0
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:15,000


1
00:00:15,916 --> 00:00:18,416
[man] I knew
when I made those Betamax films,

2
00:00:18,500 --> 00:00:19,500
and sitting there...

3
00:00:20,208 --> 00:00:21,833
[man 2] Oh, to warm it up?

4
00:00:21,916 --> 00:00:23,875
[man] ...three hours, four hours a night,

5
00:00:24,208 --> 00:00:27,083
visit after visit,
accumulating into 200 hours.

6
00:00:28,291 --> 00:00:29,291
The predators--

7
00:00:29,875 --> 00:00:31,750
[man] I knew I wasn't making 'em for me.

8
00:00:31,833 --> 00:00:34,500
[stammers] Maybe if somebody
at the museum sees it and says,

9
00:00:34,875 --> 00:00:36,666
"Wow,
we need to rewrite the history books."

10
00:00:37,083 --> 00:00:40,458
I survived tremendous hardships.

11
00:00:41,916 --> 00:00:44,375
[man] I knew somewhere,
somebody would find these tapes,

12
00:00:44,458 --> 00:00:45,875
and they'd see what was on there

13
00:00:45,958 --> 00:00:47,875
and make something out of it.
That-- I knew that.

14
00:00:48,208 --> 00:00:50,291
[static crackles]

15
00:00:50,375 --> 00:00:52,375
[man] There are geniuses out there.

16
00:00:54,083 --> 00:00:55,083
I found mine.

17
00:00:55,833 --> 00:00:57,458
[static crackles]

18
00:00:58,083 --> 00:01:00,000
[dramatic orchestra music playing]

19
00:01:32,750 --> 00:01:37,375
[man 2] Opposing thumb created
all the civilizations.

20
00:01:49,541 --> 00:01:54,875
Commonplace people cannot stand the idea
that he has such importance.

21
00:02:01,333 --> 00:02:06,208
So they dig a hole
between him and themselves.

22
00:02:12,583 --> 00:02:14,708
So this is struggle...

23
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:21,958
between quality and quantity.

24
00:02:34,500 --> 00:02:37,708
[water circulating]

25
00:02:43,291 --> 00:02:45,833
[birds chirping]

26
00:02:47,041 --> 00:02:49,583
[man] I never collected things
because they were famous.

27
00:02:50,666 --> 00:02:52,708
I collected things 'cause I liked 'em.

28
00:03:02,333 --> 00:03:04,500
I grew up collecting comic books.

29
00:03:05,291 --> 00:03:07,291
And when I got a little bit more mature,

30
00:03:07,375 --> 00:03:09,416
I started collecting books on surrealism.

31
00:03:10,500 --> 00:03:11,666
[horn honks]

32
00:03:12,625 --> 00:03:14,625
[Glenn] One day, I was in a bookstore
in Hollywood,

33
00:03:14,708 --> 00:03:16,750
and headed towards the surrealism section,

34
00:03:16,833 --> 00:03:18,791
and I see this brown spine.

35
00:03:18,875 --> 00:03:21,041
What I thought--
It was a snake on the binding.

36
00:03:21,125 --> 00:03:22,875
I thought, "What is this?"

37
00:03:26,833 --> 00:03:30,916
The thing was 200 pages,
full of drawings, photos of sculpture...

38
00:03:32,875 --> 00:03:34,291
This is incredible.

39
00:03:36,708 --> 00:03:39,208
"Hey, kid, are you buying that
or are you just looking?"

40
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,041
I bought the book.
It was... kind of expensive,

41
00:03:43,125 --> 00:03:44,833
'cause it was from 1923.

42
00:03:44,916 --> 00:03:48,833
And it was of a Polish artist.
I didn't know Poland from Portugal.

43
00:03:50,416 --> 00:03:51,708
Took the thing home,

44
00:03:52,125 --> 00:03:55,500
read it 100 times,
or just linger on a few of the pages.

45
00:03:57,916 --> 00:04:00,958
I'd been visiting Robert Williams
and Suzanne Williams

46
00:04:01,041 --> 00:04:03,250
for... two, three years, by that point.

47
00:04:03,333 --> 00:04:06,208
I took over the book, plunked it down.
I said, "What do you think of this?"

48
00:04:16,041 --> 00:04:19,208
[Robert] I belonged to one
of the lowest phylums of art culture

49
00:04:19,291 --> 00:04:21,500
that had ever come along in America.

50
00:04:21,583 --> 00:04:24,541
A rather unsavory world
of underground cartoons

51
00:04:24,958 --> 00:04:28,000
that society considered novel pornography.

52
00:04:28,875 --> 00:04:31,333
I couldn't have been more happy.
[chuckles softly]

53
00:04:32,666 --> 00:04:37,333
Glenn showed me the book
by a sculptor named Stanislaw Szukalski.

54
00:04:38,166 --> 00:04:40,375
Extremely strong artwork.

55
00:04:41,166 --> 00:04:43,666
Nineteenth-century sculptors
that were so famous

56
00:04:43,750 --> 00:04:45,666
and so heralded, Rodin and stuff,

57
00:04:45,750 --> 00:04:48,041
I don't think they could've held
a fucking candle to him.

58
00:04:48,125 --> 00:04:50,583
They couldn't have held a testicle
to that guy.

59
00:04:50,666 --> 00:04:53,541
You know, it's just remarkable. Um...

60
00:04:54,125 --> 00:04:55,666
Uh, what was your questions?

61
00:04:58,708 --> 00:05:00,708
[birds chirping]

62
00:05:02,416 --> 00:05:05,250
[Glenn] One day,
I walked into this bookstore in Tarzana.

63
00:05:05,500 --> 00:05:07,500
And I knew this lady. I'd seen her before.

64
00:05:09,541 --> 00:05:12,000
She had something pinned on the wall.
It was a poster...

65
00:05:12,625 --> 00:05:14,041
and it's Copernicus.

66
00:05:14,916 --> 00:05:17,000
I didn't know who Copernicus was.

67
00:05:18,416 --> 00:05:19,375
And I looked at it.

68
00:05:19,708 --> 00:05:21,875
I see that snaky signature at the bottom.

69
00:05:22,458 --> 00:05:24,083
I said, "What's this poster?"

70
00:05:24,166 --> 00:05:27,000
And she said, "Well, there's a nice man
that lives in Granada Hills

71
00:05:27,083 --> 00:05:29,666
that frequents the bookstore,
and he gave me that to hang up."

72
00:05:30,458 --> 00:05:31,875
I thought, "Shit!"

73
00:05:32,458 --> 00:05:34,583
[lively orchestra music playing]

74
00:05:36,125 --> 00:05:37,625
[Glenn] I thought he was dead,

75
00:05:37,708 --> 00:05:41,958
and he lives like five miles away from me.
[stammers] Who would have thunk?

76
00:05:42,375 --> 00:05:45,708
So she said, "You know what?
Look him up in the phone book."

77
00:05:46,333 --> 00:05:47,541
Am I supposed to look up

78
00:05:47,916 --> 00:05:50,041
Salvador Dalí or Picasso
in the phone book?

79
00:05:50,708 --> 00:05:52,125
Go home, call him up.

80
00:05:52,291 --> 00:05:54,333
This nice, low voice answers the phone.

81
00:05:54,416 --> 00:05:55,458
"Hello?"

82
00:05:59,041 --> 00:06:01,416
[Robert] Glenn asked me if me
and my wife Suzanne

83
00:06:01,500 --> 00:06:03,083
would go meet this guy.

84
00:06:03,708 --> 00:06:06,083
[Suzanne] We met Szukalski
at his own house.

85
00:06:06,166 --> 00:06:08,750
This was probably
the most intense meeting

86
00:06:08,833 --> 00:06:11,958
of any person I've ever met
for the first time.

87
00:06:13,125 --> 00:06:18,291
[Robert] So I go over to this common
post-World War II house...

88
00:06:18,625 --> 00:06:20,833
And I kind of was ready to look up
when the door opened,

89
00:06:20,916 --> 00:06:23,541
and I had to look down,
because he was shorter than me.

90
00:06:25,416 --> 00:06:29,916
He was already 80,
and I was probably 25 years old.

91
00:06:30,291 --> 00:06:33,250
He shook my hand heartily, just iron grip.

92
00:06:34,166 --> 00:06:36,291
I saw these plaster monuments, just...

93
00:06:36,916 --> 00:06:38,250
in this little den.

94
00:06:38,333 --> 00:06:42,291
[Suzanne] They were kind of all beat up,
'cause they'd been through an earthquake.

95
00:06:42,583 --> 00:06:45,416
They were just absolutely fantastic.

96
00:06:45,791 --> 00:06:49,166
[Glenn] It felt very European,
because his wife came out and served tea.

97
00:06:49,250 --> 00:06:51,583
[Suzanne] She seemed kinda quiet
and reserved.

98
00:06:51,666 --> 00:06:52,958
He was the opposite.

99
00:06:53,250 --> 00:06:55,875
We didn't have
what you'd call a conversation.

100
00:06:55,958 --> 00:06:57,041
We were talked to.

101
00:06:57,791 --> 00:06:59,500
[Glenn] It was stream of consciousness,

102
00:06:59,583 --> 00:07:01,458
of information and visuals.

103
00:07:01,541 --> 00:07:05,416
And he couldn't sit still,
and he was incontinent with imagination.

104
00:07:05,708 --> 00:07:08,625
Cyclops with one eye on the forehead.

105
00:07:08,708 --> 00:07:13,333
Stuffed mattresses on the shoulders
so they look like Titans.

106
00:07:14,250 --> 00:07:19,083
In whole history of art,
you will not find anything equal to this.

107
00:07:19,583 --> 00:07:20,916
[Glenn] I could tell he loved it,

108
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:23,333
'cause I'm sure
he wasn't having anybody else come around

109
00:07:23,416 --> 00:07:24,541
at that time.

110
00:07:24,875 --> 00:07:30,458
This a very strong arm.
It's like a weenie, like a sausage.

111
00:07:30,666 --> 00:07:33,833
...boastful and just say
the most outrageous, outlandish things.

112
00:07:34,583 --> 00:07:36,750
[crowd clamoring]

113
00:07:36,833 --> 00:07:39,875
[Glenn] I think it was because I grew up
watching Freddie Blassie

114
00:07:39,958 --> 00:07:41,958
that I just thought it was hilarious.

115
00:07:42,125 --> 00:07:44,083
You know,
great men come along very seldom,

116
00:07:44,166 --> 00:07:46,250
but I am one of the greatest
that ever did come along.

117
00:07:46,666 --> 00:07:50,208
I'm the greatest authority on any subject

118
00:07:50,291 --> 00:07:53,125
that has pictographic value.

119
00:07:53,208 --> 00:07:56,833
Anything anybody can do,
Freddie Blassie can do 10 times better.

120
00:07:56,916 --> 00:07:57,958
Just don't forget that.

121
00:07:58,041 --> 00:08:02,041
I was the most renowned sculptor
in America.

122
00:08:02,208 --> 00:08:07,666
I never was referred to any other way,
except as genius.

123
00:08:09,750 --> 00:08:11,291
I remember distinctly going,

124
00:08:11,375 --> 00:08:14,208
"I have the worst headache I've ever had
in my life."

125
00:08:14,916 --> 00:08:17,333
Because it was just so much so take in.

126
00:08:19,083 --> 00:08:20,666
[Glenn] I thought he was amazing.

127
00:08:20,750 --> 00:08:23,833
He would stand at a sculpture,
tell you in great detail

128
00:08:23,916 --> 00:08:25,625
all about it, why he made it.

129
00:08:26,041 --> 00:08:31,416
This hand was more than four times larger
than life-size.

130
00:08:32,125 --> 00:08:34,708
[Glenn] Well, one of the things
that struck me especially

131
00:08:34,791 --> 00:08:36,041
was the work Struggle.

132
00:08:36,791 --> 00:08:38,708
[Szukalski] It is somewhere in Poland.

133
00:08:39,083 --> 00:08:43,375
But no one knows about it,
because I live in Los Angeles.

134
00:08:45,750 --> 00:08:49,416
[Glenn] Found out that it was missing,
and I was so sorry to hear that,

135
00:08:49,500 --> 00:08:51,458
because I just thought it was brilliant.

136
00:08:51,916 --> 00:08:54,333
Jesus, you know!
He's got a whole bunch of work here

137
00:08:54,416 --> 00:08:56,666
that nobody's seen, and I don't know why.

138
00:08:57,583 --> 00:08:59,291
Why is this guy left behind?

139
00:09:02,041 --> 00:09:04,291
I would visit him alone, with people...

140
00:09:04,875 --> 00:09:07,541
Like Ray Zone, I took George DiCaprio...

141
00:09:08,041 --> 00:09:12,458
[George] He offered us a glass of port,
but he was very careful to...

142
00:09:12,541 --> 00:09:13,666
empty the glasses out,

143
00:09:13,750 --> 00:09:16,083
and have all the marble dust fall out.
[chuckles]

144
00:09:17,083 --> 00:09:19,833
Uh, he was an amazingly fun guy.

145
00:09:19,916 --> 00:09:23,041
You got quite a lecture for your money,
I would say. [laughs]

146
00:09:23,500 --> 00:09:27,000
When you met Szukalski,
he would ask, "What's your nationality?"

147
00:09:27,083 --> 00:09:28,750
"What's your background?"

148
00:09:28,833 --> 00:09:31,541
You could say, "I'm Brazilian,"
or you could say, "I'm English."

149
00:09:31,625 --> 00:09:34,583
And he had a reason
to run that country down in detail.

150
00:09:34,958 --> 00:09:39,458
[Szukalski] England never had conquerors
who came and invaded.

151
00:09:39,750 --> 00:09:43,666
England is an island of rabbits.
Even rabbits can survive on an island.

152
00:09:43,750 --> 00:09:46,208
Okay, I'm a rabbit.
I can settle with that.

153
00:09:46,958 --> 00:09:49,166
He was a very bigoted man,

154
00:09:49,375 --> 00:09:53,000
but he was bigoted in a very unusual way.

155
00:09:53,083 --> 00:09:55,291
You'd go to a filling station,
or something,

156
00:09:55,375 --> 00:09:58,125
and he would jump out of the car
and go over to the attendant

157
00:09:58,208 --> 00:09:59,916
and start measuring his arms.

158
00:10:00,416 --> 00:10:02,791
He would refer to them as a yeti.

159
00:10:02,875 --> 00:10:05,958
Troglodytes or Australopithecine...

160
00:10:06,500 --> 00:10:09,250
It was... kind of quirky.

161
00:10:09,750 --> 00:10:12,000
They have extraordinarily short arms.

162
00:10:12,083 --> 00:10:17,500
Two short legs, long, long torsos,
throwback to yeti.

163
00:10:17,916 --> 00:10:21,375
You couldn't point out to him
that this is kind of, like, a little...

164
00:10:21,875 --> 00:10:24,625
you know, questionable.
This is a little questionable, here.

165
00:10:24,958 --> 00:10:27,791
At the time, it was kind of...
kinda funny,

166
00:10:27,875 --> 00:10:30,750
because of the fact
that he believed so much of it.

167
00:10:31,333 --> 00:10:33,416
Now, I'm not sure...

168
00:10:33,708 --> 00:10:35,666
he thought people were lesser.

169
00:10:36,541 --> 00:10:39,333
But I know he thought he was the greatest.

170
00:10:40,708 --> 00:10:42,833
[George] He was such a contrarian.

171
00:10:43,250 --> 00:10:47,458
He had no use
for the entire gamut of human beliefs.

172
00:10:49,750 --> 00:10:52,208
Most of the time,
we would kind of humor him,

173
00:10:52,708 --> 00:10:56,916
and we had no way of knowing
what these things connected to

174
00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:58,000
in his past.

175
00:10:59,041 --> 00:11:01,416
If I knew back then what I know now,

176
00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:04,500
I would have been compelled
to warn my friends away.

177
00:11:10,458 --> 00:11:12,916
[Robert] Glenn spent an awful lot of time
with him,

178
00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:16,416
but me and Suzanne spent enough time
with him.

179
00:11:16,833 --> 00:11:18,541
We were always calling each other...

180
00:11:18,833 --> 00:11:21,750
Mr. Bray, Mr. Szukalski.

181
00:11:23,291 --> 00:11:26,916
I had published books in the early '70s,
but little comic books.

182
00:11:27,291 --> 00:11:29,875
And I said, "We could do a little book,
you know, on the cheap."

183
00:11:30,583 --> 00:11:32,333
"No, no, no. I'm waiting for China.

184
00:11:32,416 --> 00:11:34,000
I'm waiting for Swedes.

