --> 00:25:05,650 is that they embody what Freud called death drive. 463 00:25:05,650 --> 00:25:07,770 Here, we have to be very careful. 464 00:25:07,770 --> 00:25:11,690 Death drive is not kind of a Buddhist striving 465 00:25:11,690 --> 00:25:14,370 for annihilation, "I want to find eternal peace, 466 00:25:14,370 --> 00:25:17,570 I want"--No, death drive is almost the opposite. 467 00:25:17,570 --> 00:25:19,850 Death drive is the dimension of what-- 468 00:25:19,850 --> 00:25:22,530 in the Stephen King-like horror fiction--is called 469 00:25:22,530 --> 00:25:24,370 the dimension of the undead, 470 00:25:24,370 --> 00:25:25,850 of living dead, 471 00:25:25,850 --> 00:25:29,490 of something which remains alive even after it is dead. 472 00:25:29,490 --> 00:25:33,770 And it's, in a way, immortal in its deadness itself. 473 00:25:33,770 --> 00:25:35,970 Goes on, exists, you cannot destroy. 474 00:25:35,970 --> 00:25:39,530 The more you cut it, the more it exists, it goes on. 475 00:25:39,530 --> 00:25:43,570 This dimension of kind of diabolical undeadness 476 00:25:43,570 --> 00:25:46,450 is what partial objects are about. 477 00:25:46,450 --> 00:25:48,850 (lively music) 478 00:26:00,490 --> 00:26:02,450 The nicest example here for me, I think, 479 00:26:02,450 --> 00:26:06,570 is Michael Powell's Red Shoes, about the ballerina. 480 00:26:06,570 --> 00:26:08,890 (lively music) 481 00:26:15,570 --> 00:26:18,490 Her passion for dancing is materialized 482 00:26:18,490 --> 00:26:20,530 in her shoes taking over. 483 00:26:20,530 --> 00:26:23,330 The shoes are literally the undead object. 484 00:26:23,330 --> 00:26:26,890 (eerie music) 485 00:26:26,890 --> 00:26:29,210 (speaking foreign language) 486 00:26:38,210 --> 00:26:40,530 (aggressive dramatic music) 487 00:26:45,690 --> 00:26:48,170 (cheering) 488 00:26:54,690 --> 00:26:55,970 (groaning) 489 00:26:58,090 --> 00:27:00,090 Perhaps the ultimate bodily part 490 00:27:00,090 --> 00:27:03,570 which fits this role of the autonomous partial object 491 00:27:03,570 --> 00:27:08,330 is the fist, or rather, the hand. 492 00:27:08,330 --> 00:27:10,650 (thudding) 493 00:27:22,410 --> 00:27:24,490 This hand raising up. 494 00:27:24,490 --> 00:27:26,050 That's the whole point of the film. 495 00:27:26,050 --> 00:27:28,450 It's not simply something foreign to him. 496 00:27:28,450 --> 00:27:31,330 It's the very core of his personality out there. 497 00:27:32,850 --> 00:27:34,290 Security! 498 00:27:34,290 --> 00:27:37,290 I am Jack's smirking revenge. 499 00:27:37,290 --> 00:27:39,610 (dark music) 500 00:27:42,890 --> 00:27:44,010 Oh! 501 00:27:45,410 --> 00:27:48,530 What the hell are you doing? 502 00:27:48,530 --> 00:27:50,930 (glass shattering) 503 00:27:50,930 --> 00:27:53,250 (dark music) 504 00:27:55,970 --> 00:27:57,610 That hurt. 505 00:27:57,610 --> 00:28:02,090 Far from standing for some kind of perverted masochism, 506 00:28:02,090 --> 00:28:05,170 or reactionary fantasy of violence, 507 00:28:05,170 --> 00:28:09,490 this scene is deeply liberating. 508 00:28:09,490 --> 00:28:12,730 I'm here, as it were, on the side of the fist. 509 00:28:12,730 --> 00:28:15,290 I think this is what liberation means. 510 00:28:15,290 --> 00:28:17,130 In order to attack the enemy, 511 00:28:17,130 --> 00:28:21,210 you first have to beat the shit out of yourself. 512 00:28:21,210 --> 00:28:22,810 To get rid, in yourself, 513 00:28:22,810 --> 00:28:25,410 that which in yourself 514 00:28:25,410 --> 00:28:29,010 attaches you to the leader, to the conditions of slavery, 515 00:28:29,010 --> 00:28:30,250 and so on, and so on. 516 00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:31,850 No, please stop! 517 00:28:31,850 --> 00:28:34,250 (gagging) 518 00:28:34,250 --> 00:28:36,570 (dark music) 519 00:28:41,650 --> 00:28:43,690 What are you doing? 520 00:28:43,690 --> 00:28:45,690 Oh, God, no, please, no! 521 00:28:45,690 --> 00:28:48,410 For some reason, I thought of my first fight 522 00:28:48,410 --> 00:28:50,410 with Tyler. 523 00:28:50,410 --> 00:28:52,410 (bells dinging) 524 00:28:52,410 --> 00:28:56,650 There is always this conflict between me and my double. 525 00:28:56,650 --> 00:28:58,770 (train whistle blaring) 526 00:28:58,770 --> 00:29:01,770 Motherfucker! 527 00:29:01,770 --> 00:29:03,130 You hit me in the ear! 528 00:29:03,130 --> 00:29:05,210 -Well, Jesus, I'm sorry! -Ow! 529 00:29:05,210 --> 00:29:06,690 Christ! 530 00:29:06,690 --> 00:29:09,130 -Why the ear, man? -Oh, I fucked it up kind of. 531 00:29:09,130 --> 00:29:10,450 No, that was perfect. 532 00:29:10,450 --> 00:29:12,010 Oh! 533 00:29:12,010 --> 00:29:15,570 It is as if the double embodies myself, 534 00:29:15,570 --> 00:29:19,570 but without the castrated dimension of myself. 535 00:29:19,570 --> 00:29:22,530 (intimidating music) 536 00:29:22,530 --> 00:29:23,650 -You all right? -Yeah. 537 00:29:33,010 --> 00:29:34,370 There is an episode 538 00:29:34,370 --> 00:29:36,610 in the wonderful British horror classic, 539 00:29:36,610 --> 00:29:37,930 Dead of Night... 540 00:29:37,930 --> 00:29:41,210 I knew you wouldn't leave me, Hugo. 541 00:29:41,210 --> 00:29:42,770 I knew you'd come back. 542 00:29:42,770 --> 00:29:45,330 ...in which Michael Redgrave plays a ventriloquist 543 00:29:45,330 --> 00:29:49,050 who gets jealous of his puppet. 544 00:29:49,050 --> 00:29:52,410 Now don't get excited, I was only joking. 545 00:29:52,410 --> 00:29:53,810 You know me. 546 00:29:53,810 --> 00:29:56,810 Maxwell, Maxwell! 547 00:29:56,810 --> 00:29:57,930 Maxwell! 548 00:29:57,930 --> 00:29:59,810 I can't believe-- 549 00:29:59,810 --> 00:30:02,250 -Stop there! -Maxwell! 550 00:30:02,250 --> 00:30:04,570 (screaming) 551 00:30:05,610 --> 00:30:08,370 Hey, you fool! 552 00:30:08,370 --> 00:30:11,850 Officer, quickly, open this door! 553 00:30:11,850 --> 00:30:12,970 Quick! 554 00:30:15,210 --> 00:30:16,890 In an outburst of violence, 555 00:30:16,890 --> 00:30:20,610 destroys the puppet, breaks down. 556 00:30:20,610 --> 00:30:22,290 Then, in the very last scene of the film, 557 00:30:22,290 --> 00:30:24,010 we see him in the hospital 558 00:30:24,010 --> 00:30:27,930 slowly regaining consciousness, coming back to himself. 559 00:30:27,930 --> 00:30:31,490 First, his voice is stuck in the throat. 560 00:30:31,490 --> 00:30:33,570 Then, with great difficulty, 561 00:30:33,570 --> 00:30:37,330 finally, he is able to talk. 562 00:30:38,930 --> 00:30:41,570 But, he talks with 563 00:30:41,570 --> 00:30:45,370 the distorted voice of the dummy. 564 00:30:45,370 --> 00:30:49,090 Why, hello, Sylvester. 565 00:30:49,090 --> 00:30:52,010 I've been waiting for you. 566 00:30:52,010 --> 00:30:53,930 And the lesson is clear, 567 00:30:53,930 --> 00:30:55,530 the only way for me 568 00:30:55,530 --> 00:30:58,970 to get rid of this autonomous partial object 569 00:30:58,970 --> 00:31:02,850 is to become this object. 570 00:31:02,850 --> 00:31:04,130 Anytime you are ready, tell me. 571 00:31:04,130 --> 00:31:05,490 -Okay, I'm ready. -Wait a minute, 572 00:31:05,490 --> 00:31:07,650 so as I don't confuse them. 573 00:31:07,650 --> 00:31:09,730 Where is my key--my key is here, the other one is here. 574 00:31:09,730 --> 00:31:12,210 Okay, and you shout when. 575 00:31:14,130 --> 00:31:16,770 I'm standing on the very balcony 576 00:31:16,770 --> 00:31:19,490 where the murder, the traumatic murder scene 577 00:31:19,490 --> 00:31:22,290 occurs in The Conversation. 578 00:31:22,290 --> 00:31:24,530 The murder of the husband 579 00:31:24,530 --> 00:31:27,530 observed through the stained glass in front of me 580 00:31:27,530 --> 00:31:30,410 by the private detective, Gene Hackman. 581 00:31:35,290 --> 00:31:38,730 The detective is in the nearby room. 582 00:31:38,730 --> 00:31:42,610 Significantly, just before he sees the murder, 583 00:31:42,610 --> 00:31:44,930 he observes the balcony 584 00:31:44,930 --> 00:31:47,490 through a crack in the glass wall. 585 00:31:50,810 --> 00:31:53,050 Whenever we have this famous 586 00:31:53,050 --> 00:31:54,650 proverbial peeping tom scene 587 00:31:54,650 --> 00:31:59,010 of somebody observing traumatic event through a crack, 588 00:31:59,010 --> 00:32:02,610 it's never as if we are dealing with two parts 589 00:32:02,610 --> 00:32:06,450 on both sides of the wall of the same reality. 590 00:32:11,290 --> 00:32:13,050 Before seeing anything, 591 00:32:13,050 --> 00:32:16,490 or imagining to see something, 592 00:32:16,490 --> 00:32:18,290 he tries to listen. 593 00:32:18,290 --> 00:32:21,090 He behaves as an eavesdropper 594 00:32:21,090 --> 00:32:26,410 with all his private detective gadgets. 595 00:32:26,410 --> 00:32:28,850 What does this make him? 596 00:32:28,850 --> 00:32:30,930 Potentially, at least, 597 00:32:30,930 --> 00:32:35,450 it makes him into a fantasized, imagined entity. 598 00:32:37,370 --> 00:32:39,930 I can't stand it. 599 00:32:39,930 --> 00:32:42,210 I can't stand it! 600 00:32:42,210 --> 00:32:44,810 You're going to make me cry. 601 00:32:44,810 --> 00:32:49,530 -(unintelligible), me too. -No, don't! 602 00:32:49,530 --> 00:32:52,330 He doesn't fantasize the scene of the murder. 603 00:32:52,330 --> 00:32:57,050 He fantasizes himself as a witness to the murder. 604 00:32:57,050 --> 00:32:59,890 I love you. 605 00:32:59,890 --> 00:33:03,650 What he sees on that blurred window 606 00:33:03,650 --> 00:33:05,770 glass which effectively functions 607 00:33:05,770 --> 00:33:08,330 as a kind of elementary screen, 608 00:33:08,330 --> 00:33:09,930 cinematic screen, even, 609 00:33:09,930 --> 00:33:13,690 that should be perceived as a desperate attempt 610 00:33:13,690 --> 00:33:16,610 to visualize, hallucinate even, 611 00:33:16,610 --> 00:33:21,450 the bodily, material support of what he hears. 612 00:33:21,450 --> 00:33:22,770 (screaming) 613 00:33:26,130 --> 00:33:28,450 (knocking) 614 00:33:31,250 --> 00:33:33,570 (breathing heavily) 615 00:33:36,410 --> 00:33:38,730 (door slams) 616 00:33:43,210 --> 00:33:45,450 -Hello, baby. -Shut up! 617 00:33:45,450 --> 00:33:48,370 It's Daddy, you shithead, where's my bourbon? 618 00:33:52,930 --> 00:33:55,250 (pouring bourbon) 619 00:33:57,090 --> 00:33:59,890 Dorothy's apartment is one of those 620 00:33:59,890 --> 00:34:04,890 hellish places which abound in David Lynch's films, 621 00:34:04,890 --> 00:34:09,250 places where all moral or social inhibitions 622 00:34:09,250 --> 00:34:10,969 seem to be suspended, 623 00:34:10,969 --> 00:34:15,010 where everything is possible, 624 00:34:15,010 --> 00:34:17,770 the lowest masochistic sex, 625 00:34:17,770 --> 00:34:22,250 obscenities, the deepest level of our desires 626 00:34:22,250 --> 00:34:26,330 that we are not even ready to admit to ourselves. 627 00:34:26,330 --> 00:34:30,250 We are confronted with them in such places. 628 00:34:31,889 --> 00:34:33,449 Spread your legs. 629 00:34:44,409 --> 00:34:46,170 Wider. 630 00:34:48,330 --> 00:34:49,929 Now show it to me. 631 00:35:09,810 --> 00:35:11,930 Don't you fuckin' look at me. 632 00:35:19,690 --> 00:35:25,730 From what perspective should we observe this scene? 633 00:35:25,730 --> 00:35:28,130 (sinister music) 634 00:35:28,130 --> 00:35:30,450 (inhaling deeply) 635 00:35:32,050 --> 00:35:35,930 Imagine the scene as that of a small child 636 00:35:35,930 --> 00:35:39,330 hidden in a closet, or behind a door... 637 00:35:39,330 --> 00:35:40,850 Mommy! 638 00:35:40,850 --> 00:35:43,650 ...witnessing the parental intercourse. 639 00:35:43,650 --> 00:35:46,570 He doesn't yet know what sexuality is, 640 00:35:46,570 --> 00:35:47,690 how we do it. 641 00:35:47,690 --> 00:35:50,170 All he knows is what he hears, 642 00:35:50,170 --> 00:35:52,330 this strange deep breathing sound, 643 00:35:52,330 --> 00:35:56,330 and then he tries to imagine what goes on. 644 00:35:56,330 --> 00:35:58,370 At the very beginning of Blue Velvet, 645 00:35:58,370 --> 00:36:00,570 we see Jeffrey's father 646 00:36:00,570 --> 00:36:03,050 having a heart attack, falling down. 647 00:36:03,050 --> 00:36:08,130 We have the eclipse of the normal paternal authority. 648 00:36:08,130 --> 00:36:09,650 Hey, Dad. 649 00:36:11,130 --> 00:36:13,450 (machines beeping) 650 00:36:17,810 --> 00:36:19,410 Oh, Mommy! 651 00:36:19,410 --> 00:36:21,570 Mommy! 652 00:36:21,570 --> 00:36:23,330 Mommy! 653 00:36:23,330 --> 00:36:26,810 -Mommy loves you. -Baby wants to fuck! 654 00:36:26,810 --> 00:36:30,450 It is as if Jeffrey fantasizes this 655 00:36:30,450 --> 00:36:33,810 wild, parental couple of Dorothy and Frank 656 00:36:33,810 --> 00:36:37,130 as kind of a phantasmatic supplement 657 00:36:37,130 --> 00:36:40,730 to the lack of the real paternal authority. 658 00:36:42,970 --> 00:36:44,130 Get ready to fuck! 659 00:36:44,130 --> 00:36:45,530 You fuckers fuck her! 660 00:36:45,530 --> 00:36:46,730 You fucker! 661 00:36:48,970 --> 00:36:51,770 Don't you fuckin' look at me! 662 00:36:51,770 --> 00:36:54,410 Frank not only obviously acts, 663 00:36:54,410 --> 00:36:57,170 but even overacts. 664 00:36:57,170 --> 00:37:02,930 It is as if his ridiculously excessive gesticulating, 665 00:37:02,930 --> 00:37:04,850 shouting, and so on 666 00:37:04,850 --> 00:37:08,170 are here to cover up something. 667 00:37:08,170 --> 00:37:11,050 The point is, of course, the elementary one, 668 00:37:11,050 --> 00:37:14,850 to convince the invisible observer 669 00:37:14,850 --> 00:37:17,250 that father is potent, 670 00:37:17,250 --> 00:37:19,330 to cover up father's impotence. 671 00:37:19,330 --> 00:37:20,970 So, the second way to read the scene 672 00:37:20,970 --> 00:37:23,490 would have been as a spectacle, 673 00:37:23,490 --> 00:37:25,810 a ridiculously violent spectacle 674 00:37:25,810 --> 00:37:27,810 set up by the father 675 00:37:27,810 --> 00:37:30,410 to convince the son of his power, 676 00:37:30,410 --> 00:37:33,010 of his over-potence. 677 00:37:33,010 --> 00:37:35,330 (intense music) 678 00:37:38,290 --> 00:37:40,610 (screaming) 679 00:37:43,850 --> 00:37:45,970 The third way would have been 680 00:37:45,970 --> 00:37:49,010 to focus on Dorothy herself. 681 00:37:49,010 --> 00:37:51,530 Many feminists, of course, 682 00:37:51,530 --> 00:37:55,490 emphasized the brutality against women in this scene, 683 00:37:55,490 --> 00:37:59,570 the abuse, how Dorothy's character is abused. 684 00:37:59,570 --> 00:38:02,290 There is obviously this dimension in it. 685 00:38:02,290 --> 00:38:04,890 But I think one should risk 686 00:38:04,890 --> 00:38:09,570 a more shocking and obverse interpretation. 687 00:38:09,570 --> 00:38:13,570 What if the central, as it were, problem 688 00:38:13,570 --> 00:38:17,890 of this entire scene is Dorothy's passivity. 689 00:38:17,890 --> 00:38:21,130 Don't you fuckin' look at me! 690 00:38:21,130 --> 00:38:22,690 Yes. 691 00:38:22,690 --> 00:38:25,930 (sinister music) 692 00:38:25,930 --> 00:38:28,810 So, what if what Frank is doing 693 00:38:28,810 --> 00:38:31,650 is kind of a desperate, ridiculous, 694 00:38:31,650 --> 00:38:33,610 but nonetheless effective attempt 695 00:38:33,610 --> 00:38:35,890 of trying to help Dorothy. 696 00:38:35,890 --> 00:38:38,650 To awaken her out of her lethargy, 697 00:38:38,650 --> 00:38:41,050 to bring her into life. 698 00:38:41,050 --> 00:38:43,370 (grunting) 699 00:38:48,850 --> 00:38:53,330 So if Frank is anybody's fantasy, 700 00:38:53,330 --> 00:38:56,330 maybe he's Dorothy's fantasy. 701 00:38:56,330 --> 00:38:58,170 (sinister music) 702 00:38:58,170 --> 00:38:59,570 There is kind of a strange, 703 00:38:59,570 --> 00:39:02,130 mutual interlocking of fantasies. 704 00:39:02,130 --> 00:39:04,450 (sinister music) 705 00:39:10,210 --> 00:39:13,290 You stay alive, baby. 706 00:39:13,290 --> 00:39:17,330 It's not only ambiguity, but oscillation between 707 00:39:17,330 --> 00:39:19,130 three focal points. 708 00:39:19,130 --> 00:39:23,090 This, I think, is what accounts for the strange reverberations 709 00:39:23,090 --> 00:39:23,890 of this scene. 710 00:39:23,890 --> 00:39:27,450 (suspenseful music) 711 00:39:35,970 --> 00:39:39,570 This brings us to our third, and maybe crucial example, 712 00:39:39,570 --> 00:39:41,730 what is, for me, the most beautiful shot 713 00:39:41,730 --> 00:39:45,410 in the entire Vertigo. 714 00:39:45,410 --> 00:39:47,730 (tense music) 715 00:39:56,570 --> 00:39:58,970 The shot in which we see 716 00:39:58,970 --> 00:40:01,890 Scottie in the position of a peeping tom, 717 00:40:01,890 --> 00:40:04,770 observing through a crack. 718 00:40:04,770 --> 00:40:07,090 (tense music) 719 00:40:13,930 --> 00:40:16,610 It is as if Madeleine is really there 720 00:40:16,610 --> 00:40:18,170 in common reality, 721 00:40:18,170 --> 00:40:21,530 while Scottie is peeping at her 722 00:40:21,530 --> 00:40:26,130 from some mysterious interspace 723 00:40:26,130 --> 00:40:29,650 from some obscure netherworld. 724 00:40:29,650 --> 00:40:34,810 This is the location of the imagined, fantasized gaze. 725 00:40:41,650 --> 00:40:45,490 Gaze is that obscure point, the blind spot, 726 00:40:45,490 --> 00:40:49,050 from which the object looked upon 727 00:40:49,050 --> 00:40:51,210 returns the gaze. 728 00:40:51,210 --> 00:40:53,530 (water running) 729 00:40:57,210 --> 00:41:00,530 After suspecting that a murder is taking place 730 00:41:00,530 --> 00:41:02,530 in a nearby hotel room, 731 00:41:02,530 --> 00:41:04,730 Gene Hackman, playing the private detective, 732 00:41:04,730 --> 00:41:09,130 enters this room, and inspects the toilet. 