philosophy in film

Imagine if, out of the blue, someone popped up in your life and told you that she was your cousin. And in so doing disclosed a side of the family that you had not even known existed.

For starters, why on earth would this have been kept secret from you? And is this deep dark secret more on her side of the family or on your side?

Obviously, there are only so many “deep dark secrets” that this can be. And you have almost certainly come across it in another film. So, you can choose to spend time trying to spoil the movie by figuring it all out in advance or can allow the filmmaker to lead you to it.

Of course much of this will revolve around your frame of mind regarding “family”. For some the family becomes the center of the universe. What you do or do not do is predicated almost entirely on whether it will hurt or help it. Here though both the love and the hate are on auto-pilot. An automatic reaction almost every time. Provided of course that you are in on the secret.

Still, for others, the family is either a source of pain and conflict or is something that, at some point in your life, you stopped giving a second thought to. Or [as with me] it all becomes a murky combination of both.

And then the part about incest. Sure, sleeping with your mommy or your daddy, your brother or your sister is almost universally frowned upon. But: How much further out does it go?

Certainly to cousins.

Look for Tawney from Rectify.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Automatic_Hate
trailer: youtu.be/W3NqUUG6geU

THE AUTOMATIC HATE [2015]
Written in part and directed by Justin Lerner

[b]Davis: Can I help you?
Alexis: Hi. Do you know…you know who I am?
Davis: No.
Alexis: No idea at all?
Davis: Should I?
Alexis: Sorry. It’s kinda weird. I-I’m not a crazy person. I’m…
Davis: Okay. Who are you?
Alexis: Can I have a hug first?
Davis [startled]: What?
Alexis: I’m sorry. I’m really exhausted and nervous, and I…I really…I need a hug.
[she rushes over and hugs him]
Alexis: Thank you. Thank you.
Davis: So?
Alexis: You’re Davis Green. And I’m Alexis Green. And we’re cousins.

Davis: No, you have the wrong person.
Alexis: No. No, your dad is Ronald Green. He’s a developmental psychologist. Yeah?
Davis: Yeah. And he doesn’t have any siblings.
Alexis: No, no. No, he does. He has an older brother, my dad.

Cassie [to Davis…ominously]: I have to tell you something…

Professor Ronald Green [to his class]: Human development…
[a woman brings out a baby]
Ronald: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a baby. One of the great mysteries of life. Who is she? What will she become? Will she be a painter? A head of state? A murderer? By the way she is looking at me right now, I’m guessing the last.
[the woman takes the baby and leaves the stage]
Ronald: And is it inevitable what she will become? Is it predetermined? Or is someone, something out there going to be transformative? Nature, nurture? That is the question. This class will bring us to a closer understanding that the question is bullshit. The answer is far more complex, subtle than any black or white conclusion. It is much more…gray.[/b]

That’s my line too, isn’t it?

[b]Davis [holding out a painting to his Grandfather]: Is that my dad?
Grandfather: Yep. Your mother painted it.
Davis: And who’s that?
Grandfather: That’s Joshua.
Davis: What?
Grandfather: Why, that’s Joshua.
Davis: Who’s Joshua?
Grandfather [suddenly realizing he spilled the beans]: We do not talk about Joshua.
Daivds: Why not? Who is he?
Grandfather [becoming agitated]: No, no, no, no.
Davis: Easy. Okay. Okay, okay.
Grandfather [frantically]: Ronnie!
Davis: I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Grandpa.
Grandfather: Ronnie! Ronnie!
Davis: Okay, easy. It’s okay.
Grandfather: Ronnie! No, no, no, no. Ronnie!

Davis [to his father]: Who is he?
[his father just stares out into space and says nothing]

Ronald: What did you say to him?
Davis: All I did was ask him to explain the painting. Do you want to? You have a brother?
Ronald: No, I don’t. Not anymore.
Davis: What happened?
Ronald: I can’t even begin to explain it, nor is it any of your goddamn business. There’s a reason this has been kept from you. Leave it alone! You don’t know what you’re about to do. Trust me.

Davis [leaving a message on the phone]: Hey, Cass, it’s me. I’m in a tiny town called Dustin, New York, driving to my uncle’s farm. That girl who came to visit me, Alexis…She wasn’t lying. She’s my fucking cousin.

Alexis: Davis Green, this is Amanda Green and this is Annie Green. What? Are you mad I didn’t tell you about them before?
Davis: No. This is fuckin’ awesome.

Davis: So, do you guys have any idea what happened?
Annie: You mean with our dads?
Davis: Yeah.
Amanda: Alexis tried to bring it up once, but…
Alexis: Yeah, that didn’t go too well. We got threatened. So we dropped it. Dad said that if we tried to make contact with you or your dad, then…
Davis: Then what?
Amanda: Bad things.

Davis: So, how did you find me?
Alexis: Well, I…I saw your dad in one of my psych textbooks, and then, I googled him, and I saw that you went to Yale, and then I…Well, I found your restaurant online, and so…
Amanda: She is a stalker.

Joshua: I’m stuck out here in the woods with four women. First time a guy’s been around in a while.
Davis [as "Jonathan]: I don’t know how much help I would be.
Joshua: Well, you’re fucking my daughter. The least you can do is keep me some company while I kill a pig.

Davis [as "Jonathan]: Just so you know, sir, I would never even think about sleeping with your daughter.
Joshua: Now, that sounds like an insult.
Davis: No. I mean, I would. I’m just not.[/b]

But then…

[b]Davis: What now? We just go in there and zap one?
Joshua: I’ll tell you what now. Stop fucking with me! He send you here to spy on me?
Davis: Who?
Joshua: Don’t insult my intelligence, man. I know you’re my brother’s son.
Davis: Actually, your daughters said I look a bit like you when you were younger.
Joshua: I don’t see it.

Davis: So did you go to college?
Joshua: Yeah. Why do you ask?
Davis: Just curious if maybe you’d also studied psychology.
Joshua: I studied philosophy.
Davis: Did you go to Yale too?
Joshua: No way. Fuck that place. I went to Harvard.

Davis: So, what now?
Joshua: Nothing. Have a good life.
Davis: That’s it? You don’t want to see him?
Joshua: Nope.
Davis: Why not?
Joshua: Plenty of reasons.
Davis: Give me one.
Joshua: Because he doesn’t want to see me.
Davis: You guys are brothers. What could have possibly happened?
Joshua: Why the fuck do you think I’d tell you that? What we have between us, it’s unresolvable.
Davis: If I knew what happened, would I hate you?
Joshua: It was nice to meet you, Davis.

Alexis: Davis, wait, please.
Davis: Your dad asked me to leave.
Alexis: So what? I have to do this all by myself?
Davis: Do what?
Alexis: Find a way to get our families back together.
Davis: That’s what you want to do?

Alexis: Promise me something else: That if you do leave now, it’s not because you’re afraid of what’s going on.
Davis: I’m not afraid of what’s going on.
Alexis: Not with our dads. With us.

Davis [to Alexis]: What is this place?

Davis: What’s up here?
Alexis: I have no idea.

Davis [to Alexis]: Could this all be over a girl?

Alexis [to her sisters and Cassie and Davis]: We’re going to the funeral.

Joshua: No. Absolutely not. If they wanted me there, I’d have gotten a call.
Amanda: Yeah, but he’s your dad too.
Joshua: I am not going to his house.
Cassie: You wouldn’t have to go to Ronald’s, if that makes a difference. They’re burying him at the family cabin in the mountains tonight.

Davis: He’s down there?
Joshua: Yeah.
Davis: How’d you pull that off?
Joshua: It’s easy to despise someone from a distance. Put them across a table, though, most men won’t pursue a conflict if they can help it. Your dad’s a great example.
Davis: Of what?
Joshua: A coward.

Joshua: So, who’s gonna lose it tonight?
Ronald: You are.
Joshua: No, not me.
Amanda: What are you guys talking about?
Joshua [looking over at Ronald]: May I?

Ronald: We threw the biggest party of the summer. And we probably drank a little bit more than we should’ve. So in the morning, the vomit was either red or white. And then we’d know whose it was.
Anne: So…what color was it?
Ronald: It was pink.

Joshua [staring at Rebecca’s bracelet on her wrist[: Alexis, where did you get that?
Alexis: You know where I got it.
Ronald: May I see that, please?
Joshua: Sweetie, take that off and hand it to me now. NOW!!
Ronald: What else have ya got, Josh?
Joshua: I didn’t think you’d want any of her stuff. At the end, you wanted nothing to do with Rebecca.
Ronald: Don’t you dare mention her name. And you shouldn’t assume anything.
Joshua: Let’s see if I’m in the will, then maybe we can negotiate.
Ronald: That’s the reason why you’re here.
Joshua: Well, what if it is? What are you gonna do, disown me again?

Davis: Alexis, give the bracelet to me. Let’s bring it upstairs, then we can all figure out what we want to do with it.
Cassie: Please…
Alexis: Shut up, Cassie! This is not your family. You need to fucking leave!
Cassie: Why? So you can have your cousin all to yourself?

Ronald: There’s something wrong with you, Josh. You’re sick. And you passed it along to your kids.
Joshua: Don’t you dare!
Ronald: You fucking pervert! You took advantage of her, Josh. You took advantage of her. You killed Rebecca and you know goddamn well that you did![/b]

Then all hell breaks loose. The past and the present here could not possibly be more combustible.

[b]Alexis: Mind your business, you jealous cunt!
Cassie: Why the fuck should I be jealous of you?
Alexis: Because Davis hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off me since he got here. And I think he’s happy you had that abortion so that he doesn’t have to be stuck with you. And in case you haven’t realized, your boyfriend and I…
[Davis punches her in the face and she’s knocked out cold]

Davis: How’s your face?
Joshua: We should see your dad before we declare a winner.

Davis: So are you a murderer, Josh?
Joshua: If I am, then your dad is too.
Davis: What did you do?

Joshua: You know, you and I are more alike than you might think.
Davis: How’s that?
Joshua: Well, your dad’s a man of careful words and thoughts. But when I saw you punch Alexis, it clicked.
Davis: I don’t follow.
Joshua: If you’d thought about it, you would’ve never done it. But you did. There are lots of things that are out of our control, Davis. Almost everything is, actually.
Davis: So you stole his girl? This… Rebecca. And he never forgave you.
Joshua: Rebecca was our sister.[/b]

I didn’t see that coming.

[b]Joshua [to Davis]: Your dad found out about us and he told the entire family. They shunned us and it ruined her life. He shamed her into killing herself.
[Davis seems stunned]
Joshua: Come on, Davis. From what we heard last night, are you in any place to judge? I know how you feel about her. Your dad will never forgive you for it. But I will.

Davis: I guess I thought that getting our families together would’ve been a good thing.
Ronald: And what do you think now?
Davis: I think they’re assholes.

Davis: Are you sure you want me to do this? And if I do, that’s it? Game on? You promise? Even if you don’t like some of what you hear?
Cassie: I told you It’s not about whether I like the answers. It’s that I get to know them. I get to know everything from now on. Are you pussying out?
Davis: No.
Cassie: Okay. We’ll start easy.

Cassie: Are you sexually attracted to her?
[Davis fidgets]
Cassie: One lie, this game is done. Are you sexually attracted to your cousin?
Davis: Yes.
Cassie: Have you thought about what it would be like to sleep with her?
[he nods]
Cassie: A lot? Okay. That one stung a bit. Is it more than physical attraction?
Davis: Maybe? I guess so, yeah.
Cassie: Do you think you’d make a good couple?
Davis: No.
Cassie: Given the chance, if there were no consequences, would you do anything with her?
Davis: At one point I guess so, yeah. But now, no. No way.
Cassie: Are you sure you want to be with me?
Davis: Yes.
Cassie: You have no doubts?
Davis: No.
Cassie: Okay. Last question. Did you actually do anything at all with her?
Davis: No. No. Nothing.
Cassie [after a long, long pause]: Okay. Unpack your shit.[/b]

Of course we know better, don’t we?

This is a film exploring something that has never actually happened; something that [in our lifetime] is not likely to happen; but something that [in our lifetime] certainly could happen.

That’s why the film is set in “the near future”.

Imagine losing power. At first you’re figuring the usual causes. In a few hours [or at most a few days in the case of a big storm] everything will be back up and running. Only that isn’t what happens at all. Not for these folks. And then it begins to dawn on them that there is little or no hope of it being turned back on anytime soon.

What caused it? How extensive is it? Across the state? Across the nation? Across the globe? That part isn’t really explored at all. The focus is more on two sisters actually enduring the calamity itself.

At least these folks live farther away from the Big City and The Suburbs. Still, their lives are no less intertwined in all of the things that revolve entirely around having the power necessary to make them…work. On the other hand, they live far, far, far from town. More or less isolated from everyone. And that can mean one of two things: less folks to harm them, less folks to help them.

A whole new social, political and economic dynamic. A whole new way to think about survival. A whole new “I”. Especially at the juncture where being inconvenienced starts to topple over into survival itself.

As for the ending, it doesn’t make much sense to me. Especially with the baby. Not that there appeared to be many other alternatives.

Here is list of major power outages that have already occurred: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m … er_outages

Some predict that a catastrophic CME will be the cause of The Big One: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection

IMDb

[b]Ellen Page was inspired to make the film after coming across the book written by Jean Hegland while browsing through a small store in her native Halifax. It was suggested to her by the woman working there and after she read it, she decided to produce a movie-version of the story.

Evan Rachel Wood broke the capillaries around her eyes while filming an intensely emotional scene.

The pig butchering scene was real. Ellen Page learned the process specifically to include in this film. She’s quoted explaining how it was difficult and upsetting. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Forest
trailer: youtu.be/_TRSvK-Omwc

INTO THE FOREST [2015]
Written and directed by Patricia Rozema

[b]Reporter [on TV]: We interrupt tonight’s programming to report a massive power outage up and down the west coast.

Nell: What about the solar? When does that inverter come in?
Robert [dad]: Four weeks ago. I’ll ask again next time I’m in town.
Nell: My SATs are on Thursday! I need to study.
Robert: Ah, there is an ancient technology, you may have heard of it. It’s called “books”.

Reporters [on the radio]: We think it happened at the power plant where there was a problem. The emergency systems took over and essentially shut the plant down. That then triggered shut-downs across the power grid, and we are hearing that that grid didn’t have the capacity to deal with that problem, so it shut itself down and that was sort of the link being broken. We still are waiting to hear from officials to find out what was the exact cause… There are many rumors, some suggest a terrorist targeting our power supply… It seems at least 300 million people are now without power…No subways, elevators, airports…

Title card: Ten days without power

Stan [store owner with a rifle in his hand]: Whoa. Not so fast. Sorry I gotta ask you this… You got money, yeah?
Robert: Yes sir, I do, sir.
Stan: And your big box membership card is all paid up to date?
Robert: Of course. I mean, who could refuse the opportunity to pay for the right to shop.
Stan: Yeah. Well, we can’t be too careful. A crisis like this doesn’t always bring out the best side of people.
Robert: It reveals character, you’re right there.
Stan: Yes, it reveals character. I tell you, you know? It’s people wanting something for nothing is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Robert: I’m with you there, Stan.

Robert [after an accident with the power saw]: Girls, girls, girls. I’m leaking, I’m leaking. Take care of each other.
Nell: Shut up, dad!
Eva: Dad, you’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine.
Robert: Love each other…
Nell: You’re gonna be fine![/b]

Dad dies.

[b]Title card: Two months without power

Eva: I want to fill the generator. Right now, before it gets too dark and we spill some.
Nell: We can’t. We have to save it for the Jeep.
Eva: There’s, like, five gallons in here. We only need two to get to town.
Nell: Yeah, and two to get back.
Eva: Okay, so four. That leaves one for right now.
Nell: I’m sorry. We… We have to save it for an emergency.
Eva: I need it.
Nell: You don’t need it. Come on, this is our life insurance.
Eva: Our life insurance.
Nell: Yeah.
Eva: Ours. Half mine.

Eva [to Nell]: Get dad’s gun.

Nell: What’s happening in town?
Eli: People are getting sick. There’s no water filtration. I thought you’d died when you stopped coming to town.
Nell: No. We ran out of gas.
Eli: Everyone’s run out of gas. There’s no gas, there’s no electricity, there’s no transportation, there’s no phones, there’s no Internet. It’s the wild fucking west out there.

Eva: We’re almost out of toothpaste.
Nell: I know.
Eva: So how long is he gonna stay?
Nell: I don’t know.
Eva: 'Cause he’s eating our food and we hardly have any left.

Eli: Things are starting up again back east, Nellie. They’ve got electricity there and people have jobs. The phones are working. Food in the stores. No looting.
Nell: What?
Eli: I want you to go with me, Nelly.
Nell: Why didn’t you tell us this sooner?
Eli: Well, I wanted to see who you were first.
Nell: What do you mean “who you were”?
Eli: If you were the one.

Eva: You’re going to walk to Boston? How long is that gonna take?
Eli: Eight, eight and a half months.
Eva: So into the winter? What if you don’t make it that far?
Eli: Then we’ll hole up somewhere.
Eva: Where? Who’s going to take in an extra half-dozen starving people for the winter?
Eli: We’ll make ends meet, Joe’s got a rifle. If you guys come, there’s another gun, too. We’ll work the land. We’ll hunt. We’ll make it work.
Eva: You know how to hunt?
Eli: Sure, why not? I’m a fast learner.
Eva: Boston has something we don’t?
Eli: Yeah, power. Food. Jobs.
Eva: It’s just another rumor!

Title card: Six months without power

Nell [coming upon Eva who was just raped by Stan]: Eva! Eva! Eva! Eva! What happened?! What happened?!
[she picks up the axe as Stan drives away in the jeep]
Nell: I will fucking kill you! I will fucking kill you!

Title card: eight months withour power

Nell: Eva, what? What?
Eva [distraught, trembling]: I just get so scared. I can’t stop it. It just feels like these black waves, and I… I swim up to the surface, and I…I think I’ll do okay and I can…I can fight this. And then another black wave comes and I’m just drowning…

Eva: There’s a baby coming.
Nell: Yeah, I was afraid of that. It’s okay. It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. Right?
Eva: Figure what out?
Nell: Surely you’re not against stopping an unwanted pregnancy.
Eva: No, I don’t think any baby should be unwanted.
Nell: Well, there might be a safe way to…
Eva: I want it. I don’t think I can lose anything else, Nell.
Nell: Eva, you were raped.
Eva: That has nothing to do with it.
Nell: Yeah, it’s his kid.
Eva: I don’t think the kid is responsible for the parents’ actions. Anyway, how could this baby even be mine?
Nell: What does that mean?
Eva: It’s its own person.

Title card: fifteen months without power

Eva: B12. B12 is found in animal and dairy products.

Eva: We can’t stay here.
Nell: What?
Eva: The house is filled with black mold. It’s not safe for the baby.

Eva: I want to burn the house down.
Nell: What the fuck?!
Eva: Sooner or later someone is gonna come looking for us, right? If we leave the house here, someone can move in, but if we burn it down, it’ll look like we died in the fire. Look at this place! It’s toxic, it’s rotting. We’re never gonna fix that roof…Alright, how long have human beings been around?
Nell: What?
Eva: Seriously… How long have human beings been around on earth?
Nell: 100… 200,000 years. Right?
Eva: How long have we had electricity?
Nell: …140?
Eva: Right. You see what I’m saying? All this.
Nell: This is all we have.
Eva: We have each other. We have plenty of food. We know how to get more. It’s just not safe here anymore. We will be okay, Nellie. It’s the right thing to do.

Eva [handing her the torch]: You wanna be the one to do it?
Nell: Yeah.[/b]

From the director of Russian Ark above. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that much of it unfolds in a museum. This time the Louvre. Though not in one continuous take.

And it is the Louvre when France was under the Nazi occupation. Though it does frequently switch back and forth between the present and the past.

By and large, this is the world of art at the intersection of aesthetics and political power. Art and war. The part that comes from within; but only as this is necessarily shaped and molded over the course of actual human interactions over the course of actual human history.

And here who is really to say where one ends and the other begins? And though the Nazis are the threat here, we are reminded that much of what is contained in the Louvre was acquired by Napoleon Bonaparte as a result of his own imperialist conquests.

Art, like morality, can be a slippery slope. But almost everyone agrees that the Louvre is in fact the epicenter of Western Art, of Western culture. It’s value is far, far, far beyond calculating.

In any event, unless you are a history buff and are familiar with the events that unfold in this “quasi-documentary” account of the Louvre, much of it may will go over your head. As much of it did mine. But watching the film is really more in the way of an “experience”. It’s all in the editing. It doesn’t have to make sense to everyone. Or to anyone. Any more than art does.

IMDb

During production, this film was often rumored to be shot in a single take, making it an ideal sequel to Aleksandr Sokurov’s previous ‘museum film’, Russian Ark (2002). Eventually, a more traditional editing technique was chosen by Sokurov to tell the story.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francofonia
trailer: youtu.be/yGF7vZALBQU

FRANCOPHONIA [2015]
Written and directed by Aleksandr Sokurov

[b]Sokurov [voiceover looking at a man in a photograph]: Why is he looking at me like that? As if he knew what was waiting us. Now he’ll tell us. Who will if not him?

Sokurov: [voiceover with a photograph of Anton Chekhov on his deathbed]: He’s fallen asleep, too. In the hardest period. Mr. Chekhov! Anton Pavovich! Mr. Chekhov wake up! It’s the dawn of the 20th century. Who can I turn to? Who is there? A-ha, there are the people…So that’s how the 20th century started. The fathers fell asleep.

