Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Ah, the modern world. There are so many things that one can become addicted to. But there are also so many reasons you might want to be. Or even need to be if things get bad enough. Then it only comes down to calculating whether or not the addiction has made things better or worse. Not that you won’t find many conflicting points of view regarding each and every one of them.

Same with dreams. Lots of new things in the world now to dream about. But lots of reasons that the dreams might crumble. So lots of requiems are needed for them.

As for real dope [and real dope addictions] we can either relate to them “in reality” or we cannot. So much revolves around options. And it’s not like those who calculate the pros and the cons are necessarily fools. Though here there do not seem to be many who aren’t going down that path. And age can sometimes have nothing to do with it. You either hanker for a more rewarding future or hanker for a return to a once more rewarding past. When you fall short though you sometimes need a little help from your friends.

If only to help you deal with all the hucksters hell bent on ripping you off. Besides, if there weren’t so many things out there that make you feel bad, you wouldn’t need to become addicted to all the things that make you feel good. And sometimes you feel particularly bad. So you need something bigger, something stronger to make you feel good. We all do our own calibrations here.

But Jesus it is hard – really, really hard – to watch these folks fall apart. Wait until they get to the part about Harry’s arm. Or the part where Sara gets zapped. Or the part where Marion goes ass to ass. Or the part where Tyrone wakes up in the cell.

But don’t forget your Tappy Juice!

During Ellen Burstyn’s impassioned monologue about how it feels to be old, cinematographer Matthew Libatique accidentally let the camera drift off-target. When director Darren Aronofsky called “cut” and confronted him about it, he realized the reason Libatique had let the camera drift was because he had been crying during the take and fogged up the camera’s eyepiece. This was the take used in the final print.

Most movies contain 600 to 700 cuts. Requiem For a Dream contains over 2,000.

When Ellen Burstyn first read the script offered by Darren Aronofsky, she was horrified by it and rejected the role. It was not until after she watched a video of Pi (1998) Aronofsky’s previous film - that she changed her mind and accepted the role.

The Tappy Tibbons material was shot in one day, with Christopher McDonald improvising a good deal of his material. At the end, the SAG extras for the audience and the crew all gave him a standing ovation. IMDb


Requiem For a Dream

Sara Goldfarb [Mom]: Harold, please, not again the TV.
Harry: Ma! Come on, Ma! Why do you have to make a big deal outta this? You know you’ll get the set back in a couple of hours.

Let's synchronize our smart phones.

Tyrone [about the TV]: Shit, this muthafucka’s startin’ to look a little seedy, man.
Harry: What’s the matter, you particular all the sudden?
Tyrone: Hey, baby, I don’t care if the motherfucker’s growing hair just so long as we get our bread.

The bottom line let's call it. One of them, anyway.

Mr Rabinowitz [to Harry]: Such a son. Your mother needs you like a moose needs a hat rack.

Hell, that can't be much.

Marion [to Harry]: What’s the catch?

Ass to ass eventually.

Marion [after Harry tells her she’s beautiful]: That’s nice, Harry. Other people have told me that before, and it was meaningless. When you say it, I hear it. I really hear it.

Right, like it's actually debatable.

Harry: Look, this is our chance to make it big. We play it right, we can get a pound of pure. But if we get wasted…we’ll fuck it up.
Tyrone: Right on. Hey, look, I ain’t trying to jive you, Jim. I don’t wanna be runnin’ the streets my whole life, my nose runnin’ down to my chin. All I’m sayin’ is take a little taste so we know how much to cut. It’s business.
Harry: Yeah, fair enough.

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, besides what actually does?

Sara [about her diet pills]: Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon, orange in the evening. There’s my three meals. And green at night. Just like that. One, two, three, four.

Time to make another score.

Harry: I’ve been thinking about getting something for Ma. Like a present or something. But I didn’t know what I was gonna get, until now.
Marion: And?
Harry: And I finally asked myself, right, what’s her fix? Television, right? If ever there’s a TV junkie, it’s the old lady.

On the other hand, come on, what else is there.

Tappy Tibbons: Now we come to step three. This…drives…most…people…crazy.

Step 1: No red meat. Step 2: No refined sugar. Step 3: No....?

Harry: Hey, Ma. You on uppers?
Sara: What?
Harry: You’re on uppers. You’re on diet pills, ain’t you?
Sara: I told you. I’m going to a specialist.
Harry: That’s what I thought! You’re on speed, ain’t ya?
Sara: Harry, I’m goin’ to a doctor.
Harry: Does he give you pills? What kind of pills?
Sara: A purple, a blue, an orange…
Harry: No, I mean, like what’s in 'em?
Sara: Oh, Harry, I’m Sara Goldfarb, not Albert Einstein. How should I know?
Harry: Does it make you feel good and give you pep?
Sara: Well…yeah, a little.
Harry: Ma, I can hear ya grinding your teeth from here!
Sara: That goes away at night.
Harry: At night?
Sara: Yeah, when I take the green one. 30 minutes I’m asleep. Poof.
Harry: Ma, Ma, ya gotta cut that stuff loose. You wanna be a dope fiend?
Sara: Dope fiend? Am I foaming at the mouth? He’s a nice doctor.
Harry: I am telling you, he’s no good.
Sara: How come you know so much? How come you know more than a doctor?
Harry: Believe me, Ma, I know.

Cue that fucking hole in his arm. Before they cut it off.

Sara: Did you see who had the best seat? I’m somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon…millions of people will see me on TV and they’ll all like me. I’ll tell them about you… and your father. How good he was to us. Remember? It’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It’s a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow alright.
[a big sigh]
Sara: What have I got, Harry? Hmm? Why should I even make the bed or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I’m alone. Your father’s gone, you’re gone. I got no one to…care for. What have I got, Harry? I’m lonely. I’m old.

Let's run this by...me?

Marion [to Harry]: Maybe we should dip in now.

Dipping in here?

Harry [to Marion]: What was I supposed to do, watch you push off and not go myself?

Pushing off here?

Tyrone: You got your good news, you got your bad news.
Harry: Shoot.
Tyrone: Good news is, there’s gonna be some prime on the street.
Harry: Really? Who told you that?
Tyrone: Angel. Sal the Geep sent word to let a couple of keys go for Christmas, him being a good Christian and all, not wantin’ bad feelin’ during the season.
Harry: You believe it?
Tyrone: Well, I did…till I heard the bad news.

It'll cost them. And then some.

Harry: How much?
Tyrone: Two.
Harry: Two? That’s fuckin’ insane!
Tyrone: What you gonna do? Man ain’t gonna lay no nickel bag on ya.
Harry: Where we gonna get two?!

Take a wild guess...

Marion: Getting the money is not the problem, Harry.
Harry: What is the problem?
Marion: I don’t know what I’ll have to do to get it.

Ass to ass?

Harry [about the failed drug score]: Some dumbass junkie!
Marion: Did what? Some dumbass junkie did what? You mean, you fucked it up!
Harry: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Marion: You promised me that everything was gonna be ok, remember? I fucked that sleaze bag for you, then I put myself through fucking hell for you!
Harry: There's nothing out there!
Marion: I don’t give a shit! You fucking loser!

Cue Big Tim.

Tyrone [looking at Harry’s festering arm]: Oh, shit! God damn! How long you had that?
Harry: Just a few days.
Tyrone: That shit don’t look too good.
Harry: It don’t feel too good either, man. But a little stuff will take care of that.
Tyrone: Hey! Don’t shoot in there!
Harry: I’ll blow it if I don’t. Fuck it.

Famous last words, among other things.

Hank [to Marion]: Oh, I know it’s pretty, baby, but I didn’t take it out for air.

You can say that again.

Court Doctor [repeatedly]: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Prisoner: Yes, sir.
Court Doctor: OK for work.
Court Doctor [arriving at Tyrone’s place in the line]: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Tyrone [nods, whispering]: Yes, sir, yes, sir.
Prison Guard [hits Tyrone in the face]: Say “sir!” God damn New York dope fiend niggers. Learn some manners!
Court Doctor: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Tyrone [louder] Yes, sir.
Court Doctor: OK for work.
[moving to Harry]
Court Doctor: Can you hear me? Can you see me?
Prison Guard: Says he’s got something wrong with his arm.
[the doctor grabs Harry’s arm and turns over the wound, causing him to scream in pain]
Court Doctor: I don’t think you’ll be puttin’ any more dope in that arm.
Prison Guard: Smells worse than he do.
Court Doctor: Better get him over to the hospital. I don’t expect him to live out the week.

You tell me.

Big Tim: Fellas, meet Marion.
Uncle Hank: Ass to ass.

That ever happen to you?

Harry [waking up after his arm was amputated]: Marion? Marion?
Nurse: Don’t worry, you’re in a hospital.
Harry: Marion?
Nurse: Who’s that? She’ll be sent for, she’ll come.
Harry: No… she won’t.
Nurse: She’ll come.
Harry [crying]: No… she won’t come.

Would you?

[iambiguous]

Abyss

“While we are looking for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, that is, the 'new', which can only be found by plunging deep into the Unknown, we have to go on exploring sex, books, and travel, although we know that they lead us to the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where the antidote can be found.” Roberto Bolano

Well, that and God.
Just make sure you worship and adore the right one.

“The abyss doesn't stare back. It winks.” Kresley Cole

Don't you just hate that?

“Put a man on the brink of the abyss and - in the unlikely event that she doesn't fall into it - he will become a mystic or a madman...Which is probably the same thing!” Apostolos Doxiadis

What's that make me then, he wondered.

“My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss.” Edvard Munch

Start here: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=e ... =599&dpr=1

“I gazed upon the earth and saw that a body, in its tender faithlessness, had located it in the sky. A splendid scarf of blood, looming above the abyss.” Joe Bousquet

Or, sure, below it.

"...as if the next thing must quickly come along to occupy her, or the abyss might open. What abyss? The abyss that waits for all of us, when all our actions seem futile, when the ability to fill the day seems stalled, and the waiting takes on an edge of dread. ” Anita Brookner

See, I told you.

