lapsus linguae

Friday, July 15, 2005

Dialogues

Last night, tucked inside the cozy confines of a blanket, with only the glow of the screen to keep me company, I watched Good Will Hunting and occasionally, the lazy drizzle outside my tinted windows. I also realised, quite suddenly, that it has been aeons since I enjoyed this simple pleasure of watching a good movie alone and without interruptions.
I want to freeze a particular conversation between Will, the protagonist and a budding, defensive and rebellious mathematical genius and his therapist (and later friend) Sean - one that begins languidly with long exchanges with the intention to divert but slowly and inevitably gathers momentum, a battle between introspection and evasion, much like most inner dialogues, one that ends abruptly yet hesitatingly, for the protagonist vaguely senses that such an opportunity to observe himself unflinchingly may never occur again, and yet he is not honest or strong enough to explore further. It is a futile fight, strengthening in a strange way nevertheless. Much later one realises, it is a revelation for both the doctor and the patient, a significant starting point (and hence a milestone for both) as each begins to confront his inner demons. The process of healing takes its course then, slowly but surely.
It is another day today, and yet this scene has been playing itself on my mind. On repeat.
(The body language - the narrowing of the eyebrows, the raise in decibel level, the slamming of the door, the impatient pace back and forth, the sudden turn to face the other - plays a vital role, lending life to the unspoken words. Nevertheless, I am recording some snippets.)
Sean: Do you have a soul-mate?
Will: Define that.
Sean: Someone who challenges you in everyway. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate.
Will: Yeah.
(Sean waits.)
Will(cont'd) : Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant--
Sean:They're all dead.
Will: Not to me, they're not.
Sean: But you can't give back to them, Will.
Will: Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no...
Sean: That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road.
Will: Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this?
Sean: Don't give me you line of shit.
Will: I didn't want the job.
Sean: It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do?
Will: I didn't ask for this.
Sean: Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out.





Much Later...
(Sean has finally gotten to Will. )
Will (cont'd) : Who the f**k are you to lecture me about life? You f**kin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!"
(Sean lets this play out.)
Will (cont'd) : Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop-out!
Sean: I been there. I played my hand.
Will: That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again!
Sean: Look at me. What do you want to do?
(A beat. Will looks up. )
Sean (cont'd) : You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know.
(Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out)

12 Comments:

Blogger kvman said...

Incidentally I watched this movie for I don't how many-eth time this weekend. Like you said, conversations between Will and Sean do sound like inner dialogues. What amazes me about the movie is that the screenplay is by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. I would have never expected.

Friday, July 15, 2005 8:45:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"....one that begins languidly with long exchanges with the intention to divert but slowly and inevitably gathers momentum, a battle between introspection and evasion, much like most inner dialogues, one that ends abruptly yet hesitatingly, for the protagonist vaguely senses that such an opportunity to observe himself unflinchingly may never occur again, and yet he is not honest or strong enough to explore further."

Are you related to sir Humphrey Appleby or not?? :)

And another thing...the guys who wrote this apparently good stuff, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, act like such losers in real life that it is quite clear that we can mislead a lot of people through our writing while being nothing like that in actual life.

Saturday, July 16, 2005 9:27:00 AM  
Blogger Lucas said...

FYI, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won Oscars for the best screenplay for this movie!

Saturday, July 16, 2005 1:47:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

FYI Lucas,

I knew that already. Plus it was mentioned in the first comment itself,if you notice carefully. I hope you got the general idea of waht I wanted to say.

Saturday, July 16, 2005 2:09:00 PM  
Blogger Tina said...

Just say Hallo from Ulm..

Sunday, July 17, 2005 11:26:00 PM  
Blogger Ashley said...

Hi - It's me, Ashley, the first person to comment on your first blog!

GWH is a great film. Damon and Affleck were both in their mid-late twenties when the wrote it.

It's one of my favorite films of all time.

Monday, July 18, 2005 12:48:00 AM  
Blogger Meera said...

GWH is one of the "better" movies, enjoyable during the watch, typically "out of sight-out of mind." I was not extolling the virtues of the screenplay, the story, the scriptwriters & their expertise - I merely quoted a scene that appealed to me.

Dear Mystic - "To judge or not to judge" - now that is the question.

To quote you, "I hope you got the general idea of what I wanted to say." - in the comment and in the post... :-)

Dear Tina - Hello urself :-)

Dear Ashley - Lovely seeing ur comment... Its been a year. Do visit more often! Still dancing with SRK? :-)

Monday, July 18, 2005 12:42:00 PM  
Blogger Meera said...

I have been a frequent visitor to ur blogspot... and u do write well i shdould say..
sometimes reading something written by somebody wants you to meet them.. i do feel that when i read books..same's with ur blogs!!!

Ciao sometime
Meera

Monday, July 18, 2005 5:16:00 PM  
Blogger Eroteme said...

I love that scene, but more than that, I love the scene before that (actually the dialogue before that) which starts off like:

Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it.

and ends with ...

So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President.

Really well done movie. So milady has been watching a lot of movies, eh? :-)

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 11:47:00 AM  
Blogger Rathish said...

A trifle too long. But my favorite lines in the movie :)

So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written...Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life's work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women I'm sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you've been laid a few times too. But you couldn't tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you've never been in one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I'd get a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn't know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term "visiting hours" didn't apply to you. And you wouldn't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you've never dared to love anything that much. I look at you and I don't see an intelligent confident man, I don't see a peer, and I don't see my equal. I see a boy ...

Saturday, July 23, 2005 4:09:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ots one of the good movies that I have watched and memorized. I loved the way Will tells the guy interviewing him why he does not want to work with NASA. He never paused to think before saying


"Will: Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president. "

Girl Interrupted

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 6:20:00 PM  
Blogger kvman said...

I was flipping through channels and happened to watch part of the movie again. Something that caught my interest this time was the conversation between the math prof and Robin Williams. The prof was trying to convince Williams to take Matt Damon as a patient. He talks about Ramanujam (of course pronounced jarringly) and says Matt was someone just like Ramanujam. I felt quite thrilled.

Saturday, August 20, 2005 7:19:00 AM  

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