1919
aren't you lonely
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NARRATOR: There he lies. God rest his soul, and his rudeness. A devouring public can now share the remains of his sickness, and his phone numbers. There he lay...poet, prophet, outlaw, fake. Star of electricity. Nailed by a peeping Tom who would soon discover... JUDE: ...a poem is like a naked person. NARRATOR: Even the ghost was more than one person... ARTHUR: ...but a song is something that walks by itself. [Bob Dylan's "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" plays during opening credits] [Verse 1] Aw, the ragman draws circles Up and down the block I'd ask him what the matter was But I know that he don't talk And the ladies treat me kindly And they furnish me with tape But deep inside my heart I know I can't escape Oh, Mama Can this really be the end To be stuck inside of Mobile With the Memphis blues again? [Verse 2] Well, Shakespeare, he's in the alley With his pointed shoes and his bells Speaking to some French girl Who says she knows me well And I would send a message To find out if she's talked But the post office has been stolen And the mailbox is locked Oh, Mama Can this really be the end To be stuck inside of Mobile With the Memphis blues again? [Verse 7] Now the rain man gave me two cures Then he said, "Jump right in" The one was Texas medicine The other was just railroad gin And like a fool I mixed them And it strangled up my mind And now people just get uglier And I have no sense of time Oh, Mama Can this really be the end To be stuck here inside of Mobile With the Memphis blues again? [EXT: Traintracks] Woody runs up to a moving train, and throws his guitar case into an open car before climbing aboard himself. He stumbles, waking up the two hobos asleep in the car next to him. HOBO JOE: Hey. How old are you, boy? WOODY GUTHRIE: Eleven years old. HOBO JOE: Oh. What's your name, son? WOODY: Woody. Woody Guthrie. HOBO MOE: Just like the singer. WOODY: Way I see it, singin's kept me right in this world more than any Bible's ever done. And somethin' else I learned Takes just about a fountain pen to get yourself robbed. Woody puts down his guitar case which says 'THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS' HOBO MOE: Hey, Joe. What do you make about that? HOBO JOE: Uh, son...you wouldn't be stashin' no weapons in that case of yours? WOODY: No, sir. Not in any literalized way. What'd you say his name was? [INT: GOVERNMENT FACILITY] ARTHUR: A- R-T-H- GOVERNMENT AGENT: Please sit down. ARTHUR: A-R-T-H-U-R...R-I-M-B-A-U-D. GOVERNMENT AGENT: Born October 20th. That makes you 19, nearly 20. Is that correct? ARTHUR: That's correct...So what's all this about? [INT: TRAIN CAR] WOODY: Well, Missouri, originally. A little town called Riddle. But all over, really. Been to Gallup, Phillipsburg, Sioux Falls... HOBO MOE: I got me a cousin in Sioux Falls. HOBO JOE: Yeah! That's right. Is- is there really a town called Riddle? WOODY: Tell you the flat truth, that's sort of a... a whatchamacallit. A, uh... HOBO JOE: A composite. WOODY: A compost heap is more like it. Laughs. WOODY: Truth is, my mind got mixed with ramblin' when I was, oh, so young. I reckon it was Arvella Gray, the blind protest singer from Chicago. She first taught me the blues, four...about five years back. That's also when I first started writin' songs on my own. I've written some hillbilly songs. You know Carl Perkins, from Nashville? HOBO JOE: Yeah, yeah. WOODY: He sings some of my songs. Yep. Talkin' blues kind of stuff, you know? Union songs. I also played piano with Bobby Vee. I would've been a millionaire if I stayed with him. HOBO JOE: Well, what brings you around these parts? WOODY: [Sighs] Carelessness. [Bob Dylan's "Moonshiner" plays] I lost my one true love. Camera pans outside train car, showing a sign with arrows pointing forward that says 'INDIAN JEWELRY COLD BEER KACHINA DOLLS LIQUOR SAND PAINTINGS GROCERIES' And I started drinking. Next thing I know, I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. One night, I meet up with a Chinaman working at a dime store who says he loves my sound. And next thing I know, I'm all booked up at his boss's establishment. [FLASHBACK: Woody sits in a house. He looks out the window and sees a truck that says: "Smith Brothers Carnival"] [INT: CARNIVAL TENT] CARNY (Introducing Woody): The Tiny Troubadour! ["Moonshiner" plays] I've been a moonshiner For 17 