WEBVTT

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Parents seem permanent.

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They’re like continents.

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They have been there forever

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and they\'re going to be there forever.

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Maybe a little bit softer

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with the erosion of the wind,

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but always there.

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And when they die,

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it seems inconceivable.

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And I\'ve always lived with
death and disappearance.

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You vanish and it\'s as
though you were never there.

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When you leave the room,

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you\'re gone.

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Oh, Fred it’s you.

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I’ve asked you repeatedly

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to consider our family
affairs confidential.

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I heard someone too.

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It was you Ulrich.

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It wasn’t, I was over there near Mr.
Morton.

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You went for that knife.

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I didn’t I tell you, I didn’t.

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You lie!

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I didn’t!

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Gentleman please!

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When you think of Americans in the 1950’s,

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my dad is the person you think of.

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What?

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Must request no one enter

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except police at present.

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Yes, but you can’t stop me.

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He was this tall handsome guy
who just got stuff done.

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He had such an extraordinary life.

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Nightclub singer,

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film actor, theater actor,

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in the war.

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He met my mom in Morocco

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during the torch landings when
they liberated Morocco from the

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two or three Nazis who were
sitting around smoking hash.

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He never asked my mom to marry him.

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They were at a garden party

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at the US embassy in
Paris in the early 50s.

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He introduced her as his fiance

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and that was his way
saying you\'re marrying me.

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He didn\'t ask he just said, \"this
is my fiance\" and she was like,

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\"oh I guess we\'re getting engaged then.”

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The thing that I remember
throughout my whole life was

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my father telling me how lucky he was

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to have been married to my mom.

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And to have found her.

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And then just this feeling of

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they were kind of in it together.

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When I was a kid my dad
would be in his study

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and he\'d be drawing or
painting whatever it is,

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listening to opera.

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And then he\'d come into the kitchen

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he\'d just sort of whisk
her around the kitchen

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a couple times and then go back in

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and start singing and painting again.

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It seemed to me that it was very beautiful

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and really respectful.

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My mom was always so open and curious.

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She was just sort of interested in stuff.

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She was so OCD it\'s kind of insane.

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Everything is labeled,
everything is arranged.

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There were boxes

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with broken rubber bands in them

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to be used for some unknown
purposes, at some later date

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like, who stores that?

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And they would say, you
know, broken elastic bands.

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I mean it was incredible.

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She was an international lawyer.

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She worked for Amnesty for awhile.

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But I have a feeling

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after my sister died I think
she pretty much focused on me.

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The last memory I have of that period is

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the police coming to the
door and telling me

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and talking to my parents.

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I don\'t have any recollection for the next

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two or three years after that.

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She was staying the night at a
friend’s house and there was a fire

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and she died of smoke inhalation.

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She was nine.

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And I\'ve always lived with,
the things that she left.

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Her books and her toys
and the memory of her.

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The shadow of her.

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I’m amazed that my parents managed
to keep going on together

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and the strength that it took.

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And for me, I guess my life
just radically changed.

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The thing I found as a kid
growing up that was unbearable

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was that all the attention was on me.

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When I sat down at the dinner
table everything was about me.

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What was I doing? How was I doing?
Who were my friends?

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I think they just felt the
need to be so involved

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because all the sudden
there was just one of us.

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My parents wanted to make my life
as filled with beauty as possible.

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To shield me from all the
ugliness and the imperfection.

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And that desire to sort of

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make everything perfect
for me made me crazy.

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I resented interference.

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And I always just did stuff like
I got thrown out of school.

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All my report cards say
exactly the same thing.

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Phillip insists on playing
the court jester.

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My math teacher wrote,

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“I see Phillip squinting at
me from the back of the class

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and I fear he will sink without a trace.”

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I just wanted to be my own person.

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I think about the memory

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that my mother must have
had as me as a baby

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and the way I must have
looked at her with joy.

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And then to have that memory
in her mind when I was

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17 and just being a mean,
ungrateful, selfish kid.

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That memory must fill you
with sadness in some ways.

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I was so happy that my mom was there

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to see me get married to Carla.

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I was so single for so many years,

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my parents kind of despaired
that I would ever get married.

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I was feeling really happy that day.

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I got a call from my dad.

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Your mom is asleep and she won\'t wake up.

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I remember thinking something
was terribly wrong.

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I just fucking, I just ran.

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I just raced, driving up the FDR.

