philosophy in film

One is totally immersed in the world politically and the other treats politics as a mere prop in his ultra feminine fantasies. That he is also a homosexual way back then in a Brazillian prison makes the exchange between them all the more surreal.

And then the beautiful woman. She has many roles to play. And, in part, because there are many roles she can play. Her beauty is the key to open lots of doors.

These two are locked up in a world where the idiots have won. And there is not a damn thing either one of them can do except to seethe with outrage or to escape into fantasy.

Only things are not at all what they seem. And yet however it ends what creates the conditions that make men such these prisoners doesn’t change. You can’t reduce the world down to a narrative like this however effective it might be in opening our eyes. To prevail you must have the power to prevail. Being “right” doesn’t mean shit.

IMDb

[b]During rehearsals, the two actors had trouble finding the chemistry they needed for their scenes together. To better understand what each needed from the other’s role, William Hurt suggested they try an experiment where they would switch roles, with Hurt as Valentin and Raul Julia as Molina.

Reportedly, William Hurt and Raul Julia worked for nothing but the payment for their air tickets and hotel bills in Brazil, where the film was shot.

Kiss of the Spider Woman was one of the first independant hit movies. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, a first for an independant film, and won an Oscar for William Hurt. Hurt’s performance also marked the first time an actor had received an Oscar for playing an out homosexual.[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/1FVd6uRrYhM

KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN [1985]
Directed by Hector Babenco

[b]Molina: She’s… well, she’s something a little strange. That’s what she noticed, that she’s not a woman like all the others. She seems all wrapped up in herself. Lost in a world she carries deep inside her.

…

Molina: No matter how lonely she may be, she keeps men at a distance…
Arregui: She’s probably got bad breath or something.
[bursts out laughing]

…

Arregui: Don’t talk about food. I’m serious. No food and no naked women.

…

Molina: Blessed Mary, is that all you can talk about? You must’ve studied political philosophy in school.
Arregui: The phrase is political science, and the answer is no, I studied journalism.

…

Arregui: Why did the interrogations stop?

…

Molina [as a new prisoner arrvives]: Is it a political prisoner?
Arregui: They don’t treat you that way for stealing bananas.

…

Arregui: I find you boring.
Molina: Darling, you don’t know page one. You know I’m a faggot? Well, congratulations. You know I corrupted a minor? Well that’s even on TV, film at 11.

…

Arregui: You really like those Nazi blonds, don’t you?
Molina: Well, no, you see I detest politics but i’m mad about the leading man. He’s so romantic.
Arregui: Your nazis are about as romantic as the fucking warden and his torture room.
Molina [subdued]: I can imagine.
Arregui: No…You can’t.

…

Molina: Do you want to shave.
[Arregui scoffs]
Molina: Well I didn’t mean your legs.

…

Arregui: God help me.
Molina: You atheists never stop talking about God.
Arregui: And you gays never face facts. Fantasies are no escape.
Molina: If you’ve got the keys to that door, I will gladly follow. Otherwise I’ll escape in my own way, thank you.
Arregui: Then your life is as trivial as your movies.

…

Molina: Do you really think eating this avocado will make you spoiled and weak? Enjoy what life offers you.
Arregui: What life offers me is the struggle. When you’re dedicated to that, pleasure becomes secondary.

…

Molina: Does your girlfriend avoid pleasure too?
Arregui: She knows what really counts. That the most important thing is serving a cause that is noble.
Molina: What kind of cause is that? One that doesn’t let you eat an avocado?

…

Molina: Well, I understand one thing. I offer you half of my precious avocado and you throw it back in my face!

…

Arregui:Don’t act like that. You sound just like a –
Molina: Like a what? Say it. Say it. Like a woman, you mean.
(Arregui nods)
Molina: What’s wrong with being like a woman? Why do only women get to be sensitive? Why not a man, a dog, or a faggot? If more men acted like women, there wouldn’t be so much violence.

…

Molina: This girl’s finished.
Arregui: What girl?
Molina: Me, stupid!

…

Arregui: You son of a bitch! They’re killing one of my Brothers, and what am I doing? Listening to your fucking Nazi movie! Don’t you know what the Nazis did to people – Jews! Marxists! Catholics! Homosexuals?
Molina: Of course I know.
[Arregui hurls Molina across the cell]
Arregui: You don’t know shit. You wouldn’t know reality if it was stuck up your ass.
Molina: Why should I think about reality in a stinkhole like this? Why should I get more depressed than I already am?
Arregui: You’re worse than I thought! Do you use these movies to jerk yourself off?
Molina [Crying]: If you don’t stop, I will never speak to you again!
Arregui: Stop crying! You sound just like an old woman!
Molina [Whimpering]: It’s what I am! It’s what I am!
Arregui [Forcing Molina’s legs apart]: What’s this between your legs, huh? Tell me, “lady”!
Molina: It’s an accident. If I had the courage, I’d cut it off.
Arregui: You’d still be a man! A MAN! A MAN IN PRISON! JUST LIKE THE FAGGOTS THE NAZIS SHOVED IN THE OVENS!

…

Arregui: Your Nazi movie, how does it end?

…

Molina: The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you’ll never be unhappy again.

…

Pedro [to Molina]: You faggot piece of shit! You fell in love with that bastard!

…

Molina: There’s something I’d like that you’ve never done, although we’ve done much more.
(pause)
A kiss.
Arregui: Okay. But first promise me something.
Molina: I told you, I can’t. I’m so sorry.
Valentin: No, no. Promise me you will never let anybody humiliate you again, that you’ll make them respect you. Promise me you’ll never let anybody exploit you again. Nobody has the right to do that to anybody.

…

Molina [to bis sleeping mother]: You remember, Mama, when I was little and you used to come into my room to kiss me good-night. I always pretended to be asleep, but I was always waiting for your kiss. Although you’re sleeping now, I know you understand me. It’s time for me to take care of my own life. You understand, don’t you, Mama. Don’t be sad.

…

Pedro [voiceover]: Subject was shot to death by the extremists. His recent activities, such as closing his bank account… suggest that he planned to escape with them. Also, the way he was shot seems to indicate that he had agreed, if necessary, to be eliminated by them. In any case, it appears that he was more deeply involved than we suspected.[/b]

Not even close.

[b]Doctor [to Arregui who has been tortured]: This is morphine. So you can get some rest. Okay? Oh my God, the way they worked you over. Don’t tell about this or I’ll lose my job. Just count to forty and you’ll be asleep.

…

Arregui: I love you so much. That’s the one thing I never said to you, because I was afraid of losing you forever.
Marta: That can never happen now. This dream is short, but this dream is happy.[/b]

What the hell are we to make of them?

Elling is autistic. He lived his entire life alone with his mother. Then his mother dies. Now the rest of the world comes crashing in. He just wants to be left alone. But it doesn’t work out that way. Which, for Elling, turns out to be a rather good thing.

As for Kjell Bjarne, he’s the most peculiar “ladies man” you can imagine. Not very bright. But…earnest.

And talk about a welfare state! Does this sort of thing actually happen over there? It sure as shit doesn’t happen over here.

trailer:
youtu.be/btjxo-JbqOU

ELLING [2001]
Directed by Petter Næss

Elling [narrating]: After two years the Norwegian government has decided to give Kjell Bjarne and me our own welfare apartment in the center of Oslo. From there we are going to attempt a return to reality.

And off we go…

[b]Train ticket salesman: Yes?
Elling: Yes!
Train ticket salesman: You’re going to?
Elling: Yes, we are! Kjell Bjarne and I are going to Oslo of course.
Train ticket salesman: One way?
Elling: There are more ways?

…

Train ticket salesman: That’ll be 130 kroner per ticket.
Elling: 130 kroner? The last time mother and I took the train to Larvik the ticket cost 25.
Train ticket salesman: That must have been about 30 years ago.
Elling: Yes, it was.

…

Elling [narrating]: I’ve always had two enemies: Dizziness and anxiety. They follow me wherever I go.

…

Elling [narrating]: Mother handled practical matters at home. I was in charge of ideology. The Norwegian Labor Party was an excellent judge of right and wrong.

…

Frank [a social worker trying to teach Elling to answer the phone]: Talk Elling.
Elling: It’s not natural to talk into a plastic gizmo to someone you can’t even see!

…

Elling [narrating]: How different people are. Some people ski solo to the South Pole while I have to summon up all my courage to cross a restaurant floor.

…

Elling [to himself]: My God, Elling, you have committed poetry! My entire life I have walked the earth not knowing I am a poet!

…

Elling: Wasn’t she terrified to find an orangutan in her apartment?!

…

Alphons [at poetry reading]: Strange isn’t it? The worse it is, the more they clap.

…

Elling: Had I really made a friend without the help of the Norwegian government?

…

Kjell: I’ll get some stewed prunes too. I’ve had trouble shitting lately.
Elling [voiceover]: Maybe it’s best that he doesn’t say too much.

…

Reidun: Are you Elling?
Elling: My name is Elling. Kjell Bjarne is at the store.
Reidun: I know. I saw him leave.
Elling [to himself]: Oh, my God! I’m stuck in the middle of a manage a trois!

…

Elling [narrating]: I still don’t know how we got home that night.

…

Elling [narrating]: Everything passes on. To put it another way, everything passes on to something else.[/b]

A slice of life.

In a typical small town people go about the business of living their lives. Some are complete strangers. Some are good friends. Some are family. But who they think they are precipitates behaviors that culminate in a calamitous collision of lives at 11:14 PM on one particular day. It’s like observing this all unfolding from above and noting the manner in which contingency, chance and change weave in and out of our lives in ways we can scarecly begin to grasp.

And then sitting down and wondering, “hmm, what the hell does that mean?”

Everything comes down to perception. What you perceive to be true. And what you perceive that others perceive to be true. And the realization of how the tiniest of things can snowball into a FUBAR of the utmost [and ugliest] consequences.

And here, much of that comes to revolve around a severed penis.

This is one superbly choreographed piece of film making.

trailer:
youtu.be/wlFlI3phalE

11:14 (2003)
Written and directed by Greg Marcks

[b]Officer Hannagan: Don’t move!
Norma: You’ll burn for what you did to my daughter!
Jack [confused]: Daughter?

…

Eddie: What’s with the books?
[Tim holds up a book and tries to light it on fire]
Eddie: You’re gonna burn a book?
Tim: It’s not like this is great fucking literature or anything. I’m doing the world a favor.

…

Tim [to Eddie]: Don’t worry, alright? I’m gonna find it.

…

Mark: Tim, it’s been cut off!
Tim: So they can reattach it.
Mark: Well how the fuck are they gonna do that?
Tim: What am I, a surgeon? They use leeches and shit.

…

Officer Hannagan [talking to a medic]: We got a human penis right there by the curb. Somebody’s gotta be looking for that.

…

Eddie: Did you get it?! Did you get it?!
[Tim throws Eddie’s severed penis onto his lap]
Tim: Sorry it took me so long, I was looking for something bigger.

…

Officer Hannagan [to Duffy]: How 'bout the penis?

…

Mark [after coming up with a story to tell the cops]: You hear that Eddie? I never hit you.
Eddie: Why should I lie?
Mark: What are you talking about?
Eddie: Why should I lie, when this is all your fault?
Mark: My fault? How the fuck is this my fault?
Eddie: Well if you hadn’t been so worried about your paint job, my penis would be in my pants right now and not in my fucking hand!!

…

Duffy: Where the fuck’s my bowling ball?

…

Jack: Did you get the money?
Girl: I got Aaaron’s.
Jack: What about Duffy’s? Did he find out? Did he? Does he know you’re not really pregnant?
Girl: No. He believed me.[/b]

The trials and the tribulations of an upper middle class white anglo-saxon Protestant male who has just graduated from college. What in the world is he going to do with his life when he has to decide this smack dab in the middle of “the Sixties”?

In other words: Can you even imagine this film being made today?!

To wit:

wiki

The theme of an innocent and confused youth who is exploited, mis-directed, seduced (literally and figuratively) and betrayed by a corrupt, decadent, and discredited older generation (that finds its stability in “plastics”) was well understood by film audiences and captured the spirit of the times. One of the film’s posters proclaimed the difficult coming-of-age for the recent, aimless college graduate.

IMDb

[b]Within a year of the movie’s release, plastic manufacturing companies became enormously successful. Many people attribute this to Walter Brooke’s quote about “plastics”. Brooke himself once told his nephew that he would have invested in plastics, if he had known that the remark would lead to such success.

On Inside the Actors Studio, director Mike Nichols claims that the final “sobering” emotion that Benjamin and Elaine go through was due to the fact that he had just been shouting at the two of them to laugh in the scene. The actors were so scared that after laughing they stopped, scared. Nichols liked it so much, he kept it.[/b]

Look for Richard Dreyfuss and Mr. Roper.

THE GRADUATE [1967]
Directed by Mike Nichols

[b]Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

…

Benjamin: Mrs. Robinson, if you don’t mind my saying so, this conversation is getting a little strange.

…

Benjamin: Oh my God!
Mrs. Robinson: Pardon?
Benjamin: Oh no, Mrs. Robinson. Oh no.
Mrs. Robinson: What’s wrong?
Benjamin: Mrs. Robinson, you didn’t… I mean, you didn’t expect…
Mrs. Robinson: What?
Benjamin: I mean, you didn’t really think I’d do something like that.
Mrs. Robinson: Like what?
Benjamin: What do you think?
Mrs. Robinson: Well, I don’t know.
Benjamin: For god’s sake, Mrs. Robinson. Here we are. You got me into your house. You give me a drink. You… put on music. Now you start opening up your personal life to me and tell me your husband won’t be home for hours.
Mrs. Robinson: So?
Benjamin: Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.
Mrs. Robinson: [laughs] What?
Benjamin: Aren’t you?

