philosophy in film

As with “modern art”, avante-garde, “progressive” music has its, uh, detractors? To some, hip-hop, gansta rap music sounds like “Moon River” next to it. It’s just “goddamn noise” in other words. And percussionists in particular are often the least intolerated of all.

But who would go so far as to call them “anarchists”. “Terrorists” even.

Here six of them set out to make music utilizing things that most folks don’t exactly consider to be musical instruments. Think the equivalent of Marcel Duchamp, art and urinals.

Four “movements”: in a hospital during a surgical “operation”, in a bank they are “holding up”, by thumping bulldozers outside an opera house and hanging from high tension power lines, playing them like violins. That is their “concert” of, by and for the city.

I’m sure you can think of hundreds more.

Then there is the cop who sets out to track them down. The irony being that he was born into a family that lived and breathed music. His parents named him Amadeus. Yet he came to despise it. Perhaps because he was born into the world utterly tone-deaf.

This in other words: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_deafness

If I understand what that means I think I would rather have been aborted.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Noise
trailer: youtu.be/ZSYQ0IbNsBw

SOUND OF NOISE [2010]
Directed by Ola Simonsson, Johannes Stjärne Nilsson

[b]Sanna [to the assembled drummers]: There are four movements in four locations. I want to be very clear that some things will be illegal. Some will be dangerous. But it’ll be one hell of a work of art.

…

Amadeus [voiceover as we see a photograph of him as a young boy]: Here I am at my mother’s grand piano. It was the last time I sat there before Mom and Dad gave up. But I never wanted to play. All I wanted was silence. I dreamed of music made of silence.

…

Police chief on a news broadcast: They won’t get away with this! We’re going to rid this city of musical scum!!

…

Amadeus [smashing 4 metronomes with a guitar]: Damn musicians! I want silence!!
[then he starts smashing all the other instruments]
Amadeus: I want silence! You idiotic musicians! I just want silence! Don’t you know that you stupid musicians! Just silence…

…

Amadeus: This music will change the world.
Brother: You’re not the first to say that.[/b]

There really is only so far most of us can go [in this world] before [one way or another] everything seems to start revolving around money. Not having enough of it usually. There are just so many things we seem to need it for. So, sure, from time to time, when an opportunity arises, most are willing to stretch the parameters of what is strictly legal in order to get more of it. And who better to twist the law into a pretzel than an attorney.

And he is, after all, “a good man”. He "helps old people”. It’s just that now he has this opportunity to take advantage of that. And it’s not like Leo will be living in a cardboard box out on the street somewhere.

But then things start to get complicated. Like out of the blue. Leo’s grandson Kyle shows up. He needs a place to live. So [temporarily] he moves in with Mike and Jackie. And the next thing you know he’s like part of the family. And a damn good wrestler. Though there is something about him that is not, well, all that it seems to be. But not to worry.

So, from Mike’s point of view, things are all starting to fall into place. This is the Win Win part. But then [as they often do] things start get real complicated again. Indeed, only the script manages to keep him from tumbling down into the abyss that is Lose Lose.

IMDb

Alex Shaffer was indeed the New Jersey state high school wrestling champion the year before the film was made. However, he had to quit the sport due to a back injury.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win_Win_(film
trailer: youtu.be/aGDrptiJZcA

WIN WIN [2011]
Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy

[b]Abby: Where’s Daddy?
Jackie [Mom]: He’s running.
Abby: From what?

…

Terry [to Mike who is having an anxiety attack while jogging]: OK dude, how long has that been happening?
Mike: Couple of months. The doctor says it’s stress.
Terry: Seriously? Did he prescribe anything for you?
Mike: Yeah. Jogging.

…

Mike: And it’s not like I’m some, you know, scumbag. I help old people for Christ sake. No offense but your pal, Finley doesn’t give a crap about anything but making money.
Terry: Yeah. But that’s why he makes it.
Mike: No shit, Ter. Thanks for the update.

…

[Jackie locks Kyle in the basement]
Mike: Whare’re you doin’?
Jackie: We have kids, Mike. I’m not taking any chances with Eminem down there.
Mike: There’s not even a bathroom down there, Jack.
[Jackie reluctantly unlocks the door]

…

Mike: When’s the last time you wrestled?
Kyle: A couple years ago.
Mike: Why’d you stop?
Kyle: Just felt like it.
Mike: So let me ask you something, Kyle. How good are you?
Kyle: I’m pretty good.

…

Coach Vig [of Kyle]: I don’t think we can teach him anything.

…

Mike [to the wrestling team]: Now, did you all see what Kyle did the other day? He exploded up, right? Kyle, show the guys what you did.
Kyle: It’s kind of my own thing.
Mike: Well, can you share it with us?
Kyle: But it’s not even a move or anything.
Mike: It’s okay.
Kyle: All right. Well, I just tell myself that the guy on top’s tryin’ to take my head and shove it under water and kill me, and if I don’t wanna die on bottom, I have to do whatever the fuck it takes to get out.
Coach Vig [breaking a stunned silence]: Okay. So the move is “Whatever the fuck it takes.” Let’s go. Let’s work on it.
Terry [chiming in forcefully as if knowledgeable]: WHATEVER THE FUCK IT TAKES! LET’S GO, GENTLEMEN. UP!

…

Jackie [about Cindy]: You’re gonna talk to her, right?
Mike: Yes, I intend to, if you don’t punch her out first.

…

Terry [on the phone to Mike about Kyle]: Dude, this kid really hates his mother. I mean like even more than I hate my ex wife.

…

Mike: Cindy, your father disinherited you from his will. Completely. And I’m afraid that can’t change now that he’s been declared incapacitated.
Cindy: (stunned) Is that true?! Who did he leave it too? Did he leave it to Kyle?!
Mike: No.
Cindy: Then who? You?
Mike: No. Actually, he left everything to the municipal parks system. He wanted the town park dedicated in his name.
Cindy: That scumbag! He never cared about anyone but himself and his fucking money. Did you know about this?
Eleanor: Cindy please!
Cindy: Well, I’m not taking care of him if I’m not getting anything for it.

…

Cindy: I want that commission! That’s supposed to be mine!
Mike: And that’s why you’re doing all this? For fifteen hundred dollars a month? My god.
Cindy: Isn’t that why you took him?

…

Kyle [to Mike]: You’re just like her.

…

Jackie: So why’d you move him if he wanted to stay here.
Mike: Because it would have been too much work to leave him here. I couldn’t have done it.
Jackie: Then you shouldn’t have taken him.
Mike: I had to, alright?
Jackie: Why?
Mike: Because I needed the money! We needed the money.
Jackie: You moved an old man out of his house to make money? Have you lost your freaking mind?
Mike: No! I just didn’t think it would get this complicated.
Jackie: Really? Or you just didn’t think you’d get caught?[/b]

I’m with Mike on this one. But there are just some things you can’t control.

Animated films. I don’t like them. Why? Well, it seems that, however far removed they become from “cartoons”, there is just something “unreal” about them that repels me. Really, I hate them. Just a weird predilection I suppose.

I make an exception though with this one. In part because the subject matter is provocative and intellectually stimulating. In part because “behind” the animation are real actors acting out real parts. The creators just throw in a bunch of “cartoonish” stuff I come to tolerate. And in part because it is based on a book I have read.

Substance D: Dope. And dumbness. And despair. And desertion. And death. All personal friends of mine in one or another respect. So to speak.

Dope is always a subject that has particularly tied me into knots. In some respects it infuriates me that, while cigarettes and alcohol can be consumed legally, many of the “controlled substances” I once enjoyed “recreationally” are now beyond my reach. I just don’t have access to the folks who were once able to procure them for me. And yet I can still grasp the validity of the arguments that many make regarding the apalling harm some of these drugs cause for any number of folks who abuse them. I have seen a number friends destroyed because of dope. It’s always about context. Freedom of the individual to choose meets Big Brother is just just too simplistic a narrative. But there it is nonetheless. Along with Big Business. And [it goes without saying] organized crime. Though here the emphasis is more on an encroaching police state. And the way in which the technology makes that increasingly less…intrusive? Meaning far easier for them to pull off. Though sometimes [of course] with the best of intentions.

But, come on, how far removed will entities like New Path be from Big Brother? That’s the part they missed here. Or so it seems to me. For now though it is just one more “truther” narrative.

IMDb

[b]Based on Philip K. Dick’s personal drug experiences.

According to director Richard Linklater, filming was completed in 23 days; the animation process took 18 months.[/b]

16 months I suspect just to do the scenes with the scramble suit.

FAQ at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0405296/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly_(film
trailer: youtu.be/TY5PpGQ2OWY

A SCANNER DARKLY [2006]
Written and directed Richard Linklater

[b]Fred: I’m not going to tell you first what I do as an undercover officer engaged in tracking down dealers and the source of their illegal drugs in the streets of our cities and the corridors of our schools here in Orange County. I’m going to tell you what I’m afraid of.

…

Fred: … Substance D. “D” is dumbness, and despair, desertion–desertion of you from your friends, your friends from you, everyone from everyone. Isolation and loneliness…and hating and suspecting each other. “D” is finally death. Slow death from the head down.

…

Freck: What do you think about the New Path?
Barris: While it doesn’t matter what I think, I kinda have to tip my hat to any entity that can bring so much integrity to evil. I mean, imagine this: a seemingly voluntary, privatized gulag which has managed to eliminate the meddling middlemen of public accountability and free will and wrap it up in a little bow and give it to the public like a gift.

…

Medical Deputy: You know, Fred, if you keep your sense of humor like you do, you just might make it.
Fred: Make it? Make what? The team? The chick? Make good? Make do? Make out? Make sense? Make money? Make time? Define your terms. The Latin for ‘make’ is facere, which always reminds me of fuckere, which is Latin for ‘to fuck’, and I have been getting jack shit in that department as of late.

…

Bob Arctor: The pain, so unexpected and undeserved had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. I realized I didn’t hate the cabinet door, I hated my life… My house, my family, my backyard, my power mower. Nothing would ever change; nothing new could ever be expected. It had to end, and it did. now in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things, and surprising things, and sometimes little wondrous things, spill out in me constantly, and I can count on nothing.

…

Luckman: Well! So much for our great trip to San Diego Bob, I told you we should have gone to San Francisco.
Barris: What like going to San Francisco would not have caused this problem with the engine?
Luckman: Yeah because when you’re going north, it screws this way, and when you’re going south it screws that way!
Barris: If we were in Australia![/b]

That’s the dope talking. Unless, of course, it’s true.

[b]Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening around him, decided, finally, to off himself. There was no problem in the circles where he hung out in putting an end to yourself. You just bought a large quantity of downers and took them with some cheap wine. The planning part had to do with the artifacts he wanted found on him by later archeologists. He had spent several days deciding, much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and an unfinished letter to Exxon, protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way, he would indite the system, and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved. At the last moment, he changed his mind on a decisive issue and decided to drink the pills with a connoisseur wine, instead of Ripple or Thunderbird. So he set off on one last drive, over to Tiny’s Liquors, which specialized in fine wines, and bought a bottle of 2001 Azalea Springs Merlot, which set him back almost seventy dollars. Back home again, he uncorked the wine, let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, tried to think of something meaningful but could not, and then, with a glass of Merlot, gulped down all the pills at once. However, he had been burned. Instead of quietly suffocating, Charles Freck began to hallucinate. The next thing he knew, a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed, looking down at him disapprovingly.
Freck: You gonna read me my sins?
[Creature nods]
Freck: Eh, it’s gonna take a hundred thousand hours.
Creature: Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly, in shifts, throughout eternity. The list will never end.
Creature [starts reading]: “The Sins of Freck”
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck wished he could take back the last half hour of his life.
Creature [Creature continues to read]: “… theft of fingernail clippers…” “… you did knowingly and with malice…” “… punched your baby sister, Evelyn…” “… December, theft of Christmas presents…” “… one billion lies…”
Freck Suicide Narrator: One thousand years later, they had reached the sixth grade, the year he had discovered masturbation.
Creature [Creature continues to read]: “… November fourteenth, Percodan… Vicodin… Cocaine…”
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck thought, “At least I got a good wine.”

…

Man with megaphone: “Where did Substance D come from? Why can’t we stop it? The bigger this war gets, the more freedoms we lose…the more Substance D is on our streets. Can’t you figure this out? Look around you. Look how far we’ve come. Humanity wasn’t meant to live like this. Our every waking moment tracked and traced and scanned. It’s time to stop submitting to this tyranny. It’s time to realize that we’re being enslaved.”

…

Fred [voiceover]: What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can’t any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone’s sake the scanners do better, because if the scanner sees only darkly the way I do, then I’m cursed and cursed again.

…

Audrey: I just wonder if it even matters at this…
Mike: It matters, Audrey. It matters when we can prove that New Path is the one growing…
manufacturing and distributing.
Audrey: How does he look? I mean, do you think he’s gonna be able to pull through for us?
Mike: All we can do is hope that when he finally gets in there…a few charred brain cells will flicker on and some distant instinct will kick in.
Audrey: It’s just…It’s just such a cost to pay.
Mike: Yeah. But there’s no other way to get in there. I couldn’t, and think how long I tried. They got that place locked up tight. They’re only gonna let a burnt-out husk like Bruce in. Harmless. You have to be, or they won’t take the risk.
Audrey: Yeah, but to sacrifice someone…a living person, without them ever knowing it. I mean, if he’d understood, if he had volunteered…but he doesn’t know and he never did. He didn’t volunteer for this.
Mike: Sure he did. It was his job.
Audrey: It wasn’t his job to get addicted. We took care of that.

…

Mike [to Audrey]: I believe God’s M.O. is to transmute evil into good and if he’s active here, he’s doing that now…although our eyes can’t perceive it. The whole process is hidden beneath the surface of our reality and will only be revealed later.[/b]

Sergeant J.J. Sefton. I have always found him to be a rather fascinating character. Fascinating because my reaction to him has always been hopelessly ambivalent.

On the one hand, he is rotten son-of-a-bitch. A monomaniacally selfish bastard intent only on turning everything to his own advantage. He may be just one more prisoner of war in one more German stalag but damned if he isn’t going to be [by far] the most comfortably situated. And if that means using everyone else as pawns [or dupes] in his various “business” enterprises, so be it. He figures it’s going to be a long war so he may as well make the best of it. And boy does he ever. He becomes, well, the very embodiment of dog-eat-dog capitalism.

On the other hand…

Yes, there is another side. Sefton may be all of these things…but he’s the one to go to to get things done. The guy that makes things happen. He’s the one who brings all of these dazzling enterprises to life. And boy do they ever make life in the barracks one hell of a lot more…stimulating. The telescope, the horse race, the distillerry, the gambling. How unimaginably duller life would be there without him.

Think of him as, say, one of Nietzsche’s Ubermen. Only a less principled – philosophical? – rendition.

But then things get complicated. The Germans have planted a spy in the barracks. They seem to know everything the POWs are up to. Who could it be? Well, those in charge despise Sefton. So he becomes their number one target. But Sefton [once again] manages to put the pieces [starting with a big one on the chessboard] together first.

