Philosophy Now Forum

Judgement day

“It's not over, until the Lord says it's over.” T.D. Jakes

Let's run this by the fat lady.

“Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?' The second was, 'Did you find joy?” Leo Buscaglia

Not unlike here then?

“I was thinking that, when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.” Agatha Christie

I guess we'll never know.

“...out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.” Joseph M. Chiron

Bummer.

“I'm halfway to Heaven and halfway to Hell with each breath I take in this mortal shell.” Stanley Victor Paskavich

Then drawn and quartered.

“The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.” Russel Kirk

Let's run this by the Supremes.

Ron, meet reality.

And “in reality” everything we once thought had constituted our lives can be yanked out from under us. And that includes life itself. And when reality suddenly changes in a big, big way a whole bunch of the way we once thought about it can start to slip and to slide out from under us too. And in ways that we never saw coming at all.

Adapt or die. Or adapt and die anyway.

In other words, Ron gets AIDS. And this is back in 1985. In Texas. It was a time [especially there…and around these folks] when if you had AIDS everyone assumed you were gay – and everyone assumed you were contagious. It scared the shit out of people. So you became…taboo.

Ron though is pretty much a loathsome scumbag. And not just because he is a white heterosexual male from Texas. Instead, it revolves more around the manner in which he conducts his entire life from the perspective of one or another sub-mental prejudice. Everyone is put in a box and it makes absolutely no difference what they think, feel or do: They are in Ron’s box and that’s that. And down South these dumb bastards are everywhere.

Only Ron bumps into contingency chance and change and his point of view starts to…evolve.

Bottom line: Ron suddenly finds himself facing a very hostile world; and he soon realizes that if he is going to survive longer than they predict he will [30 days tops] he’s got to…improvise. And you can’t say he doesn’t have a strong will to live.

Here it is all over again: The fucking politics of AIDS. The fucking politics of capitalism. The rest as they say is history. I mean, talk about exposing how “the system” works! Crony capitalism at it’s most cynical depths.

In part, Ron is the hero because he bucks “the system” and actually succeeds in prolonging the lives of folks with AIDS. At the same time he is still a piece of shit though. He just mimics the system in that all he really cares about is coming up with a new one. It’s all about him. If someone is sick and dying but can’t afford to join the “buyers club”, well, fuck him. But that changes too.

The budget was so low for this film that only two-hundred and fifty dollars ($250) was allotted to the Makeup department. Amazingly, the film’s artists were able to work within that figure, and the film’s Makeup and Hairstyling won an Oscar.

Matthew McConaughey lost 47 pounds in assuming his role as an AIDS patient. Newspapers reported his new looks as “terribly gaunt” and “wasting away to skin and bones”. Jared Leto lost 30 pounds for his role.

And we’re talking in the vicinity of Christian Bale from The Machinist here.


Dallas Buyers Club

Ron: Did ya hear Rock Hudson was a cock sucker?
Rog: Where'd ya hear that shit?!
Ron: It’s called a newspaper. Right there. It’s a shame, ain’t it? All that fine Hollywood pussy, just all being wasted.
Rog: Who the hell’s Rock Hudson anyway?
Ron: He’s an actor, dumbass. Haven’t you ever seen North By Northwest?

Let's run that by, among others, Cary Grant.

Doctor Sevard: We saw something which… which concerned us. In your initial blood work. So, we ran some additional tests.
Dr. Saks: It’s your blood tests.
Ron: What kinda blood tests. Cause I don’t use drugs.
Doctor: We didn’t test your blood for drugs.
Ron: Cause, that ain’t none of yer business anyway.
Doctor: You’ve tested positive for HIV…which is the virus that causes AIDS.
Ron: Are you fucking kidding me? Isn’t that that fucking Rock cocksucking Hudson bullshit?!

Oh, yeah.

Doctor Sevard: Have you ever engaged in homosexual conduct?
Ron: Homo? Did you say, Homo?
Doctor: Yes.
Ron: Are you fucking kidding me? I aint no faggot, motherfucker. I don’t even know no fucking faggots. Look at me. What do you see…huh? A goddamn rodeo is what you see!

And for a while, as I recall, he actually believed this.

Doctor Sevard: Mr. Woodroof, If you could listen to me for a moment. I know this can be a very scary thing. And, you’re probably feeling alone right now. But, what we’d like to do is to impress upon you the gravity of your situation. Based on your health. Based on your condition, based on all the evidence we have, we estimate that you have about thirty days left. To put your affairs in order.
Ron: Thirty days?
Doctor: I’m sorry.
Ron: Fuck this! What is this shit?! Fucking thirty days. Motherfuckers! Let me give y’all a little news flash. There ain’t nothin’ out there can kill fuckin’ Ron Woodroof in 30 days.

How about you?

Big Pharma rep: Sadly, the AIDS crisis will only get worse before it gets better. And, I know I speak for everyone at Avonex when I say, this is a unique opportunity. A chance to be on the forefront in finding a cure.

And to make a small fortune doing it!

Dr. Saks: Does it not drive you just a little bit crazy to see these guys talking about curing the sick while they’re flashing gold Rolexes? What do they know about sick patients?
Dr. Sevard: They’re Big Pharma reps, not doctors. And like it or not, this is a business.

Well, at least until Trump drains the swamp.

Ron: Can you get me AZT? I know the Avonex industries just released it for testing, right? I wanna buy some, now.
Dr. Saks: That isn’t how it works. For about a year, a group of patients will either get the drug or a placebo. It’s totally left up to chance, not even the doctors are allowed to know.
Ron: You give dyin people sugar pills?
Dr. Saks: It’s the only way to know if a drug works.

Next up: all the sugar pills here. 
Up in the clouds, as it were.

Ron: How about this stuff, overseas…huh? In Germany, they got this…Dextran Sulfate. They got this DDC in France…It’s suppose to keep the healthy cells you got from getting the HIV. They got AL 721 over in Israel…How can I get some of this?
Dr. Saks: None of those drugs have been approved by the FDA.
Ron: Screw the FDA, I’m gonna be DOA.

Think, man, think!

Rayon: I’m Rayon.
Ron: Congratulations. Now fuck off and go back to your bed.
Rayon: Relax, I don’t bite. I guess you’re handsome, in a Texas, hick, white trash, dumb kind of way.
Ron: Get the fuck out of here, whatever you are, before I kick you in the fucking face.

A "homo"?

Dr. Saks: Mr. Woodroof! Where are you going?
Ron: I signed myself out.
Dr. Saks: You’re too sick to leave here.
Ron: The worst-case scenario bein’ what?
Dr. Saks: We can keep you comfortable.
Ron: What? Hook me up to the morphine drip. Let me fade in and out? Nah, sorry lady, but I prefer to die with my boots on.

I'm for fading in and out myself.

Painted on Ron’s trailer: FAGGOT BLOOD

Next up: TRUE BLOOD?

Ron: I thought AZT’s supposed to help me.
Dr. Vass: The only people AZT helps are the people who sell it. It kills every cell it comes in contact with.

You tell me.

Ron: I still got HIV?
Dr. Vass: You will always test positive for HIV. And now you’ve got AIDS from all the toxic shit you’ve put in your body. You’ve shut your immune system and now you’ve got chronic pneumonia, among other things. It could cause memory loss, mood swings, aching joints.
Ron: So if it sucks, I got it.

I hear that. If only now and then.

Dr. Vass: This is DDC, it acts as an anti viral similar to AZT but less toxic. And this is Peptide T, it’s a protein – totally non-toxic. Early studies have shown it these can help with all of that. This is what I had you on since you got here.
Ron: And you can’t buy them back in the U.S.A?
Dr. Vass: No, not approved.

And then all those things not approved here.

Doctor Sevard: Well, test results are overwhelmingly positive. AZT works.
Dr. Saks: We don’t know, what the long term effects are. It’s irresponsible.
Doctor Sevard: These people are dying, Eve. There are no long-term effects.

Finnaly [for some] it all starts to sink in.

Ron: Well, I ain’t selling drugs no more, Counselor. I’m giving ‘em away. For free. By selling memberships. Four hundred dollars a month in dues and you get, all the meds you want.
David: You son of a bitch!
Ron: Bitches. Plural. There’s a bunch of faggots up in New York. Runnin’ a hell of a racket. Just like this. That’s where I got the idea. Welcome to the Dallas Buyers Club!

Next up: the rackets here?

Reporter on TV: AZT has been approved as the first drug to treat AIDS. At a cost of $10,000 per year per patient, AZT is the most expensive drug ever marketed. Avonex stock jumped a whopping 12%.

The medical industrial complex? Yep, that's still around. In fact, it's booming.

Ron [to two new members of the “club”]: Meds and the Treatments are free, but the membership is $400 a month. Alright, you’re gonna have to sign a waiver. We are not responsible for the drugs that we give you. You croak, you croak. That's not our problem. It’s yours.

That's the equivalent of $1,560 today. 

Ron [in the grocery store examining the ingredients on a food package]: Now, that’s the shit that’ll rot your insides. What a surprise, FDA approved.

Let's explain that.

Ron: I don’t trust the white coat who’s trying to sell me the drugs. I fed-ex it to Seattle to my lab there and they tested it for me. Then, I test it all on myself before I give it to anyone.
Dr. Saks: I respect that you’re learning about your illness but some of these people need to be in the hospital.
Ron: Why? All they want is to serve up AZT.
Dr. Saks: AZT helps eradicate the virus.
Ron: Fuck the virus, Dr.Saks. You know this. Once you got that, you’re married to it. AZT or not. We’re talking about symptoms and survival.

Fuck the virus?

Ron: People can live with this thing for longer than they’re saying. Ninety-six-percent of people in the U.S.A who have AIDS today, are gonna die within six months.
Dr. Saks: I know the statistics.
Ron: Then use them. You don’t give AZT to somebody with broken immune system? It’s toxic!
Dr. Saks: If you’re abusing it, like you did, and you’re just taking it without medical surveillance, of course it is.
Ron: Yeah, I did abuse it. But I’m off it now, look at me. I’m here, feeling great. And I’m not the only one.

Imagine though if Trump was the president back then?

Reporter on TV: Things returned to normal today at FDA headquaters outside Washington. A day after the arrest of 175 demonstrators. The protestors, some of whom are dying from AIDS, brought their interests to the FDA complex. They were demanding faster action on new drugs to fight the deadly virus.

Imagine though if RFK Jr. ran the FDA back then? 

Ron: For the hundredth time, just take a fuckin’ look at my research.Richard Barkley: Mr.Woodroof, I wouldnt want you to spend your last days in jail. If you have a product you’d like tested, fill out an application and go through the process.
Ron: Don’t threaten me, motherfucker! The “process”? That’s FDA bullshit for pay up!

Well, they don't call it crony capitalism for nothing.