…

Benjamin: Dad, could we just talk about this for a minute?

…

Hotel Desk Clerk: Are you here for an affair, sir?
Benjamin [startled]: What?!
Hotel Desk Clerk: The Singleman party, sir?
Benjamin: Ah, yes, the Singleman party.

…

Mrs. Robinson: Benjamin.
Benjamin: Yes?
Mrs. Robinson: Isn’t there something you want to tell me?
Benjamin: To tell you?
Mrs. Robinson: Yes.
Benjamin: Well, I want you to know how much I appreciate this, really.
Mrs. Robinson: The room number.
Benjamin: What?
Mrs. Robinson: The room number, Benjamin. I think you ought to tell me that.

…

Mrs. Robinson: Benjamin, would you get me a hanger.
Benjamin [at the closet]: Wood?
Mrs. Robinson: What?
Benjamin: Wood or wire? They have both.

…

Mr. Braddock: Ben, what are you doing?
Benjamin: Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.
Mr. Braddock: Why?
Benjamin: Well, it’s very comfortable just to drift here.
Mr. Braddock: Have you thought about graduate school?
Benjamin: No.
Mr. Braddock: Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?
Benjamin: You got me.

…

Mrs. Braddock: The Robinson’s are here.

…

Benjamin: What was your major subject at college?
Mrs. Robinson: Art.
Benjamin: Art? But I thought you…I guess you kind of lost interest in it over the years then.
Mrs. Robinson: Kind of.

…

Benjamin: A Ford. Goddamn, that’s great. That’s great, a Ford.
Mrs. Robinson: That’s enough.
Benjamin: So old Elaine Robinson got started in a Ford.

…

Benjamin: But why shouldn’t I take Elaine out?
Mrs. Robinson: I have my reasons.
Benjamin: Then let’s hear them.
Mrs. Robinson: No.
Benjamin: Let’s hear your reasons, Mrs. Robinson. Because I think I know what they are. I’m not good enough for her to associate with, am I? I’m not good enough to even talk about her, am I?
Mrs. Robinson: Let’s drop it.
Benjamin: We’re not dropping it. I’m good enough for you but I’m too slimy to associate with your daughter. That’s it, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?!
Mrs. Robinson [after long pause]: Yes.

…

Mrs. Robinson: Benjanmin…
Benjamin: Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk at all.

…

Benjamin: Now listen, this was not my idea. It was my father’s idea.
Mrs. Robinson: Benjamin, I thought I made myself perfectly clear about this.
Benjamin: Look, we’ll go out to dinner and have a drink and I’ll bring her back. Because it was either that or a dinner party for the two families. And I’m afraid I couldn’t quite handle that, if you don’t mind.

…

Benjamin: Sit down…Why don’t you watch the show?
Elaine: Benjamin, do you dislike me for some reason?
Benjamin: No - why should I?..You’re missing a great effect here. How do you like that? Could you do it?

…

Elaine: Where we going?
Benjamin: I’m trying to think of where there’s a place to have a drink around here.
Elaine: Isn’t there one in the Taft Hotel?

…

Elaine: Benjamin, what’s happening?
Benjamin: I don’t know. They all think I look like this guy Gladstone.

…

Elaine: Benjamin - are you having an affair with someone?

…

Benjamin: Elaine, I have to tell you something. That woman. The older woman we talked about.
Elaine: You mean the one who…
Benjamin: Yes, the married woman. It wasn’t just some woman.
Elaine: What are you telling me? Benjamin, will you just tell me what it is all about?
[she sees her mother]
Elaine: Oh, no.
Benjamin: Elaine…
Elaine: Oh my God!
Benjamin: Please!
Elaine: Get out of here!
Benjamin: Don’t cry…
Elaine: GET OUT! GET OUT!
Mrs. Robinson: Goodbye, Benjamin.

…

Mrs. Braddock: What’s happening?
Mr. Braddock: Ben says he and Elaine are getting married.
Mrs. Braddock: I don’t believe it!!
Mr. Braddock: That’s what he says. Right?
Benjamin: I’m going up to Berkeley today.
Mrs. Braddock:: Come on, let’s call the Robinsons. We’ve got something to celebrate.
Benjamin: No, I think you’ll want to wait on that.
Mr. Braddock: They don’t know?
Benjamin: No - they don’t.
Mrs. Braddock: Well, when did you decide all this?
Benjamin: About an hour ago.
Mr. Braddock: Wait a minute. You talked to Elaine this morning?
Benjamin: No, she doesn’t know about it.
Mr. Braddock: You mean she doesn’t know that you’re coming up to Berkeley?
Benjamin: No. Actually, she doesn’t know about us getting married yet.
Mrs. Braddock: Well, when did you two talk this over?
Benjamin: We haven’t.
Mrs. Braddock: You haven’t?
Mr. Braddock: Ben, this whole idea sounds pretty half-baked.
Benjamin: No, it’s not. It’s completely baked. It’s a decision I’ve made.
Mrs. Braddock: But what makes you think she wants to marry you?
Benjamin: She doesn’t. To be perfectly honest, she doesn’t like me.

…

Mr. McCleery [to Benjamin]: You aren’t one of those outside agitators, are you?

…

Benjamin: I’ve got a real feeling that this is the fellow.

…

Elaine: How could you do that, Benjamin? How could you possibly rape my mother?
Benjamin: What?! What did she say? You got tell me what did she say.
Elaine: Why?
Benjamin: Because it isn’t true. Tell me.
Elaine: She said she was having a drink in the hotel with a friend. You waited for her in the parking lot and told her she was too drunk to drive home and you would get her a room for the night.
Benjamin: Then what?
Elaine: Then you took her upstairs and you raped her.
Benjamin: Oh, no, no, no, that’s not what happened. What happened was there was this party at my parents…

…

Elaine: What are you going to do now?
Benjamin: I don’t know.
Elaine: Are you going home?
Benjamin: No.
Elaine: Well, where are you going?
Benjamin: Elaine, you’re going to stop asking me.

…

Benjamin: Good God…

…

Benjamin: We’ll need our Birth Certificates. I happen to have mine with me. Where’s yours?

…

Elaine: I have to see Carl first.
Benjamin: Carl who?
Elaine: Carl Smith. He’s a medical student. We’ve known him for years.
Benjamin: Who, that guy at the Zoo?
Elaine: Yes.
Benjamin: Why do you have to see him?
Elaine: Well, I said I might marry him.

…

Benjanin: Well, what did he say? I’m curious.
Elaine: He said he thought we’d make a pretty good team.
Benjamin: Oh no. He said that. Where did he do it?
[Elaine gets up to leave the library]
Benjamin: I’d like to know where it happened? It wasn’t in his car, was it?!

…

Elaine: Good night.
Benjamin: Are we getting married tomorrow?
Elaine: No…
Benjamin: Day after tomorrow?
Elaine: I don’t know. Maybe we are, and maybe we’re not.

…

Benjamin: I am trying to tell you I have no personal feelings about you, Mr. Robinson. I am trying to tell you I do not resent you.
Mr. Robinson: But you don’t respect me terribly much either, do you?
Benjamin: No, Sir.

…

Benjamin: Listen to me. What happened between Mrs. Robinson and me was nothing. It didn’t mean anything. We might just as well have been shaking hands.
Mr. Robinson: Shaking hands? Well, that’s not saying much for my wife, is it?
Benjamin: You miss the point.
Mr. Robinson: I guess I do.
Benjamin: The point is I don’t love your wife. I love your daughter, sir.

…

Benjamin: Elaine.
Mrs. Robinson: Hello, Benjamin.
Benjamin: Where is she?
Mrs. Robinson [on phone]: Hello. Get me the police, please.
Benjamin: Where is Elaine?
Mrs. Robinson: I’ll be with you in a moment. [back on the phone] Do you have a petrol car in the vicinity of 1200 Glenview Road. Good, we have a burgler here. Just a second. I’ll ask him.
[she looks over to Benjamin]
Are you armed?
[back to the phone]
Mrs. Robinson: No, I don’t believe he is.

…

Gas station attendant: Do you need any gas, Father?!

…

Elaine: BEN!!!

…

Mrs. Robinson: Elaine, it’s too late!
Elaine: Not for me![/b]

Two givens:

1] This is the “good” military. It is concerned only with preserving national security and spreading democracy, freedom and human rights around the globe. As opposed to what it really is: The muscle behind the military industrial complex and the war economy.

2] “Women’s liberation” here means enabling women to be just like men. Alpha males in particular. It’s never, ever the other way around: women insisting men be more like them.

While nothing at all like this I made it through basic training in the military by remembering the most important thing: It’s all scripted. And largely bullshit.

But these folks do become genuine brutes. And hardly because it’s a “necessary evil”. This sort of behavior is glorified. It’s the end in itself, and not just the means.

And there ain’t nothin’ in Washington that ain’t politics.

G.I. Jane
Directed by Ridley Scott

[b]Sen. DeHaven: Good. I like pissed off.

…

Lt. O’Neil: The only thing that scares me is the sexual politics. I’m just not interested in being some poster girl for women’s rights.

…

Royce: …The SEALS, babe? These guys are world class warriors. They see you coming…
Lt. O’Neil: I’m aware they may not want me there.
Royce: May not? They will eat corn flakes out of your skull, okay?

…

Lt. O’Neil: I’m not here to make some kind of statement. All I care about is completing the training and getting operational experience, just like everyone else, I suspect.
C.O: If you were like everyone else, lieutenant, I suspect we wouldn’t be making statements about not making statements, would we?

…

Master Chief [quoting “Self-Pity” by D.H. Lawrence]: “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”

…

Master Chief: The ebb and flow of the Atlantic tides, the drift of the continents, the very position of the sun along its ecliptic. THESE are just a FEW of the things I control in my world! Is that clear?
Stamm: Yes, Command Master Chief!
Master Chief [to Everyone]: IS THAT CLEAR?
All the CRT Trainees: YES, COMMAND MASTER CHIEF!

…

Master Chief: 60% of you will not pass this course! How do I know? Because that is an historical fact! Now for the bad news, I always like to get one quitter on the first day, and until I do, that first day does not end!

…

Master Chief: I know some of you are already thinking about quitting. Go ahead. You don’t need this abuse Quit. Be ashamed for the rest of your fucking lives.

…

Master Chief: Pain is your friend, your ally, it will tell you when you are seriously injured, it will keep you awake and angry, and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain? It lets you know you’re not dead yet!

…

Master Chief: Sergeant Cortes, however brief your stint with this command might be, there are two words you will learn to put together: Team…Mate.

…

Master Chief: Lt. O’Neil, when I want your opinion, I’ll give it to ya.

…

Lt. O’Neil [commenting on the special standard for her training]: I mean really sir, why don’t you just issue me a pink petticoat to wear around the base?
C.O.: Did you just have a brain fart, Lieutenant?
Lt. O’Neil: Begging your pardon, sir?
C.O.: Did you just waltz in here and bark at your commanding officer? Because if you did, I would call that a bona fide brain fart, and I resent it when people FART inside my office!
Lt. O’Neil: I think you’ve resented me from the start, sir.
C.O.: What I resent, Lieutenant, is some politician using my base as a test tube for her grand social experiment. What I resent, is the sensitivity training that is now mandatory for all of my men. The ob-gyn I now have to keep on staff just to keep track of your personal pap smears. But most of all what I resent, is your perfume, however subtle, interfering with the scent of my fine three-dollar-and-seventy-nine-cent cigar, which I will put out this instant if the phallic nature of it happens to offend your GODDAMN FRAGILE SENSIBILITIES! Does it?
Lt. O’Neil: No, sir.
C.O.: “No, sir” WHAT?
Lt. O’Neil: The shape doesn’t bother me. Just the goddamn stench.

…

C.O. [after Jordan demands that he remove the dual standard]: One standard.
Lt. O’Neil: Just treat me the same. No better, no worse.
C.O.: You’re gonna get everything you want, O’Neil. I just wonder if you want what you’re gonna get.

…

Sen. DeHaven: Captain, are you in the habit of lettin’ reporters traipse around your base, snappin’ their fill? These are supposed to be discreet test cases!
C.O.: Senator, they stand out on a public highway using telephoto lenses. There is nothin’ I can do about it, unless you want me to infringe on their civil liberties, which I will be glad to do, if you’ll just trim a little fat off the Constitution.
Sen. DeHaven: Did you just mouth off to a senior member of the Senate Arms Committee?

…

McCool [after one trainee mentions that things have changed for the better for African-Americans]: Have they? So you see, O’Neil, I know where you’re coming from. To them you’re just the new nigger on the block, that’s all.

…

Lt. O’Neil: You were given the Navy Cross right? May I ask what you got it for?
Master Chief: Since it bears on this conversation, I got it for pulling a 250-pound man out of a burning tank.
Lt. O’Neil: So stopping to save a man makes you a hero, but if a man stops to help a woman, he’s gone soft?
Master Chief: Could you have pulled that man clear? Lieutenant, you couldn’t even haul your own body weight out of the water today.

…

Royce: Jordan, just watch your six, okay?

…

Lt. O’Neil [after being brutually beaten during a capture exercise]: Master Chief…
Master Chief: Lieutenant, seek life elsewhere.
Lt. O’Neil: Suck my dick![/b]

She’s made it. She’s officially a man.

[b]Master Chief: She’s not the problem. We are.

…

Girl [noticing O’Neil’s bruised face]: Ain’t really none of my business, but I say leave the bastard.

…

Sen. DeHaven: Jordan, everyday I am forced to make decisions that would have Solomon himself shittin’ golf balls. And half of them are about my own political survival.
Lt. O’Neil: Tell me you didn’t sell me out.

