philosophy in film

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?

The human fucking mind: go fucking figure.

AWAKENINGS
Directed by Penny Marshall
From the book by Oliver Sacks

[b]Beth: Miriam! I have to take your blood pressure!
Miriam: I’ve been sitting still for 25 years. You missed your chance.

Lucy: I know it’s not 1926. I just need it to be.

Margaret: Miriam, there’s no easy way to tell you this, so - your husband - he was granted a divorce from you in 1952.
Miriam: Oh, thank God!

Dr. Sayer: You told him I was a kind man. How kind is it to give life, only to take it away?
Nurse Costello: It’s given to and taken away from all of us.
Dr. Sayer: Why does that not comfort me?

Dr. Sayer: It’s as if . . . having lost all will of her own on which to act, she borrows the will of the ball.

Nurse Beth: Dr. Sayer
Dr. Sayer: What is it?
Nurse Beth: It’s a fucking miracle!

Anthony: [cheerfully] How’s it going?
Frank: How’s it going?
Anthony: Yeah, how do you feel?
Frank: Well, my parents are dead. My wife is in an institution. My son has disappeared out west somewhere. [pause] I feel old and I feel swindled, that’s how I feel.

Dr. Sayer: [in job interview] It was an immense project. I was to extract 1 decagram of myelin from 4 tons of earth worms.
Dr. Sullivan: Really!
Dr. Sayer: Yes. I was on the project for 5 years. I was the only one who believed in it. Everyone else said it couldn’t be done.
Dr. Kaufman: It can’t.
Dr. Sayer: I know that now. I proved it.

Dr. Sayer: What must it be like to be them? What are they thinking?
Dr. Ingham: They’re not. The virus didn’t spare the higher faculties.
Dr. Sayer: We know that for a fact?
Dr. Ingham: Yes.
Dr. Sayer: Because?
Dr. Ingham: Because the alternative is unthinkable.

Dr. Sayer: [reading the Rilke poem about a caged panther] “His gaze from staring through the bars has grown so weary that it can take in nothing more…For him it is as though there were a thousand bars, and behind the thousand bars, no world . . .As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, his powerful strides are like a ritual dance around a center where a mighty will stands paralyzed…”

Leonard: You’re not married. :
Dr. Sayer: No.I’m not terribly good with people. I like them. I wish I could say I had more than a rudimentary understanding of them. (pause) Maybe if they were less unpredictable . . .

Dr Sayer: Where are my glasses?!
Nurse Costello: There on your face.

Dr. Sayer: [inside the Natural History Museum]: I’ve always loved tidal pools, haven’t you?
Anthony: You chose this place? (Sayer nods) Why?
Dr. Sayer: I come here all the time.
Anthony: Why?
Nurse Costello: I think Anthony thinks they’re bored.
Dr. Sayer: I’d thought about the opera house. Do you think they’d prefer that?
Anthony: The opera house?
Dr. Sayer: The Botanical Gardens?
[Anthony looks to Miss Costello and rolls his eyes.]
Dr. Sayer: Well, where else is there?[/b]

[Cut to a dance hall]

[b]Psychiatrist: Mr. Lowe? I wonder . . . are you at all aware of the unconscious hostility you’re exhibiting towards us right now? 
Leonard: How could I be aware of something that’s unconscious?

Mrs. Lowe: I don’t understand it, he was never any trouble before. He was quiet and polite and respectful. He never demanded anything. He was never disobedient.
Dr Sayer: He was catatonic, Mrs. Lowe.

Dr Sayer: We wake him up, then lock him up; that’s not paranoia, that’s a fact.[/b]

Again: The human fucking mind. Again: Go fucking figure.

CAPE FEAR [1991]
Directed by Martin Scorsese

A madman and God go a courtin’

[b]Prison Guard: What about your books?
Cady: Already read 'em.

Cady: Granddaddy used to handle snakes in church, Granny drank strychnine. I guess you could say I had a leg up, genetically speaking.