733 00:41:09,130 --> 00:41:12,730 The moment he approaches the toilet in the bathroom, 734 00:41:12,730 --> 00:41:15,370 it is clear that we are in Hitchcock territory. 735 00:41:15,370 --> 00:41:18,730 It is clear that some kind of intense, implicit dialogue 736 00:41:18,730 --> 00:41:21,570 with Psycho is going on. 737 00:41:24,930 --> 00:41:26,610 In a very violent gesture, 738 00:41:26,610 --> 00:41:29,610 as if adopting the role of Norman Bates' mother, 739 00:41:29,610 --> 00:41:31,250 the murderer in Psycho, 740 00:41:31,250 --> 00:41:34,370 he opens up the curtain, inspects it in detail, 741 00:41:34,370 --> 00:41:37,050 looking for traces of blood there. 742 00:41:39,370 --> 00:41:42,170 Even inspecting the gap, the hole, 743 00:41:42,170 --> 00:41:45,330 at the bottom of the sink, 744 00:41:45,330 --> 00:41:48,770 which is precisely another of these focal object. 745 00:41:48,770 --> 00:41:52,050 Because in Psycho, the hole-- 746 00:41:52,050 --> 00:41:56,410 through fade out, the hole is morphed into the eye 747 00:41:56,410 --> 00:41:58,450 returning the gaze. 748 00:41:58,450 --> 00:42:00,770 (water pattering) 749 00:42:18,250 --> 00:42:21,650 We say the eye is the window of the soul. 750 00:42:21,650 --> 00:42:26,570 But what if there is no soul behind the eye? 751 00:42:26,570 --> 00:42:30,570 What if the eye is a crack through which 752 00:42:30,570 --> 00:42:35,530 we can perceive just the abyss of a netherworld? 753 00:42:35,530 --> 00:42:37,530 (shower running) 754 00:42:43,690 --> 00:42:46,250 When we look through these cracks, 755 00:42:46,250 --> 00:42:50,130 we see the dark other side 756 00:42:50,130 --> 00:42:54,650 where hidden forces run the show. 757 00:42:54,650 --> 00:42:58,490 (water running) 758 00:42:58,490 --> 00:43:01,570 It is as if Gene Hackman establishes no, we are 759 00:43:01,570 --> 00:43:04,690 nonetheless not in Psycho, let's return to my 760 00:43:04,690 --> 00:43:07,530 first object of fascination, toilet bowl. 761 00:43:07,530 --> 00:43:11,490 He flushes it, and then the terrible thing happens. 762 00:43:13,650 --> 00:43:15,970 (intense music) 763 00:43:25,890 --> 00:43:28,290 (water spilling) 764 00:43:28,290 --> 00:43:30,610 (intense music) 765 00:43:40,490 --> 00:43:45,050 In our most elementary experience, 766 00:43:45,050 --> 00:43:47,050 when we flush the toilet, 767 00:43:47,050 --> 00:43:50,890 excrements simply disappear out of our reality, 768 00:43:50,890 --> 00:43:52,770 into another space, 769 00:43:52,770 --> 00:43:55,690 which we phenomenologically perceive 770 00:43:55,690 --> 00:43:57,970 as a kind of a netherworld. 771 00:43:57,970 --> 00:44:01,410 Another reality, chaotic, primordial reality. 772 00:44:01,410 --> 00:44:04,050 And the ultimate horror, of course, 773 00:44:04,050 --> 00:44:07,850 is if the flushing doesn't work, 774 00:44:07,850 --> 00:44:10,370 if objects return, 775 00:44:10,370 --> 00:44:13,490 if excremental remainders 776 00:44:13,490 --> 00:44:16,130 return from that dimension. 777 00:44:16,130 --> 00:44:18,010 The bathroom. 778 00:44:18,010 --> 00:44:23,450 Hitchcock is all the time playing with this threshold. 779 00:44:23,450 --> 00:44:26,810 Well, they cleaned all this up now. 780 00:44:26,810 --> 00:44:29,130 Big difference. 781 00:44:29,130 --> 00:44:31,810 You should have seen the blood. 782 00:44:31,810 --> 00:44:34,530 The whole place was-- 783 00:44:34,530 --> 00:44:38,290 Well, it's too horrible to describe. Dreadful. 784 00:44:38,290 --> 00:44:42,370 The most effective, for me, and even the most touching 785 00:44:42,370 --> 00:44:44,850 scene of entire Psycho is 786 00:44:44,850 --> 00:44:46,970 after the shower murder, 787 00:44:46,970 --> 00:44:49,690 when Norman Bates 788 00:44:49,690 --> 00:44:52,330 tries to clean the bathroom. 789 00:44:52,330 --> 00:44:54,730 (eerie music) 790 00:44:54,730 --> 00:44:57,050 (faucet running) 791 00:45:03,690 --> 00:45:05,610 I remember clearly when, in my adolescence, 792 00:45:05,610 --> 00:45:06,970 I first saw the film, 793 00:45:06,970 --> 00:45:08,770 how deeply I was impressed 794 00:45:08,770 --> 00:45:12,810 by--not only by the length of the scene, 795 00:45:12,810 --> 00:45:14,730 it goes on almost for ten minutes, 796 00:45:14,730 --> 00:45:17,410 details of things, and so on, and so on-- 797 00:45:17,410 --> 00:45:20,810 but also by the care, the meticulousness, 798 00:45:20,810 --> 00:45:23,450 how it is done, and also by our spectator's 799 00:45:23,450 --> 00:45:25,410 identification with it. 800 00:45:25,410 --> 00:45:27,810 (eerie music) 801 00:45:27,810 --> 00:45:30,130 (water running) 802 00:45:33,370 --> 00:45:36,210 I think that this tells us a lot about 803 00:45:36,210 --> 00:45:38,490 the satisfaction of work, 804 00:45:38,490 --> 00:45:40,170 of a job well done-- 805 00:45:40,170 --> 00:45:43,570 which is not so much to construct something new, 806 00:45:43,570 --> 00:45:47,530 but maybe human work at its most elementary, 807 00:45:47,530 --> 00:45:49,730 work as it were at the zero level, 808 00:45:49,730 --> 00:45:55,050 is the work of cleaning the traces of a stain. 809 00:45:55,050 --> 00:45:57,370 (intense music) 810 00:46:01,770 --> 00:46:04,610 The work of erasing the stains, 811 00:46:04,610 --> 00:46:07,650 keeping at bay this chaotic netherworld, 812 00:46:07,650 --> 00:46:10,530 which threatens to explode anytime 813 00:46:10,530 --> 00:46:12,930 and engulf us. 814 00:46:12,930 --> 00:46:15,450 (intense music) 815 00:46:15,450 --> 00:46:18,250 I think this is the fine sentiment 816 00:46:18,250 --> 00:46:20,330 that Hitchcock's films evoke. 817 00:46:20,330 --> 00:46:25,650 It's not simply that something horrible happens in reality. 818 00:46:25,650 --> 00:46:27,290 Something worse can happen 819 00:46:27,290 --> 00:46:29,730 which undermines the very fabric 820 00:46:29,730 --> 00:46:32,770 of what we experience as reality. 821 00:46:35,090 --> 00:46:36,690 I think it's very important 822 00:46:36,690 --> 00:46:39,810 how the first attack of the birds occurs 823 00:46:39,810 --> 00:46:41,970 in the film. 824 00:46:41,970 --> 00:46:45,290 When a fantasy object, something imagined, 825 00:46:45,290 --> 00:46:47,650 an object from inner space, 826 00:46:47,650 --> 00:46:50,050 enters our ordinary reality, 827 00:46:50,050 --> 00:46:55,610 the texture of reality is twisted, distorted. 828 00:46:55,610 --> 00:47:00,690 This is how desire inscribes itself into reality, 829 00:47:00,690 --> 00:47:02,250 by distorting it. 830 00:47:05,090 --> 00:47:10,170 Desire is a wound of reality. 831 00:47:10,170 --> 00:47:12,250 The art of cinema consists 832 00:47:12,250 --> 00:47:15,610 in arousing desire 833 00:47:15,610 --> 00:47:19,290 to play with desire. 834 00:47:19,290 --> 00:47:20,930 But, at the same time, 835 00:47:20,930 --> 00:47:25,530 keeping it at a safe distance, 836 00:47:25,530 --> 00:47:28,970 domesticating it, rendering it palpable. 837 00:47:28,970 --> 00:47:31,290 (white noise) 838 00:47:33,090 --> 00:47:36,090 When we spectators are sitting in a movie theatre 839 00:47:36,090 --> 00:47:38,970 looking in the screen--you remember, at the very beginning, 840 00:47:38,970 --> 00:47:41,810 before the picture is on, it's a black, dark screen, 841 00:47:41,810 --> 00:47:43,810 and then light thrown on. 842 00:47:43,810 --> 00:47:45,450 Are we basically not 843 00:47:45,450 --> 00:47:47,330 staring into a toilet bowl 844 00:47:47,330 --> 00:47:51,290 and waiting for things to reappear out of the toilet? 845 00:47:51,290 --> 00:47:55,530 And are--is the entire magic 846 00:47:55,530 --> 00:47:58,970 of spectacle showed on the screen 847 00:47:58,970 --> 00:48:01,930 not a kind of a deceptive lure 848 00:48:01,930 --> 00:48:05,410 trying to conceal the fact that 849 00:48:05,410 --> 00:48:07,570 we are basically watching shit, as it were? 850 00:48:16,210 --> 00:48:18,850 There was a young lady of Ongar 851 00:48:18,850 --> 00:48:21,810 who had an affair with a conger. 852 00:48:21,810 --> 00:48:25,450 They said, "How does it feel to sleep with an eel?" 853 00:48:25,450 --> 00:48:28,970 Well, she said, "Just like a man, only longer." 854 00:48:30,410 --> 00:48:32,730 (film projector clicking) 855 00:48:35,970 --> 00:48:38,650 Usually, people read 856 00:48:38,650 --> 00:48:41,610 the lesson of Freudian psychoanalysis 857 00:48:41,610 --> 00:48:45,170 as if the secret meaning of everything is sexuality, 858 00:48:45,170 --> 00:48:47,690 but this is not what Freud wants to say. 859 00:48:47,690 --> 00:48:50,450 I think Freud wants to say the exact opposite. 860 00:48:50,450 --> 00:48:53,890 It's not that everything is a metaphor for sexuality, 861 00:48:53,890 --> 00:48:58,250 that whatever we are doing we are always thinking about that. 862 00:48:58,250 --> 00:48:59,810 The Freudian question is 863 00:48:59,810 --> 00:49:02,130 "But what are we thinking when we are doing that?" 864 00:49:03,530 --> 00:49:05,850 (unsettling music) 865 00:49:13,650 --> 00:49:18,050 In sexuality, it's never only me and my partner, 866 00:49:18,050 --> 00:49:20,090 or more partners, whatever you are doing. 867 00:49:20,090 --> 00:49:24,570 There has to be always some phantasmatic element. 868 00:49:24,570 --> 00:49:28,090 There has to be some third imagined element 869 00:49:28,090 --> 00:49:32,370 which makes me... 870 00:49:32,370 --> 00:49:34,570 makes it possible for me, which enables me 871 00:49:34,570 --> 00:49:37,010 to engage in sexuality. 872 00:49:37,010 --> 00:49:38,890 If I may be a little bit impertinent, 873 00:49:38,890 --> 00:49:42,210 and relate to an unfortunate experience 874 00:49:42,210 --> 00:49:44,610 probably known to most of us now. 875 00:49:44,610 --> 00:49:48,130 It happens that while one is engaged in sexual activity, 876 00:49:48,130 --> 00:49:50,770 all of a sudden one feels stupid. 877 00:49:50,770 --> 00:49:53,690 One loses contact with it, as if, "My God, 878 00:49:53,690 --> 00:49:55,210 what am I doing here? 879 00:49:55,210 --> 00:49:57,170 Doing these stupid, repetitive movements," 880 00:49:57,170 --> 00:49:58,370 and so on, and so on. 881 00:49:58,370 --> 00:50:00,250 Nothing changes in reality, 882 00:50:00,250 --> 00:50:04,450 in this strange moment, where I, as it were, disconnect. 883 00:50:04,450 --> 00:50:07,890 It's just that I lose the phantasmatic support. 884 00:50:07,890 --> 00:50:10,450 (tense music) 885 00:50:11,970 --> 00:50:14,290 (squishing) 886 00:50:17,810 --> 00:50:21,290 There is an irresistible power of fascination, 887 00:50:21,290 --> 00:50:25,850 at least for me, in this terrifying scene 888 00:50:25,850 --> 00:50:30,770 when Neo awakens from his sleep within the Matrix 889 00:50:30,770 --> 00:50:33,770 and becomes aware of what he really is 890 00:50:33,770 --> 00:50:36,250 in that fetal container, 891 00:50:36,250 --> 00:50:40,410 floating in liquid, connected to virtual reality, 892 00:50:40,410 --> 00:50:44,290 where you are reduced to a totally passive object 893 00:50:44,290 --> 00:50:48,970 with your energy being sucked out of you. 894 00:50:48,970 --> 00:50:51,290 (zapping) 895 00:50:54,090 --> 00:50:58,970 So why does the Matrix need our energy? 896 00:50:58,970 --> 00:51:01,290 (zapping) 897 00:51:04,610 --> 00:51:07,930 I think the proper way to ask this question 898 00:51:07,930 --> 00:51:10,490 is to turn it around. 899 00:51:10,490 --> 00:51:12,650 Not why does the Matrix need the energy, 900 00:51:12,650 --> 00:51:15,610 but why does the energy need the Matrix? 901 00:51:15,610 --> 00:51:18,930 That is to say, since I think that the energy 902 00:51:18,930 --> 00:51:23,890 we are talking about is libido, is our pleasure, 903 00:51:23,890 --> 00:51:26,850 why does our libido need 904 00:51:26,850 --> 00:51:29,570 the virtual universe of fantasies? 905 00:51:29,570 --> 00:51:33,930 Why can't we simply enjoy it directly, 906 00:51:33,930 --> 00:51:35,690 a sexual partner and so on? 907 00:51:35,690 --> 00:51:37,370 That's the fundamental question. 908 00:51:37,370 --> 00:51:40,890 Why do we need this virtual supplement? 909 00:51:40,890 --> 00:51:45,530 Our libido needs an illusion in order to sustain itself. 910 00:51:45,530 --> 00:51:47,850 (eerie music) 911 00:52:03,930 --> 00:52:07,170 One of the most interesting motifs in science fiction 912 00:52:07,170 --> 00:52:09,970 is that of the id machine, 913 00:52:09,970 --> 00:52:13,850 an object which has the magic capacity 914 00:52:13,850 --> 00:52:17,130 of directly materializing, 915 00:52:17,130 --> 00:52:19,210 realizing in front of us, 916 00:52:19,210 --> 00:52:22,610 our innermost dreams, desires, 917 00:52:22,610 --> 00:52:25,010 even guilt feelings. 918 00:52:25,010 --> 00:52:26,450 There is a long tradition of this 919 00:52:26,450 --> 00:52:28,170 in science fiction films, 920 00:52:28,170 --> 00:52:31,690 but of course the film about id machine 921 00:52:31,690 --> 00:52:34,410 is Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. 922 00:52:34,410 --> 00:52:36,410 (wind chimes tinkling) 923 00:52:36,410 --> 00:52:40,410 Solaris is the story of Kelvin, a psychologist, 924 00:52:40,410 --> 00:52:44,610 who is sent by a rocket to a spaceship 925 00:52:44,610 --> 00:52:48,730 circulating around Solaris, a newly discovered planet. 926 00:52:48,730 --> 00:52:50,850 (soft music) 927 00:52:50,850 --> 00:52:54,130 Strange things are reported from the spaceship. 928 00:52:54,130 --> 00:52:56,090 All the scientists there are going crazy, 929 00:52:56,090 --> 00:53:00,690 and then Kelvin discovers what is going on there. 930 00:53:03,330 --> 00:53:06,490 This planet has the magic ability 931 00:53:06,490 --> 00:53:10,450 to directly realize your deepest traumas, 932 00:53:10,450 --> 00:53:13,170 dreams, fears, desires. 933 00:53:15,130 --> 00:53:18,490 The innermost of your inner space. 934 00:53:24,090 --> 00:53:27,970 The hero of the film finds one morning 935 00:53:27,970 --> 00:53:30,170 his deceased wife, 936 00:53:30,170 --> 00:53:33,770 who made suicide years ago. 937 00:53:35,650 --> 00:53:38,250 So he realizes not so much his desire 938 00:53:38,250 --> 00:53:41,570 as his guilt feeling. 939 00:53:44,650 --> 00:53:48,090 When the hero is confronted with the spectral clone, 940 00:53:48,090 --> 00:53:51,250 as it were, of his deceased wife... 941 00:53:53,090 --> 00:53:56,210 ...although he appears to be deeply sympathetic, 942 00:53:56,210 --> 00:53:58,650 spiritual, reflecting, and so on, 943 00:53:58,650 --> 00:54:02,770 his basic problem is how to get rid of her. 944 00:54:02,770 --> 00:54:05,090 (clattering) 945 00:54:06,690 --> 00:54:09,010 (screaming, moaning) 946 00:54:14,290 --> 00:54:16,610 (grunting) 947 00:54:18,170 --> 00:54:22,050 What makes Solaris so touching is that, 948 00:54:22,050 --> 00:54:25,090 at least potentially, it confronts us 949 00:54:25,090 --> 00:54:27,730 with this tragic subjective position 950 00:54:27,730 --> 00:54:31,530 of the woman, his wife, who is aware 951 00:54:31,530 --> 00:54:35,890 that she has no consistency, 952 00:54:35,890 --> 00:54:37,890 no full being of her own. 953 00:54:49,410 --> 00:54:52,130 For example, she has gaps in her memory 954 00:54:52,130 --> 00:54:56,530 because she knows only what he knows that she knows. 955 00:55:07,410 --> 00:55:08,410 (she sighs) 956 00:55:08,410 --> 00:55:12,970 She is just his dream realized. 957 00:55:12,970 --> 00:55:17,570 And her true love for him is expressed 958 00:55:17,570 --> 00:55:21,050 in her desperate attempts to erase herself, 959 00:55:21,050 --> 00:55:25,250 to swallow poison or whatever, just to clear the space, 960 00:55:25,250 --> 00:55:28,450 because she guesses that he wants this. 961 00:55:28,450 --> 00:55:30,770 (clanging) 962 00:55:41,290 --> 00:55:45,450 It's relatively easy to get rid of a real person. 963 00:55:45,450 --> 00:55:49,130 You can abandon him or her, kill him or her, whatever. 964 00:55:49,130 --> 00:55:52,770 But a ghost, a spectral presence, 965 00:55:52,770 --> 00:55:55,490 is much more difficult to get rid of. 966 00:55:55,490 --> 00:55:58,770 It sticks to you as a kind of a shadowy presence. 967 00:56:07,370 --> 00:56:12,530 What we get here is the lowest male mythology. 968 00:56:12,530 --> 00:56:16,570 This idea that woman doesn't exist on her own. 969 00:56:16,570 --> 00:56:20,290 That a woman is merely a man's dream realized 970 00:56:20,290 --> 00:56:23,290 or even, as radical anti-feminists claim, 971 00:56:23,290 --> 00:56:25,650 the man's guilt realized. 972 00:56:25,650 --> 00:56:29,050 Women exist because male desire got impure. 973 00:56:29,050 --> 00:56:32,250 If man cleanses his desire, 974 00:56:32,250 --> 00:56:36,250 gets rid of dirty material, 975 00:56:36,250 --> 00:56:41,010 fantasies, woman ceases to exist. 976 00:56:41,010 --> 00:56:42,930 (ominous music) 977 00:56:44,490 --> 00:56:46,170 At the end of the film, 978 00:56:46,170 --> 00:56:48,490 we get a kind of a Holy Communion, 979 00:56:48,490 --> 00:56:51,770 a reconciliation of him not with his wife, 980 00:56:51,770 --> 00:56:55,010 but with his father. 