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Subtitles for A Cat and a Half (2002)

English
November 09 2023 14:39:54
Created by Niffiwan, SHAR
Poltora kota.2002.en.1.25fps.1699540794.srt ⭳
Quality: ok

Subtitles from SHAR Studio's Youtube channel, transcribed and improved by Niffiwan, 2023.

The original translation seems to have been the version sent to international film festivals. Not everything was translated (in particular, none of the poems were). The new subtitles attempt to translate the poems as well, at least imperfectly (without attempting to rhyme, and sometimes making the phrasing more natural in English).

An alternative translation of "In Italy" can be found here.

Video preview(s): Multiplier is 1.
Offset is 0.

The text content of the file is:

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 RF Ministry of Culture Film Department and "DAGO" Studio 2 00:00:02,301 --> 00:00:04,301 present 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,702 "A Cat and a Half" Sketches for a film based on literary works and drawings of Joseph Brodsky 4 00:00:19,503 --> 00:00:22,603 Once upon a time there was a little boy. And there was a city. 5 00:00:22,704 --> 00:00:24,900 The most beautiful city on the face of the earth. 6 00:00:25,001 --> 00:00:28,701 With an enormous grey river hanging over its deep bottom, 7 00:00:28,802 --> 00:00:31,602 just like the sky above the river itself. 8 00:00:31,803 --> 00:00:35,303 Along the river stood majestic palaces 9 00:00:35,404 --> 00:00:38,504 with wonderfully ornate facades. 10 00:00:52,705 --> 00:00:57,105 I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His Spirit is. 11 00:00:57,406 --> 00:00:59,506 If the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, 12 00:00:59,607 --> 00:01:01,507 the water is bound to reflect it. 13 00:01:01,658 --> 00:01:05,508 That's the reason of my weakness for water - for its folds, creases and patterns, 14 00:01:05,609 --> 00:01:07,909 and, since I come from the north, for its greyness. 15 00:01:08,010 --> 00:01:10,910 I simply think that water is the image of time. 16 00:01:11,011 --> 00:01:14,011 And we, I think, are partly synonymous with water. 17 00:01:16,262 --> 00:01:20,512 reflected in 1000s of square meters of silver sparkles, 18 00:01:20,863 --> 00:01:23,513 the city seems to be constantly photographed by the water, 19 00:01:23,764 --> 00:01:28,714 and the filmed footage, on a sunny day, looks like an archive of those blinding scenes. 20 00:01:37,015 --> 00:01:41,315 So it doesn't make sense to me to try to be consecutive here. 21 00:01:41,666 --> 00:01:47,866 Life never looked to me like a set of clearly marked transitions; rather, it snowballs. 22 00:02:08,167 --> 00:02:10,167 Now look, here's a cat, right? A cat! 23 00:02:10,318 --> 00:02:13,668 He doesn't give a damn whether "Pamyat" society exists, 24 00:02:13,769 --> 00:02:16,069 or the propaganda department of the Central Comittee. 25 00:02:16,170 --> 00:02:19,970 Also, he doesn't care about the President of the United States. 26 00:02:21,471 --> 00:02:23,671 Am I any worse than the cat? 27 00:02:29,172 --> 00:02:31,972 Akhmatova's neighbours had a cat - 28 00:02:33,973 --> 00:02:36,273 a huge, red, exceptionally noisy tom. 29 00:02:36,374 --> 00:02:41,674 She would say: "You know, it is not just a cat, it is a cat and a half." 30 00:02:46,075 --> 00:02:52,675 And sometimes she would say: "Doesn't it seem to you that Joseph is very much like it?" 31 00:02:58,926 --> 00:03:02,976 By the way, I even dubbed several animated films. 32 00:03:03,077 --> 00:03:04,877 Whose part? 33 00:03:06,078 --> 00:03:07,978 Try to guess... 