Ron [to a group of potential club members]: We got a club. Just down the street, where you can get the meds that I’m talking about. We treat more than five times the amount of patients as the large AIDS clinics. And get this…We got one tenth the death ratio.

Coincidence?

Rayon [in despair]: I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!

And it's not like he asked to be born.


Dr. Vass: Check this out. It’s The Lancet medical review. And they published a study conducted in France. It proves AZT alone is too toxic for most to tolerate and had no lasting effect on HIV blood levels. Of course, Avonex industries and the NIH didn’t include the study in their press release.
Ron: No of course they didn’t.
Dr. Vass: Now, these are early trial results for Fluconazole.
Ron: The anti-fungal? I read about this.
Dr. Vass: You want to take some home?
Ron: As much as I can carry.

A lot, say.

Ron: Anemia, Cancer, Bone Marrow depletion. Seizures, Fever, Hearing loss, Impotence, Neuropathy…Sound like AIDS to you? Nah, that there comes in a box of AZT, a list of side effects. No wonder, Rayon is dead.
Dr. Saks: Rayon was a drug addict! He didn’t die for one day on AZT. He died from the disease as a whole!

Whatever that means?

Richard Barkley: Mr. Woodroof, would you kindly, tell us what you are doing?
Ron: Just giving people information, Richard. About this trial I’m in. And, make sure they know what’s going on.
Richard Barkley: And, what is going on?
Ron: Why did you cut off, Peptide T, Richard? Non toxic drug, that I got proof works. Not only that but the national institute of mental health, your own people, says it’s completely safe.
Richard Barkley: Mr Woodroof, I’m afraid that you’re nothing more than a common drug dealer, so if you’ll excuse us…
Ron: Oh, I’m the drug dealer? No, you’re the fuckin’ drug dealer. I mean, goddamn, people are dyin’. And y’all are up there afraid that we’re gonna find an alternative without you. See, the Big Pharma companies pay the FDA to push their product. Fuck no, they don’t wanna see my research. I don’t have enough cash in my pocket to make it worth their while.

In a nutshell, let's call it.

Judge: The ninth amendment does not state that you have the right to be mentally healthy or physically healthy. It does state that you have a right to chose your own medical care; but that is interpreted as medical care that is approved… by the Food and Drug Administration. Regarding the FDA, the court is highly disturbed by its bullying tactics and direct interference with a drug whose own agency has found to be non-toxic. The FDA was formed to protect people, not prevent them from getting help. The law does not seem to make much common sense, sometimes. If a person has been found to be terminally ill… they ought to be able to take just about anything they feel will help…but that is not the law. Mr. Woodroof, I’m moved to compassion by your plight, But, what is lacking here is the legal authority to intervene. I’m sorry. This case is hereby dismissed.

The legal industrial complex, let's call it.

Title card: Following the trial, the FDA in Washington allowed Ron to get Peptide T for his own personal use.
Ronald Woodroof died of AIDS on September 12, 1992, seven years after he was diagnosed with HIV. A lower dose of AZT became widely used in later drug combinations that saved millions of lives.

Just imagine if AIDS spread as easily as covid does...and air born as opposed to blood born affliction.

Is this to American slavery what Inglorious Basterds was to the Holocaust? In other words, a kind of fantasy in which we are able to imagine the heroes getting…payback?

Of course, the heroes in Basterds weren’t exactly based on a true story. How about here? Is this a reasonably accurate reflection of the way things really were back then on the plantations? In fact that very point has raised some controversial reactions from a few prominent folks in the black community. Spike Lee in particular. Though there are others. And not just about the use of the “N” word. Which, according to IMDb, was used “over 110 times”. The director here being white.

As for how accurately it portrays slavery, here is an account that focuses in on the mandingo fighting scene:  https://www.historybanter.com/did-mandi ... ly-happen/

In the film, Lt. Aldo Raine becomes Dr. King Schultz. But it’s not Nazis he despises…it’s slavery. The irony being that in Basterds the actor that plays Schultz here was the Nazi. But they both come off as, well, cartoon characters at times. For Schultz, just think of that fucking tooth flopping back and forth over his wagon.

So, it is sometimes hard to take the “message” here all that seriously. But most folks seem to let this part slide. Why? Because their parts are just so well written and [in the end] we are on their side. Still, there are times when it’s more like watching a situation comedy.

Of course some argue that in portraying how easy it was for these heroes to prevail it just begs the question: why weren’t there more Jews in Germany and black slaves down South willing and able to do this themselves back then.
In a word: scripted.

That’s what these two tales are: wholly scripted. In other words just a bunch of words reconfiguring the world to suit their own purposes.

And it’s not like Django makes this all happen. It’s a white man.

Sound familiar?

And then there’s the part where Schultz refuses to shake Candie’s hand, precipitating a bloodbath. Like something out of Kill Bill. I mean, come on. One fucking handshake? Or am I missing something? Like Candie never having had any intention to let him leave alive? I’m sorry but after that this was just one more shark being jumped in one more Hollywood movie. Indeed, from that point on the ending was [for me] rather ludicrous.

But always remember: It’s Django. The “D” is silent.

According to critic Alex Ross, the alliance between Django and Dr. Schultz is “not as absurd” as audiences might believe, because in the 1840s many German revolutionaries and progressives left Europe for the U.S. where they often became active in the anti-slavery movement.

During the filming of one of the dinner scenes, Leonardo DiCaprio had to stop the scene because he was having “a difficult time” using so many racial slurs. Samuel L. Jackson then pulled him aside telling him, “Motherfucker, this is just another Tuesday for us.”

Leonardo DiCaprio, whose role marked the first time he played a villain since The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), was uncomfortable with how horrible and explicitly racist his character was. However, Quentin Tarantino convinced him to be as menacing as possible, saying that if he didn’t take it all the way, people would hold it against him forever.

The US$12,000 paid for Broomhilda’s freedom equates to just over US$318,000 in 2013 dollars.    IMDb


Django Unchained


Schultz [to the slaves]: Now as to you poor devils. So as I see it, when it comes to the subject of what to do next, you gentlemen have two choices. One: once I’m gone, you could lift that beast off the remaining Speck, then carry him to the nearest town. Which would be at least 37 miles back the way you came. Or two: You could unshackle yourselves, take that rifle, put a bullet in his head, bury the two of them deep, and then make your way to a more enlightened area of this country. The choice is yours. Oh, and on the off chance there are any astronomy aficionados amongst you, the North Star is that one.

Rather condescending, some might say.  

Schultz: What’s everybody staring at?
Django: They ain’t never seen a n***** on a horse before.

And, perhaps, the equivalent of that today?

Django: What kinda dentist are you?
Schultz: I haven’t practiced dentistry in five years - Not to say once I know you better, I wouldn’t like to get a look at that mouth - I’m sure it’s a disaster - But these days I practice a new profession … . Bounty Hunter. Do you know what a Bounty Hunter is?
Django: No.
Schultz: Well the way the slave trade deals in human lives for cash, a bounty hunter, deals in corpses.

Wanted: Dead or Alive.

Schultz: On one hand, I despise slavery. On the other hand, I need your help. If you’re not in a position to refuse, all the better. So, for the time being, I’m gonna make this slavery malarkey work to my benefit. Still, having said that, I feel guilty…So, I would like the two of us to enter into an agreement. I’m looking for the Brittle brothers. However, at this endeavor, I’m at a slight disadvantage insofar as I don’t know what they look like. But you do. Don’t ya?
Django: Oh, I know what they look like, all right.
Schultz: Good. So here’s my agreement: You travel with me until we find them…
Django: Where we goin’?
Schultz: I hear at least two of them are overseeing up in Gatlinburg, but I don’t know where. That means we visit every plantation in Gatlinburg till we find 'em. And when we find them, you point them out, and I kill them. You do that, I agree to give you your freedom; $25 per Brittle brother.

Today that would be around 500 dollars.

Old Man Carrucan: Django… Django… Django… You got sand, Django. Boy’s got sand! I got no use for a n***** with sand.

Grit in other words. True grit, Im guessing.

Schultz [in disbelief]: Whoa, whoa…let me get this straight: Your slave wife speaks German and her name is Broomhilda von Schaft?
Django: Yep.

Define "yep"?

Big Daddy: Django isn’t a slave. Django is a free man. Do you understand? You’re not to treat him like any of these other niggers around here, cause he ain’t like any of these other niggers around here. Ya got it?
Betina: Ya want I should treat 'em like white folks?
Big Daddy: No that’s not what I said.
Betina: Then I don’t know what’cha want Big Daddy.
Big Daddy [thinking]: Yes, I can see that. What’s the name of that peckawood boy from town works with the glass? His mama works at the lumber yard? He comes by and fixes the winda’s when we have a problem?
Mammy: Oh, you mean Jerry.
Spencer: Yeah, that’s the boy’s name, Jerry. Well that’s it then…just treat 'em like you would Jerry.
Betina: Yes, Big Daddy.

Lucky him?

Betina: So you’re really free?
Django: Yes.
Betina: You mean, you wanna dress like that?

Good point?

Schultz [aiming his rifle at fleeing Ellis Brittle]: You sure that’s him?
Django: Yeah.
Schultz: Positive?
Django: I don’t know.
Schultz: You don’t know if you’re positive?
Django: I don’t know what ‘positive’ means.
Schultz: It means you’re sure.
Django: Yes.
Schultz: Yes, what?
Django: Yes, I’m sure that’s Ellis Brittle.
[Schultz shoots Brittle off his horse]
Django: I’m positive he dead.

That's how it works, sure.

Schultz: How do you like the bounty hunting business?
Django: Kill white people and get paid for it? What’s not to like?

Good point?

Django: You want me to play a black slaver? Ain’t nothing lower than a black slaver. A black slaver is lower than the head house n*****…and buddy that’s pretty fucking low.Schultz: Then play him that way.

Or, sure, the way it's scripted.

Candie: I’m curious, what makes you such a mandingo expert?
Django: I’m curious what makes you so curious.

So, who won?

Schultz: Well, you won’t sell your best. You won’t even sell your second best, but your third best? You don’t wanna sell either, but if I made you an offer so ridiculous, you’d be forced to consider it? Who knows what could happen?Candie: And what do you consider “ridiculous?”
Schultz: For a truly talented specimen, the right n*****? How much would you say, Django?
Django: …12,000 dollars.
Candie: Gentleman, you had my curiosity, now you have my attention.

There's a difference too.

Django [playing his role as a black slaver to the hilt]: You niggas gon’ understand something about me! I’m worse than any of these white men here! You get the molasses out your ass, and you keep your goddamn eyeballs off me!

He didn't fool me though.

Schultz: Point being, don’t get so carried away with your retribution. You lose sight of why we’re here.
Django: You think I lose sight of that?
Schultz: Yes, I do. Stop antagonizing Candie. You’re gonna blow this whole charade, and more than likely get both of us killed. And I, for one, don’t intend to die in Chickasaw County, Mississippi.

