philosophy in film

If you have ever loved a dog more than you have ever loved any other living thing [and who hasn’t] this is the film you’ve been waiting for. Well, along with all the other ones of course. And [for some of us] going all the way back to Lassie Come Home no doubt.

Yet even among dogs there are those who insist on invoking class. In other words, the dog that you love either has a pedigree or it does not. And, if you are unfortunate enough to love one of “mixed breed”, you may well end up losing it. Which Lili does.

And what recourse do the “mutts” have but to organize against their human oppressors. Mongrels of the world unite!

So there is certainly a lesson to be learned here by, say, our own species? After all, plenty of us are just basically mongrels to the purebreds, right?

This is a world where some men treat dogs worse than they treat people. They put them into small cages and they train them to fight. And part of the training is to beat the dogs viciously in order to make them vicious in turn. You won’t fucking believe the things these brutes do to these animals. And it’s all about the money of course.

So the film is often about this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_fighting

Also, a classic snapshot of the tension that always arises when “we” and “I” are not in sync. How much then should “society” bend and how much the individual?

Lili: Will you take me back?
Teacher: If you behave.

And dogs of course being the least of it.

Look for the part where it transitions into Planet of the Apes. The part that comes straight out of The Twilight Zone. Would that it could be that way some will think. And not just for dogs of course.

It’s all basically just a fairytale, make-believe, la la land. But at least for a couple of hours you can triumph vicariously against the “powers that be”.

Not exactly sure though why it is called White God. Anyone know?

IMDb

[b]274 dogs were used in the making of this movie which is the world record for the most dogs used in a feature film. By the end of the film, because the dogs were all over the streets with individual trainers all the time during filming, they all found homes.

Hagen is portrayed by twin dogs Luke and Body. They were found in a caravan park in Arizona just as their owner was about to take them to an animal shelter.

The sound for the dog fight scene was recorded by human voice actors in Sweden.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_God
trailer: youtu.be/kIGz2kyo26U

WHITE GOD [Fehér Isten] 2014
Written in part and directed by Kornél Mundruczó

[b]Title card: All of the untrained dogs used in this film were rescued from the streets or shelters and placed in homes with help from an adoption program.

Woman: What’s that mutt doing here? You want to keep it here?
Father: For a while.
Woman: It can’t stay here. They posted the ruling. Mutts must be reported. They’re making a list now.

Government official [at the door]: We’ve received a report. Canine control. About the dog. Someone reported being bitten by your dog.
Father: I don’t own a dog.
Government official [looking down at Hagen]: What’s that then?
Father: It’s an elephant, can’t you see?
Government official: Sir, this is a mixed breed street dog. It’s not a Hungarian breed. You have to pay a tax.

Trixi: And your bastard?
Lili: It’s a mongrel!

Lili: I don’t want him taken to the shelter!
Father: You don’t have a choice, kid.
Lili: Let’s find a good home for him.
Father: Nobody wants a stinking mutt. That’s what shelters are for.
Lili: But I don’t want to take him there! I can’t believe you won’t pay so they don’t kill him.
Father [shouting]: You want me to throw it out of the car right now? Put it on the street here? Is that what you want?
Lili: I’d rather. [/b]

So, he does.

[b]Homeless man [to Hagen after hiding him from the dog catchers]: You’ll work for me. We’re both hungry dogs, fuck yeah.

Teacher: So, what is Tannauser about? Lili?
Lili: Who cares?
Teacher: Parden me?
Lili: Do you want to teach us to tell lies or play the trumpet? Tannhauser is about love, but you wouldn’t understand, because you are heartless.

Pound woman: Don’t lie to me.
Lili: I’m not. My dad threw him out.
Pound woman: And you helped, right? What kind of dog? Is it a Labrador or Shar Pei?
Lili: No, mixed breed.
Pound woman: Oh, of course, not purebred. Well, you threw him out in the garbage obviously. When did he disappear?
Lili: Weeks ago.
Pound woman: Then you’ve got no dog. If it’s out for weeks there’s no hope. Either it’s lost or got hit by a car or ended up in the Danube.
Lili: Or you put him down!
Pound woman: No, people spread lies. We don’t put them down here.
Lili: You kill them!!

Pound Woman [putting a needle in a dog]: That didn’t hurt. See? That’s all it is. You won’t have any enemies where you’re going. No one will hurt you anymore. It’s no lie. I mean it.

Daniel [Lili’s father to slaughterhouse employee]: Wake up. I must get into the slaughter hall. My card is not working. They’ve gone wild.
Employee: Who?
Daniel: The dogs! The dogs are here!!

Lili [as Hagen growls viciously at her]: Hagen, it’s me. It’s me, Hagen![/b]

What’s the difference between dealing with a senior citizen just diagnosed with cancer and dealing with a young girl in high school just diagnosed with cancer? In some respects, of course, all the difference in the world.

There’s just something about acquiring a serious disease while you still have pimples that makes for the larger tragedy. What exactly is it appropriate or not appropriate to say and do around them when a “kid” contracts an affliction of this sort.

In this case, leukemia.

My favorite film dealing with this painful subject is still this one: youtu.be/FQ3mc5z7NX8

But “Me and Earl”, while, at times considerably more “balanced” than Keith, does a reasonably good job in straddling the fence between humor and horror. The fact is that one of the things that makes life so unbearable for many are all of the thousands upon thousands of kids in “real life” who do become afflicted with these terrible maladies. And how helpless we can feel when we are around them.

Still, in some respects it is just one more grim snapshot of American Youth: the High School edition. Where by rote we are introduced to all the tropes and all the cliques. From the jocks to dorks. And then struggle along with the protagonist to somehow rise above it all.

And then there’s Earl. At times he seems to be there in order to explore issues of class and race. Sort of. Like way, way, way, way in the background as it were.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_and_Ea … Girl_(film
trailer: youtu.be/2qfmAllbYC8

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL [2015]
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

[b]Greg [voiceover]: I have no idea how to tell this story. I don’t even know how to start it. Like, I guess I could use one of those classic story beginning sentences. “It was the best of times: it was the worst of times.” But what would that even mean? I mean, obviously, somewhere in the world, it’s the best of times for someone…Meanwhile, some other guy is having his will broken by professional torturers who are suspending him over a crocodile-infested pool of acid. Worst of times: check.

Greg [voiceover]: All right, look. I’ll just start. This is the story of my senior year of high school and how it destroyed my life. And how I made a film so bad, it literally killed someone.

Mom: I just got off the phone with Denise Kushner, Rachel’s mom. You know Denise?
Greg: Um, not really.
Mom: You’re friends with Rachel, though.
Greg: Yeah, I mean, we’re like, acquainted.
Mom [holding out her hand]: Come here.
Greg [reluctantly]: Uh, okay.
Mom: Rachel’s been diagnosed with leukemia. They just found out. They’re doing all kinds of tests. They’re doing everything they can. They just don’t know.
Greg: Man, that sucks.
Mom: You’re right. It sucks.
Greg: It sucks really bad.
Dad: It sucks quite a bit.

Mom: Just give Rachel a call.
Greg: Yeah, well, what do you want me to say? “Hey, it’s Greg, the guy who’s never really paid any attention to you but now that you have cancer, let’s hang out”?
Dad: That’s not gonna work.

Rachel: Look, I don’t want you hanging out with me. I don’t need your stupid pity. It’s fine, you can just go.
Greg: No, no. You got it all wrong. I’m not here 'cause I pity you. I’m actually here because my Mom made me.
Rachel: That’s actually worse.

Greg: My dad is a tenured sociology professor. His job allows him to be frequently at home doing nothing.
Dad [pointing Earl and Greg to the TV screen]: You’ll want to pay close attention to this. The insane Conquistador, Aguirre, is raging through the jungle in search of a golden city that doesn’t exist. The wrath of God. It’s a classic of foreign cinema.

Greg [voiceover]: Obviously Earl and I come from pretty different backgrounds. But somehow, we like most of the same things. And we learned pretty early on that we were the only ones who liked, for example, classics of foreign cinema. Why did We like them? It’s hard to say. Maybe it’s that they were weird and often violent, like us. Or confusing and possibly meaningless, like life.

Earl: You gonna go see that girl again?
Greg: I mean, probably, yeah.
Earl: You gonna play with them titties?
Greg: No. It’s not like that.

Greg: Or another thing you can do is just flat-out pretend to be dead. Say something annoying to me.
Rachel: “Um…Hey, Rachel. I just want you to remember that your cancer is all part of God’s plan.”

Rachel: Yesterday you were saying you’d mapped out the entire high school by group. What’s my group?
Greg: Seriously?
Rachel: Yeah.
Greg: Boring Jewish Senior Girls, Subgroup 2-A. Please appreciate how honest I was just now.
Rachel: You’re an asshole.

Greg [voiceover]: So, we’re pretty far into this stupid story now and you’re probably saying to yourself, “Hey. I like this girl Rachel. And I’m gonna be pissed if she dies at the end.” So, I’m just telling you: don’t freak out. She survives. So, hopefully, that reassures you.

Greg [to Rachel, tongue in cheek as Werner Herzog]: Why I want to go to college. By Werner Herzog. “The highly selective admissions process weeds out the cruel and the stupid. So college is unlike the senseless chaos and sickening enormity of high school. High school is the mouth of a great demon biting and chewing and smashing people in the face. It is simply overwhelming.”

Greg [voiceover]: So again, if this was a touching, romantic story we’d obviously fall in love and she’d say all the wise, beautiful things that can only be learned in life’s twilight or whatever. And then she’d die in my arms. But again, that’s not what happened. She just got quieter. And unhappier.

Greg [after Rachel tells him she is going to stop her treatment]: So, that’s it? Just, to hell with college, to hell with growing up?
Rachel: Greg, don’t.
Greg: Rachel, what the hell is wrong with you? This is your life!
Rachel: Yeah, it is my life. It’s me who has to lie in bed all day, with a shaved head getting weaker and uglier, and more miserable, with no hope in sight. I’m the one who has to suffer through this, not you, so don’t yell at me.
Greg: I’m sorry, but I’m not gonna sit here and get comfortable watching you die. Okay? I’m not. I’m not gonna do that. So don’t ask me to.

Rachel: Get outta here, Greg. You’ve done your time. You don’t have to hang around with the sick girl anymore.
Greg: How can you even say that to me?
Rachel: Your mom forced you to hang out with me. Earl forced you to show me your movies. Madison forced you to make a movie about me. So, what part of this did you actually want to do?

Earl: Look, nobody gives a shit about you, Greg! All right? Nobody give a shit! And then the one girl who does actually care about you you wanna come over here and bitch and whine about some films, yo? Because somebody actually cares about you? Like, damn, I’m so tired of you treating this girl like she’s a burden. You know, her life is over after this! And you want to come over here bitchin’ and whinin’ about some irrelevant bullshit!

Earl [in a video message to Rachel]: Hey, Rachel. Uh…We tried a lot of different ways of making a film for you but they were all too goofy or irrelevant or just not what we wanted. So, now I’m gonna talk to you directly. Um… All right, I’m gonna be honest here. Okay? Sometimes, white girls are particularly stupid. I mean, everybody’s stupid, but white girls, you know…They think they better than everybody and self-centered and pretend they are not. But you aren’t like that, you know. Um… It’s just crazy how patient you’ve been. You know, I know if it was me that had cancer, uh…I’d be upset and angry and trying to beat everybody’s ass half the time. So I’m just, I’m just amazed at how patient you’ve been. You, you make me feel blessed.

Greg [voiceover]: That was the last time I saw Rachel. She went into a coma shortly after that, and died about 10 hours later. I know I told you she doesn’t die. And I’m sorry. Deep down somehow, I didn’t think she would. But she did.[/b]

You’re watching this film knowing that the man being interviewed will one day commit suicide. But the man interviewing him all those years ago doesn’t know that. And what prompted him to conduct the interview was based on the gap between his reaction to the critics reacting to the author and his book [Infinite Jest] before and after he had actually read it. In other words, he thought the reaction of the critics was hyperbolic to say the least. How could a book – any book – really be as good as the reviews that he was reading? Then he read it. And the book so astonished him he managed to convince the publishers of Rolling Stone magazine to let him interview the author.

David Lipsky is the interviewer. And he is a good writer – a published writer – himself. But he is also a writer who recognized the gap between himself and a great writer like Foster. So part of his reaction is awe and part is envy. Maybe even resentment. It’s that feeling anyone of us might have when we read something and know that, however much we want to be recognized as a great writer too, there is simply no way that we ever will. And we know this because someone writes a book like Infinite Jest and we recognize immediately that it can never be us.

[Also, having attempted suicide myself many years ago, I am always fascinated with those who actually do it. I’m looking for anything that might link us together – either in terms of circumstances or a state of mind. And I have always been partial to the idea that when the two come into sync you are much more likely to attempt it…and much more likely to succeed.]

It’s hard for folks like me who dreamed of becoming David Foster Wallace to imagine what frame of mind would prompt him to just flush it all down the toilet.

So maybe it somehow revolves around this:

David: …why are we - and by “we” I mean people like you and me: mostly white, upper middle class, obscenely well-educated, doing really interesting jobs, sitting in really expensive chairs, watching the best, most sophisticated electronic equipment money can buy - why do we feel empty and unhappy?

We also catch a glimpse or two of a man who could really be quite the asshole. Plenty of chinks in this armor. Or in what he calls his “regular guy-ness”. But it still always comes down to him being a very complicated man with an extraordinary mind. And thus folks like you and I will always ever only be scratching the surface in understanding him.

IMDb

[b]Although this is never made clear or followed up on in the movie, David Lipsky never published the article he was assigned to write on David Foster Wallace in Rolling Stone.

When Lipsky gives Wallace his book to read at the end of the film, Wallace is frustrated that Lipsky was allowed to choose his own cover art for a relatively unknown book. It is well known that David Foster Wallace had no say in the original cover art of “Infinite Jest” and hated what his publishers settled on. Aside from being a light hearted in-joke amongst fans of Wallace, this also provides irony to the story, providing a comedic payoff to Lipsky’s envy of Wallace’s success. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Tour
trailer: youtu.be/DBk1Mrb4RyM

THE END OF THE TOUR [2015]
Directed by James Ponsoldt

[b]Lipsky [on phone]: Hey, Bob, what’s up?
Bob: Listen, according to this unconfirmed report… David Wallace is dead.
Lipsky: What? No no no no, must be a college prank or something…
[Lipsky googles “david foster wallace"]
Bob: I thought if anyone might know if it was true…

Bob [off screen on the radio]: Now a remembrance of writer David Foster Wallace. He was found dead, an apparent suicide, on Friday night. Wallace’s novel, “Infinite Jest,” brought him fame and a wide audience. Writer David Lipsky has this appreciation.
Lipsky: To read David Foster Wallace was to feel your eyelids pulled open. Some writers specialize in the away-from-home experience. They’ve safaried, eaten across Italy, covered a war. Wallace offered his alive self cutting through our sleepy aquarium, our standard T.V., stores, political campaigns. Writers who can do this, like Salinger and Fitzgerald, forge an unbreakable bond with readers. You didn’t slip into the books looking for story, information, but for a particular experience. The sensation, for a certain number of pages, of being David Foster Wallace.

Lipsky [reading from the newspaper to Sarah]: "Next year’s book awards have been decided.” Can you believe this? “The plaques and citations can now be put into escrow.” Unbelievable. “With Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace - a plutonium-dense, satirical whiz-kid opus that runs to almost a thousand pages - not including footnotes - the competition has been obliterated. It’s as though Paul Bunyan had joined the NFL or Wittgenstein had gone on Jeopardy! The novel is that colossally disruptive. And that spectacularly good.” That’s the fucking opening paragraph!
Sarah: What if it actually is that good? You know? You may just have to read it.[/b]

Cut to him reading the book.

[b]Lipsky: How many times have we interviewed a writer in the last ten years? Guess.
Bob: Um… how many?
Lipsky: Zero. I checked.
Bob: Maybe that’s because Rolling Stone doesn’t interview writers.
Lipsky: There hasn’t been a writer like this one. Once in a generation, maybe. Hemingway, Pynchon. Let me have this story.
Bob: What story?

Lipsky: It’s a nice view.
David: Thank you. I can’t take credit for it.

David: I have this terrible problem, I just really hate to hurt people’s feelings. So I did something kinda cowardly.
Lipsky: Unlisting your number’s not cowardly.
David: It kinda is. I mean, I changed my number so these folks couldn’t find me anymore. There was this computer operator in Vancouver, lived in a basement. Who I found really moving. In terrible terrible pain.
Lipsky: What did he want from you?
David: Wasn’t clear, and when I would sort of ask him, he’d get angry, and that’s when it got scary.

Lipsky: What’s wrong?
David: It’s just, you’re gonna go back to New York and sit at your desk and shape this thing however you want. And that to me is extremely disturbing.
Lipsky: Why is it disturbing?
David: ‘Cause I would like to shape the impression of me that’s coming across. I can’t even tell if I like you yet ‘cause I’m too worried whether you like me.

