philosophy in film

There was a game we played in elementary school. We’d sit in the circle and the teacher would whisper a story into the ear of the kid next to her. That kid would whisper it into the ear of the kid next to him. And on and on around the circle until, by the last kid, what was finally said aloud often bore little resemblance to the original story.

Same thing here perhaps. In the oral tradition of aboriginal tribes, “legends” were passed down over the centuries. But you can’t help but wonder about the gap between what happened originally and what is now said to have happened instead.

Sadly, the director chose to tack on an ending basically at odds with the actual legend itself.

The legend this film is based on ends with the hero killing the brothers who have been tormenting him. Paul Apaq, the writer, rewrote the legend because he felt that a message of hope was needed. IMDb

This is a whole other world. A world where “survival of the fittest” is about the only thing that makes sense. And for Atanarjuat at times it’s bare survival.

But it’s not really hard to recognize ourselves in it. It’s just that the individual here is far, far more integrated into the social narrative. And, men being men, the political narratives too. There are simply no alternative “lifestyles” from which they can compare their own.

So, what does it tell us about our own lives? What have we evolved from or devolved into instead? Well, for one thing, not many nihilists here.

Bottom line though is that much of the sexual shenanigans could have taken place here and now. It’s like watching a soap opera at times. And where there are men there are going to be treacherous sons-of-bitches.

IMDb

While this film would never get SPCA approval, every animal killed was used in true Inuit fashion; all the meat was consumed, and the skins were put to practical use.

At wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanarjuat … ast_Runner

trailer: youtu.be/u30kkn3FUHo

ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER [2001]
Directed by Zacharias Kunuk

They can’t go on, they’ll go on.

The old world and the new world can produce very different people. But the capitalists won and, for some, that is harder to endure than for others.

Reminds you of Goodbye Lenin!: creating a fantasy world in order to spare the feelings of one who is old and entrenched in the past. Both films came out the same year.

Here Communism is on the way out but capitalism is scrawny. And crooked. Money has long since replaced “one for all and all for one” and here the “ordinary folks” often struggle to subsist from day to day.

Still, they have their good times…and each other. But: For better and for worse.

We all become enscounced in a family dynamic we can only understand from one point of view. Yet somehow we have to figure out a way to integrate them all together. Or just walk away. If we can.

Why should we even care though? And, less and less, some don’t. Life can be cruel. What else is new.

trailer: youtu.be/B082aEXxk4k

SINCE OTAR LEFT [Depuis qu’Otar Est Parti] 2003
Written and directed by Julie Bertuccelli

[b]Marina [hanging up the phone]: I got cut off. Stalinist!
Eka: If being a Stalinist means being honest, patriotic, altruistic…then I’m a Stalinist! And proud of it too! Stalin was a great man.
Marina: A great man! He was a murderer!
Ada: Stop it, we don’t give a damn about Stalin!
Eka: Stalin never ordered anyone’s death. I can prove it.
[the electricity goes off—again]
Eka: Stalin would have sorted out this mess!

…

Marina [reading of Otar’s death in France]: “Our consulate in Paris has sent the following details. On June 11th Otar Goguebachvili was found at the foot of a scaffold. The French police say he fell from the fifth floor. He died from his wounds on the way to the hospital. The foreman is facing charges because your brother did not have a work visa. The building company denies having hired him. We confirm that your brother’s body has been provisionally buried free of charge in the concession for the poor in the Thiais Cemetary in Paris.”[/b]

Another one bites the dust. Another one takes his place.

[b]Eka [after Ada reads Otar’s “letter”]: Things can’t be all that easy for him. This time he hasn’t sent a bean.

…

Marina [in the shower when the water shuts off]: Life’s impossible in this fucking country!

…

Ada: Where’s the money from?
Marina: I won the lottery.[/b]

Then Niko shows up.

[b]Ada [to Marina]: I hate living with the dead…but I hate plundering them even more.

…

Ada [to Marina]: It’s over, that’s enough. I won’t do it anymore. I’m fed up with lying. You’ll do anything to please your Mum. For her to look at you differently. For her to love you a little more than Otar. That’s why you refuse his death, to continue competing. Because if he dies she’ll make a saint of him and you’ll cease to exist. But it has nothing to do with me. It isn’t my problem, it’s yours. Your fears, doubts, worries…sort them out yourself!

…

Tengiz [trying to explain Marina to Ada]: Don’t blame your mother. Our whole generation’s like that. We failed at everything. We’ve lived a lie our whole lives, without questioning it, since we were children, without realizing it, believing it was happiness.[/b]

And so, tacitly, they all come to share the same lie. They fall back on each other’s good intentions. Is this for the best? Or, more to the point, perhaps: does it work?

Baseball? Moneyball.

Like most everything else that capitalism touches [for better or for worse] it has become a commodity by and large. It is something to make money off of. That doesn’t stop a lot of the players and the fans from loving it for other reasons, of course. Just don’t lose sight of the bottom line. And part and parcel of that is this: the ballplayers themselves become mere commodities. Really, they are traded back and forth here like baseball cards.

But the beauty of any sport is how deeply embedded it is in the world of either/or. Either you win or you lose. Either you are good at it or you are not.

And there are almost always clearly defined rules for every aspect of it.

Not like other parts of our life at all.

But what happens if it becomes less and less fun to play because it becomes more and more about the science of statistics? Everything becomes increasingly more calculated…calibrated. The computer takes over. The “soul” of the game is lost. Or so some insist.

IMDb

[b]Of all the Oakland players from the season represented in the movie (2002), only one played for Oakland in the season that the movie premiered (2011): Mark Ellis (and he was traded away in the middle of the season).

The A’s won the AL west again in 2012 with the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball and a record setting 54 wins by rookie pitchers. The season has been informally called “Moneyball 2” by fans and the press.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball_(film

MONEYBALL [2011]
Directed by Bennett Miller

[b]Title card: “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” Mickey Mantle

…

Billy: The problem we’re trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there’s fifty feet of crap, and then there’s us. It’s an unfair game. And now we’ve been gutted. We’re like organ donors for the rich. Boston’s taken our kidneys, Yankees have taken our heart. And you guys just sit around talking the same old “good body” nonsense like we’re selling jeans. Like we’re looking for Fabio. We’ve got to think differently. We are the last dog at the bowl. You see what happens to the runt of the litter? He dies.

…

Peter: There is an epidemic failure within the game to understand what is really happening. And this leads people who run Major League Baseball teams to misjudge their players and mismanage their teams. I apologize.
Billy: Go on.
Peter: Okay. People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins. And in order to buy wins, you need to buy runs. You’re trying to replace Johnny Damon. The Boston Red Sox see Johnny Damon and they see a star who’s worth seven and half million dollars a year. When I see Johnny Damon, what I see is…is…an imperfect understanding of where runs come from. The guy’s got a great glove. He’s a decent leadoff hitter. He can steal bases. But is he worth the seven and half million dollars a year that the Boston Red Sox are paying him? No. No. Baseball thinking is medieval. They are asking all the wrong questions. And if I say it to anybody, I’m-I’m ostracized. I’m-I’m-I’m a leper. So that’s why I’m-I’m cagey about this with you. That’s why I… I respect you, Mr. Beane, and if you want full disclosure, I think it’s a good thing that you got Damon off your payroll. I think it opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities.

…

Billy: Where you from, Pete?
Peter: Maryland.
Billy: Where’d you go to school?
Peter: Yale. I went to Yale.
Billy: What’d you study?
Peter: Economics. I studied economics.
Billy: Yale, economics, and baseball. You’re funny, Pete.

…

Billy: Pack your bags Pete, I just bought you from the Cleveland Indians.

…

Peter: It’s about getting things down to one number. Using the stats the way we read them, we’ll find value in players that no one else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, personality. Bill James and mathematics cut straight through that. Billy, of the 20,000 notable players for us to consider, I believe that there is a championship team of twenty-five people that we can afford, because everyone else in baseball undervalues them.

…

Peter: Billy, this is Chad Bradford. He’s a relief pitcher. He is one of the most undervalued players in baseball. His defect is that he throws funny. Nobody in the big leagues cares about him because he looks funny. This guy could be not just the best pitcher in our bullpen, but one of the most effective relief pitchers in all of baseball. This guy should cost $3 million a year. We can get him for $237,000.

…

Billy: He gets on base a lot. Do I care if it’s a walk or a hit?

…

Scott Hatteberg: I’ve only ever played catcher.
Billy: It’s not that hard, Scott. Tell him, Wash.
Ron Washington: It’s incredibly hard.

…

Grady: Baseball and its fans will be more than happy to throw you and Goggle Boy under the bus if you keep doing what you’re doing. You don’t put a team together with a computer.
Billy: No?
Grady: No. Baseball isn’t just numbers. It’s not science. If it was, anybody could do what we’re doing but they can’t. You got a kid in there that’s got a degree in economics from Yale. You got a scout here with 29 years of baseball experience. You’re listening to the wrong one. There are intangibles that only baseball people understand.

…

Grady: Major League Baseball thinks the way I think. You’re not gonna win. And I’ll give you a nickel’s worth of free advice. You’re never going to get another job when Schott fires you after this catastrophic season you’re setting us all up for. And then you’re gonna have to explain to your kid why you’re working at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Billy: I’m not gonna fire you, Grady.
Grady: Fuck you, Billy.
Billy: Now I will.

…

Radio host: We’ve got Grady Fuson, former head of scouting for the Athletics. Grady, can you interpret for us what is going on?
Grady: They call it Moneyball.
Host: Moneyball?
Grady: Yes, and it was a nice theory, and now it’s just not working out.
Commentator: Billy Bean has build this team on the ideas of a guy, Bill James, who wrote an interesting book on baseball statistics. The problem is that Bill James never played, never managed. He was in fact a security guard at a pork-and-beans company.

…

Billy: Would you rather get one shot in the head or five in the chest and bleed to death?
Peter: Are those my only two options?

…

Billy [to himself—with the team in last place]: What the hell am I doing?

…

Billy [to Peter]: When you get the answer you’re looking for you hang up.

…

Billy: Art, you got a minute?
Art: Yeah. Take a seat.
Billy: You can’t start Peña at first tonight. You’ll have to start Hatteberg.
Art: Yeah, I don’t want to go fifteen rounds, Billy. The lineup card is mine, and that’s all.
Billy: That lineup card is definitely yours. I’m just saying you can’t start Peña at first.
Art: Well, I am starting him at first.
Billy: I don’t think so. He plays for Detroit now.

…

David Justice: How you likin’ first base, man?
Scott Hatteberg: It’s, uh… it’s coming along. Picking it up. You know, tough transition, but I’m starting to feel better with it.
David Justice: Yeah?
Scott Hatteberg: Yeah.
David Justice: What’s your biggest fear?
Scott Hatteberg: A baseball being hit in my general direction
[Hatteberg and Justice share a laugh]
David Justice: That’s funny. Seriously, what is it?
Scott Hatteberg: No, seriously, that is.
[uncomfortable pause; Hatteberg leaves]
David Justice: Well, hey, good luck with that.

…

Billy: I hate losing even more than I wanna win. And there’s a difference.

…

Billy: When your enemy is making mistakes, don’t interrupt him.

…

Billy: It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball. This kind of thing, it’s fun for the fans. It sells tickets and hot dogs. Doesn’t mean anything.
Peter: Billy, we just won twenty games in a row.
Billy: And what’s the point?
Peter: We just got the record.
Billy: Man, I’ve been doing this for… listen, man. I’ve been in this game a long time. I’m not in it for a record, I’ll tell you that. I’m not in it for a ring. That’s when people get hurt. If we don’t win the last game of the Series, they’ll dismiss us.
Peter: Billy…
Billy: I know these guys. I know the way they think, and they will erase us. And everything we’ve done here, none of it’ll matter. Any other team wins the World Series, good for them. They’re drinking champagne, they get a ring. But if we win, on our budget, with this team… we’ll have changed the game. And that’s what I want. I want it to mean something.

…

John Henry: For forty-one million, you built a playoff team. You lost Damon, Giambi, Isringhausen, Pena and you won more games without them than you did with them. You won the exact same number of games that the Yankees won, but the Yankees spent one point four million per win and you paid two hundred and sixty thousand. I know you’ve taken it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall. It always gets bloody, always. It’s the threat of not just the way of doing business, but in their minds it’s threatening the game. But really what it’s threatening is their livelihoods, it’s threatening their jobs, it’s threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it’s the government or a way of doing business or whatever it is, the people are holding the reins, have their hands on the switch. They go bat shit crazy. I mean, anybody who’s not building a team right and rebuilding it using your model, they’re dinosaurs. They’ll be sitting on their ass on the sofa in October, watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series.[/b]

When it comes to man’s inhumanity to man this is barely a blip on the screen. And those who pop up here have nothing but the best of intentions spurring them on. Just ask them.

Racism. It is so pervasive [over the course of human history] some argue it must somehow be programed into our genes.
But so much of it is rooted in turn in class. In ignorance. In scape-goating. In the politics of race-baiting.