Then those who don't intend to live there.

Candie: Your boss looks a little green around the gills.
Django: He just ain’t used to seein’ a man ripped apart by dogs is all.
Candie: But you are used to it?
Django: I’m just a little more used to Americans than he is.

That'll do it.

Candie: Go fetch Hildi, get her cleaned up and smelling nice and sent over to Dr. Schultz’s room here.
Stephen: Actually, Monsieur Candie, sir, there’s something I ain’t told you about yet. Uh, Hildi in the Hot Box.
Candie: What’s she doing there?
Stephen: What you think she’s doing there. She’s being punished. She run off again. She’s got ten more days to be in there.
Candie: Take her out.
Stephen: Take her out? Why?
Candie: Because I said so, that’s why! Dr. Schultz is my guest. Hildi is my n*****. Southern hospitality dictates I make her available to him.
Stephen: But Monsieur Candie, she run off.
Candie: Christ, Stephen! What is the point of having a n***** that speaks German if you can’t wheel 'em out when you have a German guest? Now I realize it is an inconvenience! Still, you take her ass out.
Stephen: Yes sir.

Out it is then.

Candie puts a human skull on the table]
Schultz: Who is your little friend?
Candie: This is Ben. He’s an old Joe that lived around here for a long time. And I do mean a long damn time. Well Ben here took care of my daddy and my daddy’s daddy, till he up and keeled over one day. Old Ben took care of me. Growing up the son of a huge plantation owner in Mississippi puts a white man in contact with a whole lot of black faces. I spent my whole life here right here in Candyland, surrounded by black faces. And seeing them every day, day in day out, I only had one question. Why don’t they kill us? Now right out there on that porch three times a week for fifty years, old Ben here would shave my daddy with a straight razor. Now if I was old Ben, I would have cut my daddy’s goddamn throat, and it wouldn’t have taken me no fifty years to do it neither. But he never did. Why not? You see, the science of phrenology is crucial to understanding the separation about two species. In the skull of the African here, the area associated with submissiveness is larger than any human or other sub-human species on planet Earth. If you examine this piece of skull here, you’ll notice three distinct dimples. Here, here and here. Now if I was holding a skull of a… of an Isaac Newton or Galileo, these three dimples would be in the area of the skull most associated with creativity. But this is the skull of old Ben, and in the skull of old Ben unburdened by genius, these three dimples exist in the area of the skull most associated with servility. Now bright boy, I will admit you are pretty clever. But if I took this hammer here and I bashed it in your skull, you would have the same three dimples in the same place as old Ben.

Let's move on...

Candie: White cake?
Schultz: I don’t go in for sweets, thank you.
Candie: Are you brooding 'bout me getting the best of ya, huh?
Schultz: Actually, I was thinking of that poor devil you fed to the dogs today, D’Artagnan. And I was wondering what Dumas would make of all this.
Candie: Come again?
Schultz: Alexander Dumas. He wrote “The Three Musketeers.” I figured you must be an admirer. You named your slave after his novel’s lead character. If Alexander Dumas had been there today, I wonder what he would have made of it?
Candie: You doubt he’d approve?
Schultz: Yes. His approval would be a dubious proposition at best.
Candie: Soft hearted Frenchy?
Schultz: Alexander Dumas was black.

He means Alexander dumbass, right Heywood?

Billy Crash [after getting shot in the genitals]: D-jango, you black son of a bitch!
Django: The “D” is silent, hillbilly.

On the other hand, why is it silent?

Django: You said in seventy-six years on this plantation, you’ve seen all manner of shit done to niggers but I notice…you didn’t mention kneecapping.
[Django shoots Stephen in the kneecap]
Stephen: Oh, God! Motherfucker! Damn it!
Django: Seventy-six years, Stephen. How many niggers you think you seen come and go? Seven thousand? Eight thousand? Nine thousand? Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine? Every single word that came out of Calvin Candie’s mouth was nothing but horseshit, but he was right about one thing: I am that one n***** in ten thousand.
[He shoots Stephen in the other kneecap]
Stephen: Oh, you son of a bitch! Oh, you motherfucker! Oh, sweet Jesus, let me kill this n*****!

What's the script say?

This one is all about point of view. And, in particular, about how we come to either trust or not trust others depending on what they are able to make us believe about them. In other words, given the inherent ambiguity embedded in this, everything up on the screen is not necessarily what the audience thinks it is. Reality can become the slipperiest of slopes when you are not in possession of, say, omniscience. And here no one is quite sure what to believe at all. And that’s because no one is quite sure what the others have been told by the third party.

Trick question: How is disappearing different from being kidnapped?

Abduction in the age of modern communication technology. Just snap a picture on your smart phone and email it to the victim’s loved one. Everything can be go back and forth in real time. But everything can also be traced back and forth in real time. A whole new paradigm shift to be grappled with and understood.

But that’s more of a digression. A personal observation.

Instead [and as is often the case in films like this], the focus is as much on the power dynamic between the criminals as between them and the victim. Only who is the victim here? It’s not until later that we realize just how much acting is involved here. And who is doing it.

And there must be at least a million things that can go wrong in a crime like this. Or go right from another’s point of view.

And that’s before you get to the part that revolves around human stupidity. And if you watch enough  true crime docs on TV you know it’s not just something that shows up in the scripted world either.

Look for the plot to thicken. And then thicken some more.

And one thing for sure: How this finally ends is not quite as any one of them planned. Or predicted.

Gemma Arterton refused the use of a body double for her nude scene as she wanted to convey genuine fear. She was given a safe word for her to say if she felt uncomfortable in her nude scenes and wanted filming to stop.

In many ways, the cast and crew found the scene where Gemma Arterton has to urinate into a bottle in front of her captors to be more emotionally bruising than when she was first stripped naked.

Technically, the film should be called “The Kidnapping of Alice Creed”. The current title sits better with the ambiguous ending.

The first time in any film that Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston have kissed another man. Indeed, this is Marsan’s first on-screen kiss at all.

The original ending was much bleaker than the one that ended up in the final film.

Not hard to guess what that was.


The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Vic: We need to keep you hydrated. Understand? Just nod if you understand.
[Alice…bound and gagged…nods]
Vic: Now for you to drink, I need to take the gag off. Please, do not scream. We do not want to hurt you. And we certainly don’t want to kill you. But we are absolutely prepared to do either or both of these things if we need to. Do you understand?
[more nods]

Nodding up a storm, let's say.

Alice: I have a daughter…she needs me.
Vic [shoving his hand over her mouth]: Please. We know you don’t have a daughter. We know everything about you. Now I’m sure it’s a natural response, but trying to reason with us is just…
[she bites his hand … he slaps her viciously and puts his hand around her throat]
Vic: Now listen to me. The only people that can get you out of here are him and me. We are your only friends. I urge you to so as we say. Now, are you going to be quiet and drink from the bottle?
[more vigorous nods]
Vic: Good.

Well, from his point of view, sure.

Vic: You haven’t eaten in nine hours after doing physical work…and your still not Hungry?
Danny: No.
Vic: If you’re not hungry it means that something’s not right. It means you’re thinking too much about whether we’ve done everything right or whether we’ve made a mistake along the way that’ll get us caught and get us 20 years in jail. Or maybe you’re thinking about whether we have to rough that girl up…or perhaps even kill her. Or worse, maybe you are getting semi-fucking-mental, now that this girl isn’t just theoretical. Now, you’ve looked into her eyes, maybe you’re having second thoughts. Maybe your conscience is eating away at your conviction. And maybe you’re persuading yourself that the best thing to do is just go in there, untie her and let her go. Now you listen to me: FUCK THAT!!! FUCK! THAT!

Boy, is he ever in for a surprise.

Alice [to Danny]: I can’t shit with you watching me!

Reminds me basic training. If you get my drift.

Danny: Please. Alice, please. It’s Danny! It’s me, Danny!!

The look on her face...?

Danny: There’s a plan.
Alice: A plan? Fuck, Danny. Just get me the fuck out of here.
Danny: I will, okay? Just listen to me first. We’re getting some money from your dad. A lot of money. You hate your dad. You hate him, Alice. He cut you off. He’s got all that fucking money. Now he’s never going to give you any more of it. We’ve always talked about a way to get his money off him. Well, this is it, Alice. This is how we get his money.
Alice: But you fucking kidnapped me!! You fucking stripped me naked. You made me piss in a fucking bottle in front of…who? Who the fuck is the other man? Do I know him too?

Nope. But that's the point.

Danny: Vic is no one. I met him on the inside. He doesn’t know.
Alice: Know what?
Danny: About us. He thinks you’re just a random rich girl. He’s not got the whole picture. He thinks all this is his plan. He doesn’t suspect that we’ll keep all the money. Me and you.

Theoretically, anyway.

Alice: Why the fuck didn’t you ask me first?! I thought I was going to fucking die in here. I was fucking terrified!
Danny: I know, I know. I’m sorry, right? But it had to look real, feel real…for Vic, for you.
Alice: Look real?! You can’t fucking do that to someone, Danny. You can’t make them think that they’re going to fucking die!
Danny: You can’t fake fear, Alice – not proper fear. He would have seen that you were pretending. He would have known.

That is a good point, of course.

Danny: He’s going to pay 2 million pounds. In Cash. And all you have to do is lie in that bed.
Alice: Tied up, humiliated, abused.
Danny: It’ll only be for another day or so. Not much to ask for 2 million pounds.

What wouldn't you do for two million pounds? And just for the record, that's 2,725,200 American dollars.

Alice: Don’t let him hurt me. Promise.
Danny: I promise.

And how ironic might that be?

Alice: But he could just take the money and disappear.
Danny: I know he wouldn’t?
Alice: How can you be sure?
Danny: I just am. Trust me.

Ask me to explain that.

Danny: But we had a plan!
Alice; No, you had a plan. This is my plan.

Oh, boy.

Danny: Alice, please, you can’t do this. I love you.
Alice: No, Danny. When you love someone, you do everything you can to take care of them. What you don’t do is kidnap them, understand? You don’t fucking jump them in the street and put them in the back of a fucking van. You don’t put a fucking knife to their throat!

That ever happen to you?

Vic [to Alice]: WHO FIRED THE GUN?!! 

Take a wild guess.

Vic: Danny, let me ask you something. Why did you choose her?

Hint, hint.

Danny: But what if we don’t make it back? She’ll be stuck here. She’ll die.
Vic: So? If we don’t make it back, why do you care if she don’t make it?
[long pause]
Danny: I don’t care.

It's all about to crumble.

Danny: The hole. The hole was for the money.
Vic: No. This hole’s for you, Danny. They didn’t fuck up. You did. You killed her Danny. You not only killed yourself but you killed her too.

Said the soon to be a dead man himself.

Danny [to Alice]: You should have listened…

You could say the same thing about him. And then there's the ending.

Suicide

“People rarely bring flowers to a suicide.” Jennifer Niven

He wondered if that might include his?