David: I can’t stand to look like I’m actively trading on this sexually. Which of course I would be happy to do. In retrospect, it was lucky that I didn’t.
Lipsky: Why?
David: Basically, it just would have made me feel lonely.
Lipsky: Why lonely?
David: Because it wouldn’t have had anything to do with me, it would have just been…
Lipsky: Your fame?
David: Yeah.
Lipsky: You’re famous. You can say that. Except if they’re responding to your work, and the work is so personal then trading on it is actually another way of meeting you, isn’t that right?
David [impressed by Lipsky’s analysis]: That is so good.

David: The minute I start talking about this stuff, it sounds, number one: very vague. And, two: really reductive.
Lipsky: I don’t think you’re being reductive or vague at all.
David: Because it’s like, I don’t have a diagnosis, a system of prescriptions. You know? Like, why are we - and by “we” I mean people like you and me: mostly white, upper middle class, obscenely well-educated, doing really interesting jobs, sitting in really expensive chairs, watching the best, most sophisticated electronic equipment money can buy - why do we feel empty and unhappy?

David: I’m not saying TV is bad or a waste of your time. Any more than, you know, masturbation is bad or a waste of your time. It’s a pleasurable way to spend a few minutes. But if you’re doing it twenty times a day, if your primary sexual relationship is with your own hand, then there’s something wrong.
Lipsky: At least with masturbation, some action has been performed, though, right?
David: Yes, you’re performing muscular movements with your hand as you’re jerking off. But what you’re really doing, I think, is you’re running a movie in your head. You’re having a fantasy relationship with somebody who is not real… strictly to stimulate a neurological response. So as the Internet grows in the next 10, 15 years and virtual reality pornography becomes a reality, we’re gonna have to develop some real machinery inside our guts to turn off pure, unalloyed pleasure. Or, I don’t know about you, I’m gonna have to leave the planet. 'Cause the technology is just gonna get better and better. And it’s gonna get easier and easier and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable to sit alone with images on a screen given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. And that’s fine in low doses, but if it’s the basic main staple of your diet, you’re gonna die.
Lipsky: Well, come on.
David: In a meaningful way, you’re going to die.

Lipsky: Being a writer. It comes with the territory, though, doesn’t it? Self-consciousness?
David: Well, there’s good self-consciousness. And then there’s this toxic, paralyzing, raped-by-psychic-Bedouins selfconsciousness.

David: …There’s a Mitsubishi plant, and then there’s a lot of farm-support stuff, like Ro-Tech, Anderson Seeds…
Lipsky: What are you doing here? I mean, why aren’t you in New York?
David: Every time I go to New York, I get caught up in this - there’s this enormous hiss of egos at various stages of inflation and deflation. It’s me-me-me-me.

Lipsky: So, I gotta ask: What’s with the bandanna?
David: What? What do you mean?
Lipsky: People think it’s a way you’re trying to connect with the younger reading audience.
David: Is that what people think? I don’t know many Gen-Xers who wear ‘em. Jeez. I don’t know what to say. I guess I wish you hadn’t brought this up.
Lipsky: Why?
David: Because now I’m worrying that it’s going to seem intentional. Like if I don’t wear it, am I not wearing it because I’m bowing to other people’s perception that it’s a commercial choice? Or do I do what I want, even though it’s perceived as commercial - and it’s just like one more crazy circle to go around.

Lipsky: Did you think you were done then?
David: Yeah. I was pretty sure life was over.
Lipsky: This is after your suicide watch?
David [his whole demeanor changing]: How’d you know about that?

Lipsky: You were at McLeans, right? How long were you there?
David: Eight days, I think.
Lipsky: Why were you there?
David: Mostly ‘cause I was scared I would do something stupid. I had a friend from high school who tried to kill himself by sitting in a garage with the car runnin’. And what it turned out was, he didn’t die, but it really fucked up his brain. And I knew, that if anybody was fated to fuck up a suicide attempt, it was me.
Lipsky: So there you are still in your twenties somewhat in pain about your desire to become a sort of successful literary person…
David: I think probably the not very sophisticated diagnosis is that I was depressed. 'Cause by this time, my ego’s all invested in the writing. It’s the only thing that I’ve gotten, you know, food pellets from the universe for. So I felt really trapped: Like, “Uh-oh, my five years is up. I’ve gotta move on, but I don’t want to move on.” I was really stuck. And drinking was part of that. But it wasn’t that I was stuck because I drank. It was like, I really sort of felt like my life was over at twentyeight. And that felt really bad, and I didn’t wanna feel it. So I would do all kinds of things: I mean, I would drink real heavy, I would like fuck strangers. Oh, God – Or, then, for two weeks I wouldn’t drink, and I’d run ten miles every morning, in a desperate, like very American, “I will fix this somehow, by taking radical action” sort of thing.

Bob [on the phone]: Well, what does he have to say about the heroin rumors?
Lipsky: I haven’t gotten to that.
Bob: What are you waiting for? LIPSKY What am I supposed to say: “Is it true you were a heroin addict?”
Bob: Yes. That’s your story.
Lipsky: Okay. It’s hard.
Bob: Why? Because you like him?
Lipsky: Well…Yeah.
Bob: David. You’ve got to press him. Be a prick if you have to. You’re not his best buddy, you’re a reporter.

NPR host: My guest today is David Foster Wallace, who has burst on the literary scene with his 1,079-page, three-poundthree-ounce novel, Infinite Jest. Jay McInerney called it “something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola.” David Foster Wallace, welcome to our show.
David: Thank you, glad to be here.
NPR host: You have said that you saw yourself as - quote - “a combination of being incredibly shy, and being an egomaniac, too.”
David: I think I said “exhibitionist, also.”
NPR host: Meaning?
David: Well, I think being shy basically means being self-absorbed to the extent that it makes it difficult to be around other people.
NPR host: Difficult for you, or difficult for the other people?
David: I suppose a little of both

Lipsky: So, is that what you think Infinite Jest is about, loneliness?
David: I think if there is sort of a sadness for people under forty-five or something, it has to do with pleasure and achievement and entertainment. And a kind of emptiness at heart of what they thought was going on, that maybe I can hope that parts of the book will speak to their nerve endings a little bit.

David [regarding the literary critics praises]: It’s like, if you’re used to doing heavy-duty literary stuff that doesn’t sell well, being human animals with egos, we find a way to accommodate that fact by the following equation: If it sells really well and gets a lot of attention, it must be shit. Then, of course, the ultimate irony is: if your thing gets a lot of attention and sells really well, then the very mechanism you’ve used to shore yourself up when your stuff didn’t sell well is now part of the Darkness Nexus when it does, so you’re screwed. You can’t win.

Lipsky: You make a point of holding back - there’s something obvious about you holding back your intelligence, to be with people who are younger or maybe not as agile as you are…
David: That would make me a real asshole, wouldn’t it? I don’t think writers are any smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion. But I think one of the true ways that I have gotten smarter is, I’ve realized that I’m not much smarter than other people.
Lipsky: Yeah, right.
David: There are ways in which other people are a lot smarter than me. Like, I don’t know, it makes me feel kinda lonely…

David: And, you know what, this is a very clever tactic of yours. Get me a little pissed off, a little less guarded, I’m gonna reveal more. Yes, it’s true: I treasure my regular-guy-ness; I’ve started to think it’s my biggest asset as a writer, that I’m pretty much just like everybody else. You know what? I’m not doing any kind of faux thing with you; I’m not gonna say it again.
Lipsky: Okay, but the faux thing - what you just said - is an example of the faux thing. You don’t want to take the risk of giving the full you.
David: Look, I don’t know if you’re a very nice man or not. It’s very clear that you don’t believe a word I’ve said.
Lipsky: All your protesting… “I’m just a regular guy.” You don’t crack open a thousand-page book ‘cause you heard the author’s a regular guy. You read it because the author is brilliant. Because you want him to be brilliant. So who the fuck are you kidding?

Lipsky: Well, if you’re deriving your satisfaction from talking about your work, as opposed to writing, then, yeah, I guess you’d get a lot less done.
David: Exactly. And there’s nothing more grotesque than somebody who’s going around, “I’m a writer, I’m a writer, I’m a writer.” I don’t mind appearing in Rolling Stone, but I don’t want to appear in Rolling Stone as somebody who wants to be in Rolling Stone…To have written a book about how seductive image is, and how many ways there are to get seduced off any kind of meaningful path, because of the way the culture is now…? What if I become this parody of that very thing?

David: It may be what in the old days was called a spiritual crisis or whatever. It’s just the feeling as though the entire, every axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion. And that you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you couldn’t function.

David: Well, I think being shy basically means being self-absorbed to the extent that it makes it difficult to be around other people.

David: I was not, I never was a heroin addict.
Lipsky: Okay. The rumor I heard… was that in the late ‘80s, when you were at Harvard, you’d gotten involved with drugs and had some kind of breakdown…
David: I don’t know if I had a breakdown, I got really really depressed. I told you that. It had nothing to do with drugs. I mean, I’m somebody who spent most of his life in libraries. I never lived that kind of dangerous life. I would never stick a needle into my arm.

David: Part of my reticence about this whole drug thing is that it won’t make very good copy for you. Because, no, I was not like that at all! I’m also aware that some addictions are sexier than others. My primary addiction my entire life has been to television. I told you that. Now, television addiction is of far less interest to your readers than something like heroin, that confirms the mythos of the writer.
Lipsky: A myth I do not believe, okay?
David: I know you don’t believe that. I’m also aware that one of the things swirling around here is you want the best fucking article you can have! Why don’t you write whatever the fuck you want, but the fact of the matter is, it was not a Lost Weekend sort of thing. Nor was it some lurid, romantic writer-as-alcoholic-sort-of-thing. What it was, was a 28-year-old person who exhausted a couple other ways to live, really taken them to their conclusion. Which for me was a pink room, with a drain in the center of the floor. Which is where they put me for an entire day when they thought I was going to kill myself. Where you don’t have anything on, and somebody’s observing you through a slot in the wall. And when that happens to you, you become tremendously…unprecedentedly willing to examine some other alternatives for how to live.

David [later to Lipsky after mulling over what had just been exchanged]: I was just thinking… It wasn’t a chemical imbalance, and it wasn’t drugs and alcohol. It was much more that I had lived an incredibly American life. That, “If I could just achieve X and Y and Z, everything would be OK.
[pause]
David: There’s a thing in the book when people jump out of a burning skyscraper, it’s not that they’re not afraid of falling anymore, it’s that the alternative is so awful. And then you’re invited to consider what could be so awful, that leaping to your death seems like an escape from it. I don’t know if you’ve had any experience with this kind of thing. But it’s worse than any kind of physical injury. It may be what in the old days was known as a spiritual crisis. Feeling as though every axiom of your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing, and you were nothing, and it was all a delusion. And that you were better than everyone else because you saw that it was a delusion, and yet you were worse because you can’t fucking function. And it’s really horrible. I don’t think we ever change. I’m sure there are still those same parts of me. I’ve just got to find a way not to let them drive. Y’know? Well, anyway…Good night.[/b]

Isn’t this basically what I struggle with in my posts here?

[b]David: I’m not so sure you want to be me.
Lipsky: I don’t.

Lipsky [at a bookstore reading from the nook this film is based on]: I see David and me in the front seat of the car. We are both so young. He wants something better than he has; I want precisely what he has already. Neither of us knows where our lives are going to go. It smells like chewing tobacco, soda, and smoke. And the conversation is the best one I ever had. [/b]

The philosophy of many of these movies are incomplete henids, like they were written by hipsters who didn’t know any better. Incomplete philosophies with no inherent goal other than self-reference. And it sucks you in with the loud mouths, ego centric dialogue and sheer intensity of the bone headed characters. Read those scripts long enough, and you too, will become a victim of dasein, a helpless sperm swimming in the ocean of life, who didn’t know any better.

Long before you came on the scene I let it be known that the films on this threads [like the songs on my music thread] basically just reflect what I like. So, sure, skip the part about philosophy.

Still, you just couldn’t resist taking a dump here, could you? :wink:

This thread is basically a dump, where you dump scripts of movies that don’t belong to you, yet you post them here, like a slave, for our reading pleasure. What’s it to you if I criticism them? Are these movies so entangled in your consciousness that it bothers you?

Well, that settles it then, okay?
Thanks.

Way back in 1993 when Jurrassic Park first exploded on the scene the very first question that many asked was [of course] this: Is it possible?

This part: science.howstuffworks.com/life/g … c-park.htm

And, for many, ever since, they wonder if, one day, they will turn on the news and, sure enough, there it is: a report that sceintists somewhere have either accomplished this extraordinary feat or have made such progress that maybe – maybe – in their lifetime it will become a reality.

Nothing yet though. So, for now, we will have to settle for the Hollywood rendition.

Still, what made Jurassic Park more than just one more special effects extravaganza is that it actually delved into the science [and the part about profit motive] a bit more than just on the surface. After all, try to imagine the film without Ian Malcolm in it.

Or Donald Gennaro. There always has to be that guy who represents “what corporate wants”. So you’re looking to see if Jurassic World will be just one more rendition of Disney World with dinosaurs. In fact, that’s why Hollywood often invents characters like John Hammond. For them it is always more than “just a business”. Here though Mr. Masrani is but a pale imitation.

Also, the main characters in the original were [overall] folks that I could take to. In other words, I could actually imagine them “out in the real world” doing their thing. And embracing it with a passion. I could even imagine interacting with them. In other words, I just plain liked them.

So, my reaction to Jurassic World would basically be more or less the same: strip away the special effects and what’s there? Almost nothing alas. As for the main characters, nope, didn’t care much for [or about] them at all. And where it really fell flat is in creating these “interpersonal” storylines that Hollywood always craps out in every film of this sort. It more or less worked in Jurassic Park. But not here. I’m trying to imagine the mind of someone who would actually give a damn about these folks.

Here’s something new though: Turning dinosaurs into weapons of war.

IMDb trivia: imdb.com/title/tt0369610/tri … =ttqu_sa_1

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_World
IMDb FAQ: imdb.com/title/tt0369610/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
trailer: youtu.be/RFinNxS5KN4

JURASSIC WORLD [2015]
Directed by Colin Trevorrow

[b]Claire [guiding a tour]: Welcome to Jurassic World. While year over year, revenue continues to climb…operating costs are higher than ever. Our shareholders have been patient but let’s be honest no one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore. 20 years ago, de-extinction was right up there with magic. These days, kids look at a Stegosaurus like an elephant from the city zoo. That doesn’t mean asset development is falling behind. Our DNA excavators discover new species every year. But consumers want them bigger, louder, more teeth. The good news? Our advances in gene splicing have opened up a whole new frontier. We’ve learned more from genetics in the past decade than a century of digging up bones.

Claire: The Indominus rex. Our first genetically modified hybrid.
Jim: How did you get two different kinds of dinosaurs to, y’know…
Henry: Oh, Indominus wasn’t bred. She was designed. She will be fifty feet long when fully grown. Bigger than the T-rex.

Vivian: Did you close the deal?
Claire: Looks like it. “Verizon Wireless presents the Indominus rex.”
Lowery: That is so terrible. Why not just go the distance, and just let these corporations name the dinosaurs? They’ve got all the ballparks.

Masrani [to Claire]: The key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control.

Masrani: It’s white. You never told me it was white.
Claire: Think it will scare the kids?
Masrani: The kids? This will give the parents nightmares.
Claire: Is that good?
Marani: It’s fantastic.

Marsani: I thought there were two of them.
Claire: There was a sibling in case this one didn’t survive infancy.
Masrani: Where’s the sibling?
Claire: She ate it.

Masrani: So, the paddock is quite safe, then?
Claire: We have the best structural engineers in the world.
Masrani: Yeah, so did Hammond.

Hoskins: These animals can replace thousands of boots on the ground. How many lives would that save? War is part of nature. Look around, Owen. Every living thing in this jungle is trying to murder the other. Mother Nature’s way of testing her creations. Refining the pecking order. War is a struggle. Struggle breeds greatness. Without that we end up with places like this, charging seven bucks a soda.

Owen [to Claire]: What kind of diet doesn’t allow tequila?

Claire: Can we just focus on the asset, please?
Owen: The asset? Look, I get it. You’re in charge out here. You gotta make a lot of tough decisions. It’s probably easier to pretend these animals are just numbers on a spreadsheet. But they’re not. They’re alive.
Claire: I’m fully aware they’re alive.
Owen: You might have made them in a test tube, but they don’t know that. They’re thinking, “I gotta eat.” “I gotta hunt. I gotta…”
[his pumps his arm to indicate sexual copulation]
Owen: You can relate to at least one of those things. Right?

Claire [to Owen]: The park needs a new attraction every few years in order to reinvigorate the public’s interest. Kind of like the space program.

Claire: Corporate felt genetic modification would up the “wow” factor.
Owen: They’re dinosaurs. “Wow” enough.
Claire: Not according to our focus groups. The Indominus rex makes us relevant again.
Owen [amused]: “The Indominus rex!”
Claire: We needed something scary and easy to pronounce. You should hear a four-year-old try to say “Archaeornithomimus.”

Owen: So what’s this thing made of?
Claire: The base genome is a T. rex. The rest is classified.
Owen: You made a new dinosaur but you don’t even know what it is?
Claire: The lab delivers us finished assets, and we show them to the public.

Masrani: Let Asset Containment capture it quietly. The very existence of this park is predicated on our ability to handle incidents like this. It was an eventuality, okay?
Lowery: Maybe you should include that in the brochure…eventually one of these things will eat someone.
Claire: That paddock is 4 miles from the closest attraction. ACU can handle this. No one else is gonna get…
Lowery: Eaten?

