philosophy in film

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.

The only thing political about this film is everything. The personal is political and the political gets personal. Somehow “I” has to fit in with “we” against “them”.

It would be difficult for many of us to put ourselves into the shoes of these women—Israeli soldiers. They are conscripted into the military and tasked with accosting Arabs. They are often loathed by the people they interrogate and search. The air sometimes drips with distrust and resentment. We pick a side then and the rationalizations begin.

CLOSE TO HOME:
Written and directed by Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hager

[b]Mirit: Do you think they look like Arabs?
Smadar: How in the hell am I supposed to know?
Mirit: I think we should go up to them.
Samdar: So go.

…

Dubek: Girls, the situation here is terrible. According to your reports, the Arabs have left the city…These reports have a very specific purpose. If there’s a terrorist attack, what do you think I can do with these papers?

…

Smadar: Maybe I don’t know what an Arab looks like.
Dubek to aide: Where are Smadar and Mirit today?
Aide: On the busses.
Dubek: I’ll be patrolling with you today. And I will show you what an Arab looks like.

…

[Mirit apprpaches bus passenger]
Passenger: Don’t start with me. Don’t even think about it. I’m sick of this, you and your friends. I’m sick and tired of all of you!
Mirit: Okay. All right. Sorry.
Passenger: The same everytime. No matter where the bus goes, it’s always the same![/b]

Beautiful people who get say what other people are paid to say for them.

[500] DAYS OF SUMMER
Directed by Marc Webb

[b]Narrator: In 1998, Summer quoted a song by the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian in her high school yearbook, “Color my life with the chaos of trouble”. This spike in Michigan sales of their album The Boy With the Arap Strap continues to puzzle industry analysts.

…

Tom: Why is it pretty girls always think they can treat people like crap and get away with it?
MacKensie: Centuries of reinforcement.

…

Tom: People don’t realize this, but loneliness is underrated.

…

Summer: We’ve been like Sid and Nancy for months now.
Tom: Summer, Sid stabbed Nancy, seven times with a kitchen knife, I mean we have some disagreements but I hardly think I’m Sid Vicious.
Summer: No, I’m Sid.

…

Vance: [reading a card that Tom has written] Roses are red, violets are blue… Fuck you, whore!

…

Tom: She took a giant shit on my face. Literally.
Alison: Literally?
Tom: Well, no, not literally. That’s disgusting. What’s wrong with you?

…

Summer: I named my cat after Springsteen.
Tom: Cool…what was his name?
Summer: Bruce.

…

Narrator: Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin and they end with no lasting memory made in between. Most days have no impact on the course of a life.

…

Tom: Nobody loves Ringo Starr.
Summer: That’s what I love about him.

…

Summer: Well, you know, I guess it’s 'cause I was sitting in a deli and reading Dorian Gray and a guy comes up to me and asks me about it and… now he’s my husband.
Tom: Yeah. And… so?
Summer: So, what if I’d gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I’d gotten there 10 minutes later? It was - it was meant to be. And… I just kept thinking… Tom was right.
Tom: No.
Summer: Yeah, I did. [laughs] I did. It just wasn’t me that you were right about.

…

Vance: Misery, sadness, loss of faith, no reason to live…This is perfect for you.

…

Narrator: There’s only two kinds of people in the world. There’s women, and there’s men.

…

Summer: All we ever do is argue!
Tom: That is bullshit!

…

Summer: You guys need anything?
Tom: [provocatively] Oh, I think you know what I need.
Summer: [looks at Tom, quizzically]
Tom: Uh, some toner.[/b]

Spy vs. spy vs. spy

That it could happen to you may well be the whole point. And surveillance back then was still in its relative infancy.

THE CONVERSATION
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola

[b]Mark: He’s not hurting anyone.
Ann: Neither are we.

…

Mark: Does it bother you?
Ann: What?
Mark: Walking around in circles.