“Nothing in my life has ever made me want to commit suicide more than people's reaction to my trying to commit suicide.” Emilie Autumn

Hell, that's not even in my top ten.

“Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

You know, being a ridiculous man.

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.” Jeannette Walls

Their pain can wait?

“It is good to be a cynic — it is better to be a contented cat — and it is best not to exist at all.” H.P. Lovecraft

Some actually don't get that part.

“When you're young and healthy you can plan on Monday to commit suicide, and by Wednesday you're laughing again.” Marilyn Monroe

She meant Thursday, of course.

Based on a true story: the writer/director’s own. Roughly as it were.

In which the question is asked: Where the fuck do we fit into all of this…this…this stuff. And to which the answer seems to revolve [to me] around just how teeny and tiny and infinitesimally insignificant we must actually be. In, say, the context of “all there is”.

Actually, when it comes to flesh and blood human beings, it’s more like the trees of life. In that no two are ever exactly the same. Just as a weeping willow is not an oak is not a pine is not a banyon is not a palm.

Still, just as a tree is a tree is a tree so we as a species all share certain traits in common. Just don’t go thinking that if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. And given that the trees on the tree of life don’t have brains or personalities or character traits or a sense of self, by the time the tree evolved into us all bets were off.

Bottom line: The “tree of life” can never really be anything other than an expression we use to encompass life at its broadest point…in its broadest sense.

So, right off the bat: In exploring all of the Big Questions that can either perplex or plague us the film narrows the beam down considerably to one particular family living in one particular time and place. We see ourselves in them and/or we don’t. But one thing’s for sure: we can only take out of them what we are first able to put into them: dasein. Thus what some might construe to be profound insights from the characters others will only construe to be the hackneyed bromides of, say, the filmmaker.

And into all of this [almost inevitably] are thrown God and religion:

Mrs. O’Brien [voiceover]: Lord, Why? Where were you? Did you know what happened? Do you care?Young Jack [voiceover]: Where were You? You let a boy die. You let anything happen. Why should I be good…when you aren’t.

And all that Book of Job shit again.

And this all unfolds in the 1950s. A whole other world in some respects. And in Texas no less.

What’s it all mean? Well, let’s start here:

Some American theaters set up signs - warning moviegoers about the enigmatic and non-linear narrative of the movie - following some confused walkouts and refund demands in the opening weeks. IMDb

Anyway, it sure is beautiful to look at. In part, like watching a National Geographic Special. In part, like watching Koyaanisqatsi.

And look for the cold and the calculating ravages of capitalism to poke its nose in from time to time. Hey, we’re all expendable. And the endless debate about “how to parent”: More like mother – a nurturing love? Or more like father – a tough love? Who really does know “best”?

In August 2011, Sean Penn gave an interview to the French publication “Le Figaro” in which he was very critical of the movie and Terrence Malick’s direction. Penn said “I didn’t at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I’ve ever read. A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context. What’s more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly.”

Emmanuel Lubezki explained Terrence Malick’s approach to film by saying “Photography is not used to illustrate dialogue or a performance” but instead is used “to capture emotion so that the movie is very experiential”. So the film, with Lubezki’s own words, is “meant to trigger tons of memories, like a scent or a perfume”.

The butterfly that landed on Mrs. O’Brien’s (Jessica Chastain) hands was not CG but a real one. One morning while both Chastain and Brad Pitt were rehearsing, Terrence Malick spotted it flying around. He got the crew and Chastain following it three blocks of Smithville, then got her to step into the middle of a street and hold her hand up.

The tree of life that appears in the film is a gargantuan 65000-pound live-oak tree situated at Smithville, Texas.  IMDb


The Tree of Life

Title card: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 28: 4,7

Remember where you were?

Mrs. O’Brien [voiceover]: The nuns taught us there were two ways through life - the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.

Got that? In other words, blessed are those who can delude themselves into reducing their own life down to platitudes like these. After all, what else is there when the telegrams arrive?

Father Haynes: He is in God’s hands, now.
Mrs. O’Brien: He was in God’s hands the whole time. Wasn’t he?

Yeah, sort of.

Grandmother [trying to console her daughter]: Life goes on. People pass along. Nothing stays the same. You still got the other two. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. That’s just the way He is. He sends flies to wounds that he should heal.

What has He taken from you so far?

Jack [voiceover as an adult]: When you’re young it’s all about your career. You don’t understand anything. I just feel like I’m bumping into walls. The world’s gone to the dogs…and getting worse.

And now look at it.

Mrs. O’Brien [to God]: Did you know? Who are we to you? Answer me.

Mum's the word.

Mr. O’Brien [to his sons]: Your mother’s naive. It takes fierce will to get ahead in this world. If you’re good, people take advantage of you. Every one of these top executives…you want to know how they got where they are?

Amen?

Preacher: Job imagined he might build his nest on high…that the integrity of his behavior would protect him against misfortune. And his friends thought, mistakenly, that the Lord could only have punished him because secretly he’s done something wrong. But no. Misfortune befalls the good as well. We can’t protect ourselves against it. We can’t protect our children. We can’t say to ourselves, ‘Even if I’m not happy, I’m going to make sure they are’. We run before the wind. We think it will carry us forever. It will not. We vanish as a cloud. We wither as the autumn grass. And like a tree, are rooted up. Is there something everlasting in the scheme of the universe? Is there nothing which is deathless…nothing which does not pass away? We cannot stay where we are. We must journey forth. We must find that which is greater than fortune or fate. Nothing can bring us peace but that.

Cue God and immortality and Salvation.

Mr. O’brien [to his family]: Frank Johnson. He owns half the real estate in town. He started out as a barber. But he built something big. Now you’d think he’s the fourth person in the Holy Trinity. They never talk about their money. The wrong people go hungry…die. The wrong people get loved. The world lives by trickery. If you want to succeed you can’t be too good.

This sermon after the family has left church. Having heard about the travails of Job.

Young Jack [voiceover…about his father]: He says, ‘Don’t put your elbows on the table’. He does. He insults people. Doesn’t care.

Mom and Dad? You first.

Mr. O’Brien [to his son]: Toscanini once recorded a piece sixty five times. You know what he said when he finished? “It could be better.” Think about it.

And the equivalent of that here. If there is one.

Mr. O’Brien: You are not to call me “Dad”. You will only call me “Father”.
Young Jack: But…
Mr. O’Brien: Don’t interrupt!
Young Jack: But you do…
Mr. O’Brien: Don’t interrupt!
Young Jack: It’s your house. You can kick me out whenever you want to. You’d like to kill me.

All in the family. And no two are ever alike.

Young Jack [voiceover]: What I want to do, I can’t do. I do what I hate.

Just like millions and millions of others, for example.

Mrs. O’Brien: Come here!Young Jack: NO! I’m gonna do what I want to do. You let him walk all over you.

True, let's say..

Mr. O’Brien [voiceover]: I wanted to be loved because I was great. A big man. I’m nothing. Look at the glory around us; trees, birds. I lived in shame. I dishonored it all, and didn’t notice the glory. I’m a foolish man.

To wit:

Mr. O’Brien [to Mrs O’Brien]: They’re closing the plant. I was given this choice: no job or transfer to a job nobody wants.
[he pauses…reflecting]
Mr. O’Brien: I never missed a day of work. I always tithed on Sunday.

Capitalism, let's call it.

Mrs. O’Brien [voiceover]: I give him to you. I give you my son. [/b]

Let's move on.

Umberto Eco from Foucault’s Pendulum

You live on the surface, Lia told me years later. You sometimes seem profound, but it's only because you piece a lot of surfaces together to create the impression of depth, solidity. That solidity would collapse if you try to stand it up.

Instead, you post it anyway.

Everything is repeated, in a circle. History is a master because it teaches us that it doesn't exist. It's the permutations that matter.

Think Trump and MAGA.

They dwell in my light, while I dwell in unbearable darkness, the source of that light.

Don't you just hate that?

From shit, thus, I extract pure Shinola.

Next up: extracting pure shit from Shinola.

The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause.

Note some examples, please,

I was the type who looked at discussions of What Is Truth only with a view toward correcting the manuscript. If you were to quote "I am that I am," for example, I thought that the fundamental problem was where to put the comma, inside the quotation marks or outside.

Has that ever been resolved?

For some, it’s hard [really hard] to wrap their head around the idea of a woman paying a man for sex. It’s like it goes entirely against the laws of nature. And it’s not like you see it very often in films. For every American Gigolo there must be at least a thousand films in which the man pays the woman. You know, the way it’s supposed to be.

And when these laws of nature are reversed it is almost always the case that the woman is very, very wealthy and the man is very, very handsome. You wonder: is this some sort of a genetic thing?

On the other hand, whether it’s the man paying the woman or the woman paying the man, there are the folks in the background. The families and the loved ones of those either giving or receiving.

After all, there are any number of reasons why someone might choose to become a prostitute. And the folks in the background can cover lots and lots of territory. In other words, the pain inflicted can go in any number of directions.

Here the man chooses to play the skin game because his career as an esteemed novelist is going nowhere fast – but he still has a wife and a kid to support. He needs the dough in other words.

But what makes this all the more problematic is the part about love. One couple has an open marriage…and the other couple does not. With one couple everything is all out in the open. Not so with the other.

And then there’s the part about growing old…about death: 

James Coburn plays the character in the film who is dying. The year after the film came out he did. In reality.

Too bad about the ending though. Too many sharks to count.


The Man From Elysian Field

Luther [voiceover]: Pasadena, home to little old ladies, noble laureates… high tech science, beautiful museums… and a Pulitzer Prize winner or two. Welcome to a city where people still read.

What, for example?

Customer [at the remainder bin]: Did you write this book?
Byron: It only took 7 years out of my life…but don’t let that influence you.

You got it.

Luther [voiceover]: This is the story of Byron Tiller…a modest man living in a modest Pasadena neighborhood. A neighborhood built for middle income families… when the middle was still closer to the top than the bottom.

Anyone know where the middle is now?

Byron: I sold a book today.
Dena: Hey, that’s good!
Byron: I haven’t done the math, but I think it’ll bring us another 3 cents. Course the taxes will kill us.

Let's run this by Trump Inc.

Luther [voiceover]: Tucked neatly between the Hollywood porn shops, novelty shops…and Scientology shops…crammed in amongst the recording studios whose heyday had long past… the unproduced screenwriters whose deals had long lapsed…the bad actors teaching methods on emoting to other bad actors who dream of one day passing an audition…sat Byron Tiller, who until recently believed writing novel that no one wanted to read was a real job.

Every 3 cents counts though.

Luther [voiceover]: Goals have a way of becoming less high-minded when you need money.

Yep, that's still the same.

