Steppenwolf (1974) Movie Script
For madmen only!...
The day had gone by just as days go by
I had killed it in accordance with my
primitive and retiring way of life
I had worked for an hour or two and
perused the pages of old books.
I had taken a powder and been very
glad when the pain has disappeared
I had done my breathing exercises, but found it
convenient today to omit the thought exercises
but, taken all in all, it had not
been exactly a day of rapture.
Perhaps it would be just right to follow
the example of Adalbert Stifters...
having an accident while shaving
shouldn't be considered a bad idea.
There is much to be said for
contentment and painlessness,
for these bearable and submissive days on which neither pain nor pleasure cry out.
But the worst of it is the contentment which I cannot endure.
Thankfully you assure yourself as you read your morning
paper that another day has come and no war broken out,
no new dictatorship has been set up, no particularly disgusting
scandal been unveiled in the worlds of politics or finance.
There is in me the savage impulse
of destroying their gods,
of seducing young girls in their
tender age towards prostitution.
After a short time it fills me with irrepressible hatred and nausea. In
desperation I have to escape and throw myself on the road to pleasure...
or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain.
I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre
of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment.
A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me,
a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life.
I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse,
perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages...
to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols or to stand one or
two representatives of the established order on their heads.
For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment,
this healthiness and comfort, (MAGIC THEATRE - ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY)
this carefully preserved optimism of the middle
classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
FOR MADMEN ONLY
Mr. Haller!
Hey...
are you alright?
I feel kind of tired,
sorry if I scared you.
I was in a kind of trance...
I was in a state of...
...dreaming.
Is everything alright?
Shall I help you upstairs?
No, it is not necessary.
You could seat beside me.
If you have the time.
Thank you very much but
I'm not used to that...
sitting here, watching
other people passing by.
Yes sir, you are right.
Wait a second I want to
explain the motives...
why I have to stay sitting here.
I adore this spot where
everything is meticulously tidy
here everything shines...
immaculately clean as your Aunt likes it.
A nose has to inhale everything because
some smell emerges from all things.
Peace and tranquility...
born out of order and firm sense of
compromise to little habits and obligations.
Please, don't you think
I say it with irony!
My mother used to be just
as careful and clean...
Are you ill?
Non sense
I'm just an aloof grey old wolf.
Long staircases are difficult to climb,
tall houses make me crawl.
Sometimes I suffer of pains
just like old people do...
Old people always exaggerate a little.
...but you are not older than fifty.
Yes, you are right.
Feeling pity of myself is not good, but
I'm not going to feel this way for long.
Stop. Just a second, what
is written in that sign?
What thing is this? When
is this going to happen?
This is not for everybody.
Meeting for a anarchic night!
Magic Theatre!
What do you have in your box?
I want to buy something from you.
Treatise on the Steppenwolf...
Once upon a time...
there was a person called Harry
or SteppenWolf that was his name.
He walked upright like a person, he
wore clothes as a man as well...
however he was a wolf from the steppes.
He was savage and uncontrollable inside. His
teachers used to argue to the point...
whether he had been changed...
before birth perhaps from a
wolf into a human being.
There was this idea in their minds
that he was really a wolf...
...covered by a very thin skin of humanity.
When Harry as a human being
had beautiful thoughts...
or he experimented noble
and delicate sensations...
the wolf inside would bear his teeth
and laugh with contempt and irony.
Every action would appear before
his eyes as pointless and absurd.
Harry ended feeling he was
behaving as a real wolf...
when he showed his teeth to others,
when he felt hate and animosity
toward all human beings.
Toward their lying and
degenerated habits and costumes.
Precisely this...
would summon the beast which would curse...
every feeling of well being
for his wild, wolfish nature.
His existence wasn't precisely
happy and gentle...
not meaning that his unhappiness
was at all singular...
the poor devil would make
unhappy everyone he esteemed.
Thus he had this dual and discordant
nature with two separated destinies.
According to his own opinion he was not in
touch with the conventional world around him.
However in many aspects he
would live like a bourgeois.
He had money in the bank, he would help
some poor relatives, he dressed adequately,
He procured to live in peace
with the authorities,
he would never deal either with criminals
or revolutionary intellectuals,
Or he would feel comfortable with
violent or objectionable individuals.
For him it'd be just like
starting from scratch...
as "bourgeois", to him, as a state of
being, was an ever present human condition.
Although for him there wasn't anything more
alluring than the equilibrium of the two extremes.
Let's take, for instance, two dualities
like spiritual versus libertine.
Man has the possibility of devoting
himself completely to his spiritual side,
of devoting to a life of
either clergy or sanctity.
On the other hand one can devote one self
to a life of mundane desires and flesh...
...in order to satisfy
one's basic pleasures,
as well as leading a life for the
pursue of lucre and a social position.
One of the two ways leads to sanctity,
to the martyrdom of the spirit, to God
the other way leads to libertinage, to the
martyrdom of the flesh, to corruption.
His ideal is not a meditation but
a conservation of his own self.
The vital force of bourgeoisie
is based on this.
Artists and intellectuals
really liked Harry...
as he knew of all the
pleasures of meditation.
Many artists are of his kind. These persons
all have two souls, two beings within them.
The capacity for happiness and
the capacity for suffering.
Finally, as he was
approaching the age of 47,
a happy and not unhumorous
idea came to him,
as it meant he was
approaching the age of 50.
He started considering the idea of suicide.
In fact this idea became his final motivation.
From that day he decided...
he should get rid of himself, to use that
emergency exit to extinguish his daily suffering.
For some reason something
was wrong with his life
thus his desolation would end with
the negligence of his existence
that'd be the best way to say goodbye
to his pains and sufferings.
He would wait only two years,
then he would accomplish it,
then he started to cherish this idea
it would be the day he turned 50.
This would be the day he would
definitively surrender...
relying on his razor...
he'd take leave of all his pains
and close the door behind.
This way the wolf from the steppes
wouldn't achieve his goal.
Possibly someday he would
learn to know himself better.
Maybe one day he will find
himself in our Magic Theatre...
the very thing that is needed to free his neglected soul.
A thousand such possibilities await him.
Maybe the day will come that he will
see himself reflected in a mirror.
He is aware of the existence of that mirror
in which he has such bitter need to look.
And from which he shrinks
in such deathly fear.
Is it today the performance? Where
is the meeting going to be?
Go to the Black Eagle, man,
if that's what you want.
I'm sorry, I probably mistook you
for another person, I apologize...
My dear Mr. Haller!...
Somebody told me you were already here Why didn't you tell us?
Are you going to stay here for long?
No, I'm staying here only for a few days?
Therefore I was informed correctly.
Well, yes... I...
Oh, you are already here!...
Look what I've read in this newspaper,
this miserable Haller!
Who's this? An author?
An author?! ...Oh, how kind are you! no!
A publicist and a very rotten one.
A publicist who must be a
poor devil without country
somebody who's slashing the Kaiser.
Here, read it yourself.
Maybe he should base himself
on real facts, here it is...
He says our fatherland is not less
responsible for the outbreak of war
than its enemies.
Oh, let's go to the table, please...
- Thanks...
Something strange happened to me today.
Really?!
Yes... I was going out of the library
I had nothing in mind
in that precise moment
I was descending the stairs...
on my way to the suburbs, when suddenly...
...I saw a group of people
like in a procession...
it was a funeral...
Oh my god!
Do you feel alright my love!
Sorry... it was just a thought...
...I apologize.
I pray for a hero to be born...
a miraculous birth not to be excluded...
able to penetrate the minuscule details...
the contours of our archetype
that filters outside...
the apocalypse is our only hope.
I understand.
Let us hope that Goethe did not really look like this.
This conceited air of nobility...
the great man ogling the
distinguished company...
and beneath the manly exterior what
a world of charming sentimentality!
Certainly there is much to say against him.
Oh, my god!
Darling do you feel alright?!
He sure would renounce to your company...
this is really lamentable.
I have to retire.
That bust of Goethe belongs to my wife, it's
one of her most treasured possessions...
believe me...
It is our more cherished cultural heritage.
These objects are representations of our gods.
...I am really sorry.
You should've been a bit more correct...
you shouldn't have expressed yourself
in such a way about the subject.
It is a habit, a vice of mine,
always to speak up my mind...
as indeed Goethe did too
in his better moments.
I do apologize to you and to your wife.
Please, tell her I am an schizophrenic
and now if you let me,
it is time for me to go
but, you haven't finished your coffee!
It stimulates our discussions...
Your opinions on Mithras e Krishna
have left a deep impression on me...
I was expecting today we could have
a chance to raise this subject.
I'm grateful you say that but my interest
about Krishna have completely vanished.
As well as my taste for
erudite conversation.
Besides I've lied to you
I haven't recently arrived to this city, in
fact I've been here for a few months already!
The thing is that I wasn't feeling alright to
participate in familiar gatherings, because...
First I was always in a very bad
humour due to my gout problems.
Second because I was
drunk most of the times.
And finally, for not passing as a liar.
That publicist with no fatherland, that loafer
known by the name of Haller and myself...
are one and the same person.
It would be essentially
better for the world...
that all the few people capable
of thought stood for reason...
and the love for peace instead of...
for god's sake...!
Heading wildly with a blind
obsession for a new war.
Have a good night.
The wolf in me howled in gleeful triumph, and a
dramatic struggle between my two selves followed.
It was my leave-taking from the respectable, moral and
learned world, and a complete triumph for the Steppenwolf.
Be a disappointment or a little scandal,
at the end, it was just another failure.
I wish I could live
happier days but... how?!
