"School" " Studio "SHAR"" "and The Federal Agency on Culture and Cinematography present" "St. Petersburg" "New York" "Two crows live in my yard." "The first one came two years ago, when my mother died." "The second - last year, after my father's death." "Alice Freindlich, Sergey Yursky, Grigory Dityatkovsky in the film by Andrey Khrzhanovsky" "I can't see myself touring my homeland where I was born and lived for 32 years." "A ROOM AND A HALF or a sentimental journey back home based on works by Joseph Brodsky" "It's easy to do." "Baryshnikov and I had a plan:" "We fly into Helsinki, then go to St. Pete by sea;" "Finns don't need a visa." "Incognito from New York, so to say." "A journey is the best time for memoirs." "Especially a journey by water." "Water is the image of time." "I never forgot that I'm a photographer's son." "My memory is simply developing a film." "Hello, my boy!" "Did I scare you?" "It's me, your father." "I'm back!" "War finished for my father in 1948 in China." "He was a counselor and photojournalist there." "I remember the December evening when he came home." "Why do I see it today clearly, as if through a powerful camera lens?" "This is how you realize how precious the coming of peace was." "Look at this..." "How pretty!" "This is just for you." "Let me see." "Thank you..." "What is this?" "Ki-mo-no." "A real mask from the Japanese Noh Theater." "Did you conquer anything more useful over there?" "Music." "La Cumparsita, the most brilliant musical piece of our time." "I could never dance, but I could listen to those walls for hours." "If nobody was around - I'd move to the rhythm." "Oh, Sasha..." "The night is light, Clouds are asleep," "And your stranger's hand Is lying on my palm..." "The morning calls me Off to war again..." "And as I leave your little town I'll walk by your gates." "Osya!" "Calm down." "It's not loaded." "He's a man, it's okay." "Put it down!" "No sense in trying to observe the right order of my memories." "Their lack of continuity is like the movies, right?" "What I remember most is the window." "The most important window of my life." "A great view of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral." "My whole life in Russia was tied to this cathedral." "During the war, the services didn't stop even for a day." "Prayer ...for all eternity, Amen." "Our father, who art in heaven... hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done... on earth as it is in heaven." "Give us this day our daily bread..." "There was no bomb shelter in our house." "During a raid my mother would drag me into the cathedral basement." "She told me I had my own spot there." "Next to the box for the names of the dead to be prayed for." "Help me write this, I forgot my glasses." "Ivan, Lyudmila..." "Alexey..." "Tengiz, Zurab." "Don't forget Suren." "Rachel, Sara, Joseph, Isaac, Zulfia, Abdul, Ishmael..." "I can't see me lying under this church during raids." "I can't feel it, or even force a memory." "George, Maria, Igor..." "innocent murder victims forgive us every transgression, both voluntary and involuntary and grant the kingdom of heaven." "Amen." "The cat has a golden cradle." "But my baby's cradle is better..." "We were evacuated in the 2nd year of the war." "Father took us to a military airdrome." "He had a friend there, a bomber pilot." "Mother worked as a translator in the prisoners of war camp." "The camp was on the other side of the river." "A prisoner drew a painting on a piece of plywood and gave it to Mom." "Springtime, river, birch trees, a water pump." "This painting was on the wall in our house for a long time." "A few times Mom took me along to the camp." "I remember, the first time I even asked:" "When are we going to drown?" "God forbid." "One winter I saw a decorated Christmas tree." "In the barracks for German prisoners." "Among the decorations was a baby with wings." "Mom told me that's an angel." "Since then I've wanted to fly." "For a miracle, take one shepherd's sheepskin, throw" "In a pinch of now, a grain of long ago," "And a handful of tomorrow." "Add by eye" "A little bit of ground, a piece of sky." "After evacuation we moved into a different apartment." "On the opposite side of the square." "It's that Mauritian-style House of Muruzi." "It's like a huge, six-story cake..." "The poet Anna Akhmatova said:" "My parents took me in a carriage to watch this house being built." "Everyone thought it would be the most beautiful building in St. Petersburg"" "...It's all communal apartments now, of course." "It used to be this long enfilade, where very different people lived." "Blok used to visit and stay in this house." "I don't remember who else." "I know we lived in the enfilade." "Merezhkovsky and Gippius also lived in those rooms." "When she yelled obscenities at the sailors," "Gippius was doing it from our balcony." "It was a beautiful city." "I think it still is." "Impeccable perspective and wonderful architecture." "All human rubbish stands out against it." "After the revolution..." "The compact housing policy broke up the enfilade." "One room per family." "Walls between rooms were made of plywood." "Unbreakable union of freeborn republics" "Great Russia has welded forever to stand!" "Created in struggle by will