Like this for example: youtu.be/DtrC3rMP1lQ

And, needless to say, Christianity is everywhere here.

But then some will note: “Well, maybe taking them the way they did is wrong…but aren’t they really better off in the ‘modern world’”? And in some contexts this can surely be a considerably more complex state of affairs than in others.

This is truly a remarkable story. We are talking about three little girls [the oldest 14] making a 1,500 mile journey into the Australian outback. All to get home.

IMDb

[b]The world premiere of this film was held in an outdoor screening at Jigalong, the outback community where the girls were taken from, and where their families still live.

Everlyn Sampi, (Molly Craig), ran away twice during filming. In one instance, she was found in a phone booth, trying to buy tickets back to Broome.

The last scene in the movie, which shows the real-life Molly Craig walking with a walking stick, was shot first. According to Phillip Noyce, during an interview after a screening, Molly’s age and health made it so that it would be best if that scene was shot first.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit-Proof_Fence_(film

trailer: youtu.be/rB-jkydqADg

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE [2002]
Directed: Phillip Noyce

[b]Title Card: Western Australia 1931. For 100 years the Aboriginal Peoples have resisted the invasion of their lands by white settlers. Now, a special law, the Aborigines Act, controls their lives in every detail. Mr. A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, is the legal guardian of every Aborigine in the State of Western Australia. He has the power “to remove any half-caste child” from their family, from anywhere within the state.

…

Molly [voice over, in native language]: This is a true story - story of my sister Daisy, my cousin Gracie and me when we were little. Our people, the Jigalong mob, we were desert people then, walking all over our land. My mum told me about how the white people came to our country. They made a storehouse here at Jigalong - brought clothes and other things - flour, tobacco, tea. Gave them to us on ration day. We came there, made a camp nearby. They were building a long fence.

…

A.O. Neville: Er, now, this report from Constable Riggs about three little half-caste girls at the Jigalong fence depot - Molly, Gracie and Daisy. The youngest is of particular concern. She is promised to a full-blood. I’m authorising their removal. They’re to be taken to Moore River as soon as possible.

…

A.O. Neville: As you know, every Aborigine born in this State comes under my control. Notice, if you will, the half-caste child. And there are ever-increasing numbers of them. Now, what is to happen to them? Are we to allow the creation of an unwanted third race? Should coloureds be encouraged to go back to the black? Or should they be advanced to white status and be absorbed in the white population?

…

A.O. Neville: Now, time and again, I’m asked by some white man, "If I marry this coloured person, “will our children be black?” And as Chief Protector of Aborigines, it is my responsibility to accept or reject those marriages. Here is the answer. Three generations. Half-blood grandmother. Quadroon daughter. Octoroon grandson. Now, as you can see, in the third generation, or third cross, no trace of native origin is apparent. The continuing infiltration of white blood finally stamps out the black colour. The Aboriginal has simply been bred out.

…

Nina, Dormitory Boss [to Molly, Daisy and Gracie on their first morning at Moore River]: What’s your name? Where you from?
[they don’t answer]
Nina: You’ll get used to it.

…

Gracie [in native language to her cousins]: New clothes!
Miss Jessop [in English]: This is your new home. We don’t use that jabber here. You speak English.

…

Molly [to herself about everybody in Moore River] These people…make me sick! They make me sick.

…

Molly: We’re hungry.
Woman: Are youse that lot from Moore River?
Molly: Yeah.
Woman: What - you girls walk all that way?
Molly: Yeah.
Woman: 800 miles? I was there. Too scared to run away, but. Everyone was always caught, stuck in that boob. Youse got the furtherest. Where you heading?
Molly: Home.

…

Moodoo [tracker]: Pretty clever, this girl. She wants to go home.

…

Man: Good thing you kids ran into me. A lot of people worried for you. The police are up and down the country looking for youse. It’s in all the papers.

…

Molly [to Grandmother]: I lost one…I lost one.

…

A.O. Neville [dictating a letter]: To Constable Riggs, Police Station, Nullagine. At present, we lack the funds to pursue the missing half-caste girls, Molly and Daisy. I would ask to be kept informed of their whereabouts, so that at some future date, they may indeed be…recovered. We face an uphill battle with these people…especially the bush natives, who have to be protected against themselves. If they would only understand what we are trying to do for them.

…

Molly [voiceover as an old woman in the present day]: We walked for nine weeks, a long way, all the way home. Then we went straightaway and hid in the desert. Got married. I had two baby girls. Then they took me and my kids back to that place, Moore River. And I walked all the way back to Jigalong again. carrying Annabelle the little one. When she was 3, that Mr. Neville took her away. I’ve never seen her again.

…

Molly [voiceover]: Gracie is dead now. She never made it back to Jigalong. Daisy and me, we’re here living in our country, Jigalong. We’re never going back to that place.

…

Title card: Mr Neville was Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia for 25 years. He retired in 1940. Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families throughout Australia until 1970. Today many of these Aboriginal people continue to suffer from this destruction of identity, family life and culture. We call them the Stolen Generations.[/b]

The age of innocence? Isn’t that the age before ironism?

Hmm. Is there an age after it?

Inncocence here being a proper place for everything and everything being in its proper place. And then extending that iron clad truth to people.

And given the way in which people actually are what could possibly be more ironic?

It’s not that ironists did not exist back then, but that they had to keep it all well hidden. After all, among the gentry a faux paux was not to be taken lightly.

But in a sense these people really were innocent in that it would never even occur to them the world could be understood in any other way.

In large part this revolves around conflicting notions of human freedom: is it aimed more outward or inward? Is someone completely at home in a particular world more or less free than another who flits about more ambiguously in several?

They are both gorgeous but once together how long would the passion last? How different was it really back then? And in being gorgeous many others would go after them, right?

Bottom line: Is he an honorable man…or a coward?

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE [1993]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

[b]Narrator: Carriages waited at the curb for the entire performance. It was widely known in New York, but never acknowledged, that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.

…

Narrator: The Beauforts’ house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ballroom. Such a room, shuttered in darkness three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, was felt to compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past. Regina Beaufort came from an old South Carolina family, but her husband Julius, who passed for an Englishman, was known to have dissipated habits, a bitter tongue and mysterious antecedents. His marriage assured him a social position, but not necessarily respect.

…

Narrator: But only by actually passing through the crimson drawing room could one see “Return of Spring,” the much-discussed nude by Bougeureau, which Beaufort had had the audacity to hang in plain sight. Archer enjoyed such challenges to convention. He questioned conformity in private but in public he upheld family and tradition. This was a world balanced so precariously that its harmony could be shattered by a whisper.

…

Narrator: On the whole, Lawrence Lefferts was the foremost authority on “form” in New York. On the question of pumps versus patent- leather Oxfords, his authority had never been disputed.

…

Mrs. Archer: Poor Ellen. We must always remember what an eccentric bringing-up Medora Manson gave her. What can you expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming-out ball?

…

Narrator: They all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world. The real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs. These signs were not always subtle, and all the more significant for that. The refusals were more than a simple snubbing. They were an eradication.

…

Ellen: Can I tell you, though what most interests me about New York? It’s that nothing has to be traditional here. All this blind obeying of tradition. . . somebody else’s tradition. . . is thoroughly needless. It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it a copy of another country. Do you suppose Christopher Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the opera with Larry Lefferts?
Newland: I think if he knew Lefferts was here the Santa Maria would never have left port.

…

Ellen: Is fashion such a serious consideration?
Newland: Among those who have nothing more serious to consider.

…

Newland: What could you possibly gain that would make up for the scandal.
Ellen: My freedom?

…

Ellen [to Newland]: Do you think her lover will send her a box of yellow roses tomorrow morning?

…

Narrator: He could feel May dropping back to inexpressive girlishness. Her conscience had been eased of its burden. It was wonderful, he thought, how such depths of feeling could co-exist with such an absense of imagination.

…

Ellen: Newland. You couldn’t be happy if it meant being cruel. If we act any other way I’ll be making you act against what I love in you most. And I can’t go back to that way of thinking. Don’t you see? I can’t love you unless I give you up.

…

Narrator: Archer had gradually reverted to his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with tradition. There was no use trying to emancipate a wife who hadn’t the dimmest notion that she was not free.

…

Newland: We had an awfully good talk. Interesting fellow. We talked about books and things. I asked him to dinner.
May: The Frenchman? I didn’t have much chance to talk to him, but wasn’t he a little common? Newland: Common? I thought he was clever.
May: I suppose I shouldn’t have known if he was clever.
Newland (quickly, resigned): Then I won’t ask him to dine.
Narrator: With a chill he knew that, in the future, many problems would be solved for him in this same way.

…

Narrator: The first six months of marriage were usually said to be the hardest, and after that, he thought, they would have pretty nearly finished polishing down all the rough edges. But May’s pressure was already wearing down the very roughness he most wanted to keep. As for the madness with Madame Olenska, Archer trained himself to remember it as the last of his discarded experiments. She remained in his memory simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts.

…

Mrs. Mingott: I gave up arguing with young people 50 years ago.

…

Newland: You gave me my first glimpse of a real life. Then you asked me to go on with the false one. No one can endure that.
Ellen: I’m enduring it.

…

Ellen: I think we should look at reality, not dreams.
Newland: I just want us to be together!
Ellen: I can’t be your wife, Newland! Is it your idea that I should live with you as your mistress?
Newland: I want… Somehow, I want to get away with you…and…and find a world where words like that don’t exist!
Ellen: Oh my dear…whare is that country? Have you ever been there? Is there anywhere we can be happy behind the backs of people who trust us?
Newland: I’m beyond caring about that.
Ellen: No, you’re not. You’ve never been beyond that. I have. I know what it looks like. A lie in every silence. It’s no place for us.

…

May: Newland! You’ll catch your death.
Newland: Catch my death. Of course.
Narrator: But then he realized, I am dead. I’ve been dead for months and months. Then it occurred to him that she might die. People did. Young people, healthy people, did. She might die, and set him free.

…

Narrator: Newland guessed himself to have been, for months, the center of countless silently observing eyes and patiently listening ears. He understood that, somehow, the separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved. And he knew that now the whole tribe had rallied around his wife. He was a prisoner in the center of an armed camp.

…

Narrator: The silent organization which held this whole small world together was determined to put itself on record. It had never for a moment questioned the propriety of Madame Olenska’s conduct. It had never questioned Archer’s fidelity. And it had never heard of, suspected, or even conceived possible, anything at all to the contrary. From the seamless performance of this ritual, Archer knew that New York believed him to be Madame Olenska’s lover. And he understood, for the first time, that his wife shared the belief.

…

Narrator: It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had happened. Their eldest boy, Theodore, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter, had been christened there. It was here that Ted took his first steps. And it was here that Archer and his wife always discussed the future of all their children. Bill’s interest in archaeology. Mary’s passion for sport and philanthropy. Ted’s inclinations toward “art” that led to a job with an architect, as well as some considerable redecoration. It was in this room that Mary had announced her engagement to the dullest and most reliable of Larry Lefferts’ many sons. And it was in this room, too, that her father had kissed her through her wedding veil before they motored to Grace Church. He was a dutiful, loving father, and a faithful husband. When May died of infectious pneumonia after nursing Bill safely through, he had honestly mourned her. The world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever noticing. This hard bright blindness, her incapacity to recognize change, made her children conceal their views from her, just as Archer concealed his. She died thinking the world a good place, full of loving and harmonious households like her own. Newland Archer, in his fifty- seventh year, mourned his past and honored it.

…

Narrator: Whenever he thought of Ellen Olenska, it had been abstractly, serenely, like an imaginary loved one in a book or picture. She had become the complete vision of all that he had missed.

…

Ted [son]: The day before she died, she asked to see me alone, remember? She said she knew we were safe with you and always would be because once when she asked you to, you gave up the thing you wanted most.[/b]

This is the original. And it is better [in my opinion] than the Hollywood rendition above. But both are worth watching because the narrative delves into the very nature of identity and relationships out in a world able to jolt you into an entirely new frame of mind.

In my view, the mistake both films make is not putting the climactic scene from Afghanistan at the end of the movie. It would have been more dramatic because we [along with the characters on the screen] would grasp in an entirely different way the changes in Michael.

But no doubt about it: the events depicted in Afghanistan are far more powerful in this film than in Sheridan’s. You agonize more in imagining your own behavior.

This is one of the few films I believe should have been a lot longer. It would have been more gripping if more time had been taken to flesh out the relationship between the three main characters.

An examination of both films:

reuters.com/article/2009/11/ … O320091123
movies.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/mo … .html?_r=0

trailer: youtu.be/P5e2IM4QAMY

BROTHERS [Brødre] 2004
Written and directed by Susanne Bier

The ship is sinking. But not fast. Or [for some] not fast enough. Said to be a “metaphor” for post-revolutionary Iran, it can in fact be made applicable to many, many other contexts as well. An iron island in an iron world.

God and denomination. Ho-hum. They still rule the roost in many parts of the world. But out on a diplapidated oil tanker, moored a few hundred yards off the Iranian coast?