[iambiguous]

Sooner or later the “period pieces” always seem to get around to this: upstairs, downstairs.

Not so much here though. Here it is more upstairs but not upstairs anymore.

Now, people being people there will always be aspects of this where not much changes. They just engage in the same conflicts in different sets of circumstances. Being rich or almost being poor. Relatively speaking of course. On the other hand, back then there wasn’t nearly as much in the way of a “middle class”. Not in how we construe that in the “modern world”. For one thing, there was considerably less “mobility” afforded those who wished to climb the stairs. Often things were more, say, Platonic: gold folks, silver folks and bronze folks. And those who were for all intents and purposes wage slaves. But again nothing really about them here.

Sometimes though folks who once had access to money find themselves “by law” without it. Or with considerably less of it. By way of, for example, a particular last will and testament. That alas was the fate of Elinor, Marianne and Margaret.

And, as Darien Taylor once pointed out: " find that when you’ve had money and lost it, it can be much worse than never having had it at all!"

And, no, Bud Fox’s protestation to the contrary, that is not necessarily “bullshit” at all. Fortunately for them not all the men back then were assholes.

And there is no way around it: folks who write these books and make these films are going to be viewing all of this through the lens of their own sense and their own sensibilities. They pass judgments. In other words, just as we do. It’s just that some insist there is a way in which to derive the most rational sense and sensibility of them all.

And that is before we get to the part about “love”. That and “gender”. To be or not to be a “romantic”. In particular regarding the relationship between love and money. Always more complicated than many profess to believe. Or pretend to believe.

Emma Thompson has recounted how during the scene where Colonel Brandon, on horseback, approaches Elinor and Marianne in the out-of-doors, many takes were ruined by the horse surrendering to a bout of flatulence. Eventually, they were forced to shoot the scene with the farting horse as the flatulence would not abate, and the rather loud reports later were edited out of the soundtrack. IMDb

No shit?


Sense and Sensibility

Mr. Dashwood: John you will find out soon enough from my will that the estate of Norland was left to me in such a way as prevents me from dividing it between my families.
John: Calm yourself, Father. This is not good for you.
Mr. Dashwood: Norland in its entirety is therefore yours by law and I am happy for you and Fanny. But your stepmother my wife and daughters are left with only five hundred pounds a year, barely enough to live on and nothing for the girls’ dowries. You must help them.

Bummer.

Fanny [to John]: People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them.

Define "forever"?

Elinor [sister]: Marianne, can you play something else? Mamma has been weeping since breakfast.
[Elinor exits; Marianne switches to a dirge]
Elinor [from the other room]: I meant something LESS mournful, dearest.

Dirge: https://youtu.be/GhFIc994bB8?si=2PMoM0Ae4Y7J_pea

Margaret: Why are John and Fanny coming to live at Norland? They already have a house in London.
Elinor: Because houses go from father to son, dearest not from father to daughter. It is the law.

And no doubt still is in some places.

Marianne: Fanny wishes to know where the key to the silver cabinet is kept.
Elinor: Betsy has it, I think. What does Fanny want with the silver?
Marianne: One can only presume she wants to count it.

What would you presume?

Fanny: They’re all exceedingly spoilt, I find. Miss Margaret spends all her time up trees and under furniture. I’ve barely had a civil word from Marianne.
Edward: My dear Fanny, they’ve just lost their father. Their lives will never be the same again.

Mine was.

Elinor: Margaret has always wanted to travel.
Edward: I know. She’s, eh, heading an expedition to China shortly. I am to go as her servant, but only on the understanding that I am to be very badly treated.
Elinor: What will your duties be?
Edward: Sword fighting, obviously, administering rum and swabbing.
Elinor: Which of those duties will take precedence?
Edward: Swabbing, I imagine.

Just out of curiosity, who swabs here?

Elinor: You talk of feeling idle and useless. Imagine how that is compounded when one has no hope and no choice of any occupation whatsoever.
Edward: Our circumstances are therefore precisely the same.
Elinor: Except that you will inherit your fortune. We cannot even earn ours.

Come on, is that fair?

Mrs. Dashwood: Why so grave? You disapprove her choice?
Marianne: By no means. Edward is very amiable.
Mrs. Dashwood: Amiable? But…?
Marianne: But there is something wanting. He’s too sedate. His reading last night…
Mrs. Dashwood: But Elinor has not your feelings. His reserve suits her.
Marianne: Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise.
Mrs. Dashwood: They made rather pathetic ends, dear.
Marianne: Pathetic? To die for love? How can you say so? What could be more glorious?
Mrs. Dashwood: I think that would be taking your romantic sensibilities a little far.

Beyond the pale, as it were?

Elinor: I do not attempt to deny that I think very highly of him, that I… greatly esteem him… I like him.
Marianne: “Esteem him?” “Like him?” Use those insipid words again and I shall leave the room this instant!

Any insipid words here?

Fanny: Love is all very well, but unfortunately we cannot always rely on the heart to lead us in the most suitable directions. You see, my dear Mrs Dashwood, Edward is entirely the kind of compassionate person upon whom penniless women can prey–and having entered into any kind of understanding, he would never go back on his word. He is quite simply incapable of doing so. But it would lead to his ruin. I worry for him so, Mrs Dashwood. My mother has always made it perfectly plain that she will withdraw all financial support from Edward, should he choose to plant his affections in less… exalted ground than he deserves.
Mrs. Dashwood [acidly]: I understand you perfectly.

She's in on it?

Elinor: Whatever his past actions, whatever his present course, at least you may be certain that he loved you.
Marianne: But not enough. Not enough.

Not enough love here either. Uh, let's keep it that way?

Marianne: Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?

Click, of course.

Elinor: What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I’ve had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you!

Who shall we bind to silence here? In case that ever becomes an option.

Elinor: Poor Willoughby. He will always regret you.
Marianne: But does it follow that, had he chosen me, he would have been content? He would have had a wife he loved, but no money, and might soon have learned to rank the demands of his pocketbook far above the demands of his heart. If his present regrets are half as painful as mine, he will suffer enough.
Elinor Dashwood: Do you compare your conduct with his?
Marianne: No, I compare it with what it ought to have been. I compare it with yours.

That's how it works alright.

Elinor: Mama, there is a painful difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty.

Excruciating at times.

[iambiguous]

Sex

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.” Richard P. Feynman

Someone run this by Satyr.

“Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or--such is the pleasure they experience--they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.” Paulo Coelho

Let alone 20 or more. And then this part:

"You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out. But whole species of feeling. John Fowles

“Flirting is a woman’s trade, one must keep in practice.” Charlotte Brontë

Some things just never change. At least until they do.

“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.” Jack Kerouac

Fuck that?

“Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.” Roberto Bolano

A lot of good that does us six feet under.

“But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about.” Gabriel García Márquez

Any women like that here?

[iambiguous]

The king is [sort of] insane. The beautiful queen is not. The handsome doctor is always around. Thus “a royal affair”. In some ways like all other affairs, in some ways not. But you might have guessed that.

Based on a true story. Though surely embellished. Aren’t they all? After all, what do most of us know about the actual historical fact. Events can be…enhanced.

But it is always intriguing to imagine what it must have been like to be ruled by a king who was going out of his mind. It’s not like you can just impeach him, remove him from office and then reelect his replacement. The man is thought to be ruling “divinely”. Or most of them were. So it gets tricky.

Basically you can think of the King here as we once thought of Dubya Bush. Being led by the nose [up to a point] by court officials [The Council] one might liken to Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. Just give him things to sign. Point him in the right direction.

And if you are the queen, you also have to deal with all that more…intimate stuff.

What’s just as crucial here though is the historical juncture in which the events unfold. Capitalism [and the Protestant Reformation] is about to unleash The Enlightenment across all of Europe. Change of truly epic proportion is now on the horizon.

Bottom line: that might still makes right. In other words, the way it has always been. Or the way it has always been if the [political and economic] stakes are high enough.


A Royal Affair [En Kongelig Affære] 

Title card: Europe at the close of the 18th century. The nobility rules by oppression, supported by strong religious forces. But the winds of change are blowing. Across the continent intellectuals and freethinkers demand reforms and freedom for the people. It is the age of the Enlightenment.

Dasein on steroids, as it were.

Caroline [voiceover, writing a letter to her children]: My beloved children, you do not know me. But I am your mother. Perhaps you have never forgiven me. Perhaps you hate me. I hope not. I now know that I will never see you again. I am writing to tell you the truth, before it is too late…I was officially wed to your father, King Christian VII – before even meeting him. Even though I had never left England, I was now the Queen of Denmark. A new life and an entirely new language.

Yep, existentially, that's how it works alright.

Christian [interrupting his new queen playing the piano]: Thank you, that is quite enough! What? What? That insufferable noise is giving me a headache! Clang, clang, clang! Come on. Move your fat little thighs and have a seat next to me. Go on!

The first time it dawns on her that her new husband is…strange.

Caroline [voiceover]: I wish I’d had the strength to forgive Christian’s behavior. But I was too young to understand how sick and tormented he was. All I could think about was that I had to spend the rest of my life with him. I began hating him for it.

Of course, this still goes on in some parts of the world.

Caroline [now pregnant]: In the eyes of the Court, I was soon blessed. You were on your way, Frederik. Having fulfilled my main obligation as queen I saw no reason to maintain the facade. I would pay dearly for that.

Want to know what I paid dearly for?

Count [to Johann]: You’re a bit of a mystery, Struensee. Your father is one of Germany’s most conservative priests - and yet you insist on publishing praises to the French freethinkers. If you hadn’t written them anonymously, you’d be in prison.

If not dead as a doornail.

Johann: And what does a personal physician do? Blow the King’s nose or …?
Count: Lick his feet, wipe his ass. Who cares? It’s the King!

Or, rather, what's left of him.

Court official: You may have heard that the King has…certain moods.
Johann: Only rumors. Do you have a theory?
Court official: He’s been difficult since childhood. But I think most of his problems stem from excessive masturbation.