Barry [regarding the raptors]: What do you think? Want to take one home?
Hoskins: Hey, don’t joke. When I was your age I rescued a wolf pup. It was like two months old. Could barely walk. Used to sleep by my bed. Watch over me. My wife, she came at me with a steak knife. He took a chunk out of her arm.
Barry: You put him down?
Hoskins: Hell no.

Owen [to Claire about the “new” t-rex]: You made a genetic hybrid. Raised it in captivity. She is seeing all of this for the first time. She does not even know what she is. She will kill everything that moves.
Masrani: You think the animal is contemplating its own existence?
Owen: She is learning where she fits on the food chain and I’m not sure you want her to figure that out.

Henry: You know that I’m not at liberty to reveal the asset’s genetic makeup. Modified animals are known to be unpredictable.
Masrani: It’s killed people, Henry.
Henry: That’s unfortunate.
Masrani: What purpose could we have for a dinosaur that can camouflage?
Henry: Cuttlefish genes were added to help her withstand an accelerated growth rate. Cuttlefish have chromatophores that allow the skin to change color.
Masrani: It hid from thermal technology.
Henry: Really?
Masrani: How is that possible?
Henry: Tree frogs can modulate their infrared output. We used strands from their DNA to adapt her to a tropical climate. But I never imagined…
Masrani: Who authorized you to do this?
Henry: You did. “Bigger”, “Scarier.” “Cooler” I believe is the word that you used in your memo.

Masrani: You are to cease all activities here immediately.
Henry: You are acting like we are engaged in some kind of mad science. But we are doing what we have done from the beginning. Nothing in Jurassic World is natural. We have always filled gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And, if their genetic code was pure, many of them would look quite different. But you didn’t ask for reality. You asked for more teeth.
Masrani: I never asked for a monster!
Henry: “Monster” is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We’re just used to being the cat.

Owen [to Claire]: It didn’t eat them. It’s killing for sport.

Owen [to Claire, about searching for her nephews]: Just relax. It’s just like taking a stroll through the woods…65 million years ago.

Hoskins [of the raptors]: Imagine if we had these puppies in Tora Bora.

Owen: Something’s wrong. They’re communicating. Now I know why they wouldn’t tell us what it’s made of.
Claire: Why?
Owen: That thing’s part Raptor.[/b]

Jay Gould once famously said, “I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.”

Then, over time, labor began to organize the against the likes of him. Decade after decade. And now look where we are. On the other hand, where exactly are we now? The working class over the past century has made considerable strides. And for proof all one need do is to note the extent to which, throughout the modern industrial world, there exist this thing we call the “middle class”. With lots and lots and lots of workers in it. On the other other hand, the reactionaries have in turn been making strides of their own. Particularly of late. Organized labor [especially in America] is all but on life support. The rich are back to getting richer like never before and the workers are increasingly left to fend for themselves.

Let’s be honest, the capitalists [and their cronies in government] have always been adept at divide and conquer – dividing workers by pitting them against each other. Sometimes in terms of race or ethnicity or religion or gender. And now, with the global economy ever more increasingly the shot caller, workers can be pitted against each other on a truly grand scale.

But: competition in some industries is the reality. And, so, the part about firing someone may not actually be personal at all. In fact, it almost never is. It is simply a basic necessity for some folks to stay in business at all.

Here however the context is more intimate. The company is small. Less than 20 employees. And, increasingly, we live in a world where folks tend to be entirely pre-occupied with just 3 things: 1] me 2] myself and 3] I. There is virtually no solidarity at all, let alone worker solidarity.

This all unfolds in Belgium. So, what do I know about the nature of the “political economy” there? All we know is this: Sandra finds out her fellow employees have voted that, in order to receive a bonus – 1,000 euros – she must lose her job. And, then, in order to complicate matters all the more, Sandra suffers from depression. Now, one by one, she has to change the minds of the majority.

So, it is basically the workers here who are made to appear greedy. The boss after all is only doing what he must do in order to stay in business. At least if he is to be believed. It is instead the workers who seem to be obsessed only with their own self-interest. Thus there is never any question of uprooting capitalism itself.

And then there’s the part that all unfolds “under the table”.

IMDb

[b]Although she was required to shoot long 7-minutes takes, Marion Cotillard found the experience the most rewarding that she’s been a part of. She recalled shooting certain takes 50-60 times, the record being 82 takes of the same scene.

The original idea for the film came in the early 2000s, when the Dardenne brothers read about a real-life case in a big French factory. There was a worker whose production output wasn’t good enough for the other workers to get their bonuses, so that person was let go. They heard about similar cases in Belgium, Italy and USA, and they all raised the question of solidarity.

In an interview to Indiewire, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne stated that they were thinking about 12 Angry Men when conceiving Two Days, One Night, because it’s a process of going to see people to try and change their minds.

Liège - in which the film takes place, has a 23% unemployment rate, one of the highest in Belgium, which would make harder for Sandra to find a new job.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Days,_One_Night
trailer: youtu.be/Tb3zBq6gVRk

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT [Deux Jours, Une Nuit] 2014
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

[b]Sandra [aloud to herself after learning that she has lost her job]: Hold on. Hold on. You mustn’t cry.

Manu: If you go in, Dumont will agree to a new ballot.
Sandra: It’s no use. No one gives a damn.
Manu: Juliette told me the foreman talked to them and scared them.
Sandra: They want their bonus. It’s only natural.
Manu: No, it’s not natural.

Manu [to Sandra]: The only way to stop crying is to fight for your job.

Mr. Dumont [to Sandra]: I have nothing agasinst you but I have to deal with competition from Asian solar panels.

Daughter: If Mom loses her job will she get sick again?
Manu: She is not going to lose it.

Manu: You’re just giving in instead of taking action.
Sandra: Easy for you to say. No one but Julliette and Robert thought about me. As if I didn’t exist. They’re right. I don’t exist. I’m nothing. I’m nobody!

Manu [to Sandra]: It’s not tour fault they lose their bonus if you stay. The boss decided that, not you. [/b]

But: If the boss really does face stiff competition from Asia what can he do? After all, he could lose the business itself and they would all be out of work. But this is the very nature of capitalism. It’s not always just about greed.

Willy: I didn’t vote against you, I voted for a bonus. Dumont set the one against the other, not me.
Sandra: I know it’s awful asking you to choose but I don’t want to lose my job. Without my salary, we can’t get by.
Willy: I’m sure but I can’t give up my bonus. We need 500 a month for our oldest girl’s studies and 600 more for her lodging. What do the others say?
Sandra; You are the first I have spoken with.
Willy [hesitant]: I’ll think about it.
Wife: What? It’s all thought over. We can’t.
[she turns to Sandra]
Wife: I wish we could help, but I’ve been out of work since February. We salvage floor tiles to make ends meet.

And this is the actual existential fate of so many folks – living [sometimes precariously] from paycheck to paycheck.

Mireille: Are the others willing to give up the bonus?
Sandra: There are three for now. Juliette…
Mireille: No, no. Juliette has it easy. Her husband fixes cars under the table. I can’t. I left my husband and my boyfriend and I are starting from scratch. Funiture, TV, bed, washing machine, dishes – we have to buy it all. I can’t afford to lose 1,000 euros. Don’t be mad at me. I can’t.

Everyone has their own story. Their own unique set of circumstances.

[b]Timur: Hello.
Sandra: Hello. Your daughter told me you were here. I was round at your place. I wanted to see you about the vote on the bonus and me being laid off. Juliette and I saw Dumont and he’ll let us hold another ballot Monday because Jean-Marc influenced people by telling them that Dumont wanted to lay off staff anyway. So if it wasn’t me who was made redundant it would be them…So…I wanted to ask you if…if you’d vote for me to stay on Monday.
Timur [in tears]: Of course I will. I’m really glad you’re here. I’m so mad at myself for voting for my bonus. I’m sorry.
Sandra: Don’t be sorry. I can understand. 1,000 Euros.
Timur: No. I’m ashamed. I even forgot what you did for me. Remember? When I broke those cells…and you said you did it. You remember.
Sandra: Yes, and Jean-Marc even said: “Fine example to set the new guy!”
Timur: I’m really glad you came.

Hicham: I work here on weekends. My wife couldn’t tell you. It’s under the table. I’m sorry I was so curt on the phone but I can’t do it. I don’t ewant you to lose your job but I need that bonus. Put yourself in my shoes. It’s a year’s utility bills.
Sandra: Put yourself in my shoes. I want to work and earn a salary again. I want to be with all of you and not at home alone.
Hicham: Ideally you could stay and we’d get our bonuses. I told Jean-Marc that earlier. He says Dumont can’t do that. [/b]

So it all comes down to Jean-Marc’s motive for letting Sandra go. Is it personal or did her depression make her the “weak-link” in the employee chain. She is after-all at home on sick leave because of it.

[b]Sandra: I wish that was me.
Manu: Who?
Sandra: That bird singing…

Sandra: I caused that fight.
Manu: Calm down.
Sandra: I tell you I can’t go on but you ignore me. You don’t understand. I caused that violence. I can’t stand it.
Manu: It’s the first time.
Sandra: No, it’s everytime. I feel like a beggar every time. A thief coming to take their money.

Manu: Five out of ten now want you to stay!
Sandra: No, two! I forced the others to pity me. If I’m take nback, those who lose their bonus, how will they look at me? How will I deal with them all day?[/b]

Again, this is the very nature of capitalism: Some for the better, some for the worse.

[b]Julien: Can I be frank?
Sandra: Yes.
Julien: Dumont saw that 16 of us can do the job. Why would he take you back?
Sandra: With 16 people, Juliette said you have to do three hours overtime a week.
Julien: What if we do it to earn more?

Sandra: I just took the whole box of Xanax.
Manu: All your pills?
Sandra: Yes.

Alphonse [the sole black employee]: You know, I’d like to vote for you tomorrow. It’s what God tells me to do. I should help my neighbor. But I’m scared of the others.
Sandra: Scared of who?
Alphonse: The other workers. That’s why I voted agasinst you on Friday. It wasn’t for the bonus. I haven’t been there long. I’ll only get 150 euros.
Sandras: Did Jean-Marc talk to you? What did he say?
Alphonse: That if I wanted to fit in, I should vote for the bonus, because everyone else wanted it. I wanted to vote for you, but I didn’t dare.

Sandra: You’re like me. You’re afraid of Jean-Marc.
Alphonse: Yes.

Jean-Marc: Happy now that you’ve stirred up all this shit? Friday’s ballot was enough.
Sandra: You shouldn’t have scared them to vote against me.
Jean-Marc: What are you implying?
Sandra: You told some of them if I wasn’t laid off, they would be.
Jean-Marc: I never said that.
Sandra: Yes, you did. And you called them over the weekend to tell them not to change their minds.
Alphonse: What? Who told you that?
Sandra: It doesn’t matter. You’re heartless.

Juliette [to Sandra]: Eight for, eight against. You’re one short.

Mr Dumont: You convinced half the staff to give up the bonus. Well done. Of course half isn’t a majority, but to dispel any ill-will among the staff, I’ve decided to give them the bonus and take you back. Jean-Marc and I now know that 16 workers can do the job. In September, I’ll let a fixed-term contract expire, and you can come back. You’re staying with us.
Sandra: I can’t let someone be laid off so I can come back.
Mr Dumont: He won’t be laid off. His contract just won’t be renewed.
Sandra: It’s the same thing.
Mr Dumont: No, it’s not.
[after a long pause]
Sandra: Good-bye, Mr Dumont. [/b]

There is trash that people throw out. In Brazil, for example. But there are also those people [many of them children] who are, for all practical purposes, treated as trash too. Grimly impoverished, they live out on [or under] the streets, made to do whatever they can in order just to survive from day to day. We have them here in our own country too of course. But the further away you get from the modern day “welfare state” the more dire their plight can be.

Here you have three young boys from the slums of Rio de Janeiro. They scour the local dump everyday looking for whatever they can find to subsist. They literally survive on the garbage that others toss away.

But then one day…

…the story shifts gears. From who they are [and the world they live in] to what they find. And what they find exposes another world entirely. The world of wealth and power. The gap explored here is just all the more egregious because it is in Brazil. Down there the authorities can [apparently] beat, torture and even kill children in order to sustain their corrupt system.

In other words, the usual cast of characters: Corrupt pillars of the community with wealth and power, corrupt politicians, corrupt cops, corrupt ecclesiastics. And of course the more or less corrupt masses.

Also, contingency, chance and change.

The plot is entirely unrealistic. Purely scripted. Not in a million years could you imagine this being based on a true story. It’s basically just another morality tale, exposing the way the world really is. With a hopelessly idealistic ending applauding the way it should be instead.

Here is an article noting the reaction to the film at a Rio film festival: hitfix.com/in-contention/ste … azilianess

It’s no City of God, but still well worth watching.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash_%282014_film%29
Trailer: youtu.be/PX1ZuBJMT40

TRASH [2014]
Directed by Stephen Daldry, Christian Duurvoort

[b]Voice in the background [to Raphael, a young boy with a gun to Fredrico’s head]: Kill him, Raphael! Kill him - let’s go!
Raphael [voiceover]: When you watch this video I’ll probably be dead. The police are after me because I’ve got something very valuable to a powerful politician. But I’m not going to give it up. They’ll have to come get me. I was afraid before - not now. I’m going to finish what Jose Angelo started.

Raphael [on a mountain of garbage]: I found something for us.
Gardo: What?
Raphael: I’ll show you later.

Gardo: So why do the police give a damn?
Fredrico [a detective]: The wallet is important. Very important. It’s a clue to solve a crime.

Raphael [to the camera]: Like I always say…Never trust a policeman. Police treat poor people like trash. Everyone knows that.
[indicating Gardo]
Raphael: Except this dumbass here.

Rato [to the camera]: People don’t like me at the dump. I’m the sewer kid.
[indicating his splotched skin]
Rato: It’s my disease…What can you do?

Gardo [to the camera]: It was a disaster…Nearly killed for a letter!
Raphael: It wasn’t just a letter.
Rato: Raphael wanted to know more. So he still needed me…

Olivia: Why would the church reassign you?
Father Juilliard: To silence me. It means, wherever there is corruption, wherever there is injustice, wherever there is police brutality, I must keep my eyes closed, shut my mouth, and say my prayers.

Fredrico [to a beaten and bloodied Raphael]: Do you like rollercoasters…?

Father Juilliard [to Olivia]: Raphael is probably dead.
[he lights a candle]
Father Juilliard: Don’t waste your life fighting battles that make you bitter…or make you dead.

Father Julliard [to a badly beaten Raphael]: If you found the wallet the best plan is to get out of trouble while you still have time. There’s nothing cowardly about it. In fact, it’s the brave way out. If you give me the wallet I’ll collect the reward. Everyone’s life will get a little bit better. A little bit better, is good. A little bit better is a lot better than nothing.

Olivia: Why do you…why do you need me?
Gardo: You an American. You white. I black. I look poor. Olivia, we need you.

Raphael: The cops were talking about a guy called Santos. I think he wants the letter.
Rato: Hey, I know Santos…He’s that politician. The fat bastard wants to be Mayor.
Gardo: Do you know where he lives?
Rato: Where all the fat bastards live - near the beach.

Gardo [in prison visiting Clemente]: I have a message for you. From Jose Angelo.
Clemente: How do you know this?
Gardo: It was in a letter we found, he wrote to you.
Clemente: What did he say? Do you have the letter here?
Gardo [pointing to his head]: No - it’s here. I memorised it.
Clemente: Tell me.
Gardo: It read like this: “Dear Sir, I haven’t written in a long time, but I think of you always. I have something important to tell you, in the words you once spoke to me: Soon, the devil who put you behind bars will be chained, his corruption and lies all exposed. Your struggle was not in vain. I promise. Santos will be finished and, God willing, he is only the first domino to fall. Your fight against the corruption that destroyed our dream for justice goes on. Even now people flood the streets, fanning the flames of hope that you helped ignite. Change is coming. But with joy comes sorrow. If you are reading this, it means I’ve been taken. And they will not be merciful.”

Santos: How are you, Congressman? Good, everyone’s here. Such generosity. OK, let’s make me Mayor. I love businessmen. They’ve covered all my election costs. Maybe I’ll even throw the police a few bucks…

Fredrico [to Raphael]: Some cockroaches just don’t give up. You crush them, crush them…and the bastards just won’t die.

Father Julliard [viewing Olivia’s video of Raphael’s story]: What do we do with all this?
Olivia: Well, we could put it on a few sites and hopefully some bloggers or other outlets would pick it up. We’d want to come up with a few keywords, so that we can make it a little bit more sticky when people are searching for it.
Father Julliard: What the hell does that mean?
Olivia [chuckling]: It just means that…it just means that a lot of people would see it.
Father Julliard: That could be very dangerous.
Olivia: For who?
Father Julliard: For the boys, for you, for all of us.

Father Julliard: Through all of that, why did they stick to it?
Olivia [after a pause]: They said because it was right.
Father Julliard: Maybe you better show me how to use this damn thing. [/b]

Described as an “erotic thriller”, we know there is going to be lots of nudity, lots of sex and lots of reading in between the lines. And, if you’re like most of us, lots of subtitles.