of the people" "United and mighty, our Soviet land!" "We lived in a city whose color was fossilized vodka" "Electricity came from afar, from swamps," "And at evening the apartment seemed" "Soiled with peat and mosquito-bitten." "Clothes were clumsy, and this betrayed" "The Arctic's proximity." "At the other end of the hall" "The phone tinkled, hardly coming back to life" "After the recently finished war." "The 3-ruble bill decorated with portraits of pilots and miners" "I didn't know that one day it would all be gone." "Sorry, you're so hard to please." "So, did you hear?" "Kaganovich's daughter got married." "It took 50 meters of fabric for her dress." "You know how much that is?" "Enough to wrap around 10 times." "And still..." "And we can't even get some sackcloth." "I've been wearing the same skirt for 5 years." "Many times I remembered our kitchen." "There was something primeval about this dimly lit cave." "Pots and pans hanging over dirty stoves they wanted to turn into tam-tams..." "What is breakfast or any meal in general?" "For our generation, it is this book:" ""Book of Delicious and Healthy Food"." "Come here, boy." "What do you want?" "What kind of sausages?" "Mikoyan, Munich or Bavarian?" "Any kind." "Maybe the "Friendship of nations" sausage?" "It's a mixed filling:" "A little ground veal, a little beef, and a bit more pork and lamb?" "Yes, that's what I want." "20 years after my death, enemies will fill it with niter, starch and other poisonous chemicals." "People's right to high-calorie science-based diet will be lost." "They will start dying from cancer and gastric ulcers." "Georgian-style lamb kebob, very delicious!" "But that's not right for breakfast." "Liver - foie gras with almond cream." "Ah, the aroma!" "Fish baked in a dough shell." "Stuffed pike, nightingale tongue souffl?" "So, which will it be?" "What can I have?" "Nothing." "This is all wrong for breakfast." "So what do I do?" "You wait." "I never eat in the mornings." "I drink Georgian tea and sit down to paperwork." "But I'm hungry!" "You're a Jew, boy." "And Jews eat only matzo." "I don't have any." "But I have a good idea for Jews." "Do you like to travel?" "Yes." "Great." "Osya, stop reading." "Go, boy." "Go wash your hands, potatoes are getting cold." "I'll take care of you." "You'll have a lot of matzo in Birobijan." "Book of Delicious and Healthy Food" "Mother used to say:" ""You're walking around in socks again?" "That's a bad sign; there'll be a death in the house."" "Come on, Masya." "Just socks again?" "How many times I told you:" "That's a bad sign." "Put on some shoes and get to the table." "Keep your nose out." "Let me see your hands." "Are they clean?" "They're not." "You were playing with the cat." "Go, wash them, quickly." "That's Stephan Batory, from Gdansk." "I recognize the horn." "Why are you not eating?" "It's not healthy to eat in the mornings." "What idiot told you this?" "What is this?" "Eat!" "Are you tired of potatoes?" "How about this fungus drink?" "It's a very good fungus." "It helps cure cancer." "This is all nonsense." "It is not!" "Old Rabinovich drank some before his death," "And he felt much better." "But Joseph doesn't seem to be dying yet." "Knock on wood." "But he has no appetite." "Should we buy some delicacy for the child?" "You have money for it?" "Give it here." "What should I buy?" "Salt, soap, and don't forget cigarettes." "Shall we go, Osya?" "50 grams of pressed caviar." "Thanks." "Enjoy!" "Let's go." "During our walks father would tell me stories about the facades." "What this building was before war or before 1917." "Who the architect and the owner were." "Who lived here and what happened to them." "I learned more than from the history textbook." "Wait, I'll buy the cigarettes for Masya." "Execution by firing squad." "Sentence carried out." "For what?" "In those days everyone went to football games." "Later, when I worked in a factory, I noticed:" "If the city or national football team lost, on the next day the productivity was very low." "Nobody worked; everyone discussed players and game details." "I remember the warning gong." "It sounded 5 minutes before the end of the game." "And the goal posts were striped, like border posts." "But on that day we didn't go to the game." "She wants me to wear a condom..." "Who's last in line?" "She married a Jew..." "The plenum started..." "Vodka will be 1 ruble again soon..." "Excuse me, can you tell me the score?" "2:1." "Zenith lost, Voyinov didn't score." "He fell down and didn't score, you see." "Of course, that was some blow to his legs!" "Legs for a football player are like hands for a pianist." "What would you do if you lost your hands?" "If I lost my hands?" "I'd continue composing, with a pen in my teeth." "Did you recognize the man in glasses?" "Who's our greatest composer now?" "Lebedev-Kumach?" "Ach, let's talk about our plans instead." "Where shall we go?" "Masya, look what we got." "Oh God." "Here." "You know who we saw in the tearoom?" "Who?" "Dmitry Dmitriyevich." "Our district police officer?" "Shostakovich!" "Shoo!" "This is for you." "Why me?" "It's for the boy." "As a kid I used to talk like a cat." "I'd sing words that sounded like "meow"." "So there was constant mewing in our