In Bruges (2008)
Stop crying, you snivelling ass! Stop your nonsense. You’re just an afterbirth, Eli. You slithered out of your mother’s filth. They should have put you in a glass jar on the mantelpiece.
There Will Be Blood (2008)
1997 GOOD WILL HUNTING
A talented but wayward college student criticizes a friend for being too conventional.
WILL
You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fucking education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.
Dir: Gus Van Sant • Scr: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck • Cast: Matt Damon (Will Hunting)
1997 JACKIE BROWN
ORDELL
You know you smoke too much of that shit, that shit gonna rob you of your own ambition.
MELANIE
Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV.
Dir: Quentin Tarantino • Scr: Quentin Tarantino • Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard • Cast: Samuel L. Jackson (Ordell Robbie), Bridget Fonda (Melanie Ralston)
1999 AMERICAN BEAUTY
CAROLYN
Your father and I were just discussing his day at work. Why don’t you tell our daughter about it, honey?
LESTER
Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go fuck himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost $60,000. Pass the asparagus.
CAROLYN
Your father seems to think this kind of behaviour is something to be proud of.
LESTER
And your mother seems to prefer that I go through life like a fucking prisoner while she keeps my dick in a mason jar under the sink.
CAROLYN
How dare you speak to me that way in front of her. And I marvel that you can be so contemptuous of me, on the same day that you LOSE your job.
LESTER
Lose it? I didn’t lose it. It’s not like, ‘Whoops! Where’d my job go?’ I quit. Someone pass the asparagus, please.
Dir: Sam Mendes • Scr: Alan Ball • Cast: Annette Bening (Carolyn Burnham), Kevin Spacey (Lester Burnham)
Earlier versions of the script contained one scene in which Lester does actually sleep with the underage Angela, and another where Ricky and Jane are arrested for Lester’s murder.
2000 O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
Three escaped convicts meet a travelling musician.
MCGILL
What’d the devil give you for your soul, Tommy?
JOHNSON
Well, he taught me to play this here guitar real good.
O’DONNELL
Oh son, for that you sold your everlasting soul?
JOHNSON
Well, I wasn’t usin’ it.
Dir: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (uncredited) • Scr: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen • Based on The Odyssey by Homer • Cast: George Clooney (Ulysses Everett McGill), Chris Thomas King (Tommy Johnson), Tim Blake Nelson (Delmar O’Donnell)
Although set in 1930s Mississippi, the film is a loose adaptation of The Odyssey, an epic poem written during the eighth century BC. The picture contains dozens of detailed references and the screenplay credits include Homer himself, although directors Joel and Ethan Coen have admitted that they never read the original work.
2001 WAKING LIFE
Celine is sceptical about past life experiences.
CELINE
Everybody says they’ve been the reincarnation of Cleopatra or Alexander the Great. I always want to tell them they were probably some dumb fuck like everybody else.
Dir: Richard Linklater • Scr: Richard Linklater • Cast: Julie Delpy (Celine)
2001 ZOOLANDER
Male supermodel Derek Zoolander pays tribute to his late associates.
ZOOLANDER
Rufus, Brint and Meekus were like brothers to me. And when I say brother, I don’t mean, like, an actual brother, but I mean it like the way black people use it. Which is more meaningful, I think.
He pauses to reflect.
If there is anything that this horrible tragedy can teach us, it’s that a male model’s life is a precious, precious commodity. Just because we have chiselled abs and stunning features, it doesn’t mean that we too can’t die in a freak gasoline-fight accident.
Dir: Ben Stiller • Scr: Ben Stiller, Drake Sather, John Hamburg • Cast: Ben Stiller (Derek Zoolander)
Bret Easton Ellis wrote Glamorama, a novel about a moronic male supermodel who gets caught up in a fashion-related terrorist conspiracy, three years before Zoolander was released. He sued Ben Stiller for copyright infringement but the case was settled out of court. Although the story is a highly exaggerated satire on the modelling world, many of the industry’s most successful faces admitted the details of the lifestyle were remarkably accurate.
The film was banned in Malaysia because it depicts the assassination of its (fictional) prime minister.
2004 SIDEWAYS
Two middle-aged friends on a road trip contemplate their achievements.
MILES
Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I’m a thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I’m a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.
JACK
See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. ‘A smudge of excrement surging out to sea.’
MILES
Yeah.
JACK
I could never write that.
MILES
Neither could I, actually. I think it’s Bukowski.
Dir: Alexander Payne • Scr: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor • Based on a novel by Rex Pickett • Cast: Paul Giamatti (Miles Raymond), Thomas Haden Church (Jack Cole)
Miles is a wine connoisseur and frequently cites his preferred grape variety as Pinot Noir. Following the release of the film, sales of this wine type rose by 20 per cent. The screenplay was the first ever to win at all six major American film industry ceremonies: National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Golden Globes, WGA and Academy Awards.