Is that even possible?

Johann: The Court thinks you need a doctor. Do you have any idea why?
Christian: I like to drink. I like hookers with big breasts, and I like fighting.
Johann: What’s wrong with that?
Christian: I am King!
Johann: What if you weren’t King. What would make you happy?

Nothing one suspects.

Christian: “To sleep, perchance to dream.”
Johann: “Often expectation fails and most often there, where most it promises.”
Christian: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Johann: “They have their exits and their entrances - and one man in his time plays many parts.”
Christian: “What a piece of work is a man.”
Johann: “There’s something rotten in the…”
Christian: No, I don’t like that one. Pick another. Come! A horse…
Johann: “My kingdom for a horse.”
Christian: “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”

Johann got the job. Less perhaps as the King’s physician than as his buddy.

Christian: Why does Copenhagen reek of shit? Shit, shit, shit I have the smell of shit in my nose, shit on my shoes. I am the King of Shit Town!!

What an insane thing to say?

Christian: The world is full of princesses, and I got stuck with the grumpy one. When she’s not playing Queen, she’s in her room sleeping.
Johann: Perhaps she’s ill.
Christian: Of course! She must be ill. No one can be that boring. Attend to her, Struensee…Make her fun. I want a fun queen!

Instead, he makes her pregnant.

Caroline [to Johann, examining one of his “hidden” books]: Rousseau. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.” May I borrow this?

Oh, yeah.

Johann: Do You ride, Your Majesty?
Caroline: Not if I can help it. It feels so clumsy.
Johann: That is because you use side-saddle.

If you get his drift.

Caroline: Locke and Voltaire are excellent. But some of the Enlightenment’s ideas are a bit extreme, don’t you think? Rousseau’s notion of abandoning civilization and living in trees.
Johann: He knows it’s not actually possible.
Caroline: But still.
Johann: I agree that some of society’s norms prevent people from living their lives.
Caroline: How so?
Johann: Religion. Marriage. Anything that takes away from personal freedom.
Caroline: Then don’t have children, Struensee.

Let's not go there.

Caroline [after finding a peasant tied to a “wooden horse”, tortured to death]: Is he dead?
Johann: Yes. He was punished by his master.
Caroline: Why was this done to him?
Johann: Why? I don’t know. Perhaps he stole something or was in the wrong place. But someone thought he should be tortured to death for it. There’s nothing we can do. The Court owns estates in this area. These peasants probably belong to someone we know.

That's just the way the cookie crumbled back then. 

Caroline: Do you think we’ll ever be free? The people, I mean. Mankind. Will your treasured Enlightenment free us from stupidity and fear of divine punishment?
Johann: I think so Yes. Frederik’s generation will be the standard bearer for a new dawn.
Caroline: So we should lie on our deathbeds and rejoice - as the new dawn passes us by? You will never see your brilliant ideas carried out.
Johann: At Court I have the authority of a mere maid.

What's passing me by these days? Like I would ever tell you.

Johann: Your majesty.
Caroline: You recognized me.
Johann: I would recognize you blindfolded.
Caroline: But your costume is not very imaginative.
Johann: I’m afraid I’m not very good at the masquerade.
Caroline: I believe this is the one night when everyone can be themselves.
[pause]
Caroline: But you never remove your mask. Do you?

Well, if only to put on another one.

Christian [to the Council]: I am king! Bernstorff you are relieved of your duties. And I declare…I declare the entire Council dissolved! On my order, the government of the country’s affairs is taken over - by a cabinet consisting of me and Johann Friedrich Struensee. Goodbye piss-ants.

Next up: the piss-ants here?

DECREE: DISSOLUTION OF THE STATE COUNCIL
Caroline [voiceover]: It was almost too good to be true. To see our thoughts and ideas become reality.
DECREE: GENERAL INOCULATION…ABOLITION OF
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT…ACCESS TO UNIVERSITY FOR ALL CITIZENS In the
Caroline [voiceover] The following months hundreds of laws were passed.
DECREE: GENERAL LICENSE TO PUBLISH
Caroline [voiceover]: Everything was possible.
DECREE: HOME FOR ORPHANED CHILDREN
Caroline [voiceiver]: Denmark had become a pioneering country admired across Europe.
DECREE: ABOLITION OF CENSORSHIP
Caroline [voiceover]: The Enlightenment had finally arrived.

Oops? For some, no doubt about it.

Rantzau: What is that?
Johann: A letter for Christian from Voltaire.
Caroline: Voltaire himself.

Was there another one?

Johann: Christian, you haven’t visited the Queen’s chambers in over a year. The people think you’re neglecting your marital obligations.
Christian: No. No, she doesn’t want to.
Johann: On the contrary. She told me she wants it to happen.
Christian: Well, I can’t get an erection with her.
Johann: Just think of it as more acting.

Which is to say that Caroline is now pregnant – with Johann’s child.

Hartmann: Your Majesty sent for me.
Caroline: Any news?
Hartmann: Johann has confessed to the affair. They tortured him for days until he finally gave in. I advise you to confess too.

On the other hand, how enlightened is that?

Johann: What do you want, priest?
Muntner: The King wants to pardon you and Brandt on the day of execution. It seems you’re saved. But the Cabinet wants something in return. A written statement saying you were mistaken in all your deeds. And that you sincerely ask for God’s forgiveness. A statement the Cabinet will later publish.
Johann: I’ve thought a lot about God these past few days.
Muntner: That doesn’t surprise me, son.

Being tortured for days can do that.

Johann [to the mob… the “people” he had once championed…just before he is guillotined]: I am one of you! I am one of you! I am one of you! I am one of you!

The fucking masses!

Head of the Council: Your Majesty, we’re in safe hands with the Crown Prince. Go play with your negro.

What to make of that?

Caroline [voiceover reading from a letter to her children]: As I am sure you know, Denmark has regressed to the Middle Ages – since Johann died. While the rest of Europe blossoms, your country has become a dark place controlled by faith and suspicion.

And Denmark today?

Title card: With his father’s help Frederik staged a coup d'etat - and seized power at the age of 16. Guldberg, Juliane Marie and their Cabinet were banished from the Court. In the course of Frederik’s almost 55 year reign almost all of Struensee’s laws were reinstated. Frederik went even further than Johann when he abolished serfdom and liberated the peasants.

A lot of good that does him though.

[iambiguous]

Art: one more possible narrative?

One that is fascinating. One that is infuriating. One that is somewhere in between. Thus the reactions of folks to other folks who try to “take us back” in time in order to imagine historical figures like Adolph Hitler. What made them what they were? What might have made them something different?

What if?...If only…What if?..If only…What if?...If only…

For example, what if Hitler’s art career had “taken off”: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=b ... 1&dpr=1.05

Any film like this becomes controversial. And that is because it will seem to “humanize” a man that most folks are more content to simply imagine as a monster...the man behind the Holocaust.

In other words, it embodies him [in the flesh] as dasein. Just like the rest of us. And in approaching our identity in this manner it makes identity itself seem so much more ambiguous and problematic than most want it to be. Easier to just imagine that we are all in possession of a “true self” and that this true self either is or is not evil. But that gets tricky because if we are evil, where does that leave room for “becoming good”? If we become good then we seem to contradict our true nature.

Most of us just want good and evil to be one or the other. And if there is a “real me”, may it certainly not be evil.

Roger Ebert wrote a particularly interesting review of the movie: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/max-2003

But [like the film itself] how close to or how far away from reality is it? Well, how close or how far do you need it to be? This will almost surely always be a political question.

To help get this controversial movie financed, producer/star John Cusack took no salary for acting in the lead role.

Writer/director Menno Meyjes reports that before the script was written, Steven Spielberg’s Amblin company was interested in the project. But Spielberg told Meyjes he couldn’t bring himself to help make a movie he thought would dishonor Holocaust survivors. Nevertheless, he considered the script an excellent one and encouraged the director to push for its realization, but without Amblin.  IMDb

Max

Liselore: Tell me, Max, where’s the future in it?Max: The future? No…l’ve seen the future. Believe me, it came straight at us. There is no future in the future.

Or certainly less of it with each passing day.

Max: I sell art. Is that a portfolio?
Hitler: Yeah.
Max: Fork it over, Corporal, let’s take a look.
Hitler: What’s your market then?
Max: Mostly modern stuff.
Hitler: Oh, modern. Like uh…next time I have diarrhea. I’ll take a shit on a canvas and bring it round to you, huh?
Max: You could do worse. I certainly wouldn’t reject it out of hand.

What's that tell you?

Hitler: I don’t believe in anti-Semitism. Not in emotive anti-Semitism anyway.
Captain: What the hell does that mean?
Hitler: It means I don’t believe that anti-Semitism should be based on emotions–which just leads to pogrom and anarchy–but rather on the facts.
Captain: I’m not sure I quite understand your point, Corporal.
Hitler: My point is, Captain, that the Semitic question is far too important to be left to the individual. It ought to be in the domain of the government, like public health or sewage.

What's that tell you?

Hitler: Don’t expect anything abstract. I’m a great believer in Schopenhauer’s dictum that art should proclaim, “Yes by God, this is how it really is.”
Max: But life can be quite abstract at times, wouldn’t you agree?
Hitler: How do you mean?
Max: Sometimes “life,” as you say, won’t be captured by the forms and lines of traditional representation, - especially not these days.
Hitler: I disagree completely. Art should only ever reflect the eternal values and the natural laws, especially these days.
Max: But aren’t these eternal values and natural laws in flux these days? Aren’t they meant to be shrinking and expanding?
Hitler: What are you, some kind of intellectual wet fart? The eternal values are: harmonious proportions; nobility and dignity; and the continuation of the cultural evolution, where each generation stands upon the shoulders of the next and improves the work of the last.
[he looks at the art in Max’s studio]
Hitler: But this is 10… no, 100 steps backwards. This is the undoing of the previous generations. This is filth!

Hitler: Now there was an objectivist!

