Philosophy Now Forum

Each layer on the cake describes how much shit you have to take. The higher up you go the less shit. What could be simpler? Or, if your aim is to make it all the way to the top, harder.

This is one of those gangster movies where describing the context is more important than the crimes themselves. Or is to me.

One of the great opening monologues. So much said about the world of drugs [the one we live in] and in so precise a manner. At least until he finds out just how imprecise his assessment actually is.

The warfare is still largely internecine though. The violence doesn’t get down to us until the “end-user” sticks a gun in our face to feed the habit.

Anyway, the first thing I’d do is stash enough away to live comfortably for…forever. Then have a well thought out exit strategy. And remember: there is really no such thing as a friend here. So don’t make any.

Follow the pills. Someone has them to sell and someone wants to buy them. But the buyer insist the pills be sold exclusively to him…or else. This is more akin to 52 card monte.

The title is a reference to the layered nature of the criminal underworld, and indeed, the world itself. As Eddie Temple explains "You’re born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake son. " No matter how powerful and important someone thinks they are there is always someone more powerful and important. The Duke thinks of himself as a powerful and important man, as evidenced by his name, yet he’s a nobody compared to XXXX. Even XXXX himself is less important and powerful than a man like Jimmy Price who is, in turn, less important and powerful than Eddie Temple. IMDb


Layer Cake

XXXX: When I was born the world was a far simpler place. It was all just cops and robbers. But it wasn’t for me. Then came the Summer of Love. Hasish and LSD arrived on the scene. There were villains locked away for twelve years for robbing a bank of ten grand, doing time with drippy hippies down six months for smuggling two million quid worth of puff. I mean work it out mate. We’re in the wrong fucking game. Drugs. Changed. Everything. Always remember that one day all this drug monkey business will all be legal. They won’t leave it to people like me. Not once they figure out how much money is in it. Not millions. Fucking BILLIONS. Recreational Drugs PLC: “Giving People What They Want.” Good times today, stupor tomorrow. But this is now. So while prohibition lasts, make hay while the sun shines. I’m not a gangster. I’m a businessman whose commodity happens to be cocaine. I mean ten years ago a bit of charlie was for pop stars or a celebrities birthday bash. It was demonized by Daily Mail Readers getting drunk in naff wine bars. Now they’re my biggest clients. This is Clarkie. Double first at Cambridge in industrial chemistry. Only he’s got to pay off his student loans somehow. Today I only deal in Kilos. And, depending on which tariff you use will cost you 28 grand, or fifteen years in prison. Which is more than a rapist. C’est la vie. It is vital that we work to a few golden rules: Always works in small teams. Keep a low profile. Never deal with anyone who doesn’t come recommended. I mean it’s like selling anything: washing machines, hand made rugs, blow jobs, as long as you don’t take the piss people will always come back for more. And that’s not to say that we don’t have that special kind of magic that turns two kilos into three. But never get too greedy. Know and respect your enemy! It is only very very stupid people who think the law is stupid. And avoid like the plague, loud attention seeking wannabe gangsters who are in it for the glory, to be a face, to be a name. They don’t mean to fuck up. They just do. Oh, and forgive me for stating the obvious, but stay away from the end user. They’re guaranteed to bring you trouble. As do guns. I hate guns. And violence. But, as some Roman general once said. If you want peace, prepare for war. Morty, and his assistant Terry watch my back. Morty learned to be cautious the hard way. He did ten years inside. He’s my bridge to the criminal world. And he insures that the traffic is one way.
[finally]
XXXX: Very, very important: Pay your supplier prompt. In our case, that’s Mr. Jimmy Price. He’s the top of the pyramid. Pay him. In full, on time, without fail, no short counts. You get no second chances. Jimmy calls the shots.

Uh, maybe?

Paul: [seeing Brian delirious after taking an ecstasy pill] What’s with him?
Duke [chuckling]: He’s just had one of these. These are super e’s mate, we’re gonna make millions!

Cigarettes and booze are still legal though.

Gene [to XXXX]: In those days, being black was even worse than being Irish.

And in those days to come?

Gene [to XXXX]: Listen, I know it’s not your thing, but if you have to kill someone, never ever tell a living soul.

Well, not counting Judgment Day of course.