185
00:11:34,458 --> 00:11:37,208
They're gonna do a big book on me."
I said, "Okay. Uh...

186
00:11:37,583 --> 00:11:38,666
But I'm-- I'm still here.

187
00:11:38,750 --> 00:11:41,416
You know, I'll come back next week,
and we'll talk some more."

188
00:11:44,583 --> 00:11:48,041
So one day, I was sitting there,
and we're discussing a drawing of his...

189
00:11:48,125 --> 00:11:49,958
and I jokingly remarked,

190
00:11:50,500 --> 00:11:52,375
"You just draw what you see, right?"

191
00:11:52,833 --> 00:11:56,166
And he looked at me.
He says, "Oh, you don't know."

192
00:12:07,750 --> 00:12:10,666
[Szukalski] I was born
in a little town in Poland.

193
00:12:11,625 --> 00:12:14,541
This was... very long ago.

194
00:12:21,541 --> 00:12:25,625
[Glenn] He says, "I was four or five,
living in Gidle or somewhere.

195
00:12:25,708 --> 00:12:28,208
My parents really let me do
whatever I want."

196
00:12:29,791 --> 00:12:32,250
He wanted to see how long
he could look at the Sun,

197
00:12:32,333 --> 00:12:34,416
because he loved the glow of the Sun.

198
00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:40,125
Little did he realize that he'd burnt
a hole in his, I guess, cornea.

199
00:12:41,125 --> 00:12:42,166
All his life,

200
00:12:42,291 --> 00:12:44,458
he was drawing and sculpting

201
00:12:44,541 --> 00:12:47,291
with a big goddamn dot in his eye.

202
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:53,208
[Szukalski] So, when I was seven,
I was carving figurines

203
00:12:53,583 --> 00:12:55,041
for my harem.

204
00:12:55,666 --> 00:12:59,916
I had about three, four beautiful girls
my own age that I loved.

205
00:13:00,791 --> 00:13:05,208
Only one way I could be nice to them
was give them little sculptures.

206
00:13:07,541 --> 00:13:09,541
And they called me a sculptor.

207
00:13:10,166 --> 00:13:12,750
So ever since, I want to be a sculptor.

208
00:13:15,041 --> 00:13:17,791
[Glenn] I'd ask him,
"How-- how did you end up here?"

209
00:13:18,041 --> 00:13:19,125
And he'd start to tell me,

210
00:13:19,208 --> 00:13:21,875
and then he'd go
into something totally different.

211
00:13:22,166 --> 00:13:26,875
Mother was saying, "Oh, we must go.
The train will leave without us."

212
00:13:27,208 --> 00:13:29,458
But I came and got this piece of wood.

213
00:13:29,875 --> 00:13:31,875
And I'm constantly attached to it.

214
00:13:32,333 --> 00:13:34,458
I carried it to America.

215
00:13:34,791 --> 00:13:37,083
[Glenn] Being around him countless hours,

216
00:13:37,250 --> 00:13:39,750
you could kind of piece together
his story.

217
00:13:40,291 --> 00:13:43,208
Oh, I came to Chicago when I was 12.

218
00:13:52,750 --> 00:13:55,791
I came with my mother and sister

219
00:13:55,875 --> 00:14:00,250
to my father,
a blacksmith in a factory in Chicago.

220
00:14:01,166 --> 00:14:04,000
He was much smaller, shorter than I.

221
00:14:04,083 --> 00:14:07,708
Because all Europeans are malnutritioned.

222
00:14:08,125 --> 00:14:11,708
[Glenn] He told me he loved his father
more than anyone.

223
00:14:12,083 --> 00:14:15,041
He either showed me a picture,
or I saw a drawing of his.

224
00:14:16,541 --> 00:14:19,958
Then when he went to school,
he decides to invent his own alphabet.

225
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:22,208
To me, it's like,

226
00:14:22,291 --> 00:14:24,541
work over-laboriously on your writing...

227
00:14:25,625 --> 00:14:26,500
Why do that?

228
00:14:27,250 --> 00:14:31,458
[Szukalski] Schools distort
our original inclinations

229
00:14:31,541 --> 00:14:33,791
we have as infants.

230
00:14:33,875 --> 00:14:39,791
Then we are modified, made commonplace,
so we think like everybody else.

231
00:14:40,583 --> 00:14:42,458
[Glenn] The principal went to the father,
and said,

232
00:14:42,541 --> 00:14:44,416
"Your son has to go by rules.

233
00:14:44,500 --> 00:14:46,208
He can't just make up
his own handwriting."

234
00:14:46,875 --> 00:14:49,375
Basically, his father just said,
"This is his writing,

235
00:14:49,458 --> 00:14:52,125
and if it becomes illegible,
then we'll talk about it.

236
00:14:52,208 --> 00:14:54,500
But until then, he will not change."

237
00:14:57,333 --> 00:15:00,958
And that crazy alphabet
is what he used his entire life.

238
00:15:02,125 --> 00:15:05,416
By that time, he's stuck with it.
[laughs] There's no going back.

239
00:15:06,083 --> 00:15:08,333
[Robert]
You could see a childishness about him.

240
00:15:08,458 --> 00:15:11,333
You know, you could see
that nobody'd ever really

241
00:15:11,416 --> 00:15:15,041
sat his fanny down
and straightened him out.

242
00:15:15,916 --> 00:15:16,750
[Szukalski] Bu-ga.

243
00:15:17,125 --> 00:15:18,125
Zie...

244
00:15:18,208 --> 00:15:19,125
[trills]

245
00:15:19,208 --> 00:15:20,250
Ve-ghi.

246
00:15:20,500 --> 00:15:21,333
Ghe.

247
00:15:21,541 --> 00:15:23,041
[Glenn] He was obsessed with language.

248
00:15:23,125 --> 00:15:23,958
[Szukalski] Whore.

249
00:15:24,041 --> 00:15:25,541
[Glenn] He would tell us about words.

250
00:15:25,625 --> 00:15:27,958
They would have
all these different meanings

251
00:15:28,041 --> 00:15:29,791
that were related universally.

252
00:15:29,875 --> 00:15:32,708
[Szukalski] "Warship from elsewhere."

253
00:15:32,791 --> 00:15:35,958
Not from this world,
world that disappeared.

254
00:15:36,041 --> 00:15:40,541
Fourteen thousand years back,
right after the last deluge.

255
00:15:46,458 --> 00:15:48,333
[Robert] We went over to his house,
one time.

256
00:15:49,916 --> 00:15:53,041
I dared to stick my stuff
in front of him.

257
00:15:54,083 --> 00:15:56,083
And he looks at it for a while,

258
00:15:56,333 --> 00:15:59,666
and he said, "You're brilliant,
but you have to get out of the gutter.

259
00:15:59,750 --> 00:16:01,541
You have to get out of the gutter."

260
00:16:02,833 --> 00:16:05,708
We had this kinship of craftsmanship

261
00:16:05,791 --> 00:16:07,458
that kind of bonded us together.

262
00:16:08,833 --> 00:16:12,791
We got to be good enough friends
with Stanislaw that he would allow us

263
00:16:12,875 --> 00:16:16,041
to call him his little pet name,
which was Stas.

264
00:16:18,041 --> 00:16:19,958
I really worshipped the guy.

265
00:16:20,041 --> 00:16:21,791
This is like reaching back through time,

266
00:16:21,875 --> 00:16:24,000
past the First World War,
and pulling somebody out.

267
00:16:24,083 --> 00:16:26,583
You'll never find this!
Right out of those European academies.

268
00:16:28,791 --> 00:16:32,708
This, I did this at Chicago Art Institute.

269
00:16:33,875 --> 00:16:38,041
A sculptor advised my father
to send me to Europe.

270
00:16:38,750 --> 00:16:42,166
So I was sent when I was 14.

271
00:16:52,708 --> 00:16:55,000
[Robert] And I was continually
drilling him for information

272
00:16:55,083 --> 00:16:57,625
about what it was like
to deal with the academies.

273
00:16:59,333 --> 00:17:02,250
He said that he came in
as a young fella...

274
00:17:02,875 --> 00:17:06,416
and he was too young, actually,
but they gave him a test.

275
00:17:06,916 --> 00:17:09,958
It was life-size girl, nude.

276
00:17:11,041 --> 00:17:14,875
There were 171 candidates,

277
00:17:15,625 --> 00:17:18,500
but there were only 11 admissions.

278
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:21,875
And I did nothing but end of her knee.

279
00:17:23,125 --> 00:17:25,916
And off that alone,
a stylization of that knee,

280
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:28,041
they said, "This kid is something."

281
00:17:29,041 --> 00:17:31,041
[Szukalski] Professor says, "Gentlemen,

282
00:17:31,125 --> 00:17:33,666
he is accepted without examination."

283
00:17:37,500 --> 00:17:40,041
Then I got in a quarrel with Professor.

284
00:17:40,208 --> 00:17:44,500
He says, "You either work from models,
or you have to leave the academy."

285
00:17:45,083 --> 00:17:47,166
I never worked from models.

286
00:17:47,250 --> 00:17:50,291
Working from model destroys the talent.

287
00:17:50,500 --> 00:17:51,541
I said goodbye,

288
00:17:51,625 --> 00:17:52,750
[register dings]

289
00:17:53,125 --> 00:17:54,791
and I left right that moment.

290
00:18:02,416 --> 00:18:06,291
If you want to create new things
for this world,

291
00:18:06,791 --> 00:18:09,458
never listen to anybody.

292
00:18:10,666 --> 00:18:13,041
You have to suck your wisdom,

293
00:18:13,583 --> 00:18:15,958
all the knowledge, from your thumb.

294
00:18:16,458 --> 00:18:17,958
Your own self.

295
00:18:21,208 --> 00:18:23,208
[orchestra music playing]

296
00:18:36,500 --> 00:18:39,500
[man] When I saw the works of Szukalski...

297
00:18:41,250 --> 00:18:43,833
this was astonishing, you know.

298
00:18:46,208 --> 00:18:51,208
All the sense of beauty,
and of spiritual eroticism.

299
00:18:59,250 --> 00:19:01,541
[man] The way he tortures,
to me, tortures the body...

300
00:19:01,625 --> 00:19:05,708
It's just incredible how he can push
and pull, but it still makes sense,

301
00:19:05,791 --> 00:19:08,416
and it conveys the emotion
he wants to convey.

302
00:19:08,958 --> 00:19:10,875
Art cannot be proper.

303
00:19:10,958 --> 00:19:13,500
Art must be exaggerated.

304
00:19:13,583 --> 00:19:14,541
[exclaims]

305
00:19:15,625 --> 00:19:18,500
Bend down till your spine cracks.

306
00:19:19,375 --> 00:19:22,708
You must exaggerate the likeness.

307
00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:27,791
I look at the detail that he did,

308
00:19:27,875 --> 00:19:30,500
and to know that he did his work
in plaster...

309
00:19:31,500 --> 00:19:34,166
the personal expression
that he's bringing out.

310
00:19:34,875 --> 00:19:37,125
I think he used sculpture

311
00:19:37,208 --> 00:19:40,083
as a medium to show his soul.

312
00:19:41,291 --> 00:19:44,125
I work faster
than any sculptor ever could,

313
00:19:44,625 --> 00:19:46,250
'cause I never hesitate.

314
00:19:46,625 --> 00:19:51,500
I never alter anything,
because I start with an idea.

315
00:20:00,375 --> 00:20:04,166
Szukalski was the Michaelangelo

316
00:20:05,875 --> 00:20:07,625
of the 20th century.

317
00:20:12,166 --> 00:20:15,916
And probably, also, of an age to come.

318
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,083
[man] "I put Rodin in one pocket,
and Michelangelo in the other,

319
00:20:22,333 --> 00:20:24,458
and I walk towards the sun,"

320
00:20:24,541 --> 00:20:27,333
Szukalski said in his powerful youth.

321
00:20:36,083 --> 00:20:40,666
A movie is never any better
than the stupidest man connected with it.

322
00:20:42,833 --> 00:20:45,333
Out of the 70 movies I've written,

323
00:20:46,041 --> 00:20:49,541
some 10 of them
were not entirely waste product.

324
00:20:52,333 --> 00:20:55,500
[Glenn] Stas used to tell me
that he and Ben Hecht were real close,

325
00:20:55,583 --> 00:20:58,083
and they would pal around
on the streets of Chicago.

326
00:21:11,250 --> 00:21:15,000
[Hecht] He was my own age,
with a strongly muscled body

327
00:21:15,083 --> 00:21:18,750
and a grace dominating
his half-shabby clothes.

328
00:21:19,333 --> 00:21:22,250
[Szukalski] Don't judge me,
my feminine face.

329
00:21:22,583 --> 00:21:26,666
Girls liked me with the long hair,
and I relished it.

330
00:21:27,666 --> 00:21:30,416
[Hecht] "Where did you learn
your anatomy?" Wallace asked.

331
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:35,958
Szukalski began talking softly,
his cat eyes half shut.

332
00:21:37,125 --> 00:21:39,958
"I loved my father very much," he said,

333
00:21:40,416 --> 00:21:42,625
"more than anybody in the world.

334
00:21:43,541 --> 00:21:46,250
One morning, I came to the park.

335
00:21:46,708 --> 00:21:47,916
He was not there.

336
00:21:49,250 --> 00:21:51,083
Down the road, there's a crowd,

337
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,333
I go look.

338
00:21:55,250 --> 00:21:59,041
It is my father.
He's been killed by an automobile.

339
00:22:02,041 --> 00:22:04,000
I drive the crowd away,"

340
00:22:04,333 --> 00:22:05,625
Szukalski said,

341
00:22:06,041 --> 00:22:08,041
"and I pick up my father's body.

342
00:22:08,541 --> 00:22:12,583
I carry it on my shoulder a long time
to the county morgue.

343
00:22:12,916 --> 00:22:15,750
I tell them, 'This is my father.'

344
00:22:16,166 --> 00:22:19,500
And I asked them this thing,
which they did allow.

345
00:22:21,166 --> 00:22:25,291
My father is given to me,
and I dissect his body.

346
00:22:31,500 --> 00:22:34,083
You asked me where I learn anatomy?"

347
00:22:34,958 --> 00:22:37,166
Szukalski looked at us with pride.

348
00:22:40,791 --> 00:22:42,333
"My father taught me."

349
00:22:47,166 --> 00:22:51,541
[Szukalski] After my father was killed,
I had no income,

350
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,916
Whole weeks, sometimes,
where I had nothing to eat.

351
00:22:57,041 --> 00:23:01,875
But I never betrayed to my friends
that I was hungry,

352
00:23:02,208 --> 00:23:04,250
and I never asked help.

353
00:23:05,750 --> 00:23:09,375
[George] He was the classic tortured,
starving artist,

354
00:23:09,500 --> 00:23:12,916
and he got notorious
for being a-- a bad art boy.

355
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:15,291
He was one of those guys. [chuckles]

356
00:23:17,458 --> 00:23:19,583
He was almost like a punk or something.

357
00:23:20,125 --> 00:23:24,500
There's some famous incidents of him
having an art critic come to his studio

358
00:23:24,583 --> 00:23:26,958
and tap something of his with a cane.

359
00:23:28,333 --> 00:23:30,416
He threw the guy down a flight of stairs.

360
00:23:30,791 --> 00:23:35,833
Art critics are parasites
who absolutely know nothing about art.

361
00:23:37,750 --> 00:23:40,291
[George] He had an exhibition
of his own work.

362
00:23:41,041 --> 00:23:44,416
Apparently, there was some objection
to the political nature of it.

363
00:23:45,416 --> 00:23:47,875
It was against British imperialism.

364
00:23:48,541 --> 00:23:52,250
[Szukalski] Parasites have to get
new nations to live off

365
00:23:52,333 --> 00:23:59,250
because empire builders never have
enough wisdom to create agriculture.

366
00:24:00,458 --> 00:24:03,333
[George] The gallery demanded
that he take them down.

367
00:24:03,541 --> 00:24:04,875
And he marches in...

368
00:24:05,875 --> 00:24:07,791
He wrecked the place. [laughs]

369
00:24:07,875 --> 00:24:11,375
[glass shattering]

370
00:24:11,458 --> 00:24:14,166
[George, chuckling]
They threw him out, 86'd.

371
00:24:15,625 --> 00:24:19,291
Maybe you're dealing with some kind
of artistic Blackbeard the Pirate, here.

372
00:24:20,208 --> 00:24:24,416
And the press constantly had articles
about me.

373
00:24:30,500 --> 00:24:33,208
[Hecht] "He has the nose
of a South American anteater...

374
00:24:33,708 --> 00:24:36,375
and walks like
an escaped Frankenstein."