Editor: Excalibur must be great. Everyone wanna kill each other just to get it.
Byron: It’s the sword that King Arthur himself pulled out of the rock.
Editor: I know the back story. It just seems a little out of place in a novel about migrant workers.
Byron: Well, Excalibur represents a symbol. It represents to me the downtrodden’s hopes and dreams for the future. And the migrant workers are simply a microcosm.
Editor: Aren’t they always? See…that’s where we have a problem. I’ll tell you a little secret about microcosms – people hate them. Think about it. Who’d sit on a bus to read a book saying you’re part of a microcosm? Already knows it. He looks around and he knows. Symbolism’s worse. Poor bastard picks up a book, he wants it spelled out. No one wants to waste their time looking for deeper meaning.
Byron: My wife thinks it’s the best thing I ever wrote.
Editor: She must love you very much.

We'll see.

Byron: Could I get an advance?
Editor: On what? You know I’d like to, but…
Byron: Virgil, I know that my problems are not your problems but I got nothing left to live on.
Editor: Are you really that desperate?
Byron: Yes.
Editor: Then use that emotion. All of the best novels are written in desperation.
Byron: So are the best suicide notes.

Enter the man from Elysian Fields.

Luther: Don’t you think you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill?
Byron: The problem is that my mountain has shrunk into a mole hill. And unless you have family of moles how do you live?
Luther: A man can always support his family if he’s willing to do the necessary.

Not much that can't be. You know, for some.

Byron: Paul Pearson! I thought it was you. Good to see you.
Paul: Good to see you. Things going well since you left us?
Byron: Yes, great. I’ve just had my first novel published.
Paul: So I hear. Been meaning to read it, but couldn’t find it anywhere.
Byron: Right. So, how’s the office? You know advertising. I miss it. The action, the deadlines. There’s a hell of an adrenaline rush there. I’d even consider getting back in under the right circumstances.
Paul: You told me to go fuck myself.
Byron: That was the adrenaline talking.
Paul: You’d really be willing to come back? Salary’d be smaller, accounts would be shit.
Byron: Whatever you decide.
Paul: Well, that’s a good attitude. Why didn’t you have it before?
Byron: Well, I’ve grown up a little.
Paul: I’m very glad to hear it.
Byron: Thank you. I’ll see you in the morning?
Paul: Actually, I think it’d be better if you just go fuck yourself.

Ouch. To say the least.

Dena’s father: If you write the Goddamned Iliad who knows if anyone’s going to buy it. Take your last book. Nice little review on the “Times”…meant nothing, right?
Byron: In that neighborhood.
Dena’s father: What kind of business is that?
Byron: Ask what Gutenberg was thinking.
Dena’s father: I don’t give a damn what Gutenberg was thinking. Let’s cut the bullshit. You need money, right?
Byron: Just a loan.
Dena’s father: I’ve given the matter a lot of thought…and I won’t lend you the money.
Byron: Why?
Dena’s father: What was it Shakespeare said? “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”.
Byron: Look, I’m only here because I promised your daughter I would meet you…and stick my tongue up your ass. I guess my work here is done.
Dena’s father [as Byron turns and walks away]: We both know you’ll never be able to support your family. Think about it!

I think Byron is now desperate enough to “do the necessary thing".

Byron: So, what is it? What kind of business is it that you’re in?
Luther: Elysian Fields is an escort service.
Byron: An escort service. So what you’re saying is you sort of…you know, stand on a street corner and put on a cowboy hat?
Luther: No. We’re not hustlers. We tend to the wounds of lonely women in need of emotional as well as spiritual solace.
Byron: Women.
Luther: Often only as friendship.
Byron: Only women?
Luther: Call me old-fashioned.

Sign you up?

Byron: And this is the job that you thought I would be right for?
Luther: Well, you’re handsome, well-educated, and compassionate.
Byron: How do you know I’m compassionate?
Luther: Remember, I’m the one who read your novel. Compassion was its best strength. Even if the premise was shit.
Byron: If you would’ve read the fly leaf, you’d have noticed I’m married and have a kid.
Luther: All the better. A family at home prevents any unnecessary entanglements…with the clientele.
Byron: Look, I’m not trying to sit on top of any moral high ground but this business you’re in, doesn’t it make you a little bit ashamed?
Luther: No. Poverty does that.

Hands down.

Luther: How much body hair do you have?
Byron: What?
Luther: How much body hair do you have?
Byron: Body hair? Why?
Luther: With the amount they pay, they can afford to be particular.

So, just out of curiosity, how much do you think they'd pay for you?

Luther: Andrea Allcott, 35 years old. Charismatic. Face of an angel. You should have a lot in common. Her husband’s a novelist, too. Just like you. You may have heard of him. Tobias Allcott.
Byron: Tobias Allcott, the Pulitzer Prize winner?
Luther: Yeah, well, actually, I think he’s won three.

So, off the deep end they go.

Nigel: You ever done this kind of work before? It’s like rolling off a log. Just don’t roll off until they finish.
Byron: Well, Luther actually said that they don’t all necessarily want to…to…
Nigel: Right. Right. You’ll get used to it. It’s when they want you to hold them afterwards, as if it meant something. That’s when you realize it’s all bullshit. But what business isn’t? Could be selling used cars. At least we give them their money’s worth. But don’t worry, Byron. You’ll be fine. All these rich bitches want is some companionship…and sex. We’re like cocker spaniels with hard-ons.
Byron: I’ll keep that image in mind.

And, of course, the occasional pit bull.

Luther [voiceover]: Everyone is nervous the first time. It was important for Byron to meet someone beautiful. Someone like Andrea Allcott, who indeed had the face of an angel. And it wasn’t just her face. Plastic surgeons make money to buy yachts for rearranging nature… in a more pleasing way. No, this wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill angel. This one, I’m sure…God handled himself.

Still, what can the odds be that it's your God.

Byron: Are you surprised I’m a writer?
Andrea: Actually, no. You’re not the sort of man who’d be satisfied taking lonely women around.
Byron: Oh, so you are lonely.
Andrea: There’s nothing lonelier than watching the man you love slowly die.
Byron: “Death. The only immortal… who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge… are for all.”
Andrea: Very beautiful.
Byron: Mark Twain.
Andrea: The reality is less poetic.

A horror, among other things.

Andrea: Mr. Allcott wants you to bring him his breakfast.
Byron: Me? Why?
Andrea: Well, it’ll come up in conversation.

In fact, it does.

Byron: What is the main theme you actually wanted to write the book about?
Tobias: That every social structure makes slaves out of one group or another.
Byron: That’s terrific! So what do you need Roman slaves for?
Tobias: What’s wrong with them?
Byron: Nobody can identify with them. Prove that instead with another oppressed group. There’s enough to pick from. This could be the greatest novel that you ever wrote.
Tobias: I already thought it was.
Byron: You just gotta get rid of the Roman slaves and find yourself another…microcosm. Tobias: Blacks? Jews? Homosexuals?
[to each Byron shakes his head no]
Tobias: Who, then?!
Byron: Migrant workers.

Let's fast forward to the world today.

Byron [to Dena]: Do you think that I enjoy having to do it this way? How many chances happen in a lifetime? lf there is one, grab it. Even if you hate everything that comes with it! And I hate this! I hate it! But I’m doing it for you! I’m doing it for Nathaniel!

Too, in other words?

Tobias [to Byron]: Be careful of women who love you just the way you are - it’s a sure sign they settle too easily.

That is one way to look at it.

Tobias: Byron. Wait a minute. If it would make you feel any better…I’ve already begun to have chest pains.

That's a  start.

Byron: You know, when a man is concerned with taking care of his family, his priorities can get all scrambled. But it has nothing to do with love.
Client: For what I’m paying you, I expect you to be on my side in everything.

Bought and paid for, as it were.. 

Nigel: Who are you with?
Byron: Norma Van Reuten, of San Marino.
Nigel: Christ! She’s the one who likes having her toes sucked. Just some advice…make it easy on yourself. Do not take her dancing first, okay?

Let's explain that..

Dena: What makes a man do what you do?
Nigel: I think of our mission as a way of giving joy to others, my darling.
Dena: Actually, I, um, I really need to know the truth.
Nigel: Well, its simple. Fucking is the last resort for a man who feels impotent.

Unless, of course, he is.

Absurdity

“The existentialists did say that life was all about pulling the victory of meaning from the jaws of senseless absurdity” Matthew Mather

It's not as easy as it sounds though.

“Once they have been to bed together, they will have to find something else to conceal the enormous absurdity of their existence.” Jean-Paul Sartre

It's not as easy as it sounds though.

“Everything gets more and more absurd.” Deborah Landau

And they're not all Stooges.

“Epicuro,” Spain interrupted with a firmness that made us all turn, “you don’t want humanity to fail your Great Test because the lot of us, who should be out there shepherding, were stuck here, riveted, listening to you arguing theodicy with Voltaire.” Ada Palmer

The Great Test today. Or, rather, what's left of it.

“Engraving depravity and craving decorum is a grave absurdity; even the dead will spin in their graves.” Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

Can you blame them?

“There are only two consistent visions of ultimate reality: one stating that the source of all being is an act of omnipotent will, and one stating that the source of all being is a jolt of mindless absurdity. The main difference between the two is that the former is preposterously unfathomable, while the latter is unfathomably preposterous.” Jakub Bożyda Wiśniewski

Who wins then?

Objectivists with guns. Lots of them. And Kids too. Or close enough.

You can almost imagine this being based on a true story. Just as you can almost imagine it happening still today. Some no doubt would like it to. And not just at a military academy where kids play at being soldiers. Some I suspect would very much like it if the entire military apparatus would collectively get up, go to the windows, open them, stick their heads out and yell, ‘we’re as mad as hell and we’re not gonna take this anymore!’

Then the country could be yanked back to the 1950s, and all the fucking troublmakers would be silenced once and for all. Brutally if necessary.

Duty. Honor. Country. And God of course.

Authoritarian right down to the bone. Though some are considerably more fanatic about it than others.

And, really, unless you have actually been in the military [and I was] you cannot even begin to grasp just how anal some of them can be about having a rule for every fucking thing that you think, feel, say and do.

The irony here is that capitalism and the military industrial complex are [in many important respects] just two different ways of saying the same thing. But these particular capitalists want to tear the military academy down in order to build [what else] condominiums.

Sean Penn’s first feature film. Tom Cruise’s second.

Prior to the production of the film, the key actors -Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise and others - were required to participate in a 45-day-long period of orientation with the students of Valley Forge Military Academy. They were given uniforms, borrowed from their real life counterparts at the school and given authentic military haircuts. They slept in campus barracks and were subjected to the same rigors and hardship that all Valley Forge cadets went through. While most of the actors enjoyed and excelled at their orientation, Cruise opted to leave the training for the comforts of a nearby hotel until filming began.  IMDb

Taps

General Bache: Was I scared! I must have lost 20 pounds, all of it brown.

Patton!