…

Sen. DeHaven: It was never going to happen anyway?
Lt. O’Neil: Then why the fuck did you start me on all this in the first place?
Sen. DeHaven: Truthfully? I never expected you to do so well. I thought you’d ring out in two weeks, bing bang it’s over, and we’re popular. In Washington, you don’t even need the Ten Commandments when you’re popular!

…

Lt. O’Neil: Now you get those charges voided, Senator, and you do it today.
Sen. DeHaven: Or what?
Lt. O’Neil: You like pissed off? Watch this.[/b]

I remember when I first came out as a nihilist. Not the same thing as here of course but you still have to deal with a lot of ignorant assholes.

Here’s the thing though. When confronting “traditionalists” always start with dasein. Once they begin to grasp how who they think they are is all hopelessly embedded in contingency, chance and change they will, well, okay, admitedly, they will probably become even more reactionary.

But not all of them, so give it a try.

And then there’s the “culture thing”. The “honor” bullshit. Always the man’s of course.

Yeah, sure, one is a doctor, the other is a ballet dancer. They are both very beautiful. And very young. Not that this detracts from how good the movie is though.

trailer:
youtu.be/m76qAslk0y0

SAVING FACE [2004]
Written and directed by Alice Wu

[b]Little Yu: Home to see your grandparents?
Wil: Yeah, the weekly pilgrimage to Flushing…to swim in the Chinese gene pool.

…

Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: Is that how you speak to your ma who worked nights so you could eat? Who stayed in labor without painkillers so you wouldn’t turn dim-witted like your cousin Jimmy? Had I known you would grow so ungrateful I would have held you in.

…

Wil: One night without Chinese food isn’t gonna kill her.

…

Wil: How did you find out she was…?
Wai Po - Grandma: The receptionist at the Manhattan clinic is married to one of Grandpa’s former students.
Wil [mostly to herself]: One billion Chinese people, two degrees of separation.

…

Jay: When’s your Grandfather going to let her come back home?
Wil: When she gets married…or proves immaculate conception.

…

Randi: Why can’t she get her own apartment?
Wil: Are you insane? Do you know what kind of karmic hell I’d pay as a Chinese daughter who didn’t take in her own mom?

…

Wil: Ma, you can’t give him a paper plate.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: Safer this way. Throw it out afterwards.
Wil: It’s rude.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: I’ll give him two.

…

Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma [in Mandarin]: Your neighbor is loud and dark and eats too much soy sauce.
Wil [in Mandarin]: Americans like soy sauce.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma [in Mandarin]: I’m going to start eating less soy sauce so it won’t stain the baby too dark.
Wil [in English]: Ma, that’s ridiculous.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: You eat less too, so you don’t grow spots.
[Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma passes soy sauce bottle to Jay]
Jay [who is black]: Thanks.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: Too late for him anyway.

…

Wil: So how come we never met before now?
Vivian: We did meet. Nineteen years ago. I was 8, you were 9. Outside the temple.
Wil: I don’t remember.
Vivian: The Wong boys were taunting me about my parents’ divorce. You beat the crap out of them. You were wearing a Kristy McNichol t-shirt, tan cords and a pageboy. You spilled your mom’s groceries. We scooped them into a bag.
Wil: That’s right, and then…
Vivian Shing: And then I kissed you on the nose. And you ran.

…

Wil: I’ll definitely be there tonight.
Vivian: “Definitely” definitely, or “definitely” maybe?

…

Wil: You talked to your mother about us?
Vivian: Yeah. So?
Wil: “So”? Does she know we have sex?
Vivian: No, Wil. She thinks we conjugate Latin verbs.
Wil: Did you tell her about this?[/b]

And down [on her] she goes.

[b]Nurse #1: Hey, there’s a Mr. Fu. He’s finishing a checkup with Mr. Morgan.
Wil: Let me see his stats.
[Looks over chart]
Wil: Fifty-three, unmarried. Thyroid levels aren’t where I’d like to see them, but overall pretty healthy. Okay. Be discrete but ask him if he’s free Friday.
[Leaves]
Randi [turns and points at the nurse]: “Book him, Dano.”

…

Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: No one wants to see a 50-year-old Chinese woman look sexy.
Wil: Ma, you’re only 48. Connie Chung’s sexy, and she must be nearly 60.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: Her show was cancelled.

…

Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma [to Wil]: Is he white?

…

Wil [watching a soap opera]: Is that the good guy?
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: No, he’s marrying her for money.
Wil: Is that the good guy?
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: No, that’s his brother.
Wil: Who’s that guy?
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: He’s the most evil of them all, he wants to ruin her family to avenge a grudge.
Wil: Who’s the loser they’re beating up?
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: That’s the good guy.

…

Vivian: Just tell her I’m a friend. A nice Chinese girl.
Wil: You’re not just a nice Chinese girl.
Vivian: I’ll fake it.

…

Vivian: So is the baby good?
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma [thinking she means Wil]: She works too hard. I hardly get to see her.
Vivian: Me neither.

…

Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: Wil’s black neighbor is single…always around. You interested?
Vivian: No.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: You don’t like black people?
Vivian: Sure, I like…
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma [to Wil]: She doesn’t like black people.
Wil: Yes, she does.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: Then why won’t she date them?

…

Little Girl That Vivian Teaches: Are you guys gonna kiss?
Wil [startled]: No. What?
Little Girl: Are you going to French kiss when you go to Paris?
Vivian: Uh, go play on the jungle gym

…

Dr. Shing [Vivian’s father, to Wil]: So you’re the reason she’s dragging her heels on Paris.

…

Vivian: Where have you been the last couple days?
Wil: It’s been crazy. Vivian…there’s a lot going on right now. I’m sorry if l…If this hurts.
Vivian [getting up to walk away]: At least it’s not a flesh wound.

…

Wil: Ma, I love you…and I’m gay.
Hwei-Lan Gao - Ma: How can you say those two things at once? How can you tell me you love me…then throw that in my face? I am not a bad mother. My daughter is not gay.
Wil: Then maybe I shouldn’t be your daughter.[/b]

Of course she is a doctor. An independant woman. She can afford to rebuff that reaction.

[b]Vivian [to Wil]: You’re too scared to look the world in the eye…and let it watch you fall in love.

…

Vivian [at the airport]: Kiss me. Right here, in front of all these people.
[Wil can’t bring herself to do it…Vivian turns to board the plane][/b]

The ending? Okay, so even Hollywood might be embarassed by it.

Inspired by true events…in the sick fucking world of sex trafficking.

Man’s inhumanity to…children. Girls, in particular.

Whenever it is children you see being abused and exploited [and brutalized] you just want to explode. You want to wring God’s fucking neck and demand an explanation for why He doesn’t just reach down and smite the sick bastards. And with No God you just endure it as best you can. Or you do what you can to make sure the future here is less egregious.

If it was up to me the men who do these things would be imprisoned under the most brutal conditions imaginable. And these conditions would be made known to any and all others who might be thinking of doing the same. With children you’ve got to draw the fucking line.

Even if the scumbags are Smurfs. Or State Department officials.

Men. Some care not at all how much pain and suffering they cause, just so they can come. Or profit from the ejaculations of others. Fortunately, that is still only a small percentage of all men. Lots of men are heroes here. Men like Peter. But in this sex [and money] saturated culture the number of scumbags can only rise.

There are parts of this film unbearable to watch.

human trafficking at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

the “real life” whistleblower at Daily Beast:
thedailybeast.com/articles/2 … osnia.html

trailer:
youtu.be/al3anBiHwmI

THE WHISTLEBLOWER [2010]
Written and directed by Larysa Kondracki

[b]Raya: I have to get home. Mama’s gonna kill me.
Luba: No. You are staying with me tonight. Roman wants us there at nine in the morning. Raya, we’ve been over this. It’s just a few months working in a hotel.
Raya: Yes, but…
Luba: You want to work at a Copyshack like your mother? He said it was both of us or nothing!
Raya: …No.
[walks away]
Luba: Fuck your Mom!

…

Halyna: It’s 1:30 in the morning.
Raya: You don’t understand! Luba wanted me to…
Halyna: If her mother lets her do whatever she wants go live there. You’ve graduated. You’re an adult now. Do what you want.
[Halyna turns and walks into her bedroom, closing the door]
[Raya looks around the room, thinking…then bolts out of the house][/b]

Big mistake. But such is life as we play off each other’s perceptions of reality.

[b]Kathy: Bosnia?

…

Blakely: During your training you will see that peace is harder won than war. That every morning’s hope is haunted by yesterday’s nightmare.[/b]

What a piece of shit this one is.

[b]Kathy: What did he say?
Interpretor [of a woman who has been brutalized]: He say the woman is Muslim and she deserves this.
[the Slavic men start shouting]
McVeigh: That’s enough!..Movin on. Next case.
Kathy: Excuse me. Excuse me. What do you mean, “movin on”? This is a felony assault. Who is going to investigate?
McVeigh: Okay, let me ask you something. Can you tell a Serb from a Croat or a Bosniac? Because I can’t. Raical and religious hatred started a war in this country. Now, as much as I’d like it to be, we are not here as investigators. We monitor. That’s it.

…

Kathy: Florida Bar? What’s that?
Police official: Florida Bar. It’s a bar in the hills. I can take them to the Zenica Shelter. That’s where we usually take these girls.
Kathy: Usually?

…

Milena [who runs the Zenica Shelter]: Since the end of the war, sex trafficking has spread like cancer.
Kathy: Why-Why since the end of the war?
Milena: Half our men are dead. So, who are these girls brought in for?

…

Milena: This is Raya. The nurse found, uh, objects inside her.
Kathy: Excuse me?
Milena: Coins. Like you saw, they’re not prostitutes. They are slaves, treated like dogs.

…

Fred [interrupting her findings]: Where are we going, Columbo?
Kathy: I don’t know, but, um, something fucked up is going on.
Fred: Ooh. Honey, it’s like I say, this is Bosnia. These people specialize in “fucked up”.

…

Kathy [to Raya]: …If you say that Tanjo was taking payoffs from this man, Fred Miller, his name can go on the record and the U.N. has to do something. They can’t knowingly have one of their men involved in rape, kidnapping and torture.[/b]

Oh, yes, they can.

[b]Raya: Will we be safe? Do you promise?
Kathy: I promise.

…

U.N. official: We have a system that works here.
Kathy: Oh, really? For who?

…

Irka [to Kathy]: Please, just let me die!

…

Halyna: What will they do to her? WHAT WILL THEY DO TO HER?!

…

Victum: We stop at the border. I see man in blue. Like you. I thank God. I think we have our savior. Then he jumps in and drives the van.

…

Kathy: Madeleine, they’re bringing them in. I.P.T.F. are actually trafficking girls and bringing them across the border. And it’s not just them. This involves all kinds of internationals–from military officiers to diplomats. I thought I was only going after one guy.[/b]

Here’s what it’s all about:

Peter: I’ve never seen I.A. overridden like this?
Kathy: Overridden by who?
Peter: I don’t know. I can’t be sure. It’s the State Department…or Democra. You do know what they stand to lose if this…
Kathy: I guess not.
Peter: Their contract in Bosnia is worth millions. Globally, just this year alone, billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts. And now you come along with this scandal…
Kathy: I don’t want a scandal. I’m just doing my job.
Peter: I know, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares about you.

Or the girls. You can’t work inside “the system” to change things when it’s “the system” that creates things.

[b]Kathy: Fuck protocol! We just raid the bar!

…

News reporter on T.V.: “Mostly traffickers prey on those they know banking on the fact that the girl will trust them. Traffickers can be fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles…”

…

Halyna [to sister]: How could you sell your own blood? You swine. You swine. You swine.

…

Kathy [email to authorities]: We are peacekeepers who came to protect the innocent, but now prey upon them in the worst ways possible. We may be accused of thinking with our hearts instead of our heads, but we will have our humanity.

…

Blakely: Madeleine, I have to protect this organization, and so should you. The U.N. is too fragile, too important. And that’s what immunity is for.
Madeleine: Immunity, not impunity. The United Nations was formed from the ashes of Auschwitz. The United States led the way, and it’s a point of honor with me that the U.N. is not remembered for raping the very people we must protect.
Blakely: Those girls are whores of war. It happens. I will not dictate for morality.
Madeleine: So what are we dictating for? I’ll go tlo Washington. I’ll go to the State Department if I must.
Blakely: Democra isn’t even based out of the States. It’s based out of England. It’s a private orgnaization. We work in the real world.[/b]

Can anyone with straight fucking face tells us that the powers that be couldn’t put a stop to these things if the political will wasn’t lacking and corporate profits weren’t priority one?

[b]Kathy [to Madeline]: They killed Raya. They shot her in the head. She wanted to testify, and they made an example of her. I’m responsible for this. I promised I would protect her…Oh God, I can’t stop thinking about her mother. How do we tell people what’s happening here?

…

Blakely: You’re trespassing.
Kathy: So what? What are you going to do? Fire me again? You gonna arrest me? I have diplomatic immunity. Isn’t that what you all rely on around here?
Blakely: You had immunity, You don’t have a U.N. I.D. anymore. You’re a civilian now, You’re on your own.
Kathy: Well, I’m sure the State Department will be happy to hear from me when I get back.
Blakely: Where do you think this comes from? The State Department owns your contract. They don’t want you here. Democra wants you out. You can talk to whomever you want. They’re not listening. You’re finished.

…

BBC Reporter: Given everything you’ve been through, would you do it again?
Kathy: Yes. Yes, I would. No doubt about it.

…

Titlecard: Following Kathryn Bolkovac’s departure, a number of peacekeepers, including private contractors, were sent home. None faced criminal charges in their home countries. The U.S. State Department continues to do business with private contractors like the one depicted in this film, including contracts worth billions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kathryn Bolkovac lives in the Netherlands with Jan, She has been unable to regain employment in the international community.

Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries. It is estimated nearly 2.5 million people are being trafficked around the world.[/b]

And now some can go back to pretending this isn’t really the way the world works at all. That folks like Barack Obama have absolutely no understanding at all of what goes on behind the curtains. When, for example, those contracts are signed, sealed and delivered.

First the child was wild. And then he was tamed. Then he alternated between being an “attraction” and a scientific speciman.
But it had to be better than “before”. Didn’t it?

In a strange way it’s almost like watching The Miracle Worker.

All through his “training” though he never lets go of nature as he once knew it. It’s always his first choice. It makes you ponder “freedom” from a whole other perspective.

IMDb

[b]Truffaut remained true to Dr. Itard’s written accounts in most respects. A few variations are: (1) Victor was not stark naked when first captured; he had the shreds of a shirt around his neck. (2) Victor’s hair would have been much longer, because he was indifferent to hygiene or how he looked. (3) Jean Itard was merely a young medical student, while the film suggests that he was on an equal basis with Pinel. (4) Madame Guerin became almost a mother to Victor, always attending to him, whereas the film suggests that she merely helped to train him and to clean up after him. (5) Itard would rub Victor’s back to relax and comfort him, but then had to worry about sexual responses. Victor also often wet his bed, but Itard never punished him; he decided to allow Victor to learn whether he preferred to lie in a wet bed or to get up to relieve himself. These problems are not shown. (6) In the scene in which Victor throws a tantrum about learning the alphabet, his and Dr. Itard’s responses were different than are shown in the film. Real-life Victor bit his bedsheets and began to throw hot coals around the house before falling to the ground and writhing/screaming/kicking; and Itard (Truffaut) did not merely put him into the closet for a few moments. Itard admits [in translation] that he actually “violently threw open the window of his room, which was on the fifth floor overlooking some boulders directly below … and grabbing him forcibly by the hips, I held him out of the window, his head facing directly down toward the bottom of the chasm. After some seconds, I drew him in again. He was pale, covered with a cold sweat … I made him gather up all the [alphabet] cards and replace them all. This was done very slowly … but at least without impatience.” Viewers may thank Truffaut for choosing the lesser of two evil punishments! (7) Finally, Dr. Itard took care of Victor for 5 years; in 1806, Victor moved into Madame Guerin’s house and stayed there for the rest of his life, with the French Government paying for his care. It is believed that he died there, without ever marrying.

The incidents based on true life, as reported by Dr. Itard and as shown by Truffaut, include the facts that: (1) Victor was captured by hunters. (2) Pinel did conclude and dismiss Victor as a helpless retarded child, “an incurable idiot.” (3) Crowds of Parisians really did come to see the “Wild Boy of Aveyron.” (4) Victor really did prefer the “O” sound, and accepted the name Victor, which in French has an accent on the “O” [veek-TOR]. (5) Dr. Itard appears to have been truly kind to the boy, as were Mme. Guerin and the neighbors. (6) Victor appears to have had great affection for Itard and Guerin, but was never interested in children of his own age.

The Los Angeles opening of this film occurred one week before the discovery of an American “wild child”, a young girl who had been kept isolated from human contact much of her life. The team of doctors working with her, arranged a private viewing of the French film for inspiration.[/b]

FAQs at IMDB:
imdb.com/title/tt0064285/faq

The Wild Child at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Child

feral children at wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

trailer:
youtu.be/vzr-xFAfQbs

THE WILD CHILD [L’enfant Sauvage] 1970
Written and directed by François Truffaut

[b]Doctor [examining scar on neck]: No doubt, whoever abandoned him meant to kill him.

…

Dr Itard: I think the only cause of his dumbness is the isolation in which he lived.

…

Colleague: What now?
Dr Itard: The child will die here. All we do is exhibit him as a freak.
Colleague: See here, Citizen Itard. The boy is an inferior being. He’s lower than an animal.
Dr Itard: That’s just the point. Animals are cared for, trained. It’s useless to bring him from the forest and lock him up as if he were being punished for disappointing Parisians.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: What fascinates me is that all the boy has done since his arrival, he has done for the first time.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: I must say that for the present his emotions appear unaffected. Despite the ill treatment he endured at the Institute no one ever saw him cry.

…

Dr Itard: His first pair of shoes.[/b]

You can almost hear the kid thinking: What’s the fucking point? He doesn’t like them.

[b]Dr Itard [voiceover]: It was not what I had hoped. Had he said the word before the thing he desired was conceded he would have grasped the use of words. A point of communication would have been established and rapid progress would have followed this initial success.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: Victor has always shown a marked preference for water and the way he drinks it shows he finds great pleasure in it. He stands near the window, gazing upon the countryside as if in this delectable moment the child of nature sought to reunite the two blessings to survive his loss of freedom.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: For an interminable moment, I thought what I’d dreaded since Victor came to live with us had happened: that his fancy for the freedom of the woods had prevailed over his newfound needs and burgeoning affection.

…

Housekeeper: His tantrums are your fault. You make him study from morning to night. You turn his only pleasures into exercises. His meals, his walks, everything. He works ten times more than the normal child.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: Today, for the first time, Victor wept.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: Had I not known his limits, I’d have thought he understood my criticisms. I had barely chastized him when I saw his chest heave noisily and a stream of tears falling from underneath the blindfold.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: Now, ready to renounce the task I had imposed upon myself, seeing how much time I’d wasted on him, how deeply I regretted having known this child, I condemned the sterile curiosity of the men who had wrenched him away from his innocent and happy life.

…

Dr Itard [voiceover]: When he succeeds I reward him, when he fails I punish him. Yet I can’t say I have instilled a sense of justice in him. He obeys me and corrects hmself out of fear or out of hope for a reward and not out of a sense of moral order. To obtain less ambiguous results I must do an abominable thing.[/b]

How abominable?

Dr Itard [voiceover]: I will test Victor’s heart with a flagrant piece of injustice by punishing him for no reason after he succeeds right before my eyes. I shall administer a punishment as odious as it is unjust precisely to see if his reaction is one of rebellion.

How odious? It’s pretty fucked up. And Victor rebels. And then this observation:

Dr Itard [voiceover]: I wish my pupil could have understood me at this moment. I would have told him that his bite filled my soul with joy. I had irrefutable evidence that what is just and unjust was no longer alien to Victor’s heart. By giving him the sentiment, or rather by invoking it, I had elevated the savage man to the nature of a moral being by the most noble of his attributes.

I can just imagine the reaction of the objectivists here. And, no doubt, they can imagine my own reaction in turn.

Some movies cry out to be filmed in black and white. And how many directors fail to grasp this? Fortunately, this one doesn’t. Even though, when push comes to shove, it’s really just a fairy-tale.

Her: Men are shit.
Him: Like no other man she has ever met.
Me: It’s still a good film…sharks and all.

But just to play it safe she is achingly beautiful. And a waif to boot.

And it shows how life can be with a little luck. The kind you make, not take. But especially the kind that is scripted.

And just out of curiosity: Should a knife thrower miss and strike [or even kill] the assistant could he be charged with a crime?

trailer:
youtu.be/5Tsg_dVhNi4

GIRL ON THE BRIDGE [La Fille Sur le Pont] 1999
Directed by Patrice Leconte

[b]Adele [to interviewer]: You know those curly, sticky flypapers? I’m like them. I pick up all the crud.

…

Adele [to interviewer]: Some people are born to be happy but I got conned every day of my life.

…

Adele [to interviewer]: When I was little all I wanted to do was to grow up. As fast as I could. But now I can’t see the point of it all. Not anymore. Getting older.

…

Gabor: I’ll bet it’s your first try, right?
Adele: Yes. I don’t live on bridges.
Gabor: I do.
Adele: Doing what? Trying to jump off?
Gabor: No, hiring people.
Adele: Hiring who?
Gabor: Assistants. Burned-out women are my stock in trade.

…

Gabor: After age 40, knife throwing becomes erratic. That’s why I come to the bridge. I can help. If you really want to end it all I can take you in on a trial basis.
Adele: No thanks. I’ll manage on my own. You can’t fool me with your fancy propositions. You think a sad girl on the bridge is an easy target. Yours for the asking.
Gabor: Excuse me! I never sleep with my targets.
Adele: That’s your problem. I’m through with fairy tales.[/b]

She jumps. And he after her.

[b]Gabor: Do you know your bloodtype?
Adele: AB I think. Why?
Gabor: In case of accidents. Bleeding can be harmless if stopped in time.

…

Adele [looking at a row of knives]: You throw these?
Gabor: What did you expect, teaspoons?

…

Gabor: Look at me. Do I scare you?
Adele: Frankly, you come pretty close.

…

Gabor: Him? If you’d like to meet him, there’s the john.

…

Adele: Wherever I go, I seem to take the wrong road.
Gabor: There is no wrong road, only bad company.

…

Gabor: …we always think luck is about what we don’t have.

…

Cabaret Announcer: The Wheel of Death!
Adele: The wheel of what?
Gabor: Death. A small variation. Cruise tourists get bored. They need a change.

…

Gabor: My act is new.
Mr. Kusak: What’s new about throwing knives?
Gabor [looking over at Adele cavorting with the contortionist]: I throw blind. Blind. Maximum risk.

…

Adele [looking over at Gabor cavorting with Irene the “canonball”]: Excuse me. What does “blind” mean?

…

Adele [leaving him for “Mr. Right”]: What do we do, shake hands? Kiss?
Gabor: Forget each other.

…

Gabor: She picked another bum.

…

Adele [voiceover]: As far as forever goes, it went really fast.[/b]

A tragedy is one thing. But it’s another thing altogether when you figure you played a part in it. Or you figure someone you loved did. It can thump your life up one side and down the other. It can flay relationships…leave them in tatters.

I know from personal experience. And so, no doubt, do you. It just depends on how big it was. And how long it took to simmer down.

Here you see what people do. But you don’t always know what motivates them to do it. And in the gaps all sorts of unexpected surprises emerge. Same with us. Especially when we get confused about our own motives.

And Eddie is just a kid however precocious. And that makes Ted pretty much a scumbag. With Marion, it’s a bit more ambiguous.

trailer:
youtu.be/pRoo2qvhQGg

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR [2004]
Written and directed by Tod Williams

Interviewer: In my opinion, there is no better opening to any story than the opening of The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls. I mean, the first lines…
Ted: “Tom woke up, but Tim did not.”

He writes [and illustrates] children’s books. You know the kind.

[b][repeated line]
Ted: I’m just an entertainer of children, and I like to draw.

…

Ruth: Daddy, I had a dream. I heard a sound.
Ted: Uh, what sort of sound?
Ruth: It’s in the house, but it’s trying to be quiet.
Ted: Hmm. Well, let’s go look for it then. It’s a sound that’s trying to be quiet? What did it sound like?
Ruth: It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound.

…

Ruth: Daddy, your penis looks funny.
Ted: My penis is funny.[/b]

Then he carries her down the hall buck naked. Kind of creepy. Or maybe not.

[b]Ted [to Eddie]: Well, writing is rigorous work. I keep myself incredibly busy. Many of my books contain 500 words or less, so…every word must be examined and re-examined thoroughly. You’re going to be spending the whole summer looking for le mot juste, as Flaubert says. The right word. The true word.

…

Marion: It’s funny. Let’s just call it funny and leave it at that.

…

Marion: How’s the work going for you?
Eddie: I just retype A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound every morning. Sometimes he changes a comma from a semicolon, and then the next morning he changes it back.

…

Marion: I don’t know if they had sex. Thomas, maybe. He was so popular. But, Timothy, he was so shy. That’s all boys want, isn’t it?
Eddie: Yes.
Marion: Have you had sex, Eddie?
Eddie: No.
Marion: Well, it’s too hot in here, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t wear the sweater.

…

Eddie: Testify?
Ted: In the event of a custody dispute, regarding which one of us is a more fit parent. I would never have let a child see me with another woman, whereas Marion…has really made no effort whatsoever to protect Ruth from seeing what she saw. And if you are asked to testify to what happened, I trust that you won’t lie not in a court of law.

…

Ted: From the sound of it, it was a rear-entry position…not that I have a personal problem with that or any other position. But for a child, I imagine doing it doggishly must seem especially animalistic.

…

Marion: He starts with conventional portraits…a mother, a child. Then the mother, then the mother nude. Then the nudes go through phases, like innocence, modesty, degradation and shame.
Eddie: Mrs. Vaughn?
Marion: Mrs. Vaughn is experiencing the degrading phase right now.

…

Eddie: Tell me about the accident. I mean, do you know how it happened, or…or was it anybody’s fault?

…

Ted: Everything in fiction is a tool: pain, betrayal, even death. These are, you know, these are like, uh, different colors on a painter’s palette. You need to use them.[/b]

And, of course, practice them with the folks around you.

[b]Ted: 60 times?

…

Ted: If she thinks she’s got a rat’s ass of a chance to get custody of Ruth, she’s got another think coming.
Eddie: She doesn’t expect to get custody of Ruth. She has no intention of trying.

…

Eddie: She took the negatives too?

…

Ted: I never knew you were such a superior person, Alice.
Eddie: Alice has been superior to me all summer. Haven’t you Alice?
Alice: I am morally superior to you, Eddie. I know that much.
Ted: “Morally superior.” What a concept.

…

Eddie: Wrong cubes.

…

Ted: Forget the light, Eddie. This story is better in the dark.
Eddie: What story?
Ted: You told me you asked Marion to tell it to you, but Marion can’t handle this story. Turns her to stone just thinking about it. Remember, you turned her to stone just asking her about it.
Eddie: I remember.

…

Ted: The snowplow cut the car almost perfectly in half.