home." "Meow, we want meat right now." "Stop calling me kitty." "And stop with these cat songs and words." "Or you'll have cat brains." "Here, step with your fork." "White meat, and potatoes." "Masya, why aren't you eating?" "I have a terrible headache." "I'll go lie down." "Are you okay?" "Osya, go, heal Masya." "Mom's headaches started during the war." "In evacuation, she was attacked a few times." "On her way home from work." "They took away the ration." "One time she was beaten on the head with a stick." "...another train left point A to point B at 45 kilometers per hour." "The distance between points..." "Whenever I hear "train", my memory... insists on a picture from the end of the war." "Get on, we're late!" "Brodsky, you couldn't solve this simple problem?" "!" "Once there lived a boy." "And there was the most beautiful city on earth." "With a huge gray river, hanging over its deep floor." "Like the huge gray sky hanging over the river." "Magnificent palaces stood along the river." "The boy slid to the middle of the river." "He wondered what the fish did under such thick ice." "He spent all the money on drink again." "You should complain to the party or the union." "Who'll run to the store?" "The young one." "Who's young?" "Ask where to go instead." "We'll drink and warm up." "What's going on?" "We might have to travel soon." "We decided to get rid of things we can't take along." "My family was getting ready to leave." "It was known that Jews will be deported to the Far East." "As an outcome of the "Case of Doctors"." "Boys, stop fooling around." "Motherland hears, motherland knows, where her son flies in the clouds" "Sing higher, boys." "Look at me." "Just open your mouth or sing "meow, meow"." "Good, Tanya... open your mouths..." "Motherland hears, Motherland knows," "On your knees!" "On your knees!" "Comrade Stalin... is dead." "Madame, leaves are falling already..." "Fall is coming." "School notebooks already" "Lie in backpacks." "And charmers like you" "In the mornings arrange their hair" "In a big bun, getting ready for cold." "I remember a day in Tavrida," "Our common interest in nature," "Always in its wild ways," "I am amazed and sad, Madame." "Where've you been?" "We got held back." "The football game was over a long time ago." "I was about to leave." "Here, let's hang it." "Sometimes on our walks we'd visit my uncle." "He was a restorer at the Art Academy." "Go, walk around the museum while we play a game." "Go on." " To you." " To you." "Dark green laurels on the verge of trembling." "Doors ajar." "The windowpane is dusty." "Idle chairs and the abandoned sofa." "Linen blinded by the sun of noonday." "Pontus drones past a black fence of pine trees." "Someone's boat braves gusts out by the promontory." "On the garden bench a book of Pliny rustles." "Thrushes chirp within the hairdo of the cypress." "And the postmaster..." "look." "Very good." "Who's this?" "Look at what your uncle's doing." "Go, see some more paintings." "Let's have another." "I haven't played in a while..." "To Levitan?" "Sorry;" "I wanted to remind you." "There's an open party meeting tomorrow at 3." "Attendance is mandatory." "To that "Rooks" painting." "Or to the "Morning in the pine forest"." "What I saw in this book fascinated me for the rest of my life." "I had to have this book." "I contrived a terrible crime." "Who is it?" "But my uncle guessed my dark thoughts." "He let me borrow the cherished book." "In secret from my parents, of course." "Joseph, are you asleep?" "What are you doing?" "What's this?" "He's reading Man and Woman!" "The boy who has not read Dostoevsky or Tolstoy..." "Look at what this criminal is reading!" "This is all your influence." "He hasn't read Turgenev's Fathers and Children!" "He hasn't even read Gorky's Mother!" ""...trooper N in Tula region cohabited... with a young lady, and then..."" "What happened then?" "Wait." "I need to get glasses." "Let's see." "Wow!" "Movies were the only way for us to see the West." "Even the mandatory documentaries in the beginning - about the successes under the Communist Party " "We were willing to endure them." "I still remember the love of my youth." "Zarah Leander..." "I saw her only once." "In the movie about Maria Stuart." "She was the most beautiful woman ever in the movies." "This is Katya." "Hello." "Goodbye." "Goodbye." "Good evening." "Hello." "This is Tanya." " Hello." " Hello." "Goodbye." "Goodbye." "Do you want some fungi drink?" "Who'd you get so drunk with?" "We all came out into the light after the movie" "But something calls us back into the dark" "Into the soft and cozy theater womb" "Which is more pleasant than a restaurant at night" "A white bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley..." "The most important art for us is cinema." "The most important part of cinema is that it's dark." "Freethinking and liberation of mind in the USSR starts with Tarzan." "At least for my generation." "It was the first movie where we saw natural life." "We knew our conversations were tapped." "That we're under surveillance." "We knew that Gabriella wasn't sleeping." "That's what we called KGB." "In the early 1960's everyone got X-rays." "Twice annually, all schools and factories." "I don't know how this