General Bache: But fear has a way of providing you with a little bonus. It gives you…the wolf.
Cadet: The wolf?
General: It’s a quotation from Theodore Roosevelt. Let me see. “All men who have felt the power of the joy of battle know what it’s like when the wolf rises in the heart.”

Next up: the wolf here?

General Bache: I tell you what. Let’s drink to the one thing that never changes. To the one permanent part of a man’s life.
Cadet: What’s that, sir?
Brian: Honour.
General: Honour, indeed. Burglarproof, foolproof, weatherproof. 100% proof. Honour. Everything else is subject to the powers that be, dependent upon the caprices of often inferior men. But your honour is your own, inviolate.

On the other hand, you have to be honorable about the right things.

General Bache: Ladies and gentlemen, for 141 years, old soldiers like myself have stood here on this day and told the finest of America’s young men the meaning of the word “commencement”. It is a beginning, we told them. But today, this day, it has another meaning, an end. An end to nearly a century and a half of tradition and an end to the heart of us. I have been informed that Bunker Hill Academy is to be closed, all of its buildings torn down, nothing to be left…but memories. It is the decision of the board of trustees in their wisdom that this institution be sold and the land developed for its real estate potential.

Let's run this by Col. Lyle C. Rumford.

Brian: Sir, how could they do this?
General Bache: With the stroke of a pen, sir. Their field of honor was a desktop.

That and a really big bank account.

General Bache: I came to Bunker Hill when I was 12 years old. Just like you. With the exception of those years, I’ve been in uniform all my life. I know men younger than myself who take their pensions and put on stupid little white shirts with cut-off sleeves, alligator on the tit, and spend the rest of their days beating the hell out of a little white ball with an iron club. My God! The thought of it makes me want to puke.
Brian: They like it like that, civilians.
General [bitterly]: Well, the one thing civilians know is their rights. And they’re within their rights to push us out to make way for their goddamned condominiums.

Capitalism, let's call it.

General Bache: But we have one little advantage on them.
Brian: What’s that, sir?
General: We’re here. And the condos aren’t. We have a foothold. You boys are my purpose. You’re my family. And I’m not going to let them take you away from me.
Brian: We won’t either, sir. We won’t let them.

His "boys", as it were.

Alex [to Brian]: The guy’s a maniac.
David: Damn right I am. I Saw my duty and I did it!

Not much that can't be.

Brian: When my mother died I was sitting in the hallway in the army hospital. I was worried as hell. I knew she was real sick. She had this bad kidney thing. So I’m sitting there and my father comes out of the room and tells me that she’s dead. He led me to this little chapel they had there and he sat me down and he told me I could cry for 15 minutes. He gave me 15 minutes to cry and after that I wasn’t supposed to cry again. So he left me alone in the chapel and came back… he came back 15 minutes later.
Alex: Jesus. What did you do?
Brian: Well, I did what I was told. I cried for 15 minutes.

A soldier in the making. To say the least.

Sergeant Moreland [Brian’s father]: Let me tell 'em it was growing pains - the wrong execution of the right idea.
Brian: “The wrong execution of the right idea”?!

Bullshit, in other words. Whatever works.

Sergeant Moreland: You’re not thinking straight. You have a bad way to lose a pretty bright future, kid.
Brian: Stop calling me kid.
Sergeant Moreland: You expect me to call you Major? You can forget it. Look at this operation. You got your strength nose to nose with the cops. Eventually even they’ll figure out you’ve got a vulnerable rear flank and they’ll sneak in. There, by the field, behind the trees, and they’ll throw a net over your pink little asses.
Brian: You can say that…
Sergeant Moreland: The first canister of tear gas, half your troops’ll wet their pants and run. And how bright was it to let this delegation in here? Look at me. I could break your neck and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
Brian: You’d be shot. My next in command would take over. We could take you all as hostages, but we won’t. We have a code of honour.
Sergeant Moreland: Sweet Jesus! Is that what this is all about? Somebody’s lofty shit about honour? Yours?!

Next up: honor here?

Brian: Alex, you’ve been picking at this from the beginning. What’s wrong with you? Things are going beautifully. We’re in better shape now. Now we’re a corps. General Bache used to talk about men under pressure. How they act as one. We’re seeing it.
Alex: Thus spake Saint Bache? Look, he’s only a man, Brian. Like your father, my father. Just a man. Not every word out of his mouth is some holy nugget.
Brian: Right. Whatever you say.
Alex: Don’t let that display of loyalty go to your head. It won’t mean beans to anybody out there. They’ll say it was brainwashing. Maybe they’re right.

Brainwashing works for me. Of course, so do the loopholes.

Colonel Kerby: I’m urging them to take into consideration your youth and the strain…
Brian: Cut the bullshit. Nobody in here’s young any more.
Colonel Kerby: Excuse me if I don’t shed tears over your lost youth. You’ve had your chances to toss it in. You’ve got this chance. The governor is this close to ordering us to take you in by force. When that order comes, I’ll do it and you won’t ever be that unhappy again. I’ll have to do it.
Brian: I know what they want us to do. They want us to be good little boys now so we can fight some war for them in the future. Some war they’ll decide on. We’d rather fight our own war right now.

War?!

Colonel Kerby: Brian, we’re talking about boys so young they haven’t got hair one between their legs.
Brian: That’s never been a qualification for a soldier. The final stage of any mobilisation is the children, the seed corn.
Colonel Kerby: Good Christ! What in God’s name did they teach you in here? What did they turn you into?
Brian: A soldier. The only thing I ever wanted to be.
Colonel Kerby: You’re not a soldier! I’m a soldier, with the career goal of all soldiers - staying alive in situations where it ain’t all that easy to do! But you my friend…you’re a death-lover. Oh, I know the species. Seventeen years old and some sorry son-of-a-bitch has put you in love with death. Somebody sold you on the idea that dying for a cause is oh, so romantic. Well, that’s the worst kind of all the kinds of bullshit there is! Dying is only one thing: bad.

Right. I’m sure that’s the pep talk the boys going to Iraq and Afghanistan heard.

Stupidity

“But if we reason it out simply and not try to be one bit fancy, then what sort of pride can you possibly take or what's the sense of ever having it, if man is poorly put together as a physiological type and if the enormous majority of the human race is brutal, stupid, and profoundly unhappy?” Anton Chekhov

And into all of this lands Donald Trump.

“These thrill seeker people doing extreme sports...they have a hideous accident, go through agonizing recovery, and then go back to that activity that nearly killed them...that's not facing your fear, that's embracing your stupidity.” Kelli Jae Baeli

Uh, not so fast?

“Whenever I'm in the middle of conformity, surrounded by oneness of mind with people oozing concurrence on every side, I get scared. And when I find myself agreeing with everybody, too, I get terrified.” P.J. O'Rourke

Especially up in the clouds.

“On Stupidity - There is no such thing as a foolproof plan. If there are fools about, no plan is proof against them.” Marsha Hinds

Anyone here actually doubt that?

“I hate it when people say 'follow your heart.' That is not a morally sufficient reason for stalking.” Karl Kristian Flores

Next up: following your genitals.

“A cop is a human creature born stupid and raised in stupidity.” Norman Mailer

What's that make the criminal then?

Native Americans. The classic context in which to roll out the “liberal” and the “conservative” political narratives.

Here we are on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Modern day Native Americans in a “realistic” portrayal of life on the reservation. What is now left of a once proud people who were stripped of their land, their culture, their very identity. A virtual genocide steeped in racism…in the ravages of exploitation and oppression.

Is it any wonder that they live as they now do? And can anyone really see them as anything other than the tragic victims that they are?

Nonsense the conservatives insist. Manifest Destiny was rooted in the one true God – and in the Enlightened narrative of the civilized world. And whatever the past we all come into this world today with the same opportunities for success. Thus each individual is responsible for the choices that he or she makes. To blame “society” for making you a “victim” is precisely the mentality that sustains your decrepit state.

Your choice.

And this is truly a bleak spectacle. A bleak place to live. A bleak place to die. And what do most of us really know about experiencing it day in and day out? One thing never changes though: American Youth. This and the mumbo-jumbo that is religion. Well, and death of course.

Talk about a vicious cycle.

As for the ending: Let’s talk about the futility of symbolic gestures.

Look for Mogie wearing his Madonna [Like A Virgin] tee-shirt. Hey, talk about speaking volumes. On the other hand, he does love that woman.

Based on actual events. Well, it is if you believe this:

Director Chris Eyre claims that all of the events portrayed in the movie are drawn from stories he read about in local papers over the years. 

No set embellishment was allowed. Eyre wanted to show the actual conditions. It was shot in 23 days entirely on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Eric Schweig wanted to perform the role to show that in the midst of America, this location was akin to a Third World nation, as it is the poorest county in the United States.

Despite everyone’s discomfort, Greene allowed the wake scene to be shot with him in an open coffin and also allowed the coffin to be shut on him and wheeled away. The next day everyone went to the football field, said a prayer and burned the coffin. Eyre says, ‘‘It’s not stuff you want to mess with’’.


Skins

News reporter: 40% of residents here live in sub-standard houses. The $2600 annual earnings are the lowest in the nation. 75% unemployment. Alcoholism is nine times the national average. Life expectancy here is 15 years less than most Americans.

So, you ask?

Rudy [to his brother Mogie]: Help! Help! A black widow spider bit my nuts!

That never happen to you?

Rudy: What’s wrong Mogie, you don’t say hi anymore?
Mogie: I don’t talk to Indians.

Being one himself?

Rudy [to Mogie]: There’s free beer…

That'll do it.

Rudy: I think Mogie’s mind short-circuted in Vietnam. Such a freak show over there.
Stella: He got wounded, right?
Rudy: Three purple hearts. Idiot awards he called them. He hocked them for wine money.

As for my own bronze star...take a wild guess.

News reporter: This is the first of a three part series on the Oglala Sioux. Tonight’s subject is the multimillion dollar liquor business generated in this small town of White Plain, Nebraska. Some accuse these white liquor store owners of being bloodsuckers who earn a living off of Indian misery.
Indian girl being interviewed: They all drink, they all do drugs. That’s because it is hard to live down here on Pine Ridge. There’s just not anything here.
News reporter: Indians drinking beer and cheap wine…that sad cliche is brought to stark reality on Friday nights…payday for the Indians on the Pine Ridge reservation. They flood the border towns like this one to buy alcohol which is outlawed on their reservation.

Of course?

[Rudy is watching the local news on the TV]
News reporter: And you, sir, what do you believe the government ought to be doing to help the people on the reservation?
Mogie [obviously drunk]: I’d like the great white father in Washington to send me a big woman…a big fat woman. I’d sleep with her and she’d cover up all the cracks in my shack and stop the wind from blowing though. Hey, you want to see me piss my pants!

Not exactly a credit to his race, he said. Though still a victim, he supposed.

Rudy: Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Fuck you you stupid motherfucker! FUCK!

Could practically be about anything there.

