What difference do you think you can make, one man in all this madness & Get busy living, or get busy dying

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Japanese Soldier: Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?

First Sgt. Edward Welsh: There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay. There's just this one, just this rock.

Private Edward P. Train: [voice over] Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining.

Pvt. Jack Bell: [voice over] We. We together. One being. Flow together like water. Till I can't tell you from me. I drink you. Now. Now.

Private Witt: [voice over] This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?

Private Witt: [voice over] Everyone lookin' for salvation by himself. Each like a coal thrown from the fire.

First Sgt. Edward Welsh: What difference do you think you can make, one man in all this madness?

Private Witt: I can take anything you dish out. I am twice the man you are.

First Sgt. Edward Welsh: Everything a lie. Everything you hear, everything you see. So much to spew out. They just keep coming, one after another. You're in a box. A moving box. They want you dead, or in their lie... There's only one thing a man can do - find something that's his, and make an island for himself. If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack; a glance from your eyes, and my life will be yours.

Private Witt: Do you ever feel lonely?
First Sgt. Edward Welsh: Only around people.

Pvt. Jack Bell: Love. Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out, conquer it. I was a prisoner. You set me free.

ivate Witt: [narrating] War don't ennoble men. It turns them into dogs... poisons the soul.

Private Witt: I remember my mother when she was dyin', looked all shrunk up and gray. I asked her if she was afraid. She just shook her head. I was afraid to touch the death I seen in her. I couldn't find nothin' beautiful or uplifting about her goin' back to God. I heard of people talk about immortality, but I ain't seen it. I wondered how it'd be like when I died, what it'd be like to know this breath now was the last one you was ever gonna draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she did, with the same... calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I hadn't seen.

First Sgt. Edward Welsh: We're living in a world that's blowing itself to hell as fast as everybody can arrange it.



The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Andy Dufresne: [in letter to Red] Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Red: [narrating] I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but prison is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile - prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Andy would show up with fresh bruises. The Sisters kept at him - sometimes he was able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Andy - that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.

Andy Dufresne: It's my life. Don't you understand? IT'S MY LIFE!

1967 Parole Hearings Man: Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?
Red: Rehabilitated? Well, Now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.
1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...
Red: I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?
1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, are you?
Red: There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.

Warden Samuel Norton: I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.

Andy Dufresne: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

District Attorney: And that also is very convenient, isn't it, Mr. Dufresne?
Andy Dufresne: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly *inconvenient* that the gun was never found.

Red: [narrating] The first night's the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell... and those bars slam home... that's when you know it's for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it.

Red: These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.
Heywood: Shit. I could never get like that.
Prisoner: Oh yeah? Say that when you been here as long as Brooks has.
Red: Goddamn right. They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway.

Brooks: [voiceover] Dear Fellows, I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile when I was a kid, but now... they're everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry Whilst being shown into a room. The parole board got me into this... half way house, called "The Brewer", Whilst working in Grocery Store, And a job bagging groceries in The Food Way. It's hard work, and I try to keep up, but my hands hurt most of the time. I don't think the store manager likes me very much. Sometimes after work I go to the park and feed the birds,I keep thinkin' Jake might just show up and say 'Hello'. But he never does. I hope wherever he is, he's doin' okay and makin' new friends. I have trouble sleeping at night; I have bad dreams like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Food Way so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sorta like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sorta nonsense anymore. I don't like it here, I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'd kick up any fuss, not for an old crook like me.

Red: [narrating] I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

Andy Dufresne: If they ever try to trace any of those accounts, they're gonna end up chasing a figment of my imagination.
Red: Well, I'll be damned. Did I say you were good? Shit, you're a Rembrandt!
Andy Dufresne: Yeah. The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.

Warden Samuel Norton: Salvation lies within.

Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.

Red: Andy crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want too. Five-Hundred yards... that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.

I love this line. Outta this whole movie this one line metaphorically puts it into perspective. The dude crawled through shit smelling foul nastiness to his freedom. It's profound. It has always hit a chord with me as the most descriptive commentary of reaching something and going through some kind of hitiously whack fucked upness to attain. Such vivid imagery. Can u imagine crawling like your in vietnam through 5 football fields of shit for freedom? I posed a question to a friend earlier today partially cause I think I'm still hella bitter and resentful cause the topic was hope with reference to love, but as I sat and thought more about hope without the distinction of Love, when it comes to practical uses outside of intamacy or romance I thought of Shawshank Redemption cause it's such a true testiment to hope. How the environment that these men were placed in for each of their individual mistakes, is an environment with the soul purpose of breaking their will and robbing them of their optimism and hope. I think of a line from triple X too and no people there will be minamal action movie references cause lets face it the lines suck cause the movies suck. Anyway I was saying cornel scarface says to XXX that there are lions in the zoo that get a certain glazed over look in they're eyes after they've been captured for a while. I think that look is literally when your will has been broken. As much as I teder, and I teder alot I don't believe my will is broken.

When it comes to the thin red line, and I love this movie too, it's like the deep poets answer to saving private ryan. Lets premise that the world is broken down into thousands upon thousands of catagories of good and evil and although some are the terrible grey I loathe so much on the whole I do wanna be on the side of good. I'd like to think to in the worst situations my virtue and honor will stand true. I think hope is important. I know I said when it comes to love it's not important but honestly I just don't want to think about it anymore and I wasn't but earlier this week I was again and the early hours of this morning it snuck back up again. I distinctly remember there being more to life then love and I think that hope of life without love and being what you were meant to be is important. I mean these 2 movies are so hopeful. The characters are swimming in a pool of dispair, constantly asking themselves and their friends how worse can it get and as much as it would be nice to even imagine it getting better they know it's going to get worse. It's just gonna get worse and worse and worse before it gets better. I'm gonna take strength from that. Tuck it away in my pocket.

I finished one of my friends music video's yesturday and as we finished we sat and spoke about god cause he's one spiritual mofo. Even with my mellon-colly madness I was able to listen to what he was trying to tell me. And I'll probably start going to church with him even though I doubt I'll understand anything being said. There was a moment of clarity and I wanted something that he had. He said that throughout his life with girlfriend, without, productive, non-productive, he's never felt like he didn't want anything or at as much peace as he does when he prays in the morning, at night, and goes to church. He said it is the most humbling experience laying down yourself before god or a priest and basically saying I can't get this for myself I need your help. That's hope. That's actually some profound spiritual enlightenment. Everyday I want something, lately I'm not even sure what that something is and I'm full speed ahead without rhyme, reason, or direction. With exception somewhat to film cause my life or my infinite nature has something truly ingrained in me from film, with film, about film. It speaks to me, it always has. But as for hope. I think hope serves a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is attainable and sometimes I think hope is like a gateway to disappointment. Maybe god is what will give me better perspective on it. Or at least give me some focus on which direction is better for me to focus my hope. I ain't in prison or in a war (literally). I'm gonna survive, I'm gonna make films and write, I want a solid message, something unifying all of us in a fabric of reality but at the same time some kind of electric or energy that makes or creates that sensation of it being ok. It's hard to say with words. I'll think more and probably meditate and pray on it.