long years Woody comes on stage to boos, and thrown objects, before being thrown out of the Carnival tent, into the mud. Gorgeous George extends his hand to help him up. GORGEOUS GEORGE: There you go, boy. He hands Woody a slip of paper reading: "GORGEOUS GEORGE says: secrets are for keeping!" [INT: TRAIN CAR] WOODY: Of course, success ain't all it's cracked up to be, now. There's something sort of freakish, I suppose, setting someone up on stage apart from all the rest, when down in every boxcar, there's men of all ranges bouncing together. You got hobos, nobos, gentlemen loafers. One or all-time losers. Call us what you will. Deep down, we're all getting ready to tuck our heads under our wings for sleep. We of the Pullman side-car and the sunburned thumb. We ain't kidding ourselves. It's lonesome roads we shall walk. Til' I joined the Union cause! Woody starts playing Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" on his guitar HOBO JOE (Whispering to Hobo Moe): Don't he know it's 1959? We done unionized 20 years ago. [INT: GOVERNMENT FACILITY] GOVERNMENT AGENT: Records indicate that you've been away, that you've stopped writing. ARTHUR: I've been on too many streets to be doing the same thing over and over. Can I smoke in here? (pulls out cigarette) GOVERNMENT AGENT: You sound, for someone so widely known, a bit fatalistic. ARTHUR (with cigarette in his mouth): I'm not fatalistic. Bank tellers are fatalistic. Clerks are fatalistic. I'm a farmer. Who ever heard of a fatalistic farmer? [EXT: ARVIN HOUSE] [Woody, Old Man Arvin, and Mr. Arvin sit on the porch, playing "Tombstone Blues" WOODY (singing): The sweet, pretty things are in bed now, of course The city fathers, they're trying to endorse The reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse But the town has no need to be nervous OLD MAN ARVIN (continuing): The hysterical bride in the penny arcade Screaming, she moans, "I've just been made" Then sends out for the doctor who pulls down the shade Says, "My advice is to not let the boys in" Where Ma Raney and Beethoven once unwrapped their bed roll WOODY: Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole OLD MAN ARVIN: And the national bank for a profit sells road maps for the soul WOODY & OLD MAN ARVIN: To the old folks home and the college ALL: Mama's in the factory She ain't got no shoes Daddy's in the alley He's lookin' for food I'm in the kitchen With the tombstone blues OLD MAN ARVIN: Hey, hey, yeah The three of them laugh and hoot MR. ARVIN: Boy, look like you found...you found your freedom before you found your technique. [INT: ARVIN HOUSE] WOODY: Now, real American music come from the bottom up. You take Blind Willie McTell. He's the best blues singer east of Cannery Row. He say, "Son, if you can sing these songs and understand them, ain't no place you can't go. Mrs. Arvin pours Woody a glass of milk as she notices his foot restlessly tapping the ground Ah, thank you very much, ma'am. MRS. ARVIN: You're welcome. WOODY: I reckon I come out the womb singing and picking and playing and all that mess. MRS. ARVIN: So where your people at? Your kinfolk? WOODY: Oh, they back in Stockton, ma'am. California. That's where I was raised. I figured they got plenty of mouths to feed as it is. Not that I care a fig about material things, you know, except for maybe a decent car. See, us thumb-slummers and box-jumpers, we get a little peckish when it comes to cars, you know? OLD MAN ARVIN: That boy sound just like Doughboy Hawkins, a fella I met in the Dust Bowl. MRS. ARVIN: Tell you what I think. I think it's 1959, and this boy's singing songs about the boxcar? Hmm. What a boxcar gonna mean to him? Right here, we got race riots, folks with no food. Why ain't he out there singing about that? MR. ARVIN: The boy a guest in our house. MRS. ARVIN: I know he's a guest. I'm just trying to speak what's in my mi- WOODY: No! Say it. MRS. ARVIN: Live your own time, child. Sing about your own time. [CUT TO: SIXTIES FOLK DOCUMENTARY] SIXTIES NARRATOR: Greenwich Village, once the in spot for beatnik jazz and bebop, is today home to the popular folk music fad, a do-it-yourself musical expression that's attracted youngsters from all across the nation. For them, these homespun songs of the working man express a truth and candor sorely lacking in today's growing consumer society. (To Folk Girl) Why do you prefer folk music to other types of music? FOLK GIRL: Because it's