Sokurov [voiceover as a woman/ghost dances in the Louvre]: My dear ghost, tell us what it is that awaits us all?
Woman: Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood.
Sokurov: Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood. My dear Marianne, I’m not in the mood for humor.

Sokurov [voiceover as we watch a storm rage at sea]: Elemental forces of the sea and of history are those without sense or pity. Let it live its own life beside us. Why do we need to know this elementa force? After all, we have our cities, our skies, our warm and cozy apartments. Life, beauty…a people surrounded by an ocean, while a person has his own raging occean within.

Sokurov: Who would we be without museums? It sometimes seems museums don’t care what happens around them as long as they are left in peace. Museums can also conceal the improper behavior of power…and of people. [/b]

If only from a point of view.

[b]Sokurov [voiceover]: I wonder what would have become of European culture if portraiture had not emerged? For some reason, Europeans developed the wish, the necessity, of painting people, faces. Why is the study so important to Europeans, while other people, such as the Muslims, don’t have it at all? Who would I have been, had I never known or seen the eyes of those who lived before me?

Franz Wolff-Metternich [to Jacques Jaujard]: Our mission is to preserve art collections, museums and historic monuments in France and Europe.

Sokurov [voiceover over scenes of war’s devastation]: WWI was fought family by family and was thus particularly cruel and insane. It left long-lasing evil recollections in its wake. Cities, churches, monuments, cultures were crushed. People were murdered and tortured.

Sokurov [voiceover recounting the history of the Vichy French during WWII]: The Vichy French, who’d been rejecting distant Russian Bolshevism, overlooked neighboring Nazism. Petain, reserved, cold and undistinguished of birth, believes in the possibility and necessity of partnership with Hitler. And sees in it France’s salvation. And here we have his government, his cabinet. They are to support the occupying forces, collect the taxes, and organize the French workforce to replenish Germany’s resources. This same government will head museums and cultural institutions throughout all of France. [/b]

Why was this road taken?

[b]Sokurov [voiceover]: For peace. It’s simply for peace. For calm. Peace can always be bought. The grand war fell silent in France. The French soldiers are returning home. Paris. Paris. Paris. Hundreds of museums, theatres, galleries, universities, sciences, crafts, workers, engineeers, press and customs. Would you give it all up for the sake of principles, political convictions, slogans, and start a full-fledged war thoughout France and in Paris? Paris the “open city” means Paris without bombardments and without battles.

Napoleon: Of course it was I who brought all this here. All these sculptures are from my campaigns when I waged war. Everything here was brought back by me. Everything. Everything here. Why else would I have gone to war? For what? Why? For this, for art. That’s it. I went to war for art. I had excellect advisers when it came to taking it or leaving it behind. The whole universe defines a piece. And war alone decides where it will end up.

Franz Wolff-Metternich [over pictures of the Louvre’s treasures being evacuted]: All museums must prepare for war.

Jacques Jaujard: I’m a civil servant of the French Administration, one whose government allies itself to the enemy. Do I know why I am working for this government? Yes, I do.

Sokurov [voiceover]: We do have such extraordinary writers, philosophers. Our artists are such visionaries who dearly love humans. And in the Louvre, everything is about how people struggled, loved, killed ,repented, lied and cried.[/b]

Many of the best flims are often those that confront us with this: What would you do?

To, for example, survive.

And the context here is particularly excruciating. You are a Jew. And you are assigned the task in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp of facilitating the Nazis in exterminating your own people. Of being a member of the Sonderkommando.

Thus you are confronted with one of the most agonizing conundrums the human mind can endure: What price life?

Your own, in other words.

What are you willing to do to sustain your own existence? Are there behaviors so inherently evil that all virtuous men and women are obligated to draw the line and refuse?

Of course in part this will revolve around your own personal opinions regarding dying, death and what comes after them. Clearly, if you do not believe in God or Salvation then the life that you have is all there is. So sustaining it will necessarily become the priority for most.

Another important theme here is how, in the midst of a historical context horrific beyond what many were even able to imagine, everything can often come down [for one man] to accomplishing a single task that manages to thwart the enemy. Here it comes down to a man, unable to save the life of his son, intent on “salvaging the body and finding a rabbi to bury it.” But: In the context of the Holocaust what can this possibly mean? Where does one even begin to fit it in?

But then each of us one by one in our own way must do what we can.

And yet we know that in this case it is not to save the boy’s life. The boy is already dead. It is all only to bury him. So, for some of us what unfolds becomes more or less unimaginable. And he puts his own life and the lives of other prisoners at risk.

What then to make of Saul? What to make of what he does? What would you do? And how does one even begin to construct moral equations in a context like this?

This was an acclaimed film. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, won the Grand Prix at Cannes and garnered a 96% fresh rating at RT.

IMDb

[b]During the preparation, director László Nemes, cinematographer Mátyás Erdély and production designer László Rajk made a pledge to stick to certain rules, or a “dogma”, which included:

The film cannot look beautiful. The film cannot look appealing. We cannot make a horror film. Staying with Saul means not going beyond his own field of vision, hearing, or presence. The camera is his companion, it stays with him throughout this hell.

Dario Gabbai, the last known survivor of the Sonderkommandos, saw the film and praised it. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and has done since 1951.

In February 2016, the New Yorker reported that before, during, and after this movie’s filming, its star, Géza Röhrig, was employed as a shomer in a funeral home in Manhattan. In Jewish funereal ritual, a shomer is a person who sits with a body so that it is not left alone before a funeral; Röhrig’s job also included participating in the ritual washing of the bodies before burial. The article said that when Röhrig started this job (in 2001), his salary was $10.00 an hour.

The film’s historical consultant Dr. Zoltán Vági wrote that Hungary is still in denial about the former alliance and collaboration with Nazi Germany. Between 15 May and 9 July 1944, approximately 437,000 Hungarian citizens of Jewish ethnicity were deported with 147 trains, mainly to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The majority of them were unfit for slave labor: Elderly and disabled people, women and more than 100,000 children were killed in gas chambers immediately after arriving, while their possessions (incl. gold teeth) were stolen by the Germans. Many more died in the camp over the next few months. The deportation was mainly organized and executed by the Hungarian authorities themselves. Hungary set a European ‘record’ by deporting 437,000 Jews to certain death within only eight weeks. The Hungarian gendarmes’ devotion to this cause surprised even Nazi organizer Adolf Eichmann, who only needed to supervise the operation with 20 officers and a staff of 100, including drivers and cooks.

According to Nemes, the character Saul is “not a religious person, and actually makes mistakes about what it means to bury in the Jewish way. You don’t need a rabbi, you need ten people saying the Kaddish, so he never gets that right.”

The film recreates in one sequence the secretive taking of the “Sonderkommando photographs,” the only photographs of the extermination process in Auschwitz-Birkenau that still exist. The photographs can be found online.

Although in early versions of the screenplay it was clearer that the body Saul tries to give a proper burial was actually his son, it became more ambiguous through the course of rewrites. Among those who do not believe it was is Géza Röhrig, who played Saul.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Saul
trailer: youtu.be/sWQTfbXLTHQ

SON OF SAUL [Saul Fia] 2015
Written in part and directed by László Nemes

[b]Title card: Sonderkommando: German word. Term used in the concentration camps to designate prisoners special status. Also called “secret carriers” (Geheimnistrger). The members of a Sonderkommando are separated from the rest of the camp. They are killed after a few months of work.

German soldier [as hundreds of naked people are being paraded into the gas chambers]: We need people like you in the workshops. You will work and you will be well paid. After showering and soup, come directly to me. We need nurses. We need artisans of all trades. Joiners, carpenters, masons, concrete workers, mechanics, locksmiths, electricians. When you’re ready, come find me.

Saul: Do not cut open that boy. Leave the body as it is.
Doctor: It’s one of yours? Where do you come from?
Saul: Ungvr.
Doctor: I am a prisoner, like you. You’ll have five minutes with him tonight. But in the end, he will burn with the others.

Saul: Rabbi…Bury someone.
Rabbi: Bury? The prayer is enough.
Saul: I have the body. Help me!
Rabbi: Get rid of it. You know the Kaddish? I’ll say his name. We can do nothing more.
Saul: Not enough!

Saul: I need your help. I need another rabbi.
Prisoner: You? Why you need a rabbi? A rabbi will not save you from fear.

Abraham [as Saul nears them]: He’s with us. They’re already making a list for us.
Elie: Who told you that?
Abraham: My man in the office.
Elie: Let’s take those pictures first.
Abraham: What pictures, Elie? We have no time for this. It’s our turn.
Elie: You think you can blow this whole thing up?
Abraham: And your pictures will bring an army here to free us?

Saul: The “pieces” from the autopsy room. Where are they?
Prisoner: You’re day shift! Get lost!

Saul [yanking at the doctor]: The boy! Where is the boy?!
Doctor: The boy is safe. I had to hide him from the doctors.
Saul: Can’t you exchange him for someone else?
Doctor: No. I have to autopsy it. Document it.

Prisoner: What are you carrying?
[Saul hasthe body of his son covered in canvas flung over his shoulder]
Prisoner: Take it back. You play with our lives.
Saul: I’ll show the Germans where you bury your writings about the camp![/b]

So: Is he doing the right thing?

[b]Saul: You did not care much for me before.
Abraham: I still don’t.

Oberscharfuhrer Voss: Oberkapo.
Oberkapo: Yes sir, Oberscharfuhrer.
Oberscharfuhrer: I want a list of 70 names. Men you don’t need. [/b]

We know what that means.

[b]Saul: Where are they going?
Abraham: To the pits. The ovens must be full.

Abraham: Where have you been all night?
Saul: I was taken to the pits.
Abraham: The package? The package sent by the women?
[Saul searches his pockets]
Abraham: The powder! How will we blow up this thing now?!

Abraham: Who is this boy?
Saul: My son.
Abraham: But you have no son.
Saul: I do. I have to bury him.
Abraham: You don’t need a rabbi for that.

Abraham: We will die because of you two.
Saul: We are already dead. I have to take care of my son. It is not from my wife.
Abraham: When is the last time you have seen him?
[Saul says nothing]
Abraham: You have no son.

Doctor [to Saul]: Find me a boy. Same age, same hair.

Abraham: You failed the living for the dead.

Saul [to the rabbi after he has escaped the camp in the chaos of the rebellion]: Say Kaddish. Please, the prayer![/b]

And all for naught.

For lack of a rope…?

Well, depending of course on the context. Here the rope is needed not to win or lose a war but to retrieve a corpse from a well. The corpse being but one of thousands upon thousands of casualties in this particular conflict: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars

And this conflagration was particularly complex. At least from the perspective of American foreign policy. It didn’t have much to do with securing cheap labor or natural resources or markets. Or, rather, less to do with that than, say, ethnic cleansing. There were the Serbs, the Croats and the Albanians. Some Christian, some Muslim. Some nationalists, some separatists.

But once all Yugoslavians. No doubt the origins of the conflict are buried deep in the history of the Balkins: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#The_Balkans

Having to do with, among other things, ethnicity, God and [of course] power.

And talk about conflicting goods. You tell me who were the good guys and bad guys. Here in America the bad guys were generally thought to be the Serbs. But at the time I knew a woman at work who was a Serb. And her rendition of things was nothing at all like the “general consensus”. In any event there were lots and lots of objectivists on both all sides of this particular hell on earth.

And then there was this part: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars#War_crimes

The film also explores the different reactions to the horrors of war. Often differentiated by gender. Sophie reacts to the brutality by emotionally exposing her own intolerance to it. Mambru on the other hand is more cynical, detached. We do what we can to minimize the pain and suffering but you don’t let it overwhelm you. It is what it is. You live in the moment.

Also, one of factors pointed to in films like this is humor. How much is allowed? How dark must it be?

IMDb

After the public screening of the film during the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs 2015 (director’s fortnight) at Cannes Festival, on the 16th of May 2015, the director and actors present (Benicio Del Toro, Melanie Thierry) received a ten minutes standing ovation.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Perfect_Day_(2015_film
trailer: youtu.be/hv3FTkOXWzg

A PERFECT DAY [2015]
Written in part and directed by Fernando León de Aranoa

[b]Mambrú [of the corpse tied to a rope in the well]: Come on stinky, hang in there. You can make it.
[the rope breaks]
Mambrú: Fat fuck.

Mambru: He didn’t go hungry in the war.
Damir: It might be his glands. They’re called glands, right? Thyroid does not produce enough hormones so body does not assimilate fat. Glands. My brother told me that.
Mambru: Yeah, your brother is a doctor?
Damir: No, a fatso.

Mambru: What are they laughing at?
Damir: He’s just saying funny things, you know.
Mambru: Yeah, I can tell that.
Damir: Ah, it’s normal here. This area is famous for that. Yoghurt and sense of humor.

B: Mr. Cow. Is it to the left or to the right?
Sophie: You’re asking the cow?
B: Let’s go.
Sophie: Are we turning around?
B: RPGs. It’s all here in my logbook.
Sophie: What are you doing?
B: I’m looking it up.
Sophie: Mining protocol says to turn around.
B [sarcastically]: Mining protocol. Don’t believe everything you read in mining protocol. They write that stuff in Geneva. They’ve never seen a mine in their lives in Geneva. Cows, yes, plenty of cows but none with mines around 'em.[/b]

Guess what he does?

[b]Sophie [looking down at the corpse]: He’s gigantic. Is he from the village?
Mambru: No. They brought this guy from somewhere else.
Sophie: I thought they do it with animals.
Mambru: Not in war. Nobody throws an animal in a well. Wasted food.

Sophie: For how long has he been in the well?
B: 12 hours. 10, maybe. So what’s our expert say?
Sophie: We have to get it out and clean the well. In 24 hours, it won’t matter what we pour in there. We’ll have to seal it.
B: We’ll get the blue helmets to help. At least this one’s in one piece. They usually chop it up, you know. It speeds up the decay. It’s disgusting, but there’s a good side to it. It…it gets easier to get 'em out of there you know, when they’re, when they’re in chunks.

Sophie [reading from a phamplet]: “International humanitarian law as established by the Geneva convention prohibits article 55 using environmental modification techniques with hostile aims in order to protect the health of the population during wartime.”
U.N. Official: I appreciate the reminder, Ms. Richard but that article, as you correctly stated refers only to international armed conflicts.
Sophie: Well, that’s true, sir but neither of us has a Bosnian accent.
U.N. Official: Our passports do not make this an international conflict despite your insistence. Your request is duly noted but leave it to the military to establish priorities during wartime.[/b]

Guess what she tells him? That the corpse in the well is mined. Big mistake.

[b]Sophie: What about the fat guy?
Mambru: Fat guy stays, we leave.
Sophie: But there will be an epidemic.
Mambru: Maybe. But with any luck, I’ll be gone by then.
Sophie: Okay, beautiful.
Mambru: Not our problem anymore. They said not to touch it.

Sophie: Three what?
Mambru: Nothing. [/b]

Three out of three not three out of ten.

[b]Mambru: Well…You look different from the last time I saw you.
Katya: Sure, I’m dressed.
Mambru: That’s right. You are dressed. But, uh…your hair was different.
Katya: My head is what was different.

Damir: Uh, he asked me why we need the rope for, so I explained him. And he told me that if somebody throws man in a well he probably was no Saint and it’s better to leave him there. Never touch dead people, he says.
B [grabs some rope and brings it to the shop keeper]: How much? How much? Money. How much?
Damir: Uh, he says that, uh they need rope for hangings.
B: He’s… he’s kidding, right?
Damir: I don’t know, uh… Sense of humor is bit different in this area.[/b]

Bottom line: no rope. Later in the car…

[b]Damir: Difficult to know. Many problems here. Maybe they’re enemies and they don’t want you to remove body from well. Or maybe they put it there.
B: You think?
Damir: Could be. You know, things are complicated. Whatever you think… It’s possible here. Or maybe you are foreigner and that’s why they don’t sell you rope. Many people hate foreigners because they come with war. You remind them that everything is bad here. You know, the bombs, the deaths and so they hate you for that.

B: What’s that sign saying?
Damir: “UN convoy, stay…
[B floors the accelerator]
Damir: …back.”
B: You see the size of that escort? Military target. They’re taking meat to the refugees. You might as well paint a bull’s-eye on your chest. The further away you get from these guys, the better.

Katya: Aren’t we going back to the base?
Mambru: Yeah, but first we’re gonna get our friend out of the well.
Katya: You’re not allowed.
Mabru: Says who?
Katya: The United Nations. They said you can’t do it.
Mambru: I don’t take orders from them. I’m not wearing a helmet.
Katya: It was just explained to you by an official. Who do we need to get for you to understand?- Butros-ghali?
Mambru: Yeah. Butros butros-ghali. I want him to come here and explain to me why the hell we can’t get the body out of that well.

B: Welcome to Konopac, the Rope Capital of the World. Population: 5. I’m B, I’ll be your tour guide this afternoon and I’m pleased to be with you on this lovely day.

B [seeing Katya for the first time]: Shit, where did you get her? Models Without Borders?

Mambru: That’s the rope? Our rope?
Nikola: Nikola no lie.
Mambru: Nikola no lie, but Nikola no say the rope was tied to a big snarling dog either.
Nikola: I say I take you to rope and rope is there.
B: Kid is right. The rope is there. And it’s perfect.

Mambru: Wait, Sophie. Don’t turn around.
Sophie: What?
Mambru: Look at me. Look at me. Don’t turn around. It’s okay.
Sophie: What…
Mambru: Look at me. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come here…
[she looks around]
Mambru: Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!

B: Cow?
Mambru: Cow.

Mambru [throwing Katya’s pen near the cow]: Go get it. If you don’t blow up we keep driving.

Mambru: How are you doing?
Sophie: I can’t stop thinking about them. The 3 of them. I imagine them together in that house.
Mambru: Forget them. They’re gone.
Sophie: What are we going to do?
Mambru: Nothing. We keep going. Don’t think about it. You’ll end up going home. Forget what’s happened or what’s gonna happen. Focus on what’s happening now. The rest doesn’t exist here. Maybe back home…but not here.

Mambrú: B, I have a girlfriend.
B [of Katya]: She’s hot. You had a thing with her before. It’s a relapse. It’s like smoking again. Totally understandable. And what if she writes a terrible report about us, we gotta go home. What then? Who helps the people, then? Uh? Have you ever think about that? No. You’re selfish. You gotta fuck her. For the Bosnian people. Make a sacrifice. For the humanitarian cause. She won’t say no. Hey, hey! I’m serious.

B: Mambru, wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Mambru, follow the granny. Follow the granny. Trust me, follow the granny.

B: You know, maybe I should be moving along somewhere. Maybe Katya was right. I should find a wife and have 2 and half kids. Settle down.
Mambru: Fuck all that. This is your home. I mean…wherever people need your help, B. That’s your family. The family that waits for you. Misses you. How many people can say they are missed by people they’ve never met before, huh? Not many.
B: Not many.[/b]

Then the sheer absurdity of it all…

[b]U.N. Official: You must abandon the extraction of that corpse immediately. It could be mined.
Sophie: But it’s not.
Mambru: That’s a mistake. We’ve searched that well inside out. There are no explosives in there. It’s all clear.
U.N. Official: Well, you may not be aware of it, sir, but this is a red zone. There’s been some changes of jurisdiction and we handed everything over to the local authorities. So mined or not, removing that dead body is illegal.
Sophie: I can’t believe this. It’s a basic sanitary service. I mean, with all due respect, sir it wouldn’t matter if it were a pig.
U.N. Official: Abandon the extraction immediately. You need a judge present to do what you’re doing.
Mmabru: A judge?
U.N. Official: Yes, a judge. The area is now under civil jurisdiction. It’s all here in the peace agreements. We must all respect procedure.
[they cut the rope and back down into the well the “fat fuck” goes]
Sophie: Can’t you make an exception? The people here need water.
U.N. Official: You might be generating a conflict.
Sophie: But there already is a conflict here. If we do not clean the water, we won’t need 1 judge we’ll need 20 judges.
U.N. Official: We cannot make any exceptions, ma’am. It’s all written in the peace agreements and it must be respected by all parties in conflict. It’s very simple. You cannot touch dead bodies.
Sophie: You do nothing here! United Nothing! You’re nothing!
U.N. Official: I understand your reasoning but there’s nothing else we can do. We understand that your work is very important here. Remember, we are on the same side.

Mambru: I thought you wanted that ball.
Nikola: I need money.
Mmabru: What for?
Nikola: To go and see my parents in Donovich. I have a friend. I pay, he takes me where they are. I have $40, only need 10 more.
Mambru: You can’t do that.
Nikola: You pay, you go.
Mambru: You can’t. It’s too dangerous.
Nikola: Not dangerous. You pay, all is possible here.
Mambru: You can’t do that…
Nikola: Yes I can.
Mambru: Here’s a $100. On one condition. You take your grandfather on this trip.[/b]

A day in the life of an “aimless youth”.

Lots of films about folks who, for one reason or another, “drop out” of society. If you want to call this dropping out. It’s more in the way of an “attitude”. And that generally precipitates one or another reaction from all the folks who either claim to “get it” or don’t. After all, if you haven’t yet dropped out of society but want to you are likely to be considerably more sympathetic.

That it happens this time in Berlin carries its own cultural and historical baggage. So you have to adjust your own similarly biased reaction accordingly. In fact a few critics have pointed out that “foreigners” may be at a disadvantage here in following the plot, in following the characters. The film within the film for example. Or the drunk in the bar.

Though in other respects it is Any Big City in our postmodern world.

Or you can start with the assumption that, life being essentially meaningless and absurd, one reaction is more or less interchangeable with any other. That way we all start out and end up with a fifty-fifty chance of being either right or wrong.