…

Ted [telling Eddie about the accident]: And then Marion, she sees Timmy’s shoe in the wreckage. “Oh, look. Timmy’s shoe. He’s gonna need his shoe.” And she walks over to it, reaches down to pick it up. Ted…Ted wanted to stop her…Talk about turned to stone. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even speak. And that was when Ted allowed his wife to discover that her younger son’s shoe was attached…to a leg. And that was when Marion realized that Timmy was gone too. And that…that is the end of the story.

…

Ted: I hired you, Eddie, because you look like Thomas. I gave her you.[/b]

Think about that. 60 times, remember?

When you consider all of the folks hooked on the drivel that is “reality TV” today – and how many would sell their soul to be a part of it! – you are amazed at just how prescient this film is. The writing here is spectacular. It is bust a gut funny – if you like your humor painful – while giving us some truly insightful [and scathing] pokes into the world of “show business”, the media and fame.

As for the ending controversy, I never saw it as just another one of Rupert’s pipedreams. Instead, I saw it as the director’s final kick in the gut. It shows how noteriety – good or bad – becomes the Holy Grail in our pop culture. You do whatever it takes to gain it. You get your 15 minutes [or more] by making a spectacle of yourself.

Once you are up on the stage though it all comes down to how successful you are in marketing [and then selling] yourself. Nothing…nothing…is too banal, tawdry, submental. Nowadays, it’s not so much what you become famous for but that you become famous. Period. You’re no longer just another face in the crowd. One of the indistinguishable “masses”.

IMDb

[b]Robert De Niro used anti-Semitic remarks to anger Jerry Lewis while filming the scene where Rupert Pupkin crashes Jerry Langford’s country home. Lewis, who had never worked with method actors, was shocked and appalled, but delivered an extremely credible performance.

Martin Scorsese said later that making this film was an “unsettling” experience, in part because of the embarrassing, bitter material of the script. Scorsese said that he and Robert De Niro may have not worked together again for seven years because making “The King of Comedy” was so emotionally grueling. Scorsese has stated that he “probably should not have made” the film.

When Jerry Langford is walking down the street, he is stopped by a woman talking on the telephone. When Jerry refuses to talk to someone on the phone, the lady says I hope you get cancer. This incident actually happened to Jerry Lewis. According to Scorsese, Lewis directed this segment himself.[/b]

wiki

[b]Film scholar David Bordwell, writing in Film Viewer’s Guide, mentioned the (un)reality of the ending as a topic for debate. A number of scenes in the film — Rupert and Jerry in the restaurant, Jerry meeting Rupert after having listened to his tape and calling him a genius, Rupert getting married “live” on Jerry’s show — exist solely in Rupert’s imagination, and Bordwell suggested that some viewers would think the final sequence is another fantasy.

In his commentary on The Criterion Collection DVD of Black Narcissus, Scorsese stated that Michael Powell’s films influenced The King of Comedy in its conception of fantasy. Scorsese said that Powell always treated fantasy as no different than reality, and so made fantasy sequences as realistic as possible. Scorsese suggests that Rupert Pupkin’s character fails to differentiate between his fantasies and reality in much the same way. Scorsese sought to achieve the same with the film so that, in his words, the “fantasy is more real than reality.”[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/0wVhCCo02P4

Look for The Clash.

THE KING OF COMEDY [1983]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Jerry: Alright, look pal, I gotta tell you…this is a crazy business, but it’s not unlike any other business. There are ground rules, and you don’t just walk on to a network show without experience. Now I know it’s an old, hackneyed expression, but it happens to be the truth. You’ve got to start at the bottom.
Rupert: I know. That’s where I am, at the bottom.
Jerry: Well, that’s the perfect place to start.

…

Rupert: Jerry. I’m a little short on cash but if you don’t mind just appetizers…I’d love to take you to dinner sometime.

…

Rita [tending bar]: Well, here I am. Local cheerleader makes good.

…

Rita: I bet some of these autographs are worth money.
Rupert [showing her his own signature]: Oh, yeah. Especially this one.
Rita: Who’s this?
Rupert: Well, just take a guess.
Rita: God, it looks like retard wrote it.
Rupert: The more scribbled the name, the bigger the fame.

…

Secretary: Is Mr. Langford expecting you?
Rupert: Yes, I don’t think he is.

…

Rupert [arguing with Masha]: What about things that I did for you that no money can buy, no money can buy? What about the time I gave you my spot! You came over there, I gave you my spot! You stood there and I let you get right next to Jerry. I waited for 8 hours for him and you went right next to him cause you were crying to me cause you wanted to get next to Jerry and you got next to him. And what about the time I gave you my last album of the Best of Jerry, what about that? It wasn’t anybody else it was me and I didn’t even ask you for money and I can’t even pay my rent! What are talking about? I live in a hovel! And you live in a townhouse! I can’t believe this girl!

…

[Jerry and Rupert inside Rupert’s head]
Jerry: At least once in his life, every man is a genius. I’ll tell you something, Rupe…it will be more than once in your life for you… because you’ve got it. From what I’ve heard here, yeah, you’ve got it…and you’re stuck with it. If you wanted to get rid of it, you couldn’t. It’s always going to be there. I know there’s no formula for it. I just don’t know how you do it…and I’m not curious, mind you because I want to use the material. I’m curious because I don’t know how you do it. I really have to ask you that. How do you do it?"
Rupert: I think it’s that I look at my whole life and I see the awful things in my life…and turn it into something funny. It just happens…but what about the first few one-liners?
Jerry: Were they strong enough? If they were any stronger, you’d hurt yourself. They’re marvelous, you daffy bastard. Leave them alone. They’re beautiful!

…

[Justice of the Peace George Cap inside Rupert’s head]
Dearly beloved when Rupert here was a student at the Clifton high school none of us–myself… his teachers… his classmates…dreamt that he would amount to a hill ofbeans. But we were wrong…and you, Rupert, you were right. And that’s why tonight before the entire nation we’d like to apologize to you personally and to beg your forgiveness for-for all the things we did to you. And we’d like to thank you personally…all of us…for the meaning you’ve given our lives. Please accept our warmest wishes, Rita and Rupert for a long and successful reign together.
[he turns to face the camera]
We’ll be back to marry them right after this word from our sponser.

…

Jonno [to Jerry]: His name is, uh, uh, Pumpkin. Pumpkin, yes. Do you know a name Pumpkin?

…

Jerry [to Rupert]: Did anyone ever tell you you’re a moron?

…

Jerry: I have a life, OK?
Rupert: I have a life, too.
Jerry: That’s not my responsibility!
Rupert: It is when you tell me to call you…
Jerry: I told you to call to get rid of you!
Rupert: To get rid of me?
Jerry: That’s right. If I didn’t tell you that we’d still be standing on the steps at my apartment!

…

Rupert: So alright I made a mistake.
Jerry: So did Hitler!

…

Rupert: I just want to say one more thing, Jerry. I’m glad what you did to me today…because now I know I can’t rely on anybody and I shouldn’t rely on anybody.
Jerry: Right.
Rupert: I’m going to work times harder…and I’m going to be times more famous than you.
Jerry: Then you’re gonna have idiots like you plaguing your life!

…

Detective: First of all, we don’t know whether we’re dealing with kidnappers or terrorists.
TV Executive: Terrorists?
Detective: Terrorists. You might have this man go on the air deliver a coded message and very possibly 50 people… around the country would lose their lives.
TV Executive: You’re out of your mind!

…

Masha [to Jerry]: I just want to dance. I want to, like, put on some Shirelles. I want to be black![/b]

The Monologue? I actually thought it was pretty funny. Especially once he got going.

[b]Rupert: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce myself. My name is Rupert Pupkin. I was born in Clifton, New Jersey…which was not at that time a federal offense. Is there anyone here from Clifton? Oh, good. We can all relax now. I’d like to begin by saying my parents were too poor to afford me a childhood. But the fact is that no one is allowed to be too poor in Clifton. Once you fall below a certain level they exile you to Passaic. My parents did put the first two down payments on my childhood. Don’t get me wrong, but they did also return me to the hospital as defective. But, like everyone else I grew up in large part thanks to my mother. If she were only here today I’d say, “Hey, ma, what are you doing here? You’ve been dead for nine years!” But seriously, you should’ve seen my mother. She was wonderful. Blonde, beautiful, intelligent, alcoholic. We used to drink milk together after school. Mine was homogenized. Hers was loaded. Once they picked her up for speeding. They clocked her doing 55. All right, but in our garage? And when they tested her they found out that her alcohol had 2% blood. Ah, but we used to joke together, mom and me…until the tears would stroll down her face and she would throw up! Yeah, and who would clean it up? Not dad. He was too busy down at O’Grady’s throwing up on his own. Yeah. In fact, until I was 13 I thought throwing up was a sign of maturity. While the other kids were off in the woods sneaking cigarettes I was hiding behind the house with my fingers down my throat. The only problem was I never got anywhere…until one day my father caught me. Just as he was giving me a final kick in the stomach for luck I managed to heave all over his new shoes! “That’s it”, I thought. “I’ve made it. I’m finally a man!” But as it turned out, I was wrong. That was the only attention my father ever gave me. Yeah, he was usually too busy out in the park playing ball with my sister Rose. But today, I must say thanks to those many hours of practice my sister Rose has grown into a fine man. Me, I wasn’t especially interested in athletics. The only exercise I ever got was when the other kids picked on me. Yeah, they used to beat me up once a week…usually Tuesday. And after a while the school worked it into the curriculum. And if you knocked me out, you got extra credit. There was this one kid, poor kid… he was afraid of me. I used to tell him, “Hit me, hit me. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to graduate?” Hey, I was the youngest kid in the history of the school to graduate in traction. But, you know, my only real interest right from the beginning, was show business. Even as a young man, I began at the very top collecting autographs. Now, a lot of you are probably wondering why Jerry isn’t with us tonight. Well, I’ll tell you. The fact is he’s tied up. I’m the one who tied him. Well, I know you think I’m joking… but, believe me, that’s the only way I could break into show business…by hijacking Jerry Langford. Right now, Jerry is strapped to a chair somewhere in the middle of the city. Go ahead, laugh. Thank you. I appreciate it. But the fact is, I’m here. Now, tomorrow you’ll know I wasn’t kidding and you’ll think I was crazy. But, look, I figure it this way. Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime. Thank you. Thank you.

…

Rupert: You didn’t like my act?
Detective: No.
Rupert: No?
Detective: Matter of fact I’m looking for the guy that wrote the material. I’ll pick him up and take him along with you.
Rupert: I wrote the material. I disagree with you. I thought they were very good jokes.
Detective: If you wrote that material I got one piece of advice for you. Throw yourself on your knees in front of the judge and beg for mercy.

…

TV Announcer: In what has to rank as the most bizarre debut in recent times a self-styled comedian named Rupert Pupkin appeared on the Jerry Langford Show. There’s no doubt the incident has made Rupert Pupkin a household word. Pupkin’s performance has been viewed by a record 87 million American households.

…

Announcer: Rupert Pupkin, kidnapping king of comedy was sentenced to six years imprisonment at the government’s minimum security facility in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, for his part in the abduction of talk show host Jerry Langford. On the anniversary of his appearance on the show Pupkin told a gathering of reporters he still considers Jerry Langford his friend and mentor. He reported he had been spending his time writing his memoirs, which have been purchased by a leading publishing house for in excess of $1 million.

…

Announcer: Rupert Pupkin was released today from Allenwood after serving 2 years and 9 months of a six-year sentence. Hundreds greeted the -37 year-old comedian and author…among them his new agent and manager David Ball who announced King For A Night, Pupkin’s best-selling autobiography, will appear as a major motion picture. Pupkin said he used his stay at Allenwood to sharpen his material. He said he and his people were weighing attractive offers and he looked forward to resuming his show business career.

…

Announcer: And now, ladies and gentlemen the man we’ve all been waiting for…and waiting for. Would you welcome home please television’s brightest new star…The legendary, inspirational, the one and only king of comedy…Ladies and gentlemen, Rupert Pupkin![/b]

Uh, ain’t that pretty much how it works?

This is one of the first films in which it really began to dawn on me just how much more interesting [fascinating] the “bad guys” can be portrayed up there on the silver screen. And I’m sure the reactions of many were more than just a little discomfitting.

We don’t want to be this person. And we sure as shit don’t want to meet this person. But there is something about him that makes us probe a litte deeper into human reality. There seems to be so much more than what we can capture wholly in an “analysis”.

After all, wouldn’t it be rather interesting to engage someone like him in discussions here?

And almost like another character in the film is Gumb’s basement. It’s one of the creepiest goddamn places ever filmed.

IMDb

[b]Buffalo Bill is the combination of three real life serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims; Ted Bundy, who used the cast on his hand as bait to make women get into his van; and Gary Heidnick, who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his basement.

One of only three films (the others being It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) to win the top five Oscars - Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture and Best Screenplay (Adapted).

Jodie Foster claims that during the first meeting between Lecter and Starling, Anthony Hopkins’s mocking of her southern accent was not rehearsed and that Hopkins improvised it on the spot. Foster’s reaction of horror was totally genuine, as she felt personally attacked, though she later thanked Hopkins for generating such an honest reaction.[/b]

wiki

[b]Upon its release, The Silence of the Lambs was criticized by members of the LGBT community for its portrayal of Buffalo Bill as bisexual and transsexual. In response to the critiques, Demme replied that Buffalo Bill “wasn’t a gay character. He was a tormented man who hated himself and wished he was a woman because that would have made him as far away from himself as he possibly could be.” Demme added that he “came to realize that there is a tremendous absence of positive gay characters in movies.”

In a 1992 interview with Playboy magazine, notable feminist and women’s rights advocate Betty Friedan stated, “I thought it was absolutely outrageous that The Silence of the Lambs won four [sic] Oscars. […] I’m not saying that the movie shouldn’t have been shown. I’m not denying the movie was an artistic triumph, but it was about the evisceration, the skinning alive of women. That is what I find offensive. Not the Playboy centerfold.”[/b]

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS [1991]
Directed by Jonathan Demme

[b]Crawford: And you’re to tell him nothing personal, Starling. Believe me, you don’t want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.