honest. Commercial songs, pop music can't be honest. It's controlled and censored by the people who run society and make the rules. SIXTIES NARRATOR: Yet, among the many new and talented artists to emerge, one name stands alone as the heart and soul of this growing musical trend. A young individual who both writes and performs some of his era's finest tunes, and hailed by the New York Times as folk music's Troubadour of Conscience. His name is Jack Rollins. TV HOST: Jack Rollins, folk sensation of the early '60s, was the promise of a new generation. So what was it that made him run at the height of his career and throw it all away, trading in the limelight for a different kind of light altogether? ALICE FABIAN: He saw what was going on in the world, and he had the ability to distill it into a song. MORRIS BERNSTEIN: He could do a funny thing. He could do a pathos thing. He was sensational. JACK ROLLINS (singing "The Times They Are A-Changin'"): For the times, they are a-changin' (continues in background) VARIETY SHOW HOST: Now, this young man has taken to the hearts of young people who seem to somehow identify with, uh...Jack, why do you think that is? JACK: Well, I don't know. I... I guess...I got a lot of thoughts inside of me, and most people, they...they...keep them all inside. And I guess it's for them that I do what I do. TV HOST: Today, the name Jack Rollins might best be remembered as the tortured singer battling his conscience in the 1965 drama, Grain of Sand. The role, of course, that launched the career of Hollywood rebel Robbie Clark. [CUT TO SCENE FROM GRAIN OF SAND (1965)] ROBBIE CLARK: Hell, I don't pick what I sing. It picks me. Some of it ain't pretty. I mean, how you ever gonna change anything if you only wanna show what's pretty? TV HOST: In his first exclusive interview in 20 years...Tonight, we bring you face-to-face with the real Jack Rollins. JACK (singing "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"): William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll With a cane that he twirled 'round his diamond ring finger ALICE: He saw what was going on in the world, and he had the ability to distill it into a song. And this elevated the discussion. I mean, certainly within the folk world, but all through popular music, the bar had risen. TV HOST: Alice Fabian was herself a leading figure in the folk revival, achieving international success a few years before their first meeting in 1962. ALICE: (to her cat) Hey, you're in my chair. I was at a party in the Village, and this twerpy little kid who'd been hanging around, kind of flirting with my baby sister and kissing up to me, starts playing these songs that he'd written on guitar. Now, this was '61, '62, and all anybody sang were traditionals, and here's this kid, applying traditional form to contemporary concerns, but with such insight, you know? It was devastating. You couldn't believe this was coming out of this little toad. Nobody was writing songs like that. It was as if he was giving voice to ideas that I wanted to express but didn't know how. Um, his finger-pointing songs, he called 'em. He was churning them out like ticker tape. CARLA HENDRICKS: Well, folk music has always been a political music, but he was really expressing it as an art form in a way that was multileveled and very deep. JACK (continuing "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"): Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen She was 51 years old and gave birth to ten children Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage And never sat once at the head of the table And didn't even talk to the people at the table She just cleaned up all the food from the table And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane ALICE: Every night, I would call this ragamuffin on stage and introduce America to Jack Rollins. I'd say, you know, that he has something to say, you know, and that he is...he is speaking for me and everybody who wants a better world. JACK (continuing "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"): Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace And criticize all fears Bury the rag deep in your face Now is the time for your tears FAN #1: He knows how to peel the surface from what he sees. His songs are like a true vision of how things really are. FAN #2: Well, I just find he's the most piercing and aware insight working today. BERNSTEIN: You'd