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STEPPENWOLF -- THE COMPLETE SCREENPLAY OF THE CULT CLASSIC FEATURING MAX VON SYDOW, DOMINIQUE SANDA, PIERRE CLEMENTI, AND CARLA ROMANELLI |
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HARRY: No. One needs talent to dance. Like gaiety, innocence, frivolity, elasticity --talents I've never had and never will.
HERMINE: Don't be so cocksure. Remember, you're under orders.
HARRY: What makes you so cocksure I'll obey your orders?
(She kisses him)
PABLO:
"What turned the trick you'll never know You're on your way You long to go Time is turning into space What a trip to Pablo's place
How hard you fall, how soft you land Ecstasy is in your hand The glass reveals your secret face You won't come back from Pablo's place
When Pablo plays the senses reel No one knows how weird you feel Except those who fade without a trace Last seen on route to Pablo's place."
[Crowd applauding]
[Jazzy instrumental music playing]
HERMINE: Well, don't just sit there, go and dance.
HARRY: But I don't know anyone.
HERMINE: Ask anybody. Nobody here pretty enough for you?
HARRY: Of course.
HERMINE: How about ... (whispers in his ear)
HARRY: I can't. She'll think I'm a dirty old man.
HERMINE: You are a big baby.
HARRY: Why, she'll laugh.
HERMINE: Poor Harry, nasty girl might laugh at him. Come on, take a chance for once.
HARRY: I can't.
HERMINE: Go.
HARRY: May I have a dance?
MARIA: As a matter of fact, I'm engaged for this one.
HARRY: Oh, I'm sorry.
MARIA: But, my beau seems to have gotten stranded at the bar. So let's go.
HARRY: I'm just learning.
MARIA: Doesn't matter, just relax a little.
[Crowd applauding]
PABLO: Hello, dear.
[Speaking French]
HERMINE: Pablo, my friend Harry.
PABLO: Enchante.
HARRY: Enchante.
[Speaking French]
PABLO: Cigarette? No? You'll be sorry.
PABLO: He is rich?
HERMINE: No.
PABLO: But he's very beautiful.
HERMINE: Yes. Very beautiful.
PABLO: Jimmy was around yesterday looking for you. Hello Harry. You like music?
HARRY: Yes. Well, yes and no. I mean, I never thought I would be able to enjoy this kind of music.
PABLO: What kind of music?
HARRY: Well, jazz, I suppose. It is jazz, isn't it?
PABLO: If you want to call it names.
HARRY: Well, I mean, it is very different from our symphonic tradition, isn't it?
PABLO: I guess, I guess. All right.
*** HARRY: How do you know I'm not in love with you already?
HERMINE: Oh, you like me, I can see that. Because I broke through your isolation. You're grateful to me. But you are not in love with me yet.
HARRY: Maybe that's the same thing.
HERMINE: Which shows how little you know about it. No, I mean to make you fall in love with me.
HARRY: Why?
HERMINE: Because it's my calling and my nature to make men fall in love with me.
[Crowd applauding]
MAN 1: Bravo!
MAN 2: Bravo!
PABLO: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
HERMINE: Very well. She is lovely, isn't she? Why don't you make love to her?
HARRY: Do what?
HERMINE: Don't be such a prude. No one's asking you to marry her. You don't have to take all love that seriously. I say it's high time you slept with a pretty dolly again, Herr Steppenwolf.
HARRY: Believe me, I have no such aspiration.
***
ALFREDO: Thank you.
[Speaking French]
PABLO: Let's grab a bite to eat somewhere. After, we're playing at the City Bar again.
HARRY: All night?
PABLO: Why not?
HARRY: Well, I'm a little tired.
PABLO: I can fix that. Oh, pardon me, sir. I wonder if you'd be so kind, just for a moment.
HERMINE: Pablo can fix you anything.
HARRY: Anything?
HERMINE: Anything you like.
PABLO: It's good.
[Inhaling]
PABLO: You can't always get what you want, but you can always get what you need.
HARRY: Well, what are we waiting for?
PABLO: Let's go.
[Pablo singing]
HARRY: We're off to the Kunsthalle, then.
