philosophy in film

A chance encounter and the real estate shark tumbles back into the world of music. The world of the artiste. The world of the classical pianist. But no less the crook and no less the thug.

The past and the future begin to tug fiercely at him.

One pays better though. And it might work if one chose to actually let go of the past. But when you tug it into the future with you day after day [and it’s filled with corruption and the potential for violence] it’s just too jarring a leap. The mother is long gone but the father is right there. His head is always in two places.

Dad’s got to go. But is that enough?

trailer: youtu.be/p2OhGLNvyAg

THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED [De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrêté] 2005
Written and directed by Jacques Audiard

[b]Conservatory Professor: You last played when?
Thomas: About ten years ago.
Professor: Ten years without practice?
Thomas: I practice. I never gave up comletely. I play for myself, when I’m in the mood, or for friends.
Professor [with barely disguised sarcasm]: And now you are auditioning?
Thomas: That’s right.

Thomas [walking away from the professor]: Fuck you, prick.

Robert [father]: Remember that favor I asked you?
Thomas: What favor?
Robert: The couscous jerk who owes me 6 months rent.
Thomas: Sorry, no time.
Robert: No time? Time to see that fag and get psyched up about pianos, but not twenty minutes for me?

Thomas: Hold it. Doesn’t she speak French?
Jean-Pierre: She only just got here. She speaks Chinese, Vietnamese and a little English.
Miao Lin [as Thomas lights a cigarette]: No smoking.
Thomas: No smoking, no talking?

Sami: Playing piano is making you flip. Stop it now!
Thomas: Nothing is making me flip. I’m not flipping. I’m having a ball. I feel fantastic, dont’ you see? It’s important, I’m serious about it.
Sami: You gonna make dough from pianos?
Thomas: Not pianos, the piano! It’s not about making money, it’s about art.
Sami: What’s in it for us? You coming to meetings all, ‘Hi guys, I’ve been playing piano.’ Shit, I’ll take up the banjo.
Thomas: It’s over your head.[/b]

The truth not only can be adjusted, it is done all the time. And you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that. You just have to be a capitalist. It’s the nature of the beast. The bottom line. It’s only a matter of how you rationalize it. If you bother with that at all.

And ironically the biggest scams revolve not around crooks like these but around the things that are all perfectly legal.

So, every now and then another one of these big corporate scandals – Hooker Chemical, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Exxon, Shell – hits the front page. But nothing really changes. Not systemically. It all just becomes absorbed in the best of all possible worlds that it’s claimed to be.

Would that “real life” could have an ending like this one.

Michael Clayton [2007]
Written and directed by Tony Gilroy

[b]Arthur: Michael. Dear Michael. Of course it’s you, who else could they send, who else could be trusted? I… I know it’s a long way and you’re ready to go to work… all I’m saying is wait, just wait, just-just-just… please hear me out because this is not an episode, relapse, fuck-up, it’s… I’m begging you Michael. I’m begging you. Try and make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness. Two weeks ago I came out of the building, okay, I’m running across Sixth Avenue, there’s a car waiting, I got exactly 38 minutes to get to the airport and I’m dictating. There’s this, this panicked associate sprinting along beside me, scribbling in a notepad, and suddenly she starts screaming, and I realize we’re standing in the middle of the street, the light’s changed, there’s this wall of traffic, serious traffic speeding towards us, and I… I-I freeze, I can’t move, and I’m suddenly consumed with the overwhelming sensation that I’m covered with some sort of film. It’s in my hair, my face… it’s like a glaze… like a… a coating, and… at first I thought, oh my god, I know what this is, this is some sort of amniotic - embryonic - fluid. I’m drenched in afterbirth, I’ve-I’ve breached the chrysalis, I’ve been reborn. But then the traffic, the stampede, the cars, the trucks, the horns, the screaming and I’m thinking no-no-no-no, reset, this is not rebirth, this is some kind of giddy illusion of renewal that happens in the final moment before death. And then I realize no-no-no, this is completely wrong because I look back at the building and I had the most stunning moment of clarity. I… I… I… I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism whose sole function is to excrete the… the-the-the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the stain of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undo. And you know what I did? I took a deep cleansing breath and I set that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself as clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe that I have witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time. And Michael, the time is now.

Michael: Mr. Greer, you left the scene of an accident on a slow week night, six miles from a state police barracks. Believe me. If there’s a line, you’re right up front.
Mr. Greer: I can get a lawyer any time I want. I don’t need you for that. We’re not sitting here for forty five minutes for a god damned referral.
Michael: I don’t know what Walter promised you but…
Mr. Greer: A miracle worker. That’s Walter on the phone twenty minutes ago. Direct quote, okay, “Hang tight, I’m sending you a miracle worker.”
Michael: Well, he misspoke.

Mr. Greer [pointing to the ringing phone]: That’s the police, isn’t it?
Michael: No. They don’t call.

Michael: What can I tell you? Don’t piss off a motivated stripper.

Arthur: Six years, Michael. Six years I’ve absorbed this poison. Four hundred depositions, a hundred motions, five changes of venue…85,000 documents in discovery. Six years of scheming and stalling and screaming, and what have I got? I’ve spent 12 percent of my life defending the reputation of a deadly weed killer!

Karen: This is totally unacceptable. This is a 3-billion-dollar class-action lawsuit. In the morning, I have to call my board. I have to tell them that the architect of our entire defense has been arrested for running naked in a snowstorm, chasing the plaintiffs through a parking lot.
Michael: I understand.
Karen: What sickness is he talking about?
Michael: I don’t know. It could be a number of things.
Karen: Well, give me one.
Michael: Frostbite.
Karen [shocked]: You think this is funny!

Marty: We’ve got 600 attorneys here. We’ve got to find out who’s an expert on psychiatric commitment statutes.
Michael: I can tell you who that is: Arthur.

Arthur [on the phone with Anna Kaiserson]: Isn’t it what we wait for? To meet someone… and they’re, they’re like a lens and suddenly you’re looking through them and everything changes and nothing can ever be the same again.

Gabe [regarding Michael’s gambling debts]: Do everyone a favor. Get out the treasure map and start digging. You got a week.

Arthur: Michael, I have great affection for you and you live a very rich and interesting life, but you’re a bag man not an attorney. If your intention was to have me committed you should have kept me in Wisconsin where the arrest report, the videotape, eyewitness reports of my inappropriate behavior would have had jurisdictional relevance. I have no criminal record in the state of New York, and the single determining criterion for involuntary commitment is danger. Is the defendant a danger to himself or to others. You think you got the horses for that? Well good luck and God bless, but I’ll tell you this: the last place you want to see me is in court.
Michael: I’m not the enemy.
Arthur: Then who are you?

Authur: Yes! Here we are, all together. Is everyone listening? 'Cause this is the moment you’ve been waiting for, a very special piece of paper, so let’s have a big, paranoid, malignant round of applause… for United Northfield Culcitate Internal Research Memorandum #229! June 19th, 1991. “Conclusion: The unanticipated marketing growth for Culcitate by small farms in colder climates demands IMMEDIATE cost-benefit analysis.” Hah. Would you like a little bit of legal advice? NEVER let a scientist use the words “unanticipated” and “immediate” in the same sentence. Okay? Okay. “In-house field studies have indicated small, short-season farms dependent on well water for human consumption are at risk for toxic, particulate concentrations at levels significant enough to cause serious human tissue damage.” Well, this is a long way of saying that you don’t even have to leave your house to be killed by our product, we’ll pipe it into your kitchen sink. “Culcitate’s great market advantage that it is tasteless, colorless, and does not precipitate, has the potential to mask and intensify these potentially lethal exposures.” Now, I love this. Not only is this a great product, it is a superb cancer delivery system. “Chemical modifications of Culcitate product, or the addition of a detector molecule such as an odorant or a colorant, would require a top-down redesign of the Culcitate-manufacturing process. These costs, while assumed to be significant, were not summarized here.” Which, loosely translated, means “it’s going to cost a fortune to go back on this, and I’m just an asshole in a lab, so could someone else PLEASE make the decision?” “CLEARLY, the release of these internal research documents would compromise the effective marketing of Culcitate, and MUST be kept within the protective confines of United Northfield’s trade secret language.” You don’t need me… to tell you what that means. Goodbye!

Karen: Okay.
Wet Man: Is that, “Okay, you understand,” or “Okay, proceed”?

Michael: What if Arthur was onto something?
Marty: What do you mean? Onto what?
Michael: U North. What if he wasn’t crazy, what if he was right?
Marty: Right about what? We’re on the wrong side?
Michael: Wrong side, wrong way. Anything. All of it.
Marty: This is news? This case reeked from day one. Fifteen years in I gotta tell you how we pay the rent?
Michael: But what would they do, what would they do if he went public?
Marty: What would they do? Are you fucking soft? They’re doing it! We don’t straighten this settlement out in the next twenty four hours, they’re gonna withhold nine million dollars in fees. Then they’re gonna pull out the video of Arthur doing his flashdance in Milwaukee, they’re gonna sue us for legal malpractice. Except there won’t be anything for them to win, because by then the merger with London will be dead and we’ll be selling off the goddamn furniture!
[hands Michael an envelope]
Marty: That’s eighty. We’re calling it a bonus. You’ve got a three year contract, that’s your current numbers, that’s assuming this all works out.

Michael [to Karen]: I’m not the guy that you kill. I’m the guy that you buy. Are you so fucking blind you don’t even see what I am? I’m the easiest part of your whole goddamn problem and you’re gonna kill me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m a fixer. I’m a bagman. I do everything from shoplifting housewives to bent congressmen…and you’re gonna kill me?

Karen: Five is easier. Yeah, 5 is something that we could talk about.
Michael: Good. And then the other 5 is to forget about the 468 people that you knocked off with your weed killer.
Karen: I’ll talk to…
Michael: Do I look like I’m negotiating?

Michael: You’re so fucked. Here let me get a picture while I’m at it.
Karen: You don’t want the money?
Michael: Keep the money. You’ll need it.
Don: Is this fellow bothering you?
Michael: Am I bothering you?
Don: Karen, I’ve got a board waiting in there. What the hell’s going on? Who are you?
Michael: I’m Shiva, the God of death.