2004 DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY
Kate despairs of her under-achieving boyfriend.
KATE
I’m curious — is it strictly apathy, or do you really not have a goal in life?
PETER
I found that if you have a goal you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell you. . . it feels phenomenal.
Dir: Rawson Marshall Thurber • Scr: Rawson Marshall Thurber • Cast: Christine Taylor (Kate Veatch), Vince Vaughn (Peter La Fleur)
2007 EAGLE VS SHARK
Jarrod attempts to place a threatening phone call to someone who — in the distant past — humiliated him at school. Jarrod’s intended victim, however, is not at home.
MAN ON PHONE
Do you want to leave a message?
JARROD
Tell him that justice is waiting for him.
MAN ON PHONE
OK, Justin. Thank you. Bye bye.
He hangs up.
JARROD
No! Justice. Justice!
Dir: Taika Waititi • Scr: Taika Waititi • Cast: Uncredited (Man on Phone), Jemaine Clement (Jarrod)
2007 SUPERBAD
Two high school nerds decide to throw a party in the hope of boosting their love lives.
SETH
You know when you hear girls say ‘Ah man, I was so shit-faced last night, I shouldn’t have fucked that guy’? We could be that mistake!
Dir: Greg Mottola • Scr: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg • Cast: Jonah Hill (Seth)
2011 BAD TEACHER
A red-hot high school teacher offers some dating advice.
ELIZABETH
I tell you what I know. A kid who wears the same gymnastics sweatshirt three days a week isn’t getting laid until he’s twenty-nine. That’s what I know.
Dir: Jake Kasdan • Scr: Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg • Cast: Cameron Diaz (Elizabeth Halsey)
Russell Crowe as mathematician John Nash ponders the mystery of his work in A Beautiful Mind.
Audrey Hepburn combines her reputations as fashion icon and screen legend in this shot from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).
Marlene Dietrich shows her smouldering screen presence remained undimmed to the end of her career.
Memories
1941 CITIZEN KANE
BERNSTEIN
A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.
Dir: Orson Welles • Scr: Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz • Cast: Everett Sloane (Mr Bernstein)
This monologue was surely the inspiration for John Gage’s speech in Indecent Proposal (1993):
I remember once when I was young, and I was coming back from some place, a movie or something. I was on the subway. And there was a girl sitting across from me, and she was wearing this dress that was buttoned clear right up to here. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And I was shy then, so when she would look at me, I would look away. Then afterwards, when I would look back, she would look away. Then I got to where I was gonna get off, and got off. The doors closed. And as the train was pulling away, she looked right at me and gave me the most incredible smile. It was awful. I wanted to tear the doors open. I went back every night, same time for two weeks but she never showed up. That was thirty years ago, and I don’t think that there’s a day that goes by that I don’t think about her. I don’t want that to happen again.
1941 NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK
THE GREAT MAN
I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. ’Tis the one thing I’m indebted to her for.
Dir: Edward F. Cline • Scr: John T. Neville, Prescott Chaplin • Cast: W. C. Fields (The Great Man)
1943 OLD ACQUAINTANCE
KIT
There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.
Dir: Vincent Sherman • Scr: John Van Druten, Lenore J. Coffee • Cast: Bette Davis (Kit Marlowe)
1953 BEAT THE DEVIL
A group of thieves kill time as they wait for their passage to Africa.
O’HARA
What is time? Swiss manufacture it. French hoard it. Italians squander it. Americans say it’s money. Hindus say it doesn’t exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook.
Dir: John Huston • Scr: Truman Capote, John Huston • Based on a novel by James Helvick (aka Claud Cockburn) • Cast: Peter Lorre (Julius O’Hara)
Humphrey Bogart was involved in a car accident during the shoot and lost several teeth, compromising his recorded dialogue. Peter Sellers, known at that time only as a capable mimic, overdubbed the lines.
BY THE WAY, THE PRODUCER THINKS IT’S A GREAT IDEA
A screenwriter rarely creates a character with a particular actor in mind unless she knows her director or producer has good access to them. If she fills her script with enticingly tailored description (‘his chiselled features and silver hair lend gravitas to his steely gaze as he surveys the dry plains before him, a cheroot in one hand and a Colt revolver in the other’) then she will have a good deal of revision to do if Clint Eastwood passes on the project and the next available name is Daniel Radcliffe.
Canny writers prefer to paint an attractive one-size-fits-all portrait: ‘sexy in an understated way, her elegant presence exudes a powerful wordless confidence’. If Anne Hathaway is not available but Julia Roberts likes it, the story still makes sense.