981 00:57:11,770 --> 00:57:14,090 (waves crashing) 982 00:57:16,970 --> 00:57:19,250 Did you see Hitchcock's Vertigo? 983 00:57:19,250 --> 00:57:20,770 Sorry, I don't understand. 984 00:57:20,770 --> 00:57:23,370 Sorry. Hitchcock's Vertigo, the film. 985 00:57:23,370 --> 00:57:24,650 Alfred Hitchcock. 986 00:57:24,650 --> 00:57:26,570 I think it happened here, you know. 987 00:57:26,570 --> 00:57:27,850 Oh, you don't know the scene, okay. 988 00:57:27,850 --> 00:57:29,050 Probably. 989 00:57:29,050 --> 00:57:31,490 (melancholy music) 990 00:57:31,490 --> 00:57:34,050 (bird squawking) 991 00:57:34,050 --> 00:57:36,370 (horn blaring) 992 00:57:41,530 --> 00:57:46,650 Often, things begin as a fake, inauthentic, artificial, 993 00:57:46,650 --> 00:57:50,490 but you get caught into your own game. 994 00:57:53,050 --> 00:57:56,610 And that is the true tragedy of Vertigo. 995 00:57:56,610 --> 00:57:58,890 It's a story about two people 996 00:57:58,890 --> 00:58:01,970 who, each in his or her own way, 997 00:58:01,970 --> 00:58:06,090 get caught into their own game of appearances. 998 00:58:06,090 --> 00:58:09,770 For both of them, for Madeleine and for Scottie, 999 00:58:09,770 --> 00:58:12,850 appearances win over reality. 1000 00:58:12,850 --> 00:58:15,210 (music stops) 1001 00:58:15,210 --> 00:58:16,970 What is the story of Vertigo? 1002 00:58:16,970 --> 00:58:19,290 It's a story about a retired policeman 1003 00:58:19,290 --> 00:58:21,890 who has a pathological fear of heights 1004 00:58:21,890 --> 00:58:24,090 because of an incident in his career, 1005 00:58:24,090 --> 00:58:27,250 and then an old friend hires him 1006 00:58:27,250 --> 00:58:30,370 to follow his beautiful wife, played by Kim Novak. 1007 00:58:30,370 --> 00:58:33,490 The wife mysteriously possessed by the ghost 1008 00:58:33,490 --> 00:58:36,010 of a past deceased Spanish beauty, 1009 00:58:36,010 --> 00:58:38,690 Carlotta Valdes. 1010 00:58:38,690 --> 00:58:41,010 (suspenseful music) 1011 00:58:49,810 --> 00:58:51,770 The two fall in love. 1012 00:58:51,770 --> 00:58:54,770 The wife kills herself. 1013 00:58:54,770 --> 00:58:57,090 (intense music) 1014 00:59:00,930 --> 00:59:03,250 (screaming) 1015 00:59:04,530 --> 00:59:06,930 (thudding) 1016 00:59:06,930 --> 00:59:09,250 (dark music) 1017 00:59:12,530 --> 00:59:15,250 The first part of Vertigo, with Madeleine's suicide, 1018 00:59:15,250 --> 00:59:19,050 is not as shattering as it could have been, 1019 00:59:19,050 --> 00:59:21,730 because it's really a terrifying loss, 1020 00:59:21,730 --> 00:59:25,650 but in this very loss, the ideal survives. 1021 00:59:25,650 --> 00:59:27,730 (tense music) 1022 00:59:27,730 --> 00:59:31,690 The idea of the fatal woman possesses you totally. 1023 00:59:39,570 --> 00:59:43,250 What, ultimately, this image, 1024 00:59:43,250 --> 00:59:45,330 fascinating image of the fatal woman 1025 00:59:45,330 --> 00:59:47,970 stands for is death. 1026 00:59:51,930 --> 00:59:55,330 The fascination of beauty is always the veil 1027 00:59:55,330 --> 00:59:57,530 which covers up a nightmare. 1028 00:59:57,530 --> 01:00:00,330 Like the idea of a fascinating creature, 1029 01:00:00,330 --> 01:00:04,330 but if you come too close to her, 1030 01:00:04,330 --> 01:00:07,450 you see shit, decay, 1031 01:00:07,450 --> 01:00:10,170 you see worms crawling everywhere. 1032 01:00:12,250 --> 01:00:15,530 The ultimate abyss is not a physical abyss, 1033 01:00:15,530 --> 01:00:19,690 but the abyss of the depth of another person. 1034 01:00:22,730 --> 01:00:24,970 It's what philosophers describe 1035 01:00:24,970 --> 01:00:26,610 as the night of the world. 1036 01:00:26,610 --> 01:00:28,730 Like when you see another person, 1037 01:00:28,730 --> 01:00:32,010 into his or her eyes, you see the abyss. 1038 01:00:32,010 --> 01:00:35,890 That's the true spiral which is drawing us in. 1039 01:00:35,890 --> 01:00:38,210 (soft music) 1040 01:00:45,770 --> 01:00:49,730 Scottie alone, broken down, cannot forget her, 1041 01:00:49,730 --> 01:00:53,290 wanders around the city looking for a woman, 1042 01:00:53,290 --> 01:00:54,690 a similar woman, 1043 01:00:54,690 --> 01:00:56,650 something like the deceased woman, 1044 01:00:56,650 --> 01:01:00,410 discovers an ordinary, rather vulgar, common girl. 1045 01:01:00,410 --> 01:01:02,330 The denouement of the story, of course, 1046 01:01:02,330 --> 01:01:05,290 is along the lines of the Marx Brothers' joke, 1047 01:01:05,290 --> 01:01:08,290 "This man looks like an idiot, acts like an idiot. 1048 01:01:08,290 --> 01:01:09,330 This shouldn't deceive you. 1049 01:01:09,330 --> 01:01:10,970 This man is an idiot." 1050 01:01:10,970 --> 01:01:14,130 The newly found woman looks like Madeleine, 1051 01:01:14,130 --> 01:01:17,650 acts like Madeleine, the fatal beauty. 1052 01:01:17,650 --> 01:01:19,970 (moody music) 1053 01:01:22,370 --> 01:01:25,570 We discover she is Madeleine. 1054 01:01:25,570 --> 01:01:27,890 (tense music) 1055 01:01:36,650 --> 01:01:39,690 What we learn is that Scottie's friend, 1056 01:01:39,690 --> 01:01:44,250 who hired Scottie, also hired this woman, Judy, 1057 01:01:44,250 --> 01:01:47,490 to impersonate Madeleine in a devilish plot 1058 01:01:47,490 --> 01:01:49,970 to kill the real Madeleine, his wife, 1059 01:01:49,970 --> 01:01:52,570 and get her fortune. 1060 01:01:55,370 --> 01:01:57,690 (dark music) 1061 01:01:59,090 --> 01:02:03,850 We could just see a lot of each other. 1062 01:02:03,850 --> 01:02:06,170 Why? 1063 01:02:06,170 --> 01:02:08,450 'Cause I remind you of her? 1064 01:02:08,450 --> 01:02:10,770 (somber music) 1065 01:02:13,330 --> 01:02:15,770 It's not very complimentary. 1066 01:02:15,770 --> 01:02:19,690 The profile shot in Vertigo is perhaps the key shot 1067 01:02:19,690 --> 01:02:21,490 of the entire film. 1068 01:02:21,490 --> 01:02:25,530 We have there Madeleine's, or rather Judy's, identity 1069 01:02:25,530 --> 01:02:30,010 in all its tragic tension. 1070 01:02:30,010 --> 01:02:33,330 It provides the dark background 1071 01:02:33,330 --> 01:02:37,130 for the fascinating other profile of Madeleine 1072 01:02:37,130 --> 01:02:39,970 in Ernie's restaurant. 1073 01:02:39,970 --> 01:02:42,290 (melancholy music) 1074 01:02:45,010 --> 01:02:49,570 Scottie is too ashamed, afraid to look at her directly. 1075 01:02:51,890 --> 01:02:56,690 It is as if what he sees is the stuff of his dreams, 1076 01:02:56,690 --> 01:02:59,770 more real in a way for him than the reality 1077 01:02:59,770 --> 01:03:04,410 of the woman behind his back. 1078 01:03:04,410 --> 01:03:06,530 That's not very complimentary, either. 1079 01:03:06,530 --> 01:03:10,730 I just want to be with you as much as I can, Judy. 1080 01:03:10,730 --> 01:03:12,130 When we see a face, 1081 01:03:12,130 --> 01:03:16,530 it's basically always the half of it. 1082 01:03:18,770 --> 01:03:22,490 A subject is a partial something, 1083 01:03:22,490 --> 01:03:24,810 a face, something we see. 1084 01:03:24,810 --> 01:03:28,650 Behind it, there is a void, a nothingness. 1085 01:03:28,650 --> 01:03:31,050 And of course, we spontaneously tend 1086 01:03:31,050 --> 01:03:34,530 to fill in that nothingness with our fantasies 1087 01:03:34,530 --> 01:03:36,370 about the wealth of human personality, 1088 01:03:36,370 --> 01:03:39,090 and so on, and so on. 1089 01:03:40,690 --> 01:03:43,490 To see what is lacking in reality, 1090 01:03:43,490 --> 01:03:47,570 to see it as that, there you see subjectivity. 1091 01:03:50,210 --> 01:03:52,210 To confront subjectivity 1092 01:03:52,210 --> 01:03:56,130 means to confront femininity. 1093 01:03:56,130 --> 01:03:58,090 Woman is the subject. 1094 01:03:58,090 --> 01:04:00,730 Masculinity is a fake. 1095 01:04:00,730 --> 01:04:04,370 Masculinity is an escape from the most radical, 1096 01:04:04,370 --> 01:04:07,250 nightmarish dimension of subjectivity. 1097 01:04:07,250 --> 01:04:09,970 -Scottie, what are you doing? -I'm trying to buy you a suit. 1098 01:04:09,970 --> 01:04:14,330 But--but I love the second one she wore. 1099 01:04:14,330 --> 01:04:15,690 And this one, it's beautiful. 1100 01:04:15,690 --> 01:04:18,570 No, no. They're none of them right. 1101 01:04:18,570 --> 01:04:20,090 Oh, I think I know the suit you mean. 1102 01:04:20,090 --> 01:04:21,850 We had it some time ago. 1103 01:04:21,850 --> 01:04:24,210 Let me go and see. We may still have that model. 1104 01:04:24,210 --> 01:04:25,690 Thank you. 1105 01:04:27,490 --> 01:04:30,570 You're looking for the suit that she wore, for me. 1106 01:04:30,570 --> 01:04:31,850 You want me to be dressed like her. 1107 01:04:31,850 --> 01:04:33,450 Judy, I just want you to look nice. 1108 01:04:33,450 --> 01:04:35,010 I know the kind of suit that would look well on you. 1109 01:04:35,010 --> 01:04:37,490 No, I won't do it! 1110 01:04:40,330 --> 01:04:42,770 Judy... 1111 01:04:42,770 --> 01:04:44,610 Judy, it can't make that much difference to you. 1112 01:04:44,610 --> 01:04:46,610 -I just want to see what... -No, I don't want any clothes. 1113 01:04:46,610 --> 01:04:48,570 I don't want anything. I want to get out of here. 1114 01:04:48,570 --> 01:04:50,170 Judy, do this for me. 1115 01:04:50,170 --> 01:04:51,890 Here we are. 1116 01:04:51,890 --> 01:04:54,210 -Yes, that's it. -I thought so. 1117 01:04:54,210 --> 01:04:56,529 (ominous music) 1118 01:05:23,170 --> 01:05:26,130 When Judy, refashioned as Madeleine, 1119 01:05:26,130 --> 01:05:30,730 steps out of the door, it's like fantasy realized. 1120 01:05:30,730 --> 01:05:32,850 And, of course, we have a name, 1121 01:05:32,850 --> 01:05:35,610 a perfect name for fantasy realized. 1122 01:05:35,610 --> 01:05:38,290 It's called "nightmare." 1123 01:05:38,290 --> 01:05:40,529 Fantasy realized. 1124 01:05:40,529 --> 01:05:41,730 What does this mean? 1125 01:05:41,730 --> 01:05:44,170 Of course, it is always sustained 1126 01:05:44,170 --> 01:05:46,890 by an extreme violence. 1127 01:05:46,890 --> 01:05:51,050 The violence in this case of Scottie's refashioning, 1128 01:05:51,050 --> 01:05:54,210 brutal refashioning of Judy, 1129 01:05:54,210 --> 01:05:57,890 a real, common girl, into Madeleine. 1130 01:05:57,890 --> 01:06:01,170 It's truly a process of mortification, 1131 01:06:01,170 --> 01:06:05,850 which also is the mortification of woman's desire. 1132 01:06:05,850 --> 01:06:09,810 It is as if in order to have her, to desire her, 1133 01:06:09,810 --> 01:06:12,810 to have sexual intercourse with her, with the woman, 1134 01:06:12,810 --> 01:06:15,210 Scottie has to mortify her, 1135 01:06:15,210 --> 01:06:17,370 to change her into a dead woman. 1136 01:06:17,370 --> 01:06:18,890 It's as if, again, 1137 01:06:18,890 --> 01:06:23,610 for the male libidinal economy, 1138 01:06:23,610 --> 01:06:25,850 to paraphrase a well-known old saying, 1139 01:06:25,850 --> 01:06:29,050 the only good woman is a dead woman. 1140 01:06:29,050 --> 01:06:31,370 (melancholy music) 1141 01:06:37,210 --> 01:06:40,529 Scottie is not really fascinated by her, 1142 01:06:40,529 --> 01:06:43,290 but by the entire scene, the staging. 1143 01:06:43,290 --> 01:06:45,610 He is looking around, checking up, 1144 01:06:45,610 --> 01:06:48,650 are the phantasmatic coordinates really here? 1145 01:06:48,650 --> 01:06:53,570 At that point, when the reality fully fits fantasy, 1146 01:06:53,570 --> 01:06:57,010 Scottie is finally able to realize 1147 01:06:57,010 --> 01:07:01,010 the long-postponed sexual intercourse. 1148 01:07:26,529 --> 01:07:29,610 So the result of this violence 1149 01:07:29,610 --> 01:07:33,410 is a perfect coordination 1150 01:07:33,410 --> 01:07:35,810 between fantasy and reality. 1151 01:07:35,810 --> 01:07:38,410 A kind of direct short circuit. 1152 01:07:38,410 --> 01:07:41,570 (dark music) 1153 01:07:53,890 --> 01:07:57,770 In Lynch's films, darkness is really dark. 1154 01:07:57,770 --> 01:08:01,570 Light is really unbearable, blinding light. 1155 01:08:01,570 --> 01:08:04,330 Fire really hurts, it's so hot. 1156 01:08:04,330 --> 01:08:06,850 (hissing) 1157 01:08:08,770 --> 01:08:11,210 (crackling) 1158 01:08:11,210 --> 01:08:15,690 At those moments of sensual over-intensity, 1159 01:08:15,690 --> 01:08:19,330 it is as if events on-screen itself 1160 01:08:19,330 --> 01:08:21,729 threatens to overflow the screen 1161 01:08:21,729 --> 01:08:25,330 and to grab us into it, to reach towards us. 1162 01:08:25,330 --> 01:08:29,170 It's, again, as if the fantasy space, 1163 01:08:29,170 --> 01:08:32,609 the fictional, narrative space, gets too intense 1164 01:08:32,609 --> 01:08:36,490 and reaches out towards us spectators 1165 01:08:36,490 --> 01:08:39,529 so that we lose our safe distance. 1166 01:08:39,529 --> 01:08:42,450 (crashing, shattering) 1167 01:08:44,809 --> 01:08:48,850 This is the proper tension of the Lynchian universe. 1168 01:08:48,850 --> 01:08:51,170 (dark music) 1169 01:08:53,729 --> 01:08:56,290 The beauty of Lynch, if you look closely, 1170 01:08:56,290 --> 01:08:58,130 it's never clear. 1171 01:08:58,130 --> 01:09:03,010 Is it really the brutal real out there which disturbs us, 1172 01:09:03,010 --> 01:09:05,850 or is it our fantasy? 1173 01:09:08,370 --> 01:09:13,090 Blue Velvet 1174 01:09:13,090 --> 01:09:15,210 Whoa, whoa 1175 01:09:15,210 --> 01:09:17,809 ("Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton) 1176 01:09:17,809 --> 01:09:24,090 She wore blue velvet 1177 01:09:24,090 --> 01:09:25,450 Whoa, whoa 1178 01:09:25,450 --> 01:09:29,010 Bluer than velvet was the night 1179 01:09:29,010 --> 01:09:30,729 Whoa, whoa, whoa 1180 01:09:30,729 --> 01:09:35,450 Softer than satin was the light 1181 01:09:35,450 --> 01:09:39,930 from the stars 1182 01:09:39,930 --> 01:09:42,210 She wore blue... 1183 01:09:42,210 --> 01:09:45,370 At the very beginning of David Lynch's Blue Velvet, 1184 01:09:45,370 --> 01:09:49,330 we see an idyllic, American small town. 1185 01:09:49,330 --> 01:09:51,090 ...were her eyes 1186 01:09:51,090 --> 01:09:53,010 Whoa, whoa, whoa 1187 01:09:53,010 --> 01:09:57,490 Warmer than May her tender sighs 1188 01:09:57,490 --> 01:09:59,650 Love was ours 1189 01:09:59,650 --> 01:10:01,970 What can be more normal than father of the family, 1190 01:10:01,970 --> 01:10:04,370 in front of a white clean house, 1191 01:10:04,370 --> 01:10:05,530 watering the lawn? 1192 01:10:05,530 --> 01:10:09,050 I held tightly, 1193 01:10:09,050 --> 01:10:14,530 feeling the rapture grow 1194 01:10:14,530 --> 01:10:18,809 But all of a sudden, father has a heart seizure, 1195 01:10:18,809 --> 01:10:21,570 falls down to the grass. 1196 01:10:21,570 --> 01:10:24,650 (choking) 1197 01:10:24,650 --> 01:10:27,770 And, then, instead of showing the family confused, 1198 01:10:27,770 --> 01:10:29,410 calling for an ambulance, whatever, 1199 01:10:29,410 --> 01:10:32,010 Lynch does something typically Lynchian. 1200 01:10:32,010 --> 01:10:35,210 The camera moves extremely close to the grass, 1201 01:10:35,210 --> 01:10:37,010 even penetrates the grass, 1202 01:10:37,010 --> 01:10:40,490 and we see what is the real 1203 01:10:40,490 --> 01:10:44,050 of this idyllic green lawn. 1204 01:10:44,050 --> 01:10:46,450 (rustling) 1205 01:10:46,450 --> 01:10:49,250 (sinister music) 1206 01:10:49,250 --> 01:10:51,010 We should not forget this, 1207 01:10:51,010 --> 01:10:54,850 how this happens precisely when father has a seizure. 1208 01:10:54,850 --> 01:10:56,530 That is to say when, symbolically, 1209 01:10:56,530 --> 01:11:00,050 the paternal authority breaks down. 1210 01:11:00,050 --> 01:11:02,370 (squishing) 1211 01:11:06,570 --> 01:11:09,570 I'll send you straight to hell, fucker! 1212 01:11:09,570 --> 01:11:12,610 ...I walk with you 1213 01:11:12,610 --> 01:11:15,930 In dreams... 1214 01:11:15,930 --> 01:11:18,210 I walk with you. 1215 01:11:18,210 --> 01:11:19,450 ...I talk... 1216 01:11:19,450 --> 01:11:24,690 In dreams, I talk to you. 1217 01:11:24,690 --> 01:11:26,450 In dreams... 1218 01:11:26,450 --> 01:11:29,850 In dreams, you're mine. 1219 01:11:29,850 --> 01:11:32,610 -All of the time. -All the time. 1220 01:11:32,610 --> 01:11:36,890 We're together 1221 01:11:36,890 --> 01:11:38,890 -in dreams... -Forever. 1222 01:11:38,890 --> 01:11:41,370 The logic here is strictly Freudian, 1223 01:11:41,370 --> 01:11:45,610 that is to say we escape into dream 1224 01:11:45,610 --> 01:11:49,650 to avoid a deadlock in our real life. 1225 01:11:49,650 --> 01:11:52,730 But, then, what we encounter in the dream 1226 01:11:52,730 --> 01:11:55,530 is even more horrible, so that at the end, 1227 01:11:55,530 --> 01:11:59,290 we literally escape from the dream, 1228 01:11:59,290 --> 01:12:01,130 back into reality. 1229 01:12:01,130 --> 01:12:05,170 It starts with, dreams are for those who cannot endure, 1230 01:12:05,170 --> 01:12:07,370 who are not strong enough for reality. 1231 01:12:07,370 --> 01:12:10,410 It ends with, reality is for those 1232 01:12:10,410 --> 01:12:12,850 who are not strong enough to endure, 1233 01:12:12,850 --> 01:12:14,930 to confront their dreams. 