philosophy in film

Small towns and big cities. Many [like, say, me] started out in one and ended up in the other. Does that mean anything? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is really no point in arguing about it because there are simply too many different trajectories that one can take. There’s just no escaping the parts that can never really be pinned down with any finality.

Bottom line: You come to think and feel what you do about the past, about the present…about the relationship between them. And it’s inevitable: Some want to escape to what you think and feel now and others want to escape from it.

Willie is back home from the big city. But he never quite succeeded in becoming much more than what he had figured he was bent on escaping from. He’s a jazz pianist. But he is barely able to eke out a living doing it.

Ah, but where does being “beautiful” fit into all of this? A beautiful girl, a handsome boy. Small town or not. And we surely cannot pretend that in this culture it is [ho hum] just one more variable. As though being rich or poor in this culture were [ho hum] just one more variable. Still, for some folks it can be closer to that than for others.

Anyway, with some things, big city or small town, people are people are people. Just don’t think you can ever hope to pin down exactly what that means. Take sex and love for example…

And then there is Willie and Marty. Marty is Natalie Portman beautiful. And while she is [literally] a child [13] she is precocious to a fault.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Girls_(film
trailer: youtu.be/0AvkCamSj5o

BEAUTIFUL GIRLS [1996]
Directed by Ted Demme

[b]Kev: No Sambuca today, Darian?
Darian: It’s five o’clock in the morning.
Kev: Does that make it too early or too late?

…

Paul: I’ll bet $20 she’s banging that guy.
Kev: Bad bet.
Paul: Bad bet? Why?
Kev: Either way, you lose. If you win, she’s bangin’ him. If you lose, you’re out 20 bucks.

…

Jan: Only when faced with losing me do you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with me.
Paul: So, what’s wrong with that? I didn’t like the alternative. I mean that’s how one usually comes to a decision anyway, right?
Jan: Wrong again, Paul - one comes to a decision based on what one wants, not based on what one doesn’t want.

…

Sharon [to Tommy]: Let me ask you something. What do I do? The best years of your life were high school, when you were the king of the hill, the Birdman, and Darian was your girlfriend. You want all that back. I can’t give that to you. How do I compete with a life that is impossible for you to have again?

…

Paul: See these guys? Pete, Rizzo and Sammy B? They work all day and drink all night for 40 fucking years. Two weeks out of the year, they take a vacation and go to the Cape. What do they do? They drink all day, they drink all night. If we don’t step it up, we’re gonna wind up just like them.
Tommy: Does this little observation contain anything resembling a point?
Paul: Yes, Tom. If we don’t step it up, we’ll wind up just like Husky Pete and Rizzo and Sammy Bean.
Kev: Cool.

…

Paul: Why’d you mention the piano? We can’t compete with that.
Tommy: Show her how you spread mulch? That’s sexy.

…

Gina: I’m finished speaking to both of you okay? You’re both fucking insane. You want to know what your problem is? MTV, Playboy, and Madison fucking Avenue. Yes. Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That’s the way it goes. God doesn’t fuck around; he’s a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers. It’s not my rule. If you don’t like it, call him.
[she opens a copy of Penthouse…the centerfold]
Gina: Oh, guys, look what we have here. Look at this, your favorite. Oh, you like that?
Tommy: I could go along with that.
Gina: Yeah, that’s nice right? Well, it doesn’t exist ok. Look at the hair. The hair is long, it’s flowing, it’s like a river. Well, it’s a fucking weave ok? And the tits, please! I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits by design were invented to be suckled by babies. Yes, they’re purely functional. These are silicon city. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being too unruly and all. Very key. This is a mockery, this is a sham, this is bullshit. Implants, collagen, plastic, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush shaved… These are not real women, all right? They’re beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs and our cellulite feel somehow inadequate. Well I don’t buy it, all right? But you fucking mooks, if you think that if there’s a chance in hell that you’ll end up with one of these women, you don’t give us real women anything approaching a commitment. It’s pathetic. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do. You’re going to end up eighty-years old, drooling in some nursing home, then you’re going to decide, it’s time to settle down, get married, have kids? What, are you going to find a cheerleader?
Tommy: I think you’re over simplifying.
Gina: Oh eat me. Look at Paul. With his models on the wall, his dog named Elle McPherson. He’s insane. He’s obsessed. You’re all obsessed. If you had an once of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound, beauty is truly skin-deep. And you know what, if you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you’d be sick of her.
Tommy: Yeah, I suppose I’d get sick of her after about, what, twenty or thirty years?
Gina: Get over yourself.
Tommy: What?
Gina: No mater how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there is some other shit going on in the relationship, besides the physical, it’s going to get old, ok? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip. Otherwise, the future of the human race is in jeopardy.[/b]

Hmm. Never heard that before.

[b]Willie: All I’m saying is you have this amazing thing, you got his person with all that potential, all that future… This girl is gonna be amazing. She’s smart, she’s funny… she’s hot…
Mo: She’s 13!
Willie: I know.
Mo: Get over it.
Willie: It’s not a sexual thing. This is…I could wait. In ten years, she’ll be 23, I’ll be 39, it won’t be a big deal.
Mo: Willie…you’re scaring me here.
Willie: This girl is gonna be amazing. I was actually jealous of this little kid on a bike, this short little kid on a bike, cos he gets to be her age now. I get to be some vile old man, like… What’s his name?
Mo: Roman Polanski.
Willie: No, no like…Nabokov.

…

Mo: Willie, the girl was a zygote when you were in the seventh grade.

…

Paul: Fuckin’ Mo has got it wired, man. He’s like a retard that doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t desire new experiences, new women, nothing. Look at him. He’s like the mental patient that doesn’t know he’s mental. So he’s perfectly content.

…

Paul: Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That’s all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.
Willie: I am now going to check your freezer for human heads.

…

Andera [to Willie]: There’s a guy out there that thinks the same thing about Tracy. He’s jealous of you, you getting to do all that with her.

…

Paul: You let her behind the curtain, didn’t you?
Willie: Maybe she missed her boyfriend.
Paul: You let her behind the curtain, I know you did. You never let them behind the curtain Will. You never let them see the little old man behind the curtain working the levers of the great and powerful OZ. They are all sisters Willie…they aren’t allowed back there…they mustn’t see.
Willie: Tell me the truth. You stay up nights thinking about this shit?
Paul: You say it like it’s a bad thing.

…

Paul [referring to Tracy]: Willie, my friend, she is delightful.
Willie: “Delightful”? Who are you, Rex Harrison?
Paul: Seriously, what is your major malfunction? I mean, she’s smart, she’s funny, she’s charming, she’s got a great ass, a nice rack as far as I can tell?
Willie: Nice rack.
Paul: She’s rich, she’s got a great ass.
Willie: Yeah, you mentioned that.

…

Steve: Can I buy you a drink?
Tommy: No, I got one.
Steve: Come on, Tom. One drink.
Tommy: I was just gonna be leaving.
Steve: OK. Let me see if I got this straight. I can’t buy you a drink, but you can stick your dick into my wife.

…

Steve [the “frat” boy]: See, I think it’s Knight’s Ridge. Fucking working-class towns, man. Girls here see a tool belt, they get moist.
Tommy: I got an extra one I can lend you, Steve.

…

Willie: Tommy was sleeping with his wife.
Mo: So?
Willie: I’m just saying it’s not like he was that innocent.
Paul: So he deserved that? You see his face?
Willie: Look, what I’m saying is that this does present a moral dilemma.

…

Steve [to Mo with his little girl looking on]: I’m…I’m just trying to save my family here, man, all right?

…

Tommy [to Sharon]: I’m just lying here and I’m wondering…how I got here, you know? I don’t mean here, I mean how I got here…How I’m not anything like what I’d hoped that I’d be, you know? I’m not even close to the guy I thought I’d end up being. And it kind of blows.[/b]

Then the script kicks in. A crescendo of happy endings. Mostly.

Paul: So you’re the little neighborhood Lolita.
Marty: So you’re the alcoholic high school buddy with shit for brains.

Let’s face it, mental illness can be tricky. It can be tricky diagnosing it. It can be tricky treating it. It can be tricky living with it.

And it can be tricky when you are around someone who is – no doubt about it – ill mentally. Tricky because there are the parts where these folks seem perfectly normal. Or when their behaviors might be deemed merely…eccentric.

You figure you can live with it. With the “episodes”. And maybe even fall in love and live happily ever after. And, sure, maybe you can. But, again, it’s tricky.

Joon is especially tricky to be around. Her behaviors can indeed be thought of [at times] as merely eccentric. But other times they are downright bizarre. Scary even. Dangerous? Sam on the other hand is seldom scary. Or dangerous. But [in his own way] he can be just as eccentric and bizarre. Is he mentally ill? Too close to call?

So how do you handle it? If, for example, you are [or want to be] her…lover? Or if you are [and have no choice but to be] her brother.

Benny is the brother. And he can be fiercely protective of Joon. Or maybe a bit too protective. And his whole life seems to revolve around taking care of her. And maybe he likes it that way.

Back again to the part about these things being tricky.

Fortunately, she is just mentally stable enough for this film to have a happy ending. That “episode” on the bus notwithstanding.

IMDb

[b]Joon’s comment to Sam, “Having a Boo Radley moment, are we?” is a reference to the character of Boo Radley in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, a “Boo Radley moment” is when a person is astonished at the sight of something or someone excessively strange and/or rare.

Mary Stuart Masterson told director Jeremiah S. Chechik that she did not remember filming the bus scene.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_%26_Joon
trailer: youtu.be/pEciMBEUL_s

BENNY AND JOON [1993]
Directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik

[b]Mrs. Smeal: I am done Mr Pearl, I am done. The mules turned to glue, she left the house unescorted, she has sudden outbursts. She is simply unmanageable.
Benny: Mrs Smeal! Please, wait, please. Let me talk to her. I can talk to her, you can’t quit on such short notice.
Mrs. Smeal: Oh, well I’m sorry sir. In Ireland we have a saying – when a boat runs ashore, the sea has spoken.

…

Benny: What happened with you and Mrs. Smeal?
Joon: She was given to fits of semi-precious metaphors.
Benny: The woman is a housekeeper, Joon, not an English professor.

…

Benny: I’m her brother and her only family. And we’ve done just fine the two of us for 12 years.
Doctor: Yes, but her stress level is always a factor in her display of symptoms. Her agitation should be kept to a minimum.
Benny: Everybody gets agitated sometimes it’s the only option
Doctor: Benny, don’t get me wrong. I’m impressed that you’ve managed this long. But a group home would give her a chance to develop other relationships. Also we don’t know this but what if she was capable of a part time job? They would encourage her in that direction. These are very nice places, nurturing, supportive.
Benny: I’m not farming her out.

…

Joon [wearing a snorkle and directing traffic with a ping pong paddle]: I have every right to be outside, officer, I have every right.

…

Waldo: Joon called. She says that you’ve run out of tapioca.
Benny: She what?
Waldo: Oh, and the police will corroborate.

…

Joon [to Benny playing ping pong]: Don’t underestimate the mentally ill. We know how to count.

…

Mike: Hey guys, rules are rules, without them there’s no order in the universe.
Benny: Oh don’t give me that crap. You took advantage…
Joon: …of your sick sister? A heart flush is a perfectly respectable hand.
Mike: Not respectable enough.
Benny: Hey shut up Mike. I am not taking this guy home.
Mike: You have to man. Remember the bet I lost last year. I had to re-plant your socket set. I didn’t back out did I?
Benny: You can’t bet a human being!

…

Joon: You’re out of your tree.
Sam: It’s not my tree.

…

Sam: Mentally ill. Really?
Benny: Yeah. But I mean don’t worry about it. Just let her go about her routine, you know. Her routine is everyday therapy. She runs hot and cold on you, just ignore it. That’s just the way it works. Oh, listen, she starts talking to herself, don’t worry about it…but don’t answer.
Sam: ok
Benny: She sometimes hears voices in her head. That comes with the territory too. And just make sure that nothing … and I mean nothing … happens to her.

…

Sam: You don’t like raisins?
Joon: Not really.
Sam: Why?
Joon: They used to be fat and juicy and now they’re shriveled. They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they’re just humiliated grapes.

…

Joon: Did you have to go to school for that?
Sam: No, no, I got thrown out of school for that.

…

Sam: Joon.
Joon: What?
Sam: I, I love you
Joon: Me too. But don’t tell Benny.
Sam: Ok.

…

Sam: How sick is she?
Benny: She’s plenty sick.
Sam: Because, you know, it seems to me that, I mean, except for being a little mentally ill, she’s pretty normal.

…

Joon: We have to tell him.
Benny: What? Tell me what?
Sam: Err…Benny…Joon…and…and I…are…you know.
Benny: Bullshit! You…
[he gets up and drags Sam from the table]
Sam: No, no.
Joon: Don’t!
Benny: Get the fuck out!!
Joon: You can’t throw him out. I won him!!

…

Benny: I hope you’re happy…I hope you’re happy with what you have done to her.
[throws Sam against wall]
Benny: You just stay the hell away from my sister.
Sam [shakes his head]: No… no.
Benny: You wanna know why everyone laughs at you, Sam? Because you’re an idiot. You’re a first-class moron!
Sam: You’re scared, Benny.
Benny: I’m what?
Sam: You’re scared. I can see it… And I know why. I used to look up to you. But…uh…now I can’t look at you at all.[/b]

A film based on this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_ … _of_Sugamo

A “fictionalized” account: Although this film was inspired by actual events that took place in Tokyo, the details and characters portrayed in this film are entirely fictional.

It’s not like we can’t imagine something like this happening. After all, there are literally millions upon millions of families out there interacting in millions upon millions of different circumstantial contexts. Some parents are more irresponsible [selfish] than others. On the other hand [perhaps] some parents are more desparate than others. Judgments will be made [must be made] but don’t think you can ever really [truly] understand what motivates others to do what they do…just because you yourself would never do the same.

Also, some children are considerably more precocious [mature] than others.

Still, the mother here does [eventually] abandon the children to fend for themselves. And with barely enough money to get by. The oldest is only 12. And none of them [aside from her son] are allowed to leave the apartment. And they are all forbidden to go to school.

In the beginning she does seem to convey [share] something in the way of love for them. And they for her. And she does return at least one time [after 3 months] to help them along. And she does promise to return for good once she is able to remarry. But she doesn’t. These kids really are left to sink or swim. And over time it just gets grimmer and grimmer. And then one of them dies.

IMDb

Filmed chronologically over almost an entire year.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_(2004_film
trailer: youtu.be/gCh0IbMH15w

NOBODY KNOWS [Dare Mo Shiranai] 2004
Written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda

[b]Mother: Here goes.
[she opens up two suitcases in the new apartment – her children are inside them]
Mother: You OK? Was it hot?
Yuki: It was hot!
Mother: Wow, you did a great job. This is your new home.

…

Mother: Now that we’ve moved into a new home, I’m gonna explain the rules to you, one more time. Let’s promise to keep 'em, okay?
Yuki: Okay. How many are there?
Mother: Okay, first of all: No loud voices or screaming. Can you do that?
Yuki: I can.
Mother: Okay, next: No going outside.
Yuki: Okay.
Mother: Can you do that? No even out on the veranda. Absolutely no going outside!
Yuki: Okay, Mommy.

…

Akira: Mother I want to go to school.
Mother: You wouldn’t have any fun at school. Besides, when you don’t have a Daddy, they bully you at school. You don’t need to go to school.

…

Mother [to Akira]: Your mother, is in love with someone now.
Akira: Again?
Mother: This guy’s really sweet and serious. I think he is really looking out for me So, if he promises to really…to really marry me, then we can all live in a big house and you can all go to school and Kyoko can play the piano…So just hang on a little longer. I really think this time probably…[/b]

All four of her children have different fathers.

[b]Akira [to his siblings]: She stinks of booze.

…

Pachinko Parlor Employee [possibly Yuki’s father]: Whoa. I don’t have any money. What’ve you got left?
Akira: About 10,000 yen.
Pachinko Parlor Employee: Oh, that’s enough, huh? You know, I’m in a hell of a jam. My stupid girlfriend, you know, she totally maxed out my credit cards. I’m badly off. I’m working my ass off, slowly paying it down, man.
[he gives Akira some money]
Pachinko Parlor Employee: Uh, this is all I’ve got on me. This is it, the last time, huh?
Akira: Thanks, thank you.
Pachinko Parlor Employee: By the way, Yuki ain’t my kid. Every time I did with your mom, I used a prophylactic, huh? Good bye.

…

Akira: Listen, I keep asking you, when will you let us go to school?
Mother: What’s this “school this, school that”? Who needs to go to school anyway? Plenty of famous people never even went to school in the first place.
Akira: Like who?
Mother: How should I know. But plenty of them…
Akira: You’re so selfish, mother.
Mother: How can you say that? Selfish? You want to know who’s really selfish? Your father’s the one who’s selfish, up and disappearing like that. What is this? I’m not allowed to be happy?

…

Mother [going off again]: I send you money, soon.
Akira: You’ll come home for Christmas?
Mother: Sure, I’ll come home. I’ll be right home.

…

Akira: Bought a new game, why don’t you come over?
Friend #1: I’ll come over when I have time. See you 'round. I’ve got cram school, sorry.
Akira: See ya.
Friend #2: Who was that? Take me along to play.
Firend #1: Yeah, but his house stinks.
Friend #2: Stinks of what?
Friend #1: Stinks of garbage. The place is a real mess.
Friend #2: Like rotting?

…

Friend: Shouldn’t you contact the police or child welfare, or something?
Akira: If I do, the four of us won’t be able to stay together. That happened before and it was an awful mess.

…

Akira [shaking Yuki]: Yuki.
Brother: Yuki won’t get up.
Akira: Yuki!
Sister: She fell off the chair.

…

Akira [holding an envelope]: Kyoko, what’s this?
Sister: It just arrived.
[Akira opens the envelop…it has cash in it and a note from his mother]
“TO AKIRA, GIVE THEM MY BEST. I’M COUNTING ON YOU, MOTHER”

…

Akira [to Saki after burying Yuki bear the airport]: When I touched Yuki this morning she was so cold, it was awful. It just felt so…It was just so…awful. [/b]

Imagine the home of the future. Fully automated. Cameras and computers everywhere. Even a “flying webcam”. It circumnavigates from room to room. There is nothing you can’t know. Well, not about what is going on inside your home. Problems? A few clicks of a button and the problem is solved.

You watch this and you think: too bad we have not reached the point where we are able to insert the same sort of technology inside the human brain. Everything brought fully into focus. And if something goes wrong we know precisely what to do in order to fix it. Why? Because [finally] we know precisely what the hell is going on in there.

But then things seem to be ever so much complicated in there aren’t they?

Take for example, that first dinner shared between Richard, Alice, Alain and Benedicte. Not 10 minutes into it, Alice is throwing a glass of wine into Richard’s face. Why? Because he had just been with a whore. Or so she says.

You know then and there this is going to be a very strange film. You just don’t know [yet] how strange. Described as a “creepy psychological thriller” it is all of that and more. Or it is once the dead lemming is dislodged from the pipe under the kitchen sink. Only it isn’t really dead at all. And what the hell is a lemming [native only to Scandinavia] doing in a kitchen pipe in France?

Surreal. Dream-like. What some might cal, “open to interpretation”. For example, in the end we find out how the lemming ended up in the pipe. But how does that help to explain anything else?

From the director of A Friend Like Harry above.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming_(film
trailer: youtu.be/cB4lf0huKfU

LEMMING [2005]
Written in part and directed by Dominik Moll

Alain [voiceover]: My name is Alain Getty. I’m a home automation designer. When the Pollock Company headhunted me, we moved to Bel Air. We’d been there three months. My wife Benedicte was glad to move south. My boss, Richard Pollock, thought well of me. One evening, he’d invited himself and his wife to dinner. That is when everything came unstuck.

It starts when the kitchen sink gets clogged. Something in the S bend.

Alice [to Richard after turns off his phone]: One of your whores?
Richard: Alice…
Alice [to Alain and Benedicte]: Do you want to know why we were late?
Richard: Alice…don’t start.
Alice: He was with a whore.

Next thing you know she’s tossing a glass of wine in his face.

[b]Alice: Don’t give me that snotty look.
Benedicte: I’m not.
Alice [mockinglyly]: “I’m Not”?
Richard: Alice!
Alice: You think you are superior? The model couple in a grotty house?
Bencdicte: Not at all.
Alice: You know what? You are pathetic.
Bendicte: You too.

