"... and by his forties, what he considered his half-way point, at best, he had come to know just one thing: you will only get older. The next thing you know you're looking back instead of forward."
"And now, at the climax of all those years of worry, sleepless nights and denials, Bill finally finds himself staring his death in the face surrounded by people he no longer recognizes and feels no closer attachment to than the thousands of relatives who've come before. And as the sun continues to set, he finally comes to realize the dumb irony in how he'd been waiting for this moment his entire life. This stupid, awkward moment of death that had invaded and distracted so many days with stress and wasted time. If only he could travel back and impart some wisdom to his younger self. If only he could at least tell the young people in this room. He lifts an arm to speak, but inexplicably says 'It smells like dust and moonlight.'"
I recently lost my uncle. This scene came to mind when I visited him in the hospital less than a day before he died. He kept saying things like, "I want to tell you a story" and we'd lean in, and he'd go, "Last night... I felt like there were bugs crawling in my bed." I'll always wonder if some sort of emotional thought got lost in translation somewhere that I'll never get to hear. The first time I saw this film I was in college. In bed one night as it began to rain outside. It was labeled on Netflix as an animated comedy.
SearchTheAnswer That actually made me cry a little because he hardly ever knew him and the last moment that he had ever seen of him prior is him storming out of the house.
he used to brush death off as something outside of the realm of possibility when young, but constantly thought about his death in the back of his head for his entire life. Once he was finally on his deathbed it occurred to him how ridiculous it was that he stressed and wasted so much time thinking about this inevitable and underwhelming moment
This movie is so incredible to me because despite being mostly stick people with some narration, it really sucks you in. It's really quite beautiful actually.
It is pretty incredible what one can do with something so simple, isn't it? I mean, when people think of stick figures, what do they think of? asdfmovie, Dick Figures, maybe even stickdeath.com from back in the day (God I'm old). But every so often, once in a nice Smurf colored moon, some renegade comes around and says "See! This is what you can do!" And I wish more people would realize that.
For anyone interested, this music is the Vorspiel or opening to Wagner's Das Rheingold, the first of his four opera Ring cycle. This specific recording is from the famous Ring performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Georg Solti. A wonderful choice of music, and beautifully executed. It makes for a very ethereal experience.
It was also used in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre where it was used as background music for a simple establishing shot. I think that might have been where I first heard it.
Nice, I'll have to check that out! EDIT: I have just done so, again, very beautifully executed. Indeed Wagner is said to have been the first true "Film Composer", not just because of his sound, but his intentions as to use the music to tell the story, to describe what can't be done through words.
I am nearing thirty, and the realization that age really does creep up on you hit me hard, knowing that I will only be getting older. It's bittersweet to be honest. I find myself coming back to this video when the thought creeps up on my mind, it's honestly therapeutic, as it really is true, death is not some grand finale, it's just something that happens. I gotta learn to live in the moment and appreciate the beauty around me. I really should give this series a watch.
As someone who turns 49 in July. I can relate so much to looking back in past and makes me fucking scared of the death which comes in next 40 years if I am lucky..
This film, and more specifically this scene and the isn't everything amazing? scene have fundamentally changed the way I think about life. I stumbled on this when I was 11, it creeped me out after 10 minutes but I always had a faint memory of it after that. Fast forward to me being in and out of hospital in my 20s, struggling with all sorts of demons. I sit there and trawl through torrent sites and instantly I recognised this. I watched it fully, *bawled* my eyes out, and it explained everything to me. From this film I literally found myself. Everything I had ever needed explained to me. It gave me hope, and four years on from first watching it I still have quotes go through my head daily. I even have a Bill tattoo on my arm, I'll never forget this masterpiece
"And as the sun continues to set, he finally comes to realize the dumb irony in how he'd been waiting for this moment his entire life. This stupid, awkward moment of death that had invaded and distracted so many days with stress and wasted time." These lines are hilarious (ex. "Stupid, awkward moment") but so deep.
watched this yesterday because someone told me it was good, literally has some of the best advice and makes you stop to think so many times, and the ending... just makes you cry, its crazy what this movie did, i might do a video essay on it since theres no real long reviews about it
I watched this so many times when it was on Netflix. And I've been getting the urge to rewatch it so it's off to vimeo with me. For me, it's the whole spiraling scene around "his cupboards vibrated something deep inside him" where it really starts to get to me.
