segunda-feira, 27 de agosto de 2012

domingo, 19 de agosto de 2012

quinta-feira, 2 de agosto de 2012

Sylvia Sidney, actriz:




Street Scene (1931), de King Vidor

 Fury (1936), de Fritz Lang

 You Only Live Once (1937), de Fritz Lang 

 You and Me (1938), de Fritz Lang

quarta-feira, 1 de agosto de 2012

Aritmética social

Sit down. Didn't you hear me? I said sit down. Now you listen, what I have to tell you isn't hard to explain, you should have learned it at school. School we all went to, only I learned something in that school everyone didn't, though, I guess. Something you've heard all your life and laughed yourselves sick at. You've heard it from long-winded reformers, you've read it in hot-air editorials, it's the oldest chestnut in the language. Is that, well... crime doesn't pay... I don't mean because you get caught by the law and punished, because sometimes you're not and I don't mean because it kills something decent inside of you, 'cause a lot of you wouldn't care about that. No, what I mean is it doesn't add up in dollars and cents, you can't make any real money stealing.

Yeah? We'd made thirty grand out of this if you hadn't butted in...

You can cut that down to 15% of thirty grand, that's all the fence would have given you. And not a cent more!

Shifty was gonna give us 25%.

Shifty would have given you 15% and that's all. I used to know bigger people than you who did business with him and that's all he ever gave them. Maybe I can show you better:

Let me prove it to you black-and-white. You figured the haul at 30.000. Okay. Haul... 30.000... 15%. That's what the fence would have given you. 15% of 30.000 is... 4500, I'll put that over here.

Now, the pay-off over here. The getaway car, how much?

One grand.

Okay. Getaway car... one thousand. You sell it for half that, say 500 here. You could have stolen it but the brain in back of the job didn't want a hot car on his hands...

Sure, we always stole it before.
Yeah, imagine, buying a getaway car!

The trucks to haul away the hot stuff. You can't hire trucks for less than 200 a piece for the chances they take. How many?

How many? I don't know. Joe handled it.
Joe?
Yeah, Joe.

Okay, I guess you'd need two...

Huhum..

Three, then. You were tipped off to bribe the watchmen, Mr. Morris had a little talk with them. He told them the only way to save their jobs was by going through with it, like nothing had happened. Three watchmen at 100 a piece makes 300 dollars.


The two stockroom men you bribed in the fur and silver departments squawked.

Why, the... And me trusting him like a mother.

They wouldn't risk their good jobs for $50 a piece. That makes another 100.

The getaway tickets, we'll up them together. One, two, three, four, eight of you.

Joe wasn't going.

Eight of you. At $40 a piece, I suppose. Let's call it $300. I'll throw in the tools, the money for the doctor and your guns and all the other little expenses, I won't even count them.

Oh, wait, there's the mouthpiece. Can't get a lawyer for less than a grand, they always charge that. Now let's see...

...$2800. 28 from 45 is... $1700. And now for the boss. You think you're gypped by Mr. Morris, that your wages aren't high enough for the hours you spend working for him. So you make up your mind you won't work for this boss anymore. But there's always a boss on any job, you simply traded Mr. Morris for another boss.

But this one doesn't pay you in advance and get his profit afterwards. This one takes his profit first. And you get what's left to divvy up among you. His cut is a third, right?

Yeah!
Yeah...
Yeah, that's right.

Okay. A third of 1700 is five, six, six, six, six. $566,66, that's the boss's share. Subtracted from 1700 is four, three, three, three, one, one.

$1133,34 to be split between eight of you.

Ten. there's two more guys with the boss.

Okay, that makes it easier for me. $113, 33 for each of you. And for $113,33 you throw away your jobs, lose your homes, be hunted by coppers and sooner or later be sent to prison. Some of you are two-time losers, if you're send up again you're in for keeps. Only the biggest sap in the world thinks crime pays any dividends.

But sister, you ain't trying to tell us that the bigshots don't make any more than that.

The bigshots aren't little crooks like you. They're politicians.

Mas nos entretantos...

A 'obscenidade' em Hollywood (VII)* - recortes

I / II / III / IV / V / VI



"(...) Se houvesse um homem que ousasse dizer tudo quanto pensa deste mundo, não restaria um palmo quadrado de terra onde ficar. Quando um homem aparece, o mundo cai sobre ele e quebra-lhe a espinha. Restam sempre em pé pilares apodrecidos demais, humanidade supurada demais para que o homem possa florescer. A superestrutura é uma mentira e o alicerce é um medo enorme e trêmulo. Se com intervalos de séculos aparece um homem de olhar desesperado e faminto, um homem que vira o mundo de cabeça para baixo a fim de criar uma nova raça, o amor que ele traz ao mundo é transformado em fel e ele torna-se um flagelo. Se de vez em quando encontramos páginas que explodem, páginas que ferem e queimam, lágrimas e pragas, sabemos que elas provêm de um homem com as costas na parede, um homem cuja única defesa restante são as suas palavras, e as suas palavras são sempre mais fortes do que o peso mentiroso e esmagador do mundo, mais fortes que todos os ecúleos e rodas que os covardes inventam para esmagar o milagre da personalidade. Se algum homem ousasse traduzir tudo quanto há no seu coração, expressar o que é realmente a sua experiência, o que é realmente a sua verdade, penso que o mundo se despedaçaria, que se reduziria a pedacinhos e nenhum deus, nenhum acidente, nenhuma vontade poderia jamais reunir novamente os pedaços, os átomos, os elementos indestrutíveis que entraram na formação do mundo. 

Nos últimos quatrocentos anos desde que apareceu a última alma devoradora, desde que existiu o último homem a conhecer o significado do êxtase, tem-se verificado um declínio cconstante e firme do homem na arte, no pensamento e na acção. O mundo está gasto: não resta um peido seco. Aquele que tem um olhar desesperado e faminto poderá sentir a mínima consideração pelos governos, leis, códigos, princípios, ideais, ideias, tótemes e tabus existentes? Se alguém soubesse o que significou ler o enigma daquilo a que hoje se chama uma 'racha' ou um 'buraco', se alguém tivesse experimentado o mínimo sentimento de mistério acerca dos fenómenos que são rotulados de 'obscenos', este mundo teria estoirado. É o horror obsceno, o aspecto seco e fodido das coisas que faz com que esta louca civilização pareça uma cratera. (...)" (Henry Miller, in Trópico de Cancer)

* Já me tinha esquecido desta série de posts, que começou depois de ver o Showgirls. Lembrei-me dela depois de ter lido este post do Ricardo Lisboa. Tenho uma data de séries pendentes, etc, etc. Prometo acabar esta, pelo menos. Seguem-se Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards e Verhoeven, no fim, só para dar a ideia que ainda não perdi o fio à meada.