XXXX [over the phone]: Dragan?
Dragan: Yes.
XXXX: I’ve got an idea…Why don’t you come 'round for breakfast? I’ll squeeze some orange juice and grind some coffee and we can talk about this like adults. How’s that sound?
Dragan: Sounds very hospitable.
XXXX: Do you know where I live?
Dragan: No.
XXXX: Well, fuck off then.

Being a gangster can get downright tricky, of course.

Eddie [to XXXX]: This looks like you, son. Smart part of town. I’ll keep an eye open. Must dash off. Get home. Wash and brush up. Opera tonight. The Damnation of Faust. Man sells his soul to the devil. All ends in tears. These arrangements usually do.

Being a gangster can get downright tricky, of course.

Eddie [to XXXX]: England. Typical. Even drug dealers don’t work weekends.

Not counting the beastly immigrants,

XXXX: I’ve got a recording at home. Of Jimmy and a cozzer called Albie Carter.
Morty: Gene, let’s listen to this shit. If he’s lying, we’ll both fucking kill him.

Any cozzers here? How about rozzers?

Morty: Why did you keep the gun?
Gene: I know it sounds silly now, but it was my favorite.
Morty: You better not let the other guns know you have a favorite.

In other words, what if the bazooka finds out?

Dragan [after killing Lucky]: Do I have your attention?
XXXX: Yes.
Dragan: You English, you have no idea of honor and respect. I usually kill for less. I want my cargo and the Duke.
XXXX: I haven’t got your pills. Just give me a day to…
[another shot]
Dragan: Don’t piss in my pocket and tell me it’s raining.

Next up: our pockets here.

Eddie: You’re a bright young man. This monkey business is in your blood, under your skin. You’re not getting out, you’re just getting in. I’ve every faith in you. One day, it will be you sitting here telling some Young Turk the facts of life.
XXXX: And they are, Mr. Temple?
Eddie: You’re born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you’re up in the rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son.

Which layers are we on here.
New thread?

XXXX [voiceover]: Paul the boatman. Kinky. The Duke. Slasher. Kilburn Jerry. Crazy Larry. Mr. Lucky. Troop. Jimmy. I don’t want to add my name to that list.

Ooops.

Gautama Buddha

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

On the other hand, down through the ages, how scary it has been when some do exactly that.
And this time you're the infidel.

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

In other words, cue the objectivists.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon.... If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.

Next up: translating this into the reality of the world we actually live in.

Three things can not hide for long: the Moon, the Sun and the Truth.

And millions follow this guy!

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But you can believe him of course.

...after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Enough said?

Been there, done that.

But this one never even makes it to the actual war itself. It starts at the time I had already left. The war was lost. Nixon and Kissinger were selling the illusion of “peace with honor”. And hundreds upon hundreds of thousands were already dead and buried. Including friends of mine.

What this movie is good at is portraying Army AIT. You’re out of boot camp and learning your MOS. Playing soldier in other words. Here it's 11B. Back then all these characters really existed. Why? Because of the draft. There were just too many folks in the Army that were there under duress. And many in their own way ripped the military mindset to shreds. I’d like to think I did my part.

Is this just another rendition of Tribes though? One man against the military?

There’s no political context at all. It’s all about hating what the Army tries to turn you into. All you have to note by way of contrast though is the military at a time when the war was waged against folks like… Hitler? It’s all rooted in context. It’s absurd to come down on the military per se. Or even war.

The Sergeant here did a tour of duty with MACV. Me too.


Tigerland

Paxton [voice-over]: My father said the army makes all men one, but you never know which one.

Only that you better be whoever they say it is.

Cantwell: Don’t it strike you how it’s the same moon shining? And it’s shining down on us here and shining down on that little girl who’s my wife. It’s the same moon that’ll be shining when we go to war. Same moon that’s shining down on those boys getting shot. Don’t it strike you what it means? How each of us is a bit of everything. And everything is shit.

I was once that "spiritual" myself.

CO: Jesus Christ! When did “My country, right or wrong” turn into “Fuck this shit”?

December 1, 1969.

CO: Sergeant, we are losing a war. The whole goddamn Army is falling apart. You want me to fiddle-fuck around with one smart-ass barracks lawyer?

Let's run this by Joker.
The other one.

Johnson: You know what your problem is Wilson? You need to listen for the pop.
Wilson: Whoa, whoa. What’s “the pop”, Johnson?
Johnson: That’s the sound you’re gonna make when your head comes out of your ass for the first time.