affected death rates." "But the procedure had a positive effect on culture." "On cultural exchange between political systems." "Their bourgeois music was recorded on our bones." "On our workers' and peasants' bones." "This is Joseph." "What's your last name?" " Eh, Catman, Joseph." " Are you a poet?" "I don't really understand all these big words..." ""poet", "billiards"..." "Saying I'm a poet is like saying "I'm a good man", right?" "Take Akhmatova, for example." "This show-off will light a match on his jeans." "I don't like cognac." "It smells like bedbugs." "Our generation is the last one that cared for cultural values." "We were not hypocrites." "We could drink hard." "Judging by how much we drank," "Leningrad was a wide open window to Europe." "We had a need for reading books." "It will be harder for you to shoot another man if you have read Dickens than if you haven't." "Before you elect a candidate, you must ask what he's read." "The people here are so interesting." "Who said that?" "Do you know that not all people are people?" "That's my old theory." "If the head of the Communist Party is a human, then I am not." "Thank you for your attention." "Basically, nobody governs us." "And this is the most universal form of tyranny." "Nobody is everybody, right?" "They are so like the mass." "They don't need to hold elections, et cetera." "So what do you suggest?" "I don't know." "If I were the head of the communist party" "I'd make them publish Proust, In Search of Lost Time." "Every evening in the Pravda newspaper." "Or Joyce's Ulysses?" "If somebody doesn't agree with me, that's great." "If many people agree with you, it's a sign of danger." "Best protection from evil is utmost individuality of thinking and behavior..." "Original identity, eccentricity even." "What you can't forge or imitate." "They'll make a movie about us one day." "Then I have a quirk:" "We must have Venice in the background." "If there's a chance for reincarnation, I want to live there." "As a cat, maybe, I don't care." "What is a cat?" "It's like a reduced lion, right?" "Like we're reduced Christians." "Who'd play you?" "No one less than Gina Lollobrigida." "Well?" "It's getting cold." "Let's go." "Let's clean up first." "I wonder - we're here today." "Do we think we're smarter than those who are not?" "A common delusion." "Don't you find him a bit cocky?" "Yeah, a bit." "So will we have poetry tonight?" "No poems." "Let's sing instead." "Underneath the lantern," "By the barrack gate" "Darling I remember" "The way you used to wait I heard your feet," "But could not meet," "My Lilly of the Lamplight, my own Lilly Marlene" "Who are you sleeping in bed with?" "Let's go." "In days gone by I too have waited out" "Cold rains near columns of the Stock Exchange." "And I assumed that it was God's own gift." "It may be that I was not wrong in this." "I too was happy once." "I lived in bond" "Of angels." "And I fought against fierce monsters." "At the main entranceway I lay in wait," "Like Jacob at his ladder, for a lovely" "Girl running down the stairs." "But all of this" "Has gone, vanished forever - wholly hidden." "And gazing out the window, having written" "The world "where", I don't add a question mark." "It is September now." "And orchard stands" "Before me." "Distant thunder stuffs my ears." "The ripened pears hang down in the thick leaves" "Like signs of maleness." "And my ears now let" "The roaring rain invade my drowsy mind " "As skinflints let poor kin into their kitchens:" "A sound that's less than music, though it's more" "Than noise." "I don't like men who leave weeping women behind." "Like a smoking trail of everywhere they go..." "Now, Mandelstam..." "Wait, I'll show you something." "Can you do this?" "I can't." "No, I don't think even Nuriev could." "You won't see this in Paris." "Why they snatch wipers from your cars?" "This is the main mystery of Russian man." "Let's go." "Hello." "Hi, Joseph, this is Edik." "Hi." "An American exhibition is opening in Moscow." "You want to go?" "Good idea, old man." "The American National Exhibition opened in Moscow." "Mr. Khrushchev spoke with US Vice President Richard Nixon." "We saw many interesting things here." "We truly rejoiced in the successes of the talented American people." "Why are they smiling?" "How much are they paid to smile?" "And they are always hunchbacked," "They are half-dressed and hungry." "Their eyes are so full of sunset," "Their hearts are so full of sunrise." "Behind them deserts are singing," "Summer lightings blazing;" "Stars rise in sky above them," "And birds cry coarsely to tell them" "That the world... what?" "So there is no sense in believing," "In yourself, or in God, no matter." "And it means all you have left for you" "Are illusion and road to nowhere." "And the sun will set behind Earth," "And the sun will rise over Earth;" "It will be fertilized with soldiers," "It will be eulogized by poets." "I'd like to find out what lobster is." "Just taste them once and die." "No crowding here, people, leave." "I guess we're getting nothing at all." "The society pays for indifference to culture." "And it pays with civic freedoms." "We're the last generation that knows what civilization is." "The ones after us won't care about