philosophy in film

Based on a true story. On the other hand, so much regarding America’s involvement in Vietnam revolves around big fucking lies. Personally, I lost count of them after Cam Ranh Bay.

RESCUE DAWN
Written and directed by Werner Herzog

[b]Duane: You’re a strange bird, Dieter. A man tries to kill you and you want his job

…

Dieter: No, I never wanted to go to war. I just wanted to fly.

…

Dieter: [on his birthday] What kind of champagne is this?
Gene: You just got to keep thinking protein, lots of protein.
Duane: It’s not bad. Squished insect larva.
Gene: Protein…

…

Duane: Be quiet!
Dieter: What?
Duane: Quiet.
Dieter: Why? I’m whispering.
Duane: Little Hitler’s coming.
Dieter: Who?
Duane: Shh! Little Hitler!
Dieter: Who’s Little Hitler?[/b]

He finds out:

[b]Dieter: Now what the hell is this? The Middle Ages?
Duane: Hey, listen. Don’t mess with these guys. You’ll regret it.

…

Duane: The jungle is the prison, don’t you get it?

…

Duane: You won’t make it out of camp. There are six guards posted during the day.
Dieter [chuckling]: Yeah. That is during the day. I’m going at night. [Duane smirks]. Why? What happens at night?[/b]

He finds out.

[b]Gene: Where am I gonna go? Where am I goona go?

…

Dieter: Which one of your feet is the worst off?
Duane: That’s a trick question, right?

…

Duane: I’m done.
Dieter: No. We’ll travel by night…
Duane: No, I’m telling you, I can’t go any further…just leave me here.[/b]

Based on the true story of the Papin sisters: Class struggle, God, incest, murder.

MURDEROUS MAIDS [Les blessures assassines]

[b]Lea: If we were rich…
Christine: What would change? Rich ladies have everything but I’ve seen them weeping in secret.

…

Mother: What’s the matter now? Praying again? Answer me!
Christine: I’ve decided to be a nun, like Emilia.
Mother [slapping her hard across the face]: Never! You’ll slave for others like I did!

…

Christine [to Lea on her first day at work]: 7:20 - Prepare Monsieur’s tray: coffee, cold milk, toast…7:30 - Take up the tray with the paper…9:30 - Bed…We could add: “Take a few minutes to pee.” [they giggle]

Remember this: “Yes, Madame. No Madame. Yes, Monsieur. No, Monsieur”. Forget their surname. And always speak to them in third person. Aunt Isabelle said a master is three people: the one he is, the one others think he is and the one he believes he is. Always address the last one.

…

Lady of the house [to Christine]: I see you’re satisfied with what I gave you. That’s good. That confirms my opinion. Convent girls are well brought up. The nuns teach you to respect property.

…

Lea: God, please stop this![/b]

He doesn’t.

The narrative of choice: Beauty—>Art—>Action—>Harmony of pen and sword

[yeah, right]

In the end, Mishima’s harmony – “purity” – becomes just one more futile assault on capitalism. On a modern world sans God.

MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS
Directed by Paul Schrader

[b]Mishima: When I examined my early childhood I see myself as a boy leaning at the window forever watching a world I was unable to change forever hoping it would change itself.

…

Mishima: In my earliest years, I realized life consisted of two contradictory elements. One was words, which could change the world. The other was the world itself, which had nothing to do with words.

…

Interrogator: You’re still too young and pure. You will learn to tone down your feelings.
Isao: If purity is toned down, it’s no longer purity.
Interrogator: Total purity is not possible in this world.
Isao: Yes, it is! If you turn your life into a line of poetry written in a splash of blood.

…

Mishima: All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence. For forty-five years I struggled to resolve this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So I found another form of expression.

…

Mishima: My need to transform reality was an urgent necessity, as important as three meals a day or sleep.

…

Osamu: The guys at the theatre are even worse. They’re still having the same boring discussions about the “wounds of art”…They don’t even know that art is a shadow…that stage blood is not enough.

…

Mishima: Words are a deceit. In order to transform reality, the writer must be deceitful. But action is never deceitful. “The harmony of pen and sword”. This samuri motto used to be a way of life. Now it’s forgotten. Can art and action still be united?

…

Mizoguchi: [stuttering] It was as s-small as this, but grew so big… it filled the world like… tremendous music. That’s the p-p-power of beauty’s eternity. It poisons us. It blocks out our lives.
Mariko: Please, enough of your pride! Beauty is like a rotten tooth. It rubs against your tongue, hurting, insisting on its importance. Finally you go to a dentist and have it pulled. Then you look at the small bloody tooth in your hand and say, “Is that all it was?” That’s the way it is.

…

Mariko: Only knowledge can turn life’s unbearableness into a weapon.[/b]

[On the other hand, as Mishima learns, a certain knowledge of life may well make it unbearable]

…

[b]Mishima: The average age for a man in the Bronze Age was eighteen, in the Roman era, twenty-two. Heaven must have been beautiful then. Today it must look dreadful. When a man reaches forty, he has no chance to die beautifully. No matter how he tries, he will die of decay. He must compel himself to live.

…

Mishima [in narration after his “purity” speech is met with scorn and derision from the very soldiers he wishes to sway]: Body and spirit had never blended. Never in physical action had I discovered the chilling satisfaction of words. Never in words had I experienced the hot darkness of action. Somewhere there must be a higher principle which reconciles art and action. That principle, it occured to me, is death.[/b]

The rest is almost unbearable to watch.

Mishima: Long live the emperor! Long live the emperor! Long live the emperor!

Then seppuku.

HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER:
Directed by Clint Eastwood

[b]Mordecai: What about after?
The Stranger: Hmm?
Mordecai: What about after we kill them? What do we do then?
The Stranger: Then you live with it.

…

Sarah: Be careful. You’re a man who makes people afraid, and that’s dangerous.
The Stranger: It’s what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid.

…

Preacher: See here, you can’t turn all these people out into the night. It is inhuman, brother. Inhuman!
The Stranger: I’m not your brother.
Preacher: We are all brothers in the eyes of God.
The Stranger: All these people, are they your sisters and brothers?
Preacher: They most certainly are.
The Stranger: …Then you won’t mind if they come over and stay at your place, will ya?[/b]

A short while later…

[b]Preacher [to hotel guests]: Friends, friends, don’t worry. We shall find haven for you in our own homes… [pause] …and it won’t cost you one cent more than regular hotel rates.

…

The Stranger: I’d like rifles and ammunition for everyone in the regiment.
Gunsmith: What regiment?
The Stranger: The city of Lago volunteer force
Gunsmith: Never heard of it
The Stranger: Well you oughta, you’re in it.

…

Stacey: I just want enough time to take one year out of my life back from Lago.
Cole: How long you reckon that’ll take?
Stacey: [grinning] For some of 'em; a lifetime.

…

Lewis: I got 18 people in my hotel! Where are they gonna go?
The Stranger: Out.

…

Stacey [shouting out into the unknown]: Who are you?!..[then bewildered] Who are you…[/b]

People are strange, but some people are stranger than others. Of course when you are young and beautiful others tend to make allowances. Or they fall in love with you.

Oh, and what we do we do because of what we think we know. But that may have nothing at all to do with what is true.

THE BRIDESMAID [La demoiselle d’honneur]
Directed by Claude Chabrol

[b]Message on Senta’s phone: I’m not available. Do the best you can.

…

Philip: Have you tried two men at once?
Senta: I’ve tried everything.

…

Senta: Are you sure you love me?
Philip: Of course. Of course I love you. Like I’ve never loved anyone before.
Senta: Then do something to prove it.
Philip: Sure. What?
Senta: I’ve been thinking about it. We’ll each do something tremendous to prove our love.
Philip: What do I have to do?

…

Senta: You don’t see things as they are yet. You still don’t see we’re very special people. That we’re above everything. Laws. Morality. But I know you will realize it. You’ll cut loose from all the pettiness weighing us down. You’ll see the world as it really is. As something mystical. Magical. You’ve taken a step towards that by killing for me.[/b]

Lust becomes love and the constraints fall away. But it is not what Philip [or Senta] thinks it is at all. In any event, she kills the wrong man.

Philip: Senta, you did it. You really killed someone.
Senta: I told you I did. I killed for you.
Philip: But it wasn’t Gerard, it was someone who had nothing to do with this!
Senta: So what? I killed for you. Just like you killed for me.

Unless, of course, he didn’t.

Some things from the past are hidden from one. Some things from the past are hidden from the other. And some things from the present are hidden from both.

As the director says of the film, “there are a thousand truths”.

CACHE
Written and directed by Michael Haneke

[b]Georges: My parents decided to adopt the boy. I don’t know why. They felt responsible in some way.
Anne: And then?
Georges: It annoyed me. I didn’t want him at home. He had his own room. I had to share, see. I was six!
Anne: So what did you do?
Georges: I told lies about him…

…

Georges: Can’t you just trust me?
Anne: I have to trust you? Why not the other way around for once? How about you trust me? Who refuses to give trust here? Imagine the shoe’s on the other foot? Imagine I say, “I may know who’s terrorizing us but I can’t tell you!”

…

Georges: Strange isn’t it? I haven’t fought since I was a child. I find it repugnant. Stop this stupid game!
Majid: Or you’ll kick my ass? That shouldn’t be hard. You’re a lot bigger than last time. But kicking my ass won’t leave you any wiser about me. Even if you beat me to death. But you’re too refined for that. Above all, you have too much to lose. What wouldn’t we do not to lose what’s ours?[/b]

Anne and Georges watch a videotape:

Georges: I’m going to leave now, but you can be sure of something. If you try to interfere in my life, scare my family or damage me, you’ll regret it, I swear.
Majid: You’re threatening me?
Georges: Yes, I’m threatening you. Believe me, I mean it.
Majid: I believe you. But you don’t believe me. I didn’t want anything from you. I never sent you a tape or anything else.

And then there is that wonderfully ambiguous ending.

Here we encounter philosophy before and after a panic. Something happens. And many of the ways we used to think about things no longer apply. You either reinvent yourself or you go under.

CONTAGION
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

[b]Dr. Sussman: Blogging is not writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation.

…

Dr. Cheever: Someone doesn’t have to weaponize the bird flu.The birds are doing that.

…

Medical examiner: Well, the sulci are obliterated. Let’s look at the base…Oh, my God
Assistant: You want me to take a sample, or…
Medical examiner: I want you to move away from the table.
Assistant: Should I call someone?
Medical examiner: Call everyone.

…

Dr. Mears: At this point, I think we have to believe this is respiratory. Maybe fomites too.
Government official: What’s that, fomites?
Dr Mears: It refers to transmission from surfaces. The average person touches their face 2 to 3,000 times a day.
Official: two or three thousand times a day?
Dr Mears: Three to five times every waking minute. In between we’re touching doorknobs, water fountains, elevator buttons and each other. Those things become fomites.[/b]

Speculating on the origins of the disease:

[b]Health official: Somewhere in the world, the wrong pig met up with the wrong bat.