I wonder what people see in the dust and moonlight line and if it's similar to how it feels to me. It's such a mockery of the pretense aesthetic people attach to dying. Making a grand spectacle out of an awkward painful inevitability until the very end. The first part ends with mocking the banality of surviving instead of dying in some romantic dramatic way, then here we actually mock the dramatic death.
Death is like that most of the time. We all think it's gonna be this amazing and beautiful and excruciating tragedy, but instead it's just... meh. I remember seeing my grandmother for the last time. My grandfather and she spend their last few years in an old folks home. She was the first to pass. My grandfather past a year or two after. Both passed away from complications of Alzheimer's. But I remember seeing my grandmother a few days before her passing. I genuinely had no idea what to expect because I had never been confronted with the concept of death. But when I saw her lying on the bed... slack-jawed... eyes open and seeing, but not looking for anything... I felt nothing. I felt no anger. No depression. No kind of emotion that one would associate with dying or seeing a person who is close to oneself dying. Even hearing their conditions described to me from my mom (they were her parents) sounded sadder to me than actually seeing it. I never saw my grandfather before he passed. I was a teenager at the time. Thinking about it now, relating it to another, I probably sound like some kind of sociopath. But there is truly not a day that goes by when I don't think about my grandparent. And even less time goes by when I don't think about my mom, who is in her late 60s, and has the early onsets of Alzheimer's. And I always dread the thought of having to watch her become like my grandparents.
I love the dust and moonlight line. If Bill were to say something profound, it would undercut the message that the moment of death is usually unremarkable. At the same time, it ties back to the theme of the moon and sun representing life and death
Someone disliked it?? That's even more surprising to me than the over 10,000 views this video has gotten. But if I ever find the joker who disliked this video, I'll give him what for. You can bet life on it.
My mom got me a bill photo with this quote "it smells like dust and moonlight for xmas" I don't know how she knew that this is my favorite quote in this movie. But she knew.
I tried showing this clip to my mom, but since she’s currently suffering from some of the same problems Bill suffers from in the movie, she refused to watch it. Too real for her, I guess.
@@spacezoomer i got the DVD back of everything will be ok in 2006. And my family used to take me out to film festival to see this movie when it came in parts. I have three different prints signed by him with the shots he used ( the rocket, when Bill touched the tp, and when he is by the tree) It is an unofficial artwork, it kinda looks like he's in a photograph, at the end of the film when he goes through a manic period and discover life, but it has that quote. Now that I think about it (I've watched Don hertzfeldt and this film since I was 12. Now I'm 25 , and it's very heavy, beautiful but heavy. I must have said something about it smells like dust and moonlight some years back, teen me must have said something about it, and she remembered that. I got misty eyed. Her favorite quote is "they took the casket at great expense and inconvenience"
Wasted years? What else you can do with your time? When you'll be suffering from the final illness how tf in that moment the dream of past can console you? Pain is real and present. And past is a distant old memory. Existence is terrible and I don't think if we stop thinking about death and just go on it is going to solve our final suffering or suffering of existence. It's all the same where you think about it or you don't, the final illness will peg the living crap out of you. it's not like we have control over this process either.
you can have like injected su***de chip that can activate somehow when you really want to die, but can't, like in vegetable state. idk how it exactly would work but maybe it would read impulses in brain and after theres no impulses for some time, you dir
I wish I could watch this film. I cannot get a membership, I live in middle east. Usd is 18 liras and even that amount is a lot for me. We don't even have paypal anyway. Everything I want to watch from him is privated. I'm just so sad. I wish to see it's such a beautiful day and world of tomorrow 2&3 one day, hope that they also get published for free one day. Until then, I can just imagine how bautiful they must be.
I was browsing Reddit and came across this question: “What did Bill mean by ‘it smells like dust and moonlight’?” Honestly, as simple as it sounds, it’s actually pretty deep. Despite how much he might have pondered this moment his whole life, and how death was on his mind every day, making him feel suffocated by the unknown, there’s something profound here. Even though Bill might have thought about eternity (after all, you just get old), he’s aware of the paradox of thinking about immortality while trapped in a fragile body that’s falling apart. His brain, capable of contemplating its own eternity, is biologically stuck in a body that will eventually dissolve. So, it smells like dust and moonlight because that’s what he was feeling at that moment-death was just that. It was simple, no depth or mystery. The dust from the hospital bed, the medicine cabinet, and the onset of night with the sun setting made the air feel heavier. Even though he’d prepared for this day his whole life, he finally realized that death was simple and could be summed up by dust and moonlight-things he was familiar with. No mystery there. It’s a masterpiece.
