Pacific Overtures (1976 TV Movie)

Gedde Watanabe: Priest, Girl, Boy

Quotes 

• Reciter : No one knows what was said behind the shutters of the Treaty House. The Shogun's councilors kept their story secret, and though the westerners have their own official version, I would not believe a word of it. What a shame there is no authentic Japanese account of what took place on that historic day.

  Old Man : Pardon me, I was there.

  Reciter : You were where?

  Old Man : At the treaty house.

  Reciter : At the treaty house.

  Old Man : There was a tree...

  Reciter : Which was were?

  Old Man : Over here. Maybe over there, but there were trees then everywhere... may I show you?

  Reciter : If you please.

  Old Man : There were trees then everywhere!

  Reciter : But you were there?

  Old Man : And I was there! May I show you?

  Reciter : If you please.

  Old Man : I was younger then... I was good at climbing trees... I was younger then... I saw everything! I was hidden all the time... it was easier to climb. I was younger then. I saw everything - where they came, and where they went; I was part of the event; I was someone in a tree. I was younger then...

  Boy : [the tree appears, and the Old Man's younger self runs on] 

  Boy : Tell him what I see!

• Old Man : I am hiding in a tree...

  Boy : I'm a fragment of the day.

  Old Man , Boy : If I weren't, whose to say/ things would happen here the way, that they happened here?

  Old Man : I was there then... It's the pebble not the stream.

  Boy : It's the fragment not the day... I am here still.

  Old Man , Boy : It's the ripple not the sea, not the building but the beam, not the garden but the stone, not the treaty house/ someone in a tree.

• Boy : Someone reads a list from a box.

  Samurai : Someone talks of laws.

  Old Man : Then they fan a bit.

  Boy : Someone bangs a fist!

  Samurai : Someone knocks.

  Old Man : Now there was a pause.

  Samurai , Old Man , Boy : Then they argue it.

  Samurai : 'But we want, no you can't, and we won't, but we need it, and we want, will you grant, if you don't we concede it,' I can hear them...

  Old Man : And they sat through the night and they lit yellow tapers, I was there then...

  Boy : And they chat, and they light, and they sit signing papers, I am there still - If I weren't whose to say, that they're happening?

  Reciter , Samurai , Old Man , Boy : It's the fragment not the day/ It's the pebble, not the stream/ It's the ripple not the sea/ That is happening/ Not the building but the beam/ Not the garden but the stone/ Only cups of tea/ And history/ And someone in a tree!