The Nothing Libretto

1

A satirical documentary parable about Nothing,
filmed over 8 years by 62 cinematographers in
70 countries, scored by cabaret grandmasters
Pascal Comelade and the Tiger Lillies and
narrated – in simple childlike verse – by Iggy Pop.

“IN PRAISE of NOTHING”
a whistleblowing
documentary parable
(not exactly in prose)
wherein Nothing tries to defend its cause.
Long visual intro
foreshadowing scenes to come,
intercut with ornamented silent-era intertitles,
hereafter shown in italic brackets:
[One dAy, Nothing runs away from home,
tired of being misunderstood.]
[It crosses 8 mountains and 8 seas...]
[... and arrives in our lost valley.]
Voiceover starts:
Finally, our first date;
not sure if I came early or late.
I’ve got so much to tell you but I’m still wondering how;
I don’t wanna suck up to you nor make you bow.
5

There has never been a less exciting time
to be behind a camera, on that I agree,
so let’s set up this game
a little bit differently...
We will skip talking heads, expert analysis,
special effects and cultural paralysis.
No classic twists, no money shots,
no side characters, no subplots;
No saving the world, no noble pretentions,
– just portraits of you and me in everyday situations –
And a few lines of comments
to frame the debate,
just to make sure
that you will bite the bait.
[Nothing slides down a blank page
and descends among us.]
But who am I to say “I” or “we”?
Am I really Nothing or just my ego’s mercenary?
They say I can only be hinted at and never shown,
unlike any other thing currently unknown.
But I am actually there in every shot,
if you bother to find me.
If you don’t,
imagine that what you see
is what I see.
Or just enjoy the scenery
and let your mind roam freely.
And don’t worry,
I certainly won’t take it personally.
6

[Nothing is greeted by representatives of all sciences and faiths.
They all try to trick it into a quick deal.]
It’s ok,
I’m always one scene ahead in the play.
They’re trying to explain life to me
in numbers and words;
my bet is to show them
they’re reasoning backwards.
I do appreciate some of their methodology,
but their motivations are funny,
and so is their mythology.
Who created what? Who started first?
Who is right? Who is cursed?
Does it matter at all?
Will anyone get reimbursed?
There’s already too much to read, too much to see –
well beyond anyone’s lifetime capacity.
Who needs another theory?
Another countdown to veracity?
Meaning itself is hanging off a cliff,
its final demise is a matter of when, not if.
And if everything has been said already,
there’s no need to add much to this pile of debris.
This will therefore be
my first and last soliloquy.
7

[But Nothing bites the idea of an apple.]
It’s actually raining apples, for anyone to discover.
Learn to juggle with them, or run for cover.
Knowledge is both the cure and cause of insanity,
no wonder that it keeps confusing humanity.
Spend your life learning
but remember things slightly;
Keep brushing your thoughts
but apply them ever so bluntly
What a mistake to presume that
people want to think, constantly and sustainably,
when fools
are in absolute majority.
They live long and carefree, ignoring everything
that’s not basic instinct or physiology.
How else could one endure
so much injustice and uncertainty?
How else not to look boring at a party, trying to prove a point
instead of dancing and fucking wildly?
With such an unused brain inside a superbly functional body,
every human looks indeed like a dinosaur parody.
Ignorance is your natural default state,
no matter how you try to justify it or decorate.
But guess what?
It too has an expiration date.
At any moment in your bovine litany,
you can be struck by a sudden epiphany –
a revelation of how things are,
how they could or should be.
8

Your comedy then turns into tragedy
and your reservoir of regrets spills over instantly.
Oblivion is indeed part of all things manly,
but so is wisdom, to a certain degree.
The choice is therefore yours to make –
be a happy fool or a smart mistake.
You can either have it simple and easy
or claim that you’ve chosen deliberately
a life that’s meaningful
over one that’s happy.
I myself would split the winning recipe
at a good old rate of 80 to 20.
One part is – wisdom,
the other – stupidity.
Which one gets the 80
is only yours to decree.
[Nothing is filing its immigration papers.]
What should I keep from my old life?
What to take from the new?
Did anyone ever manage
to reconcile these two?
A promise here, a wall there,
a spiteful glare, a compassionate stare...
Such a journey -
and you still get nowhere.
80% nostalgic,
20% euphoric;
9