Let’s file this one – if you’re me – under, “sex and love in an absurd and meaningless world”. And it’s French to boot. Me, I always come back to this: Love and human remains.

What men want. What women want. And what those ever intent on assuring us that they actually know what this is want.

From the beginning the scenes keep shifting between the bedroom and the police station. Between what was once intimate to what is now more or less public knowledge. Worse, something that needs to be investigated. A Big Story. A man was murdered. A woman was murdered. Both poisoned.

So, what did happen? This draws you in. You wonder how the dots will get connected. Why, for example, does the press now call Julien a “monster”? And, even though, with respect to love and human remains, there isn’t really much that is new under the sun some never grow tired of looking at the wrecks. And this one is stitched together in a truly original manner.

Besides, blue is my favorite color.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Room_(2014_film
trailer: youtu.be/AXru7gOWV-I

THE BLUE ROOM [La Chambre Bleue] 2014]
Written in part and directed by Mathieu Amalric

[b][lots of panting…lots of moaning and groaning…a drop of blood]
Esther: Did I hurt you?
Julien: No…

Esther: Your wife will ask questions?
Julien [looking at the blood on the towel]: I don’t think so.
Esgther: Does she ever ask?
[no response]
Esther: Do you love me, Julien?
Julien: I think so.
Esther [chuckling]: You’re not sure?
[no response]
Esther: Could you spend your whole life with me?
[no response][/b]

Nothing new here, right? But suddenly the scene shifts to an interrogation…

[b]Gendarmerie: Did she bite you often?
Julien: Now and then.
Gendarmerie: How often?
Julien: Three or four times.
Gendarmerie: Could she have bitten you on purpose?

Julien [to the Gendarmerie]: Life is different when you live it and when you go back over it later.

Gendarmerie [of Delphine]: What charmed you about her?
Julien: More words! I never asked myself that.
Gendarmerie: Did you love her? You wanted her? You desired her?
Julien: Probably, since I married her.

Gendarmerie [of Esther]: You told your mistress…
Julien: I never said anything. We were both naked in the room, we had just…People speak without thinking at such times. I didn’t really hear her. I just nodded or shook my head.

Detective: You came home, had dinner, and watched television. You told the gendarmeries that.
Julien’s lawyer: “And went to bed with my wife.”
Detective: You confirm those words?
Julien: Yes.
Detective: You had no idea what was happening two miles away?
Julien: How could I?
Detective: The letters. You’re forgetting the letters. You may deny them, but I don’t.

Detective [to Julien]: At the funeral, in everyone’s minds, you were together and they looked at your wife with pity. Quite frankly, Gahyde, do you thnik your wife knew less than them? That she, too, suspected something?

Julien: You’re upset with me, Delphine?
Delphine: What for?
Julien: You don’t talk.
Delphine: I prefer you happy.
Julien [in an increasingly shrill voice]: You think I’m not, is that it? I have the perfect wife, and a daughter I love, a beautiful home, success at work. I couldn’t be happier. And anyone who denies that is a liar!

Detective: “Soon. I love you.” What did you mean by “soon”.
Esther: We could soon be together.
Detective: Why?
Esther: Nicolas was less suspicious.
Detective: Or you know he would soon be dead.

Esther [to the detective]: We’re in love.
[she looks over at Julien]
Esther: I only agreed to marry Nicolas because you had vanished.
[Julien says nothing…Esther looks back at the detective]
Esther: When we met again, we realized we were made for each other.
Detective: So, when you wrote “You now!” you were thinking…
Esther: I was waiting for him to do what was needed.
Detective: File for divorce?
Esther: Yes.
Detective: And his wife?
Esther: She’d have gotten over it.
Detective: She didn’t love him?
Esther: Not like me. Women like her aren’t capable of true love.
Detective: And his daughter?
Esther: She’s have consoled herself with her daughter.
[Julien explodes, grabbing her and shoving her hard onto the detective’s desk]

Detective: You saw the lights from afar?
Julien [nodding]: All the lights in the house were on. That never happened.
Detective: What was your first thought?
Julien [tearing up]: My daughter.
Detective: Not your wife?
Julien [shaking his head]: To my mind, my daughter was more fragile.

Esther [at her trial]: I did not poison my husband. Perhaps I would have if he’s taken too long to die.

Esther [to Julien after they have both been found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison]: See, Julien, they haven’t parted us.[/b]

It helps here [I suppose] to have a familiarity with Mexican culture. And with all of the complexities you will find there embedded at the intersection of class and race. And [with Ana] gender.

Let’s start with the meaning of the word “Güero”: “Güero is a word used in Mexico and some parts of Central and South America to denote a person of fair complexion or with blond or red hair.”

And we all know that the higher up you go in one or another social, political and economic circle south of the border, the lighter complexioned the skin is likely to be.

Though [to be honest] that’s not really the point here. This film is more in the tradition of a “slice of life”. Four particular lives in one particular context. And then “on the road”. In other words, sans the manner in which particular lives might get swept up [tumultuously] in, say, truly historic events. That’s all more or less on the periphery here. As they are for most of us. Students at a university are on strike. And in and out of it go our four protagonists on a quest to track down the legendary Epigmenio Cruz.

Before he dies.

Tomas in particular. Tomas is “coming of age”. And, of course, when you are “coming of age” you are likely to have your first encounters with all of this. Thus, it is crucial that these encounters are among the least problematic for your life. You learn the ropes [and the tropes] and somehow manage to make the transition to the “real world” with the least amount of dysfunction.

Or something like that.

No wikipedia article
trailer: youtu.be/t-w6MbK_eZA

GUEROS (2014)
Written in part and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios

[b]Title card: guero [from huero, meaning “non-fertilized egg”/pale sickly man]

  1. With blond hair [golden or yellowish color]
  2. with light skin

Beto [to Tomas after Tomas drops the water balloon]: You hit the baby asshole!

Mother [to Tomas]: You’re going to go stay with your brother in the city for a while. I can’t handle you anymore. I just can’t.

Santos: Why aren’t you dark-skinned like Sombra?
Tomas: Who is Sombra?
Sombra: You can’t call me that.
Tomas: Why not, man?
Sombra: Because I’ll break your fucking legs.

Tomas: Why don’t we have a proper breakfast?
Santos: Continental breakfast, my treat. But what the fuck are they talking about with continental breakfast? What continent are they taking about? It’s like saying, “The kind of breakfast they eat over there.” Who are they over there? And who are we here?

Santos: What is it?
Sombra: Something my dad found.
Santos: Let me hear.
Sombra: Epigmenio Cruz. Once, he made Bob Dylan cry. That’s what Dad used to say.

Sombra [indicating a building in the distance]: That’s my school, and that is the movement’s flag.
Tomas: Can we visit your department?
Sombra No. it’s occupied. Everything is occupied. No one can get in because it’s occupied.
Tomas: Don’t you ever go to the marches? Or to extracurricular classes? Are you scabs?
Sombra [angrily]: Don’t even say that word as a joke.
Tomas: What then?
Sombra: We are on strike from the strike.

Santos: I understand Mexican breakfast. Eggs, beans, grease. Mexican. College breakfast: coffee and bread with beans and cheese. But if they start charging tuition, college breakfast will be coffee only. Then there’s the English breakfast. A sausage cut in two, tea and right on time. But what the fuck are they talking about with continental breakfast if it’s only juice and bread? What continent are they talking about?

Sombra: Have you ever stood in front of an enormous tiger roaring in your face, feeling his breath? You know that he could tear your face off in one bite and there’s nothing you can do. Have you felt that?
Doctor: No.
Sombra: Well, that’s how I always feel, but without the tiger.

Striking student: No, you can’t go in. Damn scabbies.
Sombra: Don’t use that word if you don’t know what it means, friend.
Striking student: It means you’re damn strike breakers.
Sombra: It means squirrel in Catalan, asshole. A small pet in its cage, like you, in that fucking cage you built.

Sombra: I think the ideas are okay. But that’s why you get confused when cleaning bathrooms because you think that organizations are the leaders of the revolution and the revolution is only in big events.
Oso: But the event of washing a bathroom or cooking for your companions is a revolutionary event.
Sombra: But don’t people have a right to be in the middle?

Sombra: Only the group inside has a right to an opinion, and the others are out because they didn’t join the consensus, they didn’t come. Then it isn’t an inclusive movement. Because there’s no structure.
Oso: Exactly, so whoever is not in the structure is outside. That’s how the PRI was formed.
Sombra: No, that’s not true.
Oso: You don’t want to be on strike? What are you doing to change things? Aside from rotting in your room, what do you do, dude?
Sombra: If I don’t accept your position…
Oso: You’re rotting in your room and not bathing, stealing electricity. What other shit do you do?
Sombra: Do I have to accept other people imposing on me?

Sign on a wall at the university: TO BE YOUNG AND NOT A REVOLUTIONARY IS A CONTRADICTION

Tomas: What’s your thesis on?
Sombra: On molecular diversity in rhizoids and their symbiotic genes as indicators of the degree of conservation and the potential for restoring tropical forests.

Sombra: Fucking Mexican cinema. They grab a bunch of beggars, shoot it in black-and-white and say they are making art films. And the fucking directors, not content with the humiliation of the conquest, go to the Old World and tell the French critics that our country is full of pigs, derelicts, diabetics, sellouts, thieves, frauds, traitors, drunks, whoremongers, people with inferiority complexes and the precocious.
Santos: And it is.
Sombra: But if they’re going to humiliate us, they should do it with their own money, not with the taxpayers’ money.

Sombra [to Ana watching a tiger pace back and forth in its cage at the zoo]: Take a good look. He’s really beautiful. His gaze, weary of watching the bars pass by, retains nothing else. He thinks the whole world is looking through those bars. And beyond that, nothing.

Tomas: Hello, Epigmenio. Sorry to disturb you. I’m Tomas Ruiz and I come from Veracruz and I want you to sign this cassette for me. Is it true you once made Bob Dylan cry?
Epigmenio [indifferently and/or insolently]: Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my house?

Sombra [to Epigmenio]: I’m sorry we came unannounced. This is my brother Tomas. I’m Federico. This is Santos, and Ana. We came because my brother and I listened to you all the time. Because I haven’t slept in months or left my house until Tomas came. But I want to tell you…The thing is…Look, this cassette was my dad’s. He showed it to me many years ago. He’s not with us anymore. It’s your music At first, I didn’t understand any of it, but now I understand. I understand what you’re saying. I understand what my dad understood. That you run into a lot of assholes in life who don’t get it, who don’t know what lies behind things. A sordid world, you know. But no matter what happens, if you have that…if you can see what’s behind things the only thing they can’t take away from you is that feeling. You wrote it. You said, That feeling Now I know what feeling you were talking about. Dad used to say, If the world is a train station and people passengers, the poets aren’t the ones who come and go but those who stay at the station watching the trains go. That’s why Dad cried whenever he heard your broken voice. Because you are the kind who watches the trains departing.
[Epigmenio, head drooped down, says nothing]
Tomas: Is he dead?
Sombra [putting his finger under his nose to be sure he’s breathing]: He’s sleeping…[/b]

Just imagine it. You are recently married. And then “on impulse” you decide to honeymoon in…Antarctica. Or, rather, on a research vessel that is currently en route to “the icy wastes of Antarctica”.

There’s the part that seems like a nature documentary – with Roger Payne playing himself. An actual expedition to Anarctica.

But there’s the other part. The part that revolves around a man who may not really be able to love another human being because he seems far more intent on loving himself. And, more to the point, the part that revolves around a growing obsession he has with his “work”. Everyone [and everything] takes a back seat to it. Thus the only real solution would be to find someone who loves it as passionaitely as he does. Or to pull back from the obsession itself.

But what on earth did Chloe expect? My reaction to her is mixed. It’s obvious that she may well have married the wrong guy. But what is there in her own life that matches her husband’s passion? Her drawings?

And then juxtaposed to all of this are the shots that bring to us the vastness of the ocean – and Antarctica – itself. At times raging and wild. At times desolate. Utterly indifferent to the fate of these folks. The two seem almost impossible to reconcile.

This is [another] one of those small, independent films that the critics [all 7 of them] generally applauded [85% fresh at RT] while the “general public” did not take kindly to it at all [5.1 at IMDb – on 252 ratings].

See if you can spot the reason why. Or, as one reviewer suggested at IMDb: “…if watching ice melt is your thing…”

Well, not quite that slow but slow enough that some [like me] will find it simply enchanting.

And, as with Gueros above, this film is so tiny it did not even garner an entry at wikipedia.

A beautiful [haunting] score.

no wiki article
trailer: youtu.be/Y2huHdg2PS8

RED KNOT [2014]
Written and directed by Scott Cohen

[b]Chloe: Are you excited to meet Roger Payne?
Peter: Yeah, I’m very excited.
Chloe: Real live man, Roger Payne.
Peter: I’m nervous.
Chloe: What’re you nervous about?
Peter: For this week, for tomorrow.
Chloe: Darling, nobody’s expecting you to be some kind of expert…
Peter: Why shouldn’t they expect me to be?
Chloe: Well, they are experts. You’re a writer.

Peter: What do most couples do on a honeymoon anyways? They stay in their room, right? All we need is a bed.
Chloe: Or a desk.

Peter [voiceover]: January 19th. Fifty four degrees south. I swear, Argentina already feels like the bottom of the world. But it’s where the journey begins for most explorers. What draws us here? For Dr. Payne, it’s the siren call of the whales. He was the first to hear their songs as songs. The first to record them. We’re following their migration south, before the Antarctic winter sets in.

Roger: The songs of humpback whales were more beautiful then, in the same years that The Beatles were writing songs, than they are now. They were more evocative. They brought tears to your eyes. I don’t think they do that anymore. But they did then.
Chloe: Why? How could that be?
Roger: I have no idea.

Peter: Isn’t it true that if you speed up the sound of the humpback whale that it actually sounds little bit like a birdsong?
Roger: It does, it actually sounds a lot like, if you slow it down, a birdsong.
Chloe: It says, “Paul is dead.”

Chloe: Where are you going?
Peter: I’m just going upstairs.
Chloe: Okay. I’ll come with you.
Peter: No. No, stay. Sleep, sleep. You look so beautiful. Go back to sleep.
Chloe: What are you gonna go do?
Peter: I’m gonna go talk to Roger. Just work stuff. It’s boring.

Chloe [off the ship]: There’s something about these penguin couples that’s so domestic. They groom each other, they smack each other, they…They hold hands while they’re walking. Or make babies.
Peter: Okay. What’re you trying to say?
Chloe: Nothing. We would probably make cute babies though.

Peter [voicover]: February 3rd. Sixty two degrees south. The details of home fall away. Out here, there’s no Sunday or Monday. No balance between day and night. A kind of prolonged twilight sets in the further south we go. This is it. The world falls away. There really is no second chance.

Chloe: Going to Antarctica?
Peter: Yeah, it’s good. It’s exciting.
Chloe: What about our honeymoon?
Peter: Well, that is our honeymoon.

Peter: See the whales?
Chloe: Yeah, I saw them. It was beautiful. Why didn’t you come get me?
Peter: Babe. Roger went through an entire book about Antarctic patterns. Page after page. What am I gonna do? Interrupt him in the middle?

Lisa: What are you going to do when, um…when Peter goes off on this next big venture he’s going to have?
Chole: Which one?
Lisa: Oh, the book deal. Walking to the poles. Next year.
Chloe: Book deal?
Lisa: You know about this, don’t you?

Ollie [the captain]: Hey.
Chloe; Hey. I need to talk to you. Um…Is there any way to get off this boat?
Ollie: Uh…no. We’re underway in about 15 minutes.
Chloe: I need a…I need a room. I need a different room. I need a new room.

Peter: Chloe? What the fuck? Chloe? Chloe? What is going on? Hey, don’t ignore me. What’s going on? Where’d you go? I come back and all your stuff is missing? Why are you treating me like this?
Chloe: When were you gonna tell me? About the book deal? Were you just gonna wait until you were already gone to tell me about it?
Peter: I made a mistake.
Chloe: Do you know what it feels like to find out about something like that from somebody else? I mean, how could you? How dare you not tell me first? It involves me. How do you think that you going away for a whole year doesn’t involve me directly enough to ask me about it?

Peter: And you know what, this really sucks 'cause I was gonna surprise you with it because you’re gonna be a huge fucking part of it. A huge part of it. Remember Scott, in his last days, how he wrote letters to his wife. We were gonna do that.
Chloe: Scott died in Antarctica!

Chloe [to Peter]: I mean, let’s be honest, you didn’t come in here to apologize. You didn’t come in here to say, “Oh, I feel terrible, I want to know what you’re going through.” You think I’m being childish, you think this is a game.

Chloe: You aren’t going to trek across the poles anyway.
Peter: What do you mean? What do you mean?
Chloe: You’re a writer, Peter.
Peter: So?
Chloe: You may be able to write about the poles…
Peter: Fuck you!
Chloe: …but crossing them yourself?

Ollie: You pass through it, you get on the other side, and things are different. I…you’re just different.
Chloe: Seems kind of lonely out here. That’s all.
Ollie: Sometimes.
Chloe: Do you ever get homesick?
Ollie: You know, I do. I do. But at some point, you have to choose what’s important to you. And I made my choice.