And the Captain. Is he more or less a benevolent despot?

And we still live in a world where it can be pointed out that these folks are some of the lucky ones.

That these people are struggling to survive from day to day on an abandoned oil tanker speaks volumes in and of itself. Given the relationship between God and oil in this part of the world.

trailer: youtu.be/3yoTgy3gDgI

IRON ISLAND [Jazireh Ahani] 2005
Written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

[b]Repeated line: God willing…

…

Teacher: The ship…
Students: The ship…
Teacher: …is in the sea.
Students: …is in the sea.
Teacher: The ship…
Students: The ship…
Teacher: …sinks more…
Students: …sinks more…
Teacher: …in the sea every day.
Students: …in the sea every day.

…

Captain [to Ahmad]: Say you’ve fucked up.

…

Teacher: Forgive him. Let him go. He is young.
Captin: If I let him go, there’ll be chaos on this ship.

…

Ahmad [after repeated dunkings in the sea]: I fucked up! I’m sorry Captain! For God’s sake! I fucked up! I fucked up![/b]

Keep them doped with religion…

The 25th hour is a whole other world. One almost all of us want to avoid.

Drug laws in America. Too draconian? Or not draconian enough? But Lee doesn’t show the side he does In Jungle Fever. Remember the Taj Mahal and Gator? Monty is the scumbag here in this regard. But, as always, it is the scumbags behind him that are the most frightening of all.

His other friend is hooked on Wall Street. And who then is the bigger threat to folks like us? The folks they’ll tell you really count.

Bottom line? In the end [or so it seems] fuck everyone. One way or another they all play a part in it. And [it goes without saying] DON’T TRUST NOBODY!

Not realistic at all for most folks but relationships like this are everywhere. And in the Big City they are often everywhere else too.

But [in the end] what are friends for if not to make you ugly before you go into the joint.

Look for 9/11. And [sigh] God.

trailer: youtu.be/z-WuU7w3FCk

25TH HOUR
Directed by Spike Lee

[b]Monty [putting abused dog in the trunk]: I’m trying to help you, you little prick!

…

Kostya: You’re bad luck, Monty. You bring bad luck on me. Always everything that can go wrong, go wrong. It is not just you and me anymore when we go out. It’s you and me and Doyle.
Monty: Who’s Doyle?
Kostya: Doyle! Doyle’s Law.
Monty: It’s Murphy.
Kostya: What? Who is Murphy? Who’s Murphy?
Monty: Who’s Doyle? It’s Murphy’s Law – “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.”
Kostya: Him! Yes.

…

Mary: I wanted to know why I got a B minus on my paper.
Jakob: You got what you earned.
Mary: Nobody else in that class can write! You know it! I know it! Everyone knows it!
Jakob: Don’t worry about anyone else. You’re not competing with them.
Mary: Yeah. But I am. Okay. I am competing with them. When you apply for college, you might have heard of this, they look at these things called grades and if your grades aren’t good enough…
Jakob: Your grades are going to be fine.
Mary: Vincent Phiscalla writes a story about his grandmother dying and you give him an A plus. And meanwhile, the night of the funeral, you wanna know where Rhodes Scholar Vince is? Getting smashed at a basketball party and slapping girls asses. I mean, what is that? A charity A+? You wanna know why everybody always writes about their grandmothers dying? It’s not because it’s so traumatic. It’s because it’s a guaranteed A+! And you sit there all sentimental “Oh, Vince it was very powerful, very moving.” No, it wasn’t. You didn’t care! I didn’t care! Nobody cared! That’s what grandmothers do. They die!

…

Phelan: Uhm, what’s the big deal with the unemployment number anyway?
Frank: Fellan…
Phelan: It’s, uh… Phelan.
Frank: Whatever, look…more jobs means fewer people looking for work, means it’s harder to find good people to fill those jobs, means you gotta raise wages to get them, means inflation goes up. You got it?
Phelan: Yeah.
Frank: No, I didn’t think so. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing and you’re handing out junk mail.

…

Naturelle: What do you want?
Monty: I want to be like that girl in the X-Men – that one that can walk through walls.

…

Agent Flood: Sh-e-e-e-it. Mr. Brogan, I do believe you’re fucked.

…

James [Pop]: This should never have happened. You could’ve been – you wanted money, you could’ve done anything you wanted – doctor, lawyer. That’s all I’m saying.
Monty: Don’t lay that on me. When Sal and his crew were squeezing you for the payments, I didn’t hear you wishing I was a law school student then. Not one word from you back then. Where’d you think that money was coming from – Donald Trump?

…

Monty [standing in the men’s bathroom, talking to himself in a mirror with “FUCK YOU!” written on it]: Yeah, fuck you, too. Fuck me? Fuck you. Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car - get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped-up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin’ and dealin’ and schemin’. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn’t know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Worldcom! Fuck the Puerto Ricans. Twenty to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin’ parade in the city. And don’t even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, ‘cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their Jason Giambi Louisville Slugger baseball bats, trying to audition for “The Sopranos.” Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermès scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You’re not fooling anybody, sweetheart! Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don’t want to play defense, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the fuck on! Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus-violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child’s pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you’re at it, fuck J.C.! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin’ Otisville, J.! Fuck Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and backward-ass cave-dwelling fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel-headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass! Fuck Jacob Elinsky. Whining malcontent. Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend’s ass. Fuck Naturelle Riviera, I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back, sold me up the river, fucking bitch. Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar sipping on club sodas, selling whisky to firemen, and cheering the Bronx Bombers. Fuck this whole city and everyone in it. From the row-houses of Astoria to the penthouses on Park Avenue, from the projects in the Bronx to the lofts in Soho. From the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park Slope to the split-levels in Staten Island. Let an earthquake crumble it, let the fires rage, let it burn to fucking ash and then let the waters rise and submerge this whole rat-infested place.
[pause]
Monty: No. No, fuck you, Montgomery Brogan. You had it all, and you threw it away, you dumb fuck!

…

Monty: …everything’s gotten so strange, Pop. I look at these people around me, and I’m thinking, “These are my friends? I don’t even know these people.” You know, and – and Naturelle, even. Do I – do I really know her?

…

Jakob [staring down at the 9/11 construction]: Yeah, The New York Times says the air’s bad down here.
Frank: Oh, yeah? Well, fuck The Times. I read the Post. E.P.A. says it’s fine.
Jakob: Somebody’s lying.

…

Jakob: What do we say to him?
Frank: Don’t say nothing. He’s going to hell for seven years. What are you gonna do, wish him luck? Just get him drunk. Make sure he has one last good night.

…

Frank: Come on, Jake, don’t feed me that bullshit. Yeah, he got caught. But hello – Monty’s a fucking drug dealer. Shit. What, are you – you driving a vintage Super “B”? - No. He is. Yeah, paid for by the misery of other people. He got caught. He’s gonna get locked up. And I’ll tell you something else. You two are my best friends in the whole world, and I love him like a brother, but he fucking deserves it. He deserves it.

…

Agent Flood: You don’t read the papers much, do you smart guy? In New York? We’ve a wonderful thing called the Rockefeller laws. Let me educate you. You had a kilo in your sofa. That kind of weight makes it an A1 felony. 15 years to life minimum for a first offense. Now with that much spread in the sentencing guidelines, the judges take their cues from the prosecutors. So if the prosecutors wife busted his chops that morning, you’re fucked. You’re gone for good. If you get lucky? Really lucky? And let’s say he got some good trim the night before. Maybe he’ll plea you off to an A2. But that’s still 3 to 8 for first time, minimum. How much of that stretch you pull is all up to the mood of the prosecutor. And he’s gonna ask us, “Did he play ball?” So, why don’t you tell us about your friend, Nikolai? Let us make it easy on you.
Monty: [to Agent Cunningham] Can I ask you one question?
Agent Cunningham: Sure.
Monty: When you have your dick in his mouth, does he just keep talking like that? Cause it seems to me he just never shuts up. I’m just curious does that get annoying? You know, you’re fucking a guy in the mouth and he just won’t shut up?
Agent Cunningham: Look here, you vanilla motherfucker. When you’re upstate, takin’ it in the culo by a buncha guys callin’ you Shirley, you’ll only have yourself and Governor Rockefeller to thank for the privilege.

…

Frank: You know what a man should never ask in a Victoria’s Secret shop, Jake?
Jakob: What?
Frank: “Does this come in children’s sizes?”

…

Monty: Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.

…

Monty: I’m not gonna make it, Frank.
Frank: Yes, you will.
Monty: There’s a thousand guys up there who are harder than me. I mean, in a room, some junkie doesn’t want to pay me, and Kostya behind me, I’m pretty scary. Up there, I’m a skinny white boy with no friends.

…

Frank [to Naturelle]: Fucking last 10 years, I’ve been watching him get deeper and deeper in with these friends of his, these fucks who you wouldn’t want petting Doyle. And did I say, “Hey, careful, Monty, you better cool out, man”? I didn’t say shit. I just sat there and watched him ruin his life. And you did, too, all right? We both did. - We all did.

…

Naturelle: I told Monty he should quit a hundred times.
Frank: Did you? Was that before or after you moved into his apartment?
Naturelle: Of all nights, please not tonight. Just don’t start.
Frank: Who paid for the apartment? Who paid for the Cartier diamond earrings… this silver dress you’re wearing? Paid in full by the addictions of other people.

…

Monty [to Frank]: I need you to make me ugly.[/b]

It’s not your America, it’s not my America, it’s their America. And that will make all the difference in the world. America is a frame of mind rooted in a particular set of experiences unfolding at a particular moment in time.

In other words, before it’s all those things that some of us will insist it is instead.

The rest is politics. Which is to say, why should hard working families ever have to live like this in the richest country on earth? And in that regard, those who “run things” here will always be scum to me. But, then again, that’s my America.

Imagine raising your own kids in “the dope addict building”.

Life is hard. But this film, in being based in large part on the director’s own life, shows lots of different ways to make it less so. But nothing ever makes it easy.

And always the same wrenching decision for some: With or without God?

Do you believe in miracles?

[nope]

trailer: youtu.be/CK4sLTF0MPA

IN AMERICA [2002]
Written and directed by Jim Sheridan

[b]Christy [voiceover]: There’s some things you should wish for and some things you shouldn’t. That’s what my little brother Frankie told me. He told me I only had three wishes, and I looked into his eyes, and I don’t know why I believed him.

…

Immigration Officer: How many children do you have?
Johnny: Three.
Sarah: Two.
Johnny: Two.
Immigration Officer: Says three here.
Johnny: We lost one.

…

Christy [voiceover]: We heard Manhattan before we ever saw it, a thousand strange voices coming from everywhere. And you’re not going to believe this, but we had to go under the water to get to the city. And we lost contact with everything; it was like we were on another planet.

…

Ariel: Cool!
Christy: Cool? Where’d you hear that?
Ariel: I don’t know, I just heard it.
Christy: Ugh, you’re already American, it’s disgusting![/b]

Hear, hear!

[b]Johnny: It’s a bit of a hole.

…

Christy [voiceover]:And then summer came, and with it the heat. And a new word; humidity.

…

Johnny: Give me the rent money.

…

Christy [voiceover]: Ariel was worried about a blind man called José.
Ariel: Christy, why can’t José see?
Christy: It’s not “José, can you see”, it’s “Oh say, can you see”.

…

Johnny: Why would youse wanna be the same as everybody else?
Ariel: 'Cause everybody else goes trick-or-treating.
Sarah: What’s that?
Ariel: It’s what they do here for Halloween.
Johnny: What do you mean? Like, help the Halloween party?
Christy: No. Not help the Halloween party. You don’t ask for help in America. You demand it. Trick-or-treat- you don’t ask, you threaten.
Sarah: You can’t do that on our street.
Christy: Why not?
Sarah: Because you can’t threaten drug addicts and transvestites, that’s why.
Ariel: What are transvestites?
Christy: A man who dresses up as a woman.
Ariel: For Halloween?

…

Johnny: Do you want me to lie?
Sarah: You’re the only actor in the world who can’t lie, Johnny. Not even for the sake of your kids.
Johnny: What does that mean?
Sarah: If you can’t touch somebody you created, how can you create somebody that’ll touch anybody?
Johnny [bewildered]: What are you going on about?
Sarah: Acting, Johnny. And bringing something to life, it’s the same thing. That’s why you can’t get a job acting, Johnny, because you can’t feel anything.

…

Mateo: You don’t believe.
Johnny: In what? In God? I asked him a favor once. I asked him to take me instead of him. But he took both of us. And look what he put in my place.

…

Johnny: Do you wanna be me? Do you wanna be in my place?
Mateo: I wish.
Johnny: Are you in love with her? Are you in love with her?
Mateo: No. I’m in love with you. And I’m in love with your beautiful woman. And I’m in love with your kids. And I’m even in love with your unborn child. I’m even in love with your anger! I’m in love with anything that lives!
Johnny: You’re dying
[long pause]
Johnny: I’m sorry.