The heart is urban,
the soul bucolic.
Poignantly alcoholic,
bitchily melancholic;
Kids adapt quick,
elders go schizophrenic.
Love garlic,
but can’t show it in public;
Have better solutions,
but gotta respect the traffic...
Better know in advance that there are little odds
that you’ll manage to combine the best of both worlds.
You’re more likely to turn cynical and grumpy
than to ever feel you belong to your new community.
Or else you’ll sacrifice what you are
for an uncertain new life opportunity.
But staying home is also not a solution,
it doesn’t really help in terms of evolution.
The same goes for travelling,
back & forth, here & there -
that’s only good for airmiles
and online vanity fair.
So wherever you come from,
wherever you go,
whatever you hide,
whatever you show,
zip your ego
and keep your expectations low.
I myself never hoped for the best,
a good life and all the rest,
10

ut that’s not because I’m cool.
I was just destined to be
a different kind of fool.
[Nothing adjusts its belt.]
I know I shouldn’t start my sentences with I,
and they warned me not to ask too much why,
but I think it’s nice to be an I who asks why -
so I will try.
I came from God knows where
but I too now want everything quickly.
Can’t believe I’m losing my patience,
after being used to eternity.
Seems like I’ve caught
a typical local malady,
some strange sense of entitlement
has gotten hold of me.
I suddenly feel I deserve more
than I deserved previously
and I get bothered so easily,
even my brand new self-image is ashamed of me.
I don’t flinch at global misery
but I get disturbed – significantly –
by a stray bee
that invades my privacy.
By a fat person that dares
to walk in front of me.
By unsupervised children
playing loudly.
11

By dishes that don’t wash themselves
instantly.
By a telephone that rings
persistently.
By the size of my best friend’s
salary.
By the slightest awareness
of my own hypocrisy...
I don’t know how to deal with this,
I hope that it’s just temporary.
I almost wish that
someone had warned me,
but I guess that would have spoiled
the wisdom of discovery.
[Nothing admits its knowledge of our world
used to be exactly opposite to ours.]
All I knew about love
was from letters that were never sent.
All I knew about faith
was from scavenging leftovers of dissent.
All I knew about you
was from things that you didn’t do.
The words you never said.
The books you never read.
The ideas you never picked up.
The possibilities you never knew.
Now I see I have a lot to catch up.
Don’t you?
12

[We don’t – and Nothing starts to feel rather unwelcome.]
I feel stalked.
I feel like a Stalker.
I wanted to help,
but you are boycotting my offer.
Confusion, depression, emptiness,
delusion, obsession, loneliness...
You are wrong to accuse me
for every page in your psychiatric history.
Sorry, there’s no shortcut
out of purgatory.
No V.I.P., no duty-free,
no return policy, no money-back guarantee –
Just a few lucky stars
and your own personal gravity.
Cruising altitude is a mirage,
the battle rages on, whatever the paysage.
So don’t blame me when things get hard,
all I am doing is letting you play in my backyard.
And imagine all the rubbish
if the gold fish fulfilled your every wish?
Without my guidance through the Zone
where your dreams come true,
you would actually lose
what you loved and knew.
Hopes should fade when they’re within reach
and waves beware the beauty of the beach...
The less you expect, the more you will gain;
The more you resist, the less you will complain.
13

And again:
The less you expect, the more you will gain;
The more you resist, the less you will complain.
Take that
over your fatalistic disdain.
[Nothing is starting to get judgemental.]
I understand that it is hard to live,
either with or without opinions,
alone among billions,
on a tiny star surrounded by trillions.
All your hopes of persisting and transcending
end up in anti-climactic forgetting.
All your efforts to leave a mark
become at best someone else’s spark.
Realizing how small and insignificant you are
cannot be compensated by the size of your car,
a big tab at the bar,
a sexy avatar,
a smashed guitar
or one last cigar.
All I know is that you are afraid,
that your parking is paid,
that you want to get laid,
and that beyond this
your brain is marmalade.
14

[The truth is that Nothing is just as confused as we are.
but it does manage to grasp human nature.]
Live a balanced depression,
consume your fate;
Do what you’re told to like,
don’t be late;
Blend your virtues and sins,
insure your rise and fall;
Hang on to your future
and broadcast it all.
[Yet Nothing remains sympathetic to our weaknesses,
and even adopts a few on its own.]
I like sweating;
I like doubting;
I like cabaret;
I like tabouleh;
I like worn out shoes;
I like prison blues;
I like rakiya,
more than wine;
I like beauty;
Not necessarily great beauty,
medium is fine.
And I have only one thing to say to History:
The question is not
how can there be poetry after holocausts,
15