it." "In terms of individuality." "Only selfish interest." "Mass character has its own pluses, too." "What are the pluses of mass character, I wonder?" "Doesn't matter, you know." "I don't know." "The meaning of a man's existence lies elsewhere." "It's nice to drink in the countryside." "We're not doing anything, just minding our own business." "How about Russian poetry?" "Does anyone write anything?" "Working on verb rhymes." "Good." "But most important is..." "A place to have a drink?" "No, the most important is what?" "Finally." "Flourishing of mass culture means the end of culture in general." "Culture can't be "mass" by definition." "The artist, the creator is always one." "That's what this is about..." "It says everything here." "O, hello, Mr. Marlboro!" "Yeah!" "Do you believe that I'll be here one day?" "You're an idiot." "Why do you need Venice, we have our Northern Venice." "Right here!" "And it's beautiful!" "I'm sick of this Northern Venice!" "Don't touch me!" "What, you don't even like Dostoevsky?" "Hands off me!" "Dostoevsky?" "Yes!" "You don't like all of our literature, huh?" "Gogol, Pushkin?" "I don't like Gogol." "And Pushkin is our everything, right?" "And you don't like Tolstoy?" "Your Tolstoy is a bore!" "The best prose was written by Tsvetaeva." "What about Chekhov and Bunin?" "They're worth less than one story by Platonov." "I think I know why Pushkin's lines were so short." "He wrote with a goose feather and the ink dried fast." "He'd finish a line, dip the pen again, and start a new one." "And Akhmatova wrote in pencil." "She liked this poem:" "John Donne has sunk in sleep..." "All things beside are sleeping too:" "Walls, bed and floor... all sleep." "The table, pictures, carpets, hooks and bolts, clothes-closets, cupboards, candles, curtains... all now sleep:" "The washbowl, bottle, tumbler, bread, breadknife and china, crystal, pots and pans..." "Who is John Donne?" "What does he have to do with the nation's life?" "He is an English poet, a metaphysician." "End of 16th - beginning of 17th century." "Do you know English?" "I'm learning it." "How many grades did you finish in school?" "Seven." "Who said that you're a poet?" "I think it's given by God." "Judge Savelyeva will ask him this question a few years later." "Don't rush things." "Some people believe that you're not a poet." "You're a blown-up phoney." "You'll pay for this." "He should be tried as a sponger and exiled from our city." "Brodsky even avoided serving in the Army." "It is the holy duty of every Soviet citizen." "Brodsky's head is full of political confusion." "Anti-Soviet phrases can be found in his letters." "Brodsky's image and behavior tells us he is a hardened sponger." "I know that Brodsky even argued with Karl Marx." "How do you know that he argued with Karl Marx?" "I refuse to answer this question." "I've seen some of his poems." "My son has them." "I didn't read them." "But I can imagine what they say." "I am surprised by Brodsky's parents." "They are bringing their son up as an anti-social person." "A parasite... a militant sponger... we have to fight them..." "The court has ruled:" "Based on Article 1 of the edict by the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of RSFSR" ""On intensifying the struggle with persons who refrain from socially useful labor and lead an anti-social parasitic way of life"," "Joseph Brodsky will be exiled from Leningrad." "To a specially designated area for 5 years, with mandatory labor in place of settlement." "This ruling can't be appealed." "I never remember the trial - nothing to remember." "But I tenderly remember the village where I lived for almost 2 years." "You leave your home at 6 am and go out into the field." "The sun is rising." "You realize that millions of people like you are also leaving their homes..." "I'm in a village, lost amidst the woods," "I'm staring at the openings in the sky:" "I wait to see the lights turned on in windows" "Of heaven's Moscow residential buildings." "The south wind that makes the clouds descend" "From cold and never-darkening heights," "Seems like it is about to bring me" "The echoing voice of your so-distant muse." "Send me, my dear, some mustard... 12 bottles of rum, something in vinegar..." "Limburg cheese and a book about horseback riding." "My dear cats!" "I'm doing fine." "Send me, if you can, some Romanian canned food and mustard." "At night as he stands at the door, he will see" "Two horsemen that gallop in nearby fields;" "They seem to be circling through groves and through roads," "Chasing each other, but they can't catch up..." "Two horsemen ride into the shadows of night," "One after another, they lean on the horse;" "Through groves and through rivers, and through the dark woods," "To where they'll be able to soar to the skies." "In May of 1972 I was called to the visa department." "They offered me to leave Russia." ""What if I refuse?"" " I asked." ""Then you'll be in a hot spot, Brodsky"." "It is a popular belief that emigration means sweet life." "Pineapples in champagne." "I didn't really know what awaited me here." "The honorary doctor gown of various universities wasn't my plan." "Unlike pilot school." "The first thing I did in New York" " I got a pilot license." "I've