Also, this is a film in which everything unfolds within the span of a single day. And that is important because the context is narrowed down to a single day as well. You don’t have much in the way of a past to put it all in perspective. And you can’t really even imagine a future. At least one that is really any different.

Bottom line: You may want to be “hip” and “avant-garde” but there are just too many folks intent on you being “normal” instead.

Or, sure, maybe it’s just a film about a man trying to get a cup of coffee.

The film is shot in my own favorite color, black and white. Which means that in more ways than one there are going to be lots and lots and lots of shades of gray.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Coffee_In_Berlin
trailer: youtu.be/fDOLiSZg7QU

A COFFEE IN BERLIN [Oh Boy] 2012
Written and directed by Jan Ole Gerster

[b]Elli: What about tonight?
Niko: I don’t think I can make it.
Elli: Why?
Niko: Because I have a thousand things to do.
Elli: What do you have to do?

Psychologist: MPE. Do you know what that means?
Niko: Medical-Pyschological Examination.
Psychologist: More commonly known as?
Niko: The idiot-test?
Psychologist: Correct. “Idiot-test.” And who are you calling “Idiot?” Me or you?
Niko: Me.

Psychologist: No driver’s license.
Niko: Why?
Psychologist: You’re emotionally unbalanced. Your living situation suggests a relapse.
Niko: You can’t judge that yet.
Psychologist: No?
[he signs the form]
Psychologist: I just did.

Woman: Don’t you want to try something new? Today’s special is a Maroccino. With a chocolate donut for two Euros more. Homemade and organic.
Niko: I’ll just take the coffee.
Woman: All right. We’ve got “Caf Arabica” or "Columbia Morning. "
Niko: Which one taste the most like regular coffee?
Woman: They both taste good to me.
Niko: Great. I’ll take the Columbia, then.
Woman: The Colombia. Very well. Should I add milk?
Niko: No.
Woman: Soy milk?
Niko: Please, no.
Woman: All right. 3.40 please.
Niko [startled]: Without the special? Just the coffee?
Woman: Yeah, 3.40.
Niko: 3.40 for a coffee?!
Woman: That’s the Colombia.
Niko: You could have said that. I have 2.20… 60, 70…
Woman: That’s not enough.
Niko: Couldn’t you make an exception?
Woman [looking over at the boss who shakes his head]: Sorry, I can’t do that. Then ten other bums will suddenly want a coffee for free.
Niko: Bums?
Woman: Yeah, bums.[/b]

Hey, it’s a Starbucks world.
Next up: Karl

[b]Matze: Someone should clean up this city. Because it’s a pile of shit. I get a headache when I take a walk, and have to smell the filth. Unbelievable. The headaches get worse and worse. I have an idea. The President needs to burn down this city or flush it down a gigantic toilet.
Niko: “Taxi Driver”?
Matze: Exactly.

Father: Niko, why are you lying to me?
Niko: Hm?
Father: I met Professor Kollath at a conference in Zurich. He told me that you dropped out of your studies two years ago. My question, sweet Niko, is: What have you done these last two years, while I’ve been sending you money? Hm?
Niko: Thinking. I’ve been thinking.
Father: You’ve been thinking things over? What things, might I ask?
Niko: Things about myself, about you.
Father: I give you 1,000 euros, so that you can think about yourself, about me?
Niko: Yeah.

Father [to Niko]: Your account is closed.

Printed on Marcel’s t-shirt: FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK

Ralf [writer and director of avant-garde theater]: I’d like to know. What did you find funny?
Matze: The representation of the birth. That certainly entered into the realm of the comic.
Ralf: Then I ask myself, with all seriousness, why don’t we come into the world with a huge grin on our faces? Why do we scream and cry as we’re being born?
Niko: To open up the respiratory passage.
Ralf: Are you a doctor?
Niko: No, but that’s what I read.

Niko: I wouldn’t have the guts to do what you do on the stage.
Julika: You weren’t always this cautious.
Niko: What was I then?
Julika: You always seemed to know exactly what you wanted.
[Niko says nothing]
Julika: What is it?
Niko: I don’t know. Do you know what it’s like to have the feeling that all the people around you are honestly kind of weird? But when you think it over, then it becomes clear that the problem is with yourself. [/b]

Next up: Ronny.

[b]Julika [of Niko coming between her and Ronny]: You intervened, that’s what matters.
Niko: If you hadn’t provoked them, none of this would have happened.
Julika [who had been offered 10 Euro from Ronny to show him her “tits”]: What do you mean?
Niko: Well, you laid into them pretty hard. I mean, ignore them and they move on. Everybody knows that.
Julika [angrily]: Do you know how many times in my life I’ve tried to ignore what other people say? Do you have any idea how it feels to be a girl in her puberty who weighs 180 pounds and gets named Roly Poly Julie and Elephant Girl and…
Niko: …Fatty?
Julika: It took a long time for me to get over that. And that’s why I don’t ignore anything anymore. Not a thing.

Julika [enraged after Niko refuses to say “I want to fuck the fat little girl!”]: People line up to fuck me!!

Drunk in a bar: I don’t understand people anymore. I don’t understand a word they say.
Niko: Listen, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone, okay?
Drunk [obliviously]: I don’t have the faintest idea what they are talking about. Listen…that sounds like a different language, doesn’t it?
Niko [looking around the bar]: They are speaking German.
Drunk: Well then I ought to understand them. I’m speaking German too, am I not?

Niko: Where were you for 60 years?
Drunk: Gone. And now I’m back.
Niko: I see.
Drunk: You see nothing. You don’t understand anything. Everything looked very different here, my friend. Over there was my school. I was so dirty. We pissed our pants, because we had to stand at attention at the front of the class and greet the Fuhrer: “Heil Hitler” here, “Heil Hilter,” there.
Bartender: Hey, hey!
Drunk: It’s OK. You can’t really understand it, when you’re that old. What do you do, then? You do what everyone does.

Drunk: Once in the middle of the night my father woke me up and said: "Come with me, child, onto the street. I want to show you something. " So then I was with him in the street. He put a couple stones in my hand and said: "Now look at what you have there. " Then he took a a stone himself and broke these panes of glass with it. Yeah. Right here, where we’re sitting. The street was full of people. It was pitch black. Not so bright as today, where everything’s lit up and shining, because people can’t bear the darkness anymore. Pitch black. And all these people were breaking windows with stones. And these windowpanes here, my father quickly smashed into pieces. And I stood over there on the street. and everything was full of broken glass, and it burned and the street glittered because the fire was so bright. And I can still remember perfectly, that at some point I started to cry. And now you ask, why?
Niko: Why?
Drunk: Because I thought: “Because of all these glass shards, I can’t ride my bike here anymore.”

Niko [of the drunk]: Is he doing better?
Nurse: He died. I’m sorry.
Niko: Have you called his family?
Nurse: He doesn’t have one.
Niko: No one? Can you tell me what his name is?
Nurse: I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to.
Niko: His first name?
Nurse: Friedrich.[/b]

Race is everywhere here.

The human race. The black race. The race around the track.

Of course the race around the track is different. You are either the first one around it or you’re not. The fact that you are black or brown or red or yellow or white doesn’t change the fact that you either get there first or you don’t.

Unless of course we go back to a time when being black excluded you from any number of sports. Then take all of that over to Nazi Germany and the 1936 Olympics.

It all adds up to Jesse Owens.

Jesse: In those ten seconds, there’s no black or white, only fast or slow.

Of course some white folks will always be comfortable with a narrative in which the triumphant sports figure or the entertainer is black. As long as it more or less ends there. If they can’t be racist regarding some aspects of human interactions they will always find a way to be racist regarding the parts that count the most. At least to them.

And then there is always that fork in the road. Go in one direction and the priority is personal, go in the other direction and the priority is political. And there are always any number of folks lining up from both sides to tug you in the right direction.

Also, the part where Jesse Owens the man fits into mankind coming to grips with how folks react to other folks who are not the same color as them. Something that we seem to be visiting all over again with the new American president. How far back will he turn the clock? Is it or is it not for nothing these days that Trump is being portrayed as a racist? Even a fascist. But does anyone actually believe he can set the clock back 80 years?

The bottom line is that a film of this sort is going to be critiqued on where it draws the line between the man and the moment, the man and the movement; between race over there and race over here; between the individual snapshot and the big picture.

So, is it more or less “revisionist”?

IMDb

[b]Snyder buys Owens new shoes from shoemaker Adi Dassler, who would later found Adidas.

Jesse Owens was born James Cleveland Owens. The name Jesse comes from his first two initials.

His achievement of setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been called “the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport”.

In the movie, Jesse Owens and Luz Long talk during the competition and Long even helps Owens for his qualifying long jump. According to an interview given by Owens to historian Tom Ecker (“Olympic Facts and Fables”) in 1965, this is a myth: Owens and Long never talked during the Olympics. Apparently, this legend was previously created by Owens himself to make Long’s son feel better after his father’s death. However it is true they became friends at the end of the Olympics and kept contact afterwards, until Long’s death in 1943 in Sicily. Owens still expressed his great respect for Long even after that date.

The German zeppelin flying over the Olympiastadion during the beginning of the games is the LZ 129 Hindenburg. One year later, it exploded while docking at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, killing 36 people.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/E31LnSw47xo

RACE [2016]
Directed by Stephen Hopkins

White athlete: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…Now what you boys think you’re doing.
Jesse: Just using the showers.
White athlete: Not until we’re through your’re not. You niggers can wait your turn.
White athlete: Yeah, can you believe they let these jiggoboos share a locker room with us.

You know that it’s going to start there.

[b]Larry: Charlie Riley says you can run. Says you’re a natural, best he’s ever seen.
Jesse: Well, I guess.
Larry: Me, personally, I don’t trust naturals 'cause they think they don’t have to work. I will say you can run. And boy, can you jump. What I want to know is - can you win?

Larry [to Jesse who has been looking down the whole time]: You know, your mama might have taught you how to dress right, but she sure as hell didn’t teach you anything about manners. You should look a man in the eye when he is speaking to you.
[Jesse looks up]
Larry: Can you work?
Jesse: I was picking a 100 pounds of cotton a day at six years old. You ever pick cotton? The way it cuts you when you pick it off the boll? Yes, sir, I can work.

Larry: I was watching you out there today and I’ll tell you this. Your start’s no good, your rhythm’s off and your posture’s lousy. But we can fix all that, that’s easy. But if you want to win it takes more than a pair of legs.
[he taps Jesse on the head]
Larry: You win up here. And that’s the part I don’t know about you yet. I don’t know if you got that.

Jesse: I ran the 100 yards last year in Chicago in 9.4. I mean, it’s the same as Wykoff. It’s a world record.
Larry: Records don’t mean shit! You know what matters? Medals. Some kid out of nowhere, snatch your record from you like that. But a gold medal? That’s yours…for life.

Larry: You wanna win a gold medal?
Jesse: Well, sure.
Larry: You wanna do it in Berlin?
Jesse: I heard they don’t care much for colored folk over there.
Larry: Well, they don’t care for 'em much here in Columbus either. Is that going to be a problem?
Jesse: No, sir. I just came here to run.

Lynn [looking over at Jesse]: Another one? The joke on the board is that they’re thinking of renaming us the “Model-T State”. Any color you want, so long as it’s black.
Larry: Yeah, well if you and Coach Schimdt let them play football, they wouldn’t all choose track and field, huh?

Lynn [after Jesse runs in practice]: I don’t know why you look so impressed. That was a second slower than Wykoff’s record.
Larry: Fred Wykoff runs 100 yards in 9.4. Kid just ran a 100 meters.
[Lynn looks at him puzzled]
Larry: Lynn, you do know that meters are longer than yards, yeah?

Jesse [who has just broken a record while practicing]: Is there a problem?
Larry [staring at his stopwatch in disbelief]: No, no problem!
Jesse: Want me to do it again?
Larry: Yeah, that’d be great.

Avery: What’s this I’m hearing about a boycott?
Jeremiah: Nothing has been decided yet but we are hearing some pretty ugly reports out of Germany.
AAU official: It is not the purpose of the AAU or the AOC or the IOC to tell Germans how to govern their affairs.
Jeremiah: So you think we should just sit back and take their word that they afre going to play fair.
AAU official: I’m saying that politics has no place in sport.

Jeremiah: There is a lot of hateful literature coming out of there. And it is not only against the Jews. Now they are saying they don’t want Negros to compete.
Avery: Krauts got kicked in the balls twenty years ago, and they’re still catching their brearth. They need these games. Show they’re back on their feet. Why would they risk us pulling out?

Jeremiah: How can you trust the word of a Nazi?
Avery: I’ve never met a Nazi? Have you? Come to think of it, when is the last time you played 18 holes with a Jew…or a Negro?

Jesse [after he missed a practice]: Look, Coach, I need that job pumping gas. I got a lot of people counting on me back home.
Larry: I guess I misunderstood. I got the impression when you stood in my office and you looked me in the eye, that YOU MADE ME A GODDAMN COMMITTMENT!!
Jesse: Look, I know I ain’t as fast as I can be, but you need to figure out a way to feed and put clothes on my baby girl. Or else fit your practices in around me. 'Cause I’m all out of options.
Larry: Hey, why didn’t you tell me you had a daughter?
Jesse: 'Cause you never asked.[/b]

Coach gets him a better job. It pays 60 dollars a month to do nothing.

Avery [in Germany]: Look, I’m not here to tell you how to run your country. I walk in a man’s house, I’m not going to piss on his rug. But I don’t expect him to feed me manure and call it foie gras. You want to use these games to sell your nasty little ideas to the world, and I’m hear to tell you that no one is going to stand for it. You’ve got to clean up your act.
Leni [the interpreter for Josef Goebbels]: Would you like me to translate or interpret?

She interprets.

Avery [looking straight at Goebbels]: I want your word that you will not exclude Jews or Negroes from the games. As long as they are Americans, we’ll bring Martians if we want to.

More interpretation. Then Leni “interprets” what Goebbels says back to Avery.

[b]Larry: You also shattered the Ohio State record for the most points in a single year, so congrats.
Jesse: Really? Which cracker did I take that from?
Larry [pointing to himself]: This cracker.

Larry [to Jesse regarding Quincella]: The choices your making right now won’t even feel like choices until it is too late.

Jeramiah [to Avery]: 58 to 56. Congratulations.

Emma: Jesse, this is Representative Davis of the Ohio State legislature. He’s here on behalf of the NAACP.
Jesse: The what?
Davis: The National Association for the Adancement of Colored People.

Davis: The Olympic trials are coming up soon…No doubt you hope to qualify and take part?
Jesse: Well, yeah. I mean, yes, sir.
Davis: Even under the Hitler regime? On behalf of the NAACP and the Negro community across America, I hope you don’t go.
Ruth: But this is the Olympic Games. I mean, Jesse’s been training for this his whole life.
Davis: Look, Jesse. You’re the best. You have a chance to strike a powerful blow. I know that it must sound hypocritical for any American to talk about racial bigotry in other countries but that is the reason we must not go to these games. We’ve got a chance here to show our solidarity with the oppressed people of Germany. It’s all part of the same great hatred. We can make those in power aware of their moral obligation to fight against the wrongs that we Negros suffer right here at home.
Henry [Jesse’s father]: Do you think it will make a damn bit of difference? He stays, they ain’t gonna notice. He goes, he can come back with a drawer full of medals, and they will hate him even worse than they did before.
[he turns to his son]
Henry: J.C. You do what you want, you hear me. It ain’t gonna make no difference no how.

Jesse: Do you run, Mr. Davis.
Davis: No, not competitively.
Jesse: Figures. Cause you know out there on that track you’re free of all this. The moment that gun goes off can’t nothing stop you. Nothing matters, not color, not money, not even hate. There ain’t no black and white, there’s only fast and slow. For those ten seconds you are completely free. Now here you come and tell me I can’t do it, that I’m letting down my race if I go. What’s that suppose to do for me?

Larry [after Jesse announces he is not going]: You get a chance to be a part of history and you’re gonna walk away from it?
Jesse: I’ve got people looking at me for an example.
Larry: What do you mean, people? What people? Black people? I don’t give a shit about any of that!
Jesse: Yeah, well you’re white, Larry! You don’t have to!!

Eulace: I read the papers. All those people yelling and screaming at you. It can really get in the way of a man’s concentration, but all that means is there’s a lot of people counting on you.
Jesse: To do what?
Eulace: To get on over there and stick it up Hitler’s ass! Courtesy of Eulace Peacock.

Jesse: I’m gonna be there all by myself. The whole world watching. What if I lose…if I lose, it’ll mean those Nazis are right.
Ruth: Quit thinking so much Jesse, it’s not what you’re good at. You was put here to run.

Avery [to Goebbels]: You let the chancellor know he congratulates all of the gold medalists or none of them.
[Goebbels looks over to Furstner]
Goebbels [indicating Jesse]: Do you really think he’d allow himself to be photographed shaking hands with that?

Leni [to Avery acting as translator]: He says you have a business arrangement.
Avery: That was business! That has nothing to do with this.
Leni [translating not interpreting]: How would it look for for American Olympic Association to have collaborated with us before these games.[/b]

Avery sells out the Jews…

[b]Marty: Oh come on, you know what this is all about? We’re the only Jews.
Cromwell: This has nothing to do with the Jewish question.

Track coach: We want to field our strongest runners. And that’s gonna be Ralph and Jesse.
Avery: That’s perfect.
Jesse: No, look, Coach. You gotta run Sam and Marty. I mean, I can’t speak for Ralph, but you gotta give them a shot. I’ve never even ran the relay. I don’t even think I know how to pass a baton…Ralph you do what you want but I ain’t running. Not unless Sam and Marty say it’s alright.

Marty: If you lose it’s for nothing. Understand? Sam asnd me would’ve been shafted for nothing. All the world will see is another Nazi waving another medal.
Jesse: What are you trying to say?
Sam: He means don’t lose.

Title card: Following his defiance of the Nazi ideal, Carl “Luz” Long was enlisted in the German army and sent to the front lines. He and Jesse remained friends until Long was killed in action during the invasion of Sicily.

Doorman: I’m sorry sir but your friends will have to use the servants entrance.
Larry [stunned, pointing to Jesse]: Are you kidding me? You know who this is?
Doorman: Yes, sir.
Larry: I mean, they are holding the dinner for him!
Doorman: Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Mr. Owens, sir, but those are the rules.

Title card: The White House never publicaly acknowledged Jesse Owens, or his success in the 1936 Olympics.[/b]

In the present, Woody Allen is rapidly running out of the future. So one way in which to distract himself from that is by tunneling back into the past.

And here it all revolves around “cafe society”: “Cafe Society” was a phrase coined by Maury Henry Biddle Paul in 1915 to describe the “beautiful people” who socialized and threw parties in the high profile cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London.

And then the part about “show business”. The usual suspects are back again with the usual targets on their back.

And while many will insist that he is making fun of them, others will insist that they know better.

Not that Allen’s perennial “themes” are ever buried all that far below the surface. Three in particular: 1] love 2] love and 3] love.

In particular, the utter and inane futility of ever trying to actually pin it down when the head and the heart become mortal enemies.

And then the part about contingency, chance and change. Oh, and the essential meaningless and absurdity of life. That’s Leonard’s part to play here. In other words, turning the themes that I tend to focus on here into “entertainment”.

Or into a joke.

This and the fact that mere mortals are the only species on earth that this is relevant to. Which seems to be beyond the reach of, among others, many philosophers.

Here folks are generally shallow, generally pretentious, and generally assholes. Not counting Bobby and Vonnie of course. Well, unless you do.

And then Ben the gangster.

Don’t look for Bruce Willis. But do look for vestiges of The Apartment. And Crimes and Misdemeanors.

IMDb

[b]Steve Carell replaced Bruce Willis after filming started. Woody Allen fired Willis after he and the cast tired of his behavior and inability to remember his lines.

This is the first film since Twilight that Kristen Stewart had to audition for to win the role. Woody Allen was unaware of Kristen Stewart’s immense exposure due to her involvement in the Twilight franchise. He cast her primarily because he admired her performance in Adventureland .

When Ben’s history of theft is shown, it includes a subtle homage to The 400 Blows when it says that his life of crime includes stealing typewriters when he was a schoolboy. The protagonist of that film, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), stole a typewriter when he was at school.[/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Society_(film
trailer: youtu.be/Y2c1y1HT0yo

CAFE SOCIETY [2015]
Written and directed by Woody Allen

[b]Evelyn [in a letter to Bobby]: “Leornard says it’s the poignancy of life and not only do we have to embrace its meaningless but celebrate life because it has no meaning. That’s too deep for me but Mom always boils it down to, ‘live every day like it’s your last, and someday you’ll be right.’”

Vonnie: I thought I’d come to Hollywood and live in one of these big houses with the swimming pool and hobnob with all the glamorous types, go to openings. You know, you grow up and quickly realize if you have half a brain, what a silly life that can be.

Narrator [Woody Allen]: Lovely, charming, and uncorrupted by the values of a seductive city that worshipped fame and box office records, Vonnie enchanted him, although he was too scared to ask if she had a boyfriend. As his philosophy maven brother-in-law once said, “Some questions you don’t want to know the anaswers to.”

Phil: Howard is a two time Academy Award winner.
Bobby: Wow, congratulations.
Howard: Thank you. You’ve never heard of me, I’m a writer.

Rad: Here’s a fellow New Yorker who’s suffering from unrequited love.
Booby: That’s true, I am.
Steve: Unrequited love kills more people in any given year out here than tuberculosis.