have thought we invented it, we were so pleased and proud. CUT TO: Album cover of Travelin' On by Jack Rollins (continuing) Sure, there was a certain tendency in the folk movement for nostalgia about the Depression and the radicalism that came out of it. They were coming out of a shitty time...the McCarthy era, Eisenhower era. So, as long as folk remained strictly a minority taste, it would always be us against the big, bad commercial tastelessness. But when the big, bad commercial tastelessness finally caught on to Jack, then, well, all of a sudden, the race was on. And this time, somebody was going to win. GERRY HAMLIN: He was a rebel. I wanted to record protest. Of course, that's right when we were getting into that whole Nam business. ALICE: Jack really stopped protesting after 1963. He said that you couldn't effect change with a song. You could only write about what was inside you, and folk music, he said, was, um...was fat people. He said it made him feel like the Establishment, you know, and he always fought the Establishment. [INT: ARVIN HOUSE - NIGHT] Mrs. Arvin tucks a sleeping Woody in, moving his guitar from his hands, and smiles [Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine" plays] You will search, babe At any cost Everybody will help you Some people are very kind [CUT TO: Woody running from the house in the morning] But if I can save you any time Come on, give it to me I'll keep it with mine [CUT TO: Mrs. Arvin checks on Woody, who is gone. She picks up a note left under the blanket, reads it, and looks outside. As she hears a train in the distance, she smiles knowingly] [INT: GOVERNMENT FACILITY] ARTHUR: You don't have to write anything down to be a poet. Some work in gas stations. Some shine shoes. I don't really call myself one, 'cause I don't like the word. Me, I'm a trapeze artist. Sighting it and hearing it and breathing it in, rubbing it all in the pores of my skin. And the wind between my eyes knocking honey in my comb. [INT: TRAIN CAR] Woody is sleeping on his guitar case on the floor of a train car. DRUNK (standing over Woody): You reckon he's some kind of midget? MOONSHINER: Get off of there, grunt! DRUNK: I ain't doing nothing! Woody wakes up, and jumps to his feet with a scream. THEIF: (to Drunk) Now look what you done! (To Woody) You talk English? WOODY: Yes, sir. THIEF: You carrying money, boy? Weapons? WOODY: N-No, sir. MOONSHINER: He's lying. THEIF: What's that? DRUNK: That your fiddle? Huh? The Drunk picks up Woody's guitar case WOODY: Give it back. DRUNK: Huh? MOONSHINER: What's it say on that thing? DRUNK: What you got stashed in here? WOODY: Nothing! Woody grabs his guitar case and runs to the open door of the moving train car. THEIF: Get him, boys! The three men and Woody wrestle for the guitar case. Woody kicks one of them in the shin, causing him to let go and yell in pain. Woody tumbles backward, out of the train car, which is on a bridge. Woody falls off the side of the bridge into the water below. [FLASHBACKS] CARNY: This here young'un, the Tiny Troubadour, is going to sing a little song. HOBO JOE: So what bring you around these parts? OLD MAN ARVIN: Could've sworn he was an older man. MRS. ARVIN: Live your own time, child. THEIF: Get him, boys! DRUNK: You reckon he's some kind of midget? MOONSHINER: He's lying! Woody is swimming and sees a large whale coming at him. He tries to swim away, but is swallowed. ARTHUR (voiceover): I dreamed of the Crusades. Republics without history. Secret religious wars. I believed in every kind of witchcraft. At first it was a study. I wrote out silences and nights. Later I determined vertigos. Claire, underwater, watches Woody being eaten, and raises her hand as a wave. [CUT TO: CLOCK TICKING] [INT: CLAIRE'S BEDROOM] Claire awakes to her alarm clock, and turns it off. [CUT TO: TV COMMERCIAL] COMMERCIAL NARRATOR: Here's the boot camps, with tanks, jeeps, bullet-shooting machine guns, and 80 soldiers. [INT. CLAIRE'S HOUSE] MOLLY (Age 6): I just don't want to go. CLAIRE: Oh, my poor, sad little thing. Do you know what a wonderful time you're going to have...on a boat with the water? Sounds pretty neat what your daddy's planned. CARLIE: Me, too! MOLLY: Why can't you come? CLAIRE: Molly, you know I can't come. Is that why...you think you're feeling nervous about the boat? Hmm? CARLIE: When's Daddy coming? CLAIRE: Uh, Saturday, I think. I only spoke to Sally because it's impossible to get your