Max [talking about Hitler’s art]: I keep going back to this notion of “authentic voice”. What I mean to say is, I was there, and you were there, and I know what it looked like… but what did it feel like? That’s what we want to know, isn’t it?

Right, what it feels like.

Max: So you’re an anti-Semite.
Hitler: On the contrary, I admire the Jews.
Max: Really?
Hitler: Yes, they’re very intelligent people.
Max: Well, there are intelligent ones and not so intelligent ones…
Hitler: No, no, no, they’re all intelligent because they guard the purity of their blood.
Max: The what?
Hitler: The purity of the blood. Because the secret of the Jews lies in their pure Jewish blood. That’s why they’re the mightiest counterpart to the Aryan race.
Max: What’s the secret?
Hitler: Is your father Jewish?
Max: Yes, he is.
Hitler: Mother?
Max: Why not ask whether she’s a German? Isn’t that a far more relevant question?
Hitler: Mensch! Of course your mom’s Jewish.
Max: You’re an awfully hard man to like, Hitler, but I’m gonna try, because if I’ve learned anything over the past four years, it’s that we all shit the same, scream the same, and die the same.
Hitler: There’s no need for vulgarity, Rothman.
Max: I know where you’ve been and God knows we’ve all been turned into assholes there. Now listen to me well: you may not think you’re an anti-Semite, but in fact you are.
Hitler: I’m not.
Max: But in this, as in all things, there’s a reason. Your own hero Nietzsche said anti-Semitism is the ideology of those who feel cheated.
Hitler: How do you know Nietzsche’s my hero?
Max: Because you’ve obviously skimmed his ideas.
Hitler: Well, I don’t feel cheated.
Max: Excellent. Then stop acting like it.
Hitler: Are you gonna smoke another cigarette? You just put one out.
Max: Exactly. But now where is my instinct, my secret instinct for self-preservation, I ask you? I’ve heard these theories all my life: blood science, eugenics; it’s rubbish. It’s complete nonsense. It’s kitsch. Put it out of your mind. It’s not modern. It’s not scientific. It will hold you back as an artist.

Though not in other ways.

Hitler: Listen Rothman, I’ve lost FOUR YEARS!
Max: Yes, we’ve all lost four years. Some of us a little more. Do you want a show?
Hitler: I’d kill for you if you gave me a show!
Max: Don’t kill for me, please. Just do what you do. Be anxious, be nervous, tell me you’re the unknown soldier come back to haunt us - with your brush, Hitler! With your brush - can you do that? 'Cause that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to take all this pent-up stuff you’re quivering with, and you’ve got to hurl it onto the canvas. It doesn’t have to be good and it doesn’t have to be beautiful, it just has to be true.
[pause]
Max: And even if it’s a lie, make it an interesting lie, and I’ll put it up. I swear.
Hitler: You do think I’m talented, don’t you?
Max: I think there’s definitely something rustling behind your curtain, yes.

So, is this how it might have been?

Grosz: What’s his name?
Max: Hitler.
Grosz: Never heard of him.
Max: You will.

To say the least.

Max [regarding patriotic propaganda]: I used to think we rode into the war on horseback. But now I realize that in fact, we rode into the war on words. Yes, my friend, words. If the high command had used nails to hammer our feet to the mud, I think we would have found a pair of pliers, passed them down the line, and made a break for it. But the words… the words kept us rooted to the ground.

Or else, say.

Max: That was a miscalculation of rare magnitude, wouldn’t you say?
Grosz: You’re the dealer. They want you to sell their paintings and make ‘em rich, not scare the fuckin’ shit out of 'em.

Any rich painters here?
Any Nazis?

Hitler: As German as you or I, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Finagling himself, throwing his money around. Finding himself a German whore and of course all the while staying married in the faith. Always working on the inside from the outside. Why, the patient looks perfectly healthy. But then you look at the turd, but really look at it, and then you see the worms crawling around.
Captain Mayr: There weren’t any of the men there, were there?
Hitler: No, no. Only artists and the usual degenerates.
Captain Mayr: I’m sure they adored it.
Hitler:: No, they hated it. They hated it! They stood there like stiffs. lt went over their head. This Rothman made the whole war look small and pointless, ridiculous, absurd.
Captain Mayr: Don’t despair, Junge. You’ve got your own talent, you have to let it out. Let it out.

The rest, let's say, is history.

Hildegard: Just remember, Max, Florence Nightingale died of syphilis.
Max: And that means what?
Hildegard [of Hitler]: Don’t get too close to your charity cases.

Same here?

Max: David, what is it that your brother calls the art business again?
David: Baked air.
Max: Baked air. That is so…great.

You tell me.

Hitler: I realized something that all you hoity-toity types missed drinking your coffee, smoking your cigarettes with your mistresses. The way to reinvent art is not to make it political–far too small a step. No, Rothman, you could say you and I were ploughing the same furrows for a while, but then I made the bigger leap. Politics is the new art. Yes, Rothman, my whole life has been a detour to this moment. Everything l’ve struggled to learn about art, about design, color, composition, theater, opera, architecture–I’m gonna stuff it all into this and make it live again.
Max: I’ve always thought you to be an intuitive futurist.
Hitler: You’re so disappointing. Am I only acceptable to you if you can classify me? Isn’t that emblematic of the world we both despise? What’s happened to you? You’re suddenly so conventional. Go deeper, you said. Well, I went deep. I went deeper than any artist has ever gone before!
Max: Where is the work, my dear? Where is the evidence of this journey into the abyss?
Hitler: I am the new avant garde! I am the new artist practicing the new art! And politics is the new art!

Let's run this by Elon Trump.

[iambiguous]

Identity

“The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of Now.” Shannon L. Alder

Define definition?

“The more fucked up you are, the more I like you. As long as you've managed to hold onto your identity through all the shit, then it won't matter how twisted you are. I will love you more for it.” Ashly Lorenzana

On the other hand, what are the odds?

“The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start.” Jodi Picoult

Now that's smack dab in the bullseye.

“First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?” Thomas Merton

Let's run this by....me.

“One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” W.E.B. DuBois

Imagine his reaction to the world today.

“My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can. In both our work and our leisure, I think, we should be so employed. And in our time this means that we must save ourselves from the products that we are asked to buy in order, ultimately, to replace ourselves.” Wendell Berry

Good luck with that.

[iambiguous]

Welcome to Greenleaf, Ind. “A great BIG small town”.

So, you’re a gay man. There in Greenleaf. And you’re about to be married to someone who is not. Not gay. And certainly not a man. Or you were until a former student just won an Academy Award and tells millions of folks tuned into the ceremony that in fact you are gay.

Hmm. Is that news to you? It seems to be. So you set about assuring everyone in town that nothing could possibly be further from the truth. Of course you are not gay. You’re about to get married for Christ sakes!

It’s a comedy in other words. Only we know the parts about being gay in America that are not. Funny for instance. So we know this is just a fairytale. Try to even imagine the scene at the high school graduation, for example. Not in a million fucking years. In small town America?

And not only that but if you are a girl and you’re fat, well, that’s okay too! On the other hand, to the best of my recollection, there is not a single solitary person of color to be found here. Oh, well. But maybe there are now.

And this was back in the 1990s. Great strides had already been made in advancing the gay rights movement; but we were still nowhere near to where we are now. So this film could be said to have contributed to that forward momentum.

On the other hand, the momentum under Donald Trump and MAGA seems intent on reversing all that.

Anyway, try to recollect every single possible stereotype there has ever been about gay men. It’s in here.

Oh, and try to imagine any film in which Tom Selleck [a political conservative] kisses another man on the mouth! And not just a peck either. It goes on and on and on.

The Oscar statuette used in the film is Kevin Kline’s. He won it in 1988 for Best Supporting Actor in A Fish Called Wanda

Matt Dillon’s outing of his teacher in his acceptance speech is based upon Tom Hanks’ real-life acceptance speech at The 66th Annual Academy Awards (1994) for his Oscar for Philadelphia (1993), in which he thanked a gay teacher. IMDb


In and Out

Peter [on the red carpet]: Everyone’s saying that you won’t be going home empty-handed. How do you feel about that?
Cameron: Basically to me, awards are meaningless. I’m an artist. It’s about the work. All the nominees are artists. We shouldn’t be forced to compete like dogs.
Peter: I hear you. Good point. Then why are you here?
Cameron: In case I win!

The perfect answer?

Glenn Close: And now our final nominee for Best Actor… Cameron Drake. Cameron rocketed to stardom with courage and charisma…tackling the role of a brave gay soldier in the breakthrough film “To Serve and Protect.”

We know what's coming. But he doesn't.

[A clip from the film]
Danny: I love you, Billy.
Cameron: Wait! Do you love me as a friend or in another way?
Danny: Another way, Billy!
Cameron: You mean, as a brother?
Danny: No, another way.
Cameron: You mean, as a cousin?
Danny: No! Another way.
Cameron [frowns]: You mean, as a penpal?

NO!!!!

A clip from the film]
Attorney [at court martial]: Lieutenant Stevens…you’ve been awarded two purple hearts and a Congressional Medal of Honor. You saved the lives of your entire unit. However, your sergeant came across the following items in your footlocker. Will you kindly tell the court if they are yours? A letter to another soldier?
Cameron: Yes, sir!
Attorney: A photograph signed, “Danny, San Francisco”?
Cameron: Yes, sir!
Attorney: Finally, an autographed copy of “Beaches” starring Bette Midler?
Cameron: Give that back!

Shades of Heathers:  https://youtu.be/E63uhIAYY2g?si=1VspVdb9IGYixYDK

Cameron [accepting the Oscar]: This award really belongs to all the gay soldiers and sailors…and other guys and women who defend this country to keep us free…but can’t date. And maybe I should thank someone else. Someone who’s really been there, someone who taught me alot, about poetry and Shakespeare, and just, y’know, about stayin’ awake, man. Someone who’s just an overall great guy, a great teacher…to Howard Brackett from Greenleaf, Indiana! And he’s gay. Y’know, I’ve been thinking alot about this night, and I’ve decided to dedicate this whole night to a great, gay teacher. Mr. Brackett, WE WON!