…

Harry: What are you doing here?
Martin: Take it easy I’m just a messenger. I brought you a drink.
Harry: I don’t want your drink. Why are you following me?
Martin: I’m not following you, I’m looking for you. There’s a big difference

…

Harry: I don’t care what they are talking about. All I want is a big fat recording.[/b]

…

From the dream sequence:

Listen, my name is Harry Caul. Can you hear me? Don’t be afraid. I know you don’t know who I am, but I know you. There isn’t much to say about myself. I…I was very sick when I was a boy, I was paralyzed in my left arm and my left leg. I couldn’t walk for six months. One doctor said that I would probably never walk again. My mother…my mother used to lower me into a hot bath. It was therapy. One time the door bell rang, and she went down to answer. I started sliding down. I could feel the water. It started to come into my chin and into my nose. And when I woke up, my body was all greasy from the holy oil she used to put on my body. I remember being disappointed I survived. When I was five, my father took me to a friend of his, and for no reason at all I hit him right in the stomach. with all my strength. He died a year later. He’ll kill you if he gets a chance. I’m not afraid of death [long pause] I am afraid of murder.

Connection Machine:

youtube.com/watch?v=9kMyDjINpWA

[b]Harry [confessing in church]: …and I’ve been involved in some work that I think will be used to hurt these two young people. It’s happened to me before. People were hurt because of my—my work. I’m afraid it’s going to happen again…

…

Martin: [on the phone] We know that you know, Mr. Caul. For your own sake, don’t get involved any further. We’ll be listening to you. [plays back recording of Harry playing saxophone][/b]

Harry then proceeds to dismantle the apartment looking for the bug.

So, you can just imagine what we might find ourselves up against today.

There is no way I can “reasonably” pass judgment on the events here. I’m simply too fractured and fragmented in my reactions. But what is one who despises him here then obligated to do morally—never view his films again? distance themselves from those who support him?

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED
A film by Marina Zenovich

[b]James: Anyway, that’s… - that’s fiction. And I think this probably may be still in the land of fiction, edging towards fact. When the… - when the newspapers and the magazines and the books talk about you and little girls, is there anything in it?
Polanski: Well, I-I like young women… - let’s put it this way… - and I think most of men do, actually.
James: Yeah, but the question… - the question turns on how young, doesn’t it?

…

Vannatter: He was, like, on a hyper high, and he’s constantly talking, constantly fidgeting. And he… - he didn’t perceive having intercourse with a 13-year-old girl as against the law. That… - that was not in his culture, that… - you know, “So what?” type thing. He didn’t… - he didn’t realize, I guess, the laws of our country as compared to other countries. I’m not so sure that Mr. Polanski was aware of what being arrested in America meant.

…

Brenneman: As the case progressed, I was struck… - you know, how could this same man be two different things to two different sets of press? The European reporters looked on Polanski as this tragic, brilliant, historic figure. Here was this man who had survived the Holocaust, who had survived the gassing of his mother and then had come here and developed his own voice, had maintained his integrity against the power of the Hollywood machine. And the American press tended to look at him as this sort of malignant, twisted dwarf with this dark vision.

…

Brenneman: They were the perfect attorneys to handle a case like this, where the evidence and the players were sensational, were dramatic, flamboyant. So you want two attorneys who kept an even keel. They were, in that regard, very strikingly different from the judge in the case.

…

Brenneman: At that time, rape victims’ names didn’t get reported in the press, much less the names of minors who were involved in sex cases. But with the European press there, her name would come out exposed in the press, her background exposed, the fact that she had had a prior relationship. She had taken quaaludes before. All of this had gotten out and would have forever haunted her.

…

Reporter: Once we knew her name, we knew where her school was, we knew where her house was, the French competition were after this girl. They were hunting this girl.

…

Samantha Geimer [victum]: It was awful. Everybody knew at school. People came to school with cameras and things were being said and printed. The worst part was, no one believed me. Everybody thought I was making it up.

…

Braunsberg: After Rosemary’s Baby, Roman had this reputation maybe having been a little bit in league with the devil himself.

