philosophy in film

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]

Phone sex out of the blue. No charge. What’s the catch?

There are so many directions this can go in. It’s like the internet. You strike up an exchange with someone and they could be anyone at all. The Catfish syndrome. You think you are falling in love but who are you falling in love with?

What really counts here is the extent to which you can make any connection with the characters driving the plot. Some will and some won’t.

And all the time you’re wondering: When does the inevitable twist kick in? And, when it does, it’s what you were expecting and nothing at all what you were expecting.

Then you wonder: How would I react?

trailer: youtu.be/kOsbJsqTZjM

EASIER WITH PRACTICE [2009]
Written and directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez

[b]Josie: So you’re just two brothers in a car, armed with only your talents. The dark, lonely, and endless road stretched out in front of you. No limits, no limitations, just whatever you want, whenever you want?
Davy: Yeah, it’s just like that, only much less exciting.

…

Davy [on the phone]: Can you speak up please, I can’t really hear you that well.
Nicole: I can’t. My boyfriend is next door.
Davy: Oh…

…

Davy [on phone]: Wait. You’re all about sex. Can’t we talk a bit. You know, cuddle.

…

Davy [to Nicole]: Why aren’t you with him right now, rather than pretending to be with me?

…

Davy [on phone]: I’m on a book tour.
Nicole: I knew you were an intellectual.
Davy: I hardly think I would consider myself an intellectual. Jerking off in the back of a station wagon in a parking lot in New Mexico.

…

Davy [on phone]: That night that you called me…how’d you know I was going to be there? I mean, what made you call me?
Nicole: I didn’t. I just needed someone to be with. I called a random number. There you were.

…

Davy [on the phone]: We should meet sometime.
Nicole: Oh, I don’t know.
Davy: Just to see each other.
Nicole: Maybe. But right now there is something just so special about this. I don’t think we should mess with it.

…

Davy: I haven’t actually met her yet.
Sean: So she could be anyone. She could be an obese middle aged woman with 500 cats.

…

Davy: I want to meet you.
Nicole: Okay.

…

Waitress: What can I get you to drink?
Davy: I’ll have a double whisky on the rocks please.[/b]

Better make that a triple.

You go about the business of living your [rather normal] life. Then something happens. A whole new world is opened up to you. Then everything changes.

But here the option exist to ignore it. To go back to square one. To leave the battered and bruised woman alone lying [and maybe dying] in the street. He does. She does. But then she changes her mind.

Why: Her husband is a shit. Her son is a shit. The woman on the road is not.

Here’s the thing though: If you become a part of her world – if you help her – there are all manner of risks and dangers. And “in reality” they are not just scripted away. In reality the thugs who come after you may well prevail.

This is also about the God of Islam and the stuff men do in His name.

What makes this film more intriguing though is how, the more Noémie spins her tale, the more unsympathetic she becomes. Or, more bizarre still, is how it sometimes seems you’re watching a situation comedy. Oh, and a thriller.

This is a very strange film.

wiki

[b]Currently, a remake of this movie in English, to star Aishwarya Rai and Meryl Streep, is planned.

Stephen Holden of The New York Times described the film as “gripping feminist fable with a savage comic edge”.[/b]

CHAOS [2001]
Written and directed by Coline Serreau

[b]Paul: Why did you call the cops?
Helene: I didn’t. I went to see the girl in the hospital. I said I was a witness, and the cops questioned me.
Paul: You’re crazy. What do you care about her?

…

Paul: What did you tell the cops? Do you realize what we risk?
Helene: We risk nothing. Nothing at all. I never said that you locked the doors when you saw her and didn’t even help her. I said I was there alone. You needn’t lose any sleep over it.

…

Helene [on phone to Paul]: If ironing was an excuse to get in touch with me, well, we’re in touch. If you called just because you need someone to do your ironing, all I can say is find some other sucker.

…

Noémie: Papa.
Father: Yes.
Noémie: Are you marrying me to that man?
Father: Why do you ask?
Noémie [trying to trick him]: If you are, I’m glad. I like him. He’s kind.
Father: I’m pleased. He paid 20,000 framcs for you![/b]

She runs away. But her father still had her passport. She’s left to fend for herself in the big city. You can guess what comes next.

