Babenco: Tell Me When I Die

Why would you speak? What would you say to yourself

...dead?

Fucking hell. It's here.

Because everyone always says:

"Ah, you're a lion, you die and you come back to life.

You're like a phoenix. You die and you come back to life.

That's how it is with you.

I won't even visit you in hospital as I know you'll get well."

And I always say the same thing:

"But one day I might not get well

and won't recover."

How do you make a movie?

How does a movie come to life?

It can be born in a death sentence given by a doctor

saying, "You'll die in 3 months".

And from that point on, you start to create a story.

I'm taking cymbalta.

- 60mg. - But it's not working.

- Something's weird... - It's a medicine way too strong.

- I'm back where I started. - What will happen to him?

We have to talk to Daniele Riva.

I'm taking the 60mg one.

I'm also taking that one...

What did you eat for lunch?

- I'm taking the 300mg one. - It's terrible.

I haven't been able to sleep.

I took it at midnight.

- I also take the... - I get a little distracted.

Mr. Hector.

Mr. Hector.

I'm taking a...

Mr Hector. Hector.

Stop!

What do you have to do to become a movie director?

You have to know how to tell a story,

and for that you have to live.

The first thing you have to do is get away from here.

Come here, I'll show you something.

In Germany I had a friend who made movies.

During the war he escaped to North America

and ended up being successful in Hollywood.

And what's this for?

To frame,

and see only what interests you.

I'm giving it to you.

Now it's yours.

Frame me up like you did before.

Am I in the frame?

- My love... - Wait, I'm framing you...

Like before. Then you'll see on the lens what number it is.

Wait, Hector.

Be patient with your students.

Okay?

- Am I in the frame? - Yes, my love.

- Then see what is the number. - The number is here.

- The lens goes from 24 to 105. - It's at 105.

- Then it's completely tight! - I know.

That's why the distance between this hand...

Now I'm cutting back to a wider angle.

- See? Cut to close up. - That's what I did before.

I just want to explain one thing to you.

Get my nose in focus.

- Get my whole face in focus. - I have.

- Here my hand is out of focus. - I know.

As you zoom in the focus becomes finer.

And you lose background focus.

Got it.

If you zoom out to wide 24

you'll be focused on my face and on my hand here.

- I'll zoom out. - Zoom out, look here.

It's all in focus.

You can even see the pool.

You see? Everything is in focus.

- Got it? - Yes.

That's it.

You're beautiful.

You're very beautiful.

Don't waste time romanticising every moment,

otherwise you'll have a movie lasting 4 hours and 15 minutes.

- My love... - You have to be able to synthesize.

I know what I'm talking about.

You're not going to make a series about me.

The Death of Hector: episode 1, 2, 3...

Making movies is almost like a cocoon.

It's born out of something, a nut, something enclosed.

It is born, it sprouts, it develops,

and then it acquires a purpose, an enormous social identity.

But what goes on is the feeling that first inspired it.

I think the desire to do it,

the desire to be alive

that materialised from the concept of finishing a movie.

As if by filming you're living an extra day.

I don't know what came first, filming or being alive.

In this way, fiction comes into being.

It comes from inventing

a feeling and developing it.

And my greatest pain

is in relation to the difficulty in doing this.

It's as if imagining and thinking leave much still to be done

and time is short,

and the feeling grows that the great work hasn't been achieved.

Every time I ask

What, when, how and where

you always reply

maybe, maybe, maybe.

- She wants to record my pain. - Travelling is very difficult.

She wants to record my pain.

Here in Paris, in the Latin Quarter,

enjoying our holiday.

After success always comes the storm.

It couldn't be different this time.

Here I am once more

going through a little domestic tragedy.

I had just finished Kiss Of The Spider Woman,

and I got cancer.

I was 38 years old.

Then, while suffering from cancer, I made Ironweed.

And I made At Play In The Fields Of The Lord

in the Amazon,

still sick.

I remember that the ganglia had grown so much in my groin

that Dr. Drauzio made me get a charter flight.

We finished a night shoot at 6am.

I got on a charter plane at 7:30 or 8 a.m.

I got to São Paulo, they took out the ganglia.

On Saturday I rested at home, flew back on Sunday

and on the Monday morning I was filming.

With more than forty stitches in my body.

Nobody knew.

And Dr Drauzio told me clearly:

"You have four to six months to live."

Did a doctor come during the night?

No, I was afraid of that.

They're giving me too much cymbalta.

It's not cymbalta, it's morphine.

They're giving me cymbalta.

Okay.

And I'm afraid of... of...

Of what?

It hurts me.

But cymbalta is a painkiller.

- Really? - Yes.

Cymbalta is a painkiller.

That's why you began taking it more than 20 days ago.

I'm in pain.

What makes you feel like this...

is what's killing the pain because the cymbalta wasn't working anymore,

so they put in neorotin and took away the lyrica.

And now they've given you a very strong dose of morphine.

That's why you're in this state.

Even in the most difficult moments it never occurred to me

that I might cease to be, cease to exist.

I always had supreme confidence

in my capacity to be lucky and survive.

I saw a boy running

I saw the time

Playing around the edges

Of that boy's pathway

I put my feet in the stream

And I guess I never Took them out again

The sun was still shining On the road

And I never passed by

I saw the woman preparing

Another person

San Martin, Rivadavia, Belgrano, Moreno, Colombo,

Rawson, Godoy, Castelli, Alvarada, Villanel.

I remember absolutely everything.

Things from my neighbourhood.

The left-winger Perincha who played for San Isidro

the Polack Stauka.

Travelling standing up in the truck to the country,

to Saba's little football ground. They were a second division team.

What wonderful stories!

Autumn, the ground covered in leaves.

On the sidewalk we walked over them and they went "crackle, crackle"...

It was so beautiful.

And we didn't know that.

It's beautiful because we remember it.

Maybe the word was "refuge",

where I find and nourish myself

to be able to understand things better.

Because to be a Jew was to be nothing.

If you're Jewish you don't belong, and you weren't born anywhere,

and you hear your parents and friends, your parents' friends

speaking a language that nobody else in our street speaks,

Yiddish for example.

And this makes you feel you're a person

who doesn't belong in the community. I think the word

it's like the cinema,

like a dark place where I sought protection, distraction,

those were my guides.

I took much refuge in reading.

I remember I dreamt of being ill

so I could stay at home reading in bed.

I daydreamed.

"Oh, how good it'll be if I get ill tomorrow

so I can finish that book."

There's a great difference between the first movie we see,

and the movie that we take to heart.

Never again could we feel anything