34 00:03:13,679 --> 00:03:15,829 a cat and a half 35 00:03:15,980 --> 00:03:17,730 JOSEPH BRO 36 00:03:17,731 --> 00:03:22,231 JOSEPH BRODSKY 37 00:03:22,332 --> 00:03:25,632 SKETCHES 38 00:03:39,133 --> 00:03:42,533 I remember one day - the day I had to leave after a month in Venice. 39 00:03:42,684 --> 00:03:46,534 I had just had lunch in some small trattoria, grilled fish a half a bottle of wine. 40 00:03:46,635 --> 00:03:52,485 And squinting at the sun I suddenly felt: I am a cat. A cat that has just had fish. 41 00:03:52,586 --> 00:03:55,436 Had anyone adressed me at that moment, I would have meowed. 42 00:03:55,537 --> 00:03:57,837 I was absolutely beastly happy. 43 00:03:58,038 --> 00:04:03,638 I must have been a cat in a past life. And I would like to remain one in my next one. 44 00:04:30,789 --> 00:04:33,139 Hullo. Is that you, Kitty? 45 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:35,640 What have I had for lunch? 46 00:04:35,741 --> 00:04:40,641 Turkey and rice, some fish and strawberries and cream for dessert. 47 00:04:47,892 --> 00:04:51,042 In May, 1972 they suggested that I should leave the country. 48 00:04:51,143 --> 00:04:53,343 They gave me only a few days to pack. 49 00:04:53,444 --> 00:04:56,000 They don't generally make such offers in Russia, and if they do, 50 00:04:56,101 --> 00:04:58,001 it means just one thing: 51 00:04:58,402 --> 00:05:02,902 I think no one is delighted being thrown out of his home. 52 00:05:03,003 --> 00:05:07,153 But however you leave it, it is still your home. 53 00:05:07,254 --> 00:05:11,104 Masya, go on the balcony with Osya. I'll take a photo to remember you by. 54 00:05:11,355 --> 00:05:13,555 And then, you can take one of us. 55 00:05:16,106 --> 00:05:20,106 Come on, Masya, shoot: taxi's waiting, the cat's fretting. 56 00:05:20,207 --> 00:05:24,000 - Os'ka, stop scratching... - Os'ka, be a good boy, keep still... 57 00:05:46,101 --> 00:05:48,401 This is one of my first photos. 58 00:05:48,552 --> 00:05:52,802 My father took it when we were living as evacuees in Tcherepovets. 59 00:05:52,953 --> 00:05:56,203 I've never forgotten that I am the son of a photographer 60 00:05:56,304 --> 00:05:59,404 and that my memory simply develops a film. 61 00:06:02,355 --> 00:06:07,405 In the same way that others mark their child's growth in pencil marks on a door frame, 62 00:06:07,606 --> 00:06:13,406 every year on my birthday my father took me out to our balcony and photographed me there. 63 00:06:13,507 --> 00:06:16,307 The background was usually this square - 64 00:06:16,408 --> 00:06:20,608 The Cathedral of the Lord's Transfiguration of all the Guards 65 00:06:22,209 --> 00:06:27,009 I can still see - on the arm-chair's back - my father's dark blue Navy tunic with its golden epaulettes... 66 00:06:27,410 --> 00:06:29,560 ...on the chair there is my mother's kimono with its dragons. 67 00:06:30,061 --> 00:06:33,461 And "Una furtiva lagrima" in the air. 68 00:06:33,662 --> 00:06:36,362 My father brought those records from Shanghai. 69 00:06:53,613 --> 00:06:57,513 Good luck. Write to us from every town, son, you hear? 70 00:06:57,614 --> 00:06:59,364 Ok, ok. 71 00:07:02,665 --> 00:07:06,815 Will you stop taking pictures? Who do you think I am? Another Tamara Makarova? 72 00:07:30,366 --> 00:07:33,116 It seems I've already told you that I love water. 73 00:07:33,217 --> 00:07:35,917 I was crazy about the Navy since my boyhood years. 74 00:07:36,518 --> 00:07:39,118 To this day, I think that the country would do a hell of a lot better 75 00:07:39,219 --> 00:07:42,119 if it had for its national banner the flag of the Russian Navy... 76 00:07:42,220 --> 00:07:45,420 ...our glorious, incomparable beautiful flag of St. Andrew. 