…

Crawford: Just do your job, but never forget what he is.
Starling: And what is that?
[cut to Clarice’s first trip to the psychiatric prison]
Chilton: Oh, he’s a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.

…

Lecter: Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling?
[sarcastically]
Lecter: Enthrall me with your acumen.
Starling: It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.
Lecter: I didn’t.
Starling: No. No, you ate yours.

…

Lecter: You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition’s given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you…all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars while you could only dream of getting out…getting anywhere…getting all the way to the FBI.
Starling: You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don’t you - why don’t you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you’re afraid to.

…

Starling: If you didn’t kill him, then who did, sir?
Lecter: Who can say. Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere.

…

Starling: If the beetle moves one of your men, does that still count?
Pilcher: Course it counts. How do you play?

…

Roden [Upon learning where the Death’s-Head Moth came from]: You mean this is like a clue from a real murder case? Coolo!
Pilcher [to Clarice]: Just ignore him, he’s not a PhD.

…

Roden: Sphingid ceratonia, maybe.
[cuts open cocoon]
Roden: Agent Starling, meet Mr. Acherontia styx.
Pilcher: Weird.
Roden: Better known to his friends as the Death’s-head moth.
Starling: Where does it come from?
Roden: It’s strange. They only live in Asia.
Pilcher: Here they’d have to be raised from imported eggs.
Roden: Somebody grew this guy. Fed him honey and nightshade, kept him warm. Somebody loved him.

…

Starling: Why does he place the moths there, Doctor?
Lector: The significance of the moth is change. Caterpillar into chrysalis, or pupa, and from thence into beauty. Our Billy wants to change, too.
Starling: There’s no correlation between transsexualism and violence. Transsexuals are very passive.
Lector: Clever girl.

…

Lecter: Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse. Billy hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.

…

Gumb: It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it’s told.

…

Gumb: Now it places the lotion in the basket. Put the lotion in the basket…PUT THE FUCKING LOTION IN THE BASKET!

…

Chilton: You still think you’re going to walk on some beach and see the birdies? I don’t think so. They scammed you, Hannibal.

…

Lecter: Tell me, Senator: did you nurse Catherine yourself?
Senator Martin: What?
Lecter: Did you breast-feed her?
Krendler: Now wait a minute…
Senator Martin: Yes, I did.
Lecter: Toughened your nipples, didn’t it?
Krendler: You son of a bitch!
Lecter: Amputate a man’s leg and he can still feel it tickling. Tell me, mum, when your little girl is on the slab, where will it tickle you?
Senator Martin: Take this…[i]thing]/i] back to Baltimore!
Lecter: Five foot ten, strongly built, about a hundred and eighty pounds; hair blonde, eyes pale blue. He’d be about thirty-five now. He said he lived in Philadelphia, but he may have lied. That’s all I can remember, mum, but if I think of any more, I will let you know…Oh, and Senator, just one more thing: love your suit!

…

Murray: Is it true what they’re sayin’, he’s some kinda vampire?
Starling: They don’t have a name for what he is.

…

Lector: Anthrax lsland. That was an especially nice touch, Clarice. Yours?
Starling: Yes.
Lector: Yeah. That was good. Pity about poor Catherine, though. Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock.

…

Lecter: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
Starling: He kills women…
Lecter: No. That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What needs does he serve by killing?
Starling: Anger, um, social acceptance, and, huh, sexual frustrations, sir…
Lecter: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.
Starling: No. We just…
Lecter: No. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don’t you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don’t your eyes seek out the things you want?

…

Lector: What became of your lamb, Clarice?
Starling: They killed him.
Lector: You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? Wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs?
Starling: Yes.
Lector: And you think, if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don’t you? You think if Catherine lives, you won’t wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs.

…

Starling [after learning Lecter has escaped]: He won’t come after me.
Mapp: Oh really?
Starling: He won’t. I can’t explain it…He - he would consider that rude.

…

Starling: What did Lecter say about First principles"?
Mapp: Simplicity…
Starling: What does this guy do, he “covets”. How do we first start to covet?
Mapp: “We covet what we see -”
Starling: " - every day."
Mapp: Hot damn, Clarice.
Starling: He knew her.

…

Gumb: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT PAIN IS!

…

Martin: I’m down here!
Starling: Catherine Martin?
Martin: Yes!
Starling: FBl. You’re safe.
Martin: Safe, shit! Get me outta here!

…

Lector [on telephone]: Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?

Starling [on telephone]: Where are you, Dr Lecter?
Lector: I have no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world’s more interesting with you in it. So you take care now to extend me the same courtesy.
Starling: You know I can’t make that promise.
Lector: I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.[/b]

When it takes place is never quite clear. But that it takes place in a “post-apocalyptic” France more or less prepares you to expect…practically anything. And that is pretty much what you get. Depending on what you start out with, of course.

What always seems abundantly clear in these worlds: you make reality up as you go along. Morality too. For example, the part about cannibalism.

And these folks just happen to be particularly strange about lots of other things too.

Besides, this is one of those films where a whole new world is created for you. It’s a marvel just to feast your eyes on it. And on the once in a lifetime characters that inhabit it. In short, it’s one of the weirdest godamn movies you’ll ever see.

IMDb

[b]Jean-Pierre Jeunet got the idea for the movie in 1988 while vacationing in America. He said after staying in America’s hotels he felt the food was so bad that “it tasted like real humans”. Then came the idea.

Many elements of cause/consequence make the film ever more interesting to watch again and again. One such example is a couple always using the same prophylactic (a condom), of which the husband (Ticky Olgado) takes great care: it has been patched twice. Hence, the couple has two kids.[/b]

trailer:
youtu.be/Tg3V8HDK5go

DELICATESSEN [1991]
Written and directed by Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet

[b]Julie: Since I break things, I always buy two.

…

Clapet: You’re better off here. At least we’ve got a system.
Mademoiselle Plusse: System, my ass! Those helpers you ice are drawing straws too.
Clapet: That’s fate. And you can’t fight fate. But it’s just like you said. The wind is shifting. Everyone is going to get it.

…

Aurore: They talk to me about you.
Robert: Who?
Aurore: The voices in my head.
Robert: Of course, the voices. What do they say?
Aurore: Let me think…They speak in such a way…
Robert [expectantly]: Do they speak…About love?
Aurore: They tell me you are a pervert, an ass-wipe and a panty-eater.

…

Louison: This is a job for the Australian!
[Louison uses the Australian]
Mademoiselle Plusse: That’s some tool!

…

Clapet [sharpening his knives]: There’s no room for dreams!
Julie: Stop it!
Clapet: It’s a tough world, and I didn’t make it.

…

Clapet: Let’s play a game. I scream, you scream.

…

Louison: Nobody is entirely evil: it’s that circumstances that make them evil, or they don’t know they are doing evil.[/b]

That’s certainly one way to look at it.

[b]Clapet: You think this is a safari, bitch?!

…

Mademoiselle Plusse [to Clapet]: This is a job for the Australian![/b]

As with Saving Face above this film revolves in part around the experiences of a young woman exploring her sexuality. But in other respects the vantage points could not be farther removed. And this sometimes makes all the difference in the world with respect to narratives. And with respect to identity.

In one way though the two worlds perfectly overlap: being about the personal without exploring in depth the manner in which the political intervenes in the day to day lives we live. Class, gender, race, sexual orientation. You can never regard the personal fully here unless you are willing to regard more fully the political. Everything basically revolves around “me” here.

At the same time it shows just how open American culture can be for those who wish to go off the beaten path. But there are in fact opposition political forces out there that truly do want to change that. And they are organizing.

One thing for sure: Gay or straight, sustaining relationships is hard. And then there’s the part about disintegrating families.

trailer: youtu.be/pNRdxsTmV1U

PARIAH [2011]
Written and directed by Dee Rees

[b]Titlecard: “Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.” Audre Lorde

…

Mika: Yeah I like girls. But I LOVE boys.

…

Laura: Well, first of all it’s not supposed to be strapped on over your underwear like that.

…

Alike: They didn’t have brown?
Laura: I didn’t have time for all that. And plus the brown ones are too big for you anyway.

…

Audrey [Alike’s Mom]: I know God doesn’t make mistakes. I know that.

…

Arthur [Alike’s Dad]: She’s got a boyfriend.
Audrey: A boyfriend?
Authur: Just give her some space.
Audry: Space? She’s never around as it is. And you’re just like her!

…

Arthur: Look, I talked to Alike. Everything’s fine.
Audrey: But did you ask her?
Arthur: No, because I don’t have to. Besides, I would know, okay? I know my daughter better than anyone else.

…

Sharonda [Alike’s sister]: Just wanted you to know it doesn’t matter to me.
Alike: I know.

…

Audrey: Your daughter is turning into a damn man right before your eyes and you can’t even see it!

…

Audrey: Tell him, Alike! Tell him where you hang out. Tell him about your butch-ass girlfriend!
Alike: Laura is not my girlfriend!
Audrey: Tell him! Tell him! Tell him you’re a nasty ass dyke!
Arthur: No! No! No! Alike, tell your mother that’s not true. Baby, tell her!
[Alike says nothing]
Aufrey: You see! You see!
Arthur: Tell her. Tell your mother it’s not true.
Alike: Dad. You already know.
Arthur: No. You tell your mother it’s just a phase.
Alike: It’s not a phase! I’m gay!
[her mother grabs her by the throat and pins her to the wall]
Audrey: Say it again! Say it again!
Alike: I’m a lesbian! Yeah, I’m a dyke!
[Audrey slaps her to the floor]

…

Sharonda: Dad, do you know where she is?

…

Alike: Dad, I’m not runnin, I’m choosin. I’m not comin back home. And you can tell Mom she was right. God doesn’t make mistakes.[/b]

Of course, that’s the point both sides make.

[b]Alike: I love you, Mom.
[Mom says nothing]
Alike: I said I love you.
Audrey [preparing to leave]: I’ll be praying for you.

…

Alike [reading a poem aloud in class]: "Heartbreak opens onto the sunrise for even breaking is opening and I am broken, I am open. Broken into the new life without pushing in, open to the possibilities within, pushing out. See the love shine in through my cracks? See the light shine out through me? I am broken, I am open, I am broken open. See the love light shining through me, shining through my cracks, through the gaps. My spirit takes journey, my spirit takes flight, could not have risen otherwise and I am not running, I am choosing. Running is not a choice from the breaking. Breaking is freeing, broken is freedom. I am not broken, I am free.[/b]

Shit: A film set in a working class community somewhere in the UK. No subtitles and you can scarcely grasp what the fuck they are saying sometimes. The accents being almost as thick as their brains. So not many quotes below. But once you grasp the basic plot it’s rather easy to imagine what is probably being said.

And here’s the basic plot: A disaffected soldier returns to his hometown to get even with the thugs who brutalized his mentally-challenged brother years ago.

I am always drawn to films in which the protagonist seeks revenge against the thugs and the bullies that once tormented someone he loves. I detest thugs and bullies. Always have. The sky is the limit then when it comes down to payback.

I only wish I could be him. But almost none of us are. The payback is always vicarious.

trailer: youtu.be/fFi6FrAV9SE

DEAD MAN’S SHOES [2004]
Directed by Shane Meadows

[b]Richard [narrating]: God will forgive them. He’ll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can’t live with that.

…

Herbie: Can I help you, mate?
Richard [shrugs]: Sorry?
Herbie [aggressively]: What the fuck are you looking at?
Richard [shouting]: YOU, YA CUNT!

…

Herbie: You know who I think it is. I’ve been wracking my brains. I think that it’s Anthony’s brother. It’s Anthony’s brother, man.[/b]

The whole room goes quiet.

Spray painted on the wall of the thugs apartment: “Cheyne–Stokes”.

That’s this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyne-Stokes_respiration

[b]Anthony: They all tried to hold your hand. I didn’t.
Richard: No, you didn’t.
Anthony: Don’t need to, do I?

…

[b]Soz: I told him not to mention the elephant…

…

Soz: Can I go home?
Richard: Oh, you’re going. Your going.

…

Sonny: Hey man, how you doin’? Rich…
[offers a handshake but Richard refuses it]
Sonny: You ok?
Richard: Mmh
Sonny: You know the lads had this ridiculous idea that…
Richard [interrupting him before he can finish]: Yeah, it was me.
Sonny: Oh it was? Thought so. What are you up to?
Richard: Moochin’ about.
Sonny: Moochin’ about? In my house?
Richard: Mmh
Sonny: Do you always paint men? Like women?.. What are you doin’ lad?
Richard: That’s my concern.
Sonny: Not with being in my house. Where are you staying?
Richard: Motson’s farm. Gonna come see me are ya?
Sonny: Maybe I will. You’re not afraid of me are ya?
[Richard smiles & shakes head]
Tuff from the car]: Why doesn’t he just chin him?
Big Al: He’s weighing him up, he’s weighing him up, shut up.
Sonny: You’re making me very nervous, Richard.
Richard: Well you should be. If I were you, I’d get in that fuckin’ car and I’d get out of here man. I’d gather them goonies and get whatever you’ve got comin’ mate…‘cause I’m gonna fucking hit you all.
Sonny: I don’t like being threatened, Rich’.
Richard: I’m not threatening you mate. It’s beyond fucking words. I watched over you when you were asleep and I looked at your fucking neck and I was that far away from slicing it.
[Richard opens up his hand right hand and points towards his palm]
Richard: You’re fucking there mate!
[Richard clenches his hand]
Richard: So get in that car… and FUCK OFF!