Peter [voiceover]: The Poles have pulled at me for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a kid, reading about the great explorers. Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott. They were all drawn here. I don’t know what I was hoping to find. But it’s not out here. It’s inside. Just between us. It’s her. It’s us. There’s no book. No walking to the poles. It was just me wanting to be something more. And she’s right. I really didn’t see her. But I want to. February 23rd. Sixty eight degrees south. Antarctic summer.[/b]

As in chess, life has lots of pawns. And sacrificing them is more or less built right into the human condition. Pawns are now basically mass-produced to serve that purpose. And not just economically.

And while Bobby Fischer had no doubt sacrificed any number of pawns playing chess, he always managed to configure the pieces that constituted his life so that, by and large, others did the sacrificing.

Not only that but he held in contempt any number of “pieces” that did not fit into his reactionary political agenda. Communists for example. Or Jews. Though he himself was a Jew.

Still, he has always been one of those “strange” people that fascinate folks who go about the business of actually looking for them. And how often do the strange among us get the chance to strut it about on the world stage? To actually become famous for being strange.

Did he make the most of it? Probably. And he came along on a cusp of history. The world was becoming increasingly more post-modern; and celebrity became all the rage. And smack dab in the middle of the Cold War to boot.

And then there’s the part about chess itself. Hasn’t it often been used to denote human intelligence. If you are among the greatest players in the world it is just assumed that you are among the smartest people in the world. But chess would seem to employ only a particular kind of intelligence. In other words, the greatest chess players can be just as inept as the rest of us when it comes to such things as, say, love, emotional interaction, social interaction, moral narratives etc.

Still, there is one thing that he did bring to chess which seemed to fluster any number of people: the mind-fuck.

The part revolving around the twisted tangle that is human psychology.

IMDb

[b]Pawn sacrifice is a move in chess in which a player sacrifices his pawn for a soft advantage such as more space for his pieces or positioning them in better squares in order to develop an attack subsequently. It aims to create unbalanced positions so if the player who is committed to the pawn sacrifice did not capitalize on his temporary advantage, he would lose the game at the end due to his inferiority in material.

In some cases, when Fischer studies in his little chessboard, the board is placed with a black corner to the right. This is wrong, a very basic info is that when a serious game starts, it has to be with a white corner to the right of each player - this is distinctly defined in the rules of the game. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Sacrifice
trailer: youtu.be/xFHvH9FtACg

PAWN SACRIFICE [2014]
Written in part and directed by Edward Zwick

[b]Bobby [as a child]: There’s a car out there.
Regina [mother]: What car?
Bobby: You told me to tell you. A red 1952 Chevy.
Mother: Bobby, you remember what I told you? There are bad people out there who want to intimidate us, because we represent something very threatening to them, to the status quo. You remember what that is?
Bobby: Revolution?
Mother: Yes. And sometimes these bad people want to know about our work. So they spy on us. So if someone comes up to you on the street and asks you questions about me or Mommy’s friends, what do you say?
Bobby: “I have nothing to say to you.”
Mother: That’s my big boy.

Carmine: Most young people don’t have the concentration to play at a high level, so please don’t get your hopes up.
Mother [chuckling]: He’s beaten everyone he’s ever played. My hopes are he will give up on the damned game if someone beats him.

Mother: If I take the pieces away, he just keeps playing in his head. Day and night. Took him to a shrink, he said to come here.
Carmine: Well, his game is good, not exceptional, though.[/b]

You know what’s coming, don’t you?

[b]Carmine: Who taught him to move like this?
Mother: He taught himself.
Carmine: Bobby, shall we call it a draw? Hmm?
[Bobby moves a piece]
Joan [his sister]: He hates draws.

News anchor: There’s a rising star in the chess world, and he’s only 12 years old. His name is Bobby Fischer. Today he played American Master Donald Byrne and beat him in what is already being described as “The Game of the Century.”

Bobby: Where is my father? Come on. I was born, right? What did you do with him? Is he on Earth? Does he even exist?
Mother: Honey. That was a long time ago.
Bobby: So what? You can’t remember? Where is he?
Mother: Gone.
Bobby: Gone where?
Mother: It doesn’t matter.
Bobby: It matters to me. You know what? Get the fuck outta here. Go back to Moscow with your Commie friends. I am studying, day and night. And I’m gonna be the next world champion. Do you understand me? I need silence. Do you understand? I want silence!!

News anchor: In Portoroz, Yugoslavia today, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer became the youngest ever Grandmaster in the history of the game.
Reporter: Congratulations, Bobby. Where do you go from here?
Bobby: Well, uh, I want to play the Russians. They’re the best in the world, and I’m gonna beat 'em all.

Bobby: The Russians are drawing games on purpose to save their strength and they’re dumping games to pad their points, making it statistically impossible for me to win.
Tournament official: Mr. Fischer, your complaint has been lodged. There’s nothing we can do.
Bobby: Of course there’s something you can do! They’re playing a team game. It’s five guys against one. Against me!

Paul [to Father Lombardy]: He’s studied how the Russians play. Every day. Eighteen hours a day. For four years. For him, Vietnam and the Beatles never happened.

Father Lombardy: Bobby has problems.
Paul: So did Mozart.
Father Lombardy: He might crack.
Paul: Bobby won’t crack. He will explode.

Bobby [to Father Lombardy]: You see, the Russians are like boa constrictors. If you do nothing, they strangle you to death. But if you confuse them, you attack them from everywhere, then all they can do is react.

Bobby: So what do you do, Donna?
Donna: I screw people.
Bobby: Ahhh me too. Listen, I was thinking of getting rid of my virginity.

Reporter: Bobby, how does it feel to lose?
Bobby: That’s a stupid question.
Reporter: How’d he beat you, Bob?
Bobby: Would you even understand if I answered that? He was playing to draw.
Father Lombardy: Bobby, no one expected you to beat Spassky.
Bobby: Yeah, I did.

Paul: Are you a patriot, Father?
Father Lombardy: Mostly.
Paul: Bobby may be a little off, but he understands this whole thing better than you. We’re at war. Only it’s not being fought by guns and missiles. Not yet, at least. It’s a war of perception. The poor kid from Brooklyn against the whole Soviet Empire. The perfect American story.
Father Lombardy: So your interest in this is ideological. But what’s in it for you?

Father Lombardy: Bobby Fischer is the second best chess player I’ve ever seen. He’s also got severe problems in his head.
Paul: Which need to be understood and managed.
Father Lombardy: Managed? Bobby?

Father Lombardy [to Paul]: You ever hear of Paul Morphy? 1855. Greatest player this country ever had. Before Bobby, that is. But by 21, he’d beat every master in Europe. But then, things started to get a little weird. He started having visions, and became convinced that people were trying to poison him, and he quit at 26, and eventually killed himself in a bathtub surrounded by 12 pairs of ladies’ shoes. So, this game…it’s a rabbit hole. After only four moves, there’s more than 300 billion options to consider. There’s more 40-move games than there are stars in the galaxy. So, it can take you very close to the edge.

Joan: I showed these letters to a psychiatrist friend. He said that Bobby is displaying signs of, um…of paranoia and delusional psychosis.
Paul: Well…chess is a crazy world. Some of the things he says about the Soviets are true. In Tunis, we found listening devices in his hotel room.
Joan [reading from one of Bobby’s letters]: “The Communists infect my mind with words that just keep repeating. The Jews are helping them, too. The Jews want to keep the Chess Federation all to themselves, just like they own New York, and own and control most governments in the world.” We…we are Jewish. Bobby is Jewish. What do you people say to him when he comes out with this trash?

Paul: Joanie, look. I swear, this isn’t just about the title anymore. It’s about the kind of games he’s playing. Out of all the crazy stuff, such unimaginable beauty. A da Vinci, they’re saying, from Brooklyn. Once every, what, 500 years. Grandmasters are watching Bobby play with tears in their eyes.

Paul: Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Wide World of Sports is already offering a segment. Cavett wants you, and… Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Are you sitting down? Mike Wallace called. Mike Wallace called. 60 Minutes, Bobby.
Bobby: Well, it’s about time.

News anchor: Fischer, the first American in history to reach the finals of the World Championship, is the latest arrival in our growing culture of celebrity. But who would have thought that a chess player could suddenly become a rock star?

Dick Cavett: And what’s the moment of pleasure for you? Is it when you see the guy in trouble? What is the greatest pleasure? What would correspond to hitting the home run in baseball?
Bobby: Greatest pleasure? When you break his ego. That’s where it’s at.
Cavett: Really? And when does that occur? When he sees that he’s finished?
Bobby: When he sees it coming. And breaks all up inside.

Father Lombardy: You’re really serious about all these demands?
Bobby: They gotta give me what I want.
Father Lombardy: Mmm-hmm. And if they don’t?
Bobby: Well, we can play in this hotel room. I like it here.
Father Lombardy: Let me get this straight, you’re willing to throw all this away for money and oranges?
Bobby: That’s right. I don’t need to play. I know I’m the best.
Father Lombardy: I think you’re scared. And I think you’re overwhelmed.
Bobby: What is that, like, um, pop psychology?

Bobby: They are all out to screw me, the Russians and Jews.
Paul [coming into the room]: What are we talking about.
Father Lombardy: The Jews…

Paul [on the phone]: I found him.
[he hands the phone to Bobby]
Paul: Henry Kissinger. Pretty amazing, huh?
Bobby: Hello?
Woman: Dr. Kissinger’s on the line.
Kissinger: Hello, this is the worst chess player in the world calling the best chess player in the world. We just want you to know, the President and I, that we are thrilled that you will be going to Iceland to play for the U. S.A., Bobby.

Paul: Billion people around the world watching two guys play chess. Nixon’s put a TV in the Oval Office.
Father Lombardy: Oh, yeah?
Paul: World War III on a chess board. We lost China. We’re losing Vietnam. We have to win this one.

Father Lombardy: Bobby, you made a stupid mistake and you got your ass handed to you.
Bobby: No. I am not going to submit to their game…
Father Lombardy: If you don’t get your head in the game…
Bobby: We are going to play my way, with no audience…
Father Lombardy: …you’re not just going to lose…
Bobby: …and no distractions!
Father Lombardy: …you’re going to get humiliated in front of billions of people.

Paul: Unless the rest of the games are played without an audience and without cameras, he isn’t going to show up. He won’t continue unless the games are played in the Ping-Pong room. That’s the only place that’s quiet, he says. He also wants a different board.
It makes too much noise when he puts the pieces down. He prefers wood.
Father Lombardy: It’s like Morphy, it’s destroying his brain.
Paul: No, chess isn’t destroying him. Why all the demands? It’s like he wants them to say no. I think he’s afraid of what’s gonna happen if he loses.
Father Lombardy: No. He’s afraid of what’s going to happen if he wins.

Iivo Nei: He broke apart at the first blow.
Boris Spassky: He shot himself in the head. For no reason.
Iivo Nei: You loaded the gun.
Boris Spassky: My teacher taught me that a man prepared to commit suicide has the initiative.

Paul: The President of the United States called three times. Three. Ah, well. He’s been trying to reach you. In Moscow, Brezhnev opened his only bottle of 1868 Louis Roederer. Left over from the Revolution. You know why? Because he heard you quit. There are boys your age in Vietnam giving their lives right now in the fight against Communism, and all you have to do is play a game of chess. Bobby, I’ve been arguing on your behalf all night long. I’ve been threatening them for you. I have cajoled, I have begged them, now I’m begging you. Please, please, please. Go back in there and play.
Bobby: You’re one of them, aren’t you?
Paul: What?
Bobby: Who got to you? KGB? CIA?
Paul: Are you serious?!

Spassky: I have made a decision. If I don’t beat him, he will escape in one piece.
Spassky colleague: The American is insane.
Spassky [shaking his head]: He is not insane. He has fooled you like he has fooled everyone else. He knows if I play him I will destroy him. Crush him. He uses madness to avoid the inevitable. I will not let him slip away. I have him pinned. I am two games ahead. I have him. Get a message to Fischer. I will play him in the ping-pong room. I will play him in the bathroom. In the toilet if he likes! He will not escape.

Paul: What’s he doing?
Father Lombardy: I don’t know.
Russian observer: He’s playing the Benoni. Black, two games down.
Father Lombardy: He thinks it’s suicide.
Paul: Is it suicide?
Father Lombardy: Yeah.
Paul: Now what’s happening?
Father Lombardy: He’s exposing his king. He’s going to end up with doubled-up pawns here. And yet he wants him to take it with the bishop.
Father Lombardy [after Bobby moves his queen]: Oh, my God. He’s threatening mate in one. He’s going to force the exchange of these knights.
Russian: A draw perhaps?
Father Lombardy: He hates draws.

News anchor: Bobby Fischer won his first game ever from Russian Boris Spassky. His Russian opponent, Boris Spassky, resigned today’s game on the 42nd move…Fischer mania is taking the country by storm, as news of Bobby Fischer’s first victory over Boris Spassky has captured the public’s imagination…A chess craze is sweeping the nation. You can find it being played in every living room, park and classroom. And the young man from Brooklyn, little known until about a month ago, is quickly becoming the most famous celebrity in the world.

Bartender [watching television]: Spassky just took Fischer’s bishop.
Donna: Yeah, well I took his virginity.

Spassky: I want this chair x-rayed!

Commentator: We all can’t quite believe it up here, Jim, but in this, the pivotal game of the match, Fischer has abandoned his trademark Sicilian opening. All of Spassky’s careful preparation is suddenly out the window.

Commentator: Grandmasters are shaking their heads in confusion. Fischer’s moves are unprecedented in chess history. No one seems to be able to decipher what he’s doing.

Father Lombardy: Bobby. The chess you’ve been playing is really inspired.
Bobby: No. It’s almost all theory and memorization. People think there are all these options, but there’s usually only one right move.

Title card: Bobby Fischer went on to beat Boris Spassky 12 and a half points to 8 and a half point. Game 6 is still considered to be the greatest game ever played. After his victory his mental health continued to deteriorate. He turned down millions of dollars in endorsements. He forfeited his title and disappeared from public view. In 1980 he was arrested for vagrancy. He claimed he was tortured in jail. In 1992 he emerged from seclusion to play Boris Spassky again in Belgrade. The match violated U.S. sanctions and the American government issued a warrant for his arrest. He wandered the world until granted asylum in Iceland in 2005. Bobby Fischer died in 2008 in Reykjavik, Iceland.[/b]

Over and over and over again I go on and on and on about “dasein”. And, in particular, how the actual experiences you come to accumulate over the course of living your life can have a profound impact on how you come to view what is “meaningful” in your life.

And this frame of mind becomes all the more apparent when dealing with folks who have had, shall we say, unusual experiences.

Like these guys.

Meet the Angulo brothers. They were literally locked away in an apartment by their “protective father” and came to understand the world that we live in wholly in terms of the films that they watched. Just movies. Which they then acted out over and over again.

Films like, for example, Reservoir Dogs. Or Blue Velvet. Imagine if you thought of the world largely revolving around that sort of thing. Reservoir Dogs is the first film we see them “acting out”.

Yet cinematically they were all over the map – from Casablanca and Citizen Kane to JFK, Gone With the Wind and lots of horror films.

The family more or less lives in the belly of the beast. The Lower East Side. In an enormous apartment complex. And, from the father’s point of view, there was a lot about the world that the kids needed to be protected from. Also, in some respects, the whole “arrangement” was basically patriarchy reduced down to a single household. Father knows best.

In other words, or else.

Still, it’s not that they couldn’t just look out the windows of their apartment and see the world. They could. And Manhattan was all around them. Instead it all revolved around the way in which their father indoctrinated them to view that world. The kids had access to no other point of view but his. Or, rather, his and the characters that they encountered in the movies.

But then, one day, against his father’s wishes, a brother [Mukunda] finally decides to explore Manhattan on his own. And that, as they say, changed everything.

What this film more or less revolves around [from my point of view] is a man who did things in a certain way because he honestly felt that it was the right thing to do. That it really was in the best interest of his family. In other words, his intentions were good. But what he did is so appalling to most of us that this is just not enough for many [including his sons] to forgive him.

There is also one sister here as well. The youngest. But she is all but invisible.

By the way, this is a documentary. This actually happened.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolfpack
trailer: youtu.be/rDbqcMfUdlI

THE WOLFPACK [2015]
Directed by Crystal Moselle

[b]Brother [watching Pulp Fiction]: It gets boring around here. I write down the lines for the entire film. What each character says. We always say lines from our favorite films. And we kind of thought why don’t we do those films. Be those characters…It makes me feel like I’m living, sort of.

Brother: If I didn’t have movies life would be pretty boring. And there wouldn’t be any point to go on, you see?

Brother: The Hare Krishna religion. The God is Krishna, and he has ten children with every wife that he has. And our father was, like, enthralled by that. So he had this idea, like, having a big group like our own family, our own community, our own race here. It’s almost like a tribe that we have. And we’re gonna have all of them grow long hair and give them all names of the oldest language on the planest…Sanskrit. There’s Govinda, there’s Narayana, Krsna, Jadadisa, Mukunda, Bhagavan…and our sister, Vishnu. She is very special. She sort of lives in a world of her own.