"The pop" here.

Bozz: I understand your position, Sergeant. I ain’t trying to fuck things up for you. You got your army to run and people to kill. I’m not part of it.
Sergeant: Nobody quits the Army.
Bozz: I’m not quitting. . . I’m just not playing.

I almost didn't play it myself. But then I fucked up. AIT Ft. Benning. Ask Jerry Pope about it.

Miter: You know what I am Bozz? I’m a butcher.
Bozz: Yeah, we’re all butchers, Miter.
Miter: No, I’m a real butcher.
Bozz: Shit, you haven’t killed anyone yet.
Miter: God damn it, Bozz, I mean a real butcher. Back home I cut meat!

Me? An electrician in the shipyards.

CO: I don’t want you in a stockade, Bozz. I don’t want you recycled. I don’t want you drummed out on some bad conduct discharge. I want you exactly where you are. And we’ll just naturally chew you up.

Next up: Bozz in that telephone booth...

Sergeant Cota: Maybe you’ve heard we’ve lost this war. Or we’ve lost the support of people here at home. It’s too late to ask those questions. You’re not back on the block. If you’re alive in a year, we’ll talk about it.

And I was and we did.

Private: Sarge, you got any advice on how to stay alive in Vietnam?
Sergeant Cota: Yes, I do, private. Don’t go.

It's still hard to believe that I actually wanted to go.
Praise the Lord?

Nathaniel Hawthorne from The Scarlet Letter

We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

Intellectuals!

It is a good lesson -- though it may often be a hard one -- for a man to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.

He dared them to understand that!

“Do anything, save to lie down and die!”

Whatever works in other words.

...if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom...

I'd be covered in them myself.

Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl! whispered her mother. We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.

Next up: that knock on the door.
Only they're coming for you this time.

There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.

"Or else", let's say.

The first thing you wonder about is this: Okay, it’s not a true story…but do things like this actually happen? Not the occasional incident where maniacal morons play Russian Roulette. That will always pop up in the news from time to time. Here though it is organized as an underground “event” where others bet on the outcome. Like the set up in The Deer Hunter.

Tried googling it but couldn’t come up with anything definitive. But would it really surprise you if some rendition of it did exist? “Over there”, for example. Or “down there”.

All he knows is this: if he follows the instructions in the envelope he won’t be poor anymore. And by the time he finds out how he can’t back down.

What makes this so effective is that it’s easy to imagine. However horrific the ordeal there are those who will endure it. They are desparate enough, in other words. It’s just that this guy had no idea what was in store for him. And he is particularly young and has that much more to lose.

But isn’t the whole “game” bounded by pure luck? Unless it’s rigged. It’s not like betting on the horses where you can do research to determine the best prospect. There skill is of far more importance than mere chance. The betting part seems absurd. After all, It’s not the best shot that wins, is it?

If this ever does become legit you can bet the real money would come from a PPV broadcast. It would blow Wrestlemania right out of the water.


Tzameti

Man: Is it about dope?
Jean-François: No, nothing like that.

Though there are clearly other things you can get addicted to.

Sébastien: Jean-François is dead. He overdosed.
Sponsor: Did he tell you about this?
Sébastien: I knew he was waiting for a letter. He hoped to earn a lot. I found it and followed the instructions.
Sponsor: Do you know what it’s about?
Sébastien: No idea.

It wasn't even for him!

Sébastien: If I don’t suit you I can leave.
Sponsor: It’s too late for that.
Sébastien: What if it doesn’t suit me?
Sponsor: You have to play now.

You may as well be arguing with Anton Chigurh.

Game sponsor [to game participant]: Man is born once and he dies once. Be philosophical about it.

Then, who knows, you might be the last one standing.

Game announcer: Load your gun! Raise your gun! Spin the cylinder! More! Take aim! Cock the hammer! When the bulb lights up, you shoot! Everyone stare at the bulb!

After round one: 3 dead, 10 alive. Inbetween rounds: morphine.

Game announcer: Put your bullets in the cylinder! Two bullets!..

See where this is going?

Annoucer: Three bullets per player!

After four bullets it’s decided.

A dark family secret. Wartime. The Occupation of France. The persecution of Jews.

It’s all about what you know and how you react to it in a particular way. And about the complexity of the lives that embody the secret both during and after the conflict.