375
00:24:37,958 --> 00:24:41,583
[Szukalski] Ben Hecht, when writing
about me, described me as a youth

376
00:24:41,916 --> 00:24:44,666
with sledgehammer comments.
[chuckles softly]

377
00:24:45,125 --> 00:24:47,708
[Glenn]
Ben Hecht was Stas' biggest promoter

378
00:24:47,791 --> 00:24:49,791
back in the 1920s in Chicago.

379
00:24:50,250 --> 00:24:53,125
I know that he wrote that article
for Vanity Fair.

380
00:24:54,416 --> 00:24:56,416
[George] Even then, they talked about...

381
00:24:56,500 --> 00:24:59,250
He seemed to think different
than other people.

382
00:24:59,916 --> 00:25:04,000
I really believe that the reason
why he was so different

383
00:25:04,666 --> 00:25:07,958
has got to do with the construction
of his mentality.

384
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:13,625
I heard him mention
that he especially enjoyed American jazz

385
00:25:13,916 --> 00:25:16,333
because that was something
that couldn't be taught.

386
00:25:17,500 --> 00:25:20,458
It's a way into the way
he thinks about things.

387
00:25:20,875 --> 00:25:24,250
Art that is engendered
within yourself is so important.

388
00:25:24,333 --> 00:25:27,666
Not formalized, academic forms of art.

389
00:25:28,500 --> 00:25:32,125
Very often,
he described his own education...

390
00:25:34,333 --> 00:25:37,458
which mainly consisted
of looking at different things

391
00:25:37,541 --> 00:25:40,750
from different cultures
and primitive carvings.

392
00:25:41,041 --> 00:25:44,666
He was attracted to the language
that was embedded

393
00:25:44,750 --> 00:25:46,541
in the image itself,

394
00:25:46,791 --> 00:25:49,916
forming his own ideas
and his own interconnections,

395
00:25:50,166 --> 00:25:51,375
and which made him

396
00:25:51,458 --> 00:25:54,250
the greatest autodidact of our age.
[laughs]

397
00:25:54,750 --> 00:25:59,708
He was thinking about
the necessity for indigenous American art

398
00:25:59,791 --> 00:26:02,541
that would be free of French
or other influence.

399
00:26:03,250 --> 00:26:08,333
[George] Mesoamerican cultural symbols
attracted him in a magnetic way.

400
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,625
This was self-born art.

401
00:26:12,250 --> 00:26:15,625
Wasn't imposed on them
by a conquering culture...

402
00:26:16,833 --> 00:26:20,500
There was a wonderful
cross-pollinization

403
00:26:20,583 --> 00:26:22,291
of styles and cultures.

404
00:26:22,958 --> 00:26:25,791
[Rypson] So here we have Szukalski
as a reborn artist,

405
00:26:25,875 --> 00:26:27,333
who suddenly sees a potential

406
00:26:27,416 --> 00:26:29,416
in developing national art.

407
00:26:29,916 --> 00:26:33,375
His brain is one
of the most singular creations

408
00:26:33,458 --> 00:26:34,458
of the last century.

409
00:26:34,750 --> 00:26:36,666
[lively orchestra music playing]

410
00:27:10,875 --> 00:27:14,708
[Szukalski] There's an Aztec priest
blessing blueprints

411
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,500
of young American engineer.

412
00:27:20,958 --> 00:27:24,125
When there's a slight breeze of wind,

413
00:27:24,208 --> 00:27:26,583
the whole monument will hum.

414
00:27:27,416 --> 00:27:33,375
Which is a symbol of hope,
because America is hope of mankind.

415
00:27:34,250 --> 00:27:40,083
I proposed university tower
between Mexico and Texas,

416
00:27:40,500 --> 00:27:46,125
where they would form one culture
that would spread to all other countries.

417
00:27:47,250 --> 00:27:52,083
And here, I have this project
and the monument will be humming.

418
00:27:53,958 --> 00:27:56,208
But I don't know what to do with it...

419
00:27:56,833 --> 00:27:58,583
in present America.

420
00:28:08,750 --> 00:28:10,750
[woman] I was living in Holland
at the time,

421
00:28:10,833 --> 00:28:13,458
and my first husband
was a comic book artist.

422
00:28:13,541 --> 00:28:16,750
We came to the United States,
and we traveled around,

423
00:28:16,833 --> 00:28:18,458
met a lot of artists,

424
00:28:18,541 --> 00:28:21,583
and, of course,
we met number-one collector, Glenn Bray.

425
00:28:21,666 --> 00:28:24,666
[chuckling] I thought Glenn was
such an interesting guy,

426
00:28:24,916 --> 00:28:25,833
very sweet.

427
00:28:25,916 --> 00:28:27,500
So I just decided to stay.

428
00:28:28,125 --> 00:28:30,875
I started taking her over there,
and that made a world of difference.

429
00:28:31,625 --> 00:28:32,666
[Lena] Glenn took me there.

430
00:28:32,750 --> 00:28:35,541
I knew he was really, really interested
in Szukalski.

431
00:28:35,958 --> 00:28:38,125
And I had never heard about him before.

432
00:28:39,333 --> 00:28:42,000
I was really blown away
by the art that I saw.

433
00:28:42,083 --> 00:28:44,166
It was absolutely beautiful.

434
00:28:44,708 --> 00:28:47,083
And I noticed how sturdy he was.

435
00:28:47,166 --> 00:28:49,375
He looked really, really, really strong.

436
00:28:49,625 --> 00:28:51,500
And he had piercing eyes,

437
00:28:51,583 --> 00:28:53,916
he had the most beautiful piercing eyes.

438
00:28:54,083 --> 00:28:57,250
He was very enamored
that she was European.

439
00:28:58,625 --> 00:28:59,791
I was the rabbit.

440
00:29:02,875 --> 00:29:05,375
[Lena] Well, Stas really liked me.

441
00:29:05,458 --> 00:29:08,125
In the first place, because I was a woman,

442
00:29:08,250 --> 00:29:09,916
and he loved all women.

443
00:29:10,500 --> 00:29:13,333
In the second place,
I came from Holland.

444
00:29:13,458 --> 00:29:16,250
Holland had gone through the war
and terribly suffered.

445
00:29:16,333 --> 00:29:19,333
Therefore,
Stas felt like he could talk to me.

446
00:29:19,958 --> 00:29:21,791
[Glenn] That meant something to him.

447
00:29:21,875 --> 00:29:24,750
She had the background of wars
on her soil.

448
00:29:25,541 --> 00:29:27,791
One day, he called me Glenn,
and I thought,

449
00:29:28,375 --> 00:29:29,958
"That's strange! Okay."

450
00:29:30,541 --> 00:29:32,375
"Stas?" "Yeah, Stas."

451
00:29:37,125 --> 00:29:41,291
[Lena] He always told us,
the main reason he wanted to be an artist

452
00:29:41,416 --> 00:29:44,625
is so beautiful women
would be interested in him.

453
00:29:45,208 --> 00:29:50,166
And it's the sex that brings us
all the abilities we have.

454
00:29:51,125 --> 00:29:54,791
You could tell that he was still
very much alive in that area.

455
00:29:54,875 --> 00:29:56,875
[laughing] I mean, he was really--

456
00:29:58,708 --> 00:30:00,333
He-- he was so charming.

457
00:30:00,416 --> 00:30:03,291
You just--
You loved being around him as a woman.

458
00:30:03,375 --> 00:30:07,291
In a way, old-fashioned, but also,
in a way, bohemian, too.

459
00:30:08,875 --> 00:30:11,000
[Robert] I'm just as obsessed,
but man, you know,

460
00:30:11,083 --> 00:30:13,833
I keep it under collar, you know? [laughs]

461
00:30:13,916 --> 00:30:15,875
To him, it was a poetic language.

462
00:30:15,958 --> 00:30:18,083
It had to be expressed, you know.

463
00:30:18,166 --> 00:30:21,083
I used to think, "Well, man,
I can't wait till I get to be...

464
00:30:21,166 --> 00:30:23,916
70 or 80, and I don't have to think
about pussy anymore."

465
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,375
But it's obvious that you carry it
to the grave, you know.

466
00:30:26,458 --> 00:30:29,916
'Cause I'm 73,
and I can't get it off my mind, you know?

467
00:30:30,875 --> 00:30:34,125
Oh, this is just sort of a poetic notion.

468
00:30:35,666 --> 00:30:41,125
Wisdom is given by nature,
so my species may survive.

469
00:30:46,916 --> 00:30:49,666
[Lena] Well, I always thought
he fell in love with Helen Walker

470
00:30:49,750 --> 00:30:51,583
because she looked exactly like him.

471
00:30:51,666 --> 00:30:53,125
They had exactly the same hair,

472
00:30:53,208 --> 00:30:55,208
exactly the same facial features.

473
00:30:55,291 --> 00:30:57,958
It was like he was falling in love
with himself. [chuckles]

474
00:30:58,208 --> 00:31:00,458
All of a sudden,
his life got a lot better.

475
00:31:00,875 --> 00:31:02,125
She was very rich.

476
00:31:02,208 --> 00:31:05,000
Her father was a famous surgeon
in Chicago.

477
00:31:05,875 --> 00:31:08,125
[Glenn] And this, for the first time,
really afforded him

478
00:31:08,208 --> 00:31:13,375
the proper places and tools and publicity
to accomplish all his dreams.

479
00:31:14,083 --> 00:31:16,041
[Lena] This is also
when his two books came out.

480
00:31:17,708 --> 00:31:19,958
They had a daughter called Kalinka.

481
00:31:20,750 --> 00:31:22,708
[Glenn] Moved to California,
moved to Hollywood.

482
00:31:23,750 --> 00:31:25,750
[Szukalski] We bought very large house,

483
00:31:26,291 --> 00:31:29,750
in outpost in back of Chinese theater.

484
00:31:30,875 --> 00:31:32,416
[Glenn] He had a happy life going.

485
00:31:33,875 --> 00:31:35,750
[Lena] Helen turned out to be frigid.

486
00:31:36,375 --> 00:31:39,625
In sex, she would suddenly burst crying,

487
00:31:40,333 --> 00:31:44,500
and thought that sex was evil,
and that caused much troubles

488
00:31:44,583 --> 00:31:46,625
and despair on her part.

489
00:31:47,375 --> 00:31:51,750
[Lena] Stas said, "If I meet another woman
who wants me, I'll go with her."

490
00:31:52,333 --> 00:31:54,666
When Kalinka went to nursery school,

491
00:31:54,750 --> 00:31:56,125
Joan was a teacher there.

492
00:31:59,791 --> 00:32:02,625
[Glenn] Almost overnight,
from riches to rags,

493
00:32:02,708 --> 00:32:04,166
back on the street again.

494
00:32:04,500 --> 00:32:06,416
[Lena] Well,
he was very much in love with Joan,

495
00:32:06,500 --> 00:32:09,291
and he wrote her
the most wonderful letters.

496
00:32:10,833 --> 00:32:13,250
[Glenn] Joan said,
"You know, there's some 250

497
00:32:13,333 --> 00:32:17,791
double-sided handwritten letters
with erotic drawings."

498
00:32:18,625 --> 00:32:21,958
And I said, "Well, can we see 'em?"
She says, "They're just kind of racy."

499
00:32:23,916 --> 00:32:26,791
And Stas would just kinda like...
[sighs] Hmm...

500
00:32:30,750 --> 00:32:33,000
[Lena] And that was the love of his life.

501
00:32:40,958 --> 00:32:43,458
This is a portrait of my wife,

502
00:32:44,083 --> 00:32:47,791
who had a very narrow, elongated face,

503
00:32:48,875 --> 00:32:52,291
with whom I was married for 50 years

504
00:32:52,708 --> 00:32:56,333
and absolutely never had quarrels with.

505
00:32:57,291 --> 00:32:58,750
[Lena] I adored Joan.

506
00:32:58,833 --> 00:33:03,166
She was just the most gracious,
refined woman I had ever met.

507
00:33:03,833 --> 00:33:07,166
Glenn and I would often visit Joan
and Szukalski together.

508
00:33:07,250 --> 00:33:09,083
And we just got along very well.

509
00:33:09,166 --> 00:33:11,375
We were kindred souls, really.

510
00:33:12,416 --> 00:33:15,625
Finally, one day, he looked at me.
"The book. We publish."

511
00:33:15,708 --> 00:33:17,000
And I said, "Sure!"

512
00:33:17,083 --> 00:33:19,791
He gave Glenn, finally,
permission to do the book,

513
00:33:19,875 --> 00:33:23,333
because he thought I could handle it also,
besides Glenn.

514
00:33:23,625 --> 00:33:25,958
So we started out.
I would do the layout.

515
00:33:26,041 --> 00:33:28,666
I had photos of sculptures,
a few drawings,

516
00:33:28,750 --> 00:33:30,083
some poetry.

517
00:33:30,416 --> 00:33:32,416
Stas showed me these photos.

518
00:33:34,750 --> 00:33:35,583
And...

519
00:33:36,333 --> 00:33:38,000
"Are you sure
you want to put this in here?"

520
00:33:39,125 --> 00:33:41,625
He says,
"Let me tell you why I want to show this."

521
00:33:42,541 --> 00:33:44,083
He made this monument

522
00:33:44,166 --> 00:33:47,083
before Mussolini became a real,
true Fascist

523
00:33:47,166 --> 00:33:48,916
and hooked up with Hitler.

524
00:33:52,125 --> 00:33:56,041
But Stas says, "I want to show this
in the book because you should have...

525
00:33:56,250 --> 00:33:58,708
pictures of anybody that changes history."

526
00:33:58,791 --> 00:34:01,416
He says,
"That's why we have carvings of Nero.

527
00:34:01,875 --> 00:34:05,458
That's why we know what Hitler looks like.
Don't forget these assholes."

528
00:34:07,125 --> 00:34:09,875
He would type everything out.
Everything is eloquent.

529
00:34:09,958 --> 00:34:12,541
Although this might be here,
that might be connected there.

530
00:34:13,083 --> 00:34:17,041
Lena would get that and recompose it
where it read beautifully.

531
00:34:18,125 --> 00:34:20,541
It was my hopes that it would get
into a museum,

532
00:34:20,625 --> 00:34:22,833
and the museum would say,
"Where's this guy been?"

533
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:25,000
Not to happen.

534
00:34:28,250 --> 00:34:30,291
[Szukalski, singing]
♪ Grey horse is jumping ♪

535
00:34:30,375 --> 00:34:35,291
♪ But my cat cannot do it
Because she's too skinny ♪

536
00:34:35,375 --> 00:34:37,625
-[Lena laughs]
-[Szukalski] Wrote me a song.

537
00:34:39,125 --> 00:34:40,375
Oh. [grunts]

538
00:34:41,291 --> 00:34:43,375
This is first book that came out.

539
00:34:44,500 --> 00:34:46,541
This is one of my sculptures.

540
00:34:46,958 --> 00:34:51,250
These works are drawings
of Sasquatch and Bigfoot.

541
00:34:51,791 --> 00:34:54,958
[Glenn] We published Trough Full
of Pearls / Behold!!! The Protong

542
00:34:55,041 --> 00:34:56,208
in 1980.

543
00:34:56,541 --> 00:34:58,708
I think I did 1,200 copies.

544
00:34:58,791 --> 00:35:00,791
[gulls calling]

545
00:35:01,333 --> 00:35:02,875
[man] It was in Santa Monica.

546
00:35:03,583 --> 00:35:05,916
I found a copy of Trough Full of Pearls,

547
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:10,416
and I was just swept away
by the scope and the intensity

548
00:35:10,500 --> 00:35:11,833
and the originality of the thing.

549
00:35:11,916 --> 00:35:13,625
I found, uh, this book.

550
00:35:14,916 --> 00:35:16,291
This is the book I found.

551
00:35:16,916 --> 00:35:19,083
How have I lived this many years
and not even

552
00:35:19,166 --> 00:35:20,958
seen any of these images before?

553
00:35:21,041 --> 00:35:25,375
I kind of felt like
that famous Bigfoot photo of him walking--

554
00:35:25,458 --> 00:35:27,625
I was walking and saw it
at the corner of my eye,

555
00:35:27,708 --> 00:35:31,250
and I was like, "What is that?"
And I looked at the book.

556
00:35:31,333 --> 00:35:33,125
I would show it to everybody
I encountered.

557
00:35:33,208 --> 00:35:35,083
To people in line at the supermarket.

558
00:35:36,416 --> 00:35:39,500
Because I was so convinced
that this was an important thing.

559
00:35:41,083 --> 00:35:43,583
[Glenn] Robert Crumb had called me
through Robert Williams.

