REPULSION
Directed by Roman Polanski
Carole: I must get this crack mended.
THREE COLORS: BLUE
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
[b]Julie: Today on tv she showed the scores I took from you.
La copiste: Yes.
[pause]
After the accident when nothing was sure I made a copy. When you picked it up I knew you would destroy it. I kept the copy. I sent it to Strasburg.
Julie: Why did you do that?
La copiste: This music is so beautiful. You can’t destroy things like that.
…
Antoine: I’d like to meet you. It’s important.
Julie: Nothing’s important.
…
Julie: Now I have only one thing left to do: nothing. I don’t want any belongings, any memories. No friends, no love. Those are all traps.[/b]
The ending notwithstanding? Here we come back to dasein.
THREE COLORS: WHITE
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
Karol: [to the man who wanted help committing suicide] That was a blank. The next one’s real. Are you sure?
He wasn’t.
THREE COLORS: RED
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
Valentine: I’m sorry. I ran over your dog, Rita. A German shepard.
The Judge: That’s possible. She disappeared yesterday.
Valentine: She’s in my car…alive. I don’t know what to do.
[pause]
Should I take her to a veternarian?
The Judge: As you wish.
Valentine: If I ran over your daughter would you be so indifferent?
The Judge: I have no daughter , miss. Go away.
Later…
The Judge: Why did you pick up Rita?
Valentine: Because I had run over her. She was bleeding.
The Judge: Otherwise, you’d have felt guilty. You’d have dreams of a dog with a crushed skull.
Valentine: Yes.
The Judge: So who did you do it for?
This cynicism dissolves later in the script. But is it any more or less reasonable?
[b]…
Valentine: Michel, tell me…do you love me?
Michel: I think so.
Valentine: You love me or you think so?
Michel: It’s the same thing.
…
The Judge: I want nothing.
Valentine: Then stop breathing.
The Judge: Good idea.
…
The Judge: Deciding what is true and what isn’t now seems to me…a lack of modesty.
Valentine: Vanity?
The Judge: Vanity.
…
Valentine: You’re not afraid?
The Judge: I wonder what I’d do in their place. The same thing.
Valentine: You’d throw stones?
The Judge: In their place? Of course. And that goes for everyone I judged. Given their lives, I would steal, I’d kill, I’d lie. Of course I would. All that because I wasn’t in their shoes, but mine.[/b]
THE IDES OF MARCH
Directed by George Clooney
[b]Stephen Meyers: I can’t find the goddamn polls!
…
Stephen: Because you wanna win. Because you broke the only rule in politics. You wanna be president? You can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country, but you can’t fuck the interns. They get you for that.
…
Paul: Well, one day we’ll grab a beer and you can tell me what you had on the governor that put me out.
Stephen: How do you know I didn’t have something on you?[/b]
Here’s the thing though: Clooney exposes [going all the way back to Mr Smith Goes to Washington] Hollywood’s rendition of the jaded, cynical opportunists in American politics. Then he hosts a dinner for Barack “change we can all believe in” Obama who, in his own way, is smack dab in the middle of all this!
Is Clooney the starfucker here?
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Directed by David Fincher
[b]Mikael: Rape, torture, fire, animals, religion. Am I missing anything?
Lisbeth: The names. They’re all biblical
…
Henrik: You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet - my family.
…
Martin: The fear of offending is stronger than the fear of pain.
…
Bjurman: Would you prefer institutionalization?
…
Lisbeth: [to Bjurman] I just want to know, am I going to have to do this every time I need money to eat?
…
Bjurman: I forgot to ask you…[rips open condom package]…you like anal sex?[/b]
But then, on her next visit:
Lisbeth: [to Bjurman] Good. You’re alive. You recognize this? I had it with me last time. I set it here, remember? And this snap, you see it? It’s not a snap. It’s a wide angle fiber-optics lens.
[plays video of Bjurman raping her]
: I thought it was going to be another blow job, which is disgusting enough. But I misjudged just how sick you are. Okay, here’s what is going to happen.
[inserts anal plug into Bjurman]
Pay attention. Look at me!
[tasers Bjurman]
Once you can sit again, which could be a while, I admit, we’re going to go to my bank and tell them that I alone have access to my money. Nod.
Bjurman: [nods yes]
Lisbeth: After that you will never contact me again. Each month you will prepare a report of a meeting that we will never have. In it you’ll describe how well I’m doing. How sociable I’m becoming. Then you will negotiate with the court to have my declaration of incompetence lifted. If you fail, this video will spread across the internet like a virus. Nod.
Bjurman: [nods yes]
Lisbeth: And if anything should happen to me. If I get run over by a car. If you run me over with a car. This will upload automatically. Nod that you understand.
Bjurman: [nods yes]
Lisbeth: [picks up Bjurman’s pants] Ooh, Gabardine. I’m taking the keys to this apartment because I’ll be checking on you. And if I find a girl in here with you, whether she came of her own free will or not.