But that's of no importance as
everything ends the same way always.
What a hideous day of shame and wretchedness
it had been from morning to night.
For what? And why? This very night
I would make an end of the comedy,
go home and cut my throat.
No more tarrying.
Simply choose something and
everything ends the same way.
Everything goes in the same direction.
Simply choose something and
everything ends the same way...
And there is no way on finding a way out...
just a something in between desperation and
cowardice ...between desperation and cowardice...
Maybe cowardice wins today... maybe tomorrow also...
and everyday... why not.
It will become a desperation that
will grow each passing day...
a kind of self contempt...
It will go even farther than
that, again and again...
even to the point of discarding myself
completely and finally... when...
Hi.
You seem to have a pain in your fingers.
Is it any better?...
do still feel pain?
Where am I?
You should well know by now?
I have no idea...
In the Black Eagle.
Come to the Black Eagle if a
human being is what you need!
Take it easy!...
I will attend you.
What's the matter?...
Shouldn't you be at home now?
No... yes... It's just
that I cannot go home now.
You can stay here if you wish.
What is this?
You can do whatever you want with this.
It may sound like a joke but
you can use it as a scape...
or you can use it to defend yourself.
Look yourself in this mirror.
You have to admit you are afraid...
Wait... unless you clean your eyeglasses
you won't be able to see anything.
Well... what are we going to drink...
Burgundy?
Why are you carrying a razor?
I always carry a razor with me as well...
do you carry it often?
Usually yes.
Why?
Oh, you should now it is a
long and complicated story
I will tell it to you some day.
A friend of mine forgot it in my apartment.
I presume you must have a lot of friends.
Yes indeed, don't you?
No.
No.
Oh, you look like a nice boy.
Although I'd swear you don't obey anybody
do I look like it?
To obey is like eating or the act of sex..
When you've been a long time not
doing it there's nothing like it.
Is it not true that you like to obey?
What do you think?
Maybe you have another opinion...
No.
Good. Then... let's start.
We cleaned your eyeglasses,
you've already eaten...
now we'll clean your shoes
and then we'll dance...
I cannot do what you are asking
me for, I just cannot dance...
Oh, that's too bad!
I never learned how, what should I say?
I'm a lost case...
It'd be a good idea to practice
at home, put your feet over...
You're a bit nervous!
You've never tried it with
anybody, why are you so nervous?
No woman?
No lover?
I'm divorced.
Well, I have a lover but
she doesn't live here.
We rarely see each other, anyway
we don't get on very well
I think you are a very difficult person.
Because no one sticks to you.
I admit I am a very impulsive person,
I'm crazy, a desperate case,
without solution completely...
What is this?
The saddest melody played by the
smallest violin player ever.
You should control your nerves
maybe your life would improve.
You know what I mean.
But now tell me what was particularly wrong this evening.
What sent you chasing round out of your wits.
Whatever you feel like telling me.
Gosh, I'm glad I'm not your mother.
Oh, Harry! Sorry, I have to
go, I have a compromise...
with who?
Oh, nothing really interesting.
With a friend.
Although, maybe... you could come with me.
Why didn't you ask me before?
Well, I'm asking to you now.
A bit too late.
That's right.
What about tomorrow?
Maybe.
...but... just a moment!...
At least tell me your name!
Oh, and now you ask?!
...you are a very strange man!...
Maybe you could guess.
Margaret? ...Molly? ...Madelaine?
Maybe next time. On tuesday... we can
have dinner at the "Old Franciscan".
Are you coming or what?!
Of course it's not a place that matches
your standards but I'd like to go there.
I wish you dream of Saint Francis.
Are you devoted to him?
No, but I'm serious about it.
I hate when all those liars...
satisfy themselves with those picture
representing the Sacred Francis.
Everywhere, I feel it is like a defamation.
In spite I disgruntle their "San Francis"
I carry mine inside my heart.
The picture I have of him...
is that of a human being, maybe not very true.
People have their own dreams and fancies I guess.
You can sleep here tonight...
if you feel you cannot go home.
You can have this also.
Nobody forces me to stay here...,
I must leave as you might understand.
That's all then.
Golden slumbers.
You excellency... will receive you now.
As a man related to Goethe and as a
correspondent to a magazine here I am.
...not as any man in particular.
Should I explain any further
or tell about other things?
What "other things"?
You...
You... young person!
Oh, Mister Goethe it's
clear your excellency...
You believe our efforts are
quite small, am I wrong?
We, the young ones, are not much
in accord with your excellency.
You've openly said little about us...
You are too solemn and too conceited
for us, not very sincere.
This should be the most
important thing to say.
What kind of words are these?,
explain more clearly please.
For instance you...
you have clearly recognized and felt the
riddle and the hopelessness of human life...
a desperation clearly
acknowledged, am I wrong?
Yet you gave up your whole life
to preaching its opposite...
giving utterance to faith and optimism...
and spreading before yourself
and others the illusion that
our spiritual strivings
mean something and endure.
You mister must feel a terrible objection against
the "Magic Flute" by Mozart, am I wrong?
How come can you assert such a thing?
The Magic Flute was
optimism and conviction.
Although Mozart never got
to your 82 years of age..
That doesn't matter. He composed
his melodies and died young.
This is not within your personal life,
this transcendental assertions...
his dignity will remain
as long as you will!
You have a musty idea about Mozart!
...he should've been a professor.
That's unfair.
We immortals do not like things
to be taken so seriously...
how come can you say this?
That has no value at all.
Don't you neglect anything in
this particular occasion?...
Yours is your solitude, your defeats, your
sadness and your loath for day to day life,
the desperation that burns inside...
...your suffering impresses me...
you think in a far too civilized fashion.
Do you dance... "Boston?"
No, of course not...
I never had the time to learn...
Seriousness is a consequence of time.
You give too much value to time.
As you can see time doesn't
exist, neither eternity.
Life is just a moment in time, its
duration has no value whatsoever.
Orquids.
Oh, Harry, you are just a fool...
Sorry, I didn't know you don't like them.
It's not that.
I think Orquids are very expensive.
Never mind...
Thank you very much but I don't want
you to bring me presents again.
Neither I want to live of your money.
Sorry I thought...
yes, what you thought is correct...
I make a living out of men, but I don't
want to do that with you, never...
Today you look like another person...
The other day I was with a man and
now I'm with another one completely.
Do you like it?
Almost... you look more
like a human being now.
But there is a lot to do yet.
Anyway, I think that's a good start.
Did you do what I ordered?
What did you order?
I'm asking if you learned
how to dance Foxtrot.
But can I learn so quickly? Just overnight?
You can learn Foxtrot in an hour...
or Boston in just two...
Tango takes a bit longer although
this one is not necessary to learn.
You'll be dancing without thinking about it.
It'll be to you...
as easy as to think, you'll see.
We'll take this one.
We could've bought this one later
after checking other shops...
Never mind, we saw this one first.
It's fun to go shopping. People
have to enjoy it greatly.
Thank you very much. Bye.
Now you know how many lies fall upon me...
But now I really must know your name.
Perhaps you can guess it.
No. Dear! ...You remain me of some one...
Somebody from my childhood,
somebody called Rosa Kreisler.
But she had dark hair.
Who was that Rosa Kreisler?
My first love. We were 14 years olds.
Although she never knew about it.
I never gathered the courage to tell her.
Not even a word?!
No.
Oh, Harry that's too sad!
Maybe she considered you a looney
I don't think she thought that of me.
Yes
I don't know if you...
yes, I think you do...
Hermann...
Hermann! ...Hermine!
See, you can see it. It
was not so difficult.
But how will I be able to win your heart?
You don't remember what you promised me!
You know everything, Hermine...
you are so different from me,
You say you should command,
this would make you very happy,
To obey all my commands...
Nevertheless you are so different from me.
Or just the opposite to me but...
you have all I lack.
Then you will obey all my commands.
Yes.
I thought you would be glad
to obey all my commands.
You'll have to keep your
promise or you will regret it.
You are going to listen to what I have
to say about my life and then obey me.
Alright... and what will
the ultimate command be?
You have to do the sign of the
cross over your heart everyday.
Swear it.
I'll do the sign of the cross
over my heart everyday.
Alright, and it's necessary to do
it now because I'm desperate..
It's vital somebody pushes me to the
water, to bring me to life again.
Also it is precise that you...
no... not now, later.
That you fall in love with me.
And it's vital that you do something
beautiful, something important for me.
This one will be my last command.
What will I have to do then?
To kill me.
Come here!
You cannot say I didn't tell you!
Forgive me.
Who's this?
Erica.
This is her photo.
Of the lover who never loved me.
And this is?
You have to guess now.
Definitively it's the real Hermann?
...It's his picture.
We were interned in a protestant seminary.
He was my only friend. He just
could stand seven months there.
He was quite good at everything,
maths, latin, greek...
We barely had water to wash ourselves.
We were of the opinion...
that this type of education was of the
lowest kind that could ever exist.
And that all it did was...
to administer the transformation of human
nature into something servile to the state.
One day, he jumped over
the fence and fled.
And I never found him again, never.
And...?
I learned he took a job
in a textile factory...
after that he turned into a commercial
assistant in a library in Tbingen,
He published a work of
his, a book of poems...
...then, after that, he
shot himself in the head.
And you find this admirable?
At least he spared himself the
miseries and horrors of war.
Yes I admire him much, for his courage.
Virtually I admire him.
Since then, I can assure you, there hasn't
been a day I haven't thought about him.
Although I didn't think that he...
But... are you leaving now?
I got to go.
We could go to dance tomorrow at the hotel.
