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]