- [Voiceover] In 1864, during
the American Civil w*r,
Union General,
William T. Sherman,
began his famous
march to the sea.
With an army of 60,000 men,
he swept into the South,
destroying Atlanta, Georgia,
Columbia, South Carolina,
and dozens of smaller towns.
His troops plundered
homes, destroyed livestock,
burned buildings and left
a path of destruction
60 miles wide and
700 miles long,
before finally forcing
a Confederate surrender
in North Carolina.
Sherman's campaign
marked the first time
in modern history
that total warfare
had been waged on a
primarily civilian population
and traces of the scars he left
on the South can still be found.
- [Voiceover] Great, do you
want to do it once more, just
- [Voiceover] Do it over,
yeah [clearing throat].
- [Voiceover] Two years
ago I was about to begin
sh**ting a documentary film
on the lingering effects
of Sherman's march on the South.
I'm from the South and
all through my childhood
I heard stories
about how Sherman had
devastated the South.
My aunt even keeps
a sofa in her attic,
which is punctured
by sword holes
put there by
Sherman's soldiers as
they searched for
hidden valuables.
She says she'll never allow
the holes to be sewn up.
Anyway, I'd just gotten
a grant to make my film
and I stopped off in New York,
from Boston, where I live,
to stay for a few days with
the woman I'd been seeing.
But when I arrived
she told me she'd just
decided to go back to
her former boyfriend.
We argued and then I left
and went to stay alone
in a friend's studio loft, which
happened to be
vacant at the time.
[swishing]
Finally I headed
south to see my family
and to try to begin my film.
[traffic rumbling]
Hi sis.
- Hi.
- Where's dad?
Oh he's way back there.
He's coming.
For a long time the consensus
among my family members
is that what I really need
to do is find what they call
a nice Southern girl
and things will be fine.
They're on vacation in the
mountains of North Carolina
and they've invited
me to go with them
to a picnic and festival.
They've also invited me a
number of family friends
and their sons and daughters,
mostly, it seems, daughters.
[movie camera clicking]
[giggling]
- Dammit.
- That's poison ivy.
- [Woman] Oh no.
[bagpipe music]
- Hi.
- [Woman] Do you
want us to wave hi?
[bagpipes drown out speech]
- [Voiceover] I had no
desire to meet or talk to
any of the young women
I'd been introduced to,
despite every encouragement
from my father.
[bagpipes drown out chatter]
- [Voiceover] The
mere thought of trying
to meet someone
new depresses me.
[bagpipe music]
[cheering]
[sharp whistling]
[clapping]
I spend the rest of
the day watching as men
compete in various
demonstrations of
strength and virility.
[laughing]
[drumming music]
[mumbling chatter]
[laughing]
[fife and drum music]
- [Man] You gotta
watch his back.
- [Man] Watch his back.
[grunting]
- [Voiceover] The
next day, my sister,
who is recently
married, is anxious to
discuss my situation with me.
- The thing that
makes me mad is that
you're sitting here, you're
not sleeping at night,
you're doubting yourself,
even though you,
you know, your
insecurity from it,
and it's all due to
the fact that she
is involved in a situation
that she wasn't happy
in, it hurt her.
She comes to you, you
being her friend and all.
She sucks you emotionally dry,
which gets her
through, then she's
strong again because she feels,
yes there's somebody
that cares for me
that means I'm not
such a rotten person.
She gets strong again.
She can go back and contend
with this fellow again, right?
- [Voiceover] Right, but
it's not that simple.
She's just being honest,
- Well I...
she's following where she feels.
I don't really--
- Well listen that's bullshit.
I'm sorry but yeah, you know
I could do that to Steve
every time I got sick and
tired of him or something,
run off to somebody
else and whatever,
get my ego built up and
then go back to him.
It isn't the right thing to do.
It's not the classy thing to do.
People are so much,
out for themselves now.
- [Voiceover] No.
You know it's just a
woman that just wants,
not being right on with you.
[mumbles]
But I can't understand why
you can't let go of it.
- [Voiceover] Well it's
only been a few days.
I mean, it took me a
while to get over it.
- Okay, well a lot of--
- [Voiceover] I'm gonna
lose my confidence.
- No, you think you have
anything of, it really
has anything to do with your
lifestyle, like you were
talking about?
- [Voiceover] I agree.
The way you dress,
the way you live?
I think you should
tidy up a little bit.
As far as, not all the time.
But to least, to be able to
have a choice in the matter.
Do you understand what I mean?
- [Voiceover] Like what?
- If you were with
somebody that appreciates
it when a man is
a little bit more dressed up,
then you can swing it.
See what I'm saying?
- [Voiceover] My
beard, do you think?
- I think you should
trim it, a little bit.
Like Steve had his
beard, do you remember?
You can look kind of, neat
and pleasing to the eye.
Artistically.
Here's a little nymphette
swimming by on the
left of, other side here.
Going for my husband it
looks like [chuckling sigh].
A little swimmer,
kicking away there.
[mumbles]
See that kinda makes you,
you have an instant rapport
with people because
you have a camera.
At least it's something to
talk, a conversation piece.
- [Voiceover] I'll try to think
of it that way from now on.
- You should.
Because everybody's always,
everybody here is watching you.
They think this is PM magazine.
You know?
Keep the faith.
I feel like a celebrity.
- [Voiceover] You are now.
For the next few days I
ponder my sister's suggestion
that I try to be more
outgoing with my camera
and that I think
of it as a way of
perhaps meeting someone new.
A few days later I learn that a
childhood sweetheart of mine,
someone I haven't
seen in 20 years,
happens to be modeling
at a local fashion show
and I discuss the matter
with Ann, my step-mother.
- Who is she's with?
Is she married or?
- [Voiceover] No she's
in a fashion show.
- We're going to that today.
- [Voiceover] Can I go with you?
- Sure, sure, sure.
- [Voiceover] Can I come?
That's amazing, I
didn't know that.
- It's part of this
weekend, entertainment.
[crowd chattering]
- [Woman] This is so
comfortable.
- Is it really?
- [Woman] You
wouldn't believe it.
Yeah, it's wonderful,
it really is.
- [Ann] Well it is pretty.
- Thank you, thank you.
- [Voiceover] She's not married.
- [Ann] No.
I don't think I've
weighed that little
since I was in the third grade.
I know I haven't.
- [Ann] Tell me about the dress.
- This is [crowd
drowns out speech].
You know I do not
know what this is
but it's like an [mumbles].
It has a lot of body to it,
I just think it's cute.
- [Woman] It looks great on you.
- Thank you.
- [Woman] Certainly
everyone couldn't wear it.
- Thank you.
- [Woman] Very pretty.
[girl gasping]
[women laughing]
- Oh Ross!
- [Voiceover] How are you?
Oh I'm so glad to see you!
- [Voiceover] I know,
I didn't know you--
- [Model] Oh, just
where have you been.
[laughing][mumbles]
to set in Ross.
Ross!
- [Ross] It's wonderful
to see you again.
- Well thank you, I'm
glad to see you too.
What are you doing?
- [Ross] I'm filming.
- [laughing] For what purpose?
- [Ross] I'm making a film about
Sherman's march to the sea.
[laughing]
Let me talk to you later on.
- Okay.
- [Ross] I don't want to
interrupt your business,
but it's been wonderful
to see you again.
Thank you, I'm glad
to see you too.
I do want to talk to you, okay?
- [Ross] Okay,
[mumbles] bye bye.
- [Ann] Did you think
she's married, or?
- No she's not.
- [Ann] She's not?
- Not now.
- She's a doll, I'd ask her out.
She's gonna be here.
- [Ross] We used to
play Superman together.
That's what I remember,
do you remember that?
- Uh huh, in the backyard.
- [Ross] We'd put towels on.
- Uh huh [laughing]
- Around, as capes around.
- And my seven year
old still does that,
I mean that is his favorite
thing, to be somebody else.
- [Ross] I know, and now all
the movies are coming out
with Superman, it's all a cycle.
It's amazing.
- Somehow Christopher
Reeves. [laughing]
- [Ross] Yeah right.
- Looks pretty
good Ross, I might
like to go play Superman
with him sometime.
- [Ross] Don't you think I
look enough like Superman?
- [laughs] Well.
- [Ross] What if I
shave the beard off?
It might help.
- That might help,
that might help.
But I like your beard.
- [Ross] Thank you.
I would say I like yours
too but you don't have one.
- Well my 11-year-old
looked at me
the other night in
front of my date
and said, "Oh Mom,
you've got a mustache."
[laughs] That was awful.
Not one of the things you want
your child to do in
front of your date.
- [Ross] That's great.
So are you involved
with somebody?
Do you see somebody
on a regular basis?
- No just kinda,
fightin' free right now.
This was, it was like,
I don't believe in divorce.
You know, I feel like
once you get married
you hang in there so this has,
not been real pleasant.
- [Ross] I'm sure it hasn't.
The next day Mary has to
leave, and I go to say goodbye.
- [Mary] Bye.
- [Ross] Bye.
For a long time I've had this
notion that love was possible.
I mean romantic love, you know,
two people falling deeply
in love with each other
and somehow managing
to stay together
for more than two weeks.
But time after time
it seems that a woman
would get involved
with me and want
some sort of commitment
and I would decide
that it wasn't
right, or vice versa.
And no matter how
passionate things were
in the beginning there
was never any equilibrium
and nothing ever seemed to last.
At any rate I find
myself slipping back into
listless contemplation
of my single status.
But Ann, my stepmother, has
made other plans for me.
- [Ann] She grown up and
been raised in this house.
You gonna love her, but.
This lady is from Salisbury,
and, what are you
grimacing about?
- [Ross] I'm not grimacing.
- Yeah.
- [Ross] I'm not.
I have to squint sometimes.
- Oh, okay.
No but, I think
she's attractive,
she's good looking,
she sounds very smart.
- [Ann] This is Ross by the way.
- [Ross] By coincidence,
she's the same woman
I've already filmed,
swimming in the lake.
And later, rollerskating.
Her name is Pat,
and she's visiting
her parents but she
lives in New York City
where she's been trying to
find work as a movie actress.
We have a few drinks and take
in the musical entertainment.
And then she asked
me to film her
doing her cellulite exercises.
And I agree to do so,
although I'm not exactly
sure what cellulite is.
- Actually this is supposed
to get rid of the cottage cheese
on the back of your
legs, like this.
See the cottage cheese?
- [Ross] Yeah,
that's the cellulite?
- Yeah.
- [Ross] Show me
these exercises.
- Okay.
Let's see, I do them like there
if I had on some underpants.
- [Ross] I believe you.
- Actually it's
harder than it looks.
You gotta just keep
going up and down.
- [Ross] Here, for some reason,
I accidentally turn
off my tape recorder.
It's three in the morning
and I can't sleep.
I keep wondering how
I should've responded
to Pat's comment about not
wearing any underpants.
I mean, that's not
like telling someone
that you're not
wearing any socks.
Also I've begun having my
dreams about nuclear w*r again.
I hardly ever think about
nuclear w*r during the day,
but during certain
times of my life
I'll dream about it for
several nights in a row.
When I was 12 I
happened to have seen
a hydrogen b*mb test.
An atmospheric test over
the Pacific that was one
of the most powerful
ever detonated.
It was actually the
eve of my 13th birthday
and I can remember some
friend of my father's
telling me it was a
huge birthday candle
that Uncle Sam was
lighting in my honor.
Anyway, I think that expl*si*n
probably has something
to do with my w*r dreams.
But I found that these
dreams also seemed
to be directly linked to
the relative happiness
or unhappiness of my love life.
When things are
going well for me,
the missiles gather
dust in their silos
but when things are going badly
they take to the skies
by the thousands,
night after night.
How are you today?
- Definitely a lot better
now that I've been swimming.
So then, I figure this'll be
the beginning of my screenplay.
So that's the first
scene in my screenplay.
Just me and Brady
Smith, I'll have
braids on, a plaid
shirt, the whole thing.
- [Ross] You'll
have to give me a
compressed version
because I'll never--
- So that's how it starts out,
then I turn into the best
actress in the world.
Probably with some
huge love scene,
comparable to Romeo & Juliet,
something that captivates
the whole world,
the heart of the world.
Now by the fact I'm
such a famous actress,
I'm a multimillionaire
and move to an island
in the south seas, with my lover
who's gonna be Tarzan to me.
And we just play Jane and Tarzan
and then about
three years later,
we build a center,
which will have
seven or eight centers
coming out from,
we'll have another
island, with a center.
And this will be the
most intellectual
island in the world, full
of the top scientists
we'll cure cancer, et cetera.
I come back and I've found
all these scientific things
possibly cure cancer myself.
Come back, now wait a minute
while I'm on the island though,
my Tarzan lover,
who's name is Will,
he has a fit
because he no longer
has me to himself
so he throws a fit
burns down the island,
it's totally built
on all the scientific research.
And at this point in the movie
I want it to be total
fantasy, just like,
tropical, huge, huge
plants, huge animals,
The music will be
just unbelievable.
Probably Stevie
Wonder's type of music.
Secret life of plants.
- [Ross] How old are
you at this point?
- At this point,
pretty much ageless
because I've been an astronaut.
So I haven't really aged,
and this is another thing
that overwhelms people
is that I'm this person
who's really never really aged.
And so we go to
Venus, and we start
coming back and forth to Earth
and we start teaching
people flying lessons
because the gravity's
different so, therefore, we
can build our muscles
up, like breaststroke,
and we come back and forth,
well I get in a huge fight
with Will on Venus
and he takes a sword
and cuts my head off,
and my head floats back
to the Malibu
mountains, in California
and I give this speech
and a this point
I'm the female prophet.
And I give this speech
to the whole world
who's lined up on all
the Los Angeles beaches,
all on the mountaintop,
and all they see
is my head, floating.
And it's just totally,
gets to the whole world.
And my message is one of love.
- [Ross] I've ever met
anyone quite like Pat,
and I confess to
feeling a strong,
how shall I put it,
primal attraction to her.
I continue to film Pat as she
goes about her daily activities.
- He's been, in a mental
institution lately.