560
00:35:43,958 --> 00:35:46,125
"Hey, I'm gonna start this new magazine

561
00:35:46,208 --> 00:35:48,541
called Weirdo, and I need weird stuff."

562
00:35:49,250 --> 00:35:53,166
R. Crumb was the George Washington
of underground art.

563
00:35:53,291 --> 00:35:55,208
I said, "I'm doing a book
on this guy, Szukalski."

564
00:35:55,291 --> 00:35:56,583
He said, "What's that?"

565
00:35:56,750 --> 00:36:00,416
He picked out the stuff that would raise
the most hairs on your back.

566
00:36:02,666 --> 00:36:04,583
[George] For most,
that was one of the first exposures

567
00:36:04,666 --> 00:36:06,166
they had to his work.

568
00:36:07,625 --> 00:36:11,833
One of the top sculptors in the world,
and he's in a fucking thing like Weirdo.

569
00:36:11,916 --> 00:36:14,625
You know, with people doing stick figures
and shit.

570
00:36:14,708 --> 00:36:17,958
That drug him into the Bohemian world,
right there, you know?

571
00:36:19,958 --> 00:36:24,375
Rick Griffin was one of what was called
the Big Five psychedelic poster artists.

572
00:36:25,250 --> 00:36:28,958
Shortly after I'd met him,
he slipped over into being born-again.

573
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,375
When he met Szukalski
and he saw that work,

574
00:36:33,041 --> 00:36:34,708
he went fucking nuts.

575
00:36:35,500 --> 00:36:40,583
The name he gave Szukalski was the Szuk,
and he saw Szukalski as a god.

576
00:36:41,833 --> 00:36:43,875
I think Szukalski like that.

577
00:36:45,541 --> 00:36:48,333
[Jim] One of the reasons that I loved
to visit Szukalski

578
00:36:48,416 --> 00:36:53,166
was that he was a natural-born teacher,
and he liked to, uh, show me things.

579
00:36:55,833 --> 00:36:59,541
[James] The advice that he gave me,
it almost seemed religious.

580
00:36:59,666 --> 00:37:02,458
And most of the people I work with
are not very religious.

581
00:37:02,666 --> 00:37:04,458
He told me that, before you sculpt,

582
00:37:04,541 --> 00:37:07,875
you should get down on your knees,
almost in prayer to it.

583
00:37:08,208 --> 00:37:10,541
I remember him looking at my painting,

584
00:37:10,750 --> 00:37:14,250
and he said to me,
"You know, this is worthless.

585
00:37:14,333 --> 00:37:17,500
It's not saying something.
You need to say something."

586
00:37:18,083 --> 00:37:21,875
Concept make you a great artist.

587
00:37:22,291 --> 00:37:26,291
Always remember
that you have something to tell...

588
00:37:27,166 --> 00:37:29,083
and you'll make a masterpiece.

589
00:37:29,625 --> 00:37:32,500
And if you come to me,
I'll kiss you on the forehead...

590
00:37:33,250 --> 00:37:34,833
and pet your nose.

591
00:37:37,041 --> 00:37:40,000
To me, Szukalski is kind of a mystic.

592
00:37:41,375 --> 00:37:42,625
A modern master.

593
00:37:44,541 --> 00:37:49,000
You know, what's going on
in this guy's head must be vast.

594
00:37:50,125 --> 00:37:53,833
Coming from a background
of sculpting and makeup effects,

595
00:37:53,916 --> 00:37:57,250
when he draws something,
and it looks so 3-D

596
00:37:57,333 --> 00:37:58,375
and the light's correct...

597
00:37:59,333 --> 00:38:03,041
The math of space and light and...

598
00:38:03,125 --> 00:38:06,791
bending the physics and the geometry
and taking liberties

599
00:38:06,875 --> 00:38:08,250
that are elegant...

600
00:38:08,333 --> 00:38:12,000
and don't necessarily make sense in life,
but they make sense.

601
00:38:13,750 --> 00:38:16,208
[Jim] He and I shared an interest
in frogs,

602
00:38:16,333 --> 00:38:19,708
and he taught me how to make
a little frog croak with my hand.

603
00:38:19,791 --> 00:38:20,916
[fingers snapping]

604
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,125
You can actually go out
and converse with frogs with this thing.

605
00:38:24,625 --> 00:38:25,458
Hear it?

606
00:38:25,583 --> 00:38:27,583
[snapping continues]

607
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:35,000
Stas was a guest at my house
on many occasions,

608
00:38:35,291 --> 00:38:36,666
and in one of them,

609
00:38:36,750 --> 00:38:40,625
I left out a weather-beaten copy
of his book.

610
00:38:40,833 --> 00:38:43,875
He said, "Let me sign that one
so you'll always keep it."

611
00:38:43,958 --> 00:38:47,125
So here it is written in his hieroglyphics
that no one can read.

612
00:38:47,333 --> 00:38:51,958
"To Leonardo, wonderful son
of George, love and a warning:

613
00:38:52,250 --> 00:38:55,000
Please, don't grow up too fast." [laughs]

614
00:38:55,916 --> 00:38:59,000
Stas Szukalski, 1981, Burbank.

615
00:39:04,041 --> 00:39:07,166
[Glenn] Yeah, I think that really put
some wind in his sails,

616
00:39:07,250 --> 00:39:09,291
knowing that young people
were once again...

617
00:39:09,583 --> 00:39:10,458
drawn to him.

618
00:39:11,833 --> 00:39:14,208
[Robert] We were
his only fucking peer group.

619
00:39:14,708 --> 00:39:18,541
The irony is,
me and my underground friends,

620
00:39:18,625 --> 00:39:20,666
the lowest phylum of art,

621
00:39:21,500 --> 00:39:26,041
have become associated with this gentleman
who, one time, stood up with the giants.

622
00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:28,541
I'm sure if me and Rick Griffin

623
00:39:28,625 --> 00:39:30,916
and a few of those underground artists
were in Poland,

624
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:33,750
Szukalski wouldn't give us
the fucking time of day.

625
00:39:34,458 --> 00:39:36,833
Everyone can have their own Szukalski.

626
00:39:38,125 --> 00:39:41,000
Obviously,
some American comic writers' perception

627
00:39:41,083 --> 00:39:43,375
might be missing the point altogether.

628
00:39:43,458 --> 00:39:45,500
There is the whole story about...

629
00:39:45,583 --> 00:39:48,708
um, wild Polish fantasies.

630
00:39:52,416 --> 00:39:56,583
People in Poland associate Szukalski
with the homeland...

631
00:39:59,041 --> 00:39:59,916
purity...

632
00:40:02,750 --> 00:40:06,500
the sort of meta-pagan, the pagan's pagan.

633
00:40:06,916 --> 00:40:10,041
And treat him as this prophet.

634
00:40:11,458 --> 00:40:13,833
He was a man who was creating art...

635
00:40:14,125 --> 00:40:17,666
that was inspired by another dimension,
you might say.

636
00:40:18,625 --> 00:40:21,666
It is the dimension that is occupied
by gods.

637
00:40:22,416 --> 00:40:25,625
His work is absolutely temple art.

638
00:40:29,041 --> 00:40:31,833
[man] You don't usually find
so much megalomania,

639
00:40:31,916 --> 00:40:33,541
even in megalomaniacs.

640
00:40:34,083 --> 00:40:35,875
[whirring]

641
00:40:40,916 --> 00:40:43,250
At the end of the First World War...

642
00:40:43,875 --> 00:40:47,875
is the moment when Poland
is recognized as an independent state.

643
00:40:48,750 --> 00:40:52,416
And Szukalski saw, in the renewal
of Poland, a great chance

644
00:40:52,500 --> 00:40:55,125
of becoming a world historical figure.

645
00:40:56,250 --> 00:40:57,166
[ship horn blows]

646
00:40:57,250 --> 00:40:59,708
[Snyder] Makes perfect sense
that he would want to go back.

647
00:41:01,833 --> 00:41:06,000
[Hapon] Szukalski realized
that Poland needed to create

648
00:41:06,125 --> 00:41:09,083
a national art that would speak
to its own soul,

649
00:41:09,166 --> 00:41:10,333
its own nature.

650
00:41:17,791 --> 00:41:21,000
[man, in Polish] The artists
from Jednoróg (Unicorn) artist guild,

651
00:41:21,083 --> 00:41:26,291
whom Szukalski knew
from his years at Cracow's academy,

652
00:41:26,375 --> 00:41:30,583
invited him to the exhibition.

653
00:41:30,708 --> 00:41:34,708
[in English] At my exhibitions,
I would attack academic education.

654
00:41:45,291 --> 00:41:47,666
[Snyder] Szukalski says
that the only thing which is true

655
00:41:47,750 --> 00:41:50,750
are authentic ethnic heritages.

656
00:41:50,916 --> 00:41:52,125
It's the Slavic World,

657
00:41:52,208 --> 00:41:54,708
which is ancient and pure.

658
00:41:55,458 --> 00:41:58,875
[Szukalski] Bigoted Catholics,
they are enslaved.

659
00:41:59,416 --> 00:42:01,583
Only those who are not religious

660
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,333
are real Poles and patriots.

661
00:42:04,791 --> 00:42:08,041
[Rypson] Poland, in the '30s,
is still cultivating

662
00:42:08,125 --> 00:42:10,708
its traditional Catholicism.

663
00:42:10,875 --> 00:42:12,958
There's nothing Catholic in Szukalski.

664
00:42:13,041 --> 00:42:16,083
And I think this is another American trait
in Szukalski.

665
00:42:16,166 --> 00:42:17,583
He is very media savvy.

666
00:42:17,916 --> 00:42:21,791
He's provocative, and he uses provocation
very consciously, I believe.

667
00:42:23,708 --> 00:42:26,791
[Snyder] Szukalski believes
in the Polish romantic idea

668
00:42:26,875 --> 00:42:31,000
that there's a single person
who mystically embodies the nation.

669
00:42:31,083 --> 00:42:33,791
He clearly believed
that he was a national genius

670
00:42:33,875 --> 00:42:34,791
in that sense.

671
00:42:35,458 --> 00:42:37,541
I had been exhibiting

672
00:42:37,625 --> 00:42:41,083
and causing quite much commotion
in Cracow.

673
00:42:41,333 --> 00:42:44,541
[Rypson] He had successful shows,
became a sort of hero

674
00:42:44,625 --> 00:42:46,958
-for the media.
-[typewriter clacking]

675
00:42:47,041 --> 00:42:49,166
[Lena] In a Polish newspaper,

676
00:42:49,250 --> 00:42:54,041
it says 20,000 people visited
the exhibition of Szukalski.

677
00:42:56,125 --> 00:42:58,125
I have to have some booze.

678
00:42:59,291 --> 00:43:02,000
At my exhibition, the young students came,

679
00:43:02,583 --> 00:43:06,916
and they said, "There's a very large group
of Catholic students

680
00:43:07,083 --> 00:43:09,250
who are supposed to beat you

681
00:43:09,750 --> 00:43:11,458
for attacking Church."

682
00:43:12,208 --> 00:43:16,291
Now, we have agreed
that we are on the side of God.

683
00:43:16,458 --> 00:43:18,000
[laughs]

684
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:24,916
And I say, "Let us gather in a café
where we'll form a tribe.

685
00:43:25,250 --> 00:43:27,833
The tribe will be called
the Horned Heart."

686
00:43:29,916 --> 00:43:34,125
Do things only that you love or hate
in your art.

687
00:43:34,708 --> 00:43:37,125
You have to become a propagandist.

688
00:43:38,541 --> 00:43:40,166
[Lechoslaw, in Polish] At the request
of the master,

689
00:43:40,250 --> 00:43:42,625
as these young ones
soon started calling Szukalski,

690
00:43:42,708 --> 00:43:47,541
they slowly started dressing alike

691
00:43:47,875 --> 00:43:49,750
and having the same haircuts.

692
00:43:50,375 --> 00:43:53,166
[Glenn, in English] I found
his Horned Heart tribe sweater.

693
00:43:53,250 --> 00:43:54,583
And I found his belt.

694
00:43:54,958 --> 00:43:57,541
They'd probably sag on Pee-wee Herman.

695
00:43:57,666 --> 00:43:59,708
Maybe he liked 'em tight. I don't know.

696
00:44:00,583 --> 00:44:05,375
[man, in Polish] Szukalski was
very similar to Leonardo da Vinci.

697
00:44:05,625 --> 00:44:07,791
It was simply impossible to imitate him.

698
00:44:08,791 --> 00:44:12,958
His followers tried to do it,
with better or worse results.

699
00:44:13,375 --> 00:44:18,125
Because you needed to have an imagination
as Szukalski did.

700
00:44:18,208 --> 00:44:23,958
He would sit down and imagine an object,
instead of drawing from plaster or nature.

701
00:44:24,458 --> 00:44:30,541
[in English] I always imagine the things
I'm going to do, in every detail.

702
00:44:31,166 --> 00:44:36,083
[Miezian, in Polish] Rotating in his mind,
side to side, top to bottom,

703
00:44:36,208 --> 00:44:39,541
until he chose the right angle.

704
00:44:40,083 --> 00:44:45,000
And then, he would take a sharp pencil

705
00:44:45,083 --> 00:44:49,541
and start making dots.

706
00:44:50,125 --> 00:44:51,958
It was amazing.

707
00:44:52,333 --> 00:44:54,500
[Rypson, in English] The vision
that Szukalski had

708
00:44:54,583 --> 00:44:56,458
of a great, powerful Polish state...

709
00:44:57,041 --> 00:44:59,500
These are plans
of a strange kind of megalopolis,

710
00:44:59,583 --> 00:45:03,083
with huge highways
and administrative buildings.

711
00:45:03,583 --> 00:45:05,458
[man, in Polish] He yearned
for a second Poland.

712
00:45:05,875 --> 00:45:09,375
And that second Poland would need
a new coat of arms.

713
00:45:10,791 --> 00:45:13,125
[Szukalski, in English] Here,
I have Polish eagle,

714
00:45:13,208 --> 00:45:16,166
reduced to double-bladed axe,

715
00:45:16,375 --> 00:45:17,458
that I proposed.

716
00:45:18,958 --> 00:45:23,875
[Hapon] Szukalski is looking at Poland
as lands populated by heroes,

717
00:45:24,375 --> 00:45:26,625
populated by forgotten gods.

718
00:45:27,666 --> 00:45:29,250
Which made him into...

719
00:45:29,833 --> 00:45:32,041
kind of an artist-priest...

720
00:45:32,458 --> 00:45:35,125
[Snyder] That has nothing to do
with the actual historical reality

721
00:45:35,208 --> 00:45:36,458
of Eastern Europe.

722
00:45:36,791 --> 00:45:39,916
Szukalski's idea of truth
is not factual truth,

723
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:41,125
but some deeper truth.

724
00:45:41,708 --> 00:45:44,291
He so easily transports

725
00:45:44,375 --> 00:45:48,541
decorations, ornaments, and symbols
from pre-Columbian cultures

726
00:45:48,916 --> 00:45:50,875
to these old Slavic cultures.

727
00:45:52,083 --> 00:45:54,083
[Snyder] It's normal
that a nationalist comes in

728
00:45:54,166 --> 00:45:56,375
from somewhere else,
and then overdoes it.

729
00:45:56,458 --> 00:46:01,208
[Rypson] He takes on
some ultra-Polishness, which is...

730
00:46:01,291 --> 00:46:03,291
indigestible for most Poles.

731
00:46:03,416 --> 00:46:04,708
They don't understand it.

732
00:46:04,791 --> 00:46:08,041
National genius is not actually
a job description.

733
00:46:09,541 --> 00:46:12,541
From '26 to '35, Poland is led by someone

734
00:46:12,625 --> 00:46:13,791
called Jozef Pilsudski.

735
00:46:13,875 --> 00:46:17,375
And Pilsudski wanted
a multicultural country.

736
00:46:17,791 --> 00:46:21,500
There was a place for Poles and Jews
and Ukrainians and everyone else.

737
00:46:22,166 --> 00:46:23,500
That was not Szukalski.

738
00:46:24,625 --> 00:46:27,583
[Rypson] For the anti-nationalistic,
progressive critics,

739
00:46:27,666 --> 00:46:29,583
Szukalski was the embodiment

740
00:46:29,666 --> 00:46:35,250
of everything that is threatening
in Polish culture, even stupid.

741
00:46:35,833 --> 00:46:40,583
Newspapers reported, in Cracow,
that I am returning to America,

742
00:46:40,916 --> 00:46:43,166
and that I am disgusted with Poland.