…

Braunsberg: It was a Saturday, and the phone rang, and I picked it up, and it was our agent Bill Tennant who was on the phone, and I immediately realized that something was terribly wrong. I mean, he… - he was a very stable kind of guy. He was absolutely distraught. And I-I said, “What is it?” And he said, you know, something like, “They’re all dead. They’re all dead.” And I realized something awful had happened, and I gave the phone to Roman, and… I’ve never seen anything like it. You know, I saw somebody just disintegrate in front of my eyes.

…

Braunsberg: We flew to L.A. The next day. He was devastated, devastated to a point that I’ve never seen any other human being in that kind of condition…And I remember picking up Sunday newspapers. I was already reasonably aware of how the press functions, and their business is selling newspapers. The story was basically how Roman had flown to Los Angeles, murdered them all, and then come back. I mean, this was actually in the newspapers, in the headlines. The nature of the murders, you know, Satanism, Rosemary’s Baby. This is the guy who made Rosemary’s Baby. He knew so much about it. He couldn’t have known so much about it without actually being involved in it, and so he must have been part of the cult, and there was a cult, and they were murdered, and who gets murdered in this kind of way? And it was a typical example of the victims being responsible for their own deaths. It was shocking. It was truly unbelievable.

…

Polanski at news conference: The last day I talked to her was a few hours before the tragedy happened. You are suddenly curious about my relationship with Sharon within last few months. I can tell you the last few months, as much as last few years I spent with her… Were only time of true happiness in my life. And facts which will be coming out day after day will make a shame… - a lot of newsmen, who for selfish reason, write… - unbearable for me… - horrible things about my wife.

…

Polanski in an interview: …different people have different ways of seeing life and relationships. It’s not necessarily the same with you and me. And people, they react in different ways to grief. Some go to a monastery. Others start visiting whorehouses.

…

Gunson: The LAPD brought the evidence envelope to this courthouse building and brought it in, actually, to this room. There were about five, six, or seven men standing around, looking, peering down at this evidence envelope, and someone takes it and turns and opens it, and out falls these little girl’s panties.

…

Silver: And so there was this enormous court battle over property that belonged to her as to what was to be done with them. And Judge Rittenband decided to cut it in half and give half to the prosecution and half to the defense.
Dunson: The defense expert went over and put on his latex gloves and came back and then started operating on these copper panties.
Silver: If you can imagine the humor of about seven men sitting around a table…
Gunson: …trying to identify any stains and to make sure that the cut or the piece includes part of that stain.
Silver: And they were fighting and, "No, no, it has to be just a little to this way. “No, it should be over here. We shouldn’t cut that way at all.” So finally they… - they made the cut.

…

Mollinger: Roman called me; he said, “Listen, I mean, I’m here in Munich. Can we meet?” I said, “Of course.” And we decided to go in the evening to see the Oktoberfest. Roman actually didn’t want to go, but we said, "You have to see that, "because this is unbelievable. “You have never seen 10,000 people in a tent, drunken. I mean, you must see that.” And he said, “Okay.” He said, “I go with you.” So finally, we went to a special box. I was with my girlfriend and two other girlfriends, you know.
Braunsberg: Most unfortunately, he was photographed caught in a pose where sitting in between two girls. It was quite innocent. But, you know, photographs… - they say a photograph doesn’t lie. Nothing lies more than a photograph.
Semple: Roman always did have bad luck. And this is the kind of thing that a… - a cautious person would not have dreamed of doing. I mean, they would have had themselves photographed in the cathedral or doing something like that. That one photograph changed everything.

…

Gunson: I was quite surprised. Everyone in the criminal justice system is aware that 90-day diagnostic studies take less than 90 days. There’s not very many people, I would guess, who have had the experience of it only being 42.

…

Vannatter: That’s not a punishment. A punishment… - you know, he was charged with very serious crimes. You’re talking about crimes that… - that would incur state prison time, maybe 10, 15, 20 years in state prison…13-year-old girl, where he had sexual intercourse with her, sodomized her, gave her drugs, gave her alcohol. He got off with nothing.[/b]

Then the politics really begins.

Geimer: I was young, but the way I felt was, the judge was enjoying the publicity, and he didn’t care about what happened to me, and he didn’t care about what happened to Polanski. He was, like, orchestrating some little show, you know, that I didn’t want to be in.