father on the phone. The doorbell rings CLAIRE: It's Emily. Molly, you didn't eat a thing. Bonjour, Hotel Georges V. How may I direct your call? Robbie... how can you whistle? Who was that on the phone? President Nixon has already given advanced word of what he will say to Vice President Agnew, to the Cabinet, and to the leaders of Congress. Now, here is the president. I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in southeast Asia. The following statement is being issued at this moment in Washington and Hanoi. At 12:30 Paris time today, January 23, 1973... Ain't it just like the night to play tricks When you're trying to be so quiet? That's when she knew it was over for good. The longest-running war in television history. The war that hung like a shadow over the same nine years as her marriage. Throughout the years of negotiations, we have insisted on peace with honor. Lights flicker from the opposite loft So why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? In this room, the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off Just Louise and her lover So entwined - And these visions - Thanks. Of Johanna That conquer my mind More menacing, Gladys. And... cut! Check the gate. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank each and every one of you. You made it marvelous for me. Cheers to all of you. Hey, Louise! Louise! So this is what salvation must be like After a while In entertainment news, actor Robbie Clark is finally heading home after four months abroad during the filming of Gangplank, his upcoming thriller. Rumors linking Clark to his London co-star, the lovely newcomer Louise Pickering, have been brewing for some time. She's all right, she's just near She's delicate and seems like the mirror But she just makes it All too concise and too clear That Johanna's not here Oh, the ghost of electricity Howls in the bones of her face Where these visions of Johanna Have now taken my place Don't you see, Alice? They took it all away. It's not about me anymore; it's all about him. Your guaranteed, double-your-money-back voice of the people. You didn't answer my question. Once, maybe, you could sing about Mary Hamilton and lemon trees, or you can step out like me and try and shake this flytrap. But they took away the meaning, Alice. I was a pawn in their game. And cut! We first met in New York, in January of '64 in the Village. They'd just buried their president. Love was in the air. - Wait, you're French? - Yeah, so? - Well, you gotta be kidding me. - Why? No, nothing. It's perfect. You kidding? I think you're making a joke. Oh, no. No, no, no. No joke. Then what else aside from being French you like so much about me? Your hair, your mouth, your eyes, your lips. I see. So, um... You're an actor. Yeah, yeah. So? I like what you said in that scene. Uh, what scene? But they were just lines from a movie. - They were not... - Wait, wait, wait. What scene? - What did you see? - The scene in the lane. Hmm. I would like to know what is at the center of your world. The center of my world? Uh... Well, you're no monkeying around. Why? It's very simple, this question. Um... hmm. Well, I'm 22. I guess I would say me. I suppose you're honest. Well, don't you think that you're the center or that you should be the center, thinking with your own head, talking with your own mouth? Yeah. But there are things in the world, too, that are important. I'm not denying that. That's not what I'm saying. Okay, thank you. New York, August 7, 1964. Congress grants President Johnson complete authority over the war in Vietnam while she studies painting at Cooper Union and he completes dubbing on his first major film. She tells him she's sure it'll be a hit. And the cats cross the roof, mad in love, scream into drainpipes, and it's I who am ready. Ready to listen. Never tired, never sad, never guilty. The guilty undertaker sighs The lonesome organ-grinder cries The silver saxophones say I should refuse you The cracked bells and washed out horns Blow into my face with scorn But it's not that way I wasn't born to lose you I want you I want you I want you so bad Honey, I want you The drunken politician leaps Upon the street where mothers weep And the saviors who are fast asleep They wait for you And I wait for them to interrupt Me drinking from my broken cup And ask me to open up the gate for you I want you I want you Yes, I want you so bad Honey, I want you Now all my