So, you know, the
whole thing is based on
you have the will
to change or not,
He still hasn't made
up his mind to do it.
Which is, not really
great for my part
because I, I'm not gonna
give him much longer.
- [Ross] Do you live together?
- Sometimes.
I met him out on the
Santa Monica Pier.
- [Ross] Aha, it
all fits together.
- But he's--
- [Ross] Do your
parents know about him?
- Oh yeah, they
know but, see he,
God if this is really
taped or something
he could sue me for this.
But like he's--
- [Ross] Don't say anything
he could sue you for.
I can't afford it.
[laughing]
- No I love him,
but I also hate him.
- [Ross] That's
been know to happen.
- He's a brilliant person
who's wasting his brain.
Is what it is.
And that upsets
me, because I hate
to see that happen to anybody.
- [Ross] So that's
why your parents,
are linking up with my parents,
to put us together I think.
- You think so?
- [Ross] I think
that's what they're--
- I've already said
to your parents
"Oh I'll marry
him," and they said
"No, no, he's a poor filmmaker."
[laughing]
- [Ross] They're not
doing me justice.
- No. [laughs]
Well, it was the
first night they
haven't asked me
what time I got in.
No, I'm just-- [laughs]
- [Ross] They trust me.
Let's go this way.
- Oh you want me
to come up here?
- [Ross] Sure, can you make it?
- Pat's family seems
to like me a lot.
Probably because
they think of me
as a nice, Southern boy.
They frequently
invite me to dinner
and take Pat and me on
excursions and trips.
- [Man] How about some spinach?
I believe I'd rather
have some of that.
- You have two major
loves in your life,
you've already had one,
and that person you probably met
about age, 18.
The next person
you're gonna have--
- [Man] Where does that show up?
- is in your late
30's, maybe early 40's.
And that could be a teacher,
but it's usually is a
love life, but it could be
a mentor, or such
type situation.
You're real disciplined.
Very, very disciplined.
See how straight your thumb is?
Look at mine, how
it curves around.
You can't even do that.
Can you see that?
- [Ross] Let me see yours again.
- See mine, really, see
how mine curves down?
And, oh God, you could,
if you really were weak
you could really
be a drug addict.
I'm serious, you could be a
an alcoholic or drug addict,
'cause he has that sign here.
- It's just the curve.
- [Ross] You're in love
with Will and you say
that he's impossible, he
beats you, he throws fits.
- He doesn't beat me.
No he really doesn't beat me.
- [Ross] Hangs you
out the window.
- He pushes me around, and he's
threatened to throw me
out of the sixth floor
window of my apartment, twice.
I mean I don't have
a bruise from it.
- [Ross] Well why do you put
up with it, I don't understand.
- Because he has my heart.
I have, I, that's
the only reason.
And I hope that,
because he's such
a brilliant person he'll finally
come through in life
and so, I keep waiting.
- [Ross] And how long
have you been with him?
- Two years.
- [Ross] Two years.
This morning, Pat
finally gets a call
from an agency, asking
her to come to Atlanta
for an audition to interview.
She's also recently
met a contact
to the actor Burt
Reynolds, who happens
to spend much of
his time in Atlanta,
and Pat has decided to
try to find Mr. Reynolds
in hopes of
furthering her career.
- I've really have
honestly thought
that I think the man will
fall in love with me.
I really say that.
He may think I'm nothing but,
a real twerp when he
meets me and that's what
Chris thought of me
when he first met me,
he thought, what a little twerp.
And Burt Reynolds may
think that about me,
but he also may really
fall in love with me.
I'm not saying I'm
gonna fall in love
with him on a sexual basis,
but he will fall in love with me
and I will fall
in love with him.
Like we're seriously,
I'm not trying to sound
- [Ross] No, no.
- But just really like
brothers and sisters,
really I mean that,
I really mean that.
- [Woman] How are
you gonna get your
ticket to Atlanta,
honey? [smooching]
Pat, how you gonna
pay for your ticket?
[laughing] Huh?
- [Pat] I don't know.
- [Woman] You are
the biggest mess.
- [Pat] Aw, Mama don't cry.
- [Woman] It makes me sick!
You just have your life so
in disorder it just kills me.
It really does.
It just does, it really does.
- Huh?
I didn't do that to her,
she brings that on herself.
- [Man] Y'all get on outta here.
[laughing]
- [Ross] We better go Pat.
- [Girl] Bye.
- [Pat] Let me go kiss her.
She does that all the time.
Every time I leave.
She does.
You pay a price for
being a female prophet.
- [Ross] We make it to
Atlanta and Pat and I are
staying with Lee,
a friend of Pat's
from high school, who's also
pursuing an acting career.
- Hi, Jim Wittington told
me that I could call you.
You know Jim?
Okay, the reason is
is I'm an actress,
in New York City but I'm
from Salisbury, Virginia.
And he told me that
you have contacts
to Burt Reynolds movies.
So you do personally
know him yourself?
Great, and so like
you've already
been in some of his movies?
Well is there any way
like I could meet you
so you'd know who
you were talking to?
Because I really would love
to get in one of his movies.
I mean, I really would.
And I know like, or
if you're real busy,
you're real busy
today, I couldn't
come out and just visit
you for like five minutes?
Yeah, okay, thanks a whole lot.
Bye bye.
[sighs]
[laughs]
- [Ross] Undismayed by
their setback, Pat and Lee
prepare for their
audition interviews.
[classical music]
- Lee.
- [Lee] Huh?
- You better start getting
out here and getting ready.
- What image do I want
to come across as?
- [Pat] Angie.
- Angie Dickerson?
- [Lee] Burt's in town you know.
- Is he?
- [Lee] Baccarat.
- Oh.
- [Lee] Not Reynolds.
- [laughing] Fooled you.
[blowing nose]
- We'll see you in
a few minutes, bye.
Okay.
- [Pat] What'd she say?
- Hon, just come.
- [Pat] We're a little late.
- Okay.
Bye Magnolia, goodbye.
- Good luck to both of you!
- [Pat] Oh thanks.
- Oh gosh.
- [Ross] You guys are gonna
be really late, come on.
- [Lee] Yeah come on, let's go.
[singing]
- [Pat] Hey hold
this, hold this.
- [Lee] I'm locking the
car, do you want anything?
I just think I am.
- Do you think my hair
looks too scraggly?
- [Ross] What?
- Do you think my hair looks?
- [Ross] No I think it's okay.
- [Pat] Thinking I'm
coming in with wet hair.
- [sighs] Well.
- [Pat] Do you think
it looks too scraggly?
Do you think my hair
looks too scraggly?
- It was five minutes
of his time type thing.
I don't think I made a
very good impression.
- You never know Lee.
The only reason I was there long
was cause I asked him
so many questions.
I really did.
He told me that I looked
like his girlfriend.
Can you believe that?
I said, "What looks like it?"
He said, "Your face, your hair."
So I said, "Well
are you in love?"
And then he probably thought
I was trying to pick him up.
- [Lee] No.
- No really cause I said,
"Well are you in love?"
He said, "No not
really, you can't be
"in love if you're
in this business."
- Well did he say anything like
he would keep you in mind, or?
- [Pat] He said see you later,
and I looked at him
like you better.
And he said, "You're,
you know, Brooke Shields"
and I said, "God, people
tell me that all the time
"and I just can't wait to be
cast as her older sister."
He said, "You
couldn't even be cast
"as her older sister."
He said, "maybe two
or three years older."
He said, "But not much."
I said, "Well, what
do you think about
a southern accent then?"
He said, "Well yours isn't
really that pronounced."
He says, "It's not like
it's Mississippi where
"you can't do anything."
He said, "You could
do work in Atlanta
"for commercials 'cause
people hear that voice here
"and it doesn't bug them."
In other words he
doesn't think it was bad.
It's limiting, but
everybody's limited.
You're never gonna be able
to play a, exotic beauty.
'Cause they're dark-haired,
Chinese looking.
- [Ross] A week has
passed and there's
still no news from the agency.
There's nothing to
do but k*ll time
and wait for a phone call.
The actresses stay in shape.
As for me I keep thinking that
perhaps I should return
to my original plan
to make a film about
Sherman's march
but I can't seem to
stop filming Pat.
As the days pass I begin
to explore the city.
Sometimes with Pat and
sometimes without her.
At the beginning
of his campaign,
Sherman ordered the
bombardment of Atlanta,
and after six weeks
of constant shelling,
the city had undergone a
strange transformation.
Most of those who were
still alive inhabited
tomb-like shelters
eight feet underground,
while above ground
the corpses piled up
because local coffin
makers weren't able
to keep up with the demand.
All able-bodied men
were off serving
in the Confederate army,
so the city population
consisted of children
and old people and women.
It was the women who nursed
they dying and cared for
the families and literally
held the city together.
And it was the women who
were angriest with Sherman.
In a diary, one of
them called Sherman
the Nero of the 19th century.
At any rate, Pat's
agency finally calls.
She's been selected
to audition for a part
in a bonafide
Hollywood film, and we
go downtown to
pick up the script.
- [Lee] I would really just
like to do commercials,
here I mean, there's a
pretty big market for that.
Oh you know Tab, well Tab
I'd be a before but. [laughs]
- There are only
two lines, no three.
My first line says--
- [Lee] What is it?
- Janet.
- [Lee] Your name's Janet?
- No that's my
first line. [laughs]
- Oh it's Janet.
You're Doctor Bock.
- [Pat] Yeah.
Doctor Bock.
- So what are your lines?
- Janet, your house is wonderful
beautiful design,
beautiful execution,
that's another line,
I'm also in love
with the piano do you
play, that's another line.
Those are three lines.
I thought I had more
than three lines!
What do you mean, it takes
a long time to do a movie.
Well mom, it takes a long time.
- Well we don't know that but
it might be a Stanley Kubrick.
- This is for MGM, big stuff.
Metro Goldwyn Mail.
A lot of people, but if I
get this, I'm on my way.
- [Ross] This is Peachtree
Creek Battleground.
Located about a mile from
where Pat and I are staying.
Almost 6,000 soldiers died
here in about two hours
fighting over a piece
of land not much bigger
than a Little League
baseball field.
Now there's not much
here, just a few markers.
Sherman aside, I'm
disconcerted to find myself
in competition with the likes
of Burt Reynolds
and Stanley Kubrick.
I've tried to persuade
Pat not to forsake
her starring role in my
film for some bit part
in a hack Hollywood
epic but she's
already made up her
mind and tomorrow
she leaves for her audition,
and I realize I've become
somewhat attached to her.
- [Pat] Don't view.
How am I gonna carry my skates?
- [Ross] I don't know, what
do you need roller skates for?
For an audition?
- [Pat] I need them.
What if they say they
want an athletic girl?
What if they change
the role on me?
- [Ross] A roller
skating doctor?
Do you know your lines?
- [Pat] Janet.
Oh what a wonderful house.
Beautiful design,
beautiful execution.
Execución.
- [Ross] [mumbles]
I'm not gonna have anything
to film when you leave.
- Why?
You don't have any film?
- [Ross] No no, I said I'm
not gonna have anything
anyone to film when you leave.
I'm so used to it.
- Well, you'll have to
go find another starlet.
- [Lee] I love you.
- I love you too.
- Good luck, you can do
it, you're gonna do it.
- I know I am.
- So give me a
call, let me know.
- [Ross] Good luck Pat.
- Bye Ross.
- [Ross] Do it okay?
- I will.
- [Ross] Good luck.
- [Lee] You can, too.
Give us a call.
- [Ross] Pat's flown
away to her audition
and then I guess
back to her boyfriend
and I've stayed here in Atlanta
where I've gotten a motel room
until I can figure
out what to do next.
I find that I really miss Pat
after having spent
so much time with her
and I really don't have
any idea what to do next
with this film, so I'll stay
here until I figure it out.
This place is a real dive.
The color TV set doesn't work
and my bed is falling apart.
They've given me
two beds in fact,
both of them are falling apart,
but they're both
huge, which I find
very depressing you
know, having two
large, empty beds is
twice as depressing
as having one large empty bed.
It's nights like these that
I dread trying to sleep.
I sometimes end up thinking
about the night in Hawaii
when I stood on the
beach with my family
and several other
families, hoping to
see that hydrogen b*mb test.
Even though it was taking
place 800 miles away
we'd been told that if we
look hard we'd probably
be able to see a glimmer of
the flash on the horizon.
Someone had brought
a transistor radio
so that we could
listen to the countdown
and at zero we all
strained to see something
but it was too far away.
Literally over the
curve of the Earth
and I was very disappointed.
Then, a few minutes later there
was this second countdown.
The rocket had reached
its peak and suddenly
even though it was 11 o'clock
at night there was this
white flash, which turned
the sky brighter than noon.
We could see the ocean sparkling
for miles out to the horizon.
And behind us,
Honolulu was as visible
as if it were broad daylight.
This flash gave way to
a lingering lime green,
which after a minute or so faded
to sort of a deep, dark red.
And then finally, gradually,
the stars and moon
started to come back
out through the redness.
No one on the beach
said anything.
Both my life and my film
seem to be in limbo.
For three days I've stayed
locked up in my motel room,
watching reruns of Beverly
Hillbillies and Love Boat.
In an attempt to get
things moving again,
I decide to go sightseeing.
- [Voiceover] With some
element of surprise
to Sherman's troops, now
across the creek in force,
a column of rebels
burst from the woods
and stormed with weapons.
The battle was
short, but desperate.
- [Ross] I ride a train that
goes around in a big circle.
[g*nshots] [Western music]
There's entertainment
at every stop.
Unfortunately, the
train breaks down.
Finally during my third
cable car ride of the day,
I realize I have
to do something.
Not only have I lost Pat, but
I've lost my transportation.
I don't have a car of my own
and I don't see how I can
continue to film without one.
My brother has a
sports car, at home
so I call him and
he tells me that
if I can get it to
run, I can use it.
My brother also make the point
several times that
in addition to
providing basic transportation
he believes the car will also do
something to improve my image
[engine cranking]
It'll be at least a
week before we can get
the car to run so
I call my sister
who tells me that
while I've been
away she's had two operations.