…

Benedicte [to Alain after Richard and Alice have left]: If I ever get like that, please have me put down.

…

Alain [looking into the pipe]: What is that?

…

Alice: Did Richard tell you he tried to kill me 20 years ago?
Alain: No.
Alice: He doesn’t brag about it. I should be dead, but he missed the jugular. I had it coming. I hate him.
Alain: Why don’t you leave him?
Alice: Because. I want to see him croak.
[after a long pause]
Alice: Do you want to sleep with me?

…

Alice [to Alain]: The body says yes but the mind says no. A shame. A big shame.

…

Alice [to Benedicte]: Last night at the lab I tried to seduce your husband. He was exemplary. He wasn’t having it. But you’ll know all of this. He must have told you.[/b]

No, he didn’t. But later she tells Benedicte that he was having it…but just a little.

Benedicte [to Alain]: I’m getting sick of your boss’s wife.

Not to worry: the boss’s wife shoots herself in the head.

[b]Nicolas: I’m a small mammals expert. My uncle was right. It’s a lemming. A Norwegian lemming. Did he tell you it only lives in northern Scandinavia?
Benedicte: Yes.
Nicolas: Where exactly did you find it?
Benedicte: In the sink pipe.
Nicolas: In the sink. My uncle thought he had misheard.

…

[b]Nicolas: You’ve heard about their mystery migrations? Aside from their seasonal migrations, every 30 years or so, overpopulation starts a mass migration. Thousands of them stream across the tundra. People used to think it was a sort of mass suicide.
Benedicte: Suicide?
Nicolas: When they reach a river or a sea, they try to swim across it. They’re good swimmers but it’s too wide, they drown.
Benedicte: A woman committed suicide here last night.
Nicolas: I’m sorry. Was she a relative?
Benedicte: Not at all. It’s a strange coincidence.
Nicolas: No. No, no, no, no. Don’t imagine there’s a link. Lemmings aren’t suicidal. It’s a dumb romantic theory. They drown from exhaustion.

…

Richard: Did she make a pass at you?
Alain: Yes.
Richard: Did you sleep with her?
Alain: No.
Richard: Why? Weren’t you tempted?
Alain: It just didn’t seem appropriate.
Richard: You thought it would be a sticky situation with Benedicte and me. Otherwise you would have done it. If you’d been sure Benedicte and I would never know.
Alain: Maybe, yes.
Richard: I think you should have done it. She wanted you. Couldn’t you give her that? If you felt no desire for her, ok. But you did, dammit!![/b]

Then things start to get strange. Really, really strange. Again, that part inside the brain. The part we don’t have the technology yet to fully understand. Let alone the knowledge.

[b]Richard [to Alain]: Be brave…

…

Alice [to Alain]: Make it look like a suicide…[/b]

Some really do wonder: What is the difference between being bipolar and just being “moody”? And if [clinically] you really are manic-depressive [what they used to call being bipolar] is it all just reducible down to those chemicals in the brain? In other words, what part does our “environment” play in it?

For example, our most important relationships – family, friendships – how can [how do] they contribute to making things better or worse?

Me, I have been diagnosed with lots of mental afflictions: PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders. And I’ve had some truly epic mood swings. But no one ever suggested [so far] I was bipolar. Not to the best of my recollection. So I was able to relate somewhat to Pat here. Though in other respects not at all. But that seemed more related to circumstances than to anything else.

For instance, I was never actually committed to a mental institution when my marriage fell apart. Oh, and my life was absolutely nothing like his. That part about dasein in other words.

The part that makes him the same as and yet different from Tiffany. Who as it turns out is crazy in her own way for her own reasons.

And still, to this day, the controversy rages on: nature vs. nurture. And, with respect to the part about nurture, there are folks who insist that most of this revolves around capitalism.

Oh, and I sure as shit could have done with a whole lot less of that NFL football/Philadelphia Eagles/juju/parley bullshit. Talk about mental illness. It is a symptom of a truly sick culture. In fact, this whole “sports” angle damn near ruined the picture for me.

Well, that and the ending.

IMDb

[b]Robert De Niro actually teared up during the scene when Pat Sr. tells Pat he wished he was closer to him, which was not scripted.

The title “Silver Linings Playbook” is a source of confusion for some, especially people not very familiar with idiomatic English. The “Silver Linings” part of the title comes from the common expression “every cloud has a silver lining,” which means “look on the bright side” or “nothing is all bad.” The first documented use of the phrase in this way is from John Milton’s 1634 work “Comus I”.

Among its 8 Academy Award nominations, this film became the first to earn nods in all four acting categories since Reds (1981) and the first “Big Five” (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Writing) nominee since Million Dollar Baby (2004). Director David O. Russell repeated the same rare feat the following year with American Hustle (2013).[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Linings_Playbook
trailer: youtu.be/Lj5_FhLaaQQ

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK [2012]
Written and directed by David O. Russell

[b]Pat [to Dr. Patel]: I come home, what do I see? I walk in the door and I see underwear and pieces of clothing and a guy’s pants with his belt in it, and I walk up the stairs, and all of a sudden I see the CD and it’s playing our wedding song, and then I look down and I see my wife’s panties on the ground and then I look up and I see her naked in the shower and I think, “Oh, that’s kinda sweet, she’s in the shower. What a perfect thing. I’m gonna find her and maybe I’ll go in there. We never fuck in the shower anymore. Maybe today we will.” I pull the curtain back and there’s the fucking history teacher with tenure. And you know what he says to me? “You should probably go.” That’s what he says to me. So yeah, I snapped. I almost beat him to death.

…

Pat Sr.: Why are you wearing a garbage bag?
Pat: To sweat.

…

Pat [to Dr. Patel]: This is what I learned at the hospital. You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, you have a shot at a silver lining.

…

Ronnie [explaining what he does after the near collapse of the economy]: You start snapping up commercial real estate – cheap – flip it over, you flip it over and that’s when you make the money. But the pressure…it’s like…
Pat: You okay?
Ronnie: I’m not okay. Don’t tell anybody. Listen to me. I feel like I’m getting crushed and–
Pat: Crushed by what?
Ronnie: Everything. The family, the baby, the job, the fucking dicks at work, and it’s like, you know, like I’m trying to do this, you know, and, and, and I’m like…suffocating. [/b]

See? This is the part about capitalism and mental health. Or the lack thereof. The relationship between them.

[b]Tiffany: What meds are you on?
Pat: Me? None. I used to be on Lithium and Seroquel and Abilify, but I don’t take them anymore, no. They make me foggy and they also make me bloated.
Tiffany: Yeah, I was on Xanax and Effexor, but I agree, I wasn’t as sharp, so I stopped.
Pat: You ever take Klonopin?
Tiffany [chuckling]: Klonopin? Yeah.
Pat: Right? It’s like, “What? What day is it?” How about Trazodone?
Tiffany: Trazodone!
Pat: Oh, it flattens you out. I mean, you are done. It takes the light right out of your eyes.
Tiffany: God, I bet it does.

…

Tiffany: Listen, I haven’t dated since before my marriage so I don’t really remember how this works.
Pat: How what works?
Tiffany: I saw the way you were looking at me, Pat. You felt it, I felt it, don’t lie. We’re not liars like they are. I live in the addition around back, which is completely separate from my parents’ house, so there’s no chance of them walking in on us. I hate the fact that you wore a football jersey to dinner because I hate football, but you can fuck me if you turn the lights off, okay?
Pat: How old are you?
Tiffany: Old enough to have a marriage end and not wind up in a mental hospital.[/b]

Part 2:

[b]Tiffany: Hey!
Pat: What the fuck? I’m married!
Tiffany: So am I!
Pat: What the fuck are you doing? Your husband’s dead!
Tiffany: Where’s your wife?
Pat: You’re crazy!
Tiffany: I’m not the one who just got out of that hospital in Baltimore.
Pat: And I’m not the big slut!..I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry.
Tiffany: I was a big slut, but I’m not any more. There’s always going to be a part of me that’s sloppy and dirty, but I like that. With all the other parts of myself. Can you say the same about yourself fucker? Can you forgive? Are you any good at that?

…

Tiffany: Why did you order raisin bran?
Pat: Why did you order tea?
Tiffany: Because you ordered raisin bran.
Pat: I ordered raisin bran because I didn’t want there to be any mistaking it for a date.
Tiffany: It can still be a date if you order raisin bran.

…

Pat: How did you lose your job?
Tiffany: By having sex with everybody in the office.
Pat: Everybody?
Tiffany: I was very depressed after Tommy died. It was a lot of people.
Pat: We don’t have to talk about it.
Tiffany: Thanks.
Pat: How many were there?
Tiffany: Eleven.
Pat: Wow.
Tiffany: I know.
Pat: I’m not gonna talk about it anymore.
Tiffany: Okay.
Pat: Can I ask you one more question? Were there any women?
Tiffany: Yes.
Pat: Really? What was that like?
Tiffany: Hot.

…

Tiffany: You know what, forget I offered to help you. Forget the entire fucking idea, because that must have been fucking crazy, because I’m so much CRAZIER than you!
Pat: Keep your voice down.
Tiffany: I’m just the crazy slut with a dead husband!
[she laughs maniacally]
Pat: Shut the fuck up.
Tiffany: Fuck you!
[she sweeps everything off the table onto the floor]
Tiffany [storming away]: You shut the fuck up!

…

Tiffany [to Pat]: You may not have experienced the shit that I did. But you loved hearing about it, didn’t you? You are afraid to be alive, you’re afraid to live. You’re a hypocrite. You’re a conformist. You’re a liar. I opened up to you and you judged me. You are an asshole. You are an asshole!

…

Officer Keogh: Hey, aren’t you Tommy’s widow?
Tiffany: Yes, I’m Tommy’s crazy whore widow. Minus the whore thing, for the most part.
Officer Keogh: You want to get a drink sometime?
[she turns around and walks away in disgust]
Pat: You shouldn’t say that to her. She doesn’t do that anymore.

…

Tiffany [to Pat after changing her mind about delivering the letter to Nikki]: I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I’m empty! I have nothing! I always get myself in these fucking situations. I give everything to other people and nobody ever, I never – I don’t get what I want, okay?

…

Tiffany [to Pat]: Can we get through one fucking conversation without you reminding me that my goddamn husband’s dead?!

…

Tiffany: No walk, no letter. Walk to me like I’m Nikki. Do it, come on, I’m Nikki.
Pat: You’re not Nikki.
[he does the walk anyway]
Tiffany: Yes! Do you feel that? That’s emotion.
Pat: I don’t feel anything.

…

Tiffany: You’re not gonna read that shit on my time. I can tell you all about the “Lord of the Flies.” It’s a bunch of boys on an island and they have a conch – they have a shell – and whoever has the conch has the power and they can talk. And if you don’t have the conch, then you don’t have the power. And then there’s a little chubby boy, and they call him Piggy and they’re really mean, and then there’s a murder. I mean, humanity is just nasty and there’s no silver lining.
Pat: Wow. That was a great synopsis. I still need to read it, though.

…

Tiffany: You know, for a while, I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. But now I’m starting to think you’re the worst.
Pat: Of course you do. Come on, let’s go dance.

…

Pat Sr. [to Pat]: Let me tell you, I know you don’t want to listen to your father, I didn’t listen to mine, and I am telling you you gotta pay attention this time. When life reaches out at a moment like this it’s a sin if you don’t reach back, I’m telling you its a sin if you don’t reach back! It’ll haunt you the rest of your days like a curse. You’re facing a big challenge in your life right now at this very moment, right here. That girl loves you she really really loves you. I don’t know if Nicki ever did, but she sure as shit doesn’t right now. I’m telling you, don’t fuck this up.

…

Tiffany: You let me lie to you for a week?!
Pat: I was trying to be romantic.[/b]

Avatar is synonymous with the entertainment industry. It is pure escapism from start to finish. You settle back in your seat, popcorn in hand and flick the switch in your brain to off. Instead, you are prepared simply to be amazed by what you see. In part because almost all of what you do see is generated by the astonishing techologies now available to film makers.

Indeed: The movie is 40% live action and 60% photo-realistic CGI. A lot of motion capture technology was used for the CGI scenes.

Just ask yourself: If there were no dazzling special effects at all, would you really invest nearly 3 hours of your life in it? I mean if you aren’t a kid?

But then, come on, sometimes that’s all you want. To be, uh, transported to another world.

It’s an audio-visual feast to say the least. But hardly anything at all to really think about. The characters are mostly made of cardboard…cartoon caricatures living in a cartoon caricature world. A world of good guys and bad guys; and [of course] the evil corporation hell bent on reducing human interaction down to consumption, natural resources and markets. Along with the usual assortment of big bad Marines, mercenaries, the tough guy commando, dumb grunts, idealistic scientists, noble aboriginals and tree huggers. The majesty of nature. The People. Eywa.

And Jake. The white guy destined to straddle both worlds. The guy destined to see the light. He’s that “and only one man could save them” character. The ex-Marine who is now “one of them”.

And, sure enough, God, religion and all the usual “spiritual” mumbo-jumbo are everywhere here. And from every imaginable denomination. Including those of the extraterrestrials.

Ah, if only we could all be like the Na’vi. If only we could learn from them.

IMDb

[b]James Cameron originally planned to have the film completed for release in 1999. At the time, the special effects he wanted increased the budget to $400 million. No studio would fund the film, and it was shelved for eight years. This movie took 4 years to make.

The Na’vi language was created entirely from scratch by linguist Paul R. Frommer. James Cameron hired him to construct a language that the actors could pronounce easily, but did not resemble any single human language. Frommer created about 1000 words. Sam Worthington said in an interview that it was easier for him to master the Na’vi language than the American accent.

Each frame (1/24 of a second) of the CGI scenes took an average of 47 hours to render.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film
trailer: youtu.be/d1_JBMrrYw8

AVATAR [2009]
Written and directed by James Cameron

[b]Jake [voiceover]: When I was lying in the V.A. hospital with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, I started having these dreams of flying. I was free. But sooner or later, you always have to wake up.

…

Jake [voiceover]: One life ends, another begins.

…

Jake [voiceover]: Me and Norm were out here to drive these remotely controlled bodies called avatars. They’re grown from human DNA mixed with DNA from the natives here.

…

Max: Grace, this is Jake Sully.
Jake: Ma’am.
Grace: Yeah, yeah, I know who you are and I don’t need you. I need your brother. You know, the PhD who trained for 3 years for this mission.
Jake: He’s dead. I know it’s a big inconvenience for everyone.
Grace: How much lab training have you had?
Jake: I dissected a frog once.
Grace: Ya see, ya see? They’re just pissing on us without even giving us the courtesy of calling it rain.

…

Selfridge: Look. You’re supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the natives. Isn’t that the whole point of your little puppet show? If you walk like them, you talk like them, they’ll trust you. We build them a school, teach them English. But after - how many years - the relations with the indigenous are only getting worse.
Grace: Yeah, well that tends to happen when you use machine guns on them.
Selfridge: Right. C’mere. You see this?
[shows Grace the sample of Unobtanium on his desk]
Selfridge: This is why we’re here. Because this little gray rock sells for $20 million a kilo. That’s the only reason. This is what pays for the whole party, and it’s what pays for your science. Those savages are threatening our whole operation. We’re on the brink of war and you’re supposed to be finding me a diplomatic solution. So use what you’ve got, and get me some results. [/b]

Get the picture?

[b]Grace: Just relax and let your mind go blank. That shouldn’t be too hard for you.
Jake: Kiss the darkest part of my lily white ass!

…

Neytiri: Your fault! You are like a baby, making noise, don’t know what to do. You should not come here, all of you! You only come and make problems. Only.
Jake: Okay, fine, you love your little forest friends. So why not just let them kill my ass? What’s the thinking?
Neytiri: Why save you?
Jake: Yes, why save me?
Neytiri: You have a strong heart. No fear. But stupid! Ignorant like a child![/b]

Jake takes his first step in the right direction.

[b]Moat: It is decided. My daughter will teach you our ways. Learn well, “Jakesully”, and we will see if your insanity can be cured.

…

Selfridge [to Jake]: Look, killing the indigenous looks bad, but there’s one thing shareholders hate more than bad press – and that’s a bad quarterly statement. Find me a carrot to get them to move, or it’s going to have to be all stick.
Quaritch: You got three months. That’s when the dozers get there.

…

Jake: This is how it’s done. When people are sittin’ on shit that you want, you make 'em your enemy. Then you’re justified in taking it.

…

Quaritch: And that’s how you scatter the roaches.

…

Jake [voiceover]: Neytiri calls me skxawng. It means “moron.”

…

Jake [voiceover]: Everything is backwards now. Like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream.

…

Grace: Alright, look – I don’t have the answers yet, I’m just now starting to even frame the questions. What we think we know is that there’s some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora. That’s more connections than the human brain. You get it? It’s a network – a global network. And the Na’vi can access it…they can upload and download data – memories – at sites like the one you destroyed.
Selfridge: What the hell have you people been smoking out there? They’re. Just. Goddamn. Trees.
Grace: You need to wake up, Parker. The wealth of this world isn’t in the ground – it’s all around us. The Na’vi know that, and they’re fighting to defend it. If you want to share this world with them, you need to understand them. [/b]

And the lesson here regarding oil extraction and global warming is…

Jake: They’re not gonna give up their home. They’re not gonna make a deal. For-for what? A light beer and blue jeans? There’s nothing that we have that they want. Everything they sent me out here to do is a waste of time. They’re never gonna leave Hometree.

And see if this sounds familiar:

Neytiri: What are you saying, Jake? You knew this would happen?
Jake [anguished]: Yes. At first it was just orders. Then everything changed. I fell in love-- with the forest, with the Omaticaya People…with you. And by then, how could I tell you?
Neytiri: I trusted you, Jake! I trusted you!!
Jake [pleading]: You can trust me now. Please.
Neytiri: No! You will never be one of The People!!!

It’s shameless!

[b]Jake [about the Na’vi]: They didn’t even have a word for ‘lie’.

…

Quaritch: That is one big damn tree!

…

Quaritch: [looking at Jake and Grace tied to a frame]: Well, well, well. I’d say diplomacy has failed.

…

Selfridge: Pull the plug.

…

Jake [voiceover]: Sometimes your whole life boils down to one insane move.

…

Quaritch [to Jake]: How does it feel to betray your own race?![/b]

How it was supposed to work:

You make a movie exposing the Great Gap between how doctors treat patients in the world of “modern medicine” and how patients would like to be treated instead. You do this by making the doctor the patient. It slowly begins to dawn on him just how truly terrible this relationship has become. It changes him. He becomes Dr. Welby.

How it really worked instead:

Well, you tell me. Notice any great changes [for the better] regarding how your doctor treats you?

Probably not. If anything the world of “modern medicine” has become even more rationalized. Everything [eventually] getting reduced down to billing. And with the patients still [largely] just a means to that end.

The medical industrial complex marches on.

And yet compared to some of the experiences I have had with doctors over the years [not counting the bills], Dr. MacKee here is a veritable fount of care and compassion.

Of course, when it comes down to The Big One – a malignant tumor here – everything gets divided up between you and the rest of the world. It would be nice to have a decent fucking doctor taking care of you. But we all know that eventually what really counts is just how bad it is.

The hospital is the worst. All these folks going about the business of doing their thing as though you weren’t even there. Or as though in discussing your “condition” they might just as well be talking about the weather or a football game.

IMDb

This movie is based on the real life story of Ed Rosenbaum, M.D. Dr. Rosenbaum wrote an autobiography entitled “A Taste of My Own Medicine: When the Doctor Becomes the Patient”. This book formed the basis for the movie.

He died in 2009.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor_(1991_film
trailer: youtu.be/OIPv-pjABbk

THE DOCTOR [1991]
Directed by Randa Haines

[b]Murray: What’s the difference between a a lawyer and a catfish?
Jack: No idea.
Murray: One is a scum-sucking bottom dweller…and the other one’s a fish.

…

Eli: Sergio, this is Dr. MacKee. He’s an expert in heart and lungs. And I’d like him to check you out. There’s nothing to be nervous about.
Jack: Hi, Serge. How’s it hanging? I gotta tell ya, if you can hear me, I’d fire the anesthesiologist.
Eli: Dr. MacKee likes to joke. Doesn’t mean he’s not caring, that’s just his way. He’s a fine doctor.