1234 01:12:14,930 --> 01:12:18,730 (dark music) 1235 01:12:18,730 --> 01:12:21,210 Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive 1236 01:12:21,210 --> 01:12:25,330 are two versions of the same film. 1237 01:12:27,490 --> 01:12:31,090 What makes both films, especially Lost Highway, 1238 01:12:31,090 --> 01:12:32,650 so interesting 1239 01:12:32,650 --> 01:12:37,490 is how they posit the two dimensions, 1240 01:12:37,490 --> 01:12:41,690 reality and fantasy, side by side, 1241 01:12:41,690 --> 01:12:43,530 horizontally, as it were. 1242 01:12:43,530 --> 01:12:45,850 (static crackling) 1243 01:12:50,290 --> 01:12:53,130 It must be from a real estate agent. 1244 01:12:53,130 --> 01:12:54,730 What we get in Lost Highway... 1245 01:12:54,730 --> 01:12:57,610 -Maybe. -...is the drab, gray, 1246 01:12:57,610 --> 01:13:00,530 upper-middle-class suburban reality, 1247 01:13:00,530 --> 01:13:05,250 hero, married to Patricia Arquette, 1248 01:13:05,250 --> 01:13:10,210 obviously terrorized by the enigma of his wife, 1249 01:13:10,210 --> 01:13:14,410 who doesn't respond properly to his advances. 1250 01:13:14,410 --> 01:13:16,809 (soft music) 1251 01:13:16,809 --> 01:13:19,770 When they have sexual intercourse, 1252 01:13:19,770 --> 01:13:22,090 he miserably fails. 1253 01:13:22,090 --> 01:13:24,730 (heavy breathing) 1254 01:13:24,730 --> 01:13:27,809 What he gets from her is a kind of a patronizing pat 1255 01:13:27,809 --> 01:13:30,290 on the shoulder. 1256 01:13:30,290 --> 01:13:32,210 (tense music) 1257 01:13:33,610 --> 01:13:37,330 It's okay. It's okay. 1258 01:13:37,330 --> 01:13:39,170 Total humiliation. 1259 01:13:39,170 --> 01:13:41,050 It's okay. 1260 01:13:42,970 --> 01:13:46,770 After killing her in an act of frustration, 1261 01:13:46,770 --> 01:13:49,410 the hero enters his fantasy space... 1262 01:13:49,410 --> 01:13:51,730 (dark music) 1263 01:13:55,490 --> 01:14:00,050 ...where he, as it were, reinvents not only himself, 1264 01:14:00,050 --> 01:14:04,650 but his entire social environs. 1265 01:14:04,650 --> 01:14:09,010 Captain, this is some spooky shit we got here. 1266 01:14:09,010 --> 01:14:11,330 (ominous music) 1267 01:14:14,450 --> 01:14:17,250 In what? In a kind of a universe 1268 01:14:17,250 --> 01:14:20,610 which we usually found in film noir. 1269 01:14:20,610 --> 01:14:22,930 (guitar music) 1270 01:14:25,570 --> 01:14:28,290 This magic moment 1271 01:14:30,250 --> 01:14:33,490 So different and so new 1272 01:14:33,490 --> 01:14:36,250 Was like any other 1273 01:14:36,250 --> 01:14:40,210 The hero's wife, who is a brunette, becomes a blonde. 1274 01:14:40,210 --> 01:14:42,809 In reality, she's restrained. 1275 01:14:42,809 --> 01:14:47,250 Then it happened 1276 01:14:47,250 --> 01:14:49,010 Here, she praises the hero 1277 01:14:49,010 --> 01:14:51,090 within the fantasy space all the time, 1278 01:14:51,090 --> 01:14:54,330 his sexual capacities and so on and so on. 1279 01:14:54,330 --> 01:14:57,410 I could see it by the look in your eyes 1280 01:14:59,250 --> 01:15:04,010 So it seems as if the dream is the realization 1281 01:15:04,010 --> 01:15:07,090 of what he was looking for. 1282 01:15:07,090 --> 01:15:10,090 In reality, the obstacle was inherent. 1283 01:15:10,090 --> 01:15:13,610 Their sexual liaison simply didn't function. 1284 01:15:13,610 --> 01:15:17,490 Within the fantasy space, the obstacle is externalized. 1285 01:15:17,490 --> 01:15:19,730 It's a beautiful day. 1286 01:15:19,730 --> 01:15:22,050 (bluesy music) 1287 01:15:25,490 --> 01:15:30,770 Mr. Eddy is the master of Patricia Arquette 1288 01:15:30,770 --> 01:15:32,850 within the fantasy space. 1289 01:15:32,850 --> 01:15:35,610 He is the obstacle to sexual intercourse. 1290 01:15:35,610 --> 01:15:39,650 If I ever found out somebody was making out with her... 1291 01:15:42,290 --> 01:15:43,930 ...I'd take this and I'd shove it 1292 01:15:43,930 --> 01:15:48,410 so far up his ass, it would come out his mouth. 1293 01:15:48,410 --> 01:15:52,370 The properly uncanny moments are those 1294 01:15:52,370 --> 01:15:54,650 when the second shift occurs, 1295 01:15:54,650 --> 01:15:58,050 when the fantasy space, the dreamscape, 1296 01:15:58,050 --> 01:16:01,450 as it were, is already disintegrating, 1297 01:16:01,450 --> 01:16:06,410 but we are not yet back into reality. 1298 01:16:06,410 --> 01:16:08,730 (dark music) 1299 01:16:16,290 --> 01:16:18,410 This intermediate space, 1300 01:16:18,410 --> 01:16:22,530 neither fantasy space nor reality, 1301 01:16:22,530 --> 01:16:26,970 this space of a kind of primordial violence, 1302 01:16:26,970 --> 01:16:30,210 dispersion, ontological confusion... 1303 01:16:30,210 --> 01:16:32,610 (shouting) 1304 01:16:32,610 --> 01:16:35,450 (eerie music) 1305 01:16:35,450 --> 01:16:36,930 This is the most subversive moment, 1306 01:16:36,930 --> 01:16:40,210 the true horror of these films. 1307 01:16:40,210 --> 01:16:43,090 Towards the end of this fantasy episode, 1308 01:16:43,090 --> 01:16:45,530 when we get the sexual act, 1309 01:16:45,530 --> 01:16:50,770 there, the woman also avoids 1310 01:16:50,770 --> 01:16:52,570 the hero. 1311 01:16:52,570 --> 01:16:54,890 (suspenseful music) 1312 01:16:58,570 --> 01:17:02,370 You'll never have me. 1313 01:17:02,370 --> 01:17:05,370 Whispering, "You will never have me." 1314 01:17:05,370 --> 01:17:10,290 And at that traumatic point, we are thrown back to reality, 1315 01:17:10,290 --> 01:17:14,250 when the hero encounters exactly the same deadlock. 1316 01:17:14,250 --> 01:17:16,570 (wind blowing) 1317 01:17:18,450 --> 01:17:21,610 What the film truly is about, its focal point, 1318 01:17:21,610 --> 01:17:24,370 it's not the hero, it's of course the enigma 1319 01:17:24,370 --> 01:17:27,290 of feminine desire. 1320 01:17:27,290 --> 01:17:31,250 I'm involved in a mystery, I'm in the middle of a mystery 1321 01:17:31,250 --> 01:17:34,610 and it's all secret. 1322 01:17:34,610 --> 01:17:38,290 -You like mysteries that much? -Yeah. 1323 01:17:41,770 --> 01:17:44,570 You're a mystery. 1324 01:17:44,570 --> 01:17:47,450 I like you... 1325 01:17:47,450 --> 01:17:49,290 very much. 1326 01:17:49,290 --> 01:17:51,690 The enigma of feminine subjectivity 1327 01:17:51,690 --> 01:17:53,850 in David Lynch's films, 1328 01:17:53,850 --> 01:17:58,370 it's a gap between cause and effect. 1329 01:17:58,370 --> 01:18:00,410 You do something to a woman, 1330 01:18:00,410 --> 01:18:03,730 but you never know what the reaction will be. 1331 01:18:03,730 --> 01:18:06,050 (soft music) 1332 01:18:08,130 --> 01:18:10,890 Jeffrey, don't, please. 1333 01:18:10,890 --> 01:18:13,210 (birds chirping) 1334 01:18:19,210 --> 01:18:24,130 My relationship towards tulips is inherently Lynchian. 1335 01:18:24,130 --> 01:18:25,770 I think they are disgusting. 1336 01:18:25,770 --> 01:18:28,530 Just imagine. Aren't these some kind of, 1337 01:18:28,530 --> 01:18:31,130 how do you call it, vagina dentata, 1338 01:18:31,130 --> 01:18:33,410 dental vaginas threatening to swallow you? 1339 01:18:33,410 --> 01:18:35,690 I think that the flowers are something 1340 01:18:35,690 --> 01:18:37,090 inherently disgusting. 1341 01:18:37,090 --> 01:18:38,570 I mean, are people aware 1342 01:18:38,570 --> 01:18:41,090 what a horrible thing these flowers are? 1343 01:18:41,090 --> 01:18:43,970 I mean, basically it's an open invitation 1344 01:18:43,970 --> 01:18:47,809 to all the insects and bees, "Come and screw me", you know? 1345 01:18:47,809 --> 01:18:49,250 I mean, it's... 1346 01:18:49,250 --> 01:18:52,930 I think that flowers should be forbidden to children. 1347 01:19:38,809 --> 01:19:41,290 We men, at least in our standard 1348 01:19:41,290 --> 01:19:44,170 phallogocentric mode of sexuality, 1349 01:19:44,170 --> 01:19:46,610 even when we are doing it with the real woman, 1350 01:19:46,610 --> 01:19:49,130 we are effectively doing it with our fantasy. 1351 01:19:49,130 --> 01:19:51,809 Woman is reduced to a masturbatory prop. 1352 01:19:51,809 --> 01:19:56,730 Woman arouses us in so far as she enters our fantasy frame. 1353 01:19:56,730 --> 01:19:59,130 With women, it's different. 1354 01:19:59,130 --> 01:20:02,410 The true enjoyment is not in doing it 1355 01:20:02,410 --> 01:20:06,170 but in telling about it afterwards. 1356 01:20:06,170 --> 01:20:09,490 Of course, women do enjoy sex immediately, 1357 01:20:09,490 --> 01:20:13,050 but I hope I'm permitted as a man 1358 01:20:13,050 --> 01:20:15,370 to propose a daring hypothesis, 1359 01:20:15,370 --> 01:20:18,410 that maybe, while they are doing it, 1360 01:20:18,410 --> 01:20:21,170 they already enact or incorporate 1361 01:20:21,170 --> 01:20:23,410 this minimal narrative distance, 1362 01:20:23,410 --> 01:20:26,490 so that they are already observing themselves 1363 01:20:26,490 --> 01:20:29,930 and narrativizing it. 1364 01:20:29,930 --> 01:20:33,330 There is in Ingmar Bergman's Persona a wonderful scene 1365 01:20:33,330 --> 01:20:35,770 where Bibi Andersson tells 1366 01:20:35,770 --> 01:20:39,010 to mute Liv Ullmann, 1367 01:20:39,010 --> 01:20:41,809 a story about small orgy on a beach 1368 01:20:41,809 --> 01:20:44,210 which took place years ago. 1369 01:20:44,210 --> 01:20:48,050 This scene is so erotic precisely because Bergman 1370 01:20:48,050 --> 01:20:51,730 successfully resisted the temptation of a flashback. 1371 01:20:51,730 --> 01:20:54,370 No flashback. Just words. 1372 01:20:54,370 --> 01:20:56,530 Probably one of the most erotic scenes 1373 01:20:56,530 --> 01:20:59,410 in the entire history of cinema. 1374 01:21:50,650 --> 01:21:55,090 Although sexuality seems to be about bodies, 1375 01:21:55,090 --> 01:21:57,210 it's not really about bodies. 1376 01:21:57,210 --> 01:21:59,250 It is how bodily activity 1377 01:21:59,250 --> 01:22:02,809 is reported in words. 1378 01:22:02,809 --> 01:22:07,250 The ultimate sexual seduction resides in words. 1379 01:22:07,250 --> 01:22:09,330 I can be whatever you want me to be. 1380 01:22:09,330 --> 01:22:11,330 (horn music) 1381 01:22:11,330 --> 01:22:12,610 You want me to romance you, 1382 01:22:12,610 --> 01:22:15,210 take you to a classy restaurant, no problem. 1383 01:22:15,210 --> 01:22:17,250 You want me to, uh, 1384 01:22:17,250 --> 01:22:20,290 be your best friend and fuck you, 1385 01:22:20,290 --> 01:22:24,050 treat you good, lick your pussy... 1386 01:22:24,050 --> 01:22:26,530 No problem. 1387 01:22:26,530 --> 01:22:28,930 Ain't much I haven't done. 1388 01:22:28,930 --> 01:22:30,690 The only thing I won't do is beat you up. 1389 01:22:30,690 --> 01:22:32,809 You're no good, you're no good 1390 01:22:32,809 --> 01:22:35,250 You're no good, you're no good 1391 01:22:35,250 --> 01:22:38,890 The strange tension and, at the same time, 1392 01:22:38,890 --> 01:22:42,170 interconnection between reality and fantasy 1393 01:22:42,170 --> 01:22:43,850 we can get it at its purest 1394 01:22:43,850 --> 01:22:46,450 in the strange case of pornography. 1395 01:22:46,450 --> 01:22:50,890 Pornography is, and it is, a deeply conservative genre. 1396 01:22:50,890 --> 01:22:53,330 It's not a genre where everything is permitted. 1397 01:22:53,330 --> 01:22:56,970 It's a genre based on a fundamental prohibition. 1398 01:22:56,970 --> 01:22:59,770 We cross one threshold, you can see everything, 1399 01:22:59,770 --> 01:23:01,410 close-ups and so on, 1400 01:23:01,410 --> 01:23:06,130 but the price you pay for it is that the narrative 1401 01:23:06,130 --> 01:23:08,970 which justifies sexual activity 1402 01:23:08,970 --> 01:23:11,850 should not be taken seriously. 1403 01:23:11,850 --> 01:23:13,330 The screenwriters for pornography 1404 01:23:13,330 --> 01:23:15,450 cannot be so stupid. 1405 01:23:15,450 --> 01:23:17,250 You know, these vulgar narratives 1406 01:23:17,250 --> 01:23:19,330 of a housewife alone at home, 1407 01:23:19,330 --> 01:23:21,570 a plumber comes, fixes the hole, 1408 01:23:21,570 --> 01:23:23,610 then the housewife turns to him: 1409 01:23:23,610 --> 01:23:25,690 "Sorry, but I have another hole to be fixed, 1410 01:23:25,690 --> 01:23:27,290 can you do it," or whatever. 1411 01:23:27,290 --> 01:23:28,770 It--it--obviously, there is 1412 01:23:28,770 --> 01:23:30,610 some kind of a censorship here. 1413 01:23:30,610 --> 01:23:34,130 You have either an emotionally engaging film 1414 01:23:34,130 --> 01:23:36,370 but then you should stop 1415 01:23:36,370 --> 01:23:38,690 just before showing it all, sexual act, 1416 01:23:38,690 --> 01:23:42,650 or you can see it all, but you're not allowed to-- 1417 01:23:42,650 --> 01:23:45,450 then to be emotionally seriously engaged. 1418 01:23:45,450 --> 01:23:47,570 So that's the tragedy of pornography. 1419 01:23:47,570 --> 01:23:51,610 It tries to be as realistic as possible 1420 01:23:51,610 --> 01:23:53,770 but it has to maintain the minimum 1421 01:23:53,770 --> 01:23:55,730 of phantasmatic support. 1422 01:23:55,730 --> 01:23:57,650 (soft music) 1423 01:23:59,090 --> 01:24:00,570 Well... 1424 01:24:02,130 --> 01:24:06,690 I first saw him that morning in the lobby. 1425 01:24:06,690 --> 01:24:09,570 He was--he was checking into the hotel 1426 01:24:09,570 --> 01:24:11,210 and he was following the bellboy 1427 01:24:11,210 --> 01:24:15,330 with his luggage to the elevator. 1428 01:24:17,610 --> 01:24:19,809 He... 1429 01:24:19,809 --> 01:24:22,130 He glanced at me as he walked past. 1430 01:24:22,130 --> 01:24:25,170 Just a glance. 1431 01:24:25,170 --> 01:24:27,170 Nothing more. 1432 01:24:33,930 --> 01:24:38,570 But I could hardly... 1433 01:24:38,570 --> 01:24:40,530 move. 1434 01:24:42,010 --> 01:24:43,809 Eyes Wide Shut is a film 1435 01:24:43,809 --> 01:24:48,450 which has an incredibly precise lesson about fantasy. 1436 01:24:50,250 --> 01:24:54,450 She tells him, not about herself 1437 01:24:54,450 --> 01:24:56,090 effectively cheating him, 1438 01:24:56,090 --> 01:24:59,010 but about fantasizing about cheating him 1439 01:24:59,010 --> 01:25:02,170 with some naval officer they met in a hotel 1440 01:25:02,170 --> 01:25:04,130 and so on and so on. 1441 01:25:04,130 --> 01:25:06,450 (moody music) 1442 01:25:10,170 --> 01:25:13,290 The entire film is his desperate attempt 1443 01:25:13,290 --> 01:25:18,410 to catch up with her fantasy, which ends in a failure. 1444 01:25:18,410 --> 01:25:20,809 (thumping) 1445 01:25:20,809 --> 01:25:23,210 (chanting) 1446 01:25:23,210 --> 01:25:25,090 (sinister music) 1447 01:25:25,090 --> 01:25:26,570 Many people don't like, 1448 01:25:26,570 --> 01:25:29,930 in that mysterious rich people's castle 1449 01:25:29,930 --> 01:25:32,170 where they meet for their orgies, the big orgy. 1450 01:25:32,170 --> 01:25:34,850 They complain this orgy is aseptic, 1451 01:25:34,850 --> 01:25:37,890 totally non-attractive, without erotic tension. 1452 01:25:37,890 --> 01:25:40,130 But I think that's the point. 1453 01:25:41,809 --> 01:25:46,250 This utter impotence of male fantasizing. 1454 01:25:46,250 --> 01:25:48,570 (chanting) 1455 01:25:53,410 --> 01:25:56,610 The film is the story of how 1456 01:25:56,610 --> 01:25:59,610 the male fantasy cannot catch up 1457 01:25:59,610 --> 01:26:00,850 with the feminine fantasy, 1458 01:26:00,850 --> 01:26:02,970 of how there is too much of desire 1459 01:26:02,970 --> 01:26:05,250 in feminine fantasy 1460 01:26:05,250 --> 01:26:08,930 and how this is the threat to male identity. 1461 01:26:08,930 --> 01:26:11,450 Where do we find this aspect of it in Vertigo? 1462 01:26:11,450 --> 01:26:13,650 Isn't it that in Vertigo, on the contrary, 1463 01:26:13,650 --> 01:26:17,090 all the activity is on the side of Scottie? 1464 01:26:17,090 --> 01:26:20,290 But I think that precisely because of this, 1465 01:26:20,290 --> 01:26:24,290 his activity is extremely brutal, mortifying. 1466 01:26:24,290 --> 01:26:28,850 He has totally to erase 1467 01:26:28,850 --> 01:26:31,570 the woman as a desiring entity. 1468 01:26:31,570 --> 01:26:33,850 That's for him the condition to desire. 1469 01:26:33,850 --> 01:26:35,610 "Let's annihilate the woman, 1470 01:26:35,610 --> 01:26:37,490 let's mortify her 1471 01:26:37,490 --> 01:26:40,610 so that my fantasy alone rules." 1472 01:26:40,610 --> 01:26:42,490 The other solution is, of course, 1473 01:26:42,490 --> 01:26:45,370 the masochist solution, which is, 1474 01:26:45,370 --> 01:26:49,170 "Let me maintain the appearance of the woman, domina, 1475 01:26:49,170 --> 01:26:50,930 as the boss. 1476 01:26:50,930 --> 01:26:54,570 I accept my inferior role, but secretly I am the master 1477 01:26:54,570 --> 01:26:57,170 because I write the very scenario 1478 01:26:57,170 --> 01:27:00,090 of my inferiority." 1479 01:27:02,610 --> 01:27:05,530 But... 1480 01:27:05,530 --> 01:27:08,690 I do love you. 1481 01:27:11,490 --> 01:27:14,290 And you know... 1482 01:27:14,290 --> 01:27:16,530 there is something very important 1483 01:27:16,530 --> 01:27:20,410 that we need to do as soon as possible. 1484 01:27:20,410 --> 01:27:22,530 What's that? 1485 01:27:24,730 --> 01:27:27,490 Fuck. 1486 01:27:27,490 --> 01:27:31,170 It's as if our inner psychic space is too wild 1487 01:27:31,170 --> 01:27:33,330 and sometimes we have to make love, 1488 01:27:33,330 --> 01:27:36,970 not to get the real thing but to escape from the real, 1489 01:27:36,970 --> 01:27:38,809 from the excessive real 1490 01:27:38,809 --> 01:27:42,370 that we encounter in our fantasizing. 