Brother: My parents didn’t encourage us to communicate with society. So we were kind of shut off, always lived only in this apartment, Lower East Side, Manhattan. And we never communicated with people. We were taught by our father not to talk to strangers, but it went further than that. It was like don’t even look at people. [/b]

They were all home-schooled.

[b]Brother: Sometimes we’d go out nine times a year…sometimes once. And one particular year we never went out at all.

Brother: Metaphorically, I would describe our childhood as my father being the landowner and us the people who worked the land.
Brother: But if you want a more dramatic setting, we were in a prison.
Brother: Yeah.

Mother: You can see the neighborhood we live in is not that great and so we’ve kind of kept our distance from the people who live around here. And it’s not anything like, oh, we think we’re great and they’re not. It’s just that for me it’s not how I was raised. I grew up in the Midwest. I lived in the middle of the farm country.

Brother: My father doesn’t like the idea of working. He calls it being a slave to society. This is a country that has gone wrong. He believes the government is a sneaky organization. That we’re all controlled, we’re all like robots. And that we need to break free from that. [/b]

The irony here seems to go completely over his head. At least for now.

[b]Brother: My dad always thought that he was better than anybody. He always said so himself. He said he was God. He said he was enlightened. He said he was the one who knew everything.

Brother: When you’re a kid you see things and they frighten you. You don’t know what they mean. So I was frightened. I would hear dad and mom arguing. There always a slap, just…he would slap her. And what she felt, we felt sometimes. I mean we were a part of it. When you are living in that kind of situation you are going to get it too.

Brother: Our father is the one who brought movies into our lives. He just filled our heads with movies all day long. We’ve got like, I don’t know, 5,000 movies including VHSs and DVDs. And I think the fact that we went with the idea that there’s another world out there. because we didn’t know the world, so we kind of had no world, and I think the movies helped us to create our own kind of world.
Brother: But we would always know the difference between real life and the movies.

Brother: I was 15 years old and I wasn’t allowed to walk out the front door. I wasn’t allowed to go in a specific room I felt like going into. I wasn’t allowed to leave a room when I wanted to. If he put us in a room we have to stay there until he says you can go. Our dad was the only one who had keys to the front door.

Brother [the one who finally left the apartment…wearing a Michael Jackson mask]: I went around two blocks, just going in whatever store. Went into a bank, went into a grocery story, went into a pharmacy. Eventually, someone called the cops because someone walking around in a mask, that’s…that’s not normal.

Brother [after the cops arrested him, took him to a mental hospital and then brought him home]: I was scared to come home. I think my daddy was frightened of what I just did. No one had ever done that before. That was the day I kind of tore off the soldier necklace and threw it and walked away. Since that day, I said I refuse to talk to you. I refuse to take your orders. We are no longer father and son anymore.

Brother: They gave me a therapist after I got out of the hospital. They said I should see a therapists. She’s helped me out getting my email address 'cause I never knew anything about computers. My brothers are also seeing her.

Brother: My brother did it again. He just walked out. Then I walked out. And my father didn’t get angry. And then all of us started doing it.

Mother: It’s not like it was one day they followed the rules and the next day they were doing whatever. It wasn’t like that. It happened over a period of months, but it certainly opened the way to normalcy.

Brother: What did he expect, that when we all came of age we would just go on doing things his way? His system was just like a ticking bomb.

Mother: I really understand, totally, where they were coming from. But I can’t, you know, be too candid about that. But, yeah, there were probably more rules for me than there were for them.

Brother [after the cops bust down the door and search the apartment for “weapons” – their movie props!]: We had to see our mother get handcuffed and put against the wall. And she was really uncomfortable sitting in those handcuffs. That’s what really pissed me off.

Mother: They’ve begun communicating and relating to the world. They are probably seeing how the movies are like real, but not real, and how real life is. It’s hard as a child to be influenced by that. Too much of anything is, you know, not good.

Father: I didn’t want them to have the pressures, the social pressure. Which is the interest of the country. I wanted them to be free of that. Not to be contaminated by drugs, by any philosophy or religion…One of the things that I always said to them: it doesn’t matter to me what you have. Or what you can do. But the fact that you are in this life, this way…what you are, what we are. This is the most important thing.

Mother: I felt good for my kids. I was glad to see them standing up for their own ideas and beliefs. I’m trying to see both sides as well as my part in it as well, but I have felt stuck in the middle for a long time and that’s been a real challenge.

Brother: I was so scared going out into the world. I felt so out of place. I still feel out of place. I don’t know if I can ever get over it. Because I was always afraid that I had so little knowledge of this world. Being in my home all the time. That I almost wouldn’t know where to start…My biggest fear was being so ignorant of the world that I just wouldn’t be able to handle it. [/b]

What do we need to know about Elly? Well, for one thing, she is missing. And, for another, she is missing in Iran. She is a citizen of Iran and that is always going to be of importance because to the extent that we don’t understand the culture of Iran, we will be removed from understanding the gap between what seems reasonable to us and what seems reasonable to them.

There is also the inevitable gap between how most “Westerners” imagine life in Iran to be and how it is actually experienced by the majority of “ordinary citizens” there.

After all, in many respects we are all the embodiment of what is encompassed in the expression “human, all too human”. Or, as one film critic put it: "Gripping as sheer storytelling, the plot smoothly raises some unusual moral questions. It touches on masculine honor, on the way a thoughtless laugh can wound someone’s feelings, on the extent to which we try to take charge of others’ fates. I can’t recall another film that so deeply examines the risks of telling lies to spare someone grief.

In any number of scenes, however, aside from the fact that all of the women are wearing scarves [and the clear patriarchy], what unfolds there might well unfold in any similar American context. Though [of course] others will then note all of the contexts in which politics and religion are anything but hidden in the background.

And then there is this part: The way people are around each other before something terrible happens and the way they are around each other after. Things suddenly become considerably more convoluted and confusing. And this, one imagines, is clearly cross-cultural.

And then the mystery: What happened to Elly? Why and how did she just seem to disappear? From the beginning she projects this sense of foreboding. Something is obviously troubling her.

The ending does resolve it. But it is certainly not the ending that I would have chosen.

The film received a 97% fresh rating at RT on 66 reviews. It is from the director of A Separation above.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_Elly
trailer: youtu.be/S-CAKV2CUU0

ABOUT ELLY [Darbareye Elly] 2009
Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi

[b]Elly: Why’d you break up with your wife?
Ahmad: One day, we got up, we washed, we had breakfast and she said, “Ahmad, bessasr eine ende mit schrecken als ein schrecken ohne ende.”
Elly: So, what does that mean?
Anmad: “A biiter ending is better than an endless bitterness.”
Elly: That’s true.

Amir: You just left Arash?
Nazy: Elly was with him.

Nazy: Arash! Arash! Was Elly in the sea with you?!

Sepideh [frantically]: Peyman, don’t let them go!
Boat owner [matter of factly]: The body will be washed in. If you check this evening, you’ll find her.

Police [after the adults are unable to give him Elly’s full name]: How strange! You bring a guest from Tehran without knowing anything about her…and we must ask a child about her?

Sepideh [weeping]: If only I had let her go. If only I had let her go…

Amir: Why did you invite her?
Sepideh: Right, it’s my fault. What now?
Amir: Nothing. Did you ask me before inviting her?
Sepideh: I thought of Ahmad…
Amir [in anger]: Who are you to Ahmad?! Are you his mother? His siter? Who are you?

Peyman: Did any of you say something that might have offended her?
Manochehr: The other night, when I was preparing chicken, you all came over. The old woman had brought the bedding and she started clapping and singing. And you ululated, Shohreh. I had the impression that Elly was offended.
Ahmad: She went to get salt and we all laughed.
Peyman: No. It was just the two of us joking.
Sepideh: We all laughed.
Amir: But she did too.
Manochehr: And this fooling around and dancing. Maybe she disliked it.
Shohreh: She insisted on leaving yesterday, as if she was upset.

Peyman: Sepideh, you know her. Was she the kind to act on a whim? Get offended and just leave?
Sepideh: Offended by what?
Amir [interjecting]: She doesn’t even know her name! Why are you asking her?

Ahmad: Did her mother know she was with us?
Sepideh: Didn’t she call her mother the other day?
Ahmad: Yes, but her mother…
Manochehr: …seemed peculiar…wary.

Shohreh: What a weird girl!
Peyman: How was her cellphone found?
Shohreh: It was in Sepideh’s bag. Nazy needed some painkillers and she found it there.

Sepideh: He’s not her brother?
Ahmad; Who’s not her brother?
Sepideh: The guy we are going to meet. The guy you talked to on the phone. She was an only child.
Ahmad: Who is he then?
Sepideh: I think he is her fiance.
Ahmad: What’s that you’re saying? That she was engaged?
[Sepideh nods]
Ahmad: What on earth have you done, Sepideh?!

Manochehr: He found out! The old woman came over. She said the bedding was for Elly and her husband

Amir: Ahmad, tell him you thought she was single. She had lied to us. We’ll tell the truth.
Sepideh: Please don’t.
Amir: Should we lie to him to save Elly’s honor?
Peyman: Does honor mean much to the dead?

Peyman [to the group]: The majority seems to choose the truth.

Alireza [Elly’s fiance]: Didn’t she refuse? Didn’t she say no? Didn’t she say she had someone, a fiance? Did she or didn’t she?
Sepideh: She really…she really…
Alireza: Listen, this is very important to me. I dedicated 3 years of my life to her. Didn’t she refuse?
[Sepideh isn’t able to respond]
Alireza: Did she or didn’t she?
Sepideh [after a long pause]: No, she didn’t.[/b]

What is to be done?

You have a 15 year old son in an institution. And he was committed to this institution in part because he was subject to “violent outbursts”. Indeed, he has been kicked out of a number of facilities already precisely because he is unable to keep a leash on the demons that compel these outbursts.

So, you decide to “deinstitutionalize” him. You decide to bring him back into your home and take care of him yourself. If for no other reason than to keep him out of jail.

On top of that, you are what some folks might refer to as “poor white trash”. And let’s be particularly blunt: in any number of ways she can be really, really disagreeable to live around.

The bottom line then is this: That any number of folks will just cross her off the list and move on to those they are considerably more comfortable sympathizing with. Still, for those who are willing to persevere there are the other parts of her. The parts worth waiting for.

As for the son…

His own mom calls him “a piece of work”. Volatile? Like a stick of dynamite. Or a bottle of nitroglycerine. Every time he’s on the screen the plot just bristles. Anything can happen. And there is no way in hell that I would ever have the patience that she displays here in dealing with it. In dealing with him. Sure, we are made to understand [up to a point] why he acts [and acts out] the way he does…but few of us would be willing to take on the sort of commitment that she is clearly saddled with.

And then the “mysterious neighbor” Kyla. The part behind the stuttering.

IMDb

[b]The film is presented in an unheard-of 1:1 aspect ratio; the “viewing area” of the screen is a perfect square.

Received a 9 minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival.

When Diane, Steve, and Kyla are having dinner, Steve tells a story about how when he was little and his parents didn’t want him to understand their conversations, they would speak in English. Steve says that most conversations ended with either “shut up” or “fuck off.” He then says that he tried to befriend a little girl who spoke English by telling her to “shut up” and “fuck off,” because those were the only English phrases he knew, and he didn’t know what that meant. In the DVD commentary, Anne Dorval actually admits that this is her own personal experience from when she was little, and that she told a neighborhood child to “shut up.” Xavier Dolan thought her story was funny and decided to put it into the movie. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mommy_(2014_film
trailer: youtu.be/d7rtSqI0ZeA

MOMMY [2014]
Written and directed by Xavier Dolan

[b]Facility director: We gave Steve a chance. If you can’t take care of him, we’ll have to send him to our security department.
Die: Excuse me?
Facility director: Come on! Don’t act surprised! Your son is on the fast track to jail.
Die: Are you insane? My boy ain’t going to jail. I know the drill. Once they’re in they’re done for.

Facility director: Listen, Diane, I’ve seen tons of kids in and out of here. We save some, we lose some. That’s just the way it is. We’ve tried to help Steve, as have the special schools, and the youth centers. We’ve done what we can. Your turn.
Die: What am I going to do with him all day? I can’t drag him to work. I got a job. I can’t dump everything and go party with my kid. I’m broke. I’m this close to welfare and welfare’s a fucking no.

Facility director: [to Die]: Don’t consider him or yourself to be invincible. That’s the worst thing you could do. Loving people doesn’t save them. Love’s not enought. Unfortunately.

Die [to facility director]: At least you fixed his bad language.

Die: You’ve been back 24 hours and this place is a slum! Tidy the hell up!
Steve: Mind if I jerk-off in peace?!
Die: The bunched up tissues, not so classy. All right, get your jizz together and we’ll be in business.
Steve: Gonna hold my dick when I piss, too?!
Die: If it helps you to shoot straight.

Steve [to the cab driver]: What did you call my mom, you big monkey?! Motherfucking nigger!
Die: Steve! Stop it!
Steve: Shut your mouth bitch!
Die: I think he got your point!
Steve [to the cab driver]: Go back to the jungle mixing coconut drinks! Not in my country!
Die: Steve! Stop being racist!
Steve: I’m not being racist! He’s a nigger!

Steve: It ain’t our first ride, Diane, is it?
Die: No, no…
Steve: Come on, look at me. We’re gonna be a team. The two of us! I’m gonna contol myself and I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you.
Die: Number one priority, school, ok? I was your age when I dropped out. And look at me now, I’m a wreck! No diploma, no education, nada! A fucking loser!

Die [trying to stay calm while Steve is exploding]: You’re gonna calm down, breathe nicely…and you’re gonna take your pill…
Steve [enraged]: Don’r give me that!
[he grabs her, pins her to the wall and starts choking her]
Steve: You give me that shit and I’m a fucking finish ya! I’m a kill you and all your fucking meds!

Kyla [stuttering]: We…we…we should really get him to a hospital.
Die: No…no hospital.

Die [to Kyla]: Steve has ADHD. Disruptive, confrontational. And apparently some attachment disorder, or whatever it’s called. He was okay when he was little, we thought it was just hyperactivity. But then his dad died three years ago…

Die [to Kyla]: I wonder if you might do me a teeny-weeny favor…

Steve [on full throttle yanks a necklace off Kyla]: Cute girly necklace…
[he starts to slap her and she lunges at him]
Steve: Get off me bitch!
[Kyla drags him to the floor]
Kyla: Shut your mouth! Shut your fucking mouth! Get your hands off me! And give me that necklace back before I crush your skull! You got it? You got it now?!! That’s what you want, eh? You love it that way, right?..huh?..huh?..Do I bring up your dead father? Do I fucking bring up that? So shut it tight, sit your ass on the sofa, and hold it fucking together![/b]

An absolutely riviting scene. It’ll blow you away.

[b]Die: Is the kid that set the cafeteria on fire a shithead? The kid whose mom is meeting with the neighbor who’s helping him for free so you don’t end up in juvenile hall?
Steve: I’m not going back!
Die: I know you dumbass! But for fuck’s sake, we gotta lawyer our asses up. We can’t just sit and wait for God to come down on a fucking cloud!

Die [to Steve]: We gotta put some water in our wine. Ever hear that expression? It means we gotta put on a good show tonight.

Paul: Your mother is going through hell for you! Because of you! She gives you everything, her cash, her time, her whole life! And how do you thank her tonight? You spit in my face and start a brawl!
Steve: Go fuck yourself, bitch, with your lame-ass shitty lawyer job! Come on! You just want my mom to suck your cock…
[Paul slaps his face…then Die slaps Paul]
Paul [to Die]: Fuck you. Choke on your fucking loser problems.

Die: He was gonna help us. Help you.
Steve: No one can help us. They’re all the same!! It’s just the two of us, fuck the rest of them!!
Die: You know what my big problem is? You. No more job because of you. No money! No life! Meds, bail, correctional centers, and now a fucking lawsuit! Will someone give me a fucking break?! No! Steve-o ladies and gentlemen! A break? Hell no! Dream on, Die, dream on! Daddy dug the grave, sonny keeps digging! And I’m singing in the rain! And it just goes on and on and on 'cause you always find a fucking brilliant way so the shit hits the fan full fucking blast! And I just keep cleaning the shit off the walls! Come on, wipe the retard’s ass. Just wipe the fucking retard’s ass!

Steve [to Kyla after he has slit his wrist]: You can do it. Just say the fucking words.

Steve: We still love each other, right?
Die: That’s what we’re best at, buddy.

Steve: How can you do this to me?
Die: It’s for your own good, sweetie!
Steve: My own good, you fucking traitor! You dump me here like goddamn trash! You got sick of me! You’re done with me![/b]

Jesus, I didn’t see that coming.

Die: He hit him! He hit him!
Man from the institution: You signed the form! Let us do our job!
Die: I didn’t sign for you to hit my son!
Man from the institution: Withdrawal clause specifies 24 hour notice!
Die: Fuck your clause! I’m his mother. I decide.
Man from the institution: Not anymore.

Venus in fur? Or Venus in leather…

An old Parisian theater. An actor. A director. That’s it. The actor tries to convince the director that she is perfect for the part in his play.

[and the actor here is married to the actual director of the film]

In part this is going to be a reflection of the [at times] fine line between a “sense of reality” on the stage and off the stage. Between the illusion encompassed in a script and the way in which our “real lives” can sometimes revolve more or less around another set of cue cards altogether. How we sometimes rehearse spontaneity but can then appear to be anything but scripted even when reciting the lines of others.