[Bjurman nods to the video]
Lisbeth: No, not the video. I’ll kill you. Do you doubt anything I’ve said? Do you doubt what’s in the reports that have followed me around all my life? What do they say, if you had to sum it up? They say I’m insane.
[Bjurman desperately nods no]
Lisbeth: No, it’s okay. You can nod because it’s true. I am insane.
No, not really. She just lives her life…outside the lines?
The situation she was in with her “guardian” was insane. When the conditions of your life are so whacked, “insane” measures make sense and help you survive. It wasn’t likely any “proper” authority would have believed Lisbeth about the abuse, considering her history and reputation. She had to deal with the matter herself, by the means available to her, in a way that would end the abuse with near certainty.
“Insane”, yes. But she seemed to embody Nietzsche’s notion that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The end of the movie reminded me of Andy Dufresne going from bank to bank in The Shawshank Redemption.
I’ve always wondered, what exactly did Nietzsche mean by that statement? Of course it’s not true in an unconditional sense, for being wounded such that a limb has to be amputated certainly does not leave you stronger or open up any potential to be stronger that wasn’t possible before. However, there are contexts in which N’s statement rings brilliantly profound such as the case with being exposed bacteria and allergens early on in life leading to the development of a stronger, more resistant immune system for life. But what the hell did Nietzsche have in mind? If it was simply the sentiment that hardship can strengthen skills and resolve, well that’s fairly common wisdom.
What is fascinating [to me] is not whether Marla did the paintings…but the discussions that revolved around reactions to art in general and modern art in particular.
MY KID COULD PAINT THAT
A documentary by Amir Bar-Lev
[b]Michael Kimmelman: In a case like Marla, because it touches on all sorts of deep-rooted issues about whether modern art is real or not, it has a kind of strange, hypnotic appeal to it. So, I wrote something that seemed to interest me, really, about the complications of abstract art. Why people don’t seem to really feel that there’s some way of judging what’s good, what’s bad.
There is this large idea out there that abstract art, and modern art in general, has no standards, no truths. And that if a child can do it, that it, sort of, pulls the veil off this con game, and shows you that somebody who is 4 years old can do something every bit as good as what a famous artist who sells pictures for millions of dollars could do. That idea that art is not really about some truth but it’s about some lie being foisted on a public…that abstract art in general and modern art in particular, is one kind of racket, is a put-on.
If you take an artist like Pollack, you know, everyone basically figured this is the ultimate example of modern art gone crazy. It’s a guy dripping, splashing paint. Pollock literally invented a whole new way of painting. The photographs of him just dripping and splashing, walking around these canvases made it look that much more like he was really not an artist.
…
Reporter: My mother had a thing against Pollock. She hated his paintings because she felt like every time she saw a Jackson Pollock painting, it was saying, “You’re stupid and I’m not, and there’s people smarter than you that get me”. She felt personally insulted by his paintings.
…
Michael Kimmelman: …money, money is the ultimate, sort of distorting thing [in the art world].
…
Michael Kimmelman: I think one of the fundamental problems people have with art, because a lot of it used to be transparently clear, it was telling a story, that there’s some assumption that art has an obligation to explain itself to you. And that if it doesn’t that, somehow, it’s the art’s fault. But modernism wanted to tell a variety of stories. Now, it continues to tell stories. There’s narrative in all sorts of art. If we’re talking about abstract painting there are still stories being told. They may be stories about the characters who made these pictures and that was the case with Pollock.
…
Michael Kimmelman: [Marla’s 4 year old] innocence also says something about the ultimate cynicism of the art world. There’s a lot of art that’s been made, especially in the modern era, which is about alienating its viewership. This idea of actually, kind of, sticking it to the very people who are supposed to be patronizing it. Probably the worst thing you can say about an artist is, everything this artist does is joyous and wonderful, and openhearted and just simple and free. In certain circles, that might sound like you’re not serious. I think, probably, some of the appeal, though, to a large public of the Marlas of the world, is that it seems pure, innocent joy, no cynicism, no irony, no sarcasm. None of that kind of stuff that goes along with modern art. You know, nobody’s saying “fuck you” in this picture. They’re just saying, “I’m a happy girl who loves painting.”
…
Michael Kimmelman: All writers, all storytellers, are imposing their own narrative on something. I mean, all art in some ways is a lie. It looks like a picture of something, but it isn’t that thing, it’s a representation of that thing… Your documentary is itself going to be a lie. It’s a construction of things, it’s how you wish to represent the truth and how you’ve decided to tell a particular story. By that I don’t mean that certain things don’t happen. Of course they do. It’s not that there is no such thing as truth. But we come to like and trust a certain story, not because it’s necessarily the most absolutely truthful, but because it’s a thing that we tell ourselves that makes sense of the world, at least at this moment.[/b]
Well put.