1491 01:27:49,890 --> 01:27:52,210 (water trickling) 1492 01:27:54,050 --> 01:27:56,050 But you know what? Also we have, don't forget, 1493 01:27:56,050 --> 01:27:59,170 from Wild At Heart, Bobby Peru, the rape. 1494 01:27:59,170 --> 01:28:01,450 Say "Fuck me." 1495 01:28:01,450 --> 01:28:03,130 -Then I'll leave. -No way. Get out! 1496 01:28:03,130 --> 01:28:06,890 Say it! I'll tear your fuckin' heart out, girl! 1497 01:28:08,890 --> 01:28:10,530 Say "Fuck me." 1498 01:28:10,530 --> 01:28:12,570 Say "Fuck me!" 1499 01:28:12,570 --> 01:28:14,090 Then I'll leave. 1500 01:28:14,090 --> 01:28:15,650 Say "Fuck me!" 1501 01:28:15,650 --> 01:28:17,210 Whisper it. 1502 01:28:17,210 --> 01:28:20,370 Say it. Say it. 1503 01:28:20,370 --> 01:28:22,090 Say it. 1504 01:28:22,090 --> 01:28:24,290 Say "Fuck me." 1505 01:28:24,290 --> 01:28:27,010 Whisper it. "Fuck me." 1506 01:28:27,010 --> 01:28:31,770 Bobby Peru enters the room where the young girl, 1507 01:28:31,770 --> 01:28:34,770 played by Laura Dern, is resting, 1508 01:28:34,770 --> 01:28:39,210 and, slowly, he terrorizes her. 1509 01:28:39,210 --> 01:28:42,730 "Fuck me, fuck me, 1510 01:28:42,730 --> 01:28:44,730 fuck me." 1511 01:28:44,730 --> 01:28:47,090 Fuck me. 1512 01:28:47,090 --> 01:28:49,090 Fuck me. 1513 01:28:49,090 --> 01:28:51,090 Fuck me. 1514 01:28:51,090 --> 01:28:53,450 Fuck me. 1515 01:28:55,090 --> 01:28:56,690 Someday, honey, I will! 1516 01:28:56,690 --> 01:28:59,650 But I gotta get goin'! 1517 01:29:02,170 --> 01:29:03,570 Sing. 1518 01:29:03,570 --> 01:29:06,410 Don't cry. 1519 01:29:11,210 --> 01:29:15,130 Bobby Peru, as it were, changes the register. 1520 01:29:15,130 --> 01:29:18,970 All of a sudden he adopts a nice, polite, smiling face 1521 01:29:18,970 --> 01:29:20,970 and says, "Oh, thanks for the offer, 1522 01:29:20,970 --> 01:29:24,410 but I've got to go now, maybe another day." 1523 01:29:24,410 --> 01:29:29,530 Just arousing the fantasy and then rejecting the act 1524 01:29:29,530 --> 01:29:34,130 results in utter psychological devastation. 1525 01:29:34,130 --> 01:29:36,930 It is a case of a mental rape 1526 01:29:36,930 --> 01:29:40,250 which can be worse than physical rape. 1527 01:29:45,809 --> 01:29:48,130 (classical music) 1528 01:29:59,970 --> 01:30:03,930 The point is the fragile balance 1529 01:30:03,930 --> 01:30:07,850 between reality and fantasy dimension 1530 01:30:07,850 --> 01:30:18,730 in our sexual activity. 1531 01:30:18,730 --> 01:30:21,410 Michael Haneke's Piano Teacher 1532 01:30:21,410 --> 01:30:24,970 is the story of an impossible love affair 1533 01:30:24,970 --> 01:30:29,610 between a middle-aged, deeply traumatized woman 1534 01:30:29,610 --> 01:30:32,650 and her young student. 1535 01:30:32,650 --> 01:30:34,930 She's, in a way, a person 1536 01:30:34,930 --> 01:30:37,890 who is not yet sexually subjectivized. 1537 01:30:37,890 --> 01:30:41,890 She lacks the phantasmatic coordinates of her desire. 1538 01:30:41,890 --> 01:30:44,690 This accounts for a couple of very strange scenes 1539 01:30:44,690 --> 01:30:46,570 in the film, like when she goes 1540 01:30:46,570 --> 01:30:49,010 to a pornographic store and then watches 1541 01:30:49,010 --> 01:30:54,010 in a closed, small room a scene from a hardcore film. 1542 01:30:54,010 --> 01:30:56,410 (electronic music) 1543 01:30:58,410 --> 01:31:00,809 (music stops) 1544 01:31:00,809 --> 01:31:03,930 The way she watches it, it's not to get aroused, 1545 01:31:03,930 --> 01:31:07,010 but she watches it as a pupil in a school. 1546 01:31:07,010 --> 01:31:10,650 She simply watches it to get the coordinates of desiring, 1547 01:31:10,650 --> 01:31:14,050 to learn how to do it, how to get excited. 1548 01:31:27,530 --> 01:31:29,690 The notion of fantasy in psychoanalysis 1549 01:31:29,690 --> 01:31:31,490 is very ambiguous. 1550 01:31:31,490 --> 01:31:33,010 On the one hand, 1551 01:31:33,010 --> 01:31:36,130 we have the pacifying aspect of fantasy. 1552 01:31:36,130 --> 01:31:39,210 Piano Teacher plays with the opposite aspect 1553 01:31:39,210 --> 01:31:42,290 of fantasy. 1554 01:31:42,290 --> 01:31:47,530 Fantasy as the explosion of wild, unbearable desires. 1555 01:31:47,530 --> 01:31:49,610 What we found in the middle of the film 1556 01:31:49,610 --> 01:31:51,970 is probably, arguably, 1557 01:31:51,970 --> 01:31:54,370 the most depressive sexual act 1558 01:31:54,370 --> 01:31:57,930 in the entire history of cinema. 1559 01:32:02,290 --> 01:32:03,970 As if to punish her 1560 01:32:03,970 --> 01:32:08,330 for disclosing the fantasy in her letter to him, 1561 01:32:08,330 --> 01:32:13,210 he literally enacts her fantasy 1562 01:32:13,210 --> 01:32:15,370 in the way he makes love to her, 1563 01:32:15,370 --> 01:32:19,530 which, of course, means that fantasy is lost for her. 1564 01:32:23,850 --> 01:32:28,050 When fantasy disintegrates, you don't get reality, 1565 01:32:28,050 --> 01:32:31,250 you get some nightmarish real 1566 01:32:31,250 --> 01:32:36,010 too traumatic to be experienced as ordinary reality. 1567 01:32:36,010 --> 01:32:39,650 That would be another definition of nightmare. 1568 01:32:39,650 --> 01:32:41,970 (heavy breathing) 1569 01:32:46,490 --> 01:32:48,250 Hell is here. 1570 01:32:48,250 --> 01:32:52,890 Paradise, at least this perverse paradise, is hell. 1571 01:32:55,930 --> 01:33:00,450 One cannot here just throw out the dirty water, 1572 01:33:00,450 --> 01:33:04,050 all these excessive, perverse fantasies and so on, 1573 01:33:04,050 --> 01:33:07,610 and just keep the healthy, clean baby, 1574 01:33:07,610 --> 01:33:10,610 normal, straight or even homosexual, whatever, 1575 01:33:10,610 --> 01:33:14,010 but some kind of normal, politically correct sex. 1576 01:33:14,010 --> 01:33:16,210 You cannot do that. 1577 01:33:16,210 --> 01:33:20,650 What if we throw out the baby and keep just the dirty water? 1578 01:33:20,650 --> 01:33:24,930 And put it as a problem: how to deal with dirty water. 1579 01:33:24,930 --> 01:33:28,970 And put some order in the dirty water of fantasies. 1580 01:33:28,970 --> 01:33:31,530 This is, I think, precisely what happens, 1581 01:33:31,530 --> 01:33:34,210 for example, in Kieslowski's Blue. 1582 01:34:19,330 --> 01:34:21,770 You can organize, people do it, your life 1583 01:34:21,770 --> 01:34:24,330 in mourning the lost object. 1584 01:34:24,330 --> 01:34:28,250 Julie, in Blue, discovers that her husband 1585 01:34:28,250 --> 01:34:30,690 wasn't what she thought he was. 1586 01:34:30,690 --> 01:34:32,130 That he was cheating her, 1587 01:34:32,130 --> 01:34:34,850 that he had a mistress who is pregnant. 1588 01:34:34,850 --> 01:34:37,850 (shattering) 1589 01:34:37,850 --> 01:34:39,770 This is the most terrifying loss, 1590 01:34:39,770 --> 01:34:41,809 where all the coordinates 1591 01:34:41,809 --> 01:34:45,210 of your reality disintegrate. 1592 01:34:45,210 --> 01:34:47,530 (beeping) 1593 01:34:51,290 --> 01:34:55,090 The problem is how to reconstitute yourself. 1594 01:34:55,090 --> 01:34:57,410 (squeaking) 1595 01:34:59,090 --> 01:35:00,650 In a wonderful short scene, 1596 01:35:00,650 --> 01:35:05,130 the heroine of Blue, after returning home, 1597 01:35:05,130 --> 01:35:08,250 finds there on the floor 1598 01:35:08,250 --> 01:35:10,290 a group of newly-born mice, 1599 01:35:10,290 --> 01:35:13,090 crawling around their mother. 1600 01:35:13,090 --> 01:35:15,010 (squeaking) 1601 01:35:16,690 --> 01:35:19,010 This scene terrifies her. 1602 01:35:19,010 --> 01:35:23,290 She is too excessively exposed to life 1603 01:35:23,290 --> 01:35:26,290 in its brutal meaninglessness. 1604 01:35:26,290 --> 01:35:28,610 (squeaking) 1605 01:35:35,450 --> 01:35:38,410 What she is able to do at the end 1606 01:35:38,410 --> 01:35:42,610 is to acquire a proper distance towards reality. 1607 01:35:42,610 --> 01:35:44,930 (somber music) 1608 01:35:54,370 --> 01:35:58,530 This is what happens in the famous circular shot 1609 01:35:58,530 --> 01:36:01,370 where we pass from Julie's face, 1610 01:36:01,370 --> 01:36:03,690 while she is making love. 1611 01:36:05,490 --> 01:36:07,530 This magical suspension 1612 01:36:07,530 --> 01:36:10,290 of temporal and spatial limitations, 1613 01:36:10,290 --> 01:36:13,730 this free floating in a fantasy space, 1614 01:36:13,730 --> 01:36:17,130 far from distancing us from reality... 1615 01:36:19,130 --> 01:36:23,130 ...enables us to approach reality. 1616 01:36:26,770 --> 01:36:30,130 She is putting together the coordinates 1617 01:36:30,130 --> 01:36:33,330 which enable her to experience her reality 1618 01:36:33,330 --> 01:36:35,050 as meaningful again. 1619 01:37:02,490 --> 01:37:04,250 As if the lesson is, 1620 01:37:04,250 --> 01:37:06,370 not only for men but also for women, 1621 01:37:06,370 --> 01:37:10,210 that you can sustain sexual intercourse, 1622 01:37:10,210 --> 01:37:11,770 sexual relationship, 1623 01:37:11,770 --> 01:37:15,330 only through the support of fantasy. 1624 01:38:00,930 --> 01:38:05,450 The problem, of course, is, is this fantasy reconstituted? 1625 01:38:05,450 --> 01:38:09,770 Is this the ultimate horizon of our experience? 1626 01:38:11,170 --> 01:38:13,490 (dark music) 1627 01:38:16,130 --> 01:38:21,250 The function of music here is precisely that of a fetish, 1628 01:38:21,250 --> 01:38:24,410 of some fascinating presence 1629 01:38:24,410 --> 01:38:29,090 whose function it is to conceal the abyss of anxiety. 1630 01:38:32,410 --> 01:38:36,210 Music is here what, according to Marx, religion is, 1631 01:38:36,210 --> 01:38:38,610 a kind of opium for the people. 1632 01:38:38,610 --> 01:38:42,730 Opium which should, as it were, put us asleep, 1633 01:38:42,730 --> 01:38:45,010 put us into a kind of a false beatitude, 1634 01:38:45,010 --> 01:38:47,610 which allows us to avoid 1635 01:38:47,610 --> 01:38:50,170 the abyss of unbearable anxiety. 1636 01:39:05,370 --> 01:39:09,730 We see Julie crying, but through a glass. 1637 01:39:09,730 --> 01:39:13,809 This glass stands for, I think, fantasy reconstituted. 1638 01:39:17,570 --> 01:39:20,889 These are, I'm tempted to say, the tears of happiness. 1639 01:39:20,889 --> 01:39:23,610 "I can mourn now because it no longer 1640 01:39:23,610 --> 01:39:26,530 immediately affects me." 1641 01:39:26,530 --> 01:39:30,889 Blue proposes this mystical communion, 1642 01:39:30,889 --> 01:39:32,450 reconstituted fantasy, 1643 01:39:32,450 --> 01:39:34,530 as sustaining our relation to the world. 1644 01:39:34,530 --> 01:39:36,090 But the price we pay 1645 01:39:36,090 --> 01:39:40,450 is that some radically authentic moment 1646 01:39:40,450 --> 01:39:44,010 of accepting the anxiety at the very foundation 1647 01:39:44,010 --> 01:39:47,410 of human condition is lost there. 1648 01:39:55,170 --> 01:39:58,850 If anything, anxiety at the vocal level 1649 01:39:58,850 --> 01:40:00,809 is silence. 1650 01:40:00,809 --> 01:40:02,290 It's silence. 1651 01:40:02,290 --> 01:40:03,770 It's a silent scream. 1652 01:40:08,330 --> 01:40:10,330 In Hitchcock's The Birds, 1653 01:40:10,330 --> 01:40:12,410 when the mother, of course, 1654 01:40:12,410 --> 01:40:15,450 who but the mother, finds the neighbor dead, 1655 01:40:15,450 --> 01:40:17,210 his eyes picked out 1656 01:40:17,210 --> 01:40:21,010 by the birds, 1657 01:40:21,010 --> 01:40:23,570 she shouts, but the shout literally remains 1658 01:40:23,570 --> 01:40:26,650 stuck in her throat. 1659 01:40:26,650 --> 01:40:28,969 (footsteps nearing) 1660 01:40:33,490 --> 01:40:35,570 (gasping) 1661 01:40:35,570 --> 01:40:38,010 And to return from cinema 1662 01:40:38,010 --> 01:40:40,170 to so-called "real life," 1663 01:40:40,170 --> 01:40:42,570 the ultimate lesson of psychoanalysis 1664 01:40:42,570 --> 01:40:45,410 is that exactly the same goes 1665 01:40:45,410 --> 01:40:48,490 for our real life experience. 1666 01:40:48,490 --> 01:40:51,250 That emotions as such 1667 01:40:51,250 --> 01:40:53,170 are deceiving. 1668 01:40:53,170 --> 01:40:55,850 There are no specifically fake emotions, 1669 01:40:55,850 --> 01:40:58,969 because, as Freud puts it, 1670 01:40:58,969 --> 01:41:01,250 literally, "The only emotion 1671 01:41:01,250 --> 01:41:04,130 which doesn't deceive is anxiety. 1672 01:41:04,130 --> 01:41:08,370 All other emotions are fake." 1673 01:41:08,370 --> 01:41:11,410 So, of course, the problem here is, 1674 01:41:11,410 --> 01:41:13,850 are we able 1675 01:41:13,850 --> 01:41:17,410 to encounter in cinema 1676 01:41:17,410 --> 01:41:20,210 the emotion of anxiety, 1677 01:41:20,210 --> 01:41:24,410 or is cinema as such fake? 1678 01:41:31,969 --> 01:41:34,290 (film reel rolling) 1679 01:41:36,530 --> 01:41:39,330 (reel skipping) 1680 01:41:39,330 --> 01:41:42,690 (ominous music) 1681 01:41:42,690 --> 01:41:45,610 Cinema is the art of appearances. 1682 01:41:45,610 --> 01:41:48,969 Tells us something about reality itself. 1683 01:41:52,610 --> 01:41:55,490 It tells us something about 1684 01:41:55,490 --> 01:41:57,850 how reality constitutes itself. 1685 01:41:57,850 --> 01:41:59,170 (dramatic music) 1686 01:41:59,170 --> 01:42:01,370 Not that way! 1687 01:42:06,370 --> 01:42:08,330 Ripley. 1688 01:42:14,410 --> 01:42:16,530 Ripley, come on. 1689 01:42:18,610 --> 01:42:21,330 Ripley, we got no time for sightseeing here. 1690 01:42:25,930 --> 01:42:27,450 Ripley, don't. 1691 01:42:27,450 --> 01:42:29,330 There is an old agnostic theory 1692 01:42:29,330 --> 01:42:32,690 that our world was not perfectly created. 1693 01:42:32,690 --> 01:42:34,889 That the god who created our world 1694 01:42:34,889 --> 01:42:37,210 was an idiot who bungled the clock 1695 01:42:37,210 --> 01:42:39,770 so that our world 1696 01:42:39,770 --> 01:42:42,210 is a half-finished creation. 1697 01:42:42,210 --> 01:42:46,570 There are voids, openings, gaps. 1698 01:42:46,570 --> 01:42:48,170 It's not fully real, 1699 01:42:48,170 --> 01:42:50,010 fully constituted. 1700 01:42:57,130 --> 01:42:58,730 In the wonderful scene 1701 01:42:58,730 --> 01:43:02,450 in the last installment of the Alien saga, 1702 01:43:02,450 --> 01:43:04,050 Alien Resurrection, 1703 01:43:04,050 --> 01:43:07,650 when Ripley, the cloned Ripley, 1704 01:43:07,650 --> 01:43:09,570 enters a mysterious room, 1705 01:43:09,570 --> 01:43:16,570 she encounters the previous failed version of herself, 1706 01:43:16,570 --> 01:43:18,330 of cloning herself. 1707 01:43:21,290 --> 01:43:23,370 Just a horrified creature, 1708 01:43:23,370 --> 01:43:25,330 a small fetus-like entity, 1709 01:43:25,330 --> 01:43:27,170 then more developed forms. 1710 01:43:31,210 --> 01:43:33,889 Finally, a creature which almost looks like her, 1711 01:43:33,889 --> 01:43:37,370 but her limbs are like that of the monster. 1712 01:43:37,370 --> 01:43:39,690 (beeping) 1713 01:43:41,650 --> 01:43:44,770 Kill me. 1714 01:43:44,770 --> 01:43:47,130 This means that, all the time, 1715 01:43:47,130 --> 01:43:51,250 our previous alternate embodiments, 1716 01:43:51,250 --> 01:43:54,770 what we might have been, but are not, 1717 01:43:54,770 --> 01:43:56,889 that these alternate versions of ourselves 1718 01:43:56,889 --> 01:43:59,090 are haunting us. 1719 01:43:59,090 --> 01:44:01,050 (beeping) 1720 01:44:01,050 --> 01:44:05,090 That's the ontological view 1721 01:44:05,090 --> 01:44:08,050 of reality that we get here, 1722 01:44:08,050 --> 01:44:11,050 as if it's an unfinished universe. 1723 01:44:11,050 --> 01:44:13,370 (flames hissing) 1724 01:44:13,370 --> 01:44:15,570 This is, I think, a very modern feeling. 1725 01:44:15,570 --> 01:44:19,050 It is through such ontology of unfinished reality 1726 01:44:19,050 --> 01:44:22,090 that cinema became a truly modern art. 1727 01:44:23,650 --> 01:44:25,969 (haunting music) 1728 01:44:32,410 --> 01:44:34,610 All modern films are ultimately films 1729 01:44:34,610 --> 01:44:37,370 about the possibility or impossibility 1730 01:44:37,370 --> 01:44:38,969 to make a film. 1731 01:44:38,969 --> 01:44:41,290 (dramatic music) 1732 01:44:47,490 --> 01:44:52,130 This is the sad tale of the township of Dogville. 1733 01:44:52,130 --> 01:44:55,850 Dogville was in the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. of A. 1734 01:44:55,850 --> 01:44:58,730 Up here, where the road came to its definitive end 1735 01:44:58,730 --> 01:45:02,370 near the entrance to the old, abandoned silver mine, 1736 01:45:02,370 --> 01:45:05,570 the residents of Dogville were good, honest folks, 1737 01:45:05,570 --> 01:45:07,770 and they liked their township. 1738 01:45:07,770 --> 01:45:10,450 With Von Trier, it's not only the problem of belief 1739 01:45:10,450 --> 01:45:13,490 in the sense of do peoples generally still believe today, 1740 01:45:13,490 --> 01:45:15,690 the place of religion today, and so on. 1741 01:45:15,690 --> 01:45:18,050 It's also reflectively 1742 01:45:18,050 --> 01:45:19,730 or allegorically 1743 01:45:19,730 --> 01:45:23,050 the question of believing in cinema itself. 1744 01:45:23,050 --> 01:45:26,370 How to make today people 1745 01:45:26,370 --> 01:45:29,610 still believe in the magic of cinema. 1746 01:45:31,290 --> 01:45:33,969 In Dogville, all of it is staged 1747 01:45:33,969 --> 01:45:36,850 on a set--okay, this is often the case in cinema-- 1748 01:45:36,850 --> 01:45:39,730 but here the set is seen 1749 01:45:39,730 --> 01:45:41,570 as the set. 1750 01:45:41,570 --> 01:45:44,090 The action takes place in Dogville, a small town, 1751 01:45:44,090 --> 01:45:46,130 but there are no houses. 