never used it, though." "I was afraid I'd crash into Empire State Building." ""In the midway of this our mortal life," "I found me in a gloomy wood..."" "Look, isn't it time for a snack?" "Did you wear Pasternak's tie when you got your Nobel prize?" "This is not completely true." "Next." "Tell us, what is freedom?" "Freedom is what you need to go to the library." "One article calls you a genius." "Again?" "No way!" "How do you position yourself?" "I am a member of the forest brotherhood." "With a dash of antiquity and literature of absurdity." "Do you like Gogol?" "Alcohol?" "Not alcohol, Gogol." "Certainly!" "Were you in a madhouse in the USSR?" "More than once." "Maybe you really are mad?" "Good evening, Professor Brodsky." "What's wrong, Masya?" "Another bad dream?" "I can feel he's suffering there." "Who is, Joseph?" "What can be bad in the life of a Professor of University of Michigan?" "Do you ever see good dreams?" "You men are insensitive." "And lazy - you just want to stay in bed." "Get up, it's our turn to clean today!" "Masya!" "My boy, let's talk." "Tell me, how are you?" "By the old Russian custom," "By the St. Petersburg custom," "We can't live without champagne," "And we can't live without gypsies." "Oh, dark eyes, passionate yes," "Burning, beautiful eyes," "Oh, I love you so, and I'm afraid of you so," "It was an evil hour when you saw you first." "There you go." "Osya's drawings." "He smokes too much!" "He takes after you." "He doesn't care about his health." "He should drink instead." "Don't you know the demagogue?" "He says that a monkey took a stone and turned into man," "A man picked up a cigarette and turned into a poet." "You can get inspired by glancing at a cigarette pack." "The Magi came." "The babe was sound asleep." "The manger was surrounded by arches." "Snow fell; white steam was swirling round." "The babe was lying there, next to the gifts." "Look at that beak!" "Not worse than yours." "Such beaks are very expensive in heaven." "How lucky that Osya didn't inherit it." "By the way, it's our turn to clean today." "Thanks." "Hello." "Hello, Mom, it's me." "Joseph, is that you?" "Yes, Mom, can you hear me?" "I can, where are you?" "I can hear you, I'm here." "Joseph is calling from America." "How is the weather in New York?" "How are you, how's the big cat?" "The only thing we want in this life is to see you again." "What did you do last night?" "I did the dishes." "That's very good." "Doing dishes is good for your health." "How are you?" "We're the same." "Tell me, how are you?" "What do you eat?" "Are you starving?" "All I do is eat, I'm okay." "He says he eats all the time." "He's lying." "Ask him what he eats." "What do you eat?" "Just now I was eating lobster, for example." "What's that?" "How should I explain?" "Do you remember crayfish?" "Yes, I do." "Lobsters are a bit more repulsive." "Joseph lives in terrible need." "He is forced to eatjunk." "Osya!" "Mom!" "I can't hear!" "I think Joseph is seriously ill." "And he has no money to buy medicine." "Hello!" "Damn." "I think she didn't realize it was me calling." "Remember this?" "A man out of the dark stops us:" ""Guys, you speak Russian?" "!" We say: "Yes"." ""I'm so happy, I haven't heard my language for ages!"" "Brodsky takes out a pack of Kent, the long ones." "He says: "Can I take two cigarettes?"" "And Brodsky says:" ""Take the whole pack"." "He takes it: "Do you have a dollar, too?"" "Brodsky takes out his wallet and gives him 10 bucks." "He takes it." "I light the lighter, he sees our faces:" ""How terrible!" "Jews are everywhere!"" "Let's sing something else." "Maxim, something from our past life." "...the night is brief," "Clouds are asleep," "And your stranger's hand" "Is lying on my palm." "Wait, we're not singing it right." ""Is lying on my shoulder-strap"." "We're singing "on my palm"." "Which is right?" "I think it's the shoulder strap." "Don't you remember?" "It's the palm." "Why?" "The song was in honor of new army uniforms." "So the girl must be... much taller..." "Weren't dwarfs drafted into the Army?" "Gosh, that would have been the Boy Soldiers' Regiment." "Your Grace, is it the palm or the shoulder-strap?" "Of all Russian poetry, I remember only two lines:" ""Oh, good people, turn around - maybe you are being fucked"." "That's brilliant." "Please..." "Hello." "Mom, we got disconnected." "I have a question." "Do you remember that song?" ""Your lonely hand is lying on my shoulder-strap"" "Or "is lying on my palm"?" "Clouds are asleep," "No..." "The night is brief," "Clouds are asleep," "And your stranger's hand" "Is lying on my palm." "Mom, what's wrong?" "They won't let us out anyway." "Why do you need English?" "Why torture your old head?" "Just in case." "I need to be able to say at least two words in their language." "Hello, yes." "I see." "Brodsky!" "I still see this picture." "Two old people wandering endless bureaucratic offices." "Hoping to get permission to go abroad." "To see their only son before death." "They kept hearing the answer:" ""The state thinks this journey would be inappropriate"." "The system did not have one error, from top to bottom." "As a system it can be proud of itself." "Brutality is easier to organize than anything else." "I am