Lions Love (... and Lies) (1969)

Viva: Viva

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Quotes 

• Viva : Even if he is corrupt, at least he does it with style.

  Jim : Viva, you're too much.

  Viva : Of course, all politics is the same thing. They're just better actors. Much better actors. If you were as good an actor as Bobby Kennedy you'd be where Bobby Kennedy is up on the podium.

  Jim : Who wants to be up there? You could get killed.

  Viva : Influencing the masses.

• Jerry : The woman's always supposed to get the coffee.

  Viva : That was in the days before unisex. Men were men, and women were...

  Jim : Waitresses.

• Jim : Oh, if we had kids, oh, my God, they could entertain us. They could support us in our old age, they could just - oh.

  Viva : Do you think I could go through nine months of it?

  Jim : I think it'd be a bit much.

  Viva : To only come out with one?

  Jerry : Make us feel like adults.

  Jim : Maybe you'd have triplets.

  Viva : Oh, God. Triplets. Wouldn't you think they'd have it - speeded up by now, the process?

  Jim : Someday, and in test tubes. You won't even have to carry it around.

• Viva : I think I'm in a dream, but I'm not sure. I'm either in a dream or I'm in love with my eyes open. I think being in love is dreaming with your eyes open. I don't know where the dream begins - or where if ends. I see the two that I'm in love with; but, I can't seem to reach them.

• Viva : What are *you* doing here?

  Agnès : I got tired of watching television and I wanted to see somebody alive.

  Viva : Well, I'm not very alive. I've been watching television all day myself.

• Carlos : There never was such a place as Hollywood anyway. It was always a mining camp with service from the Ritz.

  Viva : You mean, I won't be able to be the new Greta Garbo? The new Marlene Dietrich? The new Theda Bar? The new Rudolph Valentino?

  Carlos : Hollywood is a state of mind. Nostalgia.

• Viva : I am making this film; because: A. I thought I would be given a script to read with lines to memorize. And I thought it would be so easy. I always wanted to do a really romantic, tragic, soap-opera type love story movie, with memorized lines such as, "Oh, darling, I didn't know you had cancer. What are we going to do now? Who will pay the hotel bill?" But, instead, I had to make up my own lines once again. B. I'm so tired of being either-and-or: naked-dash-raped in movies, that I thought it would be great to wear some clothes for a change. Not that I have anything against nudity. I think Raquel Welch - if I had a body like Raquel Welch, I would never put my clothes on. But, in fact, I'm even - C. - so sick of doing monologues, that I would like to just breathe for one minute.

  [long exhale] 

• Jerry : Before you can pry...

  Viva : Any secrets from me, first you must find, the real m-m-me.

• Viva : That Harlow was so vulgar. So disgustingly vulgar. They should've done it on Garbo. She didn't have to have scandals, beatings, uremic poisoning, bellhop screwing. She was the star.

  Jerry : One thing - one thing about stars: they have to tell you how they sleep at night.

  Jim : Let's go to bed.

• Viva : How dare you touch me! Don't you know I'm supposed to be divine?

  Jim : We are all divine.

• Viva : The pressures here in Hollywood are so great from all the dead people.

  Jim : Clark Gable died too.

  Jerry : Pat O'Brien.

• Viva : I think their ghosts are cockroaches.

• Jim : Hey, you sack of meat, let's go to bed!

  Viva : You're always calling me a sack of meat. Jesus! You're just jealous of my beauty. You filthy rat. You fucking sadist.

• Viva : Can we be actors and be in love?

• Viva : I just found out about this new religion called The Cosmic Climax.

  Jerry : What about it?

  Viva : Well, it's the last step - The Cosmic Climax.

  Jim : How do you know?

  Jerry : How do you know?

  Viva : Because, love is a bore. Sex is a fucking bore. Fucking is a fucking bore. The word "fucking" is a fucking bore. So let's quit fucking and just have The Cosmic Climax. There's a difference between eroticism and The Cosmic Climax. In fact, it all has to do with intake and outtake of air. Like the Japanese pearl divers.

  Jerry : Oh, I've had enough freedom-liberation.

• Viva : Star!

  Jim : That word gets to me.

  Jerry : We...

  Viva , Jim : Stars!

  Jerry : Are stars.

  Viva : Star. Ex-star.

  Jerry : We are stars.

  Viva : Ex-star-sy!

  Jim : Ecstasy.

  Viva : Ex-star-sy and me!

  Jim : Hedy.

  Jerry : Stars.

  Jim : Hedy!

  Viva : L'amour!

  Jerry : L'amour.

  Jim : Star. Star. Star!

  Viva , Jim , Jerry : Star!

• Jerry : Is it true about the way that Jean Harlow died?

  Viva : Probably.

  Jim : Some sex thing.

• Jim : What kind of movies are you making?

  Shirley Clarke : You know how movie people are - superstitious. But, I'm supposed to be making a film using movie stars as if they were real people.

  Jerry : You should see me when I'm real.

  Viva : You know, she's supposed to be the best. People are fantastic with her!

  Shirley Clarke : it's very simple. I just use real people.

  Jerry : You making lots of money?

  Shirley Clarke : Honey, it'll be something new if I do. None of my films ever made a nickel before. It may change my life. I'm not sure I like that. Anyhow, I'm going to be meeting a lot of movie stars.

  Jim : [in drag]  Do you want a Harlow?

  Viva : Instant Harlow.

  Shirley Clarke : I can't use people that are supposed to be dead.