Lots and lots of laughs here too. Thanks in particular to Animal and Shapiro. But this is no Hogan’s Heroes. Or, at any rate, the Germans are considerably less cartoonish.

IMDb

[b]The movie was shot in sequence. Many of the actors were surprised by the final plot twist.

William Holden did not like the part of Sefton at all as written in the script, thinking him too selfish. He kept asking Billy Wilder to make Sefton nicer and Wilder refused. Holden actually refused the role but was forced to do it by the studio.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_17
trailer: youtu.be/PQh3qoGYVTg

STALAG 17 [1953]
Written in part and directed by Billy Wilder

[b]Cookie [narrating]: I don’t know about you, but it always makes me sore when I see those war pictures… all about flying leathernecks and submarine patrols and frogmen and guerillas in the Philippines. What gets me is that there never w-was a movie about POWs - about prisoners of war. Now, my name is Clarence Harvey Cook: they call me Cookie. I was shot down over Magdeburg, Germany, back in '43; that’s why I stammer a little once in a while, 'specially when I get excited. I spent two and a half years in Stalag 17. “Stalag” is the German word for prison camp, and number 17 was somewhere on the Danube. There were about 40,000 POWs there, if you bothered to count the Russians, and the Poles, and the Czechs. In our compound there were about 630 of us, all American airmen: radio operators, gunners, and engineers. All sergeants. Now you put 630 sergeants together and, oh mother, you’ve got yourself a situation. There was more fireworks shooting off around that joint… take for instance the story about the spy we had in our barracks…

…

Hoffy: They ought to be under the barbed wire soon.
Shapiro: Looks good outside.
Animal: I hope they hit the Danube before dawn.
Price: They’ve got a good chance. The longest night of the year.
Duke: I’ll bet they make it to Friedrichshaven.
Animal: I bet they make it all the way to Switzerland.
Sefton: And I bet they don’t get out of the forest.
Duke: Now what kind of crack is that?
Sefton: No crack. Two packs of cigarettes say they don’t get out of the forest.
Hoffy: That’s enough, Sefton. Crawl back in your sack.
Shapiro: He’d make book on his own mother getting hit by a truck.
Sefton: Anybody call?

…

[after hearing gunshots, Sefton, who bet against the escapees, glumly collects the cigarettes]
Duke: Hold it, Sefton. I said hold it! So we heard some shots. So who says they didn’t get away?
Sefton [sadly]: Anybody here want to double their bet?

…

Duke: What slipped up, Hoffy?
Hoffy: Don’t ask me. Price was elected Security.
Duke (To Price): Okay, Security – what happened?
Price: I wish I knew. We had everything figured out to the last detail.[/b]

Except one.

[b]Sefton [slapping Shapiro’s hand when he tries to use Sefton’s soap]: Private property, bub.

…

Duke: Come on, Trader Horn, let’s hear it. What’d you give the krauts for that egg?
Sefton: 45 cigarettes. Price has gone up.
Duke: They wouldn’t be the cigarettes you took us for last night?
Sefton: What was I gonna do with them? I only smoke cigars.
Duke: Nice guy. The krauts shoot Manfredi and Johnson last night, and today he’s out trading with them.
Sefton: Look. This may be my last hot breakfast on account of they’re going to take that stove out of here, so would you let me eat it in peace?
Animal: Now ain’t that too bad? Tomorrow you’ll have to suck a raw egg.
Shapiro: Oh, he don’t have to worry. He can always trade the krauts for a six-burner gas range. Maybe a deep freeze, too.
Sefton: What’s the beef, boys? So I’m trading. Everybody here is trading. So maybe I trade a little sharper. That make me a collaborator?
Duke: A lot sharper, Sefton. I’d like to have some of that loot you got in those footlockers.
Sefton: Oh you would, would you? Listen, stupe. The first week I was in this joint, somebody stole my Red Cross package, my blanket, and my left shoe. Well, since then I’ve wised up. This ain’t no Salvation Army - this is everybody for himself, dog eat dog.

…

Sefton [to Duke and Price and Hoffy]: What’re you guys trying to prove anyway? Cutting trap doors! Digging tunnels! You know what the chances are to get out of here? And let’s say you do get all the way to Switzerland! Or say to the States? So what? They ship you to the Pacific and slap you in another plane. And you get shot down again and you wind up in a Japanese prison camp. That’s if you’re lucky! Well, I’m no escape artist! You can be the heroes, the boys with the fruit salad on your chest. Me – I’m staying put. And I’m going to make myself as comfortable as I can. And if it takes a little trading with the enemy to get me some food or a better mattress – that’s okay by Sefton!

…

Price: Which one of us is the informer?
Schultz: You are trying to say that an American would inform on other Americans?
Duke: That’s the general idea.
[he looks over at Sefton]
Duke: Only it’s not so general as far as I’m concerned.
Schultz: You are talking crazy!
Sefton: It’s no use, Schulz, you might as well come clean. Why don’t you just tell them it’s me, because I’m really the illegitimate son of Hitler, and after the Germans win the war, you’re going to make me the Gauleiter of Zinzinnati!

…

Cookie [narrating]: I guess it’s about time I told you a few more things about that Sefton guy. If I was anything of a writer I’d send it in to the Reader’s Digest for one of those ‘Most Unforgettable Characters You’ve Ever Met’…He was a B.T.O., Sefton was. A Big Time Operator. Always hustling, always scrounging. Take for instance the horse races. Every Saturday and Sunday he would put on horse races. He was the sole owner and operator of the Stalag 17 Turf Club. He was the Presiding Steward, the Chief Handicapper, the Starter, the Judge, the Breeder and his own bookie. He was the whole works, except that I was the stable boy for ten smokes a day.

…

Hoffy: What’s the big idea, Sefton? Take that telescope out of here.
Sefton: Says who?
Hoffy: Says me.
Sefton: You take it out. Only you’re going to have a riot on your hands.
Hoffy: Every time the men get Red Cross packages you have to think up an angle to rob them.
Price: When the Krauts find that gadget they’ll throw us all in the boob.
Sefton: They know about that gadget. I’d worry more about the radio.
Duke: I suppose they also know about your distillery and the horseraces?
Sefton: That’s right.
Duke: Just what makes you and them Krauts so buddy-buddy?
Sefton: Ask Security. Go on, tell him, Price. You’ve got me shadowed every minute of the day. Or haven’t you found out yet?
Price: Not yet.

…

Sefton: What is this anyway, a kangaroo court? Why don’t you get a rope and do it right?
Duke: You make my mouth water.
Sefton: You’re all wire-happy, boys. You’ve been in this camp too long. You put two and two together and it comes out four - only it ain’t four.
Hoffy: What’s it add up to you, Sefton?
Sefton: It adds up that you got yourselves the wrong guy. Because, I’m telling you, the krauts wouldn’t plant two stoolies in one barracks. And whatever you do to me, you’re gonna have to do all over again when you find the right guy.

…

Duke: Go on Price tell the crumb where he stands.
Price: All right, Sefton. You got away lucky last night. One more move, no matter how small, and you’ll wake up with your throat slit!
Hoffy: You heard that, Sefton?
Sefton: Sure I heard it. I still got one good ear. But one thing. There are two people in this barracks who know I didn’t do it. Me and the guy that did do it. And it could be any one of you.

…

Geneva man [to Sefton]: What happened to you? Were you beaten?
[Sefton doesn’t answer]
Geneva man: Why don’t you answer?
[he turns to Hoffy]
Geneva man: What did you do to this man?
Sefton: They didn’t do nothing.
Geneva man: Who beat you?
Sefton: Nobody beat me. We were playing pinochle. It’s a rough game.

…

Sefton: What’s the matter, Cookie? You on their team now? You think I’m the guy?
Cookie: I don’t know anymore.
Sefton: I understand how you feel, Cookie. It’s sort of rough – one American squealing on other Americans. Then again, Cookie – maybe that stoolie’s not an American at all. Maybe he’s a German the krauts planted in this barracks. They do this type of thing. Just put an agent in with us – a trained specialist. Lots of loose information floating around a prison camp. Not just whether somebody wants to escape, but what outfits we were with and where we were stationed, and how our radar operates. Could be, couldn’t it?
Cookie: In this barracks?
Sefton: Why not? Just one of the boys. Sharing our bunks. Eating our chow. Right in amongst the ones that beat me up. Except that he beat hardest.

…

Cookie: Who is it?
Sefton: That’s not the point, Cookie. The point is what do you do with him? You tip your mitt and the Jerries pull him out of here and plant him someplace else, like Stalag Sixteen or Fifteen. Or you kill him off and the Krauts turn around and kill off the whole barracks. Every one of us. So what do you do?
Cookie: Who is it?
[Sefton doesn’t answer]
Cookie: If you don’t want to tell me, why don’t you tell Hoffy? Or Security?
Sefton: Yeah. Security…

…

Price: Are we going to stand around here and listen to him until the Germans find out where Dunbar is?
Sefton: The Germans know where Dunbar is.
Hoffy: How do they know?
Sefton: You told them, Hoffy.
Hoffy: Who did?
Sefton: You did.
Hoffy: Are you off your rocker?
Sefton: Uh-huh. Fell right on my head.

…

Sefton: Okay, Herr Preismaier, let’s have the mail box.
Price: The what?
Sefton: The one you took out of the corner of your bunk and put in this pocket.
[Sefton snatches the black queen out of Price’s coat pocket]
Sefton: Now let me show you how they did it.

…

Duke [to Sefton]: Brother, were we all wet about you!

…

Duke [referring to Sefton’s safe escape with Dunbar]: Whadda ya know? The crud did it.
Shapiro: I’d like to know what made him do it.
Animal: Maybe he just wanted to steal our wire cutters. You ever think of that? [/b]

We’ve seen this film a thousand times. A woman living a safe but humdrum existence is itching for something more. Only she doesn’t quite know it. And then out of the blue a “bad man” comes into her life and everything changes. And, up to a point, for both of them. But it is the transformation in Carla that is by far the most intriguing.

In some respects, Carla’s world revolves around a hearing disability…just as Paul’s world revolves in some respects around his stints in prison. They are not exactly what one might call a “glamorous” pair. But when Carla gets fucked by the company she works for, Paul’s bad boy “skills” come in handy. And she can read lips. And that comes in handy for Paul. Together they come to embody a chemistry that is fascinating to watch unfolding. All the more so when it becomes entangled in some rather problematic close encounters of the illegal kind.

In part their relationship tends to revolve around conflicting components of Carla’s psyche: she longs for a passionate, topsy turvy relationship with an off the beaten path man like Paul…but she has no real experience at all around men. She has to sort of reconfigure herself extemporaneously from day to day to day.

And then there is the really strange sub-plot involving Paul’s parole officer. His “missing” wife.

It’s a dark and a complex world out there. And a creepy one inside Carla’s head. And we either run toward it or far away from it in our own unique way.

The film is billed as a “thriller”. But it takes its time becoming one. So be patient.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read_My_Lips_(film
trailer: youtu.be/idQKTEigAok

READ MY LIPS [Sur Mes Lèvres] 2001
Written in part and directed by Jacques Audiard

[b]Carla [interviewing Paul for a job]: You haven’t worked for two years. Why not?
Paul: Why not? I was in Fleury.
Carla: Fleury?
Paul: I was in Fleury. Doing time.
Carla: What kind of time?
Paul: Time Magazine. I was in jail! Are you shitting me?
Carla: You were in prison?

…

Carla: Can I ask you something? Why were you in prison? Sorry, it’s silly of me…
Paul: No, it’s OK. I’ll answer. I went down for… aggravated robbery and receiving.
Carla: What kind of robbery?
Paul: Aggravated and receiving. I did banks, cars, stickups… anything. Nothing too heavy. Nobody got killed.
[he notices a grimace on her face]
Paul: What’s up? Did I say something wrong?
Carla [gesturing to a table of men in the lunch room]: They’re making fun of me.
Paul: How do you know?
Carla: I lip-read. I read people’s lips.
[she explains her hearing disability to him]
Paul: What are they saying?
Carla: In a nutshell…Keller is saying I’ve done well for myself. A dog like me is lucky to get a guy like you. Maybe I’m a good number and they’ve been missing out.

…

Annie: We meet in clubs or go straight to hotels…and we fuck. I’ve never known anything like it. It’s so…I want to end it but…two days without him, I go nuts! I’d never imagined it.
Paula: What?
Annie: Sex! Like that. Being a mindless piece of meat.

…

Carla: Are you pleased?
[he comes close to her and gropes at her breast…he tries to have sex with her but she slaps him and pulls away]
Paul [perplexed]: What’s the matter? Goddamn it! Isn’t that what you want? What are you after? The apartment, the job, the money…What do you want? I don’t get it!

…

Carla [to Paul]: Keller’s a shit. I was handling the Flerets project. Just as I’m ready to submit it, the creep gets it back from Morel! For three years I’ve slaved for them! Doing all their work, lying to their wives! I’ve had enough!

…

Carla: Can you steal the file from Keller?
Pau: I’m not stealing.
Carla: Why?
Paul: You know why. One false move, I’m back in jail. Don’t mess me around. I’m not stealing anything.
Carla: When you grabbed me yesterday, I was scared and shocked. But I understand, in a way. You think you owe me. You pay with what you’ve got. You got me wrong. I don’t blame you… but it’s true, you do owe me.

…

Carla: You owe how much?
Paul: Seventy.
Carla: Seventy what?
Paul: Seventy Gs.
Carla: Francs?! That’s enormous! Who’s this Marchand?
Paul: I dunno.
Carla: You owe 70,000 francs to a man you don’t know?![/b]

This is the part where the film becomes a thriller.

[b]Carla: Why should I freeze on a roof spying on hoodlums?
Paul: Don’t give me that! For the money, maybe? If I get some, you get some.
Carla: I don’t give a shit about money.
Paul: Let’s cut the crap. Just tell me what you want.
Carla: Come to work like before. Work nights at the club, days at the office. I’ll fix your hours. We’ll use a company car.
Paul: Fuck you!
Carla: Take it or leave it.

…

Paul: A lot?
[Carla nods]
Paul: Meet me at the car.
Carla: Then what?
Paul: Then? We get the hell out.
Carla: Then what?
Paul: What do you mean, then?
[she puts a plane ticket down on the bar]
Carla: Then you split, is that it?[/b]

Chess? Of course: Bobby Fischer.

So, what does it mean to go searching for him? After all, there is the man playing chess and then all that other stuff. The weird, megalomaniacal, extreme stuff. For example, was he a Nazi?

The man was…strange. But when you are very, very good at something that only a relatively few folks care about then being really, really strange can draw more attention to what you are good at at. If only [in the beginning] incidentally. But it still puts your thing in the spotlight. So, just as Arnold Schwarzenegger is said to have put bodybuilding on the map, so Bobby Fischer is said to have done the same thing for chess. Though I should point out that chess and bodybuilding are in some respects…worlds removed?