…

Dr Cheever: From here on out, I want no one working on this except at BSL-4. The last thing we need is for this to walk out of the lab on the bottom of someone’s shoe.

…

Dave: My wife makes me take off my clothes in the garage. Then she leaves out a bucket of warm water and some soap. And then she douses everything in hand sanitizer after I leave. I mean, she’s overreacting, right?
Dr Mears: Not really.

…

Dr Mears: You ever have to tell a man who just lost his wife and stepson that his wife was cheating on him before she died?[/b]

And this exchange of course was inevitable: Who can you trust when so much is at stake?

[b]Gupta: Let me bring Alan Krumiede [a freelance journalist…and fraud] into this debate. Alan, today on twitter you wrote that the truth about this virus is being kept from the world by the CDC and the World Health Organization to allow friends of the administration to benefit from it both financially and physically.
Alan: There are therapies we know are effective right now, like forsythia and they don’t even appear on the CDC website.
Gupta: On your blog, you also wrote that the World Health Organization is in bed with pharmaceutical companies?
Alan: Because they are. That’s who stands to gain from this. They’re working hand in glove. And the hand is reaching into our pockets.

…

Alan: Tell them what an R-nought of two really means, Dr. Cheever. Teach them some math. No? Okay, I’ll do it. On day 1, there are two people with it. And then there are 4. And then it was 16 and you think you’ve got it in front of you. But next it’s 256, and then it’s 65,000 and it’s behind you and above you and all around you. In 30 steps, it’s a billion sick. In three months.

…

Dr Cheever: As of right now, the mortality rate is fluctuating between 25 and 30 percent depending upon underlying medical conditions, socioeconomic factors, nutrition, fresh water. With the new mutation we are predicting an R-nought of no less than four. And without a vaccine, we can anticipate that approximately 1 in 12 people on the planet will contract the disease.[/b]

Then shots of a world turned completely upside down. For example, virtually all public domains are deserted.

The mind of a sadistic killer. But the mind of someone who is not insane. We can be repulsed. But that does not make minds like this go away. So Gods are invented to deal with them. Or the minds of men like Soo-hyun [or Dexter?] are fabricated as another possible antidote. But that’s often when the law of unintended consequences kicks in.

I have always been drawn to films revolving around revenge. The more exacting the better. What does that say about me?

I SAW THE DEVIL
Directed by Kim Jee-Woon

[b]Kim Soo-hyun: Ju-yeon, I promise you this. I’ll make him pay for your pain

…

Ju-yeon: Please don’t kill me.
Kyung-chul: Why not?

…

Kyung-chul: Why?
Victum: Huh?
Kyung-chul: Why do you look like you just stepped in shit?

…

Se-yeon: I know how you feel but I hope you’ll stop. It won’t bring her back. Whatever you do to punish him, things won’t change. Revenge is for movies.

…

Soo-hyun: Hands, feet, then head. Right?

…

Soo-hyun [beating Kyung-chul]: Why! Why! Why!..Why! Why!..Why! Why!

…

Detective: It’s agent Kim Soo-hyun, right? Want me to show you what he’s been up to? Make him stop. He can’t become a monster to fight the monster. You know that’s wrong.

…

Kyung-chul [mimicing his victums]: Let me live. Please. I beg you. Don’t kill me. Please…
Soo-hyun: Heard that many times, haven’t you? People begging for their lives. You enjoyed that, huh?

…

Kyung-chul: Fuck you. I don’t know what pain is. Fear? Don’t know what that is either…There’s nothing you can get from me.[/b]

All that is left for Soo-hyun to say:

I hope that you suffer even after you die.

But you need God for that. In the interim though he does come up with a rather ingenius execution.

Like Mindwalk, Stalker is a film in which intellectuals speculate [or pontificate] about the mysteries that link us all to existence. What is philosophical? what is political? what is religious? what is scientific? what is emotional and psychological? The Room, the Zone become projections for all of the turbulent contradictions that make up the lives we live.

Still, if you found a place that granted you your most innermost wish what would it be?

STALKER [1979]
Directed by Andrey Tarkovskiy

[b]Professor: Everything I told you before…is a lie. I don’t give a damm about inspiration. How would I know the right word for what I want? How would I know that actually I don’t want what I want? Or that I actually don’t want what I don’t want? They are elusive things: the moment we name them, their meanng disappears, melts, dissolves like a jellyfish in the sun. My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?
Writer: World domination.

…

Writer: A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he’s worth something. And if I know for sure that I’m a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?

…

Stalker: Let everything that’s been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.[/b]

Unless, of course, it does.

[b]Writer: And what are you? A chemist?
Professor: A physicist rather.
Writer: That must be boring too. Searching for the truth. It’s hiding and you keep searching for it… While I am digging for the truth, so much happens to it that instead of discovering the truth I dig up a heap of, pardon…I’d better not name it.

…

Professor: Judging by his tone he is going to start sermonizing again.

…

Writer: One more experiment. Experiments, facts, truth of the highest order. There’s no such things as facts. Especially here. All this is someone’s idiotic invention…But we of course must find out whose invention it is. And why…

…And they’re all swarming around, journalists, critics, editors…And they all demand: More! More!..

…it’s a constant torment for me, a painful, shameful occupation, like squeezing out hemorrhoids. I used to think that someone would get better because of my books…In two days after I die they’ll start gobbling up someone else…

…I wanted to change them, but it’s they who’ve changed me. Making me over in their image…

…The future used to be just a continuation of the present, with all the changes looming far behind the horizon. Now the future and the present are one. Are they ready for it? They don’t want to know anything! All they know is how to gobble![/b]

And this was written years before the Internet world we live in now.

