As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

I have never been able really to figure out

where my life begins

and where it ends.

I have never, never been able to figure it all out,

What it's all about, what it all means.

So when I began now

to put all these rolls of film together,

to string them together,

the first idea was to keep them chronological.

But then I gave up

and I just began splicing them together by chance,

the way I found them on the shelf.

Because I really don't know

where any piece of my life really belongs.

So let it be, let it go,

just by pure chance,

disorder.

There is some kind of order in it,

order of its own,

which I do not really understand,

same as I never understood life around me,

the real life, as they say,

or the real people,

I never understood them.

I still do not understand them,

and I do not really want to understand them.

Without knowing, unknowingly,

we carry, each of us,

we carry with us

somewhere deep

some images of Paradise.

Maybe not images...

some vague, vague feeling

where we have been some place...

There are places, there are places

in which we find ourselves in our lives,

I have been in such places

where I felt, ah,

this must be like Paradise, this is Paradise,

this is how Paradise was,

or something like that,

a little fragment of Paradise.

Not only the places...

I have been with friends,

we have been together,

my friends, many times,

and we felt,

some kind of togetherness, something special,

and we were elated and we felt, ah,

we felt like in Paradise.

But we were right here on this Earth.

But we were in Paradise...

Those brief moments, those moments,

and that is maybe what it's all about...

Forget eternity, enjoy,

yes, we enjoyed those moments,

those brief moments, those evenings,

and there were many such evenings many such evenings, my friends,

I will never forget them, my friends...

I think Nietzsche was the transition.

I believe one of the absolute greatest

philosophers of the Western culture is Nietzche.

The most precise of all.

That's why he was the greatest influence...

He changed my life in 1960.

In 1959 I read his Dramaturgie

and I read the introduction of the second or third edition

which was years later,

and he says, "Oh if I would have only written poetry

"and incorporated it all, instead of trying to say it as a philosopher,

that was my failure."

So I said, that's enough:

I have to make my films now.

And that's when I left my job at the Graphic Studios

and made "Guns of the Trees."

He had his mind,

and he continuously struggles...

Here I am, in my editing room,

this late night,

this late night again.

I have stopped my tape recorder here...

That is, I am rewinding...

as I'm working on my sounds...

Here I am, just with my images and my sounds...

by myself,

now in practically empty house.

Oona is now married

and happy and she is in Brooklyn.

But actually, this very minute

she's watching with Sebastian,

they went to a movie.

Hollis is out, she left early this morning,

I left before her,

so I don't know where she is and when she's coming back home.

So here I am, just myself,

and cats and my images and my sounds

and myself,

myself,

wondering, wondering about myself.

Actually, maybe I am exaggerating.

I'm not really wondering.

I'm just doing my work.

I'm just working.

This is my little workshop here,

this little room,

loaded, stacked with film,

and my two bayans...

Here is one,

and here is another,

as I'm working on my sounds.

I'm not so sure what I'm doing really.

It's all chance.

I'm going through all the reels of my sounds,

picking up this, picking up that,

splicing it all together, putting it all together,

by chance, same as the images

same as I am putting those images together,

exactly the same when I originally filmed them,

by chance, with no plan,

just according

just to the whim of the moment,

what I felt at that moment that I should be filming

this or that, without knowing why.

Same with the sounds

that I have collected through all those years,

I'm picking up all those sounds

and putting them here on the soundtrack,

by chance.

Memories... Memories...

Image, sound memories.

No judgement here...

positive, negative,

good, bad...

they're just images and sounds,

very very innocent

in and by themselves,

as they pass through...

as they go and they go,

very very innocent.

Yes, people are bad,

cinema is innocent,

innocent.

People are not innocent.

They are not.

Here is a surprise for Chapter Three.

Now, what do the normal, regular people usually do?

Of course, they get married.

So, Hollis and me, that is, the protagonist of this film,

we decided to try to be like all the normal,

serious people:

we decided to get married.

Ah, Almus, with your boundless energy...

Ah, Jacques Ledoux,

sweet Ledoux...

Ah, P. Adams, Allan.

Ken, and Richard.

Harry I miss your jokes...

I miss your jokes.

Ah, and there is the man of the minute...

and Hollis's father,

and Hollis's brother...

Title: January 10th.

Watching the snow fall.

Keep looking for things,

in places, where there is nothing.

The dream,

the crying room.

The crying room.

The crying field.

There is a room, there is a room,

we never see its...

inside.

There is a room in which there is a woman

who cries and cries.

We hear her crying but we never see her.

The crying field.

There is a room.

"Wir nichts von den Dingen wissen

was wir nicht selbst in sie hinein gelegt haben."

Emmanuel Kant

The silence.

The silence.

But what happens during the silences?

Yes, the silences...

But what happens during the silences?

The pain is stronger than ever. I've seen bits of lost Paradises

and I know I'll be hopelessly trying to return

even if it hurts.

The deeper I swing into the regions of nothingness

the further I'm thrown back into myself,

each time more and more frightening depths below me,

until my very being becomes dizzy.

There are brief glimpses of clear sky,

like falling out of a tree, so I have some idea where I am going,

but there is still too much clarity and straight order of things,

I am getting always the same number somehow.

So I vomit out broken bits of words and syntaxes

of the countries I've passed through, broken limbs, slaughtered houses,

geographies. My heart is poisoned,

my brain left in shreds