…

Jack’s doctor: How’s business in the big league?
Jack: We’re killing 'em.

…

Jack: That’s healed fine. Let’s just get those staples out.
Patient [who has just had chest surgury]: Doctor, my husband…He’s a good man, and he…I think he’s a little nervous. Will the scar always be so…?
Jack: Tell your husband you look like a Playboy centerfold. You have the staple marks to prove it.[/b]

She doesn’t find this particularly amusing though.

[b]Jack: There’s a danger in feeling too strongly about your patients. A danger in becoming too involved. Surgery is about judgment. To judge, you have to be detached.
Young resident: But isn’t it unnatural not to become involved with a patient?
Jack: There’s nothing natural about surgery. You’re cutting open someone’s body. Is that natural? One day you’ll have your hands around someone’s heart. And it’s beating. And you’ll think, “Uh-oh. I shouldn’t be here.”
Resident: Well, then all the more reason to care about what the patient feels.
Jack: The patient feels sick. A surgeon’s job is to cut. You’ve got one shot. You go in, you fix it and get out. Caring’s all about time. When you’ve got 30 seconds before some guy bleeds out…I’d rather you cut straight and cared less.

…

Dr. Abbott: Doctor, you have a growth.
Jack: What?
Dr. Abbott: A tumor. Laryngeal. Here on the true vocal cord. We’re gonna need chest X-rays,
blood chemistry, blood count, UA, EKG…I’ll have to check with my secretary, but if it’s remotely possible, I’d like to do a biopsy tomorrow. [/b]

As though she were talking about the brakes on his car. Then she’s out the door.

[b]Anne: What is it, Jack? What have they found? Have they found something?
Jack: Yep!
Anne: OK, so… we’ll beat it.
Jack: “We”?
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Jack: 'We" don’t have it, Anne! “We” don’t have it!!

…

Jack: I have a biopsy tomorrow. It’s a laryngeal tumor.
Anne: Oh, God.
Jack: A doctor tells this man, “You have a growth.” The man says, “I demand a second opinion.” Doctor says, “OK…and…you’re ugly.”
Anne: Oh, sweetheart. Oh, baby…

…

Ralph: Your first time under the knife? I bet you feel like you don’t know what’s going on? Am I right? Well, don’t worry. They don’t know, either. My doctor, the son of a bitch, half the time he’s lying to me. And I can tell. I’m a cop. What’s your line?
Jack: I’m a doctor.

…

Dr. Reed: Dr. MacKee, my feeling - for what it’s worth - if we’re going to treat you, you’re going to meet the team here every day for the next six weeks.
Jack: And?
Dr. Reed: I don’t know what it’s like at the top of this building, but down here, we try to be civil.

…

Jack [to Laurie]: Why don’t we from now on, in this hospital, we should drop “I’m sorry” from conversation, OK? Let’s just assume it begins every sentence. “I’m sorry, the doctor can’t see you today”, “I’m sorry you have to fill in another form”, “I’m sorry we gave you the wrong treatment.”
[he turns to June]: What do we think?
June: There’s not much point shouting at Laurie.
Jack: Excuse me?
June: She’s just doing her job. If you want to shout, go shout at a doctor.
Jack: I am a doctor.
June: Not when you’re sitting here.

…

Jack: How come you’re so calm?
June: Who?
Jack: You. You seem to be taking it so well.
June: No. I have a grade four brain tumor. It took my doctors three months to find it. I didn’t take that so well at all. Actually, they didn’t find it. I rear-ended a few cars, fell over, blacked out. Short of the tumor jumping out and singing, there was nothing else it could do to get recognized. See, now I’d call that negligence, wouldn’t you?
Jack: Well, that’s-that’s…it’s difficult to comment.
June: Oh, yeah. Doctors. It’s a club, isn’t it? I forgot.

…

Jack: Well, this is quality time. Why couldn’t they send us the new IDs through the mail?!
June: Tell them you’re a big doctor. Cut in line.
Jack: Are you angry with me?
June: You lied to me.
Jack: What?
June: My tumor. I see it giving me certain freedoms I never allowed myself.
Jack: Yeah, like being incredibly hostile?
June: Like being honest and expecting people around me to do the same.
Jack: What did I lie about for Christ’s sake?
June: I’m dying. Please don’t waste my time.

…

Jack [to June]: You’re right. They should’ve found your tumor. Somebody screwed up. You should’ve had an MRI. But the system stinks. Insurance companies tell us what tests we can and cannot do. An MRI, which I know would have found your tumor…costs about $1,000. It’s appalling.

…

Jack [to resident]: If I ever hear you describe a patient as “terminal” again, that’s how you’ll describe your career.

…

Jack: No. No, I don’t want you cutting me in the afternoon.
Dr. Abbott: Excuse me?
Jack: You’ll be tired in the afternoon, and ragged and hungry. You’ll have been on your feet for hours. Come on, we both know how it is.
Dr. Abbott: Excuse me. I am the doctor and you are my patient. And I am telling you when I am available.

…

Dr. Abbott: I have a waiting room full of patients.
Jack: One fewer.
Dr. Abbott: What?
Jack: You have one fewer patient. I’m out.
Dr. Abbott: Look, Doctor, I know how you must be feeling.
Jack: That’s the problem. You don’t have the first idea what I’m feeling.
Dr. Abbott: I think we better continue this conversation some other time.
Jack: I think you ought to brush up your act, Dr. Abbott. Because today I’m sick. Tomorrow or the day after or 30 years from now, you’ll be sick. Every doctor becomes a patient somewhere down the line, and then…it’ll hit you as hard as it’s hit me.

…

Jack: You know, I’ve been pretty…No, very insulting about you in the past…which I’m ashamed of.
Eli: It’s all right. I’ve always wanted to slit your throat, and now I get a chance to.

…

Jack [to June who has died]: It’s me. It’s Jack. And I came over last night and I made you so tired. I have my operation tomorrow. And selfish to the end, I was hoping you’d be there to help me through it. Oh, June…I’m…I’m really terrified. That’s the truth…which I got from you. The truth. Do you know, I don’t even know anything about you. Not really. I know you love life. And I know you can dance. I hope you always fly over my house…with your lovely long hair.

…

Jack [to the residents]: Doctors…You have spent a lot of time learning the Latin names for diseases your patients might have. Now it’s time to learn…something simpler about them. Patients have their own names. Sarah. Alan. Jack. They feel frightened… embarrassed and vulnerable. And they feel sick. Most of all, they want to get better. Because of that they put their lives in our hands. I could try to explain what that means until I’m blue in the face. But, you know something, it wouldn’t mean a thing. It sure as hell never did to me. So, for the next 72 hours, you’ll each be allocated a particular disease. You’ll sleep in hospital beds, eat hospital food. You’ll be given all the appropriate tests. Tests you will one day prescribe. You are no longer…doctors. You are hospital patients.[/b]

See, that’s how this was supposed to have turned out. Doctors would watch the movie, see the errors of their ways, and the whole fucking system would be miraculously transformed. Of course, capitalism [and the medical industrial complex] would still be around.

Hip young journalists at Seattle Magazine. They are all sitting in a confernece room brainstorming. Trying to come up with some interesting ideas for articles. Jeff suggests they do one that revolves around a classified ad. And [really] this film exists because of it. This ad:

WANTED – Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91, Ocean View, WA 99393. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.

But it was just a joke. The ad. But now it’s a movie.

And you have to admit you don’t bump into movies like this everyday. In Hollywood, for example.

This guy is weird. But is he crazy? Oh yeah. But even if he is, does it matter?

Think about it: If you could go back in time, when and where would you go? And why? That’s where the story becomes more poignant. Darius aims to go back in order to stop something from happening that took away someone she loved. Her Mom. Something she blames herself for. Or that’s what she’d do if she could go back in time.

In the end this is really just a love story with some really weird shit in it.

Ah, but then there are the Jeff and Arnau and Liz sub-plots. Why the fuck did they put that in here? Nothing strange, poignant or funny at all about them. In fact you might call them boring. Or you would if you were me.

IMDb

The original classified ad upon which the film is based first appeared in Backwoods Home Magazine in 1997. It was written as last-minute filler by John Silveira, an employee of the magazine, who is credited in the film as “Time Travel Consultant” and also has a cameo. The ad was later featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) in the “Headlines” segment, and eventually turned into an Internet meme before being developed into a screenplay.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_Not_Guaranteed
trailer: youtu.be/QOCF-lXB_aY

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED [2012]
Directed by Colin Trevorrow

[b]Darius [at job interview]: How far back do you want me to go? CoIIege? l was totally outgoing. A real people person. In high school I felt like that mouse that gets dropped in the snake cage and just sits there, frozen, trying to blend in. I guess I remember being happy when I was a kid. Back when you just naturally expect good things to happen. Before my mom died. Now l just expect the worst and try not to get my hopes up. Which is why l’m here. Does that answer the question?
Interviewer: UsuaIIy peopIe just say where they’re from and where they worked before.

…

Jeff: Can I get a couple of interns? Help me with some research?
Darius: I’ll do it.
Arnau: Me, too, please. Me.
Jeff: All right, give me the lesbian and the Indian and I got a story.

…

Dad: I think it’d be great if you went out, did a IittIe sociaI stuff. Get out of your funk.
Darius: I have no funk. I’m totally funkless.

…

Dad: You’re sad. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s Iike there’s a cIoud foIIowing you. You’re antisociaI, and you’re a virgin.
Darius: What?!
Dad: I don’t ever see you with any guys. I don’t remember the Iast time you brought a guy home.
Darius: Yeah, weII, how do you know I’m not on CraigsIist having casuaI encounters? Or when I was away at the dorms? You weren’t there.
Dad: I taIked to Amy.
Darius: Why are you taIking to my coIIege roommate?
Dad: We’re Facebook friends.
Darius: Oh, my God! How do I eject?!

…

Darius: What time would you go back to? If you could.
Arnau: I don’t know. I’m fine here.
Darius: I would definitely go back. Everything cool is gone. The Aztecs. People killing themselves for each other. You wouldn’t want to see the dragons and the elves, fighting each other in the magical forests? Come on!
Arnau: No.
[he puts his hand on her shoulder kindly]
Arnau: That wasn’t a time.
Darius: [Rolls her eyes]: Yeah. Right.[/b]

You mean Game of Thrones isn’t based on a true story?!

[b][Arnau and Darius are scoping out the Post Office, waiting for the person who wrote the time-travel classified ad]
Arnau: Wait. How about this one?
Darius: Yeah, she wants to stop the person who gave her that haircut from being born.

…

Kenneth [to Shannon at work]: I’II teII you about the cat in the box theory, it’II bIow your mind. It’s Iike I’m the onIy one who reaIIy gets it.You know? I started this diaIog with some big shot theoreticaI physicist onIine, and I’m Iike, “Do the ruIes of quantum mechanics aIIow for aIternate histories?” And he just bIasted me. You know, peopIe are just so convinced it’s a fixed thing, but they’re just, Iike, Iooking at this IittIe sIiver of time, that’s aII peopIe can see. It’s not a fixed thing, Shannon. You know, it’s on and off in both directions. It’s Iike a “V,” you know what I mean?

…

Kenneth: Can you Iook fear and danger in the eye?
Jeff: That’s an odd question.
Kenneth: Have you ever stared fear and danger in the eye and said, “Yes”?
Jeff: Sure.
Kenneth: Get off my porch.
[Kenneth looks at Jeff and just shakes his head]
Kenneth: Man, that smiIe…What is that smiIe? You don’t know pain. You don’t know regret.

…

Darius [to Jeff]: You’re dangIing my vagina out there Iike bait? What if this guy’s a murderer? What if he cuts me up into IittIe pieces and eats me?
Jeff: Then the story’s even better.

…

Kenneth: My ad?
Darius: Yeah. It’s pretty sIoppy.
Kenneth: Excuse me
Darius: You heard me. I hope you worked harder on your caIibrations.
Kenneth: My caIibrations are fIippin’ pinpoint, okay? But there are peopIe after me. How do I know you don’t work for them?
Darius: Because I’ve never worked for anybody in my Iife.
Kenneth: You ever faced certain death?
Darius: If it was certain, I wouIdn’t be here, wouId I?

…

Jeff [to Darius]: If this guy’s taking you to some sex bunker, he’s gonna be freaked out when me and Arnau puII out of this thing Iike it’s a cIown car.

…

Kenneth: We stiII have to discuss your reason for going back.
Darius: That’s cIassified information.
Kenneth: I can appreciate that, I respect that, but I have a certain responsibiIity to keep as the Ieader of this mission.
Darius: Then I have to teII you that it’s personaI.
Kenneth: Darius, sometimes I think we are progressing in this mission, and then other times, I’m not so sure.
Darius: I’m going back to stop my mother from dying when I was 14.
Kenneth: How’d she die?
Darius: She was kiIIed by some guy. Just some guy at a gas station took her and kiIIed her.
Kenneth: Oh, man. Just some random thing?
Darius: Yeah. WeII, no, actuaIIy. She was driving home. It was reaIIy Iate, and she caIIed me to teII me she was coming home, and I…I asked her to stop and get me chocoIate miIk. Because I had to have chocoIate miIk. So Iike five minutes Iater, she caIIed me
to teII me that she got the chocoIate miIk and she was coming home. And her voice was, Iike, reaIIy excited, Iike she was reaIIy happy. And I was, Iike, okay, whatever. I wasn’t even nice. That was the Iast time I taIked to her.
Kenneth: That’s not your fauIt.
Darius: Yeah. That’s what they teII me.

…

Kenneth [to Darius]: Okay, we can stiII do this, but you have to promise me we’re never, ever gonna taIk about my ear ever again for as Iong as you and I both shaII Iive.

…

Darius [referring to Kenneth]: What makes you think there’s something wrong with him?
Jeff: Because he thinks he can go back in time.
Darius: Was there something wrong with Einstein or David Bowie?

…

Arnau: Stormtroopers don’t know anything about lasers or time-travel. They’re blue-collar workers.

…

Jeff [tailing government agents who are tailing Kenneth]: This is fucking intense!
Darius: We’re going 15 miles per hour.

…

Jeff: Hey, you know that girI your boyfriend was going back in time to save, BeIinda?
Darius: Yeah?
Jeff: WeII, she’s aIive and weII. Lives about an hour away.
Darius: How? What do you mean?
Jeff: Bridget caIIed and set up an interview. I think your IittIe boyfriend is seriousIy nuts.
Darius: Yeah, I know, he’s totaIIy nuts. He’s compIeteIy crazy.

…

Belinda: Then there was the accident.
Darius: Accident?
Belinda: Kenneth ran his car into my boyfriend’s house. There was a big dent under the kitchen window.
Darius: My God!
Belinda: So I convinced Rob to just Iet him go and we…We toId the poIice it was a hit and run. I haven’t seen him since then. But you said you’ve seen him recentIy. How is he?

…

Darius: Can you show me the Iasers?
Kenneth: What’s wrong with your voice?
Darius: Where’s the time machine?
Kenneth: The time machine is at the Iaunch site.
Darius: Oh, right, it’s at the Iaunch site.
Kenneth: Darius. What are you doing?
Darius; I taIked to those guys who are foIIowing you. And they toId me that you stoIe those Iasers because you’re some kind of spy or something.
Kenneth: That’s perfect. Let them think that, it works in our favor. It’s better. SeriousIy.

…

Darius: You can’t time traveI! This is aII crazy. Okay, you Iied to me.
Kenneth: Listen to me.
Darius: What eIse are you Iying about?
Kenneth: Hey, hey, Iisten to me. You come to that Iaunch site at 5:00 p.m., you take my hand and I’II show you who can’t time traveI.

…

Darius: Kenneth, I’m sorry.
Kenneth: Were you making a joke of me the whoIe time?
Darius: No. I promise. I Iied about the story, but everything eIse was reaI, okay? That was reaIIy me.

…

Kenneth [to Darius]: Come with me. The mission’s been updated. I’m going back for you now. AII right. You trust me? Come on. Take my hand. I know what I’m doing, okay? FIip that switch. Do it. FIip it down. Are you ready? Go!

…

Kenneth: To go it alone, or to go with a partner. When you choose a partner you have to have compromises and sacrifices, but it’s the price you pay. Do I want to follow my every whim and desire as I make my way through time and space? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, do I need someone when I’m doubting myself and I’m insecure, and my heart’s faliing me? Do I need someone who, when the heat gets hot, has my back.
Darius: So, do you?
Kenneth: I do.[/b]

A film about this guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carroll

As a boy. He died in 2009.

A character that will fascinate some and repulse others. Or both fascinate and repulse a few of us at the same time. And it is often their use of dope that does this. Heroin in particular. In some circles, what is hipper than that?

As I recall, John Belushi was a fan. I think they had him on Saturday Night Live. Performing this: youtu.be/KpJ-pqhnBzo

Back when SNL was actually worth watching. Back when the “music acts” were actually cutting edge.

Anyway, heroin. It clearly destroyed the lives of many very talented folks.

Then there is the part about being raised Catholic. Jim Carroll: the Catholic Boy: youtu.be/pdftnLhRCuQ

Always at the wrong end of the paddle. So, why not the wrong end of the needle too. A hell of a lot less painful. Or so it seemed at the time. And, come on, who among us has not wanted at least to try it. Or, to parphrase John Lennon, dope is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Look for the cast from The Sopranos.

IMDb

After being nominated for an Oscar for Running on Empty (1988), MTV asked River Phoenix what he wanted to do next. He responded by pulling out a beat up paperback of “The Basketball Diaries” and stated “I wanted to play Jim Carroll.” Later, the Los Angeles Times declared, “River Phoenix may have wanted it too much.” Leonardo DiCaprio was a fan of Phoenix’s.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basket … ries_(film
trailer: youtu.be/NyfX9UHyxgY

THE BASKETBALL DIARIES [1995]
Directed by Scott Kalvert

[b]Mom: Jim, you’re not going to waste the whole day lying around?
Jim: Ma, I’m up. The loony alarm went off.

…

Jim [voiceover]: When I was young, about eight or so, I tried making friends with God by inviting Him to my house to watch the World Series. He never showed.

…

Jim [voiceover]: There’s only two things Swifty forbids…using the word “motherfucker” and stealing from the other team…as long as they’re white.

…

Bobby: They’re pumping so much junk in me, I can’t even get a decent chubby.
Jim: I got an idea…

…

Jim [voiceover]: I’ve known Bobby since I was 3. He’s my best friend. He was the best player on our basketball team. Two years ago, he got leukemia. He keeps fighting it off. I know Bobby’s going to beat it. He could beat anything.[/b]

No, in fact, he can’t.

[b]Jim [back at the hospital]: Bobby, I’m…I’m really sorry. Next time we’ll go somewhere…
Bobby: There ain’t gonna be no next time, Jim.

…

Jim [voiceover]: I love it this way…my feet against the tar, which is soft from the spring heat, the slight breeze that runs across your entire body, especially your crotch. You feel an incredible power being naked under a dome of stars while a giant city is dressed, dodging cars all around you five flights down. I don’t think of anything while I’m doing the actual tugging, least of all the heavy sex fantasies I have to resort to indoors. Just my own naked self and the stars breathing down, and it’s beautiful…Time sure flies when you’re young and jerking off.

…

Jim [voiceover]: Every crowd has its little games to prove if you’re a punk or not. My cousin in Jersey plays chickie, which is two cars heading towards each other at about 80 miles per hour. First driver to swerve out of the way is chicken. In Brooklyn, they make you press a lit cigarette into your arm and have it burn all the way down to the filter without the slightest flinch. Us Manhattan boys, we jump off cliffs into the Harlem River, which is literally shitty because half a million toilets flush into it every day.

…

Blinkie [offering cocaine to Jim]: That’ll make you fuck like Superman. Faster than a speeding bullet.

…

Jim [looking down at Bobby in the casket]: I looked at his body, and it was death for the first time. His face was thin and wrinkled, almost apelike, his hair just gray patches on his scalp. He looked 60 years old, and he was 16…I felt dazed, like I’d just come out of a four-hour movie I didn’t understand. I kept thinking about his face…and death…and what a cheat the whole thing was.

…

Friend: Jim, you all right? Huh? Listen, maybe you should talk to one of the priests. I don’t know. Maybe…Maybe they can help you out.
Jim: Help me out? I wouldn’t ask one of those cocksuckers for directions.

