💾 Archived View for rawtext.club › ~jmq › recycled › moviquotes.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 04:16:17. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
Setting: a stopped subway train underneath New York City. Felicity and Julie have been fighting because Felicity "stole" Julie's recent ex-boyfriend Ben, and Julie wrote an angry song in response. An old man stands up to deliver the final contribution to the contentious discussion.
The way I see it, you two best friends were never best friends to begin with.
(Felicity: Actually, sir, I really think we were.)
If I'm understanding right, and I think I'm understanding right, you two met when you were both seriously lonely, maybe a little desperate, when you both needed a best friend. You shared a few things together, started to refer to each other as "best". But that was premature, wasn't it? 'Cause what you had never really earned that title. I had a best friend for 63 years ... played in the minors together ... went to war together ... 63 years. And here's the fact. You can't get a best friend. Best friends become. They don't happen in a meeting or a year or two. It's a package deal: friendship, only as valuable as what you put in or come through. Judging something like that after one year, even if you got all the facts, that's like looking for the final score before you've seen the second inning. I don't think you two were best friends to begin with.
One of two things is going to happen. You're either going to come through this on your way to becoming the kind of friends you thought you were, or you'll become memories, memories that will fade.
Setting: (Sean and Will are sitting together on a park bench. Will doesn't look at him throughout the speech; he looks away. The scene ends with Sean's walking away, leaving Will there, contemplating Sean's words.)
Will: So what's this? A Taster's Choice moment between guys? This is really nice. You got a thing for swans? Is this like a fetish? It's something, like, maybe we need to devote some time to?
Sean: I thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me and I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep and haven't thought about you since. You know what occurred to me?
Will: No.
Sean: So if I asked you about art you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written .... Michelangelo? (beat) You know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that .... If I asked you about women you'd probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. I ask you about war, and you'd probably--uh--throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you .... who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel and to have that love for her to be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sittin' up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term visiting hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. I look at you; I don't see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine and you ripped my fuckin' life apart. You're an orphan right? (Will nods) Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what? I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. And I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't wanna do that, do you, sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.
(Sean stands and walks away.)