Let right be done!

And it should be done…when something either is or is not right.

And at all cost…when one can afford to pursue it.

A shining example of what can become the sheer complexity of virtue. Even among the ruling class.

THE WINSLOW BOY
Written and directed by David Mamet
Based on an actual case.

[b]Sir Robert: I wept today because right had been done.
Catherine: Not justice?
Sir Robert: No, not justice. Right. Easy to do justice. Very hard to do right.

…

Sir Robert: I suggest your whole testimony is a lie.
Ronnie: No, it’s the truth.
Sir Robert: I suggest there is barely one single word of truth in anything you’ve said either to me or to the Judge Advocate or to the Commander. I suggest that you broke into Elliot’s locker, that you stole the postal order for five shillings belonging to Elliot, that you cashed it by means of forging his name.
Ronnie: I didn’t. I didn’t.
Sir Robert: I suggest that you did it for a joke, meaning to give him the five shillings back, but when you met him and he said he’d reported the matter you got frightened and decided to keep quite.
Ronnie: No, no. It isn’t true. It isn’t true. None of it is true.
Sir Robert: I suggest that by continuing to deny your guilt you’re causing great hardship to your own family and considerable annoyance to high and important persons in this country.
Catherine: That is a disgraceful thing to say.
Sir Robert: I suggest that the time has at last come for you to undo some of the misery you have caused by confessing to us all now that you are a forger, a liar, and a thief!
Catherine: How dare you!
Ronnie: I’m not. I’m not. I didn’t do it.
Arthur: This is outrageous, sir.
Ronnie: I didn’t do any of it.
Sir Robert: Send all his files here by tomorrow morning.
Desmond: But will you need them now?
Sir Robert: Oh, yes. The boy is plainly innocent. I accept the brief.

…

Catherine: What happened during the first examination to make you so sure if he is innocent?
Sir Robert: Three things. First of all, he made far too many damaging admissions. A guilty person would have been much more careful and on his guard. Secondly I laid him a trap and thirdly left him a loophole. Anyone who was guilty would have fallen into the one and darted through the other. He did neither.
Catherine: The trap was when you asked him suddenly what time Elliot put the postal order in his locker, wasn’t it?
Sir Robert: Yes.
Catherine: And the loophole?
Sir Robert: I then suggested to him that he’d stolen the postal order for a joke which had he been guilty I’m quite sure he would have admitted to as being the lesser of two evils.

…

A cartoon of the day:

Sign posted outside a hotel: NO CHILDREN. NO PETS. NO DISCUSSION OF THE WINSLOW CASE.

…

Grace: My worries? What do you know about my worries?
Arthur: A good deal, Grace. But I think they would be a lot lessened if you faced the situation squarely.
Grace: It won’t be easy for her to find another place.
Arthur: The facts, at this moment, are that we have a half of the income we had a year ago and we’re living at nearly the same rate. Whichever you look at it that’s bad economics.
Grace: I’m not talking about economics, Arthur. I’m talking about our live - things we took for granted a year ago and which now don’t seem to matter any more.
Arthur: Such as?
Grace: Such as a happy home and anonymity and an ordinary respectable life. There’s your return for it, I suppose. I only pray to God you know what you’re doing.
Arthur: I know exactly what I’m doing, Grace.
Grace: Do you, Arthur? He’s perfectly happy. He’s at a good school, he’s doing very well. No one need ever have known about Osbourne, if you hadn’t shouted it out to the whole world. As it is, whatever happens now, he’ll be known as the boy who stole that postal order.
Arthur: He didn’t steal that, Grace.
Grace: You talk about sacrificing everything for him, when he’s grown up he won’t thank you for it, Arthur. Even though you’ve given your life to - publish his innocence- as you call it. Yes, Arthur, your life. You talk gaily about arthritis and a touch of gout. You know better than any of the doctors what is the matter with you. You’re destroying yourself, Arthur, and me and your family besides. For what, I’d like to know? For what?
Arthur: For justice, Grace.
Grace: Are you sure that’s true? Are you sure it isn’t pride and self-importance?
Arthur: No, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so.
Grace: No. I’m not going to cry and say I’m sorry and make things up again. I can stand anything if there is a reason for it. But for no reason at all, it’s unfair to ask so much of me. It’s unfair!

