Last week Brad sent me Michael Cieply’s article in the New York Times headlined “Longing for the lines that had us at Hello.” According to Cieply “[it’s] been a while since the movies had everybody parroting a great line.”
I don’t know whom Cieply is, or what his background is but I really don’t get his point. First of all, he gave such disparate examples from the past as Dirty Harry’s ironic line reading, “Go ahead and make my day” from Sudden Impact, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski’s T-Shirt moniker “The Dude abides” from The Big Lebowski, and Forrest Gump’s sappy “Life is like a box of chocolates…” line from Forrest Gump.
The first example did not come from the screenwriter at all. It was a popular phrase from the 70s given an ironic twist by the Dirty Harry character. This same method was used to great effect by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator in Terminator 2 when he repeated the line “Hasta la vista, baby”. But re-imagining a popular phrase is hardly the same as inventing a line like “You had me at hello.”
But his main argument is that back in the 90s there was a memorable line every two years. He cites Forrest Gump and Jerry Maguire as examples but then he follows it up with The Big Lebowski.
Cieply claims that in 1998, “after watching The Big Lebowski, written by Ethan and Joel Coen, we told one another that ‘the Dude abides.'” All I can say is that either Cieply doesn’t remember 1998 or he’s more than a little clueless about the rest of the country outside his friends. Almost no one was repeating lines from The Big Lebowski back in 1998 because very people actually saw the film back then.
If he’s looking for a line that goes viral every two years “I drink your milkshake” from There Will Be Blood and the “Everybody knows you never go full retard” from Tropic Thunder easily disprove his original point. Both of those lines were staples at water coolers, gyms and parties all across the country. I know because I go to the gym four times a week and I had to hear both lines over and over again.
But there were so many other great lines out there that were repeated in some circles if not all. There’s “If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!” from Sideways. “I’m already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?” from Juno, “So long, gay boys!” from The Hangover, “That’s a bingo” from Inglourious Basterds, “Why so serious?” from The Dark Knight or even “Dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go” from Twilight. All of these lines were repeated endlessly depending on what subculture you were affiliated with the last few years. Even something as obscure as Lars von Trier’s Antichrist had “Chaos reigns” showing up on t-shirts.
Others will join the fray after they come out on cable and DVD. That’s actually what happened with Lebowski as well as Office Space. The latter which gave us such classics as the audio drop classic “Two chicks at the same time” and “I’m gonna show her my ‘O’ face” among others. I’ve already nominated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and it’s many clever lines as a future cult phenomenon, but I also think there will be classic lines mined from films like A Serious Man and Kick-Ass. Two wonderful films with many great lines.
I think what Cieply was trying to say in his article was that there haven’t been a lot of classic lines in the biggest movies released the last few years. Films like Avatar and Inception are not chock full of classic lines like some of their predecessors like Star Wars and the Terminator series were in their time. But there is a reason for that and it mostly has to do with who has been writing the biggest films of the last few years.
Very few screenwriters in the course of film history have consistently delivered classic lines in blockbuster films. I would nominate W. C. Fields, Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Noel Coward, Budd Schulberg, Robert Towne, Paul Schrader, William Goldman, John Milius, Cameron Crowe and the Coen brothers as the best of all time. Maybe throw in Tarantino and Nora Ephron as well although they haven’t delivered as consistently in my opinion. There are also great improvisers from the Marx Brothers through Richard Pryor and Bill Murray who have added memorable lines to films over the years.
In the case of Towne, Schrader, Goldman and Milius there are not only the scripts they received screen credit on, but the numerous films they did uncredited re-writes on over the years as well. Milius alone did the final draft of both Dirty Harry and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and well as uncredited work on Stars Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Jaws and many other films directed by his pals Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. And all of these writers were brought in to work on many of the biggest blockbusters of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Both credited and uncredited.
Today’s best wordsmiths work primarily on their own projects. The Coens, Tarantino, Crowe, PT Anderson and Alexander Payne rarely work on other people’s films. (Yes I know that Tarantino has worked with Robert Rodriguez, Anderson with the late great Robert Altman and the Coens with Sam Raimi. I said rarely.) I almost thought Cieply’s tome could have been titled “Cameron Crowe’s last two movies sucked and PT Anderson, Quentin Tarantino and Alexander Payne have only put out three films between them in five years.”
The other writers who write great dialogue these days are mostly working in animation. Both Pixar and Dreamworks Animation Studios turn out great stories and fantastic dialogue. The problem is they don’t often give us those adult oriented line readings that become part of the everyday adult vocabulary. But anyone with children can recite whole line readings from Kung Fu Panda and the Ice Age flicks. It will be interesting to see what happens when Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird helm the live action features John Carter of Mars and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol respectively.
And there will also be a new batch of wordsmith’s coming along. I don’t know if Diablo Cody can overcome the backlash she’s received since Juno, but she can turn a phrase. Edgar Wright and anyone who works with him will be formidable. And even if his films only play on Comedy Central, people will be repeating Mike Judge’s words at parties all over the country for years to come. The fact is there are plenty of great lines and great writers working in movies today. They’re just waiting to be discovered.
Now comes the time for you to begin listing your favorite quotes from the past 10-12 years. Quotes you think Cieply overlooked when he wrote his article. Or, perhaps you agree with Cieply and the era of the classic quote is over. Let your thoughts be known in the comments below and let those classic quotes fly!