- And they cut right
under the eyeball.
Right under the thing there.
And opened that out,
and what was under there
was this little fat, it
was like chicken fat.
And they take that
out, and then they pull
the skin up a little
but, you know,
'cause they're not
really giving you a
facelift or anything
it's just to remove
that excess fat that's in there.
And then they take hemostats
and clamp it back together.
- [Ross] Right.
- And the whole time he was just
really pushing
back on my eyeball
and that's why it's red eye.
So I feel great,
it was worth it.
If you ever know anybody that's
thinking about doing it.
Are you thinking about doing it?
- [Ross] It never occurred
to me to think about it.
Sometimes I think
I shouldn't think
about stuff like that
because it doesn't,
it's not very productive but--
- [Ross] Well,
but you feel better
psychologically
after those things.
- What, about my
eyebags you mean?
- [Ross] Yeah, what was the
other operation you had?
- I'm not gonna
tell you. [laughs]
- [Ross] Come on, tell me.
- No you, you have to
[mumbles]. [laughs]
- [Ross] What
difference does it make?
- I know but it's just personal.
It's a ladies operation.
- [Ross] Well it's not
obscene or anything.
- No but it's close
to it! [laughing]
I'm not gonna tell you.
Do I have to?
- [Ross] Yes.
- I had a, [laughs]
I had a fanny tuck.
[laughing]
- [Ross] What the
hell is a fanny tuck?
- Oh Ross.
- [Ross] I need a description.
- Okay, well.
- [Ross] They trim it, the
way you trim a piece of beef?
- Well, yes.
It's not so much that you know,
you have a fat ass like this.
It's that, most people's
bottom goes like this.
But mine went, like that.
And I think I've described
it to you before,
and not many men know about this
but there's something that
women will talk about,
is if you can put
one or two pencils
up under there, and stand
there and they don't fall out
then you have, you know
you're gonna be in trouble.
Well I could put a medium-sized
tub of Crest toothpaste
there and it didn't fall out.
And so that's when I
decided that it was time
to get something
done about this.
- [Ross] Well that
might be handy.
- Well if I was
a smuggler maybe.
- [Ross] My sister is
still determined to
help me meet women
and she's invited me
to brunch with
her friend Claudia
who's an interior designer,
and who's recently divorced.
- [Ross] You gonna
get an eyebag job too?
- [Sister] Listen
Claudia's crazy.
- I'm gonna have
total reconstruction.
[laughing]
- [Ross] [mumbles] the self.
- Ross I'll teach
you how to skate
if you find some skates.
- [Ross] Okay.
- [whispering] She
can't skate either.
[laughing] - All
you have to do is
get a big pillow and some cord
and tie a big pillow around
your butt. [laughing]
And then, I'll go
on the side of you
and just pull you and Jeepie can
get behind you and push you.
[laughing]
If you could just
get your feet going
you can do it, right?
- [Sister] Right.
- Then we'll work on
your speed and your form
and your style and
all later right?
- [Ross] You know I
haven't skated since
I was about eight years old.
- It'll all come back
to you it's just like
riding a bicycle or making
love, you never forget.
If you've done it once
you can do it again.
- [Girl] Mom.
After you put on your mascara,
take this little comb
thing and run through
your eyelashes and that
takes out the big clumps.
- It does, how do you know that?
- No not that
brush but the comb.
- This?
- Yeah, the comb.
The brush is to
shape your eyebrows.
- Well I don't, here.
- [Girl] See it
took it some out.
- [Claudia] What it is I
need is some new mascara.
- [Ross] We're just gonna
go buy roller skates though.
- Yeah I know we are
but this is how I am
all the time I go to
work, I don't go anywhere
or do anything unless I
feel like I look right.
- [Ross] Claudia
reminds me of the girls
I knew growing up, and going
to school in the South.
She's the girl I had a
crush on in the 5th grade,
and she's my assigned
dance partner
at teen cotillion dance class.
And on Rebel Yell day,
she's a cheerleader.
The one I want to
ask to the prom
but can't because she's going
steady with the tight end.
While my car is being repaired
I pass time with Claudia.
- Now this is gonna be hilarious
when I get up and try to skate.
[girl shouting]
- Isn't it?
- [Girl] What?
- Well, here goes. [laughing]
Remember this is
after not skating
for eight or 10,
13 years, 14 years.
- [Ross] Well.
[laughing]
- She could actually, you know,
she's almost perfect,
almost, right?
I mean she's not
really, no one is but if
- [Girl] Who are
you talking about?
- You.
- What were you saying?
- We were saying
that you were happy.
- [Girl] You're crazy.
- [Claudia] Aren't
you happy right now?
- [Girl] Yeah but I wish
I had a friend here.
- [Claudia] You wish
you had a friend?
- I mean my own age.
You don't get up
right this minute,
I'm not gonna serve
you breakfast!
- [Friend] I'll starve.
- Well get up 'cause you know
if I let you sleep five minutes,
you're never gonna get up!
- [Friend] Oh shut
up you old bag.
- What? I'm not gonna let
you treat me like this!
- [Friend] Take it.
- [Girl] He is.
There's an extra egg left over.
[slurping]
- Well, off to work.
- [Girl] Kiss me bye!
[smooching] [laughing]
- It doesn't look like
it's coming at ya.
- It looks the same.
- Does it look the same?
- [Claudia] Oh I
see it, oh neat.
Oh neat, it is 3D,
oh that's great.
[doleful choir singing]
- Do you wanna meet him?
- [Ross] Yeah I'd love to.
- It's just a
temporary thing there.
- [Ross] Destruction of the
world is a temporary thing?
- That's right, it is.
And this is just
a temporary body.
Which you have.
But it's your spirit
that stays alive
it's not that flesh.
See, that's the difference.
We do have to accept
the inevitable
that Christ is coming again
because that's a promise.
- [Claudia] And not be
concerned or worried
over the holocaust
or the destruction
that's predicted but
because we hopefully
none of us will be be here
when that even happens.
- [Pastor] Then you'll be free
from all the things
of this world.
No more worry, no more sorrow,
no more pain, no more
sickness, no more death.
The sooner the better.
- [Claudia] And then
you say something about,
I have not given you a spirit
of fear but one of love.
- And power and of a sound mind.
- But one of love,
- [Claudia and Pastor] and
power, and of a sound mind.
- [Pastor] That's 1st
Timothy 1:7 [girl laughing]
I believe it is.
- That's 1st Timothy?
- [Girl] Mom look at that.
- [Claudia] There's an
Easter bunny out there.
- [Pastor] You've got
your bible right there
look at the, this is
about the end of times.
This Earth will be destroyed,
and there will be a new Heaven
and a new Earth, that's
gonna come, yeah.
The Antichrist will
come into power,
he'll have, he'll possess
the powers of the devil.
- [Girl] Thank you so much.
[engine rumbling]
- [mumbles]
- Tension allen?
- Yeah, now put it back on
there and see what happens.
- Okay great.
- I bet you it'll
work just great now.
- [Ross] Yeah.
- See you can take the
steering wheel off with ya.
[laughing]
You can take it off with you
and go anywhere you wanna go.
- [Man] Take it on in the house.
- [Ross] That's right.
- That way nobody
can steal your car.
- Phillip does a
lot of the work now.
- [Ross] Yeah I saw
him, he was doing
as much as you were on my car.
- Yeah oh man, he can work now.
He knows what it's
all about too,
he like that car
because see, he was only
a little tiny boy
you know when--
- [Ross] Oh I remember him
when he was that little.
- That's right, but
I sold that car,
let me see, when I sold that car
Phil was only, '67,
Phil was three years old.
- [Ross] Yep, I remember he
was like, you know, this tall.
- That's right, at that time.
- [Ross] You only
have one son right?
- Right.
One son and one daughter now.
- [Ross] That's such a
shame about your daughter.
- Yeah it's something,
oh I'm telling you.
- [Ross] Sorry to
hear about that.
- Yeah, but that's
just one of those
things that'll happen though.
Yeah, I think about that
girl, I miss her too.
- [Ross] Yeah?
- Really do, yeah.
- [Ross] How did she die Phil?
- She had cancer.
- [Ross] Cancer.
Bad, that.
- That's all right.
Your mother had
cancer too right?
- [Ross] Yeah she
had cancer also.
- What year was that
when she passed?
- [Ross] She died
eight years ago.
- Has it been eight years?
- [Ross] Yeah, April 1st.
- April 1st, eight years ago?
- [Ross] Yep.
[engine starting]
[engine revving]
- [Ross] Claudia has
invited me to visit
some friends of hers who live in
a settlement nearby
in the mountains.
Her friends are giving me
permission to film them
but only after I promise
not to reveal their names,
nor the location of
their settlement.
- Our idea is to
get people up here
who have certain talents like,
we were interested, we
were talking to a doctor,
also to a dentist,
also to a veterinarian.
And we have, we're dealing
some property over here
to a genius, in the
mechanical field.
Literally a genius, he can make
almost anything out of anything.
- Do you need any
interior designers?
[laughing]
- [Man] Well, we'll
work something out.
- Are y'all building
a shelter here?
- Yep.
What we're doing is, we're
gonna use the basement down here
as a fallout shelter
and we're getting
lead shielding,
on the walls and
ceiling of the basement.
So we'll have the
whole thing down there,
we'll have a generator, water,
root cellar, everything.
Not to be paranoid or
anything [laughs] but.
- [Claudia] Just being prepared.
[g*nsh*t]
- There's one left
in the chamber.
- [Man] I know there is.
I need that for rattlesnakes.
[laughing]
- The kind that
crawl on their belly,
and the kind that
walk on their feet?
- [Man] Yes sir.
There ain't much to do up here,
you gotta make your own liquor.
You got, women are kinda
scarce, wouldn't you say?
- [Man] Pretty ones.
- Pretty ones.
But it's the greatest
country in the world,
it really is and it makes
you appreciate America
and what God gave us.
- It reminds you a little bit,
of the America of the 30's.
People up here don't realize
that the world
wasn't believing yet.
That's the little thing
they haven't yet learned.
- What we are
basically involved in
is an isolationism,
survival and going back
if you will to the movie
Little House on the Prairie,
where the family is the
dominant factor in our lives.
We've gotten away
from the influences
and the dr*gs in the city.
It's also freedom
from regulation.
You can sh**t a g*n
off the front porch.
A fella can even invite
who he wants to up here
and keep out who he don't.
There's a lot of people
wanting to survive
like we do and they're
coming back into the woods.
And there's people
who are becoming
more and more conservative.
I'm one of them, my
sons are one of them.
- [Blue Shirt] The people
of our persuasion feel
that the federal government
is our mortal enemy.
The only thing we
want from governments
at all levels, is to
simply be left alone.
Leave us alone.
You better leave us alone.
- You know, one of the
ways to avert a nuclear w*r
is to make ourselves
so doggone powerful
nuclear w*apon-wise
that we no longer
have any fear of
anybody attacking us
because of the fear
of retaliation.
We've allowed ourselves
to become weak,
in our nuclear arsenal.
So it's high time
that this country
take an isolationist viewpoint,
and get on with getting
itself the strongest
nation in the world because
you can't trust the communists.
Quote, end quote.
[g*nsh*t]
[g*nsh*t]
[rumbling expl*si*n]
[rumbling expl*si*n]
[g*nsh*t]
- Didn't Herbert tell
you but one of them
they're gonna but
bass and bream in
and one of them they're
gonna stock with trout
and I think it's that
one over on that side.
You'll have to ask them.
And that's where they're
gonna put the tennis court
is right down there.
- [Ross] So they'll
be able to play tennis
in case of a nuclear attack.
- Right, they'll have everything
they need up here in
case of a nuclear attack
to survive in style.
They says after the
rapture, after Jesus
returns to the
Earth and He takes
all the believers
in Christ into the
heavenly spirits with Him,
that there'll be a
seven year period
left on this Earth
where all this
nuclear holocaust, or
fire and brimstone,
and all that will, excuse me,
will happen, and at the end of
all this is the apocalypse.
And that's the end of
the world basically,
and then there's a new
Heaven and a new Earth
that comes down from Heaven
and is placed on this Earth.
I truly believe
that's gonna happen.
- [Woman] This is
Slayton Harriston who
obviously in 1864
was an overseer.
I really get turned
on about the Civil w*r
and I know it's been
a hundred years,
and I still don't
think we were wrong,
only in that sl*very
should not be enforced.
It should be a right.
If you wanna be a
sl*ve, be a sl*ve.
If you don't, fine.
Or that Sherman was merciless,
he spared nothing,
he spared nobody.
I'm sure in Vietnam
we did the same thing.
- [Claudia] Any man that would
burn a city to the ground,
like Atlanta, was merciless.
- I'm sure we do the
same thing in Vietnam,
and probably worse.
- We did, did you know
that they have total
underground cities, in Vietnam?
Total underground
cities in Vietnam.
- You're kidding.
- [Claudia] And Russia.
Where they stockpile food,
they carry on communications,
that's why we never could win,
because they had total
underground cities
underground and if we
have a nuclear attack
who's gonna survive it?
The Vietnamese and the
Russians. [laughing]
- Well if we have a
northern and a southern
Civil w*r again, you
know who's gonna survive?
The South, because now all
the industry is moving south.
[horns honking]
- [Ross] It's beautiful.
- Brand new.
- [Ross] It's a 38?
That's great.
- [Ross] My sister
has invited me to
a costume party
and has suggested
that I bring Claudia as my date.
[television commercial playing]
- What'd you do all day?
- [Ross] I filmed.
- I know but, what?
- [Ross] I filmed Dede,
Dede and Steve.
- [Ross] Before my
date I have dinner
with my father and stepmother.
[television blaring]
[channels changing][television
turns off]
I filmed them, Dede
washing her dog.
And I filmed Steve
going to the music
company where he used to work.
- How is that gonna be used for?
- In this film?
It'll just have to--
- [Father] In any film.
[stepmother chuckling]
- [Claudia] Are you ready to go?
You are?
Okay, let's go.
- [Girl] Wait, let me
get some apple juice.