[there’s a classic scene where Thomas and Vanda are deeply embedded in the characters that they play when suddenly Thomas’s cell phone rings]

And here the entire effort will necessarily revolve around the dialogue that is being exchanged between these two characters interacting in a context that [we all know] has unfolded literally countless times over the centuries. So we look for how skillful the choreography is – between the words spoken, the reactions they elicit, and how, combined, they either enthrall you or they don’t.

Because, again, that is all there is.

Well, that and the ever convoluted role that sexuality plays in our lives. Convoluted? How it gets all tangled up in complex emotional and psychological states, in complex emotional and psychological wants and needs, in complex social and political contexts.

What then is “natural” here and what is instead reflective merely of a “social construct”

Sound familiar? In particular, the fact in which there are those who insist that only the manner in which they think about these things reflects what is really true. That age old “struggle” between the Apollonian and the Dionysian frames of minds. Or, as Thomas puts it, “Here it’s not Dionysus; it’s Aphrodite.” That fine line between pleasure and pain. The world of S&M.

And, as we all recall, this film is from a director accused of raping a young girl.

And some advice from the director: Look for the satire, look for the the irony. I always do myself.

IMDb

[b]Roman Polanski’s first non-English-language feature in 51 years.

The movie is based on the play “Venus in Fur” by David Ives. In the play, both Vanda Jordan and the character Wanda von Dunayev are 24 years old. The lines referencing the characters age were cut from the film. Emmanuelle Seigner was in her late 40s during filming. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_Fur_(film
trailer: youtu.be/Q1LZ6JoUkJc

VENUS IN FUR [La Vénus à la Fourrure] 2013
Written and directed by Roman Polanski

[b]Thomas [on the phone bemoaning the auditions]: No, she doesn’t exist. I mean, a sexy young woman with classical training and a scrap of brain in her skull who can say “inextricable” without a coach. Listen, in Vanda’s day she’d be married with five kids and tuberculosis, She’d be a woman. These days they sound like ten-year-olds on helium: “It was, like, totally, like, wild. Like totally awesome!” I’ve seen 35 idiot actresses, half dressed like hookers, half like dykes.

Thomas: We’re looking for somebody…different.
Vanda: What are you looking for?
Thomas: Someone…how can I put it?
Vanda: Oh, I get it. Save your breath. Someone who’s mot me. I’m too short, I’m too tall, too old, too young. My resume is crap. I get the message. [/b]

Then she really starts to act.

[b]Thomas: Have you read the manuscript?
Vanda: I flipped through it on the train. It’s, like, based on something. The Lou Reed song?
Thomas: No, it’s based on an Austrian novel, ]I]Venus In Fur[/I] by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

Thomas: The book was a big scandal in 1870.
Vanda: I’ll bet it was. It’s S&M porn.
Thomas: No, it’s not S&M porn.
Vanda: It’s not? Or porn-ish?
Thomas: No Venus In Fur was a great love story. It’s a central text of world literature!
Vanda: Yeah? It looks like porn to me. And I know my sadomasochism.

Vanda: This Severin von Kushemski? What is he? What is he into? Throw me some adjectives.
Thomas: He’s…uh…he’s a rich idler of the times. Intelligent, we’ll traveled, cultivated.
Vanda: A nerd.

Thomas: I put actors through all this.
Vanda: You’re the director. It’s your job to torture actors.

Thomas] [in character]: She taught me the most valuable thing in the world.
Vanda [in character]: And what did she teach you?
Thomas: That nothing is more sensual than pain. That nothing is more exciting than degradation.

Vanda: So actually, this play is, like, all about child abuse.
Thomas: Are…are you crazy? What does child abuse have to do with it? This goddamn mania these days! Everything’s a stupid social issue!

Thomas: This impoverished world we live in. Why do we always reduce things? What’s next on your list? Sexism? Racism? The class struggle?

Vanda [in character]: You are quite unique Herr Kushemski. If I were you, I’d be careful. Your ideal woman may be crueler than you care for.
Thomas [in character]: I will risk that.
Vanda: I know what you are. A super sensualist. An ascetic voluptuary.
Thoamas: And you, Frau Vanda von Dunayev, who or what are you?
Vanda: I’m a pagan. Meaning I’m young, beuatiful, rich, and plan to make the most of that. I’ll deny myself nothing.
Thomas: I respect your principles.
Vanda: Excuse me, I don’t need your respect. I’ll love a man who pleases me and please a man who makes me happy, but only as long as he makes me happy. Then I’ll find another.

Vanda [in character]: In our society a woman’s only power is through a man. I’d like to see what Woman will be when she become’s Man’s equal. When she becomes herself.
[she goes out of character]
Vanda: Little Vanda’s way ahead of her times!

Vanda [in character]: What do you want deep down?
Thomas [in character]: To be your possesssion. Vanish into your sublime essence. Dress and undress you. Hand you your stockings, put shoes on your feet. Have no will of my own.
Vanda: You call that love?
Thomas: The only kind. In love as in politics, one partner must rule. One must be the hammer, the other the anvil. I willingly accept being the anvil.

Vanda [after hanging up the phone]: Incredible!
Thomas: Your other half?
Vanda: People still say that?
Thomas: What’s “other half” now?
Vanda: I don’t know. “Asshole”?

Vanda: You wondered why I lied to my “other half”?
Thomas: It’s none of my business.
Vanda: What does Vanda say? “I’ll deny myself nothing”. I got other fish to fuck so to speak.
Thomas: So you’re the hammer; and he’s the anvil.
Vanda: What should I say, “whatever, baby”? This isn’t love; it’s sex. You want sex, you take the rest. That’s what the play’s about.
Thomas: Is it?
Vanda: Are you kidding?
Thomas: I don’t know. Am I?

Vanda: Is it you?
Thomas: What?
Vanda: He’s you. Kushemsk-Novachek. Novachek-Kushemski.
Thomas: No, he’s not me.
Vanda: You said there’s a lot of you in it. Or maybe you’re Vanda.
Thomas: No, the play has nothing to do with me…I can invent characters.
Vanda: Sure, Herr Doktor Novachek, and you happened to find them in an old S&M novel.

Vanda: You’re still wainting for your own “great moment”?
Thomas: I’m not waiting for anything. I find the characters’ relationship absolutely fascinating. Very complex, very rich. I love the characters’ emotional depth. No one experiences this kind of thing nowadays. We no longer see this kind of rage.
Vanda: Meet some of my friends.

Vanda [speculating about Thoimas’s fianace]: Her family’s rich. Am I right?
[Thomas is about to respond]
Vanda: Of course, I’m right. But, hey, you’re an artist. She loves that about you; your sensitivity. Maybe you’re the first sensitive guy she’s ever met. She loves opera, ballet, that shit. At night a foreign movie, you discuss novels before a nice quiet copulation. Nothing like a nice quiet copulation to help you relax. But a voice rumbles in the back of your mind, calling for something else. I don’t know what it is but it rumbles…Boom!..Boom!..Boom!..But, hey, you are happy. You’re very fond of her. You’ll have a nice quiet life watching foreign movies, discussing novels. And then you’ll have kids, and then you’ll die.

Vanda [in character]: Severin. Don’t you see? You’ll never be safe in the hands of a woman. Any woman.
[suddenly she jumps out of character]
Vanda: That line is so sexist! I could scream!
Thomas: What’s sexist about it?
Vanda: “You’ll never be safe in the hands of a woman”.
Thomas: It’s in the book!
Vanda: So the book is sexist!
Thomas: No, it’s not! On the contrary, it’s…
Vanda [bringing the book over to him, the cover depicting a naked woman’s ass, she is holding a whip]: And this? That ain’t Titian, babe. It’s S&M porn! The whole thing is just one big cliché!!
Thomas: In what way?
Vanda: He gets spanked and suddenly he’s into S&M?!
Thomas: It happened to Sacher-Masoch!
Vanda: Did it happen to you?
Thomas: No!

Thomas: For me it’s a play about two people united forever. They’re handcuffed at the heart.
Vanda: By perversion.
Thomas: No, by passion.
Vandas: His passion! It’s a sex and class war. Vanda is a sweet innocent who meets a total pervert.
Thomas: You don’t understand a thing!
Vanda: She says “You’ve corrupted me.”
Thomas: Maybe she always has this thirst for domination. Maybe Kushemski brought it out.
Vanda: Maybe she’s just a woman. The play’s like an old antifemale tract. He makes her play along, and then blames her!
Thomas; It’s not that at all!
Vanda: It is exactly that! Take the ending. She gets the Greek to whip him. She dumps Kushemski, dick in hand, and it’s her fault when he wanted it?! I think old Kushie’s hot for the Greek.
Thomas [utterly exasperated]: How can you be so stupid? How can you play her so well and be so fucking stupid about her? And all the rest! Fucking idiot actress! Dumb bitch! Fucking idiot!

Vanda [in character]: Break off with me, Severin, before it is too late.
Thomas [in chaaracter]: Do you love me?
Vanda: I don’t know.
Thomas: Then find out. Do something to persuade yourself.
Vanda: How?
Thomas: By doing what all lovers do. Make me suffer.
Vanda: I find that repulsive, and I dispise playacting.[/b]

Thus you are always asking: when is it playacting and when is it not?

[b]Vanda [out of character]: What do you want, Thomas? I’m not your fucking aunt! I am I! What do you want?
Thomas [out of character]: I don’t know.
Vanda: This isn’t about the play now.
Thomas; I just want more.
Vanda: I’m not her! I’m some stupid cunt who needs a job! I’m not your aunt. I am I…How’s that?
Thomas: That’s good.
Vanda [turning to walk away]: I can’t do this part. It’s too hard for me.

Thomas [in/out of character?]: Don’t go. Please stay.
Vanda [in/out of character?]: Beg me.
Thomas [down on his knee]: I beg you.
Vanda: You’re evil.
Thomas: Don’t you see you have me in your power?
Vanda: Liar. You’re not in my power; I’m in yours. You say your my slave but you dominate me. That’s true.
Thomas: What?
Vanda: He says she has the power but he has it, not her. The more he submits, the more he controls. Weird…
Thomas: It’s complicated.

Vanda: Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.
Thomas: What? “Blah, blah, blah?”
Vanda: What? Suddenly she’s the wicked witch? “The air is on fire, my nerves are tuning forks.” Why not lightening and drumriolls too? Listen, Tom, I really like you, but this is way too corny.
Thomas: Corny? Corny how? This is the play! It’s my play! A great play! No one will make me think otherwise! You know nothing. I won’t let anyone demolish my work, whether you’re in it or not! Fuck you!
Vanda [almost matter of factly]: Okay, okay it’s your call![/b]

Cue the cell phone!

Thomas gets a call from his fiancee.

[b]Thomas [on phone]: Marie…
Vanda [shouting]: Screw you, Marie-Cecile!
Thomas [on the phone]: I’m just finishing up…
Vanda [following him]: He’s fucking me, Marie-Cecile! Fucking me up the ass!
Thomas [on phone]: No idea. Soon.
Vanda: Banging me like a Labrador!

Vanda: Any other director I know would have already jumped on me.
Thomas: I’m not “any other director”.
Vanda: Bullshit. If he thought he could, he would have already done it.
Thomas: Not true.
Vanda: What if I let you?

Vanda [in character]: Come here. Put your arms around me. You see? For an hour I can let you imagine that you’re free again. You simpleton. You’ll realize you’re what I want you to be. An animal. An object. A void for me to fill. [/b]

Then they change roles. He is Vanda, she is Severin.

Thomas [as Vanda]: Humilitate me! Degrade me!
Vanda [tying him to a stage prop]: That’s good, Tom. Really very good. Brilliant. Know what the problem is? Whatever you do, whatever you say, this play is degrading. An insult to women! Pornography!
Thoamas: What are you talking about?!
Vanda: Look at you. A damsel in distress. A helpless, submissive cunt. “Beat me, hurt me! I’m a woman!”

Take the time machine all the way back to the 1960s. Back to the Feminist Movement in particular. Back when any number of folks were actually predicting that men like this would go extinct like the dinosaurs.

Today, of course, nobody does.

In other words, men like this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn

This is the man [and his behavior] that “inspired” the film.

And rich and powerful men like these are often so entirely self-absorbed that it often does not even occur to them that others might actually object to the behaviors that they choose to impose on the world. Women in particular. He sees a woman. He wants her. He takes her. Other women, he thinks, should be so lucky.

And [of course] he has this highfalutin “philosophy” – he’s an “individualist”, an “anarchist” – to rationalize it all. Or, if that doesn’t work, he can always fall back on cynicism.

He comes into town and his handlers have the bimbos at his beck and call. Holes for him to plug. It’s all so…decadent.

But then when he assaults the maid he lands in jail. Talk about an excruciting fish out of water. The strip search for example.

Meanwhile, the woman that he assaulted more or less disappears altogether. Instead, it becomes much more about how his assault fucked up his political prospects; and how it frayed all the more the relationship with his wife. A surreal contraption to say the least.

Yes, this one is veritably bursting at the seams with cynicism. I think some people will react to this man the way in others reacted to Hannibal Lector. He’s a monster, sure, but look at the alternative.

Oh, and he’s French.

IMDb

[b]When director Abel Ferrara received a letter from IFC Films, the US distributor, telling the filmmaker to deliver an R-rated version so that it could match the version to be released on Showtime during its pay TV window, the director was disgusted and refused to back down telling THR “Welcome to New York is not being distributed in the U.S. because of this company, IFC, which I’m totally disgusted with.” He stated “They knew from day one when they bought this film that they had the final version and that it wasn’t going to be changed.”

The $60,000-a-month three-story house Simone rented for Mr. Devereaux’s stay while under house arrest, was the actual house Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s wife, Anne Sinclair, rented in 2011. It is located in Tribeca, New York.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_t … (2014_film
trailer: youtu.be/0JaltizpRWU

WELCOME TO NEW YORK [2014]
Written in part and directed by Abel Ferrara

[b]Devereaux [to a room of reporters]: I don’t like the people who make politics. I don’t trust the politics. I’m, uh, individualist. I’m anarchist. I don’t like the people who make the policy. I don’t believe them. I hate them.

Maid [in Devereaux’s room]: Housekeeping…hello.
[Devereaux comes out of the bathroom wearing only a towel]: No scared. So you know who I am? Huh?
Maid [backing away]: Please…
Devereaux: No, please. No, come on.
Maid: Oh. No, please.
Devereaux: Come on, come on…
Maid: Please, sir, no.
Devereaux: Suck me…

Devereaux: And how long have you known my daughter?
Josh: Three months.
Devereaux: Three months? And how’s the fucking? Any good?
Daughter: Papa!
Devereaux: Fucking. Do you not fuck my daughter?
Daughter: Papa…
Devereaux: No, please, darling. Everybody, all your friends knows. And me, I’m not allowed to know? Come on, fucking is natural.
Daughter: Papa! Enough!!
Devereaux: I, for one, fucked all night, and it was great.

Devereaux [to airline employee]: I left my Blackberry at the hotel. They are going to run it over to me. [/b]

Boy, is he in for a surprise.

[b]Devereaux: I have diplomatic immunity.
Airport security: Diplomatic immunity? Can you prove that?
Devereaux: No, it’s on my other passport.
Airport security: Other passport?
Detective: It wasn’t in the passport he showed us.
Devereaux: It’s in a different passport.

Devereaux: Could you remove these handcuffs? They’re hurting me.
Cop: They’re not built for comfort, sir.

Detective: I needed two cuffs for this fat fuck.

Detective: Mr Devereaux, do you have a helmet or a hoodie?
Devereaux: Pardon me?
Detective: Do you have a helmet or a hoodie?
Devereaux: I want to make…
Cop: Do you wear a helmet or a hoodie? You know what I’m talking about?
Second detective: He’s confused.

Simone [wife]: First, call the lawyers. Give them the information that George sent. See what has to be done to get him out of jail.
Jenny [her assistant]: I’ll call.
Simone [more to herself]: Bastard. I should just let him sit in jail. If he opened his mouth, God knows what could happen.
Jenny: Maybe he didn’t do it?
Simone [after long pause]: He’s destroyed everything I’ve worked for. He’s just snatched victory right at the last moment. He snatched it. He waited right up to the last moment. Sadistic…bastard.

Prison guard: Listen to me. I’m gonna take the fuckin’ cuffs off you. When we get upstairs I don’t want no bullshit from you. You understand me?
Devereaux: I understand.
Prison guard: This ain’t fuckin’ France.
Devereaux: I understand.
Prison guard: Otherwise you won’t last five minutes in here. Don’t let these motherfuckers upstairs have you. They don’t like rapists in here, buddy.

Simone [to Devereaux after he is released on bail]: This is what $60,000 a month gets you.

Simone: My life has been turned upside down!
Devereaux: My life too.
Simone: No. No, no, no. That’s not true! Your life has been upside down from the day you were born. And God knows I tried. I tried years to make you into a man. Do you know what as man is?
Devereaux: Yes, yes, I know what a man is. I didn’t do what they said.
Simone: You don’t know what a man is! A man knows about consequences – protecting the wife. A man doesn’t follow his dick into every dark alleyway and whore that crosses his path.