[Hermine laughing]
[Harry laughing]
PABLO: Hey!
***
[Classical instrumental music playing]
HARRY: Home at last, weighed down by sadness and despair. When I think of tomorrow's appointment at the Cecil Bar, I think with bitterness not only of myself but of Hermine, too. For all her kind intentions, she should have let me perish instead of sweeping me into this frivolity where I shall never be anything but an alien, and where the best in me is demoralized and lowered.
[Maria sighing]
[Maria yawning]
MARIA: Hello, you.
HARRY: Shh.
[Thunder rumbling]
HARRY: How the hell did you get --
MARIA: Shh.
[Music box playing]
[Children screaming]
***
HARRY: Tell me. Is Pablo, is he one of your lovers too?
MARIA: Jealous?
HARRY: No. He always seems so sleepy.
MARIA: He can be waked up.
HARRY: Uh-huh. So, what are you doing with an old man like me?
MARIA: You're not in competition, you know.
HARRY: Oh.
MARIA: I love you because you're shy and tender, and because I can see in your eyes that you're pleased that I am so pretty. With another, it might be exactly the opposite. I'd be thrilled if he used me and didn't care a fig for me. But a life without love, I couldn't bear it.
HARRY: Maria, I love you.
MARIA: You know, Pablo said I must treat you nicely, because you are so very unhappy.
HARRY: How did he come to this extraordinary conclusion?
MARIA: He said, "Look at his eyes. He doesn't know how to laugh."
***
[Horn blaring]
PABLO: Herr Harry, come for a spin in my motorcar.
[Car engine revving]
HARRY: Pablo, hello.
PABLO: What I want to ask you for, Champ, is a loan of 20 francs, and you can have Maria again tonight, if you want.
HARRY: Barter for a woman is counted among us as the last degradation, Herr Pablo. I have not heard your proposal. Where on earth did you get this car?
PABLO: Look, don't sleep with Maria if you want to invent troubles, but loan me the money anyway, okay? It's for little Augustino with the violin, you know. He's sick.
HARRY: You should have said so. But you still didn't answer about the car.
PABLO: Oh, I borrowed it, you know.
HARRY: Who from?
PABLO: I don't know.
[Cursing in French]
HARRY: Good Lord, why did you have to borrow such a highly visible car?
PABLO: Listen, this car has deux cent soixante chevaux (two hundred and sixty horses). They may see you, but they'll never catch me.
HARRY: Oh, for Christ's sake.
PABLO: Hello. Harry, quick. Quick, quick, quick.
AZTEC: Hey.
[Pablo whoops]
AZTEC: Halt!
***
HARRY: Tell me Pablo. Why is it that you don't care to discuss music with me?
PABLO: Oh you know, you know more about it than me. I just play. It's all the same to me.
HARRY: But it isn't all the same, is it? You can't put Mozart on the same level with the latest fox trot, or whatever, can you?
PABLO: I don't put nothing on any level at all. I just play whatever comes to me.
MARIA: Pablo.
HARRY: Tell me, Pablo. What is it you want out of life, hmm? Out of music?
PABLO: Je ne sais pas, moi. A laugh, a giggle, kick the gong around now and then, beaucoup de pouie.
HARRY: I see. A hedonist.
PABLO: Sticks and stones will break my bones. Your turn now. What is it you want?
HARRY: Light.
PABLO: There is a light within. You need only step out of your own shadows to see it.
[Playing classical tune]
PABLO: We could go to bed together if you want.
HARRY: No. No, thanks.
PABLO: We're all friends.
MARIA: If he doesn't want to ...
PABLO: Pity. He's so moral. Nothing to be done. All the same, it would have been so beautiful, so very beautiful.
HARRY: I think I have to lie down.
***
[Church bells tolling]
HARRY: Why is it that you aren't already the wife of a king, or a revolutionary, or some sort of genius?
HERMINE: I have been a courtesan of fairly good taste. That's what life has allowed me.
HARRY: Did you ever demand more?
HERMINE: Always.
HARRY: What?
HERMINE: Eternity.
HARRY: Where did you hope to find that?