When a man falls in love with another woman on his wedding day the consequences can be considerable. With or without persecution and war. In the war though they can be nothing less than deadly.

But: Why would she choose this for her son? She makes this incredibly stupid [impulsive?] decision because she thinks that maybe her husband wants to become involved with her brother’s wife? I can only wonder if the film version is at odds with what really happened. Otherwise, this seems merely to be the tale of a very foolish woman. And, with respect to her son, unforgivably selfish?

On the other hand, this too is no less a manifestation of dasein. No one can really grasp fully what goes on in another mind.

People are just sometimes unfathomable. But part of this particular secret is that things worked out just as Maxime and Tania might have [secretly?] wished. But not in a malevolent sense…more in line with the ambiguities that marble all such relationships.



Un Secret

Title card: This story and its main characters are based on true events.

Which can mean many, many different things to many, many different people.

François [as adult]: Oddly, my parents never talked about the Occupation of France. They kept it from me like a shameful secret.

Let's just say they had their reasons. And shame is often just a point of view.

School boy [to François while watching a newsreel of German atrocities]: “Ve have vays of making you tok, Jewish swine.”

François is not amused. He leaps from his seat and starts to pummel him with his fists. Later…

Maxime [father]: You really beat him up?
François: I think I wanted to kill him.
Louise: You wanted to kill him? Didn’t you wonder why?
François: I wanted to rub out his face.
Louise: Why?
[pause]
Louise: Why?
[long pause, going back in time…François falls into her lap weeping]
Louise: I know why you are crying.

And so do we.

François [narrating as adult]: Louise finally told me what I’d always known. She loved me enough to betray my parents’ trust. Since she had revealed part of the secret, she had to tell me more…Dead people emerged whose names I heard for the first time. Hannah…and Simon. Tania and Robert.

Is America next, he pondered?

Family member: Did you tell him? I bet you told him. That’s how it is. She went with me to get her star.
Maxime: Is that true, Hannah?
Family member: Do you want to forbid her from being Jewish?
Esther: If he could…
Family member: Esther, shut up!

You just never know what might bring it all crashing down.

Tania: I hate math! If Hannah were here…
Esther: Oh, stop it! Cut the “poor Hannah” act! You sure you want her to come back?
[Tania is startled and leaves the room]
Esther [to Louise]: Well? Doesn’t it make you sick?
Louise: I’ve seen worse.
Esther: You say that because you also…
Louise: Go on, say it. I also think Tania’s desirable? It’s true. She’s beautiful and desirable.
Esther: So you excuse them?
Louise: No, I just dont judge them.
Esther: Great!

She doesn’t judge Hannah either.

François [as an adult narrating]: I’d never seen my father so upset.
Maxime: Mom tell you about the dog?
François: Yes. I took care of it.
François [as an adult narrating]: He’s gotten over Hannah and Simon. But his dog’s death crushed him.

Let's try to explain that.

Klarsfeld: Grinberg, Hannah Golda, nee Stirn, and Simon Grindberg, is that right?
François [as adult]: Yes.
Klarsfeld [reading from file]: “August 10 to 17, 1942: a week at Pithiviers transit camp. The 18th, sent to Poland, Auschwitz. Gassed the day after arrival, the 19th.”

Next!

François [narrating as adult]: I told Maxime what Serge Klarsfeld had found: the transport train, the departure for Auschwitz, their death the next morning. They didn’t suffer the camp’s daily horror. Only Nazi hatred was to blame for their death.

Any Nazi hatred here?

François [narrating as adult]: A few years later, Mother lost the ability to speak or walk after a stroke. My father faced up at first, but the sight of his paralyzed champion became too much for him, and they decided to end it.

Que sera sera?

André Gide from The Immoralist

Poverty makes a slave out of men. In order to eat he will accept work that gives no pleasure.

And now, of course, women too. But that will all change once...

After much searching I have found the thing that sets me apart: a sort of stubborn attachment to evil.

Though what others call good, of course.

Existing is occupation enough.

At least until it's time to pay the bills.

One must allow other people to be right, he used to say when he was insulted, It consoles them for not being anything else.

Uh, click?

The very things that separated me and distinguished me from other people were what mattered; the very things no one else would or could say, these were the things I had to say.

Fractured and fragmented to boot.

I had forgotten I was alone; I sat there, waiting for nothing, oblivious to the time.

I never forget that now myself.