[b]Professor: Do you realize what will happen when everybody believes in the Room? And all come rushing here? It’s only a question of time…And not just tens of them, thousands! Unfulfilled emperors, great inquisitors, fuhrers, self-appointed benefactors of the human race! And they’ll come not for money or for inspiration…but to change the world!

…

Writer: I can see quite clearly now that you plan to overwhelm mankind with good deeds.

…

Writer: And something else. Why do you think this miracle really exists? Who told you that wishes actually come true here? Have you seen a single man who has been made happy here?..As a matter of fact, who told you about the Zone…about the Room?[/b]

Nihilism that [in the end] has a heart.

HEATHERS
Directed by Michael Lehmann

[b]Pauline: Now… it seems we were in a similar position on Monday when I thoughtfully suggested we get everybody together for an unadulterated emotional outpouring. But no. You took this as an opportunity to play yet another round of “Let’s Laugh at the Hippie.”
Paul: Pauline…
Principal: Shut up, Paul. Now I’ve seen a lot of bullshit. Angel dust. Switchblades. Sexually perverse photography exibits involving tennis rackets. But this suicide thing… guess that’s more on Pauline’s wavelength. Well, we’re gonna just write off today. And on Friday she can hold her little “Love-In” or…whatever

…

J.D.: People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say, “Now there’s a school that self-destructed, not because society didn’t care, but because the school was society.” Now that’s deep.

…

J.D.: Chaos was what killed the dinosaurs, darling

…

Ram: [after watching J.D. flirt with Veronica] Let’s kick his ass!
Kurt: Shit, Ram - we’re seniors, man. We’re too old for that kind of crap. Let’s give 'im a good scare, though.
[They walk to where J.D. is sitting]
Ram: [Sticking his fingers into J.D.'s lunch] You gonna eat this?
Kurt: What did your boyfriend say when you told ‘im you were movin’ to Sherwood, Ohio?
Ram: Answer him, dick!
Kurt: Hey Ram, doesn’t this cafeteria have a “No Fags Allowed” rule?
J.D.: Well they, uh, seem to have an open door policy for assholes though, don’t they?

…

J.D.: Is your life perfect?
Veronica: I’m on my way to a party at Remington University… No, my life’s not perfect. I don’t really like my friends.
J.D.: I…I don’t really like your friends either.
Veronica: Well, it’s just like - they’re people I work with, and our job is being popular and shit.
J.D.: Maybe it’s time to take a vacation.

…

Veronica: [writing in diary] Betty Finn was a true friend and I sold her out for a bunch of Swatch dogs and Diet Coke heads. Killing Heather would be like offing the wicked witch of the west…wait…east. West! God! I sound like a fucking psycho

…

Veronica: Dear Diary: Heather told me she teaches people “real life.” She said, real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly. I said, so, you teach people how to spread their wings and fly? She said, yes. I said, you’re beautiful.

…

Dad: Will someone tell me why I smoke these damn things?
Veronica: Because you’re an idiot.
Dad: Oh yeah, that’s it.

…

Veronica: This may seem like a really stupid question…
J.D.: There are no stupid questions.
Veronica: You inherit 5 million dollars the same day aliens land on the earth and say they’re going to blow it up in 2 days. What do you do?
J.D.: That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.

…

J.D.: The extreme always seems to make an impression.

…

J.D.: I like it. It’s got that what-a-cruel-world-let’s-toss-ourselves-in-the-abyss type ambience.

…

Veronica: If you think I’m doing another suicide note you’re wrong!
J.D.: You don’t get it do you? Society nods its head at any horror the American teenager can think upon itself. Nobody is going to care about exact handwriting.

…

Veronica: You’re a rebel? You think you’re a rebel? You’re not a rebel you’re fucking psychotic!

…

Veronica: I say we just grow up, be adults and die.

…

J.D.: Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination.

…

Veronica Sawyer: Dear Diary, my teen-angst now has a body count.

…

J.D.: The only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven.

…

Pauline: Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.

…

Veronica: Excuse me, I think I know Heather a little bit better than you do. If she were going to slit her wrists, the knife would be spotless.[/b]

BURN AFTER READING
Written and directed by the Coen Bros.

Or, perhaps, in this case, “read after burning”?

Still, you can’t help but wonder how far this is from the real world. Well, less all the dead bodies of course.

[b]CIA Superior: Report back to me when, you know, it makes sense.

…

Linda: You should put up a note in the ladies locker room.
Chad: Put up a note? “Highly classified shit found: Signal intelligence shit, CIA shit?” Hello, anybody lose their secret CIA shit? I don’t think so!

…

CIA Superior: What a clusterfuck!

…

Osbourne: And you’re my wife’s lover?
Ted: [shaking his head] No.
Osbourne: Then what are you doing here?
[pause]
Osbourne: I know you. You’re the guy from the gym.
Ted: I’m not here representing HardBodies.
Osbourne: Oh, yes. I know very well what you represent.
[pause]
Osbourne: You represent the idiocy of today.
Ted: No, I don’t represent that either.
Osbourne: Yeah. You’re the guy at the gym when I asked about that moronic woman.
Ted: She’s not a moron.
Osbourne: You’re in league with that moronic woman. You are part of a league of morons.
Ted: No. No.
Osbourne: Oh, yes. You see, you’re one of the morons I’ve been fighting my whole life. My whole fucking life!