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I get to my dad’s place.

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My dad is freaking out.

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My mom is unconscious on her bed.

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She\'s had a huge aneurysm.

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We go to the hospital.

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They tell me to take off my mom’s ring.

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Her fingers are going to swell up
and they are cut it off her so

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I take it off and I put it in my pocket
and its the ring I\'m wearing now.

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She\'s in a coma for three days.

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I\'m there pretty much everyday.

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The doctor said there\'s
nothing more we can do

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and you\'re going to have
to turn off the machines.

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And then I uh,

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and then I switched off the machines.

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And that was it.

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I brought my dad to see her.

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And that was, he was, he was terrified,

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he didn\'t know what was happening.

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I guess this was the first inclination

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of the state of my father’s mind.

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We were walking back from seeing my mom

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and he was so distraught,

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and so confused.

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And then these two little
girls maybe four or five

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came out of a room like barreling
out of some room laughing

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and he just

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switched off.

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He was laughing and full
of joy at these kids

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and it was like

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what he\'d just seen was just gone.

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And I thought wow that\'s,
that\'s surprising.

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I think my mom died because

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the stress of taking care
of my father was enormous.

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It was unbearable for her.

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Her brain literally
exploded under the pressure

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of taking care of a man who was 96,

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who had dementia, who was subject
to being really angry and

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unreasonable.

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And that was too much
for a woman who was 79.

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If I had known all that stuff I just,
I just didn\'t see it, I just...

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When I would go and have
dinner with my parents

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I\'d have to repeat myself or
my dad would forget stuff

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and I\'d just be irritated.

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I\'d just go, you know what, so annoying.

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Why did I have to repeat myself?
I didn\'t see it.

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And I wish I had seen it.

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When my mom died I found myself

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with a 96-year-old man in my care.

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I was in charge of his life and
I had to make it OK for him.

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Phillip that’s fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic.

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You know what this is daddy?

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You know what this is? It’s a video camera.

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So you can ask me questions,
and I’ll ask you questions.

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Shut it off.

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Alright.

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When I opened the door I\'d know immediately

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what kind of mood he was in.

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He\'d be just sitting there like this,

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you know, in his green chair
just scowling, glowering.

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I\'d sit down and I\'d go, you
know what I did yesterday?

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\"What did you do?\"

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I just shot some photographs
for the New York Times.

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\"No. That\'s amazing!\"

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“My son is a genius.

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I gotta get 20 copies so
I can show my friends.\"

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I\'d make it up sometimes.

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I’d say,

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I just shot a big ad campaign.

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How much do you think I was paid?

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And he\'d go,

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\"Fifty dollars.\"

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And I\'d go, well it\'s a bit more than that.
And he\'d go,

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\"A thousand dollars.\" And that was like,

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that was an insane amount of
money for my dad. And I\'d go,

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Two hundred thousand dollars. And
he\'d go, “No! That\'s ridiculous.”

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Like it was just inconceivable.

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I don\'t remember him being
funny when I was a kid.

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But when my mom died he
was released in some way

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and became the person he might
have been when he was younger.

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He found fat people hilarious.

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He’d see a fat person in the
park and he\'d go like this.

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And he would always say it
in a super loud whisper

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that he thought no one could
hear, but everyone could hear.

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He\'d always go, \"Phillip, Phillip,\"
and then he\'d go like this.

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Which was his signal for fat people.
He\'d go, like that.

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And then, I put the
meringues on his sweater.

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And he was like, “Look I have titties!”

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And then about a minute later

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he’d go, “OK, OK, take ‘em off.”
He didn\'t want to do it himself.

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You know so I felt like
he’d sort of catch himself.

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Because he’d sort of want to be dad again.

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Every five minutes, or every half hour,

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it depended what kind of mood he was in,

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he\'d ask me, “Where’s your mother?”

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And I’d say well...

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Remember I took you to the funeral,
and we went to the hospital

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and he just looked at me aghast.

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What are you talking about?

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When did this happen?

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Just his face just folded
into into itself with horror.

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And then I’d say Dad,

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you know, I just, you were
there, we saw this together.

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And then he would just
you know go quiet and

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a few minutes would pass and
he\'d go, “Where\'s your mother?”

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Every five minutes this was happening

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and it was insane.

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It was new every time.

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He suddenly discovered his wife was dead.

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I just got so mad at him
for not remembering

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because it was so painful for me.

