There are characters you bump into on the screen and you think, “Hey, on the inside, that’s just the way I think…that’s just the way I feel”. But on the outside [and especially in your interactions with others] you couldn’t possibly be farther removed. So, who are you really trying to fool?
See if you can figure out the one closest to me. Hint: It’s not Louise, Sophie, Sandra, Jeremy or Brian.
Johnny is right out on the edge. But he has done a lot of deep thinking about our place in the universe so he’s not just throwing a dart in the general direction of the bullseye and hoping to at least hit the wall. He always at least lands on the board. But we have to do more to survive from day to day than just reasoning about things. And those parts he hasn’t quite mastered. Quite the opposite you might say. Here he is more like a bottle of nitro-glycerine.
Johnny and Louise have a back story. In manchester. But we never find out what that is. Now, in London they seem to be on very different paths. But all the time you know that, much like your own, these are just teeny, tiny slices of all the different ways one can choose to live his or her life. If you have any real choice at all.
It’s like the end of the world here. But, on the good days, it’s only brutal. And then there is Jeremy to remind you that bad as things are, they can always get much, much worse.
IMDb
The script was largely created by improvisation during 11 weeks of rehearsal before shooting. The script was only 25 pages long.
This makes the film all the more remarkable.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_(film
trailer: youtu.be/7WdAPqhnzwQ
NAKED [1993]
Written and directed by Mike Leigh
[b]Johnny [to Sophie]: I used to be a werewolf, but I’m all right no-OOWWWWWWWWWW!
…
Johnny [to Sophie]: I mean, tossing all these satellites and shuttles out into the cosmos. What do they think they’re gonna find up there that they can’t find down here? They think if they piss high enough, they’re gonna come across the monkey with the beard and the crap ideas? And it’s, like, “Oh! There you are, captain! Are you busy? Because I’ve got a few fundamental questions for you.”
…
Louise: What are you doing here? You look like shit.
Johnny: I’m just tryin’ to blend in with the surroundings.
…
Louise: So, how did you get here?
Johnny: Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday.
Louise: I see you haven’t changed.
Sophie: He’s a fuckin’ genius, this geezer!
…
Johnny: How’s your mum?
Louise: Fine. How’s yours? Still pulling pints?
Johnny: She’s dead. She’s still a good fuck though. I mean, the rates are a bit extortionate… but I do get a discount what with being the son and everything.
Sophie: Apparently, you shouldn’t stick anything up your cunt that you can’t put in your mouth.
…
Louise: Were you bored in Manchester?
Johnny: Was I bored? No, I wasn’t fuckin’ bored. I’m never bored. That’s the trouble with everybody - you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I’m not fuckin’ bored.
…
Johnny: You know what frightens me about the human body?
Sophie: What?
Johnny: Well, it’s like the, er, most sophisticated mechanism in the entire universe, and yet it’s so fuckin’ quiet, isn’t it? Know what I mean?
Sophie: Dunno. Mine makes enough noise.
Johnny: It’s like this, er, wet, pink factory. What the fuck are they makin’ in there? I mean, what’s the product? You never see no delivery trucks comin’ and goin’, do you?
…
Johnny [to Sophie]: Resolve is never stronger than in the morning after the night it was never weaker.
…
Maggie: Have you ever seen a dead body?
Johnny: Only me own.
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Brian: Waste not, want not.
Johnny: And other clichés.
Brian: But a cliché is full of truth, otherwise it wouldn’t be a cliché.
Johnny: Which is in itself a cliché.
…
Brian: You got nowhere to go, then?
Johnny: I’ve got an infinite number of places to go, the problem is where you stay.
…
Johnny: Has nobody not told you, Brian, that you’ve got this kind of gleeful preoccupation with the future? I wouldn’t even mind, but you don’t even have a fuckin’ future, I don’t have a future. Nobody has a future. The party’s over. Take a look around you man, it’s all breaking up. Are you not familiar with the book of Revelations of St. John, the final book of the Bible prophesying the apocalypse?.. He forced everyone to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one shall be able to buy or sell unless he has the mark, which is the name of the beast, or the number of his name, and the number of the beast is 6-6-6… What can such a specific prophecy mean? What is the mark? Well the mark, Brian, is the barcode, the ubiquitous barcode that you’ll find on every bog roll and packet of johnnies and every poxy pork pie, and every fuckin’ barcode is divided into two parts by three markers, and those three markers are always represented by the number 6. 6-6-6! Now what does it say? No one shall be able to buy or sell without that mark. And now what they’re planning to do in order to eradicate all credit card fraud and in order to precipitate a totally cashless society, what they’re planning to do, what they’ve already tested on the American troops, they’re going to subcutaneously laser tattoo that mark onto your right hand, or onto your forehead. They’re going to replace plastic with flesh. Fact! In the same book of Revelations when the seven seals are broken open on the day of judgment and the seven angels blow the trumpets, when the third angel blows her bugle, wormwood will fall from the sky, wormwood will poison a third part of all the waters and a third part of all the land and many many many people will die! Now do you know what the Russian translation for wormwood is?.. Chernobyl! Fact. On August the 18th, 1999, the planets of our solar system are gonna line up into the shape of a cross… They’re gonna line up in the signs of Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio, which just happen to correspond to the four beasts of the apocalypse, as mentioned in the book of Daniel, another fuckin’ fact! Do you want me to go on? The end of the world is nigh, Brian, the game is up!
Brian: I don’t believe that. Life can’t just come to a stop.
Johnny: All right, I’m not saying that life will end or the world will end, or the universe will cease to exist. But man will cease to exist! Just like the dinosaurs passed into extinction, the same thing will happen to us! We’re not fuckin’ important! We’re just a crap idea![/b]
Need I point out that 1999 has come and gone? But I don’t that against him.
[b]Johnny: Do you think that the amoeba ever dreamed that it would evolve into the frog? Of course it didn’t. And when that first frog shimmied out of the water and employed its vocal cords… in order to attract a mate or to retard a predator…do you think that that frog ever imagined that that incipient croak…would evolve into all the languages of the world, into all the literature of the world? Of course it fucking didn’t. And just as that froggy could never possibly have conceived of Shakespeare…so we can never possibly imagine our destiny.
Brian: I know what my destiny is.
Johnny: Yeah, but what you’re experiencing, as far as I can gather with all these manifestations of, uh, regression and precognition and transmigratory astral fucking chatterings is just the equivalent of that first primeval grunt…because evolution isn’t over. Man isn’t the be-all and fucking end-all. Look, if you take the whole of time and represent it by one year, were only in the first few moments of the first of January. There’s a long way to go. Only now we’re not going to spout extra limbs and wings and fins because evolution itself is evolving.
…
Brian: You don’t believe in God.
Johnny: Of course I believe in God. You see, the thing is, Brian that God is a hateful god. Must be because if God is good, then why is there evil in the world? Why is there pain and hate and greed and war? Doesn’t make sense. But if God is a nasty bastard, then you can say, “Why is there good in the world? Why is there love and hope and joy?” Well, let’s face it. Good exists in order to be fucked up by evil. The very existence of good enables evil to flourish. Therefore, God is bad. And it doesn’t matter how many past or future existences you have because they’re all gonna be riddled with grief and anguish and sickness and death. You see, Brian, God doesn’t love you. God despises you. So there’s no hope and mankind is just a component of the device by which the devil creates itself. Are you with me?[/b]
Nope. But then we’re not really supposed to be, are we?
[b]Johnny: Oh, “Jane Austen” by Emma.
Woman in window: That’s one of me favorite books.
…
Jeremy: Was your tattoo painful?
Sophie: Yeah.
Jeremy: Good.
…
Jeremy: Hope I haven’t given you AIDS, Sophie.
Louise: Jesus Christ!
Sophie: Are you serious?
Jeremy: I was merely jesting.
Louise: Very funny.
Jeremy: I think AIDS is rather healthy in its way.
Louise: You what?
Jeremy: I realise that’s not the fashionable thing to say, of course.
Louise: No, it’s not.
Jeremy: But the world is over crowded, isn’t it? It does need a little pruning.
Sophie: You fuckin’ better be joking.
…
Johnny: No matter how many books you read, there is something in this world that you never ever ever ever ever fucking understand.
…
Sophie: What is a “proper relationship”?
Louise: Living with someone who talks to you after they bonked you.[/b]