743
00:46:44,791 --> 00:46:46,958
[Rypson] So that ego killed

744
00:46:47,041 --> 00:46:51,041
a lot of, uh, possibilities,
although allowed Szukalski

745
00:46:51,125 --> 00:46:54,833
to go on,
on the path that he has decided to take,

746
00:46:54,958 --> 00:46:56,958
which was not an easy path.

747
00:47:03,333 --> 00:47:04,750
[Jim] He was on a mission

748
00:47:04,833 --> 00:47:08,083
to establish himself
as the world's greatest artist.

749
00:47:08,958 --> 00:47:10,666
I was able to get him an audience

750
00:47:10,750 --> 00:47:13,208
with the director
of the Norton Simon Museum.

751
00:47:13,666 --> 00:47:16,000
And we got into the inner sanctum

752
00:47:16,083 --> 00:47:19,166
of this curator, and when the guy
finally came into the room

753
00:47:19,250 --> 00:47:21,250
and stuck out his hand, and said,
"Mr. Szukalski, I--

754
00:47:21,333 --> 00:47:24,833
I'm glad to meet you,"
Szukalski did not shake his hand,

755
00:47:25,125 --> 00:47:28,875
but pointed at the paintings on the walls
and said, "I see you have

756
00:47:28,958 --> 00:47:34,333
excremental dabs by Pic-asso and Matisse
hanging on your walls."

757
00:47:34,875 --> 00:47:36,875
I call him Pic-Asshole.

758
00:47:37,833 --> 00:47:41,208
The ultimate castrated failure.

759
00:47:42,041 --> 00:47:44,541
And the curator said, "Well, thank you.
Nice to meet you. Goodbye.

760
00:47:44,625 --> 00:47:46,000
My secretary will show you out."

761
00:47:46,500 --> 00:47:47,541
We walked out to the car,

762
00:47:47,625 --> 00:47:49,958
and I said, "What was that, Stas?
Why did you do that?"

763
00:47:50,041 --> 00:47:55,458
And he said, "I'm not going to kowtow
to these phony arbiters of corrupt taste."

764
00:47:55,541 --> 00:47:56,916
He didn't seem to care.

765
00:47:57,500 --> 00:47:59,208
When I see his work, it reminds me

766
00:47:59,291 --> 00:48:01,833
of why most people become artists
in the first place.

767
00:48:02,166 --> 00:48:03,708
I love that, like, raw, like...

768
00:48:03,791 --> 00:48:06,291
kind of punk-rock attitude
that I feel like he was.

769
00:48:06,375 --> 00:48:07,833
He's just like badass punk rock

770
00:48:07,916 --> 00:48:09,708
who didn't give a shit
what other people think.

771
00:48:09,791 --> 00:48:12,916
Szukalski's worst enemy was Stas.
You know?

772
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:14,666
That was his worst goddamn enemy.

773
00:48:14,750 --> 00:48:16,250
It was at an art show

774
00:48:16,333 --> 00:48:19,041
at the Otis-Parsons School of Design
in Los Angeles.

775
00:48:19,125 --> 00:48:23,208
And amongst the crowd,
I finally spotted Glenn Bray and Lena,

776
00:48:23,291 --> 00:48:27,375
and between them, a short man,
five feet, a little...

777
00:48:27,458 --> 00:48:31,291
He's looking at these rather popular works
of art in the gallery.

778
00:48:32,125 --> 00:48:33,375
"Fartists!"

779
00:48:34,583 --> 00:48:40,666
You create art with capital F.
You fart, you don't get art.

780
00:48:40,916 --> 00:48:42,666
He never like anybody's work,

781
00:48:42,750 --> 00:48:45,083
as far as I could tell,
except for his own.

782
00:48:45,166 --> 00:48:48,208
As an American, you have no cause.

783
00:48:48,541 --> 00:48:51,541
You're a nobody that creates nothing.

784
00:48:52,875 --> 00:48:54,250
[inaudible]

785
00:48:54,958 --> 00:48:56,541
[Glenn] He has a TV,

786
00:48:56,625 --> 00:48:57,791
there's movies,

787
00:48:57,875 --> 00:48:59,333
there's... concerts.

788
00:48:59,541 --> 00:49:01,791
He didn't think it was culture, you know.

789
00:49:03,083 --> 00:49:06,000
[Szukalski] In America,
the supreme civilization

790
00:49:06,083 --> 00:49:09,333
that walks on the Moon,
that tickles Mars...

791
00:49:10,250 --> 00:49:12,250
But we have no culture.

792
00:49:13,500 --> 00:49:20,166
People direct our interest from our heart,
from our love, from our passion.

793
00:49:21,541 --> 00:49:24,375
People get less and less intelligent

794
00:49:24,458 --> 00:49:27,791
so that the predator can conquer us.

795
00:49:27,875 --> 00:49:29,416
[inaudible]

796
00:49:29,500 --> 00:49:32,708
We are being destroyed from within.

797
00:49:34,041 --> 00:49:37,416
[James] One day, he did admit
that he had worked on a movie himself.

798
00:49:38,833 --> 00:49:40,750
He said, "I've never seen it."

799
00:49:40,833 --> 00:49:43,583
He didn't remember the name,
but it was something with a big gorilla.

800
00:49:45,916 --> 00:49:48,666
And I thought,
it couldn't be what I was thinking of.

801
00:49:48,750 --> 00:49:50,625
So I said, "King Kong, 1933?"

802
00:49:50,708 --> 00:49:52,250
He says, "Yeah, that was it."

803
00:49:53,416 --> 00:49:56,833
He said he did some
of the landscaping for the island.

804
00:49:58,666 --> 00:50:00,541
[ape roars]

805
00:50:00,625 --> 00:50:02,375
He says, "They paid me very well."

806
00:50:06,458 --> 00:50:08,000
[George] By the early '30s,

807
00:50:08,083 --> 00:50:10,916
Ben Hecht was really top dog
in a lot of ways.

808
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:14,375
He won two Oscars,
out of three nominations.

809
00:50:14,750 --> 00:50:17,458
[Glenn] Stas used to tell me
that Ben Hecht always tried to get him

810
00:50:17,583 --> 00:50:19,208
into the Hollywood system.

811
00:50:19,291 --> 00:50:21,458
First of all, he did a few things
in some films,

812
00:50:21,541 --> 00:50:23,250
but he had no interest in that.

813
00:50:23,333 --> 00:50:25,958
He says, "I just want to do my sculpture.
I want to do my work."

814
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:29,916
[man] Szukalski, at this point,
was actually

815
00:50:30,041 --> 00:50:33,583
a respected and active member
of an art community.

816
00:50:33,875 --> 00:50:36,958
[Robert] So he wasn't completely lost
in Hollywood.

817
00:50:37,041 --> 00:50:39,625
I just think
he just scared the shit out of 'em.

818
00:50:40,041 --> 00:50:43,583
[Tucker] He had an exhibition
at the Los Angeles Museum.

819
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:47,458
[Lena] "A knot of visitors clustered about
a short, muscular man,

820
00:50:47,541 --> 00:50:49,083
with dancing blue eyes,

821
00:50:49,166 --> 00:50:52,125
a mass of blond hair,
and an aggressive nose.

822
00:50:52,666 --> 00:50:53,916
The man talks rapidly.

823
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:56,541
The people listen as to an oracle."

824
00:50:57,041 --> 00:50:58,833
[Szukalski] Director of the museum said

825
00:50:58,916 --> 00:51:02,708
that the museum never experienced
such crowds

826
00:51:02,791 --> 00:51:05,291
as those that came to my exhibition.

827
00:51:06,333 --> 00:51:08,625
[Lena] Szukalski was very successful
in Hollywood.

828
00:51:09,541 --> 00:51:12,208
But he was a patriot. He loved Poland.

829
00:51:12,291 --> 00:51:16,916
So he always wanted to go back
and be received with open arms.

830
00:51:17,208 --> 00:51:23,041
So Stas and Joan went back and forth
to Poland at least three or four times.

831
00:51:23,416 --> 00:51:24,708
[Rypson] If we do not combine

832
00:51:24,791 --> 00:51:27,500
Szukalski from America
with Szukalski from Poland,

833
00:51:27,583 --> 00:51:29,541
which, in a way,
are two different persons,

834
00:51:29,625 --> 00:51:32,291
we'll be left with half of the man.

835
00:51:33,166 --> 00:51:35,166
In those days, he was a modernist.

836
00:51:35,625 --> 00:51:37,833
I would say he was a cosmopolitan.

837
00:51:38,708 --> 00:51:45,583
In Poland, he was taking on the garb
of this weird nationalist tribe leader.

838
00:51:46,625 --> 00:51:50,166
He probably has hidden,
somewhere deep,

839
00:51:50,250 --> 00:51:53,166
this Bohemian young artist
from Chicago.

840
00:51:53,625 --> 00:51:56,166
It's, I think, an identity process.

841
00:52:07,375 --> 00:52:09,375
[dramatic orchestra music playing]

842
00:52:42,541 --> 00:52:44,833
[Szukalski] There are three serpents here.

843
00:52:47,791 --> 00:52:51,708
Their tails creep to the French girl,
Marianne,

844
00:52:52,791 --> 00:52:54,458
to destroy France.

845
00:53:03,375 --> 00:53:09,375
But the rooster jumped
in between the evil serpents and her,

846
00:53:14,625 --> 00:53:18,666
saves her,
and alters the course of history.

847
00:53:21,166 --> 00:53:24,500
Well, maybe you could just show...

848
00:53:26,125 --> 00:53:29,291
[Lena] This vision he had
in a little apartment in Burbank,

849
00:53:29,875 --> 00:53:33,666
it is so elaborate
because he wanted to make it huge.

850
00:53:34,375 --> 00:53:38,500
He wanted to have it put in front
of the Notre Dame in Paris

851
00:53:38,791 --> 00:53:42,875
as a thank-you to the French
for giving us the Statue of Liberty.

852
00:53:45,333 --> 00:53:48,666
[Glenn] Monuments are possible.
I mean, how else do they get built?

853
00:53:48,750 --> 00:53:50,208
Somebody comes up with the idea,

854
00:53:50,291 --> 00:53:52,708
and says,
"I want to build a big monument here."

855
00:53:54,541 --> 00:53:58,416
In the '30s, Stas was commissioned
by the Polish government

856
00:53:58,500 --> 00:54:00,500
to build a huge monument.

857
00:54:00,625 --> 00:54:02,625
What? Two stories tall? I don't know.

858
00:54:02,750 --> 00:54:06,166
So he had every right to think,
"Why not? This is possible."

859
00:54:10,125 --> 00:54:12,250
[Rypson] Here,
we have a different Szukalski.

860
00:54:12,625 --> 00:54:14,375
And a different Poland, I think.

861
00:54:16,125 --> 00:54:21,916
Europe is plunging more and more
into nationalisms and militarisms.

862
00:54:22,208 --> 00:54:23,333
Just like today.

863
00:54:24,416 --> 00:54:26,875
[Snyder] Pilsudski has died in 1935,

864
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,166
and you have the so-called government
of colonels.

865
00:54:29,916 --> 00:54:33,250
They are following
a much more authoritarian Constitution

866
00:54:33,333 --> 00:54:35,666
that explicitly excludes non-Poles.

867
00:54:36,083 --> 00:54:38,250
You have an ethnic authoritarianism.

868
00:54:38,333 --> 00:54:41,708
Szukalski starts to be perceived
as an asset.

869
00:54:42,250 --> 00:54:44,916
As the person who can create
a national art

870
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:48,208
that would have an aggressive element
in it.

871
00:54:48,625 --> 00:54:50,583
As a sort of an answer to Nazi art.

872
00:54:55,916 --> 00:54:59,500
[Glenn] Around 1935,
Stas got a summons from Poland.

873
00:54:59,958 --> 00:55:03,166
[Lena] So Joan and Stas took
all their belongings with them,

874
00:55:03,250 --> 00:55:05,416
everything they owned,
and they moved to Poland.

875
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:09,125
[Glenn] He took all his drawings,
all his sculptures,

876
00:55:09,208 --> 00:55:10,791
his life's work.

877
00:55:11,791 --> 00:55:14,458
[church bells ringing]

878
00:55:14,708 --> 00:55:15,666
[whistle blows]

879
00:55:16,541 --> 00:55:18,416
[Hecht] He was given more commissions

880
00:55:18,500 --> 00:55:21,833
than any sculptor could execute
in three lifetimes.

881
00:55:28,416 --> 00:55:30,541
The government gave him a studio

882
00:55:30,625 --> 00:55:33,500
and proclaimed it
a national Szukalski museum.

883
00:55:34,333 --> 00:55:38,416
He was working on two pieces
of monumental sculpture in his studio.

884
00:55:38,625 --> 00:55:42,833
One was Boleslaw the Brave,
the first king of Poland,

885
00:55:43,041 --> 00:55:46,500
carved out of a single,
big piece of dolomite.

886
00:55:47,375 --> 00:55:49,833
And the other one was
Monument to a Miner.

887
00:55:51,375 --> 00:55:54,375
[Szukalski] I have been commissioned
by Poland...

888
00:55:55,125 --> 00:55:59,625
to build three-and-a-half story statue
in bronze.

889
00:56:00,416 --> 00:56:02,416
[Hecht] The critics of Warsaw

890
00:56:02,500 --> 00:56:05,625
pronounced him the greatest living artist.

891
00:56:06,875 --> 00:56:13,083
A triumph, as unique as the love and glory
that once surrounded Michelangelo...

892
00:56:13,625 --> 00:56:14,666
beat around him.

893
00:56:21,583 --> 00:56:24,583
[Szukalski] This is the interior
of windmill.

894
00:56:26,500 --> 00:56:32,833
There was a windmill near the home
that we had in the country in Poland.

895
00:56:35,333 --> 00:56:39,500
[Lena] He and Joan were living
in a country house outside of Warsaw.

896
00:56:41,333 --> 00:56:43,875
He took a lot of beautiful photos of her.

897
00:56:49,333 --> 00:56:52,375
I think that was really the happiest time
of their lives.

898
00:56:55,875 --> 00:56:57,875
[phone ringing]

899
00:57:00,250 --> 00:57:03,250
[Szukalski] Then I had
personal telephone call

900
00:57:04,916 --> 00:57:09,208
from Minister Fischer of Nazi Germany

901
00:57:10,833 --> 00:57:12,666
proposing that I make

902
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:16,958
project of monument of Hitler and Göring.

903
00:57:19,416 --> 00:57:22,333
They saw reproductions of my work...

904
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:24,958
and they heard of my work.

905
00:57:25,916 --> 00:57:28,083
At that time, Europe was not yet...

906
00:57:28,750 --> 00:57:30,291
[stammers]

907
00:57:30,750 --> 00:57:34,541
bitching about Nazis and Hilterism.

908
00:57:34,875 --> 00:57:37,541
I said, "Oh, I'd be very happy."

909
00:57:38,375 --> 00:57:42,541
So, I began to do the drawings.

910
00:57:45,208 --> 00:57:48,166
[Glenn] So Stas says, "Well, I'll do it.

911
00:57:48,833 --> 00:57:50,125
Send me the check."

912
00:57:51,041 --> 00:57:52,041
Got the check.

913
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:53,958
Did this drawing.

914
00:57:54,708 --> 00:57:55,916
Sent it off.

915
00:57:56,333 --> 00:57:58,708
And he says.
"It was a beautiful portrait."

916
00:58:00,375 --> 00:58:02,708
[Szukalski] And I made a drawing
of Hitler...

917
00:58:03,583 --> 00:58:05,208
as a ballet dancer

918
00:58:06,375 --> 00:58:12,916
in a little skirt, with his pug nose
and mustache under his nose.

919
00:58:13,750 --> 00:58:15,750
I received them back, however,

920
00:58:16,416 --> 00:58:21,416
with polite saying that they don't think
they can use the idea.

921
00:58:21,500 --> 00:58:25,083
[laughs] So...

922
00:58:26,375 --> 00:58:29,000
[Hecht] Whenever Adolf Hitler
makes a speech

923
00:58:29,083 --> 00:58:32,500
that individualism must perish
from the Earth,

924
00:58:32,791 --> 00:58:35,458
I always think of Stanislaw Szukalski.

925
00:58:36,625 --> 00:58:41,666
I have a feeling that if Adolf
and Stanley ever got together for a talk,

926
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:44,583
Adolf would end by fleeing into the night,

927
00:58:44,791 --> 00:58:49,000
and renouncing all of his dark projects
as a lost cause.

928
00:58:51,541 --> 00:58:55,250
[George] Ben Hecht had written about Stas
so glowingly...

929
00:58:56,333 --> 00:58:57,875
he must not have known...

930
00:58:59,250 --> 00:59:01,500
and was fooled like the rest of us.

931
00:59:05,583 --> 00:59:08,916
You are a kind of person you are.