You don't understand, I
cannot possibly dance!
Oh! What a stupid thing to say!
No, I haven't learned how to dance at all,
to dance one has to have
certain abilities such as:
Happiness, innocence, silliness, energy.
I lack all these.
I wouldn't be so certain.
Remember you are under my command.
And what makes you think I'm
going to obey your command?
What's wrong with you... why do you stay
sitting there like that?... go dancing.
But I don't know anyone.
You have to ask.
Don't you like that girl over there?
The one there...
how would it be like...
I cannot, if I were young
and handsome maybe...
You are a coward!
She's going to laugh at me!
Poor Harry!...
If I laughed at you, you
wouldn't mind me really.
You have to risk at being
a figure of laugh.
I... I cannot do that.
C'mon!
Would you allow me to
dance this song with you?
To be honest I've already
somebody to dance with.
Oh, I do apologize...
although... he is still in the bar...
never mind, let's go.
I've learned to do this
in too short a time...
It doesn't matter, you must
move them at the same time.
My compliments... For how
long have you been here?
Oh! ...Maybe four, five days...
I've been here for a long time.
Pablo. This is my friend Harry.
Pleased to meet you... Pleased to meet you
I want to see you there as soon as possible.
Is that understood?
...me too.
Cigarette? ...No? ...if you don't mind me.
Is he rich?
No.
He's very attractive.
Yes, very attractive.
Jimmy was looking for you yesterday.
He wanted to speak to you.
Dear, Harry?
...do you like the music here?
Yes... yes and not.
It's not the kind of music that I
like, I don't give much credit to it.
Then what type of music do you like?
A bit of Jazz... but that's not real music.
Yours... is it jazz music?
Is it required a name for that?
Anyway... there are big differences between
that and our symphonic traditions.
Of course... that's true...
What about if I already
felt passionate about you?
Oh, you want to make me happy... I can sense that...
you are grateful to me,
I've taken you out of your solitude but...
There's still a long way to go.
Maybe you think the same way.
This shows you know very little about it.
No!... I don't have the right to
make you feel passionate about me!
Why?
That's part of my job.
I make a living out of this... of
making men feel passionate about me.
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
...Thank you... Thank you... Much obliged.
Wonderful, isn't it?...
She is a very beautiful girl, isn't she?
Why don't you sleep with her?
Do you want me?...
Don't be so stubborn.
You don't have to marry immediately,
you shouldn't take this so seriously either.
I guess you take love too seriously.
Isn't it true you are thinking
on sleeping with a woman again?
Is it not true Steppenwolf?
Believe me, I don't have such intentions...
Please...
Bye Alfredo, good night.
Shall we go someplace else?...
We got to go on, after all
I'm leaving this city soon.
The whole night?
Why not?
I feel tired.
I can cure that.
Excuse me sir...
please accept our friendship,
Could you please take this
for a second, thanks...
Pablo always administers everything.
Everything?
Everything, anything.
It's very good!
It is not always available as a whim...
but you can get it when it's a need.
But, what are we waiting for?
Let's go!
I wasn't expecting to go back home as...
I had no compromises.
The following night I would
drink whisky and dance,
and nothing would be against me,
I ended up forgetting the anger and
bitterness I felt thanks to Hermine.
She was very objective
saying I should change.
Inside me everything was strange and confused,
the weight of the world was moving inside me,
Where the best of me was. However
I would remain always a stranger.
Hello, finally you are here!
Psst!...
How did you get in here...?
...Tell me, is Pablo one
of your lovers too?
Sincerely?
No.
He always works tired...
A person can wake up easily.
Do you want a handsome partner like him?
Or an attractive man like me?
You are not in a competition.
Oh.
I love you.
Why are you so shy... so tender...
Because I see in your eyes what
is beautiful... we are alike.
He is the opposite.
He doesn't do anything for me...
He only uses me...
But a life without love is
something I wouldn't endure.
Maria, I love you.
Pablo says I have to be nice to you...
Because you are always so unhappy.
I'd like to know,
how he determines your own desires.
He can see it in your eyes. He says you
haven't a notion of what love is like.
Mr. Haller! ...I want to park here my car.
Good morning, Pablo!
I have something to ask you,
..would you lend me 20 francs?
Then you will be able to
sleep with Maria tonight.
You don't know what you are saying.
I don't want to give you any money.
Nothing.
I haven't heard your petition
...what's the nature of this foolishness...
where did you get this car?
In this case you won't sleep with Maria!
It is you who creates
your own difficulties.
If you give me money I'll give
it to you back, am I wrong?
It's for Agostino, the fiddler...
he is sick you know!
Why didn't you tell me that at once?
Will you tell me about the car?
I've borrowed it.
From who?
I don't know, it doesn't matter!
God almighty, you are in a
borrowed car already...
I must be very expensive
it looks pretty good.
Listen... this car's got
here 60hps below the...
They can see me, but they never pick me up.
Nevertheless, it doesn't matter for sure...
Good morning!...
Harry get in! ...Hurry up,
hurry up, hurry up, quick!
Oohh-hooo!!!!...
Why Pablo... why this?
Why don't you ever want to
talk about music with me?
Oh, you know more about the subject that I do.
I hardly know about it.
It's all the same for me.
But not all is the same. Nevertheless, no!
...no, it cannot be.
Simply to put Mozart in comparison
with a foxtrot... He is different...
Do you understand?
I don't put anything into any category..
To me what lasts is good.
...Pablo...
Say, Pablo... what do you
expect from life... from music?
You're always asking...!
...one laugh...
...one little laugh...
...a pass time... nothing...
To celebrate parties.
...a connoisseur...
A crowded venue in order
not to get bankrupt.
Now that you are into it.
What do you expect?
Light.
Light is there, deep inside...
But you need to cast your own shadow...
Then you'll see it.
Don't you want to celebrate
an orgy together?
...No, no, thank you.
But, we are all friends...
It's simply that he doesn't want.
Regrettably... he is too morally minded.
Nothing can be done.
But...
it could've been so beautiful...
incredibly beautiful...
...I guess I must sleep a bit...
Suppose the wife of a king turns into...
a lover...
of a revolutionary, a sister of a genius...
Life only allows me to be a
courtesan of a fairly good taste...
But I'm glad I'll never be it.
But... don't you ask for more?
Always.
What?
An eternity.
...Where do you expect to find it?
We are in the road of life.
In the kingdom on the other
side of time and appearances.
The pious call it the kingdom of God, even
though no one knows of it or sees it...
However If we belong to each
other our house could be there.
Ah, Harry, we have to stumble,
through so much dirt and humbug...
before we reach home...
And we have no one to guide us. Our
only guide is our homesickness.
And now I'll say goodbye.
Then, friends and lovers...
will have a night divine...
I'll see you at the party...
Oh what is this, can you
let me through please!
Thank you!
Dance with me!
Please...!
Harry!... what are you disguised of?
A penguin?
Pablo, maybe there's a way you can
help me, have you seen Hermine?...
I have been looking for her everywhere!
I'm a bit desperate.
Here everyone is wearing a mask!
Only you can call her.
You will find her.
You condemn me once again,
will I see you in a while?
No, No, No!...
no, because of your sense of humour!
...not tonight.
Lost your number?
...take my ticket!
TONIGHT AT THE MAGIC THEATRE...
FOR MADMEN ONLY... HERMINE IS IN HELL...
Hey! Dance with me!
Not now! ...I'm bound for hell!
C'mon!...
Maria...
Hermine has called me.
She is in Hell.
Don't worry about it my dear...
Goodbye, Harry...
I will love you... for ever...
Goodbye?
Hermann...
Harry? ...Hermine, Hermann...
Did you call me?
Is this the costume, Hermine, in which you
mean to make me fall in love with you?
You are ready to go through hell...
in order to find.
And... are you coming with me?
You dream with this,
reality is not outside.
You have a longing to forsake this world,
it's about time...
to enter a more suitable reality
for you, a world beyond time.
I cannot give you a world
which no longer exists.
I can give you nothing that has not
already its being within yourself.
I cannot give you anything
more, just a lonely chance.
Harry, I'll help you.
I invite you to a little entertainment.
FOR MADMEN ONLY...
PRICE OF ADMITTANCE YOUR MIND.
Do you understand?...
...your mind.
And now... I'll show you
our little Magic Theatre.
It has as many doors as you might wish...
behind every door there's something waiting for
you exactly the thing you are looking for.
Now you have to give your permission,
You will introduce yourself to it
by means of a trifling suicide.
You feel okay, don't you?
The long awaited conquest of
time and the scape from reality
this was always your desire although
others might not find any meaning to it.
As your wish is related to
personality it could be unique.
It only takes you to behold the reflexion
of this mirror as a sincere vision.
Excellent, Harry...
Excellent, Harry... you will learn
how to laugh like an immortal.
You yearned for this world, for this time,
for yourself, to leave this reality...
The illusion of the Magic Theatre. There
are only mirrors here, never reality...
It's got as many doors...
Pablo... Pablo... Hermine... Hermine...
You know well, you are
hiding in an unreal world...
which is...
a world inside your soul,
the one you are seeking...
a world beyond time.
Said this, my friend, I invite you to this.
The desire, the desire to hold her...
the game of feelings, a union of hands...
gliding eyes which gently smoulder you...
she hides her revealed nudity,
finding two thoughts of
a third place where...
on a lake, in a dark night...
nothing resists you, like a
wave which happens to bestow.
...behind every door...
Kamasutra. Lessons on amatory art.
A Hindu course for beginners.
42 different methods to practice love.
Mu tabor... transformation into
any animal or plant you wish.