…

Mateo: What was Frankie like?
Johnny: A warrior.
Mateo: Maselu masela.
Johnny: What does that mean?
Mateo: A warrior who is not afraid to go to the other side.
Johnny: The other side of what?

…

Christy [voiceover]: My mom had to go into hospital, so I thought about using my third wish. But I had to be careful. If the baby came too soon, the baby might die, and if the baby came too late, my mom might die. You have to be careful what you wish for.

…

Johnny [to himself]: “To be or not to be.” Blah, blah, blah. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to stick me head in the damn oven and end it all.

…

Sarah: If the baby dies, just don’t wake me up.

…

Christy: What if I have it?
Johnny: Have what?
Christy: Mateo’s disease.
Johnny: That’s not possible, Christy?
Christy: How do you know that?
Johnny: God won’t let that happen to you.
Christy: You don’t believe in God.

…

Ariel: I’m scared.
Johnny: Don’t be scared.
Ariel: Everyone’s dying.

…

Johnny: Are you okay little girl?
Christy: Don’t “little girl” me. I’ve been carrying this family on my back for over a year, ever since Frankie died. He was my brother too. It’s not my fault that he’s dead. It’s not my fault that I’m still alive.
Johnny: Ah, Christy.
Christy: Mom was always crying because he was her son. But he was my brother too. I cried too…when no one was looking. I talked to him every night.
Ariel: She did, Dad.
Christy: I talked to him every night, until…
Johnny: …until when?
Christy: Until I realized I was talking to myself.

…

Christy [voiceover]: It was as hard for Frankie to smile when the tumor was malignant as it was for my dad to cry after. But they both managed it. I’m going to switch this off now. It’s not the way I want to see Frankie any more. Do you still have a picture of me in your head? Well, that’s like the picture I want to have of Frankie. One that you can keep in your head forever. So when you go back to reality, I’ll ask Frankie to please, please let me go.[/b]

First of all, a pet peeve of mine. Call it the Jeopardy Syndrome. When someone accummulates an extraordinary amount of knowledge about many vast and varied things we call her “smart”. Someone who solves the New York Times crossword puzzle the fastest. Someone who wins tons of money on Who Wants To be A Millionaire. They know lots and lots and lots of facts about the world around us. Or they have a phenomenal memory.

But what does this sort of knowledge have to do with figuring out things like, say, “why do millions of people still live in festering slums like the one protrayed here—and throughout the entire Third World?” Let alone in proposing possible solutions to rid the world of them.

As for the movie itself…it’s a fairy-tale. A preposterous fairy-tale probably. The same people who believe in it believe they can go on the show, become a millionaire and then live happily ever after. The whole point of movies like this may well be that all the other slum dwellers can live through them vicariously. A brief respite from the reality of their actual lives.

[See the wiki article below for all of the controversies surrounding the film. And the politics]

IMDb

[b]Mercedes-Benz asked that its logos be removed in scenes taking place in the slums. The company, according to Danny Boyle, did not want to be associated with the poverty-stricken area, fearing that that might taint its image.

As of 2010, this and Schindler’s List are the only films to win Best Picture, Director and Screenplay at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and the Oscars.

Local Indian authorities decided to step in and move the children and their families from slums to new houses.[/b]

IMDb FAQs: imdb.com/title/tt1010048/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controvers … illionaire

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE [2008]
Directed by Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan

Title Card: Jamal Malik is one question away from 20 million rupees. How did he do it?
A: He cheated
B: He’s lucky
C: He’s a genius
D: It is written

He’s incredibly lucky! Most of the questions just happen to coincide with events in his life that would allow him to know the answer. It’s called a script. It is written [in other words] in advance.

[b]Interrogator: A little electricity will loosen his tongue. Give him.
Srinivas: Yes sir:
Interrogator [to Jamal who has been tortured and is now hanging from the ceiling]: Okay. So, were you wired up? Mobile or pager? A coughing accomplice in the audience…or a microchip under the skin? Why don’t you save us both a lot of time and tell me how you cheated.

…

Srinivas: What if he knows the answers?
Police Inspector [whispering to him]: Doctors… Lawyers… never get past 60 thousand rupees. He’s won 10 million.
[pause]
Police Inspector: What the hell can a slumdog possibly know?
Jamal [quietly]: The answers.
[spits out blood]
Jamal [quietly and gently]: I knew the answers.

…

The mob [shouting]: THEY’RE MUSLIMS, GET THEM!

…

Jamal: If it wasn’t for Rama and Allah, I would still have a mother.

…

Prem Kumar: If I were you, Jamal, I’d take the 16,000 rupees and run. You will never get the next one.

…

Police Inspector: What happened to the girl, they blinded her too?
Jamal: They had other plans for her. It took me a long time to find out.

…

Jamal [to an American tourist couple after being beaten by a cop]: You wanted to see a bit of the real India?
[then angrily to the cop]
Jamal: Well, here it is!

…

Jamal: I just need Maman to like my singing, and we’re in the money, big money Latika.
Latika: And then what? Can we stop begging?
Jamal: Begging? Are you kidding? We’ll live in a big house on Harbour Road. You, me and Salim, the three musketeers.
Latika: Harbour Road? Really?
Jamal: Yes, in the moonlight. You and me. You’ll dance with me won’t you?
[dances]
Latika [laughs]: I hope you sing better than you dance.

…

Salim [holding a gun]: Maman never forgets, isn’t that right?
Maman: Oh, Maman can make an exception, huh?
Salim [pulling the trigger]: I can’t take that risk, Maman. Sorry.

…

Javed: My enemy’s enemy is a friend.

…

Salim: Shut up! The man with the Colt 45 says shut up!

…

Police Inspector: Well, well. The Slumdog barks.

…

Prem Kumar: Its getting hot in here.
Jamal: Are you nervous?
Prem Kumar [after audience laughs]: What? Am I nervous ? It’s you who’s in the hot seat, my friend!

…

Salim: I left a message for you at work.
Jamal: There was no message.
Salim: I definitely left a mess…
Jamal: There was no message! There was no message! THERE WAS NO MESSAGE!
[looks down at Salim starting to cry a little]
Jamal: I will never forgive you!
Salim [more to himself]: I know.

…

Salim: That… used to be our slum. Can you believe that, huh?
[pointing]
Salim: We used to live right there, man. Now, it’s all business. India is at the center of the world now, bhai. And I…I am at the center…of the center. This is all Javed bhai’s.
Jamal: Javed Khan…the gangster from our slum? You work for him?
Salim: Come on, who else do you think would save us from Maman’s guys, huh?
Jamal: What do you do for him?
Salim: Anything he asks.
[pause as Salim’s phone rings]
Salim: He’s coming. You need to go now. Take my card.
Jamal: What for?
Salim: You think I’m gonna let you out of my sights again, huh? You stay with me now, younger brother. Now, go. My place.
Jamal: Salim, where is Latika?
Salim: Still…? She’s gone, brother. Long gone. Now, go. Go to my place.

…

Jamal: I love you.
Latika: So what?

…

Prem Kumar: Final question for twenty million rupees, and he’s smiling. I guess you know the answer.
Jamal: Do you believe it, I don’t.
Prem Kumar: You don’t? So you take the ten million and walk?
Jamal: No. I’ll play.[/b]

In the corporate media there are lines the “news division” can go up to and tip-toe around. And 60 Minutes will dance around it with the best of them.

But there are some topics – crony capitalism in the corporate media, the nature of American foreign policy, the military industrial complex – which are still largely taboo. They always remain in the shadows. Even folks like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Ed Schultz etc. either play the game here, are co-opted or get bounced.

On the other hand, the tobacco industry is an easy target for liberals in the mainstream media. For one thing, they are not advertized on TV anymore.

But what happens when the President of CBS News stands to make a small fortune on the sale of CBS to Westinghouse and that sale might be jeopardized by a lawsuit against B&W?

Every once in a while [in films like this] you get to peek behind the curtain of America’s ruling class. The ending however says little or nothing about the really big lines.

And the last time I looked these very dangerous coffin nails – potent delivery devices for nicotine and carcinogens – are still perfectly legal to buy.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insider_(film

THE INSIDER [1999]
Directed by Michael Mann

[b]Wigand: How did a radical journalist from Ramparts Magazine end up at CBS?
Bergman: I still do the tough stories. “60 Minutes” reaches a lot of people.

…

Wigand: So, what you are saying Mr. Sandefur, is it isn’t enough that you fired me. For no good reason! Now you question my integrity? On top of the humiliation of being fired? You threaten me?! You threaten my family?! It never crossed my mind not to honor my agreement…But I will tell you, Mr. Sandefur, and Brown & Williamson, too… Fuck me? Well, fuck you!!

…

Bergman: They’re afraid of you, aren’t they?
Wigand: They should be.

…

Wallace: Am I missing something?
John Harris: What do you mean, Mike?
Wallace: I mean, he’s got a corporate secrecy agreement - give me a break! I mean, this is a public health issue! Like an unsafe airframe on a passenger jet or some company dumping cyanide into the East River, issues like that! He can talk, we can air it! They’ve got no right to hide behind a “corporate agreement”! Pass the milk.

…

Lawyer: The unlimited checkbook. That’s how Big Tobacco wins every time on everything, they spend you to death. Six hundred million a year in outside legal - Chadbourne-Park, uh, Ken Starr’s firm, Kirkland & Ellis? Listen: GM and Ford, they get nailed after eleven or twelve pickups blow up, right? These clowns have never, I mean EVER…
John Harris: Not even once.
Lawyer: - not even with hundreds of thousands dying each year from an illness related to their product, have EVER lost a personal injury lawsuit! On this case, they’ll issue gag orders, sue for breach, anticipatory breach, enjoin him, you, us, his pet dog, the dog’s veterinarian, tie 'em up in litigation for 10 or 15 years, I’m telling you, they bat a thousand every time! He knows that, that’s why he’s not gonna talk to you.

…

Liane reading her husband’s computer screen: WE WILL KILL YOU. WE WILL KILL ALL OF YOU. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

…

Agent: Do you have a history of emotional problems, Mr. Wigand?
Wigand: Yes. Yes, I do. I get extremely emotional when assholes put bullets in my mailbox!

…

Bergman [to FBI agent]: You’d better take a good look, because I’m getting two things: pissed off and curious.

…

Wallace: You heard Mr. Sandefur say before Congress that he believed nicotine was not addictive.
Wigand: I believe Mr. Sandefur perjured himself because I watched those testimonies very carefully.
Wallace: All of us did, and it was this whole line of people, whole line of CEOs up there, all swearing.
Wigand: Part of the reason I’m here is that I felt that their representations clearly misstated - at least within Brown and Williamson’s misrepresentations - clearly misstated what is common language within the company: “We are in the nicotine delivery business.”
Wallace: And that’s what cigarettes are for.
Wigand: A delivery device for nicotine.
Wallace: A delivery device for nicotine. Put it in your mouth, light it up, and you’re gonna get your fix.
Wigand: You’re gonna get your fix.
Wallace: You’re saying that Brown and Williamson manipulates and adjusts the nicotine fix not by artificially adding nicotine but by enhancing the effect of nicotine through the use of elements such as ammonia?
Wigand: The process is known as “impact boosting”. While not spiking nicotine, they clearly manipulate it. There was extensive use of this technology known as “ammonia chemistry”. It allows for the nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central nervous system. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me, and really put me in trouble with Sandefur, was a compound called coumarin. When I came on board at B. and W., they had tried the transition from coumarin to a similar flavor that would give the same taste, and had been unsuccessful. I wanted out immediately. I was told that it could affect sales, so I should mind my own business. I constructed a memo to Mr. Sandefur indicating I could not in conscience continue with coumarin, a product we now know and we had documentation was similar to coumarin, a lung-specific carcinogen.
Wallace: And you sent the documents to Sandefur?
Wigand: I sent the documents forward to Sandefur. I was told that we would continue to work on a substitute but we weren’t going to remove it as it would impact sales, and that was his decision.
Wallace: In other words, you were charging Sandefur and Brown and Williamson with ignoring health considerations consciously?
Wigand: Most certainly.
Wallace: And on March 24th, Thomas Sandefur, CEO of Brown and Williamson, had you fired. And the reason he gave you?
Wigand: “Poor communication skills.”
Wallace: And you wish you hadn’t come forward? You wish you hadn’t blown the whistle?
Wigand: Yeah, at times I wish I hadn’t done it. There were times I felt compelled to do it. If you ask me would I do it again, do I think it’s worth it? Yeah, I think it’s worth it.

…

Wigand: How does one…“go…to…jail?” What does my family do? Go on welfare? If my wife has to work? Who’s going to look after the kids? Put food on the table? My children need me. If I’m not teaching…there’s no medical…no medical…even on co-pay, that’s like…Tuition…

…

Scruggs (low, personal): In the Navy I flew A-6’s off carriers… In combat, events have a duration of seconds, sometimes minutes… But what you’re going through goes on day in and day out. Whether you’re ready for it or not, week in, week out… Month after month after month. Whether you’re up or whether you’re down. You’re assaulted psychologically. You’re assaulted financially, which is its own special kind of violence. Because it’s directed at your kids…what school can you afford… How will that affect their lives. You’re asking yourself: Will that limit what they may become? You feel your whole family’s future’s compromised…held hostage…
[pause]
Scruggs: I do know how it is.