Lt. Elgart: I don’t know whether to look at him or read him

Cady: You’re gonna learn about loss.

Cady: I ain’t no white trash piece of shit. I’m better than you all! I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can out-think you. And I can out-philosophize you. And I’m gonna outlast you. You think a couple whacks to my guts is gonna get me down? It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than that, Counselor, to prove you’re better than me!

Cady: Quote for me the American Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct, Canon Seven.
Sam: "A lawyer should represent his client… "
Cady: “Should ZEALOUSLY represent his client within the bounds of the law.”

Sam: Tom, years ago… in this case, I had a report on a victim.
Tom: It was a rape case.
Sam: That’s right, rape and aggravated sexual battery. I had a report on this victim, and it came back that she was promiscuous. And, uh… I buried it.
Tom: Whew. Anybody else know?
Sam: No, I buried it. I didn’t show it to the client, to the prosecution…
Tom: You buried the report.
Sam: Yeah but if you had seen what this guy had done to this girl…
Tom: You buried the report.

Cady: I learned to read durin’ my stretch. First, Spot Goes to The Farm, then Runaway Bunny, then law books, mostly.

Cady: You ever been a woman?
Sam: A what?
Cady: A woman. Some fat, hairy, ugly hillbilly’s wet dream.
Sam: I realize that you suffered. There’s no question about that.
Cady: You don’t know what sufferin’ is, Counselor.

Cady: Are you my friend?
Claude: No, I’m not your friend.
Cady: I thought maybe you were my friend, because I like to plan my comin’s and goin’s with friends. But if you’re not my friend, I’d call that presumptuous. In fact, I’d call it downright rude.

Leigh: I wanted to know what you looked like. I’ve been waitin’ to see your face, but now that I see you, you are just repulsive.
Cady: I understand. I’m not your type. No. All that prison time made me coarse. Guess I’m covered in too many tattoos.

Claude: You know where he was? At the public library reading Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche. He’s this German philosopher. Said that God is dead.

Cady: I have thought of relocatin’… somewhere where I’d be more appreciated… California perhaps. I could teach earthquake preparedness.

Bumpersticker on Cady’s car: AMERICAN BY BIRTH, SOUTHERN BY THE GRACE OF GOD!

Sam: Cady said to read the book between Esther and Psalms.
Leigh: Which is which one?
Sam: The book of Job.[/b]

Does the world really work this way? Let’s ask those who buy and sell it. And what if this really is the worst way of doing things except for all the others?

We have a part, we play a role, we win or lose.
And, one way or another, we are all just pawns in their games.

SYRIANA
Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan

[b]Prince Nasir: What are they thinking, my brother and these American lawyers?
Bryan: What are they thinking? They’re thinking that it’s running out. It’s running out… and ninety percent of what’s left is in the Middle East. This is a fight to the death.

Danny: Corruption charges! Corruption? Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations. That’s Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win.

Farrooq: An anouncement. If man is made in God’s image then God is deeply messed up.

Bryan: But what do you need a financial advisor for? Twenty years ago you had the highest Gross National Product in the world, now you’re tied with Albania. Your second largest export is secondhand goods, closely followed by dates which you’re losing five cents a pound on… You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other’s heads off and that’s where you’ll be in another hundred years, so, yes, on behalf of my firm I accept your money.

Bryan: Do you understand what that means, it’s like someone put a giant ATM on our front lawn.

Bob: I want you to take him from his hotel, drug him, put him in the front of a car, and run a truck into it at 50 mph.

