“Making a movie is about capturing the light that bounces off your skin and recording it on film and then releasing it to the audience in the theaters. When you’re sat in the theater, the light that hits your eye, it’s part of this chemical chain that reaches back to and touches my skin. I think in that way, if we’d make movies that show more of the body, it could be a powerful magic.”
(Marissa, Ambrosio - 9-16-1968)
“I watched Robert and Sofia. I was not jealous but what they had looked delicious. And when I kissed Robert on camera, I could taste Sofia in his mouth. I enjoyed the simplicity of it. Just two beautiful people, young and healthy enough that they felt immortal. I don’t know if I wanted to spoil it, but I wanted to be in it. Whether I’m fucking or being fucked, I take more than I give. There’s no reproductive aspect to sex, it’s purely consumption.”
(The One, Ambrosio - 9-16-1968 [secret])
“The Virgin Birth was a magic trick … It was a good story though, wasn’t it? What if I told you the two Marys were the same person? So many stories, so many characters. Go on then, you can kiss me.”
(The One, Ambrosio 6B 8-15-1968 [secret])
“I’m the original of your Madonna. I had hoped to keep this secret. Before my life in the Abbey, I had many admirers. Believe that I paid them no attention. One was the artist Martin Galuppi. He petitioned me to sit for him and I was compelled by my parents to agree. He gave the painting to me as a gift, embarassed by the blasphemy…”
(Marissa, Ambrosio 12C - 8-7-1968)
“I found the 20th Century overwhelming. I ended up in London, swept there by the culture. I modeled. I hadn’t thought much about movies, but when they told me a Fischer wanted to see me, I watched his. It was amazing to me, because his movies are similar to how we see the world. The compression of time. I felt Fischer was an artist and I hoped to help but he was in decline when we met. He wasn’t interested in teaching me, he wanted to sculpt me. Movies were like a sexual mania to him. He told me what to eat.”
(The One, Ambrosio 15A - 8-23-1968 [secret])
“Did the earth move for you too?”
(Marissa, Ambrosio 23A - 10-15-1968)
“I’ll indulge you one take John, you call it.
Alright, look at the reflection of yourself in the camera? That’s it. Action.”
(Fischer and Durick, Ambrosio 24A - 10-17-1968)
“There’s a chain. It’s very visible if you’re sat outside of things. Arthur Fischer and John Durick were on that chain. Ideas, traditions, techniques, organic matter gets passed along. Fischer passed me on to Durick or Durick took me, or I chose to go, it’s hard to say. They both wanted to claim me as theirs. There’s a lifecycle to an artist and it’s very important to get the timing right, to prune, to use one to fertilize another. With John, it was the first time I put myself into the chain.”
(The One, Ambrosio 28 - 6-8-1968 [secret])
“Not at the camera.
I like it.
She can’t look at the camera, John.
It’s hot. It’s modern.
Fuck off with your modern.
…
Stop looking at the camera.”
(Fischer and Durick, 30B - 8-19-1968)
“When I woke the last time it was into chaos. I was weak, confused. I walked down through the villages. I found her in a field. She was still alive. She was beautiful. The choice was made for me. She wanted to know what I was. Etes-vous une ange? I took her into a farmhouse and devoured her. Her memories are still in here. She hadn’t seen much of life, so the horrors of her last years dominate. She hadn’t yet been kissed. She loved the woods, particularly the patches of caille-lait which she would stick to her brother’s back. In English, it’s called robin-run-the-hedge or sticky willie, goosegrass, cleavers. Her favorite meal was crêpes avec andouilles, cream and boudin noir. Although I don’t feel hunger I still crave those from time to time.”
(The One, Ambrosio 32A - 8-19-1968 [secret])
“Keep your face blank so the audience can project onto it. You are their vessel. They will see you looking and then we will cut to what you are looking at. And through you, they will see. You will be looking for them. So use your eyes. Sofia, Marissa, your job is to be looked at … You see, you will desire what the audience desires. The more you let them use you, the more brilliant they will think your acting” [Note: Like the classic Hitchcock insight on looking and match cuts, plus Mulvey on visual pleasure].
(Fischer, Ambrosio 35 - 6-1-1968)
“This device allows me to see where I am not. It shows it holder the object of their affection … Think on your love. Think on Antonia … The same magic that powers this lens can also grant you what you wish”
(Marissa, of a mirror, Ambrosio 40A - 8-20-1968)
“I thought you’d keep your distance if you came back.
I never can. There’s more that binds us together than repels us.
What they do, what they create is worthwhile. I want that.
They’re monkeys flinging shit.
There’s more than just existing.
There is, but not this.”
(The One and The Other, Ambrosio 42A - 10-18-1968)
“Weddings. Funerals. Black masses. I’ve seen a few.
Êtes-vous un ange?”