…

Wigand: Fuck it, let’s go to court.

…

Caperelli: Well, with tortious interference, I’m afraid…the greater the truth, the greater the damage.
Bergman: Come again?
Caperelli: They own the information he’s disclosing. The truer it is, the greater the damage to them. If he lied, he didn’t disclose their information. And the damages are smaller.
Bergman: Is this “Alice in Wonderland”?

…

Bergman [to Caperelli]: Is CBS corporate telling CBS News do not go to air with this story?

…

Bergman [after Kluster demands that Wigand’s interview be censored into an alternate version]: I’m not touching my film.
Eric Kluster: I’m afraid you are.
Bergman: No, I’m not.
Eric Kluster: We’re doing this with or without you, Lowell. If you like, I can sign another producer to edit your show.
Bergman: Uh, since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed LAWYERS to determine the news content on 60 minutes?

…

Bergman: Before you go…I discovered this SEC filing…For the sale of the CBS Corporation to Westinghouse Corporation.
Wallace: What?
Hewitt: Yeah, I heard rumors.
Bergman: It’s not a rumor. It’s a sale. If Tisch can unload CBS for $81 a share to Westinghouse and then is suddenly threatened with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Brown & Williamson, that could screw up the sale, could it not?
Kluster: (serene) And what are you implying?
Bergman: I’m not implying. I’m quoting. More vested interests…(reading from SEC filing) “Persons Who Will Profit From This Merger… (pause) Ms. Helen Caperelli, General Counsel of CBS News, 3.9 million. Mr. Eric Kluster, President of CBS News, 1.4 million…”
Hewitt: Are you suggesting that she and Eric are influenced by money?
Bergman: Oh, no, of course they’re not influenced by money. They work for free. And you are a Volunteer Executive Producer.
Hewitt: CBS does not do that. And, you’re questioning our journalistic integrity?!
Bergman: No, I’m questioning your hearing! You hear “reasonable” and “tortious interference.” I hear… “Potential Brown & Williamson lawsuit jeopardizing the sale of CBS to Westinghouse.” I hear… “Shut the segment down. Cut Wigand loose. Obey orders. And fuck off…!” That’s what I hear.

…

Bergman: You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get him to go on television. I do. I deliver him. He sits. He talks. He violates his own fucking confidentiality agreement. And he’s only the key witness in the biggest public health reform issue, maybe the biggest, most-expensive corporate-malfeasance case in U.S. history. And Jeffrey Wigand, who’s out on a limb, does he go on television and tell the truth? Yes. Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not. Why? Because he’s not telling the truth? No. Because he is telling the truth. That’s why we’re not going to air it. And the more truth he tells, the worse it gets!
Hewitt: You are a fanatic. An anarchist. You know that? If we can’t have a whole show, then I want half a show rather than no show. But oh, no, not you. You won’t be satisfied unless you’re putting the company at risk!
Bergman: C’mon, what are you? And are you a businessman? Or are you a newsman?! Because that happens to be what Mike and I do for a living…
Wallace: Lowell…
Bergman: “Put the corporation at risk”…? Give me a fucking break!
Wallace: Lowell…
Bergman: These people are putting our whole reason for doing what we do…on the line!
Wallace: Lowell!
Bergman: What?
Wallace: I’m with Don on this.

…

Wallace [to Bergman]: Do me a favor, will you - spare me, for God’s sake, get in the real world, what do you think? I’m going to resign in protest? To force it on the air? The answer’s “no”. I don’t plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of National Public Radio. That decision I’ve already made.

…

Wallace [after watching a preview of the “60 Minutes” Wigand interview that has been edited]: Where’s the rest? Where the hell’s the rest? [to Eric Kluster] You cut it! You cut the guts out of what I SAID!
Kluster: It was a time consideration, Mike.
Wallace: Time? Bullshit! You corporate lackey! Who told you your incompetent little fingers had the requisite skills to edit me! I’m trying to band-aid a situation, here, and you’re too dim to…
[Wallace is interrupted by Helen Caperelli, who walks up to him and Kluster]
Caperelli: Mike… Mike… Mike…
Wallace [ Caperelli]: Mike? Mike!
[there is a long pause]
Wallace: Mike? Try Mr. Wallace. We work in the same corporation doesn’t mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I’ve been in this profession FIFTY FUCKING YEARS! You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!

…

Wigand [to Bergman]: You fought for me? You manipulated me into where I am now - staring at the Brown and Williamson Building. It’s all dark except the tenth floor. That’s the legal department, where they fuck with my life!

…

Wigand: I’m just a commodity to you, aren’t I? I could be anything. Right? Anything worth putting on between commercials.
Bergman: To a network, probably, we’re all commodities. To me? You are not a commodity. What you are is important.

…

Wallace: In the real world, when you get to where I am, there are other considerations.
Bergman: Like what? Corporate responsibility? What, are we talking celebrity here?
Wallace: I’m not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS. I’m talking about when you’re nearer the end of your life than the beginning. Now, what do you think you think about then? The future? In the future I’m going to do this? Become that? What future? No. What you think is “How will I be regarded in the end?” After I’m gone. Now, along the way I suppose I made some minor impact. I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam, Sadat, etcetera, etcetera. I showed them thieves in suits. I’ve spent a lifetime building all that. But history only remembers most what you did last. And should that be fronting a segment that allowed a tobacco giant to crash this network? Does it give someone at my time of life pause? Yeah.

…

Bergman: This news division has been villified by the New York Times! In print, on television, for caving to corporate interests!
Hewitt: New York Times ran a blow by blow of what we talked about behind closed doors! You fucked us!
Bergman: No, you fucked you! Don’t invert stuff! Big Tobacco tried to smear Wigand, you bought it. The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment, refutes Big Tobacco’s smear campaign as the lowest form of character assassination! And now, even now, when every word of what Wigand has said on our show is printed, the entire deposition of his testimony in a court of law in the State of Mississippi, the cat totally out of the bag, you’re still standing here debating! Don, what the hell else do you need?
Hewitt: Mike, you tell him.
Wallace: You fucked up, Don.

…

Bergman: I quit, Mike.
Wallace: Bullshit.
[Bergman shakes his head]
Wallace: C’mon, it all worked out. You came out okay in the end…
Bergman: I did? What do I tell a source on the next tough story? Hang in with us. You’ll be fine…maybe? What got broken here…doesn’t go back together again.[/b]

The whole thing is just made up. A fairy-tale. A fantasy. And once you start with that how do you go about fitting it into the actual facts of history? The Nazis. The Holocaust. The Second World War. About as far removed from a fantasy as the human condition gets.

If I were a Jew, how might my reaction to it be different? But since Jews are no less dasein that will always only be more or less relevant.

Still, some will put it up along side inventions like Maus and complain this is what the Jews should have done. That, in other words, they more or less just let it all happen to them. As though creating something like the Basterds was really all there was to turning the tide.

I don’t know what Tarantino’s reaction to that is. But it must be a whole lot easier to kill the Nazis when all you have to do is write it in the script.

Then there are those who complain he doesn’t take Nietzsche’s warning about becoming a monster seriously enough. Brutes going after brutes. The end justifying the means. Any means.

IMDb

[b]When asked about the misspelled title, director Quentin Tarantino gave the following answer: “Here’s the thing. I’m never going to explain that. You do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the piss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place.”

When asked how he got into the violent, baseball bat-wielding mindset of “The Bear Jew”, Eli Roth partially attributed his performance to the historically accurate costumes: “Being in wool underwear will make you want to kill anything.”

According to Brad Pitt, the film was shot sequentially.

Quentin Tarantino had all of the actors playing the Basterds go through a day of “scalping training” in preparation for the movie, and told them that the three best practice scalpers would be rewarded with close-ups of them doing just that in the film.[/b]

FAQs at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0361748/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
At wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS [2009]
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

[b]Col. Landa: Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. If a rat were to walk in here right now as I’m talking, would you treat it to a saucer of your delicious milk?
Perrier LaPadite: Probably not.
Col. Landa: I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere he would hide, but there’s so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer’s brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I’m aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.

…

Lt. Raine: My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I’m putting together a special team, and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y’all might’ve heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we’ll be leaving a little earlier. We’re gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we’re in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin’ guerrilla army, we’re gonna be doin’ one thing and one thing only… killin’ Nazis. Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I sure as hell didn’t come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fuckin’ air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain’t got no humanity. They’re the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin’, mass murderin’ maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That’s why any and every every son of a bitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform, they’re gonna die. Now, I’m the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the German won’t not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the German will be sickened by us, and the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us. And when the German closes their eyes at night and they’re tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. Sound good?
The Basterds: YES, SIR!
Lt. Raine: That’s what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning for all you would-be warriors. When you join my command, you take on debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y’all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin’.

…

Lt. Raine: Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz?
[Stiglitz nods]
Lt. Raine: These are the Basterds, ever heard of us?
[Stiglitz nods again]
Lt. Raine: We just wanted to say we’re a big fan of your work. When it comes to killing Nazis I think you show great talent. And I pride myself on having an eye for that kind of talent. But your status as a Nazi killer is still amateur. We all come here to see if you wanna go pro.

…

Lt. Raine [Drawing a map]: Up the road apiece, there’s a orchard. Now, besides you, we know there’s another kraut patrol fuckin’ here somewhere. Now if that patrol were to have any crackshots, that orchard would be a goddamn sniper’s delight. Now if you ever want to eat a sauerkraut sandwich again, you gotta show me on this map where they are, you gotta tell me how many there are, and you gotta tell me what kinda artillery they’re carrying with ‘em.
Sgt. Rachtman: You can’t expect me to divulge information that would put German lives in danger?
Lt. Raine: Well Werner, that’s where you’re wrong, because that’s exactly what I expect. I need to about Germans hiding in them trees, and you need to tell me, and you need to tell me right now. Now take your finger and point out on this map where this party’s being held, how many’s coming, and what they brought to play with.
Sgt. Rachtman: I respectfully refuse.
Lt. Raine [a smack is heard offscreen]: Here that? That’s Sgt. Donny Donowitz. But you might know him better by his nickname. The Bear Jew. Now, if you heard of Aldo the Apache, you gotta have heard of the Bear Jew.
Sgt. Rachtman: I have heard of the Bear Jew.
Lt. Raine: What did you hear about him, Werner?
Sgt. Rachtman: He beats German soldiers with a club.
Lt. Raine: He bashes their brains in with a baseball bat is what he does. Now, Werner, I’m gonna ask you one more goddamn time, and if you still “respectfully refuse,” I’m callin’ the Bear Jew over here, and he’s gonna take that big-ole bat of his, and he’s gonna beat you to death with it. Now take your wiener schnitzel lickin’ finger and point out on this map what I want to know.
Sgt. Rachtman: Fuck you.
[pause]
Sgt. Rachtman: And your Jew dogs!
[the Basterds all laugh]
Lt. Raine: Actually, Werner, we’re all tickled to here you say that. Frankly, watchin’ Donny beat Nazis to death is is the closest we ever get to goin’ to the movies.
[calling offscreen]
Lt. Raine: DONNY!
Sgt. Donowitz [from offscreen]: Yeah?
Lt. Raine: We got a German here who wants to die for his country! Oblige him!

…

Sgt. Donowitz [watching Aldo carve a swastika into Private Butz’s forehead]: You know, Lieutenant, you’re getting pretty good at that.
Lt. Raine: You know how you get to Carnegie Hall, don’t ya? Practice.

…

Lt. Raine: You probably heard we ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.

…

Lt. Raine: You didn’t say the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin’ basement.
Lt. Hicox: I didn’t know.
Lt. Raine: You said it was in a tavern.
Lt. Hicox: It is a tavern.
Lt. Raine: Yeah, in a basement. You know, fightin’ in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you’re fightin’ in a basement!

…

Lt. Hicox: You know, we’re not looking for trouble, right now. We’re simply making contact with our agent. Should be uneventful. However, on the off chance I’m wrong, and things prove eventful. I need to know, we can all remain calm.
Sgt. Stiglitz: I don’t look calm to you?

…

Major Hellstrom: Did you hear that? That’s the sound of my Luger pointed right at your testicles.
Lt. Wilcox: Why do you have a Luger pointed at my testicles?
Major Hellstrom: Because you’ve just given yourself away, Cap’t. Your no more German then that scotch.
Lt. Wilcox: Well, Major…
Bridget von Hammersmark: Major…
Major Hellstrom: Shut up slut. (To Hicox) You were saying?
Lt. Hilcox: I was saying that makes two of us. I’ve had a gun pointed at your balls since you sat down.

…

Bridget von Hammersmark: I can see since you didn’t see what happened inside, the Nazis being there must look odd.
Lt. Raine: Yeah, we got a word for that kinda odd in English. It’s called suspicious.