Taxi driver: So what are we doin’?
Michael: Give me fifty dollars worth. Just drive.[/b]

Ten years in the making this particular revenge is served up very cold indeed. But it is a strangely problematic portion. Depending on how much emphasis you place on intentions. Or the lack of discretion. Or even common courtesy.

But this was, after all, the most important moment in her life.

On the other hand, I draw the line at collateral damage. Especially children.

trailer: youtu.be/fANWrJPhqWw

THE PAGE TURNER [La Tourneuse de Pages] 2006
Written and directed by Denis Dercourt

[b]Jean [to Melanie]: There’s something I want to tell you before I go. My wife is a pianist. She plays in a trio. They’re giving a concert next week. A very important concert. You need to know that two years ago, she was in a car crash. Somebody drove into her. It was a hit-and-run. Since then, well, it made her fragile. She started getting stage fright. All performers get stage fright but hers is quite crippling. That’s why she needs support. It’s important that you’re here all the time.

Ariane: You read music?
Melanie: Yes. I used to play the piano.
Ariane: You gave it up. That’s a pity.

Ariane: Did you know Melanie plays the piano?
Jean: No. Do you?
Melanie: I did, a long time ago.
Ariane: Well, she reads music perfectly. She’s turning for me at the radio concert.
Jean: That’s a big responsibility! A page turner can throw everything off balance. Horowitz said this, not me.

Ariane: I’m going to ask her to turn at the concert. It’s a little risky but she’s quite at ease. She reassures me.
Virginie: Notice how she watches you?
Ariane: How?
Virginie: Intently.

Tristan [rubbing his arm]: I have a pain here.
Melanie: Don’t worry. It happens. It’s a secret. Not a word.
Ariane: What’s a secret?

Ariane: How did it happen?
Virginie: Cellos are heavy. He said he lifted it up to retract the spike. It slipped, I suppose. But I’ve never heard of such an accident.

Melanie: There’s one thing I’d like to ask you for. You’ll think it’s weird.
Ariane: No. Go on.
Melanie: I’d like your autograph.[/b]

The title is an anagram of “vampire”. It’s a movie about the making of a movie that is a remake of an earlier silent film. It’s a movie about the workings of the French film industry at the time. Or one man’s particular take on it.

Is it art more or less than it’s a commodity?

Maggie Cheung plays herself. She’s to star in the film if the film can ever be made. Like here, however, egos abound. And when they do, they clash. And there are lots of things about making a movie that almost no one ever thinks about. Which means lots of reasons to clash.

And that’s before you get to the sexual politics.

trailer: youtu.be/z_S0LxwXmkk

IRMA VEP [1996]
Written and directed by Olivier Assayas

This is a world we don’t get to see everyday: An illegal mining operation in Northern China.

Morality here doesn’t get much murkier. In other words, not the sort of Communism envisioned by Marx and Mao. But clearly the sort of capitalism many reactionaries would like to see exported over here. Profits way before people.

But even here the grifters can ply their trade. And this con is deadly.

One way or another, the fix is in. It’s only a matter of just how illegal it is.

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Shaft

trailer: youtu.be/a4LmmUEgaAU

BLIND SHAFT [Mang Jing] 2003
Written and directed by Yang Li

[b]Manager: Boss, why bother? Why not just kill the two of them?
Boss: You crazy? We can’t take any chances now.
Manager: Just get in touch with your police chief pals.
Boss: No way. These cronies gotta take a hefty cut. A hundred grand ain’t enough for them.

Boss: It’s almost the New Year. A corpse lyin’ around isn’t auspicious.

Song: Next time it’s your turn to mourn.

Prostitute: Mister, pick a song.
Song: He doesn’t know how to sing. He only knows how to fuck you.
Yang: Go to hell! I was in the front row when our commune sang. We sang “Long Live Socialism.” Put the song on.
Prostitute: Mister, that song became old-fashioned ages ago.
Song: Let him sing it.
Yang: “Long live socialism, long live socialism/Socialist countries high atop/Reactionaries overthrown/The imperialists run away their tails behind…”
Prostitute: Hey, you hick, those words changed long ago.
Yang: How’d they change?
Prostitute: “The reactionaries were never overthrown/The capitalists came back with their US dollars/Liberating all of China”

Yang [to Yuan]: Would I lie to you?

Song: You’ve fucking found a kid!
Yang: I don’t care if he is a child, just as long as we make money. You feel bad for him, but who feels bad for you?

Boss: Have you been down a mineshaft?
Yang: Yep.
Boss: Why’d you stop working?
Yang: The roof caved in and crushed workers.
Boss: What’s a few deaths? One shits after eating. One might die down the shaft. If you’re afraid, then don’t work here.

Boss: Take it or leave it. China has a shortage of everything but people.

Song [to Yuan]: You still want to work? Don’t work here if you are afraid of death.

Yang: Okay, today we’ll get him laid and tomorrow we kill him.[/b]

Nope. Oh, sweet, sweet irony.

In some respects, it’s the standard “love me love me love I’m a liberal” line on corporate America: if only those who run [litigate/advertizse for] Big Business would learn a lesson from the decent hard working man on the street: Can’t we all just get along?

Another Bud Fox here.

But this is grasping capitalism on the level in which some claim socialism to be purely scientific. But admittedly this does come a lot closer than most films in the genre to exposing it as a “system.” As a political economy. The role of power in other words.

Any time you change lanes you are creating a new set of conditions. And that can set into motion consequences beyond your wildest dreams. But even those less drastic can have a profound effect on your life. And here worlds clash. Worlds each of them are basically oblivious to.

Hey, what can I say: The laws [and “souls”] are for sale.

wiki

[b]Several themes are explored. A recurring instance is irony, a good example being the two students whom Banek interviews apparently for roles of articled clerkship with the firm, fresh out of law school. The young man especially says he would like to be a lawyer because he believes people are by nature good, and that conflict arises from historical forces, the law being there as a “buffer”, him believing strongly in fairness and justice. He is given the role by Banek, who invites him to see for himself just how the law is in practice. The audience is left wondering how very different the two characters’ days would have been had only Banek cared to ask Gipson where he was going that morning, that is the same place as he, to give him a friendly lift.

There is a sense of fate that is seen when Gipson returns the file to Banek. The two protagonists realize that while they had both been blaming the accident at the beginning of the film for their misfortunes thereafter, their lives had always been leading towards where they were in life at that moment. Gipson realizes that he had always been a “very, very unstable father” and Banek realizes that the trust fund case had not been handled the right way from the very beginning.[/b]

See? Liberal to the bone.

CHANGING LANES [2002]
Directed by Roger Michell

[b]Doyle: Come on, man, don’t leave me out here like this.
Gavin: Sorry, better luck next time.

Doyle: You said, “Better luck next time.” I said, “Give me a lift”. You said “Better luck next time” and just sped off.

Doyle: Money. You… you think I want money? What I want is my morning back. I need you to give my time back to me. Can you give me back my time? Can you give my time back to me? Huh? Can you? So she won’t move back to Oregon! So she won’t take my sons! So they’ll move into the house so I can be a father! Just 20 minutes! Can you give me that?

Michelle: I always thought you were cutting a pretty big corner by convincing a dying old man to sign a power of appointment.
Gavin: It wasn’t like that.
Michelle: Are you sure it wasn’t like that?

Gavin: What am I gonna do? How do I get the file back?
Michelle: Well…there’s this guy. He helps with things that need…helping out.
Gavin: Like what?
Michelle: Like things. Like…getting people to do things you want them to do when they don’t necessarily want to do them.
Gavin: Where is he?

Sponsor: What happened in court today?
Doyle: I’m in a bar. What does that tell you?

Doyle: I hope you don’t mind, but I was intrigued by your conversation. I just thought you were in advertising. So I want to give you my dream version of a Tiger Woods commercial, okay? There’s this black guy on a golf course. And all these people are trying to get him to caddy for them, but he’s not a caddy. He’s just a guy trying to play a round of golf. And these guys give him a five-dollar bill and tell him to go the clubhouse and get them cigarettes and beer. So, off he goes, home, to his wife and to their little son, who he teaches to play golf. You see all the other little boys playing hopscotch while little Tiger practices on the putting green. You see all the other kids eating ice cream while Tiger practices hitting long balls in the rain while his father shows him how. And we fade up, to Tiger, winning four Grand Slams in a row, and becoming the greatest golfer to ever pick up a 9-iron. And we end on his father in the crowd, on the sidelines, and Tiger giving him the trophies. All because of a father’s determination that no fat white man - like your fathers, probably - would ever send his son to the clubhouse for cigarettes and beer.

Gavin: What’s in those files that I haven’t seen?

Gavin: Let me think about it.
Stephen: What the hell are you going to think about, your high school ethics class?

Michelle: What’s the file say?
Gavin: It says they pay themselves a million and a half dollars…each, out of the trust.
Michelle: Which is the reason why they got rid of Mina Dunne and the rest of the board.
Gavin: It’s probably not even illegal.
Michelle: It’s probably just disgusting.

Doyle: I wasn’t bankrupt yesterday and I’m not bankrupt today!
Ron: I’m sorry, Mr. Gipson. The computer says you are.

Cynthia [wife]: What do you think the law is at this level of the game? At my father’s level? It’s a big, vicious rumble, Gavin. The people who established this law firm and the people who sustain it understand the way the world works. If you want to continue to live the way we are living…
Gavin: You have to steal.

Gavin [to priest in confessional]: I came here for some meaning. I’m trying…I want you to give the world meaning to me.
Priest: Why does the world need meaning?
Gavin: Why does the…Because…because the world’s a sewer. Because the world’s a shithole and a garbage dump. Because my father-in-law got me to screw a good man, a decent man out of his money. And my wife cheers me on. Because I got into a fender bender with vthis guy on the FDR. I had a fight with him. I tried to do everything to settle it. But this guy just won’t let it go.
Priest: Why? Why wouldn’t he let it go?
Gavin: I DON’T KNOW WHY!! Sometimes, God likes to put two guys in a paper bag and just let 'em rip.