Rudy: What were you doing up on that roof?
Mogie: Trying to steal some booze. What do you think I was doing?


I never doubted it myself for a second.

Mogie: Well, maybe there is one thing you can do for me.
Rudy: What?
Mogie: Help me blow the nose off George Washington at Mount Rushmore.

Instead....


Rudy: I hear they’re building a new liquor store.
Cashier: You heard right. The owner is making a killing from the insurance. The new store is going to be twice as big as the old. And with two drive-thru windows.
Rudy [sarcastically]: Just what we need.

Hey, the more things change, right?

It’s hard to believe but there are still folks actively involved in the political process who call themselves idealists. They actually believe the rhetoric will be translated into reality – if only they can get the candidate elected. After all, look at all of the fools who bought into Barack Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” bullshit.

And some of them are so in denial that they still believe it! It’s just more examples of the “psychology of objectivism”. And die hard idealists are almost always the last to succumb. To the reality of political economy, in other words. If some ever do.

After all, wasn't George Clooney still a big Obama booster? So, was he just naive? Or did he simply support him as the best of all possible worlds given the alternative: the reactionaries on the right?

Here’s the thing though: Clooney exposes [going all the way back to Mr Smith Goes to Washington] Hollywood’s rendition of the jaded, cynical opportunists in American politics. Then he’ll host a dinner for Barack Obama who, in his own way, is smack dab in the middle of all this! At least in regard to economic and foreign policy

Is Clooney himself just another star fucker then?

The narrative here nudges us from time to time in the general direction of crony capitalism but the primary focus is on “character”…on “personal integrity”. The “good guy” fucks around on his wife and is basically amoral when push comes to shove. Think John Edwards. Sure, so is the other guy no doubt but it always comes down to who is better able to take advantage of it. To control the “spin” in other words. It’s a game by and large. And that seems to be the bottom line here: Taking us behind the curtain and exposing it all as more or less a staged production. And this is possible by and large because you are dealing with an electorate that just loves to play along. In other words, they are not qualified themselves to go much beyond it.

The Ides of March was the day (March 15) that Julius Caesar was assassinated. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” before being stabbed to death, Caesar is told by a Soothsayer: “Beware the ides of March.”

After watching Morris stating on a video that extremism cannot be faced with more extremism and that America should understand why its enemies behave as such, Ryan Gosling’s character mockingly says “Hello, my name is Neville Chamberlain and I’d like to be your Commander-in-chief”. This is a reference to the attitude of the British Prime Minister who, before World War II, blindly believed he could negotiate with Hitler towards peace, with disastrous consequences.   IMDb


The Ides of March

Stephen [rehearsing Morris’s stump speech]: “I’m not a Christian. I’m not an Atheist. I’m not Jewish. I’m not Muslim. My religion, what I believe in is called the Constitution of United States of America.”

Oh, he’s an idealist alright. But let’s see how that fares by the end of the film.

Tom: You know, I’m trying to remember if the Democrats have ever nominated an atheist before.
Paul: Well, we know they’ve nominated a jackass before.

They still are.

Ida: I love Paul. You, I hate.
Stephen: You love him because he gives you the scoops.
Ida: Sexual favors.
Stephen: You’re engaged.
Ida: If it meant a good scoop, my fiance would understand.

Let's ask him.

Ida [to Stephen]: You really buy into all this crap. All this “take back the country” nonsense.

Next up: Make America Great Again. In other words, blah, blah, blah.

Stephen: Mike Morris is president, it says more about us than it does about him. I don’t give a fuck, if he can win. He has to win.
Ida: Or what? What? The world’s gonna fall apart? It won’t matter, not one bit, to the everyday lives or the everyday fuckers who get up, and work, and eat, and sleep, go back to work again. You know, if your boy wins, you get a job in the White House. He loses, you’re back at a consulting firm on the K Street. That’s it. You used to know that before you got all goosebumpy about this guy. Mike Morris is a politician. He’s a nice guy. They’re all nice guys. But he will let you down, sooner or later.

Ida, in other words, is the cynical reporter. The cynical liberal reporter. The Times in other words.

Tom: You exude something. You draw people in. All the reporters love you. Even the ones that hate you love you. 'Cause you play them like the pieces on a chessboard and make it look effortless. And we both know how hard it is constantly being on guard, weighing every word, every move. But from the outside, you make it look easy. People are scared of you. 'cause they don’t understand how you do it, and they love you for it. And that is the most valuable thing in this business. The ability to win people’s respect by making them mistake their fear for love. You can guess what I’m gonna say next.
Stephen: I don’t think that l can.
Tom: I want you to work for us.

Let's run this by Paul.

Stephen: But I don’t have to play dirty anymore. You know why? I got Morris.
Tom: No, no, none of this is about the democratic process, Steve. It’s about getting your guy off.
Stephen: This is the shit Republicans pull.
Tom: Yeah, you know what? This is the kind of shit that the Republicans pull, and it’s about time we learned from them. They’re meaner, they’re tougher, they’re more disciplined than we are. I’ve been in this business 25 years and I’ve seen way too many Democrats bite the dust because they wouldn’t get down in the mud with the fucking elephants.
Stephen: Paul’s my friend.
Tom: You Wanna work for the friend or do you wanna work for the president?

Let's get back to this.

Stephen: Were gonna be fine. We have to do it, it’s the right thing to do and nothing bad happens when you're doing the right thing.
Morris: Is this your personal theory? 'Cause I can shoot holes in it.
Stephen: Well there’s exceptions to every rule.

Until eventually the exceptions become the rule.

Stephen: Governor, there’s a big difference between Paul and me. Paul only believes in winning, so he’ll do or say anything to win.
Morris: But you wouldn’t.
Stephen: I’ll do or say anything if l believe in it. But I have to believe in the cause.
Morris: You’ll make a lousy consultant when you’re out of this line of work.
Stephen: Well, l won’t be out of this line of work as long as you’re in it, sir.
Morris: So at best, you got eight years. Then you end up at a nice consultant firm off Farragut North, making 750 grand a year, eating at The Palm, pimping out ex-senators to Saudi princes.
Stephen: Pimping out ex-presidents.
Morris: Then I better win.

One way or the other. 

Morris [on the campaign trail]: The richest people in this country don’t pay their fair share. And when they’re asked to, they cry socialism. They use phrases like “redistribution of wealth.” Yeah. That scares everybody, and they all run and they hide. For the record, my campaign is vehemently against the distribution of wealth to the richest Americans by our government.

See? Just like Obama on the campaign trail. Oh, how I would love to be the fly on the wall listening to Clooney and Obama discuss that now.

Stephen: Why is Paul calling you right now?
Molly: I called him first.
Stephen: Why?
Molly: Because I didn’t know who else to go to. And l needed 900 bucks.
Stephen: For what?
Molly: I can’t go to my dad. We’re Catholic.

She gets it.

Stephen: Molly, you gotta wake the fuck up. This is the big leagues. lt’s mean. When you make a mistake, you lose the right to play.

As he himself will soon learn. Well, briefly.

Tom: You know, if this had been a clean break, if you had left Morris before the story broke, that’d be one thing that we could control. But like this? Paul fires you, and then you wanna come work for me? It makes me look like I’m picking up the scraps. It puts Morris in the driver’s seat. I can’t have that.
Stephen: What if I had something big?
Tom: Like what?
Stephen: Something big.

Oh, yeah.

Stephen: Give me the job.
Tom: No, that’s not gonna happen. I’m sorry. Go take a nice long vacation. You’re a smart guy. Everything that I said the other day is absolutely true. But, you know, maybe politics isn’t for you.
Stephen: Politics is my life.
Tom: Do yourself a favor. Get out, now. While you still can. Go into entertainment or business, go open a fucking restaurant in Costa Rica. Anything. Do something that’s gonna make you happy, okay? Cause you stay in this business long enough, you’re going to get jaded and cynical.
Stephen: Like you?
Tom: Yeah, just like me!

Anyone here not jaded and cynical about politics? No, really.

Stephen: As of tomorrow, there’s gonna be a few changes to your campaign. Paul’s out. I’m your senior campaign manager. I’ll draft a statement. “The campaign got to a point where we needed to make changes.” You can put your own words in there.
Morris: Why would l do that?
Stephen: Because you wanna win. Because you broke the only rule in politics. If you want to be president, you can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country, but you can’t fuck the interns. They’ll get you for that.

What'll they finally get Trump for?

Paul: Well, one day we’ll grab a beer and you can tell me what you had on the governor that put me out.
Stephen: How do you know I didn’t have something on you?

Just out of curiosity, what have you got against me?

Ida: Come on, Stephen. Aren’t we friends anymore?
Stephen: You’re my best friend, Ida.

Whatever the Hell that means...politically.

Morris [at the Democratic convention]: Senator Thompson, l am proud that you have brought integrity back to this election. Because that’s what this is all about – integrity. Because who we are matters. Because how we project ourselves to the world matters. Dignity matters. lntegrity matters. Our future depends on it.

Oh, how I would love to sit down with Barack Obama and discuss this film.

See, I told you: life is existential. And it is only to the extent you grasp the implications of this that you grasp in turn the experiential parameters of identity.

You live your life in a certain way and you come to think of yourself in a certain way. You come to value some things more than others because those are the things in your life that you have come into contact with. You don’t value other things because you have never encountered experiences that brought them into focus.

Then something truly out of the ordinary happens and you find yourself in an entirely new context. The way you once thought about yourself [and those things that you value] have considerably less relevance here. And thus in order to adapt you find yourself [and the things you value] changing.

In other words, this is one of those Before/After experiences. The very heart and the very soul of dasein at times.

Of course there must have been experiences in my own life that predisposed me to think like this in turn. One in particular: Vietnam.

I may not have been “cast away” when they sent me to that MACV in Song Be, but upon my return to “the world” I was not even remotely the same.

Here the pivotal point revolves literally around being cast out of the world of human interaction itself. Chuck Noland finds himself utterly alone on an island. A plane crash. And though no man is an island he comes as close as we are ever likely to being one. And lots of things begin to change. Take for example how  he comes to think about…time itself?

If nothing else, you can use this as a “how to” guide. You know, in case it ever happens to you?

See if you can spot the product placements.

To make himself look like an average out of shape middle aged man Tom Hanks didn’t exercise and allowed himself to grow pudgy. Production was then halted for a year so he could lose fifty pounds and grow out his hair for his time spent on the deserted island.

Some crew members were left on the island for a few days to survive and learn some skills. They used some of their survival techniques in the movie for the character of Chuck. They were: having trouble lighting a fire, opening a coconut, talking to a volleyball, collecting packages washed up on the beach, and catching fish.

Actual lines of dialogue were written for Wilson the Volleyball, to help Hanks have a more natural interaction with the inanimate object.