932
00:59:10,125 --> 00:59:11,875
And I never betrayed,

933
00:59:11,958 --> 00:59:15,750
I never did anything
that would deserve to go to hell...

934
00:59:16,875 --> 00:59:17,958
or be condemned.

935
00:59:27,583 --> 00:59:33,500
[Lechoslaw, in Polish] Szukalski realized
that the Horned Heart needed its own press

936
00:59:33,583 --> 00:59:37,791
to express and defend its ideas.

937
00:59:38,041 --> 00:59:41,291
So Szukalski started publishing leaflets.

938
00:59:42,208 --> 00:59:44,833
Each of those articles was

939
00:59:45,125 --> 00:59:50,250
aggressive language, invented words,

940
00:59:50,333 --> 00:59:54,416
attacks on the Church,
even anti-Semitic statements.

941
00:59:59,083 --> 01:00:01,166
[Snyder, in English] He writes
about people who like his work,

942
01:00:01,250 --> 01:00:03,750
and they're all "nice," you know,
"clean Poles."

943
01:00:03,833 --> 01:00:07,916
And then, people don't like his work,
he claims that they're Jewish.

944
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:15,541
[Rypson] Poles of the Jewish background,
very assimilated,

945
01:00:15,625 --> 01:00:19,291
played a very central role
in Polish culture.

946
01:00:20,750 --> 01:00:24,291
This was a fact
that he had problems dealing with.

947
01:00:25,375 --> 01:00:27,666
[Lechoslaw, in Polish]
Szukalski thought that

948
01:00:27,791 --> 01:00:33,500
economical and cultural branches
did not prosper in a proper way,

949
01:00:33,750 --> 01:00:36,625
because Poles were pushed away

950
01:00:36,833 --> 01:00:39,625
by Jews who dominated them.

951
01:00:40,708 --> 01:00:43,333
I don't know if this was his idea,

952
01:00:43,500 --> 01:00:47,541
but they placed economic unity fliers

953
01:00:47,625 --> 01:00:49,875
on Christian and Catholic shops

954
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:54,083
which were stickers with axe-eagles.

955
01:00:55,083 --> 01:00:57,375
[Snyder, in English]
Maybe that, by paying attention to it,

956
01:00:57,458 --> 01:01:02,250
you and I and your crew are doubling
the total readership Krak ever had.

957
01:01:03,625 --> 01:01:06,750
[Lechoslaw, in Polish]
Twelve issues were printed,

958
01:01:06,833 --> 01:01:08,916
in small circulation, on cheap paper.

959
01:01:09,833 --> 01:01:11,958
[Snyder, in English] The question
is not, "Is Krak important?"

960
01:01:12,041 --> 01:01:14,833
I don't think Krak was.
The question is: "How does it fit in?"

961
01:01:17,333 --> 01:01:21,125
The Polish authoritarian government
was dancing a dangerous dance.

962
01:01:21,416 --> 01:01:24,041
The public opinion, which is anti-Semitic,

963
01:01:24,125 --> 01:01:26,125
is now allowed to rise to the surface

964
01:01:26,208 --> 01:01:29,000
and become part
of official government doctrine.

965
01:01:29,208 --> 01:01:33,125
I think it's fair to say
that Krak was partaking.

966
01:01:33,291 --> 01:01:36,000
I think, in its very modest way, honestly,
but it partook

967
01:01:36,083 --> 01:01:40,083
in the creation of a general atmosphere
among some Poles,

968
01:01:40,416 --> 01:01:44,250
which made it easier for people
to imagine a world without Jews.

969
01:01:45,166 --> 01:01:47,333
As soon as you're
in that world of imagination,

970
01:01:47,416 --> 01:01:48,750
you're flirting with violence.

971
01:01:58,541 --> 01:02:02,916
[George] When we started this documentary,
no one had any idea...

972
01:02:03,291 --> 01:02:05,500
that these things had happened.

973
01:02:06,083 --> 01:02:07,875
We were all blindsided,

974
01:02:09,500 --> 01:02:10,750
disillusioned.

975
01:02:12,416 --> 01:02:14,875
Especially those who knew him
in those days.

976
01:02:15,750 --> 01:02:18,875
No, he was not the man that we had all
envisioned him to be.

977
01:02:20,125 --> 01:02:22,250
We lost a friend that never existed,
I suppose.

978
01:02:24,250 --> 01:02:27,000
And we also thought of Ben Hecht,

979
01:02:27,083 --> 01:02:29,083
how betrayed he would have felt...

980
01:02:29,750 --> 01:02:31,166
if he knew about this.

981
01:02:35,375 --> 01:02:36,833
[Hecht] It is unprofitable

982
01:02:36,916 --> 01:02:40,333
for the Jew to look
at history's heroes or philosophers

983
01:02:40,833 --> 01:02:45,375
without skipping a little.
He is apt to only see monsters.

984
01:02:46,833 --> 01:02:50,833
I suspect that
if you examine any of these men carefully,

985
01:02:50,916 --> 01:02:54,041
you will find he is no soul in torment,

986
01:02:54,541 --> 01:02:56,666
but a coin with two sides.

987
01:02:57,291 --> 01:02:59,416
He can cash in on his virtues

988
01:02:59,708 --> 01:03:02,708
and his evils at separate counters.

989
01:03:04,500 --> 01:03:07,166
[George] Szukalski, apparently,

990
01:03:07,250 --> 01:03:10,750
shape-shifted to suit the situation.

991
01:03:12,458 --> 01:03:18,625
Krak was published in Poland
at the same time Ben Hecht was in America,

992
01:03:18,708 --> 01:03:23,791
bringing the realization of the horrors
that were going on in Europe.

993
01:03:26,083 --> 01:03:28,083
[Hecht] I write of Jews today.

994
01:03:28,791 --> 01:03:32,166
I, who never knew himself as one before,

995
01:03:32,416 --> 01:03:35,916
because that part of me, which is Jewish,

996
01:03:36,250 --> 01:03:39,125
is under violent and apelike attack,

997
01:03:39,208 --> 01:03:43,333
with no friend in the world
to cry "Shame!" or "Stop!"

998
01:04:01,333 --> 01:04:04,791
[George]
I believe Ben Hecht didn't know...

999
01:04:05,833 --> 01:04:09,291
how Szukalski had disguised
a lot of his beliefs.

1000
01:04:11,041 --> 01:04:13,458
This makes it a double tragedy. [sighs]

1001
01:04:14,250 --> 01:04:17,708
[Hecht] Prejudice is a symptom
that can thrive

1002
01:04:17,833 --> 01:04:20,208
in the most acute and enlightened minds

1003
01:04:20,750 --> 01:04:25,083
as it can in the darkened thought
of fools.

1004
01:04:38,125 --> 01:04:43,250
[Glenn] Stas told me that, one day,
he was walking towards his big studio,

1005
01:04:43,625 --> 01:04:45,750
and he looked up above,
and in the blue sky

1006
01:04:45,833 --> 01:04:48,458
he saw little puffs of white clouds.

1007
01:04:50,875 --> 01:04:53,083
[plane engine roars]

1008
01:04:53,791 --> 01:04:55,791
[engines roaring]

1009
01:05:01,291 --> 01:05:03,291
[siren wailing]

1010
01:05:07,250 --> 01:05:10,500
[Glenn] So he got to his studio,
got inside,

1011
01:05:10,583 --> 01:05:15,500
and he ran to cover the statue
of Boleslaw with burlap sacks.

1012
01:05:23,333 --> 01:05:25,208
[people screaming]

1013
01:05:25,291 --> 01:05:26,875
[inaudible]

1014
01:05:34,083 --> 01:05:36,208
[loud explosions]

1015
01:05:46,791 --> 01:05:48,791
[plane engine roars]

1016
01:05:54,333 --> 01:05:57,291
[Glenn] Roughly a fifth
of the city is destroyed by bombing.

1017
01:05:58,083 --> 01:06:00,291
-[inaudible]
-[Glenn] 25,000 people killed...

1018
01:06:01,041 --> 01:06:03,375
although it's almost completely forgotten.

1019
01:06:08,333 --> 01:06:12,500
[George] The studio was hit
with a Luftwaffe bomb.

1020
01:06:12,583 --> 01:06:15,833
All of his paintings
and sculptures and bronzes

1021
01:06:15,916 --> 01:06:17,458
were obliterated.

1022
01:06:17,750 --> 01:06:22,625
And Boleslaw the Brave toppled over
and nearly crushed him.

1023
01:06:25,750 --> 01:06:28,708
[Glenn] He was buried
under rubble for two days.

1024
01:06:33,250 --> 01:06:34,625
He crawled out.

1025
01:06:36,875 --> 01:06:38,708
Joan and he had an understanding,

1026
01:06:38,791 --> 01:06:41,125
they would meet at the American Embassy

1027
01:06:41,416 --> 01:06:44,333
if something happened,
and they hid out in the basement.

1028
01:06:54,541 --> 01:06:57,416
He remembers going out
and foraging for food.

1029
01:06:57,666 --> 01:06:58,833
You just didn't know...

1030
01:06:59,416 --> 01:07:01,208
how long this was gonna go on.

1031
01:07:11,458 --> 01:07:14,708
[Snyder] The German invasion of Poland
was colonization.

1032
01:07:15,708 --> 01:07:19,375
This was a campaign
to eliminate the Polish state,

1033
01:07:20,083 --> 01:07:23,750
and also to make it impossible
for that state ever to exist again...

1034
01:07:24,708 --> 01:07:27,208
by eliminating
the Polish cultural heritage,

1035
01:07:27,291 --> 01:07:30,375
and by physically eliminating,
by exterminating, by murdering

1036
01:07:30,458 --> 01:07:33,458
the thinking classes
and the political classes in Poland.

1037
01:07:33,833 --> 01:07:40,625
One of my Horned Heart boys, Boratinski,
was executed by the Germans later.

1038
01:07:44,291 --> 01:07:47,625
[voice cracking] When I get emotional,
my voice cracks.

1039
01:07:50,041 --> 01:07:52,583
[Glenn] He said, "Get what we've got,
the two suitcases.

1040
01:07:52,666 --> 01:07:54,166
We're gonna get out of here."

1041
01:07:54,916 --> 01:07:57,291
And Nazis were coming in one direction.

1042
01:07:57,375 --> 01:07:59,250
So, all the Poles were running
in that direction,

1043
01:07:59,333 --> 01:08:00,541
fleeing them. He said,

1044
01:08:01,291 --> 01:08:02,916
"Let's walk right through 'em."

1045
01:08:04,166 --> 01:08:06,708
As he and Joan we're leaving Warsaw,

1046
01:08:06,791 --> 01:08:09,791
he saw them machine-gunning
the Orator.

1047
01:08:16,875 --> 01:08:18,875
[orchestra music playing]

1048
01:09:17,541 --> 01:09:21,000
[man] The bronze relief,
Deluge (20th Century).

1049
01:09:21,833 --> 01:09:26,458
It has an image
of a female lioness figure.

1050
01:09:28,125 --> 01:09:30,000
She's breastfeeding two children

1051
01:09:30,083 --> 01:09:34,291
who represent the United States
and Europe.

1052
01:09:35,833 --> 01:09:38,208
And the European child is starving

1053
01:09:38,291 --> 01:09:42,208
because the breast has had two arrows
shoved through it.

1054
01:09:44,041 --> 01:09:46,958
The tragedies that took place
in Europe just run

1055
01:09:47,041 --> 01:09:51,875
like a consistent pulse
or a sob through the entire

1056
01:09:51,958 --> 01:09:53,916
body of work of Szukalski.

1057
01:10:05,416 --> 01:10:09,083
[Lena] Stas and Joan returned
to the United States

1058
01:10:09,166 --> 01:10:11,166
with only three suitcases.

1059
01:10:12,583 --> 01:10:15,166
[Glenn] Losing his life's work,

1060
01:10:15,250 --> 01:10:16,750
I don't know how in the world

1061
01:10:16,875 --> 01:10:19,000
he didn't have a mental breakdown.

1062
01:10:20,041 --> 01:10:25,458
This arm,
this was the size of the sculpture.

1063
01:10:25,625 --> 01:10:29,625
This only sculpture of mine
that I can show.

1064
01:10:31,125 --> 01:10:34,791
And I did 174 sculptures.

1065
01:10:35,416 --> 01:10:39,500
Hundreds of paintings, drawings, projects.

1066
01:10:40,750 --> 01:10:45,500
All this was looted, destroyed,
or whatever they did,

1067
01:10:45,791 --> 01:10:51,541
so I have nothing left to show
to exhibit my works.

1068
01:10:53,541 --> 01:10:56,791
[Glenn] He lost The Struggle,
and I always wondered

1069
01:10:56,875 --> 01:10:59,750
what the other side
of that moon looked like.

1070
01:10:59,833 --> 01:11:01,083
He never photographed the back.

1071
01:11:02,166 --> 01:11:04,708
I know there was hundreds of pieces
that were never published

1072
01:11:04,791 --> 01:11:07,250
in those '20s books
that nobody's ever seen.

1073
01:11:07,666 --> 01:11:11,041
After that point, you might as well say
they cleared the slate of Szukalski.

1074
01:11:25,375 --> 01:11:27,458
Szukalski and Joan were very poor.

1075
01:11:27,541 --> 01:11:30,750
They always lived in very small houses,
one-bedroom houses.

1076
01:11:32,500 --> 01:11:36,416
I think it came out in letters that,
after the war,

1077
01:11:36,500 --> 01:11:38,500
Kalinka did not want to see her father.

1078
01:11:39,916 --> 01:11:43,458
Later, we tried to find her,
and we could never find her.

1079
01:11:45,208 --> 01:11:47,500
[Szukalski] It is a project
for a sculpture,

1080
01:11:47,583 --> 01:11:50,208
a father and his child.

1081
01:11:51,958 --> 01:11:53,791
[Lena] I don't remember
where I heard this,

1082
01:11:53,875 --> 01:11:57,166
that Joan had been pregnant
sometime during the war,

1083
01:11:57,500 --> 01:12:01,291
and she must have lost the baby.
And they never had children afterward.

1084
01:12:01,500 --> 01:12:03,166
I felt sorry for her sometimes,

1085
01:12:03,250 --> 01:12:05,625
but I don't think she felt sorry
for herself at all.

1086
01:12:06,916 --> 01:12:08,666
She really loved him.

1087
01:12:13,250 --> 01:12:16,833
And of course, it was a really hard thing
for them to go through,

1088
01:12:17,125 --> 01:12:19,458
but I think she kind of took it in stride,

1089
01:12:19,541 --> 01:12:22,375
and I think she took it better
than Stas did.

1090
01:12:23,500 --> 01:12:27,000
I have died in Los Angeles,

1091
01:12:28,208 --> 01:12:34,750
which I regard the cultural Siberia
of America, Southern California.

1092
01:12:38,916 --> 01:12:40,875
[Glenn] Stas worked at Rocketdyne.

1093
01:12:41,791 --> 01:12:44,916
And Rocketdyne was a designer
of rocket engines.

1094
01:12:45,333 --> 01:12:49,708
He made maquettes of landscapes
and land maps for them.

1095
01:12:50,750 --> 01:12:53,375
You know, he might as well been working
in a cannery.

1096
01:12:54,375 --> 01:12:58,416
[Szukalski] Living in Los Angeles,
I became totally unknown.

1097
01:12:59,083 --> 01:13:01,083
No paper ever would mention me.

1098
01:13:03,416 --> 01:13:05,083
[Glenn] And because he had a Polish name,

1099
01:13:05,166 --> 01:13:08,000
he said
that people didn't take him seriously.

1100
01:13:08,625 --> 01:13:10,291
He says, "What's with these Polish jokes?

1101
01:13:10,958 --> 01:13:13,041
We're stupid, we're lazy.

1102
01:13:13,166 --> 01:13:16,375
That's what they're throwing out there
for people to pick up on."

1103
01:13:16,458 --> 01:13:22,708
Children of Europe that are in America.
Second class, that you look down on them.

1104
01:13:23,666 --> 01:13:28,583
I am a foreigner in this country, always,
even if I'm American citizen.

1105
01:13:32,833 --> 01:13:34,875
[in Polish] After 1957,

1106
01:13:34,958 --> 01:13:37,416
Szukalski was able to return
to Poland to design a monument

1107
01:13:37,750 --> 01:13:41,583
commemorating the heroes
of the Warsaw uprising.

1108
01:13:42,333 --> 01:13:44,291
Szukalski, per usual,

1109
01:13:44,791 --> 01:13:46,875
designed a great project
on an enormous scale.

1110
01:13:48,625 --> 01:13:53,083
The competition did not end well
for Szukalski.