…

Jim [voiceover]: …did I ever tell you about the first time I did heroin? I went down to Pedro’s basement. All sorts of characters were in the storage-room shooting gallery. I was just going to sniff a bag, but a guy says, “If you’re going to sniff, might as well pop it, and if you’re going to pop it, might as well mainline.” I was scared of needles, but I gave in. It was like a long heat wave through my body. Any ache or pain or sadness or guilty feeling was completely flushed out.

…

Jim: Gee whiz, ma, we oughtta have these heart to heart talks more often, they’re really good for us.

…

Jim: First, it’s a Saturday-night thing, and you feel cool, like a gangster or a rock star. It’s just something to kill the boredom, you know? They call it a chippie, a small habit. It feels so good though you start doing it on Tuesdays, then Thursdays. Then it’s got you. Every wise-ass punk on the block says it won’t happen to them, but it does.[/b]

And then you’ve got to come up with ways to pay for it. That’s where the innocent civilians come in.

[b]Jim [in Confession]: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been about four months since my last confession.
Priest: Yes, my son?
Jim: Well, I don’t know where to start, Father.
Priest: Have you taken the name of Jesus Christ in vain?
Jim: Yeah. Yeah, I have.
Priest: Have you disrespected your mother and father?
Jim: Uh-huh.
Priest: Have you stolen or cheated your fellow man?
Jim: Yeah, but I’m not proud of it.
Priest: Have you had impure thoughts or engaged in impure deeds?
Jim: Oh, Father, you have no idea.
Priest: Is there something else that you want to tell me in your own words?
Jim: I’ve done all kinds of crazy shit. Oh, excuse me, Father. Fuck, I’m s…Christ, I have a dirty mouth. Look, I’m…I’m sorry about that. Can I just go on?
Priest: 10 Hail Marys, five Our Fathers.
Jim: What do you mean? That’s it? That’s my punishment?

…

Jim [voiceover]: And you want to stop. You really do. But it’s like a dream. You can’t stop dreams. They move in crazy pieces, any way they want to, and suddenly, you’re capable of anything.

…

Jim [walks up to Swifty]: Don’t worry, Swifty, I won’t rat you out.

…

Jim [walks up to Father McNulty]: And in the next life, Father, I’m gonna have the paddle!

…

Jim [voiceover]: We just got to raise enough cash to keep our heads straight. Luckily, finding money in New York is like getting laid at the prom…

…

Jim: How come my notebook’s all wet?
Reggie: Because you pissed on it.

…

Reggie: You’re welcome.
Jim: What the hell am I thanking you for?
Reggie: Because you was frozen in the snow like a goddamn creamsicle.

…

Diane [to Jim]: Who’s the whore now?

…

Jim: All I’ve been doing is reading this diary wondering how the hell I’m still alive?

…

Jim [to the camera]: Know this. There’s different types of users of junk. You got your rich dilettante square-ass who dabbles now and then and always has enough money to run off to the Riviera if he feels he’s fucking around to the danger point. Street junkies hate these pricks, but they’re always suckers, and their money makes them tolerable. Then you got your upper-middle-class Westchester preppies… same as the others, basically. What they’re good for is opening their mommy and daddy’s eyes to this social virus and putting pressure on the government to do something about it. Then there’s us street kids. Start fucking around very young. We think we all got it under control and won’t get strung out. This rarely works. I’m living proof. But in the end, you just got to see the junk as another 9-to-5 gig. The hours are just a bit more inclined to shadows.[/b]

Political intrigue. In the modern world, we expect it. The name of the game is wealth and power. Governments can be and invariably are bought and sold all the time. And only the most hopelessly naive imagine that high school civics texts actually describe the real world.

But back in the days of emperors and kings – of royalty, of rule by Divine Right – there must have been a lot of folks who were knocked for a loop when they discovered that most of what unfolded up on the stage [or behind the curtain] was in fact just that: scripted bullshit for the masses. Here, incest, murder, regicide…you name it…seems to have been par for the course. Shades of Akira Kurosawa’s magnificent Ran.

To what extent is this film based [if not literally] on events that transpired during the historical period depicted? You got me.

For sure though: patriarchy prevails. While the Emperor is out waging war, the Empress seems to spend the bulk of her time embroidering Chrysanthemums. And this is one of those worlds where everyone knows their place and a world for which there is a place for everyone. Who am I? That does not come up all that often. But then, come on, people are people: human all too human.

But, then, what do I really know about it? China in 928 A.D?

And who are we to project [let alone impose] our own moral and political narratives on them?

If nothing else though this is a stunningly beautiful film to watch. The photographer is nothing short of extraordinary. And I say this as someone watching it on a ten year old televison with a built-in DVD player – anything but hi-def. I can only imagine what it might be like to view it with blu-ray technology.

IMDb

[b]The largest set ever built for a movie in China.

The Dragon Robe and Phoenix Gown, worn by the Emperor and Empress during the festival, were handcrafted by 40 people who took over two months to create it.

Although sometimes not noticeable, each actor is dressed in 4-5 layers of clothing, sometimes 5-6 layers. Each layer is meticulously embroidered.

Some of the costumes weighed more than 40 kilos.

More than 1000 real soldiers were used in the final battle.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Golden_Flower
trailer: youtu.be/tyVv8qSTLRQ

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER [Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia] 2006
Written and directed by Yimou Zhang

[b]Empress: So you are leaving. Are you afraid?
Prince Wan: You are my mother, Your Majesty.
Empress: We have been intimate for three years. You, of all people should know who I am.
Prince Wan: I am first and foremost my father’s son.
[the Empress grabs Wan, attempting to seduce him]
Prince Wan [recoils from the Empress]: Mother!
Empress: I am not your mother!

…

Emperor [to Prince Jai]: There are many things in Heaven and Earth, but you can only have what I choose to give you. What I do not give you, you must take by force.

…

Doctor: This is a Persian black fungus. Do you know it’s properties? Two grams a day, take over a few months will cause a person to lose all their mental faculty.
Chan [his daughter]: But the Empress…
Doctor: Don’t breathe a word or our entire clan will be executed.

…

Emperor [while placing ingredients on a scale]: This will cure your anemia.
Empress: I thank His Majesty for his concern.
Emperor: All good medicine tastes bitter. You have excess bile, poor digestion, Yin and Yang are out of balance. That is why you are so infractious, listless and lethargic, and capable of nothing but cutting remarks. These are all symptoms of anemia.
Empress: It has been more than ten years. My so-called sickness is clearly not improving with Your Majesty’s treatment.
Emperor [angrily throws scale to the ground]: If your father were not the King of Liang, I would scarely be speaking to you with such restraint!

…

Emperor: It has been 25 years. I thought that I would never see you again. And you married the Imperial Doctor!
Jiang [slaps the Emperor]: At the time, you were only a lowly captain plotting day and night to become Emperor. You flattered the King of Liang into letting you marry his daughter. You planned meticulously to have my entire family put in prison. Later, I alone managed to escape. Far from home, I almost died. It was the Doctor who saved me. Who then, do you think I should have married?

…

Prince Jai [upon discovering the Black Fungus plot]: Mother was taken ill yesterday. Was it because of this?
[the Empress nods her head]
Prince Jai: Why is Father doing this to you?
Empress: Jai, after the Chrysanthemum Festival, I shall tell you the whole truth. Each day, in front of your father, I have to feign ignorance. Every two hours, I swallow this poison without protest. Nobody knows what is happening. I shall die exactly as your father intends. A half-wit. But I refuse to submit without a fight. On the night of the Festival, I shall put an end to all this.
Prince Jai: Do my brothers know?
Empress: No.
Prince Jai: If I had not returned, would Mother have gone ahead?
Empress: Yes.
Prince Jai: Then why did you tell me?
Empress: Because I want you to be Emperor.
Prince Jai: Are you going to kill Father?
Empress: I shall force him to abdicate, but it is not my intention to kill him.
Prince Jai: Mother, a son cannot stand in rebellion against his father! Whatever the circumstances, he is still my father and my Emperor.[/b]

That’s how these things works: with some being considerably more cynical [meaning less ignorant] than others. Some know it is all just an act, a Machivelian game…while others take the whole thing very, very seriously.

[b]Prince Wan: Do you know why the Empress keeps embroidering chrysanthemums?
Chan: I hear they are for the festival. The eunuch in charge of weaving has made 10,000 flowers for her.
Prince Wan: ten thousand?!
Chan: Yes. Her Majesty had them all delivered to General Wu.
Prince Wan: Of the state Army?!
Chan: Yes.

…

Prince Jai: I always knew that this was not a battle I could win. Kill me or dismember me…you will do as you wish…but I need you to know, Father, that I did not rebel for the sake of the crown. I did it for the sake of my mother.

…

Emperor: What is the punishment for a prince in bebellion.
Official: Your Majesty, to be torn apart by five horses.
Emperor: Jai, Father is prepared to spare you…if you agree to one thing. From now on, every day, you will personally serve your mother’s medicine.[/b]

Hypnosis figures prominantly in this film. And it prompts you to wonder: has it ever really been established yet the extent to which it is “real”?

At places like this [yahoo answers], you hear the arguments from both sides: answers.yahoo.com/question/inde … 141AAK0DXU

On several occasions, folks tried to hypnotize me. But none were ever successful. Once, for example, my ex-wife’s uncle [a professional therapist] tried to do so in order to help me to control chronic pain. And I really did everything I could to be hypnotized. But nothing.

And always the same bottom line: What can and cannot be accomplished through hypnosis? What can or cannot the hypnotist make the one under hypnosis do? And here the task gets rather…involved. Which is to say [no doubt] there is Hollywood hypnosis and real hypnosis. Hollywood hypnosis almost always involves that mysterious “post-hypnotic suggestion”.

Anyway, here the plot revolves in large part around this crook needing to remember where he hid a stolen painting. He had gotten knocked in the head during the heist and…forgot. So, it’s off to the hypnotist [the beautiful hypnotist] to try to recover his memory.

And then it all manages to be tied in [loosely] with how [through memory] we attain and then sustain an identity.

It’s an art heist. Which is to say it has almost nothing to do with art at all. Only about how much someone is willing to pay for any particular painting. As in millions and millions of dollars. Or in this case, pounds. It’s just another kind of “business” when you get right down to it.

Trust me though: the plot is convoluted and confusing. It is very easy to think you understand it when in fact you do not at all. What’s real and what’s not? And who is using whom? And for what end, exactly?

Or some [like me] will just shrug at how hopelessly implausible it all was but still somehow feel as though they were not actually cheated out of a couple of hours in their lives.

IMDb

All the actors underwent hypnosis as part of their preparation for the film. James McAvoy claimed that his hypnotism session was successful and left him unable to move his hand during the duration of the session.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trance_(2013_film
trailer: youtu.be/L4_bdS3_gr0

TRANCE [2013]
Directed by Danny Boyle

Simon [voiceover]: Lots of paintings have been stolen. They’re still missing. It used to be anyone could steal a painting. There was no need for a gun. All it took was a bit of muscle and some nerve. But not anymore. Those days are gone. A business can’t function taking big hits like that. So now we have procedures…and precautions…and security measures. Now we have a policy. We have bag searches and magnetic alarms and silent scanners and X-ray machines and cameras. Also, we have drills. And the first thing they tell us is…“Do not be a hero”.

Simon is the “inside man”. Sort of.

[b]Simon [voiceover]: What happens, of course, is that just as we up our game, the villains up theirs. They don’t just turn up on spec anymore. We have precautions, they have plans. They do research. They learn about our cameras and scanners and Ukrainian ex-naval commandos. But some things don’t change. It still takes muscle and it still takes nerve.

…

Simon [voiceover]: “Remember, do not be a hero. Put it down. No piece of art is worth a human life.”

…

Doctor: Well, his brain is intact on a gross level. On a smaller scale, who’s to say? What I’m saying is we don’t know. The memories may come back, they may not. All you can do is wait and see.
Franck: Isn’t there something you can do?
Doctor: For memory? Nothing. Except time.
Franck: Some sort of medicine?
Doctor: There’s no drug therapy for amnesia.
Franck: What about other sorts of therapy?[/b]

Bingo: Hypnosis.

Simon reads the card held up by Elizabeth: ARE YOU IN TOUBLE? ARE THEY LISTENING? HOW MANY?
[then she holds up a photograph of the missing painting]
Elizabeth [into the microphone taped to Simon]: I don’t wanna talk to Simon anymore. I wanna talk to the men who are listening. The men who hurt him.
Simon reads her next card: I WANT TO HELP YOU

After Elizabeth sits down with Franck at a restaurant to discuss Simon it begins to dawn on you that you might not really be “getting” this.

[b]Elizabeth: Hypnotherapy will work.
Franck: But?
Elizabeth: Only if it’s a partnership.
Franck: Very well. The finder’s fee is 3%.
Elizabeth: It’s not enough.
Franck: See what I mean?
Elizabeth: It’s not about the money. I have to have equal status in the group…otherwise Simon won’t respect me. If you wanna make progress you really have to move beyond getting one over on people, Franck.

…

Elizabeth: Hypnotherapy is a means of altering unwanted or dysfunctional behavior. The unwanted behavior in Simon’s case is forgetting.
Dominic: You mean he’s doing it deliberately?
Elizabeth: Not in the sense that you mean, Dominic. We keep secrets from lots of people, but most of all we keep them from ourselves – and that we call forgetting.

…

Elizabeth: Sustained post hypnotic suggestion is more difficult.
Franck: More difficult, but you can do it, right?
Elizabeth: Not to everyone, of course. But, yes, 5% can be described as extremely suggestible.
Franck: Wow, 5%. Who’d have thought? And what can you make them do? Well, I’m just asking. I’m interested.
Elizabeth: All right. Well, let’s see, if you had the right person…if you get a hold of them, dig right in…if you get them under your spell…if you work hard…and take your time…and do it right…you can make them want to do…almost…anything.

…

Elizabeth [to Simon]: What we are is the sum of everything we’ve ever said, done, felt…all wrapped up in one unique thread which is constantly being revised and remembered. So to be yourself you have to constantly remember yourself. It’s a full-time job but that’s how it works.

…

Franck: You’ll fuck him just to get him to remember?
Elizabeth: It’s not conventional practice, but under the circumstances…

…

Elizabeth [to Franck]: He isn’t really receiving electric shocks. He only believes he is.

…

Simon [on phone]: Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Yes?
Simon: I have something to tell you. Are you ready? I remember. I remember where I put it.

…

Simon: I know, Franck. I know what you were going to do to me.
Franck: She put that there, Simon. It’s not real.

…

Simon: I would like to know what happened. It’s all inside my head, isn’t it? There’s something hidden inside me. What is it?
Elizabeth: It’s a memory.
Simon: Suppressed?
Elizabeth: Yeah. Simon…maybe there are some things it’s better never to remember.
Simon: I have free will though. Don’t I? Don’t I?!
Elizabeth: Yes.
Simon: All right, then. All right, then, let’s see if I do.

…

Elizabeth: The memory is not destroyed, it is locked in a cage, and with enough force, enough violence, the lock can be broken. It comes back, the memory, not completely, not entirely, but enough to drive you, to make you feel you have been cheated, enough to make you angry.

…

Elizabeth [to Franck on video link]: The choice is yours. Do you want to remember or do you want to forget?[/b]

Sometimes philosophy and science get so entangled in a movie plot it is all but impossible to get the tangles out. This is especially true regarding science fiction. Here lots of stuff is purely fictional but it is based on speculation that is rooted in intelligent conjectures about what either will or will not be possible at some point “in the future”.

In this particular future a “red ball” technology has been created that allows crime fighters to bring the murder rate in Washington D.C. down to…zero. How? Through the creation of a “precrime” unit that is able to know in advance [from “precognitives”] when a murder will be committed and who the victims will be. Then it’s just a matter of the police getting to the intended victims in time.

Where this all gets particularly tricky though [at least for me] is in the relationship between a point of view that can know [down to the precise minute] what the future will be and the extent to which any of us can still be “free”. Human autonomy in a world where the future already exists and can be grasped? Trust me: It all gets really, really murky.

Agatha: “You can choose. You can choose.”

Oh, really? Can we? Apparently knowing the future is compatible with free will because once someone knows what his future is he can choose to change it. Or something like that.

Or the Precogs themselves. All the questions here that revolve around means and ends.

Or just imagine [which they do] the moral and legal implications of arresting [imprisoning] someone for something they have not really actually done yet. The “metaphysics” of it as it were.

And talk about preventive crime. Who in his right mind is going to commit pre-meditated murder when the crime can be spotted days in advance? Now it seems it is only “crimes of passion” to contend with.

In a sense the analogy here [in today’s world] are things like the NSA program. Literally “The Program”. Do we want to be free of the terrorists? Well, this is what we have to do. Will we have to trim back on our privacy rights…our freedoms? Sure…but it’s worth it. For example, to feel safe and secure. Besides, it only goes after the Bad Guys.

Look for tons of product placements. What would the future be without them?

IMDb

[b]The “PreCogs” were all named after famous mystery writers. Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie.

At the police station, the officers talk about the metaphysical proof of precognition. Chief Anderton (Tom Cruise) rolls a red ball along a table to demonstrate the law of cause and effect to Det. Witwer (Colin Farrell). All of this is an allusion to the famous claim of philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), that by observing billiard balls you can actually demonstrate that cause and effect does not exist but is merely a habitually created fiction of the mind.

Steven Spielberg hired the top 12 contortionists from around the world to do the futuristic yoga class scene.

A “Minority Report” in real life is a legislative procedure whereby a minority of a committee (usually members from the minority party) offer an official alternative to a piece of legislation. Because of the way rules of decorum work out, minority reports are very rarely successful (as in this film).[/b]

FAQ at IMDb imdb.com/title/tt0181689/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film
trailer: youtu.be/q2bmImPNKbM

MINORITY REPORT [2002]
Directed by Steven Spielberg

[b]Danny: The Precogs can see a murder four days out. Why the late call?
Fletcher: Crime of passion. No premeditation. That’s why they call it a Red Ball. They show up late. Most of our scrambles are flash events like this one. We rarely see anything with premeditation anymore.

…

John: Mr. Marks, by mandate of the District of Columbia Precrime Division, I’m placing you under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marks and Donald Dubin that was to take place today, April 22 at 0800 hours and four minutes.

…

Pre-Crime Public Service Announcer: Imagine, a world with out, murder. 6 years ago, the homicidal rates had reached epidemic proportions. It seemed that only a miracle could stop the blood shed, but instead of 1 miracle, we were given 3, the precognitives. Within just one month of the precrime program, the homicidal rates in the District of Columbia had reduced 90 percent.

…

Burgess: 6 Years in the precrime prgram, and there hasn’t been a single murder.
Pre-Crime Public Service Announcer: Now, the system can work for you.
Attorney General Nash: We want to make sure that this great system is what will keep us safe will also keep us free.
Pre-Crime Public Service Announcer: On Tuesday April 22nd, vote yes on the national Precrime initiative.

…

Danny: I’m sure you’ve all grasped the legalistic drawback to precrime methodology.
Knott: Here we go again…
Danny: Look, I’m not with the ACLU on this Jeff. But let’s not kid ourselves, we are arresting individuals who’ve broken no law.
Jad: But they will.
Fletcher: The commission of the crime itself is absolute metaphysics. The Precogs see the future. And they’re never wrong.
Danny: But it’s not the future if you stop it. Isn’t that a fundamental paradox?
John: Yes, it is.

…

John: Why’d you catch that red ball?
Danny: Because it was going to fall.
John: You’re certain?
Danny: Yeah.
John: But it didn’t fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen.

…

Danny: Why can’t the Precogs see rapes, or assaults… or suicides?
Fletcher: Because of the nature of murder. “There’s nothing more destructive to the metaphysical fabric that binds us than the untimely murder of one human being by another”.

…

Danny: Science has stolen most of our miracles. In a way the Precogs give us hope… hope of the existence of the divine. I find it interesting that some people have begun to deify the precogs.
John: The precogs are pattern recognition filters, nothing more.

…

John: Why don’t you cut the cute act, Danny boy, and tell me what it is you’re looking for?
Danny: Flaws.
John: There hasn’t been a murder in six years. There’s nothing wrong with this system it is… perfect.
Danny: Perfect I agree, but if there’s a flaw. It’s human. It always is.