…

Written on the wall in blood next to a corpse: ONE DOWN

…

Richard: Make a noise and I’ll push this in your spine

…

Mark: He wasn’t a spastic.
Richard: He fucking was a spastic.
[makes silly noises, as if mocking a retarded person]
Richard: He was a fucking banana.

…

Richard: I asked what did you do? Not the rest of them cunts.
Mark: I didn’t stop it. I didn’t stop it…
Richard: Well, I wish you had.

…

Richard [to Mark]: You, you were supposed to be a monster - now I’m the fucking beast.

…

Richard [to Mark]: Stick that knife in me.[/b]

Always be careful whose identity you steal.

A film about identity and alienation. And the unintended consequences that unfold when a man seeks to escape both.
In the end you see there is really only one way to be absolutely sure.

In the interim the man sets out to acquire the necessary experiences to flesh out his new identity. But this new identity is integrated into a “larger world” he is only more or less able to cobble together as he goes along. Here it is the postcolonial world of Africa.

What is crucial is how one comes to understand the manner in which you have acquired an identity. In other words, how much of that is prefabricated—variables wholly or in large part beyond your understanding or your control. You can’t become someone entirely new of course but if you put yourself in contexts you have never been in before the new experiences can help to refabricate your take on yourself out in the world.

Or maybe you come to just not give a damn about who you or who anyone else thinks you are.

IMDb

The execution of the prisoner in this film is not staged. It consists of actual footage of the real execution.

trailer: youtu.be/f8I0FCQ3Ndo

THE PASSENGER [Professione: Reporter] 1975
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

[b]Robertson’s voice on tape recorder: Airports, taxi, hotel. They’re all the same in the end.
David: I don’t agree. It’s us who remain the same. We translate every situation, every experience into the same old codes. We just condition ourselves.

…

Voice on tape recorder: We’re creatures of habit. Is that what we mean?
David: Something like that. I mean, however hard you try it stays so difficult to get away from your own habits.

…

Voice on tape recorder: It’s like this, Mr. Locke. You work with words, images, fragile things. I come with merchandise, concrete things.[/b]

“Concrete things” can have different meanings though.

[b]Mr. Achebe [after looking through photographs of weapons]: I have heard a lot about you, Mr. Robertson. I realize that you are not like the others…that you believe in our fight. This will be of great assistance to our people.

…

David: My name is Robertson. I’ve been waiting for someone who hasn’t arrived.
Man With Cane: Ninos. I’ve seen so many of them grow up. Other people look at the children and they all imagine a new world. But me, when I watch them, I just see the same old tragedy begin all over again.

…

Rachel: They asked if I knew someone called Robertson. Evidently he stayed at the same hotel as David did.

…

The Girl: Who are you?
David: I used to be someone else, but I traded him in. Uh, what about you?
The Girl: Well, I’m in Barcelona. I’m talking with someone who might be somebody else.

…

The Girl: People disappear every day.
David: Every time they leave the room.

…

The Girl: Can I ask you just one question now?
David: One you can, yes.
The Girl: Only one, always the same. What are you running away from?[/b]

He tells her to turn around and face in the opposite direction.

[b]David: I’ve run out on everything - my wife… the house… an adopted child… a successful job… everything except a few bad habits I could not get rid of.

…

David: Now I think I’m going to be a waiter in Gibraltar.
The Girl: Too obvious.
David: Maybe a novelist in Cairo.
The Girl: Too romantic.
David: How about a gunrunner?
The Girl: Too unlikely.
David: As a matter of fact, I think I am one.
The Girl: Then it depends on which side you’re on.
David: Yes.

…

David: I just sold 5000 hand grenades, 900 rifles and a great deal of ammunition to some people fighting a secret war in an obscure part of the world.

…

David: Yesterday when we filmed you at the village I understood that you were brought up to be a witch doctor. Isn’t it unusual for someone like you to have spent several years in France and Yugoslavia? Has that changed your attitude toward certain tribal customs? Don’t they strike you as false now and wrong, perhaps, for the tribe?
Witch Doctor: Mr. Locke, there are perfectly satisfactory answers to all your questions. But I don’t think you understand how little you can learn from them. Your questions are much more revealing about yourself than my answer would be about me.
David: I meant them quite sincerely.
Witch Doctor: Mr. Locke, we can have a conversation but only if it’s not just what you think is sincere but also what I believe to be honest.
[the witch doctor then takes the camera and aims it at Locke]
Witch Doctor: Now we can have an interview. You can ask me the same questions as before.

…

[Rachel turns on tape recorder]
David [voice on tape recorder]: Wouldn’t it be better if we could just forget old places? Forget everything that happens and just throw it all away, day by day?
Robertson [voice on tape recorder]: Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way.
David [voice on tape recorder]: Well, it doesn’t work the other way either. That’s the problem. What’s on the other side of that window? People will believe what I write. And why? Because it conforms to their expectations…and to mine as well, which is worse.

…

David: What the fuck are you doing here with me?
The Girl: Which me?

…

The Girl: They are looking for David Robertson. There is a woman named Rachel Locke. She thinks he is in danger.
David: In danger of what?

…

The Girl: Wouldn’t it be terrible to be blind?
David: I know a man who was blind. When he was nearly 40 years old he had an operation and regained his sight. At first he was elated…really high. Faces, colors, landscapes. But then everything began to change. The world was much poorer than he imagined. No one had ever told him how much dirt there was. How much ugliness. He noticed ugliness everywhere. When he was blind he used to cross the street alone with a stick. After he regained his sight he became afraid. He began to live in darkness. He never left his room. After three years he killed himself.[/b]

A tiny film about a tiny person in a great big world. But this tiny person is clearly an iconoclast and I always find myself drawn to them at the movies. Especially one able to convince someone from “up there” to come down and join him. And there is a twist here that manages to be particularly intriguing. And particularly heartbreaking.

No getting around that what this guy does is despicable. Just as there’s no getting around how it changes both of them for the better in the end.

But there’s the end and then there’s the end. And you can’t help but think that maybe he was better off before.

This is a great film. Well, for a “teen flick”.

trailer: youtu.be/FQ3mc5z7NX8

KEITH [2008]
Written and directed by Todd Kessler

[b]Keith: I’ve been thinking about what you said, about that concrete goal.
Alan: And?
Keith: I think I’ve nailed it. I feel really good about this one, Al.
Alan: Lay it on me.
Keith: It’s a girl.
Alan: Cool. What’s she like?
Keith: You know. Smart, beautiful, popular. A classic TGFY. Too Good For You, Al.
Alan: But not for you?
Keith: Well, I’m sorta outside the whole high school food chain at this point, wouldn’t you say?
Alan: So, are you gonna ask her out?
Keith: Ask her out? No, bad idea, no. I mean, where’s the theraputic value in that?
Alan: So, what’s the plan?
Keith: Simple, I’m gonna have fun with her.
Alan: Fun? What do you mean by fun?

…

Natalie [to Keith]: Who the hell do you think you are?
Keith: Who do YOU think I am?

…

Natalie: In case you haven’t heard: picnics - they usually take place outdoors.
Keith: Oh, is that what it says in the officaial picnic rulebook?

…

Natalie [opening a cardboard box]: What is this thing?
Raff [reading what is written on a box inside]: A carburetor tune-up kit.

…

Natalie: You know I thought you were different. But you’re not different. You’re just another immature little boy. You’re right, I am wasting my time here.

…

Keith: It’s just funny, Natalie, really funny that you chose this road.

…

Natalie: So that’s The Brick. I’ve never been on this side.
Keith: And I’ve never been on that side.

…

Natalie: But you really don’t care what people think. You’re just…you.

…

Natalie: Where you been the last two weeks?
Keith: “Last two weeks?” What, do you come here every day?

…

Keith: Could have told you what?
Natalie: That you have a problem?
Keith: You don’t know the half of it.

…

Natalie: Keith. I don’t…I don’t care where you’re gonna be next year. I don’t care if you’re crazy. God, I just know I wanna be with you. I don’t understand what you’re doing. It seems so pointless, I mean everything…It just seems pointless but when I’m with you it’s different. I don’t know why.

…

Natalie: Fuck you.
Keith: You just did, partner.

…

Natalie: How did Keith know him?
Alan: They were in chemo together.

…

Natalie: Why didn’t you tell me?
Keith: Everybody bites it sooner or later. I’m just in the AP class, ahead of the game.
Natalie: Always the joke.
Keith: Al says it’s a phase. It’ll stop soon, but hey, at least it wasn’t about the sympathy for the sick kid.
Natalie: That’s not fair.
Keith: Is Duke fair? Is Europe fair? At this rate I won’t even make it to London, Ontario. Is that fair? Bowling, that’s what I get. Bowling.

…

Natalie: You know, Raff, I only hope good things for you…cause really bad shit happens to people. I hope to God it never happens to you.

…

Keith: Don’t you see what happened here? You had a beautiful life and I had shit. I hated your guts. I wanted to take you down. I wanted to make you as miserable as I was. And that is exactly what I did. Now, how’s that for goodbye? I screwed you. I screwed you big time.
Natalie: So, you screwed you. But I made love to you.

…

Keith: I had it all figured out, so I cut out a little early? Who cares? It’s probably a good thing. Life sucks, anyway. Then I met you, and it got weird. And you were so amazing. And I…
Natalie: What? What?
Keith: I just wanted a little more time. So all in all, I’d say you’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Goodbye, partner.

…

Natalie: I’m staying with you until you leave. I don’t care how long we have. Get that through your thick skull.[/b]

Why do some folks want to be gangsters? Maybe for all the reasons that other folks don’t want to be. Or for all the reasons that draw more folks still to movies like this. The power. The danger. The rules you get to make up as you go along. Thinking you’re somebody instead of nobody. And right up to the point where somebody else puts a bullet in your head.

And sometimes the money is good. Really good. But then someone [it seems] is always breaking your balls. Or you’re breaking their balls.

Anyway, here’s how Henry Hill put it:

For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

Of course not everybody on our side is crooked. So the possibility of prison is always hanging over your head. And then there was dope. Back then to sell it or not to sell it was batted back and forth like a ping pong ball.

IMDb

[b]At Martin Scorsese’s request, associates of the actual people were always on the set of the film, giving helpful and essential information about the life, people, settings and moods.

After the premiere, Henry Hill went around and revealed his true identity. In response, the government kicked him out of the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Although Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the screenplay (and received Oscar nominations for doing so), much of the film’s eventual dialog was improvised by the actors.

The MPAA ordered 10 frames of blood removed from the film before granting it an ‘R’ rating.

During filming of the scene in which his character is killed by Joe Pesci, Michael Imperioli broke a glass in his hand and had to be rushed to the emergency room. When doctors saw what appeared to be a gunshot wound in his chest, they tried to treat it. When Imperioli told them what was really up, he was made to wait for three hours. Director Martin Scorsese told Imperioli that someday he’d be telling that story on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The prediction came true in March, 2000.[/b]

GOODFELLAS [1990]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Henry: What the fuck is that?

…

Henry [narrating]: For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.

…

Henry [narrating]: To me being a gangster meant being a somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies. They did whatever they wanted.

…

Henry [narrating]: Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody.

…

Henry [narrating]: All they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what the FBI can never understand - that what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can’t go to the cops. They’re like the police department for wiseguys.

…

Henry [narrating]: And when the cops assigned a whole army to stop Jimmy, what’d he do? He made 'em partners.

…

Jimmy: I’m not mad, I’m proud of you. You took your first pinch like a man and you learned two great things in your life.
Henry [as a kid]: What?
Jimmy: Look at me. Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.

…

Paulie [to Henry]: You broke your cherry!

…

Henry [narrating]: By the time I grew up, there was thirty billion a year in cargo moving through Idlewild Airport and believe me, we tried to steal every bit of it.

…

Henry: You’re a pistol, you’re really funny. You’re really funny.
Tommy: What do you mean I’m funny?
Henry: It’s funny, you know. It’s a good story, it’s funny, you’re a funny guy.
[laughs]
Tommy: What do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?
Henry: It’s just, you know. You’re just funny, it’s… funny, the way you tell the story and everything.
Tommy: [it becomes quiet] Funny how? What’s funny about it?
Anthony: Tommy no, You got it all wrong.
Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He’s a big boy, he knows what he said. What did ya say? Funny how?
Henry: Just…
Tommy: What?
Henry: Just… ya know… you’re funny.
Tommy: You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it’s me, I’m a little fucked up maybe, but I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
Henry: Just… you know, how you tell the story, what?
Tommy: No, no, I don’t know, you said it. How do I know? You said I’m funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what’s funny!
Henry [long pause]: Get the fuck out of here, Tommy!
Tommy: [everyone laughs] Ya motherfucker! I almost had him, I almost had him. Ya stuttering prick ya. Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.

…

Henry [narrating]: Now Sonny’s got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me

…

Karen [narrating]: I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn’t. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.

…

Karen [narrating]: After awhile, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crime. It was more like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren’t brain surgeons, they were blue-collar guys. The only way they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cut a few corners.

…

Tommy: Sure, Mom, I settle down with a nice girl every night, then I’m free the next morning.

…

Henry [narrating]: For most of the guys, killing got to be accepted. They were routine. Murder was the only way everybody stayed in line. It was the ultimate weapon. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everyone knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn’t get out of line, they’d get whacked. Hits just became a habit for some guys. It didn’t take anything to get yourself killed. Guys would get into arguments over nothing and before you knew it, one of them was dead. They were shooting each other all the time.

…

Henry [narrating]: Shooting people was a normal thing. It was no big deal. But we had a problem with Billy Batts. This was a touchy thing. Tommy had killed a made man. Billy was a part of the Gambino crew and untouchable. Before you could touch a made guy, you had to have a good reason. There had to be a sitdown. And you better get an okay, or you’d be the one who got whacked.

…

Henry [narrating]: Saturday night was for wives, but Friday night at the Copa was always for the girlfriends.