Damn, I wish the movie had subtleties on my language so that way I must not do an extra work on translate it mentally, also there's few words or way of speaking some words that I don't understand
I got you dude. Se imagina respirando trabajosamente y despertando en una habitación llena de rostros preocupados. Le aterró morir, durante toda su vida. Y tanto como intentó no pensar al respecto, tanto la muerte estuvo siempre persiguiéndolo, al girar cada esquina, agazapada en cada horizonte. Llegó a cruzarse de cerca con la muerte dos o tres veces. Pero en su juventud despreocupada, la muerte casi parecía un concepto abstracto, algo que no podía sucederle. Sin embargo, con cada década que iba dejando atrás, se descubría haciendo más y más cuentas con el tiempo que probablemente le quedaba. Para sus cuarenta años, lo que pensó que sería la mitad de su vida, en el mejor de los casos, sólo podía pensar en una cosa: “De ahora en más, sólo vas a envejecer”. Cuando te das cuenta, estás mirando hacia atrás en lugar de hacia adelante. Y ahora, en el ápice de esos años de angustia, de insomnio y de negación, Bill finalmente se encuentra mirando a la muerte en la cara, rodeado de personas que ya no reconoce, y a quienes no se siente más ligado que a los miles de antepasados que vinieron antes que él. Y mientras el sol del ocaso sigue descendiendo, finalmente se da cuenta de la estúpida ironía que es haber estado esperando este momento durante toda su vida. Este momento idiota e incómodo de la muerte, que invadió y distrajo tantos días de su vida con estrés y tiempo desperdiciado. Si sólo pudiera ir atrás en el tiempo y hablar con su yo joven. Si al menos pudiera hablarle a los jóvenes que están con él en el cuarto. Alza un brazo para hablar, pero inexplicablemente, dice: “Huele a polvo y luz de luna”.
It's a clip from a movie called It's Such a Beautiful Day. You can buy it digitally on Vimeo, which is how I got this clip. It used to be available for purchase on Blu-Ray from the director's website, but that is no longer so. I was lucky enough to snag a copy myself. Either way, it's a great movie and I highly recommend that you watch it any way you can.
I have it on Blu-Ray, which I got from a Kickstarter that Don Hertzfeldt held a good number of years ago. Not sure if it's still available for purchase on his website, though. How I got the footage for this video, however, is I bought a copy from Vimeo. It's available for streaming and download.
@@spacezoomer , I looked for the movie on vimeo because I saw a post from Hertzfeld that said he would post the movie on there for free. But when I went to check and see if the movie was on there, it kept bringing me to the trailer instead of the movie.
@@spacezoomer , hmmm. Well I guess it makes sense because he did make the post saying it was free over a year ago. I just assumed that he was gonna let's us watch it for free for All of quarantine.
Maybe he did, though, and the narrator is just in denial. Now there's some food for thought. I never would have eaten that until it was served to me on a silver platter.
I think he did die, but the narrator is showing that if we did live forever, we'd run out of life experiences and forget our loved ones to time which would take away the magic of living anyways. I think it softens the blow of Bill dying.
I’d rather not, but if you wanna give your money to something, Don Hertzfeldt is running another Kickstarter to fund a Blu-Ray release of his World of Tomorrow trilogy of shorts. www.kickstarter.com/projects/worldoftomorrow/world-of-tomorrow-the-first-three-episodes-on-blu-ray
This guy’s voice ruined the film. I mean he is splinting pretentious bullshit to desperate people seeking meaning and relation. I like the style but his voice ruined it
It's Don hertzfeldt 's voice (guy who did the film) and remember it's supposed to be the inner-rambling of a mentally ill man, who is struggling to deal with reality as his life is falling apart. You can't really get through that, without the pretentious dialog. The narrative of bill is the important part of it's such a beautiful day because it would be a struggle to understand what Bill is going through. It's what makes it magical.