Quintessence of art!
Gustav!... how nice to see you again!
Whatever became of you!
A professor on theology,
that's what I became!
However, time has come
to fight these beasts!
What's going on here?
Fighting!...
Finally you are into it, we'll go in our
way to fight the machines!... c'mon!
You always yearned for that,
didn't you Harry or what?
The War Against the Machines!
I'm not listening to you!
All this display of madness leads to chaos
which at the same time threats with anarchy.
Intellectuals must finish
with the incitement...
giving benediction to order, to
work, to property, to culture...
to defend law and justice.
Why do we have to fight
against the machines?
As the last invention of the human
race machines were created so...
humans could become gods, finally
human beings will be free! - Oh!
How do you find this?
Oh, I like it, but... we choose
to go to some other party!
Traitors! Criminals! Finally
it was all for this!
...C'mon quick! ...Get out of here!
...get your hands off me!
Before I go I'd like to say this...
this is not patriotic of you at all!
Do you see this...
Help me to leave this gear in place.
We will give a reception
to them when they show up.
Once I was a militant opponent to war.
Where does this desire for killing come from?
It is completely incomprehensible.
Not completely! ...lt is pure childishness.
All that war is really about!
Childishness in a monumental scale.
Yes indeed... you are right, nothing is really a
feat, otherwise, valuable ideals would emerge!
This is a thing of either
Americans or Bolshevists!
Both are extremely rationalistic.
They simplify life and end
up violating it terribly.
You are very intelligent, Harry... and maybe
you are right, just like a little book.
But cars are too strong and resistant.
We cannot kill them with philosophy.
Then get yourself free
from men and their ideas!
Bravo! Hurray, hurray. Hurray!
Can I ask... who's honouring us
with his fortunate presence?
I'm Attorney-General Loering.
Why did you shoot at us?
For exceeding the speed limit.
We were not traveling at
more than normal speed.
What was normal yesterday
is no longer normal today,
We are of the opinion that the speed...
of the car you were travelling
with was much too fast.
We will destroy all cars,
everything, all the machines.
Please get off, your car
is about to be destroyed.
I prefer to be destroyed
with it rather than be...
like you want to be.
It will be always incomprehensible
for me as a human being.
You basically make a living out of
accusing and condemning poor devils,
to condemn, to kill.
I do my duty, something which
is obviously unknown to you.
What duty were you called for here?!
Since the day I was born I was
condemned to live as a soldier.
Obliged to belong to a state, to
kill, to pay taxes for armament.
Even as a second choice I
wouldn't be able to abandon.
You bore me. Be so kind as
to do your work, please.
My dear, do you know how to use fire arms?
You can teach me.
I imagined this would
satisfy your appetite.
Do you have a band-aid for my finger?...
It is bleeding a lot...
In what should we transform ourselves now?!
Any idea?
My friend Harry is acquainted
with happy beautiful girls,
he will take care of you, let's go.
If you had bananas and cucumbers for
this occasion I could make something.
Meanwhile...
As many doors as desires you have, and behind every door
something is waiting for you, the one you are looking for.
You were living your tiresome life, you
make an effort to be here, nothing is real!
You were yearning for this world, this time
frame, for yourself, to leave reality...
Fall of the Western world.
Lowered prices never matched!
And now you will see a more appropriate
reality breaking in, a world beyond time.
Delightful suicide. You will
laugh yourself to bits.
Do you wish to be spiritual? To be a
connoisseur of everything Oriental?
Kamasutra.
- Lessons in the amatory art from hindus.
Love for eyes and concatenation of heart,
Evaporation of modesty:
As many doors as desires you have. An eye
of love, an ear of love, a tongue of love,
A stallion of love, a cat of love, an
elephant of love, a pigeon of love,
a cock of love, a nightingale of love,
a rainbow of love, a sun of love, an
orange of love, a pomegranate of love...
Pablo?...
Who are you?
I'm not any one.
I'm just a chess player.
Do you wish a lesson...
on deconstruction of your personality?
Yes please.
- Put some of your pieces at my disposition.
My pieces...?
The pieces into which you saw your so-called
personality broken up. Without them I cannot play.
Which one of them is you?...
Error. You are all of them.
To divide the personality of a person in
many parts is madness, that's schizophrenia.
People have to live with this...
Behold!
It's a game, you say...
Life. The art of living.
We will show you that in the future you can
build yourself a game at your own will,
a game which will no longer turn into pieces arbitrarily any time.
Order them and reform it all again...
you'll have an infinite variety
for yourself to play with...
Harry?
Is this a desire from heaven above...
to see you again?
You look so nice... in
spite these wounds... yes.
My dear Harry! I have always wondered
if I could have become your wife...
all these years...
You didn't give me anything, Rosa.
The last time we saw each other...
that day, you... felt the same for me...
That's true... I admit, I was in a hurry!
But I was terribly afraid...
I was only 15 years old.
My heart beats this way inside me...
really?...
I cry with its sound...
I was oblivious... It never
happened that way...
but you didn't know that I was...
I could have killed myself. Believe me, Rosa...
believe me, sometimes it burns me...
...there was a terrible fire inside me...
I was under command of ruining forces...
I decided to go, it was better for you.
All girls are yours.
I always dreamed I would
become your baby...
I offer you my breasts to kiss them,
Drink a cup of desire.
I would have satiated your
hunger for sex, but you...
you just sat beside me for nearly quarter of
an hour beside the window of a express train,
I will teach you to dream without fear,
with love and mortal acts.
I was expecting you to
be different from them.
Hermine!...
Hermine!
Then... have a great
pleasure in your reverie.
Don't do anything, all you got
to do is to remain quiet.
Hermine!
But I need from you.
I need you to do for me something
beautiful and important.
This will be my last desire.
To kill me.
Mozart...!
It goes all right without the saxophone...
though I shouldn't wish to tread on
the toes of that famous instrument.
Where are we?
We are in the last act of Don Giovanni.
Leporello is on his knees.
A superb scene, and, well,
the music is fine too...
There is a lot in it, certainly, you can hear
the other world in it - the laughter, eh?
From now on, the laughter...
- The efficiency, the strength...
That became the greatest
ultimate music ever.
Don't over strain yourself, you are
a musician yourself, I perceive.
Now I've given up to the trade...
and retired to take my ease...
it is only for amusement that I look
on at the business now and then.
Look, there's Brahms.
He is striving for redemption, but...
it will take him all his time.
And Wagner...
- Excessive instrumentation was the fault of their time.
Anyway thick orchestration was in any case
neither Wagner's nor Brahms's personal failing.
- It was nobody's fault.
- Certainly it wasn't whatsoever.
Neither was Adam's fault to eat from the
apple and carry the weight of eternal sin.
Nevertheless, that's terrible.
Certainly, life is always terrible.
But we can do nothing about it...
However we are responsible
of blaming people.
You must have received a very
special religious education,
not to know about such things.
Therefore should I feel a kind of
responsibility for all the books I've written?
Your books are dispensable,
You are not dispensable!
You should have had a life, your own love affairs!
Pay within two interminable purgatories, come!
Mr. Mozart...? ...shush!...
Listen to the sound!
...We open now the symphony by Bach.
My god, Mr. Mozart, what are you doing?!
Do you hear this?!...
that must be... this horrible machine
...it is a slaughter of music!
You exaggerate! ...Listen to this machine
without either pathos or mockery...
hear this, you hear sounds from
the past coming to life again!
An excellent music for an excellent life!
You possess no radio, neither
the divine nor the human.
People like you are not
entitled to criticize radio.
Or is it that you have
done better yourself?
Learn from life listening
first instead, my dear!
To learn what from who?!,
I don't understand...
You are a joker Harry... you can be that also.
Can you explain this?
Had this beautiful girl nothing to
desire of you but the stab of a knife?
What a facade ...pretending
to be a wise man!
Behold the consequences of your
gallantry against this lady,
Or do you think of
avoiding the consequences?
No, don't you understand at all? I have
no other desire than to pay and pay...
to lay my head beneath the axe and
pay the penalty of annihilation!
How pathetic you always are, Harry!
But you will learn humour yet.
No humor.
THE EXECUTION OF HARRY
Humor is always gallows-humor, and it is on the
gallows you are now constrained to learn it.
- Are you ready for it?
- I'm ready.
Gentlemen... Harry Haller. See yourselves.
Accused and found guilty...
of the willful misuse of our magic theatre.
Haller has not alone insulted
the majesty of art...
in that he confounded our beautiful
picture gallery with so-called reality...
and stabbed to death the reflection of
a girl with the reflection of a knife.
He, as I said, placed
inside our Magic Theatre...
has in addition displayed the intention of using our theatre
as a mechanism of suicide, showing himself devoid of humour.
Subsequently... our will is to condemn Harry...
to eternal life...
and we suspend for twelve hours
his permit to enter our theatre.
However, Harry, you have disappointed me
a little, you forgot yourself badly...
you tried to make a mess of my little theatre, stabbing
with knives and spattering our pretty picture-world...
...with the mud of reality.
You have got to learn to laugh. You must
apprehend the humour of life. You can be cured.
Pablo, I'm starting to
understand!, now I understand!...
And Goethe... all these figures of my
life are like pieces inside my pocket...
...oh, yes, I'm ready with all my heart...
How do you desire it, Harry? This isn't over, you know...
this is hardly a beginning.
Where do I have to start?
Say "how"... with innocence...
not running backwards... but looking ahead,
not as a wolf but as a child...
without guilt... heading for the next life.
We also have reserved for the
accused an unequal penalty.
I order the tribunal to proceed...