77 00:07:45,521 --> 00:07:47,921 and not that two-headed cowardly Imperial bird, 78 00:07:47,922 --> 00:07:50,422 or the halfway-Masonic hammer and sickle. 79 00:08:46,923 --> 00:08:51,423 "La Cumparsita" is the greatest piece of music of our time, as far as I'm concerned. 80 00:08:51,574 --> 00:08:55,224 I've never learned to dance, but I could listen to these twangs for hours... 81 00:08:55,325 --> 00:08:58,825 ...and, when there was no one around, move to its tempo. 82 00:09:04,226 --> 00:09:06,826 Welcome to Hawaii 83 00:09:11,327 --> 00:09:14,527 As for the navy, I was a true child of my father... 84 00:09:14,628 --> 00:09:17,528 and at the age of fourteen applied for admission to a submarine academy. 85 00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:21,729 I passed all the exams, but because of the fifth paragraph - nationality - didn't get in... 86 00:09:21,830 --> 00:09:25,830 and my irrational love for navy overcoats with their double rows of gold buttons 87 00:09:25,931 --> 00:09:30,481 like lamps over an alley at night, remained unrequitted. 88 00:09:40,782 --> 00:09:45,232 <i>And I once lived in a city Where statues grew on the houses,</i> 89 00:09:45,333 --> 00:09:48,183 <i>And where through the streets, With cries of "Corrupt! Corrupt!"</i> 90 00:09:48,283 --> 00:09:51,100 <i>Would run the local philosopher, Shaking his beard,</i> 91 00:09:51,384 --> 00:09:54,984 <i>And the endless waterfront made life short.</i> 92 00:09:59,685 --> 00:10:03,935 I figure that free thought in the Soviet Union, and liberation of mind in general, 93 00:10:04,036 --> 00:10:09,586 begins - at least for my generation - with Tarzan. 94 00:10:10,137 --> 00:10:14,937 It was the first movie where we saw natural life. And long hair. 95 00:10:15,538 --> 00:10:20,188 And that wonderful Tarzan's cry that filled the air over every Russian town. 96 00:10:20,289 --> 00:10:23,739 We began to imitate Tarzan. That's how it started... 97 00:10:27,340 --> 00:10:30,000 And I daresay that the four seasons of Tarzan alone 98 00:10:30,100 --> 00:10:35,741 did more for de-Stalinization than all of Khrushchyov's speeches at the 20th Congress. 99 00:10:42,742 --> 00:10:45,442 Come down before you break your fool neck! 100 00:10:58,743 --> 00:10:59,743 Give it up! 101 00:10:59,744 --> 00:11:01,544 They will come and getcha! 102 00:11:02,795 --> 00:11:04,945 - Angel, we'd better go. - I'm not afraid. 103 00:11:04,946 --> 00:11:07,646 But that's a 200 foot dive! He can't make it and live. 104 00:11:20,697 --> 00:11:22,347 Boy, what nerve! 105 00:11:22,448 --> 00:11:23,848 We'd better take you home... 106 00:11:43,859 --> 00:11:47,749 When leaving Russia I took with me only my typewriter. 107 00:11:48,150 --> 00:11:51,150 Customs at the airport disassembled it down to the last screw. 108 00:11:51,251 --> 00:11:54,751 That was their way of saying "Farewell". 109 00:11:56,502 --> 00:12:01,552 In the 1950s, every city youth had his own collection of so-called "bone music". 110 00:12:01,653 --> 00:12:03,153 What was it, you ask? 111 00:12:03,254 --> 00:12:07,854 A sheet of X-Ray film with a homemade copy of some jazz piece on it. 112 00:12:12,055 --> 00:12:17,000 With our instinctive individualism and intolerance for all group affiliation, 113 00:12:17,151 --> 00:12:20,101 we were more American than the Americans themselves. 114 00:12:20,202 --> 00:12:25,000 I say this to you as someone who first tasted Coca Cola at the age of 32. 115 00:12:39,601 --> 00:12:41,001 <i>Stop, oh moment,</i> 116 00:12:41,101 --> 00:12:44,801 <i>You are not so lovely As you are unrepeatable.