…

Gideon [to John]: Careful, Chief. Dig up the past, all you get is dirty.

…

Burgess [to John]: My father once told me, “We don’t choose the things we believe in; they choose us.”

…

Wally [to John]: I like you, Chief. You’ve always been good to me. I’ll give you two minutes before I hit the alarm.

…

John: You set me up.
Danny: It seems I found a flaw.

…

Burgess: Who’s the victim?
John: Somebody.
Burgess: Who?
John [trying to remember the name]: Somebody. Leo Crow.
Burgess: Who is he?
John: I have no idea! I’ve never heard of him! But I’m supposed to kill him in less than thirty-six hours.

…

Fletcher: John, don’t run.
John: You don’t have to chase me.
Fletcher: You don’t have to run.
John: Everybody runs, Fletch, everybody runs.

…

John: You invented precrime.
[Iris chuckles bitterly]
John: What’s so funny?
Iris: If the unintended consequences of a series of genetic mistakes and science gone haywire can be called invention, then yes, I invented precrime.
John: You don’t seem all that proud.
Iris: I’m not. I was trying to heal them, not turn them into…something else.
John: Heal who?
Iris: The innocents we now use to stop the guilty.
John: You’re talking about the precogs…
Iris: You think the three in the tank come from a test tube? They’re merely the ones who survived.

…

John: I’m not a murderer. I’ve never even met the man I’m supposed to kill.
Iris: And, yet, a chain of events has started. A chain that will lead inexorably to his death.
John: Not if I stay away from him.
Iris: How can you avoid a man you’ve never met?

…

Iris [to John]: The Precogs are never wrong. But, occasionally…they do disagree.
John: What?
Iris: Most of the time, all three Precognitives will see an event in the same way. But once in a while, one of them will see things differently than the other two.
John: Jesus Christ – why didn’t I know about this?
Iris: Because these Minority Reports are destroyed the instant they occur.
John: Why?
Iris: Obviously, for Precrime to function, there can’t be any suggestion of fallibility. After all, what good is a Justice system that instills doubt? It may be reasonable, but it’s still doubt.
John: You’re saying that I’ve halo’d innocent people?
Iris: I’m saying that every so often those accused of a precrime might, just might, have an alternate future.

…

Iris: It’s funny how all living organisms are alike…
[she starts crushing a mutated plant]
Iris: …when the chips are down, when the pressure is on, every creature on the face of the Earth is interested in one thing and one thing only…
[the plant scars her palm]
Iris: …its own survival.

…

Wally: You’re not allowed in here - who are you? Do I know you?
John [in disguise, grabs Wally by the collar]: Listen, Wally - I like you. So, I don’t wanna have to kick you or hit you with anything hard, but only if you promise to help me.
Wally: …Oh, hi, John.

…

Agatha [repeated line]: Can you see?

…

Agatha: Is this now?
John: Yes, this is all happening right now.

…

Rufus [to Agatha]: Are you reading my mind right now?
John: Get up.
Rufus [to Agatha]: I’m sorry for whatever I’m going to do and I swear I didn’t do any of that stuff I did. And those thoughts about my cousin Elena, those were just thoughts!

…

Rufus: I tell you what. I do this, I get to keep whatever images I get from her head.
John: They don’t belong to anybody.
Rufus [turning to go): Then take her to Radio Shack.

…

John [to Agatha]: Where’s my Minority Report?

…

Agatha [to stranger in mall]: He knows, don’t go home.

…

Agatha: You have a choice. Walk away. Right now.
John: I can’t. I have to know.
Agatha: Please…
John: I have to find out what happened to my life.

…

John [to Agatha…but mostly to himself]: Every day for the last six years I’ve thought about only two things. The first was what my son would look like if he were alive today. If I would even recognize him if I saw him on the street. The second was what I would do to the man who took him. You were right. I’m not being set up.
Agatha: You have to take me home…
John: You said so yourself. There is no Minority Report. I don’t have an alternative future. I am going to kill this man.

…

Crow: You’re not gonna kill me?
John: No.
Crow: But you have to. They said you would. If you don’t kill me, my family gets nothing! You’re supposed to kill me. He said you would.
John: Who said I would?

…

Agatha: I’m sorry, John, but you have to run again.
John: What…?
Agatha: RUN!!!

…

Gideon: You’re part of my flock now, John.

…

Burgess: All right. Tell you what I’ll do. First thing Monday, I’ll look over the Witwer evidence and I’ll have Gideon run the Containment files, see if anyone drowned a woman named – what did you say her name was?
Lara [after a pause]: Anne Lively… But I never said she drowned.

…

Lara [in the containment ward, putting a gun to Gideon’s head]: I’d like a word with my husband.
Gideon: You’re not authorized. How did you get in here?
[she shows him]

…

John: No doubt the precogs have already seen this.
Burgess: No doubt.
John: You see the dilemma don’t you. If you don’t kill me, precogs were wrong and precrime is over. If you do kill me, you go away, but it proves the system works. The precogs were right. So, what are you going to do now? What’s it worth? Just one more murder? You’ll rot in hell with a halo, but people will still believe in precrime. All you have to do is kill me like they said you would. Except you know your own future, which means you can change it if you want to. You still have a choice Lamar. Like I did.

…

John [voiceover]: In 2054, the six-year Precrime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, though police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins were transferred to an undisclosed location, a place where they could find relief from their gifts. A place where they could live out their lives in peace.[/b]

Of course the murder rate was about to soar again.

It may not be necessary that you were/are a member of the armed forces in order to grasp the narratives being conveyed in this film. On the other hand, maybe it is. I was in the Army back in the late 1960s. The film focuses on the Navy during the Second World War. But the military is still the military is still the military. And everything in the military revolves around the sacrosanct “chain of command”. And every soldier embedded in the “enlisted ranks” knows just how crucial it can be when you are assigned to a unit in which the officers are hard core. Especially the commanding officer.

Here, the experience of the enlisted men is especially grueling because the CO [and the officers] before Queeg could not possibly have been less hardcore. When that happens, the transition can be nothing short of infuriating. Or can be if you are not particularly gung-ho yourself.

Ah, but what if the CO is not only a hardcore, spit and polish lifer but also…crazy? Can’t say as I ever had that experience. On the other hand, my CO at the Song Be MACV [Lt. Colonel Robert Hayden] surely came close. Of course he did put me in for the Bronze Star.

Anyway, the Caine mutiny is basically a fascinating examination into the military mentality embodied in an individual who is starting to come apart at the seams. Mentally. And of the reactions of those around him. Men who are sounder mentally but maybe not so much…morally? Which is just to point out the obvious: that psychologically sound folks can still be assholes.

This film more or less shifts back and forth between what we [the audience] know the reality to be given what we are shown up on the screen and how the individual characters in the film [not privy to this] might just as easily insist it all comes down to a judgment call. One based solely on what they do know. And how that can be effected by their own personalities and prejudices.

In the end, it’s basically A Few Good Men from a different era. Only this time the point is more a defense of Col. Nathan R. Jessup and his ilk. They have the balls to defend freedom in and around actual combat. But then again you can’t quite make the comparison between World War 2 and Vietnam. At least most don’t make it.

A word of advice: The parts about May and Mother? You might want to fast forward them. Why the fuck they were put in the movie at all is simply bewildering. Queeg and Keefer and Greenwald are the movie.

IMDb

[b]There was considerable opposition to the casting of Humphrey Bogart, since he was much older than Captain Queeg was supposed to be. In addition, Bogart was already seriously ill with espohagal cancer, although it would not be diagnosed until January 1956.

Humphrey Bogart’s tour-de-force performance in the climactic courtroom scene was so powerful that it completely captivated the onlooking film technicians and crewmen. After the scene’s completion, the company gave Bogart a round of thunderous applause.

Lee Marvin, who served in the United States Marine Corps and knew a great deal about ships at sea, served double duty by also lending his expertise on military matters.

This movie’s opening prologue states: “There has never been a mutiny in a ship of the United States Navy. The truths of this film lie not in its incidents but in the way a few men meet the crisis of their lives.”[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caine_Mutiny_(film
trailer: youtu.be/2MeErathhsg

THE CAINE MUTINY [1954]
Directed by Edward Dmytryk

[b]Sailor [of the Caine]: It’s a mistake scraping this ship. The only thing keeping the water out is the rust.

…

DeVriess: She’s not a battleship or a carrier; the Caine is a beaten-up tub. After 18 months of combat it takes 24 hours a day just to keep her in one piece.
Keith: I understand sir.
DeVriess: I don’t think you do. But whether you like it or not, Keith, you’re in the junkyard navy. And keith … Don’t take it so hard. War is hell.

…

Keefer [to Ensign Keith while giving him a tour of the Caine]: The USS Caine is a minesweeper. These paravanes carry sweep wires off both sides of the ship. The wire saws the mine in two. We’ve been in combat a year and a half, and we’ve never swept a mine. So the first thing you’ve got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots.

…

Lt. Keefer [to Keith]: This is the engine room; to operate, all you need is any group of well-trained monkeys. 99 percent of everything we do is strict routine. Only one percent requires any creative intelligence.

…

Keith: Sir, you don’t like the Navy, do you?
Keefer: Who called the Caine the Navy?

…

Keith: Sir, I spotted a Japanese aircraft off the starboard bow. Angle 20. See him?
DeVriess: Keith, if you stay in the Navy ten years, you may learn to tell the difference between an aircraft and a flock of seagulls.[/b]

Enter Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg…

Queeg [introducing himself to the officers]: I’m a book man. I believe everything in it was put in for a purpose. On this ship, we do things by the book. Deviate from the book and you better have half a dozen good arguments…and you’ll still get an argument from me. I don’t lose arguments on my ship. That’s why it’s nice to be captain. Remember, on board my ship excellent performance is standard, standard performance is sub-standard and sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist…Now that I’ve shot my face off, I’ll give you the chance to do the same.
Maryk: Captain, I don’t want to seem out of line but it’s been a long time since this crew did things by the book.
Queeg: Mr. Maryk, there are four ways of doing things on board my ship: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way and my way. Do it my way and we’ll get along.

The he brings out the steel balls. Uh, oh…

[b]Queeg: Anyone notice anything peculiar about Seaman First Class Urban? A shirt-tail hanging out of trousers is, I believe, regulation uniform for a bus boy, not, however, for a sailor in the United States Navy. These are some of the things we’re going to start noticing again. Mr. Maryk, who is the morale officer?
Maryk: We don’t have one, sir.
Queeg: Who, then, is the Junior Ensign?
Maryk: Keith, sir.
Queeg: Mr. Keith, you are now appointed the morale officer. In addition to your other duties, you are to see that shirttails are tucked inside trousers.
Keith: Aye, aye, sir.
Queeg: If I see one more shirttail flapping while I’m captain of this ship - woe betide the sailor; woe betide the OOD; and woe betide the morale officer. I kid you not.

…

Keith [of Queeg]: Well, he’s certainly Navy.
Keefer: Yeah…so was Captain Bligh.

…

Keith [of Queeg]: You made a mistake, Tom. He’s still here.
Keefer: My mistake was nothing compared to the Navy’s.

…

Keefer [of “Old Yellowstain”]: What do you think of your boy now?
Keith: I don’t know. There must be a reason for this.
Keefer: Yeah. There’s a reason, all right.

…

Keefer [after yet another surreal meeting between the officers and Queeg]: This is what is known in literature as the “pregnant pause”.

…

Keefer: Has it ever occurred to you that our captain might be unbalanced? I’m no psychiatrist, but I know about abnormal behaviour. Captain Queeg has every symptom of acute paranoia. It’s just a question of time before he goes over the line. He’ll snap any day.
Maryk: Step outside Keith.
Keith: I’d like to stay.
Keefer: Let him. He studied psychology.
Maryk: You’re fooling with dynamite, Tom.
Keefer: Will you look at the man? He’s a Freudian delight; he crawls with clues! His fixatiom on the little rolling balls…the charttering of second hand phrases and slogans…his inability to look you in the eye…the constant migraine headaches…shirtails and tonight’s pathetic speech. “Forget about turning yellow, my dog likes me”.

…

Maryk [writting in his log book]: “Medical log on Lieutenant Commander. The possibility appears to exist that the commander of this ship may be mentally disturbed.”

…

Maryk: How’s it going?
Keith: All right. The captain’s been put away for the night.
Maryk: Lay off.

…

Whittaker: Mr. Maryk, Mr. Keith. The captain wants a meeting with all officers, right away.
Maryk: Now? At one o’clock in the morning?
Whittaker: Yes, sir.
Maryk: Do you know what it’s about?
Whittaker: Yes, sir - strawberries.

…

Keefer: Steve, are you familiar with Article 184 of Navy regulations?
Maryk: Vaguely.
Keefer: Listen to this. On the Caine it ought to be required reading. Article 184 : “Unusual circumstances may arise - - in which the relief from duty of a commanding officer is necessary. Such action shall be subject to the approval of the Navy Department, except when it is impracticable because of the delay involved.” If I were you, Steve, I’d memorise it.

…

Greenwald [to Maryk]: I don’t want to upset you too much, but at the moment you have an excellent chance of being hanged.

…

Greenwald [at the court martial]: Doctor. You have testified that the following symptoms exist in Lieutenant-Commander Queeg’s behavior. Rigidity of personality, feelings of persecution, unreasonable suspicion, a mania for perfection, and a neurotic certainty that he is always in the right. Doctor isn’t there one psychiatric term for this illness?

…

Captain Blakely: Mr. Greenwald, there can be no more serious charge against an officer than cowardice under fire.
Greenwald: Sir, may I make one thing clear? It is not the defense’s contention that Lieutenant Commander Queeg is a coward. Quite the contrary. The defense assumes that no man who rises to command a United States naval ship can possibly be a coward and that, therefore, if he commits questionable acts under fire, the explanation must be elsewhere.

…

Queeg: Ahh, but the strawberries that’s…that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with…geometric logic…that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I’d have produced that key if they hadn’t of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers…[/b]

Out come the little steel balls…

[b]Keefer: Steve.
Maryk: Hello, Tom. I didn’t think you’d have the guts to show up.
Keefer: I didn’t have the guts not to.

…

[Greenwald staggers drunk into the Caine crew’s party]
Greenwald: Well, well, well! The officers of the Caine in happy celebration!
Maryk: What are you, Barney, kind of tight?
Greenwald: Sure. I got a guilty conscience. I defended you, Steve, because I found the wrong man was on trial. So, I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him. And I feel sick about it.
Maryk: Okay, Barney, take it easy.
Greenwald: You know something…When I was studying law, and Mr. Keefer here was writing his stories, and you, Willie, were tearing up the playing fields of dear old Princeton, who was standing guard over this fat, dumb, happy country of ours, eh? Not us. Oh, no, we knew you couldn’t make any money in the service. So who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did! And a lot of other guys. Tough, sharp guys who didn’t crack up like Queeg.
Keith: But no matter what, Captain Queeg endangered the ship and the lives of the men.
Greenwald: He didn’t endanger anybody’s life, you did, all of you! You’re a fine bunch of officers.
Paynter: You said yourself he cracked.
Greenwald: I’m glad you brought that up, Mr. Paynter, because that’s a very pretty point. You know, I left out one detail in the court martial. It wouldn’t have helped our case any.
[to Maryk]
Greenwald: Tell me, Steve, after the Yellowstain business, Queeg came to you guys for help and you turned him down, didn’t you?
Maryk [hesitant]: Yes, we did.
Greenwald: You didn’t approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn’t worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You ragged him. You made up songs about him. If you’d given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you suppose the whole issue would have come up in the typhoon? You’re an honest man, Steve, I’m asking you. You think it would’ve been necessary for you to take over?
Maryk: It probably wouldn’t have been necessary.
Greenwald [muttering]: Yeah.
Keith: If that’s true, then we were guilty.
Greenwald: Ah, you’re learning, Willie! You’re learning that you don’t work with a captain because you like the way he parts his hair. You work with him because he’s got the job or you’re no good! Well, the case is over. You’re all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
[long pause; strides toward Keefer]
Greenwald: And now we come to the man who should’ve stood trial. The Caine’s favorite author. The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all. Tell 'em, Keefer!
Keefer [stiff and overcome with guilt]: No, you go ahead. You’re telling it better.
Greenwald: You ought to read his testimony. He never even heard of Captain Queeg!
Maryk: Let’s forget it, Barney!
Greenwald: Queeg was sick, he couldn’t help himself. But you, you’re real healthy. Only you didn’t have one tenth the guts that he had.
Keefer: Except I never fooled myself, Mr. Greenwald.
Greenwald: I’m gonna drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer.
[pours wine in a glass]
Greenwald: From the beginning you hated the Navy. And then you thought up this whole idea. And you managed to keep your skirts nice, and starched, and clean, even in the court martial. Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer. But you, you’ll publish your novel, you’ll make a million bucks, you’ll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you’ll live with your conscience, if you have any. Now here’s to the real author of “The Caine Mutiny.” Here’s to you, Mr. Keefer.
[tosses the wine in Keefer’s face]
Greenwald: If you wanna do anything about it, I’ll be outside. I’m a lot drunker than you are, so it’ll be a fair fight.[/b]

Yep: Still more “love and human remains”.

Now, in some ways, what happened “back then” is considerably less likely to happen now. For example, in the interim there was the feminist movement. A whole new way to think about gender and power.

And yet in other ways [one way or another] crap like this will always be a part of what goes on when, well, “boy meets girl” in the big city.

For example, sex is almost always there to muck things up. Only back then – “the 50s” – the rules were made [and then enforced] almost entirely by men. As in of, by and for the male of the species. The “girls” were mostly secretaries. Or shuttled the elevators up and down. And married men were always on the prowl for them. Especially those in positions of power. Upper management. The company executives.

Only “back then” they often needed some place “private” to take them. And that’s where “the apartment” comes in. C.C. Baxter’s apartment in particular.

Basically, the denouement here is just the way some folks – romantics – want the world to be. A world where true love really is possible amidst all the apalling phonies. And the even more appalling “players”. A world that isn’t hopelssly plastic and revolving almost entirely around dollar bills. And they just know that C.C. and Fran will live happily ever after. In other words, with each other. Why? Because they can, after all, just watch the film over and over and over again.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apartment
trailer: youtu.be/GX9-5Zxy5us

THE APARTMENT [1960]
Written in part and directed by Billy Wilder

[b]Baxter [voiceover]: On November 1st, 1959, the population of New York City was 8,042,783. If you laid all these people end to end, figuring an average height of five feet six and a half inches, they would reach from Times Square to the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. I know facts like this because I work for an insurance company - Consolidated Life of New York. We’re one of the top five companies in the country. Our home office has 31,259 employees, which is more than the entire population of uhh… Natchez, Mississippi. I work on the 19th floor. Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861.My name is C.C. Baxter - C. for Calvin, C. for Clifford – however, most people call me Bud. I’ve been with Consolidated Life for three years and ten months. I started in the branch office in Cincinnati, then transferred to New York. My take-home pay is $94.70 a week, and there are the usual fringe benefits. The hours in our department are 8:50 to 5:20 – they’re staggered by floors, so that sixteen elevators can handle the 31,259 employees without a serious traffic jam. As for myself, I very often stay on at the office and work for an extra hour or two – especially when the weather is bad. It’s not that I’m overly ambitious – it’s just a way of killing time, until it’s all right for me to go home. You see, I have this little problem with my apartment…

…

Kirkeby: Why do all you dames have to live in the Bronx?
Sylvia: You mean you bring other girls up here?
Kirkeby: Certainly not. I’m a happily married man.

…

Dr. Dreyfuss: You must be an iron man all around. From what I hear through the walls, you got something going for you every night.
Baxter: I’m sorry if it gets noisy –
Dr. Dreyfuss: Sometimes, there’s a twi-night double-header. A nebbish like you!
Baxter: Yeah. Well – see you, Doc.
Dr. Dreyfuss: You know, Baxter – I’m doing some research at the Columbia Medical Center – and I wonder if you could do us a favor? When you make out your will – and the way you’re going, you should – would you mind leaving your body to the University?

…

Dr. Dreyfuss [hearing loud music coming from Baxter’s apartment]: Mildred! He’s at it again!