HERMINE: In a special kingdom on the other side of appearances. The kingdom of God if you are pious, but it doesn't matter. Whatever you call it, it's where we belong, our home. Oh, Harry ... so much dirt and humbug we have to slog through in order to get home, and no guide but our homesickness.
And now, me, I am off. So friends and lovers, have a divine evening, and I'll see you at the ball.
***
[Parade music playing]
HARRY: Please.
WOMAN: Please.
HARRY: Sorry.
PABLO: Harry. [Speaking French]
HARRY: Have you seen Hermine? I've been searching all night. It's hopeless. Can you at least tell me what her costume is like?
PABLO: Just look for yourself. You'll find her.
HARRY: What the devil is that supposed to mean?
PABLO: Now, now, now. Don't lose your sense of humor, not tonight.
GOETHE: Lost your number? Take mine.
Magic Theater Tonight. For Madmen Only. Hermine is in Hell.
MARIA: Hey, dance with me!
HARRY: I can't. I'm on my way to hell.
MARIA: Come on.
[Maria laughing]
HARRY: Maria.
[Waltz instrumental music playing]
HARRY: Hermine is waiting for me in hell.
MARIA: I know, my darling. Run along. And farewell, Harry. I won't forget you. Ever.
HARRY: Farewell.
[Upbeat jazzy instrumental music playing]
***
HARRY: Hermine.
HERMINE: So, You've found me at last.
HARRY: Is this the way you mean to make me fall in love with you?
HERMINE: You are even ready to go to hell to find me?
HARRY: Is there any other way?
HERMINE: You dreamed of escape. You have longing to forsake this world, to penetrate to a world beyond time. You know this other world exists. I can give you nothing that isn't already within you. All I can give you is the chance.
PABLO: Brother Harry, I invite you to a little entertainment. For madmen only, and one price only. Your mind. Are you ready? And now I'll show you our little Magic Theater. As many doors as you like. And behind each door exactly what you are looking for. But the price of admission will be your trifling little suicide. You don't mind, do you? To conquer time and reality, you must extinguish these superfluous reflections you call your personality. All it takes is a hearty laugh.
[Harry laughing]
PABLO: Excellent, Harry. You'll laugh like the immortals yet.
AZTEC: Penetrate to a world beyond time.
PABLO: It's all an illusion, the Magic Theater, not reality ... nothing that isn't already within you. ... chance. The impulse. I help you make your movie ...
AZTEC: As many doors as you like. And behind ...
MAN: Mutant transformation into any plant or animal you please. The Great Automobile Hunt.
WOMAN: Transformation from time into space.
MAN: Compendium of art.
HARRY: Oh. Gustav! Good Lord! Fancy meeting you here. What are you doing?
[Gunfire]
GUSTAV: I'm a professor of theology, Harry. Got that son-of-a-bitch that time.
HARRY: What's going on?
GUSTAV: It's war. At long last, the war against the machine. Come on. So it's just what you've been waiting for, Harry.
HARRY: What?
GUSTAV: War against the machine.
HEFTE: Don't listen to him. You are obliged to stem the rising tide of anarchy fomented by effete intellectuals who cynically reject the blessings of order, work and private property.
HARRY: What's that got to do with machines, then?
HEFTE: Technology is the most sublime creation of the human mind that will eventually set man free.
HARRY: What do you think?
GUSTAV: Six off one, half a dozen off the other.
HEFTE: Villains. Traitors. After all we've done for you.
GUSTAV: Come on. Get out! Get out. Come on. Out. Go!
[Airplane approaching]
HEFTE: I think you ought to know, I don't consider this very patriotic of you fellows.
[Screaming]
[Distant gunfire]
GUSTAV: Look. Here, help me with this stuff. We want to be ready for them when they come.
HARRY: To think that I used to be a pacifist. Where does this bloodlust come from? I'm sure it's not rational.
GUSTAV: Of course it isn't. It's pure childishness. That's war, childishness on a gigantic scale.
HARRY: Yes. We must not always reduce the irrational to the rational, as do the Americans and the Bolsheviks, too. They are both extraordinarily rational, and they both produce this frightful oppression and impoverishment of life.