A true story. But more to the point I guess: Is it still true today? And if not entirely true…how much? There surely is corruption still. And there is also incompetence. If you watch enough “true crime” documetaries you know just how much. It can reach the point where you start to think, “we only need cops around because without them things would be a whole lot worse”.

On the other hand it might be argued that given how little they are paid [relative to the job] why not? This movie reminded me a bit of Eight Men Out. They were corrupt in part because management paid them peanuts. Same here. The cops are barely paid a living wage. They rationalize the payoff because it comes from gambling money anyway. Most of which is probably legal these days. I gotta admit I’m really ambivalent here. $800 a month in payoffs?

But that’s just a point of view. There are any number of honest cops who do everything they possibly can to help people. But others are corrupt…and racist and sexist and all the other traits embedded in reaction. And, yes, incompetent.

The cops here [over 40 years ago] seemed to operate along the path of least resistance. You do as little as you can for as long as you can get away with it. And this is New York.


Serpico

Cop: Jesus Christ. Guess who got shot. Serpico.
Cop: You think a cop did it?
Cop: I know six cops said they’d like to.

At least.

Speaker at the academy: To be a police officer means to believe in the law and to enforce it impartially respecting the equality of all men and the dignity and worth of every individual. Every day, your life will be on the line and also your character. You’ll need integrity, courage, honesty, compassion, courtesy…and perseverance…and patience. You men are now prepared to join the war against crime and put the theory you have learned into practice in the streets.

Theoretically, in other words.

Detective: We’ll take it from here, kid. You don’t have to hang around.
Serpico: What are you talking about? That’s my collar.
Detective: We take the collar. A collar like this, don’t look good, a patrolman takes it.
Serpico: Wait a minute. I don’t care how it looks. Now, I did the work. I broke my ass on this. It’s my collar.
Detective: You really want the collar, kid? You can be brought up on charges. Left your post, the street, entered the school yard without permission–That’s just for openers. Right, Penella? No memo entry. Shit. You’ll be lucky to end up with a reprimand.

He’s learning. In other words, or else.

Leslie [feeling his gun as she’s riding on the back of his motorcycle]: What’ya need a gun for?
Serpico: Didya ever hear of Barnum and Bailey?
Leslie: Yeah.
Serpico: Well, I’m their lion tamer.

Not really.

Larry: Hey man, are you really a cop?
Serpico: Right. I am.
Larry: Wow. Because Leslie is a mindfucker.
Serpico: You gotta be kidding. I didn’t know that. What’s a mindfucker?
Larry: Well, it’s a chick who digs intellectual types and super bright guys.

Philosophy chicks!!

Keough: Now I got a call about you from downtown. I ain’t sayin’ who. They just said ya’… ya’ couldn’t be trusted, you know?
Serpico: ‘Cause I don’t take money, right?
Keough: Frank, let’s face it. Who can trust a cop who don’t take money? I mean, you are pretty weird, you know, kid? And with that call, the guys were gettin’ a little worried. I told them you were okay. I knew you from the old 21. You’d never hurt another cop, right? You’d never hurt another cop, would you, Frank?
Serpico: That’d depend on what he did.
Keough: That’s the wrong answer, Frankie.

Again, however, is that still the wrong answer in a precinct near you?

Denis Diderot Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot

The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac.

Click?

Master, master, you obviously haven’t thought about this at all. We only ever feel sorry for ourselves, believe me.

Come on, there are almost always exceptions. If not here?

There comes a moment when nearly all young girls and young boys become melancholic. They are disturbed by a vague uneasiness which extends to everything and can find no consolation. They look for solitude. They weep. The silence of the cloister moves them and the image of peace which seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first movements of their developing emotions for the voice of God calling them and it is at the precise moment when nature is calling to them that they embrace a life which is contrary to the laws of nature.

That again.

It was ordained that you would have the title to the thing and I would have the thing itself.

The first scam?

What does one say to somebody who says: ‘Whatever the sum total of the elements I am composed of I am still one entity. Now one cause has only one effect. I have always been one single cause and I have therefore only ever had one effect to produce. My existence in time is therefore nothing more than a series of necessary effects’?

Besides, who can prove that it's not.

How did they meet? By chance, like everyone else. What were their names? What’s it to you? Where did they come from? The nearest place. Where were they going? Do we know where we’re going? What did they say? The master said nothing; and Jacques said that his captain said that everything good and bad that happens to us down here was written up there.