…

Sir Robert: Oh, you still pursue your feminist activities?
Catherine: Oh yes.
Sir Robert: Pity. It’s a lost cause.
Catherine: Oh, do you really think so, Sir Robert? How little you know about women. Good-bye. I doubt that we shall meet again.
Sir Robert: Oh, do you really think so, Miss Winslow? How little you know about men.[/b]

If you are a certain kind of person, you can have these problems too.

MANHATTAN
Written and directed by Woody Allen

[b]Isaac: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Y’know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, y’know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.
Party Guest: There is this devastating satirical piece on that on the Op Ed page of the Times, it is devastating.
Isaac: Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point.
Party guest: But biting satire is better that physical force.
Isaac: No, physical force is better with Nazis. It’s hard to satirise a guy with shiny boots.

…

Isaac: We were downstairs. We saw the photography exhibition. - Absolutely incredible. - It’s really good.
Mary: Really? - The photographs downstairs?
Isaac: Yes. - Great. Absolutely great. Did you?
Mary: No, I really felt it was very derivative. To me it looked like it was straight out of Diane Arbus, but it had none of the wit.
Isaac: Well, we didn’t like it as much as the Plexiglas sculpture.
Mary: You liked the Plexiglas?
Isaac: You didn’t like the Plexiglas either?
Mary: Uh, no…
Isaac: It was a lot better than that… that steel cube. Did you see it? That was the worst.
Mary: Now that was brilliant to me.
Isaac: The cube was brilliant?
Mary: Yes. To me it was very textural. You know what I mean? It was perfectly integrated and it had a… a marvellous kind of negative capability. The rest of the stuff was bullshit.

…

Mary: What do you do, Tracy?
Tracy: I go to high school.

…

Yale: Mary and I have invented the Academy of the Overrated for such notables as - Gustav Mahler, - Isak Dinesen and Carl Jung. - Scott Fitzgerald. - Lenny Bruce. Can’t forget him, can we?
Mary: How about Norman Mailer?
Isaac: I think those people are all terrific…
Mary: Well, how about Vincent Van Goch?
Isaac [to Tracy] She said “Van Goch”?!
Mary: Or Ingmar Bergman?
Yale: You’ll get in trouble.
Isaac: Bergman? Bergman’s the only genius in cinema today, I think.
Yale: He’s a big Bergman fan.
Mary: God, you’re so the opposite. You write that fabulous television show. It’s so funny and his view is so Scandinavian. It’s bleak, my God. I mean, all that Kierkegaard, right? Real adolescent, fashionable pessimism. I mean, the silence. God’s silence. OK, OK, OK. I mean, I loved it when I was at Radcliffe, but, all right, you outgrow it…It is the dignifying of one’s psychological and sexual hang-ups by attaching them to these grandiose, philosophical issues…

…

Mary: Hey, listen, I don’t even wanna have this conversation. I’m just from Philadelphia, you know. I mean, we believe in God so… OK?
Isaac: What the hell does that mean?! What do you mean? [To Tracy] Does that make any sense to you at all?

…

Party guest: We were talking about orgasms.
Mary: Oh, no, please! I didn’t… I’m from Philadelphia. We never talk about such things in public.
Isaac: You said that before. I don’t know what it meant then either.
Party Guest: I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor said it was the wrong kind.
Isaac Davis: You had the wrong kind? I’ve never had the wrong kind, ever. My worst one was right on the money.

…

Mary: Don’t psychoanalyze me. I pay a doctor for that.
Isaac: Hey, you call that guy that you talk to a doctor? I mean, you don’t get suspicious when your analyst calls you at home at three in the morning and weeps into the telephone?
Mary: All right, so he’s unorthodox. He’s a highly qualified doctor.
Isaac: He’s done a great job on you, y’know. Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka’s.

