Who is Vincent delpino?
Not an easy question to answer.
A lover of literature...
Aw!
A man of letters...
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
A friend to the environment...
And a devoted son.
Who is Vincent delpino?
A complex man,
a simple man,
a renaissance man.
Well?
What exactly was the assignment?
Make a video essay titled who am I?
I assumed it was obvious.
Come on, what'd you think?
People, please. We're family here.
I respect your opinions, good or bad.
As an artist, I have a tough skin
in the face of criticism,
so speak freely and hold nothing back.
I found it very superficial.
I felt it was trite and clichéd.
Who is that family?
You people are vicious.
Vin, you asked for honesty.
No, I asked for opinions,
not to have my heart ripped out.
What right do you have to judge me
with your shallow, middle-class tastes?
I wouldn't show you another film
if you kneeled down and begged me!
This...
Is unforgivable!
He was moaning on the stairs.
I couldn't just leave him.
I got other tenants. Should they step over him?
You did the right thing.
Mr. wernick, is there family you'd like us to contact?
He's got nobody. He lives alone.
The doctor should be here any minute.
The president of czechoslovakia, 1919.
Excuse me?
His name.
The czechoslovakian president.
Uh, I have no idea.
Come on, come on. Think.
He's always doing this.
Damn it. It's on the tip of my tongue.
The president of czechoslovakia, 1919.
Ooh, the first president of the country!
Tomas masaryk.
Masaryk. Yeah.
A handsome man with a big, full beard.
He was also a philosophy professor.
Yeah. Very good.
Smart kid. What do you do here?
Well, actually, I'm a doctor.
So what seems to be the problem, Mr... Wernick?
Oh, call me Max, please.
Uh, I feel like crap.
He's complaining of abdominal pains
and diarrhea for 48 hours.
Not so loud.
Uh, Max, tell me what you've eaten the past few days.
Oh! Uh, tuna fish.
Anything else?
No. Just tuna fish.
I like tuna fish.
You may just have mild gastroenteritis,
but to be safe, I'd like to keep you overnight,
make sure nothing's wrong with your gall bladder or pancreas, o.K.?
No. Forget it. I don't like hospitals. People die there.
Rudy, take me home.
Too bad. We're having a nice tuna casserole for dinner.
One night.
That's it.
I've got 5 minutes. The E.R.'s a zoo.
What's the problem?
I don't know. He keeps insisting on seeing you.
Hi, Max. How you doing?
The fighter that beat dempsey for the championship.
What the hell is his name?
Gene tunney.
Yeah, that's it! Gene tunney!
I knew you would know it. Gene tunney.
They called him the fighting marine.
You should've seen that guy. Boy, what a jab.
Max, I'm very busy right now.
You have mild food poisoning, you're a little dehydrated,
you'll be better in the morning.
If you have any more questions, write them down.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Good night, Max.
Good night, kid.
What a fighter dunney was.
He and dempsey...
Come on, Mrs. h,
look deep into your soul,
and in your own words,
describe Vincent delpino.
It's all right. Take your time. I'll wait.
I think Vinnie is...
A talented and...
Charming young man.
Hmm. Charming. I see.
Uh, charming as in fun to have around
or if only I was 20 years younger and single?
O.K., Dr. h...
All right, all right, I'll turn it off.
The assignment's not who wethink you are,
it's who you think you are.
I'm getting an "f," and you're talking semantics.
Maybe you'd know what your film should be about
if you'd just take an honest look at yourself.
Good and bad.
I think you're on to something, Mrs. h.
There's a dark, tragic side to Vincent delpino.
It's high time I started facing it.
Would you like to stay for dessert?
Katherine, it's better he face his dark side
on an empty stomach.
So true, Dr. h.
Doog, I'll see ya.
Bye, vin.
Hello?
Is he there? Let me talk.
Wait! Doog, I'm sorry to bother...
Ask him... field marshal something, the battle of the bulge.
Ray, has the doctor on call seen him?
10 minutes ago.
Two minutes later, he's wandering about looking for you.
He wouldn't calm down unless...
An English guy!
Doog, I got a situation here.
O.K., put him on.
Uh, the English field marshal, what's his name?
Max, it's inappropriate to call me at home.
I can't sleep! His name!
Battle of the bulge.
O.K., Max, o.K.
Um... It's field marshal Montgomery,
right?
Yeah.
That's it.
Montgomery. That's the one.
Great.
The, uh...
Battle of the bulge...
1944.
Oh, uh...
Thanks a lot, Douglas.
You bet, Max. Try and sleep now, o.K.?
O.K.
Good night.
What was all that about?
This morning I admitted an 82-year-old man with gastroenteritis.
All day long, he's asked these off-the-wall questions.
He's obsessed with getting answers.
I'm beginning to suspect something more might be wrong.
Could be organic brain disease.
What about Alzheimer's?
Yeah. That's possible.
Or a tumor or an arterial obstruction.
Or it may just be old age.
I'm going to order some neuro-radiological tests for the morning.
That way, we'll know for sure.
So you're saying there's nothing wrong with me?
Your tests were negative. You had a clean mri.
No sign of obstruction in your carotid arteries.
You are in perfect health.
Uhh...
What's the matter?
I can't remember things.
You're 82, Max.
Experiencing memory loss is entirely normal.
Come on, this is good news.
You're in great shape.
We should all be so lucky at your age.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. howser!
Douglas!
Can I help you, sir?
Hey, kid!
I don't have time for this.
Kid! Kid!
Max, you can't do this.
He started a dance studio, Murray something...
Max, I have a patient.
