"In 1931, the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein travelled to Mexico to make a film." "It was tentatively to be called iQue viva Mexico!" "Eisenstein had a worldwide fame based on the reputation of only three films, all made in Soviet Russia." "Strike, a violent tale of civilian unrest viciously crushed by authority," "The Battleship Potemkin, a violent account of a naval mutiny over rotten meat," "and October, a violent celebration of the Russian Revolution." "In the West, the film October was called Ten Days That Shook The World." "This present film might be called" "Ten Days That Shook Eisenstein." "I arrive accompanied by flies." "They have been with me ever since I crossed the Mexican border." "I brought them with me from Moscow." "I recognise them." "They are Soviet flies, spy flies..." "Russian accents, a growling, gruff, ill-mannered buzz." "They have bloodshot eyes, like me." "Do I have bloodshot eyes?" "Do I have bloodshot eyes?" "Do I have bloodshot eyes?" "Do I have bloodshot eyes?" "Of too much looking." "Too much..." "Too much looking." " Diego." " Sergei, my friend!" " You're welcome." " Grazie." " Frida." " Sergei." " Bienvenido." " Encantado." "Jorge Palomino Cañedo." "Your Guanajuato guide." "Sergei Eisenstein." "Sometimes a Russian film director or Russian film director retired." "Ah." "This is Aleksandrov." "Always an actor." " Frida." " Grisha." "And this is Eduard Tisse, cameraman." "The cameraman." " Frida." " Tisse." "Please take the suitcases." "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen." "Hey, look." "Put all the red books over there." "All the books with the blue markers over there." "All English books by the bed." "All American books under the bed." " Can I help?" " There is a trick, isn't there?" "What am I doing wrong?" "I expect nothing." "We don't have showers in Moscow." "In fact, we don't have showers in Russia." "Baths, Turkish baths." "And wash basins." "Sometimes we have running water." "Sometimes we have water." "Sometimes we have just the empty taps." "Sometimes we have to break the ice in the tank." "Often..." "We don't wash." "What are you laughing about?" "A Russian body." "Very white." "We rarely see the Sun in Moscow, and we never undress in public." " Then I can't be public." " Public enough." "That's his." "And a very well-fed body." "Pea-soup, pickled cabbage, salty bacon, sour milk, turnips?" "When we can get it." "See you at breakfast?" "Tortillas, tamales, chicken burritos, chimichangas, sopecitos, huarachitos, pan de muerto..." "Hey!" "Warm water?" "Being naked in public?" "Or a response to an amiable young man?" "Signor Prick, behave!" "He's handsome, it's true." "And he's seen you, it's true." "But you are a foreigner with a Russian passport, a limited visitor's visa, and very little sexual experience." "You would be woefully disadvantaged." "Besides, you are here to make a film with me, and I need your frustrations to feed my imagination." "No dissipation." "It leads to a dilution of energy." "I am a boxer for the freedom of cinematic expression." "I have never had my shoes shined for me." "We don't do those sorts of things any more in Soviet Russia." "You're in México." "Why don't you try it?" "Sí." "I'm behaving like a colonial grandee." "Shining shoes is tantamount to kissing feet." "Who kisses feet any more?" "Do I tip him heavily to cover up my bourgeois guilt?" "No." "If you tip him, news of your generosity will be around the town in five minutes." "And your shoes will never be yours again." "They will be a host to fortune." "You have come here for something other than shiny shoes." "What are you looking for?" "I came to Mexico to make a movie." "I came to Mexico because my very first theatre production in Moscow was called The Mexican." "I came to Mexico because you had a successful revolution five years before we did." "I came to Guanajuato because you have here a Museum Of The Dead." "Maybe I have to make a film called Museum Of The Living." "Those are my excuses." "What are your excuses?" "I live here." "I have a family here." "I teach in Mexico City, and I teach here." "And what do you teach?" "I studied as an anthropologist." "And now I teach comparative religion." "This is a Roman Catholic country." "How come you are allowed to talk about other religions?" "Roman Catholicism of México is generous and all-embracing." "Pantheistic." "A bit of everything." "Old and new." "They just take what they need." "So much so, we should call it Mexican Catholicism." "They customised it." "We have pre-Columbian equivalents for everything the Roman Catholics dreamed up." "Certainly, we invented blood sacrifices before you did." "Christianity adopted us." "We did not adopt Christianity." "It's Gideon." "His name is Gideon." "He was born blind." "And the bells have made him deaf." "There is a problem." "They have been searching through your books and found pornography." "Are you a pornographer?" "I didn't think so up till now." "One of the hotel maids arranging your books has taken some photographs, but she is underage." "Her mother found the photographs and complained to the hotel." "I am sure it can be sorted out." "Stay in sight of your bodyguards." "It's OK, boys." "Sergei!" "Sergei!" "México!" "México!" "Guanajuato!" "Vomit and shit pour out of you in floods." "I should not be here." "I should be back in Russia, being constipated." "In Moscow, you can go for a week without shitting once." "Sergei?" "It's me." "It's me, Cañedo." "It's me." "Ugh." "Come on." "Let's go, let's go." "It's just me, Cañedo." "Hey, it's OK." "Shh." " Come on." " Ugh." "Stop it, stop it, stop it." "Close your eyes, close your eyes." "You know..." "You know, I sat like the Tsar on the throne of the Winter Palace." "But the Tsar did not have running water." "You Mexicans don't have tsars, but you do have running water." "What is that noise?" "Someone banging on the pipes." "Oh!" "Come on." "OK." "OK, hey." "Wake up." "Come on, come on." "It's the 22nd of October." "Someone is banging on the pipes to commemorate the start of the Russian Revolution." "No." "It's the hotel plumber fixing the hot water." "Go to sleep." "The hot water of the Revolution." "We shall all be cleansed with the hot water of the Revolution." "Watch him carefully." "Or you'll have Stalin on your backs." "Stalin's reach is very long." "If anything happens to him, you'll be picking ice out of your asses in Siberia or have an ice-pick lodged in your brain!" "Here, your photographs." "Put them