Anyway, aside from the parts that aren’t, this is a true story. Joshua Waitzkin does exist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Waitzkin

And his story is truly a fascinating one. And though his 15 minutes have long since expired it is still enjoyable to go back to it from time to time in this fantastic movie. How fantastic? Well, it garnered a 100% fresh rating on 34 reviews at RT:

rottentomatoes.com/m/searchi … y_fischer/

Also, aside from being a tale about a kid who was a prodigy at chess, the movie focuses the beam on other interesting facets of “the human condition” as well. Like the role that competition [and fame] plays in our modern world. What it means to be the best at something…and how one’s life can then become reduced down to staying the best. How this can reconfigure “childhood” into a world uttlerly alien to most of us. And then [finally] how Josh Waitskin somehow came to straddle all this and embrace the best of both worlds.

IMDb

[b]The character of Jonathan Poe (Josh’s young rival) was based on real life young chess prodigy Jeff Sarwer. In the National Primary Championship which the climax of the film is based on, Josh and Jeff actually tied for first place, after which Josh won on tie-breaks. While Sarwer would go on to win the World Championship Under 10, he soon disappeared with his sister and father; the family was known for living a travelling lifestyle (no permanent adress, etc.)

In the second half of the movie where Josh’s father brings him back to the park to play with Vinnie, real-life Josh Waitzkin and Vinnie (both much older than actors playing them) are visible in the background.

Bobby Fischer denounced the movie, claiming that it was part of a “Jewish conspiracy” to sully his name and make money off him at the same time.

Most of the characters who were famous chess players were actually played by themselves (Joel Benjamin, Roman Dzindzichashvili). The one exception is Asa Hoffman. The real Asa Hoffman did not like the way he was depicted in the script (he is shown as being neurotic, when the book describes him as being quite self-aware), and refused to cooperate, so he was played by Austin Pendleton.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_ … by_Fischer
trailer: youtu.be/8khmNiamBxo

SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER [1993]
Written and directed by Steven Zaillian

[b]Josh [narrating]: In the days before the event, the whole world wondered if Bobby Fischer would show up. Plane after plane waited on the runway, while he napped, took walks, and ate sandwiches. Henry Kissinger called and asked him to go for his country’s honor. Soon after arriving, he offended he Icelanders by calling their country inadequate because it had no bowling alleys. He complained about the TV cameras, about the lighting, about the table and chairs, and the contrast of the squares on the board. You could tell them, he said, it’s too nice of you. None of this has anything to do with chess of course. But maybe it did. If he won, he’d be the first American world champion in history. If he lost, he’d just be another patzer from Brooklyn. On the 10th move of the 21st game, he countered Spassky’s bishop to king with a pawn to rook. And it was all over. He came home an American hero. He bragged to the world he’d beat the Russians. He delivered. He can now command the same money as heavyweight prizefighters. He was invited to dinner by statesmen and kings. Then Bobby Fischer made the most original, unexpected move of all. He disappeared.

…

Josh: You want to go watch the men in the park?
Bonnie [his mom]: What men in the park?

…

Bonnie: Josh…it’s O.K. to beat him. You won’t hurt his feelings.

…

Josh: Can we go to the dealership now?
Fred [his father]: Well, the game’s not over, yet, Josh.
Josh: Yes, it is.

…

Fred: Clearly, you had me come here so I could see all this. But if you really wanted me to say no to letting my son play, you wouldn’t have bothered. You want me to think you want me to say no, but you actually… want me to say yes.
Bruce: You have no idea what I want. What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it’s a science. It’s neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art. I spent my life trying to play like him. Most of these guys have. But we’re like forgers. We’re competent fakes. His successor wasn’t here tonight. He wasn’t here. He is asleep in his room in your house. Your son creates like Fischer. He sees like him…inside.
Fred: You can tell that by watching him play some drunks in the park?
Bruce: Yes!

…

Bruce: The first lesson went very well, I think.
Bonnie: Oh, good.
Fred: So were you two talking about chess up there?
Bruce: No, it didn’t come up.

…

Bruce: Mate is four moves from the position in front of you. Don’t move until you figure it out in your head. Don’t look to me for a hint.
Josh: I can’t do it without moving the pieces.
Bruce: Yes, you can. Clear the lines of lint in your head, one at a time, and the king will be left standing alone, like a guy on a street corner. Here, I’ll make it easier for you.
[he sweeps the pieces onto the floor]

…

Bruce: His chess ideas are like pieces of his body he’s reluctant to give up. For instance, he simply can’t cope with being told not to bring his queen out too early in the game. Why shouldn’t he? He’s won many a game in Washington Square doing exactly that, why is this suddenly wrong? What I’m trying to teach him and what he’s learning there are two very different things. Park hustlers play tactics, not position. They rely on wild, unpredictable moves meant to intimidate their opponent. Great in a two-minute speed game for drug money, but it’ll cost Josh dearly in real games.
Fred: Well, he’s learning some new words!
Bruce: I was wondering if you could keep him from playing there so much.
Fred: Sure.
Bonnie: No. It’d kill him not to play in the park. He loves it.
Bruce: It just makes my job harder.
Bonnie: Then your job’s harder.

…

Bruce [on the phone]: I don’t know why I O.K.'d this anyway.
Fred: He wants to do this.
Bruce: I should’ve dissuaded him. I grew up playing in tournaments. They have nothing to do with what’s important. They’re about all winning and losing. It’s not chess.
Fred: Ah. Chess is art.
Bruce: That’s right.
Fred: No. Chess is you appreciating the beauty of Josh’s play at 60 bucks an hour.

…

Josh [narrating]: Bobby Fischer studied chess books while his teachers taught other things. When they told him to put his books away, or took them away, he studied in his head. When a science report came back to him once with the words “not satisfactory” written across the top, he wrote under it just as big, “Tough.”

…

Teacher: Mr. Waitzkin…I’m sure he’s very good at this chess thing, but that isn’t really the issue–
Fred: Chess thing?
Teacher: I’m sorry?
Fred: Chess thing.
Teacher: I’m sure he’s good at it, but I’m worried. To make an analogy–if it was like, say… oh, I don’t know… um, cards, Pinochle. For instance.
Fred: Pinochle.
Bonnie: Fred…
Fred: Bonnie…she’s comparing chess to pinochle. What am I supposed to say to that?
Bonnie: She’s trying to make a point. Maybe we should listen. Vinnie thinks he’s spending too much time at it, too.
Fred: Vinnie? Vinnie’s a drug addict. I’m supposed to listen to his opinion, too?
[he turns to the teacher]
Fred: I’m sorry, but your analogy is a very bad one. If you want to make a comparison to something, have it make sense. Compare it to math or music or art, because otherwise it belittles him and it and me.
Teacher: I don’t mean to belittle you–
Fred: Oh, but you are, you are even the way you’re looking at me.
Teacher: Mr. Waitzkin, I think perhaps–
Fred: I’ll tell you how good he is. He’s better at this than I’ve ever been at anything in my life. He’s better at this than you’ll ever be, at anything. My son has a gift. He has a gift, and when you acknowledge that, then maybe we will have something to talk about.

…

Jonathan [after beating Russian Park Player]: Trick or Treat.

…

Jonathan’s teacher: He’s been my student since he was 4 years old. His parents have given him to me. Does nothing but play chess. No other interests.
Bruce: He goes to school?
Teacher: Oh, no.
Bruce: Well, that’s great. You should be proud of yourself.
Bruce: I am. You should watch him play. He reminds me of you…only he never gives up. It’s not a part of his character. He’s not going to disappoint his teacher.

…

Josh: Dad…Maybe we shouldn’t go to the state finals.
Fred: What are you talking about? Of course we’re going. That’s what we’ve worked so hard for.
Josh: If I win… Everybody will say, “Well, of course he won. He’s a top-ranked player.” But if I lose…
Fred: You won’t lose, Josh.
Josh: What if I do?
Fred: You won’t.
Josh: I’m afraid I might.
Fred: Josh…they’re afraid. They’re terrified of you.

…

Josh [to Fred]: Why are you standing so far away from me?

…

Bruce: For all his natural ability, Bobby Fischer studied harder than any player who ever lived. He woke up thinking about chess. He went to bed thinking about it. He dreamt about it. Why? Isn’t it enough to be a natural? If you don’t care about winning, it’s enough, but he wanted to win. He had to be champion, and in order to do that, he had to work, which is what we’re going to do.
Josh: O.K.
Bruce: Promise you won’t argue moves with me, no matter how much you think you’re right.
Josh: I promise.
Bruce: Everything I tell you imagine is coming from him because I know every game he ever played, so, in effect, he’s going to be teaching you, and you’ll become him…All right. Some new rules – no more speed chess. I know you like it, I know it’s fun, but it’s no good. It ruined Arbakov, and it’ll ruin you. And no more games in Washington Square. They’re patzers, and they’re teaching you all the wrong things.
Josh: They’re not patzers.
Bruce: They’re losers, and unless you want to end up just like them, you’ll stay away.
Josh: They’re not patzers.

…

Bruce [sets each chess piece up]: Now, which one is you?
Josh: What do you mean?
Bruce: Which one is you?
Josh: None of them. They’re just pieces.
Bruce [slams the King down in front of Josh]: This is you!

…

Bruce: Do you know what the word contempt means? It’s to think of others as being beneath you, to be unworthy of being in the same room with you.
Josh: I don’t feel that.
Bruce: Well, you better start. Because if you don’t think it’s a part of winning, you’re wrong. You have to have contempt for your opponents. You have to hate them.
Josh: But I don’t.
Bruce: They hate you. They hate you, Josh.
Josh: I don’t hate them.
Bruce: Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt.
Josh: I’m not him.
Bruce: You’re telling me.

…

Bruce: It’s white’s move.
Josh: How many points is it worth?
Brucei: It’s just an opening move.
Josh: I want to know how much it’s worth.
Bruce: Just do it for its own sake. Do it for the love of the game.
Josh: I want to know how many more points I am away to getting the certificate.
Bruce: Forget the certificate.
Josh: Why?
Bruce: I don’t know.
Josh: What do you mean?
Bruce: I don’t care. It’s. White’s. Move.
Josh: I want the certificate.
Bruce [sighs]: You want the certificate. You have to have the certificate.
[gets briefcase]
Bruce: You won’t move until you get the certificate.
[opens it]
Bruce: Fine. You win.
[gives him a copy of certificate]
Bruce: Here’s your certificate.
[Josh takes it]
Bruce: Fill it out. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a piece of paper. It’s a xerox of a piece of paper. Do you want another one
[gives Josh another copy]
Bruce: Do you want 10?
[gives Josh few more copies]
Bruce: Do you want 20?
[continues stacking them on chess board one-by-one]
Bruce: 30? I’ve got a whole briefcase full of them. They don’t mean anything, though.
[Bonnie enters the room]
Bonnie: Get out of my house.
Bruce [sits there grimly a moment and then collects the certificates and prepares to leave]: To put a child in a position to care about winning and not to prepare him is wrong.
Bonnie: Get out of my house.

…

Fred; Look, I know you don’t want to admit it, but he’s right. I mean, you wouldn’t sign your kid up for little league and then not get him a glove. You equip him.
Bonnie: It’s over.
Fred: Bonnie, he’s in a slump. This is a slump. It happens. When you get into a slump, you get out of it eventually. You don’t give up.
Bonnie:This is like baseball to you.
Fred: Hey, this is like anything. If you’re afraid to lose, you lose. If you lose, you get more afraid. He’s afraid.
Bonnie: He’s not afraid of losing. He’s afraid of losing your love. How many ball players grow up afraid of losing their fathers’ love every time they come up to the plate?
Fred: All of them!
Bonnie: He knows you disapprove of him. He knows you think he’s weak. But he’s not weak. He’s decent. And if you or Bruce or anyone else tries to beat that out of him, I swear to God I’ll take him away.

…

Vinnie: What’s that?
Josh: Schleimann attack.
Vinnie: Where’d you learn that from, a book?
Josh: My teacher taught me.
Vinnie: Forget it. Play like you used to–from the gut. Get your pawns rolling on the queen’s side. He didn’t teach you how to win, he taught you how not to lose. That’s nothing to be proud of. You’re playing not to lose, Josh. You’ve got to risk losing. You’ve got to risk everything. You’ve got to go to the edge of defeat. That’s where you want to be, boy - on the edge of defeat.
Josh: But…
Vinnie: But what? Play. Never play the board, always the man. You’ve gotta play the man playing the board. Play me. I’m your opponent, you have to beat me. Not the board, beat me.

…

Bruce: Still planning on going to Chicago for the nationals?
Fred: Yeah.
Bruce: I’ve seen you both at the park.
Fred: Yeah. We’ve been hanging out there a lot.
Bruce: Think that’s a good idea?
Fred: Yes, I do. He’s playing better than ever.
Bruce: How would you know that?
Fred: You’re right. I–I don’t know. But what I do know is that he likes playing again for the first time in a long time.

…

Bruce: I know you think you’re doing what’s best, but you’re setting him up for the biggest disappointment of his life. That other kid isn’t spending his afternoons riding bikes and playing Pac-Man, I can guarantee you that.
Fred: I’m doing the only thing I know how to do for Josh. I don’t know what else to do.
Bruce: Don’t let him go down there to lose. That’s what you can do for him. You’re his father. Forbid it.
Fred: I can’t do that.
Bruce: Fred…he’s going to get killed. There’s not going to be much left of him. You have no idea what a fall like this can do to you.

…

Josh: I can’t beat him.
Bruce: You might be right. I’m not supposed to say that, but you’d know I was lying if I said anything else.

…

Vinnie: There it is!

…

Josh [after taking Jonathan’s queen]: Trick or treat.

…

Bruce [on a move by Jonathan]: That was a mistake.
Fred: What was a mistake? Who made a mistake?

…

Bruce [aloud to himself]: Look deep, Josh. It’s there. It’s 12 moves away, but it’s there. You’ve got him. Take his pawn with your pawn. G takes f6 forking his bishop and rook. Don’t take back with your bishop. You’ll need that to guard e7. He’ll take back, either with his bishop or his knight. When he does, this is the hard part, sacrifice your rook. Capture him on f6 and get him to check. King has to take your rook. He takes f 6. Give him the knight to check e7 forking his king and his rook. He’ll move to safety. King f5. Take his rook with your knight. He’ll take back with his king, and you’ve got him. Don’t move until you see it. Don’t move until you see it. Don’t move until you see it.
[Josh studies the board]
Bruce: He’s got it!
Fred: He’s got it? How do you know he’s got it?
Bruce: He’s got it.

…

[Josh extends his hand for Jonathan to shake]
Jonathan: What’s that supposed to mean?
Josh: I’m offering you a draw.
Jonathan: Draw? You’ve got to be kidding.
Josh: You’ve lost. You just don’t know it.
Jonathan: I’ve lost? Look at the board.
Josh: I have. Take the draw, and we’ll share the championship. Take the draw.
Jonathan: Move. [/b]欀

Bobby Fischer ascribed: Saw him in Santa Monica, in a sea side hotel playing, then heard he was homeless in downtown skid row, a strange haunting figure, then heard about the girlfriend, living in Hungary in exile. Too many coincidences, his was not fifteen but fifteen thousand minutes of contempt, but what was all that about? I would not believe it if it stared me right in the face, at least that would be the impression of most. But what would you like, whole milk or half and half in your coffee? Full of decisions i would say the course of everyday life.