Gavin [snickering then laughing out loud]: The law keeps us civilized?
Tyler [interviewing for a job]: I don’t think it’s funny.
Gavin: That’s why I’m gonna give you this job. I’m giving you the job because I wanna hear what you have to say about the law after you’ve worked here for five years. Or three years. Or a month. A week, a day, an hour.

Sponsor [to Doyle]: What you saw today is that everything decent is held together by a covenant. An agreement NOT to go bat shit.

Sponsor [to Doyle]: You know, booze isn’t really your drug of choice anyway. You’re addicted to chaos. For some of us, it’s coke. For some of us, it’s bourbon. But you? You got hooked on disaster.

Stephen: How the hell do you think Simon Dunne got his money? You think those factories in Malaysia have day care centers in them? You wanna check the pollution levels of his chemical plants in Mexico or look at the tax benefits he got from this foundation? This is all a tightrope, you gotta learn to balance.
Gavin: How can you live like that?
Stephen: I can live with myself…because at the end of the day I think I do more good than harm. What other standard have I got to judge by?

Gavin: I was thinking about what you said to me. About the end of the day - about doing more good than harm. That is what you said, isn’t it?
Stephen: Don’t you fuck with me.
Gavin: I am not fucking with you, sir. Can you imagine how unpleasant it would be if the judge got a hold of this file? I’m gonna hold on to this file. I’m gonna keep it in a very safe place. But I’m not going to Texas. I’m gonna come back into work on Monday. I’m gonna start doing that pro bono work that you recommended that I do. But I’m gonna do it from our office. The first thing we’re gonna do is help a man buy a house.

Valerie: What do you want?
Gavin: Five minutes, ma’am. I owe your husband twenty. Hell… I’m only asking for five with you.[/b]

Money doesn’t talk here, it screams bloody murder. Everything else is incidental. And it still is today. But it was a whole different world back then. Everyone was “juiced in”…or “made”. You were where you were because one or another set of “bosses” dictated it. And the bosses played footsies with the pols.

But it’s a world I never really learned to comprehend at all because I never [ever] had even the slightest inclination to gamble.

It’s an ersatz spectacle that plastic people thrive on. And that’s okay by me. As long as I can steer clear of them.

But then people being people even the pros here eventually succumb to the ravages of contingency and chance and change. And while fear works wonders in keeping the sheep in line there were just too many anomalies ready, willing and able to stir things up.

Now it’s just business as usual.

IMDb

[b]The blackjack “cheats” were using a technique known as “spooking”. Nevada courts have mostly ruled it to be legal because it merely takes advantage of hold card information exposed by sloppy dealers.

Martin Scorsese stated before the film’s release that he created the “head in the vise” scene as a sacrifice, certain the MPAA would insist it be cut. He hoped this would draw fire away from other violent scenes that would seem less so by comparison. When the MPAA made no objection to the vise scene, he left it in, albeit slightly edited.

When James Woods heard that Martin Scorsese was interested in working with him, Woods called Scorsese’s office and left the following message: “Any time, any place, any part, any fee.”

In the scene where Joe Pesci comes over to Ace Rothstein’s house to talk to Richard Rheil (the banker). There is a photo on the counter, where Robert De Niro is standing. That is an actual photo of Lefty Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro, which are the real guys DeNiro and Pesci are portraying.[/b]

Casino at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_(film

CASINO [1995]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Ace [voice-over]: Before I ever ran a casino or got myself blown up, Ace Rothstein was a helluva handicapper, I can tell you that. I was so good that when I bet, I can change the odds for every bookmaker in the country. I’m serious. I had it down so cold that I was given paradise on earth. I was given one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas to run: The Tangiers, by the only kind of guys that can get you that kind of money. Sixty-two million seven hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know all the details…
Nicky [voice-over]: Matter of fact, nobody knew all the details. But it should have been perfect. I mean he had me, Nicky Santoro, his best friend watching his ass. And he had Ginger, the woman he loved on his arm. But in the end, we fucked it all up. It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin’ valuable again.

Ace [voice-over]: At that time, Vegas was a place where millions of suckers flew in every year on their own nickel and left behind about a billion dollars. But at night, you couldn’t see the desert that surrounds Las Vegas. But it’s in the desert where lots of the town’s problems are solved.
Nicky [voice-over]: Got a lot of holes in the desert and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. Except you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you’re talking about a half hour or 45 minutes of diggin’. And who knows who’s gonna be comin’ along in that time? Before you know it, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin’ night.

Nicky [voice-over]: Now, notice how in the count room nobody ever seems to see anything. Somehow, somebody’s always lookin’ the other way. Now, look at these guys. They look busy, right? They’re countin’ money. Who wants to bother them? I mean, God forbid they should make a mistake and forget to steal.

Ace [voice-over]: No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he’ll keep comin’ back and back until one of you is dead.

Ace [voice-over]: In Vegas, everybody’s gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I’m watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all.

Ace [voice-over]: Ginger had the hustlers code. She knew how to take care of people. And that’s what Vegas is all about. It’s kickback city. She took care of the dealers, pit bosses, floor managers…but, mostly, she took care of the valet parkers…the guys who could get you anything and take care of anything. Ginger took care of the parkers because they took care of the security guards who took care of the metro cops, who let her operate.

Ace [voice-over]: Nicky’s methods of betting weren’t scientific, but they worked. When he won, he collected. When he lost, he told the bookies to go fuck themselves. I mean, what were they going to do, muscle Nicky? Nicky was the muscle.

Nicky [voice-over]: Ace was so fuckin’ worried about his casino he forgot what we were doin’ out here in the first place. A million times I wanted to yell in his fuckin’ ear…“This is Las Vegas. We’re supposed to be out here robbin”‘…you dumb fuckin’ hebe.

Ace [voice-over]: Back home, they would have put me in jail for what I’m doing. Here, they’re giving me awards.

Nicky [voice-over]: To be truthful with you, I had to admire this guy. Tony Dogs was one of the toughest Irishmen I ever met. This son of a bitch was tough. For two days and two fuckin’ nights, we beat the shit out of this guy. I mean, we even stuck ice-picks in his balls. In the end, I had to put his fuckin’ head in a vise.

Nicky: Hey, Dogs, can you hear me?
[Tony Dogs looks over]
Nicky: Listen, Dogs. I’ve got your head in a vise. I’ll squash your fucking head like a grapefruit, if you don’t give me a name.
[now in reasonable voice]
Nicky: Come on, Anthony. We go way back. Don’t make me do this, please. Don’t make me have to be the bad guy here.
Tony Dogs [weakly]: Fuck you.
Nick: [miffed]: Fuck me?
[to cohorts]
Nicky: Do you believe this? Two whole days and nights now.
[turns to vise and starts twisting it almost spinning it like a sailor’s wheel]
Nicky: Fuck me? Huh? Fuck me, motherfucker? Fuck my mother? Is that what you’re telling me?
Tony Dogs [gasps painfully as one of his eyes literally sprouts out of its socket]:
Nicky [upon seeing this]: Oh God, please give me a name.
Tony Dogs [gasping]: Charlie, Charlie M.
Nicky Santoro: Charlie M? YOU MAKE ME POP YOU’RE FUCKING EYE OUT TO PROTECT THAT PIECE OF SHIT?!

Mob Boss [to Nicky]: Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that the money we’re robbing is being robbed? Somebody’s robbing from us? We go through all this trouble and somebody’s robbing us? Huh?
John Nash: Like I said, it’s part of the business. It’s considered leakage.
Mob Boss: Leakage my balls. I want the guy who’s robbing us.

Nicky [voice-over]: But the bosses never believed in leakage…so listen to what they do. They put Artie Piscano, the underboss of K.C. in charge of making sure nobody skimmed the skim.

Pat Webb: We may have to kick a kike’s ass outta town.

Nicky [to Charlie]: I think in all fairness, I should explain to you exactly what it is that I do. For instance tomorrow morning I’ll get up nice and early, take a walk down over to the bank and walk in and see and, uh, if you don’t have my money for me, I’ll crack your fuckin’ head wide-open in front of everybody in the bank. And just about the time that I’m comin’ out of jail, hopefully, you’ll be coming out of your coma. And guess what? I’ll split your fuckin’ head open again. ‘Cause I’m fuckin’ stupid. I don’t give a fuck about jail. That’s my business. That’s what I do.

Ace [voice-over]: Meeting in the middle of the desert always made me nervous. It’s a scary place. I knew about the holes in the desert, of course. And everywhere I looked, there could have been a hole. Normally, my prospects of coming back alive from a meeting with Nicky were 99 out of 100. But this time, when I heard him say “a couple of hundred yards down the road”, I gave myself 50-50.

Nicky [to Ace]: Get this through your head you Jew motherfucker, you! You only exist out here because of me! That’s the only reason! Without me, you, personally, every fuckin’ wise guy skell around’ll take a piece of your fuckin’ Jew ass! Then where you gonna go? You’re fuckin’ warned! Don’t ever go over my fuckin’ head again! You motherfucker, you.

Ace [narrating]: By this time, Nicky had things so fucked up on the streets that every time Marino went back home, the packages got smaller and smaller. It got to the point, when he walked into the place he didn’t know whether he was going to be kissed or killed.

Gaggi: Frankie, I want to ask you something. It’s private. But I want you to tell me the truth. Of course, Remo. I want you to tell me the truth, mind you. I always tell you the truth, Remo. Frankie…the little guy…he wouldn’t be fucking the Jew’s wife, would he? Because if he is, it’s a problem.
Frankie [voice-over]: What could I say? If I had given them the wrong answer, I mean, Nicky, Ginger, Ace - all of them could have wind up getting killed. Because there’s one thing you gotta know about these old timers, they don’t like any fucking around with the other guy’s wives. It’s bad for business. So I lied. And even though I knew that by lying to Gaggi, I could have wound up getting killed myself.

Nicky [voice-over]: When it looked like they could get twenty-five years to life in prison just for skimming a casino, sick or no fuckin’ sick you knew people were going to get clipped.