fathers, they've gone down True love, they've been without it But all their daughters put me down 'Cause I don't think about it Well, I return to the Queen of Spades And talk with my chambermaid She knows and she's not afraid to look at her Shit! You all right? She is good to me and there's nothing she... Watch it! It's not a fucking can of tomatoes. But it doesn't matter I want you I want you Yes, I want you so bad Honey, I want you Now, your dancing child with his Chinese suit He spoke to me, I took his flute No, I wasn't very cute to him, was I? Okay, come on, let's go. But I did it because you lied And because he took you for a ride It is my bike, you know. Of course it is. Because I want you I want you Yes, I want you so bad All right, here we go. Watch your leg. - Change the gear! - I am, I am! - Change the gear! - Yeah, I know, I know. "It's wrong to say, 'I think. ' "One should say, 'I am thought. ' "I is someone else. "I am present at the birth of my thought. "I watch and I listen. "I draw a stroke of the bow. "A symphony stirs in the depths, "or comes with a leap to the stage. "It began with waves of disgust and it ends... as we can't immediately seize this eternity... it ends with a riot of perfumes. " Grain of Sand had become the underground hit of 1965, and Robbie Clark the new James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Jack Kerouac all rolled into one. But the movie disappointed her. The more they tried to make it youthful, the more the images on screen seemed out of date. It wasn't the film they had dreamed, the film they had imagined and discussed, the film they each wanted to live. Intriguing specimen, really. Amazing endocrine system. So, he'll be all right, then? Oh, he'll be fine. Just a little water in the lungs. Oh, my. Well, what do you know? Looks like somebody might be able to thank you in person. Son? Can you hear me? I'm Dr. Field. And this here lady pretty near saved your life. Hello there. I-I'm Mrs. Peacock. My husband and I, we're the ones that found you. Oh, the time will come up when the winds will stop And the breeze will cease to be breathin' Like the stillness in the wind Before the hurricane begins The hour that the ship comes in And the sea will split and the ships will hit And the sands on the shoreline Will be shaken And the tide will pound and the waves will sound And the mornin' will be a-breakin' And no formal training? Remarkable. Sayin' we'll meet all your demands But we'll shout from the bow "Your days are numbered" And like Pharaoh's tribe They'll be drownin' in the tide And like Goliath They'll be conquered - Just terrific! - Fantastic! That was a fine job. - Thank you, thank you. - That's just wonderful. How about another helping? - Woody? - Yes, ma'am. More wine, Woody? Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Do you know what your plans are from here? My only real plan is to become a singer, a real singer on television, either that or a kind of voice of the people, you know? Interesting. Because I've been writing me some songs, songs about what's going on. And I'm going to take these songs, and I'm going to head straight to Hollywood. Going to make it big just like Elvis Presley. Well, Woody, I wouldn't be surprised if you did just that. - There you are, Woody. - Thank you. And don't you go rushing off anyplace until you feel 1000/0, you hear? Yes, ma'am. Have to mother you while you still have a roof over your head. Who on earth? - Are you expecting a call? - No. So, Hollywood? - Hello? - Not Tin Pan Alley? Yes, it is. Who's calling? Minnesota? Well, how could... Dr. Field, yes. Would you hold on just a moment, please? Esther? It's a juvenile center in Minnesota. A what? Something... Corrections. You talk to 'em, Jack. They think it's Woody. What do they know about Woody? They said they're looking for some... a juvenile, but... some state, you know, fugitive. Certainly not Woody. Seen the arrow on the doorpost Sayin' this land is condemned Now, I'm just one walker that's stood way up and looked way down across plenty o' sights in all their veiled and nakedest seasons. Sighting it, hearing it, seeing and feeling and breathing it in. Sucking down on it. Rubbing it all in the pores of my skin, and the wind between my eyes knocking honey in my comb. Whoa. Blind Willie Mc Tell See them big plantations burnin' Hear the crackin' of the whips Smell that sweet magnolia bloomin' See the ghost of slavery ships