Well, now he knows. In fact, the whole fuckling town now knows. 

Mom: Howard, we want you to know: you’re our son, and we’ll always love you, gay, straight, red, green, if you rob a bank, if you kill someone.
Dad: If you get drunk, climb a clock tower, and take out the town.
Mom: As long as you get married. I need that wedding. I need some beauty, music, and place cards before I die. It’s like heroin.

What's like heroin to you? I mean besides posting here.

Reporter: Mr Brackett, should gays be allowed to handle fresh produce?!

New thread?

Peter: A teacher in trouble. A town under siege. A journey to the heartland. Peter Malloy. Stay tuned.

Turns out he's gay too.

Trina [in the teacher’s lounge]: We are talking about Howard.
Carl: Why are we talking about Howard?
Ava: Because he likes dick, Carl.
Carl: Dick who?

Dicks with dicks?

Jack [student]: There’s only two times when that kind of thing’s okay: In prison where it’s a substitute and guys in space.
Mike: Guys in space?
Jack: Well, not on purpose. It just happens because they’re weightless and they float into each other when they’re asleep.

He thought, wow! Or something close to it. 

Howard [at his bachelor’s party]: I don’t know how this started…but this is my goddamn bachelor party…and I am not going to goddamn watch Barbara Streisand in “Funny Girl”!

I've certainly never watched it myself.

Jay Leno [doing the monologue]: I guess you heard…Michael Jackson getting married. And this time he’s made the perfect choice… Howard Brackett. Yes, Howard Brackett.

In other words, our Howard Brackett.

Tom [principal]: Howard, we do have graduation coming up Monday… and you kind of put us right… right in the spotlight. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t tell you… that I’ve gotten some calls from parents wondering if, in fact, you were a ho… ho… ho… ho…
Howard: Home room teacher?
Tom: Ho-hom-homosexual.
Howard: Tom, do I look like a homosexual?
Tom: Would you walk for me?

That'll do it.

Howard: Why am I talking to you? You couldn’t possibly understand what this is like!
Peter: Howard, I’m gay.

And we're talking "Mr. Conservative" Tom Selleck here.!

Peter: One day I just snapped. I said: “Mom, dad, Sparky, I’m gay.”
Howard: So what happened?
Peter: My mom cried, for exactly 10 seconds, my boss said: “Who cares?”, and my dad said: “But you’re so tall…!”.

This never happen to you?

Peter: What was Barbra Streisand’s eighth album?
Howard: Color Me Barbra.
Peter: Stud!
Howard: Everybody knows that!
Peter: Everybody where? The little gay bar on the prairie?

And I always thought it was her first album.

Howard: Mom! Dad!
Mom: Hi. Look, it’s the cake.
Dad: Everything OK there?
Howard: Fine. This is my friend Peter…friend Peter. We ran into each other at the intersexual…the homosection…the intersection.

He's getting there.

Voice on “Exploring Your Masculinity” cassette tape: “Real men don’t dance. Think about John Wayne, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold doesn’t dance, he can barely walk!”

And listen to him...talk?

Minister: Let us remember…a marriage is truly a blessed event. It must be a union based on deepest love, total kinship, and absolute honesty. Let us begin. Do you, Emily, take this man… to be your lawfully wedded husband… to have and to hold till death do you part?
Emily: I do.
Minister: And do you, Howard, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold till death do you part?
Howard [looking into Emily’s eyes]: I’m gay.
Minister: Pardon?

What a time to come out of the closet!

Emily (standing there in her wedding dress): Are you…Are you really gay?
Howard: Hmm Hmm.
Emily: Was there, oh, ANY OTHER TIME YOU MIGHT OF TOLD ME THIS? I’M WEARING A WEDDING DRESS WHICH YOU PICKED OUT!

Now that's a good point.

Howard [to Peter]: I just came out! At my own wedding!

And he means it.

[iambiguous]

Nature

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively, instead of skeptically and dictatorially.” E.B. White

We're doomed then.

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” Aldo Leopold

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity ... 20services.

“Nature does nothing uselessly.” Aristotle

Uh, so far?

“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes -- I mean the universe -- but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.” Galileo

Lock him up!

"The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.” Michael Parenti

Of course, he's only paraphrasing John Lennon.

“A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.” Edward Abbey

Unless, of course, he's wrong.

[iambiguous]

Stephen King. When we think of him we think of the “horror” genre. And that generally conveys something in the way of the “supernatural”. But from time to time he has also written stuff in which the “horror” is anything but supernatural. Instead, the focus tends to be aimed more in the direction of the human mind. The manner in which actual flesh and blood folks like you and I are capable of doing all sorts of terrible things. To each other for example.

And it is not just through the written word that he shines. So many of his books [novels, short stories] have been translated into film as well. Sometimes the big screen, sometimes the small.

But the ones I am always drawn to are the latter: to the man-made monsters.

Which brings us to Warden Norton and Captain Hadley and a Sister named Bogs. Monsters if there ever were ones. And when the monsters run prisons those in their charge can truly have hell to pay. Especially around the time Andy Dufresne was doing time.

Of course you’re always wondering how close to or far away from “reality” prison films like this are. This one unfolded starting 70 odd years ago. And, according to IMDb, "Stephen King has said that his original novella was a culmination of all the memories he had from watching prison movies when he was a child."

So, who is to say? Watch enough docs from the Lockup and/or Lockdown series, and you know how in some respects a lot has changed. But there are prisons here and prisons there. And depending on which one you wind up in, the experience is probably rather unique. But there will always be monsters. And some will be the prisoners and some will be the guards.

Andy and Red’s opening chat in the prison yard - in which Red is pitching a baseball - took 9 hours to shoot. Morgan Freeman pitched that baseball for the entire 9 hours without a word of complaint. He showed up for work the next day with his arm in a sling.

The film’s initial gross of $18 million didn’t even cover the cost of its production. It did another $10 million in the wake of its Oscar nominations but the film was still deemed to be a box office flop.

Although a very modest hit in theaters, it became one of the highest grossing video rentals of all time.

In Stephen King’s original story, Red was written as a white Irishman. In the movie, they left the line, “Maybe it’s 'cause I’m Irish”, in as a joke, even after they had cast Morgan Freeman as Red.  IMDb


The Shawshank Redemption

Prisoner: Hey Red, how did it go?
Red [after being rejected again for parole]: Same old shit, different day.

Wow! Like posting here!!

Red [voiceover]: There must be a con like me in every prison in America, I guess. I’m the guy who can get it for you. Cigarettes, a bag of reefer if that’s your thing, a bottle of brandy to celebrate your kid’s high school graduation. Damn near anything, within reason. Yes sir, I’m a regular Sears & Roebuck. So when Andy Dufresne came to me in 1949 and asked me to smuggle Rita Hayworth into the prison for him, I told him no problem.

One of many.

Red [voiceover]: I must admit I didn’t think much of Andy first time I laid eyes on him. Looked like a stiff breeze could blow him over. That was my first impression of the man.

Absolutely nothing at all like his last impression.

Norton [warden]: I believe in two things. Discipline and the Bible. Here, you’ll receive both.
(he holds up a Bible)
Norton: Put your faith in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.

Cue the Sisters.

Red [voiceover]: The first night’s the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell…and those bars slam home…that’s when you know it’s for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it.

Cue Fat Ass.

Andy: Hello. I’m Andy Dufresne.
Red: The wife-killin’ banker. Why’d you do it?
Andy: I didn’t, since you ask.
Red : You’re gonna fit right in. Everyone in here is innocent, you know that? Heywood, what you in here for?
Heywood: Didn’t do it. Lawyer fucked me.

Imagine though if you really are innocent...

Red [voiceover]: I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn’t normal around here. He strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say…I liked Andy from the start.

No more than I did though.

Andy: What about you? What are you in here for?
Red: Murder, same as you.
Andy: Innocent?
Red [shakes his head]: Only guilty man in Shawshank.

Click, of course.

Bogs: Now, I’m gonna open my fly and you’re gonna swallow what I give ya to swallow. And after you swallow mine you’re gonna swallow Rooster’s cause ya done broke his nose and I think he oughta have something to show for it.
Andy: Anything you put in my mouth you’re gonna lose.
Bogs: Naw, you don’t understand. You do that and I’ll put all eight inches of steel in your ear.
Andy: All right. But you should know that sudden serious brain injury causes the victim to bite down hard. In fact, I hear the bite reflex is so strong they have to pry the victims jaws open with a crowbar.
Bogs: Where do you get this shit?
Andy: I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?

A turning point, let's call it.

Norton [handing Andy his Bible]: Salvation lies within.

Said the Devil himself?

Brooks [to Andy]: Son, six wardens have been through here in my tenure, and I’ve learned one immutable, universal truth: Not one of them born whose asshole wouldn’t pucker up tighter than a snare drum when you ask them for funds.

On the other hand, for some, prison becomes like home sweet home. They become "institutionalized".

Red [voiceover]: The following April Andy did tax returns for half the guards at Shawshank. Year after that he did them all including the warden’s. Year after that they rescheduled the start of the intra-mural season to coincide with tax season. The guards on the opposing teams all remembered to bring their W2s.

No charge, I'm guessing.

Andy [about writing to the prison board for funds to expand the library]: They can’t ignore me forever.
Norton: They sure can.

Then weeks or months or years pass.

Red: Ain’t nothing wrong with Brooksie. He’s just institutionalized, that’s all.
Heywood: Institutionalized, my ass.
Red: The man’s been here fifty years. This place is all he knows. In here, he’s an important man, an educated man. A librarian. Out there, he’s nothing but a used-up old con with arthritis in both hands. Couldn’t even get a library card if he applied. You see what I’m saying?
Floyd: Red, I do believe you’re talking out of your ass.
Red: You believe what you want. But these walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.