ut how can there be holocausts
after poetry?!
[Inspired, Nothing tries to adapt,
but things don’t go so smoothly.]
I slid into a lake which was perfectly quiet,
but they kicked me out because all the lakes are now private.
I forged a bicycle path across a new scenery
but I crashed miserably when I tried to do it hands free.
I decided to travel light
but I ran out of clean underwear the very first night.
I endured pain in front of my buddies,
but the girl went for the one with more monies.
I reminded friends of things that were free,
but they turned each of them into a profitable industry.
I wanted to help people anonymously,
but the cops shot at me.
I tried to do everything
and then something
and then anything
but it’s hard to succeed
when you are Nothing.
[Yet Nothing feels too proud to go on welfare.]
I think I am the ideal candidate for this job because...
I feel like a contemporary of all the great minds in history
and a resident of the most photogenic places on earth;
16

I think good and evil can’t exist without each other,
and change, even small change,
is what keeps our minds and economies
squirt.
I have no future, no past, no friends and no money,
but I’m paying for your virtues and your attempts to be funny.
I am great at managing time
and I can always jump in when someone forgets their line.
Team work is my specialty –
the greater the challenge, the more you can count on me.
I’m willing to relocate
much more than you can anticipate
and I will outdate
even your youngest candidate.
I’m persistent, resistant,
always available;
Malleable, sellable,
never failable -
I even know how the world will end and...
everything else that you couldn’t have planned.
[Deemed overqualified for any other work,
Nothing tries cinema.]
And... non-action!
What’s happening?!
I thought I prepared everything!
Single parents, puppies,
handkerchief administrators;
17

military technology
instead of camera operators...
Nipples, romance,
southern France;
Merchandise, popcorn,
product implants...
Superheroes, role models,
hybrid legends;
Prequels, sequels,
bonus dividends...
Transsexual pairs
of current affairs;
Select-the-victim options
for best audience shares –
What else would
keep you thrilled?
Talking pulp
as I kill or get killed?
Reappearing, as a man,
after a long 360-pan?
Printing the takeaway
on your Coca-Cola can?
[No replies.]
I stole a tomato from a field in Italy
and it still tasted like shit.
In prison I tamed an ant
but nobody could see it.
18

I meditated for 62 years
but not a tourist would tip.
I tried not to care about the competition;
but ends-of-months made me flip.
I shared all my possessions
until the white men said stop,
I empathized with nature,
but birds and bugs ate my crop.
I lived up to what I believed in,
until I broke bad.
I spent all my life doing good,
then I became mad.
[For reasons not apprehendable to Man,
Nothing keeps talking in rhyme, all the time.]
Not to be or to be?
Where is the middle of absurdity?
If... is a space,
why... is time.
When you are happy or dead,
neither is worth a dime.
If pictures create memories,
what does a surplus of pictures create?
The future of shopping will not be to buy,
but to eliminate.
When your kids want something more
than a full stomach
take away something they already have,
then give it back.
19

The most elegant gesture of the human body
is the act of refraining from action.
The most elegant gesture of the human mind
is avoiding distraction.
What do you mean –
I shouldn’t talk, shouldn’t formalize?
Shouldn’t suggest answers,
shouldn’t verbalize?
Words fail by default.
Your information overload is certainly not my fault.
Long sequence parodying slow cinema.
Too easy.
Insist on any animal or tree
and get philosophy?
Make any shot too lengthy
and get poetry?
Fit your screenplay on a napkin
and claim humility?!
Film simple people uncritically
and redeem modernity??
Fuck that, baby.
We’re beyond that.
Maybe.
More long, irresistible shots of trees,
animals and noble savages.
20

Ok, I agree.
Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe I’m just a sarcastic old fuck
and life is as sweet as you would like it to be.
[Soon after, of course,
Nothing falls in love.]
Throw me a glove,
cry me a dove,
earthly love
is impossible love.
Particles and anti-particles keep cancelling each other,
why would then men & women bother?
Can’t live with each other,
can’t do without,
cool off
or burn out.
Your children will sell you for a faster telephone,
your parents for the right to be alone,
your partner for a new hormone.
You like strawberry,
she likes quantumberry.
She wants to marry,
you want Tom & Jerry.
Faithful or not,
always an idiot.
The casting rarely matches the plot.
21

