Maria Moraites Collection

Goodnight Socrates

Transcript (Download)

One afternoon without warning, tradition died.

I rang the bell that heralded those forty days of Lent.

How was I to know what they would hold? That the serene security and tying bond of tradition was to snap.

I was a little bit afraid.

I was a little bit afraid.

I was a little bit afraid.

I was a little bit afraid.

I was a little bit afraid.

I was a little bit afraid.

Building by building, land clearance devoured our neighborhood.

The temples and the oracles that I had wandered through playing at Odysseus were that spring, but half dusty ruins.

As Odysseus I faced the Cyclops, Zeus with ankle clips and silver -studded sword, but never the lotus eaters who lived beyond the wall of our little Greece.

I had never dared to look on them, for I had been schooled.

Alas, those Greeks who tasted that honey sweetness of the lotus thought no more of home and forgot the privilege of their birth.

They were Greek, the people who kept their shops and lived along our gallery, away from the rest of the city.

They were Greek, the people who taught me to dance, hasopiko, simbeiko, to walk, who made the pastry, passed our laws.

I was a little bit afraid.

Shut up! That was it.

So suddenly, so small, a message dropped.

Even had I read it, could I have fully understood what that 40 -day eviction notice meant? Our building, our home, would be next.

So frost on the ground, chill in the air, yet buds studied what trees survived.

That early spring held a change more violent than temperate.

Thea Maria was Athena, a goddess of wisdom with eyes that were trained only on what had been jealously gostums and possessions she had brought from Greece.

Her refusal to accept the assimilation into this new city, her taboos, fostered in me a fascinating sense of pride and pride in her.

The nation for the new.

The magic of the days when we had any word from Greece or any gift, whether embroidery or figs, that was the way it was that day.

New shawl, and then that message from the land clearance office.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

I sensed, but did not understand the importance of our moving from Socrates Street.

As head of the family, Papou would have to come home to read the news.

Papou was at the table he had occupied for 20 years.

This was one of the few times I had seen and smelled the inside of the cappanile.

It was the world of men.

A world of which I was not yet a member.

A world that I would be expected to join.

A world that I would be expected to join.

The faces changed little from spring to spring.

The topic of discussion, politics and Turkish coffee, changed not at all.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

I had not entered the room while Papou was still in the room.

Papou's path led to the struggling tree that only one spring ago had stood so proudly in the yard of his barber shop.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

The next morning.

Mm.

Mm.

Owww.

So glad she found me The magic of security now twisted beneath my feet.

I counted to 200 four times.

Or did I count to 400 two times? By slow degrees I thought I could forget Socrates Street.

But I was wrong.

Highway construction, building destruction, lobbing in the wake of the new faceless invaders.

Where was I to turn? What would Odysseus have done? My walk that led to no decisions led me to the playground of a school.

Until that spring, I had been cradled far from this place.

In fact, I rather think I was afraid.

No.

The stories I had heard about Americans.

American.

I did not know then that I would ever become one.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I was a child.

I can't remember which building fell when.

only strange machines.

The machines inside the people We are screaming too.

Can't we be saved? This is the only life we know.

The faces of that spring are reflections.

The voices and music are the memory of a memory.

Grown strong again with love.

Oh, I've seen buildings torn down since.

And new buildings built.

And then the workers all sitting down for lunch.

But it's not the same as it was those 40 days.

The glass wintered 20 ways smaller.

The cranes were flying.

The buildings were 20 ways meaner, 20 ways taller.

Children still laugh.

Women still sing.

But there is something missing.

A harmony, a melody.

I can't put my finger on it.

I can't put my finger on it.

I can't put my finger on it.

It isn't there.

The bugs turn brown and drop into the rubble piles.

Leaving the branches naked.

In other years during the week before Easter, the boys had practiced their dances in the court behind Popko's old barber shop.

That spring, we danced on roofs where gardens had been.

The store of Mr.

Dom.

That was to be the last time I'd smell the lamb on Harlachter Bordico.

But it was as it had been the first time.

As it had always been.

To gather everything of Greece that we could carry with us to our new home.

That was what Fia Maria had me do that afternoon before the end.

Doing the fish business again? Hello! tras terror 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 私はあなたを愛しています。 Where they go? The pigeons when they are unbound fly into the city...

Good night, Socrates.

I shall remember you always with love and pain.

Now I am free.

I shall remember you always with love and pain.

I shall remember you always with love and pain.

I shall remember you always with love and pain.

Identifier
F.2025-11-0001
Date Of Production
1962
Abstract
"Kali Nihta, Socrates" ("Good Night, Socrates") is a story-documentary film about the destruction of a small Greek community in Chicago to make way for urban renewal. As the film was being shot, Chicago's Greektown was being razed to make space for the Kennedy Expressway and the new campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago. It captures the real-life destruction of buildings and culture as seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy of Greek descent.
Description
The film was made by Maria Moraites and Stuart Hagmann, who had recently graduated from Northwestern University, with a grant from the North Shore Film Society. It went on to win awards internationally, including the Targa Leone di San Marco for Best Narrative Short Film at the Venice Biennale's 13th Venice International Documentary Film Festival.
Format
16mm
Extent
1,300 feet
Color
B&W
Sound
Optical
Reel/Tape Number
1/1
Language Of Materials
English
Element
Print
Genre
Documentary
Form
Amateur
Subject
Greek Americans
City planning
Religions
Manners and customs
Emigration and immigration
Related Collections
Maria Moraites Collection

Related Places
North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Near West Side

Main Credits
Moraites, Maria (is director)
Hagmann, Stuart (is director)

Additional Credits
Moraites, Maria (is writer)
Moraites, Maria (is cinematographer)
Hagmann, Stuart (is cinematographer)
Hagmann, Stuart (is contributor)
Brown, Mooyeen (music)
Strachan, Mary (is writer)

Participants And Performers
Mitchell, Charles (is actor)
Moraites, Maria (is actor)
Coleris, John (is actor)
Sterne, Richard (is narrator)

 
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