Thanks, so you’re unsure of what N. meant as well?
I think he was just plain wrong. This spiritual machismo is present in a number of religions and subcultures and I think it has done a lot of damage. Sure, a person may be able to do things without worrying or hesitation they would not have been able to do without certain kinds of hardship and pain. But I think those who do this are cutting portions of themselves out, using or at least experiencing the harsh experiences as purging, toughening them up like leather. Scars instead of skin. A hopeless heart. Others, still in contact with the damaged parts of themselves function openly less well and do not appreciate what they went through in the way the ones who are positive about this do.
Surely we all know someone or have seen someone who has been shattered by experiences that did not kill them, but who have lived on, half or less the person they were before. Sure, it can be tough sometimes to see the loss in those who beat their chests and say I can take it. Or is it harder? seems it can be right on the surface with them also?
I can see how some people do manage to grow through horrible experiences, gaining empathy and depth of character, and this can be a kind of strength, but unless I missed something this is not the ‘stronger’ N was writing about.
CITIZEN KANE
Directed by Oeson Welles
[b]Emily: Really Charles, people will think…
Charles Foster Kane: …what I tell them to think.
…
Bernstein: Old age. It’s the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don’t look forward to being cured of.
…
Bernstein: A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.
…
Charles Foster Kane: Hello Jedediah.
Leland: Hello, Charlie. I didn’t know we were speaking…
Charles Foster Kane: Sure, we’re speaking, Jedediah: you’re fired.
…
Leland: You talk about the people as if you owned them. As though they belong to you. Goodness. As long as I can remember you’ve talked about giving the people their rights…as if you could make them a present of liberty…as a reward for services rendered.
[pause]
Remember the workingman?..You used to write an awful lot about the workingman…but he’s turning into something called “organized labor”. You’re not going to like that one little bit when you find out it means your workingman expects something as his right, and not your gift. When your precious underpriveleged really get together…Oh, boy…that’s going to add up to something bigger than your privilege…
[pause]
You don’t care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love them so much that they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms. It’s something to be played your way, according to your rules.[/b]
MOON
Directed by Duncan Jones
[b]Sam 1: Why would they do that? What’s the motive?
Sam 2: Look, it’s a company, right? They have investors. They have shareholders. Shit like that. What’s cheaper, spending time and money training new personnel, or you just have a couple of spares here on the job. It’s the far side of the moon. The cheap fucks haven’t even fixed the communications satellite yet…They’re laughing all the way to the bank.
…
Announcer 1: Lunar Industries stocks have slipped a further 32% after accusations…
Announcer 2: Clone 6, the clone of Sam Bell has been giving evidence at CAA’s Board of Directors meeting in Seattle…
Man on talk radio: You know what? He’s one of two things. He’s a wacko or an illegal immigrant. Either way, they need to lock him up. Line two.[/b]
Grand Canyon…
Simon - You ever been to the Grand Canyon? Its pretty, but thats not the thing of it. You can sit on the edge of that big ol’ thing and those rocks… the cliffs and rocks are so old… it took so long for that thing to get like that… and it ain’t done either! It happens right there while your watching it. Its happening right now as we are sitting here in this ugly town. When you sit on the edge of that thing, you realize what a joke we people really are… what big heads we have thinking that what we do is gonna matter all that much… thinking that our time here means didly to those rocks. Just a split second we have been here, the whole lot of us. That’s a piece of time so small to even get a name. Those rocks are laughing at me right now, me and my worries… Yeah, its real humorous, that Grand Canyon. Its laughing at me right now. You know what I felt like? I felt like a gnat that lands on the ass of a cow chewing his cud on the side of the road that you drive by doing 70 mph.
Legend of the Guardians
Noctus: [back at the Tree of the Guardians] We’re so proud of you.
Soren: Dad. They’re real.
Noctus: You made them real." -
Boron: When you’ve flown as far as you can, you’re halfway there!
Gylfie: [confused] What did he say?
Digger: [ecstatic] We’re halfway there! "
A River Runs through It
All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.”
Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect”
I had as yet no notion that life every now and then becomes literature—not for long, of course, but long enough to be what we best remember, and often enough so that what we eventually come to mean by life are those moments when life, instead of going sideways, backwards, forward, or nowhere at all, lines out straight, tense and inevitable, with a complication, climax, and, given some luck, a purgation, as if life had been made and not happened.”
Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”
LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
Directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
[b]Yukio: Suicide again? [looking up at the noose] Going to hang yourself this time?
…
“This is Bliss” — Kenji’s suicide note.[/b]
Instead, he goes on to meet the beautiful and mysterious Noi and that becomes bliss instead.
And [all the more blissfully] the end of the film is up to you to decide.
I don’t have time to reply right now, but I think you might be interested in an article I just found addressing this topic and phrase of Nietzsche’s.