</i> 117 00:13:34,251 --> 00:13:37,901 Our Pestel Street, which was once named Pantaleon, 118 00:13:38,001 --> 00:13:40,000 after the Saint Pantaleon Church that stood beacon-like at its far end, 119 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:42,100 would take you into the Summer Garden. 120 00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:44,100 Pushkin once lived on that part of the street, 121 00:13:44,300 --> 00:13:46,200 and somewhere in a letter to his wife he says: 122 00:13:46,300 --> 00:13:48,200 "The entire Summer Garden is my orchard. 123 00:13:48,300 --> 00:13:51,200 Every morning, I go there in nightgown and slippers." 124 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:55,950 - Would you like one? - What is it? 125 00:13:56,050 --> 00:13:57,200 - A cigarette. That's my D'Anthes. 126 00:13:57,300 --> 00:13:59,300 - Thanks. 127 00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:13,200 - Your house was #11, right? - No, wrong. 128 00:14:13,300 --> 00:14:17,900 Ours was #27, and was over at that end, by the intersection with Liteyny Avenue. 129 00:14:25,650 --> 00:14:29,700 I imagine how you, my friends, some 30 years from now, 130 00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:35,800 will stand under my balcony after visiting my parents on account of my birthday, 131 00:14:36,150 --> 00:14:40,100 having tasted pickled smelt, my mother's signature dish. 132 00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:48,100 I remember how my father brought an amateur camera from China. 133 00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:50,800 Later, that camera vanished somewhere together with its film, 134 00:14:51,100 --> 00:14:54,400 which contained the pictures my dad had taken of us: me, my mother, ships... 135 00:14:54,500 --> 00:14:59,500 Perhaps, this film will turn up somewhere one day... who knows? 136 00:16:15,700 --> 00:16:20,000 My father managed to photograph me incessantly, even at breakfast. 137 00:16:20,450 --> 00:16:22,000 Sometimes, I didn't like it. 138 00:16:22,350 --> 00:16:25,200 To tell the truth, I was a rather wilful child. 139 00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:09,400 <i>Stretch down to your toes...</i> 140 00:17:11,850 --> 00:17:15,500 <i>Stretch!... Stretch!...</i> 141 00:17:16,500 --> 00:17:18,100 <i>That's enough.</i> 142 00:17:24,500 --> 00:17:27,000 Early in the morning the little boy would set off for school. 143 00:17:27,100 --> 00:17:29,450 If the boy had two or three spare minutes, 144 00:17:29,900 --> 00:17:33,100 he would walk 20-30 steps to the middle of the river. 145 00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:35,700 All this time, he would be thinking about 146 00:17:35,900 --> 00:17:39,400 what the fish were doing under such heavy ice. 147 00:17:45,300 --> 00:17:51,500 "Leningrad is the cradle of the Revolution." Write, write. 148 00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:53,800 Why aren't you writing, boy? 149 00:17:53,900 --> 00:17:57,000 Pay attention, children: "The cradle of the Revolution" 150 00:17:57,300 --> 00:18:01,400 And now we shall see a remarkable film. 151 00:18:39,350 --> 00:18:43,900 It was, in fact, a plain coup d'etat, and a bloodless one at that. 152 00:18:44,150 --> 00:18:46,300 The "real" battle on Palace Square, 153 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,300 with bodies falling left and right and projectiles criss-crossing the sky, 154 00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:51,100 happened much later: 155 00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:53,500 in that film by Sergei Eisenstein! 