…

Sheldrake: Tell me, Baxter – just what is it that makes you so popular?
Baxter: I don’t know.
Sheldrake: Think.
Baxter: Would you mind repeating the question?
Sheldrake: Look, Baxter, I’m not stupid. I know everything that goes on in this building – in every department – on every floor – every day of the year. In 1957, we had an employee here, name of Fowler. He was very popular, too. Turned out he was running a bookie joint right in the Actuarial Department tying up the switchboard, figuring the odds on our I.B.M. machines – so the day before the Kentucky Derby, I called in the Vice Squad and we raided the thirteenth floor.
Baxter: What – what’s that got to do with me? I’m not running any bookie joint.
Sheldrake: What kind of joint are you running?
Baxter: Sir?
Sheldrake: There’s a certain key floating around the office – from Kirkeby to Vanderhof to Eichelberger to Dobisch – it’s the key to a certain apartment – and you know who that apartment belongs to?
Baxter: Who?
Sheldrake: Loyal, cooperative, resourceful C. C. Baxter.

…

Sheldrake: Where is your apartment?
Baxter: West 67th Street. You have no idea what I’ve been going through – with the neighbors and the landlady and the liquor and the key…
Sheldrake: How do you work it with the key?
Baxter: Well, usually I slip it to them in the office and they leave it under the mat…but never again. I can promise you that.

…

Sheldrake: I’m not just giving you those tickets, Baxter – I want to swap them.
Baxter: Swap them? For what? Sheldrake picks up the Dobisch reports, puts on his glasses,
Sheldrake [looking at a report]: It also says here that you are alert, astute, and quite imaginative Baxter: Oh?
(then he dawns on him…he reaches into his coat pocket and fishes out the key to his apartment…he holds it up]
Baxter: This?
Sheldrake: That’s good thinking, Baxter. Next month there’s going to be a shift in personnel around here – and as far as I’m concerned, you’re executive material.

…

Sheldrake: Now remember, Baxter, this is going to be our little secret.
Baxter: Yes, of course.
Sheldrake: You know how people talk. Not that I have anything to hide.
Baxter: Oh, no sir. Certainly not. Anyway, it’s none of my business – four rotten apples, five rotten apples…what’s the difference…percentage-wise?

…

Fran: Look, Jeff – we had two wonderful months this summer – and that was it. Happens all the time – the wife and kids go away to the country, and the boss has a fling with the secretary or the manicurist – or the elevator girl. Comes September, the picnic is over – goodbye. The kids go back to school, the boss goes back to the wife, and the girl –
Sheldrake: I never said goodbye, Fran.
Fran [more to herself]: For a while there, you try kidding yourself that you’re going with an unmarried man. Then one day he keeps looking at his watch, and asks you if there’s any lipstick showing, then rushes off to catch the seven-fourteen to White Plains. So you fix yourself a cup of instant coffee – and you sit there by yourself – and you think – and it all begins to look so ugly…[/b]

This is the part that doesn’t fit for me. Sheldrake is so clearly a slimeball. It’s almost impossible to imagine her actually falling in love with him.

[b]Sheldrake: You see a girl a couple of times a week – just for laughs – and right away she thinks you’re going to divorce your wife. I ask you – is that fair?
Baxter: No, sir. That’s very unfair – especially to your wife.

…

Miss Olsen: Hi. How’s the branch manager from Kansas City?
Fran: I beg your pardon?
Miss Olsen: I’m Miss Olsen – Mr. Sheldrake’s secretary. So you don’t have to play innocent with me. He used to tell his wife that I was the branch manager from Seattle – four years ago when we were having a little ring-a-ding-ding. And before me there was Miss Rossi in Auditing – and after me there was Miss Koch in Disability – and just before you there was Miss What’s-Her-Name, on the twenty- fifth floor –
Fran (wanting to get away): Will you excuse me?
Miss Olsen (holding her by the arm): What for? You haven’t done anything – it’s him – what a salesman – always the last booth in the Chinese restaurant – and the same pitch about divorcing his wife – and in the end you wind up with egg foo yong on your face.

…

Baxter: The mirror…it’s broken.
Fran: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

…

Margie: Night like this, it sorta spooks you, walking into an empty apartment.
Baxter: I said I had no family; I didn’t say I had an empty apartment.

…

Fran: Funny thing happened to me at the office party today – I ran into your secretary – Miss Olsen. You know – ring-a-ding-ding? I laughed so much I like to died.
Sheldrake: Is that what’s been bothering you – Miss Olsen? That’s ancient history.
Fran: I was never very good at history. Let me see – there was Miss Olsen, and then there was Miss Rossi – no, she came before – it was Miss Koch who came after Miss Olsen – And just think – right now there’s some lucky girl in the building who’s going to come after me –
Sheldrake: Okay, okay, Fran. I deserve that. But just ask yourself – why does a man run around with a lot of girls? Because he’s unhappy at home – because he’s lonely, that’s why – all that was before you, Fran – I’ve stopped running.
Fran: How could I be so stupid? You’d think I would have learned by now – when you’re in love with a married man, you shouldn’t wear mascara.

…

Sheldrake [to Fran]: I have a present for you. I didn’t quite know what to get you – anyway it’s a little awkward for me, shopping…
(he takes out a money clip and detaches a bill)
Sheldrake: Here’s a hundred bucks, Fran. Go buy yourself something nice.

…

Margie: Where do we go – my place or yours?
Baxter: Might as well go to mine – everybody else does.

…

Dr. Dreyfuss: I don’t know what you did to that girl in there - and don’t tell me - but it was bound to happen, the way you carry on. Live now, pay later. Diner’s Club! Why don’t you grow up, Baxter? Be a mensch! You know what that means?
Baxter: I’m not sure.
Dr. Dreyfuss: A mensch - a human being!

…

Baxter: Who are you calling, Miss Kubelik?
Fran: My sister – she’ll want to know what happened to me.
Baxter (alarmed): Wait a minute – let’s talk this over first. Just what are you going to tell her? Fran: Well, I haven’t figured it out, exactly.
Baxter: You better figure it out – exactly. Suppose she asks you why you didn’t come home last night?
Fran: I’ll tell her I spent the night with a friend.
Baxter: Who?
Fran: Someone from the office.
Baxter: And where are you now?
Fran: In his apartment.
Baxter: His apartment?
Fran: I mean – her apartment
Baxter: When are you coming home?
Fran: As soon as I can walk.
Baxter: Something wrong with your legs?
Fran: No – it’s my stomach.
Baxter: Your stomach?
Fran: They had to pump it out.

…

Fran [to Baxter]: Why do people have to love people anyway?

…

Fran: Mr. Sheldrake’s a taker.
Baxter: A what?
Fran: Some people take, some people get took. And they know they’re getting took and there’s nothing they can do about it.

…

Baxter [to Fran]: Ya know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe; I mean, shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were.

…

Dr. Dreyfuss [after Fran’s brother-in-law clobbers him]: I don’t want to gloat, but just between us, you had that coming to you. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Are you going to have a shiner tomorrow. Let me get my bag.
Baxter: Don’t bother, Doc. It doesn’t hurt a bit.

…

Sheldrake: I know how worried you were about Miss Kubelik – well, stop worrying – I’m going to take her off your hands.
Baxter (stunned): You’re going to take her off my hands?
Sheldrake [indicating the suitcases]: That’s right. I’ve moved out of my house – I’m going to be staying in town, at the Athletic Club.
Baxter: You left your wife?
Sheldrake: Well, if you must know – I fired my secretary, my secretary got to my wife, and my wife fired me.

…

Baxter: Sorry, Mr. Sheldrake.
Sheldrake: What do you mean, sorry?
Baxter: You’re not going to bring anybody to my apartment.
Sheldrake: I’m not just bringing anybody; I’m bringing Miss Kubelik.
Baxter: Especially not Miss Kubelik.
Sheldrake: How’s that again?
Baxter [firmly]: No key.
Sheldrake: Baxter, I picked you for my team because I thought you were a very bright young man. Do you realize what you’re doing? Not to me, but to yourself? Normally, it takes years to work your way up to the twenty-seventh floor. But it only takes thirty seconds to be out on the street again. You dig?
Baxter: I dig.
Sheldrake: So what’s it going to be?
[Baxter slowly reaches into his pocket for a key and drops it on Sheldrake’s desk]
Sheldrake: Now you’re being bright.
Baxter: Thank you, sir.
[Baxter goes back into his office, looks around, then reaches into his closet for his coat and hat. Sheldrake comes in moments later]
Sheldrake: Say, Baxter, you gave me the wrong key.
Baxter: No, I didn’t.
Sheldrake: But this is the key to the executive washroom.
Baxter: That’s right, Mr. Sheldrake. I won’t be needing it because I’m all washed up around here.
Sheldrake: What’s gotten into you, Baxter?
Baxter: Just following doctor’s orders. I’ve decided to become a “mensch”. You know what that means? A human being.
Sheldrake: Now, hold on, Baxter…
Baxter: Save it. The old payola won’t work anymore. Goodbye, Mr. Sheldrake.

…

Sheldrake: We’re driving to Atlantic City. I know it’s a drag – but you can’t find a hotel room in town – not on New Year’s Eve. I didn’t plan it this way, Fran – actually, it’s all Baxter’s fault. Fran: Baxter?
Sheldrake: He wouldn’t give me the key to the apartment.
Fran: He wouldn’t.
Sheldrake: Just walked out on me – quit – threw that big fat job right in my face.
Fran: (with a faint smile): The nerve.
Sheldrake: That little punk – after all I did for him! He said I couldn’t bring anybody to his apartment – especially not Miss Kubelik. What’s he got against you, anyway?
Fran (with a faraway look in her eye): I don’t know. I guess that’s the way it crumbles – cookie-wise.

…

Sheldrake: Fran? Where are you Fran?

…

Baxter: What about Mr. Sheldrake?
Fran: I’m going to send him a fruitcake every Christmas.
[she holds out the deck of cards for him]
Fran: Cut.
Baxter: I love you, Miss Kubelik.
Fran: Queen.
Baxter: Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.
Fran (smiling): Shut up and deal![/b]

You have a son and you want what is best for him. Only being around you is not exactly what is best for anyone. But what you are [a junkie, say] is nothing compared to what the rest of the family is. For example, you have relatives who are basically hardcore criminals. Gangsters. Brutal thugs at times.

But then being a forlorn and floundering junkie you OD. A self-inflicted overdose that takes you as far away as it is possible to be from all the shit there is to endure if you stick around. But that leaves your son to fend for himself. And that means he makes contact with “the family”. And that means he makes contact with the criminal underworld…with dope…with rogue cops. And that means, well, you can imagine what that means. Although, come on, most of us can’t imagine it at all.

As Josh puts it, after my mum died, this was just the world I got thrown into.

Thrown into. Sound familiar?

Three brothers. One wants to continue robbing banks. One has branched off into dope. One is now making a killing buying and selling stocks. That’s the world Josh is now thrown into. Then there’s the part played by Smurf. Their mother.

And the fucking cops. Totally out of control. For one thing, they go around killing whoever they want. You know, the bad apples. They plant evidence, they plant guns. They stage events so as to make it appear that they had no choice. Then they all band together: it’s your word against theirs.

And it’s always the same for the truly innocent. Or the nearly almost truly innocent. How they can get squashed like bugs just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fucking fortuity of it all.

Look for one “crazy fucking world”.

IMDb

[b]The film is loosely based on the Melbourne crime scene in the 1980s, and the Pettingills crime family. Also, the random revenge murder of two patrolmen recreates the 1988 Walsh Street police shootings.

In an interview on the radio program “Fresh Air,” Jacki Weaver explained that her interpretation of her character included the unspoken fact that all of Janine’s children had been fathered by different men, most likely criminals themselves.

Writer/director David Michôd said he often relented to Ben Mendelsohn’s request for additional takes of his scenes because his respect for the actor’s ‘wild, unpredictable’ contributions. In fact, the very first scene featuring Mendolsohn’s ‘Pope’ character took about 15 takes.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Kingdom_(film
trailer: youtu.be/YNszOl14AWg

ANIMAL KINGDOM [2010]
Written and directed by David Michôd

[b]Josh [on phone]: Grandma, It’s J
Grandma Smurf: Who?
Josh: Josh.
Grandma Smurf: Oh, Josh. How are you darling?
Josh: Yeah, good. Mom’s gone and OD’d and she’s died, so…

…

Josh [voiceover]: Mum kept me away from her family because she was scared. I didn’t realise it at the time, but they were all scared - even if they didn’t show it. I think even Barry Brown was scared - even though he never showed it. Everyone felt safe around Baz. He’d punch your head off if ya got in the way - if he was in the middle of an armed robbin’, you got between him and the door, he’d put you on the ground and not think twice about it. But he was good to me, and to everyone else. Darren was only a couple of years older than me. When we were little kids, he was like, my best friend. We used to throw rocks at cars ‘n’ that. He had a way better BMX than me - my bike was shit. My Uncle Craig moved really fast, like… he was tryin’a stay in front of somethin’. And Grandma Smurf - she just seemed to wanna be wherever the boys were. And she just wanted to be around whatever the boys were doing. But they were all scared, even if they didn’t show it, even if they didn’t know it exactly. Even if they were having to do what crooks do all the time which is, block out the thing they must know. They must know it - which is that crooks always come undone - always, one way or another. In Melbourne at this time - this is a while ago now - the armed robbery squad was out of control. They were shooting guys willy-nilly and gettin’ away with it, and they’d been after Baz and my family for months. But the guy they really wanted, the guy they really hated, was my other Uncle - Uncle Andrew, but everyone just called him ‘Pope’. He was hiding in a motel room somewhere ‘cause he heard he was next. Craig was sellin’ drugs, he was sellin’ lots of ‘em. He had a detective in the drug squad helpin’ him do it - a guy called ‘Randall Roach’. They’d meet in a fish shop in Footscray, ‘cause Craig loved fish. An’ I dunno - all this seemed strange to me, but not strange either, you know what I mean? Kids just are wherever they are and they just do what ever they’re doin’, you know? This is where I was, and this is what I was doin’. After my mum died, this was just the world I got thrown into.

…

Craig [after handing Josh a handgun]: Go get him.
Josh: And do what?
Craig: Let him know who’s king.

…

Baz: Did you wash your hands?
Josh: No.
Baz: You just had your hands on your cock. Your hands go anywhere near your ass or your cock, you wash 'em after. Jesus, c’mon. Bit of soap, get a lather going. Rinse. Alright that’s enough, now stick 'em under there.
[Gesturing towards hand dryer]
Josh: I’m invisible, these things never see me.
Baz: No one’s invisible, mate.

…

Baz: Mate, I don’t know what you’re thinking about your future and that but Im about done with this shit. I need some sort of change. The stock market’s working. You know that 20 grand I put in there is 60 now? See, you get a foot in that door, there’s serious money to be made, you know?
Pope: I don’t know anything about the stock market, mate.
Baz: So what? Neither did I. Doesn’t matter. You get the paper, you learn it. Our game, it’s over, mate. It’s getting too hard. It’s a fucking joke. You know, Craig’s making a fucking fortune with the drug thing. You saw the house he’s bought.
Pope: I don’t know I got that in me. It’s grubby.

…

[Baz is approached by detectives, thinking that they are after Pope]
Baz: Oh sorry guys. You just missed him.
Armed Robbery detective: That’s alright. We like you better.
Detective [shouting, referring to Barry who is unarmed]: He’s got a gun!
[the detective raises his rifle up and shoots him dead]

…

Smurf: You know why your mum and I didn’t talk for so long?
Josh: No.
Smurf: We had a fight…about…You know the card game 500? She reckoned you can play the joker whenever you want in a no-trumps hand. She was drunk. I was drunk too, but I was right. So look what happens. Years go by and then she’s gone. And I lose my only daughter…'cause you can’t play the joker whenever you want in a no-trumps hand. And I don’t get to see you for years.[/b]

One suspects it goes a lot deeper than that.

[b]Pope [to Darren]: You know, if Baz was still here right now and we’d just been to your funeral, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. 'Cause he’d have already done something about it. If you don’t want to do anything because you’re scared… Is it because you’re scared? It’s alright if you are. I just want you to tell me about it.

…

Pope [to a cop]: Turn around, you pig cunt.

…

Smurf [crying after Craig is gunned down by the cops]: I’m having trouble trying to find my positive spin. I’m usually very good at it. Usually it’s right there, and I can just have it. But I’m having trouble finding it now.

…

Detective Leckie: You know what the bush is about? It’s about massive trees that have been standing there for thousands of years… and bugs that’ll be dead before the minute’s out. It’s big trees and pissy little bugs. And everything knows its place in the scheme of things. Everything… everything sits in the order somewhere. Things survive because they’re strong, and everything reaches an understanding. But not everything survives because it’s strong. Some creatures are weak, but they survive because they’re being protected by the strong for one reason or another. You may think that, because of the circles you move in or whatever, that you’re one of the strong creatures, but you’re not, you’re one of the weak ones. That’s nothing against you, you’re just - you’re just weak because you’re young. But you’ve survived because you’ve been protected by the strong. But they’re not strong anymore, and they’re certainly not able to protect you. We’re here because we know who you are and we know what you’ve done. Now, I know you feel like you’re in a tough situation. But you have an out. There’s nothing your uncles can do to squirm out of this one; Craig’s learned that the hard way. But you’re not like them. We can see that, and you know that. Now I know that they’re saying to you that talking to me is betraying the family, but they’ve betrayed you. The fact that you’re talking to me, the fact that you’ve been left to deal with us…is all the proof that you need. And you’re in danger. Don’t be confused about that. I think you know. And I think you know that I can help you. But I can’t keep offering. You’ve gotta decide. You’ve gotta work out where you fit.
Josh: I don’t know why you’re telling me all of this.
Detective Leckie: Yes, you do.

…

Smurf [to Ezra]: I’ve been around a long time, sweetie. J’s turned and he’s not coming back. Even if the boys get off, I won’t be seeing J again. And I don’t want Darren to rot in that jail. If my boys go down, that’s it. I got no-one left.

…

Detective Roache: Look I know you got a problem Janine, but I don’t see how this mess your boys are in has got anything to do with me. So if you’ve called me in here to see if there are some strings I can pull in your way of course. Is that what this is about?
Smurf: Hey Randall, before you go on, this boy who’s currently being looked after, tell me if you agree with this, this boy who’s being looked after, he knows who you are. And you know how these things go they’re gonna ask him all sorts of questions about everything he’s ever seen or done. Everyone he’s ever met, the whole schmozzle. And you’ve done some bad things sweetie, haven’t you? I want this part to be clear this is not about you doing me a favor or, me blackmailing you or anything like that. It’s just a bad situation for everyone. Ezra’s got the address, it shouldn’t be too hard to set up a raid on the house. There’d be reasonable grounds what with, all the strange activity, the comings and goings, day and night, one of the neighbors might’ve seen a gun or something. This is you’re area of expertise I’m not trying to tell you how to suck eggs. What do you think?
Detective Roache: I really don’t, see how anything can be done Janine.
Smurf: Randall, I feel sick about this. I’m not happy at all, not one little bit. But we do what we have to do, we do what we must. Just because we don’t wanna do something doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

…

Detective Leckie: If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’d know to walk right on by me Like we’ve never seen each other before in our lives, and you’d know to feel lucky. You’ll come unstuck. I’ve got a feeling about it. I think you do too. I reckon you probably carry that feeling around with you every second of the day.
Smurf: But I don’t, Nathan.

…

Pope [his last words, just before Josh shoots him in the head]: It’s a crazy fucking world.[/b]

Ah, the modern world. There are so many things that one can become addicted to. But there are also so many reasons you might want to be. Or even need to be if things get bad enough. Then it only comes down to calculating whether or not the addiction has made things better or worse. Not that you won’t find many conflicting points of view regarding each and every one of them .

Same with dreams. Lots of new things in the world now to dream about. But lots of reasons that the dreams might crumble. So lots of requiems are needed for them.

As for real dope [and real dope addictions] we can either relate to them “in reality” or we cannot. So much revolves around options. And it’s not like those who calculate the pros and the cons are necessarily fools. Though here there do not seem to be many who aren’t going down that path. And age can sometimes have nothing to do with it. You either hanker for a more rewarding future or hanker for a return to a once more rewarding past. When you fall short though you sometimes need a little help from your friends.

If only to help you deal with all the hucksters hell bent on ripping you off. Besides, if there weren’t so many things out there that make you feel bad, you wouldn’t need to become addicted to all the things that make you feel good. And sometimes you feel particularly bad. So you need something bigger, something stronger to make you feel good. We all do our own calbrating here.