Where up there?

Serpico

Keough: We’re skimming a little gambling money. It’s clean. It’s not dope. It hurts nobody. Come on, Frank. Gamblers are gentlemen, and they’re gonna operate anyhow, right?
Serpico: Look, Keough, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. Do what you got to do.
Keough: What’s the matter, Frank? What are you worried about? Listen. We don’t go overboard here. We’re not sloppy. We’re careful. The spicks, niggers, we bust them. They operate so dumb and sloppy…they get your ass in hot water every time. But the Italians, now, that’s a different story. They’re men of their word. They’re reliable, Frankie.

Yeah, what about that, Frank?

Serpico: I’ve been to outside agencies. I’ll go to more if I have to.
McClain: What outside agencies? Holy Mother of God! Frank, we wash our own laundry around here!! You could be brought up on charges!
Serpico: We do not wash our own laundry! It just gets dirtier!
McClain: You are in trouble!
Serpico: I don’t care if I’m in trouble. I don’t care who gets it. If I have to go to outside agencies…
McClain: Stay away from outside agencies!

My guess: or else.

Serpico: You know that I’m totally isolated in the department. I don’t have a friend.
Chief Green: Oh, don’t give me that bullshit about friends. I’ve been putting cops away for thirty years. My name’s an obscenity to every shithouse wall in every precinct in the city.
Serpico: I’ve observed that, sir.
Chief Green: Friends! And I fought my way up as a Jew in the department in the days you were supposed to have an uncircumcised shamrock between your legs. I have this nightmare. I’m on 5th Avenue watching the St. Patrick’s Day parade and I have a coronary and nine thousand cops march happily over my body!

Any uncircumcised shamrocks here?

DA: Frank, this was a grand jury about police offiicers…actively engaged in corruption. You don’t implicate people without suffiicient evidence.
Serpico: That’s crap and you know it, because even a dumb cop like me knows a prosecutor can take a grand jury anywhere it wants to take it. Now, you never led me anywhere near the real problems. Nothing about the bosses, the brass…how corruption like this could exist without anybody knowing about it. Now, a few flunky cops in the Bronx. That’s it. None of the shit in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan?
DA: While you’re at it, why don’t you mention Kansas City?
Serpico: Well, ‘‘the biggest thing since Harry Gross.’’ That’s what you said.
DA: All right! Look, Frank. You got guts, integrity. There’s going to be a detective’s gold shield in this for you.
Serpico: Now, that’s terrifiic. That’s good. Maybe this is what it’s all about. Maybe I should take my gold shield and forget it.

Then the part where it all unfolds in an essentially meaningless world.

Gun shop owner: That gun takes a 14 shot clip. You expecting an army?
Serpico: No. Just a division.

Get the bazooka, Frank.

Cop [to Frank]: All right, you cocksucker. You might get by with that shit in the Bronx, but down here, 800 a month is chicken feed. Last week, one dope dealer sent out these guys making pickups…40,000 each. We let 'em collect it all, and then hit 'em. 120,000 split four ways. That’s serious money. And with that, you don’t fuck around.
Serpico: I got the message.

As in in one ear and out the other.

Serpico [testifying before the Knapp Commission]: Through my appearance here today I hope that police officers in the future will not experience the same frustration and anxiety that I was subjected to for the past five years at the hands of my superiors… because of my attempt to report corruption. I was made to feel that I had burdened them with an unwanted task. The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist in which an honest police officer can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers. Police corruption cannot exist unless it is at least tolerated at higher levels in the department. Therefore, the most important result that can come from these hearings is a conviction by police officers that the department will change. In order to ensure this an independent, permanent investigative body dealing with police corruption, like this commission, is essential.

Next up: the Big Easy.

When I was young I thought, “There’s no way in hell we won’t make contact with something 'out there' before I die.”

I don’t think that way anymore. It’s the gigantic distances “out there” that appear the most daunting. Billions and billions of miles just to step out into the neighorhood. And even if we receive an unmistakable signal, the ETs sending it might be long gone.

The overwhelming preponderance of humankind has gone to the grave baffled regarding “our place in the universe.” Carl Sagan among them.

But of late science has been able to locate many, many planetary systems orbiting distant stars. So we know the part about the planets existing is true.