One of the three volleyballs used in the film was sold in an auction for $18,400.   IMDb


Cast Away

Chuck: Time rules over us without mercy, not caring if we’re healthy or ill, hungry or drunk, Russian, American, beings from Mars. It’s like a fire. It could either destroy us or keep us warm. That’s why every FedEx office has a clock. Because we live or we die by the clock. We never turn our back on it. And we never, ever allow ourselves the sin of losing track of time!

Let's explain that.

Chuck [pulling something out of a Fed-Ex box]: It is a clock, which I started at absolute zero…and is now at 87 hours. From Memphis, America to Nicolai in Russia, 87 hours. Eighty-seven hours is a shameful outrage. This is just an egg timer! What if it had been something else? Like your paycheck? Or fresh boysenberries? Or adoption papers? Eighty-seven hours is an eternity. The cosmos was created in less time! Wars have been fought and nations toppled in 87 hours! Fortunes made and squandered!

Next up: 87 hours here.

Chuck: First thing it’s two minutes late, then four, then six, then the next thing you know, we’re the U.S. mail.

Tell that to Amazon.

Chuck [to Kelly]: I’ll be right back!

Give or take four years.

Chuck [after burying Albert]: So, that’s it.

Actually, it's just getting started.

Chuck [to Wilson]: You wouldn’t have a match by any chance would you?

A quest for fire, let's call it.

Chuck: I did it! I did it! FIRE!!!

Now he's really Big.

Chuck [to Wilson]:You gotta love crab. In the nick of time too. I couldn’t take much more of those coconuts. Coconut milk is a natural laxative. That’s something Gilligan never told us.

No shit?

Chuck [to Wilson]: We might just make it. Did that thought ever cross your brain? Well, regardless, I would rather take my chance out there on the ocean than to stay here and die on this shit hole island, spending the rest of my life talking…TO A GODDAMN VOLLEYBALL!

Of course, we know how that turns out.…

Stan: Well, here’s the drill. Um, plane pulls in, we get off, and there’s a little ceremony right there in the hangar. Fred Smith will say a few words. All you have to do is smile and say “thank you.” Then we’ll take you over to see Kelly.
Chuck: She’s actually gonna be there, huh?
Stan: Well, that’s what we have arranged. I mean, if you’re sure you wanna do that.
Chuck: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. I don’t know what I’m gonna say to her. What in the world am I gonna say to her?
Stan: Chuck, Kelly had to let you go. You know? She thought you were dead. And we buried you. We had a funeral and a coffin and a gravestone. The whole thing.
Chuck: You had a coffin? What was in it?

I'll never tell.

Jerry [to Chuck]: Kelly wanted…Kelly wanted to be here. Look, this is very hard for everyone. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for you. Kelly, uh-- She’s had it rough. First when she thought she lost you, and now dealing with all of this. It’s…it’s confusing. It’s very emotional for her. She’s…She’s sort of lost. Maybe you could just give her a little more time.

Forever, for example.

Chuck [to Kelly]: I should’ve never gotten on that plane. I should’ve never gotten out of the car.

Then for some, "I should never have been born".

Kelly [to Chuck]: You said you’d be right back…

Liar!

Chuck [to Stan]: We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had lost her…'cause I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that’s what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I’m back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass…And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly. But I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?

Yep. That just about sums it all up. Scripted from start to finish.

Bettina: You look lost.
Chuck: I do?
Bettina: Where’re you headed?
Chuck: Well, I was just about to figure that out.
Bettina: Well, that’s 83 South. And this road here will hook you up with I-40 East. If you turn right, that’ll take you to Amarillo, Flagstaff, California. And if you head back that direction, you’ll find a whole lot of nothing all the way to Canada.
Chuck: I got it.
Bettina: All right, then. Good luck, cowboy.
Chuck: Thank you.

Let's not go there for now.

When you are a dictator you sometimes get to say what is and is not true. And, for some, even who does and does not exist. Here the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, makes his first wife and their son virtually disappear from history. Consider:

Most Italians had no idea that Mussolini had a first wife and child until a documentary broke the story on TV in 2005.  IMDb

And while he went on to become this infamous fascist dictator, she ended up in an insane asylum. As did her son. Forcibly. Of course [at times] she does seem to be rather…delusional. At least about the future.

So, how accurate is the portrayal here? Well, let’s just say that [per wiki] “…part political treatise, part melodrama, Marco Bellocchio’s Mussolini biopic forsakes historical details in favor of absorbing emotion…”

How you react to this will depend in part on how familiar you are with the historical events that it unfolds in. And, of course, which side you would have been on. Each side insisting [it goes without saying], “History will prove we're right!”

But it is only when we attempt to fit folks and facts like this into the vastness of “all there is” that we can find ourselves particularly stumped. Or I know I do.

Of course Mussolini was said by some [and is still said by others today] to embody nihilism: a murky, ever turbulent intertwining of religion, atheism, socialism, capitalism, anarchism, nationalism and…and “revolutionary” violence.

What could be clearer? Once God is dead.

If nothing else it shows how passion in bed can be inextricably linked with political passion — especially at a time in history when the world itself convulses. And how historically “great men” have used up and then discarded women time and time again.

In Italian, “vincere” means “to win”. This was a favorite word in Il Duce’s public speeches.  IMDb


Vincere

Mussolini: I challenge God! I’ll give Him five minutes to strike me dead. If He does not, it will be the proof He doesn’t exist. I’m ready…
[five minutes pass]
Mussolini: Time’s up, God doesn’t exist.

Time instead to invent a new religion: Fascism.

Mussolini [in a speech]: We want justice on earth, here, now! There can be no victory without action, rebellion, violence. Help me! No warring between peoples! Long live the Republic, long live Socialism!

"Socialism" as it were.

[at meeting of the Worker’s Party]
Man: You listen too, Benito. Proletarians don’t want this war, they don’t want to get killed for the middle-class. They think war is suicide. It’s peace that gives bread.
Mussolini: This war will kill all wars.
Man in audience: Middle-class slave! In July you said “down with war”.
Mussolini: I’ve changed my mind! Only mules never change paths. Besides, the middle-class doesn’t like my interventionism, they growl, accusing me of recklessness, they’re scared the armed proletarians will turn against them. This war, in which Italy must absolutely not remain neutral, will turn the wheel of history with its blood. It will be a revolutionary war.
Man: Peace is revolutionary!
Mussolini: Don’t forget Blanqui: “Who has iron, has bread!”

If you get his drift. On the other hand, if you don't...?

On flyers thrown in the street: WAR: THE WORLD’S ONLY HYGIENE!

Some things will always change, while other things will never even come close.

Mussolini: In my youth I wanted to be a musician or an author. But I knew I’d be mediocre and I’m terrified of time passing.
Ida: You’re the editor of Avanti, you should be satisfied.
Mussolini: I’ll never be satisfied, never! I have to climb higher. I feel it my duty to be different from all who accept their mediocrity. The army of the virtuous can’t even imagine how this society can be changed, revolutionized, moving beyond morality. That morality is my destiny.

And look how that turned out.

Mussolini [to Ida]: Luck goes past each man’s door at least once. You must open the door to welcome it, at that very moment.

You tell me.

Mussolini: Ida? What happened?
Ida: I sold everything.
Mussolini: What do you mean?
Ida: I sold everything. The apartment, the shop, the furniture, the jewelry. For your newspaper.

And look how that turned out.

[Mussolini takes part in an ideology brawl:]
Long live Italy!
Long live war!
War!
Peace!
War is the world’s only hygiene!
Peace is the only solution!
Shut up, draft-dodger!
!Depart Italian soil!
Long live neutrality!
long live Socialism!
Long live the poor!
You cowards, we’re far more Socialist than you!
We’re ready to die for Italy!
Italy wants to go to war!
Italy wants peace.!
You sold out to Germany and Austria!
You sold out to France!
Italy’s starving!
You Judas!
Long live the working class!
You’re all clowns!
You’re corrupt!

...then the inevitable brawl.

Rachel [the second wife]: Why are you here? Go home, you spy!
Ida: I’m his wife.
Rachel: What? You brazen hussy! I’m his wife.
[she looks down at Mussolini[
Rachel: Nothing to say?
Mussolini: Be quiet.
Rachel: Tell her I’m your wife.
Ida: Don’t forget your son, don’t abandon us!
Mussolini: Get out!
Ida: Don’t abandon us!!

Socialism?

Ida [with her son outside Mussolini’s residence]: Come outside, you thief! You’ve abandoned your wife and son to the deepest poverty! I’ve written to the Pope, the Prime Minister, the Court of Milan, to the editor of Il Corriere della Sera! So they’ll send you to prison. You thief! You thief! You thief!

Let's just say she had a lot to learn. About the real world, for example.

Ida [with a gun, to her son]: Benito, there’s just one shot here, it’s for your father’s heart.

That's the best place to start. Then one to the head?
If that is actually an option, of course.

Patient [next to Ida in the insane asylum]: No, stay down or they’ll put you in a straight jacket. You’re beautiful. Is it true you’re Il Duce’s wife? How does Il Duce screw?

Let's move on...

Doctor: You attack, you leap from the trenches and attack. I’ve been in war too, but there were two armies slaughtering each other with matched weapons. You though, are alone against everyone: Carabinieri, militia, army, the Royal Guards… Too many. So you’re wrong to holler the truth. Not that the truth shouldn’t be hollered! But it’s the manner, the method, the timing that’s not right. This is the time to be quiet, to be actors.

And the equivalent of that here.

Doctor: I’m a physician, I treat patients. Have you ever heard me say: “Down with Il Duce”? Today, not always, we must be great actors. But the character you must play to save yourself is not a rebel in constant agitation, but a normal woman, a housewife, obedient, remissive, taciturn, a lover of order. The Fascist woman who knows her place is in the home.

Or in the White House?

Ida: But if I die, who’ll remember us? If no one listens, I have to holler.
Doctor: Why should you die? You’re young, healthy, beautiful. Why think about the past and not look to the future, the present?
Ida: What future? The man I adored and gave everything to, has erased me, like I’d never existed, a ghost. Not even a ghost!
Doctor: You’re here, we’re talking. Do you think Fascism will last forever? I want to release you, give me a little time, immediately it would be dangerous. Meantime, go to church, confess, read Pascoli, memorize it, the Mother Superior adores him. The Church is the only mother Fascism still fears.

A new thread?

Title Card: IDA DALSER DIED ON DECEMBER 3, 1937 FROM CEREBRAL HEMORRHAGE. SHE WAS BURIED IN A COMMON GRAVE. HER MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE TO MUSSOLINI HAS NEVER BEEN FOUND. BENITO ALBINO DIED AT 26 IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL. LIKE HIS MOTHER HE WAS BURIED IN A COMMON GRAVE. ON APRIL 25, 1945 ITALY WAS LIBERATED FROM FASCISM. ON APRIL 28, 1945 MUSSOLINI WAS EXECUTED BY THE PARTISANS.

Yadda, yadda, yadda?