1111
01:13:53,750 --> 01:13:56,458
[Szukalski, in English] Because Poles
are the most envious

1112
01:13:56,541 --> 01:14:00,041
of human beings
I have ever met in my life.

1113
01:14:00,625 --> 01:14:03,125
They would rather die than...

1114
01:14:03,750 --> 01:14:06,708
compliment a friend
who does something well.

1115
01:14:08,750 --> 01:14:10,750
[Rypson] Szukalski, for very many years,

1116
01:14:10,833 --> 01:14:13,666
was a taboo issue in-- in Poland.

1117
01:14:13,916 --> 01:14:18,166
[Snyder] Polish Communism is installed
in 1944 and lasts until 1989.

1118
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:20,875
[Rypson] Szukalski was a nationalist.

1119
01:14:21,416 --> 01:14:24,416
That is something that was perceived
by the Communists

1120
01:14:24,500 --> 01:14:26,166
as a potential danger.

1121
01:14:26,625 --> 01:14:28,875
[Snyder] Poland was impenetrable to him.

1122
01:14:36,583 --> 01:14:39,083
[Szukalski] Poles have destroyed me.

1123
01:14:42,250 --> 01:14:44,333
But America doesn't want me.

1124
01:14:46,708 --> 01:14:48,208
I am alone.

1125
01:14:48,500 --> 01:14:52,750
[crying] I am a patriot without a country.

1126
01:15:09,250 --> 01:15:10,916
I'm not a bigot.

1127
01:15:13,458 --> 01:15:16,958
I'm a patriot, American or Polish.

1128
01:15:17,041 --> 01:15:20,583
Because if you combine two,
three nations,

1129
01:15:20,958 --> 01:15:22,541
your heart is larger.

1130
01:15:23,083 --> 01:15:26,541
Your capacity to understand is deeper.

1131
01:15:29,541 --> 01:15:31,875
[Lena] He believed in humanity.

1132
01:15:34,250 --> 01:15:37,416
The Szukalski from before the war
maybe was different.

1133
01:15:37,500 --> 01:15:39,291
I don't recognize him at all.

1134
01:15:40,291 --> 01:15:44,041
[Glenn] Trying to get him to talk
about his past was pulling teeth.

1135
01:15:45,958 --> 01:15:47,958
Stas never brought these old Krak books

1136
01:15:48,041 --> 01:15:51,208
or any other Polish materials
that he did back in the '30s.

1137
01:15:51,708 --> 01:15:54,875
You know, I think
he was probably-- maybe ashamed of it,

1138
01:15:54,958 --> 01:15:56,958
because he-- he didn't show it to me.

1139
01:15:57,333 --> 01:15:58,791
We see how we did.

1140
01:15:58,875 --> 01:16:04,333
Eight million Jews were exterminated
by the predators.

1141
01:16:05,666 --> 01:16:08,791
I never heard an anti-Semitic word
come out of his mouth, ever.

1142
01:16:08,875 --> 01:16:11,291
In fact, it was honestly the opposite.

1143
01:16:14,125 --> 01:16:16,250
[man] At one time, Szukalski,

1144
01:16:16,416 --> 01:16:18,916
as a token of admiration...

1145
01:16:19,541 --> 01:16:22,583
created one of his small relief plaques

1146
01:16:23,166 --> 01:16:24,500
of a menorah.

1147
01:16:25,041 --> 01:16:27,875
He inscribed in it, in Hebrew,

1148
01:16:28,125 --> 01:16:32,000
"The nation of Israel is alive."

1149
01:16:33,916 --> 01:16:35,166
[Lena] His view got wider

1150
01:16:35,250 --> 01:16:37,625
because he was living
in the United States,

1151
01:16:37,708 --> 01:16:40,583
and he became more of a universal artist.

1152
01:16:41,000 --> 01:16:43,875
[Szukalski] This is the Citadel of Freedom

1153
01:16:44,291 --> 01:16:48,958
to commemorate martyrs
that were defending their country.

1154
01:16:49,666 --> 01:16:55,333
Every relief will be a hero
of one of the free nations of the world.

1155
01:16:56,458 --> 01:16:59,583
Well, Stas told me many times
that he didn't believe in boundaries.

1156
01:16:59,875 --> 01:17:02,916
He thought if you were a citizen,
you were citizen of the world.

1157
01:17:03,041 --> 01:17:06,666
[Szukalski] We usually scorn people
whom we do not know.

1158
01:17:07,000 --> 01:17:09,625
Once we know them, we like them.

1159
01:17:10,291 --> 01:17:12,125
We even love them.

1160
01:17:13,666 --> 01:17:17,875
[crying] You should be large enough
to take all nationalities.

1161
01:17:19,625 --> 01:17:22,000
[Glenn] He did a piece called A Spiral
in the '60s.

1162
01:17:23,416 --> 01:17:25,875
You see footprints coming out of the mud,

1163
01:17:28,166 --> 01:17:29,916
growing at a snail's pace,

1164
01:17:30,416 --> 01:17:33,166
and it's building things,
it's building cities.

1165
01:17:34,041 --> 01:17:36,000
And you go around, around,

1166
01:17:36,083 --> 01:17:38,666
and it evolves into a human.

1167
01:17:39,333 --> 01:17:40,541
Possibility of renewal.

1168
01:17:42,250 --> 01:17:43,791
[Snyder] What is Szukalski?

1169
01:17:45,875 --> 01:17:50,625
Is Szukalski a few passages in a journal
which nobody really read in the 1930s,

1170
01:17:51,333 --> 01:17:54,791
or is Szukalski the whole life
of Szukalski?

1171
01:17:54,875 --> 01:17:59,708
The California, the various friends,
the re-imagination of-- of self?

1172
01:18:02,000 --> 01:18:06,458
So... I failed very badly.

1173
01:18:07,000 --> 01:18:11,708
And for last 40 years,
I am no more a sculptor.

1174
01:18:12,083 --> 01:18:14,166
I had to give up my profession.

1175
01:18:16,916 --> 01:18:20,208
[Glenn] Didn't have a studio,
didn't have materials, didn't have money,

1176
01:18:20,750 --> 01:18:23,958
and he saw another calling.

1177
01:18:31,291 --> 01:18:33,875
[Szukalski] I spent 40-some years

1178
01:18:34,416 --> 01:18:38,583
and made the greatest discovery
that man has ever made

1179
01:18:38,666 --> 01:18:40,000
in human history.

1180
01:18:42,375 --> 01:18:44,958
Greater than Copernicus.

1181
01:18:46,625 --> 01:18:48,083
People in Egypt,

1182
01:18:49,000 --> 01:18:50,333
in Mexico,

1183
01:18:51,041 --> 01:18:51,958
in Greece,

1184
01:18:52,583 --> 01:18:53,416
Japan,

1185
01:18:54,208 --> 01:18:56,250
in Korea, in Tibet,

1186
01:18:56,333 --> 01:18:58,625
in Africa, in India,

1187
01:18:59,625 --> 01:19:03,541
they came originally from Easter Island.

1188
01:19:04,208 --> 01:19:07,666
From the land that is perished.

1189
01:19:20,958 --> 01:19:23,916
[Tucker] Zermatism is the name
that Szukalski gave

1190
01:19:24,000 --> 01:19:26,416
to his huge project

1191
01:19:26,500 --> 01:19:28,916
of rewriting human history.

1192
01:19:29,458 --> 01:19:32,333
Anthropology and art history

1193
01:19:32,416 --> 01:19:35,041
and zoology and astronomy...

1194
01:19:35,583 --> 01:19:39,250
What Szukalski would do
is pore through images in books

1195
01:19:39,666 --> 01:19:44,041
of ancient cultural artifacts
from around the world.

1196
01:19:44,166 --> 01:19:48,416
[Lena] He would find magazines
by trash cans and would cut out pictures.

1197
01:19:49,583 --> 01:19:52,875
He is searching all the time
for the first element

1198
01:19:52,958 --> 01:19:55,166
that would be a common element
for different cultures.

1199
01:19:55,250 --> 01:19:56,916
See? This occurs here, and here

1200
01:19:57,000 --> 01:19:59,291
and here and here,
in China and over here.

1201
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:01,583
All these things are interconnected.

1202
01:20:01,666 --> 01:20:04,583
They all represent the same thing
to all these people.

1203
01:20:06,333 --> 01:20:10,166
I wrote all these 54 volumes.

1204
01:20:11,125 --> 01:20:12,708
[Glenn] He didn't buy folders.

1205
01:20:12,791 --> 01:20:15,125
He actually plastered
all his pages together

1206
01:20:15,208 --> 01:20:17,416
and let it sit up,
and then he put this binding over,

1207
01:20:17,500 --> 01:20:20,291
and then drew pictures showing
what was inside.

1208
01:20:20,666 --> 01:20:23,208
And he did some 40,000 drawings.

1209
01:20:23,291 --> 01:20:27,125
And I know more
than all the historians put together

1210
01:20:27,416 --> 01:20:28,625
and the archaeologists.

1211
01:20:29,208 --> 01:20:34,541
Szukalski decided that Easter Island was,
in fact, the cradle of humanity.

1212
01:20:35,250 --> 01:20:36,083
This island,

1213
01:20:36,250 --> 01:20:40,041
completely separate
from all human civilization,

1214
01:20:40,541 --> 01:20:42,708
populated by monumental sculpture.

1215
01:20:44,041 --> 01:20:47,958
[man] I think he retreated to a place
that is so remote...

1216
01:20:48,625 --> 01:20:51,458
that the world couldn't destroy
his ideas.

1217
01:20:52,416 --> 01:20:55,166
[Lena] He always brought up Easter Island,
how important it was,

1218
01:20:55,250 --> 01:20:58,500
and that it was the seed
of all civilization of the the world,

1219
01:20:59,750 --> 01:21:01,625
but he never got to go there.

1220
01:21:02,000 --> 01:21:05,833
Motherland personifies Easter Island.

1221
01:21:07,208 --> 01:21:11,541
[chuckles softly, stammers] Unbelievable!

1222
01:21:13,791 --> 01:21:17,958
[Lena] There's a whole book on tattoos.
And he called them scum lines,

1223
01:21:18,041 --> 01:21:20,416
because he thought
people had saved themselves

1224
01:21:20,500 --> 01:21:22,500
from the Great Deluge by swimming.

1225
01:21:22,583 --> 01:21:25,625
And all tribes in the world
that do tribal tattoos

1226
01:21:25,708 --> 01:21:27,875
are still remembering the Great Deluge.

1227
01:21:28,875 --> 01:21:31,708
[Glenn] And he came to the conclusion
that there was actually

1228
01:21:31,791 --> 01:21:35,833
one system of symbolic meaning

1229
01:21:35,916 --> 01:21:41,000
that had existed throughout the world
before the Great Flood.

1230
01:21:44,666 --> 01:21:48,583
Protong, one language on Earth...

1231
01:21:49,625 --> 01:21:51,875
and I have discovered it.

1232
01:21:52,291 --> 01:21:55,583
And I will send it to Scientific American.

1233
01:21:56,375 --> 01:21:58,000
I hope they will print it.

1234
01:22:01,291 --> 01:22:03,958
[clicks tongue, stammers]

1235
01:22:04,041 --> 01:22:07,541
His Zermatism thing was just flipped.

1236
01:22:07,875 --> 01:22:10,791
And, I mean, he'd slipped off the edge.

1237
01:22:11,750 --> 01:22:15,375
And would do like this,
and would cover the nose.

1238
01:22:15,791 --> 01:22:16,625
[Lena] Okay.

1239
01:22:16,708 --> 01:22:20,500
I-- I'll try to be short about it.
It's-- it's really involved.

1240
01:22:20,583 --> 01:22:23,166
Yetinsini, sons of the yeti.

1241
01:22:23,958 --> 01:22:26,541
[Szukalski] Conspiracy of misfits.

1242
01:22:27,833 --> 01:22:30,083
Stas believed that, in ancient times,

1243
01:22:30,500 --> 01:22:33,375
apes or apelike creatures...

1244
01:22:33,458 --> 01:22:36,208
[Robert] Bigfoot and things like that,
you know...

1245
01:22:36,291 --> 01:22:38,916
[Lena] ...had raped beautiful human women.

1246
01:22:39,541 --> 01:22:43,875
So, out of this,
came this subrace of ugly, ugly people.

1247
01:22:44,208 --> 01:22:47,666
He believed that these people
became the criminals.

1248
01:22:48,041 --> 01:22:51,958
[Szukalski] They are born to kill,
to destroy, to exterminate.

1249
01:22:52,541 --> 01:22:56,000
[Lena] So they became mass murderers,
they became Communists,

1250
01:22:56,125 --> 01:22:57,875
They became Nazis...

1251
01:22:58,208 --> 01:23:00,708
So... History!

1252
01:23:03,291 --> 01:23:07,500
[Szukalski] This may not be true,
but these are my silly notions.

1253
01:23:07,791 --> 01:23:12,583
And my silly notions usually have
very good scientific basis.

1254
01:23:15,250 --> 01:23:19,000
[Glenn] At first, it was funny,
like we were looking at a circus act.

1255
01:23:19,083 --> 01:23:21,375
[stammers] Like, you know,
bring out the monkey.

1256
01:23:22,541 --> 01:23:25,458
But the more you got into it,
you realized, this guy is really serious.

1257
01:23:25,541 --> 01:23:27,166
He's got serious things to say.

1258
01:23:27,708 --> 01:23:30,875
What he wants to explain, it seems to me,

1259
01:23:30,958 --> 01:23:33,750
is what happened to Europe
in the 20th century.

1260
01:23:34,666 --> 01:23:37,083
[Glenn] He saw the world in ashes
in World War II,

1261
01:23:37,166 --> 01:23:39,666
he saw the Communist takeover of Poland,

1262
01:23:39,750 --> 01:23:42,291
and he just wanted
to bring people together.

1263
01:23:42,375 --> 01:23:44,916
That's what I-- I think that's
what he was doing with Zermatism.

1264
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:47,125
He was showing we all have a commonality.

1265
01:23:47,208 --> 01:23:51,166
It's clear that the way he's talking
about Jews after the war is different.

1266
01:23:52,000 --> 01:23:55,250
The Jews are, instead,
one source of ancient traditions...

1267
01:23:55,750 --> 01:23:57,791
among other sources
of ancient traditions.

1268
01:23:58,208 --> 01:24:00,250
[Szukalski] Jews have suffered much.

1269
01:24:00,500 --> 01:24:03,583
Each misfortune taught them lesson.

1270
01:24:04,125 --> 01:24:06,583
Therefore, they acquired certain wisdom.

1271
01:24:08,041 --> 01:24:10,958
[Snyder] In history, if people change
for the better,

1272
01:24:11,291 --> 01:24:13,541
it's building
on something that's in their past.

1273
01:24:14,041 --> 01:24:18,125
The continuity is that he's throwing away
everything we actually know about history,

1274
01:24:18,208 --> 01:24:20,875
and trying to find his own deeper truth,

1275
01:24:20,958 --> 01:24:22,916
but he's doing it
on the scale of the whole world,

1276
01:24:23,000 --> 01:24:25,250
and not just pulling in the Slavs.

1277
01:24:25,333 --> 01:24:28,583
In any event, it's clear
that he does change after the war.

1278
01:24:29,583 --> 01:24:32,375
And that's worth noting,
because not everybody does.

1279
01:24:33,416 --> 01:24:36,541
[crowd chanting in Polish]

1280
01:24:40,041 --> 01:24:42,041
[man chanting in Polish over megaphone]

1281
01:24:42,125 --> 01:24:45,541
[Rypson] Eventually,
Szukalski's work became prey...

1282
01:24:46,041 --> 01:24:50,083
to certain strange pagan associations
in Poland

1283
01:24:50,375 --> 01:24:53,875
that also profess a form of authoritarian

1284
01:24:53,958 --> 01:24:56,166
-right-wing state.
-[mouse clicking]

1285
01:24:58,750 --> 01:25:03,291
The Polish far-right today looks back
at the 1930s as a positive period.

1286
01:25:03,833 --> 01:25:06,625
As a period full of useful examples,

1287
01:25:06,708 --> 01:25:09,958
and in that experiment,
Szukalski is a piece.

1288
01:25:10,666 --> 01:25:12,958
[Glenn] Then, he's kind of frozen in time
over there.

1289
01:25:13,083 --> 01:25:16,583
And if he saw this footage
of these Poles out there...

1290
01:25:19,833 --> 01:25:21,750
he would... he-- he would...

1291
01:25:23,083 --> 01:25:24,083
He would hate it.

1292
01:25:25,208 --> 01:25:29,708
Because Stas was totally against
nationalistic ideology by this point.