- [Ross] Speaking of apple
juice, do we have any bourbon?
- Let me see, check the house.
- [Voiceover] We're
gonna bring the judges
back here from
their deliberations
to announce the winners
of the costume contest.
- [Female] Whoo!
[dance music playing]
- Test, one, two.
I had a great time at the
costume ball with Claudia.
I have to be quiet though
because my father's asleep
upstairs and I think he already
has enough questions
about the validity
of my film project
without seeing me
dressed up like this,
talking to my own camera.
So I have to be quiet.
Tonight I have to decide also,
whether I'm going to stay
here in Charlotte or,
or continue to film,
retrace Sherman's route
through the South as I'd
originally planned to do.
I mean I could stay
here in Charlotte
and spend some time
filming my sister,
and film Claudia, get
to know Claudia better.
She could teach me
to roller skate.
I mean I like Claudia,
and I'm infatuated
with Pat Rendleman.
And I guess in
many ways I'm still
in love with Anne, the
woman up in New York.
It's all very confusing
to me, I don't
know what to do right now.
Actually, I think
I should really
continue to retrace Sherman's
route through the South.
I think that's a good idea.
I mean I'm really intrigued
by William Tecumseh Sherman.
I think he's one of
history's tragic figures.
I mean you have the irony
of this man who was,
spent four years in
Charleston, South Carolina,
and called those years the
best years of his life.
Later spent time in New Orleans.
Loved the South, loved
the people of the South.
And then, during the
Civil w*r, was ordered
to wage w*r against the South.
And not just
conventional warfare,
as it was practiced
at that time,
but total warfare against
a civilian population.
He fought it very well.
And was thought
generally to be ruthless,
and cruel, and,
totally unkind, but what
people don't realize
was that Sherman was
actually very insecure.
He was plagued by
anxiety, by insomnia.
He wrote to his
brother about how he
thought he contemplated su1c1de.
But somehow despite
all of these,
these fallabilities,
Sherman waged w*r
brilliantly against the South,
brought the South to it's knees.
So then what did he do?
He offered the South exceedingly
generous terms of surrender.
Frankly much more generous
than the South deserved.
And what did this get him?
William Stanton, the Secretary
of State at that time,
publicly rebuked
Sherman and rescinded
the terms of his surrender,
the terms of surrender that
he'd granted to the South.
Humiliated Sherman.
The papers of the North, the
politicians in the North,
branded Sherman
incompetent and a traitor.
So here you have this man
who was reviled in the South,
hated in the South,
he still is today,
I can't talk about
him around here,
and yet, also rebuked in the
North despite his victory.
Sherman retired from the Army,
and vowed never to set foot
in Washington D.C. again
and went back to
his native Ohio.
He's a very, very tragic figure,
William Tecumseh Sherman.
- [Ross] I decide to resume
filming along Sherman's route
and I drop by to say
goodbye to Claudia
but she's not home.
The car runs beautifully,
that is until I get about
40 miles outside of Atlanta,
where the headlights
suddenly go out,
followed by the fuel pump,
the ignition and the battery.
[Voiceover] Now if you
have a pair of pliers,
I'd put one right here and
I'd put one right there
and I'll hold it in my
hand, I'll tell you what,
I bet you that son
of a g*n will be
light up like a
lightning boom standing.
But ain't no power in it.
- [Ross] But it's brand new--
- It's slam dead.
- [Ross] crank right up.
- That's what I'm saying.
- 'Cause you have a
damn good battery,
good set of cables to
put the fire into it,
it'll crank it.
- [Ross] I was stranded
in Adrian, Georgia.
There was one service station
in town but it was closed
and there were no motels
or boarding houses.
- This is your room
here for the night.
We have two beds,
you're gonna be
sleeping on this
one, or either one
you'd like to sleep on.
- [Ross] All right.
- You have your
bathroom set there,
you got the sink, you know,
put you a book
down there to read.
- [Ross] They've left the
Bible for me on my bed.
[police station intercom]
- [Voiceover]
[mumbles] all cars,
be on the lookout for
four escapees from
the Women's Correctional
Institute in Milledgeville.
Four escapees, Women's
Correctional Institute,
in Milledgeville,
subjects, all four subjects
are black females, 17
to 20 years of age,
all were last seen
wearing blue jean shorts,
white tee shirts
and tennis shoes.
- [Ross] I finally fall asleep
around three in the morning
and dream not of nuclear
w*r, but that I'd
been captured and
held hostage by four
female escapees in white
tee shirts and cutoff jeans.
- Let me look at this thing.
- [Ross] All right.
- [Mechanic] Hey
Brent, how you doing?
[mumbling]
One of them, yeah.
[mumbling]
- [Brent] What's that
leaking out? Water?
- [Ross] That's just water
from that radiator hose.
If you start looking you
can find a lot of things
That need to be worked on.
- [Mechanic] Right.
[laughing]
- [Ross] Don't look too hard.
[engine starting]
- [Ross] All right.
[engine drowns out speech]
[laughing]
- [Ross] Off the coast
of Savannah, Georgia
there's an island names Ossabaw
and in 1864, federal
gunboats anchored off
Ossabaw Sound and successfully
blockaded Savannah,
enabling Sherman to
capture the town.
The island isn't
open to the public,
but I've applied
for permission to do
more of my historical research.
[grunting]
[splashing]
- Bess come here, come on.
Come on, it's bath time.
Come on, no you gotta sit in.
No Bess, Bess, sit.
Sit.
Sit in the water, come on.
Sit, sit Bess.
This is what you've been
practicing for all these years.
No, come on now I
wanna give you a bath.
Michael, I would like something
to pour water over her with.
This is especially vulnerable
spot for fleas, yes.
- [Ross] There
are only a handful
of full-time residents
on the island,
among them Michael, a geologist,
and Wini, a linguist, who
is working on her Ph.D.
- [Wini] How you doing?
You know, tonight
when you can get
one sound night's
sleep without itching,
and biting and scratching.
- [Ross] After a
while I learned that
contrary to what I had assumed,
Wini and Michael do
not live together.
In fact, Michael lives
in a little cabin
at one end of the estuary,
and Wini lives at the other end.
I happen to have a
extra half-roll of film
and I decide to ask
Wini if she'd be willing
to discuss her work in
linguistics with me.
- I can't explain
serious linguistics
in two and a half minutes.
[laughing] That's ridiculous.
I'm not even gonna try.
But in the other case, where the
existential quantifier
has scope over
Sue's wanting, there
is an act such that,
x's are sweet and
Sue wants to marry x.
Then it sorta has
scope over everything
and so it's making an assertion
about a fact of the world
that there is an
existence, this we.
- [Ross] How does
this relate to--
- [Both] Referential opacity?
Well, this guy David Lewis has
something called
counterpart theory,
where you talk about your
counterpart in possible worlds.
And so you define
a possible world
in terms of being a
set of counterparts,
relevant counterparts, to
individuals in this world.
Which makes it even
more interesting,
it's really sort of
exotic and exciting
to think about
yourself as having
a counterpart in all of
these imaginary worlds.
[engine cranking]
[engine cranking]
[engine staring]
You know one way
of accounting for
the difference
between referential
and attributive uses
of a known phrase is to
make use of the
difference between
intention and extension
and say that there is
some sense of the referring
expression that is important.
In the sentence, Smith's
m*rder*r is insane, that there
is a sense associated with
the expression Smith's m*rder,
m*rder*r, and that's
the intention.
That's what we call intention.
- [Ross] You're the Julia
Child of linguistics.
[laughing]
- I don't know what
a linguist hopes
to accomplish in Ossabaw.
Time to be alone and think.
[milk splashing]
Time to get away from,
theoretical feuds.
- [Ross] And other kinds
of feuds too right?
- Well yeah.
- [Ross] So how is
it you always got
involved with your instructors
and your professors?
- Ross, I can't believe you
just asked me that question.
When you're studying
the same thing
and you're both really
interested in the same thing
you think about it a lot.
And you're really
fascinated with someone
who can talk well and think well
about the things you find
most interesting in life.
[milk splashing]
I have told you that
for a very long time
I believed that the
only important things
in life were
linguistics and sex.
It was easy to see
how one would get
involved with a
linguistics professor.
- [Ross] Do you
still believe that?
- Well, I think there are
other important things.
I'm very fond of this cow.
- [Ross] My interest in
linguistics continues to grow.
There are other unused
cabins at the camp
and I ask if I might move
into one of them for a while.
[engine revving]
[engine drowns
out Wini's speech]
- [Ross] You're
spinning very slowly,
but you're not
gaining any ground.
[engine revving]
- [Wini] There's no solid place.
- [Ross] There's no solid place?
- Uh-uh, I don't think so.
- [Ross] Wini, how far
back down this road is it?
- [Wini] Four miles maybe.
[laughing]
- [Ross] I don't think
I have enough film
to cover that entire walk.
[laughing]
Well I'm really glad you had
this idea to go to the beach.
[laughing]
It was a great idea.
- [Wini] What I really wanted
was a walk in the woods
and this was just my
way of getting out.
- [Ross] Oh I see,
well I could think
of much easier ways to do it.
You know this hippie
lifestyle, just has--
- It's not a hippie
lifestyle though.
- [Ross] It is a
hippie lifestyle.
- No it's not.
- [Ross] In New York
and Boston you can
get on the subway and
ride to the beach.
And here you have
to drive through
five miles of miserable,
swampy, muddy road,
be att*cked by mosquitoes,
and you get stuck in the
mud for all your trouble.
And then you have to walk back.
- And you never
get to the beach.
- [Ross] You never
get to the beach.
[Wini mumbling]
[thunder rumbling]
- [Ross] Sounds like
it's gonna rain.
- [Wini] I know.
It is, it's already
raining somewhere.
God, look at that.
That's really pretty.
[thunder rumbling]
- [Wini] Excuse me.
Ticks are just one of
the horrible things
that you find on your
body around here.
- [Ross] What else
am I in store for?
- [Wini] Well, I'm not sure
what all these things are.
I think they're chigger bites,
or as Wes Stanfield
says, redbug bites.
[laughing]
- [Ross] Can you show me a tick?
- [Wini] Show you a tick?
Are you kidding?
These things are microscopic.
Every little creepy
feeling you're
looking to see if it's a tick.
But then you develop
a really good sense
for knowing exactly where
they are, or you feel.
Would you like me to
see if you have any?
- [Ross] Sure.
- Okay, I think I
got most of mine.
Excuse me, I have
to do my underarm.
[chuckling]
[mumbles] But they're
pretty hard to find.
- [Wini] I hate to
disappoint you but I don't
see anything like a tick here,
except that with your
freckles it's hard to tell.
Ticks look like freckles.
[laughing]
Are you ticklish on your knee?
- [Ross] What are you writing?
- A letter to Lee.
- [Ross] I've been doing some
research on Sherman's march.
Do you wanna hear it?
- Sure.
- [Ross] Inside the fort lay
the dead as they had fallen
and they could hardly
be distinguished
from their living
comrades sleeping soundly
side-by-side in
the pale moonlight.
Isn't that beautiful?
Sherman wrote that.
He was actually pretty eloquent.
- [Wini] Was the march
to the sea an attempt
to show people that
he wasn't a failure?
- [Ross] I think probably so.
Until the w*r between
the States came along
Sherman was a failure in
all modes of public life.
He tried to start, I
think, a lumber business,
a real estate business,
an insurance business,
and all of them failed, he
was a terrible businessman.
Don't you see the resemblance
between me and Sherman?
- [Wini] Physical
resemblance you mean?
- [Ross] In that he had a red
beard and I have a red beard.
- [Wini] Yeah well
that's true. [laughing]
That's a big similarity.
- [Ross] And another way in
which there were many failures.
All of my love relationships
have been disasters,
which could be said to
be the equivalent of
you know, trying to
start a lumber business
or a real estate business
that failed terribly.
I mean, that's also
- [Wini] [snorting]
Ross, there's no analogy
between a real estate
business and a love affair.
[waves crashing]
- [Ross] Life becomes
an endless succession
of pleasant chores and
trips to the beach.
I'm convinced that I've
stumbled into Eden.
Wini and I are
very happy together
and we live like
Rousseau's savages.
Except occasionally
we still talk about
referential opacity
and counterpart theory.
Unfortunately I was
broke and I had to return
to Boston to take
a film editing job.
I promised to return
after two months
but it ended up being longer,
and Wini and I
continued to write.
Then one day she
called to tell me
that if I did come
back, things would
have to be a little different.
- [Wini] You're almost like a
blind person groping your way.
- [Ross] That's the way I feel.
- [mumbles] Don't trip now.
Should I go?
- [Ross] Yeah, go ahead.
- [Wini] I like this one.
If you don't mind
sleeping with roaches.
The conenoses come up through
the cracks in the wood.
I don't know if you'd like them.
I don't know, I only see
them when they're kind of
dirt surfaces, the surfaces.
- [Ross] When they're
full of you're own blood?
- [Wini] Yeah and
they slow down a bit,
then you get to see
them, they kind of, after
they've gotten full,
they hang around in
your sheets for a while
till they can move again.
- [Ross] The whole notion about
blood-sucking conenoses
just terrifies me.
- Well I know it's, if they
had given them a different name
it wouldn't be so bad but.
- [Ross] So Wini, what's
happening with you and Michael?
- [laughs] Did you
wait to ask me that?
- [Ross] Well, now that
you bring the subject up.
- [laughs] I don't know Ross.
I find I tend to want
to push a relationship
to a conclusion,
for some reason.
As you know, you know,
with you I was always
dissatisfied with
what was happening,
and I wanted something more
or different to happen.
And I wanted to do
that, more, but.
- [Ross] But you're
definitely living together.
- Yeah, we're living together.
And we'll be together
a lot this fall.
We'll see each other a lot.
I just can't imagine my
life without Michael.
Right now.
- This is where I sleep now,
or where I try to sleep.
[deep squealing]
It's a wild pig.
A wild pig probably
being strangled,
by an alligator or a
snake or something.
Anyway, I sleep here alone
and Wini stays with Michael.