Now meant as a comment en passant, an unusual move, sometimes not at all in the usual course of things, but don’t get me wrong, there may be lapses , when nothing but nothing happens, but overflowing vacuously staring, as if asking for no reply, in the vein of say, Gertrude Stein.

Contempt, is incidentally, the name of a movie, will look it up, and report maybe.

[quote=“obe”]
Bobby Fischer ascribed: Saw him in Santa Monica, in a sea side hotel playing, then heard he was homeless in downtown skid row, a strange haunting figure, then heard about the girlfriend, living in Hungary in exile. Too many coincidences, his was not fifteen but fifteen thousand minutes of contempt, but what was all that about? I would not believe it if it stared me right in the face, at least that would be the impression of most. But what would you like, whole milk or half and half in your coffee? Full of decisions i would say the course of everyday life.

Now meant as a comment en passant, an unusual move, sometimes not at all in the usual course of things, but don’t get me wrong, there may be lapses , when nothing but nothing happens, but overflowing vacuously staring, as if asking for no reply, in the vein of say, Gertrude Stein.

Contempt, is a French movie, an early Godard. The thema ultimately rests on a Holderlin poem: here is a sample from Dichterberuf (The poet’s vacation)

A different task and calling given to poets!
We serve the Gods alone, so that,
more closely and always freshly,
they will hear our friendly heartbeats.

Yet another example of just how mysterious the ways of God must be. Of course there are other ways to look at it. But you can always fall back on that if all the other ways are even less palatable. You just have to believe in God.

Besides, what else is there but the brute facticity of nature. Things just are what they are. Shit happens. And there is no sense in looking for some ultimate reason that isn’t there.

This however is only one particular way in which I imagine some of us reacting. Me for instance. I try to imagine being Rocky and am not able to. But then I recognize there are so many other terrible afflictions that are endured daily by the innocent. And Rocky’s condition only occurs in 1 in 22,000,000 births. Should we thank God for that?

And Rocky at least had lots of folks around who loved him. A whole motorcyle gang for example.

And then there was his mother. No one would ever doubt for a second how much she loved her son. But in some respects she did not exactly embody the best of all possible worlds as parents go. She was a bit of a wild woman. A full-fledged one percenter. Sex, drugs and rock n roll. She wasn’t always, well, dependable.

“Looks”. In this culture it is sometimes the center of the universe. Something Rocky Dennis no doubt could have written a book on.

IMDb

[b]Eric Stoltz spent so much time under heavy makeup that when he arrived for the post production party he had to present I.D. to security to prove that he was Eric Stoltz. Also, when he got there he had to introduce himself to some of the cast and crew because many of them didn’t know what he really looked like.

Florence “Rusty” Tullis, the mother of Rocky Dennis, passed away on November 11, 2006, at age 70 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident on October 14.

Rusty actually had two sons. The older son, Joshua Mason, passed away in 1987 at age 32 due to complications from AIDS, which he received through a blood transfusion.

The movie ends with Rusty Dennis and Gar visiting Rocky’s grave. In real life, however, Rocky Dennis was not buried. His mother donated Rocky’s body to the UCLA Medical Center for medical study.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask_(film
trailer: youtu.be/DkJs6Y1QJrE

MASK [1985]
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich

[b]Doctor [new to Rocky’s case]: As you know plastic surgury is not an option until the skull stops thicking, and there’s no evidence that it will. In fact the cranium is growing at such an accelerated rate, creating pressure on the spinal cord to such an extent that the, uh, prognosis is not good. We, uh, feel that life expectancy is…
Rusty and Rocky [chime in together]: …three to six months.
Rusty: You’re not really going to give us that life expectancy number again, are you? You know for 12 years now I’ve been listening to you guys bullshit me. First you told me he was gonna be retarded, then you told me he was gonna be blind AND deaf. Then you told me he would never do things that regular kids do. If I’d dug his grave every time one of you geniuses told me he was gonna die, I’d be eating fuckin’ chop suey in China by now!

…

Rusty [to students gawking at her son’s face]: What’s the matter, never seen anyone from the planet Vultron before?

…

Rocky [smashing plates]: I hate you going out every night and coming home wasted all the time!
Rusty: It’s none of your goddamn business!
Rocky: You’re my mother!
Rusty: Well, you’re not my warden!

…

Carnie [to Ben]: You can ride, kid, but I cannot take the blame for anything that happens to the retard.
Gar: Then I cannot take the blame for anything I do to you!
[Carnie freezes as Gar glares at him]
Gar [in a barely controlled voice]: Take…the…tickets.

…

[after Rusty hires Lorrie to fuck Rocky]
Rocky: Mom, do I look like a freak to you?
Rusty: No.
Rocky: You’ve always been real big on telling me my face doesn’t matter, but it does, doesn’t it? You think that I can’t even get a girl to like me unless you pay for her!
Rusty: I’m sorry. Maybe what I did was wrong. But it had nothing to do with your face.
Rocky: Bullshit, Mom!

…

Gar: You know, Rock, your mom sometimes does the wrong things, but for the right reasons.

…

[after an unpleasant visit with the grandparents, Rusty is about to take a lot of drugs]
Gar [gets a beer from fridge]: If you get wasted off that crap, I’m not gonna stay here and babysit you.
Rusty [scoffs]: You must be confusing me for someone who gives a shit.
Gar: Must be.
Rusty [looks at the drugs in her hand and sighs sadly]: You know, this just isn’t going to work. You’re telling me to do things and I’m just gonna end up hating you again.
Gar: Oh come on. You and your old man have been going through this shit for the longest time I can remember. Got to again, didn’t he? Got you ready for another one of those 2-hour screamers. Gets you to the place where I’m gonna put you through the goddamned wall.
Rusty [snaps back]: Oh fine. Then put me through the goddamned wall. Why should you be any different than any man I’ve known before.
[Gar slams beer bottle down on table and leaves]

…

Rusty: …now you can go anywhere you want, baby.[/b]

Dope dealer looking for a way out of the business. And, who knows, maybe even something in the way of “redemption”. Always easier said than done of course.

And let’s face it, most “day jobs” don’t pay nearly as well. Or offer up as much adrenaline pumping excitement. It always seems to come down [one way or another] to trade-offs.

Like the one between being straight and having to endure all the shit that comes your way just in the course of living your life without being high. Some can handle it and some can’t. But who among us can really know when it’s okay to call it quits and jump off the wagon. Our own trials and tribulations are never theirs. And vice versa.

Anyway, there are two kinds of drug dealers. Those who use and those who don’t. But the job carries so many potential risks that the temptation to use is always right around the corner. So this one plays it safe: He sees a psychic. In fact you wonder: What the fuck is the point of dumping all of this astrology bullshit into the plot? Maybe something about just how little control we have over our lives in a “fated” world?

On the other hand, this is a “white dope for white people” world. They have a small operation but it involves the sort of “clientale” that makes the risk far easier to calibrate. It’s not the sort of sorid stuff that sordid dope dealers often encounter out on the sordid streets.

And then in the midst of it all women are being knocked off left and right in some sort of “upscale” drug related mystery.

It’s really not all that easy fitting the pieces here into a coherent “message”. But you’re welcome to try.

IMDb

When questioned about what the film’s title meant, Willem Dafoe joked that the other two films in Schrader’s trilogy of loners were titled after the key characters occupations. He jokingly said Schrader thought no one would watch a film if it was just called “Drug Dealer”.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Sleeper
trailer: youtu.be/RtwI2U0CiIA

LIGHT SLEEPER [1992]
Written and directed by Paul Schrader

[b]John [voiceover]: Labor Day weekend. Some time for a garbage strike. Everybody crazy to stock up. They want to score at the last minute and they want it now. Never fails. The faces look alike. You gotta use memory tricks: each has some peculiarity. lt keeps you sharp. A D. D. told me, when a drug dealer starts writing a diary he should quit. l started writing after that. Not every night. Now and then. Fill up one book, throw it out, start another.

…

John [voiceover]: ‘Labor Day’'. ‘‘Union Movement’’. There’s a contradiction in terms.

…

John [to Jealous]: We pay you more, you put up with more. White drugs for white people. Twice the price, twice the safety.

…

Robert [to John]: Look, we don’t make the laws. 19 is carrying, 20 is dealing. Let him be stupid!

…

Theological cokehead: Where was l? All right, so if there’s no God, then how can we conceive of him? l mean, the idea of God presupposes the existence of God. That is the Ontological Argument. That’s Anselm. Listen, this is the good part. lf the idea of God is implanted by God, the ‘‘Sensus Divinitatus’’, the sense of the divine, you know? Then what is the role of human thought? Not faith. Thought.
John [voiceover]: Everybody wants to talk. It’s like a compulsion. My philosophy is: You got nothing to say? Don’t say it. They figure, you can tell a D.D. anything. Things they’d never tell anyone else. Of course they’re stoned to start.
Cokehead: Do you think that all of our thoughts are on a prerecorded tape and planted in our brain at birth? I do.

…

John: lt’s not like we’re strangers, after all. We were married.
Marrianne: We were not!
John: There was a ceremony.
Marianne: He wasn’t even a minister. He was an astrologer!

…

Marianne [to John]: I envy you. Convenient memory is a gift from God.

…

John: I miss you.
Marianne: You tried to kill me. You took 10 years off my life, one way or another. I couldn’t hate my mother. I was too busy hating you.
John: I thought I was just killing myself.

…

Marianne: That’s quite an erection!
John: I never had anything like it stoned.
Marianne: It’s weird. I’m dripping.
John: Let’s disappear.

…

Ann: The UN has some conference. The holiday is over. Peacemakers all over the place trying to score. UN security at every hotel. Even l have been out. Okay? Look, this is where our business is: Europe, Asia, not the fucking streets! But you wouldn’t know crack from Cracker Jacks.
John: Where’s Robert?
Ann: He’s out busting his ass doing your job!
John: lt was a confusion.
Ann: Well, get confused on your day off!
John: And when is that?
Ann: Don’t get wise with me! What do you want me to do? Suck your dick? Fine! You want a raise? Forget it!

…

John [voiceover]: I feel my life turning. All it needed was direction. You drift from day to day, years go by. Then a change comes. l am able to change. l can be a good person. What a strange thing to happen halfway through your life. What luck.

…

Cop: Who the fuck gives a shit about you? I could grind you right here. In fact, maybe I will. What do you think about that? Nobody would give a flying fuck. I look like narcotics? I’m homicide, investigating the murder in the park.
John: I don’t read the papers.
Cop: Downtown’s interested how a 19-year-old student with fancy parents got a quarter of uncut coke on her when she was found murdered. This ain’t the type of girl we find cruising Alphabet City to score. Know what I mean? Somebody sold her. Somebody upscale. You’re classy. So I hear. And maybe somebody knows something we need to know. You understand? Delivery boy! Here’s my card. You ask around. Take a week or so. Call me. Tell me something I don’t already know. lt’s either that, leave town, or get your ass busted day in, day out. Got it? Loser…

…

Ann [to John]: Strange how things work.[/b]

Up the Yangtze: A documentary on the future:

A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze - navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as “The River.” The Yangtze is about to be transformed by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history. At the river’s edge - a young woman says goodbye to her family as the floodwaters rise towards their small homestead. The Three Gorges Dam - contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle - provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside modern China. National Film Board of Canada

And if the future of China isn’t somewhere in the vincinty of the world’s future, it must come awful damn close. Of course in this context what are the lives of individual men and women? In particular those who are nowhere near the apex. Not exactly the “last men”, perhaps, but rather far removed from the ubermen. At the time this film came out approximately 1,250,000 people had already been relocated in order to make the Three Gorges Dam a reality. It is estimated that over 2,000,000 eventually will be. For some this will have been a good thing and for others not so good. But again where do they fit into “the big picture”? Where do any of us fit in for that matter.

But “eminent domain” is always going to be around in one form or another. It just depends on how many layers of “democracy” there are between “the people” and “the government”.

And here political corruption abounds. The federal government distributes money to the local government officials to help those who must be relocated. But then the money will somehow “disappear.” The “common people” are often treated brutally – beaten, degraded, robbed blind. It’s the same old story, it’s the same old world.

In particular the film focuses on the film maker’s return to China to document the “surreal life of a ‘farewell cruise’ that traverses the gargantuan waterway.” It gives a “human dimension to the wrenching changes facing not only an increasingly globalized China, but the world at large.”

And this was more or less summed up [well] by one of the passengers on the cruise ship. In effect he said, “government officials in China and America are traveling in separate cars down the road. They come to an intersection. There are two signs. One points to the left and says SOCIALISM, the other to the right and says CAPITALISM. The American officials tell the driver, ‘turn right’. The Chinese officials tell the driver, ‘turn right…but put on the the left turn indicator’”.

And then there are the tourists. It’s all so pathetic at times.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Yangtze
trailer: youtu.be/oV3tQ7G2Ve4

UP THE YANGTZE [2007]
Written and directed by Yung Chang

Title card: Confucius: By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.

For most of us the “panic room” is the nearest closet. Or maybe we jump out of the window or hide under the bed. But if you are affluent enough you can afford the real thing. In other words, you can afford to purchase a home in which there is a “formal dining room”. Not to confused with the “casual dining room”. Oh, and a “working elevator”. You know, to get to the bedrooms. And six “working fireplaces”.

Of course even for the filthy rich there is still the law of unintended consequences to contend with. And Murphy’s Law. After all, the thugs aren’t in the house an hour before they are able to pump propane gas into the panic room.

And the one thing you don’t want to do when you need to be inside the panic room is to leave something that you need in order to, say, survive outside the panic room. Vital medications for example. Also, it’s best not to keep the one thing that the crooks are after in the panic room with you. Only here admittedly they don’t even know that it is in there!

And if the panic room has a separate phone line to the cops, it might be a good idea first to actually hook the damn thing up.

In other words, we are dealing here with people: the human all too human kind.

Then there’s gang that invades the house. The kind where there is as much contention within their own ranks as there is between them and the folks whose home they are invading.

What could possibly go wrong?

IMDb

[b]According to David Fincher, Kristen Stewart grew more than three inches during filming of this project. She was smaller than Jodie Foster when the production started and towered over her when the final shots were done.

Nicole Kidman replacement Jodie Foster substantially altered the tone of the film. Beforehand director David Fincher saw his heroine as a glacial Hitchcock/ Grace Kelly role model. With Foster in the lead, however, the part instantly became much grittier, more political.

David Fincher agreed that the film’s production was an arduous one, remarking it as a “logistical nightmare.” The lighting issue during the filming process was particularly difficult due to the complexity of the security cameras used in the mansion that send surveillance images to the television in the panic room.[/b]

FAQ at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0258000/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_Room
trailer: youtu.be/him0NfgFOH0

PANIC ROOM [2002]
Directed by David Fincher

[b]Meg: That’s strange.
Evan: What?
Meg: Is this room smaller than it should be?
Evan: You’re the first person to notice.
[he pushes on a portion of the wall…a door opens]
Evan: No one from our office had the slightest idea. It’s called a panic room. A safe room. A castle keep in medieval times. They’re in vogue in high-end construction. One can’t be too careful about home invasion.