1752 01:45:46,130 --> 01:45:48,650 There are just lines on the floor 1753 01:45:48,650 --> 01:45:51,330 signaling that this is the house, this is the street. 1754 01:45:54,210 --> 01:45:56,330 The mysterious thing is that this does not prevent 1755 01:45:56,330 --> 01:45:58,250 our identification. 1756 01:45:58,250 --> 01:46:00,610 If anything, it makes us 1757 01:46:00,610 --> 01:46:03,170 even more thrown into the tensions 1758 01:46:03,170 --> 01:46:04,690 of the inner life. 1759 01:46:08,010 --> 01:46:10,370 Have you seen Grace? 1760 01:46:10,370 --> 01:46:12,410 She's at my place. 1761 01:46:12,410 --> 01:46:14,450 -Is she busy? -Not anymore. 1762 01:46:14,450 --> 01:46:16,730 Go right in. 1763 01:46:20,490 --> 01:46:22,809 (tense music) 1764 01:46:25,650 --> 01:46:28,770 It's not that naive belief is undermined, 1765 01:46:28,770 --> 01:46:30,809 deconstructed through irony. 1766 01:46:30,809 --> 01:46:34,610 Von Trier wants to be serious with the magic. 1767 01:46:34,610 --> 01:46:37,450 Irony is put into service to make us believe. 1768 01:46:39,730 --> 01:46:42,650 Yet again, Grace had made a miraculous escape 1769 01:46:42,650 --> 01:46:46,490 from her pursuers with the aid of the people of Dogville. 1770 01:46:46,490 --> 01:46:48,250 Everyone had covered up for her, 1771 01:46:48,250 --> 01:46:51,010 including Chuck, who had to admit 1772 01:46:51,010 --> 01:46:52,770 that it was probably Tom's hat 1773 01:46:52,770 --> 01:46:55,290 he'd mistakenly considered so suspicious. 1774 01:47:00,210 --> 01:47:03,090 The mystery is that, even if we know that it's only staged, 1775 01:47:03,090 --> 01:47:05,490 that it's a fiction, it's still fascinates us. 1776 01:47:05,490 --> 01:47:08,170 That's the fundamental metric of it. 1777 01:47:08,170 --> 01:47:11,450 You witness a certain seductive scene, 1778 01:47:11,450 --> 01:47:14,450 then you are shown that it's just fake, 1779 01:47:14,450 --> 01:47:16,050 stage machinery behind, 1780 01:47:16,050 --> 01:47:18,930 but you are still fascinated by it. 1781 01:47:18,930 --> 01:47:21,490 Illusion persists, there is something real 1782 01:47:21,490 --> 01:47:25,050 in the illusion, more real than in the reality behind it. 1783 01:47:25,050 --> 01:47:29,250 Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz! 1784 01:47:29,250 --> 01:47:32,210 I said come back tomorrow! 1785 01:47:32,210 --> 01:47:33,770 If you were really great and powerful, 1786 01:47:33,770 --> 01:47:35,370 you'd keep your promises. 1787 01:47:35,370 --> 01:47:39,010 Do you presume to criticize the great Oz? 1788 01:47:39,010 --> 01:47:41,570 You ungrateful creatures! 1789 01:47:41,570 --> 01:47:43,210 Think yourselves lucky 1790 01:47:43,210 --> 01:47:45,410 that I'm giving you audience tomorrow 1791 01:47:45,410 --> 01:47:48,330 instead of 20 years from now! 1792 01:47:48,330 --> 01:47:49,770 Oh! 1793 01:47:49,770 --> 01:47:52,809 The great Oz has spoken. 1794 01:47:52,809 --> 01:47:54,170 Oh! 1795 01:47:54,170 --> 01:47:57,889 Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. 1796 01:47:57,889 --> 01:48:01,210 The great Oz has spoken! 1797 01:48:01,210 --> 01:48:02,730 Who are you? 1798 01:48:02,730 --> 01:48:07,170 Oh, uh--I am the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. 1799 01:48:07,170 --> 01:48:10,330 What we can learn from a film like Wizard of Oz 1800 01:48:10,330 --> 01:48:13,490 is how it is not enough-- 1801 01:48:13,490 --> 01:48:16,290 the logic of demystification is not enough. 1802 01:48:16,290 --> 01:48:18,010 It's not enough to say, "Okay, 1803 01:48:18,010 --> 01:48:20,889 it's just a big show, spectacle to impress the people. 1804 01:48:20,889 --> 01:48:23,530 What is behind is just a modest old guy, 1805 01:48:23,530 --> 01:48:25,090 and so on and so on. 1806 01:48:25,090 --> 01:48:27,090 It is that, rather in a way, 1807 01:48:27,090 --> 01:48:29,809 there is more truth in this appearance. 1808 01:48:29,809 --> 01:48:33,650 Appearance has an affectivity, a truth of its own. 1809 01:48:33,650 --> 01:48:36,010 What about the heart that you promised Tin Man, 1810 01:48:36,010 --> 01:48:37,889 and the courage that you promised Cowardly Lion? 1811 01:48:37,889 --> 01:48:39,809 And Scarecrow's brain? 1812 01:48:39,809 --> 01:48:41,809 Why, anybody can have a brain. 1813 01:48:41,809 --> 01:48:43,850 That's a very mediocre commodity. 1814 01:48:43,850 --> 01:48:46,889 Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth, 1815 01:48:46,889 --> 01:48:50,050 or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. 1816 01:48:50,050 --> 01:48:52,330 Back where I come from we have universities. 1817 01:48:52,330 --> 01:48:53,930 Seats of great learning, 1818 01:48:53,930 --> 01:48:56,050 where men go to become great thinkers, 1819 01:48:56,050 --> 01:48:58,290 and when they come out, they think deep thoughts, 1820 01:48:58,290 --> 01:49:00,050 and with no more brains than you have, 1821 01:49:00,050 --> 01:49:03,930 but they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma. 1822 01:49:03,930 --> 01:49:06,969 Therefore, by virtue of the authority 1823 01:49:06,969 --> 01:49:10,530 vested in me by the Universitartus Committiartum 1824 01:49:10,530 --> 01:49:14,250 E Pluribus Unum, I hereby confer upon you 1825 01:49:14,250 --> 01:49:17,809 the honorary degree of Th.D. 1826 01:49:17,809 --> 01:49:19,290 -Th.D? -Yeah, 1827 01:49:19,290 --> 01:49:21,730 that's Doctor of Thinkology. 1828 01:49:21,730 --> 01:49:23,330 The sum of the square roots of any two sides 1829 01:49:23,330 --> 01:49:25,290 of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root 1830 01:49:25,290 --> 01:49:26,770 of the remaining side. 1831 01:49:28,490 --> 01:49:30,570 Oh, joy, rapture. 1832 01:49:30,570 --> 01:49:32,210 I've got a brain! 1833 01:49:32,210 --> 01:49:34,210 And that's the paradox of cinema. 1834 01:49:34,210 --> 01:49:36,050 The paradox of belief. 1835 01:49:36,050 --> 01:49:39,930 We don't simply believe or do not believe. 1836 01:49:39,930 --> 01:49:44,010 We always believe in a kind of a conditional mode. 1837 01:49:44,010 --> 01:49:46,090 I know very well it's fake, 1838 01:49:46,090 --> 01:49:49,170 but nonetheless I let myself be emotionally affected. 1839 01:49:50,210 --> 01:49:52,090 How do you do? 1840 01:49:54,570 --> 01:49:57,090 Mr. Carl Laemmle feels it would be a little unkind 1841 01:49:57,090 --> 01:49:59,050 to present this picture without just a word 1842 01:49:59,050 --> 01:50:01,410 of friendly warning: 1843 01:50:01,410 --> 01:50:05,130 We are about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, 1844 01:50:05,130 --> 01:50:06,930 a man of science, 1845 01:50:06,930 --> 01:50:10,610 who sought to create a man after his own image 1846 01:50:10,610 --> 01:50:13,889 without reckoning upon God. 1847 01:50:13,889 --> 01:50:15,889 Somebody tells us, 1848 01:50:15,889 --> 01:50:18,889 "You have to experience horror." 1849 01:50:18,889 --> 01:50:20,930 We do it. 1850 01:50:20,930 --> 01:50:22,490 So, if any of you feel that you do not care 1851 01:50:22,490 --> 01:50:25,490 to subject your nerves to such a strain, 1852 01:50:25,490 --> 01:50:27,809 now is your chance to, uh... 1853 01:50:27,809 --> 01:50:30,370 well, we warned you. 1854 01:50:37,050 --> 01:50:38,850 Ladies and gentlemen, 1855 01:50:38,850 --> 01:50:40,889 young and old, 1856 01:50:40,889 --> 01:50:44,370 this may seem an unusual procedure, 1857 01:50:44,370 --> 01:50:47,250 speaking to you before the picture begins, 1858 01:50:47,250 --> 01:50:50,490 but we have an unusual subject. 1859 01:50:50,490 --> 01:50:52,410 Behind not red-- this is Hollywood-- 1860 01:50:52,410 --> 01:50:56,210 but black curtain, Cecil DeMille himself appears, 1861 01:50:56,210 --> 01:50:59,250 giving us a lesson of how the story of 10 Commandments 1862 01:50:59,250 --> 01:51:01,690 and Moses has great relevance today, 1863 01:51:01,690 --> 01:51:05,090 where we are fighting communist, totalitarian danger, 1864 01:51:05,090 --> 01:51:08,090 and so on, and so on, giving us all the clues. 1865 01:51:08,090 --> 01:51:11,410 Are men the property of the state? 1866 01:51:11,410 --> 01:51:14,330 Or are they free souls under God? 1867 01:51:14,330 --> 01:51:16,450 This same battle 1868 01:51:16,450 --> 01:51:19,450 continues throughout the world today. 1869 01:51:19,450 --> 01:51:21,570 This hidden master, 1870 01:51:21,570 --> 01:51:23,570 who controls the events, 1871 01:51:23,570 --> 01:51:25,730 can also be defined 1872 01:51:25,730 --> 01:51:28,010 as ideology embodied, 1873 01:51:28,010 --> 01:51:30,889 in the sense of the space 1874 01:51:30,889 --> 01:51:33,889 which organizes our desires. 1875 01:51:35,690 --> 01:51:37,809 And your name? 1876 01:51:37,809 --> 01:51:40,010 What the fuck is your name? 1877 01:51:40,010 --> 01:51:42,330 (eerie music) 1878 01:51:43,770 --> 01:51:45,690 In David Lynch's Lost Highway, 1879 01:51:45,690 --> 01:51:47,410 we have the Mystery Man, 1880 01:51:47,410 --> 01:51:50,370 who stands for the very cinematographer, 1881 01:51:50,370 --> 01:51:52,010 even director. 1882 01:51:57,090 --> 01:52:00,010 Imagine somebody who has 1883 01:52:00,010 --> 01:52:04,010 direct access to your inner life, 1884 01:52:04,010 --> 01:52:06,370 to your innermost fantasies, 1885 01:52:06,370 --> 01:52:09,210 to what even you don't want to know 1886 01:52:09,210 --> 01:52:11,730 about yourself. 1887 01:52:11,730 --> 01:52:14,050 We've met before, haven't we? 1888 01:52:14,050 --> 01:52:16,130 (tense music) 1889 01:52:17,570 --> 01:52:19,290 I don't think so. 1890 01:52:22,210 --> 01:52:24,010 Where was it you think we met? 1891 01:52:25,650 --> 01:52:28,210 At your house, don't you remember? 1892 01:52:28,210 --> 01:52:30,850 The best way to imagine what Mystery Man is, 1893 01:52:30,850 --> 01:52:32,410 is to imagine somebody 1894 01:52:32,410 --> 01:52:34,850 who doesn't want anything from us. 1895 01:52:34,850 --> 01:52:37,330 What do you mean, you're where right now? 1896 01:52:39,610 --> 01:52:41,610 At your house. 1897 01:52:45,690 --> 01:52:47,690 That's fucking crazy, man. 1898 01:52:54,530 --> 01:52:56,210 (beeping) 1899 01:52:56,210 --> 01:52:58,290 Call me. 1900 01:53:00,410 --> 01:53:02,930 That's the true horror of this Mystery Man, 1901 01:53:02,930 --> 01:53:05,690 not any evil, demonic intentions, 1902 01:53:05,690 --> 01:53:07,170 and so on, and so on. 1903 01:53:07,170 --> 01:53:10,210 Just the fact that when he is in front of you, 1904 01:53:10,210 --> 01:53:12,570 he, as it were, sees through you. 1905 01:53:14,250 --> 01:53:16,570 (dial tone ringing) 1906 01:53:19,450 --> 01:53:21,690 I told you I was here. 1907 01:53:25,010 --> 01:53:26,969 How'd you do that? 1908 01:53:30,490 --> 01:53:32,410 Ask me. 1909 01:53:38,010 --> 01:53:39,809 How'd you get inside my house? 1910 01:53:39,809 --> 01:53:41,490 You invited me. 1911 01:53:41,490 --> 01:53:44,809 It is not my custom to go where I'm not wanted. 1912 01:53:44,809 --> 01:53:47,490 It's like the court in Kafka's novels, 1913 01:53:47,490 --> 01:53:49,370 where the court or the law 1914 01:53:49,370 --> 01:53:52,210 only comes when you ask for it. 1915 01:53:52,210 --> 01:53:53,650 Ooh! 1916 01:53:53,650 --> 01:53:55,530 Now, why would he do that? 1917 01:53:55,530 --> 01:53:57,490 (bird shrieking) 1918 01:53:57,490 --> 01:54:00,410 Most peculiar. What on Earth? 1919 01:54:00,410 --> 01:54:02,010 Hitchcock was obsessed 1920 01:54:02,010 --> 01:54:05,050 with this topic of manipulating emotions. 1921 01:54:05,050 --> 01:54:07,889 His dream was even, that once in the future, 1922 01:54:07,889 --> 01:54:11,410 we would no longer have to shoot narratives. 1923 01:54:11,410 --> 01:54:13,730 Our brains will be directly connected 1924 01:54:13,730 --> 01:54:15,170 to some machine, and the director 1925 01:54:15,170 --> 01:54:18,889 would only have to press different buttons there, 1926 01:54:18,889 --> 01:54:21,290 and the appropriate emotions will be awakened 1927 01:54:21,290 --> 01:54:22,969 in our mind. 1928 01:54:22,969 --> 01:54:25,010 (birds shrieking) 1929 01:54:25,010 --> 01:54:27,730 They're coming, they're coming! 1930 01:54:27,730 --> 01:54:30,050 (birds cawing) 1931 01:54:30,050 --> 01:54:32,370 What have directors like Hitchcock, 1932 01:54:32,370 --> 01:54:36,250 Tarkovsky, Kieslowski, Lynch have in common? 1933 01:54:36,250 --> 01:54:37,690 A certain autonomy 1934 01:54:37,690 --> 01:54:41,050 of cinematic form. 1935 01:54:41,050 --> 01:54:44,809 Form is not here simply to express articulate content. 1936 01:54:44,809 --> 01:54:47,370 It has a message of its own. 1937 01:54:48,730 --> 01:54:51,210 In Hitchcock, we have the motif 1938 01:54:51,210 --> 01:54:54,930 of a person hanging from an abyss 1939 01:54:54,930 --> 01:54:57,610 by the hand of another person. 1940 01:54:57,610 --> 01:55:01,330 The first example: Saboteur. 1941 01:55:01,330 --> 01:55:03,250 Rear Window. 1942 01:55:06,050 --> 01:55:08,050 Then, we have in To Catch a Thief. 1943 01:55:08,050 --> 01:55:09,410 You've got a full house down there. 1944 01:55:09,410 --> 01:55:10,770 Begin the performance. 1945 01:55:10,770 --> 01:55:12,690 Then, in North by Northwest. 1946 01:55:12,690 --> 01:55:14,610 (dramatic music) 1947 01:55:14,610 --> 01:55:17,770 Then, of course, in Vertigo. 1948 01:55:17,770 --> 01:55:19,370 (screaming) 1949 01:55:19,370 --> 01:55:22,930 So, we see here the same visual motif 1950 01:55:22,930 --> 01:55:25,969 repeating itself. 1951 01:55:25,969 --> 01:55:29,170 (intense music) 1952 01:55:29,170 --> 01:55:31,850 I think it's wrong to look for 1953 01:55:31,850 --> 01:55:33,730 a common deeper meaning. 1954 01:55:33,730 --> 01:55:35,969 Some French theorists 1955 01:55:35,969 --> 01:55:37,770 claimed that what we are dealing here, 1956 01:55:37,770 --> 01:55:40,090 it is the motif of fall and redemption. 1957 01:55:40,090 --> 01:55:43,130 I think this is already saying too much. 1958 01:55:43,130 --> 01:55:44,850 I think that what we are dealing with 1959 01:55:44,850 --> 01:55:47,930 is with a kind of a cinematic materialism, 1960 01:55:47,930 --> 01:55:51,370 that beneath the level of meaning, 1961 01:55:51,370 --> 01:55:55,130 spiritual meaning, but also simple narrative meaning, 1962 01:55:55,130 --> 01:55:58,250 we get a more elementary level 1963 01:55:58,250 --> 01:56:00,809 of forms themselves 1964 01:56:00,809 --> 01:56:02,889 communicating with each other, 1965 01:56:02,889 --> 01:56:05,370 interacting, reverberating, 1966 01:56:05,370 --> 01:56:09,090 echoing, morphing, transforming one into the other, 1967 01:56:09,090 --> 01:56:11,850 and it is this background, 1968 01:56:11,850 --> 01:56:15,130 this, as it were, background of proto reality. 1969 01:56:15,130 --> 01:56:18,410 A real which is more dense, more fundamental, 1970 01:56:18,410 --> 01:56:21,290 than the narrative reality. 1971 01:56:21,290 --> 01:56:22,690 The story that we observe. 1972 01:56:22,690 --> 01:56:26,490 It is this that provides the proper density 1973 01:56:26,490 --> 01:56:28,570 of the cinematic experience. 1974 01:56:29,889 --> 01:56:31,850 (bird cawing) 1975 01:56:33,610 --> 01:56:36,250 It's the gigantic tree, where, in Vertigo, 1976 01:56:36,250 --> 01:56:39,170 Madeleine and Scottie get together, 1977 01:56:39,170 --> 01:56:42,010 almost embrace, where their erotic tension 1978 01:56:42,010 --> 01:56:44,290 becomes unbearable. 1979 01:56:44,290 --> 01:56:46,010 What is this tree? 1980 01:56:46,010 --> 01:56:47,610 I think it's another in the series 1981 01:56:47,610 --> 01:56:50,770 of Hitchcockian big things, 1982 01:56:50,770 --> 01:56:52,770 like the Mount Rushmore statues, 1983 01:56:52,770 --> 01:56:54,889 or take another example, 1984 01:56:54,889 --> 01:56:56,490 like Moby Dick. 1985 01:56:56,490 --> 01:56:59,250 This tree is not simply a natural object. 1986 01:56:59,250 --> 01:57:01,969 It is, within our mental space, 1987 01:57:01,969 --> 01:57:05,330 what in psychoanalysis is called, "The thing." 1988 01:57:05,330 --> 01:57:08,050 It's effectively as if this tree, 1989 01:57:08,050 --> 01:57:12,170 in its very extra large distortion, 1990 01:57:12,170 --> 01:57:14,610 embodies something that comes out of 1991 01:57:14,610 --> 01:57:16,650 our inner space. 1992 01:57:16,650 --> 01:57:19,210 Libido, the excessive energy 1993 01:57:19,210 --> 01:57:21,809 of our mind. 1994 01:57:21,809 --> 01:57:26,370 So, here I think 1995 01:57:26,370 --> 01:57:29,730 we can see how films and philosophy 1996 01:57:29,730 --> 01:57:31,650 are coming together. 1997 01:57:31,650 --> 01:57:35,410 How great cinematographers really enable us 1998 01:57:35,410 --> 01:57:37,610 to think in visual terms. 1999 01:57:40,610 --> 01:57:43,770 (gasoline rushing) 2000 01:57:43,770 --> 01:57:45,730 After the birds attack the city, 2001 01:57:45,730 --> 01:57:47,450 there is a fire which breaks out 2002 01:57:47,450 --> 01:57:50,450 at a gasoline station, where a guy throws a match 2003 01:57:50,450 --> 01:57:51,850 on the gasoline. 2004 01:57:51,850 --> 01:57:53,969 Hey, you, watch out, don't drop that match! 2005 01:57:53,969 --> 01:57:55,930 -Hold on, get out of there! -Get away from the gasoline! 