Next up: the equivalent of that here?

Red [after learning that Brooks hung himself]: He should have died in here.

Now that's a tough one.

Red [voiceover]: I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

"Red says he has no idea what the ladies in The Marriage of Figaro are singing about. Actually, they’re composing a letter to the husband of one of them inviting him to an assignation with the other in order to expose his infidelity." IMDb

Andy: That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you… Haven’t you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn’t make much sense in here.
Andy: Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don’t forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy: Forget that…that there are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. That’s yours.
Red: What’re you talking about?
Andy: Hope.
Red: Hope? Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Though sometimes only if he's lucky.

Andy [to Red]: You know, the funny thing is on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.

Or, for others, to become a better crook. 

Andy [to Norton]: How can you be so obtuse?

Big, big mistake.

Heywood: Red? You saying Andy’s innocent? I mean for real innocent?
Red: Yeah, it looks that way.
Heywood: Sweet Jesus. How long’s he been in here?
Red: Since '47, what is that…19 years.

Cue Raquel Welch.

Norton [visiting Andy’s cell in the hole]: I’m sure by now you’ve heard. Terrible thing. Man that young, less than a year to go, trying to escape…Broke Captain Hadley’s heart to shoot him, truly it did. We just have to put it behind us…move on.
Andy: I’m done. Everything stops. Get someone else to run your scams.
Norton [acidly]: Nothing stops. Nothing…or you will do the hardest time there is. No more protection from the guards. I’ll pull you out of that one-bunk Hilton and cast you down with the Sodomites. You’ll think you’ve been fucked by a train! And the library? Gone…sealed off, brick-by-brick. We’ll have us a little book barbecue in the yard. They’ll see the flames for miles. We’ll dance around it like wild Injuns! You understand me? Catching my drift?..Or am I being obtuse?
[pause]
Norton [to Hadley]: Give him another month to think about it.

Yo, IC! Would you call him a True Christian?

Andy: My wife used to say I’m a hard man to know. Like a closed book. Complained about it all the time…She was beautiful. I loved her. But I guess I couldn’t show it enough. I killed her, Red…I didn’t pull the trigger. But I drove her away. That’s why she died. Because of me, the way I am.
Red: That don’t make you a murderer. Bad husband, maybe. Feel bad about it if you want. But you didn’t pull the trigger.
Andy: No. I didn’t. Someone else did, and I wound up here. Bad luck, I guess…It floats around. Has to land on somebody. I was in the path of the tornado. I just didn’t expect the storm would last as long as it has.

Too close to call, let's say.

Red: Jesus, Andy. I couldn’t hack it on the outside. Been in here too long. I’m an institutional man now. Like old Brooks Hatlen was.
Andy: You underestimate yourself.
Red: I don’t think so. In here I’m the guy who can get it for you. Out there, all you need are Yellow Pages. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Pacific Ocean? Shit, like to scare me to death, somethin’ that big.
Andy: Not me. I didn’t shoot my wife and I didn’t shoot her lover, and whatever mistakes I made I’ve paid for and then some. That hotel and that boat…I don’t think it’s too much to ask.
Red: I don’t think you ought to be doing this to yourself, Andy. Talking shitty pipedreams! I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here, and that’s the way it is!
Andy: You’re right. It’s down there, and I’m in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice – get busy living, or get busy dying.

Little does even Red know...

Red [about the possibility of Andy hanging himself]: I don’t know; every man has his breaking point.

That's the part some will learn the hard way.

Red [voiceover thinking about Andy and that rope]: I have had some long nights in stir. Alone in the dark with nothing but your thoughts, time can draw out like a blade…That was the longest night of my life…

Want to know the longest night of my life?

Norton [in Andy’s empty cell]: Lord! It’s a miracle! Man up and vanished like a fart in the wind! Nothin’ left but some damn rocks on the windowsill and that cupcake on the wall! Let’s ask her! Maybe she knows! What say there, Fuzzy Britches? Feel like talking? Guess not. Why should you be different?!

Then he throws one of Andy's stones at Raquel...

Red [voiceover]: In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty.

Next up: Red.

Red [voiceover]: Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big goddamn poster. Like I said, in prison a man will do most anything to keep his mind occupied. Turns out Andy’s favorite hobby was totin’ his wall out into the exercise yard, a handful at a time. I guess after Tommy was killed, Andy decided he’d been here just about long enough…Andy did like he was told, buffed those shoes to a high mirror shine. The guards simply didn’t notice. Neither did I…I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man's shoes? Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. Five hundred yards… that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.

Scripted, as I recall.

[Warden Norton finds the Bible in his safe after Andy escapes and finds the message Andy left for him]
Andy: “Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lay within.”
[Norton flips through a couple of pages to find the outline of the rock hammer that was hidden in the Book of Exodus within the Bible, and then drops it on the floor in shock]

Can you blame him?

Red [voiceover]: I’d like to think that the last thing that went through Norton’s head, other than that bullet, was to wonder how the hell Andy Dufresne ever got the best of him.

Well, after all, he was obtuse.

Red [voiceover]: There is a harsh truth to face. No way I’m gonna make it on the outside. All I do anymore is think of ways to break my parole. Terrible thing, to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won’t have to be afraid all the time. Only one thing stops me. A promise I made to Andy.

We know the one.

Red [voiceover]: Get busy living or get busy dying. That is goddamn right.

Trust me: if that's actually an option. You know, in unscripted lives.

[iambiguous]

Abyss

“It was as if some magnetic repulsion, which before had kept our two carriages from meeting and passing, had now been reversed, and so sucked me inexorably forward, drawing me towards something my heart made clear I feared - or should fear - utterly, in the way some people are fatally attracted towards an abyss while standing on its very edge.” Iain Banks

Let's not go there.

“To have reservations is to show true leadership. To have certainty without question, to lead people to battle with no qualms, or to prosecute without hesitation are qualities of a tyrant.” Laura Kreitzer

Or, more politely, an objectivist?

“There was an image in my mind—an expectation of what it would be like when I finally gave myself fully to a man. It wasn’t like this. It was always at night with candles flickering lazily, music filling the air with a sexy melody, and maybe a bubble bath. But no. It was infinitely better, and there was no froo froo, stereotypical scene that played out.
It was incredible.
Brilliant.
Amazing.
Indescribable, really. Like all the planets in the galaxy aligned for a perfect moment in time. As if this was the beginning of time. From now until the rest of eternity, everything finally had meaning.” Laura Kreitzer

Your meaning or my meaning or their meaning. Though not necessarily in that order.

“When a man is standing at the top of a cliff, it isn’t fear of falling that keeps him rooted to the edge — it’s the fear of not being able to resist the desire to jump, just to see what falling feels like.” Cristelle Comby

This is a real thing, by the way.

“It was easy to gain strength from chaos because it had about it the abyss--always so tantalizing--as the heroin addicts knew. But the journey to the abyss was short-lived. The harder road was to draw strength and not power. To gain footing not in the wild uncertainty of immortality but the abiding knowledge of mortality.” Heather Rose

You tell me. 

“The abyss of the past into which the world is falling. Everything vanishing as if it had never been. We would hardly wish to know ourselves again as we once were and yet we mourn the days.” Cormac McCarthy

As, down the road, we'll mourn this day.

[iambiguous]

Either/or:
To be or not to be a Lord.
To be or not to be a Shogun.
To be or not to be a Samaurai.
To be or not to be at war.
And [above all]:
To save or not to save face.

And then: To fit or not to fit into all of this as, say, tradition dictates. Not much in the way of “the agony of choice in the face of uncertainty” here. Dasein? Who needs it! Conflicting goods? You’re goddamn right!

And yet just as crucial is the historical context. Either/or becomes considerably more problematic when the paradigm that is political economy begins to shift. The Feudal Era is coming to a close here. But the “modern era” has barely just begun.

Thus to speak of moral obligation and “duty” here is to speak of being brainwashed…from the cradle to the grave. As with the moral duties inherent in all objectivist dogmas.

“Loosely” based on historical events. And, as is often the case in films of this sort, it wants it both ways. It wants to show how bloody and brutal [and ofttimes senseless] war is, while, at the same time, glorifying the warriors who pursue it. Only they must have justice on their side and [above all] fight the war to end all wars for “the people”.


13 Assassins [Jûsan-nin No Shikaku] 


Title card: As feudal Japan enjoys peace, the samurai era is waning. But this fragile calm is threatened by the growing power of Lord Naritsugu, the Shogun’s sadistic younger brother. Sir Doi realizes Naritsugu will ruin the Shogunate if he gains higher political standing. As Naritsugu’s evil deeds are quickly hushed up, Sir Doi must act.

Click, say?

Samurai: We blame those that named Naritsugu an adopted Asashi clan son. This dilemma drove Mamiya to harakiri. His appeal to us for action…
Sir Doi: I’m aware of that! But we must respect the Shogun’s rule. His justice is noble by Heaven’s will. Arguing is pointless!

Until it is not pointless at all. For the 13 assassins. And then, oh, the sheer nobility of it all!

Sir Doi [speaking of the limbless woman to Shinzaemon Shimada]: He cut out her tongue too.

The sheer nobility of that?

Shinzaemon Shimada: How fate smiles on me. As a samurai in this era of peace I’ve been wishing for a noble death. Now fate has called me here.

Right, the nobility of death!

Shinzaemon Shimada [to his assassins]: These days how many samurai use their swords in actual battle? Not them, not us. A real challenge. He who values his life dies a dog’s death. You’ve entrusted me with your lives. I’ll spend them at my discretion. Now we are nine.

Uh, the magnificent...nine?

Shinzaemon Shimada: No mercy! There’s no samurai code or fair play in battle! No sword? Use a stick. No stick? Use a rock. No rock? Use your fists and feet! Lose your life, but make the enemy pay!

The warrior class!

Shinzaemon Shimada [looking at Koyata]: Thirteen.

A lucky number?