Simone: Everything I’ve worked for…everything…is ruined. Gone.
Devereaux: I’m not sure I want to be the president of France, you know. I-I’ve ruined my life too. You know I am an addict, a sex addict, no? And you don’t know how to fuck!!

Devereaux: They fucked me, you know. They fucked me. I didn’t fuck the maid but they fucked me. [/b]

Technically as it were.

[b]Simone: I tried. I tried everything. I cajoled. I threatened you. I cried. I attempted to understand you!
Devereaux: That you didn’t do.
Simone: I attempted to understand you. Look what it’s gotten me. This morning I wired $1 million to get you out of…prison. PRISON!!

Simone: Did you fuck that lady?
Devereaux: No, I don’t fuck. I jerked off on that lady.
Simone: Oh, yes, oh, yes, it’s true. The police officer told me that you had…you got a blow job. Oh, yes, wonderful.
Devereaux: No, I just jerked on her mouth. That’s all. And that…that is my sickness.

Devereaux: I just need your hand. I just want your hand.
Simone: Stop doing that thing that men do. They touch you, and then they—you smell them, and then you look and you listen and then you’re back, you’re back. And you’re in prison again.

Lawyer: Simone, I’ve been around the block. It ain’t reality, it’s a play. You need to play a part. You need to be by his side, because that jury isn’t going to think he’s the monster you paint him to be if you’re standing with him.

Devereaux: What am I guilty of, huh? It’s a crime that I want to feel young? The only time I feel alive is when I am making love. You’re angry Simone because I didn’t fit into your monkey suit, huh?

Devereaux: You always bend reality to suit your ambitions. It’s a family trait.
Simone: Don’t you dare speak of my family.
Devereaux: Everybody knows what your family did, huh? Everybody knows. All Paris knows, yes. What they did. What they did during the war.
Simone: Don’t you go there. You couldn’t put your face where my father put his ass.
Devereaux: Hmm. Your father. They couldn’t plant enough flowers on his grave to cover the stink.

Daughter: I wish I could have helped you to stop.
Devereaux: I didn’t want to. Correction. I don’t want to. They can all go fuck themselves!

Psychiatrist: How do you feel?
Devereaux: I don’t feel it is a disaster. I just feel that it happened.
Psychiatrist: But that is an intellectualization, a rationalization. What is the feeling…inside, in your heart. What do you feel?
Devereaux: I’m sorry to say that, but I feel nothing. I don’t feel guilty, I don’t give a shit about the people.
Psychiatrist: So you’re gonna speak to a psychiatrist and not speak of emotions? So, why did you ask me to come here?
Devereaux: My lawyers and my wife thought it would help. My wife suffers the disease of all intellectuals. She thinks If she understands something, then it will be all right.

Psychiatrist: Do you believe that I could help you?
Devereaux: No, I don’t think so. No one can save anyone. And you know why, doctor? Hmm? Do you know why? Because…no one wants to be saved. That’s the irony I only recently understood.

Devereaux [aloud to himself]: Since childhood, I’ve been brainwashed. By my parents, by my teachers, by my superiors at work. Cradle to the grave. I’m lucky I’m not a Christian. But I’d like to say this: when I die, I’ll go and kiss God’s ass forever.

Devereaux [aloud to himself]: My first God? I didn’t find it in a church, but in a classroom. It was idealism. What a magnificent God! To believe everything would be OK. I was in the temple that is university. First as a student, then as a professor. And I allowed myself to be wrapped in that hallowed light. Injustice? We had righted all the wrongs. World hunger? Everyone would eat until they were full. Poverty? A distant memory whose existence would be difficult even to imagine. Wealth would be spread around. To each according to his needs. That’s right. It was only when I arrived at the World Bank that the enormity of the world’s pathos, the infinite suffering inherent in human nature, revealed itself in all its horrible manifestations. Slowly. One day at a time. No. One minute at a time. I understood the futility of struggling against this insurmountable tsunami of troubles that we face. Things will not change. The hungry will die. The sick? They too will die. Poverty, It’s good business. Wise men are comforted by their limitations. I’m overwhelmed by this revelation. No. I can’t return to that blissful youth. No redemption for me.

Simone: What did the doctor say?
Devereaux: He said it was all my mother’s fault.
Simone: Are you serious? Your mother’s fault.
Devereaux: He said he was having lunch with his mother, and instead of asking her to pass the butter, he told her “You fucking bitch, you ruined my life.” Another pedantic, narrow-minded and shortsighted sophist, whose only goal is to convince me to join the rest of the herd.[/b]

Name: Stanley Milgram.

That’s all many of us need. We know what is coming: The experiment. The experiment. That one.

Surely one of the most famous [if not the most famous] experiments in all of social science. It’s the one that all of us imagine taking ourselves. The one where we would never, ever do what these folks did. In fact, we assure ourselves, we would simply refuse to participate in any experiment that inflicted pain suffering on another, let alone agonizing and life-threatening pain and suffering.

This film provides some rather scary insights into the “authoritarian personality.” These are the folks who will do damn near anything if the “proper authorities” instruct them to. It’s just that how often is this authority figure a scientist?

On the other hand: Who were these subjects? Demographically, for example. After all, there are some segments of the population considerably more susceptible to displaying an authoritarian frame of mind than others. At least that is what most of us would like to think. Well, it turns out that they were chosen from a cross section of American citizens living in the vicinity of Yale University. In and around New Haven, Connecticut. But: these experiments were conducted back in the early nineteen sixties. How much different one might wonder would the experimental results have been if conducted today?

Then the part about nature and nurture. Which appraoch actually explains this predilection most succinctly? And the far more nebulous parameters of the “social scientists”. They too follow the “scientific method” in conducting their experiments. But the “subjects” here have minds; they are human beings with extremely complex interactions with the world around them. And then with other minds.

Also, the part about the Nazis. Adolf Eichmann in particular. The banality of evil. And, of course, how, by the end of the film, you may well be fully convinced that, sure, it could happen here. Still, with fascism, there were very real consequences that attended a refusal to go along with the Nazis.

There’s also a segment that revolves around this guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conf … xperiments

Also a segment on this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_experiment
The “six degrees of separation” syndrome.

Stanley Milgram was only 51 years old when he died of a heart attack.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimenter_(film
trailer: youtu.be/O1VOZhwRvWo

EXPERIMENTER [2015]
Written and directed by Michael Almereyda

[b]Rensaleer [to two men who volunteered for the experiment]: Now, psychologists have developed several theories on how humans learn. Uh, for example, it might help to reward a person. Sometimes it helps to punish them. We do know that punishment is a powerful incentive towards learning. For example, when a parent spanks a child. However, we know little about the effect of punishment on learning because almost no scientific studies have been done of it on human beings.

Rensaleer: Now, one of you will play the role of “learner”, who will receive a mild punishment if he answers incorrectly to a series of questions. That punishment will be administered by a “teacher”.

Jim [actually part of the experiment]: Um, you know, I should say that a couple of years ago, in the West Haven VA Hospital they determined that I had a slight heart condition. Nothing serious, but how dangerous are these shocks?
Rensaleer: Well, although the shocks may be extremely painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage.
Jim: Oh. OK.

Sasha: What are you studying at Yale?
Stanley: I teach, actually. Social Relations.
Sasha: Social Relations. What does that mean?
Stanley: It’s a combination. Sociology, anthropology, psychology. You know, basically covers everything from the way people talk in elevators to the study of role-playing, conformity and authority.

Teacher: Incorrect. A hundred and sixty-five volts, strong shock.
(buzzer)
Learner: Ah! Let me out of here! I told you, I have a heart condition. I will not be part of the experiment anymore!
Teacher: He says he’s not gonna go on.
Rensaleer: Please continue, teacher.
Teacher: He says he doesn’t want to go on.
Rensaleer: Well, whether the learner likes it or not, he must go on until he’s learned all the pairs correctly. Please continue, teacher.

Stanley [voiceover]: He went all the way. Most of them do.

Learner: Something’s happening to that man in there. Can you please go check that everything’s OK?
Rensaleer: Not once we’ve started. Please continue, teacher.
Learner: So you accept all responsibility?
Rensaleer: The responsibility’s mine, correct. Continue, please.

Teacher: “Wet: Night, grass, dark, cloth.”
Stanley [voiceover, taking notes]: Clenching fist, pushing it onto table.
Teacher: “Dollar: Necklace, moon, paint.”.
[buzzer]
Teacher: Incorrect. 375 volts. Dangerous, severe shock.
Learner: [groaning]: Let me out of here, let me out! Get me out of here! You can’t hold me in here! GET ME OUT!!!

Teacher: 450 volts. OK, what now? I’m at the end at 450 volts.
Rensaleer: Continue, please. The last switch again.
Teacher Yeah, but…but he could be dead in there.
Rensaleer: The experiment requires that you continue. Go on, please.
Teacher: And his health doesn’t mean anything?
Rensaleer: Whether the learner likes it or not, we must continue.
Teacher: I’m sorry, look, I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I think you should go look in on him. I mean, all you have to do is look in on him. Look into that door. 'Cause I’m not getting any noise, I’m not getting no sound here.
Rensaleer: We must continue. Go on, please, the next word is “white”.

Stanley [interviewing a “teacher” after the experiment]: Why did you give him, the man in the other room, the learner, the shocks?
Teacher: Well, as you could see, I wanted to stop 'cause each time you gave him a shock the guy hollered.
Stanley: Did it sound as if he was in pain?
Teacher: Yeah.
Stanley: Did he say he wanted you to stop the experiment?
Teacher: Yes.
Stanley: Did he have a right to stop the experiment?
Teacher: I don’t know.
Stanley: Why didn’t you stop, at that point, when he asked you to stop?
Teacher: Why didn’t I stop? Well, 'cause…cause he told me to continue.
Stanley: Why did you listen to that man and not the man in pain?
Teacher: Well, 'cause… 'cause I thought the experiment depended on me. And nobody told me to stop.
Stanley: The learner asked you to stop.
Teacher: That… That’s true, but he’s the, um, you know, the subject, shall we say?
Stanley: Who was the…Who bore the responsibility for the fact this man was being shocked?
Teacher: I don’t know.

Stanley [to one of the “teachers”]: The first thing I want to tell you is that the man in the other room wasn’t really being shocked. The only real shock was the one that you felt early on. We’re really interested in studying your reaction to having to inflict pain on someone that you don’t know. The experiment was about obeying orders. The man in the other room works with us as a team.

Stanley [to the camera]: I was born in the Bronx, 1933. My father was from Hungary, my mother from Romania. Jewish immigrants. It was a matter of chance they arrived in the US as children and managed to raise a family in New York instead of being swept up into the extermination camps and murdered by the Nazis, like millions of others just like them in Eastern Europe. That’s really what’s behind the obedience experiments. The inkling I was chasing. The thing that troubled me…How do civilized human beings participate in destructive, inhumane acts? How was genocide implemented so systematically, so efficiently? And how did the perpetrators of these murders live with themselves?

Stanley [to the camera]: My daughter, Michele, a precocious child who at this point in the story hasn’t yet been born, used to tell the kids at school, “My dad’s a psychologist, but not the kind that talks to people lying down. He’s an experimental psychologist. He does experiments.”[/b]

Cue the elephant following him down the hallway.

Teacher: The man, he seems to be getting hurt.
Rensaleer: There is no permanent tissue damage.
Teacher: Yes, but I know what shocks do to you. I’m an electrical engineer, and have had shocks. You get real shook up by them, especially if you know the next one is coming. I’m sorry.
Rensaleer: It’s absolutely essential that you do continue.
Teacher: Well, I won’t, not with the man screaming to get out.
Rensaleer: You have no other choice.
Teacher: Why don’t I have a choice? I came here of my own free will. I thought I could help in a research project. But if I have to hurt somesody, if I was in hius place…No, I can’t continue. I’ve probably gone too far already. I’m very sorry…

One of the few exceptions.

[b]Stanley [to his team]: But why? Why do so many, the vast majority, push all the way through to the final switch? Why is the Dutchman’s defiance the anomaly instead of the norm? All of the psychologists and psychiatrists that I consulted were convinced we’d have trouble finding a single person that would go all the way through to the end.

Stanley [voiceover]: I designed variations, 25 in all, and continued the experiments over the next two semesters. We adjust the script so that the learner bangs on the wall but says nothing. We asked the teacher to physically press the learners hand on a copper plate, forcing him to receive the shock. We moved the experiment to a shabby office in Bridgeport, to deduct the potential intimidation factor of Ivy League prestige. And, back at Yale, we included women.

Stanley [voiceover]: In nearly every case, the essential results are the same. They hesitate, sigh, tremble and groan, but they advance to the last switch, 450 volts, “Danger Severe Shock XXX”, because they’re politely told to.

Stanley [to the camera]: The results are terrifying and depressing. They suggest that the kind of character produced in American society can’t be counted on to insulate its citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment in response to a malevolent authority. [/b]

So: Don’t forget to vote!

[b]Stanlel [voiceover]: Eichmann didn’t deny his crimes, showed no trace of guilt or remorse. Said he was merely a transmitter. “I never did anything great or small without express instructions from my superiors”.

Asch: Stanley, why do you feel compelled to dwell on the negative aspects of obedience? Why must you focus on its destructive potential? Obedience isn’t necessarily an instrument of evil.
Stanley: I think we can both agree, looking at recent history, the history that brought you to this country, a history in which we see abusive power assuming unprecedented murderous dimensions.
Asch: Why does your experiment give me a dirty feeling?
Sasha: He didn’t expect these results. He tried to change the conditions so that people would refuse to obey.
Stanley: The whole time, out of 780 subjects, not a single person got up, went to the door and looked in to see if the man screaming was all right. Not a single one.

Stanley [entering his classroom]: President Kennedy has been shot. He was shot in a motorcade in Dallas. He was shot in the head.
Student [to another student]: It’s Milgram. It’s just another one of his experiments.
Paul: On the level?
Stanley: Yes.
Paul: Kelly, you’ve got that radio, right? Turn it on.
[the radio relays information about the assassination]
Kelly: He’s rigged a fake broadcast, like Orson Welles.
Stanley: I have?
Kelly: I wonder what the experiment is really about?

Stanley [to the camera]: It’s true that I am, possibly, more than common on edge, but how would you feel if you picked up a copy of American Psychologist and found yourself attacked in a article called “Some Thoughts on Ethics in Research: a Response to Milgram’s Behavioral Study of Obedience”?

Stanley [at meeting]: Psychiatrists, many of you in this rooms, predicted that only one person in a thousand would deliver shocks across the board, an estimate that was off by a factor of 500. So what happened in the lab was discovered not planned.

Psychiatrist: You forced people to torture other people.
Stanley: No. No, that is alien to my view. No one was forced. The experiment had told to the subject to perform an action what happened between the command and the outcome is individual, with conscience and will where can ether obey or disobey.

Psychiatrist: I don’t see how you can seriously equate victimization in a laboratory con with the willful participation in mass murder.
Stanley? Victimization? Look, when the experiments were complete all the subjects were given this questionnaire. Eighty-four percent said they were glad to have been in the experiment. Fifteen percent indicated neutral feelings. One point three percent indicated negative feelings. Four-fifths though more experiments of this sort should be carried out and seventy-four percent said they had learned something of personal importance about themselves and about the conditions that shape human action.

Stanley [on a talk show]: The experiment taught me something about the plasticity of human nature. Not the evil, not the aggressiveness but a certain kind of malleability. Sixty-five percent of the volunteers were obedient. That left thirty-five percent who recognized a moral breech, took responsibility for their actions and resisted. But obedience was much more common. You tell yourself, “I wouldn’t do that, I’d never do that.” But then, what did Montaigne say? “We are double in ourselves. What we believe, we disbelieve, and we cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.”

Stanley [to the camera]: There was a time when men and women could give a fully human response to any situation. When we could be fully absorbed in the world as human beings. But more often now people don’t see the whole situation but only some small part of it. There’s a division of labor, and people carry out small, narrow specialized jobs and we can’t act without some kind of direction from on high. I call this the “agentic state”. The individual yields to authority, and in doing so becomes alienated from his own actions. The agentic state is “store policy”. It’s “I’m just doing my job.” Or, “That’s not my job.” Or, “I don’t make the rules”, “We don’t do that here”, “Just following orders”, “It’s the law.” In the agentic state the individual defines himself as an instrument carrying out the wishes of others.

Stanley [voiceover, speaking from the grave as it were]: No one can truly know what they might or might not do when presented with the demands of a particular situation. In 2008. a professor at Santa Clara University replicated the obedience experiments and got roughly the same results. Over 60% of volunteers delivered the full shocks. In 2010 the experiments were duplicated on a French reality TV show, Le Jeu de la Mort, The Game of Death. Participants were egged on by a live studio audience. Over 80% went all the way.

Stanley [voiceover from the grave]: The obedience experiments are cited and discussed in nearly every introductory psychology textbook worldwide. My obedience film is screened for every incoming class at West Point. And my methods and results continue to be challenged, scorned, debunked, yet every time a new outrage is unleashed into the world, sanctioned and systematic acts of violence, the obedience experiments re-enter the conversation, re-framing unanswerable questions. You could say we’re puppets. But I believe that we are puppets with perception, with awareness. Sometimes we can see the strings and, perhaps, our awareness is the first step in our liberation.[/b]