But Jesus it is hard – really, really hard – to watch these folks fall apart. Wait until they get to the part about Harry’s arm. Or the part where Sara gets zapped. Or the part where Marion goes ass to ass. Or the part where Tyrone wakes up in the cell.

But don’t forget your Tappy Juice!

From the soundtrack: youtu.be/SLJllk-0o6c

IMDb

[b]During Ellen Burstyn’s impassioned monologue about how it feels to be old, cinematographer Matthew Libatique accidentally let the camera drift off-target. When director Darren Aronofsky called “cut” and confronted him about it, he realized the reason Libatique had let the camera drift was because he had been crying during the take and fogged up the camera’s eyepiece. This was the take used in the final print.

Most movies contain 600 to 700 cuts. Requiem For a Dream contains over 2,000.

When Ellen Burstyn first read the script offered by Darren Aronofsky, she was horrified by it and rejected the role. It was not until after she watched a video of Pi (1998) Aronofsky’s previous film - that she changed her mind and accepted the role.

The Tappy Tibbons material was shot in one day, with Christopher McDonald improvising a good deal of his material. At the end, the SAG extras for the audience and the crew all gave him a standing ovation.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Dream
trailer: youtu.be/-YDk89e1miY

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM [2000]
Directed by Darren Aronofsky

[b]Sara Goldfarb [Mom]: Harold, please, not again the TV.
Harry: Ma! Come on, Ma! Why do you have to make a big deal outta this? You know you’ll get the set back in a couple of hours.

…

Tyrone [about the TV]: Shit, this muthafucka’s startin’ to look a little seedy, man.
Harry: What’s the matter, you particular all the sudden?
Tyrone: Hey, baby, I don’t care if the motherfucker’s growing hair just so long as we get our bread.

…

Mr Rabinowitz [to Harry]: Such a son. Your mother needs you like a moose needs a hat rack.

…

Marion [to Harry]: What’s the catch?

…

Sara [to Ada after examining her newly dyed hair]: Well then…what’s orange? If this is red, I wanna know, what’s orange?

…

Marion [after Harry tells her she’s beautiful]: That’s nice, Harry. Other people have told me that before, and it was meaningless. When you say it, I hear it. I really hear it.

…

Harry: Look, this is our chance to make it big. We play it right, we can get a pound of pure. But if we get wasted…we’ll fuck it up.
Tyrone: Right on. Hey, look, I ain’t trying to jive you, Jim. I don’t wanna be runnin’ the streets my whole life, my nose runnin’ down to my chin. All I’m sayin’ is take a little taste so we know how much to cut. It’s business.
Harry: Yeah, fair enough.

…

Sara [about her diet pills]: Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon, orange in the evening. There’s my three meals. And green at night. Just like that. One, two, three, four.

…

Harry: I’ve been thinking about getting something for Ma. Like a present or something. But I didn’t know what I was gonna get, until now.
Marion: And?
Harry: And I finally asked myself, right, what’s her fix? Television, right? If ever there’s a TV junkie, it’s the old lady.

…

Tappy Tibbons: Now we come to step three. This…drives…most…people…crazy.[/b]

Step 1: No red meat. Step 2: No refined sugar…

[b]Harry: Hey, Ma. You on uppers?
Sara: What?
Harry: You’re on uppers. You’re on diet pills, ain’t you?
Sara: I told you. I’m going to a specialist.
Harry: That’s what I thought! You’re on speed, ain’t ya?
Sara: Harry, I’m goin’ to a doctor.
Harry: Does he give you pills? What kind of pills?
Sara: A purple, a blue, an orange…
Harry: No, I mean, like what’s in 'em?
Sara: Oh, Harry, I’m Sara Goldfarb, not Albert Einstein. How should I know?
Harry: Does it make you feel good and give you pep?
Sara: Well…yeah, a little.
Harry: Ma, I can hear ya grinding your teeth from here!
Sara: That goes away at night.
Harry: At night?
Sara Yeah, when I take the green one. 30 minutes I’m asleep. Poof.
Harry: Ma, Ma, ya gotta cut that stuff loose. You wanna be a dope fiend?
Sara: Dope fiend? Am I foaming at the mouth? He’s a nice doctor.
Harry: I am telling you, he’s no good.
Sara: How come you know so much? How come you know more than a doctor?
Harry: Believe me, Ma, I know.

…

Sara: Did you see who had the best seat? I’m somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon…millions of people will see me on TV and they’ll all like me. I’ll tell them about you… and your father. How good he was to us. Remember? It’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It’s a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right.
[a big sigh]
Sara: What have I got, Harry? Hmm? Why should I even make the bed or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I’m alone. Your father’s gone, you’re gone. I got no one to…care for. What have I got, Harry? I’m lonely. I’m old.

…

Marion [to Harry]: Maybe we should dip in now.

…

Harry [to Marion]: What was I supposed to do, watch you push off and not go myself?

…

Tyrone: You got your good news, you got your bad news.
Harry: Shoot.
Tyrone: Good news is, there’s gonna be some prime on the street.
Harry: Really? Who told you that?
Tyrone: Angel. Sal the Geep sent word to let a couple of keys go for Christmas, him being a good Christian and all, not wantin’ bad feelin’ during the season.
Harry: You believe it?
Tyrone: Well, I did…till I heard the bad news

…

Harry: How much?
Tyrone: Two.
Harry: Two? That’s fuckin’ insane!
Tyrone: What you gonna do? Man ain’t gonna lay no nickel bag on ya.
Harry: Where we gonna get two?![/b]

Take a wild guess:

[b]Marion: Getting the money is not the problem, Harry.
Harry: What is the problem?
Marion: I don’t know what I’ll have to do to get it.

…

Harry [about the failed drug score]: Some dumbass junkie!
Marion: Did what? Some dumbass junkie did what? You mean, you fucked it up!
Harry: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Marion: You promised me that everything was gonna be ok remember? I fucked that sleaze bag for you, then I put myself through fucking hell for you!
Harry: Theres nothing out there!
Marion: I don’t give a shit! You fucking loser!

…

Tyrone [looking at Harry’s festering arm]: Oh, shit! God damn! How long you had that?
Harry: Just a few days.
Tyrone: That shit don’t look too good.
Harry: It don’t feel too good either, man. But a little stuff will take care of that.
Tyrone: Hey! Don’t shoot in there!
Harry: I’ll blow it if I don’t. Fuck it.

…

Hank [to Marion]: Oh, I know it’s pretty, baby, but I didn’t take it out for air.

…

Court Doctor [repeatedly]: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Prisoner: Yes, sir.
Court Doctor: OK for work.
Court Doctor [arriving at Tyrone’s place in the line]: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Tyrone [nods, whispering]: Yes, sir, yes, sir.
Prison Guard [hits Tyrone in the face]: Say “sir!” God damn New York dope fiend niggers. Learn some manners!
Court Doctor: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Tyrone [louder] Yes, sir.
Court Doctor: OK for work.
[moving to Harry]
Court Doctor: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Prison Guard: Says he’s got something wrong with his arm.
[the doctor grabs Harry’s arm and turns over the wound, causing him to scream in pain]
Court Doctor: I don’t think you’ll be puttin’ any more dope in that arm.
Prison Guard: Smells worse than he do.
Court Doctor: Better get him over to the hospital. I don’t expect him to live out the week.

…

Big Tim: Fellas, meet Marion.

…

Uncle Hank: Ass to ass.

…

Harry [waking up after his arm was amputated]: Marion? Marion?
Nurse: Don’t worry, you’re in a hospital.
Harry: Marion?
Nurse: Who’s that? She’ll be sent for, she’ll come.
Harry: No… she won’t.
Nurse: She’ll come.
Harry [crying]: No… she won’t come.[/b]

Sooner or later the “period pieces” always seem to get around to this: upstairs, downstairs.

Not so much here though. Here it is more upstairs but not upstairs anymore.

Now, people being people there will always be aspects of this where not much changes. They just engage in the same conflicts in different sets of circumstances. Being rich or almost being poor. Relatively speaking of course. On the other hand, back then there wasn’t nearly as much in the way of a “middle class”. Not in how we construe that in the “modern world”. For one thing, there was considerably less “mobility” afforded those who wished to climb the stairs. Often things were more, say, Platonic: gold folks, silver folks and bronze folks. And those who were for all intents and purposes wage slaves. But again nothing really about them here.

Sometimes though folks who once had access to money find themselves “by law” without it. Or with considerbly less of it. By way of, for example, a particular last will and testament. That alas was the fate of Elinor, Marianne and Margaret.

And, as Darien Taylor once pointed out: You’ll find that when you’ve had money and lost it, it can be much worse than never having had it at all!

And, no, Bud Fox’s protestation to the contrary, that is not necessarily “bullshit” at all. Fortunately for them not all the men back then were assholes.

And there is no way around it: folks who write these books and make these films are going to be viewing all of this through the lens of their own sense and their own sensibilities. They pass judgments. In other words, just as we do. It’s just that some insist there is a way in which to derive the most rational sense and sensibility of them all.

And that is before we get to the part about “love”. That and “gender”. To be or not to be a “romantic”. In particular regarding the relationship between love and money. Always more complicated than many profess to believe. Or pretend to believe.

IMDb

Emma Thompson has recounted how during the scene where Colonel Brandon, on horseback, approaches Elinor and Marianne in the out-of-doors, many takes were ruined by the horse surrendering to a bout of flatulence. Eventually, they were forced to shoot the scene with the farting horse as the flatulence would not abate, and the rather loud reports later were edited out of the soundtrack.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_ … lity_(film
trailer: youtu.be/Ns17RQr1yK8

SENSE AND SENSILBILITY [1995]
Directed by Ang Lee

[b]Mr. Dashwood: John you will find out soon enough from my will that the estate of Norland was left to me in such a way as prevents me from dividing it between my families.
John: Calm yourself, Father. This is not good for you.
Mr. Dashwood: Norland in its entirety is therefore yours by law and I am happy for you and Fanny. But your stepmother my wife and daughters are left with only five hundred pounds a year, barely enough to live on and nothing for the girls’ dowries. You must help them.

…

Fanny [to John]: People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them.

…

Elinor [sister]: Marianne, can you play something else? Mamma has been weeping since breakfast.
[Elinor exits; Marianne switches to a dirge]
Elinor [from the other room]: I meant something LESS mournful, dearest.

…

Margaret: Why are John and Fanny coming to live at Norland? They already have a house in London.
Elinor: Because houses go from father to son, dearest not from father to daughter. It is the law.

…

Fanny [to John]: My only concern is in how long it will take them to move out.

…

Marianne: Fanny wishes to know where the key to the silver cabinet is kept.
Elinor: Betsy has it, I think. What does Fanny want with the silver?
Marianne: One can only presume she wants to count it.

…

Fanny: They’re all exceedingly spoilt, I find. Miss Margaret spends all her time up trees and under furniture. I’ve barely had a civil word from Marianne.
Edward: My dear Fanny, they’ve just lost their father. Their lives will never be the same again.

…

Elinor: Margaret has always wanted to travel.
Edward: I know. She’s, eh, heading an expedition to China shortly. I am to go as her servant, but only on the understanding that I am to be very badly treated.
Elinor: What will your duties be?
Edward: Sword fighting, obviously, administering rum and swabbing.
Elinor: Which of those duties will take precedence?
Edward: Swabbing, I imagine.

…

Elinor: You talk of feeling idle and useless. Imagine how that is compounded when one has no hope and no choice of any occupation whatsoever.
Edward: Our circumstances are therefore precisely the same.
Elinor: Except that you will inherit your fortune. We cannot even earn ours.

…

Mrs. Dashwood: Why so grave? You disapprove her choice?
Marianne: By no means. Edward is very amiable.
Mrs. Dashwood: Amiable? But…?
Marianne: But there is something wanting. He’s too sedate. His reading last night…
Mrs. Dashwood: But Elinor has not your feelings. His reserve suits her.
Marianne: Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise.
Mrs. Dashwood: They made rather pathetic ends, dear.
Marianne: Pathetic? To die for love? How can you say so? What could be more glorious?
Mrs. Dashwood: I think that would be taking your romantic sensibilities a little far.

…

Elinor: I do not attempt to deny that I think very highly of him, that I… greatly esteem him… I like him.
Marianne: “Esteem him?” “Like him?” Use those insipid words again and I shall leave the room this instant!

…

Fanny: Love is all very well, but unfortunately we cannot always rely on the heart to lead us in the most suitable directions. You see, my dear Mrs Dashwood, Edward is entirely the kind of compassionate person upon whom penniless women can prey–and having entered into any kind of understanding, he would never go back on his word. He is quite simply incapable of doing so. But it would lead to his ruin. I worry for him so, Mrs Dashwood. My mother has always made it perfectly plain that she will withdraw all financial support from Edward, should he choose to plant his affections in less… exalted ground than he deserves.
Mrs. Daswood [acidly]: I understand you perfectly.

…

Marianne: Are we never to have a moment’s peace? The rent here may be low but I believe we have it on very hard terms.
Elinor: Mrs Jennings is a wealthy woman with a married daughter. She has nothing to do but marry off everyone else’s.

…

Elinor: Whatever his past actions, whatever his present course, at least you may be certain that he loved you.
Marianne: But not enough. Not enough.

…

Marianne: Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?
Elinor: What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I’ve had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you!

…

Elinor: Poor Willoughby. He will always regret you.
Marianne: But does it follow that, had he chosen me, he would have been content? He would have had a wife he loved, but no money, and might soon have learned to rank the demands of his pocketbook far above the demands of his heart. If his present regrets are half as painful as mine, he will suffer enough.
Elinor Dashwood: Do you compare your conduct with his?
Marianne: No, I compare it with what it ought to have been. I compare it with yours.

…

Elinor: Mama, there is a painful difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty.[/b]

The king is [sort of] insane. The beautiful queen is not. The handsome doctor is always around. Thus “a royal affair”. In some ways like all other affairs, in some ways not. But you might have guessed that.

Based on a true story. Though surely embellished. Aren’t they all? After all, what do most of us know about the actual historical fact. Events can be…enhanced.

But it is always intriguing to imagine what it must have been like to be ruled by a king who was going out of his mind. It’s not like you can just impeach him, remove him from office and then reelect his replacement. The man is thought to be ruling “divinely”. Or most of them were. So it gets tricky.

Basically you can think of the King here as we once thought of Dubya Bush. Being led by the nose [up to a point] by court officials [The Council] one might liken to Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. Just give him things to sign. Point him in the right direction.

And if you are the queen, you also have to deal with all that more…intimate stuff.

What’s just as crucial here though is the historical juncture in which the events unfold. Capitalism [and the Protestant Reformation] is about to unleash The Enlightenment across all of Europe. Change of truly epic proportion is now on the horizon.

Bottom line: that might still makes right. In other words, the way it has always been. Or the way it has always been if the [political and economic] stakes are high enough.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Royal_Affair
trailer: youtu.be/FGXNQu3fpP8

A ROYAL AFFAIR [En Kongelig Affære] 2012
Directed by Nikolaj Arcel

[b]Ttitle card: Europe at the close of the 18th century. The nobility rules by oppression, supported by strong religious forces. But the winds of change are blowing. Across the continent intellectuals and freethinkers demand reforms and freedom for the people. It is the age of the Enlightenment.

…

Caroline [voiceover]: I’m trying to remember him. Johann. I have to tell you about him. About us. Why we did the things we did.

…

Caroline [voiceover, writing a letter to her children]: My beloved children, you do not know me. But I am your mother. Perhaps you have never forgiven me. Perhaps you hate me. I hope not. I now know that I will never see you again. I am writing to tell you the truth, before it is too late…I was officially wed to your father, King Christian VII – before even meeting him. Even though I had never left England, I was now the Queen of Denmark. A new life and an entirely new language.

…

Christian [interrupting his new queen playing the piano]: Thank you, that is quite enough! What? What? That insufferable noise is giving me a headache! Clang, clang, clang! Come on. Move your fat little thighs and have a seat next to me. Go on![/b]

Bingo: The first time it dawns on her that new husband is…strange.

[b]Caroline [voiceover]: I wish I’d had the strength to forgive Christian’s behavior. But I was too young to understand how sick and tormented he was. All I could think about was that I had to spend the rest of my life with him. I began hating him for it.

…

Caroline [now pregnant]: In the eyes of the Court, I was soon blessed. You were on your way, Frederik. Having fulfilled my main obligation as queen I saw no reason to maintain the facade. I would pay dearly for that.

…

Count [to Johann]: You’re a bit of a mystery, Struensee. Your father is one of Germany’s most conservative priests - and yet you insist on publishing praises to the French freethinkers. If you hadn’t written them anonymously, you’d be in prison.

…

Johann: And what does a personal physician do? Blow the King’s nose or …?
Count: Lick his feet, wipe his ass. Who cares? It’s the King!

…

Court official: You may have heard that the King has…certain moods.
Johann: Only rumors. Do you have a theory?
Court official: He’s been difficult since childhood. But I think most of his problems stem from excessive masturbation.

…

Johann: The Court thinks you need a doctor. Do you have any idea why?
Christian: I like to drink. I like hookers with big breasts, and I like fighting.
Johann: What’s wrong with that?
Christian: I am King!
Johann: What if you weren’t King. What would make you happy?

…

Christian: “To sleep, perchance to dream.”
Johann: “Often expectation fails and most often there, where most it promises.”
Christian: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Johann: “They have their exits and their entrances - and one man in his time plays many parts.”
Christian: “What a piece of work is a man.”
Johann: “There’s something rotten in the…”
Christian: No, I don’t like that one. Pick another. Come! A horse…
Johann: “My kingdom for a horse.”
Christian: “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”[/b]

Johann got the job. Less perhaps as the King’s physician than as his buddy.

[b]Christian: Why does Copenhagen reek of shit? Shit, shit, shit I have the smell of shit in my nose, shit on my shoes. I am the King of Shit Town!!

…

Christian: The world is full of princesses, and I got stuck with the grumpy one. When she’s not playing Queen, she’s in her room sleeping.
Johann: Perhaps she’s ill.
Christian: Of course! She must be ill. No one can be that boring. Attend to her, Struensee…Make her fun. I want a fun queen!

…

Caroline [to Johann, examining one of his “hidden” books]: Rousseau. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.” May I borrow this?

…

Johann: Do You ride, Your Majesty?
Caroline: Not if I can help it. It feels so clumsy.
Johann: That is because you use side-saddle.

…

Caroline: Locke and Voltaire are excellent. But some of the Enlightenment’s ideas are a bit extreme, don’t you think? Rousseau’s notion of abandoning civilization and living in trees.
Johann: He knows it’s not actually possible.
Caroline: But still.
Johann: I agree that some of society’s norms prevent people from living their lives.
Caroline: How so?
Johann: Religion. Marriage. Anything that takes away from personal freedom.
Caroline: Then don’t have children, Struensee.

…

Caroline [after finding a peasant tied to a “wooden horse”, tortured to death]: Is he dead?
Johann: Yes. He was punished by his master.
Caroline: Why was this done to him?
Johann: Why? I don’t know. Perhaps he stole something or was in the wrong place. But someone thought he should be tortured to death for it. There’s nothing we can do. The Court owns estates in this area. These peasants probably belong to someone we know.

…

Caroline: Do you think we’ll ever be free? The people, I mean. Mankind. Will your treasured Enlightenment free us from stupidity and fear of divine punishment?
Johann: I think so Yes. Frederik’s generation will be the standard bearer for a new dawn.
Caroline: So we should lie on our deathbeds and rejoice - as the new dawn passes us by? You will never see your brilliant ideas carried out.
Johann: At Court I have the authority of a mere maid.

…

Johann: Your majesty.
Caroline: You recognized me.
Johann: I would recognize you blindfolded.
Caroline: But your costume is not very imaginative.
Johann: I’m afraid I’m not very good at the masquerade.
Caroline: I believe this is the one night when everyone can be themselves.
[pause]
Caroline: But you never remove your mask. Do you?

…

Christian [to the Concil]: I am king! Bernstorff you are relieved of your duties. And I declare…I declare the entire Council dissolved! On my order government of the country’s affairs is taken over - by a cabinet consisting of me and Johann Friedrich Struensee. Goodbye piss-ants.