Ace [voice-over]: The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior’s college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it’s like checkin’ into an airport. And if you order room service, you’re lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it’s all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds. But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing? And that’s that.[/b]

Death apparently is even more taboo in Japan. Not a good profession to be tied to.

I don’t buy into the spiritual or religious overtones here. But if you must have a ceremony for the dead this is certainly one of the least undignified. Everything revolves around a series of solemn rituals handed down over the ages. It makes death less scary [or permanent] if you are able to buy into it.

It is obviously comforting for those who have lost loved ones…so why not just leave it at that. The ceremony can be very moving.
And, when it comes to dealing with death, well, whatever works.

What is particularly surreal [to me] is how you can be talked into paying for a really expensive coffin [just like here] but in the end they are all burned to ashes in the cremation of the bodies.

Look for Hideki Gondô.

wiki

Loosely based on Aoki Shinmon’s autobiographical book Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, the film was ten years in the making. Motoki studied the art of ‘encoffinment’ at first hand from a mortician, and how to play a cello for the earlier parts of the film. The director attended funeral ceremonies in order to understand the feelings of bereaved families. While death is the subject of great ceremony, as portrayed in the film, it is also a strongly taboo subject in Japan, so the director was worried about the film’s reception and did not anticipate commercial success.

trailer: youtu.be/6UFlWO5zhO8

DEPARTURES [Okuribito] 2008
Directed by Yôjirô Takita

Daigo: She’s got one.
Ikuei: Got what?
Daigo: A thing.
Ikuei: What thing?

Yes, that thing.

[b]Daigo [pointing to the cello]: And I still owe on that.
Mika: How much?
[Daigo hesitantly holds up one finger]
Mika: That’s okay. I’m working. We can pay off a million yen.
Daigo [shaking his head vigorously]: 18 million.
Mika [shocked]: 18 million?!

Ikuei: Will you work hard?
Daigo: Yes.
Ikuei: You’re hired.

Daigo: What does the job involve?
Ikuei: Well… At first, being my assistant, I guess.
Daigo: Specifically…
Ikuei: Specifically? Casketing.
Daigo: Casketing?
Ikuei: Putting bodies in coffins.
Daigo: You mean dead bodies?
Ikuei: You find that…funny?
Daigo: Uh, no, I mean…The ad said departures, so I thought it meant a travel agency.

Mika: So, what’s the job? A tour guide? Sales?
Daigo: It’s not a travel agent.
Mika: So, what is it?
Daigo: Ceremonies.
Mika: Like weddings?

Daigo: Can someone who has never even seen a dead body before actually do this job?

Ikuei: To preserve the dignity, take great care that family members do not see the bare skin of the deceased.

Daigo [driving to his first body]: What should I do?
Ikuei: Today…just watch.
Daigo: All right.
Ikuei: But it’s one of those. You picked a bad one.
Daigo: What do you mean?
Ikuei: You’ll see…[/b]

Two weeks dead.

[b]Daigo [watching Ikuei work]: One grown cold, restored to beauty for all eternity. This was done with a calmness, a precision and above all, a gentle affection. At the final parting, sending the dead on their way. Everything done peacefully, and beautifully.

Yamashita: People are talking.
Daigo: About what?
Yamashita: Get yourself a proper job!

Ikuei [on training video Mika is viewing]: This is done in such a way that the family does not see. The anus must sometimes be blocked. The cotton wool is rolled, and pressed deep into the anus. This prevents seepage.

Mika: Aren’t you ashamed having a job like that!
Daigo: What’s to be ashamed of? Touching dead people?
Mika: Just get a normal job.
Daigo: Normal? Everyone dies. I’ll die, and so will you. Death is normal.
Mika: Spare me the word games. I want you to quit.
Daigo: And if I don’t?
Mika: I’m going home. Come see me when you quit.
Daigo [reaching out to her]: Mika!
Mika: Don’t touch me! You’re filthy!

Daigo [at his dead father’s side]: So what was his life for, anyway? Living 70 odd years and leaving behind one box of stuff.

Mika: My husband is a professional.[/b]

Fuck 'em? Well, that’s what some will say. But the ones who die are almost never the ones who cash in on it. And this was more a “humanitarian” mission. At least on paper.

The fog of war. You can take that all the way to the bank. And for those who thrive on the military industrial complex it can never be foggy enough. Reconfigure the Commie into a terrorist and the war never, ever ends. And Somalia of all places. But today I suspect we’d hit the warlords with drones. And wouldn’t you like to own a corporation that builds those!

Here, you can read about them: huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/2 … 46263.html

And coming out as it did in 2001 it fueled all the more the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Billions and billions and billions of dollars in profits were made there, right?

On the other hand, there is the question of genocide. Or mass starvation. But that’s hardly ever the motivation behind any particular deployment. More often than not the rationalization.

But I don’t pretend to grasp fully what the hell really happened back then.

Here are a couple of “dissenting” views on the conflict:
wsws.org/en/articles/2002/02/hawk-f19.html
ratical.org/ratville/CAH/GM012902.html

IMDb

[b]One of the favorite films of George W. Bush.

Unlike Ridley Scott’s previous film G.I. Jane, this production received the full co-operation of the US military.

18 US soldiers died in the incident depicted in the film. The number of Somalis who died during the battle has been estimated between 500 and 2,000.[/b]

BLACK HAWK DOWN
Directed by Ridley Scott

[b]Title Card BASED ON AN ACTUAL EVENT. SOMALIA - EAST AFRICA. 1992. Years of warfare among rival clans causes famine on a biblical scale. 300,000 civilians die of starvation. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the most powerful of the warlords, rules the capital Mogadishu. He seizes international food shipments at the ports. Hunger is his weapon. The world responds. Behind a force of 20,000 U.S. Marines, food is delivered and order is restored.

Title Card: April 1993. Aidid waits until the Marines withdraw, and then declares war on the remaining U.N. peacekeepers. In June, Aidid’s militia ambush and slaughter 24 Pakistani soldiers, and begin targeting American personnel.

Title Card: In late August, America’s elite soldiers, Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160th SOAR are sent to Mogadishu to remove Aidid and restore order. The mission was to take three weeks, but six weeks later Washington was growing impatient.

Durant: Command Super 6-4, we got militia shooting unarmed civilians down at the food distribution centre. Request permission to engage.
Man over Radio: Super 6-4, are you taking fire over?
Durant: Negative command.
Man over Radio: UN’s jurisdiction, 6-4. We cannot intervene, return to base. Over.
Durant: Roger. 6-4 returning.

Atto: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because I grew up without running water I am simple General. I do know something about History. See all this, it is simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white boy’s ideas in it.
General Garrison: Well, I wouldn’t know about that, I’m from Texas.
Atto: You shouldn’t have come here. This is a civil war. This is our war, not yours.
General Garrison: 300,000 dead and counting. That’s not a war Mr. Atto. That’s genocide. Now you enjoy that tea, you hear.

General Garrison: This isn’t Iraq, you know. Much more complicated than that.

Galentine: Sgt Eversmann, you really like tha skinnies?
Eversmann: It’s not that I like 'em or I don’t like 'em. I respect them.
Kurth: See what you guys fail to realise is that the Sgt here is a bit of an idealist. He believes in this mission down to his very bones don’t you Sgt?
Eversmann: Look, these people, they have no jobs, no food, no education, no future. I just figure that we have two things we can do. Help, or we can sit back and watch a country destroy itself on CNN. Right?

Garrison: So this is the real deal? Is he sure this time?
Harell: He sounds scared shitless.
Garrison: Good. That’s always a good sign

Hoot: Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window.

Hoot: When I go home people’ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?” You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.

Hoot: See you’re thinking. Don’t. 'Cause Sergeant, you can’t control who gets hit or who doesn’t or who falls out of a chopper or why. It ain’t up to you. It’s just war

Durant: My government will never negotiate for me.
Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Then perhaps you and I can negotiate, huh? Soldier to Soldier.
Durant: I am not in charge
Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Course not, you have the power to kill, but not negotiate. In Somalia, Killing is Negotiation.

Abdullah ‘Firimbi’ Hassan: Do you think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down our weapons and adopt American democracy? That the killing will stop? We know this. Without victory, there will be no peace. There will always be killing, see? This is how things are in our world.[/b]

There must be a million movies about growing up “in the ghetto”. And virually all of them at told from the perspective of gang bangers. Men and boys shooting up and shooting each other over and over and over again on the mean streets of testosterone. Macho bullshit that is basically glorified.

But men [you know the ones] are everywhere here.

Still, some just don’t give a shit about the lives of anyone living “on the outs”. And you see them when they’re “fucked up” and you see them when they’re not and it seems a no brainer.

As always though it’s the kids your heart goes out to. Only some of them here are “packin’”

One thing for sure: in this political climate look for more of the same. Can you imagine Barack Obama proposing a massive urban renewal project to reclaim places like this? Or, more surreal still, “the people” themselves taking to the streets and demanding it?

The more you see stuff like this the more cynical you get. Or you do if you’re me. There are lots of good folks here trying to make things better. But the economy that used to sustain places like this is long gone. And in its place came systemic poverty, drugs and gangs. And a political economy that shrugs in response to it.

This is a really depressing film. It’s The Wire on crack. You wonder: What’s the point here? Enduring shit like this is the reason why most choose to escape it—anyway they can.

trailer: youtu.be/YkncKY6qSVI

ON THE OUTS [2004]
Directed by Lori Silverbush, Michael Skolnik

Everyone has a past. But how many start out wondering if they were switched as a baby in the hopsital?

Here is a psychologically “complicated” woman married to a great pianist and the people who become entangled in her dark web. Of course, the others have webs all their own.

But, for me, this is largely about who we become based on circumstances we have no control over. And who we think we are can often reflect only what others have told us about our past. What difference does it really make who – biologically – brought us into this world? Well, it could make a lot of difference if you place the emphasis on genetics. But then who raised us is also of considerable importance.

In this regard, the film reminds me of Toto Le Hero. All the elements of “identity” most of us barely scratch the surface of.