…

Jimmy [after Tommy shoots Spider dead]: I’m fucking kidding with you; you fucking shoot the guy?!
Henry: He’s dead.
Tommy: I’m a good shot, what do you want from me? I’m a good shot.
Anthony: How could you miss at this distance?

…

Henry [after Karen threatens to kill him with a gun]: I got enough to worry about getting whacked on the street! I gotta come home for this!!

…

Henry [narrating]: Everybody else in the joint was doing real time, all mixed together, living like pigs. We lived alone. We owned the joint. Even those hacks who we couldn’t bribe would never rat on the guys who did.

…

Tommy [after killing Morrie]: I thought he’d never shut the fuck up.

…

Henry [narrating]: You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, “You’re gonna like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a good fella. He’s one of us.” You understand? We were good fellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn’t even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you’ve got to be one hundred per cent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it’s the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It means that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody just as long as they aren’t also a member. It’s like a license to steal. It’s a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.

…

Jimmy: What d’you mean?
Vinnie: Well, you know what I mean. He’s gone, and we couldn’t do nothing about it.
[pause]
Vinnie: That’s it.
Jimmy: What d’you mean? What d’you mean? Uh…
Vinnie: He’s gone. Uh, he’s gone.
[pause]
Vinnie: And that’s it.
Jimmy: [smashing the telephone] Fuck. Can’t fuckin’ believe that, can’t fuckin’…[crying] Fuck it, fuck… the fuck…
[Henry exits diner]
Henry: What happened?
Jimmy: They whacked him. They fuckin’ whacked Tommy.
Henry: Aw, fuck.
[Jimmy kicks phone booth]
Jimmy: Motherfucker!
[pushes over phone booth weeping]

…

Henry [narrating]: It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. Batts was a made man, and Tommy wasn’t. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the face so his mother couldn’t give him an open coffin at the funeral.

…

Henry [just busted for dealing drugs]: For a second I thought I was dead. But, when I heard all the noise, I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they’d been wiseguys, I wouldn’t have heard a thing. I would’ve been dead.

…

Henry [narrating]: I remember I had this feeling I was going to get killed right outside the jail. I knew Paulie was still pissed at me and he’s such a hothead I was afraid he might have me whacked before he calmed down. And I was also worried about Jimmy. Jimmy knew if Paulie found out he was in the drug deals with me, Paulie would have Jimmy killed even before me. This is the bad time. I didn’t feel safe until I got home.

…

Henry [narrating]: Thirty-two hundred bucks Paulie gives me. Thirty-two hundred dollars for a lifetime. It wasn’t even enough to pay for the coffin.

…

Henry [narrating]: If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way. There weren’t any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.

…

Henry [narrating]: Jimmy had never asked me to whack somebody before - but now he’s asking me to go down to Florida and do a hit with Anthony? That’s when I knew I would never have come back from Florida alive.

…

Tuddy [as Paulie is being arrested]: Why don’t you boys go down to Wall Street and find some real crooks?

…

Henry [narrating]: It was easy for all of us to disappear. My house was in my mother-in-law’s name. My cars were registered to my wife. My social security cards and driver’s licenses were phonies. I’ve never voted. I never paid taxes. My birth certificate and my arrest sheet, that’s all you’d ever have to know I was alive.

…

Henry [narrating]: See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. We were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all just for the asking. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I’d either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies.

…

[Henry leaves the witness stand and speaks directly to the camera]
Henry: Didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. When I was broke, I’d go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over.

…

Henry [narrating]: And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody…get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.[/b]

Professional wrestling. It always reminds me of that line from Hannah and Her Sisters:

Frederick: You see the whole culture…Nazis, deodorant salesman, wrestlers…beauty contests, the talk show…Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling?

But it’s a world all its own for those who do have a mind to. And folks like the rest of us peek inside it for all sorts of reasons. Some, no doubt, disingenuous.

At the very least it is a very weird cohabitation between gymnastics and soap opera. And the spectacle factor at the small venues – once you leave prime time – is beyond comprehending at times. What these guys will do to just barely survive from paycheck to paycheck is apalling. Fake maybe, but still very, very violent.

Pathetic? Well, that’s a point of view. Like how one feels about aging strippers.

IMDb

[b]Darren Aronofsky revealed that Mickey Rourke was the first choice to play Randy “The Ram” Robinson but the studio wanted Nicolas Cage. Aronofsky fought to have Rourke as “The Ram”, and ultimately won out.

Darren Aronofsky in an interview: “I think people basically roll [wrestling] off saying, ‘Oh, it’s fake,’ and they forget all about it. But what was interesting to me was that whole line between real and fake. What is real? What is fake? The film is very clear that wrestling is staged, but is it fake when you’re a 260-pound guy jumping 10 feet onto a concrete floor? Even if you’re trying to protect yourself and your opponent, damage is happening to you. Then, you meet these guys who’ve been wrestling 10 or 20 years ago, and they’re just riddled with injury. They are true athletes. It’s just they’re almost more like stunt men, so there’s that line of real and fake. The other line of real and fake is ‘The Ram’ doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake. When he’s in the ring, for him that’s real life, and so that kind of real and fake comments on the whole wrestling thing.”[/b]

The Wrestler at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrestler_(2008_film

THE WRESTLER [2008]
Directed by Darren Aronofsky

[b]Randy: You know, people who drive the Cadillacs, the ones with the politics—they run the show. It ain’t about ability, Tommy, so you just hang in there.

…

Drug Dealer: Bottle of Anadrol, 250. Bottle of E.Q., 75 bucks. Two bottles of tren, $75 each - a buck 50. Bottle of insulin, 100 bucks. You got four boxes of Sustanon, three amps in a box, $30 on the box - a buck 20. A bottle of DBOL, 100 bucks. For your bitch tits, I got you a bottle of Arimidex, 200 bucks.
Randy: Got any G.H.?
Drug Dealer: I got Chinese and I got Serostim.
Randy: I don’t want of that Chinese stuff.
Drug Dealer: Need anything else? Painkillers? Vics? Percs?
Randy: No, bro. I’m tapped.
Drug Dealer: Demerol? OxyCotins? You sure? Viagra? Maybe some blow?

…

Necro Butcher: Are you cool with the staples?
Randy: Staples? Does it hurt?
Necro Butcher: Staple gun… Not so bad on the way in, except it’s a little scary, you know - you got this metal thing pressed up against you. Pulling them out though it’s gonna leave some marks, have to deal with a little blood loss.

…

Wayne [jokingly describing to Randy what the deli counter is like]: It’s an endless parade of horny housewives begging for your meat.

…

Randy: The eighties fucking ruled, man, until that pussy Cobain came and fucked it all up.

…

Randy: Give this to your son, it’s an authentic Randy “the Ram” action figure. Tell him not to lose it, it’s a $300 collectors item.
Cassidy: Really?
Randy: No.

…

Randy [to his daughter Stephanie]: You’re my girl. You’re my little girl. And now, I’m an old broken down piece of meat…and I’m alone. And I deserve to be all alone. I just don’t want you to hate me.

…

Cassidy: The club and the real world…they don’t mix. You’re a customer, okay? You’re a fucking customer. I don’t go out with customers.

…

Cassidy [after Randy puts money on the bar]: What’s this?
Randy: I want a dance.
Cassidy: Stop it.
Randy: What’s the matter? You gonna refuse a paying customer? I want a goddamn dance, sweetheart.
Cassidy: Fuck you!
Randy: Come on, get up there and move your ass. Squeeze your titties together.
Cassidy: Fuck off!!
Randy: Shake your fucking ass and pretend you like me!

…

Randy: Goddamn it. Why do I do this to you?
Stephanie: Because you’re a fuck-up! You’re a living, breathing fuck-up!!..There is no more fixing this. It is broke. Permanently. I don’t ever want to see you again. I don’t ever want to hear from you again. It is done. Do you understand? Done. Get out!

…

Randy: Hey lady - you want some fucking cheese? Get your own fucking cheese!

…

Randy: The only place I get hurt is out there.
[Randy points away from the ring]
Randy: The world don’t give a shit about me.

…

Randy: In this life you can lose everything you love, everything that loves you. A lot of people told me that I’d never wrestle again, they said “he’s washed up”, “he’s finished” , “he’s a loser”, “he’s all through”. You know what? The only ones gonna tell me when I’m through doing my thing, is you people here. You people here…you people here. You’re my family.[/b]

Uh, count me out.

1957. The perfect wife. The perfect husband. The perfect domicile in Connecticut. I wonder what we can expect here?

It’s the stuff out of which Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was born. Or would be if it wasn’t so infuriating.

But let’s not forget: It’s not like most folks [either then and there or here and now] sit down when their lives are being shaped and think, “gee, do I want to be like this or somebody else entirely?”

Instead, they live out their lives based on particular historical and cultural narratives. Or do until an experience or a new point of view brings this all into question. Like Cathy walking in on her husband passionaitely kissing another man. And back in 1957 this was a jolt of seismic proportions. As was a white woman befriending a black man. Even in the “liberal” North.

The world is bursting at the seams with folks in possession of small minds. You’ve just got to hope you can steer clear of ones that are also dangerous.

IMDb

Cinematographer Edward Lachman created the 1950s “look” by using the same type of lighting equipment (incandescent), the same lighting techniques, and the same type of lens filters when shooting this film, as would have been used on a 1950s era melodrama.

He did a good job.

FAR FROM HEAVEN [2002]
Written and directed by Todd Haynes

[b]Cathy: I suppose I still can’t imagine why you would want an interview with someone like me in the first place.
Mrs. Leacock: Readers of the Weekly Gazette, Mrs. Whitaker, women just like yourself with families and homes to keep up. A good society paper need not be a gossip rag. You are the proud wife of a successful sales executive planning the parties, and posing at her husband’s side on the advertisements. To everyone here in Connecticut, you are Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech.

…

El [reading the Wekkly Gazette article]: “So, does the fabled maxim hold that behind every great man there resides a great lady? In this case, wife, mother and Mrs. Magnatech herself, Cathleen Whitaker proves that it does. A woman as devoted to her family as she is kind to Negroes.”
Cathy: To Negroes? To Negroes? Let me see that. What on Earth is that woman thinking? El: Cathy? Oh, she’s been liberal ever since she played summer stock at college with all those steamy Jewish boys. Why do you think they used to call her “Red”?
Cathy: Oh, for heaven sakes. Let’s go inside before Joe McCarthy comes driving by.

…

Dr. Bowman: Today, the general attitude regarding this sort of behavior is naturally more modern, more scientific than it ever has been before. But for those who do seek treatment, who possess the will and desire to lead a normal life, there still remains only a scant five to thirty percent rate of success for complete heterosexual conversion.

…

Frank: I want to begin treatment. I can’t let this thing destroy my life, my family’s life. I, uh-I know it’s a sickness, because it makes me feel despicable. I promise you, Dr. Bowman, I’m going to beat this thing. I’m gonna break it. So help me God.

…

Frank: I just want to get this fucking therapy over with!

…

Cathy: I’m not prejudiced. My husband and I have always believed in equal rights for the Negro and support the N.A.A.C.P.
Raymond: I’m glad to hear that.

…

Cathy [to Raymond]: Do you think we ever really do see beyond those things…the surface of things?

…

Raymond: So, what’s your opinion on modern art?
Cathy: It’s hard to put into words, really. I just know what I care for and what I don’t. Like this…I don’t know how to pronounce it… Mira?
Raymond: Miró.
Cathy: Miró. I don’t know why, but I just adore it. The feeling it gives. I know that sounds terribly vague.
Raymond: No. No, actually, it confirms something I’ve always wondered about modern art. Abstract art.
Cathy: What’s that?
Raymond: That perhaps it’s just picking up where religious art left off, somehow trying to show you divinity. The modern artist just pares it down to the basic elements of shape and color. But when you look at that Miró, you feel it just the same.[/b]

Hmm. Maybe.

[b]Elderly woman: Not to say that I’m against integration, mind you. I do believe it’s the Christian thing to do. But I still say what happened in Little Rock could just as easily have happened here in Hartford.
Pary guest: Nonsense.
Elderly woman: Well, why is that?
Party guest: Well, for one thing, there’s no Governor Faubus in Connecticut. But the main reason, there are no Negroes.

…

Stan: Frank is the luckiest guy in town!
Frank [very drunk]: It’s all smoke and mirrors, fellas. That’s all it is. You should see her without her face on.
Doreen: Frank!
Cathy: No, he’s absolutely right. We ladies are never what we appear, and every girl has her secrets.

…

Frank: Christ, Cathleen, do you even have the slightest idea about what this could mean? Don’t you realize the effect it’s gonna have on me and the reputation I have spent the past eight years trying to build for you and the children and for the company?
Cathy: Yes. I have spoken to Raymond Deagan on occasion. He brought his little girl to Eleanor’s art show. But…But, apparently, even here in Hartford, the idea of a white woman even speaking to a colored man…
Frank: Oh, please! Just save me the Negro rights!

…

Raymond: I won’t put my daughter through that again. Not now. Not with rocks coming through the windows every night.
Cathy: Oh, Raymond, that’s hateful.
Raymond: Oh, it’s not whites throwin’ them. It’s coloreds.
Cathy: No.
Raymond: Yeah. Seems to be the one place where whites and coloreds are in full harmony.

…

Raymond [to Cathy]: I’ve learned my lesson about mixing in other worlds. I’ve seen the sparks fly. All kinds.

…

Cathy: That was the day I stopped believing in the wild ardor of things. Perhaps in love, as well. That kind of love. The love in books and films. The love that tells us to abandon our lives and plans, all for one brief touch of Venus. So often we fail at that kind of love. The world just seems too fragile a place for it. And of every other kind, life remains full. Perhaps it’s just we who are too fragile.[/b]