2006 01:57:55,930 --> 01:57:57,889 -Mister, run! -Watch out! 2007 01:57:57,889 --> 01:57:59,650 The first part of this short scene 2008 01:57:59,650 --> 01:58:02,010 is the standard one: We get the standard exchange 2009 01:58:02,010 --> 01:58:04,130 of shots of the fire, 2010 01:58:04,130 --> 01:58:07,210 and shots of the person, Melanie, in this case, 2011 01:58:07,210 --> 01:58:10,090 who looks at it. 2012 01:58:10,090 --> 01:58:12,570 (exploding) 2013 01:58:12,570 --> 01:58:15,210 Then, something strange happens. 2014 01:58:15,210 --> 01:58:17,889 We cut to way above the city. 2015 01:58:17,889 --> 01:58:20,450 We see the entire town. 2016 01:58:20,450 --> 01:58:23,370 We automatically take this shot 2017 01:58:23,370 --> 01:58:25,809 as kind of standard establishing shot, 2018 01:58:25,809 --> 01:58:27,930 like, after details which perplex you, 2019 01:58:27,930 --> 01:58:30,570 which prevent you from getting clear orientation, 2020 01:58:30,570 --> 01:58:33,090 you need a shot which, like, 2021 01:58:33,090 --> 01:58:35,010 enables you some kind of a cognitive map, 2022 01:58:35,010 --> 01:58:36,770 in that you know what's going on. 2023 01:58:36,770 --> 01:58:39,170 But then, precisely following that logic 2024 01:58:39,170 --> 01:58:41,490 of the thing from inner space, 2025 01:58:41,490 --> 01:58:43,850 which emerges from within you. 2026 01:58:45,650 --> 01:58:47,410 First, we hear these ominous sounds, 2027 01:58:47,410 --> 01:58:50,250 which are sounds of the birds, then one bird enters, 2028 01:58:50,250 --> 01:58:52,250 another bird enters. 2029 01:58:52,250 --> 01:58:53,809 The shot which was taken 2030 01:58:53,809 --> 01:58:57,250 as a neutral God's-view shot 2031 01:58:57,250 --> 01:59:01,050 all of a sudden changes into an evil gaze. 2032 01:59:01,050 --> 01:59:03,410 (birds cawing) 2033 01:59:03,410 --> 01:59:06,050 The gaze of the very birds attacking. 2034 01:59:06,050 --> 01:59:08,170 (shrieking) 2035 01:59:08,170 --> 01:59:11,090 And we are thrown into that position, 2036 01:59:11,090 --> 01:59:13,530 and again, we can use here the birds 2037 01:59:13,530 --> 01:59:15,570 as the final installment, 2038 01:59:15,570 --> 01:59:17,530 and read backwards 2039 01:59:17,530 --> 01:59:20,090 other classical Hitchcock scenes in the same way. 2040 01:59:20,090 --> 01:59:22,130 (eerie music) 2041 01:59:22,130 --> 01:59:25,090 Isn't exactly the same thing happening 2042 01:59:25,090 --> 01:59:28,410 in what I consider the ultimate scene in Psycho? 2043 01:59:28,410 --> 01:59:30,490 The second murder, the murder of the detective 2044 01:59:30,490 --> 01:59:33,610 Arbogast. 2045 01:59:33,610 --> 01:59:37,490 Hitchcock manipulates here in a very refined way 2046 01:59:37,490 --> 01:59:40,650 the logic of so-called "fetishes de survival," 2047 01:59:40,650 --> 01:59:44,330 the logic of, "I know very well, but..." 2048 01:59:44,330 --> 01:59:46,170 We know very well some things, 2049 01:59:46,170 --> 01:59:47,969 but we don't really believe in them, 2050 01:59:47,969 --> 01:59:50,250 so although we know they will happen, 2051 01:59:50,250 --> 01:59:53,610 we are no less surprised when they happen. 2052 01:59:53,610 --> 01:59:57,090 (ominous music) 2053 01:59:57,090 --> 02:00:00,450 In this case, everything points towards the murder, 2054 02:00:00,450 --> 02:00:02,490 and nonetheless, when it happens, 2055 02:00:02,490 --> 02:00:05,370 the surprise is, if anything, stronger. 2056 02:00:09,930 --> 02:00:12,370 It begins in a standard Hitchcockian way. 2057 02:00:15,530 --> 02:00:18,690 He looks up the stairs. 2058 02:00:18,690 --> 02:00:22,850 This exchange creates the Hitchcockian tension 2059 02:00:22,850 --> 02:00:25,930 between the subject's look 2060 02:00:25,930 --> 02:00:29,410 and the stairs themselves, or rather the void 2061 02:00:29,410 --> 02:00:32,450 on the top of the stairs returning the gaze, 2062 02:00:32,450 --> 02:00:34,730 emanating some kind of a weird, 2063 02:00:34,730 --> 02:00:36,610 unfathomable threat. 2064 02:00:53,290 --> 02:00:55,850 The camera then provides 2065 02:00:55,850 --> 02:01:00,610 kind of a geometrically clear God's point-of-view shot, 2066 02:01:00,610 --> 02:01:04,570 image of the entire scene. 2067 02:01:04,570 --> 02:01:07,730 (horrifying music) 2068 02:01:07,730 --> 02:01:10,650 It is as if: Here we pass from God 2069 02:01:10,650 --> 02:01:12,530 as neutral creator 2070 02:01:12,530 --> 02:01:16,450 to God in His unbearable, divine rage. 2071 02:01:16,450 --> 02:01:17,770 (screaming) 2072 02:01:17,770 --> 02:01:19,970 This murder is for us 2073 02:01:19,970 --> 02:01:21,810 an unfathomable monster. 2074 02:01:21,810 --> 02:01:24,370 We don't know who he is, 2075 02:01:24,370 --> 02:01:27,930 but because we are forced to assume 2076 02:01:27,930 --> 02:01:29,370 the murderer's position, 2077 02:01:29,370 --> 02:01:31,330 in a way we don't know who we are, 2078 02:01:31,330 --> 02:01:33,610 as if we discover a terrifying dimension 2079 02:01:33,610 --> 02:01:37,770 in ourselves, as if we are forced to act as a doll, 2080 02:01:37,770 --> 02:01:42,290 as a tool of another evil divinity's will. 2081 02:01:42,290 --> 02:01:44,690 (crying) 2082 02:01:44,690 --> 02:01:47,010 (dramatic music) 2083 02:01:50,450 --> 02:01:54,170 It's not as classical metaphysics thinks. 2084 02:01:54,170 --> 02:01:56,770 We are too terrified to accept the fact 2085 02:01:56,770 --> 02:01:59,370 that we are mortal beings, we would like to be immortal. 2086 02:01:59,370 --> 02:02:03,770 No, the truly horrible thing is to be immortal. 2087 02:02:03,770 --> 02:02:06,050 (reverberated clanking) 2088 02:02:06,050 --> 02:02:08,770 Immortality's the true nightmare, not death. 2089 02:02:08,770 --> 02:02:09,570 Lord Vader. 2090 02:02:09,570 --> 02:02:11,490 (labored breathing) 2091 02:02:11,490 --> 02:02:14,170 Can you hear me? 2092 02:02:14,170 --> 02:02:16,330 (breathing) 2093 02:02:16,330 --> 02:02:19,890 We should remember the exact moment 2094 02:02:19,890 --> 02:02:22,290 when the normal, everyday person-- 2095 02:02:22,290 --> 02:02:24,650 okay, not quite everyday, but ordinary person 2096 02:02:24,650 --> 02:02:26,490 of Anakin Skywalker 2097 02:02:26,490 --> 02:02:28,570 changes into Darth Vader. 2098 02:02:31,330 --> 02:02:34,690 This scene when the emperor's doctors 2099 02:02:34,690 --> 02:02:38,410 are reconstituting him after heavy wounds 2100 02:02:38,410 --> 02:02:40,610 into Darth Vader, that these scenes 2101 02:02:40,610 --> 02:02:44,810 are intercut with scenes of Princess Padmé, 2102 02:02:44,810 --> 02:02:47,170 Anakin's wife, giving birth. 2103 02:02:47,170 --> 02:02:49,010 (crying) 2104 02:02:49,010 --> 02:02:51,490 (speaking in robot language) 2105 02:02:51,490 --> 02:02:53,130 Luke. 2106 02:02:53,130 --> 02:02:55,850 So, it is as if we are witnessing 2107 02:02:55,850 --> 02:02:59,250 the transformation of Anakin into father. 2108 02:02:59,250 --> 02:03:02,450 (ominous music) 2109 02:03:02,450 --> 02:03:06,210 But, what kind of father? 2110 02:03:06,210 --> 02:03:07,730 A monster of a father 2111 02:03:07,730 --> 02:03:10,370 who doesn't want to be that. 2112 02:03:13,130 --> 02:03:15,450 (steam hissing) 2113 02:03:24,250 --> 02:03:26,570 (labored breathing) 2114 02:03:28,170 --> 02:03:30,970 This deep breathing is the sound 2115 02:03:30,970 --> 02:03:35,050 of the father, the Freudian primordial father, 2116 02:03:35,050 --> 02:03:38,050 this obscene, over-important father, 2117 02:03:38,050 --> 02:03:40,650 the father who doesn't want to die. 2118 02:03:40,650 --> 02:03:43,170 This, I think, is, for all of us, 2119 02:03:43,170 --> 02:03:47,130 the most...obscene threat 2120 02:03:47,130 --> 02:03:48,490 that we witness. 2121 02:03:48,490 --> 02:03:51,010 We don't want our fathers alive. 2122 02:03:51,010 --> 02:03:53,610 We want them dead. 2123 02:03:53,610 --> 02:03:57,050 The ultimate object of anxiety 2124 02:03:57,050 --> 02:03:59,170 is a living father. 2125 02:03:59,170 --> 02:04:03,130 This brings us to what we should really be attentive about 2126 02:04:03,130 --> 02:04:05,090 in David Lynch's film, namely what is 2127 02:04:05,090 --> 02:04:08,330 to be taken seriously and not seriously 2128 02:04:08,330 --> 02:04:09,690 in his films. 2129 02:04:09,690 --> 02:04:12,250 -Hey, we love Ben. -We love Ben. 2130 02:04:12,250 --> 02:04:15,450 -Here's to Ben! -Here's to Ben! 2131 02:04:15,450 --> 02:04:18,530 Neighbor. 2132 02:04:18,530 --> 02:04:21,970 Here's to Ben. 2133 02:04:21,970 --> 02:04:24,050 -Here's to Ben. -Be polite! 2134 02:04:24,050 --> 02:04:25,970 (rock music) 2135 02:04:25,970 --> 02:04:28,450 -Here's to Ben. -Frank is one of these 2136 02:04:28,450 --> 02:04:31,010 terrifying, ridiculously obscene 2137 02:04:31,010 --> 02:04:33,530 paternal figures. 2138 02:04:33,530 --> 02:04:37,490 Apart from Frank in Blue Velvet, we have Baron Harkonnen in Dune, 2139 02:04:37,490 --> 02:04:40,250 we have Willem Dafoe in Wild at Heart, 2140 02:04:40,250 --> 02:04:43,170 we have Mr. Eddy in Lost Highway. 2141 02:04:43,170 --> 02:04:44,490 (shrieking) 2142 02:04:44,490 --> 02:04:46,490 Don't you--don't--! 2143 02:04:46,490 --> 02:04:48,370 Don't you tailgate! 2144 02:04:48,370 --> 02:04:50,170 -Ever! -Tell him you won't tailgate. 2145 02:04:50,170 --> 02:04:51,930 Ever! 2146 02:04:51,930 --> 02:04:53,330 -I won't ever-- -Do you know how many 2147 02:04:53,330 --> 02:04:56,210 fucking car lengths it takes to stop a car 2148 02:04:56,210 --> 02:04:58,010 at 35 miles an hour? 2149 02:04:58,010 --> 02:04:59,650 Six fucking car lengths! 2150 02:04:59,650 --> 02:05:02,370 That's 106 fucking feet, mister! 2151 02:05:02,370 --> 02:05:05,090 If I had to stop suddenly, you would've hit me! 2152 02:05:05,090 --> 02:05:07,250 I want you to get a fucking driver's manual, 2153 02:05:07,250 --> 02:05:10,090 and I want you to study that motherfucker! 2154 02:05:10,090 --> 02:05:13,090 I want to spit once on your head, 2155 02:05:13,090 --> 02:05:15,970 just some spittle in your face. 2156 02:05:15,970 --> 02:05:19,090 (spitting) 2157 02:05:19,090 --> 02:05:20,610 What a luxury. 2158 02:05:20,610 --> 02:05:23,330 But I think that this very appearance 2159 02:05:23,330 --> 02:05:26,130 of ridiculously violent comedy 2160 02:05:26,130 --> 02:05:27,610 is deceiving. 2161 02:05:27,610 --> 02:05:30,970 I think that these ridiculous paternal figures 2162 02:05:30,970 --> 02:05:34,570 are the ethical focus. 2163 02:05:34,570 --> 02:05:38,890 The topic of practically all David Lynch's films. 2164 02:05:38,890 --> 02:05:42,130 (ominous music) 2165 02:05:42,130 --> 02:05:44,450 Let's fuck! 2166 02:05:44,450 --> 02:05:47,770 I'll fuck anything that moves! 2167 02:05:47,770 --> 02:05:49,530 (laughing maniacally) 2168 02:05:49,530 --> 02:05:51,850 (tires skidding) 2169 02:05:54,410 --> 02:05:56,650 (engine whirring) 2170 02:05:56,650 --> 02:05:58,970 (upbeat rock music) 2171 02:06:04,690 --> 02:06:07,890 A normal paternal authority is an ordinary man 2172 02:06:07,890 --> 02:06:10,250 who, as it were, 2173 02:06:10,250 --> 02:06:13,290 wears phallus as an insignia. 2174 02:06:13,290 --> 02:06:16,530 He has something 2175 02:06:16,530 --> 02:06:20,290 which provides his symbolic authority. 2176 02:06:21,850 --> 02:06:23,730 This is, in psychoanalytic theory, 2177 02:06:23,730 --> 02:06:26,530 phallus--you are not phallus, 2178 02:06:26,530 --> 02:06:28,090 you possess phallus. 2179 02:06:28,090 --> 02:06:31,210 Phallus is, as it were, something attached to you, 2180 02:06:31,210 --> 02:06:33,890 like the king's crown is his phallus. 2181 02:06:33,890 --> 02:06:35,570 Something you put on, 2182 02:06:35,570 --> 02:06:38,770 and this gives you authority, 2183 02:06:38,770 --> 02:06:41,610 so that when you talk, it's not simply you as a common person 2184 02:06:41,610 --> 02:06:44,570 who is talking, it's symbolic authority itself, 2185 02:06:44,570 --> 02:06:47,130 the law, the state talking through you. 2186 02:06:47,130 --> 02:06:50,690 So, these excessively ridiculous paternal figures... 2187 02:06:52,650 --> 02:06:56,490 ...it's not simply that they possess phallus, 2188 02:06:56,490 --> 02:07:00,170 that they have phallus as the insignia of their authority. 2189 02:07:00,170 --> 02:07:04,730 In a way, they immediately are phallus. 2190 02:07:04,730 --> 02:07:07,410 This is for, if they still exist, 2191 02:07:07,410 --> 02:07:09,210 a normal male subject. 2192 02:07:09,210 --> 02:07:12,810 This is the most terrorizing experience 2193 02:07:12,810 --> 02:07:15,690 you can imagine, to directly being 2194 02:07:15,690 --> 02:07:18,970 the thing itself, to assume that I am a phallus. 2195 02:07:18,970 --> 02:07:21,170 And the provocative greatness 2196 02:07:21,170 --> 02:07:23,410 of this Lynchian pater-- 2197 02:07:23,410 --> 02:07:26,410 obscene paternal figures is that not only-- 2198 02:07:26,410 --> 02:07:28,290 they don't have any anxiety. 2199 02:07:28,290 --> 02:07:30,930 Not only they are not afraid of it, 2200 02:07:30,930 --> 02:07:33,730 they fully enjoy being it. 2201 02:07:33,730 --> 02:07:36,210 They are truly fearless entities 2202 02:07:36,210 --> 02:07:38,290 beyond life and death 2203 02:07:38,290 --> 02:07:41,610 gladly assuming, as it were, their immortality, 2204 02:07:41,610 --> 02:07:46,290 their non-castrated life energy. 2205 02:07:46,290 --> 02:07:49,090 (laughing) 2206 02:07:49,090 --> 02:07:50,210 Okay. 2207 02:07:50,210 --> 02:07:52,330 This is indicated in a very nice way 2208 02:07:52,330 --> 02:07:55,090 in the scene towards the end of Wild at Heart, 2209 02:07:55,090 --> 02:07:57,330 where Bobby Peru is killed. 2210 02:07:57,330 --> 02:07:59,650 Stop, you sons of bitches! 2211 02:07:59,650 --> 02:08:01,330 This is the police! 2212 02:08:01,330 --> 02:08:03,890 He accepts the mortal danger he is in 2213 02:08:03,890 --> 02:08:06,050 with kind of exuberant vitality, 2214 02:08:06,050 --> 02:08:08,730 and it's truly that when his head explodes, 2215 02:08:08,730 --> 02:08:11,210 it's as if we see the head of the penis 2216 02:08:11,210 --> 02:08:12,770 being torn apart. 2217 02:08:12,770 --> 02:08:15,730 (gunshot firing) 2218 02:08:15,730 --> 02:08:18,290 Oh, for Christ's sakes. 2219 02:08:18,290 --> 02:08:19,930 Oh. 2220 02:08:19,930 --> 02:08:22,250 That poor bastard. 2221 02:08:22,250 --> 02:08:25,970 And then, at the end, these figures are sacrificed. 2222 02:08:25,970 --> 02:08:28,370 (breathing heavily) 2223 02:08:28,370 --> 02:08:30,690 (dramatic music) 2224 02:08:34,770 --> 02:08:37,090 (gunshot) 2225 02:08:42,090 --> 02:08:44,450 Oh, Jeffrey. 2226 02:08:52,050 --> 02:08:54,010 It's all over, Jeffrey. 2227 02:09:05,690 --> 02:09:08,010 (upbeat music and singing) 2228 02:09:28,930 --> 02:09:32,410 Joseph Stalin's favorite cinematic genre 2229 02:09:32,410 --> 02:09:34,610 were musicals, 2230 02:09:34,610 --> 02:09:37,650 not only Hollywood musicals, but also Soviet musicals. 2231 02:09:37,650 --> 02:09:39,410 There was a whole series 2232 02:09:39,410 --> 02:09:41,770 of so-called kolkhoz musicals. 2233 02:09:48,410 --> 02:09:50,210 Why? We should find this strange. 2234 02:09:50,210 --> 02:09:53,490 Stalin, who personifies communist austerity, 2235 02:09:53,490 --> 02:09:55,730 terror, and musicals. 2236 02:10:00,090 --> 02:10:02,809 The answer, again, is the psychoanalytic notion 2237 02:10:02,809 --> 02:10:04,250 of superego. 2238 02:10:04,250 --> 02:10:07,809 Superego is not only excessive terror, 2239 02:10:07,809 --> 02:10:09,809 unconditional injunction, 2240 02:10:09,809 --> 02:10:11,690 demand of others' sacrifice, 2241 02:10:11,690 --> 02:10:15,210 but at the same time, obscenity, laughter. 2242 02:10:15,210 --> 02:10:18,890 And it is Sergei Eisenstein's genius 2243 02:10:18,890 --> 02:10:20,930 to guess at this link. 2244 02:10:20,930 --> 02:10:23,250 (lively music) 2245 02:10:29,210 --> 02:10:30,970 In his last film, 2246 02:10:30,970 --> 02:10:35,090 which is a coded portrait of the Stalin era, 2247 02:10:35,090 --> 02:10:37,770 Ivan the Terrible: Part 2, which, because of all this, 2248 02:10:37,770 --> 02:10:41,170 was immediately prohibited. 2249 02:10:41,170 --> 02:10:44,370 In the scene, unique scene towards the end of the film, 2250 02:10:44,370 --> 02:10:48,090 we see the Tsar Ivan 2251 02:10:48,090 --> 02:10:50,570 throwing a party, amusing himself 2252 02:10:50,570 --> 02:10:53,450 with his so-called Oprichniki, 2253 02:10:53,450 --> 02:10:55,970 his private guards, who are used 2254 02:10:55,970 --> 02:10:58,170 to torture and kill his enemies, 2255 02:10:58,170 --> 02:11:01,370 his, if you want, KGB, secret police, 2256 02:11:01,370 --> 02:11:04,809 are seen performing a musical. 2257 02:11:04,809 --> 02:11:06,650 (actors singing) 2258 02:11:06,650 --> 02:11:08,530 An obscene musical, 2259 02:11:08,530 --> 02:11:11,890 which tells precisely the story 2260 02:11:11,890 --> 02:11:15,330 about killing the rich boyars, 2261 02:11:15,330 --> 02:11:18,010 Ivan's main enemies. 2262 02:11:18,010 --> 02:11:21,170 (dramatic music) 2263 02:11:21,170 --> 02:11:24,450 So, terror itself is staged as a musical. 2264 02:11:33,530 --> 02:11:35,690 Now, what has all this to do 2265 02:11:35,690 --> 02:11:38,050 with the reality of political terror? 2266 02:11:38,050 --> 02:11:40,530 Isn't this just art, imagination? 