…

DECREE: DISSOLUTION OF THE STATE COUNCIL
Caroline [voiceover]: It was almost too good to be true. To see our thoughts and ideas become reality.
DECREE: GENERAL INOCULATION…ABOLITION OF
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT…ACCESS TO UNIVERSITY FOR ALL CITIZENS In the
Caroline [voiceover] The following months hundreds of laws were passed.
DECREE: GENERAL LICENSE TO PUBLISH
Caroline [voiceover]: Everything was possible.
DECREE: HOME FOR ORPHANED CHILDREN
Caroline [voiceiver]: Denmark had become a pioneering country admired across Europe.
DECREE: ABOLITION OF CENSORSHIP
Caroline [voiceover]: The Enlightenment had finally arrived.

…

Rantzau: What is that?
Johann: A letter for Christian from Voltaire.
Caroline: Voltaire himself.

…

Johann: Christian, you haven’t visited the Queen’s chambers in over a year. The people think you’re neglecting your marital obligations.
Christian: No. No, she doesn’t want to.
Johann: On the contrary. She told me she wants it to happen.
Christian: Well, I can’t get an erection with her.
Johann: Just think of it as more acting.[/b]

Which is to say that Caroline is now pregnant – with Johann’s child.

[b]Christian: I can’t do it.
Johann: It’ll be fine.
Christian: I can’t. No, no! I can’t.
Johann: Don’t be afraid. They just want to see you.
Christina: I can’t do it. They will kill me. Yes! They will kill me. They will kill me!
Johann: No one is going to kill you. Come on.
Christian: No! No! You are the King now. You deal with it.

…

Hartmann: Your Majesty sent for me.
Caroline: Any news?
Hartmann: Johann has confessed to the affair. They tortured him for days until he finally gave in. I advise you to confess too.

…

Johann: What do you want, priest?
Muntner: The King wants to pardon you and Brandt on the day of execution. It seems you’re saved. But the Cabinet wants something in return. A written statement saying you were mistaken in all your deeds. And that you sincerely ask for God’s forgiveness. A statement the Cabinet will later publish.
Johann: I’ve thought a lot about God these past few days.
Muntner: That doesn’t surprise me, son.

…

Johann [to the mob… the “people” he had once championed…just before he is guillotined]: I am one of you! I am one of you! I am one of you! I am one of you!

…

Head of the Council: Your Majesty, we’re in safe hands with the Crown Prince. Go play with your negro.

…

Caroline [voiceover reading from a letter to her children]: As I am sure you know, Denmark has regressed to the Middle Ages – since Johann died. While the rest of Europe blossoms, your country has become a dark place controlled by faith and suspicion.

…

Title card: With his father’s help Frederik staged a coup d’tat - and seized power at the age of 16. Guldberg, Juliane Marie and their Cabinet were banished from Court. In the course of Frederik’s almost 55 year reign almost all of Struensee’s laws were reinstated. Frederik went even further than Johann when he abolished serfdom and liberated the peasants.[/b]

Art…Politics…Power: In other words, but one more possible narrative.

One that is fascinating. One that is infuriating. One that is somewhere inbetween. Thus the reactions of folks to other folks who try to “take us back” in time in order to imagine historical figures like Adolph Hitler. What made them what they were? What might have made them something different?

What if? If only…What if?..If only…What if? If only…

For example, what if Hitler’s art career had “taken off”. If only it had.

Any film like this becomes contoversial. And that is because it will seem to “humanize” a man that most folks are more content to simply imagine as a monster. If fleshes him out far more than seems necessary for the man behind the Holocaust.

In other words, it embodies him [in the flesh] as dasein. Just like you and me. And in approaching our identity in this manner it makes identity itself seem so much more ambiguous and problematic than most want it to be. Easier to just imagine that we are all in possession of a “true self” and that this true self either is or is not evil. But that gets tricky because if we are evil, where does that leave room for “becoming good”? If we become good then we seem to contradict our true nature.

Most of us just want good and evil to be one or the other. And if there is a “real me”, may it certainly not be evil.

Roger Ebert wrote a particularly interesting review ot the movie: rogerebert.com/reviews/max-2003

But [like the film itself] how close to or how far away from reality is it? Well, how close or how far do you need it to be? This will almost surely always be a political question.

IMDb

[b]To help get this controversial movie financed, producer/star John Cusack took no salary for acting in the lead role.

Writer/director Menno Meyjes reports that before the script was written, Steven Spielberg’s Amblin company was interested in the project. But Spielberg told Meyjes he couldn’t bring himself to help make a movie he thought would dishonor Holocaust survivors. Nevertheless, he considered the script an excellent one and encouraged the director to push for its realization, but without Amblin.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_(film
trailer: youtu.be/3Jrs7qk503Y

MAX [2002]
Written and directed by Menno Meyjes

[b][George Grosz drunkenly stumbles in, looks around at the paintings on display, and begins to vomit]
Max: George, so glad you like it.

…

Liselore: Where’s your wife?
Max: Waiting for her entrance, I suppose.
Liselore: And where does that leave me?
Max: Talented, with options.

…

Liselore: Tell me, Max, where’s the future in it?
Max: The future? No…l’ve seen the future. Believe me, it came straight at us. There is no future in the future.

…

Max: I sell art. Is that a portfolio?
Hitler: Yeah.
Max: Fork it over, Corporal, let’s take a look.
Hitler: What’s your market then?
Max: Mostly modern stuff.
Hitler: Oh, modern. Like uh…next time I have diarrhea. I’ll take a shit on a canvas and bring it round to you, huh?
Max: You could do worse. I certainly wouldn’t reject it out of hand.

…

Hitler: I don’t believe in anti-Semitism. Not in emotive anti-Semitism anyway.
Captain: What the hell does that mean?
Hitler: It means I don’t believe that anti-Semitism should be based on emotions–which just leads to pogrom and anarchy–but rather on the facts.
Captain: I’m not sure I quite understand your point, Corporal.
Hitler: My point is, Captain, that the Semitic question is far too important to be left to the individual. It ought to be in the domain of the government, like public health or sewage.

…

Hitler: Don’t expect anything abstract. I’m a great believer in Schopenhauer’s dictum that art should proclaim, “Yes by God, this is how it really is.”
Max: But life can be quite abstract at times, wouldn’t you agree?
Hitler: How do you mean?
Max: Sometimes “life,” as you say, won’t be captured by the forms and lines of traditional representation, - especially not these days.
Hitler: I disagree completely. Art should only ever reflect the eternal values and the natural laws, especially these days.
Max: But aren’t these eternal values and natural laws in flux these days? Aren’t they meant to be shrinking and expanding?
Hitler: What are you, some kind of intellectual wet fart? The eternal values are: harmonious proportions; nobility and dignity; and the continuation of the cultural evolution, where each generation stands upon the shoulders of the next and improves the work of the last.
[he looks at the art in Max’s studio]
Hitler: But this is 10… no, 100 steps backwards. This is the undoing of the previous generations. This is filth! [/b]

Hitler: Now there was an objectivist!

[b]Max [talking about Hitler’s art]: I keep going back to this notion of “authentic voice”. What I mean to say is, I was there, and you were there, and I know what it looked like… but what did it feel like? That’s what we want to know, isn’t it?

…

Max: Hitler, come on. I’ll buy you a glass of lemonade.

…

Max: So you’re an anti-Semite.
Hitler: On the contrary, I admire the Jews.
Max: Really?
Hitler: Yes, they’re very intelligent people.
Max: Well, there are intelligent ones and not so intelligent ones…
Hitler: No, no, no, they’re all intelligent because they guard the purity of their blood.
Max: The what?
Hitler: The purity of the blood. Because the secret of the Jews lies in their pure Jewish blood. That’s why they’re the mightiest counterpart to the Aryan race.
Max: What’s the secret?
Hitler: Is your father Jewish?
Max: Yes, he is.
Hitler: Mother?
Max: Why not ask whether she’s a German? Isn’t that a far more relevant question?
Hitler: Mensch! Of course your mom’s Jewish.
Max: You’re an awfully hard man to like, Hitler, but I’m gonna try, because if I’ve learned anything over the past four years, it’s that we all shit the same, scream the same, and die the same.
Hitler: There’s no need for vulgarity, Rothman.
Max: I know where you’ve been and God knows we’ve all been turned into assholes there. Now listen to me well: you may not think you’re an anti-Semite, but in fact you are.
Hitler: I’m not.
Max: But in this, as in all things, there’s a reason. Your own hero Nietzsche said anti-Semitism is the ideology of those who feel cheated.
Hitler: How do you know Nietzsche’s my hero?
Max: Because you’ve obviously skimmed his ideas.
Hitler: Well, I don’t feel cheated.
Max: Excellent. Then stop acting like it.
Hitler: Are you gonna smoke another cigarette? You just put one out.
Max: Exactly. But now where is my instinct, my secret instinct for self-preservation, I ask you? I’ve heard these theories all my life: blood science, eugenics; it’s rubbish. It’s complete nonsense. It’s kitsch. Put it out of your mind. It’s not modern. It’s not scientific. It will hold you back as an artist.

…

Max [to Hitler]: Try not to be one of those people who finds a slight in any compliment.

…

Hitler: Listen Rothman, I’ve lost FOUR YEARS!
Max: Yes, we’ve all lost four years. Some of us a little more. Do you want a show?
Hitler: I’d kill for you if you gave me a show!
Max: Don’t kill for me, please. Just do what you do. Be anxious, be nervous, tell me you’re the unknown soldier come back to haunt us - with your brush, Hitler! With your brush - can you do that? 'Cause that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to take all this pent-up stuff you’re quivering with, and you’ve got to hurl it onto the canvas. It doesn’t have to be good and it doesn’t have to be beautiful, it just has to be true.
[pause]
Max: And even if it’s a lie, make it an interesting lie, and I’ll put it up. I swear.
Hitler: You do think I’m talented, don’t you?
Max: I think there’s definitely something rustling behind your curtain, yes.[/b]

So, is this how it might have been?

[b]Grosz: What’s his name?
Max: Hitler.
Grosz: Never heard of him.
Max: You will.

…

Max [regarding patriotic propaganda]: I used to think we rode into the war on horseback. But now I realize that in fact, we rode into the war on words. Yes, my friend, words. If the high command had used nails to hammer our feet to the mud, I think we would have found a pair of pliers, passed them down the line, and made a break for it. But the words… the words kept us rooted to the ground.

…

Max: That was a miscalculation of rare magnitude, wouldn’t you say?
Grosz: You’re the dealer. They want you to sell their paintings and make ‘em rich, not scare the fuckin’ shit out of 'em.

…

Hitler: As German as you or I, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Finagling himself, throwing his money around. Finding himself a German whore and of course all the while staying married in the faith. Always working on the inside from the outside. Why, the patient looks perfectly healthy. But then you look at the turd, but really look at it, and then you see the worms crawling around.
Captain Mayr: There weren’t any of the men there, were there?
Hitler: No, no. Only artists and the usual degenerates.
Captain Mayr: I’m sure they adored it.
Hitler:: Nom they hated it. They hated it! They stood there like stiffs. lt went over their head. This Rothman made the whole war look small and pointless, ridiculous, absurd.
Captain Mayr: Don’t despair, Junge. You’ve got your own talent, you have to let it out. Let it out.

…

Hildegard: Just remember, Max, Florence Nightingale died of syphilis.
Max: And that means what?
Hildegard [of Hitler]: Don’t get too close to your charity cases.

…

Max: David, what is it that your brother calls the art business again?
David: Baked air.
Max: Baked air. That is so…great.

…

Hitler: I realized something that all you hoity-toity types missed drinking your coffee, smoking your cigarettes with your mistresses. The way to reinvent art is not to make it political–far too small a step. No, Rothman, you could say you and I were ploughing the same furrows for a while, but then I made the bigger leap. Politics is the new art. Yes, Rothman, my whole life has been a detour to this moment. Everything l’ve struggled to learn about art, about design, color, composition, theater, opera, architecture–I’m gonna stuff it all into this and make it live again.
Max: I’ve always thought you to be an intuitive futurist.
Hitler: You’re so disappointing. Am I only acceptable to you if you can classify me? Isn’t that emblematic of the world we both despise? What’s happened to you? You’re suddenly so conventional. Go deeper, you said. Well, I went deep. I went deeper than any artist has ever gone before!
Max: Where is the work, my dear? Where is the evidence of this journey into the abyss?
Hitler: I am the new avant garde! I am the new artist practicing the new art! And politics is the new art! [/b]

Welcome to Greenleaf, Ind. “A great BIG small town”.

So, you’re a gay man. There in Greenleaf. And you’re about to be married to someone who is not. Not gay. And certainly not a man. Or you were until a former student just won an Academy Award and tells millions of folks tuned into the ceremony that in fact you are gay.

Hmm. Is that news to you? It seems to be. So you set about assuring everyone in town that nothing could possibly be further from the truth. Of course you are not gay. You’re about to get married for Christ sakes!

It’s a comedy in other words. Only we know the parts about being gay in America that are not. Funny for instance. So we know this is just a fairytale. Try to even imagine the scene at the high school graduation, for example. Not in a million fucking years. In small town America?

And not only that but if you are a girl and you’re fat, well, that’s okay too! On the other hand, to the best of my recollection, there is not a single solitary person of color to be found here. Oh, well. But maybe there are now.

And this was back in the 1990s. Get strides had already been made in advancing the gay rights movement; but we were still no where near to where we are now. So this film could be said to have contributed to that forward momentum.

Anyway, try to recollect every single possible stereotype there has ever been about gay men. It’s in here.

Oh, and try to imagine any film in which Tom Selleck [a political conservative] kisses another man on the mouth! And not just a peck either. It goes on and on and on.

Look for Claire Fisher.

IMDb

[b]The Oscar statuette used in the film is Kevin Kline’s. He won it in 1988 for Best Supporting Actor in A Fish Called Wanda

Matt Dillon’s outing of his teacher in his acceptance speech is based upon Tom Hanks’ real-life acceptance speech at The 66th Annual Academy Awards (1994) for his Oscar for Philadelphia (1993), in which he thanked a gay teacher.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_%26_Out
trailer: youtu.be/3tiTWGVwHp8

IN AND OUT [1997]
Directed by Frank Oz

[b]Peter [on the red carpet]: Everyone’s saying that you won’t be going home empty-handed. How do you feel about that?
Cameron: Basically to me, awards are meaningless. I’m an artist. It’s about the work. All the nominees are artists. We shouldn’t be forced to compete like dogs.
Peter: I hear you. Good point. Then why are you here?
Cameron: In case I win!

…

Glenn Close: And now our final nominee for Best Actor… Cameron Drake. Cameron rocketed to stardom with courage and charisma…tackling the role of a brave gay soldier in the breakthrough film “To Serve and Protect.”

…

[A clip from the film]
Danny: I love you, Billy.
Cameron: Wait! Do you love me as a friend or in another way?
Danny: Another way, Billy!
Cameron: You mean, as a brother?
Danny: No, another way.
Cameron: You mean, as a cousin?
Danny: No! Another way.
Cameron [frowns]: You mean, as a penpal?

…

[clip from the film]
Attorney [at court martial]: Lieutenant Stevens…you’ve been awarded two purple hearts and a Congressional Medal of Honor. You saved the lives of your entire unit. However, your sergeant came across the following items in your footlocker. Will you kindly tell the court if they are yours? A letter to another soldier?
Cameron: Yes, sir!
Attorney: A photograph signed, “Danny, San Francisco”?
Cameron: Yes, sir!
Attorney: Finally, an autographed copy of “Beaches” starring Bette Midler?
Cameron: Give that back!

…

Glenn Close: This is Cameron’s first nomination and he’s in extremely good company. Tonight he joins fellow best actor nominee Paul Newman for “Coot”, Clint Eastwood for “Codger”, Michael Douglas for “Primary Urges”. And Steven Seagal for “Snowball in Hell”.
[she opens the envelope]
Glenn Close: And the winner is… Cameron Drake, “To Serve and Protect.”

…

Cameron [accepting the Oscar]: This award really belongs to all the gay soldiers and sailors…and other guys and women who defend this country to keep us free…but can’t date. And maybe I should thank someone else. Someone who’s really been there, someone who taught me alot, about poetry and Shakespeare, and just, y’know, about stayin’ awake, man. Someone who’s just an overall great guy, a great teacher…to Howard Brackett from Greenleaf, Indiana! And he’s gay. Y’know, I’ve been thinking alot about this night, and I’ve decided to dedicate this whole night to a great, gay teacher. Mr. Brackett, WE WON!

…

Howard [answering the door]: Mom? Dad?
Dad: Is there something you want to tell us?
Mom: Something about the wedding?
Howard: I am not gay!

…

Mom: Howard, we want you to know: you’re our son, and we’ll always love you, gay, straight, red, green, if you rob a bank, if you kill someone.
Dad: If you get drunk, climb a clock tower, and take out the town.
Mom: As long as you get married. I need that wedding. I need some beauty, music, and place cards before I die. It’s like heroin.

…

Reporter: Mr Brackett, do you know Ellen?!

…

Reporter: Mr Brackett, should gays be allowed to handle fresh produce?!

…

Peter: A teacher in trouble. A town under siege. A journey to the heartland. Peter Malloy. Stay tuned.

…

Trina [in the teacher’s lounge]: We are talking about Howard.
Carl: Why are we talking about Howard?
Ava: Because he likes dick, Carl.
Carl: Dick who?

…

Jack [student]: There’s only two times when that kind of thing’s okay: In prison where it’s a substitute and guys in space.
Mike: Guys in space?
Jack: Well, not on purpose. It just happens because they’re weightless and they float into each other when they’re asleep.

…

Howard [at his bachelor’s party]: I don’t know how this started…but this is my goddamn bachelor party…and I am not going to goddamn watch Barbara Streisand in “Funny Girl”!

…

Jay Leno [doing the monologue]: I guess you heard…Michael Jackson getting married. And this time he’s made the perfect choice… Howard Brackett. Yes, Howard Brackett.

…

Tom [principal]: Howard, we do have graduation coming up Monday… and you kind of put us right… right in the spotlight. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t tell you… that I’ve gotten some calls from parents wondering if, in fact, you were a ho… ho… ho… ho…
Howard: Home room teacher?
Tom: Ho-hom-homosexual.
Howard: Tom, do I look like a homosexual?
Tom: Would you walk for me?

…

Howard: Why am I talking to you? You couldn’t possibly understand what this is like!
Peter: Howard, I’m gay.

…

Peter: One day I just snapped. I said: “Mom, dad, Sparky, I’m gay.”
Howard: So what happened?
Peter: My mom cried, for exactly 10 seconds, my boss said: “Who cares?”, and my dad said: “But you’re so tall…!”.

…

Peter: What was Barbra Streisand’s eighth album?
Howard: Color Me Barbra.
Peter: Stud!
Howard: Everybody knows that!
Peter: Everybody where? The little gay bar on the prairie?

…

Howard: Mom! Dad!
Mom: Hi. Look, it’s the cake.
Dad: Everything OK there?
Howard: Fine. This is my friend Peter…friend Peter. We ran into each other at the intersexual…the homosection…the intersection.

…

Voice on “Exploring Your Masculinity” cassette tape: “Real men don’t dance. Think about John Wayne, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold doesn’t dance, he can barely walk!”

…

Minister: Let us remember…a marriage is truly a blessed event. It must be a union based on deepest love, total kinship, and absolute honesty. Let us begin. Do you, Emily, take this man… to be your lawfully wedded husband… to have and to hold till death do you part?
Emily: I do.
Minister: And do you, Howard, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold till death do you part?
Howard [looking into Emily’s eyes]: I’m gay.
Minister: Pardon?

…

Emily (standing there in her wedding dress): Are you…Are you really gay?
Howard: Hmm Hmm.
Emily: Was there, oh, ANY OTHER TIME YOU MIGHT OF TOLD ME THIS? I’M WEARING A WEDDING DRESS WHICH YOU PICKED OUT!

…

Emily [to the wedding congregation]: Does anybody here know how many times I’ve had to watch “Funny Lady”?
Howard: It was a sequel. She was under contract.
Emily: FUCK BARBARA STREISAND!!

…

Howard [to Peter]: I just came out! At my own wedding!

…

Mike: Guys, we had a gay teacher all year. We have to face that…and move on with our lives.

…

Emily: I need a heterosexual male, CODE RED!

…

Emily: I’ve seen all your movies.
Cameron: Both of them?[/b]