…

Isaac: You honestly think that I tried to run you over?
Connie: You just happened to hit the gas as I walked in front of the car?
Isaac: Did I do it on purpose?
Jill: Well, what would Freud say?
Isaac: Freud would say I really wanted to run her over, that’s why he was a genius

…

Isaac: They probably sit around on the floor with wine and cheese, and mispronounce allegorical and didacticism

…

Yale: It’s just gossip, you know. Gossip is the new pornography.

…

Willie: Why can’t we have frankfurters?
Isaac: Because this is The Russian Tearoom!

…

Isaac: My analyst warned me, but you were so beautiful I got another analyst.

…

Yale [reading aloud from Jill’s memoir]: Jesus, listen to this. “Making love to this deeper, more masterful female made me realise what an empty experience, what a bizarre charade sex with my husband was.”

…

Emily: [reading aloud from Jill’s memoir] “He was given to fits of rage, Jewish liberal paranoia, male chauvinism, self-righteous misanthropy, and nihilistic moods of despair. He had complaints about life but never any solutions. He longed to be an artist but balked at the necessary sacrifices. In his most private moments, he spoke of his fear of death, which he elevated to tragic heights when in fact it was mere narcissism.”

…

Jill: I wrote some nice things about you.
Isaac: Like what? What?
Jill: You cry when you watch Gone With The Wind.

…

Isaac: You look so beautiful I can hardly keep my eyes on the meter.

…

Tracy: Have you been seeing someone?
Isaac: No. Yes. Someone older. I mean, y-y-you know, y-y-you know. Not as old as I am, but in the same general ballpark as me.
Tracy: Gee, now I don’t feel so good.
Isaac: It’s not right. You shouldn’t get hung… I mean, you should open up your life. You know, you’ve got to.
Tracy: You say it like it’s to my advantage, when it’s you that wants to get out of it.

…

Tracy: I can’t believe you met somebody you like better than me.

…

Isaac: Hey, come on, don’t cry. Don’t cry. Come on, don’t cry. Tracy… Tracy, don’t… Come on. Don’t cry, Tracy. - Tracy…
Tracy: Leave me alone.
Isaac: Tracy, come on, don’t…
Tracy: Leave me alone!

…

Mary: I never thought I was very pretty. Oh, what is pretty anyway? I hate being pretty. It’s all so subjective anyway. The brightest men just drop dead in front of a beautiful face. When you climb into the sack, if you’re a bit giving, they’re so grateful.
Isaac:
Yeah, I know I am.

…

Mary: Facts. I got a million facts at my fingertips.
Isaac: They mean nothing cos nothing worth knowing is understood with the mind. Everything valuable enters through a different opening, if you’ll forgive the disgusting imagery.
Mary: I don’t agree at all. Where would we be without rational thought?
Isaac: You… you… you rely too much on your brain. The brain is the most overrated organ.

…

Mary: God, what a surprise. I cannot get over it. My ex-husband. And he really does look a lot thinner. He looks great.
Isaac: You certainly fooled me. I was shocked cos that’s not what I expected.
Mary: What did you expect?
Isaac: I don’t know. You had always led me to… You said he was a ladies’ man, that he opened you up sexually.
Mary: So?
Isaac: So? - Then this little homunculus, you know…
Mary: He’s quite devastating.
Isaac: Really? Well, it’s… it’s amazing how subjective all that stuff is.

…

Mary: I think I’m still in love with Yale.

…

Yale: You are so self-righteous, you know. I mean we’re just people. We’re just human beings, you know? You think you’re God.
Isaac: I… I gotta model myself after someone.

…

Isaac: What are you telling me? That you’re gonna leave Emily and run away with the… the winner of the Zelda Fitzgerald Emotional Maturity Award?
Yale: Look, I love her.
Isaac: What kind of crazy friend are you?
Yale: A good friend. I introduced you two.
Isaac: Why? What was the point?
Yale: Cos I thought you liked her!
Isaac: I do! Now we both like her!!
Yale: Yeah, well, I liked her first.
Isaac: “I liked her first.” What are you, six years old?!!