GUSTAV: You are a lulu, Harry. You talk just like a book. But we'll bag no cars with philosophy. All hands to battle stations.
GUSTAV AND HARRY: Bravo! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
[Coughing]
GUSTAV: May we inquire whom we have the honor of addressing?
LOERING: I am Attorney General Loering. Why did you fire upon us?
GUSTAV: For exceeding the speed limit.
LEORING: We were only doing the normal speed.
GUSTAV: What was normal yesterday is no longer normal today. Any speed a motorcar travels is too great. And now, will you be so kind as to get out, as your motorcar will be destroyed.
LOERING: I prefer to be destroyed with it.
GUSTAV: As you like. God knows as public prosecutor, you've murdered your share of poor devils in your day.
LEORING: It was my duty. A conception obviously unknown to you.
GUSTAV: What duty? I belong to the state, I served as a soldier, I killed on orders and paid taxes to buy more armaments until I couldn't get up in the morning without throwing up.
LOERING: You bore me. Be so kind as to get on with your job.
GUSTAV: My dear, are you skilled with firearms?
WOMAN: You could teach me.
[Gustav laughing]
GUSTAV: I imagine you'll be wanting lunch soon.
WOMAN: Have you got a court plaster for my finger? It's bleeding like anything. Whatever is to become of us?
GUSTAV: Don't know. But my friend Harry knows. He's fond of pretty girls. He'll look after you. Come on.
WOMAN: If you had some cucumbers, I could make some smashing sandwiches!
[Explosion]
***
Meanwhile ...
WOMAN ... wherever you like, and behind each door ... You have a longing to forsake this world, to penetrate to a world beyond time.
MAN: Downfall of the west, moderate prices, never surpassed.
[Birds calling]
WOMAN: Delightful suicide, laugh yourself to bits.
[Man laughing]
[Woman laughing]
WOMAN: ... Great Automobile Hunt ... These Kamasutra ... Instructions
[Voices echoing]
AZTEC: As many doors as you like.
HARRY: Pablo? Who are you?
GOETHE: I'm not anybody. I'm a chess player. Do you want instruction in building up your personality?
HARRY: Yes, please.
GOETHE: May I see your pieces, please?
HARRY: Pieces?
GOETHE: Of your personality. I can't play without the pieces. Which one is you? Wrong. You are the whole game.
HARRY: But all these personalities in one man, that's schizophrenia.
GOETHE: It don't matter, honey. Watch.
HARRY: What is it called, this game?
GOETHE: Life. Your life. Complicate it or enrich it as you please. Your soul has fallen to bits and pieces. Good. Rearrange them to suit yourself.
[Goethe laughing]
[Elephant trumpeting]
[Lion roaring]
[Wolves howling]
Marvelous Taming of the Steppenwolf
[Applause]
[Steppenwolf howling]
[Audience applauding]
[Growling]
[Audience applauding]
The Steppenwolf Tames Harry
[Audience laughing]
[Audience applauding]
[Harry growling]
[Audience applauding]
ROSA: Harry! What on earth are you doing in there? My goodness, you've gone and hurt yourself.
HARRY: Yes.
ROSA: Poor, dear Harry. I've always wondered what became of you. All these years.
HARRY: You haven't changed a bit, Rosa.
ROSA: The last time I saw you here, that Spring afternoon, you wouldn't even speak.
HARRY: I meant to. I wanted to. But I was afraid. I was only 15.
ROSA: My heart trembled so.
HARRY: Did it? Really?
ROSA: I cried myself to sleep that night. And then I began to forget. Never quite, though, you know.
HARRY: But you never knew me. Listen, Rosa, I could have destroyed you. You see, sometimes I'm ... There are terrible compulsions, urges that come over me.
ROSA: You might have let me take the risk myself.
All Women are Yours!
WOMAN: I used to dream that I was having your child. You never asked. You never listened. I hoped you would be different from the others.
HARRY: Hermine! Hermine!
HERMINE: So long, then, and enjoy your dreams.
[Hermine laughing]
WOMAN: Doesn't matter. Just relax a bit.
HARRY: Hermine! Hermine.