first in line." "No, on Wednesday." "On Wednesday?" "Yes, Wednesday." "This is the main tragedy of Russian life." "The people's colossal disrespect for each other." "Along with contempt and lack of compassion." "Relax, close your eyes." "Breathe steadily." "Imagine that you're lying on the beach." "Warm breeze is blowing." "Waves lick your feet, sun rays fill you, you sleep." "I often see my parents in my dreams." "They're watching me on TV getting the Nobel prize." "You see how nervous he is." "He doesn't know what to do with his hands." "He looks so good in that tuxedo." "I often see you in dreams, son." "Like you're coming back, but we can't meet you." "You need to go to a resort, Mom." "We have no money for a resort." "But I go to our district clinic." "I sent you albums of Raphael, Botticelli and Cranach." "Look at them, then sell them." "Sell the Chinese tea set." "We're keeping it for you." "You'll get it when you get married or when we..." "Sasha, take a picture of the boy on the balcony." "As you do every year." "Where's the smoke smell coming from?" "They're burning leaves in the park." "How many pictures have you taken on this balcony?" "This will be another one." "All young people want to leave their home, their nest." "And one day a man realizes that the nest is gone." "The people who gave him life are dead." "He realizes that the only real thing in his life was that nest." "The nest he so urgently wanted to escape from." "To those who serve them." "Yet the Muses' service" "Renders a poet's hands divinely nervous." "None then can doubt God's presence or His power." "One 'poet' sits preparing memoranda." "Another sighs, muffling a murmur." "And a" "Third, following a well-rehearsed agenda," "Plucks lines from other poets like spring flowers." "You're coming home again." "What does that mean?" "Can there be anyone here who still needs you," "Who would still want to count you as his friend?" "You're home, you've bought sweet wine to drink with supper," "And, staring out the window, bit by bit" "And, staring out the window, bit by bit" "You come to see that you're the one who's guilty:" "The only one." "That's fine." "Thank God for that." "Or maybe one should say, 'Thanks for small favors.'" "It's fine that there is no on else to blame," "It's fine that you are free of all connections," "It's fine that in this world there is no one" "Who feels obliged to love you to distraction." "It's fine that no one ever took your arm" "And saw you to the door on a dark evening," "It's fine to walk, alone, in this vast world" "Toward home form the tumultuous railroad station." "It's fine to catch yourself, while rushing home," "Mouthing a phrase that's something less than candid;" "You're suddenly aware that your own soul" "Is very slow to take in what has happened." "The ship was sailing in fog, and the fog was white." "And the ship in its turn was white (see the law of physics " "The law of displacement of bodies), it even looked" "Like a piece of chalk that had been soaked in milk." "And the only black thing in this picture was" "The coffee that I was drinking..." "The clouds sail away" "In the chilly light smoke," "Their reflections in water." "I swim in the clouds," "To the wonderful places" "Where I once was young," "By the seagulls, and then" "Where the smoke will be gone." "Russia's marine capital has always been St. Petersburg." "The main river of our city is the beautiful Neva." "The marine parade beautifies the city." "The city's guests and visitors admire it." "These ship masts above the Neva, the city's specific feature." "The monument to the founder of our city." "The first Russian emperor, Peter the Great." "We call it the "Copper Rider"." "This is what Alexander Pushkin called it." "Of course, the drawn bridges over Neva." "Another unmistakable symbol of St. Petersburg." "Now, we are on one of the channels." "We're entering the Kolomna district." "It is far from the center..." "No dollars, only Euro..." "The rate will be different in the morning..." "Are we selling or buying?" "Two cars of raw materials and three tanks?" "He thinks we're dumb?" "Let's go..." "When I embraced these shoulders, I beheld" "The room as it was now revealed beyond us." "I saw how a straight chair pushed from the wall" "Had blended with the brilliant glow behind it..." "The table stood deserted, and the floor" "Lay gleaming, while the stove seemed dark; a dusty" "Wood frame held a stiff landscape." "The sideboard" "Appeared to be alone among the living." "A moth, a flutter in this empty blaze," "Shook my fixed stare out of its frozen orbit." "If any ghost had tried to haunt this place," "He must have left, for surely he abhorred it." "Just think, pal." "Ten thousand bucks for the cargo load." "Get the money in advance, no later than Friday..." "Meow." "Did you wash your hands, Joseph?" "Meow." "I haven't yet." "What are you waiting for?" "It's getting cold." "I'll be quick, just to wash my hands." "You think I need to cook franks?" "Get in line, like everyone else." "It's true about franks." "He puts hot water on them in the sink." "And then he eats them, I've seen it." "It's like I never left..." "Meow, meat." "It's like you never left..." "You want meat?" "Ha!" "How was