Actually, this film is billed as a psychological thriller. It’s the account of a woman who is obviously “disturbed” but, as in much of Chabrol’s work, the ambiguities are left for you to untangle. And how much can anyone really know about her frame of mind? Or, for that matter, their own? At least Mika recognizes this.

trailer: youtu.be/vSf8Hyo6WRE

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT [2000]
Written and directed by Claude Chabrol

Guillaume: You believe you are my father’s daughter?
Jeanne: Of course not!

But he’s not so sure. And soon, nobody seems to be.

[b]Guillaume: Finished your act, have you? What is it you are after?
Jeanne: Nothing.
Guillaume: You’re pathetic when you try to look like my mother. And when you try to play like my father.

Jeanne: I saw your step-mother spill the chocolate on purpose.
Guillaume: Mika? That proves it, you really are crazy. She made the chocolate herself. She always does. She’d never let anyone else do it.
Jeanne: So?
Guillaume: You’re trying to say she drugged it?
Jeanne: I’m just telling you what I saw.
Guillaume: That’s ridiculous. I mean, why would she do it? So, according to you, she drugged my hot chocolate and then spilled it to make sure I wouldn’t drink it?
Jeanne: Believe what you want. I’ve warned you. My conscience is clear.

Mika: What about Jeanne?
André: She could be my daughter. I’d like to have a daughter…

Jeanne: I want to go.
Louise [her mother]: Go but remember, you’re not Polonsji’s daughter.
Jeanne: That’s all over.
Louise: I’m not so sure.

Louise: Your father isn’t your father.
Jeanne: Polonski, you mean?
Louise: I didn’t say that.
Jeanne: No, you didn’t. You said, “You’re father isn’t your father.”
Louise: Polonski isn’t your father…nor was my husband.
Jeanne: You’re telling me this now? So who is my father?[/b]

The fact is no one really knows who her biological father was.

[b]Jeanne [to Guillaume]: She does nothing by halves.

André [to Jeanne]: At 18, children start to disappoint you.

Jeanne [to Guillaume]: Why did you switch our cups?

Mika [to Andre]: I have a knack for doing wrong.

Mika: I give and I give and I give; I never ask. I never even asked to live.
Andre: You received life like everyone else. You can’t deny that.
Mika [after long pause]: I don’t understand. I never understand when you speak.
[another long pause]
Mika: I know what I am. I am nothing.

Mika: Instead of loving, I say, “I love you,” and people believe me. I have real power in my mind. I calculate everything.

It’s in God’s hands.[/b]

She’s not especially pretty. She’s not especially thin. Her famous father has a wife almost as young as she is. And most of the time people befriend her only as a way to meet her father—the renouned writer and publisher.

He’s basically a narcissistic pig. He treats people like shit and has nothing to do with them unless there is something in it for him. Of course the other side of the coin is that some he thinks are friends are just using him in turn.

Still, some people get away with it more readily than others.

It’s all about where the individual and all the rest choose to meet in social interaction. “I” and “we” in the “modern world.” That and the clash between “serious art” and “pop culture”.

It’s amazing how many French films revolve one way or another around music. Classical music in particular.

trailer: youtu.be/y_K4d-1zQOA

LOOK AT ME [Comme Une Image] 2004
Written and directed by Agnès Jaoui

[b]Pierre: I’m no longer a writer. I’m ashamed. Next time, under “profession,” I’ll put “kept man.” “Writer” goes under “hobbies.”

Karine: This store has great stuff, and you won’t try.
Loitia: Nothing in my size.
Karine: At least try this one on. I’m sure you’ll look great.
Lolita: I just hope I fit in the booth.

Sébastien: Why are you so mad at your dad?
Lolita: I’m not. I’d just like to kill him.

Étienne: Does Fabien want tea?
Lolita: No. We’re going for a walk. And his name is Sebastien.
Étienne: I had the “ien” right.

Étienne: There’s cyanide in the bathroom.
Sébastien: Why do you say that?
Étienne: Just to cut the tension.

Sylvia: Beautiful voices are a dime a dozen.

Lolita [to Sylvia]: They’re all the same. They find out I’m so-and-so’s daughter and suddenly they find me very interesting. They’re all the same. Well, not you, of course.[/b]

As a matter of fact…

[b]Étienne [with his arm around Lolita]: My big girl.
Lolita: Stop, you’re hurting me.
Étienne: Wouldn’t hurt if it was muscle.

Karine [to Étienne]: Lolita will never like me. With you it’s the same. I don’t count. You say you love me and I believe you. But at times I feel like a chair. You don’t see me.

Sylvia: But telling millions of people he sometimes practices sodomy may not be necessary.

Lolita: I look like a Russian doll.

Étienne: She’ll go far. What’s her name?
Lolita: Aurele. Want her number?
Étienne: Hey, come on, Lolita.
Lolita: With guys like you, she’ll go far.
Étienne: I said she’s pretty. Are you nuts? I can’t say that? What should we do, wear blindfolds?
Lolita: She sings! Who cares how she looks?
Karine: I understand her…
Lolita: No you don’t. You gain an ounce and you want to die! I’m not the crazy one!

Étienne: Everyone’s crying. And over what? Because I said she’d go far?
Sylvia: Thanks to her looks.
Étienne: You musicians above all that?
Sylvia: No, we’re not above anything. You see what happened. It was her night. You said nothing.
Sébastien: Because he didn’t hear her.
Sylvia: Didn’t hear her?
Sébastien: He left three minutes in, came back to applaud.[/b]

Let’s play master and servant.

Banned practically everywhere as little more than pornography. Is this art instead?

It is based on an actual relationship. The meaning though will be decided one dasein at a time. And it is rooted in the gender relationships that prevailed in pre-war Japan. Back in time and place.

If you like it try Blind Beast. My favorite of the two.

Unfortunately, the dvd I have is dubbed in English.

home made trailer: youtu.be/bk_aOjfkCrY

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Realm_of_the_Senses

IMDb

[b]The writing on Kichizo’s chest, that Sada wrote using Kichizo’s own blood, reads “Sada Kichi futari kiri” (“Sada and Kichi, just two of us together”). This was the actual writing seen on the real Kichizo’s body when the police found his corpse on 19 May 1936.

Demand to see the film at its first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival was so high, 13 screenings were arranged.[/b]

IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES [Ai No Korîda] 1976
Written and directed by Nagisa Ôshima

It was all so simple back then. No one was really crazy. Mental illness was just something the authorities invented in order to lock up folks who wouldn’t conform to what was [offically] prescribed to be normal behavior. And if anyone really was a few sandwiches short of a picnic it was all the fault of capitalism. Once the revolution happened mental illness would vanish off the face of the earth.

I [sort of] believed that myself back then. Now I [sort of] don’t.

Which isn’t to suggest the film doesn’t expose just how much bullshit is involved with “therapy” that presumes the problem is folks not acting “normal”. How many Nurse Ratchets [and her ilk] are out there still?

But so much mental anguish does revolve around people hell bent on establishing the right thing to do. And then for all the rest of us too.

But here is a crucial point:

IMDb: Louise Fletcher got the part of Nurse Ratched mainly because she could embody evil without knowing it. She believes she’s helping people even when she isn’t.

Lots of people don’t take that into consideration when they thump those who don’t share their own point of view about mental health. What really is “evil” today?

IMDb

[b]Many extras were actual mental patients. The cast and crew had to become accustomed to working with extras and supporting crew members who were inmates at the Oregon State Mental Hospital; each member of the professional cast and crew inevitably worked closely with at least two or three mental patients.

Most of Jack Nicholson’s scene with Dean R. Brooks upon arriving at the hospital was improvised - including his slamming a stapler, asking about a fishing photo, and discussing his rape conviction; Brooks’s reactions were authentic.

Louise Fletcher only realized that the part of Nurse Ratched was a hotly contested role among all the leading actresses of the day when a reporter visiting the set happened to casually mention it.

Author Ken Kesey was so bitter about the way the filmmakers were “butchering” his story that he vowed never to watch the completed film and even sued the movie’s producers because it wasn’t shown from Chief Bromden’s perspective (as the novel is). Years later, he claimed to be lying in bed flipping through TV channels when he settled onto a late-night movie that looked sort of interesting, only to realize after a few minutes that it was this film. He then changed channels.[/b]

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_O … Nest_(film

Look for Anjelica Huston

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST [1975]
Directed by Milos Forman

[b]Dr. Spivey: Well, it says several things here. It said you’ve been belligerent. Talked when unauthorized. You’ve been resentful in attitude towards work, in general. That you’re lazy.
McMurphy: Chewing gum in class.

Dr. Spivey: Well, the real reason that you’ve been sent over here is because they wanted you to be evaluated… to determine whether or not you are mentally ill. This is the real reason. Why do you think they might think that?
McMurphy: Well, as near as I can figure out, it’s 'cause I, uh, fight and fuck too much.

Dr. Spivey: Why did you get sent over here from the work farm?
McMurphy: Well, I really don’t know, Doc.
Dr. Spivey: It says here that you went around…Let me just take a look…
McMurphy: It ain’t up to me, you know.
Dr. Spivey: One…two, three…four…You’ve got at least five arrests for assault. What can you tell me about that?
McMurphy: Five fights, huh? Rocky Marciano’s got 40 and he’s a millionaire.
Dr. Spivey: That’s true.
McMurphy: That is true.

Dr. Spivey: Of course, it’s true that you went in for statutory rape. That’s true, is it not, this time?
McMurphy: Absolutely true. But, Doc, she was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don’t think it’s crazy at all and I don’t think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that’s why I got into jail to begin with. And now they’re telling me I’m crazy over here because I don’t sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don’t make a bit of sense to me. If that’s what being crazy is, then I’m senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that’s it.

Dr. Spivey: Do you think there’s anything wrong with your mind, really?
McMurphy: Not a thing, Doc. I’m a goddamn marvel of modern science.
Dr. Spivey: You’re going to be here for a period, for us to evaluate you. We’re going to study you. We’ll make our determinations as to what we’re going to do and give you the necessary treatment as indicated.
McMurphy: Doc, let me just tell you this. I’m here to cooperate with you a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I’ll be just right down the line with you. You watch. 'Cause I think we ought to get to the bottom of R.P. McMurphy.