…

Lydia [in the panic room]: This is perfect. The alarm goes off in the middle of the night. What will you do? Call the police and wait till Tuesday? Traipse downstairs in your underthings to check it out? I think not.
Evan: Concrete walls. Buried phone line, not connected to the house’s main line. Call the police, nobody can cut you off. You have your own ventilation system. A bank of surveillance monitors that covers nearly every corner of the house.
Meg: This whole thing makes me nervous.
Lydia: Why?
Meg: Ever read any Poe?

…

Meg: What’s to keep somebody from prying open the door?
Evan: Steel. Thick steel. Very thick steel. Full battery backup, so even if the power’s out it’s still functional.

…

Burnham: Who is that?
Junior: This is Raoul.
Burnham: Who the fuck is Raoul?!

…

Junior: This is still a good plan. Fuck that! This is a great plan. It’s just got a slight twist.
Burnham: Yeah. Felony kidnapping. Thirty years.

…

Meg [on loudspeaker]: We’re not coming out, and we’re not letting you in! Get out of my house!
Sarah: Say fuck!
Meg: You fuck!
Sarah: Mom! “Get the fuck out of my house”!
Meg: Get the FUCK out of my house!

…

Junior: How do we get into that room?
[Burnham laughs]
Junior: Hey! What is funny about this? Is this shit funny to you?
Burnham: Well, I spent the last 12 years of my life building these rooms specifically to keep out people like us.

…

Burnham [to Raoul and Junior]: Building panic rooms. This is what I do for a living; if some idiot with a sledgehammer could break in, do you really think I’d still have a job?

…

Burnham: You guys just going to stand there?
Junior: Why? What do you got there, MacGyver?

…

[Raoul pumps propane gas into the panic room]
Junior: Worst that’s gonna happen is…is they’ll pass out. They’ll have a hang over.
Burnham: How are we gonna get in there if they pass out, Junior?
Junior [pauses]: Okay, cut it back a little.

…

Junior: Any other schoolyard bullshit you wanna settle, or can we get the fuck back to work?
Raoul: Don’t you take no tone with me, jerkwad, 'cause I’ll shove it up your ass and snap it off.
Junior: You know what? You’re a bus driver, “Raoul”! You live in Flatbush! So don’t start spouting some Elmore Leonard bullshit you just heard because I saw that movie too.

…

Junior [rummaging through the medicine cabinet]: How do you live in New York and not have a single percocet?!

…

Burnham: He’s telling the truth.
Raoul: Yeah, he’s telling the truth…you know how I know? Cause when I do this…
[Raoul points the gun at Burnham]
Raoul: …people don’t lie.

…

Burnham: Do you need this?
[Sarah nods yes]
Burnham: Can you do it yourself?
[Sarah nods no]
Burnham: What happens if you don’t get it?
Sarah [weak whispering]: Coma. Die.

…

Raoul: This kid has seen my face.
Burnham: Yeah, well, that’s not my problem.
Raoul: Yeah it is. You’re here with me. You’re on the hook too.
Raoul [looking at Sarah]: Do one. Same price for the rest.
Burnham: Stay the fuck away from me.

…

[Meg smashes the house’s security cameras with a sledgehammer]
Raoul: Why the hell didn’t we do that? [/b]

This was a great documentary. When I watched it a couple of years back, I was never even aware of such a project. The two sides of China captured in all its harsh reality, it showcased a much needed awareness. Even removing the capitalist on-rush, or having anything to do with China, its still a fantastic movie in the day-to-day life of really rural people and inspires us to treasure our own and unique geographic mysticism in the face of modern needs. What I liked about this film is its near-nil propaganda. There is also a similar movie on the three gorges dam issue called “Still Life”.
You also walk away from the documentary feeling how fragile the self is to maintain even a little optimism being put in such a crushing nihilistic environment, and the kind of friendships and solitude such an ecology necessarily breeds.

This is a set up. A political narrative disguised as something more analogous to a…universal truth?

About dancing?!

A small town steeped in evagelical Christianity. Those who run the town have decided that dancing [along with rock and roll and all the usual culprits] is the Devil’s work. So it is banned. It is literally against the law to dance!

What could possibly be more reactionary?

And yet let’s face it: we all have our own renditions of this. There are behaviors that we abhor [for any number of personal/political reasons] and we sure as shit want there to be a law against those engaging in them.

But dancing?!

Well, there is all manner of dancing. Dirty dancing for example. Are there no lines at all to be drawn when it is being engaged publically?

Here if you are of a particular political persuasion the good guys and the bad guys are easily recognized. After all, they are drawn like cartoons. But don’t think choices like this can’t be considerably more complex and ambiguous. In other words, with arguments one hell of a lot more sophisticated than those of Reverend Moore.

And we are talking about sex here, aren’t we? I mean, come on. And how many contradictory political narratives are there colliding with respect to this particular human behavior?

IMDb

[b]Loosely based on events that took place in the small, rural, and extremely religious farming town of Elmore City, Oklahoma in 1978. Dancing had been banned for nearly 90 years until a group of high school teenagers challenged it.

With the Principal’s knowledge, 24-year-old Kevin Bacon attended the Payson Utah High School as “Ren McCormack”, a transfer student from Philadelphia to get into his role. With his narrow tie and new-wave haircut, he was treated pretty much like in the film.

The scenes where Chris Penn’s character had to learn how to dance were added to the script because Penn really could not dance.

Madonna auditioned for the role of Ariel Moore.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footloose_(1984_film
trailer: youtu.be/6nSXtZPKms4

FOOTLOOSE [1984]
Directed by Herbert Ross

[b]Reverend Moore: If our Lord wasn’t testing us, how would you account for the proliferation, these days, of this obscene rock and roll music, with its gospel of easy sexuality and relaxed morality?

…

Mr. Gurntz: He was trying to teach that book down at the school.
Mrs. Allyson: Slaughterhouse-Five, isn’t that an awful name?
Ren: Yeah it’s a great book…Slaughterhouse-Five, it’s a classic.
Mr. Gurntz: Do you read much?
Mrs. Allyson: Maybe in another town, it’s a classic.
Ren: In any town.
Mr. Gurntz: Tom Sawyer is a classic!

…

Willard: Well, you won’t get any of that here.
Ren: What’s that?
Willard: Dancing. There’s no dancing, Ren.
Ren: Why?
Willard: It’s illegal.
Ren: Jump back!

…

Willard: It started when kids got killed in a car wreck. Whole town went bananas, blaming it on the music, liquor and dancing. Now they’re just convinced it’s all a sin.
Ren: Who’s convinced?
Student: Whole damn town.

…

Ren: You really can’t dance here, man? I can’t believe that.
Willard: It’s true. This isn’t the only place either. You’d be surprised. Places upstate you can’t dance. Places in Kansas and Arkansas. All over the place. My cousin lives in Montana, and ya can’t dance where she lives either.

…

Ariel: What’s the music?
Reverend Moore: I think it’s Haydn, chamber pieces.
Ariel: And that kind of music’s okay?
Reverend Moore: It’s uplifting. It doesn’t confuse people’s minds and bodies.

…

Factory boss [to Ren]: Boy, a lot of folks are gonna give you problems right off…because you’re an outsider. You’re dangerous. They’re always gonna worry about ya. And this is only one little corner of the world.

…

Ren: Hey, Woody, Woody come here. Listen, has anybody ever died doing this?
Woody: Just once.

…

Reverend Moore: I was down in Denver last year for about a week at a Bible convention. And the whole time I was there, people would come up and ask me, ‘‘Reverend, how can you live in such a small town… so far away from the hustle and bustle of the 20th century?’’ I’d say to them, ‘‘You’d never ask me that if you could just once, just for one minute experience the feeling of family that comes from knowing that all of our lives are tied up with each of us. That we feel all the same joys the same sorrows, and that we care. Each and every one of us cares for the other.’’

…

Ariel: 'Bout five years ago these kids were playing highway tag and they were drunk. One car hits the other one, and they both go over the bridge. Dead. That’s when they started passing laws against booze against dancing and drinking. I don’t know. My father had a field day.
Ren: Your father? Why?
Ariel: My older brother was one who got killed.

…

Ren [addressing the town council, reading from his notes in the Bible]: From the oldest of times, people danced for a number of reasons. They danced in prayer…or so that their crops would be plentiful…or so their hunt would be good. And they danced to stay physically fit and show their community spirit. And they danced to celebrate. And that is the dancing we’re talking about. Aren’t we told in Psalm 149 “Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song. Let them praise His name in the dance”? And it was King David - King David, who we read about in Samuel - and what did David do? What did David do?
[paging frantically through Bible]
Ren: What did David do?
[audience laughs]
Ren: David danced before the Lord with all his might…leaping and dancing before the Lord.
[smacks table in front of Reverend Moore]
Ren: Leaping and dancing!
[stands up straight]
Ren: Ecclesiastes assures us that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to laugh and a time to weep. A time to mourn and there is a time to dance. And there was a time for this law, but not anymore. See, this is our time to dance. It is our way of celebrating life. It’s the way it was in the beginning. It’s the way it’s always been. It’s the way it should be now.[/b]

City Island is a real place. It’s in the Bronx. As in New York City. But when you think of the Bronx [or, rather, when I think of the Bronx] you don’t think of places like this. Instead, you think of places like the urban hellhole depicted by Tom Wolfe in Bonfires of the Vanities. The place Sherman McCoy and Maria Rushkin stumbled into [in the film] after missing the exit ramp to Manhattan.

But then I’ve only ever been in Manhattan myself so what do I know.

And this is a very small island. A “fishing village”. That’s right, in the Bronx.

Okay, let’s start with the dysfunctional family…

All the best family movies do, of course. After all, what sort of material can be gleaned from a fully functioning one?

They all sort of love each other. Just as they all sort of know jack-shit about each other. In part it’s the culture. There are so many different directions in which to go in this “modern world” what are the odds that the folks in your family will pick the same ones?

Anyway, sit in on one “conversation” at the dinner table and you wonder how the hell they ever manage at all. You know, not to kill each other.

For example, note the look on Tony’s face the first time he sits down at the dinner table with them.

And they all have, well, secrets.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Island_(film
trailer: youtu.be/LIGdleyv8vo

CITY ISLAND [2009]
Written and directed by Raymond De Felitta

[b]Vince [voiceover]: You asked me about my worst secret…my most personal secret. The secret of all my secrets. Well, like most of us…I guess I have a few.

…

Michael: What were all those pauses for?
Actor: What were they? What do you mean?
Michael: You said 2 lines and I counted 4 pauses in 2 lines. Why do you need a pause before you say, “what”?
Actor: Oh, he’s stalling for time.
Michael: Why? I mean does he love her or does he not love her?
Actor: He does love her.
Michael: So what the hell you need to pause for? Listen. We have the Collar Moratorium on pauses. Five years of my life is gone out the window listening to pauses in this room. I can’t do it anymore. So we gotta cut out the pauses. In 2000 years of theatre history you’ll never find anybody pausing. The only pause - they either talk or they listen.

…

Tony: Can I ask you, like, why I’m chained to a Ford?
Vince: I’m gonna unchain you, Tony, but first I gotta tell you something. You see this house here? That’s my home. My grandfather built this home and I share it with my family.
Tony: Oh, you got them chained up in the house too?
Vince: You’re gonna get real nice food and a real nice place to live for the first time in 3 years, so you better behave yourself.
Tony: And all this because you knew my bitch mother?
Vince: Well, I gotta admit, you know, Nan could be difficult sometimes. But…she was also…
Tony: A drunk and a whore.
Vince: Why do you call her that?
Tony: She used to punish me for not boosting cases of vodka from the liquor store I worked at, by screwing my friends. Which base does ‘drunk’ and ‘whore’ not cover?
Vince: Don’t you have any fond memories of her?
Tony: Well, at least she was around. My father left before I was born.
Vince [pauses]: What do you know about him?
Tony: He’s dead.
Vince: That’s too bad.
Tony: Eh, the only thing that’s too bad, is I didn’t get a chance to visit his deathbed and dance in his ugly face for leaving me with that bitch.
Vince: Okay, let’s go. [/b]

Guess who Vince is?

[b]Vince: Shit, my wife.
Tony: Is that what you call her? “Shit, my wife.”
Vince [putting out his cigarette]: I don’t smoke.
Tony: Yeah, I can tell.

…

Joyce [Mom]: Anybody home?
Vince Jr.: I’m here. So is dad. He’s out back, handcuffed to some biker dude.

…

Joyce [lighting cigarette]: My husband thinks I quit.
Tony: One good thing about the joint, they don’t let you smoke anymore so…I quit inside.
Joyce: Being in prison and not being able to smoke? That’s like being in jail!

…

Joyce [to Tony]: This is gonna be his new career, building things. He gets discouraged when things take too long. Like more than an hour. And him and his poker games. Does he really think I buy that crap?

…

Vince Jr.[to Tony]: It’s Botero.

…

Vince: But to me, it was all bullshit.
Molly: What do you mean?
Vince: Well, because I pretended as though I, you know, that’s the way I talk to the guys inside. But actually that’s the way my son, Tony, talks to the guys inside.
Molly: No, that’s so much better. You co-pted someone else’s experience and filtered it in to your own personality…in order to create a character. That’s not bullshit, Vincent. That’s acting.
Vince: That’s acting? You’re allowed to do that?

…

Vince: Who are they?
Molly: My three secrets.
Vince: They’re beautiful.
Molly: Thank you.
Vince: Where are they?
Molly: With my husband in Schenectady.
Vince: What are they doing up there?
Molly: The real question is, what am I doing down here?

…

Vivian: I’m not a hooker!
Tony: Showing your tits for money, what’s that called, ‘librarian’?!

…

Vince Jr.: Well, mom, you were right. Dad did have sex with Tony’s mom.[/b]

Although some will lump The Deer Hunter in with all the other “Vietnam war movies”, that particular conflict itself really has very little at all to do with the film. The scenes involving the war were hardly what one would call typical and they are known mostly for generating lots of complaints [about racism] from the Vietnamese themselves regarding how they were portrayed in the film.

No, instead this is much more a film about an American working class culture that generates personalities like this that then go out into the world [war or no war] and generate the sort of consequences we see unfolding up on the screen. That and the way in which any war can change the men lucky enough to survive it. If you can call the lives of the men here the “lucky” ones.

And then [somehow] this is all linked to deer hunting…and then [later] to Russian roulette.

And the betting. As in 13 Tzameti above, men here bet on those playing Russian roulette. Who will live and who will die. But since there is only blind luck involved in “playing” it, what exactly are they betting on? Sure, gambling on something that involves skill or training or shrewd calculation makes sense. But here it is nothing but fortuity. So [I guess] it must be a metaphor for something more…profound.