away somewhere safe." "Don't leave them lying around for innocent chambermaids to steal and show to their mamás, hmm?" "But they are paintings." "Mexican mothers protecting their innocent daughters." "We countered by accusing the maid of stealing from guests." "Is thievery worse than voyeurism?" "She should not be sacked for curiosity." "You must get her reinstated." "She's in the bar with her mother and her father." " You could tell her yourself." " No, you tell her." "And tell her mother her daughter's forgiven for stealing, and from now on, she's the only one to bring me my breakfast in bed in the morning." "The manager says it's a good job she didn't take a look in your red suitcase." "Oh?" "What's in the red suitcase?" "Enough to have you thrown in jail." "And how did the manager know what was in the red suitcase?" "After the complaint, he searched everything." "God, he has no right to do that." "That's invasion of privacy!" "Shh." "Look, he's winking at you." "Curiously, it's a mark in your favour." "But if you offend him, he could use it against you." "Tread carefully." "The Camorristas." "They are looking for wealthy foreigners to prey on." "They wait outside all the big hotels." "And you are giving them good reason to prey on you." "That's why you have bodyguards." "These are the small-time guys." "We don't worry so much about them." "They are posing as tough guys, but they are lazy." "The big guys are much tougher." "And the real big guys, you'll never see." "That's why you should try and stop attracting attention." "Don't get yourself photographed and in the newspapers." "If they smell a ransom possibility, they will be in and kidnap you." "How much do you think you are worth?" "Not much." "What will your government pay to keep you alive?" "Nothing." "Just trust that we are looking after you properly." "But maybe you are a Camorrista?" "If I am, then you are lost." "You ought to make a film about them." "The corpse at the door is wearing a red shirt, as you can see." "Even among the dead, the Camorristas have influence." "Ransoming a corpse is not uncommon in México." "Aah!" "Míralo." "Do you only have one suit?" "Well, I left Moscow with only $25." "Russia has very little foreign currency, and that was all they could afford to give us." "I get paid expenses here in Mexico." "Or I get paid expenses, and I have to share with Tisse and Grisha." "That suit is taking some punishment." "You should buy yourself another." "It's my first American suit." "I bought it to walk down Sunset Boulevard with Charlie Chaplin." "It's a sentimental matter." "I could not part with it." "This is my wife, Concepción." " This is Rolando." " Good evening, sir." "Good evening." "The eldest was born when I was studying troubadours and the second, Pascal, when I reluctantly gave up God." "Now I don't believe in God, but I miss him, as did Pascal." "I'm sorry." "I have no Russian buttons." "But these are curious." "What are they made of?" "Ah." "Gunmetal." "They are stamped out of discarded cartridge cases, pierced with two holes and glued to a piece of army blanket, which usually very quickly becomes unglued." "A Russian soldier is told never to let his shoes out of his sight, if not out of his hand." "Better still, always keep them on your feet." "Shoes are the most precious item of clothing." "Won't help your modesty, scarcely keep you warm, but you will simply not be able to function without shoes in any way at all." "Don't worry." "I'm a foreigner." "I'm a child abroad." "Russia's so big that nobody thinks about abroad." "It's always too far away and well out of sight." "We believe most of the time that "abroad" does not really exist." "Does not really exist." "Does not really exist." "I was earning money from American publishers, and I bought an old battered Ford car." "Mayakovsky had a Renault, and we raced around Moscow at 40 miles an hour with our windows down, shouting, singing," " and mooning." " Oh!" "He had a nice arse." "My arse was way too fat." "He got his car impounded for moral turpitude." "Mayakovsky, that is, not his car." "His car was innocent." "Is this car, with Death in the driver's seat, completely innocent?" "No fat on his backside." "In 1927, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks of Universal Pictures, Charlie Chaplin's company, saw Potemkin and invited me to come to Hollywood to make a film!" "Hooray!" "Hooray!" "Hooray!" "I met them all." "All those Hollywood guys." "They all came to Moscow." "Would you believe it?" "Joseph Schenck lost in Russia, but he looked like a Russian smoothie." "All Jews look lost in Russia, but there is never a better home for them." "He fast-smoked big cigars." "He was a caricature." "It was to make sure no one took him seriously so he could take everyone else seriously when they weren't looking." "I am a caricature." "I don't smoke fast, but I can talk fast, don't you think?" "Joseph Schenck came with a Hollywood contract in his pocket, which was soon in my pocket." "And then my pockets were filled with Hollywood happiness." "Felicidad Hollywoodus." "To get to Hollywood, you must first pass through Europe, and then you have to pass through America because Hollywood is a separate country all on its very own." "So like bug-eyed cultural tourists, we went through Europe, looking, seeing, shaking hands." "Although it was more like shaking hands and looking." "I had eyes in my hands, and they never stopped shaking." "We met George Grosz and Man Ray and Dos Passes." "Oh, Käthe Kollwitz." "She had at least half a way for social conscience, though her droopy face and sagging breasts were overplayed as a sort of trademark." "And Le Corbusier, who said I reminded him of Donatello." "All architects love cinema." "We met Léger and Cocteau and Marinetti, who was a fool." "Terrible poetry, worse painting." "Oh, we met James Joyce, who sat through Battleship Potemkin in his dark blind glasses." "I imagine he did not see a thing." "We met Abel Gance and Buñuel." "And Al Jolson, the blacked-up singing son of a Russian rabbi." "This one." "We saw Dalí's Le Chien Andalou and Dreyer's Joan of Arc." "I went to Holland, where a crowd of reporters met me at Rotterdam airport." "They were all very excited." "They had come expecting to meet Einstein." "We had von Sternberg in Babelsberg." "And he was shooting The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich." "We were all the time being watched and followed by two Russian agents." "One looked like Fatty Arbuckle and the other one