…

Yale: I’m not a saint, OK?
Isaac: You’re too easy on yourself. Don’t you see? You’re… You rationalise everything. You’re not honest with yourself. You talk about you wanna write a book, but in the end you’d rather buy a Porsche. You cheat a little bit on Emily and you play around the truth with me. The next thing you know you’re in front of a Senate committee naming names.

…

Isaac: An idea for a short story about, um, people in Manhattan who are constantly creating these real, unnecessary, neurotic problems for themselves cos it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about… the universe. Let’s… Well, it has to be optimistic. Well, all right, why is life worth living? That’s a very good question. Well, there are certain things, I guess, that make it worthwhile. Like what? OK… for me… Ooh, I would say Groucho Marx, to name one thing. And Willie Mays. And… the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony. And… Louis Armstrong’s recording of Potato Head Blues. Swedish movies, naturally. Sentimental Education by Flaubert. Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra. Those incredible apples and pears by C?anne. The crabs at Sam Wo’s. Tracy’s face…[/b]

Morality “up there” meets reality “down here”. Yet again.

SEPARATE LIES
Directed by Julian Fellowes

[b]James: [to Maggie] Why’d you tell people? They wouldn’t have found out.
Maggie: That’s a Londoner talking.

…

James [narrating]: No life is perfect, though it may seem to be. Secrets and discontents lie hidden beneath the smoothest surface. In this, as in so many things, my life was no exception.

…

Bill: I assume it’s asking too much to expect you just to leave it alone:
James: Yes, it is.
Bill: Why is it?
James: Well, at the risk of sounding stuffy I like to do the right thing. It’s the way I am…Can I rely on you to turn yourself in?
Bill: You know, this will cause my father and my children a great deal of suffering. I know you don’t believe me but I am extremely sorry the accident took place…
James: So you will telephone the police today?
Bill: Tomorrow.[/b]

Then…

James: I had lunch with Bill Bule today. I asked him about the accident. He said he was responsible for it. He did it. It was his fault.
Anne: So, what happens next?
James: What do you think happens next. He goes to the police. They bring charges.
Anne: And all that’s absolutely necessary?
James: Yes, it’s absolutely necessary.
Anne: How would it help?..Bill’s made a mistake, a horrible tragic mistake, and a man is dead but…it’s not as if he’ll do it again.
James: That’s ridiculous.
Anne: Then there’s his father and the boys—what about them? You really want to wreck all those lives?
James: I don’t see that I’ve got a choice.
Anne: You do have a choice…You can leave it to Bill whether or not he goes to the police.
James: I don’t understand you. Of course I can’t leave it up to Bill. What about Maggie? Last week you were sobbing all over her in the hospital. Now you want to hide her husband’s killer. You’re being nonsensical.
Anne: You sure?
James: What is this? Am I missing something?
Anne: Yes. I was with him. In the car. I was with him.

And then it gets even more convoluted than that:

Anne: I was driving.

That, as they say, changes everything: James immediately comes down off his high horse.

[b]James: …they haven’t got much to go on. Even if Maggie gets the car right, it won’t tell them much. Nothing they can make stick.
Anne: They can if I help them.
James: You’re not going to prison.
Anne: I’ve done wrong. I ought to be punished.
James: Well, that’s very noble of you, but, uh, the problem is you won’t be the only one to take the punishment.
Anne [imagining out loud the future headline]: “Top solicitor’s wife in hit-and-run killing.”
James: Exactly.

…

Anne: Why was it different for Bill?
James: What?
Anne: Well, you didn’t mind his family being involved. Why is it different for me?

…

James: Oh, fuck Bill!
Anne: That’s the thing really. I mean I do fuck Bill. Or rather he fucks me.
[James is then out in the garden retching]

…

Anne: Oh James, please don’t be like this.
James: Why not? How should I be? You can have “suicidal” “bitter” or “glad to berid of you.” Only I can’t manage the last, so, uh, I think I’ll stick to bitter…Now fuck off.

…

Anne: I’ve failed every test you’ve set me, but you keep setting them. Why?
James: I don’t know.[/b]

Then it all ends as happily as these things can.