Gentlemen, all together, one-two-three!
The day had gone by just as days go by
I had killed it in accordance with my
primitive and retiring way of life
I had worked for an hour or two and
perused the pages of old books.
I had taken a powder and been very
glad when the pain has disappeared
I had done my breathing exercises, but found it
convenient today to omit the thought exercises
but, taken all in all, it had not
been exactly a day of rapture.
Perhaps it would be just right to follow
the example of Adalbert Stifters...
having an accident while shaving
shouldn't be considered a bad idea.
There is much to be said for
contentment and painlessness,
for these bearable and submissive days on which neither pain nor pleasure cry out.
But the worst of it is the contentment which I cannot endure.
Thankfully you assure yourself as you read your morning
paper that another day has come and no war broken out,
no new dictatorship has been set up, no particularly disgusting
scandal been unveiled in the worlds of politics or finance.
There is in me the savage impulse
of destroying their gods,
of seducing young girls in their
tender age towards prostitution.
After a short time it fills me with irrepressible hatred and nausea. In
desperation I have to escape and throw myself on the road to pleasure...
or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain.
I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre
of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment.
A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me,
a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life.
I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse,
perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages...
to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols or to stand one or
two representatives of the established order on their heads.
For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment,
this healthiness and comfort, (MAGIC THEATRE - ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY)
this carefully preserved optimism of the middle
classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
FOR MADMEN ONLY
Mr. Haller!
Hey...
are you alright?
I feel kind of tired,
sorry if I scared you.
I was in a kind of trance...
I was in a state of...
...dreaming.
Is everything alright?
Shall I help you upstairs?
No, it is not necessary.
You could seat beside me.
If you have the time.
Thank you very much but
I'm not used to that...
sitting here, watching
other people passing by.
Yes sir, you are right.
Wait a second I want to
explain the motives...
why I have to stay sitting here.
I adore this spot where
everything is meticulously tidy
here everything shines...
immaculately clean as your Aunt likes it.
A nose has to inhale everything because
some smell emerges from all things.
Peace and tranquility...
born out of order and firm sense of
compromise to little habits and obligations.
Please, don't you think
I say it with irony!
My mother used to be just
as careful and clean...
Are you ill?
Non sense
I'm just an aloof grey old wolf.
Long staircases are difficult to climb,
tall houses make me crawl.
Sometimes I suffer of pains
just like old people do...
Old people always exaggerate a little.
...but you are not older than fifty.
Yes, you are right.
Feeling pity of myself is not good, but
I'm not going to feel this way for long.
Stop. Just a second, what
is written in that sign?
What thing is this? When
is this going to happen?
This is not for everybody.
Meeting for a anarchic night!
Magic Theatre!
What do you have in your box?
I want to buy something from you.
Treatise on the Steppenwolf...
Once upon a time...
there was a person called Harry
or SteppenWolf that was his name.
He walked upright like a person, he
wore clothes as a man as well...
however he was a wolf from the steppes.
He was savage and uncontrollable inside. His
teachers used to argue to the point...
whether he had been changed...
before birth perhaps from a
wolf into a human being.
There was this idea in their minds
that he was really a wolf...
...covered by a very thin skin of humanity.
When Harry as a human being
had beautiful thoughts...
or he experimented noble
and delicate sensations...
the wolf inside would bear his teeth
and laugh with contempt and irony.
Every action would appear before
his eyes as pointless and absurd.
Harry ended feeling he was
behaving as a real wolf...
when he showed his teeth to others,
when he felt hate and animosity
toward all human beings.
Toward their lying and
degenerated habits and costumes.
Precisely this...
would summon the beast which would curse...
every feeling of well being
for his wild, wolfish nature.
His existence wasn't precisely
happy and gentle...
not meaning that his unhappiness
was at all singular...
the poor devil would make
unhappy everyone he esteemed.
Thus he had this dual and discordant
nature with two separated destinies.
According to his own opinion he was not in
touch with the conventional world around him.
However in many aspects he
would live like a bourgeois.
He had money in the bank, he would help
some poor relatives, he dressed adequately,
He procured to live in peace
with the authorities,
he would never deal either with criminals
or revolutionary intellectuals,
Or he would feel comfortable with
violent or objectionable individuals.
For him it'd be just like
starting from scratch...
as "bourgeois", to him, as a state of
being, was an ever present human condition.
Although for him there wasn't anything more
alluring than the equilibrium of the two extremes.
Let's take, for instance, two dualities
like spiritual versus libertine.
Man has the possibility of devoting
himself completely to his spiritual side,
of devoting to a life of
either clergy or sanctity.
On the other hand one can devote one self
to a life of mundane desires and flesh...
...in order to satisfy
one's basic pleasures,
as well as leading a life for the
pursue of lucre and a social position.
One of the two ways leads to sanctity,
to the martyrdom of the spirit, to God
the other way leads to libertinage, to the
martyrdom of the flesh, to corruption.
His ideal is not a meditation but
a conservation of his own self.
The vital force of bourgeoisie
is based on this.
Artists and intellectuals
really liked Harry...
as he knew of all the
pleasures of meditation.
Many artists are of his kind. These persons
all have two souls, two beings within them.
The capacity for happiness and
the capacity for suffering.
Finally, as he was
approaching the age of 47,
a happy and not unhumorous
idea came to him,
as it meant he was
approaching the age of 50.
He started considering the idea of suicide.
In fact this idea became his final motivation.
From that day he decided...
he should get rid of himself, to use that
emergency exit to extinguish his daily suffering.
For some reason something
was wrong with his life
thus his desolation would end with
the negligence of his existence
that'd be the best way to say goodbye
to his pains and sufferings.
He would wait only two years,
then he would accomplish it,
then he started to cherish this idea
it would be the day he turned 50.
This would be the day he would
definitively surrender...
relying on his razor...
he'd take leave of all his pains
and close the door behind.
This way the wolf from the steppes
wouldn't achieve his goal.
Possibly someday he would
learn to know himself better.
Maybe one day he will find
himself in our Magic Theatre...
the very thing that is needed to free his neglected soul.
A thousand such possibilities await him.
Maybe the day will come that he will
see himself reflected in a mirror.
He is aware of the existence of that mirror
in which he has such bitter need to look.
And from which he shrinks
in such deathly fear.
Is it today the performance? Where
is the meeting going to be?
Go to the Black Eagle, man,
if that's what you want.
I'm sorry, I probably mistook you
for another person, I apologize...
My dear Mr. Haller!...
Somebody told me you were already here Why didn't you tell us?
Are you going to stay here for long?
No, I'm staying here only for a few days?
Therefore I was informed correctly.
Well, yes... I...
Oh, you are already here!...
Look what I've read in this newspaper,
this miserable Haller!
Who's this? An author?
An author?! ...Oh, how kind are you! no!
A publicist and a very rotten one.
A publicist who must be a
poor devil without country
somebody who's slashing the Kaiser.
Here, read it yourself.
Maybe he should base himself
on real facts, here it is...
He says our fatherland is not less
responsible for the outbreak of war
than its enemies.
Oh, let's go to the table, please...
- Thanks...
Something strange happened to me today.
Really?!
Yes... I was going out of the library
I had nothing in mind
in that precise moment
I was descending the stairs...
on my way to the suburbs, when suddenly...
...I saw a group of people
like in a procession...
it was a funeral...
Oh my god!
Do you feel alright my love!
Sorry... it was just a thought...
...I apologize.
I pray for a hero to be born...
a miraculous birth not to be excluded...
able to penetrate the minuscule details...
the contours of our archetype
that filters outside...
the apocalypse is our only hope.
I understand.
Let us hope that Goethe did not really look like this.
This conceited air of nobility...
the great man ogling the
distinguished company...
and beneath the manly exterior what
a world of charming sentimentality!
Certainly there is much to say against him.
Oh, my god!
Darling do you feel alright?!
He sure would renounce to your company...
this is really lamentable.
I have to retire.
That bust of Goethe belongs to my wife, it's
one of her most treasured possessions...
believe me...
It is our more cherished cultural heritage.
These objects are representations of our gods.
...I am really sorry.
You should've been a bit more correct...
you shouldn't have expressed yourself
in such a way about the subject.
It is a habit, a vice of mine,
always to speak up my mind...
as indeed Goethe did too
in his better moments.
I do apologize to you and to your wife.
Please, tell her I am an schizophrenic
and now if you let me,
it is time for me to go
but, you haven't finished your coffee!
It stimulates our discussions...
Your opinions on Mithras e Krishna
have left a deep impression on me...
I was expecting today we could have
a chance to raise this subject.
I'm grateful you say that but my interest
about Krishna have completely vanished.
As well as my taste for
erudite conversation.
Besides I've lied to you
I haven't recently arrived to this city, in
fact I've been here for a few months already!
The thing is that I wasn't feeling alright to
participate in familiar gatherings, because...
First I was always in a very bad
humour due to my gout problems.
Second because I was
drunk most of the times.
And finally, for not passing as a liar.
That publicist with no fatherland, that loafer
known by the name of Haller and myself...
are one and the same person.
It would be essentially
better for the world...
that all the few people capable
of thought stood for reason...
and the love for peace instead of...
for god's sake...!
Heading wildly with a blind
obsession for a new war.
Have a good night.
The wolf in me howled in gleeful triumph, and a
dramatic struggle between my two selves followed.
It was my leave-taking from the respectable, moral and
learned world, and a complete triumph for the Steppenwolf.
Be a disappointment or a little scandal,
at the end, it was just another failure.
I wish I could live
happier days but... how?!
But that's of no importance as
everything ends the same way always.