looked like Buster Keaton." "One was rosy and laughing and always fingering his backside, the other solemn and sad, as though he had wet his trousers." "Dorothy Gish and her sister wanted me to make a film, but sentimental melodrama is not my hat." "Too much gushing and gishing, no irony." "I sent them to Pudovkin." "He is good at tears and whey." "He said, "If I was no good at treating American ladies well," ""I was nothing." "What are you?" he said." "I replied, "I am a scientific dilettante with encyclopaedic interests."" "We left Moscow just as the ceiling was falling in." "Pasternak and Mayakovsky were forbidden to leave." "Passports forbidden." "Trotsky was deported to Turkey." "Poets, painters, and publishers were sacked, spitted, sat upon, and spat upon." "We felt the flames up our bums, red-hot pokers up our asses as we fled to America." "It scorched us out of Russia." "And I had Joey Schenck's invite in my back trouser pocket, resting against my right buttock." "An invite to Hollywood." "Excuse me, sir," "I see you are being protected by grandmothers." "And then came the bad news." "Keep out the Red Peril!" "These Russians will rape and abuse our American children!" "The biggest shark in the shark tank was an American Senator, Hamilton Fish," "Redneck Extraordinaire." "And behind sharkman Senator Fish was the riot-master Major Frank Pease." "The bad meat-man in Battleship Potemkin." "I could well have been accused of sacrilege, insulting God." "I was the "Roosian" Eisenstein, the Messenger from Hell." "And they won." "Paramount Pictures could not afford the bad publicity." "Paramount Pictures pictured me with everyone American American they could find to bolster me up, to keep my image squeaky clean." "I shook hands with Walt Disney, the greatest and only true filmmaker who starts from an absolutely clean slate." "Oh, and I met his apprentice-assistant and protégé, Mickey Mouse and I rubbed wet noses with Rin Tin Tin." "But in the end..." "They could not afford to hold out." "They gave in." "They caved in." "They were getting jumpy and jittery." "Said it was the Depression." "Said they had to weather the storm." "Said it was the rains." "And when the rains had passed, they would call me back." "So exit Eisenstein." "Jew." "Red." "Troublemaker." "Communist." "And then I met Upton Sinclair and came here to Mexico to meet you, Palomino, and Palomino's wife and Palomino's two small children." "Who should be in bed." "So where do I sleep tonight?" " I cannot sleep naked." " Why not?" "Because I have never slept naked, except last night when you stole my clothes." "My mother didn't like it." "I didn't like it." "Someone could have stolen my virginity when I lay there sleeping naked." " Virginity?" " I was joking." " Do you have a nightshirt?" " No." "My wife has a nightgown." "Let me borrow your nightgown." "Why not?" "# Twinkle, twinkle, little star" "# How I wonder where you are" "# Up above the world so high" "# Like a diamond in the sky #" "Good, Pascal." "There are no flies on me." "Those flies again." "Are they still Russian flies?" "They are preparing themselves, getting ready, assembling to devour my putrefying flesh." "Flies and maggots." "I 'm familiar with maggots, Battleship Potemkin maggots." " Knock, knock, who's there?" " Only Death." "Death is so close here in the hot sun." "He's tapping me on the shoulder." "In Russia, we hide Death away." "Make him a distant villain." "Here, Death is very close, and a friendly hero." "She greets us at the cemetery gate and walks with us politely." "We walk with Death in the cemetery under the same parasol." "We benefit from the same shadow." "Better that Death is a friend, not a stranger." "Lenin is dead." "So is Karl Marx." "Both died in their beds." "Jesus Christ is dead." "He was crucified." "And Saint Peter, he was crucified upside down." "And Cortés and Pizarro and Torquemada is dead." "Moctezuma is dead." "And George Washington is dead." "And Abraham Lincoln is dead." "He was shot." "Pancho Villa is dead." "He was shot." "And Zapata is dead." "He was shot." "And Benito Pablo Juárez is dead." "Miguel Hidalgo, he is dead." "He was shot." "I once played Leonardo da Vinci dying in the arms of Francois I at Amboise." "Eisenstein will die..." "Like Leonardo." "I'm not so sure that filmmakers will be remembered." "We have made a procession of the mighty dead." "Aren't you surprised that we spend so much time making people die in films?" "All actors, sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, in theatres and cinemas around the world are asked to fuck or die." "Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth," "Juliet, Madame Butterfly, Joan of Arc, Yevgeniy Onegin," "Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Savonarola, Helen of Troy," "Ivan the Terrible..." "We give you licence to show us people fucking and dying, and we know they are not." "And you know they are not." "And we know that you know that we know they are not." "It's all to prove we are alive twice over." "First as an affirmation and then as a challenge to Death itself." "The willing and very necessary suspension of disbelief." "In modern-day Russia," "Death comes drunk in a crumpled dark-grey suit with no underwear because no one has money for vests and underpants in Russia." "He wears a second-hand grubby white shirt with no collar and dirty cuffs." "Death in Russia is a shabby meeting at life's end." "Here in Mexico," "Death comes bright-eyed and laughing, totally sober, beginning his greatest adventure, kissing the air." "His head, his heart, and his cock held high." "Sex and death, the two non-negotiables." "Eros and Thanatos." "We are never aware of our own conception." "Can we really be a witness to our own death?" "You have introduced yourself to Death in México." "Indeed, you seem to me to have introduced yourself to Death in México." "Perhaps now you need to introduce yourself to sex in México?" "Well, perhaps now I need to introduce myself to sex in the world." "Perhaps, Cañedo, you could introduce me to sex in Mexico and the world?" "Another subject matter could be money." "Money?" "I am not so sure at all about money." "It has not been around for so very long." "And now so many fools have it and so many wise men do not." "It cannot be very important." "And money can be so easily subsumed into death and sex, if only to delay one and pay for the other." "Another subject matter could be power." "You will have to go back to Russia sooner or later." "And in Russia, you