156 00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,100 The Red Guards didn't meet any resistance; 157 00:18:58,350 --> 00:19:02,750 they raped half of the female unit guarding the palace... 158 00:19:04,150 --> 00:19:06,350 ...and looted its chambers. 159 00:19:06,450 --> 00:19:10,350 At that, one of them drowned in the wine cellars. 160 00:19:24,450 --> 00:19:27,000 In the puritanical atmosphere of Stalin's Russia 161 00:19:27,100 --> 00:19:31,200 one could get turned on by the 100% innocent Socialist Realist painting... 162 00:19:31,300 --> 00:19:33,600 called "Admission to the Komsomol". 163 00:19:38,150 --> 00:19:40,700 Boy at the first desk! 164 00:19:40,900 --> 00:19:43,500 Yes, yes, you! 165 00:19:45,050 --> 00:19:47,000 What are you thinking of? 166 00:19:49,500 --> 00:19:51,900 Why don't you listen to your teacher? 167 00:19:54,100 --> 00:19:56,500 Stand up and leave the classroom! 168 00:19:57,950 --> 00:20:00,600 I'll show you the right way, my friend! 169 00:22:33,900 --> 00:22:35,600 I haven't flown anywhere yet, 170 00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:38,900 but already imagine myself sitting somewhere on the Hudson shore 171 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:40,250 and thinking about you. 172 00:22:46,250 --> 00:22:48,650 It must be about noon where you are. 173 00:22:58,650 --> 00:23:01,950 My dear Cats, they say you have frost there. 174 00:23:02,050 --> 00:23:07,550 I beg you, sleep by turns on my cot to keep it warm. 175 00:23:07,650 --> 00:23:14,250 You, Kitty, must be cooking lunch just now, Os'ka rubbing against your legs, 176 00:23:14,950 --> 00:23:18,750 and Big Cat has begun writing the first letter to me. 177 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,550 Liteyny Ave. House 24, Apt. 28 178 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,850 O, how I liked to wander about the town during the white nights of summer. 179 00:24:34,500 --> 00:24:37,650 I knew some places where magnificent views unfolded. 180 00:24:37,750 --> 00:24:40,250 Mmm... yeah. 181 00:25:26,550 --> 00:25:31,000 <i>For goodbye - not a sound. Grammophone behind the wall.</i> 182 00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:35,800 <i>This worldly separation Hints at what's yet to come.</i> 183 00:25:36,150 --> 00:25:39,100 <i>For apart, not together, Must our eyes slowly close</i> 184 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,900 <i>Until death. And after, We won't lie side by side.</i> 185 00:25:43,750 --> 00:25:47,500 <i>All our homes fall apart, And the thread breaks.</i> 186 00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,850 <i>Of all that we were, and That which we couldn't save -</i> 187 00:25:50,950 --> 00:25:54,300 <i>One stays silent, unwitting, Because as the days pass,</i> 188 00:25:54,500 --> 00:25:58,000 <i>One remembers the pain Ever more than the joy.</i> 189 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,800 <i>For goodbye - not a sound. Only the Aonides' song.</i> 190 00:26:02,350 --> 00:26:06,450 <i>So does death torment us Even while we yet live.