In fact, the closest the film does come to examining the Vietnam war in a political context is in noting how Michael, Steven and Nick seem eager to go over there and do their bit to serve their country: to preserve the noble cause of human freedom. Not that this argument is completely baseless. It is merely the manner in which decisions like this are made largely by rote. They are men; they are Americans; and American men are patriotic; and America stands for freedom around the globe.

It’s as simple as that.

In other words, what military industrial complex? what war economy? what government lies?

Think instead the trials and tribulations of male bonding – only in particularly trying times.

IMDb

[b]The scene where Savage is yelling, “Michael, there’s rats in here, Michael” as he is stuck in the river is actually Savage yelling at the director Michael Cimino because of his fear of rats which were infesting the river area. He was yelling for the director to pull him out of the water because of the rats… it looked real and they kept it in.

Director Michael Cimino convinced Christopher Walken to spit in Michael’s face. When Walken actually did it, Robert De Niro was completely shocked, as evidenced by his reaction. In fact, De Niro was so furious about it he nearly left the set. Cimino later said of Walken, “He’s got courage!”

During some of the Russian Roulette scenes, a live round was put into the gun to heighten the actors’ tension. This was Robert De Niro’s suggestion. It was checked, however, to make sure the bullet was not in the chamber before the trigger was pulled.

The slapping in the Russian roulette sequences was 100% authentic. The actors grew very agitated by the constant slapping, which, naturally, added to the realism of the scenes.

Robert De Niro recently explained that the scene where Michael visits Steve in the hospital for the first time was the most emotional scene that he was ever involved with. He broke down in tears while discussing the scene in AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Robert De Niro (2003).

The deaths of approximately twenty-eight people who died playing Russian roulette were reported as having been influenced by scenes in the movie.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deer_Hunter
trailer: youtu.be/vw-Tyr6Rb6I

THE DEER HUNTER [1978]
Directed by Michael Cimino

Mike: I’ll tell ya one thing. If I found out my life had to end up in the mountains, I’d be all right. But it has to be in your mind.
Nick: What? One shot?
Mike: Two is pussy.
Nick: I don’t think about one shot that much anymore, Mike.
Mike: You have to think about one shot. One shot is what it’s all about. A deer has to be taken with one shot. I try to tell people that. They don’t listen.

Huh? Forget about it. Only a real man would understand.

[b]Steve [at the bar]: It’s a Green Beret! Hey! Whoo!
Mike: No kidding. Jerry! Jerry, give the man a drink. Hey! Give him a drink! Sir! Sir!
[the Green Beret doesn’t respond…just stares out in space]
Mike: I wanna talk to the man. I wanna talk to the man. We’re goin’ over there. Sir, Mike Vronsky. We’re goin’ airborne, sir. What’s it like?
Nick: I hope they send us where the bullets are flyin’.
Mike: That’s right. Where the fighting’s the worst.
Green Beret [raising his glass as though to toast the war]: Fuck it.
Mike: Fuck it? What did he say?
Nick: Fuck it.
Mike: Fuck it. That’s what I thought. W-- Well, what’s it like over there? Can you tell us anything?
Green Beret: Fuck it.

…

Banner accross the hall: SERVING GOD AND COUNTRY PROUDLY

…

Nick: Think we’ll ever come back ?
Mike: From Nam? Yeah.
Nick: You know something? The whole thing, it’s right here. I love this fuckin’ place. I know that sounds crazy. If anything happens, Mike, don’t leave me over there. You got-- You gotta-- Just don’t leave me. You gotta promise me that, Mike. Hey. No, man, you got–you gotta-- You gotta promise definitely.
Mike: You got it, pal.

…

Mike: Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain’t something else. This is this. From now on, you’re on your own.

…

Mike: Nicky, listen. It’s up to us now. It’s me and you.
Nick: What about Steven?
Mike: Forget him. He ain’t gonna make it.
Nick: Who do you think you are? God?
Mike: Look at him. He’s in a daze. He ain’t comin’ out. He’s in a dream.
Nick: Mike, what are you saying?
Mike: I’m saying forget him. Get it through your head - or you and me are both gone too.

…

Mike: We gotta play with more bullets.
Nick: What?
Mike: More bullets…
[a gunshot]
Mike: I gotta get more bullets in the gun.
Nick: What?
Mike: We gotta play with more bullets.
Nick: More bullets in the gun?
Mike: More bullets in the gun.
Nick: How many more bullets?
Mike: Three. That means we gotta play each other.
Nick: More bullets against each other?
Mike: We gotta do it!
Nick: What? Are you Crazy?
Mike: Nicky, it’s the only way. I’ll pick the moment. The game goes until I move. When I start shootin’, go for the nearest guard, get his gun and zap the fucker!

…

Nick [looking at a pile of corpses]: People inside doing it for money?
Frenchman: Sometimes a great deal of money. I cannot play this kind of game myself. But I’m always–how do you say–looking out for those things quite different, quite rare. You saw this before?
Nick: Up north.
Frenchman: Oh, yes. Of course.
Nick: Gotta go.
Frenchman: But you must come in. I insist. Of what is there to be afraid of after this war? War is a joke. A silly thing.
Nick: I’m going home, ace!
Frenchman: Naturellement I pay my players…cash, American.
Nick: You got the wrong guy, ace.
Frenchman: But you must come in. I insist…I can make you very, very rich.

…

Stan: Wait, wait! To Nick and Steve!
John :To Nick and Steve.
Mike: Nick and Steve.
John: You look great.
Mike: How’s Angela ?
John [glum]: Not so good, Mike. Worse since she talked to him.
Mike: Talked to who?
John: Steven.
Mike: She talked to Steve? I didn’t know he was back.
Stan: You didn’t know he’s back? Oh, Jesus.
Mike: No, I didn’t know. Is he back?
John: You-- You-- You didn’t–
Mike: Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?
John: I don’t know.
Mike: Just answer me. Where is he? Just tell me where he is?
John: I don’t know where he is, Mike. Angela wouldn’t tell us.
Mike: What do you mean?
John: She wouldn’t talk to anybody!

…

Linda: Did you ever think that life would turn out like this?
Mike: No…

…

Mike [on the phone[: Steve? Stevie?
Steve: Hey, I gotta go, Mike. I gotta go. Curfew, man.

…

Steve: Come here with me for a minute. It’s something I gotta show you. Yeah. Yeah. Angela, she keeps sending me socks. But it’s not socks I gotta show you, Mike.
[he opens the sock drawer and it’s stuffed with 100 dollar bills]
Steve: This-- This comes every month from Saigon. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. That place is gonna fall any day now.
Mike: It’s Nicky, Steve.

…

Steve: Where’s a guy like Nick get money like this?
Mike: I don’t know. Cards, maybe.

…

Mike: I came 12,000 miles back here to get you…What’s the matter with you? Don’t you recognize me?..Nicky, I love you, you’re my friend.
[Nick spits in his face]

…

[Nick pulls the trigger on a gun, clicking on an empty chamber]
Mike: What are you doing? We don’t have much time, Nick. Is this what you want? Is this what you want? I love you, Nick.
[Michael pulls the trigger, clicking on an empty chamber]
Mike: Come on, Nicky, come home. Just come home. Home. Talk to me.
[he looks at Nick’s track marks]
Mike: What did you do to your arms? Do you remember the trees? Do you remember all the different ways of the trees? Do you remember that? Do you remember? Huh? The mountains? Do you remember all that?
Nick [smiling in recognition]: One shot.
Mike: One shot, one shot.
[Nick pulls the trigger, shooting himself in the head]
Mike: Nicky, Nicky, no, Nick, no!! No! No! You can’t![/b]

Now join them all in a somber rendition of God Bless America.

When all that really stands between you and a survival of the fittest world is the law?

Well, it matters then just what kind of law it is. Here though – in the really wild, wild west – it ain’t much. And lots of times the folks that come up against it are not all that easy to pin down. Are they “good” men? Are they “bad” men? Were they once one and then became the other? Will something trigger them to turn it all back around again?

And then there’s the roles afforded women here. Let’s just say that back then the options were considerably more truncated. Especially in this cowtown. Big Whiskey, Wyoming.

So, the good, the bad, the ugly. Just a point of view in the end yet no less given over to folks able to come up with a political consensus. But again sometimes the law [and the concensus] is more “progressive” in one context than in another.

How about the one you are in now yourself?

And [as always] it’s a world where you are motivated to do some things by a sense of moral outrage…and other things because those with the moral outrage will pay you to do it. Then [for some] the two get all tangled up in their head and things get complicated…real complicated.

And then in the middle of all this along comes a character like English Bob. And Mr. W. W. Beauchamp.

The whole point of the movie [supposedly] was to expose and then to condemn lawless violence. And most of the violence coming from the law here too. But try to imagine the reaction of folks from, say, the N.R.A… And notice any significant decrease in gun violence in the past 20 odd years since the film came out? Here in America? And it’s not like Will didn’t morph back into Dirty Harry just before he rode out of town.

IMDb

[b]Clint Eastwood’s mother toiled through an uncomfortable day (wearing a heavy dress) as an extra, filming a scene where she boards a train; but the scene was eventually cut, with her son apologizing that the film was “too long and something had to go.” All was forgiven when he brought her to the Academy Awards and thanked her prominently in his acceptance speech.

Deputy Clyde’s line about why a one armed man needed to carry three pistols: ‘I don’t want to get killed from lack of being able to shoot back’ is sometimes attributed to lawman/gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok who usually carried two pistols around his waist, another in a shoulder holster, sometimes another stuck in the back of his belt, and usually had at least one Derringer hidden somewhere on his person. While working as a lawman, he usually carried a sawed off shotgun as well. Hickok also laughed at Ned Buntline’s report about his killing 20 men with 20 shots saying that his theory was start shooting and keep shooting until the man you were shooting at was dead.

Clint Eastwood asked Gene Hackman to model his character of Little Bill Daggett on then Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates.

According to Clint Eastwood in a 2000 interview, Gene Hackman was very concerned about how they were going to show the violence in the movie, owing to the rising gun violence in American cities. Eastwood, a lifelong supporter of gun control, assured Hackman that the film wouldn’t glorify gun violence.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unforgiven
trailer: youtu.be/XDAXGILEdro

UNFORGIVEN [1992]
Directed by Clint Eastwood

[b]Skinny: Little Bill, a whippin’ ain’t gonna settle this.
Bill: No?
Skinny: This here’s a lawful contract…betwixt me an’ Delilah Fitzgerald, the cut-whore. Now I brung her clear from Boston, paid her expenses an’ all, an’ I got a contract which represents an investment of capital.
Bill (sympathetic to the argument): Property.
Skinny: Damaged property. Like if I was to hamstring one of their cow ponies.
Bill: You figure nobody’ll want to fuck her.
Skinny: Hell no. Leastways, they won’t pay to.

…

Alice [to the women who work as prostitutes]: Just because we let them smelly fools ride us like horses don’t mean we gotta let 'em brand us like horses. Maybe we ain’t nothing but whores but we, by god, we ain’t horses!

…

Will: I ain’t like that no more, Kid. Whiskey done it as much as anythin’ I guess. I ain’t touched a drop in ten years. My wife, she cured me of it…cured me of drink an’ wickedness.
The Kid [looking around him]: Well…you don’t look so prosperous.

…

Penny: Did Pa used to kill folks?

…

Ned: Hell, Will. We ain’t bad men no more. Shit, we’re farmers.

…

Will: We done stuff for money before, Ned.
Ned: Yeah, we thought we did. All right, so what did these fellas do? Cheat at cards? Steal some strays? Spit on a rich fella? What?
Will: No, they cut up a woman.
Ned [startled]: What?
Will: Cut her eyes out, cut her tits off, cut her fingers off…done everythin’ but cut up her cunny, I guess.
Ned: I’ll be dogged.

…

Will [to Ned]: I ain’t like that no more. I ain’t the same, Ned. Claudia, she straightened me up, cleared me of drinkin’ whiskey and all. Just ‘cause we’re goin’ on this killing, that don’t mean I’m gonna go back to bein’ the way I was. I just need the money, get a new start for them youngsters.
[pause]
Will: Ned, you remember that drover I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn’t do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin’ I could remember when I sobered up.

…

English Bob [discussing the assassination of President Garfield]: …one can see that there’s a dignity in royalty…a majesty…that precludes the likelihood of assassination. Why, if you were to point a pistol at a King or a Queen, sir, I can assure you your hand would shake as though palsied…
Barber: (looking at Bob’s pistols): I wouldn’t point no pistol at nobody, sir.
English Bob: A wise policy. But if you did, I can assure you, the sight of royalty would cause you to dismiss all thoughts of bloodshed and stand…how shall I put it…in awe. Whereas, a president…I mean, why not shoot the president?

…

English Bob [seeing Bill]: Shit and fried eggs.

…

Bill: First off, Corky never carried two guns. Though he should have.
Beauchamp: No, no, he was, he was called “Two-Gun Corcoran.”
Bill: Yeah well, a lot of folks did call him “Two-Gun” but that wasn’t because he was sporting two pistols. That was because he had a dick that was so big it was longer than the barrel of that Walker Colt that he carried. An’ the only insultin’ he done was stickin’ that big dick of his in some French Lady that Old Bob was sweet on.

…

English Bob [being run out of town]: A plague on you. A plague on the whole stinking lot of ya, without morals or laws. And all you whores got no laws. You got no honor. It’s no wonder you all emigrated to America, because they wouldn’t have you in England. You’re a lot of savages, that’s what you all are. A bunch of bloody savages. A plague on you!

…

Alice: You just kicked the shit out of an innocent man.
Bill: Innocent? Innocent of what?

…

Delilah: Are you still goin’ to kill those men?
Will: I reckon so. The money’s still available, ain’t it?
Delilah: Yeah. Your two friends have been taking advances on the money.
Will: What?
Delilah You know, free ones.

…

Bill [after whipping Ned]: Now Ned, them whores are going to tell different lies than you. And when their lies ain’t the same as your lies…Well, I ain’t gonna hurt no woman. But I’m gonna hurt you. And not gentle like before…but bad.

…

The Kid: You still think he’s in there? the outhouse
Will: Yeah, he’s in there.
The Kid: Well he’s holding onto his shit like it was money.

…

The Kid [after killing a man for the first time]: It don’t seem real… how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever… how he’s dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.
Will: It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
The Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
Will Munny: We all got it coming, kid.

…

Bill [after Will blows Skinny away with his shotgun]: Well, sir, you are a cowardly son of a bitch! You just shot an unarmed man!
Will: Well, he should have armed himself if he’s going to decorate his saloon with my friend.

…

Bill: I don’t deserve this…to die like this. I was building a house.
Will: Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.

…

Will: I’m comin’ outta here…an’ any fucker I see out there, I’m gonna kill him…an’ any fucker takes a shot at me, I ain’t just gonna kill him, but I’m gonna kill his wife an’ all his friends an’ burn his fucking house down, hear? And you better bury Ned right!..Better not cut up, nor otherwise harm no whores…or I’ll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.[/b]

I sort of nearly almost lived through an experience that was sort of nearly almost similar to this. Which is to say that my ex-wife [for reasons not all that far removed from those depicted in the movie], left me and I had to raise my daughter on my own. But [admittedly] things are rather fuzzy in my head all these years later. For example, I’m not sure if the separation was for six months, a year or two years.