will witness power unlimited." "Every morning there is a flood of yellow telegrams pushed under my door." "They want me back in Russia." "Russian power reaches its huge hand here to me in Mexico." "Can anyone escape it?" "Now we sleep for one hour." "Enjoy your siesta." "A siesta splits the day in two." "Makes two days out of one." "But really, you must do it properly." "Undress, and the most important thing of all, sleep between cool sheets." "No snoozing in your day clothes." "You must be naturally drowsy." "Give in." "The best sleep of the day." "Drift away." "Then you go to bed." "And pretend you are dead." "Silent." "Still." "The best sleep you will know when you are not dead." "And you are cheating death." "Go on, take your clothes off." "I have a clumsy, unattractive body." "It's not unattractive." "I have seen it." "You make it unattractive." "Your belief in your ugliness is a sort of exhibitionism." "You are vain about your ugliness." "I have a coward's bravery." "Short arms, big head, big feet." "I have the correct physiognomy for a clown." "No woman could ever take a delight in my body." "Why not?" "Clowns are loved by women." "Their helpless foolishness is appealing." "Is that really the problem, do you think?" "That you have believed that no woman could approve of your body?" "Or your prick?" "So you have denied them." "I have a prick only fit for peeing." "That could be very usefully true." "But it cannot be all." "Make it rise." "You see?" "It takes on a brand-new life." "Respect it." "I am not going to deny myself sleep any more." "We will discuss your prick later when we wake up." "Now take a shower and lay down." "Mmm." "I am already falling over the cliff into the abyss of sleep." "This is really the way to fall into this." "Delightful." "Guiltless." "Unfatigued." "This way, you will not dream." "I never dream during a siesta." "Pera?" "Pera?" "Is that you?" " What's that noise?" " I'm in the shower." "Water." "Warm rain." "I am in Guanajuato, and there is a man in my bed." " What is he doing there?" " Sleeping." "It's early afternoon." "Siesta time." "We should learn to take siestas in Moscow." "What are you doing?" "What should I be doing here in Moscow?" "Nothing much, writing invoices, typing scripts for the publisher, being your secretary, looking after your interests whilst you're away, refusing chocolates and visits to the cinema from Boris." "Pera, why don't you drop everything and come to Mexico and rescue me from men falling asleep in my bed?" "I could never get a visa." "And there is no money for foreign visits." "We have shot over 70 miles of film, 20 hours." "I have a lot of ideas, though they keep changing." "Usual stuff." "It's gonna be a great film." "People here are saying you won't come back." "Of course I'm coming back." "Sergei, be careful." "Don't get mad at me, but your American experience could act against you." "They've stopped paying your mother." "Don't worry, I'm getting something through to her, though she continues to be very rude and condescending to me, the bitch." "Sorry." "You know there is no love lost between us." "His name is Cañedo." "Whose name?" "The man in my bed." "He's my guide." "And what else is he to you?" "He's an instructor of comparative religion." "Since when have you needed instruction in religion?" "We talk about Mexico and death." "He's my guide to the Underworld." "Pera?" "Pera?" "Are you still there?" "The line is very bad." "I hear all sorts of noises, like someone banging a hammer on metal." "A spanner on a radiator." "No, that's here, upstairs or somewhere." "Sergei, think of yourself." "Think of coming back soon." "They are starting to ask even little me all sorts of questions, like," ""What do the Americans think of Sergei?"" "Using your first name, suggesting we are intimate." "I'm not with Americans any more." "I'm with Mexicans, an entirely different race of people." "Pera?" "Pera?" "Pera, are you there?" "You are a long way off." "You're right." "I'm in Mexico." "It is 9:45, a quarter to 10:00 on the 25th October." "The official time we stormed the Winter Palace." "14 years to the minute when the Revolution began." "Ten days that shook the world." "Except we have now changed calendars, and it's all happening in November." "And anyway, if it's 9:45 here in Mexico, it can't be 9:45 in Moscow." "The anniversary was over ten hours ago." "We missed it." "Then Eisenstein did it all over again." "He recreated the Russian Revolution all over again on film." "Though much bigger and much better than the first time round." "And twice as expensive." "With Eisenstein's version, the street cleaners complained." "They took three days cleaning up the broken glass." ""The first time around," they said," ""People were more considerate." ""They made far less mess."" "They thought the first revolution was, was better choreographed." "They thought Eisenstein's version wasn't worth filming." "It was a waste of film, they said." "With Eisenstein, there were much more windows broken, more statues chipped by ricocheting bullets, and much more noise." "The original revolution had apparently been a fairly quiet affair, with no swearing and no bad language." "Eisenstein is very equivocal about women." "And he really is a vulgar, fat little chap." "Any opportunity to pass on obscenity, he will fart it through." "Sublimated sexual frustration." "He can be very crude about women." "He can't do the sex, so he'll talk it." "Come on, let's take the young woman home." "A present, so you can celebrate your Russian Revolution far from home." "Congratulations, Mr Russian Film Director." "Thank you." "I will wave it and remember." "Turn around." "Initiation ceremony." "Formal initiation into life was essential for the Aztecs, a full ritual." "You have left it a little late, Sergei." "But doesn't matter." "Better late than never." "Better never late." "You are far from home and off your home initiation ground." "I cannot." "Cannot what?" "Why not?" "Because I have argued with myself repeatedly that this cannot be the way." "I have reached my accustomed point, and this is where I stop." "It used to be where you may have stopped." "It isn't any longer." "This is where I get off the train." "Sorry, no station." "Well, then I will have to jump." "Jumping off a moving train could be dangerous." "And your prick tells you you have a first-class ticket to continue the journey." "My prick is a stowaway, an even sadder clown than me." "He wears a sad clown's helmet." "He's a wiser clown