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"to be alive!"
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The Script
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More than five million
people stood and waited, sometimes in the pouring rain, sometimes
for as long as two hours. Many of these returned to stand in
line again and again. "to be alive!" was universally
acclaimed as the outstanding attraction at the New York World's
Fair.
The directors, Francis
Thompson and Alexander Hammid, had succeeded in capturing the
essence of life's magnificent simplicity -- a leaf falls, a child
laughs -- and vividly conveying it to the viewer, creating through
lyrical images a sense of joy, a feeling of great exhilaration.
And a sense of sharing -- the audience is caught up in the sensual
experience of seeing, transcending all barriers of language,
race, geography. What does the audience see? That the miracle
of a spider web, the ecstasy of speed, the rapturous excess of
a wedding feast are always truly wonderful, wherever, whenever
they happen.
Here now is the poetic
script and images from the Johnson Wax Golden Rondelle presentation
of "to be alive!"
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Another day.
In the rush I'm swept
away.
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Faster and faster. I have
to work for a living. But this is living?
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I remember the time when
it seemed my eyes had just opened. There were a thousand eyes
-- hidden in the trees. Watching.
All was new. Everyone
I met was a brother or a friend.
If he couldn't speak
it didn't matter. We had endless time to look at each other.
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Every day I set out on
a voyage of discovery. And though I some- times sank, that way
I learned to swim. |
How I traveled! I sailed
across seas. Continents. Peninsulas.
And up into the sky!
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I wanted to know about everything.
I asked the trees how they grew. I asked the birds where their
nests were hid. I searched among the leaves and found the elegant
painted creatures who lived there. Everyone so busy! And I began
to wonder, What was beyond?
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With this prism I could
change the world.
I had new eyes. Wherever
it was grey my prism made it bright. I changed muddy waters into
a school of rainbow fish too fast to catch.
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I had a new power and I
wanted the world to know. I felt like climbing to the top of the
world. So I climbed up and announced my name!
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And so we raced off --
all the kids of the world. We're here! We're free!
On our way to the moon.
Jupiter. Saturn. Galaxies and nebulae. Suns beyond suns.
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Over night, how everything
changed then.
We were all acting crazy
one minute and hopeless the next.
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When they cheered me
I could have hugged all the girls in the world at once.
We were tongue-tied at
first, but how we flirted once we learned how.
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We did "The Droop,"
"The Waggle Tail," "The Smashed Bananas "
and "The Scrambled Eggs." But the important thing was
to shake all over from head to toe, especially around the middle.
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Until, by some mysterious
process, you knew who was the one for you.
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We were free! Free! Free!
So dawn came and I found
that I belonged to the large world at last where people go to
work and make their lives.
The sun rises
and men bring it indoors down a large shaft into the room to
have a look at it. Or they go out into the fields where the sun
brings a rich harvest.
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We make of our work an art
when we bring to it our love.
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And the children grow up
and practice all of the arts of man.
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We mold the classic shapes
eternally. A man can create a building in his mind. Sure footed
and strong, he flies steel and builds cities. He can find in color
something to dedicate his life to.
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Simply, to be alive is
a great joy.
Everywhere people gather
in celebration. While on a mountain top, man all alone focuses
on the stars.
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Wherever we are the heart
can make a quiet place.
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We need never lose our sense
of life's wonder or its joy.
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Source: Book,
"to be alive!", Copyright S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.
1966
| CREDITS: Concepts
and Producer, Francis Thompson, Directors, Alexander
Hammid and Francis Thompson, Musical Score, Gene Forrell;
Written Narration, Edward Field. |
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