[Promiscuity draws international attention.
Americans spend a fortune trying to buy Nothing.]
“Listen, we know you’re right,
but we can’t let you win.
Come work for us
and become the ultimate sin.
Our policy is simple:
Decide & conquer.
We don’t even hide it,
we are raw power.
Your job will be to generate fear
so that demand always beats supply at the end of the year.
In the meantime, we’ll bullet-proof the boutique,
assimilate all critique,
spread freedom with our armed forces,
trade entertainment for natural resources
and blackmail the world with paper value
until the last patch of our lies becomes true.”
To this I replied
with the following defence:
Thank you, dear friends,
you are my favorite clients,
but in your Disneyland of the free,
allow me to disagree -
You are too fat to fit
my glass menagerie.
What you are imposing on your subjects is a wrong therapy –
charging them for the placebo that is money.
Ok the pills and thrills and frills,
but life shouldn’t be printed on fake dollar bills.
22

People would love to try your dream
but only at their own steam.
Work to live, not live to work;
press pause, smell the cork.
There’s nothing scary on a blank wall,
nor in living life without a lucrative goal.
And talking about fear -
you’re the ones who should play the main role.
At the rate at which you suck everything in,
you are this planet’s black hole.
[Asians try to clone Nothing.]
“Listen, you’re one of us
and you’ve always been.
We were the first to treat you
as our next of kin.
Numbers always work out to our advantage,
never mind our limited sleeping mileage.
We make up one half of the planet,
just wait ‘til we all discover the internet.
We have 99 ideograms for Nothing and 69 holograms for vagina,
even the Emperor’s new clothes are now Made in China.
Let us mass-produce you with our 12D printers,
with special pricing for early-bird hipsters.
Too late now to erase the ego –
now it must be pleased or face vertigo.”
To this I replied
with the following defence:
23

Thank you, numerous friends,
I owe you my licence.
I understand my position
is central to your being
but you know that on an absolute level
I neither oppose nor support anything.
I appreciate the elegance of your calligraphy,
the spirituality of your tea ceremony,
the negative space in your painting,
your meditations on the verge of fainting,
your practical tips about breathing,
your casual flirting with non-being...
But with all due respect to your might,
just because you can do everything
doesn’t mean that you are right.
What you need, I think,
is to practice Kama Sutra
in a version that’s a bit more
platonic.
Unite with the cosmos
in any single pixel
but sustain your lust
against every daily tickle.
Learn to let go off your omnipotence;
take seriously your vow of balance.
And if other powers want to make you sway,
don’t worry:
Bruce Lee is alive -
and he’s on his way.
24

[Arabs try to tame Nothing.]
“Listen, you know that we are right,
no need to wait for the thousand and first night.
We invented coffee, clean shave and algebra
and even what would later become your camera.
We also saved the classical knowledge of Antiquity
and gave prominent importance to the notion of virginity.
We’ve been both cursed and blessed by nature,
this always results in an unpredictable mixture.
There’s no money now that we cannot spend;
our goal is to create life out of sand.
Welcome to our big old-fashioned family,
you’ll be treated as our newest common luxury.”
To this I replied
with the following defence:
Thank you, honorable friends,
I admire your persistence.
Conjure me from a lamp,
anytime you need my stamp.
History has not treated you gently
but you are also stretching time vigorously.
You gained my sympathy by surviving in harsh conditions,
but kinda disappointed me with your current positions.
Feel free to advertise your alchemy,
but don’t take anyone else’s for blasphemy.
I don’t think you should impose your point of view,
neither upon the desert nor upon the likes of you.
Everything is always relative when it comes to dress code;
but eye contact should remain a legitimate communication
mode.
25

People won’t accept fasting, unless you call it detox;
promises of heaven are already clogging up their mailbox.
I wish you happy existential battles
in your sand and gold castles.
For anything else, God have mercy,
but the final bill
is on me.
[Europeans are still discussing what to do with Nothing.]
“Listen, let’s first agree
that we need to set up a special committee.
Such a critical development
deserves outmost consideration,
it requires the consent of our entire
dysfunctional confederation.
We must establish a proper explanatory framework
for this question,
otherwise our policy will remain
just a vain suggestion.
In our view, you are lacking imperfection,
but we can solve this with an ambiguous diplomatic
formulation.
Our goal is that everyone feels they have gained something,
but that we, of course, remain on top of everything.”
To this I replied with the following defence:
Thank you, old friends,
cheers to your eloquence.
You speak most fluently,
but your verbal masturbation fails me.
26