Bobby: It’s funny, my Uncle Phil, your ex-employer, so dynamic, confident, confided to me. He’s been so hopelessy miserable, these days. He had an affair…but he could not leave his wife. However, he is so very much in love with this other woman that he has decided to leave Karen and plans to marry this other woman. And he’s been suffering so much because he very much likes and respects his wife, but he just cannot go on without this other woman.
[Vonnie says nothing]
Bobby: I didn’t have the nerve to ask if it was a movie star.[/b]

These things happen. don’t they? Then what? Then this:

Phil [to Vonnie]: …in matters of the heart, we do foolish things.

Of course, Phil is a powerful zillionaire and Bobby is, well, not a powerful zillionaire. Or not yet.

[b]Bobby: Are you going to marry me or my Uncle Phil?
Vonnie: I’m going to marry Phil.

Marty: What kind of man throws out his wife of 25 years to run off with a 25 year old secretary?
Ben: Bobby says she is really beautiful.
Marty: So, is looks everything? Where’s character? Where’s loyalty?
Leonard: Look, love is an emotion and emotions are not rational. You fall in love, you lose control.

Leonard: I have known many wonderful women, but the moment I laid eyes on your daughter I knew that Evelyn was for me.
Evelyn: It was pure luck. If my cab driver hadn’t driven his cab through the plate glass window of a restaurant I never would have met Leonard. He was having coffee and we barreled right into him.

Narrator: Soon Les Tropiques was known as the place one could always find the driest martinis and the prettiest women in Manhattan. Beautiful girls attracted celebrites and sports figures. Socialites mingled with politicians, and with the smart set, came the press and an ever growing reputation. And Bobby moved more and more gracefully amongst the rich and famous and learned more about the ins and outs of cafe society.

Veronica: I hope you don’t mind a democratic liberal…
Bobby: No, no, no…it’s…my whole family are Demo…we’re Jews.
Veronica: Oh, Jews. How quaint. It plays right into my rebellious streak. You know, in Oklahome we weren’t even allowed to mingle with Jews growing up.
Bobby: Really?
Veronica: You guys were the money-lenders.
Bobby: No, we control everything, actually.
Veronica: I never even saw a Jew until we moved to New York. I find Jews exotic and mysterious.[/b]

The ones without horns as it were.

[b]Veronica [to Bobby]: You called me Vonnie. You never call me that…That’s what you said your old girlfriend was called.

Narrator: It seemed Bobby knew everyone in high society. His wife Veronica now rarely came in, having succumbed to the joys of motherhood. And then one evening in walked the past…

Bobby: …you should listen to yourself and look at you…you’ve become everything that you used to pke fun at, everything that you couldn’t stand.
Vonnie: Well, you know. Time passes. Life moves on. People change.
Bobby: Yeah, but all that talk about the simple life. It would be comical if it weren’t so sad.
Vonnie: Well, you’re not necessarily the same person you were either.[/b]

She’s got that right.

[b]Leonard [to Evelyn]: I haven’t seen our next door neighbor now for quite a while.

Ben: This if Father Brolian. He’s guilding me to understand Christianity.
Bobby: Ben, I’m…I’m flabbergasted.
Ben: Yeah, I know. We both didn’t have time for this bullshit before, but when the end is near you need something.
Bobby: You don’t want to be buried as a Jew in a Jewish cemetary?
Ben: The Jewish religion doesn’t believe in an afterlife.
Bobby: Right, I guess, but I can’t believe what I’m hearing from you.
Ben: I have to know that it all doesn’t end, you know what I mean? I have to believe that part of me keeps going, that we all got a soul.
[he turns to the priest]
Ben: Right, Father?[/b]

This part? haaretz.com/jewish/features/ … m-1.638100

[b]Rose: First a murderer, then he becomes a Christian. What did I do to deserve this? Which is worse?
Marty: He explained it to you. The Jews don’t have an afterlife.
Rose: We are all afraid of dying, Marty! But we don’t give up the religion we are born into.
Marty: I’m not afraid to die.
Rose: You’re too stupid to appreciate the implications.
Marty: I didn’t say I like the idea. And I will resist death with everything I have. But when the Angel of Death comes to cut me down, I’ll go. I’ll protest. I’ll curse. You hear me? I will go under protest.
Rose: Protest to who? What the hell are you gonna do? Write a letter to the Times?
Marty: I will protest the silence. I will protest that my whole life I pray and I pray and there is never an answer.
Rose: Nit kain entfer iz oich en entfer.
Marty: What are you saying?
Rose: “No answer is also an answer”. Too bad the Jewish religion doesn’t have an afterlife. They’d get a lot more customers.

Veronica: Can I ask you a question?
Bobby: Yeah, sure.
Veronica: Have you ever cheated on me?

Leonard [to Evelyn]: I was just pondering the relentlessness of time. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But the examined one is no bargain…[/b]

There have been any number of films that explored the offtimes brutal relationship between the modern world and one or another “primitive” aboriginal tribe. For example, The Emerald Forest and At Play In the Fields of the Lord.

Often the theme revolves around how much we could learn from them if we weren’t so busy either bringing them over to Christ or stealing their land in order to exploit one or another natural resource.

In other words, one or another reflection on “the noble savage” meeting one or another reflection on “the white man’s burden”. The “natives” always being so much more at one with nature, while the “imperialists” are ever intent only on subjugating it. First Spain and now the entire global economy. Or, as one reviewer noted, “…the rain forest of the Amazon are disappearing at the rate of 5000 acres a day. Four million Indians once lived there, now 120,000 remain.”

It’s basically just one more futile debate in which apologists from both sides embrace a set of assumptions that allow them to condemn all of the assumptions from the other side. And, in the end [as is almost always the case], might makes right.

Here however the “white man” are embodied in the efforts of two scientists to forge a more constructive relationship between the old world and the new. In fact the film is based on diaries written by scientists Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evan Schultes.

Look for some of the most fucked up Christians you are ever likely to come across. On or off the screen. It sometimes just boggles the mind what religion can be twisted into.

IMDb

[b]First Colombian film nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

The scene where a man is praised to be the Messiah is based on an actual event.

Nilbio Torres (Young Karamakate), Antonio Bolívar (Old Karamakate) and all the natives of the film are natural actors.

The indigenous languages spoken in the movie are Cubeo, Wanano, Tikuna and Uitoto (pronounced Wee-toto). [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_of_the_Serpent
trailer: youtu.be/4ff7TcnqHUc

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT [El Arazo de la Serpiente ] 2015
Written in part and directed by Ciro Guerra

[b]Title card: It is not possible for me to know if the infinite jungle has started on me the process that has taken many others to complete and irremediable insanity. In this case, I can only apologize and ask for your understanding, for the display I witnessed in those enchanted hours was such that I find it impossible to describe in words its beauty and splendor; all I know is that, when I came back, I had become another man. Theodor von Martius, Amazonia, 1909.

Young Karamakate: What do you want?
Manduca: I am Manduca, son of Rubibujuri, of the Maloka Komelemong. I am Bara of the river…
Young Karamakate: I know the Baras! You submitted to the whites without a fight!! What do you want.
Manduca: This is Theodor von Martious, my friend and travel partner. He is very sick. All of the nearby shamans tried to heal him. No one could. They all said that you were the only one who could help us.
Young Karamakate: I’m not like you. I don’t help the whites.
Manduca: He is a wise man who has come only to learn.

Evan [holding up a book]: Many years ago, this man Theodor von Martius, was here and he wrote about the plant I am looking for. I want to know if his writings are true. I devote my life to plants.
Old Karamakate: You devote your life to plants?
[Evan nods]
Old Karamakate: That’s the most reasonable thing I’ve ever heard a white man say.

Evan: I can give you a lot of money if you help me.
[he reaches into his pack and brings out two one dollar bills]
Evan: It’s a lot of money.
Old Karamakate [laughing]: Ants like money. I don’t. It taste bad.

Young Karamakate [after Tuschaua steals Theodor’s compass]: You’re nothing but a white to them.
Theodor: Their orientation system is based on the winds and the positions of the stars. If they learn how to use a compass, that knowledge will be lost.
Young Karamakate: You cannot forbid them to learn. Knowledge belongs to all men. But you can’t understand that because you are nothing but a white man.

Young Karamakate: Leave all that. They’re just things.
Theodor: No.
Young Karamakate: Why do you whites love your things so much?
Theodor: They are not just things. They are my only bond to my people in Germany. To my town, my wife, my children. These boxes contain all the knowledge I have gathered in four years of travel. I have to keep them, otherwise no one will believe me. Leaving them is leaving everything.
Young Karamakate: You’re insane.

Young Karamakate: The rubber barons give you those scars?
Manduca: Yes, but I am a free man now.

Manduca [after spilling the rubber from a one armed bedraggled native’s pots]: What’s he saying?
Young Karamakate: He’s asking you to kill him.

Theodor: Let’s go.
Young Karamakate: I’m not going.
Theodor: Why?
Young Karamakate: Whites can’t be trusted.
Theodor: I have no reason to trust you either. So, what do we do?
Young Karamakate: Is this your knowledge? Shotguns? All your science only leads to this, violence, death.
Manduca: Don’t talk to him like that. He’s done more for our people than you.
Young Karamakate: And look at you. Your clothes. The same as the white men! How could you let them do this to you? You think like the white men, you think nothing. Which side are you on?!
Theodor: I’ve never met anyone more loyal than Manduca. He has never stopped defending his people. And you? What have you done? Run away from the world, isolating yourself like a madman. I’m not stealing anything.

Theodor [after developing a photograph of Karamakate]: I have to keep it.
Young Karamakate: But it’s me.
Theodor: It’s not you. It’s an image of you.
Young Karamakate: Like a chullachaqui?
Theodor: A what?
Young Karamakate: A chullachaqui. We all have one. He looks just like you, but he’s empty, hollow.
Theodor: This is a memory. A moment that passed.
Young Karamakate: A chullachqui has no memories. It only drifts around the world, like a ghost lost in time without time.

Manduca: Do you only steal boys?
Priest: Our mission is sacred. We must save the souls of the orphans of the rubber war, and keep them away from cannibalism and ignorance.

Plaque on the wall at the mission: IN RECOGNITION OF THE COURAGE OF THE COLUMBIAN RUBBER PIONEERS WHO BROUGHT CIVILIZATION TO THE LAND OF CANNIBAL SAVAGES AND SHOWED THEM THE PATH OF GOD AND HIS HOLY CHURCH.

Old Karamakate: Are you interested in rubber?
Evan: I’ve never seen a strain like this.
Old Karamakate: Rubber means death. But it’s what you’re looking for, right?

Evan [reacting to the “Messiah”]: This is madness.
[he looks over to Old Karamakate]
Evan: Don’t you care?
Old Karamakate: I do. Something went wrong. They are now the worst of both worlds.

Evan: You poisoned them!
Old Karamakate: I didn’t poison them. I just gave them something to think better. They are Makus. They were not born of the anaconda. They are less than human.
Evan: You sound like one of those rubber barons.

Old Karamakate: To become warriors, the cohiuanos must abandon all and go alone to the jungle, guided only by their dreams. In this journey, he has to find out, in solitude and silence, who he really is. He must become a wanderer dream. Many are lost, and some never return. But those who return they are ready to face what is to come.To become warriors, the cohiuanos must abandon all and go alone to the jungle, guided only by their dreams. In this journey, he has to find out, in solitude and silence, who he really is. He must become a wanderer dream. Many are lost, and some never return. But those who return they are ready to face what is to come.

Old Karamakate: Now you are his slave.
Manduca: I am nobody’s slave. I’m with him because we need him. He can teach the whites.
Old Karamakate: How can he learn if he doesn’t respect the jungle?
Manduca: He’s afraid. But he can learn. He’s a hero to his people. They all admire him and listen to his stories. If we can’t get the whites to learn, it will be the end for us. The end of everything.[/b]

Think about it…

There was a time many years ago when, in being part of an Orthodox religious community, your day to day narrative was ever and always reinforced. After all, by and large, this particular community was all you really knew. There was a place for everyone and everyone was made to fit into one or another particular niche. It just never even occurred to many to think about living in any other way.

That was then. Now however what is construed to be orthodox behavior is ever bumping into additional, conflicting narratives. On television. In the movies. On the internet. And in your day to day interactions with all of the many folks who look at the world around them in very, very different ways. The old ways and the new ways seem ever in a tug of war.

So, in the modern world the old ways have to find a way to accommodate all that is new.

Here, in particular:

A devout 18-year-old Israeli is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. Declaring her independence is not an option in Tel Aviv’s ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, where religious law, tradition and the rabbi’s word are absolute.

But is this really the case? It is argued here that in the end the woman always has the final say on who she marries. But “in reality” what does this really mean?

What unfolds here is relevant to any other such community. What they happen to believe is not nearly as important as the fact that what they do believe allows them to anchor their “self” in necessity. In virtually every situation you are expected to act in a particular manner. You think and you feel and you behave as you do because to think and to feel and to behave otherwise is sacrilegious.

For some, you can even end up burning in Hell for all of eternity.

You are brought into this community in the film. And you can clearly see its appeal for some. You are snuggly fitted into an existential framework [from the cradle to the grave] in which so much about your life has already been settled. The very embodiment of objectivism.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fill_the_Void
trailer: youtu.be/NQuWarA9KXg

FILL THE VOID [Lemale et Ha’halal ] 2012
Written and directed by Rama Burshtein

Rivka [to her daughter in regard to her future husband…in an arranged marriage]: He looks just like his father. Shira? What do you say?

In other words, at least she has a choice.

[b]Rivka [after her daughter dies]: I can’t believe Yochay’s already thinking of getting married.
Yochay’s mother: It’s sinking in…slowly. It’s tearing me apart, Rivka.
Rivka: Who is she?
Yochay’s mother: She was widowed six months ago…
Rivka: Where is she from?
Yochay’s mother: Belgium.
Rivka: You’re not taking the baby to Belgium…
Yochay’s mother: I’m not doing anything. I’m only suggesting it to Yochay. He’s the only one to decide.
Rivka: You’re killing me.

Rivka: You’re like a son to me. I’ll get right to the point. How do you feel about getting married?
Yochay: I’m planning to. Right now.
Rivka: You’re not a 19 year old yeshiva boy. Think about Mordechay.
Yochay: It won’t bother you if I get remarred?
Rivka: The only things that matter are you and the child.
Yochay: I didn’t get an interesting offer yet.
Rivka: Why not Shira?
Yochay: Is that your idea?

Rivka: Shira, what’s wrong with Yochay?
Aharon [her father]: Shira, nobody is forcing you to do anything. It’s your decision.
Rivka: You don’t have decide right now.
Aharon: You can say no right now.
Shira: No. He is Esther’s husband, it is wrong.
Rivka: We spoke to Yochay, he agreed.
Shira: Why aren’t you marrying me off to Pinchas Miller?
Rivka: They called it off.
Shira: What?
Aharon: They decided to call it off.
Shira: Why?

Frieda [whispering in Shira’s ear]: Esther once told me that if anything happens to her, I should marry Yochay.

Yochay: I don’t know how to begin.
[Shira says nothing. The room is bursting at the seams with uncertainty and tension]
Yochay: I think it’s best if we’re honest. What’s confusing you?
Shira: I’m not confused.
Yochay: How’s that possible?
Shira: I don’t know.
Yochay: Does it scare you to be confused? Doesn’t it scare you?

Yochay [after Shira tells him about Frieda]: Why did you let me say all the things I said?
Shira: I don’t know. I didn’t mean to. I should have known…
Yochay: You’re so cruel.
[he gets up to leave]
Yochay: Out of respect, please tell your parents that it would not have worked out.[/b]

That’s how these things often play out. Each misunderstanding the other. Not only what they say but the intention behind it.

[b]Rivka [after Yochay tells her he is taking the baby to Belgium…that he will not marry Frieda]: Tell me how am I going to survive this?
Yochay: A miracle.
Rivka: What a terrible tragedy has happened to us, Yochay. Pray for me to have the strenght to survive this.

Shira: You’re too close.
Yochay: I could have been closer.

Shira [after her mother wakes her]: What’s up?
Rivka: Father and Yochay are meeting.

Yochay: Why do you now want to marry me?
Shira: For the same reasons you’re willing to.

Yochay [to Shira]: Stop disappearing.

Rabbi [looking at Shira]: How does the young lady feel about this.
Shira: It is not a matter of feelings.
Rabbi: It is only a matter of feelings.
Shira: A deed must be done, and I want to do it to everyone’s satisfaction.
Rabbi: Oh, Shira’ll. Oh ,Shira’ll. Oh, Shira’ll…[/b]

Thumbs down.

Yochay: Congratulations!
Shira: Congratulations!

So, what was written in that note to the Rabbi?

Imagine the least likely class struggle. Still, for some, it will always be better than nothing. Especially given the fact that, for at least the next four years, we will be living in Trumpland.

Here, however, all of the battles unfold in a single high-rise apartment complex. Naturally, the closer you are to the top the more likely it is that you are both rich and powerful. And the farther down you go, well, use your imagination.

On the other hand, Adam Smith and Karl Marx make no appearances here at all. It’s all considerably more…vulgar. Some got it, some don’t. So what are those who don’t going to do about it. When, for example, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is not really a viable option. It’s more along the lines of a “pseudo-post-apocalyptic breakdown of societal norms.”

Che Guevera meet Richard Wilder.

This is all set in the 1970’s. And that is the time [Thatcher in England, Reagan near to being elected in America] when the class struggle – the real one – more or less ended.

Though this film garnered a 63% fresh rating at RT, many “general audience” reviews were extremely negative. And, to be sure, I can well understand both frames of mind.

So, when it finally does jump the shark – and boy does it ever! – you find yourself drawn to the sheer spectacle of the whole thing. You can’t believe what you are seeing but how often do you ever get to?

IMDb

[b]In the opening shot of the movie, Laing is using a record player. It is a very special, very rare player known as a Transcriptors Reference Turntable, and the same owned by Alex in A Clockwork Orange (arguably made famous by this feature). This is likely another homage to that film.

While it never directly says so, the film’s time period is obviously set in the 1970’s. There are no cell phones, iPads, Internet and the like. But there is a lot of cigarette smoking in areas that are forbidden in 2016 such as in doctor’s office and around children, and the clothes, vehicles and everyday items were very common in that time period. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(film
trailer: youtu.be/e4pujABeKuA

HIGH-RISE [2015]
Directed by Ben Wheatley

Robert [cooking a dog]: Sometimes he found it difficult not to believe they were living in a future that had already taken place.

Three months earlier…

[b]Robert: I’m afraid I’m not very good at this sort of thing.
Helen: Slotting in, you mean?
Robert: Yes. I was rather expecting to find a certain kind of anonymity here.
Helen: Don’t worry, people don’t usually care what happens two floors above or below them.
Robert: Good.

Helen [to Robert]: We’re down in the bottom, in all sorts of shadows. Most families are. Real ones, anyway.

Simmons: Mr. Royal wants to see you. Now.
Robert: I’m sorry, who?

Robert: You built all this?
Royal: Dreamt. Conceived. I hardly rolled my sleeves up. Course, the project’s far from finished. There will be five towers in all, encircling the lake. Something like an open hand. The lake is the palm and we stand on the distal phalanx of the index finger. There. I’ve put all my energies into this tower. I’m its midwife, so to speak.

Charlotte [to Robert]: You know, you look much better without your clothes on. You’re lucky. Not many people do.

Royal: So, how long were you stuck?
Robert: Not long, in the scheme of things.
Royal: Teething problems. Building is still settling.
Robert: Still, I hear all the floors from the first to the twelfth were out of power for several hours.

Royal: But some of the people who live here, haven’t you’ve seen them? The vanguard of the well-to-do. They’ve fitted themselves so tightly into their slots that they no longer have room to escape themselves.
Robert: Slots designed by you.
Royal: I know. I’d conceived this building to be a crucible for change. I must have missed some vital element.

Woman [from the bottom floors on the power outage]: My daughter was interfered with in the dark. She’s certain it was someone from the top. He was wearing expensive cologne and stuffed a copy of the Financial Times in her mouth.

Laing: You know, Toby, when I was your age, I was always covered in something. Mud, jam, failure… My father never associated himself with anything dirty. Or real.
Toby: My father’s up there.
Laing: You mean, in heaven?
Toby: Heaven isn’t real, stupid.

Helen [to Robert]: You know, everyone’s in terrible debt like us, I’m certain. They’re just better at hiding it.

Charlotte [to Robert]: Talbot’s right. It’s as if everyone suddenly silently decided to cross some line…Be worse tonight.

Ann: There’s no food left. Only the dogs. And Mrs. Hillman is refusing to clean unless I pay her what I apparently owe her. Like all poor people, she’s obsessed with money.

Simmons: You know, we can’t have a repeat of last night.
Pangbourne: We have got to show the lower floors that we can throw a better party than them. Healthy competition is the basis of a modern thriving economy. But you’re right, we must prevail.

Pangbourne: Royal. Just the man. You still hold the key to the building, symbolically, at least. We’d like you to lead a delegation.
Royal: Where to? The United Nations?
Ann: The supermarket.

Simmons [when told he’s fired by Royal]: I don’t work for you…I work for the building.

Policeman: Mr. Royal. Everything all right, sir?
Royal: Perfectly.
Policieman: Bit of a mess in there, isn’t it?
Roayal: Oh, you know, nothing that can’t be “swept under the rug”.

Steele [watching Helen leave Roberts apartment]: What’s this?
Robert: It’s all right, Steele.
Steele: Are you sure? It could be worth something. I’ve heard people are bartering wives for food on other floors.
Robert: I’m not that hungry.

Royal: Nevertheless, you’re all forgetting one small point. This is my party. You’re all my guests. I shall be the one who decides if someone is lobotomized.