[b]Noémie [to Helene]: I spent two months in a room, beaten and raped 8 to 10 times a day. The men started me on heroin. By the end, I was hooked.

…

Noémie [to Helene]: If they know where your family lives, they’ve got you.

…

Noémie [to Helene]: I tried to find someone to help me. I tried SOS Racism to start with. I told my story to this man my father’s age. After two minutes, he told me his job was to fight racism, not help women who disgraced Islam.

…

Noémie: I’d love to meet the shits in that car.

…

Noémie: I’m scared.
Helene: It’ll be all right.
Noémie: I can stop everything.
Helene: They didn’t stop when I first saw you. There’s no pardon, no truce with them.

…

Noémie: Come with me, study, and become someone.
Zora: You’re acting like Dad did with you.
Noémie: Wake up. You want to be a slave? Your brothers already treat you like one; your husband will too. And he will take your kids away. Do you want that? Look at your brothers. Look at the jerks on their bikes. That’s all they want: motorbikes, mobile phones, easy money and obedient women. They play the rebel but it’s all they want. They were supposed to kill me, for family honor, Arab honor, and Islam’s honor. With one shitty motorbike, their honor melts away along with their releigion. Think they care how I earned my money? I’ve been forced to be a hooker. Does that mean they’d be nice to me? Like hell! I’d only get hatred and scorn. They turn against soiety but still treat you like a slave. They don’t mind Dad selling me and trying it again with you. It suits them. This fucking system. They want to use it, not change it.
Zora: You’re full of hate. Anyway, I can’t come with you.
Noémie: Why?
Zora: Because I love them.

…

Paul [to Noémie]: I know this area well. Very well.[/b]

2019. Only 6 more years to go.

Actually, this is yet another science fiction film that woefully overestimated how advanced we would be 40 years down the road. But we do have the Internet. And laptop computers. And all sorts of electronic gadgets therse guys never thought up.

What always pops into my head watching these thought-provoking sci-fi films is [of course] this: What does it all bode for human identity and human morality? How would our understanding of these things have to shift accordingly? And what does that tell us about the historical shifts that have already taken place? The idea that we can grasp these things “objectively” becomes all the more untenable.

Night is everywhere here. The film is very…dark.The coloring. The ambience. The atmosphere.

Here AI is so advanced you don’t really know if you yourself are human. Poor Rachael. Or maybe not. There are, uh, different “versions” out there. This one is the “Final Cut”.

IMDb

[b]The Voight-Kampff Test comes from Cambridge Mathematician Alan Turing’s 1951 paper in which he proposed a test called “The Imitation Game” that might finally settle the issue of machine intelligence.

Ridley Scott cast Rutger Hauer in the role of Roy Batty without actually meeting the actor. He had watched his performances in Turkish Delight, Keetje Tippel and Soldier of Orange and was so impressed, he cast him immediately. However, for their first meeting, Hauer decided to play a joke on Scott and he turned up wearing huge green sunglasses, pink satin pants and a white sweater with an image of a fox on the front. According to production executive Katherine Haber, when Scott saw Hauer, he literally turned white

Outside of the eye scientist’s lab, on the left hand side of the door is some graffiti in Japanese/Chinese characters that reads: “Chinese good, Americans bad.”

The ‘snake scale’ seen under the electron microscope was actually a marijuana bud.[/b]

FAQs:
imdb.com/title/tt0083658/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm

Blade Runner at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner

trailer: youtu.be/KPcZHjKJBnE

From the Vangelis soundtrack: youtu.be/cV4cCva0tKU

BLADE RUNNER [1982]
Directed by Ridley Scott

[b]Titlecard: Early in the 21st Century, THE TYRELL CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant. This was not called execution. It was called retirement.

…

Female announcer over intercom: Next subject: Kowalski, Leon. Engineer, waste disposal. File section: New employee, six days.