than you." "Follow where he leads." "And if you won't lead, let me." "I am the guard." "I will be at the back of the train." "It hurts, it stings!" "I'm going to vomit!" "Shh, shh, shh." "That's what every virgin must say." "That's what the virginal New World said." " I'm bleeding." " So you are." "Every virgin is supposed to bleed, so you were perhaps telling me the truth." "Don't worry." "Small, broken, injured capillaries in the sensitive anal interior sphincter." "Recovery almost immediate." " Bleeding makes me vulnerable." " It does." "But you have no reason to feel concerned." "Unless you are a haemophiliac." "You are not a member of the Russian royal family, are you?" "Are you a Romanov?" "Europe gave México many things." "And perhaps México gave only one thing back, syphilis." "It was known for a time as the "Mexican disease."" "Then as the "Spanish disease."" "The Spanish gave it to Italians in southern Italy." "The French army of Francis I caught it from the Italians." "Then it was the "French Disease."" "The French soldiers took it back to France." "And then it was everybody's." "The Mexicans had a natural immunity?" "Is that really true?" "The Old World, the New World." "You are the Old World." "I am the New World." "But we have it all the wrong way round." "México, pre-Columbian Middle America," "is the Old World." "Where you come from is the New World." "And you tell me all these things while your prick is in my arse?" "Could be the reason." "Could be an excuse." "Could be a justification to remind you about subjugation." "But it could be none of those things at all." "And it isn't." "And you are not entirely unwilling." "Curiously, neither were the Aztecs." "The European invasion had been prophesied." "They were God-fearing, superstitious people." "They did not resist." "The new New World should learn from the old." "They say all Americans, north and south, originally came across the Bering Straits to Alaska and then all the way down to Tierra del Fuego." "If the original Americans came that way, they must have travelled originally from Siberia, which means all Americans, and that also means all Mexicans, were once upon a time Russians." "And now, Sergei," "I want to enjoy your virginal Russian arse." "At 2:00, on the 26th of October, 1917," "the Russian Revolution was over." "The Winter Palace had been taken." "I was 19." "Congratulations, Eisenstein, on a revolution." "14 years ago, Russia lost its virginity." "I was 14 years too late." "Sergei, there has been a mudslide to the south of the city, the heavy rains last night." "There are many dead, many injured." "We should go there and film a natural Mexican disaster." "Is there such a thing?" "Aren't all disasters natural?" "Hey, come on, get your clothes on." "It's not time for idle philosophy." "Hey, come and help." "Come and tell us how we should film it." "No, you do it." "You know what to do." "I'm not so good with reality." "I'm going back to bed." "We have the car outside." "We can be there in 20 minutes if the roads are not washed away." "The local people will not like you seeing them distressed." "You are vultures." "You will not be popular." "Sergei, we can record it, show what happened." "You go, I'll come later." "Having children of my own has just not occurred to me as a possibility." "Is that strange?" "No." "It seems to be so very, very far from what I have ever thought." "You really do have to have the thought in your head, and I never have." "You need to find the desire." "And the desire needs to be consummated." "We stake a claim to be human by continuing the inexorable chain on and on and on, generation after generation, father, son, and grandson, which means we simply are in a hopeless relay race, permitted to hold the baton" "for a few yards of hectic running, with me thinking and feeling all the time that I will default, that I will drop the baton and disgrace myself and the team of an extended family and, not least, betray the woman who is bearing the child" "at my request and who is far more exhausted than me." "So better not to enter the race, humiliate myself, and embarrass all around me." "No, no fotos." "Cañedo?" "Cañedo, help me!" "This baby is bleeding." "I thought she was peeing down my leg, but it's blood." "Look!" "Help me." "I could not face a child bleeding to death in my lap." "I only..." "I only construct death in the cinema." "I don't make it, cause it." "Get the mother." "Where is the mother of this child?" "I came to Mexico a virgin." "And I leave it debauched." "My body was a stranger." "And now it becomes familiar in its sheer vulnerability." "Come with me to Moscow." "Impossible." "I brush away my tears." "Am I weeping for that child?" "For you?" "For myself?" "You are a hero!" "Mercedes." "Are you not disturbed by the Russian film-director's nakedness?" "Not at all." "He is not interested in women." "Besides, his photograph is in the papers." "He does not have long to live now." "Unless he has a great deal of money." "And unless he is very lucky." "Some papers say you are a hero." "This paper says you are responsible for a child's death." "This one says you and your wife have just had a row about her mother, your mother-in-law." "And this paper offers you condolences on the death of your daughter." "It's amazing how you have suddenly acquired a Mexican family, and the Camorristas don't normally like to get their hair wet." "But they can get nothing out of me." "There are two people downstairs waiting to talk to you." "Shall I ask them to come up?" "Mrs Upton Sinclair and her brother." "Upton Sinclair is famous in Russia." "All his books have been translated." "One hundred thousand available Upton Sinclair books in Moscow." "Read largely by literature snobs." "Well, when they chopped my Hollywood contract," "I couldn't go back to Moscow empty-handed." "And I'd met the film-director Flaherty, who made Nanook Of The North, and he got me interested in going to Mexico, which I must admit wasn't difficult." "Well, Flaherty makes films with people who are not actors, like me." "And he convinced me" "I could make a film independently in Mexico without actors." "And when I was in Hollywood, and I was lonely," "and miserable, and homesick," "I spent a great deal of time in the Hollywood bookstore and practically bought up their entire stock of books on Mexico." "The owner of the bookstore, who had fought in the Mexican Civil War, said I could make a film in Mexico for $25,000." "And I talked to Chaplin, and he agreed it