Where do I come from like that�

Dmitry Zavilgelskiy

Dialogue 1. Into the depth of Russia � thematic still frame used for TV broadcasts of the movie. 2. Caption with Rousseau�s �Zeppelins� in the background. Fragment. Where do I come from like that� 3. The hero is going to leave. 4. With a fragment of Rousseau�s picture of walking people in the background, captions appear and the author�s voice says: �On the last Thursday of each month Victor Shafeyev � Marin attends the Tatiana club at Hanzhonkov�s House to listen to jazz performances.� 5. Episode � club members are arriving, (great each other, rehearse, talk to each other). 6. Fragments of Rousseau�s �Quartet�. 7. Hero on stage. Synch: I will sing a few of my songs and can even read my first poem. My teachers are not ashamed of me because I really didn�t let them down � I vanquished my Self. I can even be proud of it. I don�t read books, I only read my poems, They are dearer to me than my life. I express in them my nature. How birds build their nests � I�ve seen Time flies And once Zina and I shuddered Years melt like ice... And this song is semi-my biography - Where do I come from like that� Where do I come from like that� Where do I come from like that� Where do I come from like that� Like that� Where do I come from like that� Where do I come from like that� I�ll sing for you now where I come from like that� I was born in Anino I was born in Anino And I grew up in Vilar And we lived at Aunt Tanya�s And we lived at aunt Manya�s And we lived at aunt Ganya�s In Anino That�s where I come from like that That�s where I come from like that I�m from there from the village of Anino I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from the 20th kilometer of Warsaw highway I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from the 20th kilometer of Warsaw highway There I finished school My teachers liked me Then I went to Moscow to work In Moscow I got married And began drinking like a pig Life went on like that for 30 years or so. When �perestroyka� began I left Moscow When �perestroyka� began I left Moscow Went to the Moscow region And built a little cottage And started to work there And here I�m now And here I�m now And here I�m now And built a little cottage And started to work there And here I�m now And here I�m now And here I�m now! Where do I come from like that� Where do I come from like that� I�m from there from the village of Anino I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from the 20th kilometer of Warsaw highway I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from there I�m from the 20th kilometer of Warsaw highway 8. Applause, then a momentary pause in sound. Fragment of Rousseau�s picture �Still life� 9. Synch. Interview with the hero. Author: Victor, I see you for the first time. I liked your performance and I want to make a film about you. Hero: OK, I don�t need any royalties because I vanquished money and besides, for me personally, I have already vanquished everything� 10. The concert goes on. An old lady is singing a Russian folk song. We�ve got money, what else do we need? You and I are all right! 11. Synch. Interview with the hero. Hero: I used to drink heavily and even went to hell a few times. I swear I�m familiar with hell. Author: How is it there? Hero: It�s like on TV today: all those hideous faces. Author: You saw these hideous faces? Hero: Sure. A: And what about devils? H: Them too. And all kinds of them: big ones with little horns and with large horns� Even my daughter asks: �Why do they all hallucinate about devils?� � �And that I cannot explain to you�. 12. The show goes on. One of the participants sings an opera piece in Italian. 13. Interview goes on. H: I would lie down and start going to sleep and the devil says: �Ah, he�s drifting off now�. But I would smile and even get up to go to the mirror and look � yes, I�ve got a smiling face. 14. The show goes on. A Pushkin�s poem. �You are still dozing, my beautiful friend It�s time, my beauty, wake up, Open your tender eyes Meet the Northern Aurora As a Northern Star! 15. Interview goes on. H: I have been to Kashchenko twice, to Polivanovo once, twice to Stolbovaya, (the list of psychiatric asylums and alcoholism treatment centers goes on) at least four months each time. 16. The concert goes on. Fashion show. 17. The interview goes on. H: I even have a song about it. It�s self-explanatory: I�ve been listed as an alcoholic for 20 years Four of them I spent in treatment And maybe never would have quit If I hadn�t loved my grandkids. Once I thought: what will I leave them? Then I decided to stop drinking So they love their Grandpa since their childhood I decided to bring them up And live with them as a family Not to be remembered shamefully So let�s sort things out, folks So that our Grandkids should always be happy And drugs never touch them As well as the mistakes of our shame! 18. The hero with his family at home. The last chord of the song. 19. Fragment of Rousseau�s �Papa Juliet�s Cart� 20. The hero�s wife tells about him. Wife: What can I say? Hospitals, doctors, and then drinking again. Thirty years passed like that. Whenever he leaves to hospital for the next three-four months, I invite my girlfriends from work. And we drink and have nice time. But when he moved in here everything straightened out. What�s there to do here in winter? Burn the wood in the stove and write. Author: Will Shafeyev leave a heritage in art? W: I think yes. I guess every generation has its own art. Now everything is so political but in Pushkin�s times a lot of people wrote poems. A: and what is your favorite song by Victor? W: He�s got so many� Probably �Wooden Cottage� A: And why is it your favorite one? (Fragment of Rousseau�s �Snowy Landscape�) Shafeyev: Because it�s the very first. I have a neighbor, a retired colonel, he was in the first team of cosmonauts and he knew Gagarin personally. When he heard this song he said: �What a song! It�s real stuff.