…

CIA Superior: What did we learn, Palmer?
CIA Officer: I don’t know, sir.
CIA Superior: I don’t fuckin’ know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
CIA Officer: Yes, sir.
CIA Superior: I’m fucked if I know what we did.
CIA Officer: Yes, sir, it’s, uh, hard to say
CIA Superior: Jesus fucking Christ.

…

Osbourne: If you ever carried out your proposed threat you would experience such a shitstorm of consequences my friend your empty little head would be spinning faster than the wheels of your Schwinn bicycle back there.
Chad: Y-you think that’s a Schwinn?
OSBOURNE: Now give me the fucking floppy or the CD or whatever the fuck you have it on, and I will----
CHAD: As soon as you give me the money, dickwad! I’m not…
[Smack! Osbourne thumps him in the nose.]

…

Osbourne: Some clown, or two clowns, have gotten a hold of my memoirs.
Katie: Your what?
Osbourne: Stolen it, or I don’t know…
Katie: Your what?
Osbourne: My memoirs, the book I’m writing.
Katie: Well why in God’s name would anyone think that’s worth anything?!

…

Harry: When you left Jamba Juice, did Chad give you any idea where he might be going?
Linda: Oh, I know where he was going.
Harry: You do?
Linda. Georgetown. Olive Street. 160 Olive Street. It’s the residence of this guy, Osbourne Cox.
Harry [incredulous]: Who are you?
Linda: What?
Harry: Who are you? CIA? NSA? You’re military? Who do you work for? WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?! WHO ARE YOU?!!
Linda: I’m just Linda Litzke.[/b]

Over the closing credits this classic from The Fugs:

youtube.com/watch?v=hW9cCWm53H4

One of those stories that even when you learn it is not based on actual events you don’t believe it. In part because Miranda [like Hanging Rock] is fetchingly ethereal, mysterious; and [of course] fetchingly beautiful.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK
Directed by Peter Weir

[b]Miranda: What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream.

…

Marion: A surprising number of human beings are without purpose, though it is probable that they are performing some function unknown to themselves.

…

Miranda: Everything begins and ends at the exactly right time and place.[/b]

Though some assume their own lives are the exceptions

[b]Mr. Whitehead: There’s some questions that have answers and some that don’t.

…

Miranda: You must learn to love someone else, apart from me, Sara. I won’t be here much longer.

…

Michael: I’d rather you didn’t say crude things like that, Albert.
Albert: I say the crude things; you just think them.

…

Miss McCraw: Only a million years ago. Quite a recent eruption really. The rocks all round - Mount Macedon itself - must be all of 350 million years old. Siliceous lava, forced up from deep down below. Soda trachytes extruded in a highly viscous state, building the steep sided mamelons we see in Hanging Rock. And quite young geologically speaking. Barely a million years
Irma: Waiting a million years, just for us.
[Miss McCraw then reacts appropriately to this sort of comment]

…

Sara: Miranda knows lots of things other people don’t know. Secrets. She knew she wouldn’t come back.

…

Narrator: The body of Mrs. Arthur Appleyard, Principal of Appleyard College, was found at the base of Hanging Rock on Friday 27 March 1900. Although the exact circumstances of her death are not known, it is believed she fell while attempting to climb the rock. The search for the missing school girls and their governess continued spasmodically for the next few years without success. To this day their disappearance remains a mystery.[/b]

Living in a commune – 1975, Stockholm – tossed and turned by the human condition.
Just like our own lives today.

TOGETHER
Written and directed by Lukas Moodysson

[b]Goran: Franco is dead! Franco is dead! Franco is dead! [Everyone joins in] FRANCO IS DEAD! FRANCO IS DEAD!!

…

Goran: Don’t be so negative.
Lasse: Don’t be so positive.

…

Tet: My name is Tet. It’s a pretty unusual name, it’s from Vietnam. They had a war there, and there was something called the Tet offensive, and that’s how I got my name

…

Erik: Listen: “What does surplus value mean? What is the difference between the term surplus value and the term profit?”
Lena: We can discuss it later and cuddle now.

…

Erik: Don’t take this personally, but you’re so fucking stupid!

…

Anna: …is it Pippi Longstocking again?
Elizabeth: Pippi Longstocking?
Anna: They thought we should throw it away because Pippi is a capitalist.
Sigvard: She’s a materialist as well.
Signe: She is!
Anna: It’s a children’s book!
Signe: There is nothing to discuss. Just read the book. The eternal search after things. Things, things, things, things.
Sigvard: Then this big bag of gold coins.
Elizabeth: You’re crazy. Pippi is fucking great![/b]

Then there’s the battle over eating hot dogs. And drinking Coke.

Göran [explaining the commune to his sister’s kids]: You could say that we are like porridge. First we’re like small oat flakes - small, dry, fragile, alone. But then we’re cooked with the other oat flakes and become soft. We join so that one flake can’t be told apart from another. We’re almost dissolved. Together we become a big porridge that’s warm, tasty, and nutritious and yes, quite beautiful, too. So we are no longer small and isolated but we have become warm, soft, and joined together. Part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes life feels like an enormous porridge, don’t you think?

Meanwhile the reality is more like the snap, crackle and pop of Rice Krispies.

[b]Elisabeth: I’m a socialist now.
Rolf: So am I.
Elisabeth: No you’re not, you’re a social democrat, there’s a big difference.

…

Tet: Is your mom a lesbian?
Stefan: A what?
Tet: Mine is, and is probably in love with yours.

…

Anna: How are you?
Margit: I don’t know.
Anna: Can I ask you something? Have you ever tried meditating?

…

Eva: God, all adults are idiots.[/b]

From the director of Oldboy.
[So, it can’t ba a bad movie, right?]

SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE [Chinjeolhan geumjassi]

In which the question, “is death punishment enough for some people?” is asked and then answered rather brutally.

Directed by Park Chan-wook

[b]Geum-ja: Listen carefully. Everyone make mistakes. But if you committed a sin, you have to make an atonement for that sin. Atonement, do you know what that means? Big Atonement for big sins.

…

Paroled inmate: Did you find that bastard yet?
Geum-ja: I did.
Paroled inmate: Did you kill him?
Geum-ja: Not yet.
Paroled inmate: Why not?
Geum-ja: I’ve been busy
Paroled inmate: Saving the best for last, is that it?

…

Jenny: What are you going to do about him? Kill him?
[Geum-ja nods yes]
Jenny: Why?
Geum-ja: Because he made a sinner out of me.

…

Geum-ja: Now, you have two options. If you want lawful punishment, we will hand him over to Chief Choi. But if you want a speedier, more personalized death for him, you can have it right here and now.

…

Victum: Why did you do it? You look like a normal person? Why?
Mr. Baek: Ma’am, there is no such thing as a normal person.[/b]

Once sex [and subterfuge] become entangled in a relationship all bets are off. Pack up the tools of philosophy and go home.

And boy does he get screwed.

BODY HEAT
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan

[b]Ned: Maybe you shouldn’t dress like that.
Matty: This is a blouse and a skirt. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ned: Then you shouldn’t wear that body.

…

Matty: [to Ned] You aren’t too smart, are you? I like that in a man.
Ned: What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got 'em all.
Matty: You don’t look lazy

…

Ned: You can stand here with me if you want but you’ll have to agree not to talk about the heat.
Matty: I’m a married woman.
Ned: Meaning what?
Matty: Meaning I’m not looking for company.
Ned: Then you should have said I’m a happily married woman.

…

Ned: Can I buy you a drink?
Matty: I told you. I’ve got a husband.
Ned: I’ll buy him one too.
Matty: He’s out of town.
Ned: My favorite kind. We’ll drink to him.
Matty: Only comes up on weekends.
Ned: I’m liking him better all the time.

…

Ned: I need someone to take care of me, someone to rub my tired muscles, smooth out my sheets.
Matty: Get married.
Ned: I just need it for tonight.

…

Matty: My temperature runs a couple of degrees high, around a hundred. I don’t mind. It’s the engine or something.
Ned: Maybe you need a tune up.
Matty: Don’t tell me. You have just the right tool.

…

Ned: Hey lady, ya wanna fuck?
Mary Ann: Gee, I don’t know. Maybe. This sure is a friendly town.

…

Teddy: …any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you’re gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you’re a genius… and you ain’t no genius.

…

Peter: You know, Edmund Walker was a bad guy, and the more I find out about him, the happier I am he’s dead…As far as I am concerned, I don’t care who killed him and I don’t care who gets rich because of it. But Oscar—Oscar is not like that. His whole life is based on doing the right thing. He’s the only person I know like that.[/b]

One of the better “nothing is as it seems” narratives. What is real? Who is real?

CHAOS [1999]
Directed by Hideo Nakata

[b]Handyman: And no feeding those fish.
Saori: What?
Handyman: Listen. You’ve been kidnapped. How can you feed the fish?
Saori: But they’ll die then!
Handyman: Who matters more, you or the fish?

…

Handyman: And there’s one more thing. While you were being held, your hands and feet were tied.

…

Voice on phone: A mistake to answer the phone.
Handyman: Who is this?
Voice on phone: Who cares?
Handyman: You? You did this?
Voice on phone: It’s your fault Mr Kidnapper.
Handyman: Why’d you do it?
Voice on phone: It just happened.
Handyman: That’s no reason.
Voice on phone: Look who’s talking. You snatched her.
Handyman: No. She asked me to stage a kidnapping. That’s all.
Voice on phone: You tied her up to stage a kidnapping?
Handyman: It’s the truth. She asked me to kidnap her!
Voice on phone: Yeah. I wonder if the cops’ll buy that?

…

Satomi: Listen. What do you say we take a gamble?
Komiyama: Meaning?
Satomi: If our luck is strong, we’ll get out of this mess.
Komiyama: And if it’s bad?
Satomi: Things can’t get any worse.

…

Handyman: Change.
Satomi: What?
Handyman: Become Saori…My turn to gamble.

…

Handyman: I won my bet. You win yours?[/b]

From the writer and director of Head-On

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN [Auf der anderen Seite]
Written and directed by Fatih Akin

These people are like us. These people are not like us. The conceit [for some] is that we can figure out what that means.

As for the “edge of Heaven”, I must have missed that part.

[b]Nejat [in the lecture hall]: Goethe was opposed to revolution. Not on ethical grounds, but because it seemed to him to be uncontrollable.

…

Stranger to Yeter [a prostitute]: Don’t lie to me! We heard you speaking Turkish…You’re both a Muslim and a Turk. You are on a false path. Repent!..Don’t let me catch you there again!!..Peace be with you.[/b]

And thus her life is changed forevermore.

[b]Ali [recovering from a heart attack]: Getting old is evil. There’s absolutely nothing good about it. It’s completely pointless.

…

Ayten [thumbing through a Turkish/German dictionary]: Ayak…foot.

…

Lotte: What kind of law is that?
BARO: This is Turkey.