The everyone-can-learn to-dance guy...
Max! Go back to your room.
I'm not answering your questions now.
Ray. Get...
Wait. Stay away!
Whoa!
You o.K.?
You got to help me.
What's his name?
I got to remember his name.
Take over.
Please...
O.K., o.K.
What's his name?
Arthur Murray.
Yeah.
It's all right.
Arthur Murray.
Come on.
Yeah.
It's all right.
Arthur Murray.
Yeah.
Have a seat.
Ohh...
You're o.K. You're o.K. Yeah.
Just try to relax. Arthur Murray...
I know you think you were doing the right thing,
but telling an 82-year-old man
his memory loss is normal is no comfort.
Towel, please.
Shouldn't he at least try to accept it?
It's a natural part of getting old.
I realize it's hard to understand.
I didn't fully understand it myself
until I lived through it with my mother.
For someone Max's age,
his life has become a series of losses...
Of family, friends.
His memories are the last connection he has to his life.
I just thought knowing there's nothing physically wrong
would make forgetting less stressful.
Of course you would.
You're 18. Life is ahead of you.
Your physical well-being is everything,
but Max's life is behind him.
His memories are all he has left.
To him...
Forgetting is like dying.
So there's nothing I can do for him?
You know, Douglas...
There's an old saying.
A doctor is both mechanic and priest.
When you can't cure the body,
try to heal the soul.
Like the tiny ant,
Vincent delpino bears the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Like his insect brothers and sisters,
his work goes painfully unnoticed and unappreciated.
What do you think?
It's like a bad Jacques cousteau film.
Ze teeny filmmaker
struggles to complete 'is assignment,
but alas,
he fails.
What do you mean, fails?
This film is the symbolic representation of me as an artist,
as a human being in an epic battle
with the forces of my own existence.
Oh, my god! Even I don't believe that.
O.K. Fine. I have no idea who I am.
To hell with this assignment. I give up.
So get off my back.
I knew this would happen.
What would?
Whenever things get tough, you want to quit.
Get out of here. Like when?
From as far back as I can remember.
Our first lemonade stand.
What are you talking about?
Never happened.
O.K., I'll prove it to you. Come here.
Here we go.
It was, um...
June 11th...
1981.
Right there.
Well...
"When nobody showed up the first hour, Vinnie wanted to quit."
I would've never remembered that.
Now do you believe me?
Yeah. This thing's incredible.
I mean, look at all this.
O.K., party's over.
It's unbelievable, doog.
It's like having your own electronic scrapbook.
Ever forget anything... Wham!
One push of a button, and there's your whole life
right at your fingertips.
Yeah, I guess it is.
Here you are. Just lock up when you leave.
Um... So, Max is o.K.?
Yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot, Mr. santoro.
We left czechoslovakia when I was 10 years old.
Hmm. Look at you, Max.
I was a little younger then.
Do you remember this day?
Oh, it was cold.
This... this was when you came to America.
No, when we left czechoslovakia.
My grandmother couldn't come. She was too old.
She stayed back in Prague.
It was hard for my mother to leave her,
but my father was determined to start a new life.
You couldn't change his mind. No way.
It was 1919.
Masaryk was president.
Yeah. You know, my father was a carpenter,
and he made a canopy bed for him.
And my brother and I...
We helped deliver it.
And I met him.
Oh, I was so nervous.
I was shaking.
You know...
You could hardly... See his mouth.
He had such a full beard.
Now, Max, what's the story with these medals?
You fought in world war ii?
Oh, no. Those are my son's.
He was a captain with the 21st.
He fought, uh, at the battle of the bulge
with, uh...
Uh, um...
Oh, it wa...
Montgomery.
Yeah.
Yeah, the battle of the bulge.
That's when he was killed.
He was about your age.
Do you have any other children?
No.
It's hard to see all the people you love disappear.
I guess forgetting is like losing them all over again.
I like having these things here.
Good, good.
I thought it would help you remember
when no one was here to answer your questions.
Max...
Whois this lovely lady?
Oh, that, my friend, is Elizabeth.
What a beauty.
What she ever saw in me...
Whatever it was, we were married for 47 years.
She was a dance instructor.
The first time I laid eyes on her,
I signed up for...
Six months of classes.
Oh, I learned to rumba, to tango,
to cha-cha.
2 1/2 months after that, we were married.
Looks like you were a pretty good dancer yourself.
Are you kidding?
I had some pretty fancy moves when I was young.
O.K., time for your medication.
Feeling better, Mr. wernick?
So after thinking about my friend's journal,
it dawned on me that just like everyone else,
I am my memories.
Every experience in my life
has shaped who I am,
and I was thinking
that one particular memory stands out.
I was around 5, playing in my room.
My parents were downstairs having one of their worst fights ever.
It was the first time they used words like separation and divorce.
They thought I couldn't hear, but I did.
I was pretty scared.
They tried to pretend everything was o.K.,
so that night, we all went to the movies.
The movie was pretty good...
Funny, sad,
kind of touching, actually...
Though you wouldn't know itfrom my folks.
They wouldn't even look at each other.
Then an amazing thing happened.
My parents started getting sucked into the story.
I mean, they tried fighting it,
but the movie grabbed their emotions and wouldn't let go.
And in the end,
that's what brought them together.
The floor was sticky,
the popcorn was stale,
and I had a jujube stuck in my teeth for a week,
but the memory of that night,
sitting in the dark with my parents,
defines who I am today...
A filmmaker.
Because it was at that moment
I fell in love with the movies.
Well?
I loved it.
Very nice, Vincent.
Really terrific, vin.