The film also explores the conflicting narratives posited by those who embrace science and those who embrace religion. As with Einstein, Sagan always sought to provoke a discussion whereby a place could be found somewhere in the middle for both of them. Science goes deeper and deeper but the mystery of existence itself becomes all the more astounding. Answers merely precipitate more questions. As with, for example, the Higgs boson. On the most recent segment of Through the Wormhole [how’s that for irony?] this became abundantly clear.

The part that follows the plunge through the wormhole? It may as well have been Heaven. There’s her dad again, for example. It’s not “real” though. Wink, wink.

The ending is delicious. It is bursting at the seams with irony. Science, philosophy and religion in a kind of blur. And then in a kind of “vision”.


Contact

Ellie [sticking a thumbtack into a start chart]: One down, couple of billion to go.

She means "billions and billions" to go.

Palmer: What are you studying up there?
Ellie: Oh, the usual. Nebulae, quasars, pulsars, stuff like that. What are you writing?
Palmer: The usual. Nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives here and there.

Let's run this by Killer Joe.

Ellie: Now there are 400 billion stars out there. Just in our galaxy alone. If only one out of a million of those had planets…and if just one out of a million of those had life…and if just one out of a million of those had intelligent life, there would be millions of civilizations out there.

Uh, or not?

Ellie: Dr. Drumlin, we are talking about what could potentially be the most important discovery in the history of humanity. There are over four hundred billion stars out there…
Drumlin: And only two probabilities: One: there is intelligent life in the universe but they’re so far away you’ll never contact it in your lifetime. Two: There’s nothing out there but noble gasses and carbon compounds and you’d be wasting your time.

God knows?

Executive: We must confess that your proposal seems less like science and more like science fiction.
Ellie: Science fiction. Well you’re right, it’s crazy. In fact, it’s even worse than that, nuts.
[angrily slams down her briefcase and marches up to the desk]
Ellie: You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an “airplane,” you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it’s ridiculous, right? And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon, or atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right?

"Beam me up, Scotty." Now that's science fiction.
On the other hand, so were smart phones.

Palmer [being interviewed by Larry King]: Is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? We shop at home, we surf the Web…at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history. We’ve become a synthesized society, always in a rush to get to the next sensation. We’re looking for meaning. What is the meaning? We have mindless jobs, take frantic vacations. Deficit finance trips to the mall to buy more things that we think will fill the holes in our lives…

And, of course, what we do here.

Meaning

“When you're having an asthma attack, you don't have any breath. When you don't have any breath, it's hard to speak. You're limited by the amount of air you can spend from your lungs. That's not much, something between three to six words. It gives the word a meaning. You're searching through the piles of words in your head, picking the most important ones. And they have a cost. It's not like the healthy people that take out every word that has accumulated in their head like garbage. When someone, while having an asthma attack, says "I love you" or "I really love you", there's a difference. A word difference. And a word is a lot, because that word could have been "sit", "Ventolin" or even "ambulance". Etgar Keret

Uh, new thread?

“if we possess a why of life we can put up with almost any how.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Define "almost"?

“All words, in every language, are metaphors.” Marshall McLuhan

Let's run this by Woody Allen.

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Herbert Stein

Next up: it doesn't stop.

“It all meant something. Until it didn't.” Dave Eggers

When did it stop for you?

“A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.” Anne Rice

Lesson learned?

Contact

Drumlin: People have been looking at Vega for years. No results. Yesterday they start broadcasting primes. Why?
Ellie: Well, it’s hardly yesterday. The signal’s been transmitting for 26 years.

Drumlin...the pinhead?

Rachel [about Hitler broadcast]: Twenty million people died defeating that son of a bitch, and he’s our first ambassador to outer space?
Ellie: Actually the Hitler broadcast from the…
Drumlin [interrupting]: …1936 olympics was the first television transmission of any power that went in to space. That they recorded it, and sent it back, is simply their way of saying “hello, we heard you.”
Kitz: Or, “Sieg Heil, you’re our kind of people.”

War of the worlds let's call it.

Sign at the Very Large Array gathering of the masses: UFO ABDUCTION INSURANCE

Next up: the masses here.