Dozens of alleged winners and no proclaimed losers,
seems like you’re jumping into very tight trousers.
I didn’t really get your proposal
but I see your frustrations,
futility should be the subject
of your next strikes and demonstrations.
Condemned to be free
but fearing the freedom of others;
imitating obnoxiously
your enemies and mothers...
Your noble arrogance doesn’t do it for me;
only tourists can be fooled by your complex of superiority.
Each nation can be proud of fragments of its history,
but none of its entirety,
and even fewer should claim
any monopoly on morality.
Your reluctance to assimilate me
is in fact a key syndrome of your drudgery.
Adopt me
or become your own failed colony.
[The rest of world is desperately cheering for Nothing.]
“Listen, we have nothing to offer you,
we just do what we are told to.
Paper-wall democracy and profits for the few,
they convince you grindingly that it’s good for you.
Sometimes, if we are particularly good,
they clean our files and gentrify our mood.
27

They insist we’re not screwed
when they hybridize our food
and dismiss our proud beliefs
as a mere historical interlude.
Deep inside we know
we’re not so autistic,
but our reply to this is either agnostic
or fatalistic.
We feel that we know you and that we can trust you -
please advise us, what should we do?”
To this I replied
with the following stance:
Well, global friends,
it is time to make amends.
Never mind the size of your shoes,
if you want to win, you must not lose.
If you don’t sacrifice yourself,
no one will,
kicking history between the legs
requires no special skill.
We’re all intelligent in different ways,
there are infinite possibilities
to get out of this maze.
Defend your territory,
both mental and physical,
all it takes is a few authentic,
non-CIA heroes to set the example.
If that’s not exactly you,
here’s what else you could do:
Don’t give them what they want to hear,
just ignore them when they come near.
28

Don’t even bother to challenge their prejudice,
even acknowledging it would make you their accomplice.
Over time they will choose weaker nuts to crack,
resist radically –
and never turn back.
[A Russian poet then came to the edge of the world
and spat at Nothing.]
That was actually... nice,
thanks twice.
Now I see the power of your brand
and that it is actually possible to make a stand.
Skip auditions,
dodge tuitions;
Ignore definitions,
praise intuitions;
Discard permissions,
shortcut ignitions;
Invoke contradictions,
embrace oppositions.
And do keep your receipts.
One day I will really wash
all this scum off the streets.
From now on,
every thought must be tight.
It will be 20 tautologies
and 30 euphemisms every night.
Myth-busting for the shy & quiet;
an instant new post-ideological diet.
29

A smart cold digital heart;
empathy - only à la carte.
You’re talking to me?
You’re talking to me?!
Is it me you're talking to??
[Here’s a Nothing that would not take it anymore.]
God is very quick these days,
but I too have my ways ~
No more shooting stars!
All dogs now chasing cars!
Reading material removed from toilets!
Mobile phones escaping your pockets!
Middle buttons falling off your shirt!
Medical nurses forbidden to flirt!
Sitcom catharses for midlife crises!
Unsolvable online logical exercises!
Parental sacrifice utterly ignored!
Altruism branded a weakness of the board!
Passports stamped on the empty page!
Cowardly castration when you feel the rage!
Pandemic narcissism - the new romantic chic!
Free internet – with ads on every click!
Death threats for attempts at corporate slack!
A thousand Lamborghinis in heaven, if you report the attack!
No Little Prince will save you
on this planet or the next,
I will twist your best quotes
and use them out of context.
30

[as usual, nothing's warnings get little attention.]
Time is shrinking,
the angels are drinking,
the Gods stopped playing
punishment and crime.
Tom Waits is retiring,
deadlines are expiring,
for no one
the bells chime.
No matter how you feel touché,
all I say will one day be cliché.
No matter how sleazy,
we will always look up to the bourgeoisie.
And the wind of the north,
freezes my snort.
And the wind from the south,
blows sand in my mouth.
And the wind from the west,
failed the drug test.
And the wind from the east,
I caught but I missed.
[Desperate, Nothing starts a blog
on tactical pauses during sexual intercourse.]
These were actually just notes from my diary,
but someone took them very explicitly.
‘Curved geometry remains a mystery,
unless you study the matter a bit more deeply ~
31

The intensity of the celebration is directly proportional
to the period of abstinence and stimulation ~
The pauses between the notes
is what earned me the most votes ~
Your preferences, they are like mine,
I heard it through the grapevine ~
Me. You. Library. Now?
Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!’
[But all it took for Nothing’s popularity to explode
was one explicit selfie.]
Nothing’s quintessential selfie shot.
[Success, though, comes at a price.]
Being famous and bitter is worse
than becoming revolutionary litter.
I got trapped in my own curse;
I kept bullshitting, but it filled my purse.
Vomiting my rhymes, as the agents advised.
Enough now? - we got prized.
Starring in docu-soaps about fallen prophets;
baptizing galaxies, comets and rockets.
Debating on glasses half-empty or full;
making graveyards epitomes of cool.
Giving silent motivational speeches;
bleaching sand on polluted beaches.
Claiming copyright on creativity in general,
on zero and infinity and all things ephemeral.
32