But eventually she came back into my life. We got divorced and we ended up raising our daughter by way of a joint custody contraption. With a lot of improvising in other words.

Here though the husband was not particularly adept at being a parent. He sort of had to start from scratch. At least I didn’t have to endure that.

And I’d like to think I was no where near as self-absorbed as he was. But Ted was certainly that. His whole world had come to revolve around work. He and Joanna were going through the motions of having a relationship but Ted is largely oblvious to it all. He really can’t seem to grasp why on earth Joanna would want to leave him: “What have I done, tell me, what have I done?” And this was a time when for many women feminism had begun to finally sink in. The perfect political storm.

The sub-text here is an exploration [re Baby Boom] of just how difficult it can be for parents to raise their kids in the context of the capitalist political economy. But here at least money is not a factor. At least not at first.

And then it all winds up in court. Where the law is supposed to be the whole point. But when it comes to child custody cases, it’s [still] mostly about poiltics. The politics of gender roles for example. And the prejudices that revolve around the sanctity of motherhood.

IMDb

[b]Dustin Hoffman planned the moment when he throws his wine glass against the wall during the restaurant scene with Meryl Streep. The only person he warned in advance was the cameraman, to make sure that it got in the shot. Streep’s shocked reaction is real, but she stayed in character long enough for the director to yell cut. In the documentary on the DVD, she recalls yelling at Hoffman as soon as the shot was over for scaring her so badly.

The famous ice-cream scene, where Billy challenges his father by skipping dinner and going straight for dessert, was completely improvised by both Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry. Director Robert Benton liked the scene so much that he decided to keep it in the film. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramer_vs._Kramer
trailer: youtu.be/jNLcfJ06y34

KRAMER VS. KRAMER [1979]
Written and directed by Robert Benton

[b]Joanna: I’m leaving you.
Ted [on the phone to the office]: Honey, please. I can’t hear.
[He hangs up the phone]
Ted: You guys eat?
Joanna: Ted, I’m leaving you. Ted, keys. Here are my keys. Here’s my American Express, my Bloomingdale’s card…my checkbook. I’ve taken $2,000 out of our savings account because that’s what I had when we first got married.
Ted: Is this some kind of joke?
Joanna: Here’s the cleaning, the laundry ticket.
Ted: Jo, you want to tell me what’s the matter?
Joanna: I paid the rent, the Con Ed bill and the phone bill.
Ted: Boy you really picked the time. I’m sorry I was late but I was busy making a living, all right?

…

Joanna: Ted, don’t make me go back in there. If you do I swear next week, maybe next year I’ll go right out the window.

…

Ted: Come on now, what about Billy?
Joanna: I’m not taking him with me. I’m no good for him. I’m terrible with him. I have no patience. He’s better off without me.
Ted: Joanna, please.
Joanna: And I don’t love you anymore.
Ted: Where are you going?
Joanna: I don’t know.

…

Ted: Can’t you understand what she has done to me?
Margaret: Yeah. She loused up one of the five best days of your life.

…

Ted : Margaret, I just need to know something. Did you put Joanna up to this?
Margaret: No, I did not put Joanna up to this.
Ted: Give her a little pep talk, maybe?
Margaret: Joanna and I talk a great deal and Joanna is a very unhappy woman; and you may not want to hear this but it took a lot of courage for her to walk out this door.
Ted: Mm-hmm. How much courage does it take to walk out on your kid?

…

Ted [dropping Billy off at school]: What grade are you in?

…

Boss: What are you going to do about Billy? This may sound a little rough but I think you should send Billy away to stay with relatives for a while.
Ted: You mean until Joanna comes back?
Boss: Suppose Joanna doesn’t come back?
Ted: Gee, I don’t know…
Boss: Ted, listen to me. I just told the boys upstairs you’re handling the Mid-Atlantic account. I told them you’re my main man. There are guys in the department eating their hearts out because I gave this job to you. This is important. Don’t blow this. I gotta depend on you. I gotta count on you 110 percent…seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

…

Billy: We need cereal.
Ted: Okay, what color?

…

Ted [after Billy brings ice cream to the table]: You go right back and put that right back until you finish your dinner…I’m warning you, you take one bite out of that and you are in big trouble. Don’t… Hey! Don’t you dare… Don’t you DARE do that. You hear me? Hold it right there! You put that ice cream in your mouth and you are in very, very, VERY big trouble. Don’t you dare go anywhere beyond that… Put it down right now. I am not going to say it again. I am NOT going to say it AGAIN.
[Billy eats the ice cream]
Billy [after Ted grabs him]: Ow! You’re hurting me!
Ted: OW! Don’t you kick me!
Billy: I hate you!
Ted: You’re no bargain either, pal! You are a spoiled, rotten little brat and I’ll tell you right now…
Billy: I hate you!
Ted: And I hate you back, you little shit!
Billy: I want my mommy!
Ted: I’m all you got!

…

Billy: Daddy?
Ted: Yeah?
Billy: I’m sorry.
Ted: I’m sorry too. I want you to go to sleep because it’s really late.
Billy: Daddy?
Ted: Now what is it?
Billy: Are you going away?
Ted: No. I’m staying here with you. You can’t get rid of me that easy.
Billy: That’s why Mommy left, isn’t it? Because I was bad?
Ted: Is that what you think? No. That’s not it, Billy. Your mom loves you very much… and the reason she left has nothing to do with you. I don’t know if this will make sense, but I’ll try to explain it to you. I think the reason why Mommy left…was because for a long time I kept trying to make her be a certain kind of person. A certain kind of wife that I thought she was supposed to be. And she just wasn’t like that. She was…she just wasn’t like that. I think that she tried for so long to make me happy…and when she couldn’t, she tried to talk to me about it. But I wasn’t listening. I was too busy, too wrapped up…just thinking about myself. And I thought that anytime I was happy, that she was happy. But I think underneath she was very sad. Mommy stayed here longer than she wanted because she loves you so much. And the reason why Mommy couldn’t stay anymore was because she couldn’t stand me. She didn’t leave because of you. She left because of me.
[pause]
Ted: Go to sleep now because it’s really late, okay? Good night. Sleep tight.
Billy: Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
Ted: See you in the morning light.
Billy: Daddy?
Ted: Yeah?
Billy: I love you.
Ted: I love you too.

…

Billy [looking up at Phyllis in the hall who is stark naked]: Hi.
Phyllis: Hi.
Billy: What’s your name?
Phyllis: I’m Phyllis Bernard.
Billy: Who?
Phyllis: I’m a friend…uh, business associate of your father’s…dad.
Ted [from in the bedroom]: Oh, Jesus…

…

Billy: Who’s gonna read me my bedtime stories?
Ted: Mommy will.
Billy: You’re not gonna kiss me good night anymore, are you, Dad?
Ted: No, I won’t be able to do that. But, you know, I get to visit. It’s gonna be ok, really.
Billy [crying]: If I don’t like it, can I come home?
Ted: What do you mean if you don’t like it? You’re gonna have a great time with Mommy. Really. She loves you so much.
Billy: Dad? Don’t forget, once, if you can just call me up, okay?
Ted: We’re gonna be okay. Come on, let’s go get some ice cream.

…

Ted: Hi, what’s up? Tell me. What? What’s the matter?
Joanna: I woke up this morning, kept thinking about Billy and I was thinking about him waking up in his room with his little clouds all around that I painted and I thought I should have painted clouds downtown because then he would think that he was waking up at home. I came here to take my son home. And I realized he already is home.[/b]

Anarchy in the U.K. was one thing, anarchy in Salt Lake City, Utah another thing altogether. Go ahead, try to imagine Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten going about their nihilistic rebellion there.

Can’t, right?

Of course the thing about being an anarchist anywhere is how you still have to rely on everyone else [the duped masses, for example] to grow your food and make your clothes and manufacture all the other basic accouterments of, say, surviving from day to day. After all, these things don’t exactly grow on trees, do they?

In other words, their righteous rebellion unfolded mostly inside their heads. There you make up the best of all possible worlds and expect folks to just go along with it once they realize [too] just how righteous your particular rebellion is. We find a lot of that here too, don’t we?

Anyway, after watching this who could possibly not want to become a punk anarchist? If only a tongue in cheek one.

Call this a gathering of…tribes. All of the bizarre points of view that folks are actually able to talk themselves into. Poking fun at the weirdos. Only there really are people like this out there. And they really do take this shit seriously. However, uh, idiotic it might seem to you and me.

Still, I could have done with a lot less Mark. Him and Salt Lake City.

The bottom line? Well, we all we to decide this for ourselves: DID STEVO SELL OUT? IS STEVO JUST A POSER?

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLC_Punk!
trailer: youtu.be/DILdeHgWF-U

SLC PUNK [1998]
Written and directed by James Merendino

[b]Stevo [voiceover]: To be an anarchist in Salt Lake City was certainly no easy task, especially in 1985. And having no money, no job, no plans for the future, the true anarchist position was in itself a strenuous job.

…

Bob [to Stevo]: Well, it’s a crazy fucked up world and we’re all just floating along waiting for someone who can walk on water.

…

Stevo: Wait, time out. I just wanted to ask real quick, if I can. You believe in rebellion, freedom and love, right?
Mom: Absolutely, yes.
Dad: Rebellion, freedom, love.
Stevo: One: You two are divorced. So love failed. Two: Mom, you’re a New Ager, clinging to every scrap of Eastern religion that may justify why the above said love failed. Three: Dad, you’re a slick, corporate, preppy-ass lawyer. I don’t really have to say anything else about you do I dad? Four: You move from New York City, the Mecca and hub of the cultural world to Utah! Nowhere! To change nothing! More to perpetuate this cycle of greed, fascism and triviality. Your movement of the people, by and for the people got you…nothing! You just hide behind some lost sense of drugs, sex and rock and roll. Ooooh, Kumbaya! I am the future! I am the future of this great nation which you, father, so arrogantly saved this world for. Look, I have my own agenda. Harvard, out. University of Utah, in. I’m gonna get a 4.0 in damage. I love you guys! Don’t get me wrong, it’s all about this. But for the first time in my life, I’m 18 and I can say “FUUUUUCK YOU!”
Dad: Steven, I didn’t sell out son. I bought in.

…

Stevo [voiceover]: Bob and the rest of us had made an oath to do absolutely nothing. We were gonna waste our educated minds. We had no other way of fighting. As I said, there just weren’t enough of us. Sure, there was a lot more punks than there was four years earlier… but there was also as many posers. Posers were people who looked like punks but they did it for fashion. And they were fools, they’d say “anarchy in the UK.” What the fuck’s that? Anarchy in the UK. What good is that to those of us in Utah, America? It was a Sex Pistols thing. They were British, they were allowed to go on about Anarchy in the UK. You don’t live your life by lyrics. I mean, that’s all you ever heard from these trendy fucks. Like, “Did you hear the new Smiths album? It’s fuckin’ terrif.” Kids walking around Utah saying “terrif” with a stupid old English twang. See what I mean? What the fuck’s up with the England bullshit? You know Jag? He’s a fag!

…

Stevo [voiceover while bending over]: The sun never sets on the British Empire? Well the sun never sets on my asshole!

…

Mark: That’s what’s wrong with you Americans, you’re always looking for pain.
Mike: Yeah well…it pains me to hear you say that, Mark, it really does.

…

Stevo [voiceover]: If looking the way we did in Utah was unusual…in Wyoming, affectionately called the Cowboy State… we were fucking aliens.
Liquor store owner: What the hell are you?
Stevo: We come from the east in search of the Messiah. We followed that big star. Yeah, we bring gold and frankincense. Myrrh. Myrrh.
Liquor store owner: Oh, my God. Who let you boys out of the state institute? We’d better get you boys back in the hospital.
Bob: No. It’s all right, man. We’re from England.
Liquor store owner: England?
Stevo: Yeah. That’s right. That’s probably why we seem so weird to you, man.
Liquor store owner: England, huh? Well, that explains it, I guess. You boys enjoying your stay here in the good ol’ U.S. Of A.?
Bob: Sure thing. It’s a great land.
[his mother comes into the store]
Mother: What the hell is that?!
Liquor store owner: It’s all right, Mother. They’re from England.

…

Stevo [overover]: The Fight: What does it mean and where does it come from? An Essay: Homosapien. A man. He is alone in the universe. A punker. Still a man. He is alone in the universe, but he connects. How? They hit each other. No clearer way to evaluate whether or not you’re alive. Now. Complications. A reason to fight. Somebody different. Difference creates dispute. Dispute is a reason to fight. Now, to fight is a reason to feel pain. Life is pain. So to fight with reason is to be alive with reason. Final analysis: To fight, a reason to live. Problems and Contradictions: I am an anarchist. I believe that there should be no rules, only chaos. Fighting appears to be chaos. And when we slam in the pit a show it is. But when we fight for a reason, like rednecks, there’s a system, we fight for what we stand for, chaos. Fighting is a structure, fighting is to establish power, power is government and government is not anarchy. Government is war and war is fighting. The circle goes like this: our redneck skirmishes are cheap perversions of conventional warfare. War implies extreme government because wars are fought to enforce rules or ideals, even freedom. But other people ideals forced on someone else, even if it is something like freedom, is still a rule; not anarchy. This contradiction was becoming clear to me in the fall of '85. Even as early as my first party, “Why did I love to fight?” I framed it, but still, I don’t understand it. It goes against my beliefs as a true anarchist. But there it was. Competition, fighting, capitalism, government, THE SYSTEM. That’s what we did. It’s what we always did. Rednecks kicked the shit out of punks, punks kicked the shit out of mods, mods kicked the shit out of skinheads, skinheads took out the heavy metal guys, and the heavy metal guys beat the living shit out of new wavers and the new wavers did nothing. What was the point? Final summation? None.[/b]

Got that? Now all that’s left to do is choose sides.

[b]Stevo: Dad, you and I really gotta work on your definition of “good news”.

…

Stevo: You know what I think it is? I think you’ve become a fascist.
Dad: A fascist?
Stevo: You’re a Nazi!
Dad: Nazi, I’m Jewish, Steven, how can I be a Nazi?
Stevo: That’s the worst. Dad, look at this. What kinda, what kinda car is this?
Dad: That would be a Porshe.
Stevo: A Porshe, that you bought at a Volkswagen dealership. Volks…wagen, right? For the people who designed it? Who made that possible, Let me give you a hint, Adolf Hitler.
Dad: IT’S JUST A CAR!

…

Stevo [voiceover]: Where were we going? I mean, really, what was happening? This life, it was crazy. And I felt tired. Halfway through the season, inside I was so tired…and I had this wave of melancholy…just, like, sweep through me…and this impending sense that my philosophy… anarchy…was falling apart. What do you do when your foundation falls apart? I don’t know. They don’t teach you that in school.

…

Chris: Let’s speak of anarchy…
Stevo [voiceover]: So we started our debate. This was our custom. He believed in structure, I believed in chaos. This was an ongoing fight. He seemed to be winning.