…

Holden: You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down…
Leon: What one?
Holden: What?
Leon: What desert?
Holden: It doesn’t make any difference what desert, it’s completely hypothetical.
Leon: But, how come I’d be there?
Holden: Maybe you’re fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It’s crawling toward you…
Leon: Tortoise? What’s that?
Holden [irritated by Leon’s interruptions]: You know what a turtle is?
Leon: Of course!
Holden: Same thing.
Leon: I’ve never seen a turtle…But I understand what you mean.
Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your help. But you’re not helping.
Leon [angry at the suggestion]: What do you mean, I’m not helping?
Holden: I mean: you’re not helping! Why is that, Leon?
[Leon has become visibly shaken]
Holden: They’re just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they’re written down for me. It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional response…Shall we continue? Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about… your mother.
Leon: My mother?
Holden: Yeah.
Leon: Let me tell you about my mother.
[Leon shoots Holden with a gun he had pulled out under the table]

…

Deckard [getting up to leave]: I was quit when I come in here, Bryant, I’m twice as quit now.
Bryant: Stop right where you are. You know the score pal. If you’re not cop, you’re little people.[/b]

No choice in other words.

[b]Bryant: Replicants were designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions. The designers reckoned that after a few years they might develop their own emotional responses. You know, hate, love, fear, anger, envy. So they built in a fail-safe device.
Deckard: Which is what?
Bryant: Four year life span.

…

Deckard: She’s a replicant, isn’t she?
Tyrell: I’m impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don’t get it, Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn’t it?
Deckard [realizing Rachael believes she’s human]: She doesn’t know.
Tyrell: She’s beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
Tyrell: Commerce, is our goal here at Tyrell. "More human than human "is our motto. Rachael is an experiment, nothing more. We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all they are emotional inexperienced with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them the past we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better.
Deckard: Memories! You’re talking about memories!

…

Batty: Chew, if only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes!

…

Deckard: Remember when you were six? You and your brother snuck into an empty building through a basement window. You were going to play doctor. He showed you his, but when it got to be your turn you chickened and ran; you remember that? You ever tell anybody that? Your mother, Tyrell, anybody? Remember the spider that lived outside your window? Orange body, green legs. Watched her build a web all summer, then one day there’s a big egg in it. The egg hatched…
Rachael: The egg hatched…
Deckard: Yeah…
Rachael: …and a hundred baby spiders came out…and they ate her.
Deckard: Implants. Those aren’t your memories, they’re somebody else’s. They’re Tyrell’s niece’s.
[he sees that she’s deeply hurt by the implication]
Deckard: O.K., bad joke… I made a bad joke. You’re not a replicant. Go home, O.K.? No, really - I’m sorry, go home.

…

Deckard [to Zhora]: Actually, I’m from the, uh, Confidential Committee on Moral Abuses.

…

Deckard [after Rachael kills Leon]: Shakes? Me too. I get 'em bad. It’s part of the business.
Rachael: I’m not in the business…I am the business.

…

Rachael: What if I go north? Disappear. Would you come after me? Hunt me?
Deckard: No…No, I wouldn’t. I owe you one…But somebody would.

…

Rachael: You know that Voight-Kampf test of yours? Did you ever take that test yourself?

…

Batty: We’ve got a lot in common.
Sebastian: What do you mean?
Batty: Similar problems.
Pris: Accelerated decrepitude.

…

Tyrell: Would you…like to be modified?
Batty: I had in mind something a little more radical.
Tyrell: What…what seems to be the problem?
Batty: Death.
Tyrell: Death; ah, well that’s a little out of my jurisdiction. You…
Batty: I want more life, father.
Tyrell: The facts of life…to make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it’s been established.
Batty: Why not?
Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship…sinks.
Batty: What about EMS-3 recombination?
Tyrell: We’ve already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before it even left the table.
Batty: Then a repressor protein, that would block the operating cells.
Tyrell: Wouldn’t obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a mutation - and you’ve got a virus again…but this, all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Batty: But not to last.
Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you’re the Prodigal Son; you’re quite a prize!
Batty: I’ve done…questionable things.
Tyrell: Also extraordinary things; revel in your time.
Batty: Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for.

…

Batty: That was irrational of you…not to mention unsportsmanlike.

…

Batty: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.