HERMINE: But I need you, too. Don't forget what you promised. I need you for something very important and very beautiful. But in the end, as you call it, you will have to fulfill my last wish as well. Kill me. Kill me.
HARRY: Mozart.
[Classical instrumental music playing]
PABLO/MOZART: You see? It goes all right without the saxophone. Though, to be sure, I shouldn't want to tread on the toes of that famous instrument.
HARRY: Where are we?
PABLO/MOZART: In the last act. Liberello is on his knees. There's a lot in it that is very human, certainly, but you can hear the other world in it too, the laughter, hmm?
HARRY: Plentitude. Power. It's the last great music ever written.
PABLO/MOZART: Don't strain yourself. You are a musician? I've retired myself, but I do like to drop in from time to time to see how the business is getting on.
[Orchestra playing]
Look, there is Brahms, striving for redemption. He'll be at it for quite a time yet.
HARRY: And Wagner. What are they in for?
PABLO/MOZART: Thick orchestration. No personal failing, you understand. It was a fault of the time.
HARRY: But they can't help it.
PABLO/MOZART: They couldn't help Adam eating the apple either, but they have to pay for it.
HARRY: But it's frightful.
PABLO/MOZART: Oh, life always is. We can't help it, but we are responsible anyway. One is born, and at once, one is guilty. Where is your fine religious education, anyway?
HARRY: So, you mean I'll be called to account for all of those books I wrote?
[Pablo laughing]
[Women laughing]
[Train approaching]
[Train whistle blowing]
[Screaming]
[Knife clattering]
[Distorted music playing on radio]
HARRY: Herr Mozart?
PABLO/MOZART: Shh. Munich's coming through. It's a symphony by Friedemann Bach. What are you doing? Listen to it.
HARRY: This infernal machine murders music.
PABLO/MOZART: Belt up and listen, my friend. Listen past the wireless to the music. It's just like life. You must see through the appearance to the reality beneath. Anyway, it little becomes you to be a critic of radio, or of life, either. Learn to listen first. Learn what is to be taken seriously and to laugh at the rest.
HARRY: I think I'm beginning to understand.
PABLO/MOZART: You are a great joker, Harry, huh? What's this mess, now? You couldn't think of anything better to do with this enchanting young lady than this? I expect you are now looking for a way to evade the consequences of this dreary butchery?
HARRY: You don't understand, Herr Mozart. I want to pay. I want to pay and pay again for what I've done. I want to lay my head under the axe.
PABLO/MOZART: What a pathetic cringe you are, Harry. But you'll learn humor yet. Gallows humor.
The Execution of Harry
[Playing ceremonial instrumental music]
[Bell tolling]
PABLO/MOZART: All humor is gallows humor. Are you ready my friend?
HARRY: I'm ready.
JUDGE: Gentlemen, there stands before you Harry Haller, accused and found guilty of the willful misuse of our magic theater. Haller has not alone insulted the majesty of art in that he confounded our beautiful picture gallery with so-called reality and stabbed to death the reflection of a girl with a reflection of a knife. He has, in addition, displayed the intention to use our theater as a mechanism of suicide, and shown himself devoid of humor. Therefore, we condemn Haller to eternal life and suspend for 12 hours his permission to enter our theater.
PABLO/MOZART: You really botched it, Harry. You lost your sense of humor. All that messy business with the knife, and your ugly reality. Je pensais que vous auriez mieux joue le jeux que ca. (I believe that you have a better side than that.)
HARRY: Pablo, I'm beginning to understand. I understand you. And Goethe. I've still got all the pieces in my pocket. If I only had another chance.
PABLO: As many as you like. This is not the end, you know. Only a beginning.
HARRY: Where do I have to go from here?
GOETHE: The way of innocence leads on, not back. Not back to the world of the child, but even further into sin. Ever deeper into human life.
[Fast-paced drumming]
JUDGE: The penalty, also, of being laughed out of court may not be remitted. Gentlemen, all together: one, two, three.
[Hysterical laughter]
[Laughing]
Filmed
on location in Basle, Switzerland, and at Studio Hamburg, Germany. A
ProduFilm GmbH Production
Female Sacrifice, by Tara Carreon
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