Nurse Ratched: Have you ever speculated, Mr. Harding that perhaps you arevimpatient with your wifevbecause she doesn’t meet your mental requirements?
Harding: Perhaps. But you see, the only thing I can really speculate on, Nurse Ratched is the very existence of my life…with or without my wife…in terms of the human relationships, the juxtaposition of one person to another, the form, the content.
Tabor: Harding, why don’t you knock off the bullshit and get to the point?
Harding: This is the point. This is the point, Taber. It’s not bullshit. I’m not just talking about my wife, I’m talking about my LIFE, I can’t seem to get that through to you. I’m not just talking about one person, I’m talking about everybody. I’m talking about form. I’m talking about content. I’m talking about interrelationships. I’m talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven. Do you understand…FINALLY?

Nurse Ratched: If Mr. McMurphy doesn’t want to take his medication orally, I’m sure we can arrange that he can have it some other way. But I don’t think that he would like it.

McMurphy: But I tried, didn’t I? Goddamnit, at least I did that.

McMurphy: Which one of you nuts has got any guts?

McMurphy: Nurse Ratched, Nurse Ratched! The Chief voted! Now will you please turn on the television set?
Nurse Ratched [she opens the glass window]: Mr. McMurphy, the meeting was adjourned and the vote was closed.
McMurphy: But the vote was 10 to 8. The Chief, he’s got his hand up! Look!
Nurse Ratched: No, Mr. McMurphy. When the meeting was adjourned, the vote was 9 to 9.
McMurphy [exasperated]: Aw come on, you’re not gonna say that now! You’re not gonna say that now! You’re gonna pull that hen house shit? Now when the vote…the Chief just voted - it was 10 to 9. Now I want that television set turned on right now!

Dr Spivey: Do you like it here?
McMurphy: That fucking nurse, man!
Dr Spivey: What do you mean, sir?
McMurphy: She ain’t honest.
Dr Spivey: Miss Ratched’s one of the finest nurses we’ve got in this institution.
McMurphy: Well I don’t wanna break up the meeting or nothin’, but she’s somethin’ of a cunt, ain’t she Doc?

McMurphy: Is that crazy enough for ya’? Want me to take a shit on the floor?

Young Psychiatrist: Have you ever heard of the old saying “a rolling stone gathers no moss?”
McMurphy: Yeah.
Young Psychiatrist: Does that mean something to you?
McMurphy: Uh…it’s the same as “don’t wash your dirty underwear in public.”
Young Psychiatrist: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
McMurphy: [smiling] I’m smarter than him, ain’t I?
[laughs]
McMurphy: Well, that sort of has always meant, is, uh, it’s hard for something to grow on something that’s moving.

Candy: You all crazies?

Candy: You better quit on this. They’ll throw you in the can again, you know?
McMurphy: No, they won’t. We’re nuts! They’ll just take us back to the funny farm, see?

McMurphy: What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin’? Well you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walkin’ around on the streets and that’s it.

McMurphy: Want some gum?
Chief: Thank you. Mmm. Juicy Fruit.
McMurphy: You sly son of a bitch, Chief. Can you hear me, too?
Chief: Yeah, you bet!
McMurphy: Well, I’ll be goddamned, Chief! And they all, they all think you’re deaf and dumb. Jesus Christ! You fooled them, Chief. You fooled them. You fooled them all! Goddamn you!

McMurphy: A little dab’ll do ya.

McMurphy: I can’t take it no more. I gotta get outta here.
Chief: I can’t. I just can’t.
McMurphy: It’s easier than you think, Chief.
Chief: For you, maybe. You’re a lot bigger than me.

Chief: My pop was real big. He did like he pleased. That’s why everybody worked on him. The last time I seen my father, he was blind and diseased from drinking. And every time he put the bottle to his mouth, he didn’t suck out of it, it sucked out of him until he shrunk so wrinkled and yellow even the dogs didn’t know him.
McMurphy: Killed him, huh?
Chief: I’m not saying they killed him. They just worked on him. The way they’re working on you.

McMurphy: Wake up, boys. Wake up. It’s medication time. Medication time.

Nurse Ratched: Aren’t you ashamed?
Billy: No, I’m not.
[Applause from friends]
Nurse Ratched: You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this.
Billy: Um, um, well, y-y-y-you d-d-d-don’t have to t-t-t-tell her, Miss Ratched.
Nurse Ratched: I don’t have to tell her? Your mother and I are old friends. You know that.
Billy: P-p-p-please d-d-don’t tell my m-m-m-mother.

Nurse Ratched [after Billy is found dead]: The best thing we can do is go on with our daily routine.

Chief: Mac…they said you escaped. I knew you wouldn’t leave without me. I was waiting for you. Now we can make it, Mac; I feel big as a damn mountain.
[he suddenly sees the lobotomy scars]
Chief: Oh, no…
[embracing McMurphy]
Chief: I’m not goin’ without you, Mac. I wouldn’t leave you this way…You’re coming with me. Let’s go.
[he smothers him to death][/b]

All I know is this: If I’m hell bent on snuffing it and a guy like this keeps poking his business into mine we’re both going down. Really, there are particular times when officious folks enrage you. And this is one of them.

Of course I’m not him and this story isn’t mine.

Everything always comes down to why you are checking out. Scripts like this can only work in particular contexts. In others they make no sense at all. For some folks, you talk them down. But, for others, you help them.

The most important thing though is this: You can only go in so far in understanding another when he chooses to end his life. This is what the film has the courage to explore.

trailer: youtu.be/U5IGC59Q9y8

GOODBYE SOLO [2008]
Written and directed by Ramin Bahrani

[b]Solo [to William]: What are you going to do at Blowing Rock, anyway? Are you going to go camping? Are you going there to chill with the trees and the birds? You like birds, big dawg? Are you going to fly away? You’re not going to jump, right?

Solo: I don’t get it, man. Isn’t it better to go to a motel first, drop off your luggage?
William: Why am I with you again? How come it’s always you that picks me up?

Solo: Why family don’t stay together in America? If that was in Senegal…That’s where I’m from. In Africa. You know where it is, right? Dakar. Family stay together. We take care of our parents, old people. Even if they don’t have teeth in their mouths anymore, we take food and we put it in their mouths.
William: Then why aren’t you there now?
Solo: I got to make money and send it back home, that’s all. You know what I mean? I’m going to go back there when I get old.

Solo: William, I’m going to Piedmont Circle Projects. I mean, I’m talking about Homicide Circle.
William: I don’t give a shit.

Quiera [to Solo]: And who the hell is that old man sitting on my sofa, huh?

Solo: I have my interview on Monday, and I’m going to ace it.
William: I really don’t give a shit. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know about Quiera or anything about your life!

William: I’m closing my accounts.
Solo: William, what do you mean you’re closing your accounts?

Solo: William, are you there? William. William, are you awake?
William: No.
Solo: What’s wrong? Please tell me what’s wrong with you. I can’t do this anymore.

Solo: I went to the cinema tonight. The boy was there. William, I saw his photo in your jacket. You left it in the taxi. Who is he? You told me you had no kids. Why are you lying to me? I’m telling you everything. Is he your grandson? William. William, I want to help you.
William: Did you talk to him?
Solo: William, please.
William: Did you fucking talk to him?
Solo: No, I didn’t. But he doesn’t know who you are, does he? Why don’t you tell him?
William: I want you to get your shit and get the fuck out of here.
Solo: William, why are you speaking this way? William.
William: Get the fuck out!
Solo: We’re friends now, and you want to leave me and him, the boy?
William: Who the fuck told you you could get into my life? Who the fuck do you think you are that you can touch anything that belongs to me? I told you from day one, stay the fuck out of my life!

Solo [on phone]: Hi, William. It’s me, Solo. I wanted to tell you I got the results of my interview. William, I failed. I thought you’d want to know.

Solo: William, I saw the other driver and he canceled the trip with you. I’ll take you tomorrow morning. That was our deal. What time should I pick you up?
William: 8 a.m.

Solo reading aloud from William’s notebook: “I made a joke about how bad a film was, and when he laughed, his lip twitched. He looked just like his mother.”[/b]

Films like this can exist only because we live in a world where films like this must exist. As long as men and women choose to differentiate right and wrong, good and bad, true and false etc. along religious and ethnic lines, inanities like this will prevail. Isn’t it time to shunt them aside so that new inanities can be put their place?

Politically the film unfolds at the time when Syrian President Hafez al-Assad has died and has been replaced by his son, Bashar al-Assad. Uncertainy fills the air.

As for the options afforded women, here things are nothing like the extremist Islamic communities, but the fact remains Mona’s father has set up a marriage with a man she has never met. This is a crucial sub-text here. The conflict between Israel and Syria plays out parallel with the conflict between the Muslim religion and women.

At least everyone here appears to be well off financially. Things almost always become more reactionary still the farther down the economic ladder you go.

IMDb

Filming was done in two different Druze villages, one pro-Syrian and one pro-Israeli, depending on the political tilt of the scenes. Also, since Israeli authorities would not give permission to film at the actual border, a mock-up was built some distance away.

wiki

The movie’s plot looks at the Arab-Israeli conflict through the story of a family divided by political borders, and explores how their lives are fractured by the region’s harsh political realities. Set in the summer of 2000, Mona, a young Druze woman living at Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, is about to marry a successful Syrian actor. Following the hostilities between Israel and Syria there is now the demilitarised UNDOF zone between occupied Golan and Syria observed by United Nations staff. Crossing of the zone is extremely rare as it is only granted by both sides under special circumstances. It has taken 6 months to obtain permission from the Israeli administration for Mona to leave the Golan. When Mona crosses she will not be able to return to her family on the Golan even to visit.

trailer: youtu.be/s0PkVJegZZM

THE SYRIAN BRIDE [2004]
Written and directed by Eran Riklis

[b]Title card: Majdal Shams, on the Israeli-Syrian border, is the largest Druze village in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. Druze loyalty is split between Syria and Israel, their nationality is “undefined”…

Tallel: I’m getting married today. She’s a relative from the Golan.
Director: So how did you meet her?
Tallel: They sent me a picture.