…

Batty: Time to die.

…

Gaff: It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?[/b]

In a small Southern town…

And the farther South you go [apparently] the more things hardly ever seem to change at all. And this can be a good thing or a bad thing. It’s all in the cards.

It’s hard to take this movie seriously. But there is something about the characters and the things they do to themselves and to each other that draws you into a world most of us know little or nothing about.

So just ignore the “supernatural” bullshit and go along for the ride. There are worse films you can see. On the other hand, you might want to skip the ending altogether.

Besides, there have always been the parts of “existence” that seem, well, spooky. What the hell are we all doing here…and in a cosmos vast and mysterious enough to be [so far] beyond anything we can manage to conceive of as teleologically and ontologically comprehensible.

IMDb

[b]Based on Billy Bob Thornton’s own mother’s reputed psychic abilities.

To prepare for her role in this film, Cate Blanchett visited five fortune tellers in one week. One of them told her she needed a bodyguard.

The cards Annie Wilson uses to perform her “readings” are actually Zener Cards, which are used to perform ESP tests. The cards are not known for their fortune-telling abilities, however, this is not necessarily a mistake. Fortune tellers can use a variety of cards from tarot decks to ordinary poker cards to give readings. All that truly matters is that the four elements of nature (fire, water, earth, and air) are represented in some form. Annie would still be able to deliver readings with them as long as she knew which symbols represented which element.[/b]

trailer: youtu.be/MQyQra6-9L8

THE GIFT [2000]
Directed by Sam Raimi

[b]Miller: Momma, what does fuck mean?
Annie: It’s a bad word for something nice.

…

Jessica: You’re not that Wilson that’s a fortune teller, are you?
Annie: I don’t call myself that.
Jessica: I’d love for you to read my fortune.
Annie: I’m pretty booked up.
Jessica: Do you think we’ll live happily ever after?
[pause]
Jessica: What’s the matter? You see something bad?

…

Buddy: You have to tell me, and you have to tell me now.
Annie: I’ll tell you, Hon.
Buddy: If I look into a blue diamond, and I think a negative thought, am I gonna die?

…

Donnie [to Annie]: My wife’s been gettin’ her head filled full of shit by a goddamn Satan worshipper! Or a damn good con artist - one of the two! I know she’s been coming over to see you and your damn voodoo. You tell her bad things about me, don’t you? You ain’t no better than a Jew or a nigger!
[he pulls a doll out of his pocket]
Donnie: You know what this is? It’s a voodoo doll. I’m gonna use this doll on you - some of your own medicine. If you don’t stop seeing my wife, I’m stickin’ a pin in this every night till you learn to leave folks alone!

…

Donnie [to Annie]: Messing with the devil’s gonna get you burned. Everybody knows that.

…

Wayne: Did you know something was gonna happen to your husband?
Annie: In an ESP kind of way?
Wayne: Well, I don’t know if…
Annie: You don’t believe in it?
Wayne: I don’t know. I guess I just don’t believe there are any great mysteries in life. I kind of figure what you see is what you get.

…

Donnie: Buddy, you better mind your own business.
Buddy: I intend to, Donnie.
[Buddy starts hammering the truck with a crowbar]
Donnie: Mother fucker! God damn it! Fuck! Mother fucker!
[He points a gun at Buddy]
Buddy [leaning into the barrel]: Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me, you mother fucker! Shoot me! Shoot me!

…

Sherrif: How did your arm get all scratched up?
Donnie: Stray cat. She didn’t like it when I killed her.

…

Annie: It wasn’t me who did that. It was Buddy. He saved me.
Sheriff: No, it weren’t Buddy.
Annie: Well, yes, it was. Why don’t you just ask Wayne?
Sheriff: I did. He don’t remember what happened. Head injuries is funny.
Annie: I’m telling you, it was Buddy…
Sheriff: What I’m trying to say is…it couldn’t have been Buddy. I just called over at the State Hospital.
Annie: He told me he escaped.
Sheriff: Ma’am…Buddy Cole is dead. He hanged hisself in the shower room…at six o’clock this evening.[/b]

Nope, couldna been Buddy.