Lord Naritsugu: Hanbei?
Hanbei: Yes?
Lord Naritsugu: You think the age of war was like this?
Hanbei: Perhaps
Lord Naritsugu: It’s magnificent. With death comes gratitude for life. If a man has lived in vain, then how trivial his life is. Oh, Hanbei. Something wonderful has come to my mind.
Hanbei: What?
Lord Naritsugu: Once I’m on the Shogun’s council, let’s bring back the age of war!

Sure, why not.

Hanbei: Who are you? You’re no samurai.
Koyata: So what? Do only samurai matter in this world? I thought samurai would be fun but you bore me. You’re useless, even more useless in great numbers.
Lord Naritsugu [stabs him]: This man speaks the truth. His reward is my short sword.

See how it works? Me neither.

Hanbei [to Shinzaemon Shimada]: I will trade my life to protect my Lord.
Shinzaemon Shimada: I must do what must be done.
Hanbei: Are you so hungry for my Lord’s life?
Shinzaemon Shimada: Yes! I gambled my life in this senseless war of power and politics. If he joins the Shogun’s council you know disaster will befall the people! Am I wrong?!
Hanbei: So what then? Both you and I are samurai. Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is to obey our fate and die.

Sheer poetry!

Lord Naritsugu: Ruling is convenient, but only for rulers. The people must live only to serve.

We don't call them the masses for nothing.

Title card: In May 1844, it was reported to the Central Government that Lord Naritsugu fell ill and died. Some 23 years later, the Shogunate system was abolished. The modern Meiji era began.

This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_era

[iambiguous]

Ian Curtis joined so many other great musicians – Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Croce, John Lennon – in dying before his time. And the first thing that always pops into my head on such sad occasions is all of the great music that would never be. Joy Division in particular. The band had only released 2 studio albums. Two of the greatest compilations of cutting edge "new wave" music ever composed.

And no more ever again.

This film tries to capture this short trajectory. Of the music. Of the man. Curtis was afflicted with epilepsy. Just as he was consumed with a passion to create music. But the two could never really be reconciled. And then, along with everything else in what can be an excruciating world, it pushed him over the edge. He lost control. He hung himself. He was only 23 years old.

Control. Isn’t that the whole point. You choose to live or you choose to die. But how much control do you have over the things that predispose you to go in one rather than the other direction? If you have little or no control over the factors that take from you what you love the most, why not go in the other direction? It just depends on how intense this struggle becomes for you “inside your head”. And who really has better access to that than you?

David Bowie. Iggy Pop. The Sex Pistols. The Clash. The usual trajectory toward the New Wave. Or one of them. The best wave of them all as far as I am concerned.

Look for Ian up on the stage. Nothing short of mesmerizing. Barely controlled seizures in themselves. But then look at him down on the floor thrashing about like a fish out of water. The real thing.

The actors playing Joy Division learned how to play the songs themselves. So the scenes where the band is playing live is not from tape, but actually the actors playing live.

The introduction that Tony Wilson gives the band as they’re about to perform on Granada television is almost word for word taken from the actual broadcast. The song they play in the film is “Transmission”, when in actuality they performed “Shadowplay” on Granada. They did perform “Transmission” live on TV but it was on the BBC without an introduction by Wilson, but instead a toned-down version of the poem used to introduce them at a gig in the film.  IMDb


Control

Ian [voiceover]: Existence. Well, what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can. The past is now part of my future. The present is well out of hand.

He's lost control again.

Ian [to his mate Nick]: It says here Cirazapan usually prescribed for schizophrenia. Side effects include drowsiness, apathy, agitation and blurred vision. I’m taking two.

I hear that.

John Cooper Clarke: The colour scheme is fuckin’ brown Everywhere in chicken town, The fuckin’ pubs are fuckin’ dull The fuckin’ clubs are fuckin’ full of fuckin’ girls and fuckin’ guys with fuckin’ murder in their eyes, A fuckin’ bloke gets fuckin’ stabbed waitin’ for a fuckin’ cab, You fuckin’ stay at fuckin’ home, The fuckin’ neighbours fuckin’ moan, Keep the fuckin’ racket down This is fuckin’ chicken town The fuckin’ pies are fuckin’ old, The fuckin’ chips are fuckin’ cold, The fuckin’ beer is fuckin’ flat, The fuckin’ flats have fuckin’ rats, The fuckin’ clocks are fuckin’ wrong The fuckin’ days are fuckin’ long, It fuckin’ gets you fuckin’ down Evidently chicken town…

Unless, of course, he's wrong.

Record producer: What are you lot called again?
Ian: We were Warsaw. Now we’re Joy Division.
Hooky: Excuse me, but what happened to Slaves of Venus? OK. All right. Joy Division’s good.
Record producer: Joy Division, eh? What’s all that about?
Ian: It’s the name of a brothel German soldiers used during World War II.
Record producer: Well, whatever. Studio’s yours.

Well, whatever?

Ian [voiceover as a young woman has a seizure in his office]: When you’re looking at life in a strange new room…Maybe drowning soon…Is this the start of it all?

As with most things, it's got to start somewhere.

Tony Wilson: Now remember, we are live, so no swearing or they will cut you off.
Benard: What about “arse”? Is “arse” a swear word?
Tony: “Arse”, yes. It’s a swear word.
Bernard: No, it’s not.
Tony: Bernard, out there I know “arse” isn’t a swear word. Here, in TV land, “arse” is most definitely a swear word. Trust me, I know all about swearing and TV. I’m a master of knowing when I can and when I can’t.
Bernard: What about “big dog’s cock”? Can you say that?
Tony: No.

Let's run this by Howard Stern.

Hooky: Fuckin’ hell. Pull over. Steve, pull over.
Steve: Hooky, quick, quick, give us a hand.
Hooky: Yeah, I’ve got his knees. Fuckin’ hell. Ian, what’s up with you, mate?

The first seizure. From then on everything is before and after.

Doctor: We’ll try you on carbamazepine…phenytoin, tiagabine and oxcarbazipine, to be taken with the, uh, phenobarbital that they gave you at the hospital. In the meantime you’ll be on the waiting list to see a neurologist specialist at Macclesfield General. You should also be getting plenty of early nights and steering away from alcohol. It’s a matter of trial and error until the right drug or combination of drugs is found. Some might work.
Ian: And…are there any side effects?
Doctor: Carbamazepine’s side effects include skin rash, double vision, drowsiness, dizziness, gastric disturbances…That means farting. Phenytoin’s side effects include drowsiness, acne, overgrowth of the gums, nausea, vomiting, mental confusion, mental slowing…

Praise the Lord?

Ernest: Ian.
Ian: Uh, I’m sorry, Ernest. I must have drifted off. It’s these tablets.
Ernest: Yeah, well, them and the late night concerts, eh? Listen, um… I’m not sure you can do both jobs, Ian, so just have a little think about it, yeah? As your supervisor I do need you to have a think about it, all right?

So, he did. Think about it.

Ian [on the phone]: Hello, is Corrine there, please? It’s Ian Curtis from the Employment Exchange. I was just wondering how she’d been…
[Corrine’s mother tells him that Corrine has died]
Ian: What? Just like that? From having a fit? I didn’t know that could…Oh. I’m so, so sorry.

His reaction captured in this song: https://youtu.be/ZGMDBppWBOo?si=h_-mU70cRbJzUssi

Annik [interviewing the band]: What about music? Is that beautiful?
Ian: Some of it.
Annik: What about Joy Division’s music?
Ian: Some of it, yeah, but…some of it’s not meant to be beautiful.

You can say that again. But only if it's true.

Ian: Do you want to sleep with other men?
Debbie: What?
Ian: Do you want to sleep with other men?
Debbie: That’s a strange question.
Ian: Because…if you did…it’d be OK. I’d be OK.
Debbie: Are you being serious? When you say a thing like that it makes me think you don’t love me anymore.
Ian: I don’t think I do.

Sick or not, most men still know how to be a bastard. Some are just more honest about it.

Debbie [to Ian]: Who’s Annik? Eh? How long have you been seeing her? Answer me, Ian! Don’t ignore me! Eh? How long have you been seeing her? Do you love her? Do you love her, Ian? I love you. I really, really love you. No one loves you like me. No one. Just answer me, Ian! Please answer me! I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this!
[she leaves the house]
Ian [aloud in agony to himself]: Fuckin’ hell…
[Debbie returns]
Ian: Sorry, Debbie. I owe you everything. I love you.
Debbie: What does that mean?
Ian: I’ll finish with her. Please.

Of course, he doesn't.

Annik: Ian…
Ian: Hmm?
Annik: I’m a little scared.
Ian: Scared of what?
Annik: Scared of falling in love with you.

Not that it doesn't make sense to be.

Ian [voiceover]: I don’t want to be in the band anymore. Unknown Pleasures was it. I was happy. I never meant for it to grow like this. When I’m up there, singing they don’t understand how much I give and how it affects me. Now they want more. They expect me to give more. And I don’t know if I can. It’s like it’s not happening to me, but… someone pretending to be me, someone dressed in my skin. Now we’re going to America. I have no control anymore. I don’t know what to do.

And then one day he knows exactly what to do.

Ian [in a letter to Annik]: I felt as if things were becoming a bit clearer earlier on, but can now see everything falling to pieces before my eyes. I’m paying dearly for past mistakes. I never realised how one mistake in my life four or five years ago would make me feel how I do. I struggle between what I know is right in my own mind, and some warped truthfulness as seen through other people’s eyes who have no heart, and can’t see the difference anyway…I saw Apocalypse Now at the cinema. I couldn’t take me eyes away from the screen…On the record, there’s Marlon Brando reading The Hollow Men, the struggle between man’s conscience and his heart until things go too far, get out of hand, and can never be repaired. Is everything so worthless in the end? Is there any more? What lies beyond? What is left to carry on?

Enough said? Apparently not.