� The author and the cameraman voice over: �Ready, start singing� 21. Song �Wooden Cottage� Playing a lottery I found my luck And built me a cottage Wooden cottage Wooden cottage Wooden cottage I built. Wooden cottage Wooden cottage Wooden cottage I built. Wooden cottage Wooden cottage Wooden cottage I built. Bought a stove to heat it To heat it not to get sick Wooden cottage Wooden cottage To heat it and not to get sick Wooden cottage Wooden cottage To heat it and not to get sick Sometimes Petrovich would drop by To sit around and to drink Wooden cottage Wooden cottage To sit around and to drink He and I would talk about our lives And how to patch up his cottage Wooden cottage Wooden cottage But with a glass terrace Wooden cottage Wooden cottage But with a glass terrace To patch it up So we decided to immediately patch it up Wooden cottage Wooden cottage But with a glass terrace So Petrovich would live there with no problems In a wooden cottage Wooden cottage But with a glass terrace Petrovich would live with no problems. He and I became good friends And always shared everything So that there be eternal peace Between us And in a wooden cottage, in a wooden cottage In a wooden cottage you�re an idol. And in a wooden cottage, in a wooden cottage In a wooden cottage you�re an idol. 22. Fragment of Rousseau�s painting �Fisherman�. 23. Interview with the hero. H: I cannot have my works published because in order to be published one needs to find a sponsor, and I don�t have neither money nor documents. And as I don�t have no documents I don�t have any access to anything. Well, for example, I visit Hanzhonkov�s House (Tatiana invites me) and I don�t need either money or documents for this. The only problem is when the police stop me and ask for my papers and I don�t have them. A: And where are your documents? H: I burned them. A: Why? H: �Cause I realized that those documents are a great burden for the mankind. 24. Synch. Off-screen: H: Personally I need nothing. Everything I grow at my kitchen garden, I have all. Rabbits, I can exchange meat; hens provide feathers, I can make a pillow and sell it, or exchange it for what I need. Right now I need only the most necessary minimum. 25. Rousseau�s �Sleeping Gypsy� panning upwards to the starry sky. Hero�s song VO: I vanquished my Self My family is the World and the Planet Wife, sister, mother, grandkids, daughter And children of my youth somewhere� 26. Synch interview with the hero. H:What I speak brings people healing and good and I can hear the results of my songs, poems, prose. I�ve got this one song� Once they talked on TV about the sky and those black holes it has. I decided to write a song about them and that I want to patch them up with my soul. Physically, I can�t reach them but in my mind I can go anywhere. I wrote good lyrics and felt empty inside. I say to Zina: �You know, I patched up holes in the sky and emptied myself. Call the meteostation and ask someone who does astrology and watches those ozone holes and if they counted them, then I probably patched up ten or more.� And then I sing this song again and again� 27. Hero VO. He recites his white (unrhymed) verses to the music: �Treatment through the Cosmos�. It will be a semi-song: Vocalists, instrumentalists, serious, hoarse, shaggy, talents, stars and artists, �the tough guys�, but I�m refined. Searchers for space and adventure, dollar and rouble, but I search for the meaning of life, and it seems that I haven�t had to search too long. No sooner had I immersed in Nature, than I began to mature, I�m not a burden for the society, I won�t litter your brain. I�m neither Liliana nor Dorofeyev, I treat everybody through the Cosmos for free, I�m a contemporary, I�ve got a natural gift, I understood life and want no money. I vanquished my Self and felt better. There�s so much joy and work in keeping a household and domestic animals. That�s why my life is trouble-free. Whatever I�m given by the nature is enough for me. A generation will rise from my seed. Starting the other side of the cassette I�d like to say a few words about myself. I have been living for seven years near the Space Center and under the cover of Cosmos my creative ability is constantly growing. 28. Rousseau�s painting �Zeppelins� 29. Spaceship ready for take-off. 30. In the ship. Interview with the hero. A: Well, Victor, you want to fly to space? H: with great pleasure. Without saying good-bye either to relatives or friends. I have arrived here at the shooting site and let�s go like Gagarin. (Cameraman VO: Lower your hand!) He was a pioneer and I became a conqueror of my Self. It�s also a success, even a greater one, because to conquer vices, to understand life and destiny is a great thing. 31. Launching of the spaceship. �Death� of the hero. 32. Rousseau�s self-portrait. Captions voiced by the author with the picture in the background. �. The only place where the artist could exhibit his works was the �Saloon of the Independent� because its doors were open for everybody. It�s there that fame came to him in the form of crazed laughter of the crowd. The public stormed exhibitions, breaking furniture in their way, just to see his works. The papers wrote: �Fortunately Mr. Rousseau is here to amuse us.� Now Rousseau�s paintings are displayed in the greatest art galleries of the world.