2267 02:11:40,530 --> 02:11:45,090 No, not only were the political show trials 2268 02:11:45,090 --> 02:11:48,690 in Moscow in the mid and late 1930s 2269 02:11:48,690 --> 02:11:51,610 theatrical performances, we should not forget this, 2270 02:11:51,610 --> 02:11:55,050 they were well staged, rehearsed, and so on. 2271 02:11:55,050 --> 02:11:57,250 Even more, there is, 2272 02:11:57,250 --> 02:12:01,090 horrible as it may sound, something comical about them. 2273 02:12:01,090 --> 02:12:04,650 The horror was so ruthless that the victims, 2274 02:12:04,650 --> 02:12:06,890 those who had to confess and demand death penalty 2275 02:12:06,890 --> 02:12:08,570 for themselves, and so on, 2276 02:12:08,570 --> 02:12:11,970 were deprived of the minimum of their dignity, 2277 02:12:11,970 --> 02:12:14,570 so that they behaved as puppets, 2278 02:12:14,570 --> 02:12:17,730 they engaged in dialogues, which really sound like 2279 02:12:17,730 --> 02:12:20,570 out of Alice in Wonderland. 2280 02:12:20,570 --> 02:12:24,210 They behaved as persons from a cartoon. 2281 02:12:24,210 --> 02:12:26,890 (peppy music) 2282 02:12:26,890 --> 02:12:30,410 (laughing maniacally) 2283 02:12:30,410 --> 02:12:32,690 Public enemy number one. 2284 02:12:32,690 --> 02:12:34,650 (hissing) 2285 02:12:34,650 --> 02:12:36,809 You're on trial today for the crimes 2286 02:12:36,809 --> 02:12:38,210 that you've committed. 2287 02:12:38,210 --> 02:12:40,170 We're gonna prove you guilty! 2288 02:12:40,170 --> 02:12:42,450 Just try and get acquitted. 2289 02:12:42,450 --> 02:12:44,970 (hissing) 2290 02:12:44,970 --> 02:12:46,690 In the mid-30s, 2291 02:12:46,690 --> 02:12:48,890 Walt Disney Studios produced 2292 02:12:48,890 --> 02:12:51,490 an unbelievable cartoon 2293 02:12:51,490 --> 02:12:54,410 called Pluto's Judgement Day... 2294 02:12:54,410 --> 02:12:56,530 -Shut up! -...in which 2295 02:12:56,530 --> 02:12:58,809 the dog, well-known Pluto, 2296 02:12:58,809 --> 02:13:01,690 falls asleep, and in his sleep, 2297 02:13:01,690 --> 02:13:04,090 he's persecuted by-- 2298 02:13:04,090 --> 02:13:05,809 haunted by the dream 2299 02:13:05,809 --> 02:13:07,970 of cats, 2300 02:13:07,970 --> 02:13:10,370 who were all in the past his victims, 2301 02:13:10,370 --> 02:13:13,650 molested by him, dragging him to the court, 2302 02:13:13,650 --> 02:13:17,610 where a proper, truly Stalinist political trial 2303 02:13:17,610 --> 02:13:19,650 is in process against him. 2304 02:13:19,650 --> 02:13:21,170 We've seen and heard enough. 2305 02:13:21,170 --> 02:13:23,050 Jury, do your duty. 2306 02:13:23,050 --> 02:13:25,170 Just watch us do our stuff 2307 02:13:25,170 --> 02:13:27,490 (sinister music) 2308 02:13:37,130 --> 02:13:38,930 We find the defendant guilty 2309 02:13:38,930 --> 02:13:41,090 He's guilty, he's guilty 2310 02:13:41,090 --> 02:13:42,890 G-U-I-L-T-Y 2311 02:13:42,890 --> 02:13:44,570 Guilty, guilty, guilty 2312 02:13:44,570 --> 02:13:46,170 (cheering) 2313 02:13:46,170 --> 02:13:49,970 The law is not only severe, ruthless, blind. 2314 02:13:49,970 --> 02:13:53,730 At the same time, it mocks us. 2315 02:13:53,730 --> 02:13:55,610 There is an obscene pleasure 2316 02:13:55,610 --> 02:13:58,250 in practicing the law. 2317 02:13:58,250 --> 02:14:00,090 (cheering) 2318 02:14:00,090 --> 02:14:02,210 (fire crackling) 2319 02:14:02,210 --> 02:14:04,690 Our fundamental delusion today 2320 02:14:04,690 --> 02:14:08,730 is not to believe in what is only a fiction, 2321 02:14:08,730 --> 02:14:11,490 to take fictions too seriously. 2322 02:14:11,490 --> 02:14:13,290 It's on the contrary. 2323 02:14:13,290 --> 02:14:16,410 Not to take fictions seriously enough. 2324 02:14:16,410 --> 02:14:18,090 You think it's just a game. 2325 02:14:18,090 --> 02:14:19,570 It's reality. 2326 02:14:19,570 --> 02:14:22,370 It's more real than it appears to you. 2327 02:14:22,370 --> 02:14:25,850 For example, people who play video games. 2328 02:14:25,850 --> 02:14:27,970 They adopt a screen persona 2329 02:14:27,970 --> 02:14:30,970 of a sadist, rapist, whatever. 2330 02:14:30,970 --> 02:14:35,090 The idea is, in reality, I am a weak person, 2331 02:14:35,090 --> 02:14:38,050 so in order to-- 2332 02:14:38,050 --> 02:14:40,410 to supplement my real-life weakness, 2333 02:14:40,410 --> 02:14:43,850 I adopt the false image 2334 02:14:43,850 --> 02:14:47,610 of a strong, sexually promiscuous person, 2335 02:14:47,610 --> 02:14:49,170 and so on, and so on. 2336 02:14:49,170 --> 02:14:52,090 But, so this would be the naive reading. 2337 02:14:52,090 --> 02:14:54,090 I want to appear stronger, more active, 2338 02:14:54,090 --> 02:14:56,410 because in real life, I am a weak person. 2339 02:14:56,410 --> 02:14:59,170 But, what if we read it in the opposite way? 2340 02:14:59,170 --> 02:15:01,410 That this strong, 2341 02:15:01,410 --> 02:15:05,530 brutal rapist, whatever, identity, is my true self, 2342 02:15:05,530 --> 02:15:09,090 in the sense that this is the psychic truth of myself? 2343 02:15:09,090 --> 02:15:11,850 And that in real life, because of social constraints, 2344 02:15:11,850 --> 02:15:15,210 and so on, I am not able to enact it, 2345 02:15:15,210 --> 02:15:18,730 so that precisely because I think it's only a game, 2346 02:15:18,730 --> 02:15:21,610 it's only a persona, a self image I adopt 2347 02:15:21,610 --> 02:15:24,410 in virtual space, I can be there 2348 02:15:24,410 --> 02:15:26,890 much more truthful. 2349 02:15:26,890 --> 02:15:29,490 I can enact there an identity 2350 02:15:29,490 --> 02:15:33,250 which is much closer to my true self. 2351 02:15:33,250 --> 02:15:35,410 (birds chirping) 2352 02:15:35,410 --> 02:15:38,050 We need the excuse of a fiction 2353 02:15:38,050 --> 02:15:40,770 to stage what we truly are. 2354 02:15:44,530 --> 02:15:46,850 (gunshot) 2355 02:15:48,970 --> 02:15:50,770 (whimpering) 2356 02:15:50,770 --> 02:15:54,050 Stalker is a film about a zone, 2357 02:15:54,050 --> 02:15:55,650 a prohibited space, 2358 02:15:55,650 --> 02:15:59,530 where there are debris, remainders of aliens 2359 02:15:59,530 --> 02:16:00,930 visiting us, 2360 02:16:00,930 --> 02:16:04,570 and stalkers are people who specialized in 2361 02:16:04,570 --> 02:16:06,970 smuggling foreigners who want to visit 2362 02:16:06,970 --> 02:16:10,210 into this space where you get many magical objects. 2363 02:16:10,210 --> 02:16:13,250 But, the main among them is the room 2364 02:16:13,250 --> 02:16:14,650 in the middle of this space, 2365 02:16:14,650 --> 02:16:17,130 where, it is claimed, 2366 02:16:17,130 --> 02:16:19,370 your desires will be realized. 2367 02:17:10,889 --> 02:17:13,850 The contrast between Solaris and Stalker is clear. 2368 02:17:13,850 --> 02:17:17,250 In Solaris, we get id machine as an object 2369 02:17:17,250 --> 02:17:21,610 which realizes your nightmares, desires, fears, 2370 02:17:21,610 --> 02:17:24,250 even before you ask for it, as it were. 2371 02:17:27,010 --> 02:17:29,930 In Stalker, it's the opposite. 2372 02:17:29,930 --> 02:17:33,650 A zone where your desires, 2373 02:17:33,650 --> 02:17:35,889 deepest wishes, get realized 2374 02:17:35,889 --> 02:17:38,809 on condition that you are able 2375 02:17:38,809 --> 02:17:41,290 to formulate them, which, of course, 2376 02:17:41,290 --> 02:17:44,730 you are never able, which is why everybody fails 2377 02:17:44,730 --> 02:17:47,930 once you get there in the center of the zone. 2378 02:18:24,290 --> 02:18:27,090 Tarkovsky's solution to this tension 2379 02:18:27,090 --> 02:18:30,650 is that of religious obscurantism. 2380 02:18:30,650 --> 02:18:34,850 The way out of this deadlock is a gesture of self sacrifice. 2381 02:18:34,850 --> 02:18:38,369 His last two films, Nostalgia and Sacrifice, 2382 02:18:38,369 --> 02:18:42,010 both end up with some suicidal gesture of the hero. 2383 02:18:51,209 --> 02:18:53,369 (unsettling laughing) 2384 02:18:53,369 --> 02:18:55,530 (dramatic music) 2385 02:18:55,530 --> 02:18:59,090 But I don't think this is what makes Tarkovsky interesting. 2386 02:18:59,090 --> 02:19:02,490 What makes him interesting is the very form 2387 02:19:02,490 --> 02:19:04,369 of his films. 2388 02:19:04,369 --> 02:19:07,010 (atmospheric music) 2389 02:19:07,010 --> 02:19:11,410 Tarkovsky uses, as this material element 2390 02:19:11,410 --> 02:19:13,610 of pre-narrative density, 2391 02:19:13,610 --> 02:19:16,809 time itself. 2392 02:19:16,809 --> 02:19:20,410 All of a sudden, we are made to feel 2393 02:19:20,410 --> 02:19:24,170 this inertia, drabness of time. 2394 02:19:24,170 --> 02:19:27,090 Time is not just a neutral, light medium, 2395 02:19:27,090 --> 02:19:29,250 within which things happen. 2396 02:19:29,250 --> 02:19:32,170 We feel the density of time itself. 2397 02:19:36,209 --> 02:19:39,650 Things that we see are more markers of time. 2398 02:19:46,290 --> 02:19:49,010 He treats even humans in this way. 2399 02:19:49,010 --> 02:19:52,850 If we look at the unique face of Stalker himself, 2400 02:19:52,850 --> 02:19:56,010 it's a face of somebody exposed to too much radiation, 2401 02:19:56,010 --> 02:19:59,090 and, as it were, rotting, falling apart alive. 2402 02:20:00,570 --> 02:20:02,730 It is this disintegration 2403 02:20:02,730 --> 02:20:06,010 of the very material texture of reality 2404 02:20:06,010 --> 02:20:10,090 which provides the spiritual depths. 2405 02:20:10,090 --> 02:20:12,650 Tarkovsky's subjects, when they pray, 2406 02:20:12,650 --> 02:20:14,850 they don't look up, they look down, 2407 02:20:14,850 --> 02:20:16,970 they even sometimes, as in Stalker, 2408 02:20:16,970 --> 02:20:20,010 put their head directly onto the Earth. 2409 02:20:31,170 --> 02:20:34,450 Here, I think, Tarkovsky affects us 2410 02:20:34,450 --> 02:20:37,210 at a level which is much deeper, 2411 02:20:37,210 --> 02:20:39,970 much more crucial for our experience 2412 02:20:39,970 --> 02:20:42,930 than all the standard spiritual motif 2413 02:20:42,930 --> 02:20:46,930 of elevating ourselves above material reality, and so on. 2414 02:21:04,650 --> 02:21:07,610 There is nothing specific about the zone. 2415 02:21:07,610 --> 02:21:12,170 It's purely a place where a certain limit is set. 2416 02:21:12,170 --> 02:21:15,410 You set a limit, you put a certain zone 2417 02:21:15,410 --> 02:21:17,850 of limit, and although things 2418 02:21:17,850 --> 02:21:20,530 remain exactly the way they were, 2419 02:21:20,530 --> 02:21:23,130 it's perceived as another place. 2420 02:21:26,130 --> 02:21:28,730 Precisely as a place unto which 2421 02:21:28,730 --> 02:21:31,410 you can project your beliefs, 2422 02:21:31,410 --> 02:21:34,730 your fears, things from your inner space. 2423 02:21:34,730 --> 02:21:37,050 (heavy breathing) 2424 02:21:40,650 --> 02:21:44,290 In other words, the zone is ultimately 2425 02:21:44,290 --> 02:21:46,330 the very whiteness 2426 02:21:46,330 --> 02:21:49,369 of the cinematic screen. 2427 02:21:49,369 --> 02:21:51,690 (triumphant music) 2428 02:22:07,410 --> 02:22:09,730 (indistinct remarks) 2429 02:22:14,850 --> 02:22:18,570 Chaplin's City Lights is one of those masterpieces 2430 02:22:18,570 --> 02:22:21,130 which are really too sophisticated 2431 02:22:21,130 --> 02:22:22,530 for the sophisticated. 2432 02:22:22,530 --> 02:22:25,290 It's a deceptively simple movie. 2433 02:22:25,290 --> 02:22:27,890 When we are enraptured by it, 2434 02:22:27,890 --> 02:22:30,650 we tend to miss its complexity 2435 02:22:30,650 --> 02:22:33,130 and extreme finesse. 2436 02:22:40,530 --> 02:22:43,210 Already the first scene of the movie 2437 02:22:43,210 --> 02:22:45,410 provides the coordinates. 2438 02:22:45,410 --> 02:22:48,090 It's kind of a microcosm of Chaplin's entire art. 2439 02:22:48,090 --> 02:22:51,250 What's the source of Chaplin's comic genius? 2440 02:22:51,250 --> 02:22:53,730 What's the archetypal comic situation 2441 02:22:53,730 --> 02:22:56,770 in Chaplin's films? 2442 02:22:56,770 --> 02:22:59,690 It's being mistaken for somebody, 2443 02:22:59,690 --> 02:23:02,850 or functioning as a disturbing spot. 2444 02:23:02,850 --> 02:23:04,850 (horn music) 2445 02:23:04,850 --> 02:23:06,850 As this disturbing stain. 2446 02:23:10,850 --> 02:23:12,730 He distorts the vision. 2447 02:23:14,570 --> 02:23:16,890 (energetic music) 2448 02:23:25,250 --> 02:23:29,810 So, he wants to erase himself to get out of the picture. 2449 02:23:38,490 --> 02:23:41,850 Or people don't even note him, take note of him, 2450 02:23:41,850 --> 02:23:44,090 so he wants to be noted. 2451 02:23:44,090 --> 02:23:46,450 Or if they perceive him, 2452 02:23:46,450 --> 02:23:47,970 he's misperceived, 2453 02:23:47,970 --> 02:23:50,330 identified for what he is not. 2454 02:23:50,330 --> 02:23:52,650 (whimsical music) 2455 02:24:07,610 --> 02:24:10,650 The tramp is wrongly identified 2456 02:24:10,650 --> 02:24:13,970 by a beautiful blind girl who is selling flowers 2457 02:24:13,970 --> 02:24:16,250 on a street corner 2458 02:24:16,250 --> 02:24:18,730 as a millionaire. 2459 02:24:39,369 --> 02:24:41,730 He accepts the game, 2460 02:24:41,730 --> 02:24:44,530 helps her, even steals money 2461 02:24:44,530 --> 02:24:47,210 to pay for her operation to restore her sight, 2462 02:24:47,210 --> 02:24:50,330 then after he serves the punishment 2463 02:24:50,330 --> 02:24:53,250 and returns, he tries to find her. 2464 02:24:53,250 --> 02:24:55,570 (melancholy music) 2465 02:25:23,090 --> 02:25:25,890 And I think that this is the metaphor 2466 02:25:25,890 --> 02:25:28,970 of our predicament. 2467 02:25:28,970 --> 02:25:31,730 All too often, when we love somebody, 2468 02:25:31,730 --> 02:25:34,369 we don't accept him or her 2469 02:25:34,369 --> 02:25:37,610 as what the person effectively is. 2470 02:25:37,610 --> 02:25:41,250 We accept him or her, insofar as this person 2471 02:25:41,250 --> 02:25:44,330 fits the coordinates of our fantasy. 2472 02:25:44,330 --> 02:25:47,810 We misidentify, wrongly identify, 2473 02:25:47,810 --> 02:25:50,130 him or her, which is why, when we discover 2474 02:25:50,130 --> 02:25:54,450 that we were wrong, love can quickly turn into violence. 2475 02:25:54,450 --> 02:25:58,410 There is nothing more dangerous, 2476 02:25:58,410 --> 02:26:01,810 more lethal for the loved person 2477 02:26:01,810 --> 02:26:04,130 than to be loved, as it were, 2478 02:26:04,130 --> 02:26:05,970 for not what he or she is, 2479 02:26:05,970 --> 02:26:09,170 but for fitting the ideal. 2480 02:26:09,170 --> 02:26:12,250 In this case, love is always mortifying love. 2481 02:26:12,250 --> 02:26:14,570 (somber music) 2482 02:26:18,570 --> 02:26:20,970 Here it's not only the tramp 2483 02:26:20,970 --> 02:26:23,970 as the figure within the film's narrative, 2484 02:26:23,970 --> 02:26:26,490 exposing himself to his beloved girl. 2485 02:26:26,490 --> 02:26:28,690 It's, at the same time, Chaplin, 2486 02:26:28,690 --> 02:26:30,730 as actor/director, 2487 02:26:30,730 --> 02:26:34,210 exposing himself to us, the public. 2488 02:26:34,210 --> 02:26:37,010 "I am shameless, I am offering myself to you, 2489 02:26:37,010 --> 02:26:39,970 but at the same time, I am afraid." 2490 02:26:43,810 --> 02:26:47,770 The true genius of Chaplin 2491 02:26:47,770 --> 02:26:50,530 resides in the way he was able 2492 02:26:50,530 --> 02:26:53,850 to stage this psychological moment 2493 02:26:53,850 --> 02:26:56,330 of recognition 2494 02:26:56,330 --> 02:27:00,010 at the level of form, music, 2495 02:27:00,010 --> 02:27:02,730 visual aspect, and at the same time, 2496 02:27:02,730 --> 02:27:04,930 at the level of acting. 2497 02:27:10,730 --> 02:27:12,690 When the two hands meet, 2498 02:27:12,690 --> 02:27:15,650 the girl finally recognizes him 2499 02:27:15,650 --> 02:27:18,210 for what he is. 2500 02:27:26,730 --> 02:27:30,730 This moment is always extremely dangerous, 2501 02:27:30,730 --> 02:27:32,690 pathetic. 2502 02:27:36,650 --> 02:27:39,410 The beloved falls out of the frame 2503 02:27:39,410 --> 02:27:41,530 of the idealized coordinates. 2504 02:27:41,530 --> 02:27:43,450 Finally there exposed 2505 02:27:43,450 --> 02:27:47,210 in his psychological nakedness. 2506 02:27:47,210 --> 02:27:49,930 "Here I am as what I really am." 2507 02:27:53,650 --> 02:27:56,690 And I don't think we have to read it as a happy ending. 2508 02:27:56,690 --> 02:27:59,690 We don't know what will happen. 2509 02:28:03,090 --> 02:28:05,369 We have the letters, "The End," 2510 02:28:05,369 --> 02:28:10,010 the black screen, but the singing goes on, 2511 02:28:10,010 --> 02:28:13,690 as if the emotion is now too strong. 2512 02:28:13,690 --> 02:28:16,930 It spills over the very frame. 2513 02:28:16,930 --> 02:28:19,250 (somber music) 2514 02:28:32,330 --> 02:28:35,970 In order to understand today's world, 2515 02:28:35,970 --> 02:28:38,890 we need cinema, literally. 2516 02:28:38,890 --> 02:28:42,290 It's only in cinema that we get 2517 02:28:42,290 --> 02:28:45,050 that crucial dimension which we are not ready 2518 02:28:45,050 --> 02:28:47,450 to confront in our reality. 2519 02:28:47,450 --> 02:28:50,450 If you are looking for what is, in reality, 2520 02:28:50,450 --> 02:28:54,330 more real than reality itself, 2521 02:28:54,330 --> 02:28:56,810 look into the cinematic fiction. 2522 02:29:00,930 --> 02:29:03,250 (dark dramatic music)