Frank Cavestani rants poetically about marriage from different locations in New York City. Then he gets married. Raw footage of the after-ceremony party.
00:00Copy video clip URL In front of Federal Hall’s Greek columns in New York City, actor Frank Cavestani talks poetically about marriage and his anxieties about settling down. “Should I get married? Should I be good? Sit down with the girl next door, in my velvet suit and Faustus hood?”
01:00Copy video clip URL Cavestani talks about meeting his future wife’s parents while standing next to a statue of George Washington. “Should I sit, knees together, on a third degree sofa, and not ask, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ How else to be, other than I am? They ask: What do you do for a living? Should I tell them? Will they like me then?”
02:27Copy video clip URL Cavestani continues while standing by a hot dog push cart. At the wedding there would be more of her friends there than his. His hardscrabble friends would be there for the food. Gesturing with a hot dog, he enacts the scene: “I kiss the bride. And all those corny old men, slapping me on the back and saying, ‘She’s all yours, boy!’ And in their eyes you could see a sort of obscene honeymoon going on.”
03:17Copy video clip URL Frank drives down a boulevard, honking the horn for emphasis. “All that absurd rice, clanking cans, and shoes!”
03:33Copy video clip URL Frank drinks a beer and describes going to the hotel for his honeymoon, only to feel intense stage fright from the winking bell boys and hotel clerks. “I’d almost be inclined not to do anything,” he says.
04:37Copy video clip URL Frank takes a pensive sip. “I should get married,” he says. “I should be good. How nice it would be to come home to her and sit by the fireplace…She’s in the kitchen, aproned, young, and lovely–wanting my baby, and so happy about me she burns the roast beef.”
06:27Copy video clip URL In an apartment kitchen, Frank abandons his pastoral dreams for a “hot, smelly, tight New York City” nightmare, complete with “roaches and rats in the walls…a fat wife screeching over potatoes, ‘Get a job!'”
08:20Copy video clip URL He sits lotus style on a brick sidewalk. “It’s not that I’m incapable of love. It’s just that I find love as odd as wearing shoes.”
09:34Copy video clip URL Cut to scenes from Cavestani’s wedding. He is wearing a suit and Laura is wearing a bohemian dress and flower crown. A friend of the bride and groom reads a poem called “Marriage” by famous beat poet Gregory Corso. “The best of your self and the best of my self–don’t they deserve an eternity?”
12:00Copy video clip URL The wedding ceremony commences. The couple laughs nervously as they guide a priest to the front of the room. They have written their own vows: “Within this arc of feelings and vibrations, I seek to create for you a circle of love and understanding. Its face is truth, responsibility, and concern for each others’ well-being.”
14:30Copy video clip URL The bride and groom accept congratulations and congregate with attendees. They drink champagne and mingle with friends and family. Various shots of the party, people talking, drinking. No camera audio, only overdubbed music.
32:33Copy video clip URL END
2 Comments
Nice work Tom and MEDIA BURN ARCHIVE.
The poem I am reciting is called “Marriage” by famous beat poet Gregory Corso and should be cited. I did have his personal verbal permission.