Village Elder: Listen, Hammed, you know how much we respect you. We’ve heard your son Hattem’s coming to the wedding. As far as we are concerned, he’s an outcast since he married the Russan. If he shows up, you won’t see us here.
Hammed: Hattem has not been here for more than 8 years. Today is his sister’s wedding. You know that this is his last chance to see her.
Village Elder: We’ll never forget what you did for our village…nor your years in jail. But this is different! If you prefer him and go against your releigion, you will lose our support, and we will cast you out too![/b]

This is how it usually works when you reduce everything down to God.

[b]Mona: I’m afraid.
Amal [Mother]: Don’t be afraid. Tallel will love you and you’ll love him. It won’t be like your previous marriage. It’s different this time.
Mona: What makes you so sure? Life with him could turn out to be a lot worse than my life now. Perhaps I’m going from one prison to another.

Mona: I’m marrying someone I know only from television.

Amal [to Mai her daughter]: God willing, your fortune will be better than mine. Don’t give in the way I do. Don’t you dare give up! I’ve already missed my chance but your entire future is ahead of you.

Syrian Offical: I told you already, as far as I’m concerned, she comes from Syria and she is going to Syria…she didn’t come from Israel.
Jeanne: Well, what am I supposed to do? People are waiting on the other side…on your side too.
Official: I have no idea. It’s their problem, not ours. You know the whole thing is part of an Israeli policy of declaring that the Golan belongs to them. We will never agree to that. You can tell them that.

Mona: It’s bad luck not to get married on your wedding day.

Jeanne: The problem is solved![/b]

With a bottle of wite-out. But then a new bureaucrat stumbles into the farce…

Not nearly as good as the Danish original but still a pretty good movie. The plot in and of itself is compelling. Two brothers stumble into a new perspective on things. It changes them. Then what?

The war in Afghanistan has always been trickier for me than the war in Iraq. I react to it more ambiguously. The Taliban are the foulest sort of reactionaries. Good riddance to them. But the war there was never really about that. And, unlike Sam, thousands really did die over there. Not counting all the folks we killed.

They left that part out though.

But not the PTSD. Not the part about nobody understanding.

This is a film where we are privy to something crucial about a character that the other characters are not. But even we are only privy to the tip of the iceberg. And this is relevant to our own lives too. To our own “self-understanding”.

Also, I have never bought into the “family” bullshit. As though just because someone is our brother or father or spouse we are automatically obligated to them for life. Here I think Ayn Rand [re Hank Reardon in Atlas Shrugged] was on to something. Over time, folks have to earn our respect and admiration. As well as our compassion and commitment.

IMDb

Jake Gyllenhaal learned of the death of his close friend and Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger while he was in the middle of shooting a scene for this film. Upon hearing the news, Gyllenhaal immediately walked off set, and returned to finish the scene two days later. He then took a longer bereavement leave before he was ready to continue with the rest of his scenes.

trailer: youtu.be/7xYyCCjLpZs

BROTHERS [2009]
Directed by Jim Sheridan

[b]Sam: It’s my brother.
Grace: He doesn’t deserve you.

Tommy: I’m Tommy.
Maggie: Mom doesn’t like you.
Grace: Maggie!
Maggie: That’s what you said to dad.

Tommy: You love it over there, huh?
Sam: It’s my job.
Isabelle: They only shoot the bad guys.
Tommy: Who are the bad guys?
Maggie: The ones with the beards.
Hank [father]: Your brother’s a hero. He’s serving his country and don’t you ever forget that.

Grace: Sam’s dead, Tommy.

Sam: Thanks for taking care of them. I didn’t expect that.
Tommy: It just comes naturally, you know.
Sam: Grace is something, huh?
[pause]
Sam: Did you fuck her?
Tommy: What? You kidding?
Sam: I’d understand. You thought I was dead. I’d forgive you.
Tommy: What’s going on in your head? What makes you think that?
Tommy: You guys just look like two teenagers in love out there. You can’t deny that.

Sam: You can tell me, Tommy. You gotta tell me, okay? I know you slept in my house.

Cassie: Did you see him die?
Sam: No.[/b]

See him? He was forced to kill him.

[b]Sam: What happened with you and Tommy?
Grace: We kissed. That’s it. I missed you. I thought you were dead.
[long pause]
Sam: I think you’re fucking Tommy.

Tina: Everyone needs some reassurance.
Tommy: Everyone’s different dad, you know.
Hank: What do you mean?
Tina: I just think it’s necessary that everybody has someone to listen to them.
Hank: Right, you know, these days they need therapy if they stub their toe. These guys are Marines. They’re trained for it.
Tina: They’re Marines but they’re still people and I don’t think that anybody is trained to shoot somebody.
Grace: What do you think they are trained for?
Tina: They’re trained to use deadly force, but nobody…
Hank: Trained to kill.
Tina: But nobody is trained to watch someone die.

Isabelle [screaming at her father]: WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST STAY DEAD?!!
Grace: Isabelle!
Isabelle: You’re just mad 'cause Mom would rather sleep with Uncle Tommy than you.
Grace: Isabelle, why would you say that?
Isabelle: Mom and Uncle Tommy had sex all the time!

Grace: Why would say that about me and Uncle Tommy? You know it’s not true.
Isabelle: I don’t like Dad. I’d rather have Uncle Tommy around instead of Dad.
Maggie: Me too.

Sam: You know what I did to get back to you?
Grace: No.
Sam [screaming]: YOU KNOW WHAT I DID TO FUCKING GET BACK TO YOU?! YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU KNOW HOW HE SUFFERED? HE FUCKING SUFFERED BECAUSE OF YOU! AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY FUCKING HOUSE AND MY FUCKING KIDS, GRACE?! YOU’RE FUCKING MY BROTHER IN MY FUCKING HOUSE!
Grace: Sam, you know I didn’t. Sam, please.
SAM: I LOVE YOU GRACE! YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU? YOU KNOW WHAT I…GRACE, DO YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING DID…DO YOU KNOW WHAT I CAN FUCKING DO WITH THESE FUCKING HANDS, GRACE?!
[he slaps himself over and again in the head]
Sam: YOU…FUCK! GOD! FUCK!!!

Sam: I’m drowning, Tommy.

Grace: Sam, what happened over there? Why are you punishing yourself? I’ve loved you since I was 16 years old. But if you don’t tell me what happened you’re not going to see me again.
Sam: I killed him. I killed Joe Willis.

Sam [voiceover]: Who was that said “only the dead have seen the end of war”? I have seen the end of war. The question is, can I live again?[/b]

Some can. Some can’t. But let’s get back to what these particular wars are really all about.

If life really was meaningless and absurd it would probably look like this.

Minimalism they call it. In New York, Ohio and Florida.

It’s also a “cult favorite”. What makes a film one of those is as mysterious to me as what doesn’t make it one. I’m really at a loss to explain why I love this film myself. It blow me away when I first saw it all those years ago and everytime I see it I enjoy it all the more. Maybe it has something to do with being a nihilist. Or always having striven to fit in with the lumpen sort. Being one myself as it were.

Maybe only 5% of the population want to live like this someday. But I’m betting a much bigger chunk than that don’t want to live the way they are now.

Be prepared to do most of the work yourself in trying to assertain “what it means”. Not much apparently. But that’s the point.

As for the envelope filled with money…

IMDb

Director Jim Jarmusch was dismayed to discover all the money he paid for the rights to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” went to the record company, with nothing going to Hawkins himself. When the film earned a profit, Jarmusch took it upon himself to track down Hawkins (who was living in a trailer park, at the time) and give him some money. It was the beginning of a friendship between the two which lasted until Hawkins’ death. According to Jarmusch, Hawkins continuously promised to pay him back, despite Jamursch’s insistence that the money was a gift.

What a fucking great story.

wiki

[b]Film critic Pauline Kael gave the film a generally positive review:

The first section is set in the bare Lower East Side apartment of Willie, who is forced to take in Eva, his 16-year-old cousin from Budapest, for ten days. The joke here is the basic joke of the whole movie. It’s in what Willie doesn’t do: he doesn’t offer her food or drink, or ask her any questions about life in Hungary or her trip; he doesn’t offer to show her the city, or even supply her with sheets for her bed. Then Eddie comes in, even further down on the lumpen scale. Willie bets on the horses; Eddie bets on dog races. Eva, who never gets to see more of New York than the drab, anonymous looking area where Willie lives, goes off to Cleveland to stay with Aunt Lotte and work at a hot-dog stand. And when Willie and Eddie go to see her, all they see is an icy wasteland – slums and desolation – and Eddie says ‘You know it’s funny. You come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same.’ The film has something of the same bombed-out listlessness as Paul Morrissey’s 1970 Trash – it’s Trash without sex or transvestism. The images are so emptied out that Jarmusch makes you notice every tiny, grungy detail. And those black-outs have something of the effect of Samuel Beckett’s pauses: they make us look more intently, as Beckett makes us listen more intently.[/b]

trailer: youtu.be/ToCSOp7FGT0

STRANGER THAN PARADISE [1984]
Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch

[b]Willie: You’re sure you don’t want a TV dinner?
Eva: Yes. I’m not hungry. Why is it called TV dinner?
Willie: Um…You’re supposed to eat it while you watch TV. Television.
Eva: I know what a TV is. Where does that meat come from?
Willie: What do you mean?
Eva: What does that meat come from?
Willie: I guess it comes from a cow.
Eva: From a cow? It doesn’t even look like meat.
Willie: Eva, stop bugging me, will you? You know, this is the way we eat in America. I got my meat, I got my potatoes, I got my vegetables, I got my dessert, and I don’t even have to wash the dishes.

Eva: I’m choking the alligator.

Eva [to Willie]: It’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and he’s a wild man, so bug off.

Willie: I got something for you.
Eva: What is it?
Willie: It’s a present.
Eva: Thanks. What is it? It’s a dress?
Willie: Yeah.
Eva: Oh. Thank you.
[she looks at the dress]
Eva: I think it’s kind of ugly. Don’t you?
Willie: No. I bought it. Why don’t you try it on?
Eva: I don’t really wear this style.
Willie: You know, when you come here, you should dress like people dress here.
Eva [tossing it aside]: I’ll try it on…later.