Once the lottery of casting is complete the writer can only hope that the actors will connect with her story and realize their roles sympathetically. If a big name is cast, she may dream of a smash hit but faces the possibility that the star will be powerful enough to demand fresh drafts.
Sometimes this is because they have a keen insight into her story’s unseen potential; sometimes it is because they have always wanted to drive a Lamborghini, and feel a chase sequence will show that the college professor they have been hired to play is not just a two-dimensional, desk-bound, middle-aged academic. Oh, and also – the star’s girlfriend has just graduated from drama school and feels that although the role of the history lecturer was written for a fifty-year-old whose grandparents died in the Holocaust, with a little tinkering it could be perfect for her.
By the way, the producer thinks it’s a great idea.
1968 THE SWIMMER
Ned reminisces ruefully with a former lover.
NED
My mother gave me 25 cents for mowing the lawn around our house. Seems only a minute ago I could smell the grass. . . It’s so fast. People grow up, and then they. . . We’re all gonna die, Shirley. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?
SHIRLEY
Sometimes it does. . . Sometimes at three o’clock in the morning.
Dir: Frank Perry • Scr: Eleanor Perry • Based on a story by John Cheever • Cast: Burt Lancaster (Ned Merrill), Janice Rule (Shirley Abbott)
1976 MURDER BY DEATH
A group of detectives summoned to solve a crime remain suspicious of one another.
SAM
The last time I trusted a dame was in Paris in 1940. She said she was going out to get a bottle of wine. Two hours later, the Germans marched into France.
Dir: Robert Moore • Scr: Neil Simon • Cast: Peter Falk (Sam Diamond)
1980 HEAVEN’S GATE
Rancher Billy Irvine and Marshal James Averill find their friendship tested as homesteaders settle in Wyoming.
BILLY
James, do you remember the good gone days?
JAMES
Clearer and better, every day I get older.
Dir: Michael Cimino • Scr: Michael Cimino • Cast: John Hurt (Billy Irvine), Kris Kristofferson (James Averill)
Director Michael Cimino leveraged his success with The Deer Hunter (1978) to make Heaven’s Gate entirely on his own terms, leaving no aspect of the production untouched by his perfectionism. By the end of the fifth day’s filming the crew were already four days behind schedule; one scene for which the stage direction says simply an actor ‘walks past a cock-fight’ took over two weeks to complete, and the main shoot lasted over a year. The budget was expanded from $7.5 million [$21 million] to $44 million [$122 million] but the US box office only recouped $3.5 million [$10 million] and the loss nearly bankrupted United Artists.
Critical reception at the time was almost universally negative. Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote: ‘ it fails so completely that you might suspect Mr Cimino sold his soul to obtain the success of The Deer Hunter and the Devil has just come around to collect’.
1981 MAD MAX II
NARRATOR
My life fades, my vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. Most of all, I remember the man we called Max, the road warrior. To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time. When the world was powered by the black fuel, and the desert sprung great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They’d built a house of straw. Suddenly their machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting and a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
Dir: George Miller • Scr: Terry Hayes, George Miller, Brian Hannant • Cast: Harold Baigent (Narrator)
1990 THE TWO JAKES
Private investigator Jake Gittes reminisces about Los Angeles, his life and his work.
J
AKE
Time changes things, like the fruit stand that turns into a filling station. But the footprints and signs from the past are everywhere. They’ve been fighting over this land since the first Spanish missionaries showed the Indians the benefits of religion, horses and a few years of forced labour. The Indians had it right all along. They respected ghosts. You can’t forget the past any more than you can change it. Hearing Katherine Mulwray’s name started me thinking about old secrets, family, property, and a guy doin’ his partner dirt. Memories are like that — as unpredictable as nitro, and you never know what’s gonna set one off. Like the clues that keep you on the right track are never where you look for them. They fall out of the pocket of somebody else’s suit you pick up at the cleaners. They’re in the tune you can’t stop humming, that you never heard in your life. They’re at the other end of the wrong number you dial in the middle of the night. The signs are in those old familiar places you only think you’ve never been before. But you get used to seeing them out of the corner of your eye, and you end up tripping over the ones that are right in front of you.
Dir: Jack Nicholson • Scr: Robert Towne • Cast: Jack Nicholson (J. J. ‘Jake’ Gittes)
1993 GROUNDHOG DAY
Phil is trapped in a time loop, reliving one single day forever — but nobody believes him.
RITA
What about me, Phil? Do you know me too?
PHIL
I know all about you. You like producing, but you hope for more than Channel 9 Pittsburgh.
All the Best Lines Page 28