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Words of Wisdom from the Movies
“As a lawyer, I’ve had to learn that people aren’t just good or bad. People are many things.”
This line is spoken by Paul Beigler, a fictional small-town lawyer brilliantly played by Jimmy Stewart in the courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder. I don’t want to have to summarize the whole movie (if you haven’t seen it, though, please make sure to do so; it’s a great flick and also features George C. Scott in what I believe was his film debut), so I’m going to oversimplify the context of the scene.
Basically, Beigler is trying to convince a woman named Mary Pliant to help him gain testimony from another person that her old friend and benefactor, Barney Quill, raped a woman. Mary Pliant is reluctant to believe or help prove this accusation about a man who was always so kind and loving to her, which is what leads to Beigler speaking the line I just quoted.
It’s a line that has always stuck with me and comes to my mind from time to time when I learn of respected figures who are then revealed to have committed awful crimes. I thought of the line during the recent news stories involving Bill Cosby, and again this evening when talking on the phone with my sister. My sister just learned that a member of her ward (the Mormon term for a congregation), a seemingly very spiritual and kind family man who had only a few weeks earlier delivered a very moving talk in church, has just been arrested for molesting his daughter. He had been molesting her for the past five years and had threatened his family that he would kill them if any of them reported it, but (thank God) the daughter finally went to the authorities.
My sister’s understandably shaken by the news. I think most if not all adults understand that you never really know for certain whether someone you know is leading a double life, but it’s always shocking to learn that a seemingly decent person can in fact commit and hide such monstrous crimes. I mentioned the line from Anatomy of a Murder to my sister as we talked.
It’s a quote that I really do believe. While it can be easy to sort people as “good” or “bad,” the fact is that everyone is a mix of both. An individual can be sincere in doing good towards others in many aspects of their life, yet also do some despicable things to others in other aspects of their life. The good a person does does not excuse their crimes or pardon them from the justice they must face, but neither does one’s crimes invalidate the value of the good that they do either, or their sincerity in doing so.
In the simplest terms, people are complicated. This is not a new or earth-shattering observation, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read that little nugget of truth expressed as affectingly (to me personally) as in that scene from Anatomy of a Murder.
Which brings me to the topic of this post. As much as I love movies, generally I don’t look to them as fonts of wisdom. The primary goal of movie producers are, after all, to just make an entertaining and popular product for their audience. And when movies do attempt to impart some moral lesson, observation on life, or inspirational creed, the words they use often don’t rise above the cliche or even banal (“Follow your heart,” “All you have to do is believe in yourself,” “On our own, we can’t beat [the big bad], but together we can!”). However, a screenwriter sometimes writes a line of dialogue that really is profound or eloquent and can change, or at least help clarify, the way we think about something.
So I wanted to ask the Ricochetti: What are lines from movies that you think are true words of wisdom to remember? I’m not talking about just favorite lines of dialogue, but specifically the ones you found to be powerful/insightful and that have stuck with you through the years.
Published in Entertainment
“Africa is God’s country… and He can have it.” –Groucho Marx
“The human body has numerous vulnerable points. (Whack!) The elbow, the ribs, and the neck. (Whack!) Including… the solar plexus. (Whack!) And many other points. It’s true you are a great powerful beast, but you’ll note how his own size and weight can be used against him. (Canadians applaud)” – Sgt. Pat O’Neill (The Devil’s Brigade)
And this one: (Dana to Venkman): “We both have the same problem: YOU.”
I often feel that way about liberals.
I love it when people quote me!
“Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’. – Shawshank Redemption
“There are two kinds of people in this world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.” – Blondie to me.
For my earlier quotes, I will add pertinent info for the “younger” folks here:
1. “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” (Margo Channing [Betty Davis] to assembled party-goers, in “All About Eve.”)
2. “There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.” “How fast was I going, officer?” “ I’d say around ninety.” (Phyllis Dietrichson [Barbara Stanwyck] and Walter Neff [Fred McMurray] back and forth, in “Double Indemnity.”)
3. “Oh, Jeff, I don’t want to die!” “Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I’m gonna die last.” (Kathie Moffat [Jane Greer] and Jeff Bailey [Robert Mitchum] back and forth, in “Out of the Past.”)
Osgood Fielding III in “Some Like it Hot”:
“Nobody’s perfect.”
A good one but this was my favorite, delivered as only Ed Harris can.
The tone, the delivery. A short utterance that spoke volumes.
From “I Remember Mama”:
“There are things you must learn, even if you have a gift.”
From the best movie…EVER:
On the value of a name.
“…and don’t call me Shirley.”
In the face of adversity.
“I guess this wasn’t my day to quit smoking.”
Later…
“I guess this wasn’t my day to quit drinking.”
Later still…
“I guess this wasn’t my day to quit barbiturates.”
Even later…
“I guess this wasn’t my day to quit heroin.”
From Patton:
Clip
“Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
The scene in The Karate Kid where Miyagi asks an obviously beat up Daniel what happened and he answers that he fell off his bike. Miyagi replies, “lucky no hurt hand”. I think of it often when someone ascribes injury or pain to something other than it’s cause.
“They say you find what something is worth when you pay for it.” – Lt. Col. Robert T. Frederick (The Devil’s Brigade)
George Clooney as Archie Gates in Three Kings:
The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared [CoC] of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.
