Transcript of the film 'What do I see here?', written, directed and narrated by Mark Cousins.
All footage featured is from the film 'Where the Bens Stand Sentinel'.
What do I see here?
A tribute to 'Where the Bens Stand Sentinel' (1932) filmed by Robert L Jay © Jay Family.
A treasure of the National Library of Scotland and the Moving Image Archive.
[Man standing in the woods]
[Footage of hills]
What do I see here as the vagabonds are early astir?
[Man holds a smartphone showing the title screen from the film ]
[Footage of men eating outdoors]
Ice cream and Brylcreem.
[Footage of hills]
What do I see here?
A rocky paradise? Upstream colour?
[Salmon leap from under a waterfall]
A leap? Asleep?
[Footage of hills]
What do I see here? A painting? Quaking?
What do not I see here, in 1932?
A hunger march in Glasgow.
11 dead in a mine explosion in Cardowan.
Edinburgh’s synagogue opened.
Phyllida Law born.
And a new book, called Sunset Song.
[Footage of men hillwalking]
What do I see here?
A lens, era, heartbeat, elixir.
[The words 'This freedom!' from film]
[Footage of men hillwalking]
Freedom, is it?
From what? Story? Category? Inventory? Purgatory?
Freedom from 1932 itself, maybe?
What do I see here?
[Three men stand shirtless in scene from film]
Beauty? Your shirt off, all the better to remember with your body.
[One man wipes his face, another wipes his body with his hand]
Touch yourself.
[Footage of hills]
And then a wide shot. How wide?
Scotland-wide?
Or worldwide?
What in 1932 do I not see here?
[Image of Mahatma Gandhi]
Mahatma Gandhi fasting.
[Footage of hills ]
Japan rampant.
[Image of the Sydney Harbour Bridge being built]
The Sydney Harbour Bridge built.
[Footage of hills]
The atom split.
[Footage of hills]
And Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise.