philosophy in film

A true story.

And over and again this story will be told: 1] What would you do? 2] What is the right thing to do? 3] How do you rationalize what you end up doing instead?

Every man for himself? Anything to stay alive?

Here though the better you are at your job the sooner you die. And what you do is aid and abet the Nazis in conquering the world.
The horns of a monstrous dilemma. Survival at all cost? Or is there a line to be drawn? But so much here depends on the admixture of many variables: what you are enduring, the likelihood of success, your philosophy of life, belief in God—or The Cause, how much you have to lose. Etc.

Conflicting goods. Eventually, we are always back to that “out in the world”; and always a particular world viewed from a particular point of view.

wiki

The film is based on a memoir written by Adolf Burger, a Jewish Slovak typographer who was imprisoned in 1942 for forging baptismal certificates to save Jews from deportation, and was later interned at Sachsenhausen to work on Operation Bernhard. Ruzowitsky consulted closely with Burger through almost every stage of the writing and production.

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=qwr9nCurEEQ

THE COUNTERFEITERS [Die Fälscher] 2007
Written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky

Hans: They’re for our people.
Salomon: Our people? I’m myself. Everyone else is everyone else.
Hans: Don’t you see what’s happening around us? What the Nazis are doing to us?
Salomon: Know why the Jews are always persecuted? Because they refuse to adapt. It’s really not that hard.
Hans: Sally, don’t you have any…
Salomon: No. Need a certificate of Aryan purity? I’ll do one proving you descend from Siegfried and the Dragon.

He won’t think this way for long.

[b]Salomon: One adapts or dies.

…

Salomon: I won’t give the Nazis the pleasure of being ashamed I’m still alive.

…

Prisoner: …anything, as long as we are not put out here again. Anything.

…

Salomon: Rags! The English use rags! Fibers torn and abraded thousands of times.

…

Burger [who is a Communist]: …we should organize ourselves. There’s a lot of us. We’re well nourished, we’re strong, we could fight! We’ve got tools.
Salomon: Retouching knives? Against an SS company?
Burger: Rather than let them gas us!
Salomon: I’d rather be gassed tomorrow than shot for nothing today. A day is a day.

…

Burger: Can’t anyone see what’s happening? The Germans are bankrupt. No foreign currency means no gasoline, no raw materials. We’re financing the German war effort!
Salomon: So? Are you suggesting sabotage? In a concentration camp?!
[the look on Burger’s face says it all: Yes]

…

Burger: You cheap whore!
Salomon: Just be thankful you are in here, you idiot!

…

Burger: No, Sorowtsch’s negative was perfect, as always.
Prisoner: But why?
Burger: My wife and I were sent to Auschwitz for printing anti-Nazi flyers. I’m not going to print money for the Nazis.

…

Burger: We could contribute to fighting the Nazis here that wouldn’t be just a symbolic gesture!
Salomon: We’re alive. That’s worth a hell of a lot.
Burger: Isn’t it about more than just your own shittly little life?
Salomon: Our shitty little lives are the only thing we have!
Burger: Is this about surviving or proving you can forge the dollar? I’ll keep on destroying your negatives. You can squeal to Herzog if you want.
Salomon: We’ll have to pay if we don’t deliver the dollar. All if us will pay!
Burger: Yes.

…

Salomon: One doesn’t betray one’s mates.
Zilinski: Mates? We’re to die for the ideals of that shitty political ideologue? Burger the hero! Always determined to die the martyr. That’s fine for him, not me. I lost four toes to frostbite in Buchenwald. They broke my back in Dachau. More than once I nearly died of starvation. I deserve to survive this too!
Salomon: One never squeals on one’s mates. Never!
Zilinski: What’s this, jailbirds’ honor?
Salomon: If you betray him, I’ll kill you.[/b]

But then later…

Salomon [to Burger]: We’ve delayed the dollar by months. You’ve had your fun. But now our mates’ lives are at stake.

A “fuck the world” kind of guy. Well, most of the time. And not too many folks like this get to sit next to David Letterman on Late Night. Though after his last appearance no one like him probably ever will.

He is brutally cynical at times but can get away with it because he is also funny as hell. Well, if you like cynical humor.

A very strange guy for being so ordinary.

IMDb

NBC would not lease out the actual Late Night with David Letterman footage where Harvey Pekar finally lashed out at David Letterman, so the scene had to be recreated with actors.

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=APpxQm7sH5k

AMERICAN SPLENDOR
Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

[b]Young Harvey: Why does everybody have to be so stupid?

…

Real Harvey [introducing his on-screen character]: OK. This guy here, he’s our man, all grown up and going nowhere. Although he’s a pretty scholarly cat, he never got much of a formal education. For the most part, he’s lived in shit neighborhoods, held shit jobs, and he’s now knee-deep into a disastrous second marriage. So, if you’re the kind of person looking for romance or escapism or some fantasy figure to save the day…guess what? You’ve got the wrong movie.

…

Harvey: “Plebeian”?

…

Harvey: Let’s get back to your book. What are you gonna do with it?
Crumb: I haven’t really thought about it. It’s just an exercise.
Harvey: No man, it’s more than just an exercise. It’s breaking ground, man. There’s some wild shit in here, Bob.
Crumb: You’re spitting on me, Harvey.

…

Crumb: You turned yourself into a comic hero?
Harvey: Sorta, yeah. But no idealized shit. No phony bullshit. The real thing, y’know? Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.

…

Harvey: People are starting to know the name Crumb. When you croak, man, you’re gonna leave something behind.
Crumb: Yeah, I guess.
Harvey: Come on, man. I tell you something, it sure beats working a gig like mine…being a nobody flunky and selling records on the side for $1.
Crumb: Well, that’s true.

…

Real Harvey [narrating]: Here’s our man, eight comics later. A brand new decade, same old bullshit. Sure, he gets lots of recognition for his writing now. His comics are praised by all the important media types telling people what to think. But so what? It’s not like he makes a living at it, like Bob Crumb. He can’t go and quit his day job or nothing. Who am I kidding?

…

Harvey [waking up in a cold sweat]: I got a job!

…

Alice: You’re Harvey Pekar? Alice Quinn, from school.
Harvey: College, yeah. We had a couple of Lit classes together.
Alice: What happened to you? You disappeared after two semesters.
Harvey: Yeah, I know. I got good grades and all, but there was that required Math class… hanging over my head. Eventually, the pressure got to be too much, so…[/b]

Gee, me too.

[b]Harvey [on phone]: You should meet me because I’m a great guy. Despite the way my comics read I got a lot of redeeming characteristics.
Joyce: I don’t know. Where would I stay?
Harvey: I don’t know. With me. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna put no moves on you.
Joyce: I’m not worried about that.
Harvey: So what are you worried about then?
Joyce: It’s the way all the different artists draw you. Sometimes you look like a younger Brando. But then, the way Crumb draws you…you look like a hairy ape, with all these wavy, stinky lines undulating off your body. I don’t really know what to expect.

…

Harvey [meeting Joyce for the very first time]: Look, you might as well know right off the bat, I had a vasectomy.

…

Joyce: I’ve had a lot of trouble eating animals. I support and identify with groups like PETA but unfortunately, I’m a self-diagnosed anemic. Also, I have all these food allergies to vegetables which give me serious intestinal distress. I guess I have a lot of borderline health disorders…that limit me politically when it comes to eating.
Harvey: Wow, you’re a sick woman.
Joyce: Not yet, but I expect to be. Everyone in my family has some sort of degenerative illness.

…

Harvey [at his apartment]: I was gonna clean up…but why should I give you any false notions? The truth is, I got a serious problem with cleanliness. If I had to wash a dish times, it’d still be dirty. They even kicked me out of the army 'cause I couldn’t learn to make a bed.
Joyce: I’ve seen worse. Could you get me some water and a few aspirin?
Harvey: What, you got a headache?
Joyce: No, but I want to avoid one.

…

Harvey: You don’t have any problems with moving to Cleveland?
Joyce: Not really. I find most American cities to be depressing in the same way.[/b]

A match made in Heaven?

[b]Real Joyce: There’ve been stories that I’ve participated in or things that have happened, and I’ve seen them as a lot more happy things going on in there. He just doesn’t put that in because he just doesn’t think that sunshine and flowers sell. Is that right? You always say, “Misery loves company.”
Real Harvey: You know, I’m just a gloomy guy, that’s all. It’s my perspective: gloom and doom.

…

[after watching the movie Revenge of the Nerds]
Harvey: What a crock of shit, man.
Joyce: You missed the whole point of the movie.
Harvey: Where the hell am I supposed to find the point in garbage? I agree with Toby.
Joyce: I think it’s a story of hope and tolerance.
Toby: Yes, it’s about time that the people who get picked on get to be the heroes.
Harvey: It’s an entertaining flick and all, and I can see why you like it, Toby. But those people on the screen ain’t even supposed to be you man! They’re college students who live with their parents in big houses in the suburbs. They’re gonna get degrees, get good jobs, and they’re gonna stop being nerds man! Look, Toby, the guys in that movie are not 28-year-old file clerks who live with their grandmother in an ethnic ghetto. They didn’t get their computers the way you did…by trading in a bunch of box tops and $49.50 at the supermarket.
Toby: You’re funny, Harvey.

…

Real Harvey [narrating]: Maybe I was being so harsh on Toby on account of my own problems. You see, I wasn’t even married a month and my old lady was already showing signs of trouble. Granted, I tend to get married fast, 'cause I’ll take any woman that’ll have me. But this time I really met my match.

…

Harvey: I’ll make room for you, okay? You just have to give me time. I’m not so good at these things.
Joyce: Because you’re obsessive-compulsive.
Harvey: Come on! I don’t wanna hear that psycho-babble crap.
Joyce: I don’t care if you don’t wanna hear it. You are the poster child for the DSM III. I’ll have you know I come from a very dysfunctional family. I can spot a personality disorder miles away.

…

Real Harvey [narrating]: If you think reading comics about your life seems strange, try watching a play about it. God only knows how I’ll feel when I see this movie.[/b]

And then a tiny [and very rare] peek inside the media industrial complex…

[b]Letterman: You know, folks, if it really is true that misery loves company our next guest must always have a house full of people.
Harvey [to himself]: Okay, asshole. You’re gonna pay for that one, man.
Letterman: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back Harvey Pekar.
[Harvey comes out wearing a t-shirt that reads ON STRIKE AGAINST NBC]
Letterman: Harvey, this is not the forum. This is not Meet The Press.
Harvey: You just want me to talk about simple-minded bullshit, David. But I ain’t co-opted like you. I got things to say.
Letterman: Relax, Harvey.
Harvey: For instance, I want to talk about a conflict of interest situation. Can we do that, David? How about that? You know, like GE owning this network, NBC. GE has basically become a military, industrial, financial…
Letterman: Can we get the singing shitzu back here? Has he left the building yet?
Harvey: You think NBC news is gonna cover what they do fairly? I got other things I wanna talk about.
Letterman: That’s enough…
Harvey: Just shut up, man! Don’t push me. I’m doing my own thing.
Letterman: Harvey, this is not…
Harvey: Are you afraid of the truth, David?
Letterman: It’s not about what you’re saying. It’s about your choice of venue. It may come as a shock to you, but this is a comedy show.
Harvey: Not tonight, it ain’t.
Letterman: You can take your winning personality and go get your own show.
Harvey: I don’t want my own goddamn show.
Letterman: We’ve had you on this show many times. You sulk, complain, and promote your comic book…and you really haven’t been appreciative.
Harvey: You didn’t do me any favors, okay? I’m still a file clerk. I’ve always been a file clerk… and it’s no thanks to you or to your goddamn pathetic audience.
Letterman: We’re gonna take a commercial. And when we come back, guess who’s not gonna be here.
Harvey: You want me to leave, David? Come on, ask me like a man. Don’t go hiding behind a commercial.

…

Harvey: Joyce, tell me the truth. Am I a guy who writes about himself in a comic book? Or am I just a character in that book?
Joyce: What are you talking about? What are you saying?
Harvey: If I die, will that character keep going? Or will he just fade away?

…

Harvey Pekar: My name is Harvey Pekar - that’s an unusual name - Harvey Pekar. 1960 was the year I got my first apartment and my first phone book. Now imagine my surprise when I looked up my name and saw that in addition to me, another Harvey Pekar was listed. Now I was listed as “Harvey L. Pekar”, my middle name is Lawrence, and he was listed as “Harvey Pekar” therefore his was a - was a pure listing. Then in the '70s, I noticed that a third Harvey Pekar was listed in the phone book, now this filled me with curiousity. How can there be three people with such an unusual name in the world, let alone in one city? Then one day, a person I work with, expressed her sympathy with me, concerning what she thought, was the death of my father, and she pointed out an obituary notice in the newspaper for a man named Harvey Pekar. And one of his sons was named Harvey. And these were the other Harvey Pekar’s. And six months later, Harvey Pekar Jr. died. And although I’ve met neither man, I was filled with sadness, ‘what were they like?’, I thought, it seemed that our lives had been linked in some indefineable way. But the story does not end there, for two years later, another ‘Harvey Pekar’ appeared in the phone book. Who are these people? Where do they come from? What do they do? What’s in a name? Who is “Harvey Pekar”?[/b]

Or John Smith for that matter.

Not being deaf myself [and never having interacted at length with anyone who was] I can only speculate that this is an entirely different manner in which to embody dasein. You are outside the norm so you create a new norm in the deaf community. But in many different ways others are outside the norm too. And even within the norm you create there are as many different narratives as there for those outside your own. Somehow these gaps need to be bridged while at the same time accommodating the ones that can never be.

Here they do an admirable job in discovering that above all else this is never easy. And nothing [of importance] is ever really fully resolved.

But how large is the gap between being born deaf and having once being a hearing person and then gone deaf?

IMDb

[b]Marlee Matlin won the Best Actress Academy Award for her role as Sarah Norman in this film. At 21 (actually 21 years and 218 days), she is the youngest ever winner of a Best Actress Oscar.

Marlee Matlin has only one spoken line in English during the entire film. The rest of her performance is in American Sign Language.[/b]

wiki

[b]Marking the film debut for deaf actress Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God is notable for being the first since the 1926 silent film You’d Be Surprised to feature a deaf actor in a major role.

There was some criticism that the film was told entirely from a hearing perspective, for a hearing audience. The film is not subtitled (neither the spoken dialogue nor the signing); instead, as pointed out by Roger Ebert, the signed dialogue is repeated aloud by Hurt’s character, “as if to himself.”[/b]

CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD
Directed by Randa Haines

[b]Dr. Franklin: This is the most amazing résumé I’ve ever seen.
James: I’ve been with some really good schools. The best.
Dr. Franklin: All of them. All of the best. One right after another. You’ve also been with the Lucky Erin Bar and Grill.
James: Pittsburgh. Bartender.
Dr. Franklin: And a disc jockey.
James: Yeah, that was in Oklahoma. I used to broadcast in sign language.
Dr. Franklin: You’ve covered all the map, Mr. Leeds.
James: I’ve got a lot of energy.
Dr.Franklin: I’m sure you do have a lot of energy and a lot of new ideas. I did too when…
[signing like a long time ago]
Dr. Franklin: But nobody’s trying to change the world around here. Just trying to help a few deaf kids get along a little better. But that’s all. Everything else is razzle-dazzle. Am I making myself clear?
James: Yes, I believe that are you.

…

James: You know, if you let me, I bet I could teach you how to speak.
Sarah: And I could teach you to mop the floor.
James: But I don’t want to mop the floor.
Sarah: And I don’t want to speak.
[She walks away]
James [to himself]: Schmuck.

…

James [of the waiter]: He doesn’t think you’re stupid. He thinks you’re deaf. No. Only stupid hearing people think that deaf people are stupid.

…

Sarah: I don’t do anything I can’t do well.

…

Mrs Norman: Let’s get this straight. Sarah doesn’t want to see me.
James: Has she said why?
Mrs Norman: We don’t communicate very well.
James: Did you ever learn to sign? Some of the parents…
Mrs Norman: I’m really sick of you people coming here every few years asking the same questions, blaming me.
James: God. No one’s blaming you.
Mrs Norman: Of course they are. They can’t blame themselves. So, it’s all my fault. Fine. I don’t give a damn anymore.

…

James: I really just came to ask one question. What happened when Sarah tried to speak?
Mrs: Norman: What happened? She looked awful. She sounded awful. People made fun of her. What do you think?

…

Dr. Franklin: Yelling at the back of a deaf person, very good James. He’s been to all the best schools.

…

Sarah: Hearing boys? They could never be bothered to learn my language. I was always expected to learn to speak. Well, I don’t speak. Sex was always something I could do as well as hearing girls. Better! At first, I let them have me because they wanted to. Before long, the boys were lined up on a waiting list my sister kept for me. No introduction, no talk. Just went to a dark place and fucked. They didn’t even take me out for a Coke first.

…

James: Sarah…you are the most mysterious, beautiful, angry person I have ever met.

…

Dr Franklin: Oh, uh…your size?
James: Yeah.
Dr. Franklin: Be careful, Jimbo.

…

Dr. Franklin: Nobody’s going to fuck with one of my students.
James: She’s no student! She’s a -year-old woman!
Dr. Franklin: Alright, nobody’s going to fuck with one of my employees. It’s going to stop!
James: She’s quitting her job! She’s quitting. She’s moving in with me!
Dr Franklin: Oh. Oh, I see. She’s going to be your maid now, huh?

…

James: Sarah…what do you want?
Sarah: You.
James: You got me. What else?
Sarah: Children. I want deaf children.
James: What do you want me to say, that I want deaf children? No, I don’t. But if they were, that would be fine.

…

James [on phone]: Don’t translate that to Orin. Please. No, I’m not saying please. Wait a minute. That was Orin saying please. Look, it’s my fault. I probably sounded like myself instead of like the dorm counselor sounding like Orin.

…

James: You know I haven’t turned on my hi-fi since you…Hold it. That sounds like…like I’m blaming you for me not listening to music…Thank you. I will. I’ll rest my hands nd listen to something beautiful.
[Bach Plays]
James: I can’t enjoy it. I can’t, because you can’t.

…

James: What do you hear? I mean, is it just silence
Sarah: No one has ever gotten in there to find out.
James: Will you ever let me in?

…

Sarah: Nothing. I can do nothing. I’m equipped for nothing and trained for nothing. I feel like an idiot. You treat me like an idiot. You pity me. And now you see Marian…
James: What about Marian?
Sarah: Let me be me. You don’t. You want me to be a deaf person so you can change me into a hearing person!

…

Sarah: You don’t want to help anybody. You just want to change and control them. I think that you want me to speak. And I just want to be me.
James: Well, who the hell are you?!

…

Sarah: …you think for me, think for Sarah. As though there were no “I.” I will be with you, quit my job, learn how to play poker, leave Orin’s party, learn how to speak." That’s all you, not me. Until you let me be an “I” the way you are, you can never come inside my silence and know me. And I can’t let myself know you.
James: Well…that’s all very moving. But how are you going to manage? You can lock yourself back in your precious silent castle…I heard. I heard every word, goddamn it. I translated for myself. It went from your hands into my brain and out my mouth. And you know what? I think you’re lying. I don’t think that you think being deaf is so goddamn wonderful. I think that you’re scared to death to try. I think it’s nothing but stupid pride that’s keeping you from speaking right. You want to be on your own. You don’t want to be pitied. Then you learn to read my lips and use your mouth for something besides showing me you’re better than hearing girls in bed. Read my lips. What am I saying? You want to talk to me, then you learn my language. Did you understand that? Of course you did. You’ve probably been reading lips for years. But that’s the great control game, isn’t it? I’m the controller? What a fucking joke. Now, come on! Speak to me! Speak! Speak to me!
Sarah [all but screaming]: Aah! See my mouth! Aah! Hear my voice! I’m not afraid!

…

Mother: I sent you away because I didn’t know how to take care of you. Your father couldn’t accept you. He felt he’d failed…You’re right. I hated you for driving him away. Please forgive me.

…

Sarah: I have been angry since I was a little girl. I didn’t want to hurt again, so I used my anger to push you away. I’m sorry.
James: I’m sorry…for hurting you.
Sarah: But I learned from you. I learned that I can hurt…and I won’t shrivel up and blow away.
James: I don’t want to be without you, either. Do you think that we could find a place where we can meet not in silence and not in sound? [/b]

Asperger’s syndrome. It’s a type of Autism. A busted brain. Only some parts of it are anything but.

It makes no difference where you go, there are always bullies and thugs. Here a lot more than there but no less infuriating there I’ll bet. Being different, of course. These scumbags always poke around there. And then you learn the scumbags are bullied in turn. Somewhere. At home usually. That makes it harder to despise them. Then you think: it’s “the system”. It’s the nature of capitalism in the modern world to twist the lumpenproletariat [the NEDS] into the worst sort of human beings.

As for video games that take you into another world and let you be who you wish you were rather than who you are [here it is ArchLord] I’ve never had any inclination to play them. But I can easily understand why others would.

Would that all the bastards could be exposed like this.

IMDb

[b]The title Ben X is the character’s name, but when spoken quickly in Dutch, you get Benniks, meaning: I am nothing.

The memorial speech scene bears a strong resemblance to the one in the novel ‘Tom Sawyer’ where the two boys were watching their own funeral ceremony then revealed themselves.[/b]

wiki

[b]Ben X is a 2007 Belgian drama film based on the novel Nothing Was All He Said by Nic Balthazar, who also directed the film. The film is about a boy with autism (played by Greg Timmermans) who retreats into the fantasy world of the MMORPG ArchLord to escape bullying.

The novel was inspired by the true story of a boy with autism who committed suicide because of bullying.[/b]

trailer:
youtube.com/watch?v=O3RJtmhMm90

BEN X [2007]
Written and directed by Nic Balthazar

[b]Ben [narrating]: It’s hard to explain. It’s hard to explain myself. But I never tell lies. Everything I say is true, even when I don’t say a thing.

…

Ben: I’m the one who is always wrong but no one could tell me exactly how to be right.

…

Doctor: Think of them as a computer that is configured differently. They see everything. They see every leaf extremely clearly, but they don’t see the tree. They literally can’t see the forest for the trees.

…

Ben [narrating]: The big picture—that’s what it’s all about. You have to try and see the big picture ande see that it doesn’t see you.

…

Teacher: God damn it, Bogaert! Leave Ben alone!..Ben’s just different from you, from the below-average members of the class. Fortunately for him if you ask me. But you obviously find it very difficult to accept that someone is different.[/b]

Of course this just puts a bigger target on Ben.

[b]Doctor: You have to remember that Ben isn’t feeble-minded. On the contrary. You could almost say he is strong-minded.

…

Ben [narrating]: He talks and talks and talks, the man who understands me.

…

Doctor: He has extraordinary perception. But every day he fights to be ordinary.

…

Doctor: They are volcanoes. They are walking volcanoes. Timebombs living under cover in our world. We don’t know when they will erupt. And their reactions often happen much later than the cause.

…

Text message on Ben’s phone: HEY MARTIAN, HE WHO TALKS IS GETTING IT
Ben: Me the Martian. I’d be getting it. Getting it. Getting it. But getting what? I was always getting it. Always.

…

Ben [narrating]: And then it was over. I was over. Eyes open again, head shut once more. Then it was time for truthfulness. Shamefulness, painfulness. Everything can be destroyed so easily. Why couldn’t I just be destroyed too?

…

Ben [narrarting in front of the mirror]: Then I saw that jerk standing there again. And I attacked him. I’d heard it before, the calling of night falling. Going right to the end of pain. How beautiful blood flowing from the vein.

…

Ben [narrating]: My father who never knows what to say. So I understand him in that way.

…

Ben [narrating]: The endgame. The endThe endThe endThe endThe endThe endThe endThe endThe end. The endgame.

…

Ben [narrating]: I had to say something. Anything. But the only thing I say is nothing.

…

Father: I remember he once asked me, How many reasons does one need to commit suicide?" I asked him what he meant by how many. He said, “How many? Two, five, ten?” That’s what he was thinking about. He wanted to know if he had enough.

…

Ben [narrating]: The endgame. My plan. The one-word plan. Murder. The murder of myself. Catch the train to nowhere. There is one advantage to killing yourself. You never have to look far for your victum.

…

Scarlite: If you think it’s all over quickly, you’re wrong. Even if you’re lucky enough to be decapitated immediately, apparently your head remains conscious for another 13 to 15 seconds. So you can imagine that what goes through your mind isn’t pleasant.

…

Scarlite: Do you want to quit this world, Ben? Go on then, go. But if you want revenge, take revenge. Otherwise you’re exactly what they say you are, a loser.

…

Ben [narrating]: She called it dying creatively. Suicide without dying. I had to learn everything. But I’d forgotten the most important thing. Learning to lie. To deceive.

…

Mother [on TV]: Someone had to die first. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come. Not for a boy. You can’t keep on begging and asking. And asking again and again and again that something be done to put a stop to it. That they would finally stop tormenting my son and making his life so impossible.[/b]

But what will really change in the world we know now? For as many as are shamed many more will be reborn in the belly of the capitalist beast.

I was in the military for three years. That’s not a prerequisite here but it does facilitate a better understanding of what you are up against when everything revolves around “following orders”. And [this being Jack Nicholson following them] stretching the meaning of that almost to the breaking point. But not beyond. He’s still a lifer.

Is this justice?
[That’s a joke]

I still find it hard to believe: Carol Kane as the “young whore”.

Warning: This being a film about folks in the Navy be prepared for some really foul language. Although nothing compared to the language in films today.

IMDb

[b]The script was completed in 1970, but contained too much profanity to be shot as written. Columbia Pictures waited for two years trying to get writer Robert Towne to tone down the language. Instead, by 1972, the standards for foul language relaxed so much that all the profanity was left in.

A tamer version with less profanity was filmed at the same time for TV showings. Because of the amount of swearing, the entire movie was pretty much shot twice.

Nancy Allen was originally offered the part of the “Young Whore”. But she turned it down because she felt she would be too nervous to speak while being nude on-camera.[/b]

Look for Gilda Radner. Just don’t blink at the wrong time.

THE LAST DETAIL
Directed by Hal Ashby

[b]Mulhall: You’re shittin’ me!
M.A.A.: I would never shit you. You’re my favorite turd!

…

Buddusky: Is that true what the chief said? You’re getting eight years and a dishonourable discharge for stealing $40?
Meadows: I didn’t get no $40. They caught me while I was lifting it from the box. I didn’t get it.
Buddusky: Jesus Christ! Eight years and a DD for $40 and you didn’t even get it?!

…

Buddusky: Meadows, is your word worth anything?
Meadows: Sure, it’s as good as the next guy’s.
Mulhall: The next guy is a prick.

…

Buddusky: Y’know, kid…you got a helluva knack for killin’ a conversation.

…

Buddusky: Let me tell you something about a kid like Meadows. He’s the kind…he’s going to the brig, and secretly he’s probably glad. On the outside too many things can happen to him. All of them bad. This way, the worst has already happened. He’s probably glad.

…

Mulhall: I hate this detail. I hate this fucking chickenshit detail!

…

Mulhall: You think having a good time in Washington will make it easier to pull his eight years? It won’t. It’ll make it harder.

…

Marine O.D.: [in bathroom at bus station] Sailor looks like he’s lost something.
Marine: Probably has trouble finding it with those thirteen buttons.
Buddusky: If I was a Marine, I wouldn’t have to fuck with no thirteen buttons. I’d just take my hat off.

…

Mulhall: That one guy was a big homo.
Meadows: Yeah, but, you guys, he sure was a happy homo.

…

Buddusky [responding to a woman’s sarcastic remark about his navy uniform]: You know what I like most about this uniform? The way it makes your dick look.

…

Meadows: If you’re Catholic, do you think it’s, uh, sacrilegious to chant?
Buddusky: Did it get you laid?
Meadows: No.
Buddusky: Then Meadows, what the fuck do you want to go on chanting for?
Mulhall: Chant your ass off, kid. But any pussy you get in this world, you gonna have to pay for, one way or another.

…

Young prostitute: Jesus Christ! That’s what I call quick.

…

Buddusky: You wanna try it again, kid?
Meadows: Yeah.
Buddusky [to prostitute]: Okay, honey.
Mulhall: Don’t worry about it, kid…plenty more where that came from.

…

Mulhall: You ever been married?
Buddusky: Not so you’d notice.

…

Buddusky: Welcome to the wonderful world of pussy, kid. The sink’s yours.

…

Buddusky: He don’t stand a chance in Portsmouth, you know. You know that, don’t you? Goddamn grunts, kickin’ the shit outta him for eight years…he don’t stand a chance.
Mulhall: I don’t want to hear about it.
Buddusky: ‘Maggot’ this, ‘maggot’ that…Marines are really assholes, you know that? It takes a certain kind of a sadistic temperament to be a Marine.[/b]

Based on a true story.

Yet another glimpse inside the world of religious faith. This time Jehovah’s Witnesses. But they are all the same when push comes to shove. It’s a world in which what you believe pales next to the fact that you believe in whatever that might happen to be. It’s a world of ritual and necessity. But, again, what you do is basically interchangable in all faiths. Why? Because what matters most is that you recognize the necessity to do particular things over and over and over again. Believing that if you do you are granted eternal life.

And the only way you can deprogram minds like these is to somehow get them to understand this. But usually [emotionally and psychologically] there is simply too much at stake. Especially with minds that have been brainwashed [indoctrinated] for years and years as children.

And these folks are the worst because they believe that unless you accept their faith and their faith alone your soul is lost.

Beware “the elders”.

This shunning bullshit is no joke. It rips families, friends, lovers to shreds. These people genuinely love each other. But they love – or fear – God more.

Poor Thea.

trailer:
youtu.be/fP0grwoiF-w

IMDb

In the last scene, the girl in the train who looks up and smiles at Sara is the “real life-Sara”. Her name is Tabita, and the director got the inspiration for the film from reading her story in a national Danish newspaper in 2006. While the story is fictionalized in places it is mostly true to Tabita’s story. The titles at the end of the film about Sara’s future accurately reflect Tabita’s life.

WORLDS APART [To Verdener] 2008
Written and directed by Niels Arden Oplev

[b]Father: I’ve done something terribly wrong.
Sara: What have you done?
Father: Now it’s all falling apart.
Sara: But what have you done?
Father: I was too weak. I was tempted.

…

Elizabeth: Dad did something very wrong.
Sara: Yes. But it’s worse that Mom won’t forgive him even though he repents.

…

Thea: There are three kinds of young Witnesses, you know. The 1s break all the rules. The 2s try out stuff without talking about it much.
Sara: That’s you.
Thea: And the 3s are the nerds. They attend all the meetings and sit at home with their parents and never do anything wrong.
Sara: That’s me.
Thea: Soon to become a 2.

…

Teis: When is the last time you saw your brother?
Sara: A year ago.
Teis: The rest of your family don’t see him either?
Sara: No.
Teis: Why not? Why not?
Sara: It’s none of your business, is it?
Teis: No, I guess not.
Sara: He didn’t behave correctly. He read the wrong book.
Teis: Okay. And you really didn’t like that book? I’d sure like to read it.
Sara: He’s expelled. That’s why.
Teis: Expelled from what?
Sara: We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Teis: You’re kidding me…

…

Teis: Aren’t you the ones who believe in all that Doomsday crap?
Sara: It’s called Armageddon and it’s not Doomsday but a transition to a new world.
Teis: Where everyone but you dies, right?
Sara: Yes.
Teis: So I’m going to die? [points to a woman] Is she going to die?
Sara: Unless she accepts Jehovah as the one true God, yes, she is.
Teis [pointing to another woman]: What about her?
Sara: Stop it.
Teis [pointing to a baby in a stroller]: Is that child going to die? Say the parents don’t accept your truth and the child is too young to understand, it’s still doomed?

…

Teis: So sex is a no-no. What else?
Sara: You don’t want to hear.
Teis: I’m serious.
Sara: You can’t join the army, you can’t vote, you can’t smoke or celebrate Christmas and birthdays. You can’t contradict the elders. But sex is the worst thing.

…

Teis: It’s so weird. You actually believe in God?
Sara: It’s weirder not to believe.

…

Teis: So if the doctor can only save you by giving you blood, you still say no? Even if you know you may die?
Sara: Yes, if your faith is strong. Jehovah says you should not take the blood of others.

…

The elder [after telling Sara she must break up with Teis]: I know you want to be God’s friend. You know what you must do in return. Right?
Sara [in tears]: Can’t you help me. Please?
The elder: You must trust in Jehovah. Only by trusting in Jehovah can you avoid Satan’s trials.
Sara: Isn’t there some way I can still see him. As a friend?[/b]

Nope.

[b]Teis: Don’t let them walk all over you and make you break up with me so you can hand out phamphlets and tell people they’re better off dead!

…

Jette [Teis’s mother]: Teis told us about your faith.
Teis: Jette and Vagn don’t believe in anything.
Jette: I have to say, we’re worried about how your being in a sect will affect Teis.
Vagn: We’ve been over that Jette.
Sara: Why do you call it a sect?
Jette: Well, that is what I’d call a closed group of uneducated people who believe in the end of the world and that they’re the only ones who’ll survive it.
Sara: We don’t think you need to be educated to be happy. We just try to bring people closer to God. That’s the only road to truth.
Jette [sarcastically]: The truth. Do you think there is only one truth, Sara? Jehovah’s Witnesses have proclaimed the end is near countless times with dates they get out of the blue. That’s what I call brainwashing. Do you know what that is? It’s when you tell children the same lie over and over again. You think so too, Vagn.[/b]

Here’s the problem though: By this time you like Sara a lot and tend to see Lette as the arrogant intellectual snob.
But not for long.

Teis: I don’t agree with the way my mother put it, but she’s right. Somewhere deep inside, you know she is.
Sara: I thought you were approaching us. I thought you wanted to help me.
Teis: I know how much is at stake for you but I just can’t. I can’t believe in it.
Sara: But we slept with each other.
Teis: I slept with you because I wanted to and because you wanted to. Stay here. Don’t go.

But she does.
But not for long.

[b]Mother: You’re walking on a razor’s edge.
Sara: I know.

…

Sara [to Elizabeth]: It’s not me who says I can’t be with him as well as with you.
Elizabeth: You lied to us.

…

The Elder: Sara, you know that fornicators offend the purity of Jehovah. If you choose carnal lust, you choose the lonliness of the soul. If you choose desire instead of Jehovah, you choose eternal death.

…

Father: Sara, I can’t see you anymore.
Sara: What do you mean? Sure you can. Why can’t you?
Father: You live here with your boyfriend.
Sara: My address is with Mom.
Father: But you live here.
Sara: Didn’t you hear me? My address is at Mom’s.
Father: God sees all.
Sara: In that case, He sees you choosing to believe me becasue you love me.
Father: Jehovah is truth, not a personal emotion.
Sara: So you want to stop seeing me?
Father: No, that’s what you want, Sara. This is your choice and yours alone. Jehovah sees you make that choice.
Sara: Don’t hide behind Jehovah. This is your choice.

…

Sara: So, this is goodbye?
Father: Yes, I suppose so.
Sara: Goodbye then.
Father: Goodbye, Sara.

…

Jonas: I can’t go on. I can’t stand being outside the church. It’s just too hard. I want to repent. If you do too, we can all be together again.
Sara: I’m sorry, Jonas. But I can’t.

…

Sara: Do you love me?
Father: How can you even ask? Of course I do.
Sara: Do you love God more than me?
Father: Yes.
Sara: Why?
Father: He created me. He is my Heavenly Father and will give me eternal life.
Sara: Know what, Dad? I think that’s very selfish of you.
Father. You could come back. Repent and come back so we can be a real family again.
Sara: Goodbye Dad.

…

Sara [voiceover]: Jehovah God. This is the last time we talk because I don’t believe in you anymore.

…

Title card: Sara doesn’t see her father and younger siblings anymore. She lives in Copenhagen where she’s studying to become a teacher.[/b]

What did she know and when did she know it? And what happens when we can’t ask the dead fetus to confirm it?

Forget the morality. Here we have to determine if what she did is legal. And what if what she believes happened is contradicted by what can be established as in fact having happened? Or what if she can’t remember what really happened at all? Or what if she is lying about what she thinks happened? Is she a murderer?

These things get complicated. Way past words.

And yet another peek inside the vapid, pop culture world of “America youth”. Are the “girls” or the “boys” the worst offenders?

trailer:
youtu.be/yFoky5z7fkw

STEPHANIE DALEY
Written and directed by Hilary Brougher

[b]Prosecutor: Claims she didn’t know she was pregnant. Claims that the infant was stillborn. Used her teeth to cut the cord.
Lydia [forensic psychologist]: Air in the lungs?
Prosecutor: And bowels. Also toilet paper embedded in the face.

…

Lydia: Did they talk to you about abortion?
Stephanie: No. But I could never do that.
Lydia: Why not?
Stephanie: Because it would be killing a baby.

…

Teacher [quoting Hawthorne]: No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitudes before finally becoming bewildered as to which may be true.[/b]

I don’t know about that. I’ve been doing it for years and years now.

[b]Teacher: Alright, we’re talking about The Scarlet Letter here. Anyone want to tell me the point of this book? Stephanie?
Stephanie: I think the point of the book is that it is harder to live a lie than it is to tell the truth and be punished.
Teacher: That’s good Steph. Anyone think the story has any relevance today? Satin?
Satin: I think it’s bullshit. He writes about this hypocritical priest who trashes this woman’s life and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because he’s ruined his relationship with God.
Teacher: And you don’t think a relationship with God is important?
[the teacher gets down in her face]
Teacher: You know what great literature is about, Satin? It’s about man and God. Nothing else really matters.

…

Satin [to Stephanie]: You’re such a fucking sheep.

…

Stephanie: I already knew she was going to be dead.
Lydia: How did you know that?
Stephanie: I just knew.
Lydia: Did you check for a pulse?
Stephanie: I wrapped her up in toilet paper…
Lydia: …and threw her away.
Stephanie [in a whisper]: Yes.
Lydia: But first you had to cut the umbilical cord. Did you hold her while you chewed the cord?
Stephanie: I don’t remember.
Lydia: What did you do with your hands?
Stephanie: I don’t know.
Lydia: Tell me what you believed happened.
Stephanie: What if what I believe turns out not to be true?
Lydie: Then stop believing it.

…

Stephanie: I’m, uh, going to take a plea bargain.
Lydia: I think that’s a good idea.
Stephanie: Criminally negligent homicide. My lawyer says I’ll get five years. But if I go to jail for 6 months I might be able to get parole.
Lydia: You’ll get parole.

…

Lydia [seeing the bandage on Stephanie’s hand]: What happened?
Stephanie [misunderstands and thinks she is talking about the baby]: I held her.
Lydia [confused]: What?
Stephanie: I held her. She barely moved. She was so small. She wasn’t crying. Her breathing was bad. But I knew she wanted to live. But I did not want her to. So I told her to die. And she did. I killed her with my mind.[/b]

Three historical contexts. The rich and the poor, the rich and an emerging middle class and the rich and a burgeoning middle class. That can make all the difference in the world regarding the narratives we use. Even “over there”. But some will ever resist anything other than Us and Them.

Seeing how the rich live never motivates me to want a lot of money myself. I just need enough to do the things I enjoy. But any civilized society should strive to provide all citizens with access to the middle class. And fuck that maid shit. In fact, the whole idea of having “servants” is repugnant to me.

I do however prefer that folks [rich or not] be intelligent and “cultured”. That’s just a prejudice but I suspect a pervasive one here.

In the end the servant gets her revenge. If you call self-immolation revenge.

wiki

Although the film includes some key elements of the original, Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid from 1960, Im has said that he tried to never think of it during the production in order to come up with a modern and original work. One major difference between the versions is that the original film took place in the middle class, while the remake is set in an extreme upper-class environment. Im explains this with South Korea’s social structure around 1960, which was a time when the country’s middle class started to form and many poor people moved from the countryside to work in the cities: “women became housemaids who served not only for the rich but also the middle class and that issue had served as the basis to Kim Ki-young’s work. What I realized upon reworking The Housemaid in 50 years was that there are much more wealthy people now, people who are millionaires.”

One thing though that hardly changed at all: men.

Look for Shin-ae from Secret Sunshine.

As for the ending, here is what the director has to say:
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding that last scene. Even one of the producers wanted it deleted. Many people complain about it. But without that scene, I think the movie would have been just so-so. I went with my gut feeling and included it. It’s a simple set-up: they’re giving a birthday party to a little girl who just witnessed something terrible and trying to cover up her trauma with expensive gifts. I wanted audiences to wonder if she could truly heal from such an event.

Maybe. But no way in hell would I have used it.

Is this a remake?
hancinema.net/hancinema-s-fi … 27819.html

Unfortunately, it’s been years since I watched the original. And even a used DVD at Amazon now cost $115. New? $200!!

trailer:
youtu.be/CvZowWUNRh4

THE HOUSEMAID [Hanyo] 2010
Directed by Sang-soo Im

[b]Mrs. Cho: Madam’s underwear is in the bathroom, you should hand wash it. When you get that big, you pee just by sneezing.

…

Hae-ra: I don’t understand why your brother’s wife stopped after two kids. That’s for common people who have to struggle to raise them.

…

Eun-yi: I love how you’re such a nice girl. You’re not bad-tempered, you’re polite to me.
Nami: I learned that from father. He said to treat people politely. It may seem like a sign of respect, but it’s really putting myself first.

…

Mi-hee [Hae-ra’s mother]: She doesn’t even realize she’s pregnant yet?
Mrs. Cho: Well, she’s kind of on the slow side.
Mi-hee: Slow? Really? What do you think she’ll do when she finds out?
Mrs. Cho: Slow, or naive, she’s not completely stupid, but she won’t pull any tricks. She’s pure-hearted.
Mi-hee: Hmm. Like Dostoyevsky’s Idiot.

…

Woman [mother?] : Your boss came in naked and you didn’t even resist?
Eun-yi: I was naked too and waiting for him.
Woman: Are you out of your mind? So, is it different with a rich man?
Eun-yi: [handing her the check from Hoon]: He finished with that.
Woman: Wow. I guess it is different.

…

Mi-hee: Your husband’s fucking her, and she’s pregnant. That’s a fact. The possibility that the baby’s not your husband’s? Zero.

…

Mrs. Cho [handing Eun-yi yet another check]: Your consolation payment. You know this is how that family solves any problems, right? Convenient for them and not bad for us either.

…

Mrs Cho: R.U.N.S.! Revolting Ugly Nauseating and Shameless work!

…

Mi-hee: There are obstetrics tests listed on the hospital bill. Now she knows she is pregnant. Let’s see what that bimbo tries to pull.
Hae-ra: What did he see in that cheap, common slut?

…

Hae-ra: How could that bastard do this to me? In my house, with the bitch who washes my underwear?!

…

Mi-hee [to Hae-ra]: Let him sleep around all he wants. Later, you can enjoy yourself and live like a queen.

…

Mi-hee [to Eun-yi]: That’s a $100,000 check. That thing inside you, it’s nothing. You can just cut it off, like a cyst.

…

Mrs. Cho: These people are scary.

…

Eun-yi: I’m pregnant. But the ladies of the house found out everything. They really smacked me around. They said they’d give me $100,000 if I have an abortion. But I’m having this baby.[/b]

No, she’s not. You just don’t fuck with scary people. Especially not the rich ones. Unless, of course, you’re crazy.

Eun-yi: R.U.N.S…R.U.N.S.

Is she a cruel sadistic pig and crazy? Does that make it different?

This is a movie “inspired by actual events”. That can mean practically anything. But in this world it isn’t hard to imagine it all unfolding—even more horrifically than this. Just tune in to the Discovery ID channel from time to time.

Especially if you think this sort of stuff doesn’t go on today.

This is a really hard movie to watch. You feel helpless because you know you can’t do a goddamn thing to stop what is still going on.

And the boys? Is it all about sex to them? Or more Mother Knows Best? And then there’s David.

Oh, and don’t forget: God sees all. And the irony still being that you need Him here because, well, what else is there?

IMDb

The movie (and the novel it was based on) is based on a true story. The character of Ruth is inspired by Gertrude Baniszewski, who, in 1965, tortured two girls who were in her care (with the help of her sons, daughters, and one of her daughters’ boyfriends). Gertrude (and her daughter, Paula) was given a life sentence; in 1985, she (Gertrude) successfully made parole. She died of lung cancer in June of 1990, at the age of 60.

wiki

[b]The film had a polarizing effect on film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it currently holds a 67% “Fresh” rating. In contrast, Metacritic assigns it a 29.

Stephen King said about the movie, “The first authentically shocking American film I’ve seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer over 20 years ago. If you are easily disturbed, you should not watch this movie. If, on the other hand, you are prepared for a long look into hell, suburban style, The Girl Next Door will not disappoint. This is the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand By Me.”[/b]

Here is what the film is based on:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Likens

Pay particular attention to this:

The boys would spend two years in prison. In 1971, Paula and Gertrude Baniszewski were granted another trial. Paula pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was released two years later. Gertrude, however, was again convicted of first-degree murder. She came up for parole in 1985, and despite a public outcry and petitions against her release, the parole board took her good behavior in prison into account, and she was released.

This fucking world.

trailer:
youtu.be/typY725pjZ4

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR [2007]
Directed by Gregory Wilson

[b]Adult David: You think you know about pain? Talk to my second wife. When she was nineteen she got between a couple of fighting cats, and one of them went at her, climbed her like a tree, tore gashes out of her thighs and breasts and belly that you can still see today. She got thirty stitches and a fever that lasted for days. My second wife says that’s pain. She doesn’t know shit, that woman.

…

Ruth: I’m just warning you, Honey, if I see any slutting going on around here, your ass is grass.

…

Ruth: You too Davey, go. Sorry, but I got some difficult thinking to do.

…

Ruth: Good morning David. Grab yourself a beer if you want.

…

Ruth: Damn it, Donnie, now we’ve got to cauterize.

…

Ruth: One sound down here and I promise I’ll kill the both of you. Not just punish you, kill you. Dead. You got that, David? Are we straight about that?

…

Ruth: You boys better string her up again. We’ve got her so no man will ever want her.

…

Adult David: The past catches up to you, whether you like it or not. It can be a gift or a curse if you let it. I will never forget the gift of Meg Loughlin, though I am plagued with the torment of failing again, failing somebody. But as she taught me, it’s what you do last that counts.[/b]

It’s really hard to make up your mind about David here. About what he did first, for example. And second. And third. And fourth.

A very strange relationship. It makes sense only when acknowledging these are, after all, human beings. And what is strange among them?

Well, this might be: Agreeing to marry before they know each other’s name.

But don’t bother asking, “What’s the point?” They have their own.

Of course it doesn’t hurt if you become the husband of a voluptuous and beautiful hairdresser.

So, why did she jump? She had her reasons. But certainly not ones that will ever make any sense to me.

trailer
youtu.be/O_g-zGIzvMI

THE HAIRDRESSER’S HUSBAND [Le Mari de la Coiffeuse] 1990
Written and directed by Patrice Leconte

[b]Antoine [voiceover]: My mother had knitted wool bathing trunks for my brother and me. The trunks never dried. We were always in the sea so the wool stayed wet all day and the sand stuck to our asses. I was always sore between the legs. After a week, I was walking with my legs spread to avoid screaming in pain. I’m angry at my mother for making us wear those wooly trunks. But I’m glad she unintentionally drew attention to my genitals. That summer, I realized I had to take good care of my balls.

…

Antoine: I’m off to the barber’s.
Mother: Again?!

…

Antoine: That evening, having seen her heavy but ideally rounded breasts, I was still so disturbed I couldn’t speak.

…

Father: And you? What do you want to be in life?
Antoine: I want to marry a hairdresser.
[His father slaps him in the face]
Father: Why did I do that? Tell me, why did I do that?

…

Antoine: Naturally, I wondered if Mathilde wore a bra.[/b]

Naturally, she didn’t.

[b]Antoine: Mathilde was my life. As soon as they’d gone and the door was closed, our lives would revolve around us, forever.

…

Mathilde: Promise me one thing. The day you don’t love me anymore, you won’t pretend to.

…

Antoine [voiceover]: We have no friends. We never had any. What could they add to our lives? I don’t understand couples who go out with other couples, even on holiday. It proves that love is lacking and the gulf is being bridged by outside friendships. Mathilde and I are happy together. That’s all that matters.

…

Antoine: While cutting my hair, Mathilde said: “Do you know Fernand Reynaud drives a Jag?” She must have read it in a magazine. And I, like a fool, answered sarcastically: “You mean he can drive, that idiot?” I never liked that actor, but Mathilde did. She shrugged her shoulders and sighed in a way I’d never heard before. Annoyed and silent, she finished the cut. That was our only fight. But it disturbed my deeply.

…

Ambroise: At your age, you think old folks are your friends because they’re old. It’s not true. I see plenty of relatives on Sundays, anxious to leave. I understand. This is no place for the living.

…

Ambroise: Everyday, I come and open the gate. Makes me feel I can leave if I want to.

…

Mathilde: It’s terrible. He stoops more and more every day.
Antoine: Everyday he gets older.
Mathilde: Life’s disgusting.

…

Mathilde: A storm’s brewing

…

Mathilde [leaving the shop after coitus with Antoine]: I’ll get some yogurt for tonight.

…

Mathilde [in letter]: My love. I’m going before you do. I’m going before your desire dies. Then we’d be left with tenderness alone. And I know that wouldn’t be enough. I’m going before I grow unhappy. I go bearing the taste of our embraces. Bearing your smell, your glances, your kisses. I go with the memory of the best years of my life. The ones you gave me. I kiss you slowly until I die. I have always loved you. I loved only you. I’m going so you’ll never forget me. Mathilde.

…

Antione [to customer]: The hairdresser will be back.[/b]

Maybe. But not in this lifetime.

The past catches up with you. Especially if you’ve actually had one. If you know what I mean.

Antwone Fisher sure does. And that’s before you throw in the part about race.

Here’s a guy who as a child went through a rendition of The Girl Next Door above. Nowhere near as severe but when you are a kid the psychological scars can follow you to the grave. Unless fortuitously you bump into the right people.

God’s in this one too. So is the military we can talk about.

And somewhere between Dr. Huxtable and the hood is a narrative I know little about.

This going back and confronting the past might work for some. But it’s the worst possible thing to do for others.

wiki

[b]The film is inspired by a true story, with the real Antwone Fisher credited as the screenwriter, and is based on his autobiographical book Finding Fish.

The book The Slave Community, written by American historian John W. Blassingame and referenced in the film, was one of the first historical studies of slavery in the United States. The book contradicted others who suggested that African American slaves were in large-part submissive. Blassingame used psychology to determine the mentality developed by slaves during the era and possibly passed on to generations after.

Davenport suggests Antwone read the book to explain Tate’s beatings of him. Davenport does not intend to justify her actions, but he seeks to let Antwone understand where her mentality of beatings and verbal abuse to keep the foster children subservient came from. Antwone is seen briefly reading the book in the next scene.[/b]

IMDb

[b]De’aundre Bonds was initially given a role in the film. On the night that he learned he was awarded the role, he attended a family celebration and was involved in an altercation with his aunt’s boyfriend. The altercation ended with Bonds stabbing the man to death. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Derek Luke was working at the Sony Studios gift shop when he met Antwone Fisher who was working on the lot as a security guard. When Fisher’s screenplay was bought by Fox Searchlight, Luke asked Fisher for a copy of the script. He went to the casting director unannounced and asked to audition. He has since admitted “I was so terrible I started crying” but Luke was invited to audition again. Denzel Washington came to the gift shop to tell Luke that he got the part.[/b]

ANTWONE FISHER
Directed by Denzel Washington
Written by Antwone Fisher

[b]Sailor: What’s cracking Fisher?
Antwone: Your head if you don’t get away from me.

…

Antwone: Why does something got to be bothering me? What, because I jumped on a white boy? Something must be wrong with me?
Jerome: You looking for a discharge, Fisher?
Antwone: I ain’t looking for nothing.
Jerome: Well that’s where you’re headed.

…

Antwone: Cleveland.
Jerome: Parents still live there?
Antwone: I never had any parents.
Jerome: They deceased?
Antwone: I never - I never had parents.
Jerome: That would make you a medical miracle, Seaman Fisher. Where you from?
Antwone: I’m from under a rock.
[pause]
Jerome: Okay.

…

Jerome: You know where your father is?
Antwone: Yeah, I know where he is. He went to his ex-girlfriend’s house. They got into an argument. She killed him.
Jerome: Where was your mother when this happened?
Antwone: Behind bars. I was born in prison 2 months after my father was murdered.
Jerome: Why was she confined, your mother?
Antwone: I don’t know.
Jerome: So you were turned over to the state?
Antwone: Yeah. The state placed me in this orphanage. It was supposed to be until my mother got out to claim me. She got out but she never claimed me.

…

Antwone: Ms. Tate used to brag about beating me unconscious.

…

Antwone: Keith was half-white. She would try to compare Keith to me and Dwight. You know, he had the good hair, we had the bad hair. She used to say how Keith was better than us because his father was white. I wished I was Keith. But not even Keith could escape being called a nigger. She hardly used our names. She said the word nigger so often, called us nigger so often that we could tell who she was talking to by the way she said the word nigger.
Jerome: What happened to Dwight and Keith?
Antwone: Dwight is in Lucasvilled State Penitentary. Keith got taken back by his mother. He was raped by one of her boyfriends.

…

Jerome: I thought we were all done fighting, Antwone.

…

Jerome: Now we’re right back where we started: How come you have never been with a woman?[/b]

That’s where Nadine comes in.

Jerome: “Regard without ill-will despite an offense.” That’s Webster’s definition of forgiveness.
Antwone: Why do I have to forgive?
Jerome: So you can get on with your life.

…

[b]Social service worker: Place of birth?
Antwone: Ohio State Correctional Facility for Women.

…

Antwone: Why’d you never come for me?[/b]

There are two sides to every story. The right side and the wrong side. The good side and the bad side. The true side and the false side.

And then there’s the real world.

But this guy is a scumbag and what he did is despicable. And Robbins shows us just how despicable. Personally, I think the state did the right thing. My real qualms with execution revolve around what can happen to the innocent in a criminal justice system that can be at times nothing less then criminal itself. But that really wasn’t applicable here.

Though both Robbins and Sarandan are known political activists on the left [and opposed to the death penalty] you can’t say they didn’t bend over backwards here to show both sides of the issue. Towards the end, just when you think the whole focus is going to shift to Poncelet’s narrative [his suffering, his redemption], the actual execution itself is interspersed with a depiction of what these two men did to the victums the night of the crime—the rape and the murders.

Basically, they show us that both sides are right. We simply view the events from a conflicting set of value judgments embedded in a conflicting understanding of what is good.

Of course God and Jesus are practically Marxist revolutionaries here.

IMDb

[b]After being told that she would be played in the film by “a famous actress from Thelma & Louise”, Sister Helen Prejean was introduced to Susan Sarandon and said “Thank God, she’s Louise.”

True story?

Yes. Sister Helen Prejean (played by (Susan Sarandon) is a Catholic nun who has become a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. The character of Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), however, is a fictional composite of several prisoners counseled by Prejean, including Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie.

Why Dead Man Walking?

‘Dead man walking’ is a phrase once used in American prisons when a man on death row was being led down the hallway to the execution room. It’s believed that the term was used to warn others to get out of the way, because a person on their way to the death chamber has nothing else to lose.[/b]

DEAD MAN WALKING
Written and directed by Tim Robbins
From the book by Helen Prejean

[b]Sister Helen: What about you?
Matthew: l live here.
Sister Helen: You were brought up poor?
Matthew: Ain’t nobody with money on death row.
Sister Helen: You and l have something in common then.
Matthew: What’s that?
Sister Helen: We both live with the poor.

…

Matthew: l don’t trust nobody in here. But you don’t kiss my ass or preach that hellfire brimstone crap. I respect that. You got guts. You live in a neighborhood with every nigger carrying a gun.

…

Matthew: We have to prove l’m innocent.
Hilton: We’ll file appeals with the federal and supreme courts for that but this is a pardon board. They won’t care if you shot the gun. They’ll be thinking of the crime. And of you as a monster. lt’s easy to kill a monster but hard to kill a human being.

…

Matthew: l like being alone with you. You’re looking real good to me.
Sister Helen: Look at you. Death is breathing down your neck, and you’re playing your little male come-on games. l’m not here for your amusement, Matthew. Show some respect.
Matthew: Why, cause you’re a nun?
Sister Helen: Because I’m a person. Every person deserves respect.

…

Hilton: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s be honest. You’re not gonna find many rich people on death row. Matthew Poncelet’s here today because he’s poor. Didn’t have money so he had to take what the State gave him. He got a tax lawyer who’d never tried a capital case before. An amateur. The lawyer raised one objection the entire trial.

…

Hilton: The death penalty. lt’s nothing new, been with us for centuries. We’ve buried people alive, lopped off their heads, burned them alive in public, gruesome spectacles. In this century, we kept searching for more and more humane ways of killing people we didn’t like. We’ve shot them with firing squads, suffocated them in gas chambers. But now…now we have developed a device that is the most humane of all: Lethal injection. We strap the guy up. We anesthetize him with shot number one. Then we give him shot number two which implodes his lungs. And shot number three stops his heart. We put him to death just like an old horse. His face just goes to sleep while inside, his organs are going through Armageddon. His facial muscles would contort, but shot number one relaxes those muscles. So we don’t have to see any horror show. We don’t have to taste the blood of revenge while this human being’s organs writhe, twist, contort. We just sit there quietly, nod our heads and say: ‘‘Justice has been done.’’[/b]

Of course there are those who want to see all these things. Folks who think that is just what he deserves.

[b]State’s attorney: There’s been no doubt in the court’s mind about who did the murder. Matthew Poncelet is not a good boy. He is a heartless killer. These murders were calculated, disgusting and cruel. This man shot Walter Delacroix two times in the back of his head. And raped Hope Percy and stabbed her 17 times before shooting this sweet girl two times in the back of the head. These families will never see their children graduate from college. They will never attend their wedding. They will never have Christmas with them again. There will be no grandchildren. All they ask of you is simple justice for their unbearable loss. l ask you to take a breath, steel your spine and proceed with the execution of Matthew Poncelet.

…

Earl Delacroix: Excuse me, Sister, l’m Walter Delacroix’s father.
Sister Helen: Mr. Delacroix, l’m sorry about–
Earl Delacroix: Sister, l’m a Catholic. How can you sit by Poncelet’s side without ever having come to visit with me and my wife or the Percys to hear our side? How can you spend all your time worrying about Poncelet and not think that maybe we needed you too?
Sister Helen: Mr. Delacroix, l didn’t think that you wanted to talk to me.
Earl Delacroix: This is Mary Beth and Clyde Percy.
Sister Helen: l’m sorry about your daughter.
Clyde Percy: Yeah, so are we. Excuse us.
Earl Delacroix: Listen, Sister, l’m sure you’ve seen a side of Matt Poncelet that none of us has seen. l’m sure he’s on his best behavior, must be pretty sympathetic to you. But, Sister, this is an evil man. This is a man who abducted teenage kids and raped and killed them. That scum robbed me of my only son. My name, my family name dies with me. There will be no more Delacroixs, Sister. No more.

…

Sister Helen: Do you ever read the Bible?
Matthew: l ain’t much of a Bible reader, but l pick it up from time to time.
Sister Helen: Like W.C. Fields read his Bible.
Matthew: Who?
Sister Helen: W.C. Fields. He used to play this drunken character in the movies. He’s dying and a friend comes and sees him reading the Bible. The friend says, ‘‘W.C., you don’t believe in God. Why are you reading the Bible?’’ And Fields says, ‘‘l’m looking for a loophole.’’

…

Matthew: I like rebels. Some blacks is ok. Martin Luther King, he led his people all the way to DC and kicked the white man’s butt.
Sister Helen: You respect Martin Luther King?
Matthew: He put up a fight. He wasn’t lazy.
Sister Helen: What about lazy whites?
Matthew: Don’t like 'em.
Sister Helen: So it’s lazy people you don’t like?

…

Clyde Percy: l just couldn’t bear the thought of them burying that body without making absolutely and positively sure that that was Hope. l called my brother, he’s a dentist. l asked him to go to the funeral home and make an l.D. from dental records. Before he’d stuck his hand into that bag with all that lime in it and fished Hope’s jaw out he’d been against the death penalty. And after that, he was all for it.

…

Mary Beth Percy: So, what made you change your mind?
Sister Helen: Change my mind?
Mary Beth Percy:What made you come around to our side?
Sister Helen: l wanted to come and see if l could help y’all and pray with you. But he asked me to be his spiritual adviser, to be with him when he dies.
Mary Beth Percy:: And what did you say?
Sister Helen: That l would.
Mary Beth Percy: We thought you’d changed your mind. We thought that’s why you were here.
Sister Helen: No.
Clyde Percy: How can you come here? How can you do that? How can you sit with that scum?
Sister Helen: Mr. Percy, l’ve never done this before. l’m trying…l’m trying to follow the example of Jesus who said that every person is worth more than their worst act.
Clyde Percy: This is not a person. This is an animal. No, l take that back. Animals don’t rape and murder their own kind! Matthew Poncelet is God’s mistake. And you want to hold the poor murderer’s hand? You want to comfort him when he dies? There wasn’t anybody in the woods to comfort Hope when those two animals pushed her face into the grass!
Sister Helen: l just want to help him take responsibility for what he did.
Mary Beth Percy: Does he admit to what he did? ls he sorry?
Sister Helen: He says he didn’t kill anybody.
Clyde Percy: Sister, you’re in waters way over your head.
Mary Beth Percy: You don’t know what it’s like to carry a child in your womb and give birth and get up with a sick child in the middle of the night. You just pray and get a good night’s sleep don’t you.
Clyde Percy: My parents raised me to respect the religious. But Sister, I think you need to leave this house right now.
Sister Helen: l’m sorry.
[she turns to leave the house]
Clyde Percy: Wait a minute! lf you really are sorry and do care about this family you’ll want to see justice done for our murdered child! Now, you can’t have it both ways! You can’t befriend that murderer and expect to be our friend too.
Mary Beth Percy: You brought the enemy into our house. You gotta go.

…

Matthew being interviewed on TV: I had two families. Both of them I’d love and die for.
Interviewer: Your other family is… ?
Matthew: The family of man. Of men in prison. My white family, the Aryan Brotherhood.
Interviewer: You’re a white supremacist? A follower of Hitler?
Matthew: He was a leader. I admire him for getting things done. Like Castro, he got things done. Hitler might have gone overboard on the killing but he was on the right track about the Aryans being the master race.
Interviewer: The right track? The murder of 6 million Jews?
Matthew: That’s never been proven.
Sister Helen [listening at home]: What am l doing with this guy? l must be nuts.

…

Sister Helen: Think about it. Their kids are shot, stabbed, raped left in the woods to die alone. How’d you feel if somebody did that to your family? What would you do to them?
Matthew: l’d sure as hell want to kill them.

…

Earl Delacroix: My wife filed for divorce this afternoon. We just have different ways to deal with our son’s death. We’re nothing special though. Most folks that lose a kid split up. Seventy percent or something.

…

Sister helen: You in the room when they do it?
Sergeant Trapp: l’m on the strap-down team, left leg. That’s my job. The left leg. l take the prisoner from his cell to the execution chamber.
Sister Helen: Wow, that’s gotta be tough.
Sergeant Trapp: lt’s hard. l didn’t sleep that night.
Sister Helen: l think it’s gotta affect everybody that sees it whether they’re for it or against.
Sergeant Trapp: lt’s just part of the job. These prisoners get what’s coming to them.

…

Prison guard: Tell me something sister, what is nun doing in a place like this. Shouldn’t you be teaching children? Didn’t you know what this man has done? How he killed them kids?
Sister Helen: What he was involved with was evil. I don’t condone it. I just don’t see the sense of killing people to say that killing people’s wrong.
Prison guard: You know what the Bible say, ‘An eye for an eye’.
Sister Helen: You know what else the Bible ask for death as a punishment? For adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, trespass upon sacred grounds, profane in a sabbath and contempt to parents.
Prison guard: I ain’t gonna get into no Bible quoting with no nun cause I’m gonna lose.

…

Matthew: lf only l knew l’d die right away with the first shot. l mean, will l feel it?

…

Sister Helen: Let’s talk about what happened. Let’s talk about that night.
Matthew: l don’t want to talk about that.

…

Matthew: …and l got a thing or two to say to the Percys and the Delacroixs.
Sister Helen: You want your last words to be words of hatred?
Matthew: Clyde Percy wants to inject me hisself!
Sister Helen: Well, think of how angry he must be. He’s never gonna see his daughter again. He’s never gonna hold her, love her, laugh with her. You have robbed these parents. They have nothing in their lives but sorrow, no joy. That is what you gave them. Why were you in the woods?
Matthew: l told you, l was stoned out of my head!
Sister Helen: Don’t blame the drugs. You were harassing couples for weeks…for months before this happened.

…

Sister Helen: You could have walked away.
Matthew: Vitello went psycho on me.
Sister Helen: Don’t blame him! You blame him, the government, drugs, blacks, the Percys. You blame the kids for being there. What about Matthew Poncelet?!

…

Matthew: Walter?
Sister Helen: Yeah? What?
Matthew: l killed him.
Sister Helen: And Hope?
Matthew: No, ma’am.
Sister Helen: Did you rape her?
Matthew: Yes, ma’am.
Sister Helen: Do you take responsibility for both of their deaths?
Matthew: Yes, ma’am. When the lights dimmed last night l kneeled and prayed for them kids. I never done that before.
Sister Helen: Oh, Matt. There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch. You did a terrible thing, Matt, a terrible thing. But you have a dignity now. Nobody can take that from you.[/b]

Huh? Still: what else is there but this reliegious bullshit?
To wit:

Matthew: You know l never had no real love myself. Never loved a woman or anybody else.
Well, it figures l’d have to die to find love. Thank you for loving me.

The only thing that makes this something good is the part she insist God plays here. Take that away and Sister Helen makes the execution all that much more unbearable for him. He finds love with less than an hour to live!

[b]Prison guard: Do you have any last words, Poncelet?
Matthew: Yes, I do.
[pauses]
Matthew: Mr. Delacroix, I don’t wanna leave this world with any hate in my heart. I ask your forgiveness for what I done. It was a terrible thing I done, taking your son away from you.
Clyde: [Softly to his wife] How about us?
Matthew: Mr. and Mrs. Percy, I hope my death gives you some relief.

…

Sister Helen: I want the last face you see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this thing. I’ll be the face of love for you.[/b]

A really [and I mean really] funny look at a man determined to find his, uh, “real parents”. Be careful what you wish for?

But then [philosophically] this is the stuff daseins are made of:

Mel: I can’t help feeling that if I’d been raised by at least one of my real parents I wouldn’t be such a nervous person, you know? I might be living a completely different life in a totally different city. I could be married to a totally different person with a different job. I mean, how do I know? I don’t. Anything’s possible.

The implication of this either sinks in or it doesn’t.

FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
Written and directed by David O. Russell

[b]Tina: I’m in the middle of a divorce, actually.
Nancy: Sorry.
Tina: Oh, no. It was one of those dead marriages—the kind where you have to start making dates to have sex.

…

Mel: Hey, I didn’t go around telling my friends you didn’t want to make love for almost two months after the baby was born, did I?
Nancy: Probably.
Mel: Okay, but it didn’t get back to you, did it?

…

Pearl: Why does he have to do the Roots thing?

…

Tina [hearing a car horn]: What’s that?
Mel: Oh, my God. It’s happening. Shit!
Tina: Oh, God, no.
Nancy: What’s happening?
Tina: It’s the bump and rob thing! This is it!!

…

Mel: Thank you for the jacket! Sorry about the mace!

…

Tina [reading aloud the words on the side of the “bump and rob” van]: “The Trinity Church Ministry of Hope.”

…

Valerie: I’m a bad person for what I did to you.
Mel: No, don’t say that.
Valerie: It’s true.
Mel: Look, Tina says that most women who gave up their children for adoption in the 60’s were independent young women acting against a conservative world.
Valerie: You’re sayin’ I was a slut?

…

Tina: You know what? I can clear this up with one phone call to the office.[/b]

And clear it up she does:

[b]Tina: Listen, I, I, I don’t believe this but there’s been a terrible, terrible mistake. Valerie’s not your mother, Mel.
Mel: What? What are you talking about? Of course she’s my mother. We have the same forehead.
Jane: And he looks like Uncle Freddie.
Mel: Yeah, I look like Uncle Freddie.

…

Valerie: Excuse me! I expect you to pay for this damage.
Mel: Well, w-wait a minute. You said it was a gift from God. Remember?
Valerie: That’s when you were my son.

…

Mel: Excuse me, is one of you fellas Fritz Bourdeau?
Fritz [shoving him to the ground]: Did I invite you onto my property?!
Mel: Take it easy!
Nancy: Tina, don’t go over there!
Tina [being attacked by Mitch]: Would you let me explain?
[Mitch starts kicking her camera across the parking lot]
Tina [screaming]: FUCK! RUN!

…

Fritz: Why, you little shit! Look at this turd face, Mitch! This turd is my son! I’m sorry, man. Did we scare you?

…

Fritz: Hey, you ever been in a truck before?
Mel: No, not really.

…

Fritz: Are you sayin’ my son’s a bitch boy?
Mitch: I didn’t say that!
Fritz: You ain’t no bitch boy, are ya, Mel?
Mel: No, I don’t believe I’m a bitch boy.

…

Fritz: You know somethin’? You got a kind of Jew look, don’t you?
Mel: Well, the people who raised me are Jewish.
Mitch: They…they gave you a real “Hebe” look, kid.

…

Mel: Who…Who’s Old Needledick?

…

Paul: You do know it is a federal offense to destroy a United States Post Office?

…

Tony: So where did you folks come down on the big circumcision controversy? 'Cause, you know, there’s a movement afoot these days to keep the foreskin and, personally, I think a boy’s penis should look just like his father’s.

…

Nancy: We forgot your father’s birthday.
Mel: Oh, fuck…

…

Pearl: Hello?
Mel: Hi, Mom.
Pearl: So, how’s the psychic healing going?
Mel: I am really sorry we didn’t get back for Dad’s birthday.
Pearl: It’s all right. We’ll try it again when he turns 65…provided he lives that long and you’re not too busy.

…

Nancy: Where’d you get the pup tent?

…

Mel: Ever heard of hypospadias?
Tina: Is there something wrong with the plane?

…

Nancy: Does anybody actually own a white Taurus, or are they all rentals?

…

Tony: Nancy was saying you guys were having some tension about oral sex.

…

Tina: Did it ever occur to you to call first?
Paul: Without spontaneity, the world of B&B’s is fairly meaningless.

…

Tina: Look, do you wanna file an anti-defamation suit or do you want to get to the “Schwingkings” before midnight?

…

Richard: Is this some kind of a swapping thing you got going here?

…

Mel: You made LSD? Is that what you’re saying?
Richard: We made LSD.
Mary: Yes, yes. We made acid.
Richard: And we gave it out to people who needed it. You know that there are hundreds of pharmaceutical executives in this country… that are selling drugs, FDA approved drugs.
Mary: On the open market.
Richard: Over the counter with incredible side…
Mary: Horrible side effects.
Richard: Terrible side effects. And these people are not in jail.
Mary: They’re not in prison anywhere.
Richard: They’re, they’re, they’re in country clubs or playing golf. They’re having drinks.
Mary: They’re running the country, Mel.
Richard: You know, LSD shouldn’t be a felony in the first place.
Mary: It’s not addictive.
Richard: It doesn’t lead to violent crime.
Mary: It’s really the only hope for the species.

…

Mel: Did you take acid while you were pregnant with me?
Mary: You’re not gonna bring that thing up, are you?
Richard: You know the stuff they tell you about, you know, chromosome damage and all that stuff?
Mel: Yeah, I do!
Richard: That’s government propaganda.
Mary: Total propaganda.
Richard: They just want to get a hold of your head, that’s all.
Mary: I was relieved, though, when you came out in the hospital and you only had one head.
Mel: Very funny.
Richard: [laughing] She- She kills me! It would’ve been kinda nice if he had, like, a third eye right there, you know? You know, you know, a third eye is a symbol of enlightenment.
Mary: Mel…identity is nothing but a mental construct.
Mel: Mental construct?
Richard: Have you ever read any Tibetan Buddhism, or Chaos theory?

…

Paul: Is this a musical table?

…

Richard: How do you feel?
Paul: Vivid.

…

Paul: I’m seeing colors I don’t want to.

…

Tina [to Mel]: I guess it’s just one of those ex-felon pro-acid kind of non-smoking homes.

…

Mel: [to Tony] You know, you got a lot of nerve. You come in here, you lick my wife’s armpit. You know I’m going to have that image in my head for the rest of my life.

…

Richard: Where’s the car?
Lonnie: It’s over here.
Richard: Why did you move it?
Lonnie: I thought you moved it.
Richard: Why would I move it?

…

Pearl: What did I just tell you about the U-turns?
Ed: He was in my blind spot.
Pearl: You could fit the state of Wisconsin in your blind spot.

…

Ed [looking in the trunk]: What the hell is this?

…

Pearl: What kind of trouble are you in?
Mel: Us? We’re not in trouble. You’re the ones who are in jail.

…

Sheriff: Bobby, take these forms back to the office, these release forms and get these nice people their car keys. This is all over here. This is a Federal agent here, and he just told me the whole story about the Shlytings.
Ed: Schlitinooks.
Pearl: Shitkings.

…

Pearl: And by the way, w-w-why are you not wearing pants?
Paul: I had an experience, that’s why.
Pearl: What do you mean?
Paul: I resisted at first, and then it evolved and it continues to evolve for me.

…

Paul: How long will that take?
Tina: Usually six months to a year. But if you’re willing to wait, you know, I may be able to find a couple of lesbians who would be willing to conceive…
Tony: That’s good. Lesbians are good.
Tina: …and then you could share the baby with them.[/b]

Woody Allen once suugested this:

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories. The horrible are like, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you’re miserable, because that’s very lucky, to be miserable.

It seems applicable here. I couldn’t even imagine it. And it is all the more horrific given the gap between before and after.

And it goes to show how contingency, chance and change – inside a circumstantial landslide – are always just around the corner. And it is captured in a particularly haunting manner here.

I don’t think I could live like this. But suicide is out of the question when the only thing you can do is blink one eye.

Locked-in syndrome at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome

trailer:
youtu.be/G69Zh7YIg8c

IMDb

[b]Johnny Depp was originally cast to play Jean-Dominique Bauby. He dropped out because it conflicted with filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

Julian Schnabel learned French to make the film.

Almost the entire opening 40 minutes of the film are taken from Bauby’s point of view.[/b]

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Directed by Julian Schnabel

[b]Dr Cocheton: You see, Jean-Dominique, you’ve had a stroke. You’ve been in a coma for almost three weeks. But now you’re waking up and you’ll be fine, I promise you.

…

Doctor: All right, don’t worry. It’s a slow process. Your speech will come back.
Bauby’s voice: I can’t speak?! Why can’t you hear me? Oh, Christ. I can’t speak. I can’t move. What’s happened to me?

…

Bauby’s voice: All right, all right, I’ve had a stroke…my speech’ll come back…my memory will come back.

…

Dr LaPage: Jean-Do, I know how difficult this is for you. I also know that nobody has explained to you the full extent of your condition. Well, that’s my job. Yes. My job. You’ve had what we call a cerebrovascular accident. It’s put your brain stem out of
action. The brain stem is an essential component of our internal computer, the link between the brain and the spinal cord. In the past, we would have said you’d had a massive stroke. You would very probably have died. But now we have such improved resuscitation techniques that we’re able to prolong life.
Bauby’s voice: This is life?
Dr LaPage: I’m not going to mince words. You are paralyzed from head to toe. And, as you now must have realised, you are unable to speak. You have what we call ‘locked-in syndrome’.
Bauby’s voice: “Locked-in syndrome”.
Dr Lapage: It will be of no comfort to you but your condition is extremely rare. Extremely rare. And we simply don’t know the cause. You don’t smoke and you’re not a heavy drinker. So. I’m afraid it’s just one of those things. However, apart from being totally paralysed, we believe you are normal in every other respect.

…

Dr. Lepage: We want you to take it easy for a few days.
Bauby’s voice: What do you think I’m doing now?

…

Marie: I’m the physiotherapist, and my priority is to get you to swallow. So I’ll be working on your tongue and lips.

…

Dr. Mercer: Do you hear what I say? Your right eye isn’t working properly. I’m going to sew it up.

…

Bauby’s voice: Oh my God, who’s that? It’s a monster! No, no, it’s me! I look as if I’ve emerged from a vat of formaldehyde.

…

Bauby’s voice: A poet once said, “Only a fool laughs when nothing’s funny”

…

Roussin: I can roughly guess what you’re feeling. Being taken hostage is not so different from what you’re going through. Am I right?
Henriette: Hostage?
[Awkward silence.]
Roussin: Jean-Dominique was kind enough to give me his seat on a flight to Hong Kong. Then, unfortunately for me, the plane was high-jacked and I remained a hostage in Beirut for four years, four months, two weeks, five days and seven hours. They kept me locked in a cellar. Very tiny. Dark. It was hard to breathe. I called it my tomb.

…

Bauby’s voice: I am ashamed I never called him after he returned from Beirut. But I felt too guilty playing editor in the frothy world of fashion magazines.

…

Jean-Dominique Bauby: I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren’t paralyzed, my imagination and my memory. They’re the only two ways I can escape from my diving bell.[/b]

The only way he can communicate though is through a laborious trek through the alphabet—reciting the letters in the most frequently used order:

[b]Henriette: E - T - A - 0 - I (a blink) I. (two blinks) I is the first word? (a blink) OK. E - T - A - O - I - N - U - S - H - R - P - C - D - Y -W- (a blink) w. E - T - A - (a blink ) A. E - T - A - 0 - I - N (a blink) N. E - T - (a blink) T. (two blinks) I - want - ’ (two blinks) I want’. You’re doing brilliantly, Jean-Do. What do you want? E - T - (a blink) T. (writes it down) E - T - A - O - (a blink) 0 . (two blinks) I w a n t t o ’ - E - T - A - 0 - I - N - U - S - H - R - P - C - D - (a blink) D. (writes it down) E - T - A - O - I - (a blink) I. (writes it down) E - (a blink) E. (she writes it down; two blinks) ‘Die’. ‘I want to die’.

…

Bauby’s voice: Through the frayed curtain of my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible diving-bell holds my whole body prisoner.

…

Bauby’s voice: This Naval Hospital has in its time been a home to children with tuberculosis, a fat farm, a school, a place where, so legend has it, the great Diaghilev rehearsed his Ballet Russe.They say it was here that Nijinsky leapt twelve feet into the air. No one here now leaps into the air. These days we are all elderly, enfeebled or, like me, rigid and mute. A battalion of cripples.

…

Bauby’s voice: A big black fly lands on my nose. I wriggle my head to dislodge it. It clings on. Olympic wrestling has nothing on this.

…

Bauby’s voice: Sunday. I dread Sunday. No therapists, no shrinks, no visitors, a skeleton staff. Sunday is a long stretch of desert. But today, Marie nobly suggests she take me to Mass. I have tried to explain to her that I am not a religious man. This cuts no ice with her. ‘It will do you good,’ she says.

…

Bauby’s voice: All over the world people are praying for me. Top of the list is my daughter, Celeste, who prays for me every night. And Marie, of course. The most diverse deities have been enlisted to help me. In Nepal, I’m told, they chant a mantra for me. In a Breton chapel they burn candles and a Cameroon holy man has procured for me the goodwill of Africa’s gods: I have assigned him my right eye. All of them. And I can’t deny that I have attempted to organise this vast spiritual energy to support my existence. It may not be admirable, it may even be a touch hypocritical, but I’ll try anything.

…

Bauby’s voice: : My diving bell has dragged you down to the bottom of the sea, with me.

…

Bauby’s voice: My life is here in this hospital. A constant repitition.

…

Bauby’s voice: Like a sailor seeing the shore disappear, I watch my past recede, reduced to the ashes of memory.

…

Title card: Jean-Dominique Bauby died on March 9, 1997, 10 days after the publication of his book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.[/b]

No way in hell is this film for everyone:

“The film is about a family of cannibals who, after the death of the father, try to continue a ritualistic tradition of kidnapping and eating other humans.”

But then Let The Right One In wasn’t either. The film depicts more the socio-economic conditions folks living in Mexican slums endure than it does cannibilism. Amidst this sort of poverty what isn’t likely to unfold?

By and large, the film – the photography in particular – creates this brooding and grotesque atmosphere revolving around human survival on a level [and in a context] few of us can even begin to imagine.

And the film did get a 72% fresh rating at RTn 43 reviews.

trailer:
youtu.be/EBkNz3_pzsw

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE [Somos Lo Que Hay] 2010
Written and directed by Jorge Michel Grau

Cop 1: We don’t solve the old cases.
Cop 2: What’s more, we don’t solve the new ones either.

Not in the slums. Here it’s the poor going after the poorer still. And that is of little interest to the rest of “society”.

[b]Sabina: Next we have to pick a leader.
Mother: Next we start shaking, because we are going to die.

…

Julian: I’m not eating a fag!

…

Prostitute [offering up a child]: Look at this little morsel.
Cop: That’s for politicians or businessmen, no?
Prostitute: You’re getting moralistic!

…

Mother: Where’s the faggot?

…

Cop: They caught your cannibals![/b]

There’s a moment when you are first drawn into a film. In this one it’s the same for everyone:

1. Being moody
2. Being bad at maths
3. Being sad

Just how many men are there out in the world hired to kill other men out in the world who [from someone’s point of view] deserve to die? Judging by the film industry’s output there must be millions. And, given that many, a few innocent will get caught in the crossfire. Even children. And hopefully someone will pay for that.

This is a morality tale of sorts. These men kill people. Mostly pieces of shit but occassionally a brother defending a brother and a kid in church in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So justice must be done. And we fall for it over and over and over again. The scripted kind, in other words.

IMDb

The painting that occasions comment even from Ray is “The Last Judgment” by Hieronymous Bosch. Bosch-like symbolism recurs throughout the movie (the dwarf is one example), suggesting that Ray and Ken may indeed encounter their own Last Judgment - or that the waiting period in Bruges is akin to purgatory.

IN BRUGES
Written and directed by: Martin McDonagh

[b]Ray: After I killed him, I dropped the gun in the Thames, washed the residue off me hands in the bathroom of a Burger King, and walked home to await instructions. Shortly thereafter the instructions came through - “Get the fuck out of London, you dumb fucks. Get to Bruges.” I didn’t even know where Bruges fucking was.
[pause]
Ray: It’s in Belgium.

…

Ray: Bruges is a shithole.
Ken: Bruges is not a shithole.
Ray: Bruges is a shithole.
Ken: Ray, we only just got off the fucking train! Could we reserve judgment on Bruges until we’ve actually seen the fucking place?

…

Obese Man: Been to the top of the tower?
Ray: Yeah…yeah, it’s rubbish.
Obese: Man: It is? The guide book says it’s a must see.
Ray: Well you lot ain’t going up there.
Obese Man: Pardon me? Why?
Ray: I mean, it’s all narrow winding stairs. I’m not being funny.
Obese Man: What exactly are you trying to say?
Ray: What exactly am I trying to say? Youse a bunch of fuckin’ elephants!

…

Ray: What are they doing over there? They’re filming something. They’re filming midgets!
Ken: Ray…
[Ray runs off and watches Jimmy being instructed by the director, who Jimmy flips the bird to as soon as he leaves]
Ken: Ray, come on. Let’s go.
Ray: My arse let’s go. They’re filming midgets!

…

Ray: A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves. A disproportionate amount, actually. Hervé Villechaize off of Fantasy Island. I think somebody from the Time Bandits did. I suppose they must get really sad about like…being really little and that…people looking at them, laughing at them, calling them names. You know, “short arse”. There’s another famous midget. I miss him but I can’t remember. It’s not the R2D2 man; no, he’s still going. I hope your midget doesn’t kill himself. Your dream sequence will be fucked.
Chloë: He doesn’t like being called a midget. He prefers dwarf.
Ray: This is exactly my point! People going around calling you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf. Of course you’re going to blow your head off.

…

[Harry in message]: Number One, why aren’t you in when I fucking told you to be in? Number Two, why doesn’t this hotel have phones with fucking voicemail and not have to leave messages with the fucking receptionist? Number Three, you better fucking be in tomorrow night when I fucking call again or there’ll be fucking hell to pay. I’m fucking telling you - Harry.
Ray: Geez, he’s swears a lot, doesn’t he?

…

Ken: Up there, the top altar, is a vial brought back by a Flemish knight from the Crusades in the Holy Land. And that vial, do you know what it’s said to contain?
Ray: No, what’s it said to contain?
Ken: It’s said to contain some drops of Jesus Christ’s blood. Yeah, that’s how this church got its name. Basilica of the Holy Blood.
Ray: Yeah?
Ken: And this blood, right, though it’s dried blood, at different times over many years, they say it turned back into liquid. Turned back into liquid from dried blood. At various times of great stress.
Ray: Yeah?
Ken: Yeah. So, yeah, I’m gonna go up in the queue and touch it, which is what you do.
Ray: Yeah?
Ken: Yeah. You coming?
Ray: Do I have to?
Ken: Do you have to? Of course you don’t have to. It’s Jesus’ fucking blood, isn’t it? Of course you don’t fucking have to! Of course you don’t fucking have to!

…

Ray: Murder, father.
Priest: Why did you murder someone, Raymond?
Ray: For money, father.
Priest: For money? You murdered someone for money?
Ray: Yes, father. Not out of anger. Not out of nothing. For money.
Priest: Who did you murder for money, Raymond?
Ray: You, father.
Priest: I’m sorry?
Ray: I said you, father. What are you, deaf?
[Ray raises pistol]
Ray: Harry Waters says hello.

…

Priest: The little boy…

…

Ken: [looking at a surreal Bosch painting] It’s Judgment Day, you know?
Ray: No. What’s that then?
Ken: Well, it’s, you know, the final day on Earth, when mankind will be judged for the crimes they’ve committed and that.
Ray: Oh. And see who gets into heaven and who gets into hell and all that.
Ken: Yeah. And what’s the other place?
Ray: Purgatory.
Ken: Purgatory…what’s that?
Ray: Purgatory’s kind of like the in-betweeny one. You weren’t really shit, but you weren’t all that great either.[/b]

Purgatory. That’s where they are now. They just don’t know it yet.

[b]Ray: Jesus, Ken, I’m trying to talk about…
Ken: I know what you’re trying to talk about.
Ray: I killed a little boy. You keep bringing up the fucking lollipop man.
Ken: You didn’t mean to kill a little boy.
Ray: I know I didn’t mean to…but because of the choices I made, and the course that I put into action, that little boy isn’t here anymore, and he’ll never be here again.
[pause]
Ray: I mean here in the world, not here in Belgium. Well he’ll never be here in Belgium either, will he? I mean, he might’ve wanted to come here when he got older. Don’t know why. And that’s all because of me. He’s dead because of me. And I’m trying to…trying to get me head around it, but I can’t. I will have always have killed that little boy. That ain’t ever going away. Ever. Unless…maybe I go away.

…

Chloë: So what do you do, Raymond?
Ray: I…shoot people for money.
Chloë: [smiling] What kinds of people?
Ray: Priests, children…you know, the usual.
Chloë: Is there a lot of money to be made in that business?
Ray: There is for priests. There isn’t for children. So what is it you do, Chloë?
Chloë: I sell cocaine and heroin to Belgian film crews.
Ray: Do you?
Chloë: Do I look like I do?
Ray: You do, actually. Do I…look like I shoot people?
Chloë: No. Just children.

…

Ray: I saw your midget today. Little prick didn’t even say hello.
Chloë: Well, he’s on a lot of ketamine.
Ray: What’s that?
Ray: Um, horse tranquilizer.
Ray: Horse tranquilizer? Where’d he get that?
Chloë: I sold it to him.
Ray: You can’t sell horse tranquilizers to a midget!

…

Ray: [punching a tourist he presumes is American]: That’s for John Lennon, you Yankee fuckin’ cunt![/b]

Turns out he was Canadian.

[b]Harry [to Ken]: Give me a call when he’s dead.

…

Ken: I was not aware that there were any prostitutes in Bruges.
Jimmy: You just have to look in the right places…brothels are good.

…

Ray: You from America?
Jimmy: Yeah. Don’t hold it against me.
Ray: Well, that’s for me to decide, isn’t it?

…

Ken: [standing up to leave and picking up his coat] Two wanky hookers and a racist dwarf. I think I’m heading home.

…

Ray: So hang on. Would all of the white midgets in the world be fighting against all of the black midgets in the world?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Ray: That would make a good film.
Jimmy: You don’t know how much shit I’ve had to take off of black midgets, man.
Ken: See, Jimmy, my wife was black. And I loved her very much. And in 1076, she was murdered by a white man. So, where the fuck am I supposed to stand in all this blood and carnage?
Jimmy: Did they get the guy who did it?
Ken: A friend of mine got him.
Ray: Harry Waters got him?[/b]

See how many permutations there can be? Have you got a philosophy actually able to cover them all? Or does Mo’s “objectivity” do the trick?

[b]Ken: What the fuck are you doing, Ray?
Ray: What the fuck are’you doing?
[Ken sticks pistol behind his back]
Ken: Nothing.
Ray: Oh, my God…you were gonna kill me.
Ken: No, I wa - You were gonna kill yourself!
Ray: Well… I’m allowed.
Ken: No, you’re not!
Ray: What? I’m not allowed, and you are? How’s that fair?

…

Ken: You’re a suicide case.
Ray: And you’re trying to shoot me in the fucking head.
Ken: You’re not getting that gun back.
Ray: A great day this has turned out to be. I’m suicidal, me mate tries to kill me, me gun gets nicked and we’re still in fuckin’ Bruges!

…

Ken: Listen, I’m gonna give you some money and put you on a train somewhere.
Ray: Back to England?
Ken: You can’t go back to England, Ray. You’d be a dead man!
Ray [crying]: I want to be a dead man. Have you been missing something?
Ken: You don’t want to be a dead man, Ray.
Ray: I killed a little boy!
Ken: Then save the next little boy.

…

Natalie: [Harry gets angry at Ken and is destroying the phone] Harry. Harry! It’s a inanimate fucking object!
Harry: [to wife] You’re an inanimate fuckin’ object!

…

Harry: [to Yuri] An Uzi? I’m not from South Central Los fucking Angeles. I didn’t come here to shoot twenty black ten year olds in a drive-by. I want a normal gun for a normal person.

…

Harry: Well?
Ken: The boy is suicidal, Harry. He’s a wa;lking dead man. Keeps going on about Hell and Purgatory…
Harry: When I phoned you yesterday, did I ask you, “Ken, will you do me a favor and become Ray’s psychiatrist, please?” No, What I think I asked you was, “Could you blow his fucking head off for me?”

…

Harry: Let me get this right. Not only have you refused to kill the boy, you even stopped the boy from killing himself, which would’ve solved my problem, which would’ve solved your problem, which sounds like it would’ve solved the boy’s problem.
Ken: It wouldn’t have solved his problem.
Harry: Ken, if I had killed a little kid, accidentally or otherwise, I wouldn’t have thought twice. I’d killed myself on the fucking spot. On the fucking spot. I would’ve stuck the gun in me mouth. On the fucking spot!

…

Harry: I have the capacity to change.
Ken: Yeah, you do. You’ve the capacity to get worse. Harry, let’s face it. And I’m not being funny, I mean no disrespect, but you’re a cunt. You’re a cunt now, you’ve always been a cunt. And the only thing that can change is you becoming a bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids.
Harry: [furious] Leave my kids fucking out of it! What have they done? You fucking retract that bit about my cunt fucking kids!
Ken: I retract that bit about your cunt fucking kids.
Harry: Insult my fucking kids? That’s going overboard, mate!
Ken: I retracted it, didn’t I?

…

Ken: I’m gonna die now, I think.

…

Harry: Oh, I see.
Ray: No Harry, he’s not…
Harry [putting the gun in his mouth]: You’ve got to stick to your principles.

…

Ray [voiceover]: There’s a Christmas tree somewhere in London with a bunch of presents underneath it that’ll never be opened. And I thought, if I survive all of this, I’d go to that house, apologize to the mother there, and accept whatever punishment she chose for me. Prison… death… didn’t matter. Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn’t be in fuckin’ Bruges. But then, like a flash, it came to me. And I realized, fuck man, maybe that’s what Hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in fuckin’ Bruges. And I really really hoped I wouldn’t die. I really really hoped I wouldn’t die.[/b]

Described as a mistanthrope below he is actually more than just that. The scene in the bowling alley for example. But he is definitely aberrant when engaging the opposite sex. He creates this fantasy in his head [re The Collector] and then fortuitously [vouyeristically] bumps into a beautiful incarnation across the courtyard. Naturally she goes about the business of living her life [even the most intimate parts] with the curtains fully agape.

In any event if you were incessantly mocked and bullied in the neighborhood merely for being introverted and different you might grow to detest your fellow man too.

But who is playing whom here?

wiki

A misanthropic voyeuristic tailor, Monsieur Hire, spies on his gorgeous neighbour from across the street. This takes place in the backdrop of another plot, the unsolved murder of a local young woman. Monsieur Hire is hounded by a detective investigating the murder and is also eventually noticed by the object of his gaze, the young woman Alice. Monsieur Hire propositions Alice to ditch her boyfriend Emile, and run off with him to his little home in Switzerland, where he promises to take care of her.

trailer:
youtu.be/elNCMX8EzAM

MONSIEUR HIRE [1989]
Written and directed by Patrice Leconte

[b]Inspector: Pierrete dies on her 22nd birthday. That’s no age to die, people say, as though there were a right age. Who could have done it? No one, as usual. She probably shouted and struggled. But she shouldn’t have. The man panicked and killed her without meaning to. She died by mistake. How could someone lose their head over a few hundred franc in a handbag? They’ll find this accidental killer someday but no one will hold her in their arms again.

…

Inspector: I have a few questions for you but first I would like to know why people don’t like you.
Hire: They don’t. It’s true. But then, I don’t like them.
Inspector: That’s no reason. What did you do to make them hate you so much.
Hire: Nothing. That’s the point. I’m not very sociable or friendly and they don’t like that. Converstaions stop and then resume after I pass. It doesn’t bother me. I prefer silence. I don’t like to talk.
Inspector: You’re a strange guy.
Hire: I don’t agree. See? You’re just like the rest of them.

…

Hire: Yes. Life is horrible.

…

Hire: It can’t be easy to still be just an inspector at your age.

…

Hire: See, inspector? Some places I am not hated.

…

Inspector: We found a record on you. Six months for indecent assault.

…

Inspector: Tell me, Monsieur Hire, how long has it been since you came inside a woman?

…

Hire: How old would she have been? Seventy? Eighty? She’d been around forever. People loved her, this little old lady who spent all her time feeding the pigeons. Feeding the pigeons.
Prostitute [in brothel]: Come.
Hire: Shut up!
[pause]
Hire: All day, going from park to park, distributing birdseed by the handful. All the park rangers knew her and were touched. A photographer wanted to market a postcard of her surrounded by pigeons. She agreed. In her own way, she was famous. One day – I don’t know how it emerged – her will, maybe – people found out the birdseed was poisoned. For years, smiling all the time she’d been killing pigeons by the thousands. Her neighbors couldn’t believe it. She seemed so nice.
Prostiture: Come on, you’ll catch a cold.
Hire: No, I don’t want to.
Prostitute: Do you want someone else? Should I get Rosa?
Hire: No, not Rosa, not Jasmine, not anybody. I’M SICK OF SCREWING YOU SLUTS! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!

…

Alice: It’s nice to be watched. I enjoy it. But only because it’s you. I couldn’t with someone else. With you it’s different. I can see you’re sweet.
Hire: How ca n you say that? You don’t know me.
Alice [walking over to the bed]: Sit by me. We can talk more comfortably. Don’t you want to?
[pause]
Alice: Have you been watching me long?
Hire: Yes, every night.
Alice: When I went to bed what did you do?
Hire: Nothing. I waited.
Alice: What for?
Hire: I don’t know. I sleep very little.
Alice: So you watch all the time? You know all about me?
Hire: Not all, certainly, but some things.
Alice [reaching for his hand and rubbing it]: What’s you’re favorite part? When I undress, when I wash up?
Hire [suddenly guarded]: Go now. Don’t stay here.
Alice: I’m sorry, I thought…
Hire [out of the blue]: GET THE HELL OUT!

…

Inspector: She’s a cute girl. And no fool either. No fool.

…

Hire: Why go on playacting. We both know you’re not here for the plesasure of my company. You’re intelligent Alice. Don’t say you don’t understand. Or do you just not want to?
Alice: I’m cold. Won’t you take me in your arms. Love me a little?
Hire: Could you love two men?
Alice: Why not?
Hire: You’d go to any lengths then?
Alice: Kiss me. Please say you will.
[She kisses him tentatively]
Hire: You’re so sweet. I can’t believe how sweet you are to me. All for that charming Emile’s sake. You both want to know if I was watching that night. If I saw him come in and wake you to help him clean the blood of Pierrette Bourgeois, who he had just killed. And to hide his bloody raincoat. That’s what you want to know? Yes, I was watching. I know everything.

…

Hire: So, will still be still be nice to me? Still want me to take you lovingly in my arms? Still want me to kiss you? Still want me to watch you undress?
Alice: Why don’t you tell the police?
Hire: Because I can’t.

…

Hire: I see only one solution. Will you go away with me? Emile isn’t worthy of you. I can make you forget him. I’ll be patient. In any case time won’t matter there. You’ll love me at your own pace. I won’t rush you. I know how to protect you. You can trust me. No one will ever love you as I will – as I already do. I’ll devote every second of my life to you.

…

Inspector: If it wasn’t for Alice here I would never have known.

…

Hire: You’ll think me a fool, Alice, but I don’t feel any anger…just a deathly sadness.

…

Hire [voiceover]: “Dear Inspector, When you read this letter Alice and I will be far away. In the locker you’ll find the raincost Emile wore when he killed Pierrette Bourgeois…I’m taking Alice away because she is innocent and I want to protect her. Please don’t try to find us. I trust you. I think you’ll respect this happiness. We are happy…together. And nothing else matters.”[/b]

This film transports us back to the dark ages for women enduring the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. The age of the back room [or the back alley] abortions. In England. And not as an exchange of polemics [abstractions] either. This is how such things actually did unfold. On both sides of the track.

And, if certain political forces manage to prevail here in America, may well again.

It won’t change many minds of course because there are always countervailing narratives that can be construed just as effectively from “the other side”.

More than anything, it distinguishes abortion as an exchange of abstract political arguments and abortion as your whole fucking world about to be turned upsidedown.

Even so, Vera’s approach to the whole thing [in the first half of the film] is almost surreal. She as entirely matter-of-fact about what she is doing. It throws some of the women off to say the least. This is anything but a matter-of-fact experience from their perspective.

IMDb

Filmed with no script, the film went on to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay for 2005 Oscar. Mike Leigh said that he “had to prepare the screenplay so it can be sent out to academy members. But actually the screenplay that was nominated doesn’t exist. The film is the screenplay.”

wiki

[b]In Vera Drake, Leigh incorporated elements of his own childhood. He grew up in north Salford, Lancashire, and experienced a very ordinary but socio-economically mixed life as the son of a doctor and a midwife. In the book The Cinema of Mike Leigh: A Sense of the Real, Leigh said, “I lived in this particular kind of working-class district with some relations living in slightly leafier districts up the road. So there was always a tension, or at least a duality: those two worlds were forever colliding. So you constantly get the one world and its relationship with the other going on in my films”.

Leigh often uses improvisation in order to capture his actors’ unscripted emotions. When filming Vera Drake, only Imelda Staunton knew ahead of time that the subject of the film was abortion. None of the cast members playing the family members, including Staunton, knew that Vera was to be arrested until the moment the actors playing the police knocked on the door of the house they were using for rehearsals. Their genuine reactions of shock and confusion provided the raw material for their dialogue and actions.

Though much has been made of the controversial subject matter - back street abortion - its main theme is the buried family secret, the ticking time bomb that can lurk underneath even the most stable marriage. Much of the film’s cumulative power lies in its delineation of a rock solid family suddenly rocked to the core by a revelation that is literally beyond their comprehension: the fact that their beloved, and loving, mother is an abortionist. Why, I ask Leigh, does she keep her secret for so long?

The film has attracted some criticism from those who worked in midwifery during the 1950s. The chief concern is the method of abortion used by Vera Drake in the film. This involves using a Higginson bulb syringe filled with a solution of warm, soapy water and disinfectant, which is inserted into the woman’s uterus. This method is claimed by Jennifer Worth, a nurse and midwife in the 1950s and 1960s, to be invariably fatal. She calls the film itself “dangerous”, as it could be shown in countries where abortion is illegal and the method depicted copied by desperate women. However, a letter in response to her article claims a real-life experience of just such an abortion in Notting Hill in 1965.[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/_5L3hGxHumY

VERA DRAKE
Written and directed by Mike Leigh

[b][repeated line]
Vera: Right dear, take your knickers off.

…

Susan: I have this friend who…she needs some help.

…

Ivy: I should be at work.
Vera: You can’t go to work in this state.
Ivy: Somebody has to earn the money. I’ll lose my job if this goes on.
Vera: It’s not your fault, dear.
Ivy: Try telling that to your boss. They don’t understand nothing, men. Bastards.

…

Psychiatrist: Tell me your feelings towards the father of the child. Do you love him?
Susan: No.
Psychiatrist: Does he love you?
Susan: No.
Psychiatrist: Did you love him at the point of conception?
Susan: No.
Psychiatrist: Did he force himself on you?
Susan: Yes.
Psychiatrist: Miss Wells…if you were to have the child, would you keep it or have it adopted?
Susan: I can’t have it. I’d rather kill myself.

…

Vera: I know why you’re here.
Inspector Webster: I beg your pardon?
Vera: I know why you’re here.
[pause]
Inspector Webster: Why are we here?
Vera: Because of what I do.
Inspector Webster: Because of what you do?
Vera: Yes.
Inspector Webster: What is it that you do, Mrs Drake?
[long pause]
Vera: I help young girls out.

…

Inspector Webster: Can you answer my question, please? How do you help them out?
Vera: When they can’t manage.
Inspector Webster: When they can’t manage?
Vera: That’s right.
Inspector Webster: You mean, when they’re pregnant? So, how do you help them out?
Vera: I help them start their bleeding again.
Inspector Webster: You help them to get rid of the baby? You perform an abortion. Is that right, Mrs. Drake? You perform abortions, don’t you?
Vera: That’s not what I do, dear. That’s what you call it. they need help. Who else are they gonna turn to? They’ve got no one. I help them out.

…

Inspector Webster: Did you help Pamela Barnes in this way?
Vera: Pamela…yes, I did. Is she all right?
Inspector Webster: She nearly died, Mrs. Drake…last night. She’s in a hospital, but she’ll live. Mrs. Drake, I’m arresting you for carrying out an illegal operation on Pamela Mary Barnes, of 37 Flixton Street, London, N1… on the 17th of November, 1950.

…

Inspector Webster: How much did you charge, Mrs Drake?
Vera: What?
Inspector Webster: How much did they pay you?
Vera: I don’t take money? I never take money. I wouldn’t…That’s not why…
Inspector Webster: You do it for nothing.
Vera: Of course I do. They need help.