The Lion in Winter:
Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, rejected and sprawled on the stone floor, her King Henry having fled, off to have their marriage annulled, to cast their princely sons into the dungeon to choke off their plotting against him, and she reflects,
“Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”
(Reciting that line in our toughest of times always lightened our hearts)
“Poor John. Who says ‘poor John’?” I could go up in flames and there’s not a soul who’d [urinate] on me to put out the flames.”
“Let’s strike a flint and see.”
Eleanor holds up a necklace. “I’d wear you from the nipples, but we mustn’t shock the children.”
“Louis pure and Louis simple. If I’d managed boys for him instead of all those little girls, I might still be married to him and we [her children] would not have known each other. Such my dears is the role of sex in history.”
— Umberto Eco, The Postscript to The Name of the Rose, on the challenge of not lapsing into parody in the first sentence of a book
OK Knot,
“It’s all happened too sudden. People have to talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it.”
Regards,
Jim
From the movie Contact. I may be paraphrasing.
Matthew McConaughey’s character (a man of God) is in a conversation with Jodi Foster’s character (a scientist).
She is explaining that her trouble with religion is that as a scientist, she requires “proof.”
He asks her, “Did you love your father?”
She said, “Yes.”
He said, “Prove it.”
I was enlightened by this simple and powerful exchange. I’ve used it in conversations with non-believers.
I could never really put into words the idea of how real a belief in God is even though I can’t show you.
To compare it to love itself is just genius, because that’s something the non-believers know they have that they can’t show me.
The writer was just genius there.
From “Love and Death”:
Sonja: Sex without love is an empty experience.
Boris: Yes, but as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.
I love this scene from 12 Angry Men. Let it play till 1:37:50. In it, the tide has been turning on the guilty votes, when Jack Warden’s character, being the weasel that he is, changes his vote just so that they might be able to leave the jury room earlier. The European watchmaker and naturalized American citizen, played by George Voskovec, let’s him have it.
To me, it’s a great lesson in not shirking your duties as a citizen and as a human being. And by the way, Voskovec plays the kind of legal immigrant this country should be seeking in its immigration laws and in the enforcement of its immigration law.
https://youtu.be/Kwd2dYZbjVw?t=5750
A scene, not a line, from On the Waterfront. It’s the speech by Karl Malden’s character, the priest, in the hull of a ship next to the body of a longshoreman who’s been killed in “an accident.” It’s a great testament to doing the right thing, regardless of the cost, and of knowing, hard as it is to believe, that God is with you even in the most unimaginable circumstances. Can you fathom seeing this kind of a scene in a movie to do?
This is about as CoC compliant as I can make it.
Jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft is not a natural act.
There’s always a death ray, or an intergalactic armada, and the only way these people will be safe is if they don not know about it.
One last one: an early scene from In the Heat of the Night. Watch it to about 17:20. Gillespie is finishing a call to Tibbs’ superior in Philadelphia. The superior speaks with Tibbs and evidently asks him to give Gillespie a hand with a local homicide.
After the phone call is concluded, Gillespie is a jerk, but he eventually gets around to asking Tibbs for help because Tibbs is, indeed, a homicide expert. You can hate the South during this period (the 1960s), and you can see Gillespie as a racial bigot. But you have to be moved at least a little to see how he quickly comes to appreciate the skill of a man of another race because he (Gillespie) isn’t the expert that Tibbs. Maybe more important, you have to be moved by the stubborn willingness of Tibbs to put aside the slights and indignities that he’s endured–presumably over a lifetime and over the previous few hours from Gillespie and his staff–to help another man who may not deserve his help, but who has asked for it sincerely. It’s a great example having the guts to ask for help and having the grace to forgive–and taking a first step together.
https://youtu.be/GkrTHzVAP4Y?t=959
Well since we are letting in TV shows I am quite surprised nothing from firefly has made it so here goes:
“You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once. If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.”. Malcolm Reynolds
I’m going to throw some more from movies that stand out in my mind.
From The Princess Bride:
Here’s a few different ones from Pixar, who have a pretty good track record for packing a lot of emotional weight and wisdom into their animated films.
Finding Nemo:
The Incredibles:
Also, from the same film:
Ratatouille:
And, moving beyond Pixar, a couple from Chariots of Fire, which is loaded with powerful lines and moments.
Eric Liddell, Scottish athlete and devout Christian, explaining why he runs races to his sister, who feels he should just devote himself to missionary work:
And later, after Liddell is pressured by others (including the Prince of Wales) that out of loyalty to his country and King he should compromise his rule of not running on Sunday during the Olympics, he replies:
There’s a line inserted into a speech from Blazing Saddles that I’ve always regarded as the revealed subtext of every speech by every self-serving, careerist politician:
Governor: Sheriff murdered!?! Innocent women and children blown to bits!?!? We’ve got to protect our phony-baloney jobs, gentlemen!! We’ve got to do something about this immediately! Immediately!! Hrrumph!! Hrrumph!!
One last scene, from The Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye, a Jewish dairy farmer who glories in the traditions of his people and faith, is begged by his daughter Chava to accept her and her husband after she has married outside the faith to a gentile. Tevye had previously compromised tradition in giving his blessing to two of his other daughters’ unconventional betrothals (but who nonetheless had married inside the faith). Tevye reasons within himself whether to compromise for Chava:
One of the things I love about the scene, is that even though I don’t agree with ostracizing one’s family because of religious differences, the film does such a good job of helping me understand Tevye’s motivations and sincere love for both his faith and family that his heartbreaking choice here only makes me love and respect his character even more.