I'm not quite alone
actually there
are an awful lot
of insects here.
Mosquitoes, are just maddening.
There are chiggers,
there are ticks,
the worst, the thing
that I fear the most
is the blood-sucking conenose,
which Wini's told me
about, which apparently
inhabit this treehouse and all
the other places around here.
It's impossible to
sleep, it's six o'clock
in the morning and I
haven't slept at all.
- [Ross] I had visions of
those blood-sucking conenoses.
- Yeah.
- [Ross] I was sure they
were all over my body.
- [chuckling] Could you feel
them creeping up and down?
- [Ross] Yeah but, so I woke up
countless times
checking for them,
and I took the
flashlight and looked
all around the bed and
all I could find was ants.
Just hundreds of ants.
- Oh there were?
- [Ross] Oh yeah.
- You seem to be
plagued by the ants.
- [Ross] Why did you
leave me for Michael?
- Michael was here, Ross,
and you were gone filming.
- Gone filming?
- [Wini] Yes.
- Gone to earn a living.
- Gone to earn a living,
that's true, Michael
doesn't earn a living.
He probably has more
money than you though.
- [Ross] Well he lives
on this island paradise,
you both do, you
don't understand
what the real world
is like out there.
- No, we don't.
I wonder if we ever
will understand again
what the real world is like.
- [Ross] I don't know.
- Well I'll tell you
one of the things
about Michael is that
he generally has time
and patience, you know?
And sometimes I need
time and patience, a lot.
- [Ross] I was pretty
patient with you Wini.
- You were, sort of but
you would get impatient.
And you were off and
you were just gone.
[metal clanking]
- [Ross] I didn't handle
things very well with Wini.
By leaving her for so long I
sabotaged our relationship.
If I'd really wanted
things to work out
I would have found some
way to come back sooner.
Now I feel jealousy
but also friendship,
towards both Wini and Michael.
It's all very
complicated and awkward
with just the three
of us living here.
[metal screeching]
I want to leave but I can't
until the ferry boat comes
so for the next few days I
continue to help with the chores
but somehow it isn't the same.
- [Michael] They don't seem
really upset right now.
They will be later I think.
They can only take
so much of this,
you know, 10
minutes, 20 minutes.
They might be like
this all the time,
right now they're
exceptionally docile.
- [Ross] Shit!
Ow, ow!
g*dd*mn.
[rolling thunder]
My nights are
plagued and tormented
by a wide variety of insects.
What little sleep
I get is troubled
by dreams of thermonuclear w*r.
It seems to rain every day.
Finally, I return
to the mainland.
- [Voiceover] Up,
down, back, down,
up and down, two, three.
- [Ross] I get a
motel room but still
I can't sleep so I watch TV.
[television knob clicking]
[growling]
God, how awful.
In an attempt to cheer myself up
I go to a local bar
that has live music.
[slow country music]
- [Ross] The next
morning I find a monument
under construction in nearby
Sumter, South Carolina,
a town leveled by
Sherman in 1865.
- [Woman] We've been
a chapter since 1896
and we inherited this property
from the Ladies
Monumental Association
that was established in 1869.
- I read not long ago calling
my attention to the fact,
that many of those young boys,
some of them went
in at 14 and 15,
they'd never had a sweetheart.
But yet they went into the
b*ttlefield and were k*lled.
- [Ross] That's very sad.
- Well, I imagine,
well, there's nothing
glamorous about w*r,
no matter how you
want to make it.
There's nothing,
death and destruction.
- [Ross] Finally I
call a friend of mine,
a former girlfriend I
haven't seen in a long time.
We saw each other off
and on for about a year,
but then stopped
seeing each other.
And now she's planning
to move to California,
and I feel there's still
some things we need
to talk about before she leaves.
- My solution is simple.
I'm just a simple man, I
make a living simply farming.
The only solution
is for us and Russia
to stop the manufacture
of these bombs, right now.
[cheering and applause]
[wind rumbling]
[rain pattering]
- [Ross] When I arrived, Jackie
was involved in a protest.
Her last one, against
a nearby military plant
that processes plutonium
for nuclear weapons.
- A show of hands is
a visual petition.
Each handprint is
a vote no to the
image that's painted
on the canvas.
And we've had participation now
from artists all
across the country
and even a few in
Europe and we hope that
this show of hands
will continue to grow,
so with your help
today we can make
a beautiful canvas,
so please go back
between the trees
there and take a
look at the canvases
and give us your hand.
Thank you.
[applause]
- [Announcer] Coming
up we have the--
- [Jackie] Now,
anywhere you like,
we're making a flag there so--
[announcer drowns out speech]
[guitar and vocal music]
- [Ross] The protesters are
also angry about the fact
that most of the
nation's nuclear waste
happens to be dumped
in South Carolina,
primarily by northerners.
For over ten years
now Jackie has spent
nearly all of her free
time trying to get
the government to
change this policy.
But very little has changed.
[people chattering]
[bluesy guitar singer]
- When I'm somewhere else,
the same issues exist,
but it's not my town,
my state, my responsibility,
and I have more choice.
I don't feel needed, necessary.
I would like to be gone and let
it happen with other people.
- [Ross] Would it
happen without you?
- [Gir] Without you,
it won't happen.
- Well there's,
well, I can't stay and do it.
I'm too burned out, I've
been doing it too long.
I've just, I'm,
and Sherwood Smith
says he's gonna operate
that plant till the year 2007.
- [Jackie] And if you don't
have a super thin hairline
it doesn't look
like calligraphy.
Now, you're right-handed, right?
Okay, hold the pen, let me
see how you hold the pen.
- [Ross] Jackie teaches
art in a public school
in Hartsville, South Carolina,
the town she grew up in.
- [Jackie] Okay,
now you wanna keep
that angle the whole time.
All right, now we're
starting at the top.
- [Jackie] Well this is
the entrance, to the--
- So we're just getting there.
- [Jackie] This is the pavilion,
the visitor's
pavilion right here.
This will tell you,
this is bronze,
and it's tell you who did it,
and it'll tell you
the best dates.
[students chatting]
See this tells you
- [Girl] That is some serious
something about it.
- [Girl] hunk of man.
This is something
about World w*r II.
This is a World w*r II monument.
- Boy he got big feet.
- Those are good feet though.
- I bet if he was to kick
a football it's be a goal.
[laughing]
- [Girl] Look at that body.
- His feet look so real.
- [Girl] But look at
that body. [laughing]
- [Boy] Look at them
callouses on his toes.
- [Girl] Look at the body.
- Yeah, like you ain't
never seen a body before.
I got a body, you got a body.
[girls chatting]
- [Seated Girl] Oh
take my picture mister.
[shouting]
- All right.
- All right, mother goes
to sleep early right?
- [Ross] She goes to bed early.
- What time?
- [Ross] Oh about
ten o'clock I guess.
- What time you
and her go to bed?
- [Ross] [chuckles]
Jackie and me?
- Uh huh.
- [Ross] Well we go to
bed at different times.
About, you know, 11, 12.
- Well the only thing you got
to do is just get serious.
- [Ross] Get serious?
- Yeah.
- [Ross] What do you
mean by get serious?
- You know what
I'm talking about.
Throw down.
- [Ross] You shouldn't talk
about your teacher like that.
- Oh she don't mind. [laughing]
- [Ross] A few years
ago, things ended
somewhat unhappily
for Jackie and me
when I decided I couldn't
commit myself to her.
I've always felt there
was something unresolved
about our relationship
and I've been wanting
to talk to her about it
but she's been reluctant.
- Did you get the
little tendrils,
the little tiny leaves there?
- [Ross] Well what
do you want, really?
- [Jackie] Well it was
I said the other night,
a political ally is more
important than a lover.
- [Ross] Than a
love relationship?
- Well, many a truth
is spoken in jest.
I think I was kidding when
I said that. [laughing]
I don't know, do you?
- [Ross] I guess I
don't know either.
Do you want to get married?
- [Jackie] Not at the moment.
- [Ross] Well I
wasn't asking you.
[chuckling]
This very moment, not in
front of a green scum pond.
- [Jackie] Well.
- [Ross] Are you angry at me?
- [Jackie] No.
I think it's all more
trouble than it's worth.
[laughing]
- [Ross] I think you've become
really cynical in your--
- [Jackie] In my
middle age, yeah, yeah.
Haven't you?
- [Female] Zanna, whoa!
- [Male] Zanna.
- [Ross] I didn't know until
I arrived in Hartsville
that Jackie had a new boyfriend.
His name is Rusty, and
he does legal research
for a group that's
challenging the
safety record of the
Robinson nuclear reactor.
In addition to the b*mb plant
and the nuclear waste dumps
there also happen to be
a lot of nuclear reactors
in this part of South Carolina.
As Rusty likes to
say, next to peaches
plutonium seems to be the
state's biggest cash crop.
- It's the worst
one in the country.
Science Magazine
calls it the one
high-risk plant in America.
The NRC said that it was like
pouring cold water
in a heated glass,
that the reactor vessel
itself could crack like that
if the cooling water came in,
it's a runaway rhinoceros.
There ain't no way to stop it.
- And it is brittle,
it is the most brittle
reactor vessel in the
entire United States.
We're sitting here, five
miles way from Old Rob.
I'm trying to get outta
here and go to California.
Here you know, I'm
compelled to say something,
as a, you know,
being of this place out there,
you know, real shallow roots.
Out there everybody lives
in a yogurt cup, you know?
And I'll just get a nice
yogurt cup and just hang out.
- [Ross] Do you think
you'll come back?
- Oh yeah, I'll
always come back.
Till the vessel
cracks at Old Rob.
And when the vessel
cracks, those of us
who ain't here won't
be coming back.
- Quit smooching.
You and Ms. Carrie
y'all was smooching.
You and Ms. Carrie quit
smooching or I'm gonna tell.
- [Jackie] But, I wasn't--
- Yeah see I'm gonna make sure
y'all don't get
no job next year.
See I'll put in a recommendation
that y'all do not get no
job for smooching on campus.
- [Ross] She's quitting.
- She quitting?
- [Jackie] Yeah.
- What you quitting for?
- So I can smooch.
- Oh, she put Chapstick
on her lips too
y'all done check it out
she's smooching now.
Woohoo, y'all better quit that.
You see this nice
[mumbles] trophy?
- [Ross] Did you win
that for smooching?
- Nu-uh, I lost.
Hey Ms. Carrie, here he is,
you better smooch with him.
[laughing]
- I don't want any
witnesses for this.
- [Student] Yeah
he got it on Daddy.
He better have it on.
- Go on to the back of
that something over there.
- Y'all gonna start
smooching, you and her?
- Okay, that should
be about right, try.
Film yourself getting
into the hammock.
- [Ross] Why not?
- Why not. [laughs]
[Ross grunting]
It's okay, it's on right.
- [Ross] It's the day
before Jackie leaves,
and she's read in the newspaper
about a recently
constructed monument,
one she wants to see
before leaving the South.
- [Ross] How's your Arabic?
- [Jackie] It doesn't
take as much space.
- [Ross] The monument
was erected anonymously
for survivors of nuclear w*r.
It explains in 12
different languages
how to reconstruct civilization.
[tapping]
- [Ross] Best method
I've ever seen.
- She hears that sound,
you coming over here Zanna?
You make it cool Zanna,
get a cool place, yeah.
[laughing]
[plane engine roaring]
- [Ross] We arrive at the
airport just a few minutes
before Jackie's flight departs.
It seems we never really
did find time to talk
and now there's barely
time to say goodbye.
[wipers rubbing and squeaking]
A sort of creeping,
psychosexual despair
begins to overtake
me, but suddenly
I hear on the radio that Burt
Reynolds himself is in town,
sh**ting his next picture.
I decide to see if I can
find him and film him.
After doing some
research I locate
the production
crew's motel and as I
drive up I spot Burt
Reynolds himself,
standing all alone.
I cannot believe it.
He tries to slip away
but I follow him.
Much to my surprise
when I ask him
if I can film him he says yes,
he'd be delighted to be filmed.
He's very cooperative.
The only trouble is,
he's not Burt Reynolds.
His name is Randy,
and for two days
he's been trying to get work
as a stand in for Mr. Reynolds.
- [Ross] Do you have
many women come up
and ask you for
autographs and pester
you and things like that?
- Yeah.
My whole life, I won't lie.
A whole lot of women come up and
ask me if I'm Burt Reynolds
or if I'm his stunt
man or his double
or something like that.
I always have to tell
them no so maybe now,
in the next 15 minutes,
I will be his double,
or his stunt man.
- [Ross] Well, what time
is now, quarter till?
Quarter till one?
- [Randy] Quarter to one.
And we're still standing here.
What's it, eight
hours and 45 minutes
I've been at this
hotel waiting for him.
- [Ross] We wait until
three in the morning,
but the real Burt
Reynolds never shows up.
- [Voiceover] Call it the
w*r between the States,
or the Civil w*r,
it was a bitter
and bloody test
of national unity.
And it was the North's
industrial might,
harbinger of the
nation's future,
which helped break the
valiant lines of grey.
It was a time of many changes.
And it was the testing grounds
for a breed of new
and deadly weapons,
that would forever
end the glorious
toy soldier wars,
of tall stone forts
and long lines of
brightly uniformed men
advancing into battle
to the sound of music,
and the roll of drums.
- [Woman] I am bored
with your singleness.
It is a bore for you to get to
be middle-aged and be lonely.
It is, it's very boring
for you to be lonely.
- [Ross] Well I've made attempts
at correcting that situation.
- Yeah well see that failed,
that's the other thing
that's boring is failure.
It is time to get on it.
You have been in
insufficient to this quest
and so I have to take over.
I have to.
Because otherwise,
I'm gonna be so bored,
with your loneliness that I'm
gonna have to dump you myself.
I mean we're just gonna have
to, we've got to get on it.
Really now.
You're too old to be, one, alone
and two, failing in
your attempts to couple.
So I'm coupling you.
- [Ross] Why do you
think Dee Dee Geraty's
the perfect person, for me?
- I think she's the
perfect person for you
because I think she's a woman
that can appreciate you.