Ellie [to Palmer]: Occam’s razor. You ever heard of it? It’s a basic scientific princple which says: All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be right.
Palmer: Makes sense to me.
Ellie: So what’s more likely? That an all-powerful, mysterious God created the Universe, and decided not to give any proof of his existence? Or, that He simply doesn’t exist at all, and that we created Him, so that we wouldn’t have to feel so small and alone?
Palmer: I don’t know. I couldn’t imagine living in a world where God didn’t exist. I wouldn’t want to.
Ellie: How do you know you are not deluding yourself? I mean, for me, I’d need proof.
Palmer: Proof? Did you love your father?
Ellie: What?
Palmer: Your dad. Did you love him?
Ellie: Yes, very much.
Palmer: Prove it.

Well, that’s a bullshit analogy to me. If only because it is considerably easier to demonstrate if a particular father and daughter do in fact exist. The “love” part is then rooted in dasein rooted in biology reflected in how we see them interact.

Palmer: But why you…why you personally? By doing this, you’re willing to give your life. You’re willing to die for it. Why?
Ellie: For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for…something…some reason why we’re here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even a little part of that answer…I don’t know, I think it’s worth a human life.

You know, going back to where human existence itself fits into, well, you tell me.

Ellie: Why did you do it?
Palmer: Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn’t in good conscience vote for a person who doesn’t believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion.
Ellie: I told the truth up there. And Drumlin told you exactly what you wanted to hear.

Cue the script.

Drumlin: I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that’s an understatement. What you don’t know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.
Ellie: Funny, I’ve always believed that the world is what we make of it.

Political economy, let's call it.

Ellie: It’s a star. I must have gone through a wormhole.

Then there is this obligatory scene:

Alien: You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.

Star Trek 101 let's call it.

Lots of movies like this. You live in a family with someone who is “special”. He has an “affliction” and it makes him behave in ways that invite, say, the very, very stupid and the very, very ignorant [read typical teenage boys] to make fun of him. What’s the best way to handle it?

What would a decent, humane person do? What ought we to do? After all, there are people out there [Nazis, Objectivists, Supremacists] who would dump them somewhere or get rid of them altogether.

Then you react to the film in terms of how realistic you think it is. But realistic from what point of view? From my point of view it seemed brutally realistic. But is this how it actually is?

Ask yourself this: If all of a sudden out of the blue it was your responsibility to watch over Charlie…could you? Would you? Here’s someone who, when he has to pee, runs into the nearest available house. Or takes a shit in his room and than rubs it into the carpet. Or chews on tampons. Or masturbates at the dinner table.

Is that realistic?


The Black Balloon

Boy: Why is your brother a spastic?
Thomas: He’s not a spastic, he’s autistic.
Boy: Same dif.

You know, like being a "retard".

Boys [heaving eggs]: Hey, check it out, it’s the spastic bus!

Pick two:
1] genes
2] memes

Thomas: Charlie, Charlie, come on…you go to the toilet at home.

For some though, when you gotta go you gotta go.

Thomas: Charlie, get your finger out of your ass.

Again!

Thomas: He shit everywhere, yell at him!
Maggie: You locked him in his room. What was he supposed to do? Don’t be so bloody selfish Tommy.
Thomas: He is not my responsibility!
Maggie: He’s your brother!
Thomas: He’s a freak!
[Maggie slaps him]
Thomas: I don’t want anything to do with him!
Maggie: Your brother will never be able to do the things you can. He will never get a job or have a family…He’ll never be able to look after himself. He will live with us for the rest of his life.

See the conflict here? What would you be willing to give up in order to to care for him?

Thomas: Dad, do you ever wish Charlie was normal?
Simon: All I know is he’s my own, and you’re weak as piss if you don’t look after your own.

In reality though, lines will always be drawn existentially by each of us in what can be very different places

Jackie: Close your eyes, what do you see?
Thomas: Black.
Jackie: Look harder.

Blacker it is then.

Thomas: I hate him! I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!

Admittedly, I could never have handled it myself.

Thomas: You just pissed on my leg, didn’t you?

Har! Har! Har!

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Anything that can be said can be said clearly.

The "early Wittgenstein", we call it.

...the meaning of a word is its use in the language.

On the other hand, whatever that means?

There can never be surprises in logic.

Just as there can never be suprises in, say, the laws of matter

If a blind man were to ask me “Have you got two hands?” I should not make sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then I don’t know why I should trust my eyes. For why shouldn’t I test my eyes by looking to find out whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested by what?

So, would you have to look or not?

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

Existentially as it were.

Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself.

Fractured and fragmented as it were.

Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic.

And, of course, the other way around.