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And yeah, and I got to this
point where I thought, I can\'t,

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I can’t live like this and I don’t

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I can\'t put my dad through
this all the time.

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So I just decided to make up some
story about where my mom was.

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And I decided well ok, she\'s got a
brother in Paris that my mother,

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my dad knows about I\'ll just
say that\'s where she\'s gone

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to take care of him.

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And it became a game after awhile.

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I\'d say she\'s running an
incredibly successful flea circus.

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Very famous. And then I\'d
act out the flea circus.

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I\'d do the trapeze act. I\'d
do the, you know, the lion.

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I mean it wasn\'t even a flea circus.

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I was doing like a regular circus,
but it didn\'t really matter.

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Or he\'d say, \"What’s she doing there?

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You know, does she have another boyfriend?\"

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And I\'d go no Dad she just loves you.

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And it made it OK.

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It was harder for me in some
ways to live with the lie.

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He\'d say, \"Your mom is
such a wonderful person

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and I\'m so lucky.\"

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And then I\'d say you know what she is,

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she\'s amazing and I\'m so, and I can\'t
wait till she gets back from Paris.

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And it\'s so hard to talk about,
to talk about your mother

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like she\'s alive when you know she\'s not.

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And I would go into the
bathroom and I\'d, you know,

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I’d just start sobbing.

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I was trying to make a
perfect world for him,

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much the way they did for me.

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I became his father in a way.

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I became the protector.

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My job as his son was to make
whatever time he had left

00:17:33.250 --> 00:17:36.291
as full of joy and as full
of beauty as possible.

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And so whatever that took.

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It\'s a burden you have to assume

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and it\'s a weight you have to carry,

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but it\'s so worth it.

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Sometimes we\'d sit there and
we\'d have naps together.

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Both in our respective green chairs.

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And that also was lovely.

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And then sometimes we\'d
read the paper together.

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Those were really specific moments when,

00:18:10.709 --> 00:18:14.208
it was like my mom had just
nipped out to the shops

00:18:14.209 --> 00:18:19.626
and I was just having a chat
with my dad and it was all fine.

00:18:23.459 --> 00:18:26.875
There\'s a film that he was in
called Charlie Chan\'s Secret

00:18:26.876 --> 00:18:28.459
and he plays the murderer.

00:18:29.709 --> 00:18:34.166
I found a copy of that on DVD
and we watched it together.

00:18:34.167 --> 00:18:36.375
He hadn’t seen it since the thirties.

00:18:36.376 --> 00:18:40.541
To see him alive and

00:18:40.542 --> 00:18:42.999
handsome and vigorous.

00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:44.416
Are we going to the other room?

00:18:44.417 --> 00:18:45.791
His voice clear.

00:18:45.792 --> 00:18:47.499
Perhaps Mr. Chan would rather wait here.

00:18:47.500 --> 00:18:49.416
He may not be interested in a seance.

00:18:49.417 --> 00:18:50.999
I am sure he will be.

00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:53.458
And his movements strong.

00:18:53.459 --> 00:18:55.791
I know this place inside and out.

00:18:55.792 --> 00:18:57.875
It’s a regular honeycomb
of passages that start

00:18:57.876 --> 00:19:00.124
everywhere and end nowhere.

00:19:00.125 --> 00:19:02.875
The idea of me and my mother and my sister

00:19:02.876 --> 00:19:05.374
all just unknown before him.

00:19:05.375 --> 00:19:08.374
All these things that I\'d never
sort of connected to my father.

00:19:08.375 --> 00:19:09.438
Shall we go?

00:19:09.439 --> 00:19:17.439
You kind of have a sense of

00:19:22.959 --> 00:19:27.375
where things started and where you are now.

00:19:29.250 --> 00:19:33.666
When my mom died he just
aged exponentially.

00:19:33.667 --> 00:19:38.459
He looked in the mirror and
he was totally horrified.

00:19:38.460 --> 00:19:43.750
For the last year or so

00:19:43.751 --> 00:19:47.291
he used to frequently talk about
the idea of wanting to die.

00:19:47.292 --> 00:19:51.499
He just knew what the situation
was and he\'d had enough.

00:19:51.500 --> 00:19:54.249
I\'d get really upset.

00:19:54.250 --> 00:19:56.958
But at the same time, I totally understood.

00:19:56.959 --> 00:19:59.916
I also wanted him to die.