was a good idea." "Mexico is fashionable amongst all Chaplin's left-wing friends in California." "They all have second homes here." "And Upton Sinclair was one of these left-wing, fashionable friends." "He and his horse-riding, name-dropping, faded Southern belle wife were very excited that they could assist a Russian filmmaker with all the right credentials." "With all the right credentials." "With all the right credentials." "Sergei!" "How are you?" "We have been waiting to see you." "Hunter is worried." "Palomino, this is Mary Craig Sinclair, the wife of Upton Sinclair, famous American author, much published in Russia." "Mary, this is Palomino Cañedo." "My, you're handsome, Mr Palomino." "Palomino!" "Sounds like a horse." "I used to have a beautiful palomino mare two years ago." "Tennessee Walking Horse out of an Appaloosa." "Are you a stud, Mr Palomino?" "Are you registered at the Jockey Club like my palomino, Mr Palomino?" "Hunter, shake hands with a beautiful man who could have been a horse." "Oh, we could have some coffee, too." "Oh, are you the maid?" "Or are you doing for Mr Palomino what my Appaloosa did for the Tennessee Walking Horse?" "Bring us some coffee, will you, dear?" "Sergei, Hunter and I wanted to know how you are doing, how you are getting along." "Oh!" "We have put your latest film rushes through the laboratory in California, and I must say..." "We all say..." "They are truly splendid." "Albert says so, and George says so, too." "I'm sorry." "Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw." "You have shown my rushes to all these people when I have not yet seen them myself?" "Well, you couldn't, could you?" "There are no Mexican laboratories worth knowing, are there?" "And we didn't want to disturb you in your good works and your long hours." "Though, Sergei, it is 10:00 in the morning, and you are still in your pyjamas." "Yellow pyjamas, no less." "And in bed having breakfast?" "Mmm-hmm." "With your friend." "Cañedo is my official Guanajuato guide." "He intends to take me to Diego's favourite restaurant, and I am to meet Frida." "Oh, I'm sorry." "Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo." " Ah." " And then, since I have been introduced to the siesta by Cañedo," "I intend to spend a large part of the afternoon in bed, practising it." "Well, it is good to know that you are in such safe hands." "But Hunter here has to speak to you about budgets and finances and money." "You know, you have been in Mexico for eight months now, and we only budgeted, as you know, for 12." "Oh, shall I get the invoices to check?" "Oh, good Lord." "Oh, well..." "I see it is still quite early for you." "Oh, yes." "I am acclimatizing myself to local practices, many of them imported from across the border." "You know?" "The border with America?" "Russians don't wear pyjamas." "Even Stalin doesn't wear a pyjama, but I'm sure that before long, he might very well do, red ones." "I am used to wearing a Russian nightshirt which can be a cast-off daytime shirt." "It is usually genderless, and usually, if you tug it well, can reach down to your knees and even, with some sewing and some adjustments, can be made, when it's really cold, to reach down to your ankles." "Well, we will be going now." "Hunter can make an appointment with you to talk finances and..." "And rushes." "Is, is that the right word?" "And maybe you could do it over dinner, Hunter?" "Is that all right?" "Infantile behaviour." " Something else?" " No, thank you, Mercedes." "Gracias, Mercedes." "However, Mercedes, you could put your naked elbow under the shower to test the water temperature." "And, oh..." "Perhaps you could warm up the lavatory seat for me again." "Take your knickers down, sit on the seat the wrong way around, take a pee, and wriggle around a bit." "Do you really want me to translate that?" "Was that wise?" "Wise?" "Wisdom?" "What is that?" "Learning how to live with a modicum of happiness and no harm to others?" "Freud says that there are five things essential to a man's happiness and if you can get them all perfectly aligned, you are extremely fortunate indeed," "health, work, money, sex, and love." "I have my health." "I have unbounded amounts of work." "Money?" "As you just heard," "I have a banker, and he has money." "It's not mine, but it's in their bank under my name." "Sex?" "Well..." "I'm more than agreeably accounted for there." "And love." "I have the love of a centaur." "Obviously a half a man, half a horse." "A palomino." ""A Tennessee Walking Horse." ""A stud out of an Appaloosa."" "Can you whinny and neigh and snort and trample the earth with your hooves?" "I can." "Stop!" "Stop." "Oh!" "Oh." "Oh." "Oh." "I am 33, the age of Christ and Alexander at death," "the age St Augustine said we all go to Heaven." "It is obvious." "I had to come to Mexico to go to Heaven." "You could have found this ordinary heaven like most other people at 17." "I doubt it." "I doubt it very much." "I doubt that there are many 17-year-olds that found Heaven that very first time." "I am certain that I would not have." "I was callow in all ways, and it would have been a wasted experience." "33 is the ideal age, old enough to be wise enough to know that 33" "is the probable limit of promise." "After 33, you can no longer claim to be a young person of promise any more." "And at 33, you are still young enough to have your..." "Physical attributes, but old enough to no longer have them with vanity or triumphalism." "And... 33 is still young enough not to be hopelessly cynical and resigned to your fate." "I am discovering everything all at once." "And the catalyst, the catalyst is sex." "I am just stupidly living now in the present." "I could be fodder for the Camorrista and not care." "Someone..." "Has opened a door to a..." "Wet and weeping..." "Dirty..." "Hurricane." "Look after little Sergei." "He is a Russian innocent, and Russian innocents are the most innocent of innocents in the world." "You should be in that car, Sergei." "Keep them under control." "Stop them from spending needless finances." "Oh, don't worry." "I'm following later." "Señor." "And they could be better off without me." "Tisse is a Capuchin monk with money, doesn't eat." "And Aleksandrov is so charismatic that everyone else pays for his bed and board." "He could scarcely be a drain on anyone's resources." "We need to talk." "Salud!" "Sergei, with over 100 miles of film, you're going to make a film 20 hours long, which is stupid and intolerable." "Griffith shot 200 miles on