Now the only way
to get you coupled
and it to be a permanent thing
is to find you a woman who
thinks that you're God.
It's gonna take a very
special kind of woman
to think that you're a God, too.
- [Ross] While in Charleston
I'm visiting my friend
and former teacher, Charleen.
For several months
now Charleen's been
trying to get me to
meet a friend of hers,
who's a singer and a musician.
- [Charleen] Listen, you
can listen to this twice,
why don't you?
For this first
listening to Dee Dee,
forget the f*cking film
and listen to Dee Dee.
This is your wife.
This is your betrothed.
- [Ross] Play the tape.
[slow, graceful, folk music]
- Listen to this, listen.
Listen to this oh.
[woman on tape singing]
That's really what I
always wanted to do.
If you did that you
wouldn't need to eat,
you wouldn't need sex,
you wouldn't need anything
if you got a mouth like
Dee Dee Geraty has.
- [Female] Oh I'm
so glad to see you.
- And keep up a courage because,
now look right at him,
yeah, look right at
him for the first time.
- [Ross] Hello Dee Dee.
- Hi, I'm glad to meet you.
- [Ross] I'm glad
to meet you too.
Charleen has, to say the
least, said a lot about you.
- Oh and about you. [laughing]
- Would you stop,
would you stop?
- [Ross] Don't touch that lens!
- I can't help but
touch it, turn it off.
This is important, this
is not art, this is life.
- [Ross] All right.
- [Charleen] Now of all
times, would you stop it,
this is life.
- [Dee Dee] Oh I'm
really impressed, oh my.
- [Charleen] Oh you've
never been in here Dee Dee?
- [Dee Dee] No this is
the first on all counts.
- Okay, well next week you'll
get the view of the park.
Burt just sit down right here.
Burt looked lost because
he's following us.
Ross would you stop it?
- [Ross] I have to film this.
- [Charleen] Dee Dee look,
he's just determined.
Give me your umbrella and--
- [Dee Dee] And your note.
- The umbrella and the note,
and I will hit Ross with it--
- Well hit him with the note.
- I will castrate him.
Ross I'm going to do
it right to the parts,
to the south parts of your body!
He's gonna go limp.
- [laughing] All right.
[laughing] Oh my.
- [Charleen] He did
turn it off didn't he?
- No it's still running I think.
- [Ross] Charleen you're
being very forward
we've only known
each other for about,
how long has it been?
- [Dee Dee] Eight minutes.
- [Ross] Eight minutes.
- [Charleen] Eight minutes.
Well you all don't
have much time.
Time is moving on.
- [Ross] Hey we're
still pretty young.
- Well it just depends
on how you look at it.
You all are getting
a late start.
Both of you should have been
pregnant eight years ago.
[laughing]
It's true.
- [Ross] Well, better
late than never.
- [Charleen] He's not
filming he's just turning
from one person to another,
I can tell when the camera--
- [Ross] You can hear
it if it's running.
- That's right so
you aren't filming.
- [Ross] No not right now.
- So you're using this camera
because you don't
want to be with us.
- [Ross] Maybe
it's just that I'm
camera shy in a reverse way,
and I'm hiding
behind the camera.
- Well I think
maybe you are Ross,
the minute we start
talking about progeny
you pick that thing
up and you're just
using it as a hedge.
[Ross laughing]
I mean as something
to hide behind.
You are not filming.
- [Ross] No I'm not,
I'm filming.
- [Charleen] Put it down.
We're talking about
your children.
- [Ross] Well, this film deals
with those kinds of things.
[laughing] It does.
- With what kinds of
things, with your children?
- [Ross] Well I don't
have any children yet.
- I know but we're
getting right on it
if you put that camera down
we'll get there faster.
We'll get there a lot faster.
[laughing]
- [Ross] The next day Charleen
shows me her neighborhood.
She lives with her husband on
what was once a military base.
What is this?
- [Charleen] This
some w*r trash honey.
I'm trying to
remember what you said
that irked me so because
it is so absolutely,
totally the wrong thing
to say to a woman.
- [Ross] What did I say?
- When you said to Dee
Dee, over the telephone,
before you ever met her,
don't bother to take
your vacation now,
wait, I mean, don't wait,
don't do anything for me,
this is absolutely the
wrong thing to say Ross.
I mean what you say to a
woman, is not self-effacing.
I mean that's not even
interesting, let alone--
- [Ross] I'd never met her
before, I didn't want her to--
- I don't care Ross,
I'm trying to tell you--
- [Ross] To postpone
her vacation because I
was coming into
town, that's absurd.
- Ross that's what's
wrong with you.
What she wants to
hear, what all women
wanna hear, what
children wanna hear,
you've got to be
more passionate Ross.
Now if you had said to Dee Dee,
please postpone your vacation,
the only thing
that matters to me
is seeing you and
being with you.
- [Ross] I'd never met her!
- Postpone your va,
I don't care Ross,
I'm telling you!
You're not as interesting
because you're
so self-effacing and polite.
Now it's all right to
have lovely manners,
you must have them.
Dee Dee wants you to have
them, I want you to have them,
but I also am telling
you that that doesn't
mean that you can't
be passionate.
Passion is the only thing,
the important thing,
you must say, you're
the only woman
I've ever seen, I
would die for you,
I live for you, I
breathe for you.
Please, for God sakes, take
your vacation and be with me,
because this is the most
important point in my life.
Now you've got to learn
to talk like that.
You've got to learn
to feel like that.
How can you be a filmaker if
you never have any passion?
- [Ross] I have plenty of
passion, I don't even know her.
I don't know anything about her.
- This doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that
you don't know her.
What matters is the
quality of your passion.
So what that you don't know her?
That's not relevant.
- [Ross] Can we
walk through here?
- [Charleen] Yes we
can walk through here.
- [Ross] Where does it come out?
- [Charleen] We don't
know where it comes out.
We're just passionately
gonna walk through it.
We don't even care
where it comes out.
- [Ross] This place
is like a tomb.
- [Charleen] Now
you, no it's not
it's like pubic hair, part
the bushes, go into the place.
Go with it Ross,
it's not like a tomb.
That's the problem
with you, you don't
know the difference
between sex and death.
- [Ross] Sex and death?
- Sex and death, this is life.
- [Ross] One and the same.
- Dang you can't
even tell it, when it
sits on your face you
can't tell which it is.
This is the way
women wanna hear men
talk to them, now see
Becky knows how to talk.
I love you and I can't help it
and I don't care who knows it.
What is she saying?
I give you my life and heart.
This is the way I want
you to talk to Dee Dee,
this is the language
women can understand.
That's what they believe, they
experience it in
their own lives.
- [Ross] Well not all women.
- Well the only women
that I know believe that.
That's the only way that I
could understand your belief.
- [Ross] I've felt that way
about a couple of people.
It doesn't solve
everything, it's the point.
- Well you never
solve everything Ross,
you never solve everything.
The only thing you've
got is a chance
at a few passionate hits.
You see how foolish it all is.
You see what the army comes to.
The bunkers, the island,
the burned out house,
hell it's all a tragedy.
It's just a matter of
how you get through it.
And the most interesting
way to get through it
is to say I can't help
it, I'm full of passion
and I'm gonna die this moment.
It's the only way to
pretend you're alive.
It's the only way to,
not be alone and depressed.
You've got to kid yourself,
you've got to kid her,
and then you both believe it.
- [Ross] The next day
Charleen takes me to visit
Dee Dee at a girls'
school where Dee Dee
had once been a
student and where
she now works as
an administrator.
♪ Sing sing a happy heart
♪ Raise happy voices one and all
♪ We are happy to say that we're
[children singing]
♪ And we live by the golden rule
♪ We will always be friends
♪ Till the very, very end
[children singing]
[singing "Just The Way You Are"]
♪ Just the way you are
♪ Don't go trying
some new fashion
♪ Don't change the
color of your hair
♪ You always have
my unspoken passion
♪ I love you just
the way you are ♪
- [Ross] Ashley Hall
School For Girls.
It dawns on me
that I have somehow
wandered into the very
cradle of Southern womanhood.
[knocking]
- [Young Lady] Hi.
- [Ross] Hello.
- How are you?
- [Ross] Do you mind if
I take a few pictures in here?
[young ladies mumbling]
[classroom chatter]
- [Girl One] I like that
one, what about you?
- [Girl Two] You pick it.
[excited chatter]
- [Girl] Your hair
looks so pretty.
- [Girl] Crows feet on the eyes,
they can airbrush those out.
They can take out those
zits on your face,
they can airbrush those out.
If you have real
prominent birthmarks,
they'll take those out, they
can slim your nose down,
or widen it, take bags out
from underneath your eyes.
- Now I'm giving you
a few more hours,
the two of you,
even some time alone
to get used to the idea, because
the wedding is happening.
I want you married,
by Christmas.
That's this year.
- [Dee Dee] That sounds close.
- [Charleen] Because
time is wasting.
It's to be a Christmas
wedding, Ross,
do you understand me?
Ross, you're getting
married this December.
See before I ever
met you I was longing
for Ross to meet a woman
who was not sullen.
And who, what else what it Ross?
I had it very, I
had it down pat.
I wanted her to not be sullen
and I wanted her to be--
- [Ross] Rich.
- No I did not, rich,
rich does not matter.
You're the one with
that responsibility,
you have to make some money.
You have to put that camera
down and make some money.
I'm considering putting
you into dentistry anyway,
this won't do, this won't do.
This is a beautiful child
and she must be supported
while she raises your children.
- [Ross] I go home with
Dee Dee to meet her mother.
- When she speaks of supplies,
she means everything.
- [Dee Dee] Right, first aid.
- For survival, first aid.
Really, survival things.
- [Dee Dee] Yeah, everything.
- [Mother] Everything but
it's a terribly expensive--
- As well as food.
- [Ross] Proposition?
- [Mother] Proposition, and the
place to store all this material
within the house itself
is almost impossible.
- [Ross] Wait, okay.
- Have to come around.
- [Ross] I better come
around on the other side.
- [Dee Dee] All right,
reach in for the light.
Here are the three
boxes, 25 pounds
of low-fat imitation dry milk.
- [Ross] Where's the water kept?
- [Mother] In the garage.
- The water's in the garage.
Wanna go out that way?
- [Ross] Sure.
- [Mother] That's safe, water's
safe at any temperature.
Isn't that right?
- [Dee Dee] Unless
we're growing algae.
And it's to the right.
- [Ross] You're giving
away all your secrets.
I'm gonna know where
everything is now.
[laughing]
- [Dee Dee] So this is
two six-gallons of water.
- [Ross] Oh, underneath.
- [Dee Dee] Two
six-gallon containers.
We have another
gallon container,
and a five-gallon container
in the laundry room.
- [Ross] And then you have
a warehouse which has,
a little bit of food and--
- [Dee Dee] Six weeks worth,
of dehydrated food.
- You can tell the
different in the old wall
and the new wall, they
keep patching it up.
I don't wanna go in here Ross,
because it bores me to death.
I'll show you some
of the secret bunkers
that are a lot more
romantic than this.
This is what, sort of been
done again for show and the,
I don't know, the only
reason I'd come down here
is to get out of a
hurricane, let's go.
- [Ross] Charleen, you know
General Sherman was here though?
This is where he
stayed for four years.
- Wait, he stayed at Moultrie?
- [Ross] Yeah.
- He didn't stay in
this fort did he?
- [Ross] Yes he did.
- Sherman did?
- [Ross] Yep, from 1842 to 1846.
- Well now I know we ought
to get out of here, come on.
- [Ross] No, he
liked it here a lot.
He liked the South, he
had friends in Charleston,
and he was a painter,
he painted portraits
of his friends in Charleston.
- He painted portraits?
- [Ross] Yeah, and
he did still life
watercolors of the landscape.
He really did like the
South, that was why
I'm so fascinated
by him, you know.
- Well Ross it's
certainly, I don't think
you'd find many people
who live down here
who agree with you that
he liked the South.
I mean he did a
whole lot of things.
I mean you know.
- [Ross] I know.
- I mean the Late
Great Unpleasantness
was really a great
unpleasantness.
He destroyed everything.
- [Ross] Yeah.
One reason why they, hi.
- Hi, how are you folks today?
- [Ross] Just fine, thank you.
- I'd appreciate
it if, can I help
you with something, are you?
- [Charleen] No, can we
help you with something?
- [Ross] Just sorta filming.
- Is this your
vehicle right here?
- [Charleen] Yes and we're
getting ready to move
that vehicle right this minute.
- Okay, thank you
because the police
will tow you out of
there very quickly.
- Yeah, well we're not
going any place except away.
I like your hat.
- Thank you.
But that's a yellow zone
right there and they are
very, very picky about parking
regulations on this island.
- [Charleen] Now the Civil
w*r started right here
with shelling, all
into Fort Sumter
from Fort Johnson
and Fort Moultrie.
Now we're sitting
right here, right at
the front g*n of Fort Moultrie.
Here comes another
one, let's watch this.
- [Ross] All right.
- [Charleen] Coming
around the bend.
- [Ross] She's giving
me a very strong look.
- [Charleen] She
looks gorgeous though.
She don't care, she's
so strong and beautiful.
[laughing]
- Thanks.
- [Woman] What, thanks for what?
- We're just looking
at everything that's
beautiful and you
became part of it.
- Oh wow, thank you very much.
It is beautiful over there.
- [Charleen] Yes, it really is.
- [Ross] Bye bye.
- Ross do you like her?
Mother'll try to buy her for ya.
[public chatter]
- [Boy] Hey there's your boat.
- [Ross] How is
it you don't drink
coffee, or coke, or
beer, or anything?
How do you live in the
20th century? [laughing]
- It's hard to live in
Charleston, let me tell you.
[laughing]
Not it really, I--
- [Ross] Is it health
reasons, the caffeine?
- It's, well, I'm a
Mormon, member of the
Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints.
- [Ross] Is that part of,
I didn't realize that.
- Joseph Smith was
indeed a prophet
whose mission it was to restore
Christ's church
in it's fullness.
And these, the Latter Days,
it's the days prior
to the second coming.