Panghorne: The real work is here. Once we’ve dispensed with the likes of Wilder, we play the lower people off against each other. In short, Balkanize the central section. Then begin colonization of the entire building. Then I propose that Royal, here, draw up plans to remodel the lower floors. Oh, yes, a driving range. Cricket nets. Clubhouse.

Royal: Pangbourne!
Pangborne: What, Royal? I’m in the middle of something.
Royal: You can’t put him over the edge. He owes me a game of squash.

Royal: You recall us speaking about my hopes for the building to be a crucible for change?
Robert: Of course.
Royal: Well, all this has made me realize something quite fundamental. It wasn’t that I left an element out, it was that I put too many in. And now the building’s failure has offered those people the beginnings of a means of escape to a new life.[/b]

Like, for example, we take advantage of today.

Margaret Thatcher [on the radio]: The free enterprise system is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. There is only one economic system in the world and that is capitalism. The difference lies in whether the capital is in the hands of the state or whether the greater part of it is in the hands of people outside of state control. Where there is state capitalism, there will never be political freedom.

Got that, Mr. Trump

Not your ordinary family. The parents are “world famous performance artists”. Way, way, way off the beaten path. And the kids are given a part to play in the “skits”. For better or for worse as it were.

So, is this something that a parent ought to do? Is it moral? They drag the kids into the spotlight and that spotlight is bursting at the seams with controversy. Their art after all is political. They make “political statements” about the world around them. And now the kids are ever linked to that.

As a consequence the kids [as adults] come to blame their parents for any and all travail they now endure.

Only now the parents have disappeared. The sister however is convinced it’s just one more of their “stunts”.

Films like this always bring back the question of parental responsibility. After all, we know that children are being raised in families that are anchored to any number of extreme agendas. Political or otherwise. Where then should the line be drawn. When does “the state” have the right to intervene once the parents have gone “too far”?

It brings to mind stories like this: dailymail.co.uk/news/article … -back.html

Some will watch the film and thank their lucky stars they didn’t have parents like this. Others [like me] would have given just about anything if their own mom and dad had been the same. But that’s what it always revolves around: where you draw the lines.

And the part where “I” becomes “we”.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Fang_(film
trailer: youtu.be/J-jWH0tIrak

THE FAMILY FANG [2015]
Directed by Jason Bateman

Caleb [to his young children]: Imagine you’re dead. Feel yourself go numb. Start with your fingers. Move to your hands…your wrists…right on up to your elbows. Everything is dead. If we can imagine our own deaths but still manage to come back to life, then it proves that we can survive anything. Now, don’t be afraid. Own the moment. If you’re in control, then the chaos will happen around you and not to you.

You won’t believe what comes next…

[b]Baxter [as a child] hands the bank teller a note: “Stay calm and don’t do anything stupid. Hand over the lollipops.”
Bank teller [smiling and giving him a lollipop]: Have a nice day.
Baxter [tapping a gun on the window]: All of them.

Freeman: What’s up, sunshine?
Annie: You want me to get naked.
Freeman: Topless.
Annie: A guy answers the door, and I am standing there with my tits out?
Freeman: Gina wants to control the situation.
Annie: With her breasts?
Freeman: Come on. I… I never would have guessed that you were so uptight. You know, it’s like, I mean, Annie Fang. You know, wild woman. Indie darling.

Freeman: I want to show the world that…that you are still a legitimate actress.
Annie: Uh-huh. Thanks, Freeman.
Freeman: As brave and fearless as you’ve always…
Annie: Yeah, I’m not doing it.
Freeman: I know what I am asking you to do is difficult.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Freeman: But great art is always difficult!!![/b]

Out they come.

[b]Howard to Baxter [on the phone]: Do you know what a potato gun is?

Nurse: You’ll feel better when your people get here.
Baxter: What does that mean? I don’t have any people.
Nurse: Well, we went through your wallet. Standard procedure. The doctor called your parents. They’re driving up to get you.
Baxter [as she turns to walk away]: No, no. No, no. Miss? Miss?

Announcer [voiceover]: Caleb and Camille Fang are most known for creating improvised public events that incorporate their own children into the artwork. The results are often as unsettling as they are arresting…The Fangs simply throw themselves into a space as if they were hand grenades, and wait for the disruption to occur. They seemed to have no expectations other than to willfully cause unrest. This kind of event is so rudimentary, so unencumbered by the traditions that have come before it, that it almost strains the notion of what constitutes art.[/b]

You won’t believe what comes next…

[b]Critic: I mean, you know, whether or not you like the Fangs’ work, you can’t deny the artistry, certainly.
Critic: What? Of course I can. That’s my job. Look, the Fangs pass off these hollow pranks as if that’s enough.
Critic: You can say the same thing about the diggers, or the situationists, or the Dadaists for that matter. But if you care to look a little deeper, you’ll find that the Fangs transcend what…
Critic: They’re not transcending anything. It’s just tricks.

Critic: In the…in the pageant piece, they challenged gender stereotypes. In the restaurant piece, they ask us to look at food not as sustenance, but as status or style. In some of the early…
Critic: Oh, come on! Just because… just because you attach a statement doesn’t make it art, you know? You can call it art but real art requires an aesthetic intelligence.
Critic: But that ambiguity is what makes it interesting. Is it art or is it a joke? Is it profound or is it a prank? Are they geniuses or charlatans? These are the questions that they want us to ask.
Critic: Well, they’re not too hard to answer.
Critic: And the Fangs are challenging the very nature of art itself.
Critic: I don’t think they are.
Critic: They embrace everything that’s wonderful about art, and they subvert it at the same time. They are deeply serious class clowns who celebrate…
Critics: “Clowns” is right, yeah. I’m sorry. What were you saying?
Critic: I… I think what they’re doing is wonderful.
Critic: Well, I guess… I guess I just don’t get it.
Critic: Well, that’s pretty obvious.

Reporter: Look, I think you’re a great actress. But the artist you are, don’t you think she was already there in child A? The emotion? The joy? The anarchy? It’s too bad none of your directors have known how to channel all that the way your parents did.
Annie: When I was 9 years old child A was a role. It was a role I played. It’s not who I am.

Caleb: Hey, we saw your titty shots.
Annie: Holy shit.
Caleb: They were wonderful.
Annie: Jesus Christ.
Caleb: Hey, it’s about time you started playing with the idea of celebrity in the female form as viewed objects.
Annie: That’s not what I was doing.
Caleb: Of course it is, whether you know it or not. You could take the girl out of the art, but you cannot take the art out of the girl.
Annie: Well…I’m still an artist, Daddy.
Caleb: That’s what I just said.
Annie: Actors are artists.
Caleb: Yes. Didn’t I say I like your titty shot?
Camille: We both liked them very much. You have beautiful breasts, sweetheart.
Annie [banging the table]: Okay, that’s it! Can we not talk about the titty shots anymore, please?

Annie: What is this?
Caleb [driving them to an amusemment park for a new “event”]: It’s a shirt, honey. And you need to wear it, or the event won’t work. All you have to do is hand out these fake coupons. For chicken sandwiches. And when we’re doing that, Baxter will film all the people at the counter demanding free food. Then I rally the angry customers, I get them to storm the counters. It’ll be a thing of beauty.[/b]

Only it doesn’t quite turn out that way…

[b]Annie: If the tabloids get a hold of this, it will be terrible for me.
Baxter: Exactly right.
Caleb: Who cares? You shouldn’t be in that business anyway.
Annie: What? Please don’t say that.
Caleb: Well, you’ve been at it for 20 years. What have you got to show for it? A bunch of crap movies and a tampon commercial.
Camille: Caleb, be nice.
Annie: Oh, my God, Dad.
Caleb: Was it not a tampon campaign?
Camille: It was.
Caleb: “Absorb all the good things in life and leave the rest to us.”

Annie: I think they’re losing it.
Baxter: Their artistic sensibility?
Annie: No, their minds. They’re…I mean, he’s always had an odd idea of what constituted art. But come on, that was almost silly. Did he really think he could lead a coup on a Chicken Queen?

Annie: Is this because of the Chicken Queen?
Camille: What a disaster.
Baxter: Great art’s always difficult, though, right?
Caleb: What’d you say?
Baxter: I just said what you always tell us. That great art’s always difficult.
Caleb: Do me a favor. Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.
Baxter: Okay. Deal.

Sheriff: We checked the security cameras and interviewed employees at the surrounding locations. But we’ve been unable to come up with anything conclusive at this point. All signs indicate that your parents are currently missing, and we have to suspect foul play.
Annie: I’m sorry, sheriff. This is…our parents aren’t missing. They’re artists. It’s all a performance.
Sheriff: We know all about their art things. But the fact is, they’re missing from a car that they were driving, and it’s covered in blood.[/b]

The part about crying wolf? Nope.

[b]Baxter: What is that?
Annie: This is a corkboard. I can’t conduct an investigation without a corkboard.

Caleb [on camera]: People need to be shaken up, snapped out of it, look around, see things in a new way. That’s what we try to do in our work, because if you shake something up hard enough, it gets transformed. It’s not really about what we do. It’s what they do. The people watching.
Camille: Our work has an effect on them, because we wake them up. We bring them back to life. It’s a resurrection.
Interviewer: And not a reflection of the human condition?
Caleb: No. You know, it’s not. Who wants to see a reflection of the human condition? I suppose that happens when our pieces are shown in galleries. “Oh, look what they did. It’s so human and wonderful.” But that’s not the art. To me, by then, you know, it’s over.
Camille: Yeah, we really only do gallery shows to get grants.
Caleb: The art is in the actual moment, as it’s happening. Real people really responding. The actual human condition, not some artist’s version of it.
Interviewer: But isn’t that just life?
Caleb: Yes, exactly. Not a reflection of life, but life itself. Art and life, life and art. We make them interchangeable. And both are enriched because of it.
Interviewer: Do you think other art can do that?
Caleb: No. What, painting? Photography? That’s the opposite. That’s death. Art happens when things move around, not when you freeze them in a block of ice.[/b]

Well, I guess that settles that, right?

Sheriff [in a phone message]: Hey, this is Sheriff Hale. I said I’d call when the blood results came back. I’m afraid that the blood at the scene does match your dad’s DNA profile. So it is real, which obviously none of us wanted. But it does mean that we have
a serious situation here. So we’ll need to dig a bit deeper into the investigation, as we discussed. I’d appreciate a call back. Thank you.
Annie [to Baxter]: That doesn’t mean anything. Caleb’s done crazier things than draw his own blood. You know that.

Cue Hobart.

Caleb [on camera]: The first year I was in Hobart’s class, we went to see a piece by the artist Chris Burdon, whose work Hobart did not care for.
Hobart [on camera]: Chris Burdon’s a hack. A complete and utter fraud.
Caleb: So we’re at Burdon’s gallery, and he tells us he’s going to be shot today. Sure enough, an assistant pulls out a gun and shoots him in the arm. I was shocked. I thought it was thrilling. And I made the mistake of saying so in class. So Hobart turns on me
and he says…
Hobart [on camera]: It’s horseshit! Art should never happen in a controlled environment. That’s not art. I don’t know what it is. Taxidermy. I mean, who the hell cares if you let somebody come and shoot you in a goddamn galley? There’s no danger. There’s no… no surprise. No, it needs to take place in the world, around people who just don’t know that it’s art. That’s the way it has to be.

You won’t believe what comes next…

[b]Hobart: Can I offer you a little advice?
Baxter: Sure.
Hobart: Stop looking for them. It was a bad idea, tangling up family and art. It…But maybe you’re free of that now. You need to stop
thinking of this as a sleight and start thinking of it as a gift. Yeah. A gift.

Caleb [on camera]: “A” was a baby. And, to be honest, after she was born I was…Well, I was miserable. I thought, “This is the end of our life.”
Camille: As artists.
Caleb: Obviously as artists, because… and I’ve heard this over again, children kill art. They just do. You have them, and the passion you had for creative expression becomes secondary.

Baxter: If they’re not dead, they want everyone to think that they are, including their own kids. So if we find them, what difference does it make? You can’t say anything to them to make them change who they are.
Annie: You don’t know that.
Baxter: Yes, I do. And for some reason, you’ve got some crazy idea in your head that suddenly they’re going to stop being who they are. And they’re going to stop doing the things that they do, and being the people that they are, Annie. That they’re going to suddenly become these normal parents, and it’s going to help you fix all of your… stuff. It’s just not going to happen. We can’t fix them. We can only fix ourselves.

Annie: You think they’re dead, don’t you? You thought it the whole time.
Baxter: I don’t know. If they’re dead, it’s horrible. But if they’re not dead…it’s kind of worse. In a lot of different ways. So either way, I just think they’re gone, you know?[/b]

Cue Linus and Lucas. Trust me: you won’t see this coming.

[b]Annie: You pay attention, Caleb. You’ve obviously been working on this for a very long time. And Baxter and I, we want to ruin it for you very badly. We want it to explode in your face. And that is what’s going to happen unless you tell me exactly what I want to know.
Bonnie: Didn’t I warn you?
Annie: Shut up! What the hell is this?
Caleb [looking at a photograph]: That’s our family.
Annie: How long ago was this taken? Look at this.
Caleb: Seven years ago.Bonnie’s my wife.
Annie [gasping] Really?!
Caleb: It’s complicated.
Bonnie: Those boys love Caleb, so don’t you ruin that.
Annie: Stop.
Bpnnie: He’s been a wonderful father to them. He goes to baseball games and concerts. And you don’t need him. We do. You can think what you want, but he dotes on the three of us.
Annie: Stop talking!
[glass shatters]
Annie [breathing heavily]: You take us to Camille.
Baxter: Yeah, let’s go see Camille. You take us to Camille right now.

Annie: What’s Mom’s fake name?
Caleb: Patty Howard.
Annie: Does she have a fake family too?
Caleb: No. See, Bonnie inherited this cabin up north. Mom’s been spending ummers there, getting to know people in town so it wouldn’t be suspicious when she settled there.
Annie: So this has been in the works for a while.
Caleb: For several years, yes. We had to be thorough. Create new identities we could slip into when Caleb and Camille died. We needed social security numbers, bank accounts, tax history. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have worked.
Annie: It didn’t work.

Annie: You’re actually the father of those boys?
Caleb: Every piece has its own complications. And for what it’s worth, the boys did help with the cover story.
Annie: Wow. You actually replaced us.
Caleb: No one replaced anyone. You didn’t want to work with us.

Caleb: Everything we’ve ever done is for the art.
Camille: No, it wasn’t just the art, Caleb. You know that. Everything I do is out of love for you.
Camille [to Annie and Baxter]: And I made him a promise after you were born. He wanted to leave, and I swore to him. that if he figured out a way to be happy and still stay, then I’d always do the same for him.
Annie: Even sacrifice your own children?
Camille: Don’t say that.
Annie: Come on. When push came to shove every time, you chose him over us.
Caleb: For God’s sake, you talk like I’m a monster. We had a good life. You were happy children. You forget how fun those pieces could be. The thrill of leaping in…
Baxter: Oh, give me a break.
Caleb: No net, not knowing what was going to happen. You’re telling me that wasn’t fun? The adventures we had. What did other kids do? Go to the Grand Canyon. Disney World? We did something important.
Baxter: I think I would have preferred Disney World, okay?

Caleb: I’ve always loved you kids. Whatever ambivalence I might have felt early on, it turned into love.
Annie: As long as we didn’t do shitty movies and compromise your artistic sensibilities, huh?
Caleb: What, I’m not allowed to disapprove your choices? That’s like the main thing parents do.

Camille: Promise your dad that you won’t tell.
Baxter: No, we’re pulling the plug. This little piece is over.
Caleb: The hell it is.
Baxter: The hell it isn’t. I’m going to take this video and go right to the press.
Caleb: You give that to me.
Baxter: No.
Caleb: You’re going to ruin years of work because your feelings got hurt.
Baxter: That’s right, Pop.
Camille: Come on, just be reasonable, both of you, and just don’t blow this up.
Annie: Well, that’s what we Fangs do. We blow things up.
Caleb: Look, we get it. You think we damaged you. Fine. My parents damaged me. Her parents damaged her. You have kids. You’re going to damage them. That’s what parents do. So what? I’m not a young man anymore. This is the last big thing I’ll ever make.
Camille: Come visit once a year, and just please don’t tell.
Annie: You want us to pretend you’re dead?
[long pause]
Annie: Sure. We can do that.

Caleb: You may not understand or appreciate or value what we do, but you cannot deny its relevance, its…its effectiveness. Everything we did woke you up. Made you look at your life anew. That’s what we do for people. That’s what we’ve always done. And that’s a good thing.
Annie: Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it is. But you know what happens to those people?
Caleb: What?
Annie: Well, they walk away. You never see them again.[/b]

Faith in God is not unlike most other things. It exist out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view.

But one crucial distinction that can be made here is the extent to which, out in this particular world, your faith in God is tested.

And faith here can be tested either in relationship to personal experiences or tested in a general context in which the world [or much of it] is going through a crisis.

And few global calamities quite match the impact of World War II. There you are out in this particular world groping about in a particular context struggling to reconcile your faith in God with all that you have known, all that you have seen, all that you have experienced that can only be described as a “test of faith”.

Imagine, for example, a convent in Poland in which several of the “holy sisters” are in the advanced stages of pregnancy.

How does the war figure into it?

How does God figure into it?

You won’t believe the fate of the babies here. But there are still a few of us around who were not at all shocked. Anything and everything can be rationalized. Either with or without God.

Still, we see clearly why God and religion are embraced even in the face of such terrible circumstances. After all, if God is not there to stuff everything into, then you have to accept the reality that these terrible things “just happened”. And that those who perpetrated them will never be confronted [in the end] with Divine Justice.

And what is a convent but a world built by and for objectivists. And what was the Second World War but a conflagration set into motion by yet more objectivists still. And now the objectivists who call themselves Communists are on the scene.

And, then, when they collide…

So, in part, this is a film about men and women, brutally ensconced in these conflicted worlds – right makes might! might makes right!-- coming up with a way in which to communicate. And then coming to grips with the consequences when they fail.

The film is said to be “based on actual events”.

IMDb

Anne Fontaine originally met with Agata Kulesza in Poland because she was an admirer of her work, but told her that she didn’t wish to cast her as the Mother Superior since she thought her too sexy for the role. The actress laughed and asked the director if she could put on a veil and read an extract for a Polish work. Once she did, Fontaine decided to give her the part.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocents_(2016_film
trailer: youtu.be/Go63ZVVwivI

THE INNOCENTS [Les Innocentes] 2016
Directed by Anne Fontaine

[b]Mother Superior: Who is this?
Sister: A doctor. I was worried.
Mother Superior: Go to your cell.

Mathilde [of a very pregnant young woman]: Has she been like this long?
Sister Maria: Since yesterday.
Mother Superior: Her family threw her out. We’ve secretly taken her in out of charity. [/b]

We suspect that is not the case at all.

[b]Mathilde: Tomorrow I will return to check for complications.
[Sister Maria says nothing]
Mathilde: Why not? It’s a simple request.
Sister Maria: Simple for you, but not for us.
Mathilde: If the mother and baby die, you will be responsible too. Can I come back tomorrow or not?
Sister Maria: Come back at Lauds. The dawn prayer. While they pray, I’ll let you in.

Mother Superior: We were persecuted by the Germans, then the Russians arrived. For us, when they burst into our convent, it was an indescribable nightmare. Only God’s help will allow us to overcome it.

Mathilde: How many are in that condition?
Sister Maria: Seven. No, six now that Sister Zofia…
Mathilde: God’s help won’t be enough.
Mother Superior: We are in the hands of Providence.
Mathilde: You need someone qualified. I can send a Polish Red Cross midwife.
Sister Maria: If you do that, our convent will be shut down.
Mother Superior: If we’re evicted, our girls will be objects of shame. People will find out. Everyone will reject them. Many will die. My duty is to protect our secret.
Mathilde: They’ll give birth in…
Sister Maria: We’ll help.
Mathilde: You already said that. They’ll go to Heaven. Good for them. But I care about life.
Mother Superior: No one will enter this convent.
Mathidle: All right. I’ll report this to my superiors.

Mathilde: In your opinion, how will the new regime treat the Polish Church?
Samuel [a doctor]: Why the hell should you care? The Polish Church interests you?
Mathilde: I’m just asking.
Samuel: I hope they’ll piss it off. And not just the Church, the people too.
Mathilde: That’s not very kind. What have the Poles done to you?
Samuel: I can’t stand them. They got what they deserved with the Russians and the Germans.
Mathilde: You’re very bitter.
Samuel: Maybe I have my reasons.

Sister: I can no longer reconcile my faith with these terrible events. God, of whom I still consider myself to be the divine bride, nonetheless wanted this.
Mother Superior: Wanted it?
Sister: If it happened that means He wanted it.
Mother Superior: We cannot know what God wants. The only truth is His love.
Sister: And this life that has been forced into me, that will soon come forth, what does He want me to do with it?
Mother Superior: Let us kneel, Sister. Let us pray? It’s our only consollation.[/b]

This [to me] is religion in a nutshell. It’s God or…nothing.

[b]Sister [one of the pregnant victims]: No…
Mathilde: She mustn’t be afraid, I’ll just check the baby’s position.
Sister Maria: Don’t be afraid, It’s to see if the baby is all right.
Sister [anguished]: I don’t want to go to Hell!
Sister Maria [to a perplexed Mathilde]: She fears damnation…It may seem incomprehensible to the outside world. Despite what has happened, we must still respect our vow of chastity.

Mathilde: I’m here to help. Tell me how.
Sister Maria: It’s not easy. We’re not allowed to show our bodies. And even less be touched. It’s a sin.
Mathilde: I took risks to come here. Can’t we set God aside while I examine them?
Sister Maria: You don’t set God aside.
Mathilde: So what use am I?
Sister Maria: I’ll talk to them.