Intolerance." "Von Stroheim shot 100 miles on Greed." "It is normal to shoot that much, and we have a project here covering the whole of Mexico." "We are not at all doing badly, considering all the language difficulties, the extras that don't turn up or turn up too late, the Mexican authorities who, out of the blue, when we are all prepared, deny us permission," "the exceptional heat that is making everyone sick, then, then the heavy rains, not known for 20 years, and then I fall sick with some mystery disease that no one can find a name for, even in Aztec." "And what about this letter that Upton sent to the Russians in America, saying that the hacienda story's the only one that makes a film that anyone could understand in Hollywood and that the rest is just aimless pretty pictures?" "Upton does not simply understand that the film needs to be edited the right way." "Well, he says the rushes are the same thing" " over and over again." " Jesus!" "That's the way you make a film, god damn it!" "Where have you been?" "We keep shooting till we get it right." "Not every single retake is in the goddamn film!" "He said, anyway, at the end of his letter that he was convinced that it would be a beautiful and magnificent work of art." "And, and look what he wrote to Stalin, "Dear Stalin..."" "You don't address the Premier of the USSR like that." "Upton did, and he's a writer." ""You may have heard" ""that I have taken the job of financing a moving picture," ""which the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein" ""is making in Mexico." ""It is going to be extraordinary work" ""and I think will be a revelation" ""of the moving-picture art." ""Someday you will see the picture" ""which Eisenstein is making" ""and realise that Soviet technique" ""has advanced another step" ""and been crowned with fresh laurels."" "Well, I'm not sure what else he wrote in that letter, but he must have provoked Stalin somehow, because this is what he telegrammed back to your husband." "Oh." ""Eisenstein lose his comrade confidence in Soviet Union." ""Stop." "He is thought to be a deserter" ""who broke off with his own country." "Stop." ""I'm afraid the people here" ""would have no interest in him." "Stop." ""I'm very sorry, but all assert it is the fact." "Stop." ""My regards, Stalin."" "How did you get hold of a private telegram from Stalin to my husband?" "Well, from those very people who apparently have no interest in me." "So who's lying?" "And my husband wrote back at once, saying he had never, ever thought you were a deserter and had never been disloyal and that you were ferociously attacked by the American rednecks in California and that you stood firm in your principles" "and had every intention of returning when the film was completed." "There are so many contradictions flying around to your advantage, it is hard to believe that you want us to succeed." "And I wonder what you have not contributed to all these contradictions." "You have been nothing but trouble from the moment we started." "Even on the train leaving Los Angeles, you get into a fight with the brother of the Mexican Chief of Police." "Well, we weren't to know who he was!" "He was ravishing some woman on my couchette!" "Ha!" "With nights under hotel arrest until Sinclair phoned Chaplin to persuade them to release you." "Well, see how popular we are." "In the end, we had 12 American senators," "Douglas Fairbanks, and Albert Einstein rooting for us." "And the Mexican President apologised." "What about that business with the young man stealing your gun and shooting his sister?" "That was an unhappy accident, which you well know." "And it wasn't my gun." "This troublemaker, your brother, is being very far from helpful." "His poor, not to say, bad management, and his not knowing anything about film production has wasted hundreds of dollars that we could do well with." "He has presented me to your husband as a liar and a blackmailer and God knows what else." "It is impossible to work under such an ignorant tyrant." "What the hell does he know about film production?" "He's just a stockbroker salesman from the provincial South." "You have to get him off my back." " I wouldn't be at all surprised..." " Señor!" "If he was spending the film money on women, drink, and gambling." "We all know he was jailed in Mérida for public indecency at a brothel, throwing whores into a..." "Swimming pool." "You are a liar and a slanderer." "I am a respectable businessman, and you and your company are just a bunch of homos." "Ah, what have we provoked?" "I think Mary, Mrs Upton Sinclair, we have all said more than we intended, eh, Kimbrough?" "I think not, Mr Sergei Eisenstein." "I think not." "Well, how am I to arrive in this skeleton state for real?" "You have four options." "One." "The Stalin option, an assassin from Moscow." "Ah!" "Poisoned coffee." "Machete in the desert." "Pig falling down from balcony." "Car without brakes." "Eight out of ten." "Oh, or two, wasting away in a Mexican jail for moral turpitude, either for the seduction of the young and under aged or..." "Or, or for sodomy, in which case expect perhaps a red-hot poker up your arse like Edward II." "Six out of ten." "Or three, Sinclair's revenge." "He sets light to my film." "And throws you on the pyre." "Two out of ten." "Or four, the Camorrista kidnap me and cut me up into little pieces, mailing me off on the slow boat to Saint Petersburg." "500,000 rubles for every pound of flesh." " Zero out of ten." " Which is it going to be?" "Well, I think the Camorrista are the most deserving." "We don't want to disappoint them." "We just have to take Hunter Kimbrough's photograph and give it to the newspapers." "That will do nicely." "Camorrista!