…

Lotte: This is all going to take longer.
Mother: Is it? How long then?
Lotte: I don’t know exactly. Six months…
Mother: What?! Six months?!!..And what about your studies?
Lotte: There’s no point in all of that, anyway!
Mother: Now, Lotte. Let me tell you something. I’ve had enough of it. I won’t go along with it anymore! You can’t keep wasting your life!
Lotte: For the first time, my life has a purpose![/b]

But that cost money.

[b]Lotte: Mama, I can’t come home.
Mother: Fine. Then stay there. But see how you cope on your own. I won’t help you.

…

Lotte’s mother: How did you know it was me?
Nejat: You are the saddest person in the room.

…

Lotte’s mother reading from Lotte’s diary: These steps, my steps, I want to take with strenght. With courage. Even if Mama doesn’t understand that. Which I find surprising. She was just like that herself.

…

Lotte’s mother: Where are all those people going?
Nejat: To the mosque. Today is the first day of Bayram, the 3 day feast of sacrifice.
Lotte’s mother: And what is it that is sacrificed?
Nejat: God wanted to put Ibrahim’s faith to the test, so he ordered him to sacrifice his son. Ibrahim took his son, Ismail, to the sacrificial mount. But just as he was about to kill him, his knife went blunt. God was satisfied and sent Ibrahim a sheep to sacrifice in place of his son.
Lotte’s mother: We have the same story.
Nejat: I remember asking my dad if he would have sacrificed me, too. I was afraid of this story as a child. My mother died young, you know.
Lotte’s mother: And what did your father answer?
Nejat: That he would even make an enemy of God in order to protect me.
Lotte’s mother: Is your father still alive?

…

Woman in prison: Did you repent?
Ayten: Yes, I did.
Woman in prison [spitting in her face]: You bitch!..Traitor!![/b]

Is that what she is? Or, instead, is she just one particular dasein in the sea of humankind? Or where inbetween?

Love and lust among the rich and fabulous. Which might prompt one to ask: How is it different for the rest of us?
[Some explicit language]

EYES WIDE SHUT
Written and directed by Stanley Kubrick

[b]Bill: Are you sure of that?
Alice: Only as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole truth.
Bill: And no dream is ever just a dream.
Alice: The important thing is we’re awake now and hopefully for a long time to come.
Bill: Forever.
Alice: Forever?
Bill: Forever.
Alice: Let’s not use that word. You know? It frightens me.

…

Sandor: Did you ever read the Latin poet Ovid on The Art of Love?
Alice: Didn’t he wind up all by himself, crying his eyes out in some place with a very bad climate?
Sandor: Yes, but he also had a good time first. A very good time.

…

Sandor: You know why women used to get married, don’t you?
Alice: Why don’t you tell me.
Sandor: It was the only way they could lose their virginity and be free to do what they wanted with other men. The ones they really wanted.
Alice: Fascinating.

…

Bill: And what did the man dancing with you want?
Alice: Sex. Upstairs. Then and there.
Bill: Well, I guess that’s understandable.
Alice: Understandable?
Bill: Well, you’re a beautiful woman.
Alice: Oh, I see. So does exhaustive research show that every man I meet wants to screw me?
Bill: There might be some exceptions.
Alice: Does that mean that all men, with “possibly…some…exceptions” want to screw all beautiful women, married or otherwise?.. So does that mean you wanted to screw the two models?
Bill: I did say with some exceptions.
Alice: And of course you’re an exception?
Bill: Yes.
Alice: How come?
Bill: Because I love you.
Alice: Any other reasons?
Bill: Because we’re married.
Alice: Any others?
Bill: And because I wouldn’t lie to you or hurt you.
Alice: So basically what it comes down to is that you wouldn’t screw the two models “out of consideration” for me, but otherwise you would.

…

Alice: Well, last summer at Cape Cod - I don’t suppose you remember one night in the dining room, there was a young Naval officer sitting near us. He was with two other officers.
Bill: As a matter of fact, I don’t But what about him?
Alice: Well…I first saw him that morning in the lobby. He was checking in and he was following the bellboy with his luggage to the elevator. He glanced at me as he walked past, nothing more. But I could hardly move…That afternoon you and I made love and talked about our future, and we talked about Helena…and yet at no time…was he ever…out of my mind. And I thought if he wanted me…even if it was only for one night…I was ready to give up you, Helena, my whole fucking future. Everything…I barely slept that night. And I woke up the next morning in a panic. I didn’t know whether I was afraid he had left or that he might still be there. But by dinner I realized he was gone…and…I…was…relieved.

…

Alice: Umm, I think that’s my glass.
Sandor: I’m absolutely certain of it.

…

Bill: Now, where exactly are we going… exactly?
Gayle: Where the rainbow ends.
Bill: Where the rainbow ends?
Nuala: Don’t you want to go where the rainbow ends?
Bill: Well, now that depends where that is.
Gayle: Well, let’s find out.

…

Sandor: Don’t you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both parties? May I ask why a beautiful woman who could have any man in this room wants to be married?
Alice: Why wouldn’t she?
Sandor: Is it as bad as that?
Alice: Or as good as that.

…

Alice: Millions of years of evolution, right? Right? Men have to stick it in every place they can, but for women… women it is just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else!
Bill: A little oversimplified, Alice, but yes, something like that.

…

Marion: I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I don’t want to go away with Carl.
Bill: Marion, I don’t think you realize…
Marion: I do, even if I’m never to see you again, I want at least to live near you.
Bill: Marion, listen to me, listen to me. You’re very upset right now and I don’t think you realize what you’re saying.
Marion: I love you.
Bill: We barely know each other. I don’t think we’ve had a single conversation about anything except your father.
Marion: I love you.