Dean: I got a peek at your file…Your entire career you’ve been used. And probably never even known what for.
Bob: I didn’t use to need to know.
Dean: In this town, you’re innocent until you’re investigated.
Bob: Innocent until investigated? That’s nice. It’s got a nice ring to it. Bet you’ve worn some miles on old sayings like that. Gives the listener the sense of the law being written as it’s spoken. …If anything happens to me or my family, an accident, an accusation, anything, then first your son will disappear, his body will never be found. Then your wife. Her body will never be found either. This is guaranteed. Then, whatever is the most dangerous thing you do in your life, it might be flying in a small plane, it might be walking to the bank, you will be killed. Do you understand what I’m saying? I want you to acknowledge that you do understand so that we’re clear and there won’t be any mistakes.
Dean: Beirut rules, Mr. Barnes?

Prince Nasir Al-Subaai: When a country has five percent of the world’s population but does fifty percent of its military spending, then the persuasive powers of that country are on the decline.

Mussawi: Bob, what do you know about the torture methods used by the Chinese on the Falun Gong? Huh? Method number one. What’s your guess?
[pause]
Mussawi: Water dungeon. Did you guess water dungeon? Number two method? Number two, twisting arm and putting face in feces. Not interested in two? Number three. Number three is called ‘pulling nails from fingers’. What do you think Bob? Number three sound good to you? The purpose is to get the monks or whatever to recant their beliefs. What if I had to get you to recant? That would be pretty difficult right? Because if you have no beliefs to recant then what? Then you’re fucked is what. You’re going to give me the names of every person who’s taken money from you.
[rips off one of Bob’s nails]
Mussawi: Oh that is dusgusting.
Bob: Come on Jimmy, you’re not one of those Koran thumpers!
Mussawi: My name is Mussawi.
[rips off another nail, then starts punching Bob]
Mussawi: You fucking fuck, fucking fuck, stupid fuck, what the fuck, this is a war! Fuck you’re a PO fucking W! Give me the fucking names! I’m cutting his fucking head off. I’m going to cut your head off, Bob!

Bob: Intelligence work isn’t training seminars and gold stars for attendance.
Fred: What do you think intelligence work is Bob?
Bob: I think it’s two people in a room and one of them’s asking a favor that is a capital crime in every country on earth…
Fred: No Bob, it’s assessing the information gathered from that favor and then balancing it against all the other information gathered from all the other favors.[/b]

Someone was once someone else…but not anymore. So, who is he now?

Identity is always work in progress. Something happens and it changes. For better or for worse is just a point of view. But surely for the better here, right?

It’s just that for many of us not much this dramatic ever really happens. So we more or less stay the same.

But we all have our own history. Though that is not always what we choose to call it.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Directed by David Cronenberg

Edie: My husband does not know you. He wouldn’t know you, somebody like you.
Carl: Oh, he knows Carl Fogarty all right. He knows me intimately. See? [points to his clouded left eye] This isn’t a completely dead eye, it still works a bit. The problem is, the only thing I can see with it is Joey Cusack, and it can see right through him… right through your husband, Edie. I see what’s inside him, what makes him tick. He’s still the same guy. He’s still crazy fucking Joey! And you know it, don’t you? How much do you really know about your husband, Edie? Where he’s from, where he’s been, his life before he met you some 20 years ago?
Edie: I know that my husband is Tom Stall. That’s what I know. That’s all I need to know.

Well, that point of view doesn’t last long.

[b]Tom: In this family, we do not solve problems by hitting people!
Jack: No, in this family, we shoot them!

Tom: [seeing Edie walk into his hospital room] Edie… Honey, are you okay?
Edie: Tell me the truth.
Tom: The truth?
Edie: Please, you can do that, can’t you? You can do that… can’t you, please?
Tom: What do you think you heard?
Edie: It’s not what I heard… it’s what I saw. I saw Joey. I saw you turn into Joey right before my eyes. I saw a killer, the one Fogarty warned me about. You did kill men back in Philly, didn’t you? Did you do it for money? Or did you do it because you enjoyed it?
Tom: Joey did, both. I didn’t. Tom Stall didn’t.