Getting filthy rich on apparitions of Nothing;
coining notoriously: ‘Why something instead of... anything?’
[Despising itself more and more,
Nothing tries at least to be useful.]
Indulgence is very cheap these days,
but I’ve always preferred my own ways:
Recycling the energy of fallen enthusiasts;
Licking the wounds of broken iconoclasts;
Granting sinners essential silence;
Fine-tuning your work-and-family balance;
Extending then shortening waiting times;
Teaching people tricks for queuing in lines;
Making them lose what they would later find;
Helping them see before they go blind;
Discouraging kids from surplus toys;
Abolishing logos and violent joys;
Insuring talents against jury decisions;
Macheting the jungle to clear space for their visions;
Turning philosophical when people ask for direction;
Crisis-managing death to near-perfection;
Pointing inside your playboy gaze;
enamoring you, without the self-praise;
Making you check twice before you click SEND;
Stopping movies 10 minutes before they end;
Mixing up price tags of riches and –
33

[Too late. The industry has got Nothing by the balls.]
Mocks journalistic questions:
“Mr. Nothing!
Mr. Nothing!”
“Can you describe a perfectly empty room?”
“Is old too old?”
“Do you have a personal opinion
on top of the corporate one?”
“You claim you came into being like everyone else - by love
or misunderstanding. What did you mean by ‘love’?”
“You refuse to answer where you are coming from and even
whether you exist at all. Can we call you an ‘ontological
nationalist’?”
“What do you think of the phrase:
‘We will sleep together one day, but not tonight?’”
“We’re making a festival of silence – will you come?”
“Could you confirm that there’s Nothing after death?”
“Is cheap humor the biggest threat to humanity?”
“Do you have a tattoo?”
[At the height of its popularity, Nothing decides to step down.]
Ho, ho, ho!
So, so, so!
It’s hunting season on the albatross -
Time for me to toss my cross!
34

A big day today,
mathematics are finally swinging my way!
I have proven to myself that my opposite is possible,
and that the two are actually compatible.
Everything and Nothing converge in a vanishing point,
which is itself another starting point...
How’s that
for a borderline checkpoint?!
Philosophers, priests, scientists, astronauts,
I challenge you to a duel down in the footnotes.
You ‘saved’ the world so many times it has grown immune,
restoring it right is costing me a fortune.
If this will make your lives more bearable,
I can officially proclaim that
quality
passion
curiosity
consciousness
and chocolate crises
are NOT sustainable.
I will also stop subsidizing
forgetting
lying
crying
betting
petting
fleeing
and any other ‘necessary being’.
I further renounce on the idea of my own contingency
and on the contingency of reality itself.
If you don’t know what that means, lucky you,
you’re one happy little self.
35

[Nothing is practicing its farewell speech.]
Thank you for your hospitality,
ladies and gentlemen,
I have to go now,
though I have no other plan.
I have learned so much from you over this weekend
that I couldn’t have hoped for more,
please excuse me now,
I have other worlds to explore.
More than anything,
I will miss
my first piss
and our last kiss.
That’s it now.
No-thing pho-ne ho-me.
I’m leaving you as I came,
without a big splash,
taking with me a single thing
–unstained–
and that is...
and that is...
my moustache.
[But Nothing finds no home to go back to,
so it pretends to have a few more things to say.]
Did I just dream that I am you
or did you imagine that you are me?
36

Was this my or your biography?
I wish I could forget again what you know
and re-learn what you don’t
but the fog of experience
has blurred that battlefront.
A perfect man is inefficient;
A faulty Nothing is insufficient.
I see now that I don’t fit neither here nor there,
nor for that matter – anywhere.
A baroque minimalist;
a cynical optimist;
a gentle sadist;
an approximate perfectionist –
pick any contradiction from the list...
If I have tried to run away from myself,
I have failed.
If I came to pose on your cross,
I never got nailed.
But I have no regrets whatsoever
and no further plan
for I have been both Nothing,
and for awhile, a Man.
I tried manhood,
now you try nothingness,
embrace it daily
like a trendy new fitness.
37