…

Stevo: The school of science says the world moves from order to disorder…chaos.
Chris: They’re fools, Stevo. You know, life goes from order to disorder to order. Atoms come together randomly to form a structure. An infant is born. It grows, it gets older, it dies, it decomposes.
Stevo: Exactly. Back into chaos. Exactly. Anarchy.
Chris: But then those atoms are reformed into something else. A blade of grass, a tree, a flower, whatever…the cycle, man.
Stevo: I got it. The cycle, man. Yeah, I get you. The cycle.

…

Stevo [voiceover]: Jones didn’t need to prove the devil did not exist…not as a supernatural being… because I had seen the devil. He was in that room with Sandy. He was me, Harvard, my mom and dad, all of us. Jones was just making all of this up anyway, so who cared? “Fuck 'em,” I thought. “Fuck him, fuck this party…and fuck everything. Above all, fuck anarchy!”

…

Stevo [voiceover]: There’s nothing going on here. That’s what I saw when I looked out over the city: nothing. How the Mormon settlers looked upon this valley and felt that it was the promised land is beyond me. I don’t know, maybe it looked different back then.

…

Stevo: If I knew what was ahead of me, I may have stayed in bed. You see life is like that. We change, that’s all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he’d beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts.

…

Brandy: I have to ask you something. Why do you go out of your way to look like a bum?
Stevo: I look like a bum?
Brandy: Not in a bad way.
Stevo; I look like a bum in a good way.
Brandy: Aren’t you, like, rebelling against society? Wouldn’t it be more of an act of rebellion…if you didn’t spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? It seems so petty. Stop me if I’m being offensive.
Stevo: Oh, no, go right ahead. It’s…No, it’s fine.
Brandy: You wanna be an individual, right? You look like you’re wearing a uniform. You look like a punk. That’s not rebellion. That’s fashion.

…

Stevo [voiceover]: And so there I was. I was gonna go to Harvard. It was obvious. I was gonna be a lawyer and play in the God-damned system, and that was that. I was my old man. He knew, so what else could I do? I mean, there’s no future in anarchy; I mean let’s face it. But when I was into it, there was never a thought of the future. I mean we were certain the world was gonna end, but when it didn’t, I had to do something, so fuck it. I could always be a litigator in New York and piss the shit out of the judges. I mean that was me: a trouble maker of the future. The guy that was one of those guys that my parents so arrogantly saved the world for, so we could fuck it up. We can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it. That was the final irony, I think. That, and well, this. And “fuck you” for all of you who were thinking it: I guess when all was said and done, I was nothing more than a God-damned, trendy-ass poser.[/b]

There are three films here. There is Paul and Jeanne. The good. There is Tom and Jeanne. The bad. And there is Paul and everyone else. The ugly.

I just fast forward now through the bad and savor both the good and the ugly.

Purportedly, the film is basically just one man’s sexual fantasy. The director’s: The idea of this movie grew from Bernardo Bertolucci’s own sexual fantasies, stating that “he once dreamed of seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was”.

All the rest is something that each of us as individuals will attach our own “meaning” to.

Mine tends to revolve around the manner in which ones sense of identity can slip in and out of what is real and what is only imagined; of how things are and of how they might become if we are able to slip in and out of the fantasy.

Most importantly, it revolves around the relationship between the private anguish we endure in absorbing private losses and the manner in which that can be embodied when interacting with others [here intimately] who do not have a clue regarding this part at all.

To wit: We are only afforded a glimpse into the relationship between Paul and his wife. We know she committed suicide and we know Paul is embedded [somehow] in the reason. And then we watch as this all becomes entangled in his relationship with Jeanne. But nothing is ever pinned down. And Jeanne is oblivious. Thus my reaction to the ending may well be very different from your reaction. I was surprised [and not pleasantly] when all pretenses dissolve into “the real world”: Hey, kid, this is who I really am.

I preferred the man falling apart at the seams when confronted with the body of his dead wife. The leap here was just too disconcerting for me. I could not have made it myself.

And Jeanne was someone I was not able gain any traction with at all. She is very young, very beautiful, very voluputous. And I have always been attracted to, well, let’s just she that hers is extraordinary. She is “artsy”, off the beaten track. But not much more than that. Not to me. I was not able to find myself caring all that much about her. And I could only imagine my reaction to the film if I had been. How very much different it would have been.

IMDb

[b]While filming, Bernardo Bertolucci tried to explain the point of the film to Marlon Brando, suggesting that his character was Bertolucci’s “manhood” and that Maria Schneider’s character was his “dream girl”. Brando later maintained that he had absolutely no idea of what Bertolucci was suggesting or even talking about.

According to his autobiography “Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me”, the reason why Marlon Brando refused to do a full frontal nude scene was because his “penis shrank to the size of a peanut on set”.

According to Maria Schneider, Marlon Brando’s lines were routinely taped to her naked body because of his dyslexia and reluctance to memorize his dialog.

According to Maria Schneider, the famous “butter scene” was never in the script and improvised at the last minute by Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci without consulting her. Though the sodomy act was faked, her real tears in the film clearly testify her state of shock.

Jean-Pierre Léaud had so much respect for Marlon Brando that he was afraid to meet him. That’s why he shot all his scenes on Saturdays, when Brando refused to work. Due to this, the two never met in the entire making of the film on and off screen.

Such was the controversy over the film that the print was smuggled into the USA for its debut in a diplomatic pouch from Italy. The film was due to have its premiere at the New York Film Festival where tickets were going for $150. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Tango_in_Paris
trailer: youtu.be/3x4UOsLC0OE

[b]Note: Some explicit language[/b]

LAST TANGO IN PARIS [Ultimo Tango a Parigi] 1972
Written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

[b]Paul [with his hands over his ears at the sound of a passing train…seeming to beseech the heavens]: Fucking GOD!

…

Maid [to Paul]: I’d have finished by now, but the police wouldn’t let me touch anything. They didn’t believe it was suicide. There was so much blood everywhere. They had fun making me do a reconstruction. “She went there.” “She came through here.” “She opened the curtain.”…Asking if she was sad, if she was happy, if you fought, how long you’d been married, why you didn’t have any children. Pigs! They said, “Your boss is a bit unstable.” “Do you know that he was a boxer?” So? “lt didn’t work out, so he became an actor.” “Bongo player, revolutionary in South America, journalist in Japan.” “One day, he lands in Tahiti, hangs around, Learns French.” “Then he comes to Paris. There… he meets a woman with money, marries her and…” “Since then what has your boss done?” “Nothing.” I say, “Can I clean up now?” “No! Don’t touch anything!” “Do you really think she killed herself?”

…

Jeanne: I don’t know what to call you.
Paul: I don’t have a name.
Jeanne: Do you want to know mine?
Paul: No, no! I don’t. I don’t want to know your name. You don’t have a name and I don’t have a name either. Not one name.
Jeanne: You’re crazy!
Paul: Maybe I am, but I don’t want to know anything about you. I don’t wanna know where you live or where you come from. I wanna know nothing.
Jeanne: You scare me.
Paul: Nothing. You and I are gonna meet here without knowing anything that goes on outside here. OK?
Jeanne: But why?
Paul: Because…because we don’t need names here. Don’t you see? We’re gonna forget…everything that we knew. Every…all the people…all that we do…wherever we live. We’re going to forget that, everything, everything.
Jeanne: But I can’t. Can you?
Paul: I don’t know…

…

Paul: What are you looking for?
Rosa’s mother: Something that would explain…A letter, a clue.
Paul: Nothing. I told you, there’s nothing, nothing at all.

…

Rosa’s mother: I’ll prepare her a beautiful room with flowers. The cards, clothes, relatives, flowers.
Paul: You’ve got everything in that suitcase. You didn’t forget anything. But I don’t want any priests here. No priests.
Rosa’s mother: But, Paul. We have to. Funerals must be religious.
Paul: NO!! Rosa didn’t believe. Nobody believes in fucking God here!
Rosa’s mother: Paul, don’t shout. Don’t talk like that.
Paul: The priest doesn’t want any suicides. The Church doesn’t want any suicides, do they?
Rosa’s mother: They’ll give her absolution. Absolution and a nice mass. That’s all I ask, Paul. Rosa…Rosa is my little girl, do you understand? Rosa…Why did she kill herself?
Paul: Why? Why did she kill herself? Why?
[he viciously punches the door with his fist]
Paul: You don’t know, do you? You don’t know…

…

Jeanne: I shall have to invent a name for you.
Paul: A name? Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.

…

Jeanne: My father had green eyes and shiny boots. I worshipped him. He was so handsome in his uniform.
Paul: What a steaming pile of horseshit.
Jeanne: What? Don’t…
Paul: All uniforms are bullshit. Everything outside this place is bullshit.

…

Jeanne: What are we doing here?
Paul: Let’s just say we’re taking a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

…

Paul: Why were you going through my pockets?
Jeanne: To find out who you are.
Paul: “To find out who you are?”
Jeanne: Yes.
Paul: Well, if you look real close, you’ll see me hiding behind my zipper.

…

Jeanne: Why do you hate women?
Paul: Because either they always pretend to know who I am, or they pretend I don’t know who they are, and that’s very boring.

…

Marcel [doing pullups]: This is my secret. 30 times every morning.
Paul: Really, Marcello, I don’t know what she ever saw in you.

…

Paul [to Jeanne]: Go, get the butter.

…

Paul [while sodomizing Jeanne]: I’m gonna tell you about the family. That holy institution meant to breed virtue in savages. I want you to repeat it after me. Repeat it. Say, “Holy family.” Come on, say it. Go on. Holy family. Church of good citizens. Church…Say it. Say it! The children are tortured until they tell their first lie.
Jeanne [in tears]: The children… are tortured…
Paul: Where the will is broken by repression.
Jeanne: Where the will… broken… repression.
Paul: Where freedom… Free… Freedom! …is assassinated. Freedom is assassinated by egotism. Family… Family… You… You… You… You… You… fucking… fucking… family. You fucking family!

…

Jeanne; You know, you’re old! You’re getting fat.
Paul: Fat, is it? How unkind.
Jeanne: Half of your hair is out and the other half is almost white.
Paul: In ten years, you know what you’ll be doing…you’ll be playing soccer with your tits.

…

Paul: You want this golden, shining, powerful warrior to build a fortress where you can hide in. So you don’t have to ever…have…You don’t ever have to be afraid. You don’t have to feel lonely or empty. That’s what you want, isn’t it?
Jeanne: Yes.
Paul: Well, you’ll never find it.
Jeanne: But I find this man.
Paul: Then it won’t be long until he’ll want you to build a fortress for him out of your tits and your cunt and your hair and your smile and the way you smell. And…and some place where he can feel comfortable and secure enough so that he can worship in front of the altar of his own prick. Jeanne: But I find this man!
Paul: No, you’re alone. You’re all alone. You won’t be free of that feeling of being alone until you look death right in the face. I mean, that sounds like bullshit, some romantic crap, until you go right up into the ass of death. Right up in his ass… till you find the womb of fear. And then,… maybe. Maybe then, you’ll be able to find him.
Jeanne: I found him. He’s you! You are that man!

…

Paul: Get me the scissors. Get me the fingernail scissors. I want you to cut the fingernails on your right hand, these two. That’s it. I want you to put your fingers up my ass.
Jeanne: What?
Paul: Put your fingers up my ass, are you deaf? Go on. I’m gonna get a pig…and I’m…I’m gonna have the pig fuck you. I want the pig to vomit in your face and I want you to swallow the vomit. Are you gonna do that for me?
Jeanne: Yeah. Yeah!
Paul: I want the pig to die while…while you’re fucking him. Then you’ll have to go behind him. I want you to smell the dying farts of the pig. Are you gonna do all of that for me?
Jeanne: Yes, and more than that!

…

Paul [to his dead wife]: You know on the top of the closet? The cardboard box, I found all your… I found all your little goodies. Pens, keychains, foreign money, French ticklers, the whole shot. Even a clergyman’s collar. I didn’t know you collected all those little knick-knacks left behind. Even if a husband lives 200 hundred fucking years, he’ll never discover his wife’s true nature. I may be able to understand the secrets of the universe, but…I’ll never understand the truth about you. Never.

…

Paul [alone at his dead wife’s bedside]: Our marriage was nothing more than a foxhole for you. And all it took for you to get out was a 10 cent razor and a tub full of water. You cheap, goddamn, fucking, godforsaken whore, I hope you rot in hell. You’re worse than the dirtiest street pig anybody could ever find anywhere, and you know why? You know why? Because you lied. You lied to me and I trusted you.
[gradually starts losing his composure]
You lied and you knew you were lying. Go on, tell me you didn’t lie. Haven’t you got anything to say about that? You can think up something, can’t you? Go on, tell me something! Go on, smile, you cunt!
[starts crying]
Go on, tell me… tell me something sweet. Smile at me and say I just misunderstood. Go on, tell me. You pig-fucker…you goddamn, fucking, pig-fucking liar.
[sobbing]
Rosa… I’m sorry, I…I just…I can’t stand it to see these goddamn things on your face!
[peels off her fake eyelashes]
You never wore make-up…this fucking shit.
[wipes off her lipstick with a flower petal]
I’m gonna take this off your mouth, this…this lipstick…
[falls over her, sobbing uncontrollably]
Rosa - oh GOD! I’m sorry! I…I don’t know why you did it! I’d do it too, if I knew how…I just don’t know how…I have to…have to find a way…

…

Paul: It’s me again.
Jeanne: It’s over.
Paul: That’s right. It’s over and then it begins again.
Jeanne: What begins again? I don’t understand anything anymore.
Paul: There’s nothing to understand. We left the apartment, and now we begin again with love all the rest of it.
Jeanne: The rest of it?
Paul: Yeah, listen. I’m a widower. I’ve got a little hotel, a kind of a dump. But it’s not completely a flophouse. And…I used to live on my luck, and I got married. My wife killed herself. But you know, what the hell. I’m no prize. I picked up a nail when I was in Cuba in and now I got a prostate like an Idaho potato. But I’m still a good stick man, even if l can’t have any children. Let’s see. I don’t have any stomping grounds. I don’t have any friends. I suppose if I hadn’t met you, I’d probably settle for a hard chair and a hemorrhoid. Anyway, to make a long, dull story even duller, I come from a time when a guy like me would drop into a joint like this and pick up a young chick like you…and call her a bimbo.

…

Paul [to Jeanne]: Listen, that’s not a subway strap, that’s me cock!

…

Paul: Mademoiselle…How do you like your hero? Over easy or sunny-side up? I ran through Africa and Asia and Indonesia, and now I found you…and I love you. I want to know your name.
Jeanne: Jeanne.
[she shoots him]

…

Jeanne [imagining what she will tell the police]: I don’t know who he is. He followed me in the street. He tried to rape me. He’s a lunatic. I don’t know what he’s called. I don’t know his name. I don’t know who he is. He tried to rape me. I don’t know. I don’t know him. I don’t know who he is. He’s a madman. I don’t know his name.[/b]