school, Joseph?" "We had a math test." "The first problem was about two pipes." "The second one was about the train from point A to point B." "How did you do?" "I didn't solve either." "They'll kick you out of school." "What will you do without the general mandatory education?" "I don't know..." "I'll write, I'll get the Nobel prize." "You can't live off of one prize." "It's better to serve in the Army or the Navy." "You'll get allowances and you'll protect your country." "You know they didn't accept me into the army." "Did you forget?" "They found a heart disease." "Mom kept going to the enlistment office." "She shouldn't have!" "A man must serve somewhere, protect someone." "Why did you humiliate yourself?" "I don't know." "Your military career didn't give you anything." "It's only because I had to retire too early." "Because I'm a Jew." "You'll see, they'll be world champions." "This is very good!" "Osya..." "Mom, don't you have that fungus?" "What fungus?" "That fungus you had in a jar, remember?" "With that sour water that made yourjaws cramp." "I missed it." "It died back when you were in exile." "What happened to it?" "I don't know, it went bad." "And not only ours did." "They say it's all in the ecology." "That fungus is very rare now." "I've been meaning to ask you." "I couldn't over the phone." "Did they call you to the KGB often after I left?" "Why would they?" "Don't they have more serious things to do?" "I'm sorry, Joseph, we never understood your poetry." "I know." "Who brought these flowers?" "Your friends." "They come for your birthday every year." "And you, how did you die?" "I died in front of the TV." "Like now, I was watching figure skating." "The chair cracked under me." "I moved to a different one and died." "Were you scared?" "Not at all." "The whole day I really wanted some boiled chicken." "But nobody could make it, by that time she already..." "Yes, I went first..." "It's too bad..." "What's bad?" "Too bad that I wasn't there." "I'd have cooked the chicken for you." "You know how to boil chickens?" "Do you know that you have to singe it first?" "You would have cooked it with the feathers." "You would have spoiled the chicken and the mood." "That sounds right." "And how did you die?" "The doctors found an ulcer and sent me to Kislovodsk." "They send everyone there..." "Turned out it wasn't an ulcer..." "But that's not what's sad." "What's sad is I saved up the money for that trip." "When I was in line to buy the train ticket, someone stole my wallet." "We had to borrow from neighbors." "Was it hard to pay back?" "I didn't, he paid them back after my death." "What about you, Joseph?" "What about me?" "How did you die?" "Me..." "Did I die?" "Of course, since you're talking to us." "It's for you." "Me?" "But nobody knows that I'm here." "Are you ready to go?" "Where?" "Come down, the car is on the way." "Where?" "What car?" "Who is this?" "They say I'm having some recital..." "Yes, it was in all the newspapers." "I ironed a shirt for you." "Are you going?" "Sorry, Joseph, father is really not feeling well." "I can't leave him like this!" "God, what a terrible headache!" "May I not have to die far from you, far away" "In the mountains of doves, imitating the bow-legged boy." "May you also not have to, rushing the clouds along," "See my tears and my pitiful grief in the dark." "Let the service for me be by choir of water and sky," "And the granite will swallow and hug me, remembering my steps;" "Let the burial service be read and me, the fugitive, be sained by" "Your immovable glory on earth on a white night." "In the silence around only the black towboat will scream" "In the middle of river, in its desperate fight against darkness." "And the flying night will betroth this miserable life" "With your beauty and with my posthumous rightness." "I forgot to mail the letter to the President." "I took it with me in an envelope, back in 1972." "Mister President!" "I don't want to leave Russia." "I was born, grew up and lived here;" "I owe everything I have to it." "I believe that I will come back." "Poets always come back - in flesh or on paper." "I would like to believe in both." "People have grown out of the strongest one being right." "There are too many weak people in the world." "The only thing that's right is kindness." "Nobody wins from evil, anger or hatred, even if you call them righteous." "We are all condemned to the same thing." "To death." "I, the writer, will die." "And you, the reader, will die." "Nobody should stop others from doing theirjob." "The conditions of existence are too difficult." "Don't complicate them even more." "It's been snowing, for God knows how many days," "Storm and blizzard, so mournful - should I wear black?" "The city and the fields are all drowned in the snow," "It's so white - whiter color can't exist." "The air, it seems, is only there as material" "For the lace stretched out on the frame in the park, where the Tsar would graze" "And statues are cold, even though outside it's Besstuzhev " "The "no cold" Decembrist, executed later." "And then January came." "In loving memory of our parents" "The authors certify that the film is fictional." "Any coincidences or analogies with real persons or events are absolutely accidental."