What a hideous day of shame and wretchedness
it had been from morning to night.
For what? And why? This very night
I would make an end of the comedy,
go home and cut my throat.
No more tarrying.
Simply choose something and
everything ends the same way.
Everything goes in the same direction.
Simply choose something and
everything ends the same way...
And there is no way on finding a way out...
just a something in between desperation and
cowardice ...between desperation and cowardice...
Maybe cowardice wins today... maybe tomorrow also...
and everyday... why not.
It will become a desperation that
will grow each passing day...
a kind of self contempt...
It will go even farther than
that, again and again...
even to the point of discarding myself
completely and finally... when...
Hi.
You seem to have a pain in your fingers.
Is it any better?...
do still feel pain?
Where am I?
You should well know by now?
I have no idea...
In the Black Eagle.
Come to the Black Eagle if a
human being is what you need!
Take it easy!...
I will attend you.
What's the matter?...
Shouldn't you be at home now?
No... yes... It's just
that I cannot go home now.
You can stay here if you wish.
What is this?
You can do whatever you want with this.
It may sound like a joke but
you can use it as a scape...
or you can use it to defend yourself.
Look yourself in this mirror.
You have to admit you are afraid...
Wait... unless you clean your eyeglasses
you won't be able to see anything.
Well... what are we going to drink...
Burgundy?
Why are you carrying a razor?
I always carry a razor with me as well...
do you carry it often?
Usually yes.
Why?
Oh, you should now it is a
long and complicated story
I will tell it to you some day.
A friend of mine forgot it in my apartment.
I presume you must have a lot of friends.
Yes indeed, don't you?
No.
No.
Oh, you look like a nice boy.
Although I'd swear you don't obey anybody
do I look like it?
To obey is like eating or the act of sex..
When you've been a long time not
doing it there's nothing like it.
Is it not true that you like to obey?
What do you think?
Maybe you have another opinion...
No.
Good. Then... let's start.
We cleaned your eyeglasses,
you've already eaten...
now we'll clean your shoes
and then we'll dance...
I cannot do what you are asking
me for, I just cannot dance...
Oh, that's too bad!
I never learned how, what should I say?
I'm a lost case...
It'd be a good idea to practice
at home, put your feet over...
You're a bit nervous!
You've never tried it with
anybody, why are you so nervous?
No woman?
No lover?
I'm divorced.
Well, I have a lover but
she doesn't live here.
We rarely see each other, anyway
we don't get on very well
I think you are a very difficult person.
Because no one sticks to you.
I admit I am a very impulsive person,
I'm crazy, a desperate case,
without solution completely...
What is this?
The saddest melody played by the
smallest violin player ever.
You should control your nerves
maybe your life would improve.
You know what I mean.
But now tell me what was particularly wrong this evening.
What sent you chasing round out of your wits.
Whatever you feel like telling me.
Gosh, I'm glad I'm not your mother.
Oh, Harry! Sorry, I have to
go, I have a compromise...
with who?
Oh, nothing really interesting.
With a friend.
Although, maybe... you could come with me.
Why didn't you ask me before?
Well, I'm asking to you now.
A bit too late.
That's right.
What about tomorrow?
Maybe.
...but... just a moment!...
At least tell me your name!
Oh, and now you ask?!
...you are a very strange man!...
Maybe you could guess.
Margaret? ...Molly? ...Madelaine?
Maybe next time. On tuesday... we can
have dinner at the "Old Franciscan".
Are you coming or what?!
Of course it's not a place that matches
your standards but I'd like to go there.
I wish you dream of Saint Francis.
Are you devoted to him?
No, but I'm serious about it.
I hate when all those liars...
satisfy themselves with those picture
representing the Sacred Francis.
Everywhere, I feel it is like a defamation.
In spite I disgruntle their "San Francis"
I carry mine inside my heart.
The picture I have of him...
is that of a human being, maybe not very true.
People have their own dreams and fancies I guess.
You can sleep here tonight...
if you feel you cannot go home.
You can have this also.
Nobody forces me to stay here...,
I must leave as you might understand.
That's all then.
Golden slumbers.
You excellency... will receive you now.
As a man related to Goethe and as a
correspondent to a magazine here I am.
...not as any man in particular.
Should I explain any further
or tell about other things?
What "other things"?
You...
You... young person!
Oh, Mister Goethe it's
clear your excellency...
You believe our efforts are
quite small, am I wrong?
We, the young ones, are not much
in accord with your excellency.
You've openly said little about us...
You are too solemn and too conceited
for us, not very sincere.
This should be the most
important thing to say.
What kind of words are these?,
explain more clearly please.
For instance you...
you have clearly recognized and felt the
riddle and the hopelessness of human life...
a desperation clearly
acknowledged, am I wrong?
Yet you gave up your whole life
to preaching its opposite...
giving utterance to faith and optimism...
and spreading before yourself
and others the illusion that
our spiritual strivings
mean something and endure.
You mister must feel a terrible objection against
the "Magic Flute" by Mozart, am I wrong?
How come can you assert such a thing?
The Magic Flute was
optimism and conviction.
Although Mozart never got
to your 82 years of age..
That doesn't matter. He composed
his melodies and died young.
This is not within your personal life,
this transcendental assertions...
his dignity will remain
as long as you will!
You have a musty idea about Mozart!
...he should've been a professor.
That's unfair.
We immortals do not like things
to be taken so seriously...
how come can you say this?
That has no value at all.
Don't you neglect anything in
this particular occasion?...
Yours is your solitude, your defeats, your
sadness and your loath for day to day life,
the desperation that burns inside...
...your suffering impresses me...
you think in a far too civilized fashion.
Do you dance... "Boston?"
No, of course not...
I never had the time to learn...
Seriousness is a consequence of time.
You give too much value to time.
As you can see time doesn't
exist, neither eternity.
Life is just a moment in time, its
duration has no value whatsoever.
Orquids.
Oh, Harry, you are just a fool...
Sorry, I didn't know you don't like them.
It's not that.
I think Orquids are very expensive.
Never mind...
Thank you very much but I don't want
you to bring me presents again.
Neither I want to live of your money.
Sorry I thought...
yes, what you thought is correct...
I make a living out of men, but I don't
want to do that with you, never...
Today you look like another person...
The other day I was with a man and
now I'm with another one completely.
Do you like it?
Almost... you look more
like a human being now.
But there is a lot to do yet.
Anyway, I think that's a good start.
Did you do what I ordered?
What did you order?
I'm asking if you learned
how to dance Foxtrot.
But can I learn so quickly? Just overnight?
You can learn Foxtrot in an hour...
or Boston in just two...
Tango takes a bit longer although
this one is not necessary to learn.
You'll be dancing without thinking about it.
It'll be to you...
as easy as to think, you'll see.
We'll take this one.
We could've bought this one later
after checking other shops...
Never mind, we saw this one first.
It's fun to go shopping. People
have to enjoy it greatly.
Thank you very much. Bye.
Now you know how many lies fall upon me...
But now I really must know your name.
Perhaps you can guess it.
No. Dear! ...You remain me of some one...
Somebody from my childhood,
somebody called Rosa Kreisler.
But she had dark hair.
Who was that Rosa Kreisler?
My first love. We were 14 years olds.
Although she never knew about it.
I never gathered the courage to tell her.
Not even a word?!
No.
Oh, Harry that's too sad!
Maybe she considered you a looney
I don't think she thought that of me.
Yes
I don't know if you...
yes, I think you do...
Hermann...
Hermann! ...Hermine!
See, you can see it. It
was not so difficult.
But how will I be able to win your heart?
You don't remember what you promised me!
You know everything, Hermine...
you are so different from me,
You say you should command,
this would make you very happy,
To obey all my commands...
Nevertheless you are so different from me.
Or just the opposite to me but...
you have all I lack.
Then you will obey all my commands.
Yes.
I thought you would be glad
to obey all my commands.
You'll have to keep your
promise or you will regret it.
You are going to listen to what I have
to say about my life and then obey me.
Alright... and what will
the ultimate command be?
You have to do the sign of the
cross over your heart everyday.
Swear it.
I'll do the sign of the cross
over my heart everyday.
Alright, and it's necessary to do
it now because I'm desperate..
It's vital somebody pushes me to the
water, to bring me to life again.
Also it is precise that you...
no... not now, later.
That you fall in love with me.
And it's vital that you do something
beautiful, something important for me.
This one will be my last command.
What will I have to do then?
To kill me.
Come here!
You cannot say I didn't tell you!
Forgive me.
Who's this?
Erica.
This is her photo.
Of the lover who never loved me.
And this is?
You have to guess now.
Definitively it's the real Hermann?
...It's his picture.
We were interned in a protestant seminary.
He was my only friend. He just
could stand seven months there.
He was quite good at everything,
maths, latin, greek...
We barely had water to wash ourselves.
We were of the opinion...
that this type of education was of the
lowest kind that could ever exist.
And that all it did was...
to administer the transformation of human
nature into something servile to the state.
One day, he jumped over
the fence and fled.
And I never found him again, never.
And...?
I learned he took a job
in a textile factory...
after that he turned into a commercial
assistant in a library in Tbingen,
He published a work of
his, a book of poems...
...then, after that, he
shot himself in the head.
And you find this admirable?
At least he spared himself the
miseries and horrors of war.
Yes I admire him much, for his courage.
Virtually I admire him.
Since then, I can assure you, there hasn't
been a day I haven't thought about him.
Although I didn't think that he...
But... are you leaving now?
I got to go.
We could go to dance tomorrow at the hotel.
You don't understand, I
cannot possibly dance!