Edie: Oh God it’s really happening. What are you, like, some multiple personality schizoid? Is it like flipping a switch back and forth for you?
Tom: I never expected to see Joey again.
Edie: What, was he hiding? Was he dead?
Tom: I thought he was. I thought I killed Joey Cusack. I went out to the desert and I killed him. I spent three years becoming Tom Stall. Edie, you have to know this. I was never really born again until I met you. I was nothing.[/b]

And here’s the thing: You know this is true. Or you know he really believes it is true.

[b]Edie: Stall. Did you just make that name up?
Tom: It was…available.

Richie: What am I gonna do? You bust up a made man’s place, you killed some of his guys, you take his eye… Jesus Joey, you took his eye. Barbed wire, wasn’t it? That’s disgusting! You always were the crazy one.
Tom: Not anymore.
Richie: [unbelieving] Yeah, I heard. You’re living the American Dream. You really bought into it, didn’t you? You’ve been this other guy, almost as long as you’ve been yourself. Hey, when you dream… are you still Joey?
Tom: Joey’s been dead a long time.
Richie: And yet here you sit. Big as life. You know you cost me, a lot of time and money. Before you pulled that shit with Fogarty, I was a shoe-in, to take over when the boss croaked, a shoe-in. It was made very clear to me Joey, I had to clean up your mess, or nothing was ever gonna happen for me! You got no idea how much shit I had to pull to get back in with those guys! You cost me! A hell of a lot Joey, a hell of a lot!
Tom: [calmly] Looks like you’re doing all right over here.
Richie: Yeah, I am… I am. But I’m still behind the eight-ball. Because of you.

Richie: [sipping his drink, chuckling] You always were a problem for me, Joey. When Mom brought you home from the hospital, I tried to strangle you in your crib. I guess all kids try to do that. She caught me… whacked the daylights out of me.
Tom: I’ve heard that story.
Richie: Well, what do you think? Better late than never?
Tom: Richie… I’m here to make peace. Tell me what I have to do to make things right.
Richie: You could do something, I guess [Richie pauses as Ruben stealthily reaches into a sleeve] You could die, Joey.[/b]

Joey doesn’t die. But Ruben does. And then Richie.

After the first 50,000 bullets you tend to lose sight of what films like this can teach you philosophically.

HARD BOILED [Lat sau san taam] 1992
Directed by John Woo.

[b]Tequila: You’re full of shit, you know that? There’s a toilet over there.

Tequila: What’s with all these paper cranes? You bored? Maybe you feel lonely here?
Tony: You know, I’ve always hated making cranes. I make one each time I kill somebody. How about it, shall I make you one?
Tequila: No thanks. And if you get killed, who’ll make yours?

Johnny: My arms business is real money. It’s worldwide. Wherever there’s war, there’s Johnny. Everything goes in and out of fashion, except war.

Tony: Birthdays aren’t important when you don’t have a real identity.

Tequila: Should I salute you?
Tony: You’ve got the gun. I’ll go out and milk a cow if you want.[/b]

A Japanese New York Stories

TOKYO!

A truly bizarre triptych

From “Interior Design” directed by Michel Gondry

[b]Hiroko: You said I have no ambition
Akira: What? I said that?
Hiroko: It’s not true. I like photography and art, I’ve got a boating license, and I read a lot too.
Akira: But they’re hobbies. They’re not the same as ambitions.
Hiroko: What’s the difference?
Akira: You have to be able to define who you are in the world by what you do.
Hiroko: What I like to do defines who I am. Doesn’t that make me a richer person?
Akira: You still have to be better at it than others.

Hiroko: There are these two poisonous snakes. One says to the other, “We’re poisonous aren’t we?” So the other one says, “Of course we are, why do you ask?” And the first snake says, “because I just bit my tongue.”[/b]

From “Merde” directed by Leos Carax

[b]Protesters: HANG MERDE! HANG MERDE! HANG MERDE!
Protesters: FREE MERDE! FREE MERDE! FREE MERDE!