And there are--
- [Ross] I didn't realize
that's what Latter Day meant.
- That's what that means.
America is the promised land.
And this nation is
[mumbles] this land
and that we believe
very vigorously
that the Declaration
of Independence and
the Constitution,
were divinely
inspired documents.
It's no accident that the
United States of America
is the kind of
nation that it is.
- [Ross] Well do you
think that the possibility
of the third world w*r is
figured into the Revelations?
- Yes, yes 'cause
we've been told
that there will be
great destruction,
prior to the second coming.
That, and this of
course is part of why
we think we should be prepared
with our storage of
all different kinds.
Because there will be
wars and rumors of w*r.
The pregnant lady, a
mother who's expecting
a child doesn't know
the hour of it's birth,
but she knows when
she's in her ninth month
that it's not going
to be next year.
We're in that sort
of latter days now.
We have, the signs of the
times are all around us.
- [Ross] This is Fort Moultrie,
and it's about a mile
from Charleen's house.
I have to be careful
because the rangers
have told me that I'm
not allowed to film here
without permission and
I could get into trouble
so I'm trying to do this
sort of, low profile.
Also, there are Boy
Scouts all over the place
which makes it harder to film.
But Charleen is really serious
about Dee Dee and
me, I mean she laughs
a lot about it
but, she's serious.
She thinks it's
ridiculous that I haven't
been married yet,
as old as I am,
and so she offers me this woman
of purity and strength
and conviction.
And she has the voice
of a singing angel
and she's from a prominent
Charleston family
and whose dowry
apparently includes
a better than average
chance of survival
in case of a nuclear attack.
But you know, I'm
just not suited
for Dee Dee, I'm
unsuited for her.
Basically Charleen
doesn't realize
I have these tendencies
toward depression
and sort of anxiety and
that I'm sort of lust-ridden
and I don't know, it's
just, it's not gonna work.
Last night Dee Dee told me
she wanted to marry a man who
could bring the
priesthood into her home.
And that's just not me.
Here come more Boy Scouts.
- What's happened with Dee Dee?
What happened last night?
- [Ross] Did you know
she was a Mormon?
She is a Mormon.
- Well I didn't
know it at first,
all I knew is that
she was a singer
and an extraordinary one.
I knew that she was a singer,
I knew she was beautiful,
I knew she had charisma.
- [Ross] I don't see why
you thought that we had
that much in common, we're
actually very different people.
She intends to marry someone
from the Mormon church,
someone who can bring the
priesthood into her house.
- What, you wanna
tell me that again?
Who can bring the
priesthood into her house?
- [Ross] Yep.
- Ross I counted
on you about that,
I figured even though
Dee Dee was a Mormon,
that the moment she saw
you in your Gatsby clothes,
that religion would be
just something she realized
was a stall for time.
- [Ross] She's very
serious about her religion.
She really is.
- She's only serious
about her religion
because she's not in love.
If she would fall
in love with you,
then it would be different.
Ross, you blew it with Dee Dee.
But while you were
gone to Atlanta
I found a girl who's
better than Dee Dee.
I found a wonderful
girl for you,
she looks like the angel on
the top of the Christmas tree.
She's absolutely,
perfectly beautiful.
She's not a Mormon, in
fact, she sleeps around.
I can't wait for you
to meet this girl,
she's gorgeous, she's darling.
- [Ross] I've decided
to leave Charleston
before I get into more
trouble with Charleen's
ideas of marriage brokerage.
I wander the local countryside,
tracking down the remaining
evidence of Sherman's presence,
the shrines to the
destruction he caused.
Sheldon Church,
torched by Sherman's
ruthless scavengers
in November 1864.
The caskets in the
church burial crypts
super-heated and
exploded in the fire.
It seems I'm filming
my life in order to
have a life to film, like
some primitive organism
that somehow nourishes itself by
devouring itself,
growing as it diminishes.
I ponder the possibility
that Charleen is right
when she says that filming's
become the only way
that I can relate to women.
I'm beginning to lose touch with
where I really am
in all of this.
It's a little like
looking into a mirror
and trying to see
what you look like
when you're not really looking
at your own reflection.
Anyway, I decide
to resume following
Sherman's route
through South Carolina.
[birds chirping]
On February 16th,
1865, Sherman's troops
massed here on the banks
of the Congaree River
in preparation for the
invasion of the state capital
of South Carolina, Columbia.
The a*tillery took
practice on the
dome of the state
Capital Building
and a few days
later, the troops had
crossed the river
and 80% of Columbia
was burned to the ground.
[bushes rustling]
[grunting]
[singing "Respect"
by Aretha Franklin]
♪ Just a little bit
♪ Just a little bit
♪ Just a little bit
♪ Oh a little respect
♪ Just a little bit, baby
♪ Just a little bit
♪ Just a little bit
[electric guitar playing]
♪ Ooo, your kisses
♪ Sweeter than honey
♪ And guess what
♪ So is my money
♪ Oh a little respect
♪ Just a little bit, baby
♪ Just a little bit
♪ When you get home
♪ Just a little bit,
a little respect
♪ Just a little bit
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T
♪ Find out what it means to me
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T
♪ Take care, TCB
♪ Oh sock it to
me, sock it to me
♪ A little respect
♪ Sock it to me, sock it to me
♪ A little respect
♪ All the time
♪ Just a little bit
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T
♪ Find out what it means to me
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T
♪ Yeah, take care, TCB
♪ A little respect
♪ Oh baby, a little respect
♪ Keep on, keep on, keep on
[whistling]
[cheering]
- Thank y'all, come
back and see us
at nine o'clock
tonight, we love you.
[cheering and applause]
[laughing]
[chatter]
[groaning]
- [Ross] Her name is Joyous
Perrin and she performs
in bars and nightclubs
around the Carolinas.
From the first
moment I saw her sing
I became a dedicated
and ardent groupie.
- [Masseuse] Relax.
- You guys are really cute.
- [Girl] Thank you.
- [Child] There's
one behind you.
- [Ross] I'm going to be
doing some filming with Joyous
I don't know if she
told you about that.
- No, she sure didn't, I
didn't know what it was.
- This is my friend Ross,
and he's making a movie
and I'm in his movie,
and he wanted to film me
doing everything I do
so I brought him along.
- [Child] What movie
you gonna be in?
- Oh.
- [Joyous] Well it's a
movie that Ross is making
about women, ladies
in the South.
- Oh.
- [Joyous] And I'm his
singer, for the movie.
- You supposed to sing?
- [Joyous] Yeah.
He's been following
me around, filming
me singing all over the place.
- [Girl] Ooh I see.
[jazz piano playing]
- See that gives,
that adds something
okay and then, and
then when I finish
my solo, go back and
sing one more verse,
and go back to that and
that'll be the song.
- [Girl] Daddy.
- [Man] What?
- [Girl] I want grape.
- [Man] You want grape jelly?
- [Girl] Yeah.
[singing "Nobody Knows
You" by Otis Redding]
[children shouting]
- It's those hotels.
I really don't have
any need to be nervous.
Well maybe it's just
'cause it's Grady's and my
actual debut.
- [Ross] Together you mean?
- Yeah.
[sighing] Hotels
make me nervous,
sometimes it just overcomes me,
and I have no idea
why and I, [sighing]
just have to, get inside of
myself and take a deep breath.
- [Ross] Then do it.
- Okay.
Abracadabra.
This is the beginning.
- [Ross] Now what happens to it?
- Now I really make it crazy.
- [Ross] So what
kind of an image
are you trying to get here?
- The sexiest, most talented,
lounge singer in this case,
[laughing] that this
guy has ever seen.
I just want to, have him melt
into a little puddle at my feet.
- [Ross] If I were
a traveling salesman
I think I'd be totally
in love with you.
- Wouldn't you want to
see a wild woman like me
in a bar, singing Mean To Me?
[singing "Call It Stormy
Monday" by T-Bone Walker]
♪ Wednesday is worse
♪ Thursday's oh so sad
♪ Eagle flies on Friday
♪ Saturday I go out and I play
[singing "Call It Stormy
Monday" by T-Bone Walker]
- [Man] If you would, put your
social security
number next to it.
- [Joyous] I've got to
look that up, I'm sorry
I'm on of those people
that doesn't remember it,
I'll have to just
phone it in to you.
- Okay.
- [Joyous] Agency
representative, what's that?
- [Man] Whatever, yourself.
[lively piano]
- [Man] That's
just fun ain't it?
[laughing]
- [Joyous] She thought she'd
just take one you know.
- Married?
- [Ross] Are we married?
- Yeah.
- [Ross] No we're not married.
- Well, do y'all stay together?
- [Ross] No we
don't stay together.
- She stays far away don't she?
- [Ross] No she
lives a couple miles
away from where I'm staying.
- Sometimes do you
go to her house?
- [Ross] Oh yeah I go
to her house a lot.
Joy shares an apartment
with her friend Catherine
and they're planning to
move to New York as soon
as Joy finishes recording
her first record album.
- I think I owe myself a shot.
- [Ross] If you love
it so much down here
why do you have to move?
- Well because,
the major part of the industry,
I have more of a
chance, of making
a big success of
myself, by being around
the people that are in New York.
I mean if I never
went to New York and
never gave it a try,
I'd really regret that.
- [Ross] Yeah?
- Yeah, so I don't
know I'm just gonna
be there as long
as I can stand it.
[dog barking]
- Anybody home, anybody home?
Anybody home?
Anybody home?
[dog barking]
- [Man] Jack, don't
t*rture that dog.
[dog barking]
- Hey, hey, shut
up dog, shut up.
[dog barking]
[shouting]
[screaming]
[dog barking]
- [Man] Out, go, out, go!
- Excuse me sir!
[shouting]
[dog barking]
[hissing]
- [mumbles] go on out.
- Yeah if you teach
a dog to protect you
then you don't have
to worry about it
and he can be mean for you.
New York tends to
make people mean
and I'd rather,
well just be protected
whenever possible.
- [Ross] All set?
- Bye bye. [chuckles]
- [Ross] I'm gonna miss you.
- I'm gonna miss you too.
- [Ross] I know.
I'll be back, someday.
- I know you will.
You'll always come back.
- [Ross] Yeah and I think
you're gonna be a success.
- I hope so.
- [Ross] Yeah, but, goodbye.
Sad.
[engine starting]
- Bye bye.
- [Ross] Bye bye Joy.
Joy heads out on
another nightclub tour.
She invited me to keep
traveling with her
and the band but I have
to return north soon
and there's still one
more person I want to see
before I go back.
- [Woman] There now that'll
be, it's in water, fresh.
- [Ross] I'm on my way
to visit my friend Karen.
Even though we knew each
other all through high school
she always seemed
slightly out of reach,
a sort of golden girl,
pretty and very intelligent
and very popular.
After high school she
went to California
to go to college and
I once drove out there
to spend four days
with her, and she once
flew across country to
spend a weekend with me.
But somehow we never got
romantically involved.
After college I kept track
of her enough to know
that she eventually returned
south and worked her way
through grad school,
waitressing and teaching,
until she got a
degree in Russian.
And that she later
got a law degree
and finally that
she'd met someone
she was really serious about.
Then one day she
called and told me
that she and her
boyfriend had broken up.
She was really upset and I
told her to come and visit me.
She ended up staying
for several days
and somehow things were
suddenly different.
I found myself falling
in love with her,
but she was still in
love with her boyfriend
and finally she felt she
had to go back to him.
[dog barking]
Now it's been a long time
since I've seen Karen
and I have no idea as to whether
she's still with
this guy or not.
[knocking] [dog whining]
[door knocker clanking]
- [Woman] Come in.
- [Ross] Karen?
- [Karen] Ross, hey!
- [Ross] Hey, hey Karen.
- I though maybe you
hadn't, but you, Ross!
- [Ross] You never know.
You only get one this time.
- [Karen] Hey. [laughs]
- [Karen] You didn't
drive far did you?
- [Ross] A little bit,
that's okay, not much.
- You did, where have you
been wandering around?
- [Ross] Smile. [laughing]
- I came to Irene and Dean
because I just wanted,
you know, just to
be taken care of,
and I came to see you
for the same reason.
It's just something,
one last, like,
do I really want
other people to take?
I want somebody to help me.
- [Ross] I did want
to take care of you.
- But then,
it was just when I realized
that other people would
that I realized
that I could again.
I mean.
- [Ross] You should've told me.
- I should've told you.
What that I could?
- [Ross] That you didn't
want to be taken care of.
- But I did then,
I wasn't lying.
I did.
- [Ross] For four
or five months,
I didn't know what
was happening.
- I'm sorry.
I didn't really either.
I mean I think I've
only found this
out in the last couple weeks.
I mean I haven't
known all along.
I've just known recently.
And I, and I am sorry.
I do--
- [Ross] But are you still,
I don't understand, are you
still going out with him?
I mean, you're going
to see him tonight
and yet you say you're not
really with him anymore.
- I'm not with him at all.
I'll tell you what tonight is.
Tonight is this big thing
that he has every year,
it's huge and he invites
hundred of people
and I've always
done it with him.
I mean it's always been, you're
gonna make me cry, don't.
- [Ross] I don't
wanna make you cry.
- I'm gonna make myself cry.
And I've always
done it with him,
and this year, you know,
I knew it was gonna happen,
and I knew it was gonna happen,
and the other thing
that I kept thinking
was if Cam doesn't invite
me, I'll be crushed.
But he did, I mean he
called and I talked to him,
and it's been a long
time and I said,
he said, come and I
said, well I don't know
if I can I really, it's
hard to be around you.
And then I decided, a while back
that yeah, I really wanna go,
to see what happens.
- [Ross] Once again I forget
to turn on my tape recorder.
Karen says, "I'm
sorry to do this",
and I say, "That's all right."
Then Karen says, "If you want
to, see what Barbara's up to.
"I think she's going to a
nightclub with some friends."
Barbara is Karen's roommate.
Then Karen says, "Will
you be all right?"
And I say, "Sure, I'll see
you when you get back."