(The One and Marissa, Ambrosio 56C - 10-1-1968 [secret])
“People sells their souls all the time because very few of them really believe in such a thing. Everyone knows they’re going to die. Faced with their imminent death, I’ve seen so many turn to bargaining, desperate bargaining. There’s a panic that sets in, even with the most prepared. The beauty of humanity is in its being finite. You know a Rose is beautiful because it only blooms for a short while, but are surprised to learn you are roses too.”
(The One, Ambrosio 59A - 10-0-1968 [secret])
“Deserts are mostly empty of people. Less people, less trouble. Used to be that you could find solitude in the desert, before satellite imaging digitized the whole world in the palm of your hand. There are all sorts of places on Earth. Empty places where a person can lay down and die. We used to listen to the rocks crack at night. One of us was tempting the other but, I forget which. In the desert you can lose track of time. There’s no civilization. Just sand and creatures. I like how this movie ends. All the good stories finish in the desert.”
(The One, Ambrosio 62A - 10-2-1968 [secret])
“Qui es-tu?
Je ne sais pas.”
(Marissa and The One, Minsky - 6-26-1970 [secret])
“Vous vivrez en moi.
Je veux vivre pour toujours.”
(Vampire[?] and Marissa, Minsky - 6-26-1970 [secret])
“Well he has a cop mindset and its really about the clash between the artists, how they live and, and this cop mindset, the conservative mindset, I guess. He is surprised by how messy the lives of artists are.”
(Marissa, Minsky - 4-15-1969)
“We’ve been working a lot with artists in the New York scene. They have a lot of interesting ideas about how art is made, what art is. A person can be art, if they’re packaged right.”
(Marissa, Minsky - 7-29-1970)
“The Other One wants me to choose between everything that’s real and an idea. It’s impossible.”
(The One, Minsky 8-28-1970 [secret])
“Minsky. It was John’s idea to create a vehicle for me, an expression of how he saw me. He wanted me to star but I wanted to write too. I started feeling that there were better ways to create. It interested me that even though he was sleeping with me, it was still the fantasy he put on screen that he wanted. In that respect, he was no different than Fischer. I wanted Franny to be real and I realized that that was only possible if we looked at her in the right way. A camera decides who has sovereignty.”
(The One, Minsky 9-17-1970 [secret])
“Male body looks best clothed. While the female, it’s another matter entirely.
I disagree.
I’ve made a lot of movies, John. So I have some experience here.
We’re making a different type of movie.
It’s always shock value at first, then things settle down. I’ve seen a few new waves in my time.”
(Minsky and Durick, Minsky 1 - 6-24-1970)
“So this guy likes tits huh? I read in the paper he was fucking his model. She’s not even half his age.
Genius doesn’t age.
Yeah, I bet she did it.”
(Cop and Carl, Minsky 3A - 8-11-1970)
“Thou shalt not break chain of evidence. Homicide investigation is a sacred mission from God. We speak for the dead, who have no voice.”
(Carl and Ruby, in unison, Minsky 3A - 8-11-1970)
“His imagination was lesser than I thought. He wasn’t as great as I wanted him to be.”
(The One, Minsky 3A - 8-11-1970 [secret])
“Come inside. You’re going to come in, it’s hard to say no.”
(The One, Minsky 10A - 8-13-1970 [secret])
“Stuff that I made. Before they put his name on it. A portrait of the artist
He looks unhappy.
He didn’t like being looked at. He said my work was amateur.
Is that what he was working on before he died?
He was trying to reduce my face to pure form. He painted over each line fifty times to remove any meaning from it. The pure essence of Franny, just lines and colors. He liked my lines but all the rest was a distraction”
(Marissa and Carl, Minsky 11B 8-16-1970)
“For Minsky and the rest art is a procreative endeavor, a masculine act. To paint me he had to fuck me. To paint me fully he had to fuck me–
Fully. Whoever killed Minsky cut off his penis.
How about you detective? Do you need to fuck me to decide if I’m guilty?”
(Marissa and Carl, Minsky 11B 8-16-1970)
“After I killed the Other One, I told John everything. He disappointed me. John liked the mystery. He didn’t like there being an answer, and that the answer was that I was bigger than him he didn’t like. The Other One had pushed me to the edge, so I didn’t so much snap, as just keep moving. I had never felt so connected and I wasn’t ready to let it go. I consumed him efficiently. I didn’t have time to think what it meant to lose Marissa.”
(The One, Minsky 11B 8-16-1970 [secret])
“It’s us or them. Do it. You chose them.
I chose me.
You’ve never watched me die before.”
…
“She saw that they cremated me, but I didn’t die. An infinity of nothing… …and then…”
…
“I watched him die on the screen and I was reborn.”
(The Other, The One, Amy, Minsky 17A [secret])
“Did Minsky dress up too?
Yes, he was the girl.
Like all pitchers, he was really a catcher inside. When he was fucking someone, he was only really fucking himself. Everything was about him.”