COMING SOON: The Adventures of Mr. Merde in New York: MERDE IN USA[/b]

From “Shaking Tokyo” directed by Bong Joon-ho

[b]L’homme: How long will it take before this circle disappears? 10 seconds? 10 minutes? 10 hours? 10 days? 10 months? 10 years?..I have been living in this house for 10 years. I am a hikikomori.

L’homme: The first eye contact in 11 years.

Delivery girl: There’s a mistake. The eight one from the floor. On the right…
…this place is really perfect.

L’homme: When a hikikomori wants to meet a hikikomori, there is only one way.[/b]

He traverses the earthquakes. The ones outside and the ones inside his head.

Why do some of the more fascinating characters in cinema have to traverse the road to madness?

It’s hard to imagine someone loving another more than Zorg loves Betty. The end of this film is just heartbreaking.

BETTY BLUE [37°2 le matin]
Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix

[b]Zorg: I had known Betty for a week. We made love every night. The forecast was for storms.

Man with binoculars: She’s in a real frenzy!
Zorg: She loves housework…
Man with binoculars: There goes the casserole! The ironing board! The record player!

Zorg: Betty was a wild horse that had cut her hamstrings jumping over a wall and was trying to get up. What she thought was a meadowvwas a gloomy pen. She couldn’t bear immobility. She was not made for that.

From a publisher: “I’ve read everything, but nothing like what you had the poor taste to send us. You’re writing shows all the signs of AIDS. I return this nauseating filth you call a novel. Rely on me for publicity. Leave that thing where it belongs: in the quagmire of your brain. Sincerely yours, Thomas Colas.”[/b]

Betty read it. Weep for the [immediate] future of Thomas Colas.

[b]Betty: No, like you writing your book.
Zorg: I don’t see what demolition has to do with writing.
Betty: I’m not surprised.

Bob: Mine has got hots pants and yours is going bananas.
Zorg [grapping him]: Don’t ever say that!

Zorg: I get the feeling that Betty wants something that doesn’t exist. The world’s too fucking small for her…Fuck Eddy, Ive got to save her.

Betty: I hear voices. I hear voices in my head! I’m going insane!!

Zorg: It can’t be true!
Bob: Don’t stay here.
Zorg: Bob, what happened?
Bob: She poked her eye out.[/b]

musical excerpt from the film:
youtube.com/watch?v=pYxsXY-YrXc
youtube.com/watch?v=MRfqKmrB_Ns

The plight of the working man…

Though, admittedly, these particular working stiffs you really have to bend over backwards not to strangle yourself.

TIN MEN
Written and directed by Barry Levinson

[b]BB: Now don’t try to hustle me here … you know what I mean. I hate being hustled. Give me an honest price, not one of your ‘special’ deals… give me an honest price. Do I make myself clear?
Salesman: Certainly, Mr Babowsky. Now, how much are you willing to pay?
BB: There ya go…there ya go…you’re doing it… you’re doing one of those hustle numbers.
Salesman: I’m just trying to get an idea how much you’re willing to pay.
BB: Four dollars…I want to pay four dollars a month.
Salesman: That’s not an honest answer.
BB: What do ya want to hear? That I’d love to pay three hundred and fifty a month…is that what you want to
hear? Tell me how much you want me to pay and I’ll tell you how much I’ll pay, but don’t do a hustle on me…I don’t like that. How much do I want to pay? I’d like to pay nothing!

BB: This guy’s looking to play tit for tat. That’s not my game. I’m gonna play hardball…I’m gonna find out everything about this son of a bitch, and then I’m gonna find the one thing that cuts him to the quick.
Moe: Let’s go inside… make some calls.
BB: I wonder if he’s married…

BB: [into the phone] Hey, asshole! This is the ultimate “fuck you”! I just poked your wife!
Tilley: [into the phone] What are you talking about?
BB: Yeah, she’s in my bed right now with a very big smile on her face.
Tilley: Well, that’s just fine by me. She’s a pain in the ass! An albatross around my neck! You’re welcome to her. Keep her, and may you both rot in Hell!
BB [to himself] Is this a setup? That son of a bitch…I bet he set me up…I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch!