Mathilde: Was the Mother Superior also…
[Sister Maria nods]
Mathilde: Ill need to examine her.
Sister Maria: She’ll never let you. She’d rather put up with her ordeal.
Mathilde: Isn’t pride a sin?
Sister Maria: She’s our Mother. We cannot judge her, but merely obey her.[/b]

But then…

[b]Sister Maria [weeping]: Forgive me. However much I pray, I cannot find any consolation. Every day I relive what happened. Every day. I still smell the stench of them. They came back three times. They should have killed us.

Sister Maria: I had already known a man in my other life. Most of the Sisters were virgins.
Mathilde: But none have lost their faith?
Sister Maria: You know, faith…At first, you’re like a child, holding your father’s hand, feeling safe.
[long pause]
Sister Maria: Then a time comes – and I think it always comes – when your father lets go. You’re lost, alone in the dark. You cry out, but no one answers. Even if you prepare for it you’re caught unawares. It hits you right in the heart…That’s the cross we bear. Behind all joy lies the cross.[/b]

And that explains what exactly? For some, of course, everything.

[b]Samuel: Work-wise, you’re an excellent assistant. I don’t want to lose you. Even if you are a Communist.
Mathilde: Not a party member.
Samuel: Maybe, but you believe in a brighter tomorrow.
Mathilde: We have to believe.
Samuel: Really?

Mathilde [after examining the Mother Superior]: There are lesions. I’ll do a test to be sure.
Mother Superior: A test?
Mathilde: It’s advanced syphilis. I can get medicine to treat it.
Mother Superior: I don’t need you to treat it.

Sister Maria: I arrived here in that dress. I was stylish. I liked men and men liked me.
Mathilde: Don’t you ever regret it?
Sister Maria: Faith is twenty-four hours of doubt and one minute of hope. At first, I found the discipline hard to take. Chastity too. I know happiness is not the goal we pursue but without the war and without the horror that struck us…I could say I’m happy.

Sister Maria: What are you lacking?
Mathilde: Do you want to convert me?
Sister Maria: It’s an honest question.
Mathilde [after a long pause]: No one can really answer that.
Sister Maria: No one in the outside world.

Mathilde [to the Mother Superior]: This is Dr. Samuel Lehmann.
Samuel: Yes, I’m Jewish. There are a few of us left. Now that’s settled where are the patients.
Mathilde: He’ll keep your secret.
Mother Superior: How many doctors did you bring?
Sister Maria: I wasn’t expecting him.
Mother Superior: Don’t you realize the danger?
Samuel: We can talk for hours. Women are suffering and in danger. I’m not baptized, I won’t go to Heaven, but I’m a doctor. I don’t need this. If we are not welcome say so and we’ll leave.

Samuel [to Mathilde]: If someone had told me I’d end up delivering the babies of Polish nuns knocked up by Soviet grunts…

Mother Superior: I was right to be wary of the French woman. She has brought scandal and disorder.
Sister Maria: Forgive me, but scandal and disorder were already here.
Mother Superior: Enough!

Mother Superior [praying]: I beseech You to open the gates of Your Kingdom to me, to give me the courage to follow the path I have chosen…to help me bear this heavy cross…Help me.

Sister Maria: Sister Sofia made these for the baby.
Sofia’s mother: What baby? All of my children are grown.
Sister Maria: But the baby…
[then she realizes…]
Sister Maria: Forgive me. May God protect you.

Sister Maria: Mother, I beseech you, tell me the truth. What did you do with the child?!
Mother Superior: What I had to.
Sister Maria: Meaning what?
Mother Superior: I entrusted him to God.
Sister Maria: I don’t understand.
Mother Superior: You don’t? Don’t you believe in Providence?
Sister Maria: I do.
Mother Superior: I believe it embraced those children.
Sister Maria: What did you do?!
Mother Superior: What I could!..I want to be alone! Get out!

Elderly Sister: But our Mother has found families for all the babies.
[she looks down at her]
Sister: Haven’t you?
Sister Maria: Mother, speak, please.
Mother Superior: I wanted to spare all of you shame and dishonor. I damned myself to save you.[/b]

You can watch the film to see what she actually does with the babies.

Sister Maria [in a letter to Mathilde]: “The dark clouds have moved on. The sun shines brightly in our sky. And you are in our hearts. Perhaps other wars will come. Other dangers threaten us. It will soon be harder to write to each other. But whatever fate awaits us, I feel ready to face it. I know, even if it makes you laugh, that God sent you. May He accompany you in your trials and may you always be joyful. Yours, Maria.”

Health care. Both sides of the political spectrum are able to line up their own collection of horror stories. On the left are those able to note time and again those grim, even gruesome instances in which a pursuit of the bottom line destroyed lives. And those on the right then trot out what they insist are equally grim, even gruesome instances in which government ineptitude and bureaucracy destroyed lives.

Both sides will then invariably insist that only if the other side is made to go away can health care ever be as it should be. In other words, one or another rendition of capitalism and/or one or another rendition of socialism. “And/or” because in most countries it is always a complex and ever shifting intertwining of both political economies.

It’s just that, for those capitalists who happen to be selling medical care [or insurance], the bottom line is the bottom line. And, come on, who is kidding whom regarding the practical implications of this? Also, as though even within the “private sector” there can’t be both bureaucracy and incompetence. And that’s before we get to the god-awful corruption that is built right into crony-capitalism.

Here the drama all unfolds in Mexico. And down there: According to director Rodrigo Pla, the character of Sonia isn’t an accurate statistical representation of Mexicans, because only about 5% to 10% have medical insurance in Mexico.

So, here, Sonia is the anomaly. She has private insurance. But when her husband becomes gravely ill the insurance company denies her application for coverage.

The film then switches back and forth between the courtroom where Sonia is on trial [encompassed in voiceover exchanges] and the sequence of events that led up to it.

IMDb

[b]In an interview with Variety Magazine, director Rodrigo Pla explained that the reason for some scenes, which at first seem neutrally observed but are then revealed to be witness testimonies in a future court case brought against Sonia due to her actions, was because that’s the same narrative that the source novel uses and that this helped balance the story. He said if the story had only been revealed from Sonia’s POV, the audience would feel immediate empathy with her, so the multiplicity of POVs helps to fairly balance out the story.

Jana Raluy, who plays Sonia Bonet, stated that her father had died of cancer shortly before filming began and this helped her emotionally with developing her character. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Monster … sand_Heads
trailer: youtu.be/Ug2534juBhA

A MONSTER WITH A THOUSAND HEADS [Un Monstruo de Mil Cabezas] 2015
Directed by Rodrigo Plá

Receptionist: The doctor isn’t in.
Sonia: He has to be. My husband got much worse last night.
Receptionist: He was, but he had to leave.
Sonia: Is this a joke? I’ve been waitng for hours!!
Receptionist: You didn’t tell me who you were waiting for.
Sonia: I told the other girl! How dare you!!
[the receptionist says nothing]
Sonia: Can I see the manager?
Receptionist: You can fill out a complain form. Everyone’s gone anyway. It’s Friday.

Nothing new here, right? North of south of the border.

[b]Receptionist: They told her that you are here.
Doctor [who is standing right there]: But I’m not.

Sonia [after the doctor tries to sneak past her]: Wasn’t that Dr. Villalba?
Receptionist: I’m not authorized to answer that.

Sonia: Excuse me, I know this is your home and it isn’t right…
Doctor: It’s not right and it’s a bad time. I was on my way out. Let’s do this on Monday morning. In my office.
Sonia: No, we can’t wait any longer.[/b]

Her husband after all is dying.

[b]Sonia: My husband is a good person. Look at his photo.
Doctor: I don’t doubt it, it’s not that. I already checked the papers.That drug isn’t on the list of approved medications.
Sonia: There are studies…
Doctor: Leave or I’ll call the police.
Sonia: Why are you denying him treatment? What do you have against us?
Dario: Mom, calm down.
Sonia: No, I need to understand. There must be a mistake.
[she turns to the doctor]
Sonia: If it was your wife, you’d give her anything. We’ve paid this policy for 16 years.
[he reaches for his phone to call the cops]
Sonia [pulling out a gun]: No! No!

Doctor: Please put down the gun. I don’t even know you. It’s company policy. Not all applications are approved. That’s how insurance companies work. And your apllication has errors. It can be fixed.
Doctor’s wife: No, it can’t. It’s not a mistake. Coordinators have to reject certain apllications. That’s how it works.

Sandoval: How do you know that the doctor is telling the truth? There are lots of scams.
Sonia: This isn’t a scam.
Sandoval: Some doctors will operate on a dead man for money.
Sonia: It’s not an operation, it’s a drug treatment.

Sandoval [looking at a computer screen]: This is an agreement for the payment of financial incentives to the coordinators with the highest number of rejections of coverage. This one too. These are the monthly rejection rates for pre-existing conditions…Here is a recommendation from the Health Ministry ignored by ther company.

Jorge: “They will remain in the possession of Mrs. Bonet, who agree to destroy them upon approval of said pharmaceutical found on the company’s list of approved medications.” This is blackmail.
Sandoval: Just write it, as CEO I’ll take responsibility.

Dario [after answering the phone]: They say that Dad has died. They say that you ahould give up.

Lorena: I had nothing to do with this. I don’t make decisions. I’m just a shareholder. I’m sorry about your husband, If I can help…
[Sonia slaps her hard across the face]
Sonia: I don’t want your pity. You don’t even know me. How dare you! It’s your fucking company’s fault!![/b]

The cops shoot her.

Sonia [to her son, Dario]: Next time, we’ll rob a bank, okay?

Indignation: anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment.

And it comes in all shapes and sizes, doesn’t it? And one of the most common is the indignation that one feels when judged solely by the prejudices swirling about inside small minds that ever and always view the world around us in a sludge of stereotypes. Received ideas that are almost always dumped into their heads by others.

For example: The Jew.

Or The Atheist.

And here the Jew [who is also an atheist] has received a scholarship to attend a college out in the Midwest. And it is 1951.

And then there’s the part about “coming of age”. The part where the world that many “young people” have constructed “in their head” never seems to be in sync with the way the world actually is. Also, as one reviewer noted…“[i]t’s about what happens when a young person realizes that the world doesn’t necessarily always work the way he wants it to and being unable to cope with that reality.”

Basically we come to understand that [here] indignation is a two way street. There’s the indignation that others bring to us and the indignation that we bring to others.

The film is said to be a “fictionalized” account of Philip Roth’s own 1950s college experience. So, if nothing else, it is going to provoke some serious thinking about what is unfolding on the screen.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indignation_(film
trailer: youtu.be/ELKsrUssyQE

INDIGNATION [2016]
Written and directed by James Schamus [based on a novel of the same name by Philip Roth]

[b]Marcus [voiceover]: It is important to understand about dying that even though in general you do not have a personal choice in the matter, it is going to happen to you when it happens to you. There are reasons you die. There are causes, a chain of events linked by causality, and those events include decisions that you have personally made. How did you end up here, on this exact day, at this exact time, with this specific event happening to you?

Ron: Bert. Close the door at least.
Bert [ to Marcus]: Ronald doesn’t like Negro Communists. Paul Robeson in particular. He doesn’t like music at all, in fact.
Ron: If Dean Caudwell ever heard you playing that commie propaganda, he’d probably toss you right out of here.

Marcus: Uh… chapel?
Ron: Didn’t you read the handbook? Required. Every Wednesday at 11. You have to go to at least 10 of them a year if you want to graduate.

Sonny: You know that out of 1,400 people on campus, less than 80 are Jewish? That’s a pretty small percentage.
Marty: The only other fraternity that’ll have a Jew is the non-sectarian house, and they don’t have much going for them in the way of facilities or really anything.

Professor: The Puritans faced a particular challenge as, by the 1660s, the first generation began to die out. So in 1662 the Reverend Solomon Stoddard devised the so-called Half-Way Covenant, whereby members of the community could be half-members of the church if they agreed to abide by its rules, even if in their hearts they could not profess a complete Puritanconversion.
Student: So, “go along to get along.”
Professor: That’s right. By allowing people to stay part of the church, and by extension, the community, the Puritan leaders were able to maintain authority and political continuity.
Marcus: Isn’t that the same kind of hypocrisy the Puritans claimed to rebel against? Aren’t they doing the exact same thing they accused the Church of England of?
Professor: Well, Mr. Messner, hypocrisy is a very strong word.
Marcus: It is a strong word, but as ironic as it appears, I believe it is a word that accurately describes the political position of the Puritans of the second generation.
Professor: Pragmatism might be an even more accurate term.

Marcus [voiceover]: What is it that pivots or turns a person from existence to non-existence? For myself, perhaps it was the unceasing movement of Olivia Hutton’s leg.

Marcus [voiceover while Oliva fellates him]: What happened next I puzzeled over for weeks afterwards. Trying to reconstruct the morals that reigned over Winesburg College. And I wonder how my own sorry efforts to overcome those morals may have fostered so much misunderstanding, even grief. Even now I continie to puzzle over Olivia’s actions…I told myself “it’s because her parents are divorced.” I could think of no other explanation for a mystery so profound. Because in Newark it was inconceivabnle that girls like Olivia Hutton could do such a thing…but then again there were no girls like Olivia Hutton in Newark.

Marcus [to his roommate]: She blew me. I didn’t even ask her for it. She just did it.

Marcus [in a letter]]: “Olivia, You think I’ve spurned you because of what happened in the car the other night. As I explained, it’s because nothing approaching that has ever happened to me before. Just as no girl has ever said to me anything resembling what you said to me in the library tonight. You are different from anyone I’ve known, and the last thing you could ever be called is a slut. You’re mature. You’re beautiful. You are vastly more experienced than I am. That’s what threw me. Forgive me.”

Olivia [in a letter]: “Dear Marcus, I can’t see you. You’ll only run away from me again…this time when you see the scar across the width of my wrist. Had you seen it the night of our date, I would have honestly explained it to you. I was prepared to do that. I didn’t try to cover it up but as it happend you failed to notice it. It’s a scar from a razor. I tried to kill myself. That’s why I went for three months to the clinic. It it was the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. The Menninger Sanitarium and Psychopathic Hospital. There’s the full name for you. I used the razor when I was drunk. If I had been sober I would have succeeded. So three cheers for ten rye and gingers…they’re why I’m alive today. That, and my incapacity to carry anything out. Even suicide is beyond me. I don’t regret doing what we did, but we mustn’t do anything more. Forget about me, Marcus. There’s no one around here like you. You are not a simple soul and have no business being here. If you survive the squareness of this place, you’ll have a sterling future. Why did you come to Winesburg to begin with? I came because it’s so square. That’s supposed to make me a normal girl. But you? You should be studying philosophy at the Sorbonne and living in a garret in Montparnasse. We both should. Farewell, beauticious man. Olivia.”

Olivia: You weren’t in Chapel yesterday.
Marcus: I just needed a break. I don’t know how much more of Dr. Donehower going on about “Christ’s example” I can take.
Olivia: Maybe you could get some kind of waiver for conscientious objection.
Marcus: Why is that? Because I’m Jewish? I don’t object because I’m Jewish, I object I’m an atheist.
Olivia: I know.

Dean: I’d be curious to know why you didn’t write down 'kosher, ’ Marcus.
Marcus: Sir, if you are asking me if I was trying to hide the religion into which I was born, the answer is no.
Dean: Well, I certainly hope that’s so. I’m glad to hear that. Everyone has a right to openly practice his own faith, and that holds true at Winesburg just as it does everywhere else in this country. On the other hand, under ‘religious preference’ I see you didn’t write 'Jewish, ’ though you are of Jewish extraction and, in accordance with the college’s attempt to assist students in residing with others of the same faith, you were assigned Jewish roommates.
Marcus: I didn’t write anything under religious preference, sir.
Dean: I can see that. I’m wondering why that is.
Marcus: It’s because I have none. I don’t prefer to practice one religion over another.
Dean: What then provides you with spiritual sustenance? To whom do you pray when you need solace?
Marcus: I don’t need solace, sir. I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe in prayer. I am sustained by what is real. Praying, to me, is preposterous.
Dean: Is it now? And yet so many millions do it.
Marcus: Millions once thought the earth was flat, sir.
Dean: Yes, that’s true. But may I ask you, Marcus, merely out of curiosity, how do you get by in life… filled as life is inevitably with trials and tribulations lacking spiritual guidance?
Marcus: I get straight A’s, sir.
Dean: I didn’t ask about your grades. I know your grades. You have every right to be proud of them, as I’ve already told you.
Marcus: Well, then you know the answer to your question of how I get by just fine.

Marcus: Sir! I object to being interrogated like this! I do not see the purpose of it. These are my own private affairs, as is my religious life and my social life and how I conduct it. I have broken no laws, I’vecaused no one injury or harm, and in no way have my actions impinged on anyone’s rights. If anyone’s rights have been impinged on they are mine.
Dean: Sit down please, and explain yourself.
Marcus: I also object to having to attend chapel forty times before I graduate in order to earn a degree. I do not see where the college has the right to force me to listen to a clergyman of whatever faith, even once, or listen to a Christian hymn invoking the Christian deity, given that I am an atheist who is, to be truthful, deeply offended by the practices of organized religion. I am altogether capable of leading a moral existence without crediting beliefs that are impossible to substantiate and beyond credulity. I take it you are familiar, Dean Caudwell, with the writingsof Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell, the distinguished mathematician and philosopher, was last year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The work of literature in which he was awarded the Nobel Prize is his widely read essay entitled “Why I Am Not a Christian.” Are you familiar with this essay, sir?
Dean: Marcus, please sit down…
Marcus: Sir, I was asking if you are familiar with this very important essay by Bertrand Russell. I take it that the answer is no. Well, I am very familiar with this essay because I set myself the task of memorizing large sections of it when I was captain of my high school debating team. Now, if you were to read this essay, and in the interest of open-mindedness I would urge you to do so, you would see that Bertrand Russell, undoes with logic that is beyond dispute the first-cause argument, the natural-law argument, the argument from design, the moral arguments for a deity, and the argument for the remedying of injustice. Having studied these arguments, I intend to live my life in accordance with them, as I am sure you would have to admit, sir, I have every right to do.

Dean: I admire your directness, your diction, your sentence structure, even if I don’t necessarily choose to admire whom or what you choose to read and the gullibility with which you take at face value rationalist blasphemies spouted by an immoralist of the ilk of Bertrand Russell, four times married, a blatant adulterer, an advocate of free love, a self-confessed socialist dismissed from his university position and imprisoned during the First War by the British for what in plain English I would call treason…To find that Bertrand Russell is a hero of yours comes as no great surprise. There are always one or two intellectually precocious students on every campus, self-appointed members of an elite intelligentsia who need to elevate themselves and feel superior to their fellow students, superior even to their professors. Nonetheless, that is not what we are here to discuss. What worries me rather is your isolation. What worries me is your outspoken rejection of long-standing Winesburg tradition, as witness your response to Chapel attendance, A simple undergraduate requirement which amounts to, on average, little more than a few minutes per week of your years here.

Marcus: I cannot bear being lectured like this. I am not a malcontent. I am not a rebel. I have the right to socialize or not socialize with whomever I see fit. Furthermore, your argument against Bertrand Russell is not an argument against his ideas based on reason
but an argument against his character, i.e., an ad hominem attack, which is logically worthless. Sir, I respectfully ask your permission to stand up and leave now because I am afraid if I don’t I am going to be sick.
Dean: Of course you may leave. I just ask that you reflect on why leaving appears to be the only way you are dealing with your problems here.

Marcus: I don’t understand how you can be so…
Olivia: So what?
Marcus: Under control. So expert.
Olivia: Oh, yes, Olivia the expert. That’s what they called me at the Menninger Clinic.
Marcus: But you are.
Olivia: You really think so, do you? I, who have eight thousand moods a minute, whose every emotion is a tornado, who can be thrown by a word, by a syllable, am ‘under control’? You are blind.

Marcus: It sounds like you have a very democratic household. That’s very American.
Olivia: Yes we are - American. Though as a student of American civilization, Marcus, you must remember how Benjamin Franklin once defined democracy? Democracy, he said, is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

Mother: I never asked anything of you before. I never asked because I never had to. Because you are perfect where sons are concerned. All you’ve ever wanted to be is a boy who does well. You have been the best son a mother could have. But I am going to ask you to have nothing more to do with Miss Hutton. Because for you to be with her is unimaginable for me.
Marcus: Ma…
Mother: Markie, you are here to be a student and to study the Supreme Court and to prepare to go to law school. You are here so someday you will become a person in the community that other people look up to and that they come to for help. You are here so you don’t have to be a Messner and work in a butcher shop for the rest of your life. You are not here to look for trouble with a girl who has taken a razor and slit her wrists.
Marcus: Wrist. She slit one wrist.
Mother: One is enough. We have only two, and one is too much.

Marcus: Dean Caudwell, this is very hard for me to talk about. But I do think that whatever happened in the privacy of my hospital room was strictly between Olivia and myself.
Dean: Perhaps and perhaps not. Especially in light of the circumstances.
Marcus: Why?
Dean: Olivia Hutton had a nervous breakdown, Marcus. She had to be taken away in an ambulance.
Marcus: I really don’t know what goes into a nervous breakdown.
Dean: You lose control over yourself and your emotions, like an infant. You have to be hospitalized and cared for like an infant until you recover, if you ever do recover.