(Carl and Marissa, Minsky 18 6-24-1970)
“I’m going to make you live forever … Take your shirt off. It’s getting in the way of the lines and colors. Now the rest of it. You know, Minsky used to insist I walk around the studio naked at all times. So he could absorb my form. I was only allowed to sunbathe nude because tan lines ruined everything. How do you feel?
Self-conscious.
Don’t worry. I’m only interested in your geometry. I would like to do something more sculptural.”
(Marissa and Carl, Minsky 19B 8-17-1970)
“This is the wrong way around. We created the perfect story. I watched you die and live. But they squandered it. It changed nothing.
They weren’t ready then. Look at everything they’ve created.
It’s the same.
(The Other and The One, Minsky 19B 8-17-1970 [secret])
“To understand me and Minsky you have to know what it feels like to completely give yourself over to another person. Are you ready to do that? It can be quite freeing to give yourself over to another person. Whether you live or die is in their hands. That takes the weight off. Breathing is a reflex action. We’re never conscious of how close we are to just dropping dead and dying until we have to think about it. Art is about being aware of our mortality. Transcending it. You’re obsessed with dead bodies. You spend all day with them. You’re obsessed with the finality of death but art is about looking beyond it. We know that death is just a transformation from one state to another. You were about to shoot a handful of your seed inside me and that’s new life. Though it won’t amount to much. The French call the orgasm the Petit Mort. When you die, when you give yourself to another individual, you do die as an individual. You give yourself to them, you become part of the work, give birth to their work and … Now there are two Goodmans”
(Marissa, Minsky 20B - 8-19-1970)
“We’ve been here before. I don’t even know if we’re remembering it right.
It was so long ago.
I wasn’t trying to kill you.
If you were I wouldn’t be here.”
(The One and The Other, Minsky 20B - 8-19-1970 [secret])
“Was that making love?
It was art. We’re in a studio, everything that happens here is art.
(Carl and Marissa, Minsky 21A 8-20-1970)
“Do you think he’s an artist? Do you think he elevates you?
Movies are art. He’s an artist.
He’s a child playing.
Millions watch.
In a hundred years?”
(The Other and The One, Minsky 21A 8-20-1970 [secret])
“A room full of your deviants. Minsky knew you had to become the thing you were trying to understand.
Also art is an intellectual exercise. It requires distance.
You still think art is about ideas.”
(Marissa and Carl, Minsky 23C 8-25-1970)
“No pretense.
Fuck.
You want it to look real.
It’s a movie.
It’s fake.
No!”
(The Other and The One, Minsky 24A -8-25-1970 [secret])
“In the same way he repainted and repainted to reduce his paintings to pure form, he broke his girls down, until they were the forms he wanted. But when he’s done with you, you have nothing left. The rest of the world is just… negative space.”
(Marissa, Minsky 29 6-24-1970)
“Does this work as a confession?
It’s art.”
(Ruby and Carl, Minsky 31 6-26-1970)
“You’re not who I thought you were. What I thought you were.
The Other One told me you’d disappoint me.”
(Durick and the One, Minsky 33B - 8-10-1970 [secret])
“Two murders. Two of everything. Biblical. What’s the word? Thunderbird. What’s the price? Two bits twice.”
(? and Durick, 2OE 7-7-1998)
“I see you.”
(The One, 2OE 9-25-1999 [secret])
“Arthur Fischer was dying and he was mending bridges. He came to me and he brought me a gift. The Ambrosio negatives he’d stolen. After he left, I watched them. I felt the pain in my heart. I felt the grief at who I’d been back then. I realized I missed Marissa and spontaneously brought her back.”
(The One, 2OE 14C - 4-23-1999 [secret])
“Part of being human was Amy. It was not my intention to take a muse as a lover but I found myself repeating that pattern. Amy asked very little of me apart from my brilliance. Through her, I wanted to engage with the pressures that shape our art. Amy only felt alive when she was playing a part. I wanted to help her surpass herself. But each movie we made was less good. The Other One had always said that the human story is always about decline, and I started to feel that every time I looked at Amy.”
(The One, 2OE 35A - 6-10-1999 [secret])
“I wanted Two of Everything to be about everything, but as simple as possible. It was my story. At the beginning, I felt we could do it, but as it went on, I realized it wasn’t going to work. The Other One was there, but like never before and we pushed but I was trying to do too much, to be too much.”
(The One, 2OE 55A - 7-29-1999 [secret])
“People have all wondered what it is to mourn yourself.
To go beyond death and look back at existence as a stage…”
(Durick and Marissa, off camera, 2OE 59A - 8-14-1999)
“It’s a new art piece for my collection. I call it ‘The End of Celebrity.’”
(Hessenberg, 2OE 82 3-25-1999)
“I made some movies. With each one, I tried to make it perfect. I thought about them intensely. People liked them. Some thought them cold. I missed the Other One and I wanted to make work that would have pleased him. This medium, the transmission of the message, was far greater and far more precise. I wanted to make the case for humanity and I allowed myself to think I was part of it.”
(The One, 2OE [forgot to note the scene])
“I’m part of you now.”
(Credits)