• Viva : The only real thing in here is this coat. How much did it cost? Is it leopard?

  Shirley Clarke : No, Jaguar.

  Viva : [referring to the wallpaper]  Oh, like all the jaguars creeping out from behind the bushes here.

  Carlos : It's a real Hollywood jungle.

  Shirley Clarke : I match!

  Viva : Yeah, and Otto Preminger behind every bush. Too bad he doesn't have a bush of his own.

  Shirley Clarke : Right.

  Carlos : I can't top that.

• Viva : it's a bird of paradise - and the one next to it is a fake bird of paradise, but it's much prettier.

• Carlos : Good-bye, my plastic Garbo.

  Viva : Don't be such a stranger.

• Viva : Aren't they terrible? But, I love them anyway.

  Jerry : We - love them.

  Jim : I love you. I love you.

  Viva , Jerry : I love you.

  Jerry : I love you.

  Jim : We love.

  Jerry : We love.

  Jim : We love you.

  Jerry : I love you.

  Jim : I love you. We love...

  Viva : Television.

  [turns it on] 

  Jerry : I love the test pattern.

• Viva : In this kingdom, all the princes are sick.

  Jerry : We - reject decadence. We fight decadence with decadence.

  Jim : Sex with sex.

  Jerry : Fire with fire.

• Jim : We three.

  Jerry : We are three.

  Viva : Three trees.

  Jerry : We are three.

  Viva : Three free trees.

  Jerry : We are trees.

  Jim : Three trees.

  Jerry : We are...

  Viva , Jerry : Three - free - trees.

  Viva : Three...

• Viva : Oh, sweet mystery of love.

  Jerry : Number three - the perfect number.

  Viva : The Holy Trinity.

  Jim : I am the Father. He is the Son. And he is the Holy Ghost.

  Viva : Couldn't that be the daughter?

  Jim : No. You want to be the Holy Ghost?

  Viva : All right. Oh, I can be the Holy Ghost. I can fly. It's easy to fly.

• Viva : What will you do for a cup of coffee?

  Jerry : I would give you $200 if you'd get me a cup of coffee.

  Viva : Where's the money? Show me the money.

  Jerry : Call the Bank of America.

• Jerry : Oh, Los Angeles. The angels. The Los Angeles angels are falling into the sea.

  Jim : The earthquake is coming. Quick! Get up and make coffee before we die.

  Viva : Who cares?

• Viva : What do you mean, I have no tits? That's such a vulgar expression, "tits." The word is "breasts,"... "Breasts." B-R-E-A-S-T-S. Cleopatra didn't have any either. She looked just like a boy. In fact, that's why she was so successful - at love and war. What else?

• Viva : Do you think I should get an agent? Do you really have to be Jewish to work in Hollywood?

• Jerry : Who's talking?

  Viva : I'm not talking. You're having hallucinations. I was necking.

• Viva : What do you mean, "the time"? You make the time. You arrive on your own time. That's the first lesson to teach them out here. Always be late.

• Viva : Where are you going?

  Shirley Clarke : Producers.

  Viva : "Producers"? Why go to a producer when you have us?

  Jim : Stupid-star. Superstar... .

  Viva : Stupid, shoopid shmar.

  Jerry : Super sucks.

  Viva : We're - we're what's happening, baby.

  Jim : Out there!

  Viva : We have everything.

• Viva : What about seven?

  Jim : It's a magic number.

  Viva : Yeah, three, seven...

  Jerry : Ten.

  Viva : Ten. No. Six and nine.

• Viva : Do you think TV gives you cancer?

• Viva : That's the message: I believe it because I want to believe it. Toast.

• Viva : I wonder if we can keep them happy without boring ourselves.

• Viva : Your eyes are really blue.

  Jim : The whites of your eyes are really blue. Your eyes are - no, they're bloodshot. Little red things, radially, running - running to the center, sort of like Washington, D.C.

• Viva : Andy Warhol was just shot.

• Viva : Is he dead?

  Jerry : Hey, don't make fun of being dead.

  Viva : Who's making fun? What else can you do?

  Jerry : Don't say that about me.

  Viva : I mean - I mean,"fun" - it's a...

  Jim : I'm gonna cry in a minute.

  Viva : National pastime - is televised death. You have to make fun or you get crazy. I don't want to get as crazy as they are.

• Viva : [Bobby Kennedy's funeral on the TV]  These Kennedys are pretty courageous.

  Jim : That's the human level. That's the human scene.

  Viva : So sad.

• Carlos : If you listen to the people who were here then, they were plain folks doing their thing. But, to the rest of the world, it was really Sodom and Gomorrah - where stars fuck on an epic scale.

  Viva : Don't they do it anymore?

  Shirley Clarke : Of course, they do. What else is Hollywood but Babylon and sunshine?

  Carlos : And also acres of lemon groves - which had to be pulled out to build the studios.

• Viva : What do you think of my idea? The assassinations - they're all a Ku Klux Klan mark. KKK: Kennedy, King, Kennedy.

• Viva : There's nobody here! And we're bags of meat.

  Jerry : And you're a bag of fish!

  Viva : Fish - is health food. Fish - is nonviolent.

• Viva : I suppose you think by biting a woman's tail, you can put her in her place!

• Viva : Okay, what's divine?

  Jerry : Divine - is free! Divinity is where you least expect to find it

• Viva : I'm so tired of being either, and, or: naked

  [does the virgule gesture with her finger] 

  Viva : dash raped in movies, that I thought it would be great to wear some clothes for a change.