…

Lt. Raine: Well, I speak the most Italian, so I’ll be your escort. Donowitz speaks the second most, so he’ll be your Italian cameraman. Omar speaks third most, so he’ll be Donny’s assistant.
Pfc. Ulmer: I don’t speak Italian.
Lt. Raine: Like I said, third best.

…

Col. Landa [to Aldo]: So you’re “Aldo the Apache”.
Lt. Raine: So you’re “the Jew Hunter”.
Col. Landa: A detective. A damn good dectective. Finding people is my specialty so naturally I work for the Nazis finding people, and yes some of them were Jews. But “Jew Hunter”? It’s just a name that stuck.
Pfc. Utivich: Well, you do have to admit, it is catchy.
Col. Landa: Do you control the nicknames your enemies bestow on you? “Aldo the Apache” and “the Little Man”?
Pfc. Utivich [confused]: What do you mean “the Little Man”?
Col. Landa: Germans’ nickname for you.
Pfc. Utivich: The Germans’ nickname for me is “the Little Man”?
Col. Landa: And as if to make my point, I’m a little surprised how tall you were in real life. I mean, you’re a little fellow, but not circus-midget little, as your reputation would suggest.

…

Lt. Raine: You know, where I’m from…
Col. Landa: Yeah, where is that, exactly?
Lt. Raine: Maynardville, Tennessee.
[pause]
Lt. Raine: I’ve done my share of bootlegging. Up ‘ere, if you engage in what the federal government calls ‘illegal activity,’ but what we call ‘just a man tryin’ to make a livin’ for his family sellin’ moonshine liquor,’ it behooves oneself to keep his wits. Long story short, we hear a story too good to be true…it ain’t.
Col. Landa: Sitting in your chair, I would probably say the same thing. And 999, 999 times out of a million, you would be correct. But in the pages of history, every once in a while, fate reaches out and extends its hand.
[he slowly sweeps his arms out in a grand shrug]
Col. Landa: What shall the history books read?

…

Col. Landa: By the way, that last part is actually true.

…

Col. Landa: You’ll be shot for this!
Lt. Raine: Nah, I don’t think so. More like chewed out.

…

Lt. Raine: You know somethin’, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece.[/b]

This sort of relationship is as philosophical as you need it to be.

We take these things out on each other…and we do it in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that dumps on us time and time and time again. We contribute to the wreckage, sure, but there is so much more “out there” that sets it all in motion. We’ll even make things up to bear it.

You just don’t see much of it here.

What makes this a particularly dysfunctional baroom brawl is how effectively the protagonists parlay their exceptional wit. They are born and bred of the university. So they are quite intelligent. This isn’t Al and Peg Bundy here.

Or maybe this is just reflective of the times. The gap between the 50s in theory and the 50s in practice.

And they are all bombed out of their skulls. All the easier to endure lives that are never fully anchored in either illusion or reality.

IMDb

Edward Albee said he came up with the title when he saw the phrase written on a men’s room wall in a New York tavern.

On the other hand:

[b]The title comes from rewriting the words to the children’s song, “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” It comes up as a joke at Martha’s father’s party. The song is significant because it ties together the themes of childhood and parenthood, reality versus fantasy, and career success. The couples in this play do not have any children and remain tied to their parents. Martha and George rely on Martha’s father for his position and his paycheck. Honey and Nick rely upon Honey’s father for the money that he left them. This song, bastardized from a children’s ditty, shows how all four characters in the play still function more as children than they do as adults. The fact that the name is changed to “Virginia Woolf” is also significant. In her writing, Virginia Woolf attempted to reveal the truth of human experience, emotion, and thought: all of the things that the couples in this play try to cover up. When the couples sing the song together, then, they are making fun of their own fear of the truth. George, who seems to want to get back to some truthful interaction with Martha, only sings the song when he tries to overpower Martha’s disparagement of him, when Martha is necking with Nick, and when he tries to comfort Martha in the end. If one looks closely at these three different moments, it is clear that George uses the song to stop Martha from revealing truth about himself, to tease Martha for hiding from the truth behind an affair, and to give her courage to live without the phoniness they are used to. The song is consistently tied to moments in which the characters are projecting, or attempting to project, a false image. Finally, the song also ties into the theme of academic competition at the unnamed college where George and Nick work. Virginia Woolf is known to be a complex, difficult writer. Because she is an intellectual challenge, no one competing to demonstrate intellectual power would want to admit to being afraid of not understanding her writing. The song is a witty joke, but it also represents the very real, though also very petty, fear so common in intellectual circles.

The MPAA insisted on the removal of the term “screw you” from the film where it was replaced with the term “God damn you” but allowed the terms “screw” and “hump the hostess” to remain in the film.

When the film was shown on network television for the first time, some local television affiliates bumped the broadcast from 9:00 P.M. to 11:30 P.M., because a film with such adult language had never been shown on network TV.[/b]

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? [1966]
Directed by Mike Nichols

[b]Martha: What a dump!

…

Martha: I swear, if you existed, I’d divorce you.

…

George: And try to keep your clothes on too. There’s no more sickening sight than you drunk and your skirt over your head.

…

Nick: Who did the painting?
George: Some Greek with a mustache Martha attacked one night.
Nick: It’s got a…
George: Quiet intensity?
Nick: Well, no, a…
George: Well then, a certain noisy relaxed quality maybe?
Nick: No, what I meant was…
George: How about a quietly noisy relaxed intensity?

…

George: Martha? Rubbing alcohol for you?

…

Nick [to Honey]: We’ll go in a little while.
George: Oh no. No, you mustn’t. Martha is changing, and Martha is not changing for me, Martha hasn’t changed for me in years. If Martha is changing, that means we’re going to be here for days. You’re being accorded an honor, and you mustn’t forget that Martha is the daughter of our beloved boss. She is his right…arm. I was going to use another word, but we’ll leave that sort of talk to Martha.

…

George [after Martha has changed into an embarrassingly tight and revealing outfit]: Why Martha! Your Sunday chapel dress!

…

Martha [derogatorily to George]: Hey, swamp! Hey swampy!
George: Yes, Martha? Can I get you something?
Martha: Ah, well, sure. You can, um, light my cigarette, if you’re of a mind to.
George: No. There are limits. I mean, a man can put up with only so much without he descends a rung or two on the old evolutionary ladder, which is up your line. Now, I will hold your hand when it’s dark and you’re afraid of the boogeyman and I will tote your gin bottles out after midnight so no one can see but I will not light your cigarette. And that, as they say, is that.
Martha: Jesus.

…

George: Pow. You’re dead.

…

George: Martha, in my mind you’re buried in cement right up to the neck. No, up to the nose, it’s much quieter.

…

George: I wouldn’t go on if I were you.
Martha: You wouldn’t? Well, you’re not!
George: You’ve already sprung a leak about you-know-what.
Martha: What?
George: About the little bugger. Our son. If you start in on this, I warn you…
Martha: I stand warned.

…

Martha: I hope that was an empty bottle, George! You can’t afford to waste good liquor, not on YOUR salary! Not on an associate professor’s salary!

…

Nick: I’m tired, I’ve been drinking since nine o’clock, my wife is vomiting, there’s been a lot of screaming going on around here!

…

George: You take the trouble to construct a civilization, to build a society based on the principles of… of principle. You make government and art and realize that they are, must be, both the same. You bring things to the saddest of all points, to the point where there is something to lose. Then, all at once, through all the music, through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the Dies Irae. And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours.

…

[George takes a corner too fast, tossing everyone in the car from side to side]
Martha: Aren’t you going to apologize?
George: Not my fault, the road should’ve been straight.
Martha: No, aren’t you going to apologize for making Honey throw up?
George: I didn’t make her throw up.
Martha: What, you think it was sexy back there? You think he made his own wife sick?
George: Well, you make me sick.
Martha: That’s different.

…

George: I used to drink brandy.
Martha: You used to drink bergin, too.

…

George: Well, that’s one game. What shall we do now? Let’s do something else. We played Humiliate the Host, what’ll we do now? We must know other games, us college types. Can’t be the limit of our vocabulary. Haven’t had enough? There are other games. How about… How about Hump the Hostess? Want to play that one? Do you want to play Hump the Hostess?

…

George: And that’s how you play “Get the Guests”.

…

George: You can sit around with the gin running out of your mouth; you can humiliate me; you can tear me to pieces all night, that’s perfectly okay, that’s all right.
Martha: You can stand it!
George: I cannot stand it!
Martha: You can stand it, you married me for it!

…

George: You’re a monster - You are.
Martha: I’m loud and I’m vulgar, and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to, but I am not a monster. I’m not.
George: You’re a spoiled, self-indulgent, willful, dirty-minded, liquor-ridden…
Martha: SNAP! It went SNAP! I’m not gonna try to get through to you any more. There was a second back there, yeah, there was a second, just a second when I could have gotten through to you, when maybe we could have cut through all this, this CRAP. But it’s past, and I’m not gonna try.

…

Martha: I looked at you tonight and you weren’t there… And I’m gonna howl it out, and I’m not gonna give a damn what I do and I’m gonna make the biggest god-damn explosion you’ve ever heard.
George: Try and I’ll beat you at your own game.
Martha: Is that a threat George, huh?
George: It’s a threat, Martha.
Martha: You’re gonna get it, baby.
George: Be careful Martha. I’ll rip you to pieces.
Martha: You’re not man enough. You haven’t the guts.
George: Total war?
Martha: Total.

…

Honey: I’m gonna be sick.
George: Ah yeah that’s nice.
Honey: I’m gonna die.
George: Good, good. Go right ahead.

…

Martha [mostly to herself]: George, my husband… George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. Yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting…the insulting mistake of loving me. And must be punished for it. Sad, sad, sad.

…

Martha: Truth and illusion, George. You don’t know the difference.
George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.
Martha: Amen.

…

George: When you get through the skin, and through the muscle…and slosh aside the organs, down to the bone, you know what you do? When you get down to the bone you aren’t all the way. Something’s inside the bone. The marrow. That’s what you got to get at.

…

Martha: A drowning man takes down those nearest, and he tried. And, God, how I fought him! How I fought him! The one thing…I tried to carry unscathed through the sewer of our marriage…through the sick nights and the pathetic, stupid days…through the derision and the laughter. God, the laughter! Through one failure after another. Each attempt more numbing, more sickening than the one before. The one thing, the one person I tried to protect…to raise above the mire of this vile, crushing marriage…the one light in all this hopeless darkness! Our son!

…

George: Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who’s afraid of Virgina Woolf?
Martha: I am, George.
George: Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Martha: I am, George. I am.[/b]

You don’t come across many true stories stranger than this one. Not in this sport. Is it all in the genes? Or mostly in the genes? Or is part of it buried in experiences some have at a very early age.

Nong Toom is thought to be a kathoey in Thailand. A ladyboy. This, in other words:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey
But he [now she] is more a sao praphet song.

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in these manly arts myself. But I do know a fascinating story when I see one. And what balls this guy had to step into the ring like that. But then he becomes a celebrity. Shades of Ziggy Stardust.

And there is the thrill of victory.

Based on a true story.

trailer: youtu.be/6orM84owB7M

BEAUTIFUL BOXER [บิวตี้ฟูล บ๊อกเซอร์] 2004
Written [in part] and directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham

Jack [interviewer]: When did you first realize you wanted to be a woman? When did it all start?

And back in time we go…

Friend: Come to the temple fair with me, tonight.
Toom: I don’t like watching kickboxing. How could men just beat each other up like that? So painful…
Friend: For the prize money. If you win, you’ll get 500 baht!

And thus the birth of yet another human irony.

Mother: Toom, don’t go and fight with people again. You could get hurt. And it’s not your kind of thing.
Toom: I know. But I felt good today.
Mother: To be punched and kicked at?
Toom: No, Ma, to be able to protect myself.

There is that part.

[b]Toom [to Nat]: Is it true that kickboxers can make a lot of money?

…

Pi Chart [to exhausted Toom]: Just imagine that what you want most in the world is at the top. Now run to it.

…

Toom: Pi Bua, I don’t belong here. I’ll never be good at kickboxing. And Thai boxing is nothing but violence.

…

Toom [watching Pi Chart’s more advanced boxers perform like gymnists]: How beautiful.
Pi Bua: It is.
Toom: How come Pi Chart has never taught me these moves?
Pi Bua: He’ll only teach you when you are good enough.
Toom: What if I’m never good enough?
Bi Bua: Then Thai boxing will be nothing to you but violence.

…

Toom [to Jack]: It seemed the more makeup I put on the harder my opponents kicked me. So I kicked back harder still.

…

Toom [to Jack]: The crowd loved it when I kissed my defeated opponent. Especially the reporters. But they don’t know that I kiss to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t like to hurt strangers”. But in the ring, you have no choice.

…

Tam [to Noom]: Don’t you realize everyone thinks you’re a clown? They’re all laughing at you? Don’t you know that?!

…

Pi Bua: You are a clown the day you stop fighting like a man in the ring.