Willie: Hey, leave me some Chesterfields.
Eva: Can I get them in Cleveland?
Willie: Yeah, yeah, you can get 'em in Cleveland.
Eva: They taste good there, like here?
Willie: It’s the same Chesterfields.
Eva: Yeah?
Willie: All over America. Yeah.

Eddie: You know, last year before I met your cousin, I never know you were from Hungary or Budapest or any of those places.
Willie: So what?
Eddie: I thought you were an American.
Willie: Hey, I’m as American as you are.
[Silence. They begin driving into Cleveland]
Eddie: Does Cleveland look a little like, uh, Budapest?
Willie: Eddie, shut up.

Eddie [in Cleveland]: You know, it’s funny… you come to someplace new, an’… and everything looks just the same.
Willie: No kiddin’, Eddie

Willie [to Eva]: Here, let me tell you a joke, all right? There’s three guys, and they’re walking down the street. One guy says to the other one, “Hey, your shoe’s untied.” He says, “I know that.” And they walk… No… There’s two guys, they’re walking down the street, and one of them says to the other one, “Your shoe’s untied.” And the other guy says, “I know that.” And they walk a couple blocks further, and they see a third friend, and he comes up and says, “Your shoe’s untied.” "Your shoe’s un - " Aaah, I can’t remember this joke. But it’s good.

Eva [looking out over a frozen wasteland]: So, this is it, Lake Erie.

Eva: It was really nice of you to drive all the way out here to see me.
Eddie: It was nice of you to be here.
Willie: Eddie.

Willie: You take me to the dog races and now you tell me “you can’t win them all”.
Eva: What’s going on?
Eddie: Nothing. Nothing’s going on. We just lost all of our money.
Eva: At dog races?!

Eva: So what are we gonna do now?

Eddie: Where did she get all this money? And where did she get that hat?

Willie: I had to buy the ticket so I can get on the plane to take her off the plane.

Eddie [watches plane take off]: Aw, Willie. I had a bad feeling. Damn. What the hell you gonna do in Budapest?[/b]

No Rosemary’s Baby that’s for sure but I still found it to be servicable as a “horror film”.

The ninth gate or the ninety ninth gate, I see it is a metaphor for that part of human existence that will always remain mysterious, murky, malevolent…even murderous.

Something like this:

wiki

[b]Polanski approached the subject skeptically, saying, “I don’t believe in the occult. I don’t believe. Period”; yet he enjoyed the genre, “There [are] a great number of clichés of this type in The Ninth Gate, which I tried to turn around a bit. You can make them appear serious on the surface, but you cannot help but laugh at them”. The appeal of the film was that it featured “a mystery in which a book is the leading character” and its engravings “are also essential clues”.

Polanski read the screenplay by Enrique Urbizu, an adaptation of the Spanish novel El Club Dumas (The Club Dumas, 1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Impressed with the script, Polanski read the novel, liking it because he “saw so many elements that seemed good for a movie. It was suspenseful, funny, and there were a great number of secondary characters that are tremendously cinematic”.[/b]

The “look” and the “atmosphere” of the film draws you in—into a world that would at least be intriguing to believe in. Anything is better than believing in nothing at all. And for all the rest of eternity.

THE NINTH GATE [1999]
Directed by Roman Polanski

[b]Witkin (caustically): You here? You didn’t waste much time.
Corso: Hello, Witkin. There’s a small fortune in there.
(smiles sardonically)
Corso: Help yourself.
Witkin: You’re a vulture, Corso.
Corso: Who isn’t in our business?
Witkin: You’d stoop to anything.
Corso: For a ‘Quixote’ by Ybarra? You bet I would.
Witkin (indignantly): Unscrupulous, thoroughly unscrupulous!
Corso: Good hunting!

Balkan [to Corso]: You’re right, of course. Your friendships don’t concern me in the least. Our relations have always been strictly commercial, isn’t that so? There’s no one more reliable than a man whose loyalty can be bought for hard cash.

Balkan: Ever heard of the ‘Delomelanicon’?
Corso: Heard of it, yes. A myth, isn’t it? Some horrific book reputed to have been written by Satan himself.
Balkan: No myth. That book existed. Torchia actually acquired it. The engravings you’re now admiring were adapted by Torchia from the ‘Delomelanicon’. They’re a form of satanic riddle. Correctly interpreted with the aid of the original text and sufficient inside information, they’re reputed to conjure up the Prince of Darkness in person.
Corso: You don’t say.

Balkan: Are you a religious man, Corso? I mean, do you believe in the supernatural?
Corso: I believe in my percentage. I also believe that books grow old and decay like the rest of us.

Telfer: Okay, where is it?
Corso: Where’s what?
Telfer: Don’t fuck with me!
Corso: I thought I already did.

Balkan: Tack another zero onto your fee.

Fargas: Old families are like civilizations, they wither and die.

Kessler: My latest work: “The Devil: History and Myth” - a kind of biography. It will be published early next year.
Corso: Why the devil?
Kessler [laughs]: I saw him one day. I was fifteen years old, and I saw him as plain as I see you now. It was love at first sight.
Corso: You know, 300 years ago, you’d have been burned at the stake for saying something like that.
Kessler: 300 years ago I wouldn’t have said it! Nor would I have made a million by writing about it.

Balkan: You must see Kessler again.
Corso: Are you kidding? Have you seen her secretary?
Balkan: Try the lunch break.

Balkan: Mumbo-jumbo-mumbo-jumbo-mumbo-jumbo…mumbo-jumbo-mumbo-jumbo-mumbo-jumbo…

Balkan [to the Satanic congregation]: Look around you, all of you, what do you see? A bunch of buffoons, in fancy dress. You think the prince of Darkness would actually deign to manifest himself before the likes of you? He never has and he never will. Never!

Balkan [nervous]: Corso.
Corso: What were you expecting? An apparition?
Balkan: You’re not wanted here, Mr Corso. Leave!
Corso: I’m the only apparition you’ll see tonight.
Balkan: You’ll find a check at my New York office. Payment in full.[/b]

That’s the last check he’ll ever write.

Iñárritu’s movies are always about the ways in which we’re connected to others…and in a manner most of us hardly ever think about at all. This film is the final part of a trilogy, including Amores Perros and 21 Grams.

But in our modern world, those connections can be global in scope. And Babel spans it. A seemingly insignificant event in a seemingly insgnificant part of the world can metastasize into a profusion of consequences…that then spread out far beyond what they ever could before.

Attempts at communication here become miscommunication instead. Then it’s either being or not being in the path of the inevitable fallout.

And then there is the element of culture: Mexico, Japan, Morocco. In some respects people are people are people. But in other respects where you come from makes all the difference in the world.

IMDb

The title refers to the story of the Tower of Babel in the Biblical Book of Genesis. In the story, the people of the world are all united and speak a common language. They begin to build a tower to reach the heavens and become godlike themselves. God, seeing this, decides to confuse the language of the people and destroy the tower. When the people could no longer understand each other they gave up work on the tower and spread out to different parts of the world. It also refers to the connections -or lack thereof- that come through the use of language. In each storyline the characters struggle with surviving and self-identification based on misunderstanding through a language barrier. This film ultimately looks at the fact that we are all intimately connected on a life-and-death level, yet the trivialities of langauge and misunderstandings break us apart. Also, the word ‘babel’ means a confused noise created by a number of voices, which is essentially what the story of the movie is about.

Babel at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_(film

trailer: youtu.be/chNzbahOn_w

BABEL [2006]
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

[b]Susan: Richard, why did we come here?
Richard: What d’you mean why? I thought you would like it.
Susan: Really? Why are we here?
Richard: To forget everything. To be alone.
Susan [sardonically, looking around at all the people]: Alone?

Richard: You’re never going to forgive me are you?
Susan: You know what I’m talking about.
Richard: Hey, I’m not going to argue.
Susan [after a long pause]: Okay. You just let me know when you’re ready to argue.

Chieko [flushing her panties down the toilet]: Now they’re going to meet the real hairy monster.

Yasira: Why are you home so late?
Abdullah: They closed the road, and we had to take the long way around. Apparently some terrorists killed an American tourist.

Mike: My mom told me that Mexico is really dangerous.
Santiago [in Spanish]: Yes, it’s full of Mexicans!

Doctor [in Arabic]: The bullet didn’t hit her spine but if she stays like this, she will bleed to death.
Richard: What did he say?
Anwar: He says she will be fine.

Doctor [in Arabic]: I have to stitch up the wound to stop the bleeding.
Anwar: He said he needs to sew up the wound.
Susan: What did he say?
Richard: He said you’re going to need some stitches, honey.

Richard: What kind of doctor is he?
Anwar: He’s a veterinarian. But he is good.

Abdullah: What the hell are you talking about?
Ahmed: Yussef killed the American and he spies on Zhora naked and Zhora lets him watch her…

Border patrolman: They don’t look like you, ma’am.

Richard: What about you? How many wives do you have?
Anwar: I can only afford one.

Richard: Find me an ambulance! This is your fucked-up country, it’s your responsibility!
Government official: The Americans stopped the ambulance. They want to send a helicopter but there are problems.[/b]

Political problems. It’s all over the news now: an act of terrorism surely.

[b]Yussef: I killed the American, I was the only one who shot at you. They did nothing…nothing. Kill me, but save my brother, he did nothing…nothing. Save my brother…he did nothing.

Mike: Why are we hiding if we didn’t do anything wrong?

Susan: I peed my pants.

Police: Ma’am, it was a miracle that we found those kids. I don’t know how you could leave them alone in the desert.
Amelia: I had to look for help. How are they?
Police: That’s none of your business, ma’am. Do you know how many kids die every year trying to cross this border?
Amelia: Sir, I raised these kids since they were born. I take care of them day and night. I feed them breakfast, lunch and dinner. I play with them. Mike and Debbie are like my own children.[/b]

Not any more.