Marcus: She is where?
Dean: At a hospital specializing in psychiatric care.
Marcus: She can’t possibly be pregnant, too.
Dean: Time will tell.
Marcus: It’s not me.
Dean: What was reported to us about your conduct at the hospital
suggests it could be, Marcus.
Marcus: I don’t care what it suggests. Dean Caudwell, I will not be condemned on the basis of no evidence. Sir, I resent once again your portrayal of me. I did not have sexual intercourse with Olivia Hutton. have never had sexual intercourse with anyone. Nobody in this world could possibly be pregnant because of me. It is impossible!
Dean: Marcus, it is possible…
Marcus: Oh, fuck you it is!

Marcus [voiceover]: I wonder if everyone, after they die, remembers all the little details and decisions they made, all the reasons they ended up ending the exact way they did. That’s how I am…I remember, and replay those things, even if I can’t remember how long I’ve been remembering…maybe it’s been forever. And I speak to everyone…Ma, Pa, Olivia, everyone, even if they’ve been dead already a million years, but I keep speaking to them. Forever…

Marcus [voiceover after he has been kicked out of school, lost his draft deferment and has just been pierced by a bayonet as a soldier in Korea]: Can you hear me, Olivia? Can you hear me when I tell you that it’s okay, whatever it is, that it’s okay? Because someone did love you. At least I think that’s what it was. And you should know that. You should know, Olivia. You should know.[/b]

Special powers. We all want them. And, depending on how you define the term, some of us really do possess them.

On the other hand, up on the screen, the special powers are likely to be considerable more special. And then it becomes a matter of differentiating comic book characters and horror flick monsters from the characters that are more the stuff of science fiction.

And [usually] the science fiction special powers are just some how more believable.

Bottom line: He’s not like us.

Still, when you have special powers, there are always going to be others out to take advantage of them. Or to out and out usurp them for their own more or less ulterior and/or nefarious motives. Maybe it’s a religious cult. Maybe it’s the government. Maybe it’s both.

The cult here worships the boy as the Messiah and the government [of course] is interested in how he can be used in the pursuit of “national security”? Or the extent to which he jeopardizes it. It’s like being chased by both Warren Jeffs and the NSA.

This is basically one of those films that some will hate because, among other things, “it takes itself too seriously”. It’s also one of those films in which you sink down into all of these very, very strange events, and it all comes down to this: What Does It All Mean?

And then after you find out, it’s either all worth it or it’s not. And, in reading some of the reviews here – imdb.com/title/tt2649554/reviews?ref_=tt_urv – you will find reactions from both extremes.

Me? Let’s just say that I was less impressed than I wanted to be.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Special_(film
trailer: youtu.be/oVgxxdu-gJc

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL [2015]
Written and directed by Jeff Nichols

[b]Calvin [to Doak]: You have four days, to get the boy back here. He won’t give him back easily. But we must get him back in time, you understand? The Lord has placed a heavy burden on you.

Calvin: Gulf eclipse and the numbers came…
Congregation: 35 47 97 52…
Calvin: …buildings tower, the light comes, to know the source of such things is to know our place in the world.

Miller [FBI agent]: We had you under surveillance since members of your ranch acquired a sizable number of firearms over the course of the last six months. Do you have an explanation for this?
Calvin: Well, its not illegal to own weapons in this country yet.

Paul [NSA agent showing Calvin a notebook]: Do these mean anything to you? Ignore the rest of this. Polo step? Meridian Alpha? Red Saber? The number combination 53, 23, 77, 1, 27?
Calvin: Yes. They are excerpts from my sermons. That particular one is from a reading January 18, 2010.
Paul: Yes, it is. Did you write this?
Calvin: Yes.
Paul: What if I told you that words and numbers contained in your sermons include sensitive government information that, given the dates you provide, were transmitted solely by satellite through a heavily encrypted format, the decryption and dissemination of which, other than being scientifically impossible, would surely carry punishments of treason that are so severe the government probably hasn’t invented them yet?
Calvin: They came from the boy. It’s all from the boy.

Paul: So can you tell us how an eight-year-old got this information?
Calvin: He would have fits.
Paul: Can you explain that?
Caslvin: And speak in tongues. Sometimes other languages, sometimes unknown languages. We wrote them down. They became our scripture. These are words of the Lord.
Paul: Or the Federal Government.
Miller: We need to know where he is.
Calvin [chuckling]: You all have no clue of what youre dealing with, do you?

Lucas [to Roy]: I’m in this for Alton. All the way. Things with that trooper didn’t need to go down like that. Dont interfere with me again.

Roy: Do you miss it? Living on the ranch.
Elden: Yeah. Very much.

Alton: What’s Kryptonite?
Lucas: It’s the only thing that’ll kill Superman.
Roy: It’s made up. I should never let you given him those. Hes never seen a comic book in his life.
Lucas: That’s why he needed em. Reading is reading.
Roy: He needs to know what’s real.

Sarah: Should we do something?
Roy: Just stick to the plan and get him there by Friday.
Lucas: Do you think that’s wise?
Roy: It’s all we have. This date and place is everything. We take him to a hospital, it’s over.
Lucas: If it’s between that or him dying?
Roy: It’s three days. He’ll make it.

Miller [to Paul]: Alton Meyer brought down an Air Force satellite last night. It was tasked with detecting a nuclear explosion…The satellites whole purpose is detecting a nuclear event.

Miller: Could a drone be programmed to search for that specific heat signature?
Paul: Yeah.

Paul: He’s not going to Atlanta.
Agent: What?
Paul: All these places mentioned with sermons, they don’t matter.
Agent: They don’t?
Paul: No, he’s just listening to the government talk. He’s just looking for a language to describe a location and all he heard was coordinates.

Sarah: Roy will get him here.
Lucas: If he’s not dead…Sorry.
Sarah: Roy won’t let that happen.
Lucas: Yeah, I hope not.
Sarah: He believes in something. You don’t.
Lucas: It doesn’t matter. Good people die every day believing in things.

Alton: I saw the sunrise this morning. I think I know what I am now. There’s…There’s a world, built on top of ours. People live there. I think they’re like me.
Roy: We saw it.
Sarah: They’re like you?
Alton: Yes, I think so.
Sarah: I understand.
Alton: Lucas?
Lucas: I believe you.
Alton: Good. [/b]

Cue The Ranch…

[b]Roy [shot and cuffed to a railing]: Doak…don’t…please.

Paul: You know, I have to say, Ive really been looking forward to meeting you. They think you’re a weapon.
Alton: I’m not.
Paul: And the ranch thinks you are their saver.
Alton: I’m not any of those things. I belong in another world. There are people there. They watch us. They’ve been watching us for a very long time. I need to go where I belong.[/b]

Take your pick: ET? Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Starman?

[b]Paul [to Lucas]: Is it too much to ask for you to punch me in the face?

Alton: Dad?
Roy: Yeah?
Alton: Are you scared?
Roy: Yes.
Alton: You don’t have to worry about me.
Roy: I like worrying about you.
Alton: You don’t have to anymore.
Roy: I’ll always worry about you Alton. That’s the deal.

Lucas [to Roy]: Could we go back to Texas now?

FBI agent: Just explain to me how, with multiple types of aerial and ground surveillance surrounding the area, they could simply walk away, undetected.
Lucas: I dont know, but if he didn’t want you to see him, you wouldn’t see him. Look, I can tell it to you as many times as you want. My story is not changing because its true. You know. You all saw the same shit I saw. But keep asking me if you want to.[/b]

You’re a team. An improv ensemble trying to make it big: The Commune.

Think, say, Second City.

You dream of success. Or some of you do. But: where do the ambitions of the team end and the ambition of each individual begin? Where ought it to begin and end? In other words, how far will you go to assure that at least you “make it”? For example, what if it was only John Belushi that rose to the top and no one ever heard of the others? Or think Monty without the rest of the Pythons.

After all, we live in a culture where celebrity and fame has practically replaced Christianity as our new religion of choice. Standing out in the crowd. Isn’t that really the only way now in which to separate yourself from “the masses”.

On the other hand, there is also the pride that some feel in being part of something much smaller but more genuine. Being “independent” and not “selling out”.

Look for everything you need to know about the gaps between improvisational comedy and comedy that is entirely scripted and rehearsed. Obviously, some can make that leap and others cannot.

You have the audience more or less choose the comedic context and then you [as a team] build that into a lot of laughs. As opposed to writing down, memorizing and then rehearsing over and over and over again a particular “routine”. In other words, you are “funny on your feet”.

Look for this guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Close

This one garnered a 99% fresh rating at RT on 109 reviews. Anything approaching 100% on over 100 reviews is truly an exceptional film.

IMDb

The main cast did two weeks of improv rehearsals before performing in front of live audiences. Footage from their performances were used in the film.

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Think_Twice
trailer: youtu.be/iPwIBBuJps0

DON’T THINK TWICE [2016]
Written and directed by Mike Birbiglia

[b]Sam [voiceover]: Okay, a little bit of history. In 1955, a group of actors in Chicago invented the idea that improvisational theater could be an art form unto itself, not just a warm-up for other theater.

Miles [voiceover]: Now, everyone has their own take on what’s most important in improv. But even 60 years later they still boil down to three basic rules.
Allison [voiceover]: Number one: Say yes. Which really means just agreeing with the reality your partner creates and then building on that…
Lindsay [voiceover]: Number two: It’s all about the group. Yes. It’s not about you looking good. It’s also not about looking funny. No. Or showboating. It’s about a group working together in the moment to create something that never happened before, you know, or will
never happen again.
Miles [voiceover]: Finally, and this is the most important one: Don’t think. It’s all about getting out of your head. It’s about impulse. It’s about living in the moment. It’s about now.
Bill [voiceover]: In improv, there are no mistakes. Like Del close once said, “fall and then figure out what to do on the way down.”

Bonnie [to the group]: The business model for selling $5 tickets to a show is not exactly sound. The theater’s closing. We’ve gotta be out of there in four weeks. They’re selling. Another Trump building, I think.
Lindsay: New York City is over.
Jack [immitating Trump]: New York City, you’re fired.
Miles: Improv for America, you’re fired.
Bill: All of America, you’re fired.
Jack: What the hell was that?
Bill: That was Trump!

Bonnie: I called Hugh Finn. He’s bringing over some producers from Weekend Live.
Miles: Hey, Jack, don’t pull some showboat shit out there.
Jack: What? When do I do that?
Miles: You always do that. Anyone from the industry shows up, you turn into a one-man audition tape.
Allison: You did it when the guy from Conan came, when Law and Order came.[/b]

Weekend Live of course being Saturday Night Live. On the other hand, unlike SNL, these guys are actually funny.

[b]Bill [to the group]: I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that should impersonate my dad when he’s basically in a coma.

Jack [having been selected for Weekend Live]: How’d it go?
Sam: Um…I was late, and they wouldn’t let me in.
Jack: What? Why? Why?
Sam: I don’t know.
Jack: How late were you?
Sam: I was, like, 20 minutes late.
Jack: Twenty minutes late, and they wouldn’t let you in?
Sasm: All right. Maybe I was 30 minutes late.[/b]

Or maybe it was something else.

[b]Jack: Look, guys, this is, um…This is a victory for the whole group, okay? 'Cause I’m gonna…
Miles: You mean you’ll talk to Timothy about us?
Jack: Uh…

Jack: I was just so in it, and I felt, “if I don’t get this, I’m gonna kill myself.” I literally thought that, and I believe that to be true.
Bill: Oh, you mean like if you had to live our lives? Like, if you had to continue living like us, you’d kill yourself?

Jack: Hey, I’ve got a few friends that want to submit some writing. When would be, like, a good time to talk to Timothy about that?
Weekend Live producer: Don’t ever talk to Timothy about your funny friends. First year, just don’t get fired.
Jack: Right, right. So just don’t ever do it during the first year?
Producer: I’m sorry. Was my tone, like, not sarcastic enough? Never do it. Ever.

Miles [watching Jack on Weekend Live]: Not funny. Skillful, but not funny.
Allison: It’s like when something sounds funny, but it isn’t funny.[/b]

Then Lena Dunham introduces ELEL.

[b]Jack: You know, Miles, I’m gonna put in a good word for you, but it’s not my job to give.
Miles: Right. But they’ll want me, right? I…I taught you. I taught you everything. Just tell them that. They have Jack Mercer. Now they can get his teacher.
Miles: I’m gonna…I’m gonna recommend all you guys. 'Cause I think that’s only fair.
Miles: This is very unattractive. Your, like, little hat…And your…your attitude. This whole like, “I’m bigger than everybody.” It’s like… You’re just like us. Your head is so big right now. Your—your whole egocentric world…You just have…You’re completely unaware.
Jack: You are striking out at me right now, and I don’t understand why, because I already told you all I can do is submit your packet and let the chips fall where they may.

Miles: I just don’t feel like he believes in me.
Lindsay: My dad always told me, “the thing with an easy sell is that the thing has to actually be easy to sell.”
Miles: What does that even mean?
Lindsay: You have to have the goods.
Miles: I don’t have the goods?
Lindsay: You can work on the goods instead of working on Jack. Do the work.

Newspaper headline: IMPROV FOR AMERICA TO SHUT DOWN FOREVER

Sam: I gotta tell you something. I didn’t…
Jack: What…what is it?
Sam: I didn’t go to my Weekend Live audition. I just didn’t go.
Jack: Why? I mean, why? Why wouldn’t you go?
Sam: I don’t know. I freaked out.
Jack: I told you I would…
Sam: Life is so short, and you have to do things that you believe in, or what is the point of all of this? And I watch that show, and it’s not for me. I like my life how it is right now. I like The Commune.
Jack: I know, Sam. I know.
Sam: The day you guys asked me to join The Commune was the greatest day of my life.
Jack: But, honey, you can’t do improv forever, okay? It just…It ends, all right? And I don’t want it to end either, but it will. It just will. We’ve gotta jump to the next Lily pad.
Sam: But I like this Lily pad.

Sam [to her students]: There are two types of bad shows. There’s the type of bad show where we sell each other out onstage and nobody hangs out afterwards, and then there’s the type of bad show where you all go down together, and then you come to the bar afterwards and you laugh about it. That is the type of bad show I want you to have.

Jack: Uh, these are some writing samples from some of the improvisers in my group, and they’re really a talented bunch of guys. I just wondered if you wanted to look at 'em.
Timothy [the Lorne Michaels guy]: Jack, you should worry about yourself.
Jack: Oh, okay.
Timothy: I’m cutting you from “jugglers with vertigo.”
Jack: Oh. Okay.
Timothy: You know, you’re not what we call a pure talent. You’re not a virtuoso. You’re the kind of player who should write for himself.

Miles [watching Jack steal their material for a Weekend Live skit]: He can’t do that.
Bill: We’ve been replaced by Ben Stiller.

Miles: You’re a fucking thief!
Jack: Miles, you don’t understand how hard this job is, okay? I have tried to sell you. It is not easy.
[Miles punches him in the face]

Miles: Where were you?
Lindsay: I was out here.
Miles: Doing what?
Lindsay: I didn’t wanna embarrass myself in front of my coworkers.
Bill: What does that mean?
Lindsay: I got the writing job on Weekend Live.
Miles [punching the wall]: Motherfucker!
Bill: They gave it to you?
Allison: You didn’t even tell us you were submitting. That’s so weird.
Bill: We showed you our packet. And you didn’t even say a thing?
Lindsay: I didn’t think I was gonna get it, and I was embarrassed.
Bill: That is so shady. And you’re not even gonna last five minutes there. 'Cause you have no work ethic.
Allison: Bill’s right.
Lindsay: You’ve taken nine years, Allison, and you still haven’t finished your doodle book.

Lindsay: No one wants to say this, Miles, but you don’t have it. You were never inches away from anything.
Miles: Fuck you, Lindsay.
Lindsay: You won’t, 'cause I’m not 22 and I’m not your student.

Sam: You gotta let go, Miles. All this Weekend Live shit is meaningless. You’ve got The Commune. We only got one more show. I don’t wanna do it alone.

Sam [voiceover]: Del Close once said watching great improv is like watching people put the plane together when they’re already in the sky. It’s not meant to last, except as an act of love. It passes in a moment and disappears.

Sam: Wow!
Lindsay: Come on!
Bill: Well, it needs a lot of work, but it’s ours. We get to program the whole thing, and we’re just gonna try to find some, like, local kids who are hungry, try to build a scene here in town, you know?
Sam: Has anyone had a particularly hard day? You.
Bill: I…I buried my dad.
Sam: Oh![/b]

Someone once opined that, “If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.”

The part, in other words, where youthful idealism thumps smack dab into the brute facticity embedded in the real world.

And this may well be no less true of folks who either were the President of the United States or of folks who tried to be.

Though, with respect to the man who will soon vacate the White House, I suspect that he was always more or less the calculating type. Much like the man who is about to take his place. Unless, of course, at 70, Donald Trump actually still is an idealist. If not a socialist.

And certainly a narcissist.

Not that this particular film focuses the beam anywhere near this particular agenda. It revolves far more around the “personal”. An exploration into the actual day that Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson had their “first date”.

Politics therefore is more or less in the background. It revolves instead around contexts like this one:

In the scene outside the movie theater screening Do the Right Thing, Avery Goodman asks Michelle and Barack if they think Mookie did the right thing in the climactic scene.

Trust me: If you are not much into films in which the main characters just walk and talk [think Before Sunrise] steer clear of this one.

Basically, the film takes us inside the heads of two very gifted young black folks and explores the sort of conversations that they had in a world that folks who are not black in a racist culture could not really even imagine. In particular, the tug of war between political idealism and achieving “the good life”.

IMDb

[b]According to director Richard Tanne, all of the main events of the film did actually occur on the Obama’s first date with the exception of the community meeting which happened at a later date.

In the scene outside the movie theater screening Do the Right Thing, Mr. Goodman asks Michelle and Barack if they think Mookie did the right thing in the climactic scene. In the DVD commentary, Spike Lee said he has only been asked this question by white viewers, and that viewers who question the riot’s justification are implicitly failing to see the difference between property and the life of a black man. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southside_with_You
trailer: youtu.be/erpUF2ToUls

SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU [2016]
Written and directed by Richard Tanne

[b]Mom: Thought it wasn’t a date.
Michelle: It wasn’t and it isn’t.
Mom: Thought you said he was just another smooth-talking brother. You’re going to an awful lot of trouble for just another smooth-talker.

Michelle: It’s not a date, Daddy. He’s a summer associate I told y’all about, the one from Harvard Law. I mentioned I worked legal aid and he invited me to a community event at the Gardens.
Father: Yeah.
Michelle: Because it doesn’t get more romantic than broken plumbing and underfunded schools.

Toot: Well, where’s she from?
Barack: Chicago.
Toot: Uh-huh. Which part?
Barack: The side that’s predominantly black.
Toot: Okay, so she’s…?
Barack: Yes, Toot. Her skin is of the darker persuasion.

Father: So, what’s this boy’s name?
Michelle: Barack Obama.
Father: Barack-a what-a?

Michelle: Barack, you seem like a really sweet guy, but how many times do I have to tell you we’re not going out together?
Barack: Mm, well, Michelle, thank you for saying that. You seem like a real sweet girl. But I have to correct you. We are in fact out and we are in fact together.
Michelle: But not on a date. This is not a date.

Michelle [to Barack]: It’s hard enough being a woman at a giant corporate law firm. For all the talk of equality that goes around and all those filled quotas, I’m still surrounded by mostly men. So, I gotta work just a little bit harder to earn everyone’s respect. I gotta work a little bit harder to be taken seriously. Now add on that I’m black. All that extra work I put in to compensate for being a woman? Being black erases that and brings me back down to zero. So, now I’m working double-time just to be seen for who I am and what I’m capable of. Now, how’s it gonna look to a guy like Thompson if I swoop in and start dating the first cute black guy who walks through the firm’s doors? The liberal-minded people will think it’s precious and the closed-minded people will think it’s pathetic.

Barack: Did you watch Good Times?
Michelle: Not a family staple.
Barack: Really? There wasn’t a black family in Chicago that didn’t watch Good Times?
Michelle: We were more of a Brady Bunch,Dick Van Dyke kind of family.

Barack: “Dy-no-mite!” Do you remember that?
Michelle: Yes, I remember the line.
Barack: The character’s name was J.J… He was kind of a screwup. He would steal here and there, couldn’t read or write, talked jive. You know, just a bad TV stereotype, right? But, see, as the show progressed, J.J. developed this interest in painting. As it turned out, he actually had a lot of talent. But he didn’t take it seriously. Not until his dad, who was this tough, blue-collar guy, encouraged him to keep painting. He saw it as his son’s only way out of the projects.
Michelle: What did he paint?
Barack: Black ghetto life. They were crisp, exaggerated, very colorful. His style was a lot like Ernie Barnes. That’s because Ernie Barnes did all the paintings for the show.

Michelle: Is your mother still alive?
Barack: Hmm, oh, yeah. Still in Jakarta. She’s a wonderful lady.
Michelle: But you don’t see her much?
Barack: Nah, she has her own life. But she’s brilliant, warm. Truly wonderful.
Michelle: And she’s white?
Barack: Snow white. Born in Wichita, Kansas.
Michelle: A white woman and a black man getting married and having a kid back then. They were ahead of their time.
Barack: You want the God’s honest truth about my folks?
Michelle: Sure.
Barack: Okay. My mother thought Harry Belafonte was the most handsome man on the face of the planet. Yeah, I’d say chocolate was her favorite flavor, too. No, really, I think their attraction was that simple. My father looked like Nat King Cole and my mother looked like Patsy Cline.

Michelle: And your own religious proclivities?
Barack: Let’s just say I’m still evolving.
Michelle: What were you raised?
Barack: Nothing, really. My mom didn’t associate with any one religion.
Michelle: And your father? Was he like you?
Barack: About the only thing my father and I had in common was that we both went to Harvard. The only difference is he got kicked out.

