In the first main sequence Julius enters a room in which the cameras are filming Peter making it with another homosexual for a skinflick. As Julius (Chaikin) watches, we see him recoil. The grating voice of the man behind the camera tries to sell him: Come around again, it's not so bad, Love can't be bad, ch Julius? The man behind the camera promises to show Julius the film. You'll be in the movies, Julius, big... up on the screen. The movie is a prostituting medium and Julius r?i?cts it; he refuses to become an actor.

In the next sequence Frank tries to keep the audience from taking the movie simply, therefore irresponsibly. He shows people watching Me and My Brother in a theater. Several turn away from the movie and leave in disgust, saying "This is a boring movie. The whole Orlovsky family bores me." Then another member of the audience turns round to the camera and says "Gee. I like this. This is really a wonderful movie!" Neither is this a way to see the movie, for Me and My Brother is obviously not simply good or bad.

Peter treats Julius cruelly ("Yer a god damn creep, that's what you are!") throughout the film. People in the Carpenter Center audience who were familiar with the catatonic conditions were shocked. Catatonics know what is going on around them, they are driven deeper into their condition by the reaction of those around them. They are speechless, often, and retreat into a totally noncommunicative state eventually, depending on their environment. And as we see the film progress, there are many instances in which the camera itself is a very threatening presence to the real Julius Orlovsky (the one with the beard). And if indeed most of the disturbing scenes were shot using the actor Chaikin, Julius must have been extremely susceptible to the idea that the film was being make about him, that someone was probing into his soul, using his sickness. The questioning Frank gathering material for his film. Even if the original contact was innocent on Frank's part, if he just happened to film the poetry reading with Julius in the background, Frank is guilty of contributing to Julius' condition. We suspect.

Perhaps this tension, the guilt of the audience is a conscious part of the film. I am not sure about my guilt in watching Orlovsky and being entertained by him. But he has become a part of my world as well, and Frank has succeeded in breaking through the normal disassociation of emotions in this film.

In response to questions the following morning, Frank said that perhaps Julius was affected by the making of the film, but he didn't feel it played a major role in his decline. A photographer must believe very strongly in himself, for it is never easy to use a real person in a moving photograph unless one is insensitive and totally egotistic. Frank never spoke of this internal bleeding, but it is there. His whole life illustrates that some men must intrude on others as well as ourselves. And Frank is ruthless in his belief.

In the last movie interspliced on the program was the movie about himself. In the beginning, Frank is seen talking to the director of the American Film Institute, the sponsors, explaining why he abandoned the music. "Fuck the music! This is going to be a film about me." And the film deals with his struggles as an artist, Frank has an actress play himself. Certain scenes are tinted red to reflect his internal struggle. The dialogue teeters on eloquence, but oftimes fails. Although the direct explication of his problems seems honest enough, the film seems to put a cloud between us and Frank's core. But there is a searing segment when Frank films some convicts in prison for life, singing spirituals. It is noble, powerful... so obviously real and honest that it literally leaps out at the audience. Sad, refreshing, powerful, memorable... then the movie cuts to the silly actress high on something, satirically singing the same songs. It is shocking. This hard cut is the one moment of this self-analysis that works. And it is inextricably bound up in the revulsion we feel for the cheap manipulation of movies. It is inextricably bound in the guilt of the audience.

Frank feels that he is now ready to make the movie of his life.