Oh! What a stupid thing to say!
No, I haven't learned how to dance at all,
to dance one has to have
certain abilities such as:
Happiness, innocence, silliness, energy.
I lack all these.
I wouldn't be so certain.
Remember you are under my command.
And what makes you think I'm
going to obey your command?
What's wrong with you... why do you stay
sitting there like that?... go dancing.
But I don't know anyone.
You have to ask.
Don't you like that girl over there?
The one there...
how would it be like...
I cannot, if I were young
and handsome maybe...
You are a coward!
She's going to laugh at me!
Poor Harry!...
If I laughed at you, you
wouldn't mind me really.
You have to risk at being
a figure of laugh.
I... I cannot do that.
C'mon!
Would you allow me to
dance this song with you?
To be honest I've already
somebody to dance with.
Oh, I do apologize...
although... he is still in the bar...
never mind, let's go.
I've learned to do this
in too short a time...
It doesn't matter, you must
move them at the same time.
My compliments... For how
long have you been here?
Oh! ...Maybe four, five days...
I've been here for a long time.
Pablo. This is my friend Harry.
Pleased to meet you... Pleased to meet you
I want to see you there as soon as possible.
Is that understood?
...me too.
Cigarette? ...No? ...if you don't mind me.
Is he rich?
No.
He's very attractive.
Yes, very attractive.
Jimmy was looking for you yesterday.
He wanted to speak to you.
Dear, Harry?
...do you like the music here?
Yes... yes and not.
It's not the kind of music that I
like, I don't give much credit to it.
Then what type of music do you like?
A bit of Jazz... but that's not real music.
Yours... is it jazz music?
Is it required a name for that?
Anyway... there are big differences between
that and our symphonic traditions.
Of course... that's true...
What about if I already
felt passionate about you?
Oh, you want to make me happy... I can sense that...
you are grateful to me,
I've taken you out of your solitude but...
There's still a long way to go.
Maybe you think the same way.
This shows you know very little about it.
No!... I don't have the right to
make you feel passionate about me!
Why?
That's part of my job.
I make a living out of this... of
making men feel passionate about me.
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
...Thank you... Thank you... Much obliged.
Wonderful, isn't it?...
She is a very beautiful girl, isn't she?
Why don't you sleep with her?
Do you want me?...
Don't be so stubborn.
You don't have to marry immediately,
you shouldn't take this so seriously either.
I guess you take love too seriously.
Isn't it true you are thinking
on sleeping with a woman again?
Is it not true Steppenwolf?
Believe me, I don't have such intentions...
Please...
Bye Alfredo, good night.
Shall we go someplace else?...
We got to go on, after all
I'm leaving this city soon.
The whole night?
Why not?
I feel tired.
I can cure that.
Excuse me sir...
please accept our friendship,
Could you please take this
for a second, thanks...
Pablo always administers everything.
Everything?
Everything, anything.
It's very good!
It is not always available as a whim...
but you can get it when it's a need.
But, what are we waiting for?
Let's go!
I wasn't expecting to go back home as...
I had no compromises.
The following night I would
drink whisky and dance,
and nothing would be against me,
I ended up forgetting the anger and
bitterness I felt thanks to Hermine.
She was very objective
saying I should change.
Inside me everything was strange and confused,
the weight of the world was moving inside me,
Where the best of me was. However
I would remain always a stranger.
Hello, finally you are here!
Psst!...
How did you get in here...?
...Tell me, is Pablo one
of your lovers too?
Sincerely?
No.
He always works tired...
A person can wake up easily.
Do you want a handsome partner like him?
Or an attractive man like me?
You are not in a competition.
Oh.
I love you.
Why are you so shy... so tender...
Because I see in your eyes what
is beautiful... we are alike.
He is the opposite.
He doesn't do anything for me...
He only uses me...
But a life without love is
something I wouldn't endure.
Maria, I love you.
Pablo says I have to be nice to you...
Because you are always so unhappy.
I'd like to know,
how he determines your own desires.
He can see it in your eyes. He says you
haven't a notion of what love is like.
Mr. Haller! ...I want to park here my car.
Good morning, Pablo!
I have something to ask you,
..would you lend me 20 francs?
Then you will be able to
sleep with Maria tonight.
You don't know what you are saying.
I don't want to give you any money.
Nothing.
I haven't heard your petition
...what's the nature of this foolishness...
where did you get this car?
In this case you won't sleep with Maria!
It is you who creates
your own difficulties.
If you give me money I'll give
it to you back, am I wrong?
It's for Agostino, the fiddler...
he is sick you know!
Why didn't you tell me that at once?
Will you tell me about the car?
I've borrowed it.
From who?
I don't know, it doesn't matter!
God almighty, you are in a
borrowed car already...
I must be very expensive
it looks pretty good.
Listen... this car's got
here 60hps below the...
They can see me, but they never pick me up.
Nevertheless, it doesn't matter for sure...
Good morning!...
Harry get in! ...Hurry up,
hurry up, hurry up, quick!
Oohh-hooo!!!!...
Why Pablo... why this?
Why don't you ever want to
talk about music with me?
Oh, you know more about the subject that I do.
I hardly know about it.
It's all the same for me.
But not all is the same. Nevertheless, no!
...no, it cannot be.
Simply to put Mozart in comparison
with a foxtrot... He is different...
Do you understand?
I don't put anything into any category..
To me what lasts is good.
...Pablo...
Say, Pablo... what do you
expect from life... from music?
You're always asking...!
...one laugh...
...one little laugh...
...a pass time... nothing...
To celebrate parties.
...a connoisseur...
A crowded venue in order
not to get bankrupt.
Now that you are into it.
What do you expect?
Light.
Light is there, deep inside...
But you need to cast your own shadow...
Then you'll see it.
Don't you want to celebrate
an orgy together?
...No, no, thank you.
But, we are all friends...
It's simply that he doesn't want.
Regrettably... he is too morally minded.
Nothing can be done.
But...
it could've been so beautiful...
incredibly beautiful...
...I guess I must sleep a bit...
Suppose the wife of a king turns into...
a lover...
of a revolutionary, a sister of a genius...
Life only allows me to be a
courtesan of a fairly good taste...
But I'm glad I'll never be it.
But... don't you ask for more?
Always.
What?
An eternity.
...Where do you expect to find it?
We are in the road of life.
In the kingdom on the other
side of time and appearances.
The pious call it the kingdom of God, even
though no one knows of it or sees it...
However If we belong to each
other our house could be there.
Ah, Harry, we have to stumble,
through so much dirt and humbug...
before we reach home...
And we have no one to guide us. Our
only guide is our homesickness.
And now I'll say goodbye.
Then, friends and lovers...
will have a night divine...
I'll see you at the party...
Oh what is this, can you
let me through please!
Thank you!
Dance with me!
Please...!
Harry!... what are you disguised of?
A penguin?
Pablo, maybe there's a way you can
help me, have you seen Hermine?...
I have been looking for her everywhere!
I'm a bit desperate.
Here everyone is wearing a mask!
Only you can call her.
You will find her.
You condemn me once again,
will I see you in a while?
No, No, No!...
no, because of your sense of humour!
...not tonight.
Lost your number?
...take my ticket!
TONIGHT AT THE MAGIC THEATRE...
FOR MADMEN ONLY... HERMINE IS IN HELL...
Hey! Dance with me!
Not now! ...I'm bound for hell!
C'mon!...
Maria...
Hermine has called me.
She is in Hell.
Don't worry about it my dear...
Goodbye, Harry...
I will love you... for ever...
Goodbye?
Hermann...
Harry? ...Hermine, Hermann...
Did you call me?
Is this the costume, Hermine, in which you
mean to make me fall in love with you?
You are ready to go through hell...
in order to find.
And... are you coming with me?
You dream with this,
reality is not outside.
You have a longing to forsake this world,
it's about time...
to enter a more suitable reality
for you, a world beyond time.
I cannot give you a world
which no longer exists.
I can give you nothing that has not
already its being within yourself.
I cannot give you anything
more, just a lonely chance.
Harry, I'll help you.
I invite you to a little entertainment.
FOR MADMEN ONLY...
PRICE OF ADMITTANCE YOUR MIND.
Do you understand?...
...your mind.
And now... I'll show you
our little Magic Theatre.
It has as many doors as you might wish...
behind every door there's something waiting for
you exactly the thing you are looking for.
Now you have to give your permission,
You will introduce yourself to it
by means of a trifling suicide.
You feel okay, don't you?
The long awaited conquest of
time and the scape from reality
this was always your desire although
others might not find any meaning to it.
As your wish is related to
personality it could be unique.
It only takes you to behold the reflexion
of this mirror as a sincere vision.
Excellent, Harry...
Excellent, Harry... you will learn
how to laugh like an immortal.
You yearned for this world, for this time,
for yourself, to leave this reality...
The illusion of the Magic Theatre. There
are only mirrors here, never reality...
It's got as many doors...
Pablo... Pablo... Hermine... Hermine...
You know well, you are
hiding in an unreal world...
which is...
a world inside your soul,
the one you are seeking...
a world beyond time.
Said this, my friend, I invite you to this.
The desire, the desire to hold her...
the game of feelings, a union of hands...
gliding eyes which gently smoulder you...
she hides her revealed nudity,
finding two thoughts of
a third place where...
on a lake, in a dark night...
nothing resists you, like a
wave which happens to bestow.
...behind every door...
Kamasutra. Lessons on amatory art.
A Hindu course for beginners.
42 different methods to practice love.
Mu tabor... transformation into
any animal or plant you wish.
Quintessence of art!