Barack: Dying to see Do the Right Thing.
Michelle: Sounds interesting enough.
Barack: Blick, Thompson, and Cohen were talking about it in the office. And Thompson said the film might be racist towards white people.
Michelle: No, he didn’t.
Barack: He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s a little out of touch, that’s all.
Michelle: I’m just tired of being two different people. I played that game at Princeton and I played it again at Harvard. There were white kids at school who would talk to me in class, but if I saw them out on the quad and they were with their other friends, they would walk right past me without so much as a nod. Now, obviously, the firm is not like that, but sometimes when I’m leaving Southside in the morning, headed for the Loop, I feel like I’m leaving Planet Black and landing on Planet White.
Barack: Come on. You got wooed just like me. You got wined and dined. You saw the corporate culture, the racial culture. You knew the score and you still said yes.

Barack: I’m not suggesting you silence yourself at work. I’m just wondering why you chose to work at a corporate firm where you knew your silence would be expected. And, really, what I’m wondering is why you’re wasting the fight you have inside you on battles you can’t win and issues you don’t care about.
Michelle: Excuse me? You think because we spend one afternoon together and you tried to buy me a sandwich, you’re entitled to pass judgment on the choices I made in my life? You think I’m wasting my life.
Barack: Now, I never used those words.
Michelle: You didn’t have to use those words. You used other ones, and they stung just as much.
Barack: Why? If you really loved what you were doing, would you be bothered by what I said? No. You’d tell me to go screw myself and you’d go on your merry way making tons of cash and doing trademark law for the rest of your life.
Michelle: And how do you know that’s not exactly what I plan to do?
Barack: Because you spent two years of law school in Gannett House working pro bono cases for poor single moms. And my guess is that it kills you to know you can’t put the same passion and intelligence towards cases that actually mean something.
Michelle: You’re more than welcome to pass judgment on your own father. You know what? You’re more than welcome to pass judgment on me. But quite frankly, it sounds like you know me about as little as you knew him.
Barack: Michelle…
Michelle: And the biggest offense is this is coming from a guy who quit community organizing for Harvard Law only to take a summer position at the same corporate firm he’s railing against. Now that is the height of hypocrisy.

Barack [at a meeting to get a Community Center for the kids]: Harold Washington was one of the reasons I moved to Chicago. When I first came here, every barber shop and chicken shack on the Southside had a squeaky-clean picture of him hanging up on the wall for everyone to see. Chicago’s first black mayor…But even Mayor Washington disappointed in some respects. He had to face the great truth of our country…that it’s not easy to get things done. You know, the founders made it that way on purpose. They made it messy so that no one law, no one government, no one man, could decide the fate of everything and everyone. In very simple terms, we got a heck of a lot of different people with a heck of a lot of different agendas. But I also believe that people, most people, are basically, at their core, good people. So, if at first we don’t understand their agenda, city council, the aldermen, and the state senator we have to try our hardest to understand who they are and what they need. We have to let go of judgment.[/b]

For some of course that explains a lot. His entire administration for example.

[b]Michelle: Okay, so what about that moment in the church before the meeting?
Barack: Which?
Michelle: I think Bernadette said it about you finally dating a sister.
Barack: Who knows with those two? They love to gossip.
Michelle: Is it true?
Barack: Is what true?
Michelle: That you never date black women?
Barack: Not true.
Michelle: But you did date white women.
Barack: I’ve dated a couple white women, yes.
Michelle: Which do you prefer? Come on, buster. Now it’s your turn to ante up.

Barack: So, why did you come to Chicago?
Michelle: To try and make a difference. Thought I would, too. Thought maybe I’d work civil cases. Help women, empower them. Being at that meeting today aroused some of those old dreams. Lit some kind of fire. But those last couple years, the corporate firms
descend upon the campus like a pack of wolves. And they’re so appealing. I wanted to be in a position to pay off my loans, pay my folks back, live a little, enjoy life.
Barack: There’s nothing wrong with that.
Michelle: There’s nothing wrong with it until there is.
Barack: Yeah, I know what you mean. I just feel like something else is pulling at me. I wonder if I can write books or hold a position of influence in civil rights.
Michelle: Politics?
Barack: Maybe.

Avery: What did you think of the film?
Michelle: What did I think? I liked it.
Avery: Well, all the hoopla leading up to it, I had to see for myself.
Michelle: Oh, what did you think?
Avery: Compelling, though the ending was puzzling and more than a little infuriating.

Barack: So, you got around to seeing the movie, I take it.
Avery: Yes, yes, we did. In fact, I was just explaining to Michelle how angry that ending made me. Why would the deliveryman have thrown the trash can through his employer’s window? He must have known his actions would cause the mob to riot. It seemed totally irrational.
Barack: Let me put it to you another way, Avery. If Mookie hadn’t thrown the trash can, maybe the crowd would have turned on Sal and his sons. So, instead of the store being destroyed, they might be dead. And Mookie knew the insurance would cover the damage to the store. He was saving Sal’s life.

Barack [to Michelle after Avery had left]: You know I only said that to make Avery feel better. Mookie threw that trash can because he was fucking angry. What a coincidence seeing him here. That’s really wild.
Michelle: It wasn’t a coincidence. It was cosmic justice. I knew damn well going out with you was the wrong thing to do and don’t even try to convince me otherwise, Barack, because there’s nothing you can say.
Barack: Nothing?[/b]

The blind man puts it this way: “There is nothing a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no god.”

You either grasp the full implications of this [philosophically or otherwise] or you don’t. Out in the real world, for example. After all, with God there is no question of something being good or evil. And there is no possibilty of getting away with something that is deemed to be evil by God. And there is absolutely no possibility of not being punished for it.

In not existing, God is everything here.

Now, it is clearly evil to rob the blind man. But the blind man has money and you need money. You rationalize it. Only it turns out this is no ordinary blind man. In fact he is rather extraordinary. And what some would call extraordinarily evil. Blind or not. He is the man – the nihilist – who thinks through the moral consequences of living in a Godless universe. In fact, it is always what he wants that jump starts morality.

In other words, he’s got his reasons for kidnapping the woman. And, from his point of view, it is entirely just. In fact, he is careful to draw any number of lines that others might find commendable.

One of those horror classics in which, in an amoral world, the monster is the man.

IMDb

[b]Stephen Lang only has about thirteen lines of dialogue in the whole movie (most of which comes near the end of the film.

The film’s budget was less than $10 million. Two months after release it grossed over $140 million.

The contents of the turkey baster: director Alvarez said he used the same contents the x-rated film industry uses.

Exterior shots of the house were filmed in Detroit. Interior shots were filmed 4500 miles away in Pomaz, Hungary - near Budapest. [/b]

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Breathe
trailer: youtu.be/76yBTNDB6vU

DON’T BREATHE [2016]
Written in part and directed by Fede Alvarez

[b]Alex: Is that a new tattoo?
Rocky: Yeah. I got it last night. Ladybug.
Alex: Why a ladybug?
Rocky: When my dad left, my mom started drinking and she told me that my dad’s leaving was all my fault. And I missed him a lot so, I’d cry. She got so fed up with the crying that she would lock me in the trunk of her car. Sometimes for hours. But there is this uh… a little hole in the trunk and one time a ladybug flew in. It kept me company. It made me feel safe.

Rocky: Wait, is he blind?
Alex: He has lost his sight in Iraq or something.
Rocky: It’s kind of fucked up to rob a blind guy, isn’t it?
Money: Just because he’s blind don’t mean he’s a fucking saint.

The Blind Man: Who…who’s there?

Money [after the blind man takes the gun]: Please, just…let me walk. Let me walk. Leave me alive.
The Blind Man: How many of you are there? How many?
Money: It’s just me, man, alright? It’s just fucking me. Just let me go! Please, just let me go… Just… let me go.

Cindy [bound and gagged in the cellar…muffling]: Help me! Please help me…
Alex [to Rocky]: We need to get the fuck out of here right now.[/b]

This cellar is straight out of Silence Of the Lambs: a character in the film itself.

[b]Rocky [looking at newspaper headline – Cindy Roberts Found Innocent Of Vehicular Manslaughter]: She’s the one who killed his daughter, Alex.

Rocky: What are you doing?
Alex: I’m pressing the panic button. That means you get in range, the system will call 911 to the police.
Rocky: Alex: No, wait. We can’t go to jail.
Alex: No, we won’t. Okay, this is robbery versus kidnap and murder. The police won’t care about us or why we’re here in the first place. Who’d have lead them get this guy.
Rocky: But then we couldn’t keep the money.

The Blind Man [switching off the light as the cellar goes pitch black]: Now you’re gonna see what I see.

Rocky [replacing Cindy in the blind man’s narrative]: Please, let me go. Please, let me go. I…I understand you. She killed your daughter. You wanted her to pay. I understand that. I won’t tell anyone.
The Blind Man: You understand nothing.

The Blind Man: She should have gone to prison, but rich girls don’t go to jail.
Rocky: None of this is is going to bring your daughter back.
The Blind Man: That’s not really true. Cindy took my child away from me. I thought it’s only fair that she give me a new one. She was pregnant with my baby. You killed them both. You have to held accountable.

Rocky [staring up towards the heavens]: God. Please, God.
The Blind Man: God? There’s no God. It’s a joke. A bad joke. You tell me what God would allow this.

Rocky [as her body is being hoisted up]: What are you doing?
The Blind Man: I’m not a rapist. I never forced myself on her.
Rocky: Stop.
The Blind Man: I promised I would set her free just as soon as she gave me a child. And now she’s gone.

Rocky [as the Blind Man prepares the turkey baster]: You can’t do this to me.
The Blind Man: There is nothing a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no god.

The Blind Man: Nine months and I will give you your life back.

Reporter [on TV]: A retired army vet who fought for our country in Iraq and lost his sight as a result of a grenade splinter. Last night, 2 burglars broke into his home and attempted to rob and brutally attacked him. This visually impaired man was able to defend himself, shooting and killing both of his attackers on the spot. Now, the man did sustain some injuries but doctors say he is in stable condition. He’ll be released from the hospital soon and able to return to his home. No goods were reported stolen by the victim.[/b]

Sequel? You bet.

A sequel isn’t set up, but the movie makes it clear that Lang’s character is still alive. As it turns out, director Fede Alvarez did set up a sequel in an end scene that got cut, in turn making the movie feel as though it was from the 70s or 80s and not a breeding ground for more movies to come. movieweb.com

Jim Cramer meet Lee Gates.

Mad Money meet Money Monster.

And while director Jodie Foster denies that Lee is based on Jim, no one in the known universe takes that seriously. Unless of course it’s actually true.

So the first thing you find yourself wondering is whether or not something like this could actually happen. After all, money [either mad or monstrous] can bring out the very worst in us. Even among those who imagine that it is bringing out the very best instead.

There’s the politics of money, sure, but there is also the manner in which each of us as individuals will construct very own personal narrative, our very own personal agenda with respect to either earning it or using it.

Or [of course] losing it.

As a consequence, some [inevitably] will go off the deep end. For example, Kyle Budwell, who as “an irate investor who has lost everything forcefully takes over their studio.” Only Kyle is no Marxist revolutionary. He’s not here to Occupy Wall Street. He’s just pissed off because he made a shitty investment. He lost 60 grand on Walt and Ibis.

Lots of us no doubt have fantasized about doing something like this. Taking over one or another media component of “the system” and letting everyone know what is really going on in the world. In particular, how the “little guy” is always being fucked over but how now at least the “little guy” is fighting back. But the bottom line here is that it’s not really about “the system”. It’s not crony capitalism or political economy so much as the Bernie Madoff rotten apples.

Then there’s the reality of making money in a world in which the technology [and enormously convoluted algorithm contraptions] used to create and then to facilitate the transactions can create complexities that are far, far, far beyond the comprehension of your average citizen. Not to mention your average facilitator in Washington.

Finally, this is one of those film where we can pin down the precise moment when it jumps the shark.

Right, Mr. Wonderful?

at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_Monster
trailer: youtu.be/qr_nGAbFkmk

MONEY MONSTER [2016]
Directed by Jodie Foster

Lee [on TV]: Okay, here we go. Are you listening? Are you paying attention out there? Good. Because it’s about to get complicated, so I’m gonna start out slow and make it nice and simple for you. You don’t have a clue where your money is. See, once upon a time, you could walk into your bank, and they’d open a vault and point to a gold brick. Not anymore. Your money - that thing that you bust your ass for - it’s nothing more than a few photons of energy traveling through a massive network of fiber optic cables. Why’d we do it? We did it to make it go faster. Because your money better be fast - faster than the other guy’s. But if you want faster markets with faster trades, faster profits, faster everything, sometimes you’re gonna blow a tire. And that is exactly what happened yesterday at 1:07 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.

Cue Wolf Bilzter with another “fake news” story: Walt Camby and IBIS Clear Capital

[b]Diane: Lee has read the talking points, right? Because I’m in a tough position here, and I just want to make sure that he sticks to the script.
Patty: He will. You know us, Diane. We don’t do “gotcha” journalism here. Hell, we don’t do journalism, period.

Lee: The name is Lee Gates. The show is Money Monster, the day is Friday, and the Dow has dropped a seismic seven points this morning. So what does that mean for the market…Should you…or should you? And the answer is, who cares about the Dow? It’s a measly 30 companies. So why do you people keep paying attention to it? Well, probably because our network insists on tracking it. Right here at the bottom of the screen in large font all day. And why do they do that? Because you people keep paying so much attention to it.

Lee [on the air]: The name is Lee Gates, the show is Money Monster. Without risk, there is no reward. Should I sell? Should I unload? GET SOME BALLS!

Lee [taking a vest packed with explosives out of a box]: How do I know it won’t blow up?
Kyle: 'Cause I have the detonator. All right? If my thumb comes off this trigger, then we all explode.
Lee: What if your thumb gets tired?
Kyle: You better hope it don’t.

Patty [to the crew]: Okay, listen up, everybody. If you’re not manning a camera or a boom, get out right now. Stop what you’re doing. If you’re not core-one control room, get going. Don’t look up. Just go. Right now.

Kyle [to the camera]: All right. I want everyone to know something. I might be the one with the gun here, but I’m not the real criminal. It’s people like these guys! They’re stealing everything from us and they’re getting away with it, too. Nobody’s asking how. Nobody’s asking why…You got to open your eyes out there. It’s not like the government’s no help. How they just look the other way, since after they’re done stealing our money, they barely even have to pay any taxes on it! I’m telling you, it’s rigged. The whole goddamn thing. They’re stealing the country out from under us. Not the Muslims. Not the Chinese. Them. It’s all fixed. They like how the math adds up, so they got to keep rewriting the equation. Which means, the one time you finally get a little extra money, you try and be smart about it, you turn on the TV. Boom. That’s how they fucking take it. They take it so fast they don’t even have to explain it! They literally own the airwaves. They literally control the information. But not today.

Kyle: You must think I’m so stupid. Trying to fucking buy me off. I’m not stupid, Lee. I walked in here knowing there was only one way this show was gonna end. I came in here knowing I’m not walking out.

Lee: It was a computer glitch.
Kyle: A glitch! A glitch! It was a fucking glitch! A glitch! Shut up about the glitch! All right? What the hell does that even mean? You see, you don’t even know. I’m not stupid, Lee. I told you. People just at home accepting this shit, they’re the stupid ones, because somehow these clowns lost $800 million overnight. Overnight. And nobody’s even actually explained how. How is something like that even possible, huh? How is that even fair? How’s that fair? It’s not a rhetorical question. I want a fucking answer.

Kyle: Two people I came here to talk to. Him and Walt fucking Camby.
Patty [in the control booth]: All right, well, then let’s get him Walt fucking Camby already.
Lee: All right, so let’s get him Walt fucking Camby already.
Patty: Right. Exactly. Throw him under the bus.
Lee: Look, he was supposed to be here today. He didn’t show up. It’s his company. It’s his crash. So let’s see what he has to say.

Captain Powell: Are you proposing we shoot the star of a TV show live, on air, in front of millions of people?
Detective: Yeah.

Lee: Where are your quants, Diane? Where are your quants?
Patty [from the control booth]: That’s good. Go with that. Get an answer.
Lee: The quants you used. The guy who actually designed the algorithm that crashed. Where is he? Is he in that building right there behind you? 'Cause I think I’d like to ask him a few questions.

Diane [from Ibis headquarters]: What happened?
Patty: He just shot out your monitor on the stage because you’re giving him the same corporate bullshit!

Kyle: You really gonna stand there in your $1,000 suit and compare scores with me? Huh? My honest job pays me $14 an hour, you cocksucker. So let’s start there. You know how far $14 an hour gets you here in New York? Huh? You know how much of that is left after I pay my rent and all my fucking bills? I keep paddling as hard as I can just to stay above water. It takes everything I got! And that’s before the kid gets here. How the hell am I gonna supposed to support him, huh? How am I gonna take care of him?

Won Joon [on phone]: Listen, lady, I’m not getting mixed up in all this. I was hired to design a program. My job was about data. It was about math. It was about theoreticals. That’s it.
Diane: Yes, but this glitch was still a result of a program you designed.
Won Joon: Wrong. It’s user error. They’re only calling it a glitch because nobody understands how the algo works. And if nobody can understand the math, then nobody has to explain the money.
Diane: Well, that’s why I’m calling you. I want to understand.
Won Joon: Fine. Algorithms make patterns, they don’t break them. And this algo was designed to move in and out of hundreds of positions in fractions of seconds.
Diane: Right.
Won Joon: What it wasn’t designed to do is consume large amounts of capital, accumulate leveraged positions or hold a portfolio for any extended period of time.
Diane: Wait. What does that mean?
Won Joon: It means there is no way that this algorithm could lose $800 million in one afternoon. It is literally a mathematical impossibility. So whatever went wrong, whatever investment went haywire, it’s not the computer’s fault. There’s human fingerprints all over this.
Diane: Whose fingerprints?
Won Joon: Like I said, I don’t want to get involved in this.
Diane: Is there anything you can give me?
Won Joon: Do the math. You can’t find your boss, and he can’t find $800 million.

Captain: If we take out the receiver on Gates’ chest, what’s his chance of survival?
Swat team member: 80% that he makes it.
Captain: Okay. What’s the chance the bullet’s on target?
Swat team member: If it’s a clean shot, 100%.
Swat team member: 100%. Come on, let’s be realistic here.
Swat team member: I am being. Listen, 80% sounds about right to us, to an officer.
Captain: 80%. So we got an 80% chance of an 80% chance.

Patty [in control room]: Lee, Walt Camby has landed. He’s on his way to Federal Hall. He’ll be there in less than 20 minutes. And get this. He wasn’t in Geneva yesterday. He was in South Africa. So he lied to you. He lied to us. He’s been lying this whole time. That means you’ve been lying, too, Lee. To everybody that’s been watching. To Kyle.
Lee: Oh, my God.

Ron [on phone]: Patty! I just left the SEC. I’ve been trying to call you.
Patty: Yeah, Ron, listen.
Ron: Yeah, they got nothing over here.
Patty: What?
Ron: Ibis’s algorithm trades in dark pools, so all their transactions are concealed. The one thing I was able to find out was, on the day of the crash, Ibis’s transaction volume dropped by nearly 90%.
Patty: What does that mean?
Ron: I don’t know.

Patty [into Lee’s earpiece]: Ibis is a pig in a prom dress, Lee.

Lee: You tried to convince us it’s all too complicated for us to understand. But it’s not that complicated at all, is it? It’s actually the oldest story in the book. Fraud. You took money out of your fund and you invested it here.
Patty: Go.
Lee: Right here in platinum mines in South Africa. Does that sound familiar?
Walt: I don’t have our portfolio in front of me. I can’t exactly…
Lee: You really need your portfolio to know where you put $800 million?
Walt: I don’t put that much money anywhere. The algorithms control our day-to-day…
Lee: But that’s not how high-frequency trading is supposed to work, is it? They don’t just put that much money in one place and just leave it there, do they? It wasn’t the algos pullin’ the strings, it was you.

Kyle: You’re a thief, Walt. And a crook. And I want to hear you admit it.
Walt: I didn’t steal a dime and we didn’t do anything illegal.
Kyle: Bullshit! You manipulated stock prices. You bribed people. You broke the law.
Wat: What law? Name one law you can prove I broke. No, don’t look at Lee. He can’t prove it, either. This is just business. And this is how business is done.
Kyle: That doesn’t make it right.
Walt: Oh, please. Tell that to the Chinese. Tell that to the Russians. 'Cause if it’s not us, it’s gonna be them. Hell, it already is. You see, that’s the irony about all this. You only came after me ‘cause I lost you money. Nobody was asking questions when everybody was makin’ a profit. You just gobbled up every dollar of stock you could afford. As long as we kept paying you 18% ROI every year, then you could keep bragging to your friends about what a genius you are. But, hey, you’re not a genius, you’re a stockholder.

Kyle [waving the gun]: I told you what I want.
Walt: Yeah, I get it. You want a profit. That’s what everybody wants.
Kyle: No, that’s not what I want…I want to hear you admit it, you son of a bitch!
Lee: I think he just did.
Kyle: No, I want to hear him say that he lied, that what he did was wrong.
Walt: Wrong? What does that even mean, wrong?
Kyle: You got three seconds till I blow your ass outta this goddamn building.
Kyle: Three.
Walt: What’s wrong with makin’ a profit? What’s wrong with being faster…
Kyle: Two!
Walt: What’s wrong with betting big? Winning isn’t wrong…
Kyle: One!
Walt: Fine! It was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong.
Kyle: That’s all I wanted to hear, man.[/b]