…

Sid: How could you do those things, Mom? I don’t understand it.
Vera: I don’t expect you do, Sid.
Sid: Why’d you do it?
Vera: I had to.
Sid: It’s wrong though, ain’t it? Eh?
Vera: I don’t think so.
Sid: Of course it is! That’s little babies. I mean, you hear about these things, you read about it in the papers, but you don’t expect to come home to it on your own doorstep with your own mom! You ain’t got no right!

…

Reg: It ain’t fair. Me mum brought up six of us in two rooms. It’s all right if you’re rich. But if you can’t feed 'em, you can’t love 'em, now can you?

…

Vera: Poor Sid.
Stan: I know. Everything’s black and white for Sid. He’s young.[/b]

The judgment:

Judge: Vera Rose Drake, you have committeda crime, the gravity of which cannot be overestimated. The law is very clear and you have willfully broken that law. And furthermore, in so doing, you have put at risk the life of a vulnerable young woman. And but for the timely intervention of the medical profession…you might have been before me on an even more serious charge than the one that has brought you here today. Now… I have heard your plea of guilty, and I have taken that into account… and I have listened very carefully to the submissions of your council. But nothing has been advanced me today on your behalf which would persuade me to take any course other than to impose a custodial sentence. Indeed… the extreme seriousness of your crime is bound to be reflected in the sentence that I am about to pass. And that must serve as a deterrent to others. I therefore sentence you to a term of imprisonment, which will be two years and six months. Take her down.

Of course, had abortion been legal back then, “the vulnerable young woman” would have been considerably less at risk. Though, for the fetus, the results would have been the same.

The corporate lawyer will do anything and everything to bolster the bottom line of whatever particular company he or she represents. And if that means destroying the lives of others – or just reaming them inside out it – it can be rationalized easily enough: the law’s the law.

This is the part libertarians brush aside by insisting “real capitalism wouldn’t work like this.” Bullshit. This is the way real capitalism does works. It has to work that way if competition is to prevail. You do whatever it takes to keep your costs down to an absolute minimum. Because if you don’t, the competition will. And practically everybody is expendable.

CLASS ACTION
Directed by Michael Apted

[b]Maggie: If you guys wants to learn to be big time lawyers you’ve got to learn to lie better.
Brian: Maggie. Maggie. Lawyers never lie. We just tell the truth judiciously to guarantee utter confusion.

…

Jedediah: This firm was built on David and Goliath cases. They’re just not aound anymore. You got all these fascist Reagan judges. They hear you’re after a big corporation, they throw your ass out of court. It’s just too goddamn discouraging.

…

Jedediah: You’re an associate at Quinn-Califant. They pop out baby lawyers like you like a shark grows teeth row after row after row, forever.

…

Jedediah: Does it matter to her that these cars are blowing up? No. Does it matter to her that people – babies – are being killed? No. Does she care that she’s in bed with the vilest kind of corporate vermin?

…

Quinn: I’m worried about this Steven Kellum deposition.
Maggie: No, it’s completely under control. He’s wearing down.
Quinn: If he gets into court in that wheelchair with this story he’ll be far too sympathetic.
Maggie: I understand that, Mr. Quinn.
Quinn: I can’t put this in strong enough terms. I want him eliminated as an effective witness.
Maggie: Yes sir.
Quinn: Are you prepared to do that?
Maggie: Absolutely.

…

Jedediah: What’s a good set of 8 x 10s cost these days, 10, 15 bucks? This is important Fred. What’s the going rate for a man’s dignity, huh? You stole his wife, his kid, his body. Now I guess you spend another $10 or $15 and get the whole package. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Money. He’s after your money and you’re out to protect it. Well, you hold onto it real tight because without a heart and soul that’s all you’ll ever have.

…

Pavel: The depth charge!

…

Pavel: You want to know about the circuits…it’s just a simple reaction.
Maggie: So what you’re saying is that if the car is hit from the rear when the left turn signal is functioning it just might blow up.
Pavel: Correct. Well, if you are really interested in this why don’t you just read my report.

…

Maggie: People were blown up sir.
Getchell: We changed that light in the next model year.

…

Michael: You’re going to break rule number one, which is don’t fuck your friends. If you turn on me, every lawyer here is going to turn on you. You’ll be on the bricks faster than you can dream of. And when you try to tie into another firm, you’ll be lucky to get hired as a messenger.

…

Quinn: Bottom line—it is within the letter of the law.

…

Maggie: Why didn’t you just change the blinker circuit?
Getchell: I told Flannery about the problem. He called in his head bean counter – risk managment expert. Flannery shows him the data and asks how much it would cost to retrofit…
Maggie: You mean recall?
Getchell: Yeah. You got it. To retrofit 175,000 units. You mutiply that times $300 a car give or take. You’re looking at right around $50 million. So the risk guy, he crunches the numbers some more. He figures you have one of these fireball collisions every 3,000 cars. That 158 explosions.
Maggie: Which is almost exactly as many plaintiffs as there are.
Getchell: These guys know their numbers. So you multiply that times $200,000 per lawsuit. That’s assuming everyone sues and wins. $30 million max. See? It’s cheaper to deal with the lawsuits than it is to fix the blinker. It’s what the bean counters call a simple actuarial analysis.[/b]

And, after all, it’s not very likely to be your family and friends that get maimed and mutilated and killed. And of those that do? Well, it’s not murder, is it? No laws were broken, were they?

[b]Nick [to Maggie]: And what the hell have you done? You’re probably going to beat him, Maggie. We both know that. You got the staff and the money to grind us into the ground. But even if he loses he’ll know he went down on the right side. You’ll have your big success, your partnership…and what else?

…

Quinn: Come on, Jed, some of your clients weren’t even hurt that bad.

…

Quinn: Damn it, Jed, what’s it going to take?!
Jedediah: Bottom line, Fred? You can’t even count that high.[/b]

A few good men?

Well, you know what’s coming first:

Yet another film about the United States military in which the focus is on something that has almost nothing whatsoever to do with its actual [primary] function in the world. Code Red? That is the crime here?! That’s like focusing on the breakin at the Watergate complex and completely ignoring the Gulf of Tonkin, the illegal bombing of Cambodia, Operation Chaos, COINTELLPRO etc… The secret government that is always just below the surface here.

In this day and age, the U.S. military exist by and large to sustain a predatory foreign policy, the military industrial complex and the war economy. After World War 2 and the Cold War, “national security” has always been a distant second.

On the other hand, given all that – that Rob Reiner is yet another of Phil Ochs’s “love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal” liberals – this is a truly absorbing movie. And Code Reds [in this context] speak volumes regarding the mentalities of many lifers. These are the Dick Cheney soldiers and they have the potential to become very, very dangerous in the right political context.

IMDb

The original play was inspired by an actual Code Red at Guantanamo Bay. Lance Corporal David Cox and 9 other enlisted men tied up a fellow Marine and severely beat him, for snitching to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Cox was acquitted and later Honorably Discharged. In 1994, David Cox mysteriously vanished, and his bullet-riddled body was found three months later. His murder remains unsolved.

A FEW GOOD MEN
Directed by Rob Reiner

[b]Galloway: Lieutenant, how long have you been in the Navy?
Kaffee: Going on nine months now.
Galloway: And how long have you been out of law school?
Kaffee: A little over a year.
Galloway: I see.
Kaffee: Have I done something wrong?
Galloway: No, it’s just that when I petitioned division to have counsel assigned, I was hoping that I’d be taken seriously.
Kaffee: No offense taken, in case you were wondering.

…

Galloway: Tell your friend not to get cute down there, the Marines at Gitmo are fanatical.
Weinberg: Fanatical about what?
Galloway: About being Marines.

…

Kaffee: Lt. Kendrick…may I call you John?
Kendrick: No, you may not.
Kaffee: Have I done something to offend you?
Kendrick: No, I like all you Navy boys. Every time we’ve gotta go someplace to fight, you fellas always give us a ride.

…

Galloway: Do you think he was murdered?
Kendrick: I believe in God and Jesus Christ, so I’ll say this: Santiago’s death is a tragedy. But he died because he had no code, and no honour. And God was watching.

…

Jessep: You know, it just hit me. She outranks you, Danny.
Kaffee: Yes sir.
Jessep: I wanna tell you something. And listen up, 'cause I realy mean this. You’re the luckiest man in the world. There is nothing on this earth sexier, believe me, gentlemen, than a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote 'em all, I say, 'cause this is true: if you haven’t gotten a blowjob from a superior officer, well, you’re just letting the best in life pass you by.

…

Jessep: You see Danny, I can deal with the bullets, and the bombs, and the blood. I don’t want money, and I don’t want medals. What I do want is for you to stand there in that faggoty white uniform and with your Harvard mouth extend me some fucking courtesy. You gotta ask me nicely.

…

Dawson: We joined the Marines because we wanted to live our lives by a certain code, and we found it in the Corps. Now you’re asking us to sign a piece of paper that says we have no honor. You’re asking us to say we’re not Marines. If a court decides that what we did was wrong, then I’ll accept whatever punishment they give. But I believe I was right sir, I believe I did my job, and I will not dishonor myself, my unit, or the Corps so I can go home in six months… Sir.[/b]

How fucking blind is he?

[b]Kaffee: You and Dawson, you both live in the same dreamworld. It doesn’t matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove! So please, don’t tell me what I know, or don’t know; I know the LAW.
Galloway: You know nothing about the law. You’re a used-car salesman, Daniel. You’re an ambulance chaser with a rank. You’re nothing. Live with that.

…

Kaffee: You’re Aunt Ginny?
Aunt Ginny: Uh-huh.
Kaffee: I’m sorry, I was expecting someone older.
Aunt Ginny: So was I.

…

Galloway: Why do you hate them so much?
Weinberg: They beat up on a weakling; that’s all they did. The rest is just smokefilled coffee-house crap. They tortured and tormented a weaker kid. They didn’t like him. So, they killed him. And why? Because he couldn’t run very fast.

…

Ross: You got bullied into that courtroom, Danny, by everyone. By Dawson. By Galloway. Shit, I practically dared you. You got bullied into that courtroom by the memory of a dead lawyer.
[Ross walks away]
Kaffee: You’re a lousy fucking softball player, Jack!
Ross: Your boys are going down, Danny. I can’t stop it anymore.

…

Kendrick: Lance Corporal Dawson was given a below average rating because he had committed a crime.
Kaffee: A crime? What crime did he commit? Lieutenant Kendrick? Dawson brought a hungry guy some food…what crime did he commit?
Kendrick: He disobeyed an order!

…

Kaffee: Maybe, if we work at it, we can get Dawson charged with the Kennedy assassination.

…

Kaffee: Anyway, since we seem to be out of witnesses, I thought I’d drink a little.
Galloway: I still think we can win.
Kaffee: Maybe you should drink a little.

…

Galloway: Why did you ask Jessep for the transfer order?
Kaffee: I wanted it!
Galloway: You could have got it anywhere. You just wanted to see Jessep’s reaction. Your instinct was right. Now let’s call Jessep, and end this.
Kaffee: What possible good would that do?
Galloway: He ordered the Code Red.
Kaffee: He did? That’s great! And of course, you have proof? Oh, I forgot, you missed the day that law was taught at Law School?!

…

Galloway: You put him on the stand and you get it from him!
Kaffee: Oh, we get it from him! Yes! No problem! We get it from him.
[turns to Sam as if he were Jessup on the stand]
Kaffee: Colonel Jessup, isn’t it true that you ordered the Code Red on Santiago?
Weinberg: Listen, we’re all a little…
Kaffee: [interrupts with game-show buzzer sound] eeehhhhh! I’m sorry, your time’s run out! What do we have for the losers, judge? Well, for our defendants, it’s a life time at exotic Fort Leavenworth! And, for defense counsel Kaffee, that’s right, it’s a court martial! Yes, Johnny! After falsely accusing a highly decorated Marine officer of conspiracy and perjury, Lieutenant Kaffee will have a long and prosperous career teaching…typewriter maintenance at the Rocco Globbo School for Women! Thank you for playing “Should we or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid!”

…

Kaffee: Good. Jessup told Kendrick to order the code red, Kendrick did and our clients followed the order. The cover-up isn’t our case - to win Jessup needs to tell the court members that he ordered the code red.
Weinberg: And now you think you can get him to just say it?
Kaffee: I think he wants to say it. I think he’s pissed off that he’s gotta hide from this. I think he wants to say that he made a command decision and that’s the end of it.
[Starts imitating Jessup]
Kaffee: He eats breakfast 300 yards away from 4000 Cubans that are trained to kill him. And nobody’s going to tell him how to run his unit least of all the Harvard mouth in his faggoty white uniform. I need to shake him, put him on the defensive and lead him right where he’s dying to go.

…

Kaffee: Is the colonel’s underwear a matter of national security?

…

Kaffee: Colonel, a moment ago you said you told Kendrick to say that Santiago wasn’t to be touched. He was clear on what you wanted?
Jessep: Crystal.
Kaffee: Can he have ignored the order?
Jessep: Ignored the order?
Kaffee: Or forgot it?
Jessep: No.
Kaffee: Could he have thought, “The old man is wrong”?
Jessep: No.
Kaffee: When Lt. Kendrick talked to the men, any chance they ignored him?
Jessep: Ever been in the infantry, son? Ever served in a forward area? Ever put your life in another man’s hands, and his in yours? We follow orders, son. Otherwise people die. It’s that simple. Are we clear? Are we clear?!
Kaffee: Crystal. One last question, before I call Airmen O’Malley and Rodriguez. If you ordered that Santiago wasn’t to be touched, and your orders are always followed, then why was Santiago in danger? Why would it be necessary to transfer him off the base?
Jessep: He was a substandard Marine. He was being transferred…
Kaffee: That’s not what you said. You said he was transferred because he was in danger. I said, “grave danger?” and you said…we can have the court reporter read it…
Jessep: I know what I said!
Kaffee: Then why the two orders?
Jessep: Sometimes men take matters into their own hands.
Kaffee: But your men never did. Your men obey orders or people die. So Santiago shouldn’t have been in any danger, right?
Jessep: You snotty little bastard.
Ross: You honor, I request a recess.
Kaffee: I’d like an answer to my question.
Judge: The court will wait for an answer.
Kaffee: If Lt. Kendrick gave an order that Santiago wasn’t to be touched, why did he have to be transferred? Kendrick ordered a Code Red, because you told him to! And when it went bad, you signed a phoney transfer and fixed the logs! You coerced the doctor! Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?
Judge: Consider yourself in Contempt!
Kaffee: Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?
Judge: You don’t have to answer that question!
Jessep: I’ll answer the question!
[to Kaffee]
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!
[pauses]
Jessep: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Jessep: I did the job I…
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Col. Jessep: You’re Goddamn right I did![/b]

Now, in the context of Hitler and the Nazis [and for some the Commies] this makes sense. There really are legitimate national security concerns. But no way in hell does it make sense in regard to the “terrorists”.