Ian [in a letter to Annik]: I have the feeling the epileptic condition will worsen. It frightens me. It’s a lie to say “I’m not afraid any more”. There’s nothing the doctors can do but try tablets. I felt I had to tell you this even though it might change your feelings for me. I’ve been thinking of you constantly, trying to rationalise our situation, thinking of the things we’ve done. Images and thoughts prey on my mind, before my eyes all times of the day and night. And while some things are beyond my understanding, I know that I love you and will do forever. Until I see you again, I miss you with all my heart. All my love…Ian.

Forever?

[iambiguous]

Absurdity

“Eternity before and after us renders every painful effort for victory over other people absurd, almost ludicrous.” Giannis Delimitsos

Unless, of course, he's wrong. But how ludicrous is that?

“Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.” Edward Albee

You first.

“People believe that what a man needs is work. This, of course, is absurd. What he needs is the goods produced by work, and the less work involved in making a given amount of goods, the better.” Bertrand Russell

No, instead, what he or she needs, is a job they love.

“I mean for monkeys to speak of Truth is hubris of the highest degree. I mean, where is it writ large that the talking monkey should be able to model the cosmos? If a sea urchin or a raccoon were to propose to you that it had a viable Truth about the universe, the absurdity of that assertion would be self-evident. But in our own case, we make an exception... too bad.” Terence McKenna

Talking apes he means.

“The wise man who has never flown a plane will cite the absurdity that he get into the cockpit and fly. On the other hand, the fool who has never flown will find himself sitting in the wreckage of the plane all the while citing the absurdity of the plane to do such a thing.” Craig D. Lounsbrough

Next up: sitting in the wreckage here.

“Everything is funny; the greatest earnestness is funny; even tragedy is funny. And I think what I try and do in my [writing] is to get this recognizable reality of the absurdity of what we do and how we behave and how we speak.” Harold Pinter

Me too. Well, if only in regard to conflicting goods.

[iambiguous]

Some folks are more solitary than others. This guy is just sort of solitary. But it is often the same tradeoff. The more alone you are [or become] the more you can choose to live on your own terms. Well, assuming you can afford to. The money part is always there. What you want and need don’t mean squat if what you want and need is beyond the reach of your wallet.

Anyway, alone you don’t have to compromise in order to fit your own wants and needs into the wants and the needs of others. On the other hand, there is not much here in the way of love. And when the shit hits the fan you can find yourself dealing with it all, well, alone.

And then there is also this distinction: those who chose of their own volition to separate themselves from others. And the reasons here can be many. But then there are also those who more or less stumble into it because their fortunes have waned and others just don’t want to be around anymore. And it will always be more or less your own damn fault.

And the shit can come from any direction: your health and your wealth for example. The spiral down of course can become all the more reason to spiral down even more. They feed on each other in a way that, unless you have been there, you will never make others understand. I know I couldn’t.

Ben? Ben [reacting to an existential crisis] becomes a narcissistic scoundrel, a grifter, a crook…a user. Not only is he cheating on his lover here with other women, he’s fucking her 18 year old daughter too. And he is right on the edge of dissolution. And cynical? Even I haven’t sunk down this low. Though I aim to.

So, in the end, what’s it going to be for him? Does he go back home with Nancy, or does he continue to just say, “fuck it” and go after more “tail”?

Now, all the folks here are of a certain demographic to be sure. But it does translate to each and every one of us in some respects. Not that it can be pinned down much beyond that.

And then there is always the part about getting old. After that, it is only a matter of time before it trumps every goddamn thing else.


A Solitary Man

Ben: I always regretted not going to Susan’s college interview. I was always too busy.Allyson: Yeah, Mom said you used to always be on MSNBC and CNN and that you had dealerships in every town on Long Island, in New Jersey, in Connecticut. She also said you fucked it all up six ways to Sunday.

I counted seven myself.

Allyson: Come on Ben, you know what it was in Boston. It was – it was a kick. It was really, really fun…but now I can check two things off my list: the spite thing and the Daddy thing.
Ben: The “daddy thing?”
Allyson: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t even know it was on my list. Or that I even had a list.

In any event, he's fucked.

Allyson: You know, I appreciate the time you took to take me up to the school and spoke to the dean on my behalf. And I appreciate the advice you gave me. It really worked.
Ben: What advice?
Allyson: You taught me to ask for what I want. You know, the last guy I was with – easy. I just gave him a blowjob first before anything else, and then another one so he could last when we finally did it. And then I got on top of him and I told him exactly what to do. And it was awesome…awesome!
Ben [nonplussed]: Are you making this up?
Allyson: Why would I make it up?
Ben: To put me off, to put distance between us. I mean, I use that trick all the time. Usually because I actually care about someone.
Allyson: Yeah, well I’m not. I just did what you told me to do when you were trying to get me up into your room.
Ben: I wasn’t trying to get you up to the room. It happened.

He [of course] is very handsome [if older and distinguished] and she [of course] is very beautiful. So, sometimes he’ll win and sometimes she’ll win. You’re thinking [at the time]: Fuck both of them. But mostly [perhaps] because you can’t be like them.

Ben: Some doctor said he saw something in an EKG, wanted me to get some tests.
Carol: What did he see?
Ben: I never went there. I mean, what do I want to know for anyway? I just want to do the things I want to do and only the things I want to do until it happens, whatever, you know, “it” is.

The "big one" let's call it.

Susan: I’m not going to give you any more money, especially after today’s performance.
Ben: Didn’t Scotty have a great time?
Susan: He has a better time with you than with anyone. That’s the problem. He thinks you're magic.
Ben: That’s how he should think of his grandfather.
Susan: No, he should think of his grandfather as consistent and reliable.
Ben: Consistent is boring. His other grandparents are consistent. He doesn’t want to go to their house…
Susan: But when he needs them, he knows they’ll come running, and it makes him feel safe.
Ben: That’s an illusion and you know it. No one can protect anyone. Look what happened to me. All of the high-end friends I cultivated over the years ran for the hills when I needed them.

Said the asshole.

Susan: You missed his party. He had a smile on his face 'cause that’s the kind of kid he is, but I know him. He kept looking at the elevator every time it opened hoping you were going to come walking out. If this happens again, that’s it. I’m not going to keep putting him in a position to get hurt.
Ben: What are you telling me? You’re not gonna let me see my grandson? Do you see the way he looks at me? Come on, I love that boy.
Susan: Either be in his life or don’t.

She said to the asshole.

Susan: I want you to get some help, Dad. I don’t know, see someone, maybe try medication…
Ben: I’m not going to do that.
Susan: Do it for me, Dad…for Scotty. I never complained about any of it, did I? When you left Mom, when you blew up your franchises, when you spent all your money trying to stay out of prison, I didn’t say anything. You used to be someone I could look up to.

Now that takes me back.

Susan: If you’re not going to help yourself, then just leave me, my friends and my family alone.
Ben [taking that in]: I’m sorry to hear that.
Susan: But not sorry enough to do something about it.
[the look on his face…]
Susan: Are you really gonna let us just walk out of your life?
Ben: You’re making that choice, not me.
Susan: Fine. If that’s the way you need to hear it, then yes, I’m making it. Stay away from us.

That's what I did eventually....stayed away from them.

Ben: Jimmy, how are you fixed for help at the deli?
Jimmy: Really?

So, is there or is there not an ulterior motive about to surface.

Jimmy [to Ben]: When my father gave me this place years ago, I used to dream about these girls. Every night, dreams, all kinds of dreams about 'em. But then I’d see them coming back after graduation. They’d come to homecomings, ballgames. They’d sit at the same tables, eat the same food. And I’d look at them and I noticed, they don’t stay like this. None of 'em. They put on years and pounds and wrinkles. And I got one like that at home. So. And we can talk to each other. I know her and I’ll always know her.

Settling down let's call it. That or sour grapes.

Ben [on the phone talking about his grandson]: I’ll call back in the morning.
Susan: He won’t be available then either. He thinks you’re on a long trip where there are no phones…which you are.

The chickens come home to roost.

Jordan [to Ben on the phone]: You’re mistaking this for a conversation.

Like posting here, say.

Ben: You got your little jokes, you know, the Spanish thing, interests are the same, and the studying. But, um, are you getting it, you know, where it counts?
Maureen [realizing what he is proposing]: Oh, Ben. Cheston thinks you care about him.
Ben: This has nothing to do with him. He’s never gonna know about this. Never.
Maureen: Aren’t you a little old for all this?
Ben: You’re still standing here, aren’t you?
Maureen: Yeah, 'cause I’m contemplating throwing this drink in your face. But I’m not going to, because I don’t want Cheston to know what you just tried. So you can just walk away. Please.
Ben: Nothing personal.
Maureen: Hey. That is it, actually. Since you asked, that’s what I get from him. Something personal. Besides getting it done where it counts, which he does. Cheston and I reach each other. He’s tender and sweet and smart and funny and a million things that you aren’t.
Ben: I was once, honey. It doesn’t last.

You can say that again. Only louder this time.

Ben: What the fuck do you care if I get looked at? Don’t start all that friend bullshit.
Jimmy: Well, we are friends.
Ben: I haven’t seen you in 30 years, all right?
Jimmy: That has nothing to do with this.
Ben: See, that’s where you and I are different. I don’t exactly have faith in that racket.
Jimmy: What the friendship racket?
Ben: Yeah.
Jimmy: You know you had a lot of friends when you were here, Ben.
Ben: I’ll tell you where the place is for friends. It’s in that mid-range, you know, where everything is comfortable and we’re all the same, right there in the middle. But at your highest moments and your lowest, you’re alone.

Well, one of them for sure.

Nancy: I still don’t understand why you didn’t go back and get the test.
Ben: I’m gonna go to a doctor and give him that kind of power – the when, the where, the how, the why. There’s no way. You know what it’s like when we get our age – the best thing a doctor can say is, “the survival rate is high,” or “it’s a good cancer,” ir “hey, no problem, we got it early.” I don’t want to hear any of that. I wasn’t gonna go get some of those beta-blockers and all that crap that’ll slow you down and level you out. I was gonna live my life the way I wanted to till the fucking thing in my heart exploded.

Me? Still too close to call.