[jazz piano playing
"Putting on the Ritz"]
[tap shoes clicking]
- [Ross] It's amazing, I
told Karen that I think that
every time I appear, both
Karen and I intersect,
that she gets back together
again with her boyfriend.
- But they don't get
back together again.
They never last more than a day.
That's hardly, I consider that
hardly be getting
back together again.
- [Ross] Well it's lasted
for more than a day, today.
- Maybe this, I've
always thought,
each time it happened that
it would be different.
But it hasn't been
so I'm assuming
that it's never going to do it.
- [Ross] Well she really
loves him and she's just--
- No I think she's
obsessed with him.
- [Ross] Yeah, well to be
obsessed, to be in love.
- I, you know.
- [Ross] Love is obsession.
For the next few days I
don't see much of Karen.
She's either at work or spending
time with her boyfriend.
When I finally see her again
it's for dinner with friends.
- [Karen] 98% of the people
we deal with are men,
they're, like a woman
defense attorney comes in,
twice a week at most.
We deal with men, only.
And I don't have any
problems with them.
I don't, I mean, they might act,
I'm not gonna, change
anything about myself.
I do the job the best I can.
- Women have different
personalities than men have.
And I think if woman and
a man are in the same
job position, they should be
allowed their
different personalities
- [Karen] That's right,
and that's what's happening
is that she's saying I
shouldn't be allowed--
- It shouldn't be
categorizes this is a woman,
and woman should act like a man
because she's in a
man's profession.
f*ck that.
A woman should
not act like a man
because she's in a
man's profession.
So anyway, if it
would be appropriate--
- Well it can.
- You're right and so,
yeah I turned it on.
- [Man] Oh, super.
- [Woman] And I said, yes.
- [Karen] There's
some rags over there.
- [Woman] So I interviewed him
and I said that's inappropriate.
- [Karen] Move that.
- [Woman] And then
he decided he wanted
the court date moved
up and he went to Susan
and he asked Susan could
we move the court date up?
And Susan said, well,
if the investigation
is done, you know, then we can.
Like if we talk
with the policemen
and we talk with the witnesses
and the victims and
stuff, then we can do it.
Okay, well Greg came in
to the office and said,
you know, Susan
says we can do this.
- [Voiceover] The Equal
Rights Amendment has been
before the North Carolina
legislature for a decade,
and the senators
who voted on Friday
did so, to quote,
lay the ERA to rest
for once and for all, unquote.
[cheering]
[clapping rythmically]
[chanting]
- [Ross] With consummate
timing I insist
upon talking with Karen
about our relationship
in the midst of 10,000
angry southern women.
- [Woman] When do we want it?
- [Crowd] Now!
- [Woman] What do we want?
- [Crowd] E-R-A!
- [Woman] When do we want it?
- [Crowd] Now!
- [Ross] Are you
convinced he's the only
person that you
could be happy with?
- I know what I'm
convinced is that
we should be together.
That we should be,
I believe in what he
is and what he does and what,
I just, I don't know why.
And it's, he, I don't
know whether he,
and he should believe it,
that's, that's, see that's
what the problem has been,
is--
- [Ross] Come on through.
It's okay.
- Is that I,
is that he believed in
me when he first knew me,
before I went, and,
then I went through,
he knew me and that's
the person that he loved.
And then I went
there and I changed.
- [Ross] To law school?
- Now I'm telling him--
- [Ross] Oh but Karen
it has to be more
than just going to law school.
- No, no and I'm
telling you that
now I've come back 360 degrees
to where I was,
and I'm not asking
you to just take my word for it,
but to just slowly
spend a little time,
and see for yourself,
'cause I know you miss
me, I know you love me.
- [Ross] I do.
What did you feel when you were
in Boston with me for five days?
Was it just an escape from him?
- No it was that you've
always been there
in the back of my soul,
and it's almost that you
and I are too much alike,
I guess, it like
you're another me.
I never thought that really
you and I could be lovers.
- [Ross] Could be what?
- Lovers.
I always wished,
I mean do yo know
how many times I've
said to Barbara
that I wish Ross and
I could be lovers,
because it'd be so perfect.
Because, it would be.
- [Ross] What can I do to
make myself less perfect?
- No that's not it, it's just
that Cam's already there,
- [Woman] I think what
it really boils down to,
she's got a lot of money.
Fantasizing's 50% of it.
- I am in love with him.
- [Ross] In love with him.
- And I was in love with you,
and I've always been
in love with you
but I am,
I,
I am. [laughing] I am.
- [Ross] I have to be quiet.
Karen's in the
bedroom next door.
And I'm here.
And I can't sleep, it's,
it's unbearably hot,
and so I thought
I would just film myself,
not being able to sleep.
Dreams of apocalypse.
I can't get through to Karen.
Now it seems she's always
with her boyfriend,
or talking with
him on the phone,
or thinking about him.
She seems distant
and out of reach.
This isn't exactly
what I'd hoped for.
- Yeah.
In Chapel Hill? Really?
- [Ross] Bentonville,
North Carolina,
not far from where Karen lives.
Sherman fought what
was effectively
the last battle of
the Civil w*r here
against a pathetic,
rag-tag Confederate
army of old men and boys.
Even so, it was a fierce battle.
One soldier's diary
recounts how amputated
limbs of soldiers
were strewn around
on this same grass outside
the field hospital.
And how one could tell the
legs of the infantrymen
from those of the cavalrymen,
because the infantrymen
who had been marching for
months had thicker calves.
I stopped filming for
a few days hoping Karen
and I could talk about things,
but the timing's still terrible.
She remains committed
to her boyfriend
and to working out
the relationship.
Bumbling around with my camera,
I don't really know how
to film these things
and I'm ruining our friendship.
- [Ross] Why aren't
you in love with me?
Just because he
was there before?
- I'm sorry, I know you're
upset but that's not fair.
I mean you know.
- [Ross] Karen
everything you've said
is that we're different people.
- Ross stop filming
that's cruel.
- [Ross] No it's not cruel.
- Yes, stop.
It is, stop.
Cam,
I mean at this time,
about last August
or September, I
was off the edge.
I, I would
verbally, I mean I
would say, you know,
oh if only he would
come back, I would,
my life would be
fine, everything.
And now my life is fine anyway.
The fact that he's come back,
I think I'm just gonna
sort of stand back,
try to be easygoing about it
and just see what happens.
- [Ross] Am I gonna get
a chance to meet him
Karen, at some point?
- Perhaps.
Tomorrow, if you like.
I don't know whether
you like, or not.
And that's entirely up to you.
- [Ross] I finally meet
Cam, Karen's boyfriend,
when my car runs out of gas
and he comes to help me out.
- f*cking thing
leaks like a sieve.
- [Ross] Just like the car.
- Huh?
- [Ross] Just like the car.
- Yeah.
Goddammit.
- [Ross] Do you
have a funnel Cam?
- [Cam] I did, but I lost it.
I don't know, we
better just pour it.
- [Ross] Okay, let's do it.
- [Cam] Goddammit.
Sorry.
You sure you've never
had anybody hit you?
- [Ross] Not yet.
I spend the next few days
with Cam and his friends.
They seem to spend a lot of time
collecting and trading
plastic animals,
like the kind you used to get
in cereal boxes, except larger.
- That's a canoe, I bought that.
- [Voiceover] Heads up, Cammy.
- [Ross] I never
really understood
what it was all about.
- [Man] I think in the corner.
- [Cam] Where, over by the dam?
- [Man] Don't you think
by the dam over here?
- How about right up here?
[groaning]
- [laughing] Stop
it, you stop it.
- [Ross] I know
it's time to leave
when I find myself
trying to convince
Karen to fall in love with me.
It's absurd, I don't even
know for certain that
if we had a chance we
could make it together.
But I find myself arguing
for it as if I'm in court.
Which is especially ridiculous
considering that
Karen's a lawyer.
I decide to return
to my hometown.
[ratchet clicking]
Unfortunately my car decides
it wants to stay a while longer.
The repair estimate is $600.
The mechanic doesn't
have the necessary parts
which doesn't really
matter because I
don't have the necessary money.
I leave my car at the garage
and take a bus
back to Charlotte.
The Confederacy officially died
here in my hometown of
Charlotte, North Carolina.
Jefferson Davis, president
of the Confederacy,
held his last cabinet meeting
not far from this marker,
and fled towards Mexico,
leaving behind him
a ruined South.
I've come to the end
of my journey with
no car, no money, and
only one roll of film.
What's worse is
that I don't seem
to have a real life anymore.
My real life has
fallen into the crack
between myself and my film.
I begin to feel paralyzed
by these speculations
when suddenly a news
item on the radio
snaps me out of my stupor.
My old nemesis, Burt
Reynolds is back in town,
and I decide that
this time I have
to find him and film him.
- [Lady] Has he already
autographed 'em?
- [Man] Yeah.
[women exclaiming]
Wait, wait, don't
get on the street,
we've got plenty of them.
[excited clamoring]
- [Ross] I had hopes
of meeting Mr. Reynolds
and filming him for a few days
and perhaps getting his views
on such topics as
concepts of masculinity
and romance in the South.
But his staff decides
that Mr. Reynolds
doesn't have the time to discuss
these matters with me.
They do not thinks
it's a good idea
for me to be on the set.
And they ask me to stand outside
the roped off area with
Mr. Reynolds' other fans.
[cheering]
- [Woman] Oh, hey Burt!
- [Lady] Oh he's so
cute, good God Almighty.
[cheering and whooping]
He waved right at
me, did you see him?
He waved right at me.
[women shouting]
- [Woman] Just let me
get one kiss, just one.
[mumbling]
- [Lady] Burt, I've been
here the longest time.
- [Woman] Can I
get one of those?
- [Kerchief] Just
give me a little one.
[shouting excitedly]
- Whoo!
[excited chatter]
- [Man] Over here Burt.
- [Woman] Burt.
[women exclaiming]
[men mumbling]
- [Girl] Well I wanted
to shake his hand.
[Man] Travis.
- Yeah.
Excuse me, can I help you?
- [Ross] Yeah I was just hoping
to talk to Mr. Reynolds.
- [Man] What am I doing?
- [Ross] Yes, sir.
- [Man] Well they've
asked me to find out
who you are and who you're with
since you're filming
on what they're going.
- Wake up, wake up Devonda.
- [Ross] She got kissed
by Burt Reynolds?
- Yes.
- So did the mother,
and so did I, I took
me a kiss, I had to.
[laughing]
Had to get me a kiss.
Devonda wake up.
- Hey baby, Devonda.
- [Sister] Oh she's
passed right out.
- Burt just knocked her out.
Come on, knocked her out cold.
They say any kiss like
that'll know a baby out.
- [Sister] That's what
Burt does to all the women.
[laughing]
- I'm telling you,
it was something.
- Come on Devonda, wake up baby.
He even tell, he said,
control yourself.
And I can't really, I'm
speechless right now.
- Lady was standing in my way
I was about to knock her down,
I had to get up there.
I had to.
Come on baby, wake up.
Burt Reynolds
kissed you, come on.
- When she get's older
she'll hear about it.
- She sure will.
Oh wake up, you're not
gonna wake up, come on.
- [Sister] She's cute.
- Thank you.
- [Ross] The production
staff informs me that
I'll be arrested if they
catch me on the set again.
[traffic rustling]
Sherman came to
like New York a lot.
After a brief period
of public humiliation,
during which he was rebuked
for being soft on the South,
Sherman became extremely popular
and returned often in New
York as a public speaker.
Once he told a crowd, I think we
now understand what
military fame is,
to be k*lled in
the field of battle
and have your name spelled
wrong in the newspapers.
Sherman published his memoirs,
and traveled all over
America on what was the
19th century equivalent
of a talk show circuit.
Statues were erected
in his honor.
This one depicts Sherman in
pursuit of winged victory.
But Sherman sensed
his days were numbered
and he confided to a friend,
I feel it coming sometimes
when I get home from a banquet.
I feel death reaching
out for me as it were.
I suppose I'll
take cold one night
and go to bed and
never get up again.
A month later, on February 14th,
Valentine's Day 1891,
Sherman died of pneumonia.
The Confederate general,
Joseph Johnston,
who had fought the last
battle against Sherman,
attended Sherman's funeral.
Johnston stood in the
bitter cold before
Sherman's coffin
and was urged to
put his hat back on
to protect his health
but he replied, If I
were in Sherman's place
and he were standing in mine,
he would not put his hat on.
A month later, Johnston
himself died of pneumonia.
I returned to
Boston and got a job
teaching filmaking.
I can't say I was too
happy to be back up north.
On the other hand, I can't
say I was too pleased
about my trip down south either.
Everything there had seemed
slightly crazed
and out of kilter.
And the world as a whole seemed
a much more dangerous
place that it was,
even a year ago,
when I began filming.
Also, the whole
notion of actively
searching for the perfect person
to fall in love with
now seemed foolish,
and the chances of finding
such a person seemed remote.
Anyway, I resolved
not to get involved
with anyone for a while.
I wanted a long
period of solitude
and time to pursue
some other activities.
I began auditing a few courses,
including one in music history.
- The flute, helps
to recall that,
and flute and soprano are
often paired in bel conto.
You hear them dueling,
a lot in bel conto.
Sometime oboe and soprano
used to duel in the baroque.
It gets taken over
by the high, very
virtuosic flute in
the 19th century.
All right, now the
third example, yes?
- [Ross] At first I
tried to ignore it
but I couldn't help but notice
that my teacher was
kind of attractive.
- When she goes into
the [singing smoothly],
she recalls an aria tune.
[classical piano playing]
- [Ross] After several
weeks I found myself
talking to her after class.
Her name was Pam, and I told her
I thought she had
a beautiful voice,
and I asked her if she
ever sang in public.
["Ode to Joy" by
Ludwig van Beethoven]
I sort of had a crummy seat
but that's her in the chorus.
Eighth row, 12th from the left.
[choral singing]
After the concert I
thought things over,
and then somewhat cautiously
asked her if she's like to see
a movie with me, on
the following weekend.
[classical orchestra music]
[soft classical music]
[classical music]
[man opera singing]
[man singing]
Sherman's March (1985)
Moderator: Maskath3