Tilley: Toiletries!

Tilley: It’s like some guy trying to sell me life insurance. You think I’m gonna take some money out of my
pocket to give to some jerk so that somebody can take it when I’m dead?!

Tilley (yelling to BB): Hey, Mr. Marengay went to the track!
BB: Did you bother to bet, or did you just hand your money to the tellers?
Tilley:(laughing) The sarcasm’s killing me. (pause) I thought you were looking to get even.
BB Who’s your accountant, mister, 'cos I think you’re down in the debit side.
Tilley: Who’s stuck with my wife? You or me?
BB: Okay, then you win.

Sam: You know, Tilley, I’m beginning to believe in God.
Tilley: Yeah me too!
Sam: No, you don’t know what I mean. I’m beginning to think about God more.
Tilley: What, you were never one of those atheists, were you?
Sam: No, I’m not sayin’ that. It’s just that I’m beginning to give God more thought.
Tilley: What, did you have some kind of religious experience or something.
Sam: Well, yeah, the other day I took the wife to lunch, we went and has some smorgasboard, and it just kinda happened.
Tilley: [Gags for a second at this] At the smorg… you found God at the smorgasboard?
Sam: Well, yeah, I’m looking at all this food, I see all these vegetables, and I think, all these things came outta the ground. I see tomatoes, outta the ground, carrots, outta the ground, radishes outta the ground. And I think, all of these things come outta the ground. And I’m just talkin’ about the vegetables, I haven’t gotten to the fruits yet. And I think, how can that be? How can all these things come outta the ground? With all these things comin’ outta the ground, there must be a God.[/b]

Later…

[b]Tilley [at the Smorgasbord staring at all the food…he looks up to the ceiling]: God, if you’re responsible for all the stuff down here, maybe you got a moment’s attention for me(pause) Between the I.R.S., this Home Improvement Commission and Mr. Marengay, I’ve had it up to here with this bullshit. To be frank with you, I’m in the toilet here.

Sam: You know when I saw ‘Bonanza’ the other day, something occurred to me.
Tilley: Eh?
Sam: Ya got these four guys living on the Ponderosa and ya never hear them say anything about wanting to get laid.
Tilley: Huh.
Sam: I mean ya never hear Hoss say to Little Joe, "I had such a hard-on when I woke up this morning…They don’t talk about broads - nothing. Ya never hear Little Joe say, “Hey, Hoss, I went to Virginia City and I saw a girl with the greatest ass I’ve ever seen in my life.” They just walk around the Ponderosa: “Yes, Pa, where’s Little Joe?” Nothin’ about broads. I don’t think I’m being too picky. But, if at least once, they talked about getting horny. I don’t care if you live on the Ponderosa or right here in Baltimore, guys talk about getting laid. I’m beginning to think that show doesn’t have too much realism.

Nora: If we went on a picnic it would be fun.
Tilley: I don’t understand a picnic. We go someplace, we put a thing on the ground and eat.
Nora: Yeah, it’s nice to do that.
Tilley: Why? I don’t get it. It’s better sittin’ in front of the TV.
Nora: I happen to think there’s somethin’ nice about a picnic. It’s fun.
Tilley: What’s fun about it? Ants get in the food - there’s bees. I don’t get it. You have to drive - it takes you maybe an hour to get there. And then whataya do? You sit on the grass and eat. Why is that fun?

Wing: My sources tell me this Home Improvement Commission is for real…it’s no jackpot. These guys are going to be a real pain in the ass, so any of the scams that you guys are pulling, they get wind of it, they take your license and it’s goodbye to this business.
Mouse: They take away your license? They take away your livelihood? What kind of people are these?
Sam: They have no respect for the working man.
Tilley: Which scams are they talking about? They got a list?
Wing: Any irregularities, you know, selling a house on the pretense that it’s a model house and every job sold in the area they get a kickback… the Life Magazine hustle… you guys know all the bullshit numbers we can run.