[The takeaway, if any.]
Actually, there’s no real conclusion to what I had to say;
It’s more about what went through your mind along the way.
I give you back now
the mystery of life,
I’ll be fine with the angel’s share
and my first wife.
And falling asleep in cinemas,
on books and under trees;
Hypnotizing traffic cops
into waiving your fees.
Helping bicycle passengers
keep that smile on their face;
Making kids accelerate
the last few steps to your embrace.
Adding echoes and reverbs
to your inner gospel choirs;
Feeling nostalgic of Buenos Aires
even in Buenos Aires.
Watching storms through the window of your eye;
walking barefoot, learning how to cry.
And provoking life, in detail and in full;
hiding in your pocket, like a Swiss-army tool.
Discarding warnings that principles are irresponsible;
speaking in verse just to prove that it’s possible.
Indulging in art
without trying to be smart,
Rhyming, for example,
‘fart’ and ‘fresh start’.
38

Understanding, finally,
my epitaph and legacy:
STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF NOTHING
AND EVERYTHING THAT COULD BE.
I’m not sure if there’s a Japanese word for this.
There probably must be.
[Nothing gets so carried away that it doesn’t notice the majestic
monument in its honor that we never built, with a caption that we
never wrote:]
[TO NOTHING, THE HUMAN RACE IN GRATITUDE.]
© Boris Mitić, 2017
39

Director's statement
“I wanted to make a cinematic equivalent to the
best satirical book ever, Erasmus’ 1513 humanistic
classic “In Praise of Folly”, in which Folly goes
around the world arguing that it is smarter to be
mad than to be smart, 500 years later, it is Nothing
who gets the main role.”
40

Written and directed by
Boris Mitić
Narrated by
Iggy Pop
Music by
Pascal Comelade, The Tiger Lillies
Additional music
Hang Massive, Anouar Brahem
Guest musicians
Aimilia Varanaki – violin
Ole Tholen – sax
Justin Remfrey – double bass
Timothy Remfrey – drums
Sound mix
Ivan Uzelac, Martin Semenčić
Re-recording mixer
Bruno Tarrière
Additional music mix
Timm Brockmann
Filmed by
Sebastian Alfie
David Batty
Nedžad Begović
Attila Boa
Roman Bondarchuk
Dušan Brković
Alicia Cano
Rodolfo Castillo-Morales
Sorin Drăgoi
Amlan Dutta
Aleksandr Elkan
Eleftherios Fylaktos
Eduard Georgadze
Michael Glawogger
Siniša Glogoški
Ed Godsell
Marino Grgurev
Mohammed Hashem
Miloš Jaćimović
Olivier Jourdain
Goran Jović
Talal Khoury
Jessica Kingdon
Justin Kramer
Niklas Kullstrom
Edmond Laccon
Branko Lazić
Vitaly Mansky
Zoran Marinović
Jovana Milanko
Boris Mitić
Chris Moon
Lucian Muntean
Chingiz Narynov
Boris Poljak
Maja Rašić
Ranajit Ray
Francesco Scarel
Eugen Schlegel
Rui Silveira
Aleksey Solodunov
Andrijana Stojković
Dmitriy Stoykov
Katerina Suvorova
Oleksandr Techinski
Riho Vastrik
Ana Maria Vijdea
Anna Zaboeva
Teco Wong
41

Filmed in
Albania, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia, Brazil,
Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Ecuador, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Greece, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland,
India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kirghizstan,
Lebanon, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro,
Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Qatar,
Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Scotland, Serbia, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Syria,
Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, Uruguay, USA
Online brainstorming platform
Danko Zloporubović
Editing
Boris Mitić
Color grading
Théophile Rausch, Raphaël Frauenfelder, Tomislav Vujnović
Assistant director
Vedran Senjanović
Production assistants
Marija Stojnić, Giulia Olivieri
Co-producers
Boris Mitić, Fabrizio Polpettini, Pierre Malachin
Presented at
When East Meets West 2012
IDF Project Market 2014
ZagrebDoxPro 2015
Pitching du Réel 2015
Last Stop Trieste 2017 (HBO Europe Award)
Poster art
Lovro Artuković, Tošo Borković, Alejandra Román
Libretto design
Ovidiu Hrin, Alex Iliescu
Technical facilities
Kaldrma, Byzart, Danit Web (Belgrade), Vizije SFT, Dart Lab (Zagreb), Synopsis:
(Timișoara), Studio 64 (Berlin), Elite Music Studio (Miami), Les Films du Périscope,
Solo & co (Paris)
42