00:19:59.917 --> 00:20:06.708
It was really odd having that
feeling in my mind, in my heart.

00:20:06.709 --> 00:20:10.916
And part of me used to think,

00:20:10.917 --> 00:20:14.124
part me used to think about
the idea of killing him.

00:20:14.125 --> 00:20:18.708
Like just putting a pillow
over his head and just...

00:20:18.709 --> 00:20:21.875
And it was such a crazy
thing to think about.

00:20:21.876 --> 00:20:23.916
Because I loved him so much
and I didn\'t want him to go

00:20:23.917 --> 00:20:26.458
but on the other hand I knew
he didn\'t want to be here.

00:20:26.459 --> 00:20:27.708
I knew he just had nothing.

00:20:27.709 --> 00:20:28.916
There was nothing for him anymore.

00:20:28.917 --> 00:20:31.291
I mean my mom was his whole life.

00:20:31.292 --> 00:20:35.999
He lived in this twilight world of

00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.958
no time or season or month.

00:20:39.959 --> 00:20:46.124
If he\'d been able to press a button
and shuffle off without pain,

00:20:46.125 --> 00:20:48.750
I would have given it to him.

00:20:48.751 --> 00:20:53.499
But at the same time I wouldn\'t
have wanted him to go.

00:20:53.500 --> 00:20:57.541
Because he\'s my dad, he\'s the
only person in the entire world

00:20:57.542 --> 00:20:59.875
that I had left.

00:20:59.876 --> 00:21:03.542
I mean, I have my family, but
it’s not the same as my family.

00:21:25.209 --> 00:21:28.833
The beginning and the end
of everything just started

00:21:28.834 --> 00:21:33.999
with these crazy kind of panicked journeys.

00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:38.708
I remember just running to the
airport, running to the plane.

00:21:38.709 --> 00:21:44.958
I get there and he\'s not
really saying anything.

00:21:44.959 --> 00:21:47.829
He was always the person who was so

00:21:47.830 --> 00:21:52.875
alive, he was so vibrant.

00:21:52.876 --> 00:21:57.208
Everything was interesting.

00:21:57.209 --> 00:22:01.875
And then to see him so
still was so strange.

00:22:01.876 --> 00:22:06.875
I just spent the whole night with him.

00:22:06.876 --> 00:22:10.999
Holding his hand.

00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:15.666
And then he just,

00:22:15.667 --> 00:22:20.626
he just died in the morning,
he just stopped breathing.

00:23:28.420 --> 00:23:33.829
I always sort of saw myself as
this little spinning asteroid

00:23:33.830 --> 00:23:35.208
drifting through space.

00:23:35.209 --> 00:23:39.833
Not with any particular goal in mind,

00:23:39.834 --> 00:23:42.792
just sort of doing the
things I\'m trying to do.

00:23:46.830 --> 00:23:49.249
And every now and then I\'m
pulled in by the orbit

00:23:49.250 --> 00:23:53.666
of a much larger body.

00:23:53.667 --> 00:23:57.829
But I was pretty pleased
about Carla being pregnant.

00:23:57.830 --> 00:24:02.750
Mostly cause it seemed to say that
I had fully functioning balls.

00:24:02.751 --> 00:24:05.419
Well no, I was also, I was
pleased that there was a kid.

00:24:05.420 --> 00:24:08.250
And I was actually very pleased
that it was a girl too.

00:24:09.917 --> 00:24:14.583
As they pull Loulou out, the
sun is coming up into the room

00:24:14.584 --> 00:24:17.166
and it\'s just flooding the whole room.

00:24:17.167 --> 00:24:20.791
My first words are, holy
shit, she\'s enormous!

00:24:20.792 --> 00:24:22.999
Because they pull her out
like a prize haddock

00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:27.419
or something by her feet
and she is just giant.

00:24:27.420 --> 00:24:32.208
I just felt like, well this is weird.

00:24:32.209 --> 00:24:33.917
I have a kid!

00:24:47.751 --> 00:24:52.374
It was like trying to have a
love affair with an amoeba.

00:24:52.375 --> 00:24:56.958
There\'s a lot of shit.
There\'s a lot of crying.

00:24:56.959 --> 00:25:01.584
And the screaming was just apocalyptic.

00:25:04.917 --> 00:25:09.666
It was like dealing with
unexploded ordinance.