Tilley [to the investigator at the Home Improvement Commission hearings] Look, if you work in a clothing store, some guy tries on a suit, it looks like shit, but you tell him it looks wonderful. The guy’s standing there looking like a sack of shit, the salesman says what a great suit and the man buys it. Now that’s deception.

BB: It was a lousy thing to do, okay? It was a lousy thing to use you to get back at your husband…but the fact is that I never would have met you otherwise. It was lousy… it was a disgusting, terrible thing…but a lot of good came out of it.
Nora: What kind of a person would come up with such a devious thing?
BB: I’m not always a nice guy, I admit that. I got a lot of training in deceit…it’s an occupational hazard.

BB: You know something, Stanley, I can always smell a guy who’s not made of tin…It’s against the law to steal files. I could call and have you arrested and sent to jail, right now…You work for the Commission, is that it? [Stanley nods “yes.”] Doesn’t the Commission have enough information? They got to send out guys like you to spy?..You know what your big problem is, Stanley? You’re lazy. If you want to find out stuff, then you dig…you get on the phone…you canvas…‘We’re from the Home Improvement Commission…’ Go find your leads… that’s what we do all the time…What is this? Eliot Ness or something. Undercover time? You think you’re breaking up some big drug ring? What do you think you are infiltrating the Mafia? We;re just a bunch of guys trying to sell some aluminum siding for cryin’ out loud. (pause) You want some files? [BB walks over to the filing cabinet, flips through some files and pulls out files…He throws them down on the desk.] Here, Ill give you some…some jobs I did. Leave Moe out of this… he quit the business.

BB: Ever see a Volkswagen?
Nora: What?
BB: You know, those little Volkswagens.
Nora: What does that have to do with anything?
BB: I dunno… they’re interesting.

Tilley: You like pool?
BB:I enjoy the game.
Tilley: Why don’t we play a little game of eight ball? If I lose, I consent to the divorce… if you lose, you give Nora up…walk away from her.
[BB stares at Tilley; Tilley eyes BB]
BB: Rack 'em.[/b]

Later:

BB: Nora, I lied to you the other day.
Nora: How so?
BB: I went to see Tilley about the divorce…He was very reasonable, you know, and one thing led to another, so we finally decidedd to shoot saome pool to decide the matter…If I wone, he would give you up, and if I lost, I would give you up.
Nora: You shot pool for me?
BB: I had no choice.
Nora: That’s the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life! I mean, that’s disgusting shooting pool to determine my future!!
BB: Nora, I had no choice…I tried talking to him and he wouldn’t listen. So what are my options?
Nora: I can’t believe you had to shoot pool for me!
[more back and forth and then]
Nora: What happened?
BB: I lost.
Nora: You lost?
BB: I blew the eight ball.
Nora: What does that mean, “you lost”?
BB: It means I’m supposed to give you up. I’m supposed to never see you again.

Ah but then BB assures her he won’t abide by the agreement: “I’m not that honorable a guy”.

[b]Kid: Did you have a car parked here? A Cadillac?
Tilley: Yeah. What about it?
Kid: A man told me to say they took it.
Tilley: Who took it?
Kid: The tax man…Gave me a
dollar to tell you so.
Tilley: Tax man! Fucking I.R.S. How low can you get? How low can you get? How can people come and take a man’s car?.. His
Cadillac?!

Tilley [to BB after they both lose their business license]: Tell me. Where is it written in the constitution where it says a man can’t hustle for money?..I mean it’s not like I went into an alley, got a brick and whacked the guy over the head with it. You’d think I went into somebody’s house and stole his stuff. KI mean, all I’m doing is selling. Where’s the crime in that?
BB: Wanna know what our big crime is? We’re nickel-and-dime guys. Just small time hustlers.[/b]

They should have been Wall Street bankers instead.