…

Toom: Pi Moo, do you think they will let me wear a bra in the ring?

…

Toom: That was the first time I had fought a woman. And the first time I wasn’t sure who I was. Or what I had become. A woman in a boxer’s body? Or an animal in a circus show?

…

Title card: Nong Toom is now a model and actress based in Bangkok. She no longer has to hide in toilets to put on her makeup.[/b]

It’s about how lives intertwine and the meaning we give to them while immersed in the flow. Part of a triology. Amores Perros is set in Mexico, 21 Grams in America and Babel spans the globe.

But it’s always about how human relationships become entangled in events and the extent to which we are or are not able to untangle them. Or make sense of them.

Some with and some without God.

Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn are nothing short of extraordinary here. Naomi Watts in particular. She just had the bad luck of being nominated for an Academy Award the same year that Monster came out.

These are extraordinary circumstances, sure, but most movies tend to revolve around them. They show us lives at their most ambiguous. But most of us can imagine [or try to imagine] our own reactions. And then measure them against the reactions of those on the screen.

IMDb

The title comes from the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts in the early twentieth century. MacDougall weighed dying subjects, in experiments of extremely dubious scientific value, believing that he was proving that the soul was material and measurable. His results in fact varied wildly.

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Grams
trailer: youtu.be/Ss61_HwPVA8

21 GRAMS
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

[b]Jack: Jesus gave me that truck.

…

Jack God knows when even a single hair moves on your head.

…

Paul [voiceover in ICU]: So, this is death’s waiting room. These ridiculous tubes. These needles swelling my arms. What am I doing in this pre-corpse club? What do I have to do with them?

…

Brown [firing Jack because club members complained about his tattoos]: Look, Jack, this club is for people different from me and you.

…

Daughter: Mommy, Freddy hit me in the arm.
Jack: Which arm, baby?
Daughter: This one.
Marianne: Jack, don’t start.
Jack: Hold out your other arm and let your brother hit you.
Marianne: Jack, no!
Jack: Hold it out. Whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. [then to his son] Hit her. Don’t be afraid.
Marianne: Jack, no!
Jack [pounding table ] Hit her!

…

Jack [after smacking his son upside the head for hitting his sister]: There’s no hitting in this house.
[hits him again]
Jack: You understand?!

…

Jack [to Marianne]: I just ran over a man and two little girls.

…

Jack: Did you go?
[Marianne nods]
Jack: Are they dead?
[Marianne nods]
Jack: I’m gonna turn myself in.
Marianne: John says nobody saw you. Nobody. They don’t know the license plate or what kind of car. Some asshole even swears it was a cab.
Jack: Marianne, what would you do if these were our children? Tell me.
Marianne: But they’re not. It didn’t happen to us.
Jack: No, it didn’t happen to us. It happened to me.

…

Marianne: What the fuck do you gain by turning yourself in?
Jack: It’s my duty, Marianne.
Marianne: No, Jack, your duty is here with us. With your family.
Jack: My duty’s to God.

…

Paul: What abortion? What abortion, Mary?
Mary: I can explain.
Paul: Explain what?
Mary: There is an explanation.
Paul: Uh-huh. All that drama about artificial insemination. Kids’ names. You got pictures of our friends’ babies all over the place. Why? So you can flush it down the fuckin’ toilet?!

…

Paul: I can’t keep going like this. The insemination, the child. It’s like we’re trying to put a Band-Aid on something that’s already been bled dry.

…

Reverend John: Jack, Jesus didn’t come to free us from pain. He came to give us the strength to bear it.
Jack: Maybe He wanted this pain for me.
Reverend John: No, He had nothing to do with this. It was an accident.
Jack: No, it wasn’t an accident. Jesus chose me for this.
Reverend John: Jack, ask for the mercy of Jesus Christ.
Jack: If it was an accident, why do I have to ask for His mercy?

…

Reverend John: Stop this shit, or you’re going straight to hell!
Jack [pounding his skull with his knuckles]: Hell? This is hell. Right here!

…

Jack: I did everything He asked me to do! I changed! I gave Him my life, and He betrayed me. He put that fucking truck in my hand so I could carry out His will. Made me kill that man and those girls. But hey, He didn’t give me the strength to stay and save them.
Reverend John: Don’t blaspheme, you bastard! Christ had nothing to do with this!
Jack: God knows when even a single hair moves on your head. And you taught me that.

…

Jack: This is God’s will. So be it.
Marianne: Two years ago, you didn’t believe in anything. Now everything has to do with God. I think I preferred you the way you were before.
Jack: I was a fucking pig before. Is that what you prefer?
Marianne: At least it was you. Now I don’t have the slightest fucking idea who you are. Life has to go on Jack. With or without God.

…

Paul: Let me ask you something, and I want you to be really honest with me, okay? If I stay… will I be saved?
Dr. Rothberg: I can’t guarantee it. But if you don’t come back to the hospital, you’re condemning yourself to a terrible death. Your heart won’t work anymore. You’ll die, asphyxiated. It’s an awful death, Paul. You can’t imagine it. At least here we can help you to …
Paul: You can help me DIE better. That’s what you’re saying. You can help me die BETTER. Well, I’m not gonna do that, okay? I’d rather die outside.

…

Paul: There is a number hidden in every act of life, in every aspect of the universe. Fractals, matter-- that there’s a number screaming to tell us something. Am I boring you?
Cristina: No. No.
Paul: l–I’m sorry. I guess I try to tell them that numbers are a door to understanding a mystery that’s bigger than us. How two people, strangers, come to meet. There’s a poem by a Venezuelan writer that begins-- “The earth turned to bring us closer. It turned on itself and in us…until it finally brought us together in this dream.”
Cristina: That’s beautiful.
Paul: There are so many things that have to happen for two people to meet.

…

Daughter: Daddy, in school they said…you killed two little girls and their daddy. Is that true?
Jack: Yes.
Marianne: No.
Son: Yes. He killed them.
Marianne: It was an accident.

…

Paul: Cristina, wait. I have to tell you something. Okay. I have to tell you something.
Cristina: Please, kiss me.
Paul: Wait. Cristina. l–Cristina. I have Michael’s heart.
Cristina: What?
Paul: I have Michael’s heart. You understand what I’m saying? It was transplanted into me at St. Francis Hospital on October.
Cristina: No. No…
Paul: I tried to tell you. I just didn’t know how to tell you.
Cristina: How dare you. How dare you!
Paul: Cristina…
Cristina: How fucking dare you!
Paul: I’m here for a reason.
Cristina: Get out of my house!
Paul: Cristina…
Ceistina: Don’t touch me! Get out of my house now! You make me sick!
Paul: I had a reason. Can’t you see that?
Cristina: You get out of my fucking-- Get the fuck out of my house!
Paul: Okay.
Cristina: You make me sick! Get out!

…

Paul [to Cristina]: You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got a good heart.

…

Paul [watching Cristina snort drugs]: Cristina. Cristina. Listen to me. You don’t need that shit. You don’t need it.
Cristina [fiercely]: Don’t tell me what I need!

…

Cristina: Katie could have lived. She’d be alive right now but that bastard left her there. Laying in the street. He left the three of them like animals. He didn’t care. She could be here with me. That son of a bitch is walking the streets, and I can’t even go into their room. I wanna kill him. I’m gonna kill Jack Jordan. I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.
Paul: Slow down, just slow down.
Cristina: Slow down. Slow down. While I what, huh? While I what?
Paul: Take it easy.
Cristina: Take it easy?! My husband and my little girls are dead, and I’m supposed to take it fucking easy?!! I can’t just go on with my life! I am paralyzed here! I am a fucking amputee! Do you see that? Who are you? You owe it to Michael. No, you’ve got his heart. You’re in his house fucking his wife! And sitting in his chair! We have to kill him!
Paul: Not like this. Not like this.
Cristina: Then how? Tell me how!

…

Cristina: Katie died with red shoelaces on. She hated red shoelaces. And she kept asking me to get her some blue ones. And I never got her the blue ones. She was wearing those fucking red shoelaces when she was killed!

…

Paul [to Jack]: You…murderer. You just let them lie there on the street. Those two little girls, you just let them die like dogs…I should have killed you. Now you disappear. Don’t even go back to the motel and get your things. Just disappear.

…

Paul [voiceover]: How many lives do we live? How many times do we die? They say we all lose 21 grams…at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained? How much is gained? Twenty-one grams. The weight of a stack of five nickels. The weight of a hummingbird. A chocolate bar. How much did 21 grams weigh?[/b]

The two leads are Guy and Girl. Uh oh. But they are easy to like and [like me] they love music. And they create music. And the music they create is well worth listening to. And they are easy to look at. And intelligent and personable.

What they call a “pitch perfect” film. Well, for some. It helps to be young yourself here. And to have a passion that resides in and around the world of music.

The guy does say “cool” a lot though.

Love. It’s all about timing.

IMDb

[b]During the filming of the opening scene, because the scene was shot with long lenses placing the crew far away, and without informing the public, who would be crossing through the scene, a bystander attempting to be a hero accidentally injured the thief as he was running away by kneeing him in the groin.

Bob Dylan was such a big fan of the film that he arranged to have the two leads, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, open for him on part of his world tour. Hansard and Irglová also covered Dylan’s song “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” for I’m Not There.

There is a moment when the guy asks the girl whether she loves her husband. She responds, “No. I love you.” However, her response is in unsubtitled Czech, so the man does not understand her - nor do audience members who don’t know the language.[/b]

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_(film
trailer: youtu.be/I6xIF92OUos

ONCE [2006]
Written and directed by John Carney

[b]Guy [repeated line]: For fuck’s sake…

…

Girl: How come you don’t play during daytime? I see you here everyday.
Guy: During the daytime people would want to hear songs that they know, just songs that they recognize. I play these song at night or I wouldn’t make any money. People wouldn’t listen.
Girl: I listen.
Guy: Yeah, but you just gave me 10 cents.

…

Girl: Your son is a very talented guy, sir
Father: Well, he should be, I trained him myself.
Girl: Oh, no sir, I meant the songs.

…

Girl: I have to go now.
Guy: Do you want to stay?
Girl: What do you mean?
Guy: Stay the night?
Girl [surprised]: What?
[Guy gives her that “you know why” look]
Girl: Fuck this. Thanks for the Hoover.

…

Guy: I’m sorry. I was feeling lonely and you’re gorgeous…

…

Guy: You’re what? You’re married?
Girl: Does it surprise you.
Guy: For fuck’s sake.

…

Guy: What’s the Czech for, “Do you love him?”
Girl: Noor-esh-ho
Guy: So, noor-esh-ho?
Girl: Noor-ho-tebbe.[/b]

Nothing heavy as they say. Witty if not necessarily wise. But sometimes [just sometimes] that’s enough. And that is apparently as far as they ever intended to, uh, go.

Disaffected and drug-addled youth. Think of this as More Than Zero. But not much more.

It’s the sort of stuff that American Youth think is cool. For example, they try to, uh, emulate it in “real life”.

IMDb

The director picked the grocery store that the movie was filmed in because of its “run-down, big city” quality. When the producers paid the owner of the supermarket for permission to film there, the owners took some of that money and repainted and repaired the store, for a more “hollywood” look. The director and producers were understandably unhappy with this, since the only reason they picked the store was how it looked in the first place. The producers, after getting consent from the store, hired a crew to bring the store back to what it had looked like before. The finished product is what you see in the film.

trailer: youtu.be/0KTWEFpDOis

GO [1999]
Directed by Doug Liman

[b]Customer: Don’t think you’re something you’re not. I used to have your job.
Ronna: Look how far it got you.

…

Todd: You come to me out of the blue, asking to buy 20 hits. Just so happens that 20 being the magic number at which intent to sell becomes trafficking!
Ronna: Todd, I would never fuck you like that.
Todd: How would you fuck me?

…

Burke: I just want to make a deal. Can we make a deal?
Ronna: Who the hell are you? Monty Hall?

…

Ronna [selling allergy medicine as drugs]: You know what makes it even better? If you take like a lot of pot with it. I mean like, like a lot of pot.

…

Tiny: Yo, I told you, my mother’s mother’s mother was black!
Marcus: Your mother’s mother’s mother, fuck, this ain’t “Roots”, mutha… Man, I wanna see a picture of this Nubian princess. If you were any less black, you would be clear.

…

Marcus: Oh, he’s the good drug dealer.

…

Victor Sr.: You know what wakes me up in the middle of the night covered in a cold sweat? Knowing that you aren’t any worse than anyone else in your whole screwed up generation. In the old days, you know how you got to the top? Huh? By being better than the guy ahead of you. How do you people get to the top? By being so fucking incompetent, that the guy ahead of you can’t do his job, so he falls on his ass and congratulations, you are now on top. And now the top is down here, it used to be up here…and you don’t even know the fucking difference.

…

Singh: Just so we’re clear, you stole a car, shot a bouncer, and had sex with two women?

…

Marcus: It’s them!
Singh: Who’s “them”?