Gustav!... how nice to see you again!
Whatever became of you!
A professor on theology,
that's what I became!
However, time has come
to fight these beasts!
What's going on here?
Fighting!...
Finally you are into it, we'll go in our
way to fight the machines!... c'mon!
You always yearned for that,
didn't you Harry or what?
The War Against the Machines!
I'm not listening to you!
All this display of madness leads to chaos
which at the same time threats with anarchy.
Intellectuals must finish
with the incitement...
giving benediction to order, to
work, to property, to culture...
to defend law and justice.
Why do we have to fight
against the machines?
As the last invention of the human
race machines were created so...
humans could become gods, finally
human beings will be free! - Oh!
How do you find this?
Oh, I like it, but... we choose
to go to some other party!
Traitors! Criminals! Finally
it was all for this!
...C'mon quick! ...Get out of here!
...get your hands off me!
Before I go I'd like to say this...
this is not patriotic of you at all!
Do you see this...
Help me to leave this gear in place.
We will give a reception
to them when they show up.
Once I was a militant opponent to war.
Where does this desire for killing come from?
It is completely incomprehensible.
Not completely! ...lt is pure childishness.
All that war is really about!
Childishness in a monumental scale.
Yes indeed... you are right, nothing is really a
feat, otherwise, valuable ideals would emerge!
This is a thing of either
Americans or Bolshevists!
Both are extremely rationalistic.
They simplify life and end
up violating it terribly.
You are very intelligent, Harry... and maybe
you are right, just like a little book.
But cars are too strong and resistant.
We cannot kill them with philosophy.
Then get yourself free
from men and their ideas!
Bravo! Hurray, hurray. Hurray!
Can I ask... who's honouring us
with his fortunate presence?
I'm Attorney-General Loering.
Why did you shoot at us?
For exceeding the speed limit.
We were not traveling at
more than normal speed.
What was normal yesterday
is no longer normal today,
We are of the opinion that the speed...
of the car you were travelling
with was much too fast.
We will destroy all cars,
everything, all the machines.
Please get off, your car
is about to be destroyed.
I prefer to be destroyed
with it rather than be...
like you want to be.
It will be always incomprehensible
for me as a human being.
You basically make a living out of
accusing and condemning poor devils,
to condemn, to kill.
I do my duty, something which
is obviously unknown to you.
What duty were you called for here?!
Since the day I was born I was
condemned to live as a soldier.
Obliged to belong to a state, to
kill, to pay taxes for armament.
Even as a second choice I
wouldn't be able to abandon.
You bore me. Be so kind as
to do your work, please.
My dear, do you know how to use fire arms?
You can teach me.
I imagined this would
satisfy your appetite.
Do you have a band-aid for my finger?...
It is bleeding a lot...
In what should we transform ourselves now?!
Any idea?
My friend Harry is acquainted
with happy beautiful girls,
he will take care of you, let's go.
If you had bananas and cucumbers for
this occasion I could make something.
Meanwhile...
As many doors as desires you have, and behind every door
something is waiting for you, the one you are looking for.
You were living your tiresome life, you
make an effort to be here, nothing is real!
You were yearning for this world, this time
frame, for yourself, to leave reality...
Fall of the Western world.
Lowered prices never matched!
And now you will see a more appropriate
reality breaking in, a world beyond time.
Delightful suicide. You will
laugh yourself to bits.
Do you wish to be spiritual? To be a
connoisseur of everything Oriental?
Kamasutra.
- Lessons in the amatory art from hindus.
Love for eyes and concatenation of heart,
Evaporation of modesty:
As many doors as desires you have. An eye
of love, an ear of love, a tongue of love,
A stallion of love, a cat of love, an
elephant of love, a pigeon of love,
a cock of love, a nightingale of love,
a rainbow of love, a sun of love, an
orange of love, a pomegranate of love...
Pablo?...
Who are you?
I'm not any one.
I'm just a chess player.
Do you wish a lesson...
on deconstruction of your personality?
Yes please.
- Put some of your pieces at my disposition.
My pieces...?
The pieces into which you saw your so-called
personality broken up. Without them I cannot play.
Which one of them is you?...
Error. You are all of them.
To divide the personality of a person in
many parts is madness, that's schizophrenia.
People have to live with this...
Behold!
It's a game, you say...
Life. The art of living.
We will show you that in the future you can
build yourself a game at your own will,
a game which will no longer turn into pieces arbitrarily any time.
Order them and reform it all again...
you'll have an infinite variety
for yourself to play with...
Harry?
Is this a desire from heaven above...
to see you again?
You look so nice... in
spite these wounds... yes.
My dear Harry! I have always wondered
if I could have become your wife...
all these years...
You didn't give me anything, Rosa.
The last time we saw each other...
that day, you... felt the same for me...
That's true... I admit, I was in a hurry!
But I was terribly afraid...
I was only 15 years old.
My heart beats this way inside me...
really?...
I cry with its sound...
I was oblivious... It never
happened that way...
but you didn't know that I was...
I could have killed myself. Believe me, Rosa...
believe me, sometimes it burns me...
...there was a terrible fire inside me...
I was under command of ruining forces...
I decided to go, it was better for you.
All girls are yours.
I always dreamed I would
become your baby...
I offer you my breasts to kiss them,
Drink a cup of desire.
I would have satiated your
hunger for sex, but you...
you just sat beside me for nearly quarter of
an hour beside the window of a express train,
I will teach you to dream without fear,
with love and mortal acts.
I was expecting you to
be different from them.
Hermine!...
Hermine!
Then... have a great
pleasure in your reverie.
Don't do anything, all you got
to do is to remain quiet.
Hermine!
But I need from you.
I need you to do for me something
beautiful and important.
This will be my last desire.
To kill me.
Mozart...!
It goes all right without the saxophone...
though I shouldn't wish to tread on
the toes of that famous instrument.
Where are we?
We are in the last act of Don Giovanni.
Leporello is on his knees.
A superb scene, and, well,
the music is fine too...
There is a lot in it, certainly, you can hear
the other world in it - the laughter, eh?
From now on, the laughter...
- The efficiency, the strength...
That became the greatest
ultimate music ever.
Don't over strain yourself, you are
a musician yourself, I perceive.
Now I've given up to the trade...
and retired to take my ease...
it is only for amusement that I look
on at the business now and then.
Look, there's Brahms.
He is striving for redemption, but...
it will take him all his time.
And Wagner...
- Excessive instrumentation was the fault of their time.
Anyway thick orchestration was in any case
neither Wagner's nor Brahms's personal failing.
- It was nobody's fault.
- Certainly it wasn't whatsoever.
Neither was Adam's fault to eat from the
apple and carry the weight of eternal sin.
Nevertheless, that's terrible.
Certainly, life is always terrible.
But we can do nothing about it...
However we are responsible
of blaming people.
You must have received a very
special religious education,
not to know about such things.
Therefore should I feel a kind of
responsibility for all the books I've written?
Your books are dispensable,
You are not dispensable!
You should have had a life, your own love affairs!
Pay within two interminable purgatories, come!
Mr. Mozart...? ...shush!...
Listen to the sound!
...We open now the symphony by Bach.
My god, Mr. Mozart, what are you doing?!
Do you hear this?!...
that must be... this horrible machine
...it is a slaughter of music!
You exaggerate! ...Listen to this machine
without either pathos or mockery...
hear this, you hear sounds from
the past coming to life again!
An excellent music for an excellent life!
You possess no radio, neither
the divine nor the human.
People like you are not
entitled to criticize radio.
Or is it that you have
done better yourself?
Learn from life listening
first instead, my dear!
To learn what from who?!,
I don't understand...
You are a joker Harry... you can be that also.
Can you explain this?
Had this beautiful girl nothing to
desire of you but the stab of a knife?
What a facade ...pretending
to be a wise man!
Behold the consequences of your
gallantry against this lady,
Or do you think of
avoiding the consequences?
No, don't you understand at all? I have
no other desire than to pay and pay...
to lay my head beneath the axe and
pay the penalty of annihilation!
How pathetic you always are, Harry!
But you will learn humour yet.
No humor.
THE EXECUTION OF HARRY
Humor is always gallows-humor, and it is on the
gallows you are now constrained to learn it.
- Are you ready for it?
- I'm ready.
Gentlemen... Harry Haller. See yourselves.
Accused and found guilty...
of the willful misuse of our magic theatre.
Haller has not alone insulted
the majesty of art...
in that he confounded our beautiful
picture gallery with so-called reality...
and stabbed to death the reflection of
a girl with the reflection of a knife.
He, as I said, placed
inside our Magic Theatre...
has in addition displayed the intention of using our theatre
as a mechanism of suicide, showing himself devoid of humour.
Subsequently... our will is to condemn Harry...
to eternal life...
and we suspend for twelve hours
his permit to enter our theatre.
However, Harry, you have disappointed me
a little, you forgot yourself badly...
you tried to make a mess of my little theatre, stabbing
with knives and spattering our pretty picture-world...
...with the mud of reality.
You have got to learn to laugh. You must
apprehend the humour of life. You can be cured.
Pablo, I'm starting to
understand!, now I understand!...
And Goethe... all these figures of my
life are like pieces inside my pocket...
...oh, yes, I'm ready with all my heart...
How do you desire it, Harry? This isn't over, you know...
this is hardly a beginning.
Where do I have to start?
Say "how"... with innocence...
not running backwards... but looking ahead,
not as a wolf but as a child...
without guilt... heading for the next life.
We also have reserved for the
accused an unequal penalty.
I order the tribunal to proceed...
Gentlemen, all together, one-two-three!