…

Victor: Bill, do you have any idea how much trouble you got yourself into last night just by going over there? Who do you think those people were? Those were not just some ordinary people. If I told you their names… no, I’m not going to tell you their names… but if I did, I don’t think you’d sleep so well at night.

…

Victor: Life goes on, until it doesn’t.

…

Milich: Yes, dear? Come, come. Would you like to say hellow to Dr. Harford?
Daughter: Hello.
Daughter’s “customers”: Thank you, Mr. Milich. I’ll call you soon.
Milich: Goodbye gentlemen. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…Well Dr. Harford. Here is your receipt and thanks for the business.
Bill: Mr. Milich, last night you were going to call the police on them.
Milich: Well, things change. We have come to another arrangement. And by the way if the good doctor himself should ever want anything again [he squeezes his daughter]…anything at all…it needn’t be a coustume.

…

Victor: Of course it didn’t help a whole lot that those people arrive in limos and you showed up in a taxi.[/b]

Music from the Masked Ball:
youtube.com/watch?v=gMiNtDbdano

For Woody Allen, it always comes down [eventually] to contingency, chance and change. In, of course, a Godless world. And one in which [again, eventually] you topple over into the abyss for eternity. The only other prerequisite apparently is that you be white, upper middle class and cultured.

MATCH POINT
Written and directed by Woody Allen

[b]Chris: The man who said “I’d rather be lucky than good” saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It’s scary to think so much is out of one’s control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn’t, and you lose.

…

Chloe: Chris’s Dad was a bit of a religious fanatic.
Chris: After he lost both his legs, he found Jesus.
Tom: God… Sorry, but it just doesn’t seem like a fair trade.

…

Chris: I think it is important to be lucky in anything.
Chloe: Well, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in hard work.
Chris: Oh, hard work is mandatory, but I think everybody’s araid to admit what a big part luck plays.[/b]

Then these lines which are mandatory in every Woody Allen movie:

Chris: I mean, it seems scientists are confirming more and more that all existence is here by blind chance. No pupose. No design.

As are these:

Chloe: Well, I don’t care, I love every minute of it.

Somehow, it seems, we are to strike a balance between the two.

[b]Tom: What was it the vicar used to say? “Despair is the path of least resistance.”
Chris: I think that faith is the path of least resistance.
Chloe: Oh God, let’s change the subject please!

…

Chris [to friend]: I’m really suffering. I’m contemplating leaving my wife for another woman. But when the time came to tell her I couldn’t do it…It’s crazy. I can see no real future with this other woman. And I have a very comfortable life with my wife.
Friend: Yeah, but if you don’t love her…
Chris: I’m not saying I don’t love her. Just not in the way I feel about this other woman…Maybe it’s finally the difference between love and lust…But what the hell am I going to do if I leave Chloe? I don’t fool myself that I haven’t gotten used to a certain kind of living. Am I supposed to give it all up? For what?
Friend: Is it for a woman you love?
Chris: To live how? Where?[/b]

This sort of thing goes on in relationships all the time: you want your cake and to eat it. But then there are any number of folks struggling to survive from day to day who would love to be saddled with just that problem.

Back again to Crimes and Misdemeanors:

Chris [to an imagined Nola]: Nola, it wasn’t easy. But when the time came, I could pull the trigger…You can learn to push the guilt under the rug and…go on. You have to. Otherwise it overwhelms you.
The imagined neighbor: And what about me?..I had no involvement in this awful affair. Is there no problem about me having to die as an innocent bystander?
Chris: The innocent are sometimes slain to make way for a grander scheme. You were collateral damage.
Neighbor: And so was your own child [Nola was pregnant].
Chris: Sophocles said: “To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all.”…It would be fitting if I were apprehended…and punished. At least there would be some small sign of justice - some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning.

In the end though the ball [and the ring] fall in the right direction and [with luck] he wins.

A tale of money and identity: We are who we have to be in order to get it. Well, here we are, anyway.
And here, everyone really is in on the conspiracy. For all I know, I might have been.

THE SPANISH PRISONER
Written and directed by David Mamet.

Susan: It goes to show you, you never know who anybody is…Who in this world is what they seem to be? Who?..You never know who anybody is, except me. I am who I am.

[wink, wink]

[b]Jimmy: You now have a Swiss bank account if anybody asks. Crédit Nationale Du Génève code name ‘PADDY’. Lavish awkward gesture. All of fifteen Swiss Francs in it, but if you ever want to impress anybody, they can find out you have a Swiss account. But, Swiss law prohibits the bank from revealing the balance. Thus are all men made equal.

…

Jimmy: I think you’ll find that if what you’ve done for them is as valuable as you say it is, if they are indebted to you morally but not legally, my experience is they will give you nothing, and they will begin to act cruelly toward you.
Joe: Why?
Jimmy: To suppress their guilt.

…

Jimmy: Do the American thing.
Joe: What’s that?
Jimmy: Marry a rich widow.
Joe: We used to say, a nymphomaniac who owns a liquor store.

…

George: We must never forget that we are human, and as humans we dream, and when we dream we dream of money.

…

Jimmy: Always do business as if the person you’re doing business with is trying to screw you, because he probably is. And if he’s not, you can be pleasantly surprised.

…

Jimmy: Money. Impresses everyone. What did it ever do for one?
Joe: It’s useful if you want to buy things.

…

Detective: Now, Mr. Ross, if I told you this story…would you believe it?

…

Joe: You don’t have to do this.
Jimmy: I enjoy doing it, actually. But thank you for your concern.

…

Detective Jones: Nobody looks at a Japanese tourist.[/b]

So, were they really U.S. Marshalls?