</i> 191 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:23,100 screenwriters Yuriy Arabov, Andrey Hrzhanovskiy 192 00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:24,200 director Andrey Hrzhanovskiy 193 00:26:24,300 --> 00:26:25,300 director of photography A. Feodorov 194 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:26,400 camera G. Drynitskiy, M. Sudarikov 195 00:26:26,500 --> 00:26:27,500 production designers A. Boym, N. Krivulya 196 00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:28,600 assistant director O. Dorman 197 00:26:28,700 --> 00:26:30,700 animation N. Bogomolova, G. Zebrova, Ye. Malashenkova, L. Mayatnikova, 198 00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:32,300 O. Panikona, N. Fedosova, T. Podgorskaya 199 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,400 cast Sasha Ginzburg, R. Kurkina, S. Yurskiy, V. Stonozhenko 200 00:26:34,500 --> 00:26:35,500 Kasya the Cat 201 00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:37,100 computer graphics S. Andrianova, A. Yevseyeva 202 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:38,700 assistant designers V. Averin, Y. Ivanova 203 00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:40,300 editing R. Nazirov, N. Stepantseva 204 00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:41,400 sound S. Gutman 205 00:26:41,500 --> 00:26:43,000 producers D. Yurkov, A. Hrzhanovskiy 206 00:26:43,100 --> 00:26:44,100 executive producer S. Shvidkaya 207 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:45,200 administrator A. Seleznyov 208 00:26:45,300 --> 00:26:46,800 post-production managers O. Kurenkova, A. Kryukov 209 00:26:46,900 --> 00:26:48,400 music by J. S. Bach, A. Vivaldi, G. Donizetti, S. Prokofyev, P. Tchaikovsky, 210 00:26:48,500 --> 00:26:50,000 A. Schnittke, D. Shostakovich, W.C. Hardy, J. Matos Rodriguez 211 00:26:50,100 --> 00:26:51,600 for help and archive materials special thanks to Z. Tamashevskaya, 212 00:26:51,700 --> 00:26:53,200 Ye. Korobova, V. Golyshev, Y. Gordin, Ye. Kasatkina, M. Milchik, 213 00:26:53,300 --> 00:26:54,800 M. and S. Volkova, N. and Y. Ivanov, E. Rein, V. Ufliand 214 00:26:54,900 --> 00:26:56,400 and to M. Azyzian, P. Vail, D. Borovskiy, V. Gerasimov, N. Gutman, K and O. Kochubey 215 00:26:56,500 --> 00:26:57,900 L. Leonskaya, Kitya Medvedeva, M. Neiman, Ye. Nikitin, T. Nikoskaya, M. Pekarskiy, 216 00:26:58,000 --> 00:26:59,500 V. Roshchim, Ye. Stafyeva, I. Tumanian, I. Schnittke, S. Schulz 217 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:01,100 Anna Akhmatova museum in St. Petersburg and, personally, N. Popova 218 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:02,700 The Hermitage State Museum and, personally, M. Pyotrovskiy and V. Matveyev 219 00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:04,200 The Central Navy Museum of St. Petersburg and, personally, M. Mushketov and E. Korchagin 220 00:27:04,300 --> 00:27:05,550 The Museum of Cinema and, personally, N. Kleyman 221 00:27:05,650 --> 00:27:06,850 The St. Petersburg History State Museum and, personally, E. Grishko 222 00:27:06,950 --> 00:27:08,150 Summer Gardens and Palace - Peter I Museum and, personally, T. Kozlova 223 00:27:08,250 --> 00:27:09,450 The Administration of School N1311 in Moscow and, personally, G. Lipman 224 00:27:09,550 --> 00:27:10,650 TV and Radio State Foundation and, personally, A. Vystorobets 225 00:27:10,750 --> 00:27:11,750 "Shat" Drama workshop "Anima-film" studio 226 00:27:11,850 --> 00:27:12,850 Soyuzmultfilm studio M. Gorky studio 227 00:27:12,950 --> 00:27:13,950 The tenants of Brodsky's former apartment in St. Petersburg 228 00:27:14,050 --> 00:27:15,050 Processed by Salamandra Ltd. 229 00:27:15,450 --> 00:27:17,350 The film is based on the literary works and drawings of Iosif Brodsky and the photos of Aleksandr Brodsky 230 00:27:17,850 --> 00:27:20,250 Sponsored by the RF Ministry of Culture Film Department 231 00:27:21,150 --> 00:27:22,750 Special thanks to Alfa Bank (c) DAGO 2002 232 00:27:22,850 --> 00:27:25,480 subtitles from SHAR Studio's Youtube channel, improved by Niffiwan, 2023