00:25:09.667 --> 00:25:12.124
You, you just, you know, you
put it down really delicately

00:25:12.125 --> 00:25:14.249
and then all the sudden
AAAAAHHH the air raid siren

00:25:14.250 --> 00:25:17.249
just cranks up and you\'re like
shit what did I do you know?

00:25:17.250 --> 00:25:18.499
And you\'re trying to defuse it.

00:25:18.500 --> 00:25:20.249
Green wire, red wire, which one do I cut?

00:25:20.250 --> 00:25:22.999
And you\'re freaking out. Is it milk?
Is it the nappy?

00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:24.750
Is it she shat herself? I mean.

00:25:24.751 --> 00:25:26.666
You\'re trying to figure
out all these things and

00:25:26.667 --> 00:25:28.916
it\'s none of those things or
all of them or one of them or

00:25:28.917 --> 00:25:30.709
you don\'t know any of that stuff.

00:25:35.751 --> 00:25:40.166
I was really surprised by how
much I thought about my parents,

00:25:40.167 --> 00:25:41.374
when Loulou was born.

00:25:41.375 --> 00:25:45.291
My dad was always so healthy and fit.

00:25:45.292 --> 00:25:48.420
He never seemed like an old man.

00:25:50.542 --> 00:25:54.458
And I wonder how I\'ll be
if I\'ll be as limber or as

00:25:54.459 --> 00:25:58.626
youthful as he seemed to be
in my mind, when I was a kid.

00:26:08.334 --> 00:26:10.666
When I think about my mother

00:26:10.667 --> 00:26:12.625
and I think about
everything that she told me

00:26:12.626 --> 00:26:15.959
I realize that she was right
about pretty much everything.

00:26:19.830 --> 00:26:22.416
And I also think about
having this image in my mind

00:26:22.417 --> 00:26:26.829
of Loulou as this beautiful,
lovely, sweet baby

00:26:26.830 --> 00:26:30.419
and when she\'s an enraged
teen and nothing I do is cool

00:26:30.420 --> 00:26:33.124
and everything I do is stupid.

00:26:33.125 --> 00:26:38.166
I take great joy in the idea
that there\'s part of my mom

00:26:38.167 --> 00:26:41.499
or part of my father
that\'s continuing in her.

00:26:41.500 --> 00:26:44.625
Maybe that\'s my moms hair
because it\'s a little bit curly

00:26:44.626 --> 00:26:46.291
or that kind of thing.

00:26:46.292 --> 00:26:49.999
My father, when he\'d eat apples,
he\'d always take the sticker

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.791
off the apple and he\'d put it on his hand.

00:26:52.792 --> 00:26:54.416
So I started doing it.

00:26:54.417 --> 00:26:57.333
And then Loulou saw me doing
it and now she does it.

00:26:57.334 --> 00:27:01.166
It\'s such a small thing
but it\'s this peculiar

00:27:01.167 --> 00:27:05.166
transmission of a Toledano
idiosyncrasy through generations.

00:27:05.167 --> 00:27:07.375
And I love seeing that.

00:27:12.334 --> 00:27:15.208
I don\'t know how you start
talking to your child

00:27:15.209 --> 00:27:17.209
about people who aren\'t there anymore.

00:27:22.375 --> 00:27:27.419
I think it just comes
out in stories, right?

00:27:27.420 --> 00:27:29.416
She\'ll do something or she\'ll
remind me of something

00:27:29.417 --> 00:27:31.374
or I\'ll be reminded of something

00:27:31.375 --> 00:27:33.958
and then I\'ll say oh yeah,
you know, your grandmother,

00:27:33.959 --> 00:27:36.751
my mother, used to do this or that or...

00:27:41.626 --> 00:27:43.228
I hope she\'s curious.

00:27:43.229 --> 00:27:51.229
I\'m so clearly conscious of
everything that they gave me now.

00:27:51.417 --> 00:27:56.291
Now that they\'re gone their shadow remains.

00:27:56.292 --> 00:28:02.958
I see what a strong and
lengthy shadow that is.

00:28:02.959 --> 00:28:07.875
And how that colors and
changes my whole life.

00:28:07.876 --> 00:28:12.875
You see yourself clearly,
when your parents die.

00:28:12.876 --> 00:28:16.374
You’re silhouetted on the hill top.

00:28:16.375 --> 00:28:20.917
Whatever that means, you know, it’s clear.