1293
01:25:29,791 --> 01:25:32,500
He was-- He was done with it.
He-- He saw what it did.

1294
01:25:32,583 --> 01:25:34,208
[crowd chanting in Polish]

1295
01:25:34,416 --> 01:25:37,083
[Snyder] He's coming back now
as a myth of the 1930s.

1296
01:25:37,666 --> 01:25:41,250
Some purified Poland
is going to be stronger.

1297
01:25:42,291 --> 01:25:44,583
I don't even think they know
who Szukalski is.

1298
01:25:44,666 --> 01:25:46,916
There might be one or two guys
that blog about it,

1299
01:25:47,000 --> 01:25:49,000
but they don't know the whole story.

1300
01:25:50,666 --> 01:25:52,791
[Snyder] If you just go back to the 1930s,

1301
01:25:52,875 --> 01:25:56,833
if you look at Szukalski, or if you look
at other Polish nationalists,

1302
01:25:57,458 --> 01:26:00,625
you're going to find, basically,
a suicide note.

1303
01:26:01,250 --> 01:26:03,750
You're going to find an invitation
to the abyss.

1304
01:26:05,875 --> 01:26:08,750
[in Polish] We will show them
that Europe is ours!

1305
01:26:09,250 --> 01:26:11,250
-[fireworks popping]
-[crowd clamoring]

1306
01:26:13,041 --> 01:26:15,041
[people chanting in Polish]

1307
01:26:29,583 --> 01:26:33,625
[in English] Joan had emphysema.
She was a lifelong smoker.

1308
01:26:33,708 --> 01:26:36,041
So finally, she had to go to the hospital.

1309
01:26:37,166 --> 01:26:39,166
Stas would visit her every day,

1310
01:26:39,250 --> 01:26:40,916
and he brought us home this paper,
one time.

1311
01:26:41,000 --> 01:26:42,916
It was on the back of an envelope
of her writing,

1312
01:26:43,000 --> 01:26:45,375
saying, "Stas,
they're not taking care of me."

1313
01:26:47,500 --> 01:26:50,166
So he claims that, on July 4th,
during the day,

1314
01:26:50,250 --> 01:26:52,250
the staff was just partying it up.

1315
01:26:52,333 --> 01:26:55,500
And they just left her alone there,
and she died.

1316
01:26:55,583 --> 01:26:57,958
And he thought it was
the most tragic thing.

1317
01:27:05,000 --> 01:27:07,416
So, he called me up. He was hysterical.

1318
01:27:07,791 --> 01:27:08,833
We went over there.

1319
01:27:10,041 --> 01:27:13,041
I remember just driving around
with Stas in the back, crying,

1320
01:27:13,125 --> 01:27:15,125
and we saw these fireworks going off.

1321
01:27:16,041 --> 01:27:18,458
Just surreal, just sad.

1322
01:27:20,041 --> 01:27:22,583
Actually, he describes it beautifully

1323
01:27:22,958 --> 01:27:27,083
in the Portrait of Lotus,
where he describes how sad he was.

1324
01:27:30,833 --> 01:27:32,708
"While putting this volume together,

1325
01:27:33,000 --> 01:27:37,083
my most beloved
Joan Lee Donovan Szukalski died.

1326
01:27:37,791 --> 01:27:40,375
Once, in an outpouring of despair,

1327
01:27:40,666 --> 01:27:42,916
I caught my reflection in a mirror,

1328
01:27:43,250 --> 01:27:46,166
and was struck by what had become
of my face.

1329
01:27:46,791 --> 01:27:49,166
In my youth, I was quite handsome,

1330
01:27:49,250 --> 01:27:54,916
but my perpetual grief has finally,
irreversibly, done its hateful duty

1331
01:27:55,000 --> 01:27:58,000
in altering me into a face in the crowd."

1332
01:28:05,541 --> 01:28:08,791
[Glenn] My favorite Szukalski drawing

1333
01:28:08,916 --> 01:28:13,708
is a piece that he drew in 1954,
and it's called A Submerged Town.

1334
01:28:15,041 --> 01:28:18,500
He told me the story
that this is a man, thirsty,

1335
01:28:18,583 --> 01:28:21,125
he's in the desert,
and he dips his head down

1336
01:28:21,208 --> 01:28:23,916
into this pond,
and he sees a submerged town.

1337
01:28:24,500 --> 01:28:26,000
And I go, "Stas, that's you."

1338
01:28:26,083 --> 01:28:27,875
And he-- And he kind of went...

1339
01:28:27,958 --> 01:28:30,791
He-- He really didn't think so.
I thought, "Of course, that's you."

1340
01:28:32,625 --> 01:28:35,958
[Lena] So after the death of Joan,
we became more important to him,

1341
01:28:36,541 --> 01:28:39,000
because he would not take care of himself.

1342
01:28:39,750 --> 01:28:42,375
[Glenn] We'd open up a drawer,
and there's just roaches in there.

1343
01:28:42,458 --> 01:28:45,083
[Lena] We would send Meals on Wheels
to him, once in a while,

1344
01:28:45,166 --> 01:28:47,625
we would send
the cleaning lady over to his house.

1345
01:28:48,250 --> 01:28:51,000
We would take him out to eat
at least once a week...

1346
01:28:51,333 --> 01:28:53,333
Basically, we were taking care of him.

1347
01:28:59,500 --> 01:29:01,833
One day, Glenn and I came to his house,

1348
01:29:01,916 --> 01:29:08,041
and we saw this armature of coat hangers,
styrofoam cups, wooden clothespins.

1349
01:29:08,250 --> 01:29:12,166
There was this huge blob on there,
of dried Hydrocal.

1350
01:29:12,250 --> 01:29:16,125
Glenn had bought him Hydrocal,
which is really hard plaster of Paris.

1351
01:29:16,541 --> 01:29:20,166
Then, a few months later, this came out.

1352
01:29:25,125 --> 01:29:27,125
[orchestra music playing]

1353
01:30:19,916 --> 01:30:22,208
It's the culmination of all his rage

1354
01:30:22,291 --> 01:30:25,375
and his madness
about the Second World War.

1355
01:30:25,625 --> 01:30:27,708
And it's the story of Katyn,

1356
01:30:27,791 --> 01:30:30,291
where thousands and thousands of Poles

1357
01:30:30,375 --> 01:30:33,916
got murdered in the forest of Katyn
by the Soviets.

1358
01:30:35,750 --> 01:30:38,958
Officers, doctors, lawyers,

1359
01:30:39,041 --> 01:30:41,041
all very highly-educated people.

1360
01:30:42,250 --> 01:30:44,541
Their arms were bound behind them.

1361
01:30:44,833 --> 01:30:47,083
They got a hammer to their head,

1362
01:30:47,166 --> 01:30:49,666
and then they were shot
in the back of the neck.

1363
01:30:54,041 --> 01:30:56,916
That's the most horrible thing for them,
of course,

1364
01:30:57,000 --> 01:30:59,166
but also for the Polish civilization.

1365
01:30:59,916 --> 01:31:02,250
To lose all their best people.

1366
01:31:09,083 --> 01:31:11,416
Szukalski was really,
really proud of this one.

1367
01:31:11,500 --> 01:31:15,166
I think it's the culmination
of his life's work.

1368
01:31:22,708 --> 01:31:24,166
[Robert] I had an art show.

1369
01:31:24,666 --> 01:31:26,750
My first one-man art show.

1370
01:31:27,541 --> 01:31:30,708
He had me get the attention
of everybody there,

1371
01:31:30,791 --> 01:31:33,875
and he lectured there, at my art show,
about him.

1372
01:31:35,125 --> 01:31:38,375
[Glenn] You can just tell
this guy was pent up to tell a story.

1373
01:31:39,708 --> 01:31:43,583
I went over one evening and I told him,
"Stas, you know, I have this camera.

1374
01:31:43,875 --> 01:31:47,666
What if we start filming you?
We can do the Zermatism tapes."

1375
01:31:49,000 --> 01:31:50,583
-[static crackles]
-[Szukalski] Okay.

1376
01:31:50,666 --> 01:31:53,166
[Glenn] Wait,
let me put the finishing touches...

1377
01:31:53,583 --> 01:31:54,708
There...

1378
01:31:55,083 --> 01:31:58,791
You-- you have to pretend
as if you meet me in the desert,

1379
01:31:58,875 --> 01:32:01,333
and I've never heard of Protong before.

1380
01:32:01,750 --> 01:32:03,750
Uh-huh, good.

1381
01:32:04,916 --> 01:32:07,083
This is November the 7th.

1382
01:32:07,166 --> 01:32:11,958
June 26th, September, January, May 9th,
December the 4th,

1383
01:32:12,041 --> 01:32:15,958
August 22nd 1958.

1384
01:32:16,083 --> 01:32:18,375
-[Glenn] '85.
-[laughing] '85? '85!

1385
01:32:19,125 --> 01:32:22,791
[Glenn] He was all for it.
No problem with camera on him or anything.

1386
01:32:22,958 --> 01:32:26,041
Here she is, a scientific miracle.

1387
01:32:26,416 --> 01:32:29,291
[Glenn] I'd shoot him a little bit,
and I'd plug it right into his TV,

1388
01:32:29,375 --> 01:32:33,416
and he'd look at himself,
and he'd go, "This-- This is interesting."

1389
01:32:34,333 --> 01:32:37,000
Sometimes once a week,
sometimes twice a week.

1390
01:32:37,083 --> 01:32:39,833
That went on for, I'd say,
at least five years.

1391
01:32:39,916 --> 01:32:41,416
[loud whirring]

1392
01:32:43,166 --> 01:32:46,958
This has all directions
and pulls this way, that way.

1393
01:32:47,041 --> 01:32:48,416
[Glenn] This side or this side?

1394
01:32:48,833 --> 01:32:50,791
I knew I wasn't making 'em for me.

1395
01:32:52,125 --> 01:32:54,958
I knew somewhere,
somebody would find these tapes,

1396
01:32:55,041 --> 01:32:57,375
and they'd see what was on there,
and make something out of it.

1397
01:32:57,458 --> 01:32:58,750
I-- I knew that.

1398
01:32:59,041 --> 01:33:01,250
[Szukalski] I cannot read this either,
so...

1399
01:33:01,791 --> 01:33:04,333
-[Glenn] Blue Mesa.
-[Szukalski] Oh, Blue Mesa!

1400
01:33:04,708 --> 01:33:06,416
[Glenn] I-- I saw the frailties.

1401
01:33:07,000 --> 01:33:10,583
I saw things that totally made him human.

1402
01:33:11,041 --> 01:33:13,333
I think it really increased his life

1403
01:33:13,416 --> 01:33:16,958
by years, I think,
because he looked forward to that.

1404
01:33:22,916 --> 01:33:25,333
We're just sitting around,
talking in his living room,

1405
01:33:25,750 --> 01:33:27,791
and he looks at me and says,
"The picture."

1406
01:33:27,875 --> 01:33:31,166
I say, "What picture? What? Picture?
Want to go to the movies?

1407
01:33:31,291 --> 01:33:33,791
What pic--"
He says, "I give you the picture."

1408
01:33:36,375 --> 01:33:40,000
[Szukalski] I wish I could have the camera
and introduce

1409
01:33:40,083 --> 01:33:44,250
my friend, who makes these pictures,
Glenn Bray.

1410
01:33:44,583 --> 01:33:48,625
They are so good pictures
that it's worthwhile braying about.

1411
01:33:53,250 --> 01:33:56,333
Only a month later, maybe, I got a call.

1412
01:33:56,416 --> 01:33:58,916
He's in the hospital.
This time, it's bad.

1413
01:34:04,625 --> 01:34:06,750
They said,
"Well, you know, he's paralyzed."

1414
01:34:06,833 --> 01:34:10,000
He-- He's laying in bed,
and he sees us, and he recognizes us,

1415
01:34:10,083 --> 01:34:11,958
but half-- He's half-paralyzed.

1416
01:34:12,041 --> 01:34:14,541
One hand can move,
and he can blink his eyes,

1417
01:34:14,625 --> 01:34:16,000
but he can't talk.

1418
01:34:16,083 --> 01:34:18,625
When he found out that he--
that he couldn't move anymore

1419
01:34:18,708 --> 01:34:20,000
after his stroke,

1420
01:34:20,416 --> 01:34:23,125
he knew he would never be able
to work anymore,

1421
01:34:23,208 --> 01:34:25,000
and work was his life.

1422
01:34:25,083 --> 01:34:26,583
So he just stopped eating.

1423
01:34:27,083 --> 01:34:28,500
He refused to eat.

1424
01:34:31,041 --> 01:34:33,875
Not good, and, uh, his eyes were closed.

1425
01:34:37,041 --> 01:34:39,041
[inhales sharply]

1426
01:34:41,333 --> 01:34:42,791
[clicks tongue, sighs]

1427
01:34:44,916 --> 01:34:46,166
Then he just reached--

1428
01:34:51,541 --> 01:34:53,000
He reached and grabbed me.

1429
01:34:54,333 --> 01:34:55,875
And he grabbed me so hard!

1430
01:35:00,333 --> 01:35:02,583
I had to just, you know,
take his hand off me.

1431
01:35:02,666 --> 01:35:04,000
[sniffles]

1432
01:35:06,250 --> 01:35:07,958
[Lena] He died when he was 93.

1433
01:35:09,833 --> 01:35:14,375
I didn't like to see him go,
but Glenn was very distraught.

1434
01:35:15,875 --> 01:35:19,375
He lost a very, very close friend,
and, I thought...

1435
01:35:19,958 --> 01:35:23,375
it's almost, to Glenn,
as if he lost his father.

1436
01:35:35,750 --> 01:35:37,708
[Glenn] So I had his keys
to his apartment,

1437
01:35:37,791 --> 01:35:40,208
and I go over there, open up the door,

1438
01:35:40,541 --> 01:35:43,208
and I see right where he'd fallen.

1439
01:35:44,125 --> 01:35:45,291
And he'd fa--

1440
01:35:45,416 --> 01:35:48,333
When he had a stroke,
he fell against a glass frame,

1441
01:35:49,250 --> 01:35:52,000
and it shattered, and he cut himself.

1442
01:35:52,125 --> 01:35:54,875
And there was blood all over
this little section,

1443
01:35:55,208 --> 01:35:58,583
and I looked down,
and there's this postcard of Copernicus.

1444
01:36:01,708 --> 01:36:03,708
[crying softly]

1445
01:36:05,750 --> 01:36:07,666
So this is the image that...

1446
01:36:10,750 --> 01:36:13,791
This is the image that brought us together
and took us apart.

1447
01:37:37,166 --> 01:37:39,041
[Robert] Stas just carried on about

1448
01:37:39,125 --> 01:37:41,208
the center of the universe
was Easter Island.

1449
01:37:42,250 --> 01:37:44,916
So, we were off to go there.

1450
01:37:45,000 --> 01:37:46,166
[Glenn laughs]

1451
01:37:46,250 --> 01:37:49,791
[Robert] Me and Suzanne,
Rick Griffin and his girlfriend,

1452
01:37:49,875 --> 01:37:51,500
um, and Glenn and Lena.

1453
01:37:58,833 --> 01:38:00,833
-[crickets chirping]
-[man] Okay.

1454
01:38:01,333 --> 01:38:03,250
It's a beautiful day on Easter Island.

1455
01:38:03,791 --> 01:38:06,750
I'm here with some friends.
There's six of us here...

1456
01:38:07,166 --> 01:38:12,750
to pay homage to Joan Donovan Szukalski
and Stanislaw Szukalski.

1457
01:38:13,458 --> 01:38:14,541
[chuckles]

1458
01:38:16,833 --> 01:38:19,000
[Robert] They had a big thing of ashes.

1459
01:38:20,333 --> 01:38:23,333
It looked like a kilo full of cocaine.

1460
01:38:36,041 --> 01:38:38,291
-[Suzanne] It's a tooth.
-[Glenn] Throw it.

1461
01:38:44,250 --> 01:38:48,875
Stas and Joan, may you rest in peace.
We love you.

1462
01:38:48,958 --> 01:38:50,750
-Adios!
-[Suzanne chuckles]

1463
01:38:52,958 --> 01:38:54,416
Goodbye.

1464
01:38:55,333 --> 01:38:57,333
[birds chirping]

1465
01:39:06,166 --> 01:39:08,833
Is this bill collectors? [chuckles]

1466
01:39:09,333 --> 01:39:12,291
Come in, I have something
very important to tell you.

1467
01:39:13,125 --> 01:39:15,875
Uh... In fact, about history.

1468
01:39:19,416 --> 01:39:21,416
[lively orchestra music playing]