…

Tiny: WHO DA FUCK WE RUNNIN’ FROM?!

…

Claire: Gay men are so hot. It’s tragic.

…

Zack: It really didn’t go as bad as it could have.
Adam: A girl is dead, Zack.
Zack: I didn’t say it went perfectly.

…

Claire: So, what do you have against The Family Circus?
Todd: Okay. You sit down and read your paper, and you’re enjoying your entire two-page comics spread. Right? And then there’s the Family fucking Circus, bottom right-hand corner, just waiting to suck.
Claire: You could just not read it.
Todd: I hate it, yet I’m uncontrollably drawn to it.

…

Todd [looking at his cat come down the stairs]: How’d you get out?

…

Jonna [to Claire]: Things didn’t go exactly as planned, you know?

…

Claire: And where’s Mannie?
Jonna: Oh, fuck me![/b]

Sniff sniff.

Those kind of people. Both upstairs and downstairs.

The idea of someone waiting on me hand and foot is just short of repugnant. The idea of doing it myself for another is not short of it at all.

What is crucial for folks able to sustain this mentality [from either end] is pursuing the quotidian as though very single detail of every single day were a matter of life and death. They give me, how shall I put this, the creeps? As no doubt someone like I, them.

But it’s still no less intriguing to peek inside their world. To at least try to imagine what it might be like to live [and to think and feel] this way. And some do actually thrive on service to others.

And then there is the part about the Nazis. And the part about being oblivious to them. And the part about being afraid to resist them when more than you can bear to lose is at stake.

At heart a love story some insist. Not one I am familiar with though.

IMDb

Anthony Hopkins, as a guest on the TV show Inside the Actors Studio, said that he got tips on how to play a butler from a real-life butler, Cyril Dickman who served for 50 years at Buckingham Palace. The butler said there was nothing to being a butler, really - when you’re in the room it should be even more empty.

wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remain … Day(film

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY [1993]
Directed by James Ivory

[b]Father: There was this English butler out in India. One day, he goes in the dining room and what does he see under the table? A tiger. Not turning a hair, he goes straight to the drawing room. “Hum, hum. Excuse me, my lord,” and whispering, so as not to upset the ladies : “I’m very sorry my lord. There appears to be a tiger in the dining room. Perhaps his Lordship will permit use of the twelve bores?” They go on drinking their tea. And then, there’s three gunshots. Well, they don’t think nothing of it, this being out in India where they’re used to anything. When the butler is back to refresh the teapots, he says, cool as a cucumber: “Dinner will be served at the usual time, my lord. And I am pleased to say there will be no discernible traces left of the recent occurence by that time.” I’ll repeat that: “There will be no discernible traces of the recent occurrence by that time!”

…

Miss Kenton: Look at it! Is that or is it not the wrong chinaman?
Stevens: Miss Kenton, I’m very busy. I am surprised that you have nothing better to do than stand around all day…
Miss Kenton: Mr. Stevens, look at that chinaman and tell me the truth!
Stevens: Miss Kenton, I would ask you to keep your voice down. What would the other servants think to hear us shouting at the top of our voices about… chinamen?
Miss Kenton: And I would ask you, Mr. Stevens, to turn around and look at the chinaman.

…

Stevens [to Reginald]: I do have one or two words more to convey on the topic of, well, as you put it the glories of nature.
Reginald: I’ll look forward to that. But I’m more of a fish man myself.
Stevens: Fish, sir?
Reginald: I know all about fish. Freshwater and salt.
Stevens: Well, all living creatures would be relevant to our discussion.

…

Lewis: You are, all of you, amateurs. And international affairs should never be run by gentlemen amateurs. Do you have any idea of what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could just act out of your noble instincts, are over. Europe has become the arena of realpolitik, the politics of reality. If you like: real politics. What you need is not gentlemen politicians, but real ones. You need professionals to run your affairs, or you’re headed for disaster![/b]

You could say that. Of course, Stevens is as fiercely concerned about serving the meal as these men are at preventing [or waging] another war in Europe.

[b]Miss Kenton: I’m sorry to say your father passed away a four minutes ago.
Stevens: Oh, I see.
Miss Kenton: I’m so very sorry. Will you come up and see him?
Stevens: Well, I’m very busy at the moment. In a little while, perhaps. Miss Kenton: In that case, will you permit me to close his eyes.
Stevens: I would be most grateful to you. Thank you.

…

Mr Benn: Gentlemen, you speak of Jews and Gypsies and Negroes, so on and so forth. But one has to regard the racial laws of the Fascists as a sanitary measure, much overdue in my opinion. You cannot run a country without a penal system. Here in England we call them prision. There, they call them concentration camps. What’s the difference?

…

Stevens: In my philosophy, Mr. Benn, a man cannot call himself well-contented until he has done all he can to be of service to his employer. Of course, this assumes that one’s employer is a superior person, not only in rank, or wealth, but in moral stature.[/b]

And if he is a Nazi?

[b]Stevens: My Lord, may I say the both work extremely well. They[re intelligent, polite and very clean.
Lord Darlington: I’m sorry, but I’ve looked into this matter very carefully. There are larger issues at stake. I’m sorry but there it is. They’re Jews.

…

Miss Fenton: Mr Stevens, I warn you, if those girls go, I shall leave this house.

…

Stevens: Didn’t you say you would be leaving because of the German girls?
Miss Denton: I’m not leaving. I’ve nowhere to go. I have no family. I’m a coward.
Stevens: No, no…
Miss Denton: Yes. I am a coward. I’m frightened of leaving, and that’s the truth. All I see out in the world is lonliness, and it frightens me. That’s all my high principles are worth. I’m ashamed of myself.

…

Stevens: Do you know what I am doing, Miss Kenton? I am placing my mind elsewhere while you chatter away.

…

Miss Kenton: What’s in that book? Come on, let me see!
Stevens: This is my private time. You’re invading it.
Miss Kenton: Oh, is that so?
Stevens: Yes.
Miss Kenton: I’m invading your private time, am I?
Stevens: Yes.[/b]

They’re just friends. But from his end who is kidding who. Or, to invoke Harry Burns, no man can stay “just friends” with a woman he finds sexually attractive. And what’s not to find sexually attractive about Lori? Or course it works pretty much the same way regarding women. They just seem a tad less biologically engineered to go in that direction. But not being one of them myself that’s just a personal observation based on my own experiences.

Then he meets Darcy. Sometimes. But she is young and beautiful all the time too. And more…exotic? mysterious? Tough choice. But [given who he is] not really.

Let the games begin!

But often it is less about the games we play and more about the ambiguities we feel in sorting out love from sex and both from friendship. And this is more clearly the case here when both parties are introspective…loners. Or one for sure.

But there are secrets here none of us are really privy to.

trailer: youtu.be/Syesvh_jUVQ

CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES [2002]
Written and directed by Eric Byler

[b]Michael: We’re just friends.
Darcy: Do you find her sexually attractive?
Michael: Sometimes.

…

Darcy: We could have some fun tonight if you admit that’s what you want.
Michael: There are other ways to get to know someone.
Darcy: Sex is faster.
[pause]
Darcy: I really can’t decides just what it is you want from me.
Michael: What I would really like is to spend more time with you.[/b]

But she only has tonight and [maybe] tomorrow. Then she’ll be gone.

[b]Michael: A shortcut implies we know where we are going.

…

Michael: Does any of this even matter to you? No shortcuts.
Darcy: Okay, no shortcuts.

…

Lori: Two requests. One, stay away from Justin. He might be the one. We might get married.
Darcy: That’s wonderful.
Lori: Just say you’ll do it.
Darcy: Fine.
Lori: My other condition has to do with Michael.
Darcy: I might have guessed.
Lori: Please, just keep it real.
Darcy: You really do see me as a monster.
Lori: I’ve seen what you can do.

…

Justin: You know, it’s not really that far a drop. If she fell, she might survive.
Darcy: Or then again I might die. I’ll decide on the way down.

…

Michael: I know who you are.
Darcy: She told you?
Michael: No, I saw pictures of you as kids.
Darcy: I’m sorry.

…

Darcy [to Justin…but more to herself]: It doesn’t wait anymore. It doesn’t wait until afterwards. I feel it even as I’m coming. This wave of loneliness. This wave of disgust. I hate it so much. I wish I didn’t have to do this.

…

Lori: She’s a liar. You should be glad she’s gone.
Michael: I’m not.
Lori: You don’t even know her. You don’t even know her name. Do you?

…

Michael: What is her name, anyway?
Lori [whispering in his ear]: That can wait…Michael.[/b]

Some make comparisons between this and the “infamous murder of James Bulger”:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Patr … _the_media

Some kids do terrible things because they are “just kids”. They don’t think them through with the level of maturity or understanding [of the consequences] that most adults would. Or they follow the leader…get involved with the wrong person. But it can all come back to haunt them…follow them to the grave. Or even push them into it.

In films like this we are always forced to choose the manner in which we will stitch together the present and the past.

For one thing he was bullied as a boy. And then he met someone who stopped that dead in its tracks. And his family was a bit…dysfunctional.

And why does his new life fall apart at the seams? Because of a few mumbled words in drunken stupor? That’s about it.

This is what can happen to children who [in any number of ways] are grieviously abused. Eventually others will pay the price for it. Just not the ones that deserve to.

Look for Peter Parker.

trailer: youtu.be/1Ii_v14DNCU

BOY A [2007]
Directed by John Crowley

[b]Jack: They…They said I could choose me own name.
Terry: That’s right.
Jack: Any name.
Terry: You got one?

…

Jack: Jack
Terry: What?
Jack: That’s the name I want.
Terry: Okay…Jack. Well, that’s the first thing taken care of.

…

Jack: I was wondering if m-maybe at some stage we could take a trip.
Terry: To where?
Jack: To see Philip’s grave.

…

Phillip: You wanna see something cool?

…

Jack [at Philip’s grave]: Was it guilt, do you think?
Terry: Who knows?
Jack: Or…a way of saying sorry? Was he sick of the world?
Terry: We should go.

…

Jack reading a tabloid headline about his release: EVIL COMES OF AGE

…

Son: I really despised you.
Terry: No, no.
Son: No, no, no. Let me explain, me. Let me…All the shit that happened, I know it wasn’t your fault. It was just shit that happens, right? But as a kid, the point of view you take - is the one that’s given to you…
Terry: Your mum?
Son: Yeah, my mum.

…

Chris: We’re all so delicate. We die so easily.

…

Philip: You ever get fucked by a guy?
Eric [Jack as a boy]: What? No.
Philip: I did.
Eric: Oh. Yeah?
Puilip: You remember my brother?
Eric: Did…Did he put it right in?
Philip: Mm-hmm, a lot of times.
Eric: Did it hurt?
Philip: What do you think? Just closed my eyes. When he does it. Just close 'em. And I think of a room with hundreds of doors. Hundreds of doors, and they’re closing. The one’s furthest away first, and then getting closer, just closing, just banging shut. And I think, if I can keep from crying until the last one shuts… then I won’t cry at all. And I don’t.

…

Jack: Listen, I’m not really sure…
Dave: What?
Jack: Well, that I want my photo taken, all right?
Dave: Why? Jesus, Jack, it’s just a photo.

…

Terry: You can never do this. You understand what I’m saying? You can never ever do this. Never!
Jack: Never?
Terry: Never, never.
Jack: Michelle would understand. I know it.
Terry: Listen, listen. Her understanding’s not the issue, okay? Knowledge is the issue. Your safety is the issue. Okay? Do you, do you know… Fuck it. There’s been a bounty posted for you on the internet.
Jack: A what?
Terry: For information regarding your whereabouts. Now listen, I wasn’t going to tell you.
Jack: Am I in danger?
Terry: No, no, no, no. But do you now realize there are people out there who want you? They hate you. They will never let go of what happened. Ever, ever!

…

Jack: How much is it for?
Terry: It doesn’t matter.
Jack: Terry how much is it for?
Terry [after long pause]: 20 grand.
Jack: Oh, fuck.

…

Dave [on phone]: Jack, Dave. Listen, we’re not going to need you at work today.
Jack: Oh, why not?
Dave: Or for the foreseeable future.
Jack: What’ve I done?
Dave: Don’t come to the depot again. Do you understand? We’ll send you what you’re owed in wages.
Jack: Wait. Dave, Dave? Um, uh, just…
Dave: Goodbye, Jack.

…

Jack [on phone]: Oi, mate, it’s Jack here. Hey, um, Dave just called me. Told me not to come in.
Chris: He obviously knows you’re not who you say you are. Is he wrong?
Jack: Chr- Chris?
Chris: No, of course he’s not.[/b]

He’s back in the news.

[b]Jack [aloud to himself]: No, I ain’t that boy. No, I ain’t that boy. I ain’t that boy. No, I ain’t that boy. Fuck! Fuck!

…

Son: A monster, Dad! You choose a monster over me!!

…

Jack [reading a letter from the little girl he rescued]: “Thank you for saving me. I hope you were an angel. Love, Catharine Thompson.”[/b]