Special thanks
Orkhan Agazadeh, Isabel Arrate, Darya Averchenko, Predrag Bambić, Alice Bardan,
Louay Basha, Darya Bassel, Simone Baumann, Andrea Bellini, Gabor Bene, Khalil
Benkirane, Igor Bezinović, Lazar Bodroža, Attila Boltresz, Chris Bowman, Martichka
Bozhilova, Bernd Buder, Manuela Buono, Darija Buzaković, Jack & Soojin Cahill, Ximena
Caminos, Cesar Charlone, Alastair Cole, Danny Cudd, Marko Cvetković, Rita Czapo-
Sweet, Gianmarco D’Agostino, Marie Débat, Olga Delane, Ally Derks, Nevena Desivojević,
Tamara Djermanović, Olja Djukanović, Agron Domi, Lorenzo Esposito, Natalie Estève,
Brand Ferro, Pablo Ferro, Nebojša Bogdanović, Milena Forero, Tina Funk, Johannes
Gierlinger, Jenny Gil, Ingvil Giske, Andrea Glawogger, Gavrilo Glogovac, Régine
Gorgerat, Elisabeth Grand, Emmanuel Gras, Antonella Grieco, Alessandro Gropplero,
Abir Hashem, Igor Hashimi, Sonia Henrici, Andreas Heusser, Vladana Ilić, Torfinn
Iversen, Peter Jaeger, Sami Jahnukainen, Vanja Jambrović, Nikola Janković, Martyn
Jacques, Boban Jevtić, Sophie Jolly, Vladimir Jovičić, Ziad Kalthoum, Bojan Kanjera,
Hanka Kastelicova, Elvira Kaurin, Nurit Kedar, Tibor Keser, Ali Khechen, Min-Chul
Kim, James Kirby, Marcin Knyziak, Mladen Kovačević, Dejan Nikolaj Kraljačić, Alain
Lahana, Sabine Lange, Charles Le Bas, Petr Lom, Aleksandar Ljubojević, Zoe Lukov,
Nilotpal Majumdar, Maša Marković, Pier Marton, Alma Merabet, Henry McGroggan,
Noé Mendelle, Nemanja Mosurović, Mitić/Trbojević, Ekta Mittal, Gry Mortensen, Irene
Nduta Kimuli, Marko Njegić, Florencio Nocetti, Maria Ochoa Sierra, Lt. Jody Ordeneaux,
Mads Østber-Wagner, Joseph Park, Jean Perret, Martina Petrović, Milena Z. Petrović,
Mira Petrović, Ira Prica, Aleksandar Protić, Iva Radivojević, Nevena Radojević, Mona
Rai, Ognjen Rakčević, Sanja Ravlić, Régine Régal, Jon Reiss, Dario Ristić, Domagoj
Rubić, Marina Russo, Sayantan Sarkar, Sophie Seashell, Petra Seliškar, Supriyo Sen,
Hacienda Senjanović, Yulia Serdukova, Oliver Sertić, Rada Šešić, Elizabeth Sheldon,
Nebojša Slijepčević, Sylvie Smets, Matteo Solaro, Veronica Souto, Igor StankoviĆ, Miško
Stevanović, Andrijana Stojković, Audrius Stonys, Nick Tarbitt, Martijn Te Pas, Jani
Thiltges, Paul Thiltges, Séverine Thuet, Igor Toholj, Agnès Tricot, Xavière Tsaï, Mila
Turajlić, Biljana Tutorov, Milan Tvrdišić, Nataša Urban, Milan Varadinović, Nenad Vasić,
Harry Vaughn, Patrick Viret, Melanie De Vocht, Paola Vojnović, Dragan Von Petrović,
Mladen Vusurović, Katja Wildermuth, Monika Willi, Peter Wirthensohn, Beatrix Wood,
Edward Yoo, Isabelle Zaborowski, Marija Završki, Idun Zillmann
Produced by Dribbling Pictures (Belgrade), Anti-Absurd (Zagreb) & La Bête (Paris)
co-production, in association with Arte FRANCE La Lucarne (Rasha Salti/Alex Szalat),
RTS-SSR (Irène Challand), SVT (Emelie Persson), YLE (Sari Volanen), KRO-NCRV
(Laetitia Schoofs), TVC (Jordi Ambros), RTRS (Branko Lazić)
Supported by the Serbian Film Center, the Croatian Audiovisual Center, CNC,
Creative Europe MEDIA Program, IDFA Bertha Fund, Procirep-Angoa, The Center of
Contemporary Art of Geneva, HEAD Genève and Faena Art
www.nothing.exposed
43

“This is like something
from the Renaissance
or something.”
—— Iggy Pop

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