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "Aah!" "Come on, try it." "Right." "Come on." "Right, left." "Oh." "Oh!" "Hey." "Well, I have to teach from 11:00 for three hours." "See you later." "Pera?" "ls that you?" "Sergei, it's the middle of the night." "Oh, I'm sorry, were you asleep?" "Did I wake you?" "Do you have anyone with you?" "Sergei, is that likely?" "I was wondering if you had finally given in to Boris." "Things are heating up here about your long absence." "They are threatening to take away your apartment." "What?" "They can't do that." "Sergei, I'm afraid they can." "Do you want me to start packing up your books?" "My God, it will take me months." "Listen, Pera, listen," "I have something extraordinary to tell you." "This country..." "This country is astonishing." "All the large things in life constantly hit you on your head, in the pit of your stomach, and in your heart." "Nothing can be superficial." "You know how I work..." "Timid with affairs of the heart and body." "My prick always safely tucked up in my trousers." "Sergei!" "You know I'm a work automaton." "Well, suddenly my timidity collapsed." "My defences fell down." "I shocked myself." "I behaved without reserve." "You would have been both shocked and amazed." "And I would have wanted you to be." "Everything we ever talked about has been bowled over." "I have been moaning and complaining to you that I could not go the distance." "Well, now I have..." "And beyond." "I have got everything that I desired." "And not just the satisfaction of lechery." "Sergei, your secrets are safe with me." "And you can tell me everything later in every detail, but you must be careful." "Now, hold your excitement and tell me things our listener might want to hear." "Pera, I am sure there is no secret listener." "It is you, Pera, you are the secret listener." "You are two people." "Sergei, you might be right." "I have probably always been two people..." "Your secretary, nurse, and bum-wiper." "Pera, you have never wiped my backside, but Cañedo..." "But Cañedo has?" "Sergei, shut up!" "Pera, you are the only person in the world that I can tell without holding anything back." "That is both the best and the worst thing you can tell me, especially on a cold October morning at five degrees below zero." "Now that I know you are well and happy and working hard," "I wait for your next call." "I'm now going to cry myself to sleep." "Good night, Sergei." "Take very good care of yourself." "Death..." "Should always be ready to take a call." "Found you, Eisenstein." "Is this filmmaking?" "Of a kind." "Looking after your feet is important." "Did you know that ignoring your feet in old age statistically brings on death?" "Corns, chilblains, blisters." "In-growing toenails cause walking problems." "Problems of balance create falls, which mean damaged hips, broken bones, which don't mend so good after 60." "How old are you, Mr Kimbrough?" "Eisenstein, I have a chiropodist to tell me all that." "Oh, another mark of American affluence." "Your average Russian wouldn't know what a chiropodist was." "So look after your feet, Kimbrough." "If not, collapse of mobility, a downhill slide to permanent horizontality without sex." "Pneumonia, bedsores, depression, death." "Stay vertical as long as you can, Kimbrough." "Look after your shoes and look after your feet." "Upton has sent me with an ultimatum." "You have 20 days left on your visa, Mr Eisenstein." "God, Kimbrough!" "Have you brought along the Mexican Passport Office?" "I'm afraid you'll have to leave Mexico, sir." "In that time, you have enough raw stock to finish the film and a budget of $8,000." "That's 20 minutes a day for 20 days." "Enough is enough." "We have to bring this thing to an end." ""This thing?"" "What to you, Mr Kimbrough, is "this thing"?" "A long, protracted, irresponsible adventure leading to nowhere." "Mary says Upton has to tame your disobedience and extravagance." "Upton has collapsed and is sick in hospital in Pasadena." "The doctors say too much unnecessary stress." "He's been running around on your behalf, forever raising money to satisfy your exorbitant demands." "I now take over." "Upton has lost his faith in you and your integrity." "You have manoeuvred him, used him." "He has empowered me to close it down, wrap it up, the end, full stop." "You're like a Negro." "Kind words and consideration are not enough." "I thought I was a Red." "Now I'm also a Black?" "And you also forgot, a Jew." "Being Russian is the mildest of concerns." "You wear your prejudices proudly on your sleeve, Mr Kimbrough, a true Southern gentleman." "Upton is exhausted by your hesitations and delays and changes of plan and the dubious company you keep." "You have deliberately packed filth in our luggage sent through United States Customs Authorities." "The police said it was the vilest thing they'd ever seen..." "Obscene and blasphemous drawings of the Crucifixion." "I leave for Hollywood on Wednesday." "The last of the rushes have to be in by the 21st of December when the contract terminates." "Amkino and Moscow have said you must return to New York." "You sail from New York on the 17th of January." "You'll be arriving in Europe by the 23rd." "Perhaps you can be back in Moscow by the 2nd of February." "You miss the connection, you are on your own." "Mr Cañedo is no longer your guide here in Guanajuato." "He has been dismissed." "Mr Cañedo, in Mexico City, they talked about ending your contract at the end of this period." "It's best for his sake, Eisenstein, you should leave Guanajuato immediately." "He has a wife and children." "I suggest tomorrow morning!" "Oh!" "Allí, cabrón." "Quieto, cabrón, hijo de la chingada." "All right, Sergei." "Now you have to give them back." "What were you thinking of doing, opening a restaurant in Red Square?" "Don't you have forks in Moscow?" "It was my insurance policy..." "An excuse to be arrested." "There." "Now I cannot leave Guanajuato." "I cannot go home." "You must never separate a Russian from his shoes." "I cannot leave you." "I cannot." "Palomino loves well." "You were lonely." "You needed comforting." "You were like a lost child." "I love him." "I love him, too." "We will come to say good-bye." "We want peace..." "All of us." "And I am the one to seal that peace." "You have to go now, Sergei." "Your time is up." "We want Palomino back." "He is not gonna spend his time dreaming of Moscow." "Drive away." "This is the Day of the Dead, and I am a dead man." "Drive slowly to the edge of town." "This is a funeral cortege." "And when you reach the edge of town, drive like the Devil." "I need to leave Heaven in a hurry." "Eisenstein left Mexico two months later." "He had shot some 250 miles of film, which he was never allowed to edit." "Soviet laws made homosexuality a punishable offence in 1936." "Homosexuals were sent to Siberia." "Ten years' hard labour for sodomy." "Eisenstein dies of heart attack aged 50 in 1948, banging on the radiator pipes for over three hours to arouse his neighbours, a prearranged signal, but they never heard him." "Day ten of my stay in Guanajuato is the 31st of October and the eve of the Day of the Dead." "In the West, my film October is called" "The Ten Days That Shook The World." "I..." "Shall consider these ten days as the ten days that shook..." "Eisenstein."